“An uptight twat, just like all the rest of them,” I say, referring to my parents and their friends. “But I haven't seen her in four years, so maybe she's changed some? Doesn't matter. I'm sure by now she's figured out that I have no intention of marrying her, even if it means giving up my entire inheritance.”
“Is that what's at stake?” she asks softly, scrunching her brows and glancing briefly down at her feet, at the toes of her red heels, the only part of her footwear that's visible in that dress. Mahogany waves cascade over her shoulders, as vibrant and fiery as molten lava, falling halfway down her back.
I reach over and trace some of that bare skin with an inked finger, making her shiver.
“All their properties, their businesses, their art collections, their bank accounts …” I start, running my palm over my face. “It amounts to an awful lot.” I run my tongue over my teeth for a moment. “A grotesque hoard, really. And they've got nobody else to leave it to. I make a good living with the band though; I don't need to whore myself out for more money. Fuck 'em. If they want to donate their entire fortune to some stuffy art museum or uni or family friend, then that's what they're going to do.”
“Do you think Amelia will stop by when we're there?” Lilith asks, pausing to stare up at St. Giles' Cathedral with a shimmer in her eyes that says this, this is going to make it into her art.
“Are you kidding? She's already there, waiting to see me. Last time we met face to face, she spit in mine and told me that we'd be married by the time we turned thirty or she'd cut my bollocks off with a knife.”
“Ouch,” Lilith says, studying the ancient church with a painter's eyes, taking in every architectural detail, every turret, every stained glass window. “Why does she care so much?”
“Amelia has a lot to gain by combining our families—social standing, money, land.” I shrug my shoulders because well, why the hell does anyone do anything? Wealth, power, prestige. The basic tenets of greed, alive and in full force in the modern world. Eh, and didn't I just say I was going to try to stop acting like a jaded asshole? “I'm going to end this once we get there,” I promise, sliding my tongue across my lower lip and taking Lilith by the shoulders.
“I expected as much,” she says without skipping a beat. “I figured the guys would've told me if you had a fiancée you were serious about. I mean, considering how I feel about cheating and all that.”
“Yeah, well, Amelia and I were never like that; we've never even kissed. Who knows if we might've been childhood sweethearts or something if our parents had just left us alone?” I shrug, closing my eyes as Lilith lays her fingers against my cheeks.
“You'll get through this. It might be like walking through fire; it might fucking burn. But once you get to the other side, the ashes of your past will fall away and you'll be cleansed, ready to start fresh.”
“You're just full of worldly wisdom, aren't you, love?” I ask just before Lilith lifts herself up on her heels and presses her mouth to mine. Unlike the others, I don't give two flying shites whether or not I'm in public. I wrap my arms around the curvy warmth of her body and tug her close, sliding my tongue between lips tinted the color of fine wine. Tastes better, too. “Will you draw me tonight?” I add, pulling my mouth back just a fraction of an inch.
“Why?” she asks, not like she's judging, more like she's curious.
“Because,” I say, stepping back as the others rejoin us, “I want to see what my pain looks like through your eyes.”
Poor Octavia.
A smile teases my lips as we stand outside the venue, waiting until most of the crowd is gone before exiting through the front entrance. My boys, their manager, and I stand in the quiet, eerie dark of the historic neighborhood. I feel like I've stepped through a portal, gone back in time, like I should be wearing a cloak and hurrying down the brick street by lantern light. There's definitely not a single street in Phoenix, Arizona that looks like this. Hell, the stones that make up the exterior of the venue are probably older than the USA.
“First of all,” Octavia begins, reaching up to adjust her ponytail, “we really should get going. I didn't plan for—”
“Don't be such a wet blanket,” Paxton says, his tie hanging loose around his neck, the front of his shirt dark with sweat from the show. He's shed his jacket, and his sleeves are rolled up, showing off the sea of tattoos on his forearms. There's not a single spot of bare skin to be seen from the tips of his fingers to his elbows. That skyline on his right hand drifts down to the trees beneath the moon, their roots digging in and around Pax's wrists, carrying coffins and skeletons into deep, dark earth and then back to roots again, trees, another nighttime skyline that I can't see right now but that I know rests on his shoulder. “Live a little, Miss Warris,” he whispers in her ear, making her face flush.
