“You’re a nice guy, Gale. The best. You deserve better than the mess that comes with me.”
I yearned for him, for what he offered—long-term commitments, sharing, meshing our lives. But desiring something didn’t make it right. Not when it would hurt him. I wished I could rewind the clock and undo my mistakes. I’d wished that so many times, but it was pointless.
“Can’t we just pretend publicly that we’re not a couple?” I could hear the desperation in my voice, and felt his muscles lock around and beneath me in response to my request. “In private, on our own terms, we can be whatever we want to be.”
“I don’t want to hide what we are.” He shook his head. “I want everyone to know you’re mine.”
“I understand, but do we have to declare anything publicly right away?” With more time, maybe I could change his mind, or another solution might present itself. A long shot, I knew, but I wasn’t ready to face the alternative should all else fail. “Outside of the tour, no one has seen us together.”
“Us being a couple is a done deal, Josephine.” His expression was as set in stone as his words. “Besides, anyone seeing us together is going to know how it is.”
“But that’s just it. After this week, we won’t actually be together.”
“Why wouldn’t we?” His lips flattened.
“I have a contract with Black Cat Records.”
“I know you do,” he said, giving me a puzzled look. “I was there when you signed your letter of intent.”
“I promised Mary I would go to Vancouver right after the remembrance ceremony. I have responsibilities to my band. You understand that . . . I know you do. You have responsibilities to yours too. I don’t know when our schedules will realign so we can see each other again.”
The thought of not being with Gale, not being able to touch him whenever I wanted to, made my chest hurt. So much so, I found it difficult to breathe again.
“How quickly you drop the we.” His eyes resembling cool, glittering ice, he frowned.
“Don’t be mad at me. Please. We have so little time to spend alone together. Let’s enjoy it.”
Awed, I brought my hand up to his handsome face. Even angry, he was gorgeous. I slid my fingertips along the honed edge of his whiskered jaw. My breaths eased as I watched his features soften and his eyes warm in response to my touch.
“Fuck, Jo. This kind of talk is pissing me off.” His nostrils flared. “We love each other. We’ll make this work. Logistics. All of it. That’s what couples do. Figure things out together.”
“I hope we can. I don’t have the experience you do.” Or the faith, I added silently. “But I want it to.” That much was true. I wanted it more than anything.
“Then it will happen. Your strength, my determination. We’re a formidable team.”
“But—”
“No more talking of obstacles. We’re together, whatever comes our way. I have you. You’re mine. And I’m not letting you go.”
Josephine
KNOWING IT WAS PROBABLY a huge mistake, I whispered, “Okay.”
I wanted what Gale wanted and couldn’t refuse him. But I was afraid.
No matter how determined he was, or how strong I tried to be, we couldn’t keep my past behind us. The threat of it being discovered wasn’t a contingency to address on some distant day in the future. I’d been naive to tell Mary Timmons that, as if I had any control regardin it.
The day of reckoning wasn’t distant. It was practically here.
“I can tell you need further convincing,” Gale said, his seductive voice rumbling over my fear.
My body, heart, and soul hearkened to his. “I can think of much better things to do than talk.”
I smoothed my thumb over the soft hair of his mustache. My breaths shortened, and so did his as I skimmed his warm lips. Tugging on his full bottom lip with my thumb, I lifted my head, aiming my mouth for his. My eyes fluttered closed when his lips touched mine. Firm to soft, his mouth to mine was always a perfect fit.
But how many more kisses would we share before our time was up? If a solution didn’t present itself, if he remained stubborn, it would fall to me to protect him. I wouldn’t allow him to be condemned for no greater crime than loving me.
He groaned, and his cock lengthened beneath me as his lips moved urgently with mine.
“I love you,” I said as he lifted his head a fraction and tilted it.
I knew he was planning to reangle and deepen the kiss. I didn’t want to stop him, but I needed to tell him how I felt as often as I could. Show him. Our time together was likely running out.
