by Lisa Gillis
Tristan let out a yell of glee and pulled his feet up jumping on the couch cushion to celebrate his victory. Like out at the pool, Jack enjoyed seeing the action too much to reprimand.
From the kitchen, a familiar electronic beep sounded.
His mind ran crazy, imagining Mariss receiving a text from Olivia, or that douche Clayton, or any of her family before he could tell her himself the new horrendous development.
Forcing a smile, Jack jokingly swiped one of Tristan’s orange sections to manipulate him into eating faster.
♪♫¨♫♪
“Alright, what’s wrong?” With Tristan finally in bed, Mariss pushed the master suite door closed and wound her arms around his hips. “Getting PTSS ?” She had dubbed pre-tour stress syndrome.
“I need to show you something...”
She had no problems interpreting his tone, and reluctance seeped her own words. “What? What now, Jack?”
“I’m so sorry, honey.” With a few touches of the screen, he held the tablet. However, within seconds, she snatched the electronic device from his hands and turned away.
She stuck with it for a couple of minutes, then threw the offensive technology to the bed, ran into the bathroom, and promptly threw up.
“Honey...” Wetting a rag, he knelt next to her, brushing it to her forehead with one hand, and with the other hand pressing the flush handle. The retching spasms tore at his heart. “Honey, it’s going to be okay, I swear. It’s being pulled off of the web already–”
“This is on the internet?” Her question was a screech, and she began heaving again.
Quickly, he pulled her hair back when it began slipping over her shoulders toward the toilet. Quietly, he assured, “It’s coming off right now. Dax emailed all the places–”
“All the places?” Her words echoed hollowly from the porcelain bowl before her body relaxed, and she picked up her head. “How many sites? What sites? Will my family see this?”
The desperation that quaked her voice tore at his gut, and he wrapped his arms around her. She sank against him, and he saw the bleak fear in her eyes. Then she pushed him away.
“This is all Dax’s fault.” Her observation was brittle, and the words echoed hollowly from the bowl.
“I know. He’s leaving. Tonight.”
“He quit?” When no answer was forthcoming, she asked on an even more incredulous octive, “You fired him?”
“I did.”
Resignation and guilt filled her eyes, and bracing a hand on the toilet, she leveraged herself up. “You shouldn’t fire him. He was just used.”
“Sometimes you have to learn to not be used–that consequences come with being used.”
“Jack...”
“He’s out of here Mariss. If all this goes away by the time the tour is over, and I cool down by then, I will reconsider.” Brushing his fingers through her hair, he studied her face. “Don’t worry about Dax right now.”
“What about her?” The last word dripped with every ounce of the hate he himself felt.
“I’ve got an appointment with Doug tomorrow. I’m suing this time.”
“Good!” she spat. Done with washing her face, and brushing her teeth, she led the way to the bedroom. Here, she paced a few minutes while picking up clothing from the floor, chair, or dresser and putting the folded garments away. He tossed his shoes into the closet and their towels into the bathroom.
When she dragged the covers back and settled on the bed, he stopped wandering the room to sit with her and hug against her. Slowly, the night evolved into their routine.
Although he hadn’t thought she would be in the mood, she was, and even instigated things between them. Sex began tender, but finished wild. As they lay watching t.v., he enjoyed the feel of her hair spread on his chest, and the rise and fall of her chest under his hand.
She moved enough to pull the iPad from the stand on the bedside table, and he thought nothing of it. When it wasn’t Facebook, or one of her regular internet pastimes, that came up, he stilled. Idly, he watched her type their names into the home screen search page, and she clicked a link.
The video filling the screen came to life. The pool light illuminated the shadowy silhouettes of a couple. The camera focus grew fuzzy then cleared. At this new zoom level, the faces were easily recognizable and very familiar.
Faces they saw in the mirror each day.
Pulling her knees up, she balanced the device on her abdomen. “What’s your favorite part?”
