Playing the Pauses

by Michelle Hazen

  My eyes sparkle. “Now this is the hot gossip I should be recording to sell to the tabloids. I thought you guys kissed and it was just forgettable.”

  “I never saw her that way, not really.” A mischievous smile brightens his face. “But I was just hitting puberty, and I was a horny little fucker.”

  “You don’t say,” I drawl, a matching smile tugging at my lips. “Can’t even imagine.”

  “You can’t. I mean, bad. Like my dick would not leave me alone. It was sore all the time from being hard, from rubbing against my jeans, from jerking off.” I’m laughing outright now, and he shakes his head self-deprecatingly before he continues. “I was fascinated with women but I didn’t need anybody really close, because I had Jera, right? So I had all these girlfriends.” His eyes flare as they focus on me. “I would cut myself loose with them, let it be all about sex. None of it connected to my real life, to my crazy family that was either scary silent or screaming at each other: my sister throwing shit down the stairs at Dad, and my brother staring at his computer like he couldn’t hear a thing.”

  I scoot across the couch and settle next to him. “I’d want somebody to distract me, too, if home was like that.”

  “It was just fucking.” Danny’s pencil moves slower as it carefully defines the edge of my lips on the paper. “I’d try anything that felt good, anything they wanted. For a while, I even went with guys because I loved how no-holds-barred it was, how rough I could be with them.”

  My body responds to the images playing through my head, my inner muscles squeezing along with the rasp of his careless voice. But my mind is on a whole different plane, organizing layers of his story and watching how the picture that emerges is starting to look like him.

  I take a chance and lay a hand on his arm, squeezing gently. He glances up at me, a little startled, and puts aside his pencil. His smudged fingers come up to cover mine.

  “It wasn’t really my thing in the end; went back to girls. But as I got older, dating didn’t get much easier. They wanted me until I stopped being what they had pictured and started being me.” He squeezes my hand and lets go, leaving gray marks behind as he gives me a sardonic wince of a smile. “I kind of gave up on the idea of love with a woman. My band was all I needed, and sex was just something I did. But then after I left the BDSM clubs, it was something I did less and less, because it messed my head up more than it cleared it.”

  I want, so much, to be close to him right now. To be a part of his life that fits here in this peaceful, lovely space. To be something that anchors him against the sadness of the past his words have been sketching so matter-of-factly for me.

  I can’t be any of those things to him and I know it, but I’m here now. Borrowed or not, I have this time with this incredible man, and I’m not going to take him for granted like those other girls.

  I take his sketchpad and place it on the side table, careful to move the pencil so the charcoal won’t smudge the drawing, and then I kick a leg over his hips and straddle him.

  “Well, guess what?”

  His eyes spark with pleasure as I settle into his lap. “What?”

  “I like it when you’re rough,” I whisper with a reckless smile, “and I like it when you talk to me.” His lashes flicker, his eyes darkening as his lips part. I trace the bottom one playfully with the edge of my fingernail. “As it happens, I like every corner of your dirty little mind.”

  Danny chuckles, his response flexing between my thighs. His hands clasp my hips, and I remember the charcoal smudges that clued Jera in to our relationship. Reaching down, I grab the hem of my shirt and pull it off so the marks will settle onto my skin instead of my clothes. I want them with the ferocity of a fetish, and I wish they’d last longer than the shower we’ll take in the morning before we head to the airport. I pop the clasp on my bra and let it slide down my arms.

  Danny’s gaze heats as it settles onto my body, my skin prickling in familiar response to his attention. Belatedly, I glance over my shoulder at the wall of windows looking out onto the neighborhood below.

  “Privacy glass,” he murmurs. “No one can see in.”

  I touch his smooth cheek, feeling as if the lines of the man are sketched into this entire building, like it’s a larger version of his personality.

  He turns me, laying me back on the couch as he kneels on the floor at my side, long fingers unfastening the button at my waist while my eyes memorize his face. It was only weeks ago I’d never seen it, and now, there’s no one else I can imagine allowing inside my clothes.

