He was speaking of condoms.
Unwillingly, an ugly reminder flickered through my mind of the woman—his ex—Allison or whatever her name had been. And of the throngs of women I’d seen throw themselves at him.
“Should I be?” I countered and watched a scowl shadow his face.
His answer was immediate and earnest. “I’ve never gone without—except with you.” Grazing his fingertips up my stomach, he tweaked the tip of one breast. “I was asking about you.”
“Me?” I drew in an indignant breath, and a twinge of anger coursed through me, knowing Derrick had been my only lover in so long. “Seriously? Me.” He had no way of knowing my lack of a sex life and yet the buzz of anger became a flurry of fury.
“Birth control, Scar.” His agitated fingers left my body and forked into his wet hair. “That’s all I was asking. Believe me. I don’t want to know anything else.”
Anyone else, he obviously meant.
“There’s nothing else to know,” I snapped. “Way to kill the mood, by the way.”
“I got plenty of mood right here…” He closed in, surrounding me with his expanse of ink and muscle. His callused hands landed on and possessively squeezed my rear while his hard dick smashed against the soft skin of my front.
It became a give and take match of mouths to skin with Gage winning—when he wanted to. The scruff on his chin was heaven against the most sensitive expanses of my skin. His lips brushed each trail he blazed until I was delirious. The taste of him was something I’d hungered for, far too long. The laps of his tongue here, there, everywhere, fed my craze.
We played against the tiled walls, and at some point, ended up horizontal, stretched out in the tub as the spray of endless lukewarm water rained down. The bathroom acoustics echoed our every moan, groan, and whimper in a sinfully sexy way.
Gage hadn’t unpacked yet, so in the absence of any toiletries scattered on the vanity, I used my fingers to comb my hair back from my face. He opened the door and a heavenly rush of air cooled my skin. Obviously feeling as hot as I felt, he abandoned his towel, and I resisted the urge to snap the towel I still held to his god-like ass as I trailed him into the main room.
When he stopped in his tracks, I ran smack into the wall of his back, and he pivoted, shoving me back into the seclusion of the bathroom.
But not before I saw Landon.
The drummer was stretched on the bed that wasn’t a rumpled mess, and his jeans gaped open. The television was on, but muted.
Wrapping my towel securely to my body, I stared into nothingness repulsed. Gage stood in front of the closed bathroom door, wearing an equally horrified look on his face.
“What the hell is he doing in there?”
Gage arched his brows in what looked like an attempt at sarcasm. I gave my towel another firm tuck and stifled any verbal expression of my revulsion. From the looks of it, Landon had pleasured himself to the erotic sounds coming from the bathroom as Gage and I had sex. If that wasn’t bad enough, he’d seen me naked.
I was avoiding the worst of the worst. For all of his innuendos since the tour began, Landon had now seen with his own eyes Gage and me together.
“He’s not going to say anything.” Grabbing the towel he’d left in a heap on the vanity, Gage wrapped his own waist as he made the assurance. “Be right back. I’ll get your clothes.” He disappeared, closing the door firmly behind him.
Too late, I was remembering that generally on this tour, I was the only one who didn’t share a room. How could I have had such a lapse? How could Gage have forgotten? We had been lucky we were in the privacy of the bathroom when Landon arrived.
“Shiiit, dude.” Landon’s voice clearly carried through the wall. “Was that Scarlette?”
“Nope.” Gage.
Seconds passed, and I could only imagine one of the meaningful stare-downs similar to those I’d often seen pass between Colt and Gage. And then Landon said, “Whatever. Listen, tell Scarlette her phone’s been blowing up.”
Gage was right back with a fist full of clothing. Leaving the bulky weight of my phone in the pocket of my shorts, I dressed as if the building were on fire.
“He’s not going to say a word.” Gage promised again, and I stayed quiet. How could he be so sure? The Instagram episode earlier in the summer was a stark reminder of the idiot drummer’s insensitivity.
To my surprise, Landon was gone from the room when we emerged and not waiting with one of his taunts. Gage walked me to my room, and when I popped the lock on my door with the keycard, he asked to come inside with me.
He pulled me into a hug and whispered again into my hair. “He won’t do anything. Won’t say anything.”
“Yeah. He will. He’s an asshole.”
“He won’t. I swear.”
“How do you know?”
“I know.”
He seemed positive, and I breathed easier, believing him.
There was no show that night. We were on a seventy-two-hour break before their slot at one of the biggest festivals on this tour.
We ordered up and over the meal decided to extend our ‘closure’ through the night. I justified our extended workout since our perfect shower time had been marred by the thought of Landon jacking off in the next room to our erotic tune.
It wasn’t until sometime in the middle of the night that I remembered my phone and rolled from the bed. Unearthing it from a pile of clothing, I found it dark and cold. Another search—this one through my bag—produced the charger, and I stretched my sated and satisfied, sore body into a chair as I waited for it to power up. As it hummed to life and synced with various tones, Gage rolled over in his sleep, and the sheet slipped to his lean hips, distracting me.
Even in only the shadows of my hotel room, he was magnificent.
