by Lux, Vivian
"Did you bring glasses?"
He slapped his forehead dramatically. "I knew I forgot something."
I laughed again. I had laughed more times in the past hour than I had in the past year.
"Well, you're being awfully nice, and I know that's hard for you. So I won't push my luck." I grabbed the bottle of Grey Goose by the neck. It was perfectly cold. "Cheers?"
He smiled and grabbed the bottle of Maker's Mark. "Cheers."
We clinked bottles. I let the welcome vodka slide down my throat like water, then set it down. It was too easy to drink too fast. I needed to keep my wits about me.
Especially with Rane giving me that look.
"What?" The vodka settled into my limbs and I sagged back into the couch.
"I was thinking about kissing you."
"What?" I stiffened.
He waved his hand, irritated. "Yesterday. For the shoot." He looked at me out of the corner of his eye. "You're a really good actress. I honestly thought you were into me there for a second."
I reached for the bottle, thought for a second, pulled my hand back, then thought again and grabbed it like a life preserver tossed into stormy seas. Stormy seas the color of his eyes.
What the hell?
"You sound surprised." I sounded angry. I didn't mean to. That made me angrier. I took a quick, fortifying sip.
The corner of Rane's lip twitched. The scarred corner that I couldn't stop staring at. "Not going to lie," he said, spreading his hands.
"Well, fuck you then. I've been an actress almost as long as I've been alive. There's a reason for that."
"Okay, sure, but...."
"No." I held up my hand. My so carefully bottled feelings seemed to come all loose when I was with this man. I felt like I was tossed around in the ocean with no land in sight. A stormy ocean with clouds roiling above, the same threatening gray as his eyes and… "Fuck," I said out loud. "What exactly do you think you know about me?"
If I thought he would apologize, I was sorely mistaken. "I could ask you the same fucking question, you know."
"Not really."
"Yes, really." He was calm, but dangerously so. The eye of a hurricane. God, I was really drunk coming up with all these cheap weather metaphors. "What do you think you know, Maddie?"
"You're...." The vodka was working fast. I waved helplessly in his direction, summoning the words that refused to come. "Rockstar. Guitar guy. Bad boy. You're... you," I finished lamely.
"Yeah. No fucking shit." It wasn't a growl, but it was definitely a warning. He looked away, swiveling his body away from mine. I swear I got colder for a second, though maybe that was the alcohol. His shoulders lifted, tensed for a moment.
Then he dropped them and turned back. "Hi," he said, gravel-voiced, extending his hand. "I'm Rane Michael Wilder. What's your name?"
My hand slipped into his and I looked down at it, surprised at its treachery. "Madeline Avery Cole." I swallowed.
"Pleased to meet you, Madeline." His hand was warm and dry and strong. There were calluses on his fingers from playing guitar and they brushed electrically across the back of my hand.
I had to stop touching him. I pulled my hand away. "Please call me Maddie," I told him. "All of my friends do."
Friends. I needed to say that word. Put him firmly in that category. There could be no more of these flashes of static between us. His dad, my mom...no. We were friends. Siblings.
That's it.
His eyes glimmered, and somehow I knew the same wheels were turning in his head. "I'd like to be your friend, Maddie. You've given me the most interesting twenty-four hours I've had in a long while."
I pushed my hand under my thigh, surreptitiously brushing away the connection that still pulsed along my skin. "You mean, you're not freaked out by me?"
That fucking lopsided grin. What was that? "Nah, if I was, you'd know," he said, his voice strangely soft. He plopped down onto the couch next to me. Very, very close to me. Close enough that I could feel the heat rising from his skin. For some reason, it made me shiver.
"Okay, because the freak-out painting is right there. Though, as your friend, I'd recommend steel-toed boots beforehand."
His eyes widened and he burst out laughing. And when I heard the sounds he was making, I burst out laughing, too.
