Echoes of the Heart

by Casey, L. A.

  “Yes, don’t stop . . . Risk!”

  My scream was tangled up with his groan as my cunt squeezed him as my orgasm unexpectedly slammed into my body. My lungs burned for air and my body was rigid as the spasms of bliss sucked me deeper and deeper into their electric embrace. I sucked in air greedily as the spasms of bliss rocked me.

  “Christ, baby,” Risk groaned. “You’re so fucking beautiful. I love watching you come.”

  I couldn’t respond, my energy was spent. Completely and utterly.

  “Look at me.” Risk moved his hand up to my hair and gripped it tightly. “Look at my face. Look what fucking this cunt does to me. Look what you do to me, Cherry.”

  I was a quivering mess, I could barely hold my head up, but my overly sensitive body was so in tune with Risk’s erratic thrusts that staring at him was all I was able to do. I slid my hands over his hardened pectorals and I hummed. He was so sexy, so masculine, so primal. So fucking mine. I loved him. I never stopped. I loved him so much it scared me to death.

  “Risk.”

  His lips parted, his hold on me tightened then, just like that, his eyes rolled back and he hissed as his hips jerked, stilled, then jerked again. The low, guttural groan of pleasure that left him was so primal it made my body twitch in response. Watching Risk’s face when he fucked me was a pleasure, but watching his face contort with ecstasy when he came? That was a fucking dream.

  “Frankie.”

  He collapsed on my chest, almost knocking the wind out of me. We lay like that until Risk rolled onto his side, sliding out of my body as he moved. I was breathing heavily but my chest wasn’t tightening. Yet. Risk leaned up on his elbow and placed a hand on my stomach.

  “D’you need your inhaler?”

  “Both of them.” I nodded. “Please.”

  I lay unmoving as he got up and walked over to the air box on the wall facing us. He returned to the spot next to me and held out my inhalers. I took the blue one first. I uncapped it and took a few puffs to open up my airways, just in case. I waited a few minutes them I took a few puffs of my brown inhaler to combat any symptoms that were lurking.

  “You’re dangerous,” I told Risk. “Between your kisses and sex, I don’t know which one is gonna off me first.”

  Risk smiled as he took my inhalers and put them back inside their box.

  We both got under the covers of my bed then and instantly drew one another in close. I plastered myself against Risk’s hard body and deeply inhaled. His scent was a mixture of his cologne and sweat, but it was so primal, so male, so him. I loved it. I closed my eyes and couldn’t even remember falling asleep.

  When I opened my eyes, I was alone in my bed and the room was dark. I sat up, catching my duvet against my naked chest. I touched the empty space next to me and it was still warm. My heart jumped.

  “Risk?”

  I heard a door open and close then my bedroom door opened.

  “Hey.” The door clicked shut. “Did I wake you? I was in the bathroom.”

  “I thought you’d left.”

  I couldn’t see him; the room was too dark.

  “What?” He climbed back into bed, tangling his body with mine and lying us back down under the duvet. “Why’d you think that?”

  “Because you’re gonna leave,” I said. “You aren’t staying here forever. I . . . I already miss you.”

  “Hey,” he nuzzled my neck with his mouth. “Don’t do this, Frank. Let’s just enjoy each other and we’ll figure out how to move forward when we have to, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  The only reason I agreed was because I didn’t want to think about a situation where we couldn’t figure something out and we’d go our separate ways again. I couldn’t be without him. I’d lived that way and it wasn’t even living, it was existing. I wanted, needed, him in my life. Even if it was only for a little while, even if it was only through phone calls or the occasional visits. I would take it all.

  I’d take Risk any way that I could get him.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  FRANKIE

  I missed work.

  For the first time in my entire time of working at Mary Well’s diner, I overslept and missed work. I woke up to a phone call from Joe, he was very worried about me because I had never missed work before. If I knew I was going to be late, I’d call ahead to let him know. When I told him I overslept, he laughed. When I began to freak out, he told me to just take the day off and he’d have one of the other girls cover my shift. That was how I found myself home on a Saturday morning, lying on my bed staring at the ceiling. After the phone call to Joe ended, I realised that Risk wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

  He’d left a handwritten scribbled note on the pillow he slept on.

