by SC Daiko
Hayley
Back to living out of a suitcase, I groaned as I packed my shit for the tour. Only, this time, it would be different. This time, I’d be staying with Pierce in luxurious suites instead of my usual single room. My stomach fluttered. Not only would I be ‘taking care’ of him, but, in the eyes of the world, we would be a couple.
I chewed at my lip, doubt overwhelming me. How could I have let him persuade me into this charade? I’d always considered myself to be level-headed. But the truth was, this past week, Pierce had turned my heart to freaking mush. And, when he kissed me, I wanted him with a razor-sharp urgency. Nothing had ever felt as good as his big warm hands gliding over my skin. I wanted his thrusting tongue, wanted his chest pushed hard against my breasts, wanted the feel of his thick, long wavy hair rippling around my fingers. Our kisses could have short-circuited a power plant, yet the thought of going any further still made me wanna run for the hills.
I squished my brows together. What was he getting out of it other than extreme sexual frustration? I’d been surprised by his self-control, though, by how he could pull back when necessary. When I’d woken up today, I’d felt his morning wood poking into my belly. Problem was, if his dick had rubbed anywhere lower than my waist. I’d have leaped out of the bed shaking like a leaf.
Why was I so freaked out by the prospect of penetration? I’d done my research after being diagnosed, and I’d found out that my condition might have stemmed from a phobia. I had no clue what, why, when or how. Before my first attempt at having sex with Ian, my ex, I was really confident and looking forward to it. But I should have realized something was wrong beforehand. I’d never wanted to get myself off by inserting a finger, never let anyone touch my pussy, and I couldn’t use tampons because of the pain.
Sighing, I went to my closet and stared at the gorgeous dresses Camila and I had shopped for this morning. She’d been beyond surprised when I’d told her about Pierce and me, that we were an item. “You’ve gotta be fucking with me, honey,” her eyes had widened. “Foxy? The man who put the ‘ho’ in manwhore?!”
“He’s changed,” I said by way of explanation. “He promised never to hurt me, and I believe him.”
“Hmm. I don’t wanna rain on your parade, sweetie, but promises have a way of getting broken.” Her mouth had turned down at the corners, and I’d pulled her in for a hug. Camila had suffered the loss of the love of her life, which was why I wasn’t mad at her lack of enthusiasm for my hooking up with Pierce.
I took the gowns from the closet and laid them in my suitcase. Apparently, there would be a press release that Pierce and I were dating. Engineered by Jake, of course. I’d protested to Pierce, saying that the publicity when we broke up would be like a tsunami. He’d reminded me that when our ‘dating’ came to an end, it would officially be me who broke us up, not him. It was part of our agreement, which we’d discussed over breakfast, along with his pledge not to fuck anyone while we were together.
I finished my packing, then went downstairs. I rubbed my hands down my pant legs. Tonight, Pierce and I would be hanging out on our own. We no longer needed Joe to chaperone us as we were a couple and my so-called boyfriend had sobered up. A smile brushed my lips. He’d shown surprising strength of character. I’d thought I knew him, but it was the rock god I’d known, not the real Pierce. Or maybe I was kidding myself and he’d revert to his bad old ways once we hit the road? My stomach tightened. I freaking hoped not...
I pushed open the kitchen door. Pierce was leaning against the counter. “Hey,” I said.
“Hey, sweetheart. Our chicken tikka masala arrived. It’s warming in the oven.” He licked his cupid lips. “Are you all packed?”
“Yep.” I poured a glass of water. “How about you?”
“All sorted.” He scanned me through his midnight blue eyes, his gaze lingering on my cleavage.
Gah, I knew I shouldn’t have worn this tank. It had shrunk in the wash, but I’d already packed the others. “Stop ogling, creeper.” I folded my arms across my chest.
“I’m your boyfriend. I’m allowed to ogle.” He winked.
I rolled my eyes. “You’re my FAKE boyfriend.”
After we’d finished eating, we decided to chill for a short while on the decking. Pierce had brought his guitar and sticks out here and was noodling in between drumming on the sides of his ripped jeans-clad legs.
