Getting Lucky (Jail Bait #4)

by Mia Storm

  Before I even know I’ve done it, my hand is on her face, my calloused thumb gliding over the flawless caramel skin of her cheek. My fingers weave into her hair and I draw her slowly toward me, giving her every opportunity to pull away if she doesn’t want this.

  But, God, I hope she doesn’t.

  Closer.

  Her sweet breath feathers over my face and I close my eyes with the rush.

  Closer.

  Her fingers trail over the lines of my bare chest and abs, setting my skin on fire.

  Closer.

  Some of the softest lips I’ve ever felt brush across mine.

  My tongue slips out of its own accord and strokes her lower lip, desperate for a taste of the only thing I’ve wanted for weeks. She meets it with hers, just a quick caress, and then her mouth is gone.

  I open my eyes as I draw away and find her watching me with unsure eyes—that same vulnerability I saw the day we met. But then they harden and the sass I also saw that first day cracks like a whip out of her mouth. “What the fuck was that?”

  “Our first kiss.”

  My heart is galloping in my chest as I wait for her to digest that.

  I can see her walls that had been coming down over the last few weeks clicking back into place. I expect something like And our last out of her mouth, so when she steps into me, pressing that body I’ve craved so hard since I saw her that first day all up mine, no one’s more surprised than me. Her eyes flash heat into mine. “That isn’t how you kiss your hookups. I want what you give everyone else.”

  “I don’t kiss them at all, Lucky. I just fuck them.” I give my head a solemn shake. “You don’t want what I give everyone else, because it’s nothing.”

  She presses up on her tiptoes, winding her fists into my hair and taking my lower lip between her teeth, tugging it hard. “I do. I want you to fuck me the way you fuck them. Fuck me hard and then leave.”

  Fuck me if I’m not hard as stone for her in one second flat. Her face tucks into the crook of my neck, and God, she’s soft. The tip of her nose glides up my neck, and then her mouth finds my ear. Her tongue laps softly along the lobe and a shudder racks my whole body before she grabs it with her teeth and bites down hard.

  “Fuck,” I growl, lifting her by the ass and pinning her against the window.

  Her breath is hot in my ear and becoming heavier, matching mine. She hooks her knees over my hips and through my jeans, I can feel all the wet heat between her legs.

  My heart pounds harder knowing she wants me.

  I grab her chin hard and pull her face to mine, kissing her like she’s my last breath. She tries to pull her face away, but I don’t let her, and finally she relents. Her tongue plunges into my mouth and wrestles with mine. She starts grinding herself against my hard cock, and even through my jeans, I feel the electricity crackling between us.

  Something that had been growing inside me over the last few weeks dies as it hits me that this is happening and there’s no fucking way I’m going to be able to stop. As I yank her off the window and carry her to the bed, I realize it’s my conscience. I wanted to do this right. I wanted something real with Lucky. But at this second, as I throw her onto the bed and tear her underwear off, I realize I was never capable of that.

  I’m not a good person.

  This is what I do.

  After weeks of blue balls I finally have her where I’ve wanted her since the moment I saw her backstage at The Tonight Show, and I’m going fuck her raw.

  Her mouth migrates across my stubbled cheek and she nips my lower lip between her teeth. I close my eyes and hold my breath, because at this rate, I’m going to come before she ever gets me out of my pants. But when her tongue glides out and traces my lips, I nearly lose it. I realize my grasp on her hips could crush bone and lighten my grip. Her mouth seals over mine and her hand finds my straining cock through my jeans. She strokes and pulls a groan from the animal deep inside me. As her fingers work the button of my jeans, I slip mine between her legs. She opens for me, and she’s so fucking hot. So wet.

  My fingers tease at the opening to everything I’ve needed for weeks before plunging inside. She moans into my mouth as her pussy contracts hard around my fingers.

  She has my button open, and as she inches down my fly, the beast is freed. Her fingers wrap around me, stroking, then lower to cup the family stones.

