by Lauren Rowe
Keane’s eyes sparkle. “That’s the idea, babe. Now you know you can do this, you’ll never settle for less.”
“Let’s do it again,” I say excitedly. “One more, okay?”
“As many more as you want, baby doll. I got all night.”
I lie back down giddily, my nipples rock-hard. “Oh my God. I’m in heaven.”
“That makes two of us,” Keane says. He kisses me passionately, his fingers caressing my breasts at first and then trailing down my torso and slipping inside me. And, by God, after only a few minutes of touching deep inside me and whispering all kinds of sexy things into my ear, I come again. Just as hard, if not harder, than before. And, after that, against all odds, he does it again, and then again, each time easier to achieve and more pleasurable than the last.
By the time Keane’s finished with me, I’m a writhing, incoherent, sweaty beast. A cat in heat. A raw piece of meat. And I’ve never felt more alive in my life.
“I can’t take it any more,” I breathe, undulating on the bed. “Fuck me, Keane.”
Keane rolls off me abruptly and grabs a nearby condom packet off the nightstand. “Oh my God, you’re a sexy beast.” He quickly rolls the condom onto his erection and moves to my laptop. “How about a little ‘Itch’ by Nothing But Thieves for the festivities?”
“Perfect.”
Keane cues the song and turns around to face me, his eyes smoldering. “Oh my God, what have you done to my poor, poor balls, you inhuman monster?” He crawls onto the bed. “You like torturing me, is that it?” With a guttural growl of excitement, Keane opens my legs, rests my thighs on his muscled chest, and slides into my wetness like a hot knife in warm butter, groaning as he does. “Oh, thank you, God,” Keane exhales, his body thrusting in and out of me. “Oh my fuck, you feel amazing. Thank you, lord above.”
I’m enraptured. Oh, good lord. A man inside me has never felt this good. My body is receiving him like nothing I’ve felt before. I’m absolutely ravenous for him. And so freakin’ wet. I had no idea my body could get this wet from so deep inside. Oh my God, this feels nothing like any of the sex I’ve had before. This is beyond pleasure. This is ecstasy.
As the song barrels into its first chorus, I grip Keane’s face and pull him to me for a kiss, my body moving with his, and he responds by devouring my mouth as his erection pumps in and out of me.
“Oh, God, I love fucking you,” Keane whispers into my lips.
I fucking love you, too, I think, but instantly realize my stupid brain’s mistake. Oh my hell, my brain just scrambled Keane’s words. I must be in an orgasm-induced stupor.
“I love fucking you,” I reply slowly, taking great care to say the words in the correct order.
“You feel so fucking good,” Keane growls on top of me. “Oh, fuck, I’m trying to hang on,” he grits out. “But you feel too good.”
I clutch Keane to me, concentrating on nothing but what my body’s feeling.
“God, I love fucking you,” he groans.
“And I love fucking you,” I say again, just as carefully as the last time, making damn sure my stupefied brain’s not screwing it up.
“Oh fuck,” Keane says. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, so good.”
“Itch” comes to an end, filling the room with brief silence, and I sigh with relief. Now maybe my crazy-ass brain will stop turning everything into a freakin’ fairytale.
Keane kisses me deeply, his body clearly on the cusp of release, just as the next song starts. And fuck my life, it’s Lana Del Rey’s “Blue Jeans.” Why the hell did I put this song on the playlist? Just because it happened to play during our road trip is no good reason to put it on a freakin’ playlist!
Keane thrusts into me deeply, his kisses passionate, his body clearly reaching a boiling point, and I reply with heated gyrations and groans of my own, my body on the verge of total and complete ecstasy. But, oh my God, how am I supposed to have no-strings sex while listening to this song? Is Lana Del Rey trying to send a subliminal message straight to my heart? Because as Lana sings her song about eternal love and brutal heartbreak, my stupid heart is beginning to adopt her words as my own.
Yes, as Keane’s body moves so deliciously inside mine and he kisses me with heart-stopping passion, I’m suddenly having a premonition about what lies ahead for me when this “no-strings fling” with Keane is done: I’m going to wind up just like Lana Del Rey in “Blue Jeans”—heartbroken.
