Roadie (Rock-Hard Beautiful Book 2)

by C. M. Stunich

  “Scrumptious,” Muse agrees, plodding down the steps in big loud silver boots and kicking the bus door open. He hops to the ground and holds out an arm to prop it open for Ran and me as we head outside and into a brief dry spell. The weather here's been a little crazy today: windy, humid, alternating rain and sun. In the distance, I can hear the faintest growl of thunder.

  “So basically you all want to eat me?” I ask, unable to hold back a smile as I meet Muse's eyes, see his dark brow raise up flirtatiously. The four black piercings above it catch the light streaming from the bus' open door and make it look like they're winking at me. He's got on another low slung pair of jeans, flashing his black and white striped boxer briefs and the waistband with the brand scrawled across it. But at least he's wearing a shirt tonight—some black and silver tank that's shredded and ripped, gaping holes torn in random places.

  “Eat you out,” Muse corrects as the rest of my boys join us on the wet pavement, all of them dark and glittering and unique. For a moment I'm reminded of the night we went to the Silver Skull, that BDSM club, when everyone was dressed up and sparkling.

  They look even better now.

  Or maybe I'm just imagining that they do because our relationship has changed? Because Michael's now a part of it? I'm not sure.

  “Maybe if you're lucky, I'll let you after the show?” I tease as I meet Michael's violet eyes, Copeland's turquoise ones. Paxton is drinking from a small silver flask that he holds out to me. I hesitate for a split second and then take it, tipping it back and finding some kind of flavored whiskey. Cinnamon, I think it is.

  “Maybe at the art museum itself?” Muse continues, walking backward so he can look at me as we move toward the back door of the venue, Ransom's arm still strong and comforting around my waist. Derek's eyes dance with amusement, but I can still see that flickering shadow in his gaze, the one that appeared the other night and has made its home in his multicolored irises.

  Poor fucking Muse. Whatever it is that's eating away at him, I want to know about it.

  I take another drink and hand the flask back to Paxton.

  “Maybe,” I say as we head around the corner and down the narrow alley that leads to the back entrance. Red brick walls tower up on either side of us, giving us a brief moment of privacy.

  “Let's wait out here for a few,” Pax says, checking his phone and then leaning the expensive lines of his navy suit against the wall nearest the door. “We're early enough, and the last thing I want to do right now is look at Octavia's face.” He shakes his head and gives me a look. “I can't even believe you gave that fucking twat some sort of invitation to redemption. That's the last thing she deserves.” He pauses and flicks a quick glance Ransom's way, their eyes locking for the briefest of seconds before Paxton looks away.

  “Yeah, well, at least if I give her a second chance and she blows it, I'll know I took the high road,” I say, leaning against the wall opposite the boys. They look like they're posing for a poster or something, all lined up like that, one glittering dark beast next to another.

  I smile.

  “I've never been much of a hiker,” Pax says with a cruel smirk, flicking cigarette ash into the wind as he gives my new shirt-dress a scalding once-over, tearing me apart with his grey gaze, making my knees feel weak enough that I have to lean my weight against the bricks behind me. “The high road is just too much damn work.”

  “So I've noticed,” Ransom whispers, his voice like hot fudge over ice cream, melting me even as I'm worrying about how Pax is going to react. But all he does is grit his teeth and continue smoking his cigarette. I guess that's an improvement over the way he was treating Ransom last week?

  A couple of roadies move down the alley between us, Michael nodding at them in greeting before they pass through the sticker plastered surface of the back door, the rowdy sounds of the venue leaking out into the relative quiet of the alley.

  To my left, at the end of it, there's a chain-link fence with pieces of black painted plywood attached to it, blocking off our view of the street. To my right, I can just barely see the buses and trailers in the parking lot.

  The wind howls down the narrow walkway, ruffling the short cotton dress around my pale thighs. I glance down, at the black gladiator heels that crisscross up to my knees, and then back up at the boys, noticing that there's more than one set of eyes on me.

  “What do you guys normally do right before a show? Since I've been here, you've just sort of been hanging out with me.”

