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Then again, if he sucked, maybe it was just as well he loom silently and namelessly behind the kit.
Mal leaped up and took his spot, surprising the hell out of Michael by tipping his hand to his head before dropping on to the stool behind the drums. The crowd cheered as the opening notes to “Undermine” began. It was a slow, bass-heavy build, the kind of throbbing song that would crank the energy up to fever pitch.
Michael grabbed his pink electric Takamine off a stand, then followed Elle into the song, smiling at the little licks she added to goad him into his own flourishes. They had an interesting groove during concerts, although they rarely spoke much off of it. He figured that was why they worked well together. Their focus was the music, and only the music. No messy interpersonal crap got in the way.
Molly’s husky voice started off as a whisper as she lamented the lover who wouldn’t cut her free, but undermined everything she did. The song wasn’t one of theirs, but one they’d been given by another musician. They were still finding their songwriting legs, with Molly and Ryan and West handling a lot of the melodies and arrangements.
He and Juliet were the more lyrically-focused ones. Their collaborations were how they’d started their flirtation—onstage and occasionally offstage, like the bar interlude Ry had mentioned. Meaningless, but fun.
The audience seemed to eat up their interactions. Juliet knew that, so she was already moving into position to give the crowd another show tonight.
There was no heat between them, no sparks except the kind that came from a beautiful woman moving her perfect ass up against Michael’s while she played the hell out of her Jackson. He glanced back at her as his own fingers rode the strings. Sweat dripped into his eyes, blurring everything but the sweet curve of her bare shoulder. He turned his head to the side and she turned hers until they were cheek to cheek, and they belted out the chorus together.
Undermine me, baby.
Take me down so deep, take it all away.
Til you’re all I’ve got.
All I’ve fucking got.
He was so wrapped up in his byplay with Juliet, and with Elle rocking out on his other side, that he only remembered it wasn’t Ry behind the kit when Mal’s drums crashed into the song. They were like a Humvee barreling through a wall, altering the song that had come before and reforming it into something new.
They all seemed to stutter for a moment. Michael’s fingers faltered, and Juliet’s tripped. West missed a note on the keyboard, then two, but Ry jumped up beside him and they started hammering on the keys together—Ry one-handed, of course—as if they’d planned on doing just that all along.
Molly’s voice caressed the words, her voice more poignant than ever as she clutched the multicolored scarfs around her mic. It was part of the mystique she was crafting, just like her ethereal, slyly sexual outfit. When she bent to wail into the mic, the crowd screamed with her.
Undermine me, undermine me, undermine me.
And finally, as the drums crescendoed and then leveled out, she purred her bastardized lyrics over and over.
Under me, under me, you’re always under me.
The next song was even more raucous. Their first single, “All Night Long”, was about someone looking for a good time so she didn’t have to face the next day. West had written that one a million years ago, and they’d been playing it since their days in their crappy rehearsal space in Encino. Molly brought a whole new feel to it, winding one of her scarves around her neck as she prowled the stage. Once again, the song didn’t have a ton of drum work, since West had written it to suit his keyboard-heavy style of play and they’d adapted it to fit the band. But when Malachi’s part came, he nailed it, standing up and banging on the skins and the hi-hats with a flair that belied whether or not he was keeping time. Somehow it didn’t seem to matter. He had enough panache to make up for any fumbles.
And from the way the girls were screaming every time he flexed his gleaming muscles in his tank—finally whipping it off somewhere in the middle of song number three—they didn’t seem to mind any hiccups.
Michael let out a deep breath at the end of the next song, “Cascade.” They’d made it almost halfway through their eight-song set, and Mal was getting by. Not perfectly, not always on time, but he was blending with them in a way that even Ry hadn’t quite managed. He had the skill but not as much crazy style. Mal was leaning more on the latter than the former, and damn, was it working.
By the time “Delirious” started, the crowd was right there with them, bouncing and mouthing the lyrics if they didn’t have them memorized. When Molly stopped singing and held the microphone toward the crowd, they sang the words for her as best they could, amid a few enthusiastic choruses of, “We love you, Molly!”
She basked in their adulation, shedding her gauzy wrap and baring her tiny top and flowing skirt for the next song. The name “Lick” was fitting, since it was every bit as dirty as the title suggested.
Michael swapped his guitar Jimi for his battered Les Paul, letting Elle do her thing as he set it up to enter the song after her. She bent low, her blond hair streaming down her back as she made the strings sing. When he joined her, she flashed him a smile at a wattage he only ever saw from her on stage. High on it, and on the fact that his brother was playing behind him, and that somehow, somehow they were getting through the show, he let his gaze wander the crowd.
The redhead caught his eye immediately.
She was close to the front, dancing back to back with one of her girlfriends while the other gyrated against her side. They were definitely feeling the lyrics that Molly was rasping as if she were fifteen seconds away from an orgasm. Ryan and West were doing the joint thing on the keyboards again, crossing hands and all kinds of tricks that only emphasized the erotic nature of the song. They pounded on the keys like he and Elle and Juliet were shredding their guitars. Like Mal was steadily drumming the kit, slow, sinuous. Building, building, building, until the final explosion.
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nbsp; The redhead turned and looked up on stage, playing with the strap of her halter top. For a second, he thought she’d flashed him some damn nipple. On purpose or accidentally, he didn’t frigging care. All he knew was her big eyes were on him while she nearly fondled her own breast, and her lips were wet and parted, and he couldn’t stop strumming his guitar the way he wished he could play with her. He’d sit her on his lap and slip under her skirt, then push aside her panties and slide one finger between the lips he knew would be soaked for him. While she watched, open-mouthed and silently begging, he’d suck on the finger that tasted of her until she was squirming against his rock-hard erection. Bouncing back and forth while he swelled against his zipper.
Christ, like he was doing right now.
Juliet came up behind him, sliding one hand in the front pocket of his jeans as Mal’s drums and West and Ryan’s keyboard faded. She jerked back and quickly shot over to the other side of the stage to set up for the next song, making him smother a laugh.
Guess she thought her onstage seduction routine with him had worked a little too well.
