Peyton’s phone screen glowed, and he held his thumb over the send button, staring at the number on the screen.

It was just a phone call.

Maybe Raji might want to get a drink or something, since he was in town anyway.

This was not a stalking situation.

Stalking would be if he had been spying on her through social media or been talking to her friends, gathering information. He’d only done a little of that, just some casual, amateur stalking. Nothing weird.

Chatting with Andy about her wedding to Cadell wasn’t stalking. The subject of Raji just happened to come up, and Andy had been tipsy enough to tell him some silly stories from when they were in high school and medical school together.

On her pages, Raji posted pictures of herself in the midst of professional accomplishments or soberly participating in charitable events like the hospital’s annual Christmas party and springtime masquerade ball. She used social media as it was meant to be used: to make her high school frenemies jealous of how successful and accomplished she was.

In the pictures, Peyton noticed that Raji never stood next to the same man twice and referred to the other people as “colleagues.”

They’d had a nice time at Cadell and Andy’s wedding. Since Peyton was in town, it was perfectly normal for him to call Raji.

He let his thumb drop on the green dot on the phone’s screen.

Behind him, a cell phone rang.Chapter TenA Groupie Gets BackstageRaji stood in the dark backstage, holding her ringing phone in her hand. Fog from the theatrical effects coasted through the cones of light onstage and smelled like rotten eggs.

Peyton Cabot was turned away from her, staring at the stage and Xan Valentine, who was still singing in a spotlight with just a guitar, but he whipped around when he heard her phone.

It had been easy to think of Peyton as the safe, Old Money Connecticut preppie from Andy’s reception. He’d been wearing khakis and a white Oxford shirt.

This guy—his hair wild and his skin glowing with heat, a bass guitar still slung over his back, his white tee shirt sticking to the hard, rounded muscles of his chest and shoulders and the braided ropes of his abs, his jeans slung low on his slim hips—looked like a dangerous, out-of-control rock star.

Her phone was still ringing in her hand.

“Oops, I guess I’d better take this.” She held the phone up to her ear. “Hello?”

Peyton lifted his phone and growled, “I’m sorry. I can’t talk right now. I’m talking to the sexiest woman I know.” He tapped his phone screen and looked down at her.

In the light streaming between the long, black curtains that fringed the stage, his eyes looked darker, more emerald green than the teal Raji had been picturing the last two months when she thought about him. He asked, “So how did you get backstage?”

Raji lifted the plastic VIP pass hanging from a lanyard around her neck. “I know the band’s doctor.”

“Good,” he said.

She laughed, but she said, “I’ve had seven patients die since the last time I saw you.”

He stepped closer, his body a hard wall of muscle that rose in front of her. “Did it affect you, my little lizard-hearted surgeon? Do you need the hard comfort of a rock star to fuck all your sadness away?”

His voice was hoarse from singing backup for hours, deep in his throat, and his green eyes glittered.

Raji took a breath and said, “Nope, it didn’t affect my cold, dark soul at all. But yes, fuck me like you can make the whole world go away.”

Peyton grinned at her, and his smile was the wild grin of an uncaged rock musician whose heart still pounded an adrenaline-fueled drumbeat, manic from the stage.

He stepped closer to her, crowding her backward against a brick wall.

As aggressive as he had been in bed at Andy’s wedding, this driving her against a wall was a whole new level of dominant behavior. Raji’s heart beat faster in her chest. She had seen many actual, living human hearts, and it had made her acutely aware of her own pumping inside her ribcage and muscle.

Peyton grabbed her wrists and pinned them to the rough bricks above her head. His mouth crashed down on hers. His tongue forced her lips open and slid against hers.

Her heart beat faster.

Her mind whipped through the biochemical pathway of the adrenaline response, but his warm mouth on hers and the subtle taste of whiskey on his tongue made her moan even though everyone could see them necking.

Peyton jerked sideways.

The drummer, Tryp Areleous, was standing there, his black hair curling around his face like a dark flame. He yanked on Peyton’s arm again. “Come on, man. The cars are waiting. Time for the runner.”

Raji glanced past Peyton’s shoulder.

Xan Valentine was sprinting off the stage, holding Georgie’s hand and nearly dragging her into the wings as he ran. He roared, “Come on!”

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