I nodded. "Yeah. I travel light. You know, like a monk. Very few worldly possessions and all that." I hoped I didn't sound as pathetic as I felt, but judging by his face, he didn't believe me.

"If you want to send for your things in... where was it you lived?"

"San Diego."

"San Diego. If you want to send for the things you left in San Diego, we can do that."

G.o.d, this was embarra.s.sing. "I didn't leave anything in San Diego," I said. "This is it."

The expression on his face was almost comical. "Are you serious?" he asked me.

Giving him a cranky look, I nodded. "Yes, of course I'm serious," I said. "Who would joke about being so dirt poor they had to get a free toothbrush from their sister?"

His mouth quirked. "I didn't know that you had to get a free toothbrush from your sister," he said.

I didn't feel like discussing this with him. "Would you move? I'm not going to stand in here while you... do your business or whatever. Use the facilities.

"I lied," he said suddenly. "I don't have to use the facilities."

I shifted on my feet. "Um. Then why are you back here?"

He shrugged. "I wanted to eat you out," he said.

My whole brain shut down. My hands went limp. My meager possessions fell to the floor.

"What?" I said stupidly.

A smooth, wicked smile sliced across his face. "You get your tension out by cleaning, and you did an admirable job of the loft. I thought we would have to burn the building down to get that place tidied up. And I get my tension out by f.u.c.king. I believe we already discussed this. And there is nothing more stressful to me than having to deal with the rest of the band. The music is fine. The rest of it is not so fine."

I blinked at him. "What?" I said again.

He shook his head. "Manny seems to think you're a prime candidate for smoking out with him, and Sonya wants to draw and quarter you because I made an exception for your presence at rehearsal. She nearly bit my head off after rehearsal and left in a huff. She'll be calling me up, drunk, in about five hours, just as I'm getting ready to go to sleep."

"That wouldn't have happened if you'd told them I'm an employee," I felt compelled to point out. That still confused me.

He waved his hand. "I have my reasons. And Carter..." He closed his eyes and sighed. "He said he was going home. I'll know if he was telling the truth soon enough."

He opened his eyes again, raking his gaze up and down my body before coming to rest on my crotch. "Quite simply," he said, "I'd like to lick your c.u.n.t. I'd like to hear you scream my name."

The world seemed to sway. "Don't... don't you have groupies for that sort of thing?" I asked breathlessly.

"I'd rather have you."

I swallowed. "I don't know what to say."

"You can start by saying yes, please, Kent. Eat my p.u.s.s.y."

My skin tingled with his words. I wondered why he wasn't the one singing, front and center. That voice could carry me away, anywhere he wanted me to go...

Oh, this was a problem. This was a huge problem, and I wasn't about to make it any better. My mouth was dry, but the words came out clear enough: "Yes, please, Kent. Eat my p.u.s.s.y."

"I thought you'd never ask," he said.

Reaching out, he turned out the bathroom light.

Together, we plunged into darkness. My sister's bedroom was only dimly lit by the lights outside, and when he stepped through the doorway, he shut the door behind him, wrapping us up in blackness.

I stood in the dark, my heart thrumming like the strings of his ba.s.s. I could smell him-he didn't smell like a guy in a suit. He smelled like sweat and cigarettes and s.e.x. Or perhaps that was just me projecting. My blood raced through my veins, heating my skin, until I thought for sure I would start to glow incandescent.

He moved toward me. I felt the air shift, and our ragged breath mingled. I wanted to ask, Why me? but I wasn't sure I even wanted to know the answer. Everything was condensing, swirling down to just us in the pitch blackness.

Something brushed against my stomach-a hand. The heat flowed from his body to mine, back and forth as his other hand found me.

Again he didn't remove my clothes, electing instead to skate his fingers up and down my stomach, floating over my ribs and barely brushing my b.r.e.a.s.t.s. I reached out blindly, searching for him, but when he felt me move, he grabbed my wrists.

"Please," was all he said. I didn't know what he was asking or why he needed it, but I complied, even though my fingers itched to rub over his skin.

