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Not only did he never get her damn name, he had no idea how old she was. She could be barely eighteen.
Christ.
He glanced back over his shoulder toward the billiards area and sucked on his teeth.
The first song, Lightning Crashes, ended and a silent pause filled the air.
That had his attention swinging back to the woman on stage. She had moved the microphone stand next to the keyboard so she could stand while she sang and played at the same time.
The first notes of the next song flowed through the bar and landed dead center in his chest. Her ringed fingers with the dark-painted nails moved slowly and gracefully over the keys.
He couldn’t shake the vision of her fingers touching him the same way. Light but confident. Her touch bringing about a response similar to music.
Her dark eyes caught his and held him there. Entranced. Like a fucking witch.
What the fuck was goin’ on?
He suddenly recognized the song. It was a slowed-down, more soul-stirring version of Creep, originally sung by Radiohead.
A favorite of his.
One that he actually had loaded into the Jukebox. Had she spotted it last night when she was scrolling through the music?
She had told him he needed a better selection, but Lightning Crashes was also in the jukebox.
She had paid the fuck attention. She had made note of the music selection. Maybe on purpose.
If the third song was…
Fuck the third song.
His feet moved toward the stage as she continued to sing Creep in the same way the actor Tom Ellis sung it in the Netflix series Lucifer. A way that had stuck with him ever since he watched that episode in the early morning hours when he was winding down after a long night. A habit he developed to try to catch some Zzzs.
He stopped when he realized what he was doing. He pulled in a deep breath through his nostrils and turned away, breaking the connection between them.
This was totally fucked up.
His chest was tight as his heart thumped in his throat.
With his back turned toward the stage, he closed his eyes, simply inhaled the music, that sexy as fuck voice and felt her eyes burning two holes through his thick leather cut, through his shirt and into his skin. Right to the center of his very soul.
What.
The.
Fuck.
He wasn’t smoking the rest of that hand-rolled.
He opened his eyes and purposely focused on the bar. His brain ordered his feet to move. Thank fuck they did and he made it through the hinged portion before getting sucked back into her spell. He wished he had a damn way to lock it to ensure he couldn’t escape.
A bump against his shoulder made him jump and mentally shake himself. Stella was watching the band—watching her—on stage. Just like all the rest of the customers.
Everybody looked as spellbound as he was.
Had been.
When she finished with the Radiohead song, she seamlessly moved into Dream On by Aerosmith. Again, her raspy voice giving it a distinct haunting sound.
He went solid to stop the shiver threatening to slice through him.
“Damn. She’s good.”
His eyes flicked down to the other woman whose voice could do all kinds of things to him. A voice that belonged on a big stage, not one like Crazy’s Pete’s.
But Stella’s couldn’t do even close to what the woman’s on stage did.
It was Stella’s voice on performance-enhancing drugs.
The notes escaping her lips wrapped around his heart and kept tugging like it was trying to pull it free from his chest.
He slapped a hand over his heart to stop it from being stolen.
“Where did you find them?”
“Didn’t. She found me.”
“She? Me?”
He mentally shook himself again. This was not fucking like him and if he didn’t act normal, Stella would quickly pick up on something being off with him.
That would not be good. She would hound him to death about it.
“They found us,” he explained.
Stella’s gaze bounced from Dodge back to the stage. “Well… I just got a call from the band we had booked this Friday. The lead singer has strep and they need to reschedule. Think they’d be willing to fill that spot? I can change the website, if they can do it.”
Dodge lifted his gaze over Stella back to the stage where The Synners were jamming out. “They’re workin’ for food tonight. Thinkin’ they need gigs that pay.”
Stella turned toward him with her eyes bugged out. “They’re doing what?”
Fuck. “Yeah. She asked if they could play tonight for tips. I offered the food. She jumped on it, hoping to get a chance to play on a busier night. Think they’re broke as fuck, so I can offer to throw them a little scratch to fill Friday’s spot.”
“Not a little scratch, Dodge. You have two functioning ears. They’re good. Better than we usually have. They do a good variety of covers. Pay them what we normally pay the bands.”
