My Heart's Bliss (Hard Love & Dark Rock #3)

by Ashley Grace

  My Heart’s Bliss

  (Hard Love & Dark Rock, Part 3)

  A New Adult, Rock Star Romance Serial

  By Ashley Grace

  Copyright 2015 Ashley Grace

  All Rights Reserved.

  Cover by Jack

  jackofcovers@gmail.com

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual people or events is coincidental.

  Chapter 1

  Anne

  Panic crackled in my chest, rushing through my body with every beat of my heart. It felt like static electricity pumping in my blood, making my hands tremble. I clenched my fingers to fists, closed my eyes, willed myself to breathe slow and steady. I focused on the beating of my heart, willing it to slow down, trying to get a grip.

  After ten breaths, I gave up. My heart kept racing along, and standing still just seemed to make it worse. I opened my eyes, and started moving forward.

  I was in a hallway of the Fairmont Hotel—one of the very ritziest hotels in San Francisco. I'd just left the room occupied by Trace LeBeau—dark-rock legend, singer and songwriter for one of the biggest bands in the world for ten years running. And for the second time that night, I was about to flee the hotel in a panic.

  But this time, I'd make sure I had my purse and my cell phone before I left.

  The hotel hallway stretched before me, brightly lit but completely still. There weren't any windows. I didn't really have any idea about the time, didn’t know if it was night or day, and somehow that just made me feel even more uneasy. As if this hotel hallway existed outside of regular, normal life.

  I needed to get out of there, needed to get back to the real world.

  I started moving down the hall toward the suite the band had reserved as a sort of communal party space. I'd left my purse and my cell phone in one of the bedrooms in that suite, had left them there when Trace and I had first hooked up.

  Despite the panic that had me running scared, the memory of that experience—of Trace's dark eyes looking up at me from between my thighs, his mouth and his tongue pressed tight against my most private parts—made me feel a little tingle of lust. And no sooner had one image popped into my mind, another chain of memories followed after it. The feel of his hands on me, his fingers touching me, caressing me. The taste of his lips, of his skin, of his dick. The way I'd felt when he'd made me come, and the way I'd felt when I brought him to his climax.

  The tingling between my legs grew stronger even as my heart kept racing with panic. Fear and lust mixing together, my emotions running in all directions at once.

  I'd never been so confused in my life. Confused, and scared shitless, too.

  Ever since I'd first heard his voice on the radio years ago, I'd had a crush on Trace LeBeau. I'd bought all of his band's albums, memorized all of his lyrics, read all of his interviews, and gone to sleep every night beneath a poster of him that I'd pinned to the wall above my bed. From the moment I’d first become interested in boys, Trace had served as the model of my type of man.

  And it wasn’t just that he was gorgeous. It wasn’t just his long-limbed frame, his broad shoulders and trim hips. It wasn’t just his muscular, tattoo-covered body, his lean muscles carved out of a hard-lived life. It wasn’t just those intense, dark eyes—framed by those beautiful long lashes—staring out from behind the stray locks of his hair.

  It was more than that.

  It was his art.

  It was the poetic lyrics of his songs, the love and longing they expressed, the passion so fierce it threatened to consume the person who felt it. It was the sound of his voice, powerful but also vulnerable, with both the power and vulnerability being drawn from the same source—raw emotion.

  From the moment I’d first heard his voice, Trace’s art had influenced my life profoundly. And now—in my first year of college, my first year out of my parents’ house—the path I was following reflected that influence. I wanted to be a poet, an artist, and I owed much of that desire to what Trace had made me feel when I was just ten years old.

  Before I’d ever met him, Trace LeBeau had been a part of what made me who I was, who I wanted to become. And now, tonight, I'd met him in person. I'd met Trace LeBeau, the man, the human being, with all of his passions and problems and baggage. And I'd been drawn to that man. And frightened by him.

  The real Trace was even more beautiful than the music he made. But it was a dark beauty, with a terrible tragedy in its recent past. And right then—as I stumbled up the empty, windowless hallway of a luxury hotel I could never even dream of affording on my own—it felt like a hell of a lot more than I could handle.

  The door to the party suite was unlocked. I pushed it open, surprised—and a little unsettled—by the silence. Earlier that night this suite had served as ground zero for the wildest party I'd ever attended. The music had been loud, the people had been drunk and high and wild. Now it was as quiet as a tomb.

  I walked into the suite, my eyes adjusting to the darkness. The smell of alcohol and cigarettes and vomit was the first thing I noticed. On my right, the bathroom door was open, and I could see a few people in there: a girl passed out on the floor in front of the toilet, a guy asleep in the tub. I moved past it, following the short hallway to the kitchenette—its counters covered with empty bottles, including several handles of liquor—and the living room.

  Someone had torn the curtain down from one of the windows, and weak morning light filtered into the room. I could see a half a dozen people in there, laying on the couch and the chairs and the floor itself, their bodies as still as corpses. A mess of white powder and a handful of pills were scattered across the coffee table, mixing in with the ash that had spilled out of an overstuffed ashtray. The television had been unplugged, its screen gone black.

