TAT Box Set

by Emjay Soren

  Once I am in my car and driving, I know I am going to go to him tonight. I need answers and he needs to give me them. I just hope that my luck in business passes over to my love life tonight.

  Cal

  I need to get Axe from my parents but decide to stop by my house and change first. The rain is no joke in the Northwest and it seems that when life sucks it is always raining here. I send a quick text to my mom to let her know I am heading her way as I take my stairs to my room two at a time. Tonight, was a letdown for sure. I had hoped to melt a little of the ice I formed around her heart. I wanted a few drinks and conversation before I had to get him. Instead I lasted an hour and had to leave from the sight before me.

  As a man I don’t weigh to heavily on emotion when it comes to big decisions in my life. I don’t do things because I want to. I do them because I weigh the logic and the repercussion, and I decide from there. Never once did I play it safe, but I played every hand I have been dealt with logic that gives me the best possible outcome.

  Tayla and everything we are and aren’t, lacks logic, rationality and the repercussions are huge. I go in every fucking time and I play it on emotion, and I get so uncomfortable displaying emotion like that. I never felt the viscous strike of my parents hate. I was tucked in bed every night with I love you’s and bedtime kisses. I never had anything tremendously terrorizing to take place in my life. I have been blessed and I know it, probably better than most. That perfect life made me outright awkward when it came to guiding by emotion.

  Then I get a call from my sweet mom and my life and what I knew changes. I can play on emotion with Axe. I don’t know why it is natural with him. I want to save him and protect him and never let him hurt. I feel the same way with Tay, where with Axe I know without a doubt or concern if I am what’s best for him. Tay can do better than me, should do better than me but I will never let her.

  When everything went to hell with Tayla, I tried to weigh the repercussions against a positive outcome. I tried to be logical and tell myself that in our industry and the things we do, and God knows the things she has seen, that logically we wouldn’t survive. Then there was the emotion to deal with. TAT. Should this thing with Tayla go to hell in a hand-basket, TAT will too.

  I chose TAT because of logic and emotion.

  Now I weigh the caution of my son falling in love with Tay and my fucking it up.

  Had I let emotion play it out after first hooking up… fuck I’d probably be married to her by now and Axe wouldn’t exist. I try to see purpose in it all and I end up confused. I keep trying to be rational about everything that happened, and the emotional side keeps interfering. Case in point? The damn texts I keep sending her. I should have made Carrie or Cassa take my phone, so I would stop making a fool out of myself.

  I walk to the kitchen and grab a beer, cracking the bottle cap off and chucking it across the floor. I read the text from my mom that Axe is sound asleep. Then right after she sends a picture of him curled up in the corner of his crib in his superman jams and no blanket or stuffed toy near him. This is because he never had a toy let alone a blanket.

  Me: Kiss him for me mom. I’ll be there early to get him.

  I switch my sound system on and turn it up, letting an old blues guitar cry through my speakers. My clothes are wet, my skin is chilled, and I feel nothing but the rip in my heart knowing he is there touching her right now. Fuck me I couldn’t watch it. Now that I know what I am missing, knowing it’s not logical but all emotion, fuck I can’t handle it. I miss her. I can’t sleep at night because my eyes close and I see this perfect skin covered in tattoos. I can feel the diamonds that line her ribcage in dermal piercings.

  At times I think I could cry the loss is so profound. I often wonder how Noah survives. Even now, this awful pain in my chest that belongs to the woman I forced out the door and I know that I’ll suffer that loss if she is happy and alive.

  Before I can contemplate further I hear the doorbell ring and I see her through my security monitor. I don’t know what brought her here, but I thank God, even if she is here to scream at me for my texts. I turn my music down and don’t bother to putting a shirt on or that my feet are bare, I only care about opening the door. “Hey.” I say and the tune to Make it rain plays softly in the background.

  “Hi.” She says and looks behind her at the kitchen table. “Can I sit?”

