by L. J. Greene
“Sláinte!” I echoed in his Irish Gaelic pronunciation that sounded like slawn-cha. “I’m so proud of you, Jamie. You’ve definitely earned this.”
The curve of his mouth lifted faintly, and he reached out to run his fingers gently through the front of my hair. He seemed a little…I don’t know…just less excitable than I would have expected under the circumstances.
“I don’t fool myself for a minute that there aren’t a thousand blokes just like us who have earned it just as much, but I’ll tell you, I’m grateful.”
“Even if that’s true, it doesn’t diminish your achievement. Or the work it took to get you here. My God, Jamie; it’s a recording contract!”
“It’s mad, really, to think about it. I still don’t know that I’ve wrapped my brain around the idea.” He took another draught of his beer and glanced over to our table, where the celebration was in full swing. Shot glasses littered the table, and Killian was demonstrating the art of balancing two forks on the edge of a pint glass.
“When you’re first starting out you think to yourself, if only I can find a few chaps I want to play with. And then, if you’re lucky, you do,” he said, gesturing to the group. “And you think, if only we can write that one magic song, you know. But then you do, and, for the love of God, there’s no one interested in hearing it. And so you tell yourself you’re not doing it for the praise or for the recognition–you’re doing it because it’s in you and it’s who y’are.
“The truth is, though, it’s been so frustrating at times.” He shook his head, and brushed a drop of condensation from the side of his glass. “You have to have a following to attract a label, but how do you have a following when every demo tape you mail to record companies and radio stations and magazines and club owners just gets tossed in pile with dozens and dozens of others? Everyone says they love to discover new talent, but they’re busy as shit keeping up with established names. And even more, there is so much risk involved in bringing up a new band that they can’t afford a misstep. These days, when you get a chance like this…you can’t fuck it up.”
“Jamie,” I said, finally understanding his mood. “Is that what you’re worried about? Fucking it up?”
“I don’t know.”
He stepped aside to let someone pass, and when he came back, I could tell he was distracted by the thought.
“You’re not going to,” I told him emphatically. “There’s a reason you rose to the top of the pile, Jamie–you’re good. And you’re unique. People want to hear you.”
He didn’t answer, but I could almost see him weighing the veracity of my conviction. I had always been drawn to Jamie because he embodied for me a sense of adventure and possibility. But, in a similar way, I suspected that part of what drew Jamie to me was my analytical nature. I was deliberate and contemplative. I formed opinions slowly and with careful consideration. He respected me for that, and was coming to rely on me for it. And in that moment, I realized that was exactly what he wanted–a reasoned opinion he could trust.
“Jamie,” I said, forcing him to meet my gaze. “You’re someone I would absolutely bet on. I wouldn’t think twice.”
I watched as his serious expression softened. He seemed to take my words very much to heart. And then without warning, he stepped forward and pulled my mouth to his, kissing me deeply and so abruptly that my Guinness sloshed over the side of its glass and down the leg of his jeans. Neither of us pulled back. Quite the opposite, in fact. I grabbed a handful of his Henley and drew him closer, and he wrapped my head in the crook of his elbow and kissed me until we were both senseless.
Believe in me, his kiss ardently requested. And with a certitude that I could not have concealed if I wanted to, mine answered him. Always.
§
Thoroughly serviced, I finally took a sip of the beer that I had stubbornly insisted on ordering and then inadvertently spilled. And sure enough…
“Uck.” I made a face.
“Let me guess, angel. You don’t like it.”
Guinness is so dark that it looks chocolaty with a big, thick, rich creamy head. For the record, it tastes nothing like that.
“I had no idea Guinness was so bitter.”
“Didn’t you, then? You would have known if you’d listened to me.” With a censorious cock of one brow, Jamie made a profound showing of male know-it-all-ness.
“I thought you were just being macho.”
