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  Light Touch

  Neve Wilder

  Copyright © 2018 by Neve Wilder/Wilder Press, LLC

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  Cover Design: Free To Be Covers & Design

  Editing: One Love Editing

  Contents

  Note from Neve

  1. Rufus

  2. Quinn

  3. Rufus

  4. Quinn

  5. Rufus

  6. Quinn

  7. Rufus

  8. Quinn

  9. Epilogue: Rufus

  Extras

  Coming Soon

  Also By Neve Wilder

  About Neve Wilder

  Note from Neve

  Light Touch is a standalone prequel novella that introduces the Rhythm of Love world to readers, which centers around characters in the music industry. Each book will be a standalone with appearances by previous characters/couples.

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  The first full-length book in the series, Dedicated, will release in early December 2018.

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  To be notified of the release, as well as other books by Neve Wilder, please subscribe to her newsletter:

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  www.nevewilder.com/subscribe

  1

  Rufus

  Here’s a thing I didn’t realize about musicians until I was the one on stage: even if it seemed like they were staring straight at you, they were rarely seeing you.

  At eighteen, I went to my first Raging Howl show. I’d had a great fucking seat. So close to the stage I could smell the whiskey on the lead singer, Lane’s, breath as he belted out their hits. I’d been obsessed with the band since the age of thirteen, and that night the guy had looked dead at me for so long, I was convinced it was my ticket in, that after the show, his manager or a roadie would come out and find me lingering hopefully and tell me I’d been personally invited backstage. I’d wanted it so badly. Wanted to taste that sweat and lick the tips of his fingers, all metal tinged from his guitar strings. Let him push them over my tongue and then push himself inside me.

  Of course it never happened. I’d hung around until the ushers shoved me out the door, and I went home with blue balls. Lane likely hadn’t even noticed me.

  By now, I’d played enough gigs that I’d stopped seeing the crowd in front of the stage. It might look like I was staring at someone in particular, but I usually wasn’t. I was just blindly bouncing my gaze around the blur of eyes and noses and mouths, off in my own world. So I got it now. I’d probably looked over the folks packed into Howie’s tonight fifty times in the last couple of hours and still wouldn’t have been able to pick a single person out unless I made an effort to focus or the person stuck out like a sore thumb for some reason. In downtown Nashville, boots and ten-gallon hats didn’t qualify.

  But sunglasses at night? Yeah, that registered.

  I spotted the guy near the back of the bar, leaning up against the wall, all casual, polished insolence, near the dim hallway to the restrooms where a few of Howie’s can lights had burned out. Dark hair and a handsome, angular face filled in by shadows. Around him, the lively bar hummed with people making trips back to the counter, trekking between tables, or dancing, but he stood there in a perfect stillness, alone and statuesque, those sunglasses masking his gaze.

  The old Corey Hart song started looping through my head. Even with the sunglasses, it might have been easy to pass him by as some random weirdo if he wasn’t so devilishly good-looking, too. Because weirdos happened on occasion, especially at this time of night and location. Or, hell, maybe he was a vampire. He had that dark edgy thing in spades.

  The room in front of me zoomed into focus now that I was on full alert. I noticed the table closest to the stage, full of girls who were leaning into each other to be heard, Howie behind the bar pulling a tap, a dude straggling in off the street, clearly over his limit. But inevitably, my gaze kept straying back to the guy in sunglasses as if magnetized by those black plastic frames.

  Granted, it was a week before Halloween and I had plenty of friends who were celebrating early at various costume parties tonight while I tried to drill out some more tips from the heavy influx of tourists on Second Avenue. But there wasn’t anything else about this guy to suggest he was costumed up. Maybe he was trying for urban vampire? The leather coat could fit with that. Masquerading as a too-cool-for-school A&R rep for one of the labels on Music Row? I could buy that, too, in which case, also: fuck him. I’d never met a rep in the music industry that I’d liked.

  He’d been in Howie’s for an hour, though, and still hadn’t taken the shades off. Hadn’t even tipped them up, which circled me back to my vampire theory. The thought had me suppressing a chuckle, and I garbled the last verse of “Sweet Caroline.” Nobody noticed. It was nearing midnight, and most everyone packed in below the stage seemed blitzed or well on their way to a level of intoxication that would have them either reaching for a gallon of water the next day or a trash can. That was good for me, though. My tip jar was piling up, and as long as I kept churning through bar classics, I’d leave tonight with a third of next month’s rent payment.

  I couldn’t stop looking at this guy, though, tracking him to and from the bar back to the patch of wall he’d claimed for his own. There were dozens of other attractive people to look at—Nashville was full of them—but like that game I’d played on road trips as a kid where I searched for cars of a certain color, now he was all I could see. Except if he was a car, with that bone structure and sleek build, he’d have been a vintage Oldsmobile F-88, rare and expensive.

