I didn’t even know it was a thing I might hear.
But, he’d said it.
Sex club.
I took his hand again. “Okay. Look. This is a lot to digest. But if this is the only place you’ve gone in a while, there must be a reason. You can tell me. I won’t judge. I can’t say I’ll be thrilled about it or anything… but I will really, really try not to judge.”
“Okay. I want to explain this to you. I’ve been thinking about how to tell you…” He took a moment gathering his thoughts. “I was seeing a girl when Gabe died.” Then he just stopped talking.
“We don’t have to talk about that,” I said automatically. I wanted to talk about it, honestly. But not if it was too hard for him.
“It was just a really bad time for me,” he said, meeting my eyes. “She was there for me at first, for maybe a couple of months. And then she took off when I was having a rough time and I could’ve really used someone in my corner. I thought she would be it. But I guess that was unfair. Our relationship was new and wasn’t that tight to begin with. I needed someone and she needed out from under the burden I’d become.”
“I’m sorry, Cary.”
“Yeah. Me, too, in a way. Not because she left. Obviously, she wasn’t meant to stay. But it was pretty painful. Thing was… pretty much everything was painful at that point.”
“I can imagine.”
“Anyway, after that, I didn’t exactly go out much. I kinda locked myself away and shut everyone out so I could try to cope on my own. Didn’t always work out so well. I had other friends who flaked out, disappeared. Said shit about me in the media. People who were upset about Gabe’s death and needed someone to lash out at, I guess. For some people, I was it. I guess it’s easiest to kick a guy when he’s down.”
He hesitated again and I squeezed his hand, letting him know I was here. I was listening.
I couldn’t even imagine the pain of what he’d been through, and I was pretty sure I hadn’t heard the half of it yet.
The fact that he was trusting me with this… I knew this was huge.
“But anyway,” he went on, “here I am. I’m okay, most days. But I never exactly got out there dating again. I didn’t even care for a long while, because the medications my doctors put me on always fucked with my sex drive anyway. My dick literally stopped working. I kept switching drugs trying to find one that would help with the anxiety but not mess me up in other ways, including sexual. Then eventually I went off all the medications because I couldn’t take the side effects anymore. And my sex drive came back. And then Dean told me about the club. He said he knew some people who had memberships, thought it might be good for me since I was alone. And I decided to go check it out, because I figured for someone like me, it was the only way I could see a woman with zero strings attached, and keep it discreet and impersonal and still be able to stand myself in the morning.”
When he explained it like that… it actually made a lot of sense. Even though it sounded kind of sad.
I wasn’t even totally sure if I wanted to ask, but… I was morbidly curious. “What was it like?”
“It was everything I asked for it to be,” he said. “You pay an insanely high membership fee and that’s what they do. They provide you with what you want.”
“And what did you want?”
“Just something quick and uncomplicated. I wanted someone who’d do what I said, no questions asked. And who’d actually enjoy it. I didn’t want to pay someone who was just there for the money. People go to the club because they have a kink and the club is the way they scratch it.”
“Okay… And what was your kink?”
His eyes held mine. “I’ll give you one guess.”
“Hmm.” I considered the sexual encounters I’d had with him so far, and there was definitely a common theme.
Giving me orders like Don’t move when he went down on me.
Holding me down by the throat while we both came.
The general bossiness that shone through, even when he was being gentle.
“That thing you said about telling someone what to do?” I guessed.
“Yeah, that would be it.”
“And the women you were with…?”
“There were only a few,” he said. “I saw a few, at first, and then I just stuck with one because I didn’t like the idea of seeing a bunch of different people when I was there. I didn’t want to have to get used to someone new again and again. So I arranged to only be with her. I wanted something predictable and the same every time.”
“So you could feel in control of it.”
“Yeah.”
“And what was her kink?” I brushed my fingertips down the side of his face. “Beautiful rock stars?”
“Her kink was being told what to do.”
“Oh.” I considered that. “Okay… Excuse my cynicism here, but if you’re paying her and she’s being told what to do… how do you know she’s really enjoying it? I mean, how is that different than any other prostitution situation?”
“She wasn’t a prostitute. She was another member of the club. I didn’t pay her. I paid the club, and she paid the club, and they hooked us up.”
“Oh.”
“A little different than what you pictured?”
“Yeah.” I tried to picture this. This wealthy woman, who met up with him to indulge her own kink. “So… the women you saw there… You didn’t kiss any of them?”
“No.”
“And they didn’t mind that you didn’t kiss them?”
“I don’t know. But that wasn’t their call. They were there to do what I asked.”
Wow. Okay, that was turning me on in a way I wasn’t sure how to feel about.
“So, after a while you told the club that you’d only be with that one woman?”
“Yes. You pay for that. If that’s what you want.”
“Are you… in love with her?” Obviously, I had to ask. I needed the answer to that question like I needed my next meal.
“No. I don’t really know her. I barely talk to her.”
