She was just staring at me, eyes wide, a little glassy. Head was weaving—exhausted, now, rather than blasted.
“How long you been up, shorty?”
She glanced upward. “Uh. Since like, six. Then I fell asleep in the car for a couple hours.”
“Road trip?”
“New York to Alaska.”
I whistled. “Holy hell, woman, that’s clear across the damn continent two ways.”
She frowned. “Huh? Two ways?”
“East to West, and South to North?”
“Oh, right. Duh.” She rubbed her face with both hands. “I swear, Crow, I’m actually a very smart person.” She laughed. “I have two degrees from Yale.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “Two?”
“Double major, business and law.”
“Damn, girl.”
“So, I’m not this airheaded, normally. Promise.”
I squeezed her thighs—fucking mistake. Juicy, soft, tender, strong. I wanted them bare, and wrapped around my neck. Gritting my teeth, I shoved the lecherous thoughts away.
“I never thought you were airheaded.”
“I’m acting like one, though.”
I laughed. “Alcohol can turn the smartest person into a fuckin’ dweeb.”
She was gazing up at me, soft blue eyes searching me like she had a billion things to say and couldn’t make any of ‘em make sense. I knew the feeling.
She didn’t seem to mind my hands on her thighs, although I could tell she was intensely aware of them. I wanted to curl my hands into the stretchy black leggings, into the waistband, yank ‘em down, get my lips all over that creamy skin.
Fuck, what was wrong with me? I’ve got more control than this. She was still drunk. Not in the place to make smart decisions, and a girl like her—gorgeous, two Ivy League degrees, and smelling like the innocence of all Heaven’s angels—had no business knocking around with a scarred-knuckle, bar-brawling nomad like me.
She’d regret it in the morning, and if a woman was gonna regret me, she was gonna damn well remember every sinful second of it. And I wasn’t entirely sure her brain was recording at the moment. She seemed lucid enough, but you never knew.
I forced my hands off her thighs. “Gotta finish up a few things. Sit tight, yeah?”
She just nodded.
I made quick work of Myles’s amps, cords, and other shit, checked the area over for anything missing, checked all the cases and crates so I was triple sure I wasn’t forgetting anything, and then turned back to Charlie.
…Who looked like she was about to pitch off the crate, her eyes drooping.
I curled an arm around her waist and helped her off the crate. “You need to crash, darlin’.”
“Uh-huh.” A belated nod. “Suddenly super tired.” She leaned against me, and I was tortured silly by the soft press of her breast against my arm. “And hungry.”
I laughed. “Told ya.”
I had to hold her up, so I just kept my arm around her waist, and damn me if she didn’t just fuckin’ fit, right there, where my arm could sling low over her hips like a gun belt. Like it belonged there, even though I knew it didn’t.
“Where’re we going?” she asked, all but laying against me, letting me mostly carry her.
“Bus.”
“Lexie?”
I cast a glance around. Saw Myles on the couch, Lexie sideway, legs tossed with familiar ease across his—they were sharing the bottle of whiskey and chatting like they’d known each other forever. “With Myles. Just talking and drinking.”
“‘Kay.”
“You’re crashing on the bus tonight, all right? You got my bunk. You can figure out your next step in the morning.”
“Car?”
“In the lot?” I asked, and she nodded. “Keys?”
She patted randomly about her person. “Purse.” It was tangled around behind her. I grabbed it, brought it around front. She peered at it. Clumsily unzipped it. Dug in it. “I almost feel drunk again.”
“Yeah, that happens. It’s exhaustion hitting you. You get a second wind and feel sober, or sober-ish, and then the booze leaves your system and your body is like, fuckin’ nope, we’re done.”
She found a bundle of keys attached to a big yellow sun made of floppy, broken-in leather, with a long strap and a key ring. Several keys for various locks, a PO Box or condo mailbox key, and a key fob for a Mercedes Benz. Handed them to me.
“That’s my baby,” she murmured. Then a worried glance. “Are you driving her? Where is she going?”