He closed his eyes and exhaled audibly, growling low in his throat as he did. Annoyance struggled with humor on his face, but humor ultimately won out. Barely.
“Well, look at it this this way, front man–now you get two pints.”
I smiled sweetly at him. He was unmoved.
“No, I’ll handle it.” I was fortunate enough not to hear the rest of what he grumbled, but I was pretty sure the words ‘stubborn’ and ‘rock’ were mentioned as he cut his way back through the crowd.
At last, he returned and handed me my Guinness, but this time, the head had a slightly purple tint to it. I took an experimental sip.
“Wow! I like that!” Gone completely was the bitter taste, replaced by a pleasant sweetness that went well with the richness of the dark ale. “Why is it purple?”
“Black currant. A blush of embarrassment,” he emphasized, and I thought his Irish accent grew a little broader than usual.
“See, I do like Guinness.” I said, throwing an elbow to his iron-like core.
“That’s not Guinness,” he said levelly. “That’s an abomination.”
Chapter 13
Mel
BY THE TIME WE LEFT the bar, the band was pleasantly drunk and toasting everything from one’s impressive belch to another’s sock selection. Fortunately, Killian and Greg could walk home, and convinced Nash to join them. Jamie had other plans.
“You know,” he began in careful and precise articulation of his words that only highlighted his drunkenness, “I think this may be the first time I’ve ever fucked a girl in a suit.”
“Is that so?” I glanced at him sideways from the driver’s seat. His eyes were closed now, and his head was tilted back against the headrest, but he looked pleased as punch with his sudden revelation. A tiny smile teased his lips. I thought maybe he was being a little optimistic about his chances of following through on that particular promise. He appeared awfully close to passing out in the front seat of my car.
But I wanted to capture this moment in my mind–the look on his face was a picture of content. His long, auburn lashes were fanned out across his cheek and a pink blush gave his skin a healthful glow. I reached out and stroked his tousled hair. He was happy, leaning into my touch. Then without a word, he lifted my hand to his lips and licked suggestively at the apex of my index and middle finger. I laughed and pulled away. Drunk or no, he was singularly focused on his goal.
As we headed down Leavenworth Street, I thought more about his earlier comment. I knew what he meant, of course, about fucking me in a suit; I was wearing a suit. But the grammatical ambiguity made me think about him in a suit–something I was pretty sure I’d never see.
Did it matter?
I spent all day every day with men in suits–cultured men, highly educated, wealthy. Jamie was none of those things. But he was other things: He was creative, and ambitious, and vibrant. He was the most excitable person I knew. And he was fundamentally resilient. Even in the face of overwhelming odds of failure in the music industry, Jamie retained that scrappy, headlong self-belief that had launched Cadence from obscurity to recognition. He always moved at a different tempo, always exuded that powerful presence of a front man, even when he wasn’t on stage. He was utterly captivating.
You meet well-to-do men every day. Do you think I don’t know that the odds are already stacked against me?
I shook my head in silent remembrance. He had been absolutely wrong about that.
§
Turns out, I had been absolutely wrong about something else.
Parking the car outside of my buildin
g, I had unwittingly awoken a sleeping stallion. And the stallion in question was presently pressing me against the wall of my stairwell with hungry lips that tasted subtly of whiskey and ale. Six feet of ardent determination were attempting to extricate me from my suit.
It was a very respectable effort.
Jamie had my jacket open and was yanking down one sleeve when I artfully twisted out of it, laughing, and dashed up the stairs and down the hall to my door.
I could hear him bounding up the stairwell behind me, surprisingly light-footed and agile for such a solid beast, and not even the least bit winded. By the time he reached me, I had turned the lock, and was pushing the door open to my apartment.
His body collided with mine with an ‘oof’ that launched me forward into the entryway, him just a breath behind. I felt his warm body at my back, both pressing me forward and holding me captive by my hips. I gave little resistance as he turned me abruptly against the inside of my door, closing it with a bang. He took my mouth like it was the spoils of victory.
