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  With a blink to clear my thoughts, I recovered my footing in the song, and when I finished, he chuckled and gave a short shake of his head, clapping along with the other patrons. The applause was surprisingly enthusiastic for a moody song, and a steady pilgrimage to my tip jar followed. Wednesday was traditionally a slower night for me, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to complain. Maybe I’d add my version of the song to the regular rotation.

  A girl writing down a request beckoned me closer to ask me if I could do some Bruno Mars, and when I’d finished answering her, I glanced up to find his table empty.

  Again.

  That fucker. Searching the crowd, I caught sight of his back just as he pushed through the front door.

  “Gonna take a quick break,” I said into the microphone as I slid my guitar onto the stand beside me, “then I’ll be back for more. Feel free to add some more requests to the basket. I’ll do ’em until that fun-busting geezer behind the bar shuts me down.”

  Howie shot me a bird as I descended the stage and hugged the wall to make my way through the crowd. I flashed him my hand to signal I’d be back in five, then shoved through the door and onto the street.

  Second Avenue at this time of night was electric cacophony. The sidewalks were packed with people, and there was a chill in the air that made me shiver in my T-shirt and layer of sweat from the stage lights.

  A glance to my left revealed nothing, but a glance to my right pinned him. Sunglasses leaned up against a building half a block down that bordered an alley, one boot braced against the wall, his attention focused on the phone in his hand. The screen lit his pouty profile as he scrolled with his thumb.

  I considered him from that distance, trying to decide if I was going to go down there to confront him and, if I did, what I’d say.

  When he glanced up and caught me watching him, he gave me that same wicked turn of a grin, and my feet starting moving forward like my dick had taken over the command center of my body.

  Sunglasses slipped around the corner out of sight.

  A throng of older women parted for me, hooting as I cut through; then I turned the corner into the alley, and there he stood a few feet inside, that dimple darker now as he smirked. He regarded me with his hands stuffed in his pockets, his shoulder against the wall a perfect mimic of how he’d stood in Howie’s that first night.

  “Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man,” he crooned as I approached. His voice wasn’t half-bad. Deep and throaty. No Bob Dylan, but on key and as sexy as the rest of him.

  “Yeah, I played you a song the other night—in case you forgot—and you ditched before I finished,” I grumbled, glancing around the empty alleyway. There were a few garbage cans at a distance next to a metal fire door, above which a floodlight flickered. Behind me, the glow and noise from Second Avenue spilled inward, but for all intents and purposes, we might as well have been alone.

  “I had to run.” He shrugged like that was an adequate explanation.

  “From dawn? Maybe a stake?”

  His brows arched above the sunglasses. “Ohhh, a vampire joke. I’ve never gotten one of those before.” Instead of being pissed, though, he seemed to find it funny, which annoyed me at the same time I felt a little like an asshole for the way his answer implied that maybe the sunglasses weren’t solely the fashion choice of a hoity-toity prick.

  I closed in and stopped in front of him, then lifted a hand, reaching for those damn glasses. It was a bold and rude gesture, but he’d been both of those things, too. “If I lift these things up, what will I see?”

  “Don’t do that.” He spoke softly as he caught me by the wrist lightning fast, the pressure of his fingers intense as he guided my hand back to my side but didn’t release me. My heart thundered and my cock throbbed in my jeans just from his touch. It’d been a weird day in general, starting with my neighbor banging on the door of my apartment at 5:00 a.m. asking to borrow some lighter fluid of all things—which I didn’t have—and progressed to the laundromat, where half of my socks had disappeared, only to be discovered in some old lady’s basket. So standing in an alleyway at dark thirty with a guy in sunglasses? Maybe par for the course.

  And yet, I was enjoying this interplay between us, so I didn’t pull against his restraint, only tilted my head to one side. He wasn’t blind obviously, but maybe he was hiding some sort of disfigurement I hadn’t caught at first glance. And I still wasn’t entirely ruling out the vampire thing. Not that he was an actual vampire, of course, but maybe he was one of those weirdos who’d taken their fascination with vamps to the extreme and pretended to be one—drank blood, sucked necks, or whatever the hell they did. It didn’t turn me off as much as it probably should have because, dammit, I found him fascinating.