  Had to go to May’s, our manager needed us for a video conference call about us heading to London tomorrow. I didn’t want to wake you. You’re so beautiful, Cherry. Not an ugly sleeper at all. Risk x

  I laughed when I read it then I rolled over and quickly winced. I looked down, shifted my thighs and winced again. Oh, I was tender. I didn’t know why I was surprised. I went from having a five-year-long dry spell to a five-times-in-one-night sexathon with Risk Keller. I lifted my hands to my face and giggled into them. I had sex all night with Risk Keller. Me! I bet there were millions of women, and a hell of a lot of men too, who would leer at me with jealously right now. I knew people who loved him would give a kidney to be in my position.

  I felt like a sex kitten.

  I grabbed my phone and stared at the screen. I really, really, wanted to google Risk. I wanted to watch videos of him, hear him speak in interviews and I really, fucking really, wanted to hear him sing but I was still scared. I knew I was in a little bubble of happiness right now because I had Risk for another twenty-four hours before he had to leave, I was worried I’d upset myself if went against what has kept me sane for the last nine years. I had heard ‘Cherry Bomb’ by accident when I turned the radio on the day before on my way to work. The second I heard Risk’s voice I was compelled to listen to it. That song though . . . God, it hurt my feelings. I knew it was about me, he described my body to a T.

  Risk swore that was the only song of its kind that he had ever written, recorded and released and I believed him.

  “Be strong,” I told myself. “Come on, just watch some of his interviews. Hearing his songs can happen later.”

  Before I chickened out, I opened up my YouTube app and typed ‘blood oath interviews’ into the search bar and exhaled a breath when thousands of results popped up. I swallowed as I scrolled down through the videos, glancing at the year the video was uploaded as I went. Someone of them were fan-made compilations. I clicked into one video that had a thumbnail of all the guys laughing.

  ‘Blood Oath Being Cute Little Nuggets For 7 Minutes Straight XD’

  The video opened with the guys doing an interview in a studio but before anyone could ask a question, the chair May was sat on broke and he fell. The way he fell was comical. His hands and legs flailed around and his face was a picture. His eyes were wide and his lips parted as the chair gave way, like he knew what was about to happen to him before it happened. Risk, Hayes and Angel laughed so much that they cried. Risk ended up on the floor with May, he tried to help him up but was so weak with laughter that he fell right on top of him.

  I was laughing so much at their antics that I made myself breathless.

  I got up, grabbed my inhalers from their box and took a few puffs of my brown inhaler then brought them both over to my bed so I could watch the rest of the video. It was a compilation video so it was a bunch of random video edited into one. After the interview where May fell, it switched to the guys walking through a shopping centre with their security team and a whole horde of teenage girls, grown women and men following them. One girl was screaming so loud for Hayes that she actually fainted and May nearly died from shock as he bent down to fan her with both of his hands only for her to spring to life and launch up and wrap her arms around May as he
screamed with fright. In the background of the video, Risk had his hand on his hips and was shaking his head while he watched the scene unfold. To his left were Angel and Hayes, who were laughing so much they began smacking each other.

  I was laughing so much that I had to pause the video. Again.

  When I watched the rest of it, eventually, I was laughing and wiping my eyes by the time it came to an end. The guys were hilarious and poor May seemed to be the cause of their laughter most of the time. He always either falling or someone fell into him, the silly sod. One thing that couldn’t be denied was that the guys genuinely loved being in the others’ company, a blind man could see that. They weren’t just bandmates or regular friends, they were brothers.

  I scrolled down through the related videos and froze.

  RISK KELLER TALKS ABOUT HIS LOVE LIFE! (NOT CLICKBAIT!!!!)

  The title, in all caps, was intimating. I was scared to click on it but I had to. I knew he had other relationships with women, we weren’t together for nine long years, of course he moved on. I moved on with those tourists, it just was a train wreck for me and made me steer clear of men altogether . . . until Risk stormed back into my life.

