An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

www.ellorascave.com

Icefire

ISBN 9781419916410
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Icefire Copyright © 2008 Lynne Connolly

Edited by Briana St. James.
Photography and cover art by Les Byerley.

Electronic book Publication May 2008

With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in
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Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

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This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales
is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

I

CEFIRE

Lynne Connolly

Trademarks Acknowledgement

The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the

following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

Abbey Road studios: EMI (IP) Limited
Excel sheet: Microsoft Corp
Gibson guitars: Gibson Guitar Corp.
Iron Maiden: Iron Maiden Holdings Limited
Led Zeppelin: Joan Hudson, Plant, Robert, Page, James P, Baldwin, John Aka John

Paul Jones

Metallica: James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett, and Lars Ulrich
Motley Crue: Motley Crue, Inc.
Radio City Music Hall: Radio City Trademarks, LLC
Superman: DC Comics composed of Warner Communications, Inc. a Delaware

corporation and Time Warner Entertainment Company, L.P.

Supernatural (TV program): Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc
The Grammy Awards: National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, Inc
The Premier League: Football Association Premier League Limited
The X Files: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
Tiffany Jewelers: Tiffany (NJ) Inc.
Valentino: Trans Textiles Inc.
Velvet Revolver: Velvet Revolver, Llc Ltd

Icefire

Chapter One

“No way on earth am I doing that!”
Hands planted firmly on the desk before her, Gina glared defiance at her father.
“Gina, you need to do it. I need you to do it.” Mike Russo glared back. “I have my

reasons.”

She refused to back down. “And you think I worked this hard to get an assignment

to do PR for one of the noisiest rock bands on the planet?”

“One of the best bands and the hottest British band to come over here since—oh,

since The Beatles. This is a chance to make a real name for yourself, woman. You should
grab it while it’s still on offer.”

Gina pushed away from the desk, straightened and clasped her hands over her

upper arms, feeling no consolation in the expensive wool under her palms, part of a suit
she’d bought herself, with her earnings. She owed nobody anything. Her father had to
know that if she walked out, a dozen PR agencies in Manhattan would take her in a
heartbeat. She’d been head-hunted more than once but it wasn’t her relation to Mike
that kept her here. She loved this job. At least she had, until this morning. “Dad, I can’t.
They killed Maria.”

Her stepsister, his stepdaughter. Maria, gentle, ethereal, super-intelligent, died as a

hopeless drug addict from an overdose. Her lover, Pure Wildfire’s singer Ryan
Hawthorne, had survived, although he’d taken the same quantity of the same drug. An
accident maybe, but if Maria had never gone with the band, she might be alive today.
Without meeting the band, without falling for Ryan Hawthorne, Maria wouldn’t have
become an addict and wouldn’t have died.

Mike stared at her, his dark eyes passionless. She envied his ability to separate work

and pleasure. “All the band members went into rehab after Maria died. They’re only
this big now because they gave up the drugs in favor of work. I always took the view
that the real villain was the drug dealer. Addicts are suffering from a disease, the
dealers feed it. Hawthorne was as much a victim as Maria was.” He paused, watching
her carefully.

She sighed. He was right. Deep down, that was her opinion too. It was just easier to

blame the person she knew, Ryan Hawthorne, rather than the unknown dealer who’d
supplied the drugs.

“Gina, never forget what you’re employed to do.”
“And what would that be?” She kept her tone cool. She hadn’t said yes yet.
“In this instance, to sell Pure Wildfire. Their manager is Randy Norwood and he

fired their last PR consultants. He wants us to take over. So you’ll spend some time with

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Lynne Connolly

the band, watching them and getting to know them, study what’s been done so far and
come up with a viable plan for the future, as well as continuing the campaigns that are
already under way.”

She felt her professional side click in, with questions and budgets, campaigns and

ideas. After nearly twenty years, it was almost second nature. It didn’t hurt to find out a
bit more. “Assume I know nothing. And I don’t know a lot, I’ve avoided them since
Maria died. Where are they in their career?”

Mike gave a one-sided grin. “I thought you’d come around, once you got over the

personal side.” He glanced at his notes lying on his desk. Her father was an old-
fashioned kind of guy who preferred to think with pen and paper, not the computer
screen. “Pure Wildfire plays rock and blues. Three English, two US members. You must
have heard the music?”

She shook her head. “If I have, I didn’t know it, not after the first album. I

sometimes put the radio on in the car but it’s more for the traffic news than the music.”
She turned them off whenever she heard them, too afraid she’d actually like the music.
She didn’t want anything to do with the band, but now they’d become more popular in
the States, it was getting harder to avoid them.

“You should keep current.”
“I do!” she protested, before she saw the teasing glint in his eyes. She waved a

lackluster hand in his direction. “Go on. Tell me about the band.”

She knew her attempt at indifference hadn’t fooled him for a minute. How could it?

She’d watched their fortunes ever since Maria died. She lied when she said she didn’t
know their music too well but for the last two years she’d done her best to ignore them.
That was when Pure Wildfire had really become the hottest rock band in years. Good
luck to them, she’d thought, mourning the loss of the gentle, laughing girl she’d loved.

She’d felt happier ignoring Pure Wildfire’s success. Even when their posters were

stuck all over spaces in New York, legal and illegal. Even when they featured in the
Grammys, the telethons and the other parade of promotions necessary these days for
success. Even when the last album, their third, topped every chart.

No. She was better pretending she didn’t know them, that Pure Wildfire was just

another trend, another band. And now Mike, knowing her weakness, was forcing her to
face it. Just as he’d forced her to face every difficulty in her life. She wasn’t fooled. This
was more of his tough love stuff.

So she listened, knowing the result was inevitable. She’d take the gig.
“The third album is doing better than the first two combined. Sunfire, the Pure

Wildfire live album and now Icefire. Now they’re knocking America dead. Halfway
through a short nationwide tour, they’re doing a few dates here and then flying south
for another concert and a video shoot. Big arenas, Gina. Corinne Hawthorne is
supposed to be the catalyst that made the third album so good and she’s certainly a gift
for us. She and Aidan have had a baby and they’re bringing it on tour. You have an
angle there, Gina. The baby’s proving controversial. Rock bands tend to keep their kids

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Icefire

and families apart. They’re staying at the best hotels and they have two nannies to take
care of the baby when Corinne’s onstage or rehearsing. She and Splinter—Aidan—are
obviously in love and both adore the child but Aidan’s never lost his wild man image.
Weird.”

The pictures of Aidan Hawthorne stripped to the waist, long, bright red hair falling

in a silken swath to his hips, guitar slung low, seemingly a part of his body, didn’t
encourage anyone to think of him as tamed in any way. Much less when he spooned
behind his wife, the second guitarist with the band, one hand on her guitar strings, the
other cupping a breast and Corinne, leaning back into him with ecstasy on her face.
That was one picture Gina hadn’t been able to ignore, plastered as it was over some of
the prime billboard sites on her way in to work. The image the band was using to
promote Icefire and it was a good one.

But Mike was right. She could use that angle. Whip up a controversy, get them

some airtime and then deflate it by interviewing the two nannies to show how well the
childcare facilities actually were.

“I thought you liked music,” Mike’s voice gentled to placatory and only Gina knew

how much that cost him. Mike Russo didn’t usually placate.

“I do, in its place. But not if it deafens me. And in any case, you know that’s not the

point.” She turned away but swung back immediately, unashamed of the tears
dampening her eyes and threatening to play havoc with her carefully applied makeup.
“You want me to work for the band that killed Maria. Your stepdaughter, Mike, in case
you’d forgotten.”

Mike’s expression didn’t change. His craggy face hardened very slightly but only

someone who knew him as well as Gina would have noticed. “I haven’t forgotten.
That’s why I want you to take the job and not anyone else in the company.”

“Why?” She stopped her agitated striding and swung around to face him, suspicion

sharp in her mind. “What is it, Dad?”

He heaved a heavy sigh and indicated the chair before his desk. “Sit down.”
She took the seat and stared at Mike, waiting for his explanation.
“There are two reasons. The first is that you’re letting this cripple your career. You

have to be current, Gina, and you’re not. You avoid music, I’ve seen you turn off the
radio. Russo’s is taking on more bands, we’re making a name for it and if you’re not
careful you’ll be left behind. Normally I’d say go with it, take the other accounts but I
think Maria’s death has become an obsession. You have to leave it behind and the only
way you’ll do that is to confront what you’re afraid of. Meet Ryan Hawthorne. He’s not
a monster, Gina, he’s a human being. Flawed, sure, he’s made some stupid mistakes but
he took those drugs too and he nearly died. You faced all your other problems head-on
and I don’t like seeing my girl avoiding this one. So stop demonizing them and meet
them. If you can’t work with them, that’s different but make sure it’s for a business
reason, not a personal one.”

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Lynne Connolly

She couldn’t meet his eyes because she knew he was right. Staring at her hands

tightly clasped in her lap, Gina forced herself to admit that yes, Maria’s death was with
her every day, yes, she’d allowed it to affect what she did and how she worked. She
forced herself to look up. “You said there were two reasons.”

“Yeah.” Mike grimaced, then settled down to his usual urbane self. “I don’t think

Maria died of a simple overdose.”

Gina blinked, her mind reeling with shock. “Maria was an addict. Anything she

could get hold of, she’d inject. So while it might not have been simple, she died from a
drug overdose.”

Mike’s mouth settled into a grim line. “Sure it was an overdose. And her partner

nearly died too. God knows how he survived. I took a look at the coroner’s report. It’s
taken me this long to get hold of it, five years after her death.”

She frowned. “I saw it at the time. The death certificate and the coroner’s report.”
“You would have thought so. There was another report, one we didn’t get to see.

Not an official one.”

Gina sat back, all her breath gone. “A cover-up? Tell me.”
“I always thought something wasn’t quite right, just a feeling, nothing that I had

any proof about.”

Mike glanced at her face, his expression shielded. “I received some anonymous

letters that contained very weird stuff, saying that Maria’s boyfriend wasn’t quite
human. I put them down to the weird ramblings of addicts or someone who hated the
band.”

He frowned. “The letters disappeared when my apartment was burglarized and the

thieves took nothing else. The police said the burglars were disturbed but why didn’t
they grab a laptop on their way out, or one of the paintings? No, they took the letters,
the ones I’d discounted. So I got suspicious and I went looking. Eventually I got a hold
of the original coroner’s report, the one that never reached the courts.”

Gina stared at him, startled. Mike had never told her any of this before.
“Maria died of an overdose all right but the authorities questioned the drugs they

found in her. Heroin, sure, they found that but they found other stuff too. The report I
got, the report in public record, doesn’t mention anything other than heroin.”

“What drugs?”
He spread his hands helplessly. “Not identified. Unless I want to spend a

bucketload of money and give up this business, I don’t think I’ll ever find out much
more. The coroner’s report cost a fortune to get hold of and it took me a lot of digging
around to get it. But the fact that they hid the first report sends up warning flags.” He
shrugged. “Just questions but if you’re working with the band, you can ask more,
maybe find out more.”

That put a different angle on working with Pure Wildfire. Could she do this? It had

been five years since Maria died and the pain wasn’t as sharp now but Mike was right.

8

Icefire

Gina always had the feeling that something wasn’t quite right about Maria’s death. The
explanations were too pat, too staged for her liking. But although she and Mike had dug
into any reports they found, flown over to England and stirred the authorities there into
action, the inquest had returned a verdict of accidental death and the authorities
dropped the case. This might be her chance to find out what really happened.

A knock fell on the office door.
“Come!”
Well, today was just full of surprises. The door opened to reveal a man Gina hadn’t

seen for years. An old friend from childhood, she’d cut the friendship when he’d taken
up the same madness that had killed her sister. Sonny had stuck with the band after
rehab. But they’d nearly become an item once and she still thought about him from time
to time.

She gave him a cool nod. “Hi. Long time no see. How are you, Sonny?”
Sonny Fratelli walked farther into the room and gave her a long stare before smiling

in the good-natured way she remembered. “I’m fine, Gina. Good to see you again.”

The sight of his tall, well-muscled body, displayed rather than revealed by his

casual t-shirt and slacks, and the sound of his deep chocolate voice made shivers crawl
up Gina’s spine. He looked better than ever, now he’d given up the drugs. Perhaps he’d
matured in the last five years. Perhaps pigs flew. But one thing had stayed the same—
he was still as good-looking as ever and twice as sexy. Not surprising since the last time
she’d seen him he’d been strung out on heroin or crystal meth or something—she didn’t
care what it was. She’d turned her back on him then.

Mike got to his feet and came around the desk to shake Sonny’s hand. “Good to see

you looking so well, Sonny. How are you doing?”

Sonny gave a deep, sincere smile that made his eyes shine. Gina was intrigued to

see the new creases at the corners at his eyes. They made him even handsomer, if that
was possible. “I’m all cleaned up now, sir. And for the last five years.”

Mike gestured toward the chair next to Gina. She wanted to move away but giving

up her personal space for him would only make her look vulnerable. So she sat upright
and smiled thinly when he sat down. “Sonny.”

“Gina.” His expression deepened into concern. “You look tired. How’re you

doing?”

“Like you said, tired. But I’ll get over it.” Not precisely tired, she’d had plenty of

sleep. If he’d said “stressed”, he would have been on the button.

“You okay with this? Working with the band?”
She shrugged. “I’m a professional. I can make gold out of lead if I have to.”
“You won’t have to do that with Pure Wildfire. They’re the real thing.”
Allowing herself the luxury of an arched brow, she asked, “How would you

know?”

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Lynne Connolly

“I’m a professional road manager these days and doing well. Got my own crew.

I’ve been working with Pure Wildfire.”

Great, just great. She waited for the axe to fall. Mike sat down again and fixed her

with a gimlet stare. “I’ve made arrangements for you to travel in the bus with the band
for part of the tour. You need to get up close to study them. You have tickets for the
concert tonight. So go.”

Thunk.

10

Icefire

Chapter Two

Radio City Music Hall was elegant, refurbished and, as luck would have it, one of

Gina’s favorite venues. So it was a pity that was where she and Sonny went that night
to see Pure Wildfire.

Outside it was crowded, inside even worse but even though they arrived late, after

the support band, just as the audience was beginning to get restless. Sonny saw her to
her place, kissed her cheek and left her, laughing at her protest. “I have to go do my job,
Gina. I should be there now. I’ll see you later.”

Only half an hour later, lights burst into life and the stage reverberated with the

pre-recorded introduction. “You’ve heard ’em, now see ’em. Pure Wildfire!”

A roar greeted the band and a single, jarring guitar chord heralded the first song.

Most of the audience leapt up to their feet, so if Gina wanted to see them, she had to
stand up too.

This was a song Gina knew, something from the second album, though she couldn’t

put a name to it. Loud and fast, the band ran on the stage already playing and then, last
of all, vocalist Ryan Hawthorne leaped into action. Literally. With a leg-splitting leap
reminiscent of The Who’s Pete Townsend, Ryan struck a power note on the way up and
another as he hit the stage.

Great showmanship. Gina watched, trying to assess the band, carefully watching all

the nuances, all the moves. Until she realized what they were doing. They had planned
some of the moves and speeches Ryan made linking the songs but those key points
provided a springboard for wild flights of fancy and improvised crowd-pleasing chats.
Pure Wildfire fed off the audience, discerning the mood, playing what the audience
needed.

Reluctantly, her admiration grew. When lead guitarist Splinter let himself ease into

the music, his concentration was so intense she could almost feel it.

He closed his eyes and spread his legs in the typical rock god stance but Gina felt

the rightness of it. He wasn’t posing for anyone, not at this moment, he didn’t want to
lose his balance while he played. With his wife Corinne on the other side of the stage,
buoying and supporting him with carefully balanced and timed chords and notes,
Splinter exploded.

The torrent of notes, carefully chosen, as carefully as the spaces in between, flowed

from him, his guitar as much a part of him as his arms or legs, as integral a part of his
expression. Sweat poured off his body, drenching the t-shirt that was all he wore on his
upper body and it wasn’t from overheating, it was from sheer concentration. Three bars
in, he closed his eyes and the lighting darkened to a spot, pure blue, illuminating him,
leaving the rest of the band in shadow. Unlike many other bands, they didn’t take the

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Lynne Connolly

opportunity to take a drink or towel off. Each member of the band stood still, unless
they were adding accents to Splinter’s solo and she knew the admiration on their faces
wasn’t in any way faked.

The intensity wasn’t something she expected in a rock concert. Energy yes, noise

yes, but not this concentrated onslaught of emotion.

As the spotlight widened, taking in other members of the band, and they began to

drift back in to the music, she opened her eyes wide, then closed them hard, a trick
she’d learned long ago to stop inconvenient tears falling.

And opened them, right on to the speculative, sharp gaze of Ryan Hawthorne. He

wouldn’t be able to see her, not really, she assured herself.

She looked away but she’d felt the contact and it couldn’t be undone. She felt

naked, open, just for a moment. That was why she avoided meeting eyes unless she had
shielded herself, prepared for the encounter. Whoever said eyes were windows on the
soul was right. She looked deep inside Ryan Hawthorne and caught an amazed,
vulnerable, open soul for a second, or perhaps even less. Then he turned away, his
whole body pivoting in the other direction, and took his microphone from a roadie. Just
an illusion. It had to be.

Unnerved, Gina watched the rest of the concert with a stillness and concentration

she hadn’t been able to muster before. Every note struck something deep inside her,
something she hadn’t even been aware of before tonight, or something she had willfully
ignored. She wasn’t sure.

An hour and a half into the set, Splinter and Ryan took stools at the front of the

stage but before they began, Ryan looked straight at her. Or seemed to.

Ramps were set around the stage and across the boarded-over orchestra pit for the

band to use and while the rest of the band had occupied the one close to her seat at one
time or another, Ryan had avoided it or not used it. Now he didn’t.

He walked slowly up the ramp, Splinter playing a gentle riff that announced the

tune, and to her horror Gina recognized it as the song Ryan had written for Maria,
“Tearing Me Apart”.

Ryan held out his hand to her. She swallowed and looked up at him.
His expression now was completely controlled, the deeper emotions masked, a

query in his eyes. She could refuse him but that would be the act of a coward. And
besides, something inside her urged her to go to him, as he evidently wanted.

Behind him, Splinter played on. Taking a deep breath, she leaned up and took his

hand. “Come up,” he said softly, so softly she couldn’t hear him, only follow the shape
of his sensual mouth.

One of the security staff lifted her and she scrambled over the low barrier

separating them, sliding from the edge into his arms.

He released her as soon as she’d steadied but not before she felt his astonishing

steely strength. Who would have imagined such a slender-seeming man would be so

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Icefire

strong? When she looked closer, she saw muscles bunch as he turned away, his hand in
hers, to lead her to the stools.

Time slowed as he seated her next to the guitarist then began the song. She knew

many bands did this, drew a member of the audience into a song, and her seat was
conveniently close. But however much she told herself This is a gimmick, a device, she
couldn’t separate her professional self from the vulnerable woman underneath.

She tried not to listen, tried to keep the smile fixed on her face, the blank expression

in her eyes. But she couldn’t. Ryan had evoked Maria perfectly in the song—her
fragility, her gentleness, her touching naïveté. Her image—slight, blonde, ethereally
pretty—swam before Gina’s eyes.

Damn, when had she started to cry? Tears spilled over her eyes and ran down her

cheeks, two big, fat tears the spotlight would only emphasize. The man taking video
shots for the band knelt in front of them and she knew the camera would magnify her
distress tenfold. She couldn’t use her trick of squeezing her eyes tightly closed, because
anyone watching the video would see it and know. So she forced her sight past the tears
misting her eyes and gazed at Ryan. Right into his eyes.

Shock lanced between them and although she didn’t jerk with the impact, it was a

close-run thing. Constantly aware that thousands of strangers watched her, she used
Ryan as a focus, a way of keeping her eyes dry and her expression bland.

Except he seemed emotional too. He’d sung this song many times, how could he

keep the emotion so raw, so new? But he did. She saw it. The psychic ability she
preferred to ignore connected them in a way she’d never meant. Her ability amounted
to a sensitivity, strong intuition, that was all but sometimes it focused itself more than
she wanted. Useful sometimes in her work, mostly it was just a fucking nuisance.

Like now. She wanted to hate Ryan Hawthorne for the life he led, that had led

Maria into losing her life but she knew it must go both ways. She doubted Ryan held
Maria down and shot that poison into her veins. Maria made that decision all by herself.
She didn’t want to know that. This was what she had been afraid of when her father
gave her the job, her emotions coming back, the agony she felt at the time returning to
haunt her.

Now she saw something worse in Ryan. The agony had never left him. He felt it

still, the pain fresh in his eyes.

He sang to her, her alone and while she ached for him, she recognized his gift, rare

in the music world, of shrinking a huge theater to the size of Ryan Hawthorne and one
other. Every woman in that theater knew for sure that person was herself.

“I’ll love you always and forever
Until the pain in me subsides.”
When he stopped, she heard it, the sound more awesome than the roaring of

approval, or the applause of thousands of people.

Silence, absolute and complete. For the duration of one second, maybe two. She’d

heard it before and it was always the indication of something great, something so

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Lynne Connolly

deeply moving that people needed to regain their senses and remember they were
individuals and not a single entity.

Then the applause came. A great roar, until Gina thought her ears would ring for

evermore. Ryan held out his hand like some old-world gentleman and she let him help
her off the stool. He took her to the side of the stage where Sonny stood grinning like a
loon, holding a towel and a bottle of beer.

Ryan leaned toward her, pitching his voice below the decibels. She heard him

perfectly. “It might seem like a gimmick but I need to sing that song to one person if I’m
going to get it right. And you—you remind me of someone I once knew.” Gina’s heart
sank. She knew who. “Look,” Ryan said, “it sounds like a line but it isn’t. Will you come
backstage afterward? I’d like to talk to you.”

She opened her mouth but couldn’t get any words out. She closed it again and

nodded. Oh yes, she’d be there all right but as his publicist, not a groupie or a quick
fuck.

She turned to Sonny and glared, daring him to say anything. Sonny winked. Ryan

glanced at him and then did the oddest thing. He lifted her hand to his mouth and
deposited a gentle kiss on the palm. And Gina felt as if he’d reached into her soul. With
that simple touch he’d contacted a part of her she was barely aware of, a place she had
no name for and no way of explaining. Such an old-fashioned gesture from a wild child!

Ryan walked back on to the stage. The stage he owned, at least for tonight.
Sonny touched her shoulder, waking her from her reverie, and she let him take her

away from the noise, back to a small corridor. “Hey, I can’t wait to see Ryan’s face when
he realizes who you are!” He sniggered.

“Don’t you dare tell him, Sonny. I want to tell him myself.”
She wanted to spare Ryan any ridicule or shock, feeling she owed him that, at least,

for the connection to a woman they had both loved, in very different ways. The woman,
she reminded herself, whom Ryan had seduced and led into a life totally unsuited to
her.

The woman he’d killed.

* * * * *

Ryan tried to forget the woman he’d sung to but through the rest of his

performance her face haunted him. Occasionally he glanced toward her seat but the
lights focused on him prevented it, and he only caught a glimpse of her pale t-shirt and
jeans when she moved. Her face remained out of his sight. No woman affected him in
that way, not since Maria and even then, the connection between them hadn’t been
instant. It had taken time, a few nights to be precise, for him to admit Maria meant more
to him than a passing fuck in the night.

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Icefire

No woman since had meant more than that, he’d taken care that no woman would,

but this one had something, a quality that called to him. Something he definitely didn’t
want. Perhaps, if she was willing, they could spend the night together. Just one night.

There was something to be said for the twenty-first century, after all. Women could

spend the night with a man and not be ruined for all time, or expect anything more than
a passing fuck.

After the acoustic section, Pure Wildfire swung into one of the raging, angry songs

the fans loved, full of energy and fury. A guitarist’s piece, all Ryan had to do was belt
out the words then stand back for Aidan and Corinne to do their magic, backed by the
rock-solid rhythm section that was Jake and Chris Keys.

Ryan took a long, cool drink of water, then an energy drink he’d found useful.

Some concerts he fueled with alcohol, something that held no dangers for him, but he
never, ever touched any drug these days. Even the Cephalox that shape-shifters
sometimes used to control their shape-shifting during the three days of the full moon,
when nature compelled them to shape-shift. Cephalox, originally developed to control
shape-shifting in critical conditions like surgical operations, was dangerous and
addictive. And now a danger to the Talented community.

Ryan had the proof of how lethal Cephalox was. Unless he needed a major

operation, he wouldn’t touch the stuff again. Or any other drug, come to that.

He took a last swig and threw the empty bottle offstage, where a roadie would

collect it. After grabbing his microphone, he strode onstage for the last song. After that,
two encores and they were done.

Although he tried to control his performances, sometimes a force outside him took

hold, seized him and whipped him into a trancelike frenzy. Some performances he
couldn’t remember, however much he tried, but he saw the pictures in the music press
and on the internet and wondered, Is that really me?

After all these years, he still didn’t know. Those performances left him wrung out,

shaking with exhaustion, and then he relied on the band or one of the roadies to get him
to a bed where he could sleep it off. The drugs hadn’t helped to control that part of him,
though he’d kept himself going with speed and crack for hours in the old days.

No wonder he’d nearly died. Even his constitution very nearly gave way on that

fatal day the drugs had taken him over and he’d realized he was out of control. Not
long after that, Maria had died and the band gave up drugs for good.

So why didn’t he feel any better? And how had this woman reminded him of the

things he told himself he didn’t want anymore?

He prayed she would come and see him after the show but he wouldn’t ask her or

use his mental powers to persuade her. If she came, she’d have to do it of her own free
will.

Someone handed him a towel and he stripped off his sodden t-shirt and wiped

himself down. The crowd’s yells escalated to a roar as Aidan followed suit, then
Corinne. All she wore on her upper body was a lacy black bra that looked as if it would

15

Lynne Connolly

give way at any moment but the band knew it wouldn’t. The moralists would attack if
Corinne displayed her tits in public, though they conveniently ignored some of the
lyrics in the songs. Would they object if Corinne stripped to the waist and wore Parental
Guidance stickers on her nipples?

He smiled at the thought and glanced at Aidan who grinned back. This is going well.
It is. Are you doing okay?
Sure.
Ryan tried to make his voice and attitude the usual jaunty, cocky one he presented

to the public, but Aidan knew better. Ryan couldn’t hide his uneasiness from him,
though he could fool anyone else, even Jake and Chris.

Aidan’s voice came sharp in his mind, deeply buried in an intimate exchange. What

is it?

Nothing. That woman just reminded me of someone else. He didn’t have to say whom.

Not to Aidan.

They swung into another hard and fast number, “You Kill Me”, from the new

album.

The response from the crowd was gratifying. British artists didn’t always win the

American public. The country had so much talent of its own that it was hard for a
foreign-based band to make an impact. But with the album Icefire, Pure Wildfire had
moved into the Premier League, the top rank, and in any case, they were rock
musicians. Rock fans were hard to please but more international in their tastes. Bands
like Iron Maiden, Velvet Revolver, Metallica and the mighty Zeppelin were musicians
first, showbiz second. And Pure Wildfire had an international cast. Aidan, Ryan and
Corinne were British and Jake and Chris Keys American, although they were distantly
related. And although the public didn’t know it, they were all firebirds.

“You Kill Me” had fiendish lyrics, hard, fast and the lines starting in a seemingly

haphazard way. The only way to approach this song was full tilt, so Ryan came right in,
forcing his way through the blanket coverage of guitars.

All his frustration, all his anger went into that song and as he sung it, the meaning

roared back to him. He’d written it about the people taken away from him, not only
Maria but some good friends, all the people he’d lost to drugs. It was his protest and he
meant every word.

He hurtled through the song and when he broke for the guitar solos, sweat

drenched every part of him. Waving away the towel, he grabbed a bottle of water and
threw it over himself, easing into the coolness.

The last part of the concert felt like the end of a marathon. They ran off, came back

on, did a couple more songs, then left again.

And all the time he felt her watching him.

* * * * *

16

Icefire

Gina nearly chickened out but it would only be putting off the inevitable. She had

to meet the band and she never walked away from confrontation. So why was every cell
in her body telling her to run?

Well, fuck that. She walked around to the backstage area, fighting against the

crowd until the last few feet, when she had to force her way through people waiting to
get in. She didn’t produce the pass Sonny had given her until the last moment, too wise
to shove her way through the press and fans with it. Some rabid fan would have
snatched it from her long before she reached the formidable pair of bodyguards
standing impassively by the door. They glanced at her pass without comment but
parted just long enough to let her through.

Her ordeal wasn’t over. Another room contained another crowd, people with

passes swinging proudly around their necks, or on big white stickers fastened
haphazardly to their clothes, most of them without the coveted Access All Areas stamp.

Gina smiled. In her teens, she would have paid any amount of money, done almost

anything to get in backstage to see some of her favorite bands. The only time her father
had finagled a backstage pass for her, it had been for a band her classmates had
despised, a bland boy band nobody thought was cool. But she’d gone to the concert
because at that time, Mike’s PR agency was in its infancy and he’d been so proud of
getting her the pass. As it happened, the members of the boy band had turned out to be
pleasant and relieved she wasn’t a screaming fan girl. “All right for sex,” one of them
had commented, “but try talking to them afterward.” As tame as their image but she
liked them for that. She was still in touch with one of them, now happily married and
even more happily involved in the production of bands rather than performing onstage.

Now she held the coveted AAA pass for the hottest rock band in the world. All at

once, her mood changed from gritted-teeth determination to enjoyment. Not sharp-
edged as it would have been ten years ago but still, she enjoyed walking past the barely
dressed, heavily made-up girls waiting for someone close to the band to appear and the
carefully dressed-down men and boys, waiting for the girls to tire of waiting, ready to
fall on them when they gave up waiting for Ryan, Chris or Jake. Or even Aidan,
although he never looked at anyone except his wife these days.

So she passed through the next door in a better frame of mind, having had her pass

scrutinized. As she walked through, a bald bouncer, his muscle-bound frame decorated
with heavy tribal tattoos, said to her, “Ryan’s put a woman on the list, wants her
through. She matches your description. Is it you?”

She smiled up at him. “No, sorry. I’m from the PR company. Purely business.”
The bald one sniggered as she walked past him. “Yeah, sure. But no harm mixing

business and pleasure, eh?”

There was in her book. That was something she never did and she wasn’t about to

start now.

Gina entered a room less crowded than the one outside and more like a private

party. A long table stood at one end of the room, loaded with standard finger food, with

17

Lynne Connolly

a stack of crates next to it and an impromptu bar, one long table and a lot of open
bottles. She looked around for Sonny but he’d warned her he might not be there straight
away. He had to supervise packing away Splinter’s guitars. Splinter, otherwise known
as Aidan Hawthorne, stood by the food table, one arm around his wife’s waist. Corinne
leaned into him. She looked tired. Gina wasn’t surprised. Pure Wildfire gave no quarter
onstage and Corinne Hawthorne had given birth a mere three months ago. Her stamina
must be phenomenal but even Superwoman must get tired sometimes.

Gina headed for the bar and picked up a glass of what looked like white wine but

when she lifted it to her lips, she discovered it was a lot more potent. White wine, sure
but something else as well. She put the glass down.

“Hi. Something wrong with the drink?”
She turned around to face Sonny and eyed him balefully. “White wine and gin, or

something like that.”

Sonny picked up the glass and sniffed it. “Not a good combination. Don’t drink

anything from a bottle you haven’t opened yourself, or seen opened for you.”

“It seems almost civilized here,” she said, looking around at the less crowded room,

the lack of people falling on the food like starved vultures.

He chuckled. “That’s why there are two doors to pass before you get here. Didn’t

you get any kind of buzz coming through them?”

Reluctantly, she grinned. “A bit. I wish it had happened twenty years ago though.”
“Damn, you’re old!”
That made her smile, as he must have known it would. “If I am, you are, Sonny.

You’re six months older than me, if I remember right. How does the shady side of
thirty-seven feel?”

This time he laughed outright. “Better than it should. Better than I have any right to

expect.”

“You got that right.”
He glanced around. “Wait here and I’ll get you a proper glass of wine. I need a

drink myself. Then I’ll introduce you to the band.”

He wandered off in the direction of the cases stacked in the corner, obviously

planning to open a fresh bottle. Not that civilized then. She’d heard stories of fans or
misguided staff members slipping drugs into drinks in a kind of twisted desire to make
the band happy. She had no idea if it was true but she began to wonder what was in the
glass both had discarded. She picked it up and sniffed it cautiously.

“Hey.”
Nearly dropping the glass, Gina managed to save it from spilling all over her before

she replaced it on the table. Ryan walked around from behind her, his face breaking
into a smile. “I told them to let me know when you got here. I’m sorry I wasn’t here to
meet you.”

18

Icefire

Charming, English to the core, Ryan Hawthorne stood before her, thumbs tucked

into the pockets of his jeans, his black vest not completely buttoned. Purely gorgeous.

Gina swallowed, remembering she was older now, remembering how much

younger than her Ryan must be. Nothing helped. He still looked gorgeous. His bright
red hair misted around his head, drying from the shower, his amber eyes gazed right
into hers, as they had once before that evening.

“Hi.” Oh great, now her tongue was sticking to the roof of her mouth, like some

stage-struck teenager.

“Glad you could come.” He blinked but didn’t take his gaze away from her.
“I wouldn’t have missed it.” This was getting too intimate. “You sing really well. I

didn’t think rock stars went in for softer numbers.”

He grinned, adding an elfin look to his attractiveness. “You’ve not been to many

rock concerts then. Ever heard of power ballads?”

Sure she had. Could she sound any more old-fashioned? She swallowed and

nodded. “Sorry, yes. The song’s intensity took me by surprise, I guess.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” He touched the glass. “Don’t drink anything

you’ve not checked out for yourself. There could be anything in this. Want me to get
you something fresh?”

“I thought I was supposed to get it for myself?”
“Don’t you trust me?”
The smile faded and an exchange of pure intimacy passed between them. He was

hot but Gina had long since stopped letting her libido rule her. She could have handled
that, enjoyed his attention and moved on. She could do that with Aidan, or Chris and
Jake, all currently on the other side of the room. But not Ryan. Gina wasn’t a fanciful
woman but she felt her soul, her spirit, yearning to touch him, to join with him.

As though he couldn’t help himself, Ryan reached out and took her hand. “Can you

feel it too?”

“Hi, Gina, shaking hands with Ryan? I should’ve known you’d relax into

formality!”

Sonny’s voice broke the spell but Ryan didn’t let go of her hand. His face hardened

into what she recognized as an outer shell of pleasantness, a mask, as he looked over
her shoulder to where Sonny stood. She realized they must be about the same height,
although Sonny was bulkier than Ryan. “You know this lady?” Ryan asked him.

“Sure I do.”
Before he could break her secret, Gina hurried to introduce herself. “I’m Angelina

Russo, from your new PR agency, Russos. My father, Mike Russo, runs it but I’m not
there because he’s my dad. I want to assure you of that.” It was so easy to slip into her
practiced spiel but her hand still rested in Ryan’s and he seemed in no hurry to give it
back. “I’ll do my best for the band. My father wants me to travel on the bus with you
but if you have any problem with that, I can make other arrangements.”

19

Lynne Connolly

“No problem at all,” he breathed and then she saw recognition light up his eyes.

“Russo?” He dropped her hand.

She felt the loss but didn’t look away, facing this as she had faced everything in her

life. Straight on. “Maria was my stepsister. I was older but we spent a lot of time
together once upon a time.” Before everything went wrong. Before you killed her.

Anger sparked his amber eyes to pure fire. She nearly killed both of us and yet I still

wish I’d died as well, sometimes.

She’d imagined his words in her head. Nobody could do that, speak mind-to-mind.

Empathizing, feeling other people’s feelings was one thing. Speech was something else.
She must have imagined it.

She didn’t imagine it when Ryan Hawthorne turned his back on her and strode

away.

* * * * *

Sonny pushed a drink into her hand. “You’ve gone white. Take a drink. What did

you expect he’d do when he found out who you are?”

“Well, one thing’s for sure. They won’t want me on the tour now.” She should feel

relieved. She hadn’t wanted this assignment. Now she could go back to the office and
tell Mike they didn’t want her. But she didn’t feel relieved. She wasn’t quite sure what
she felt. Yeah, Ryan Hawthorne was hot, and if he was anyone else she’d fuck him in a
heartbeat but he wasn’t “anyone else” and neither was she. Their history, the person
who linked them, made that impossible.

Taking Sonny’s advice, Gina finished the cool white wine he’d given her. Sonny

poured her another from the bottle he’d ordered. “Here comes Randy.”

She turned her head and saw a bear of a man heading for them, a broad smile

wreathing his features. His snub nose seemed incongruous in such a strong face but his
beefy hands were entirely right for the size of his body. Randy Norwood, the band’s
manager. When Sonny introduced them, he enveloped her hand in his. “Pleased to
meet you, Angelina Russo. I’ve heard a lot about your company.”

“I have a feeling you won’t want me to stick around,” she confessed, still shaky

after Ryan’s abrupt rejection, glad Sonny was still here. “I’m Maria’s stepsister and
Ryan just found out.”

“Shit!” Randy frowned. “I hoped he wouldn’t realize. Maria was a Leone and I

hoped he wouldn’t make the connection. Russo is quite a common Italian name, so I
hoped Ryan wouldn’t spot it.”

Gina nodded. “I told him. I couldn’t work with the band without telling him. He

recognized something in me and he knew the name at once.”

“I picked your agency myself. I wanted Russo’s on the job because of your

experience with rock bands. You turned the Flying Toads around just by changing their
image. Didn’t your father tell you not to say who you were?”

20

Icefire

“Even if he had, I would have told him. I don’t lie to people.”
Randy’s lip curled. “Even in your work?”
“Even then. I help to create a coherent brand for the client. I don’t usually work

with the bands, my father or one of the other PR execs do that, but this time you got me.
I don’t lie and I won’t do it, in work or out of it.” She saw her job as helping people
make the best of themselves. Not to lie about them. Sometimes she’d advise them to
keep things quiet but not to lie about it, if anyone asked.

To her surprise, Randy lifted his other hand and touched her cheek, very softly.

“Good. Although you could have kept your relationship with Maria quiet. He still
hurts.”

She took a sip of wine. “Yes, I saw that. Do you think there’s any hope of him

letting me do the job?” She couldn’t imagine why she still wanted it. She’d taken the
assignment very reluctantly and now her way out was clear, if she wanted to take it.

“I’ll talk to him. The rest of the band won’t mind. Come and meet them.” She

followed Randy across to where the other members of Pure Wildfire stood chatting to
each other and the people clustered around them.

When she’d researched Randy Norwood, she found he managed the few bands he

signed carefully and personally. His staff assisted him, they didn’t take his artists off his
hands. In the backbiting, vicious world of music, nobody had a bad word to say about
Randy Norwood.

Except his enemies, the people who wanted to hang around the bands he managed,

the exploiters, the users. Before Norwood, the band had been with Corinne’s father,
another notable manager, but John Westfall had a reputation for manipulative behavior.
After him, Norwood must have been a relief, a manager who worked with a band
instead of trying to make them part of his “stable”.

Corinne Hawthorne, ethereally lovely but now without her heavy mascara and

leathers, smiled easily when introduced to Gina. She left early, when a girl arrived and
murmured to her. Her husband didn’t linger long afterward. Chris and Jake Keys,
brothers, easygoing and welcoming, had no objection to her presence but Chris warned
her quietly, “The rest of us don’t have any objection to you but we stick together. If
Ryan nixes you, that’s it.”

She nodded. “I wouldn’t want it any other way. I really enjoyed the concert tonight.

What are your plans?”

“We’re nearly done with the tour. It’s a short one, mainly because of Corinne and

Aidan’s baby. When it’s done, we’re back in the studio, though we don’t know which
studio yet,” Jake said.

“I like Abbey Road,” Chris put in.
Randy clapped him on the shoulder. “I’ll have a list for you in a couple of weeks.

Every studio’s keen to have you, so we want the best deal. But if you want Abbey Road,
I’ll fix it for you.”

21

Lynne Connolly

Chris grinned. “I’ll keep an open mind. Just in case.”
Gina felt rather than saw the heavy shields all the members of the band held up

against the outside world, the carefully controlled facial expressions, the way someone
would start to say something, then stop. For now, she was on the outside. She knew
she’d have to earn her way in to the inner circle but she still wasn’t sure she wanted to
be there.

Randy accompanied Sonny and her to the door, stopping for a quiet word before

they left. “I’ll talk to Ryan and we’ll let you know the band’s decision by the end of the
week. I don’t think there’ll be a problem. You’ve done great work and I want you. If
necessary, I can make arrangements for you to travel separately to a few dates, just to
see how we work.”

“If Russo’s takes the assignment, it doesn’t have to be me.”
“I want you and I think you’ll fit in. Just give me a chance.”
She turned as the muscle opened the door for her. “If he agrees, I want to talk to

Ryan on my own, just to make sure he can put up with my presence. I can’t work for
you if one of the band is hostile to me. And I don’t want to put any pressure on them.”

Randy sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Okay, that makes sense. I’ll see what I can

do.”

22

Icefire

Chapter Three

Corinne drew her nipple gently away from her baby’s still-open mouth and

shrugged her pullover back into place. Ryan watched Aidan take baby Sean from her
and after pressing a gentle kiss to his forehead, he wrapped him in a soft blue shawl
and put him in the Moses cradle at his side. Then he curled one arm around his wife
and they leaned back against the sofa. Corinne cuddled into him, tired after the feeding
session. “We’ll have to start him on solid food soon,” she murmured. “He’s getting too
hungry for what I can give him.”

Ryan knew there was no chance of hiding his envy from these two. Aidan

sympathized but that in no way marred his joy in his wife and baby. He adored
Corinne and doted on the baby. No wild man of rock in private, just a husband and
father.

Ryan loved Corinne as if she were his own sister but not as he’d loved Maria,

who’d been his nemesis, his love and his turning point.

“So,” Aidan said, turning his attention away from his wife and child with a visible

effort. “Do we take Gina Russo on tour or not?”

The inevitable entourage that followed them everywhere were locked out of this

hotel room, Aidan had declared this a band session. Whenever a problem occurred they
gathered for a private talk, not even allowing Randy in, although he was welcome to
give his opinion later and frequently did.

Chris carried a tray of steaming mugs of coffee over and deposited it on the low

table that sat between the two large sofas they occupied. Jake, one arm draped over the
back of the sofa, made room for him and picked up one of the mugs. “I vote yes. I’ve
looked at the portfolio Randy showed us. It’s good work, a bit edgy, just the kind of
ideas we need.”

“Yes and she tailors her work for her clients,” Chris added. “She doesn’t use the

same techniques every time like some agents. No house style. I liked her too. Not too
pushy but you couldn’t ignore her.”

Ryan pinched the bridge of his nose. “That’s the trouble.”
“We all liked her,” Aidan said. He cuddled Corinne a little tighter as her eyes closed

and she lost the battle with sleep. “Corinne and I talked about it and we thought Gina
would fit in. She’ll only be with us for a few dates anyway, then she’ll set us up with a
few local interviews and that kind of thing. A great way to see if she can work with us
on a long-term basis.” His handsome face turned grave. “But it depends on you, Ryan.
You say no, we’ll say no. If you don’t think you can stand it, that’s okay. We’ll get
somebody else.”

23

Lynne Connolly

“There’s something about her,” Ryan admitted. “If I didn’t know she was Maria’s

sister, I’d like her.”

“She doesn’t look like Maria,” Chris commented.
“No. She’s taller, bigger. But there’s something…” He thumped the arm of the

chair. “An air of something. Vulnerability. I don’t fucking know. I picked her to sing to
because of that, before I knew who she was. She called to me.” He picked at a stray
thread, twisting it in his fingers. “But you’re right. Her work’s shit hot. I took a look at it
a couple of days ago.”

“You’re our first consideration, bro. Shall we just fuck them off and go on to

somebody else? She won’t suffer, we’ll make it clear it’s not her work, it’s the personal
connection. Why make our lives complicated?”

Because he wanted to meet her again. Scared to meet her and so he needed to. Ryan

faced his problems these days, tired of running from them. Never again. No more
running.

“I’ll meet her, take her to lunch or something and we’ll talk.”
“Before the chat show?”
Ryan sighed. “Yeah.” They were booked on one of the network late-night chat

shows. Aidan and Corinne were to chat and then get with the band for a four-minute
slot. The day after, they were due to fly out, so there wouldn’t be any more time to talk
to Gina, or to find someone else to do the promo for them.

He’d call her.

24

Icefire

Chapter Four

Gina sat in her office, finishing a project for baby diapers. The whole thing had

bored her senseless but the account was lucrative and since the diaper company was a
big one, with a whole portfolio of accounts with Russo’s, she had to get it right. She’d
given up expecting to hear from Pure Wildfire and assumed they’d passed on her.
Perhaps they’d let Mike provide someone else from the agency.

The thought filled her with a dismay she didn’t want to explore, because it might

tell her too much she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Especially since Ryan
Hawthorne didn’t seem to share her desire to investigate further.

She flicked her gel pen, playing with the smooth blue surface, rubbing her fingers

along the softly curved shape. Her habit of playing with her pens when she thought
was so ingrained it amounted to an addiction.

So she had one thing in common with Ryan, however stupid. Her tendency to touch

and stroke pens and smooth plastic didn’t compare to a body screaming out for the
substance it needed but her habit gave her a way of understanding, a way in. It took
real strength of mind and body to give up something like that, a real dependency.

Gina still didn’t know what had turned Maria from a high-achieving student, clever

enough to earn a scholarship to Oxford, England, to the wild child who’d moved in
with an up-and-coming rock singer and become a hopeless drug addict. When Gina had
flown over to England, worried for her sister, she found Maria alone and bored, always
a dangerous frame of mind for her. Ryan hadn’t been there that day.

After a long conversation, Gina found herself nowhere. Maria loved Ryan, thought

he was her savior and she refused to come home. Gina didn’t recognize the gentle,
intelligent sister in the drug-crazed rantings of this thin, pale woman and she knew she
couldn’t manage this on her own. She’d decided to go home and seek out professional
help. She wouldn’t give up but Maria was too far gone for Gina to do anything on her
own. She’d left, stayed the night in a hotel and flown back to New York the next day.
Before she could do anything, Maria was dead.

Her cowardice had haunted her ever since. What if she’d stayed, talked some more,

tried harder to persuade Maria to go into rehab?

Had she blamed Ryan for things he couldn’t have helped? Or was he as black as

Gina always thought him and had he, despite his unbelievable talent onstage, led Maria
to the life that killed her?

“Hey, Gina, got a minute?”

25

Lynne Connolly

She jerked her head up to see her father standing in the open doorway of her office.

She hadn’t even heard the doorknob turn. Masking her shock with a smile, she said,
“Sure, come in.”

Mike came in toting two cups of coffee. Gina hadn’t realized she wanted one before

she smelled the tantalizing odor. He set one carefully in front of her. Then he put his
hand in his jacket pocket and drew out a disk. “I found something you might be
interested in. About Pure Wildfire.”

She took the disk, a DVD, and flipped it over. No label. “What is it, concert

footage?”

“No, something that arrived in the mail this morning.” She glared at him and

dropped the disk as if it were poisoned. Mike laughed. “No, it’s not infected. The first
thing I did was check it for viruses. How stupid do you think I am?”

“As stupid as the man who very nearly infected the whole of our network with the

Sobeg worm,” she said acidly. Because of Mike’s error, the server and the PCs had to be
reformatted. It had taken two days out of their schedule, two days that nearly cost them
as many accounts, when they couldn’t get hold of their electronic records. As a result,
their new server had any number of virus checkers and a powerful firewall hardly
anything broached and everyone was under orders to run every single email
attachment and disk they received through the checkers first.

Mike had the grace to look abashed but then grinned again. “This thing came

anonymously, so I’ve run it through every program. It’s safe. But it has some interesting
stuff on it.”

Gina disconnected her computer temporarily from the network just in case and slid

the disk into the drawer of her PC.

A file popped up and she opened it, relieved when it didn’t send her screen into

popup overdrive. She clicked the view into the slideshow, sat back and watched the
graphics slide past. A series of stills, altered photographs, flicked across the screen.

“It must be an aborted promo campaign,” she said eventually. “I like the idea but

I’m not sure we can use it, unless the band’s ad agency likes it too.”

“I like the ones of Ryan with wings.”
She smiled. She didn’t want to tell Mike how much she liked those. A naked Ryan,

arms outstretched. Only the arms had miraculously turned into wings and reddish
feathers covered his body. Only his head and legs were still Ryan. “Very realistic. Must
be good image altering software.”

“Not an amateur job, that’s for sure,” Mike agreed. “Very striking.”
“They should have something like this on their album sleeves. I like the picture of

the guitar in Aidan’s arms, or should I say, wings. It looks like one of those candid
shots, you know, a paparazzi piece. It’s more effective because of that.”

“Have they contacted you yet?”

26

Icefire

She shook her head. “I think they’ll pass on me. You should line up somebody else

so we don’t lose the account.”

Mike grimaced. “A shame. I thought you’d work well with them. Okay, I’ll get in

touch with Randy tomorrow, see what he thinks. But you’re still my first choice, Gina.
It’s a challenge, something you need and the initial ideas you talked over with me after
the concert were great. Randy was keen too when I told him.”

“Thanks.” Her father’s approval still meant a great deal to Gina. She picked up her

coffee. “If it weren’t for Ryan, I’d love it too.” She grinned. “Cooler than any other band
on the planet, at least this week. Next week, who knows?”

“I think there’s more to them than that. Have you listened to their music now,

instead of avoiding it?”

She sipped the hot brew, enjoying the sensation of the liquid trickling down her

throat. “Of course I have. I wanted to know what captivated Maria, why she left Oxford
to be with these guys. It’s great music, there’s a lot of depth to some of their stuff and
they attack every track as if it’s their last.” Not that she’d play it again after this
humiliating week. She’d never had her work rejected before. Not that it was her work
they didn’t like. They were rejecting her and that hurt.

They finished their coffee in companionable silence and Mike took her cup out with

his. He’d only just left when the phone rang.

“Hello, Angelina Russo here.”
“Hello, Angelina Russo,” purred a very masculine voice.
“Sonny. Are you calling to tell me I’ve lost the account? Because I already guessed

that much.” She picked up her pen.

“No, you haven’t lost it. Not yet anyway. They’re talking. But I thought you’d like

to come out tonight, just to take your mind off things.” He paused. “I know it’s
upsetting for you to lose an account but you need to relax a bit and since I’m in New
York, how about a non-threatening date?”

Laughing, she asked, “What’s a non-threatening date?”
She heard the smile in his voice. “No pressure. If anything develops, I’ll be gone in

a couple of days. If it doesn’t, it’s a night out for both of us. Come on, Gina, what do
you say?”

“Yes, I’d love to.” Sonny was right, she hadn’t been out for weeks and she’d always

enjoyed his company. Especially now he was free of the drugs that killed their
relationship before. She felt she was rediscovering Sonny and suspected he was
rediscovering himself. Handsome, strong, now his muscles weren’t wasted by an
inadequate diet and he was happy now. He had a purpose.

Sonny wouldn’t interfere with her life or inhabit her dreams.

* * * * *

27

Lynne Connolly

Casual, he said but not “jeans casual”, so she decided on a dress of green silk, softly

drifting around her to just above her knees. For a change, she twisted her dark hair back
into a chignon, after brushing it until it shone. After a sparing application of makeup,
she was ready. It felt good to be out of the business suits and sharp, cleanly cut dresses
she wore for work and into something less structured that sensuously drifted against
her skin. She wore sheer hosiery against the clean spring air that would turn chilly after
dark. In a few weeks, New York would begin its annual climb to the stifling August
temperatures that drove so many people out of the city to the beaches. But not her.
She’d be too busy, as she was every year.

When she opened her apartment door to Sonny, she had to admit she had nothing

to be ashamed of in her escort. Dressed in a sharply cut blazer and dark pants, with an
azure dress shirt accentuating the icy blue of his eyes, they would make a striking
couple. His previously unkempt, straggly brown hair was cut short these days and
brushed to an obedient gleam and his smile was sinful, promising treats to come.

But Sonny didn’t threaten her peace of mind, as Ryan Hawthorne did. Gina had

known Sonny too long to let his good looks intimidate her, though she might decide to
take advantage of them before the night was over.

“So where are we going?” she asked him, tilting her head at a jaunty angle.
“When was the last time you went to The Phoenix?”
“A long time.” So long, she’d almost forgotten it. A jazz club for the elite performer,

sophisticated but not too sophisticated to blow the night away. It had just recovered
from a reputation as a place to pick up drugs, not street drugs but the more refined
kind, the kind a man or woman with money might want. The kind of place Sonny had
frequented once. But, like him, it had changed and was now one of New York’s hottest
venues. “It got a bad rep before its recent do-over.”

He gave her a boyish grin. “I never went there just for the drugs. Now it’s just the

music.”

“I would have thought you’d have had enough of music after hanging around a

rock band all day.”

“No.” He waited while she grabbed her purse and jacket and secured her

apartment door behind her as they exited. “I always loved jazz. My dad used to take me
to The Phoenix. I went on to rock but you never forget your roots. The house band is on
tonight, with a few special guests and some jamming. It should be good.”

Considering who the members of the house band were, yes, it should be. Veterans

of the jazz scene, names that made a mouthwatering list for aficionados still played The
Phoenix.

“I thought we’d grab a bite somewhere first. You game?”
Sure, she was game.
They ended up eating at an Italian restaurant not far from the club. Sonny still

loved Italian food, despite growing up eating it. Gina looked on it as comfort food,
something that reminded her of her childhood and her dad’s occasional forays into the

28

Icefire

kitchen resulting in something weird and wonderful, strongly flavored with basil. Mike
employed a cook these days but it was an Italian cook.

There was nothing like the flavors of one’s childhood when you were feeling under

stress. And now Gina wanted sustenance and support. Perhaps Sonny could provide it.

