by Hazel Jacobs
Hazel Jacobs
Sinful Rhythms
Black Lilith Series Book Four
Hazel Jacobs
Copyright 2017 Hazel Jacobs
All Rights Reserved
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to real events, real people, and real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the Author’s imagination and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, organizations or places is entirely coincidental.
All rights are reserved. This book is intended for the purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the express written permission of the Author. All songs, song titles and lyrics contained in this book are the property of the respective songwriters and copyright holders.
ISBN13: 978-0646970462
Editing by Swish Design & Editing
Formatting by Swish Design & Editing
Cover design by Jesh Designs
Cover Image Copyright 2017
Kiss me, please kiss me.
But kiss me out of desire, babe, and not consolation.
– Jeff Buckley
Tessa Hunt is a former English major and current barista who’s stuck working at Starbucks.
She’s got a huge family she loves, a pile of books in her ‘to be read’ pile, and a best friend she’s never met. D came into her life accidentally via an X-rated picture sent to the wrong number one late night five months ago, and the pair of them have been trading texts and secrets ever since.
When D invites her to finally meet at a rock concert, in person, because he has a job opportunity for her, she discovers that her hilarious dorky best friend D is the world-famous Dash Todd, from Black Lilith.
The job he’s lined up for her is shadowing Black Lilith for their Sinful Rhythms tour and writing an article about them for Rolling Stone! That’s the sort of thing that launches careers. But when Tessa tries to coax Dash into a more serious relationship, she realizes that things aren’t as easy as she thought they would be.
Dash makes her weak in knees, but he goes cold the moment she tries to get serious. After so many years of effortless sex with groupies, she can hardly blame him for wanting to avoid commitment.
When another man vies for Tessa’s attention, she needs to decide whether to pursue a relationship with someone who is actually interested or to wait for her rockstar best friend.
I firstly want to thank my fabulous readers. Thank you for loving these boys as much as I do. It’s incredibly humbling. I hope I’ve given the Black Lilith gang the ending they deserved. I’ll miss them crowding my head on a daily basis, and it’s with mixed emotions that it’s come to an end, but what a journey it’s been bringing them to life. Thank you for choosing me to do just that, boys! xx
To my girls, Dee, Kayley, Mia & Josie. You girls have fast become sisters to me through this last year, and I love you all so much. The late night calls that would go for hours, pep talks when I felt deflated, and overall support when I needed that boost saved my sanity. I have found forever friends, and although we are oceans apart, I’ve never felt closer to friends in my life. I’m going to jump on you all when I land in Atlantic City, next year. BRACE YOURSELVES, TRIGGER IS COMING! xx
To my editor, Kaylene. You were the first person I spoke to after writing Black Lilith. I was completely clueless about what the next step was, but you encouraged, nurtured, and guided me through this whole process. I don’t have the words to thank you enough for that, but I love you dearly and thank you from the bottom of my heart! xx
To Kim, I don’t think I have ever come across a more sweet and pure soul in my life. You ooze love, positivity, and this beautiful strength every day, and I’m incredibly grateful to have you as a friend. Thank you for always guiding me in the right directions, and being a pillar of support through this whole journey for me from day dot. You deserve the world, Beautiful! Love you. xx
K,J,H – You each own my heart, and I love you all beyond words. xx
Dedication
Blurb
Acknowledgments
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Epilogue
Bonus Chapter
Connect With Me Online
About the Author — Hazel Jacobs
Tessa Hunt ducks under an awning hanging over the street to check her phone. There’s rain splashing in the puddles around her feet, and her phone illuminates her face with bright light. Probably unflattering, but she’s too focused on her screen to worry about it. A slow smile crosses her lips when she sees who the sender is.
D: MAYDAY!! JUST WALKED IN ON MY FRIENDS HAVING A 4SOME. I AM TRAUMATIZED SEND HELP
Tessa covers her mouth so that she’s not laughing out loud in the middle of the street. It’s not the weirdest thing that people in Chicago would have seen, but she’s dedicated a lot of time to keeping herself as well-put-together as possible. It’s a habit she keeps up even when she’s alone. But D always manages to slip through her façade.
Glancing around, Tessa makes sure that no one is coming—she’s standing in front of a bakery, but when standing near Water Tower Place, there’s always a chance of a swarm of tourists running a girl over—and types out her reply.
Tessa: Holy shit, which friends?
Then she tucks the phone back into her pocket and covers her head with the hood of her jacket. Tessa’s blonde hair is relatively long, but she can gather it easily into her hood so the rain doesn’t send it into a frizz-frenzy. It would serve her right if it did, considering she’d spent forever trying to wrestle it into artful, loose waves that morning when she should have been working on her portfolio. Loose waves won’t get her a job, and D keeps telling her to embrace the straight hair.
