Madelynne Ellis - Come Undone

‘Hey!’ she objected, as they went into his mouth, followed by another slug of water. ‘What are you doing? What are you taking?’

‘Calm down, Mum,’ he retaliated. ‘It’s legal. Here.’ He chucked the blister strip onto her lap. ‘There, you can check ’em out for yourself, make sure I’m being a good boy.’

Somehow, Dani managed to convince her fingers to uncurl from around the steering wheel to allow her to pick up the packet. ‘What is this?’ An unfamiliar brand name was embossed on the foil. ‘Are they painkillers or something?’

‘Nap time,’ he explained with a shrug and a yawn. He turned partly away from her and sank deeper into the seat with his knees drawn up. ‘Prod me when we arrive.’

‘You’re – you’re going to sleep?’ How far was he expecting her to drive?

‘Shh, don’t talk. I need to switch off.’

OK. This was one weird-ass evening. It certainly didn’t conform to any of her rock-star fantasies, which primarily involved lush beaches and eating canapés with champagne at midnight.

Maybe the backstage pass was to blame. If Xane believed her to be a member of staff, that would explain the arrogant assumption that she was available to ferry him home.

Damn, she thought, biting her lip. She’d never expected him to love her, but now she had him within her grasp, she’d hoped the whole lust thing would at least be mutual. So far, it really didn’t look as if that were so.

‘You have reached your destination.’

Dani cut the engine, thankful that the whiny woman had bleated her last. She unbuckled her seatbelt before turning to Xane, who hadn’t moved for the last forty minutes. He faced the door, with his knees drawn up towards his body. A shroud of black hair masked what little she could see of his profile.

Lucky for him Dani wasn’t the sort to molest a sleeping man. That was assuming he was actually asleep and not merely avoiding conversation.

Based on the fact he’d taken pills to switch off, she generously supposed the former.

Actually, thinking on those lines, it seemed a shame to wake him. Maybe exhaustion accounted for the gig being cut short, although that didn’t explain Ash Gore’s remarks as they’d left. It sounded as though the band had had a bust-up. She hoped it wasn’t serious.

Dani tentatively prodded Xane’s shoulder, hardly daring to make physical contact with him, half convinced the resulting feedback would zap through her synapses causing her to spontaneously combust. He didn’t stir, not even to grunt.

‘Xane.’ Dani risked a second jab into his shoulder. This time he yawned and stretched, so that the muscles flexed beneath his shirt, reinvigorating Dani’s pulse. Would he freak, she wondered, if she leaned over and licked the back of his neck?

What was she doing even contemplating such an act?

‘We’re here. I think.’

Xane glanced at his phone, which currently displayed an image of their current location, overlaid with the words ‘Destination Reached’.

‘Back up, and swing us round. Then take the first left. It’s just behind the rise.’

‘All right.’ Good to know their destination wasn’t actually a field. Dani restarted the car and followed his instructions.

Xane unplugged his phone from the car charger. ‘Now, turn in here. Just pull up in front of the house.’

‘House’? If you were being super-kind, maybe. The building she drew alongside could more accurately be described as a brick shed. Weren’t rock stars supposed to own swish penthouses, not ten-by-ten cattle barns?

‘What is this place?

Xane mumbled something that might have been ‘bolthole’ as he clambered out of the car.

Dani tentatively climbed out too. The night wind whipped across the open countryside and nipped her bare arms. Mud underfoot sucked at her shoes. Only the sight of Xane leaping about beneath the orange glow of the security light convinced her not to get straight back into the car.

‘Keys,’ he muttered, before launching himself towards the eaves again. His T-shirt rose as he stretched, giving her a tantalising glimpse of his torso. No doubt about it, Xane hit the gym on a regular basis. He was ripped to perfection, the muscles clearly defined. Rather intriguingly, a faint trace of hair led down from his navel, under the waistband of his leathers, and probably all the way to his loins.

OK, she was not pursuing that thought. Thinking about the package he had hidden there only raised her blood pressure.

‘Gotcha!’ Xane finally snagged the key from its hidden hook. He blew off the cobwebs before applying it to the lock.

‘Come in if you dare,’ he remarked before stepping inside, leaving her alone in the dark.

She wasn’t sure if that was a challenge or merely an invitation. Either way, she accepted.

Besides, it wasn’t as if he was welcoming her to a vampire dungeon. At worst, this would turn out to be his shagging shack, home to two thousand scented candles, an iron rack and an oversized four-poster bed. And crossing the threshold would automatically grant him licence to debauch her in whatever manner he fancied. That didn’t seem so bad, although she intended to have a nice long chat with him before any shagging took place.

If any shagging took place.

Gah – why did her brain fog up at the mere thought of him naked?

A light flickered on inside the building. Dani squelched forward onto the raised porch. She kicked off her shoes before entering.

Curiously, the interior didn’t reek of incense, nor were the walls painted black. There was no rack, or iron maiden, and no cobwebby alcoves harbouring human skulls.

A single twisted ironwork candelabrum was the only significant nod to the gothic horror genre, otherwise the place looked more like a forester’s hut, all reclaimed wood and earth tones. Maybe he hadn’t been clear on his vision when he’d spoken to the designer, or hadn’t owned the place very long.

A collection of photographic prints covered the back wall of the single-roomed building. Dani wandered over to take a closer look. The images more than made up for the general lack of demonic accoutrements. Goth porn, she supposed you’d call them: all blood, skulls and depravity.

She turned away quickly as heat infused her cheeks. It seemed Xane enjoyed some pretty extreme stuff.

‘My cousin’s a photographer,’ Xane explained, confirming her suspicion the images were of him.

He was leaning against an age-blackened cabinet. The jacket and the collar he’d worn around his neck now lay in a heap beside him. ‘I commissioned those as a photo-book accompaniment to our second album. Sadly the record company vetoed the lot – something about them being pornographic, and it being bad practice for me to get my kit off if we wanted to be taken seriously. Of course, it would have been a different story if I’d been a girl.’ He scowled. ‘Anyway, enjoy. I think my cock’s out in most of them.’

‘What makes you think I want to see it?’

Oh, God, she sounded so prudish. Ginny would laugh. Her friend would have made a detailed study of every image and then insisted on a real life comparison, and would probably have taken a few extra snaps of her own.

Xane did laugh, be it somewhat humourlessly. ‘Oh, right! You mean you’re here to enjoy my riveting company and not so that I can bang you into oblivion?’

Dani planted her hands on her hips. ‘I’m not easy.’ None of this had been her idea. Yeah, she was attracted to him, but he was being exceptionally obnoxious making such assumptions and she was tempted to call him a dick. The Xane in her head wasn’t nearly so crass. He was a gentleman, even if he looked like a scary beast. Sadly, reality wasn’t quite matching up. ‘You wanted a lift,’ she reminded him. ‘I drove you. We never discussed anything else.’ He probably didn’t need to. Likely enough he took it as read that if he went home with a girl, he’d pulled.