I released my grip on my phone and let her do her magic, all the while keeping my eyes on her deft fingers flying over the screen, of the tip of her tongue that passed over her pouty lower lip, of the arch of her neck. I couldn’t look away and to be honest, I didn’t fucking want to look away.
For the first time in years, a woman had my complete and undivided attention. For the first time in years, a woman fascinated me. And I was hard as concrete.
“You’re all set.’’ When she realized I wasn’t making any move to take my phone back she put it back on the table, right next to my discarded plate. “If one of the guys tweet something, consider favoriting it. Also, engage your bandmates for a start. If your fans ask you a question, don’t feel like you absolutely have to answer.’’
“Is that what you’re going to tell the other guys?’’
She pursed her lips and reluctantly shook her head from side to side. A few locks of hair fell into her eyes and I wanted to brush them away. What. The. Fuck.
“Well, they’re not you. I think I’ll have to put down some ground rules with Maxen because he seems to be overly social if you know what I mean.’’ She toyed with her phone, turning it around and around between her hands. “With Otis, I think it’s important to tell him not to post too many pictures of the parties he’s attending. It’s known he’s a partier, but I don’t think seeing him or others plastered most of the time would be good. Then, with Beckett I’m not really sure. He looks like the cautious type. From what I know, he’s very much into all types of music and I think it’d be great if he tweeted some random things about music.’’
“And with me?’’
She smiled at me and chuckled, bringing a hand to her pink cheek before returning it to her phone which kept on buzzing with notifications. “I need to help you ease in. I need to make sure not to push you too hard.’’ My eyebrows arched and another warmth invaded my body at her words, but this time, it wasn’t in my chest, but much lower. I twitched again in my pants. Her eyes suddenly widened. She must have replayed her words. Her cheeks went from pink to beet red. “It sounds bad, but you know…I mean…’’ She bit on her lower lip and looked away. “Shit.’’
I tensed and my fists closed without putting any thought into it. Damn it. I needed to calm down. I shouldn’t react so violently. Calm down. Calm down. “I get it, don’t worry.’’ I cleared my throat, trying to get my words coming out less gruff. “I’ve heard worse with Maxen.’’
“I swear I’m not some obsessed by sex. I mean…’’ She trailed off and closed her eyes tightly. She breathed louder. “I can’t believe this,’’ she mumbled quietly.
“Stop, stop now.’’ I held up both hands and stood up, grabbing my aviator sunglasses and phone. “Let’s not make it more painful.’’ I held up my phone. “Thank you for your help with this. Set up another meeting with the band and make sure Floyd knows about it. He’ll check on us and we have a hard time saying no to your old man.’’
“Okay, but…’’
“See you, Harley,’’ I said, not waiting for her to say something else. I didn’t want her to ask any questions, I didn’t want to have to find another fucking lie to explain my behavior. What twenty-five year old man hid away from mentions of sex coming from an attractive woman? What twenty-five year old was fucking lost when his cock was rock hard when close to a gorgeous woman?
One answer to that; a man who hadn’t had sex in a really long time.
HARLEY
“Harley, are you listening?’’
I startled out of my thoughts and looked up to find my father frowning at me from behind his desk. I must have zoned out longer than I thought. It’s been that way for the last two days since my failed attempt at reuniting the band for a brunch meeting at my hotel. Since then I had focused on my blog and liaising with the band’s PR team to make the launch of the guys’ Twitter accounts as much a media hype as possible. To say it had been a success would put it mildly. Since then Twitter had been on fire and radios and TV shows kept on advertising the band. They had to go to an impromptu interview on a big talk show because of it. I watched it in my hotel room and they killed it. Even Dex with his brooding eyes and one-word answers had women melting and men wanting to be the same kind of attractive mystery. And the same sensation I had felt when having brunch with him came back. He wasn’t in the same room as I had been, but still he affected me and I didn’t know what to make of it.
“Sorry, Dad. I had to go through a lot more than usual comments on my blog and answer several emails regarding my shadowing the band for the foreseeable future. I clocked out around two in the morning.’’ I yawned and brought a hand to cover my mouth.
