by Cari Quinn
“Tomorrow as in later today? Or tomorrow tomorrow?”
Lila offered Jazz a rare smile. “Tomorrow tomorrow. Enjoy your last day and night in paradise.” She gave Gray a glance heavy with things unsaid. “Make sure you come back prepared to work your asses off. One date remains on your club tour and we have a video to shoot, then you’re heading into the studio. We want to keep this momentum going.”
“Got it. Thanks, Lila.”
“You’re welcome. Feel better,” she said to Gray, pulling the door shut behind her.
Jazz screwed up her mouth and gazed down at her hands. “So on a scale of one to ten, how pissed are you at me right now?”
He laughed and gripped his ribs at the twinge of pain. “Ow. Fucker. Next time I’m going to use his bald head to polish the floor.”
“Sure you are, honey.”
He laughed again. “I’m not pissed at you at all. Well, maybe a two. She didn’t threaten to dismantle me from the balls up, so whatever you said must’ve smoothed over the waters pretty good.” And you inadvertently got me the money I needed.
Definitely couldn’t be pissed about that.
“When I told her Snake had tried to kick her guitarist’s ass, she seemed to lose some of her interest in what Snake was spouting off about. Though she did ask me a kind of weird question.” Jazz frowned. “When I told her I had something to tell her, the first thing she said was, ‘it’s not you and Nick again, is it?’”
“Hmm. If I didn’t think she had more taste than that, I’d wonder if our uptight label rep had a thing for Mr. Personality Plus. But she told me she’s married so that can’t be it.”
She snorted. “Yeah, because people never cheat.”
He slid over on the mattress and held out his arm. “C’mere. It’s been too long since I’ve held you.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Holding you could never do that. Besides, hello, big tough guy here.”
Her giggle as she settled in beside him eased the fist gripping his gut. “Oh, I know that. I almost didn’t run out to get you pain pills. You’re too hardcore to ever need them.” She reached up to feather her fingers over his nose, as lightly as a breeze. “You bled so much. I wanted to call 911 but Nick stopped me. So I called Lila instead.”
“She is the fixer of all of Oblivion’s problems.” He cleared his throat. “I, ah, about what Snake said—”
“I know he just wanted to cause trouble.”
“Jazz—”
“I bet that blonde he described is the one I saw you at the club with, right? So that’s not even a thing, because I know about her. You said you didn’t sleep with her and I believe you.”
“Jazz, listen to me.”
“It’s not like the rest even merits a mention. We’re best friends. You wouldn’t hide that from me, no matter what.” At his silence, she lifted her trembling chin. “Right?”
He tightened his hold on her and fought to focus on her face rather than the cramping in his belly. “I need you to listen to me, okay, baby? Just let me say it all before I lose my nerve.”
“Oh God.” She swung her legs over the side of the bed and gripped her stomach, rocking back and forth. “No. Don’t. If you don’t say it, it’s not real.”
Swallowing hard, he rubbed her back. “I’m going to stop. I swear to you, this is the end of it.” Her choked sob made him close his eyes. “God, don’t cry. Please.”
“I’m not crying. It’s fucking allergies.”
He scooted forward on the bed—pain be damned—and slid his arm around her waist before pressing his cheek to her back. “I don’t want it between us. I don’t want anything there. If I didn’t quit for any other reason, I would for that one. How I feel about you is stronger than any drug.”
The sound of her quiet weeping ripped a blade through his chest. “Why? You always warned me away from everything. You wouldn’t touch the stuff, ever.”
He exhaled, tightening his grip on her. She was so soft. So easy to break. “Something happened. I let it push me to a dark place, and I slipped. I messed up. And then I kept doing it.”
“What happened?”
The image formed in his mind, as stark as the colored spotlights that had nearly blinded him that night. Nick coming out of a storage closet near the stage, still doing up his zipper. Jazz—his Jazz—following a moment later, still touching up her lipstick. Her hair tousled and wild, with that sleepy sex smile still curving her mouth.
