“No,” he said. “I did a program where you go to rural towns in America and teach for a couple years. Nice deflection by the way.”
“Sorry,” I replied. “That’s the way it goes. I taught a couple of kids whose parents didn’t want them to go to public, or private, school. It was fun, and I really liked them, but when the youngest reached middle school, they decided to go to boarding school. It typically happens that way. I haven’t had many students in high school.”
“Do you prefer the younger kids?” he asked.
“No,” I answered honestly. “I like all the ages. It’s more work when they’re older though, trying to find ways to keep them interested. They’re more worried about appearance than the youngers. I can’t imagine some of my high schoolers building castles on the grass the way Sophie did with me.”
Bringing up Sophie also brought up all the questions I had about her, her mother, and the band in general. I laid my head back down on Lee’s chest.
“Come on,” he said. “We’re not going to hang out naked on the carpet. Let me show you the bedroom.”
I thought this level was just this one room, but sure enough, there was a door I hadn’t noticed before. Lee led me past the piano and instruments into the bedroom. There was one window in here, and it was high and narrow. Still, it was facing east, so the sun would spill in every morning.
Whipping back the covers, Lee waited for me to crawl in before he got in next to me. “I don’t know what will happen with Sophie,” he said. “We’ve talked about boarding schools, trying to find a better one than the one she just came from.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. It was one thing for me to stay with them while Sophie was with her grandparents, but what was I supposed to do if she was gone? Follow them around like a kept-woman-slash-groupie?
I was quiet, hoping he’d say something else like, “But that’s probably not a good idea.” Instead he asked, “What do you think?”
“Of Sophie going to a boarding school?” I didn’t like it, personally, but there were good schools out there. With enough research, I was sure they’d find one that was a good fit. The other thing was, though, Sophie loved being with her family. And an eight year-old… I mean. I knew what it was like for me and if I had had someone who loved me, I’d never have left their side. “I’m not her parent, Lee,” I replied. “It’s not up to me.”
“You must have an opinion,” he said. “I know I do.”
“I’m her teacher,” I said. “Of course I want to keep teaching her. But that’s not my call to make.”
“That sounds like a cop-out,” he argued. “A way to take a stand without actually taking one.”
I sighed and turned on my side. He grabbed me before I was too far away and dragged me back until he could curl around my back. Behind me, he was hard, but he didn’t make a move to do anything about it. My body—betrayer—primed itself for him. I wanted him. All he had to do was look at me and I was ready.
He wrapped an arm around my waist and slid the other over my breasts. Cupping them with his big hand, he held me tight. “We’ll need to adjust,” he said. “We’ve already been talking about it. Ten, right from the get-go, said you’d be part of the family.”
Family you can fire. The same thought had occurred to me when he’d said that, too. I didn’t answer because I really didn’t have anything to say to it. I wanted to be part of their family, wanted this to be more than a fling. My heart was already involved. Each hour that passed left me a little more in awe of them.
I was quickly teetering on the edge, and it wouldn’t take me long to fall over. If I was honest—and I wouldn’t be, not yet—I’d already fallen in love with them.
“It would have to be right for Sophie,” I said.
Lee nuzzled my neck. “See? That wasn’t so hard.”
He thrust a little against me, just a gentle roll of his hips, and I closed my eyes. God. How could I be so ready? It had been years since I was physical with anyone, and all of a sudden, it was all I could think about.
I reached between my legs until I could touch him. Grabbing my leg, he lifted it back and over his. Now I was wide open. His hand went to my clit, pushing me back with each of his pumps forward. Like he had earlier, he rocked between my legs until I was begging. “Lee. Please.”
“In you?” he asked. “This isn’t enough?”
He circled my clit in strong, small circles, but I needed him to fill the emptiness inside me.
I reached between my legs and grasped him. In one smooth glide, he was in me. I spread my fingers on either side of him so I could feel him push inside me. My hand covered his, and he brought my hand to my clit. “Take it,” he whispered. “Take what you need.”
I touched myself the way I liked to be touched, rolling my clit between my fingers before rubbing hard.
Lee groaned. “You’re tighter. Fuck. I can feel you trembling.”
All at once, everything inside me seemed to tighten. The speed and angle of his movement changed. He took me hard, rolling me to my stomach so my hand was trapped between us while he rammed himself inside me.
I couldn’t control the depth of him. He was so deep it was almost painful. His cock seemed to grow even thicker, and his balls slapped against the back of my legs. Voice low and guttural, he called out as he came. And kept coming. He pulled out, spilling heat on my butt and legs, and panted. “God, Jayne. Fuck.” He dropped his head to my shoulder and kissed my back. “Fuck.”
I was too exhausted to reply. With his arms wrapped around me and my head pillowed on his arm, I fell asleep.
34
Lee
Jayne fell asleep well before I did. I couldn’t say what was keeping me awake. Guilt? Happiness?
My heart warred between the two emotions. I had this sense of having done exactly what I should have, and also something that was so, so wrong.
Jayne gave a little moan in her sleep and shifted. When she did, her ass rubbed against me and I went from half-mast to fully erect again.
