Consumed (Devoured, #2)(24)

“I swear it’s fine. Now stop, you’re getting lipstick all over your teeth.” I press my back flat against the wall to avoid a couple of giggling women dancing past us. Liquid sloshes out of the bottles held closely to their chests and falls on the concrete floor, leaving behind the scent of whipped cream vodka. Once they disappear around a corner, I motion for Tori to follow me.

“I’ve got to admit, even my desire to kick Lucas in the balls 95 percent of the time wouldn’t have stopped me from seeing that show.” She catches up to me on her mile high pumps. “And I don’t even like rock,” she adds in a low whisper.

For someone who doesn’t like rock, she sure as hell knew enough YTS lyrics to scream them out along with everyone else during the concert.

“Finally.” I point to the only door back here with swarms of barely clothed women, and a few men, hanging around it. “This has to be it.”

There’s a bodyguard—an enormous mixed guy who makes Lucas, in all of his six-foot-four, muscular glory, seem absolutely normal—guarding the entrance. He’s in the middle of an argument with a woman claiming to be there for Wyatt. She’s red-faced, seething, but the bodyguard doesn’t seem fazed.

“What f*cking list are you talking about?” she demands. “This isn’t a nightclub. Just let me in—Violet Dawson.” She says her name slowly, emphasizing it into five syllables.

I wait for the bodyguard to tell her off, but he seems completely relaxed when he responds. “Only the band and guests are in there right now. Press and Henley in the Morning contest winners get inside in half an hour. You’re not on either list.”

Violet heaves a frustrated sigh. “Look, I hung out with him and Cal after their show here a year and a half ago. He’ll want to see me.”

“The band that plays together—” Another woman standing close by begins, but Violet shoots her a withering look. The bodyguard leans over to tell Violet something discreetly, and Tori motions for me to bend down a little, too.

Once her mouth is close to my ear, she whispers, “Just think, when Mr. Bodyguard over there actually lets you in, all these bitches are going to want to beat the crap out of you.”


“Thanks for”—I pull Tori out of the way before Violet can doze her over as she flounces off in a blur of highlighted hair and floral perfume—“making me feel better about being alone for the rest of this tour.”

“Just stating the obvious.” She steps in front of another woman and her boyfriend so that we’re first in line to talk to the doorman and jabs her manicured index finger in my direction. “She’s on the list.”

The bodyguard gives me a long once-over, from my black fringe sandals, to my ripped skinny jeans and loose black high-low tank, and finally up to my blue eyes. “Name and ID?” he asks. He lifts an eyebrow at Tori. “If she’s not been cleared with the band, she’s not getting in.”

Lowering my head, I look through my bag for my license and say as quietly as possible, “Sienna Jensen, and check for Victoria Abrams, too. She should be on the list.” Even then it feels like all conversation around me has come to a standstill. As the bodyguard looks at his iPhone for confirmation, the door behind him opens several inches. Sinjin pops his head out, and the squeals around us are deafening.

He winks a green eye at his admirers before addressing the bodyguard. “These two are in, David,” he says. The bodyguard returns his gaze to Tori and me, his lips curled into a suggestive grin.

I know what he’s thinking. Hell, it’s obvious.

And I feel my blood begin to boil.

I’m about to open my mouth and let him know I’m not what he thinks I am—and how sad it would be for him to think badly of me even if I was—but Sin does it for me. “And just so we’re clear, the redhead will be around for the rest of the tour. Lucas’s girl, so it’s a real quick way to wind up jobless.”

As David moves aside for us to go into the lounge, a flush creeps past his neck and up to his face, and he mutters a slew of apologies. Once I’m inside the room, which is nearly filled to capacity with members of the crew and the lead guitarist and drummer of Wicked Lambs, I give him a reassuring smile. He tips his head in embarrassment.

Even before the door is securely closed, the women in the hallway begin whispering. Words like “Lucas” and “bitch” and “lucky” jump out to me. My teeth are clenched when I meet Sinjin’s amused gaze.

“You didn’t have to do that,” I say.

He shrugs, wiping sweat and short strands of black hair off of his forehead with the red and black striped towel draped around his shoulders. “Might as well make it clear now before David looks at you like you’re nothing but a piece of ass in front of Lucas.”

He throws himself down on a plush loveseat, between two women dressed in Your Toxic Sequel tanks that they’ve customized (by strategically ripping them up to show off their boobs and flat stomachs) and not much else. “Besides, none of us wants our guests being treated like shit.”

“He’s got a point,” Tori whispers from beside of me, and I roll my eyes.

Of course he does, but I don’t want to start off on the wrong foot with any of the crew, especially one of the bodyguards. Nodding stiffly at Sinjin, I debate on whether I should look away or keep staring as one of the women—the one with the auburn pixie cut—openly slides her fingertips inside of his jeans. She winks up at me.