But he couldn’t tell her. Couldn’t lay the blame at her doorstep when he’d made the choice that day and every day since.
“I thought one of my had dreams died,” he said, fisting his hand against her side. “I never expected to get another chance. Now that I am, you can be sure I won’t give it up for anything.”
She turned toward him on the bed, drawing her leg up. One glimpse of her blotchy, tear-stained face and his heart convulsed. “Was it because of that stupid threesome?” She dashed at her tears. “It was the biggest mistake ever. I don’t know what I was thinking—”
“No. That wasn’t it. It was before then.”
“B-before? How much before?”
“A little while. And I know what you were thinking. I always knew, as much as I hated that I wasn’t enough for you.” He cupped her cheek and closed his hand around the tears he caught in his palm. “You wanted love. He gave it to you before I could.”
“No. No, that’s not true. You always loved me better than anyone else. After Brent, everything got so fucked up. There was always this wall between us, and I couldn’t find my way through.”
“What he did was one wall. What I did to push him to that point was another.”
“What? How did you have anything to do with Brent’s actions?”
Her confusion just added another layer to the self-disgust coating his throat. “You never saw me the way I truly am. Christ, I wanted to be a hero in your eyes. You saw me as selfless when the reality is I tried to be your entire world so you wouldn’t notice I didn’t measure up.”
“No.” Her shoulders hunched and she bowed her head, her cheerful hair only emphasizing the bleakness in her eyes. “I know you better than I know myself. The man I know never did anything to hurt me. Not once.”
If only that were true.
“Come here.” When she didn’t move, he hauled her against his chest, tightening his arms until she gasped against his throat. Her tears came harder, racking her shoulders. He pressed his cheek against her head, rocking her as carefully as a child. “I love you with everything I am,” he whispered once her sobs began to slow. “You deserve the best, and I’m going to give it to you.”
She tipped her damp face up to his and drew her quivering thumb over his lower lip. “I love you too. And you’re the best I could ever ask for.”
He dipped his forehead against hers. “I’m going to stop. I promise.”
She nodded so quickly that he would’ve chuckled if he hadn’t been a deep breath away from tears himself. “Yes. We’ll do it together. Whatever you need. I’ll help you.” Her lips lifted hesitantly, the double rainbow bonus after a destructive thunderstorm. “I’m good at projects.”
Now he did laugh, hard enough to elicit the tears he’d battled back. He closed his eyes before they fell, but one snuck through, cutting a shameful path down his cheek. “I’m sorry. God, I’m so fucking sorry, baby.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for. You gave up everything for me. Everything. Your brother, your parents. You turned your back on them to protect me and I let you down. I left you alone—”
“No.” He grabbed her face, shaking her more than he’d meant to. “Goddammit, no. You aren’t to blame for any of this. I did it. Me, Jazz. I knew what I was doing, and I kept doing it. I did it before the second night we were together. God, oh God, I even wanted you to try it too. So don’t you ever ever say that you did anything wrong. It was me. I’m the wrong one.”
“No.” She shook her head, tears st
reaming. Breath hiccupping until each stutter echoed in the pit of his chest like an aborted heartbeat. “I won’t let you face this alone. Let me share the burden.”
“You are. You’re here with me, and I can face anything now.”
“We’ll face it,” she said fiercely. “Like we face everything. Together.”
“Yes. Lila gave me an advance, and I’ll get square with the people I owe. This is almost over.” He gathered her in close and buried his face in her hair, smearing his tears in the silky strands. Hiding them like a humiliating secret. “Just don’t leave me. Please.”
“I won’t. We’re a team. Always.”
Drawing strength from her words and her solid warmth in his arms, he swallowed and edged back. “In my shaving kit in the bathroom, there’s a baggie. Flush it down the toilet. I don’t want to see it or know it ever existed.”
She didn’t hesitate. She slid away from him and rubbed her palms over her cheeks before climbing off the bed and marching into the bathroom. As small as she was, she brought to mind a fierce warrior, ready to do battle in her off-the-shoulder top and skinny jeans.
