“Continue.”
Holy sweet mother, it feels so good when I start up again. Each time I stop and start, I build on the previous level of pleasure. Keller stops and starts us time and again, and it’s getting harder to still my fingers each time. I’m so darn close, the burn is almost excruciating.
“Stop!” The words fall out his mouth in a hiss, and his fist tightens around his cock in what looks like a painful grip. It’s clear this is just as hard for him as it is for me, and somehow, knowing that he is denying both of us our pleasure makes this whole experience that much hotter.
Breaths rush out of my mouth in wonderfully frustrated pants, and my lady bits are screaming in protest. My hips rise off the bed of their own accord, and I know the moment I brush my fingers across my pussy, I’m going to come so hard. I dig my fingernails into my thigh.
“Keller, please. Please let me come.” I love that I feel vulnerable and safe at the same time. I love that I’m begging. “You have to let me come.”
“Do you promise to be a good girl, Maddie?”
“No.” The word is a moan, and I close my eyes, sure he will deny me my orgasm.
“That’s what I want to hear.” I don’t hear him move. The bed dips and my eyes fly open the moment his mouth claims my pussy. I close them a moment later and give in to the pleasure.
Nine – Not Even in a Bucket
Keller
I’m in the vilest of moods today, but being in the public eye constantly has taught me how to bury things real deep. Throw in a secret so devastating that you would lose everyone you love into the mix, and you’ve got a guy that can pretty much hide anything. That guy is me.
Maddie is oblivious to my mood. She woke me with her lips wrapped around my cock and the scent of her delectable blueberry muffins baking in my oven. Somehow, knowing she was rooting around my kitchen while I was asleep has the opposite effect of how I figured I’d feel—which makes my current mood even more puzzling.
Or maybe it’s not that puzzling. Maybe I just don’t want to admit why I’m pissed, because then I’d have to admit to myself that I let Maddie get under my skin and I don’t like the idea that she’s leaving to go back to South Africa early this evening.
As much as I’d like to spend the day in bed with Maddie, I feel like I should at least show her around before taking her to the airport. So, we’re in my truck heading for our studio in Redondo Beach. I haven’t told Maddie where we’re going, and she didn’t press for details once I told her it was a surprise. I just hope she isn’t disappointed. Maddie has her legs up and crossed on the seat and is talking animatedly about her mother’s animal grooming parlor. According to Maddie, people drive for an hour or more to bring their pets for grooming because her mom seems to be some sort of animal whisperer. I feel some of the tension leave me—but not all of it—as I listen to her talk a mile a minute.
Twenty minutes and a few more amusing stories later, including one about a corgi and St Bernard trying to mate in the reception area of the grooming parlor, I pull into the studio’s parking lot. Outside of the band, only a handful of people have been here, and I’m suddenly nervous, wanting to make a good impression on her.
“What’s this?” Maddie asks.
“It’s our studio. Wanna take a look around?” I want to rub my sweaty palms on my jeans, but that will show her I’m nervous.
“Are you serious?” Maddie looks to the studio door and back at me, a grin splitting her face. She’s out of the truck, and her boundless energy has me swept up, the remnants of my pissy mood wafting away.
I unlock the door to the studio and step aside for Maddie to walk in. She takes no more than three steps and comes to a standstill. “Holy hell, this place is incredible!”
Pride has my chest feeling like it will explode, and I can’t take my eyes off Maddie as she looks around. She’s beautiful in a sixties-style summer dress and tan knee-high boots. The skirt of her dress grazes her skin mid-thigh. The gash on her arm will probably leave a mean scar that I know is only going to add to her perfection, not detract from it. Maddie’s so fucking fearless and brave I’m in awe of her.
She slowly enters the studio and takes in the couches, designated areas where we all record our individual instruments, and the mini-stage for if we’d like to rehearse, her eyes wide with wonder the entire time. She walks into the sound room, her fingers hovering over the dials and controls, but she doesn’t touch them. I wouldn’t mind if she did—I like to see her delicate fingers whisper over things—but I don’t think Arty would like it very much. He’s possessive when it comes to his equipment. I get it though—I’m that way with my drums.