He seemed to think the same thing, giving her the attention she enjoyed, touching

her frequently in friendly ways that could, if they both wanted, turn into something
more intimate.

They ate the meal chatting of their childhoods. Like Gina, Sonny was New York

Italian and they’d known each other vaguely through attending the same church but it
had been the ethereally lovely Maria who’d caught Sonny’s eye. Big men seemed to go
for fragile, small women, Gina discovered. Not for healthy, black-haired women who
looked like their mothers.

“You know how strict Catholics are,” he said, drawing a pattern on the tablecloth

with his fork. “Everything by the book. My parents were like that, it’s one reason I
rebelled so long and so hard.”

“What does your mom think about you working as a roadie?” His father had died a

few years ago.

He grinned but it was a hard grin, with no real humor. “She’s only glad I’ve got

something like a regular job. I’m good at this one, Gina. I’ve got my own little company
and my own team. With Pure Wildfire, I take care of Splinter’s guitars, tune them for
him onstage and I’m the only person allowed to do it. I run the take-down at the end of
the shows, make sure everything’s packed away properly and that they’re transported
to the next venue and I’m paid well for it. I love it.” He looked up into her eyes. “I lost
Maria to Ryan but she wasn’t the love of my life. She was his from the moment they
met. All the band members were addicts and we kicked the habit together. I’m not a
member of the inner circle—that’s only the band—but I’m in the next one. I work for
other bands too but Pure Wildfire is my bedrock. They’re my friends. I belong
somewhere now.”

“I’m really happy for you, Sonny.” She leaned back, idly sliding her fingers around

the drops of condensation on her cold beer.

“I’d like to see a bit more of you, Gina. How about you try me out for size? No

pressure. I have to fly out with the band next week but I can come back after we’ve
finished on the West Coast, if you don’t come with us.”

She smiled at him, feeling none of the sensual pull Ryan caused in her. That was

something to be thankful for. “Yeah, why not? I’d like to know you better, Sonny.”

His face broke into a delighted smile. “Thanks.” Then he bit his lower lip and

frowned at her, his expression changed to one of worry.

“What’s wrong, Sonny?”
He scowled. “The club, The Phoenix. Ryan’s going to be there tonight. You wanted

a private word, and he said he’d be there if you wanted to talk to him. He was going

29

Lynne Connolly

anyway, at least that’s what he said, but you don’t have to meet him if you don’t want
to.”

“I’ll meet him.” Better to do it now, to get it over with. “I appreciate that he might

want to tell me a bit more discreetly than coming into the office. I might as well meet
him.” What could one meeting hurt if she was with Sonny?

When they left the restaurant, it was in perfect accord, her arm looped through

Sonny’s.

The jazz club wasn’t far away from the restaurant so they walked the short distance.

Although a queue straggled down the street from the door Sonny ignored it and took
her straight in. Gina was impressed. “Wow, you are somebody, aren’t you, Sonny?”

He shrugged, accepting his new status with ease. “I guess. You’d think jazz and

rock don’t mix but you’d be surprised how many musicians know other musicians.
Corinne Hawthorne came from classical music but she’s all rock now. Until you catch
her playing Bach.”

Gina vaguely remembered Corinne’s previous existence, as classical princess

Corinne Westfall. It all seemed a long time ago now. “The girl with the see-through
guitar” had disappeared, replaced by the rock diva with flame-tipped hair flying as she
lost herself in the music, or leaned against her lover and husband as they performed
their spectacular dual-guitar trick.

Gina still didn’t know how they did that, didn’t think it possible before she’d seen

them for the first time. She tried to forget how sexy the sight was too. If she did take
Sonny to bed, she wanted it to be light fun, civilized and friendly. No deep, lover’s
darkness, no fire in the night. Mutual pleasure was all she wanted. She liked Sonny, this
new drug-free Sonny.

The Phoenix club was the usual arrangement of small, intimate tables, a bar at one

end and a small stage at the other. A band was playing soft, laid-back jazz as they
entered and Gina breathed a sigh of relief. She didn’t like to admit it to sophisticated
New Yorkers but modern jazz left her cold. She was old-fashioned enough to want a
tune with her music. She knew several people who would scoff at her for that.

They sat toward the back of the room but it wasn’t a large club. The Phoenix was

famous for picking up artists after they’d done their official concerts but were too
buzzed to go to bed. Yet. They came here and gave impromptu performances instead.

Someone was here tonight. She caught her breath at the gleam of red, red hair

under the subdued lighting.

Ryan Hawthorne strode onto the stage but instead of owning it, as he had at the

Pure Wildfire concert, here he was a guest. His clear, powerful voice shouldn’t have
been suited to jazz but she’d forgotten the control Ryan had over his primary
instrument.

Ryan took his time, greeting the band, thanking them for inviting him onstage. Gina

couldn’t help wondering why they had. What could a rock star do with a jazz band?

30

Icefire

She glanced at Sonny, who shrugged. “He likes jazz.” Another facet to Ryan

Hawthorne she didn’t know about.

Ryan took the mike, after a brief discussion. The band began to play. Oh God, they

were playing one of her favorite songs, “Stormy Weather”. She held her breath, afraid
Ryan would ruin it. Afraid he wouldn’t.

He lifted his head and looked out into the room, snagging her gaze for a brief

instant then looking away. He knew she was here.

His eyes half closed when he began to sing. The powerful, arrogant rock god was

gone, replaced by a melancholy man, yearning for his lost love. Except he didn’t change
any words of the song, so he was still singing to a man.

What was wrong with that, in this day and age? There was a wild edge about Ryan

Hawthorne, lacking in anyone else Gina had ever met. It made her edgy around him, as
if she never knew what he would do next. A man like that was one to watch from a
distance, if not to avoid altogether.

Except with every soft, husky syllable he sang, she wanted to be the one who

comforted him.

Ryan wove the same magic he had at the concert but in a different way, winding

the audience around his strong body, giving them his soul. Gina didn’t realize she’d
been holding her breath until she gasped for air after the second verse.

At the end of the song, it happened again, the brief pause before the applause,

signaling true magic.

Ryan’s eyes flicked over her again. She ventured a smile before deliberately turning

away, back to Sonny who watched her with a fixed expression, calculating and
watchful. He bit his lip, the sharp teeth sinking into his full lower lip. Funny how that
sensuous action evoked only a sense of mild interest in her when a glance from Ryan
could sear her soul. “That’s how he ends up with so many women,” he said ruefully.
“He sings them into bed.”

She smiled at Sonny. “You have assets of your own, you know.”
“Thanks for that.” He reached over the small table to take her hand, stroking his

fingers over her knuckles. “I’m not complaining.”

She smiled. “Neither am I.” Leaning back, she picked up her wineglass. Although

tired, she was glad she’d taken up Sonny’s invitation. She was enjoying this evening.

A puff of music-laden air from the stage drew her attention and she groaned

inwardly. Of all instruments, she loved the saxophone the most. And Ryan had gotten
one from somewhere. A prop? No, he handled it familiarly, with an assurance that
spoke of long use. When he stood to one side and the band began to play, he joined in.

As if he belonged there.
He played “The Very Thought of You” as if he’d written it, as if he knew what it

meant.

31

Lynne Connolly

From his playing, gentle, melancholy, reminiscent, he told her and everyone else in

the room that he knew what it was like to love. And probably like everyone else in the
room, Gina wanted to be the object of his desire. To have someone play like that for her.

When she leaned back and closed her eyes, she let the music wash over her but it

didn’t wash for long. Effortlessly, without pause, he moved to another standard, “It
Had to Be You” and he entered her body, the music sweeping through her, into her.

Seduction at a distance. Except this was safe seduction. Ryan didn’t have to know

he was doing this to her. He must be doing it to everyone else in the room. Safe, she
could let herself go. Gina imagined warm hands on her body, smoothing over her,
exploring every inch with a slow, sensuous motion that reached into her heart.
Delicious.

The saxophone breathed on her, the soft, slow notes touching her delicately before

fading away. She opened her eyes to see Ryan setting the sax in a case set by the side of
the stage. Someone said, “Ryan Hawthorne!” and there was a smattering of applause.
The band left the stage for a break.

She looked up.
Right into the eyes of Ryan Hawthorne. And it happened again, that connection, a

link she had no words for.

He blinked, breaking the contact, and shook hands with Sonny before he looked

away, dragged a chair over to their table and turned it so he could straddle it and lean
his hands on the back. “Hi,” he said as if they hadn’t just exchanged something special.

Perhaps they hadn’t. Perhaps he had that every day, or at least, every performance.

Gina had never considered herself naïve before but this man who must be eight years
younger than her made her feel it. So she said, “Hi,” as casually as he did. “I didn’t
know you played any instruments.”

“Have you ever heard of a rock band with a saxophonist?”
She chuckled. “Why not? Bowie plays the sax.”
He grinned back at her. “Yeah, sure, but he doesn’t play hard rock. One day I might

try it.”

“Where did you learn to play like that? I—it was great.”
His grin softened to a smile. “Thanks. You don’t know much about us, do you?”
Realizing she might have made a mistake, she flushed and looked down, picking

up her nearly empty glass. “I did my research.”

He shrugged. “We don’t advertise our background much. My uncle played sax,

lived here in New York.” Had she imagined it, or had the clipped, English tones slipped
into “Noo Yawk”? No, he must be sneering at her or something. She hadn’t realized her
accent was quite so broad.

But when she looked back at him, she saw no parody, no sneering. “What was his

name?”

“Tony Nightcross. My mother’s brother.”

32

Icefire

She caught her breath. She knew she’d seen those eyes before. They stared at her

from the covers of the CDs in her collection. Tony Nightcross, known to the jazz world
as Nighthawk. “He was your uncle?”

Ryan nodded, his eyes suspiciously bright. “He taught me how to play.”
“He taught you? You mean he didn’t die?” Nighthawk had disappeared in the early

1970s, never to emerge again. Most people assumed he’d died in some alley somewhere
or thrown himself into the Hudson. It happened, even to famous people. Fame was
elusive and transitory and didn’t immunize people from attack, although some
celebrities assumed it did.

Ryan’s mouth quirked. “No, he didn’t die. He came home to England and lived

quietly in the country. He wanted to get away.”

“Get away from what?”
Ryan shrugged, an elegant movement of his shoulders that looked slightly strange

for a man wearing ripped jeans and an old t-shirt. “From New York. He said the scene
turned bad after 1970. Drugs were ripping the heart out of the music. He played the sax
as well as ever but only in private.”

“Did he write any more songs?”
He stared at her, his eyes wide with surprise. “Isn’t he a bit before your time?”
“So is Mozart but I love his music too.”
From her left, Sonny gave a short bark of laughter. “She got you there, Ryan.”
“So she did.” Ryan deliberately looked away, then back at her. She wondered what

expression he was trying to hide. “Yes, he wrote a few more songs but he wasn’t
interested in performing in public anymore. He died ten years ago. He left me his sax.”

“That one?” She indicated where the saxophone rested in its case.
“No. That’s one I carry around with me when I travel. Items disappear from hotel

rooms all the time. I didn’t want to risk that happening to Nighthawk’s sax.”

She imagined him sitting in yet another hotel room, playing softly, with no

audience but himself. It wasn’t how she imagined rock gods spent their time. For all she
knew Ryan was lying. She didn’t trust him. She didn’t trust her feelings about him.
They seemed out of time, too strong for someone she didn’t really know.

Her feelings for Sonny were more controllable. And if she had to spend time in the

company of Pure Wildfire, she’d rather spend it in the relative safety of Sonny’s bed,
not Ryan’s. Because with an inevitability that touched her soul, deep down she knew it
was going to be one or the other. Already her attraction to the vocalist was raising the
hairs on the back of her neck, prickling her nerve endings with awareness. And she
doubted she’d be much more than a passing amusement for him.

She couldn’t bear that. She was too raw where Ryan Hawthorne was concerned.
Sonny said something she didn’t catch. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you.”
“I said would you like another drink?” Sonny asked patiently.

33

Lynne Connolly

“No thanks, Sonny. I’m tired and another drink will send me right to sleep.”
Sonny gave her a slow, sexy smile. “Oh we can’t have that, can we?” That was the

moment his cell phone played a couple of bars from “Tearing Me Apart”. Since she was
still looking at Ryan, she saw his barely perceptible wince at the poor rendition of the
song on the tinny speaker.

Grimacing at the interruption, Sonny answered his phone. “Yes?” He listened for a

few moments and in a quieter tone said, “Okay, I’m on my way.” He closed the phone
and returned it to his pocket, turning to her with regret twisting his mouth. “I’m really
sorry, Gina, but I’m needed.”

“Anything wrong?” Ryan asked quickly.
“No, it’s family. My mom to be precise. I’m not home very often these days and

she’s clinging.”

Gina remembered Sonny’s mom, lonely now she was a widow, an Italian mother

who adored her son and couldn’t see him as often as she might want to. She felt a mild
pang of regret at his imminent departure, surprised it wasn’t more. “You go, Sonny.”

“Do you want me to take you home before I go?”
“No, that’s okay. I’ll get a cab.” Living in the ‘burbs might be cheaper but

sometimes she wished her journeys could be shorter. “I know a few places near here
where I can get a cab without too much trouble.”

“Why don’t you order one from here?”
“No. I’d like the walk.” It would clear her head, and in this area of New York she

was fairly safe. The club was only a short walk from one of the main thoroughfares,
where cabs would be readily available.

“I’ll walk with you.” She hadn’t expected that of Ryan, nor had she any right to.
“It’s okay, I’ll be fine.”
“No, I want to. London is bad enough at night, I don’t like to think what New York

is like.” She hadn’t imagined it. Ryan said “Noo Yawk” almost absently, as though
unaware he was doing it. Very un-English. Maybe he’d picked it up from Nighthawk.

When Sonny stood to leave, Ryan stood too. Sonny kissed her cheek and left, with

another apology for running out on her.

“I’ll get my sax.” Ryan headed for the stage again. He stopped, close to one of the

spotlights, to talk to a man she didn’t know, a tall man in a long duster coat. They shook
hands and Ryan went on his way.

He’d see her to her taxi, then after one more brief business meeting, she might

never see him again, if he decided he didn’t want her on the tour. So why did she feel so
unhappy about that? She didn’t even like him.

Did she?

34

Icefire

Chapter Five

Ryan remembered why he was here a bit belatedly and only caught Jesse as he was

leaving the club. Getting the address from him, he made arrangements to see him the
next day.

After his encounter tonight with Gina Russo, he knew he couldn’t bear to see her on

the tour with Sonny. Seeing them together, heads close, laughing and chatting had been
bad enough but to see her with Sonny as part of an acknowledged couple would be
worse. No, he couldn’t get involved with that family again. Especially now. He’d take
her to her cab and say goodbye. Tell her he didn’t want her as their PR exec on the way
to the taxi.

The connection between them was too strange, too raw to risk many more

meetings. Although she called to him in a way he’d never known before, he didn’t want
it. Not yet, not now.

It would give him more time with Jesse. Jesse thought Ryan was starting his old

habits again but all he wanted this time was information. And if anyone knew what he
needed to know, Jesse would.

Ryan collected his sax and resisted all pleas to do another set. No, even doing this

one had been a risk and he’d deliberately chosen to play the classics, not the
experimental stuff Nighthawk preferred. With any luck, nobody would realize the
truth.

Shape-shifters lived for a long time and tonight Nighthawk had returned to one of

his favorite haunts. Only now, Nighthawk was known by another name—Ryan
Hawthorne. A few of the band had recognized something about the style and some
made the connection. That was fine. Nighthawk’s nephew. And there hadn’t been any
press or media there tonight, he’d scanned very carefully before he’d taken the stage.

And how achingly familiar it had been! A couple of years ago the new owner had

deliberately restored The Phoenix to its appearance in the glory days and walking in
here tonight had shocked Ryan to the core, like traveling back in time.

He wouldn’t come back again.
Just as he snapped the sax case closed, he felt her touch his shoulder. He didn’t

need to look to know. No, he definitely couldn’t allow this to go on. Too close to home,
too painful. And he was about to take a dangerous step back into a world he’d left
behind, one he didn’t want anyone to know about, in case his information was wrong.
In case he was walking into a trap.

He’d fixed his face into a polite but pleasant expression by the time he stood up,

giving nothing of his inner turmoil away.

35

Lynne Connolly

“You don’t have to come with me if you don’t want to. I’ll go grab a cab.”
“No. Let me take you. I’d feel better. It’s a dangerous world, Gina.” More dangerous

than you know.

She turned aside, lifting her shoulder in a light shrug. “I shouldn’t have come.” She

flushed when he lifted a brow, her cheeks and temples flushing prettily. “I didn’t mean
it like that. I shouldn’t have interrupted your down-time.”

He smiled then. Yes, this was down-time for him. The scheme he’d put into action

tonight wouldn’t bear fruit for a while, a day or so at least, so he could plan for a little
time for himself. “I love playing the sax. I sang because they kind of expect it but the sax
was for me. Come on, before they ask me to join them again from sheer politeness.”

“That’s not why they’d ask you to join them again. You’re really good.” All he

could see in her eyes was sincerity. He wouldn’t enter her mind. There was no need and
he didn’t want the connection.

“Thanks.” He turned away. The sooner he got her safely stowed in a cab, the sooner

he could forget her.

Who was he kidding? She’d already worked her way under his skin. His only hope

was to cut all connection with her.

They left the club slowly, stopped by people who wanted to compliment him on his

playing, mostly with comments like, “What are you doing wasting your time with pop
music when you could be doing this?”

Ryan bit his lip, surprised when he heard Gina chuckle as they finally exited the

club to the fresh night air. The chill refreshed him after the stuffy heat of the club. “So
what’s so funny?”

“I wouldn’t have said you were a patient man. Not until tonight anyway.”
He swung around to face her. “Patient?”
The overhead lighting illuminated the classical planes of her face, almost like an old

portrait. He caught his breath at the sight and forced himself to concentrate on what she
was saying.

“Even I can see how skillful you are onstage with Pure Wildfire and what great

rock musicians you are. Do those people back at the club really think you’re in a pop
band?”

He found himself smiling. That was the most times he’d smiled in one evening

since—well, he couldn’t remember. “It’s their clumsy attempt to bug me. But it won’t
work. Pop’s skillful too, just not my thing. Rock is more blues based and it suits me
better these days. I learned the hard way there’s no knowing who’s watching and
listening. If I let myself get riled, there’d be someone handy with their cell phone
camera.” Even in the dim lighting, he could see the relief in her eyes. “Oh believe me,
we’ve dealt out some doozies in our time and we’ve learned to do better. We want it to
be about the music, although we’re prepared to play the celebrity game a bit, as long as
it doesn’t take over.”

36

Icefire

“You sound as if you don’t need a PR person. You have it all worked out.”
Oh great, now he’d pissed her off. Stiffness re-entered her voice and she

straightened up. Probably just as well, though deep inside he knew it was probably for
the best. They could part the best of, if not enemies, then indifferent acquaintances. No
regrets on either side. Well, not on hers anyway.

As he turned to lead the way out the side street toward the main road twenty yards

away, a movement caught his eye. Before he could face it properly, someone struck him
hard on the back of his head.

Gina’s cry of, “Ryan!” alerted him to attack from a different direction and he spun

around, partially shape-shifting to increase his strength. He wouldn’t seem any
different but he let the firebird in and the added power that gave him. As he spun, he
kicked high, ducking his body low to retain his balance. He felt the satisfying yielding
of soft flesh and a masculine grunt.

A man stood behind Gina, holding her arms firmly behind her back. With his

enhanced firebird vision, he saw more shadowy figures. Someone swung at him and
almost automatically he dropped, his hands up to knock the weapon, whatever it was,
aside and bringing his foot up to kick.

After a spectacular spin away from his foot, his assailant slumped to the ground

and Ryan went for Gina’s attacker. Attackers. Two men, one holding what looked like a
firearm, reversed in his hand. It hung, silhouetted against the light before coming down
toward the back of Gina’s head.

Ryan saw red. Roaring, he grabbed the sax case where he’d dropped it and threw it

at the men before launching himself at them too. Striking out right and left, he marked
where they were and kicked, hearing Gina by his side yell as she hit out too.

More men sprang at them and not knowing how many more there were, or what

weapons they had, Ryan used his other senses. Opening his mouth, he sent out a
blasting wave of mental sound, striking the right note to render everyone near him
unconscious.

Which, unfortunately, included Gina.
All consciousness ceased, except for his. He bent to pick Gina up. She’d fallen on a

large, hard body and before he scooped her up, he spotted the neat tie, jacket and the
badge on the lapel.

It seemed he’d not only knocked their attackers out, he’d eliminated the rescue

squad as well. Bouncers from the club must have come to their rescue. Shit. If he’d
waited they might have got out of this without using his powers.

Scanning the area closely, no longer bothering to hide his enhanced eyes, which he

knew glowed red in the near-dark, Ryan saw the weapons. Knives, guns and at least
two of the men wore knuckledusters. If they hadn’t wanted to cause fatal injury, they
certainly wanted to make their mark.

Time to go. Ryan lifted Gina into his arms, raced up the alley and just before he

reached the main road he shape-shifted, throwing Gina high into the air.

37

Lynne Connolly

His clothes tore away, scattering around him in rags, and he took to the air, making

sure his mental fuzzing was complete. Nobody would see, either on the ever-present
webcams or the passing mortals. The only people who would see him were other
Talents and he had nothing to hide from them.

Gina landed on his back with a thud that punched the breath out of his lungs but he

felt nothing but relief. He had to get her out of here. He felt danger, smelled it and knew
reinforcements were on the way. They wouldn’t get away so easily a second time. He
gently probed Gina’s mind. The firearm hadn’t landed on her, all he could sense was
deep unconsciousness and he’d caused that himself.

He sent a telepathic message to the band at the hotel, careful not to disturb Corinne

and Aidan, unless he really needed their help. To his relief, Jake replied immediately.

What’s up, Ryan?
I’ve had to shape-shift. He sent a quick mental image of what had just happened.
Chris joined the convo. I’m heading down to the club to see what I can find.
Come to my room, Jake added. I’ll open the balcony window.
Jake hated being shut in, always insisted on a window that actually opened in any

hotel rooms he occupied. Ryan was glad of it this time.

He concentrated on keeping Gina on his back, kept his full size, which was easily

big enough to provide her with a soft bed, and swept his wings down in a powerful
stroke.

Usually he relished the feeling of flight, loved the power of his firebird body but

this time all he could think about was getting Gina to safety. He swept his wings to
their full extent, up and down, as smoothly as he possibly could and felt her body settle
on his back. Her breasts pressed into him and her warm breath stirred the feathers at his
neck.

Ryan forced himself to concentrate on the task at hand, not to think about what lay

behind them and what was to come. He worked on flying slowly and steadily, keeping
the air around them well fuzzed, harder work when he kept to his full size. Fuzzing
worked by making people see what they expected to see, not what was really there.
Talents saw right through it, so did certain sensitives. He just had to pray there weren’t
any watching him tonight. He’d left too much behind as it was.

When he reached the hotel, Ryan headed for the sixth floor and Jake’s room,

following Jake’s mental trail as much as the view, as everything looked different from
the air. When he sighted the balcony and the drapes flapping at the window, he had to
concentrate on not folding his wings back, reducing his size and shape-shifting as he hit
the ground. Too many years of doing the same thing, too much of a habit, but this time
he’d drop his burden if he did that.

Instead, he landed carefully, still full-size before reducing gradually, letting Gina

slide off his back into Jake’s waiting arms. Only then did he shape-shift.

38

Icefire

He immediately reached for her. He didn’t like seeing Gina in Jake’s arms, even if

she was unaware of it. Jake was a tall, blond hunk, far too attractive for his liking. Not
that it usually bothered him but in this instance, Gina was his—responsibility.

Jake raised a brow but gave Gina up to him and followed Ryan inside, throwing a

robe over his shoulders. Once back in human form, Ryan realized how cold it was and
how cold Gina felt.

“So what happened?”
“Set on by thugs. There were too many of them and they kept coming, so I laid

them all out with a sonic beam.”

He headed for the outer door of Jake’s suite, wanting to get Gina warm and safe. He

couldn’t let her use Jake’s room, he wanted to take care of her. Jake threw open the door
for him and followed him up the short length of hallway to his own room, where he
produced a keycard. “I got a spare,” he said. “They always seem to expect us to lose
ours and I said you were drunk and locked out.”

“Good thinking.” His keycard was with the rags of his clothes in the back alley

across town. He waited while Jake opened the door, which, as usual, took several back-
and-forth swipes before the light changed from red to green and let them in. Once
inside, he deposited Gina gently on the bed before shoving his arms through the sleeves
of the robe. His room was warmer than Jake’s but he still felt chilled.

Jake stood in front of him, powerful arms folded across his equally powerful chest.

“What were you up to tonight?”

“I went to blow some sax at The Phoenix and to follow a lead I had about Maria. I

agreed to meet Sonny there and he turned up with Gina. I said I wanted to talk to her,
since you all like her and the problem seems to be me.” He glanced toward the bed
where Gina lay, curled up in a near-fetal position. “I was going to tell her I couldn’t
have her on the tour, but maybe I was too hasty.”

Jake looked at him, lids heavy under deceptively sleepy eyes. “Maybe. So what

happens now?”

He shrugged and tied the belt of the robe. “Gina caught the sonic beam and

although I was careful, I want to make sure she’s okay, so Gina stays here until she
comes around. She won’t do that for a few hours yet.” The thought of Gina, warm and
sleeping in his bed, caused a tightening in his groin.

The woman touched him deep inside, in a place he’d done his best to kill since

Maria died. Reminding himself of his lost love usually did the trick but not this time.
Whenever he felt himself getting more than fond of a woman, he walked away,
invoking the shade of Maria to remind himself how painful it could be to lose someone,
not wanting it again. But recently that technique hadn’t worked so well and now Gina
seemed to break through the increasingly feeble defense as if it didn’t exist. Without, he
suspected, realizing it. She probably despised him. He hadn’t touched more than the
outside of her mind, the simple touch almost automatic to a Talent, to identify each
other and gauge a mood.

39

Lynne Connolly

He daren’t touch her any deeper. He might find he liked it too much.
But it might be too late for that.
Chris strode in and threw some items to the floor. A battered saxophone case. A

few rags, a plastic wallet with his credit cards and his cell phone. Chris didn’t look
happy. “Here. You shouldn’t have left them behind. The case even has your name on
it.”

“I’ll take it off.” He hadn’t thought of that when he’d labeled the case for Customs

and not taken the label off afterward but then he hadn’t expected to be attacked outside
a nightclub. He ran his hands through his hair. “Thanks for getting them back anyway.”

“It wasn’t easy.” Chris’s expression softened when he saw the occupant of the bed.

“So how is she?”

“Unconscious. I did it with a single note.”
Chris grimaced. “Your attackers are out cold, all of them.”
“Did you learn anything about them?”
“Not a lot.” Chris heaved a sigh. “They could easily have been just muggers,

overenthusiastic fans or even stalkers. They had some nifty combat weapons but these
days everybody does.”

“Nothing to say where they came from?”
“Listen, man, the cops and the paramedics were swarming around. I did a mental

scan but I didn’t spot anything unusual. No sign of Talents.”

“One day you’ll get caught, Ryan.” Jake strode to the door but paused, his hand on

the doorknob. “You can’t expect to go to a club that used to know you, play the
instrument you were known for and not get some trouble.” He left, closing the door
hard.

Chris stared after his brother. “He’s been in a pissy mood for days. No idea what’s

wrong with him.”

Right now Ryan didn’t care, though he filed the information for another time. “I’m

pretty sure Gina will be okay but I’ll keep her here until I’m sure. Does Aidan know?”

Chris’s expression softened. “Sean gave them a hard time tonight, so they went to

bed early. They’re still asleep, as far as I know. If Aidan knew about this, he’d be awake
and busy.”

Ryan shot him a wry grin. “Let him sleep. God knows how they’re doing this. I was

ready to call off this tour but after Sean was born, Corinne recovered so quickly they
won me over. She really wants this, you know.”

“She wants to stick it to that bastard father of hers,” Chris said.
“Sure she does and to her sisters.”
“Bitches, but fun bitches.”
Ryan raised a brow. “You seem to know them better than I do.”
“I thought you slept with one of them?”

40

Icefire

“Generic.” The single word conveyed Ryan’s opinion better than any other word.

Like most bands, they had their shorthand and a “generic lay” was standard, nothing
special, something to relieve an itch. “Sounds as if you did more than that.”

Chris grunted. “It was close.” He walked to the door, as Ryan expected. Any

questions about Chris’ personal life tended to send him out of the room but this time
Ryan wasn’t sorry. He wanted to be alone to think and maybe catch some sleep.

God knew he needed both.

* * * * *

Gina blinked, yawned and stretched, feeling wonderful. A night’s sleep had cured

all her woes, just as she’d known it would. She’d call Mike this morning, tell him the
deal with Pure Wildfire was off, at least as far as she was concerned, then do some
shopping. A good dose of retail therapy sounded like just the thing to break the last of
the blues.

That was, until she stretched and touched something. Someone.
“Jesus!” Jerked into full consciousness, Gina sat up, dragging the covers with her.
A masculine groan to her left told her all she wanted to know. And more. So much

more.

All her good feelings drained away in an instant when she turned her head and saw

the tousled, bright red hair revealed when she moved the sheets. It was attached to the
bare torso of Ryan Hawthorne, now blinking up at her from sleepy amber eyes. He
groped for the covers and pulled them back over his distressingly bare body. “Go back
to sleep,” he mumbled. “Too early.”

“You can.” She pushed the covers aside and scrambled out of bed. “Keep your eyes

closed. Where are my clothes?”

“Ripped and torn and just about unwearable. Also covered in blood.”
“Blood?” Relieved to discover she still had her bra and panties on, Gina looked

wildly about for something else to cover her body with. Ryan lay back and tucked his
hands behind his head, gazing at her with warm appreciation. She must have been
drunk. Her mind raced over the events of the previous night. The last thing she
remembered with any clarity was leaving the jazz club with Ryan. Rohypnol? Had he
date-raped her?

“Come back to bed,” Ryan said. “The heating hasn’t come on yet. I don’t like

sleeping in a hot room, so I turn it off at night. It can’t be very warm out there.”

She stood in a large, luxurious hotel room. Well, it would be luxurious with Pure

Wildfire’s money. Slung over a large, cream-upholstered sofa was a pair of jeans. As
carefully as she could so as not to jolt her aching head, Gina walked over to them. She’d
shower and leave. Or perhaps she wouldn’t shower. If she’d been raped, sure as hell
she’d prosecute. “What happened? What did you do to me?” The jeans weren’t hers but
she hung on to them. She needed to get out of here.

41

Lynne Connolly

The lazy perusal of her figure turned into a sharp regard. “Gina, I didn’t touch you.

Do you think you’d still be in your underwear if I had? Look.”

He threw back the covers. Underneath he wore a pair of tight boxers. So he wasn’t

naked either, although what his underwear outlined didn’t say celibacy to her. Ryan
was long. And hard.

Gina dragged her eyes away from his crotch to see his amused expression had

returned. He pulled the covers back over himself. “I was right. It’s cold out there. Come
and get warm.” He sat up and rearranged the sheets, smoothing them out before
flipping a corner on her side open, invitingly. “Gina, come back to bed and I’ll explain.
You don’t have to touch me. This is a huge bed, big enough for four.” He glanced down
the bed. “Maybe six,” he added speculatively.

It was cold. Gina crossed her arms over her waist in an effort to huddle and get a

little warmer. It was only then, when she winced in pain, she realized she had a bruise
on her upper arm. “What the hell happened?”

“I’ll tell you when you’re back in bed. Gina, I swear I didn’t touch you in that way.

Not sexually. Although I might be a fucking idiot, I’m not a rapist.”

Her knees buckled and without warning a wave of total weakness hit her. Also

without warning Ryan surged out of bed and caught her before she fell to the floor. He
lifted her in a smooth, controlled movement that told her everything she wanted to
know about his strength and carried her back to the bed.

Flinging back the covers, he laid her carefully down. She watched him, her head

swimming, as he walked around to the other side and got in, the bed sinking under his
weight. There had to be a foot between their bodies. Still, she didn’t feel safe, felt his
intense masculinity burn through the bedding between them, felt it as the hairs rose on
her skin.

He lifted up on one elbow. “Gina, we were mugged last night. You don’t remember

anything?”

She shook her head. “The last thing I remember was leaving the club.” She hated

the big, black blank in her mind, like a hangover, except she didn’t have a headache and
she’d only suffered that terrifying blank once, before learning to regulate her alcohol
intake.

Ryan sighed and raked his fingers through his hair. “Yeah, well, we left the club

and we were set upon. They knocked you out first, then went for me but the bouncers
at the club came to our rescue.”

She looked at his upper body, at the muscles and smooth skin. “You’re not

bruised.”

“I was lucky.” He growled low in his throat. Much to her shame, Gina found the

sound an instant turn-on, even though the rumble was one of anger, not of desire. “I
wish they’d gone for me first. You were just in front of me. I swung the sax at them and
kicked out and then the cavalry arrived.” A strange expression crossed his face, almost
humorous. But there was nothing funny about this situation. Nothing at all.

42

Icefire

He made a vague gesture, encompassing the room. “I brought you here. It’s closer

than your apartment.”

“How do you know where I live?”
“Your wallet is over there.” He pointed to the vanity on the other side of the room.

“I found your address in it. Do you remember anything now?”

She closed her eyes. A faint memory, more of movement and panic than of events,

slowly coalescing into a single picture, of men, large, wearing jeans, baseball caps and t-
shirts. A smell of unwashed bodies that would make her heave even now if she thought
about it and a single scream. “Ryan!”

Her eyes snapped open. “Yes, I remember something. Still vague though.” Relief

swept through her when she realized he was telling the truth. She turned her head.
Ryan lay on his side, head propped up on one hand, watching her.

“I’m sorry. I should have had the muscle from the club check out the alley before

we left.”

“It happens. No way was it your fault.” Yes, the memory of a pain on the side of her

head, her terror and then nothing. Reaching up, she gingerly searched her head but
nothing hurt. “Why don’t I have a lump the size of an egg on my head? Why haven’t I
got a headache?”

He blinked and the speculation she thought she saw disappeared in an instant,

before she had time to wonder about it. But when her memory returned she
remembered Ryan, three men converging on him. He yelled for help. Not that she
blamed him for that. Only Superman could do everything and Ryan probably wasn’t
the fighting type. “It was a glancing blow. You must have moved your head to the side
or something and he hit you enough to knock you out but not to leave a lump. Let me
see.” He moved across to her and she let him touch her head to feel gently around and
underneath. A head massage from Ryan Hawthorne would be exquisite. No sooner had
the thought emerged than she felt his hands gentle, his fingertips caress rather than
explore. She let herself sink into the massage, her tensions evaporating.

“That feels good,” she breathed, her eyes sliding closed.
“Relax, love. Let me help you.” The endearment shocked her for a second, until she

realized Englishmen called everyone “love” in a casual way. He rubbed and smoothed,
heaven in his fingers, and continued down to her neck, gently massaging her tension
away. When he began on her shoulders, she opened her eyes.

His eyes, staring down into hers, golden amber with a calmness and reassurance

she’d never seen in anyone before. Recognition flared and he bent his head the scarce
few inches that separated them. Their lips met.

Only then did Gina realize absolutely and for sure what she’d been running away

from. This. This man, this moment, this experience.

This embrace.

43

Lynne Connolly

The kiss gentled her, assuaged her shock. His hand at the back of her neck, his lips

on hers. The longing, the awareness, could have been all hers as far as she knew,
because everywhere else they were separate.

He drew away, lifting his mouth an inch, then two. “Shall I go back to my side of

the bed?”

She couldn’t bear it. She had to know, though she wasn’t sure what she had to

know. She shook her head, feeling her hair settle against the crisp linen pillowcase. The
trivial thought crossed her mind that the laundry must starch the bed linen to get it so
smooth and crisp. “No, don’t. But I’m scared, Ryan.”

“You’re not the only one,” he whispered, breath hot against her lips before he

lowered his mouth to hers once more.

This time he slid his body the few inches needed to bring them together. His cock

felt hot, burning against her thigh, and he pressed it hard into her skin, rubbing it
against her in an instinctive movement, inciting her to press back against him.

When she did, he moaned into her mouth and gave her his tongue.
Gina stopped worrying about doing the right thing, or if she would regret this. No,

this wasn’t the right thing to do and yes, she would regret it. But she’d regret it more if
she didn’t do this.

He caressed her mouth with his tongue, soft and velvety, firm with underlying

muscle. Like his skin, so warm and soft when she lifted her hands to stroke his sides
and slide across his back, his body inviting her to touch and explore. He lay still,
holding his weight off her upper body with his elbows, kissing her deeply, as though
his whole being needed the kiss, more than he needed breath.

They shared a leisurely, caressing kiss, discovering, opening to touch and explore.

There was always something special about a first time, although Gina guessed he’d
known more first times than she had.

No. Nothing future, nothing past, only now.
As the thought crossed her mind, he brought his hands up, stroking her body and

around her rib cage. Without breaking the kiss, he slipped a finger under the wire at the
bottom of her bra and moaned into her mouth.

He pulled away. “I have to see these.” All she could see in his eyes was desire, hot

and needy, and knew hers reflected it. Without breaking eye contact, he slid his hand
around her body and unclipped her bra. Silently she lifted her arms so he could slide
the straps down and off. He tossed the flimsy garment aside without taking his
attention away from her. “Now we’re even, the same amount of clothes.” The corner of
his mouth quirked up in a half smile and he looked down. “I was right. Your breasts are
beautiful.” He stared as if he’d never seen breasts before. “So lovely.”

Her protests faded before his intent gaze. She was beginning to droop and needed

all the support her underwired bras gave her but before now she hadn’t cared. This was
the first man younger than her whom she’d been to bed with but Ryan didn’t give her

44

Icefire

the impression of immaturity. She wondered if he’d ever felt young. Tragedies and
ambition probably burned all that away.

He dipped his head to kiss her throat and down the slope of her left breast, straight

to her nipple. His other hand touched her right breast and tweaked, stroked and gently
nipped. It was her turn to moan at the exquisite sensations he brought to her. His
tongue caressed and tickled, arousing and soothing at the same time. His hand pinched
and touched as if he couldn’t get enough of her.

When she thought she might explode just from him touching her breasts, he kissed

down her stomach, dipped his tongue into her navel in passing but moved down. One-
handed, he dragged her panties down far enough and she heard when he breathed
deeply in through his nose. “Beautiful,” he murmured, before he touched the tip of his
tongue to probe through her pubic hair to her clitoris, homing in as though he’d been
there before. When she arched up toward him, he laughed darkly and a pinch of fear hit
her before he softened his touch on her breast and without warning, sucked her clit into
his mouth.

She had never come like that. Without warning a streak of lightning hit her out of a

blue sky. A scream erupted from her but when she arched up again, he was gone,
kneeling upright before her, the sheet shrouding his shoulders but an effective
backdrop to his golden, lithe body. He skimmed his boxers down his body, leaning
forward so he could kick them out of the way. She looked. She swallowed.

Although she’d seen the bulge in his pants when he performed onstage, she’d

assumed it wasn’t all Ryan. Rockers were notorious for supplementing their natural
assets. She was wrong. Every inch of that beautiful cock was his. The head pulsed with
life, straining toward her, the veins stood out angrily.

When he leaned across her, then past, a moment’s reflection told her what he was

doing. The sound of a drawer opening, the crackle of plastic and he leaned back,
coming up to rest on his heels as he tore open the little packet. It seemed almost sinful
to cover all that naked male flesh.

She swept her tongue over suddenly dry lips and heard him groan. Startled, she

looked up at his face. His mouth was slightly open, his eyes burned with desire but he
held back, watching her carefully. “You still want this?”

“Oh yes. All of it.”
Smiling, he slid down to his elbows again and she felt him touch her and slide

down, straight into her.

Deep, deeper still and then even deeper, touching her everywhere, filling her

completely. “Ryan.”

“Yes, sweetheart?”
“What’s my name?” Aware of his experience, his every controlled movement telling

her how experienced he was, how many times he’d been in this situation, dozens,
hundreds, maybe thousands of times, she wanted his awareness that it was Gina Russo
who lay under him now.

45

Lynne Connolly

Nobody else would share this with her. Another name hovered in her mind,

pushed firmly away. Not here, not now.

“Angelina,” he breathed, deliberately enunciating each syllable of her name,

drawing it out. “Just you. You feel new, different. Special.”

She wouldn’t believe he was just saying that, although he probably was.
“No,” he said, just as if she’d said it aloud, probably reading her cynical expression.

“You are different, Gina. You are special. We fit. We work.”

His hips fit beautifully inside hers, his body plunged deep. She drew up her knees,

lifted her feet to hook them around his thighs and he moved. In and out in deep, long,
deliberate strokes. Ryan watched her the entire time, hungrily devouring her with his
eyes. He leaned forward and touched his lips to hers in a feathering kiss.

We are here, just us two. Angelina, what are you doing to me?
She heard the words just as if he’d said them but they echoed in her mind

unspoken. With every stroke, her mind grew more unhinged.

Closing her eyes to savor the sensation, she felt two soft kisses, one on each eyelid,

before he closed his mouth over hers and kissed her. Slowly, softly, then increasingly
deeper, just as his strokes became more powerful, drawing back to plunge deeper.

Her hands slid down to cup his buttocks, feel his muscles pushing, working her and

this time she felt every minute of her orgasm, the slow build-up, the unbearable tension
before she exploded in a shower of fireworks and liquid heat. She even saw the
fireworks in her mind, fountains of fire, spraying blazing sparks into the night sky and
falling gently to earth.

Above her, Ryan’s back stiffened and he reared up as he burst inside her. That was

exactly what it felt like, pulsing hotly into her body, as if he wasn’t wearing a condom
at all. What would it be like to have him inside her without that thin layer of latex? Skin
to skin, body to body.

Like she’d ever know. Ryan let his head fall forward, resting his forehead on her

shoulder, his hair damp with sweat. “That,” he said, his words muffled by her skin,
“was the best. Top class. The Carnegie Hall of missionary positions.”

Too far gone to laugh, she felt herself sliding away, exhaustion claiming her now

he’d given her two of the sweetest climaxes she’d ever had, effectively relaxing her
enough to sleep, enough to let the stresses of waking up with a virtual stranger in a
strange room slide away. She was with Ryan and she was safe.

The last words she heard were of Ryan Hawthorne soothing her into sleep with his

hypnotic singer’s voice, humming “It Had to Be You”.

* * * * *

Ryan watched his lady sleep. No, she wasn’t his lady, she couldn’t be. A friend,

another in the long line of fuck-buddies and groupies he’d had since Maria died.

Except deep inside, he knew that wasn’t the truth.

46

Icefire

That simple act of lovemaking had been the deepest, most meaningful he’d had for

a long time. Perhaps ever. All he could do was take one day at a time and keep her with
him until they knew for sure. “I won’t hurt you,” he whispered, soft as a breath. “I’ll do
everything I can to keep you from harm.”

Her eyes opened. “That was nice,” she murmured and moved closer to him.
He lay down and wrapped his arms around her. “You weren’t supposed to hear

that.”

“I liked it. Though I don’t know how you can promise that.”
He stroked her skin, satiny under his fingers. Addictive.
Where had that thought come from? His fingers stilled on her skin. A ghost lay

between them, a ghost that needed to be laid to rest before they could progress with
their relationship. If she wanted one. Now, finally, he knew he did.

She lifted her head and looked up into his face. “What’s wrong?”
“There’s something we need to discuss, or rather someone. Isn’t there?”
Her eyes met his in a moment of perfect honesty. “Maria.”
He flinched but didn’t look away. “Yes, Maria.” He swallowed. “I don’t know what

we’ve started here but I want you to know it wasn’t planned. I was going to tell you to
stay away last night but now I think that was cowardice on my part. You disturb me,
touch me at some level and I didn’t want that.” He gave a short laugh. “I don’t know if I
do now but I want to get a few things straight before we decide where we go from
here.”

She stared up at him, her dark eyes reflecting the confusion he felt. “Yes. So tell me

about Maria.”

“I loved her very much.” Enough to want to convert her to his kind. “The night she

died was the one before we went into rehab. I’d booked us into a clinic and she’d
agreed.”

She lifted her head. “She had? I thought—”
“What?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t know that. I didn’t mean to interrupt you either. Tell me.

Please.”

He stroked his finger along her jaw. “No, you first. Tell me what it was like to be

her sister.” He touched her lips, so soft. Beautiful. “I want us to talk about her now, get
it all out in the open. Otherwise she’ll always be between us.”

“Always?” She smiled, one-sided, cynical. “Ryan, there is no always for us.”
He hushed her with one gentle finger against her lips. “Maria first. Then we’ll see.

Please?” Her anxiety beat at him, tension tightening the pressure around them.

She swallowed. He refrained from entering her mind. It would have been an

intrusion. “Okay. Maria first.”

47

Lynne Connolly

She lay warm and utterly still against him and he suddenly realized she felt nothing

like Maria had. He breathed out in relief, the tightness surrounding him for the last five
years relaxing just a little. A new woman, a new start. At last.

“I first met Maria when she was ten years old. Mike Russo is my father and Maria’s

mother married him after her divorce from Maria’s father.”

He stared at her in wonder. Another band around his heart relaxed. “I thought you

were sisters until recently, then I thought you were half sisters. Maria always talked
about ‘my sister Gina’.”

She smiled. “I’m glad. Her mother died in a road accident a couple of years after

Dad married her. So we were close.”

He could imagine. Two motherless little girls, the family disrupted yet again, would

cling to each other for comfort. He swallowed and stroked her arm, trying to comfort
her wordlessly. He didn’t want to interrupt.

“She was an exceptional student and she won a scholarship to Oxford, England. I

left a shy, pretty girl, a bit on the dowdy side, at the airport. Toward the end of her
second year her professor called us to say she’d stopped attending lectures. I flew over
to find her. Dad was following me but I told him not to, later.” She swallowed but he
said nothing, watching her, not breaking eye contact but staying outside her mind. She
had to tell him in her own way.

“I found her in London. You were in the studio.”
He remembered. He’d left her at his flat, she was too wasted to take anywhere.

He’d come home to find her distressed but when she told him about Gina’s visit, he’d
believed Gina was a figment of Maria’s by then over-vivid imagination. Another sad
step in her decline, he’d thought.

“She’d lost weight. She was always too thin but when I saw her she was skeletal.

But you know that, don’t you?”

“I was pretty much the same.”
She drew away and although his arms ached without her, he let her go. He’d half

expected it. Drawing the sheet up to cover herself, he reflected he should be glad Gina
hadn’t left the bed. “She refused to come home with me, she wouldn’t leave you. Oh
yes, I tried to persuade her. And she said she loved you.”

He didn’t even try to hide the tears that sprang to his eyes. “I loved her too.”
“Some love.” But her tone wasn’t accusatory, it was accepting, regretful. “I don’t

know why we did this. I’m a complete idiot.”

She turned away and he knew he had to tell her the truth, however much it hurt

them both. “Don’t I get a chance to talk?”

When Gina didn’t turn back to him immediately, he knew she was blinking away

tears but that made him want her more, not less. And not because they’d both loved
Maria but because he wanted to comfort her. Not that what he was about to tell her
would console her much.

48

Icefire

He breathed a sigh of relief when she did turn back to face him but she kept the

covers closely drawn up around her neck and drew every part of her body away from
his.

He still wouldn’t use his telepathy to persuade her. That wouldn’t have been right.

Gina had to make her own decisions, however much it hurt him.

And it would. Angelina touched him in a place deeper than any other woman.
“Okay,” she said quietly, her voice untinged by emotion. “Spill.”
He waited until she settled and looked at him again. Then he captured her gaze. “I

met Maria in London, not Oxford. Her pimp brought her backstage after a Pure
Wildfire concert and offered her to us, said we could fuck her one after the other.”

He felt Gina flinch through the layers of fabric between them. “She was already

flying, Gina. High as a kite on God knows what, bright and shining and beautiful. I
took her but not because I wanted sex with her. Nobody in their right mind would have
wanted her that night. God knows who she’d been with before us. I thought I’d take her
somewhere, a halfway house or something, find out where she came from and contact
her people.”

He swallowed. “But something inside her touched me. I don’t usually go around

rescuing junkies and drunks. There are too many of them in our business and they don’t
want to be rescued. But if Maria had stayed with those bastards any longer, she
wouldn’t have lasted a month.” He paused. “You must know how stubborn she could
be. She refused to tell us where she’d come from.”

Each of the band had even tried to read her, deep in her mind where Talents didn’t

usually go without permission. They found nothing. Nothing useful they could use to
trace her. The drugs had burned all that away or locked it up in inaccessible places.
There were places in people’s minds that no one but the most powerful Sorcerers could
reach. “We asked the authorities to help but they couldn’t discover anything either.
Anyway, finding her people became low priority after a while.” He wouldn’t look away
from the agony in Gina’s eyes because it reflected his own. “After the first month, I was
hooked. Not on the drugs but on Maria. I wanted so much to help her but she didn’t
want to be helped, not then. I’d seen what happened to people further down the line
and I knew what would happen to her. And now she had me to give her the money for
drugs. Not that she needed money. People give you all kinds of things when you’re in
music and drugs are the least of it. So she had access to all the drugs she needed.”

He paused, waiting for the emotion surging through him to fade a little so he could

speak again, relieved Gina still lay watching him silently with haunted eyes. “I decided
to join her. That was one of the biggest mistakes I ever made, because like every other
junkie I thought I could stop whenever I wanted to.” He made a disparaging sound,
hissing between his teeth. “Fuck, what an idiot I was!”

Remembering hurt, almost as much as the first time but he had to tell her, he

couldn’t let this newborn relationship become a casualty of the first one. “People don’t
take heroin, crack and all the other stuff because the drugs will kill them. They take

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them because of the new world the drugs take them into. The band followed me into
oblivion and we’d spend days staring into space, writing stuff we were convinced was
brilliant only to discover no one was interested in it, probably because it was crap. But
nobody got into it like I did. I come from a family of musicians, we’d all been around
drugs for years without succumbing. You want to know why Nighthawk left New York
and never went back?” A wry smile quirked his mouth when he recalled the irony.
“Because he saw too many people die far too young, their lives and talents burned out
by heroin. He didn’t want that for himself and he couldn’t take one more death. So he
came home.” He paused.

“I wasn’t that bright. I plunged headlong into it. I was sure I wouldn’t get addicted,

after the next hit, I’d stop and take Maria to a clinic. That was my original idea, you see,
to go with her to the clinic and get the cure. But I couldn’t get the cure without being an
addict myself.” He laughed mirthlessly.

“Eventually Aidan forced it. He made me see sense after he’d sobered up but he

had to beat me up to do it. I booked us into a rehab clinic and the night Maria died was
the night before we were supposed to go in.” A special clinic, one that was used to
dealing with Talents as well as their mortal companions. The band had loved shape-
shifting while high and if they mixed Cephalox with the heroin or cocaine, or whatever
was the drug du jour, they could keep the high going in both forms. The Cephalox
would force the shape-shifter back to mortal but there was a destructive high in trying.
So Maria saw them, knew what they were, something they never did when they were
sober. Telling non-Talents was banned and in any case, letting someone into their secret
required careful preparation and permission from the authorities. Authorities like
Aidan. But in those days, he’d refused to take on the responsibilities that went with his
position as the phoenix.

“We decided on one last hit, one last high, just the two of us. The others in the band

had come off the junk by then and so it was just Maria and me. We went to our usual
guy, a man called Jesse. Nothing seemed different at first. We both passed out and
when I woke up, we were in the hospital.” He paused. “I watched her die.”

His vision blurred and only then did Ryan realize that he was weeping. He blinked,

forcing himself to stop. He’d wept enough for his lost love.

A single tear tracked slowly down Gina’s face, following the crease of her nose and

dripping into her lips. He didn’t lick it off, though he yearned to take her in his arms
and comfort her.

“I’m sorry, Gina. It was my fault, I handled it wrong. I should have taken Maria to a

clinic at the outset, made her tell us who she was and where she came from. That day
you visited was the first time I knew she had a family and she spoke as if you were
something out of her head, not there in flesh and blood. Oh yes, she told me about your
visit but God help me, I didn’t believe her. I didn’t think you were really in London.”
His hand moved, to reach for Gina but he pulled it back, hating himself for bringing
that stricken look to her face.

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Icefire

“It’s my fault too,” she whispered. “She told me you were helping her but I didn’t

believe her. I believed all the stories about the wild band, the rock star lifestyle, all that.”

“All that happens and a lot more. I won’t lie to you.”
“Won’t you?” She bit her trembling lip.
This was the moment she either left him or came back. He refused to force her in

any way, refused to affect her with psi Talents, or lies, or making love to her. She had to
come back to him of her own free will, had to trust him.

“No, I won’t. I don’t have any definitive proof that I corrupted her, fucked her

senseless and shared my needles with her. That’s what you believe, isn’t it?”

She stared at him, wordlessly studying his face, her full lower lip still caught

between her teeth. After what seemed like forever, she released it, bringing a flush to
the teeth marks. Marks he longed to soothe away with his tongue. “I did believe it. I
guess I just assumed it. But not now. God, I want to trust you, Ryan!”

“I swear I’m telling you the truth. But if you can’t accept it, I’m okay with that. I

won’t like it, I want this to carry on so we can discover what we have together but I
don’t want you doubting me. I want your trust. I know it’s hard to give and I don’t
blame you if you don’t give it. Take all the time you need. I’ll wait, if that’s what you
want.”

“What about the PR on the tour?”
“Fuck it.” Right now he’d paste the posters himself, go back to the penny-ante way

they’d started out if it meant he could keep her. “Forget it. If we need to, we can fix it.
You and me, Gina. Concentrate on that.”