He closed his eyes at the flush of the toilet, imagining all that pretty powder draining away. And when she walked back to him and whispered, “it’s done,” he realized she wore one of his shirts, wrapping his scent around her even as she faced the reality of his failures.
She’d used her favorite vintage Sex Pistols T-shirt to mop up his blood. Whipping it off without a thought to try to take away his pain.
Inhaling a ragged breath, he nodded and pulled her close. He pressed his face against her breasts, the gentle thud of her heartbeat as calming as the sound of the surf coming in at high tide. Jazz’s love burned inside him now, and nothing else mattered.
He laid his lips on that steady beat, smiling as it sped just from his nearness. She scooped her hand through his hair, gently soothing, and he turned his mouth to her breast. He drew her nipple between his teeth through the shirt, drowning in her summery watermelon scent and the hint of cinnamon from the cabin’s soap on her skin. Those two smells shouldn’t have worked together, but on her they were the perfect mixture of spicy and sweet.
Pushing his hands under her shirt, he rolled it upward until he glimpsed her black-and-white bra. The tiny bow in the middle might’ve made it chaste, if not for the quickness of her breathing pushing her breasts up and almost over the tops of the cups. One flick of his fingers and they spilled free, hopelessly vulnerable, her skin flushing prettily before he closed his mouth around her nipple and sucked in earnest.
Her soft moan washed over him, barely loud enough to reach his ears. He slipped his hand between her legs and cupped her, relishing the pulse that built there too, a butterfly beat against his palm. He licked his way from one breast to the other, giving them both special attention, lapping at the taut peaks while their color bloomed from pink to a needy red. He continued down her belly, shifting onto his stomach on the bed, ignoring his aches and pains in favor of peeling away her snug jeans to reveal the boy shorts beneath.
The damp spot that bloomed on the material beckoned his tongue. He pressed it to her mound and swirled it up and down, chasing the flavor that he’d already become addicted to. When he couldn’t wait another second, he pulled the side over and slid his mouth over her damp folds, absorbing the sigh that went through her and the pinch of her fingers on his hair as if they were as essential as breath. More so, because he’d felt like he’d stopped breathing for months and being there with her, feeling her swell and grow wetter with each erotic kiss, gave him a head rush unlike any other.
The roaring in his ears expanded, blocking out the world except for Jazz and the tiny, impatient pumps of her hips against his face. Knowing that she was trying to restrain herself made him chuckle, as did her growl and insistent tug on his hair, pulling him into her heat. He pushed her jeans and underwear down, freeing them from her legs. Then he banded his arm around the back of her thighs and drew her close, opening her up with the fingers of his opposite hand and teasing her clit and her piercing with the tip of his tongue. He moved down, seeking her entrance, closing his eyes at the suction of her flesh.
Pain raced along his scalp as she seized hold of his hair and gyrated against his face. So open and unabashed in her pursuit of pleasure. He dragged his fingers through her wetness and offered them up to her to lick off. A glimpse of her pink tongue slipping over the twisted silver ring he wore renewed the heavy pounding between his legs. He felt huge. Too sensitive to touch.
She gripped his hand in both of hers as she sucked him dry, swallowing her flavor without hesitation. Her tongue rode his knuckles, twined around his fingers. Just her stare and her wet kisses held him entranced. When her teeth grazed his palm, his cock jerked against his zipper and he groaned, impossibly lost.
Fuck, he could come just from the feel of her mouth on his skin. Any part of his skin.
Going any speed other than fast with her was basically a fantasy. He had a lifetime to make up for. Even spending the rest of his days inside her wouldn’t be enough to settle the debt.
Unable to wait another second, he fell backward and tugged her with him. Curtained by her hair, lost in his need, he lowered his zipper and freed his cock, letting out a groan of gratitude as she took control. One flex of her hips and he was inside her, her body splayed on his chest, her mouth moving with his. She cupped the back of his neck and lifted up before sinking down and taking him deeper. So deep that he couldn’t do anything but stare into the slumberous blue eyes that held him hostage while she started to ride.
