Rage, p.8
Rage, page 8
“Don’t worry,” Joyce said with a laugh. “You’re way too old to be grounded.”
“Not too old to be arrested, though,” Blaize acknowledged, making her way to their seats. Unlike the lawn crowd, they had seats close to the stage. With age and money came privileges, but she couldn’t help feeling you lost something wondrous on the way to adulthood.
When the band started and the music thundered through her, it was like a blast of adrenaline. The pounding rhythms, strobe lights and screaming fans carried her away. When the opening act finished their set, the crowd was on its feet, screaming and hollering.
Then Spyder Raines made his entrance and nothing else existed. He was hot, sexy, charismatic. Cocky male sexuality in skintight leather. Long and lean, with hair as black and glossy as a raven’s wings—dark, wavy, sexy. Had she said sexy already?
A sleeveless black cotton shirt revealed muscles that came from lifting something heavier than a guitar. He strutted across the stage, a hip-grinding, crotch-thrusting supernova. Her gaze followed the teasing play of light across supple black leather. Her response was immediate. She wanted him right then and there. Any time, any place, any way.
She turned to Joyce, her breath ragged. “God, he’s gorgeous.”
“He’s gay,” Joyce deadpanned.
Blaize blinked.
“Kidding,” Joyce said. “But he might as well be for all the chance either one of us has with him.”
Blaize watched him perform. Her pulse pounded to the music, blood dancing, nerves sizzling. Each song drove her higher and higher until she could barely stand it. Finally the set ended in a breathless, orgasmic crescendo. She shivered and fell back into her seat, wondering if it was as good for him as it was for her.
Her breath came in short, ragged gasps. When she closed her eyes she saw Spyder Raines as if in a vision, standing over her naked, his skin glowing golden in the candlelight, his eyes burning into her with lust. It was more than a fantasy. It felt like a memory. She’d seen him poised above her just like that, ready to enter her, fill her, possess her. She gasped and her eyes flew open.
The dream!
“Joyce. It’s him. I’ve been dreaming of him.”
“Yeah, so have I,” Joyce laughed. “You, me and a thousand other horny women.”
“No, I…”
Blaize knew without looking that he was watching her. She could feel the heat of his gaze raking over her body, making her skin tingle with the illusive caress. She lifted her head slowly, meeting his gaze. They stared at each other across a dozen rows of bodies, and as their gazes locked something clicked into place with the sound of destiny. It was similar to the way she’d felt meeting Gate, but stronger, deep within her belly, lighting up her mind and piercing her soul. She tipped her head back, baring her throat. In that one, instinctive gesture, she surrendered to him.
She moaned as if his hands were already moving along her skin, marking her, possessing her. Her entire body trembled and, with an embarrassed shiver, she realized she was hot for him, wet for him, ready for him.
The air sizzled between them. A voice murmured at the edges of her consciousness, emphasizing what Blaize instinctively knew was true. “He wants you…he wants you…he wants you, too.”
Then the lights dimmed, and he was walking across the stage with that hip-swaying, groin-thrusting strut that drove the audience crazy. He reached for a guitar and balanced on a stool, one boot heel hooked in the bottom rung, the other flat on the floor. He laid the guitar across his lap and, as the lights dimmed, introduced a new song. A single spotlight illuminated him in a soft, ethereal glow.
And suddenly it was quiet. Too quiet for a concert packed with bodies. The air rippled with expectancy. Blaize waited. Waited for something to happen as if she’d been waiting for this moment all of her life and just hadn’t realized it until now.
Blaize watched his hands as they caressed the strings of the guitar. She was mesmerized by the movements of his long, graceful fingers as they made love to his instrument. She wanted to live in those hands.
A hush fell over the room as man and guitar joined to become something more, something bigger than both of them. As he sang, the words seemed to open a doorway in her memory and slip inside, coming home. She knew that song. She knew those words. She knew the crooning of that voice in the deepest velvet of the night, whispering along the valleys of her skin in a blending marriage of lyrics and melody. It was pure poetry lifted on the wings of music.