The flash in the depths of her eyes startled him, as though something inside her

forced its way through. “Okay, Ryan, I believe you.”

Another of the bands around his heart that had been there since Maria died

snapped and broke away. “If you’re sure… Come here, Gina. Let me hold you again.”

“Just hold me?”
She was already moving, shoving the sheets aside to slide across the bed to him.

Feeling her warmth against him was like coming back to life. “Thank you, love. You
won’t regret it, I swear.” He held her until her trembling and tears stopped and then
held her some more.

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Chapter Six

“So are you coming on tour with us?”
She looked up from her sandwich. Ryan had called for room service and delicious

sandwiches and cool white wine arrived fifteen minutes later. They needed the
sustenance, he told her with a laugh. Lovemaking was thirsty work.

Taking the break as a time to think, she tried to work out what she was doing here,

where this—this affair, this afternoon, was leading.

She flashed a smile at him. “If you want me.”
He reached a hand to her, where she sat on the wide sofa next to him. “Oh yes, I

want you. The others did already, the final decision was mine.”

She took a bite. “Do you do everything democratically?”
“Ha!” He laughed, lifted his glass and toasted her with it. “Life is never that simple.

Not everything. But when it involves the band, we all have to say yes or no. One
disagrees and that’s it. It’s worked so far for us. And we’re family, so it’s not as if we’ve
only just met.”

“I always thought that was a bit weird. Brothers in a band.”
“Why? Ray and Dave Davies, the Hawkins brothers, the Doobie brothers—” He

frowned at her with mock anger when she burst into laughter. “What?”

“The Doobies weren’t real brothers.”
He shrugged. “You get the idea though. And we’re just two sets of brothers coming

together. And one wife.”

Corinne. “But you and Aidan are cousins to the other two.”
“Kind of. A bit distant but it’s easier to say cousin. Just as it was easier for you and

Maria to say you were sisters.” He sipped his wine reflectively. “I thought you two had
some kind of fatal attraction for me.” He gave a mock shudder. “Now I find there’s no
blood bond at all.”

She shuddered and hers wasn’t faked. “Blood bond. That makes you sound like a

vampire.”

Now it was his turn to laugh, an uproarious, glorious, full-bodied sound. “That’s

one thing I can promise you. I’m no vampire. Although they’re not half as scary as you
seem to think.”

“But they suck blood.” She put her sandwich down but he picked up her plate and

gave it back to her.

“Eat. You’re going to need your strength.” He waggled his eyebrows. “You don’t

get away that easy. Shall I tell you about vampires?”

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Icefire

“Not while I’m eating.”
He chuckled and reached for the large plate of sandwiches on the table in front of

them. A chime sounded, gently musical. It sounded like a cell phone. Grimacing, Ryan
reached for one of the remotes resting on the table. “TV time. Aidan and Corinne are on
the Today Tonight program.”

“Oh fuck, how could I have forgotten that? Shouldn’t you be there? Didn’t they

want the rest of the band to appear?”

He flicked the TV on and muted it. “We cancelled. Jake called and told them about

the mugging so they’ve booked another band to do our spot and they’ll use a video to
show the band. They won’t put out the news of the attack on the show though.” He
glanced at her. “We’d better get a detailed schedule to your office. We’re doing a
concert on the West Coast, a bit of TV and filming a video shoot.”

“Then what?”
“Then we’re done. For now. After that, we go into the studio for the next album.”
“In England.” Her heart sank when she realized that.
“Maybe.” He watched her carefully, his drink in his hand. Apart from the scarlet

hair he looked the epitome of an English gentleman, wrapped in a fluffy white robe,
holding a cold glass of white wine just so, his legs stretched out elegantly before him.
And here she was, American to the core, rooted in New York, both family and career.
Another reason why this wouldn’t last, even if she wanted it to.

“Gina, if this is more than a passing affair, if we have a future together, we’ll make

it. Nothing can stop it.”

“You sound sure but there’s too much.”
“Too much what?” He scooted over, put his drink down on the coffee table with a

click of glass on glass and drew her into his arms. Already she felt safe there, finding
blissful serenity in his embrace, although she knew it was far too early for that. “Hey,
stop thinking. Just stop thinking. Go with the flow, okay?”

She could have wept. “I’ve lost people who thought that.”
“Well, you’ve got me now and I think like that. It’s the only way.”
He leaned forward suddenly and she panicked for a moment before she realized he

was grabbing the remote to turn the sound back on.

He leaned back and she watched the Today Tonight show in the most comfortable

way possible. In a new lover’s arms. He picked up his glass again and gave her a sip.
“Come on. Eat. You’re too thin, you know that?”

“Look who’s talking.” But she said it without conviction. Ryan might be slender but

when he moved, a series of well-trained, beautifully developed muscles flexed and
rippled under his skin. In his drug years he’d been painfully skinny, a look many
women liked, but Gina preferred the healthy, toned man he was now.

They watched the host deliver the usual parade of jokes, delivered fast. Some

topical, some cruel, some not funny but most hitting the spot. She knew some of the

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Lynne Connolly

writers on this program, knew how fast they burned out and wondered how host Jeff
Lundberg kept his energy up. She suspected she knew but since she had nothing to do
with him, it was none of her business. Drugs. Again.

After the first guest, an extremely good-looking soap actor with a vacuous way

with words, came a girl singer, one girl, one guitar, an attempt at an edgy look and a
song that sounded eerily familiar to all the others on her album. Then another actor, a
film actress this time and a clip from her latest movie.

Gina couldn’t say she watched the program with a great deal of enthusiasm, or

even attention. The sound tinkled in the background as she gave and received
increasingly passionate kisses. God, the man knew how to kiss! When he touched his
lips to hers, the world ceased to exist. Nothing outside the compass of their hot
exchanges meant anything at all. She had no idea if it meant as much to him but for the
next few hours, she didn’t care. She’d think about it tomorrow. She, Gina Russo, the
woman who planned her wardrobe a season in advance, released a little bit of herself to
live in the here and now. To share with a man she couldn’t say she knew properly but
one she connected with on such a deep level she hadn’t been aware that level existed
before today.

She would have missed Aidan and Corinne, except Ryan pulled back and after one

deep smile into her eyes, picked up the remote and turned up the sound.

Aidan’s voice sounded loudly for a moment before Ryan adjusted the volume.

“Yeah, we met when we made a charity single together. It was a bit instant.”

Jeff Lundberg sounded indulgent and patronizing. “So you met, had sex and

married for the publicity.”

Ryan chuckled. “Not exactly.”
Aidan echoed him. “Not exactly. We met, fell in love and got married.”
“So how does that make Corinne one of the few female members of a rock band?”
Aidan almost purred. “It doesn’t. We’d be together with or without the band. We

connect through our music, that’s all.”

“You do? Sounds a bit kinky to me.”
Aidan shrugged, the shoulders of his leather jacket moving and settling on his

broad frame. “That’s your problem, not ours.”

The audience laughed. Gina watched carefully now. They were coping well.

Lundberg was slick, clever, had been doing this for years. On paper, Aidan and Corinne
didn’t stand a chance, if he decided he didn’t like them and from the edge in his voice,
she guessed he had.

The next moment was sheer genius. Lundberg used his favorite tactic, something

he’d tried on politicians, actors and all others, sometimes to devastating effect. He
didn’t say a word but stared at Aidan, one eyebrow slightly raised as if he expected him
to finish a thought. That was when secrets were blurted out and confessions made, just
to fill the empty space.

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Icefire

Neither Aidan nor Corinne fell into the trap. They stayed silent too. Aidan shifted a

little in his seat and glanced at his wife, who smiled back at him. A moment of perfect
harmony.

Like the ones she’d shared with Ryan, Gina realized with a start. No words needed.

Oh no, not that, not yet. Please.

So Jeff Lundberg broke the silence, a sacred, expensive few seconds in a top-rated

show. He’d never get them back and he might even suffer for it. “So how do you plan to
cope with your new baby on this tour?”

Corinne answered. “The baby is fine. He has two nannies for when we’re onstage or

somewhere else, like here. We keep him with us. We don’t want to be parted from him
for long.”

Lundberg was riled now. Gina felt it and from the way Ryan’s hand tightened on

her shoulder, he felt it too. “Do you think just anyone should be parents? A few years
ago, you were reputed to be the most drug-ridden band in the world. Is the baby safe?”

It was clumsy, too hard-hitting. He should have started gently and built up to this

point, not hit them with it from the outset and from the way he picked up a pen from
his desk and fiddled with it, he knew.

“The baby is perfectly safe.” As Corinne spoke, a wail from somewhere offstage

meant the baby was close. “Aidan was clean when I met him, he’s been clean ever since
and so has the rest of the band. I wouldn’t tolerate anything like that near my baby.”

The audience applauded. Lundberg’s pen-fiddling became ever-so-slightly more

manic. The audience was supposed to be on Good Ole Jeff’s side, not theirs.

Corinne glanced offstage where the faint sound of wailing could still be heard, then

she beckoned. A woman walked on, carrying a blanketed bundle, and Corinne reached
up and took the baby from her. The audience approved and showed it with warm
applause. Aidan curled his arm around Corinne as she held the baby close and ignored
everyone else—Jeff, the audience, the millions at home. And Gina knew the audience
loved her for it. They loved the paternal hold, the way Aidan protected his wife and
child with his outstretched arm.

This interview was not going Jeff’s way. Gina waited and held her breath to see

what would happen next.

The baby wailed and Corinne flashed a smile at Jeff before glancing at Aidan. An

unspoken conversation seemed to take place between them and Aidan nodded. “Sean’s
hungry,” he explained.

“Do you need to be excused?” Jeff addressed the audience, grinning widely. “Who

would have thought a wild man of rock would be tamed by something this small? Do
you have to leave the stage to feed him, Corinne? What comes first, the baby or the
band?”

Corinne looked up, fixing Jeff with a steely glare. “Usually I don’t have to make the

choice. Perhaps later, when Sean needs a more stable lifestyle, we’ll think again but
babies don’t care where they are as long as they’re near their parents.”

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Lynne Connolly

Gina felt Ryan’s tension but didn’t look away from the TV. “The bastards have

fixed something,” he muttered grimly. “Not given Sean a feed, or jiggled him awake.
Something.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.” Gina leaned forward a little, waiting to see who would

crack first. “This show is completely fixed and the angle’s worked out before the guests
are even invited.”

“Yeah.” Ryan didn’t sound surprised but he’d probably handled hostile situations

before. “Remember it was one interview on early evening TV in the UK that rocketed
the Sex Pistols to fame and everybody’s been trying for the same thing since. TV hosts
are terrified of losing control, as Bill Grundy did on that show, when he tried to
provoke the Pistols. Now band members are carefully coached so they don’t cross the
line.” He paused. “Corinne’s about to cross the line. Before she does, know I still want
you, PR or not.”

Then she did look around to see him watching her intently. She caught her breath at

the depth of emotion in his gaze. “If you turn the job down, I want to keep in touch.
You can still come on tour, if you find the time, or we’ll work something out.” He bent
and touched his lips to hers. “Think about it, Gina.”

She couldn’t refuse him when he looked at her like that and that fact alone gave her

pause. Ryan Hawthorne had great stage presence and that stemmed from a personal
charisma she’d be an idiot to deny existed. Could he compel her, just by sheer personal
presence? Hell yes.

Turning away without answering him, she stared at the TV, just for somewhere else

to look. And saw Corinne breastfeeding Sean.

“Oh my God!”
Ryan chuckled. “Go for it, Corinne.”
Gina couldn’t see any part of Corinne’s breast, she’d covered herself with her t-shirt

and Aidan’s protective arm hid the lower part and most of the baby but from the
slurping sounds and their positions, everyone watching could see and hear what she
was doing. She’d removed all her attention from the interview and Jeff Lundberg
couldn’t make himself heard over the hoots and hollers from the audience. Only Aidan
seemed calm, holding Corinne close, watching his wife feed his son with an indulgent
expression she’d never seen him use onstage.

Corinne glanced up at him and they exchanged a private communication, not

concealing their love or their closeness. Then Aidan turned back to Lundberg and
smiled, as the audience subsided. “Jeff, my wife and my child come first. Always. If
Sean is hungry and Corinne is comfortable feeding him, then she does that and I look
after them both while she’s doing it. So if you’d allowed the nanny to give Sean his feed
offstage this wouldn’t have happened.”

Perfect. An emotion rose up inside Gina that had nothing to do with her situation

here with Ryan, nothing to do with her private life.

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Icefire

Corinne Hawthorne had just changed Gina’s mind. On the brink of turning away,

of refusing to admit she had nothing in common with Ryan and the rest of the band,
something in her mind clicked into place. What a challenge this was! She’d never get
anything like it again. A nearly-there rock band, one headed for the very top, and she
could work with them on the way up.

“I’ll do it,” she said. “I’ll come on tour with you. I’ll take the job.”
“Oh Gina!” Hands on her waist, Ryan turned her around to face him, lifting her

over him to settle her on his lap, legs on either side of his muscled thighs. He dragged
her down, kissing her mouth with none of the finesse he’d demonstrated earlier, his
relief swamping her in waves.

Shocked, she pulled back. “Relief?”
“You can feel that?” He curved his hand around her cheek. “You’re empathetic?”
“What’s with you?” She laughed, unsure of his reaction to her. She should be

shocked, but he looked pleased. “Empaths and vampires? Shit, Ryan, you sound like an
episode of Stranger than Fiction. So shut up and fuck me.”

His laugh chimed with the audience as they applauded Corinne and Aidan.

Without taking his eyes off her face, Ryan reached for the remote and switched off the
TV. “Just us now. And yeah, if you want a silent fuck, I can do that.”

“No, not silent. Just no more paranormal stuff, okay?”
“Anything you say, baby.”
He pushed aside his robe to expose his straining erection, as if they hadn’t made

love at all. “Now show me that beautiful pussy.”

Grinning, she untied her robe, taking her time. She exposed her cleavage first,

watching his avid gaze, then with a sudden movement shoved the garment aside,
dragging it down her arms and tugging the fabric away from under her bottom. He
didn’t allow her to sit down on his thighs again but slipped his hands under her,
cupping her buttocks. “Come here, sweetheart.”

Smiling, she raised her hands and slid one under her breast, offering it to him. Ryan

sat up and urged her closer, within range of his mouth. He licked around her nipple as
he might lick a delicate morsel before sucking it voraciously into his mouth.

Electricity shot from her breasts to her loins and she arched her back, which only

drove her further into his mouth. He moved to her other breast, his fingers massaging
her buttocks, driving her crazy. “Ryan! Oh Ryan!”

His tongue worked her nipple, flicking over the hard nub, but when she lifted over

him, trying to get to his cock, he pushed her back and lifted his head. “Pocket,” he
gasped before returning to his task. This time he kissed the underside of her breast and
drew his tongue along the crease, making her shudder. She’d never realized that part of
her body was so sensitive before. “Shit, I knew you’d taste good,” he muttered. He took
one more long lick. “I want to taste your pussy, but I want to fuck you more. Another
time. We’ll have another time.”

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Lynne Connolly

Oh yes, they’d be doing this again, she knew that now. Fumbling, she found the

pocket in his robe, which now hung off his shoulders, and found the foil packet. She
ripped it open with shaking fingers and reached for him.

His cock reared, as needy as the first time she’d seen it earlier in the day, and he

sighed when she took it in her hand. A drop of moisture seeped from the tip and Gina
couldn’t resist. She bent, pushing Ryan aside, and licked the drop off, sucking a little to
take any more offerings.

“No, no more!” he gasped. “Please!”
Taking pity on him, she lifted her head and brought her hand to him, sheathing him

if not quite expertly, then at least quickly. His hands under her ass urged her to lift up,
on to him, but she didn’t need urging. As she rose up, he groaned. “Oh God you smell
so good! Do it, baby, do it now!”

She had every intention of doing it. As his rigid cock parted her flesh she felt her

body giving under his probing, taking him in, accepting everything. Instead of sinking
down on to him gently, she dropped, taking him in one deep plunge.

Her scream and his yell merged into one triumphant cry.

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Icefire

Chapter Seven

Ryan felt stupidly happy when he walked into Russo’s with the rest of the band.

Considering how miserable Corinne was after the TV interview, how carefully Aidan
tucked her in to his body, a sure sign of the protectiveness he felt for her, Ryan had no
right to feel this way. But he did and he hadn’t felt this way for five years.

A sense of anticipation, of bubbling optimism filled him when he saw the publicity

shot of Gina working with her team, looking sharp and businesslike. Sharp and
businesslike had never turned him on before. He knew what the nape of her neck,
revealed by her severe hairstyle, tasted like. He knew what lay under the crisp white
blouse and he wanted to touch it again. From the minute she’d left his hotel suite to get
into the taxi he’d called for her he felt an absurd sense of loss. She was coming on tour
with them. Something good was finally happening to him.

Aidan knew, of course but he was too bound up with Corinne’s misery right now.

As far as Jake and Chris were aware, Gina was another conquest, another transient
woman in his life. Already Ryan wanted more than that.

Everyone stared at them, businessmen in neat, expensive suits sitting in the

reception area, the receptionist behind her massive desk, switchboard lights winking to
one side of her and the people who just happened to pass through. But no one spoke to
them.

Ryan hadn’t thought they were particularly different but here, in their jeans and

tour t-shirts—other bands’ tours, it was deeply uncool to wear your own—they stood
out like lions in a living room.

A pretty assistant dropped by for them and they followed her up a thickly carpeted

hallway to a wooden office door. Ryan didn’t have to see through it to know Gina was
inside. He felt her presence with a tingle that went right into his core.

When he entered behind Aidan and Corinne, his gaze caught with Gina’s for a long

moment. A wordless mental jolt from Aidan brought him back to earth. Shit, that
probably meant other people had noticed too.

Chairs were set before Gina’s impressive mahogany desk and at Mike’s invitation,

they sat down.

Mike’s alert gaze went from Ryan to his daughter and back. Oh yeah, he’d noticed

all right. Ryan hoped he wouldn’t object to it, though that was almost impossible to
imagine. How would he feel if his adopted daughter died through her association with a
man and then his other daughter got involved with him? He didn’t need to stretch his
imagination for the answer to that one.

Gina turned her screen around so they could see.

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Lynne Connolly

A rerun of the interview on Today Tonight. Aidan groaned. “We don’t need to see

that again.”

“Watch,” Gina said. A different Gina today, a businesswoman with a job to do. The

thought of taking her in that sharp business suit and crisp blouse made his cock stir in
his jeans. Oh shit, that was so twisted.

“This is a good interview,” Gina continued, oblivious to Ryan’s lustful thoughts. So

far, anyway.

A knock fell on the door and the massive figure of Randy Norwood entered. Ryan

grinned at him. “Just in time for the show.”

“I think I’ve watched that enough times already.”
“No, wait.” With her father standing silently behind her like a Hugo Boss’ed, beefy

bodyguard, Gina talked them through it while Randy found himself a seat next to Ryan.

“A good interview but nothing special.” He watched the pictures as Corinne

reached for the hem of her t-shirt prior to feeding baby Sean. Corinne groaned.

“Not your fault, Corinne.” Gina turned her attention to her. “They worked it, the

people on the show. They ‘lost’ the bottle Corinne left for baby Sean. I made a few
phone calls this morning and got some interesting answers.”

“So why didn’t she leave the interview to go see to the baby?” Mike demanded.

From his frowning demeanor it wasn’t hard to see what he wanted. He regretted ever
taking on the Pure Wildfire account. Randy, in his clever, seemingly bumbling way, had
steamrollered him. He wanted Russo’s and he got it but even Randy couldn’t save them
from this mess.

“If you watch, you’ll see they didn’t give her a chance. They brought the baby on

set to her. And then the maternal instinct took over.”

“It’s all over the Internet today and the TV too.” Mike glared at Ryan. “Tell me how

you can possibly spin this, Gina. I’m ready to drop this account, I hope you all realize
that.”

“Don’t do it.” Gina switched her attention back to the screen. “Watch the interview.

At no point does Corinne show a breast, so she can’t be accused of obscenity. I’ve
watched it on magnification. She tucks Sean under her top and although it’s obvious
what’s going on, you can’t see anything. The studio people were quick to disable her
mike, so you can’t hear much either.”

“I disabled the mike,” Aidan said grimly. “Yanked the wire out of the fucking

thing.”

“We should thank God for that,” Corinne said glumly. She gripped Aidan’s hand

tightly. “Honestly, they brought him on and I could feel him, so distressed. He wasn’t
just hungry, he was tired, those bastards must have kept him awake too. They kept the
nannies busy with security checks, kept emptying the supply bags to search them, they
told me. So all the jiggling when the nannies passed Sean to each other kept him awake
and the tension bothered him.”

60

Icefire

“Hey, if it’s between motherhood and the band, you made the right choice.”

Aidan’s soft voice acted as an emollient in the prickly atmosphere of the room, although
Ryan felt the anger underneath, as, he’d bet, did Jake and Chris.

“That’s the point,” Gina’s voice cut through incisively. “She’s a mother, balancing

career and child. I’ve started the spin. I’m waiting for a call from the Mothers of
America.”

“Who the hell are they?” If Mike hadn’t asked, Ryan would have.
“They propose true motherhood.”
“They sound dangerous. Purists.” And they knew all about purists, people who

thought anything and anyone different to themselves were somehow wrong and sinful.
One had nearly killed Aidan once. Technically, had actually done so but Aidan, being
the Phoenix, went into the fire and now he was back, stronger than ever.

Gina flicked the computer mouse and the picture on the screen changed to a

website. “They fight for the rights of mothers in the workplace, demand that mothers
should be allowed to take their babies in to work and feed them when they need to.
Then there’s this place.” Another flick, another website. “These people advocate
breastfeeding, say if a child is denied breast milk when he needs it, it can seriously stunt
his development mentally and physically.” She glanced up at her father. “You forget
why you employed me? No family favors, you said, you’re good, you said. Well, Dad,
I’m still good. I’ve contacted half a dozen organizations this morning and sent them
copies of the interview. Corinne’s taken her baby on tour with her, not left the kid with
hired help at home and she’s married to Splinter, not cohabiting. That gave me an in
with these organizations. Some of them are very well connected. By lunchtime the
counterattack will have started.”

“God, you are good!” Mike’s face cracked into a smile. “Did you get anyone else

onboard?”

“You bet. I contacted every organization I could find that wants to promote

working mothers, especially the ones that believe the baby should be incorporated into
the lifestyle as far as is safe. I’ve arranged an interview for Corinne and Aidan at
lunchtime, on the news.” She checked her watch. “An hour from now.”

“Oh God!” Instinctively Corinne turned to Aidan, who murmured soothing non-

words to her. Ryan knew this had struck deeply at her and hated whoever had
contrived to do it. Publicity-hungry hounds. He’d like to kill them all.

Corinne straightened up. “I’m okay now, just a bit panicked. I’ll do it, of course. For

me, for Sean and for the band.” Her quiet, refined tones came as a direct contrast to her
appearance, wild, red-tipped dark hair and tall, slender body encased in tight-fitting t-
shirt and jeans. “I should be used to it by now, I’ve been in this business long enough.
It’s just that I don’t like Sean in the spotlight. I don’t want him anywhere near a camera
if it can be helped and as he gets older, I want that enforced. Until he’s ready to make
up his own mind.”

Aidan glanced at Randy. “In case you were wondering, that’s non-negotiable.”

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Lynne Connolly

“When you signed with me I promised that. It’s all about the music, you said and I

agreed. Fuck, with you it doesn’t need to be anything else.” John Westfall had stopped
at nothing to promote his children and any other artist he had in his portfolio. They’d
had enough of that kind of exploitation. No more, they’d all decided. Randy, with his
reputation for selectivity in his choice of artists to promote and, even rarer, complete
honesty in his dealings with them, was just about the only choice.

“So the line we all take is that Corinne was manipulated into breastfeeding on

camera, she didn’t show anything inappropriate,” Chris snorted and Gina glanced at
him, one eyebrow raised, but he didn’t say anything else, “Aidan and Corinne wish to
bring up their child themselves, the baby is cared for by two nannies when Aidan and
Corinne are onstage and there is nothing wrong with what she did.”

“The truth, in other words,” Jake commented. He stretched his arms above his

head, smiling lazily, a gesture guaranteed to get the pulse of any red-blooded female
speeding up. But not Gina, Ryan noted with a surge of triumph. She looked at him and
then hastily away again. He felt it too and he didn’t have to be psychic to recognize the
spark that arced between them.

“Yes, the truth but it’s as well to have it clearly worked out first. You know what

the media can do if you’re not prepared.”

“I won’t have Sean dragged into this again.” A mulish line of defiance set Corinne’s

mouth.

“No, there won’t be any need. We can talk about him but not bring him back onto

camera.” Gina checked her watch again. “The car should be outside the building by
now to take you to the TV studio. We went with NBC.”

Randy gave a low whistle. “Your dad was right. You’re good.”
“Too good sometimes.” Mike glared at Ryan. “I want to come to this one, I’ll see

you outside. Hold the car for me.”

“Okay.”
Ryan wanted to hold Gina, kiss her, but after the others left, in a better mood than

they’d arrived, Mike stayed behind. Dads always made the best gooseberries. Even a
wild child rock star balked at kissing a woman with her father present. Unless of course
it was at the altar after the wedding ceremony.

While he liked Gina, liked her a lot, he was nowhere near that level. Yet. At least, he

didn’t think so and from the way Gina watched him warily, neither was she.

Mike broke the stalemate. “Tell me I’m not seeing this.”
“You’re not seeing this,” Gina chanted, without taking her eyes off Ryan. He knew

how she felt and he wasn’t even extending his senses. He yearned to touch her again,
hold her in his arms and that, for a while, would be enough.

“I won’t lose another daughter to you.” Mike’s voice was so grave, so unlike his

usually lighter tones Ryan looked up, straight into Mike’s ice-blue eyes.

62

Icefire

Mike flinched. People often did when they looked into Ryan’s eyes. They were an

amber color and his pupils were highly sensitive to light so in the daylight, like now,
the pupils were mere pinpricks in the intense color. Ryan, being a lifelong performer,
knew every nuance of his eyes, having spent hours before the mirror, not in any pursuit
of vanity but in projecting the image he wanted and using his natural assets to enhance
that. Let the fans think it was all natural—Ryan knew better.

Now he was glad of all the practice, because it gave him a slight advantage where

he shouldn’t have any, confronting the man whose stepdaughter had been with him
when she died and, from what Gina had told him yesterday, blamed him for it.

“I won’t harm Gina.” He played fair, didn’t project any persuasive waves. If the

affair with Gina went further, if they became a longer-term couple, he’d want a good
relationship with her father. “I swear to you I didn’t harm Maria but I did make some
bad choices where she was concerned.”

Mike looked away, touching the edge of the computer screen. “I took this account

to lay a ghost to rest. Norwood thinks he persuaded me and to some extent he did but I
wouldn’t have taken it if I hadn’t a few ambitions of my own. One was to find out what
kind of man would get the drugs that killed a vulnerable, gentle girl. Or persuaded her
to try them in the first place. I still don’t know. You seemed to be a decent kind of guy
and when I met you I thought to myself, well, perhaps the drugs did it, made you a
different person. Now I’m beginning to find out more about you and I don’t like it.
Hurt my daughter and I’ll take you out in the nearest dark alley and shoot you.”

“Dad!”
Gina’s shocked cry went ignored by everyone but Ryan. He needed to persuade her

father. It was obvious Mike Russo was important in his daughter’s life and he wouldn’t
have a chance with her if Mike wouldn’t at least accept him. “If I hurt her, I’ll probably
shoot myself and save you the trouble.”

The corner of Mike’s mouth turned up in a sneer. “Enough with the hysteria, keep

that for the stage. I’m telling you, Hawthorne, you won’t hurt her.”

“Jesus, don’t I have any say?” Gina, dark eyes flashing with anger, leaped to her

feet between the two. “Dad, I’ll do what I want. I’ve been hurt before, the chances are
I’ll be hurt again but I’m not Maria. I won’t do that, lose myself in some other substance.
Ryan’s clean, he’s been clean for a while, you know that as well as I do and perhaps he
is different, I don’t know. In any case, it’s far too early to jump to conclusions.”

“Is it?” Ryan couldn’t resist, the honesty that had him in so much trouble in the past

rising again. “I’m open to anything but I swear I won’t hurt her.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” Mike strode out from behind the desk, brushing past Ryan

and heading for the door. He turned back before he left for one last word. “If you do
anything—anything to hurt her, I’m coming after you with everything I’ve got. Being
Italian counts for something, Hawthorne, and don’t you forget it!”

Not the way PR company heads usually talked to their clients.

63

Lynne Connolly

The door closed behind Mike with a gentle, deliberate click that was too controlled,

enough that it meant more than a loud slam.

“You’re mafia?”
He smiled at Gina but she didn’t smile back.
“Absolutely not.” She stared at the now closed door. “Not all Italians in New York

are connected, although most have some vague knowledge of it. We’re from the North
of Italy, at that. It’s mainly southerners, the poor Italians who were part of the mob.”
She seemed to shake herself and blinked. “I’ve never seen him that angry, at least, not
in work hours.”

“It’s hardly a work matter,” Ryan said mildly, giving in to the urges racking him

and stepping around to her side of the desk. “He doesn’t know the whole story and
from his point of view it’s a bit like giving his girls to the dragon.” Or the firebird. He
reached for her and to his relief she came into his arms. “I meant what I said. I won’t
hurt you, Gina. You call the shots, if that makes you feel better.”

She leaned into his chest. “I don’t think I want him to know. It would hurt him even

more to know Maria brought her death on herself, that she was the junkie first.”

“It wasn’t her fault. I blame the dealer. Someone got her hooked, brought her to us

just for kicks but we never found out who was behind it. Oh, we looked and we found
the guy who came with her but he’d been paid and he wasn’t talking. And after that we
were so strung up ourselves we never did anything about it.” He paused. “We always
suspected more but by the time we started looking the trail had gone cold.” He
wouldn’t tell her the rest of his suspicions. That was all they were at this stage.

It might be nothing, it probably was but the guy he’d met at The Phoenix gave him

another lead. A hope. Nothing more.

He held Gina close, taking comfort from her and sheer pleasure, the like of which

he hadn’t known for years. He wouldn’t let her go. Not yet. Perhaps not ever.

The last thought shocked him into lifting his head and when she looked up at him,

enquiry in her eyes, his natural reaction was to kiss her.

He sank into her, tasted her, coffee and that essence that was essentially Gina.

Unlike anyone else and the only taste he wanted.

Could it happen this soon? Could he be falling in love?
It didn’t bear thinking about, the complications were horrendous but if it happened,

he’d take it.

He slid his hand up her back to cup her head and push his fingers through the tight

hairstyle. Pins fell away and pricked his hands but he didn’t stop and Gina didn’t pull
back. It felt good and right, so he carried on doing it.

Gina!
Yes?
Their first telepathic communication. Ryan welcomed it and embraced it. He sent

soothing waves of warmth into her mind, calming her and waiting for her next words.

64

Icefire

What’s happening, Ryan?
Hush, baby, hush. It’s natural, as natural as breathing.
She dragged her mouth away from him, staring up, eyes wide. “What did you do?”
He kept his hand speared through her hair, wouldn’t let her go. “It’s a gift I have,

Gina. Aidan has it too. Telepathy, we can communicate mentally.”

She tried to pull away but he wouldn’t let her.
“Wait, listen. It’s a gift, that’s all, like your empathy. Aidan and I grew up with it

but it’s nothing to be scared of.” He knew what she’d ask, without having to wait. “It’s
just another way to communicate.” There was so much more, but it might be better if he
told her another day. This affair was all so new, he didn’t want to scare her off by telling
her everything all at once. “All I can see is the outer part of your mind, the part you
might see from body language or conversation.”

She swallowed. “Can you tell what I’m thinking now?”
He took a moment. “You’re scared, not sure but that’s all.” It’s just something we can

do.

She flinched, as though he’d struck her. “You can’t tell anything else?”
He smiled, trying for reassurance. “No. Not unless I probe deeper and then you’d

know. You’d feel the intrusion.”

“How?”
He showed her, deliberately clumsy, pushing at her barrier, and she recoiled,

would have pulled away except he still held her. He knew he shouldn’t but he
desperately needed her to understand. Then she might understand the rest. If he took
his time, introduced her to what he really was bit by bit.

She relaxed a little in his arms, stopped trying to pull away and he felt the fear in

her mind recede. “How come I can talk back to you?”

“When I’m in your mind, I’m doing the work. But in any case, everyone has the

ability.”

“Sure they do. We all go around chatting to each other in our minds.” Her derisive

smile pleased him much better than the scared-fawn look of a moment earlier.

“Well kind of. People who are empathetic can sense another’s moods.” She gave a

reluctant nod. “This isn’t much different, it’s just that we realized what we had and
practiced it.” True as far as it went.

When he pressed his lips to her forehead, she didn’t turn away, she moved into him

and the bands around his heart relaxed a little more. He wanted her to trust him,
eventually to accept him for what he was. He could get permission from a Guardian to
tell her, that wouldn’t be hard because Aidan was a Guardian.

Gina wouldn’t die because of him. He wouldn’t allow it.
When she kissed his throat, he savored the sensation and allowed himself to sink

gently into her mind again. She felt it, accepted it, welcomed him in.

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Lynne Connolly

It was enough for now. “Did Maria know?”
“Yes.” He’d told Maria without permission and risked them both but that had

become immaterial when Maria died. “When I care deeply the connection is almost
automatic. I spoke to you without thinking because you accepted me.”

“I thought this was a fling?”
“It’s whatever you want it to be, love. I don’t want you to label it. You label things

easily, don’t you?” He indicated her office with a jerk of his head. Glass-fronted shelves
held file after neat file, all labeled and color-coded. Files on one shelf, videotapes and
CD cases on another, all in their cases, and good old-fashioned books. He’d bet they
were all alphabetized.

“It helps.”
“But not with us. Give us a chance, Gina, let us explore each other and discover

what we have. Who knows what will happen? Coming with us on tour will help. Which
reminds me, I need to ask you something.”

“What?”
He kissed her lips, softly touching them with his. “Do you want us to go public

with this? The band will know and probably Randy as well as Sonny because he’s head
roadie on tour and he spends a lot of time with us. But we can ask them all not to tell
and you’re with us as our new PR manager. It’s up to you.”

Gina knew what it would mean for her affair with Ryan to become public. She’d

seen wives and girlfriends before, some embracing the publicity and gossip, others
loftily ignoring it and she appreciated the choice Ryan gave her now.

“No, I don’t want to go public, not yet. I’m your PR, I’ll have to spend quite a bit of

time with you anyway, so if people see us at restaurants and clubs, that’s what it is.
Ryan, the fallout can be horrible, for both parties.”

“Okay.” He caressed her hair and the last of her hairpins fell free. “You’re probably

right. Nobody will label us faster than the media.”

Gina loved order, everything in its place, and this affair was going somewhere too

fast for her to get a handle on it, to apply her mental sticky label to it. She felt out of her
depth with this new revelation that they could talk mind to mind, considering the
strong link she already felt to this man. “You don’t object to being labeled all the time?”

“Do I look as if I do?” He didn’t give her a chance to reply but bent and covered her

mouth with his. This time he gave her a full-bodied kiss and she opened her mouth
under the pressure of his, feeling his tongue touch hers, then caress her, bringing relief
to the tightening of her body.

But not enough relief. When he took her down, she went with him, not caring

where they landed, but it seemed he knew better than she did where they were headed.
They landed in her large leather chair, Ryan sitting, she on his lap. They didn’t break
their kiss but he drew her closer and slid his hand down her body to hold her firmly
against him, while he brought his other hand up to her breast, pressing and massaging.

66

Icefire

She moaned, loving his touch, the way he surrounded her, not caring when he lifted

her legs to drape one over each arm of the chair. The position opened her to him. Even
though her underwear still formed a barrier it was a fragile one. Sitting here, in her
office, in a blatantly sexual position, Ryan Hawthorne’s eyes blazing into hers, Gina
thought she might combust.

He slid one button through its hole then moved on to the next.
I want to touch you. You look so sexy like that and I can smell you, so good.
His voice was even sexier in her mind, soothing and exciting at the same time.
Ryan, someone will come in. They’ll see!
No they won’t. Trust me. Indeed it felt as if they were in their own little cocoon,

sheltered from the world.

“Go with it,” he murmured, his mouth moving over her lips as he spoke. “Live a

little.”

So she did. She let him unbutton her blouse, scoop her breasts out of her bra and

bring his mouth down to suck one already hard nipple into his mouth. The ecstasy of
his mouth on her, together with the thrill and the danger of discovery engendered
chills all along her spine.

His hands slid down, cupping her ass before sliding around. A tug and her panties

fell away. Fuck, she hadn’t realized they were so fragile!

Ryan didn’t give her time to push him away but slid his mouth up her throat,

kissing the side of her neck, nipping at exactly the place that drove her crazy, until she
turned into a mass of nerve endings. She couldn’t think properly anymore, couldn’t do
anything but moan and sigh until his mouth reached hers and she took it with
devouring completion.

When she realized the gentle humming was him, in her mind, she went even

crazier, his sounds driving her on, so by the time he touched her pussy, she was soaking
wet.

Ah, yes, you feel perfect!
She hadn’t even realized the hand cupping her bottom had left her until he eased

her away slightly and she heard the grate of zipper teeth, followed by a rip. The foil
packet. Too late now to call a halt.

His mouth still on hers, his breath coming in short puffs against her cheek, he lifted

her right on to his straining cock.

If she hadn’t had her mouth on his, her cry would have been heard by half the

office.

He separated her labia with his fingers and found the little nub of her clit. She

melted for him.

Only then did he pull back and open his eyes, heavy-lidded with desire. “You look

so good like that.”

She tried for some kind of sanity. “Is this the first time you’ve done it like this?”

67

Lynne Connolly

“With my PR agent in her office with the door unlocked? Oh yeah. And I’m so

turned on I want to do it some more.” He bit his top lip and jerked up in the chair,
pushing deeply into her, entering and withdrawing in short, sharp jabs, entrenching
himself hard and fast until she bit her own lip in her effort not to scream.

The danger of discovery added more than spice, a buzz of something different

creating a cocktail of thrills inside her and when she saw the wicked glint in Ryan’s
eyes, she knew he felt the same. “I shouldn’t be enjoying this, I really shouldn’t.”

“Why not?” Another shove, pushing her up but this time he gripped her hips and

held her so he could move more freely. “Relax, Gina, enjoy what we’re doing, let go,
sweetheart!”

She didn’t have much choice. She leaned back, the hard edge of her desk pressing a

line into her back, while he drove into her until she screamed. As she drew breath he
jerked her into his arms and stifled her cry with his mouth.

Oh God, what am I doing here?
Loving me. Or letting me love you. I said trust me, Gina, and I promise I’ll take care of you.
He guided her away and lifted her again, so he could drive up and his gaze

dropped to where they joined. “That looks so good, I can’t tell you how hot it makes
me.” She glanced down to where her dark curls met his startling red ones.

What man dyes his pubic hair?
She hadn’t been aware he’d caught her wayward thought until she heard his reply,

tinged with amusement. Not this man. It’s natural. If you don’t believe me, stick around and
wait for it to grow out.

I might just do that.
You’ll be around a long time then.
This time she was careful to keep her thoughts deep. What was she thinking, to

offer to stick around? After this tour, the band would be back in the studio, in London
and her life was here, the life she’d worked for. She had to remember that, otherwise
she’d be utterly lost when he left her.

And he would leave her.

68

Icefire

Chapter Eight

After he’d helped her dress and clean up, they cuddled on the sofa together and

watched the TV interview. “I should have gone there,” she murmured.

Ryan closed his arms around her. “You were busy keeping another member of the

band happy. Call it a consultation. You sent your deputy.” That made her smile, the
thought of her father deputizing for her.

“Dad probably thought you’d never do anything like this in my office.”
“He’s stupid if he thinks I can’t be around you and not want to make love to you.”
They watched Aidan and Corinne handle the interviewer with skill and then saw

the interviewer broaden the discussion and bring on a representative of one of the
organizations she’d primed them with. Ryan pressed kisses to her temple and cheek but
didn’t distract her, knowing this was her job and secretly guilty she hadn’t gone to the
studio with the others. That car was for her too but he had read her anxiety and wanted
to make it better for her. And for himself, as it turned out.

Underneath the confident business executive lay a wild and adventurous woman

and with a little more coaxing she would come out of her shell completely. Maria had
been delicate, bright but sheltered, not yet in her full glory but Gina, she was in her
prime.

The show went beautifully. The presenter, a woman and more sympathetic than Jeff

Lundberg, chatted to Corinne about the difficulties of bringing up a child in the modern
world and talked to Aidan about combining a rock star lifestyle with fatherhood. The
only sticky moment came when they talked about the drugs.

Aidan was the most charming man when he wanted to be. Looking suave and

utterly at ease in jeans and white t-shirt, he sat back to give Corinne space and
occasionally shot her a glance which, when the camera caught it, warmed the whole
audience. “Yes, I took drugs, along with the rest of the band. We had a phase. When
you’re in the rock business you get them for free, along with the M&M’s, fruit baskets
and bottles of beer. The free drugs don’t seem any more harmful. Not at first. By the
time you realize what you’ve done, you’re hooked. You know we lost people, not one of
the band thank God but someone close to us.”

“Maria Leone.”
Ryan flinched.
“Yes,” Aidan said easily. “Maria Leone. After that, we all went for the cure and

none of us have touched the stuff since. We won’t have drugs backstage in any theater
we’re playing. It’s in our contract.”

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Lynne Connolly

Ryan grinned wryly. “They did it because I was in worse than the rest of them. It

took me awhile to lose the craving.” He held Gina little bit closer. After Maria died
there didn’t seem much point resisting anything but eventually they had persuaded
him they needed him. He’d turned to alcohol for a while but it wasn’t the same. He
liked the taste but never got the bingeing side of drinking. His hangovers were too
painful.

The female inquisitor pressed the question. “What if the audience or the support

band have them?”

“They’re banned backstage. We’d like the audience clean too but that’s their affair.

We’re not in the business of preaching.”

He got a round of applause for that.
After that, they talked to the representative of one of the organizations Gina had

contacted and started discussing the technicalities of breastfeeding and if a woman
should breastfeed in public. And how many children Aidan and Corinne were planning
to have.

Ryan lost interest. He—along with other shape-shifters—was only fertile at those

vital three days every month at the time of the new moon. And they couldn’t catch or
pass on diseases either. The shape-shifting took care of that. He wished Gina knew that,
so he could make love to her bareback. But that would come. In time.

He kissed her neck, touching his tongue to her skin, and felt the tingle that told him

this was Gina, only her. Another woman would taste like a cheap fizzy wine after
vintage Bollinger. She turned her head and kissed him back and that was even better.
Against his lips she murmured, “Corinne and Aidan have gone now. They’ve moved on
to the subject of childcare.”

“Really? Can we switch it off then and do something else instead?”
“That’s what I thought.”
But when he rested his hand on her knee and moved it up her bare thigh toward

her bare pussy—what a turn-on that was. He’d used a claw to slice her panties away
and they were unusable. He’d do that more often.

She put her hand over his, stilling his movement and smiled into his eyes. “That

wasn’t what I meant.”

“I did.”
“Ryan, we got away with it once. We can hardly expect to do it again.”
Yes they could. “Yes we can.”
“No.” To his regret, she stood up and straightened her skirt. Still, knowing she was

going commando under the skirt did wonders for his libido. He didn’t despair of
persuading her.

“Come and see.”

70

Icefire

He followed her across the room, less because he was the obedient type, more

because he wanted to be where she was. She took the chair this time and he stood
behind it, his hands on her shoulders. Because he had to touch her.

She woke her computer up and navigated to a file, opened it and clicked to

thumbnail view.

Ryan took his hands off her shoulder and gripped the back of the chair. Hard.

“Where did you get those?”

“I thought they might be great promotional shots. You know, take Pure Wildfire in

a new direction. I love the wings, what do you think? Ryan?”

He stared at the pictures. He did love the wings. He loved them sweeping him up

into the air, soaring above cities and countryside. “Clever work.”

“I thought so. Really good blending between the real and the fake.”
Taking a few deep breaths helped dispel the dizziness threatening to overwhelm

him. Then he sent a message to Jake. Call me on the phone. When Jake sent a brief
message of affirmation, he forced himself to bend and kiss the top of her head. “Can
you do me a copy of those?” he asked, keeping his voice as quiet as possible. Any
louder and shock might force a tremor into it. He, the master of vocalization, felt his
throat closing up.

“Yes, sure. You want to show the others?”
“You bet I do.”
As soon as he could.
Well, fuck. Incandescent desire reduced to ashes in minutes.

* * * * *

Jake’s call got Ryan out of the agency without anyone suspecting his numb state of

shock. Getting a cab, clutching the disk Gina had done for him, he went over their
conversation in his mind, as he did when, after what seemed like an interminable delay,
he got the band isolated in his hotel room, all hangers-on firmly dismissed to the
outside.

Ryan used his own laptop and put it on the coffee table in the lounge part of his

suite.

“So what’s so important?” Aidan demanded. “We’re due at another show tonight,

so we can’t be too long with this.”

Ryan slotted the CD in the side of his machine. “Gina has this on her computer. Her

father gave it to her. I don’t know where he got it. She says it would make a great
promotional angle.”

He didn’t say any more. He didn’t have to. He put all the pictures on his graphics

viewer, showed them one by one, counting as they all went past. Twenty. All the band,
all in the process of shape-shifting. Ten of Ryan, a few each of all the others.

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Aidan let out a long breath. “Jesus, we have to find out where these came from.”
“I thought since we’re in New York we’d contact some friends who have more

resources than we do.”

Jake fixed him with a steely glare. “If we ask that, they’ll want us to do something.

Favor for favor.”

“Would that be so bad?” Aidan said, not taking his attention off the screen. A

picture of Aidan as the phoenix dominated it, only Aidan’s head and chest left to
convert to the fiery bird. “Since I accepted what I am and what it means, I found I have
more power than most. And I think we accept their help and offer ours. Not on a
permanent basis but they can help us.”

“Who can?” Corinne, converted not born, still had a lot to learn about their world.
Aidan curled his big hand over hers, where it lay on the sofa between them.

Reminded of what had happened on that sofa so short a time ago, Ryan swallowed. “A
special government department for Talents. Usually, they don’t have much to do with
us civilians. It’s a part of the CIA and there’s one in London as well. Remember the
trouble we had in England?” Corinne nodded. “They helped us keep it out of the press.
They have resources they can check and it’s probably the best way we have of
discovering who took these pictures and when.”

Aidan paused before addressing them all. “I know I don’t often do it but my status

gives me certain privileges.” His quiet voice held unmistakable authority, authority,
Ryan knew, he was trying hard to live up to. Taking responsibility instead of hiding
away. That was one reason he’d gone in search of the dealer in The Phoenix the other
night.

“I can get straight through to the head of the organization and ask him to prioritize

the search. Any leak is bad but if the people who hate us get wind of this, they’ll splash
it all over the media. The storm we had over Corinne and the baby will be nothing
compared to that.” He paused, taking his time. “If this is a bad leak, we might have to
start again, die and be reborn, and we’ll need the department’s help to do it.”

“What?” Chris bolted up from his chair. “It’s all going so well!”
“Yeah, it is. But the only way to stop the leak might be to ‘die’. We can stage a plane

crash.”

Ryan’s heart sank right down to the bottom of his expensive sneakers. That would

mean a complete end to any relationship with Gina. “It’s a bit drastic, don’t you think?”

“It might be. I don’t think we’ll have to do it but it’s best to be prepared.”
“And we’d have to split up,” Jake added quietly, watching his brother pace up and

down the room.

Corinne gave a half sob and immediately Aidan gathered her into his arms. “Not

us, never us,” he murmured. “We’ll always be together. I promised you that and I
meant it. It’ll be like the Witness Protection Program where the FBI gives someone a
new identity. Only it won’t be the FBI, it’ll be the CIA.”

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Chris stood, legs apart, hands on hips, shoulder-length golden hair tousled into a

wild mane, looking less like a firebird, more like a lion. “We’ll shut this leak down.” He
turned an accusing glare on to Ryan. “Do you think Gina has anything to do with it?”

“I don’t know,” he said miserably. “I like her, I really do but I’ve only read the

outer layer of her mind. She could be lying. If she is, it means my judgment is seriously
at fault but then,” he gave a halting laugh, “it wouldn’t be the first time, would it?”

“Hey, man, you weren’t wrong about Maria. Just about her strength.”
Ryan pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose. “Perhaps it’s that family. I should

have stayed well away.”

“No, Ryan, it’s nothing like that. Bro, I’ve never seen you so content, not for years. I

was happy for you. I still am. There’s nothing that says she was involved.”

“Yeah but she might be.” The more he thought about it, the worse it got. “Mike

Russo accepted us. I always thought that was strange, because of Maria. Then Gina met
me at the jazz club and Sonny conveniently excused himself, leaving us together. This
so could have been a setup. Remember what Westfall did to us? Well, this could be that
situation all over again.”

“If it ends like that business did, you can thank your lucky stars.” Aidan flicked a

glance at Corinne, who returned his gaze warmly. Corinne was Westfall’s daughter,
although she hadn’t spoken to her father in the last twelve months.

“Too neat, too pat. Aren’t we supposed to think that? Won’t it make us believe Gina

is innocent because Corinne was?” Ryan pushed his hands through his hair, flinging his
head back to stare at the ceiling as though his answer was written there in great big
letters. “Fuck, I can’t believe how stupid I can be.”

“A romantic streak a mile wide.” Jake grinned. “You and Aidan both. It might still

work out, man. It could be nothing.”

Sean, tucked into his Moses basket by Corinne’s side, made a snuffling sound and

Corinne turned her attention to him, sliding her hand down his little body in a
practiced way. “He needs changing. He’s going to make his presence felt in about ten
seconds.”

A loud fart startled Ryan into laughter. “Must have a good echo chamber in there!”
Aidan, his grin proclaiming his fatherly pride, got to his feet. “Okay then, we’re

agreed. I’ll contact the department, set up a meeting and give them a copy of the disk.
Meantime, we don’t tell anybody else. And no more copies. Just this one and the
department’s.”

“I’ll go to the meeting,” Ryan said. “Set it up and tell them I’ll be there. You’ve got

your work cut out with your youngster here.”

Aidan’s prophecy turned into truth and Chris, sitting in the chair next to the Moses

basket, got hastily to his feet. “How can such a tiny baby make such a fucking stink?
Okay, Corinne, go see to your very healthy baby. I can’t perform that well outside a
curry and a few glasses of beer. He does it without even trying.”

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Chuckling, Corinne took the basket by its handles and left the room, followed by

Aidan. Chris and Jake went shortly after, when it was clear Ryan wasn’t in a
communicative mood.

Instead of spending the time between the meeting and the TV appearance brooding,

he started to write.

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Chapter Nine

“I’ll call you,” he’d said after a quick peck on her cheek.
What had turned his passion to politeness? Was that what it was like, to date a rock

star? “See you” and that was it?

Gina thought Ryan was different. He’d shown her his gentle, considerate side,

something she hadn’t thought he possessed. Perhaps he saw her weakness for him and
homed in on it.

His leaving had certainly been brusque and she didn’t appreciate it. She turned to

her computer screen and her work. If they were due to fly south on Friday, that only
gave her three days to make sure she hadn’t overlooked anything. Whatever happened,
she wouldn’t let her job suffer from this—whatever she had or didn’t have with Ryan
Hawthorne.

He’d charmed her, given her the best loving she’d ever had and she was in danger

of losing her heart to him. Perhaps that peck on the cheek was a reminder that he
wouldn’t be around forever. If so, she ought to thank him.

She’d enjoy her time with him but she wouldn’t make any commitments and she

wouldn’t consider him as anything except a casual boyfriend.

And there was something else she wanted to do, something that nagged at her. She

picked up the phone. “Hi, can you find me the number for Trinity College, Oxford,
England, please?”

* * * * *

When Mike returned to discuss the interview with Gina, she showed him her usual,

businesslike demeanor.

“I have the itinerary for you,” he told her, handing her a CD. “I’ve had my PA put it

on an external server too, so you can access it when you get internet access.”

“Thanks.” She took the disk and set it aside. “Randy Norwood sent me a hard copy

too. I think I’ll cope.”

“Do you want an assistant for the trip?”
“No.” She reconsidered. “Only if something unexpected happens. I’ll let you know

but if I need somebody in a hurry, I’ll find one from the crew. They have an entourage
with them, so they might as well pay.”

He chuckled. “That’s my girl. You sound much more on the ball today. I guess I

should say sorry. I got a bit riled, seeing you with Hawthorne, but if you think you can
handle it, then you can.”

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“No, Dad, you have every right to look out for me.” She glanced up, smiling. “It

was just—you know, first time and all that. Yes, I did go to bed with him but no, I won’t
let him do anything bad to me. They’re clean, you know that, you insisted on proof
before you took them on and he’s a different person. But he’s still a rock star and that
tends to mean unreliable. I’ll take my boytoy fun and move on.”

Mike burst into loud gales of laughter. “God, you’re good! Do you know if I’d said

any of that to my father, I’d have been whupped into next week! But yeah, I come from
the generation that said, ‘If it feels good, do it’, so I know what you mean. You have
your fun but come back safe.”

“You can bet on it.”

* * * * *

Her father’s approbation helped to settle Gina down. A couple of days when she

allowed herself to dream wouldn’t do her any harm. Not now she’d come to her senses.

Having checked and double-checked the work, she was finally satisfied she’d

covered everything. If an unforeseen circumstance occurred, she’d have to fly back but
apart from that, her accounts were covered or deputized. She’d be back in a week,
maybe two, because she rarely got to see the south of the country and she might take a
few days of her own, after Pure Wildfire moved on. After the final concert and the
video shoot, their time here was done. Then they’d go home to London.

