Xane got her wet, and he got her sticky in a variety of ways. He made her come so hard she bit her lip and banged her head on the headboard twice. By the time he announced it was time to get out of bed, Dani had forgotten how to be mad at him. Actually, she’d forgotten how to do pretty much everything.
Get up? She was way too exhausted.
‘Lightweight.’ He tickled her ribs, but she didn’t even have the energy to swat him.
‘I’ll follow in a minute,’ she mumbled.
‘Yeah, right.’ He shared another champagne-flavoured kiss with her. Then he leapt out of bed and started pulling clothes out of his leather hold-all until the floor was covered in random items.
‘Aren’t you going to shower?’ she asked, watching him move out of one eye.
‘Hm, I’ll only get dirty again.’
‘Xane!’ Considering what they’d been doing all morning and what she’d witnessed him doing with Luthor last night, a bit of a clean-up ought to be a priority. The bathroom was definitely where she was planning on going, as soon as her limp limbs could be persuaded to work again.
‘Quit hollering, will you. I’m teasing. A quick rinse off will make it easier to detangle the knots from my hair.’ He stood, holding several items of clothing but wearing nothing but a pair of designer sunglasses. ‘Will you be joining me?’
Dani groaned. ‘Will it turn you on if I do?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then I’m staying here. No more sex … Can’t keep up with you.’ She was utterly pooped. The thought of shower sex, which by its very nature tended to be athletic, almost made her want to sob.
‘I’ll let you have a little break.’
‘Find Luthor and torment him instead.’
Xane climbed onto the bed again, and leaned over her on his hands and knees. He nudged his sunglasses off the bridge of his nose and up his forehead. ‘Was that a serious suggestion?’
‘Xane, I ache in places I’m not sure I knew existed a few hours ago. You’re a fiend.’ Feebly she swatted his chest.
‘But am I a fiend who’s allowed to bang Black Halo’s new drummer?’
Dani closed her eyes. To claim she was entirely comfortable with what their relationship was turning into would be an outright lie, but the idea no longer tied her in knots. Maybe it was time to accept reality. Luthor wanted to be part of their lives. Xane certainly had the hots for him, and even after the millions of kisses Xane had showered on her this morning, she could still remember the taste of Luthor’s lips from when he’d kissed her the night before. ‘Do it safely, eh?’
‘Condoms and lube.’ He went and hunted both out of his bag. Then returned and flattened her beneath his big body. ‘I love you. One of these days you and I are going to have a huge celebrity wedding and then settle down to make lots of mini-mes, OK?’
He’d said similar things once or twice now. She wondered if he did it to convince himself that’s what he wanted. ‘OK,’ she agreed, not at all sure how it would fly with Luthor, and surprised that she cared. ‘Let me know when I need to start writing invitations.’
He grinned and kissed her on the nose. ‘First I have to think of the perfect way to propose, and buy a place big enough for all the mini-mes. Better check with Luthor how he feels about kiddos too.’
‘Maybe save that conversation for a different day. It might be too soon for a three-week-old relationship.’
He pushed up onto his knees. ‘Do you think? Yeah, you might be right.’
He was like an exuberant puppy today. He certainly seemed to be floating on some sort of high. ‘That’s because he’s wired on sex,’ a niggly voice in her head said.
‘He’s drunk on champagne,’ the greater part of her subconscious insisted. Just let it ride.
The sun had long passed its zenith by the time Dani crawled out of bed and into the shower. Once presentable, she followed a thread of music and found Spook pattering around barefoot in the kitchen. His long hair was fastened at the nape of his neck, and he was wearing a pair of black denim cut-offs and a T-shirt bearing a parental advisory, explicit content label, with the words ‘So f**king damned’ graffitied underneath. He was dancing to a recent pop anthem with the oven door as his partner.
‘Ahem.’ She cleared her throat.
Spook swirled on the spot and, on seeing her, took a bow.
‘I never took you for a bubble-gum pop fanatic.’
He shrugged. ‘It’s catchy. It has some clever swangely bits.’ She wasn’t sure that was an official term. ‘And it was mastered by someone I know.’ He looked her up and down, taking his time over whatever assessment he was making. ‘You look good today. I was starting to get a bit worried that I was going to have to explain to your family that Xane had fucked you to death.’
Aw, hell! She couldn’t help it; heat washed through her cheeks, no doubt turning her hideously pink. She’d never be as comfortable about sex as Xane was.
‘I take it that all is good with the world again?’ He opened the fridge and a cupboard, took out a tall glass and some fresh juice and poured her some. ‘I think Xane’s outside if you want to go and find him.’
