Mikey hammered out the last few chords of the song as she pounded her fists into the stage, thrashing her hair around. She was grinning like a madwoman when she stood and made her way to the drum riser to grab the bottle of water she’d dumped there, the thunder of applause vibrating through the soles of her stilettos.
“You are on fire tonight, babe,” Kane, the drummer, said as she dropped her head back and sucked down water.
“I feel good,” she said. “What’s next?”
“‘Make It Hurt,’” Kane said, checking the play list taped to the floor beside his kit.
Zoe lifted the hair off the back of her neck.
“Okay, let’s go.”
She strode to the front of the stage to grab the mike. Faces screamed up at her out of the audience. She loved these gigs. Becoming Vixen for the night was about the most fun she could have without being naked or partaking of prohibited substances. The opening riff of “Make It Hurt” roared out of the speakers. She planted her feet wide and pushed her hips forward as she ground out the lyrics. She stared out into the darkness of the club. All she could see was a sea of black, but occasionally individual faces were picked out by the roaming spot. Dancing women dressed like herself, in as little as possible. Built men shaking their fists in the air. Bright-pink hair, neon blue.
Her stomach flipped when the spotlight roamed across the bar and she caught a flash of a tall man standing there, arms crossed over his chest, his gaze drilling into her. Just a flash, but her body told her who it was.
Liam, here.
Watching her.
Her first reaction was anger that he’d invaded yet more of her territory. Then she remembered the way he’d eyed her this morning, as though he couldn’t quite believe his eyes, and her sense of humor came to the rescue. If he hadn’t approved of the tattoo parlor and her tight jeans, she could only imagine what he was thinking right now.
The thought was so delicious she had trouble not laughing into the mike.
Knowing he was watching added new spice to every move she made, every word she sang. When she slid a hand from breast to breast and arched her back, she made sure he got an uninterrupted full-frontal view. When she offered her backside to the audience and slowly swiveled her hips, she imagined him watching, grinding his teeth over how wrong it all was.
She felt high, all powerful, dizzy with the danger of it. She could feel him brooding out in the audience, could sense his heavy disapproval beating at her from across the room. And she didn’t care. She so didn’t care.
By the time she belted out the last song, she was buzzing with adrenaline. She took her bow with the rest of the band, but her eyes sought Liam in the darkness. She could just make out his silhouette and she threw him a cocky, knowing smile before turning on her heel and striding offstage, working her hips and ass for all they were worth.
Take that, asshole.
“Man, what a gig! Best night in ages!” Derek, Sugar Cane’s bass player, said as they made their way down the stairs to the change rooms.
“Zoe, baby, you rocked hard tonight,” her lead guitarist, Mikey, said. “I thought we were gonna have to beat the audience off with a stick.”
“You guys were great,” Zoe told them. “I had a good time.”
Kane grabbed a six-pack of beer from the fridge in the band room and offered them around. Zoe shook her head, reaching instead for the bottle of bourbon she’d opened before the show.
“We heard anything more about those gigs up in Sydney?” she asked as she took a pull straight from the bottle.
“Nah. I’ll get onto the promoter tomorrow, chase him down. You know what those guys are like,” Derek said.
The guys collapsed onto the saggy, stained couch in the corner. Zoe propped her butt on a table and lifted her hair off the back of her neck.
“Man, I am steaming,” she said. She could feel sweat rolling down between her breasts.
“You said it, baby.” Mikey’s gaze was fixed on her legs.
No prizes for guessing what he wanted. But Zoe wasn’t in the mood for Mikey tonight. He got way too possessive after sex and it messed with the band dynamic too much. She wasn’t any man’s property.
“I’m going to go clean up,” she said.
She hooked the neck of the bourbon bottle between two fingers and made her way down the cinder-block corridor to the pokey change room. Inside, her work clothes were draped over the back of a chair, and her makeup kit was folded open on the counter in front of the mirror. She took another pull from the bottle and eyed herself in the mirror. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth as she again imagined Liam Masters’s reaction to Vixen’s performance.
Hilarious. Way, way too funny.
Then she heard the scuff of footsteps and turned her head to see him filling the doorway—tall and dark and intense.
Her smile widened into a grin and she raised the bourbon bottle in salute to him.
“How’d you like the show?” She held up a finger before he had a chance to speak. “No, no, let me guess. You thought it was all wrong.”
He didn’t say a word, just walked into the room and pushed the door shut behind him.
Suddenly the small space seemed even smaller. Zoe took another mouthful of bourbon.
“We need to talk,” Liam said.
“Do we?”
“I want to help you out. If you need money, a fresh start. Whatever. I’ll get you whatever you need,” he said.
She slowly put down the bottle. He was offering her charity. Like she was some down-and-out junkie or streetwalker.
“Gee, thanks, Lord Liam. How good of you to come down amongst the peasants and offer your bounty. I feel so privileged, I hardly know what to say.”
His gaze swept her from head to toe.
“Do your parents know you do this kind of thing? Your brother?”
She was a little sick of the judgment in his tone.
“This kind of thing? What exactly are you referring to, Liam? My singing? My career?”
“I’m talking about putting yourself on display for anyone to look at,” he said. “Letting every man and his dog stare at you and imagine what it would be like to screw you stupid.”
She shrugged, knowing somehow that it was the one reaction that would really piss him off.
“Men can look and imagine all they want. I’m the one who decides when and what they can touch.”
She raised her chin, daring him to say more. The silence stretched between them for what felt like a long time.
“What happened to you, Zoe?” he finally asked, his voice low.
She blinked, caught off guard by the pain in his face, the sincerity in his tone.
“You left and I grew up,” she said, turning her back on him. She didn’t trust herself to look him in the eye.
She could feel him watching her as she stowed her cosmetics in her kit.
“Let me help you. For old times’ sake.”
She closed her eyes, despising herself for the way he could still make her feel. Tears threatened for the second time that day and the emptiness inside her yawned wide.
God, she had to get him out of her change room and out of her life.
It had taken her years to find a place and a persona that made it all bearable, doable, survivable. She would not let him strip her of her armor.