by Grace James
17
Hayley performing all nine minutes of Meatloaf’s Bat out of Hell was something to behold. She stood on the shiny, white coffee table in the center of the room and danced around, thrashing an imaginary guitar over the instrumental parts and gyrating her hips, pretending to dirty-ride a motorcycle, while she sang. As usual when she hit the karaoke, Derren was front and center, wolf whistling and applauding.
I stood – leaning against the enormous dining table which was also shiny and white – alongside Kane, who was sharing a bottle of tequila with me. We were simultaneously catching up and watching Hayley own the stage.
“So, are you excited for the new album?” I asked him, knowing from Hayley and Derren that they were due to start recording the following week.
Kane shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. Sounds like Derren and Blake have some good ideas.” He shot me a side eye that I think was supposed to be covert but totally wasn’t. “It’ll be cool to record back in Vegas, too.”
My head snapped around to look at him fully. “But I thought you guys were recording in LA?”
“Not this time. I only found out myself tonight. Blake wants to do it here, so we’re recording in Derren’s studio instead. It’s easily as good as anything they got out there, just a little smaller is all.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize…” I trailed off, my mind whirring with the knowledge that Blake was going to be in town that long. “Um, it’s cool that you get to spend longer back here,” I said as I poured us both another drink.
“Yeah, it’ll be nice,” Kane agreed.
I opened my mouth to say something else, but right then I saw Blake walking in from the back yard, where the all-in-one-kitchen-diner-living-room led through the sliding glass doors to the patio. He was with a few of his buddies and the same gaggle of women from outside – Sexy Brunette first and foremost among them. They all headed straight to the kitchen where Blake plucked some bourbon from the mass of bottles on the counter.
That horrible feeling was back, burning in the back of my gullet. That corrosive mix of sadness and jealousy.
Kane’s voice in my ear took me by surprise. “So, you ever gonna put him out of his misery?”
I turned to look back at him, confused. “What?”
“Blake.” Kane nodded across the room in the direction of his friend.
I felt my face heat, knowing that Kane had seen me looking. “He doesn’t look miserable,” I said, unable to mask the bitterness in my voice.
“Yeah, he’s good at that. Putting on a show. Acting like he’s happy.”
I thought back to all the pictures of Blake that I’d seen over the years. On none of them did he look like he was pretending to be happy. “Yeah, I don’t think there’s a whole lot of acting required,” I said.
“Alright then,” Kane agreed mildly, like, Subject dropped, but I couldn’t let it go.
“Kane, what aren’t you saying?” I asked.
He scrubbed a hand over his head and glanced away – at Hayley, who was now performing Katy Perry’s Firework, shaking her ass in time to the music – before looking back at me again. His expression was uncertain, as if he regretted saying anything in the first place. I could tell that he felt awkward and I understood why – Kane and I had never discussed Blake until now.
“Just say it,” I urged before taking a slug of tequila.
“Okay…I just wanted to say – I wanted to ask you – not to fuck with him, you know?”
I almost spat my drink across the room. “WHAT?!”
Kane winced. “Shit that came out bad. I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant to say that it’s gotta suck for him, coming back here and seeing you again, you know?”
“Wow. Thanks, Kane.” I said sarcastically.
“Aw, shit, I’m so bad at this.” He looked at me apologetically. “Sorry, I just meant that – no offence or anything – but you didn’t see how he was when we first went to LA. He was a fucking mess, Amy.”
I started to get mad. “How is that my fault?! When you guys first moved out there Connor had just passed away. How Blake was back then is not on me –”
“I know, I know! Jesus, that’s not what I meant either…shit, I just meant that he lost you both at once, you know?”
If he says ‘you know’ one more time, I’m going to poke him in the eye.
“No, I don’t know,” I snapped. “Yes, he lost Connor, but he didn’t lose me, he walked away from me. There’s a difference. It was his choice to leave.”
