was taking her so long?
Trey had helped her zip herself into the garment ages ago. Well, maybe it had only been twenty minutes ago, but it felt like ages, especially since Trey had made a big show about how gorgeous she looked as he’d left her alone in the bedroom to fix her hair or whatever was taking her an eternity.
Brian wrapped the rope of chain that hung from his belt loop around one finger and jangled it repeatedly. His pre-concert jitters had nothing on these pre-wedding jitters. The soles of his feet were cold, as if ice water filled his boots. At least pacing kept his mind off the turbulence in his stomach. Sort of. He turned and headed back up the aisle toward the front of the bus, moving past the bathroom, the bunks stacked on each side of the corridor, and the dining table.
Like a parking garage gate, an arm dropped in front of him. Brian drew to a halt and lifted a questioning brow at his best friend. His best man. His musical soul mate—rhythm guitarist Trey Mills.
“Will you sit down?” Trey said. “You’re driving me insane.”
“Can’t help it. I’m freaking out,” Brian said.
Eric stopped tapping his drumsticks on the tabletop and glanced up at him. “Why? You’re not having second thoughts, are you? Because if you are, Myrna’s gonna need a lot of consoling for her broken heart.” Eric grinned, looking entirely too pleased with the idea. “I think I’ll go check on her.”
When he started to climb out of the booth, Brian sat beside him and shoved him up against the wall to prevent him from trying to console Myrna, who needed no consoling. If anyone needed consoling, it would be him. And Eric would not be the one he turned to.
“I’m not having second thoughts,” Brian said. “I think maybe she is.”
“She’s not.” Sed’s deep voice sounded just behind Brian’s left shoulder. “She’s happy. With you. I’m not sure why, exactly, when she could have had me...”
Brian snapped his head up to glare at Sed, and Sed chuckled.
“Easy, Sinclair.” Sed shoved his shoulder. “Your prize is safe. I’m just fucking with you.”
Brian wasn’t so sure. Sed had a way with women. Brian’s women. And Sed had been moping all day about his ex-fiancée. The one who had left and ripped his heart out. The one he’d seen the night before for the first time in two years. The one who caused grown men to fight burly bouncers for reasons still not entirely clear. Sed might be trying to play it cool, but Brian knew better. Jessica had wrecked the man and until Sed let her go for good, he wasn’t ever going to get out of his romantic slump. Or stop imposing that romantic slump on those around him.
“So what are you going to say to her?” Jace asked.
Brian glanced across the table at their bass player. Jace had been on edge all day. The youngest member of the band checked the time again, before briefly meeting Brian’s eyes. Something was going on with Jace, not that he’d ever share what it was. But he was acting weird even for Jace.
Perplexed, Brian said, “Say to her?” He had absolutely nothing nice to say to Jessica Chase.
“Your vows,” Jace clarified. “They’re kind of important.”
Oh. He’d meant that her. The important one.
“I don’t know,” Brian said. “I figured it would be best to wing it. So it’s more sincere.”
“Wrong,” Trey said. “As nervous as you are now, how do you think you’re going to feel during the actual ceremony?”
The only thing Brian was nervous about was that the wedding might not take place. What was taking her so long to get ready?
“Do you still have the rings?” he asked Trey.
“Yes. I promise I didn’t hock them for beer money.”
“Let me see.”
Trey sighed and lifted his butt out of the bench seat so he could slide his hand into the front pocket of his jeans. He slid his hand deeper, a confused look on his face. “I’m sure they’re in here somewhere.”
Brian’s heart stuttered in his chest.
Trey checked his other pocket. “This is not good,” he said. “Maybe you need to check for me.” He held his pocket open in invitation.
“Stop fucking around, Trey.” Brian reached across the table and grabbed Trey around the neck.
Trey’s pained outrush of breath gave Brian pause. He’d forgotten about Trey’s head injury. They’d all gotten into that little fight at the strip club the night before and were suffering various afflictions. Perhaps Brian had gotten off easy with his two black eyes. At least he didn’t have a huge knot on the back of his head.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
Trey closed his eyes and lifted a finger at Brian. After a moment, he opened his eyes. “Yeah. It comes and goes.”
“I still think we need to take him to a hospital,” Sed said.
“Brian’s getting married today,” Trey said.
“So?”
“I’m the best man.”
“We’ll go after the wedding, then.”
“We have a concert.”
“And?” Sed’s look of warning would have sent most men running, but Trey just shook his head in annoyance.
“Dare will rip off my junk and feed it to jackals if we miss this performance,” Trey said.
Sinners just so happened to be opening for Dare’s band, Exodus End, at Las Vegas’s Mandalay Bay in about four hours.
Eric burst out laughing. “Where’s he going to find a jackal?”
“The zoo. How the hell should I know? He’s Dare. He has connections.”
