he was lying about the reason he wanted to keep things quiet.
Lying to himself as much as to her.
It wasn’t about protecting her from the press. They’d get hold of the story and print their venom sooner or later. That was just how the world worked. She didn’t like it, but she did accept that invasion of their private lives was inevitable while she was dating him.
Ash was really protecting himself in case it all went wrong.
She didn’t blame him for it. She’d had enough relationships to know how bad break-ups could be, and the more crazily these things began, the crazier they ended.
Though, touch wood, it never came to that.
Ash was right for her. She wasn’t exactly sure what it was about him that so convinced her of that, she just knew it, and she’d learned to listen to her guts. If she’d done so earlier in life, then she might have avoided a whole lot of adolescent screw-ups.
OK, she was very obviously spending the night alone.
Ginny skirted the parking lot, staying in the shadows. The way out was via the security gate, and with any luck the same guy who’d been there on the way in would still be working. All she’d had to do to get past him earlier was flash him her ID card from the last gig she’d attended. He hadn’t bothered to check the date on it or anything.
He had to be new. He’d definitely been clueless. It was miraculous really that there weren’t girls clawing at the outside of the bus, but they seemed to be contained outside the wire perimeter fence.
Another car pulled up as she neared the security barrier, and Iain Willows stepped out. Damn, it looked as if the band hadn’t all arrived back together as she’d assumed. She stayed where the gloom was thickest, by the back of the security booth, and waited for him to grow tired of trying to impress groupies and slink off towards the bus. Not that he seemed in any hurry to do so. In fact the barrier lifted for another car, while Iain remained chatting.
She recognised Spook immediately. The long blond hair and his equally long stride were complete giveaways. ‘Evening,’ she said to him, seeing no point in hiding from him. Spook knew about her and Ash anyway. She reckoned there wasn’t a whole lot about Ash that Spook Mortensen didn’t know. That fact only perturbed her because she knew so damned little, not because she thought they had a major bromance going on.
Spook’s face was quietly drawn, his lips pulled into a tersely neutral expression, but he smiled when he recognised her. ‘I might have known you’d be the reason Ash hurried off so early. You totally ruined dinner.’
‘Sorry. Yeah, I guess I might have sent him a provocative note or two.’
He gave her and her outfit a quick once-over. ‘No kidding? How much of a mess have you left him in?’
She gave a dainty shrug, while fighting to keep a smile off her lips. ‘I don’t know. I had to make a quick exit because a car pulled up, and you know how desperately he wants to keep things quiet.’
‘Yeah.’ His bright-blue eyes narrowed thoughtfully. ‘Well, I’m sure he can handle one thwarted orgasm – not.’ Spook bowed his head so that his long blond hair fell forward, and shoved his hands deep into his pockets. It took her a moment to realise he was laughing. ‘OK, well, thanks for the warning. I won’t bother trying to get to sleep just yet.’
Ginny wasn’t sure what he meant by that, unless perhaps he was suggesting Ash might need to let off steam by talking or something before they turned in. Of course, her dirty mind conjured a far lewder image of the pair of them sitting side by side wanking one another. There were no grounds for thinking anything of the kind, but she prided herself on her ability to dream. Spook had seen her in the throes of passion; it seemed only fair that at some point she should see him with his composure ruffled, even if it was only in an idle daydream.
‘Tell him goodnight from me,’ she said.
‘Will do.’
Iain finally crossed the security line and caught up with Spook. ‘What’s doing?’ he asked.
‘Just collecting bedtime messages for Ash,’ Spook replied, giving her the chance to step deeper into the shadows cast by the side of the security booth. The last thing she needed was for Iain to recognise her, but luckily his gaze landed on her upper thighs and not her face.
‘Don’t the rest of us get bedtime missives too?’
‘Didn’t the fanclub outside give you any?’ she asked.
Judging by the way he scowled, the answer was a resounding no.
‘They all want to bang Xane, or seduce this guy,’ he moaned. ‘I’m not sure why celibacy’s so intriguing. It’s not like they’re going to get any.’
Spook shrugged his shoulders, signalling, at least as Ginny interpreted it, that he didn’t care what the general population thought. He was his own person, and if he chose not to engage in hanky-panky, then people were just going to have to accept that.
Too bad for the many, many fans out there who harboured fantasies of being the one he let go with. If she hadn’t already been besotted with Ash, then Spook could well have been her guy.
‘Well, he is cute,’ she said.
Iain’s come-to-me-baby smile transformed into a scowl. He coughed, fishing for a compliment of his own.
‘Your haircut’s nice,’ she responded, floundering for something flattering to say.
‘Thanks,’ he huffed, obviously not impressed with her choice of words, but fluffing the jagged layers of red and black all the same. ‘Do you want to join us for a drink?’
Spook, who was standing where Iain couldn’t see him, made a shark’s-fin shape against his forehead.
Ginny responded with the faintest of nods. Mr Willows wasn’t just on the shark; he was looking to take a bite out of her.
‘Cool.’ Iain, misinterpreting her response to Spook as acceptance, stepped forward and attempted to put his arm around her shoulders.
‘What? I mean, no …’ She slipped away from his octopus hold. There were advantages to being small in the presence of gigantic men. ‘Got to run. Baby to feed.’ The latter part wasn’t true, but it worked a treat every time. Iain’s suddenly dead arm flopped to his side. ‘Some other time,’ she added, giving him her best truly salacious smile.
* * *
By the time Iain and then Spook turned up some twenty minutes later, Ash was deep into a bottle of gin. He’d wanted whisky, but the colour reminded him of Ginny’s eyes.
It was Iain who took the bottle off him, but only so he could pour himself a drink. Spook went straight up to bed, only nodding at Ash’s attempts to apologise for ruining the meal.
‘I don’t think Xane and Dani are coming back tonight,’ Iain said, part-way through his second glass. ‘What do you say we find ourselves some fun? There’s a whole bunch of very pretty ladies hanging by the security point.’
‘Nah, I don’t fancy it,’ Ash mumbled. Yeah, he was still horny, but he
