by Lisa Suzanne
But then, quite suddenly, he stops kissing me and pulls back.
“What?” I mutter. I was just getting all warmed up for the main event.
He leans his forehead to mine, and it’s endearing. He sighs and shakes his head a little, his forehead rolling against mine. “It’s just...” He pauses and stands up straight, his eyes on mine. They’re this gorgeous shade of turquoise I never bothered to notice because I never really looked. I saw the stupid, immature way he acted and the long, out of control, curly red hair and the guys who overshadowed him before I really took the time to see him.
I see him now. And I like what I see.
Is this more than a hook-up?
Time will tell.
But here in his arms has become this strange place where I’m learning things and stretching and flexing muscles I never even knew existed. The place where the straight line I’ve always followed suddenly becomes curvy while his curvy path starts to straighten out a little.
“It’s just what?” I whisper.
“It’s just that I’ve thought you were so damn hot from the moment I first met you and now I’m kissing you and about to bang you for the sixth time in two days and Jesus Christ how did this even happen?”
“You thought I was hot when I was sixteen?” I ask. I make a face at him.
He shrugs. “I was too old for you and I never would’ve admitted it.”
“You acted younger than me.”
He laughs. “Still do.” He climbs into his bunk—the one on the top in the middle.
He reaches a hand down to me to indicate I should climb up, and I take the ladder one step at a time.
I hang out on the top rung for a beat and then he grabs my arm and yanks me into the bunk. I giggle as he slides the curtain closed, and we’re enveloped in darkness before he switches on a small light above our heads.
He hauls me on top of him and thrusts his hips toward me. I respond by grinding mine down on top of him. We both moan at the feel of the other, at the carnality of what we’re doing—foreplay on a tour bus with five other people just a few feet away, two curtains the only things separating us from them.
He kisses me harder, more deeply, his tongue circling mine, and then he flips us over so he’s hovering above me. He reaches down and pulls up my shirt, releasing one of my breasts from the confines of my bra with his very talented hand. His career choice calls for quick, deft, nimble fingers, and while I never would’ve imagined those same skills could translate to the bedroom, they most certainly do.
He bucks toward me, and I moan even as his blunt force drives my head backward, causing me to bump the wall just slightly. We both chuckle, but the laughter fades quickly as the heat between us ignites into this palpable fire.
His hips buck into me again, and then he mutters, “Fuck it.” He sits up a little, bumping his head on the short ceiling with a muttered curse before he reaches for his jeans button, and it’s all I can do to get my hands down to my own jeans fast enough to unbutton them.
He reaches into his back jeans pocket for a condom. He bumps his head again in the process, and then he moves off me to secure the condom while I shimmy out of my jeans. Fucking skinny jeans. They get stuck somewhere around my thighs, and that’s just not going to be enough room for me to spread my legs to have sex.
I sit up to yank them off, somehow kicking Will as I pull at them.
“Fuck!” he yells as it all seems to happen in slow motion.
One of his hands is still on his dick while the force of my kick sends him off balance and right over the edge of the bunk.
With a loud thud, he lands on the floor of the bus in between the bunks.
“What the fuck was that?” someone yells from the forward cabin.
“Getting kinky back there!” another voice yells.
“Are you okay?” I say to Will, pulling back the curtain to assess what the hell just happened.
He’s lying there in the middle of the aisle with a bit of shock on his face, his jeans and boxers pulled halfway down his thighs and his very hard, very sheathed dick standing at attention and pointing straight up at the ceiling.
“I’m fine!” he yells. “Don’t come back here!”
“Oh my God!” I can’t help it when I burst into giggles.
But the best thing about William Rascowicz?
He doesn’t let a little sex mishap actually get in the way of having sex.
He stands, peels off his jeans and boxers, and climbs back up into the bunk. Before he gets in, I pull my jeans and panties off, and a moment later he’s hovering over me again.
And then he slams into me, and all I can do to stifle the screams of pleasure is bite down on his shoulder. He grunts and rears back to drive into me again.
“Oh God,” I moan into his shoulder, and we’re both so lost in each other that he must forget where we are. He lifts off me too quickly in some effort to change our position and bangs his head on the ceiling of the bunk only a few feet away from where we lie.
I can’t help my giggle at the look on his face as it screws up in pain, and he rubs the spot on his head. He’s still inside me, and I shift because even though my giggle is moving into full-on laughter now, I’m desperate for friction and release. Laughter and pleasure are cousins anyway, and I’m about to laugh my way through an orgasm.
I swear, this would only ever happen with Will.
I shift again, doing the work from the bottom while Will continues to rub his head, and then it’s like a lightbulb goes off as he realizes he’s still having sex with me, and the pain seems to wane as he resumes his thrusting—which only causes me to laugh more.
“You know,” he grunts as he pushes in and pulls out, “laughing during sex isn’t good for a man’s self-confidence.”
