Free The Devil's Reprise by Karina Halle Page B

Mel would make me eat when we were bored and hanging out in the hayloft. Suddenly, as Mr. Plant might say, I was a traveler of both time and space.
    I was here.
    And there. There, as the cab drove alongside the taupe stone buildings and pulled up to the narrow, gargoyle-fronted hotel where we were staying, there was Sage Knightly, standing outside.
    There was Sage, leaning against an ancient-looking stone sculpture that I was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to be leaning against, sipping from a paper cup. There he was, the man whose music made my blood pump and whose words made my heart ache. There he was, the man I’d made love to, the man I’d loved, the man who had become so much more than I even let myself realize.
    And he was smiling at the cab as we came to a stop. He was smiling right at me.
    He was also 100 percent, teetering-over, eyes-glazed, not-drinking-coffee-out-of-that-cup drunk.

Chapter Five
    Dawn
    “Here we are,” Jacob said uneasily from the front seat of the cab. His eyes were locked on Sage, who was now slowly plunking his large frame down the steps and sauntering toward us.
    Goddamn it if he didn’t look like a beefier Jim Morrison at that moment, in tight black pants and an open black shirt that looked like it provided no barrier to the cool-ish weather. His swagger was all alcohol-induced, his grin lopsided like he didn’t care enough to straighten it. His black hair was longer now, his curls looser and more disheveled, falling into his eyes which were the dreamy grey-green that I remembered, the color of olive leaves. Those dimples still popped against his thick five o’clock shadow. He was a hot mess but, unlike me when I was a hot mess, he was still hot .
    Heat throbbed between my legs, my stomach started to do somersaults, and the rest of me was frozen in that sticky leather seat, afraid to get out of the cab, afraid to find out that the Sage Knightly I’d come all the way to Europe for wasn’t the same one that I had known.
    And I was afraid I’d still throw myself at him, regardless. Because fuck, could that man make you forget every single inhibition.
    Max patted my knee quickly and said, “Can’t sit in here all day, little lamb. He’s just a music maker. He won’t bite.” He paused. “Unless you know something I don’t. And I reckon you do.”
    He got out of the cab and helped the bellhop with our luggage as Jacob walked around and opened the door for me. I wished he would just leave me inside with my panic and my thoughts and my hormones, which threatened to fog up the windows. But the cabbie eyed me in the rearview mirror with impatience, and I forced my legs to move.
    I stepped out, Jacob’s eyes briefly holding mine with something that looked like an apology in them, and Sage swaggered over to us.
    He stopped, legs in a wide stance, and took a sip of his drink, looking us over as we stood beside the cab.
    “Well, if it ain’t a trifecta of gingers,” he said with a smirk. “I feel like the apocalypse is coming.”
    I noticed he wasn’t letting his eyes settle on me for very long. I also noticed that they narrowed slightly when they took in Max.
    Jacob picked up on this and stretched out his arm toward Max. “Sage, this is Max. He’s the photographer assigned to cover the story with Dawn.” He smiled. “And Max, this is Sage. He’s the drunk rock star you’ll have to take photos of. Aim for his left side; it’s his most flattering angle.”
    Sage didn’t miss a beat. “I hang to the left, too.”
    That’s also how I knew he was drunk. Sage wasn’t normally this, er, forthcoming when meeting people for the first time.
    Max nodded at Sage, smiling politely but not offering his hand, and followed Jacob up the steps to the hotel.
    “Come on, Max,” Jacob said, “let’s get you checked in. Dawn, I’ll get you sorted. I’ll show you to your room…later.” His eyes darted between the two of us.
    He didn’t have to spell it out. He was leaving me and Sage