“You should have told me. I wouldn’t have asked you to come here then.’’
“You’re meeting the band and I’m supposed to talk with them. It’s too tedious having to email you instructions to pass along to them. At some point they have to sit down with me too.’’
He smiled and reorganized a few files next to his closed laptop. “Don’t be too hard on them. You’ve done a lot already. They’re tweeting now.’’
I narrowed my eyes and sighed. “Have you seen Dex’s tweets?’’ I held up my hand before he could answer me. “If he tweets a three-word sentence, it’s already good. The only time he actually wrote something long was when I was with him.’’ I grabbed the edge of the black desk and pulled myself closer to it. “Maxen, Otis, and Beckett are doing great even though Beckett comes across as a snob sometimes, but Dex!’’
“He’s doing what he can.’’ Dad entwined his fingers in front of him on top of the closed lid of his laptop. “Dex isn’t the social type. He—‘’
“Has trust issues, I know.’’ I glanced at my phone that buzzed with another notification from Twitter.
Maxen Walton (@theHotMaxen)
On my way for a #KinkyShine meeting. Who’s going to get there first, guys? @TheDexMystery @OtisPartyingPatel @BeckettCoffee
I favorited it and nodded to myself. At least one who looked like he enjoyed himself with Twitter. And he loved posting a selfie every day right when he’s waking up. The first one featuring Maxen without a shirt on, his hair all over the place, a blond beard and eyes still full of sleep made it quite the talk. And now he’s the one with the most followers out of the four guys.
“What should I do with Dex?’’ I finally asked, looking straight at my father with what I knew was a desperate look on my face. I didn’t know how to take the frontman of Kinky Shine. And again with the words that could be taken in a not so clean way. I balled the hem of my see-through white t-shirt. Under it, my simple white bikini top had had my father turning red when I first walked in his office. He was afraid of Maxen’s flirting tendencies with me, but the one that had me troubled wasn’t the drummer. And that bothered me a lot.
“I don’t know.’’ He looked at the walls and I followed his gaze. On the walls were the covers of the band’s albums, some posters, a few pictures of my Dad with the guys posing for a picture. Kinky Shine became my father’s second family over the last four years and I knew he cared about them. But he was also not part of some of the band’s dynamics and that must frustrate him when it was so obvious they were slowly sinking.
A knock at the door interrupted our dark thoughts. I turned to look over my shoulder at the newcomers just as the door opened after my father welcomed them to come in.
And my breath caught in my chest, right where my heart stopped beating for a second to start back up at breakneck speed, making my lungs burn hotter and hotter as my eyes trailed over him. Dex.
He wasn’t alone, Beckett, Otis, and Maxen were with him, but I only saw him. His hair was still damp, curling slightly over his ears. I watched a drop of water fall from one strand to darken a spot on his shoulder where his anthracite t-shirt stretched to accommodate his perfectly proportioned muscles. Old black jeans hanging loosely from his hips molded his thighs. But it was his eyes that had me frozen, and probably blushing. They immediat
ely sought me out and pinned me there, in the chair. I couldn’t decipher the look in them, I didn’t understand why he tensed or why the muscle in his jaw jumped repeatedly upon seeing me. I also didn’t get why the guys were looking at him and then at me with various stages of surprise etched on their faces.
“Are we goin’ to stay here all day?’’ Maxen broke the strange tension and pushed Dex forward causing him to stumble and glare at him. “Hey, Harley, Floyd.’’ Maxen went straight to the off-white couch and let himself fall on it, his big body sinking in. He groaned and leaned his head back, eyes closed. “I love this fucking couch, Floyd. Don’t ever let them take it away if they want to impose that ugly as fuck green they have painted everywhere.’’
I chuckled and Maxen winked at me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw my father glaring at Maxen and then at me as if I could do something to stop Maxen from flirting with anything that had boobs, a vagina and was breathing.
