“You ready to go back to my place?” I was sure the walk home would help her digest. I hoped she’d agree to stay with me.
“I should probably go home. I texted Charlynn a few hours ago, but she might worry if I don’t come home tonight.” Was that an excuse? Did she not want to stay with me?
“Text her and tell her you’re staying with me; she probably won’t be surprised.” I flashed Melody my most dashing smile.
“Yeah, she’ll probably be pissed. She doesn’t want me dating you.” She sipped her tea and grimaced.
“Ah, the vitriolic best friend … yeah. I’m sure Reyna will have the same sentiments. I’ll have to just prove them all wrong. But above all, I’ll have to prove my love to you.” I took her hand and kissed it.
I’d already lost her once.
“I look forward to making you prove it.” Her expression turned sly. “Can we get this to go?”
“Sure.” It was already nearly three in the morning, and even though I was starting to feel tired, being with Melody energized me.
I called Rachel over. She boxed up our food, gave us our bill, and we promised to join Rachel at her birthday party the following week. I could tell Melody and Rachel would become friends quickly. I’m glad she invited her along. I would have brought her anyway, but if Melody and I were going to seriously date, I wanted her to know the people who were close to me.
The walk home was as eerie as the walk to the restaurant. Admittedly, I never walked in Los Angeles this late, but the Standard Hotel where the restaurant was located was literally four blocks from my house. It would be ridiculous to risk my car getting broken into or ticketed with the insane parking restrictions for such a short distance. I held Melody’s hand and filled the dark stillness of the witching hour with words I’d been wanting to say all night.
“I hope you do trust me, Melody. You’re someone who is worth investing my time and love wholeheartedly. I promise to work hard to prove to you I’m in this.” I’d never said anything like that to another woman before. I felt it was important that Melody know the truth.
“I believe you.” She squeezed my hand.
I don’t know if she believed me or not. I think she was still guarding her heart, which would be something she should do until she had more trust in me. I was starting to love her, and as much as I wanted to lock away my heart and keep myself safe from the intense feelings she brought, I knew it was time to let go and allow myself to love her.
“Truce? Can you and I try and make this work? No drama, no bullshit, no drugs or other women.” I searched for her eyes to find her feelings.
“Truce.” I loved how her eyes always glimmered in the light.
We walked the rest of the way home, and when we arrived back at my loft, I could tell we were both so tired. I wanted to make love to her, but one look at her droopy eyes and sluggish gait, I knew a cuddle and a kiss was all we were going to be able to manage. She wore one of my T-shirts to bed and fell asleep two seconds after saying goodnight/good morning in the cute way she loved to point out the irony.
I couldn’t sleep. My semi-erect cock could have been encouraged into action, but it would be a solo act I wasn’t much interested in. My mind raced. Having Melody in my bed again electrified me. It had been so long, it felt like a lifetime since she’d slept by my side. Since I couldn’t sleep, I brought out my guitar and quietly strummed.
I understood then what inspired her to write “Ever After.” The night she wrote it, we were on fire. Passion smoldered between us and nothing but electricity and the potential existed. The sexual tension and glow of a new relationship with someone you’d coveted forever felt like eating sugar, glass, and fire. She was questioning whether I was her “Ever After.” Looking at Melody now I knew she was mine. It was at that moment, the small peaceful quiet in the wee hours of the morning where I saw in her soft sleeping face, the mother of my children.
Children? I never wanted them. The idea of raising a small, cruel, selfish little being who shit in their pants and ate with their fingers never appealed to me. But staring at Melody sleeping, her purple hair splayed across her shoulders, I could see our children. Little miniatures of her playing music and singing with tiny childish voices. Suddenly, I craved a family. It was like some hormone in my hormonally latent body finally clicked over, and I was ravenous for the pitter-patter of tiny feet ... Little rug-rats with our faces. Her face. So, as she had done with “Ever After”, I stayed up the rest of the night and wrote her a song.
