She's Got It Bad

Take that, asshole.

“Man, what a gig! Best night in ages!” Derek, Sugar Cane’s bass player, said as they made their way down the stairs to the change rooms.

“Zoe, baby, you rocked hard tonight,” her lead guitarist, Mikey, said. “I thought we were gonna have to beat the audience off with a stick.”

“You guys were great,” Zoe told them. “I had a good time.”

Kane grabbed a six-pack of beer from the fridge in the band room and offered them around. Zoe shook her head, reaching instead for the bottle of bourbon she’d opened before the show.

“We heard anything more about those gigs up in Sydney?” she asked as she took a pull straight from the bottle.

“Nah. I’ll get onto the promoter tomorrow, chase him down. You know what those guys are like,” Derek said.

The guys collapsed onto the saggy, stained couch in the corner. Zoe propped her butt on a table and lifted her hair off the back of her neck.

“Man, I am steaming,” she said. She could feel sweat rolling down between her breasts.

“You said it, baby.” Mikey’s gaze was fixed on her legs.

No prizes for guessing what he wanted. But Zoe wasn’t in the mood for Mikey tonight. He got way too possessive after sex and it messed with the band dynamic too much. She wasn’t any man’s property.

“I’m going to go clean up,” she said.

She hooked the neck of the bourbon bottle between two fingers and made her way down the cinder-block corridor to the pokey change room. Inside, her work clothes were draped over the back of a chair, and her makeup kit was folded open on the counter in front of the mirror. She took another pull from the bottle and eyed herself in the mirror. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth as she again imagined Liam Masters’s reaction to Vixen’s performance.

Hilarious. Way, way too funny.

Then she heard the scuff of footsteps and turned her head to see him filling the doorway—tall and dark and intense.

Her smile widened into a grin and she raised the bourbon bottle in salute to him.

“How’d you like the show?” She held up a finger before he had a chance to speak. “No, no, let me guess. You thought it was all wrong.”

He didn’t say a word, just walked into the room and pushed the door shut behind him.

Suddenly the small space seemed even smaller. Zoe took another mouthful of bourbon.

“We need to talk,” Liam said.

“Do we?”

“I want to help you out. If you need money, a fresh start. Whatever. I’ll get you whatever you need,” he said.

She slowly put down the bottle. He was offering her charity. Like she was some down-and-out junkie or streetwalker.

“Gee, thanks, Lord Liam. How good of you to come down amongst the peasants and offer your bounty. I feel so privileged, I hardly know what to say.”

His gaze swept her from head to toe.

“Do your parents know you do this kind of thing? Your brother?”

She was a little sick of the judgment in his tone.

“This kind of thing? What exactly are you referring to, Liam? My singing? My career?”

“I’m talking about putting yourself on display for anyone to look at,” he said. “Letting every man and his dog stare at you and imagine what it would be like to screw you stupid.”

She shrugged, knowing somehow that it was the one reaction that would really piss him off.

“Men can look and imagine all they want. I’m the one who decides when and what they can touch.”

She raised her chin, daring him to say more. The silence stretched between them for what felt like a long time.

“What happened to you, Zoe?” he finally asked, his voice low.

She blinked, caught off guard by the pain in his face, the sincerity in his tone.

“You left and I grew up,” she said, turning her back on him. She didn’t trust herself to look him in the eye.

She could feel him watching her as she stowed her cosmetics in her kit.

“Let me help you. For old times’ sake.”

She closed her eyes, despising herself for the way he could still make her feel. Tears threatened for the second time that day and the emptiness inside her yawned wide.

God, she had to get him out of her change room and out of her life.

It had taken her years to find a place and a persona that made it all bearable, doable, survivable. She would not let him strip her of her armor.

She let her eyelids drop over her eyes as she turned to face him, at the same time hooking one thumb into the waistband of her hot pants.

“I don’t need any help from you, Liam,” she said. “The only thing I need from any man is the one thing I don’t have myself. If you get my drift.”

She watched as her meaning dawned on him and his expression grew even grimmer.

If that didn’t get rid of her self-appointed Sir Galahad, she didn’t know what would. After all, it had worked a treat twelve years ago.

“Don’t play games,” he said. “There must be something you need.”

“Definitely,” she said. “Especially after performing. It always makes me hot.”

She fanned a hand in front of her face. At the same time, she used the thumb in her waistband to pop the stud on her hot pants. The small sound brought Liam’s gaze to her waist.

“Not interested?” she asked, finding the tab of her zipper with her fingertips.

She had a sudden flash of how it had been all those years ago, the way he’d slid his hand under the waistband of her jeans at first rather than undo her fly, how she’d had to beg him to touch her properly.

The memory urged her on as she slid her zipper down.