by Lyrica Creed
Both gazed into the black void where it had flown, and she took a step, bending. “You got a flashlight? Or turn on the car lights…”
“Leave it. It’s probably in the middle of Malibu Canyon Road.”
Watching the headlights far below, she giggled at his joke, and his annoyance vanished. He chuckled along with her.
She returned, leaning against the car beside him. The chirping of nightlife was a musical backdrop to the silence, before she spoke. “I wasn’t as turned off by tonight as you were. That’s what I was really talking about. And it makes me think that no matter how hard I’ve tried to justify my interest in porn, that I have more of my mom’s genes than I want.”
He was quiet, taking that in, wanting to not fuck up his reply, but she continued.
“Some of the stuff creeped me out. The paddles. The cages. But the wax was kind of hot. Seeing how freaked you were, though… Well that killed it for me fast.”
“It was the stranger pouring it on me that killed it for me. I could totally get into that in a different setting.” Shit. A flash image of Scarlette pouring the scalding wax on his chest sent the blood racing straight to his cock. “You liking that kind of stuff and watching it, that doesn’t make you a slut. That makes you hot blooded. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“Or maybe I’m a slut.”
“Are you?” he countered. Why did it bother him suddenly that she may have slept with dozens of partners, as he had?
“There’s a guy I have classes with. We hook up. But I don’t feel anything for him—and he doesn’t for me. It’s easy. You know? No strings.”
“That doesn’t sound slutty,” he reassured, trying hard to banish the images of her and some other guy.
“Before him, I tried the relationship thing, but it didn’t work. I cheated on the only serious boyfriend I had.”
This stopped his wayward thoughts. She’d hit a trigger. “Why?”
“I told him it was because he was gaming all the time and ‘what did he think would happen?’ I told him it was his fault.”
“And? Why did it really happen?”
She seemed to consider. “I think because he’d been flirting with this girl in one of his games. And he found out she lived in driving distance. I was afraid he was going to cheat on me first.”
“Maybe he would’ve.”
“Doesn’t matter though. Does it? Doesn’t make what I did right. I’m destined. My own unfaithful, stripper mom named me Scarlette.”
“I like the name Scarlette.”
“You wouldn’t if it was your name and you read The Scarlet Letter.”
“Read it. Still like the name. It’s sexy. Damn, Scar. Is that why you go by Scarla? Trust me, you’re nothing like…”
“My mom. You can say it.”
“I was going to say those kinds of women—or my ex-wife.”
“Your what? YOU were married?”
“For all of six months. It was stupid. I was high. It was after a show. I’d known her a few weeks. And one night, we got on a plane for Vegas. Said our ‘I dos.’”
“That’s insane!”
“Tell me about it.”
“That was rude of me. I meant it in crazy admiration. For being so spontaneous.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Yes, I did. The poor man who ever proposes to me. I can’t see saying yes on the spot. I’ll have to think about it for a few weeks. A few months!”
He laughed. Poor man, indeed. It would be torture wondering if someone like Scarlette would get away.
“Who is she? Anyone I would know?”
“No. She was a model. But unknown. Until she tried to fight the prenup anyway. That kept us both in the press for a while.”
“I never saw.”
“Good.” He hated to think of Scarlette reading some of the crap printed about him.
“How’d you have a prenup? With it being a Vegas wedding?” And she joked, “They do those at The Little White Chapel now?”
He felt his mouth twist in a wry grin. All my dad’s doing. A standard prenup had been ready and waiting since before I was twenty. Sadly enough, I would have stupidly married her without it. Knowing my dad would flip the fuck out if I didn’t use it made me call our lawyer in the middle of the night and have it filled in and waiting at the hotel.
“Turns out that was good. Lucky even.” The lilt of a jest grazed the word lucky. Her gaze lingered on his profile, and her words were softer. “What happened between you two?”
