Apparently, Melanie wasn’t the only one who was starving. Everyone with food fell silent as they devoured their meals. Gabe held her hand under the table, stroking the sensitive skin below her knuckles with his thumb.
“I wonder where Nikki and Shade are,” she said.
“Screwing in the sauna,” Adam said.
Melanie turned her head to look at him.
“He took two security guards with him to ensure their privacy.”
“Sounds hot,” Melanie said. “And I don’t mean sexy hot. Hyperthermia hot.”
“I’m sure it’s hella sexy hot,” Adam said. “And I’m sure Shade will tell us all about it later when we’re bored on the tour bus.”
“I’m sure Nikki would prefer he didn’t,” Melanie said, embarrassed for her friend. Yeah, Nikki could be slutty, but she made no excuses. If she wanted to fuck a guy in the sauna, she fucked him in the sauna. Melanie sometimes envied Nikki’s lack of inhibition, but Melanie also pitied her, because she knew that what Nikki really wanted was for someone to love her. She was just going about it all wrong. Melanie recognized that she was going about it all wrong too, but then she’d never expected to feel anything for Gabe besides lust. She was feeling things for him that she had no business experiencing, much less expressing.
“I have some time after breakfast,” Gabe whispered in her ear. “Are you planning on sticking around until the bus leaves?”
“Do you want me to?” she asked.
“That’s a stupid question.”
“You don’t want to fuck in the sauna, do you?” She crinkled her nose.
Beside her, Adam inhaled sharply and then started choking. The guy who was sitting on his opposite side pounded him on the back. Adam’s chains rattled in time with the pounding.
“Are you okay?” Melanie asked.
He nodded, still coughing, and reached for a glass of water. He knocked it over when his attention diverted to Nikki, who danced into the room, positively glowing with happiness. Or maybe her face was rosy from all the time spent in the sauna. Everyone at the table stood in unison, piling fancy cloth napkins on the puddle of water spreading across the table. Nikki trotted across the room and wrapped her arms around Gabe’s neck.
“Did you have fun with Mel?” she asked, giving him an affectionate squeeze. She tilted her head to the side, grinned at Melanie, and offered her a little wink.
Shade stopped behind her and cleared his throat. Nikki untangled her arms from Gabe’s neck and hugged Shade around the waist, resting her head against his broad chest like a docile kitten. He cupped the back of her head in one large hand.
“I suppose you thoughtless assholes didn’t bother ordering for the rest of us,” he said. Melanie couldn’t tell who he was looking at, because he was wearing his damned sunglasses again. She wondered if he wore them to bed. And while fucking in the sauna.
“You’re the only asshole I see here,” Adam said and sat in the booth again. He tackled his omelet with vigor.
There was an uncomfortable moment where everyone stared at Shade, and then, when he didn’t engage further with Adam, they all sat down again to continue their breakfast. Shade sat next to Owen, who shifted closer to Kelly to make room. Nikki perched herself on Shade’s knee.
“Where are you heading next?” Nikki asked.
“Dallas,” Shade answered.
“Can I come with?”
“Not this time, kitten.”
Nikki’s bottom lip jutted forward, but Shade squeezed her shoulder, and she smiled again. Though Melanie had told the guys that Nikki wouldn’t want Shade to share all the dirty details of their night together, Melanie was sure she’d be getting an earful of naughtiness on their drive back to Wichita.
The waitress delivered Melanie’s cranberry juice and Gabe’s cup of coffee before insisting on an autograph from Shade. He obliged her and then ordered for Nikki without asking her what she wanted. Melanie watched her friend for signs of distress, but she looked as pleased as an honor roll student receiving a shiny gold star.
Gabe squeezed Melanie’s knee. “She’s a big girl,” he whispered into her ear. “She can take care of herself.”
Was her concern for her friend that obvious? Rather than deny that she was obsessing over Nikki’s personal life, Melanie took a sip of cranberry juice. Gabe slid his hand up the inside of her thigh. When he brushed her mound with the side of his hand, she sucked juice down her windpipe.
Her hacking resulted in vigorous whacks on the back until she finally stopped coughing and her rescuers—Gabe and Adam—were satisfied that she’d live.
“I’m fine,” she assured them, fearing they’d fracture her ribs if they kept at it.
This time when Gabe’s hand disappeared beneath the table she maintained her composure. At least outwardly.
Her breakfast arrived and though she was hungry enough to gnaw off her own arm, it meant that Gabe pulled his hand out from under the table to use his utensils. She instantly missed the feel of his fingers against her. Every touch delighted and unsettled her. She was going to have a difficult time saying goodbye to him.
Wanting to have him to herself for as long as possible, she made short work of her exquisite meal. The filet mignon practically melted on her tongue. Her eggs were covered with a hint of buttery sauce that delighted her taste buds with an explosion of flavor. Nikki stole her cup of fruit and began to eat it with her fingers. With rapt attention, the rest of the band watched Nikki suck and lick strawberry juice from her fingers. Shade cupped her breast and rubbed his thumb over the tip.
“You’re getting me worked up again, kitten.”
“Good,” she said in a slow purr.
Melanie checked to make sure Gabe wasn’t gawking at Nikki—he wasn’t—and focused on her plate. Nikki had unintentionally gained the interest of Melanie’s dates in the past. At least, Melanie was pretty sure it had been unintentional. She didn’t want Gabe to be sucked in by Nikki’s blatant sexuality as well.
“Is your kitten up for a gang bang?” Adam asked.
Before Melanie could punch him in the mouth, Nikki shifted forward, giving Gabe, Melanie, and Adam a straight-line view down her shirt. She’d lost her bra at some point since Jack had given them that backstage pass.
“I’m getting all the banging I can handle from Shade,” she said. “Though I would be okay with Mel joining us. I’m craving taco.”
Melanie’s eyes widened, and she shook her head. “No thanks,” she squeaked. Was Nikki really into girls or was she playing at it for the sake of these rock stars and their perpetual hard-ons?
Nikki laughed and sat up straight on Shade’s lap. “I tried, baby,” she said to him. “She’s too much of a goody-goody.”
“What about that waitress?” he asked.
Melanie expected Nikki to refuse, at the very least. And if not that, to tell Shade what he could do with his suggestion. She sure as hell didn’t expect Nikki to climb off Shade’s lap and whisper, “I’ll go ask her.”
He slapped her on the ass as she trotted off toward the kitchen.
“Don’t use her like that,” Melanie sputtered as soon as Nikki was out of earshot. “She’s going to get hurt again.”
“She just wants to have a good time,” Shade said.
“She wants someone to love her. Desperately. And I know that someone isn’t you.”
“How do you know that?”
“You just want her to fulfill your twisted fantasies.”
He smirked at her. “Sweetheart, all my twisted fantasies have already been fulfilled.”
Sweetheart? “Don’t patronize me,” Melanie growled.
“He pisses me off too,” Adam grumbled. “Thinks he’s hot shit.”