“Trey, what the fuck is wrong with you?” Sed asked.
“I don’t know, Sed. Maybe I have brain damage or something.” He poked himself in the head much harder than necessary.
Sed winced. Where was Brian? Brian would know how to handle him.
Jessica came further into the room and perched on the edge of Trey’s bed. “What’s the matter, sweetie?” She traced his eyebrow with her thumb, leaning close so only inches separated their noses. Jade green eyes stared into emerald green. Had it been any other guy on the planet, Sed might have been jealous, but this was Trey. He had no interest in another guy’s woman. He could get what he wanted from an infinite variety of available ass.
“Don’t baby me,” Trey grumbled at Jessica.
“I’m not babying you. I’m concerned about you. You don’t really think you’re going to be stuck in the hospital forever, do you?”
He crossed his arms over his chest, bunching his hospital gown across his shoulders. “Maybe.”
“Youse wants me and Sed ta bust ya outta dis joint?”
Trey grinned, watching her from the corner of his eye. “Maybe.”
“Sed,” Jessica whispered.
“What?”
“Start tying bed sheets together.” She stood and crossed the room to press on the window with both hands. “I’ll work on getting this open.”
“We’re on the fifteenth floor,” he reminded her.
“So it will take a lot of sheets. Raid the supply closet.” She glanced at Trey. “You aren’t afraid of heights, are you?”
Trey grinned and shook his head at her.
“Good.” She looked down at the ground far below. “I’m not sure we can get enough sheets. That’s a loooooong way down. Maybe we should make a parachute instead. How do you feel about base jumping?”
“Uh, no.” Trey chuckled, his scowl completely gone. “I think I prefer being stuck in this hellhole over attempting your brilliant escape plans.”
“If you want to survive,” Sed murmured in all seriousness.
Trey and Jessica exchanged glances and burst out laughing.
“Oh jeez,” Trey said, wiping tears of mirth from the corners of both eyes. “He thought you were serious.”
Sed chewed his lip, feeling like an ass. He had been taking it all too seriously. No wonder Trey had been so uptight. “Nah, I was just playing along with her.”
“Suuuuure,” Trey said, laughing even harder.
Jessica’s eyes met Sed’s. She smiled and winked at him. And just like that all the tension left the room. This woman, his woman, was amazing.
Jessica seemed to enjoy caring for Trey. Fluffing his pillow. Adjusting his bed to a more reclined position. Rubbing his wrists, which he claimed were cramping up on him. Sed was convinced Trey was making stuff up just to get her attention. Sed considered making up a few aches of his own. She was practically ignoring him and he didn’t like it. At all.
A while later, Eric entered the room with a garbage bag. “It’s about time you woke up, lazy ass,” he said to Trey. “You think you’re on vacation or something?” He crossed the room in several long-legged strides and upended the sack over Trey’s lap, burying him in an avalanche of cherry suckers. “I hope they don’t keep you in here longer than a day. I can’t keep up with this addiction of yours.”
Dave, their soundboard operator, entered with a laptop and set it on Trey’s lap. “Dude, I’m tired of answering your fuckin’ fan mail. Do it yourself.”
“What?” Trey scrolled down a screen of messages, his fingers curled awkwardly over the touch pad.
“A thousand get-well-soon messages and counting,” Dave told him. “Your fans have always been loyal.”
“Not to mention crazy as hell,” Eric said. “There’s a whole crowd of them camped outside the hospital. Getting through security was insane.”
“Awesome. I could use a little fan lovin’ right now.”
“Oh, there’s plenty of love in there,” Dave said. “Trust me.”
“Any interesting pictures?”
“Slutty, you mean?” Eric said, fingering the cleft in the center of his chin.
Trey grinned his orneriest. “Obviously.”
Dave, the most normal-looking roadie on the planet, sat in the chair beside the bed. “I put those in your save folder.”
“I think I love you, Dave,” Trey said, poking keys with one finger.
“You ready to go eat?” Sed asked Jessica. “Eric and Dave will keep an eye on Trey. And you must be starving. I know I am.”
She nodded. He moved his arm to circle her shoulders and directed her toward the door. “See you later, Trey. We’ll stop by again this evening.”
“Later,” Trey said absently, pointing at something on the computer screen and laughing with Eric. “She’s right. That does make me feel better. But I don’t think that bikini is legal. Not even on a nude beach.”
“Dude, dude, email her back. Wait. Let me get a picture of your head staples.” Eric snapped a picture of the side of Trey’s head with his camera phone. “Fuckin’ brutal. You are gonna get so much sympathy pussy.”
Sed grinned. Yeah, Eric’s antics and some fan lovin’ were exactly what Trey needed. Sed was glad he’d called him.
“So, where would you like to eat?” Sed asked Jessica as they walked toward the elevator at the end of the hall.
She shrugged and snuggled closer to his side. Her hand slid discretely over his crotch on its journey to clutch the waistband of his pants. “Someplace dark. With a booth.”
Hell, yeah. He was all about dark booths.
Chapter 17
Jessica dunked a jumbo shrimp in cocktail sauce and then lifted it to Sed’s open mouth. He bit into it and she dropped the tail on a small plate.
“How’s that?” she murmured.
He chewed and swallowed before he said, “Spicy. What is that? Horseradish?”
She kissed him, touching her tongue to his. She drew away and stared into his sky blue eyes. “I think you’re right. Horseradish.”
They were way underdressed for this restaurant at the Venetian hotel, but the hostess had recognized Sed and, at his request, seated them in a semi-circular booth in the far corner. As it was mid-afternoon, the place was mostly deserted and the olive-green leather backs of the booths were high to offer plenty of privacy. Both facts would serve Jessica’s purposes perfectly. She hoped to take Sed’s mind off things for a while.
Jessica slid her left hand beneath the white table cloth and then the cloth napkin on Sed’s lap. He stiffened when her fingers brushed against his crotch. His cock stirred beneath her fingertips.
“Jess…”
She reached for another shrimp, bit off the tip and offered the second half to him. He separated the succulent meat from the inedible tail with his teeth. Her hand slid over the smooth leather covering his thigh.
He squirmed. “Do you want to go back to the room?”
She unbuttoned his pants and slowly released his zipper. “Not at all. Do you?”
She carefully tugged his cock from his open fly, making sure to keep the large cloth napkin in place.
Sed sucked a breath between his teeth. “Kinda,” he said, two octaves higher than his usual baritone pitch.
She rubbed her thumb over the head of his cock, loving how the shaft responded by twitching and thickening in her hand.
“You sure? We can have a little fun right here.”
“It drives me crazy when you’re naughty,” he growled in her ear.
Jessica was all about driving him crazy.
Their waitress appeared, smiling brightly. “How’s the shrimp?”
Sed jumped as if she’d shot him. “Good. Really good. Excellent. Yeah, excellent. I like it. It’s delicious.”