by L.J. Shen
I wanted so badly to push the door open on them, waltz in, yank her up, and escort her outside before I beat him senseless. In fact, the only reason why I hadn’t done that was because Stardust seemed genuinely distressed, and for the first time in forever I allowed someone else to steal a small slice of the limelight and have it their way.
She didn’t need me; she needed him.
Did it make me want to kill him? Yes.
Did it make it any less true? No.
Anyway, that’s the short story of how I ended up ruining Lucas’ drum set.
I was six songs into the gig when I turned to take a breather from looking at all the faceless faces below me. I caught Waitrose glancing sideways and smiling at someone. At the someone I’d fingered twenty-four hours ago. That had done it. I’d walked over and broken his drums, admiring the fact I’d held back from yanking out the stand and smacking him with it. Baby steps, right?
“What the fuck!” He’d jumped up.
“The fuck is you’re fired,” I’d said, already storming backstage. “And what a fucking fuck that is indeed, my friend.”
I was now chasing Indie. Chasing her. As in, spotting her and going after her. Perhaps it was not my finest hour, but it made sense to do it at the time. She turned around and power walked toward the main dressing room, probably to Blake, most likely to make sure I didn’t kill her or anything. I grabbed the tip of her flared black dress and yanked her into my chest. She gasped, falling into my body, and to her horror—my erection.
“I get that you’re going through shit, Stardust. We all are. That’s the nature of being born into this chaos called life. But this is getting a little old, and not so fun anymore. So I’ve decided to fire Lucas, just to make sure you don’t run off to him next time your brother pisses you off. Where’s my thank you for that, huh? We both know it should’ve been you I gave the boot to.”
She turned around, and my heart had a hard-on at the prospect of how she was going to react. Not one to disappoint, Indie’s cheeks blazed red as she raised her hand and, instead of slapping me, pushed me with every ounce of power in her, slamming my back against the wall.
“You don’t have to fire me, because I quit,” she announced, her voice pitching high. Just then, Blake appeared from my dressing room, looking ready to admit himself to the ER with a severe heart attack.
“You stormed off the stage?” He looked so wired I thought he was going to explode. A drop of saliva decorated his chin. He looked rabid. I kept stalking behind Stardust, who was still running away from the scene, even though there was nowhere for her to go. She couldn’t leave the stadium without us. Blake followed both of us. Cirque de stupid. And, of course, I was the leading clown.
“I fired Waitrose, too.”
At least he had the courtesy not to ask me why. The answer was obvious, and he knew it, because he was there to talk me off the ledge every time I thought of throwing Lucas out of my life. I followed Indie until she was faced with the end of the hallway and had nowhere else to go. She turned around, narrowing her eyes at me and plastering her back to the door, clinging into her personal space.
“What do you want from me, Alex?”
Everything. I want everything, and then all the things you’ve already given away to other people. I want them back, too.
“Don’t play coy.” I grabbed her wrists when she tried pushing me off again, but she didn’t really mean it—I know it sounds creepy, but it was true—her hips bucked forward, and her breath was fast and husky. “It’s gig night, and I just fucked up royally. We have work to do tonight, Stardust.”
She threw her head back and laughed, the voice she was producing so sardonic I barely recognized it as hers. “Work? Your whole tour is crumbling. You fired your drummer, your babysitter quit, and you walked off the stage.”
And hid a bottle of champagne.
And began messing with you only because Waitrose showed the slightest interest.
The list was longer and acutely embarrassing. “You can’t quit.”
“Why?”
“Because you need the money too much, and I need you too much.” What was I saying? What was I doing? I thought I heard Blake gasp, and I couldn’t even blame him. I hadn’t subconsciously drunk that bottle of champagne and then blacked it out, had I?
Stardust took a step toward me and cracked a smile, with teeth and all, and I finally saw her for who she really was. A cunning pixie, a thief of hearts. She was shy and reserved, but she had power now, and she knew it. It made our game so much more interesting.
“I’ll stay for the money, but I won’t help you anymore. What are you going to do to me? You can’t force me to talk to you. All I signed up for is watching you.”