She suppressed the ache she felt when she thought of Ryan half a world away.
When she checked the clock, it was only six p.m. That meant the roads to her ’burb

would be packed with returning workers. So she might as well stay where she was for a
while. She reached for the remote and switched on her TV for the news, wondering if
she wanted another coffee, or if she’d over-caffeinated today.

The program started with a quick rundown of the headlines. Gina got to her feet,

heading for the coffee machine in the hallway outside, then froze as a familiar face
flashed up on the screen.

“This is just another murder in our fair city,” said the almost-cheerful female voice.

“But it stands out because of what was done to the body. The police won’t tell us
everything but we heard from a reliable source that the murder was committed with
military precision. So this doesn’t look like a regular, everyday crime of petty violence
or greed but a carefully orchestrated hit. Add to that, the identity of the victim.”

Gina forced herself to breathe.
“Jesse Walker wasn’t your ordinary, everyday drug dealer, he was a boss,

controlling several people. The kind you don’t usually find on the street. But that’s
where he was murdered, close to The Phoenix jazz club, last Saturday night.”

Her legs went from under her and she grabbed her chair and fell back into it,

staring at the screen in horror. The night they were attacked.

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Icefire

“Also at the club were a number of celebrities, including rock singer Ryan

Hawthorne of the band Pure Wildfire, who was seen chatting to Walker earlier that
evening.”

Gina’s mind clunked back into action and she recalled all the events. They’d been

attacked, beaten. Could it be the same people? It seemed likely. And why would Ryan
have been seeing a drug dealer? She could only think of one answer to that.

She forgot about her quiet evening at home. Grabbing her jacket, Gina headed for

the exit.

* * * * *

Twenty minutes later Gina strode through the lobby of the luxury hotel where the

band was staying and took the elevator to the sixth floor. As she’d half expected, when
it opened, it was to see the face of a burly security guard. She’d come prepared.
Reaching into her purse, she produced the card Ryan had given her. He glanced at it
and waved her through.

She knew the room but before she reached Ryan’s suite she stopped at the

unmistakable sound of his laughter coming from a room on the left. She knocked and
went through.

The band sat together over an evening meal with some of the staff. Plates and

dishes stacked untidily at one end of the long table indicated they were nearly finished.
Sonny stood up when he saw her, smiling broadly. Ryan was just behind him but he
watched her with a wary expression.

As he should, if he knew what she was about to say. She felt warmth in her mind

and knew Ryan was trying to get in touch with her in the way he’d shown her. She
found it easy to block him out. He stayed where he was and Sonny crossed the room to
her. “Gina, great to see you! Come sit down! Want some wine?”

“No, thanks. I need to talk to Ryan.” Oh hell, they’d all know soon but she owed

him that, if nothing else.

Ryan raised a languid brow. “Why?”
“I have some information for you.”
He stared at her through half-closed eyes, every inch the rock god. “Something you

can’t share?”

“Something private.”
The other eyebrow went up. “Well, far be it for me to disappoint a beautiful lady.

Come with me.”

He strolled to the door, stopping and looking behind him. “Second thoughts?”
“No.” She followed.
With a shock, she realized she was still commando under her knee-length skirt and

slightly crumpled blouse. The jacket wasn’t crumpled at all. She hadn’t thought about it

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Lynne Connolly

at all up to this minute, when Ryan had all but wiggled his butt at her and then the
now-familiar feeling of dampness between her legs made her pause and press her
thighs together.

He led the way to his suite and stopped inside the lounge, closing the door softly

behind him. “Do I get a kiss?”

Why not? She went into his arms and kissed him but didn’t let the warm sensation

steal her senses. It was the first time she’d tried to conceal their relationship and she
knew it wouldn’t be easy, if at all possible. That might not matter soon.

She drew back, aware it might be their last kiss. She couldn’t trust him but she had

to feel the bliss of his embrace one more time.

“Have you seen the news tonight?”
“No, we were eating early before watching the interview we taped this afternoon.

Then I was going to call you.” He reached for her but she stepped back. “What’s
wrong?”

“A man called Jesse Walker was murdered near The Phoenix last Saturday.”
Ryan flinched as though she’d struck him. “Go on.”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t know him, or what he did. He was a drug dealer and you

talked to him earlier that night. They mentioned your name on the news report.”

Ryan ran his hand through his hair, ruffling it up. “Shit.”
“Yeah. So what’s this about, Ryan? Or are you going to pretend our attack wasn’t

connected?”

“No, I’m not going to pretend that.”
She felt his attention go, a strange feeling but she recognized it for what it was. “Are

you ‘talking’ to Aidan in your mind?”

“He needs to know.”
“What’s going on, Ryan?”
He folded his arms in front of his chest, a classic defense gesture. “What do you

mean?”

She checked the points off on her fingers as she spoke. “You give me a quick kiss

and go after what we did this afternoon? One minute you tell me you think you’re
falling for me, then you just leave? You tell me you’re clean and then meet with one of
the most notorious drug dealers in New York? We’re attacked a short time before the
dealer dies? That’s what I mean, Ryan.” Listing the occurrences made them more real to
her. Putting them together told her something was definitely wrong.

“Okay.” He lifted his hand to his jaw and rubbed it. She wanted to do that, feel the

bristle against her palm. Immediately she cut the thought, angry her senses should
betray the way she should be feeling.

He watched her, his amber eyes mesmerizing in their intensity. “I always thought

there was something odd about Maria’s death, so while we were in New York I did

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Icefire

some low-level investigating. I have no proof, it could have happened anyway but it
was too pat, too—I don’t know. Not enough to tell anyone, not enough to really start
any real research but that night Maria died, I remembered we’d got the drugs via Jesse
Walker. He’s a pretty big deal, works exclusively with bands, so he operates on both
sides of the Atlantic. We’re his territory. So he was delighted when I got in touch the
other day and came to The Phoenix himself, which is what I hoped for. I talked to him. I
wanted to feel his mind, see if he was telling any lies, but the club was too busy that
night, too public to read him properly, so when he said he had something for me, I
decided to go to a meeting he set up.” He paused but didn’t take his eyes off her face, so
she felt no easing of the tension almost visibly crackling between them. “I went but he
didn’t show. Now I know why.”

It sounded good but so did everything he’d said to her. Was he a complete crock of

shit?

He gave her a crooked smile. “No, I’m not a complete crock of shit. I’m telling you

the truth. It’s up to you to decide if you want to believe me or not.”

She’d let him into her mind without meaning to. If she was going to spend any time

close to Ryan and his brother, she had to practice closing down. This was dangerous, far
too dangerous. If she let herself close, any closer than this, she’d lose this duel, this
strange battle going on between them. He could tell her anything he wanted to and
she’d believe him, craving his body, his loving.

That sounded too much like addiction for her peace of mind. Had Maria felt that

way and replaced heroin with Ryan? No, she added Ryan to her list of addictions.

“And what about those pictures I gave you? Are you going to tell me what they

mean?”

He stiffened and turned away. He didn’t look at her anymore but crossed the room

to stare out of the window. “No. I showed the guys this afternoon and we’re still
deciding what to do about them.” He swung back to her, again in perfect control, his
gaze steady, hands relaxed by his side. “So it’s up to you, Gina. That’s all I’m going to
tell you for now. Do you trust me or not?”

Anger swept through her. “How can I trust you when you won’t give me proof?

How can I trust you when I know you don’t trust me? Don’t deny it, you’re not telling
me the truth, or at least holding some of it back. Trust goes two ways, Ryan Hawthorne.
Until you learn to trust me completely, I can’t trust you.”

“So you’re not coming with us?”
Furious, she clenched her hands into fists, her nails digging into her palms,

reminding her that this gorgeous man before her was an ex-addict, perhaps, for all he
told her, relapsing into addiction. Because the other reason for Ryan to meet Jesse
Walker was to score drugs from him. And the other reason Walker was murdered was
for the drugs he was carrying. The police said it had been a military-style assassination
but there were a lot of indigent ex-military on the streets. So even that could be
explained as an addict desperate for a fix.

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Lynne Connolly

“Yes, I’m coming with you. Unlike you, I live up to my promises. I’m a

professional, Ryan, and I hope to God you are too, at least in your career. Because if you
ever touch me or come closer to me than you are now, I’ll hit you so hard you’ll have to
sing while your ears are still ringing.”

She strode to the door, hurt increasing her anger. “Do I make myself clear?”
“Perfectly.”
At least she left with some dignity.

* * * * *

Ryan watched the door, staring as if she was returning, although he knew she

wasn’t. He tracked her progress until she reached the door of the hotel, then, more
regretfully than he’d ever imagined he would be, let her go.

He understood why she felt she couldn’t trust him. There was so much he couldn’t

tell her, the little he did wasn’t enough. Perhaps if he’d told her what he was, why the
pictures had disturbed him enough to leave her office so quickly…

No. She wouldn’t believe him without proof and if he showed her, she’d probably

recoil in horror and refuse to have anything to do with him anyway.

He wasn’t surprised when a soft knock fell on the door, followed by his brother.
“She’s not coming with us?”
Ryan shrugged. “Oh she’s coming but only to do her job. Aidan, that dealer I met at

The Phoenix, Jesse, he was murdered.”

“I know, I saw the news.” Aidan stared at Ryan in silence before striding forward to

give him a brotherly hug. “I’m sorry, bro. I thought she might be the one.”

“She was. She is.” He hugged back before releasing him. “At least she got me out of

the funk Maria’s death sent me into.” Shoving his hands in his pockets, he moved to the
window. “I’ll be okay. I always am.”

Waves of sympathy reached him. He didn’t want that but he couldn’t prevent his

brother seeing his sorrow and responding to it. “Listen, Aidan, it doesn’t work out for
all of us. I don’t believe in soul mates, not now, so I’ll just keep looking. Do me a favor,
give me some space for a few days.”

“Sure.” The sympathetic feelings withdrew and he heard the door close behind his

brother. Aidan was the best of brothers and every day for the past thirty-two years, he’d
sent up thanks for that.

* * * * *

Lunchtime the next day found Ryan in full rock star mode, standing outside one of

the currently fashionable restaurants in New York, complete with personal entourage.
The whole place was designed for show. Brightly lit, a long bar down one side of the
narrow room and plate glass windows giving access to anyone who cared to stare in.

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He wandered through to the strobing of camera flashes and a few yelled questions,

which he ignored, although he tensed when he heard one about Corinne’s tits. Decking
the questioner would be what the lowlife wanted, so he pretended not to hear and
walked on. Why the fuck had the secretive Mr. Smith insisted on meeting here?

The maitre d’ met him and waved him through. Ryan opted to have a drink at the

bar before moving through to the private VIP area, where he’d booked a table. Not that
he felt like eating. But now Gina had removed herself from his life, he wanted to get
back to his own, self-contained persona. As soon as possible. This was part of the
circuit, so much a part of his life he almost took it for granted. Previously, as
Nighthawk, he’d moved around more freely but never been completely free of
interviewers and photographers, especially when the vultures had moved in to watch
the jazz community do its best to destroy itself.

Now it was worse. Pure Wildfire was a high-profile band, had two singles chart

worldwide, although, like most rock bands, their real emphasis was on the albums, all
of which had gone platinum. Taking it all in, tucking the more interesting things away,
Ryan sat at the bar nursing a bourbon and took stock.

A delicate, accurate mental greeting met him. Smith. And then another, less

accurate, more curious. Ryan stared into the mirror behind the bar and spotted them.
Smith must be the immaculately dressed middle-aged businessman sitting to one side
of a table containing mostly uneaten food. The other he didn’t know, a rangy, dark-
haired man who looked elegant even in his cheap business suit, so cheap the fibers
gleamed in the bright overhead lighting. In this fashionably dressed, expensively
perfumed crowd, he should have looked out of place but somehow he didn’t.

A brief message from Smith arrived. This is another operation. Don’t approach us, this

operative and I want to be seen together. But you don’t want everyone to see me with you so. I’ll
come through to the VIP area when I’m done here.

That explained why Smith had chosen this place. He was setting something else up

with the man currently sitting at his table and then saving time by meeting Ryan
afterwards. Ryan could reasonably be expected to frequent places like this, where the
paparazzi congregated so what was good exposure for one person would be a good
disguise for him. Presumably Smith had enough psi powers to cover his own presence
by fuzzing. Clever move. Clever man.

Shoving his glass aside, Ryan headed for the inner sanctum, followed by Sonny and

two of his roadies. As they went, he heard Smith and his companion raise their voices
and guessed it wouldn’t be long before Smith joined him.

Someone showed them to a table in the center of the room and handed them one of

the huge menus emblazoned with the restaurant’s name and pictures of some
artistically arranged food.

“Guys, I’m meeting with a friend,” Ryan said quietly. “He’s ordered a table for two

somewhere a bit more discreet but I want you to distract for us, if you can.”

“What do we get?” Sonny demanded, grinning widely.

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Lynne Connolly

Ryan flashed a grin in return. “Lunch. Although I get the feeling this place’s food

looks better than it tastes. If you like, when we’re done here, I’ll take you somewhere
better.”

“Do you know anywhere better? I can take you to a great Italian place,” Sonny

offered.

Yes, Ryan was supposed to be a stranger to New York, wasn’t he? “That’d be great,

Sonny. Okay, when I’ve finished my meeting, we’ll go on somewhere. Order salads or
something here.”

“Chocolate cake,” said one of the guys, pointing to a picture.
“Sure, straight to the munchies,” his friend said. This one was new to the Pure

Wildfire team, recruited by Sonny to cope with the extra equipment and lighting gear
performing in larger venues demanded. He still had the buoyancy Ryan associated with
new members of Sonny’s team. Sonny preferred to employ professionals, electricians,
computer geeks and didn’t concern himself if they had a background in rock. It made
for a highly professional, highly unusual road crew.

The new guy—Derek—gazed around at the celebrities thronging the room, smiling

broadly. Ryan enjoyed him, watched him take in some of the diners and sneer at some
of the others, the ones famous for being famous and nothing else.

Smith entered quietly and after the obligatory stare to decide who he was and if he

mattered the diners went back to their essentially egotistical concerns. In their private
lives, they might be perfectly pleasant people but here, they were working and working
meant drawing attention to themselves.

Ryan took his time leaving the table and heading for the conveniences, stopping to

exchange polite nothings with one or two people and happening to stop at the table
occupied only by the distinguished-looking gentleman.

He dropped down into the seat and received the gentleman’s compliment. “Very

neat.”

“A little fuzzing goes a long way. People looking at my table will see what they

expect to see. What I can’t understand is why you chose such a public place.”

A trace of a grimace crossed Smith’s refined features. “I needed to do some business

here. A word of advice—if you want to do your taste buds a favor, don’t eat here.”

Ryan grinned. “You mean you don’t believe rock stars live on burgers and soda?”
“I know what you are, where you’ve been and I love your jazz albums.”
“I can’t sign them for you.”
This time Smith did smile. “I know. Why did you leave?”
“Drugs. I saw too many talented musicians wreck themselves on the stuff.”
He felt Smith’s gentle entry into his mind, he also felt the reined-in strength behind

it. No chance of hiding the truth from him, even if he wanted to. “And yet you
succumbed.”

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It was pleasant, even relaxing to hear the more formal language of his youth.

Sometimes he missed it. “I did but for a different reason.” He met John Smith’s frank
stare with one of his own. “Arrogance. I thought I could take the drugs, then persuade
my girlfriend Maria to enter a facility and go with her. I got addicted too. It shouldn’t
have been possible but I did.” John Smith. Yeah right. But if that was what he wanted to
be called, Ryan wasn’t going to argue with him.

Smith frowned. “No, it shouldn’t have been possible. Heroin and crack cocaine

damage shape-shifters just as they damage mortals, but if you shape-shift regularly you
shouldn’t become addicted. I’ll look into it, though with the trail five years cold I doubt
I’ll find anything useful.”

Ryan shrugged. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“It might.” This man didn’t overlook any details that came his way.
Ryan reached into his pocket and pulled out the CD. “I’ve put some notes on the

disk with the images, telling you where we got them. If we’re a security risk, we’re
willing to die and start again, though we don’t really want to. We have a few dates on
the West Coast, I’ve given you the itinerary, so the neatest way would be a staged air
crash.”

Smith nodded. “I’ll bear it in mind. But it’s only photographs, I don’t think you

need to worry. If I find the source, I’ll close it down.”

Fear stabbed Ryan right in the heart. Not for himself but for Gina and her family.

“You’ll tell me first.”

“If I have time. Why?”
He sighed and raked his hand through his hair. “I had a brief affair with Angelina

Russo. To be honest, I want more, although I’m unlikely to get it.”

“If she knows more than she should, we’ll have no choice.”
But he had. “My brother, Aidan Hawthorne, is a Guardian. You know he’s the

phoenix.”

Smith nodded. “He has made some interesting contributions of late. I am a

Guardian too, so my authority in the Talented community equals his.”

Ryan gave a low whistle. As the phoenix, Aidan was one of the principal shape-

shifters, an elemental. For Smith to equal that, he must be something really special. “Do
you need me to get him to contact you? I said I’d come today but should I have let him
come?”

“I am pleased to meet you, Ryan Hawthorne. I wish you would become an associate

of the department. We call them consultants.”

“Oh no.” Ryan chuckled and glanced away, embarrassed at the compliment. “My

forte is music. You don’t need a musician.”

“You’re responsible for the fracas outside The phoenix the other night. I call that

handy. Think about it.”

Ryan got to his feet. “I can’t stay but I’d like to. Thanks for helping out.”

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Smith gazed at him and then flashed a smile that transformed his face to brilliance.

“When this is over, I’d like to invite you to dinner. At my place. Jazz is my passion but
not many people know that. You were one of the best, for all I know you still are and I’d
love to find out.”

Wow. That really meant something, for a New Yorker to compliment an

Englishman that highly on what was essentially an American art form. Ryan smiled and
bowed, in the way his mother had taught him. “It would be a pleasure.”

He went back to his table feeling more content than he had when he arrived.

Nothing would cure the ache in his heart but perhaps he could learn to hold some
optimism, some hope, after all.

* * * * *

She was a workaholic, they said when Gina turned up the next day. The truth was,

she hated rattling around in her apartment on her own. Glad Ryan had never been there
and sad at the same time, she wasn’t yet settled enough to think clearly all the time. So
she decided to go in to the office, then do some therapeutic shopping, just to fill her
time. It had always worked in the past. Ryan Hawthorne wasn’t exactly the first man
she’d thought might, just might, be the man for her and the way things stood, he
wouldn’t be the last.

She booted up her laptop and stared at the screen. All the data she needed was on

her laptop, the one she planned to take with her. But she might have missed something.

She had. After a fairly aimless trawl through her documents, she found one of the

papers Mike had given to her. The lab analysis of what they had found inside Maria
after she died, the one attached to the original coroner’s report.

She hit the file. What had her father said—there were some oddities, some strange

stuff. He hadn’t mentioned it since, except to say the stuff they’d found wouldn’t have
caused Maria’s death and couldn’t be identified. But at the time, Ryan and Maria had
been into all kinds of things, the cutting edge of the illegal drugs market. Could that be
what had killed her sister?

One thing was for sure. Ryan would want to see these. Since Mike had given the

results to her freely, with no restrictions, she could pass them on with a clear
conscience. But should she?

Thinking around the problem, she couldn’t find a reason why she shouldn’t share

the results with Ryan. They might mean nothing after all, but there was no harm in
telling him.

So what was stopping her? The answer was with her before she’d asked herself the

question. She didn’t want to see Ryan again until she had to. With luck, the two-day
separation would help her to distance herself, forget the passionate, caring man under
the persona of the strutting rock god. From now on Ryan was just a member of Pure
Wildfire, the subject of her most recent account.

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Nothing else. Ever.
She hit “Print” and sent the document to her personal printer instead of the high-

quality one the network used. While it printed out, she found a plain manila envelope.
She’d leave it at reception at his hotel, marked for his attention. Without the context, it
wouldn’t mean much if it went astray. She’d appease her conscience and avoid seeing
him. If she drove there, she could park in a useful spot she knew near the hotel and go
and do the shopping her heart craved. Anything to keep her busy.

Just for a few days, she told herself. And deep down, she knew it was false, knew

she’d have that hole inside her, that gap, for the rest of her life but she’d have to get
used to it.

She wanted closure. And although she was going to a few dates with the band, she

could put that down to work, interview and observe and take her personal life out of
the equation. She could do that. Perhaps she’d renew the relationship with Sonny that
had disappeared the morning she’d woken up in Ryan’s bed. That would be good.
Sonny was good-looking, familiar, friendly and there wasn’t a chance she’d fall for him
as she’d fallen for Ryan.

Switching off her computer, she stuffed the sheets into the envelope, addressed it

and licked the flap down. That seemed to mark a turning point. Her private connection
with Ryan Hawthorne was finished. Now all she had to do was wait for her heart to
catch up with her head and accept it.

It took longer than she liked to drive to Ryan’s hotel but with her car parked in the

underground lot, her credentials shown to the overweight security guard, who waved
her on with the remnants of a cheese sandwich, she decided to leave her car there and
pick it up later. This hotel wasn’t far from one of her favorite clothing stores. She might
as well start her shopping there.

For a luxury hotel, the elevator up to the reception area seemed pretty basic but at

least several people shared it with her. A city girl down to her bones, she preferred
three or more people to just one. As long as they didn’t know each other.

She had to show her credentials and the security pass Ryan had given her before

the desk clerk even admitted he had heard of Pure Wildfire, much less had them
staying at the hotel. Giving him the envelope made her wonder if it might not have
been easier to go to see Chris or Jake and hand the thing over in person.

It took another twenty minutes and an interview with the manager, as well as

opening the envelope and showing him all it contained was two printed pages, before
he’d accept it. While she understood and appreciated what they described as “standard
procedure”, she found it frustrating and if she checked her watch once, she checked it a
dozen times.

She began to understand some of the frustrations of celebrity. A celebrity Pure

Wildfire seemed to take in its stride, especially the charmingly natural Corinne, who
must have known restrictions like this since her debut as a classical princess at a young

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age. Even worse that her father was a prominent manager, although no longer Pure
Wildfire’s.

Eventually Gina left the hotel, determined to go through with her shopping trip,

although now the idea had gone stale and even the lure of ogling the diamonds in
Tiffany’s window didn’t have its usual appeal. But she’d do it and probably halfway
through begin to enjoy herself.

It wasn’t far to Fifth Avenue. When she stepped outside to the unexpected sunshine

of the March morning she changed her mind. She’d walk. The vitamin D would do her
good.

When someone tapped her on the shoulder from behind, she had a moment of

dread. The whole business at the reception area had been so she could avoid seeing
Ryan. Had he caught up with her?

He had not. A complete stranger stood smiling at her. Tall, strongly built, middle-

aged she guessed from the streaks of gray in his hair and the lines on his face.

“I’m sorry, do I know you?”
“No. And you’re not about to either.”
Before she could spin around, scream for help or do anything that might be actually

useful to attract attention to herself, he dragged her against his chest, smothering her in
the folds of his thick, padded jacket. Using all her strength, Gina fought, pushing hard,
kicking out, but he anticipated her struggles and subdued her.

When strong hands shoved her into a car, her first instinct was to plunge toward

the other passenger door but the man grabbed her again. Her only hope now was
volume, so she threw her head back and screamed, loud and long.

“Bitch!” The door slam probably cut off much of the sound and as the engine

started and the bastard grabbed for her again she began to pray.

* * * * *

One sound, deep in his mind. Ryan! Help! Your hotel— then nothing. Gina, someone

he couldn’t mistake for any other, panic etching her voice.

Immediately Ryan put his senses out, stretching them. He tapped the window of

the cab he was in and when it slid back, demanded, “How long? I need to get back
faster than I thought.”

The cabbie waved helplessly at the snarled-up traffic in front of them. “Hell, I don’t

know. I got some shortcuts but I need to get to an alley first.”

“How far away am I?”
The cabbie turned in his seat, a thickset man, face scrunched into creases and

wrinkles. “If you wanna get there fast, your best bet is to run. You can’t wait?”

“No. Sorry.”

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A brief grin decorated the face before he said, “Hot date, eh? Whatever. Gimme an

extra five and I’ll show you the way.”

Ryan thrust the fare at him, plus an extra ten. The cabbie grunted. “Okay. The first

alley on the left. Take it, turn left at the bottom, then head straight through. That saves
you a block. Take the one across the street and do that again, straight on. That’ll bring
you out close to where you wanna go.”

Ten dollars well spent, Ryan considered as he took to his heels and sprinted

through the first alley. The cabbie was right, he knew, because he was heading in the
direction of Gina’s voice, although he wouldn’t have done this confidently without the
man’s help.

A short while later he erupted onto the street a short distance from the hotel.
Nothing and no one marred the usual aspect. Nevertheless, he took the steps in

front of the Timothy three at a time, startling the doorman, who recognized him
belatedly and touched his cap.

“Have you seen anything unusual?” Ryan demanded. No time for niceties. He

knew Gina was in trouble. She’d have responded to his increasingly frantic mental calls
if she could and since the first cry, he’d heard nothing.

“Well, sir, that depends…” The man took off his cap and scratched his bald head.
Ryan shoved his hand into his pocket and pulled out another note, thrusting it at

the man, not caring by now what denomination he was giving him.

“Now I come to think about it, sir, there was something a little unusual.”
All patience left him now. “What?”
“The lady I saw you with the other day called. She left about twenty minutes later

and outside a man stopped her. He hugged her but it seemed a pretty violent hug, if
you get my meaning, and he pushed her into a car.”

“And you didn’t do anything?”
The doorman shrugged. “Didn’t seem much I could do. No way of telling from this

distance if she didn’t go willingly. Could’ve been an old friend.”

“Which way did they go?”
The doorman waved vaguely. “Can’t remember.” Ryan lost patience and dipped

into the man’s mind.

He snatched back the note, which the doorman had foolishly still been holding. “I

bet the money they gave you to look the other way will see you through the day. Don’t
count on keeping your job though.” Skimming his mind had told him more than the
doorman had said.

Losing all civility, Ryan entered his mind deeper, tearing through and dragging out

the information he needed. He ignored the way the man screamed and grabbed his
temples as if trying to keep his head on his shoulders and headed out after the car,
which had pulled away twenty minutes before.

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If he couldn’t find it, he’d call on his new friend John Smith. And Aidan. Better to

have two Guardians helping him. Whatever it took.

Getting used to the alley system, he turned the corner and took the first one,

following the faint trail Gina had left. If he didn’t follow while it was fresh, he’d lose her
completely. As it was, only he could have followed this, by virtue of his closeness to
her. A scent, a sense of her presence was all he had. And there was no time to ask stupid
questions like why and how? That, no doubt, would come later.

Right at the bottom of the second alley, a dead end, he found her. Bruised, her face

caved in on one side where her cheekbone had been shattered, and unconscious.
Gathering her in his arms, he sent a mental message to Aidan and the band. Gina’s hurt.

Someone kidnapped her and beat her up. I’m taking her to the hospital.

* * * * *

Without thinking, he took Gina to the nearest hospital, which had a special

department for Talents. Sion Hospital, off Central Park. Perhaps he should have gone
into the A and E wing but he wanted the best for her and he knew he’d get it here.
Endowed by Talents, known to most as a privately funded heart research unit, the
department had all the equipment needed to treat Talents. But it could treat mortals too.

A portly male doctor whose lapel badge proclaimed him to be Dr. Aziz ignored

Gina’s external wounds and hooked her up to a monitor. His heavy sigh told Ryan
something was seriously wrong. When he and the nurse he called over dragged Gina’s
jacket off, then tore up the sleeve of her crisp white blouse, not bothering to fumble with
buttons, he knew it for sure and his heart rate doubled.

A bruise in the crease of one elbow and a fiery red pinprick told its own story.
Dr. Aziz wasted no time. “Take a blood sample, send it for tests,” he rapped out,

followed by a glare at Ryan. “I’m a healer and I’m entering her mind and body to find
out what they gave her. It should be faster that way. Do not touch me while I’m doing
this, don’t touch her either, because that will contaminate the results. Clear?”

Ryan nodded and watched the doctor retreat. If he hadn’t said anything, he’d have

imagined the doctor a zombie from a horror film, because Aziz’s body stiffened and his
eyes opened wider, staring at nothing. The essence of the man had gone and when he
felt for a mental presence, he knew where.

The doctor was inside Gina, searching. Irrational jealousy struck, only for Ryan to

push it firmly away. If this man could save her, he’d have sex with him himself, if that
was what he wanted.

The nurse stood by Ryan’s side, watching the doctor with awe-filled eyes. “He’s

amazing at diagnosis,” she murmured. “He hasn’t been wrong yet.”

When the door opened, Ryan didn’t have to turn his head to know his brother had

arrived. After a soft “Oh God”, Aidan moved to Ryan’s side and touched his forearm.
“Who did this?”

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Ryan shook his head. “I have no idea. Not yet. If I did, they’d be dead already.”
“What happened?”
“I caught a mental trace when she called for help, very faint. I followed it and found

her dumped in an alley.”

Aidan gripped his arm tighter. “Fucking bastards.”
Ryan nodded. “Whoever it is, I’m going to find them.”
“We’re going to find them. Jake and Chris are outside. The nurse out there asked

them to wait there.”

Dr. Aziz blinked. Ryan could almost see the vitality return to his body. Spooky.
He stared at Ryan and Aidan after Ryan introduced him. “They injected her with a

mild tranquillizer and ricin.”

A cold hand clutched Ryan’s heart. “Oh Jesus.”
“Yes, I think all you can do is pray. Ricin has no antidote. We can try a few things

but I fear the poison is all through her system.”

“No!” This couldn’t be happening. It wasn’t.
By his side, Aidan asked quietly, “What can we expect?”
“In about six hours, maybe a bit less, she’ll start to have breathing difficulties. She’ll

get stomach pains, vomiting and eventually her system will just shut down. If she has
relatives nearby, get them here soon, because once the breathing difficulties start, I may
take the option to sedate her. It would be the kindest thing to do.”

Gasping for breath, as though he had taken the poison, Ryan managed, “Is there

nothing—nothing?”

Aziz shot him a look. “She’s mortal.”
“Yes.”
“There is one thing but it’s not guaranteed. You’re shape-shifters.” Ryan nodded.

“If you convert her and then spend the next six to twelve hours shape-shifting her from
one form to another, the poison could be dislodged. You know most diseases and illness
don’t survive repeated shape-shifting, so it might be worth trying.” He fixed Ryan with
his dark, mesmerizing eyes. “It’s her only hope.”

At once Ryan knew it was the right thing, the only thing he could do. His affair

with Gina might be over, it might not, but whatever the outcome, he couldn’t let her
die. “I’ll do it.”

“Hey, are you sure?” Aidan seemed shocked.
Ryan shrugged. “I’m sure. I can’t cause the death of both Russo’s daughters. I have

to do this. If it’s the only hope, then yes, I’ll do it.”

“You know I would, if I could—” Aidan bit his lip. He’d converted Corinne and

shape-shifters could only convert once in their lifetimes. Nature’s way of making sure a
shape-shifter had a mate but in this case, Ryan expected nothing. Except to give Gina a
fighting chance.

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“Should I get Mike?” Aidan asked.
Ryan bit his lip. Had he the right to deny a father to say goodbye to his child? No,

of course not. But he couldn’t deal with Mike’s recriminations. Gina would need him to
shape-shift her. It wasn’t full moon, the time shape-shifters were compelled to change,
for a few days yet, so he’d have to take control and do it for her. Converted shape-
shifters generally learned by waiting for the compulsory change, then observing and
copying but there was no time for that. “No. Mike won’t want me anywhere near Gina
and I can’t blame him. But I need to be near her to help her. This has to work. I can’t let
her die.”

“In my opinion,” Aziz said, “and this has nothing to do with science, that

determination will help her. If you want to convert her, and that is entirely your
decision, you should keep your mind locked with hers, keep positive, keep encouraging
her. She’s going to be confused, maybe in pain, so the connection will help her.”

Aidan squeezed Ryan’s arm. “We’ll be here. Adding any strength you need. You

know it.”

“I know it,” he said softly. “Don’t worry, I’ll ask for it if I need it. I’m not important

right now. Everything’s about Gina. It all centers on her.”

His decision made, he felt calmer. This might mean he would never find a mate if

Gina rejected him but that was the least of his worries. He couldn’t take her only chance
away from her.

“If I’m going to do this, I need a proxy and I want it to be my brother.”
Aziz bowed his head in acknowledgement. “He can stay as a witness if you wish.”
“No.” He looked up at Aidan, eye to eye. “You understand, right?”
“Sure I do.”
Ryan felt no doubt in Aidan’s mind and realized Aidan knew the full extent of his

feelings for Gina. But he’d keep Ryan’s secret and he wouldn’t interfere.

“Can you tell the guys?”
“Yes.”
Dr. Aziz removed the monitors from Gina, switched off the machines and left, after

glancing back and telling them he’d be just outside.

Silently, Ryan stripped and when he was down to his boxers, Aidan asked him, “I

want the truth, Ryan. Just you and me but I need it. My responsibilities as Guardian
mean I have to know more. You know?”

“I know.” He glanced at Gina, still and pale on the bed, the hotel room unnaturally

silent without the beeps and clicks of machinery. “I love her. I’m sure this is for real, for
keeps. But we haven’t had enough time yet and in any case, she doesn’t want me. I
don’t know if this will bring us together or force us apart. But it will give her a chance
and if it’s in my hands, I have to give her that chance.” He tore his eyes from her
recumbent form and focused on Aidan once more. “Is that enough?”

“More than enough.”

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Ryan removed his boxers, spread his arms, put his head back and shape-shifted.
He had to change to his full size, which was tricky. His tail feathers barely fit and

curled around in the corner of the room but he had to do it this once.

The person to be converted had to select and remove a feather from him, while he

concentrated on donating it.

Ryan usually enjoyed the transformation, the sensation of feathers sprouting, bones

changing. This time he concentrated on doing it fast. She needed him and he needed to
do this for her.

Fully transformed, he turned his head so he could watch his brother. Aidan gazed

up at him, golden eyes brightly gleaming. “I take this on behalf of Angelina Russo.” He
lifted his hand and ruffled through Ryan’s breast feathers, bringing a shockingly
sensual pleasure to his brother. But Aidan wasn’t caressing, he was choosing. He
unerringly selected a feather right above Ryan’s fast-beating heart.

And pulled it out.
The pain wasn’t much or deep but it penetrated through to Ryan’s soul and

stopped his heart. He actually felt the beats stop and then stutter back into life.

The taking had worked. That feather was the one that would convert Gina to a

firebird.

Ryan shape-shifted back to human form. Grabbing his boxers, he pulled them back

on.

“It’s all up to you now.” Aidan handed him the feather. Small, glowing in the palm

of Ryan’s hand, this was her hope. All he could give her.

“Stay, to witness the conversion.”
Aidan nodded. “Afterward, you’ll be tired. It’s best you don’t separate from her

until she’s either cured or—not. So if you agree, Chris and Jake will help to shape-shift
her while you sleep. Then you take over. Dr. Aziz says at least once every quarter hour
for the first four hours, then every half hour after that.”

“I don’t remember asking that.”
“While you shape-shifted, I asked him telepathically.”
Aidan wielded his power so easily that sometimes it was hard to remember just

how powerful he was.

Ryan knew what to do. Dragging the sheets off Gina’s body, he found her dressed

in a clinical hospital gown, the kind that fastened down the back, probably made of
paper. He pushed it up as far as her upper thigh. This procedure would leave a scar like
a tattoo and shape-shifters born had it on their legs. He wanted to replicate his. At least
she’d carry that.

He pressed the feather to the outside of her thigh, then reached with his other hand

for hers. Cold, limp, unresisting, so different to the hands that had driven him wild so
short a time ago. But the same hands, the same woman. Carefully, he lifted his hand
and put her hand over the feather, then pressed his hand over the back of hers.

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Warmth, radiating through their joined hands, escalating swiftly into heat, told him

the conversion was working.

“Get on the bed, Ryan.”
He obeyed his brother, already feeling weakness seeping through his limbs,

invading his body. The bed was narrow but when he moved Gina over a little, he could
lie on it sideways. Keeping his hand pressed hard over hers, he lay back and let the
conversion take him.

This would never happen to him again. Conversion was a once-in-a-lifetime

experience and despite his anxiety and desperation, the songwriter broke through, that
part of him that watched and observed and took notes. He had no doubt a song would
emerge somehow, one day.

He couldn’t stop the writer, so he concentrated on other things. Gina’s joy when she

rode him, her deep pleasure when she let him take control of their lovemaking. Her wit,
her bright optimism, her control. All of it was what made her. He couldn’t let her die.

Heat became burning and then became almost unbearable. He wanted to take his

hand away. Surely it was finished now!

But no. Ryan hadn’t been aware he could bear so much painful heat and even Gina,

deep in her medically induced sleep, twitched and moved against him, trying to ease
away. He couldn’t let her. He followed her, pressed more firmly.

Gradually the burning eased, became heat, then mere warmth. And finally ceased

altogether.

“When it cools down completely, take your hand away and move off the bed.”
Aidan was there to support him when he obeyed and staggered with weakness.
The feather was gone. In its place was a golden feather tattoo, glowing still.
“She’ll shape-shift now,” Aidan murmured. He kept his arm around Ryan’s waist,

Ryan’s head on his shoulder like a lover’s but Ryan did it because he couldn’t do
anything else. Deep lethargy took him, curled around him as he watched, as if in a
dream, while Gina changed to a firebird.

And what a firebird! Deep, dangerous crimson bled into pure gold on her breast.

Ryan was thought quite dark in color but Gina was darker. And more beautiful. She
glowed. He wished he could see her eyes but they remained closed.

Aidan eased Ryan into the only chair in the room, an armchair upholstered in

washable vinyl. “Relax, Ryan. All you need to do is stay with her now. When you’re
stronger you can take over but for now, we’ll do it.”

He was right but harder than the conversion was allowing someone else to take

control. Even his own brother.

Ryan gave up the fight and slid into sleep, unable to stay conscious a moment

longer.

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Chapter Ten

Gina blinked and opened her eyes. Her initial confusion soon dissolved, leaving her

more aware than she should be, considering the last things she remembered. Angry
demands and a sharp prick in her arm, then she’d screamed out in her mind. That was
all. She’d thought she’d never wake up.

Slowly her surroundings intruded on her thoughts. A beeping sound, like a heart

monitor. She opened her eyes and saw a bare white ceiling, sun glinting off it in the
slanted lines caused by a window blind. She turned her head and saw two things. The
first was a monitoring machine on a stand next to her bed. The other was Ryan, dressed
in a dark blue toweling robe, his head sunk between his hands, his elbows braced on his
bare knees.

He must have heard the sheets rustle because he lifted his head and stared at her.

Pleasure, joy and relief dawned in his weary eyes, then his mouth as he smiled. “Hello.”

“Hello.” She had to clear her throat. “Wh—”
“Wait.”
He got to his feet and padded to the side of the bed, reaching for the nightstand and

finding a jug of water and a glass. He poured the water and Gina thought she’d never
heard a more welcome sound. Reaching for her, one knee on the bed for balance, he slid
one arm under her shoulders and lifted her. “Sip slowly at first. Don’t gulp, you’ll be
sick if you do.”

She sipped. The cold water slid down her throat, quenching parched muscle.

Something felt different but she couldn’t say what. Had they attacked her, maimed her?
What and why?

“Quiet, love, and I’ll tell you everything.”
And why was Ryan in this room dressed only in a robe? For that matter, why was

she in what appeared to be a double bed? Did hospitals have double beds? Since it was
the usual, metal-framed affair, she presumed they must have.

When she’d finished the whole glass of water, Ryan reached over to put the empty

glass on the table, next to the beeping monitor and kept her half-sitting while he
operated something that clicked. When he laid her back, she found he’d lifted the bed
behind her head, so she could sit up without effort. She felt exhausted, her limbs heavy,
no strength in her body at all. “What’s going on, Ryan?”

He sat on the side of the bed and clasped his hands together. “What do you

remember?”

“I was attacked, kidnapped outside the Timothy. They hustled me into a car.”

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“We know that much. They paid the doorman at the hotel to look the other way but

he couldn’t tell us more than that. He didn’t know the people who took you.”

“I hope he lost his job.”
“Oh yes.” The grim set to Ryan’s mouth informed her she didn’t want to ask any

more. “He didn’t know who paid him, not even their names, and they told him some
crap about you being a lunatic escaped from the asylum. At least, that’s what he said.
I’d guess they paid him enough not to care.” He gripped his hands together hard until
his knuckles turned white.

“You called to me in your mind. That’s what brought me to you. They drugged you

and dumped you in an alley. You broke your cheekbone and your wrist in the fall, so
they must have thrown you from a moving car.” He looked away, breathing hard.

Gingerly, Gina lifted her hand to her face, only to find it clear of abrasions, much

less bandages. Her hands were free, neither wrist encased in a heavy dressing. A
terrible thought seized her. “How long have I been under? What month is it?”

He huffed out a breath that might have been laughter. “Still March, love. You were

out for twenty-four hours but some of that was drug induced. The doctor kept you
tranquilized at first.”

“Ryan…?” She couldn’t begin to explain all this. Why wasn’t she encased in

bandages? Why was this bed so big? Why wasn’t she hooked up to more than a monitor
and a saline drip? Perhaps it was some kind of weird drug and she wasn’t here at all
but still in captivity.

When Ryan covered her hand with his, she knew it was him and not an illusion.

“Just listen, Gina. I’ll pour you more water and you sip it and listen to me. Can you
hold the glass yourself now?”

She nodded and waited until he put the filled glass into her hand. She had no

choice but to listen, since so much was—strange, out of place. Weird, displaced
somehow.

Ryan lifted his knee so it rested on the bed and turned to face her. “You might hate

me forever for this but I had to give you a chance. They didn’t just drug you,
sweetheart, they gave you ricin.”

“Ricin?” She searched her mind and remembered something in the news last year.

“Poison?”

He nodded. “Poison derived from the shells of castor beans. Easy to get hold of and

the poison of choice for terrorists. A few drops can be fatal and they gave you more
than that.”

“Why would they do that?”
“Spite, or because they thought you were,” he grimaced, as though he hated to say

the word, “tainted. We’ve done some things by necessity while you were asleep, things
we wouldn’t normally do. I read your mind, love, at least that part of it with the
memories of your attack.”

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“I don’t mind.”
He reached out and touched her hand again. His touch brought warmth and

comfort. “Good. Thanks for that. We don’t know any of the faces in your mind. You
retained two very good images and three men in all kidnapped you. You didn’t see the
driver properly, only his eyes. Dark brown. We only did it because we wanted to give
the—authorities a good start catching the men. The colder a trail is, the harder it is to
follow.”

“Did they find them?”
He shook his head. “No. But they’re still looking. Your kidnappers asked you

things, we know that.”

She shuddered when she remembered repeated slaps and demands of “Where are

they? Tell us your computer passwords!”

“Dad—”
“It’s okay, love. We called him and he’s seen you. Mike left when he saw you

weren’t badly hurt. He thinks you were just shaken up, he doesn’t know how badly you
were hurt, or about the ricin.”

“You gave me an antidote?”
His mouth firmed again but he didn’t look away. “Mike’s having all your computer

passwords changed and extra security put in at your office.”

“I told them my passwords.”
“Thank God you did. They would have hurt you worse if you hadn’t.” His grip on

her hand tightened. “And no, we didn’t give you an antidote. There is no antidote to
ricin. Gina, you were dying. But I couldn’t allow that, I couldn’t take another daughter
away from Mike. I couldn’t watch you die. You had one chance and we gave it to you.”

She frowned. “How? An experimental drug?” Somehow, having regular tests for

the rest of her life didn’t matter so much. Although she’d rather avoid complications
like the side effects some of these new drugs had, she was much happier to be alive.

“No. Gina, you remember those pictures you showed me?”
Wondering at the sudden change of subject, she nodded.
“They weren’t rendered, or CGI, or anything like that. They were photographs.”
“Doctored in a graphics program.”
“No they weren’t. They showed me and the rest of the band in mid-shape-shift.

Gina, we’re not completely mortal, not human and we are— Oh God, this is hard!”
Breaking off, he pressed the fingers of his free hand to the bridge of his nose, then
dropped his hand and looked at her again. “Gina, just listen, don’t ask questions until
I’ve finished. Then I’ll prove it to you, if you want me to. We, the members of Pure
Wildfire, are shape-shifters. Firebirds, to be exact. And now you are too. I’m sorry. It
was the only way. You can talk to the doctor in a little while. Without the conversion,
you would have died for sure. No antidote, nothing. We took the only option open to us
and it worked. I can’t be sorry for that though I know I should be.”

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“What?” She heard the words but they made no sense. Firebirds? What were they?

She took another sip of water. “Tell me.”

“Gina, there are different types of birds, different types of cats, aren’t there? So why

not different types of human? At the beginning of time, human time anyway, several
species of human evolved. That’s why the legends go back so far, that’s why the stories
are part of every culture in the world. Because we exist. Shape-shifters, vampires—”

“Vampires?” Books about steamy love from hot vampires had amused and

entertained her but she’d never for one instant believed them.

“We’re shape-shifters.”
“Werewolf?” Her staccato delivery seemed to be all she was capable of. Take the

essence of his sentence and latch on to it. Ryan hadn’t struck her as mad but she began
to hope someone would come in soon. She glanced around for the bell, or buzzer, or
something.

Ryan reached across and lifted something from the floor, placing it gently on the

bed by her side. A buzzer, thank God. “Hear me out before you press it, okay? I
converted you but no, we don’t have werewolves. They don’t exist. Remember all the
old stories about dragons, unicorns, mythical creatures? Well, that’s what shape-shifters
are—mythical creatures. We’re firebirds. We live a little longer than most mortals.
We’re compelled to change our form for three days every month, at the time of the full
moon, but the change doesn’t have to last long. In our other form, we’re stronger, faster
but the gifts we have, the gifts we need, are with us always.”

“Telepathy.” She had proof of that, at least.
“Yes. Now you have it too. You’ll have to shape-shift form and the first day of the

compulsory shape-shift is tomorrow.”

“Are we linked, bonded?” The stories she read had always been about soul mates,

bonded pairs.

He smiled briefly. “No. There’s no such thing, although a couple can voluntarily

bond, if they wish. It means they die at the same time, their health and well-being is
dependant on the other’s. Corinne and Aidan have chosen to bond. The urge is great
but it can be resisted. In the old days, the males used to take the women, try to force
them to bond but the bond has to be wholehearted on each side, otherwise it doesn’t
take.”

“This is like something out of The X-Files.” Why was he telling her all this?

Thoughts seeped into her mind, forcing it back to reason. “Why doesn’t everyone know
about you?”

“Because we don’t want them to. At one point in history, they did know. We have

the same desires, the same faults, Gina. We’re just different, that’s all.”

“Like Mormons?”
He laughed aloud at that. “No. They might have shape-shifters with them, who

knows, but no. We’re just people. We aren’t a secret society, at least not in the way you

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might be thinking, we just want to live our lives among our fellow men quietly and
without fuss.”

A picture came unbidden into Gina’s mind of Ryan, half-naked, sweat running

down his body, taunting and teasing thousands of people and she laughed.

He laughed too. “I don’t need to be in your mind to know what you’re thinking.

That’s the musician side of me and, Gina, that’s what I am too.”

“So what happens now? Not that I’m saying I believe you but if—if all this is true,

what do we do now?”

His face regained its solemnity and his amber eyes held no humor anymore. “We

have our enemies, love. Some people know about us and there are two kinds of
enemies. The purists, who call themselves the PHR, which stands for Perfect Human
Race, just want us dead. They think we’re abominations, that we shouldn’t be alive.
Then there are the scientists, who, I understand, have a loose cooperative called The
Corporation. They want to experiment on us, extract some of our special gifts like elixirs
and they don’t look on us as human, or even sentient. They’re all about the money.
Normally, they don’t bother us and we have our organizations too. We’ve had to. But
our organizations are usually affiliated to the government. For instance, the one here, in
the US, the original one, is part of the CIA. Not everyone knows what it really is but the
highest in government usually do and certain other key people. They think one of those
organizations has discovered us, Pure Wildfire, and want to kill us.” He paused,
waiting for her.

“And they attacked me?”
He nodded. “Yes. Whatever else you want to believe, you have time to absorb it

and accept it but not this. If you want to boil it right down to the basics, there is a
terrorist organization and they want Pure Wildfire dead. They’ve attacked Aidan
already, in England. He—escaped. Now it seems it wasn’t a one-off attack. You
shouldn’t have had those pictures of us. They’re gone now.”

“Gone?”
He smiled briefly. “Gone. Our side sent someone in to your office who knew her

way around computers. She went in as a cleaner at night, broke in to your system and
destroyed all the copies she found. But the PHR know about us and they’re after us.”

“So what now? Because we slept together a time or two, they want me?”
His grip on her hand tightened briefly then was gone. She felt its loss keenly. “Yes,

they’re that insane. Now we’ve had to convert you to save your life, we have to protect
you.”

“No, no, I can learn—” She was almost beginning to believe him. Almost.
“You can and we’ll teach you. We can also put you in touch with people here in

New York who can help you, at least for the first year or so. But we’re in a crisis
situation, love, and we need to keep you close. So you’re coming with us.”

“What, don’t I get a choice?”

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“Yes, you do. Either you come with us so we can look after you while the

authorities catch these bastards, or you go to a safe house. We’ll tell your friends and
family that you witnessed something, so you’re in the Witness Protection Program—
which in a way is the truth.” He heaved a great sigh. “Or you can choose to die. All we
did was give you a choice.”

She leaned forward and grabbed his hand when he would have moved it away.

“You say we, Ryan, but it was you, wasn’t it? You found me, you converted me—which,
for the record, I’m still not entirely believing. So answer me this—why isn’t my wrist in
plaster, why isn’t my face covered in bandages?”

He twined his fingers between hers, staring at their conjoined hands. “Because in

the firebird form you heal faster. Diseases don’t generally cross species, although there
are a few, and when your bones re-shape themselves, breaks heal.”

“Okay. Show me.” She pulled her hand away and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Go on. Show me.”

She almost wished she hadn’t said anything when he got to his feet, crossed to

where he could get some clear space and slid his robe down his arms to puddle at his
feet. He wore nothing underneath. Gina swallowed, remembering the bliss of that
strong body curled around hers.

He spread his arms and watched her.
Did something move? Were his eyes a bit larger, his nose a bit more prominent?
Yes, was the answer. Yes.
A rash of little red pinpricks appeared all over his body, then feathers began to

sprout. Gina wanted to duck under the covers as she did as a little girl, to hide from the
ghosts and demons of her imagination. She’d slept with this—man—thing—bird.
Because Ryan was assuming the likeness of a great bird. His body pushed forward, his
legs shortened and turned into yellow claws, his outstretched arms grew, became
wings.

Ryan glowed with reddish fire and although his eyes had changed shape and the

pupil changed from a black dot to a black slit, she could still see Ryan in them. His nose
was now a cruelly hooked beak, dangerous to anyone coming close.

Except you. This is why we need the telepathy. Birds don’t have vocal cords developed

enough to talk.

It’s true! Oh my God, what have you done!
I was born this way, Gina. Or rather, I became the full bird at puberty.
How can you chat while you’re—you’re like that! Panic rose quickly inside her body

and she choked, feeling her throat closing. The first cough pushed her body forward
against her upraised knees.

At once she felt a hand on the back of her neck. A male hand. Not a chicken claw or

something awful like that. Glancing up, she saw Ryan, stark naked, concern on his face.
“Breathe deep, love. I shouldn’t have done that.”

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“No,” she gasped. “There’s no—easy way to tell—anyone about this. Oh my God!”
She leaned back, feeling his hand on her bare back between the ties of her hospital

gown, and stared up at him, just stared. It was true. She was some kind of bird-woman
hybrid. Oh what a campaign she could have made out of this! Then another realization
hit her, something she’d always dreamed about.

“Does this mean I can fly?”

* * * * *

Only on the plane did Ryan allow himself to relax. With Gina next to him

slumbering fitfully he felt safe. She’d already packed for her trip, his super-efficient
lady, so all they’d had to do was send Sonny with the keys to her apartment and
instructions to pick up her luggage.

He’d have liked to buy her everything she needed but she had it ready. He wanted

to shower her with gifts to make up for the change in her circumstances that she was
accepting so bravely. Soon she’d feel the itch, the need to shape-shift, but he couldn’t let
her until they were ensconced in the hotel at the other end of their journey. San
Francisco and Los Angeles. A TV appearance, a discussion with The Simpsons people,
although Ryan was against that one, two big concerts and a video shoot. Then home.
With or without Gina.

He smiled down at her when she opened her eyes. Here at the front of the plane

they were relatively private, backed by Chris occupying a double seat, currently snoring
his head off, and the others on the other side. They hadn’t chartered a plane since most
of their equipment had already gone ahead of them but at least they were flying first
class.

Gina blinked and he saw red glinting in the depths of her dark eyes. A sure sign of

the firebird. She already had the little firebird symbol in her mind. He’d put it there, a
safeguard for other Talents to see and recognize. Taking his time, he examined it now, a
perfect little bird, as beautifully detailed as his own.

“I won’t sleep with you.”
He knew that. He hadn’t expected it, kept telling himself saving her was enough,

but it wasn’t true. He still wanted her, wanted her more than ever. “I know. You don’t
have to. Just pretend that you are. It gives us an excuse to stay close, so I can take care
of you. You can be with Chris or Jake if you want, if it makes you feel better.”

“No.” That was something, at least. “Do you know why I won’t sleep with you?”
He smiled. “Because I’m a bird?”
“No. Because you’re a drug addict and because of Maria.”
He felt as if the bands she’d loosened had suddenly tightened around his heart

again. Of all the things he’d told her, he’d forgotten this, perhaps the most difficult. She
deserved to know.

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Watching her edge away from him felt as if an ice barrier had somehow appeared

between them. He wanted her, yes, but he didn’t want to bring her pain. No more.
She’d borne enough.

