I pause just outside the realm of the mosh pit, an invisible circle of complete and utter chaos. Inside that vortex, people let the music move them, trust the guitars and the bass and the drums to guide them to the absolute precipice of insanity.
I decide to join them.
I take a deep breath and dive in, just managing to avoid getting punched in the face. Not intentionally, not yet. Maybe later when the over twenty-one are all drunk and the teenagers are feeling pissy. That's when the real fun starts. Just a side note, the over twenty-one always win.
I let myself get swept up in the fray, drop completely free of my bullshit and my hang-ups and flip the fuck out in front of that stage.
I have no idea what the singer is saying, but I don't care. Her screams reach somewhere deep down inside of me, until I'm not even sure who I am anymore. The only thing in my blood is the music, promising pain, delivering it in heavy riffs and a guitar solo that makes me bite down so hard, I nick my tongue and make it bleed. Somewhere in the crowd, Turner's watching me. Or hell, maybe he's even in the mosh pit with me? I can't see anything, just a room covered in band posters, some shitty fluorescent lights, nameless faces. My heart's being ripped right from my chest, and I'm offering it freely.
Remember this fucking band for the next time you need a headliner. Ice and Glass isn't really going to be an option in the future.
The music slows and I stumble, crashing into the other lost souls around me. Nobody starts a fight which is a fucking miracle. Sweat is pouring down my face, obscuring my vision, sticking my hoodie to my arms. It feels like a thousand pounds right now. I want nothing more than to strip it off and toss it to the floor, let everybody see my face and know that I am fucking here.
“Okay, folks,” the woman onstage says, pacing back and forth, breath coming in harsh gasps. Her blonde and pink hair is stuck to her forehead, her cheeks, her mouth. She's a violently beautiful mess. I respect the fuck out of that. “What's next?” She gestures at the crowd and they go nuts, screaming and shouting out the names of songs, pushing into one another until we're all smashed together. I hit the person in front of me as our bodies collide with the wood. Some of the people in the front reach up and brush their hands across the lead singer's black combat boots.
I take the quiet space between songs to look for Turner and find him three fanboys away from me, watching, smiling, sweaty and perfect. His eyeliner is smeared and glistening, his full lips ripe and wet, just waiting for me to eat them off his face. I reach out and he takes my hand. Somehow, even with the crush of the crowd, we manage to maneuver so that we're pressed chest to chest in the small mob.
“I feel alive.”
“You look good enough to eat.”
I smile.
“Then eat me, bitch.” Turner and I lean in, mouths clashing as the band finally decides on a song. The drummer pummels his kit, sending the vibrations through the floor and up the heels of my shoes, making me weak at the knees. Or maybe that's Turner's kiss.
I would never admit it if it was.
Turner and I kiss hard and deep, letting the crowd jostle us, knocking our teeth together, forcing our tongues into one another's mouth. His hands fight to climb under my sweater, fingers splaying open against the bandage on my belly. The small bite of pain from the pressure of his hands is nothing compared to the surge of pleasure when his bare skin touches mine. I clench my thighs together, squeezing as tight as I can, praying that I don't have an orgasm while I'm standing here. Praying that I do.
“Let's give it up for the assholes front and center!” the lead singer calls out, and I feel a sudden emptiness around me as the heated bodies move away, leaving us open and exposed. I pull my lips back from Turner's but only a fraction of an inch. “Here's to love,” she shouts, lifting up her water bottle with one hand while she holds the mic to her sweaty lips with the other. “Here's to sex.” Cheers abrupt twice as loudly for this one. “And here's to happily ever fucking afters!”
I hear the cry of the guitars before I turn my face to watch the band seize like a group possessed. The bassist sinks back, shaking his head back and forth while the two guitarists bend at the waist, thrashing the shit out of that stage. The lead singer crouches again, letting out an animalistic scream that puts the crowd back into a frenzy. Turner and I are shoved violently back together, forced to split apart and accept the rush of the crowd. We bounce up and down with the wave of people, caught on a sea of broken dreams and whispered secrets. When the bitch leaps off stage, we catch her and let her crowd surf above us, a shadow of beauty layered atop the ugly howling beasts that we've all become.
