Tainted Kiss (Tainted Knights Book 1)

by Terri Anne Browning

  It was one of the daily trash magazines. A kind of gossip column for the who’s who celebrities. I used to pick them up every now and again for Sage when she was in one of her darkly depressed moods. Sometimes reading about how crazy famous people lived and some of their antics would cheer her up.

  Something told me I wasn’t going to find anything amusing about this particular edition.

  I was frozen in place, half-sitting and half-standing, staring at the hand holding the paper.

  “Take it,” she said in a soft but authoritative tone. “Just pretend it’s a band-aid and pull it off quickly.”

  My fingers started to shake, which pissed me off.

  Clenching my hand into a fist for a second, I gritted my teeth as I snatched the paper from her. Sitting down, I unfolded it and took in the front cover.

  A small picture took up the upper left hand side. Some reality TV princess who had been partying hard on a bar crawl in Manhattan Beach. A slightly larger picture was across from it of some politician’s kid who had been arrested for DUI for the second time in six months.

  But of course neither of those things mattered to me. No, what caught and held my attention almost instantly was the picture of the rocker who had not one, but two girls on his lap. One was kissing his mouth while the other was licking his chest. His face was blocked by the one tying her tongue into knots with his, but I didn’t need to see his face to know who it was.

  The ink on his arm gave him away. The way the mysterious woman, who represented his mother—he had told me one night as we’d lain in bed and I had traced his tattoos over and over again—was more prominent than the dirty street scene that represented life in general. Part of his beard was showing, as well as the top of his dark head.

  A cocktail of emotions ricocheted around inside of me. Hurt. Jealousy. Disbelief. Pain. Nausea. Anger. Jealousy again, topped with a double scoop of anger and a big fat cherry on top.

  “‘Tainted Knights’ drummer parties hard at Petrova house in Miami’,” I read the caption out loud. “‘Find out who else was in attendance on page twelve’.”

  Miami. That was where the guys had been the last three days, so that much was true. I wanted to believe that the rest of it was all made up. That it was someone else under those two girls, and some photographer had just photo-shopped Kale’s tattoos onto this guy’s arm.

  I knew it wasn’t the case, though. That was Kale. With two—fucking two—girls on his lap. Touching him. Kissing him. Licking. Him.

  I dropped the paper onto the island counter and lifted wounded eyes to Kin. She would know if it was true or not. She would have talked to Jace, found out what had really happened.

  That guarded look was still in place, but it quickly came down, and I knew.

  It was real.

  “Jace said he doesn’t know everything that happened last night,” she told me, running her fingers through her hair to push the red locks away from her face. “One minute, Kale was sitting on some couch with Gray and Sin, talking to a group of guys. He got pulled into a conversation with Petrova who was throwing the party. The next thing he knew, Gray was chasing after Kassa for one reason or another, Sin was long gone, and Kale was like that.”

  I slowly nodded and tried to swallow around the ball of emotions that were clogging my throat. “Did …?” I stopped, cleared my throat a few times, and tried again. “Did he fuck them?”

  “Jace said no. He grabbed Kale, and they left.”

  Relief flooded through me, but it didn’t wipe out everything that was still jumbled up inside of me right then. No one wanted to see their boyfriend making out with someone else. They sure as hell didn’t want to see it happening with two chicks. And they for sure didn’t want the world to have a front row seat to it. At least, I knew I didn’t.

  My stomach roiled again, and I put my hand over my mouth, fighting back the building nausea.

  “Does he know? About this paper?”

  Kin hesitated, but then she shook her head. “As far as I know, no. Kale was still asleep when I talked to Jace. They’re on their way to Jackson for their next show tonight.”

  “A-Ask him not to say anything just yet.”

  I was losing the battle. The vomit was going to win.

  I jumped to my feet. “I … God. Sorry,” I moaned as I made a run for my room.

