I cock a brow at him. “Couldn’t keep it in your pants long enough to find a storage closet?”

The girl giggles and Lennon shrugs. “Why bother?”

I shake my head, then motion to the restrooms at the other side of the bar. “I’m gonna hit the ladies and get outta here. You can get a ride?”

Lennon’s blue eyes dart at his lady friend, then back at me.

“Yeah. I can guaran-fucking-tee there’ll be some riding.”

My lip curls involuntarily. “Gross. Well, make good choices.”

I brush past them and hurry closer to the bathroom. My high is wearing off too quickly and my good humor is fading fast. There’s nothing like being sober to remind me that my older brother is a womanizing fuck-up who still lives at home with our parents and who asked me for a ride to the bar tonight. Again.

Once I’m inside a stall, though? Yeah, it’s easier to forget.

I dip my nail into the tiny brown vial I had stashed in my jacket pocket and take the bump like a champ. I breathe deep and wait for the shimmer of a delicious high as it travels through my body.

It takes less than five minutes. In the meantime, I focus on the sounds from outside. The band has stopped playing, replaced this time by the pumping bass of a DJ’s set. There’s a loud crash and some yelling, but I’m too far gone to even consider what the commotion could be. When the coke hits my system, it hits hard—like a freight train of pleasure. It’s better than sex—at least, any sex I’ve had lately.

After a few more minutes—Two? Four? Twenty-four?—I manage to get back to my feet and stumble out of the stall. I glance up at the mirror. The streak of deep blue in my hair always surprises me when I see it—I added it to my spiky pixie cut last week, but I’ve gotten used to the jet black I’ve been dying it for years. Below the hair, my eyes look glassy, their pale grey framed by slightly smeared navy liner. Everything about me feels a little less than perfect lately.

Fuck if I care.

I readjust my tight black tank top and smooth a hand over my bared midriff. My belly ring winks at me in the mirror. I wink back, then giggle as I move toward the door.

I’m still laughing when I exit the bathroom—and slam right into a very strong, very muscular body to my right.

“Fuck—sorry. Apparently I’m just going to run into shit all over the place tonight.”

I glance up and then freeze.

It’s the drummer.

He’s even hotter up close. Like, literally and figuratively—he’s sweating enough that his grey t-shirt appears almost black. In this dim light, his eyes are about the same color. I lick my lips, which are suddenly dry.

The drummer, though, seems like he couldn’t be less interested in me right now. He’s huffing and puffing and rubbing his right fist with left hand. When I look a little closer, I can see his knuckles are bleeding.

“Hey, are you okay?”

I begin to reach out to touch him, but he shakes his head, then stalks past me into the men’s room.

For an irrational second, I consider following him. Consider walking into the men’s room and standing before him, giving him a look that he just knows means “take me now.” He’ll push me up against the porcelain sink and yank down my pants. He’ll realize I’m not wearing panties and it will thrill him. Then, he’ll enter me from behind with a force that’s beyond nature. He’ll grab my hair and make me look at myself in the mirror as he fucks me again and again and again . . .

I fall back against the wall behind me and swallow hard. If this coke is gonna give me visions of sweaty sex with strange drummers, maybe I should start using it more often. I consider my current options.

I could go find the guy I was dancing with and get him to take me home.

I could go drag my brother away from his blow-up doll and force him to come home before he gets himself in trouble.

Or I could head straight for the men’s room and never look back.

But then, the drummer comes barreling back out of the bathroom and stops a few feet from me. This time, he has a towel wrapped around his injured hand, but he’s wearing a different kind of fierceness as he looks right into my face.

“Hey—you know Lennon Tucker, right?”

I lick my lips, then nod. “He’s—uh—my brother. He—he’s around here somewhere. Last time I saw him, he had his tongue down some blonde chick’s throat . . .”

I trail off as the drummer’s eyes scan me from head to toe, and this time the fierceness in his face has changed. Evolved. It’s more like lust and I can smell it from a mile away.

“Lennon’s your brother?”

I nod again, sort of stupidly, watching as the drummer stalks a little closer. His eyes are almost glassy in their focus, like he’s seeing all of me and right through me, all at the same time.

“What’s your name, gorgeous?” he asks then, his voice raspy and thick.

I bite my bottom lip and his eyes flash with heat.

“Carson,” I say slowly, savoring the approval that crosses his face. He leans in even further until we’re practically nose-to-nose.

“So, tell me something, Carson.”

“Sure.”

“What would you say if I said I wanted to fuck you?” he asks.

I blink at him.

“Um, what?”

“I said,” he says, his words even and measured, “that I want to fuck you. And I want to know if you’d like to fuck me.”

Wow. Direct. I like that. Especially when I can’t seem to find any words. I open my mouth, then close it. Instead, I lick my lips again.

He takes that to mean yes.

The drummer’s lips come crashing down onto mine. He is anything but gentle. He’s as brutal and as fierce as his expression, as his music. He maneuvers my mouth open with his, then plunges his tongue inside. I’m pinned up against the wall with his body. My back bows and I press my breasts into his chest, feeling my nipples pebble against the pressure of him.

“You know what I’d like to do with you, Carson?” He murmurs against my mouth.

I can only whimper as he dives back in, licking my lips and tongue like a treat he’s been hungering for years. He grabs my ass hard, squeezing a handful of my flesh for good measure, then lets that same hand coast up my body to the nape of my neck. And there he anchors his fingers in my hair and tugs it. Hard. My head tips back involuntarily and I groan with the pleasure of it.

I’ve never had it like this—this rough. This passionate. It’s the opposite of drunken fumbling. It’s the opposite of my average Friday night.

“I’d like to take you home with me,” he’s saying now in my ear, his tongue and teeth coasting over my lobe. “I’d like to bend you over my kitchen table and fuck you nice and hard and deep. Would you like that, baby?”

I don’t know if it’s the drugs or the dirty talk, but I’m legitimately losing feeling in my lower half. At least until I feel his free hand move from my waist to hover just above the fly of my jeans.

“Then I’d take you to the bed and tie you down tight. I’d get my mouth all over your tits and your skin and your sweet, sweet pussy. I’d lick you until you went crazy. I’d eat you from the inside out.”

The moan that comes from my mouth is far more animal than human. I feel myself pressing my body, my belly and my core, up toward his hovering hand. He chuckles a bit, then lets it fall right between my legs. Right where I want it.

“Please,” I whimper.

“Oh, I like hearing you beg,” he growls in my ear, then coasts his tongue down my neck to my collarbone. I’ve got my hands in his hair now and I’m surfing the wave of my high like it’s some kind of sporting event. This beautiful man who plays the drums like a god is now playing my body in precisely the same way. I don’t protest when he lifts his hand, only to plunge it down under my jeans. When his fingers hit my wetness, I’m done for and I know it. I’m keening and he’s got one finger inside me while another strokes my clit with a maddening rhythm.