by Elle Greco
“Three too many, obviously,” I said.
He laughed and knocked his shoulder against mine. I hesitated as a meaningful silence settled between us. Being the first was huge, and this song connected us on a whole different level. That feeling stirred through me again, this time settling deeper, leaving me a little light-headed. I pressed my thighs tightly together and tried to ignore it.
I cleared my throat. “It’s unlike anything Rogue’s played before. I mean, it would take you guys in a whole different direction. You think Grimm will go for it?”
“It’s not for the album,” he said.
I knocked his shoulder again, relishing the feel of his hard muscles pressed against my own, however briefly. “Thinking of going solo?”
He played the keys again, his touch light this time so the music was an undercurrent rather than a rush. “Song’s for you.”
“What?” I asked with a gasp. “You can’t be serious.”
“I can be, and it is,” he said. “I think only your words can do it justice. What do you think?”
“But this is a… it’s a…”
“It’s a gift. Like a going away present,” he said.
My heart squeezed. “Going away?”
His fingers slowed, making the tune downbeat. Sad. “You’re moving out, right?”
“Rafe—”
“I know you think all your music has a hard edge and needs screaming guitars. But think about ‘Derelict.’ That’s a love song, woman.”
I dropped my head, my hair tumbling around my face, hiding it. He was not wrong. Despite the title, “Derelict” was a love song. A song I wrote for him.
“It’s yours,” he said, pushing a chunk of hair behind my shoulder, exposing my face. “Say thank you.”
“But”—I reached my hand over his, silencing the music—“you have a contract with Grimm. You can’t make music for anyone but him.”
He shrugged. “Leave my name off. I’ll be Alan Smithee.”
I chuckled at the name that movie directors used when they were too embarrassed by the final cut of a film to put their actual names on it.
“This does not sound like something an Alan Smithee would write,” I pointed out. “It’s fantastic.”
“I know,” he said, a sly smile tipping his lips up.
“Don’t be so modest, really,” I said with an eye roll. “But seriously, Rafe, it’s stunning. You should give it to Dion. His lyrics—”
He twisted his torso to face me. “This is yours. This music wants your words.”
“That’s sweet, Rafe. Honestly, I am flattered, but your contract—”
“Fuck the contract,” he said, slamming his hands down on the piano so hard that a cacophony of noise assaulted my ears. “When I said this was your song, I meant it. I wrote it for you.”
My heart stuttered when I looked at him and saw that his gorgeous face was dead serious.
“For me?” I whispered.
“For you,” he said. “You’re burned in my brain, babe.” He tapped his temple. “Right in here.”
My heart was racing, making it hard to talk, to think. “Rafe, I… I don’t…”
Before I could finish my thought, before I could thank him for this beautiful gift, his mouth pressed against mine. His tongue flicked along my lower lip, and I opened to him. I let my hands wander along his chest, my fingertips brushing his soft tee, a delicious contrast to the solid muscles that flexed underneath.
Rafe stood and, taking my elbows, brought me up with him. We cleared the piano bench. His mouth still covered mine, but the relaxed pace of his kisses turned more urgent, more demanding. His hands moved to my ass, gliding down to the curve, hands turned in and fingers brushing along my sex. Even through the fabric of my thick sweatpants, I felt the promise of his fingers, strong and dexterous from the many years of caressing his instruments. I moaned as those fingers now caressed me. I wanted him to play my body like he played that piano, to make it crescendo under his exquisite touch.
In one fast movement, I pulled off my top in a whoosh and dropped it onto the floor. Rafe did the same, then pulled me into him. My nipples went hard against his bare chest, and a groan escaped his lips.
“You want this?” he asked. He pressed his erection into my pelvis.
“Yes,” I said. My hands fumbled with the button on his jeans. There were too many barriers between us.
He stilled my hands with his own. “You sure?” he asked.
I met his hungry eyes. “Positive.”