  I dashed through the living room, down the hall to my room, past my bed, and made it all the way to the tiled floor of my bathroom when the vomit won. I bent in half, heaving over and over again as sweat beaded on my forehead and upper lip. I didn’t think about the mess I was going to have to clean up. I didn’t think about Kale and the two chicks who had been so into what they were doing. My head was completely empty, except for one thought.

  This will never end. I will be throwing up my guts, and it will still keep coming.

  Cool hands touched my back, but I couldn’t focus on who had come to check on me. I should have been empty by now, but it only continued to force its way out of me.

  A damp washcloth was pressed to my face, a soothing voice speaking softly as Jenna moved around, taking care of me. I wanted to yell at them to go away, but at the same time, no one had taken care of me like this since my dad when I’d had the flu right before that last deployment.

  As always, thinking of my dad brought tears to my eyes. In that moment, I was weak from being sick, and from just having my heart pulled from my chest at that damn picture. It all collided together at once, and I couldn’t stop the meltdown that took me prisoner.

  I crumbled to my knees, my hand slipping in the puddle of vomit, and I almost fell into it as I howled with pain. My stomach was cramping like crazy, but my heart was twisting like someone was wringing it with both hands.

  Jenna helped me sit down on my rear, wiped my hand clean of the vomit, then got a fresh cloth for my face. “Is this because of Kale? Did you make yourself sick over him?” She shook her head. At least, I thought she did. The world was starting to grow dim around the edges, and I was still crying, so my vision was even more blurred. “No one is worth doing this to your body.”

  “Screw Kale.” Right then, I couldn’t have cared less if he was fucking the skank twins or half the country. He could do what he wanted. I didn’t have a say in what he did or with whom. He didn’t love me.

  Even if I did love him.

  That small truth had dug its way free from my heart, making the tears pour faster.

  I vaguely heard someone else tap on the bathroom door. “Jen?”

  “Not now, Angie.”

  “Hell.” There was a pause, then, “Yeah, she’s throwing up, too. Okay. You’re sure?”

  The washcloth Jenna was using to wipe across my sweaty brow stopped. “Who’s on the phone?”

  “Oh, just the bride’s mother from yesterday’s wedding where Santana was working.” Angie crouched down in front of me. “Hey, sweetie … Santana? Hey.” She cupped my face, lifting it so I was looking at her. “Did you eat the food at the reception last night?”

  I tried to blink the tears out of my eyes, tried to focus on Angie’s face, but she was one big blur to me.

  Reception? I blanked for a second before the question actually made sense.

  “Yeah.” I tried to think back to what I had eaten. “I can’t remember what I ate. I was working. I just stuffed anything I could in my mouth whenever I had a few minutes.”

  “Okie-dokie then, buttercup. Looks like you get a one-way ticket to the emergency room.” Angie stood and spoke back into the phone. “Tell the doctors to make room for one more. She seems out of it on top of the vomiting.”

  “What’s going on?” Jenna demanded, going back to wiping my face with the blessedly cool cloth.

  I leaned into the touch, wishing it was colder. It didn’t ease the agonizing cramps, though.

  “Over half the guests from the wedding have severe food poisoning, including the bride and groom. Vomiting, disorientation, and a small list of other fun things that won’t be fun cl
eaning up.”

  With Angie’s help, they practically carried me over to the shower. I didn’t protest when they started taking my clothes off. I was helpless, something I hated feeling more than anything else in the world, and it made the tears fall again.

  I heard the water turn on, but must have zoned out until they were holding me under the spray. The cramps were so painful they left me bent in half, holding my stomach and silently praying for relief.

  “Hangovers suck,” I muttered as they started to dry me a few minutes later. “But I didn’t drink last night.” Right? I couldn’t remember drinking.

  “No, sweetie. You ate some bad food,” Angie tried to explain in a kind voice. “We’re going to take you to the doctor now and get you all better.”

  “Holy shit.”

  I thought it was Kin standing in the bathroom doorway now, but even though the tears had stopped, I couldn’t really make her out. I blinked, trying to clear my vision, and she became a little clearer.