I was born with the wild in my veins, you took the reins
and directed me to places I thought I would never see inside of me … quietly.
And then, you were a tidal wave of everything and when I’d hear you sing,
I was surfin’ the highs and lows dealing blows of pain till your blood left a stain.
You crashed along the shore, broken and sore. I was an ogre once more
the wild taking control of me, but here you are … quietly
ready to love me, scars and all and I’m two hundred feet tall.
I know for sure you are the reason why I’m wildly secure in who I am and who I can be.
Quietly you healed the aches, you did all it takes to make me someone worthy.
You are a goddess of all the things and you’ll never know how much happiness your love brings
and I won’t do anything so quietly, I’ll shout it to the sky, I’ll love you till the day I die.
I didn’t usually sing ballads, our band was hard pumping, ironic, bitter, and loud. “Ever After” was the first time we mixed our heart thudding bass and shredding guitars with a full gospel choir. “Quietly,” the song I wrote while watching Melody sleep, would be the Grind Revolutions’ first ballad, and the first time I ever put my heart and feelings into a song I’d written.
Before, anger, observation, and just fucking around were my muses, but “Quietly” exposed the hidden pieces of me I was finally ready to face. I needed to grow up and become the man who was lying dormant inside. Melody, with her purple hair, immense musical talent, and gentle playful spirit, was the balm to my soul … my everything.
I played the song a few times, and when I felt like I had it all, I recorded it. By the time I was done, the sun was already starting to rise. I considered going into town and getting donuts from the corner donut shop, but I was tired and didn’t really want to face the streets of downtown LA again so soon. Instead, I stripped off my clothes and cuddled into Melody’s warmth. I knew she wouldn’t wake for a few more hours yet. She was sleeping so soundly a freight train could have driven through my room and she wouldn’t have roused.
Falling asleep beside her was the best feeling in the world. My muscles relaxed, and my eyes became heavy. I drifted easily into dreaming. My dreams were only fragments and pieces, but in them, I saw us happy. Our children were beautiful, and we lived for our music, our family, and each other.
Chapter 24
Melody
I woke up after having a weird dream about the competition. In the dream I had, for some reason, I decided to sing in a lion costume and did some weird striptease in front of thousands of people. The audience was full of eyes staring at me as I stripped down to nothing. A popular national talent show host complimented my tits and said I was the best they’d seen so far.
Ugh, I hated stress dreams, they were always so vivid and so … well, stressful. I looked around the room, and for a second, I didn’t know where I was. I bolted out of bed and realized I was with Sage. His hand came up to my arm and tugged me back down to him without opening his eyes. I felt weirdly panicked, so I cuddled with him for a minute, but I had to pee.
“Sorry, I’ve got to use the bathroom.” I kissed his forehead; he still didn’t open his eyes, and I tiptoed to the bathroom.
There in the bathroom, my breath seized in my lungs. I was here with Sage again. What did that mean? Was I the biggest idiot on the planet for giving this a try? I had to take a shower and not forget to take my birth cont
rol, have coffee, and then I would feel more like hashing out the obvious with my brain.
So, I did just that. When I returned to Sage’s room, he was still sleeping soundly. The clock on the wall read eleven thirty-two. Shit, it was late. The competition was tomorrow. While Sage and I talked last night, both of us got texts, one after the other, telling us we’d made it into the next level of the competition. We had gotten calls from the producers as well, but neither of us answered our phones. It was exciting to be moving forward with the iFm Battle of the Bands, but sad too, because we would be competing against each other. Our relationship really didn’t need that kind of stress.
The competition was the next day, though, so I needed to get in the right headspace for the show. The softness of the bed and the darkness created by his blackout curtains made returning to sleep very inviting. I went over the to-do list in my head of what I had to do to get ready for the competition. I had to get my hair and makeup done and go home and get the right outfit … but I didn’t want to freak myself out with too much preparation, and all I really had to do was get my nerves in check and my game on. Going back to bed won.