  He draws my pants down my legs so gently that I wriggle, swallowing back a moan at the sensation. Danny stands, and without hesitation, he strips himself naked. My eyes widen and my pulse stutters.

  Taking one step to the side, he flicks off the lamp. I almost protest until moonlight from the windows streaks over his body, painting the lines between his tattoos silver.

  He slides the side table drawer open, and takes out a small, finger-sized vibrator.

  “How am I not surprised that you keep your sex toys in the living room, Rock Star?”

  “You have no idea how many things I’ve been waiting to use on you.”

  My mouth goes dry as he cups the device against my thigh, letting our skin warm it. When he flicks it on, the buzz is close enough to my entrance to make me squeeze and arch toward his hand. He just smiles, his hair falling over his eyes as he bends to lay a kiss on my belly. It leaves me quaking even more than the toy he slowly starts to tease me with.

  I don’t generally let men use vibrators on me, because they never fully understand the sensitivity of a woman’s body. But I should have known a bass player would be the absolute master of vibration. He flicks through the settings as he moves, changing from long, slow pulses to something quick and sharp that builds me to a steady, screaming pitch of tension. When I hit my breaking point, he stops entirely, dropping the vibrator as he catches me with the gentle heat of his lips against my clit.

  He soothes me through the aftershocks with long, slick glides of his tongue that are as affectionate as they are intimate. A restless tension rocks through me, something deeper than sex can ease.

  I thread my fingers through his hair and try to tug him up over my body, but his mouth is almost desperate. When my head falls to the side with a shudder of pleasure, my eyes widen at the view. He’s kneeling by the couch, his knees spread and his cock pulsing thicker with every flick of his tongue against me. My hips roll in fierce reaction. Danny groans against me, cupping my bottom in one hand while the other drops to his lap.

  I whimper, watching as he ignores his shaft and cups his balls, taking it as tormentingly slow with himself as he is with me.

  “Danny.” I want to watch him toy with himself for hours, days, but I can’t hold out that long. I’m writhing on the couch, and I need him deep and harsh inside of me to ease the ache of how soon I’ll have to let him go. I feel so fucking empty, so alone even as my arousal melts over his tongue and his fingers wrap around his length, stroking himself until he’s even harder for my pleasure.

  My fingernails bite into his ink-dark shoulder and he uses his teeth on me, careful and cruel all at once. All the contradictions of him suddenly punch through me, and my vision wavers into a liquid blur.

  He jerks back just as my orgasm is begging deep in my belly, throbbing with the need to break free.

  “Kate?” His hands cradle my face now, his thumbs brushing at the tears overflowing my eyes. “Mercy?” he questions urgently, offering our safeword.

  “No.”

  I yank him up onto the couch with a strength I didn’t know I had, and twist until I’m rising above him, clamping him between my thighs as he lies on his back.

  His cock is bruisingly hard, throbbing from his rough treatment, and it feels like an embrace to slide him inside me. I exhale, sagging forward a little with the relief now that he’s hot and safe within my body.

  Danny’s breath hisses out from between his teeth, his eyes dilating wit
h desire, but his fists knotted uncertainly as he watches my face, trying to catch up with my mood. I swivel my hips with deliberate ruthlessness, and sound breaks from both our lips when my body clenches, drenching his erection with my response.

  It’s that moment when I realize we are skin on skin. Neither of us reached for a condom, and that’s one more secret between us. It’s not our medical records, not the birth control pills in my purse I’m thinking about in this moment.

  It’s that for him, I’ve always been bare.

  I capture his thick wrists and bring them over his head. His biceps clench and flinch against my hold, and I catch the wild flick of his eyes with mine.

  “Shh,” I murmur. “You can feel how wet I am, how much I love this. You’re okay.” He lets me hold his arms, but every muscle is still tight, his hips rising between my legs. “Let me take care of you.” I tighten my thighs, rubbing myself all the way up his length and then squeezing back down to its base. “Let me make you feel good.” I tilt up a bit so his cock thrusts against my front wall, and then I jerk down on him: shallow thrusts that make his breath short and jagged.