  “Yeah of course. Want a beer or some wine?” I ask knowing she wants wine and I grab two glasses from my cabinet.

  “You don’t drink wine.” She says and looks almost shocked when I remove the chilled bottle of Moscato from my fridge and pop the cork.

  “I’ve had this bottle in here for four months waiting for you.” I say and hand her a glass.

  She looks at me like I have two heads. “And if I never came back?” She asks and takes a sip, her fuck me red lipstick leaving a perfect print of her lips on the glass.

  “Then it’d stay there until I died, but I would have been trying forever to get you to come back.” I feel like an asshole for being so sappy but I’m winging it here with nothing but the truth of how I feel.

  “Cal...” She says my name on an exhausted breath. “It’s never been that easy.”

  “Then tell me what you need from me Tay?” I say and cup my hands over my face wanting so bad to understand what she wants and needs from me “Tell me what you need.”

  “I need to not be a secret!” She yells and goes from a calm sitting position at the counter to an angry stance before me. But, it’s enough to know I have her where I need her, and that’s talking.

  I pull on the advice the girls gave me. Smiling, I think of how it felt knowing she was mine. “You cannot pretend that it wasn’t hot?”

  I see that soft sexy look glaze her eyes and I know she knows what I mean. “I’m not saying it wasn’t hot. I’m saying it got old damn fast. Once we were actively fucking, and often mind you, the fun stopped. I felt like a dirty secret.” She said that last part quietly and as a statement full of shame.

  Jesus no. “What?” I ask, and my voice sounds raw. “Tayla you were never a secret. Not a bad one. I have never been ashamed of you or felt like I needed to hide the fact I wanted you for any reason other than fucking up our business.” But I had secrets, God did I.

  “I was still a secret though and it sucked.”

  I step in close, pulling on that swagger that the girls tell me she can’t deny, and I am so shocked stupid that they are right. Her eyes get glossy and her breathing picks up. She blinks a lot and props her hand on her hip trying desperately to be nonchalant. “You didn’t find it wicked hot, sitting in a meeting, discussing money and contracts; still wet because I’d eaten your pussy five minutes before the fucking meeting started?”

  There it is that perfect flush on her cheeks. That first indication that the same pussy I am referring to is the same one getting wet off my words right now. Carrie and Cassa are so getting spoiled this Christmas. They are mischievous and devious and nosy as a neighbor, but smart, dammit but they are smart.

  “Or how when we were on tour and you’d fly in to whatever city we were in an hour earlier than whatever meeting you had that day, just to suck my dick and let me cum in that mouth.”

  I reach up; close enough now and I rub my thumb over her bottom lip and feel her breath on my face when she gasps. And then I go in for the kill.

  “Or the time we were in the studio laying tracks and you came over the mic and asked me to come into the booth.” I see recognition flash and I have her.

  “Remember that night?”

  “Y-y-yes, duh.” She says but her voice is weak, and she is refusing to look at me. But she will this I know.

  “What happened baby?” I ask softly, and I lean my face in close to her neck and speak softly, inhaling her scent without touching her.

  “Stop it!” She cries a desperate sound that has me hard enough to pound nails.

  “You shut the blinds and muted the mic, telling the guys to keep playing. I walk
ed in the producer’s room to see it empty and you spread eagle on the floor fingering your pussy.”

  I watch her face looking for any signs I have pushed her too far and not even close. She is so turned on right now I could touch her, and she’d pop. I use that moment to drop the seduction and step back leaning against my counter, my voice is calm and even, unaffected when I speak. “You said you couldn’t watch me anymore until you got off, because....” I pause and tap my chin dramatically. “Oh duh, I looked too fucking edible and you couldn’t focus. I dropped to my knees right there in the studio to eat your pussy and had you coming on my tongue in forty-five seconds. Then I made you wait for my cock until that night at the hotel.” I step close again and cup her face in my hands, forcing her to meet my eyes. “Do. You. Remember?”