“The tour's only about an hour and a half,” I add, a sketchbook and pencils tucked into the purse hanging at my side. I decided to mix things up tonight, make some art with charcoal instead of a stylus. It felt good, smudging the black and white color across the textured pages, staining the side of my hand as I blended shadows and light and music and pain. “And second,” I say, taking the ghost tour ticket from Ransom's hand and pressing it into Octavia's, “you promised you'd try to have some fun.”
“I'm afraid of ghosts,” she blurts suddenly and then turns an even funnier shade of red as Muse chuckles.
“Well, would you look at that? I guess we all have our phobias. Mine just happens to be dung beetles; they scare me shitless.” He flashes an easy, confident smile, that same one he gave me the first day we met. At least now I know that it's more than just some cocky rockstar swagger, more than just a mask. No, that's genuine Derek Muser right there. I think he's practicing the whole fake it til you make it mentality, wearing that smile, that smooth easygoing attitude until it really starts to become who he is inside.
“All they do is eat shit. Why the hell would you be afraid of them?” Cope asks as Pax starts to pull me away, toward the meeting spot for our tour.
“Yeah, but have you seen those fuckers? They're gross as hell,” Derek answers, waving at us with that cheerful exterior of his still firmly locked in place. But I saw it last night, another crack, another opening. That's when I remember the hummingbirds painted on the wall of my childhood bedroom. And then I put the same images in my own painting …
Hmm.
I take one last look back at Michael, Ran, Cope, and Muse, and then turn to give my full attention to Paxton. This is our first real opportunity to be alone together, and I'm going to take advantage of that.
“Are you scared?” he asks, raising his dirty blonde brows at me, lifting his chin and letting his lids droop. It's the same poised look he wears in all the group photos of Beauty in Lies, the ones where he stands in the front of his friends, one hand adjusting his tie or playing with his cuff links, all that self-assured beauty of his frozen into a single frame. It's no big wonder why this band has seen so much success; it's not just their music that attracts the crowds.
It's the guys themselves.
And they all belong to me.
I grin.
“No way,” I say, lacing my fingers through Paxton's again, enjoying the heat of his fingers in the cool evening air. “I figure there are only two options. Either there's no such thing as ghosts—which is more likely—or there's a chance one of my family members is hanging around on this plane somewhere waiting to talk to me.” I shrug as I think about my dad for a moment.
Eighteen days.
That's how long he's been gone. I can still count that loss in fucking days.
And with Yasmine's birthday coming up … I take a deep breath, trying to hold onto that peace I felt after our visit to the cemetery. Early this afternoon, after we'd landed and then all crashed for a few hours on the (thankfully) king size bed in our hotel room, I sent an email to the groundskeeper at the cemetery where the Goode family mausoleum is, asking who I should contact about getting Dad's name chiseled into the
I'm coming to terms with the fact that I have to start a new phase of my life, one that doesn't include my father, my mother, or my sister. It doesn't hurt that I have five new boyfriends to help me through it. Still, no wonder how good things are right now, grief is a real bitch, a ghost that haunts even after an exorcism.
“Fuck, I never thought of it like that,” Paxton says, striking as hell in his bloodred dress shirt and grey slacks. He still has that perfect polished edge to him, but it's blurred at the edges, like my charcoal stained hand slid across his portrait and smudged his sharp lines a little. I like him best this way, I think. “I'd like to see Harper and Chloe again,” he adds, almost like an afterthought.
Neither of us speaks the rest of the way, pausing at the edge of the small group gathered around the sign for our ghost tour.
“I'm totally going to shag you on this thing,” Pax growls into my ear as our tour guide—the woman that was wearing the sandwich board before the show—lays out some basic rules and then launches into a colorful story about the area's history.
