Strung Out (Needles and Pins #1)

by Lyrica Creed

  By the time I was oriented once more, I was face to face with my very angry parent.

  “Scarlette Rose! Did you drop your phone in a toilet, or are you ignoring my calls?”

  “You came all the way to L.A. to ask me that?” Oblivious to the onlookers around me, my stance widened as I challenged my mother. Part of me was curious to see if she would own up as to why she was stateside. Part of me wanted to shove the woman aside, get into the car, and escape this drama.

  “We need to talk. Now.”

  A long, manicured nail waved in the air an inch from my nose, and this time, I did shoulder my mother aside. Possibly anger sobered me some, because I made it the six steps to the waiting car and ripped open the door. Gage in all of his chivalrous glory was right behind me, helping me into the seat. But when he began to swing the door closed, my mother intercepted.

  “I’m serious, Scarlette Rose.”

  “Stop calling me that, and get out of my face. We’ve nothing to talk about.” Up until now in this confrontation, I had managed to remain impassive. But the self-righteous fury in my mother’s eyes triggered a dark and ugly venom. It spread, saturating and staining every cell. “I know what you’re doing here! You’re pathetic. You whore whatever you can for money. Even the memory of a man who hated you, and his right to rest in peace!”

  Henni Smythe drew herself upright, ramrod straight. “Oh, darling. Did I not explain the birds and the bees good enough? You are not a product of hate, my sweet daughter.”

  “When it came to birds and bees, you were more of a ‘show’ than a ‘tell’ type of mother, actually. Remember? I was eight when I walked in from school to you and ‘rocker with the green Mohawk’ doggy style over the freaking coffee table. And then what was I? Fifteen? When the one with the piercings on his cock asked me if I knew why they were there? And sixteen. Was I even sixteen when Anaconda Ronda asked if I wanted to join the two of you? So don’t even pretend to be a soccer mom who had meaningful adolescent talks!”

  My mother’s fingers rising to settle in a chokehold-like clutch to her own throat told me I had taken things too far with my screaming tantrum. The woman appeared fragile as she staggered back a step, and Gage took the opportunity to slam the vehicle door. If he worried about the chalky pallor of Henni’s face, he didn’t show it when he turned his back.

  My eyes ached, but they remained dry. Through the glass, I watched Gage and Jax, and a younger version of Jax who was now on the sidewalk. They all spoke for a moment, shook hands, and parted. Gage was intercepted by my parent, who seemed to have gained her second wind. She appeared to be arguing fiercely. Instead of reopening the back door to slide in beside me as he normally did, he folded into the passenger seat.

  “To the house,” he instructed his assistant-slash-driver, and then turned to me. “You okay?”

  My mother pacing in place had been holding my attention, but as the car pulled away and the figure grew distant, I let my head loll back to the seat. “I feel sick.”

  “It’s going to be okay, Scar.”

  “No. I really feel sick. Can we stop?” The moment I uttered the words, I knew the burning in the back of my throat and the roll of my stomach wasn’t going to wait.

  My fingers stabbed at the door, searching frantically for the window lever. Even as I did, a vision of hurling in traffic, vomit flying onto the side of the car and onto other cars, had me questioning my intent. The point was moot when the window didn’t slide down.

  “Oh God. I’m so sorry.” I’d leaned forward enough so hopefully the contents of my stomach landed mostly on the floor mat. The smell assaulted my senses and I heaved again. “Shit. I’m sorry.”

  Was it a bad thing when I hadn’t cried over the confrontation with my mother, but I was crying over the humiliation of puking in Gage’s car in front of him and his employee?

  Dusk fell while we were parked on the jammed up freeway, and the skies darkened completely about the time Gage’s assistant parked the vehicle on the driveway. Understanding the outside location was so he and Gage could clean my mess, I stopped short of the open garage. When I lost the argument to take care of it myself, I went into the house, feeling like shit, mentally and physically.

  With no purpose, I ambled to Gage’s studio, picked up the Taylor I’d been practicing on lately, automatically ran my practice drill, and then dropped the instrument like a hot potato.

