Deeper Than Dreams

by Jessica Topper

  “You still smell like flowers,” he said, gathering my wet curls in his fist like a bouquet. I gasped as his hardness met the hot, wet yield of my skin. “Told you I was right behind you.” With a trembling sigh, he was in me; he was of me.

  Reaching his free hand to strategically adjust the front sprayers, Adrian made me forget all about interruptions and Batphones. The pulsating water beat my body into submission, delighting spots he wasn’t able to reach with his fingers, because they were busy elsewhere.

  “I missed you so much.” My head fell back against his shoulder, and he captured my mouth with his. Rivulets of water coursed between us, damming where our bodies locked before cascading over my curves with each of his slow, measured thrusts.

  “When I saw you from the stage,” he panted, “down in the pit last night, God, all I could think about was getting you alone. To touch you, feel you, be inside you.”

  “Well, you put on a brave front up there.” I teased him with my tone and each pivot of my hips, but remembering the intensity of his playing stirred something primal in me. I wanted to be taken, in every way, by the guitar god who had stolen the stage, and my heart.

  I whimpered and braced my forearms on the glass tiles in front of me as his teeth grazed my earlobe. I was on the edge of shattering but Adrian contained me. He kept me whole and moving with him, his hand splaying across my belly, fingers spreading skin made sensitive by his quickening thrusts. Until, with a shout and a scream, we lost ourselves. Lost control, lost track of where his body ended and mine began. He snarled and sighed as I quaked, tightening against him as he heated me from the inside.

  “Holy amazing.”

  “We’re pretty good at that, aren’t we?” Adrian kissed a path down my back.

  “Yes, but we suck at water conservation,” I pointed out, passing the soap.

  “We’ll forgo a shower for a few days then, to assuage our guilt.” He laughed. “So. More amazing than that massage?”

  “Massage? What massage?” I reached for my towel and let Adrian take center stage under the rain shower.

  “By the way, your brother and his new girlfriend are downstairs.”

  I froze, mid-twist in my towel turban. “What?”

  Adrian poked his head around the corner of the block glass barricade. “Kevin.” Shampoo suds dripped from his silver hoop earring and into his long sideburn. “And Liz. I told them to make themselves at home.”

  “While we were up here, making love?” I stammered. “I thought you were going to tell whoever it was to take a hike!”

  “No, that was your idea. Brits are way more hospitable.”

  He hopped back under the hot spray, and I had half a mind to flush the toilet and ruin his good time. Instead, I pushed a rogue curl back under my turban, threw on my yoga pants, a T-shirt of Adrian’s, and the most welcoming smile I could muster.

  I’d show him hospitable.

  ***

  “Oh my God, you guys! What are you doing here? Hi!”

  Liz was lying on what had almost been the scene of Adrian’s and my crime of passion. She had a magazine in hand, and the cat perched on her chest.

  “I’m pretending I live here.” She whispered, perhaps so as not to disturb Chelsea. Or lest my brother think she was bat-shit crazy. “Yep. This is my couch,” she continued hoarsely, petting the gray suede, “and that’s my park view.”

  I laughed. “Where’s Kev?”

  “I’m huddled in the corner with my hands over my ears, rocking myself and singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to drown out what I’m pretty sure I just heard,” came a holler from the kitchen.

  “Oh, gimme a break. The walls are thicker than that,” I protested, but blushed all the same. “Back me up here, Red.”

  “I, the lady of the house, heard nothing.” Liz perused her magazine like it was the most interesting thing on earth. “Maybe a little singing in the shower . . .”

  “Whatever. I’m a grown woman. No need to justify anything. Especially not to you,” I addressed my brother, “he who just did the walk of shame into this living room, wearing the same clothes as yesterday.”

  “I came to get your car keys, you bimbo. Since you stranded me here in town.”

  “Nice try, lamebrain.” Liz threw the magazine at his head. “You weren’t complaining about being stranded in my bed last night.”

  “Wow, three page spread! Killer,” Kevin said. “Has Digger seen this yet?” He waved the magazine in my face.