“Oh, Stardust.” I thrust my face into hers, laughing. This was where I thrived. In our cruel banter. “You have no idea what I can do to you, but you’re sure as hell about to find out.”
Jenna: Has Blake been fooling around on the tour?
Indie: Does Alex usually fool around on tours?
Hudson: Ladies. I’M HERE FOR THIS.
Jenna: Don’t mind Hudson. He can solely communicate with you using offensive GIFs.
Hudson: Not true.
Hudson: Okay, a little true.
Jenna: Alex is…complicated. He’s mostly ambivalent toward women. He’d engage in one-night stands occasionally, but not as often as one might think. The only woman he ever talks about is Fallon, and even that is drenched in negativity. Your turn.
Indie: Blake has not been seeing anyone or fooling around. He works and argues with Alex, then works some more. He hasn’t even looked at a woman since we boarded the plane to Australia.
Hudson: Jenna. Talk to us. Are you and Blake finally going to bump uglies?
Jenna: Hudson, leave the chat.
Hudson: Like hell I will.
Jenna: You tell Alex everything. Go away.
Hudson: No!
Indie: …
Indie: Are you dating Blake?
Jenna: No.
Jenna: But we slept together.
Jenna: And I’m pregnant.
Jenna: I sound like one of the idiots I used to laugh at when I’d read teenage magazines when I was fifteen.
Indie: 1) cruel, and 2) you need to tell him.
Jenna: I don’t know. I don’t even know if I’ll keep the baby. Don’t tell him.
Indie: I won’t. But you should.
It took Blake, Alfie, and Lucas to throw Alex into the van. He put up a good fight, but what struck me even harder than the fact it had taken three grown men to shove him into the vehicle, was that no one cared he’d fired Lucas. They’d all acted like everything was normal, dismissing Alex’s authority.
I’d needed to talk to someone when I’d found out my brother had been arrested and was spending the night in jail for assault. And I’d wanted to talk to Lucas specifically because he was more logical and emotionally balanced than Alex.
When we got to the hotel, I unlocked my door quickly to avoid the Alex-storm that had been brewing in the hallway behind me. The minute his arm reached behind my shoulder to stop me from entering, I turned around to face him. He looked serious, determined, and…what was the third thing? Exhausted. It couldn’t be easy to live life the way he had, but I was worn-out, too.
Flashes of his breath skating down the nape of my back when he retrieved the lyrics he wrote on me made my skin blossom into goosebumps. God, I was in trouble.
“I don’t want to write tonight.” My eyes followed the trail from his square chin to the collar of his gray Henley. His neck was slender and masculine at the same time. I wanted to lick it.
“Me neither. I just want to talk.” He lowered his forehead and pressed it against mine, his breathing labored. “And maybe give you oral sex. But that’s it.”
I laughed through the ball of tears that had formed in my throat. What were we doing? Weren’t we fighting five minutes ago?
The door
clicked behind me and we both fell in. The room was eerily quiet under the weight of the night and both our shitty days. I careened to the virgin minibar, eager to do something with my hands, and plucked two bottles of water.
“Sorry about your brother.” He braced himself over the TV stand, his face lined with worry.
I felt the burden of his whiskey eyes on my shoulders as I passed him a bottle and watched him set it aside. I didn’t know why it was so easy to talk to Lucas and so difficult to talk to Alex. Maybe because Lucas always felt platonic. Maybe because Lucas didn’t have any ulterior motives. And maybe it was because it felt like the air in my lungs was on fire and all my nerves concentrated in one spot between my naval and groin, the minute Alex was in the same room with me. I cleared my throat.
“Yeah, uhm, Craig got arrested tonight. It’s his first offense. The guy was coming out of the strip club under our apartment block. He was very drunk and tried getting into his car with the intention of driving home. Craig was equally drunk and tried to pull him by the shirt through his window. Natasha said everything is fine, but I know she doesn’t want me to worry.”
