Destroyed (Lost in Oblivion, #3)(23)

Juliet shrugged. “Mom and Dad were never around much.”

“I didn’t know.”

“How could you? You were always practicing or in class.”

Before she could say anything else, the man from the other end of the bar came up to them. “I had no idea a violin could be so incredibly hot.”

Juliet leaned on the bar, her back to the guy. She rolled her eyes and turned to him. “Never heard of Lindsey Sterling?”

The guy was attractive enough, but his face was rather orange with self-tanner. He’d paired an off-the-rack suit with a fifty-dollar shirt with French cuffs to make it seem much more than it was.

Margo took a deeper swig of her martini. And he probably had a small dick if the bling on his wrist and pinky finger were anything to go by.

God, what had gotten into her tonight?

She tried to pay attention as he told her he was a PR person from some firm in the city. By the end of the second martini, she’d ascertained that he probably was a junior executive with a corner desk near the bathrooms.

Juliet was having a little too much fun with him. Her sister was obviously baiting him for the drinks he was providing.

The gin was going to Margo’s head—especially since she had barely eaten. “I need some air,” she said to Juliet.

Her sister flipped off her all access pass. “There’s a corridor right through there. They’ll let you back in with that.”

“Thanks.”

The room was a million degrees and there were just too many people milling around. The band was set up on a dais with a long table and tons of food and water, but she hadn’t felt right going up there. She was just a visitor.

Margo trailed her fingers over the steel walls and grommets that were part decoration, part construction. Industrial all the way from floor to ceiling. The glowing red and blue lights were making her dizzy as she fuzzed with alcohol and fatigue.

Her only focus was the corridor she was headed toward. It was roped off with a VIP sign over the doorway. She skimmed around people and ducked under the velvet ropes.

She didn’t know they actually still had velvet ropes anymore. New York City, ever the glam under the slick. The holes in the steel walls teased her fingertips as she used the support to keep steady.

The noise brought her around first.

The club was so very loud, but here it was almost insulated. She heard the sigh followed by a groan.

“Turn around, Margo.” She took a step back when she caught two people wrapped around each other. But her feet wouldn’t move.

Long legs ending in heavy, unbuckled motorcycle boots tried to dent her consciousness. Were those familiar?

She couldn’t focus. Not when long fingers pulled a woman’s knee up on his hip and slid under her denim skirt to cup her bottom.

The man’s other hand was in her wild blond hair. The grip was strong and sure as he dragged her head back so he could get at her neck.

The woman moaned and ground herself against his front.

Turn around.

Turn around now.

But she couldn’t.

The slash of a nose and furrowed brow with ebony eyebrows locked her feet in place. Wild silver-blue eyes rimmed in smudged kohl zeroed in on her.

He stopped for a moment then dragged his teeth over the woman’s chin and to her lips.

Memories flooded her belly and thighs, instantly pulsing between her legs.

Simon.

His eyes never strayed from hers as he licked his way into the woman’s mouth. She sucked on the tip of his tongue and his attention wavered for a moment. The fingers that were under her skirt tightened and she saw the bunch of knuckle under the material.

Was he touching her? Or just gripping the flesh there?

Why couldn’t she look away?





6





Simon tasted peppermint schnapps on Melissa’s tongue. The exuberant fan had cornered him at the bathrooms and asked for a signature, then asked for a hug and a kiss.

Somehow it had become more than that.

He’d dragged her down this hallway to get the memory and taste of Margo out of his system and he’d almost succeeded.

Until now.

Until she’d appeared at the end of the hallway to the side door. Her bee-stung lips bright red as she scraped her teeth over the lower one, her gaze riveted on him.

On them.

The instinct to pull back and away from Melissa was strong. So much so that he forced himself to deepen the kiss.

If Violin Girl wanted to drive him crazy tonight, she was succeeding. On stage when they were so in sync, off stage when she tried to pull the veil of class over her shoulders like a shawl even with a corset and black shirt that barely covered her ass as her costume. And now here, watching him.

The lust lit her dark eyes like a gas lamp.

He hadn’t had nearly enough vodka to keep her in that shadowy, fuzzy realm that he liked to keep her.

No, he could see perfectly clearly as the blue and red lights glowed off the too pale skin of Margo’s arms and neck. And the shirt that was obviously making a valiant effort at keeping her tits in check.

Too bad the hot pink and black Oblivion shirt was stretched so tight. He might have been able to put an end to the madness until her nipples tightened under the cotton like bullets.

His grip tightened on the Melissa’s hair and she groaned in reaction. Completely into this. And he was performing.