Sinners On Tour 05 Double Time (15 page)

He retrieved a strip of condoms from a box in the paper sack he’d brought onboard and headed for the bathroom. He knocked and then opened the door. Entirely naked, Reagan reached into the corridor and jerked him into the small bathroom before securing the door behind him. The lavatory was a bit larger than a standard airplane bathroom, but not by much. Trey pressed her against the wall behind the door and claimed her mouth with a deep, seeking kiss. He needed that senseless, disconnected release he was accustomed to. He didn’t give her time to draw him out of his shell this time. He squeezed her breasts and then released his belt and the fly of his jeans. He tore his mouth away from hers long enough tear a condom open with his teeth.

“Trey?” she gasped in question.

He silenced her with another kiss. He just wanted to come. He didn’t want to talk. And he didn’t want to think about Brian. Or even Reagan. He just needed a body to lose himself in for twenty minutes. Was that so wrong?

He pushed her up the wall and struggled to hold her there with one hand while he used his other to guide his cock into her receptive body. Once inside her, he shuddered with delight and shifted both arms to hold her securely while he thrust up into her. Things were going exactly as he’d envisioned until she began to touch him with a tenderness he didn’t deserve. He tore his mouth from hers. “We need to hurry,” he lied to explain his need for impersonal urgency.

“Look at me, Trey,” she said.

He buried his face in her neck. “I need to concentrate.”

She grabbed two handfuls of hair and jerked his head back. “Look at me,” she demanded.

He opened his eyes and then his mouth to tell her she didn’t have a right to treat him so harshly, but before the words even formed he got lost in her loving gaze.

“There you are, lover,” she murmured. “That’s what I want.”

They stared at each other as their bodies moved together with an increasing tempo. Reagan’s cries of ecstasy started as a soft coo and soon escalated to screams of enthusiasm. Trey got caught up her vocalizations and started answering them with shouts of his own.

“Come with me,” she chanted. “Come with me. Come with me.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” he answered.

Her hips buckled and her fingers dug into his scalp as she cried out in ecstasy. He pumped into her vigorously and let go. He forced himself not to close his eyes as his body claimed release and was rewarded with the look of pure bliss that settled over her lovely face. “Oh God, Trey, I’m coming so hard.” He almost dropped her when her entire body went taut.

“That’s it, baby. Get off.”

If he hadn’t already come, the sounds she made as she found release would have sent him over the edge. After a long intense moment, she sagged back against the wall, wrapping her arms around his body to draw him against her. “Fuck,” she gasped in his ear. “That was amazing.”

He murmured something against her throat in agreement, so glad she’d made him look at her and hadn’t allowed him to treat her like a meaningless sex partner.

Trey released her begrudgingly, and she did her best to clean up in the tiny sink while he looked for the best place to dispose of his condom.

“Trey?”

He glanced up to look at her.

“Is there something more between you and Brian than friendship?”

Trey hoped she took his shock for denial instead of acceptance. “No. Why would you think that?”

“Just a few things you’ve said. And the way you look at him.”

“What way is that?”

“Like you love him.”

“I do,” he said. “I love all the members of my band. They’re like my family.”

While she pulled her T-shirt over her head, he turned to face the wall and mouthed,
Shit, shit, shit
repeatedly. How had she picked up on that so easily? And if he was that transparent, how come Brian never recognized it?

“Do you think he heard us?” She bumped into him as she struggled to put on her panties.

“I don’t know if he heard me, but I’m sure he heard you. You were screaming like a horror picture bimbo.”

She slapped him on the arm. “Was not.”

“How about I ask him?”

“Don’t,” she pleaded. She grabbed his arm and spun him to face her. “I didn’t mean to get that loud. You got me carried away. I forgot where I was.”

Three points for the Trey-ster.

He waited for her to squirm into her pants before he opened the door. He took the seat across from Brian, stretched his legs out in front of himself, and crossed them at the ankles. He folded his arms behind his head and sighed in contentment. Brian, who had been staring out the window, turned his head to look at him.

“Done already?” Brian asked.

“Had to hurry. We’ll be landing soon.”

Brian shook his head. “I couldn’t tell if you were killing her or screwing her. There isn’t a dead body in the bathroom, is there?”

Before Trey could assure Brian that he hadn’t murdered Reagan, she exited the bathroom and sat on the far end of the sofa. Her face was beet red.

“I didn’t hear anything,” Brian told her. “But if you scream like that on the tour bus, Eric will tease you and Sed will cuss you out for making him horny. You might want to borrow a gag from Jace.”

“I thought you didn’t hear anything,” Reagan said.

