“You’re bleeding.” The words cut like broken glass as he forced them from his suddenly tight throat. “He hurt you.”
She raised a trembling hand to her mouth and that’s when he realized she wasn’t as unaffected as she wanted him to believe. Her eyes told one story, but those blue-tipped fingers told another. A fresh wave of fury tore through him.
“I don’t think it’s my blood,” she said, after a minute. Her voice was rife with satisfaction. “I bit his lip when he tried to kiss me.”
That matter-of-fact satisfaction was what finally convinced him she was okay. “A shame you didn’t get his tongue. I’d like to see him try to explain why he couldn’t sing after that.”
“There’s no way I want his tongue close enough to me to bite, thank you very much. Besides, I don’t think he’ll be singing for a while. Or doing anything else for that matter.” She glanced over his shoulder. “Maybe we should call an ambulance.”
“He’ll be all right. I didn’t break anything.”
“How do you know?”
Because he knew what it felt like to break a bone—his own and someone else’s. Knew just how much pressure he had to exert to get the job done. And he hadn’t gone there with Max. Not because he hadn’t wanted to damage the guy permanently, but because if he’d broken bones the fight would have been over a hell of a lot sooner.
“I just know,” he finally told her, hoping she wouldn’t press.
She didn’t. Not, he knew, because she wasn’t curious, but because the specter of his past was always there between them. It was just one of the many reasons he’d kept his distance from her throughout the last decade. She was too tender-hearted. When she looked at him, empathy brimming in those crazy amethyst eyes of hers, it made him want to say things that should never be spoken out loud. Things that, once said, couldn’t be unsaid.
His dick surged at the thought of connecting to Jamison like that, only got harder as images of stripping her out of that violet dress and kissing every inch of her soft, voluptuous body blasted through his brain. But the crash of need was followed by an even stronger wave of self-loathing. This was Jared’s sister, the same girl he’d comforted after she’d forgotten her lines in the school play or broken up with her first boyfriend. He had no business thinking of her as anything but a friend.
“Where’s Jared?” she asked, bringing him back to reality with a thud.
He jerked his chin toward the dressing room Shaken Dirty had been using the last couple of days. “Come on. I’ll take you to him.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and propelled her down the hall, doing his best to be gentle. He didn’t know if Max had bruised her or just scared her, but he wasn’t taking the chance of hurting her.
As they passed Oblivious’s dressing room, he pounded on the door hard enough to be heard over the blaring music. A few seconds later it swung open to reveal the band’s nearly n**ed bass player. Each of his arms was wrapped around a different girl. “What’s up, man? You want to party?” Jake stepped back as if to let them in.
Ryder jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “You might want to check on Max.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“I just beat the shit out of him.”
“What’d you do that for?” The guy looked more surprised than concerned.
“Because he’s an as**ole.”
For a second, it looked like Jake was going to argue with him. Eventually, though, he just shook his head. “True that.” After disentangling himself from the groupies, he called, “Max f**ked up again. Someone give me a hand.”
Satisfied that there’d be no problems from Oblivious’s front—though he didn’t really give a shit if there were—Ryder moved on to his own dressing room. Of course he’d forgotten the damn key, so he had to pound on the f**king door and wait until one of his bandmates deigned to let him in.
Wyatt was the one who finally answered, a dark scowl on his face. “Where’s the fire, as**ole? I was just about to—” He broke off in mid-sentence when he saw Jamison, a dull flush creeping up his world-famous cheekbones. “Jelly Bean! What are you doing here? I thought you weren’t coming ‘til tomorrow night.”
“I wanted to surprise you guys.”
“Well, you did that.” Wyatt opened his arms and Jamison walked right into them. Wyatt gave her a huge bear hug and then reluctantly passed her on to Quinn and Micah, who were crowding him from behind.
Figuring Jamison was in good hands, Ryder headed toward the bathroom. Opening the closed door without bothering to knock, he shouted to Jared, who was in the shower, “Jamison’s here.”
“What? Now?”
“Yeah, now. And I just beat the shit out of Max Casey. Thought you should know.”
He closed the door before Jared could pick his jaw up off the ground and bombard him with questions. Then crossed to the bar in the corner and poured Jamison a shot of Patron silver. She was holding steady, but it was his experience that a shot of tequila worked wonders on frayed nerves.
By that time, Wyatt and Quinn had her settled on the sofa between them while Micah was ushering three groupies out the door. They didn’t look exactly pleased, and once they were at the door, one of them grabbed onto him and refused to go. Ryder didn’t envy him. Especially when the chick starting crying and begging him to let her stay. Seconds later, he all but slammed the door in her face. Which was rude, sure, but often necessary. Just one of the many reasons Ryder didn’t mess with groupies unless he had to.
Ryder handed Jamison the drink just as Jared burst out of the bathroom. He had a towel wrapped around his waist, but it was obvious that was all he’d taken time to do. He was still soaking wet.
Jamison didn’t seem to care as she launched herself at him. He picked her up and twirled her around before giving her a smacking kiss on the cheek. “I didn’t think you were coming until tomorrow night, Jelly Bean! I would have sent someone to bring you backstage before the concert if I’d known you were here.”
“I haven’t seen you guys play in eighteen months. The last place I wanted to be during your set was backstage. You were amazing, by the way. The crowd loved you!”
