Insider (Exodus End 1)

I asked him as a friend.”

A friend? Max didn’t have friends of the female persuasion.

“Toni, don’t let your guard down around the guy. He’s a total player.”

“Like you?” She turned her head to grin at him crookedly.

“Exactly like me,” Logan said. “When it comes to women, the dude has only one thing on his mind.”

She laughed. “So he is like you.”

“I’m being serious here.” Which was why he slid his hand to her full breast and gave it an appreciative squeeze. His cock stirred to life, and he shifted her slightly so he could feel her soft ass against his perpetual arousal.

“Obviously,” she said, a hint of laughter in her voice. She squirmed against him, sending unexpected waves of pleasure coursing down his length. “Can you send Steve in? I’m ready for him now.”

“What? You’d better only be ready for me.”

“I’m always ready for you,” she said, “but I have to work. I’m not even sure why you came back here. I told you I didn’t want to see you until it’s your turn.”

“It sounds like you’re letting the guys take turns screwing you,” he grumbled.

“Well, I do want this book to be authentic. That would be the fastest way to get to know all of you.”

Even though he knew she was teasing, his heart shuddered with a painful lurch.

“Don’t even joke about that, Toni.”

“You don’t think a chapter on what it’s like to sleep with each member of the band would make the book an instant best-seller?”

“Probably, but I don’t give a fuck about the success of the book.”

She turned to sit sideways across his lap and buried a hand in his hair. She stared into his eyes until his throat tightened with emotion. “You can trust me, Logan. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about.” He was such a fucking liar. “I wouldn’t want them to taint your sweet, clean pussy. It’s mine.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Oh, really?”

“Yeah.”

“I guess I’ll just have to blow them instead.” She shrugged and slid from his lap. “Go get Steve for me,” she said, and then she opened her mouth wide, stretching her jaw.

Twinges of anger made his hands clench. “You’re not blowing anyone but me.”

“What do you care?” she spat. “I’m just your friend, right?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“And all you really care about is that you’re the first guy to stick his dick in me.”

It wasn’t true—not even close to true. He cared so much about her that it scared the shit out of him. Which was why instead of telling her how he really felt, he stood from the sofa and crossed the room. He slid the door open and called into the corridor, “Hey, Steve. Toni’s ready to give you your blow job now.”

“Take it easy on her,” Max said with a wink. “Her throat’s probably still sore after the one she gave me.”

Logan glared at him, annoyed that his attempts to get a rise out of Toni had backfired. At that moment, he hated every asshole in his band.

with Steve Aimes

“I was promised a blow job,” Steve said as he plopped down on the sectional and spun to lie on his back, his bare feet on the cushion and his fingers at the waistband of his jeans.

“Knock it off,” Toni said, her cheeks flaming with embarrassment.

“So you’ll suck Max’s d—”

“I didn’t suck Max’s anything,” she insisted.

“That’s not the story he’s telling.”

“Yeah, well, he’s lying.”

“You could try playing along,” Steve said, his grin appearing upside down to her. “We just like fucking with Logan’s head, you know. I didn’t mean to insult you.”

“I’m not insulted,” Toni said. Well, maybe she had been, but she wasn’t telling him how easily rattled she was. It was bad enough that Logan realized it. “I’m just trying to be professional for this interview.”

“Is the tape rolling?” Steve asked, eyeing her recording device on the coffee table.

“Yeah.”

“Oh. Well, start asking your questions, then. I promise to keep my dick in my pants for the duration of the interview.”

She couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. He didn’t really think she was giving out blow jobs during the interviews, did he? “Uh, thanks?”

Toni was determined to stick to her script this time. Even though her scribbled note about Steve’s second ex-wife kept drawing her attention as if it were flashing in neon lights. Despite her interest in tales that had no business in the band’s interactive biography, she started with the first question.

“If you could spend a day with any musician—living or dead—who would it be and why?”

“Zach Mercer.”

“Weren’t you with him yesterday?”

“Yep. And I’d be hanging out with him today too if I didn’t have to be here for this interview.”

He didn’t sound pissed or annoyed—just stating a fact—but Toni had to dig. She couldn’t help herself.

“Are you two really close?”

Steve tilted his head back on the sofa cushion so he could look up at Toni, who was seated at the top of his head. “You don’t believe that rumor, do you?”

“What rumor is that?” She honestly had no idea.

“That we like each other.”

