Two hundred and eighty-seven children were taken to the school over the years. Only nineteen survived. He was one of those nineteen. They had been taught, above all else, to have complete control over their bodies. The experiments conducted had been designed to stamp out the natural libido in all of them. It had worked, until now. Until Seychelle.
He watched her, his heart doing some wild hammering and his stomach tying itself into tight knots. It was crazy how his body reacted to her. The feeling was addictive. A rush. Hot blood rushed through his veins, and little whips of lightning flicked his groin until he was full and hard and so uncomfortable, he was afraid he would embarrass himself. Sparks of electricity seemed to be flashing over his skin. He was alive when he’d been dead for so long. Inside. Outside. She crawled over him. Into him. Found a home.
That voice of hers didn’t belong with men who couldn’t play their instruments, men who were jacked up on drugs. Leaning against the wall, eyes half-closed, he could still see the golden notes scattering across the ceiling and sliding down the walls, building a net over the room. She spun magic. The crowd couldn’t see it, but they inhaled it. They drank it in and they reacted to it. It was as if the more they breathed in those golden notes, the more they needed.
He wanted his reaction to her to be because of her voice, but he knew it wasn’t. He knew it was her. He’d tasted her tears. She’d given him pieces of her soul when she took the fall for him. She’d let him kiss her. That had been a mistake. Tasting her at all had been a mistake, but he still didn’t have to make this one. He could walk out now, but he knew he wasn’t going to. He knew it was too late.
There was no way to save her. He didn’t even want to anymore. Not when he could feel like this just looking at her. She was better than any alcohol he’d tried to drown himself in. Better than any drug. She was real. That face. That mouth. That body. Those fuckin’ eyes and her voice, whispering to him. Tempting him.
He stayed still, never taking his gaze from her. He watched her body sway and then undulate to the music. She was sultry. Sexy. She was a sinful temptation. The light played over her, one moment spotlighting her and the next bathing her in shadows, nearly mesmerizing him when he caught a glimpse of those lacerations up her leg and thigh and then along her breast.
It took a few minutes before he realized he was so caught up in her voice, in the woman, in the brief glimpses of the damage on her skin that belonged to him, that he wasn’t doing his job. He was Torpedo Ink, first and foremost. His club came first. His brothers. He should be making certain he had his pulse on the room. He should know which clubs had members in the bar. Who was likely to cause trouble. Who the problem drunks were going to be. Which of the patrons considered themselves badasses and which really were. He should have been scanning the bar, the dance floor, the tables, noting who was the drug dealer and who was always stepping outside with someone.
He forced his gaze away from Seychelle and deliberately scanned the room, noting each person at or near the bar. One man on the end, a tall, dark-haired man wearing a denim vest and motorcycle boots but no colors, sat watching Seychelle, drumming his fingers on the bar top. Three members of a local rider’s club sat drinking, watching Seychelle as well. Most of the others in the bar were regulars, or they were locals, coming to dance.
Maestro leaned up against the wall next to him. “I think we’re too late. Some asshole pretend scout is looking to sign her. Her band knows he’s here and they’re pissed as hell.”
“They can’t play worth shit,” Savage observed.
“True, they’re amateurs thinking they’re cool, but the only thing they have going for them is the singer.”
“Seychelle. Seychelle Dubois,” Savage offered, without looking at Maestro or Seychelle.
There was a small silence. “You know her?” Maestro proceeded with caution.
“Yeah. I know her.”
“If you have any influence, tell her the scout is as full of shit as her guitarist. He’s trash, looking for easy money, looking to ride on her coattails. He may have a couple of second-rate contacts in the music industry, but men like him are cons. He’ll talk her into believing he can offer her a glamorous world, but he’ll just take everything she has and then dump her when he’s used her up. I saw the bastard buy drugs from the dealer.”