“They were a good crowd,” Jared told her.
She snorted. “For you. They weren’t anywhere near that enthusiastic when Oblivious was onstage. Or for that first band. What were they called again?”
“Eclipse.” Ryder gritted out the name from between tightly clamped teeth. “Oblivious sucks,” he sneered. Just the sound of Max Casey’s band on her lips made him want to beat the shit out of the bastard all over again.
“Whoa. What’s eating you?” Micah demanded.
Before he could answer, Jamison reached for the shot of tequila he’d brought her and slammed it back like a pro. He didn’t know where she’d learned to drink like that, but whoever had taught her had taught her well.
“It’s my fault,” she said after a second, glancing back at the door. “But believe me, I’ve learned my lesson. I am never going to try to surprise you again.”
Jared and the others looked confused, at least until Ryder told them what he’d interrupted in the hallway. Jared jumped up then, murder in his eyes, but Ryder had been expecting that.
He crossed to the dressing room door, leaned back against it as he waited for his best friend to calm down. It was going to take a few minutes. For all of them, as Wyatt, Micah and Quinn were nearly a protective of Jamison as he and Jared were. Not that he blamed them for being pissed, but the last thing that needed to happen was for them to go over and start whaling on Max all over again. Just in case Oblivious got the dumb idea to call the police, Ryder didn’t want anyone else going down for what he’d done.
“Get out of my way, Montgomery,” Jared growled.
“Not until you calm down, Matthews,” Ryder answered with deliberate insolence.
“I’ll calm down after I teach that bastard some manners.” He grabbed onto Ryder’s shirt like he was going to rip him away from the door.
“Ryder already did that.” Jamison jumped in, ducking under Jared’s arm and insinuating herself between the two of them. Which was a really tight fit considering how close Jared was standing to him—and the abundant nature of her curves. Not that he had noticed them or anything. “He took care of me,” she continued. “I promise, Jared.”
“Did Ryder break his damn neck? Because if he didn’t, he didn’t take care of things to my satisfaction.”
“He wanted to.” She raised her hands to her brother’s, started peeling them off Ryder’s shirt. As she did, she shifted and her lush ass came into contact with his dick—through the not-thick-enough fabric of his jeans—for the very first time. It felt better than it had any right to, especially considering she was his Jared’s little sister.
Hell, she was practically his little sister, Ryder told himself as he worked to tamp down the unexpected flames the contact had caused. He’d spent so much of his adolescence at the Matthews house that they were all practically family.
Sucking air in through his teeth—she smelled as good as she felt—he plastered himself to the door in an effort to get away from all that gorgeous softness. Which might have worked if he hadn’t already been leaning against the damn thing. Or if Jamison hadn’t taken advantage of the extra inch he’d managed to eek out by wiggling herself even more firmly between them.
“Let him go, Jared,” she told her brother firmly. “He’s only trying to protect you the way he protected me.”
Yeah, Jared, let me go, Ryder urged his friend silently. Because if he didn’t, in another minute they were all going to see just how non-protective Ryder was suddenly feeling about Jamison. The thought only made him feel like more of a bastard. Especially when he remembered how he’d found her, Max pressed against her, his dick cradled in the very same spot that Ryder’s was currently resting.
That thought galvanized him like nothing else could have. Out of patience, he shoved at Jared. Hard. And resisted, barely, the urge to go beat the shit out of Max all over again.
His friend hadn’t been expecting the push and he stumbled back a little. Not far, but just enough for Ryder to extricate himself from a situation that was rapidly becoming unbearable. “I took care of it,” he said as he headed back to the bar, this time to pour drinks for all of them. “That as**ole won’t be bothering Jamison, or any other woman, for a long damn time.” The words were as much a reassurance to himself as they were to Jared, and Ryder promised himself he’d have another little talk with Max in a couple of days—just to ensure he had, indeed, learned some manners.
The fight seemed to go out of his best friend at that. “I can’t stand that he touched her. I want to make him bleed.”
“Jamison already did that.”
As she explained how she’d bitten the jerk, Ryder tossed back a shot of tequila, then poured himself a second one. He could still feel her. Still smell her, all peaches and cream and rich, sweet honey. It should be illegal for a woman to smell that good. To feel that good.
Jared laughed as Jamison demonstrated the wimpy way Max had screamed when she’d bitten him. Then he crossed to Ryder and slapped him on the back. “It looks like the two of you really didn’t need me,” he said as he did his own shot of Patron. “Though I’m not promising not to deck the bastard the next time I see him.”
“Just let it go,” Jamison implored. “I haven’t seen you guys in almost a year. The last thing I want to do is spend the rest of the night talking about that jerk.”
“So what do you want to do?” Micah asked, draping a casual arm over Jamison’s shoulders. Ryder watched him with narrowed eyes for long seconds, then did the second shot. It seemed to him that lately Micah had been getting way too friendly with women he had no business getting friendly with. Just last week in Houston, he’d been draped all over Jared’s fiancée when the guitarist wasn’t around. They’d both had their clothes on, but still. Ryder hadn’t liked the looks of it—any more than he liked the looks of this. It took every ounce of concentration he had not to tell the jerk to back the f**k off.