With Vengeance Read Free Page A

guitarist for Bleeding
Vengeance! She flipped on the air conditioner and let out a
sigh as gradually cooling air blew across her sweaty brow. If I
do make the cut, I have to be professional. I can’t be ogling
Cliff, no matter how hot he is. I need to see him as a colleague
and not a fantasy.
    But what if he wanted to date her or
something? A rush of dreamy hope came at the thought, only this
time it ebbed quickly with cold practicality. She’d lose all
credibility with the rest of the band if she did that, and never
gain any with the fans. Hell, some Viciӧus fans were calling Kinley
“Yoko” ever since she’d started dating Quinn, and she was only a
temporary band member.
    No. No matter what, Kat couldn’t give in to
temptation and do anything with Cliff.
    She put the car in gear and headed off to her
hotel room. Her IT guy was supposed to call in an hour. With all
the new traffic the site she and Kinley owned was generating, the
comments section had exploded with spam.
    Despite the irritation of dealing with
computer errors, she looked forward to talking to him. He had a
gentle lullaby voice that made her worries flee, if the echo from
the speakerphone was annoying. He never yelled at her like her
father or her ex-boyfriend, even when she jumped ahead of his
instructions and clicked the wrong key. During long nights when bad
dreams and depression kept her from sleep, Kat was tempted to find
out more about him: where he lived, what he did when he wasn’t
helping people with their computers. If he was single.
    But she never dared. Not only would it be
unprofessional, he probably lived across the country. And he could
be married, or one of those antisocial overweight guys that lived
with their moms and spent all of their income on video games.
That’s what Kinley said when Kat brought up her speculations.
    Would it even matter if he was chubby,
though? After her last relationship, looks were starting to matter
less to Kat. All she wanted for her next boyfriend was for him to
be kind. IT Guy definitely fit that bill.
    Either way, they had a good friendship. She
took pleasure in that. He’d known she had a big audition and would
be excited to hear how it went. Of course—Kat grinned—she hadn’t
told him that the audition was with Bleeding Vengeance . Even
though he’d never mentioned the band when they’d talked music, he
had to have heard of them.
    She wouldn’t tell him that he sounded like
one of the band members, she decided. That would be weird.

 
    Chapter Two
    All three members of Bleeding Vengeance
watched Katana’s swaying hips and deliciously curved ass as she
walked out the door. Klement tried not to look—it wasn’t
professional—but hell, he was a guy. And she was a lot more
attractive than he’d expected, with her wavy black hair, ebony
eyes, and exquisite figure.
    Cliff whistled. “Damn, I could hit that all
night long. What do you think, Klem? Should we keep her?”
    Klement nodded. “Yes, but not so you
can bang her. I want to get some actual work done. Katana has all
of our songs down better than our other candidates. So for fuck’s
sake keep your hands to yourselves and maybe we can get this album
recorded on time.”
    Cliff’s eyes narrowed, and his chin jutted
out like a rooster’s beak. “You may call the shots in the studio,
but that doesn’t mean I can’t fuck her brains out when we’re off
the job.”
    “That’s correct,” Klement replied mildly,
though the mental image made his fists clench. “I don’t give a shit
what you do as long as you put out a decent album and keep your
nose and veins clean. After Lefty, I just can’t.”
    Cliff’s competitive aggression fled as fresh
grief settled onto his features like a funeral shroud. “I know,
man. And I haven’t touched the dope since, I swear.”
    Roderick cut in. “I miss Lefty too, but we
still haven’t figured out who’s going to replace him.”
    “If Katana works out…”
    Cliff snorted. “Oh, c’mon, the