Kane fixed me with his older-brother-type-look. The look that told me I was missing something crucial. “Sometimes people do things they regret because, at the time, they don’t know what else to do. Sometimes it takes a little while for people to see their mistakes,” he said pointedly.
I felt like he’d just dumped a bucket of ice water over my head.
Because, three years ago, when I ended things with Blake and went back to Connor, it was because I didn’t know what else to do…and it had taken me a little while to see what a huge mistake it was…
Kane knew that.
“You see what I’m saying?” he asked.
“Yes,” I mumbled begrudgingly. “I see what you’re saying. But I still don’t think he’s miserable.”
Kane followed my gaze to where Blake was just finishing up filling a row of shot glasses with bourbon. “Maybe you just need to look closer,” he said, before picking up the tequila and pouring us both another generous splash of tequila.
I snorted and looked back at Blake. He was clinking glasses with Sexy Brunette and the rest of his little crew, like there was some kind of toast going on. The group knocked their shots back as one – all apart from Blake.
He looked right at me.
His eyes narrowed slightly, as if he were assessing me…
Then he threw his drink back and grabbed the bottle of bourbon up again, pouring another round while flashing a grin at his eager admirers.
Yeah, the guy is totally miserable.
NOT.
18
Hayley grabbed my hand and twirled me around, making me giggle. We had abandoned the karaoke and tequila and were in the center of the makeshift dance floor on Kane’s huge patio. The DJ was blasting out Rage Against the Machine and we were dancing like crazy people. As soon as I came out of that twirl, Hayley spun me around again – only that time I slammed into something solid.
“Oof!” I exhaled, pushing myself back off of the unsuspecting guy who’d just caught me. “I’m sorry!”
He was tall and cute in a blond hair, baby-faced kind of way. “Hi,” he said, grinning down at me. “You don’t need to apologize, you can do that anytime.”
I laughed; the alcohol was making everything a little funnier. Then I stumbled a little; it was also making everything a little…wobblier, especially in four inch heels.
Cute Guy put out a hand to cup my elbow. “Easy there,” he said amiably. “What’s your name?”
Before I could answer, I felt the weight of a large hand settle on the nape of my neck at the same instant I sensed his presence next to me. A look to my left confirmed what I already knew – Blake was there. The expression on his face was hostile and his eyes were arctic. He glared at the guy in front of me, who offered a slightly uncertain smile as he said, “Hey, Blake –”
“Fuck off, Jackson.”
Jackson immediately raised his hands in surrender. “Alright, dude. I didn’t know she was with you.” As he melted back into the crowd of dancers, I whirled on Blake, furious at his rudeness.
“What the hell was that?!” I demanded.
Hayley had also witnessed the whole thing and was standing with her hands on her hips, frowning at him.
Blake didn’t answer my question; instead, he asked his own, “How do you know Jackson fucking Knight?”
I don’t. I just met him, idiot. “What does that have to do with you?”
His eyes narrowed on me.
“Go be a caveman somewhere else, Blake,” Hayley s
poke up. “We’re trying to have fun here.”
“No,” he said to her, although he kept his eyes on me.
Hayley threw her hands up in annoyance. “God, Blake, will you just, for once, do what’s best for someone else?!”
Wow.
I hadn’t seen that coming. Hayley was usually so ‘live and let live’ and, although she had always been on my ‘side’ about the whole Blake situation, she made no secret of the fact that she was also his friend.
Blake clearly hadn’t been expecting her outburst either. His eyes widened as he finally looked at her, but then his brow furrowed in anger and, if I wasn’t mistaken, a bit of hurt.
Something shifted inside of me then. Because, whatever happened between me and Blake, I didn’t want him and Hayley to fall out over it. I wasn’t that bitter – which was a revelation, because up to that point I kind of thought I was.
“Hayley, it’s okay,” I said. “He doesn’t have to go anywhere.” They both turned to stare at me. I’m not sure which one of them looked more shocked as I continued with, “Why don’t you go find Derren? I’ve stolen you away from him all night.”
