Hard Rhythm

by Cecilia Tan

  “How do you feel now? Be honest.”

  I felt my cheeks flush as if he had caught me lying and maybe he had. Was he trying to get me to admit that I had dropped into subspace and that I was sliding inexorably toward it again now? Or was it just dirty talk? Somehow it was like he held not just my body but my will, and I couldn’t outright lie to him. “I’m hot,” I said. “Very hot.”

  “Oh, really.”

  If he made a joke I swore I’d get revenge later.

  He didn’t make a joke. “This is probably the wrong time to fuck you until you lose your mind, though.” He growled a little as he said it, then forced himself to speak as calmly and rationally as a possible. “I think that scene turned out more intense than either of us intended.”

  True. But calm and rational was not what I was yearning for. I couldn’t believe the words that came out of my mouth. “Maybe that makes it the perfect time to fuck until we lose our minds,” I said. “I mean, we lost our minds already.”

  “Hush.” He dipped his mouth to my neck, kissing and sucking gently and sending waves of pleasure through me. Nngh, when was the last time a man made me feel like that? Like every kind of pleasure could be had in his hands if I would only let him have his way, if only I’d surrender. Surrender never ended up being as good in real life as it sounded in books, but inside I was burning to test that theory again. Maybe Chino’s different, maybe it’ll work this time. Or maybe I just was too horny to think clearly.

  I clutched at him as he let me go and started to withdraw, though. It felt like he wasn’t just withdrawing physically, but emotionally, and I’m not sure which ached more. “Chino.”

  “Maddie.”

  “You can’t…just leave me like this.”

  “I’ve got four minutes left in charge,” he said, pulling away and sitting on the side of the bed. “If we’re going to fuck I’d like to be thinking about something other than asshole father figures the whole time.”

  “Maybe if we fuck,” I said, surprising myself with not only how much I wanted him but how hard I was pushing him, “you’ll forget all about them. For a little while.”

  He looked back at me. “I didn’t think you liked me that much.”

  I don’t, I wanted to say. But I want you anyway. Hormones. Horoscope. Something out of my control is going on here. I felt guilty now not just for hitting him too hard but for judging him so harshly before. I tried to put it back on him, though. I pinched the corner of the towel and edged it slowly aside, revealing a raging red erection. “Your cock doesn’t seem to care what I think.”

  He let the towel drop and crawled on top of me, dragging the hot hardness of his length up my thigh. He slipped a hand between my legs and discovered how utterly lush I was. “Neither does your pussy,” he said.

  I thrust my hips upward. “Fuck, it’s…it’s stupid how”—much I want you—“horny I am right now. I’m…not usually like this.” I was racking my brain trying to figure out what I could say that would make him give in.

  “Uh huh,” he said. “That’s why we’re not going to do the fuck-and-Velcro thing.”

  I was about to cry foul—I wanted him so much—but then he buried his head between my legs, one hand pulling my thong aside and keeping me spread while his tongue went to work. I writhed against him, so aroused already that I didn’t think it would take long to come. Which was fortunate. When he paused for a breath he said, “Two minutes,” and I wasn’t sure if it was a threat or a promise.

  His mouth was beyond talented, a true connoisseur of woman-flesh, and as he slipped two fingers into me I peaked, the orgasm rocketing up my spine and sending my already spinning head into outer space. He didn’t let up, either, stroking me from the inside and continuing firm sweeps of his tongue until I’d ridden out the full glory of my climax.

  He raised his head and looked at me from between my legs, his eyes feral, licking his lips. Then he threw his own head back and let out a kind of roar, like a tiger or a lion, and I realized he’d been jerking himself off with his other hand. He came onto the sheet covering the bed and then hung his head, panting hard.

  I was stunned but my entire body was feeling so languid and delicious that it was like no negative emotion could get through the cocoon of pleasure I was wrapped in. Fifteen minutes ago I’d been feeling every bad thing possible and now I couldn’t imagine feeling disappointment, or shame, or fear or anger or sadness. “Chino.”