His hands went immediately to my skirt, rucking it up over my hips with no thought of removing it. One of his feet kicked at my instep in demand that I spread my legs wider; I shifted my weight to accommodate.
We were both panting wildly. I had my hands in his hair, pulling his mouth harder to mine, which he obliged by kissing me so thoroughly and skillfully that my jaw began to ache.
I didn’t care.
His knee was positioned in such a way that I could not have closed my legs if I wanted to. And I didn’t, particularly when his fingers slipped between us to clear their way past my lingerie.
He slid one experimentally inside, and let out a sharp breath, groaning with words about how warm and soft I was.
He was no longer kissing me–instead, he was watching my face as he pressed slowly and deeply in and out with one hand, stroking my clit with his thumb.
I braced my fingertips against the door as my hips rocked forward to meet his every thrust. I could hear my own desperate sounds; the sounds of a woman fraying at the edges, feeling as though she might shatter.
He lifted my bare thigh over his hip, while he watched with naked desire the effect his other hand was having on my composure. It was a passionate tangle of his voyeurism and my exhibitionism. Whatever the effect was on me, he was experiencing its twin.
I had begun to open my blouse clumsily, managing to get about three buttons undone, when Jamie stopped me.
“No. Don’t take anything off. I love the sight of you like this.”
Like this. God, I could not begin to imagine what like this looked like–glassy-eyed, completely disheveled and totally at his mercy, to say the least.
And yet, I had never felt so sexy.
“Take down the cup,” he said, motioning to my bra. His voice was thick with excitement. “Good. Now touch your nipple for me. Tell me how that feels.”
It was hard as a rock and cold from a breeze coming in from the kitchen window, but I’m not sure I actually answered. I think just continued to run my fingertip over the sensitive skin that puckered suggestively under my own soft touch.
“Take down the other cup,” he rasped, his accent growing more pronounced.
I was beginning to see a side of him that felt deliciously untamed. He growled out sounds of encouragement, mesmerized, as I followed every order without question, spilling out over both cups now, with my skirt around my waist and my thong pulled off to one side. Jamie was still fully dressed, but he seemed every bit as undone as I was. His cock was an urgent presence between us.
“Have you ever let anyone do this to you? In your suit?”
“No.”
“Good,” he answered, with an unmistakable note of possession. “Whenever you wear this suit, you’ll think only of me.”
That tone in his voice, and his fevered quest to have me like this, made me wonder, in an admittedly scattered way, whether tonight was his way of evening the odds against those cultured men in suits–proving that while I spent my days around them, not one had ever left me so unhinged. Not one had ever made me want. This was Jamie’s domain, exclusively. Tonight, he was taking something from those men, and it was obvious that he had no intention of giving it back.
I glanced over his shoulder to the window directly opposite. It was fully dark now and the apartment glowed with only the soft yellow light from the lampposts outside.
I was beginning to lose control of my one standing leg, which was shaking in my stiletto with anticipation and fatigue. I feared it would give out at any moment.
“Jamie!”
I could tell he knew exactly how close I was when he kissed me hard, then dragged his teeth along my jaw.
“Grab my shoulders, love. I’m gonna make this fast.”
I felt him rip his fly open as his mouth engulfed my breast. The door was cool behind me. I leaned my head back heavily against it, craving his solid heat inside me, and waiting impatiently for the pounding that would rattle my apartment door in shameless ecstasy.
Suddenly, I was seized by a jolt of awareness.
“Jamie, wait!”
He released my breast from his mouth with a soft pop, and met my eyes directly. His hair was standing up in a defiant spray that would have made me giggle had I not been so far past the point of summoning such an emotion.
“Back pocket,” he murmured hoarsely, resuming his lips on my skin.
I contorted myself around his body and pushed my hand into his jeans. Expecting a condom, I came up with a folded piece of paper instead.
