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term I’d borrowed from the fantasy novels of Ariadne Wood. I wanted to do depraved things to this woman. To her and with her. My “rule” was that I never did a groupie twice because I didn’t want them getting attached or obsessed the way Layla had, but honestly most of them didn’t come back for more.
    But it’s not your run-of-the-mill sex kitten who has the words Love Pain tattooed on her inner thigh where only a very intimate partner would ever see it. I still wanted to ask her about that. When a woman doesn’t tell you her name, should one take it as a sign she isn’t interested in another go or merely that she has secrets of her own?
    “Mal, you’re not even listening to me.”
    “Sorry, what?”
    “Never mind. Here, put your jacket on.” Axel handed me a black jacket that I shrugged on easily. It was cut like a dinner jacket but with leather lapels embossed with a dragon design. I had a black dress shirt partly unbuttoned, black pants, and black leather boots. I was never seen wearing another color in public except as an accent to the black, fully conscious of its weight as the color of both mourning and villains.
    Axel, on the other hand, had pumped up his blond highlights so much one could be forgiven for forgetting that his natural hair was actually light brown, and he had opted for a jacket that appeared to be light blue with green imitation snakeskin. At least I’m fairly sure it was imitation.
    “Come on, Mal,” he said, poking the corners of my mouth as if trying to get me to smile. “Bask in the attention a little, will you?”
    Basking in the attention is your job, I wanted to say to him. That’s why you are the lead singer and I am not. But I didn’t have the energy to argue. “I’ll try,” I said, without specifying what I was trying. “Now, let’s go.”
    *  *  *
GWEN
    One of the things about my sister is that she’s sneaky in an understated way. She simply doesn’t tell you things that she thinks might change your mind. But I should have known. When she said they needed “a girl to round out the party,” I should have known what she meant was “a double date with my boyfriend, Axel, and his best friend, Mal.”
    Why wasn’t that obvious to me? Maybe because I thought Ricki would have come out and said that. But no. Why make it obvious that she was trying to fix me up with her boyfriend’s friend? She was obviously hoping something might work out and didn’t want to jinx it, I guess.
    She also had no way of knowing I was kind of hoping something might work out myself, although I was worried he’d flip if he realized I was the same girl. I had to remind myself that Ricki didn’t know about last night. No one did.
    No one, not even Mal. As he took a seat next to me in the limo, there wasn’t any recognition in his eyes beyond the slight flicker that we had met in passing before. He did bow his head in a gentlemanly way and kiss my hand as we were reintroduced, and he was quite a gentleman in other ways, too. I certainly hadn’t expected that after yesterday’s raunch-fest, but there he was, doing things like offering me a handkerchief after I sneezed. I suppose the years of finishing school came out in situations like this. It certainly did for me, as I pretended that kiss on my hand didn’t start a chain reaction of sense-memories of his lips touching me all over. His hair was tamed back and his suit was impeccable, but the scent of his skin seemed to tempt me like the warm familiarity of a favorite candle.
    When we reached the theater, the limo came to a stop and he exited first, then offered his hand to help me step out of the car. My hand in his reminded me of how he’d held it to steady me as I’d stepped over the coffee table—and what I’d stepped over the coffee table for.
    A flurry of flashes and shutter clicks showered us and he extended his elbow so I could take his arm. He placed his hand atop mine, almost protectively I thought—or maybe wished—as