Could I give him up again? Was it really what we both wanted? Had he picked his career over our relationship with the same resolve I had picked a certain ideal of my life over our relationship?
Shit! Three of the several texts were from Logan and their basic message was the same each time. ‘Call me.’ And three of my missed calls were from Logan with no accompanying voice messages.
Since I’d been on this tour, Logan and I had communicated daily. We’d never officially broken up. But lately, his correspondence felt more friendly than boyfriend-ly. I’d bet my last dime he was ready to break things off. If this was indeed the development, it didn’t make me feel any better about screwing Gage before officially breaking it off with Logan.
“Who’s got you looking so sad?” Gage’s voice was a slurry, sleepy rumble from the shadows of the bed.
“Me,” I admitted and set the phone aside to finish charging. “I make myself sad.”
Chapter 34
The moonlight played on her forlorn features, and he decided he’d never seen anything as beautiful as a nude Scarlette Conterra silhouetted in the darkness with her hair mussed around her face and cascading over her thoroughly fucked body.
“C’mere. Let’s make you happy again…”
The towel she’d been sitting on left tiny grooves on the backs of her thighs, and he unconsciously traced them with his fingertips as he tasted first one tit and then the other. Rolling onto her, he enjoyed the friction of their skin before he went down.
If there was anything he excelled in, it was making Scarlette’s body very happy…
…Not so much her mind and soul obviously.
Long after she’d screamed out her orgasms, after her lids had closed over her beautiful eyes, and after her breathing had evened, he remained awake, staring into the inky blackness above the bed.
At some point, he tried to guess the time. Leaving before morning light would be best all around. Stealthily, he eased from the bed and wandered into the bathroom to take a piss. Afterward, he stepped into his boxer briefs and took a seat in the chair she’d vacated. He alternated between studying her shadowy curves and watching the traffic on the street far below the window.
He rethought
everything. If he could convince her to make another go of it. If being with her meant the end of his career as he’d known it and the beginning of one not dependent on the whims of the public, was he ready for that? To never again feed from the frenzied energy of tens of thousands of fans before him? Did he need the adoration of a fickle public to feel significant? Or the adoration of one significant woman?
The neon light of a pastry shop down the street flickered on. Flipping her phone over, he hit the power button to check the time. Resigning himself to leaving within the next half hour before the rest of the world began to stir, he started to set the phone down and then hesitated.
He’d recognized the haunted expression on her face.
Guilt.
More Henni crap?
His thumb slid the unlock bar and the notifications icon blinked. After a glance to assure himself she was still sleeping, he brought up recent messages, noting the one dominating name. The same name lit her many missed calls.
Well fuck.
Across the shadows, he eyed the nightstand. Although it was too dark to see the necklace, he knew it was there. If he hadn’t been so distracted by her tits in his face, he might have realized what was really happening when she’d paused in the middle of sex to unclasp the dainty guitar necklace and toss it aside.
“It’s in the way,” she’d explained. But she hadn’t taken off the silver cross bumping against her breastbone and tapping at his chin.
Guilt. He’d called it all right.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Chapter 35
The phone alarm woke me as usual. Exhausted, I let it bleep, knowing it would automatically go into snooze mode after a minute and wake me again in ten minutes. I burrowed my face into the comfort of the pillow.
It seemed an hour later when I was roused by a knock on the door, and I popped up in a panic. My joints were stiff. Between my thighs was achy. My skin seemed hypersensitive and I felt an inward smile spread its warmth through my body.
Gage came into focus and the warmth radiated into a tingle of happiness. “You’re still here.”
“Yeah. Cover up. I’m gonna get the door…”
“Room service!” The knock came again.
Leaping from the bed, I closed myself in the bathroom. While I was there, I jumped in and out of the shower. Cocooning in the one towel still hanging, I noticed it was already damp.
I found Gage at the table with a bagel in one hand and a speared chunk of pineapple in the other. He swallowed and forked the fruit into his mouth before setting the utensil down. “See. I can eat right. Even when you don’t text me.”
I poked my head through a tee shirt and rummaged for clean undies and shorts. Everything that had led to me not texting him menu choices the evening before had been more than worked out. Dressed, I sat across from him. “What time is it? It feels late. Don’t you have an interview?”
He pushed the bowl of fruit and a fork to my side of the table.
“Where’s my phone? I need to…” And suddenly checking the time took a backseat to the recollection of the call I needed to return. Logan.
He tipped his head to the windowsill and I reached, unplugging the cord so I wouldn’t forget to pack it. Before I could look at my phone screen, he stopped me with five words.
“Scar, we need to talk.”
I started to push the fruit away and then instead, determinedly took a bite as if my whole world wasn’t suspended on the thread of what he was about to say.
Last night had been about good closure. So why wasn’t he gone while it was still good?
“Just say it. Whatever it is.” I had no mercy on the remorse shadowing his features. “I’ve got to go out and find some more kava root for Landon.”
“Forget Landon.” He snapped and drained a cup of what looked like tea. And I wondered if it really was tea in lieu of the high caffeine coffee he refused to quit.
“I wish I could. But he’s my job on this tour.”
“I paid Logan to go out with you.”
The evolution from Landon to Logan took a moment in my mind, and then his words still made zero sense. “What?”
