Cherry Beats

by Vicki James

  “That’s not what I meant. I wasn’t looking for validation.”

  “Yes, you were.”

  “None of this…” makes sense, I wanted to finish. But it did make sense. There was some unspoken spark that lingered between us. I blew out a breath and tilted my head to one side. “Fine. What do you want from me?”

  “Just you. Nothing else.”

  “Another night together, is that it?”

  “I’d take more if I could.”

  “But you can’t. World tour coming up. No girlfriends allowed.”

  “That, and the woman I adore is scared shitless of more, and I hate the way she looks at me like she’s desperate to run when all I ever really want is for her to stay.”

  I sucked in a sharp breath—the weight of his admission leaving me winded.

  “We were only ever meant to be a one-night thing,” I whispered.

  “Isn’t that how all the best love stories start?” Presley smirked.

  In a matter of hours, everything I’d worked so hard to fight against for three years became nothing more than dust and broken promises to myself, falling through the cracks of my fingers and fading away into nothing.

  My elbows fell to my knees, and my face sank into the palms of my hands.

  Presley needed a minute away from the circus.

  I needed a minute away from him.

  He moved across the room slowly, pushing my legs apart and sliding in between them on his knees. I couldn’t tear my hands away from my face. I wanted to hide and try and deal with the conflicting emotions. The desire and need to enjoy him while he was with me versus the fear of the heart-splintering pain I knew I’d feel when he left me at five in the morning.

  “I always told you I was selfish.”

  “You’re a rotten bastard, Presley West,” I squeaked into my hands.

  “Is it so bad of me to want you?” He ran his hands up my thighs to the creases where they met my hips, and his fingers squeezed me tightly, forcing me to clench in his grip.

  “No,” I breathed out softly. “I hate you because you’re making it impossible for me to not do this...”

  My hands fell from my face, reaching up to grab the tendrils of his freshly-washed hair before I crushed my lips against his and let him catch me. We fell backwards together, a small grunt of air pouring out of Presley’s lungs as he took the brunt of the fall, causing our lips to bump and part only for a second before he growled and pulled me back to him. His hands curled around all of me, holding me tight, and he rolled us over until I was on my back looking up at him, and his impressive body hung over mine.

  He was already hard, pushing against me through the thinness of my barely-there shorts and the gap in his towel. My legs rose, and I wrapped them around his waist, inviting him in without even having to bother with foreplay or any of that other stuff he loved so much. We’d been taking part in foreplay since he arrived. It was only now that I was willing to admit it.

  I didn’t care anymore. I needed him inside me again. I needed to drown in the just-bathed scent of him. I needed him to take me and burn off some of this agonising desire, get rid of the aching pain in my stomach, and let me take control of my own goddamn body again.

  “I want you,” I breathed heavily, and he swallowed those three words, making the most seductive moan of approval when he tasted them. “I want you so badly, Presley. I’m going crazy here. I’m tired of pretending.”

  “Finally, she catches the fuck up. Now you know how it feels.”

  His fingers slid beneath the now-damp material of my shorts, slipping through my folds, enticing another moan from the two of us. Just one feel of me had him pulling his fingers out, lifting them to his mouth and pushing them on his tongue before he closed his lips around them.

  I watched his eyes roll, and his lips suck his fingers dry.

  “I’m addicted to the taste of you.”

  “Please,” I panted.

  Presley’s heated eyes fell to mine, and the fingers he’d just sucked ran over my bottom lip slowly.

  “No regrets?”

  I pressed myself against him. “Not one.”

  It was a lie. It was all a lie.

  I knew it. I just wasn’t ready to deal with after effects of that lie while he was ripping my shorts down my legs, or when he leaned back to open me up with his fingers, his eyes focused on the way they dipped in and out of me, alight with wonder and arousal.

  When he finally pushed his cock inside me, my back arched off the floor, my mouth fell open, and I clung on to him with all that I had, clawing at his back, clawing at his hair, clawing at his heart.

  Presley rocked back and forth, circling his hips and hitting every single sweet spot I owned.

  “God, I love being inside you,” he whispered against my ear before he trapped my head between his forearms and stared down at me. His perfectly arched lips parted, letting his breaths saw in and out, and his nostrils flared as he held me, while those eyes of his searched mine like they were seeing a rare diamond no one else could see.

  Six words he’d spoken to me then, and there was such a huge part of me that wished he would one day reduce that sentence to just three. The urge to say those words back to him made my throat clog with emotion. I was not going to ruin this reunion with tears.

  “Kiss me before I say something I regret,” I whispered.

  He did. He kissed me and swallowed all the words I didn’t want to say. He rocked back and forth, taking it slow, like a rock ballad beat of his drums, never once stopping, never once picking up pace, never once making me feel anything other than I was being adored and fucked by the hottest man on the planet.

  The man who would leave me in the morning, the way I ran from him three years before.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Three Years Ago

  I stared up at the ceiling, unable to contain the megawatt grin on my face.

  Had that really just happened?

  Had I really just had sex with the Presley West?

  “I gave you ice,” he said, towering over me, all naked and glistening with a desirable post-sex glow.