“I didn’t. Just sayin’.”

Reagan grinned at Brian. “Can I get my guitar out now? I brought one acoustic with me.”

Trey wasn’t sure how the woman could think about working. He wanted to take a nap.

Brian perked up, his gloomy expression replaced with one of interest. “Yeah. Let’s hear what you’ve got.”

Reagan found the thickest of her guitar cases and opened it to reveal a black lacquered acoustic guitar. “This baby sings,” Reagan said, strumming the strings lightly. “Max did a great job breaking her in.”

She carried the guitar over to the sofa and sat with the instrument on one thigh.

“Good. You’re right-handed,” Brian said, leaving his seat to sit beside her. “Not a lefty like Trey. He does everything ass-backwards.”

“I think that’s part of the reason why you two complement each other so well,” Reagan said, smiling first at Trey then Brian.

“Takes him twice as long to learn a riff.”

“You’re just a freak of nature,” Trey told Brian.

“So I’ve watched all sorts of videos of you playing solos, but they never really catch your finger movements in the upper register. I sort of made up my own technique, but the notes never sound as crisp as yours. They all run together at that speed.”

“Show me,” Brian said.

Reagan played the triplet repeats of the solo to their newest single, “Betrayed.” She had to strum incredibly fast, because an acoustic sounded nothing like an electric guitar and wasn’t ideal for soloing. Brian watched the fingers of her left hand as they moved over the fret board.

“Don’t squeeze,” he said. “Tap.” He tapped the tops of her fingernails. “Short taps.”

She followed his instruction but still didn’t get the same quality of note that Brian got. He extended a hand. “Here, I’ll show you.”

She handed him the guitar and watched his fingers in rapt attention as he played the solo several times in a row. He didn’t bother strumming more than he would his electric guitar, so it didn’t sound much like a solo as most of the notes were almost silent with no pickups to amplify them. “I’ll show you on an electric tonight,” he said.

“I see what you’re doing.” She took his hand in hers and flipped it over to inspect his fingertips and then her own. “I need to work on some new callouses. Yours are more off-center than mine. I’m not hitting the strings in the same spot.”

“Instead of trying to copy me, maybe you should work on your own sound.”

She grinned at him. “But I like yours. Wish I would have come up with it first.”

“Why don’t you play some of the stuff you wrote?” Trey suggested. He still remembered the mesmeric riff she’d been playing in Dare’s studio when he’d taken her up on her challenge to duel. He’d watched her for several minutes before he found the sense to interrupt.

She flushed. “I’ll just embarrass myself.”

Most guitarists started out copying the guitarists they admired, and that would serve her fine as she took over for Max, but when she pushed to the next level in her career, she’d need to find her own sound. And be confident that she owned it.

Brian patted her knee. “You’ve got the talent. You’ll get there.” He climbed to his feet and found his seat. He reclined it. “I’m going to catch a little nap. Didn’t get much sleep at the hospital last night. I’d appreciate it if you two would keep the orgasmic screaming to a minimum.”

Trey stood and reached into an overhead bin. He pulled out a pillow and blanket and tossed them at Brian, hitting him dead in the face. If Reagan hadn’t already expressed her suspicions about Trey’s feelings for Brian, Trey would have chosen a less violent delivery, but he had to be careful not to show her how much he cared about him.

“Thanks,” Brian said sarcastically and stuffed the pillow under his head. He spread the blanket over his body and clutched it to his chest.

Trey turned the lights in the cabin down and winked at Reagan, who was sitting with her guitar still on her lap and watching him a bit too closely. Trey sat beside her on the sofa and took the guitar from her. He set it carefully on the floor and drew her into his arms. “We never got to cuddle after our initiation into the mile high club,” he murmured near her ear.

She shifted onto his lap and wrapped both arms around his neck. He mostly just held her for the next hour and stroked her skin tenderly. They exchanged a few sweet kisses, but Trey was far too preoccupied with Brian’s situation to intensify the passion between himself and Reagan. Brian wasn’t happy and if Brian wasn’t happy, none of the band was happy. Even though Sed led the band and they all looked to him to fix any logistical problems, Brian was their keystone, and without his talent, they had nothing to center themselves around. They all depended on him to be their creative focus. Trey was pretty sure Brian could stick it out for the next two weeks, but what of the next year? They’d just put out a new album they needed to promote. They were co-headlining with Exodus End all across North America, then Europe and Australia. Asia. South America. Brian might be able to fly back to see Myrna and Malcolm when he was within a few hours flight time, but from the other side of the globe? There was no way.

“What are you thinking about?” Reagan asked, her hand moving to stroke the tension from his forehead.