“Oh, please,” I say, but I can't lie. The idea's a little thrilling, deliciously naughty, a tad scary. Like a flower, my sexual awakening is in full bloom, as brilliant as the red, red rose. Doing it against a cold stone wall in Old Town Edinburgh is an enticing idea.
I can feel my pulse thumping hard against the side of my neck as Paxton and I follow the group, listening to our guide weave tales of witch burnings, poverty, and the questionable public hygiene habits of medieval people who threw their, um, chamber pots and slop out into the middle of the street. I read once that that latter bit is just an urban legend, but who knows? Our guide puts on a great show of shouting gardyloo at the top of her lungs, encouraging the rest of us to do the same.
“So not the sort of foreplay I was looking forward to,” Pax says as he cups his tattooed hands around his mouth and shouts along with the rest of the group, making me laugh so hard that I have to cling to his arm to keep from falling on the cobblestones in my heels. “Gardyloo? Chamber pots? What the hell kind of tour is this? Where are the bleeding ghosts?”
“Maybe they're all underground?” I whisper in his ear, still laughing, hanging at the back of the tour group as we enter a narrow alleyway lined with adorable little doorways wrapped in intricately carved archways. “In the vaults.”
“Sounds like the flat I shared with Ransom back in the day. If there's anyplace in this world that's haunted, it's that shithole studio in Rainier Valley we lived in. May as well have been a vault for all the light it got.”
We're having this whispered conversation in the middle of the dark alley as the rest of the group huddles close to the guide, leaving us alone in the back. It's strangely intimate, being out in public together like this, clearly a couple, our relationship still new and exciting and fun. But I've got a good feeling about our longterm prospects, too. Paxton is a one-night stand sort of guy, not a casual relationship guy. Being here with me, that means a lot.
“Did you have any idea that you were interested in Ran back then?” I ask and Pax just shrugs.
“Not really. Then again, I've spent so long hating on him that it's sort of blurred the past a little. I haven't a fucking clue how our relationship used to work. I guess all we can do now is start a new one, yeah?”
“I think that's a great idea,” I say as the guide opens the door into the vault and ushers our group into a nearly pitch-dark room with few carefully placed white candles, their flames flickering and creating strange shadows on the walls.
As I climb up on a crumbled piece of stone for a better view, Pax pauses next to the second ghostly guide, the one who brings up the rear and keeps stragglers from disappearing during the tour. I see him whisper something to the guy and then pass over a crumpled hundred pound note. Whoa. Serious bribery there.
“What are you doing?” I whisper as he rejoins me, and we listen to our raven haired tour guide start a ghastly tale of the industrial revolution and the poor that were driven into the damp, dark vaults in search of housing.
“You'll see,” Pax responds, crossing his arms over his chest and letting a smirk crawl across his lips that doesn't look at all like a mask or a cover for his pain. Nope. This one is as real as they come. So his asshole persona isn't entirely an act for his agony. I hold back a smile, deciding that a story about two serial killers stalking these tunnels and picking off victims so they can sell the corpses to medical schools is probably the wrong time to let a grin steal across my lips.
As the tour moves on, up a set of stone steps and through an archway, Paxton holds me back, waiting until the second guide with the lantern disappears, leaving us alone in the dark with the few sputtering candles.
A chill creeps down my spine.
“Are you scared, Miss Lily?” Paxton asks, penning me in against the damp stone wall when I start for the staircase. “Do you hear ghostly whispers from the past? The poor and destitute living in squalor, ten people to a single room? There must be some very angry spooks in here.”
“I can't hear anything over the beating of my heart,” I say, and then flush. It sounds like a line, but it's not; it's true. With Paxton leaning so close to me, the musty mildewy smell of the vaults is obliterated by the sandalwood scent of fresh sweat from the show, the hint of tobacco clinging to his shirt, the distant fruity scent of his shampoo.
“Good,” Pax whispers, just before he drops down in front of me, lifting my skirt up and disappearing underneath the folds of white and black cotton. My mouth barely has time to part into a surprised 'O' before his mouth is on the silken front of my panties.
