Page 44 of Revive
Xane sucked his lip ring as he listened, but slowly started nodding. “You could have something.”
“So, I’ll find us some samples,” Alle said.
Xane shot her a look so poisonous you’d think she’d murdered his offspring. “Nah. Fuck samples. I can give you sexy groans.”
While Xane’s musical abilities never failed to impress, this had the potential to be eye-wateringly cringey. Xane stood, at which point she shot a look at Spook. “Is he really just going to groan into the mic? Cos that… I’m not saying he’s not capable,” —she was certain Xane Geist could groan sexily enough to dampen the panties of even the strictest nun— “but, it could be bad. Really bad.”
“I heard that, Ms Hutton.”
Shit!
Xane shot her a salacious grin over his shoulder. “Oh, ye of little faith.” Rather than heading into the booth where the mic stand was still set up from recording vocals, Xane swaggered over to the exit, and called through to the chill-out space. “Luth. Get in here. I need you for something.”
His boyfriend appeared a few seconds later, sporting his usual outfit of gravity-defying cargo shorts and stretched out of all proportion band shirt. “What’s up?”
Xane grabbed him by the fly. “Alle needs some sexy groans, and they always sound wank if they’re not authentic. You can help me out with that, right?”
“Sure,” Luthor replied, ever agreeable.
Xane tugged his boyfriend through to the room on the other side of the glass.
“Wait!” Alle started after them in alarm, only to feel Spook’s hand on her back the moment she was on her feet. She swirled around to face him. “They’re not going to… Jeez! They can’t. Tell him he can’t… I mean they won’t. That’s… Spook, help me out here? What are they going to do? Just kiss, right? They’re not going to do anything… anything more…”
“More?”
“Sexy?” she squeaked. “Because that would be… It’d be really unprofessional.”
Spook cocked his head to one side and squinted at her like he’d forgotten how to speak English. “How’s being authentic unprofessional?”
OMG, he couldn’t be serious. “Spook, they’re about to—” Damn, her tongue felt stuck to her teeth. “Are they about to fuck in there?”
Spook glanced through the window, where the two men were pushing one another around, circling like you might before a fight. “Yeah, probably. Definitely.” he confirmed as the two men clashed in a riot of hands and mouths.
“Fuck, no!”
Luthor’s shirt came off. Xane’s followed. They were mesmerising. And any second, zips were going to slide down. All the heat in Alle’s body seemed to flood into her cheeks.
“They can’t do that in here.”
Spook’s head turned like he was searching for aNO FUCKINGsign.
“Oh, Jesus! He doesn’t even have any underwear on. This has to stop. I can’t watch this.” She put her hands over her eyes, only to peer through her fingers immediately in order to find the switch to access the coms channel. Only Spook cupped his hand over the button, and when she tried to lever his fingers up, he made a rumbly sound in the back of his throat.
“The exit’s right there if it’s that distressing. Think I can handle the recording.” With his free hand he started the computer doing precisely that.
“But they’re…”
“Yeah. They are. And you can argue with me if you want, but I reckon that our audience would prefer authentic Xane Geist vocals on this track rather than some sample pulled out of an industry vault.” His grin grew preposterously broad. “Trust him and trust me. He knows what he’s doing,” —that much was highly evident— “and Alle, he always delivers the goods.” His eyebrows twitched, so there was no missing the innuendo.
Regardless, he made a valid point. Xane had caused her jaw to drop with his vocal gymnastics and five octave range more than once during the recording process. In addition to that, he had a knack for nailing things every take with superhuman consistency.
The mic started picking up their groans, and, holy shit, were they sexy.
“Bugger!” she dragged her hand down her face forming it into a fist before her mouth. There was no way she could stop this. Those sounds, damn. They’d work, she could already hear exactly how well they’d fit in. “Does he always sound that hot?”
Spook finally took his hand off the button. “Are you asking me if Xane always sounds like that when he fucks? ’Cause the answer’s mostly. Sometimes he’s quiet, but more often he’s expressive. You want to try living on a tour bus with him. You’d be intimately familiar with every kind of groan he’s capable of making.”
She wasn’t sure whether to be relieved he was talking about tour bus bonking rather than first-hand experience of causing Xane to make those noises. “I always figured it was a myth that band members fucked in their bunks.”