If Trey needed a doctor, Brian didn’t want him to put off getting treatment for any reason. Not even the much anticipated wedding that he and Myrna had been planning for two entire days. “Myrna and I could postpone—”
“I’m not going to the hospital.”
“You will if we make you,” Sed said.
“I’m fine. Fuck. Get off my back.”
“I think you should go,” Brian said. “If you’re fine, they’ll just look you over and send you on your way.”
“After I sit in the ER waiting room for five hours.” Trey unwrapped a cherry sucker and stuck it into his mouth. “Not going.”
Brian heard the bedroom door open. His heart leapt to his throat. He was on his feet even before his bride appeared in the doorway.
The fitted bodice of her gorgeous white dress pressed her breasts up and together in a most beguiling manner while its gathered skirt made her waist look impossibly tiny and her hips look extra curvy. Myrna covered the center of her chest with one dainty hand. Light caught the diamond engagement ring on her finger. The ring Brian had put there a couple of hours ago. The ring that proved she’d agreed to be his. The ring that he’d convinced her to accept even though she’d protested its expense. He was proud of his small victory. The diamond was ginormous. No guy would ever consider hitting on her with that rock on her finger.
Myrna’s auburn hair was pulled back in an elegant twist with loose tendrils framing her beautiful face. She’d applied her make-up to make the green in her hazel eyes pop, and the coral color that had been applied to her soft, pouty lips made them look even more kissable than usual.
Stunning. His woman was stunning. And his.
Even though Myrna’s physical beauty stole Brian’s breath, there was something that rocked his world even more than her face and her body. It was the blended look of love, anticipation, and trust in her wide eyes as she stared at him from the end of the corridor that had him completely out of his head.
“I think I’m ready,” she said, her voice trembling with emotion.
Brian couldn’t keep his hands off her for another moment. He dashed down the hallway and swept her into his arms, drawing the full length of her body against him.
“You shouldn’t kiss me yet,” she said breathlessly.
“Why?”
“I just put on lipstick.”
“Then you’re going to have to put it on again.”
She smiled and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I can live with that.”
>
He lowered his head, pausing with his lips a hair’s breadth from hers. His heart thrummed with anticipation, and his cock stirred to attention against his upper thigh. After a moment, her eyes flipped open. He watched her pupils constrict as she focused on his eyes.
“You’re right,” he whispered. “I shouldn’t kiss you.”
“Why not?”
“I want to marry you first.”
“Then let’s get going, because I really need to be kissed. Among other things.” Her hands slid over the white dress shirt she’d talked him into wearing. “You look so handsome in this shirt. I want to bite off your buttons.”
At her words, he no longer felt like a douche for wearing it for her.
Brian took her hand and walked backward down the bus aisle toward the exit, tugging her with him. He couldn’t take his eyes off her even to watch where he was going. “Trey, I hope you found those rings,” he said as he passed the dining table.
“I’ve got them. Where are we going?”
“The first drive-thru wedding chapel we encounter.”
“We can’t all fit in the Thunderbird,” Eric said.
“We’ll just shove you and Jace in the trunk,” Trey said.
“We’ll follow on my motorcycle,” Jace said.
“Where’s your sense of adventure?” Trey asked, wrapping an arm around Jace’s shoulders.
“I don’t call a trip in the trunk of a car with Eric an adventure. More of a nightmare.”
“Hey,” Eric said, “I took a shower this morning.” He sniffed his armpit. “And remembered deodorant, you lucky motherfucker.”
Trey laughed.
Brian hoped the ceremony didn’t take too long. He had a powerful need to strip that dress off Myrna’s gorgeous body and get her worked up enough to bite off his buttons.
Chapter Five
Myrna seriously needed to get a bigger car. Her pink ’57 Thunderbird convertible coupe did not seat four comfortably. Hell, it didn’t seat three comfortably. Brian, Trey, and Sed sat hip to hip across the white leather bench seat, leaving Myrna to sit on their combined laps and smoother them all with the huge skirt of her gown. Layers of satin did not mix well with the brutal Vegas heat. Still she had no doubt that she hadn’t chosen this dress—it had chosen her—so she’d had no choice but to claim it as her wedding gown. To hell with comfort and practicality. She was getting married to fucking Brian “Master” Sinclair—in her opinion the greatest guitarist who ever lived. She was determined to look beautiful for him even if she died of heatstroke.
The car pulled into a drive-thru wedding chapel, the rumble of Jace’s Harley following behind them. As they sat in line waiting their turn, Myrna fidgeted with her engagement ring. She’d vowed never to get married again. How had she fallen into this trap? Oh God, what was she thinking? This would never work. Brian was a rock star; she was a college professor. Their worlds were on opposite ends of the spectrum. How would they ever manage to stay together when they’d be forced to spend so much time apart?