“I’ll miss our mountain bike rides.” I glanced toward the canyon. We’d gotten into the routine of hitting the trails most mornings.
He followed my gaze. “Yeah, me too. When did you start biking?”
“In high school. Me and a group of friends.”
“Did you date much then?” He looked me in the eye.
I squirmed in my chair, guessing where this was going. Pierce had taken on the role of my sex therapist, whether I liked it or not. He wanted to know my history. I chewed the edge of my thumbnail, debating with myself.
Unexpectedly, almost with a whoosh, the personal doors I usually found so hard to open just wouldn’t stay closed. Not with him. “I dated the baddest boys in my classes and broke every curfew my parents set.” I scrubbed a hand over my face. “I think I drove my mom to her early death… and all for nothing.”
“Nothing?” He stopped his thrumming, inched his chair closer.
“I never let any boy get past second base.” And I didn’t. Hands and lips above the waist was as far as I’d ever gone. Until Ian.
“Do you know why?” Pierce raked his gorgeous gaze over me. “I mean, did you have a problem even then?”
I had to huff. “You. Are. So. Nosey.”
“I’m just trying to piece together the puzzle that is Hayley Wilson.” He shifted himself closer.
“How about you?” I turned the tables on him. “Did you date much when you were a teen?”
“Oh, baby, you have no idea.”
“Care to share?”
His dark blue eyes turned inky black. “I will. When the time is right. I promise.” He pulled me toward him, and I wanted to curl into his strong body and live there it felt so perfect.
“Pierce.” My voice grated as I teared up. “I want to be normal. I want it so, so much.”
His thumbs pressed my cheeks. “Will you let me help you?”
I rested my forehead against his. “I think I’m beyond helping.”
“At least let me try?” He leaned away and gave me his trademark puppy-eyed look.
I glanced around uneasily. “Just as long as you keep your dick away from me…” My mouth trembled.
He stroked my cheek. “You’re scared of it, aren’t you, sweetheart?” His tone was gentle.
I dropped my chin and muttered into my chest. “I’m a grown twenty-first century woman. I’m ridiculous, but, yeah, a man’s penis puts the fear of God into me.”
The admission was a relief, but I still felt like an idiot.
“I promise I won’t hurt you, love, or push you too far.” He lifted my chin and planted a soft kiss to my lips. “C’mon, let’s go to bed. We have to be up early for our flight.”
We went upstairs and showered together like last night. Again, I kept my eyes averted from his dick. After I’d dried our hair, we lay under the comforter, the AC cooling the air around us.
He pulled me into his hold, arranging one arm beneath me and the other over my hip. “Hayley?”
“Hmm?”
“Take your top off. We can be skin to skin again.”
I remembered how good that had felt, so I did as he asked.
He tucked me under his chin, and his hand caressed my shoulders.
“Mmm,” I sighed with pleasure as his warm fingers trailed up and down my spine.
His hand inched up and petted below my breast, tracing the line of my rib cage.
I had to remind myself to breathe.
His arms tightened around me. “Wanna make out a little more?”
“What do you mean?” My pulse picked up.
“Second base? You said you
’ve done that before.”
Me and my big mouth…
“Relax, baby. I’ve got you. If you don’t like it just tell me to stop, and I will.”
My heart was in my throat, pounding boom, boom, boom, like his drums, but I whispered, “Okay…”
He moved his lips over my collar bone, and I quivered.
He traced kisses up my neck to my jawline, and I hissed.
He captured my mouth, and I released a throaty moan.
I panted for him, my chest rising and falling.
He spread his hands downward to cup my breasts. It felt so nice, I couldn’t resist pushing into him like a needy kitty.
“That’s my girl,” his voice purred.
Slowly, lingeringly, like he was tasting me, he kissed his way downward. His tongue worked my nipples into pebbles, and I arched for the soft, slow, wet licks.
Want hummed between us, as strong as the love I’d started to feel for him. I was so fucking fucked to have fallen for Pierce. There was no way he’d ever feel the same about me. Pierce needed a woman in every sense of the word. I’d never fulfil his needs.
I pushed at his chest. “Stop, please.”
