“Nope. That was because I plan to steal you away from Fox—I have an old pinup calendar in my office.” A low wolf whistle as he looked her up and down. “You’d fit right in.”

Smiling at the blatant sweet talk, Molly scooped up a touch more mousse as the band gave in to the urgings of the crowd and began another number. “If we’re going to be friends,” she said to Shawn, “you can’t tell me about the women Fox used to pick up and take back to his hotel.”

“You know he wasn’t a virgin when you met him, right?”

 “Doesn’t mean I want an action replay.”

“Fair enough.” He hollered along with everyone else at Noah’s guitar solo.

Almost as if they’d timed it, Fox’s growl of a voice rolled out over the last riff and David slammed down on the drums. Abe’s keyboard joined in fifteen seconds later, Noah coming back in at the same time. “This is new!” she yelled to Shawn over the screams of the crowd. “Never before performed live!”

The big man’s eyes sheened wetly. “Goddamn punks,” he said, his pride clear.

Clapping and dancing along with the crowd as the band finished the song and walked offstage, she ran back to the door through which Fox emerged a few seconds later. “You were amazing!” Kissing the life out of him, she turned to the others. “That was incredible!”

“Do we get a kiss, too?” Noah drawled.

Jerking him forward by grabbing the front of his T-shirt, Molly smacked him on the lips. It was the first time she’d seen Noah thrown off balance. He recovered quickly. “Fox, sorry, man. I’m keeping her.”

 Fox wrapped an arm around her waist, his face holding the exhilaration of performing. “Not even in your dreams.”

Then Shawn was there, hugging and backslapping his “punks.” They partied with the club owner till after four in the morning. “I’ve never been out this late,” Molly confessed to Fox as they danced to a slow song.

 “You are such a good girl.” A quick, hot kiss, her breasts crushed against his chest. “It turns me on like crazy—but what turns me on even more,” he whispered in her ear, “is watching you be dirty only for me.”

Drawing her aroused body off the dance floor when the house lights flickered, he took her back upstairs to say good-bye to Shawn. David had left much earlier, while Noah and Abe had both disappeared about an hour ago—Noah with a petite black woman and a pneumatic peroxide blonde, Abe with a statuesque, tattooed brunette, her skin pure cream.

“What’s the deal with Noah?” Molly asked softly once they were settled in the far back of the limo, Fox having instructed the driver to take them on a night tour of the city. Now, with the opaque privacy screen up between the front and the back, it was as if they were in an intimate cocoon. “I could’ve sworn he was looking at Kit as if he wanted a second chance, but then he picks up women left, right, and center.”

Fox shrugged. “Noah’s got his demons. Frankly, it’s better if Kit keeps her distance.”

Molly shifted on the seat to look at his face. “That bad?”

“I think of him as a brother,” Fox said, his voice quiet and his expression solemn, “but I also know he’s not good for a woman who wants an actual relationship. We might not have partied the past few nights, but Noah was fucking a groupie or some other woman—probably women—he picked up.” It was a nonjudgmental statement of fact. “I don’t know if anything or anyone is capable of fixing what’s broken inside him.”

Saddened, Molly laid her head against his shoulder and didn’t ask further questions. As she wouldn’t betray Charlotte’s secrets, she didn’t expect Fox to betray Noah’s. “The streets are so quiet and pretty this time of night.” Rain had fallen not long ago, and everything shimmered, the lights reflecting off the tarmac. “Let’s do this in other cities.”

Fox ran his fingers lightly over the side of her face where she lay tucked up against him. “Just don’t tell anyone I’m doing romantic bullshit.”

“Tough guy.” Snuggling into him, she said, “Can we ride around for a while?”

“Long as you want.”

They stayed out almost to dawn, stopping to play barefoot in a deserted fountain and dance under the moonlight in an otherwise empty plaza. Held in Fox’s arms, his cheek against her hair and the only sound that of their breaths, Molly drew in the scent of him and felt her heart overflow with love.

“Sorry ’bout the ropes,” she said sleepily much, much later, cuddling up to him in bed.

“Nothing to be sorry about—I’ve never had a better night out.” Fox stroked his hand down her spine, the callused pads of his fingers a delicious, familiar roughness, his words a gift against her skin. “I’ve decided to save the ropes for when we have hours to play. I wouldn’t want to rush.” A kiss to her shoulder as goose bumps broke out over her skin. “Good night, Molly Webster.”

“Good night, Zachary Fox.” I love you.

Fox was the one who found Abe the next afternoon when the big keyboard player didn’t meet the rest of them for a late lunch in Fox and Molly’s suite. “I’ll go wake him,” he said with a grin. “Maybe I’ll use this ice cube to do it.” Plucking the cube from his otherwise empty orange juice glass, he wrapped it in a thick napkin.

Noah and David grinned, but with restraint. Both their heads had to be throbbing since it turned out that after Noah showed his women the door last night, he’d woken David up and talked him into another drink or five.

“The rock-and-roll life,” Molly said sweetly, “is not healthy for your livers.”

David groaned. “Fucking tequila. Never again.”

“You said that last time.”

“Shut up, you minion of evil.”

Noah splurted his coffee. “Minion of evil? Last night you were declaring your undying love.”

“I’m going to stab you in a second.”

“For the record, Molly,” Noah said, turning his attention to her, “we’ve been saints since we returned home. Saints. We didn’t want Fox’s girl to get the wrong impression about us.”

Rolling her eyes, Molly took pity on the two males and was pouring them fresh coffee when her cell phone rang. It was Fox. “Get in here, bring the others.” He hung up after that terse instruction, and she saw why when they reached Abe’s room.

The keyboardist was sprawled in his bed, reeking of alcohol, bottles strewn around him and the brunette from the club nowhere in evidence. This, Molly knew at once, was more than a few too many drinks. “He needs medical attention.” She’d seen her mother like this, the memory an ugliness under her skin.

“It’s on its way.” Fox’s jaw was a brutal line. “I called 911.”

Thinking past her instinctive anger, the rage an old one, and back to the first-aid course she’d attended during university, she said, “We have to turn him to his side, make sure he has a clear airway.” Abe had thrown up at some stage, that much was apparent, but he’d survived. They had to keep him that way until the paramedics arrived.

The men rolled Abe into the correct position while she checked to make sure his airway wasn’t obstructed. His breathing did seem to steady after the change in position, but it remained shallow, the normally rich mahogany of his skin pallid. “Has he done this before?”

“No. He drinks, but nothing more than the rest of us.” Noah’s fists were so tight his skin had gone bone white. “Cocaine was his problem, but he kicked the habit. He made it.”

Except it was clear to all of them that Abe had only switched addictions.

Five hours later, the keyboardist was conscious but in no state to get out of bed. “It was just a binge,” he said when the others confronted him in his private hospital room.

Molly had stayed outside the room, knowing this was something the four men needed to discuss alone, but she remained within earshot. Noah’s temper, from what she’d seen, was as hot as Fox’s. Abe wasn’t far behind. David was calmer, but he was furious today, white lines bracketing his mouth. If needed, she’d step in to defuse the situation before it got violent. None of the men were the type to raise a hand against a woman.