Yet he had to tell her. “I’m not a drug addict. You left a report for me at the hotel. I

didn’t get a chance to look at it until we were waiting in the VIP lounge but it explains a
lot and confirms what I’d thought.” Wanting to hold her, knowing she wouldn’t let
him, he told her anyway. “I think Maria was murdered.”

“What?”
Her blank expression told him she knew nothing about any of this and one of the

bands around his heart broke away. Gently, he entered the outer part of her mind,
ready to stop the minute she became too distressed. “That mixture we took on the day
she died wasn’t pure heroin.”

“I know that. The stuff contained something else. A designer drug.”
“Cephalox,” he said grimly. “I took some voluntarily while I was with Maria but I

didn’t realize I was being fed more. Cephalox is a drug we take to prevent the
compulsory monthly shape-shift. It was developed for situations like emergency
operations. Our doctors can operate on the human or the other form but a shape-shift
during an operation imperils both forms. Or we can use it just when it’s inconvenient to
shape-shift. Agents generally carry a vial or two in case. But it’s a highly addictive and
dangerous drug. A bit like giving someone morphine to alleviate pain.” She nodded. “I
took it while I was with Maria because she couldn’t stand my other form. It terrified
her. I can understand that, so I sometimes took Cephalox to stop the shape-shift when
she needed me. By the time we were due to go in for the cure I knew I was addicted, to
the Cephalox if not to the heroin. A shape-shift can usually prevent an addiction,
especially when the drug doesn’t have a universal effect, although it doesn’t always
work.

“I became addicted to drugs deliberately. I thought if I could show Maria what they

did to the system, she’d enter the clinic. I also thought if I was addicted too, I could go
in with her but if not, I’d have to stay outside and I didn’t know if she could survive
that. She was strung out, Gina. I tried to reduce her intake but she only got it
somewhere else. You must know how easy it is for musicians to get drugs.”

Gina stared at him, horrified. “So someone fed you this stuff?”
“There are only a few people it could have been. That day we had drugs from three

people. Two British, one American. I checked the British connections out a year ago.
They were the usual lowlifes. But the American source was more interesting. Jesse
Walker was a spider, had contacts everywhere, from organized crime to street-level
punks. He provided musicians with their crack and smack, city executives with their
coke and designer drugs and whores with whatever was left. He could have found the
stuff and cut it into the heroin, or someone gave it to him specifically to put into what
he gave us. If they did that, it means they know about us.”

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He stared in front of him at a blank screen. Neither of them had felt like utilizing

the entertainment the travel company offered. “Then, the night I contacted Walker and
he promised to get me more of the special stuff, we were attacked outside the club.
Then you showed me those pictures. It’s looking less like a leak, more like a huge hole.
After all that, you found some more evidence about Maria’s death, evidence I’ve never
seen before and you were attacked and nearly killed after bringing it to me.”

“You sure you’re not addicted?”
Exasperated, he turned to confront her. “One hundred per-fucking-cent sure. You

want me to take a test, sweetheart, you’re out of luck. Take it or leave it.”

Shock went right through him when he saw tears well in her eyes and he closed his

own in an effort to avoid seeing them. How could he talk to her like that after the
trauma she’d gone through?

When he reached for her, she moved away. “You’re right. I’m sorry, Ryan. Just give

me some space and I’ll be fine. You have more problems than me right now and I
promise I won’t get in your way.”

She was right but for the wrong reasons. Mike Russo might be involved in this mess

right up to his neck. Getting involved with Russo’s daughter was entirely the wrong
thing to do.

So why did he still want to do it?
He wanted to know if she tasted different since her conversion. He wanted to hold

her safe in his arms at night, treat her to things, teach her to be less hidebound. He’d
had a hint of what Gina could be once she let herself go and he wanted more.

She stared down at her hands. “Maria was murdered? Who would do such a

thing?”

“They might not have wanted to kill her. If they thought I’d converted her, they

might have given us the stronger stuff, knowing it would lay us out but not kill us.
That’s why I survived. Just a better constitution. If they didn’t want to kill us, they
wanted to capture us before we went to the clinic beyond their reach.” He reached over
and touched her hands, curving his own over it protectively.

This time she didn’t move away.

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Chapter Eleven

A feeling of restlessness stirred inside Gina, a strange, wandering itch she couldn’t

explain, but she shook it off. Ryan said she’d be compelled to shape-shift. If that was the
start of it, there wasn’t much she could do. If it happened, it would happen, whatever
she tried to do. And she was too tired to fight it. They’d get in to Los Angeles at around
ten and a car would take them straight to their hotel. She knew Ryan was worried by
the glances he kept shooting her when he thought she wasn’t looking but this was the
first real twinge she’d had. She’d survive. Maybe.

“Hey, Gina, you okay?”
Sonny stood in the aisle and leaned over the double seat she shared with Ryan. She

glanced up at his handsome, good-natured face. “Fine thanks, Sonny. I just had a touch
of food poisoning, that’s all. Didn’t want to miss the flight, so I came along.”

“Thanks,” Ryan said. “She seems good now. Hasn’t thrown up for hours.”
Sonny’s gaze went from one to the other of them, then his brows went up. They

weren’t touching, weren’t even leaning toward each other, so Gina couldn’t imagine
what caused Sonny’s surprise. Except, perhaps, he might have expected her to sit with
him.

She smiled weakly at Sonny. “I’m much better now, Sonny, really.”
“I spoke to Mike before the flight. He said you’d been involved in an accident.”
“Yeah, not looking where she was going, rushing to find a toilet. Hit her head.”

Ryan grinned. “We took her into hospital to be on the safe side but they released her,
seemed to think she’d be okay.”

We’re going public, love.
Ryan reached out his hand and covered her clasped ones, giving her a chance to

reject him if she wanted to. She didn’t pull her hand away. The gentle squeeze might
have been enough but the way he reached across her back and tugged her to rest
against his shoulder demonstrated beyond doubt what he meant. He smiled lazily at
Sonny while Gina kept her head down, afraid of what she might see. “The women of
this family seem to have a fatal fascination for me.”

That was in such bad taste Gina sucked in her breath but she didn’t look up until

she heard Sonny leave. “Ryan, that wasn’t nice.”

“I needed something to get him to move,” he murmured. When she tried to pull

away, he held her close. “No, stay. It doesn’t mean anything, just that you need to rest
and I nee-want to hold you.”

“What did you mean, going public?”

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“While you’re so weak, I want you close. You’ll stay in my suite at the hotel,

although there’ll probably be more than one bedroom, so it’s up to you if you want to
stay with me or in another room. I want to care for you, Gina. It’s my duty, you see, as
the man who converted you. It doesn’t mean anything permanent, if you don’t want it
to. Now just rest, love. You have another ordeal to go through later tonight.”

She had little choice right now. Ryan was right, she was weak, she felt just as if

she’d really had a stomach bug, washed out and exhausted.

They arrived in LA at seven p.m. but they’d been in the air for longer than that, due

to time zone changes. She dozed for most of the journey and Ryan held her, making her
feel stupidly safe. As if she had nothing to worry about.

They left the aircraft hand in hand, Chris leading the way, sensing for danger. He

didn’t spot any. A few flashes went off as they walked out of the VIP lounge, following
the driver who would take them to their hotel. “There,” Ryan murmured. “It’s done.
We’re not front-page news but we’ll hit a few celeb mags, the Internet gossip pages and
places like that. Don’t worry, love, if you want to, it’ll be easy to stage a quarrel between
us once you feel safer.”

Did he want to? She was no nearer solving the enigma of Ryan Hawthorne than she

had been the first night in the jazz club. He was amazingly frank with the facts of his
life but he kept his feelings carefully sheltered. She might never know him. Ryan was
the kind of man a woman could stay married to for a lifetime and still not know him
properly.

Ryan’s hand in hers felt warm and strong but he didn’t stop walking, even when

someone called their names. They needed to get to the hotel.

The car, a large, black limo with smoked glass windows, drove smoothly and

quietly to one of the finest hotels in Los Angeles. Gina had seen it, even thought of
staying there but not in one of the penthouses. They didn’t stop to register but went
straight through.

People stared after them. Not everybody at The Four Seasons was a celebrity. In full

rock-star mode, the band slouched their way across the huge lobby. Ryan draped his
arm around her shoulders and lifted hers until she hooked her thumb in his belt around
the back. She felt almost numb now, the restless itch inside her turning her muscles into
liquid.

Hold on, love, nearly there!
Ryan quickened his pace, almost dragging her with him, his arm tight around her,

hand tucked under her armpit, holding her up.

She felt dizzy and strange. Something prickled her skin and with a shock, she

remembered the red dots on Ryan’s skin when he’d transformed for her earlier. Could
that be happening to her? The feeling of helplessness swamped her when she realized
that, like it or not, this would happen to her. She couldn’t control it.

The maitre d’hotel followed, babbling, and Chris said something, asked him

questions, keeping him trailing behind. Aidan and Corinne led the way to the elevators,

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leaving Sean in the care of his nannies. Aidan slapped his hand on the button and
studied Gina, his face grim.

“Keep your head down.”
She’d never heard Aidan speak in that tone before, authoritative and firm, without

his customary lazy humor and good nature. She obeyed, dropping her head forward as
if tired.

The ping heralded the elevator and Ryan bent and swung her up into his arms.

Aidan held the doors open and he took her inside, followed by Corinne.

“Take care of her, Ryan. Corinne and I will fuzz the atmosphere around you.”
“This elevator doesn’t stop at the penthouse floor without the special key, and we

didn’t stop to pick that up,” Ryan muttered, putting Gina gently down once more. “You
can’t shape-shift here, love, hold on. Let me in.”

She knew what he meant and found it easier than she could ever have imagined to

relax the barriers in her mind.

Immediately her pain and stress eased, like a crutch in her mind. Ryan was fighting

the shape-shift too but he knew what was happening and his ease of practice made the
fight immeasurably easier.

“It’ll stop at the right floor now,” said Aidan grimly. And he was right, it did.
The carpeted hallway was mercifully absent of people and without stopping to

check Aidan and Corinne, Ryan picked her up as if she weighed nothing and strode
down to the nearest door to shove it open. He put her down.

The prickles on her skin had turned to needles of fire, sweeping right along from

head to foot and back again.

“You can relax now,” Ryan told her.
“No! I—I—”
Ryan glanced behind him, to where Corinne and Aidan had followed them inside

the room and closed the door. “She wants to do it on her own, or at least with only me
with her. Sorry, guys.”

“We’ll stay out here.” To her horror, Gina watched Aidan unbutton his shirt and

shrug out of it and for a moment her mind said, Orgy, rock stars!

She would have laughed in any other situation. That was stupid. How could she

think that, when everyone in the room was a shape-shifter? Corinne and Aidan would
need to shape-shift their forms too, if Ryan was right about the time of the month.

Ryan grabbed her hand and towed her to one of the doors at the far end of the

room, leading the way into what turned out to be a luxurious bedroom, dominated by a
canopied bed decorated in shades of blue. But her eyes seemed to be moving, changing.
She had to tilt her head to see Ryan in front of her, busy stripping. She should be doing
that, surely.

“Let it go, love. Mark what happens, remember it, so you can reverse it on your

own, in time. I’ll keep your size manageable.”

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Gina opened her mouth to speak but her vocal cords wouldn’t respond. Neither

would her fingers.

The prickles and itching eased and when she looked down, she saw why. Feathers

sprouted at odd angles through her blouse. Then her body lurched forward and the
shirt ripped away, falling in shreds to the floor.

Her clothes tore off her, seemingly without effort, falling away while her body

changed. All she could do was feel and, she thought, suffer.

But it didn’t hurt, like in some of the werewolf films she’d seen. It was just—

different, strange. Interesting. Since she’d seen Ryan in his other form, she knew what
kind of form she would take—a large, gold-red bird.

Arms lengthened and formed wings, legs shortened and claws grew. The sensation

was incredible and one she could bear again. No pain.

She’d been so afraid but now it was happening it felt almost—normal.
Shuffling around, she saw Ryan and felt him in her mind. Wary, waiting for her

response. Ryan?

Yes, Gina?
Do I have to stay like this now?
Not if you don’t want to. Change back when you like.
Panic hit her, soothed by waves of calm that didn’t come from her. How?
Remember how you shape-shifted and reverse it. Don’t worry, I’ll be here to help you, at

least at first.

What did that mean? He’d wait around until she could do it on her own, then

disappear?

Do you want to try to fly?
She rotated her head, looking around the room, which was large but not large

enough. Her wings must be ten feet or more, expanded.

He chuckled. How did he do that? I can make us smaller. We can regulate our size. Do

you want to try?

She supposed she should. Okay.
Close your eyes. No, I’m not going to do any magic, just that you’ll feel a bit dizzy the first

couple of times you do this.

She closed her eyes. When she opened them again it was like something out of Alice

in Wonderland when Alice ate the cakes or drank the mixture and ended up a different
size. The bed towered above her, its folds of fabric monumental as a cathedral’s
columns, and her feet sank into the incredibly deep pile of the off-white carpet.

At least Ryan was with her and the same size. She was almost coming to recognize

him in his “other form”. Panic gripped her stomach until his voice echoed in her mind.

Spread your wings, like this.
I don’t need you to demonstrate.

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Her dignified hop made him laugh in her mind but she moved away from him

enough to lift her arms—wings—and spread them.

Easier if you jump off something to start with. We need some lift.
The air conditioning fan stirred and the blades began to spin, creating a breeze.
How did you do that?
Tell you later. Now let the breeze take you and when you feel it lift you, pull up your legs

and tuck them in.

Tuck them into what?
You’ll get the hang of it. She wanted to smile at the British expression. Bird or man,

Ryan was essentially English.

Seemingly effortlessly, Ryan lifted into the air. Gina found it wasn’t so easy but

eventually, by hopping a little, she felt the breeze take her up.

Now fly!
She flapped and felt herself go up.
Exhilaration surged within her. The nights she spent dreaming of flying were

nothing compared to the real thing. A therapist had once told her dreams of flying
meant she wanted to free herself from something but she’d never understood that. She
was perfectly happy with her life just as it was.

At least she had been.
Long sweeps of your wings, not short ones. You’ll catch the updraft better that way.
She tried. He was right. Long sweeps took her right up, soaring higher. She stared

down at the room below her, watching her shadow on the bed canopy, which was,
impressively, completely free of dust.

A strangled squawk made her look around and she lost her rhythm. She began to

fall, tumbling toward the floor, an impossible distance away. She was going to die.

Strong arms caught her and she landed with a tangle of limbs and feathers. His

mind entered hers and she felt him taking control, returning her to human form.

This time she felt no discomfort and no itchiness. Blessedly, it had gone. Smiling up

at him, her limbs aching with effort, she said, “I flew. Ryan, I flew!”

“So you did. And you’ll do even better in time.” He made no effort to put her down

but leaned down and just touched his lips to hers. “You did well. Does that help to
make up for what I did to you?”

“What do you mean?” She wanted to follow his mouth with hers but lethargy

moved heavily in her body and she stayed where she was.

“Doing this to you. Converting you to my kind.” Slowly, he walked across to the

bed and laid her down on it, as delicately as if she’d been made of glass. “I did it
without giving you the choice. It was the only way to save you, they said, and I couldn’t
lose you.” He sat on the bed but made no effort to lie down with her. Instead, he

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snagged the cover and pulled the comforter over her. Gina appreciated that. She still
wasn’t as comfortable with her nudity as Ryan was with his.

“Let me take care of you now, Gina, while you get used to your new life. I know it

won’t make up for what I did to you but it might help a little bit.”

She reached for his hand and he took it without hesitation, twining his fingers with

hers. “You did what you thought was best. I would have died if you hadn’t. You gave
me a choice, Ryan. If I can’t manage this, I still have that choice. You didn’t take that
away from me.”

He wouldn’t look at her but stared at the bedside lamp. “I did it out of cowardice

too. Gina, I still don’t think we should stay together. I’m bad for you, you and your
sister. Although I didn’t mean to, I caused both of your deaths.”

She frowned at his sudden attack of self-blame. This wasn’t like Ryan. But he too

had been under strain. He would need rest too. “Did you mean to cause what happened
to us?”

He shook his head and tried to pull his hand away but she wouldn’t let him. “It

happened anyway. Perhaps someone hates me being with you. Perhaps it’s a
coincidence. I really don’t know.”

She caught her breath. “You suspect my father?”
He managed to drag his hand away from hers. “I can’t say no. Those pictures ended

up on his computer and he got hold of the coroner’s report that none of us could find.
But when I meet him and see him with you, he seems a great guy. He loves you, he runs
a tight, successful business, he’s an honest dealer, or he seems to be. But what—”

She leaned forward and grabbed his hand again, not caring anymore when the

covers fell away from her body as she sat up. “Ryan, don’t do this.”

He turned then and looked at her. Warm amber eyes, haunted with a deep sorrow

she wanted to dispel. “And yet when I see you, I can’t bear the thought of giving you
up. You could be with Jake or Chris, they can teach you as well as I can and just as
effectively. But the thought of you with anyone else tears me apart. I should, I really
should.”

“No. No you shouldn’t. Ryan, I want it to be you. You’ve shown me nothing but

understanding and kindness. And passion.”

“Don’t.” His word came out as a groan. “You don’t know how hard I’m trying not

to think about that!”

“Why not?”
“Well for one thing,” he said, turning his head to look at her again, “if we make

love again, I’ll be completely lost in you. No going back. And during this time, the three
days of compulsion, you’re fertile. In heat. The rest of the month you’re not.” He curled
his lip. “And I don’t have anything to stop it right now.”

“I bet the hotel has.”

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“No.” He pulled the comforter up again, tucking it under her arms, and she

understood why he did it. Not just for her modesty but for his peace of mind. She
gloried in the knowledge that her bare body tempted him. “There’s another reason.
You’re exhausted. I can feel it, all the time, even when I withdraw completely from your
mind. Your eyes are rimmed in red and you’re drooping.”

She laughed. “Some picture I must make!”
“The only one I want to see,” he whispered, the intimacy of his tone sending thrills

up her spine. “But not now, love.”

“And about my father?” He nodded, misery returning to shade his eyes. “I’m not

entirely sure either. I love him and he’s been nothing but good to me but he was a
possessive dad, especially when I was a kid. Of course, living in a not-too-respectable
area of New York didn’t help. All our money went into the business until we got really
successful, so we didn’t live too well. We never lived in a slum but in the big city there
are all kinds of people everywhere. Dad can be ruthless when he wants to. I’ve seen it.
But he doesn’t want to harm us. Just to break us up, maybe. All we have to do is prove
to him you’ll look after me.”

“It’s all I want to do—” Ryan broke off and bit his lip.
Fatigue swept over her in a great wave and in the ensuing dizziness she nearly lost

her balance. Ryan was there quicker than she could topple over, holding one arm
around her back while he lowered her on to the soft pillows. He kissed her very softly,
very sweetly. “Sleep, Gina. We’ll talk about it all when you wake up.”

“Only if you sleep with me. I want you here, Ryan.” She saw refusal gather in his

eyes, felt it in his mind. “Only to sleep and comfort. Ryan, will I—change in my sleep?”

He chuckled, his breath warming her chin. “No. You might in future compulsion

days if you don’t do it first, but if you aren’t itchy for it, you won’t and the itchy feeling
will wake you up. Other times it’s entirely voluntary. You’ll fall asleep Gina and wake
up Gina. I guarantee it.”

“Then get in and sleep with me.”
He got to his feet. “Give me five minutes. I want to clean my teeth first.”
After all that astonishingly weird stuff, he worried about his teeth?
But she heard the unmistakable sounds of tooth cleaning and rinsing coming from

the bathroom and in a few minutes, he was back, pulling the comforter up so he could
slide into bed next to her.

She turned her back on him and he cuddled close, draping his arm around her

waist and taking her hand again. “Night, lovely girl.”

“Good night, Ryan.” My love.

* * * * *

When she woke up daylight filtered through the window blinds, though Gina

couldn’t have said if it was an hour later, or a day, or eight hours. Except the itchy

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feeling was back. She lay on her side, facing away from Ryan, but he snuggled close, his
arm still around her waist. Had they moved at all?

She looked around the room but she couldn’t see a clock. She saw plenty of other

things. A long couch, the deep carpet in off-white, the paintings on the walls she would
bet were real, not reproductions or posters, the very size of the room all screamed
“luxury” in a way she wasn’t quite comfortable with, though she couldn’t explain why.

Closing her eyes, she reveled in the feel of her lover snuggled close to her body, in

an intimacy that spoke of familiarity but never taken for granted. Strange, how natural
it felt. It felt like forever, though it had been such a short time.

The first intimation she had that he was awake was the hardening against her lower

back. Then a very masculine growl.

He lifted his hand to cover her breast. Also very masculine.
“I’m awake.”
“Ah.” He moved his hand away, back to her stomach. “Sorry.” He rolled away from

her, onto his back.

She rolled over and lifted up on to one elbow, gazing down at him. He met her

eyes, his eyes full of care and concern, his bottom lip pulled between his teeth.

She smiled. “Don’t stop. I like you touching me, Ryan. That hasn’t changed.”
“But an awful lot of other things have.”
“It doesn’t feel like it. You said I should take things slowly, gradually and you’re

right. Without you I would have died, wouldn’t I?”

“Maybe.” A reluctant, self-deprecating smile crossed his face. “Yes.”
“So you gave me a choice I wouldn’t have had otherwise.”
“Without me you wouldn’t have had to make it.” Lifting his hand, he touched her

cheek with the tips of his fingers. “I couldn’t bear it. All that loveliness, all that life.”

“What did you think of first?”
“You.”
A moment of utter stillness followed, realization clashing with supposition. He

blinked and his expression changed. “I thought of you first. Not Maria, not my guilt, I
thought of you.”

“That makes up for everything.” She smiled back, feeling his fingers trace her lower

lip. So gentle. “I don’t care if I was nearly killed because of you or because of me. The
attackers might want the papers I gave to you, they might hate me, they might even be
boring old-style stalkers. It doesn’t matter. We’ll face it together and together we’ll
win.”

“You can’t mean that.”
“I can. Hasn’t anyone ever stood with you?”
“Of course.” He let his fingers dance over her chin, moving down to her throat.

“Aidan, Chris, Jake…”

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Realization hit her like a physical blow. “But not a woman.”
He blinked again. “No. Not a woman.”
“Can I be that woman, Ryan?”
His smile came, blinding her with its intensity. “Yes. Oh fuck, yes!”
Curling his hand around to the back of her neck, he tugged her down and their lips

met.

Their kiss linked them as never before, an equal exchange, not one kissing the other

but an expression of mutual desire.

His tongue entered her mouth as hers entered his, stroking, taking and giving. She

melded her body to his, breasts pressing hard against his smooth chest, their nipples
hardening with the skin-to-skin contact. Gina loved touching him, feeling his response
to her. It turned her on at a deep level, one she’d never allowed a man to reach before.

Men had given Gina pleasure but they had never been essential. She’d had good

relationships and bad ones but none that seemed vital to her soul. This one did. The
thought of leaving Ryan scared her more than knowing what he’d done to her, so she
understood why he’d made the decision to convert her. And he’d told her exactly what
she prayed he would, that he thought of her first. Before his guilt, before his
relationship with Maria, before her father, before everything.

His erection rose hard between their bodies, pressing into her belly with an

intimacy she welcomed. But when she lifted, ready to complete their union, he pulled
away and held her so she couldn’t complete her move.

“You’re fertile, love. I don’t want to start this with a baby. If we have children I

want it to be a considered decision.” He gave a wry grin. “Sounds terrible, doesn’t it?
But you only get two chances now, if that. Let’s not waste them.” He kissed the tip of
her nose. “Besides we have something to look forward to. In two days’ time, we can
make love with no barriers. How about that?”

Although she understood his reasons for holding off, she was ready to take the risk,

more than ready. She wanted him so much she ached with it. “Please, Ryan.”

His low smile heralded a thought he wouldn’t let her see. Until he swung them

both, so she lay on her back and he leaned over her. “I’ll make you happy,” he
promised. “I’ll make us both happy.” Before she could reply, he kissed her.

Then she didn’t want to say anything. He kissed her mouth, then her chin and

down to her neck, tickling the sensitive pulse point with his tongue. His “Mmm”
vibrated against her skin, before he kissed down toward her breasts. Licking and
sucking, he never stopped, the accumulation of gentle touches growing toward one
terrific sensation, prickling her nerve-ends.

“Ryan, I think I—the urge—”
“I know,” he whispered against her skin. “I won’t let you shape-shift until I’ve

finished with you. I’ve always wanted to do this, touch a woman under the compulsion
to shape-shift, feed her senses, enhance the tickling and prickling. I’m in your mind,

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love. Let me control your need to shape-shift. If it becomes unbearable, you’ll shape-
shift. Let me. Let meeee.” He huffed out his breath, a breath of sensation, tantalizing
and teasing.

“I—I don’t know, Ryan.” Gina swallowed. This was all too new, too raw. Already

trying to accept her body taking such rampant control of her, now it screamed for Ryan
to touch it, satisfy it. Gina controlled every aspect of her life. Until now.

“Dare,” he murmured and gripped her hand in his. “Just for a while.”
She could do it for a few minutes longer and she longed to know what would

happen next. Or rather, her body did.

He was already kissing her, touching his lips to her nipple, tempting her with

possibilities.

“Okay,” she said and he sucked her nipple into his mouth.
His tongue curled and caressed while his free hand stroked and squeezed the other

breast. Twin sensations, while his legs curled around hers, holding her still. She
grabbed his shoulders, the curves fitting her palms, smooth, warm. Ryan.

He continued his journey of exploration, dipping his tongue into her navel. Could

she bear this, the increasing tingling? While he touched and kissed, she felt his presence
in her mind, holding her steady in her mortal form. Relax, sweetheart. I’ve got you. Trust
me.

I’ve never—Even in the intimacy of her mind she couldn’t admit it but she felt him,

warmly supporting her, tempting her to let go. She’d never let go, not completely.
Never.

Could she do it for this man? Could she let him take control of her mind and her

body?

Ryan licked a trail down to her legs and touched her thighs, pushing them gently

apart. She let him. He kept his hand locked with hers, his mind in hers, supporting and
encouraging with gentle near-words and soothing sounds. All the time her body
screamed for him. He was her addiction. If he didn’t kiss her there soon, she’d die, she
knew it.

One lick, from back to front, pausing over her clit. Gasping, Gina jerked up but

Ryan was ready for her. As she jerked, he opened his mouth over her, sucking hard.

With a single cry she broke, gave herself up to him and whatever he wanted to do

to her. He shoved his fingers inside as she convulsed and she felt his cry in her head.

That’s it, Gina. Angelina, my Angelina. Do you want to touch me?

“Yes!” A combined cry of fulfillment and want escaped from her throat.
Without taking his mouth away from her, he flung back the bedcovers and turned

around. His mouth circled her clit, then he opened wider and sucked voraciously,
hungrily.

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She grabbed wildly and dragged him close, arm around his hips. She needed to

taste him, wanted it so badly. His cock loomed before her face, red with desire, hard
with need, drops of pre-cum at the tip. Then she captured it and sucked it in.

Satisfaction. She needed this and when he groaned, it encouraged her to take him

in, curl her tongue around him and suck him as hard as he was sucking her.

Wildness filled her. No longer sure if it was his or hers, no longer caring, she dared

to extend her mind and search for him.

Amazing how easy it was. He welcomed her in. She saw a vista that scared and

excited her. Filled with sounds, beautiful and discordant, words weaving around her,
blending together in a paean of passion and need.

Him in her, her in him. Natural. No longer alone, Gina began to get an inkling of

what life could be like. Her apprehensive fear only added to her excitement and she let
go all restraint, all control.

For the first time in her life Gina let it happen and didn’t try to manage the

powerful feelings coursing through her. Fear, passion, unbelievable need mixed
together until they became one sensation. She would have done anything to continue it,
keep her emotions on a high, blocking out all reason, all thought. Now was all that
mattered.

Gina, don’t stop, love, please!
She had no intention of stopping. Ever. Drawing as much of him into her mouth as

she could, she felt him expand even more. Grow. She’d suspected he grew larger inside
her but put it aside as a weird feeling, not real. Now she knew it was as real as they
were, lying together in a huge bed in a luxury hotel, making oral love.

It felt so good she knew she’d never get enough of this. Never get enough of him.

And she didn’t care. It was all worth it, whatever was to come, to feel the strong suction
of his mouth on her, to hear the slurping sounds coming from him, to feel him in her
mouth, at her mercy, just as she was at his.

This time they came simultaneously and she nearly lost her breath and co-

ordination as his release echoed strongly in her mind and in reality in her mouth.

Only when she’d greedily sucked down the last drop did Gina remember she didn’t

like oral sex.

Well, that was another myth exploded, together with the one about wishes coming

true.

Except this time, her wishes had come true.
Ryan drew away and pushed up onto his hands and knees, turning his head to

watch her. A slumberous, sensual smile sat on his face, his eyes half closed. “That,” he
murmured in a voice as dark as sin, “was the best sixty-nine ever. Baby, I can’t wait to
do it again.”

Gina stared at him, shock, satisfaction and something else she was loath to define

filling her up. Then she smiled back. “It was, wasn’t it?” Although her body was

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consumed with itchy, prickly feelings now, one spot in particular burned. Tearing her
eyes away from Ryan, she glanced at her thigh. And froze in shock.

A tattoo of a bird in flight lay where no tattoo had been before. It glowed in golden

orange fire and she got the feeling she’d be able to see it in the dark.

“It comes with the conversion, love.” Ryan laid his hand gently on her knee. “It’s

beautiful. Every firebird has one, every shape-shifter.”

“Why is it burning?” Even as she spoke, the burning faded a little, drawing her

attention back to the itching.

Ryan hesitated. “We just made love. It burns afterward.”
She got the feeling there was more to it than that but severely doubted her ability to

take anything else onboard right now. “Where’s yours?”

Silently he turned his leg so she could see his mark. Darker than hers but very

similar, a bird in flight, glowing like a hot coal. “It’s not visible all the time. It will fade
in a few moments. It’s an intimate mark, something not many people see.”

The feeling he wasn’t revealing everything to her increased but she trusted him

enough now to let him keep the secret. For now. She turned the subject, leaning forward
to trace the more conventional tattoo on his upper arm with an outstretched forefinger.
“And this one? You all have it, don’t you? All the band.”

His smile was more relaxed. “Yes we do. We decided to get it done as the band’s

symbol.”

“A flaming rose. Very pretty.”
“It’s one of the symbols of the firebird but not very well known and it could be

applied to anything.”

She edged forward, wanting to feel his arms around her again, but he shook his

head, touching the skin on her lower arm. That prickly rash she’d seen yesterday
emerged again, the beginnings, she knew, of feathers.

“You can shape-shift now.”
She’d almost forgotten the prickling wasn’t all to do with the amazing sex they’d

just shared but now she was reminded of it graphically when a feather popped out just
below her rib cage.

Any other man would have recoiled in shock but Ryan chuckled. “You’re not the

only one who lost control, love. Let it happen now. Try to remember the sensations, so
you can repeat it when the compulsion has gone.” He sat and spread his arms to allow
his wings to develop and change.

As if released from a snare, she shape-shifted. Much quicker than before, or so it

seemed, her limbs re-formed and feathers broke out. She concentrated on recalling the
changes to try to set them in her memory.

Ryan’s change appeared to be effortless. It probably was, at this time of the month

all he had to do was let it happen. But she felt him in her mind, firmly holding her,
controlling her size.

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How big are we, full size?
Naturally, we have around a fifteen-foot wingspan but we can make ourselves larger or

smaller.

We, she pondered. I’m a we.
His chuckle sounded familiarly in her head. So we are.

* * * * *

They didn’t linger too long this time. Having ordered a light lunch from room

service and asked for their luggage to be brought in, Ryan took her into the shower and
Gina reveled in the needle-sharp, refreshing rain pouring on them from the large unit
above.

Ryan was deceptively slender, his athletic build only showing his strength when he

flexed and moved, but his muscles had a definition only granted to the physically active
and although Gina was not exceptionally lightweight, he lifted her without effort when
he wanted to. Her body was not model-thin, her breasts more than ample and her
bottom rounded. A beautifully curved natural woman, with no surgical enhancements.
Perfect.

“What happens now?” she asked, realizing she still didn’t know the time and so

didn’t know where they were in the itinerary.

“We have the rest of the afternoon free. That means I get to take you out. I want

people to see us together in public. I need to show whoever wants to hurt you that
you’re with us and you have our protection.”

She wasn’t averse to that. “So a restaurant, something like that?”
“I thought I’d take you shopping. You know where we are, right?”
With a slight shock, she did but only because she’d lingered over the website. Now

she was here for real. On the corner of Rodeo Drive. Every right-thinking woman’s
dream. “You can’t take me there. Let’s go somewhere else.”

“Not as many paparazzi anywhere else. No, we’re going shopping on Rodeo Drive.

You have an outfit to replace. Turn around.” She did and felt him massaging shampoo
into her hair. He certainly had a wonderful touch. While she reveled in the warm,
intimate massage, he spoke quietly and calmly. “Don’t deny me this. I have more
money than I’ll ever need and I want to spoil you a little. Make me happy by letting me
do it.”

She was independent-minded but no fool. “Won’t they think—?”
“Who gives a shit what they think? They’ll see us together in public and think we’re

a couple. They’ll probably assume we’ll split eventually, that this isn’t a big deal, so
you’re still free to decide on your own future.” She wasn’t sure if his gentle scrubbing
helped her to accept him or just melt into his arms and behave like the stereotypical frail
maiden. “Tonight, we have a TV chat show and performance. Then the performance at

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Long Beach Arena.” He paused and lifted her head a little to rinse it. “I’ll be busy that
day. Sound checks, going over the running order, that kind of thing.”

“Can I come and watch?”
He laughed. “Oh yeah, you’d better. I want you close until we catch the bastards

trying to hurt you.”

She pulled away a little. “I’m not completely helpless.”
“I know.” He drew her back and rinsed her hair, his hands moving softly, with

lingering affection. “And when you get used to your new state, you’ll be unbeatable by
anyone except another Talent. But this is a period of transition for you and I want to
take care of you.” He paused and laughed again. “Forget the rest. I just want to take
care of you.”

She laughed too, recognizing the release of tension. “Well, I’m a modern woman

and I want to take care of myself.” And maybe you too.

This was dangerous. Despite her recent conversion, they still had two separate lives

in two separate parts of the world and she enjoyed her life and career too much to give
it up. They still had no future together.

“How long will it take? The training, I mean?”
His hands stilled in her hair. “With some people, a month or two. Corinne learned

fast. With others, it can take longer. It’s hard to tell.” He sighed. “But you won’t take
long. You’re bright, quick and you’ve accepted what’s happened to you.” He lifted his
hands away. She saw his form vaguely in the glass screen in front of them, obscured by
running water but she thought his expression turned somber. “I won’t force you to stay
any longer than you want to. But I want you to stay for a long time.”

“You’re honest, aren’t you?”
“Very. I won’t lie to people. It taints the soul, I think.”
“Don’t you know?”
He reached over her to find the tube of body shampoo. “Why should I? We’re

human, mortal, all those things and we don’t have any more idea of the spiritual side of
life than anyone else.”

The body shampoo smelled heavenly, of vanilla and something spicy. A clever

perfume, suitable for both sexes. She chuckled. “We’re going to smell the same.”

“And that’s different to the way we’ve been smelling for the past twelve hours?”

He chuckled too. “At least this scent is more socially acceptable.”

She squirmed in his arms, turning to face him. “Ryan, I—”
“I know. Why haven’t we made love properly, even with a condom?” She nodded.

He touched his lips to her forehead, a spot of heat in the warmth of the water pouring
down around them. “Haven’t you guessed yet?”

Fear clutched at her innards. As her mentor was he forbidden, or didn’t he want to?

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“It’s because the next time we make love, I want it to be without anything between

us.” She tensed. That was the last thing she’d imagined he’d say. “Listen. You’re only
fertile for these three days. After tomorrow night, you’re not. Eventually, your cycle
will catch up with that and after the fertile days, you’ll menstruate but it takes a while
to happen. Our kind is all but immune to disease. It’s because we change form, you see.
The bird form and the human form are susceptible to different diseases, so when we
shape-shift, we lose the diseases. There are a few—”

“Bird flu,” she said, smiling.
“Oh yes,” he said and he wasn’t. “Our doctors are working on it. It could be

serious, so why are you laughing?”

“Oh I’m sorry, Ryan, I don’t mean to take it lightly but you know, in a world with

AIDS, cancer and MRSA, bird flu?”

“It’s serious,” he said but his severe tones didn’t hide the tremor in his voice. “I’m

trying to say that I’ve not been celibate, far from it, but there’s no way I have anything
that could hurt you. And if I did, you would shake it off in your next shape-shift. Ever
since our first time I wanted to make love with nothing between us. I felt it then and I
want it more than ever now.”

“Can’t we use a condom in the meantime?”
“We could.” He kissed her forehead again. “But I don’t want to. I want to mark

your conversion properly.”

“And that would be properly?”
“Oh yes.”

* * * * *

Emerging from the bathroom, they found their luggage dumped in the bedroom.

Suddenly lightheaded, Gina laughed. “I thought this was a luxury hotel! Don’t they do
more than dump the cases?”

Ryan strode over to a black canvas bag. “Usually but I asked them to do this. Just

find what you need and we’ll leave it to someone else to unpack for us.”

“Wow.” She walked over to her own case and unzipped it. “I didn’t mean it.”
“I did. We’re paying them a bloody fortune for this, as well as giving them some

publicity shots for their wall of fame. Not that I resent it but we might as well let them
do their jobs.”

She wasn’t sure she liked his assumption of arrogance. “I never take anything like

this for granted.”

“I do. Too much, Aidan says.” He sighed and threw a pair of jeans on the bed.

“Listen, I’m a bit older than my publicity says. I was born into an age when servants
were usual—at least they were in our family.”

“How old?”

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He shot her a wary glance. “Around a hundred and fifty.”
“Ryan!” Grabbing the nearest item, she threw it at him. “And you let me worry

about being eight years older than you?”

He burst into raucous laughter and pulled her panties off his shoulder, where

they’d landed. “And I was worried you might think I was too old for you! You’re good
for me, Gina, I can’t tell you how much!”

After turning into a bird, little more could faze her, although the thought of living

for twice the time she’d expected dazed her for a moment. “How do you manage? I
mean, when you get to eighty and you still look like this?”

“We can assume the appearance of age but it’s an effort, so we only do it when we

need to. Usually, we move on.” He hesitated. “It’s harder these days but we take a new
identity, go on to a new life. Baby, don’t worry about that now. Please.”

“How old is Aidan?”
She saw a brief look of relief cross his face and realized she should have asked

something else. Jake and Chris? She didn’t want to know.

“Aidan’s thirty-two. For real.”
“No, you’re right. I don’t need to think about it now.” She couldn’t push this—she

had to take her time assimilating all the aspects of her new life.

Dropping her towel, she carried some clothes over to a chair and only then did she

hear his low groan. Turning, she saw him, totally naked, totally erect. She wiggled her
bottom at him and he groaned again. “Did you have to do that?”

“Oh yeah. You won’t make love to me so I’m going to make it hard for you.”
“Very hard.” He stared at her, that wry grin she was coming to know so well

curling one corner of his mouth. “Little tease. Get dressed. We need food.”

She hadn’t been hungry until he said that but now it filled her. After dressing, she

brushed out her hair and tied it back off her face. Not bothering to use the hairdryer,
she joined him when he opened the door for her.

The room outside seemed full. After the relative quiet of the bedroom, conversation

hummed and the seductive smell of coffee stirred her stomach.

A momentary lull in conversation, then the fruity voice of Randy Norwood. “At

last! I thought you’d never come out!”

Feeling stupidly shy and glad for Ryan’s hand at the small of her back, Gina took a

few steps forward. Chris, Jake, Aidan and Corinne, with the inevitable Moses basket by
their side, and Randy, three girls, Sonny and a couple of his team were in the room.
Everyone except the occupant of the basket looked up at their entrance. The large coffee
table was covered in newspapers and the room was littered with plates and cups.

“Save us any of that?” Ryan nodded to the debris.
Aidan grinned. “We saved yours, man. You ordered separately. Prawn sandwiches,

coffee, salad, that yours?”

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“Yeah.” Grabbing Gina’s hand, Ryan strode across the room. An open door led to a

formal dining room, currently laid with their fresh order and several ravaged salad
dishes, plates of sandwiches and cookies. “We need this,” he said, handing her a clean
plate.

They certainly did. Coffee scented the air and a fresh pot awaited them on the

coffee maker in the corner. “I thought you Brits only liked tea,” she said, her voice only
slightly tremulous. This was stupid. She’d faced high-powered businesspeople and
belligerent clients without a qualm.

“Hey.” He poured the coffee for them both. “We Brits like your American coffee

just fine. It’s our coffee that stinks.” He lowered his voice to an intimate murmur.
“You’re bound to be shaky, love. You’re a revelation, taking all this in stride, but you
can’t expect to be perfect at everything. Give yourself a break.”

He was right, she knew it but it didn’t help much. What did help was having Ryan

with her and perversely this irritated her because she had never, ever depended on a
man before. But she had no choice. She had to ride this and see where it took her.
Hopefully, back to New York in time.

They took their plates and cups back into the main room, where conversation had

resumed. “Here.” Aidan handed Ryan a sheet of paper once one of the girls had moved
from a sofa next to the one he and Corinne occupied, leaving room for Ryan and Gina.
Ryan took the sheet once he’d put his coffee down. “The running order for the concert,”
Aidan explained, “unless you have any objection. It’s the same as the New York concert
except we’ll do ‘Going for Time’ instead of ‘Puss in Boots’. They seem to like that one
better here.”

Ryan glanced through the list. “It’s okay. We can always change it if we need to.”
Gina looked up from her sandwich to Randy’s perceptive gaze. “I’m here for PR,

don’t forget.”

He grinned but his expression had no snark about it, although she’d half expected

it. “I know you are. I researched your company thoroughly, Gina, and one of the
reasons I wanted you was your professionalism. So have you got any ideas?”

“There’s TV tomorrow, interview and a song, isn’t there?” Randy nodded in answer

to her question. “I haven’t had time to see the papers yet but I think we carry on with
the same attitude. I don’t have too many contacts here but I can call a few radio stations.
I’m only supposed to be here to observe.”

“Yeah but I’d appreciate any input you have. Your reaction to the New York crisis

was impressive.” His gaze encompassed the band. “By the way, you want to stop over
and do the pre-recording for the TV program today?”

“Nah,” Ryan said at once. “Driving all the way there, doing the number in front of a

few stage hands and driving all the way back, not what I’d call a fun afternoon. I’ve got
other plans.”

Gina’s professional self rose to the fore. “You should really—”

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Ryan shook his head. “No we shouldn’t. We’ll do it live. Show them what we can

do.”

“They’ll shit square eggs,” Randy commented, “but I’ll tell them. And you’re right,

that’ll make an impact. Can you keep to the timing?”

“To the second,” Aidan told him. “Ryan can keep us to the slot. With time for

applause, yeah, no problem.”

“We’re rock, we live on the edge,” Chris commented and everyone laughed,

especially when he made the two-horned rock sign with his left hand.

“They’ll still shit square eggs,” Randy said, but he didn’t seem worried.
He nodded his big head. It felt good to have the approval of Randy Norwood. The

man signed very few bands but every band he’d ever managed turned out stellar. Pure
Wildfire was riding high after two studio albums and a live one but the trick now was
to sustain the success. A few select dates in the States, a short break and back to the
studio to rehearse and record the third studio album. She already knew the itinerary,
she had a copy of it in her luggage but only now did it hit home. For her, a week or two
with Ryan and back to the office. In New York. Perhaps they might manage a vacation
together but after that, they would be on opposite sides of the Atlantic.

Randy bit his lip. “I’d like more input from you, Gina Russo. How would your

father feel about that?”

An absurd sense of exhilaration filled her. Perhaps they would have more. But she

wouldn’t become a hanger-on, a groupie. “It might be possible.”

Ryan put his hand over hers and squeezed it before moving away to pick up his

coffee. “It had better be.”

From the corner of her eye, she saw Sonny watching her with a hard look on his

face, very different to his usual easygoing smile. It made her uncomfortable. She looked
away.

The girl next to Ryan shot him a sly look. “I’m free for as long as you want me,” she

announced. “I’ll do anything you want. Suck you off while you lick her, lick her while
you fuck her, or do it with her while you watch.”

Ryan spared her a glance. “Thanks but no thanks. Mötley Crüe are due in town,

aren’t they? They’ll keep you busy.”

Then she knew for sure. Groupies. Gina tried not to stare but it was hard not to. She

wore a pair of jeans and the least creased t-shirt in her bag but the girls in the hotel
room were dressed to kill. They wore tiny skirts, tight leather pants and an abundance
of silver jewelry with outsize crosses, worn with tops that plunged and left bare
midriffs. She guessed the girls were around nineteen but it was difficult to judge with
the carefully applied makeup they wore. She’d applied a little before leaving the
bedroom but not the amount the girls wore. From the lazy looks Chris kept shooting
them, they might be in luck.

You are beautiful. They’re an afternoon’s amusement. There’s a world of difference, love.

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How had he known? She hadn’t felt him in her mind.
I can sense your feelings even when I’m not in your head. If you relax, you’ll be able to sense

mine. You were empathetic before, so it shouldn’t be too hard to tap into this ability.

She tried, taking a swallow of coffee and leaning back against the deep, soft

cushions.

After a moment she felt it, a plethora of emotions, some faint, some strong and the

strong ones were Ryan. Tenderness, care and desire, currently banked down but there.

You feel it?
She glanced in his direction to see him gazing at her, all those emotions she’d

sensed in his golden eyes. Yes.

Intimacy in a room full of people. She knew him so well now, knew how he looked

in sleep, knew the expression in his eyes when he opened them to the sight of her face.

How could she ever let him go?

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Chapter Twelve

An hour later, they stood outside the hotel, wearing sunglasses against the

relentless California sun. “I don’t think I could live in this heat all the time,” she
murmured. “I’m not a hothouse flower.”

“You’ll love England then,” he said, tugging her gently forward. She let him get

away with that remark.

Rodeo Drive was amazingly ordinary looking, except for the structure at the middle

of the street and that was a relatively new feature, a select shopping mall. Gina had
been along Fifth Avenue in New York and the Via Condotti in Rome but she’d never
been met with such a barrage of clicking, snapping cameras before, even when she’d
seen a celebrity out shopping.

Of course, she’d never been with a celebrity before, her hand tucked in his, pausing

to look in the windows of the shops. “I’m beginning to think this is part of my job, a PR
exercise.”

“You’re so right. Part of what we’re doing here is deflecting attention from the

others. They covered for us while we were—sleeping and I noticed Corinne looked
tired. The baby’s teething so they probably didn’t get much sleep. It’s part of being a
band—we can support each other that way, take the attention or give it.”

“Sleeping?” She shot him a sly look.
He grinned unabashedly. “And the rest. But we slept a solid eight hours or so, as

far as I can tell. You needed it. And you’ll sleep tonight too. I promise.”

Her cheeks heated. “I’m sure I will.”
He tugged her closer. “More PR,” he said just before he kissed her.
He kept the kiss gentle and brief but it was enough to set the clicking and whirring

going again, together with shouts of “Ryan! Gina! Look over here!”

“Don’t look.”
“It’s what I always tell my clients.” She looked up into his face instead. Much better

than staring into the lens of a camera. “How do you put up with all this?”

“It’s not so bad. We can keep them away better than other people can. We don’t

often get paparazzi shoving cameras up our noses.” She knew how but she knew better
than to articulate it here. Long-range microphones picked up some startling
conversations and by the time the courts had slapped a protection order out, it was
usually too late. The conversation would be all over the Internet.

He drew her on. “Come on, I owe you an outfit.”
“Why?”

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“Yesterday, when you—when we—” He left it suggestively open and she

remembered. The loss of one of her most comfortable, useful outfits had annoyed her
briefly at the time but it hardly merited shopping on Rodeo Drive to replace it.

“Remember what I said. Let me buy you something. We’ll keep the press happy

and have a little fun at the same time.”

They walked the three blocks, window-shopping, and Gina tried to keep her

expression suitably bored until she saw Ryan smiling at her wickedly, waiting for her to
slip.

She slipped at Valentino. In the window, she saw an exquisitely cut, stunningly

presented, deceptively simple dress in dark blue, the fabric gleaming in the sunshine,
vying with the sky for intensity. It was too much. She couldn’t resist the lure of
beautiful, expensive things anymore.

Ryan dragged her inside. The cool detachment of the saleslady came as a welcome

relief to one not used to being quite so much the center of attention, but when Gina
addressed her in fluent Italian with not a trace of Little Italy, the woman’s eyes widened
and she answered with a Roman accent as pure as Gina’s own. Gina might not have
visited Italy more than twice but her father had made sure his daughters spoke Italian
with the beauty of the native tongue.

“I’m sorry,” she said to Ryan, realizing her lack of manners in her enthusiasm to

speak in her second language.

“Non importa,” he replied, in an accent not as refined as hers but quite as effective.

“I spent some time in Italy at one point in my life.”

“You did?”
He nodded, frankly enjoying her delight. “We’ll go together one day. That’s a

promise.”

Another beautiful garment took her eye, something in a rich lavender that would

probably suit her better than the blue dress. “This is so tempting.” She tried to keep the
longing out of her voice but failed miserably. She’d occasionally treated herself to a
good designer outfit but it had taken a big chunk of her salary and she usually bought
something she could use for work. Used to quality, if not quite this abundance, she
knew good fabric and beautiful workmanship when she saw it.

Ryan didn’t have to coax her too much and she left the store in dazed possession of

three new outfits, with matching shoes. Ryan insisted on taking one of the outfits with
them and carrying the bag himself. “For the press,” he explained.

“What about you?” she asked when they walked past the men’s window without

stopping.

“We’ll shop for me another time. This time it’s for you.” The photographers had

moved on now, apart from a couple of persistent ones across the street and they could
have been tourists, leaning casually against a wall, watching the passersby. Except that
they held video cameras and still cameras, not cell phone cameras and shopping bags.

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The sun blazed down and she felt a bead of sweat make its leisurely way down her

spine. Outside, many stores had air conditioning blasting out the doors and it occurred
to her that they could start tackling global warming right here, right now. Why did
humans want to live in a place where they couldn’t exist without artificial aids? Would
they feel the same when they finally colonized the moon, or some unfortunate planet?

Even that gloomy thought only passed through her mind. Nothing could bring her

down for long, not today. Live for now, she reminded herself. There is only now.

Only when he said, “You’re learning,” did she realize she’d broadcast that thought.
She stopped and faced him. “How can I keep anything private?”
He sighed and gave her his wry grin. “You’ll learn that too. I rather like it. I’m

giving you the same courtesy in return. You can read me any time you want to.”

“Thanks. But I don’t want to go around announcing everything.”
“It’s only me.” He stroked her palm with his thumb and a small shudder rippled

through her.

“How?”
He leaned closer. To an onlooker it might seem as if they were merely behaving

affectionately to each other. Then they were. He kissed her cheek, very softly. We have a

special place that’s only for us. All lovers have it. No one else can read us there.

Lovers. She liked that. After nuzzling her very slightly, so she felt the smoothness of

his freshly shaved cheek, he drew back. “Come on.”

She didn’t look where he was taking her, so to find herself in the refined, blessedly

cool interior of Tiffany’s came as a slight surprise.

Gina spent quite some time gazing into the window of Tiffany’s in New York.

There, the concentration was usually on exquisite workmanship and discretion, if a
large diamond could ever be said to be discreet. Quality at a price. Here, she saw more
outrageous work. Equally as carefully rendered, gold tennis rackets on chains, with
diamond tennis balls, musical notes, crafted in what she assumed was platinum but
looked to her untutored eyes like silver and even a tiny sports car.

Behind her, Ryan chuckled. “Like them?”
“Good God, no!”
That only made him laugh outright. “Perfect taste,” he mocked. “Sometimes it takes

a little kitsch to set an outfit off properly. It shows the wearer doesn’t take himself too
seriously.”

“You don’t wear much jewelry, do you?” Turning away from the display, she found

his face much more preferable to look at.

“Not in California. It heats up too fast. And I don’t have anything I wear all the

time. Aidan wears his wedding ring but nothing else, except sometimes onstage he
wears chains and stuff like that. It must run in the family.”

She badly wanted to get him something, mark him as hers and recognized the

primitive urge with horror. He saw her eyes widen and she felt him in her mind before

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his smile broadened. “I’d wear anything you bought me. Even if it was one of those.”
He nodded toward the display behind them.

“Are you looking for anything in particular, sir?” The unctuous tones told her

they’d been recognized. Rock stars might not be the most refined of customers but they
were certainly lucrative.

“Something pretty.” Ryan tore his gaze from her and opened the Valentino bag,

bringing out the cream-colored gauzy top they’d just bought. “Maybe to go with that.”

The assistant, a slight young man in an immaculate suit that might well be

Valentino, studied the top with narrowed eyes then turned his eyes, sharpened with
interest, to Gina.

“A little color but not too much. I think I can find something.”
He turned and walked briskly across the shop floor. Ryan followed at the same

pace, Gina a little slower, after she’d stowed the top back in the bag, lingering to
examine the cases of jewelry and trinkets. She daren’t announce her admiration for
anything. Ryan might buy it for her and she still wasn’t sure she wanted to accept
anything too extravagant from him. Although there was a significant absence of price
tags, she suspected almost everything was beyond her price level, although Mike was, if
anything, more generous with her salary than he should be.

At the far end of the store Ryan bent over a display case, nodding and murmuring

to the assistant. At her approach, he straightened up and lifted something for her to see.