  He lifted his head at the sound of his name and my cocoon was pierced by the look of pain on his face. He hid it quickly with a smile, but I had seen it.

  “Hey,” he said. “Thanks.”

  “Um, thanks,” I said back, which felt ridiculous. “You seem like you could use some cuddling.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Do I? You sure it isn’t you who needs some cuddling?”

  “Shut up and cuddle me,” I mock-ordered and he laughed and moved up to hold me again.

  “Let me ask you one more thing,” he said as he put his arms around me.

  “Sure. Anything.”

  He paused, maybe for dramatic effect, maybe just to make me wait, then said, “House hunting. I need help house hunting.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously. Real estate agents ignore single guys and pay way more attention to couples. There’s a bunch of open houses in Laurel Canyon. We don’t have to hold hands or anything, just come around with me.”

  I laughed. Maybe it was that I was still softened up from the scene and all, but I agreed right away. Besides, it might be fun to see what kind of house a rock star could afford.

  * * *

  CHINO

  Well, that wasn’t how I thought tonight was going to go. We emerged from the playroom to applause from our friends, which made Madison blush and me pump my arm in triumph. Seemed they approved of our apparent hookup and I kind of wondered if they’d been waiting for it to happen. I thought I had kept my interest in her pretty close to the vest but Axel knows me well and nothing gets past Sakura’s notice.

  In my line of work—especially at this level of success—I meet a lot of top-shelf gorgeous women and some of them are quite smart: what struck me about Madison was that unlike most of these gals she didn’t try to hide how smart she was. I liked that even more than the way her corset framed her luscious hips. I hadn’t missed a party since we’d met—except for the month when The Rough tour took us to Europe—but somehow the opportunity to invite her to play had never come up. In fact sometimes I had the feeling she was avoiding me, but the question was whether she was avoiding me because I was interested in her or because she was interested in me.

  I would say, given what had gone down tonight, I now had that answer. She was more than interested, but if all the mood swings she went through during our scene were any indication, the woman had issues. Serious issues. Well, I told myself, I guess I’ll find out if those issues are deal breakers or if we have something going here. Something was going on in that gorgeous red head of hers. Madison was obviously a lot more complicated than I’d first thought.

  I was always a kinky fucker. The whole idea of slave girls and bondage and whipping has always turned me on, even when I was a kid and had snuck a look at my dad’s magazine collection. Some guys had Penthouse or whatever, right? My dad had these wild European and Japanese and American underground and indie comic books hidden in a locked drawer in his office, full of drawings of corsets and boots and rope bondage and weird shit. European artists with names like Moebius and Milo Manara and Americans like Michael Manning and Frank Gary. After I left home and moved to the city I found one of those Frank Gary comics at a flea market and had matching “Bondage Beauties” tattooed onto my upper arms. My first tats. I could barely afford food, so spending the money on tattoos might’ve seemed crazy, but right then it had been more important to me to grab hold of who I wanted to be than to eat.

  I met Axel and Mal shortly after that. If you want to be superstitious about it, I think those two tattoos were like a magi
c spell, summoning the two people I needed most at that time of my life.

  The ink was still fresh on my latest tat, a pair of guardian eyes on the backs of my shoulders. Maddie commented on them as she scrubbed my back in the shower. She’d taken me not into the huge suitable-for-six-people dungeon shower but to the still-quite-large one in the employee dressing room. “You’re peeling.”

  “Yeah, the ink will shed for a couple more days,” I said. The heavy black would leak right out of my skin, forming a layer which would then flake off. “What about you? I don’t recall seeing any ink on you.”

  “Never got around to it,” she said. “Couldn’t ever decide on something I wanted to keep forever, you know? Do all of yours mean something?”

  “Yeah,” I said, but I wasn’t in the mood to describe them. I decided to stick with the ones she was looking at. “The eyes are the only ones on my back because when I started getting tattoos I wanted them where I could see them myself.”

