Kerosene just itching for a match.
Bodies were crammed into the cavernous, hollow space, the ceiling high and the slanted floor bare. It was set at an incline, the floor high on the entrance side and tapering down the entire way until it met with the elevated stage. Standing room only, a riot of youth vied for a better position closer to the stage, pushing and shoving to get closer.
Darkness covered the crowd, and the sound of the roadies testing the equipment only made the rowdy atmosphere rise.
I felt a partner to it. Fuel for it. As if I was more desperate to see Sebastian on that stage than every fan combined. Even though I’d binged on posted on-line videos of Sunder, it didn’t come close to comparing to this.
No wonder he needed this.
Thrived on this.
Loved this.
Soon I’d be returning to Savannah, and I wanted to take this experience home with me. To tuck this memory deep with the love I had for Sebastian, so I would have something to sustain me in our separation when he went back on the road.
I wanted to be able to close my eyes while he was away and picture him onstage, knowing first-hand what he would be experiencing night after night.
A roadie beat on a drum.
Adrenaline rushed, and I sucked in a breath as I reveled in it all.
My body trembled in recognition when hot, needy hands gripped my waist from behind, and the breath I’d breathed was suddenly him.
Sebastian buried his nose beneath my hair. He ran it along the nape of my neck and up behind my ear. My flesh prickled in the most delicious way, every nerve alight at his touch.
I shook.
“It’s time,” he whispered against the sensitive shell of my ear.
He planted a lingering kiss to my neck. “Don’t move from this spot,” he warned against the skin, then he wrapped his arms completely around my waist. “Remember every last one of the assholes hanging out back here are exactly that. Assholes. Especially those punks who opened for us. Don’t want to have to come off the stage during the show to kill someone.”
Knowing Sebastian, he was one-hundred percent serious.
I almost laughed. As if I didn’t know how this went down. The predators on the prowl, backstage their den, where they hunted and gorged and devoured.
But that was the thing with Sebastian. He never looked at me as the girl who’d been there or the one who’d seen it all—the one who’d allowed herself to become prey.
To him, I was the innocent country girl from Savannah, the one he did everything in his power to protect.
Was it wrong that fact made me love him just a little more?
“I’ll be right here waiting,” I promised, swaying in his arms.
“Good girl,” he whispered low, breathing me in, nose trailing and hands feeling.
“Mmm…why the fuck do you gotta smell so damned good?” he grumbled through a groan.
Hands went sliding down the front of my thighs, skin to skin. He pressed his face into the hollow where my neck met my shoulder, suckling and kissing and making me weak in the knees. “Feel so good,” he muttered, voice rough. “Driving me right out of my mind.”
In reality, it was him who made me lose mine.
“Wait till I get you back to that room.”
“Maybe I just want to keep you coming back to me,” I taunted a little, letting my weight fall against his pounding chest.
“I will always come back to you.”
The slap Ash landed to the back of Sebastian’s head jarred us from the little cocoon we’d created.
Blue eyes blazed with laughter. “Focus, man. We’re on and you’re over here looking like you’re about to drag your girl into a dark corner. Bros before hos. You know the code. Don’t break my heart by making me kick your ass.”