by Cari Quinn
He’d be inside her soon enough.
Stopping wasn’t an option.
31
Margo
The madness in his eyes heightened everything. When he got like this, her blood buzzed. He pushed and she let him. She loved it.
The shock in his eyes when she’d spit out the word was worth any discomfort it had created in her belly. He’d been expecting pussy. She said that easy enough, but not cunt.
That wasn’t a word I her vocabulary.
Then again a lot of things were different now that she’d been with this man for so long.
She watched as he held her on the verge. She knew she was going to pay for the surprise in the very best way possible.
His lips sealed over her center and she slipped away. Into the darker corners where pleasure swamped her, drowned her, pulled her under until there was nothing but Simon.
A place he’d allowed her to find.
Where she trusted him to take care of her.
She couldn’t hear around the rushing blood between her ears. Her brain heated and her body flamed.
He pushed her knee up to her sheets and spread her out. Lips, tongue, fingers. He left her with nothing as he played her, holding her hostage to the final fall.
She grasped his hair, dragged his mouth up to hers. Tasted herself on his tongue and lips. Finally. It had been so long since they’d come to a pinnacle such as this.
Until there was nothing but connection.
He ripped at his pants and she helped. Her feet fell to the floor as he leaned back to free himself. She curled her fingers around his shaft, gripping tight.
Her name was a chant as she pulled and twisted around his head.
“Inside,” she whispered.
He dragged her back down his thighs until his head slid across her pussy. He bumped against her clit and she cried out. So sensitive. So ready.
She undulated over him, her thighs screamed as she planted her feet and painted his cock against her wet center. “I need this.”
“Fuck, yes.”
She tipped forward and rose onto her toes as he slid inside. “Yes,” she hissed.
His fingers went from the eternal tease to a ruthless grip as he dragged her down on him. She knew what he wanted. Knew what he needed. She rode him, took him inside again and again until her breathing was a gasp covered in a scream.
The friction dimmed the room. The song crashed around them again and again, until there were no words. There was just the faint tones of piano under the heavy panting.
Her back screamed and her calves locked, but she didn’t stop. He locked his arm around her waist and his other hand in her hair. “Fuck,” he said against her throat.
He thrust inside of her, the hammer of his cock showed no mercy.
She shook and sobbed through one crest and into another. His name was a hoarse whisper on the air. She wasn’t sure if it was her pulsing around him, or Simon pulsing inside of her. The warm wash of come was a welcome balm to her incendiary release.
He rocked her lightly, his cheek pressed against hers as he lightly massaged the base of her neck.
He sat back on the couch and pulled her forward until her knees could reach. She held him inside her, savoring the fullness. She pressed her forehead against his shoulder and breathed him in. Hers.
Always.
She lifted her lips to his ear. “I love you, Simon.”
He banded his arms around her tighter. “Never as much as I love you, Violin Girl.”
She wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that. At least another two full turns through the song. She didn’t realize just how much she’d missed him, missed this, until just then.
She needed the music as much as Simon.
Somehow she had to make sure they both worked. She slipped her fingers into his hair and held him tighter.
It had to work.
Her legs were still jelly. It had been hours since they’d found their way upstairs and into the shower. Simon ended up on the phone with Stef, his agent, so she’d slipped away. She wasn’t ready to bring their reality back into the picture. Especially not after what happened in the studio.
“Hey, there you are.”
Margo looked up as Jazz climbed the stairs to the secluded area. She smiled. “How’s Izzy doing?”
“Going stir crazy, but she’s settled on the couch watching Tangled with Nichole.”
“Hallelujah. A kid that doesn’t want to watch Elsa.”
Jazz grinned. “I’m with ya.” She held a baseball stance. “I’m partial to her frying pan myself.”
“I may have hefted one toward Simon a time or two.”
“Foam bats have saved my marriage at least four times.”
Margo laughed. “I’ll have to remember that.”
“You okay?” Jazz tilted her head. “You can tell me to butt out.”
If only it were that easy. “I am thoroughly fucked.”
Jazz pressed her lips together before she dropped onto the couch in the atrium beside Margo. “So that’s what happened in the studio?”
Margo gave her a side eye. “What did you hear?”
“I don’t think it was recorded if that’s what you mean.”
She snorted. “Good to know.”
“I may have opened the door to go downstairs and see how Simon reacted to the song, but I closed it right away.” Jazz’s eyes twinkled with laughter.
“Great.” Margo sighed. Used to living in close quarters for more months than she cared to count, she knew all about walking in on people. At least this time there’d been a staircase to hide the visual proof. Thank God the room had been soundproofed for the rest.
She hoped.
“It’s all good. How the heck do you think I ended up with another tadpole?” Jazz rubbed her little baby bump. “I’m just glad Simon didn’t storm out like he did at Ripper. Or did you have to…convince him.” She fluttered her purple tipped lashes.
