Cherry Beats

by Vicki James

  Presley swallowed, the pain practically audible, like a bullet to the chest.

  “I’m also sorry that it’s the anniversary of his death today, and you didn’t feel like you could tell me.”

  He opened his mouth to speak, quickly thinking better of it before he pressed his lips together again and held my gaze.

  “And I’m sorry Olivia ruined this night for us—a night where you told me you loved me, and I, for just a second, allowed that to get overshadowed by someone with ill intentions.”

  “Too many apologies,” he whispered back at me.

  “I do that a lot.”

  “That shit’ll drain you.”

  He was on me in a heartbeat, his beer no longer important as he tossed it aside and reached out to take my face in his hands. The kiss he gave me was hard, making promises he didn’t want to speak as his firm body pressed against mine, walking us backwards until I came against a wall with force.

  “Presley,” I grunted, already breathless.

  “I need you, Tess.”

  Tess. I loved it when he called me Tess. The pretences and games were over when he said my name as though it was the most treasured word his tongue had ever carried.

  “I… I need you, too, but…”

  “Please,” he croaked, desperate and thirsty for more. “Please let me just touch you. Let me love you.”

  We could go from zero to sixty in a second, the chemistry undeniable in the touches we made and the heavy panting of our breaths, and who was I to deny, not only him, but myself of something I’d been desperate for since hearing his declarations of love on that stage?

  That was a strength I didn’t yet possess.

  Throwing my head back in defeat, it hit the wall with a thud, and I stretched my neck out, begging him to kiss me there. He was everywhere, hands fumbling under my top, his hard dick pressing against me, making heat pool between my legs.

  Fuck, I was hungry for him, high from the smell of his aftershave, alcohol, and watching him on stage, hearing those words he’d declared to me.

  Two further weak attempts to tell him to wait fell from my lips, but Presley knew what they really meant. They meant go harder. Go faster. Get inside me right now before I fucking explode.

  He took his time, making me wait and drawing out orgasm after orgasm with nothing more than his lips and tongue for what seemed like forever. When Presley finally screwed me against that wall, and he fucked me harder than we’d ever fucked before with sweat collecting between us, there were only four words that could be heard on repeat.

  I love you, Tess.

  I love you, Tess.

  I love you, Tess.

  I believed them, too.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Nights turned to days, days returning to nights over and over again.

  Everything involving Olivia was forgotten the moment Presley and I walked out of the dressing room door to cheers of applause and cries of Rhett telling everyone what he knew we’d been doing.

  After Paris, we flew to Berlin.

  Budapest.

  Croatia.

  Eventually landing in Barcelona six days later, a whirlwind of activity around us every night only for us to crash hard in the day. We slept below the sunlight, hidden behind thick curtains and even thicker walls. I may have been standing in these beautiful cities, but I definitely didn’t get to see or appreciate them the way I knew they deserved to be seen and appreciated. All I saw were venues and hotel rooms, followed by the night skies and the moon above us. How these men had done this for three years already, I didn’t know. I was getting through it because of Presley, and Presley alone.

  He woke most early afternoons with nothing but love in his eyes, flipping me onto my back to devour me. Each time he made love to me, I lost another little piece of myself to him and all that he was.

  Each time he made love to me, he’d make me promise to stay.

  I did. I always did, just for him.

  We’d landed in Barcelona only two hours earlier, and we were now walking into another hotel room, in another city, with another schedule to stick to. Julia tipped the concierge while Presley disappeared into the bathroom, and I stared out of the window overlooking this incredible new world we’d been dropped into.

  “Amazing, isn’t it?” Julia asked quietly, walking up close behind me.

  I didn’t bother to turn around. It was a gloriously sunny afternoon in the Spanish city, and the views were spectacular.

  “It’s out of this world,” I eventually answered.

  “Do you know how hard it is to get a hotel to accept a booking for a rock band?”

  “You’ve done a wonderful job.” I smiled.

  We were staying in the Grand Hotel Central—a place of classic luxury and modern tastes. On our way in, we’d been offered complimentary spa treatments, room service from the City Restaurant, with one member of staff even offering to host a private cocktail-making session for the band on the rooftop pool.

  “You doing okay?” Julia asked, forcing me to glance over my shoulder at her. She looked as tired as I felt.

  “Are you?” I countered.

  “I will be after tonight.”

  “What’s happening tonight?”

  “Nothing,” she said as she leaned forward and her face came alive. “The guys have the night off before their show tomorrow.”

  “A night off?” My eyes widened.

  Julia chuckled and turned to leave, calling out over her shoulder before she disappeared out of the door. “Well, I do. According to Presley, you two are going to be very busy.”

  She was gone before I could offer a comeback, and Presley came out of the bathroom to replace her, his eyes twinkling with excitement as he took me in. My hair was scraped back into a high ponytail with just my fringe hanging loose. I was wearing a pale blue pair of Levi’s with a white Youth Gone Wild T-shirt and my white Nike trainers. I didn’t look or feel particularly special, but the way Presley raked over me with hungry eyes made me feel like a queen.

  I turned, pressing my arse against the window ledge and putting my weight on my hands. “Rumour has it, we have a night off.”