  “Has Digger seen what?” Adrian asked, slowly descending the spiral stairs. His hair was wet and slicked back, and he was slowly buttoning the sleeves of his black Western-style shirt. A flat brown paper bag was tucked under one arm.

  I gauged my brother’s reaction. Considering it had been less than twenty-four hours since learning his sister was dating one of his favorite musicians, I thought he was doing fairly well, keeping his cool.

  “Manhattan Muse’s write-up of the show last night.” Kevin’s hands, so self-assured in the kitchen, wavered slightly as he proffered up the magazine for all to see.

  Manhattan Muse prided itself on the broad conglomeration of culture it presented to the masses on a weekly basis, picking up where Time Out New York and Village Voice left off. It could’ve either thumbed its hipster nose at the eighties doom metal band’s resurgence, or dropped to its knobby knees in worship. But a three-page spread and a headline proclaiming THE BEAST IS BACK: ROTTEN GRAVES RESURRECTS THE CORPSE TO SOLD OUT GARDEN sounded pretty promising.

  “Ace,” Adrian commented, casting a glance at all the sources Kimon had brought that now covered the coffee table. The remnants of his Clockwork Orange eye had washed off in the shower, leaving just the material in front of him as hard evidence that the show hadn’t been just some rock-and-roll fantasy we’d all imagined.

  “I’ll take a read-through after we eat. I’m famished. Can’t imagine why.” He aimed a wink my way. “When’s lunch, Chef?” he asked Kev.

  “Is that why you’re here?” I wheeled around to face my brother, and then threw a glance at Liz. “And you?”

  She was on her feet now, clicking a flat iron over her head like a belly dancer with castanets. “Makeover time, Tree.”

  Jeez, it seemed Adrian had enlisted everyone I knew. Was I that much of a charity case?

  “So, do you have it?” Kevin wanted to know.

  Adrian deposited the bag into my brother’s waiting palm. “One mint condition copy of Spoils of War, on blue vinyl.”

  “Wait. You’re bribing my brother with Corroded Corpse swag so he’ll cook for us?”

  “Very rare Corroded Corpse swag,” Kev corrected, sliding the odd-sized record out of its sleeve to inspect it.

  “Don’t you trust me?” Adrian asked, amused.

  “I trust no one,” Kev reported ominously. “Limited edition, custom-shaped seven-inch single. For every one genuine copy, there are at least twenty bootlegged fakes.” The serial numbers etched into the vinyl seemed to satisfy him, because he smiled broadly. “Lunch will be served in ten minutes.” He trotted back to the kitchen, treasure in hand.

  “I thought he already had that one,” I whispered to Adrian. He’d done a quick inventory of my brother’s metal memorabilia over the summer, convincing me to add a separate rider to my homeowner’s insurance to cover it.

  “No. He has the green,” Adrian murmured. “Can’t wait to see what I can get him to do to earn the red vinyl. Only fifteen pressed, and I know the whereabouts of exactly three.”

  Liz had me settle into the big leather chair in the corner, next to the end table where she had several hair appliances heating up. With all girls in the family, the Dooley household had been seriously into hair growing up; no shape, style, or tint had gone untried. Liz had done my hair on the first day of junior high, before prom, and for my wedding. It was only fitting, I supposed, that she work
her magic now.

  “I hope I’m not taking away from any time you and Kevin had planned to spend together today,” I said, once Liz silenced the roar of the hair dryer. “Without going into gory details, how’s it going?”

  Her fingers danced along a section of my curls, separating them from the pack and pulling them poker-straight between the tongs of the flat iron. A hiss of steam escaped.

  “Your brother. Rocks. My fucking world.”

  I waited for her to throw out some sort of glass-half-empty statement about him living on the wrong coast, but it didn’t come. “So glad to hear that, Lizzie!” Unable to bounce up out of my seat and hug her, I just grinned to myself. I felt her happiness radiate above me as she held my head steady and straightened another section.

  Adrian kept us company, distractedly thumbing through the reviews. “‘Shockingly potent’ . . .” he quoted, “. . . ‘impossibly flawless,’ ‘rollicking, galloping guitar-play . . .’” He tossed down one rag and laughed. “They make us sound like bloody Clydesdales!”

