I’m learning some things today about Toombs Badcock. Number one: He doesn’t judge people. Number two: He’s a good listener. Number three: Whatever happened between him and Jinx and Rax is locked down behind a steel jaw and shuttered lips. Nobody’s getting past those gates without a crowbar and a hella-big hammer. Which makes him a viable candidate for Jillian’s number one confidante position, recently vacated by ex-husband Miles.

“So, she just left when it was over,” Toombs says.

I nod. “It was like a spear to the gut watching her watching me and then her up and leaving like she did.” I haven’t disclosed the part about Miles being my ex-husband. That’s just a little more personal than I’m willing to go with Toombs, seeing as this is our first “date” and all. Maybe after he butters me up some more, I’ll be willing to spread my legs on the honesty front. He’s been a perfect gentleman, so it might not take long.

He sips his coffee. “No way to get in touch with her?”

“Oh, there’s a way.” Or, there was. “The quiet observer left a card with a phone number on it. I assume it’s hers.”

“You gonna call her?” His direct stare slices me open.

Pressing my lips together, I shake my head. “Can’t.”

“Because …?”

“I burned the card.”

“Ah.” He swirls the contents of his mug and gulps down the last bit. “You could always ask your friend for her number.”

“I could. I won’t.”

“Plenty of other fish in the sea.”

“Yeah.” Except none of them have her freckles or her voice or her attitude.

“And there’s nothing wrong with playing with a variety of people to see what works for you.”

“Nah, I think I’m all played out.” I face the window and cross my legs, suddenly uncomfortable. “I had my fun. It’s back to work now.” I glance at my watch. We’ve been sitting here for an hour. “Shit. It really is back to work. We gotta go.”

I stand and push my chair under the table.

He gets up gingerly and straightens his T-shirt. He looks like he wants to say something, but he keeps quiet.

“Jinx really hammered you, didn’t she?” I arch a brow.

He grunts as he pushes open the door and holds it for me.

“What’s that like, having a girl hit you? Jinx doesn’t strike me as the type.”

“She’s not.”

“How does that work out, then?”

“It d—” He stops himself. “It’s complicated.”

“No shit.”

We hop in the car, and I turn on the local rock station. I feel awkward, having barfed my sexual exploits from last night all over this seeming stranger who’s now on more intimate terms with me than many people I’ve known for years.

Maybe I should’ve kept my mouth shut.

“I bet it’s pretty uncomfortable to talk about this shit with me,” he says. Apparently, in addition to being a kick-ass drummer and decent guitarist, Toombs is also a mind reader.

I smile as I pull into the crowded street.

“I won’t tell anyone,” he says.

“I know you won’t.”

“Some things aren’t meant for the light. Bondage, submission, slavery … most people don’t understand it.”

“Hell, I lived a small bit of it last night, and I still don’t understand,” I say, laughing.

“All you need to know is if it feels good, do it.”

“That’s a pretty simple rule.”

“It’s the golden fucking rule.” He watches the buildings pass through the window. “As long as nobody gets hurt—damaged—you’ll be fine.” Now he faces me. “And if someone ever does damage you, come and find me. I’ll take care of them.”

God, is this what Jinx sees in him? Incredible strength despite the submission? If I weren’t a lesbian in lust with a siren, Jinx might be in for a little competition.

I shrug off his warning. “Nobody’s gonna fuck with me. But thanks.”

“It sounds so fucking cliché, but there really is a fine line between pain and pleasure.” Elbow planted against the window, he strokes his goatee and stares into space.

I sigh. “Yeah. I’m starting to get that. I didn’t think I would. I never expected to react to any of it the way I did. Just seems so foreign to me. So opposite of who I am.” I look down at my smart gray suit, designer bracelet, and neatly pressed dress shirt.

Without turning my head, I feel his gaze on me. Scrutinizing.

My heart won’t let go of its desperate need to know what I’m projecting. I hate feeling this vulnerable. I fucking hate it. But like Miles, Toombs has a way of buoying me without attracting my notice. Like an invisible life ring just under my surface. How the hell did he get in here?

“Who do you see, Toombs? Right now? Who am I to you?” I dare to ask.

“I see a strong woman with a good head on her shoulders who needs to learn how to relax.” His voice is soft. “Relaxation for people like us means letting go of everything—and I mean everything—that we cling to from nine to five and those extra hours when work bleeds over into personal time. Which, for you, seems to be pretty much every hour.”

I laugh bitterly. “Yeah. You got me there. But, if I don’t tend to all the minutiae, who will?”

He shrugs. “Nobody. So, yeah, it falls to you. But that doesn’t mean you have to take it to bed with you every night and curl around it to protect it from bad dreams. Even world leaders and Starship captains have to rest some time.”

I snap my neck to the right. “A Star Trek fan? Which captain’s your favorite?”

“Kirk. The original is always better than the remakes. In TV, movies, and music. Except for the Foo Fighters’ version of ‘Darling Nikki.’ Prince is a goddamn musical genius, but Grohl one-upped him on that song.” He beats out the rhythm on his lap, rocking in his seat, hammering out the footwork on the floorboard along the way. “‘Come back, Nikki, come back,’” he screeches like the man himself.

My laugh fills the car. “Hey, you’re pretty good. You could give Letty a run for her money.”

He flashes another smile. Wow, graced with two in one day? Lucky me.

“Letty can keep the spotlight. I’m much more productive in the shadows,” he says, and the smile fades.