  “All right,” I relented, splaying my free hand to show my intent to surrender. “What’s your name?” I asked instead.

  “Quinn.”

  “So Quinn, you came back tonight to… what?”

  He released my wrist, and I folded my arms back over my chest, rubbing my biceps against the chill. He watched me, then paused like he was reconsidering before he spoke again. “To listen to you play. Maybe lure you into an alleyway.”

  “To drink my blood,” I deadpanned.

  “Or kiss you. Either-or.” He seesawed his hand in the air like both were equally palatable options, and his ever-so-casual audaciousness almost had me smiling.

  We had a foot of space between us, yet my pulse still hammered like I was already up against him. “That’s… ballsy.”

  “Fortune favors the bold. Or so I’ve been told.” The upturn of his mouth in the dim lighting charmed me, even without the benefit of seeing whether or not his eyes were sparkling with humor. I did my best to remain stoic, but it was hard. As was my dick. This time there was no guitar to hide the evidence.

  “And sometimes the stupid. Could also just as easily favor you for a punch to those expensive shades if you’ve misread me.” I arched a brow.

  “Have I?” His smile wobbled just enough to give me a zing of pleasure at throwing him off his game.

  “Make your move and we’ll see.”

  It felt good to challenge him, like a small bit of payback for the way he’d been so sure he’d challenged me the other night with his song request. But the same foregone conclusion was in effect; I’d played the song, and as Quinn took a small, single step forward, I knew I was going to kiss him—if for no other reason than it’d be a damn good story to tell the other guys at Grim’s: my random-as-hell kiss with a vampire in a dirty alleyway off Second Avenue. Hell, maybe I could make a song out of it.

  But I forgot all of that the second he let one hand catch around my waist and the other drop to my shoulder and slide up my neck. The weight of his touch was feathery and teasing, lifting goosebumps across my throat, and his mouth met mine like a flutter of wings in the dark, that same lightness of touch in the initial contact. Savoring. Soft. Warm. I hadn’t expected that. I was expecting, at best, some sloppy, horny savagery, but no. This kiss was something I could sink into, something I could wrap myself in.

  His tongue slipped between my lips and tangled with mine. Caressing but as demanding as he’d come across in the bar. He tasted good, faintly minty. His lips were firm but silky, the kiss deepening to something tantalizing and sensual that had me reaching for him, responding with the press of my body tight to his. And fuck, that little groan that slipped from his lips was like an erotic preview of things to come. I’d had instant chemistry with strangers before, but this was something altogether different. Exponentially so.

  I wound my fingers through those tresses I’d been admiring earlier, and when I gave the ends an experimental tug, sharp and short, I was rewarded with another one of those delicious groans. A shiver raced through me that had nothing to do with the cold. In fact, I was pretty sure I was sweating again.

  I leaned insistently into him, urging him back against the wall, letting my weight settle against him, filling all the nooks and crannies with the hardness
of our bodies against each other. A tilt of his hips had his erection gliding against mine, and I drew in a shuddery breath, dropping one hand to explore the fine, firm contours of his ass and guide him against me.

  “This is incredibly weird,” I whispered, breaking away from his mouth. Being so close to him, I felt his smile more than saw it.

  “Good weird or bad weird?” he asked quietly, his lips brushing the words over my jaw.

  “Not sure yet. I’m leaning towards good weird, provided you don’t suddenly pop some fangs and tear out my throat.”

  Another one of those sultry groans came mingled with laughter that I lapped from his lips as I reached between us and brushed my fingers over the bulge in his pants.

  And then, before I lost my willpower completely to this sexy devil in sunglasses, I detached with a sudden step backward and touched the back of my hand to my wet mouth, smearing the traces of our kiss into my skin.

  His mouth went slack as he registered my retreat. “What are you doing?” he gasped out.

