This moment, with the night breeze against my skin and her lips on mine and her fingers in my hair--that was the moment I'd remember forever. I wasn't a romantic guy. Normally, I figured romance was just something that delayed the vital moment, a lot of fussing around for nothing, but this moment made my heart sing a song it'd never sung before.
Then someone knocked on my door. Screw them. I'd ignore them. I didn't take my eyes from Rose. I didn't want to break this moment.
The knocking turned into a thudding, almost breaking that solid door down.
"Elijah! Elijah!"
Hell, it was Fartstard. I'd kill him. I'd skin him alive and boil his bones.
Elijah
"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU want?" I asked as I opened the door.
He'd better tell me the hotel was on fire or something equally drastic to excuse this interruption. But he just stood there, looking a little crazed. I couldn't actually kill him, not while Rose could see, but once there were no witnesses, it'd definitely be on my to-do list.
"Do you have any condoms?" he asked.
"Huh?"
I understood the question; I just had trouble putting it together with Fartstard. Then I noticed he was wearing a hotel robe, and it wasn't exactly closed up tight. He had his chest exposed, with a thick thatch of hair edging almost up to his throat. I would not let my gaze go any lower, just to be on the safe side. God knew what else hung out of that robe.
"Condoms? Those twins... you know..." he stuttered.
Then he winked at me. That wink was probably one of the most horrifying things I'd ever seen in this world.
"The twins? I just asked you to distract them for ten minutes."
He grinned. That grin was almost as terrifying as his wink. It was a grin filled with all the lust-fueled dreams of Fartstard, and probably some weird kinky shit thrown in.
"Yeah, well, one thing led to another. And, hey, you'd cast them off. You have no claim on them." Then he looked up and noticed Rose in the room behind me. "Shit, sorry. I didn't mean to cock-block." He pulled the robe tighter around himself.
"Hang on a minute," I said. I rushed to my dresser drawer and grabbed a couple of condoms, then thrust them into his hand.
"Hey, that's not nearly enough," he said.
"You want more? Find a convenience store. Now, scram."
I shut the door in his face. Damn Fartstard. Nothing killed a mood faster than that. The thought of him having sex in such close proximity almost ruined the night for me.
Almost. When I got closer to Rose, all thoughts of Fartstard disappeared.
"Your friend seemed in an awful hurry."
"He's not my friend," I said. "He's the tour manager. Bit of a dick. really."
I'd still kill him. Later. The taste of her lingered on my tongue and I hungered for more than that. I pulled her to me.
"Now, where were we before he interrupted?" I said.
If she answered, her words were smothered by my kiss, a kiss that made my head swim. When I finally broke away, I took her hand and led her to the bed. I sat down, but she remained standing.
I looked up at her questioningly.
She smiled and reached back to undo her zipper. That tight skirt fell to the floor. Holy God. She wore stockings and suspenders underneath, lingerie that made my cock throb with a need like I'd never known before, and I'd known some urgent needs in my time.
With the skirt removed, she stepped closer to me. Again, that scent enveloped me. There was nothing else in this world but Miss Jones and me.
I ran my hands up the sides of her thighs. Those stockings were fine silk, soft under my hands, but nowhere near as soft as the naked flesh above their tops. I moved to kiss her stomach, but before I could, she stepped away. This time she reached up and removed her blouse.
I leaned back, wanting to take in the view of her beautiful body, clad in black lace. The hard nubs of her nipples pressed against the delicate lace of her bra. Hell, I'd rip that lace off with my teeth if it got me closer to those nubs.
She reached over and put her hands on my shoulders, her hair brushing against my skin.
Even though I wanted to savor this, she moved way too slow for my liking. Definitely way too slow for my cock's liking. I ran my hands up her thighs again, this time not stopping until I cupped the curves of her butt. I pulled her to me, kissing her stomach, then licking my way down to her delicate lacy panties.
As I licked, she arched her back, moaning with pleasure. God, her face. I moved my hand around, this time running my fingertips over the smooth silk covering her sweet pussy. She shuddered, then lowered herself to my lap, legs spread wide to straddle me. The perfect position to give me access to every bit of her I needed to touch. I pushed her panties down and pressed my fingers to her smoothly waxed mound, keeping my hand on her back to balance her.
As I slipped my fingers inside her, her nails dug into my shoulders. I knew I'd found her sweet spot by the sigh she gave and the way her body seemed to melt.
"Do you want me to make you come?" I whispered in her ear.
"Yes... please." That "please" came out all breathy and full of need.
I moved my fingers away. "Tell me again," I said.