Confused, she scrunched her brow. “If you’re friends, you obviously like each other, right?”

“You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”

Not a clue, but she decided he’d talk more if he thought she knew what he was alluding to. “I didn’t think you’d want anything about that rumor on record.” She glanced pointedly at her recorder.

“Actually, I would like to go on the record about that rumor. I don’t know if Zach is gay. I don’t really care if he is. He’s a cool guy. But I’m absolutely not gay. I’ve been married, for Christ’s sake.”

“Twice,” Toni said, knowing he was off guard and that it was the perfect time to get answers.

“Exactly. So just because I get a little touchy-feely when I get drunk doesn’t mean I like to have butt sex with my friends. Understand?”

“Perfectly.”

“Just because assholes like to take pictures of me hanging on Zach at an after-party and post said incriminating pictures all over the Internet with memes about drummers banging each other, doesn’t mean it’s true.”

“Right,” Toni agreed. She hadn’t seen the pictures or the memes he was referring to, but she was definitely going to look this up as soon as possible.

“And just because his hand was down my pants and I had a huge boner, that doesn’t mean I’m gay. Any guy would get hard under the expert tug of Zach Mercer’s hand.”

Toni’s eyes were about to pop out of her head.

Steve snorted and burst out laughing.

Toni’s face went slack when she figured out she was being had. Well, two could play at that game. “I’ll be sure to make it perfectly clear in your section of the biography that even though you like hand jobs from Zach Mercer, you draw the line at butt sex.”

She’d expected her threat to calm Steve down a bit, but he just laughed harder. “Good one, Toni. Now, when I tell Zach about this, you’ll back me up, right?”

“Back you up?”

“He’s the one who posted the photo. Several fans said it looked like his hand was on my dick and let’s just say my drunken expression looked rather enthusiastic. Then someone captioned it with Mercer takes Aimes in his own hand. Damn thing went viral, and I’ve been catching hell for it ever since. I’ve been trying to think of a way to get back at him. If he thinks you’re going to address it in an actual book, he’ll think twice about ruining my life.”

“So this incident ruined your life? How so?”

He rotated into a sitting position and placed his bare feet on the edge of the coffee t

able. “Do you always take things so literally?”

“Not always.” But usually.

“It didn’t ruin my life, but it does annoy me.”

“You don’t think it’s funny?”

“At first it was hilarious—it’s amazing how many different ways people come up with to caption a photo—but now it’s just annoying. Pretty much anything that goes viral online ends up being annoying, and when you’re the brunt of the joke and you can’t defend yourself—”

“Why can’t you defend yourself?”

“If you feed the internet trolls, they grow and reproduce. Best to let them starve. Eventually they find something else to obsess over.”

Toni nodded. “So are you mad at Zach for making the image public in the first place?”

“How was he supposed to know people would take it the wrong way?” Steve closed his eyes and laughed. “Okay, he totally knew people would take it the wrong way and have a good time with it. He just had no idea how far they’d take it.”

“So tell me about your ex-wife.” The interview had already derailed. No sense in trying to get it back on track now.

Steve’s head swiveled, and he scowled at her, but she sat poised with pen in hand, pretending she was supposed to ask about personal matters.

“Nothing new to tell there,” he said. “Everyone knows it was a messy divorce. Bianca almost bankrupted me in the settlement, and she loves telling the press what an impossible asshole I am.”

“I wasn’t referring to that ex-wife.” Everyone knew about his divorce from America’s sweetheart. The mess had been in the tabloids for months and was still good for an occasional stirring of shit. “Unless you want to tell your side of the story.”

Steve released a derisive laugh. “Like that ever matters. I was labeled the villain on day one. Poor little Bianca. Everything I ever say about our breakup gets twisted around to make me look even worse. I just keep my mouth shut these days. Lesson learned.”

Better writers than Toni had tried to give Steve’s side of the story and he was correct—even when he wasn’t portrayed as a complete asshole, he ended up looking like one.

“I could try to put a different slant on it in the book,” she said. “Maybe we could include nice memories of Bianca with the band before your relationship got rocky.” She’d seen photos of Bianca with the band when they’d first started out. If Steve was okay with it, Toni would love to include her as part of the band’s beginnings.

“That relationship was always rocky, but we did have some good times in the beginning.”

“Can I include her in the history of the band?”

“Depends on what you include,” he said with a laugh.