  “Uh-huh.” He nodded, licking his bottom lip as he stalked closer, wearing nothing more than black, fitted joggers and a white vest only a drummer could pull off.

  “We may fall asleep before sunrise for once.”

  “Where’s the fun in that?”

  When he reached me, he wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me up to him so our chests were pressed together. I held onto his biceps, squeezing the hard muscles there as I stared up into his dreamy eyes.

  “You look mischievous,” I whispered.

  “You look amazing.” He pressed his forehead to mine. “I can’t keep my hands off you.”

  “You could at least try.” I smirked.

  “You have no idea how much effort I put into holding back. On the plane, on the road, around the guys, I’m restrained. But here, in the privacy of our room, I don’t need to be. If I could spend every moment that I’m not on stage touching you, I would. No regrets.”

  “No regrets.” I beamed.

  Presley sucked in a breath, releasing it slowly as he looked down at me. “Julia left a bag on the side table over there. Inside it is a swimsuit. Put it on, and then your robe.”

  I pulled back to look at him properly. “Why? What are we doing?”

  “Making the most of this life.” He grinned. “We’re going for a swim.”

  Thirty minutes later, I was dressed in a black swimsuit that tied around my neck and dipped all the way down at the back to rest at the very top of my arse cheeks. The front plunged between my breasts, the thin material covering my stomach enough to stop the shock of the water from being too harsh against my skin when we stepped inside the rooftop pool.

  It was beautiful. The aqua waters reached the edge of the building’s roof, meaning we could swim up to the very end with nothing but views ahead of us. A small garden filled with greene
ry had been placed upon wooden decking, with loungers and chairs scattered around the two edges of the pool that weren’t a vertical drop down over the edge of the building. A bar ran across the back wall of the decked area, sparkling with fairy lights, despite the sun still shining high in the sky. The warm rays beat upon my skin as I closed my eyes and lay back in the water, letting my body float, enjoying the weightlessness of life.

  Presley had yet to get in the water, and when I cracked one eye open, I saw him perched on the end of a sun lounger wearing nothing but his swimming shorts and a smug smile on his face. No one else was around. The bar had been stocked for our pleasure to take what we wanted, when we wanted, and Presley assured me he’d paid enough money to the hotel to ensure we had this place to ourselves for the night, should we want it.

  I definitely wanted it.

  This was a slice of Heaven in the middle of chaos that I was willing to take.

  “This can be a participation sport, too, you know,” I told him.

  “I’m participating in admiring you.”

  “Participate in touching me.”

  “Sold.” He dropped his beer to the decking and jumped into the water. The waves he caused brought my feet down to the tiles beneath me, and I laughed as he swam closer and wrapped his arms around me, bringing me in for a sweet kiss.

  In the water, with his hair slicked back and his blue eyes shining, Presley looked more perfect than any magazine cover could ever photoshop him to be. His strong jaw made me want to lick it, and that beautiful nose made me want to rub mine against it as we kissed. I leaned back and really took him in.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Not a single damn thing.”

  Presley’s smile broke free. “I told you I could make this work for us. You just had to open your mind and let the happiness in more often.”

  “Don’t you ever get scared?”

  “All the time.”

  “Then why don’t you show it?”

  “Because showing it doesn’t make you any less scared. It just lets everyone else know. That shit doesn’t achieve anything.”

  “But you could show me every once in a while.”

  “You want me to be vulnerable in front of you, is that it?”

  “Not vulnerable.” I paused, taking a moment to get it right. “More… open.”

  Presley spun us around in the water and walked me backwards until I was pushed up against the long edge that looked out over Barcelona. He brought a hand out of the water to brush back my hair, holding it behind my neck as he leaned closer. “I’ve never been this open with anyone before you, and it pisses me off that you still can’t see that.”

  “I see it.” I swallowed, feeling the building of butterflies in my stomach.

  “You just need more…” A look of disappointment flashed over him, and I hated that he was constantly trying to make this perfect for me while I seemed to find the easy route to ruin it in a simple second.

  I tugged on his hair, wrapping my legs around his waist and pulling myself up in his grip until my face was above his. Presley’s hands moved to cup my arse, holding me high as I stared down at him. “When it comes to you, Presley, I’ll always want more. Take it as a compliment. You’re not failing. We’re just starting.” With a cheeky smile on my face, I pushed back, kicked my feet off the ledge, and I pressed Presley underwater.

  He kicked and flailed, eventually breaking the surface and gasping for air as he pushed his hair out of his face. “Jesus Christ, woman!”

  I swam away as quickly as I could, laughing the whole time, which only slowed me down and made my strokes sloppy and slow.

  “Oh, it’s on!” I heard him cry, right before the splashing began behind me.

  Presley was on me in seconds, his hands finding my waist, and his fingers tickling like crazy, making my legs kick out, and my body jerk every which way in his grip. I laughed and squealed, crying out for him to stop before he lifted me as high as he could get me. I dragged in a deep breath, knowing what was coming.

  I was under that water in a heartbeat, the blue taking over my vision and a blurred image of Presley’s body in front of me. The need to laugh underwater took over, but I held it together until I broke the surface, gasping for oxygen and blinking wildly.

