Groupie (Rock-Hard Beautiful Book 1)

by C. M. Stunich

  And then she hangs up on me.

  I glance around for a minute, stick my phone back in my pocket and then spit on my palm, sliding my hand inside my sweats and curling my fingers around my cock.

  I try to think of Vanessa as I rub a quick one out against the side of the bus … but really all I can think about is Lilith.

  I wake up to that familiar jostling sensation, the wheels of the bus turning beneath the floor, making the bed quiver and rock as I sit up and run both hands down my face. Last night was a long fucking night. Pax was sick five times before he'd thrown up enough to down a glass of water and fall asleep. I kept waking him up to drink more, gave him a few ibuprofen so hopefully his hangover wouldn't sting as badly the next morning.

  At some point after I'd dragged Pax onto the bed in back, Ransom appeared and curled up next to me, like he didn't even care that Pax was sleeping in there, too. Between his nightmares and worrying that Paxton might have alcohol poisoning, I hardly got any sleep.

  “Hey.”

  I glance up suddenly and find Paxton staring down at me, clean and freshly showered, his dirty blonde hair hanging across his brow. He's shirtless and beautiful, his tattoos gleaming with tiny droplets of liquid, his voice soft.

  “Hey,” I respond, glancing quickly over at Ransom and finding him fast asleep next to me, curled on his side and swimming in his black hoodie. I look back at Pax, his shoulder leaning against the door, his wicked sexy curve of a mouth set in a slight frown.

  “I was a right proper fucking twat last night,” he tells me and I smile slightly. “Truth be told, I have a hard time remembering what happened between the meet and greet and you rubbing my back while I threw up.”

  I study him, slouching in the lazy darkness of the bus, a pair of grey sweatpants slung low on his hips. It's the first time I've seen him in anything but a suit. Without the sharp crispness of a starched collar and the glitter of expensive cufflinks, he doesn't look like such a wicked asshole, just like a lost, damaged boy.

  You're going to get yourself into trouble with this one, I think, but then, I've spent my whole life holding back and avoiding trouble. For the next two weeks, I'm leaping off the cliff with my wings spread wide and I'm not going think myself into a corner; I'm going to fly.

  “You said you didn't like me and tried to kick me off the bus.”

  Pax snorts and nods his head briskly, like that's about what he expected.

  “Yeah, well,” he starts, lighting up a cigarette and watching me through a thin haze of white smoke. “I can't very well kick off a girl who wipes my sweaty face with a cold cloth and brings me a dozen glasses of water to drink, now can I?”

  “It's only for two weeks,” I say and Pax shrugs loosely, his shoulders and arms blanketed in a sea of tattoos. The only bare spaces I can see besides his face are his palms. His ink literally dips down inside his sweats, covers his neck, his fingers.

  “Suppose I can live with that,” he says, looking me over like he's never seen me before. “Is it true what you said last night?”

  I cock an eyebrow because I can't remember all the things I said last night. Between Ransom and Pax, I spilled my heart out a dozen times over, but I was sure neither of them were awake enough to process any of it.

  “Which part?” I ask quietly as he holds out a tattooed hand and uses the other to smoke his cigarette.

  “The part about your sister,” he says as I reach up and take it, letting him pull me out of the bed and onto my feet. I'm not wearing the sweatpants right now, just the shirt and … nothing underneath it. I only have two pairs of panties left and they're both in fairly questionable shape. The shirt I've got on is long enough to cover all my sexy parts, but still …

  “I lost my sister,” I reply because I'm not sure how much he heard last night. Pax holds my fingers in his and pulls me down the hall and into the kitchen. Looks like we're the only ones up. A quick glance at the clock on the wall to my left shows that it's about a quarter til eight.

  “She was murdered?” Pax asks, shutting the door to the hall and pouring us both cups of coffee. He hands one to me and I take it gratefully, letting the familiar smell soothe the small burst of anxiety blooming in my chest.

  “She was,” I reply, sipping my drink and then holding it back out to him. “I'll love you forever if you give me some more sugar and cream.”

  Paxton glances back at me, his cigarette stuck between his pretty lips, and raises a brow.