As though he would know, he’s never even seen her hair.
Tessa slides out the way of a big guy in a suit on her travels to the train station. She spent too much time at the library, and now she’s running late to make dinner. It was worth it, she thinks, as she skips around another slow walker and ducks an umbrella before it knocks her head off. Her backpack is now crammed with new books.
When Tessa was getting her degree in English Lit, she knew that the job market would be terrible. In fact, her dad had offered to pay for a full ride for literally any other major. But she’d been determined. If she was going to put herself into massive debt, then she was going to do it because it was something that she loved.
Her dad didn’t end up paying her tuition, but only because he couldn’t afford it. With a big family like theirs, there was only so much he could do for his eldest.
Either way, Tessa figured every major came with a risk. Business BAs were washing pots in restaurants all over Chicago. Ac
counting majors were begging in the streets. Nothing was guaranteed anymore. So if she was going to get a degree, then it might as well be in something that she was good at, that she enjoyed, and that she could consider herself doing for the rest of her life. At least that was what she’d told herself when she’d walked onto the stage to shake the Dean’s hand and receive her diploma.
Her phone buzzed again in her pocket, but she had to wait until she was safely on the train station platform before she could check her message.
D: I HAVE TO BURN MY EYES OUT AND YOUR ASKING ME THAT??
D: I JUST
D: i cant
D: it was Tommy + Slate + their girlfriends
Tessa has to physically restrain herself from correcting his incorrect use of ‘your’ and ‘cant.’ Instead, she straightens her black skirt and quickly types back.
Tessa: Could be worse? Could have been Logan?
D: Jesus, dont even joke about that
Logan is D’s brother. Tessa has been trading texts with D every day for the past five months, and she knows the people around him almost as well as she knows her own family. Logan is his brother who’s dating Mikayla. Tommy and Slate are their best friends and basically D’s brothers, who are dating Sersha and Harper respectively. She knows that Tommy and Slate like to joke about group sex, but D has never actually witnessed it. Apparently, it’s something terrifying.
Tessa: Pics or it didn’t happen.
D: u horny wench
Tessa: Did they have the door closed?
D: thats beside the point
Tessa: I think the real lesson here is not to walk into someone’s room without knocking first
D: I CANT BELIEVE YOU ARE TAKING THEIR SIDE I HAVE BEEN VISUALLY ASSAULTED
Tessa smothers her laughter again and quickly puts her phone away so that she can actually get on a train. She’s having a harder and harder time of putting her phone away nowadays. Tessa’s dad has started to notice that his daughter spends way too much time with her eyes glued to her phone. She doesn’t know how she could possibly explain that she started texting a guy when he sent her a dickpic by accident late one night and that she now considers him her best friend. Or that she knows who everyone around D is, but she doesn’t know his real name. And he doesn’t know hers. Because that’s not the sort of thing, they need to know about each other. They’re happy to exchange ideas, pics, and funny stories. At this point, a real name doesn’t even matter.
Telling herself that she’s supposed to be getting on the train instead of giggling at D’s antics, Tessa quickly checks through the gate and skips past a couple kissing on the escalator, her backpack swinging dangerously with the weight of her books.
Once she’s finally on the train—snagging a seat in the corner by sheer luck—she quickly opens her backpack and pulls out the first book she sees: Hokkaido Highway Blues. A guy hitchhiking around Japan? Sounds awesome! She quickly settles herself down with the book in her lap and takes a moment to reread the blurb, because that’s the best part. That’s the part that hooks readers.
If only she could write like that…
She would probably still be broke.
But the thought of escaping to another place—to Japan, or Russia, or the Netherlands, or just anywhere that isn’t Chicago—excites her. Tessa has always loved reading because when she reads, she can imagine she’s somewhere else.
When she was a kid, she could imagine that she was in Hogwarts, Middle Earth, or even Narnia. Now that she’s older, she can still imagine that, and also imagine that she’s in another country or another time. Someday, when she can afford it, she’s going to see the world.
Her phone rings in her pocket, and for a moment her heart leaps into her throat. She nearly drops the book as she fumbles for it, a sudden anxiety clutching her before she sees the screen. For a moment, she feels a tiny spike of disappointment, but then she answers, “Hey Dad… I’m on my way home,” she says, pressing the phone to her ear and ignoring the dirty look she gets from the woman in front of her.
Jesus. Relax your flaps, woman.
It’s not Tessa’s fault her father called her, or that the other woman decided to catch the train that day. She’s just glad that she’s still got reception down here.