Otis and Beckett joined Maxen on the couch and then all three men fixed their eyes on Dex who was still standing at the door now closed. The only seat available was the chair beside mine, right in front of Dad’s desk.
“You should sit, Dex,’’ my father advised gently, pointing at the chair.
Dex glared at the chair and back at his bandmates. His fists were clenched at his sides and I got pissed. We weren’t in kindergarten anymore! He could sit next to me, damn it.
“I don’t bite that hard,’’ I mumbled and crossed my arms over my chest, going back to the same attitude we seemed to circle back to whenever Dex and I were in the same room.
Maxen barked out his trademark laugh and Otis and Beckett chuckled while my father’s face turned to a scowl directed at me. I arched my eyebrows at him and glanced back at Dex who finally walked to the chair. It was about time! He had more issues than trust. I didn’t get that man.
“Good, Harley, because I do.’’ His smoky voice was low in the office, but loud enough for everybody to hear. I gasped quietly and locked eyes with him again. I didn’t know if I should, but my mind went straight to the gutter. I let my eyes briefly fall to his mouth, his lips were stretching into his sexy smirk and his dimple was there and I fidgeted in the chair, unable to keep my composure. So I looked away and focused back on my father who was now quizzically watching Dex. I was definitely missing something here.
*
DEX
I was hard again. We arrived in Floyd’s office two minutes ago and I was already hard. And I couldn’t look away from her face, from her fucking see-through top and her white bra underneath. I swallowed thickly, my eyes now glued to her perky breasts, a handful or maybe more.
I had thought two days ago had been just a glitch, a one-time thing when I got so fucking hard, but it hadn’t been a one-time thing.
My cock wanted Harley.
No, I wanted to fuck Harley.
Floyd cleared his throat and I leaned back in the chair, pulling my eyes away from his daughter. But it was so fucking difficult. I didn’t even know why. Yes, Harley was beautiful and sexy, but she wasn’t the first beautiful and sexy woman I had met. Yet, there was something that got to me about her and as much as I wanted her, she had the ability to get a rise out of me in seconds without really trying to.
“Do we have some interview scheduled?’’ I asked Floyd, doing my best not to glance at Harley next to me when I felt her eyes on me. They burnt. They had me burning from the fucking inside out.
“A photo shoot tomorrow at ten in an alley in Downtown LA. The photographer has something very,’’ he looked down at a file and squinted, “urban, planned for the photo shoot.’’
“Urban?’’ Beckett piped up. The reluctance in his voice was on point with how I felt and probably with how Otis and Maxen felt too. We had been bitching about these weird photographers for years now. “Does he want us to use some gangsta signs or something?’’
“Another photo shoot we need to get our asses drunk for,’’ Otis said with a sigh.
“Uh,’’ Harley said softly, her voice music to my ears. My blood soared in rhythm with her words. “Isn’t the shoot in the morning?’’
“And?’’ Maxen retorted with a smile, amused by her innocence, that same thing that had me drawn to her, that had had me dreaming of her for three nights in a row. “Harley, we’re fucking rockstars.’’
She pursed her lips and frowned at him at the entitlement in Maxen’s words. “You need a reality check, Maxen. You make music, you don’t cure cancer.’’
“Harley,’’ Floyd warned her as if he expected us to explode.
He didn’t understand how refreshing it was for us to be confronted by a woman our age who wasn’t fawning all over us. She had an opinion, she saw us a certain way and didn’t beat around the bush. That was fucking good sometimes.
“She’s right,’’ I said aloud and stiffened when I realized it. It wasn’t supposed to leave the confines of my head. I looked over to the guys, but they had smirks on their faces. Damn, we were spending way too much time together if they now had the same smirk as mine. I scowled at them and Maxen wriggled his eyebrows at me. The fucker. “Oh, fuck.’’
Floyd cleared his throat and silenced his cellphone when it started buzzing. “You also have the private concert the day after tomorrow. Don’t forget to get there early afternoon. I don’t want to have to chase you down, Maxen. Last time in Toronto was enough for me.’’