"Please," she gasped.
Having her plead like that spurred me on. No matter what kind of pedestal I'd put her on, she was mine now, all breathless and needing me. Her nails dug deeper, her body tensed.
I wrapped my lips around that hard nipple. I sucked through that expensive lace just to hear her moan as I worked her body. Her hands moved up, twisting in my hair, drawing my mouth tighter to hers. I went from sucking to gentle nips, still working her with my fingers as she thrust her body against mine. As her moans became louder, I bit harder. And the harder I bit, the more she loved it. Her gentle bouncing turned into a frenzied force. She lost all control, almost ripping the hair from my head. And I loved every minute of it.
She came so hard, she almost dislocated my fingers, and I threw her back on the bed, watching her face, watching every flicker of emotion. I'd done this. I'd made her this quaking mess. Now I relished the result.
Before the night was over, I'd fucked Miss Jones on the bed. I'd fucked her on the floor. I'd leaned her over the bathroom sink and fucked her from behind, watching myself fuck her and watching her face as she was fucked, in the bathroom mirror.
And when I thought I could fuck no more, she wrapped that gorgeous mouth around my cock and sucked it hard again. She drained very last bit of juice from me until I had to sleep so I could get the strength to fuck her again. This would be no one-night stand. The only time I intended to leave this bed while we were in Amsterdam was to get onstage. I couldn't really avoid that.
I feel asleep happy, knowing I'd wake up with her in my arms.
A noise woke me sometime during the night. Rose stood in the middle of the room, dressing.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"I have to get home," she said.
"Huh?" I propped myself up on one elbow. "No. Come back to bed."
She shook her head and laughed. "Sorry. But I really do have to get going."
I jumped up and put my arms around her. She had to be joking. She couldn't leave. Not now. We had a world of unfinished business.
But she pushed me away. She really did intend to leave. Maybe she had to work. Maybe she had a cat to feed or something like that.
"But you'll come back tonight? If you want to come to the show first, I'll make sure you have tickets. Or we could just meet up after."
She buttoned up her blouse, then patted my cheek. "It was a one-night stand, sweetie. I'm sure you know what that means."
I stared open-mouthed as she walked out the door, shocked that she could still walk. My legs sure were wonky. But even more shocked that she would walk away from me after all we'd done.
I stood like that for a long time, convinced it was a joke and she'd be back. But she never returned.
Elijah
"SHE LEFT."
"I know," said Damo. "You've told me at least twenty times this morning. Pass me the sugar."
I shouldn't have poured my heart out, but I really had trouble making sense of this. She'd left. She said she wasn't coming back. That was not something I could easily process. When I joined the others at breakfast, before I'd even considered the sense of it, I'd blurted out the whole sad story to everyone. The entire table. That meant Damo and Crow, plus the whole Wreckage group. Some of the crew even joined us, including Fartstard.
"Fartstard, you should know about dealing with this. You'd be an expert at rejection. What do you do?"
"Hey, buddy, I had twins last night. And it was sweet. They didn't leave me in the middle of the night. They just left now. You're lucky they let me get away to have coffee with y'all."
Ha, if Damo thought he'd heard about Rose leaving me too many times, wait until Fartstard started on about his twins. He'd be telling that story for the rest of his life.
"Obviously, the sex wasn't good enough," Fay said. "If you'd really satisfied her, she'd have stayed."
"Fay!" Polly could be so uptight about her cousin.
"Nope, that wasn't it," I replied. "The sex was top-drawer, A-grade, premium. Pretty much perfect."
"Says you. Maybe you were selfish. Dudes are like that. All about their own needs."
Anyone but Fay would've been sizzled by the look Polly shot her. I probably shouldn't have brought this up in front of the kid. She didn't need to know even the minimum details of my sex life.
"Listen, Firecracker," I said, pointing my fork at her. "I don't know how much you know about sex stuff other than what you've read in magazines, but I know how to make a lady happy. Trust me on that."
She wrinkled her nose at me. "I know plenty. Wait..." She shot a glance at Polly, and her face reddened. "I know plenty from magazines, I mean. They're real informative."
Crow sat quietly, watching the interaction between us. I couldn't read his expression. I wondered if the 'plenty' Fay knew had been taught by Crow, although they didn't seem to have reached that stage in their relationship. For one, Fay wouldn't be able to hide it, and two, Polly would've killed her.
"You'll get over it," Polly said. "You're the one who says you don't want to be tied down. You want to experience all of life's pleasures."