Four fine gold chains, fastened with one clasp at the back of the neck, and

suspended from it at the center, a large, irregular shaped pearl. “A bolo pearl,” she
heard the assistant say. “In the more casual style popular at the moment. The jewel can
be worn by day or night.”

“I like it,” Ryan said. “It suits her.” He unfastened the clasp and draped it around

her neck. “Look.”

“I can’t.”
He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to the mirror behind the

assistant’s left shoulder. She stood, in her simple chain store t-shirt, hair tumbled
loosely about her shoulders in no particular style, a large baroque pearl glowing just
below the hollow of her throat. A real pearl. “I can’t take this.”

“You can. You will. If you don’t wear it, I will. But I want you to wear it.”
He stood behind her, almost a head taller than she was, smiling at her reflection.

Next to his exotic red hair, his high cheekbones, his glowing amber eyes, his outrageous
good looks, she looked ordinary, far too normal for a creature like Ryan Hawthorne.

So now, she smiled a little shakily and accepted Ryan’s gift. It took courage to

accept something so valuable from him. He would want to mark their relationship with
it.

She could always return it when he went away. Once he’d gone, she’d never wear it

again anyway. The only way to get over Ryan would be to cut everything that

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reminded her of him out of her life. Completely. She wouldn’t survive any other way.
And she still couldn’t see how they could make anything together, not in the long term.

He smiled at the assistant. “We’ll take it.” When the assistant drew away to pack

the jewel in a box, Ryan followed, reaching into his back pocket. Perhaps it was vulgar
to pay there and then but she felt his desire to own it completely before he gave it to
her, free and clear. Then he cut her off, just for a moment, while he paid and chatted to
the man, now without the unctuousness he’d first shown them. The man nodded and
handed Ryan the receipt, with another piece of paper, probably something for the
insurance. A jewel this valuable would have to be insured properly.

She didn’t take the necklace off, even though it looked a little incongruous with her

ordinary clothes. Instead, she took Ryan’s hand when they left the shop, fumbled for
her sunglasses and propped them on her nose against the blazing sun outside.
California sunshine was a shock to Gina’s New York senses, or perhaps it was the
mostly white buildings reflecting the dazzle. New York had its share of sun but it
usually filtered down past the high buildings and more often than not, the streets below
were in shade.

Here, the buildings were lower, with wider spaces between them and the sun was

sharper, brighter. As she strolled toward the hotel, her hand in Ryan’s, Gina felt
perfectly happy and marked this particular moment as one of the special ones in her
life, a moment she would remember on forever.

They took their time, allowing any photographers around to snap them window-

shopping but to Gina’s secret relief they didn’t buy anything else. The man in uniform
opened the hotel door for them and they stepped into the cool interior.

Gina blinked and waited to allow her eyes a moment to adjust. The lobby was full,

the great room busy with arrivals and departures, but a bellboy hovered. This must
have been what it was like to have servants in the old days. Gina was pretty sure she
wouldn’t have enjoyed it. But she’d never have the chance to find out. Impulsively she
turned to Ryan and asked him, softly, so no one would overhear them.

“What was it like, having servants?”
“It was normal, usual in those days. Nobody thought anything about it.”
“Weird.”
He hugged her close to his side. “Well, I’m glad there’ll be nobody around when I

get you to myself.” He gave her a wicked grin. “But not until tomorrow night. Hey.” He
tilted her chin. “You look tired again.”

“I’m fine. My eyes hurt from the sun, that’s all. I’ll bathe them when we get back to

the suite.” It was the truth. She didn’t feel tired but her eyes felt sore.

He led her to the bank of elevators, to the one at the end that only operated with

their room card. “I was going to suggest you rested.”

“I’d like to just sit and read or watch TV for an hour or two,” she confessed. “But

rock stars don’t do that, do they?”

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His rich chuckle filled her ears. “This one does. But not this afternoon,” he added

with some regret. “I have to get with the guys and talk about tomorrow. The concert.
It’s a big one and we’ll pace it out, see how it goes.”

“A rehearsal?”
The elevator doors slid open and he led her inside. “Kind of but we won’t play the

music, or not all of it. Just the ones we’re not sure of.” He slid his card in the slot. He
didn’t need to tell the elevator where to go. It knew.

“And it’s just for the band.”
He said nothing but he didn’t need to. Now it was her turn to chuckle. “What, you

thought I wanted to turn into some kind of groupie? Ryan, I have plenty to do. I’ve put
my job on hold but I want to touch base with Mike and make sure it’s all going fine
back home. Then read a few chapters of something undemanding or read a magazine,
maybe even take a long bath.”

“You are definitely a rock chick in the making.”
Smiling, they exited the elevator and walked toward their suite. A few people stood

in the corridor, none whom Gina recognized but they recognized Ryan and called out to
him. “Hangers-on?”

He smiled and waved to them. “Workers. Concert organizers, that guy over there is

from the sound team, those kind of people.”

“Even your bedmate is your PR person,” she reminded him.
He stopped at the door to the suite and faced her. “A bit more than that.” His face

held no mockery. He kissed her forehead in a gesture that was almost like a blessing
and they went in.

* * * * *

Although the lounge was full of people, most of them were passing through or on

some business. Gina called Mike but he wasn’t available, so she spoke to his PA, who
assured her everything was fine. After that, there was little to do except switch on the
TV and numb her mind for a few hours.

She needed it. So much had happened recently, so many transformations, she

needed time to center herself. She was still Gina, still herself, despite the changes in her
body. If she wasn’t careful, she would lose it. Ryan was such a powerful personality
and her mentor in her conversion to firebird that she could easily lose herself in him.
Only to lose everything when they parted. She could not lose her independence.

During a quiet part of the afternoon, Gina was delighted when Sonny dropped by.

When he saw her, his broad smile of welcome helped to remind her of her real life, far
away from this fairy tale. He seemed to have gotten over his attack of the sulks when he
saw her with Ryan and she was glad. She’d hate to lose him as a friend just as she’d
rediscovered him.

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He plopped down next to her on the sofa. “What are you watching?” He reached

for the plate of sandwiches but drew back, flushing.

“Go ahead, Sonny. You call room service for sandwiches and they send a banquet. I

only wanted a couple.”

“Thanks.” Chuckling, Sonny helped himself. “I’ve been surveying the venue,

making sure the equipment’s okay, so I could do with some food.”

“You want a proper meal?” All she had to do was pick up the phone. There was a

kitchen attached to this suite but they mainly used it for storing the food and drinks and
making the occasional cup of coffee. It seemed a waste. Gina would have adored that
kitchen in her apartment, it was far superior to the one she actually owned. Larger too.

“No, these will do.”
She turned the volume on the TV down a little. “You like this job, Sonny?”
“Yeah,” he mumbled, then swallowed. “I run a team now. We work for the biggest

bands in the business, transporting the gear, making sure it gets there in time and it’s
set up properly. You wouldn’t believe the insurance premiums. I’m glad I don’t have to
pay ’em.”

“You always drove well. But I thought you might kill yourself before you were

thirty.”

“All those street races? Yeah but I learned. I drive better now.” They exchanged

grins. “We’ve done some stupid things, you and me.”

“What did I ever do?” she exclaimed indignantly.
“How about all the times you blackmailed me into getting you out of your room

after midnight to go to some club or other?”

She shrugged.
“I liked that girl, Gina. And I like what she’s grown into.” He glanced at the screen,

then back at her, his dark eyes soft with affection. “You’re a fine woman. How come
you never married?”

“Too clever, I guess,” she said flippantly. She’d come close a couple of times but

never got there. She didn’t mind. Her biological clock had nearly pushed her into one a
few years ago but Bill had been too busy at his job in the stock market to notice when
she’d drifted away.

“Someone should have snapped you up before now. I never thought you’d still be

single when I finally got my head together.”

She couldn’t see how the two facts related to each other. Sonny cleaned up, her

unmarried. They’d agreed long ago they were just friends. The nearest they’d ever come
to getting together was that date at The Phoenix. “I hope you find someone now, Sonny.
You deserve it.”

“Thanks.” He paused, an awkward pause, tension spiking between them. “How

about you?”

“Me?”

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“You and Ryan Hawthorne, to be precise?”
Her cheeks heated but she did nothing to hide her flush. “I don’t know, Sonny.”
He shook his head slightly. “I didn’t believe it when one of the guys who work for

me said he’d seen you and Ryan hand in hand. I couldn’t believe you’d do that.”

“What do you mean?”
“Fuck with the man who killed Maria.”
Pain shot through her but she knew more now than she had before. Ryan had let

her into his mind, to places where he couldn’t lie, and she knew the truth now. “He
didn’t kill Maria, Sonny. Maria nearly killed him.”

He made a sound of exasperation. “Shit, you can’t believe that!”
“I do. Ryan says when he met her she was already strung out, high. Someone

brought her as a present for the band. You know what goes on. Drugs, women, they get
everything just given to them. Ryan took her away from her handler.”

“Jesus.” She hated the pain she heard in Sonny’s voice, hated that she brought it to

him too. “You believe that?”

She couldn’t tell him why she was so sure, so she offered the other evidence she’d

collected before she got to know Ryan so—well. “I never trust just one person’s word,
and I hadn’t known Ryan long before he told me, so I made a few phone calls to see if
anybody else knew. When Maria died, we were too numb to do much except go
through the courts and what we heard there satisfied us. Maria was an addict,
something I’d seen for myself, and she OD’d and died. We didn’t have to like it, but
that seemed to be that. It was only later Dad and I started to wonder.”

She took a sandwich, more for something to do than from real hunger. “I called

Maria’s old college at Oxford University and spoke with her tutor. He said Maria had
left the college without saying anything to anybody a month before she turned up in
London. But her work was in on time and the summer vacation was coming up, so he
didn’t tell anyone in case he got her into trouble. He admitted he should have made
more of an effort to find her. She’d packed up and gone for good but by the time they
realized it, she was with Ryan. The tutor said another of his students had seen Maria
with what he called ‘a very unsavory character’ not long before she disappeared but he
said students sometimes left and ran wild for a time before they came back. Goes with
the intelligence, he said.” She flipped the tutor off with two fingers. If he’d called them
in time, perhaps they could have saved Maria. “It fits with what Ryan told me. I looked
up some old news reports online and read the accounts of Maria’s death.”

“So you think somebody got to Maria before he did?”
She tugged at the sandwich, methodically tearing it into little pieces. “Yes I do. I

looked up the music papers too. Pure Wildfire wasn’t as big then as it is now but even
then the band got coverage. Reports of their strung-out behavior didn’t happen until
after Maria joined them. That’s what Ryan told me, that she introduced them to heavy
drug use. Not the other way about.”

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Sonny whistled between his teeth. “I never blamed them, not like you and Mike

did. Because I know too well what it’s like to give your life to drugs. You turn into a
different person, Gina, you’re not responsible half the time, although you think you
are.”

She rested her small hand on top of his, so much larger and more capable than hers.

“Did you get the cure when the band did?”

“Just before. I was in rehab, almost ready to come out when they went in. But I

always wondered—why Maria? She was always so pretty, so clever, so gentle. Why not
me?”

She squeezed his hand. “It could have been you too. I’m glad it wasn’t.”
“Thanks for that.” He glanced up at the TV screen, where a news reporter stood in

front of an office building. “And now you’re with Ryan! How’s Mike taking it?”

“He says I’m a big girl. He wouldn’t be happy if it got serious.”
“Any chance of that?” Sonny swung around to face her and turned his hand so he

clasped hers warmly. “You and Ryan?”

She looked down to where their hands joined. Yes. “I don’t think so. We live on

opposite sides of the world, we do different jobs. There’s no way I’ll ever give up what I
do. I love it too much.”

“I’m glad.” He bit his lower lip, as if worried about what he was going to say. “I

wanted to speak with you about that. I’ve seen this before, Gina. The nearest Ryan ever
got to a permanent relationship was Maria. Now he seems to be always looking. He
gets obsessed with a girl, spends twenty-four hours a day with her then dumps her. Just
drops her.” With a pang, Gina remembered that day in New York, when Ryan had
taken the CD and left her with a peck on the cheek. He’d seemed to withdraw. Would
he do that again and this time for good?

“How often have you roadied for Pure Wildfire?”
Sonny shrugged. “A lot. I used to be with them full time, but I take other bands

now.”

So Sonny knew them pretty well, had probably seen Ryan take and drop women.

Of course, Ryan hadn’t converted any of them before.

Unless he had. She felt like her stomach had dropped away. He’d converted her to

save her life but it didn’t have to be like that, did it? For all she knew he might use it as
a gift to the girls who wanted it.

She swallowed back her fears. She’d always assumed this affair would end when

the tour finished. At one time, she’d wondered if a casual affair with Ryan might be the
way to go, each going their separate ways and getting together when they could. No
promises on either side.

But, she realized with a pang of horror, she couldn’t do that. Couldn’t bear to let

him go, watch him with another woman, know he was doing to someone else what he’d
done with her.

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She couldn’t be falling in love with him, could she?
Oh yes she could.

* * * * *

“I’m in love with her.”
Aidan snorted. “After that song you just showed us, you think you’re telling us

anything we don’t know?”

“I didn’t know,” Chris said mildly. “It’s early days.”
“Yeah, I know but I’ve read her mind, she’s read mine. She’s so fine.” Ryan stood

and headed for the table in the corner, snagging a Coke. “I want her for good. You
know those groupies you had the other night were good-looking, fun girls. Normally
I’d have been gagging for it but I never felt a twitch. Nothing. But all I have to do is look
at Gina to know I want her. And it’s more than that, much more. I breathe her, I can’t
imagine ever not wanting her with me. She’s good to talk with, good to just be with.”

“So what do you want to do?” Chris, the most practical of them all, immediately

turned to the realities of the situation.

“I want to stay with her,” Ryan said without hesitation.
Aidan grunted. “She works in New York. How you going to fix that? Have you any

right to even think about it?”

Corinne, standing a few feet away tuning an acoustic guitar, snickered. “Are you

saying you didn’t fix my life for me? You tried to take over, Aidan Hawthorne, you
know you did.”

Aidan’s gaze softened as he looked at his wife. “That was different. Your life was in

danger.”

“But you didn’t give me a chance to sort it out on my own.”
“You wanted me to walk away?”
Corinne laughed. “No.”
Aidan blew her a kiss before winking at his brother. “You just need to know how to

handle them. Ow!” This last as Corinne threw her plectrum at him, catching him with
the sharp edge on the corner of his jaw.

Ryan laughed. His brother’s love affair with Corinne had been out of the blue,

sudden, intense and neither of them had regretted it for an instant. He could only hope
his own dilemma turned out as well. But there was no guarantee it would. “I told you
guys because I want to ask her to marry me.”

Corinne’s hands stilled on her guitar. Aidan gasped and Chris dropped a

drumstick. It clattered to the floor in the suddenly silent room.

Jake was the first to speak. “You’re kidding!”
“No I’m not. While we were in Tiffany’s I arranged to have some rings sent over.

They should be arriving soon. I want to be prepared. Try to push her into it before she

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can change her mind. Even if we have to live apart for some of the time, I still want to
know she’s mine.”

“God, he means it,” Jake breathed but the corner of his mouth twisted in a grimace.

“Not all marriages turn out that well, you know.”

“I know.”
Jake was married but he hadn’t seen his wife recently.
“Why didn’t yours?” Aidan asked.
Jake and Chris exchanged a look and Jake sighed. “The truth? She’s gay and she’s

not out. She needed a husband.”

Aidan snickered. “A beard.”
“Yeah, it was what you might call a marriage of convenience but we liked each

other well enough. Still do. We chat a lot.”

“It was for a business, wasn’t it?” Corinne asked. “Didn’t you tell me that once?”
Jake grimaced. “Yeah, her grandmother was the old-fashioned kind. Real old-

fashioned. Cheryl wanted to start a business with a friend but her grandmother’s legacy
said she had to be married to collect. She didn’t think she had much choice. So one
night in Vegas, when I’d drunk more than I should have done, we went and did it. We
were married by the morning.”

“Why don’t you go see her after the last gig? We can put the studio sessions off for

a month or two.” Corinne shot a glance in Ryan’s direction. “In any case, we might have
other reasons to put it off. If Gina bites.”

A sense of deep need suffused Ryan when he thought of making Gina his. The only

reason he hadn’t told her yet was her deep edginess and her wariness. Perhaps if they
found out who’d provided Maria with the drugs she might trust him more. But he
couldn’t wait until then. Either she loved him or she didn’t and finding the answer to
the mystery didn’t matter one fucking bit. “I’ll ask her when it seems right. Perhaps
tonight.”

“Not a good idea.” Chris’s deep voice chipped in, the voice that backed Ryan so

ably onstage. “You know how wired you are after a performance. She might not believe
you mean it. Wait a few days. You can spend the time persuading her.”

Ryan smiled, thinking of how he could persuade her. “That sounds like a plan.” He

got to his feet and stretched. “Are we done here?”

“Why?”
“The man from Tiffany’s is due.”
Aidan looked up. “What about the new number?”
Ryan frowned at him. “How about we go by feel? We only have the acoustic

version laid down anyway. When we go into the quiet bit, we’ll decide then, see how
the audience reacts. That do you?”

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Aidan shrugged. “It’s your song.” Then he smiled, that beautiful smile he usually

saved for Corinne these days. “I’m glad, really glad. It’s about time, bro.”

“Yeah.”
Ryan strolled out of the far door, going in search of the man from Tiffany’s, but he

was fully aware his casual attitude didn’t fool anybody in the room he just left.

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Chapter Thirteen

The car arrived to take them to the TV studio at seven. Gina guessed they wanted

Pure Wildfire to continue the controversy started in New York but she advised against
it. “Laugh at them, say the baby’s fine and that’s all done with now.” She’d personally
made sure the nannies were on form and fully equipped with everything they could
possibly need. They carried enough stuff for two babies each. TV companies were
supposed to be rivals but in the search for a good story, they’d cooperate. Gina had no
doubt this company knew exactly how the trick was done.

Leaning back in the leather seat opposite them, Chris glanced significantly at Ryan

and Gina’s linked hands. “What shall we talk about then?” Ryan sighed.

“You went public this afternoon,” Chris reminded him.
Ryan squeezed Gina’s hand. “I know. We’ll tell them we’re grownups having fun.

Something like that.” Gina squeezed back, grateful Ryan didn’t want to say how serious
their affair was becoming.

Her emotions weren’t behaving themselves and she was really scared. She couldn’t

imagine ever being without him now. After such a short time, that couldn’t be right. She
needed time to assimilate what was happening to her and to them.

“They’ll know about Maria, that she was your sister.” That was Aidan,

uncharacteristically solemn. He reached around to cuddle Corinne to his side, as if he
needed the reassurance of her presence. The baby, safely strapped into a baby seat next
to them, made the seat a bit snug for two couples and a baby, even in a limousine this
size.

“I never talked about her before. Perhaps it’s time.” Ryan touched Gina’s lips with

one gentle finger. “No, love, no PR talk. I’ll tell them what happened, or rather, tell
them the public version. We were stupid, we overdosed, Maria died. They’ll ask about
us but I’ll fend them off for you.”

“For me?” She rested her head against his forearm, where it curled around her

shoulders and looked up into his face. “You’re the public figure. You need to think
what’s best for you.”

“You’re a person too. You deserve consideration.”
“They’ll forget me in a week once you drop me.”
“I won’t.”
He’d never spoken about the future before, not in such certain tones. But

remembering her conversation with Sonny that afternoon, Gina doubted. Not that he
meant it but that he wouldn’t mean it for too much longer. If Maria hadn’t died, that
affair might have ended too. Being a firebird didn’t change a person’s basic nature, she

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found. Ryan’s was to drift, move from life to life, woman to woman. She would try not
to be bitter when she saw him with someone else in a year’s time. But it would be hard.
So hard.

“What number are you doing?”
“The new single.” Jake grinned. “About time we started promoting it.”
“How many singles have we released off Icefire?”
“Three,” Chris told her. “We’re not big on singles but we can’t ignore the need,

especially now people download track by track.”

“We topped the download charts,” Jake reminded him.
“We topped them all.” Ryan didn’t look away from her face. “Corinne added what

we needed, that extra bit of magic.”

“What’s the single?” She really should know but looking up into his face tended to

rob her of reason.

“‘Lost In Space’.”
Ah yes, she remembered now. Short, hard and violent, spiked with harsh guitar

solos, balanced by Chris’s hard, thundering drum rhythms.

“How are you feeling?”
Gina blinked at Ryan’s abrupt change of subject. The third day. Now he reminded

her, she felt a faint prickle but nothing more. “I’m fine.”

“If you get uncomfortable, tell me. I’ll take over and help you control the change.”
She nodded, then took her attention away from him. Chris and Jake, sprawled in

comfort opposite them, watched her warily. Never liking to hide discomfort, knowing
hiding tended to make it worse, she decided to tackle them head-on. “What? You know
what he did to me, what he had to do. Aren’t we allowed to talk about it?”

“Sure we are,” Chris drawled, his Texan accent becoming more pronounced.

Normally he kept it under wraps, the twang less pronounced but sometimes she could
almost breathe the Texas sunshine when she listened to him. “It was a brave thing to
do. Or stupid, depending on the way you look at it.”

Ryan glared at Chris and Gina got the impression he said something mentally but

she couldn’t track it. Her skills weren’t good enough. Not yet. But if she had them,
she’d damn well practice.

Chris glanced at Ryan and nodded, his brown eyes expressionless. They warmed

when he smiled at Gina. “You’re one of us now and you can come to any of us. The one
thing you can’t do is manage on your own, at least for the next few months.”

Did that mean Chris knew Ryan’s nature too, that he’d move on soon? It certainly

sounded like it.

The car came to a sudden halt, jarring her out of her thoughts. Jake glanced out the

window. “We’re here. So is the media.”

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The limo’s windows were one-way, so they were safe until the doors actually

opened. “Considering this chat show is live, they probably have a regular appointment
here,” Aidan remarked, reaching for the door. “Everybody ready?”

They were ready.
Aidan stepped out, blocking the entrance while Corinne unhooked Sean’s baby

seat, clicked the handle up into place and carefully passed him out. Then she followed.
After flicking a glance at Ryan and Gina, Chris and Jake exited next.

The clicking and whirring from the photographers went into overdrive when Ryan

stepped out and helped Gina, although she almost wished he hadn’t. I told you we’d gone
public.

But why should they care? I’m nobody.
You’re new. Trust me.
She gave him a tight grin. I have to, don’t I?
She hadn’t worn the necklace tonight. She told herself that it didn’t go with the

high-necked, cutaway sleeves of the pale blue silk top she’d chosen.

Between shouts of their names from photographers wanting them to look in their

direction, she heard questions fired out. “You planning on an announcement, Ryan?”
“How about you, Gina?” “How long have you known each other?”

She ignored them all, knowing how fast the bush telegraph worked these days.

Within a few hours of their shopping expedition, “going public”, the media seemed to
know everything about her. She’d bet they knew her shoe size too.

She’d seen it before, of course, this intense media interest in a personality. In her

job, she could hardly avoid it. In fact, she was often paid to provoke it. Free publicity.
But when the cameras pointed in her direction, it all looked different. The flashes
dazzled her, the questions confused her. Knowing they were meant to didn’t help
much.

Ryan helped. His arm around her waist, he smiled happily at the cameras and kept

walking steadily forward. The car could have parked closer to the building’s entrance
but then, she supposed, the media wouldn’t have had their fun.

“Yesterday’s news,” Ryan murmured in her ear. It must look like a lover’s nuzzle. It

did when he finished with a light nibble on her outer lobe. When she shivered, he
laughed. “You are such a turn-on, Gina Russo.”

“Hush! Some of these guys can read lips!”
“And why should that bother us?”
The open doors welcomed them inside, sliding closed behind them. None of the

photographers tried to follow them in. They probably knew their place.

She’d been in TV studios before but not in this one. Gina looked around with

interest, noting the usual large pictures of the regular presenters and stars of the
network, and the beautiful woman sitting behind the impressive desk, computer at her
flashing fingertips. How anyone could type with nails like that, Gina didn’t know. The

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receptionist looked up and smiled, her carefully painted mouth stretching just the right
amount to appear attractive but not enough to ruin the effect of perfect plastic beauty.

Bitchy! But Ryan didn’t sound anything but amused.
Not at all. I can see her implants from here. And her nose is just too small for that face.

Promise me you won’t ever get anything done. He sounded serious now.

What right have you to ask me that?
He didn’t answer. She expected an apology but she didn’t get one. He just followed

the others, behind the man walking with Chris and Jake, presumably taking them to the
studio.

Upstairs they went into a set of dressing rooms that were, at least, more comfortable

than those at most venues. Gina had been in enough to know. These were clean and
warm with fresh fruit baskets adorning the side-tables. Normally, she’d go and check
that everything was properly set up but Ryan tugged her into his room, kicked the door
closed with his heel, backed up against it and kissed her.

His hands rose to cup her face, gently holding her in position for him as he took

possession of her mouth. She responded, feeling his body press against hers, moving
slightly to rub against her, caress all of her body with all of his.

She couldn’t resist him. Whatever he wanted to do to her, he could do. And she’d

participate and reciprocate in full measure. She reached down, cupped his glorious butt
in both hands and heard his responding moan.

His hands slid down her throat to her shoulders and he reluctantly drew away, his

lips leaving hers only gradually. “I couldn’t keep my hands off you a minute longer. Or
rather, my mouth.” He touched her bottom lip with the tip of one finger then followed
it with a gentle kiss. “What are you doing to me, Angelina?”

She shook her head helplessly. “I don’t know. I don’t mean to do anything.”
“You don’t have to, love. You do it anyway.” He groaned softly and kissed her

again, thoroughly taking possession of her. When she thrust her tongue into his mouth,
countering his, he groaned louder before drawing away. He stepped back and dropped
his hands to his sides. “I can hardly wait until tomorrow night.”

“What happens then?”
“Lots of things.” His slow, sweet smile made her tremble in every limb. “We make

love without protection, if you’re willing.”

“I—I thought you meant the concert.”
“That as well. But I’ll be on a natural high after it and ready for you. More than

ready.” He took another step back. “I know you have things to do. Go now, or you’ll be
naked on that sofa before you can count to ten.”

She fumbled with the doorknob.
He smiled wickedly. “Did I say ten? Make it three. One…”
She didn’t know how she made it out of the room but her body screamed for her

not to do it, to go back, forget everything but Ryan.

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But the other part, the part that had worked for fifteen years to get where she was

in her chosen profession, carried on walking.

She networked, chatted, fielded questions about her and Ryan, until the audience

filtered in. Grannies vied with teenagers and a few rock fans sprawled across the back
seats. From the look of them, clean, unripped t-shirts worn over carefully designer-
ripped jeans, they wouldn’t cause any trouble but would make the right kind of noises
when the band played. Probably carefully selected by the studio.

Feeling better, she slipped into the audience and chose a seat right at the end of a

row, where the cameras couldn’t catch her unless she was pointed out to them.

She wanted to see Ryan as others saw him. She’d avoided Pure Wildfire until

recently, turned off the TV, switched over the radio but now she needed to see him
properly. Not only to decide how she felt about him but to do her job.

After the warm-up, the introduction of the host and his monologue, he took his seat

and brought on the first guest.

This was an actor who narrowly missed a Supporting Actor Oscar last year, now

starring in a new TV sitcom. The host, a blander version of Jeff Lundberg, asked the
right questions, the actor was mildly irreverent in reply and the audience suitably
amused.

After he left, the next guests proved to be a couple of celebrities, famous for being

famous, newly married and, naturally, with a new book out giving marital advice.

Gina found them tedious in the extreme but watched anyway, aware they might

apply to Russo’s for PR. Though they weren’t a couple she would take, one of her staff
might find themselves stuck with them. How would Russo’s give her some class, give
him at least the appearance of brains?

It could be done, or it might be better to go with their natural qualities. Give her

even lower cut dresses, shorter skirts, make him go shirtless every opportunity that
arose. No. That had been done. Better to turn them around and give them a new look,
not too different to the old one but something to attract attention all over again. Her
usual way of thinking brought some tranquility to her and she began to relax.

When they left, another wait for ads followed, and the host, Victor Schuman, went

offstage, presumably to have his makeup refreshed or to get a drink of something
stronger than water. So far, nobody had noticed Gina in the seat at the end of a row
three-quarters of the way up the studio. Her neighbor gave her a glance and she smiled
slightly but he turned away, back to his friends. She breathed out in relief. Her picture
had only appeared on the Internet this afternoon, she had no real reason to feel edgy
but she did.

The whole experience might help her in her job, a taste of what it was like on the

other side, to have a face that people wanted to photograph, would go so far as to shove
cameras at them.

As Schuman returned to enthusiastic applause, she heard her male neighbor say to

his friends, “This should be good. Pure Wildfire is such a great band!”

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“Great chicks too,” his friend responded
Chicks? Well, they did appear to be around forty.
“The singer has a new one. I caught her picture on the entertainment news early

tonight. I couldn’t see much of her face, she had shades on but she was curved in all the
right places.” He smacked his lips in an exaggerated kiss. “Foxy!”

Well, at least he hadn’t said old or boring. Did he really think she was foxy, or was it

the glamour of Ryan’s presence? She suspected the latter but she didn’t underestimate
her own appeal. Or overestimate it either.

“Wonder how long she’ll last?”
She wondered that too.
The studio hushed when the lights went down again and Schuman began his

introduction. This man enjoyed the sound of his own voice, grinned at his own jokes,
which were corny to say the least. Eventually, he showed a few film clips. Pure Wildfire
onstage, a snippet from ‘Tearing Me Apart’, the band’s biggest single hit and the song
Gina suspected Ryan wrote for Maria. It didn’t hurt. Not anymore. If it was about her
and she’d never asked. She never would. That had nothing to do with her.

Yes it does and yes, I wrote it for her.
His voice sounded in her mind as if he stood next to her but she knew enough now

not to turn around. Ryan was waiting to come on set with the rest of the band. She sent
him a warm smile.

The picture of herself, hand in hand with Ryan, flashed on the screen on the left of

the studio and she groaned inwardly. Seeing herself in a happy, private moment, even
knowing they’d deliberately enticed the media, made her hot and uncomfortable.
Hopefully nobody would recognize her now, but she couldn’t be sure. She slid down in
her seat. Schuman finished, “And because this is a last-minute interview, we haven’t
had time to record them, so they’ve volunteered to perform live!” A round of applause,
even a few whistles. “I told them if they go over time, I’ll cut the interview!” More
whistles.

“And here they are, folks—Pure Wildfire!”
She watched the small stage area come alive. Not a slow glow but a flash of light

and they plunged straight into “Tearing Me Apart”.

The song started gently, with suggestive echoes of the melody, then Ryan at his

soulful, heartbroken best crooned into the mike, which he held close to his body, like a
lover worshipping his beloved.

They escalated, slowly, to an aching, longing loss and the notes pearled through the

air, every one precious until, with a long ribbon of notes, Ryan stepped back and Aidan
and Corinne worked their magic.

Through it all, Jake and Chris worked in complete partnership, adding solid,

inventive rhythms, supplementing and adding backing vocals. For the first time Gina
realized what an entity Pure Wildfire was, the band supporting and pushing each other

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to new heights. That was how they worked and that was why they wouldn’t allow
spectators at rehearsals. They needed to work at that unity and present their music as
one sound, one band.

The realization humbled her. What was she after all but a helper and Ryan’s

occasional lover? What right did she have to intrude on what the band shared?

None.
When they finished and bowed to the applause, Ryan looked up. Straight at her.

They exchanged a brief, precious moment that was theirs alone before he flicked his
glance away at the audience, singling out one or two people. Pretty girls and women for
the most part. Perhaps he made them feel as special too.

No. Only you, sweetheart.
She really had to learn to keep her thoughts to herself. As Ryan followed Aidan

over to the part of the studio where their host waited, he grinned. No one else can hear
you as clearly as I can, not even another Talent. I’ll keep your secrets.

As soon as they settled Schuman started on them straightaway. “Do you think it’s

right to take a baby on tour with you?”

“Why not?” Corinne countered coldly.
“You can’t possibly give him the kind of attention he needs.”
“Why not?” Corinne shrugged. She’d completely lost the classical princess image

and by now fit right in with the slouching arrogance the rest of the band displayed. “We
have two nannies for the baby and when we’re on tour, we have special provisions for
him. Isn’t that better than depriving a baby of its mother?”

The audience applauded, giving Gina an idea of how well her hard work had been

received. Evidently the organizations she’d approached had been working hard and
now the American public was on the side of the band. It could so easily have turned out
differently.

“What about the drugs, the groupies, the rock lifestyle?”
Chris took over before Corinne could explode. Even from her seat, Gina saw the red

gleam in Corinne’s eyes as anger overtook good judgment. “We’ve all been clean for the
last five years. When we travel, we always book a separate suite for Corinne, Aidan and
Sean so they have some time away from us and our so-called lifestyle.”

Several members of the audience sniggered.
Schuman had the sense to move away from the subject before he lost the audience’s

sympathy. “That’s very reassuring. So you think a new mother can work your
punishing schedule?”

Aidan covered Corinne’s hand with his. “That’s why we’re only playing a few dates

on this tour. We’d love to play more but Sean and Corinne come first with me and
without us there is no Pure Wildfire.”

Abruptly, Schuman turned his attention away. “You write most of the lyrics for the

songs, don’t you, Ryan?”

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Ryan nodded.
“Isn’t ‘Tearing Me Apart’ about your lover Maria Leone?”
“Partly. Like all songwriters I use my personal experience and try to change it into

something more universal.”

Schuman winked at the audience. “Some long words there for a rock star.”
“I bought a dictionary.”
Another round to the band, as the audience laughed.
“So ‘Tearing Me Apart’ isn’t just about her death?”
Gina felt Ryan’s tension but nothing showed on his face. “No, it’s about the

pointlessness of drug taking, the stupidity of continuing with something that can’t add
anything to your experience and the way drugs trap the user. Lots of things and
hopefully people can bring their own experiences to the song too.”

Schuman nodded. “And a year earlier you wrote a song called ‘Taking the Strain’

about the joy of drugs, heroin in particular?”

Ryan nodded. “People wouldn’t take drugs if it was all misery. At first, it’s good. It

doesn’t take long to go bad.”

“And you still play both songs?”
“Yeah. They’re good songs.” Ryan stretched his arm along the back of the leather

sofa he shared with Chris and Jake. Corinne and Aidan occupied a smaller one. The
camera must have difficulties taking them all in, probably concentrated on close-ups.

“So do you put recent experiences into the mix? How about dating Maria Leone’s

sister Gina?”

Gina’s heart sank. From the moment she’d seen her picture on the screen it was

obvious Schuman would broach the subject but now it was here, she felt tense and
apprehensive.

“Gina isn’t Maria’s sister. Maria’s mother married Gina’s father, that’s all.”
Schuman leered at him and Gina prayed he wouldn’t ask anything too personal, too

intimate. Ryan might lose it. “Let’s look at this. Gina Russo works for her father in one
of the biggest PR agencies in New York. Pure Wildfire fires its previous PR company
and employs Russo’s instead. And then you date the very person employed to redo
your image?”

He continued to rant for a few moments more while Ryan’s voice echoed in her

mind. I want to show him how real this is. Will you come down to the stage?

Make a spectacle of myself?
I promise, Gina, it won’t be like that. Please.
She took a deep breath. Shouldn’t we let them think this is all a publicity stunt? When

you go home, I can’t go with you.

She felt a new determination steel him. We’ll see about that.

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Without warning, Ryan tore his microphone away and strode off the set. But he

didn’t leave, he walked into the audience. It took the cameraman less than a second to
realize Ryan wasn’t storming off, although his expression didn’t augur well for anyone
getting in his way.

Gina knew just what was happening. She sank further into her seat.
A hush fell over the audience and Ryan took the narrow path behind one bank of

seats to get to her side of the studio. His eyes fixed on hers, his mouth thin-lipped, he
came straight for her.

There was no way out. Ignoring the wide eyes and muttered “Fuck!” of the man

sitting next to her, she took Ryan’s hand when he was close enough to hold it out to her.

Warmth and strength surged through her, as it always did when she touched him.

He tugged. “You might see an end to this. I don’t. You are going to have to back away
from me because, baby, I’m not going to stop coming for you.”

Lost for words, Gina swallowed. Ryan took her back to the stage much more

carefully than he’d arrived. The camera watched them all the while and the audience
applauded.

Gina felt the heat in her cheeks but Aidan’s lazy smile did something to calm her as

did Corinne’s sympathetic grin. This happened to me too, she reminded Gina.

It had. Although Corinne had been famous in her own right, when Aidan brought

her into the band, she’d won over a whole new audience, presented a new part of her
personality. At least Gina wouldn’t have to perform onstage. Much.

Chris moved over to make room for her and Ryan sat on her other side, his arm

stretched protectively over the back of the seat. “This,” he said, “is Gina Russo. Get
used to seeing her with me.”

Close up, Schuman seemed perfectly plastic, even his smile smoothly false.

“Welcome, Gina. I hope this doesn’t mean we’ll have to pay your fee too.”

“You already do.”
Her first reply, although she didn’t think it was so good, brought raucous applause.
“Isn’t your professional relationship with the band compromised by your personal

relationship with Ryan?”

A spark of anger flared inside her. “No. Why should it? I’m not a doctor, I don’t

have to keep myself impersonal to do good work. In my job it helps to like the people,
although I don’t usually go this far.”

Ryan joined in the laughter this time and he pulled her to him for a quick, one-

armed hug.

Schuman quickly brought the interview to a close. Gina assumed someone had

squawked in his earpiece. “Well, if we’re gonna hear another number from Pure
Wildfire, we’ll have to stop now but, guys, we’d love to see you again!”

More applause.
“Why don’t you tell us what the song is about, Gina, while the band sets up?”

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Another test, to see if she knew the band as well as she claimed.
Ryan leaned over to steal a quick kiss, much to the delight of the audience. The

whoops made her flush again. Then he followed the others back to their instruments.

With Ryan in her head, helping her, she introduced them. “This is a recent song and

the new single, ‘Lost in Space’. It’s on the new album but Ryan wrote this shortly before
Corinne and Aidan got together. It’s about drifting.”

With Schuman’s shriek of “Pure Wildfire!” they were off, this time on a more

raucous road, rocking hard. When Ryan opened his mouth, it was on a high note, pure
and sustained, soon developing into something harsh and bluesy, then on to the main
lyrics of the song.

This song was a show-stopper. If they didn’t make number one with it, it would

lose out to something just as strong. Or the inevitable novelty number, the flash-in-the-
pan single nobody could foretell. The one people would be embarrassed to have in their
collections in a couple of years’ time.

As they sang, a man standing to one side urged her to move over, closer to

Schuman. Providing a closer shot for the cameras, she presumed. The man making wild
waving motions at her looked demented, so she took pity on him and moved. To her
surprise, Schuman leaned over and murmured to her, “I’m impressed the way you
turned around the baby thing. And it was a stroke of genius to put yourself into the
frame. No sacrifice too great?”

Aware the cameras might be on her, aware the sound equipment was definitely still

on, if muted for the audience, she smiled sweetly. “Thank you but it was unexpected. I
don’t usually combine my public and private lives.”

Schuman raised his eyebrows in a cynical expression. “Yeah, whatever. But I’m still

impressed. I’m contacting Russo’s tomorrow and I’m asking for you. If you can do it for
them, think what you could do for me!”

Although she knew for sure his interest was purely professional, a shudder went

through her when she thought of his hands on her body instead of Ryan’s. But it would
be a coup for Russo’s to snag him. She’d email her father tonight, make it clear she
didn’t really want the job but someone at the agency should pitch for it.

So if she didn’t take this, one of the biggest opportunities she was likely to get, what

would she take?

The answer stood in front of her, currently clutching a microphone two-handed and

wailing into it. Ryan Hawthorne.

Dear God, she loved him.

* * * * *

The itching started shortly after the show wound up and the participants gathered

for a quick post-show drink in Schuman’s enormous dressing room. Ryan spotted it

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immediately and hustled them out to the limo. Once there, he told the driver tersely to
“step on it” and held her all the way back to the hotel.

Even in her uncomfortable state, fighting the compulsion to change in the wrong

place, Gina found his total attention on her unbelievably sexy. He ignored all the others,
concentrating on her, entering her mind deeply to keep her Gina, stop her becoming the
bird.

In their room, he stripped them both and she felt relief gush out of her when she

changed. The feathers weren’t a surprise anymore and she could concentrate on more
than just the transformation. She felt Ryan in her mind, regulating her size, making sure
she wasn’t freaking out.

Not now. Can we fly?
Sure we can. In fact, tonight we’re going to put you through your paces.
She wasn’t sure what that meant.
It’s a British army term, which should give you a clue.
It did. Not only did he help her fly again, he made her change back to human, then

to bird form and back again, over and over until she swayed with fatigue. He caught
her, lifted her and laid her gently down on the bed. “Sleep now, sweetheart.”

It was only then she realized he meant to keep his promise of not making love to

her until her fertile period was over but by then she was too tired to care. As long as he
stayed close to her, she’d go along with his decision. It seemed she had little choice.

* * * * *

Ryan opened his eyes. His lady was where she should be—in his arms and she was

sound asleep. Not, sadly, from loving but from his insistence that she learn to change
her form on her own. On the last night of the compulsion days, she had to learn. She
knew she was in danger but not how much. Anything he could do to help her, he’d do
and changing her form to the firebird would make her less vulnerable to attack.

He was only beginning to realize exactly how much danger threatened them. Last

night, the band all felt a fierce psychic attack in the middle of “Lost in Space”. Not a
particularly effective one, since a moment’s concentration repulsed it but it was enough
to scare Ryan into making sure Gina could manage the transformation herself, if she
needed to. As a firebird, she was almost invulnerable. As a human, frighteningly easy to
hurt.

Whoever wanted them was still after them. Maybe the same people had followed

them from New York, or maybe passed the job on to a local group. Ryan had no idea.
But one of the people he suspected was Mike Russo.

How could he tell her? That her father, the man she loved and trusted above all

others, except, he hoped, himself, might be working for an evil organization, one whose
aim was to eliminate all Talents from the face of the earth?

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It just seemed too coincidental that he should fall for both women, that both Mike’s

daughters were thrust at him like sacrificial offerings. Although, he reflected with a wry
smile, Gina took a lot more persuading.

But would Mike try to kill both his daughters? Maria possibly, she wasn’t blood

kin, but the attacks on Gina weren’t meant to frighten, they were meant to damage,
even kill. It might be one cell of the PHR disagreeing with the tactics of another. It had
happened before. The Perfect Human Race, he reflected wryly. Anything but. As
bigoted as the Klan, as violent and ruthless as Al-Qaeda, he found it hard to think of the
genial Mike Russo hiding a connection to such an evil organization. But stranger things
had happened. And if Russo really was a member of the PHR, he’d easily be capable of
hurting his own daughter in search of the higher ideal. It appeared that at least one cell
had made the band as shape-shifters, which was a pity. The PHR organized into small
cells, with the occasional large one but they were autonomous, with only two people
holding the links to the next cell in the chain, one on either side. They were known as
“daisies” because of the comparison to a daisy chain. The agents who worked to keep
Talents safe wanted the daisies kept alive, so they could go on to the next cell but
fanatics sometimes considered their own lives unimportant. They always carried the
means of suicide. So if only one cell was attacking the band, there was a chance they
could be taken out cleanly, as happened in England with Aidan and Corinne. If the
information was already shared, it might be time to move on.

Which was a shame because Ryan loved this life and wanted more. He’d fight for it,

for his fellow shape-shifters and for the woman he loved. If that included killing Mike
Russo, could she ever forgive him?

He wouldn’t tell Gina anything until he was sure, without doubt. Suspicions just

weren’t enough. But he’d start by telling her something wonderful. At least he hoped
she’d think it was as wonderful as he did.

He slipped into her mind, feeling her gentle rhythm of sleep, allowing himself to

become at one with it. He didn’t want to wake her. Not yet. Her mind surrounded him,
bathing him in dreamless warmth. She was rested, almost ready to wake, the firebird
dormant too. That meant she was no longer fertile. He slipped a little deeper, feeling the
rhythm of her body. He was right. The slight rise in temperature shape-shifter women
experienced at this time of the month had gone, as had the tension in her womb.

The pang of disappointment took Ryan completely by surprise. He couldn’t make

her pregnant now. She hadn’t committed to him and they needed to overcome the
danger before they could even think about making a child. But he wanted to.

He’d never felt the lack of offspring before, the biological imperative that drove so

many mortals to reproduce again and again, so the sensation came as an entirely new
one but the thought of Gina big with their baby turned him on so much he just couldn’t
wait another minute to have her.

He touched his lips to hers, gently tasting her, and felt the first stirrings of

consciousness in her mind. Smiling, he moved on to her throat, licking softly, touching
his tongue to the hollow at the base of her neck.

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He stroked her lovely breasts, feeling their weight, pressing his palms and rotating

gently until her nipples turned into hard little buttons against his hands and only then
kissed his way over the inviting slope to take one into his mouth.

Even then he kept his movements gentle. He stayed at the edge of her mind, just

enough to sense her waking.

“Wha—Ryan?”
Hearing her speak his name, almost the first thing she said when she woke sent

tingling need to every part of him. “Why, who were you expecting?” he murmured
against her skin, feeling her chuckle vibrate against his lips. “Just relax, love. I made
you work hard last night. My turn now.” He sucked once, hard, then moved on to her
other nipple, taking his time to kiss and lick her before sucking her in, making her gasp.

She responded so beautifully to him, her rich, creamy skin quivering under his

hands and mouth. He could have loved her breasts all morning but there were other
parts to explore, other regions to discover. Every time he made love to her was a new
voyage, opening new, previously undiscovered worlds of sensation.

He made his kisses linger on his path down her body, kept his caresses long and

sweeping, gentle but possessive. Fully awake now, he felt her consciousness spike and
then relax.

Touching her, kissing her, Ryan wanted nothing more until his body reminded him

of something else it wanted. But he craved one more thing before he joined them. He
separated her intimate curls with his tongue and searched out her hot, wet center.

She cried out then, a wordless “Ah!” And her thigh muscles tensed under his

hands. He reveled in her touch, when she stretched one hand down to stroke his head
and the sudden gust of air when she threw aside the covers to watch him.

Using her vision he saw himself, blazing head firmly inserted between her thighs,

his tongue just visible as he stretched to find her pearl, the swollen peak between her
lips. He looked up and made eye contact, flaring to life in her mind.

It was enough to give her a sudden, spiking orgasm but he held her down and

delved hard to suck her clit. He wanted it again, the sudden rush of liquid into his
mouth, temporarily quenching his need for her.

This time it took longer. He opened his mouth over her, sucking greedily, and felt

her harden and strain against him. Her climax rose and almost swamped him with need
until he slid his hand around her thigh and pushed two fingers inside her.

She clamped down on him, her orgasm uncontrollable and immediate. He had no

words, no expressions but drank her until her shudders stopped. She tasted like no
other woman, no other substance on earth, because she was unique. Gina. This was true
addiction.

When she gasped, “Ryan—please!” he reluctantly lifted his head. Need slammed

into him when he lost contact with her warmth. Their needs blended together in a
continuous current of want. Lifting up, he swung his body between her open legs and

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as she lifted her knees, came up to her, to take her mouth and her body in one powerful
movement.

They both groaned when he pushed deep inside her pussy, filled her channel so

they became one being with one need. He stretched over her, gloried in the feel of her
body beneath his, her breasts pressed against his chest, her nipples pushing insistently
into him, her stomach, not concave or lacking but softly rounded, pressing his,
welcoming him.

“Your skin is so wonderful,” he murmured, stroking her arms, sliding them up to

her neck. “Creamy and soft. I can’t stop touching you.”

“I don’t want you to stop.” She slid her hands around his waist and down to cup

his backside, gasping when he slammed into her in instinctive reaction. “Oh Ryan,
never, never stop—darling!”

Ecstasy forced him to push harder, take her higher. Reluctantly, he used his elbows

on either side of her to lift up enough so he could change his angle and find her sweet
spot. When she shuddered and arched he knew he’d found it. Gritting his teeth to hold
on, he pushed harder, forced her third orgasm and exploded inside her.

He hadn’t meant for it to happen so soon but as he lay, winded and panting, he

heard her breath quicken and with an effort rolled to one side, taking her with him. He
didn’t want to leave her body, not yet.

“Ryan, am I still fertile? Will I get pregnant?”
The answer was on the tip of his tongue but instead, he asked her, “Would you

mind so much?”

“I—I don’t know. On one hand, I’d love a baby and I know it’s getting late for me—

”

“Not now. Now you’ll live much longer. You may only have two babies but you

can have them when it suits you. Would you mind if I were the father?”

She looked down, where her breasts pressed closely to his chest, and didn’t reply.
“Hey. I wouldn’t do that to you. Truly. I think a child should ideally happen after a

decision from both the parents. They’re too precious, too rare to waste.”

“Right answer.” She lifted her head to meet his gaze. “Children should never be an

impulse thing. I’ve never felt the biological clock ticking before but since I met you—”
She broke off, biting her lip, and tried to pull away from him but he didn’t want her to.
He still rested inside her body and he wanted to be there for a little while yet.

Not until he’d told her.
“I love you,” he said and before she could answer, stopped her mouth with a deep,

loving kiss. He licked right up to the roof of her mouth, caressed her tongue with his
before he withdrew, tension ratcheting his nerves as he waited for her answer.

As he should have expected, her first thought was for the practical. “How can you,

after so short a time?”

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“I love that you said that.” He touched his lips to her forehead. “I love making love

to you, Gina, I love holding you and I love having you by my side. I’ve been right inside
you, physically and mentally. You’ve held nothing back, so I know you. I’ve opened
myself to you, though you haven’t been in too deep yet. I want you to. Come into me
now, see if I’m telling the truth.”

She stared at him, eyes wide. He saw a little fear and wonderment but since he’d

left her mind, he couldn’t tell for sure. Ryan was scared she’d reject him, not want him
as much as he wanted her. She had no reason to love him, every reason to doubt him
and hate him. He couldn’t blame her for that but he’d blame himself, to his dying day.
Now was no time for arrogance. “Please.”

Gina stared into Ryan’s eyes, the gold-flecked amber even more mesmerizing close

up. None of the arrogant rock star was here in bed with them, only a man waiting for
her answer. She could say she thought she was falling in love with him, that would give
her a let-out, allow her to step back but it wouldn’t be the truth.

Since he wanted her to, she entered his mind and found him, as he’d promised,

wide open. No secrets. She saw his age, his most vivid experiences, the caring, sensitive
nature he covered up for fear his vulnerability might prove too tempting to parasites
and hangers-on, saw his honesty and his strength, his determination to do no harm,
cause no harm but fight to the death to save the ones he loved.

And she saw the sincerity of his love.
I love you.
“Say it.”
“I love you, Ryan Hawthorne.”
His relief washed over her like a great tropical wave and he took her in a kiss so

deep, so all encompassing she thought it would never end. Then she became aware of
his thrusts, deep inside her. Her declaration had hardened him all over again. He
finished the kiss, took a deep breath and kissed her again. She held him close, kissed
him back and loved him.

Panicked, only to force it back. Not here, not now. Not when this pleasure washed

over her, drove her higher, forced her up to new realms of feeling, of sensation. He
stroked her, pushed his hand between their bodies and cupped her breast, tweaking
and pinching gently, then pressed his palm over her and pushed, massaged, until she
screamed with delight.

But she wanted more, wanted him deeper. He laughed with joy when she rolled

him onto his back and rose up, to sit against his upraised thighs, lifting and slamming
back down onto him without surcease. He anchored her, his hands on her hips, holding
her steady but not dictating the rhythm. He was hers.

“Oh yes, my love. All yours. Always!” he managed between gasps of pleasure.
Seated deep in her body, where he belonged, Gina was sure. This was right. “Oh

Ryan, I’ve missed this! Promise me you won’t do that to me again. We can use condoms
for those three days every month, can’t we?”

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“Sure. Absolutely.” He groaned when she wiggled her hips as she came down onto

him. “Oh God, that feels so good! When you do that I’ll do anything you say!”

“I’ll remember that,” she purred, wickedly rotating her body again.
“Come down. Come down just a bit. I want to suck your tits again. I need to suck

your tits!”

She’d never liked that word before but when Ryan said it, it sounded like poetry.

Her breasts ached to feel his tongue on them again and she briefly wondered if he’d
implanted the need in her, to make her come to him but she didn’t care. He could do
what he wanted, so long as he—

“Ahhhhh!” Waves of sensation built inside her, the tingling connection between her

breasts and her womb driving her crazy. Frantically she lifted and dropped, lifted and
dropped, pushed him deeper, harder, felt his tongue rasp the sensitive skin of her
areola and Gina, practical, sensible Gina, threw her head back and screamed.

If there was anyone in the living room of the suite, they would hear her. If there

was anyone in the corridor outside, they would have heard her. But it didn’t matter.
Only that Ryan didn’t stop, not until—

Her release crashed through her, turning her into a shuddering, trembling wreck,

pulses thumping through her, along every nerve, every vein, every part of her body.

For the first time in her life, Gina passed out from sheer sensation.

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Chapter Fourteen

“They call it the ‘little death’,” was the first thing she heard. Ryan’s beautifully

modulated voice sounded amused.

She opened her eyes. “What?”
“When someone faints from orgasms. The French call it le petit mort.”
“You mean it’s normal?”
“No, it’s nirvana. I love you, Gina.”
“Yes, you said. I love you too, Ryan.”
A sharp rap at the door startled her into sitting up and groping wildly for the bed

sheets. The door opened but only a crack and Randy’s voice echoed through the room
over Ryan’s laughter at her sudden panic. “Hey, you two, we’re leaving in an hour. The
bus is coming to the front door of the hotel, so get ready for photographers.”

He closed the door without waiting for an answer.
Leaping out of bed, Gina made for the walk-in wardrobe, where unseen hands had

unpacked her clothes. “An hour? Why didn’t you say something?”

