Owen grinned and straightened his Santa hat. “Wouldn’t we?”
Chapter Three
Lindsey squinted at the dark road ahead. The wipers scraped rhythmically across her field of vision to keep the thick snow at bay, but she was fixated on the glowing red taillights of her favorite band’s tour bus. Storm or no storm, she wasn’t giving up now. It had been a stroke of luck that Sole Regret’s bus had turned out in front of her car as she pulled out of the auditorium after the benefit concert. Instead of taking the proper road toward home, she had continued following them eastward out of town, through the wilderness and up into the mountains. It was pitch black out here in the middle of nowhere and what had started out as a few flurries was now becoming a blizzard.
“It’s getting really bad out,” Vanessa said from the passenger seat. “We should have gone home instead of following their bus. The farther we go, the worse this shit gets. Can you even see the road?”
“Yeah, I’m used to driving in the snow. And they have to stop sometime,” Lindsey said. “I want to meet them and thank them for helping out the Carlisle family.”
Vanessa chuckled. “Bullshit, girl. You want to bone them.”
Lindsey bit her lip. “Yeah, I do—all five of them—but just meeting them will be orgasmic enough.”
Her engine roared as her front tires lost their grip and spun in the slick, wet snow. The car skidded slightly, before finding a better patch of pavement and righting itself.
Vanessa was clinging to the dashboard with long red nails. “Girl, you and your horny vagina are gonna get us both killed.”
“It’s fine,” Lindsey said and laughed. “Well the car is fine. The vagina is still horny. God, those guys were hot on stage.” She shuddered at the mere memory of their blatant sexuality. Just watching them perform made her wet and achy between her legs.
“That ain’t no lie,” Vanessa said. “Too bad they’s all white boys.”
“Once you go white, you think it’s all right.” She shrugged.
Vanessa laughed. “Girl, you are too much.”
“You know you love me,” Lindsey said. They’d been best friends since elementary school and twenty years later, still did everything together. Well, almost everything.
“You’re lucky I don’t jack your car and get us off this damned mountain,” Vanessa said.
“You are all talk, Nessi. You know you want to meet them too.”
“Maybe a little.” Lindsey could hear the smile in Vanessa’s voice. They liked to tease each other and pretend they were as different in attitude as they were in looks, but they really did have almost everything in common—including their taste in music and men.
The right blinker on the bus ahead began to flash. Lindsey saw the sign for a scenic turn out and turned on her blinker to follow them. Finally, her chance. Assuming they didn’t think she was bat shit crazy for following them over seventy miles through a blizzard and falling at their feet to dry hump their legs.
The bus pulled to a stop and Lindsey parked behind it. She left the car running, the wipers working extra hard to keep the fluffy white flakes off the windshield. Lindsey’s heart thudded faster and faster at the thought of getting out of her car, knocking on the tour bus door, and offering her body to anyone who would have it.
“You’re going to chicken out, aren’t you?” Vanessa said.
“No, I’m just thinking about how to approach them.”
She could barely make out Vanessa’s rolling eyes in glow of the dash lights. “Whatever. You say I’m all talk. You might think you’ve got the guts to raid their tour bus for cock, but sweetie, I know you. You ain’t a ho.”
“I’m three times the ho you are, beotch.”
Vanessa sniggered. “So what you’re saying is you’re a ho ho ho?”
Lindsey laughed. “Yeah, when it comes to any member of Sole Regret I’m a ho ho ho.” Once she got tickled she couldn’t stop laughing for several minutes. She had to wipe tears out of her eyes with her thumbs. “God, we’re corny. No wonder we can’t snag decent boyfriends.”
“What are they doing?” Vanessa asked, her attention now outside the car.
Lindsey’s head swiveled and her heart almost stopped. The band’s bassist, Owen had just launched himself out of the open bus door and onto the back of rhythm guitarist, Kellen. Kellen, who was inexplicably shirtless in a snow storm, flipped him into a snow bank and scooped up a handful of snow. He began to pack the fluffy flakes into a large ball. Owen retrieved his Santa hat from the snow and dove for cover behind the front of the bus. A battery of snow balls flew from Owen’s hiding place and pummeled Kellen in the chest.
She caught a glimpse of a red and black mohawk just above Owen’s hat.
“Gabe too?”
“Adam is sneaking around back,” Vanessa said, pointing at the dark shadow at the rear corner of the bus. “The only one missing is the hottest of the bunch.”
“Shade?”
“I’m sure he’s too cool for this childish bullshit.” Vanessa opened her car door. “All right, chicken shit, you brought us all the way up here to make complete asses out of ourselves, we might as well go talk to them.”
“What? Wait! We don’t have to. Let’s just go home.”
But Vanessa had already climbed out of the car and had closed the door. Lindsey took a deep breath, shut off her car, pocketed the keys and then surged into the uncharted snowstorm. Vanessa always gave her courage. With Vanessa at her side, Lindsey could have slain dragons, swam the Mediterranean Sea, or even talked to a rock star.
Vanessa was already shaking hands with the lead guitarist of the band, Adam. He’d been the closest target, but Lindsey really wanted Owen. Or Kellen. Or Owen and Kellen. So she headed into the epic snowball battle. Heart thundering in her chest, stomach a bit queasy, knees quaking, Lindsey stepped up behind Kellen and was about to tap him on the shoulder which was decorated with an amazingly realistic tattoo of a rearing black stallion, when he suddenly ducked. Fast—like ninja.
A barrage of snow balls walloped Lindsey in the face, neck and chest, catching her so off-guard that she just stood there and took every last one of them at full force.
“Oh shit,” someone said. “Why did you duck, Kelly?”
A very large, wonderfully strong hand began to brush snow out of her face. “Are you okay?”
She was suddenly looking up into the gorgeous, strong-featured face of Kellen Jamison. “I am now,” she whispered.
Chapter Four
Kellen winced at the welt under the attractive young woman’s right eye. “That had to hurt,” he said, gently rubbing the mark with his thumb.
“Um,” she said.
He smiled. He could tell she knew who he was. She had that star-struck look on her face he knew so well. “I’m Kellen,” he said.
“Yes.”
“And you would be?” She had the biggest blue eyes he’d ever encountered. He was a sucker for that wide-eyed innocent look and if her eyes got any wider, they’d likely fall right out of her head.
“Um.” She blinked and then scowled as if suffering from amnesia.
“Lindsey!” another woman ran over and began to fling snow from Lindsey’s sweater. It hit Kellen in the chest, but she didn’t seem to notice. “Oh my God, girl, what were you thinking? You could have been killed.”
“I don’t think snowballs are lethal,” Kellen said. The look Lindsey’s friend gave him could have melted the snow off the entire mountain.
“What kind of crazy person pelts a poor, defenseless woman with snowballs?” the woman said, flinging snow from Lindsey’s chest like a weapon now.