“The end of Sinners.”

She glanced at Brian who was out cold and drooling all over his pillow. “Maybe the band just needs to take a year off.”

“Maybe.” But then Sed and Jess would probably have a kid or twelve and they’d be in the same place. “I’m never having kids,” he muttered under his breath.

“Me neither,” she said.

Trey glanced down at her. He hadn’t meant to say that aloud and was surprised that Reagan wouldn’t want kids. Didn’t all women want them?

“You don’t want kids?”

She shook her head. “Do you have any idea what they do to your vagina?” she said. “No thank you.”

Trey laughed and squeezed her against him. “My perfect woman.”

Reagan carried two of her guitars onto Sinners’ tour bus. Behind her, Brian and Trey had divvied up her remaining luggage and followed her onboard. Her stomach fluttered when she noticed
the
Eric Sticks sitting at the dining table, poring over musical scores. His untamed black hair, with a streak of canary yellow that started at his left temple and continued down a finger-thick strand that fell to his collarbone, caught her attention first. Then his ruggedly handsome features. Then his long, sinewy body and masculine hands. He glanced up, barely gave Reagan a second glance with a pair of piercing blue eyes, before his gaze settled on Brian. “Pictures,” he demanded and flicked a beckoning hand at him.

Brian dropped Reagan’s luggage and brushed past her to sit next to Eric in the booth. He began flipping through pictures on his cell phone. He’d been so excited when he had been allowed to turn on his cell phone after landing and found he had six new pictures and a video of Malcolm sleeping in his bassinet for the first time. While Eric ooo-ed and aww-ed over baby pictures, Trey struggled with Reagan’s abundance of luggage.

“I brought too much, didn’t I?” she asked.

“You think?” Trey laughed and stacked her four guitar cases on the only sofa on the bus.

“Maybe we should store them underneath the bus,” she said.

“Good idea.”

“You’re not going to introduce her?” Eric asked. He lifted his gaze from Brian’s three-minute-long, baby-sleeping video to look at Reagan.

Brian elbowed him in the ribs. “This is Malcolm’s first meal.”

Eric looked at the picture and grinned. “Niiiice.”

Trey stared at her as if he had no idea how to introduce her to Eric. Eventually he said, “This is Reagan. She’ll be on tour with us for the next two weeks. Dare’s idea.”

Eric scratched behind his ear. “Dare’s idea?”

“I’m Exodus End’s new rhythm guitarist. Taking over for Max,” Reagan explained.

“Oh. Max’s carpal tunnel syndrome. Pussiest reason for giving up guitar that I’ve ever heard. So why are you touring with us instead of rehearsing with them?”

“I think they’re afraid that I’m not man enough to go on tour with a rock band.”

Eric’s gaze traveled down Reagan’s entire length. “I’d hazard to guess you aren’t man at all.”

“She’s also Trey’s girlfriend,” Brian said.

Eric’s head snapped around in Brian’s direction, his bright blue eyes wide with astonishment.

“I know, right?” Brian said.

Trey cringed. Reagan wondered why it made him uncomfortable.

“Let’s go put some of your stuff under the bus,” he said.

A loud mechanical sound came from near the front of the bus. Before Reagan could figure out its source, Trey took Reagan’s arm and directed her to stand with him between the captain’s chairs along one wall while a good-looking young man maneuvered his wheelchair down the aisle.

“You ready to head out, Brian?” the man asked. “We’ll be on the road for hours. The other bus and equipment trucks are already in Topeka. They’ve started setting up.”

“Yeah, let’s go,” Brian said. “Where are the rest of the guys?”

“Jace and Sed went to get some necessities,” Eric said. “Jon left with the other bus. Jake’s napping.”

“Rebekah?”

Eric smiled and glanced at the back bedroom’s closed door. “She’s getting dressed.”

“We need to store some stuff under the bus,” Trey said to the man in the wheelchair.

The man started when he noticed Reagan crammed between Trey and the wall. “Sorry, I didn’t see you there.” He extended a hand in Reagan’s direction. “I’m Dave. I run the soundboard when Rebekah lets me.”

Reagan reached around Trey to shake Dave’s hand. She had heard about Sinners’ bus accident and that their soundboard operator had been paralyzed in the crash. She hadn’t known that he was still part of the crew.

“You better be glad Reb didn’t hear that,” Eric said.

Dave grinned and ran a hand through his sandy blond hair. “Rebekah is my younger sister. Also one of Sinners’ soundboard operators.”

“And my wife,” Eric said. “She’s a little kinky. Just to warn you.”