“Except to tell her what to do.”
“Yeah,” he said quietly, like he was afraid he was seriously freaking me out.
He was. And he wasn’t.
“How often do you go there?”
“Not often.”
“How is that possible?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, don’t you get lonely?”
“Yeah. Of course. But Bliss isn’t really the place you go to get cured of loneliness.”
“Bliss,” I said, considering that. “But… how do you go so long without someone’s touch?”
“I don’t know. You just get used to it. Or maybe you slowly go crazy, and because no one’s there to see it, you just don’t notice.”
Yeah. Maybe.
“But how long can you be alone in that way? I was just single for six months and it almost killed me.”
He smiled a little, maybe amused by that. “It sort of became unimportant. It was like everything else that I just swept out of the way so I could focus on what was important to me. Which was music, and that was about it.”
“Then why go to the club at all?”
“Because sometimes I just need to be in control of something. And the quickest way to feel in control is to have control over someone else.”
“But if you’re focused on someone else, then you’re also not focused on yourself, is that it?”
“You mean, like a distraction?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah. I need those too.” He took a breath and hesitated, like he was trying to figure out how to explain himself to me in a way that would make sense. “I just didn’t care much about my sex life or any other part of my life. I eat okay. I work out and take care of myself okay. I have sex when I feel like it. I talk to people when I feel like it. The thing is, I just don’t feel like it much. But…”
“But what?”
“But then you came along.”
“Could you stop going there?” I asked him. “To Bliss? I mean, if this thing between us wasn’t just, you know, a forty-eight hour thing?”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “What, like a flu bug?”
I smiled. “Yeah, something like that. Get it out of your system and you’re over it?”
Any trace of humor vanished as he touched his hand to the side of my face. “It isn’t like that for me, Taylor.”
“Me either.”
He kissed me slowly, for a while, while we held hands, sprawled out on his bed.
Then I said, “Well, that was fun,” and let him go, getting to my feet.
Cary laughed shortly.
I grinned as I adjusted my sports bra. It was all stuck to me. I needed a shower.
“Come here,” he said, and I crawled back over him on the bed to give him just one more kiss. Then another one. We made out for a bit, kissing, our hands straying over each other.
Then I kissed him good night.
I went out to the poolhouse to shower and go to bed, alone.
This time, he’d asked me if I wanted to stay, sleep with him in his bed in the studio… but we both seemed a bit awkward about that.
I wanted to get closer to him, despite my misgivings. I wanted to believe him when he said he wasn’t going to that sex club anymore.
(Sex club! Was I seriously sleeping with a man who’d been a rock star, was now a recluse, and had a membership in a sex club?? Yes. Apparently, I was. And I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about it yet.)
I wanted to trust him.
But that took time, right?
Instalike was definitely a thing. I wasn’t so sure about instalove, but maybe.
Instatrust? Not in my world.
I liked him. The trust would come, or it wouldn’t.
Meanwhile, I kept trying to remind myself that this was just a job—with yummy sex benefits on the side. Maybe it wasn’t just a forty-eight hour thing, but it was a six month thing.
Or very possibly less.
Chapter Fourteen
Cary
Heart of Gold
July
Taylor tapped on the door to the control room. It was open, but she waited for me to turn and wave her in before she stepped inside. She wore a soft, black T-shirt that bared one shoulder and shredded jeans, which seemed to be rare for her, her hair up in a knot. Her feet were bare, and there was something beautifully intimate about that, that we both came to work in bare feet.
She had two travel mugs in her hands and her laptop under her arm. I took the laptop for her and set it on her desk.
“Thank you,” she said, and her smile washed down on me like sunshine.
I watched her get settled, wondering how this had happened. How I’d ended up with this incredible woman in my life.
Ever since I’d told her about Bliss, I’d been dreading the moment when she turned to me and said, I can’t do this anymore. Or simply disappeared. Left a note or something, and a trail of dust.
It had been days, and it hadn’t happened.
The morning after that conversation, she’d seemed a little wary or something. Guarded. But then we ended up having sex on her desk in the middle of the workday.
That night, when I asked her, again, to spend the night with me, she did. And since then, we’d slept in my bed in the studio together every night. Last night included.
This morning, she’d worked on her laptop in the great room for a few hours while I was in here. I always missed her when she did that. I liked it when she was here next to me, even when we were just working, each of us with music on in our ears and not talking.
“What a gorgeous day, huh?” she said, when she seemed to notice I was watching her.
“Yeah.”
Honestly, I wouldn’t have noticed what kind of day it was before she got here. But since I’d opened the blinds on the control room window for her on her first day, I’d left them open. She seemed to like the light. I usually didn’t notice how dark it was in here. When I worked on music, I went so deep inside myself, I totally lost track of my surroundings. And yeah, I was aware that that was beautiful and kind of sad at the same time.
She handed me my Good Morning, Handsome mug, and I told her, “I finished listening to your vortex playlist.”