  Without saying a word, he pours some cream into my cup and then uses his sexy tattooed fingers to drop two sugar cubes in after it. He takes his cigarette in his other hand and exhales, giving me a spoon to stir with.

  “Sugar,” he says a few seconds later, leaning in and pressing a coffee and tobacco kiss against my mouth. “And if you want cream …”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I say, even though my heart is beating in rapid-fire bursts, and my lips are tingling. “You can't tell me how much you hate me at night and then try to … whatever in the morning.”

  “No?” Pax asks, tossing his cig in a black glass ashtray and turning to face me fully, leaving his coffee on the counter behind him. “Why not? You fancy me, don't you?”

  I make a point to stir my coffee before I answer him, staring into the swirling liquid instead of at his face. Because, really, it is a beautiful face.

  “I'm not going to fuck someone that doesn't like me,” I say and Pax snorts. I continue to ignore him, focusing on the coffee, trying my best not to grin like an idiot when I think of last night. I had a threesome. A threesome. My very first. By the end of this tour, I'd have upped the ante to a sixsome, but at the time I had no idea that was going to happen.

  “Why not?” he asks, stepping forward and causing me to step back. I drop my spoon in my mug and hold it tight to my belly, enjoying the warmth seeping through the cotton t-shirt.

  “Because at the very least I demand apathetic neutral,” I say, looking back up into his grey eyes. They're less tempest-tossed today, more silver, almost shimmering. Pax is staring at me like I've suddenly become interesting to him.

  “How about interested casual?” he asks as he temporarily gives up and rescues his coffee from the counter, curling his hands around it, the dark tree line and the night sky tattooed in minute detail across his fingers and knuckles. “I mean, you'll be here for two weeks yet. We may as well shag.”

  “We may as well shag?” I ask with a laugh and then Paxton does something that surprises the hell out of me.

  “I'm sorry about your dad,” he says, and then all of a sudden I'm shaking again. This tour, these men, it's all so glittery and magical and surreal. Death, cancer, loneliness. That stuff seems so far away from here.

  I glance sharply away from Paxton and stare at the shiny dark grain surface of the door leading down the hallway. It blurs in my vision for a second and I gasp when Paxton's fingers curl around my chin and drag my face back to his.

  “It's a lie, you know,” he says as I stare at him, at the wild shimmer of his eyes.

  “What is?”

  “Harper B.,” he says, “my song.”

  I take a deep breath and back away again, until my ass is pressed firmly against the counter on the opposite side of the kitchen. Obviously, we're on a bus, so it's not like the move puts that much space between us.

  I lift the mug to my lips and drink.

  “Which part?” I ask finally, because I can tell Pax wants—maybe even needs—to tell somebody this. “When you see another lonely traveler walking the same sad, strange path you almost fell off before … it's only right to see if you can guide them down a different road.” Muse's words ring in my head as I stare at the man standing in front of me, angry and bitter and practically falling apart at the seams. Those perfectly put together suits of his, that wicked smirk, his swagger onstage … it's bullshit. All of it, down to the shine on his ridiculously expensive loafers.

  “The crying part,” he says, surprising me a little. He's so focused on the outward ex
pression of grief, like if he can just keep staring that part of the equation in the face, he won't have to feel the other half, the internal struggle, the battle between angels and demons that takes place deep inside your own soul.

  “That's why you ran away,” I say. It's not a question. And as much as I'd like to wring Paxton's neck for leaving me tied up like that, I understand—at least a little. Grief makes people do crazy things, things like shack up with five hot guys and sleep with almost every single one of them.

  I drink some more coffee to keep my expression neutral.

  “You're so …” Paxton gestures at me with one hand, holds his coffee with the other. “Bare.”

  I glance down sharply to see if my shirt's ridden up, but it hasn't. He must be speaking metaphorically then. I look up at his face.

  “You wear your emotions all over your fucking face.” He points two fingers at the steel grey color of his eyes. “You looked right at me while we were screwing and you started sobbing. I've never seen a girl look so … fucking naked before.”

  I smile, but it's a sad one.

  “You haven't cried over your sister, not once?”