  With a deep breath, I tapped on the video’s thumbnail.

  His face appeared on screen instantly. He didn’t look real. He looked like he was generated from a computer, that was how good he looked. His white-blond hair was still shaved on either side but instead of it being braided back and styled like a Viking, it was lose and messy and looked like he had just crawled out of bed but God, it was sexy. His face was clean shaven and his freckles were darker and covered his fair face. Freckles were supposed to be cute and adorable, but somehow Risk made them look incredibly rugged. He wore a black long-sleeved T-shirt that was a little fitted and outlined his broad shoulders, hard chest and muscled arms. The only thing that was out of place were his eyes. They were bloodshot and his pupils were huge. He was high on something during this interview and that hurt my heart.

  The interviewer had been introducing herself to Risk, and he had greeted her, while I appreciated the sight of him. They spoke a little about music, the band as a whole and their past and upcoming shows before my ears picked up that the conversation had switched to interest in Risk’s love life.

  “Have you ever been in a committed relationship, Risk?” the lady asked. “We know you’re the wild, bad-boy rocker, but have you ever had a steady girl?”

  “Yep.”

  “Who?”

  “Her identity is private, she’s not in the spotlight and I don’t want her life put in it because of me.”

  My heart thrummed against my chest. He was talking about me. I knew it.

  “Was she special?”

  “Very,” Risk answered. “I never had another girlfriend after her so make of that what you will.”

  “Wow,” the interviewer said. “Do you see her often?”

  “I don’t see her at all,” Risk said. “She broke up with me just before I moved stateside so it’s been a long time since I’ve seen or spoken to her.”

  The interviewer’s eyes widened.

  “I bet she regrets breaking up with you now that you’re the Risk Keller.”

  I could tell that Risk was tired of this interviewer just by the way he looked at her. He was bored and maybe even a little irritated.

  “She was fine before me so I’m pretty sure she’s fine without me too.”

  I paused the video and noticed that my hands were shaking.

  I had heard enough of this kind of conversation, because it involved me directly. I was sure Risk had received questions like this dozens of times before and hearing him respect my privacy touched me but was made my heart pound because when he spoke of me, I could hear fondness in his tone. This interview was before we reconciled. I checked the upload date. Three years ago. Wow. It made butterflies fill my stomach to know he was thinking of me during a time period when we hadn’t seen or spoken to one another in many years.

  I knew he was asked a question but it was comforting to know that I was on his mind, because he was always on mine. I felt good about that, but that emotion was snatched away when I accidentally scrolled down to the comments and read what some of the more hardcore Sinners had to say. Apparently, they didn’t have a filter, or manners, when it came to posting comments on the internet.

  BabyMama4Risk: No hoe is good enough for our Risk. NO DUSTY BITCH THAT WALKS THIS EARTH! That’s on periodt!

  Like It Is: I don’t no who Risk’s ex gf is but I STILL dgaf about Nora, she is SO plain. Not hot at all. Risk is a GOD. A FUCKIN GOD!

  DaddyRisk: I wnt him 2 marry me!!!! Risk pls!

  HayesIsBae: What psycho bitch would dump RISK KELLER? Is she gay? Fuckin’ has to be because WHAT A DUMB FUCKIN BITCH!

  Angel’s Angel: My guy is SO stoned, he can barely keep his focus on the woman interviewing him. 420 bitches! Roll up!

  HayesChoice: I bet that stupid cunt who dumped him is SICK with herself now that he’s blown up. Stupid ass ho!

  I clicked the home button to get out of the video and the nasty comments. I felt a little sick after reading them. These people were insulting me and calling me horrible names without knowing a single thing about me or about my and Risk’s relationship. They had no fucking clue that if I didn’t break up with him they wouldn’t have their superstar Risk Keller. I felt myself get frustrated with the commenters but I took comfort in the fact that they didn’t know I was the woman Risk spoke about. I was just a faceless and nameless person to them. That relaxed me . . . for all of two seconds.

