All the Best Nights

by Hanna Earnest

  There were moments when she looked into Bran’s eyes and saw awe. She recognized it from when fans got close and called her their idol, when producers who weren’t expecting her to have any talent couldn’t hide their astonishment that she did. Sometimes Bran looked at her and it felt like an honor, to get to amaze him. It felt like power.

  But then his face changed, the look of admiration swept aside by tenacious lust that curled his mouth and glowed from his eyes. And that look, that look felt like power too—his power over her. She let go of his arm and he tossed the sponge into the sink. As he rounded the island, Nelle melted into it. Her mouth opened in a breathless pant as his hands skimmed up her sides. He clasped his fingers around her neck, drawing her up and against him.

  “We do this slow,” he whispered into her ear, sending shivers down her curved spine. She relished the feel of his hips behind her, the hard cement in front of her. There was nowhere to go and nowhere else she wanted to be.

  He breathed her in, the gentle cuff at her throat, his palm across her stomach, holding her there, trapped. The seconds passed and his chest rose up and down at her back. But he didn’t move. Slow. This was really fucking slow. Nelle squirmed, unable to keep still as wet heat pooled between her legs.

  And finally the hand on her stomach began to lower.

  “I wasn’t sure if you only liked talking about it.” He reached the hem of the shirt she’d borrowed and slid his hand underneath. Curled fingers strummed along her slick opening and she moaned. Bran pressed his lips to her shoulder with a curse. “You really liked talking about it, huh?”

  She could only nod as he sank two fingers right into her.

  He leaned them forward, pressing her back down to the counter with his weight. Inside her, spinning fingers made her dizzy and she dropped her forehead to the cool cement.

  Bran straightened, releasing her neck and gliding his fingers out of her, setting both hands on her hips. “That’s about where we were.” She looked back to see him take stock of the position. The strength of his arousal powered through his pants, and he pushed it into her, nodding his head and biting his lip.

  Nelle faced forward, searching for something to hold and only finding the polished expanse of clean counter. This is how they had been before he’d pulled away, leaving her disoriented and—

  The pressure behind her eased again and Nelle released a frustrated cry. Not again. She hadn’t said anything! She turned to tell Bran as much, only to see he’d sunk to his knees. Eyes sparking with mischief, he bunched the shirt at her waist, baring her rounded butt.

  “Now what?” she asked.

  “Now we stop talking about it.”

  An openmouthed kiss to one cheek that ended in the scrape of his teeth had her head falling back to the counter.

  She was exposed, on display as she’d never been before. Just for Bran. And that thought kept her flat and open. Bran understood her, Bran didn’t get off on vulnerability. He got off on wanting big things. And however salacious this was, she wanted it, too—she wanted him to give it to her.

  The first touch of his tongue to the seam between her cheeks was jarring. The skin was so sensitive, and Nelle was so unused to being caressed there, she could barely process the pleasure. But as Bran licked and sucked and pressed into the tight opening, the sensation registered with a flood of desire. Her pussy clenched and she rocked her hips.

  Fluent in body language, Bran understood and slotted his fingers back inside of her. She rode his hand as waves so intense she had to grip her elbows above her head washed over her—through her. Every muscle in her body tightened, her hamstrings burned, and the tendons in her feet ached from stretching up on her toes. But then Bran sucked harder, pressed deeper into her and the first wave broke. Nelle sobbed out a startled gasp, the counter smooth against her lips. Coming as Bran Kelly in his disheveled Note Awards suit kissed her ass was The Most. She pulsed on every level as gratification crashed over her. The tightness ebbed, leaving her loose and delighted.

  She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, and lay splayed across the island, waiting for whatever came next. She didn’t question it.

  Bran grasped her hips again, standing behind her.

  “Don’t move.”

  She almost laughed, as if that were an option. But as he stepped back, awareness threatened to pull her taut again. “Where are you going?”

