“And if I win, you’ll join me in the hot tub?”

Her heart skipped several beats. “If that’s what you want.”

He stroked a lock of hair from her cheek. “That’s only the beginning of what I want, Reagan.”

She laughed again. She really was just nervous, but she knew it sounded like she was laughing at him. Rejecting his advances. Never in a million years would she purposely laugh at Trey Mills. And yet, she kept doing it. He dropped his hand, a confused scowl on his handsome face. Reagan wanted to strangle herself.

“If I win the duel, we’re going to the skate park,” she said. The skate park? What am I? Thirteen?

“You skate?”

“Sometimes,” she admitted. Oh God, he thinks I’m an immature idiot.

“Sounds fun.”

Liar, liar, lack of pants, I’m on fire. “Yeah. Good. See you later, then.” Mortified by her complete lack of poise, she fled into the house through the door Trey had left open and followed the sounds of music to the practice room.

“There you are,” Dare said. “I was starting to think I was going to have to come rescue you from the hot tub and my brother’s libido.”

Reagan’s cheeks flamed. That might have been a possibility if she hadn’t made a complete fool of herself.

“She’s not stupid enough to fall for that player,” Max said.

Oh, but she was. Stupid. For that player.

With his good hand, Max took Reagan by the wrist and led her into a large closet beside the practice room. They faced a wall that had guitars hanging from one end to the other on pegs. Some were Dare’s. Some Max’s. Some Logan’s bass guitars. All drool-worthy. Reagan sighed in bliss. Who needed men when you had guitars? She wanted to roll around on them naked. Which would probably be a tad uncomfortable, but she didn’t care. She was in lust with every instrument in the room.

“Dare pointed out that I won’t need my guitars,” Max said, “at least for a while, so take your pick.”

“I couldn’t,” Reagan said, even as her fingers itched to grab the black guitar with electric blue flames directly in front of her.

“At least try one out. I’d rather give them to you than get rid of them. Think of it as a gift.”

“Okay,” she gushed and lifted the guitar from the hooks in the wall.

“Nice choice,” he said.

She had the sudden urge to burst into tears. Maximilian Richardson had paid her a compliment. And let her touch his guitar. Even better, let her play his guitar. How was she ever going to get used to this?

Once they had her hooked up to an amplifier, Max called out songs and everyone followed his lead. Reagan was really glad she’d practiced all of their songs to prepare for the audition. She actually knew what she was doing, and they seemed impressed that she was keeping up with them. Sweet!

As she played with her new band, she had to continually remind herself that to really serve them as a musician she should mimic Max’s sound as closely as she could. It wasn’t much of a challenge. Max was a great guitarist, but Dare was the real six-stringed talent in the band. Reagan played with her usual heart, but damn if it wasn’t hard to concentrate in the presence of this many great musicians. These men were her inspiration. They were rock gods. Gods. And they already accepted her into their fold as if she belonged there. They played through about half of their set list. After several songs Reagan began to relax, but she was careful to keep the sound consistent. She spread her feet apart for balance, closed her eyes, and nodded her head in time with Steve’s hard and heavy beat that was made cohesive by Logan’s low bass. She let Max’s incredible voice carry her away. Paid extra close attention to Dare, to complement his hard, edgy sound rather than compete with it. When the song ended, Reagan opened her eyes to find the members of Exodus End staring at her.

“What?” she said, her face flaming again.

“Band meeting!” Steve called and climbed out from behind his drum kit accompanied by several loud thuds and clangs.

Did a band meeting include her? She looked to Max for direction.

He hooked his microphone into its stand, noticed her looking to him for guidance, and said, “Stay here, Reagan. We’ll be back in a few.”

Her stomach dropped. She was being excluded. They’d changed their minds. She knew this was too good to be true. And she’d mistakenly thought she was doing well. Fitting in. She’d been fooling herself into believing this miracle was part of her reality.

“Okay,” she said with a cheerfulness she did not feel.

It had been a phenomenal dream the forty minutes it had lasted.

The band filtered out of the room, leaving her alone. She played one of Bait-n-Switch’s old riffs to keep herself occupied while she waited. A pair of bare feet entered her line of vision. Her head snapped up.

“Is that the riff you want to duel me with?” Trey asked. “I’m not familiar with it.”

“It’s a riff I wrote, but it isn’t any good.”

“I kind of like it. Do you want to use it in our duel?”

Trey snagged Dare’s guitar from its stand and lifted the strap over his head. The wide strip of studded leather rested at an angle across Trey’s well-defined bare chest. The body of Dare’s white guitar settled low in front of his pelvis. A no longer naked pelvis. Trey was still shirtless, but he’d put on his jeans. Gnawing on her tongue, Reagan stared at his nipple ring for a long moment before remembering that he’d asked her a question.

“Naw. Too easy. You pick a riff.”

He lifted an eyebrow at her. “How about the intro to ‘Crazy Train?’”

She loved this man. He had excellent taste. Reagan tore into the intro of “Crazy Train” without waiting for a signal. Flying through the series of building notes with no problem, she paused and Trey echoed what she’d played. When he reached the end, she upped the tempo of the intro and played it again. He echoed her perfectly. She played it faster still, concentrating so intently on the notes that she didn’t notice he’d edged closer until his arm brushed hers. She stumbled over a series of notes, the strings feeling awkward under her trembling fingertips. He was left-handed and she was right-handed, so the necks of their guitars faced opposite directions. Scowling at her mistake, Reagan pressed on. Trey copied her, down to purposely making the same error she’d made. She glanced up at him and grinned. He grinned back and winked at her. The next few notes she played sounded like drowned cats choking on strangled chickens. Her heart thundered in her chest. She lowered her gaze to his mouth. A spasm gripped her pussy as she watched the tip of his tongue slide over his lip. God, she wanted him to kiss her.

As if he were a mind reader, Trey turned, lowered his head, and claimed her mouth in a deep, hungry kiss. Stunned, she pulled away and lifted a hand to slap him. She caught herself just in time. She got lost in his eyes, her hand suspended millimeters from his angular jaw. He tilted his head so that her fingertips brushed his cheek and then turned his head to caress her tingling flesh with his lips. Gentle, sucking kisses on the tips of her fingers drew a groan of longing from deep within her. She wrapped both arms around his neck and pulled him down to meet her desperate kiss.

He quickly took control, applying a gentle suction to her lips and then teasing them with hints of an expert tongue and tender nibbles. She tugged him closer, wanting to press against his hard body. Chaotic screeches wailed from their guitars as their strings rubbed against each other.

“You two do not make beautiful music together,” Dare said as he returned to the room.

Reagan jerked away from Trey and discovered he hadn’t been holding onto her at all. All the contact between them had been her doing. Oh God, she’d thrown herself at him. She should be mortified, but she wasn’t. She wanted to throw herself at him again and keep throwing herself at him until he caught her.