“He’s a total sadist,” Max said, offering his coldest smile.
Toni visibly shuddered.
Uh, not happening, Max. Logan slipped his shirt on over his head, kicked his drawer shut, and rushed in the direction of his lamb in conservative clothing. He moved to stand between Toni and Max.
“Funny how Butch forgets about all the times he’s fucked things up for us,” Logan said.
He wrapped an arm around Toni’s waist and, with a stern look, telegraphed signals to Max. Not to be added to your collection of playthings.
Max chuckled and shook his head at Logan. Then he put on his wounded animal face and tugged at Toni’s sleeve to get her attention. “Toni, would you help me with something?” He rubbed his wrist brace as if he’d suffered a war injury rather than a botched carpal tunnel surgery.
“Depends,” she said.
“Could you help me fix my hair? I have a hell of a time getting it to cooperate since I can only use one hand. We’re already late. And golden boy was hogging the bathroom earlier.”
Women would pay cash money for the opportunity to run their fingers through Maximillian Richardson’s hair. Logan watched Toni for her reaction.
“Sounds like a job for Butch,” she said.
Logan could have kissed her. If he wasn’t trying to be on his best behavior, he probably would have.
Max took her wrist in his braced hand and stroked her fingers with his other. “But these are the hands I want to touch me. So soft and gentle.”
Toni stared up at Max as if in some sort of trance. The bus stopped, and Logan took Toni by the shoulders. He turned her toward the exit.
“Too late, Max,” Logan said. “We’re here. You’ll just have to go to breakfast looking like roadkill.”
“If roadkill looked like that, I’d get a job with the highway department and bring my own shovel,” Toni said under her breath.
Max chuckled, looking very pleased with himself.
Shit! Was she attracted to Max? Was any woman not attracted to Max? Logan had to regain Toni’s full attention.
“Your hands weren’t so gentle last night when they were tangled in my hair.” The second he said it, he wished he could take it back. While it effectively told Max that Logan had claimed her first, it wiped the smile from Toni’s face. She set her jaw in a harsh line. “I wish,” he added, hoping to play it off as if he’d been joking instead of bragging.
Max and Steve laughed at his misery. Dare gave him the evil eye. Logan was usually so smooth with women. What in the fuck was wrong with him?
“I guess I’m going to breakfast looking like roadkill,” Max said. He extended an elbow in Toni’s direction. “Care to join me?”
She looked at Max uncertainly for a moment and then slid her hand into the crook of his elbow. Her dazzling smile reappeared.
Logan stifled the urge to say fuck repeatedly and followed them off the bus. Their entourage of stage crew, security, and band members meandered toward the restaurant. Toni was asking Max how they’d managed to arrange having the entire place to themselves. Questions Logan wanted to answer for her.
“Sam always does things in a big way. Even before we made it, he insisted on keeping us broke by renting limos and throwing parties we couldn’t afford,” Max said.
“I’m sure you can afford it now,” Toni said.
Max chuckled. “Is that your way of asking how much money we rake in?”
Her eyes widened. “Oh no, I didn’t mean it that way at all. That would be crass.”
“We can afford it,” he said.
Logan really wanted to kick Max in the back of the knee. Why should he get to talk to Toni? Just because he was the lead singer. Bassists were important too. Logan scratched his head. Well, bassists should be important. Someone grabbed Logan’s arm and pulled him to a halt. Dare’s piercing green-eyed gaze made him feel about three inches tall.
“Will you stop?” Dare said.
“Stop what?”
“Toying with her.”
“I’m not toying with her.” Logan tossed a hand out toward Toni’s retreating form. “Max is toying with her.”
“Max won’t take it too far. You already took it too far.”
“Why? Because she was a virgin?”
Dare cringed. “I was hoping my suspicions were wrong.”
And Logan had just stuck his foot in his mouth. “Just because I took her virginity—”
“Keep it down,” Dare growled. “I doubt she wants you to broadcast that to the world.”
“I didn’t know, all right? Not until it was over.”
“How could you not know, Logan?”
He didn’t appreciate being berated and belittled by a bandmate. “I’ve never had one before.”
“Just stop thinking with what’s in your pants and try thinking with what’s in your head. If you don’t stop this now, you’re going to hurt her.”
“I couldn’t have hurt her too much. She didn’t cry or anything.”
Dare pinched the bridge of his nose as if he was talking to a toddler and his patience was at its limit. “Okay, let me try this again. You know those girls who you sleep with and they think it means you’re in love with them?”
“Yeah, naïve girls.”
“Who are the most naïve girls on the planet?”
Logan’s face fell. “Virgins.”
Dare nodded. “So unless you want her to think you’re in this for the long run, you have to proceed with caution.”
But maybe he wanted to be in it for the long run. Did the month she’d be on tour with them count as a long run? It did for him. “Got it, boss,” he said.
Once inside the restaurant, Logan was crushed to find that while Dare had been giving him advice he didn’t want or need, Toni had been seated between Max and Steve in a booth at their reserved table. It wasn’t that he wasn’t happy to see her eating with them. What he didn’t like was that she was flanked by two men who weren’t him. He was willing to undergo an experimental cloning procedure just so he could sit on either side of Toni. Reagan was sitting across from the trio chattering away about how she won their rhythm guitarist spot in a contest. Toni took notes on a napkin, her expressive eyes wide with fascination. Max was toying with a strand of Toni’s waist-length, wavy hair, but she didn’t seem to notice. Logan loved how absorbed she got by anything she was focused on. He just wished she was always focused on him.