  Since when? The guitar. Really?

  I exited to the pool area through the little door, since the glass was closed.

  The water was a rectangle square of light, casting a blue glow into the night. I kicked off my shoes, and let myself free-fall. The water closed around me, shutting the world out. I sank to the bottom with my eyes closed, reveling in the blissful otherworldly silence. For all of five seconds.

  The deepest part of the pool was no more than five feet. I was in no danger of drowning as all I had to do was push to my feet and my head would be above the surface. But Gage apparently didn’t see it that way.

  A splash confirmed I wasn’t alone in the pool. Opening my eyes, I found his blurred face before mine, little air bubbles rising around him.

  “What the hell? Did you fall in?” He demanded, the moment our heads were both above the surface. When I didn’t answer, he furthered the interrogation. “How drunk are you?”

  “Not drunk enough to forget my best friend has gone so mental she doesn’t give a fuck she’s worrying me and her family. Or drunk enough that my crazy mother can’t still make me lose it on a public street!” Rubbing my hair from my face, I peered at him. “And not drunk enough to be ignorant of the fact that you’ve dodged every question I’ve asked and have been very weird since the meeting with your lawyers.”

  “I can’t talk about it right now.”

  There it was. That shimmery second of desperation I’d glimpsed mere hours after the appointment when I’d plied him for information.

  Relaxing my knees into jelly, I once more welcomed the water enveloping me. Oblivion was obtainable, but only in lungs full of oxygen increments. My legs floated in front of me as my butt cheeks hit the pool bottom.

  Then Gage’s hand covered mine. I found him sitting beside me, and he seemed to be staring at my feet. My gaze drifted past my knees to the licorice and pink pinstriped toenails that matched my fingernails.

  “How in the hell did she find me?” Bored with my underwater reclusiveness and slightly sobered, I began to question the coincidence of my mother happening on me in a city the size of L.A.

  We were still neck deep in the water. Both of us were reluctant to exit the pool because of the canyon breeze gusting over the glass partition, chilling our wet heads and the thought of it chilling our entire bodies.

  “That’s kind of my fault.” He explained taking a selfie with Jax and tweeting it in the secret hope his band and label would see it and recognize he had options. He wanted them to know he could and would move on with his music if they cut him.

  “So she saw it? Like she’s stalking your account?”

  “That’s my guess. Since my dad told you she wanted my phone number and address, and he wouldn’t give it to her. She knows you’re staying with me, right?”

  “You weren’t afraid of a fan craze by giving out your location?”

  “It was tweeted ten minutes or so before we left the bar. She must have been close by.”

  “They’ve put her up at the Crescent hotel.” I remembered the information Gage’s father had given me.

  “Of course they did. It’s right down the block. And with the shitty run of luck we both seem to be having, it fucking figures.” He ran a finger down my cheekbone. “You’re freezing.”

  “Just my head. The water’s warm.”

  “Your teeth are chattering. Stay right here.”

  He hopped the side and went into the bathhouse. Right away, he returned with a towel over his shoulders, an extra towel hanging in the crook of his elbow, and held a thick white terry robe.

  I clim
bed out and wrapped snugly into the robe before sinking down onto the outdoor couch. Heat radiated from the electric fire pit Gage had clicked on, and I edged closer to it. “I can’t believe I drank that much. I made such an idiot of myself.”

  “It’s not the first time one of my cars has been puked in. I promise.”

  “I’m not talking about that. Well I am. But worse than that… the things I said to her… and on a public street… and in front of a man you’re doing business with…”

  “Again. I promise you. Jax’s been in the business long enough to see way worse. And as for the public, this is L.A. They’ve seen worse too. But it’s probably time for you find a publicist.”

  “I thought you said no one saw.”

  “You’re going to need one looking out for your interests soon anyway. I’m just saying it’s time to think about who, before something else crazy happens and you’re wishing you already had one.”