She searched my face. “Are you sure?”
Nope. Not at all.
“Positive.”
“Well…only if you’re sure?” She looked at me doubtfully one final time but, when I nodded reassuringly, she turned her attentions to Blake. Pointing a finger up at him, she said, “You are one dick move away from the point of no return, do you understand me?”
His jaw ticked as he cocked his head to the side slightly. Maybe that meant he understood, but I wasn’t entirely sure I did.
Hayley nodded up at him once, before she walked away to find her fiancé.
When she had gone, I gave Blake the fakest, sweetest smile I could muster. “Well, like I said, you don’t have to go anywhere – but I am.” Then, mainly to annoy him – because I knew it would annoy him to be dismissed – I turned away and started to weave my way through the dance floor towards the nearest bar.
I didn’t make it more than about five steps before I felt his strong arm circle my waist from behind and pull me back against his hard torso. I whipped my head around to see him frowning down at me, his eyes glinting angrily as he growled, “DON’T walk away from me.”
Oh…that should NOT be hot…
Why the hell do I think that’s hot?
Because you’re an idiot, Amy. Get a grip!
I managed to sneer at him. “Or what?”
Eyes holding mine until the last second, he lowered his face to my neck and took a deep breath, inhaling me. I couldn’t move. I was literally paralyzed. Then his hot breath was on my ear. “Or I’ll prove right here, right now, that it’s not just me still feeling this.”
The dark promise in his tone made my whole body clench. My nipples pebbled under my dress and I felt myself get wet. But somehow, I kept my voice disdainful when I said, “You’re insane.”
A puff of breath against the sensitive spot just underneath my ear told me that he found that funny. His laugh was punctuated by calloused fingertips skimming teasingly up the outside of my thigh to stop just under the hem of my dress.
I’d love to say that did nothing for me.
I’d love to say it didn’t make me shiver in the best way.
But then he just couldn’t stop himself from being a jerk. “You have any idea how fucking short this dress is, Princess?” he asked gruffly, as if the length of my dress pissed him off.
I knocked his hand away angrily. “Yeah, I have a pretty good idea how short it is, since I’m wearing it.”
In other words, it’s MY business how short it is, NOT yours, asshole.
I was pretty sure he got the subtext because his next words were even more clipped. “That why you’re wearing it? To make every guy here look at you?”
Oh, no, he didn’t.
“Because I couldn’t possibly be wearing it just because I like it?!” I snapped, wriggling and trying to shove him off of me so I could get away – but he just wrapped his other arm around my middle and held me even tighter against him, crushing me against him, so that I could barely move.
I glared at him over my shoulder.
He’d moved his face away from my neck and he was meeting my scowl with one of his own. The smell of bourbon and the intoxicating scent of him washed over me. “I said DON’T walk away from me.”
“You say a lot of things. What was the last one? Oh, yeah, you were going to give me ‘time’ or something, right?”
“I changed my mind.”
“Oh! You changed your mind?! And I just have to jump in line? That’s how it works for you now, isn’t it? Blake calls the shots? Everyone does what Blake wants?”
One side of his mouth curled up into a cockier-than-hell smirk, but the hardness in his eyes remained. “Pretty much.”
“Oh, PLEASE –”
He cut me up abruptly, “Are you this mad ‘cause you thought I was gonna fuck ‘er?”
I felt my face go slack at the implication in his words; I didn’t need to ask who he was talking about – it was clearly Sexy Brunette. “Were you trying to make me jealous?”
“Did it work?”
There was no way I was going to give him the satisfaction of answering that one. “Fuck whoever you want, Blake. It has nothing to do with me.”
That knocked the smirk right off his face. “There’s only one woman in this whole place I want, and it’s not her.”
