“Apparently it makes me fall in love with them.”
She laughed and patted the center of his chest. “Yeah right, Trey.”
“Thirty seconds,” someone said from near the stage.
Trey kissed Reagan and pulled away abruptly, reaching for the red and white guitar someone was holding in his direction. He slid the strap over his head, and one of the road crew checked the wireless transmitter that was attached to the back of his guitar strap. A pat on the shoulder and he moved to stand beside Brian next to the stage’s steps. Trey said something to him that Reagan couldn’t hear and Brian nodded.
Trey slipped a pair of earbuds into each ear and then after a few seconds climbed the steps and trotted across the stage in the darkness. Jace followed him and then Brian ascended the stairs. Reagan moved to stand near the bottom of the steps beside Sed, who was waiting for his cue to enter the stage. Someone handed Reagan a set of earphones. Dave grinned up at her from his wheelchair when she accepted them. She put them on and could hear Rebekah giving out instructions to the band, and then she could hear Eric and Jace start the low-toned intro to Sinners’ latest single, “Betrayed.” She’d never seen them play this song live. Didn’t know what to expect. She was as excited as the cheering crowd in the stadium. Probably more so. She was close enough to touch them. She had touched them. Some of them more so than others.
The curtain dropped and the blinding stage lights flashed on as Brian and Trey entered the song with a pair of solos that complemented one another perfectly. Every band had something that set them apart, and that was Sinners’ thing. They had two amazing guitarists—Brian who played like he was soloing constantly, and Trey who either complemented him by enriching Brian’s soloing style with intricate pieces of his own or underlying it with more subdued rhythmic sounds that focused even more attention on Brian’s wailing melodies. Reagan had always been a fan of Master Sinclair. It was a shame she’d never noticed how empty his guitar work would sound without Trey backing him. A strange feeling of pride suffused her as she watched Trey play on the opposite side of the stage from where she stood. She needed to get closer. Sed patted her shoulder and she started. She looked up at him and found him grinning at her. Since when did Sed Lionheart have dimples? She had no idea what he was grinning at her for. Maybe he thought it was funny that she was drooling over her own boyfriend, but whatever it was, the opportunity to ask him vanished when Rebekah said, “Sed, in three seconds,” in Reagan’s headphones and Sed took the steps to the stage.
When Sed jogged across the stage, singing the first lyrics of the song, the entire crowd roared their approval. Had Reagan been in the crowd, she’d have been screaming right along with them, but as it was, she couldn’t take her eyes off Trey. When he fingered his fret board, she envisioned those talented fingers on her. In her. When he bounced on his toes rhythmically, she imagined him driving his cock deep into her body. When he started to sing backup vocals, she remembered what his cries of pleasure sounded like in her ear when he came. She was halfway to orgasm before they reached the end of the first stanza. She never would have guessed that watching the man perform would get her so worked up.
The guitar solo in this song was one of Sinners’ amazing dueling pieces. Brian climbed up on the ego riser at the center of the stage and Trey joined him. The pair leaned against each other as they played, and Reagan’s thoughts raced in all sorts of inappropriate directions. The pair of them played together perfectly. It was almost as if they were making love to each other with music. Erotic thoughts swarmed Reagan’s mind. If they just turned their heads toward each other, they could kiss. Holy hell that would be hot. At the end of the solo they stepped away and returned to opposite ends of the stage. Their spell over her broken, Reagan wondered where those thoughts had come from. She’d never thought watching her boyfriend make out with another man would be sexually stimulating. What was it about Trey and Brian that had her heart pounding?
Sed entered the song again and an unexpected twang alerted the guitar technician, and anyone else paying attention, to a snapped guitar string. Jake grabbed a replacement instrument and switched it out with Brian before Reagan had even comprehended what happened. With only a few notes missed, Brian got right back into the song on a different guitar, while Jake hurried to remove the pieces of the broken string and replace them with a new one so Brian could get his preferred instrument back as soon as possible.
Before the show, Reagan had followed Jake around learning all she could about how the equipment was managed for well-known bands. She’d been particularly excited to find out she wouldn’t have to tune her own guitars or replace the strings. Technicians would do that for her. She was liking this gig more and more.
The song ended and the crowd erupted in cheers. While Sed did his usual thing and talked to the crowd about how great they were, Trey headed to his microphone for a little crowd interaction of his own.
“This crowd is hot tonight,” Trey said.
Someone in the audience yelled something that Reagan couldn’t hear. Trey apparently heard it though, because he chuckled and said, “I won’t argue with that, sweetheart.” His deep voice sounded even sexier echoing through the enormous, jam-packed stadium. Reagan was so going to jump his bones the second the performance ended. If he didn’t stop looking so freaking irresistible, she might not make it that long.
Sinners segued into their crowd favorite, “Twisted.” They usually ended a show with that song. Sinners’ show had evolved since she’d last attended one. Reagan was stunned when Jace took the ego riser and played a bass solo in the middle of the song. The crowd ate up every minute of it. Reagan couldn’t take her eyes off Trey even then. Maybe he looked so good to her while up onstage because they’d spent the last couple of hours apart. Or maybe it was the way he played a guitar like he wanted to have sex with it. That guitar didn’t know how lucky it was, but Reagan did.
Reagan didn’t think her heart rate returned to normal for the first thirty minutes of the band’s set. Near the end of the sixth song, someone moved to stand beside her. She turned and instantly recognized Sinners’ ex-bass-player Jon Mallory.
He tugged her headphone back and said in her ear, “Hey, cutie. You look lonely.”
“That will be remedied as soon as Trey’s finished.”
Jon grinned. “So you’re Trey’s hook-up for tonight.”
Reagan wasn’t sure why that little statement made her spitting mad. “I’m Trey’s hook-up every night.”
Jon chuckled. “Sure, sweetheart. Whatever you need to believe to remove you from your panties.”
“Fuck off,” she said and shoved his hand from her headphone.
He shrugged and someone handed him a bass guitar. Reagan watched him in confusion until she saw a white baby grand piano rise from the center of the stage with Jace at the keyboard. Jon played bass in this song while Jace played piano. How could she have forgotten that? Eric’s voice singing the chorus was another unique part of this amazing song. During Jon’s entire short time onstage, he tried to upstage the rest of the band. Reagan wasn’t sure why they didn’t push him off the stage and into the pit, but Jon’s three minutes of fame (or idiocy) ended quickly and Jace was back on bass by the guitar solo.
Jon paused next to Reagan on his way offstage. He pulled back her headphone again and said, “I’m finished now if you don’t want to wait for Trey. Or we can get in a quickie and he’ll never even have to know about it.”
“Are you fucking serious?” she asked.
“Jon, leave Reagan alone,” Jake said, his blond mohawk looking somehow threatening in the alternating colors of the stage lights. “If she doesn’t kick your ass, I will.”