TAINTED: THE COMPLETE DUET

by Jenner, Carmen

  I shake my head, and yank open the door. My stomach flips as the scent of bacon, eggs and pancakes assaults me. I clutch my belly and stop in my tracks, uncertain whether or not I’m going to hurl. It’s a little hard to tell right now if I want to eat a freaking horse or run like one ... right to the bathroom.

  Cooper runs into my back, and his hands slide around my waist to steady me. “Shit, sorry.”

  “It’s fine,” I murmur, and that’s when I realise he’s doing more than just steadying me with his hands. They’re gripping my waist pretty tightly, and the length of him is pressed against me from shoulder to groin, that maddening erection still tormenting me.

  “Coop, you can let go of me now.”

  “Right,” he says, but he doesn’t, and the second I try to move away, he pulls me back against him, hard. He whispers in my ear, “I’m pretty sure I told you this last night, but in case I didn’t, your tits are fucking awesome, Ali-Cat.”

  “I hate you.”

  “No, you made it pretty clear last night that you didn’t hate me. And this morning, come to think of it.”

  “You’re confusing me with my rabid vagina. Of course she likes you, Coop. You have a penis, and she hasn’t been thoroughly fucked in a long, long time. But me? I really dislike you.”

  “Liar,” he whispers and lets me go. I stomp away, heading out to the lounge room, following that damn scent while Coop heads to the other side of the apartment, I assume to the bathroom.

  “Good morning,” Zed says, standing at the stove in only a pair of jeans. He’s drinking from a coffee mug that reads Rock out with your Coffee Out, which he sets down as he flips a pancake in the air.

  “Morning. Sorry we kinda hijacked your bed last night.” I cringe when I realise that there really was no other way to say that. Cooper and I did hijack his bed, but not for the reasons he’s more than likely thinking. “We didn’t have sex or anything, so there’s no chance of finding nasty surprises on your sheets, but I’ll wash them anyway—”

  “You two didn’t fuck?” Levi says, and I turn to see him lying face down on the leather couch, his chin propped up on the armrest as he watches me with a dubious expression. Leif braces his elbows on his knees and holds a steaming cup of coffee in one hand while he rubs at his temple with the other, and Ash is lying flat on his back in the middle of an Escher inspired rug. It hurts my eyes just looking at it.

  “No we didn’t fuck,” I mutter, glaring at him.

  “Ha! Pay up, motherfuckers,” Zed says, pointing his bright green spatula at both Levi and Ash. Apparently Leif hadn’t bet against his brother.

  “You guys really bet on whether Coop and I had sex?”

  “Well, it’s not really a question of whether you will, it’s more like when,” Levi says, hopping up off the couch and walking towards us. I swear I hadn’t intended for my gaze to drop to his crotch, but there is some serious erection going on there. I don’t know how he can be comfortable walking around with the fucking kraken in his pants.

  “Though if you keep staring at my dick, we might need to change that bet, Red.”

  “I’m sorry ... I ...”

  “It’s okay, most women can’t take their eyes off it either.”

  “How do you even, how does it ...” I stop and shake my head. “Never mind.”

  “Well I didn’t make sausage.” Zed chuckles as he glances at me. “But if you feel like it, there seems to be enough on display in this room.”

  I groan and smack my head against the counter. “Zed, please tell me you have coffee?”

  “Yup.”

  He places a fresh cup under a Nespresso machine and hits a button. It flares to life with a loud grinding noise and then the scent of coffee wafts over to me. Cooper chooses that time to come out of the bathroom. Levi punches him in the shoulder as he passes and mutters, “Way to make me lose a hundred bucks, you douche.”

  “You’re welcome.” Coop grins.

  “You’re such a fucking pussy. If a woman’s naked in front of you, you bang her. It’s simple, Coop.”

  “No, you bang her.” He smirks and rounds the counter in the kitchen, leaning up against the bench. “I wait until she’s completely conscious so she remembers every little detail.”

  Cooper grabs the cup of coffee from under the machine, stirs in two sugars and sips it, leaning back on the counter.

  “That was my coffee, you butt munch.”

  He just smiles over the rim of my cup.

  “Oh yeah,” Leif says. “I give them about a week.”

