Backstage Pass

396 Pages·2010·1.24 MB·English

by  Cunning Olivia

Copyright

Copyright © 2010 by Olivia Cunning Cover and internal design © 2010 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

Cover design by April Martinez

Cover images ©Aguru/iStockphoto.com; ImageSource Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered
trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical
means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied
in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real
persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.

P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

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FAX: [phone]

www.sourcebooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cunning, Olivia.

Backstage pass : sinners on tour / Olivia Cunning.

p. cm.

1. Rock musicians--Fiction. 2. Women college teachers--Fiction. I. Title.

PS3603.U6635B33 2010

813’.6--dc22

2010027012

Table of Contents

Front Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Back Cover

Dedicated to

“Dimebag” Darrell Abbott

master of the metal guitar riff

and cowboy from hell,

who burned up his fret board

with magic fingers.

He was a gifted musician,

taken from us much too soon,

but he lives on in his music

and in the strings of the guitarists he continues to inspire.

I still hear you, Dimebag.

Rock on.

\m/

Chapter 1

A stack of handouts tumbled from Myrna’s laptop case to the floral-patterned
carpet. Un-freakin'-believable. She’d forgotten to zip the compartment in her
haste to flee the seminar room. With a loud sigh, she bent to gather the scattered
papers. Could this day suck a little more, please?

A chorus of “chug, chug, chug, chug,” followed by enthusiastic cheers came

from across the lobby near the elevators. Well, someone was having a good time
tonight. It certainly wasn’t her.

She crammed the papers inside her bag and jerked the zipper closed before

continuing through the overdone hotel lobby on her way to her sixth-floor room.
A long, hot bath sounded like heaven. How had she let her associate dean talk
her into presenting at this stupid conference in the first place? What a total waste
of time. The other professors in her field wouldn’t know an innovative idea if it
stood on its head and sang “The Star-Spangled Banner.” And why did she care
what her colleagues thought of her methods anyway? Students loved her classes.
They were always full. She had waiting lists for—

Steps echoed hers. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. She paused

—her heart racing, palms damp.

Whoever followed stopped several steps behind her. She could hear him

breathing.

Jeremy?

No. It couldn’t be her ex-husband. He didn’t know how to find her. Right?

Tell that to the cold sweat trickling between her breasts.

She clutched the handle of her laptop case, prepared to clobber whoever was

dumb enough to sneak up on her.

“You gave a great seminar, Dr. Evans,” an unfamiliar voice said to her back.

Not Jeremy. Thank God. She took a deep, shaky breath and glanced over her

shoulder.

A lanky, fortyish man extended his hand in her direction. “Who would ever

think to use guitar riffs in discussions of human psychology? Not me. I mean,
I’m sold on the method. I’m just not sure I can pull it off with your level of,
uh…” He cleared his throat. “…enthusiasm.” He grinned, gaze dropping to the
neckline of her tailored, gray suit.

Her heart still hammering in her chest, Myrna suppressed the urge to throttle

him and extended her free hand to accept his handshake. “Thank you, Mister
uh…”

When his fingers wrapped around hers, his smile spread ear-to-ear. “Doctor.

Doctor Frank Elroy from Stanford. Abnormal Psych. Head of the department,
actually.”

Ah, Doctor Ass. Doctor Pompous Ass. I’ve met you before. Thousands of

times.

She nodded and plastered a weary smile to her face. “Nice to meet you,

Doctor Elroy.”

“Say, would you like to have a drink with me?” He nodded toward the

cocktail lounge to her left, his thumb stroking the back of her hand.

Myrna cringed inwardly while maintaining her smile. This guy was the

antithesis of her type. Boring. No, thanks. Her present aversion to boring existed
at a visceral level. “I’m sorry, but I’ll have to pass. I was heading up to my room
to crash. Maybe some other time.”

He deflated like a punctured balloon. “Sure. I understand. You must be

exhausted after that lively…” He grinned again. “…discussion.”

Discussion? Had he been there? “Bloodbath” seemed a more fitting

description and she felt particularly anemic at the moment.

“Yeah,” she muttered, eyes narrowing. She yanked her hand from his, spun on

her heel, and continued toward the elevator, walking around the edge of the
hotel’s bar and skirting several bushy, potted plants.

A loud round of laughter drew her attention to the cocktail lounge. Four men

sat in a semi-circular booth, laughing at a fifth man who was lying on his back in
the center of their table. The table, covered with glasses containing various
amounts of amber liquid, tilted precariously under the man’s weight as he leaned
to one side. His companions scrambled to rescue their beers from certain demise.

“Tell the room to stop spinning,” the lounging man shouted at the knock-off

Tiffany lamp above the table.

“No more beer for you, Brian,” one of his friends said.

Brian held up a finger. “One more.” He lifted another finger, “or two,”

another finger, “mmmmmaybe four.”

Myrna grinned. The five of them didn’t exactly “blend” with the conference

attendees, mostly professors, scattered throughout the lounge and lobby. The
unconventional crew in the booth drew more than their fair share of animosity
and stares. Was it the tattoos? The various piercings and spiked jewelry? The
dyed hair, strange haircuts and black clothing? Whatever. They were just guys
being guys. And not a boring one in the bunch, she’d wager.

Myrna took a hesitant step toward the elevator. She’d love to go hang out with

them for a while. She could use a little fun—something other than stimulating
conversation with an intellectual. She got enough of that at work.

Brian, still lounging in the center of the table, vocalized a riff, while playing

masterful air guitar on his back. Myrna recognized the series of notes at once.
She used it in her class discussion on male sensuality, because no one on earth
played a guitar more sensually than Master Sinclair. Hold the phone! Could that
be…? Nah, what would the rock group Sinners be doing at a college teaching
conference? They were probably just fans of the band, though the name Brian
made her lead guitarist senses tingle. Wasn’t Sinners’ lead guitarist named Brian
Sinclair?

