Taryn Belle - In For Keeps / Under His Touch

Stop it.

But her face was already flushed. Damn, but being a redhead was an unfair disadvantage.

Through the walls, the crowd had reached a fever pitch. “Twitch! Twitch!”

“It sounds like they’re ready for you,” Kiki managed. “What’s that all about?”

Dev leaned against the doorway, arms crossed. “Just a nickname. Maybe because I like to play my guitar hard and fast.”

His aqua eyes caressed her body, telling her exactly how he’d rather be applying those two adverbs. She could feel the heat creep down from her cheeks to her breasts.

Cool it.

She tried for a casual stance, hands in front pockets. “So, uh...you good to go? I mean, do you have a routine you like to do before you go onstage or anything? I’ve heard some musicians like to do scales, tai chi, snort a few lines, whatever...” She cringed as she trailed off. Did she really just say that? She was nervous as hell, and she always babbled and said stupid shit when she was nervous.

And yet Dev, the person who should be nervous, seemed perfectly calm. “Never readier,” he replied with a wink—the same two words she’d spoken right before he drove his cock inside her for the first time. Jesus. He wasn’t making this easy.

In her peripheral vision, Kiki saw a crew member approach. “Hey, Chester,” Dev said when he stopped near them.

“Hey. Bob was wondering if you wanted us to scout for you tonight. He just took a walk and said to let you know there’s plenty of good material in the crowd.”

“Nah, I’ll pass. Just like I did on the last tour,” Dev replied pointedly, his eyes never leaving Kiki’s.

Kiki watched as Chester took his baseball cap off and replaced it on his head, turning the visor backward. Then he crossed his arms over his chest and rocked back on his heels, as if waiting for Dev to come to his senses. “You sure, man?”

“Sure of what—that he’s the best goddamned musician since Springsteen?” a man said as he appeared beside Dev. Kiki felt herself stiffen. It was the heavyset guy with the cell phone she’d noticed earlier. He wore his long white hair slicked back, and his paunch strained at his shirt buttons.

“Bix, it’s about time,” Dev said, giving the man a back-pounding embrace. “Bix, I’d like you to meet Kiki Becker. Kiki, Bix is my tour manager.”

Kiki nodded. “Nice to meet you.”

“Pleasure’s mine,” Bix replied, but his eyes only lit on her briefly. She watched as Chester cleared his throat, trying to remind Dev of his presence. It was an interesting hierarchy dance, Kiki observed—Chester was clearly at the bottom, and a minute ago she would have put Dev at the top. But Bix’s entrance into the picture had made her less certain of that.

Dev turned to Chester. “Thanks, man—I’m all good.”

“Hey, you’re the boss.” Chester shrugged and turned away. Bix’s cell phone rang, and after he walked off, Kiki burst out laughing. “‘Plenty of good material’?” she said to Dev. “I take it that’s code for hot chicks.”

“I would never use such a disrespectful term,” Dev replied. “But yes. There is a certain tradition among certain musicians that involves inviting a certain type of female backstage. It’s not something that interests me.”

“No?”

“Anymore,” he clarified with a smile.

Kiki gave him a skeptical look. “So all those lovely ladies I see you around the island with are—what, your sisters?”

He grinned. “Just because I let them hang out with me doesn’t mean I let them into my bed. But point taken. Old habits die hard, I guess.”

Kiki busied herself with adjusting her necklace. So she wasn’t going to be tortured by the sight of him with another woman...not tonight, at least. But how long would he hold out? The guy was only human, after all.

“Listen,” she said hesitantly. “I, um... I just want you to know you don’t have to do this. This is a professional relationship, and—”

“Is it?” His aqua eyes bored into hers.

“Um...” Yes. Just say it and everything will be so much simpler , she thought. “Well, I think it’s easiest if we just... I mean... I have no expectations,” she stammered.

That sexy smile. She wanted to melt into a puddle on the floor. “I appreciate that,” he said, stepping a little closer to her. The crowd had grown louder than ever with their frenzied chant, forcing Dev’s lips to her ear so he could be heard. “There’s just one problem.”

He was so close she could feel his breath on her face. Toothpaste and lemon. She wanted to brush against his mouth with her fingers, feel him suck them before she replaced them with her hungry lips. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. The only woman I want is you,” he whispered, sending shivers down her spine.

Kiki swallowed hard. She finally turned to face him, but he was already backing away from her with his arms over his head. He gave his hands three loud claps in the air. “Alright. Let’s fucking do this !” he shouted. A roadie handed him a guitar, and then Dev slipped the strap over his head, ran up the steps and disappeared through the stage door.

Blinding strobe lights. Sweat dripping from his face. Stuart pounding the drums, Scotty beside him on the mic. Lightning ripping from his fingertips on the guitar. The whole scene magnified behind him on a massive screen. And the feverish crowd, the lifeblood of every show, singing every word along with him. This was one of the moments Dev could acknowledge that the dreams of a ten-year-old boy with an air guitar and a bed for a stage had come true. If only they weren’t so few and far between.

The encore was the one time onstage Dev could actually enjoy himself. During that short golden window between having the worst behind him and the end in sight, he suddenly felt like he could play all night. By all accounts, his first performance of the Up All Night World Tour had gone well. Along with his little helpers, his usual coping mechanisms had worked. He’d launched into his first song, “It All Starts Here,” with his back to the audience, only turning around two choruses in when his hands finally stopped shaking. The wild cheers when the crowd saw his face assured him that his secret was safe; they thought it was all part of the act. After that he’d kept his eyes either on his guitar or on the front row of the crowd, and by the third song he was nearly relaxed enough to give the audience what they wanted: everything. All of him. His very flesh, heart and soul. And though his stomach still churned, he’d done it. Worked the stage, riffed with his bandmates, sung hard. He’d never gotten used to having his every move blown up a thousand times, but when he caught a glimpse of himself onscreen he looked okay. He looked perfectly in control. And now here he was on his last number of the night, “Stand Your Ground,” one of his midcareer chart-topping ballads that always got the audience singing along. As Dev drew out the last, endless note, twenty thousand cell phones glowed back at him. Only then did he allow his eyes to lift to the back of the stadium, where they settled on the reassuring sight of a fully packed house.

It was over. Relief pulsed through his body as he ran off the stage with his guitar. A waiting roadie took it from him and handed him a bottle of water. He took in the compliments.

“Great show, man.”

“You killed it.”

“They loved you.”

The voices and the roar of the crowd fell away as he looked into the darkness backstage.

Where is she?

Dev’s eyes finally adjusted, and he saw her near the back wall. She was turned away from him in conversation with a crew member, allowing him a perfect view of her beautiful ass. Predictably, his cock jerked in his pants. Dev took two steps toward her—and caught his foot on a cable, sprawling him across the wooden floor. “Goddamn it!”