Slash and Burn

by Jade C. Jamison

  She shook her head. “Nothing.” Then, as if she thought he needed an explanation, she said, “I’m not hungry.”

  “Come on, Brina. I’m not as big a dumb ass as you seem to think. What the hell’s wrong?” She bunched up her mouth, trying to act brave, and that was when a tear fell from her left eye. Nick thought he’d never see the day a woman like Brina would give into that emotion. He couldn’t even tell if she had anything she wanted to say, but he couldn’t help himself. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. “Aw, honey.”

  For a few seconds, long enough for Nick to get comfortable, she rested her head against his shoulder. But then, as if she realized she was blowing her cover, she pushed him away. “I don’t need your fucking pity.” Then she stormed off in the direction opposite the café.

  Oh…he was tempted to just let her walk. He was tired of the constant (but mostly cold) temperature changes with this woman. He had no way of ever predicting her moods or of knowing how to relate to her—and yet…something deep inside him wanted to try. He was fascinated by this woman and felt as though he were a moth to her flame and she would be his ultimate demise. Before he was even aware of his feet moving, he had caught up to her and he grabbed her by the arm to stop her. She turned around, still looking angry but maybe even a little broken. “Damn it, Sabrina. I’m trying to be a friend here.”

  He expected another tear. Or a slap. Or even a long rant of curse words. Instead, she crushed her lips into his before he could take another breath. Behind that kiss was an onslaught of emotion that he was unable to translate, so he just gave in. He felt her curl a fist around the neck of his t-shirt, so he moved his hands to her cheeks and continued the kiss, moving it into gentler, less desperate territory. She responded and seemed to calm down the longer he held her face and tasted her sweet lips.

  When they stopped and came up for air, he asked, “What was that all about?”

  The tear had dried up and the hard edge was back, but he thought he could still see just a hint of the vulnerability she’d shown a few minutes ago in the gleam of her eye. She sighed. “I really don’t want to talk about it.”

  He put an arm over her shoulders, leading her one step at a time toward the café. “Why don’t you try to tell me during breakfast?” She shook her head but said nothing. “You know, if you don’t tell me, I’m going to imagine the worst. Like…maybe you put a hit out on the president or…maybe you’re planning to steal Val from Brad—or Brad from Val—or you’re going to steal them from each other.” She smiled then and shook her head but said nothing. “Wait. I’ve got it. You’re quitting the band so you can play polka music for the old folks in downtown Aurora every Friday night.”

  Her voice was deadpan, a sure sign to Nick that she was adjusting to him and his off-beat sense of humor. “How’d you know?”

  He stopped and waited for her to turn her head to look at him. “You know you can trust me, right?”

  She swallowed and then spent several seconds seeming to assess him with her eyes. He saw something flash in them, as though she had come to a decision. She blinked twice and then said, “Monica and I have been fighting a lot, and last night, when I was packing, she broke up with me.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  Brina shrugged. “She’s done it before but this…feels different. Plus, I don’t know that I can trust her to not trash my shit while I’m gone.”

  “Can you text her to see what her mood is?”

  “Oh, hell, no. She needs time to cool off.”

  He squeezed her shoulder. “You be all right?”

  “Yeah.” They started walking again toward the café. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

  Nick was usually quick on the uptake, a smart guy, but getting up early and having to deal with one crazy emotion after another had thrown him off his game. He didn’t have a clue. “No. What?”

  This time Sabrina paused, just in front one of the café’s big picture windows facing the street. “It means I’m free to play the field…and I just so happen to know the player I want to tackle.”

  Oh, hell. That was tackle number one…and he felt like she’d just knocked the wind out of him.

  Chapter Thirteen

  THEIR DRIVE, WHICH included two more meal stops, lasted all day, so the kids were in bed and asleep before they even arrived. They hadn’t done much of anything, but Nick was tired from getting up early and doing nothing. Everyone else looked pretty worn out, so it wasn’t hard to crawl up in his bunk and bed down. He even fell asleep pretty quickly.