  “I think there’s some lube in my bathroom upstairs—I’m manifesting some lube into the bathroom upstairs because there has to be some lube in the bathroom upstairs.”

  She needed him to stay, to anchor her here. Just like this. Pushing up on her elbows she lurched across the surface, dragging the bottle of olive oil with her as she rocked back into him. “Can we use this?”

  Just from handing him the glass, a residue of grease coated her fingers.

  His voice was low, disbelieving. “You want me to—”

  “I want you to. I want you inside of me, now, everywhere, anywhere, wherever, and however you want. Because I know you’re good for it. Okay, Kelly? Is that clear enough for you?”

  The metal cap bounced off the counter. The first trickle of oil felt cool, but it warmed quickly as Bran rubbed it into her overheated skin. She whimpered as he set into her, pushing some digit slowly, so slowly, past the muscle that didn’t want to give.

  She willed herself to relax and he groaned as the entry eased open, allowing him access. He spun a few circles, loosening her up, and she twitched and bucked in response.

  “It’s going to be tighter when I—”

  “I can take it.”

  He’d learned not to doubt her and so next thing she felt was a rushing release as his thumb or finger or whatever it had been pulled out of her. Her body clenched, as if trying to stop him from going had become a biological effort.

  She panted into the counter, her hot breath warming her cheeks and tasting of tequila. Her eyes closed. Time seemed to jump and stall. Her heart hammered loose and wild. She felt as if she might fall, even as her body lay flat on the counter. She focused on the music. A tangle of piano keys grounded her, providing sequence and stability. The notes spun up and down—or was that last run a zipper? Her fingers pressed a chord into the cement as Bran pressed into her.

  It was tight. But he went slow. And she took it. She wanted it that way. Feeling as though there was no way they couldn’t be together.

  Soon nothing existed but her little gasps, his little pushes. The music flowed around them, filled with rhythm and deep soul. Until Nelle was filled deeper than she’d ever been before and Bran was coming, interrupting the beat and stressing her name.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Bran hadn’t meant to take such a long shower, but he’d stood under the stream as time slipped down the drain with the water. It warmed him, flowed off him, and it was all he could do to remain standing. To not sink down the wet tiles and contemplate life from the bottom of the fogged stall.

  He was—

  He was without words. Tonight had been—

  He was coming down.

  He needed a pause. A prolonged hold. Just until he could get his mind to catch up with the night his body had had. The day. The full day. From the red carpet to the show—he’d won two Cleffies!—and the blur of the after-party, shaking hands with interested producers and Aya telling him to nod and smile and enjoy it. He hadn’t been able to avoid the label guys wondering what was next.

  Everyone wanted to know about new music, but he wanted Nelle. Nelle waiting for him at home. Nelle spread on the kitchen island like his personal dessert buffet.

  Tonight had been full. And yet he already saw the dull promise of emptiness on the horizon. Beyond today, beyond this night, what was there? Tonight had been full, but it was already draining away, and Bran wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to fill it back up.

  His lungs pulled in the spray and he cou
ghed. Panic seized his body and he reminded himself he couldn’t drown in a shower. He turned off the water anyway. His skin prickled in the cold.

  Roughing a towel through his hair, he tried to shake the thoughts away. The bottle of L-theanine he found behind the mirror rattled as he forced it open. He took one, bending his mouth to the faucet to swallow. The vitamins were probably little more than placebos, but they helped sometimes. He had tried prescription meds to ease the pressure, the anxiety that sometimes overwhelmed him, but they dulled his urge to write when he took them. Not that he was writing anyway.

  He folded the towel around his waist. The night wasn’t technically over. Nelle was still here, staying for the length of time they’d determined they could get away with. Any more would put too much strain on their secret, threaten its security. Like all the nights with Nelle, he had to put off his existential music-making crisis until she was gone. He could deal with his father’s threats after that.