  I stared into a sky of black velvet and diamonds unable to comprehend the changes coming about in my life. The blessings and the curses more money than I could wrap my head around was about to bring. The decisions about to be on my shoulders.

  “That’s not me. Today.” I was going in circles with this conversation, and I knew it. “I shouldn’t have said those things to her. I can’t believe I did it.”

  Gage threw me off with his next words. “You know what I can’t believe? That you had all that crap going on as a kid. Everything you said made me want to shake the shit out of her.”

  “She’s had kind of a fucked up life.”

  “YOU’VE had a fucked up life.”

  “It’s none of my business if she wants to do an interview for that documentary. I messed up. I’ve let everything build up, and I just went off on her. I should call her.”

  “You’re not going to call her.”

  I got to my feet with every intention of retrieving my phone from my purse, but when Gage, having followed me inside, realized what I was up to, he snatched my purse right before I grabbed it.

  “The fuck?” I clamped my fingers on his wrist in an effort to force him to surrender my bag.

  “If you still want to call tomorrow when you’re sober. Fine.”

  We scuffled. I tripped over a small amp, and as he had been doing since the ice bar, he caught me. My angry drunk phase cycled into the teary drunk phase. “God dammit, Gage. It’s my damn phone. Give it!”

  Without warning, he flung the purse to the couch and scooped me to him until I fell over his shoulder.

  His long strides ate up the distance, across the room, down the hall. I focused on the wet footsteps his soaked socks left on the polished floor.

  “What? What the hell now?” I bounced as he took the stairs. “Why are you all caveman? Could you put me down…? Now?”

  It was another half minute before he stopped, and my feet touched the floor. I found myself in the bathroom adjoining his bedroom. He reached inside the shower, and the water began to rain down.

  “You’re freezing,” was his simplistic answer to what must have been my incredulous stare. “Your lips are blue. Don’t believe me?” He turned me to face the mirror, and I recoiled from my ghoulish appearance.

  His wet tee shirt plopped to the floor, and he replaced the towel no longer around his neck with another, undoubtedly in an attempt to tame the chill bumps raised along inked muscle and flesh.

  “Strip.”

  “Strip?” I echoed.

  While one part of me couldn’t believe he’d said that, another part of me ignited in response to that one word drifting past his sexy lips. My ears savored his deep voice, with as much relish as my tongue had fed on the smoky vodka shots so delicious, I’d had three.

  “The wet clothes. Get ‘em off.” And then, “They’re making you colder.” And then with a nudge toward the shower, “Or don’t. Just warm up before you get sick.”

  That slight push was all it took for me to drop the robe and gravitate to the heavenly cascade of warmth. It was soon soaking through my clothing, through my skin, through my bones. I was being sprayed from all sides, and I tipped my head beneath one of the higher showerheads.

  A groan pushed through my throat. I truly hadn’t realized I was freezing until the moment I no longer felt like a twenty-eight degree vodka shot. My clothing began to weigh heavy, and I shrugged from my shirt, letting it collapse to a puddle in the corner of the stall. Opening my eyes, I found Gage’s gaze trained on me, almost trancelike.

  Either I was too drunk to feel modest, or logic ruled enough to know my bra covered as much as my swimsuit ever had.

  I unzipped my jeans and fought with them until I got one leg out. Okay. Drunk. I knew it now. Not only was I still off-balance with any quick movements, I was now down to my undies, made almost transparent with the water, with the shower door still open to Gage.

  He flung his towel aside, stepped in, and saved me from falling for the umpteenth time of the day. Kneeling, he freed my remaining leg from the denim shackle and tossed the jeans atop my shirt.

  Definitely drunk. Standing before him in my wet lingerie, I felt empowered, not embarrassed.

  “Fuck…” He swore. Water rivulets ran from the dampening ends of his hair down the contours of his skin. “Fuck… Fuck… Fuck me.”

  “Finally?” I curved a smile of invitation, but didn’t dare touch him yet.

  Yeah. I was drunk. But I had always been a drunk who lost inhibitions when it came to things I really wanted to do. Which meant, as much as I had wanted to say those horrible things to my mother, by the same token, I wanted Gage—inside me.