  “A huge improvement over the usual, I assure you,” Muse says, pushing off the wall and coming over to stand in front of me in his torn tank and low-slung jeans, penning me in against the bricks. Even out here, with a storm brewing and the wind dragging strands of red hair across my face, I can smell Muse's smoky tea/incense scent.

  “And the usual was …” I start, my eyes drawn to the fullness of Derek's mouth, the way it parts slightly as he looks down at me, still smiling.

  “Getting fluffed by groupies,” Pax says and ends up with an elbow in the ribs from Michael.

  “Yeah, sure. Like when did that ever fucking happen?”

  “Oh, please, I remember a good dozen times I caught you with a groupie before a show, your pants around your ankles—” Pax starts, interrupted by a growl from Michael.

  “That was a long goddamn time ago. Why do you have to bring that shit up?”

  “It was two years ago,” Paxton corrects, giving me this scalding look over Michael's shoulder. “And I just think Miss Lily oughta know what she's getting into with you.”

  My gaze swings over to Michael, those purple-blue eyes of his boring into me as Muse drops his lips to my neck and my eyes get heavy and half-lidded.

  “Yeah, I'll cop to it,” he says as he steals the cigarette from Pax's fingers and takes a drag on it. “I was a horrible piece of shit. Maybe I did fuck groupies before our shows? Honestly, I wouldn't even remember if I did.”

  Michael pushes up the long sleeve of his black shirt, turning his arm over and rubbing at the crook of his elbow with a thumb. There are tattoos there, but when he steps over to my side of the alley and lifts my hand, I can feel the rough bumps of scars.

  Track marks.

  Muse rests his chin on my shoulder and looks at his friend, the tall crest of his mohawk briefly obscuring my view.

  “Pax, you sure like to stir the pot, don't you?” I ask him as Muse steps back and leans against the wall next to me, pressing our arms together as Michael does the same on the other side, crossing his arms over his chest, sleeves still pushed up.

  “Me? No, never,” he says, but his voice is low and dangerous, edgy. He's been getting phone calls all day today, ones that he's been ignoring and then answering with angry flicks of his thumbs across his cell's screen as he texts back. I hope curiosity doesn't really kill the cat because I'm almost desperate to see who he's talking to and why.

  “I was an awful human being,” Michael continues as I stand there squashed between him and Muse, looking across the way at Ransom and Copeland. “But I got a second chance, and I'm trying to use it right.”

  He looks down at me, and I think of the wild, frantic sex we had that morning, my cheeks flushing slightly.

  “I think you're doing great,” Muse says, locking his fingers together behind his neck. “And trust me, I was no fan of Vanessa's, but I think you handled the situation as well as it could be handled.”

  “Yeah, well,” Michael starts, still smoking, looking the part of the fucking badass in his long-sleeved Beauty in Lies tee, his tattoos sticking out the rolled up sleeves, his pants this tight leather that cups his body in a way that should be criminal. His boots are this dark green turquoise that mimics the color in his tattoos, the laces missing, the silver eyelets glimmering in the soft peach colored afternoon light. “That I'm not so sure about, but thanks.”

  There's a quiet moment where I just stand there and take in the scene. Ransom's dark hair is sticking out of the small holes on his red mesh hoodi
e, the hood pulled up as usual. And Cope is draped in necklaces and bracelets with little pewter charms, a white and black bandanna tied through one of the loops on his dark brown jeans. I can smell Muse's smoky scent mixing with Michael's spicy pomegranate shampoo, weaving together with the rosewater perfume I spritzed on before we left the bus.

  Standing here like this, with all these rockstars waiting for the show, I feel like … I want to take care of them. I know, I know, I need to stop doing that. All I ever did was take care of Kevin, but I can't help it. And besides, my skin feels … hot, achy, needy. My fingers curl against the bricks as I take in my boys with a hungry gaze, one that I know they must feel as it sears across their skin.

  They're mine, I think as I look at them, one by one, dirty thoughts ticking past inside my head.