“You think I’m leaving your side in this state? Nah, babe. I’ll have someone from the crew follow us in it.”
“Follow us?”
“We got a show in Denver Tuesday, so we’re driving all night. You’re on the bus, and a crew member will be driving your car.”
She straightened, eyes focusing on me, and her fists grabbed the edges of my cut. “That car is my baby. You have to pick someone you really, really trust. This is serious.”
I patted her hands, prying them off the leather. “I got you covered, Charlie. The guy I got in mind used to be a limo driver. He’s a pro. He’ll take good care of your car. Now, where’s it parked?”
“Way, way, way back. Far back left corner.” She leaned into me again, woozy. “Oof. Can’t tell if I’m more hungry or more tired.”
We reached the bus, and I helped her up and in. She stopped a few stumbling steps inside, and blinked. “Whoa.”
I laughed. “First time in a tour bus?”
A dumbfounded nod. “This is a freaking bus?”
I tried to look at it with new eyes—tricky, since I’d helped him design it. The front lounge wouldn’t be out of place as the living room of an upscale Manhattan condo—and for similar size and style, you’d be paying seven figures, easy. Clean, sleek, black and white and chrome, modern lines, with a pair of overstuffed scarlet leather couches facing each other. Right now, being parked, we had the slides on each side popped out, creating extra space between the couches. A full kitchen with a pair of diner-style booths featuring seating for eight to ten, and plenty of storage above and below everything. A pair of 60-inch flat screens on either side instead of windows, each connected to a server system containing a boggling number of movies; the whole bus was wired with theater quality surround sound. Four bunks, oversized and fitted with charger-wired nooks for phones and tablets and laptops, dim lights for reading, five sides baffled for sound protection, with sound-deadening curtains across the opening.
Myles’s master suite was, of course, over the top. King-size bed, his own flat screen and sound system, full bathroom. The ceiling overhead was a giant window made of electronically dimmable glass, so he could watch the sky at night and have sunlight during the day.
The whole bus was wired with satellite-fed 4G Wi-Fi, and Myles’s suite could be turned into a mobile recording studio—the bed folded up and out of the way, another wall hid a mixing board, with amps and mics built into the walls, stowable as needed.
The bus had been paid for through his sponsoring partners, Fender and Harmon, the latter of which provided most of our sound equipment as well; Myles had pimped it out with his earnings from that first gangbusters album and the subsequent arena-busting eighteen-month world tour.
I knew all that, but now, with Charlie’s eyes bugging out, I saw it for what it was—a ridiculously lavish mobile luxury estate. Especially considering it was home to just people—Myles, Jupiter, Zan, Brand, and me.
She turned around to take in everything. “This is crazy. I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
I laughed. “Yeah, but it’s home to us.”
“This is nicer than my condo back in Boston. By, like, a lot.”
“He’s sponsored by some big companies, and that comes with pretty nice perks. Like this bus.” I helped her to a couch. “So. Let’s get something to eat. Something quick, or something elaborate?”
She slumped back, holding her head in both hands. “I’ll take wh
atever will make the world stop spinning.”
“Greasy, or healthy?”
She eyed me sideways. “I usually eat pretty healthy, but right now? Fatten me up, buttercup.”
I laughed. “I got you.” I pulled a skillet from a cabinet, set it on the induction stovetop, pulled out fixings and turned on the heat.
She watched. “Mmmm—my spider-sense tells me you’re making grilled cheese.”
I grinned. “Kind of. I do it my own way, though.”
My grilled cheese recipe included cream cheese on the inside, ghee coating the pan, liberal amounts of sliced cheese in four varieties, a sprinkle of parmesan, and a thick layer of deli-sliced turkey. I made one for each of us—I was hungry as hell myself. As they cooked, I pulled out blue corn chips and homemade guac.
She dug into the chips and guac, eyes widening as she tasted it. “This is the best guacamole I’ve ever had.”
I performed an elaborate bow. “At your service, m’lady.”
She frowned. “You made it?”