His fingers had the button undone in a split second. Then he turned his attention back to my clothes. Gripping the waist of my sweatpants, he pulled them down past my hips. He kneeled in front of me and peeled them the rest of the way down. I balanced on one foot then the other as he pulled them over my ankles.
He stayed on his knees, drawing a line up my inner thigh with his tongue. His mouth then moved over my underwear and kissed my sex. I suddenly realized why crotchless panties were a thing. I wanted his mouth on me, his tongue in me.
Rafe read my body language and yanked my panties down. I stepped out of them to open my legs to him. He wrapped an arm around the back of my thighs while his other hand opened me to him. His tongue flicked out and, his aim true, pressed against my clit, and a rush of pleasure shot through my core.
I placed one hand on the piano to keep my balance and placed the other behind his head. His short dreads were soft, and I fisted my hand around them, urging him on. Rafe’s tongue continued to play with my clit, and he slipped one finger along the outer lips of my pussy and inside before his tongue followed. Pleasure rocked through me again, and I pressed my pussy into him. His mouth took hold of my clit again, this time sucking it in and pressing a firm tongue to it while a second finger entered me. I leaned against the piano and opened myself more to him.
“Watch me,” he said, the vibrations from his voice shooting another wave of desire straight through me. I dropped my head and watched as he spread me wider with his hands, angling my hips up so I could see his tongue when it hit exactly the right spot. His fingers plunged into me, curling around me, working the sensitive inner core. My climax began to roll over me, but he pulled his mouth away. I whimpered at the loss.
“Not yet,” he said, wiping his face with the back of his hand.
He released me, and I slumped against the baby grand. He stood to his full height and kicked off his jeans. My eyes ran down his body, taking in his lean muscles before landing on the prize. His cock was long, thick, and hard, its veins pumped with blood. I licked my lips. His eyes stayed locked on mine as he grabbed his jeans from the floor and dug through the pockets, pulling out a condom.
“Do you want to do this?” he asked, his voice husky.
I nodded.
“I need to hear you say it,” he said, ripping the wrapper open with his teeth. His eyes smoldered, and I could barely breathe under their heat.
“I want to do this,” I whispered. He had the condom at the tip, ready to sheath his exquisite cock. I reached for it, rolling the latex down the length of him.
“Fuck me,” he said as his eyes hooded with pleasure.
“No, fuck me,” I said, issuing a demand.
Rafe flashed a sexy grin, that gap tooth making me swoon. He turned and walked me over to the floor-to-ceiling windows, his heated front pressed against my back. I leaned against the cool glass, the lights of Los Angeles spread out before me. Opening my legs, I tilted my ass to him.
I peered behind me. “Fuck me, Rafe.”
He laid a gentle hand on my lower back, and his cock nudged my opening. The tip pressed in just enough for my breath to hitch.
“You good, babe?” he whispered into my ear.
“Yeah,” I said, unable to say much more than that.
He pushed in deeper, taking his time so I could adjust to his size. Every inch he filled me sated my longing but drove my desire into a near frenzy. I bucked back into him, taking him to the root. I cried out my approval with a guttu
ral “Yes” at finally having him fully inside me.
Rafe’s strokes were slow and easy. He wrapped his arms around me, turning a position that could feel impersonal into something intimate and close. One hand found my breast, and his fingers teased at my hard nipple. I tensed when the tip of his cock found my G-spot, and my body shook as he nudged at it, building the pressure.
“Touch your clit, baby,” he said, his voice husky. “I want you to come hard.”
I glanced up, our bodies reflected in the glass like apparitions. Rafe behind me, his narrow hips driving me to ecstasy. My body had lost its harsh angles and morphed into something soft and sensual under his expert hands.
I did what he asked, sliding a hand between my legs. I wrapped it around the base of his cock so I could feel where we joined, savoring our connection. He gave a low groan when I squeezed. Then I released him and moved to my clit. The caresses on the outside coupled with the press of Rafe’s cock against me on the inside drove me straight there within seconds. My body tensed, my muscles clamped around Rafe’s erection, and my entire world exploded around me in a burst of pure white heat.
