ROCK F*CK CLUB (Girls Ranking the Rock Stars Book 5)

by Michelle Mankin

  As if the feel of him burned, I released my hold on him and leaned back, not feeling worthy to be so close. When I did, the muscles in his back tightened so hard, I recoiled.

  “Hold on to me,” he growled. “Don’t you dare fucking let go of me. I’m not having you fall off and end up in the hospital to add more regret to this sordid interlude. I’m not the villain in this story.”

  I felt the dart and the poisoned tip of his words. They hit the center of my chest, and they burned. “Of course you’re not. I’m sorry.”

  My heart ached at how he regretted us. Regretted me.

  I adjusted my grip at his waist, ignoring the tingles of pleasure that spread throughout my body from registering the warmth of his skin. I laid my cheek on his back.

  “I’m sorry for all of it, Gale.”

  Tears stung my eyes. But I wouldn’t say I regretted it. There were too many things I did regret in my life. No matter how hurtful Gale was being right now, he wasn’t one of them.

  We rode in silence after that. Like back in our spot in the desert, what more could be said after a sincere apology that wasn’t accepted?

  The sun rose in the sky, and with no clouds to filter the rays, it was hot on my back. In the borrowed hoodie, I started to get hot but didn’t complain, and he didn’t speak. Mile after mile at highway speed began to grate. More than the wind and the heat, the tension I could feel growing between us disturbed me.

  “Gale, I know you really want to catch up to the tour. But can we stop at the next gas station? I’m sure you need to fill up the tank and stretch your legs. And I’m really hot and thirsty.”

  “I was planning to stop at the next one.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  We lapsed back into silence. Over the next hill was a sign indicating there was a town ahead with gas stations. The miles weren’t many, considering how far we’d already traveled, but it felt overly long with how tense things were between us.

  He turned off. Slowing his speed at the end of the ramp, Gale took the driveway for the truck stop and steered straight for the gas pumps. I dismounted and removed the helmet as soon as he shut off the engine. My legs wobbled and my heart, well, I felt every bit of the emptiness within it frost over from the cool look he gave me after he removed his own helmet.

  “Get a drink. Do what you need to do, then come back.” He withdrew his phone. “I’ll try to get a call through. See where the tour is, and what we can do to intercept them.”

  I nodded, but he wasn’t looking at me anymore.

  Telling myself I was grateful for the break from the sun, I stayed under the metal awning where the pumps were until I had to step back into the blazing sun to get to the front entrance of the convenience store. When I opened the glass door, I nearly wept from relief when the cool air hit me.

  Grabbing the hem of the hoodie, I drew it off. As my damp hair resettled around my shoulders, I realized my error and yanked down my cropped top.

  Horrified, I glanced around.

  The convenience store was filled with rows of snacks. Walls of refrigerated beverages. And lots of men.

  Most glanced quickly away, avoiding my censuring glare, but more than a few didn’t. Those leered at me.

  My skin crawled, but I pulled back my shoulders and lifted my chin. So they’d seen my tits. Fuck ’em. I’d survived worse than leering stares.

  Reminding myself of Gale’s directive, I headed straight to one of the refrigerated cases and pulled out two chilled bottled waters, one for me and one for him. But I dropped both when someone grabbed my arm, startling me.

  “Hey there.” A large guy with a reddish-brown beard and dark eyes shoved me back against the refrigerator’s glass door.

  “Get your hands off me.”

  My hands on his chest, I tried to push him away, but I couldn’t dislodge his grip on my shoulders. His cruel fingers dug deeper into my skin.

  “I was thinking of doing the opposite. Name’s Barker. Don’t care what yours is . . . you’re hot.”

  “My shirt came up. You shouldn’t have looked. I wasn’t looking for companionship.”

  The man ignored my clarification. “There’s private shower stalls in the back. My number’s almost up for one. I’ll share it with you.”

  A familiar voice growled from nearby, “Your number’s up, all right.”

  Gale suddenly appeared at the end of the aisle. He strode straight to us, his movements stiff when they were normally smooth. His gray eyes blazed with fury.

  “Hands off my woman, asshole.”