  I break our kiss and hold my breath, talking myself down before I come in her hand.

  She presses my jeans lower and lines her hips up under mine. “Give me what you give them,” she groans, all sex and desire.

  But she’s not them. She’s Lucky.

  The rush is followed instantly by a flood of something dark. Dread twists through my gut and I can’t breathe. I sit back on my heels, looking down at her. This isn’t how it was supposed to go.

  All I’ve wanted for two months was to fuck this girl. In forty-eight hours I’m on a plane to Amsterdam. This is probably my last shot.

  But as Lucky takes my cock into her hands, the dread flows darker and thicker, like tar through my black insides. Despite the fact that I’m about to explode with need, I find myself pulling out of her grasp and backing off the bed. I stand and stare down at her, my face, no doubt, reflecting her confusion like a mirror.

  Never in my life have I stopped a woman from fucking me, and I can’t even explain why I’m doing it now, except Lucky isn’t like all the others. I want more from her than just a quick fuck.

  I tuck my protesting cock into my jeans and zip. “We can’t do this, Lucky. I’m leaving the day after tomorrow for two months.”

  “Which is why we should do this now,” she says, pressing up onto her elbows.

  Already, I’m second guessing myself. What kind of fucking moron am I, letting all that slip through my hands?

  She shifts onto her knees, right in front of me where I stand at the side of the bed, and bunches her fists on her hips, all kinds of challenge and sex in her dark gaze. “This is a one-time offer.”

  I feel my head shaking as that conscience I nearly killed just now makes a resurgence.

  “Is it because of my age? Because you know this isn’t a big virginity thing,” she says.

  “It’s not that. It’s…” I trail off with a shake of my head, trying to shake a coherent thought loose. Because I have no fucking clue why I’m doing this. “It was supposed to be different with you.”

  Her scowl deepens. “You’re a real piece of work, you know that? For weeks you’ve been slinging innuendo at me, and when I finally give you what you’ve been begging for,” she says with a disgusted flick of her hand at that incomparable body, “now you don’t want me?”

  Her rant hits home, and I suddenly understand. I do want her. But it’s not just her body I want. I want that smart mouth and sharp wit. I want those eyes that see things in an entirely different light and that mind that thinks in ways I can’t begin to untwist. I want to lose myself inside the incredible person she is and find out what makes her tick.

  I want everything she is.

  And fucking her now, before I leave for two months in Europe, is not going to get me any of those things.

  “If we do this now,” I say, rubbing my neck, “then all it will be is a quick fuck. That’s not what I want from you, Lucky. When I get back, whatever you want from me is yours.”

  She blows out a disgusted snort. “You mean whatever’s left of you after you’ve fucked your way across Europe?”

  I shake my head, and this time it’s on purpose. “That’s not going to happen.”

  Her arms fold skeptically over her chest. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Why?”

  It’s like someone poured a beer down my throat then shook me. My stomach’s all fizzy knots. “Because I have a hunch there might be something here,” I say with a wave of my hand between us. “Because I want to find out if my hunch is right.”

  “So, when that hot French girl gets down on her knees and unzips you�
��?”

  “I’ll tell her to get the fuck up and grow a little self-respect.”

  Lucky’s eyebrows shoot up. “She starts sucking you and you’re going to push her off?”

  I take a step toward her. “There is one girl I want more than I’ve ever wanted anyone, and I just pushed her off. Frenchy’s got no prayer.”

  There’s a second where I think she gets me…that she sees I’m, for once in my pathetic life, not totally full of shit.

  But then her eyes narrow. She scoops her underwear off the floor and drags them up her legs. “You are so full of shit.” She’s off the bed, yanking open the door before I can react. She slams out into the hall and I start to go after her, but what’s that going prove. The only thing that will show her I’m serious is to keep my dick clean on the road. Which is something I’ve never even considered trying before.

  I watch her load into the elevator and vanish. And now that she’s not here, piercing my soul with that knowing gaze, reminding me what’s at stake, I feel like the lowlife snake I am.