  Bran tripped on his way out of the bathroom. It wasn’t the transition from slate tile to the soft carpet that got him, it was the sight of Nelle on his bed. One leg folded under her, the other connecting to the floor with a pointed toe, she sat with a guitar tucked into her lap.

  Not just a guitar. An acoustic Taylor made before he was born. One he favored for songwriting, one he traveled with, so it didn’t live on a set of pegs in the music room. He kept it close by, under his bed, in its case, ready to accompany him wherever he went. It was an instrument with miles on it. Years. It had experience, as seen by the hairline cracks in the lacquer. But the sound was whole, the tone reliable. Perfect for working out what you were going to say.

  He hadn’t touched it in a month. Not since his attempts to pull something together from that spark of a song he’d thought up at the bar in Chicago had gone nowhere.

  Bran held his breath, his lungs painfully full. She hadn’t noticed him, and he wouldn’t interrupt. Not when it was clear that she had something to get out.

  Nelle had her phone propped on a pillow in front of her. Using long, simple chords, she sang towards it.

  “You pocket a secret, we said that we’d keep it.

  Your watch on my wrist, the time that we fit.

  Tick tock, how long we’ve got, before the clock stops.”

  Nelle frowned and played the last part again, trying out something else. “Tick tock, count the seconds, the mess that always threatens.”

  She played it twice more without words. On the third time she sang, “Tick tock, watch and see, it’s gonna be you and me.”

  “That’s it,” Bran said. “That’s the line.”

  Nelle looked up, her eyes taking a second longer than usual to focus on him. She stopped playing, picked up the phone, and said, “So, yeah, that’s what I’ve got. It’s muddled by tequila and I don’t want to tell you what else.” She blushed and Bran swayed forward. “Not ready yet for the studio but I wanted to keep you in the loop. N3, Chaz, we’re doing it.”

  An uncomfortable twist burned in his chest. “Are you on the phone?”

  “Voice memo. I couldn’t find a pen.”

  Inspiration deserves ink.

  It had been him doing this last year. Sitting here. With that guitar. On this night. Writing a Cleffy-winning song. He shouldn’t begrudge her the moment.

  “Just let me send it to Charlie.” After a moment, Nelle dropped the phone. She tilted her head looking at him. “What’s that face? You still don’t approve of my collaborative process?” She hiked the guitar closer to her body. Her breasts pushed up over the curved wood. She wasn’t wearing the shirt anymore. It had been stained by olive oil—not to mention he’d come in her so hard, twisting the shirt at her hip, he’d ripped another hole in the worn cotton.

  That’s what he should be focusing on. Nelle naked, in his bed. Not that she was sitting there sending song ideas to someone else. He should definitely not be this readable.

  But the twinge of jealousy had spiked. He walked forward and kicked the guitar case closed. “Whatever works for you.”

  It was hard not to feel it. He was stuck and she was in motion. He’d been entertaining the idea of resting on his laurels. Nelle would have used them for tinder. She had just released a new album, was going on a giant tour, and she was already working on her third? When did she have time for that? When would she have time for him? When would he get more lyrics out of her?

  It was the most childish of thoughts. Selfish and unkind. True and false. He wanted two opposing things at once. He didn’t want to be her problem. But she felt like his solution.

  Bran sat at the edge of the mattress, next to the bedside table, and lifted his own phone from the charging pad, needing to get lost in some other feeling. But the stream of notifications only reminded him that people were waiting for him to do something else, make something new.

  He cleared the screen with aggressive thumb swipes, stopping only when he got to the thread with Cormac and Arlo. He scrolled through the messages, his shoulders rising at the congratulations, stiffening at the complaints. We should have been there. Arlo challenged the status quo of their relationship. But Bran relaxed as he skimmed along. Arlo had sent the dates for his spring break, asking if either of them were interested in New York City. He’d heard great things about a new Broadway show. Cormac had suggested Cabo. Arlo insisted on New York, it was his break, he was going to museums. Cormac countered with a picture of bikini-clad women. Arlo sent a naked one—headless and carved from marble.