  “I give them five more minutes,” Levi says, coming back into the room and leaning up against the breakfast bar beside me.

  “Are you fuck heads betting on whether or not I’m going to get laid again?” Cooper asks.

  “Au contraire, my friend, we’re betting on when you and the lovely Miss Ali here are going to get your shit together and fuck one another’s brains out.”

  Levi studies me a moment and says, “Nope, I’m switching teams, and adding another player into the mix.”

  “I’m sorry, what?” I ask.

  They all ignore me in favour of asking, “Who?”

  “Me. Red’s hot for my cock.”

  “In your dreams, arsehole,” Cooper says, and his tone is pure undiluted venom.

  Zed moves to the freezer and opens it, pulling out a wad of cash. He places two fifty-dollar notes down on the counter and says, “Tour bus. Coop. Five weeks from now.”

  “No way. Me. Backstage. After the opening leg of the US,” Levi says and he places three notes down, so that Zed has to return to the freezer for another.

  “She’s gonna be opening her legs for someone, but it won’t be you, Quinn. Hotel room. Cooper. Two weeks from now,” Ash says, and he adds his money into the pool.

  “Alleyway, after a show. Coop and Quinn.” Leif puts in. He only sets down two fifties though, and the other boys glare at him. “I’ll put in drugs, whatever the winner wants.”

  “Done,” Zed says.

  “Zed, write that shit down.”

  “Oh my god, are you guys serious?” I say, looking to each of them in the hope that they’ll tell me this is a big joke. “I’m not sleeping with any of you.”

  Levi smirks. “We’ll see, Red.”

  Zed picks up his phone and dials a number. Before long, he says, “Deb, another bet.”

  “My sister is in on this too? Jesus Christ.” Coop shakes his head and stares at me across the breakfast bar.

  Zed must flick her over to speaker because suddenly her sharp, sullen tone fills the tiny kitchen. “Cooper, you’re a fucking pansy. I had good money riding on that bet.”

  “Sorry to disappoint, Sis.”

  “You want in, Deb?” Levi shouts into the phone.

  “Hell yes I want in,” she says, “It’s gonna be fun to watch you fuckers fall flat on your face.”

  “Time, place and who,” Zed commands.

  “Who?” Deb asks. “Who the fuck else is she gonna sleep with?”

  “Levi seems to think it’ll be him.”

  There’s a crackling pause from the other end, and then she howls with laughter. “Nice try, Quinn, but as much as I dislike her, I can tell already the girl has standards.”

  “She wants me. I can tell by the way she’s looking at me right now,” Levi crows, I simply glare at him.

  “What’s the figure?” Deb says.

  “One fifty. Leif put in drugs.”

  “I don’t want his fucking drugs. He can buy me a fucking Michael Kors clutch I’ve been wanting.”

  They all nod in agreement, and I laugh. I don’t know much about designer handbags, but I know it likely costs a lot more than Leif’s drugs. I’m kind of impressed with Deb’s ingenuity.

  “Okay. Cooper.” She emphasises her brother’s name. “Airplane on the way to the US. Four days from now.”

  “Got it,” Zed says, setting the phone on the bench and jotting down Deb’s answer on a piece of paper along with the others. “You comi
n’ by later?”

  “To hang out with you losers? Hell no. Since Red came along I have tonnes of free time. I’ll see you idiots at the airport,” she says, and hangs up. Zed tosses his phone on the bench and goes back to flipping pancakes and then he sets one on a plate in front of me.

  Did that really just happen? I stare dazedly at the men surrounding me.

  “Boys are kind of big on bets,” Coop says, and at least he has the good grace to look apologetic.

  “You know what I’m big on?” I ask, glaring at all of them. “Not sleeping with rock stars. What happens if all your bets fall through, boys?”

  Zed laughs, Ash just shakes his head and Levi makes a derisive scoffing sound.

  “Pfft.” Leif dumps his coffee out in the sink. “As if that’s going to happen.”