  “Why is this one different, then?”

  I shrugged and ducked my head under the water. When I emerged I swapped places with her, drinking in the sight of the water rushing over her pale skin and voluptuous curves. Gorgeous. I really hoped this wasn’t my one chance with her and that she wasn’t going to shut me down the second we got dressed. She was still looking at me expectantly, so I answered the question. “It’s supposed to be…this sounds corny.”

  “So?”

  “I put the eyes there so there’ll always be someone watching my back.”

  “Axel and the guys—?”

  “Don’t get me wrong. The guys in the band are my brothers. I know they’ll always have my back and yet, you know, they’re pairing up, thinking about starting their own families—” I broke off, not wanting to talk shit about my brothers-in-arms. “Well, it’s like you said. A tattoo is forever. I guess it’s my reminder that I need to always look out for myself, ultimately.”

  The truth was that although the guys loved me and we’d been through a lot together, there was a lot they didn’t know. And if I had my way, they wouldn’t find out. Mal was rich as hell, came from old money. Ford, too—his dad had made millions in the music business. Axel hadn’t always had it easy, but he’d never gone hungry, or been yelled at for throwing away a yogurt container because his mother needed a cup and couldn’t afford one.

  Those were my first drums. Overturned buckets and coffee cans, shoe boxes, plastic Easter eggs filled with rice. Anything I could make into a percussion instrument, I would. When other boys were playing with toy cars, toy soldiers, or toy dinosaurs, I was playing with my homemade drums, banging along with my dad’s stereo, singing and dancing in the living room. My father had been an artist, a cartoonist, and my mother cleaned houses, but I had been too young to understand why art didn’t pay better and why my mother couldn’t get a better job. When my sister was born, my mother had to stop working for a while and Dad couldn’t make up the difference. He went hungrier than me—at least I got lunch at school. My brother followed a year later, when I was in second grade, and things went downhill from there. The split had come not long after that.

  Axel had bought his mother a house with his share of the money we’d made from the first album. That had got me thinking about doing the same thing myself. I hadn’t talked to my mother much since I’d left home over ten years ago, though not for lack of trying on my part. The few conversations we’d had were mostly her telling me it wasn’t too late, that Jesus would always forgive no matter how bad the sin. I still called her, though, on holidays and birthdays, even if all I’d get was a lecture. I guess I hoped someday she’d come to her senses and talk to me like a human being again. Grow up, kid, I told myself, and the voice in my head sounded a lot like my father. If your mother doesn’t love you, buying her a house won’t change that.

  “Chino?” Maddie was brushing my wet hair off my forehead with her fingers. “You done?”

  “Let me just rinse one more time,” I told her, shaking water from my head and trying to clear it. That memory was clinging to me like a bad dream. Maddie stepped out of the shower while I made sure all the soap was off me. I might be a sinner but at least I was squeaky clean on the outside.

  I shut the water off and slid the glass door open and there she was, holding a thick, luxurious towel at the ready for me, her head slightly bowed. Like some kind of serving girl. I’d never seen her give anyone this kind of deference before.

  Madison, what’s going on in your head? I hadn’t gotten the impression that she was one of those women waiting around for a big bad dom to put her in her place. Something had changed during our scene.

  I let her wrap the towel around me. Maybe she was just being courteous. After all, she knew where everything was in the employee area and I didn’t. “Thanks.” I swabbed myself down and then tried to get a look at my butt in the mirror. “Hm. I can see a little bit of bruising coming up.” I poked at it. Didn’t feel particularly sore.

  She joined me. A pattern of black marks on her own bottom was blossoming into dark purple where the studs had impacted. “Yeah, figures,” she said and didn’t object when I ran my hand gently over the marks. “I guess if I do any demonstrating in this week’s video blog I’ll definitely keep my undies on.”

  “Which blog is that?”