He stared at the satellites among the constellations in the dark sky and considered whether to answer. However, she’d confessed some pretty personal feelings tonight. Had she done so because she was as in sync with him as he was her? He wanted to lay his own demons out for the first time, ever. His unwillingness to verbally share anything was half the reason he’d walked out of rehab.
“The house we went to tonight. The first I heard of it was when it got back around to me that my wife often visited. That she didn’t go alone. She was always with the same person. I don’t know if her relationship with him was limited to that sort of thing, or if they were having a full-fledged affair behind my back. I never wanted to know. It was hard enough to know she was getting her kicks in that way with someone else—and had never let on to me about that side of her.” A shadow fluttered the other side of his eyelids and he realized he’d closed his eyes.
He opened them to find her close, and her jeans brushed his knees as she moved between them. Her head fell back, and looking up, she locked her gaze. No rock star disgust. No rock star scorn. Only a sweet and pure sympathy with a dash of something more urgent. He wasn’t sure who moved next. Maybe they both did in synchronicity. Their lips brushed. And again, before meeting in a firm, hungry kiss. He felt the tug of his hair beneath her arms when they twined his neck.
Her fingers splayed his shirt and then tunneled beneath it. Without breaking the lip lock, she scraped her fingernails down his chest, peeling the wax away.
And holy fuck, nothing had ever felt so heavenly.
It felt too good to think of anything except laying her out over the car hood and playing this out until the end. Only because of their years as siblings did he stop with one last kiss and whisper, “Damn. That felt as sweet as the last time.”
Chapter 15
The ‘last time’ he spoke of had been when we were fourteen. His father had given my mother one day to pack her things and be out of the Seattle house we lived in at the time. When he refused to let her take anything herself, insisting he would have a moving company deliver it to an address or storage facility of her choosing AFTER he went through the boxes himself, a screaming argument had ensued.
I had retreated to the pool house to wait for my mother to get me and take us to the hotel that would be our home until other living accommodations were found. But it was my stepfather who had entered the dwelling a half hour later. He informed me that my mom had left without me and that he would give me a ride or that I could stay the night if I wanted to. “You’re always welcome here,” he’d promised.
“Stay.” Gage had entered around that part of the conversation and had bribed me. “We can make spicy popcorn and watch movies all night!”
Midway through The Punisher, reality had hit me. Would this be the last time I watched TV with Gage? The last time he teased when I covered my eyes during violent scenes?
“You’re so far away. What’re you thinking about?” Teenaged Gage had always been perceptive, sweet, and concerned.
I rose from my recline on the couch to sit cross-legged at his feet. “I was wondering if I’d ever see you again.”
“You heard my dad. You can come anytime.”
Unless I move overseas. I’d already heard my mother’s plans as she had recapped them over the phone several times to her friends. “What if I can’t?”
And then he’d looked at me. Understanding. Tapping into the same hopeless feeling I had been experiencing.
“I don’t wa
nt you to leave, Scar.”
I’d closed my eyes, sure tears would escape if I didn’t. And his lips had pressed to mine. Even as surprised as I had been, my eyes hadn’t popped open; in fact, I’d squeezed them tighter as our lips moved in unison. The blissful friction had lasted only a few seconds.
Settling back, his eyes had roved my face. “I shouldn’t have. I know. But I’m not sorry. I don’t regret it.”
I’d been a stupid immature young teen. Leaping to my feet, I’d grabbed some of the dishes from the table and run to the galley. The glass had clinked and clattered as I set them down. Through the window over the sink, I’d eyed the main house across the patio. Where was his dad? What if we’d been seen? For sure, I’d never be able to come back if we’d been caught!
I’d scooped my jacket from a chair and paused with one hand on the French doors. Turning back, I found him still watching me. But as he’d said, there was no regret in his visage.
“I’m going to miss you, Gage.”
He’d simply been comforting me. I knew that. But in my darkest moments, for years, I relived that brush of a kiss.
The dragon gate glided open as his car approached, and I wrangled my thoughts. We’d remained silent for the few minutes it had taken to navigate the snaky roads.