  “Yes.” She says, and she is looking at me, wanting me just as bad. I feel her hand skim over the denim of my jeans where my painfully erect cock is trapped.

  “You shouldn’t touch me unless you want what I am offering here Tay. I am done playing around.” I am hoping and praying she doesn’t stop because it has been too damn long since I’d touched her.

  I feel her fingers encase the front of my cock and then she strokes.

  Match point. I got to the front of her jeans and start working the belt and she starts undoing mine. Our eyes are locked on one another and I want to kiss her, show her how deep this goes.

  “Kiss me baby.” I say, and she stops stroking my dick because I found her pussy, wet bare and hot. I waste no time slipping two fingers inside of her and pressing my thumb on her clit.

  She rolls her head back and moans and I can’t wait for her to decide. “Fuck it!” I grit between clenched teeth and use my free hand to grip her neck and bring her mouth to mine. The minute our lips touch she seals her lips and refuses me entry.

  “Let me in Tay.” I ask, and she tightens her lips more and shakes her head no. She isn’t stopping though, and I feel her hand grasp my cock, flesh to flesh now that she’s freed me I know I can’t stop. “Let me in baby, please.” I beg and wait for that mouth to surrender.

  This isn’t about a kiss. It’s about what this kiss represents and she’s willing to let me in her body but not in her heart. As much as I crave her, need her wet pussy, I can’t take it unless I have all of her.

  I pull back and remove my fingers from inside of her. She cries at the loss as I grasp her by the wrist and pull her from my cock, which btw is mad as fuck at me right now.

  “All of you or none of you Tay.” I say to her and I don’t hide the pain in my voice from her rejection. I trace her lips with the fingers that were in her just seconds before and lean in using my tongue to clean them, before I place those fingers in my mouth. “You can deny me your kiss, but I needed that taste baby. You have me so raw Tay and terrified, fuck I am so scared. But no matter how deep I want you and need you, I won’t take anything you refuse to give me.”

  I wait for her to say something; anything but she just stares at me with glassy eyes.

  I shake my head and direct my arm to the front door. “You know your way out. I’m not gonna sit here and watch you walk out.”

  I turn and walk down the hall to my room and head for the shower. I listen for the slam of my front door, but she leaves me gently and with nothing more than the fear I’ll never touch her again, and the taste of her on my tongue.

  Well I know there can come fire from the sky

  To refine the purest of kings

  Even though I know this fire brings me pain

  Even so

  And just the same

  Chapter Six

  Tayla

  About a year ago….

  “What the fuck crawled up your ass?” Cal says to me when I push past him and storm into his Hotel room.

  “What the fuck do you think my problem is?” I ask as I pace the room trying to gain my composure before I tie his nuts in a knot.

  “No clue, that’s why I asked,” He says and walks toward me, true confusion on his face. I try to regain some of the anger that is dissipating at a ridiculously fast pace. He is wearing a pair of basketball shorts and nothing else. No shirt. No hat. No shoes or socks and by the look of his perfectly chiseled waist I don’t see his usual boxer briefs band so I’m guessing he is commando. I stare at the ‘V’ in the center of his hips. It’s like a damn arrow pointing to his junk screaming “His dicks right here Tayla, come get it.”

  “I am pissed because you threw me under the bus tonight.” I say my voice calm now that I am transfixed by his perfection.

  “How?” He asks and tucks my hair behind my ear and leans in kissing the spot just below it. His arms circle my waist and he pulls me in and I feel his erection heavy against my tummy.

  “You said nothing when I told Shame about us.” I say but I am melting against him with every stroke of his hands on my ass drawing circles.

  “What’s the big deal? I thought you wanted someone to know? I figure Shame was the best bet.” He asks as he pulls back from me and I whimper at the loss of his heat.

  “Well yeah, but not by making me look like a random piece of ass!” I am back in the anger now that I have space from him and can think without the scent of his after shave and that Cal Dorian perfection blinding my common sense.

