The Girl's Got Secrets (Forbidden Men #7)(10)

But yeah, sometimes I thought it would’ve been nice if we all understood each other a little better, or if my bandmates actually knew what half the words I said meant. I guess we didn’t need to be tight to make a group, however. There was no reason for me to be whiny and wistful. I was probably just one of those people who simply wasn’t meant to have a great meeting of the minds with others.

Besides, tomorrow was a fresh, new day. I assured myself we’d finally find a fourth band member to agree on and my current frustrations would be moot.

As I pushed out of the studio and into the cool November evening, however, I felt restless. Unsatisfied. Because I still wished I had...f*ck, I’m not even sure. Maybe a friend. Just one person I could hang out with and do shit with, or maybe not even do anything with. Just someone to be there, to help me get out of my own head for a while. A lifeline of sorts.

I’d told myself for years that I wasn’t lonely. But screw it, I was lonely.

And oddly enough, this past year that I’d worked at Forbidden and made more casual friends than I’d ever had before, I was realizing just how utterly alone I was.

Or maybe I was just in a mood because I was still letting what that girl had said earlier bother me. But, dammit, we were not a cliché. I’d worked hard to be my own kind of person and write songs that were different from everything else out there. Why had she gone and said the one thing that would bug me the most? Now her words were going to fester until they drove me crazy.

And what was up with calling me a man-whore? Was she for real? She didn’t know me. She didn’t know how I interacted with women, or that it’d been months since I’d last had sex. It itched at my craw that she would so easily label me like that.

But then, I tried to tell myself she’d been upset, for which I totally didn’t blame her. Gally should’ve let her audition (yet another reason I was irritated with him). So maybe it’d only been her anger talking.

Okay, fine...the truth was I was stewing because I was mad at myself. I could’ve forced the issue and let her audition, except damn...she’d affected me. Instantly.

As soon as she’d walked in the door with her long, tan legs sticking out of her short, short skirt with such a cocky, self-assured saunter, this heat had spread up from my gut and scorched my brain cells. That kind of immediate, intense reaction had only happened to me, like, twice in my life. Once a few months ago, and then...today. I didn’t much like it. It turned my hormones into these primitive beasts that wanted nothing but *.

I’d been forced to turn away and pretend to take a drink because I feared staring much longer might’ve caused me to sprout wood. But I just kept picturing myself ripping off that cheap blonde wig to see what she really looked like under there and then pushing her against the first available surface so I could feast upon her.

Seriously, the craving had been that bad.

So busy trying to cool my jets, I hadn’t even paid attention to what Gally was telling her until she’d said, “Is this some kind of joke,” and her voice...damn, her husky voice had me jonesing big time. It was low for a female but still really, extra sexy.

When I finally realized Gally was rejecting her because of her gender, sadly, I’d felt a spark of relief. There would’ve been no way I could’ve concentrated around someone who attracted me the way she did. I knew it was biased, cowardly, awful, and completely sexist of me, but I just couldn’t be in a band with her without wanting to jump her...constantly, and probably convincing her even more that I was some kind of man-whore.

And so, I felt crappy and antsy and regretful as I marched to my ride for not giving her the simple audition she’d wanted.

My motorcycle—bless her faithful heart—sat on the curb, patiently awaiting me. The ’72 Triumph might’ve been badass if it weren’t so old and beat to hell. But it’d been cheaper than anything I could find with four wheels and had better gas mileage, so I wasn’t going to complain about image. I loved her anyway.

I went about coaxing her to life—turning on the fuel, pushing the tickler, flipping the choke and ignition before kick-starting her—then I was good to go.

The only place I really had to head was home to Mozart, but right now, that felt like a miserable option, so I steered the Triumph toward my favorite place on earth.

I’d known the Forbidden Nightclub existed for a little over a year now, and in that time I’d lived all of my happiest moments there. I’d gotten to perform there for my first time and return every Friday night to play again. My band had grown a name for ourselves and gathered a crew of followers because of that place. It was at Forbidden that I’d experienced that first punch of intense longing the moment I’d seen a stranger across a crowd and wanted to know everything about her. Hell, I’d learned I had a brother within its walls. The place felt more like home to me than the studio basement apartment where I rested my head each night.

When I drove past the club twenty minutes later and scoped out the parking lot to make sure a black Barracuda wasn’t on the premises, I came back around the block, pulled in and parked, satisfied the guy I was avoiding wasn’t inside.

I wasn’t scheduled to work tonight, and I kind of wished Pick would give me more hours so I’d have something to do on my off nights, but a beer and a little company sounded good. I needed some positive chi around me to absorb so I could boost my own morale.