She tells herself that she shouldn’t be disappointed. D has never called her. That’s the one thing they’ve never done. No matter how many nights she would have liked to hear the noises he claimed to be making or to just hear his voice—calling always seemed to be the one line they didn’t cross. That, and showing their faces. The fact that he’s apparently having a crisis over the fact he saw his friends having sex shouldn’t change that. The closest she will get to D is reading his messy texts. And she’s okay with that.
“Was the train late?” Dad asks. He sounds a little tired.
“No, I just… got a call.”
“A call? From one of the jobs?”
Tessa hates the excited tone of his voice. She deliberately doesn’t look down at the waitress uniform she’s wearing, because that’ll only make her more depressed. All those hours she’d spent working on her resume, all those hours trekking through the newsrooms and trawling online for writing work, and she’s still making stupid orders at Starbucks in the middle of the city.
“No, nothing like that,” she says, thinking quickly for something to change the subject. “How did Jackie go in practice?”
“Yep… she’s coming home with a few bruises, but I think she’s pretty proud of herself.”
Tessa grins, even as she has to brace herself for a Yuri!!! On Ice marathon when she gets home. Her little sister became obsessed with ice skating after she saw that anime for the first time, and now she likes to practice as often as she can. Getting her to the rink every day is a bit tough, but luckily Tessa’s brother, Scott, just got his license. He’s still in that phase where any driving is fun, even if it’s driving his kid sister to the other side of town and watching her spin around on the ice for hours.
Of course, Tessa had to take another shift at Starbucks to pay for the fees. But Jackie is worth it.
“She came so close to pulling off a Salchow,” Dad goes on. “Scott got it on video.”
“I’ll have to check it out on Facebook.”
“Or… ask him to show it to you?” her dad says slowly, as though she’s a bit slow.
She sighs. “It’ll be almost an hour before I get home.”
Dad just clicks his tongue at her. He’s getting used to Facebook, but he still doesn’t understand why his children use it to communicate when they all still live at home.
“Could you grab some milk?” Dad asks.
“Sure,” she replies absently. The train is moving, and she can see the lights from the tunnels cutting through the window. “I can swing by the store. Is there anything else we need?”
“Nope, that should be it.”
“Okay. Love you, Dad.”
“Love you too, honey.”
She hangs up, reflecting again that her dad sounds really tired lately. He’s been working double shifts at the factory now that two of his kids are in college. Tessa graduated, but her brother and sister started their freshman year, and neither of them can work on their scholarships. So Tessa and her dad have had to pick up the slack.
Six siblings. One parent. She often wonders if her mother had done the math before she left.
Her phone buzzes in her palm, and she tears her eyes away from the window to look down.
D: comfort me
She rolls her eyes at him, even though he can’t see it.
Tessa: :*
D: :D
Tapping the phone with her index finger, Tessa finds herself mimicking the emoji that he sent. D loves his emojis. And his dickpics. But mostly his emojis.
She tries to conjure an image of the man that she’s become so close to over the last few months. Tessa doesn’t have a lot to go on. She knows from his pictures that he’s got pale skin. That he’s muscular from the pecs down. There’s
a nice roundedness to his muscles that keeps him from looking like a weightlifter. And there’s a tattoo of a rose curling around his neck and part of his chest. His cock is… quite frankly, massive. When Tessa got the first picture, she’d thought someone had photoshopped it, or Googled ‘big cock’ and sent it to her as a joke.
She’d replied asking who it was, and D had realized pretty quickly that he’d sent it to the wrong person. His reaction had been the only proof she’d needed that it was a legit pic, which had led to a lot of questions. Namely—Has he ever hurt anyone with that thing? Could he use it as a weapon in a jail break? Now that would be a fun story to write.
He’d been adorably flustered, which she could tell even through his texts, and by the time he’d stopped apologizing she’d been intrigued enough to continue the conversation. He’d even been kind enough to send her more pics. In exchange for a few of her own.
What had started out as a mutually-beneficial picture exchange became an actual friendship. Tessa doesn’t really know how that happened. One day she was enjoying some of his raunchier suggestions, the next she was complaining about her second-youngest sister’s hogging the bathroom. D had fired back with a long rant about his older brother stealing his guitar so he could sing a sappy romance song to his girlfriend. They’d exchanged more pics, more information about their families, more… everything. This was the closest relationship she’d even had with anyone in her life, and she still has no idea what the man’s real name is.
For all she knows, she’s being catfished.
What if she’s being catfished?
That thought gets smothered immediately, because if she’s being catfished, then it would have backfired on her before now. It’s been five months, after all. With the amount of personal shit she’s told D, he’s enough information to ruin her, and enough pictures to make his own stop-motion porno. He hasn’t. So she can only assume that this is real. D is real.