“So beautiful.” His hands on either side of my face, he made that determination, easing back to look at me. His eyes were a darker gray, his hands so large that the bottom of his palms rested against my chin, and his fingertips grazed my scalp.
“Only because that’s the way you see me.” I tucked away this memory of the kiss, his approval, and the way he looked at me. “Make love to me. Please.”
“My pleasure, Jo. Always.”
He gently placed his hands on my shoulders and urged me back onto the bed. When my head touched the pillow, he parted my thighs and moved between them. Resting his weight onto his hands, he returned his mouth to mine, kissing me slowly and deeply as if there were no limit on our time together. I fastened my hands around his strong neck, burying my fingers in his thick hair and kissing him as if it might be the last time, while the fire between us continued to burn, hotter and brighter.
“Gale.” I panted for air when he lifted his head. “I need you.”
“I need you too.” His gaze was a roaring fire that I wanted to consume me. “Let me show you how much.”
He lowered his head, his warm breath dampening the lace over my tits before his tongue did. He licked and sucked on the tight tips. Within moments, the delicate lace was wet, and so was I.
“How does that feel?” he asked, lifting his head to stare deeply into my eyes.
“Good. So good.” Clinging to him, I returned his perusal. I loved when he looked at me with his passion so heavy, it weighted his gaze.
“You’re perfect, Jo. So responsive.”
He lowered his head, tracing back and forth again, nipple to aching nipple with the tip of his tongue. I arched my back off the mattress, moaning when he paused to suck on each hard tip through the lace.
“I feel it in my cock when you moan.” He lifted his head to tell me, his eyes dark, his lips curved.
“I feel it inside my pussy.” I also felt it inside my heart, the thoroughness with which he loved me.
“Show me how it feels. Don’t hide it.” Watching me intently, he sat back and brushed the pad of his thumb back and forth across one nipple.
“That feels so good.” My lips parted and a sigh escaped.
“You like it, what I do to you.” His gaze focused on what his fingers were doing to me, he switched to the other side, brushing, then rolling and twisting the throbbing nub between his wicked finger and thumb.
I gasped as the stinging burn shot hot pleasure straight to my pussy. “I love what you do to me, but it’s too much.”
“Never too much for you.” Rough like his voice, he rolled and twisted the nipple again, only harder.
I moaned as another fiery dart of pleasure struck my throbbing clit. His satisfied grin lifting his mustache on both sides, he lowered his head again, licking and nipping one nipple and then the other. My hands fisted in his hair, I writhed and moaned beneath his ministrations until each flick of his tongue made my pussy clench.
“Too close. I’m too close.”
I tugged on his hair, and he lifted his head. His gaze seemed to throb with the same urgency I felt between my legs.
Sitting back on his heels again, he grabbed the top edge of my boy shorts and tugged them down my hips and then away. As intensely as he was staring at me, there was no doubt he could see that my pussy was soaked. The throbbing urgent pulse between my legs pounded harder, simply from him lo
oking at me.
He placed his hands on my thighs just above my knees, firmly gliding them over my skin, higher and higher, separating my thighs. My pulse racing, I lifted my hips as he gripped my thighs and lowered his head. He blew a warm gust of air over my pussy, stirring the trimmed hairs covering it, and then stopped to look at me.
“Don’t tease. Please,” I begged. “I’m so close.”
“Please what?” His voice was rough, thick, the perfect friction.
“Please put your mouth on me.”
“I plan to.” He lowered his head.
His cheek to my pussy, he brushed it with one side of his face, then the other, lovingly caressing me. Lifting up onto my elbows, I watched him pleasure me.
“I love you, Jo.” He glanced up at me, the length of my torso between us. “Love your pretty pussy.”
His eyes gleaming with hungry intent, he lowered his head. His mouth ravenous on me, his tongue jolted me each time it struck my clit.
“Gale.” I was a torrent of wet, rushing need. My voice and my arms shaking, I grabbed his head by his hair and tugged. His eyes were as dark as the deepest moonlit night. “Please. Please put your cock inside me.”