Rane Wilder, cock-rocking sex god, leather pants wearing, long-haired hulk, had the dorkiest fucking laugh I had ever heard. Halfway between a donkey's bray and a peacock's yelp, it was also incredibly infectious. By the time I found myself again, I was wiping helpless tears of laughter from my eyes and he was staring me down.
"Are you laughing with me, or at me?"
"Can't it be both?" I pleaded, still gasping. Laughter, vodka and this long-ass day had left me feeling utterly spent. I pressed the side of my face into the sofa. It felt uncommonly cool.
"Do I have a choice?" His voice sounded closer. I realized my eyes were closing. I opened them.
"Fuck, you're really gorgeous," I mumbled, eyes fluttering closed again. "Stop it."
"Do you mean that, Maddie?" His fingers brushed along my arm.
"No."
"Good."
"Good," I replied. Or maybe I didn't. I wasn't sure what exactly I said before I fell asleep.
Chapter Seventeen
Rane
Seven times. I was counting. That was how many times I had made her laugh today. I counted each little burst of giggle, each loud, surprised guffaw, as a personal triumph.
She held herself back, tight and reserved. But when she laughed, I could see the little wild thing that stalked under her skin. It was fascinating, like peering down through dark water into the murky depths below. When she laughed, the murkiness cleared for a moment, and I felt like I could catch a glimpse of the real person drowning underneath all that caution.
The more she drank, the more she laughed, so I kept encouraging her to drink more. Then the more I laughed, the more she laughed, and even though I knew she was making fun of my stupid honking laughter, I kept laughing because it was so fucking great to see her lose control.
Yeah, I wanted to be her friend, but I couldn't stop thinking about adding a few benefits to that equation.
The sounds of the party were raging around us. There was a suspicious sounding crash, followed by a chorus of "oh shits."
I leaned back and stared at the loose-limbed girl lolling on my couch. There was nothing that was going to get me to move from this spot, close to her.
She peered out from under heavy lashes. "You're really gorgeous," she slurred. She sounded startled. "Stop it."
My ego soared alongside my cock. "You really mean that?" I didn't know if I was asking her if she really meant I was gorgeous, or if she really wanted me to stop "being gorgeous" or whatever the fuck. The whiskey was settling into my limbs, and the leg she had been so carefully holding upright in front of her, a barrier between us, was falling down to the side, pressing heavily into my thigh. I could feel her heat.
"No," she murmured, eyes closing again.
"Good," I answered. I don't think I was even answering her. I was answering that heavy leg slung against mine. My mind was flashing to a tangle of limbs, her sleepy head on my pillow, the sheets spaghettied across my floor.
She made a sound that might have been a reply. And then her full lips parted and she was asleep.
I froze.
Her wet hair was pressed against her cheek, a dark red flashing arrow leading directly to those lips. Her pussy was right there, so hot against my leg it was scalding. I could picture it perfectly, that tight little slit, pearly pink and glistening. I wondered if she really was a natural redhead like she claimed. I was only inches away from finding out.
Her head lolled forward heavily, landing on my chest. She exhaled a soft sigh, like she was giving in. Giving up.
"Fuck."
When I was back in high school, this guy in my class, Frankie Falconi, or Falcon as he insisted we call him, knocked up Rachel Everheart under the bl
eachers. She dropped out of school to have the baby and Frankie strutted around like some fucking cock on wheels, like he was the first man virile enough to ever shoot his load unprotected. He badgered me every day to come "see the little fucker," until I finally gave in and went.
Rachel looked proud and tired and really fucking young when she greeted us. Then she promptly deposited the "little fucker" right in my arms.
I froze, just like I did right now.
There is a trust that innocence requires. Beautiful, fragile things need to be cared for by the strong. It's the way of the fucking world. When I held little Frankie Junior, I realized that code of protection was universal. Here I had no blood tie to this little potatoey looking thing, but the deep, tribal part of me made me stand straighter, move more slowly, shield his soft little head and hunch my shoulders around him protectively when Frankie's stupid yappy mutt came barreling around the corner.
