A knock sounded on the door. Lindsey’s entire body jerked.

“Hey, Kellen,” a voice with a strong Texan accent said on the opposite side of the closed door.

“We’ll take a rain check on that hot chocolate, Tex,” Kellen said.

“That’s not the problem. This chick out here is trying to help Shade by untying him and I think she’s somehow managed to cut off the circulation to his dick and one of his spare legs.”

Kellen released a heavy sigh and dropped his hands. Lindsey stifled a sob of protest as his warmth faded from her back. “I’ll be back in a minute,” he said. “Owen, I want her ready for me when I get back.”

“She’ll be ready.”

Lindsey wasn’t sure what either of them meant, but hoped making her ready involved more of Owen’s mouth on her skin.

The door closed as Kellen left the room.

Owen grinned at her and she couldn’t help but smile back. The man was cute and sexy and evoked a feeling of joy whenever she looked at him. She was pretty sure it wasn’t due to the Santa hat he still wore, but she was definitely feeling some Christmas cheer.

“So what did Kellen mean about getting me ready?” Because she was already horny—her sex hot and swollen and seeping. She’d been horny since Owen had entered the stage back in the auditorium a few hours earlier. And as each member of Sole Regret had entered the stage on cue, the intensity of her desire had increased exponentially.

“Once Kellen has a game plan, he doesn’t fuck around. He wants you naked, wet and limbered up.”

Her jaw dropped and he laughed.

“How flexible are you, Lindsey?” he asked.

Kellen might be the one who seemed to be in control, but she was starting to believe that Owen was the truly wicked one.

Kellen cringed when he saw what Shade’s little helper had done to the intricate weave of knots he and Owen had made to bind their band’s vocalist. It had been enough of a challenge to make the pattern work with the little lights getting in the way, but if a person didn’t know what they were doing when restraining or releasing a person, a lot of damage could be done to a person’s soft tissues. Luckily, Shade was more hard than soft, but there was no way Kellen would be able to undo this mess. The art of untying was almost as practiced as the precise sequence required to bind someone properly.

“Did you make this mess?” Kellen asked the lovely black girl who was ringing her hands together and almost in tears.

“Don’t take time to lay blame, just get me out of this,” Shade said.

Kellen disconnected the plug from the wall. “Gabe, get me a knife. We’re going to have to cut him—”

Before Kellen could finish the thought, the young woman launched herself across Shade’s lap and was practically hissing at Kellen to back off. He would have laughed at her attempts to protect such a big, muscular guy, if Shade wasn’t in danger of blood clots and tissue damage from lack of blood flow.

“I’ll help him,” the woman insisted. “Don’t cut him.”

“He’s not going to cut Shade,” Gabe said, with an exasperated shake of his head. “He’s going to cut the wires. Now get back, Kellen needs to see what he’s doing.”

Gabe placed a knife in Kellen’s hand and as soon as Shade’s female savior moved out of the way, Kellen looked for the snag in Owen’s original design. He severed one cord near Shade’s left shoulder and another just beneath his sternum. The wires loosened and Shade took a relieved breath. Kellen handed the knife back to Gabe. “You could have cut him free.”

“How was I supposed to know that?” Gabe said.

“Aren’t you the brains of this operation?”

“Not about stuff like that.”

“Well, see if you can get his arms loose,” Kellen said to Gabe. He didn’t want to waste any more time out here with these guys when he had exactly what he wanted in the tour bus’s bedroom. And she was alone with his charmer of a best friend “Just start at the last knot and work your way backwards. Think of it as a puzzle.”

“I’m not untying him,” Gabe said. “You untie him.”

“I’ll do it,” Lindsey’s friend offered.

“What’s your name?” Kellen asked her.

“Vanessa.”

“Vanessa, do you promise you’ll be patient and not jerk on the ropes as you untie them?”

“I promise not to jerk any ropes,” she said, “but there is something in his pants I’d like to jerk.” She burst out laughing when Kellen’s eyes opened wide in astonishment.

“I’ll leave you to that then,” Kellen said. “He has been really cranky. Maybe blowing his load in front of a crowd will cheer him up.”

Vanessa’s jaw dropped. Kellen decided she wasn’t used to men countering her outlandish statements with outlandish statements of their own.

Her dark-eyed gaze flittered to the bedroom door. “You be good to my Lindsey,” she said.

“Oh, I’ll be good to her,” Kellen promised, “but don’t be alarmed when she screams.”

As soon as Kellen had left to save Shade from his rescuer, Owen shut the door and turned toward Lindsey. He knew Kellen could be a bit intimidating if one didn't know him. Owen was sort of glad he'd been drawn away for a moment so he could speak to Lindsey on a more personal level. He wanted her to be able to relax. Her elevated breathing rate led him to believe she was far more nervous than she was letting on. He knew from experience how exciting it could be to no-holds-barred fuck a stranger, but it could also be awkward and a little frightening. Especially in a situation where one woman mixed with two rowdy guys.

"I don't want you to feel like you have to do anything you don't want to do," Owen said, scraping the Santa hat off his head and trying to smooth his hair into place. He’d forgotten he was still wearing the festive accessory. And there was nothing Santa-like about the gifts he was about to bestow on sweet Lindsey.

"Are you kidding?" she said, with a laugh. "You have no ideas what sort of dirty thoughts I was having while watching you on stage."

"Yeah, well, were just a bunch of regular guys, who happen to make music that a lot of people enjoy."

"You're also all fuck-hot."

Owen smiled. He never tired of the ego boosts. Sometimes he wondered how he'd ever lived without them before fame had knocked at his door. "You're fuck-hot too, Lindsey."

She inched closer, until she was standing directly in front of him. Her succulent breasts were inches from brushing his chest. He was well aware that Kellen had instructed him to get her ready and was probably anticipating her to be naked and massaged into submission by the time he got back, but Owen needed a few minutes to get to know a girl before he stripped her of her clothes and got down to business. Just a minute. "So, Lindsey, what do you do for a living?"

"Investment banker. Well I just started, actually. First job out of college. I kind of suck at it so far. I don’t have good instincts when it comes to picking stocks."

“I figured with a body like that you’d be a model."

She lifted an eyebrow at him. So she wasn’t buying his lines. Moving on to plan B. “Why did you follow the tour bus tonight?”

"I have a fuck-it list. You've always been at the very top of it."

"A fuck-it list?"

"Yeah, my friend, Vanessa, and I made a list of the top three guys we'd most want to fuck. There’s you and Kellen, and some soccer player who I can’t recall the name of at the moment."

"I'm ahead of Kelly on your list? I know how much he drives the girls wild."

Her cheeks went pink. "He's close second. Almost a tie."

"Well, just so you know what to expect, Kellen won't fuck you," Owen said.

Lindsey's brows drew together. "Isn't that why he invited me here?"