It’s obvious we’re getting a little too personal for his liking, so I bring our conversation back around to the safety of Star Trek. You can’t go wrong with that. “I’m a Picard girl,” I confess. “He’s efficient. Doesn’t show a lot of emotion, yet he lets his heart out of its cage when it counts. Thinks things through and consults his staff for input. He’s proactive rather than reactive. I like those qualities.”

“Yeah, but sometimes, you just gotta space-cowboy some shit and damn the torpedoes. Fuck up the people who need fucking up, and save the day for the universe. That’s how shit gets done.” Toombs rubs his chin again. “And you can bet your sweet ass Kirk let it all hang out in the bedroom. He fucked everything with a pulse. That’s why he was so successful. He just didn’t give a shit.”

“You may be on to something there.”

We spend our last few minutes together making small talk about the record, but my mind returns to memories of Siren. Her voice as she sang onstage. Her intense blue eyes holding me down as she came in that fucked-up gold room. The riding crop simultaneously scaring the shit out of me and driving me to the edge of sexual oblivion.

I should be more like Kirk.

I park the car behind the studio.

We get out. No Rax. Not sure if that’s a good thing.

Toombs opens and holds the studio door for me. The instant we cross the threshold, a deep bass rattle jostles my cranium so hard, my teeth chatter. I look at Toombs. He looks at me.

“What the fuck?” I mouth.

He shrugs.

More low notes strike, shaking the walls.

Toombs and I follow the sounds to the live room. I snatch open the door, ready to launch into a tirade about taking care of the equipment—especially the equipment that doesn’t belong to Killer Buzz Float—but Letty stops me dead in my tracks.

Dig, if you will, this picture: Shades thumbs the strings of his bass in the corner, a call waiting for an answer. Letty leans against an amp, legs split wide, skirt hiked up, pussy exposed. The bass neck juts between her thighs like a giant cacophonous cock. As she slathers the frets in her own personal lube, the friction on the E string produces another horrific, low rumble.

“Fuuuck. Yesss …” She moans.

Oh, fuck no!

She drops the bass. It grumbles its protest with a godawful racket. Her hand takes its place as she violently flicks her exposed clit. The muscles in her thighs tighten. She grits and bares her teeth, holding her breath. Shades plays an ultra-low run, his notes rocking everything in the room, including the amp, which Letty lowers her pussy to.

Head tipped, she cuts loose an untamed scream that accompanies a spray of clear fluid rising like a geyser and gaining force with each passing second. She falls back on the amp like an overturned armadillo, legs splayed for God and everybody, and laughs under the rain shower.

What. In. The. FUCK?

Dumbstruck but quickly recovering my faculties, I lunge toward her, arm out, yelling, “No! Not on the AMP, you IDIOT!”

Sizzle. Feedback. Crackle.

Kaput!

Letty rolls off the amplifier and hits the deck. Shades loses his bass and runs over to her. I dart to the wall and yank the cord out of the socket as a wisp of smoke rises like a satisfied burp from the speaker.

“So much for staying out of trouble, huh, Letty?” I snarl. “You had one job. One FUCKING job.” Rage digs its talons into the rungs of my spine and climbs higher, growing with each step. “Why in the shit are you jilling off in the studio, hosing Griff’s equipment, and fucking it to hell?”

She has the decency to stand up and smooth her sopping skirt over her thighs. Water drips from the plaid pleats around her Vans, saturating the carpet. She looks like a cat that got thrown into a bathtub and made a quick getaway.

“Shades was looking at me all hot,” she says quietly.

I huff and cross my arms, lobbing my gaze between them. “He was ‘looking at you all hot.’ I don’t even know what that means, but if you can’t control yourselves in public, I’ll chain your fucking wrists to the walls until this record finishes.”

Toombs’s eyebrow hops. He stifles a snicker. I round on him and say, “You, hush.”

“What the hell is going on in here?” Griff enters the live room, his face a mess of angry lines.

I don’t even have the words. I gesture to the smoking amp and then to Letty, who looks sheepish for possibly the first time in her life. Griff throws his hands in the air. “I don’t even want to know. You people have been in my studio for exactly half a day, and I’m ready to turn you loose. Do you have no professionalism?” he demands of Letty.

She doesn’t answer.

“Goddammit.” He rubs his temples and storms out of the room.

I love Letty, but I’m seriously considering murdering her right now. Not only did she get an orgasm out of a blown amp that’ll cost a thousand bucks to replace, but now our producer is this close to canning us, and I know exactly no one else who will take us on for the exact reasons Letty just provided.

Smashing my lips over the retort aimed between her eyes, I inhale through my nose and let the breath out slowly.

“I’m gonna see if I can calm Griff down. While I’m gone, you two deviants will clean up this mess and find a shop vac or something to get up all this … this … vaginal fluid.” My hands kerfuffle the fuck out of themselves.

Letty wrinkles her nose. “‘Vaginal fluid’ sounds really fucking nasty.”

“IT IS!” I scream and fly into full-on flap mode.

She doesn’t even flinch at my screech. “You want me to blow Griff? It might settle his nerves.”

“No! I want you to stop fucking everything up!”

This girl. This fucking girl.

I turn on my heel and pound out of the room for a smoke so I can gather my thoughts before approaching Griff with a sincere apology. Once outside, I start to check my phone messages—the little red notification circle says there are seven, probably all work-related—but then I change my mind. Instead, I open the phone app and create a new contact. I label it Siren.

I type in the ten-digit phone number.

Save.

It’s a good thing I have a photographic memory.