Music. It's transformative like nothing else. It knows how to grab hold of your soul and shake it. It can put you to sleep. It can wake you up. It can shut your eyes. It can fucking open them.
Right now, mine are wide-eyed and staring life straight in the face.
After the set, Turner and I find ourselves in the grungy ass bathroom. Not – surprise, surprise – to fuck, but to get in line with Snow White and her seven dwarves. Turner cuts a few more lines of coke for each of us before we stumble back to the bar for one last drink. Or, it's supposed to be one last drink. Once I've got the green liquid in my glass, I'm not really sure what happens.
One minute I'm sitting at the bar chatting it up with the lead singer of Tipped by Tyrants and the next I'm stumbling into another club.
Holy shit. I really am trashed. I haven't been this fucked up in a long, long time.
“Where are we?” I ask, turning and grabbing for Turner's sweatshirt. The hood falls back, but we're both a little smashed. Well, really smashed. Super smashed. His brown eyes find mine and he wraps his arms around my waist, but I can tell he's not really sure where we are either.
“Going with the flow, Knox. Just swimming with the flow.” My leather jacket is wrapped around his shoulders like a scarf. I grab either end of the sleeves and let him walk me backwards, into the mess of people dancing like they're possessed. No, there's no live band, but at this point I'm floating on cloud nine, and I don't give a shit.
My body starts to move and before I know it, my hood's off, too. Then my sweater. It's on the floor with the jacket, but neither of us cares. Nobody bothers us. It's late, probably so late that it's early, and everyone is fucked to shit. It doesn't matter that we're rock stars. Right now, we're just people.
“You are beautiful, Naomi Knox,” somebody says from behind me. It's the lead singer again, with her pink and blonde hair. Well, okay, I guess somebody noticed us. Oh well. I don't even care anymore. I am a Goddess. I am a Guitar Goddess. I will fuck my Wolfgang with my fingers until it bleeds its beautiful music all over me.
“When I'm not solving murder mysteries,” I slur, not even sure what I'm talking about. America? All of that Stephen shit? Hah. It seems so paltry right now.
“Yeah, rock on, sister,” she growls as I start to move, to spin and drape my arms down my body, find Turner's stomach under his shirt, grab onto the waistband of his jeans. I might even twerk at some point in there, but don't you dare fucking tell anybody.
I bend down low, pressing my ass against the raging erection in Turner's pants, sliding my way back up with a smirk on my face. He thinks he can own me? No. No, I own him.
“He's mine,” I tell Tipped by Tyrants girl as she gets in close and starts grinding on me. Before I know it, we're dancing together. Me and her and Turner and her bassist. I don't really have to worry about her though. It's apparent she's way more interested in me than my rock star beau. Her body writhes, twisting and blurring in my vision as my legs squeeze tight, fighting the rush of warm liquid that Turner's heated body inspires in me. I want to fucking bend over right here for him, let him fuck the shit out of me in front of all these people. My libido bubbles hot, parting my lips, making me pant. I can't control my breath or the groans that scrape from my throat. There are people everywhere but only one that I'm concerned with. I can feel him grinding against me, begging for my body, promising he'll be a
naughty boy for me.
Oh my God.
When Tyrants girl grabs my face and brushes her lips against my jaw, I feel a hard arm go around my waist and stumble backwards.
“Mine,” Turner snarls, dragging me through the crowd. I almost stumble, but manage to catch my feet. Which are killing me by the way. They hurt so bad in these fucking heels that they're starting to not hurt. Numb feet. It's almost funny to me at that point.
“What are you doing?” I ask Turner as the crowd blurs and ripples around me. I'm having trouble seeing straight, but I feel so good. So fucking good. I tell myself that I'm in control, that even though I feel tipsy that nobody notices. I'm sure everybody does. “Don't get all pissy and bent out of shape. We were just dancing.”
Turner yanks me through a door in the back. The bouncer raises his eyebrow at us, but doesn't stop us, shrugging and smiling like he thinks something's funny. I let Turner pull me into the sweaty, dark cave at the back of the club. There are people everywhere, but they're all slow dancing together against the walls. Or sleeping on the floor. Why are they sleeping?