I rolled my eyes. “Whatever –”
He jerked his arms, shaking me a little as his eyes bored into mine. “Don’t act like you don’t give a shit, I know you do. And I wasn’t trying to make you jealous, Princess, but you can’t deny you were.”
“Like you were a minute ago, you mean? With Jackson?”
“Exactly,” he said unflinchingly.
That shut me up; the way he just admitted it like that, without any self-consciousness. For a long moment, we just stared at each other. The music pulsed around us. People danced and gyrated. But we stood still in the center of it all, pressed together, without even a seam of air between us…and that was when I felt it…
A pressure against my lower back, getting harder with each passing second.
His cock.
Hot, even through his jeans.
A dozen disjointed memories flashed through my mind –
Our first time together at the mountain cabin. Blake slamming me against the wall and grinding his hardness against me until I almost burst with pleasure…
Me, gliding my fingers down his huge, stiff length, mesmerized by the sight of him so hard in my hand…
Him, with a feral and desperate glint in his eyes, pinning me to the bed and gripping his pulsing, swollen shaft, lining it up with my slick entrance…
Oh my God…
Feeling him against me like that again was like a stroke to my clit. A gasp was ripped from my lips as my body just responded. I know he saw the effect he had on me, because his whole body went rigid for a second – and then his brow furrowed in a look of pure need.
My knees almost buckled right there.
No! STOP IT!
I wanted to shake myself for being such a dumbass. I needed to get away from him, and fast. I pushed against his arms but he didn’t loosen his grip. “Blake, let me go.”
“No.”
My voice rose almost to a shout, “Just let me go!”
For a second longer, he kept me pressed against him, then his arms grew slowly slacker until he was only holding me loosely, but his damn eyes kept me pinned in place.
“Not gonna give you much longer, Princess,” he warned darkly. “Soon, I’m gonna prove to you how much you still want this.” He rolled his hips forwards as he said that last word, grinding his rock-hard cock against my lower back, just above the cleft of my ass. “Time’s almost up.”
Ignoring the way my lower stomach dipped at the feel of him, and how my breath labored in my chest at his threat, I managed one more eye r
oll as I shoved his arms aside. He didn’t fight me as I moved out of his grasp and started to walk away –
– then I was falling.
The heel of my shoe had gotten caught in the crack between two of the patio pavers. My knees hit the concrete with sickening force as I landed on all fours in the most undignified fall of my life; legs apart, ass in the air, tiny dress barely covering anything. My breath hissed through my teeth as I tried to gather my drunken dignity enough to do that thing where you jump up and pretend you’re fine – even though your knees hurt like a bitch – but before I could, Blake was there.
His hands curled around my upper arms as he pulled me up, his face concerned as he said, “Shit, you okay?”
No, I’m MORTIFIED!
“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” I muttered, knowing that I must be blushing crimson.
All of a sudden, he dropped to his knees in front of me, one hand dropping to my hip to steady me as the other encircled the back of my left knee.
“What are you doing?!” I squeaked, peering down at him in alarm.
Blake glanced back up at me. “You fucked your knees up. You’re bleeding.” Before I knew what happened, he stood and scooped me up into his arms, cradling me against his chest as he started to carry me towards the back of the house.
“You don’t need to carry me!” I protested, even as I hooked my arm around his neck.
“Apparently I do.”
“I can still walk!”
“Yeah? The seventy-one shots you drank say different.”
I opened my mouth in outrage. “What are you?! The alcohol police?”
He shot me a look that was half amused, half withering.
“Seriously, you can put me down now,” I said as we entered the house.
“Not ‘til I patch you up.”
“You don’t need to patch me up,” I protested, getting even more embarrassed when people started to stare at us.
“Princess, have you even looked at your knees?”
Then I did look properly. My right knee wasn’t too bad, grazed but only bleeding a little, but my left knee looked like it was cut quite deeply. There was a thick slash of blood trailing down my shin. The alcohol in my system must have been numbing a lot of the pain. “Oh, ouch.”