The diner I find is a classic. The menu says it’s been here for over seventy years. The décor is straight out of a 1950s movie, black and white checkered floors, long soda fountain counter, big booths upholstered in red vinyl. I’ve just ordered a large chocolate milkshake when Tully comes in. I see her before she gets to the door, she hops out of a Town Car at the sidewalk in front, and I’m sure Dez is inside—maybe the rest of the band too. But they don’t get out, and the car drives off down the street as Tully enters the diner looking around for me, stress etching her beautiful features.
When she sees me the relief melts off of her, and she trails it all the way through the long shotgun style restaurant until she reaches my booth in the back corner, where she slides into the seat next to me and throws her arms around my neck.
“I was so worried,” she whispers. “Please tell me you’re okay.”
I wrap my arms around her tiny body, pressing all her sweet, warm curves against me and breathe her in—apple, ocean air, and Tully. I’m nearly crushed by the magnitude of my emotions, my heart racing, my limbs tingling.
“I almost did it,” I tell her, my voice nothing more than a rasp. “I almost used again.”
She pulls away, placing both hands on my cheeks and looking me deeply in the eyes. “But you didn’t,” she whispers. “And that’s what matters. You didn’t.”
I nod, swallowing to try to clear the emotion from my throat so that I can breathe again.
She kisses my lips tenderly before she lets go of my face, picking up one of my hands instead and holdling it as though she can transfer her strength to me by simply touching my fingertips.
“Did you buy?” she asks, and I’m surprised that she would think to ask.
“No. I promise.”
“Okay, then everything’s fine. I’m here, everyone’s waiting for you whenever you’re ready to see them—you did the right thing, you picked up my call, you told me where to find you. There are going to be some hard days, Blaze. But you made it through this one, and you’re okay.”
I am suddenly so overwhelmed by my feelings for this woman that I think I might explode if I don’t act on them. I need her. Desperately. Like she’s my new drug and I’m in the strongest throes of addiction.
“I need you,” I choke out, grabbing the back of her neck and bringing her mouth to mine without any finesse at all.
Our tongues tangle, teeth clashing, lips slipping and sliding over each other. Her breathing is unsteady, and pure want roars through me like an eighteen wheeler that’s lost its brakes. My skin grows tighter and tighter, and I press my fingers into her shoulders hard enough to leave bruises.
“Blaze,” she gasps.
“Come with me,” I growl, pushing her out of the booth so I can stand. I grab her wrist and haul her through the diner, the waitress and two other customers who are there hardly even give us a glance.
By the time we hit the back hallway where the restrooms are we’re practically at a run. I scan the various doors in the small, dark space and see two unisex bathrooms. Maybe I do have some good Karma left I think as I twist the knob on the second one and pull her in after me.
I press her against the door of the tiny room and reach down to press the lock in the handle at the same time.
“I need you so much,” I growl, leaning in to her, my arms propped against the door next to her head. “Please tell me I can fuck you. I might die if you say no.”
She doesn’t answer me with words, pulling my head down for our lips to meet instead. She kisses me hard and long before she pulls away. I’m gasping, my breath coming in rasps as I grind into her.
“Baby. I don’t want to take advantage, but I’m a fucking knotted up mess inside. You’re the only thing that can unravel it—you unravel me, Tully. Every time I’m with you I come undone.”
“I’m here for you,” she whispers. “I want to make it better.”
That’s all the encouragement I need, and I fuse our mouths together, like I wish I could fuse our souls, because she has a beautiful one, and mine is so terribly tarnished.
I press against her harder and put one hand under her knee, encouraging her to lift and open for me. Her leg comes up around my hip. I bend my knees finding her sweet spot and grin against her mouth when she sighs in ecstasy from the motion.
“The denim, baby. It’s got to go.”
She drops her leg and unbuttons her jeans. I’m too impatient though and I bat her hands out of the way, shoving the tight fabric over her ass and down her slender legs until they gather around her ankles. I grab her hips then and spin her, reaching up to place her hands against the wall as I manuever her to bend slightly at the waist.