“I’ll run it by you and you can give me some insider information on her part.”

“Maybe,” he said, still looking unconvinced. She knew he’d need time to digest the possibility of portraying Bianca in a good light. They’d been battling each other so long, he probably had a hard time remembering the good times. And that was what Toni was after for the book. The good times.

Shifting gears, Toni asked, “So what about your second wife?”

Steve’s face fell. “Where did you hear—” He shot to his feet and raced to the door. “I’m going to kill him. Dead.”

Toni reacted on instinct, hurrying after him and catching his hand just before he grabbed the handle to slide the door open.

“I’m sorry I asked,” she said. “I didn’t realize it was a touchy subject.”

“Not touchy,” Steve said. “Secret. Logan swore on his life that he’d never tell anyone, so that means I get to kill him.”

“Wait.” It hadn’t been Logan who’d told her.

Steve ignored her plea and slid the door open so hard it crashed into the frame with a loud bang. Like a freed beast, Steve sprang from the room with murder in his eyes.

Toni caught the astonished expression on Logan’s face just before Steve jumped on him. She could add interviewer to her list of things she sucked at. Not only had she asked only one legitimate question during their short interview, she’d managed to send her interviewee into an uncontrollable rage in mere minutes.

As no one else on the bus seemed intent on saving Logan’s life, Toni dashed down the aisle and tried to get a hand on the flailing drummer before he did permanent damage to her squirming boyfriend or justfriend or whatever he wanted to call himself.

Twenty

Logan wasn’t sure why he was suddenly caught up in a brawl, but he wasn’t about to sit there and take a punishing without retaliation. He took several punches to the ribs before he got in a single well-placed blow to Steve’s shoulder.

“You’re a dead man, Schmidt,” Steve yelled.

Logan was sure he’d done something to deserve getting his ass kicked, but hell if he could think of anything.

“What did I do?”

All the air rushed from Logan’s lungs as a body landed on Steve’s back and flattened them both to the floor. He was astonished to see a mass of long brown hair writhing about over Steve’s shoulder. Steve easily tossed Toni off his back by flipping to one side. While Logan took advantage of his opening and tried to scramble from beneath Steve, the drummer caught Logan’s neck in the crook of his elbow and squeezed him into a headlock. Already winded, Logan latched onto Steve’s forearm with both hands and tried to pry his arm loose so he could take a decent breath.

“Please don’t hurt him,” Toni cried, her hands next to his on Steve’s arm.

Technically, he was already hurt, but he didn’t feel that he was truly in danger. It wasn’t as though he and Steve didn’t regularly get into fights. True, they were usually both drunk, so the blows hurt less, but unlike Max and Dare, who preferred to talk through problems like a couple of wimps, he and Steve preferred to let off steam through their fists. Which was why everyone on the bus with the exception of Toni didn’t intervene in Logan’s impending murder.

“Why can’t you ever keep your big mouth shut?” Steve growled.

Logan’s grip loosened as his surroundings began to swim around him.

“I don’t care if you’re screwing her, she’s a goddamned journalist. You have to watch what you say to her.”

Logan racked his brain for something he’d told Toni that Steve wouldn’t want her to know about. Everything in Steve’s past was pretty much an open book to reporters already. Steve had one deep, dark secret, but Logan hadn’t mentioned the guy’s eighteen-hour marriage to Meredith.

“I didn’t tell her—” Logan gasped through his crushed windpipe.

“I don’t care if she doesn’t know the details. She knew enough to ask about it, and that’s too much.”

“Let him go,” Toni said, jerking wildly on one of Steve’s wrists. They guy had impressive upper body strength, so Toni’s attempts to save Logan’s life were completely ineffectual.

Toni switched tactics to slapping the crap out of Steve’s back.

“Ow!” he protested.

“I said let him go. He isn’t the one who told me.”

Logan’s vision tunneled. He knew he was in danger of passing out, yet he was more worried about Toni’s distress than his own.

“Knock it off,” Steve said. He released his hold on Logan’s neck so he could grab Toni’s wrists.

Gasping for air, Logan climbed to his hands and knees, hoping Toni could hold her own, because he wasn’t sure if he was much use to her in his current semi-conscious state. He tried to rise to his feet, but stumbled sideways against the sofa and ended up sitting in the middle of the floor, staring up at the ceiling because he was too exhausted to hold his head upright. Toni’s concerned face was suddenly in his line of vision.