Strung Out (Needles and Pins #1)

by Lyrica Creed

  Perhaps he should have stayed off the subject of her dad though. Simply because it was what it was. The death of a musician who had become a junkie.

  “Well, I’m proud of you.”

  She smiled up at him and leaned her forehead on his shoulder. “I’m kind of proud of me too. I mean, if there’s anyone I didn’t want to become, it was my parents. And maybe it was wrong, but that was my drive.”

  “You succeeded.”

  “In some ways, I guess. For now. But you can’t fight your genes, you know?” With that innuendo, she waggled the pen at him for emphasis, and he suddenly felt guilty for letting her partake.

  “A couple of hits doesn’t make you an addict. Fuck, Scar. It’s been a weird night. We’re unwinding. Just give it back.” He snatched the device from her, inadvertently sending it flinging over his shoulder in the process.

  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 was ready and waiting since before I was twenty. Stupidly enough, I would have 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 they were fourteen. His father had given her mother one day to pack her things and be out of the Seattle house they 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.

  Scarla had retreated to the pool house to wait for her mother to get her and take her to the hotel that would be their home until other living accommodations were found. But it was her stepfather who had entered the dwelling a half hour later. He informed her that her mom had left without her and that he would give her a ride or that she could stay the night if she wanted to. “You’re always welcome here,” he’d promised.

  “Stay.” Gage had entered around that par
t of the conversation and had bribed her. “We can make spicy popcorn and watch movies all night!”

  Midway through The Punisher, reality had hit her. Would this be the last time she watched TV with Gage? The last time he teased when she covered her eyes during violent scenes?

  “You’re so far away. What’re you thinking about?” Teenaged Gage had always been perceptive, sweet, and concerned.

  She rose from her 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. She’d already heard her 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 her. Understanding. Tapping into the same hopeless feeling she had been experiencing.

  “I don’t want you to leave, Scar.”

  She’d closed her eyes, sure tears would escape if she didn’t. And his lips had pressed to hers. Even as surprised as she had been, her eyes hadn’t popped open; in fact, she’d squeezed them tighter as their lips moved in unison. The blissful friction had lasted only a few seconds.

  Settling back, his eyes had roved her face. “I shouldn’t have. I know. But I’m not sorry. I don’t regret it.”

  She’d been a stupid immature young teen. Leaping to her feet, she’d grabbed some of the dishes from the table and run to the galley. The glass had clinked and clattered as she set them down. Through the window over the sink, she’d eyed the main house across the patio. Where was his dad? What if they’d been seen? For sure, she’d never be able to come back if they’d been caught!

  She’d scooped her jacket from a chair and paused with one hand on the French doors. Turning back, she found him still watching her. But as he’d said, there was no regret in his visage.

  “I’m going to miss you, Gage.”

  He’d simply been comforting her. She knew that. But in her darkest moments, for years, she relived that brush of a kiss.

  The dragon gate glided open as his car approached, and she wrangled her thoughts. They’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 them. They exited, and their doors fell shut with a light smack of metal against metal. What was happening? Were they really going inside with this giant elephant accompanying them?

  A flash imagining of him pulling her into his arms once they were inside the house, carrying her up the stairs, and tossing her onto his bed made her heart pound.

  What was she thinking?

  He was her brother! As good as, anyway.

  Brother might be easier to overcome if they hadn’t shared a big chunk of their lives together during impressionable years as siblings. Once their family had blended, both of their parents had constantly called them brother and sister. They had been two lonely, only children too happy to fall into their roles. Their past was a serious mindfuck. Being attracted to Gage had her feeling more perverted than she ever had when glancing over her shoulder for onlookers while glued to porn.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have.” She whispered it as they crossed the threshold into the coatroom.

  He paused shrugging off his jacket to look at her. Tossing the garment to a coat tree and ignoring it when it fell to the floor, he raised his brows. “It’s fine.”

  She should have felt relief, but she only felt more uncomfortable as she trailed him through the narrow hall, past the kitchen. When he detoured toward his downstairs studio, she continued to the second floor and her room.

  She couldn’t wait to strip off her clothing and stand beneath the shower. She wished the hot water and perfumed gels would cleanse away the imageries of tonight etched in her thoughts, but they didn’t.

  If she went downstairs and found a wine bottle, would the contents banish paddles and whipping benches from her memory? Would the strangely erotic fantasy fade—of her, one knee on each side of Gage’s waist as she 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! Her imagination was pleasuring her 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 their kiss when she’d scratched and pulled at the wax.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have.”

  And with the echo of her own words, she realized she 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.”

  She paced after smearing a light moisturizer across her cheeks and beneath her eyes.

  “It’s fine.”

  Jerking back the spread, she enveloped herself between the bedding. Her fingers drifted, settling on the silk of her panties. Closing her eyes, she didn’t resist when his face drifted to the forefront of her 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, she dozed with all the unpleasant memories of the night sorted and pushed far behind the best ones.

  She awoke while it was still dark. No morning light struggled to shine through the blinds. Rolling to her back, she let her eyes adjust, wondering what had jolted her to this wide-awake state. The bathroom urge hit her, but she was sure it hadn’t roused her. The house hummed with a weird energy.

  Swinging her feet to the floor, she stood and almost tripped over Rascal on her 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, she froze for a second with an uneasy thought. Leaving the light on in the bathroom, she looked beyond Rascal, beyond her 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?

  She suddenly felt sick. The atmosphere of the night felt different. She knew she was right. She was so sure, she almost slammed the door, crawled into bed, and immersed herself in her headphones to ensure she wouldn’t hear any sound that might drift from his bedroom.

  Rascal padded to the threshold and turned to look at her. Did the animal need to go outside? Had he been fed this evening? Or had Gage forgotten him when they went to Outpost Drive, made out atop a mountain beneath a blanket of stars, and then called another woman to satisfy him while she bopped herself 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.

  She pulled a tee shirt over her thin tank top and stepped into a pair of men’s boxers—the kind she 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 her. She crept closer. The weird feeling pervaded. Standing on the threshold, she 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. She backed up a step or two, biting her lip against the image of Gage and some woman in his shower or tub. Rascal retraced a path back to her, but stopped halfway and went back to the bathroom door.

  She was never sure why her feet moved forward. Whether her cur
iosity got the better of her; whether Gage was apt when he’d declared her a voyeur earlier tonight; or whether her sixth sense that something was off finally alerted her that ‘off’ could be bad in a way she hadn’t yet imagined.

  With her ear practically pressed to the door, she 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 she have heard something by now? Sex in the shower couldn’t be that quiet.

  Raising her fist, she rapped her knuckles on the door. Again. Again. And Again. “Gage?” Finding the door unlocked, she 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 lighting within the large, glassed in shower stall drew her eyes.

  Through the steamy glass, she viewed a shadowy lump. Was he sitting on the floor?

  “Gage?” And when he didn’t answer, she felt herself tripping into terror. Had he slipped? “Gage!”

  Regardless, she felt invasive when she tugged on the shower door. And there he was in all the nude muscular magnificent glory of her 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 she knelt beside his prone body and mashed two fingers to his corded neck.

  Feeling a faint pulse, she called out to him again as she 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, she grabbed his wrist, checking again for the beat of a pulse to reassure herself.