As luck would have it, Ginny’s new mates from Deanna Rädsla were home, catching up with their former drummer turned Black Halo roadie, when Black Halo and entourage crashed their pitch en masse. After some moments of bafflement and some rather high-pitched shrieking when Lykke got a smile out of Spook Mortensen, homebrew was served and there was soon a party atmosphere. The guys were talking guitars and the ladies about the annual nude run the festival held every year, and getting mud in one’s sensitive places, when someone knocked over a couple of empties and set a bottle spinning on the table top. Ginny immediately leaped on it. Spin the Bottle, she demanded. She loved that game, and she was sure these guys would deliver the goods. It was also the perfect way to get to know them a little better, not so much discovering deep dark secrets, more observing the way they interacted. Apart from the night she’d spent with Ash, Spook and Rock Giant in a teeny hotel room, she hadn’t really had an opportunity to unpick the people from their stage personas, and if she and Ash were serious about the future then the Black Halo guys were going to be her family.
‘I haven’t played that in years,’ Rock Giant commented, when she thought they might all ignore her.
Ash mumbled something about there being a reason for that, and this being a bad idea, but didn’t veto the suggestion outright. She did notice that most of the roadies, except for the newbie, Luthor, took it as a cue to claim urgent business elsewhere and slope off.
The strained look on Elspeth’s face made Ginny assume she’d cry off too, but instead she snuggled into a chair beside Rock Giant. ‘Pens and paper,’ she demanded of their hosts. Perhaps her glassy eyes were only a result of one too many drinks. She certainly didn’t seem to be quite the banshee Dani had painted her as.
Hanne dished out torn slips of paper. Pens were in shorter supply and took longer to travel round the group. As there wasn’t space for them all to sit in a circle inside the camper van, they tumbled out under the awning instead, where they found crates and deckchairs to sit on, and an assortment of blow-up furniture and tree stumps.
‘I’m not sure I want to play,’ Dani said into Ginny’s ear as she stretched her hand over the bowl in which the forfeits were being collected but held back from dropping her neatly folded paper inside.
‘It’s a bit of fun. What’s the worst that could happen?’
Her friend’s head turned to take in the various leather-clad figures, lingering the longest on her own boyfriend. ‘Plenty. You don’t know what these guys are like, Ginny. I’ve been living with them. They’re –’
‘– crude, lewd and competitive,’ Ginny finished for her. ‘That’s what’ll make it so much fun.’ She might not have been riding on the tour bus, but she knew a darn sight more about men than Dani did. She’d been to more than a few college parties, and rock stars were like college boys, just with more cash in their pockets. ‘Relax, Saint. I’m sure Xane will help bail you out of any awkward situations. That’s assuming the bottle even stops on you.’
It did. First spin, to Dani’s utter horror. She was visibly shaking as she drew out the first forfeit.
‘Who would you go down on?’ Dani read aloud, relief evident in her voice.
‘Like we need that answering,’ Elspeth groaned. Everyone was already looking at Xane. ‘That’s so lame. Who wrote that?’ Unsurprisingly, no one owned up.
Ginny suspected it might have been Lykke. It might also have been an interesting question if someone other than Dani had drawn it.
Paul, aka Rock Giant, was up next. He dipped his hand into the bowl with a look of resignation on his face. ‘And for the record,’ he said as he was unfolding his forfeit, ‘I wouldn’t suck any of you fuckers off, none of you wash your dicks often enough.’ He grimaced as he read the note. ‘Why do I always get these ones? Ouch,’ he complained in advance.
Elspeth snatched it from him. ‘Pluck out a single pubic hair.’ She laughed, sparking other scattered giggles.
‘That’s gonna hurt,’ Ash remarked. He gave Ginny’s waist a squeeze and dropped a kiss upon her nose. Having decided it was all right to be couply in front of his mates, he seemed eager to touch her as much as possible.
Trooper that he was, Rock Giant inched down the top of his leathers. They were already snug about his hips so it didn’t take much to reveal a few tufts of black hair. He pinched a strand, teeth gritted, but then wimped out and shook his head. ‘It’s a killer enough when they get trapped in a zip.’
‘I’ll help.’ Spook leaned across and pulled, before Rock Giant had the presence of mind to object. He yowled in response, while Spook held up the evidence.
‘That fucking hurt, man. I don’t suppose any of you ladies would like to kiss it better?’
Spook puffed the coarse hair into the wind. ‘Don’t be such a wimp. I thought you were supposed to be a rough, tough ninja warrior.’
‘Ninjitsu is Japanese. I practise Kung Fu.’