And there’s not a damned thing I can do about it.
Chapter 41
Keane
Saturday, 2:46 a.m.
I’m deep-fucking Maddy Milliken to within an inch of her life to Akon’s “Smack That,” and holy motherfuck, it feels good. She’s bent over the bed taking every inch of me, my hands variously working her clit, fondling her gorgeous tits, smacking that round ass of hers, and grabbing fistfuls of her hair.
Who knew a pretty, smart girl I actually like would turn out to be the hottest sex of my life? Everything Maddy does turns me on. Every sound she makes. The way she responds so enthusiastically to every little thing I do to her. She’s my new favorite toy.
“You turn me on so much,” I growl at Maddy, and she moans her reply. “You’re so sexy, baby. Oh, fuck, this feels good. You make me wanna come so hard,” I whisper into her ear, my body on the verge of release. “God, I love fucking you.”
Maddy yelps, clearly on the cusp of losing it along with me.
Damn, this is good. And totally unexpected. I knew sex with Maddy would be good—stealing cookies outta the cookie jar is always a fun pastime—but I didn’t know ‘good’ and ‘fun’ could also be this addicting. If I’d known sleeping with a pretty, smart girl was gonna feel this amazing, I’d have done it a long time ago.
Maddy lets out a tortured wail and I can feel her muscles clenching and releasing around my cock. Oooooh, fuck, that’s the best feeling in the world. Oh, shit. I can’t hang on. This is too hot.
In a sudden flood of pleasure, my body releases with Maddy’s until we both collapse onto the bed in a sweaty heap.
Oh my God, this cookie right here is a drug and I’m a motherfucking drugstore cowboy, baby. Wooh! Maddy Milliken is officially the tastiest cookie I’ve ever stolen in my entire fucking life. Yee-boy!
I roll off Maddy and slap her ass once more for good measure, making her flinch. “Dude,” I say. “This friends-with-benefits thing was a stupendously fantastic idea.”
Chapter 42
Keane
Saturday, 10:37 p.m.
“She’s so hot,” I say, looking across the room at Maddy. I sip my beer. “She’s a stealth-hottie—just kinda creeps up on ya from outta the bushes. What’s that thing that hides in bushes and then sneaks out and kills you?”
I’m talking to Zander, of course. We’re sitting on a shabby couch in the green room of The Viper Room, waiting for my brother and his band to take the stage in about an hour. Maddy’s across the room with the band, shooting “behind the scenes” footage for some video she promised to make for them, and I can’t take my eyes off her.
“Something that hides in bushes, sneaks out, and kills you?” Zander asks. “A snake?”
“No, no, Maddy’s not a snake. I’m talking about that little mammal thing that does that.”
“A little mammal that hides in bushes, sneaks out, and kills you? You mean like a lion?”
“No, not a lion. Something little, like a... I don’t know what it’s called. That’s the whole reason I’m asking you.”
“There’s no such animal, Peenie.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Oh, well, there is now. It’s called a Maddy Milliken, son.” I watch Maddy across the room for a long beat, marveling at how sexy she is. “I love watching Maddy when she’s being Little Miss Documentary Filmmaker,” I say, my eyes still trained across the room. “Look how her face is all passionate and shit. Mmm mmm! Good stuff, son.” I swig my beer again. “Sexy little thing.”
Zander doesn’t reply.
Across the room, Maddy shares a laugh with Fish, the bassist in 22 Goats. She’s asking him questions on camera and totally connecting with him (a fact that doesn’t surprise me at all, since it seems Maddy quietly connects with everyone she meets, despite that bullshit she keeps telling me about her supposed shyness).
“Oh, hey, bee tee dubs, I meant to tell you. Just in case Dax mentions it, I told him me, you and Maddy got shanghaied last night by a horde of male strippers and got too shitfaced to stumble over to Henn’s party.”
“Okay. Got it.”
I take another sip of beer and watch Maddy for a long beat. “It’s always the quiet ones that surprise you,” I say. “Oh, look at her now. She’s got her game face on, brah. She’s so adorable. God-damn, she’s something else.”
“Peen,” Zander says softly.
