by Brynne Asher
Leaving a smell of disinfectant mixed with lemons and bleach in their wake, one of them grabs the radio on the bar and they’re gone in a flash. I walk straight to a high table surrounded by barstools and flop my bag down onto the clean surface.
It’s quiet, making my every minute move squeak like a roar. When I finally turn, I find Link standing a few feet from me with his arms crossed. He’s wearing another t-shirt this morning—this one dark gray with a mix of light and dark blues that remind me of his eyes—professing his love for the Tennessee Titans.
He doesn’t utter a word, yet continues to survey me in a way that forces me to swallow hard over the lump in my throat. I take another swig of my coffee, trying to cover my escalating nerves and state what I’ve thought since last night, “Link is a strange name.”
Ignoring me, he doesn’t move a muscle when he asks, “How old are you?”
I bite my lip as I heft my ass onto a barstool. “I’m not twenty-two.”
His lips twitch on one side. “I figured that out the other night.”
I cross my legs and nervously bounce the top one, letting my dollar flip-flop from Old Navy slap against my foot. “Does it matter?”
As if my cheapie plastic shoe was whispering secrets to him, his eyes drop to my bottom half, raking over my bare legs, all the way down to my toenails painted the color Vampire Night.
He exhales a big breath when his eyes meet mine again. “Avery, I know you’re underage, but I need to make sure you’re not underage, if you know what I mean. Nico said you’re a junior at Vandy. I want to make sure you’re not a child prodigy.”
I try to bite back my grin, because I’m anything but. “I barely got into Vandy. I can assure you, Link, I’m average to the core.”
He takes a step, eating up half the space between us, and loses the smirk. “You’re anything but average.”
Raising a brow, I retort, “My SAT scores and GPA would argue that.”
Taking the last step there is to take, his fingers find the outside of my thigh and brush lightly against my skin. He steals my coffee cup and takes a big drink before his voice dips. “Your SAT scores and GPA don’t take into account lyrics and notes that, when put together, can change lives.”
My heart skips a beat and I whisper, “No. They don’t care about stuff like that.”
He sets my coffee down next to us and leans in so his nose brushes mine. “How old are you?”
My mouth goes dry, feeling his words wisp across my lips. “I just turned twenty.”
He gives me a small smile and drawls, “Thank fuck.”
I swallow hard again. “Is Link your real name?”
His fingertips tease the skin at the hem of my short-shorts. “No.”
I pick up my coffee and take another drink. “Hardly anyone knows I write music. Not even my family because I was afraid my parents would put the kibosh on me attending Vanderbilt if they knew why I really wanted to be in Nashville. You’re practically a stranger to me and I told you about my song writing. I think you can trust me with your name.”
He swipes my coffee again and I frown, making his lush lips smile around the rim of the plastic lid.
Lucky lid.
He sets the cup down and sighs. “Lincoln.”
My frown deepens and I repeat, “Lincoln?”
“Yeah, which is why everyone calls me Link. My parents think they’re more important than they are and cursed me with a stick-up-the-ass name I hate.”
All of a sudden, I can’t help but smile. “You mean, like, Abraham Lincoln?”
His brow furrows.
“Like, Honest Abe? That Lincoln?” I go on and grin big.
His touch on me becomes firm, his big hand gripping my thigh, squeezing. “You are a firecracker.”
“Well, you keep stealing my coffee.”
“It’s not sweet enough,” he states.
“Too much sugar isn’t good for you.”
“That’s what my mother always said and I’ve pretty much done the opposite of anything my mother ever told me,” he murmurs and dips his head to the side of mine. His hand cups my face and I let out a little gasp when his tongue darts out to flick the studs running up the side of my ear. “Do you know what I can’t stop thinking about?”
“Defying your mother?” I stupidly ask since I have no earthly idea what else it could be.
His fingers dip into my hair and he tips my head as his lips land on my neck. “Your barbell.”
