by Mia Storm
His expression shifts into a mix of frustration and anger as he drops his head back against the wall. “Because you’re the only girl who’s ever tried to get into my pants that I gave a shit about.”
There’s a noise, then an empty beer can comes flying in from the right and hits the wall next to Tro’s head.
“What the fuck, man!” Jamie’s voice says from a distance.
Tro chucks the can back at him. “Get the fuck out of my room, asshole.”
“It’s our last fucking day on the road. You need to drop this hermit shit and come out here and fix this thing with Grim.”
The picture is a blur of light and dark as Tro gets up and goes to where Jamie is. “I said, get the fuck out of my room.”
There’s a slam, then he turns his phone back on himself. “He’s a douche.”
“And crazy. You haven’t been a hermit.”
His eyes widen as he moves to the bed and sits against the headboard. “How would you know?”
I shrug and try to make like it’s no big thing, but I feel my cheeks warm. “I just saw some stuff.”
He grins. “Have you been stalking me, Lucky?”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, because that’s how I really want to spend my time.”
“So, tell me what you’ve seen,” he says, and I hate the amusement I hear in his voice.
“The usual.”
“Meaning?”
“You fucking every woman in Europe.”
He slouches deeper into the pillows. “I suppose that’s fair.” His head quirks to the side. “Not true, but fair.”
“You’re denying that actress in Paris?”
He shakes his head. “She went home with Jamie.”
“Or the Bulgarian princess?”
A cocky half smile tugs at his mouth. “That almost got me arrested, but it wasn’t this trip. Guess the press dredged that one up for something to write about when they didn’t think I was getting in enough trouble this time around.”
“You’re never going to make me believe that there’s not groupies in your bed every night.”
He raises his eyebrows. “You almost sound like you care.”
I catch myself chewing my lower lip and make myself stop.
When I don’t answer he gives me a look, then the camera blurs again as he gets up and crosses the room. He pulls open the door and turns the screen out so I’m looking at the living room. Jamie and Grim are packing up their stuff.
“Hey, Grim?” Tro yells into the room.
His head pivots and he glares daggers at Tro. And holy shit. Even with the crappy resolution of the picture I can tell his face is a mess.
“How many women have I fucked this trip?” Tro asks.
Grim just glares at him, then turns and disappears through a door on the other side of the room.
“He’s pussy-whipped,” Jamie yells.
“Pussy-whipped?” I ask, trying to keep the shake out of my voice. “Whose pussy would that be?”
Tro turns the screen back to face himself and ducks into his room. “I’ll give you one guess.”
I shake my head. “Sure as hell isn’t mine. You didn’t want my pussy when you had the chance.”
His eyes flash wide, a mix of anger and surprise. “You really think I didn’t want you, Lucky? Seriously? Are you fucking blind?”
“My eyesight is just fine,” I say, tapping a finger under my eye. “Didn’t miss a thing when you rejected me and walked away.”
“I have wanted you from the moment I saw you backstage at Rockefeller Center. I fucking fantasize about how you’d feel under me, over me, beside me, every fucking night. I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything, Lucky, but I don’t even know how to do that—fuck someone who matters to me.” He gives a small shake of his head and a disgusted laugh as he drops his gaze from the screen. “I mean, when you never want to let someone out of your arms once they’re in them, how does that work?”
My heart is hammering and there are shooting stars flickering through my vision. “What time Tuesday?”
His eyes find mine again through the screen. “I’ll text you the flight. You’ll be there?”
I nod. Just once, but his face changes the minute my head starts to move. He rolls his eyes up toward the ceiling and takes a deep breath. “Thank fucking God.”
“Didn’t know you were a believer.”
“Wasn’t ‘til just this second,” he says, grinning at me. “But when the big guy answers your only prayer, you got to give credit, right?”
“Well, you seem to be in confession mode, so I guess that makes sense.”
His eyes soften. “I should have told you this shit before I left.”