Guilt. The guilt was definitely there. We’d all come to the same conclusion: we’d paid enough for our mistakes that we didn’t need to keep punishing ourselves for them. Jayne was our breath of fresh air. She was what we’d never thought we’d deserve.
Hugging her closer, I breathed in her scent. I didn’t want to believe I was doing something wrong. I wasn’t hurting anyone. Jayne was happy. My best friends were happy.
I was happy.
That was the truth. Holding this girl in my arms filled me with something indefinable. There was a sense of rightness. If I’d only held out for this, so much pain could have been avoided.
“Lee?” Turning in my arms, Jayne drew her arms between us and snuggled closer.
“Right here,” I whispered.
She must have been talking in her sleep because she didn’t answer. Now I could see her face. I could watch the shadows play over her and catch the tiny expressions she made while she dreamed.
I would make this worth her while. Make us worth her while. Other people would judge her, and us, but I’d make sure she never doubted how we felt about her.
How do you feel? I shut down the voice that asked the question. When it came to Jayne, I felt like this was the way life was supposed to be. I was supposed to look forward to seeing someone. That person was supposed to make me want to be a better person.
So this was right.
No matter what, this was right.
35
Jayne
Lee and I slept in each other’s arms. At one point during the night, he woke me and took me with an urgency that I quickly matched. He clutched at my body, lifting my hips as he drove into me. His eyes were shut tight, but he still made sure I found my pleasure before he had his.
He was ruthless, pulling out of me at one point to go down on me. It wasn’t until I was on the edge that he rammed inside me again. I held on tight and rode out his desperation.
We fell asleep and didn’t wake until his phone
rang hours later.
I sat up and stared around me in confusion. For a moment, I had no idea where I was. But Lee’s low voice came to me, and I settled back on the bed.
He was talking to one of the guys, assuring them that I was fine. Their concern made my entire body heat. It was amazing to me that they cared like this. I’d never, in my wildest dreams, imagined mattering to someone like this.
At least, I thought I mattered to them. Last night, Lee had said I was part of their family, and each of them, in their own way, had echoed a similar sentiment.
Lee hung up his phone and smiled at me. “The band is on their way up here. Do you want to shower?”
I was sticky and sore, so I did. My bag was downstairs in the room where I’d stayed with Ten. “Where did everyone stay last night?” I asked.
“They were here,” Lee said. “But they gave us privacy. I think they’ve been waiting for us to wake up.”
“What time is it?” I drew the sheet around my body as I stood. I had no idea where my clothes were, so I made the decision to wear the sheet to the shower.
“Nearly ten,” he said. “God knows, I could have slept another four hours.”
“Did you miss the morning show?” I asked. I thought they were doing shows back to back.
“No,” Lee said. “The one today isn’t live. It’s one of the daytime talk shows. Tomorrow is when we wake up at three in the morning to get to the studio.”
“I can’t believe they make rock stars wake up at three am.” I tsked. “It seems like they’d schedule you for later in the morning.”
“California is four hours behind the east coast. So we’re actually not the first ones on the show.”
I nodded like I understood how all this worked, and he chuckled, totally seeing through me.
“Come on.” He brought me into a huge bathroom. “Toothbrushes are under the sink. I’ll go get your clothes.”
I turned on the water and then faced him. “You’re not going to join me?”
Apparently, that was as good of an invitation as he needed. He stripped his boxers down his legs and lifted an eyebrow. I dropped my sheet, and he grabbed me.
Automatically, I wrapped my legs around his hips and kissed him. Somehow, he got us under the water before pressing me against the tile and sliding inside me.
I put my head back, sucking in a breath as he drilled into me. The wall was slippery and so was his skin, so I tried to find something to grab onto.
“I’ve got you,” he said, out of breath.
He pulled back a little, and held himself away from me. His gaze was between our bodies, and I glanced down to where we were connected. Lee braced himself with an arm on the wall and reached between us. He touched my clit, and my head went against the tile.
He moved slower, circling my clit and then pushing inside me. The heat. The water. His body sliding against mine. All of it together had me tightening my legs around him to lift my body up. He was going too slow and making me feel too much.
“I got you.”
He snapped his hips toward mine, and the tingling that had started between my legs turned into lightning. I cried out as I came, unaware of what I was saying.
He was right behind me. Using my weight, he lifted and let me fall one more time. He groaned, throbbing and pulsing as he emptied himself inside me.
Carefully, so I didn’t slip, he lowered me to the ground. My knees didn’t want to hold me up, but there was a bar in the shower so I grabbed that.
“Good,” he said. He stepped under the water and pushed his hair out of his eyes. A smile split his face, and I laughed at how proud he looked.
Quick as a flash, he snagged my arm and pulled me beneath the spray. He wrapped his arms around my neck and I hugged his waist as he rocked us in a slow dance. “This is right,” he said. It was so quiet, I could barely make out what he was saying.
I nodded. It was. No matter what happened in the future, right now, this was right.
The guys were waiting for us downstairs, and all of them smiled wide when they saw me. I thought I’d be embarrassed, or a little uncomfortable, but nothing about the way they greeted me was strange. It reminded me again I wasn’t the first woman they’d shared.