I bring my hand up to his, needing to hang on and fist his shoulder with my other one. My voice is breathy when I offer, “That’s strange. Not as strange as your name, but still strange.”
He smiles against my skin before he pulls back where I get his eyes. “Why did you come today?”
Like whiplash, I’m thrown for a loop. “You asked me to.”
He shakes his head. “No. I mean, you’re a twenty-year-old college student who doesn’t even know my last name. Why did you trust me enough to meet me in a deserted bar when you don’t know me?”
“Nico knows you,” I refute, trying to defend the fact I came to meet a strange man. “I trust Nico, so I assume you aren’t an ax-murderer. And you know all the Maysons. But you asking me this is making me wonder if I should run for the door.”
He shakes his head. “You let me lock you in a bathroom and put my lips on you before you knew most of that. Tell me, little one, why are you here with me now?”
As I look into his eyes—right now the color of a calm summer day at the lake—I do my best to even my breathing. I can barely hear my own voice when I say, “It was experiencing my song with you.”
Link moves and I finally get his mouth again, light on mine right before his tongue sneaks out to taste the seam of my lips. I open my mouth for more but he pulls back, leaving me hanging, and agrees, “Yeah. It was the song.” He grabs my hand and pulls me off the barstool. “Come here.”
His head turns and looks down to me as he leads me across the empty mass, heading to the stage. Pulling me around, we go to the piano bench and I sit in the middle, him following me down as he straddles it, facing my side.
I allow my fingers to brush the ivories, but he grabs my attention by bringing an iPad to life that’s propped on the music stand.
“What’s this?” I ask, watching him type in a password right before a video appears on the screen.
“The audio is shit cause it’s from my surveillance cameras. After I searched my feeds for the bouncer who let you in, I couldn’t help myself—I needed to see you again—and downloaded this. After you told me it was the first time your music had been played for an audience, I figured you might want to see it, too.”
He pushes play on the video. He was right, the audio is pretty much shit and the video is dim, but I can still see it’s zoomed in to the side of the room. All I see are Link and myself close to the spot on the wall where I was doing my best to be invisible. The memory of him arguing with me and trying to bounce me for the second time that night floods my heart. I watch myself on the screen—much smaller than his imposing figure—begging him for just a few more minutes so I could witness my dream come alive.
Sitting here at the same piano where my music was played for the first time, I watch Link wrap his big arm around me as I clung to him. This time I see what I didn’t see that night. That night, I stared off into the crowd to experience their reaction to my words, but today, all I see is him. The way he stared at me, held me, and looked like his experience was the same as mine, yet at the same time, strangely different.
Reality grips me as his hand comes around my waist and pulls my side into his chest, my hip pressing into his bulging cock through the rough denim of his jeans. I look up at him and his hand comes to my face once again, but this time his touch is anything but gentle. He pulls my face up to his and his mouth crushes mine.
I don’t get to watch the rest of our sweet video. His free hand grips my leg and pulls it up and over his lap. He never lets go of my mouth as he yanks my
legs over his heavy thighs so I’m straddling him—his crotch pressed to mine. My flip-flops hit the floor with two light, successive thump-thumps as his hand dips between us and he yanks my tee up just enough to fondle the barbell at my belly button.
Holy shit. I only had that piercing done because I thought it would be cute, but Link’s touch makes me instantly warm, causing my thighs to constrict around his waist.
He groans into my mouth as the sad chorus of my song blankets us.
“Fuck, Avery.” He tears his mouth away from mine and his gaze sears into me. “You’ve fuckin’ worked your way in and I can’t shake it. Can’t get you outta my head. No one’s gotten my dick this hard this fast. Ever.”
“Me too.” I bring my hands up to his face, smooth from having just shaved, and bite my lip. “I mean, I obviously don’t have a dick. But yes, the rest, I agree with.”
