Page 1 of Rush of Insanity

Chapter One

Harper Douglas eyedthe screaming fans seated around her and tried to ignore the prickle of paranoia that informed her she stood out like a flare in a sea of darkened faces. She promised herself she’d never come here again. Not to another concert. Not when the singer was Judd Hart.

The only reason she was inside the packed stadium was because of the recent dissolution of her friend’s marriage. If Nicole hadn’t been depressed and barely communicative for weeks, Harper could’ve ignored the sudden, almost tantrum-like demands to attend. She could’ve been sitting on her sofa right now, eating popcorn and pretending her last job as Judd’s stylist hadn’t existed.

Instead, she succumbed to incessant nagging from a woman who acted like a sleep deprived five-year-old in need of a Ritalin prescription and dragged her feet to a concert performed by her deliriously good looking ex. All in the name of friendship.

“Do we have to stay for the entire show?” Harper raised her voice to drown out the lyrical orgasm hitting her ears. Judd’s delicious tone was already sinking under her skin, clawing its way into her erogenous zones.

“Stop being a douche.” Nicole poked out her tongue. “Doesn’t this bring back great memories?”

Great? Of course. But did the recollection slice through her chest with the force of a rusted butter knife? Most definitely.

The man was a hypnotist. Someone who could manipulate the mind and body with a flash of those hazel eyes. She’d already spent fifteen months forcing the memories of him from her life. Some days, surviving without him was like conquering a craving for soda, chocolate, or coffee. The yearning was a constant annoyance, yet usually bearable. On others, it was like fighting the need to breathe.

Yeah, unfortunately he wasthatgood—sexy as sin, sly as hell, and as awe inspiring as Neil Armstrong’s boot imprint on the moon. Talent didn’t come close to what this man had flowing through his veins. His musical gift—his voice and his lyrics—were so perfectly intertwined that nobody could fault his perfection. It was the gentlemanly, I’m-a-lover-not-a-fighter attitude that topped it off, making fan girls swoon.

“Why do you always turn into a head case around him?” Nicole’s voice interrupted the music Harper wished she could despise. “It’s not like he can see you up here. We’re practically closer to God than we are to Judd right now.”

Hilarious. Harper rolled her eyes. Her friend would never understand the affect her ex had on her. She didn’t understand it herself. Around Judd the world ceased to exist, and in its place something new evolved. Something that made the hairs on the back of her neck tingle and all her nerves stand at attention.

All the damn time.

And nothing was ever the same again, not emotions, not sensations, even the air tasted different after a Judd high.

The worst part was becoming someone different. Harper had no control over who she was around him. He dragged the craziness out of her and jabbed at it with a sharp stick.Poke, poke, poke. The result was mind-altering, soul shattering sex, but she wasn’t sure the delirious pleasure was worth the price of her sanity.

Fifteen months ago, she’d been convinced they didn’t have a future. Not merely because she skirted psychosis in his presence, but because their lifestyles were miles apart. Only now, seeing his tempting body highlighted in stage lights, felt like a sign from the heavens. A sign she chose to ignore.

“If you wanted to come to the concert with someone willing to bounce along to the beat and scream their overachieving groupie lungs out, you shouldn’t have insisted on dragging me along.” She shifted in her chair, still endeavoring to fade into the background when a bullseye was tattooed on her forehead. “You know I’m more than uncomfortable being here.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t think you’d be this paranoid.”

Paranoid?Pfft. She’d surpassed that phase with flying colors. What Harper had now was full-blown nausea-inducing anxiety. Problem was, her feelings had nothing to do with how Judd would respond if he knew she was here and everything to do with how she would react if they came face-to-face.

Thus the basis of choosing seats that were well above the nosebleed section.

She couldn’t look at the stage for longer than sixty seconds without her belly churning. She feared her heart would break at close proximity, and that stony, undefeated organ wasn’t going to succumb after all this time. Nope. Too much time had passed since she walked from Judd’s life, and she wasn’t going to start looking back now.

It’s not like he ever did.

“How you doing tonight, Denver?”

Harper winced at the sound of his devilish drawl. The crowd erupted around her, a mass of crazed siren wails all demanding attention. It was infuriating—the noise and the jealousy it provoked. His chuckle into the microphone didn’t help, that honeyed voice seeped through every speaker to hit her hard in the vagina region.

“I’m in the mood for a game,” he announced. “Who wants to play?”

She stiffened, as if he’d spoken the words to her and her alone. He didn’t have a reputation for crowd interaction. She knew because she’d seen him perform many times. Every city and every concert in his last tour, to be exact.

She shuffled forward in her chair and peered over the top of heads to see the man she’d been trying to ignore. Her disloyal heart celebrated with painful arrhythmia.

Damn him.

He was still the stuff of fantasies. His tank was loose, exposing tanned, muscled arms. His chin-length hair was mussed, the tangled strands brushing against the barely visible stubble on his jaw like a lover’s fingers, and his drugging gaze beamed down at her from the projection screens at either side of the stage.

“Jensen, can you kill the glare and turn on the house lights?”

Oh, shit.She slunk into her chair as the stadium was bathed in a fluorescent glow. There was no way he could see her up here. But she felt exposed. Naked in front of a crowd of over fifteen thousand.

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