  My eyes traced over the motionless bodies, peering in the dim light, but I didn't see any sign of my dorm-mate Becca. Shit.

  A clattering noise from across the room startled me, my eyes darting toward the sound. In a darkened corner of the room away from the window, a figure sat in a chair leaned back against the wall. He had his arm on the table at his side, his wrist arched so that his fingers dangled down toward an object lying on the tables surface. The figure was Micah Green, lead guitarist of the Belletrists—Trace’s band. The object was his knife, the same one he'd held to a boy’s throat earlier that night.

  His fingers gave the knife another spin, making it clatter on the table again. I felt the tension in my body creeping even higher.

  "Who are you?" he said.

  "Me?" I said, my voice cracking, my throat suddenly dry. "I'm Anne. We met earlier tonight, at the show."

  "Anne. What are you doing here, Anne?"

  "Looking for my friend, Becca. She was at the show, too. We came back here in the limo with you guys."

  "Becca," he said. "Is that the girl whose bartender boyfriend beat the shit out of Joey?"

  My throat went even drier, so dry that it hurt. My nerves were nearly crackling with the tension running through them.

  I nodded my head.

  "Lotta nerve, that guy. Coming into a party where he isn't invited, and then attacking one of the party's hosts."

  I didn't say anything.

  "Gotta give him credit for boldness, though—the little fucker. Even a knife against his neck didn't cool him down, at first." He gave his knife another spin. "I respect that."

  The tension I felt eased up, though only just a little.

  "Have you seen her?" I asked. "Becca?"

  "She's in the front room, with Sergio and Angel."

  "Great," I said, moving toward the h
all. "Thanks."

  "No problem," he muttered, and gave the knife another spin.

  I hurried toward the door, feeling a tremor of nervous energy running through me, so strong I nearly shivered. Micah Green—of all the craziness I'd seen that night, he was right up there at the top of the list. I put my hand on the doorknob to the front room, more eager than ever to get the hell out of that damned hotel.

  I shoved the door open, stepping into the room. But when my eyes adjusted to the dimness, I froze in my tracks.

  Becca was in there, on the bed, stripped naked. And two men were in there with her, one on either side, both just as naked as she was. The lights were dim, making their brown skin look even darker against the white sheets, against Becca's pale tone. She'd turned onto her side to face one of the men, her mouth pressed to his, kissing him with slow passion. Her right hand reached down, stroking his erect dick. And the other man clenched her waist, his hips moving against her and away again, his hard cock slipping into her from behind.

  Chapter 2

  Anne

  "Oh shit," I said, the words slipping out of my lips before I could stop them. I put a hand to my mouth, embarrassed, but I couldn't quite get the rest of my body to move.

  Becca broke the kiss, languidly turning her head toward me. Her eyes looked clouded over with lust and pleasure.

  "Anne," she said.

  The other two guys turned toward me as well. I recognized them now: Sergio Rodriguez, the bass player for the Belletristes, and his cousin Angel.

  "S-sorry, Becca," I said, throwing one hand out to block my view, covering my eyes with the other. "Sorry to interrupt."

  "No problem, Anne. What's up?"

  I opened my fingers a little, peering through them. Becca was still stroking Angel, and she shifted her hips back, sliding down on Sergio's length again, prompting him back into action.

  "Oh my god," I said, closing my eyes, my hand still held out to block my view. "I just came to get my purse. I think I left it here earlier on."

  "You did. It's over on the chair, right there."

  I opened my eyes, looking around the room, making a point of looking everywhere but at the bed. I saw my purse, scurried over to the chair to get it, my hand still up to block my view of Becca and her partners.

  "Okay," I said. "I'm getting out of here." I looked down at my purse. "Don't suppose you're coming with me? We've got Intro to Poli Sci at nine this morning, you know?"

  "Pfff, when was the last time I actually made it to that class," she said. "Or any class that started before ten a.m., come to think of it. Besides, Soyrizo and Andule here split a tab of X earlier, and it took me like an hour to get them both hard. No way I'm bailing out now."

  "Their names are… you know what, never mind." I shook my head, incredulous. "I guess I'll see you later."

  I glanced over at her, but she was looking into Angel's eyes, stroking a hand through his hair, her lips parted and wet. Sergio kept moving against her, rolling his hips, his head bowing forward to kiss her shoulder.

  "Take care of yourself, Becca," I said, looking away again. "Be careful."

  "You…" I heard her moan, soft and low. "You too… Anne."

  I went back through the bedroom door, closing it quietly behind me, and then slipped out of the suite. I walked toward the elevator, taking long strides, moving as fast as I could in the heels. Trying to lose myself in motion, in physical action. Trying not to let my emotions catch up.

  It didn't work. By the time the elevator had arrived on my floor, the tears had started to flow. And before I made it out of the hotel, I was crying so much I could hardly even see.

  The streetlights were still on, but the overcast sky had started to lighten, looking dingy grey instead of sooty black. I wiped my face, took a few breaths, trying to get a grip again, and saw the stone cathedral in the distance. I thought of the park and the drunk guys who'd harassed me in it last night, thought of Trace sweeping in to save me from them, the speed and the violence like something from a movie.