  “What the bloody fuck are you up to over there, Miss Lilith Tempest Goode?” Paxton asks as he kicks one of his expensive loafers up against the wall. “You look like you're ready to go on the hunt or something.”

  “So … you've never had a groupie take care of you before a show?” I ask, and I almost don't recognize my own voice. It's thready, husky, low and dripping. I sound a little like Ransom in that moment.

  “Did I say that?” Pax asks with a challenge in his voice as a smile curves my lips and I glance down the alley. I don't see anyone out here, but that doesn't mean anything. It was like a highway earlier, all the comings and goings in opposite directions, people in edgy clothes carrying instruments and lights and confetti cannons.

  At any second, we could have an audience …

  I am definitely losing my mind here. But maybe in a good way?

  I just … if these boys are mine, then I want them. I want to touch them and hold them and fuck them. It doesn't matter when or where or why. I just do.

  I turn to Muse first, penning him in against the wall this time as he smiles a slow, easy smile at me. God, that's what I really like about him, how unpretentious he is, how straightforward, how practical. But there's also something magical about him, too, some … glimmer of fire deep inside that says that this man, he's a fucking fighter. Now, I might not know what he went through in his past, but anyone that can get emancipated at fifteen and fight their way into a multiplatinum selling band deserves some serious props.

  And maybe a quickie outside the venue?

  “Is there something you wanted?” he asks me coyly as I slide my fingers over his shoulders and lean forward to press a kiss to his mouth, one that he definitely doesn't take for granted. We kiss slow and easy for a moment, like we've got all the time in the world.

  “You're on in about a half hour,” Octavia says just after I hear the door swing open. There's a long pause, like maybe she's watching me and Muse, but then she disappears and the vibrating rhythm of the music from inside the building disappears, cut off and leaving us in the eerie quiet of the coming storm.

  “Thirty minutes,” I say as I pull away from Muse and bite my lower lip gently, looking up at him from under my lashes. “That's about … six minutes each.”

  “Holy shit,” Muse breathes, and then I'm kissing him hard and fast, letting him spin me around and press my back into the wall.

  The rough brick teases my thighs as Derek slides his warm hands up and under my shirt-dress, finding the lacy black panties he bought me at the mall, when he snuck away from me and Michael. They have a slit down the center of the crotch, making them quite convenient for … times like this.

  “Oh, god,” he groans, closing his eyes and leaning his forehead against mine for a second. “You didn't. I thought I was totally grasping at straws when I bought these.”

  “Well, you grasped the right straw then I guess,” I say as I wrap my arms around his neck and he reaches down to undo his jeans, freeing his already hard shaft. I don't look at anything but the gold-grey of his eyes as he lifts me up with his hands under my ass and slams my back into the wall.

  Those eyes … they remind me of the clouds above our heads, the grey swirl of the storm mixing with the cheerful golden rays of the spring sunshine, the tiny drops of rain that are beginning to fall like the blue flecks in Muse's irises; the whisper of leaves on the trees at the edge of the lot are the green bits in his gaze.

  That's what Muse is like, like the weather. In some ways, it's predictable, but only if you really know what you're looking for. And yet, sometimes, it can throw you completely off-balance.

  I feel like I'm metaphorically stumbling as I guide Muse to my core and he thrusts into me, shattering the aching heat in my skin to pieces, making it feel like it's sliding off and away, leaving me bare and open to the world.

  I wrap my black gladiator heels around his back as he rides me into the wall, not kissing me, just looking at me, studying me with that all knowing gaze of his.

  “We'll figure out some way for you to make a living with your art, if that's what you want. Just … promise me you'll keep trying while you're with us.”

  He just met me and already, he knows me too well.

  But what is all that empathy hiding? What was the cost of all that intuition?

  “Lilith,” he whispers, pressing his mouth to my ear, groaning as our hips grind together, my bare ass pressing into the bricks. I'm sure I'll have some cuts and scrapes after this, but I don't care. I don't want to stop. The rough feel of the wall mixes with the sweet agony of sharing my body with another, that hot slip and slide that tugs at all my heartstrings, makes me wonder if I'm even capable of just sex. If any of the moments I've spent with these guys were ever just anything. Even that first night, when I slept with one after the other, there was something else going on.