  “Sorry. She came in here alone, flashing her tits for all to see.” Barker’s thick forehead creased. “I didn’t realize she was with anyone.”

  “She’s with me,” Gale said, and I wished with every part of me that could be true.

  “My bad.” Barker waved his hands in front of him, as if to ward off the front man’s anger.

  “No, this bad’s mine,” Gale muttered, obviously referring to me. “Those yours?” He gestured to the bottles of water that had rolled near his black boots on the cracked linoleum floor.

  “Ours,” I said, and something soft and wispy like a thin cloud floated across the stormy gray of his gaze.

  “Pick them up for her,” Gale said, refocusing on the truck driver. The wind of his anger swept all lingering traces of the softness away. “Hand them back to her and walk away, and maybe I won’t beat your sorry ass into next week for even thinking you had any right to touch her.”

  Barker immediately leaned over, scooped up the bottles, and handed them to me.

  “Sorry,” he said and ducked around me. Hiking up his loose jeans, he hurried away, practically sprinting toward the front of the store. Apparently, he was leaving sans shower, probably afraid that Gale might change his mind.

  Gale shook his head at me, his brown mane bristling with his irritation. “Two minutes. I leave you alone for two minutes, and trouble finds you.”

  “I’m not to blame for what he did.” I snapped my spine straight and glared at him. “I’m not to blame for all the bad shit other people do, and you know it.”

  “I’m not blaming you. I’m just stating a fact.”

  “Fuck you, Gale.” I lifted my chin, but I’d started to tremble.

  Chilled suddenly, I felt colder than the bottles I held. Scrunching my eyes closed for a second, I drew in a deep breath, knowing what was coming. I hated my weakness.

  No! I stiffened my arms and curled my fingers into fists. No flashbacks now.

  Here, there wasn’t any softness from my best friend to cushion my fall. It was just me and Gale.

  I BARELY HELD IT together, meaning I clung to Gale, and I clung too tightly. But my legs were shaking so badly, I would have hit the floor if he weren’t holding me, and that counted for something.

  “Keep it together, Jo,” he said, and I clung to his using the shortened version of my name harder than I held my clasped hands together at his nape. With me draped on him, he strode to the counter. “That shower the asshole abandoned, I need it. My woman needs to wash off his stench.”

  “She okay?” The guy at the counter with a name tag that identified him as Rolf gave me a speculative glance. “She don’t look so good.”

  “I’m fine.” My head lolled and my words slurred as I fought to maintain consciousness.

  “Maybe we should report him to the authorities.” Sweet Rolf was looking out for me. Chivalry in the West.

  “He upset her, is all,” Gale said. “No need to call anyone. I’ve got her.”

  “Or she’s got you. Hard to say which. But okay.” The guy gave him a piece of paper with a code scribbled on it. “Number four shower. Turn right at the end of the hall.”

  We made it back across the store together, but in the hallway, Gale swept me up into his arms.

  “I’m cold. It’s so cold.” I laid my cheek against his hard chest and burrowed into him.

  “I’ll get you warmed up in a minute.” He s
topped in front of a door and shifted my weight, jostling me as he typed in the code. “Thank fuck,” he said when the lock chirped.

  Readjusting me again, he pushed open the door. Damp humid air and the smell of fresh bleach hit me.

  “At least it’s clean,” he mumbled, and I surrendered to the blissful ignorance of unconsciousness.

  • • •

  Heat blasting me, it seemed like only moments later when I gulped for air, then sputtered as I inhaled a mouthful of water instead.

  “Close your mouth, Josephine.” Gale’s irritation rumbled in my ear. “You’re not a fish, for fuck’s sake.”

  “You cuss a lot when you’re pissed.” I cracked my eyes open, turning my head to avoid the shower spray.

  “Yeah?”

  “I bring out only the best in you, I know.” I squinted at him, weakly lifting my hands to try to remove the lines of black impeding my vision.

  “Your hair’s in the way. Let me help you.” He gently pushed the wet strands aside while searching my gaze. His beautiful gray eyes were full of concern—concern that wasn’t for me to have anymore. “At least you’re focused enough to give me shit again. Feeling better?” he asked, his tone softer.