I peel my eyes off Maddy to glance at Zander and I’m surprised to find him staring at me with what I’d call “what the fuck are you doing?” eyes.
“What?” I ask.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Zander asks (confirming that, yes, I can read my wife like a book).
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“I mean, ‘What the fuck are you doing?’”
“Well, let’s see. Hmm. Right now, I’m drinking beer with my beloved wife, waiting for my rock-star brother to take the stage in Hollywood, California, baby—yee-boy!—and watching a sexy little stealth-hottie sneak outta the bushes and slay me with her supreme hotness.” I wink at Zander and sip my beer. “Good times.”
Zander doesn’t look amused. “No. I mean, what the fuck are you doing with Maddy?”
I smile, thinking about my marathon sesh with Maddy last night for the millionth time today. “A whole lot more than sussing her, I can tell you that.” I snort and sip my beer.
But Zander doesn’t laugh. In fact, he’s strangely quiet.
“What?” I ask.
“What’s going on, Peenie?”
“I’m... What do you mean? Maddy and I are doing a friends-with-benefits thing, that’s all.”
“Doesn’t seem like it.”
“Well, we are.”
“Sure seems like a helluva lot more than that.”
I let out a puff of air, surprised. “Nope. Just having good times with a particularly delicious cookie I stole from a jar.”
Zander looks perturbed. “I think maybe you’re giving out some mixed signals to this girl, Peenie.”
“Pfft. Absolutely nothing mixed here, baby doll, except maybe a little cookie dough, if you know what I mean.” I wink and flash Zander my dimples, but he’s not having it. I exhale. “Dude, no worries, okay? Maddy and I had ‘the talk’ right from the start and we both agreed to fling from the rafters all the livelong day. No mixed signals—no one gets hurt—everything’s clear.”
Zander glances across the room covertly and then back at me. “At lunch with everyone today, I saw you secretly grab Maddy’s hand under the table.”
I feel my cheeks flush. “So?”
“So she looked really happy when you did that.”
“Yeah? So what? A guy can’t secretly hold hands with the chick he’s flinging with?”
Zander shrugs. “Not usually. In fact, that little hand-holding maneuver looked a whole lot like good ol’ fashioned affection, baby doll—like grade-school butterflies. Nothing fling-y about it. Peenie, you only let go of her hand when the food came.”
“Well, yeah. I like holding Maddy’s hand—so sue me. I told you the other day: she’s my friend. Friends hold hands.”
“No, they don’t.”
“Sure, they do. Well, sometimes they do.”
“I’m your friend and you never hold my hand.”
I reach for Zander’s hand and hold it tenderly for a long beat. “Feel better now?”
Zander shakes my hand off. “Be serious, Peen. I’m trying to tell you something important here.”
I wave him off. “You just don’t understand my friendship with Maddy. It’s unique. We held hands and cuddled before we ever even thought of having sex. It’s just what we do. I told you—she’s my adorbsicles, cutie patootie friend.”
“Well, don’t you think when you hold the hand of your adorbsicles, cutie patootie friend after having sex with her Lionel Richie style, a display of affection like secret hand-holding might send a subliminal message to the relationship-center in the girl’s brain?” Zander asks.
I clench my jaw. Zander just doesn’t understand Maddy and me. When it comes to Maddy, normal rules don’t apply. “Flinging with Maddy is different than flinging with some stupid chick I don’t even like,” I explain.
“Dude, you touch her all the time,” Zander says. “You move her hair outta her eyes. You touch her arm to get her attention, rather than just saying her name. Shit, Peenie, on the drive over here, in the space of three minutes, I saw you rub her neck, rest your hand on the inside of her thigh, and then kiss her motherfucking hand like you’re some sort of white knight in Camelot.”
“Wow, you’ve been keeping track of every time I touch her? That’s not creepy or anything, Z. You feeling left out, baby doll?”
“Dude, I’m not keeping track of shit—that’s my entire point. I’m just living my life in the same general vicinity as you, letting my eyes wander in all natural directions the way any normal person would do—and that’s all the shit I just so happened to witness between the two of you in a matter of minutes. Shit, Peenie, if I saw all that when I wasn’t even watching you, then what the fuck else are you doing to this poor girl when I don’t happen to glance in your direction?”