“Anything you want.” Licking my gloss from his lips, he shifted to one hip, whipped his boxers down the length of his muscular legs, and climbed over me.
“I want you now.” I grabbed his ass, squeezing it as he aligned himself. “Just like this.”
He entered me slowly, and I shuddered as I took his cock, every thick, decadent inch. He pulled out until only the tip remained, and I protested.
“I need you to move,” I said on a groan. “Hard. Fast. Deep.”
As he grunted a reply, his features were as tight as my grip on his ass. My breath sawed in and out as he gave it to me hard, fast, and deep, a perfect urgent rhythm filling me to overflowing with bliss and his wondrous heat.
“So good.” My hands rushed over his hard muscles and the smooth, passion-slick skin of his back.
“Mine, Jo. You’re mine.” He thrust inside me, hard and deep.
“I am. All of me.” I reveled in his ability to take me there so quickly, in the weight of his body on top of mine. In the incomparable pleasure of being possessed by him, of being the recipient of his love.
“Yes, baby. That’s it, squeeze me.”
Diving his hands underneath my ass, he lifted me into each of his deep strokes. His rhythm matched my need as he took me where he wanted me to go. Fast and then faster, he drove his cock into me.
Eagerly, I took what he gave. Fire coursed through me. Liquid heat. A raging, out-of-control flood that remade everything.
As the crest of the wave took me, I cried out, wrapping my arms and legs tightly around him. He stiffened inside me. His cock as deep as it would go, he gave me his hot essence, all that he was.
Tremor after tremor, I quaked as I came, and he was there with me. Our shared wave of bliss high enough to touch the stars, we reached for them, tumbling through the velvety skies together, the brilliant light and colossal heat of the universe our own.
Tears leaked from my eyes as we slowly drifted back to ourselves. This was who I was with him. Remade, reborn, set free. Apart from him, there would be no more of this version of me.
Josephine
I WOKE TO THE sound of heavy, labored breathing. Male breathing. I cracked open my eyes to discover it was still dark outside, and that Gale was no longer in bed beside me.
What the hell?
I sat up and found him on the floor by my side of the bed. With his palms flat on the hardwood floor, his biceps bunching, he was doing push-ups. His breathing morphed into rapid grunts as he started doing his push-ups faster, much like the sounds he made when he ejaculated. Thinking of that, I noticed my breathing quickened too.
“Why are you doing push-ups in the middle of the night?” I asked.
“It’s not night.” He grunted out the words, still pumping, and I scoffed.
“Sun’s not up.”
“It will be soon, and we need to be on our way before then.”
“Oh, I thought we could stay here longer.” Disappointment made my bottom lip jut out.
“Can’t.” He flipped over onto his back on the small throw rug underneath him, and started doing sit-ups as fast as he’d done push-ups. “We have eight hours to log on the bike today.”
My eyes widened. “That’s a lot.”
“We’re going a long way today.” He paused in midmotion and glanced at me. “And I need to stay in good shape so I can fuck you at least a couple of times tonight.”
“Yeah?” A thrill shot through me.
“Absolutely.” He gave me a dark, promising look but resumed exercising.
I threw back the covers. I’d slept well, which was a rarity for me when I wasn’t with him. But why stay in bed when he was out of it?
“We’ll have to get gas and food somewhere along the road.”
“All right.” I scraped my sleep-snarled hair out of my eyes. I was a tour girl used to truck-stop fast-food fare. “How much time before you’re through working out?”
My gaze still on him, enjoying watching him exercise in only his boxers, I put my feet on the floor.
“Ten, maybe fifteen more minutes.”
“Wow. Okay.” At the rate he was moving through his sets, that was a lot of push-ups and sit-ups. No wonder he was in such phenomenal shape.
“You could read to me while I finish up,” he said, his hair in his eyes.
“Sure.” He had read to me. I could return the favor. “What would you like me to read?”
“There’s a book I think you might like on the nightstand.”