“It’s like you can feel your energy here. The band’s, I mean.” She waves her hands. “Obviously, I can feel yours.” She cranes her neck to look at the ceiling, taking every last detail in.
She strolls back out to where the instruments are kept and heads toward my kit. “May I?”
It amuses me she’s asking this time, and I nod. “Go ahead.”
She picks my drumsticks up exactly the way I showed her the day before yesterday and starts playing the rhythm I taught her perfectly. I’m impressed; it took me an entire week to grasp it when I started learning to play drums. Of course, I was a kid, but this is still impressive, and I swear my stomach flips and some shit happens to my chest I’ve never experienced before.
I sit down on the couch and spend the next ten minutes watching Maddie. She is in her own world, so absorbed with what she’s doing that I doubt she even notices I’m watching her. She’s also bashing away at the drums like she didn’t just get stitches in her arm yesterday. Fucking hell, she’s something else. She finally puts the sticks down and looks around. She looks like a kid at a fairground, wanting to try everything.
“Can I sing?”
Well fuck, how the hell am I supposed to answer this question! This is like when a girl asks if she looks fat in jeans or does one of those stupid relationship tests where you’re supposed to know her favorite scent, and I know I must look all deer in the headlights right now.
“Uhhhh…”
My long drawn-out word must be evidence of my panic because she bursts out laughing.
“You should see your face. I know I can’t actually sing, Keller. I have ears. I was asking you if I may sing. I’d like to try all this out.” She waves to the equipment.
“Sure.” I make my way to the engineering booth and flip the mic. “What do you wanna sing?”
Maddie twirls her earring and deliberates on the answer as though she’s choosing a song to perform at the Grammys. She’s deadly sexy in a serious yet flirty way, and I’m envious of her free spirit.
“I’ll go with ‘Razor Cut.’”
I nod and pull up the instrumental track on the laptop, the one we use for Kade to sing over.
I head back out to Maddie and give her the headphones. They look seventeen sizes too big, and she scrunches up her nose when I try to adjust them. Next, I adjust the mic while she hops up and down like she’s about to enter a boxing ring, and I have a hard time swallowing down my laugh. Maddie is an all-in kind of girl. She doesn’t hold anything back, and even when she’s prepared to sing terribly, she’s full-on prepared.
“Ready?”
“Ready.” She nods solemnly.
I kiss her quickly on the lips (anything deeper and I’ll end up fucking her and we won’t have time to record her song).
I head back to the booth and call over the mic. “Can I start?”
“Yes.” She yells the word back at me, but I’ve activated her mic and she startles. Her hand clutches her chest. “Shit, sorry. That was loud.”
I chuckle. “That’s okay. In five, four, three…” I indicate two and one silently with my fingers, and the track starts. She waits out the introduction and then starts singing. She’s completely off-key and is a few beats ahead of the track.
Maddie stops and takes off the headset. “Wait, wait, wait. That was all wrong. Let’s take it from th
e top.”
A smile tugs at my lips, and I stop the track. Sliding the bar to the beginning, I hit Start. She goes again and is still off-key, but this time she’s following the melody. By the second verse she’s a little closer to the right key, but she’s still pitchy as fuck. It’s adorable as all get-out.
We go over the song a few more times, and eventually she shows me the cut sign. She removes the headphones and places them on the table next to the mic where Kade usually keeps his water and bounds over to me, her eyes shining with excitement.
“Alright. Let’s hear how terrible it is.”
I play back the song, and it sounds way worse than it should, given I tried to autotune it a little. Maddie claps her hands, and a laugh bursts free from her lips. She covers her mouth with her fingers and speaks through them. “It’s awful.”
She sounds ecstatic about the fact. There’s no embarrassment, no shyness, no trying to get me to turn it off because it’s so bad.
Maddie removes her fingers from her lips, and she’s beaming at me. “My mother is going to get the biggest kick out of this. Mind if I have a copy?”