He resumed his exploration, and I forced myself to keep my eyes open, straining for a glimpse of him in the dark. The s.p.a.ce between my legs ached, empty and hungry. Already I imagined what he might feel like there, what his lips and tongue could do to me. I wanted him to rip our clothes away the way we did the first time, but he seemed determined to take it slow this time.

I felt him lean in. His lips found the high bone of my cheek, and when he slipped his tongue out to taste me I had to bite my lips to keep from turning my face up, begging to receive his kiss.

Softly he ran the tip of his tongue down my cheekbone, then opened his mouth and planted a slow, devouring kiss on the edge of my jaw. I reached for him again, and this time he didn't stop me.

He felt good. Hard and lean. Burning with desire and will, with some kind of fire I'd certainly never felt, in another person or in myself. A man who knew what he wanted and got it. How did he even get the courage to ask for what he wanted? I couldn't understand it, but I was so, so glad he did. Corded muscles met my fingers, and I sc.r.a.ped my fingernails over his arms through his fine, perfectly tailored shirt.

He growled, low in his throat. Without warning he dropped to his knees and my breath caught as I lost him in the dark. Then his hands were running over the waistband of my jeans unb.u.t.toning them, zipping them down and shoving them to the floor where they pooled around my feet. I didn't need to be told what to do. Silently I stepped out of them, pulling my shoes off as I did so.

"I smell you," he whispered. His voice was loud in the blackness, a harsh thing, full of edges and rough surfaces, a desperate voice. Then, to my utter shock, he leaned forward and buried his nose in my c.u.n.t, inhaling deeply.

In the dark, my face flushed crimson, but my body responded with a gush of warm wetness, and when he put his mouth over my slick core and tasted me through the thin cotton of my panties, I moaned.

Slowly, gently, Kent began to bite me through my panties. The cotton dulled the edges of his teeth, and my legs trembled as he ran his rough hands over them, exploring the swell and fall of my thighs, the curve of my calves, the arch of my feet. My hands found his hair and I let myself revel in the feel of his hair-slightly oily but extremely thick-as it ran across my palms.

His teeth found my c.l.i.t and he nipped me lightly.

A primal sound escaped me and my knees buckled. Then his hands were scrabbling at the waistband of my panties and dragging them down my legs while he angled his head and insinuated his tongue between my p.u.s.s.y lips, the rough surface dragging across my c.l.i.t.

My hands fisted in his hair, holding him close as he began a careful, deliberate, torturous rhythm. I was already so close to coming that the sweet sensation of his tongue was almost enough to push me over the edge.

Almost, but not enough.

My hips began to rock as he played with my c.l.i.t, rolling it between his lips, sucking it as far into his mouth as he could, fluttering little figure eights over it. My body was so hot, and the little bathroom was getting unbearably steamy. I gasped for air as he pulled his tongue up, drawing my whole body with it until I stood on my tiptoes.

Then he snaked a long, rough finger just inside my entrance and swirled the pad over something astonishing inside me.

My toes curled and my whole body dissolved. My throat closed on my cry of ecstasy and I lost my footing, falling to the carpet, the delicious, rug-burning carpet, and Kent came after me, his hand following my slick c.u.n.t, stroking and stroking that magic spot inside me I'd never felt before as I thrashed and closed my legs, not sure if I wanted to stop him or to keep him there forever. The darkness fogged over with gray as my entire body rippled and contracted to that tiny point where he touched me.

Then the weight of his body was on me, the fabric of his trousers rubbing deliciously over my bare skin and his hands were in my hair, his lips on mine. Hard, angular, he pressed me down, the bulge of his erection cradled against the inside of my thigh, and our moans filled the tiny black s.p.a.ce, desire buoying us up and away, out of sense, out of mind, out of this world- Then Kent's phone rang.

On top of me he stiffened.

What? No! I thought. He'd been ignoring that f.u.c.king phone all day, and now it was important? Or did it just drag him back down to earth?

Half-rolling off me, Kent banged into the cabinets below the sink, grunted with pain, and reached for his pocket.