  “Eat your pancake, Red,” Zed says around a mouthful of hot bacon from the pan. I shake my head, pick up the syrup and pour it over the pancake in front of me. Of course I hadn’t looked at it until now, and when I see that I’m pouring syrup over a gigantic flat pancakey cock I let out a massive sigh. The boys all think this is hilariously funny until I stab the thing with a fork several times. Their laughter dies down, and they all stare awkwardly at one another. Coop moves a fraction of an inch away from me, and Ash’s face is twisted in a grimace.

  “Ouch,” Zed says.

  “Ash, call ahead and get them to remove the utensils from the tour bus, will you?” Levi says, and they all laugh while I eat my giant penis pancake in silence.

  CHAPTER SIX

  POOR WIDDLE WOCK STAR

  ALI

  Nothing says awkward like listening to a near stranger having loud, uninhibited sex in the next room. I’d been staying at Zed’s for the last four nights, the first being the night we all came back here drunk, the second was a quiet night in. It was actually kind of fun. Zed and I played Monopoly—and I kicked his arse, thank you very much. By the third day the boys had wrapped the record, and Harbour had hosted their relaunch that same night, but instead of going out to celebrate afterward, they’d all gone back to their respective dwellings to sleep off the insanity.

  When he’d invited me to stay, Zed had forgotten to mention that Leif stayed in the spare room. It hadn’t been a problem, though—I was more than happy to sleep on the couch, but Zed wouldn’t hear of it. He’d insisted I take the top bunk. Yeah, it was weird at first, until he pointed out that we’d be sleeping this way in a few days on the tour bus anyway, so why not start now? He had a point, and a bed was better than a couch, any day. Even a bed that was made for a giant man-child.

  Living with Zed was actually surprisingly easy. He was clean, had a constant supply of food around—considering he never stopped eating this was sort of important—and it was kind of nice to have someone to talk to. Work had finally come through with an emergency pay, knowing that I’d be leaving the country tomorrow, so I’d taken Zed to breakfast this morning as a thank you, and then we’d gone shopping for all the essentials we’d need for travel. My essentials had consisted of toiletries, pyjamas, a squishy neck pillow, Chapstick and a Nintendo DS. Of course I’d be taking my fluffy blanket. Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s pathetic for a grown woman to have a blanky, especially a Star Wars one, but it was kind of cool. I mean, the fact that it had the Rebel Alliance Starbird on it made it cool—just like the tattoo on the back of my neck. I got nervous if I couldn’t keep my hands busy. Fluffy blankets calmed me, and a fourteen-hour flight into LA sitting beside any one of these four hot rockers wasn’t the time to be lacking a distraction.

  Life with Zed had been fun, enlightening sometimes, and dangerous even when he’d tried teaching me some pole moves and I’d almost popped my shoulder out of the socket, but tonight was where it had become awkward.

  Zed had brought home not one, but two busty babes and had taken them into his room. Leif wasn’t home yet, and I would have killed to have had the separation that an extra locking door could provide against the weird and wild noises coming from Zed’s room, but I didn’t want Leif getting the wrong idea. He’s an okay guy, but he uses as well as deals, and sometimes he gets a little handsy. Hijacking his bed for the night wasn’t an option. But neither was sitting here staring at the TV and holding my hands against my ears to block out the noise.

  The bedroom door opens and I slide farther down onto the couch, hoping neither of the girls feels like getting chatty, but then Zed struts into the kitchen completely naked and heads right to the fridge. I cover my eyes, because though technically the kitchen is behind me, I can see his reflection in the big windows running the length of the room. All of his reflection.

  “How’s it going, Ginger?”

  “Zed, please tell me you’re not talking to me with your dick hanging out?”

  “What? It’s not like you’ve never seen cock before?” he says, walking across the room and stopping in front of me so that his penis is right in front of my face.

  “Oh my god, gross. You’re buck naked, sporting a boner and talking to me like it’s just another day at the apartment.”

  “You know, Ginge, you’re about to spend every waking second of the next three months with one or all of us on tour. By the end of it you’ll be so used to cock, you won’t even bat an eyelid.”

  He snatches up the can of whipped cream that I’d been periodically spraying into my mouth and disappears with it and his ice cream into the bedroom.

  “Hey, I was eating that.”

  “Your arse will thank me, Ali.”

  Damn him, he’s probably right.

  My phone buzzes on the couch beside me, and I pick it up and glance at the screen, opening the message.