Margo sagged back into the soft cushions and stared up at the skylight. “No, he definitely didn’t need any convincing.” She rubbed her hands down her thighs. “Once he let himself listen to the song anyway.” She rolled her neck to meet Jazz’s gaze. “The ego is still in there. It’s just been dormant.”
Jazz flicked off her ballet flats and tucked her feet up under her. “I don’t know what’s kept him so locked away. He sounds better now than he did on the first album.”
Margo nibbled on her lower lip. She had her suspicions, but loyalty kept her mouth shut. She was loyal to the band, but nothing trumped Simon. She wasn’t sure anything could trump Simon at this point.
The last year had been the hardest of their relationship—even beyond his first voice incident. And days like today reminded her why she loved him so very much. She just had to find a way to make sure he knew that her love and support was there no matter what.
He kept things too close to the vest, and she needed to figure out a way to make sure he knew he could talk to her about anything. She was his wife dammit.
She curled her arms across her belly.
Wife.
Her heart was bound to him like no other, but she’d been reticent to define exactly how. The idea of anyone having the power to her hold her with a contract still rankled. Especially after their disastrous Christmas with her folks.
She’d needed the option to walk away.
The heavy diamond and sapphire ring winked up at her. If hadn’t walked away through the last year, she was certain she never would.
“That’s some heavy thinking going on for such a simple sort of question.”
Margo looked up from her ring. “Anxiety spiral, baby.”
Jazz covered her hand. “The last eighteen months have been hard on all of us.”
“Really?” Margo softened the edge to her voice as she twisted her fingers to link their hands. “Because everyone let him walk away. Let us walk away.”
Jazz’s brows lowered. “We did what we thought he wanted. You didn’t spe
ak up in that meeting either.”
She bounced her head against the suede cushion. “What was I supposed to do? Or even say?”
“You’re part of this band, VG. You fucking speak up.” She twisted her head to the voice at the edge of the atrium. Gray. Always so even and not one to make waves.
The tension in his shoulders made her shrink into herself all the more. “I’ve never had a true voice in the band.”
“Maybe that was the case at one time, but you know it’s not true anymore.”
Her head throbbed. All the fears that had been riding her for the last year rose up. “I really don’t.” Margo curled her fingers into a fist.
Gray’s eyes widened. “You’ve helped write half the songs we’ve done with Deacon.”
“Those aren’t band songs, Gray.”
He stalked over with the notebook that never seemed to be out of his hand. His other hand or arm was either around a guitar or Jazz—or Dylan. But the music was always, always one side of him.
He dropped the heavy composition book into her lap. “Go on. Look at it.”
With shaking fingers, she opened it to the clipped section. Songs she’d worked on well into the night in the Ripper Records studio were earmarked in Gray’s own brand of shorthand.
Most of them included the green O that specified Oblivion songs. When they’d written them, they’d just been songs. Songs that could be for others— mostly likely for others when it came to Gray and Deacon. They’d written and produced dozens of songs for other bands at this point.
She turned the page with shaking fingers. But eight of them were labeled for the band.
Five of them she’d worked on.
Four of them she’d written scores for on her own.
She blinked up at him. “I thought we were selling these?”
“I overrode Nick on three of them, but the rest he’s already started fucking with.”
She looked closer and saw Nick’s typical scrawled black ink. Gray wrote in neat block print, and Jazz in all caps. Margo didn’t have the knack for lyrics like the rest of the band, but she and Deacon often found a common ground in composition.
Deacon could write as well, but they both ended up taking the song at the end and creating the fluid in the chaos.
Pages and pages of notes. All of them about Oblivion—a half dozen of them included scribbles to confer with her.
Not as an afterthought, but as someone who’s input mattered.
She smoothed her hand down the bumpy pages. “I didn’t know.”
“Well now you do.” Jazz curled her hand around Margo’s shoulder.
Gray crouched in front of her. “All of us can work apart. That’s what makes us good musicians. It’s what we create together that is the magic of Oblivion. And that’s all six of us. Not just five anymore. It hasn’t been just five for a long damn time.”
She wrapped her arms around Gray’s neck.
“Whoa there, okay.” Gray patted her arm, but he hugged her back. “Man, for people that make a living by working with words and music, we suck at this communication thing.”
Margo sniffled into his shoulder. “Yeah.” She looked up to find Simon hovering at the edge of the hallway. Instead of joining the impromptu weep-fest, he headed down the stairs and out of sight.
She sighed. “Simon.”
Jazz popped up. “I’ll go. I think me and former Super Slut need to have a little talk.” She shoved her feet into her shoes. “He can run, but he can’t hide. Even in this crazy huge cabin.” She rushed down after him.
Margo sat back on the couch. “I wish I knew what to tell everyone, but Simon’s just as elusive when it comes to me too.”
Gray sat in the wide chair that made up half of the u-shape in the atrium. It seemed that Logan’s entire house was meant for collaboration and room to move at the same time.
Her cheeks heated at just how handy another chair had been a few hours ago.
“I think we all get it—even if he won’t say it. He’s just running scared. The longer he stays away from the songs and the stage, the bigger boogyman it becomes.”