“Not at all.”
“I only need one copy,” she says when she sees me add another flash drive to the port.
“The second one is mine.”
“You gonna listen to that when you’re missing me, big boy?”
“Let’s never call me big boy again, alright?”
“Alright, big boy.” She looks at her watch. “Shit, we better go.”
I chuckle to cover my discomfort because suddenly reality slams into me like a linebacker and my mood swings back to vile. I reach for Maddie’s hand, and we walk back to my truck in silence. She’s unusually quiet on the way to LAX, and I wonder if she’s upset to be leaving too. She’s no doubt going to miss Blair.
The closer we get to the airport, the more I realize I’m going to miss Maddie’s spontaneity and enthusiasm. Where before I was motivated by the fact that she would be leaving the country in a few days, now I’m regretting that I’ll probably never see her again. She’ll no doubt come back for Dean and Blair’s wedding, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll get to see her.
A Halsey song comes on the radio, and Maddie reaches over, turning up the volume. I smile in anticipation. I’ve smiled and laughed more over the last three days than I have in months. Maybe I could go so far as to say years, but Maddie doesn’t sing this time and I miss the sound of her voice already.
Ten – Awkward Airport
Maddie
The flash drive with my excruciatingly bad first-ever recording is clutched in my fist, and I can’t wait for my mom to hear it. I might even let Blair listen. The ride to the airport is weighted in silence. As fun as my time in the studio was, it only served to show me what I’ll be missing when I go back home. Keller is a really easy guy to be around. And he legit has it all. But, as Mom always says, it’s best for things to end while they’re still fun.
We arrive at departures, and Keller pulls over to the drop-off zone. I guess this means he’s not coming in. What was I expecting, a long drawn-out goodbye where he begs me not to leave? I catch the laugh as it’s about to erupt from my mouth—imagining Keller on his knees, clutching me around my waist, and begging me not to go is funny.
I am going to miss him though. I signed up for a night of fun and got a few exquisitely glorious days out of it. And I’m not just talking about the sex either. Although that was volcanic.
Keller pulls his cap down lower over his eyes and slides his sunglasses in place so no one will recognize him. It works. I can hardly recognize him myself, but it makes me sad that I won’t be able to see his piercing blue eyes staring down at me with their usual intensity. He retrieves my suitcase from the trunk and places it at my feet on the curb. It’s still light out, and it looks similar to O.R. Tambo’s airport back in South Africa just with more palm trees. The smell of exhaust fumes fills the air as cars pull in and out of lanes, and it’s a wonder they don’t crash into each other. Keller lifts the handle of my suitcase up for me and even turns the bag the right way around so when I leave, I can just go. Either he’s just being super sweet, or he wants to make sure that I get out of here as soon as possible.
We stand there for the longest time, Keller rocking on his heels and looking like he’s struggling for something to say. I’m struggling just as hard to come up with anything that isn’t stupid. When I’m in awkward situations, my stupid mouth always wants to spew out nonsensical stuff that I often think about in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep. Right now, the only thing that comes to mind is why someone decided to eat the thing that came out of a chicken’s ass, but I’ll bite my own tongue off before I do that.
I don’t get it. For almost strangers, we’ve been completely at ease with each other until now.
“So, it’s been fun.” I resist the urge to roll my eyes at myself. I should’ve gone with the chicken-butt conversation.
Keller lifts his cap and scrubs a hand over his skull trim. “It was.”
Geez, can it get any more awkward? I place the flash drive in my pocket and clutch the handle of my suitcase. “Thanks again for everything.”
“What, you aren’t going to thank me for the orgasms this time?” Keller smirks, and the tight ball in my stomach slowly unwinds.
“I wouldn’t want you to get full of yourself.”
Is there anything worse than airport goodbyes? I thumb toward the entrance. “Well, I better get in. Blair’s family will be waiting for me.”
“Sure…yeah…you should go.”
I extend my hand. “Goodbye, Keller.”