‘I’m good here for a moment.’ She gratefully swallowed the juice and accepted a refill. ‘Have you prepared all this food?’ It was a vast and impressive collection of dishes. Clingfilm-wrapped platters covered every available surface.
‘Totally. It was all me,’ he said, sounding deadly earnest. ‘Not really. Brix, my housekeeper, is responsible for most of it. I’m just the warmer-upper.’
She bet if he ever allowed anyone near him, he’d be far more than that.
‘Are there extra guests expected? There’s enough food here to feed an army.’
Spook surveyed the offerings with his hands on his hips. ‘Nah – I reckon most of this will go, and it’s just us, unless our illustrious keyboard player decides to show her face.’
It seemed incredible that Elspeth would even consider coming here following her crock of bullshit interview. ‘Is that likely?’ she blurted. Surely, surely, not. Why would she come to a little island where there was no place to hide, and the only people around were the ones she’d pissed off? This wasn’t an Agatha Christie novel. This had to be the last place she’d come.
‘It’s not beyond the bounds of possibility.’
‘She’d have to be deranged. Xane will throttle her.’
‘Turning up to Xane’s birthday party is kind of a band rule. So yeah –’ Spook adjusted one of the leather thongs around his wrist ‘– she might arrive. I suppose it depends what her motive was in leaking stuff to Ava March at Bang! magazine.’
Dani hadn’t realised it was the same journalist who had interviewed the band three weeks back at Roskilde. ‘Can’t you stop Elspeth coming?’ She didn’t want Xane’s birthday wrecked, not when he was so bubbly and full of life today.
Spook shook his head. ‘Not really, short of standing on the jetty and refusing to let her get out of whatever vessel she arrives in. We’ve all tried to contact her, Dani, including our manager. None of us have heard a peep in reply. If she comes, we’ll figure it out, and if she doesn’t, then it’s an issue for another day.’
She rather hoped that day didn’t come any time soon. ‘What’ll happen?’
He took a long while to respond, as if he were weighing up all the possible scenarios and reducing them to the most likely one. ‘My money is on Xane insisting she leaves. It’s what he wanted after she screwed him the first time. I’d say she’s right out of chances to redeem herself.’
‘And will you all go along with that?’ She was fairly certain that Luthor would, but Ash, Spook and Rock Giant – especially Rock Giant – she wasn’t so sure of. They might be angry with Elspeth, but they hadn’t been the primary targets of her vitriol.
‘I can’t speak for anyone but myself.’ Not that he said which way he would sway.
Dani watched Spook in contemplative silence for a few minutes while he carried on working. He was light on his feet, and his fingers were quick as they transferred items of food from baking sheets to china platters. There was something about what he’d said that was niggling away at her, as if it oughtn’t to be important but apparently was. ‘Why is turning up to Xane’s birthday party a band rule?’ she eventually asked. ‘Is attendance at all your birthdays compulsory?’
‘Six … seven … eight.’ He finished up counting out forks. ‘No.’
‘So why is Xane’s?’
‘Bit of a long story.’
‘I’m not in a hurry to be anywhere.’
He dumped the cutlery in a basket, then straightened up and scratched his neck. After a moment, he pinpointed her with his gaze. ‘I’m sure Xane must have mentioned his parents at some point, and his shitty siblings. Giving him a day to remember wasn’t a big priority for them while he was growing up. When I first met him, it used to be that he’d spend his birthdays utterly morose and getting wankered and/or laid. Being in Black Halo only exacerbated the situation. It’s very easy to get hold of both booze and women.’
‘This is your way of telling me he went off the rails?’
‘Big time. Living this lifestyle, you see a lot of naked bodies, and stuff you probably don’t want to think too hard about. Meaningless hook-ups are almost part and parcel of the job. I only saw him afterwards, Dani. Let’s just say it’s a goddamned miracle he didn’t catch something hideous.’
She chewed her lip, deeply discomforted.
‘Anyway, since then, we’ve always made sure to celebrate with him, to remind him he is loved, and he’s not alone, and he doesn’t need a string of meaningless hook-ups to get him through the day. Mostly though, we endeavour to keep him busy. We ought to have been playing in Prague tonight.’ He sighed regretfully. ‘There’s nothing quite like an enormous crowd screaming their love to you to make you feel wanted. But hey, he has you here, and that’s better than any amount of adoring fans.’
‘He has Luthor too.’
Spook nodded. ‘I know. But Luthor’s not the one he kept in bed until nearly four p.m.’
There it was again, a not so subtle reference to how much sex they were having. Either Spook was feeling horny himself today, or he was dropping hints that Xane’s behaviour was about more than simply desiring her.
‘He didn’t keep me in bed that long. I went back to sleep after he got up to go and find Luthor.’