He pulled the car into the garage and the automatic door hummed down behind us. We exited, and the doors fell shut with a light smack of metal against metal. What was happening? Were we really going inside with this giant elephant accompanying us?
A flash imagining of him pulling me into his arms once we were inside the house, carrying me up the stairs, and tossing me onto his bed made my heart pound.
What was I thinking?
He was my brother! As good as, anyway.
Brother might be easier to overcome if we hadn’t shared a big chunk of our lives together during impressionable years as siblings. Once our family had blended, both of our parents had constantly called us brother and sister. We had been two lonely, only children too happy to fall into our roles. Our past was a serious mindfuck. Being attracted to Gage had me feeling more perverted than I ever had when glancing over my shoulder for onlookers while glued to porn.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have.” I whispered it as we crossed the threshold into the coatroom.
He paused shrugging off his jacket to look at me. Tossing the garment to a coat tree and ignoring it when it fell to the floor, he raised his brows. “It’s fine.”
I should have felt relief, but I only felt more uncomfortable as I trailed him through the narrow hall, past the kitchen. When he detoured toward his downstairs studio, I continued to the second floor and my room.
I couldn’t wait to strip off my clothing and stand beneath the shower. I wished the hot water and perfumed gels would cleanse away the imageries of tonight etched in my thoughts, but they didn’t.
If I went downstairs and found a wine bottle, would the contents banish paddles and whipping benches from my memory? Would the strangely erotic fantasy fade—of me, one knee on each side of Gage’s waist as I carefully poured wax down the contours of his chest or back?
Watching as it dribbled toward his bare ass or down his flat abs?
My Lanta! My imagination was pleasuring me more than any video or picture ever had…
“It was the stranger pouring it on me that killed it for me. I could totally get into that in a different setting.”
An actual growl had rumbled his chest into our kiss when I’d scratched and pulled at the wax.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have.”
And with the echo of my own words, I realized I had practically said verbatim the very opposite of what he had that night almost a decade ago. “I shouldn’t have. I know. But I’m not sorry. I don’t regret it.”
I paced after smearing a light moisturizer across my cheeks and beneath my eyes.
“It’s fine.”
Jerking back the spread, I enveloped myself between the bedding. My fingers drifted, settling on the silk of my panties. Closing my eyes, I didn’t resist when his face drifted to the forefront of my mind.
The touch of his tongue and the rumble of his voice…
That makes you hot blooded.
“I like the name Scarlette… It’s sexy.”
“Well, I’m proud of you.”
Soon sated, I dozed with all the unpleasant memories of the night sorted and pushed far behind the best ones.
I awoke while it was still dark. No morning light struggled to shine through the blinds. Rolling to my back, I let my eyes adjust, wondering what had jolted me to this wide-awake state. The bathroom urge hit me, but I was sure it hadn’t roused me. The house hummed with a weird energy.
Swinging my feet to the floor, I stood and almost tripped over Rascal on my way to the bathroom. “What’re you doing in here, boy?”
The canine always slept at the foot of Gage’s large bed. A minute later, I froze for a second with an uneasy thought. Leaving the light on in the bathroom, I looked beyond Rascal, beyond my partially opened bedroom door to the hallway.
Had Rascal been exiled from the master bedroom? A late night booty call wouldn’t be at all unusual, especially for a rock star like Gage. Any woman would come running with a moment’s notice. Right?
I suddenly felt sick. The atmosphere of the night felt different. I knew I was right. I was so sure, I almost slammed the door, crawled into bed, and immersed myself in my headphones to ensure I wouldn’t hear any sound that might drift from his bedroom.
Rascal padded to the threshold and turned to look at me. Did the animal need to go outside? Had he been fed this evening? Or had Gage forgotten him when we went to Outpost Drive, made out atop a mountain beneath a blanket of stars, and then called another woman to satisfy him while I bopped myself off thinking of him! The fucker! Damn fucking rock stars!