“Bumping your head on a bunk ceiling and proceeding to stop the sex isn’t good for a woman’s road to orgasm,” I retort, my voice a little breathless as thrills zip up my spine.
I can honestly say I’ve never had banter with a man during the act of sex.
“Well I’ll be sure to fuck through the pain next time.”
“Next time?” I challenge on a moan, my thoughts starting to scatter into incoherence as he hits against the pleasure zone. He reaches down to brush against my clit for a second, and then he brings his hand up to pinch my nipple. It’s all I can do not to fall apart completely under him, and I slowly let go, the laughter fading as pleasure takes its place.
“Like you won’t come begging for another piece of this pie,” he says, and he shoves into me so hard I think I see stars as I start to come.
CHAPTER 3: WILL
It sucked saying goodbye to her at the airport, but I can’t focus on it right now because we have a show to play in a few hours.
And I have a prank to pull.
I’m notoriously the butt of everyone’s jokes, and it’s honestly getting a little old. So to get back at Dax and Brody for sending a hooker to my hotel room in Atlantic City last weekend, I’m unleashing fangirls all over our dressing room right before tonight’s show.
It’ll be a small inconvenience for me. I’m not typically the center of attention. Dax and Brody, though? They have a history with the ladies, and even though they’re both engaged now, fans don’t care about that. They just want the time and attention of MFB’s lead singer and drummer.
So during the meet and greet, I’ll be secretly handing out backstage credentials to the loudest, most enthusiastic women, and I’ll be informing them where to go so they’ll be waiting for us in our dressing room when we return.
If Dax and Brody think they can send a hooker to my room without consequences, well, they better think again.
I admit that having a bunch of screaming fans in our dressing room right before a show isn’t the best way to get into our pre-show headspace, but it’ll still be funny as shit to see the looks on their faces when they walk into the room expecting to do our quiet, pre-show rituals and instead finding fifty screaming, adoring women.
<
br /> I had to talk to our head of security to get me extra credential badges, and I made him promise not to let Kylie in on it because she’d ruin the surprise.
But this is gonna be fucking epic.
I thought through a hundred different ideas before I landed on this one. Shaving cream in the bunks, switching out the orange juice in our bus fridge for mac and cheese powder with water, unscrewing the chair legs so whoever sits in it falls on their ass.
But then I thought about how Kylie is traveling with us, and she’s pregnant, and I’d feel like shit if she ended up as the recipient of one of the pranks when they were meant for Dax and Brody. I guess little Rascal is growing up after all.
Except maybe not since I’m still going through with a revenge prank. This one isn’t destructive, though. It’s just funny.
Our meet and greet is backstage, and security ushers back the hundred or so people we’ve sold tickets to for this opportunity. The meet and greet experience in itself is always a little weird to me. We’re just a bunch of regular guys who happen to play music, but the people who pay to meet us and get a picture snapped with us act like we’re more than that. I guess we are to them, and I try to remember to act normal.
But when a chick I’ve never met tosses her arms around my neck and exclaims how much she loves me, I often find myself holding back questions. What, exactly, do you love about me? The fact that I’m in MFB? The fact that I play keyboards? The fact that I cut my hair?
They don’t know me, so they can’t love me.
But they all say it, and not just to me. Dax takes the brunt of it, but he’s the lead singer, so he tends to take center stage most often out of the five of us.
It’s all part of the experience.
We stand in front of a banner with our band logo on it, and each venue offers a few assistants who help out with shit like this. Some lady who introduced herself as Nancy will be managing the line, and another woman will be snapping the photos of each group of fans with us. Kylie will be on top of those two making sure everything is moving along.
I’m standing on the far end of the group with Kane to my immediate right.
I glance at the line. It seems impossibly long, just like it does every night, but this will take an hour at most because Kylie runs everything with extreme efficiency.
The first group is four women who appear to be in their mid-twenties and are dressed like they want to score with some rock stars. They’re wearing tight dresses with their tits spilling out, too much make-up, and heels that aren’t very practical for a concert. In other words, they look fucking hot, not that it matters since all five of the men standing here have women. The very second Nancy gives them the go ahead, the women charge toward us.
They make their way through the line, introducing themselves to us as if we’ll remember their names later when we see them again when in reality, we won’t see them again...at least most nights, we wouldn’t.
Tonight, though, we will.
I hold in my laughter as I think about it. When the first girl gets to me, I say quietly to her, “Want to come back to our dressing room?”
She shrieks something incoherent, drawing the attention of Kane beside me, and I realize I need to find a better way to ask them or I’m going to blow this prank before I even get the chance to invite more women.
Kane turns his attention to the woman introducing herself to him.
“Okay, but it’s a secret,” I whisper. “We don’t want the other ladies in line to find out.”
Her eyes widen, and she nods solemnly as she holds a hand over her heart—or, rather, her heaving tits.
I hand her four of the credential badges. “Show these to security and they’ll get you there.”
“Oh my God!” she shrieks again, and she tosses her arms around me. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
Kylie looks over at me with her brows dipped down. I just shrug and shoot her one of those I know, another crazed fan looks.