  “Figure I should leave before this ‘song’ ends. Make us even and all,” I replied coolly, giving him my best cocky grin. I wasn’t sure how it would hold up against one of his, but I’d had a decent amount of practice on stage.

  His lips formed a disgruntled O I answered with a wink that took a helluva lot of finesse to coax forth in my aroused state, because what I really wanted to do was go caveman on him and drag his ass deeper into the alleyway.

  He tilted his head like he might say something more, then shook it with a laugh, muttering a soft curse. Before I could change my mind, I turned on my heel and strode out of the alleyway and back to the bar.

  2

  Quinn

  Rufus Merrill had left me in an alleyway with my lips tingling from that inferno of a kiss and my dick throbbing. He’d gotten me good, because even as I stood there tucking my shirt back in, adjusting the fly of my jeans, and trying to compose myself, little tracers of desire still shot through me like comet tails. I hadn’t expected that.

  I didn’t usually bother with musicians. I’d learned my lesson long ago. They were moody egoists, and in my world, there was only room for one moody egoist. Which might have also been the reason I’d been single for months.

  I wasn’t even supposed to be at Howie’s last Saturday, but I’d had some time to kill before meeting up for a late-night drink date with another night owl my best friend, Marco, had been trying to set me up with. The date had gone fine, but I didn’t care to see the woman again. It was possible part of that was due to me not being able to get that cocky flash of a grin Rufus had aimed at me just before he’d started playing my request out of my mind. And the way his hands had tap-danced all over his guitar like Fred Astaire on speed. I’d wanted to lick the little lines etched between his brows as he concentrated, nip at that lower lip he’d tucked between his teeth. If that was the kind of intensity he gave to playing a song, good God, what might he be like in bed?

  He’d left me aching in so many ways.

  And that was why I tried to avoid musicians. Because I always fell into that trap.

  Marco called just as I stepped out of the alleyway back onto Second Avenue and began to weave through the throngs of people spilling out of the country-and-western bars.

  “There’s a disaster,” he said, as soon as I answered.

  I sighed. “No, not another. Bash or opening?” Curse me for trying to put together my annual Halloween bash and an art opening in the same fucking week. Marco, who in addition to being my best friend was also my personal assistant, was spearheading both. We’d been pulling some insane hours, which was typical for me, but Marco had reminded me earlier in the day that he did, in fact, enjoy sleep.

  “Bash. We lost our smoke machines.”

  “What? Like literally lost them?” I skirted around a pack of college kids and headed into the parking garage where I’d parked.

  “Dom misunderstood me and thought we only needed two. He promised the rest to some shindig Porter & Graves are throwing.”

  I groaned, just like I always did when someone mentioned my ex’s band.

  Marco laughed. “It cracks me up that you’re still bitter about Les.”

  “Thanks, asshole. I’m not bitter. It’s just… ugh. I fucking painted him.” So maybe I was still a little bitter. I’d been crazy about the guy. “And it was such a good piece, too.”

  “You did, and it is. Portraits are like your version of getting someone’s name tattooed on your ass. I officially forbid you from painting any future lovers until there’s some sort of formal declaration or contract in place.”

  I gritted my teeth and tried to refocus on the situation. I wasn’t really irritated about the portrait. I was irritated about being left in an alleyway with a raging hard-on. “What if you called that prop place in Berry Hill?”

  “Called ’em already—no can do.”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose and thought. We needed smoke machines. A haunted house was worthless without some gloomy fog, and I prided myself on my haunted houses. I’d been throwing this party for the last four years in my big loft space in Marathon Village, trying to make each one better than the last. We’d been setting up the haunted-house portion for a week, and it was fucking perfect. Or would be, with smoke.

  “Okay, I know who to call,” I said after a moment. “A guy named Blink. I’ll send you his contact info. Tell him I told you to call. He knows everyone and everything about this town, and he could find a damn feather in a haystack.”

  “Needle in a haystack.”

  “Right. That. Sorry, I’m distracted.”

