Indigo Rain

by Elise Noble

  “Didn’t you get much sleep?” I asked.

  Travis scraped his hair back. “Is that a British way of telling me I look like shit?”

  “Not shit, exactly. A little rough around the edges?”

  “At least you’re honest.”

  Rush squeezed the breath out of me from behind, lifting me clear off the floor.

  “Instababe!”

  I gave up. I didn’t really mind him calling me that anymore, and when I smelled the whisky on his breath, I knew any protest would fall on deaf ears anyway.

  “Are you drunk?”

  “Best way to fly, baby. JD has this deal with the check-in girl. He gives her orgasms, and she gives us upgrades.”

  “Let me explain the concept of ‘too much information,’” I said as Dex walked past us towards the reception desk, stony-faced. “Is he okay?”

  “We had to walk about fifty miles at the airport.”

  “Where’s JD?”

  “Getting supplies. He’ll be here in two minutes.”

  Shit. It didn’t take a genius to translate. JD was getting drugs. He’d been slightly better over the past week, but now it seemed he was on a backwards slide.

  “You didn’t try to stop him?”

  “Hard to reason with an addict,” Travis said softly. “He goes off the rails every time he has to come back after a trip home.”

  “Like going back to school to face the bullies on Monday morning?”

  “Were you bullied?”

  “Not me. My friend Tessa.”

  “Some little punks tried picking on JD once for the way he dressed. He smashed the mouthiest asshole over the head with Rush’s guitar.” Travis shook his head at the memory. “Rush went fuckin’ purple. We had a gig that night, and he had to steal a new guitar so we could play.”

  “I’m not sure I want to know.”

  Rush leaned on my shoulder. “We went to this music store with an empty guitar case, and Travis and JD distracted the girl behind the counter while I picked out a sweet, sweet Gibson and put it in the case.”

  “Like I said…”

  “Don’t worry; the girl did well out of the deal.”

  Travis didn’t look happy. “Shut up, buddy.”

  Was this what life would be like if I stuck around? Having to listen to tales of Travis’s past conquests while praying nobody got arrested?

  Courtney appeared, clipboard in hand. “Uh, guys? We need to go. The cars are outside.”

  What followed was vintage Indigo Rain. JD was quite clearly high, and Rush slurred every other word. Dex barely spoke. The show host made a comment about Vina that was borderline racist, and Travis threatened to smash his fucking face in. The girl working the bleep machine certainly earned her money.

  “Well, that was an interesting experience,” I said as we rode back to the hotel. It was nearly midnight, but that hadn’t stopped fifty fans from waiting outside the radio station, clamouring for pictures.

  Travis shrugged. “The guy was an asshole.”

  I’d never advocate violence, but I was oddly proud of him for sticking up for Vina. “Yes, he was.”

  In truth, the host was known for it, and I was surprised the band had agreed to appear on the show, but that was Gary for you. His willingness to eschew morals in return for publicity knew no bounds.

  “What did social media think?” Rush asked.

  “Your fans are arranging to boycott the station.”

  “Shame. Anyone want to go out and celebrate?”

  Dex and Travis groaned. JD didn’t, but only because he’d passed out.

  “Instababe?”

  “I have to go home.”

  “You’re not staying at the hotel?”

  “Not when I have to pay for my own room and I live a twenty-minute cab ride away.”

  Rush dropped his head back and closed his eyes. “Guess I’ll just stay in and watch porn instead.”

  Oh, what a lovely image.

  The car pulled up outside the hotel, but because it was a limo arranged by the label, I couldn’t simply pay the driver to carry on to my place. Thank goodness for Uber. I trailed the guys into reception to wait.

  “Want me to stay with you until your car comes?” Travis asked.

  Yes. “No, it’s fine. You’ll get mobbed by selfie-hunters.”

  “Text me when you get home. I want to know you’re safe.”

  Sometimes, he reminded me of Zander except with longer hair and a beard.

  “I will; I promise.”

  “Night, blue.”

