Wicked Beat

She rolled her eyes. “I’m glad you approve.”

His breath stirred her hair as he leaned close to her ear. “Are you ready for that shower now?”

She chuckled. “After the show. Okay?”

“No, not okay. I need to see you naked as soon as possible. You’ve been driving me crazy all day.”

Goose bumps rose along the nape of her neck. And that wasn’t the only thing rising. Her ni**les hardened. Heat and moisture flooded her suddenly throbbing pu**y. She pressed her arm against Eric’s, consumed by the need to touch him, and she wanted to touch so much more than his arm.

“Who’s holding up the line?” someone hollered from the opposite end of the long table.

Rebekah snapped back to her senses and added things to her plate again. “Later,” she whispered. “Though I can’t say I’m not tempted.”

A portable picnic table had been set up for their utilization, and Eric squeezed next to Rebekah on the bench.

“This isn’t enough to feed a sparrow,” Sed complained. “I’m freakin’ starving.”

Rebekah supposed muscle-bound hunks required more calories than she did. “I’ll cook a huge batch of chicken enchiladas tomorrow,” Rebekah said. “How does that sound?”

Sed glowered at his tiny plate. “Tomorrow-Sed says that sounds fabulous, but right-now-Sed is considering barbecuing an event planner.”

“I’ll order something for you guys,” Rebekah said and started to get up.

Eric wrapped an arm around her waist to keep her where she was sitting. “Not your job.”

“But—”

Eric grabbed a passing stranger. “Go order twenty pizzas, and get us some cold beer.”

“Uh—”

“Now. And make sure you get a pizza with anchovies and onions for Tripod.”

“And pickles and pineapple for Sticks,” Jace countered.

“Okay, I’ve got to ask,” Rebekah said. “Why do you call him Tripod?”

Jace flushed to the roots of his bleached blond hair.

“Because he practically has three legs,” Eric said. “Two actual legs and the hugest dick I have ever seen.”

“Me too,” Trey agreed and bit into a particularly juicy strawberry.

“And Trey has seen a lot of dicks,” Eric teased.

Trey met Rebekah’s astonished gaze unflinchingly. “That I have. But I’ve been in the mood for something more feminine since Rebekah joined the crew.”

Eric’s arm slid around her back and pulled her body securely against his side. “Look elsewhere, Mills,” he said.

Trey just laughed.

Eventually the pizzas arrived, which inspired the opening bands to join the backstage festivities. It was so noisy that Rebekah went back out to her soundboard to get away from the crowd and to check her programming for the twentieth time. Her first clue that something wasn’t right was the fact that the monitor in the middle of the panel of sliders and switches was dark. She hit the power switch, but nothing happened. She hunted down the power cord next and found that it had been unplugged. She took a deep breath, forcing back her panic, and plugged it in. Who would unplug her soundboard? Now she’d have to reload all her programs back into working memory. Good thing she’d caught it before the show started or she would have been seriously crunched for time. She reloaded all of the programs but one. The one just entered and saved for “Sever” was gone. She knew she’d saved it. She knew it. Someone had deleted it.

She could think of only one person who would have the know-how, much less the motivation, to do something like that. Marcus. She was so pissed her vision blurred with tears. Had it been possible to shoot forty-foot plumes of fire from her nostrils, she’d have done a very good impression of a fire-breathing dragon. Someone stepped up behind her, and she whipped around to confront the person stupid enough to enter her personal space. She opened her mouth to yell, but snapped her jaws shut when she recognized Eric. No sense in taking it out on him. She blocked Eric’s stunned expression by turning back to her soundboard.

“I brought you a beer,” he said.

“I think I’m going to need something stronger than beer,” she bellowed.

He handed her a silver flask. She took a swig of tequila that singed her nose hairs. Maybe she was breathing fire after all. She shoved the flask in his direction, and he took it from her.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Someone deleted the program for ‘Sever.’ The one I just perfected after hours of work. My work. The band’s work. Argh!”

“Someone deleted it? Why would someone delete it? Maybe you’ve just misplaced it.”

The look she gave him over her shoulder made him take a step back.

“Okay, scratch that. Is there a way to recover it?”

“Maybe.” She did have some experience in computer hacking. She wasn’t sure if it was enough. Eric stood watching the tiny monitor as she keyed in DOS codes. She found the file. Deleted. About an hour before. When she’d been backstage.

“You see,” she spat. “Someone purposely deleted it about an hour ago.”

“That’s when we were eating dinner.”

“Well, most of us were. Who was missing?”

Eric shook his head. “No one that I remember.”

She couldn’t remember if anyone had been missing from the crew either. She hadn’t been paying close attention. “I know it was Marcus. I know it was.”

“But he was backstage with us the entire time. I saw him.”

In her gut, she knew it had been him, but she was sure Eric wouldn’t lie about seeing Marcus backstage. Eric didn’t lie about anything.

“Can you recover the file?” he asked.

“Yeah. It will be damaged and I’ll have to do some repair, but I think I remember the program and can fill in the missing code.”

She had worked up a sweat by the time she was satisfied that the file was not corrupted and would work as it was supposed to when the time came for Sinners to play the song.

“Got it?” Eric asked. He’d stood there patiently the entire time, tolerating her swearing tirade without protest.

“Yeah. I’m not moving from this spot until the concert is over,” she said.

Eric turned her to face him and brushed her hair from her face. “I was already impressed with your work this morning when you set up the sound equipment. Now I’m utterly amazed.”