  “Is this some weird threesome or is she sick?”

  “Food poisoning,” Jenna barked at her, trying to brush my wet hair back.

  My head felt heavy on my shoulders, and it kept leaning to the left. But she had the patience of a saint because she didn’t complain and kept working the brush through the long, thick length until it was all untangled. Then Angie put clean clothes on me. They worked like a well-oiled machine, helping each other without either of them having to ask, anticipating what the other would need before they even realized they needed it.

  I had really good friends.

  Not like Sage. She never would have done any of this for me.

  I felt like pure shit. My head was starting to throb, my stomach continued to roil and cramp. I was pretty sure I was going to vomit again …

  “That’s a nice shade on you, Ang,” Kin said drily.

  I opened my eyes and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand as I looked at Angie.

  “Oh, no,” I cried in a voice that was high. The front of Angie’s shirt was covered in foul smelling stomach contents. “I’m sorry.”

  The blonde only shrugged. “It’s okay. You couldn’t help it.” She put my arm around her shoulders, and Jenna did the same with my other arm. “Get the door, Kin.”

  The next few hours passed in a haze. I didn’t remember half of what happened. The three of them took me to the hospital in Jenna’s car, and they stayed with me. The bride’s mother was already waiting there, but so were about two hundred other guests from the wedding, all of them just as sick as I was.

  It wasn’t long before a needle was being stuck in my arm, meds and fluids were pumped into me, and I drifted in and out of sleep. I was disoriented, and I heard the nurse say I was running a fever.

  I shifted and felt something tugging on the skin of my chest and heard a distinct beep-beep-beep from what I could only assume was a heart monitor. My chest felt tight, like I couldn’t get enough air.

  It’s because my heart is broken, I thought at one point before someone was sticking tubes up my nose.

  NINETEEN

  Kale

  I gripped my phone in my hand, silently willing it to ring, for a text to pop up—for any-fucking-thing to happen.

  Nothing did.

  Not one call from Santana. Not a single text.

  I hadn’t talked to her since Saturday night before she had gone to bed. The band hadn’t gone on stage until nine, so we’d talked before the show rather than after. She had a huge shoot Sunday that she had to get up for. Some wedding that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. She was getting triple her usual hourly fees to do it.

  Now it had been over thirty-six hours since I had seen the familiar heart emoji pop up on my screen from her. Thirty-six hours since I’d heard her voice and known I was coming home to her soon.

  A lot could happen in thirty-six hours.

  I could have possibly ruined my life in that time.

  I hadn’t even meant to. It should have never happened, but it had, and I could blame no one but myself.

  No, I could blame someone. The fucker who had set me up. The one who had thought it was funny to play with my life. I could blame him.

  And when I found out who it was, I was going to butcher them.

  Scrubbing my free hand over my face, I pulled up the photos on my phone and scrolled through them. There were over a hundred selfies of me with Santana on there, all taken in the two days before I had left on tour. I loved them all because they all had my girl in them, but there were five that had become my favorites.

  The one in my apartment where she’d come up behind me and wrapped her arms around me. She had stood on tiptoes and put her head on my shoulder, her beautiful brown eyes shining with happiness as I lifted the phone high enough to snap the selfie.

  Then there was the one she had taken as we were about to leave for the beach. I had on an old baseball cap, and she had asked me to hold her. Just for a minute. I had kissed her neck, promising her anything she wanted, and then turned her around so that her back was to me. Santana had pouted those big, luscious lips and the grin that had lifted my lips had come straight from my heart.

  There were two from our day at the beach that had become my favorites for different reasons. One had been taken when I was telling her some funny story from my past. I’d had my phone out, shooting us in bursts, and the camera had caught the perfect moment when I’d made her snort. Her eyes had gotten huge for a second, but then she had just shrugged and kept laughing, too lost in the humor of the story to care that I had heard that adorable, little snort she hated so much.