“Proof.” I could hear his smile in the word he said, as he licked my hardened nipple.
I closed my eyes. “Oh God, that feels good.”
I held that paper against his shoulder–crushed it in my fist, as a matter of fact–as I felt him arrange himself at my entrance. He paused for just a moment and I opened my eyes, aware of the question between us, but feeling it entirely rhetorical.
It is an absolute fact that every civil litigation law professor I ever had would have failed me on the spot for what I did next: I dropped all evidence of proof to the floor without even a glance. And then we consummated that agreement. Loudly. Again and again and again…
§
The stallion in my bed was, for the moment, docile as an old mare–now much more sober, gloriously naked and blissfully scratching his testicles as he reclined beside me in a tangle of sheets.
“So the question is, will you be able to walk properly tomorrow?” he grinned.
“I think it actually is tomorrow,” I replied, reaching over to the nightstand and turning the clock. Sure enough, it was after midnight. “What time do you have to be at work?”
“Not until 7:00.”
I knew the kind of hours he was keeping and it made me worry that he was overextended. He often rehearsed with the band well into the night, and then got up early the next morning for a full day of very physical labor. And on this particular night he didn’t have his bicycle or the right clothes, which meant he would have to be up and out even earlier in order to get to work on time.
“I can drive you,” I said, laying my head back on my pillow. “I don’t have to go in until 9:00.”
“No, you sleep in, love. I’ll be fine.”
In the glow from the midnight sky, I could just make out the curves of his beautiful body against the white sheets of my bed. Every line looked like an artist’s sketch of a man, larger than life. But he wasn’t larger than life. He was flesh and blood like the rest of us. And I knew he couldn’t possibly maintain this pace indefinitely. There was a price for the kind of drive he had, and I worried about the debt his body was amassing.
“Jamie,” I hesitated. “Do you ever… Does it ever…”
“What?”
“I mean…how long can you keep this up?”
Jamie turned to meet my gaze in the pale light, and affection glowed in the softened curves of his face.
“Come,” he said quietly, and gathered me to his chest. He
was always so warm, as if he burned with life from the inside out.
“I do what I must, is all,” he said reassuringly. “You don’t have to be concerned. Besides,” he went on, “it won’t always be like this.” He was stroking my back broadly from tailbone to mid-spine. “I’m going to make this work. Do you believe me?”
Do you believe in me? he was actually asking.
“Of course I do,” I said, answering both questions. “You know that.” I ran my hand down his free arm and curled my fingers into his. He squeezed them tightly and kissed me on the top of my head.
“Truth is, I’d do just about anything to be able to go on stage every week. To have that and you,” he said, stroking the curves between my knuckles, “are all I need.”
I turned my head and kissed his chest, letting my lips linger there while I breathed in the smell of his skin, where his natural earthiness mingled with the scent of our lovemaking and the distant remnants of O’Malley’s.
“Tell me what it’s like for you.”
“On stage?” he asked.
“Mmm hmm,” I said, kissing him again.
He took a deep breath and blew it out, rearranging his extremities under the covers while he considered my question.
“You have these surreal moments,” he answered reverently, shaking his head softly against the pillow. “Like you’re standing outside yourself, watching yourself.” I could feel him twist a strand of my hair around his finger. “And it’s thirty to sixty minutes of bliss, really. It’s why we do all of the rest of what we must.” He shifted slightly in the bed and pulled me closer to his body.
“Artistry is very lonesome business, most of the time. Musicians often work alone. I imagine it’s somewhat similar for writers and painters. So you have no idea how your work will connect with another person–if it will connect with them at all. But when you’re on stage, you get to see it. I feel like I can remember every face–the way they call out when they hear a song they like; sometimes they put their arms around a friend or a date. Sometimes they put their hands up in the air or dance or sing the words to a song I wrote. They’re not thinking about it; they’re just reacting to the music, and it’s pure magic.”