Back in the soft sheets, my clean skin melted into the pillows and memory foam. I was tired enough to fall back to sleep but unable. I turned to look at Sage, so peaceful and beautiful. He was half asleep and half awake and was trying to make sense of the morning in the sleepy way he usually did.
“Are you coming back to bed?” he asked in a tired voice.
“I think so.” I snuggled in closer.
“Maybe I can convince you.” He didn’t open his eyes, but his arms gathered me into his body.
His morning wood hit the top of my thigh. Sex would be fun. I touched his inflamed cock, and it was almost at a full erection, just a little work and he’d be there, so I gently stroked him up and down. This got his attention as he opened his eyes and moaned.
“That’s nice.” He cuddled me in tighter as his hips started pulsing into my hand.
His arm draped over my waist and caressed my skin. With each stroke, he came closer and closer to my exposed breast. It was an interesting tactic. I think he was just sleepy and planning on a lazy morning interlude, but it was driving me wild.
He just missed my breast each time his hand traveled up and down my body, and it was making me nuts. I admit I might have started pumping a bit faster at that point to wake his ass up. I was getting flushed, and my pussy ached for his attention. From behind me came a slow rumbling laugh. I was caught.
“Someone is eager this morning,” he teased as his hand finally found my nipple and tugged at it.
“You make me crazy. I just want to have sex with you all the time,” I confessed, feeling really out of my mind.
“Now you know how I feel.” He leaned in and kissed me then flipped me on my back. “Am I having you for breakfast then?”
“It’s your turn.” I tugged on his cock for a little encouragement.
“You smell all sparkly and fresh.” His smile widened. “This will be a treat.”
He slithered down my body, making sure to drag the scruff of his beard all the way down my sensitive skin. When he finally landed between my legs, his scruffy beard tickled my thighs. Instead of kissing, he nibbled, and the flood gates released.
“Oh my God, that tickles so bad.” I wiggled under him.
“What this?” he asked, scraping his beard across my reddened skin.
“Yes, stop it,” I playfully protested. I wasn’t sure if I wanted him to stop or not, but I knew if he continued, I’d be raw. We had a soundcheck later that day before the show tomorrow; I didn’t want to walk like a cowboy or be chaffed by my jeans.
His fingers slid into my moist pussy, and he laughed. “Um, your pussy likes it.” He licked his fingers and smirked.
“She’s naughty.” I threw a smirk back at him.
“I like your naughty pussy.” His head dipped down, and suddenly I was attacked by an onslaught of touch and scruff and teeth.
I grabbed his hair and held his head to me. It was sort of an involuntary reaction, but he had me twisted in knots already. The pricking spike of tension rose from my groin to my belly, swirling and twisting somewhere between the two when I arched, quivered, and came, right in the man’s mouth.
He lapped at all I fed him before rising from between my legs, slapping my butt as he crawled back up to the pillow beside me. “That gets you every time.”
My breath was hot and frantic. I closed my eyes and let the sharp biting explosion settle around me. He played me just like his guitar, all in, no holds barred. While I drifted down from heaven, he picked up my leg, draped it over his middle, and entered me from behind. His hardness sliced inside of me as he always had. He went in and in and in some more until I was completely filled with every inch of Sage Harris.
“I love how we fit.” His hot breath warmed my ear.
“Mmhm.” Yeah words … weren’t gonna happen.
He drew himself out partially and back in again at a nice slow tempo. In and out, his cock stroked my vagina with sweet pulses that were winding me up again in a languid ballet. I arched my neck back to see his face. I loved when he was in the throes of ecstasy. His eyes would glaze, and his concentration seemed so focused on the feelings playing out on his cock.
I kissed his chin. I hadn’t noticed the scar there before. I brought my finger up to touch it as he continued to slide in and out.
“What’s this?” I breathed, feeling myself become more heated as I was winding up for my second orgasm of the morning.
“Baseball bat,” he choked out, leaning his weight into me more as his thrusts became harder.
His concentration focused on me as he moved us into a downward dog position I’d learned in yoga.