Hot, hot hands slide up the naked sides of my thighs, fingers curling around the lacy waistband, teasing my hipbones with that distinctive touch of his: slow, practiced, perfect, almost inhumane in its tortuous precision.
A gasp escapes my throat, swallowed up by the darkness.
My lids droop against the flickering yellow-orange of the candles, shutting off that last little source of light, plunging me into the shadows of ecstasy, letting my body succumb to the purity of a single sense. Touch, touch, touch. It overwhelms me, eats me up, consumes me with every kiss of Paxton's naughty lips against my core.
Liquid heat blooms between my thighs, like nectar in a flower, sweet and ready to be tasted. It takes everything I have to keep my hands from yanking the folds of my skirt back, digging my fingertips into Pax's blonde hair and forcing him to go deeper, faster, harder with his mouth, lips, tongue, teeth.
Instead, I relax, leaning against the wall, savoring the cool, wet sensation of the old stone against my nearly bare back, fisting my fingers in the heavy skirts of my maxi dress.
Now I know what that hundred pound note was for … and I can say with all due certainty that that was money well spent.
Paxton seems to have a penchant for taking me to the edge in a very roundabout way, using the very lack of intensity to make me crave more, make my body tremble with violent need. He kisses along the edges of my panties, pressing his mouth gently to the heated silk above my clit, my core, but he doesn't press into it, doesn't use his tongue or his fingers.
It makes me feel like I'm going insane, all of that wishful, desperate need curling inside of me, fireworks exploding inside a glass bottle. There's color and sound, explosions, but eventually that glass is going to break.
I'm this close to shoving him away and storming up the stairs in my heels, a wild whirlwind of sexual frustration, when he drags my panties down to my knees and slicks his tongue across all the places I'm dying for him to touch. Strong, confident fingers curl around my ass cheeks, kneading the pale flesh with worshipful movements that tell me how much Paxton really wants this—wants me.
He swirls his tongue in lazy circles around my clit, somehow managing to find that one, single spot that seems to have a thousand times as many nerve endings as the rest of me. I lift one of my own hands to cup my breast, my nipple pebbling beneath the fabric, beneath the confines of the lacy wired cup of my bra. My mother's charm bracelet tinkles, mimicking the distant sound of water dripping on stone as I caress my own body in a mimicry of Paxton's movements.
My thighs tremble as I struggle to hold myself up and absorb the sanctity of his touch, each brush of his tongue a prayer, each press of his lips a curse. Abruptly, he drops his right hand down between my legs, dipping two fingers into the scorching desire of my cunt, giving my body something to clamp down around as he teases an orgasm from me with careful flicks of his hot tongue.
The sounds that escape my throat are like sensual requiems, if that's even such a thing. If it is possible though to sing to the dead, I do it then. Unintentionally, maybe, but that's how it sounds, like all of this life, all of this fucking living that I'm doing right now is simultaneously a goodbye and a hello. Goodbye to the negative emotions swirling in my chest; hello to the happy memories.
I shove Paxton away just a split second after the orgasm hits me, sliding to the floor in front of him, too drunk with ecstasy to hold myself up. I drag the skirt back over his head as I go, until I'm sitting bare assed on the stone. My panties are still around my knees, my heartbeat thundering, my breath hitching.
The first expression he throws my way is an audacious grin.
“And there I was, the jaded fucker thinking this ghost tour would be boring. You've certainly proven me wrong,” he drawls as I reach out to slap him playfully on the shoulder.
Pax helps me to my feet, even fixes my panties for me—although he cops several feels as he does it. Asshole. But he's revved my body into a sinuous, purring creature that just wants to be touch-touch-touched again. I wish he'd keep going.
“You're a professional fucking lothario, aren't you?” I ask slyly, but Paxton just curls his arm around my waist and yanks me close, putting his lips right up against my ear.
“Just a man in love,” he says, making my heart stutter, stop, start up again. “I love you, Miss Lilith Tempest Goode.”
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