Okay, now I’m getting pissed—an emotion I don’t often feel toward Zander. This is the kind of third-degree I’d expect from Colby. “’Poor girl’?” I seethe in an angry whisper. “Hardly. I’m giving that girl the ride of her life, believe me. So what if I’ve gotten into the habit of touching Maddy outside the bedroom? During our road trip, we touched and cuddled and held hands all the time. That’s just how our friendship is. We touch. It just means we like each other. I like touching her. She’s a particularly affectionate person and I like that. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“No, there’s nothing wrong with it, unless you’re giving her the wrong idea.”
“I’m not. We talked about it. She understands.”
“What does she understand?”
“When I leave town and go back home, it’s over.”
“But can’t you see the way she looks at you?”
“Yeah—like I’m an idiot.” I snort.
Zander’s facial expression tells me he’s not amused. “No, Peenie. In fact, I think Maddy might be the only person in the entire world besides me who doesn’t look at you like you’re an idiot.”
I exhale and look up at the ceiling. “So what’s your point? Are you saying I’ve fucked up here by partaking in the dabble? Because I haven’t. Maddy’s the one who said we oughta do this fling-thing, not me. She said I could steal from the cookie jar while I’m here and she wouldn’t get hurt, so that’s exactly what I’m doing—I’m bingeing on cookies, but only while I’m in town. When I get back home, we’ve both agreed, like adults, that everything’s gonna go back to normal and we’re gonna be friends again and nobody will get hurt.”
Zander sighs.
“What the fuck, Zander? I just met this girl. I don’t even know her. There’s no alternative.”
Zander scoffs at that.
“I’m not like you, Z. I don’t fall head over heels when I see someone across a crowded room.”
“Too bad for you. It’s fun.”
“It’s not normal how you do that, bee tee dubs. I’ve been meaning to tell you—it’s totally weird.”
Z scoffs again. “Please don’t try to tell me what’s normal and what’s not, Peenie. I love you, man, so fucking much—but you’re seriously not the right person to teach me any life lessons about what’s normal.”
I grit my teeth.
“Baby doll, I’m jus
t telling you to watch your step. Her heart’s on the line. It’s written all over her adorbsicles face. Be careful.”
“Goddammit, Z. Why are you telling me this? You know when I was on the road playing ball I couldn’t keep a girlfriend happy if my life depended on it—and I was fucking miserable whenever I tried. If that lifestyle taught me anything it’s that, if I’m gonna have a relationship with anyone, no matter who it is, it’s gotta be with a girl I can actually touch every fucking night of my life. I need that Z; it’s who I am. I’m not a guy who can have a girlfriend on FaceTime.”
“But isn’t the whole point of you auditioning with that agency ’cause you’re thinking about moving to L.A.?”
“Well, yeah, if the right opportunity presents itself,” I say. “But I’m not counting on anything. I’ve been disappointed before, I could be disappointed again. No expectations, man—that’s the key to happiness. Now stop stressing me out. You’re bad for my chi. For fuck’s sake, Zander, I’m telling you it was Maddy who suggested we—”
In the middle of my sentence, the door to the green room opens and Mr. Music Mogul himself, Reed Rivers, the man with my brother’s dreams in the palm of his hand, strides into the room—and, just like that, I completely forget whatever I was about to say.
Chapter 43
Keane
After entering the green room, The World’s Most Interesting Man heads over to Maddy, Dax, and his bandmates Fish and Colin on the other side of the room, not even glancing at Zander and me on the couch as he goes.
I stand, intending to cross the room and grab Maddy’s hand, but Reed’s comment stops me.
“No, don’t let me interrupt you,” Reed is saying to Dax. He motions toward the couch where Zander and I are sitting. “I’ll just hang out over there with Frick and Frack ’til you’re done.”
“No, really,” Dax says. “We can shoot another time.”
“No, no, finish what you’re doing. I’ve got an ‘emergency’ email to respond to real quick, anyway. Carry on. Henn and Hannah should be here soon. Get as much done as you can before they get here.”