  His hips are still making tiny, automatic movements beneath me. I close my eyes and squeeze my inner muscles in one long roll, fisting him from base to tip, and he groans through his teeth.

  When my lashes lift again, his gaze is fastened on me, half-dazed and half-wild. I squeeze his wrists and rub my thumbs across the base of his palms. “Trust me.”

  “Kate.” My name sounds like a heartbeat on his lips, and then his lids droop closed, his arms loosening so I’m pinning his hands into the couch. The thrill of his acceptance tingles through me, leaving my head light and dizzy.

  I reward him with a jerk of my hips, fucking myself with his furious erection until pleasure pounds behind my temples and I’m panting with the effort it takes not to entirely lose myself in him. But his scent in my lungs is an accusation and a secret, selfish comfort.

  I was never supposed to feel like this.

  Danny’s hazel eyes remind me of every kindness he’s brushed over me, every smile he’s gifted me with. I can’t stand to deny him anything, but there’s so much I can’t give him. I sink down, trying to focus on the one thing I can be for him. The single tiny role I’m allowed to fill in his life.

  My legs burn as I swivel fast and then slow, drawing Danny’s body taut beneath me until he quivers, forearms twitching heavily beneath my palms. When I give him another long, secret squeeze, he growls, his arms snapping up as he catches my wrists behind my back. Adrenaline shocks through me and my response melts down over his cock, coaxing one delicious thrust from his hips. His grip is almost painfully tight, but all my muscles are soft as I catch his eyes. “Trust me.”

  He grits his teeth, forcing his hips to stillness even as his hands cage mine, our fingers brushing my bottom as I move faster over him, my breasts bare to his devouring eyes. I grind down on him, my clit begging for a single touch, but my hands are his prisoners and I give them gladly.

  Our bodies strain closer and I arch back as I pierce my body with his. He punches deep in me, hitting that vulnerable place that leaves me shuddering, my inner muscles clutching at his shaft. Warmth spreads through the center of me, and Danny lets out a gasping moan, his hands releasing my wrists and our fingers fumbling together as his climax jets into me. I hug our arms into the center of my chest, our hands bound together as I collapse onto him, shaking as he thrusts a little deeper and the last burst of searing heat releases into me.

  My forehead drops to his, our jagged breath mingling as if it’s the kiss our lips still can’t find. Millimeters apart, I can already feel tomorrow starting to open up between us.

  Chapter 20: The Ring

  I turn back, the worn handle of my suitcase in my hand as my eyes drag across Danny’s apartment. The leather couches, and how they warm to skin temperature when you lie on them nude. The tile counter where I perched when Danny came home with ten—literally ten—gallons of Tillamook ice cream for our tasting spree. The broken lamp propped in the corner from when he was chasing me across the house in my socks, because when I started to fall, he caught me instead of the lamp.

  There’s a strange, heavy feeling in my body, and every time I think I’m ready to go, a huge ache squeezes in at all the edges of me.

  “We’re only going to be in Europe for ten days.” Danny touches the small of my back, his eyes amused. “If you forgot something, you’ll only have to do without it for a week and a half.”

  I clear my throat. “Right, yeah.” Of course he wouldn’t have looked at the flight lists. Our flights route through San Francisco on the way back, and only one of us is booked onto the connection to Portland. I’ve almost bought myself a ticket a dozen times, because I can’t stop thinking about staying with him—just until I leave on my next job. After this whole week of no crew, no pressure, no reporters, it’s almost dizzyingly tempting. He’s been smiling more, and until we went to his parents’ house last night, I had forgotten how little he speaks when other people are around.

  Danny locks the door behind us and slings his old duffel over his shoulder, his bass guitar case in his other hand. Warm rain mists down on our shoulders as we descend the driveway toward the waiting taxi. He edges the taxi driver out to lift my suitcase into the trunk himself, and I roll my eyes fondly at the typical Dom behavior.