  “I’m starting a new feature for PlayPeople, reviewing and demonstrating sex toys.” She sighed. “They didn’t explicitly say they want me to ream myself on camera but I kind of get the feeling they’re hoping I will.”

  “What makes you think that?” I asked.

  “Well, for one thing, they sent me their standard porn performer contract rider and rates.” She shrugged. “I’m thinking I’ll start slow anyway, though, and then work up to being more graphic later, if it seems warranted.”

  “Rates?”

  “Yeah. They pay more the more you show, plus bonuses if clicks go over certain thresholds.”

  I pulled her against me, naked and damp. “You think they’ll dock you for showing unsightly bruises?”

  She snorted. “If you don’t like bruises, you shouldn’t have put them there.”

  I dug my fingers into her buttocks, making her grit her teeth with pain as I pressed us together. “Oh, I like the bruises. Maybe too much. I think they should pay you more for those. Call me when you have paddles to review, eh? I’ll help you out.”

  Her eyes went misty, her lips parting, as I loosened my grip and massaged her marks instead. If I didn’t know her better, I’d have said it was the quickest drop into subspace I’d ever seen. But surely sassy, borderline-domme Madison didn’t roll over that quick, did she?

  I tweaked a nipple, thinking that would zing her back to life, but she only gasped and moaned. Well. Every instinct in me was screaming that I should push her down on the floor and stick my cock into her to lay my claim. She’d asked with words in the playroom and I’d said no, but her body continued to beg for it with every move she made. I had a feeling if I fucked her there would be no going back. We’d be welded together and separating would wreck us. Good reason to get to know her better, right? Good reason to slow down and take care of us both instead of giving in to how much I wanted to fuck her. I was a little surprised how strong that feeling was, given that my cock hadn’t recovered yet from the ball-wringing I’d given myself while eating her. That proved it wasn’t just my cock and balls that wanted her, I guess. It was something deeper in me that wanted to claim her.

  I let go and patted her cheek instead, a pantomime of a slap. “Come on, Maddie. You’ve got a party to work.”

  She shook herself. “Right. Yeah.”

  “You want to tell me what’s going on in that gorgeous head of yours?”

  She sparked the fire I was used to seeing, wrinkling her nose at me and cocking her hip. “Nothing. It’s nothing. Stop pretending you don’t know that women fall at your feet when you snap your fingers.”

  I laughed. Being a rock star had some definite perks. But Madison had never st
ruck me as the fall-at-your-feet type. It was probably why I had been so interested in her since we met. My usual charm hadn’t seemed to work at all. But maybe she had just hidden her interest until now.

  I still wanted to know what had happened to her while we were playing; I didn’t believe it was “nothing” for a second. But until she was ready to tell me I wasn’t going to force it out of her.

  She gave me a rich purple bathrobe—it matched the towels—to wear, and rather than putting the corset she had been wearing back on, she changed into another party-appropriate outfit, a black velvet catsuit with black leather waist cincher. The velvet transformed her already voluptuous curves into something nearly irresistible, the waist cincher accentuating them like gold on a lily. I wanted to fit my hands against the leather and then run my palms over the velvet forever.

  I caught her sneaking a look at her phone and murmuring “damn it.”

  “Something wrong?” I asked.

  She shoved the phone into the locker. “No,” she said and then repeated the lie of earlier. “It’s nothing.”

  I was sure it wasn’t nothing, but right then there was nothing I could do about it.

  Chapter Three

  CHINO

  I called Axel the next day for a reality check. I went out on the back balcony of the place I was renting and looked down at the body shop where they built custom motorcycles. This part of Koreatown was rough around the edges but I liked that. The tattoo shop on the corner had a couple of Frank Gary “Bondage Beauties” in the window and that had been why I’d checked out the street in the first place, then discovered the handful of apartments on the upper floors above the bike shop and the screen printing place. I suspected the buildings weren’t zoned for apartments but the landlord was okay with me going month to month so I didn’t ask too many questions. Axel’s phone rang twice before he picked up, sounding groggy.