She’s breathing as heavily as I am when she arches her back, rubbing her beautiful ass against me. “God, are you trying to kill me?” I ask, on a breathless snarl.
Her only response is a wicked chuckle that makes my balls tighten up to a point of pain. I run a hand along the small of her back, pushing her t-shirt up, mesmerized by so much smooth ivory skin.
Leaning over her back as I slide a finger along her slit to see how ready she is, I whisper in her ear, “How bad do you want this, short stack?”
“God, so bad. Hurry up, Blaze. Do it.”
It’s my turn for the wicked chuckle as I lazily lick around the tender rim of her ear and slide a hand under her shirt to find her full breasts heavy and warm with desire. I use my other hand to unbutton and unzip my jeans before pulling my stiff cock out.
“Anything you want,” I whisper to her before I line up and push ahead in one smooth stroke. When I’m fully seated, I have to stop and try to breathe, because it’s like I’ve found the home I never knew I needed. A place where everything isn’t about coming out on top, where it’s safe to be tired, to be unsure, to be an ordinary guy instead of the king of the universe. And somewhere deep inside I make a wish—that I could simply be the king of Tully’s world, instead of needing to be the king of everything else I touch. Because even as fucked up as I am, I know that the man who Tully picks to be the king to her queen will be the luckiest person on the planet. And though I know I can’t be that man, it feels damn good to pretend to be him for just a little while.
“Blaze, I need you to move before I die here.”
I bite down on the curve between her neck and shoulder and start to pump in and out of her, my hands holding her swaying breasts as she reaches behind her and wraps one hand around my ass. It doesn’t take more than a handful of thrusts before she’s coming hard, squeezing the life out of my dick and sending me over the edge into a freefall of pleasure that seems like it’ll never end.
When the aftershocks have worn off we both stand straight. I zip up while she rights her clothes. As she moves to the mirror to get a look at her hair I stand behind her and watch us together in the reflective surface. She’s flushed, her lips swollen, eyes sparkling. I look less haggard than I did a few hours ago, the lines around my mouth a touch more relaxed, the circles under my eyes a bit lighter.
I wrap my arms around her waist and bury my nose in her hair. “You’re so beautiful,” I tell her.
She smiles before she turns and takes my face in her hands again. “So are you,” she answers. “And someday you’ll believe me when I say it.” She kisses me gently on the lips and my heart slams against the walls of my chest once, like a wild bird giving its last go at the cage it’s been trapped in. Then, like that sad bird, my heart lays down, a limp, shredded mass in the empty shell of me. Because while my mind won’t allow me to think about what’s going to happen when Tully finds out what I’m doing, my heart knows. The heart always knows.
Tully
“James, I gave you tickets to the L.A. show, I’m not doing it again. You were a total asshole, you invaded my hotel room, and talked smack about me backstage. That’s my office. You can’t do that kind of shit and expect to get invited back.”
My brother, who has accosted me on a Skype call I was having with Savvy, flips me off. “Quit
whining, Tully. I was joking around with a bunch of fucking rock stars, it’s hardly like I bad-mouthed you to the board of a Fortune 500 company.”
I see Savvy sticking her tongue out at him behind his back and I try not to crack a smile. Because he needs to take me seriously right now. I lean into the monitor on my laptop, so he can see my eyes clearly. “You said, ‘she yells in tune, memorizes lyrics written for her, and shakes her ass to the beat pretty well.’ How can you not see the problem with that?” I hear Savvy groan behind him, “Oh my God, James!”
James chuckles and shrugs. “Just callin’ ‘em like I see ‘em. Everybody cracked up, Tully. They all thought it was funny. You need to get a sense of humor.”
I have that feeling building inside of me again. The rage that has no outlet. I feel so completely powerless, the only way I’ve ever been able to respond is by yelling. My brothers are bigger, stronger, and older. I’ve never stood a chance against their crap, and no matter how old I get it’ll always be that way.