  Danny really isn’t much of a textbook Dom. He’s protective of his loved ones, and of me, but he’s too easy-going to hover. We spent most of this week together: listening to live music in tiny clubs and dive bars, beer tasting by naming all the different microbrews after famous actresses, and walking by the river in all sorts of weather because Danny never seems to notice when it’s raining. But on other days, he went to the tattoo parlor, and I worked at his house, went jogging or hung out with Jera. The time apart was as easy as the time together. No cling, no fuss, no checking in.

  If more Doms were like him, I never would have given them up.

  He opens the taxi door for me. “Behave yourself,” he whispers with a wink. “I know how you get in cabs.”

  A little tingle of memory heats the skin beneath my panties, and I scoff. “More like how you get.”

  I scoot over and he slides in beside me.

  “Where are you fine folks headed today?” the driver asks.

  “Airport, man.” Danny reaches over to squeeze my knee.

  I catch his hand before it can start to climb, shooting him a warning look that has no heat behind it when I see how his eyes twinkle with mischief. But instead of teasing my way up his thigh to raise the ante, I keep his hand in my lap, toying with his ring as he relaxes back into the seat.

  I’ve never felt like that when I left a place before, like I’d rather be here than rocket on to all the exciting things ahead. It scares the fuck out of me, because I know it’s not just Portland I’m falling for.

  We can get up, make coffee, and find ourselves still in the kitchen at noon, fiercely debating the risky chord progression on the third track of the new Abyss album. Or I’ll get sucked into endless text go-arounds about the next few shows, half-waiting for him to start getting whiny that I’m ignoring him, only to realize he’s not in the apartment. Instead, I’ll find him outside with an acoustic guitar, not having noticed that the sun went down and he’s playing in the dark.

  Somehow, our rhythms just...fit together. In another life, I’d be asking myself if maybe, just possibly, he might be The One.

  Except it’s not another life, it’s my life and if I find The One? I can give up the man, give up the job, or spend half my time missing my career and the other half missing my lover.

  But because this cab ride is the last few moments of our week-long break from reality, I let myself imagine what it would be like to just...stay. I already know what it would be like to live with Danny. So easy. So fucking easy. My heart swells, and I have to swallow a couple of times, my thumb rubbing almost desperately over the smooth silver of his ring.
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  What would I do for work if I stopped chasing the big tour manager jobs? I could easily be a promoter for a local venue, but that’s all advertising and ticket sales; no real time with the bands. With my connections, I might have a chance at working for a record label. It’s hard as hell to get into A&R, but I would love going around to shows, finding new bands and helping them grow. Still, even if I could pull it off, there are no decent-sized labels based in Portland.

  I dodge a glance up at Danny. His jaw is relaxed, his eyes vague but content as he gazes out my window, his mind lost in the swoop of a song or possibly a new tattoo.

  Would he ever move to San Francisco? We’d have to get a real place—I pay a third of the rent on my friend Sandy’s one-bedroom apartment so I can sleep on her couch when I’m in town. Still, San Francisco’s not a bad compromise since The Red Letters already have to be there for a few weeks every time they record a new album. But no, Danny has to live near his band. Not just for the music, but because they’re a package deal.

  Living in Portland, I could be a band manager. I could really get to know the musicians and I already have most of the skills and all the contacts. Except I’d want to go on the road with every one of my bands.

  I haven’t lived in one place all year long since I was eighteen. Once when I couldn’t get work, I was in San Francisco for six months in a row, and I nearly ripped my skin off in my hurry to get to the airport when I finally got a job. My life on the road has always been better than what I had at home.

  I glance out the window, following Danny’s gaze. I could tour with The Red Letters, of course, and try to manage other tours in between. Danny is as comfortable on tour buses and backstage as I am. He fits in seamlessly with the crew, like he has no idea he’s supposed to be the star. He could travel with me on some tours, and I bet he’d love it.