Breathe, Scarla. You emotional freak. It’s not your business, but if you’re so damned bent over it, at least check it out before you jump to conclusions.
I pulled a tee shirt over my thin tank top and stepped into a pair of men’s boxers—the kind I sometimes slept in.
The door to Gage’s room was partially open. Lamplight cast a parallelogram onto the planked floor. Rascal darted into his master’s room and again circled, looking back at me. I crept closer. The weird feeling pervaded. Standing on the threshold, I surveyed the room.
It wasn’t neat, nor was it cluttered. A few clothing items were strewn around. A guitar lay on his huge unmade bed. The television was muted. Running water sounded from beyond the bathroom door, closed with a dim sliver of light showing through the bottom.
The dog’s paws clipped across the room until he nosed the door. I backed up a step or two, biting my lip against the image of Gage and some woman in his shower or tub. Rascal retraced a path back to me, but stopped halfway and went back to the bathroom door.
I was never sure why my feet moved forward. Whether my curiosity got the better of me; whether Gage was apt when he’d declared me a voyeur earlier tonight; or whether my sixth sense that something was off finally alerted me that ‘off’ could be bad in a way I hadn’t yet imagined.
With my ear practically pressed to the door, I heard nothing except a muffled beat of music and the running water of what sounded like the shower as opposed to a bath. A minute passed. Two more. Possibly five.
There was no variance in the water like there should be if the shower wand was moving or someone was moving beneath the spray. No thud of a shampoo bottle. And if—if—he wasn’t by himself simply bathing and washing his hair, shouldn’t I have heard something by now? Sex in the shower couldn’t be that quiet.
Raising my fist, I rapped my knuckles on the door. Again. Again. And Again. “Gage?” Finding the door unlocked, I twisted and pushed. “Gage?”
The music was clearer inside the room. The beat hammered from the speakers docking his phone on the chrome towel caddy. Water cascading was the only other sound. The room was dim—atmospheric—but the l
ighting within the large, glassed in shower stall drew my eyes.
Through the steamy glass, I viewed a shadowy lump. Was he sitting on the floor?
“Gage?” And when he didn’t answer, I felt myself tripping into terror. Had he slipped? “Gage!”
Regardless, I felt invasive when I tugged on the shower door. And there he was in all the nude muscular magnificent glory of my earlier day-night dreams. Yet this was a living nightmare.
He could be asleep. Exhausted and asleep in a shower. It could happen. Probably had happened to someone now and then. But it was a desperate thought as I knelt beside his prone body and mashed two fingers to his corded neck.
Feeling a faint pulse, I called out to him again as I did a quick check through his thick wet hair for any sign of a head injury. Finding no evidence of anything that could be wrong, I grabbed his wrist, checking again for the beat of a pulse to reassure myself.
The water? Had he breathed in some? It swirled down the drain with no backup, and I discounted that thought. Surging to my feet, I swiveled the fixture off and the flow ceased. Shoving at Rascal, I dripped through the bathroom toward his phone.
And that’s when I saw. Stopping short before the polished granite or marble vanity, I eyed a decorative wooden box in horror. It was open and the inside of one side was a flat mirror. The other side was storage for crystal or coke paraphernalia: A straightedge razor. An empty bag. Smudges on the reflective surface. Yet, suddenly that seemed as insignificant as he had once declared when I’d witnessed him firsthand indulging his habit.
Because it was lying alongside evidence of a worse vice. One I was right now seeing for the first time.
A black zip up case also sat atop the vanity with items scattered in and around it: A small aluminum cooker with a filter lining the bottom. A tea light candle. Tourniquet. A syringe with the pump depressed. Extra needles. A lighter. A vial of what I knew to be bacteriostatic water. I was familiar with the setup although it had been a while since it had been in my mother’s bedroom.
My feet flew across the bathroom, and I forgot I was wet until I slipped and caught myself on the pads of my hands before my face hit the tile floor. The warm tile floor… This anomaly caused me to pause as I soaked in the heat to my suddenly freezing body before pushing to my feet.