  “I can’t believe you just did that to a tiny little woman!”

  “Please.” He splashed the surface of the water, pushing it in my face and making me squeal again. “You’re the strongest badass I know.”

  “Presley!” I cried through my laughter.

  “Cherry!” he mocked.

  When I opened my eyes, he was there in front of me, his smile brighter than the sun, and happiness radiating from him like never before. I reached out to grab onto his shoulders and pull myself closer. His body was warm, and I wanted the heat.

  “Keep smiling like that, rock star, and people will stop thinking you’re the moody one of the band.”

  “I don’t care about anyone’s opinion now but yours.”

  We were in and out of the pool for hours, alternating between swimming, laughing, play-fighting, and relaxing on the sun loungers with a beer or a cocktail. Presley got behind the bar once to put on his best performance of Tom Cruise in Cocktail, tossing any spirit I suggested into the shaker before he mixed it all together and poured it into a glass for me.

  Every single one made me gag because like everything in life, Presley did nothing with half measures—only double, and the strength of those cocktails was enough to knock me off my feet. He, however, had no problem polishing off what I couldn’t finish.

  We’d eaten, with several platters of food being brought up every couple of hours. The sun had fallen behind the horizon, and now we were left with fairy lights up above and the lights of Barcelona illuminating the city before our very eyes.

  Everything about this night was perfect.

  Music played through the speakers, and when I heard Bon Jovi ringing out around me, I turned to stare at Presley.

  “You arranged this?” I asked, watching him as he lay back on a lounger with his eyes closed, his arms behind his head and his legs crossed at the ankle.

  “I thought you might like to spend some time with your favourite man.”

  Jumping from my chair, I straddled him on the lounger, watching as his smirk grew and his eyes peeled open.

  “Bon Jovi isn’t my favourite man.” I rested my palms on his chest and leaned forward.

  “Bryan Adams?” He rolled his eyes.

  “Nope.”

  “If you tell me it’s Rhett, you’re going back in that pool.”

  “I prefer the drummer.”

  “Phil Collins?”

  “Tempting.” I grinned, my eyes widening. “But no one does it better than Presley West.”

  “Are you trying to get me to fuck you on this rooftop?”

  “You know it.”

  “Damn.”

  In one swift move, he flipped me over until he was on top of me, hitching a thigh up against his hip as he thrust his erection against my swimsuit. I circled my arse, pressing into him, my arms rising above my head. Presley grabbed my wrists, pinning them down against the lounger, his eyes drifting down my exposed cleavage. “If the rest of the world could see you like this, they’d want you the way I do.”

  He dipped his head, pushing the material away from my breast with his nose before he quickly wrapped his lips around my hard nipple. The wet heat of his tongue mixed with the flashes of cold air had me closing my eyes and arching up to him. A jolt of perfect pleasure shot down my stomach to between my legs, and with every nip of his teeth and roll of his tongue, that pleasure intensified until I opened my eyes.

  That’s when I saw it.

  The strange thing hovering in the air behind Presley—the sound of it suddenly loud enough to be heard over the gentle moans of appreciation we’d both been making.

  I blinked wildly and drew in a sharp breath.

  A fucking drone was filming us.


  “Presley,” I breathed through barely moving lips.

  “I know, baby. I know.”

  I tensed beneath him, locking up tight enough for Presley to lift his head to look at me in question. Seeing the fear on my face, he turned to follow my gaze, his hand still pinning me down as he glanced over my shoulder and took it in.

  “Fuck!” he whispered.

  That one moment seemed to drag out in slow motion before the drone drifted away to wherever it had come from.

  I was caught up in a haze of ‘what the hell just happened’ while Presley sprang into action. He moved quickly, pulling me up and wrapping in a towel before taking me back inside.

  “What was that about?” I asked him as he guided me down the stairs in a hurry.

  “We need to find Julia.”

  “Presley, you’re scaring me.”

  “Some fucker put a drone up there to film us, Cherry.”

  “Film us? Who? Who would want…?”

  I didn’t need to finish. I knew the whole world would want that exclusive, and if they’d seen what I thought they’d seen, my right breast and Presley’s soft tongue were about to be splashed everywhere.

  “Oh no,” I whispered, the words catching in the back of my throat. “Please. No.”

  Chapter Forty

  “Should we even bother asking what you were doing up there?” Rhett asked from his position on the sofa of the main suite, a cigarette hanging limply from the corner of his mouth as he stared up at me.

  “Playing Cluedo,” I answered with a roll of my eyes.

  “Save yourself some time. It was Mr West, in the pool, with his weapon of mass destruction.”

  A cushion was hurled through the air by Presley, hitting Rhett in the head and knocking the cigarette out of his mouth into his lap. Rhett jumped up, hurling the smoke to the floor before he stood on it with his thick, black boot. “Jesus, man. That could have put a hole in my best jeans.”

  “I can put a hole in your face if you’d prefer,” Presley growled. He was still wearing his swim shorts, sitting on the sofa opposite Rhett while I paced back and forth, and Julia spoke to someone on her phone in the corner of the room.