Protective. Possessive. If that was how I felt when I cradled a baby with no connection to me whatsoever, then there wasn't a word strong enough for what I was feeling right now, with Madeline Cole trusting me enough to pass out on my chest.
"Fuck," I said again. She was warm, wet, almost naked, her perfect breasts pressed against my chest. My cock was nestled against her softness and was starting to stir.
I didn't know what else to do.
I scooped her up and headed to my bedroom.
Chapter Eighteen
Madeline
I first thought I was swimming in the ocean, until it resolved itself into a bed only fractionally smaller than the Pacific. I was under a down comforter as lofty as a cloud, and could blinkingly see patches of the unfamiliar room around me. A huge window, flooding the blond wood floor with light. Puddles of clothing left in heaps. A bathroom off the corner, the door opened slightly to reveal a pattern of white subway tile.
I had no idea where the fuck I was and if my head would just stop pounding for one fucking second....
Fragments of memory stitched themselves painfully together and all at once, I was awake. And terrified.
I heard a rustle from the corner and froze. I peeked out from under the comforter.
There was an easy chair, a Dad-like Barcalounger, old and worn and decidedly out of place in this beautiful, light-filled room. It looked like it was covered in a snowdrift of dirty laundry.
The snowdrift snorted and stretched.
It was Rane.
When I saw him, some of the panic subsided.
Then a new and more sinister panic took its place.
I'm in his bed.
I don't remember how I got here...
Did we...?
Did he..?
I lifted the covers slightly and looked down at my body.
I was wearing last night's clothes.
And I was completely untouched.
"Harlow dressed you, not me. Don't worry." Rane's voice wafted up from the easy chair, cranky and muzzy with sleep. "Your suit was still wet."
I pulled the comforter down and eyed him warily. "You put me to bed?"
He didn't open his eyes. "You passed out," he grunted, shifting his big body in the too-small chair.
For some reason, this wasn't processing the way it should. "Your bed?"
His eyes fluttered open and he sighed moodily. "Yeah, well, the other ones were in use. You missed a good party."
I lifted the comforter to glance at myself again. "And we didn't.... I mean, you didn't..."
From across the room, he leveled his gaze on mine. "Maddie. I said I wasn't a nice guy. That doesn't mean I'm not a good one."
Why was there a lump in my throat?
"Okay...." I whispered.
"You need anything? Water? Aspirin?"
"Both," I croaked. My mouth tasted like a gym sock and I couldn't imagine what my eye makeup must be doing right now. I didn't want him getting too close to me. "I'll get it, though."
"Yeah, no. If I feel like warm ass, you gotta feel like death incarnate. You're like, a tenth of my size."
I smiled half-heartedly. "Let's say a third?"
He smiled lazily. "I'm not sure I have children's aspirin lying around."
"Don't you dare," I moaned. "I need the big guns. Give me the whole bottle."
He chuckled and heaved himself out of the easy chair. I watched as he twisted and stretched, then rolled his head from side to side, and something finally clicked. "Wait, Rane...did you, did you sleep in that old chair?"
Rane looked at it. "Wouldn't be the first time. One of the few things I threw in the back of my Jeep when I moved cross-country. I stole it from my dad."
"But...your bed. It's like, really comfy."
"You were in it." He seemed genuinely confused.
"But...I'm like a tenth of your size. I could have fit on that chair a lot better."
He waved his hand. "What are friends for?" And he disappeared out the bedroom door.
I lay back in Rane's monstrously huge bed and closed my eyes. The sheets were suffused with the smell of him, a smell I had only known existed two days ago but now seemed integral to my well-being. As I took a deep breath, I tried to calm my racing thoughts and put them into some sort of logical, factual order.
Fact: I had gotten completely wasted in the company of an achingly sexy rock star.
Fact: I had passed out in said company.
Fact: The sexy rock star had carefully and caringly put me to bed, preserving my modesty by enlisting a friend to change my clothes.