“You were hit with a baseball bat?” Suddenly a horrific image filled my mind while I rested my elbows on the pillow; my ass high in the air, getting sliced by his cock.
The image of someone taking a swing at his gorgeous face danced across my vision. Instantly, my mental claws came out, and I wanted to protect him from the baseball bat-wielding perpetrator.
“No.” He made a hard thrust inside of me.
I was happy no one tried to hit him, relieved actually.
“Then … oooh,” another hard thrust. “How did you get that scar?”
“Sinclair’s baseball bat.” He thrust again. “I wanted it. I grabbed for it. He pushed me off the porch. He got the baseball bat, and I got nine stitches. Uh … uh …” He hard-thrust two more times before his hands gripped my hips and his hot body laid across my back. “Fuck … your pussy is everything that is right in the world, Melody.”
His cock pistoned in me, and he was lost to the ether of ecstasy. His hands moved from his hips to my tits as he rammed into me hard. With all the intensity and his heavyweight, I crumpled onto the bed, my ass still in the air. From that position, it was like he was sliding into my belly. His abs rested on my back, and beads of sweat trickled down my sides. Tiny shudders rocked my pussy, and I could tell I was careening toward orgasm number three.
When his soft wet mouth met the nape of my neck, I was done.
“Ah, yah.” I lost control, my pussy tightened, my stomach clenched, and I saw stars.
I backed up onto him and his body froze, his stomach rising and falling on my back as I rode out my orgasm. His motions were once again slow and deliberate while I shivered out the energy. I was a floppy spent rag doll he cradled into his lap. Impaled upon his cock he rocked me back and forth on him faster and faster until he exploded inside of me, jet after jet of cum shot inside my body only to come sliding out moments later.
“Ahh.” His head flopped into the side of my neck. “I love you.”
I let him hold me there while the words sank in. He’d never said he loved me before and perhaps this was just an impassioned exclamation, but I let it sink in as his cock wilted inside of me.
I leaned into his body, my head turning towards his hot, wet chest. “I love
you too,” I breathed into his skin.
After finding our center of balance again, I fell forward on the bed and popped off his penis. He fell beside me and scooped me up in his arms. Neither of us said anything, just let the air cool our bodies as our minds collected again. He played with my nipples lazily, and I could see by the earnest expression on his face, he was thinking of the right way to phrase whatever he was about to say.
“How long have we known each other?” he asked.
It was a strange time to ask that question, but I answered him. “Two years, I guess.” His hand still played with my breasts, and I lovingly stroked the soft hair on his arm while he did.
“Is that long enough?” It made me nervous, what he was asking.
“Long enough for what?” I tried not to let my voice go pitchy, which would be a sure indication of the insecurity that suddenly gripped me.
“Long enough to know if someone is the one you want to spend the rest of your life with?” He almost sounded like a little boy, lost in wonder.
“Personally, I think you know the minute you meet someone. Perhaps there are things about them you can or can’t live with and those might drive you apart or bring you closer together, but I just believe your heart knows when you’ve met the right person the moment you meet them. It’s a very romantic silly notion, I understand, but it’s something I’ve always just felt.”
“I feel that way too.” He stopped playing with my breasts and kissed me.
His mouth lapped and kissed and made love to mine. When he was done, he looked at me deeply, his eyes like endless pools flowing into an expanse of everything.
“I’ve always felt that way about you.”
Chapter 25
Sage
I said it. It just came out, and then it was said. If I were me before Melody, I would have regretted saying it, but I didn’t have one single regret. I meant every word. I’d wanted her since the moment I first saw her, and deep inside, I knew she’d be the one. I couldn’t think of anyone I had wanted to be with more. Whenever I thought about love, I had a vision of who that woman would be. She had to be beautiful, at least to me. She had to be fun, creative, understanding, open-minded. She had to be Melody I realized as my orgasm shattered the last remnant of the walls that I allowed to hold me back from her.
Beautiful Mistake Page 17