  Much later, though, he was awakened. It was disorienting at first, because he wasn’t in his bed or even in something that felt like a regular bed. The bunks weren’t horrible, but they were cramped and not what he would consider comfortable. They were utilitarian and served the purpose they’d been built for, so he supposed that was good enough. If he needed to, he could always crash on a couch. Those cushions were sometimes a lot more giving than the pads pretending to be mattresses. And the curtains provided privacy, but not much. They weren’t like doors, so he could hear every snore, every sleepy mumble, every fart that came out of them.

  Of course, he only heard gas when he toured with the guys in Fully Automatic. Guys didn’t give a shit.

  He was the only man in these bunks, so he didn’t expect as much of the noisy sleeping. He had Chris below him and then Gracie and Brina across.

  Scratch that. He felt someone crawling into the bunk with him…and it didn’t take long to realize it was Brina. Having been with her and holding her close on more than one occasion, he recognized her scent. Yeah, she wore a spicy perfume, but it was more than that—the woman herself had a sweet smell to her that he recognized when he was up close.

  He almost asked what she was doing there but he knew damn good and well what she had planned…and, in those quarters in present company, it was a bad idea. They’d have to either wait till they were at the venue and find an out-of-the-way secluded spot or wait until the one day later in the week when they had a hotel room. No way was he going to engage in nasty sex with this woman right here—not with Chris below him and Gracie, his closest friend who thought he was stupid as it was for being involved with Sabrina, a few feet away.

  He didn’t feel the need to flaunt it in anyone’s face.

  At this rate, though, he’d be willing to take his chances right outside the bus. If she didn’t want to do anything outrageous, it would be doable.

  Instead, though, she threw him for a loop once more. She asked, “You awake?”

  He tried to whisper, but his voice was scratchy with sleep. “I am now.”

  “Sorry about that. I just…didn’t want to be alone right now.” Her voice sounded vulnerable, a trait that was very unlike this lovely woman, and it made him want to protect her. “Would you hold me, please?”

  “Yeah. I can do that.” He half expected her to cry, but she didn’t. He could feel the sadness coming off of her in waves, though, and it made him want to break things. It made him want to make love to her for eternity and assure her that everything would be okay. This woman was likely the toughest he’d ever known with a shell like a tank, and for her to crumple told him she was feeling even worse than she would ever let on. So could he hold her? Hell, yeah.

  He thought he’d never fall asleep, because the discomfort factor of the bunk doubled with another person in it, but he wasn’t going to complain. His mind then started to drift to thinking about her in ways other than comforting and romantic, and he considered kissing her to initiate the action. But then he realized he didn’t want to do that. Because of the way he knew she felt, he would let her lead the way, if she even wanted to go there.

  Sometime later, though, he did fall asleep, and he only woke up because his neck was on fire. He had some kind of weird kink in it from the way he’d twisted in his bunk to accommodate Sabrina. He heard the sounds of Chris, Hayley, and Gracie, with Gracie trying to get the kids dressed, because they were all going out for breakfa
st. Nick also realized that Brina had left his bunk sometime in the night.

  He knew she’d been there a long time, though, because most of his night’s sleep was spent drifting in and out. He rolled over on his side, hoping to fall back asleep, but he heard Brad outside his bunk a couple of minutes later. “We’re going to get some breakfast in a little bit. Want to join us?”

  After the way he’d avoided going deep the night before, he knew sleep was more important. “Nah. I’m gonna pass. Thanks.”

  “Want us to get you anything?”

  Without missing a beat, Nick said, “Yeah. An intravenous dose of coffee.”

  Brad laughed. “I’ll see what we can do.”

  Nick stirred again, trying to find a comfortable position, but the noise in the bus was hard to sleep through. He could tell everyone was trying to be quiet, but everything they did was amplified in that small space. He heard Gracie ask Brina if she wanted to go along, and Nick couldn’t understand her mumbled reply. He was just biding his time until everyone left.

