Brian climbed the stairs and entered the bus. He didn’t even notice Jessica. He went straight to Myrna, drew her against his sweaty body, and kissed her hungrily. “Are you ready to go?”
“Everything’s packed,” she murmured. “I just need to explain a few more things to my new assistant before we head out.”
“Assistant?” Brian’s eyes, surrounded by purple bruises and a thick rim of black eyeliner, settled on Jessica. “Jessica?” he said breathlessly. “What the f**k are you doing here?”
His hostility surprised her. Brian was such a nice guy. She wondered why he was so pissed to see her.
“Hey, Brian,” she said, offering a single wave. “Long time no see.”
“Sed’s on his way. You’d better leave before he sees you.”
Myrna ran a hand up Brian’s sweat-drenched T-shirt. “She’s staying for a couple of months. I just hired her as my assistant.”
Brian looked down at her incredulously. “You did what? Are you insane?”
Myrna smiled and shook her head. “Trust me, m’kay?” she murmured, dropping a kiss at the corner of his mouth. “Besides, with an assistant’s help, I’ll have more time for us.” Her hand clenched, gripping his T-shirt at the waist.
He stared at her as if in total awe. “God, yes, you definitely need an assistant. I love you.”
“I love you,” Myrna returned.
Jessica averted her gaze. So much mushiness was sickening to watch.
“Did you reserve a nice suite?” Brian’s fingers clutched the fabric of Myrna’s suit jacket as if trying to control the urge to rip it from her body.
“Uh-huh. At the Venetian. One with a jet tub.”
His breath caught. “Nice. Mmm, I love you. Did I tell you that today?”
“Only a million times.” She smiled. “Please, continue.”
He kissed her again. “I love you,” he murmured against her lips, before drawing away.
“Five minutes and I’ll be ready to leave,” she said. “I promise to hurry. I can’t wait to get you alone.”
“I’ll go wash off my stage makeup.”
“Leave it for now,” Myrna murmured. “I want to love both of you tonight. I’ll start with the rock star and work my way to that regular guy hiding under that makeup somewhere.”
He grinned. “I’m glad you didn’t see our show tonight, then. We sucked. Sed couldn’t hit his high notes. Jace’s hand is so swollen he can barely play. Trey kept having to sit down with dizzy spells. I couldn’t concentrate because all I could think about was you. At least Eric kept the beat.” He scratched his head behind his ear. “Well, most of the time.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t that bad,” Myrna said.
“Yeah, it was pretty bad, but I honestly don’t care at the moment. Hurry. I need to devour you.”
“Me first.” Myrna kissed him and then turned her attention to the computer again. She was decidedly distracted as she explained the rest of the data entry to Jessica. Luckily, entering the data wasn’t difficult. Just time consuming.
“Just work on this for the next couple of days,” Myrna said. “We’ll be back on Monday to hit the road again and you can help me with the groupie interviews.”
Groupie interviews? Now that did not sound like fun, but she’d be an idiot to turn down this job. “Okay. I can handle this. Do you want me to work on anything else?”
“Probably, but I can’t form a coherent thought right now. It will wait a couple of days.”
There was a commotion outside the bus. Several sets of feet marched up the front steps. The chorus of feminine giggles could only mean one thing. Jessica reached for a stack of Myrna’s raw data so she could look as busy as possible when Sed turned up. She would do her damnedest to ignore him.
“Will you two get out of here?” Sed said to Brian and Myrna. “The bedroom is mine tonight.”
Speak of the devil.
Jessica couldn’t stop her body from tensing involuntarily, but she didn’t take her eyes off her work.
“Sed, don’t chase off my new assistant while I’m gone. I need her,” Myrna said.
“New assist—”
Jessica glanced up at Sed and smiled her impersonal smile. “Hello.” Could he see that her hands were shaking as they hovered over the laptop’s keyboard?
Sed gaped at her. Her gaze traced the beads of sweat running down the side of his face. Oh God. Eyegasm. Why did he have to be so f**king attractive, anyway? The bastard.
“What?” Sed sputtered, his mouth opening and closing like a goldfish.
Brian fled the bus, but Myrna didn’t abandon Jessica. She grabbed Sed’s arm to gain his attention. “Your little stunt got her fired.”
He slowly dragged his gaze from Jessica to Myrna, who was almost a foot shorter than he was, but somehow standing as his equal.
“What?” he said again.
“She needed a job and a place to stay, so I hired her to help me with my research. You will not harass her.”
Sed scowled. “Why would I harass her? I don’t give a shit about her.” He glanced at Jessica and then Myrna again. “You hired her? What do you mean you hired her?”
“Sed,” one of the three women who’d followed him on the bus complained. “Are we going to party, or what?”
“Yeah, shut up,” he bellowed at the attractive strawberry blonde. “I’ll be with you in a minute.”
The woman didn’t even bat an eyelash at his rudeness. Jessica bit her lip to keep from scolding him. It wasn’t her business. Sed was free to do whatever he wanted with this woman. Correction. These women. Three of them. The heat of anger rose up Jessica’s throat. Why did his trio of willing flesh irk her so much?
Myrna said calmly, “She is my employee, Sed. I expect you to treat her with the same respect you treat me.”
“Myrna, are you coming?” Brian yelled from outside the bus.
“I’ve got to go.” Myrna planted a chaste kiss on one of Sed’s cheeks and patted the opposite one. “Behave. Do you hear me?”
“Whatever,” he said. “This is bullshit, Myrna. You should have consulted—”
“Pretend I don’t exist,” Jessica said. “I’ll do the same for you.”
Jessica went back to her data entry, trying to ignore the girl who had plastered herself to Sed’s back and ran her hand up and down over his crotch. Jessica couldn’t help but notice the growing bulge in his pants. She crossed her legs. No, not because she knew what that bulge could do to her. The bench-seat just wasn’t very comfortable. Uh, yeah…