He flipped over and started doing one-armed push-ups. His breathing turned more labored, and my eyes bugged out watching him. But eventually curiosity got the best of me, even with all those tempting Gale muscles flexing.
A glance at the nightstand had my eyes bugging out for a different reason. “Wuthering Heights?”
“It’s your favorite, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, you remembered.” I stroked my fingers over the pretty illustrated cover with Heathcliff’s head thrown back as he howled into the wind.
“Are you going to read to me or what?” he asked.
“I can read it.” I cracked open the cover. My fingers tingled as I turned the cream-colored pages, and my heart fluttered. “This is a very thoughtful gift.”
“Don’t get misty-eyed.” Catching my gaze, he gave me a firm look.
“You’re talking to a bookworm, Gale. A book is not just a book. It’s a ticket to another world. A journey you can take without going anywhere.” During my incarceration, reading and music had been my only escapes.
“Right.” His mouth curved up on one side. “I stand corrected.”
“I haven’t held a real physical book in years, and never this one.” Tears brimmed in my eyes.
“It’s yours to keep.”
“Thank you.” I swallowed hard.
“You’re welcome.”
He popped to his feet, and I went to him. He put his arms around me, lowering his head to accept the thank-you kiss I lifted onto my toes to give him.
“Sad, depressing gothic romance by you to start the day,” he said with a grin. “Superior sci-fi thriller by me this evening to end it.”
I smiled. “I like that idea.” And I absolutely loved him.
“I’m going to jump in the shower. You should get ready. Braid your hair.”
“Okay,” I said, following him into the bathroom.
When he dropped his boxers, I lost all interest in getting ready. He lost interest in jumping in the shower when he saw me staring at him, and jumped me instead. Lifting me onto the counter, he fucked me on it. Afterward, we showered together, and then Gale watched me braid my hair.
On the bike hours later, I had my cheek to his muscular back and my arms around his trim waist while watching the desert scenery through my visor. Red sand, towering Joshua trees that rem
inded me of dark monsters with grotesque limbs, and bluish-green sage clumps on the ground, it passed by much too quickly. Like I feared our remaining time together would.
“You really wrote a song about me?” I asked him over the headset connection. Because of everything else that had happened, I’d forgotten to question him about it.
“I did,” he said low. “I told you that you inspire me.”
“Would you sing it to me now?”
“Not now. But maybe later I will.”
“Is there going to be a guitar waiting for us again where we’re going?” I was curious. Gale wouldn’t tell me where he’d planned for us to stop for the night, even though I’d asked him numerous times. He just kept saying he wanted to surprise me.
“Quit trying to figure it out and roll with it. Don’t ruin my surprise. You like surprises like the book, don’t you?”
“I haven’t had many like that. The good kind, I mean.”
“Well, you deserve them. I want to fill your days with beauty and your nights with wonder. I want to give you so much good in every moment of every day, that you forget the bad that came before and look forward to the future. Our future.”
Whoa. My jaw dropped.
Gale’s love was pure, his determination a powerful force. If only the real world could be conformed to my wishes and his desires.
Josephine
I SAW THE SIGNS for Vegas long before we arrived. We could have shaved off a lot of time and miles on our way to Texas if we’d gone through Bakersville to Interstate 40 like the tour had on the way to Napa, but I didn’t think either of us wanted to go through the canyon where the Enthusiasts’ bus had tipped over.
“So, Vegas.” I tried yet again to get Gale to tell me about his surprise. “Any hints on why we’re stopping there?”
“Nope.” He squeezed my hands where they were clasped together at his waist. “Be patient.”
“I’m not good at being patient,” I muttered as he slowed the motorcycle and put on his blinker to enter an exit ramp.
“It’ll be worth it. Trust me.”
He turned at the light, and we joined a line of barely moving bumper-to-bumper traffic on the Strip. The flashing lights and bright colors of the casinos filled me with excitement, even though I wasn’t a gambler.
ROCK F*CK CLUB (Girls Ranking the Rock Stars Book 6) Page 6