  “No.”

  Another sip of coffee.

  “I see.”

  “I'm guessing you did? Probably bawled bloody buckets,” he murmurs, drinking his own coffee and watching me with an exacting expression, like he's determined to keep pushing until he sees me open up even further. I get it now, Paxton's interest in me. In my grief, he sees his own. Mine's … messy and loud and intense and his is quiet, contained, and covered up.

  “Some guy was stalking her on campus,” I say as I tap my fingernails with the chipped polish against the side of the mug. I think I saw some polish in one of the boxes; I should try to find it and paint my nails. Maybe something as mundane as that will help me come back to reality a little? “She reported him, but nothing ever came of it. Not until he surprised her at her car after a late night study session and shot her six times in the chest.”

  My stomach roils as I think of the leaked crime scene photos and suddenly I just want to puke.

  I shut my eyes tight and feel myself falling into that old well of pain and frustration and anger, but then I hear the hall door slide open and glance up.

  It's Ransom, sweaty and shaking, cloaked in his hoodie and smiling this nightmarishly sad smile.

  “Morning, sweet thing,” he says in that easy, soft voice of his. The sound of it breaks my concentration on the past and I smile. Based on his expression, I'm assuming another nightmare woke him up. I feel almost guilty that I wasn't in there. I mean, I know I just met the guy and it's not my responsibility to take care of him, but … for some weird reason, I want to.

  “Morning,” I respond as Paxton makes this angry sound in the back of his throat. God, what is it with these two? I wonder as Ransom glances at Pax and they exchange glares laced with old hatred. Their rage is deep-seated and painful to bear witness to, especially with them having to live and work in such close quarters like this.

  “I hope I'm not fucking your sleep up too much, honey,” Ransom says, dragging his gaze from Pax to look back at me. His dark eyes take in the long pale lines of my legs with interest. I color a little, thinking of last night, of having sex with him and Copeland on the couch. And then wondering what I was thinking wearing this shirt with no underwear, like I know these guys at all. I'm too comfortable here; this should be weird.

  Only it's kind of … not.

  “You'd drive anyone completely mental after a few nights,” Pax says, but Ransom ignores him, getting his own cup of coffee. He's so completely dark and adorable in his hoodie and black sweats. They've got grinning white skulls all over them and several tears in the side seams. What the hell does he do in those things?

  “Like you weren't thrashing and groaning in your sleep,” Ransom mumbles, turning and focusing his sleepy bedroom eyes on me again.

  “I was pissed out of my skull,” Pax says, taking his coffee to the couch and draping his entire tattoo covered body across the leather. To say he looks anything but delicious in that position would be a lie. “'S not like I do that every night.” He smiles, and the expression is back to being ice cold and cruel. “Though I suppose I can't blame you. If I murdered someone, I'd probably have nightmares, too.”

  My eyes flick back to Ransom, watching as he goes completely still. But damn, he's got a leash on that rage because all he does is look at me and sigh softly.

  “I stabbed the man that raped and killed my mother,” he whispers, voice even lower than usual and without its gentle coating of sensuality.

  “Stabbed a hundred and fourteen times,” Pax says loudly and I swear, I could slap him.

  “He raped her,” Ransom says, knuckles white as he grips the cup, “he killed her. For no fucking reason.” His voice raises up several notches, but he doesn't move from his spot in the kitchen.

  “Pax, no more,” I say because I can see Ransom winding up inside, darkness coiling and getting ready to strike. He killed somebody? I glance at him out of the corner of my eye, but he's not looking at me anymore. He's staring at Paxton.

  “Why? You don't want to hear about the other people he killed?” Pax asks casually, clearly using Ransom's pain as a shield for his own.

  “Leave her out of this, Pax. She's got nothing to do with our sick, fucked-up pasts.”

  “That why do you like her so much? Want to make her your next victim … ah, I mean girlfriend.”

  “Why would I do that?” Ransom growls, voice trembling with suppressed rage. “If I make her my girlfriend, you'll just fuck her to teach me a lesson like you did with Kortney.”