Maxen chuckled and toyed with his piercing, his hand shaking again. “Please, Floyd, there are worse things to see. You have to admit her ass was spectacular. I still remember it.’’
Harley’s head swiveled back to her father, her mouth gaping at him and my cock twitched again, right when I thought I was starting to get this hard-on under control. But no, of course seeing her fucking mouth open gave me ideas. I rubbed at my eyes.
“Dad?’’
“You don’t want to know, honey.’’
Maxen laughed again and sighed, elbowing Otis when Floyd’s face turned pink. I now knew where his daughter got her flush from.
“I wasn’t expecting that kind of shit going down when I signed up,’’ she mumbled and I chuckled, attracting everybody’s attention.
“What?’’ I crossed my arms defensively. I wasn’t one to laugh easily and even less when a woman was at the receiving end. Usually, I was very standoffish with them, but they didn’t have to look so weird about it either.
“You do know how to laugh. That’s new,’’ Otis said. Always a smartass. I gave him the finger and he sent me back a kiss.
“That’s something you could never transcribe on Twitter,’’ Harley said wistfully.
“Speaking of,’’ Floyd butted in again, his voice louder this time. He was probably seeing his little meeting slipping right out of his fingers. We had a short attention span when it was about some bullshit other than music. “You ditched Harley the other day so let her debrief with you before you go.’’
I now could look at her without risking betraying myself any further. She straightened and her sweet smile came back and along with it the warmth in my chest.
“You’re doing great, guys. Maxen, your pictures are always trending.’’
“What can I say, they all want a piece of me.’’ He winked at her again and I tensed even more.
Harley didn’t comment and focused on Otis next. “Otis, I’m pleasantly surprised. The pic from the behind the scene live interview on that talk show was really good. And the fans were thrilled to see you tweeting them back.’’
He nodded and saluted her. “Better that than the party I was at last night. It ended with people fucking against the wall in the living room.’’
“You should have called me.’’ Maxen elbowed him.
Otis ignored him with a shrug. Harley’s face turned red again and she seemed to be visibly very uncomfortable. But she hid it pretty well considering.
“Beckett, your music references are crazy damn good. But branch out a bit. You should post a pic or two from time t
o time.’’
He nodded and said nothing, but I knew he would listen. Yesterday he told me Harley wasn’t half as bad as he first thought she was. He told me her blog was actually pretty damn good and he approved of her musical taste so in his book she was golden.
“I bet you don’t have praises for me,’’ I said with a colder voice than necessary. I tried to breathe in, to calm down but the tension kept on rising and I knew it wasn’t just because I hated when someone told me what I should or shouldn’t do. It was her, what she was doing to me that had me…yeah, scared. I was fucking scared.
“You went back to your fall back one-word answers.’’ She brushed away a strand of hair and her vanilla perfume enveloped me. “I know you can do better than that.’’
“I don’t have time for that shit. We have an album coming up. I’m not twiddling my fucking thumbs.’’
Floyd’s chair moved and he leaned over his desk. I had forgotten he was even there. “You have new songs?’’
I was fucked. I blinked at him, then at Harley and the guys. “I…I’m…’’ I stuttered lamely.
“He’s stuck.’’
“Thanks a lot, Beckett,’’ I bit back, my voice darker than before.
“Hey, I’m not the one with the block,’’ he retorted, equally pissed.
“Write your own fucking songs then. Try and write the next hit and then come back to me.’’ I was turned in my chair, facing him on the couch.
He shook his head, disgust and frustration written all over his face. I knew he was the one taking it the worst. The man lived and breathed for music and I was…stuck. We had nothing to work on and yeah, we basically only did PR stunts and screwed around for a jam session but nothing would come out of it. Not a fucking thing.
“I’m out of here if we’re done, Floyd.’’
“Yes, go on guys.’’
“But—‘’
“Let them go, honey,’’ Floyd said, stopping Harley and preventing her from ending up smack in the middle of one of the band fights.
Dex (Kinky Shine #1) Page 5