  Bran laughed out loud.

  He had won his Cleffies, and his friends were proud of him, but they also held a place in the world where he could still just be Bran. The same guy they had always known. They didn’t care what he was doing next in his career, they just wanted to know if he was down for spring break.

  “Something funny?”

  Nelle’s mouth had flattened, her thumb hooked into the rim of the guitar’s hollow. On the other side of the pale wood, in the dark space, he’d been a kid when he’d Sharpied the numbers, 2-23-71. He hadn’t wanted to ink them on his skin, displayed for the world. Nelle knew how to find them anyway.

  “Yeah,” he said, taking care to look her in the eye, to be straight with her before he did something more stupid than snapping at her and moping. It wasn’t her that had him on the verge of a shame spiral. “Arlo and Cormac arguing about ‘hot and tropical’ or ‘cool and topical’ for spring break. C says he’s not taking time away from the restaurant to have to check his coat at the Guggenheim.”

  He angled the phone at her, showing off the juxtaposition of images they’d sent.

  Nelle raised her eyebrows. “Battle of the busts.” She thumbed the inside of the guitar, so intuitive, finding everything he’d ever hidden. How could one woman be so impossibly clever? “I’ll be in New York one of those weekends.”

  Bran bit his bottom lip and released it. “MSG?”

  “Two nights. And some interviews and stuff that week before.”

  “So I’ll vote NYC.”

  “Bran. I can’t see you. It’s New York. It’s impossible.”

  “We only need one night.”

  “The press only need one picture.”

  “We won’t get caught.” He put the phone down and smoothed his hair back. “Can you go your whole tour without seeing me? Because I gotta tell you, I think that might kill me.”

  She wiggled her fingers, thinking it through. “If you can figure out a way to get into my hotel without a single person seeing you—”

  Bran fixed his eyes on the guitar case he’d knocked into the middle of the room and he smiled. “I’ll figure it out.” He felt better. Maybe the L-theanine had kicked in, or maybe it was knowing he’d be able to see her while she was gone. He rested against the headboard. “Come here.”

  She climbed over to him. A slight wince when she sat down lifted his dick under the towel wrapped ove
r his lap.

  Nelle had other plans, bringing the guitar with her, shoving it into his hands. He took hold automatically, drawing it close, his fingers testing the tension of the strings. His hands moved on instinct and Nelle frowned.

  “What?” Bran asked.

  “This affair has been clandestine from the start, and now is the first time I’ve ever felt like your mistress.” She glared at the guitar. “That’s what belongs in your arms.” She clapped her hands to her thighs, sitting up on her heels. “Play something. You know you want to.”

  He did. He really did want to.

  Fingertips pressed into the frets, strings finding the grooves in callouses he’d have the rest of his life, even if he never wrote another song. What came out wasn’t his own music, even if it felt like a part of him. He played the slower version he’d fallen in love with.

  “What’s that?” Nelle asked.

  “‘Bird Song.’” Bran hummed a little. “Grateful Dead, the one about Janis Joplin.”

  “You’d rather play a song about Janis Joplin than a song by Janis Joplin?”

  He shook his head, wet strands of his hair falling across his forehead. He stopped playing to push them up. Nelle was looking at him like she knew something else was coming. So he didn’t bother holding it back.

  “February 23rd, 1971.”

  Bran took up the song again while she put it together.

  “Two, twenty three, seventy one.”

  He nodded. “The Grateful Dead played ‘Bird Song’ at the Capital Theater. They did six shows that week. Six.” He’d stumbled on the February 23rd recording while pirating music. “And each one was different. Had a different energy. Had a different feeling. That version killed me. Made me want to be able to do that. Transform a song, bring it to life in whatever way I wanted depending on how I was feeling.”

  He knew she understood. He’d seen her do the same thing with “Under Water” a few hours ago. She’d played live albums over his speakers every chance she got. Nelle got it, she got him.