Alex paced in my direction, his predator stride sleek and calm. He stopped, pressing his palms into the wall behind me and his lips to the crown of my head, inhaling—not kissing—my hair.
“I’ll send someone to bail him out tomorrow and lawyer him up good.”
“You don’t need to do that,” I said quietly, my face warming up. I felt more ashamed than I’d ever been before, because I knew it was one favor I was going to accept.
His eyes darkened, and his jaw tensed. The change was subtle, but it was there. From afar, Alex Winslow looked like nothing could penetrate his armor. But he was an artist—and an artist’s armor is full of bullets and cracks. That’s how the lyrics and notes seep through. My breath hitched at his stare, at the nakedness of it, so much so that I felt a damp spot forming in my underwear. He didn’t say a thing, but by not saying much, I knew—I read through the lines of his forehead and mouth and eyes—he hadn’t done that because he liked me. He did that because that’s what he did. He took care of the people around him, because he didn’t know he had the option not to.
Alex dropped his face to my neck and kissed the hollow part where the shoulder and the sensitive vein met. I closed my eyes, my hand flying to the desk behind me for support. I clutched The Paris Dress in my fist.
“Do you ever feel so lonely you’re not sure people are real anymore?” he asked.
“All the time.” I swallowed, adding, “The Little Prince was lonely, too.”
“He was. And he died. All broken princes die at the end.”
I shut him up with a kiss. Alex thought about dying, and I thought about how I’d do anything to keep him alive, even if it killed me. The notion only intensified the magnitude of the kiss when our mouths closed on one another. He dragged his lower lip along mine and brushed his nose on my cheek, slipping his tongue into my mouth and claiming it as his own. His tongue thrust between my lips again and again. I lifted my hands to cup his cheeks, deepening our kiss even more, and somewhere along the way I lost my balance, because before I knew it, my back was plastered across the desk with my legs wide-open and him between them. We were all over The Paris Dress and dozens of needles and threads.
“Bed,” he barked into our kiss. “Right now.”
He yanked me up and threw me onto the bed like a ragdoll. I laughed like a drunk, and he jumped right after me, making a huge splash in the covers like he was cannonballing into a pool. I scooted up until my back hit the headboard and we were face-to-face. He grinned, advancing toward me on his hands and knees like an animal. We were still fully clothed—hell, my shoes were still on—and I pressed my heeled boot to his chest in one last bid to stop him. I didn’t even know why I bothered at this point. It was obvious I was going to give him whatever he wanted, consequences be damned. He grabbed my ankle and brought my leg to his mouth, sliding my glittery blue pump off and pressing his lips to the base of my foot.
“How many leggings have you packed for this trip?”
“Four.”
“So you won’t be needing these anymore.” He grabbed the fabric of my leggings between my legs roughly and tore them from my body.
I yelped and tried pushing him away, before my bare legs were exposed in front of him. I slid down the bed, trying to fight him, and he took both my arms and pinned them above my head, sliding over me so his groin was on mine and his unmistakably hard shaft was digging deep between my thighs. His eyes blazed with so many emotions, I felt nauseated on his behalf. It made my stupid heart forgive him for acting so cruel and aloof all the time.
“Do you trust me?” he asked.
I nearly choked on a laugh. “Of course not.”
“Fair enough, I’ll rephrase. Do you think I’m a rapist?”
“Doubt it. It’s too available for you to take by force.”
“Serial killer?”
“You don’t give enough of a shit about anyone to kill them.”
He paused, his mouth curving into a smirk. “Close your eyes.”
“Let go of my wrists first.”
“No chance. It’s a part of the process.”
“And what process would that be?”
“The one where I make you come so hard you’ll need a spine transplant because I’ll turn you into goo.”
I grinned despite my best intentions. I didn’t think I’d ever smiled so much in my entire life as while on tour with Alex Winslow. Which was insane, considering he also made me so mad and frustrated in the same breath. Alex kissed a path down my collarbone—dirty, wet kisses full of hunger and promise—dragging his teeth down the valley between my still-clothed breasts. He rubbed his thumb along the black silk of my dress, his other hand still pinning my arms above my head.