"Don't," I begged him. I didn't mean to. It just came out.

He hesitated for a moment, but then he drew his phone out. The screen was a bright window to reality in the hot, confined s.p.a.ce of the bathroom. He stared at it for a moment, then sagged. My naked legs were still tangled with his, but I could feel him retreating, pulling away from me, and I didn't know how to bring him back. I wanted more of him. I needed more.

But I wasn't going to get it. "I'm sorry," Kent said, "but we have to go." With almost clinical detachment, he disengaged from me, stood up, and flipped the light switch.

I blinked in the sudden blinding flood of light as I scrambled to put my pants back on. I didn't know what to say. Kent had absolutely no clue how to do pillow talk.

"Um," I tried at last, "where are we going?"

As I laced up my shoes, a humorless smile creased his lips.

"We're going out for some on-the-job training," he told me. "Get ready for your first a.s.signment, Rebecca. Carter is at Sunset."

Chapter Seven.

I had no idea what "Sunset" meant, so I had to surrept.i.tiously google it on my phone while Kent drove us angrily-as if there were any other way Kent could drive-out of Rose's neighborhood and back towards the glittering lights of Hollywood.

After a few searches I figured out that Sunset meant the Sunset Club, the hottest, most exclusive nightclub in LA. Or at least it was for the next six months until something else came along and usurped it. The point was, it was hot right now, and that was where Carter had apparently gone, instead of home like he said he would.

Big surprise.

Kent was a ball of rage and tension as he drove, and I felt it humming through the car. I had the stray thought that if Kent could get into method acting he'd probably be way better at it than Carter; it was impossible not to feel what he was feeling. He projected emotions like the sun.

I saw the line of people waiting to get into Sunset before I saw the club itself. It went on for blocks, crowds of people in the newest fashions and most polished styles. There were plenty of people in LA who looked like me, all dyed hair and piercings, but we didn't hang out at the places where the pretty people went. The glitterati and the real housewives wouldn't be caught dead rubbing social elbows with us. They'd take a drink from our hands or let us wait their tables or do their hair, but they didn't want to rub elbows with us while they were trying to claw their way up the social ladder.

I wondered if even Kent was going to be able to get me in. I wasn't a cute teen pop sensation; I couldn't get away with looking like I did at a Hollywood club.

"Are you sure Carter is here?" I asked Kent.

He nodded. "I put a GPS program on his phone yesterday," he said. "He doesn't know. I can't have him running off to f.u.c.king Vegas again. Who knows where that idiot will go next time?"

I wanted to say that Carter wasn't really an idiot, but I had a feeling there were some family dynamics going on here that I shouldn't mess with. My own family was huge and warm, and yeah, we might call each other idiots when we were being idiots, but even an outsider could see Carter was getting sucked into the lifestyle as a release from tension. Calling him an idiot was just going to create more tension. I couldn't very well point that out, though. That wasn't my job, and Kent's expression was so thunderous that any gentle queries I could think of died on my tongue. I turned away and stared at the ma.s.s of people who waited to catch a glimpse of a celebrity in the wild.

To my surprise, Kent pulled up outside the club and hopped out of the car. For a second I debated taking my bag with me, but it would be unwieldy in a crush, so I left it, taking only my phone with me.

Kent hardly spared me a second glance as a valet sprinted past him, grabbing the keys from his outstretched hand. He strode straight for the entrance, and I wondered if there wasn't a second entrance or something, for celebrities who didn't want to get mobbed. Then again, why be a celebrity if you didn't want to get mobbed?

I stumbled behind Kent as he walked, feeling foolish and small, drab in comparison even to the bouncers who stood at the door.

As we went straight to the front of the line, a ripple started in the crowd of people. Suddenly, where before they were milling purposelessly, they surged, craning their necks. Phones flashed, and I suddenly realized, with a weird feeling in my stomach, that I was going to be beamed out across the world. Then I realized that this was what Kent had wanted.