  “I can tell. Where the hell are you? It’s loud.”

  “Second Avenue,” I admitted, and he laughed.

  “You hate Second Avenue. You consider it punishment for all your sins. What the hell are you doing down there?”

  “I was making out with a some singer named Rufus Merrill in an alleyway.”

  Marco gasped. “No you fucking weren’t.”

  “You know him?”

  “I know he’s hot. And stubborn. Amanda told me some label keeps trying to sign him and he won’t do it.”

  “Yeah, I could see that,” I said, thinking about how he’d just walked off and left me. And Amanda would know. She was a stubborn one herself. And also the sole musician relationship I’d had that hadn’t ended on a sour note. She was still one of my closest friends.

  “Let’s get back to the important part. You were making out with him? How did that even happen? I thought you swore off musicians, and you haven’t been interested in a dude in ages.”

  I unlocked my car, slid inside, and then told Marco the strange tale of my encounter with Rufus.

  “I’m pretty sure he thinks I’m a vampire,” I said at the end.

  Marco laughed. “Next time you should bite his neck.”

  “There won’t be a next time.”

  “Pfft. It’s you. Yes there will.”

  “Am I that predictable?”

  “Yes.”

  I’d meant it at the time. But as I left my optometrist’s office the next afternoon and was driving home, I passed Grim’s Records, where Rufus had mentioned working during one of his sets, and I found myself making a U-turn and going back, pulling into the beat-up parking lot. The building wasn’t much to look at from the outside, but it was a Nashville classic that seemed just as likely to survive a nuclear holocaust as a cockroach. It was a squat, oblong cinder block edifice painted white with an old rusted-out hand-painted sign stretched across the front that read Grim’s Record Repository. I hadn’t been inside in forever. Nowadays, I mostly listened to songs from Spotify when I was painting. I sure as hell wouldn’t tell Dan Grim that, though. It’d be akin to sacrilege.

  I sat in the parking lot and traded the heavy wraparound shades I wore in full daylight for the less clunky and infinitely less embarrassing Wayfarers, since twilight was approaching. After considering the wisdom of going in at all, I finally launched from t
he car before I could second-guess myself. I wanted Rufus Merrill. I only needed him for a night. Just long enough to sate the arousal he stirred in me like a dust storm on a lonely highway, and then I’d be done. He’d seemed interested enough in the alley. Never mind he’d had no problem walking away. I still figured it was worth a shot. He was a musician after all, and everyone knew musicians were hornballs. At least all the ones I’d known had been.

  As soon as I pushed through the doors, I skimmed over the packed display racks searching for Dan. He’d bought one of my canvases a year before, and we were casual acquaintances. I didn’t see him, though. Instead, a bright-eyed, light-haired twink bounded toward me with a grin. He was all light and teeth, a restless kind of energy rolling off him from feet away. If sparkles and pixie dust had shot out of his ass, I wouldn’t have been surprised. The guy struck me as peppy and cheerful to the nth degree.

  “Hey! Help you find anything?” His enthusiastic greeting was endearing enough that I smiled at him as he studied me. But the longer he stared, the more I began to feel self-conscious, and my smile faded. Rocking sunglasses at night was fine, because most people just assumed I was a holier-than-thou douche. But at this hour and inside under the blinding fluorescents overhead, I just felt like a tool. I could take them off, but that would leave me squinting heavily through my lashes, so I kept them on, shifting uncomfortably and hating that discomfort. Hadn’t I long gotten used to this by now?

  I cast another glance around before answering. “I’m not sure, yet. Is there a Rufus Merrill who works here?”

  “Ru? Yeah. He’s—” The guy paused, hesitating and looking as if I’d punctured a hole in his happy-go-lucky. “Who did you say you were?”

  “Quinn Marx, a friend.” I gave him my best nice-guy smile.

  “Oh, okay. I’m Owen. Sorry, you’ve got this whole man-in-black thing going on, and I couldn’t tell if you were here to kick his ass or kidnap him.”