There was so much about them that was a mystery. I had a cursory knowledge about their origins, knew they’d been together more than a decade, but the closeness… that wasn’t normal for bands, was it?
Most bands who achieved the kind of instant stardom these guys did broke up within a few years. But Rochester’s Pathos had not only rocketed to stardom, but they’d stayed stars. Each album they made was more popular than the previous one. And yet I never read about fights or insane behavior.
Okay. That wasn’t entirely true. Klaus and Tennyson had appeared in the news a few times. Ten had driven a motorcycle into a pool, and Klaus had had a few recorded incidents where he’d drunk too much.
And there was that video of Ten from their very first Grammys.
Blanca.
The guys discussed the show they were doing and what song they were going to play, but I wasn’t paying too close attention. I thought about what Blanca had said yesterday, when she’d hinted at my presence in the band. Not one of the guys had addressed it afterward, and I wondered why.
“Car is here.” Tennyson took my hand and snagged his jacket from a hook next to the door. It was one of those perfect California days where I could be comfortable in a sweater, or shorts. The sun was bright and the sky a shade of blue I’d only ever seen in southern California.
Tennyson lowered his sunglasses over his eyes, but I didn’t have any. Compared to the outside, inside the house had been pitch black, and I stumbled a little down the stairs, squinting as my eyesight adjusted.
“Careful,” he said. He opened the car door and ushered me inside. Diego, Klaus and Lee piled into the backseat. Steve, the bodyguard, took the front.
Now that I’d started to think about Blanca, I couldn’t stop. She’d called me a climber, and I guessed, objectively speaking, someone could make that assumption about me. I was just a nobody who was suddenly able to jet set around the world. It was something I’d never have been able to do on my own.
Private jets?
Beach houses?
Clubs?
None of that really even held any interest for me. It was only that the guys were doing it that made it interesting. Okay. That wasn’t exactly true either. I’d loved traveling, and I loved traveling in a plane with the guys. If I were a millionaire, I’d do that for sure.
“What did you say to Blanca yesterday, Diego?” I turned around to see him.
He drew his eyebrows together and seemed confused. “When?”
“After the interview you did together. Before you started singing. You whispered something to Blanca, and she laughed. I was just wondering what it was.”
“After she called Jayne a climber,” Klaus said. He crossed his arm and looked out the window. “We’re never doing a duet with her again. I don’t care how well she sings.”
Diego bit his lip and shook his head. “I told her something similar.”
“Yeah?” Lee asked. “What?”
“I said, wait until I write a song about you.” He shrugged. “I think she thought it was a compliment, but I thought I could try one of those call-out songs she’s made so popular. Blanca, Blanca. Your name means white. Blanca, Blanca. Your head ain’t right. Blanca, Blanca. You’re such a mess.”
“That sounds like Bowie,” Tennyson observed. “Not that I don’t like it, but we’ll need to work on it. Maybe we could give it a country twang. Make it about a girl who rises above the meanness and pettiness of the world?”
Diego nodded. Were they being serious?
“She meant me, though, didn’t she?”
“It doesn’t matter what Blanca thinks. She’s a bitter, small-minded woman and she’s upset because for the first time in her life, she’s not someone’s first choice. We’ve rocked her world, and she needs time to
self-actualize again.” Klaus leaned forward and kissed my cheek. “We won’t have to deal with her forever. So don’t let her bother you.”
Easier said than done. Having gone to all-girls schools, I had some experience with the female psyche. And calling me out on national television was just a warning shot. She was proud, and she lived in a world where everyone assured her she was the most amazing person who existed. If something happened to challenge that, she wasn’t going to just brush it off.
But I didn’t argue with Klaus, because I still had a tiny bit of doubt. I could be wrong about Blanca.
Diego’s revamp of Bowie had the tune stuck in my head and I hummed it as I watched the traffic stream by. We got off the freeway and drove through Culver City to the studio where the show would be shot. The driver stopped at a guard booth and the man looked inside, blandly taking in the band members before waving us through. I wondered how many celebrities he saw a day that coming face-to-face with Rochester’s Pathos was no big deal.
I was still humming when I got out of the car. Lee smiled at me. “You have a nice voice.”
I stopped and swallowed. Compared to them, I most certainly didn’t. The back of my neck heated, and I was sure my cheeks were on fire. “I forgot.”
“Don’t stop,” he said. “I like it.”
“Me, too.” Klaus snaked an arm around my waist. “A girl who knows Bowie? You’re a rarity.”
I laughed but thoroughly enjoyed their bullshit. I wasn’t too proud to be flattered. So what if their feelings about me deafened them to my mediocre singing talent?
Inside, the guys were led right to make-up. A girl, who introduced herself by her title and not her name, offered to bring me to the Green Room where I’d wait for them.
I’d hoped to see them in the makeup chairs. It had been fun to draw them the last time they were on a show, but I could draw them from memory now.
The girl left me in the Green Room. It had a TV mounted on one wall and a couple of leather couches. A table was laid with fruit and sparkling water and in the center there was a basket filled with swag. I peered through the cellophane and made out products that cost as much as I made in a month.
Just Jayne Page 20