“Got a guy who patched me up and prescribed some good painkillers. Turns out your knight in shining armor had bad aim and only grazed my leg. Hurts like a bitch, let me tell you,” he snarled.
“Don’t start anything in here; you’re in the wrong place for that,” I said sharply. “This is my turf, so you play by my rules. Got it?”
This guy had no idea what a bar full of Shifters would do to him if he put his hands on me and I screamed. Guys were touchy-feely all the time, but when a girl said no, and especially if she did it while screaming, knuckles flew from all directions.
“Where’s your boyfriend?” Handlebars pressed.
I tugged at the ends of my black shorts and gave him a nasty glare. “I have no idea.”
And if I did, I’d probably turn Hawk over to my new stalker out of spite. I’d tried calling him all day, but it kept going to voice mail.
Denver handed me a tray and gave Handlebars a good once-over before retreating to a group of rowdy girls trying to snag his attention by polishing the bar with their breasts.
Jake’s voice sounded over the speakers while I delivered the drinks, and I struggled to hear a woman placing her order.
“Ladies, gents, it’s my pleasure to present one of the biggest acts in Austin. You’re in for a real treat to see them up close and personal. Put your hands together for…”
“Rosie!” I shouted, weaving my way toward her. “The woman in blue wants a Zipper. What the hell is that?”
“…the baddest Breed group in town. Welcome to the stage, Izzy Monroe!”
I whirled around and my jaw dropped.
The main lights went out and cheap lighting illuminated the stage. A guy tapped his drumsticks and started the beat.
“Izzy, did they just say your name?” Rosie yelled over the music.
I gave her a quizzical look. “What the hell is going on?”
“I don’t know. Same guys, but a different name. Do you know them?”
Ho-ly shitola.
Walking onstage with swagger and truckloads of sex appeal was a man who could bring a woman to orgasm by merely brushing his lips against the nape of her neck.
After all, I should know.
His hair was shorter than I remembered, now cut to the shoulders, and he had dyed it different shades of brown. It obscured his face, and I desperately moved around people to get a better view. All I could see was his tattered shirt, torn jeans, and his signature move of swinging a guitar over his shoulder as he approached the mic.
“I’m Jericho,” he growled.
Grown women screamed and rushed the stage.
My heart hammered in my chest, my mouth as dry as the Sahara, and a roar of tingles moved through my body. At first, they were the good kind that made me feel warm and aroused. Then they spiraled into the kind that made me feel woozy—like I might faint from shock.
Jericho Sexton Cole.
Twenty years ago I was destitute, and Jericho had taken me under his wing. He worked as a roadie until I’d convinced him he could sing the hell out of those bands. He took me up on a dare one night and went onstage as Sexton Cole. The name stuck, and was one he lived up to. Those were the best five years of my life, but gradually, Jericho had succumbed to the addictive lifestyle of hard drugs and cold women. It shattered me to remember the last time I’d seen him perform, because he had crawled onto the stage and passed out.
Damn, he looked as stunning as ever. Even more so now, because I could tell by the way he moved and sang that he was sober.
Jericho’s raspy bedroom voice filled the room with a seismic tempo that had the hips of every woman in that bar gyrating. He made love to his microphone—body and soul.
My name. Why did he name his band after me? I couldn’t breathe.
“I have to get out of here.”
“Honey, you can’t leave now!” Rosie shrieked, eyes wide with horror. “We’re swamped! Now you shake your little ass and keep the drinks flowing. This is Jake’s big night, and we need to pull in some serious cash. Push the specialties. And just tell Denver you want a Zipper. He knows what it is.”
Rosie spun around with a tray over her head and vanished into the crowd. I could feel the heat on my back from the burning sensuousness in his hypnotic voice—his words caressing my soul like a distant dream. A man I’d thought was dead after all these years. The first man I’d ever shown my wolf to. At the darkest time in my life, Jericho had been there like a beacon of light. He’d once taken me to the beach in California at midnight and we’d run into the ocean with our clothes on, because that’s how he seized the moment.
Too much history was rushing back at once. People were shouting orders, and I nodded, moving like a zombie toward the bar.
Denver leaned forward on his elbows and gave a tight-lipped smile. “Enjoying the band?”
I ignored him, lost in a nebulous of memories. “I need a Zipper.”