‘I hope there’s no more that involve hair pulling,’ Ash muttered to Ginny. ‘The only pubes I want involvement with tonight are yours when they get stuck between my teeth.’
‘I don’t have enough of them for them to get stuck there.’
‘That’s true. You’re all pink and soft and yummy.’ He was beguiled by the thought, and nuzzled up to her and licked her neck. The pair of them were seriously entwined by the time Iain was proclaimed the next winner.
‘Swap underpants with the person the bottle points to next.’
Ginny swore he tried to manipulate the spin so it would land facing a specific person. It might even have worked, if Xane hadn’t accidentally kicked the table leg, causing the bottle to roll into her lap.
‘I think that makes it you,’ Xane said giving her a lewd grin.
‘Sorry,’ Ginny stood and inched up the side of her skirt. ‘I forgot to put any on.’ The admission, coupled with a flash of bare buttock, earned her several claps and wolf-whistles.
‘Oh, well.’ Iain sighed grouchily. ‘Your skimpies wouldn’t fit me anyway.’
Lykke who sat next to him prodded his thigh. ‘You still need to swap. Get ’em off, dude.’
‘Off. Off. Off.’ Ash started a chorus, which actually brought a smile to his friend’s face. Ginny’s first impressions of Iain hadn’t been particularly high. He tried too hard, and ended up coming across as either sleazy or up his own arse. But since he and Ash were old friends, she supposed she ought to give him another chance. His willingness to get up and strip before a bunch of baying hounds, albeit coyly, with his back to the circle, did score him a few points. It earned him a few good-natured slaps on the back too.
‘Mind how you zip up,’ Rock Giant cautioned, while Iain’s boxers were being delivered to her.
Ginny held them up against her waist. ‘Man, these are bigger than my skirt.’ She wasn’t sure how he’d even managed to fit them under his jeans.
‘Don’t you dare put them on. I’ve seen you in enough boy pants today.’ Ash wound an arm around her leg and slipped his hand somewhere it shouldn’t be. ‘Plus, I like you all naked and easy-access.’ The tip of his finger stroked along the seam of her pussy lips, causing her to shiver and heat to pool in her groin. She tried not to be a total exhibitionist, but if he kept on doing that, she’d stand here and let him bring her off in front of everyone.
It was Dani who came to her rescue. ‘Ash, it’s you.’ She tapped him on the shoulder, whereupon he reluctantly withdrew his hand from under Ginny’s skirt to select his forfeit.
‘French-kiss the person whose birthday is next.’ A quick consultation established that was Xane, whose birthday was in a matter of weeks, much to Dani’s apparent surprise.
‘Aw, man!’ Ash didn’t seem surprised. ‘How come I always end up having to snog you?’
Black Halo’s sexy vocalist gave him an arch look from under his brows. ‘It’s the stud, and you know it.’ He limbered up his tongue, flashing his stud piercing.
‘Are you OK with this?’ Ginny clasped Dani’s hand. She knew her friend had had some major wobbles over her boyfriend’s bisexuality.
‘It’s just a bit of fun,’ she replied stiffly. ‘It’s not as if …’ Her gaze flashed across to where Luthor was sitting. ‘Never mind. I know they’re just mucking about.’
Mucking about or not, Ginny still suspected the two of them clashing lips might raise sparks, not that either of them seemed in any hurry to get on with it. ‘Forty quid says you’re too chicken.’ She nudged Ash with her elbow.
‘Babe, you’re going to be writing me an IOU.’
Ash rose from his chair and prowled around the outside of the circle to where Xane sat. He leaned over him from behind, so his long hair shrouded them as he curled his fingers into Xane’s biceps so that they pressed into the skin. In turn, Xane stretched upwards and pulled Ash down, while at the same time his hips lifted.
Oh, fucking hell! Ginny pressed her lips together to restrain what was building into a full-on need to squeal. The ladies from Deanna Rädsla weren’t holding back. Never mind sparks – Ash and Xane clutching one another like that was damned explosive. Like hottest-thing-I’ve-ever-seen, somebody-turn-on-the-fan-before-we-all-melt hot. Nor was she the only person in the circle caught up in the spell of the kiss. Every set of eyes was glued on them.
They parted slowly, trading silent secrets as they did, and not breaking eye contact until the very last moment.
Ginny folded her arms across her breasts to conceal her bullet-hard nipples. Rock Giant hid his discomfort with a strategically placed jacket, while Dani, Luthor and Elspeth sought refuge in the bottom of their glasses. The only person who didn’t look as if they were about to melt on the spot was Iain.
‘I’m not sure it was necessary to consume each other’s tonsils,’ he complained.