  I sat up and took the glass tumbler from him, not even asking what he’d poured me before I took a gigantic swig of it and let the whiskey-burn trickle down my throat.

  “If I’d have known you were so quick to swallow, I’d have made sure I hooked up with you months ago.”

  I peered up at him with innocent eyes and wiped the corners of my mouth with the back of my hand. “If I’d have known you were so chivalrous and charming, I may have let you.”

  Presley bent down, his knees cracking as he placed his own drink on the floor and moved in place behind me. His legs slid down either side of mine, so my naked back was pressed to his naked chest. When he leaned back against the sofa, he pulled me with him, and I let my head roll on his pecs, releasing a sigh of contentment.

  “I lied to you before,” he said.

  “What about?”

  “I told you I never noticed you in high school.”

  “That was a lie?” I asked, glancing back to look up at him with wide eyes.

  His hand slid to my jaw, and he pinched my chin between his finger and thumb. “I once watched you run the two-hundred-meter sprint on sports day, when you were forced into those cute little navy-blue sports shorts and that too-tight white T-shirt you always tried to tug down.”

  “No. No, no. Please tell me you didn’t see—”

  His grin exploded, and he pressed a finger to my lips. “Oh, I saw it.”

  “The fall…” I mumbled against his finger, my cheeks flaming with heat and embarrassment.

  “It was the cutest thing I’d ever seen in my life.”

  I closed my eyes and groaned a loud, feral, painful groan that felt like it started at the very tips of my toes. Cute? How could he think it was cute? Falling in front of a stadium filled with my peers was the most mortifying moment of my high school life.

  “You don’t know this, but I heard Mrs
Morgan begging you to race outside the girls changing rooms, just before you agreed to do it. I heard how much you didn’t want to run, but you did it anyway because that old crow made you feel like you’d be letting her team down if you didn’t. I almost stepped in and told her to lay off you, but—” Presley chuckled. “When you took to that race, you were so determined to stay close to the others, but your legs wouldn’t carry you. You pushed too hard. I could see it coming. When you finally tanked it, fell, and ended up performing a powerful, yet somewhat painful-looking forward roll over the finish line, I couldn’t take my eyes off of you.”

  “Make it stop,” I cried. “Why? Why would you bring that up, arsehole?”

  “Because it was the first time someone held my interest like that. You were so… feisty.”

  I scowled and blinked at him.

  “I watched you get up and brush yourself off like it hadn’t even bothered you. I watched you push Lyndsey Gough off you when she tried to make fun and rattle your cage. I saw you point a finger in Luke McDermott’s face and warn him not to say a fucking word. You had balls when all the other girls were too scared to stand out. I liked that about you. You had fire. I watched you walk over to the teacher at the little race station, and I was fucking fascinated with you when you told her what position you’d come in, even though she obviously knew. Everyone knew. You weren’t exactly subtle in your disappointment. But, man, I couldn’t take my eyes off you as you stomped across the race track, blood racing down your knees and elbows, and I thought to myself: that girl is fucking fantastic.”

  “You’re such a weirdo, rock star.” I wrinkled my nose.

  He laughed, throwing his head back, his hair going with it. I wanted to grab that hair and hold it tight. I wanted to turn around, straddle him, grab him, and kiss him because I’d never been more flattered, knowing that while I’d been pining for him, he’d also been paying attention to me.

  Spinning around on my knees, I straddled his waist and wrapped my arms around his neck. “Seriously. You need help,” I told him through a shy smile.

  “Yeah?” His arms circled my waist. “You think you can hook me up with some therapy?”

  “Either that or I can show you some more forward rolls if you like?”

  “Naked gymnastics. I like it.”

  “Heavy on the naked. Not so much on the gymnastics.” I pressed myself against him, leaving nothing between us.

  “You want to go again?” His eyes turned heated.

  “You said we had one night, right? In the words of my beloved Bryan Adams, let’s make it a night to remember.”

  “Oh, Christ. Say it isn’t so. Bryan Adams is another love of yours?”

  “Wash your mouth out. If you don’t like him, I’m sorry, I can’t like you. He’s one of my main loves. He may be even more desirable than you.”

  “You did not just say that to me.”

  “I can’t be convinced otherwise.” I batted my eyes and looked up at the ceiling again, and with one growl of acceptance, Presley took on my challenge by lifting me in his arms, walking me around his apartment with my legs firmly around his waist, and he slammed me up against the first wall he could find.

  “I hope you don’t mind missing out on sleep,” he whispered against my mouth. “I’m about to work some Bryan magic on you.”

  His tongue trailed the length of my neck, and I let my head fall back against the wall with a thud, gasping with ecstasy when he pushed inside me. He was everywhere—on my skin, in my mind, in my veins, in every song I’d ever sung.

  The fire flickered away in the background, the two of us facing each other, cross-legged with smiles on our faces and question after question falling freely from our lips for hours on end.

  “Vincent Van Gogh once said that art is to console those who are broken,” Presley said, only pausing to take a quick drink of his third whiskey and Coke on ice before he placed it down on the floor and leaned back on his elbows. “I think there’s a lot of truth to that. Music, literature, paintings, sculptures… they’re all escapes. They’re all ways to express our truths. To let them bleed out when conversation just isn’t cutting it.”

