and handed it to Crystal. She opened it to discover a diamond stud.
‘It’s for here,’ Max said, caressing her stomach and lightly touching the piercing on her naval. ‘Will you wear it from now on? And then every time I see you I can think of you wearing it, think of kissing your sweet skin.’
Crystal smiled and, pulling out the silver skull and crossbones stud she was wearing, replaced it with the diamond. She lay back on the bed.
‘Perfect,’ Max said and, reaching for his phone, took a picture of her.
‘No way, Max!’ Crystal protested, trying to grab the phone from him, but he held it out of reach. Then he gently, teasingly kissed her neck, moved down to her breasts, then her stomach, then further still. And Crystal stopped thinking about the phone, stopped thinking about anything except how Max was making her feel . . .
Chapter 5
Saturday Night
‘ HOW ARE YOU feeling now?’ Crystal gave Tahlia a sympathetic look, as she returned from the bathroom. Even though they’d made it to the semi-finals, Tahlia’s pre-stage nerves hadn’t got any better. Crystal felt nervous, too, but also excited. She wanted to get out there and prove what they could do.
‘A bit better now I’ve been sick,’ Tahlia answered, looking pale and sorry for herself. ‘Come back to the dressing room,’ Crystal said. ‘I’ll touch up your make-up.’
‘Thanks, Crystal,’ Tahlia said gratefully. ‘Sorry I always get like this.’
Crystal laughed. ‘Don’t be daft, it doesn’t matter, your singing’s always fantastic. I’d think there was something wrong if you weren’t throwing up before we went on.’
In the dressing room Belle was glued to the rest of the competition on the TV. They were up against four other groups. The favourites to win were Northern Dreams, a boy band from Manchester led by Tyler, a rough-diamond, good-looking lad, who all the girls fancied. Bijoux was a group of three women, all over thirty, who were great singers but they lacked a certain something. It was probably sex appeal, Crystal thought – you couldn’t imagine anyone pinning posters of them on their bedroom walls and lusting after them, they just looked like someone’s mum. X & Y were a squeaky-clean group of two boys and two girls who made Bucks Fizz look cutting edge, and who always chose to singsentimental songs that Crystal couldn’t believe would be enough to win it for them. @ttitude was another girl band – they weren’t bad singers but they were arrogant, they hated taking any direction and Belle always said that they dressed like hos. They were the girls that they’d had the confrontation with at their very first audition. @ttitude had clearly not forgotten Belle’s bitchy comments and they had gone out of their way to be as vile as possible about Lost Angels. @ttitude were quoted often, slagging Lost Angels off, saying they had more talent in their little fingers and they would never make it, hinting that they had only got as far as they had because of Dallas’s special relationship with them. Tahlia and Crystal refused to comment when tabloid journalists pestered them for a reply but Belle didn’t hold back and called @ttitude a bunch of hard-faced slappers, who looked as if they should be living in a trailer park. The tabloids loved it and had a field day superimposing the four girls’ heads on pictures of some fat white trailer-park women. More insults followed from @ttitude and war was well and truly declared.
Tonight each act had to perform two songs – one contemporary and one classic. The Lost Angels were singing the Sugababes’ ‘Too Lost in You’, and The Three Degrees’ hit, ‘When Will I See You Again?’. They were appearing last which was a good place to be, Crystal assured the others. ‘We’ll be the ones that the viewers remember.’ Northern Dreams had just finished their first song and the audience were screaming their heads off in appreciation. Sexy Tyler had stripped off his shirt to
Rebecca Hamilton, Conner Kressley