“Yeah, well…” I say, “I think maybe you tried, but I wasn’t ready to hear it then.”
“But you are now?”
I take a deep breath. “Not quite, but maybe by Tuesday.”
“Tuesday,” he says with a nod. “The only thing I know for fucking sure is the next three days are going to blow.”
“Night, Tro,” I say.
“Night, Lucky.”
I disconnect and stare at the phone before pulling myself up and heading back into Lilah’s place.
On Tuesday everything is going to change, one way or another. Which way that goes is going to be up to Tro.
Chapter 29
Tro
The flight from Rome to JFK feels like a funeral procession. Jamie and I are across the first-class aisle from each other and Grim is on Jamie’s other side. No one talks and Grim is well on his way to cleaning out the entire plane’s alcohol supply, tiny airline whiskey and vodka bottles lined up on his tray table like bowling pins. About halfway through the ten hour flight, when he starts slurring a string of expletives across the aisle at me, the flight attendants cut him off. When he wants to climb over Jamie’s lap to get to me, Jamie’s able to talk him down and finally he passes out.
Jamie nudges my elbow from across the aisle. “We’ll get through this, man. By the time we’re back in the studio next month, Grim will have cooled down and everything will be fucking fine.”
He’s trying to sound confident in his prediction, but from the squint in his eyes, I can tell he knows it’s most likely bullshit.
I sip my drink then set it down and swirl the ice cubes. “I don’t think so, man. I’m just not feeling it anymore, and I don’t think you’re going to get Grim on board with that plan anyway.”
I know he’s already got feelers out for a new vocalist for “his” band, and I’m okay with that. It feels like the right move.
Jamie’s eyes narrow. “Christ, Gunner. You’re saying you’re really gonna just fucking walk away?”
I feel my head bobbing before my mouth opens. “I feel like it’s time. I’ve got some different stuff I want to do and Grim is still stuck in the same place he’s always been. I don’t think he’s capable of evolving. As a person or an artist.”
Jamie looks toward Grim, on his other side. “Fuck. I can’t fucking believe that this might be over.”
I drain my glass. “Not over. Think of it as a new beginning. Everybody gets what they want this way.”
But, just like Jamie, I know my prediction might be bullshit too. Because if Lucky’s not in Austin when I get there, I won’t have the thing I want most. The thing I need.
“What about me, man?” he says, his face crumbling. “What the fuck am I supposed to do?”
“Whatever feels right. You can stay with Roadkill, or if you feel like it’s time for a change, I’d be honored to have you run my drum tracks. The invitation’s open, man. Your choice.”
He tips his head against the headrest and rubs his eyes. I know what he’s going to choose. As Roadkill’s drummer, people know who he is. Backing up a solo is a tough spot to get noticed. “This fucking blows.”
We make it to JFK without Grim trying to kill me again and after we clear customs we all head our separate ways, toward our connecting flights. When I get to my gate, I’ve got
an hour to stress over whether Lucky will be there when I get to Austin. If she’s not, I just blew up my life for nothing.
But then I realize that’s not true. Lucky made me see how meaningless my life really was. Either way, with her or without her, this change is for the best.
But, fuck me, I hope it’s with her.
The flight to Texas is only four hours, but they’re the longest four hours of my life. When finally we unload in Austin, my chest is so tight I can’t breathe. But when I get to the end of the jet bridge, my heart skids to a stop.
Lucky is waiting at the gate.
My feet stall and the guy behind me slams into my back.
“Sorry, man,” I say, and when I turn back to Lucky, she’s smiling.
It pierces straight to my heart and I feel like a love-struck teenager, complete with rampant hormones. Because the image that takes hold in my mind as her smile fades is her naked body pressed against mine.
“Hey,” I say, finally forcing my feet to move.
“Hey,” she echoes.
I take her arm and turn us up the concourse toward baggage claim. “How did you get here?”
She breathes a laugh. “My father was too stoned to remember to use a condom.”