Rafe’s teeth grazed my shoulder. He pumped into me faster, harder. The frenzy of my orgasm mounted. I angled my ass up higher, desperate to take him even deeper into me, one hand pressing into the windows for more leverage. He went faster and faster, both his hands on my breasts, fingers pulling and teasing and rubbing my sensitive nipples. My hand pressed and primed my clit with the same delirium that his cock pumped into me.
Oh my God, it was happening again. My pleasure built with each thrust, each time the tip of his cock found my very core. With a guttural shout of my name, Rafe’s last thrust into me nearly took me off my feet. With his cock buried deep inside me, throbbing against my most sensitive spot, a rush of pure beauty exploded out of me.
We stilled, steadying our heaving breaths as we came down from the rush. He pulled me upright and into him as he extracted himself, which lessened the empty feeling that followed.
“Gotta deal with the condom,” he said, feathering my shoulder with light kisses. “Don’t move.”
He disappeared out of the music room, leaving me standing at the window, now vividly aware of my nakedness against the huge panes of glass. I snatched his T-shirt from the floor and yanked it over my head, unsure what to do next.
I just had sex with Rafe. I just had sex with Rafe. I just had sex with Rafe.
Actually, I had mind-blowing, toe-curling, rock star–style, nearly upside-down sex with Rafe. With a double orgasm to boot.
Oh shit.
He sauntered back in, obviously comfortable in his nakedness because he hadn’t bothered to pull on a pair of boxers or anything. My eyes followed his panther-like strides. My thighs went damp all over again at the sight of him.
“You cold, baby?” he asked, eyeing his T-shirt on me.
“A little,” I lied. Watching his lean body, led by his cock that was already working its way to another hard-on, drove a flush through my body that settled straight in my groin. “Hope you don’t mind.”
“I like you in my shirt,” he said, snaking his arm around me. “Looks hot.”
I swallowed. “Right. So about this…”
“About what?” he asked, his tone teasing. His hand slipped under the shirt and ran over the roundness of my ass.
I took a shaky breath. “What, you know, just happened. Between us.”
His hand continued to pet, each sweep moving farther between my thighs. “I liked what just happened between us. It’s something I want to happen again. Don’t you?”
“I mean, I… we…” I couldn’t finish my thought, because his fingers teased at my entry. “God, Rafe, I can’t think when you do that.”
“That’s exactly the point,” he said, his voice a sexy purr.
“But I need to think,” I said, trying to ignore his strokes. They were so light, so gentle, so different from our head-spinning fuck that my body melted into his touch, defying the part of my brain that wanted to dissect—and reject—everything that had happened between us.
“No, that’s exactly what you do not need to do,” he said. “Can’t we just be like this? In this moment. Right now. Not thinking. Feeling.”
He pressed my body to his, angling his leg so that it put pressure on my pubic bone, as his hand continued to open me from the other side. I dropped my forehead to his shoulder, my hands on his narrow hips to keep myself steady.
Could we just be like this? Could I just enjoy this for what it was and have no expectations about tomorrow?
Maybe tonight was worth risking a broken heart. Maybe this one night would get him out of my system and I could go back to my old, boring life.
My sepia-toned, boring life that I plodded through.
Just in the past few days with Rafe, I’d gotten fired from a restaurant job and ended up signed to a label, beginning to forge a career. I’d found my own apartment. I’d had a stylist dress me in designer clothes. And I’d had explosive sex—the best of my life—overlooking the lights of Los Angeles.
Suddenly, my sepia-toned life had turned Technicolor.
And Rafe? He’d helped me open the door to that vibrance.
So maybe it made sense that our last night together would come to this. There was no other way we could end it.
He’d given me so much, how could I expect that he’d give me his heart too? Not when that had always belonged to Reesie.
“Let’s go to bed,” I whispered. “I want to feel you some more.”
He pulled me into him and captured my mouth in a kiss. Then he swept me into his arms and carried me toward the bedroom.