  His expression was cool and impassive, and I found it amazing how much the shades he wore fuzzed up my ability to get a read on him. I was usually pretty good at sussing out a crowd and adjusting my set list accordingly when I needed to, but I couldn’t tell if he was enjoying my music or zoning out. I reminded myself it didn’t matter either way, then leaned toward the microphone, looking out at the crowd in front of me for another place to fixate besides the rims of his shades and those high cheekbones. I found a cute blonde among the crew at that front table and gave her what Howie called my “Happy Tip Jar” smile.

  “I’ll be accepting requests for another ten minutes or so, then I’ll be taking a short break.” I paused, sketching another quick glance toward Sunglasses Guy again before I realized what I was doing and swerved back to the blonde. “So get it in now.”

  “Which end?” someone piped up from the crowd. Jimmy. I could tell by the guffaw that followed.

  “Very funny, Jimmy. Wanna get your ass up here and do some stand-up when I break?” I waggled my brows at him.

  Jimmy waved me off with a laugh, and I gave him a grin because he was a good-natured guy—a Howie’s regular whose tips alone probably accounted for no small percentage of my earnings. He said he liked that I kept showing up to play. What he didn’t know was that I didn’t really have any other options if I wanted to make rent and hopefully accumulate enough savings for some studio time in the future. I was hell-bent on not selling out to a label after a few encounters with some reps had left me soured on the whole process.

  Which meant that between pandering to the Second Avenue crowd and my job at Grim’s Records, I had to be okay with a life progress bar that moved as sluggishly as an old computer trying to download software.

  A few people came forward to tuck napkins into my request basket or bills into my jar, and I glanced down at my watch and settled back on my stool, wondering if it was too early for “Free Bird.” “Free Bird” was one
of those evergreen songs, especially in the South, but I’d picked up on a pattern over time. There was a sweet spot between 11:30 and 12:30 that would get them fired up, and the tips and requests would roll in from there. This was the shit you thought of as a bar musician; the timing of a song could mean the difference between paying rent on time or being a couple of days late.

  I picked out that blonde from the crowd again, and as I strummed a few aimless notes on my guitar, she licked her lips and gave me a suggestive smile. A quick cut of my gaze in Sunglasses’s direction showed him still attached to the wall. I decided he was unimpressed and maybe actually catching a nap. Executive call: it was “Free Bird” time.

  As soon as I played the opening chords, Jimmy whistled. It was his favorite time of night, and by the second verse, half the bar was singing along with me and swaying from side to side. That was one of the things I loved about Howie’s: his crowds almost always had good energy. Maybe because he was just a cool guy in general, an old Nashville sentinel I’d gotten hooked up with through Daniel Grim, who owned the record store I’d been working at for the last five years.

  Casting another glance toward the back wall, I thought I glimpsed a sliver of a smile from Sunglasses as I hit the third verse. Maybe not even a sliver, maybe just the thought of one, the way his mouth hardly moved. I focused on the song again, pleased to note the slew of happy faces as I let my gaze drift over the crowd. When I looked toward the back wall again, he was gone.

  Disappointment rippled through me until a black slash of movement caught my eye and I saw him picking his way around the labyrinthine sprawl of tables and chairs toward the stage, a napkin folded up in his hand. His dark hair fell in soft waves below his ears and looked infinitely touchable. The kind of hair good for twining your fingers through and tugging. I felt a twang of desire as my libido kicked into high gear, and I was glad I had a guitar stationed over my lap so the chub rearing its head wouldn’t be noticed.

  He stopped at the edge of the stage, tilting his chin to stare up at me as he deposited the napkin in the basket. I wouldn’t have minded that same sight in a more private venue, with him on his knees. I’d had zero luck in the dating department for months, so the spark of interest I felt for this guy was more akin to a bonfire the way it roared through me as I met his stare. The stage lights bounced off the surface of his sunglasses, which I could see now were Wayfarers and not knockoffs. My cock twitched with interest at this quirky, mysterious interlude on what I’d assumed would be an otherwise standard night of paying my dues as a musician.

  Then, instead of turning around and walking away, he did a curious thing: he cocked his head to one side and gave me that half smile he’d looked like he’d been considering earlier. It was a doozy. Almost a smirk, like we were in on a private joke together. And that upward hike of his eyebrow was no doubt a challenge. I didn’t need to see his eyes to read that much. Arousal stirred and settled fully in my cock at the unexpected silent flirtation.

  My fingers slipped on the strings, and I sucked in a breath as I dragged my gaze away from his face and slid back into the tempo of the song.

  I didn’t know what he’d requested, but I was curious as hell now. And also determined. Even if he’d requested Beethoven’s Ninth, I was going to play the fucker just to see how Sunglasses would react. He had to be someone in the industry. Had to be. But then, I’d been around long enough that I thought I’d have heard of him if he was in the business. And his fucking sunglasses.

  I finished “Free Bird” to hearty applause that didn’t wash over me with the same rapture of sensation it usually did. I was too focused on the damn basket, and before the applause had even died down, I leaned over and fished out Sunglasses’s napkin.

  In very neat lettering, he’d written “Classical Gas.” And then below, “If you can.”

