She paused, one hand on the tent flap. The honky-tonk orgy crack had been a joke but if even half the NoMan fans who’d headed back here had been as turned on by the music as she’d been—as she still was—well, orgy might not be too strong a word for it. Not something she wanted to walk in on, mostly because the way she was feeling she wasn’t entirely certain she could walk out again.
Still, the band wasn’t signed and if she didn’t want Michael Richter to grab them first…
And grabbing them sounded like a damned good idea.
Telling herself to focus, she slipped in under the tent flap…
…where things were almost anti-climactically low key.
Like the redhead and her boyfriend, the fans present seemed almost postcoital. They milled about in the front half of the tent looking dazed and a little like they were starting to come down off a very pleasant high. Eyes were half closed, smiles contented as hands lazily stroked bare arms, and cupped the backs of necks, and ran up under the edges of shirts and down under the edges of jeans but no one seemed to be taking things farther than they might late at a party with close friends.
At least not in the front of the tent. In the back, behind the sound board and a card table holding a box of NoMan CDs, a scrawled sign indicating they cost ten dollars, and an open cashbox, the drummer had his hand shoved in through the front of the bass player’s open jeans and was slowly jacking him off. Without breaking his rhythm, he took a swallow from the bottle of beer in his other hand; leaned forward and pressed his lips to the other man’s mouth. Ali watched mesmerized as a line of liquid escaped the kiss running along the bass player’s jaw and down his throat. She wanted to move forward and catch it on her tongue, capturing the taste of the beer and sweat, licking her way back up past his tats until…
The edge of the sound board caught her in the thigh and the pain brought her back to herself. As she gasped, the guitarist, sprawled in an Adirondack chair, flashed her a satiated smile and waved a sloppy salute with his nearly empty bottle.
The Noman brothers were nowhere around. Nor was Tom Hartmore. If they were together…
Pleasantly startled by the images that evoked, she hastily dropped a ten in the cash box, shoved a CD in her purse, and slipped back through the crowd to the exit, ignoring the moments of warmth as bodies brushed against hers. Definitely past time to leave.
Once outside, she took a deep breath. The smell of grease and cotton candy wafting over from the midway combined with the odors of large farm animals and diesel fumes cleared her head and she felt like she was thinking clearly for the first time since Travis Noman had set bow to strings. Thinking back, the concert seemed wrapped in sensation, her memory of everything but the way it made her feel already fading.
It wasn’t the strangest concert experience she’d ever had, but considering it had happened in a sunny field in the middle of the afternoon, it was in the top ten.
It shouldn’t have been so hard to find the car. After all, it was parked in a field—a big, flat field full of lines of cars parked nose to nose that all seemed to look alike. After wandering around for nearly fifteen minutes, Ali spotted what she thought was the rusty pickup Glen had parked beside and headed toward it, skirting rear bumpers.
She spotted the cowboy hats first.
Realized who wore them as she moved closer, finding a path between two ancient Buicks.
Realized they weren’t alone when she’d gotten too close to turn back.
Didn’t actually think of turning back.
Brandon and Travis Noman leaned back against the hood of the pickup, side by side, shoulders touching. Kneeling at their feet in the strip of grass between the truck’s bumper and the bumper of the car parked facing it were the pair of blondes from the front row. Although the car blocked all but the top of their heads, it was obvious what they were doing and from all the giggling, they certainly seemed to be having a good time doing it. Travis was still wearing his sunglasses and his head was back, exposing the long lean line of his throat. Brandon’s head was tipped forward and Ali knew he was watching.
She shouldn’t be watching.
She couldn’t stop watching.
It wasn’t like she could actually see anything…
Travis moaned—the sound broken, on the edge of shattering and his fingers, long and tanned, threaded through golden hair as his hips came up off the truck.
No, not a moan. Or not only a moan. Brandon was humming one of the songs from the show while Travis added a weirdly erotic bass line under it.
The girls’ heads moved to the beat.
Hardly aware she was doing it, Ali slid her hand down into her jeans, past the edge of her underwear. Still aroused from the concert, she fell easily into the rhythm of Brandon’s song, fingertips moving in unison with the quartet filling her vision. And then she had to bite her lip to keep from laughing because quartet made her think of chamber music and they weren’t in a chamber, they were in a field and anyone could walk by just like she had and God, the memory of the music left her feeling stoned.
And close.
Really, really close.
Both men were breathing hard, the rhythm of the song beginning to stutter. The girls sped up and Ali sped up with them, linking her finish to theirs. Tension was building, low and sweet…
When it happened, it happened like flood waters finally breaching a levee. Brandon. Travis. Then both girls. A heartbeat behind them, Ali trembled on the brink until Brandon looked up—his pupils dilated, his irises reduced to a pale, narrow ring of blue—and the open, fucked-out expression on his face pushed her over the edge.
Riding the wave, Ali sagged against sun-warmed metal and concentrated on keeping her knees from buckling. The world went white around the edges and she closed her eyes, just for a moment. Just long enough to draw in a long, steadying breath. She opened them again as she eased her hand from her jeans and she may have made a noise because Travis raised his head and smiled at her over the honey-blond curls of the girl in his arms. Something in that smile said he—they—knew she’d been there all along. Still smiling, he slid his sunglasses forward…
A flash of gold.
And she was standing alone, facing the rusty pickup parked next to Glen’s car. Power chords blared from the midway’s speakers, nearly drowning out the screams of children riding the ancient Octopus and Scrambler. The world no longer wore the sheen given it by NoMan’s music—the sky was more gray than blue and the grass underfoot dry and yellow. If not for the evidence of her own body, she’d have thought she’d imagined the whole thing.
Glen was right. If Bedford Entertainment could sign these guys, they were saved.
The CD wasn’t bad but it was strangely flat.
“Not evoking much of a reaction,” she murmured as they sped back to the city.
Glen laughed. “After that performance, I’d be amazed if you had a reaction left in you.”
He had a point. And he hadn’t seen the encore performance out in the parking lot.
NoMan had a barebones website that held a picture of the band, a headshot of the brothers—Travis had his sunglasses on—a song list, and an order form for the CD plus a link to their mailing list. There was no concert schedule and the mailing list was the only way to contact them. Ali added the email address for Bedford Entertainment, including in the body of the message their business number, the URL for the website, their MySpace address, and an assurance that Bedford Entertainment was definitely interested in representing them. Professional bases covered, she paused a moment, remembering, then typed We nearly met in the parking lot.
“They’re twins.”
She hit send before looking up to find Glen raising a brow in her direction. “What?”
“You’re flushed.”
“It’s warm in here.” It wasn’t. “Who are twins?” Like she didn’t know. Like she’d been thinking about anyone else for the last twenty-four hours.