  The second from the beach was of Santana making silly faces while my eyes were on her, full of everything I was scared to tell her. I had been such a pussy for not telling her before leaving.

  Those four pictures meant a lot to me, but there was one that I’d spent hours looking at every day. The one I had become addicted to. I couldn’t live without this picture.

  Santana had fallen asleep on my arm, her hand holding the one I had wrapped around her. I couldn’t not take a picture of us like that. I’d tried to act naturally, to pretend to be asleep, but the sheer happiness I was feeling in that moment couldn’t be held in, and I’d had this smug half-smile on my face.

  I traced my finger over her cheek and told myself that she would call me back. I’d left fifty messages, trying to explain; but how could I really do that when I was all the way across the country? Something like this needed to be done in person, not over the damn phone. Maybe she would take pity on me and send me a text.

  Right then, even if it told me to go fuck myself, I would have taken it.

  The bus had long since stopped for our next show, but I hadn’t moved from my seat on the couch since Emmie had called to chew my ass out. Things had been quiet for the most part, and there were only two more weeks of the tour left. No one had made major headlines until my little incident the night before.

  I could understand why she was pissed. I was pissed, too. Someone had set the picture up. Maybe even someone who worked with me. Travis was low on my list, but I couldn’t completely count him out. My money was on one of the roadies. Nearly all of them had been at the party. Which one, I didn’t fucking know, but when I found out, there wouldn’t be a safe place they could hide.

  I had been slightly drunk, but I would have never asked for what had happened. Maybe a few months ago, when my heart had been free, when there was no one I could hurt by hooking up with some random chick. Not now, though, not when I had Santana waiting for me at home.

  I hoped she was still waiting for me.

  Jace had said she saw the paper the stupid picture had ended up in, but he hadn’t told me how she had reacted. From the silent treatment I was getting from her, I could only imagine how she was taking it.

  I wanted to put my fist through a wall, wanted to beat the fuck out of whoever had decided it would be fun to set me up to make it look like I’d cheated.

  There had been times over the pa
st seven weeks when I’d had the opportunity to fuck around with any number of girls. I hadn’t been tempted, not once. The only girl I wanted was back in California, waiting for me to call her every night before she could fall asleep.

  I loved Santana.

  Now I just needed the chance to explain and tell her how I felt.

  I had already tried to call Kin to see if she would tell me what was going on, if she could help me out and maybe explain what had happened, but she wouldn’t pick up her phone. Every time I called her, she would send me straight to voicemail. The same happened when I called Angie or Jenna. No one would talk to me.

  My phone rang, but the name that showed up wasn’t one I was anticipating seeing. I knew better than to ignore it, though.

  “Hey, Emmie,” I muttered. “Look, I don’t know what more to tell you. It was a setup. One minute I was sitting there, talking to these two guys. The next—”

  “I’m not really worried about that at the moment,” she interrupted me in a rush. “Get to the airport. There’s a chartered jet waiting on you.”

  I sat up straight. “What? Why? Ah, come on. You can’t take me off the tour. Who will fill in for me?”

  “I’m not pulling you off the tour for the stupid picture, Kale,” she snapped. “It’s Santana.”

  My blood turned ice-cold, and I was suddenly on my feet.

  I jumped off the bus, but I had no idea where I was going, I only knew I had to find a way home. A way back to my girl.

  The parking lot where the buses were parked was deserted. I stopped, sucked in a deep breath, and mentally told myself to calm to fuck down. I needed answers first.

  “What happened? Is she okay?”

  “She, along with about two hundred plus people, got some kind of food poisoning from the catering at the wedding last night. It was the fish. They’ve all been out of it—headaches, stomach pains, vomiting. Kin says it hasn’t been pretty,” she explained. “She’s at the hospital with her now. She said Santana has been asking for you. She wasn’t sure if it was just the disorientation or what, but she didn’t want to take the chance that she really wanted to see you.”