Still chuckling at her panic, Ryan threw on a robe and headed for the door, checking

Gina was out of sight before he opened it. “Send somebody to pack our stuff for us, will
you? We’ll be in the shower.”

Stopping only to sweep up the now horror-struck Gina, he went into the bathroom

and closed the door.

* * * * *

Gina found herself sitting on the tour bus, resting in Ryan’s arms, more because he

wanted it than because she felt tired. The bus was a piece of work, fitted out with coffee
machines, a snack bar, even beds. She hadn’t realized they weren’t going back to the
hotel that night but should have. She’d seen the itinerary, but recent events had driven
it out of her mind. They’d do the concert then sleep on the bus, which would head out
into the wilderness, where they’d film the video. The director of the video planned to
meet them after the concert and join them on the bus.

She felt the tenseness in Ryan but because she was in his mind, as she always was

these days, she knew his tension was born of excitement, not apprehension. Although
underneath lay a current of wariness. Ryan never forgot the threat of attack. She hadn’t
realized that before.

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Ryan made no secret of his feelings for her, stealing the occasional kiss, insisting she

stay with him. “I won’t be this possessive forever,” he assured her, “just until the
danger is over. But I can’t deny I like having you near.”

“I like it too. For now.” Although he kept her close, he didn’t crowd her, something

she’d thought impossible before.

“When we find the scumbags who are after you, we can put this on a better footing.

Make plans.”

“How do you know they’re not after you?”
He kissed her forehead. “I don’t. But you’re newly made and you’re weak as yet.

I’ve tried to make you as strong as I can so you can shape-shift if we’re in danger but
you have a way to go yet. So anyone wanting me would try to hurt you and anyone
hurting you will have me to deal with. Anyway, I like you close. I want to keep you that
way.”

Gina didn’t want to argue with him, not now, before an important gig. Not when

she felt so happy. But she still doubted the long-term viability of this affair. Even if she
loved him more than she imagined she’d ever love anyone.

So she leaned against his shoulder and enjoyed his closeness. His happiness came to

her in a glow and she got a glimpse of what life could be like with him.

The journey to the arena only took a half hour and they arrived just after three. Fans

awaited them, as well as the inevitable photographers. The band took time to sign a few
autographs and chat and the atmosphere of serenity followed her inside.

Having telepathy was a bit like having an extra sense. Even though she wasn’t

skilled in its use yet, she sensed emotions and overheard conversations going on
between the members of the band. In her meeting with Randy, she sensed his curiosity,
so she could satisfy it, to a certain extent. “Randy, we’re taking it as it comes. One day at
a time. But I won’t let it affect how I work for the band, you can be sure of that.”

“I wouldn’t say that.” Randy lifted his attention from the printed out Excel sheet in

front of him, timetabling the tour. All but the last two dates were blocked out. This
concert and the video shoot. “You’ve worked harder, if anything. I’d keep you where
you are if I had anything to do with it.” Before she could thank him, he waved her
words aside. “The last company performed reasonably well but I wanted more. I
wanted someone who cared about the band. You work well and you have one of the
best track records of any PR agency. I prefer to work with the best.”

Gina had to admit, she worked harder for artists than for some other clients. Their

passion for their craft and her enjoyment gave her an emotional involvement she didn’t
feel with other clients.

“What are your plans after tomorrow? Ryan can take some free time if he wants to

but he’s due to go into the studio soon.”

“I don’t know,” she confessed. A lump rose in her throat when she thought of all

those miles between them. “I can’t just drop my job. I’m not made like that.”

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“Sure. I’m married but my wife hates rock music. Sometimes we don’t see each

other for a couple of months.” Randy’s dark eyes softened and she felt his sympathy.

“How long have you been married?”
“Twenty-five years. It’s good now but we had to work hard at first.” Now she felt

sexual warmth and affection from Randy but it wasn’t for her. Perhaps they could make
it work. Hope sparked deep inside her.

They’d have a long time to work on it, longer than Randy imagined.

* * * * *

The conditions backstage were primitive, to say the least. A damp, fusty smell

permeated the whole area and furnishings were basic, plastic stacking chairs and trestle
tables. The dressing rooms weren’t much better but at least they had showers and good
lighting.

Ryan wore makeup onstage. Not of the naturalistic type either, but watching him

apply mascara and liner, Gina had to admit he had a surer hand than she did. He
grinned at her when he put the wand back in the pink plastic container. “Like it?”

“It’s dramatic.”
“I use waterproof stuff for the lashes, otherwise it can half blind me when I start to

sweat.”

His glow of happiness surrounded her, or perhaps it was her own. She couldn’t tell

and she didn’t much care. “I like having you here. You’ll stand and watch?”

“Try to keep me away.” Her excitement came from more than her relationship with

Ryan. She’d never stood in the wings, or whatever they called the side of the stage in an
arena, and watched a band, knowing later on she’d share a bed with one of them. Every
fan’s dream and she was about to live it. She’d have to be dead not to feel that.

“My very own groupie.” His chair scraped back on the bare floor as he got to his

feet, taking the two steps that brought her into his arms.

“You’ve had those before.”
“Not like you, darling. Someone intelligent, respectable, someone I love.”
A lump formed in her throat. “What about Maria?”
“Not the same,” he said without hesitation. “I loved her but not like this. You’re a

strong woman, Gina, you could have anyone you wanted. You’re not helpless, you
don’t rely on me, you just want to be with me. Or am I wrong?” His teasing smile dared
her to deny it.

“No, you’re not. I do want to be with you.”
He kissed her, opening her lips with coaxing pressure from his tongue and

caressing the inside of her mouth gently, lovingly. He drew away, gazing down at her.
“We’re going on almost on time. We usually shoot for half an hour to an hour late but
tonight we’ve agreed, we want in and out.” His expression turned serious, his mouth

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hardening a fraction. “If anyone wants to attack us, this concert is a good place. We
can’t shape-shift in front of thousands of people and if we try fuzzing, someone is
bound to see us. In all the thousands in the audience, there’s bound to be one. If it’s not
tonight, it’ll be tomorrow, at the shoot. Or Smith at the department has managed to find
the cell and take it out.”

“Take it out?” That sounded too much like army jargon for killing.
“Yes. If he can, he’ll take them in and question them. They do their best to

rehabilitate the members but he can’t leave them as they are. It’s hard, darling, but it’s
the truth and I’d never hide it by lying to you.”

She nodded, appreciating the respect he gave to her simply by telling her the truth.
“So stay close, at least for tonight and tomorrow. Promise?”
“I feel helpless but I’m not stupid. I know I’m safest close to you and the band. But

Ryan, promise me something in return.”

“Anything.”
She laughed. “I could ask you anything. You’re a romantic at heart, aren’t you?”
“Through and through.”
“Promise me you’ll teach me how to be strong. Don’t make me dependant on you.”

If she were to live this new life, she had to do it on her own terms.

“I had plans for that. How do you fancy a holiday somewhere hot and private? A

tropical hideaway?”

She melted into his arms. “It sounds wonderful.”
“Then you can shape-shift and practice your new skills. I don’t have to be in the

studio immediately. I have songs to write and I can do that anywhere. So I thought we
might go away somewhere.”

She longed for that, couldn’t think of anything she’d like better.
He kissed her gently and drew away. “I don’t need telepathy to read that look.

That’s a promise then. A holiday. We’ll relax, make love and I’ll teach you how to use
your new skills.” He snagged a white silk shirt from a rack and shoved his hands in the
sleeves. A poet’s shirt, loose sleeves falling over his long, sensitive hands, open at the
front halfway down his chest. Over that went a black leather waistcoat and over that, a
long duster coat.

“Won’t you get hot?”
“Steaming. I’ll take off the layers as I go. At the end of the set, I’ll be topless.

Jealous?” He tipped his head at her, grinning.

“No. As long as I’m the one who joins you in the shower afterward.”
“That’s another promise. One I’ll look forward to fulfilling.”
Grabbing a hat in one hand and her hand in the other, he towed her after him out of

the room, meeting the other band members outside. Even close up, they looked
sensational, in a kind of laid-back rock star way. Even Corinne didn’t dress

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flamboyantly but with her red-tipped dark hair flying away in a ragged, edgy cut and a
deliberately ragged white t-shirt with a visible black bra underneath, she looked sexy as
hell. They grinned at each other.

“Anyone know which way the stage is?” Chris demanded.
Since they all laughed this must be an old joke and Gina vaguely remembered it

repeated in an old film. Someone appeared at the end of the corridor. Sonny. “The stage
is ready, the spots manned and the sound vamped.”

“Just how we like it,” Aidan muttered, glancing behind him and giving Corinne a

quick grin. “Here we go, babe. Let’s show them hell.”

They followed Sonny. Gina felt Ryan’s tension but his excitement transmitted to her

in their psychic link. He loved this.

“All of it,” he murmured, low for her ears alone. “I love the anticipation, the build-

up to a show and the explosion of energy onstage. I’ve never tired of it and I don’t
suppose I ever will.”

The stage wasn’t too far, along a couple of dingy hallways and a short flight of

concrete steps. Bracketed by security staff they made their way toward the noise.

Gina heard the sound first, a kind of muted roar as thousands of people chatted and

talked, then she smelled the mass of humanity sitting and standing just beyond. The
band stood out of sight of even the occupants of the side seats. This being a stadium, the
audience occupied three sides and the stage took up the end but people sitting right at
the side sometimes got privileged views. She supposed some of them might be able to
see her. Ryan led her to Sonny. “Look after her.”

“Sure thing.”
Gina had only a small notebook with her, to jot down ideas as they occurred to her.

She was determined to make the most of this opportunity to see one of the biggest
bands on the planet in full, close-up action. But she forgot her good intentions when the
lights went down and a full yell erupted from the audience. Then the house lights went
out.

“Full house,” Sonny said but she had to read his lips to get his meaning, as even

here, the sound deafened them. He handed her a bottle of water from a crate stacked by
the side of the stage. Intrigued, she took note of her surroundings. Towels, crates of
water, soda and beer, a box of fruit. Not what she would have expected. Not as many
cables as she’d imagined, though there were still quite a few. Ryan, Corinne and Jake
used cordless guitars. That meant they could move much more freely.

The sound dimmed and they heard the introduction. “You’ve heard ’em, now see

’em. Pure Wildfire!”

Drums, guitars and Ryan exploded all at once in a primal scream of pure,

unadulterated emotion. Anger. Fury. The first song, about injustice and closed-mind
mentality, called “We’re Not Going Away”, hurtled the audience into the Pure Wildfire
world.

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The snarling, spitting creature onstage didn’t seem to be the same man who’d taken

her gently into his arms and loved her troubles away. But he was. This was as much
Ryan Hawthorne as the tender lover, a strutting, posturing, twisting whirlwind of
emotion.

When he stood on the low platform over the mosh pit, protected from grabbing

hands by a phalanx of security staff, yelling his defiance, the audience went wild.

So did Gina. Her eyes wide, her mouth slightly open, she would have dropped her

water bottle had Sonny not taken it from her.

She heard the band communicate mentally but it was no more than brief snatches of

Yours and Go, Corinne! She had no idea if Corinne and Aidan conversed at a deeper
level but their connection seemed almost symbiotic at times.

They had different styles—Aidan’s majestic riffs and solos contrasting with

Corinne’s more precise playing—but they complimented each other perfectly and Gina
understood why the band went stellar after she joined. Even if she and Aidan weren’t a
couple, Corinne would have fitted in perfectly.

They didn’t stop at the end of the first number. As Ryan strode back to the stage,

the duster coat swirling around his legs like some latter-day Wyatt Earp, after
decisively turning his back on the audience on his last line, they swung straight into the
next one. “Over the Edge” was a song extolling the highs drugs could bring, written,
Gina guessed, at the height of Ryan’s affair with Maria, when the members of Pure
Wildfire were all strung out.

That one ended with Ryan’s arms outstretched like a crucified Christ and then

blackout.

The lights flashed back on to reveal Ryan, divested of his coat, ready to croon a

pseudo love song about a gorgeous woman who turned out to be a prostitute. Gina had
always loved that song, it was the one she always had most difficulty switching off in
the days after Maria’s death. There was no reason for her to love it, she had no
sympathy with the characters or the sentiments but something about the melody drew
her.

She retrieved her water bottle and saw Sonny’s grin. He bent to yell at her, “I need

to go check on some stuff. Aidan will need a change of guitar soon. Don’t move, I’ll be
back in a little while. You’ll be fine here. Ask Bruce if you need anything.” He nodded
to the man busy tuning a bass guitar, headphones clamped around his ears.

Ryan didn’t need psi talents to win this audience. They loved him, loved the band

but Ryan was the catalyst, the front man, the demonstrator and ringleader. He snarled,
cursed, insulted, wooed, loved and laughed in turn and the audience followed. The
mosh pit became a mass of seething humanity, bodysurfers plunging heedlessly into
the throng, to be carried to the stage and hauled off by the endlessly patient security
staff.

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Ryan ignored the burgeoning mayhem and continued to whip up excitement and

tension until Gina could taste it. She’d stayed out of his mind as much as she could. He
had other things to think about.

His mobile voice crooned, whispered and entreated, only to burst into howls of

pain and cries of anger. The lyrics mesmerized her—she’d never listened to them so
closely before and when Ryan, sweat sticking his white shirt to his muscular body,
strode off stage to a scattershot of pounding rhythm, heralding Chris’ drum solo and a
brief rest for the others.

The first thing Ryan did was grab her bottle of water and upend it over his head.

Gina suppressed a groan when the water flattened the shirt fabric, making the silk
almost transparent. She could lick that off him with no trouble at all.

“Later,” he murmured, leaning close for an instant, and she realized he’d picked up

her thought. He snatched a kiss when he stripped his wet shirt off and grabbed a towel.
Behind him, Aidan was doing something similar but without the kiss. After a quick
rubdown, he reached out his hand and somebody shoved a fresh shirt into it. A red one
this time. Blood red. It should have clashed with his red hair but it didn’t. Someone had
a good eye for color.

He buttoned the shirt halfway, giving a good view of his chest. She still wanted to

lick it.

“I should bring you onstage and let you,” he murmured next to her lips before

snatching another kiss.

“You’re amazing,” she told him, knowing she sounded like a star-struck teenager.

She didn’t care. He was amazing.

“So are you.” He reached for her and she blushed, remembering suddenly just how

many people could see her. The roadies and some of the audience. But she went to him
anyway.

Until she heard a voice behind her. “They told me I’d find you here.”
Her eyes wide with shock, she spun around just as Ryan squeezed her shoulder

before he ran back onstage. “Dad!”

* * * * *

Her father spoke to her but the band had swung back into full volume, so he

couldn’t make himself heard. But he reached out and touched her hand before drawing
it back to fold his arms across his chest. One blink and he turned his eyes to the stage.
That look at her held hard, uncompromising resolve.

No matter. Nothing mattered except Ryan.
The realization hit her like a single chord from the most powerful guitar Aidan

owned. Or one of Ryan’s pure, high notes of anguish. When had she fallen for him so
hard, with such finality?

Knowing how uncontrolled her psi senses still were, she shoved the thought aside.

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She watched. It was time for Chris and Jake to take a rest. Ryan sat on a stool at the

front of the stage, bracketed by Aidan and Corinne on acoustic guitars. “Now a new
song.” Ryan spoke into his microphone as though he spoke to everyone in the audience
on a one-on-one basis. His skill in reducing this huge arena to the ambiance of a small
nightclub was nothing short of awesome. Especially since she knew he didn’t use any
psi senses.

“I wrote this a few days ago,” he went on. “Aidan and Corinne have worked on a

melody, so we’re trying it out. Brand new, just for you.” The audience applauded
enthusiastically.

Gina caught her breath.

I thought I knew what I wanted
Before you.
I found I knew nothing
Before you.

The bittersweet melody wound in and out of the words, decorating and enhancing

but not obscuring them. Gina’s eyes filled with moisture but her tears didn’t overflow.
She blinked them away. This was too precious, too perfect to mar.

She heard Sonny’s voice. It softly heated her ear. “That’s a number one if ever I

heard it.”

She didn’t care. But if they released the song, she’d have to hear it over and over

again on the radio. Every time she’d remember this time and this place. She’d
remember it until the day she died.

When Ryan finished the song, a short pause ensued before the audience broke into

applause, punctuated by the usual shrieks and stamps. They escalated when Aidan
began the familiar opening chords of “Tearing Me Apart” and Corinne slipped away to
collect her electric guitar.

The lights went back up as Ryan got to his feet and a roadie came to take away the

stools. “Tearing Me Apart” was a power ballad, starting slow, building up to a
crescendo of wailing, shrieking guitars and Ryan’s voice, soaring over everything,
crying out for what he’d lost.

Gina felt as weak as if she’d been striding over the stage, pleading, taunting and

inciting to riot but Ryan hadn’t entered her mind, except that she sensed his presence
near. She had the feeling she’d always sense that, whether he wanted her to or not.

After “Tearing Me Apart” the band stripped and performed the last three numbers

topless. Corinne’s lacy bra seemed to be glued to her body and the professional part of
Gina recognized the firm fit but seemingly gauzy nature of the garment that actually
showed less than the average bikini top but threatened to with every movement and

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violent twist of her body. Gina felt sure Corinne had tested her bra every which way
before wearing it onstage. Still, the effect was blindingly sexy.

Aidan thought so too. During “Lost in Space” he shed his Gibson and crossed the

stage to stand behind his wife, who pushed her bottom into her groin and let him take
control of the bridge of her guitar while she kept the strings and the foot control. She
couldn’t hear their telepathy but she knew, at the level they retained for their own use,
they were connecting. It was the only way they could do this effectively. When Aidan
lifted his free hand to cup her breast, the audience went wild, even though the gesture
was fleeting and he settled his hand just below her breast, to drag her against his body
before she turned her head for him to take her mouth in a passionate kiss.

Gina’s panties dampened and she’d bet most of the audience had a similar reaction.

This wasn’t just sex and desire, it was love.

With a smile and a last, tender kiss, Aidan released Corinne and went back to his

position. Beside Gina, her father let out a deep breath.

One more song and the band ran offstage. Ryan came straight to Gina and took her

hand before he nodded to her father. The roars made any conversation impossible.
Sweat ran down his face and his body and all she could think about was licking it off.
She must be depraved. That kind of thought never occurred to her before. Someone
handed him a bottle of water and this time he drank it straight down. He leaned closer
to her. “We’re doing two more tonight, then we’re off.” He drew away after a quick
nuzzle of her earlobe, leaving her wanting more. Her father’s presence didn’t seem to
faze him one bit.

Mike frowned down at her. “I want to talk to you. Now.” She couldn’t hear a thing

but since he faced her, she didn’t need to hear him. Now was probably best.

Sonny tapped her on the shoulder and gestured for her to come with him. He took

them to a rest room halfway down a small hallway but he didn’t leave them alone. Gina
was glad someone was on her side, because her father sure wasn’t.

The sound from the stage came through to them but muted. Conversation, albeit at

a higher volume than usual, was possible here.

Mike faced her, his craggy face a mask of disapproval. “I don’t like what I’m seeing,

Gina.”

“What are you seeing?”
“Another of my daughters being used by the same man.”
Ire rose in her and she didn’t try to hide it. “Used? Ryan didn’t use Maria and he

didn’t use me!”

“That’s not what I see.” Her father stared at her, his mouth compressed into a tight

line.

“What do you see, Dad?” She didn’t want to fight her father but if she had to, she

would. Whatever it brought her.

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“I see a woman completely besotted with a man. Someone who should know better.

Gina, an affair is one thing but not this! He’ll use you like he used—”

“Don’t!” Suddenly she was sick of the whole situation. “Don’t say her name, Dad,

just don’t! I’m not her and she wasn’t me. The fact that we’ve fallen in love with the
same man is a coincidence, nothing more! And Ryan wasn’t responsible for her death,
so don’t throw that in my face!”

Tears sprang to her eyes but she blinked them furiously away. Sonny, who’d

remained silent up to now, put a steadying hand on her shoulder. “We just want to help
you retain a good sense of proportion. Ryan is charismatic, babe. He’s a player and
when he sets his sights on you, he’s irresistible. The first time I saw him with you I
knew he’d have you.”

She turned on him, almost spitting with rage. “He helped me when you

disappeared that night outside The Phoenix—” She broke off, aware she might say too
much.

“I went because I knew he’d have you. I hoped he’d leave something for me. You

know I’ve always liked you, Gina, but my own stupidity lost me my chance. I hoped for
another.”

Blinking, she stared up at Sonny. He meant it. The usual good humor that marked

his features was gone, replaced by care and intensity. She wasn’t sure she liked it.

Her father’s dark tones came almost as a relief. “Gina’s my daughter. I brought her

up to be independent and bright and she’s never let me down. She’s no man’s leavings,
Sonny.”

“I know.” Sonny’s dark eyes held a wealth of sadness. “Gina, we just didn’t want to

see you hurt, baby. Ryan’s a user. Drugs, people, you name it. When he’s finished with
you, he’ll dump you without looking back. I just wanted to warn you. And maybe be
there for you when he’s done.”

She had to choose. Would she put all her faith in Ryan or in the people she’d known

for so long? Sonny had his wasted years, yes, but since his rehab he’d built a thriving
business, responsible for a team of top roadies, experts in their field, a far cry from the
slouching butt-cracked roadies of old. The people who worked for Sonny routinely
handled high-tech equipment worth thousands of dollars and knew how to wring every
last dollar’s worth out of it.

And her father, the man who’d built one of the best PR agencies in the country, the

first choice of many companies after his first few risky but spectacular successes. The
man who’d mourned with her when first her mother, then her stepmother, then her
stepsister had died. The one who always supported her, always encouraged her.

Against them stood Ryan Hawthorne. She couldn’t begin to describe him, because

she’d only just begun to understand him, his complexities, his needs, his bravery in
putting his emotions out there every night he performed. The man she’d fallen
hopelessly in love with.

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“Think, Gina.” The slightest quiver in her father’s voice told her how much he cared

about this. “Have your affair but come back to us with a whole heart. You’ve always
taken the safest option and all your life you’ve been right. Remember Jackie?”

Oh yes, she remembered Jackie. When Gina refused a proposal from Adrian, a

successful lawyer, he’d married her friend Jackie instead. Their business, she’d thought
and moved on without a qualm. But when Jackie turned up at Gina’s door, battered and
bruised, Gina realized what a narrow escape she’d had. “Dad, I’ve taken risks, you
know I have.”

“Not without calculating the odds first. That’s why you’re damned good at your

job. It’s why you’re such a great daughter.”

“Thanks, Dad.” But the thought of leaving this—leaving Ryan and going back to

her job—filled her with dread. When had that happened? She loved her job, loved the
life it gave her but now she’d throw it all away for another night, another week, with
Ryan Hawthorne.

That was when she began to worry.
“Gina, I know Ryan better than you do,” Sonny said. “Don’t give him your heart.”
Too late.
Without warning, someone wrenched the door open. All eyes turned to the

newcomer and Gina’s heart dropped to her stomach. Ryan, all sweaty, glorious rock
god, with a face like thunder. “I wondered where you were,” was all he said.

She hadn’t felt him in her mind, asking, something she’d become used to recently.

Blinking against the brighter light outside, she watched him warily. “I just came in here
for some privacy.”

“Yeah. It’s hard to find any. You could have used my dressing room.”
She hadn’t thought of that, perhaps because Sonny had taken charge and brought

them here. Neutral territory.

Stepping forward, she heard her father’s low grunt. “You put on a good show,

Hawthorne.” His attempt at conciliation. He wouldn’t want Ryan to cut her out of his
life. She didn’t want that either.

“Thanks.” His gaze flicked to Gina. “Coming?”
She didn’t like him talking to her like that and she put her chin up. He grinned,

breaking his look of displeasure. “Sorry. Voice a bit weary.”

Cursing her own lack of consideration, she moved forward and he reached for her

hand. “No, I’m sorry, I should have thought. You need a drink?”

“I need you more.”
Behind her, she could almost hear her father’s antagonism but he stayed completely

still and said nothing.

“See you later, Dad.”

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Ryan walked away, gripping her hand as though he intended to keep it there for

good. His warmth radiated through him, generated by excitement, exertion and need.

“Open your mind, Gina. You closed it to me.”
“Did I?” That would explain why she hadn’t heard his call.
He turned, bringing the security guard padding behind them to an abrupt halt.

“You didn’t?” His frown washed away, replaced by a soft smile, one she was beginning
to be familiar with. “Relax.” Heedless of the guard, he placed his fingertips on her
temples. “Let go.”

She did and felt him return. The tension in her mind dissolved, replaced by a soft,

invasive presence and then burning need. He wanted her with a rawness he wasn’t
afraid to show her. “Oh yeah,” he murmured softly and set off again, this time with one
arm around her shoulders.

Once in his dressing room, he nodded to the guard and then slammed the door,

shoving her up against it before ravaging her mouth with a deep kiss.

Gina responded, reaching for him, needing to feel him. Ryan paused to press the

catch down on the old-fashioned lock before tugging her across the room in the
direction of the small bathroom in the corner.

“I need you.”
“I need you too.” Gasping, she pulled at his clothes as he dragged hers off her. The

pearl necklace ended up on the heap with everything else, as if it was mere costume
jewelry. Had her father noticed? He’d never had an eye for fine jewelry, as her
stepmother’s jewelry box attested, packed with flashy, bling pieces she never wore and
a few fine pieces she’d chosen for herself. Pearls weren’t likely to catch Mike’s eye as
they had Ryan’s. Her father would choose diamonds.

Ryan leaned over and flicked on the shower but winced when he tested the

temperature. “It’s going to take that thing a while to work up to warm.” He dragged
her close and she felt the liberation of touching him, his body, hot and slick, pressed
close to hers. Backing her up against the flimsy door, he grabbed her thighs and lifted.
Gina had to clutch his neck to keep her balance. “Oh yeah, that’s it,” he muttered as she
slid her legs around his waist.

She could no more have resisted this than stopped breathing. When his long, hard

cock entered her, she gasped with the power of his entry. His mind, firmly seated in
hers, tested, questioning but she let him see the need he had engendered in her with his
raw, hot desire.

No foreplay, neither of them wanted it. He pushed right inside her and she felt him

swell and grow even more, so he pushed harder until he rested deep, deep in her body.
Their mutual groan vibrated through them and then he began to thrust. He worked her
as if this was their last time and her need increased until the burning pressure of him
eased it, driving her inexorably up toward climax.

All Gina could do was hold on, cling to him as he propped her against the door and

fucked her senseless. When she came with blinding intensity, she screamed.

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But Ryan hadn’t finished. She clung to him as he lifted her and stepped into the

shower.

Water, now blessedly warm, cascaded over them both. She pushed her hair out of

her eyes and unhooked her legs, gasping, feeling sharp points of water on her tongue.
Ryan’s mouth descended on hers and he pushed her against the tiled wall, cold on her
back. His thrusts resumed, the heat inside her building and responding to him.

He gave her his blind passion, the feeling when he’d come offstage to find her gone,

his panic when he couldn’t find her. She tried to apologize but he cut it off. You’re here

now, where I need you. That’s what matters.

Ryan!
He pushed deep into her until she wondered if they would ever separate and hoped

not. Only Ryan had ever satisfied her at this level. Only Ryan had ever reached this
level, deep primeval need she hadn’t been aware of before he made love to her.

Without warning, he leaned forward and took a nipple into his mouth, sucking

hard before biting down. The jolt went through her like electricity, catapulting her
straight up to another raging orgasm. This time he joined her, dragging his mouth away
before gripping her so tight she could hardly breathe. She felt him throb, deep, deep
inside and a groan emerged from his throat, low and heartfelt. To Gina, it sounded as
musical as anything she’d heard that night.

“Gina, I love you.”
For answer, she turned her head and kissed the side of his neck. He eased back and

helped her uncurl her legs from around his waist and drew them both under the
shower spray.

When she wobbled, he steadied her with his hands on her waist. “Are you okay?”
“I think so. Wow, Ryan, what brought that on?”
“You did.” When she laughed, he joined in, far more relaxed now. She felt it in the

way he held her, with none of the tension he’d shown before he took her. “Turn around
and I’ll wash your back.”

He used his hands, discarding washcloths. “I’m usually spiked after a concert,

especially the big ones. It takes me hours to come down. But you did it in—what, ten
minutes?”

“I thought you were pissed with me.”
“Not with you, love. I wanted you as soon as I came offstage and I got agitated

when I couldn’t find you. Then when I saw you, you looked scared and tense and I
wanted to hurt anyone who’d made you that way. When I saw you before, you were
enjoying yourself. That’s how I want you.”

She loved that he thought of her. “Dad’s worried about me, that’s all.”
“And Sonny?”
“He knew Maria and me when we were kids. We lived near each other.”

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His hands stilled for a moment. “I knew that. Sonny worked for us in England for a

while. Maria called him her best friend sometimes.”

“I wouldn’t call him that.”
He turned her, his touch steady but his eyes were grave. “What would you call

him?”

What harm would it do to tell him? “Sonny wants me. Before that night at The

Phoenix, I was planning to give it a try.” She swallowed and looked down but he lifted
her chin with a gentle finger. “He told me tonight he left to leave us alone. He knew you
wanted me and he thought I’d better get you out of my system.”

“And have you?” When she stayed silent, he continued, “If you have, tell me now.

If you don’t think this thing between us will last, tell me. I won’t be offended, I won’t
hurt you.”

She swallowed. “I had my doubts. Ryan, what was I supposed to think? You’ve had

women since Maria died but you’ve never kept one for long.”

“You’ve been watching me?”
“Not exactly. Fact is, I avoided you after Maria and it got to be a habit but this last

year or so you can’t avoid Pure Wildfire. I passed the billboard of Aidan and Corinne
every morning on my way to work and however fast I was with the TV remote, I still
picked up pictures of you and your latest girl on the entertainment news.”

He stroked her wet hair back, his eyes on her face. “And I never had one for long.

Sweetheart, I was avoiding commitment. But I couldn’t avoid you and when I realized I
was falling hard, it was too late.” He flashed a wry grin. “I’d fallen.” He cupped her
face in his hands. “Gina, you either believe me or you don’t. I’ve let you inside me,
where nobody else but Aidan has ever been. And some of the places you’ve seen, he
hasn’t. If you still don’t believe me or think we can make a go of this, then there’s
nothing else I can do. Nothing. But I won’t stalk you or get embarrassing about it and I
won’t pine. I promised myself I’d always look to the future, never the past and I mean
to stick to that.” He took a deep breath. “I can’t compete against your father and a guy
you’ve known all your life. That’s probably the way you should go if you have any
sense but I’m just praying you’ve lost your senses and you’ll take me. Gina, I love you.
I’m sure I do.”

He gazed at her. She felt his barriers come down. All of them, so he was completely

open and vulnerable to her.

It all came down to trust. Did she trust her senses, all of which were screaming at

her to take him? Or her common sense, which screamed the opposite? All she knew
about Ryan, all she’d read or seen said he was a rock god, a wild child, the embodiment
of the strutting, screaming, crooning man she’d seen tonight, the darling of thousands,
owned by none. He’d use her and dump her, so her father thought. Even Sonny, who
liked Ryan, admitted that.

“I love you, Ryan. I’m yours.”

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He choked, a sob deep in his throat before hauling her close and gripping her tight.

“Thank you.” When he loosed his hold, after a full minute, she drew back and looked
up into his face. Water cascaded over them both but she thought some of the moisture
was due to more than that. His eyes glistened brightly but he was smiling. He bent his
head and kissed her.

His kiss was as gentle as his lovemaking had been violent. “I mean it. I’m not going

to let you go now. Ever.”

With a sickening slam in her stomach, she came back down to earth. “We have

different lives. How will we manage?”

“I don’t want you to give anything up. You’d be unhappy if you just trailed around

after me, I know that. We can travel. We might have to spend more time apart than
Corinne and Aidan but we will be together.” He reached behind him and grabbed his
pants, delving inside the pocket before dropping them down on the wet floor. “Wear
this for me?”

He opened his hand and she caught her breath.
A ring. A large ruby, surrounded by twinkling diamonds. An engagement ring.

“Ryan?” Dragging her eyes away from the ring, she looked up into his face. The
certainty she saw there made all her good intentions melt.

“Marry me, Gina.”

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Chapter Fifteen

Tears filled her eyes and spilled over. “Ryan, I—I can’t.”
“Yes you can.”
“You don’t mean it.”
“Yes I do.” He kept still and steady, holding her firmly so she couldn’t pull away. “I

mean every word. I want you with me, I want to know you’re mine, even when we’re
apart.”

“But the media—the press—”
“Fuck them. Trust me, love, as I trust you.”
Put like that, she couldn’t think of any more arguments. Always her natural

instincts pushed her to pick holes, find the faults in any propositions but with her mind
seated firmly in his, she knew Ryan loved her, and she knew he was sure. And she saw
a firmness of purpose not apparent in the personality of the wild-living rock star. “Yes.
Yes, please, Ryan.”

He bent forward to capture her lips in a soul-deep kiss. At the same time, he felt for

her hand and slid the ring onto the third finger.

One part of her insisted, This is insane. It can’t work and another part, deeper, told

her the opposite. This is right. It feels right, we belong together.

The deeper, hidden romantic won. She would go with this momentous decision,

take what it offered her.

Eventually, their lips parted and they gazed at each other, their love new-minted,

commitment adding a new dimension to their loving. “You should ask for a prenup,”
she said with a smile.

He made a sound of derision. “What for? You can have it all, if it will make you

happy. Tell you what, we’ll have a prenup and I’ll sign everything I own over to you.”

“You’re insane.”
“Just in love.” He nuzzled her temple. “Very much in love.”
The next moment he leapt back with a startled, “Fuck!”
She shrieked with laughter, as much from released tension as from the water that

had suddenly turned cold but she reached for the faucet and turned it off.

Ryan was laughing now as he reached for the pile of bath towels and snagged a

couple. “What a romantic end to a proposal!”

When she reached for the towel he held out for her, the ring caught the light and

flashed. She paused and moved it to make the diamonds sparkle.

“You like it.”

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“I love it.” She smiled at him. “How did you know rubies are my favorite?”
“I didn’t. I just thought a ruby would suit you. And I was right.”
He drew her close for a gentle kiss. “Now I’m completely happy.”
“Yes, me too.” She still couldn’t quite believe what she’d done but inside, where her

heart beat strongly, she knew this was right.

Ryan had a couple of clean sets of clothes. His stage clothes were wringing wet. She

had no such luxury, though she made a mental note to make sure she had something in
future, if Ryan made a habit of tearing her clothes off and throwing them onto a wet
floor.

He paused in the act of pulling on a clean t-shirt. “Wait there. I bet Corinne has

something you can borrow.”

He left the room, returning in a few moments with a long, straight black skirt and a

purple t-shirt. “There.”

Corinne was a couple of inches taller than Gina and Gina was fuller in the chest but

t-shirts are forgiving garments and she managed. When she had to pull in her stomach
to fasten the skirt button at the top Ryan noticed her take a breath and damn him, he
laughed. When she hit out at him indignantly, he caught her arm and pulled her close.
“I love every beautiful, luscious inch of you. Don’t you ever dare diet, you hear me?”

“I’d be able to get into some of those lovely clothes we saw on Rodeo Drive if I

dieted.”

The look of alarm on her face made him release her quickly and she dashed into the

bathroom, returning with the pearl necklace and the silk top, wet but hopefully
salvageable. “How could I have forgotten that?” She turned so he could fasten the clasp
for her. “I’m sorry, Ryan, I should have remembered.”

He dropped a kiss on the back of her neck. “It’s yours, love. Do whatever you want

with it. Though I’m glad you wore it tonight.”

She didn’t turn around immediately. “Ryan, tonight—that song…”
His voice warmed. “It’s for you. I want to call it ‘Gina’.”
“Ryan, I don’t know.”
He turned her in his arms. “Gina, I’m ready to commit. But if you’re not, we don’t

have to. The last thing I want to do is to rush you and ruin what we have.”

She swallowed. “I’ve just never had a song written for me before.”
He chuckled. “Not even a bad one? I spent all my teenage years writing bad love

poetry.”

“Did you?” She wanted to ask when that was exactly but she didn’t dare. She

wasn’t sure she wanted to hear it out loud, not now. “Nobody did that for me.”

He kissed the tip of her nose. “Knowing you, you didn’t notice. Too busy studying

or something else, am I right?”

She had to admit he was.

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A loud bang on the door interrupted them. “Hey, guys, they’re getting restless out

here!”

She jumped in shock and Ryan laughed and gave her a hug before he released her.

“So do we make the announcement?”

“Now?”
He took her hand and rubbed the ruby. “If you don’t want to, we’d better take this

off and save it. Because even if we say nothing, they’ll spot it.”

She stared at him abstractedly, lost in thought. “We’d better do it. Dad won’t be

coming with us to the video shoot, so after tonight I won’t see him.”

“Won’t he see it as some kind of defiance?”
Laughing, she shook her head. “I think we’re beyond that, my dad and me. I’m not

exactly a child and you’re not exactly my first lover. I’ll call him later. Either he accepts
it or he doesn’t.”

“I don’t want to drive a wedge between you and your father.” His worried frown

made her want to smooth it away.

“He has to accept you in my life, Ryan.” She paused. “Ryan—can I tell him about—

about the firebird thing?”

“The firebird thing?” His frown deepened. “In time, yes. We have to get the

permission of a Guardian to do that but since Aidan happens to be one, we shouldn’t
have a problem. But it’s not something you want to rush.”

“You’re right.” It felt wrong, hiding anything from her father but she could tell him

one piece of news tonight.

“Ready?” After shoving her feet into her sandals, Gina nodded.
She took his hand and he led her outside.
In a larger room, refreshments and drinks were laid out on a long table, reminding

Gina of the time in New York, the first time she’d seen Ryan perform onstage. Then,
she’d been skeptical, antagonistic even. So much had happened since then it seemed
like years ago. Could it really have been such a short time? Could she fall in love and
commit in two weeks?

I have.
The calm statement did much to reassure her.
The room was thronged with people, staff and people with the coveted AAA,

Access All Areas, tags around their necks. She’d had one of those last time.

You really do access all areas now! That made her chuckle and she entered the room

laughing. Probably what he meant her to do.

The first person she saw was Aidan, standing by the table, sandwich in hand. His

eyes met those of his brother and after a couple of seconds, his face creased in a large
smile. Corinne squealed. Like Gina and Ryan, Aidan and Corinne must keep their
minds linked at all times.

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Nearly all times. I prefer to go to the bathroom by myself.
She laughed again. She couldn’t stop smiling. Chris clapped Ryan on the shoulder.

If he’d been as weak as he looked, he would have jerked forward. That he didn’t was a
testament to his inner strength, the strength that manifested itself when he picked Gina
up without pausing, or when he sang, danced and performed onstage for two hours
every night.

The stir attracted the seemingly ever-present press. Cameras flashed and Ryan

drew her close. Gina still hadn’t seen her father but she posed with Ryan, tucked under
his arm. She smiled and when he lifted her hand and deliberately kissed the ring they
went wild. “Do it again, Ryan!” “Gina, look at me!” “Over here!” “When are you
marrying? Where?”

Ryan held up his hand. “I’m thinking Las Vegas. Either that, or a great big blowout

in the best nightclub in New York or London. Guys, we haven’t really discussed it yet.
What do you think we should do?”

Now she saw her father. Face as black as thunder, standing behind the mob of

flashing cameras and yelling media, staring. Dark eyes narrowed with anger. At least he
hadn’t just left. She’d been afraid he’d do just that. Sonny stood next to him, his face a
mask of indifference, but Sonny must have seen similar scenes, if not with Pure
Wildfire, then with other bands. He was probably better at schooling his expression.

Ryan had seen him too. He leaned in, so it appeared he was nuzzling her neck and

murmured, “Do you want to see him in private for a while?”

“Yes.” Only when she’d said it did she realize he could have spoken mind-to-mind.

He really was nuzzling her ear.

“I don’t think I can keep my hands off you for long. If I’d known engagements were

this much of a turn-on, I’d have done it long ago.”

That was a typical Ryan remark, flippant but with a hidden meaning only meant for

her.

They let the press have their way for about ten minutes, then Ryan moved on,

working through the crowd until they reached the refreshment table. Gina worried that
he might pour her a cup of something and toast her but Ryan wasn’t that corny. He
found her a cold beer, cracked one for himself and guided her away from the mass, past
Aidan and Corinne who were laughing in unabashed enjoyment of the display.
“Careful, brother,” Ryan murmured. “With just a few words, I can turn them back on
you.”

“Do that, brother mine, and you’re dead meat.”
Randy shoved his way over to them. “Guys, I couldn’t be more pleased. Not only

with your news but the way you did it. Gina, I want to employ you.”

“Too late,” growled a well-known voice. The hairs stood up on the back of Gina’s

neck.

“Hi, Dad.”

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“Yeah.”
“Guys, give it ten minutes, yes? Let me get rid of the media. Don’t start a ruckus

now.”

Mike ignored Randy’s placatory tone, staring at Gina and Ryan. “I want to talk to

you. But not here, not now. I have to fly out in a few hours for an appointment in
Orlando but I’ll be back. You have one more date in this itinerary, is that right?” He
didn’t wait for confirmation. “I’ll be back. If you respect me at all, I want to see you here
in two days’ time. I’ll call you and tell you where I’m staying.”

All the while, he smiled, a rictus grin that didn’t reflect the fury and pain she felt

pouring from him in waves. The pain she felt herself. Mike had been there for her all
her life. She couldn’t think about losing him now. “Dad, wait.”

He paused, raising his eyebrow in a chilly expression. Hastily, she looked around.

“Sonny, will you give my father a copy of our route tomorrow?”

“Tonight, love,” Ryan corrected her. “We’re setting off as soon as we leave here.”
“Oh.” She hadn’t realized that. “Dad, if you can join us anywhere, you’re welcome.

Then perhaps you can see how hard the band actually works. I think you need to see
them and you haven’t done that yet.”

“You could be right.” He glanced at the piece of paper Sonny handed him and

shoved it in his jacket pocket. “I doubt I’ll be able to make it but I’ll try.” He turned a
fiery gaze on to his daughter. “But you’ll still have to go a long way to convince me this
is a good decision. This man caused the death of one of my daughters. Now the other
wants to throw herself away on him.” His face still bland, except for his furious eyes, he
turned away as the crowd shifted and brought the media pack back within earshot. For
their sakes, he leaned down and kissed Gina on both cheeks. “Take care, baby.” He
spoke the words so quietly, she thought at first he meant them as reconciliation, until
she turned her head and saw the microphone shoved in her face.

With an equally false smile, she promised him she would, then immediately turned

away, to Ryan, her heart breaking. She hated to fall out with her father, but he was so
set against Ryan he might never listen to her.

The rest of the time the media spent in the room tortured her. All she wanted to do

was go away and cry but she had to smile and hold on to Ryan and answer increasingly
stupid questions in the vaguest possible way. Her father had kept her public face intact
but inside, reduced her to the little girl eager to please her only parent. After her mother
died, her dad and she became increasingly close as the years went by. Before Ryan, he’d
been the only man who really mattered to her.

Every girl went through the “leaving the parents behind” stage but this was

different. Her father never stopped trying to find out the truth behind Maria’s death,
labeling Ryan as the villain of the piece. For years, they’d considered Ryan the cause of
Maria’s death, getting her hooked on the drugs that killed her and joining her in the
last, fateful evening. Now Gina knew better and she wanted to tell her father so. But not
here, not now.

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Even if Ryan hadn’t told her about Maria, she would have trusted him, still

convinced that last, fateful night was an accident. As for the strange drugs—dealers cut
drugs like heroin with other things all the time. Did it really matter what they’d cut it
with this time? And Maria introduced Ryan to hard drugs, not the other way about.
How had they missed that in their research?

Because someone had gone to great lengths to hide it. Even when Gina crossed the

Atlantic to visit Maria in London, she hadn’t discovered that and she’d taken the
opportunity to do some research.

She couldn’t think about it now but mentally she filed it away to think about

another time. If she could track who had misled them so much, she might be closer to
finding the person behind all this, the person who lured Maria away from her college,
who provided the drugs to Jesse, who sold them to the band. The person, or people,
responsible for her sister’s death.

Another time. So much had happened today, she had trouble assimilating it all.

Most of all Ryan asking her to marry him.

For telepaths, who could read a mind, who trusted each other enough to open their

minds completely, the decision seemed inevitable. For the outside world, it would seem
sudden, shockingly so but that fitted with Ryan’s persona as rock god. Now the media
would begin the countdown to the divorce.

One that would never come.
You got that right.
She was so used to having Ryan in her mind that his absence would come as a

shock to her. So she hadn’t noticed when her ruminations had moved to the forefront of
her mind, where he was all the time. Startled, she turned her head to find him standing
next to her, a plateful of food and a bottle of beer in his hands. “Eat, love. We’ll be
setting out soon.”

Grateful he didn’t add anything to her thoughts, apart from the emphatic denial

they would ever seek a divorce, she helped herself to a sandwich.

To her surprise, she found she was actually hungry, although Ryan out-ate her.

“I’m always hungry after a concert these days,” he explained between bites. “I used to
get high but now I need to feed the inner man.” The beer, it transpired, was merely to
wash down the sandwiches and salad he wolfed down like a starving man.

Glancing around, she saw Aidan, Corinne, Jake and Chris had full plates too. The

next big thing for post-addict bands? Idly she wondered if she could make anything of
this but she doubted it. Food wasn’t really very cool, or rocking, or any of the other
adjectives she wanted people to associate with the band. Especially the basic fodder the
band had ordered.

Chris managed to eat with two groupies crowding him. They were obviously more

interested in the tall, golden-haired drummer, his tight t-shirt revealing every ripple of
his washboard abs, than they were in the spread laid out for their delectation.

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Lynne Connolly

“I’ve read that band members are usually high for a while after a concert. After the

adrenaline I felt tonight, it doesn’t surprise me.”

“True. I won’t go to sleep for a few hours yet.”
Gina felt tired but she wouldn’t admit it. Not if Ryan wasn’t tired. “What happens

now?”

As though answering a cue, Randy appeared in the open doorway and nodded to

them.

Ryan put his plate down and grabbed her hand. “Now we leave. There’ll be fans

outside but we’re getting on the bus. I’ll have to sign a few autographs, stuff like that.”

“Will I be in the way?”
“Hell no. I have this absurd urge to show you off, now you’re mine.”
The thought warmed her, gave her a sense of belonging she’d felt in few other

places before.

* * * * *

“We’re shooting the single three times at this place,” Ryan explained to Gina as

they headed for the bus, finally clear of the screaming, yelling fans waiting outside the
arena. “We should arrive in time for the noon shoot, then we’re doing evening and
dawn. The camera crew will stay on to do a few extra shots but after this, we’re free.”
He squeezed her hand before releasing it so she could board the bus.

They were soon on their way, followed by the pickup truck containing some last-

minute items. Randy, who owned a pilot’s license, would fly his plane to meet them
later and the truck carrying the equipment needed to film the video had already left.
Sonny acted as relief driver on the bus. They would travel through the night and arrive
at the venue in time to catch the midday sun.

Although Gina had heard of tour buses, she hadn’t been inside one before. This

looked like an ordinary bus on the outside, except for the one-way windows, dark on
the outside, transparent inside.

She walked slowly down its length inside. Comfortable seats flanked a coffee table

in the center, with an area containing a microwave and a coffee machine at the end
nearest the door, with a fridge and other items. Nearer the driver’s area were several
curtained areas, the drapes drawn back to reveal beds. Amazing.

“They used this bus on one of the presidential tours,” she heard Randy say from

behind her. “That’s why it’s done out in Republican red.”

“I won’t hold it against the bus company,” Chris said and a ripple of laughter

followed.

The door to the bus closed with a heavy slam once everyone had found seats and

the bus set off. The driver’s area lay just past the sleeping area and was open, the door
fastened back against the wall. The drive was smooth and quiet.

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Aidan picked up a guitar and tuned it. Corinne busied herself tucking Sean into a

baby seat and fastening it with a seat belt. The baby was sound asleep.

“Where are the nannies?”
Corinne looked up at Gina with a smile. “They’ll meet us there. They went with

Randy. I want Sean to myself for a while. After this, we’ll let the nannies go and spend
some time as a family.”

Gina thought with a baby as good as Sean, she’d be tempted to do that too. “Are

you going away?”

She glanced at Aidan, who smiled at her in the intimate way he reserved just for his

wife. “Yes, we are.”

When she looked at Ryan she saw him smiling too but at Aidan. “What? What are

you planning, Ryan Hawthorne?”

Aidan let out a crow of laughter. “You’re beginning to know him, aren’t you, Gina?

He’s a devious sod, my brother.”

Instead of answering her, Ryan pulled her against him. Gina closed her eyes and let

the weariness take her. So much had happened recently, she feared everything was
catching up with her all at once. Attacks, conversion, an affair that turned long-term.
She needed a rest.

Sonny walked past. “Hey, Gina, sit with me awhile. Let Ryan and Aidan do their

thing.”

Ryan looked up, one brow lifted. “What are you doing here, Sonny?”
Sonny shrugged. “Your driver was taken ill, he’s throwing up his guts back at the

arena. Legally you need two people to drive this distance and I’m the only person
available with the right license. Otherwise you’d have to wait until they found another
qualified driver.”

Ryan shrugged, obviously not pleased to see Sonny aboard but there wasn’t much

he could do about it.

But Gina would like a word with Sonny. More than a word and this was probably

the right place. She wouldn’t kill him here, however much she was tempted to.

“Okay.” She followed Sonny to another seat, a little distant. After Ryan watched her

and she felt him gentle in her head, he looked away with a smile.

Her mental shields held her anger at bay. She must be getting better at this. “Sonny,

how could you?”

“How could I what?” They kept their voices down. The thin strains of a delicate

melody played on the acoustic guitar reached her.

“Side with my father. He’s always been protective, he needs reassuring, not

encouragement.”

“Gina, I don’t think you’re doing the right thing. That’s why.” The corners of

Sonny’s dark eyes creased with concern and his mouth was hard and straight. “You
know what Ryan’s like.”

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“Yes I do. Gentle and loving and fun.” She had no doubts. None at all.
“No, Gina. He has a wild streak. He’s not for you, believe me. I’ve known him for

years and I’ve seen him. He had Corinne’s sisters, you know. Both of them.”

Corinne’s sisters, Paige and Ashley Westfall, singers of popular classics, generally

adequate but their music had never rocked Gina’s boat. “I don’t know them, I only
know Corinne and she’s happy for me.”

“Just promise you won’t do anything too fast. Ryan’s not for you.”
“Why not?”
“He’s not like us, Gina.”
She caught her breath. Could he know what they were? Surely not, unless they’d

decided to tell him. “What are you talking about, Sonny?”

“He hurtles around the world, he never stays in one place for long, he’s restless.

And he doesn’t keep women for long either.” He glanced over to where Ryan and
Aidan were discussing something in low tones. Ryan dragged a sheet of paper over to
him and jotted something down with a pen he grabbed from the table. “I think he might
have dropped Maria. He wanted to see her straighten out but I don’t think he would
have kept her for long after that. I think, with you, he wanted to complete the set.” A
note of bitterness she’d never heard him use before entered his voice. “He takes them
and dumps them, walks away without looking back. Gina, I don’t want to see you hurt
like that. An affair is one thing but taking it seriously is another.”

“I can’t help it, Sonny. I love him.”
He swallowed. “Look, Gina, if you need anything, come to me. I’ll take care of

you.”

“Hey.”
She looked up to see Ryan standing over them. His face showed no strain and when

she opened her mind to him, she saw a faint question. “You’re really tired, aren’t you?
Don’t deny it, I can feel it.” She smiled up at him. “I need to let off some steam still but
not in my usual way.” The graphic image he put in her mind left her in no doubt of
what he wanted to do and who with. “I’ll stay up and do some writing with Aidan but
why don’t you get some sleep?”

“I’d like that.” She could sleep anywhere, through anything, right at this moment.
Ryan held out his hand, balancing easily on the balls of his feet against the gentle

sway of the vehicle. He pulled her up to him. “Come on.”

She heard Sonny growl as she slid out of the seat to join Ryan but she didn’t bother

looking back. She didn’t care what Sonny’s motives were, jealousy maybe, or perhaps
he really did worry about her, Sonny was wrong. Earlier that evening she’d committed
totally to Ryan. If she was wrong, then she’d cope with it but she had to go into this
wholeheartedly or not at all. For the first time in her life, she’d taken a leap into the
unknown and it felt good.

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They passed Chris, a girl on either side of him. Already Chris had lost his top and

from the look of girl licking his chest, he’d probably lose his pants soon. The other had
him lip-locked in a serious, tongue-exchanging kiss. Jake was nowhere to be seen but
one of the cubicle’s curtains were tightly shut, so she presumed he’d beaten her to it and
gone to sleep.

Ryan opened the curtains of a cubicle on the other side of the bus. “Get in and get

some sleep. I’ll join you in a little while.”

Gina stared doubtfully at the bed, so much smaller than the ones she’d shared with

Ryan recently, not much bigger than a single. “In there?”

He chuckled. “We’ll snuggle up tight.” He turned her face up and gave her a gentle,

loving kiss. “Unless you want me now but I’m still jumping.”

“I haven’t told you yet. You were fantastic tonight.”
His smile warmed her all the way through. “Thanks. They filmed that one to release

on DVD so I guess I pulled out the stops. But once I’m out there, I don’t think of much. I
just go with it.”

She reached up and kissed him again. “Good night, Ryan.”
“Good night, Gina. I love you.”
He pulled the curtains tight across the alcove when she crept in. She just had

enough energy left to strip off her skirt and t-shirt and still in her underwear, she crept
under the comforter and drifted off to sleep.

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Chapter Sixteen

When he woke up, daylight filtered through the curtains and Gina lay snuggled

tightly in Ryan’s arms. His hand cradled one of her breasts, his arm supported her head.
He’d found her in her underwear when he joined her and unable to resist, eased her bra
off before drawing her into his arms.