Trey laughed. He’d never heard Eric apologize for his wife’s kinkiness before. Of course, she’d been the only woman on the bus for the past seven months and the guys were used to her emerging from the bedroom dressed as a vampire or an umpire. She would then corral her husband into the back bedroom and a whole lot of happy emanated from that area of the bus for the next couple of hours.

“So Dave is your brother-in-law?” Reagan asked Eric as she worked out the dynamics of the bus occupants.

“Yep.”

“What are you working on?” Brian asked Eric, finally taking his attention off his collection of photos to look over the scores of music. “New Sinners’ songs? We just released the last album. Don’t you ever take a break?”

Eric collected his music and stuffed it into a folder. “It’s not Sinners. It’s for Hot Dog Junkie.”

Brian laughed. “I still can’t believe you named your new band that. Why not call it Wiener Eater? Maybe Trey—”

“Let’s go put this stuff under the bus,” Trey interrupted loudly. He reached for two guitar cases and handed them to Reagan. He grabbed the larger of her two suitcases and another guitar case and encouraged her to head toward the exit.

“Eric has a new band?” Reagan asked as she made her way back toward the exit.

“Some punk/emo/goth hybrid thing he’s working on with Jon Mallory. They’re still in the planning stages mostly.”

“What about Sinners? Is he leaving?” Reagan asked. She couldn’t imagine Sinners without Eric Sticks in the band.

Trey shook his head. “Side project,” he said. “Sinners is still his main focus.”

Reagan descended the steps and waited at the bottom for Trey to join her. She followed him to the side of the bus where he opened a compartment underneath.

“I should have asked you which guitar you wanted to keep out,” he said as he rearranged some luggage so he could fit three of her guitars and one of her suitcases in the cramped space.

“They’re all awesome. I’m glad you chose so I didn’t have to.”

Once Reagan’s things were stored safely underneath the bus, Trey shut the hatch and then reached for her. He drew her against the length of his body and kissed her.

“Don’t pay attention to what the guys say,” he said, still thinking about how Brian had almost revealed Trey’s homosexual tendencies to Reagan on the bus with that wiener eater remark. He wasn’t ready for Reagan to know that about him. Wasn’t sure if he ever wanted her to know. Trey did feel uncomfortable about hiding it from her, but since men were no longer on his menu, there was no sense in complicating his new relationship with Reagan with all those skeletons in his closet. There was an entire army of skeletons in his closet. And a few sailors. “They joke around like that a lot.”

“I should hope so. They’re guys. I’m sure Exodus End does that a lot too.”

Trey laughed. “They’re a bit rowdier than we are.”

“Rowdier?”

“Yeah. Dare figured if you couldn’t handle the five of us, there’s no way you could handle the four of them.”

“Well, don’t take it easy on me.”

“Sinners BC was an entirely different animal,” Trey said. “We’ve mellowed over the past year.”

“Sinners BC?”

“Before chicks.”

“Well, don’t mellow for my sake,” Reagan said. Her hands slid down his back to squeeze his ass. “I happen to like you naughty. The naughtier, the better.”

Trey grinned and lowered his head to kiss her. He knew he liked this woman. Even though she claimed to like him naughty, if she had any idea how truly deviant he could be, he was sure she’d go running for the hills. He’d start her on naughty lite and see how she handled that first.

“Good, you guys are back,” Sed called from several yards behind the bus. He was carrying several brown paper sacks. Jace, who was walking beside him, smiled a greeting before noticing Reagan’s hands on Trey’s ass. He blushed and averted his gaze. Sed glanced at Reagan long enough to ascertain that she wasn’t Brian. “Brian’s here too, right? You didn’t leave him in Los Angeles, did you?”

“He’s on the bus torturing Eric with baby pictures,” Trey said.

Sed smiled. “I can’t wait to hold the little guy.”

“Jess said she wanted one,” Trey said and winked.

Sed’s blue eyes widened. “Jess wants a baby?” he asked breathlessly.

“She’s totally in love with Malcolm. Her biological clock is ticking at warp speed.”

“You’re fucking with me,” Sed said and scowled.

“She seemed to genuinely want a baby to me,” Reagan said.

Sed spared her a second glance. “We’re getting ready to leave. You need to get lost now.”

Her face fell.

“Fuckin’ Sed,” Trey grumbled. “She’s with me.”

“That’s obvious,” Sed said.

“And she’s staying with me,” Trey added.

“I’m Jace,” Jace said to Reagan and smiled warmly.

“Oh God. Cute!” Reagan exclaimed and released Trey to grab Jace in a face-to-bosom, double-armed embrace.