“I think Tully’s got a great sense of humor,” a voice says over my shoulder. I jerk and almost lose the laptop as I turn to look at Colin behind me.
“Sorry,” he whispers in my ear. “Didn’t mean to startle you.” He gestures to the coffee table in front of me where he’s left his earpiece for the show we have in about thirty minutes. All the guys have been in the green room munching but I stayed here in one of the dressing rooms to take this call from Savvy that turned into my worst pre-show nightmare.
“Dude!” James calls out like Colin is an old friend. “You don’t know my sister very well yet. Trust me when I say she’s got the sense of humor of a fucking badger. She probably needs to spend more time getting laid and less time pounding on her little toy piano, might make her nicer to be around.”
“Is this fucker for real?” I hear Colin mumble under his breath. He crouches behind the sofa so he can look at the monitor over my shoulder.
“Colin, you don’t have to—”
“Sshh, I’m having a conversation here, Tully,” he answers quietly as he winks at me.
“You know Tully’s toy piano cost five grand. And she practices two to three hours a day.”
James says something to Savvy behind him. She rolls her eyes. He turns back to the screen seemingly uninterested in what Colin’s saying to him.
“Yeah, man, I’ve been hearing about it most of my life. ‘Tully has to practice,’ ‘Tully needs a new instrument.’ Trust me, Tully’s hobby has taken up plenty of the family’s resources.”
I’m livid now, ready to explode all over my nice new laptop screen. I open my mouth to tell James to fuck right off when Colin’s hand on my arm makes me clamp my mouth shut with a click.
“You know how much money I earned last year?” Colin asks, casually.
James snorts, and he already knows where Colin’s going with this. “You and Tully are hardly comparable.”
“Twenty-two million. And that was after I gave five million to charity. And, actually, Tully’s completely comparable. See, the members of Lush divide all of our royalties and sponsorship earnings equally. Always have, always will. That means that when we earn another hundred-plus million this year, one fifth of it will be Tully’s.”
I nearly choke. Yes, I’ve known what the terms of my contract are, but we’ve never put dollar amounts to that, only percentages. I get one fifth of the things Colin mentioned, a certain percentage of other earnings, it’s all been very hypothetical.
“Twelve months from now your sister will have an annual income of at least twenty million dollars, dude. All from playing her toy piano. And playing it better than anyone else in the entire music industry. The day you can say you’re able to earn that from any dipshit thing you do, then you speak right up and let us know what you think about music as a profession. Until then, I’d suggest you treat your sister with a little more respect if you don’t want her to buy your whole fucking life out from under you.” Then he reaches over my shoulder and clicks on the end button. My brother’s shocked face vanishes into a blue screen in a split second.
I sit in silence for one very long moment. Then I slowly turn to look at Colin who stands behind the sofa with his arms crossed, his brow furrowed.
“Before you say anything, I know that was out of line, and I swear I don’t normally lose my temper like that, but I cannot stand by and let anyone, brother or not, treat you like that. That guy is such a—” At that point he has to stop talking because the wind is knocked clean out of him when I jump over the back of the sofa and onto him, my arms around his neck, my legs around his waist as I shriek in his ear.
He stands, arms out to his sides, in shock, until I calm down enough to drop my legs to the floor, then his hands come to my back and pat it tentatively.
“Uh, I’m guessing that was an, ‘it’s all good, Colin’ thing?” he asks.
I pull back, tears rolling down my cheeks.
“It was very good, Colin,” I whisper through the waterworks. “I can’t thank you enough for standing up for me like that.”
“Well, first of all, you’re my sister as much as you’re his, and no one talks to my sister that way. Secondly, why the hell hasn’t anyone else in your life defended you against that prick?”
I sigh. “It’s complicated…”
Colin puts a hand on my back and directs me to sit back down. He takes the spot next to me. “There’s nothing complicated about it,Tully. You’re a human being. You don’t deserve abuse, and it’s your family’s responsibility to protect you from that even if it’s one of their own who’s doling it out.”