Fact: He let me sleep in his bed while he took the uncomfortable chair
Fact: He was fetching me hangover helpers right now.
These were the facts as I understood them, and yet they didn't make sense.
Rane returned, carefully balancing a massive jar of aspirin and two sloshing water glasses. "Why didn't you sleep somewhere else?" I blurted.
He set the glasses down, shook out two pills from the jar, looked at me, then added a third to his open palm. He extended it to me. "Why didn't I what now?" he asked mildly. Matter-of-factly.
I could feel my cheeks reddening, even before I had to touch his warm, dry palm to retrieve my aspirin. "I'm just asking. You had a party. There were a ton of girls here. Girls with...beds. You could have..."
"Found myself alternate lodging for the evening?"
I swallowed the aspirin and looked up at him. The way that tiny little scar twisted his lip upward was fast becoming my favorite part of him. It made everything seem light. Unserious. It made me feel happier just to see it was still there. I reminded myself to ask how he got it, but for now..."Yeah. Since I was taking up your bed."
"You took it up, too," he said, perching on the edge. "You're a sprawler."
I blushed harder. "Shut up."
"I don't think there'd be room for me even if I had slipped in there with you."
"Why didn't you?" I blurted. Again. Oh god, why couldn't I keep from spilling my shit with this guy? He was like sodium pentothal in human form.
It was the tiniest little slip. Just a ragged little twitch of that lip that I would have never noticed if I hadn't spent the last two days memorizing every detail of his face. A grimace of guilt.
He wanted to slip in here with me.
And I wished that he had.
Fucking hell, Maddie.
Just as quickly as the grimace flickered, it was gone, and a mask, much like my own, settled in its place. Takes one to know one, for sure. "Well, the kink in my neck right now is wondering the same thing," he said lightly. "But that ship has sailed, huh?"
In more ways than one.
"I guess it has."
Silence stretched out for millennia. I tried to look around, anywhere, but no matter where I turned, my gaze fell right back onto him. The way his lashes cast shadows on his cheekbones made me wish I had one iota of skill with a paintbrush. His face was as calm as a lake on a still day. And for a blinding second, his name was perfect for him. Rane. Washing away the mud and grime from my life and making it
clean again.
Fuck did that come from?
"Any plans today?" I blurted. All I did was blurt. I was a preeminent blurtologist.
He shifted. "I've got a few things goin' on."
"That's...specific."
"Industry shit. Boring," he growled. "We've gotta rehearse, get a set list together before the buzz gig."
"Buzz gig?"
"A show for fancy-ass people. Playing while they study their reflections in their iPhones." He glowered for a moment, then his face brightened. "Hey. You wanna come?"
I laughed out loud, hurting the delicate equilibrium of my head. "Well, when you make it sound so enticing...."
"Aw, come on. It'd be nice to see a friendly face in the crowd. Someone who actually would look at us as we play."
"I'm only going to be looking at Twitch."
"I can see why. You have a thing for him?"
"What can I say? I like jumpy guys. Laid-back, effortless cool is totally not my thing."
Too much, Maddie.
He blinked slowly. "Yeah, that'd bore the shit out of me."
"Glad we agree."
"So you'll come?"
"You didn't say when it was, idiot."
"Thursday night."
"Is it going to be loud and testosterone-fueled?"
"Only way I roll, baby."
"That's not really my scene."
"I think you'll like it."
"You do, huh?"
"I think underneath all that forced calm is a rocker chick waiting to let loose and break some faces."
"Or paintings?"
"Tell you what. You come to this thing, and I'll let you kick in every single piece of shit art I have hanging on my walls."
Chapter Nineteen
Rane
Keir held the last note of "Saintly Sinner," then knocked his mic stand to the floor. "That sounded like shit," he growled.
I rolled my head from side to side to dispel some of the tension in my shoulders. "You wanna try again?"
Keir nodded, picked up his stand...then exhaled an explosive sigh. "Yeah, no," he gritted through clenched teeth. "It's not fucking working for me."