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ChapterOne
Zac moved his fingers over the heavy strings of his bass guitar in a pattern that had become as familiar as breathing over the last few months. The crowd let out a roar of approval as they recognized the distinctive thumping notes, and a corner of his mouth lifted. The song was a fan favorite from Fractured’s last album, always guaranteed to bring down the house during their encore performance.
The smell of hot amps and the smoke from their pyrotechnics swirled around him. He breathed it in. The scent would linger on his skin, even once he’d washed away the sweat of performing after the concert. Not that he minded—or noticed most of the time. Like the smell of metal strings on his fingertips, it was ingrained in his synapses. He’d probably be smelling it years after he retired.
Not that he was planning on quitting this life anytime soon.
The noise in the arena rose higher, almost loud enough to drown out the mix from his in-ear monitor. The direct feed had cut out briefly during the last song but seemed to be working again now, thank god. Without it, the wall of sound from the crowd made it almost impossible to hear anything except the driving beat from Noah’s drum set behind him.
As he played, Zac let his gaze wander over the tens of thousands of people who filled the stands. Most of them—those he could see through the blinding flare of the spotlights anyway—were now singing the words at full volume along with Connor, Fractured’s dark-haired front man. He was center stage, gripping his microphone stand in one hand, while pointing his other at the fans, encouraging them to sing louder.
Zac focused on the deep resonant notes his fingers were drawing out of the cobra-blue Fender American Ultra J Bass he was playing. He had used the same instrument when they performed this song a week ago at the American Music Awards. That was just before Fractured won Artist of the Year for the fifth time in the band’s thirteen-year-long career. His jaw tightened at the reminder of that night and whohadn’twon. But he closed his eyes and breathed out slowly. He concentrated on weaving his bassline through Tex’s squealing guitar riffs, the pounding beat of Noah’s drums, and Connor’s soaring vocals.
As they reached the chorus, Zac moved closer to the microphone stand in front of him and added his voice to Connor’s. The resulting harmony roused the audience to new heights of frenzied excitement.
Movement to his right caught his attention. Tex, their long-haired, tattooed lead guitarist, grinned at him as his fingers flew over the strings of his custom Les Paul six-string in a lightning-fast riff.
Zac rolled his eyes at his bandmate’s showboating, although he couldn’t stop a return smile from breaking across his face. He stepped toward Tex and raised a brow, his grin widening at his bandmate’sfuck yeah,when he realized Zac was accepting his challenge.
Unlike the lead guitar, the bass isn’t intended to be flashy. It isn’t meant to steal the spotlight. The bass is the backbone of the song, the glue that holds everything together. It’s the pulsating rhythm beneath the melody that makes peopleneedto move whenever they hear it. But just because the bass isn’t meant to steal the spotlight doesn’t mean it can’t. And some situations called for making a point.
Zac waited for a gap in Tex’s riff and jumped in, letting loose with a rapid-fire lick of his own. The deep tones of his J Bass thumped and growled through the air, rattling the amps as he punched the notes out. Tex threw his head back and laughed as the crowd surged forward in feverish excitement at the impromptu six-string versus four-string duel taking place in front of them.
Even Connor was grinning as he pulled his mic off its stand and strode to the edge of the stage. The fans transferred their attention back to him as they continued singing along, their voices rising in unison and filling the arena.
Now that he’d proven what his bass could do, Zac dropped his head and closed his eyes. He played that way for the rest of the song, feeling the vibration of the music through his fingers and the soles of his boots as much as hearing it. It took a few seconds after the song ended before the shrieks and catcalls brought him back from the place he sometimes drifted to when he was playing.
He stood there, a bead of sweat trickling down his temple as the wave of sound from the crowd broke over him again and again. Noah stepped up beside him, his blue eyes glittering, damp strands of his long, surfer-blond hair sticking to his temples. The drummer slung his arm around Zac’s neck and gazed out at the crowd, a wide grin on his face. “Never gets old, does it?”
“No, it doesn’t,” Zac said. He might have been looking out at the heaving mass of fans too, but it wasn’t their adulation he lived for. It wasn’t the fame, or the money, or the women.
It was the music.
Whether he was playing bass with Fractured or singing as front man for his side-project band, Crossfire, it was always the music that came first.
In tandem with Tex, Zac flicked his pick into the crowd, threw the fans a final salute, and followed his bandmates off the stage. He pulled the strap of his bass over his head, disconnected his wireless belt pack, and pulled out his in-ear monitor, handing it all to Cassie, his guitar tech, with a smile of gratitude.
Her pretty lips tilted up. “Great show.”
Zac ran a hand through his short, dark hair. “Thanks. Everything was good. But I did get a bit of disruption to the mix feed at the end.”
“Okay, I’ll have a look at it.” She put the unit in question down on one of the equipment boxes that surrounded her, then turned away to rack the bass next to the three others already there. Involuntarily, Zac’s gaze dropped to her ass, perfectly displayed in a pair of frayed denim cut-offs that hugged her curves and exposed the length of her slender, toned thighs.
He grimaced and looked away. He didn’t want to be one ofthoseguys. He didn’t damn well need to be. He’d been in one of the biggest rock bands on the planet for the last thirteen years. Women weren’t exactly an issue for him. There was no reason for him to be ogling his employee. Especially not one with a fucking diamond ring on her finger.
And Cassie was a talented guitar tech, even if she was younger than the others he’d worked with in the past. She seemed to have an instinctive ability to understand the sound he wanted to get out of his instruments. In the short time she’d worked for him, she’d already developed an uncanny ability to anticipate what he needed before he had a chance to ask for it.
Cassie turned back and knelt in front of him, reaching between the larger equipment cases for the small one that stored his in-ear monitor. Like an asshole, he didn’t step back to give her room. When she looked up at him—a sweet smile curving those full lips—he had a sudden vision of reaching out and tangling his fingers in her midnight dark waves, tugging her head back, and watching those deep-blue eyes change color as he unbuttoned his jeans and—
Zac stepped away. He needed to get laid. And soon. It had obviously been far too long between women if he was fantasizing about Cassie that way. Not that she wasn’t attractive. She was. Attractive enough that when he’d met her before the tour, his first thought was that one of his bandmates—probably Noah—was having a joke at his expense. Young, gorgeous guitar techs weren’t exactly common. She actually reminded him of the cover art from their third album,Fallen. The image was of a beautiful dark-haired, dark-winged angel, crumpled on the ground, face turned upward, and innocent blue eyes filled with tears as she reached one hand to the sky in supplication.
Cassie, with that hair, those eyes, and her full, pink lips, looked far too much like that fallen angel. It was exactly why he shouldn’t fantasize about her. Because her type of sweetly sexy innocence wasn’t something that usually attracted him. He made sure the women he spent time with were more hard-eyed than starry. The type who looked like they wanted to eat him for breakfast, not like they were going to start building white picket fences in their heads if he fucked them more than once. The ring on Cassie’s finger left him in no doubt which group she belonged to. So even if she wasn’t working for him, even if she wasn’t engaged, he would never actually touch her that way.
No matter how good she looked on her knees in front of him.
Zac shoved the image out of his head, tossed another casual smile her way, then looked for his bandmates. He spotted them gathered around their manager, Drew, and made his way over, dodging the crew members pushing equipment cases toward the exit. Load-out started even before they sang their last song, but it really kicked into high gear after they left the stage. Zac stripped off his T-shirt as he walked and used it to wipe away the sweat that had beaded on his forehead.
Drew met his gaze when he got closer, a slight frown on his face. “I need to talk to you.”
