“Spook’s in lurve,” Dani laughed.“What’s there to worry about?He likes spanking.Big deal.At least there aren’t any videos of them spanking in public places doing the rounds, like there are of us doing sexy things.They really are traumatic.”She wrinkled her nose.
Luthor sighed.“Actually, I love all those memes of you cut out of the video jerking up and down on top of a variety of objects.”Xane shot Luthor a warning glare.“What?”His lover’s smirk didn’t dim.“All right, so the original video is still the best, but—”
“But?”
“I get to see the pair of you fucking fairly often.”
Xane pushed him away, so that Luthor rolled onto his back on the mattress alongside him.“For that, your punishment will be to get to watch it again.Come here, Saint.”
Dani had just got her toothbrush out of her mouth and was doing a sassy walk towards the bed when there was a loud rap on the door.“I’ll get it.”She pirouetted, and backtracked across the lounge area.“Alle?Hey.Yes, Xane’s here.Do you want to come in?”
Xane was already off the bed and pulling on some jeans the moment he heard Alle’s name.Call it bad-shit intuition.He’d just got his fly up when the two women appeared in the bedroom doorway.“Alle?”
“Sorry.Can you come?”She said without preamble.Her skin was milk pale beneath her freckles.“It’s Spook.I don’t know what to do.”
There wasn’t time to point out to Luthor that his worryhadbeen justified, or to Dani that Spook liking spankingwasa big deal.Interestingly, Luthor got off the bed too and reached for his shorts.
“You don’t need to come with me.”
Luthor zipped up regardless, but then sat back down on the bed.Xane thanked him with a grin.One on one would be by far the best way to deal with whatever this was.
“Where is he?Has something happened?”he asked Alle.Knots riddled his waist-length hair, but he didn’t pause to untangle it.Dani thrust a T-shirt into his hands, that he failed to put on.He dropped it on the floor by the door as he followed Allegra into the corridor.
“Where’s your room?”
“His.His room,” she corrected him, nervously coiling her hair around her fingers, and kept her gaze eye-level.“It’s this way.”She took the lead to begin with, but with his longer stride Xane soon fell into step alongside her.“What happened?”
“I wish I knew.He’s broken a mirror, and I can’t get him to talk to me or put down the shard.”
“Were you arguing?”
“Us?No.I was fighting with my brothers earlier, but Spook was calm.He’s been in a weird mood, but that was because of Ronnie.”
“Fighting, where?”TheBang!marquee had been empty before Xane left the festival grounds, and he’d made sure they weren’t booked into the same hotel on arrival.
“A bar, a block away.”
“You were on the streets,” he said failing to keep his incredulousness from his voice.What the hell were they thinking?“You’re lucky you didn’t get mobbed.”
Alle sunk her teeth into her lip.“Well we almost did.”
“Hardly a surprise he’s upset then.”
He got a tight-lipped shake of her head in response.“That’s not it.There was this woman.I think she’d been talking to Ava.”
Xane halted, forcing Alle to backtrack a couple of steps when she realised.“Go on,” he prompted.
“We were ahead of the crowd, walking, and we turned the corner, and I think she must have darted ahead.It was like she tasered him.Not that she did,” she quickly added in response to the rise of his brows.“At least, I don’t think so.It was just the way he jolted in response to her.That was like he’d been hit by a ton of volts which was especially odd, because she didn’t even touch him.”
Xane already had a bad, bad feeling about this.It twisted and churned in his stomach, and had his salivary glands working overtime.
“Go on.Did she say something?You think she was one of theBang!team?”
“With them.I don’t know about her being one of them.I think she’s from here.She said his name, and something else in Swedish.”
“Okay.”He started them off walking again.He’d needed to be still to listen, but walking helped him to digest.It all sounded like it might just be a wishful fan.Oh, the joy, if that was all it was.Unfortunately, Spook’s reaction didn’t tally up with that.“Nothing else?”
Alle had to put a skip into her step to catch up.“No.Spook said he didn’t know her, but he bolted right into the oncoming traffic.It was like Ronnie’s escape all over again.He couldn’t get out of there fast enough.”