“After New Year’s Eve. When you were with that old boyfriend.”
“Derrick wasn’t a boyfriend.” The instant protest left my lips, but my thoughts were still rolling in slow-mo.
“I couldn’t handle it. I thought there was still a chance for us, so I asked Logan to do it. To be your boyfriend so you’d be available when our chance came again.”
“Derrick’s the hookup I told you about. Sex. Nothing more.”
“God, Scarlette. Stop. I don’t want to hear this or think about him. I’m trying to tell you―”
“Well, I don’t want to hear this. Damn it! You’re ruining everything!” How could we even go back to brother and sister after this declaration? He’d crossed a line with his interference. A line that couldn’t be uncrossed. “It all makes complete sense now!” A flash of Logan pushing me away the night of my graduation tore at my gut. On cue, as if this little scene was part of an angsty movie, the phone buzzed my hand and Logan’s name painted the screen. I laid it face up on the table so he could see.
“I’m sorry. I am. But I wanted you back so much. I was trying to keep things from being complicated. It was wrong. But I did it and you need to know the truth so you won’t feel guilty about last night.”
My eyes went to the window and the world beyond. To people scurrying on with their lives, unaware of a woman in a window looking on. The feeling of being duped by two people I had given a chunk of my heart to was dizzying. I had been one of those little people six stories below while some invisible eye in the sky watched.
I watched his reflection in the glass. “What if he’d been better than you?”
“Better? How?” Storm clouds gathered in his gaze. “The fuck are you talking about?”
“Wouldn’t that have complicated your game?” Pushing to my feet, I stood with my arms folded. “If I fell for him?” Seeing the direction of his thoughts I couldn’t help my taunt. “If sex with Logan was the best I ever had. If it was like crack and I never wanted another―”
“That motherfuckin’ son of a bitch!” Gage shot to his feet. “He wasn’t supposed to―” When he looked at my face and halted what was surely about to become a tirade, I realized I was grinning. “The fuck, Scar. Did he? Were you… fucking?”
“Listen to what you’re saying.” My smile fell away, and I felt my face scrunch up with the feelings of animosity bubbling inside. “My ‘boyfriend’ you arranged for me wasn’t supposed to fuck me! You fixed things so that I didn’t have sex for almost six months! Did you go without for six months?” His face flushed, and I almost stopped my tirade at the shame I saw, but I was too wound up. “Not only that, I thought there was something wrong with me that he wouldn’t.”
“Why would you think that?” He sounded angry, but when his next words gentled into a sweet tease, I knew his anger was self-directed. “You have a mirror in your house, right?”
I wanted this conversation to dissolve. To have never happened. Especially because of the turn it had taken. And so I refrained from answering, and turned back to the fishbowl of a world beyond the glass.
“You know what you look like…” He argued as he walked, stopped at the door, turned and started across the room again. Dropping his voice to a rumbly almost whisper he added, “You know what you’re like. You’re so pretty. As much inside as out.”
Maybe he wanted to leave as much as I wanted to scream at him to go. But there was still something intangible hanging in the atmosphere.
“I’d lost a lot of weight. I was skin and bones. You saw me when I first came on tour. Besides, I thought he thought I was too pathetically in love with you still, and that’s why he wouldn’t touch me.”
“Were you? Still in love?”
Screw him for even asking. Somehow I refrained from cursing at him and instead glared my best ‘it’s-none-of-your-damn-business’ look.
>
His pacing stopped and he reached for my hand, coaxing me closer. “New question, then. Are you?” I pulled and he tugged back using the momentum to propel me into his arms. “I still love you, Scar Dar’. His thumb traced my lips. “Maybe one of these days we’ll figure us out.” Gently he brushed his lips to mine. “Thanks for the new memories.”
When the door closed behind him, I was left wondering if his exit was abrupt or overdue. And if his parting line had been sweet or ridiculous. Because whatever had been lingering in the air was still there. Unresolved.
The guitar found its way into my hands and I alternately picked and hummed a melody.
Bought a one-way ticket to sadness
Off the rails at badness
Riding the rockstar train to madness
Lame. Why couldn’t I write poetic verses like Gage?
Gage.
The sudden loneliness was engulfing. Trading the guitar for my phone, I scrolled to my contacts and dialed.
“Ivy. Thank God.” I collapsed into the chair, almost crying in relief when my friend and not voicemail answered.
The unkempt bed taunted me. All but two pillows were strewn around. The spread was on the floor. One corner of the bottom sheet had become untucked.
After I spilled everything to my friend—my fake boyfriend, my night with Gage—Ivy was quiet. And then after telling me to hang on, she spoke quietly to someone on the other end of the phone. There was a click as if a door had closed and the background noise on my friend’s end went away.
“Scarlette? Are you wanting advice or a listen?”
“I don’t know.” I stabbed at the strawberries, watching the juice pool and joked. “Depends on what the advice is, I guess.”
“I know I’ve been anti-Gage since your breakup, because of the way it happened. And because I thought your time with him might be one relapse after another. But he’s been clean now for a year?”
Hung Out: A Needles and Pins Rock Romance Page 19