  It seemed like hours, but the noisy bunch finally vacated the bus. Then he rolled over once more and bunched his pillow up under his arm, ready to drift into dreamland.

  Brina, however, had other plans.

  She pulled his curtain to the side and said, “Morning.”

  He blinked a few times, trying to focus. “Good thing you didn’t say good morning, because that’s debatable.”

  She smirked. “I plan to change your mind about that.”

  Holy shit. The rest of his body might have still been feeling groggy, but his cock popped up at that suggestion. “I might need a lot of convincing.”

  Her eyes were still twinkling as she climbed into his bunk and closed the curtain behind her. It was a tight squeeze and there was more room width-wise than height-wise, so they’d have to be creative.

  He didn’t think, with Sabrina, that that would be a problem.

  Her hair was in his face until she turned around, filling his nose with the smell of her. Then her nose was touching his. “Oh, it’s kinda close in here, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I guess I didn’t realize it last night.” She started kissing his neck, just under his chin. “I’m guessing we have about half an hour or so, and I don’t necessarily mind being watched, but I don’t want to scar any kids.” She started nibbling on his ear. “So I kinda think we need to keep it behind the closed curtain, don’t you?”

  Nick’s thoughts weren’t grounded anymore. She could have told him they were going outside to fuck in front of God and everybody, and he would have been game. His cock was already standing at full attention, poking into her. “Whatever you say, babe.”

  Oh, fuck. He said it again. She was probably going to rip his dick off. Instead, she said, “You’re lucky I’m horny as hell, Channing, or I’d tear into you for that.” She was already sliding her hand under the waistband of his sweatpants and wrapped her hand around his cock. “Just fuckin’ watch it, mister. I’m getting tired of telling you to not call me that.”

  Now he couldn’t help it. “Yes, ma’am.” He knew lots of women hated being called ma’am, and he guessed Brina would be no different.

  She surprised him, though. “That’s more like it. Respectful and deferent…just the way a man should be.”

  If he hadn’t been out of his mind already, he might have been willing to debate all that with her, but right now, he just wanted to fuck the shit out of her. “So how we gonna do this?”

  She grinned and rolled over, pushing her ass into his hard on. She started waving her hand at head level, and Nick saw the condom package in her hand. “Put that on and then give it to me.”

  Shit. He didn’t have to be told twice. Monica had been right about one thing—Brina was a bossy bitch in bed. He liked it, though. He could see how it might grow old later on down the road, but in the meantime, not only did he not mind it, he also found it to be a bit of a turn on. Brina knew what she liked and what she wanted, and she wasn’t afraid to ask—or demand—it.

  Within seconds, he had the condom over his shaft. He didn’t realize until he started touching her that she wasn’t wearing any bottoms or panties. She was completely naked underneath the t-shirt. That just made him that much eager, and he slid his hand between her thighs first. She responded by parting them and saying, “Get in there, Nick. I want to feel you now.”

  He wasn’t going to wait for a written invitation, and he slid inside. Goddamn, did she feel good, and what made it better was he realized he was starting to feel more for this woman. Knowing that she wasn’t merely a cold, heartless, selfish woman helped. Knowing that she sometimes hurt and needed someone to lean on once in a while also made it an easy transition. He laid his hand on her stomach and then drifted up to her breast. As he touched her nipple, she arched her back away from his chest, and it changed the angle of her pussy, making him go from zero to sixty.

  Oh, fuck.

  So he glided his hand down, and he didn’t want to waste any time. He couldn’t afford to. If he didn’t get her there fast, he was going to explode beforehand. He started kissing her neck, resisting the urge to bite her, and then moved two fingers down her slit. Once he found the hard nub, he began massaging it and she responded immediately, making small cooing noises and grinding herself into him.

  Yeah, it felt good, but sex always did…except there was something more. Something deeper. Something more meaningful. Something that would last beyond the ecstatic bounds of orgasm.