Her words threw him, and stalling, he propped up enough to watch with her. Alternately, his gaze went from her face to the action on the screen. Vulnerability glassed her eyes, but her jaw was set. When he didn’t answer, she swung her gaze his way, and her head tilted expectantly. “Come on Jack. You watched it, right?”
Uneasily, he nodded, unsure where she was going with this.
“So, favorite part?”
Warily, he stopped psycho analyzing her and transferred his attention to the screen. In the video, her wet hair partially shielded her face as she crawled down his chest. She paused, her head lingering at his stomach before continuing lower.
Easily, anytime and every time, he remembered the slide of her tongue blazing a fiery path from his chest and down, down, and down. Even as he watched, his fingers clench in her hair, he denied, “That was a favorite part, but not my favorite part...”
“Oh yeah?” She nestled closer. Earlier, she had not watched past this point, and now she did, her face flushing even as she stared spellbound.
“That, right there, when you look up at me like that, that’s always one of my favorite parts...”
It made him hard just to think about, that tease of her tongue and lips, up down, all around. Right before she took it all, she would give him a look so sexy he would have to think of the most inane things to hold on.
The focus was close, but not close enough to see the watering of her eyes as she responded to the slight urge of his hands. Then, if she couldn’t take it completely, she always compensated with other things.
“That looks like a favorite part,” she whispered.
“Mmh hmm,” he was not capable of words as he watched and remembered dozens and dozens of times, her attention to areas that felt just as good. There was no doubt in the video of his enjoyment.
It was crazy, but in all of the things he had experienced, he had never videoed sex with anyone. So watching his own restless movements, the gestures that were a plea for more, and then what was surely a groan when she obliged, was intriguing.
She was moving again accepting the packet he relinquished to her. Soon, her hair fell to his face as she put her lips to his.
“That, right there, tasting me in your mouth, that’s my favorite part.”
She seemed slightly stunned, that he had taken their game this far. She turned away from the video to study his face, and he felt a smile curve. Unwilling to stop playing, he looked back.
“That, right there, when you look down on me, I love that, Mariss. That is my favorite part.”
The Mariss in the video was intent on what she was doing, her hands resting on his chest as she rocked...and rolled... again and again. Her palms relocated to her chest, then her hand slid down fascinating both the him in the video and the him here.
Video Mariss clasped one of video Jack’s hands, urging it from her chest lower to where she had been playing, and he obliged playing her as skillfully as his guitar.
“Like that, when your head falls back, I love that...”
Things between them were moving fast now on the small screen and slightly slower on the large bed.
“When you smile like that, Mariss, my honey, that’s my favorite part.”
“When you bite your lip, I know you are about to, come. Mmh, my favorite part...”
Video Mariss turned her head directly to the camera, and the video abruptly cut. They were left looking at the ticker of two-hundred thousand views.
Her hand had been resting comfortably on h
im, just above his junk, and now she removed its warmth to scroll the comments.
Immediately, he sought to distract her knowing first hand, that even on the most innocent gossip strings, internet trolls preyed.
“I wish I had listened to you that night, figured it out then...,” he ventured.
She stretched to replace the device. “Why do you think she did it? Was she always going to hold it back as revenge, or did she have publicity plans for it?”
“Either—or, I imagine.” He trailed his fingers down the art on her skin. Unable to resist, he scooted down to put his lips to the design, prepared to pull her into his arms and sleep if she pushed him away. He was a dog. As upset as she had been, he shouldn’t be all over her, not only once, but twice, tonight.
Yet, she let him follow the musical trail.
CHAPTER 43
“THE PLAN SEEMS to have worked,” Jack whispered.
“Told you,” Marissa retorted, but her words were as gentle as the ocean breeze ruffling their hair.
Here on the beach of her hometown, their friends and family surrounded them. Tristan stood between them looking handsome in the dark tux he wore that matched the one his father wore. The preacher stood with a Bible open, waiting for their bantering to stop. And press and paparazzi were in Denmark.