  I got a hug from Rush, nothing from JD because he’d zoned out, a grimace from Dex, and an awkward little wave from Travis. Hashtag friend-zoned.

  My Uber turned up, a ubiquitous Toyota Prius with disco lights on the dash, and I was about to climb in when I heard running footsteps behind me. Shit! I fumbled in my handbag for the illegal pepper spray Zander insisted I carry, but before I could get it out, Travis pulled the car door open and half lifted me inside. He followed, no doubt trying to stay out of sight of prying eyes.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “What about?”

  Travis eyed up the driver, who seemed a little too interested in our conversation.

  “Can we go somewhere more private?”

  “Uh, okay. Where? A café? Back into the hotel?” I hesitated a second. “My place?”

  “Will your brother give me grief for coming home with you?”

  “He’s not there tonight.” Which meant he’d never know.

  “Then we’ll go to your place.”

  Why did I feel as if I were inviting a fox into the henhouse?

  “We can leave now?” the driver asked.

  “Yes, please.”

  In Chelsea, Travis stared up at my apartment building. Admittedly, it did look beautiful at night, the steel and glass lit by strategically placed spotlights. We lived on the sixth floor, which gave us a balcony and a nice view across the River Thames.

  “Your apartment’s much nicer than mine,” Travis said.

  “Really?”

  “I just rented somewhere cheap to leave my stuff. I haven’t even unpacked most of it.”

  “You didn’t go there this week?”

  “No, I went to my folks like I said.”

  “Oh.”

  “What’s ‘oh’?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Yeah, it does, because now you won’t look at me.”

  I used my fob to let us through the outer door, then led Travis over to the lift. I might as well be honest with him. Yes, I knew he messed around with women all the time, but I really didn’t want to know about it.

  “You had a girl over, that was all. I just figured you’d go to your place rather than your parents’ for that.”

  “How do you know?”

  At least he didn’t try to deny it. “You called me, remember? On, well, I guess it would’ve been Sunday night for you.”

  “You didn’t pick up.”

  “No, but I tried to call you back, and she answered and said you were asleep.”

  “She was Caitlin. She came over for dinner with me and my parents. And on Monday and Tuesday, she drove me to my DUI sessions because my parents were working.”

  “Then you didn’t…”

  “No, blue. Anything between us was over years ago, but we’re still friends, and we still talk. Hell, she’s got a boyfriend. A doctor at the hospital where she works, except they’re keeping it quiet because his divorce isn’t finalised yet. They bought a fuckin’ puppy together last week. She brought it over, and it shit in the lounge. I spent Sunday evening disinfecting the damn carpet.”

  “I’m sorry. I just assumed…”

  Travis crowded me as I unlocked the door, and sweat beaded on the back of my neck. The man made me lose my mind when he got this close.

  “We talked about you too.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Catie helps me to g
et my head straight. She was the one person who told me not to sign that fuckin’ record deal, you know. Back then, I accused her of being selfish, of wanting to stifle my career. Took us six months to speak again after that, and I’m lucky she spoke to me at all. She was right, and I was a fool.”

  “At least you can admit it now.”

  “Yeah. I’ve changed, and so has she.”

  “Why did you talk about me?”

  “I wanted advice. Told her I’d met the right girl at the wrong time.”

  My heart began thumping against my ribcage, an insistent beat that drowned out rational thought.

  “And what did she say?”

  “That I was an idiot for walking away. That if you were the right girl, we’d find a way to make things work, like her and her damn doctor.”

  “So what are you saying?”

  He gave me a lopsided smile, and my heart lurched out of my body and splatted on the living room floor.

  “I’m saying that I like you, blue. I really fuckin’ like you. I don’t know what the future holds, but I can’t just walk away.”