  God, what a crazy night! No wonder I was losing it.

  I went to the corner and started walking down the hill, away from the cathedral and the park in front of it. Even though I knew there wasn't much of a chance that the guys were anywhere nearby by now, I hurried along.

  My cell phone chirped in my purse. I took it out and saw that it was dying, the little battery icon showing just a thin sliver of red. I checked the time—5:27 a.m—and then turned it off. Better than having to hear the irritating little chirp the phone made, reminding me to plug it in. Plus, the thought of actually talking to anybody at that moment just made the panicked feeling start to buzz in my blood all over again.

  The morning air was cold and damp. I rubbed my hands up and down my bare arms, hugging myself, trying to warm up. A few homeless people huddled in doorways—scuffed shoes poking out from beneath cardboard sheets, blankets and sleeping bags damp from the morning dew—but there were less and less of them as I moved down Powell Street toward the shopping district and Union Square.

  The area was almost deserted, just a few lonely looking maintenance workers and janitors and delivery men dropping off supplies before the crowds came in and made the streets too crowded for their big trucks. It felt strange to be the only person walking the streets at this hour when I knew the area would be swarming with shoppers and tourists by noon. It almost gave me the feeling that there wasn't anybody else in the city at all, that San Francisco had been abandoned, that I had it all to myself. Despite how lonely that situation might have been in real life, I found the idea oddly comforting that morning.

  I took the stairs down toward the Powell Station metro, waiting on the outbound side of the platform. The newspaperman was opening up his stand, and a few folks stumbled onto the platform to wait for the downtown bound trains—heading to the Financial District for an early start to the workday. When the outbound M line train came, I was the only person on it besides the conductor.

  It's a forty minute ride from Powell Station out to the State University. Exhaustion started catching up with me after the first ten minutes of sitting still, and before much longer the rocking of the cars had put me to sleep.

  I dreamed, and it wasn't pleasant. I was standing at a sink, trying to take my earrings off. My fingers felt clumsy and slow, and an earring's clasp was stuck. When I got the clasp loose, the earring dropped from my numb fingers, skittering across the white porcelain sink. I reached for it, desperate, but it slipped through my fingers and down the drain—a precious thing that I'd lost forever and could never get back.

  I woke with a start, my heart thundering, my skin sticky and hot. The first thing I thought of was Trace. And the next thing I thought of was the feel of his semen spurting into my mouth, hot and thick. The taste of it on my tongue.

  He'd said he was clean, but what if he wasn't? What if he'd lied? What if he didn't really know? He was a rock star, for Christ's sake. He'd been all over the world, he'd had groupies throwing themselves at him since he was eighteen years old. Who knew how many people he’d had sex with?

  What if he had a disease, and he'd given it to me?

  What if one unprotected moment of passion was all it took for me to catch something that I'd be stuck with for the rest of my life?

  I felt so exhausted that my eyes ached in their sockets, but I didn't sleep another wink for the rest of that lonely train ride to campus.

  Chapter 3

  Trace

  Being in a rock band isn't just a career, it's a lifestyle. It affects every aspect of your daily existence, especially when you're on tour. And even if the tour is a secret, hush-hush type of deal—like the tour we were currently on—there are aspects of it that you've just got to adapt to if you want to have any hope of making it through in one piece.

  Perhaps one of the most basic, but also most dramatic, differences between rock life and regular life is the sleeping schedule. Most folks make their living in the day and sleep during the night. For rock
musicians, it's the other way around. Our concerts usually don't start until eight or nine p.m., and we don't get on stage until later than ten. If we play a full-length set, including one or two encores, we'll be up there until after midnight. That time period—between ten and midnight—is when we have to be on top of our game, performing at our maximum potential. We can't be dragging along half-asleep because we've been on our feet all day. So we get in the habit of waking up late, often just a few hours before the show's set to start.

  There's the after-show comedown to think about, too. Once you've played the show itself, once you've been on stage in front of a crowd of people—sometimes tens of thousands of people at once—and you've poured your heart and your soul into your performance, you’re often so strung out on adrenaline and excitement that it takes hours to calm down enough to even consider trying to sleep. So you stay up, and you keep partying, and you don't go to bed until the sun is on its way back up, and regular folks are getting ready to start their day.

  So, like I said: the difference between rock life and regular life is literally the difference between night and day.

  Truthfully, even if you manage to adapt to the nocturnal lifestyle of the rock musician—and even if you find a way to deal with the constant, adrenalized ups and downs of a career based on performing for massive crowds—it can still wear on you. It's no secret that most rock bands fall apart before they've finished their first decade, especially if their audience's interest dries up. For the Belletrists, we've endured beyond that ten-year mark mainly because the audience is still there, and therefore the money is still there, which means there’s still a whole group of folks dedicated to holding us together and keeping the money machine moving.

  And even with that system of support, things can fall apart. When Lucy died, things almost did.

  Lucy. My girlfriend. Our keyboardist Sara’s sister. Her death nearly killed the group. Even the most basic aspects of the rock life, of any life, seemed impossible after she passed away—like getting restful sleep, for example. A year after Lucy’s death, most days saw me lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking. Not sleeping.