  I accidentally hit the trending option on my screen and when I saw what the number one trending video was on YouTube, I nearly had a heart attack. I jumped with fright and gripped my phone when I read the title of the video.

  RISK KELLER AND MYSTERIOUS WOMAN KISS ON SOUTHWOLD PIER!!

  I screamed when I clicked into the video and both Risk and I came into view. We were at the end of the pier, leaning against the rail as we gazed out at the ocean. The lighting on the pier showcased our faces easily. We laughed and it was obvious we were speaking to one another but then Risk turned this body to face mine. I had my eyes closed but when I opened them and realised he was looking at me, my entire facial expression changed. I looked up at Risk, and, Christ, I could see on my own face just how much I wanted him to kiss me.

  We spoke for a couple of minutes then just like that, Risk’s mouth was on mine.

  I swallowed as I watched us hungrily kiss one another like it was the only chance in this life that we would ever get to taste the other. I gasped in real time when Risk picked me up and settled me on the railing and continued to kiss me something fierce. My hands were all over him, my legs were wrapped around his body and I could tell I was squeezing the hell out of him. I was shaking as I checked the upload time. Seven hours ago. We had kissed a couple of days ago but the video was just released.

  With trembling hands, I scrolled down to read the comments.

  Risk4Eva: Damn! GET IT GIRL!

  Blood Oath’s Biggest Sinner: Nooo! Why does he kiss ugly bitches like this when he has NORA? Does he feel sorry for them? UGH!

  May Gal: OMG. I’M SO FUCKIN’ JEALOUS BUT GET IT, BABY BOY!

  Facts4Dayz: Another gold-digging ho who wants into Risk’s pockets and how does she do that? By getting into his pants! I fucking hates these ho ass bitches. THOT!

  PrettySophiaBabbyyyyy: Ew! Ewww! She’s so ugly though!

  Jameson Oz: My guyyyyyyyyyy, I thought he was gonna fuck her there and then. LMFAO!

  MaySinner5426: I swear I’ve never seen him kiss a natural redhead before, this is INSANE!

  Lazy A-Hole: I’m mortified for her. She looks so desperate for him, she’s like a dog in heat.

  I clicked out of the video, my face was burning and I quickly realised that I was crying. I grabbed my blue inhaler, took a few puffs and tried to calm down but, my God, I was freaking the hell out. My face was in the number one trending video on YouTube. Hurri
edly, I googled Risk’s name and the first articles to pop who were ones about the video of us kissing on the pier. I whimpered when I saw another video had been uploaded; one that was filmed through the windows of the diner when I was having dinner with the guys. There were videos of May and Anna getting into a car and obviously having sex by the way the car rocked and the sounds coming from inside the vehicle. I scrolled and it just got worse and worse. I was labelled a ‘mysterious beauty’ but it was as obvious as the day I was born that I was scared shitless as the paparazzi crowded me.

  The pictures, and video, they got of me leaving the diner with the guys left no room for doubt. It seemed to excite everyone that Risk was so protective of me. There were articles about his fans praising him for telling the paparazzi to fuck off. I dropped my phone onto my bed and tried to think clearly. I didn’t know what to do. Someone in Southwold was bound to say ‘Hey, isn’t that Frankie Fulton? The waitress at Mary Well’s?’

  “It’s fine, it’s fine,” I spoke out loud. “Just relax.”

  I couldn’t relax, I needed to try and fix this.

  I needed to speak to Risk.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  RISK

  I should’ve told you that when you trusted me,

  When you looked at me, and saw the real me.

  I wrote down the lyrics that floated around my head. I had been working on it over the last couple of days and it was starting to take shape. As I wrote, I hummed the melody that myself and the guys eventually wrote and lay just a couple of hours ago. I had put the MP3 of the instrumental on my phone, popped my AirPods in my ears and put it on repeat. That was how I wrote. The melody came first then the lyrics followed. None of the other guys took part in the lyrical aspect of our records, they were all about the music.

  Luckily, I had a knack for both.

  “Oh, fuck,” I heard May say from downstairs. “Shit.”