With each verse his voice became stronger, clearer. His chest expanded and lifted, powerful bellows that sent pure waves of sound into the world. No. Not just a song. This transcended music, becoming something primal, more spiritual.
She drifted, carried along on the current of music, her spirit afloat, when suddenly she jerked, a shout of recognition blasting through her mind. “No! Don’t listen.”
She blinked. What was it? She concentrated on the singer onstage, on the words he sang. The words. The words were wrong. They were the words she’d known were wrong before she’d even heard them.
Not turn the page. It should be burn the page!
She remembered those words coming to her a few days ago. How she’d insisted to Joyce that the words were wrong—words she hadn’t even heard yet. But now she knew, and every time Spyder sang the wrong words it was like a knife twisting inside her belly. She had to fix it. She had to tell him.
The ghostly voice in her head taunted her in a mocking parody, “Pages turning, pages burning, burn the, turn the, burn the, burn the…BURN THE PAGE!”
She knew she was screaming, but it was swallowed in the roar of the crowd as the song came to an end and the audience was up—thunderous applause and whistles, hooting and hollering—but his gaze locked on hers, as if needing only her approval.
And then the lights went out and he was gone.
Backstage, Spyder slumped on the couch of his dressing room. He was drained, exhausted. Something had happened to him out there, but it was all a blur. He recalled walking on stage and the next thing he remembered was walking off again. He must have put on a show somewhere in between because no one was clamoring for their money back. But for the life of him he couldn’t remember singing a single note.
A shaft of light winked off the bottle of vodka on the coffee table. So clear, cool and inviting. Fire and ice. The inside of his mouth expanded. His tongue curled back as if preparing to swallow. A bubble of anticipation sent waves of pleasure along his throat. He leaned forward, never taking his gaze off the familiar bottle that had been his best friend for so long.
A knock on the door stopped him from giving in to the temptation.
“Yeah?”
Buck Angelo, his unofficial bodyguard, door watcher and general gofer popped his head in. “Spyder, got a chick outside wants ta see ya.”
“Yeah?”
“Says it’s important.”
“Don’t they all?” Spyder sneered, glancing back at the bottle waiting patiently for him.
“Want I should send her in?”
“Sure, why not?” Spyder said. There was enough to share. It was a good night for a threesome, he thought. Me, a sweet little groupie and an even sweeter bottle of vodka.
Although, now that he thought about it, he hadn’t been with a woman since the dreams started. Weeks ago. Hell, he was practically a virgin again. Well, now was as good a time as any to put an end to that sorry state of affairs.
“Gotta warn ya, Spyder,” Buck said. “This one’s older than the usual.”
Spyder uncoiled himself from the chair, his boot heels hitting the floor as he muttered, “So am I, Buck. So am I.”
The door closed behind him as he made his way across the room and lifted the bottle of vodka off the dresser, holding it to the light and gazing into the clear, swirling liquid as if it were a crystal ball.
There were visions aplenty swirling behind the glass. Visions for the taking. All he had to do was lift and swallow. Lift. And swallow.
While he was debating, the door opened again. “Mr. Raines?”
Mister? What the fuck? He turned, his sullen gaze sweeping over the twit who’d had the nerve to call him ‘mister’, as if he were some old fart. Then he stopped, a surprised gasp caught in his throat.
He wanted to believe she was just another fan, but he knew differently. It was her—the woman from his dreams. But it couldn’t be. This was crazy.
Crazy maybe, but it was her. She’d stepped out of his dreams, sending a fist to his gut—a jolt of lust and recognition and need.
She stopped, as if pinned by the force of his inspection. The same hair, the same voice, the same full, pouty lips. The same mole at the hollow of her throat that he’d flicked his tongue over a thousand times in lust-driven dreams, closing his lips against her sensitive skin and sucking, pulling, dragging moans from her as he marked her.
Oh God.
There was more. More than just a physical resemblance. His body knew and responded to her as quickly and intensely as Pavlov’s dogs salivated. It knew. He knew.