  Kevin couldn’t resist leaving his post in the kitchen to come hear his idol wax poetic on the concert reviews . . . or tossing in his own adoring two cents. “Dude, like . . . when you guys busted out with ‘Plunder and Pillage,’ I was as happy as a little kid with a birthday party at Medieval Times, man. So righteous!”

  His fanboy fanfare had me laughing to the point that Liz had to stop working, for fear of burning my head as it bobbed with unbridled hysteria. She turned the threat of the tongs on Kev, to keep him from delivering his customary sibling knuckle punch to my arm in retaliation.

  “I loved that you guys threw down that old school Judas Priest cover, too.”

  “Ah, ‘United’ wasn’t planned; I had just teased the lick a few times during the course of the show, which prompted Riff to channel his inner Rob Halford.” Adrian chuckled. “Then Sam and Jim just followed our lead.”

  As had the twenty thousand faithful. The sound of forty thousand feet, marching to the beat, had been jaw-dropping. I had no doubt the crowd, like little leather-clad lemmings, would’ve followed the band outside and marched right into the East River, had they been given the command.

  “What’s it feel like to have the world in the palm of your hand?” Liz asked; her eyes a glossy moss green as she blinked them in Adrian’s direction. Funny, this coming from the girl who wouldn’t trust him as far as she could kick him six months ago. I know she’d been doing her best to protect me, and to lock up her own jaded heart from further hurt at the time.

  Adrian narrowed his gaze to the pages in front of him, biting a smile back. “Madison Square Garden is hardly the world.”

  That’s when I heard it. Not the weary modesty I was expecting, that normally came with talk of his band’s once-upon-a-time world domination. No, there was a spark of something else in his scoff. Like he’d just gotten the taste of a really good drug . . . again? And wanted more? my brain suggested, but my heart sent a pounding summons for it to cease and desist in that line of thinking.

  “Ah, listen to this one.” He was holding up the Muse, unable to wait until after lunch, after all. “‘Whatever deal Corroded Corpse made with the Devil years ago, it’s clear the debt has been paid, and the Rotten Graves Project are worshipping kinder, gentler deities now. But don’t let their age and smiles fool you. Digger Graves and Riff Rotten are still lean, mean, well-oiled rock and roll machines, and they completely decimated Manhattan last night.’ Not bad, eh?”

  His eyes scanned the rest of the article, before coming back up to the byline. “Alexander Floyd strikes again.”

  My ears pricked up at the name. The same rock journalist had written the article that had given me the final clues in my research quest to find Rick. And somewhere in the house, there was an entire book he’d penned on “the truth and turbulent times of Corroded Corpse,” according to the subtitle. Adrian had called Godforsaken “unofficial, unauthorized, wildly inaccurate accounts published purely for monetary or shock value,” but everything I had read by Alexander Floyd rang fairly true so far.

  “He’s everywhere, isn’t he?” I ventured.

  Adrian ruffled the pages of the magazine. “He was there when we exploded onto the scene, and he was there when we imploded as well. And he’s tried to sniff out every bone locked away in our closets of skeletons ever since. I believe we’re some sort of pet project with him.”

  Thinking back to our game of Truth or Dare over the Memorial Day bonfire, and Adrian’s humbling confession of the one person, alive or dead, he would like to meet and why, I realized I would like to get myself in a room alone with Mr. Alexander Floyd, somehow, somewhere, to pick his brain. And perhaps get his prediction on what would be next for the most important man in my life, and his band.

  “Hot damn, girl. Look at how long your hair is,” Liz exclaimed. She offered me her handheld mirror and stood back. I took a look, to the left and to the right, at the silken caramel curtain that now framed my face. Normally my curly hair fell slightly past my shoulders, but straightened, I felt it rustle at the middle of my back.

  Adrian was absolutely transfixed, the concert reviews forgotten. “Cripes, Kat.”

  “You like?” I asked, sending a swish over my shoulder in one sexy move.

  “I . . . I . . .”

  If Abbey were here, she’d say he was gobsmacked.

  “He can’t talk right now,” Liz reported happily. “All the blood is rushing out of his brain and headed south.”

