“So you’re writing a textbook about us?” Dare asked, brows drawn together in a confused scowl.
“What kind of textbook would that be? A manual on mayhem and debauchery?” Toni cringed when no one laughed at that joke either.
Logan guffawed five seconds too late again. He was going to have to pay really close attention to what she said to figure out when she was joking. He didn’t think she lacked a sense of humor, she just looked serious. She’d definitely fit in better at a library than at standup-comedy night.
“The publishing company I work for designs and distributes these interactive textbooks,” she said. “Samuel Baily approached us to make an interactive book about the band, the first of its kind. He’s very forward thinking.”
That got the band laughing. “You might say that,” Max said. “Sometimes he’s a bit too forward thinking. He’s got every minute of our schedules booked for the next eighteen years. He thinks we’re robots or something.”
Toni’s eyes bulged. “Eighteen years?” she muttered under her breath.
Surely she knew Max was joking, so why did she look so unsettled? Wondering if he could make her blush again, Logan scooted a few more inches closer to her. His knee brushed her thigh, and she yanked on her skirt. Other than her hands and face, not an inch of bare flesh was showing. He wasn’t sure exactly what she was trying to conceal. Maybe she wasn’t open to his attempts to seduce her. Which made her a challenge. Which, like her tits, he couldn’t resist. Or maybe she had a nice boyfriend at home. His loss.
“Speaking of robots,” Steve said. “How are the prototypes of our androids coming?”
“Good until they tried to replicate my dick and ran out of materials,” Logan said.
Toni’s sudden intake of breath made him grin. That shocked her? Seriously? Too easy.
“If they ran out of materials, it had to be due to Max’s giant forehead,” Steve said.
“Or your enormous feet,” Max countered.
Toni grabbed a pad of paper out of her bag and started writing furiously. Logan leaned against her shoulder to read what had her so excited. She was writing down their conversation. In the margin, she wrote: Keep video camera close at hand when all band members are together. They’re hilarious.
He was close enough to feel her body heat and inhale the sweet fragrance of her fruity shampoo. He wondered if she tasted as sweet as she smelled.
“For the record,” Logan said in her ear as he pointed toward her notes, “I was the one with the big dick.”
Toni leaped from the sofa as if it were on fire. Her gaze darted from one guy to the next, and she pushed her glasses up her nose with the back of her wrist. God, he wanted to take those glasses off, take those clothes off, and do things to her. Naughty, devious, delicious things.
“Um . . .”
The twin bumps poking against her shapeless turtleneck drew Logan’s attention. Hard nipples? Did his crassness turn her on? That was all the encouragement he needed to behave inappropriately. Visible nipples also meant that her bra was not padded. There was so much win in that, he should have her name engraved on a trophy.
“What’s wrong?” Logan asked. “I won’t bite. But I will nibble. And suck. And lick.”
She stared at him with her mouth agape and her eyes wide. Her nipples strained against her sweater, begging him to do all those things and more to the tips of those luscious melons.
She glanced down at her tits and immediately crossed her arms over her chest. “Is, um, there a bathroom I can use?”
“At the back of the bus,” Dare said, nodding his head toward the end of the corridor.
“Don’t take a dump in there,” Steve said. “We stop at rest areas to do that business.”
Face flaming, she sucked in a deep breath, turned, and sprinted to the back of the bus. She fumbled with the closet door and when it popped open, a stack of towels that had shifted during transit tumbled out and pummeled her in the face.
Logan climbed to his feet to rescue her. He decided to take it easy on her for the moment. He wouldn’t want to traumatize her so much she decided to leave. They both bent to pick up the same towel at the same time and bumped heads. They jerked apart and rubbed their heads in unison. Toni looked up at him, her brown, doe-like eyes watery with tears. He wasn’t sure if they were tears of pain or humiliation, but seeing them in her eyes did strange things to his chest. He wasn’t sure why it was suddenly tight.
“It’s okay,” he said, deciding that though it was fun to tease her, he’d better tone it down a bit. She obviously wasn’t used to it, and he didn’t want to harass a woman who wasn’t receptive to provocative flirting. He hadn’t intended to upset her, just wanted to have a little fun and get under that conservative skirt of hers. “I’ll get the towels, Toni. You go ahead and do your business.” He opened the bathroom door for her.
She lowered her hand from her forehead to reveal a large reddened bump.
Logan winced and leaned forward to press his lips to the lump. She sucked a startled breath into her chest. Shit. There he went crossing the line again.
“Sorry,” he murmured. “I always kiss boo-boos.”
“I have a pimple on my ass that needs kissing,” Steve called.
Logan closed his eyes and shook his head. “One of the things you should consider stressing in your book is how little fucking privacy a man has while on tour with his band.”
“I can include that,” she said, “but I think fans are more interested in the size of your dick.” She backed into the bathroom. “I know I am.” She bit her lip before closing the door in his face.
Three
Toni knew she had about two minutes to compose herself, or the band was going to think she was taking a dump and smelling up the bus. She wouldn’t want to break such an important rule right off the bat. Why was she so off her game? Probably because she’d never expected to be hit on by a man so far out of her league. She cringed at her train of thought. What was with the baseball analogies? She didn’t even watch sports.
But she couldn’t figure out why the band’s bassist kept hitting on her. Not only was Logan Schmidt rich and famous, he was ridiculously gorgeous with all that thick golden curly hair and those sexy blue eyes. And those lips. Dear lord, he’d kissed her bare skin. Yes, it had been her forehead, but it had been skin, by God. Logan must be toying with her for the sheer amusement of watching her behave like a gooftacular reject. There was no other explanation. She relieved her bladder and flushed the toilet before gazing at herself in the mirror as she washed her hands in a marble sink. As she expected, she hadn’t suddenly spawned supermodel good looks. Her mouth was too wide, dirt-brown eyes too big, dull brown hair too frizzy, glasses too thick, style too lacking for a man like Logan Schmidt to afford her a second glance.
She wasn’t going to let him make fun of her, though. She had to earn their respect as a professional. She was here to do a job, not get hard nipples just because some rock god brushed up against her and told her his dick was big. She checked her chest to make sure her high beams were under control, straightened her spine and exited the bathroom. She hadn’t expected Logan to still be in the hall shoving towels back into the linen closet. Her hand moved automatically to her forehead—the memory of his lips brushing against her skin had her belly quivering.
“Do you need an icepack?” he asked, his eyes trained on the lump on her head.
“No, thank you. I’ll be fine.”
“He’s got a head like a brick,” Steve said. He was standing a few steps away at a small refrigerator with the door wide open. He grabbed a beer and closed the door.