One of the men seated in the booth turned his head to scratch his chin with his

shoulder. Despite his mirrored sunglasses, she instantly recognized vocalist
Sedric Lionheart. Her heart rate kicked up a couple notches. It was Sinners.

“I am so fucking drunk!” Brian yelled. He rolled off the table, knocking over

several empty beer glasses, and landed on the laps of two of his companions.
They dumped him unceremoniously on the floor.

Myrna snorted and then glanced around to make sure no one had witnessed

her produce such an unladylike sound. She had to go talk to them. She could
pretend she wanted to meet them because of her seminar. In truth, she loved their
music. They weren’t too hard on the eyes either. The definition of exactly her
type. Wild. Yes, please. Guaranteed to give her exactly what she needed after the
day she’d had.

Abandoning her plan to hide in her room, Myrna skirted the low wall that

separated the lounge area from the corridor. She paused in front of Brian, who
was struggling to crawl to his hands and knees. She set her lumpy laptop case on
the floor and bent to help him to his feet. The instant she touched his arm, her
heart skipped a beat and then began to race.

Animal magnetism. He had it. Hello, Mr. Welcome Diversion.

His gaze drifted up her legs and body, his face slowly tilting into view. He

had features a sculptor would love: strong jaw, pointed chin, high cheekbones.
Would it be presumptuous of her to examine the contours of his face with her
fingertips? Her lips? She forced her attention to her hand, which gripped his
well-muscled upper arm.

“Be careful with this arm,” she said. “So few guitarists have your skill.”

He used her support to stagger to his feet. When he stumbled against her, she

caught his scent and inhaled deeply, her eyes drifting closed. Primal desire
bombarded her senses. Did she just growl aloud?

His strong hands gripped her shoulders as he steadied himself. Every nerve

ending in her body shifted into high alert. She couldn’t remember that last time
she’d been instantaneously attracted to a man.

Brian released her and leaned against the back of the booth for support. He

blinked hard, as if trying to focus his intense, brown eyes on her face. “You
know who I am?” he asked, his voice slurred.

She smiled and nodded eagerly. “Who doesn’t?”

He waved a hand around theatrically, which set him even further off balance.

“Every stuffed-shirt geek in the whole damned place, that’s who.”

He snarled at a gray-haired woman in a heavy cardigan who sat openly gaping

at him. The woman gasped and turned her attention to her ocean blue cocktail,
slurping the blended beverage through a tiny, red straw as nonchalantly as
possible.

“Brian, don’t start shit,” Sed, the group’s lead singer, said.

The acidic look Brian shot at Sed could peel paint. “What? I’m not starting

anything. These people all have fuck-king staring problems!”

True. They were staring. Most of them at Myrna now. Probably wondering

how to best rescue her from enemy territory.

“Do you mind if I sit with you for a while?” Myrna asked, hoping to become

less noticeable by sitting. She tucked the lock of hair that had escaped her
hairclip behind her ear and smiled at Brian hopefully. He stroked his eyebrow
with his index finger as he contemplated her request. She knew what he must be
thinking. Why would a stuffy-looking chick in a business suit request to sit with
five rock stars?

Sed scooted over in the semi-circular booth and patted the empty expanse of

forest green vinyl beside him. She tugged her gaze from Brian to look at Sed.
Sed’s boy-next-door good looks contrasted his bad-boy, womanizing reputation.
She didn’t follow the personal lives of the bands she admired, but even she knew
Sed’s rep. His smile, complete with dimples, could ice a cake, which was likely
why he covered it so rapidly with a scowl. A quick veil of indifference returned
his cool status. Those darling dimples didn’t quite fit his image.

Myrna slid into the booth next to Sed, wiping her sweaty palms on her skirt as

she settled beside him. Okay, I’m in. Now what?

“Are you some kind of business woman or something?” Sed leaned back to

examine her professional attire.

Myrna didn’t mind his twice over. “Or something. Actually, I’m a stuffed-

shirt geek. A college professor here at the conference.”

“No shit?” She recognized the speaker, who sat across from her, as Eric

Sticks, the band’s drummer. “If I’d have known college professors were hot, I
might have considered an education.”

Myrna laughed. She glanced up at Brian who still leaned against the booth

next to Eric’s right shoulder. Her heart gave a painful throb. God, he was
gorgeous. “Would you like to sit down, Brian?”

Myrna scooted closer to Sed, her knee settling against his beneath the table.

Brian collapsed on the seat beside her, lodging her between two of the sexiest
and most talented musicians in the business. She’d died and gone to heaven.
Play it cool, Myrna. If you start spazzing out like a fan girl, they’ll tell you to get
lost. And she certainly didn’t want that.

Brian leaned forward and rested his forehead on the table with a groan. It took

all of Myrna’s concentration not to offer a soothing touch. She knew who he
was, but he didn’t know her from Adam. Well, hopefully, he could tell her from
Adam, but, uh…

She took a deep breath to collect her scattered thoughts and forced her

attention to Eric. She could look at him without getting all giddy, but found she
couldn’t stop staring at his insane hairstyle—half-long, a center strip of short
spikes, the rest various lengths and just plain strange. A crimson, finger-thick
lock curled around the side of his neck. Rock star hair. She stifled an excited
giggle.

“So what do you teach?” Eric took a sip of his beer, his pale blue eyes never

leaving her face. Well, maybe he checked out her chest a little, but he mostly
kept his gaze above her neck.

Myrna winced at his question and lowered her eyes to the table. Any chance

of her earning their respect would evaporate the moment she revealed what