Jace’s various chains rattled as he tried to extricate himself from Reagan’s bear hug. She finally released him, took a second look at him, and hugged him again.

“Jace doesn’t like to be touched,” Trey tried to explain as he tugged on Reagan’s arm. “But I like it.”

“Oh, sorry,” Reagan said as she released Jace for good this time. “I didn’t mean to attack you like that. I’ve never seen you smile before.”

Jace blushed again and stared at his boots.

“So she’s staying on the bus?” Sed asked, sounding none-too-happy about the fact.

“Yeah, for the next two weeks,” Trey said.

“I’m Reagan. Exodus End just hired me to be their rhythm guitarist.”

Sed and Jace both stared at her as if she had sprouted wings and took flight to Crazyland.

“No shit?” Sed shoved his grocery sacks in Trey’s direction. “You can tell me all about it later. I need to call Jess.”

Trey managed to grab the sacks before Sed released them. Sed dug his phone out of his pocket as he stomped up the bus steps.

“He’s kind of a jerk,” Reagan said.

“
Kind
of?” Trey said.

“He’s different once you get to know him,” Jace said. “He’s like that with strangers. Doesn’t know who to trust.”

“True,” Trey agreed. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen him act like that. He must’ve thought you were a groupie.”

“That excuses him being a jerk?” Reagan asked, her eyebrows raised high above her grayish-blue eyes.

“You’ll have some groupies of your own soon. Then you’ll understand why it’s easier to be an asshole when they’re around.”

“So you’re an asshole to your groupies too?” Reagan asked.

Trey started backpedaling. “Well, no, I—”

“Trey just uses them for sex,” Jace said and headed up the stairs after Sed.

Trey was going to invest in four sturdy ball gags. One for each of the members of his big-mouthed band.

Reagan managed to stifle a laugh as she watched Trey try to come up with something to say after Jace dropped that bomb. She didn’t care that Trey had a long list of sexual conquests. One didn’t get as good in bed as he was without a lot a practice. It wasn’t as if she was clueless about what went on backstage. She had a few acquaintances in the business. No one as famous as Trey—well, until yesterday—but even small-time bands had plenty of women to keep them entertained.

“If you’re going to get upset every time one of your band members reveals one of your dirty little secrets, you’re going to go nuts.”

Trey raked a hand through his long bangs and held them out of his eye. “I’m not upset.”

“You don’t think I know these things already?”

His face fell. “What things?”

“That you’ve slept with a lot of women.”

He released his hair and it dropped to conceal one eye again. His typical devil-may-care expression replaced the worried one of just a moment before. “You’re not the jealous type?”

“If I was, I wouldn’t last as your girlfriend for three seconds. I see the way women look at you.”

“You do?”

“I can’t blame them.”

He grinned that sexy smile and even though it made her heart race, she couldn’t resist teasing him. “I want to take a pair of scissors to those bangs as much as they do.”

His sexy smile faded and he looked up at his bangs. “You don’t like my haircut?”

She bit her lip and shook her head. “It’s much too sexy. It makes me want to grab you and do naughty things with you.”

He laughed. “One of these days I’m going to get used to you fucking with me and quit falling for your taunts.”

She produced an exaggerated pout. “And ruin all my fun?”

The bus engine started and Trey took her hand. “Time to sequester ourselves in a small space with six or seven other people who like to fuck with me.”

“This should be fun.”

Reagan paused at the top of the stairs. There was a lean man with a foot-tall, blond mohawk behind the wheel. How many people were crammed onto this bus?

“Hey,” the guy said, rubbing one eye and blinking rapidly as if he’d just been pulled from a deep sleep. “Are we finally ready to roll?”

“Let’s move,” Dave said. He’d given up his wheelchair, which was folded and tucked behind the drivers’ seat. He had a pair of metal crutches resting against the side of the sofa beside him.

Reagan offered a hand to the driver. “I’m Reagan.”

“Jake.”

“You’ll want to get to know him. He’s our guitar technician,” Trey said.

Jake squeezed her hand before honking the bus’s horn. “And occasional driver.”

“Nice to meet you. I’ll harass you later.”

“Booyah!” Jake said.

Reagan walked down the bus aisle and looked for an empty seat. Sed was sitting in one of the two captain’s chairs talking into his cell phone and flipping through the pictures on Brian’s phone with a huge smile on his face. “I’ll be home in two weeks. Get off the pill now.” He paused. “I’m sure.” Another pause. “I’ll still marry you even if you’re as fat as a hippo. I’ll just put you on a diet after the baby is born.” His face fell and Reagan couldn’t make out Jess’s words, but she was definitely yelling. “What?” he said. “What did I say?”