  “Random piece of ass? Really? Telling my best friend that I am sleeping with you is a bad thing? Then why tell him?” He looks like I have offended him and honestly, he can fuck off.

  “I guess I wanted you to say something."

  “Well help me out baby because I am missing the bad part. What should I have said, that I was making love to you?”

  He says it with humor and I feel an inch tall. I won’t tell him that yeah, that would have been better or that telling Shame after we had a big fight earlier today that wasn’t settled before we had to get to Jerry James Funeral. No, I just look at him with equal parts hurt and shame.

  “I don’t think I deserve to be a conquest that you brag to your boys about. I guess I thought I deserved a little more respect than that.” I don’t hide the hurt in my voice from him.

  “He won’t tell anyone Tay. Shames been my boy since pre-school. He’ll keep us a secret.” He says, and he really thinks that I am worried the secret will get out. How can I be mad at someone who is so dense?

  “Cal, I don’t think we need to be a secret at all. We have been fucking for two years. I think we both will survive if the truth comes out.”

  “Then what are you so pissed about?”

  “Because you talked to him like I wasn’t Tayla, the manager of your band, or his close friend, or as your girlfriend I-“ I stop there and cover my mouth. Embarrassment weighs over me like a heavy cloud and I want to cry for even thinking the world girlfriend let alone calling myself it in front of him.

  I look at him hoping to gouge his mood after hearing it and he looks like he wants to throw up and it breaks my heart to know that he looks panicked by the mere thought.

  “I’m sorry.” I say and shake my head feeling like a fool.

  “Come here Tay.” He says and takes a seat at the end of the bed.

  I go willingly until he pulls me down to his lap. “I am private. I don’t like the media and I don’t like people knowing my business. Shame is one of the only people on this earth I can talk to about most anything. Chad and Noah and even Shame lately, they can talk feelings when it comes to women and I can offer advice after I get my jokes in, but I am not built like them. Do you understand what I’m saying Tay?”

  He has me so close that I have no choice but to look him in the eye. I nod yes because I do know what he is saying in the gentlest way he can. I am not, nor will I ever be his girlfriend.

  “This has to be enough. I can’t do more and I know I won’t. I’m not hearts and flowers and I’m not a guy with a label. What I give you is my free time and my honesty and it has got to be enough. If you need more than that then go find it, I won’t stop you or get in your way.”

  “It's
that simple huh?” I say, and I want to cry but no way in hell will I give him the satisfaction.

  “If it means I hurt you a little now to avoid destroying you down the road, then yeah, that simple. But it won’t be simple for me. I won’t like it and I’ll probably piss and moan and never find another chick that fucks like a porn star but acts like a lady. I care about you Tayla, I do but I am not that guy. You deserve that guy and I’ll kill the fucker who wins you if he ever makes you cry, but I’m not him.”

  It was that moment encompassed with his speech at Howie’s earlier that put it all together. I was in love with him. I knew because I nodded and then kissed him and let him throw me on the bed. He ate at me forever. He kissed every inch of my body and gave me three orgasms before he finally fucked me. Cal fucked me that night, all night like he knew what I knew. I made love right back to him, knowing full well I loved him and that what he offered me then and there was better than the thought of moving on.

  I settled for less than because to me he was everything.

  Cal

  Tayla: Can we meet at Mi Casa tonight? My treat? I would like to talk. No motive and no fighting.

  I stare at the text she sent me this morning and as I sit in the parking lot waiting for her to get here I try like hell to not get my hopes up. I have high hopes though. I’d asked my folks to keep Axe for the night because I had every intention of telling her about Axe tonight as well as telling her that I was done turning my back on her.

  I see her Rover pull into the lot of Mi Casa and I hop from my jeep to go meet her at her door. I didn’t dress up, but I did dress for Tayla. I knew she liked me shirtless and in work out shorts or pants, but seeing as Mi Casa was a family joint, I went with the next best thing. Wearing ratty looking faded blue jeans and a cream-colored hoodie and a beanie of the same fabric I’d hoped to make her pant a little.