I manage to hand out all fifty of my passes undetected by everyone around me in the hour we spend at the meet and greet.
“This crowd is going to be incredible tonight,” Kane says to me as we walk back toward our dressing room, trailing behind Dax, Brody, and Adam.
“Why do you say that?” I ask.
He shrugs. “The group just seemed extra enthusiastic. Especially when they got through the line to meet us.”
I don’t respond. I can’t, or I’ll start laughing.
And when Dax opens the door to our dressing room, I do start laughing. He opens it like he expects it to be empty, and even from the back of the group, I can see it’s full. Screaming, squealing women greet us, and Dax turns back to Kylie with wide, confused eyes.
She’s confused, too, and Brody looks like a deer caught in headlights. Adam and Kane look uncomfortable, and I just stand at the back of the group laughing my ass off.
“Oh you motherfucker,” Dax says to me with a glare, and just that look on his face made this entire prank totally worth it.
“Thanks for the hooker last weekend,” I say. “Here’s your payback.”
“What hooker?” Kylie asks, turning to Dax with her hands on her hips and pursed lips.
He looks helplessly at Brody, and I run into the room next door and lock it so I can have a little privacy before we have to take the stage in another hour, leaving my buddies behind to deal with clearing the fans out of our dressing room.
CHAPTER 4: AMBER
A few weeks later, I pull into the garage after my third twelve-hour shift in a row. I’m thrilled that I have the next four days off, and this Saturday my brother and my best friend are having an official wedding reception to celebrate their accidental drunken Vegas wedding that they’re pretending is real—only I’m pretty sure it actually has become real for both of them.
I love my job in the ER. I love saving lives. I love helping people.
But there are days when we didn’t save a life.
There are days when we don’t help people.
And that takes an emotional toll on a person. That’s why I’m heading straight for burnout city, and Will’s idea of a trip doesn’t really sound all that bad.
I finally start leafing through this week’s mail, which I picked up from the box on my way in. I’m thankful I don’t have to go into work for a few days after the way today ended.
I open my bank statement and check it through three times, finally settling in to stare at the number that’s significantly lower than I thought it would be.
I must’ve spent more in Vegas and on Christmas than I realized.
I don’t have a mortgage thanks to my rich, rock star brother, but I do have bills, and electricity on this huge condo doesn’t come cheap. My salary only gets me so far, but I feel weird asking him for money.
It’s part of the reason I get up early on Saturdays to indulge my hobby by selling cookies at the farmer’s market. It tends to bring in a decent amount of cash, especially when I make the really raunchy designs.
I leaf through the rest of my mail, pulling out bills and setting them into one pile while I toss the junk into a second pile.
When I come across an envelope addressed to me in neat handwriting with a return address from Maine, I don’t put it into a pile. I don’t know anyone in Maine, and I find myself intrigued even though I assume it’s probably junk mail before I open it.
I slide my finger across the seal on the back and tear it open. I pull out a sheet of notebook paper much like the paper I used to use for assignments when I was in high school.
A photograph is stapled to the top of the letter, an image that captures a bride and groom on their wedding day. It’s yellowed and faded as time has done its job on a photo that must be from a few decades ago.
I stare at the image. I don’t recognize the smiling, glowing woman, but the man with a serious expression in his eyes is...my dad? I squint at the picture again. Maybe it’s a cousin. It’s hard to tell since I only know my dad from that
era of his life through pictures.
I start reading, my brows drawing down with a little bit of concern at the opening paragraph.
Dear Amber,
There’s no easy way to say this as I fear it’s something that’s been kept secret from you your entire life.
Your father and I were married before he met your mother. That’s us in the picture on our wedding day. I was pregnant when we married, and we had a child together—a girl we named Amanda. Your dad always loved names that started with “A.”
I won’t get into the details here, but your father and I divorced and he has had no part of Amanda’s life.
You’re an adult now, and I thought it was fair for you to know that you have a sister. Amanda has always known about you. She will be turning thirty-two this year, and my health is declining. My family has all passed on now, so it’s just the two of us. I can’t possibly leave her without any other family, and sisters share a bond that no one else can know. That’s why I’m writing to you after all these years. That’s why I’m appealing to you and not your father or your brother.
I’ve included all my contact information below as well as Amanda’s. I beg of you not to ignore what could be a new extension of your family, the piece that’s been missing your entire life even though you didn’t know it. The piece my daughter has been missing her entire life even though she did know it.
I hope we will hear from you soon.
Sincerely,
Karen Wilson
My brother’s a famous musician. He’s a gazillionaire. Surely this is someone’s crazy attempt to extort money from me. It’s not like it’s the first time someone has used me for money when they find out who my brother is even though I don’t actually have any money.
And yet...
I read through the letter a second time.
A sister?
I shake my head because it can’t be true. It doesn’t make any sense.
How could my dad have kept something this big from us for our entire lives?