I nod, sniffing the last of my tears away. “I know that, and Savvy, and sometimes my mom or grandma will stand up for me, but it’s not just James. My other two brothers are almost as bad. They all drink—a lot—and they’ve all picked on me my whole life. I always thought it was because I don’t fit in—I’m the only artist in the family, and I’m not the typical little Irish Catholic schoolgirl. I thought that’s why they hate me so much, but Blaze says it’s jealousy.”
Colin’s expression is firm, his lips a thin line, and that furrow is still in place over his brows.
“Blaze is right. It’s not that your brothers can’t handle you being different, it’s that they can’t handle you being fucking amazing when they’re anything but.”
I roll my eyes. “I really don’t think…”
“Yeah, you really don’t think.” He raises an eyebrow at me. “You don’t think about what it might be like to be a really ordinary person and have this magical creature for a baby sister. Your parents did a piss poor job of helping your brothers love you and be proud of all the awesomeness that is you. That’s on them, not you.”
I feel heat suffuse my cheeks. He’s full of shit, but it’s still nice to hear. “Thank you, Colin.”
His voice is gruff as he stands and picks up the earpiece he came in for. “I meant every word, and if I ever hear that big brother is talking to you that way again, I’m going to tell Mike.”
I look at him and swallow because I can see that he’s serious, and yeah, if anyone could give James a run for his money it’s Mike. I cringe at the thought.
“Got it,” I say, blinking rapidly.
“Good.” He smirks, and walks to the door. “Fifteen minutes, Tully. See you onstage.”
After he goes I check my makeup and hair in the mirror. And for the first time in my life I don’t see frizzy hair and freckled skin, too big eyes and puffy lips. No, this time I see Tully O’Roark, badass keyboardist for Lush, Colin Douglas’s little sister, Joss Jamison’s songwriting partner, Walsh Clark’s favorite babysitter, and Mike Owens’s confidante. I see the girl on the Rock Steady magazine cover, and I think I might love her.
It’s late when we finish the San Francisco show, and I’m nearly the last one done backstage after the show. The guys never leave me without security, so I walk out of the dressing room and find one of our staff waiting to walk me to the car. When we reach the Town Car he
opens the door for me and I’m surprised when a hand darts out and grabs me, yanking me into the backseat where I land in a sprawl across Blaze’s lap.
“Hi,” I giggle as he gazes at me with a wry smile on his perfect face.
“Hey there.” His voice is deep and rough, and it vibrates through me straight to my core. Oh my.
“I want you to take a ride with me,” he says.
“Okay.”
He taps on the divider between the driver and us and the car moves smoothly forward.
I try to wiggle off of his lap but he holds me tight around my waist and nuzzles my neck. “Not so fast, short stack. I have plans for you. Plans that involve you on my lap…maybe a little to the left though.”
I laugh and smack him on the arm. “Pervert.”
“Damn straight. Any guy who’s not a pervert when he’s got you on top of him is either gay or dead.”
I stick my tongue out at him and watch as his eyes go dark, his pupils dilating. “You’re playing with fire little girl,” he tells me with his voice low and rough.
I turn, straddling him, my knees on either side of his hips. Then I press my breasts against his chest and grind against his already hard cock.
“Yeah? What are you going to do to me, big man?”
“Tully,” he warns with a growl.
I rotate my hips in a slow, deep circle, and before I can take a breath I’m flat on my back, Blaze hovering over me, his arms flexed, biceps bulging, the scruff on his face dark and dangerous looking as his eyes narrow in on my lips.
“I was going to wait until we got where we’re going, but if you keep this up I’m going to have to fuck you right here in the back of the car.”
My heart is racing, and I barely restrain the urge to arch into him, I ache so badly for everything he’s offering.
“How about a compromise,” I gasp.
He raises an eyebrow, silently asking me what I have in mind.
I slide down underneath his body, forcing him to spread his knees as I put my hips in between them. I get busy unbuttoning and unzipping his jeans before pulling his cock free.
A Lush Rhapsody: A Rhapsody Novel Page 19