breasts, how she dipped her head and let her loosened hair shield her from prying eyes. Her pain and embarrassment twined inside his gut. He couldn’t let the surge of people around him divert his attention, no matter how much he wanted to drag her away to a place where no one could hurt her with their careless words. He knew what that was like and hated anyone daring to harm her that way. Only the repeated clenching and unclenching of his fists stopped him from launching himself at the nearest heckler.
That shit was not going down when he was around. He could handle what they’d said—and would say again—about him. For fuck’s sake, they wouldn’t treat her the same. Not while he could beat their stupidity out of their thick skulls.
But he didn’t move. And while he watched, his anger on steady simmer, she adjusted the set list and turned it all around.
She kicked aside her stool and leaned in close to Kyle, whispering to him between numbers. He nodded and rose while she took off the virginal white sweater that had hidden her bare shoulders. She wore a dress of alternating strips of color beneath, as wild as the hair she tossed back. Then she kicked off her cowboy boots and seized the microphone. “So I’m guessing you guys want something a little rougher tonight? A little more raw?”
“Hell yeah, baby.” Came a shout way too close to Chase’s left ear.
Out of the corner of his eye, Chase noticed the club’s security guys branching out in the increasingly rowdy crowd. Things were heating up. Damn, he wished he’d thought to bring Jax tonight. He hadn’t told Summer yet about the new addition to his unnamed agency, though he would by next week’s show at The Platinum Club. She’d only told him about the surprise sudden cancellation that had led to another invitation to the club that night at dinner. For her, a week was advance notice. And hell, in the meantime, maybe he and Jax could name their agency.
Names fled from his brain the instant Kyle returned from backstage with an electric guitar. He plugged it in an amp and started to play a jarring groove that made Summer’s smile widen like the sunshine coming out after a storm. Rainbows had nothing on her, especially when a razor-tipped growl emerged from the same heart-shaped lips that had earlier caressed and cajoled the words from her soul. Now they were a screaming, sex-laced demand, full of an aggression he never would’ve known she possessed.
Barefoot, floaty dress swishing around her thighs, fingers wrapped around the microphone that became her lover, she threw herself into the song, dragging the crowd with her whether or not they were willing. Dragging him.
He’d already been half hers—three-quarters—since last weekend. The memory of her soft, giving body and her breathy moans had tormented his sleep all week. He’d awakened cock in hand too many times to count. It hadn’t touched the ache she’d caused with her mouth and her innocence and the fact that she cared. She genuinely gave a shit about him, and that more than anything else pulled him to her with magnetic force.
His lips quirked. Maybe she’d been right about the importance of peas.
She bent at the waist, crooning into the microphone as she wailed about not giving a second chance to a lover who’d done her wrong. Then she turned, shaking her ass as she strutted over to Kyle and sang at his side. Her guitarist gave a rare grin, obviously enjoying the set change. Together they added their typical soaring harmony to the grinding beat.
Chase lost track of the bodies pressing close around him. The cheers and screams disappeared. Everything faded away but Summer and the song that she seemed to be singing to him, her gaze flashing to his and away again before he could sink into its heat.
He couldn’t stop staring. His vision lasered to her sweat-sheened face, to her blissful smile, to the twist of her athletic thighs. All the while, her damn near orgasmic breathy demands filled his brain as she reached the climax of the song. Total overload.
If he had to walk right now, he’d be in fucking trouble, because his dick was so hard he doubted his jeans would even bend enough to accommodate movement. She’d done that to him, and he couldn’t even punish her for the exquisite torture. It was his alone.
Something red whizzed by his head, exploding on the stage with a frighteningly loud bang. The guitar screamed to a halt and Summer jumped back, her fear telegraphing across her face as her gaze met Chase’s.
He didn’t think, he moved. Erection or no erection, he scaled the stage and hauled ass over to her, too concerned with making sure she was okay to even care about the bastard who’d thrown the bottle. He’d handle him later.
“Did you get hit?” he demanded, stroking a hand over her hair and pulling her trembling body to his before he’d thought better of it. His grip faltered and he had to tighten his fingers to hold on to her. God, what if the same weakness occurred when he needed to restrain someone who could cause her harm?
Pushing the thought away, he cupped her cheek. His little finger had gone numb, one of his more usual symptoms. “Summer. Are you all right?”
Shaking her head, she pushed him back and pressed her lips together until they were white. Her gaze darted to the club staff already cleaning up the mess. “I’m fine. It was only a drink.” Her voice wobbled. “Looks like Hawaiian punch, for God’s sake.” She waved him away before he could argue. “Go on. I need to finish the show.”
“You’re still going to?”
“Of course I am. It’s my job.” She gave him a determined smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “It’ll take more than a kiddie drink to get me to quit.” She licked her lips and his not-so-dormant erection returned to life. “At least it tasted pretty good.”
“You’re an insurance risk waiting to happen.”
“I’m not officially employing you, remember, so you don’t have to worry about what kind of a risk I am.” She lightly shoved him away and turned to Kyle, dismissing him as effectively as if she’d slammed a door in his face.
Terrific.
Chase crossed the stage and jumped to the floor. Better this way. If she treated him like a bug she couldn’t wait to swat, maybe he wouldn’t get hard every time she spoke or smiled or breathed.
Maybe he wouldn’t recall the flavor of raspberry and chocolate on her tongue.
He fisted his hands at his sides and watched the rest of the show without making eye contact with her. He saved his visual inspections for the guys who tried to push too close to Summer. Empire’s security team kept a tight watch on things, but they hadn’t stopped what had happened earlier.
Nor had he.
For the last song, Summer went back to one of her country-pop standards. That blissed-out smile of hers returned while she and Kyle rocked their way through it. This group definitely preferred the harder-edged cuts, but they didn’t boo this time. By the final notes, they were chanting “Sunny Z” so enthusiastically that she couldn’t stop grinning as she and Kyle took their bows.
Chase waited until she and Kyle headed backstage before leaving his post. He pushed his hands in his jeans pockets and strode through the buzzing clutch of people closest to the stage. From what he could tell, most everyone had enjoyed it. He sure had, enough to lose track of his focus. His purpose for being there was to do a job—to keep Summer safe. No more, no less. And he’d failed.