She braced her hands on his torso and rolled him inside her, again and again. Slowly, sweetly, she ruled him. Her piercing scraped over his cock, sending a bolt of lightning down his spine, and he jolted off the bed. His ribs protested and he didn’t give a shit. Glimpsing the tight red crests of her breasts playing peekaboo between her arms as her hips undulated and her pussy enveloped him, slick and hot, exceeded any toll on his body.
Hooking one hand under her knee, he pulled her leg up and drew her head down, savoring the hiss of her breath against his cheek. Her heartbeat thundered in time with his, a race they would both win.
Together.
“I love you,” he murmured. She trembled with him, around him, and slid her hand up his abdomen to his heart. He laced his fingers with hers and brought them to his mouth, kissing her knuckles as she shuddered and tumbled over that final rise.
“I love you,” she echoed, her words following him into the glorious spiral of oblivion.
Falling, falling until only peace remained.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Then
“Keep walking. Straight ahead. Bump. Step up. Your eyes are closed, right?”
“Oh my God, you can’t do this to me again. It’s not Christmas.”
“Good because I couldn’t fit this in a box. Okay, slight left. Straight. No peeking. Step down…and open your eyes.”
His hands dropped away as her eyes opened and the world spread out in front of her. Jewel-blue water glistened beneath the arches she’d dreamed about for so long that she’d taken to sketching them in her composition notebook. This was the bridge that would take her from her current reality to a whole new one.
And now it was almost close enough for her to touch.
“Oh Gray!” Jazz rushed to the railing of the balcony of their hotel room, leaning forward so far that she lost her footing. She gave a little screech but he was already hauling her back, his arms clamped securely around her midsection. She laughed and turned to face him, her hair blowing all over her face as the wind whipped it into a frenzy. And then it wasn’t the wind whipping her up any longer but his intense gray gaze riveted to her face.
To her mouth.
“Is it everything you were hoping for?” he murmured, and she had the feeling that he wasn’t only asking about the view. He was asking about them. About how it felt to have his hard, muscled chest against her breasts and his ropey arm holding h
er close. His heat surrounded her, chasing away the chill coming in off the bay. His lips were a fraction of an inch away, and if she inched upward, she’d be able to smell the scent of cherry cola on his breath.
“Better.” It was. So much better than she’d ever dreamed.
Lights twinkled to life in the early pink haze of dusk, and the sky glimmered with an endless canopy of microscopic stars. Gray tilted his head and eradicated the space between them, his intent clear.
The kiss she’d fantasized about for so long could be hers, and here of all places. She’d never dared to dream this big.
Yet all she could think was she would never have a mother again if she didn’t say no.
“Such a gorgeous view.” She whirled away to press her hands on the water-spattered balcony. She leaned forward again and this time he didn’t drag her back, just let her hang in the balance between the two lives she wanted with equal fervor.
The one where she was his sister.
And the one where she was his lover. His love.
“Jazz?”
She heard the uncertainty in the question, and it twisted another blade in her heart. How many nicks could one organ stand, she wondered, before it finally ceased to beat?
“I can’t believe you got a room so close to the bay. It must’ve cost a mint. We’ll have to rent bikes and ride them across. The tour guide I bought says—”
“Jazz. Look at me.”
She wouldn’t. She couldn’t. Because he would see that she wasn’t at all certain about the choice she had made, and then he would take the choice away.
She couldn’t say no to him twice. Not when he held the entire scope of her dreams in his hands, like a guitar only he knew how to play.
“Jazz.”
His hands touched her shoulders and she bowed her head, helpless to stop her babbling. She couldn’t let the silence fill in the rift she’d opened up between them, simply because she wanted too much. “We have to go to Fisherman’s Wharf. And oh God, the Art Institute. Did you know that—”