  I didn’t know what to say, and I also thought I might cry, so I stood on tiptoes and kissed him before I could tell myself it was a bad idea. And he kissed me back. Softly at first, with his hands fisted in my hair, then he licked along the seam of my lips and they parted automatically. My experience with men may have been limited, but the way he tangled his tongue with mine felt pretty damn good, judging by the zaps of heat that ran through me from my scalp all the way to my toes. Travis’s beard scratched against my chin, a sharp contrast with his lips, and his hands went everywhere—on my back, around my waist, squeezing my ass. The faint taste of coffee still lingered on his breath, but who needed caffeine? I’d never felt so awake—so alive—in my life.

  But the longer we kissed, the faster the pool of heat in my belly began to boil, until eventually it fizzed into full-on panic. I was getting off with Travis Thorne. His list of conquests was into triple figures, and he’d quite literally been schooled in the art of sex by a teacher. I had no freaking clue what I was doing.

  I tore my lips away, panting. “Stop. Please.”

  He did, instantly, and I missed his arms when they dropped away.

  “Blue?”

  “I… I…”

  He took a step back, face ashen, but I grabbed his hands and pulled him towards me again.

  “I’m scared. I’ve never… Not since…”

  “I thought I’d hurt you. I never want to hurt you.”

  “No, no, you didn’t. It’s just that I don’t know what to do next, and you obviously do, and I’m worried I’ll end up acting like an idiot, well, more of an idiot because quite clearly I’m acting like an idiot right now, and—”

  “Shh.” Travis put a finger to my lips. “That innocence is part of what makes you special. I’ll teach you. We can do things as fast or as slow as you want.”

  “I need an A to Z manual.”

  Now I got a new kind of smile, a filthy grin that turned my insides to jelly.

  “I can help with that. Let’s start with A.”

  “Please don’t say anal.” I clapped a hand over my mouth. “And please forget I said that.”

  Travis smoothed my hair and gently cradled my face.

  “A is for arousal.” He traced one finger across my cheek. “Your skin flushes. Your pupils dilate. Your lips get fuller.” The finger continued downwards, across my collarbone, farther. “Your nipples harden.” He laid a hand on my chest. “Your heart speeds up. Your breath quickens.” A soft kiss. “You’re getting wetter.”

  And my knees were about to give way. I gripped Travis’s arms to stop myself from tumbling to the floor.

  “Am I right?” he whispered.

  All I could do was nod.

  “B is for breasts. Men are fascinated by what we don’t have, which means we like to play with these.” He cupped my boobs in his hands. “Yours are perfect. As is your oh-so-English bottom.” His hands moved downwards and lifted, tipping me towards him. “Better.”

  “At this rate, I’m not gonna last past E. Uh, what is E?”

  “Patience, baby-blue. We’re on C. C is for clitoris.” His fingers brushed over my mound, the merest touch, and then they were gone. “But that’s for later. C is also for confidence. I hate that somebody stole that from you, and I want to give it back.”

  C was also for crying. A tear rolled down my cheek, and Travis licked it away with the tip of his tongue.

  “D is for…” Tell me he wasn’t gonna say “dick.” He’d been so freaking amazing until now. “Dreams. You’ve been in mine since the day I met you, but I won’t tell you what we’ve been doing.” That filthy smile came back. “Don’t want to scare you off.”

  “I know what E is for now. Emotion.” A sniffle escaped. “I never thought it would be like this.”

  Travis trailed kisses along my jaw. “I knew it would when I met the right person.”

  “What’s F?”

  Fucking? Because the way he was making me feel, I was about ready for that. Terrified but ready.

  “Foreplay. Gonna take my time with you, baby-blue. But first I’ll skip ahead to T. Talking. If anything makes you feel uncomfortable, or if we’re moving too fast, you need to tell me, okay?”

  “I thought T was for tearing each other’s clothes off.”

  Travis chuckled and lifted his arms up. “Tear away.”

  I pulled off his shirt and got my first close-up look at those tattoos. A microphone on his right shoulder with a snake slithering around it. Music notes on a stave below it, then a guitar with its neck tied in a knot. I traced the outline with a fingertip.

  “Why did you get this one? The guitar?”