I smile and shake my head. “Let me rephrase that. I’m surprised Billie let you come to Austin.”
“I fired her,” she says.
My feet stall again and I spin to face her. “What?”
“It was all bullshit.” A disgusted frown twists her face. “I can’t believe I didn’t spot the con.”
The nervous knot in my stomach swirls into a cloud of rage. “What the fuck happened?”
She lowers her gaze, as if ashamed. “She was stealing my money. She only wanted to become my legal guardian so she could get her hands on more.”
“Holy shit, Lucky,” I say, looping my arm over her shoulder and pulling her close.
“She was writing checks out of my trust accounts and diverted my concert earnings into an account she’d set up in both our names. I didn’t even know.”
We start walking again, but I keep my arm around her. “She sort of laid into me on your bus that last morning on the road. She was pretty pissed I’d made the Freddie connection for you and she told me to back off.” I shake my head. “Her whole reaction was off, but I thought it was just because Freddie’d dumped her.”
“Wait…what?” she says, looking at me. She blinks a few times as understanding dawns in her eyes. “She derailed the A&M thing because Freddie dumped her?”
I nod. “According to Freddie.”
“She told me he lied and broke promises. I thought she meant professional promises.” Her face scrunches and she rubs her eyes. “I’m so fucking stupid.”
“You’re not stupid, Lucky. Shit happens. When you’re successful, people screw with you. You just learn and move on.”
“Yeah, well…” She shrugs. “Doesn’t really make any difference now, except I have nowhere to live and I need a new manager.”
“My manager’s pretty useless, but I have a few names that might work for you.”
She pulls away. “I told you, I don’t want your help.”
“Jesus Christ, Lucky,” I say, right on the edge of losing my shit all over her for being so stubborn. “Just let me do one fucking thing for you.”
She looks at me for a long second, and that’s when I see the truth in her eyes. She came to me, but she doesn’t trust me.
I want to be angry, but I think about her life: abandoned by her mother, jerked around from foster home to foster home. And now her manager, one of the few people in her life she’s ever let herself trust, turns out to be a skank. And here I am, the biggest dirtbag to ever walk the face of the earth, and I expect her to trust me? Yeah, right.
We get to the baggage claim and I lean against the luggage cart stand, pulling her with me. “I don’t blame you for not trusting me, but I’m not fucking with you. Just let me give you some names. I won’t even contact them. You can talk to them and see what you think. If you don’t like any of them, then fuck ’em. You can go out and find someone else.”
She bites her lower lip as she thinks about it. “Fine,” she finally says.
She looks at me a moment longer before stepping between my legs and sinking against my chest. I tip my face into her hair and breathe her in. I’m going to explode with whatever this feeling is, like someone dropped an entire box of Alka Seltzer into my bloodstream.
From the corner of my eye, I see a few people snapping shots. I don’t move. After weeks of waiting, I finally have her where I’ve wanted her since the moment I first saw her, and I’m not going to do anything to spook her.
When my duffel comes around, I push off the stand and yank it off the belt, keeping my other arm firmly around Lucky’s waist. We head to the curb and find a cab. My heart kicks when I give the driver the address of my apartment. After everything, Lucky’s here. She’s coming home with me. I made her a promise before I left. Anything she wants from me is hers. My body, my heart, my soul. There will be no holding back.
She owns me.
Lucky leans against me as we pull away from the airport. Her warm body against my side is doing things to my vitals that I can’t control.
I wrap my arm around her shoulders and when she settles deeper into my side, I tip my face into her hair. “What are we doing here, Lucky? Because if this is just a onetime thing, I need to know that up front.”
She lifts her head and smirks at me. “So I don’t break your tender heart?”
I hold her gaze so she knows this is no joke. “Exactly.”
For a long time, we stay locked in each other’s gazes, but her pull is too strong and I find myself leaning closer.
She closes the last inch between us and her warm, soft lips brush over mine.