“How long does it usually take you to make a dress?”
He wouldn’t dare.
“No.” My breath was shaky, my voice thick. I was delirious with need. “Don’t you dare, Alex Winslow.”
Phhhsshhhhttt!
He tore my precious silk dress, disposing it on the floor like I hadn’t ridden my bike eight miles each way every day to save money to buy the fabric, like I hadn’t sewn it deep into the night. “You assho—”
But I never got to finish the word, because my panties found the same fate as my dress, and before I knew it, his head was between my legs and oh. My. God.
Confession time: no one had ever gone down on me before. I’d only had one sexual partner in high school, and, like a lot of high school kids—he was pretty selfish in bed. I’d never given, nor received, oral sex, so I didn’t know what the fuss was all about. That’s why my eyes almost rolled out of their sockets straight to the floor along with my tattered clothes the minute his hot, wet tongue pressed into my center and gave my slit a thorough, long lick.
My pussy contracted so hard, I nearly came on the spot. I closed my eyes, too embarrassed to look at what he was doing to me, and dragged the pillow from beside me, pressing it over my head to stifle the moans that followed every time he put his tongue at the base of my pussy and dragged it all the way up to my clit, flicking it gently with an arrogant asshole smile I could feel.
I thrust my hips up, wanting more, and he pinned me down in response, growling.
“Open wider.”
I did.
“One leg over my shoulder.”
I clumsily raised my right leg and propped it against his broad shoulder, painfully aware of the fact he was still fully dressed and I was so physically and mentally naked.
“Look at me.”
I froze, exhaling all my anxiety into the fabric of the pillow. Shit. Did I have to?
“Look. At. Me.” Apparently, I did have to. “Or I’ll stop, but before I do, I’ll make sure you get to the edge before I yank you right back. Don’t make me be cruel, Stardust.”
Slowly, I slid the pillow down and peeked at him through the valley of my breasts. His eyes
looked drunk and mean, a combination I never thought I’d find appealing. He stared at me as his tongue penetrated me hard, and I choked on a shaky breath.
“Alex…”
He reached over and kneaded my right breast, his fingers rubbing my pebbled nipple and making me yelp. My legs started to tremble around his head, and that’s when his tongue began mercilessly fucking me like it was much more than a tongue. I clutched his gorgeous hair between my fingers, his tongue buried so deep inside me I could feel it filling me in ways I’d never been filled before. He looked so rough and male, his tattoos crawling from the edge of his Henley, his locks mussed and wild, and his stubble making the insides of my thighs burn deliciously. I whimpered, clamping around his tongue, my butt cheeks so tense I couldn’t breathe.
“Fuck, yeah.” His voice was gruff and low as he grabbed my butt and hoisted me up, pushing me into his face, eating me like a starved man while deepening his tongue inside of me.
I clinched around him again, and he let out a laugh—a laugh—like my body was an instrument for him, a tool, a toy. Like I was Tania, and he knew all the notes by heart, and strummed on my cords, producing the angriest, craziest song in the world.
“I’m coming,” I panted, feeling a ball of fire rushing down from my spine and to my groin. I’d never felt this way. Lit up like a Christmas tree. Like my body was a bundle of sizzling nerves. Everywhere he touched—and he was roaming now—tingled and danced with electricity.
But Alex only played by his own rules, and he was good at bending them, depending on his mood. Mid-orgasm he decided to grab my hips, flip me over roughly, and press my cheek to the pillow. Snaking his arm under my stomach, he propped me up and kicked my legs open when I was on my knees. I was wide-open and exposed now, and my instincts told me to close my legs and run for my life. Coincidentally, my instincts were dead the minute he put his hot, wet mouth to my clit from behind and started sucking on it ravenously.
“Holy…” I began, when he thrust two fingers into me. The pressure of an orgasm was back in full swing, even though I’d just come. I swiveled my head around to watch him, getting a rush from the mere idea of him working me up like I was his only passion in life, but he grabbed me by the hair and turned my head back.