“You're mine, Naomi Knox. I've waited my whole fucking life to be respected, but not just by anybody. By you. Somebody that made me work for it.” He slams my back into the wall and presses in close. I spread my thighs and lift up my left leg, wrapping it around him and pulling him close as his hands find my face and his fingers cut and sear and destroy my fucking soul. “I won't let anybody touch you. Not now. Not ever.”
“Not even a hot chick from a rock band. No threesomes?” I'm slurring my words at this point. So is Turner, but what the fuck ever. We understand each other. That's all that matters, right? Honestly, I'm not even interested in having a threesome, but I like him angry like this. Rough.
“No fucking threesomes,” he snarls, biting my throat so hard that I gasp and my eyes water with tears. Oh wow. An orgasm is already waiting for me, building in my spine and curling my fingers around Turner's biceps. I've never felt this way with a man before. Ever. Not this … all consuming poison that makes me want to die. I want to fall down consumed by Turner, foaming at the mouth with the last dying breaths of pleasure on my lips. Morbid, right? I get that way when I'm fucked up. “Just my dick in your pussy.” He pauses, lifts his head up. I grab at his hair and try to turn his attention back to me, but he's looking around the room with slightly furrowed brows. His last comment has me desperate to rut right here and now, screw against this wall and not care who watches. When Turner refuses to look at me, I follow his gaze to the other couples in the room.
Who aren't slow dancing against the walls. Who are fucking.
Yeah, and if you hadn't already guessed, they're not sleeping either. Yep. Those people on the ground – still fucking.
And they're all men.
“Oh my God.” We've stumbled into a gay club. Or a bathhouse. Or something. I don't know. I have no clue where I am. I blink my eyes and focus on a pair of dudes with their pants around their ankles. They're both buff, tattooed, attractive. One of them has his hands pressed up against the faux velvet wallpaper while the other grips his hips and thrusts his dick into the first man's ass. Holy shit. “Wow.” At first, I feel like we're violating something by being here. Then I decide I don't care. “That's kind of hot.” I can't stop myself from staring at the muscles in the one dude's back, at the way his tattoos slide across his skin as he rams his hips forward.
The sweaty pressure in the room closes in on me, making me desperate to tear my clothes from my body and shake my shit naked as a Goddamn jay bird. I can feel my body moving already, sliding against Turner's, grinding our crotches together.
“Look at me,” I command, and his attention snaps back to me. He looks a little confused, but that's okay. He's a big, dumb idiot sometimes and that doesn't matter because I'm not. And I'm here. And we can work this shit out. “You were saying? Dick in my pussy?” Turner breathes out roughly, his breath catching on his teeth like he's about to choke on desire.
“Or … ” He looks at the other couples, sucking each other's cocks, stroking shafts with sure fingers. There's a single lesbian couple in the back corner, but I didn't notice them at first. They both have short hair and look a little like boys to me. The blonde in the front is screwing her friend with a strap-on. I can see the straps around her ass, see the slide of a purple cock moving in and out of a slick pussy. I look away and blink rapidly to clear my head. No luck. My vision swims at the edges. “In the pussy, the mouth, or … ” Turner steps back and grabs me by the shoulders, spinning me around and pushing my cheek against the wall.
I don't fight him. I don't want to.
I close my eyes as he pulls my jeans and panties down my hips. I forgot the condoms in the leather jacket, but I'm sure he has some. He always does.
“Or in the ass,” Turner hisses in my ear. I bite my lip as I wait for him, clenching my thighs so tight that pleasure ricochets through my bones. He steps into me, his cock sliding between my ass cheeks but not inside, not yet. The lube from the condom lets his shaft slip easily along all my sensitive parts, teasing my folds as my moan joins the others in the room. Turner takes his sweet time, wrapping his fingers around my hips and squeezing so hard, I'm positive there are going to be bruises there when I wake up from this dream and find myself back in the nightmare that is my life.
“Do it,” I moan, pushing my ass against his crotch, desperate for it. I already feel like I'm about to come. I don't want to waste another second.
