Page 1 of I Need You Tonight
Chapter 1
Mason
“I pronounce you husband and wife,” the minister announced as the warm fall breeze tugged at the guests sitting in front of the wooden gazebo. “You may now kiss the bride.”
He didn’t have to tell Jared twice. Our guitarist’s lips were on his new bride’s mouth faster than you could sayI want to fuck you now.And, knowing Jared, that was exactly what he wanted to do. Pushing Limits had been on the road for almost five months—the halfway mark of our tour opening for Endless Motion. With the exception of a brief visit two months earlier, when Callie and their son, Logan, joined us for a few days, Jared hadn’t fucked her in a long time. How he was surviving without a bad case of blue balls at this point was beyond me. I couldn’t do it.
Nor did I want to. That was one of the perks of being a rock star. I could get laid anytime I wanted. I glanced around at the prospects, sitting on the chairs in front of the gazebo. Unfortunately, the wedding was small, with about forty guests, and only a handful of the females were of legal age. When you factored in how many were here without a boyfriend, that left me with one. Not a bad option either. Pretty, petite, with long black hair. Beckie something. Callie used to work with her at the diner. I’d have gone after her…if Kirk, the band’s bassist, hadn’t already been eyeing her.
So that left me with no possibilities. Which sucked. Royally.
The happy couple unglued their lips from each other and stepped down from the gazebo, where I was standing with the other groomsmen (aka the members of the band). Nolan pulled his girlfriend, Hailey, into his arms and whispered in her ear. She laughed. If I’d been a betting man, I would’ve wagered those two would be married (or at least engaged) before the band hit the studio again.
At the thought of making a bet, a shiver of excitement rolled through me. I pushed it away. I couldn’t go there. Not again. I had destroyed enough people with my past gambling addiction. I was a new man. A new man who wouldn’t fall down that rabbit hole again.
My fingers unconsciously went to the tattoo on the inside of my forearm, hidden under the tuxedo:LIVE. LOVE. LAUGH.The words were in Sanskrit. Along with several other tattoos, I’d gotten that one after my stint in rehab several years ago. This one in particular was a motto I lived by every day. I lived and loved the music. And the laugh? Well…
I checked out the guests now milling around the backyard and spotted Tomas York, the drummer for the up-and-coming band Burning Wire. Perfect. I grabbed a napkin from the refreshment table. Jared and Callie’s names were printed in gold on the cream-colored paper.
“Do you have a pen I can borrow for a second?” I asked the woman next to me. Her short white hair was puffy, and she had one of those oversized purses that contained everything, including two kitchen sinks.
She smiled at me. “I’m sure I have one.” She rummaged through her purse and removed a silver pen. Classy. I took it and wrote,Hi, sexy. Your place or mine?I handed the pen back to her, thanked her, then made my way over to Tomas.
“Hey, a woman asked me to give you this.” I passed him the folded napkin.
He opened it and read the note. His head shot up and his gaze searched the backyard for the note writer. I pressed my lips together to keep from laughing out loud.
His gaze settled on Beckie, who was talking to Jared and Callie. Tomas’s eyes lit up with a lusting fire.
“Not her.Her.” I pointed at the woman who had loaned me the pen.
The heat in his gaze was instantly extinguished, and his eyes practically popped out of his head. I snickered. I couldn’t help it.
Tomas’s head swiveled to me and he backhanded my chest. “You jackass.”
I burst out laughing. “I might be a jackass, but it was so worth it.”
“For you, maybe.” He looked back at Beckie. “Do you know who she is?”
I shrugged. “Not really. She used to work with Callie.” I didn’t get a chance to warn him that Kirk might also be interested in her. Just then Kirk sidled up to her, and it was clear she was as taken by the tall, brooding former hockey player as he was with her. At least one of us would get lucky tonight. Which left Aaron and me as the only members of Pushing Limits who weren’t going to have a good fuck tonight.
Maybe he, Tomas, and I should bail on the wedding sooner rather than later and find some action elsewhere,I thought.
And I would have if Jared hadn’t been like a brother to me. All the guys in the band were like brothers to me. The only brothers I had left. No, bailing so I could get laid wasn’t the cool thing to do.
At the tug on my pant leg, I glanced down to find Logan grinning up at me. Inwardly I chuckled, knowing what the hopeful expression was for. He was hoping that I’d cuss and contribute to his swear-word jar. With the band touring, he had no one to donate regularly to it. I was the only idiot unable to control his cussing around the four-year-old. It was an expensive habit when the fine was a dollar per swear word. “Hey, buddy.”
“Play with me, Uncle Mason.” He signed the words as he spoke. Logan was deaf, but his cochlear implant allowed him to hear most things, except for music.
I crouched to his level. “Logan, do you remember my friend Tomas? He’s almost as good a drummer as I am.” And with the way Tomas’s band was gaining interest within the L.A. music scene, maybe one day they would be opening for us.
Tomas laughed. “Actually, I’m even better than your uncle Mason.”
He wished.
“You must be good,” Logan said, “because Uncle Mason is amazing.” What he meant was that the vibrations through the floor when I played the drums were amazing. Logan didn’t listen to the band’s music. He felt it.
“What do you want to play?” I asked him.