“You did?” She sipped her coffee and looked kinda nervous about that.
“I listened to it a few times, actually.” I didn’t want to tell her how many times I’d actually listened to it now. It was a number fit for a stalker. “I enjoyed it.”
“You don’t have to say that.”
“Why wouldn’t I enjoy it? Helped me get to know you.”
“I thought you couldn’t tell anything about a person by the music they listen to.”
“Is that what I said?”
She seemed to think about that. “Hmm. Actually, I guess that’s not exactly what you said. And I don’t think it’s true anyway. Your vortex playlist definitely seems to say some things about you. I’ve listened to it, too. A few times. I love it.”
“You don’t have to say that.”
She smiled at me. “I’m totally not just saying that. There are some songs on there I wouldn’t have thought you’d pick, though.”
“No?”
“Well, I guess I shouldn’t say that since I don’t know you well. So how would I know what you’d pick? But Van Morrison and Bob Dylan surprised me, among others.”
“I see. Well. For me, if I’m making a deathbed playlist, it’s not just the song itself but the imprint it made on me. I have a very personal connection, a memory or a series of memories, attached to every one of the songs on that list.”
“Right. I get that. Most of the songs on my list have a personal attachment for me, too. And usually it’s a memory that involves someone I care about. It doesn’t have to be anything monumental, just lying in the grass at the park when I was thirteen listening to music with Danica.”
“Yeah. Most of mine involve Gabe, actually.”
She gazed at me, but didn’t ask about that. I liked that she didn’t pry, or even ask.
Most people, first question out of their mouth was something about Gabe.
“My dad used to listen to Neil Young,” she said instead. “‘Heart of Gold’ is my favorite. I feel like it’s one of the world’s great, sad love songs.”
“I didn’t realize I put any love songs on my playlist.”
“Are you kidding me? How is ‘Heart of Gold’ not a love song?”
“I just never thought of it that way. To me… it’s always been a lonely song.”
“Can’t it be both?”
“Yeah. Of course it can.”
She sipped her coffee as I eyed her. “Don’t feel bad,” she teased. “Even a great musician can’t know everything about music.”
“Apparently.”
She set her coffee on the desk. We needed to get set up for a virtual meeting with the band in a bit, but she made no move to open her laptop. “I noticed you have ‘Paint It Black’ on there,” she said. “You know, The Rolling Stones’ best song ever.”
“I didn’t say it was their best song ever. I said I thought it was everyone’s favorite Stones song.” I sipped my coffee. “But it is their best song ever.”
“You may be right. I’ve been doing a little informal poll. But ‘Gimme Shelter’ will always be my favorite.”
“That’s good. Since you tattooed it on your arm.”
“Yes, I did.”
“If it makes you feel better, ‘Gimme Shelter’ was also Gabe’s favorite Stones song.”
Her jaw dropped. “What? He’d agree with me?”
“Yeah. If he was here, he would.”
And he’d fucking love that she agreed with him, too. The two of us had a ridiculous rivalry about it. I
t really bugged him that “Paint It Black” was my favorite and he could never convince me to sway.
“Well,” she said, “me and my tattoo feel strangely vindicated.”
“What do you love about that song?” I asked her.
“I love the vocal duet on it, the woman’s voice… Her voice was the first thing that grabbed me the first time I ever heard it.”
“Merry Clayton.”
“Is that her name? You know, I’ve never looked it up. I never even thought to look it up.”
“I’m sure most people don’t know her name, even if they love the song.”
“That’s a shame, though. It wouldn’t be what it was without her.”
“True. Most great songs are like that. If one element was different, or not there… if one of the people who contributed didn’t contribute… it just wouldn’t be the same. There are usually a lot of people who make a song what it is.”
“Hmm,” she said, taking that in. “Forget what I said about ‘Heart of Gold.’ I’m sure I’m woefully ignorant on this whole topic. Actually… I hope no one expects me to say anything in the meetings today, because I’m warning you upfront, I have zero to add to the conversation and I wouldn’t want to embarrass you.”
“You probably know a lot more about music than you realize.”
“I doubt it. I just listen. I’m not a musician.”
“You do more than listen. You got ‘Gimme Shelter’ tattooed on your body. There has to be more to that than the voice of a woman whose name you didn’t even know.”
“True. I also love the mood of the song. It always feels like a brewing storm when I listen to it. And I love the lyrics.”
“What about the lyrics?” I pressed.
“I love the title, actually. The words I tattooed on my arm. It says so much with just two words. And I love the whole idea that you can still ask for shelter, and hope to find it, when the world is going to hell. The lyrics are dark. They sing about war and rape and murder, floods and fire. The mention of love… it only comes in at the very end of the song. It’s like this spark of light after so much dark. After that darkness, the very idea that love could be a mere kiss away… It’s simple but so powerful.”
Lovely Madness: A Players Rockstar Romance (Players, Book 4) Page 21