  What if I can’t follow through?

  Chapter 20

  Shiloh

  It’s sort of awkward going home with Billie. On the bus, it wasn’t her house. It was our hotel room on wheels that I was paying for. As much as she was trying to be the “parent,” I didn’t feel accountable to her when we were out there.

  But this place is all hers. She keeps saying to make myself at home, but I don’t feel like I belong here.

  It’s on the eighteenth floor and out my floor-to-ceiling bedroom window is an old white building that Billie says is the L.A. County Library main branch. All of the rooms are large and open, and full of stuff that looks really expensive. Everything is leather or antique, and everywhere I look, there are crystal vases and art on the walls that I can’t make any sense of. I’m not even sure the painting in my room is hanging the right way. Looks to me like it’s upside down.

  I’ve spent the last week since we got here staring at it, trying to figure out what it’s supposed to be. It keeps my mind off what happened between me and Tro in that Miami hotel room.

  Sort of.

  I haven’t even gotten out of bed yet and it’s two. After living under a microscope and sharing a bus for the last two months, having my own space feels amazing, so I’ve just kind of stayed in here. My laptop is open on the bed and I slam it shut, hating myself for opening it in the first place. But I had to know. I flop onto my stack of pillows and stare out the window.

  Tro is in Brussels. Or he was last night. But the picture on my screen is from Paris the night before. I didn’t need to translate the caption. I already knew what it said. “Tro Gunnison, sampling Europe’s finest.”

  I turn my face into the pillows and scream. God, I hate him.

  I take a deep breath and sit up, pulling open the laptop again. In the picture, Tro is sitting on a barstool in a club. An actress who looks familiar but I can’t place is wrapped around him from behind. She’s got her chin on his shoulder and her hands splayed on his chest. Tro looks like he’s talking to someone out of the shot, but I have no doubt he took that actress back to his hotel and fucked her.

  Because that what he does with everyone but me.

  But I’m not jealous. This is Tro. He’s a manwhore. I knew that going in.

  I slam my laptop closed again and nearly throw it across the room, but my stomach growls and I decide to focus my efforts on feeding it instead. I pad to the kitchen and find Billie sitting on the couch, on the phone, as usual.

  “I need that in writing, Phillip.” She glances at me and nods and I realize she’s talking about my contract. “As far as Shiloh’s concerned, if we don’t get some creative control it’s a deal breaker.”

  “Full creative control,” I say, remembering my conversation with Freddie as I grab a box of cereal from the cupboard.

  She frowns at me as she jots something in her notebook. “Put all of your points on paper and let me look them over.”

  I pour milk on my Apple Jacks and take the bowl back to my room. I shove the laptop to the bottom of my bed with my foot as I stuff my earbuds in. I mean to turn on my latest playlist, some really cool stuff I found by this Finnish band I stumbled on by accident, but instead I click on the recordings Tro made in the subway with Lilah last month. When I’m done eating, I set my bowl down and lay back on the bed and close my eyes as goose bumps pebble my skin. If Billie gets what we’re asking for, I’ll be recording this stuff for real. And maybe I can even get Lilah to play the studio tracks.

  I roll on my stomach and smile into the pillow. LoLah, together again.

  I start making plans in my head as the fantasy takes shape. Lilah will move to L.A. and we can get an apartment together when we turn eighteen. We’ll hang out and give each other shit like we used to. And we’ll write more music and she’ll play on all my CDs, and next tour, it will be her and me sharing a bus.

  But then the notes of Tro’s song start and I feel my throat tighten.

  “Do I have it right?” I hear Lilah say.

  “You picked that up fast,” he says, his rough around the edges silk voice tugging at my insides like a fishhook.

  I don’t miss him.

  I won’t.

  I click the music off and text Lilah. When she doesn’t answer right away, I get up and take my empty bowl back to the kitchen.

