Backstage Pass
Page 2

His gaze drifted up her legs and body, his face slowly tilting into view. He had features a sculptor would love: strong jaw, pointed chin, high cheekbones. Would it be presumptuous of her to examine the contours of his face with her fingertips? Her lips? She forced her attention to her hand, which gripped his wel -muscled upper arm.
“Be careful with this arm,” she said. “So few guitarists have your skil .”
He used her support to stagger to his feet. When he stumbled against her, she caught his scent and inhaled deeply, her eyes drifting closed. Primal desire bombarded her senses. Did she just growl aloud?
His strong hands gripped her shoulders as he steadied himself. Every nerve ending in her body shifted into high alert. She couldn’t remember that last time she’d been instantaneously attracted to a man.
Brian released her and leaned against the back of the booth for support. He blinked hard, as if trying to focus his intense, brown eyes on her face. “You know who I am?” he asked, his voice slurred.
She smiled and nodded eagerly. “Who doesn’t?”
He waved a hand around theatrical y, which set him even further off balance. “Every stuffed-shirt geek in the whole damned place, that’s who.”
He snarled at a gray-haired woman in a heavy cardigan who sat openly gaping at him. The woman gasped and turned her attention to her ocean blue cocktail, slurping the blended beverage through a tiny, red straw as nonchalantly as possible.
“Brian, don’t start shit,” Sed, the group’s lead singer, said.
The acidic look Brian shot at Sed could peel paint. “What? I’m not starting anything. These people al have f**k-king staring problems!”
True. They were staring. Most of them at Myrna now. Probably wondering how to best rescue her from enemy territory.
“Do you mind if I sit with you for a while?” Myrna asked, hoping to become less noticeable by sitting. She tucked the lock of hair that had escaped her hairclip behind her ear and smiled at Brian hopeful y. He stroked his eyebrow with his index finger as he contemplated her request. She knew what he must be thinking. Why would a stuffy-looking chick in a business suit request to sit with five rock stars?
Sed scooted over in the semi-circular booth and patted the empty expanse of forest green vinyl beside him. She tugged her gaze from Brian to look at Sed. Sed’s boy-next-door good looks contrasted his bad-boy, womanizing reputation. She didn’t fol ow the personal lives of the bands she admired, but even she knew Sed’s rep. His smile, complete with dimples, could ice a cake, which was likely why he covered it so rapidly with a scowl. A quick veil of indifference returned his cool status. Those darling dimples didn’t quite fit his image.
Myrna slid into the booth next to Sed, wiping her sweaty palms on her skirt as she settled beside him. Okay, I’m in. Now what?
“Are you some kind of business woman or something?” Sed leaned back to examine her professional attire. Myrna didn’t mind his twice over. “Or something. Actual y, I’m a stuffed-shirt geek. A col ege professor here at the conference.”
“No shit?” She recognized the speaker, who sat across from her, as Eric Sticks, the band’s drummer. “If I’d have known col ege professors were hot, I might have considered an education.”
Myrna laughed. She glanced up at Brian who stil leaned against the booth next to Eric’s right shoulder. Her heart gave a painful throb. God, he was gorgeous. “Would you like to sit down, Brian?”
Myrna scooted closer to Sed, her knee settling against his beneath the table. Brian col apsed on the seat beside her, lodging her between two of the sexiest and most talented musicians in the business. She’d died and gone to heaven. Play it cool, Myrna. If you start spazzing out like a fan girl, they’ll tell you to get lost. And she certainly didn’t want that. Brian leaned forward and rested his forehead on the table with a groan. It took al of Myrna’s concentration not to offer a soothing touch. She knew who he was, but he didn’t know her from Adam. Wel , hopeful y, he could tel her from Adam, but, uh…
She took a deep breath to col ect her scattered thoughts and forced her attention to Eric. She could look at him without getting al giddy, but found she couldn’t stop staring at his insane hairstyle—half-long, a center strip of short spikes, the rest various lengths and just plain strange. A crimson, finger-thick lock curled around the side of his neck. Rock star hair. She stifled an excited giggle.
“So what do you teach?” Eric took a sip of his beer, his pale blue eyes never leaving her face. Wel , maybe he checked out her chest a little, but he mostly kept his gaze above her neck.
Myrna winced at his question and lowered her eyes to the table. Any chance of her earning their respect would evaporate the moment she revealed what subject she taught. “Do I have to say?”
“Come on.”
She sighed heavily. “Human Sexuality.”
Eric sputtered in his beer. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Fuck me.”
“Wel , yeah, I guess that is my subject matter,” Myrna said, with a crooked grin. The guys laughed. Except for Brian. Unmoving, his head stil rested on the table in front of him. Had he lost consciousness?
Wasted didn’t come close to describing his current condition.
“Is he okay?” Myrna asked.
“Yeah, he’s just a little f**ked up,” Eric said.
“He’s a lot f**ked up,” said Trey Mil s, the band’s rhythm guitarist, who lounged in the booth next to Eric.
“Shut up,” Brian murmured. He turned his head to look up at Myrna. He held one eye closed as he tried to focus on her. She had an inexplicable urge to straighten his tousled, jet-black hair, which fel just below col ar-length and stuck out at odd angles al over his head. “What’s your name, Professor Sex?”
She smiled. Maybe he was interested. “Myrna.”
He chuckled. “That’s an old lady’s name.”
Or… maybe he wasn’t. She hoped she hid her disappointment wel .
Sed reached behind Myrna and slapped Brian on the back for his insult. Brian didn’t even flinch. He most certainly wasn’t feeling any pain.
Myrna shrugged. “He’s right. I was named after my great-grandmother. She qualifies as an old lady.”
Brian turned his head so his forehead rested against the table again. He swal owed several times. “I think I’m gonna be sick.”
“Eric, take him to the bathroom,” Sed said. “The last thing we need is a table covered in Sinclair puke.”