  His dilated eyes snapped to mine, understanding my humor instantly. A flash of something crossed his face, and when his hand went to the front of his jeans for an adjustment, I realized the wet, heavy material must be causing discomfort.

  “Strip,” I challenged, borrowing his word and hoping it had even a modicum of the effect on him that it had on me.

  Ignoring my taunt, he crowded me so closely my back touched the graffitied tile. His forehead rested on the wall beside and just above my head, and his breath swirled around me along with the steam vapors.

  His hands came up to rest on the wall on either side of me, trapping me. Yet, he was still warring with himself because they remained flat against the tile.

  One of his markers lay on a tile shelf next to a shampoo bottle, and I stretched, reaching until I had it in my hand. Biting the cap off and pinching it between my teeth, I turned slightly… Enough to trace the outline of one of his hands with the purple ink. His brows raised, and despite being a horny bitch in heat, I wanted to giggle at his expression. Done, I pulled at his wrist until he lifted the hand. In the center, beneath the outline of his fingers, I scrawled, ‘touch me.’

  Without looking up, I capped the marker, and when I tried to replace it, it rolled, falling to the floor. Ignoring it, I finally met his eyes, and my gaze dropped to his throat when his Adam’s apple bobbed with a gulp.

  But he didn’t disappoint. His hands brushed the fabric of my bra. His fingertips drifted down my body to the waist of my bikini panties and then back up. I took the opportunity to unclasp the bra and let it slide down my arms to fall at our feet.

  The momentum of the moment shifted. He filled his hands. Control was gone. Squeezing, pinching, playing, I watched him watching his hands until my eyes closed overwhelmed with the ecstasy of his touch, and his face landed in the crook of my neck. He licked a trail like a necklace, and then followed the lines of an invisible pendant, landing between my breasts with his tongue. A moan tore through my lips, my fingers curved into his hair, and I shifted, longing for the attention of his kiss to be a little to one side or the other.

  When he turned his chin, claiming with his tongue, teeth, and lips, the area he’d already claimed with his hands and fingers, I lost my breath. My pants echoed in the space. The sensations were overwhelming and the back of my head banged the tile as I arched beneath the attention of his mouth. Crazy thoughts made
their way into my head. Like if it felt this good here, what would it feel like there?

  As if reading my mind, he licked a path to my navel and sucked at the sensitive skin of my waist. Sure, I had envisioned it for a second while tumbling through a fog of ecstasy, but could I really let him go down? And again, as if he was tapped into my mind, he straightened, fusing his lips to mine.

  I wasn’t sure if my groan was one of disappointment or a reaction to his skillful tongue playing with mine. His kisses seemed to taper off until he was pressing his lips into my neck again. I was on freaking fire, and I felt a warring tenseness creeping into his limbs again.

  “I want you.” In case he didn’t take my words seriously enough, I went right for the fly of his soaked jeans and licked a water rivulet from a mouthwatering pec. “Don’t stop… Please… I want you so much.”

  He made no move to halt the downward slide of his zipper or the curl of my fingers over the fit of his briefs. Still, he raggedly whispered a denial. “Not like this. You’ve been drinking. Way too much. Way, way too much.”

  “So?” And then I paused, horrified. “I’m not going to throw up on you or anything.”

  His husky chuckled bounced around the walls. “Fuck it, Scar.”

  “Mean it, this time?”

  “You’re killing me. Fuck. Killin’ me here.”

  And then with no preamble, he cupped the back of my wet panties, pressing me to his wet briefs. We ground and humped like virgin teens while kissing one another crazy. But when he allowed enough space between us to slip his fingers inside my silky drawers, his touch was anything but virginal.

  The talents acquired from a rock star life of sexual exploits came as naturally to him as any of his other finger skills honed with excessive practice. He played my body as if it were one of his guitars, sliding his fingers up and down, twisting in exactly the right rhythm and finishing with a hook that had my shriek echoing through the chamber.