She clutched her fingers together. “I’m not even sure Simon sees it that way consciously.”
Gray grabbed the acoustic in the stand next to the chair. Guitars were all over the damn house—in every nook and corner. He handed it to her. Guitar wasn’t her instrument of choice of course, but she was proficient enough to strum with him.
Well versed in the conversing style of Grayson Duffy, she knew that if she didn’t pick up some sort of instrument he’d wander off into his own head. She automatically tuned the six string as Gray did the same with a twelve.
There was something to be said for the soothing tones of an acoustic. She followed him into a song they both played often in the dark nights of the studio. The simplicity of a cover song was always welcome when her brain was too busy.
Gray’s sandpaper and silk baritone flowed with the lyrics from “Mended Souls”. A perfect song for the day. It felt like everyone was slowly knitting together the hurts and getting ready to go back to the studio.
As a band.
As a unit.
So much more than they’d been for so long.
32
Simon
Guilt pushed him through the kitchen into Logan’s music room off the living room. His house was pretty open, with one room flowing into the next. But this nook was the everyday homage to music. Enviable record collection not withstanding, it was simply a place to settle with the talent of ages of musicians around him.
Piece by piece he’d removed music from his life. If he didn’t have to think about it, he didn’t have to face it. Margo’s corner of their apartment was the only hold out.
And he’d ignored that as effectively as he’d ignored everything else.
Fuck.
He trailed his fingers over the spines of the albums and pulled out covers that had been the hallmarks of his teen years, his early years on the circuit, and classics that he’d studied with a pure love of song.
“One of my faves. Logan lets me play in here a lot.”
Simon closed his eyes and slid the U2 album back into the endless row of jackets. “Your turn for some tough love, Pix?”
She came into the room and curled her arms around his waist from the back. “Long time since you’ve called me that Super Slut.”
He laughed because that’s what she wanted. What they both needed. He smoothed his hand over he forearm and patted her hand. “I’m okay, Purplicious.”
She came around to the front of him. “You don’t have to be brave all the time Simon. You know that right?”
He kissed her forehead and stepped back. “I’m anything but brave.”
She caught his hand. “No? That’s not what Jerry says on his YouTube channel. He uses you as an example all the time.”
Simon sighed. Jerry had asked for permission to use a few of their coaching sessions style for other clients. As long as it didn’t show Simon cracking on camera, he didn’t care. “I’m sure you’re exaggerating.”
“Um, no.” She fished her phone out of her hoodie and flicked open a program then turned the phone around to show him. “See, even has a name. The Kagan Style.”
“Well, shit.” He didn’t realize he was a case study. He took her phone and thumbed through over twenty videos. He recognized the style. Jerry had mentioned that he was combining exercise and lessons—it had worked well for him. More that it distracted him from the actual voice lessons.
Added bonus—killer abs.
“I used a few of them.”
He frowned and handed back her phone. “Why?”
“I sing too, asshat. Just because I didn’t strain a cord doesn’t mean I want to do so in the future.”
He inclined his head. “I don’t recommend it.”
“But look how far you’ve come. You deserve to be back in that studio with us again. Not even just deserve, you belong. You’ve always belonged out in front of us.”
“It’s not that easy, Pix.”
“Of course it’s not. But the hard stuff makes everything worth it.”
Tell that to the pervasive memory of a blood splattered stage and screaming fans. Not the good kind of screaming. The kind that fueled nightmares and cold sweats.
Couldn’t forget the cold sweats.
His pits stung right now thinking about it.
She frowned up at him. “What can we—no, scratch that—what can I do to help?”
“No one can help, Jazzercise.” He cupped her face and pressed a kiss on her forehead. “Just be patient with me.”
She stepped into his arms. “I think I can manage that.”
He propped his chin on top of her head. The sugary scent of her was mixed with baby powder these days, but the familiarity of her settled a few frayed edges.
He was so used to being strong for Margo so she didn’t see just how fucked up he was, that he rarely had time to shore up the cracks. And more and more of them kept sprouting.
She peered up at him. “We’re going to have adult ice cream.”
“Oh, yeah? What does that entail?”
“Bailey’s and alcoholic whipped cream over rum swirl gelato.”
“I could get behind that.” He let her go.
“Good. Let’s forget about music for a little while and get buzzed on dessert.”
He laughed. “I don’t do much dairy these days. That sounds pretty heavenly.”
She frowned. “Is it not good for your throat?”
“More like my waistline.”
“Now that’s funny.”
He looped his arm around her neck and dragged her out of the room. “The camera prefers abs to rolls.”
“Damn cameras,” she muttered.
“I fully agree.”
Voices led us into the kitchen. Gray and Logan were manning the whipped cream and Izzy the chocolate sauce.
“Smells awesome.”
Izzy licked the pad of her thumb. “I only get the chocolate stuffs, but yeah. Come on in. I call it Adult Ice Cream Social.” She slid over two glass bowls. “Dig in.”