Exhaling a huff of air through his smirk, he shakes his head before he moves fast. His arm comes around my back and he stands, picking me up and putting me down just as fast with my back to the piano bench. My bare feet fall to the floor on either side and he yanks my t-shirt up and my bra down on one side. I finally get his mouth back, but this time on my erect, sensitive nipple as his hand cups me between my legs.
“You wet for me, baby?” he murmurs against my breast, rubbing my pussy over my shorts.
My arms fall to my sides searching for something to hold onto. I clutch the bench under me in one hand as the keys on the piano unceremoniously clang from my grip with the other. The racket of notes sound horrid, yet at the same time, I’ll never forget them as he slips a finger inside my shorts and pushes my panties to the side to touch me.
I bang the keys again as I arch my back, hoping to God I can remember these unorganized chords that match the beat of my heart so I can work it into a song just for us.
“Link,” I breathe and beg at the same time.
He nips at my breast and presses two fingers inside me. “So much better than I imagined. And I’ve done nothing but imagine this since the moment I laid eyes on you.”
He pumps me with his fingers as his thumb circles my clit. I squeeze my eyes shut and moan, pressing with the balls of my feet that barely touch the floor so I can arch to get more of his touch.
“I want every inch of you, Avery. Every fucking inch.”
“Yes,” I moan and beg. “Please, Link.”
“Damn, my name on your lips as I claim your pussy? That might be your sweetest song yet, baby.”
I can’t respond or agree. That sensation deep in my belly takes over, but unlike any other time I’ve created it myself or when I’d been with my one long-time boyfriend, it’s deeper, more intense, and all-encompassing.
It could ruin me.
As I grip the bench and clang the keys, my orgasm rips through me. Up my spine, down to my toes, and to the ends of every strand of hair hanging from the piano bench.
That’s when I realize it.
He could ruin me.
“Fuck,” he groans as I hear my whimpers sing around us.
He barely slows his fingers, wringing every ounce of my orgasm here on the hard piano bench. When he finally thinks I’ve had enough, I lose his hand from between my legs and feel his arms come around my sated body. Then I’m up, my legs wrapping around his waist as he sits, straddling the bench, holding me to him. I bury my face in his neck and go limp all over.
With one arm angled up my body, his other slinks to my ass where he wraps a hand underneath me and cups everything.
“Every inch of you, baby,” he reiterates, giving me a squeeze. “This is just the beginning.”
The beginning?
Holy hotness and tattoos.
Chapter 5 – Explode
barriers,
to kill a dream
Link
I hold her close, her bare tit still pressed into my t-shirt.
I did not mean for that to happen. I wanted to bring her here, let her listen to her song again, and learn more about her.
But I did not lie. After she left my bar when we first met I was complete shit, thinking I’d never see her again. The last day has been complete shit in a whole other way, worrying about her age, how I could get her to talk to me again, and if Nico is really going to kill me for making a move on his babysitter. He’s left me three angry voicemails, all threatening to rip my balls off. Apparently, Asher can’t keep his big fucking mouth shut because I’ve also gotten texts from Cash and Trevor, informing me just how Nico plans to rip my balls off.
I’ve ignored them all.
As she sits in my lap, wrapped around me like a wet noodle while she comes down from the most beautiful orgasm I’ve ever witnessed, something inside me turns. Burying my face in her thick, dark hair, my arms embrace her small figure and, at this moment, I decide to do everything I can to make her mine. I’ve just got to convince her of this because if I’m not it for her, I have a feeling it will break me.
She starts to squirm in my lap where I’m holding her ass tight, pressing her into my hard-on since my balls—that I do love and, despite Nico Mayson, plan on keeping right where they are—are about to explode.
“That was…” Her words trail off and she fidgets again, making me groan into her neck. She presses her pussy into my cock, not knowing the misery she’s creating below my waist, and adds, “I don’t know what that was but it was better than anything I’ve ever experienced. I think I need to write about it.”