Marissa’s long dress billowed as the gulf wind picked up, and the service began.
A wedding that would formally and forever bind them together, only a few paces away from where a certain tour bus had been parked that had forever bound them together.
“Reminds me of our wedding,” Jules whispered to Matt. The couple had been married thirty miles or so down this very beach.
“Reminds me of our wedding, Candio,” Marc whispered to his wife. The couple had been married on a Pacific coast beach in Mexico.
“Reminds me of our wedding,” Marissa’s mother whispered to the father of her children. The couple’s wedding had begun on the deck of a beach house in Florida but had never actually happened, although, until recently, their children were none the wiser. “Except it will turn out much different.”
“Want to try again?”
“I do,” she whispered and reached for his hand.
“I do.” The voices that had them all gathered this day were loud and sure, carrying in the wind.
“By the powers invested in me, I now pronounce you Mr. and Mrs. Jack Loren. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. and Mrs. Jack Loren!”
A great hurrah went up around them, far beyond the tiny gathering of family and friends carefully selected by her, her parents, Olivia, Jack’s parents. Quickly, word of the informal beach wedding had gone viral and the definition of their assembly was now a crowd. Many a phone camera was pointed at her, but thankfully nothing more invasive. Jack kept her tightly squeezed to his side as she hugged her parents, Liv, Liz, and more.
The atmosphere was jovial, and she wound up with a champagne glass in each hand. Liz, of all available women, began to shout for the bouquet toss, and Jack held her drinking glasses long enough for the red, black, and white roses to land in her mother’s arms! Marissa frowned not knowing what to make of the oddity. Even more unusual was when her garter bounced from her father’s hands into Reed’s.
Reed sent an abashed look to Liz, but Liz only winked and demanded, “Cake! Cake!” Which Liv seconded.
“You smash mine, I smash yours…” Jack quietly warned, and a dimple decorated his smirk as her hand neared his face. Since she had no desire for her face to look like Tristan’s frosting smeared cheeks after a birthday party, she nodded in earnest, to convey her understanding.
The best-laid plans always went up in smoke. Liv insisted they were being wimps, and after Jack’s tasteful bite, she used her hip to fully push Marissa into Jack’s bite. Although her gooey chin and cheeks was not Jack’s fault, Marissa still paid him back in full.
“Oh, that was just wrong, Mariss.” Jack wiped at his face with the tips of his fingers, eating as he removed the desert from his skin. Instead of laughing, she should have taken those precious few moments to run. Jack cut another slice of cake, and before it was over with, more cake was hitting the beach than anyone’s stomach.
“I may have to get cleaned up…” Marissa eyed the tour bus. The same spark lit the dark heat of Jack’s eyes. If it was rude to leave their wedding party for a quickie in the bus, then so be it! Swinging several heads over to Liv to ensure her friend understood Tristan would be unsupervised long enough for his parents to hook up, she twisted away but stopped on a familiar gaze.
The last time she had seen those unsettling eyes, she had left an unchecked buggy at the dollar store just down the road.
“What are you doing here?” she hissed when, after quietly saying something to the dark haired tanned woman who was obviously his date, he approached her. The woman offered a nod and smile, her star struck attention more on the members of Jackal.
“Just offering my congratulations to an old friend.” Kel pulled the boyish grin that had once forgiven him so many transgressions—up until the last awful unforgivable one. His hair was cut to the collar of his dress shirt in the back, but long dark strands blew over his brows and eyes with the gusty wind.
“Leave.”
“Marissa, I’m happy for you.”
It was her wedding day to the man of her dreams, which was the only reason she could have dipped the courteous nod. “Thank you. Now you need to go.”