  “Stifled creativity.”

  I turned him around so I could look at the masterpiece on his back, the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

  “This is a metaphor for the band?”

  “It is. Indigo Rain, bringers of chaos and doom, but nobody truly knows us.”

  “Which one are you?”

  “The dark horse, baby.”

  Travis didn’t have a gym body, no big muscles, but he kept fit from running around on stage every night, and it showed. As did the growing bulge in his jeans. Bloody hell. I wasn’t sure what to do next, which part to touch, so I kissed him again. I understood the kissing part. And this time when Travis lifted me, I wrapped my legs around his waist and clung to him like a monkey.

  “We can’t stand in the living room all night,” he said. “Well, we could, but it wouldn’t be very comfortable.”

  “How long are you staying?”

  “Until you kick me out.”

  “That’s not gonna happen. Shall we move this to the sofa? Or…or the bedroom?”

  “Are you ready for the bedroom?”

  With anyone else, the answer would have been no, but what Travis had said earlier resonated. When I met the right person, everything fell into place.

  “Yes.”

  “Then tell me where to go.”

  I jerked my head to the right. “Down that hallway. First door on the left.”

  I’d always liked my bedroom with its dark pink curtains and cream bed linen, but now with Travis present, it suddenly seemed childish.

  “It’s a bit girly,” I said, apologetic.

  “I’d be more worried if it was a bit manly.”

  He carried me over to the windows, floor-to-ceiling glass that took up an entire wall. Zander had the same view in the master next door, and since the balcony rail was also made of glass, I could lie in bed and watch the boats on the river.

  “Can people see in?” Travis asked.

  “It’s one-way glass.”

  “Good. I don’t want more fuckin’ pictures on the internet.”

  His hard cock nestled between my legs as he sat on the edge of the bed, and I wasn’t just wet, I was soaking. I glanced down, and sure enough, there was a dark spot spreading on my jeans. Travis’s gaze follo
wed mine.

  “Fuck. That’s the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “Just get me out of these clothes, would you?”

  I raised my arms, imitating his pose from earlier, and he peeled off my shirt and tossed it away. I expected my bra to follow, but he pulled the cups down instead, leaving my nipples pointing to attention over the top.

  “You’re perfect, blue.”

  I looked down at myself, but I didn’t see what he saw. Instead, I tried to suck in the roll of stomach pressing over my waistband as he kissed and licked and sucked his way across my chest. Come on, come on, come on. Things were getting mighty uncomfortable.

  “You okay?”

  “I’m still wearing too many clothes. We’re both wearing too many clothes.”

  “P is for patience.”

  “Don’t give me that bullshit. You missed out ‘cock’ and ‘dick,’ so P is for penis.” I gasped. “I can’t believe I just said that.”

  Travis burst out laughing. “Hot and bothered, blue? I like your dirty mouth.”

  “I like your mouth too. Especially when you kiss me with it.”

  Infuriatingly, he only offered the faintest brush of his lips. “Since you seem determined to skip ahead in the alphabet, how about we try the letter O?”

  “O?”

  “Oral.”

  I glanced at his crotch, and visions of the first party came back to me. Of Jae-Lin going down on him with practised efficiency.

  “You mean I…”

  “No, me. I want to taste you.”

  Of all the things my stepfather had done, that wasn’t one of them. He hadn’t stolen that pleasure from me, which only made me more eager to try it.

  “Okay.”

  If Travis Thorne ever quit singing, he could still make millions with his mouth. His tongue in particular. Perhaps I should have been jealous of the hundred other women he’d been with, but at that moment, I didn’t care because all the practice and all the experience gave me this. I arched off the bed as he pressed my thighs apart and went to town on me, bringing me to the brink time after time but pulling me back each time I got too close to the edge.

  “Dammit, will you let me come?”

  His response?

  He pushed one slim finger inside me and pressed, and I nearly hit the ceiling. The asshole looked up, pleased with himself.

  “G is for G spot.”

  “H is for hurry up.”