Gabe wasn’t sure why Melanie was walking so stiffly beside him. Was she worried that someone would recognize her with him? Had she spotted a tattoo that freaked her out? Had he done something wrong? He was at a complete loss as to how he could have messed up between the limo and the building. He wracked his brain for things he might have said that she could have taken the wrong way. All he’d done was tell the driver what to do with her luggage. Why would that anger her? Maybe she didn’t like him speaking on her behalf.

At the back entrance, a security guard let his small entourage enter the backstage area of the stadium. The guard offered Gabe a wink and Melanie and Nikki an appreciative grin as he checked them both out with interest and envy. Half an hour ago, Gabe would have said the dude was welcome to take Nikki off his hands, but God help him, he was starting to understand Melanie’s proclivity for keeping the woman out of trouble. His own protective instinct was starting to show. He wasn’t particularly fond of Nikki, but she seemed so, well… helpless. Something that Melanie was not, for which he was immensely thankful. Neediness quickly grated on his nerves. He knew some guys loved Nikki’s type—Shade for example. His ex-wife was needy, so he must like something about it. But Gabe would rather have an equal at his side than a pretty puppet at his feet.

Melanie grew stiffer with each step. As soon as they could be alone, he’d ask her what was wrong, but this was not the place for a falling out. Strangers watched him very closely backstage. Halfway to the dressing rooms at the end of the hall, Melanie stopped abruptly, sending their trio into an angled trajectory toward a wall. Melanie jerked out of his grasp and stared up at him with sparks of anger snapping in her hazel eyes.

Okay, so he wasn’t imagining things. She was pissed. Fuck him if he had any idea why.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, deciding they were going to have to have it out after all, whether strangers were watching them or not.

She glared at his left hand, which was draped casually at Nikki’s shoulder.

“Are you going to hang all over her for the rest of the evening?” Melanie asked bluntly.

“Hang all over her?” He wasn’t hanging all over her. Much.

Nikki shrank from beneath his arm to stand beside Melanie, and he dropped the apparently offensive appendage to his side. He’d only wrapped his arm around her so that she could get through security with less of a hassle. And he told Melanie exactly that.

“I don’t see any security here in the corridor,” she said.

Nikki clutched at Melanie’s sleeve. “I would have told him to stop touching me, Mel, but—”

Melanie slashed out a hand to stifle Nikki’s words.

“You’re jealous?” Gabe asked as the realization dawned on him. On closer inspection, Melanie was practically green. And he had the lack of sense to laugh at her misguided emotion.

“I’m not jealous,” she sputtered, crossing her arms over her chest and turning her head to glare at the nearest wall.

“Good, because you have no reason to be. Next time, I’ll leave her to her own methods of getting backstage.” He moved a fist back and forth in front of his mouth while poking the inside of his cheek rhythmically with his tongue. Apparently, Melanie did not find his pantomimed blowjob humorous.

Her mouth dropped open and she glared up at him. “You wouldn’t.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” He dropped his hand and shrugged. “I’m not interested in her. I’m interested in you. I only brought her along because you want her here.”

The slight flutter of Melanie’s eyelashes made it clear that she didn’t really want Nikki there either, but she evidently saw reason in his words, and she dropped her crossed arms to her waist and then relaxed them at her sides.

Nikki gasped, drawing Gabe’s attention. Her eyes were wide as she stared at something or someone just behind Gabe. She shifted Melanie before her and did her best to hide, her forehead pressed against the back of Melanie’s shoulder as she feigned invisibility.

“Did he see me?” Nikki whispered.

“Who?” Melanie said and then a look of recognition spread across her face. “Yeah, he looks pissed. I’d say he saw you.”

“Why is she here?” Jacob said to Gabe in greeting.

“If Amanda can come to our shows, then so can Melanie,” Gabe said, his ire rising so quickly it surprised him.

“Not Melanie. If you have a thing for her, of course, she’s welcome.” Jacob reached behind Melanie and yanked Nikki out by one arm. “Her! What is she doing here?”

Nikki straightened her spine and started hissing. Gabe wondered where the docile please-protect-me creature had wandered off to.

“What? Did you forget my name already, asshole?” Nikki spat, blue eyes narrowed, her fists clenched.

“No, darling Nikki, I didn’t forget your name, but you can’t be here. I don’t want you here.”

She bit her quivering lip, and Gabe was sure she was about to burst into tears.

“I invited her,” he lied to Jacob. “I invited both of them, okay? It’s none of your concern.” He was definitely starting to remember why the band had made that no-women-on-tour pact. With women came drama. Being trapped with the same four dudes for six months was bad enough without the added roller-coaster ride of outside romantic relationships.

“So they’ll double up on your dick, but not mine?” Jacob asked.

“You are the biggest pig I’ve ever met in my life!” Melanie bellowed at Jacob. “I don’t know why anyone would do anything with you other than kick you in the nuts.”

Gabe snorted. Jacob’s faint smile had told Gabe that he was only teasing, but evidently Melanie hadn’t gotten the joke.

Until that moment, Gabe had completely forgotten what had so quickly turned him on to Melanie in the first place—her complete disdain for Jacob “Shade” Silverton’s typically irresistible sex appeal. Now that was hot.

“Can I talk to you?” Nikki asked Jacob. She seemed for once to be the most reasonable person in the vicinity.

“No,” he said simply. “I have nothing to say to you. If I had, I would have called you.”

Melanie gnashed her teeth and rounded on Jacob. Gabe would have probably cowered at the look on her face if she’d turned it on him, but Jacob, being Jacob, was used to women berating him. In this particular instance, he deserved it, but that wasn’t always the case.

“You have no problem fucking her in a public hallway—”

“Or a sauna,” Nikki added helpfully.

“Or a sauna,” Melanie echoed several decibels louder than her friend, “but you don’t have the common decency to carry on a polite conversation with her?”

“That about sums it up,” Jacob said. He turned on his heel and stalked off.

Melanie screeched in fury and started after him—no doubt to have it out on his nuts—but Gabe stopped her with a firm arm around her shoulders. He drew her against his chest, stiffening slightly when her elbow gouged him in the side in her struggle to throw him off.

“Easy,” he said. “You’ll only hurt your toe.”

She jerked out of his embrace and glared up at him, redirecting some of her anger. At him.

“What are you talking about?”

“When you kick Shade in the balls,” he said. “You’ll just hurt your toe. They’re made of steel, you know.”

Her jaw dropped. She blinked at him, closing her mouth with a snap, and then snorted before breaking into laughter.

“She got a bit wound up there,” Nikki said as Melanie tried to calm herself with deep, gasps for air between laughs. “She always cracks up after an explosion.”

Yeah, he’d gotten that from earlier.

“Oh, Gabe,” Melanie said, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. “You do have my best interests at heart, don’t you?”

He grinned. “Well, of course. And Nikki’s too.” His lifted both hands in surrender. “But not because I want to get in her pants or anything.”