I needed one last Technicolor moment before the colors of my life faded again.
23
Jamie Sage was a tough read.
I stared at him through the sound booth, his head shaking at whatever mix was playing through his headphones. His face was stone-cold. Did he hate it? Did he love it? The man gave away nothing.
“We’ve already done this take, like, three times,” Brian, the session guitarist, bitched from behind his Stratocaster. “We’re almost out of studio time.”
I ignored him and wiped my sweaty palms against my thighs. After my early morning orgasms with Rafe, I had turned up to the studio in good spirits. Hell, I’d even faced Johnny Frieze with a level of confidence I never had back when we were dating. But every time I stepped up to the mic, those spirits got crushed a little more. Every time I looked into the booth, Sage was scowling. Everything sounded like shit. I sounded like shit. Sage’s scowl was probably because he’d heard better vocals at a karaoke bar.
After nearly six hours, the small booth reeked of stale tacos and sweaty men. Between that and my nerves, my stomach was sour.
“Jett?” Sage’s voice came through my headphones. I met his eyes through the glass. “Why don’t you and Frieze take thirty and grab something to eat?”
“What about Brian?” I asked. Brian’s head snapped to face me. I just shrugged my shoulders.
“He can split. I want you on guitar for the last one,” he said.
“Last one?” I asked. “I thought we laid down the tracks that Bobby wanted.”
“We did, but we need one more,” he said. “We’re missing the first single.”
I bit my lip to force back the tears. No way was I going to cry in front of Johnny and Brian. There were at least four “first singles” on the EP, I was sure of it.
The problem was me. I should not be the one fronting this operation. Fronting was for someone like Presley. Someone beautiful and vivacious. Mousy people like me did not front rock bands or have solo careers.
“Jett?” Sage called from the booth. My head snapped up to look at him. “Could you release Brian before we have to pay overtime, please?”
I blew out a breath and nodded. Right. Overtime. Got to keep the expenses down. I turned my attention to Brian and Johnny, who were both giving me expectant looks.
“Johnny and I
have to stick around. Brian, Sage said you can split.”
Brian lifted the guitar over his head. “Nice working with ya.” It didn’t sound like he meant it.
I removed the headphones and watched him pack away his instrument while I rolled out the kinks in my neck. Johnny extracted himself from behind his drum kit and came to stand behind me. He pressed his fingers into the tender muscles along my neck. His grip was firm, and the pressure hurt so good.
“How long did he give us?” he asked.
“Thirty,” I said, tensing as he pushed against a tough knot. “Ow ow ow!”
He eased up. “Time to grab a coffee. Want one?”
“I should stay here, work on the song.”
“We’ve been cooped up in this room for six hours. You look pasty.”
“I always look pasty,” I said, shrugging his hands off me.
“You’re still pretty, even if you’re pasty,” he said, picking up my hoodie. He shook it open and then helped me into it.
“Don’t even try to redeem yourself after the ‘pasty’ comment,” I said as the soft cotton enveloped me. “I could use a tea with honey.”
We trailed Brian out of the studio and down the hall. When he veered left, Johnny hooked a right, and I followed him toward the back exit.
“Brian couldn’t wait to cut and run,” I said as Johnny held the door open for me. I shivered in the shaded alleyway and pulled my sweatshirt closed. He took my elbow and steered me toward the street.
“He has another gig tonight,” Johnny said.
“You do too,” I pointed out.
“Mine’s not until eleven,” he said as we hustled onto the sidewalk and into the blinding California sun. Finally, out of the claustrophobic studio, my body warmed, and I released the clutch on my hoodie and let it fall open.
Johnny grabbed my now free hand and pulled me into a small, funky café. It was decorated in flea market chic, and the walls held a mix of concert photographs and album covers. Kings of Leon was on the stereo, playing at just the right volume. Except for the woman working the register and the barista, we were alone.
“So, what’ll you have?” Johnny asked. “My treat.”