My groan rolls up from the deepest part of me, pure base need. The next second, my fist is twisted into her hair and I’m crushing her to me, devouring her mouth with mine.
She doesn’t pull away and I feel the desperation in her kiss matching mine. I spend the next several minutes trying to find a way to crawl right inside Lucky and just live there. When we finally come up for air, I glance out the window and see we’ve reached my neighborhood. But when Lucky’s hand finds my jaw and pulls me back to her mouth, I forget everything else.
“Forty six seventy five,” the driver says over the seat as he pulls up in front of my building.
Lucky shoves me away and smiles a wicked smile that turns my insides to molten lava. I toss a wad of cash at the driver as Lucky lets herself out onto the sidewalk, then follow her out of the car. The driver pops the trunk and I shoulder our duffels before grabbing Lucky and throwing her over my shoulder as well.
She squeals as her feet unexpectedly leave the ground, then pounds on my back as I haul her toward the house. “Let me go!”
“Not fucking likely,” I mutter as I stride up the walk. I unlock the door and bound up the stairs, and the whole way, Lucky’s screaming at me to put her down.
So I do. Once I’m through my apartment door, I head straight to my bedroom and throw her down right onto the middle of my bed, where I intend on taking my sweet fucking time ravaging her pristine caramel body. I dump our bags and her hungry gaze flicks from my face to my straining erection before she grabs the front of my T-shirt, dragging me down on top of her.
And I’m kissing the living fuck out of her.
This is what I’ve needed since that first second I saw her backstage at The Tonight Show, and it feels like some deep, eternal itch is finally being scratched.
Chapter 30
Shiloh
He pins me under two hundred pounds of pure testosterone and kisses me. Our mouths devour and our hands conquer, laying claim to each other’s bodies in a flood of desire so intense that I’m dizzy with it. We tug at each other’s clothing—the last obstacle between us after all this time, and when I feel mine rip in his tight grasp, I shudder. No one’s ever literally r
ipped my clothes off before.
But I understand his need, because mine is overpowering and instinctual. I press him up just long enough to yank his shirt over his head and toss the tattered remains of mine aside. But then I fist my hands into his hair and pull his face back to mine. He’s my oxygen. Without his mouth on mine, I’d suffocate.
His kiss becomes more desperate as his hands skim over my hypersensitive skin and he unhooks my bra. My fingers trace all the hard lines of his ripped pecs and abs. Somewhere deep inside me, a dam breaks and a reservoir of need I never knew existed floods through me. I have his jeans open a second later, and when I wrap my fingers around his erection and squeeze, he freezes and holds his breath.
He presses up on strong arms, breaking our kiss and leaving me gasping for him. His fingers weave into mine, pinning my hands next to my head on the mattress. Every nerve ending in me pricks to life when his eyes course over my body like hot coals. His mouth finds my hardened nipple and he gives suck, setting off landmines under my skin. The shockwave travels straight to my groin, and I grind myself against the thigh he’s positioned between my legs. He presses his leg harder against me as his fingertips tease my other nipple into a hard peak. I can’t help the moan that claws up my throat, and he answers with one of his own, then his hand slips under my skirt and divests me of my thong.
He doesn’t waste any time, his fingers dipping into my slick opening, and a feral moan I can’t contain comes from the animal deep inside me.
“You have no fucking clue how much I’ve fantasized about this,” he says, slipping his fingers out of me and bringing them to his mouth. Everything south of my waist contracts hard when he sucks my juices off them. He reaches for the drawer of his nightstand and comes out with a condom, which he rips open with his teeth. A second later, he’s suited up and ready.
Fuck foreplay. I want him now.
I grab his hair and yank him to me, spreading my legs over his hips. His aim is true and I’m so wet I feel the tip of that thick cock glide inside me. Fireworks go off in my belly as he presses deeper, and, God, he’s huge. He hooks his elbows through my knees, supporting his weight on straining biceps, then all at once takes what’s his on one deep thrust.