  “I adore you”—Adrian defied her claim, and his cheeks were a ruddy British red to prove it— “however you choose to look. But I must say, you look smoking hot right now. Especially whilst wearing my rock shirt.”

  I glanced down at his Dead Can Dream shirt and grinned. It was just a boxy black band tee. Liz grabbed a hunk of excess fabric at my waist and cinched it with a ponytail holder, allowing my feminine silhouette to shine through. Adrian swallowed noticeably and stood up, rubbing his hands on his dark denim-clad thighs.

  “I’m going to go check on Kev’s progress with lunch,” Liz said pointedly. She raised a finger in Adrian’s direction. “Don’t mess her hair up.”

  I laughed as he captured my arms to inspect me at closer range. “If I’d known the effect it would have on you, I would’ve done it a lot sooner.”

  “No, no. No need,” he murmured. “I love winding your curls around my fingers. I love that they match Abbey’s. This is nice, though, for tonight.” He dipped his hand in, cradling the back of my head, then let the strands flow through his fingers like a waterfall. His other hand claimed my waist and slid up, tracing the outline of the band’s logo where it curved along my chest.

  “I was a dead man,” he said, swallowing hard, watching his fingers move along the D. “I never dreamed you’d come along.”

  The kisses he dropped on my lips were featherlight compared to the deep, drenching ones delivered over my shoulder in the shower earlier, but just as potent.

  “Chow! Now!” Kev hollered.

  “I don’t think your brother approves of me.”

  “Correction,” I laughed, laying my hands on his cheeks, “he doesn’t approve of me bursting his scuzzy teenage fantasy like it was a big, fat zit. The rock gods he worships are supposed to bag the hot chicks, so he, too, will bag the hot chicks in some sort of divine karmic reward for being a devoted follower. But if the rock god ends up with his sister . . . he goes straight to hell.”

  Adrian laughed all the way to the dining room. There was the mammoth table, set cozily for two with place mats kitty-corner. I had to bite back a smile, remembering how I had suggested an alternate use for the dining furniture earlier in the day.

  Liz pulled my hair back with a clip like I was Sadie, her childhood cocker spaniel, always in danger of dragging her ears through her food dish. “Just in case,” she said. “And I want to run the curling iron through and add s
ome glam waves to it after you eat.”

  “Spa lunch is served.” There was pride in my brother’s voice as he plated huge salads for each of us, bursting with crisp, colorful vegetables and what looked like perfectly seared salmon on top. He had even made spiced walnuts for garnish. Roasted butternut squash soup accompanied the perfect fall meal.

  “Kev, you just whipped all of this together?” I marveled.

  “Liz and I did some of the prep work at her place. But had I known there was such a stellar kitchen waiting for me . . . I woulda camped out in there all night!”

  “You’re giving me a complex, Underwood.” Liz gave him a push. “Anywhere else you would’ve rather been besides my apartment last night?”

  Liz had had some crap hands dealt to her over the years in the game of love. She’d learned to approach the table with a poker face, and she hedged her bets carefully. I could tell this was a heavy wager.

  Kev scrubbed a hand over his white-blond spikes and grinned apologetically. Quicker than you could say “in the doghouse,” he replied, “As long as you’re with me? I don’t care where I am.”

  I saw the miniscule twitch of my good friend’s lips before it ignited a full-blown smile. I mentally congratulated my brother . . . good to know he had some aces up his sleeve, and he wasn’t afraid to use them.

  “Come, sit. Eat with us,” Adrian urged. The two didn’t need to be told twice. Liz ladled soup, Kevin tonged salad, and pretty soon they were eating off each other’s plates like newlyweds.

  “I see you are serving healthier amounts these days,” I ribbed. Back home in Portland, my brother doled out the best Lilliputian-sized fare around. And his restaurant’s name, BITE ME, was his perfect retort to anyone who criticized his portion control. His concept was perfect for someone like me, who hated to choose. I could sample the whole menu and still have room for dessert.

  “Ha, you sound like Dad. He called it ‘stingy rations’ when they visited in July.” Chelsea gave a pitiful cry at his feet. “Come ’ere, Kitty Cat. I have some salmon in the kitchen for you.”