I nodded. “My grandfather, River Dog, lived most of the year way down in Mexico and the rest of it in various parts of the Southwest. I lived with them after my folks passed. He’s the one who taught me to cook, and that old man could cook the best Tex-Mex on the damn planet.”
“River Dog, huh?”
I nodded. “My grandfather is the sole reason I’m alive right now and not in jail. He was a great, great man, and I miss his leather old ass every damn day.”
She was watchful, thoughtful. “Tell me about him?”
“River Dog. It was the only name anyone called him including Mammy—my grandma—Mom and Dad, the guys from the club, my uncle. It suited him, too. Not sure where the name came from, honestly.” I flipped the sandwiches, letting my memory wander. “He was one of those old guys who was just ageless. To me, he looked about the same my whole life. About my height, but thin in that lean, leathery way, you know? Not sure I ever saw him wear a shirt, and his skin showed it. Barefoot, always. He could walk barefoot across scorching sand, blacktop, over gravel. Him and Mammy, up until my parents died when I was ten, eleven lived nomadic. Following the old ways. And I don’t mean to sound all mystical or shit, but they were just…people out of time. They wandered for decades, just lovin’ each other, following the wind. They’d go down into Mexico, hang out on the beaches of the Yucatán. Wander up into Texas, Baja, SoCal, into the Four Corners region. They had a truck and an old Airstream, and that was all they ever owned.”
She shook her head, grinning. “Really? You’re not making this up to sound cool?”
“Every word of it is the truth. I worshipped River Dog and Mammy. Every spring, Mom and Dad would pack me up and we’d head out to look for River Dog and Mammy, and it always felt like an adventure, trying to find ‘em. Usually around spring they’d be down in Mexico on the beaches only locals knew about, far away from the tourists. We’d spend days and days in the saddle, just riding.”
“Horses?”
I laughed. “Naw, bikes. Motorcycles. I rode in a sidecar with Dad.” I sighed. “He had a 1946 Indian Chief. I lived for those trips with them, and then I’d spend the summers with River Dog and Mammy. Riding horses, swimming, not doing shit-all but just relaxing and eating and playing with local kids.”
She was enthralled. “Sounds magical.”
I nodded. “It was. Best years of my life.”
Her brow pinched. “And then?”
I shrugged. “Ehh, you don’t wanna hear the ‘and then,” babe, ain’t a lot of fun in the tellin’ of that old misery.”
“Try me.”
I flicked off the heat, plated the sandwiches, and sat next to her on the couch, our thighs touching. I handed her a can of sparkling water I’d grabbed while cooking, and a pair of ibuprofen. We ate in silence—except for Charlie’s groans of delight.
Each one of which shot straight to my cock like lightning. To get my mind on another track I forced myself to think about Sister Maria, the old-as-dirt nun I’d lived with between Mom and Dad dying and then going to live with my grandparents; she was wrinkled and had a sour horse-face, like a mule that had swallowed a lemon. Ugly as anything but still, to this day, the quietest, most patient, most compassionate human being I’d ever met.
Sister Maria faded my arousal enough that I could think properly.
“So. I was ten, near eleven when Mom and Dad died.”
“Motorcycle accident?”
I paused, staring my sandwich. “Uh, no. They got tangled up in a big ol’ mess with a rival MC.” I bit, chewed, swallowed. Sighed. “They were shot.”
She flinched. “Oh. Wow. Um…wow. I’m so sorry.”
“Going on twenty years ago, now.” I smiled at her. “At the time my grandparents were off somewhere, and I had nowhere to go. None of the others from the club, those who survived that fuckin’ mess of a shootout, wanted me. Not full time, at least. So I lived at a little convent down in Monterrey, with an old nun named Sister Maria.”
She was staring at me. Not quite believing. “By Monterrey, you mean the one in Mexico.”
I nodded. “See, the thing is, I was born in a bathtub just this side of the Mexican-American border, outside El Paso. In a motel, during a shootout. Legally, I’m a naturalized American citizen. I have a driver’s license and everything. But back then; I was more than half wild. When shit got hot for Mom and Dad up here in the States, they’d head south. Spend time with River Dog and Mammy while things cooled off. I never went to school. Didn’t get immunized for anything till I was a teenager. I was just this crazy-ass outlaw kid, spoke a pidgin mix of Western Apache, Spanish, and English.”