  “Guess it's better that all I did was fuck Korney, yeah? Because you killed Chloe.” Pax's voice catches sharply and his silver eyes lock onto mine. He wants me to hear this, is practically desperate for it. “And baby Harper B.” The words break on his lips as he drops his coffee mug to the ground and lets it roll across the floor, spilling milky coffee everywhere.

  “I did not kill Chloe and Harper,” Ransom rasps, the words fading to smoke as they fall from his lips. “Chloe was drunk; she crashed and killed them both.”

  “If you hadn't fucked everything up that night, I would've been there!” he shouts, standing up, his feet in the puddle next to the couch. “If you hadn't moved in on Chloe, if you hadn't come over to fight with me that night, it wouldn't have happened. You may as well have been behind the wheel.”

  Paxton rakes his fingers through his hair.

  “Fuck!”

  He storms across the floor, leaving watery footprints, shoving past me and making me spill my own coffee as he shoves his way into the hall and slams the door behind him.

  “Jesus,” Ransom says, shaking so hard he, too, sloshes coffee across the floor. His dark eyes are shifting, lids quivering, mouth trembling.

  “Are you okay?” I ask, but Ransom obviously isn't okay.

  “Chloe and I were in love,” he whispers, turning and dropping his cup into the sink. It cracks right in half as Ransom slides to the floor and puts his forehead against his knees. “I didn't kill Chloe and Harper.”

  I set my mug aside and move over to Ransom, kneeling down next to him and putting my arms around him. It might seem that a hug from a stranger shouldn't be able to do any good, but I remember how wonderful it felt when Copeland put his arms around me backstage. That simple gesture kept me from falling to pieces. Maybe I can do the same for Ransom?

  I squeeze him tight, not even caring that my shirt's ridden up and my bare ass is exposed.

  When I try to push his hood back, he grabs my wrist in tight fingers and shoves my hand away. I wonder if I should give him some space and start to stand up, but he tugs me into his lap and curls his body around mine.

  “You smell like roses and soap, baby girl,” he whispers quietly and I almost smile. But I feel too sad for him. Why the fuck would Pax do that, bring those things up all of a sudden? Then again, maybe it's not all of a sudden, ma
ybe this is partially my fault? Pax practically said as much. Something about me, about my grief, is stirring the pot on this bus.

  “You smell like violets,” I tell him and he lifts his head just enough to show me that he, at least, has no problem crying. Tears track down Ransom's cheeks, the one on the left sliding crookedly down his face as it gets caught in the faint mark of his faded scar.

  “It's my mother's perfume, darling, the same brand she's used since I was a baby, the same bottle she used the day before she died.”

  “Oh, Ransom,” I say and I feel my own eyes tear up as he buries his face in my neck. He's so gentle and wonderful, but his darkness goes deep, to places I hope I never have to see. Not that I haven't thought about it though, about killing the guy that killed my sister. But looking at what that blood has done to Ransom's hands, I'm not sure I could handle it.

  “This happens all the time,” he whispers, like he can somehow read my thoughts. “This stuff with Pax; it isn't just you. But I think he likes having a new audience for it.” There's a long pause and then he lifts his face to mine again, expression shadowed by his hood. “Are you scared of me now, sweetheart?”

  “Should I be?” I ask, raising my eyebrows.

  “No,” Ransom says seriously, looking into my eyes with this deep, wounded longing. God, after two days with this guy, I don't want to leave his side. I'll be a mess after two weeks. “But I did kill that guy. I did stab him over a hundred times. I stabbed him until he was dead and then I kept stabbing.” He pauses and glances away, toward the wall. “I almost died that day, too.”

  “The scars,” I whisper and he nods, putting his forehead against mine for several long minutes until the hall door opens again.

  “Holy shit.”

  It's Muse.

  I glance over my shoulder and he smiles softly at me.

  “I better clean this up,” he says, without asking for an explanation.

  I like him just that much more for that.

  “Something happen with Pax this morning?” I ask Ransom, but he barely looks at me, crouching like a vampire in the corner of the sofa. Lilith's curled up against him, a blanket draped over her quiet form. I watch her sleeping face for a moment, thinking of the tears streaming from her eyes as she lay on my chest.