She cleared her throat with a nervous shrug, as if throwing off the weight of his intense stare. “I have to talk to you,” she said, and her voice was as familiar as if he’d heard it every morning when he opened his eyes.
That’s it, he thought, desperately grasping at straws. He must have slept with her before—one of the nameless, faceless bodies he rolled off of in his scramble to reach the bottle. But even as the thought struck, he knew it was a lie. He’d have remembered this one.
When he didn’t speak, she tried again. “I need to talk to you about the song you played tonight.”
Her. He wanted to reach out and touch her. He wanted to make love to her. He wanted to run away and never see her face again. “My song?”
She stared at him, then blinked as if remembering what she’d come to say. “It’s wrong,” she said. “The words should be burn the page, not turn the page. You have to fix it.”
“Huh?” For a moment Spyder wondered if he’d already finished off the bottle of vodka. She wasn’t making sense. Neither were these feelings he had for her. Nothing about tonight made sense.
“Are you a songwriter?” he asked.
She shook her head and bit down on her lower lip. Obviously his sarcasm wasn’t lost on her.
“It doesn’t even make sense,” he argued. “Pages burning one by one?” He tried to force a laugh, but a dull conviction blossomed deep within his belly.
She was right. It didn’t make a damn bit of sense, but he knew she was right. And she knew that he knew she was right. He could see it in her eyes. That and something more.
She was still talking, but he didn’t hear a word she said. Her neck. He couldn’t take his eyes off her neck. He’d always fancied himself an ass man.
And a tit man.
And a leg man.
But he’d never been turned on by a woman’s neck. Until now. And hers was exceptional. The creamy porcelain blush, the satiny smooth texture of her skin, the delicate curve that he knew would fit perfectly within the circumference of his curled hands.
He stared at the pounding, beating pulse tucked into the hollow of her throat. He knew how that pulse would throb against the sensitive inner curve of skin spanning thumb and index finger, the gentle resistance as his fingers tightened and the throbbing slowed to a trickling gasp.
His fingers clenched and unclenched. His heart pounded until it was the only sound he heard. Pounding, pulsing, beating, throbbing. Fingers tightening and straining, knuckles white and stiff.
He didn’t want to kill her. He had to.
He moved forward in three quick strides, bearing down on her. Her eyes widened like those of a startled deer. She flinched and drew away from him. Did she sense the danger in him? Did she know how easily he could snuff her life out, snapping her neck like a brittle twig? Did she know he’d already killed her a thousand times in his dreams?
He opened the door and pushed her into the hallway. “Get out,” he growled. “Just get the hell out of here.”
He gave her a final shove and slammed the door closed. With a strangled moan, he slid down the closed door, slumping to the floor and lowering his head into his hands.
Joyce snuffed out her cigarette. “That’s it,” she mumbled, “I’m going to find her.”
Blaize had begged her to wait, promising to be back in a few minutes. It had been twenty minutes already and there was no sign of her. She shouldn’t have let her go off alone. Not the way she’d been acting lately. Blaize had her spooked, looking for meaning where there shouldn’t be any. And then there were the dreams. She didn’t want to think of them.
But something had happened today. She’d felt it, too. Another piece of the puzzle had snapped into place and a picture was beginning to form in her mind. It still didn’t make any sense. She juggled the pieces she knew—fire, Richard’s mysterious death, those odd words that had burst from Blaize’s mouth a few days ago, the same phrase she’d heard Spyder sing tonight. The words had seemed hauntingly familiar, despite the fact that he’d announced it was the first time he’d sung it in public. Spyder Raines and his song, Algernon Pierce and his book. All connected somehow.
Before she could make any sense of it, she spotted Blaize and ran to her. “Where’ve you been? I was about to snag a security guard to go searching for you.”
Blaize seemed dazed. “I went to talk to Spyder.”
“You didn’t!” But the look in Blaize’s eyes confirmed that she had. “How did you get to him? Doesn’t he have security or anything?”