He looks at it and shakes his head. One minute I’m feeling like an ass with my arm outstretched while he leaves me hanging, and the next, his hands are cupping my face and he’s kissing me. Soft, slow, sweet kisses as opposed to the porno kisses we’ve been attacking each other with all weekend. The kiss seems to go on forever, but when he steps away, it feels not long enough. I feel emotional suddenly which is stupid. I’ve spent a whole three days with this guy and know absolutely nothing about him.
“What’s your favorite color?” I feel all panicked and torn right now. Why am I feeling this way?
He furrows his brow and puts his hands back in his pockets. “Gray.”
“Gray isn’t a color. Well, not a ‘real’ color.”
He smirks again, and that small tug of his lips settles and soothes me at once. “Alright…orange.”
I wrinkle my nose.
“You don’t approve of my color choice?”
I shake my head. “Orange is my least favorite color. It makes me think of brown movies.”
He tilts his head. “Brown movies?”
“Yeah, like cowboy movies and war movies.”
He grins, and warmth spreads right through me. “You’ve got something against westerns and military movies?”
A serious-looking cop with graying hair starts heading toward us, distracting me for a moment, but I turn back to Keller.
“Well, no. It’s just everything in those movies is either cream, brown, or orange. I need color in my life.”
He chuckles. “I think I’m going to miss you, Maddie.”
Oh shit, my tummy just somersaulted in my abdomen.
“Excuse, me sir, you need to move along.”
“Sorry, Officer. I’ll be leaving in a sec.”
I take this as my chance to hightail it out of there before things get awkward again.
“See ya around, Keller.”
“Maddie, wait!”
I don’t. I’m legit going to cry, and I would rather face-plant onto this filthy sidewalk than let Keller Cannon see me cry.
I feel his fingers wrap around my arm just below my stitches. He rubs a thumb softly over where the gash is under the bandage, and a flash of regret sweeps over his face, just like it has every time he’s asked me if I feel okay. “What’s your favorite color?”
I grin and hope to God he can’t see the tears
glistening in my eyes. “It’s red.”
He nods and cups my face again. This time his lips press against my forehead for the longest time, and somehow, it feels more intimate than anything else we’ve done.
“Sir, I’m going to have to cite you.”
Keller takes a step back. “Safe flight, Maddie.”
I nod. I can’t speak. The lump in my throat is too big for that.
♫
“There you are. I was starting to think you’d decided America and all it’s ‘perks’”—Blair makes air quotes around the word perks—“was worth ditching the flight for.” She pulls me in for a hug and whispers in my ear, “You okay?”
Trust Blair to get straight to the point. I pull back and wave my hand. I don’t want to make a scene at the airport despite everyone around me bawling, and I certainly don’t want to admit that Keller crept into places he had no business creeping into. And no, I’m not talking about “that place”—I’m talking about my head and just maybe my heart. “I’m fine. My vag is distraught it won’t be getting any more of Keller’s special treatments.”
“Shit, Maddie. I’m standing right here,” Dean protests, and Blair laughs.
“I see you, Dean. Like you’re one to talk. You two”—I wave my hand between them—“need to get help. I am so over being stranded at concerts while you horndog it backstage.”
Blair blushes a pink deeper than her magenta top, and Dean grins. “Don’t knock it till you try it.”
I roll my eyes. I’m going to miss this back-and-forth Dean and I have going. And I’m also going to miss my best friend to pieces. It’s nearly time for my flight, and I pull them both in for a group hug, then step back. I point at Dean.
“You take care of her.”
Dean surprises me by pulling me in for another hug. “Was he good to you?”
I waggle my eyebrows. “He was more than good if you get my drift.”
Dean throws his hands in the air.
I hug him again. “He was the perfect gentleman.”
Alright, that was a blatant lie, but I wouldn’t have wanted Keller to ever be a gentleman with me, anyway. I liked him just the way he was. Bad. And filthy.
Drop Beat (The Heartbeat Series Book 2) Page 6