  “Sure.” I tried to straighten, only to slide further into him, into his very hard, very wet, and very slippery naked body. And, oh yeah, I glanced down just to be certain, but I was naked too.

  “What did you expect me to do?” he asked, noting my discomfiture. “You were shivering. You have only the one set of clothes. And anyway—”

  “You’ve seen it all before,” I said, finishing his thought. “So it’s no big deal. Right?”

  “I wouldn’t say that.”

  His voice went low, and I felt him, his hot cock beneath me. My body shivered with warm delicious delight, but I snapped a lid on my libido and placed my hands on Gale’s chest.

  “Let me up.”

  “Not yet.” He tightened his hold around me.

  “Gale, you’re sitting on the floor in a public shower stall with a woman you despise on your lap. That can’t be a pleasant experience for you.”

  “It’s a private shower, and I’m not on the floor. I put down a clean towel.”

  “Oh. Okay, but—”

  “I don’t despise you, even though I should. You lied to me. But does it feel like I despise you?”

  His gaze dipping, he loosened his hold and traced a lock of my hair from my neck to my tit. When he swirled his thumb around my nipple, I pulled in a shaky breath as it furled tight.

  “No,” I whispered. “It doesn’t feel that way.”

  “You’re so pretty, Jo. So incredibly pretty.”

  I felt that way again as his gaze followed his own fingers as he caressed me. He traced another lock of black from my shoulder to the slight swell of my tit and circled the nipple on that side. It tightened for him, just like the other had while the shower pelted us from the opposite wall. It provided a canopy of sorts, like being inside an enchanted waterfall.

  “Thank you for saying so.” I continued to whisper, not wanting to break the enchantment. I was afraid for him to continue, but more afraid he might stop.

  “Shift. I want those long, sexy, shapely legs of yours around me.”

  His eyes were hooded, and as he spoke, he stared at my chest while sweeping his thumb back and forth over one tightened nub and then the other. Back and forth, he alternated between them, sending arrow after fiery arrow of sensation straight to my pussy.

  “Having those long legs wrapped around me on the bike for hours and hours drove me insane. C’mon, babe. Ride me for real.” His fingers drifted lower like those arrows, straight to where I ached.

  “Gale.” I gasped when he palmed my mound and then strummed my clit like it was the fretboard for his bass.

  “Can’t you give me what I want?” He lifted his head, his eyes dark with desire. Water streamed from his saturated hair, running down his lean cheeks and into his beard, making it look like he was crying.

  “I can. I want to.”

  I slid off his lap, only to climb back on again, my legs spread. I wanted to soothe him, please him, fill myself with him, alleviate the ache inside me. Placing my hands on his chest, I looked into his eyes, not denying myself or him. I lowered myself to straddle him.

  “Wicked girl.” He reached between our bodies, aligning his cock, and grabbed my hips to hold me as he surged up inside me.

  “Oh, Gale,” I said. “You feel so good.”

  He wasn’t sheathed. His cock was so hot and hard.

  “There’s been no one since . . .” He paused, his gaze on mine. He knew what he was doing. He meant to go bare. “For eighteen months. There’s been no one until you.”

  I nodded. My heart was pierced by that truth. How special I’d been to him, and how I’d failed to hold on to what I loved most in the world again. My hair dripped down, hanging like wet black ribbons of despair between us.

  I knew the reason he wouldn’t say her name. It didn’t belong here, with me and him and what we were doing. This wasn’t reverent like before. It wasn’t anything.

  “It’s okay. I mean, I had a bunch of tests done as part of the contract for the RFC. They were negative, and I’m on the pill.”

  “Move then.” He bucked his hips off the concrete, and his cock thrust deeper inside me.

  “Yes.” My scalp tingling from the sensation of his penetration, I used his chiseled chest as my platform to lift up and glide down on him.

  “You’re so wet for me.” His eyes blazed as he stared at me.

  I rose, lifting and tightening my cunt around his cock before I slid back down again.

  “Faster, babe. I need to feel you. Feel your fire.”

  “Yes, Gale.”