  As Brina began crying aloud, almost singing her pleasure to him, the back of his mind told him what he was feeling couldn’t be real. It had to be because of the disoriented feeling of being on the road away from home. He hadn’t known her long enough to feel anything more than lust or gratification.

  But as his body gave in to one of the most intense climaxes he’d ever experienced, he sensed that something was different. Heaven help him—he was falling and there was no bottom to the hole he was falling in…and he didn’t know that he’d care if the floor of that pit would be the death of him.

  Chapter Fourteen

  FIRST SHOW ON tour. Nick wasn’t nervous. He’d done this hundreds of times before. Val was feeling a little edgy because she hadn’t performed live in front of a big crowd in a long time (and no way was Nick going to tell her she’d never performed for crowds as large as they were expecting tonight).

  Brina said she wasn’t nervous, but Nick heard her throw up in her dressing room once. When she came out¸ she was cool and collected like always, but Nick squeezed her shoulders twice. “You seem tense.”

  “Yeah, okay, so I’m a little stressed. I’ve never played in this big a venue. Is it a full house?”

  Nick nodded, grinning. “Just a few heads shy. Pretty damn close.” He knew a big part of that was because of Fully Automatic, but part of it might have also been because of the local band who opened for them. But people were already listening to Val Hella on the radio and the CD was selling well.

  Brina shook out her arms and rolled her neck. Nick could barely hear her voice when she said, “I can do this.”

  He faced her and lifted her chin with his index finger so she looked him in the eye. “Hell, yes, you can. You’re one of the best bassists I know.”

  She scowled. “Stop flattering me, Nick.”

  “I’m not flattering you. It’s true. Some of the funky shit you do…you know, dancing to the beat of a different drummer? That’s you. And they might have mixed the fuck out of the CD and homogenized it like they always do, but that’s still you on there. A good bass blends into the background, becomes part of the whole, helps make a song perfect. A great bass—it does all that shit, but it does more. When you’re laying in the dark and all you can hear is the music, when each part seems to jump out and speak to you? Your bass is the kind that is easily identifiable—it blends with the guitars, sure, but it’s also its own thing. You do that, Brina. You. Not every bassist can or will do that. You’re precise, too,
and you don’t always go with the easy riff. There were so many times after you joined us when we were writing songs that one of us would suggest something and you’d jump all over that shit. You didn’t say, ‘That’s too hard’ or play something else that would have been a million times easier and still worked. Instead, you worked your ass off and made it yours—made it better, no matter how hard it was to play. You are a hell of a bassist, Brina, and you’re just feeling nervous.”

  She nodded, but Nick could tell she wasn’t quite convinced. “These people out here? Most of them have heard one or both of our singles on the radio already. They’re excited to sing along with those songs and to hear new ones. Some of them have already bought the album and the rest of them are going to after tonight. Hell, I can’t wait to see how much merch flies from our booth tonight.”

  “Oh, yeah, I forgot about that.” Yeah, it was pretty much an afterthought for Nick these days. It wasn’t like his days as part of an indie band where each one of them had to man the booth on occasion. No, they had staff dedicated to that job now. They had staff on the road for everything, and that was why, even when there were glitches, shows ran smoothly. It boggled the mind how many people were actually along with them, many of whom they would never see but who kept the band and the shows looking and sounding professional and made sure they were where they needed to be when they needed to be there.

  He stroked her cheek. This side of her, the one he hadn’t seen until yesterday morning, made her feel more human, more real, more three-dimensional, and Nick felt himself falling for her in a way he never had anyone before. He loved that she was hard and tough and wouldn’t take shit from anyone, but that hard-as-nails exterior was covering up a vulnerable side that he’d never seen. It made him realize that there was so much about her he didn’t know. Time could change that and he was willing to take the slow path, but he was beginning to know this much: he wanted to take that journey with her if she’d let him. “We’re gonna rock their socks off, Sinna. Let’s go kick some ass, okay?”