Ignoring her request, he went on, “Things sure worked out for you. And, as I read it on the gossip sites, you hooked up with this Jack fellow within a week of us breaking up. In fact, once I read that—”
What did he want? A medal of recognition? Yes, she would never, ever, have uninhibitedly fucked a rock star had he not so callously tossed her aside. It was true. But damned if she would ever say it.
“Leave, now.”
Turning on her heal was much easier in her mind than in actuality. For the ceremony itself, wooden walkways brought in guaranteed she and Jack made it from their respective sides to meet in the middle. However, she had abandoned the walkway, as most everyone had, to move toward the concrete lot. Yet, she was still several feet short of being out of the sand.
Her foot caught, and when Kel put out a gentlemanly hand to catch her, she slapped him away, letting herself fall to the sand with her creamy dress billowing about. A collective murmur went up from their guests, and in her peripheral vision, she saw Jack sending up a spray of sand with each sprint.
Kel conversely, knelt, and if a tramp riding reverse cowgirl on him in their bed had not shown just how ruthless he could be, his whisper did.
“You know, Mama, and well just everyone, has been saying how much your little boy looks like me at that age—”
The high-top sneakers Jack had insisted on wearing as part of his tux ensemble stopped directly in front of her chest, and she knew there was no way he had missed that last slanderous exchange.
“Mariss, my honey? You okay?”
“No. I mean, yes. I will be. Just give me a minute.” The breeze was a consistent blow, but she felt Jack’s concern wash over her face in a warm breath.
“Can you stand, honey, or is your foot messed up?”
“I can stand. I’m just embarrassed…”
“Not as embarrassed as he is about to be…” Their words were just low enough to be between them.
‘If my boyfriend looked like Mike Mullholland and it so happened that my kid looked like Mike Mullholland…’ Meg’s hateful words rushed her thoughts, and she wondered what Jack’s sister was thinking despite the paternity test and her subdued apology as Jack and Kel, both tall dark and handsome, stood within a few feet of one another.
“Jack, what he is saying is bullshit—”
“Don’t you think I know that Mariss, my honey?” His breath was a whisper in her ear as he stood her up, and when Kell offered his hand on her other elbow, she almost fell while shoving him away again.
The second she was on her feet, minus
her shoes, Liz holding one arm and Liv another to steady her, Kel was flat on his back, eyes bugged out as Jack flexed the fingers of his right hand. A collective gasp when up among the group, and when Kel scrambled like a crab to attempt to right himself, Jack used the other hand to punch him back down.
“You know, you are damn lucky that my son is watching, or I would beat you to shark food and drag you out to the surf. As it is, if you are intelligent enough, which everything I have ever heard of you says to the contraire, you will leave immediately.
Because my wife and I have a couple of things to talk about.” A thumb brushing against her lips and fingers trailing to her cleavage left no doubt that there would be very little talking. “And If I see you here when I get back, you will be flat on your back like a crab again.”
Their exit was graceful, somehow Jack made it that way, and the silence behind them seemed deafening until sporadic giggles, then guffaws broke out.
God bless good friends.
The door to the bus was locked, and Jack gave it a wrench then an impatient knock.
When it opened, they both stood rooted to the stoop.
“Chris! Really dude?”
“We touched nothing, I swear. I will be so glad to be away from this label and end the hiding.”
“Go! Seriously…”
“Again dude, sorry. But haven’t seen her in almost two weeks and you know…”
Marissa threw Chris’s wife an apologetic look, but the moment the door closed behind the couple, she forgot them.
“Jack, I’m so sorry that happened.” The air cooled her back as he unzipped the dress and she spoke of the previous embarrassment. “I mean firstly that he would just show up like that. And then to say such horrible embarrassing crap about Tristan.”
The dress pooled at her feet, and the molten chocolate heat in his eyes was like nothing she had seen. She was glad she had let Olivia, and Randi—yes the two friends had gone out together on a shopping day with her although Liv still didn’t know the truth of Randi and Jack—talk her into the vintage garter belt, complete with snaps, holding up the lace stockings.