He felt her consciousness emerge as his did, sleepily blinking awake. He pressed a

kiss to the back of her neck, wriggling his arm. “Would you mind lifting up? I think my
arm has gone dead.”

Giggling, Gina lifted her head and the feeling rushed back. Tingles and aches swept

up his arm and he couldn’t suppress a slight whimper as he lifted it clear and rolled
onto his back. This didn’t leave much space for Gina, so she straightened her legs and
moved over to give him room, turning her head to watch him.

Against the dim light, his muscles flexed and stretched as he rubbed the feeling

back, watching her, meeting her eyes and knowing this was the face he wanted to see
first every day for the rest of her life. Her dark hair lay tousled across the single pillow
they shared and over her shoulders, so different from the tight, pulled-together
businesswoman he’d first met. He loved them both.

His arm restored, with a grunt, he turned onto his side to face her, curving his arm

around her again. His morning erection nudged her lower back. “Well, we can’t do that
anyway,” she whispered.

Unholy delight rose within him. “Is that a challenge?”
“No, no, it isn’t.” Her hasty denial made him smile. And in any case, he wanted her

too much to deny either of them.

“I think it is.” He lifted her hair to plant kisses at the nape of her neck, then the first

few nubs of her spine. She tasted of sleep and Gina, an indefinable taste he’d know
anywhere now. His hand curved around her breast again but this time he tweaked her
nipple, feeling the soft, silky flesh crinkle and harden against his fingers. Wonder and
delight filled him, in a rush of elation. Every time she responded he felt like that. In the
dim light, he saw her bite her lip. “Open to me, Gina.”

“Ryan, we can’t!”
“Everyone’s asleep, baby. Chris and his girls kept at it for hours and they’re well

asleep now. They must be piled up like puppies in that bunk, they’re sharing one.” She
twisted her head around to turn a look of total disbelief on to him and he chuckled.
“Don’t ask. Sean had a bad night and Aidan and Corinne are sleeping it off. Jake sleeps
like a dead man.”

“What about Sonny?”

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“What about him? He’ll be driving. The relief driver’s at the other end of the bus.

Hey, are you scared?”

“No. I don’t scare easy.” Her defiance delighted him. He couldn’t think of many

other people who could take what she had in stride and respond so vibrantly,
embracing what he gave her, accepting him for what he was. All of him.

He kissed her neck. “No, you don’t, do you? Let’s see if I can make you scream.”
He slid his hand down her body and hooked his fingers into the elastic of her

panties. “We need to get rid of these.” He lifted his leg over her and dragged her
remaining garment down, finishing the action with his toes. “Now just relax and let
Ryan do it all. Hmm?”

He pushed his hand between her legs at the front and slid his fingers into her cleft.

Warm, wet heat met him and this time he had to press his mouth against her neck to
suppress his moan. So welcoming, so perfect. “You feel so good, Gina, better than
anything else I can imagine. You want me, you know what a turn-on that is?”

She let her head fall back against his shoulder and if he lifted slightly, he could

reach her mouth

He kissed his way over to it, taking his time, savoring each contact with her sleep-

warmed, soft skin. He kept his first mouth-to-mouth kiss gentle but on the second, used
his tongue, licking her lips with its tip, inviting her wordlessly to open for him. When
she did, a sense of triumph swept through him.

“Angelina!” he whispered, letting his hot breath warm her as she warmed him,

inside and out.

He tilted his lower body back, letting his cock find its own way to her. It seemed to

have no problem in its blind probing and he caught his breath when the head slipped
inside her open, wet, welcoming body. He pulled his mouth away from hers, gasping
for air as he pushed slowly deeper.

Her responsive shudder rocked him to the core. “Ryan!” His name had never

sounded sweeter.

He pushed harder in response. “Brace your knees against the edge of the bunk,” he

murmured. He wanted to hear her and feel her. His mind rested in hers, her every
touch a balm, her waves of sensation part of his experience. When he pushed, the
resistance she gained against the wall helped him to go deep, until his balls grazed her
body, pressing in, sending waves of responsive sensation up his spine to blossom into
every part of him.

Even her efforts to keep quiet turned him on and the little wriggles that sent him

deeper drove him wild. He wanted to take control, roll her onto her stomach and just
push until she screamed but she wouldn’t like that, or at least she wouldn’t like it when
she came around afterward and realized she’d woken everyone up. Curling his hand
around her breast, Ryan enjoyed the full, heavy weight with the tightly furled nipple he
teased with one finger, repeatedly flicking across the super-sensitized tip. Her gasp told

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him she loved it, as much as the tingles, like electric shocks sparking through the deeper
thrills of her building orgasm.

Forced restraint added to his desperation, his need to love her and never stop. This

small, confined space added to their intimacy, their need to remain quiet a constant
tease for both of them.

He pushed, steady, rhythmic pulses, each thrust accumulating more sensation,

enhancing sensitivity until Ryan wasn’t sure he could bear it. Her excitement fuelled his
and then she did something that made him completely lose all control.

She reached her hand down between her legs and touched him, where they joined.
Ryan tried to hang on but his spike of ecstasy sent hers rocketing skyward and he

joined her, helpless to do anything but pull her body hard against his and press his
mouth to her shoulder to muffle his yell.

Endless moments later, he dared to lift his mouth away, to find a circular love-bite.

He hadn’t even known he was biting her. He kissed the reddened area where his teeth-
marks glowed vividly, absurdly proud of leaving his mark.

The tattoo on his outer thigh heated and throbbed and he felt hers, pressed against

his leg where he’d thrown it over her, burning in erotic heat.

Gina gasped, drawing breath in deep, and turned. Ryan felt a pang of

disappointment when his body left hers but it wouldn’t be for long if he could help it.
Tomorrow they’d return to civilization and he’d have her to himself. The tickets to their
hot, lazy holiday were safely stowed away in the Four Seasons safe, together with the
most valuable items of their luggage. Except for the ring she wore.

Possessive feelings had never been a great part of Ryan’s makeup but they were

now. Gina wore his ring. His. Soon, she’d wear another and so would he.

When she turned toward him, he drew her into his arms and took her in a long,

sweet kiss. Her fingers ran across his short-cropped hair, teasing the longer strands his
stylist deliberately left to stick to his cheeks and forehead when he was onstage.

He drew back and smiled at her, opening his mouth to say the words he’d never

tire of saying to her.

“Gina, I—”
Something struck the side of the bus, a dull thump, just above their heads. Ryan

looked up, reacting instinctively, rolling to put Gina under him.

Jake’s voice came sleepily from above them. “What the fuck was that?”
Lifting off Gina, Ryan grabbed his jeans from the bottom of the bunk and with a

murmured, “Stay there. It was probably a rock or something,” exited the cubicle.

Jake, leaping down from his sleeping place, nearly hit him but with the quick

reaction of the firebird, angled his body slightly away, landing next to him instead.
Dressed much as Ryan was, Jake zipped his fly and headed for the center of the bus,
where the big windows were.

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Aidan joined them. The tousled comforter over the flattened seating area pushed

back to reveal Corinne. The baby was tucked in his Moses basket next to the makeshift
bed. Corinne pulled a t-shirt on as she blinked the sleep away. “Probably some debris
from the road. What time is it?”

Jake glanced at his watch. “Eight. We’ll be at the venue in another three hours or

so.”

“I’ll start the coffee.”
Corinne headed for the coffee machine but she didn’t reach it before another bang,

louder and harder, hit the side of the bus, this time from the other side. Aidan pushed
past his wife, putting her firmly but gently aside, and opened the door leading to the
driver’s area. “What’s going on, Sonny?”

“I’m not sure.”
The road before them was straight and either side showed a few bushes. Not a

rocky area, nothing to fly from under the bus wheels and hit it.

“Stop then. Something might have come loose.”
“Okay.”
Sonny hit the hydraulic brakes and the resulting hiss resulted in Chris poking his

head out from where he slept. “What’s going on, man?”

“We don’t know yet.” Apprehension curled in Ryan’s gut. He didn’t like this. “Get

up, Chris, there might be trouble.”

“Shit.” Chris jumped down naked and looked around before snagging a pair of

sweats off a nearby seat. “Hungover but I’ll cope.”

“You’d better. You got those women up there?”
“Yeah. They had a bit more than me and I think they started partying a few hours

before I did. They’re dead to the world.”

“So is this joker.” Ryan poked the relief driver. “Hey, Dave, wake up!”
“No, leave him.” Sonny pulled on the handbrake and left the driver’s seat. “He

wasn’t well last night.”

Ryan bent over Dave. His heavy beard tended to cover the worst of Dave’s

depredations but the man would have stayed sober for the long drive. Sonny didn’t
stand for drugged-out or drunk roadies on duty these days.

“Hey guys, this man’s not breathing.”
“What?” Sonny put his hand on Dave’s shoulder and gave him a shake that made

Ryan wince. Dave’s only response was to slide to the floor. “Fuck. I’d kill him if
somebody else hadn’t gotten there first.”

Another thump, harder this time, on the door of the bus. When Chris turned, Ryan

called out sharply, “No!” Chris stood stock-still and they all waited. When Ryan put his
psi senses to work, he wasn’t alone. The others were with him, testing and feeling.

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Five people. No wait, more. At least nine. Chris sent his strong, deep vibrations

through them all. They don’t like us.

They know who we are. This tour bus wasn’t theirs and it hadn’t had Pure Wildfire’s

usual spray job. It probably said Vote Republican on the side, if it had anything at all.
Therefore, the people outside had to have known they would be here and someone
must have told them.

“My dad.” Gina pushed her way out of the cubicle, fully dressed in last night’s

purple t-shirt and black skirt. “I gave him a map.”

“It’s not just Mike who knew where we were going, sweetheart,” Ryan said. “It

could have been anyone. Don’t jump to conclusions.”

“It’s the PHR.” Tensely, Jake stood straight, his whole body vibrating with

awareness. Jake had always been the most sensitive, the one who could slice in and out
of people’s minds cleaner than anyone else. “They know who we are but I don’t know
who told them.”

“So what do we do? Call for help? Fly away?”
Aidan touched Corinne’s hand. “We can’t. We have Sean.”
Everyone groaned. The easiest way would have been to leave and call for help.

Sonny could have flown on someone’s back and they could sort out the telling later. In
this situation, he’d have to know but Sean was too young. Even if they could fit some
kind of harness, he’d be in danger. Slung under the great body of a firebird, he’d be a
sitting target. As firebirds, they were stronger, nearly invincible, but Sean wouldn’t be
able to shape-shift until he reached puberty. Aidan, as the phoenix, was completely
invincible, unless he chose to go into the fire.

Chris rolled up the blinds, careful not to make too much noise. “We have this. They

can’t see us, we can see them.”

Low-lying, scrubby bushes were all the cover they had. They could see a glimpse of

leg here, an arm there and a little way off, an SUV by the side of the road. Ryan took a
deep breath, thinking rapidly, then opened his mind. The others were there before him,
except for Gina and as he opened up, he felt her mind opening like the petals of a
flower tentatively searching for the sun.

A sound from outside, like a cough, then someone’s voice, eerily echoing, from a

megaphone, its electronic buzz adding to the otherworldliness.

“Come out! We’re all around, you can’t get away. Come out with your hands up

and you won’t get hurt!”

Then silence, before another speech. “We have all the weapons we need. We’ll give

you five minutes, then we’re coming in.”

“They know who we are and what we are,” Aidan said. None of the decadent rock

star remained in his stern demeanor. Except for his clothes and his long hair, he could
be a military man, from the alert tilt of his head to the rigidity of his posture. “Ten
people, one SUV. They’re all around us. Sonny, can we just drive on?”

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“Not far.” Sonny sounded annoyed. “We’re low on gas. We have another tank in

the trunk but we need to get outside the bus to reach it. I’d planned on stopping for a
break soon and filling up then.”

“Shit.”
Ryan reached out as far as he could. Telepathy was a short-distance power, unless it

was a virgin Sorcerer or someone like the man calling himself John Smith using it, but
he couldn’t sense anyone else for miles. “No one yet but they could easily be sending
for reinforcements.”

“No,” Chris said. “They chose their place carefully. They must think there are

enough of them to take us, or they have something in reserve.”

“Like a rocket launcher?” Jake said sarcastically.
Chris waved a hand. “I wouldn’t be surprised. Artillery at the least. We can’t go out

there without shape-shifting.”

Sonny blinked. “Shape-shifting?”
“Yeah.” Chris spared him a glance, his bright eyes assessing. “Sonny, we’re—” He

never finished his sentence, Aidan breaking in.

“Wait. If we can get Corinne and Sean out of here, we can easily take them,

whatever they’ve got. You know we can.”

The others nodded. Ryan added, “And Gina. She’s new. You can’t expect her to do

too much.”

“I’ll manage,” Gina said grimly. Ryan loved her for that. No wilting violet, she. Not

that he’d change his mind.

“If we can get them away, we can take them.”
Chris waved a hand toward the sleeping area. “The two girls up there are out cold.

You want us to carry them?”

“No.” Ryan spared a thought for them, sending a mental probe. “They won’t come

around for a while. If we lose, we all lose, because they’ll come after the women. It
won’t make any difference. But we have to try.”

“We do.” A grim-mouthed Aidan swept a sharp-eyed glance around the bus.

“Okay. Ryan, get on the cell phone and see if you can call for help. Chris, Jake, get ready
by the back doors. While Ryan’s making calls, one of you get in the driver’s seat and
back up to the SUV. Corinne, Gina, get ready to make a break for it when I say, okay?
Sonny, I want you to go with them. If anybody can get them out of here, you can. Head
for the nearest town and don’t stop for anything. Send help back here.” There was no
arguing with the authority in Aidan’s voice and he had the right. As well as his status
as the phoenix, Aidan had the most to lose, although Ryan was a close second.

Jake strode past them to the driver’s area and took his seat there, checking the

controls. Ryan pulled Gina up to the seat. “You’re not going to argue, are you?”

She opened her mouth, then closed it and shook her head. “Just take care, Ryan.”
“We will. We’ll be fine, Gina, I swear. But get Corinne and the baby clear. Please.”

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“I can’t help?”
“Gina, you’re new, you don’t know how to do some of the things we can do.”
“I’ll be a liability.”
He didn’t deny it, though it broke his heart to see her so helpless. He’d kill the men

who made her feel like that. In a few months, perhaps a year, she’d be in full control of
her powers but as yet she was untried, new. He couldn’t risk it. He couldn’t risk her.

“Okay, I’ll go. But don’t get hurt, Ryan. I’ll never speak to my father again. It must

have been him, who else knew?”

Ryan shook his head. “Randy knew. The film crew knew. It could be any of them,

Gina. We’ll get out of this and we’ll find out.”

She leaned forward and kissed him, swift and hard, and he closed his eyes just for a

second and let himself feel the moment. It might be their last.

Gina followed Ryan down to the exit door, on the opposite side to the driver’s seat,

at the back of the bus. Corinne already stood there, with Sean in a baby harness, slung
around her front. Her arms cradled him protectively. Gina exchanged one grim,
determined glance with her. Sonny eased past them both to stand in front of them. “I’ll
get that puppy started in a few seconds. If we’re lucky, they left the keys in the ignition.
If not, I’ll hot-wire it. I used to drive one of those, I know just how to get the bastard
going.”

“Thanks, Sonny. We owe you big time.”
“No you don’t.” Sonny sounded as determined as the rest of them.
“Ready?” Jake called.
“When you are!” Ryan called back.
Jake started the engine with his foot hard on the pedal. It jerked back but they’d

been expecting it, so they’d all braced themselves. He screeched back toward where the
SUV was parked by the side of the road and for a horrifying instant, Ryan thought he
wasn’t going to stop in time. But Jake liked big, fast cars and while this bus must handle
differently, he was easily up to it. He brought the bus to a halt but kept the engine
ticking over.

“Go!”
Sonny flung the door open and raced out, glancing once to make sure the women

followed. They did, Gina bringing up the rear.

They were in luck, or Sonny’s hot-wiring skills were phenomenal because no sooner

had they slammed the car doors behind them than the car set off in a plume of dust and
smoke, skidding slightly as Sonny moved into top gear.

A weight lifted from Ryan’s shoulders and he moved to drag the bus door closed.

“Jake, go!”

Jake set off in the opposite direction to the car. The bus screeched as he forced it up

to top speed but just as fast skidded to a sudden, juddering halt.

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“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know but it’s dead now. My guess is somebody cut something underneath.

I’m no mechanic, Ryan, I can just drive the thing.”

“Or you can’t.”
“I guess not.”
Jake swung out of the driver’s seat as something hard hit the screen, sending a

spiderweb of cracks across the glass but the safety glass held, for now. Hurriedly, Jake
came through to the main body of the bus, slamming the door behind him. “That’s not
one-way glass. They saw me.”

“So what?” Aidan stood at the far end of the bus, by the door. “Guys, we’re going

in. There are about ten of them. At my word, we go out in bird form. Shape-shift as
you’re going, don’t give them a chance with your human form.”

“Hello?” Ryan breathed a sigh of relief. “Well, your move did one thing, Jake. My

cell works now. It was dead before.”

“They probably planned that too, an ambush in a dead zone,” Chris said

laconically. “Don’t forget the girls, we can’t leave them to these bastards.”

“No, we can’t.” Aidan pulled back the curtains and glanced inside. “Completely

gone. Are we sure they aren’t PHR plants?”

“I am.” Chris grinned. “I read them deep last night.”
“Bet that’s not all you did deep,” Ryan said, grinning back, then his phone took all

his attention. “Hello? Smith?”

“Yes?” Ryan had never been happier to hear a voice at the other end of the phone

before. Smith’s cool, laconic tones were more welcome at this moment than ever before.

“Listen, man, we’re under attack. Ten of them.”
“PHR?”
“Yes. We can take them. There are four of us and ten of them. We’ve sent the

women and the baby off.”

Amusement colored Smith’s voice. “I didn’t know you were so chauvinistic.”
Ryan’s voice hardened. “Gina is new, Corinne went with Sean, the baby.” His Gina

could take care of herself. Normally. He’d make completely sure of it once they were
out of this mess. He didn’t allow himself to think of any alternatives, like one of them
not making it.

“Okay. Leave this line open, I’ll get a fix on you and send somebody out to help.

Keep them alive. I’ll speak to you when you’ve dealt with it.”

“Sure.” Ryan placed the phone on the table and brought the others up to speed.

“He wants them alive.”

“Shit,” Jake said as another missile hit the side of the bus. “So how do we handle

this?”

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Ryan exchanged a look with his brother. Aidan nodded. “We fly out, up and away.

Ryan sings. We’ll come back when he’s done.”

If they didn’t get away, they’d fall out of the sky, dead or unconscious. Ryan had no

idea why his singing didn’t cause him to lose consciousness but he assumed it was a bit
like trying to tickle yourself—impossible.

It sounded like a plan, though personally, he would have preferred to kick some

ass.

“We’d better go before they totally destroy this bus. As it is, I bet there’ll be some

serious body repair needed.” Ryan unzipped and stepped out of his jeans. The others
followed suit. Nudity meant little to shape-shifters. It was either that, or lose their
clothes every time they shape-shifted, like the Incredible Hulk, who must have kept the
shirt-makers of his time in business.

“I’ll count us down,” Aidan said. “Everybody except Ryan, go, as fast and as high

as you can. When we’re out of earshot, we’ll let you know, Ryan. You shape-shift and
when I tell you, sing.”

“Yeah.”
“On three.” They did everything on three, as a band. “One, two, three!”
The doors swung open, crashing against the side of the bus, and the four men

shape-shifted. Jake, Aidan and Chris soared out, small red-gold birds, shape-shifting to
their natural size when they cleared the doors. Ryan remained behind, keeping his size
that of a sparrow, waiting until they told him they were clear.

A beep and a tinny voice from his cell. “We have you. Help is on its way.”
He couldn’t reply, other than a chirp, and telepathy didn’t work over a cell. Nor did

it work over more than a few miles. At least, his didn’t.

Shots and yells from outside told him the distractions were working, until, with a

clatter of heavy boots, four men entered the bus. Four men Ryan didn’t know but they
reeked of fanaticism, if fanaticism could be said to have a smell.

“I counted four. That means there’s one left,” the first, a tall man with a shaggy

black haircut, said.

His companion, neat, dark hair, medium height, arms bulging with muscle under

his tight black t-shirt, looked around, then swung the impressive-looking rifle in his
hands over the kitchen area, sending mugs and plates crashing to the floor. Ryan stayed
completely still and reduced his size even further, keeping all the men where he could
see them. If they came toward him, he’d grow. Fast.

Helpless, he watched them destroy the bus, until one of them ripped the curtain

away and revealed the two women inside. Still asleep, one lying on her back, her mouth
open, the other cuddled on her side. Both naked. Ryan could see their heads but little
else. He knew Chris, so naked would be the only way they could be.

His heart sank. The others wouldn’t be far enough away yet for him to risk singing.
“Hey, I got treasure!” the big man yelled.

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“Tainted treasure,” his friend reminded him.
The other two looked up from their work and one grunted. “Maybe we can taint

them some more before we kill them.”

“Nobody’s going to kill anyone.” Ryan sat on the table, naked like, he imagined,

some kind of demented elf, one knee drawn up to his chest, the other leg dangling over
the edge. “Hi, guys. Looking for me?”

“Fucking hell!” They came for him, swinging their weapons, rifles and a mallet that

looked by far the most dangerous. Ryan pushed up to his feet, standing on the table,
and kicked out.

He caught the shaggy-haired one under his chin but his friend was made of tougher

material. Stuffed full of hormones and steroids, he was probably ratcheted up a few
extra notches from that alone.

He swept one arm across and Ryan jumped a second too late, losing his balance and

hearing a sickening crunch and a numb feeling, quickly followed by agonizing pain. Oh
fuck. The bastard had broken his leg. Ryan fought to remain conscious, to keep his
human form, essential if he was to use his voice. Just a little while longer, then he could
shape-shift and start to heal. But shit, it hurt.

Ryan, go!
Never had Aidan’s voice been so welcome. Forcing back the waves of nausea and

pain, Ryan opened his mouth.

And croaked. Nothing.
The muscular man was following up his first strike with another but this time Ryan

managed to dodge the blow that would have laid him out cold.

Fear added impetus to his voice and this time he managed it.
The first note was slightly flat but he modulated it and lifted it, adding volume

when he found the right tone.

The men fell back, clutching their ears. They’d better drop soon, or he’d have to

take a breath and start again.

One fell. Outside, yells and shrieks told him the sound reverberated outside. Doing

its work.

He took a deep breath and hit the note again, grabbing a fitment over his head to

keep his balance. Fuck, his leg hurt! He kept it up as long as he could, until stars
exploded in his head and spots appeared before his eyes. Finally, he stopped, hung on
to the strap above him and waited for his vision to clear.

A naked man stood in the doorway, his fingers stuffed in his ears and his jaw

working, presumably to alter the tones of what he was hearing. At any rate, he was
conscious. A very large, dark-haired, broad-chested man. He grinned at Ryan.

Ryan blinked.
The stranger was the first to break the silence. “Well, that’s something you don’t see

every day.” He had a lilting accent, Spanish or Italian, Ryan thought.

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“What’s that?” he croaked.
“A naked rock star standing on a table on one leg, singing a pure high C.”
“Actually, it varies a bit until I get the tone and pitch I need.”
The man looked at the bodies slumped on the floor. “Very effective. Does standing

on one leg help?”

“The other one’s broken. And if I don’t do something soon, I’m going to faint.”
The smile disappeared. “Read my mind, amico. I am like you.”
“I can’t. I’m holding on to consciousness just barely. I let go, I faint.” Ryan shut his

eyes.

“Shape-shift, my friend. I’m a dragon shape-shifter. Why do you think I am

naked?”

With relief, Ryan let go and shape-shifted, lifting his wings to take the weight off

his leg. Immediately he felt it begin to heal, the bones knitting together. This won’t take
long. I think it must have been a clean break.

I am glad to hear it.
Now he could think again, his sense of humor came bubbling back. Fly on the wall

time. One naked man watching another naked man standing on a table one-legged,
emitting a high note. But he couldn’t laugh in his bird form, which was a shame.

They’d won. Now all they had to do was wait for reinforcements—what was the

official term?—oh yes, to secure the area and they were home free.

Are there more on the way? he asked the dragon.
“Yes but I am a dragon, so I was faster. Although now I am here, I am to send

pictures back for the vampires. Have you a photo camera?” He spied the one next to
Ryan but Ryan stopped him.

Smith is on that line.
“Ah, good.” He picked up the cell. “It is Roderigo. Yes, I am here. The singer took

care of it and the attackers are all unconscious. He is hurt, so he has shape-shifted and
he will stay in his other form until he has healed. You do?” He glanced up at Ryan. “He
asks who was in the vehicle that drove the women away.”

Our roadie, Sonny Fratelli.
“You heard?” Dark eyes grave, Roderigo met Ryan’s gaze straight-on. A chill went

through him. The dragon’s elation of a moment before had entirely gone. “He says that
is bad. He has closed down the PHR cell in New York but most of the members had
already left. It is a large cell, dedicated to the destruction of Pure Wildfire. He needs us
to count the people here and take them in, so we can question them. One of the
members is a close associate of Sonny Fratelli.”

The realization hit Ryan like a bomb. Sonny told the cell where to find them. He’d

been driving when the ambush hit them, had probably killed the relief driver, still

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propped up in the small seat at the front of the bus. No, strike that. He must have killed
him, because nobody else did.

Now he had Corinne, Sean and Gina.
Oh God, Gina!

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Chapter Seventeen

“Are you girls okay in the back?”
“Fine.” Gina didn’t exactly feel like speaking much. Her thoughts were still with

Ryan, although she’d lost mental touch with him about an hour ago. She checked her
watch. One hour and nine minutes ago, to be exact.

She hadn’t realized how bereft she’d feel without him, the sorrow adding to her

frantic worry. She couldn’t tell how much of his reassurance was bravado and how
much real confidence. Four against ten wasn’t very good odds.

Sonny glanced out the window to the featureless landscape. This road seemed to go

on forever, past a few scrubby bushes and the occasional scrawny tree but nothing else.
“Girls, I’m tired. Do you mind if we stop for ten minutes so I can stretch my legs and
get a coffee?”

“Coffee?” Gina exchanged a questioning look with Corinne.
“You haven’t explored the compartments in this baby, have you? Coffee, water, this

thing is stocked up for camping.” Sonny did sound tired, his voice a little deader than
usual but with an undercurrent of something like excitement, something she couldn’t
quite touch.

Sonny slowed and stopped, pulling over to the side of the road, although there

wasn’t another vehicle in sight. He stretched and unclipped his seat belt.

A wave of heat hit them when he stepped outside. By mutual consent, Gina and

Corinne decided to stay where they were. Corinne had fed Sean on the road, so he now
slumbered peacefully in her arms. She laid him carefully on the seat by her side and
sighed.

“Do you think they’ll be all right?” Gina said, her thoughts constantly on that

battered tour bus and its occupants.

“I’m sure they will be,” Corinne said. “Anything else is unthinkable. I hate sneaking

away like this but Aidan needed Sean safe before he could think properly. It’s the only
reason I agreed to do this.”

“I could have taken Sean.”
“You couldn’t have fed him.” They shared an awkward laugh. It didn’t seem right

to laugh at this time, with their men in danger. “But you can take care of him now, if
you like. Just for a few minutes. There’s a tree out there with my name on it.”

“What?” It took Gina a moment to realize what Corinne meant. Sometimes the

English said stuff she just couldn’t follow. Presumably Ryan would help her with that.
Corinne wanted to pee. “Sure, go ahead. I might take a break after you.”

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Another gust of heat when Corinne opened the large door in the center of the SUV

and stepped out, closing it carefully behind her. Gina was glad Sonny had left the air
conditioning on.

Again, she tried to contact Ryan. She felt desperate, as though their separation

endangered her. That couldn’t be possible. She’d gotten used to him being there, within
touching distance. Although she didn’t want to distract him, she hoped to touch his
mind, just for reassurance.

They must have come too far. She couldn’t find him at all. When she opened her

mind, she sensed Corinne and nobody else. Not even Sonny. He must have a very
strong mental barrier. Some people did, Ryan had told her, keeping everything, their
thoughts and feelings, locked away. They did it instinctively, having developed the
barrier as babies and retreated behind it. People with psi Talents could break inside but
it would hurt them and they would definitely be aware of the intrusion.

No Ryan. All she could do was pray. They would be okay, they would. Corinne

was right, anything else was unthinkable.

Glancing out the window, she saw no sign of Corinne. The tree Sonny had parked

under was scrubby but it was the best shelter for a few miles either way. Sonny stood a
little way off, shading his eyes with one hand, looking around. He turned and came
back toward them. She should probably look for the coffee-making stuff, although she’d
prefer water right now.

Opening the compartment closest to her, Gina found a small refrigerated

compartment with bottles of water. Taking one out, she closed it and began to explore
another compartment while she unscrewed the water and took a deep drink.

The baby stirred but didn’t wake up.
Where was Corinne?
Just as she lifted her head to look, the door nearest her opened and Sonny stood

there, holding Corinne in his arms.

Alarm spiked Gina’s nerves. “What happened?”
“I think it’s too hot for her. Strap her in and come outside. I want to talk to you.”
Gina wasn’t sure she should leave Corinne alone. Since she was British, Corinne

probably wasn’t used to this kind of heat but surely she was stronger than that?
Especially considering Corinne was now a firebird, who in legend were born of fire and
controlled it.

But Sonny seemed agitated. Not surprising, considering how they’d left the others.
She stepped outside, wishing she’d thought to bring a hat with her. But most of her

luggage was back at the Four Seasons, waiting for their return.

Sonny closed the door behind them. “Gina, have you had a tattoo done recently?”
That question was so bizarre Gina gaped at him. “What are you talking about,

Sonny?”

“Just answer me. Did you have one done like Ryan’s to be like him?”

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The only marking Gina had was the bird that appeared when she and Ryan made

love, the marking on her leg. It did look like a tattoo, she supposed.

“I’ve seen it, Gina.”
“Seen what?”
“That stupid skirt.” Her skirt, slit up to the thigh. Damn. That must have given

Sonny a glimpse of the mark. She’d put it on just after she and Ryan had made love that
morning.

She moved the skirt aside. “Just some fun. It’s not there now. I washed it off.”
“No you didn’t. I know what that is. You’re his, aren’t you?”
She lifted her hand to push an errant strand of hair back and her ring flashed in the

sunlight. “Yes. I’m sorry, Sonny, we never expected it to happen so fast, either of us. But
it has happened.”

“Yeah.” Without warning, Sonny grabbed her hand as she lowered it, clamping his

hand around her wrist and from his pants pocket, produced a small syringe, plunging
the exposed needle into her arm.

“Jesus, Sonny! What the fuck are you doing?”
His dark eyes sorrowful, Sonny dropped the syringe to the ground. “I had to do

that, Gina.”

Terror clutched her but she shoved it aside. No time to be afraid. “What have you

done? Sonny, if you’ve killed us, you’re a dead man.”

“No, I’ve not killed you. How could you think I’d do such a thing?” He kept

holding her wrist, his fingers clamped hard around it. “It’s just a drug to stop you
shape-shifting.”

“Cephalox?” She remembered Ryan using that word. Then she could have bitten

her tongue out. How could she have admitted to knowing the name of a secretly
developed drug for a specific purpose?

“So you do know. It won’t hurt you, it’ll just stop you changing for a while. I can’t

let you do that.”

This man with the dark, sorrowful eyes and the tragic expression wasn’t the Sonny

she knew. This man had the edge of darkness about him. She blinked as he swam in
and out of focus. Sonny reached out and touched her arm. She didn’t feel a thing. Did
Cephalox do this?

“It’s working then.” Sonny grasped her arm and she tried to shake him off but to

her horror she discovered she couldn’t move. Then her knees gave way. What was this?

Sonny caught her and carried her to the SUV. Inside she screamed loud and long

but she couldn’t move. Trapped inside her body, all she could do was breathe. “I’ve
mixed another drug with the Cephalox,” he said, his calm tones belying the emotions
she saw in his eyes. “It will paralyze you for a while. Not for long and your internal
organs all work. You just can’t move. I want to talk to you, Gina, explain something and
I know you wouldn’t have stayed still long enough for me to tell you.”

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Sonny placed her in the passenger seat at the front and strapped her in. She sat like

a giant doll, unable to move or speak. Unable to use her telepathy, she found when she
tried to call for help.

He walked around the car and got in. “I’ll talk while I drive. When I get to the safe

house, we need to have our story straight. If the stuff hasn’t worn off by the time we get
there, I’ll wait for a while until it does. Because you have a decision to make, Gina.”

He pulled away from the curb, checking his wing mirrors although there wasn’t a

car in sight. Gina concentrated all her efforts into moving but all she could do was
breathe and count the beats of her heart. Would this drug eventually stop those too?

“Gina, we grew up together.” Oh great, a story to go with her panic. “We played in

the streets as kids, went to the same schools, until your dad’s business took off and you
moved. And I could still visit you. I grew to love you and when she arrived, I loved
Maria too. You went into business with your father, Maria went to England.”

Tell me something I don’t know, she thought.
He did. “I went across to see her. I’d already met some of the people who helped

me. I thought they were insane at first but they had access to all kinds of things.
Influence too. So I pretended to go along with them to get a step up in the world. You
know I always loved music but I never got the breaks.”

You weren’t good enough, Sonny. You never had the magic that Ryan and the rest of the

band have, that Tony Nightcross had, that other bands have. You played by rote. You would
have made a good session musician but you didn’t want that. When you turned to roadie, I
thought you’d found your niche. You do that well. But she couldn’t say any of that. Her
mouth refused to work.

“When I began to roadie, I met the bands, learned a lot. One day, I thought, they’d

ask me to play for them. They knew I could play guitar. Sometimes they’d let me jam
with them but never when they were working.” He paused. “Anyhow you were so
unhappy when Maria went to England, I knew she was making the wrong choice.
Women shouldn’t be too far from their men. Your father and I weren’t happy. So I went
after her. I found a job with Corinne’s dad, roadie for some of the bands he managed. I
needed the money. So I met Pure Wildfire.

“So did Maria. She came to London on her way back home after her first semester

and we met up. I could see she was lost, she needed to come home for good, so I talked
to my friends in the PHR. They gave me some ideas.” He looked away, checking the
road, although he didn’t need to. “You know, in the music business you can’t avoid
drugs. They’re everywhere and they’re free to the bands. At the time Pure Wildfire
didn’t take anything, they were heavy drinkers, so I sampled what the dealers brought.
And I got hooked. My friend in the PHR suggested I let Maria try something.”

Shock lanced through Gina. She felt the adrenaline rush when she tried to scream,

tried to lift her hand to hit him and couldn’t.

“She liked it. Like many new addicts, she thought she could handle it. Until she

found she couldn’t. By then, I’d screwed her a few times. She wasn’t you, Gina. When

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we got together, I knew it wasn’t Maria I wanted. I wanted you, I always have. But you
wouldn’t take me like I was, so I decided to try to get clean. For you, Gina. I did it for
you.”

His expression was so terrifyingly loving, Gina wanted to get away. As far and as

fast as possible. But she couldn’t move.

“My PHR friend took Maria and used her for a while. She was no good, Gina. You

don’t know how weak she was, how easy it was to get her to do things.”

Yes she did. Gina knew. Maria was gentle and kind, finding it hard to say no to

anyone. Gina’s heart ached for the clever but not worldly-wise sister she loved.

“He gave her to Pure Wildfire. He was coming to talk to me, tell me about the band.

Shape-shifters, he said they were. By then I knew all about them. Not good, Gina. You
shouldn’t have talked to them. They want to rule the world and we have to stop them.
But they aren’t fertile enough. They need human women to bear their children. Like
you, Gina. They put their mark on them. When I saw Ryan’s mark on you, I knew I had
to move fast. You can’t let them do this to you. I won’t let them.” He gave a short, hard
laugh. “You know what your father said when I told him? He said I was crazy. He said
he didn’t like you with Ryan but it was your choice. He came to L.A. To see you,
arranged a meeting as an excuse. He wouldn’t listen to me. But if I bring you back safe
and sound and you say your affair with Ryan Hawthorne is over, he’ll welcome you
back. He will, Gina.”

He reached out to put a hand over hers. She wanted to move away so badly but she

couldn’t move.

An idea came to her, fully formed. Sonny had given her some kind of sophisticated

paralyzing drug and then told her things that filled her with fury, sorrow and regret.
Emotions, strong emotions engendered adrenaline. Adrenaline burned off some drugs.
Could she keep herself in a state to burn up whatever the drug was faster than Sonny
expected?

It was her only hope.
“I can’t let Ryan kill you too. I knew the drugs would kill them sooner or later but

dear God, I never meant for Maria to die! I mixed Cephalox with their drugs. The PHR
told me it was addictive to shape-shifters and harmless to humans, no effect at all. That
last night, I saw the dealer mix the drugs. Heroin, Cephalox and something he said was
a digitalis type of drug. The same one I gave to you. I thought I’d kill Ryan and take
Maria away. They were going away you know. I couldn’t let them do that.”

Her adrenaline spiked. She actually felt it peaking inside her, tearing apart the thrall

she was in but not all at once. It felt like a tiny rip in a piece of silk, gradually giving
way under constant tension.

“They said they were going for the cure but I don’t think so. He was taking her

away. I’d never see her again. And while I was done with her, I knew you loved her. I
wanted to bring her home for you, Gina.”

The tear widened.

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“When she died, I mourned with you but I carried on working for the PHR. It

wasn’t their fault Maria took the drugs meant for Ryan. I made sure, that night, they got
them in two deals, an hour apart. I thought Ryan would take his first. Greedy, you see.”

So the drugs had contained poison. Sonny wanted Ryan dead.
“But the bastard gave his to Maria. I’d made sure they’d gone short for the days

before, so they’d be hungry for the stuff. He gave his to Maria then he took the next
deal, the one that was meant to make the user ill, not dead. I came home, I cleaned up.
For you, Gina. I got really good at my job. I worked hard, saved hard and when Pure
Wildfire came to the States, they contacted me, wanted me to work for them. I thought
maybe I’d get a second chance at Ryan Hawthorne.”

To kill him.
“I only took you to the club that night because I wanted you to meet him, embarrass

him. I didn’t want you working for them. Your dad said you needed to get past the
tragedy. Then you could move on and come to me. I knew Jesse would be there, I knew
the hit was planned but that was to take Jesse down, not you. To stop Ryan finding out
any more than he had to.”

Also to face her own fears. And maybe find something out about Maria. Her father

had the strange reports and the photographs of the band shape-shifting. Had Sonny
given them to him?

“But the worst happened. Those PHR bastards called me away and then attacked

you outside the club instead of Jesse. I didn’t know any of that until the day after. But
they didn’t hurt you much, did they? At least they remembered that. They kill anyone
who comes into contact with them, you know, but I told them I’d tell someone if they
tried that with you. It was hard, Gina. And Ryan took you completely. I know he’s
made you like him, sweetheart.”

Hearing that last word on his lips brought bile to her throat.
“But we can get past that. There must be a way to turn you back. So I thought when

we go back to them, I’d tell them you were my mole. You did it for me. We can stop
them finding out what you are and turn you back. I know Ryan has brainwashed you, I
know you’ll come to your senses. But we haven’t any time. You have to agree with me,
do what I say, or they’ll kill you.”

* * * * *

“Where is she? I can’t reach her.” Ryan paced the aisle of the ruined bus, his leg

finally healed. It wouldn’t be completely well for a day or two but it would do. He’d
tried, the others had tried but it was as if Gina and Corinne had dropped off the face of
the earth.

Ryan wasn’t the only frantic person in the bus. Aidan’s drawn, taut expression

showed him more than anything else how hard Aidan was trying to keep himself
together. Ryan kept his mind wide open, so when a number of people, presumably

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vampires, flashed into the area, he felt the extra psi at once. Three of them, the nearest
one a harsh-featured, dark-haired motherfucker in a leather coat with numerous
symbols drawn and painted on it. He pushed back his long hair and immediately took
stock of the area.

Ryan flung the door open and strode out into the stifling heat. “They’ve taken two

of our women.”

The vampire lifted his head and stared at Ryan. “I know. The dragon told me.

Smith is in New York, doing what he can from there. He has closed down the cell based
there but some got away. However he interrogated one he captured and got the list. I
am sorry we didn’t get it to you in time.”

“Have you any idea where Sonny will take them?”
The vampire shook his head. “I am sorry.” His accent, tinged with an accent

reminiscent of Eastern Europe, or perhaps Russia, would normally have intrigued
Ryan. Most vampires worked hard to take on the accent of the country they were living
in. It helped them blend in. But this one was distinctively different, as if he didn’t care.
“It is most likely they have hired a house somewhere as a temporary base. We need a
trace, anything. We have people working on the satellites, centering on the bus. We
have the time since they left and the average speed of the vehicle they took.” He put a
hand on Ryan’s arm but immediately removed it again. “We will find them.”

“I want them alive.”
“So does Smith. I don’t think Sonny wants them dead either.”
“If he kills my wife, he’s a dead man.” Aidan, standing in the doorway of the bus,

face grim.

No one said anything, which was telling in itself. Sonny might keep Gina alive but

he might trade Corinne and Sean for that privilege. They had to get them both back.
Ryan couldn’t keep Gina if Sonny killed Corinne, or he couldn’t stay with her in the
presence of his brother. That would be too cruel.

A flash, blinding in its intensity and speed, sliced into Ryan’s brain. Closing his

eyes, he concentrated, fixing the one cry of “Ryan!” in his mind, working with
everything he had to copy it exactly.

Aidan touched his shoulder and he felt his brother’s mind merge with his.

“Northwest,” Aidan said briefly.

“Then it cannot be farther than twenty miles, unless they had a plane waiting,” the

vampire said immediately.

“We go.”
But before they could move, Ryan stripped out of his jeans and leaped into the air,

shape-shifting as he did so. They would catch him up but he didn’t much care. He knew
the direction and he would find them, or die in the attempt.

Shape-shifting into his full size, Ryan surged ahead then pushed himself larger. The

larger he was, the faster he could go and he needed all the speed he could find. He

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knew from that one flash into Gina’s mind she was in trouble. Anger, determination,
underlaid with fear that he doubted anyone would spot but himself, all entered his
mind in one surge of energy.

Of Corinne, he found nothing, although he wasn’t as locked into her mind as he

was into Gina’s.

After an interminable half-hour he spotted a speck on the road below him. A dark

speck, moving faster than any natural creature could. Light glinted off something
bright, probably a windscreen or a wing mirror.

Ryan arrowed his body down toward it, shape-shifting to the size of a sparrow as

he got closer. He was going to scare the shit out of that bastard.

A gunmetal-gray-colored SUV. This was it, it had to be, there was nothing else in

sight. He flashed across the front of the car to get a view of the occupants and nearly
dropped out of the sky.

Gina, tussling with Sonny, fighting for her life. The car swerved, putting his heart

into his mouth, as it threatened to leave the road at high speed.

This time when he entered her mind, he found it open and receptive. He welcomed

her touch like a man dying of thirst, not aware until he linked with her again how much
her presence meant to him.

Get to the brakes, sweetheart. Slow that sucker down!
He couldn’t land on the car, couldn’t help them unless she did something to slow

them down.

With a heave, Sonny shoved Gina away from him, grabbing at the wheel, narrowly

avoiding driving the car into a deep rut caused by God knew what. He didn’t see Ryan,
though Ryan knew Gina was aware of his presence nearby. He felt her relief but she
didn’t turn to him for help. Instead, she dived down below his field of vision and he felt
her go for the brake to press it down over Sonny’s foot.

The car swerved again but this time a tree lay in their path. His heart in his mouth,

Ryan could only watch as it slowed down, swerved again and hit the tree.

* * * * *

Ryan closed his eyes and transmitted information to any Talent within distance,

together with a mental picture. He felt the presences arrive and opened his eyes again
to see the vampire standing where he’d pictured the field just in front of the car, which
lay on its side, wheels spinning helplessly in the still air.

Behind him, another vampire arrived, flashing in as only vampires could do and

then only when they had a picture of their destination clear in their minds. But he
didn’t stop to watch, he shape-shifted into human form and raced for the stricken
vehicle.

Dragging the door open, he found Gina, unconscious, slumped over a groaning

Sonny. The others could take care of him or kill him, he didn’t much care. But Gina was

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tangled up with Sonny’s legs, locked between them as Sonny must have tried to push
her away.

Behind them, in the main body of the car, a baby began to wail. Ryan had never

been more glad to hear a baby’s cry in his whole life before. Carefully, he disentangled
Gina and Sonny, pulling Gina clear of the vehicle and into his arms, where she
belonged.

Her head sported a huge gash that pumped blood, and bruises began to form. But

astonishingly, she was still conscious. Even more astonishingly, she smiled at Ryan and
snuggled closer into his arms.

His heart broke. If she died today, then so would he.
But she wouldn’t die. He wouldn’t allow it. He laid her gently on the ground so he

could examine her head wound. Gina watched him, her eyes half closed, that smile still
wreathing her lips. “Ryan, I love you. Don’t blame yourself for anything. I know you. If
you can, you will.”

“I should have spotted Sonny earlier.” He found the edges of the wound and pulled

them roughly together before pressing down as hard as he dared. He had to stop the
bleeding.

“Here.” Someone handed him a rough length of fabric. Grabbing it, he recognized a

black shirtsleeve but he didn’t take his attention away from Gina, wrapping the fabric
around her forehead before he pulled it tight. Blood seeped now rather than pumped.
She was going to be all right.

He sagged in relief, drawing her close. “Relax now, Gina. We’ll get you to a

hospital.”

“Don’t leave me, Ryan.”
“Never.”

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Chapter Eighteen

“You want to take me where?” After the past few days, Gina wasn’t sure of

anything anymore. She sat up in her bed, back at the Four Seasons.

“Well, I thought Barbados for a few days.” Ryan spoke as if it was perfectly normal.

Perhaps it was for him. “The guys will come there with us. Aidan and Corinne need a
break too. Jake and Chris will come for the wedding, then they’ll split.”

“Where are they going?” Then what he’d said finally hit her. “Wedding? What

wedding?”

“Our wedding, darling.” Ryan walked over to the bed carrying the glass of OJ she’d

asked for and handed it to her. He spoke so matter-of-factly she almost missed it. “I’m
not letting you go ever again. I already made the arrangements. All you have to do is
say yes.”

“Oh Ryan, are you sure?”
He sat on the edge of the bed and took her hand in his. “Perfectly. Completely.

Absolutely. I can’t go on without you. I don’t want to. I realized that when I dragged
you out of that car and didn’t know for a few seconds if you were alive or dead.”

She bit her lip. “Are you sure it’s not the heat of the moment?”
“Yes I’m sure. Drink your juice, sweetheart. I want you fit to travel in a couple of

days. I’ve hired a villa on one of the smaller islands. I want you to myself for a while.”

Obediently she lifted the glass to her lips. As she did so, a knock fell on the door of

the bedroom and opened, without the person waiting for an answer.

“Dad!” A surge of pleasure at seeing him after she’d come so close to never seeing

him again. He came straight over to the bed and, ignoring Ryan, took her into his arms
for a giant bear hug. She felt like a child again, getting a hug from her father before she
settled down for the night. When he drew back she saw the tears in his eyes.

“Dad, I’m okay.”
“No thanks to me.” Ryan quietly found him a chair and then walked around to the

other side of the bed, where he could sit on the bed and take her hand. Staking his
claim.

Gina kept her attention on her father. “Dad, it wasn’t your fault. I didn’t see how

evil Sonny was and I knew him as long as you did.”

“I can’t believe he did all those things. Why?”
They’d already discussed what was safe to tell Mike when they’d contacted him on

their return to L.A. “He was obsessed with me, somehow convinced himself I was
meant for him. And Maria too. He got her hooked on drugs, he introduced her to the

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band, got her with Ryan. Anything to get his own way.” Gina felt profoundly sorry for
Sonny but that didn’t mean she wanted anyone to be gentle on him. “He wanted me.
He was going to dump Corinne and Sean, leave them to die and take me away with
him. God knows what else he planned. I don’t think I want to know.”

Mike’s face contorted into a grimace of hate. “Where is he now? Anywhere I can kill

him?”

“No, Dad. He’s in custody. He won’t get away with this. As long as I never see him

again, I don’t care what happens to him.”

Mike reached out and gently took Gina’s free hand.
“Baby, are you all right?”
“Just a bit shaken.” At the sound of Ryan’s voice, Mike glanced in his direction, as if

he hadn’t seen him before. The two men exchanged a long, thoughtful look. “Mike, Mr.
Russo, I’m marrying Gina. In a few days’ time, on Barbados. You’re welcome to join us.
But it’s not negotiable. I love her too much to let her out of my sight for a while yet.”

Mike’s glare heated then subsided and he looked away. “You found her, didn’t

you?”

“I did. She fought him, Mike. She didn’t need me. He’d drugged Corinne and the

baby was strapped in the back of the car, so it was Gina and Sonny. He’s a big man but
she had him beat when I’d arrived.”

“I can’t say much, can I? I got it wrong. I heard about Gina. A man from the CIA

visited me and put me in possession of the facts. He showed me evidence that Sonny
was into the drug scene long before Maria or Pure Wildfire and it was his supplier who
fed you your drugs. That man you met in The Phoenix that night, that was him, wasn’t
it?”

“Yes,” Ryan admitted. “I finally tracked him down. I wanted to find out more about

Maria’s death. I watched her die and I knew that wasn’t normal, the way she went, not
even for an addict. But nobody believed me, just the ravings of a junkie, they said and
then I had to go in to rehab, so I lost touch. I picked up the threads and it took years but
I got there and found the man who sold us the poison. Then they killed him.”

“Sonny killed him.”
“Yeah.” Sonny would take the blame. As though his PHR colleagues had never

existed. Smith was taking care of that, although he still wasn’t sure they’d caught them
all. And even less sure that another cell didn’t know about Pure Wildfire.

“How could he have changed so much?”
Ryan shrugged. “Drugs. It changes some people, even after they come off them.”
Mike shook his head sadly. “I don’t know. It seems incredible. All this time, it was

Sonny. All this time.”

Gina yawned suddenly, surprising herself, and Ryan got to his feet and took the

empty glass from her, setting it on the nightstand. “I’m sorry, Mike, but Gina’s tired.
The doctor said she would be. The aftereffects of shock.”

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Mike got to his feet and leaned over, kissing his daughter gently on her forehead.

“I’m staying here. Just ask for room three-four-nine.”

“Thank you for understanding,” Ryan said to Mike. “I know you think it’s a bit

soon but it’s not. I love her and I mean to take care of her.”

“You better.”
Mike glanced at Gina. “Get some sleep. I’ll drop by later.”
With one last look at his daughter, he turned and left the room
Ryan dropped back on to the bed. “Wow, I’d better watch my step.”
Gina turned a laughing gaze onto him. “He’s as soft as butter under that hard

exterior.” She lifted a hand to cup his cheek. “A bit like you.”

“Sure we are.” Ryan turned his head to kiss her palm. “At least where you’re

concerned. Gina, I don’t want to let you out of my sight for a long time yet. After
Barbados, we’ll go to London.”

“London?”
“It’s where I live, sweetheart. But if you don’t like it, we’ll sort something out. I’m

due in to the studio when we get back from our vacation.”

Her eyelids drooped, seemingly of their own accord.
“Hey, you should sleep.”
“I feel a bit restless but I’m tired.”
He helped her to lie down, smoothing the old t-shirt she wore under her body,

taking away the extra pillows she’d lain against. “Let me help.”

Across the room, on a spare chair, lay a black case. A saxophone case. Ryan went

and picked it up, taking out the instrument and running his hand over the keys before
putting the mouthpiece to his lips and taking stock of it. “Very nice,” he said. “The
manager of The Phoenix sent it to me.” He made a run of notes, adding a trill at the end.
“You close your eyes, sweetheart, and I’ll play you a lullaby.”

She did as he told her and heard him play a few notes of “Stormy Weather”. But

instead of playing the tune, softly and steadily, as he had in the club, he ran a trill down
the scales and began to improvise on the tune. Slowly, she realized she’d heard that
variation before. On one of her treasured albums. Sleep left her and she sat bolt upright.

Ryan stopped playing and stared at her. “Oh yes, I forgot to tell you, didn’t I?”
“You’re Nighthawk?”
He bowed slightly. “I used to be.”
“God! I’ve slept with Tony Nightcross? Nighthawk himself?”
“Well, yes. Don’t let it bother you. You must have listened a lot to recognize that.

How did you know it wasn’t just the man Nighthawk had trained?”

“How do diamond experts know the real thing from the fake? I just know.

Something in the tones, in the notes.”

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He put the sax down and crossed the room back to her side. “Clever. But I didn’t

mean to wake you.”

Fully awake now, she slanted a seductive look at him. “Show me how Nighthawks

make love. Is it the same as firebirds?”

Needing no more encouragement, Ryan took hold of the hem of his t-shirt and

pulled it off over his head. “Exactly the same, darling. With passion and a lot of love.”

198

About the Author

Lynne Connolly has been published for five years and in that time has won two

Eppies and a number of other awards, Recommended Reads and other
acknowledgements for her paranormal romances and her historicals.

While these are very gratifying, that isn’t why she writes. She wants to bring the

stories in her head to life and share them with others, in the hope that then she might
get some peace.

Writing is what she was doing while she was working, bearing children and doing

the other boring things that constitute living. Her favorite writer’s motto is “I can use
that.” She lives in the UK with her husband, children and cats, and her doll houses.
Creating worlds, miniature or otherwise, seems to be Lynne’s specialty!

Lynne welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email

address on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.

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publisher Ellora’s Cave. Whether you prefer e-books or paperbacks, be sure to visit EC
on the web at www.ellorascave.com for an erotic reading experience that will leave you
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