  “And expressing means healing.” I nodded. “I get that.” The blanket in my lap was only covering the lower half of me, while Presley’s blanket covered the lower half of him. Our upper bodies were exposed, lit only by firelight, and I didn’t miss the way Presley’s eyes kept drifting down to my breasts. It empowered me. I’d never felt so admired before. “But don’t you think that everyone is a little broken these days?”

  His eyes rose to mine, holding my gaze. “That’s because the world is. Everyone’s got issues.”

  “Do you?”

  “Sure, I have my issues as much as the next guy.”

  “What’s your worst?”

  “I’ve already told you: I’m selfish as fuck.” He turned his smile down, looking away from me for the first time and choosing, instead, to stare straight into the fire. “It’s a side of life I get from Mum. Dad dying a few years ago made me realise life’s too short to care about anyone else but yourself. If I want something now, I go out there and get it.” His eyes travelled back to mine. “Sometimes people are just the way they are, you know?”

  “I know.” I agreed quietly, thinking about my screw-up of a family that I couldn’t help but love anyway. “And I’m sorry about your dad.”

  “So am I.”

  “Wanna talk about it?”

  “No.” He huffed out a laugh. “Let’s talk about you and your issues instead.”

  “I thought we weren’t doing the psychoanalysing tonight.”

  “Fuck.” Presley laughed, and when he took another drink of his whiskey, he kept his eyes on mine. The atmosphere was thick and heavy, but the good kind. The kind that made me want to pounce on him again and have my wicked way just because I could. Because I only had one night of excess. I had one night with him.

  I had this one chance to live like this.

  “You hungry?” I asked.

  “Starving.”

  “Me, too.”

  I stood slowly, letting the blanket fall and pool around my feet before I stepped out of it and strutted past Presley West like he was lucky to have me. I felt his eyes on my body the entire time as I walked into the kitchen area of his open-plan room and began to look through his cupboards.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, his voice tainted with whiskey, sex, and confusion.

  “Looking for something to eat.” I opened the high cupboards first, stretched up on tiptoes.

  “I see something I’d love to eat.”

  “Presley, you literally have no food in.”

  “I have you,” he said, suddenly a lot closer than he had been seconds before. His large hands gripped my waist, and his mouth fell to the lobe of my ear. My soul sang from just two touches. That’s all it took for my nipples to tighten, my legs to twist together, my stomach to flutter, and my mind to explode.

  “You’re a distraction, rock star.” I reached for a bag of dry pasta.

  “Says the naked woman in my kitchen, stretching like this.”

  I spun in his grip, still clutching a bag of pasta, and I pushed his chest away with my free hand. Presley’s eyes travelled the entire way down my body, then back up again, but all I could focus on was the erection now standing proudly in front of me.

  “You’re doing well so far,” he said in a raspy breath.

  “With what?”

  “With me.” He grinned. “The more you’re here, the more I want you to stay. Seems you might leave a mark on me after all.”

  “I’ll leave a mark on you, all right. If you don’t let me make you some food, there’ll be teeth marks in those ridiculously firm abs of yours because I am starving.”

  “Feel free to sink your teeth into anything you see.” He glanced down at his dick.

  I had to close my eyes and spin away from him, otherwise there was a good chance I’d be falling back onto his kitchen island and offeri
ng myself up as a middle of the night snack.

  “I’m making pasta. You got any cheese?” I called over my shoulder.

  “I have beer,” he said, walking away. I turned to see him opening the fridge and peering inside. “Oh. Wait. Yeah. I have cheese. Grated?”

  “That’ll do.” I held my hand out for it and turned back to my task, not daring to look at him again as I searched for a pan. If I looked at him, I became lost to him, and there was a stirring in my heart. A warning. Something that told me I’d started playing a game I couldn’t win.

  We both knew how good I was at losing.

  “No, stop it.” I laughed roughly, trying to snatch my phone off him.

  We’d spent the last hour on the floor in front of his fire again, looking through my playlists. We’d eaten enough pasta to sate our stomachs, and we’d drunk enough whiskey and beer to make us both feel bolder than usual. Or at least me. We’d listened to my ‘cheesefest’ songs—his words, not mine—and I was currently trying to explain why Bon Jovi and Bryan Adams were the two biggest loves of my life.

  “You can’t have The Cure and Bryan Adams on the same playlist. You just can’t,” Presley protested, holding my phone in the air so it was out of reach for me unless I stood up and pinned him down. As tempting as that was, I was held down by alcohol, carbs, and orgasms.

  “Why can’t I?”

  “Just like Heaven is not in the same league as Please Forgive Me.”

  “You’re such a snob. You’re a typical musician, aren’t you? All about what’s cool rather than what speaks to your soul. You’ll be wearing pink silk shirts, bad suit trousers, and trying to look like Bob Geldof next.”

  His face fell, and his eyes dropped from my phone to me. “Excuse me?”

  “You heard what I said, Presley Arrogant West.”