“Do you still know those other languages?”
I nodded. “Sure. Mom and Dad both spoke Western Apache to each other almost exclusively, and Mammy and River Dog—Dad’s parents—spoke a mix of that and Spanish. I didn’t start using English all the time till I was sixteen. Had to sort of learn it from scratch.”
She shook her head. “You had a crazy childhood, didn’t you?”
I chuckled. “You got no clue, darlin’.”
“Say something in Apache.”
“I wish you were sober, so I could get you naked and make you scream my name.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I think you’re beautiful.”
She frowned. “Bullshit.”
I snorted. “How do you know?”
She leaned close. “I have a bullshit detector like nobody’s business. You said something dirty, didn’t you?”
I shrugged. “It amounts to what I told you.”
“It does not. Tell me what you said.”
I stared at her. I didn’t dare tell her. So I repeated what I’d said, but in Spanish.
“I don’t speak Spanish either.” She leaned her shoulder against mine. “Tell me what you said, Crow. I won’t be mad, no matter what it was.”
I eyed her. “Count backward from twenty.”
She did so, only faltering a couple times. “I’m still pretty buzzed, but I’m not…insensible. I know what’s going on and what I’m doing.” She finished her sandwich, set the plate aside. “Now, what did you say, Crow?”
“You don’t want to know.” I felt my gut spinning. I shouldn’t tell her.
But her eyes begged me to. That hint of cleavage begged me to.
My cock was insisting I whisper the translation in her ear and see how she responded.
“Yes, I do,” she murmured. “It was something dirty, wasn’t it?”
I just nodded. “Yeah.”
“Tell me.”
I caught her braid in my fingers, traced the complex pattern under my fingertips. Stared into her eyes and sought…something. I wasn’t sure what.
I repeated the sentence in Apache. Tugged on her braid so her ear tilted toward me. Whispered. “It means ‘I wish you were sober, so I could get you naked and make you scream my name.’”
She sucked in a sharp breath. Twisted her head so her n
ose brushed mine. Eyes on mine, so close she looked cyclopean, one big bright blue eye. “I’m sober enough.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I can be the judge of that. I’m an adult.”
I still had her braid in my fist, and I couldn’t help but pull on it again, and this time, her face tilted, mouth falling against mine. Her lips were soft and wet and inviting, welcoming. I licked at her lips, and she moaned, pushed against me, gave me her tongue. Hungrily, she kissed me back.
Ohh shit, this girl was eager.
My cock sprang alive at the feel of her mouth on mine, and then she pressed her body against me and I felt her breasts crush soft and pliant against my chest, and I tipped back, flat on the couch. I brought her on top of me, one hand coiling her long braid around my fist. Her palm scraped against my cheek, across my stubble, and then she gripped my shoulder and pressed against my chest. She shifted forward, and fuckfuckfuck she was lined up on me, my achingly hard cock throbbing against her soft center, and I had her juicy ass in my other hand, palming and squeezing, kneading.
I delved under the elastic of her waistband and gathered a handful of soft warm silky skin, and I groaned at the velvet wonder of her skin, the firm heft of her ass. She writhed, needy, and whimpered into my mouth, pressing against my hand. I let go of her braid and took a double handful of sweet, tender ass cheek, playing with the softness and movement of it. I twisted her sideways, toppling her against the back of the couch, pressing her in with my body, not breaking the kiss.
My hand reached up under her shirt and I found out for certain that she wasn’t wearing a bra. Just those gorgeous melons piled up in my hand. She gasped as I cradled one in my palm, brushing a nipple. God, so soft. Her nipple was a hard little nub under my fingers, and I tweaked it, toyed with it until she whimpered, and then I played with the other. She arched her back, and her tongue sought mine. Her hands curled between our bodies, splayed out, palms against my chest. Then her fingers dug in, clawing at my shoulders and chest.
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