He lay back on the mattress. “Gotta go take a piss.” He swung his legs from the bed and headed off to the bathroom. Given the amount of time he was spending in there, he was getting himself off, I guessed.
I slid my hand under my pajama bottoms and stroked my clit. The tingles were building but I soon gave up.
I wanted Pierce.
I wanted us to be a real couple.
I wanted it so bad I might even be willing to fight my fear when he came back to bed.
Chapter 16
Pierce
I jerked off in the bathroom so that Hayley wouldn’t be scared by my boner. Then I cleaned myself up and returned to the bedroom. She was sitting, re-plaiting her hair. I made my way across the carpeted floor and sat on the edge of the bed. “Don’t braid it, please. It’s so beautiful loose.” I threaded my fingers through her fiery tresses, and then kissed her forehead. “Did I push you too far, earlier, sweetheart?”
She released a sigh. “It’s not you…it’s me.” She lifted her head and looked at me, her eyes two pools of misery. “I don’t wanna be like this…”
“I know.” I thought for a couple seconds. “Do you trust me?”
She nodded, and my heart squeezed.
“Lean against the headboard, love.”
She did as I asked, and I smoothed my hand up her thigh. With a shudder, she closed her legs and her muscles stiffened.
“I won’t hurt you. I promise my cock won’t go anywhere near you.”
She exhaled a long breath. “Okay…”
Gently, I spread her legs wide and, keeping my eyes fixed on hers, inched my thumbs toward her pussy.
Her chest rose and fell, her thighs shook, and her luscious mouth trembled.
But she didn’t tell me to stop.
Slowly, I slid onto the bed and settled between her legs. Bending, I cupped her heart-shaped face and kissed her, licking the corners of her mouth, and sucking on her lower lip.
She moaned and traced her fingers along my jaw.
Our kisses grew more urgent as she surrendered her tongue to mine.
“Good girl.” I kissed my way down her neck to her breasts. Then I sucked one of her nipples into my mouth. It pebbled and I tugged at it with my teeth before moving to the other nipple. I slid my tongue down her body to trace hot, wet kisses on her inner thighs.
She jerked away from me. “Pierce!”
I glanced up and saw the whites of her eyes. “You okay?” I held her gaze.
“I’m fine. Keep going…”
She was being so fucking brave. “Put your hands in my hair, love. It will calm you.”
Her fingers gripped my scalp, hard.
“You’re doing great,” I reassured her.
Her pussy was in front of my face. Unwaxed. Natural. And so fucking mine.
Except, someone had been here before me, I was sure of it, and I wanted to kill the bastard for hurting her.
“Try and loosen up for me, sweetheart. Breathe in and out. Slow and steady.”
She complied and, bit by bit, I smoothed my hands around the backs of her thighs until I reached her peachy ass cheeks.
Meeting with no resistance, I lowered my head and licked around her clit.
She stiffened again.
“Relax, baby, you taste delicious.”
“I do?”
“Bloody right you do. You’re fucking perfect.”
She gave a small quiver.
Taking care to avoid going anywhere near her slit—a pleasure I would enjoy at a later date—I latched onto her swollen nub and sucked it into my mouth.
She rocked her pelvis and tightened her fingers in my hair. “Oh,” she moaned. “This is…wow.”
I put pressure on her clit, at the same time reaching up and playing with her tits. Clamping down, I increased the pressure on her nub, sucking and swirling my tongue around it. Just to tease her, I let go and kissed the smooth skin of her inner thighs instead.
“Please…” she begged. “Don’t stop.”
Her words were like music to my ears. Pulse racing, I closed my lips on her and sucked until she squealed.
She quaked around my face, an orgasm shuddering through her. “Ahh.” She yanked at my hair so hard I felt the burn in my scalp.
I moved up her body and kissed her, aware she would taste herself on me. The fact that she didn’t recoil spoke volumes about her. Despite her condition, Hayley was a sensuous, sexual woman. I pressed my lips to the thrumming pulse behind her ear. “I’m so fucking proud of you.”