  I fucked him faster. His grip on my hips bit into my flesh, spurring my desire, not quenching it. I turned him on. The way he looked at me turned me on, as if maybe he owned me or wanted to again.

  His gaze was dark with desire and his features drawn. his rapid breaths parting his lips. I ground down on him, stimulating my swollen slippery clit. He lifted his hips to pump his hard cock deep inside me.

  It swirled closer, the vortex of that new world, and he gripped me harder. Lifting and lowering me, he slammed me down again and again on his cock.

  “Say my name,” I begged in the throes of us, lost for him and the pleasure we made together.

  “Jo.” He thrust into me so hard, my breasts bounced. The concentric circles of the vortex contracted.

  “Gale,” I cried. “I . . . I love this.” Every fiber in my body taut, I strained for it. I wanted to come with him.

  Groaning, his eyes closed and his features stretched tight, he strained for it too. He spiked his cock impossibly deep, and I tightened around him. Hot jets of his cum pulsed inside me, igniting my release.

  Trembling, I went off too, seeing the canopy of stars for our new world, even though the prince’s eyes and my own were closed now to the beauty of it.

  SOMETHING IS HERE. SOMETHING he denies. Something I can still feel.

  I stood in front of Gale in the dressing area of the shower room while he spritzed leave-in conditioner into my hair and ran a newly purchased brush through it. I tingled with awareness every time the brush reached the ends and his fingers skimmed the small of my back.

  I’d just had him, and yet I wanted him again. The sex hadn’t been discussed. It seemed we were avoiding the topic. To him, it might mean nothing, but to me, what was between us felt undeniable.

  “All done,” he said, laying the brush on the counter with the missing mirror, and turned toward the door.

  “Is it?” I asked. He seemed to be avoiding eye contact, along with everything else between us. “It doesn’t feel done.”

  “Don’t do this, Jo.” He froze with his back to me and his hand on the door handle.

  “Don’t do what?” I whispered.

  “Force the issue. Make me say something you don’t want to hear.”

&nb
sp; I started to say okay. But the word stuck in my throat, along with the lump that came with the tears that threatened. It wasn’t okay. “We just had unprotected sex in the shower.”

  “Yes, we did.” He turned around, wearing that remote expression I hated. But even if his eyes were on fire with fury, I preferred it to the coldness.

  “So, that’s all it was?” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Just sex. You think you can fuck me whenever you want, and then not even want to look at me afterward? And I’m supposed to be okay with that?”

  My cropped tee was damp, and my hair was wet. I was wearing my jeans without panties. I wasn’t exactly comfortable, either physically or emotionally. And Gale was making it worse.

  “You wanted it as much as I did.” His eyes flared, and he took a step toward me. This was much better. At least he wasn’t ignoring me.

  “That doesn’t answer my question.” I lifted my chin, my nostrils flaring as his citrus, saffron, and smoke scent hit me. Was it some kind of essential oil resistant to water? We’d been in the shower. Why hadn’t it washed off?

  “I think it does answer it.” Gripping my chin, he swept his thumb along my jaw and stared deeply into my eyes.

  “So we have a friendship with benefits?”

  “Why do we need to define it?” he asked.

  “You’re the one who likes your precise definitions.” I shook my head at him.

  “Let’s not make it complicated.”

  “Clue in, Gale. Life is messy, and love is complicated.”

  “That’s over.” He dropped his hand like my skin burned him.

  “You loved me, and now you don’t. No forgiveness, is that right? I made a mistake, so now I should just be glad you give me an orgasm when you fuck me?”

  His eyes were a dull gray, without any fire or light. “You lied to me, every conversation we had. All the time we spent together, you had one opportunity after the other to tell me the truth, but you chose not to. We’re here. There’s no going back. It’s your fault, not mine. Is that clear enough for you?”

  “It’s clear. But not the way you think. I deceived you, yes. That’s on me. I apologized, but you can’t forgive me. Okay. But it’s more than that—it’s always been more than that. I knew it all along. But you kept pushing to get closer to me, and I let you.” My arms straightened with tension at my sides. “But no matter what my secret was, or even if I didn’t have one, I would never have been good enough for you. Never merited anything real with you, because I’m not her.”