Blaize shrugged. “I just asked and some thug let me in. It seemed like standard procedure to me.”
Joyce rolled her eyes, knowing exactly what kind of procedure it was. For all her sophistication, Blaize could be so naïve sometimes. “What’s he like?” she asked, curiosity overcoming her concern.
“Oh God,” Blaize sighed. How could she even begin to describe him? He was a study in contradictions, rough and sensual at the same time. A poet in chains. But she knew Joyce would laugh if she said that. “He’s even more gorgeous and sexy in person.” She frowned. And somehow more dangerous. She shook the thought from her head, then glanced back at Joyce. “He’s everything I dreamed of.”
“You’re serious about him being the guy in your dreams?”
“Yes,” Blaize admitted. “As crazy as it sounds, there’s no doubt in my mind. And somehow we’re tied together in this…mystery or whatever it is. These dreams are more vivid, more real, than anything I’ve ever had before. I can’t explain…” Then she remembered that Joyce had hinted at having unusual dreams, too. Were they tied into this, somehow? “Joyce, you said something about having dreams about Gate. What kinds of dreams?”
“Not sexy ones like yours, otherwise I wouldn’t mind them coming true.” Joyce frowned, the teasing tone leaving her voice. “He’s in danger,” she said, a tremor in her voice. “I see him trapped in a fire. Burning.” Joyce shuddered. “It’s horrible. I can’t save him.”
At that moment Blaize realized the depth of Joyce’s concern for Gate. There was more there. Feelings perhaps even Joyce wasn’t fully aware of. She squeezed her friend’s hand. “We’re going to get to the bottom of this. I’ll do whatever I can.”
At the moment that was all the promise she was capable of giving, either to Joyce or herself.
Chapter Eight
It had been over a week, but Blaize still shivered when she remembered the way Spyder Raines had looked at her in those final moments before the door had slammed shut between them. She’d seen lust and fear and a murderous rage all fighting for control on his face. The image was both frightening and compelling.
A week ago Spyder Raines had simply been a name on a record label—a strand of let’s-pretend fringe along the borders of reality. Today she couldn’t think of anything else. From the moment he’d stepped onto the stage she’d felt connected to him. She knew he felt the same way. When his gaze had burned into hers, she’d felt heat and desire. No man had ever looked at her that way. He wanted her. But there was something more. Something darker. When he’d chased her out she’d been both frightened and relieved. Suddenly she hadn’t felt safe alone with him. And yet, there was nowhere else she wanted to be.
She couldn’t stop thinking of him. Over these past few days, she’d found out as much as she could about Spyder Raines. She knew this was the final stop on his tour and that he lived somewhere here in town. She even had an address, although she’d had to listen to a lecture before Joyce would dig up that information. More than once she’d had to stop herself from driving out to the address in her hand and knocking on his door. There was no question in her mind he’d let her in. He’d be waiting for her, too.
She was sure of it.
She’d even gone out and found some of his old records, hearing things in the lyrics she’d never heard before. Each song seemed to bring him closer to her, two separate paths converging in the same time and place. She knew they were meant to be together, for better or worse. Till death—
She stopped, a cold shiver running down her spine. Death. Suddenly it wasn’t just a word. It had weight and depth and reality. She shook her head, trying to dislodge her obsession with Spyder Raines.
She searched for something to take her mind off the razor’s edge memory of his eyes. Her gaze fell on the book she’d picked up yesterday when the clerk at the bookstore had called to say her order was in. The Play, by Algernon Pierce. Book One: Visions and Voices.
The cover was a bottomless black with shades of darkness that seemed to draw the eye forward toward a golden, open gate in the distance. On the upper right corner, a hologram formed a crescent moon shimmering with half-hidden ghost images.
Blaize had picked it up earlier to search for clues. When she read the opening line, her breath caught in her throat. “Welcome to The Play.” No wonder Joyce and Gate had thought there might be a connection between this book and the message she’d found in the newspaper that morning. God, it seemed so long ago. And she was no closer today to figuring out exactly why that invitation had been sent to her.