Brian’s hand covered hers and squeezed. She looked into his eyes, and her concerns instantly evaporated. This was how she’d fallen. Exactly this. He was wonderful, and she was incredibly lucky he hadn’t given up on her. And they would make it work. They would. She wouldn’t give up on him, on them, ever.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“I’ve fallen.”
“And I can’t get up!” Eric said from the back of Jace’s motorcycle, which sat idling next to the car’s passenger side.
“Eric, we’re going to have to gag you, aren’t we?” Sed said and reached out of the car to make a grab for him. Eric jerked back just in time.
“I have a gag,” Jace said. “But it’s back on the bus.”
If Myrna didn’t love these guys as her surrogate family, she would have clobbered them all. “Guys, today is all about me,” she said, “so shut the hell up.”
Brian chuckled and lifted her hand to his lips. He kissed her knuckles. “That’s one reason I knew I had to marry you.”
“Because I’m bitchy?”
“Because you don’t treat my band mates like rock stars.”
“She does bitch at us,” Trey said.
“Constantly,” Sed added.
“And I, for one, like it very much,” Eric said.
The car in front of them pulled away, and Brian eased up to the window. Jace moved the motorcycle next to the car and shut off the rumbling engine. They were greeted by Elvis Presley. Well, a pretty good imitation of him. Elvis slid his large, white-framed sunglasses down his nose and offered a wide smile.
“I say-uh, welcome to the Chapel of Rock, baby.”
“Fitting,” Trey said.
“Do you got the paperwork, baby? We need a license to make it legit.”
Brian handed Elvis the marriage license they’d picked up at the bureau that morning. “Best sixty bucks I ever spent,” Brian said.
While Elvis did whatever it was he needed to do with the marriage license, Brian slid up to sit on the trunk of the convertible with his feet resting on the front seat. He drew Myrna up to sit across his lap, wrapping one strong arm around her back. He took her hand in his free hand, holding it gently. She stared into his eyes, and his encouraging smile made the entire world melt away. This was really happening. She was marrying Brian Sinclair. Becoming his wife. Forever. Her smile widened until her cheeks hurt.
“Is this man your hunka hunka burning love?” Elvis asked.
Myrna laughed. “I’ll say.”
“Does this woman have you all shook up?” Elvis asked.
Brian grinned. “Yeah, she does.”
Elvis broke into a decent rendition of “Love Me Tender.” Sed joined him in the second chorus. By the time Elvis finished, the entire band was accompanying him at the top of their lungs, even Brian. Myrna couldn’t stop laughing. How many women could claim that Elvis and Sinners serenaded her on her wedding day? Only her. And as obnoxious as it was, their willingness to make fools of themselves on her behalf meant the world to her. At the end of the song, Myrna hugged Brian and whispered into his ear, “God, I love you... and your stupid band too.”
He chuckled. “That’s good, because you’re stuck with us for life.”
And where that idea had once terrified her, a lifetime suddenly didn’t seem long enough.
She looked up into Brian’s intense brown eyes, her throat tight with emotion, her eyes prickling with tears.
“Do you have vows you want to recite to your baby?” Elvis asked.
Words tumbled from Myrna’s lips like toppling dominos. All the things she’d been afraid to voice, to feel, since she’d first met Brian, poured out in one rush of emotion.
“I don’t know how you knew what I needed more than I did. Or why you refused to give up on me. I’m just so very glad you didn’t. You loved me when I didn’t want to be loved. Lifted me when I didn’t realize I was down. Gave me so much I was too stupid to take, too afraid that I’d come to need you and lose myself. I thought that by loving you, I’d become weak. I know now that loving you doesn’t make me weak, Brian, it makes me stronger.” She tugged his hand against her chest over her pounding heart. “I know I’ve hurt you more than once, and I don’t know how to make that up to you other than trust you with my heart and love you the way you deserve to be loved. That’s what I vow. I vow to love you and tell you often. I vow to stay beside you no matter what the future brings. Have faith in you. In us. I also vow to be true to you—heart, mind, body, and soul—and never cheat on you with Sed.”
Brian laughed and touched her cheek. “Never?”
“Never. I want only you. Need only you. Always.”
She turned to look at Trey, who looked more than a little nauseated. She wasn’t sure if the nausea was due to his head trauma or the fact that she was so openly committing to Brian.
“Ring?” She extended her hand in Trey’s direction. He dropped Brian’s thick platinum band in her hand. Myrna took Bria
n’s left hand and slid the ring onto his ring finger. “With this ring, you’re stuck with me, because I refuse to ever let you go.”
He grinned, his eyes turning skyward with a look of elation. How could any woman resist a man who was so overjoyed by her expressions of love? Brian should have been married years ago. She