‘All happy sailing between the three of you now, is it?’
It wasn’t. Not quite, but she was giving it a chance to work. She nibbled her lip, not sure what to say. ‘I do quite enjoy Luthor’s company.’
Spook scratched at his arm as he considered her answer. ‘If anyone else had said that, I’d know it was a euphemism for “I want to shag his socks off,” but with you I can’t quite tell.’
She made a few goldfish expressions, at a loss for words. Spook held up a finger, signalling that she didn’t need to tie herself into knots over it. ‘You don’t have to say a thing. It’s not any of my business. There are plenty of things I refuse to discuss.’
‘Like why you’re celibate.’
‘That’d be one.’
‘And the scar on your inner arm.’
‘That would be another.’
‘I have scars too,’ she said, briefly closing her eyes. She didn’t know why she’d said it, other than Spook was easy to talk to, and she trusted him not to share what she said with anyone else. ‘Xane doesn’t mind them, but—’
‘You think Luthor might.’
Her stomach flipped at the thought of Luthor seeing her undressed, but if he was going to be part of her and Xane’s world it seemed inevitable that he’d see them at some point.
‘I think he’ll ask questions that I don’t want to answer. Not because I don’t especially want him to know … I just don’t want to have that conversation again. I’d rather leave my past behind and move on.’
He gave her a sad little half-smile. ‘I understand.’
‘Yeah. Will you tell all when somebody special comes along?’
He shook his head and offered her a pastry. ‘I’m not interested in that sort of relationship.’
Dani accepted the sugary treat and popped it in her mouth. Having subsisted on a few spoonfuls of herring eggs and the aroma of champagne for most of the day, her stomach growled its appreciation. ‘Sorry.’
‘Take some more.’
She ate another couple of glazed cinnamon swirls. It was as she was licking the sugar from her fingertips that she recalled the conversation about ‘In Love Enslaved’ the previous night. Two particular lines of the song kept rotating through her thoughts.
‘Why do you hate “In Love Enslaved”?’
Spook’s back stiffened as if someone had just welded a steel rod to it. He didn’t reply. He just froze for perhaps a count of twenty, then all the tension drained out of him as if he’d pulled a plug on it. He stacked several of the readied plates and hefted them. ‘Grab a couple of things, will you, and let’s take them through. I thought we could lay them out on the veranda, since it’s such a nice evening.’
Evidently she wasn’t about to get an answer. The best thing, it seemed, was to do what he’d asked.
Dani grabbed a tray of pickles and what she guessed were some form of Swedish meatballs that Rock Giant would no doubt refer to as yak’s testicles, and followed Spook through the lounge to the veranda, where they set things down on a table covered with a Halloween tablecloth.
‘A nice picnic tea doesn’t seem very hard rocking,’ Dani remarked, trying to break the ice between them again.
‘Were you hoping it was going to be sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll?’
She shook her head, relieved he’d responded and he sounded his normal self. ‘Anything but. I’m exhausted already, and the champagne this morning was racy enough, without anyone trying to snort cocaine off me.’
His pretty blue eyes narrowed in irritation. ‘If I catch any of them with anything more hardcore than an aspirin – Ash’s prescription meds exempted – there’ll be repercussions. Nasty repercussions.’ He lifted a cricket bat from a nearby chair and swung it at knee height. ‘I mean it. Kneecaps aren’t required for playing guitar. As to the rest, music may happen, but the sex burden falls entirely upon you and Luthor, as, contrary to what has recently been written, we don’t actually party that way.’
‘I’m sure Ginny has plans.’
‘Docs have told Ash to take it easy.’
‘Oh … oh.’ She grimaced. ‘Is that why they’re sleeping in separate beds, Ash is acting like a bear with a sore head, and Ginny looked at Xane like he was cream cake the other night?’
His eyes lit with amusement over her description. ‘Could be. Not that Ash is really a bear with a sore head, more like a monkey with brass balls.’
‘You mean blue balls.’
‘Yeah, that.’
‘Because they feel down. Balls don’t actually turn blue?’
‘Starve your boyfriend of sex for twenty-four hours and take a look. Then you’ll find out.’
Laughter rolled off her tongue and she shook her head. ‘If I did that, he’d just take Luthor to bed instead.’ Curiously, that realisation didn’t hurt in the way it would’ve a day or so ago. Instead, it summoned a pretty picture of the two men entwined. ‘I think I’m going to go and find them, if that’s all right?’
Spook waved her towards the lawn. ‘It’s fine. I can manage the rest.’ He paused at the door into the lounge, and tilted his head. ‘Sounds as if they’re down by the jetty.’