  “It looks like we’re going to get most of what we’re asking for,” Billie says, “plus much better royalty terms.”

  My stomach jumps. “They’re going to let me pick the music?”

  “You’ll have a voice, Shiloh. It’s unrealistic to expect they’re ever going to give up the final say.”

  “Why?” I spit. “I’m the artist. I’m the one whose face is on this stuff. It should be my choice.”

  “But they’re the ones financing it. They’re the ones promoting it. They’re only going to do that if they’re passionate about what you’re doing. It has to be a product they think they can sell.”

  “Well, then, they’re fucking it all up. Because the songs I wanted to do would be selling ten times better than the crap they gave me.”

  She closes her laptop and pushes up from the couch. “You’ll have veto power, Shiloh. If there’s a track or two that you don’t want, we can probably get them pulled. That’s more than most new artists get.”

  I shake my head as her words sink in. “That’s not creative control. That’s being a…” What did Grim call me that night in Atlanta? “…a performing monkey. There has to be a label that would let me sing my own songs,” I add when I remember what Tro said.

  She shakes her head gently. “You don’t want the reputation of being difficult so soon in your career. Phillip and Universal have been more than fair with this new contract. Appearing ungrateful would be a mistake.”

  “I’m doing Lilah’s songs,” I say, not even caring I sound like a five-year-old having a tantrum.

  “We’ll work on that.” She picks up a stack of papers from the coffee table. “I’ve set up a meeting with a lawyer to talk about pursuing guardianship, if this is still what you want.”

  “What about school?” I ask cautiously. There’s some swanky private school Billie wants to register me for. I didn’t really think that part through when I agreed to this. With Lilah gone from my old school in San Francisco, there’s no real draw to go back, but I missed my junior year with The Voice, so I’ve got two more years. Going to a new school for my junior and senior year doesn’t sound like fun.

  “I thought we could go over to talk to McCall Academy tomorrow. It’s in Beverly Hills, one of the top prep schools in the country.”

  What’s my alternative? Go back to the group home? “Yeah. Okay.”

  “Great,” she says, pulling the stack of papers in front of her together. “Maybe we can go shopping for new school clothes for you after.”

  I shrug. “I don’t need much.”

  She tucks the papers into a folder and stands. “You know w
hat? Let’s not wait. Let’s go right now.”

  I look down at my baggy T-shirt. “Right now?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  “Um…give me a sec to change.”

  I go to my room and find a pair of leggings and a clean T-shirt, then comb my fingers through my kinks and tug them back into a ponytail. When I come out, Billie tucks the folder into her briefcase and locks it, then slings her purse over her shoulder and stands.

  “This will be fun,” she says. “Girls’ day out!”

  We head to her car, a white Mercedes that still has the new car smell, and I wonder if she bought it when I started making money. She gets fifteen percent of everything I earn, which, based on the original contract, didn’t look like it was going to be much. But the CD is selling better than projected and we’ve gotten some endorsement money, so cash flow has been good.

  She calls the school on the way to say we’re coming.

  When we get there, I discover what money buys. Where only half the kids in my old high school got lockers because the doors were ripped off most of them or they were falling out of the ancient walls, this school has rows of polished wooden lockers lining the pristine, marble-tiled hallways. We meet with the principal, and Billie explains the situation.

  “I’ve been lead to believe that it shouldn’t take long to obtain guardianship,” she says. “Will we have to wait until then to enroll her?”

  “Unless you have someone within Child and Family Services who is authorized to do so, I’m afraid so,” Principal Lewis says. “But in the meantime…” She leans down and pulls some paperwork from her drawer. “…you can certainly start on the paperwork so we’re ready to go when the time comes. And if you can fill out the financial disclosure, we can run all that information through the system and pre-qualify Shiloh.”

  Billie nods. “I can assure you there is money in Shiloh’s accounts to cover tuition for the first year.”

  I feel my eyes go wide. It didn’t occur to me until just this second that I’d have to pay to go to school. I mean, seriously? Who does that?