My eyes snap open as Turner inserts his cock into my ass, slow and gentle but with a force that says he's not stopping unless there's a Goddamn emergency. I feel blood rush to my cheeks as I groan and pant and try to hold it together. I can't. Before he even gets more than an inch inside, I'm coming and scraping my nails down the wallpaper. The orgasm throbs in time with the electronica music blasting overhead. My vision blurs and I almost pass out.
“Naomi?” Turner pushes in a little further and I turn to jelly, struggling to hold myself up. He shoves me forward with his body, and the warmth of him pressed against me like that pushes all my buttons. “Are you okay, Knox?” he asks after a moment, and I swear, I could kiss him. “Do you want me to stop?”
“You stop, and I will fucking kill you.”
“Thank God.”
Turner slides in those last few inches, and I feel tears of pleasure squeeze out from under my eyelids. The sensation is so slow, like coals burning down below, heating me up to unbearable levels. I want him to pick up the pace, but he keeps an even rhythm, working me towards yet another orgasm. One that amplifies up to a full blown scream as he reaches around and flicks his fingers across my clit. I wonder in the back of my head if anyone's staring at us, if we're the weirdos in this room. Fuck them. Fuck them all. I don't care.
“I can't take this anymore. Take it out. Pound my fucking pussy, Turner.” He ignores me, leaning in and rubbing my clit in circles as he makes love to my ass. Right in the middle of a gay club. This is going to be one for the memory books.
“I love you, Naomi Knox,” he says and even though this is probably the most unromantic moment in the world, it feels good to hear it. I like the sound of Turner's voice. I do. I always have. There's a reason I used to curl up on the bus with my headphones on and his music lulling me to sleep.
I swallow hard, but I can't make myself say it. When I open my mouth, all that comes out are more moans.
I relax my ass against Turner, letting him fill me up, slide his dick in and out. In and out. In and out.
When I come again, he holds me up with a hand on my belly and one on my hips before pulling out and removing the condom. He tosses it into a nearby trash can – probably filled to the brim with others – and starts to put another one on. I really want his skin though. Really, really want it.
“No. Just fuck me.”
“Naomi,” Turner warns, and I can see the muscles in his face twitch. We both know how good it felt to be skin to skin, soul to soul, on that stage back in Aust
in, Texas. I turn around and grab his face, kissing his mouth so hard that she actually growls at me, grabbing me by the ass and slamming me into the wall hard enough that I get the breath knocked out of me.
Turner's cock thrusts hard into me, a warm slice of pleasure that penetrates straight to the core. I'm already groaning and screaming and fighting another orgasm as he pummels me as roughly as he can, getting deep, slicing me up. I'm not going to be able to walk away from this. Ever. I'm trapped in Turner now, tangled up tight.
“Feels so good,” I slur, feeling my body cave in to his demands. “I love you, Turner,” I say, and I really mean it. Even if I might deny it later.
“Fuck,” he growls, coming inside of me, the muscles in his arms tightening, his entire body going rigid as he spasms against me, spills his seed deep and collapses against the wall. We stand there, panting, crushed together. Bound together. Twisted together.
And it's not pretty. In fact, it's real ugly. He gets me bent out of shape, pisses me off, and even though we have tough luck and bad days galore, I don't think he was born wrong. Me neither. Because I think we were always meant to find each other. And that, that I am dead fucking serious about.
“Ugh,” I groan, rolling onto my back and sliding my arm across my eyes. The weak shafts of sunlight leaking into the room are threatening to shatter my skull into pieces. “Shiiiiiiiit.”
I cringe as my arm scrapes over my nose with a sharp wince of pain.
When I force my eyes to crack open and take a look, I find a gooey mess on my arm.
“What the … what the fuck is this?”
There's a fresh tattoo on my arm. A big one. It's stretched down my entire forearm. I can't quite make out what it says, but it better fucking not be Turner Dakota Campbell. I sit up suddenly, alarmed at the amount of lint trapped in the healing blob of my tattoo. I've got to get up and wash this bitch off, scope out some Aquaphor or lotion or something to put on it. Ever seen a tattoo that wasn't properly taken care of? Oh, you'll know if you have.
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