  Just like there is now.

  I breathe out deep and refuse to let myself tap into any of my own emotions. My soul feels like a butterfly trapped in a gilded cage of grief; I just want to open the door and set it free. I want to do the same for all these boys, release them from their own agony.

  The sex … is just a stepping-stone on our way to healing, an easy and obvious way to connect with another human being. Right now, with Muse buried inside of me, I can feel his heartbeat against my chest, taste his breath on my lips, know that he's alive. No, more than just alive—awake.

  He fucks me hard and fast, getting harder and faster as we go. One hand holds me up under the ass while he presses his palm against the bricks with the other. Something shifts in his expression, something dark, and Muse glances away, thrusting a few last times and finishing with this pained, quiet sort of sound.

  “You're breaking me up, Lilith,” he whispers in my ear, just before he puts me down and steps away. I open my mouth to ask what exactly he means by that, but then Michael's right there, taking me into his arms.

  And oh, fuck. I want to make sure they all know before they take that stage where their hearts and minds should belong. Maybe I'm being selfish, but I can't help it. I've got that queenly feeling again, that sense of being worshipped and adored, and it feels too good to resist. Why should I?

  I briefly catch sight of Paxton over Michael's shoulder and he looks … jealous?

  It's a surprising emotion to see on his face, especially after all the things we've been through this past week, but I can't stop. No, the torrid whisper of Michael's hands moving over my body is too mesmerizing, drawing my attention back to the wild expression on his face.

  Paxton is an alpha; Michael is an alpha.

  I wonder if they're going to be able to deal with each other?

  Michael has his pants undone and me lifted up before I can take a solid breath, crushing our mouths together in that same way he did outside the venue that one night, when I was wearing the green dress. If he made my lip bleed then, I don't know that I even want to see the mess we're making tonight.

  I respond to the frenzied need of his kissing with the desperate urge to soothe it, to take some of the edge off his almost limitless desire, imagining myself as some kind of dark fairytale princess. But instead of the prince kissing me to wake me up, I'm kissi
ng him to relax him, calm him, soothe the ruffled feathers of his jagged passion.

  Because Michael is jagged and broken. Those two years he fought to stay faithful to Vanessa, he was only melting the tip of the iceberg of his problems, that small obvious piece that the whole world could see. But there's enough floating beneath the surface to sink a ship. Michael is angry, and he's been alone for a long time. There are so many different kinds of loneliness, but his breed, the monster that was born the day his parents died, it's been feeding off of him for a while.

  Michael drives into me like an animal and I love it. Part of me still feels guilty, like I shouldn't, like sex should be saved for dark rooms and quiet evenings. Yet … out here, with the storm rolling in above our heads, shedding tiny droplets of rain, I feel so fucking alive, charged, even dominant.

  That's not something I've really … ever felt.

  Not that I was submissive to Kevin or anything, but I think I let him walk on me without even knowing it. And now, here, with five strong personalities, I feel more in charge than I ever did back then.

  Michael's driving thrusts are so different than Muse's, and I can tell he's still working more from instinct and need than anything else. I want to change that, break through it, really connect with him. Because we have something here, something that needs to be explored.

  I run my hands over Michael's shoulders, down his arms, loving the feel and touch and smell of him. For days, I had to watch him at a distance, feel this thing between us stretch and twist and trip us both up. And now we get to throw ourselves into it headfirst, see where it takes us.

  I imagine places high.

  “Fuck,” he groans as he pumps into me and comes hard, making my head tilt back, my lids droop. When Michael finishes, he doesn't let go right away, holding me for a moment, claiming me with another searing kiss, one that steals all the breath in my lungs and leaves me panting. “Fuck,” he says again, reluctantly sliding out of me and letting me put my heels against the pavement.

  We watch each other as I walk around him and find fingers curling around my wrist and tugging me close.