  If you can. I almost laughed as I stuffed the napkin in my pocket, then settled my guitar back on my lap with smug satisfaction. I couldn’t help it.

  “So, I’ve gotten a request for something a little out of the ordinary—” I started.

  “Starman!” someone shouted, and I did chuckle then.

  “Nope, but if that’s in there, I’ll get to it later, I promise. Love me some David Bowie.” I double-checked the tuning on my guitar to buy some time and sought out Sunglasses. He was back at his spot against the wall, but now there was the addition of a sexy, anticipatory quirk at one corner of his mouth replacing his bored expression.

  “This is an old one. 1968, in fact. By Mason Williams, who used to write for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. He went out to Vegas for a coupla’ weeks and said he slept so little that he constantly wore sunglasses to hide the evidence.” I aimed an arch smile straight at Sunglasses. “And when he got back, he hadn’t played his guitar in a while, so he sat down and wrote this song, originally called “Classical Gasoline.” How do I know all that? He told the story to my mama, and she’d repeat it to me every time she played it for me.” Just about everyone in this city seemed to have had a run-in with some famous musician or other, and I was no different. Back in the day, my mom had been a backup vocalist and session musician for countless bands. She’d told me all kinds of stories over the years.

  I hit the opening notes, pretending to hesitate just to get a rise out of Sunglasses, who lifted a brow as I watched him. Then I launched into the song full damn force. I could knock out bar standards on automatic, hardly even aware of what my fingers were doing or that I was singing, but this song, even without lyrics, required attention because it was an epic that jumped all over the fretboard, a whirlwind that took me from one end of the guitar to the other, crescendoing and then going soft again, building and dropping back and finally coalescing into this frenzy of sound that never failed to give me the shivers and leave me breathless when I played it.

  My fingers flew on the strings in a wild dance that rendered the entire bar nearly silent.

  When I finished, there was more silence. A bead of sweat percolated and dripped from my brow to the top of my guitar, and my fingers tingled from the exertion. Then came a crackle of applause blossoming into a louder roar that soaked through me.

  I grinned, glancing up to the spot where Sunglasses had been before.

  And now wasn’t.

  A scan of the bar, then the crowd before me turned up nothing. No sunglasses, no arrogant smile. Shit. When had he disappeared? I’d gotten lost in the song and had completely missed his exit. Almost as immediately as I was disappointed, irritation flashed through me that he’d make that kind of request and then ditch out before the ending. It was rude as hell. Maybe he wasn’t in the industry after all, because that broke all kinds of musician social code in my book.

  I let out a slow exhale, telling myself to calm down. I didn’t know him from Adam, and he didn’t owe me jack. Still, that cocky smirk he’d had plastered on his face and the light refracting off his sunglasses kept coming back to me over the next three days.

  He was back for my regular Wednesday gig, which I’d been doing at Howie’s for the past two years. This time, he appeared at one of the tiny two-top tables front and center of the stage. And he was wearing his sunglasses again. He’d come in in the middle of my first set and had only refreshed his drink once. The rest of the time he’d been sitting there like an executive in some fancy club, twirling the drink stirrer straw in one hand as he watched me, his posture loose and sprawling and totally at ease.

  Obviously I was used to being watched, but something about him made me go sideways inside. I was more aware of my movements, my interactions with the crowd, and I kept waiting for him to get up again and try to challenge me with another request. But he didn’t.

  My irritation at him had faded, leaving only bald curiosity and that same sense of intrigue over his appearance I’d felt before. The longer I played, the more I got this sort of cat-and-mouse vibe between us, and instead of it creeping me out or annoying me, I found myself wanting to exploit it, see where it’d go. I had nothing e
lse to do, and it’d keep the night entertaining because, let’s face it, playing the same old beloved bar songs to intoxicated coeds and tourists got pretty stale after a while.

  As I studied him between songs, an idea came to me. I’d planned on launching into Bon Jovi’s “Living On A Prayer,” but I shifted gears and decided to go with Corey Hart’s “Sunglasses at Night,” instead. The song had been stuck in my head for days, and I’d finally sat down one afternoon and learned it. I dropped the tempo, though, and gritted up the chords so the melody dragged out sinuously and throbbed with a sense of tension that built up to a pulsating chorus. It was seductive and sexy and dark, and I kept my gaze trained on Sunglasses to see what he’d think of my teasing ode to him.

  His inscrutable expression faltered into unamused territory when I started, but as I played on, he broke into a smile that widened gradually, and it was a fucking sight to behold. He had nice lips, sensual and full on the bottom, a masculine thinness to the top. A deep dimple decorated one cheek.

  As I eased into the second chorus, he lifted his hand and tipped his sunglasses down just long enough to flash me a quicksilver wink, but it was enough to steal my breath. My timing lapsed by a beat as I hit the same string twice in a row accidentally, and it was purely the fault of his eyes. The irises were pale—so pale they were almost white, like an iceberg where it met the glacial blue of arctic waters. Mesmerizing and gone too soon. All my intentions to give him a sexy wink in return flew out the window. I probably looked shaken, which I was. And turned on.