  Coop: Ali-Cat. I have people over and we’ve run out of booze. Tell me you’re not drinking right now, and can come save my life?

  I glare at the screen as if he could see my seriously pissed off face and type out my response.

  Me: Seriously? Save your life? Are you choking in some way? Having a heart attack? Has a serial killer invaded your home and cut out your voice box, rendering you unable to call triple zero?

  Coop: No. Why do you sound like you’re wishing one of those things had happened?

  Me: Because I see no other reason for you to be texting me in the middle of the night to come save your life.

  Coop: Question? If the other guys called you in the middle of the night, would you come?

  Me: Without question. :)

  I’m pretty sure he knows that’s not true, but I sort of love pissing him off.

  Coop: Ouch, so catty.

  Me: Oh, was I mean to da poor widdle wock star?

  Coop: Yes, my feelings are seriously hurt. You should come kiss them better.

  Me: Bite me.

  Coop: Just tell me where.

  Me: We fly out at five am, Cooper. Now let me go to sleep.

  Coop: Can you really sleep through all that noise from Zed’s room?

  Me: How do you know he’s being noisy?

  Coop: He’s a nervous flyer. He likes to fuck out all his anxiety beforehand. If he disappears into the bathroom a hundred times during our flight, he’s more than likely going to jack off, or he’s roping some attendant into joining the mile-high club.

  Me: I really could have done without knowing that information, Coop. Thanks.

  Coop: Wanna know a secret?

  Me: Does it involve the words I, jack and off?

  Coop: No, but now I’m sorta wishing it did.

  Me: What’s your secret, Coop?

  Coop: I’m afraid of confined spaces. Fucking hate them actually.

  Me: And yet you’re preparing to live on a tour bus for three months.

  Coop: Guess there will be lots of trips to the bathroom. Hold my hand?

  Me: You wish.

  Coop: Actually I’d prefer you held my cock, but I suppose I can settle.

  Me: You’re disgusting.

  Coop: And you’re stalling. Bring me my beer, wench woman.

  Me: Fuck you.

  Coop:
Well, I really didn’t want any of them to win that bet, but okay. Be here in twenty mins.

  Me: You’re serious?

  Coop: As a heart attack.

  Me: About which part? The beer or the fucking?

  Coop: Both.

  I sag back against the couch and groan. What is wrong with him? What is wrong with me that I’m actually entertaining this idea?

  Me: I’m not coming over, and I’m not ever going to sleep with you.

  Coop: Now who said anything about sleeping?

  Me: I’m thinking you should take a leaf out of Zed’s book and become real familiar with your hand. I’ll see you in the morning.

  My phone buzzes again. I look at my messages but it’s coming up with an “image not received” message. A second later there’s another text from Coop

  Coop: Well, where’s my picture?

  Me: What are you talking about?

  Coop: I just sent you mine; now send me yours.

  Me: You sent me what? I can’t see pictures on my phone.

  Coop: WTF? You didn’t get a new phone when I told you to?

  Me: Nope. I told you I don’t like being told what to do.

  Coop: I’m beginning to see that, so I’ll say this nicely. Please send me a picture of your tits.

  Me: OMG, you’re a fucking pervert.

  Coop: Yes, yes I am. Now ... tits, please.

  I shake my head and throw my phone down on the coffee table, preparing to sleep, but it won’t stop beeping. I open my messages one last time and see his replies that have all gone unanswered.

  Coop: Soooo ... can I get my tits now please?

  Coop: Ali?

  Coop: Allllllli?

  Coop: Come on, Ali-Cat.

  Coop: You know if you can’t take a picture and send them, I can just come over. It’s probably better that I see them in person. I mean a picture is nice and all, but nothing beats the real thing up close and personal.

  Coop: Ali?

  Coop: Okay, clearly you’re ignoring me.

  Coop: Will you show me on the plane? Just to keep me from thinking about us plunging to our deaths.

  Coop: If we were on a deserted island, would you show me your tits then?

  Coop: What about if we were the only survivors? I’d totally get an all-access pass, right? I mean we wouldn’t want to be the only people on that island forever. Eventually we’d need to repopulate, build our own little colony while we waited for rescue, like in the blue lagoon.