He wanted the world to see me. Carter's girlfriend, entering the club. No one would know who I was tonight. There would be plenty of time for them to speculate, the girl at the bottom of the totem pole entering the hottest nightclub in LA with the ba.s.sist of the hottest rock band. Buzz, gossip-it would spread out from here.

It's rare that you can feel the moment where your entire life changes. But I felt it, right there on that LA sidewalk, with Kent Hudson next to me.

Then we were at the door and Kent grabbed my wrist in his strong hand, nodding to the bouncers who moved aside smoothly and allowed us to enter. Voices rose and mingled, and I heard s.n.a.t.c.hes of conversation.

"Holy s.h.i.t, that's Kent Hudson! Carter Hudson's brother, he's the ba.s.sist-"

"-Lonely Kings! The Lonely Kings! You have to have heard-"

"-so hot, I have to call Maddison right now, she is going to freak out-"

"-that girl with him? I've never seen-"

And then we were through the doors and into the riotous, chaotic atmosphere of the Sunset Club.

You'd think as the former nominal girlfriend of a mediocre wannabe rocker I would be more used to clubs, but I have to admit, I hate them. The crush of people, the sweat, the guys rubbing all up on you without so much as a h.e.l.lo, the overpriced drinks, the stink of the bathrooms, the heavy pounding music that deafens you. OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ. It's fine in moderation, but the relentlessness of it overwhelms me and makes me want to crawl into a hole.

Also, since my trade of choice was booze slinger, I knew just how terrible the people who go to clubs can be. The sorts of things they get up to in the bathrooms and corners. I once worked at a popular club in San Diego for a few months, and it made me so depressed I had to quit. People out of their mind on c.o.ke, or MDMA cut with bath salts, girls getting molested and a.s.saulted in the dark nooks and crannies, people who should be in hospitals carted away by their drunk friends because no one wants to go to jail for holding... Sunset brought it back to me in a sudden, horrible rush.

As Kent dragged me through the crowd, looking for Carter, the bottoms of my feet began to itch, the backs of my knees twitching, telling me to get out. Claustrophobia crawled up my legs, but there was no where to go to get away from it. How could Carter like these places? He'd seemed sweet, una.s.suming, not much like a rock star at all except for his cavalier disregard for his well-being and a certain self-centeredness that, well, bordered on tantrum-throwing territory...

Okay, he was kind of a star. A nice diva, but still a diva.

I tried to take deep breaths, but the air was thick with sweat and heat, cloying, clogging my nose. The stink of alcohol bloomed from every pa.s.sing body, and more than once I felt a hand on my a.s.s. I struggled to stay close to Kent, but he walked quickly, his face grim, his shoulders set and hard as he glanced around the club, searching for his wayward brother.

Carter was nowhere to be found.

After an eternity of flashing lights and pounding music, Kent stopped dead in his tracks and I crashed into him. The bombardment of stimulus was so great that I barely felt it, and when Kent turned and put his mouth to my ear only the barest of tremors shuddered through me.

"We need to split up!" he yelled to me. "Look for a group of women! Get him out of here if you find him-I'll find you!"

Biting my lip I pulled back and nodded to him. He gave me a curt nod back and disappeared into the seething ma.s.s of people, and then I was alone in the crowd.

Sunset was a big club, in an old warehouse, and I had no idea where to go first. Blindly I struck out toward the dance floor. Without Kent's tall frame dragging me around, I had no buffers against the a.s.sault of bodies, and by the time I reached the dancers I felt bruised and battered. No one paid me any attention.

The dance floor was even worse than the club proper. It was packed so close it was a wonder anyone could breathe, let alone get down with their bad selves. Reasoning that no one was going to recognize me in all the flashing lights, I began to shoulder and shove my way between people. Not enough to start a fight, but definitely enough to get a shove or two back. I peered into faces. They were beautiful, shiny, sometimes harsh and distant, but none of them were Carter, and I despaired of ever finding Carter-had he divined our arrival and already left the club?

But then, quite by accident, I found him.

Or, more accurately, my nose found Carter's shoulder.