That swells inside me, making me want to beat my chest like a fucking caveman and rip her tiny shorts off to put my mouth between her legs to really give her something to write about. Just when that thought goes straight to my dick, making me impossibly harder than I was before, I hear the door creak.
Avery goes from limp and relaxed around me to tighter than a rubber band and reaches between us to pull her shirt down. I crane my head around to look over my shoulder without letting her go and my blood boils.
Adam Bearden, the bouncer who let Avery in the other night and whom I fired on the spot because of it, walks through the front door of my bar.
I move to stand, bringing Avery with me since she’s about as heavy as a feather and keep my back to him as I set her on her feet. She looks up at me with big eyes as she adjusts her bra and tries to smooth her hair.
I turn, shifting to keep her behind me as much as possible and when I look to Adam, his face is screwed into an angry mess. But his eyes are not on me. They’re on Avery.
He stops in the middle of the tables between us and the bar, crossing his arms. “I get fired for letting a minor in and now you’re in her pants? What the fuck?”
“Shut your fucking hole, Bearden. You let in a minor and, no matter who it was, that shit could get my business in trouble. If you have the capacity to understand what it means—Tennessee is an Employment at Will state. I can fire you for no reason if the mood strikes.” I feel Avery’s hand at my back where she fists my shirt. I fucking hate that she’s witnessing this but I’m even more pissed at Adam for interrupting a perfect moment. I should’ve locked the door.
His face turns to stone and it looks like he’s doing everything he can to eat the words he wants to spew. Lowering his voice a fraction of a decibel, he states, “I need this job.”
“You should’ve thought about that when you had the opportunity to do your job and not think with your dick.”
Like the dumbass he’s proven to be, he spouts, “And you’re not?”
Avery presses into my back and I reach around to give her slim hip a squeeze as I shake my head. “I’m not sure what’s going on in your small brain rattling around that big-ass head of yours, but you have no clue. Now get the fuck out of my bar. I never want to see your face here again.”
Bearden hesitates, finally dropping his arms and glaring at me one last time before stalking out. When the door to The Knot slams shut, I’m halfway across the bar to lock him, and anyone else who might want to come and ruin my day, out.
I turn t
o Avery, who’s got her arms crossed while biting that lip I’ve enjoyed so much as she mutters, “I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.”
I hitch a shoulder. “I shouldn’t be grateful he let you in the other night, but you wouldn’t be standing here right now had he not. Still doesn’t change the fact he’s an ass. That’s not your fault.”
“True, but I tried really hard to get in.”
I smirk. “I didn’t let you in. Your charms might be strong, but I didn’t cave.”
She turns back to the piano but grins at me over her shoulder with her smoldering eyes from under those heavy, lashed lids that had everything to do with making Adam Bearden think with his dick. Any hot-blooded man would. “You caved in Nico’s bathroom.”
Because I can’t help but touch her again, I move to where she’s started the video. Putting my hands low on her hips, I pull her back to my chest and change the subject. “How did you get them to play your material?”
She doesn’t look away from the iPad. “I have a friend who knows them. They listened to it and said they’d try it out at a gig. They’re trying to get signed with a small label. Right now, it’s the only way my music will get any attention.”
I watch her watch the screen. “Do you have an agent?”
She shakes her head and glances up at me, rolling her eyes. “I don’t have an official anything.”
I’ve been back in Nashville for almost eight months and half that time I was getting my club ready to open. Besides old friends, my contacts here aren’t deep yet but I have made some. Putting this at the top of my to-do list, I add, “You can come and listen anytime you want, but you’ll do it from my office.”
She turns, her dark hair flipping across my chest and when she looks up, her eyes are shining bright. “Really?”
I grin. “Don’t look so excited. I’ll basically be locking you up in my space so it’s a selfish offer. I still shouldn’t have you here when we’re open, but I have a feeling I’ll be breaking lots of rules when it comes to you.”
She twists the hem of my shirt in her fist and gives me a playful punch to the gut. “It’s only fair, you know. I’m skipping class to be here with you.”