“You did well,” she breathed. “I…I…” She didn’t finish what she’d been about to say, and I didn’t press her. I switched off the light, pulled her into my arms and held her while she fell asleep. I closed my eyes, but sleep eluded me. I tried not to think, tried not to remember, but I couldn’t stop myself. Her words, “You did well,” had been the exact same words Mr. Phillips, my teacher, had said as he’d handed me my exam results that fateful day.
That day when I’d gotten into a fight outside the school gates with Danilo Ramos.
That day when Ramos wounded Mr. Phillips in the chest as he’d broken us apart.
The memory knifed into me, cutting deep like Ramos had stabbed the man who’d saved me from myself, and my heart fucking bled.
Hayley stirred in my arms and buried her face in my pecs. I kissed the top of her head. It was dark, but I could just make out the beauty of her cinnamon-colored hair spread over the pillow. I breathed in the womanly scent of her and the action soothed me.
The thought suddenly occurred to me that I was falling into a new addiction.
An addiction that went by the name of Hayley Wilson.
Fuck!
The next morning, heat rose from the black asphalt and Hayley’s braid flapped in the hot wind as we walked across the tarmac toward the 747…the huge passenger plane converted into a private jet that CM had rented to fly ChiMera, Vanilla Sky and our entourages half-way across the word.
The flight to Auckland would take about thirteen hours, but, owing to the nineteen hours’ time difference we’d lose almost a whole day by the time we arrived. I pulled at my t-shirt. This would be the first time I’d flown long haul without the crutch of booze. The flight to LA from Buenos Aires didn’t count…there’d been enough alcohol circulating in my blood to fuel a rocket.
I hitched my carry-on bag up my shoulder and held Hayley’s hand as we climbed the steps to the front of the plane. Inside, the air-conditioned air was a welcome respite, and we made our way to a pair of recliner armchairs. Axel and Phoenix took the seats opposite, a table positioned between us and stacks of leg room. “Here we go again,” Axel chuckled.
“Yeah.” What else could I say? Fifteen concerts over the next six weeks. New Zealand. Australia. Singapore. Tokyo, Seoul and Manila. It would be stressful. And I wa
sn’t looking forward to our final destination. Danilo Ramos’ parents had emigrated to the UK from the Philippines to work in the National Health Service. Danilo had come under the influence of a street gang in Manila before leaving and, left to his own devices due to his parents’ long working hours, hadn’t taken long to start his own gang in London. I shifted in my chair. Now was not the time to think about all this. I threaded my fingers through Hayley’s and focused on the here and now.
Rhys and Zach had occupied the seats on the other side of the aisle from us, together with Jake and Camila. Vanilla Sky and all our roadies now boarded the plane. The Fasten Your Seatbelts sign flashed on, and our flight attendants started handing out the ubiquitous glasses of Champagne.
Hayley gave my fingers a squeeze. “We’ll just have orange juice,” she said.
“Yeah, us too,” Phoenix echoed.
Axel shot me a look. “Pussy whipped much?” he smirked, but I knew he wouldn’t have it any other way.
And neither would I.
The thought took me by surprise. I wondered about its implications as the 747’s engines roared into life, and we sat through the safety drill while the plane taxied toward the runway.
I leaned into Hayley and whispered in her ear. “I don’t need alcohol when I’m with you, sweetheart.” I kissed her soft cheek. “You’re all I need, and, as soon as we get off this plane, I’m gonna eat your sweet pussy.”
She blushed.
She was so fucking adorable.
“Enough with the dirty talk.” She swatted me in the chest.
I laughed, but I couldn’t wait to get her on her own. Couldn’t wait to tell her that I no longer wanted to be her fake boyfriend but her real one.
I lifted my OJ and caught her eye. “Cheers.”
We clinked glasses.
The 747 gathered momentum and then rose into the sky.
Chapter 17
Hayley
Thank God I’d googled the weather in New Zealand at this time of the year… it was a hell of a lot cooler than LA. I shrugged on a sweater as I stepped out of the Mercedes SUV, one of a fleet that had met us at Auckland Airport. We were staying in a luxury five-star hotel with views overlooking Waitemata Harbour. ChiMera were rock stars, not tourists, and they spent most of their time in their rooms when they weren’t rehearsing, doing sound checks or performing…hence the need for suites in accommodation with nice surroundings and good security.