I took a bite of my bacon. It wasn't the best bacon I'd ever had. I liked my bacon way crispier. "I did want to be tied down. I wanted to be tied down in every sense of the word. Words." I frowned. "I really wanted to be with her for more than one night."
"Well, just because you want something doesn't mean you're going to get it," Polly said.
She looked a bit smug about that. They all looked smug, as though seeing me writhe in misery was the best part of breakfast. It was because the bacon wasn't crispy enough. If we'd had good bacon, they wouldn't be so focused on me.
"You might think that, Polly, but when it comes to women, I've had no experience with rejection. My main problem has always been fighting them off."
Fay bounced a little in her seat, as if the thought that had come into her head was too much to contain. "I know, I know," she said.
I was surprised she didn't put her hand in the air like she was in school. "Yeah?"
"She's a drug lord."
"Huh?" I scoffed. Rose was so far from being a drug lord. She was beautiful and sophisticated and amazing.
Everyone stared at Fay, wondering where that had come from.
"Makes total sense. She turns up out of the blue, looking far richer than a regular teacher. All designer labels and fancy shoes and shiny hair."
Maybe I shouldn't have told Fay about that, since she was now using it to think up harebrained shit.
"You don't need money to have shiny hair," Damo said.
"It helps, trust me," Fay replied. "Anyway, she's got unexplained wealth, and she came backstage looking for you. Then she took you to an expensive wine bar. The waiter obviously is her partner. He slipped her the stuff. She goes back to your room and hides it in your luggage somewhere. Presto! Then we move to the next city. Where is the next city?"
"Brussels," Damo said.
"We get to Brussels, and some other chick pretends to be all smitten with you, and she picks the parcel up. Perfect." She clapped her hands together to emphasize the perfection of her idea.
"I don't accept that for one minute," I said. "Women don't use me like that."
Polly and Fay both had the same look on their face. Even though they didn't normally look alike, you could tell they were cousins when they had that look of disbelief.
"Totally unfeasible," Crow said.
"Thanks, buddy." At least someone had my back.
"Why would you go to that much trouble to smuggle drugs from Amsterdam to Brussels? You could drive across the border with a carload of smack without much chance of being busted. She's playing a longer game. Somewhere it's hard to get drugs. Maybe for our dates in Japan. She'd have to hide it well, though, for you not to find it. Maybe in with your dirty jocks, since you rarely wash them."
"Hey, I wash my jocks more than anyone at this table."
Fay stood up. "Hand me your key," she said. "I need to search your room."
"You are not searching Elijah's room," Polly said. "You could find anything!"
"I'm hoping to find a couple of kilos of grade-A heroin. Then I can hand it in to the police and get some kind of reward. That would be tops. I mean, Lij might be a dick sometimes, but we can't have him locked up in prison."
"Hell, no," said Damo. "I'd have to look for another bass player."
They were all smirking. My pain and heartache had become a joke to them. Even Fartstard grinned. There were fatal flaws in this theory, anyway.
"She had a tiny handbag," I said. "There's no way she'd fit a couple of kilos of heroin in that. And, anyway, Polly, what do you think I have in my room that Fay couldn't see? It's not like I collect mementos from my women or have a vast array of sex toys."
"Maybe it's not heroin. Maybe it's top-secret documents on a tiny microchip," said Damo. "That would fit into a small handbag."
His eyes sparkled. Even he was getting in on the joke, and Damo wasn't a getting in on the joke kind of person.
"You people are not helping. And you've all watched too many movies. I'm leaving."
"I'm coming with you," said Fay. "To search for contraband. Crow, you come too, just to be on the safe side."
I tried to get away, but the two of them followed me.
"Fay, you're not searching his room!" Polly called.
But it was too late. The Firecracker had her mind set on it.
Screw it. She could search my room all she liked. It wasn't like she'd find anything. I had no idea why Rose had left, but I'd put good money on it being nothing to do with drugs.
Elijah
OF COURSE THE KID DIDN'T find anything in my room. Rose wasn't a drug lord.
"Why would she do this to me?" I said, sitting on the bed.
Fay sat beside me, but I'd asked that question so many times, I didn't expect an answer. There was no answer. It was inconceivable.
"I dunno. Why do you do it?" Fay asked. "How any women have you had one-night stands with?"
I thought about that. I didn't even have a number. I'd lost count a long time ago.
"But that's different," I said. "I don't promise any of those groupies anything. They know the score. It's one night of Elijah bliss only. That's how this rock star thing works."
She sighed and shot a glance at Crow. "As I see it, this is payback time. You screw a different woman every night, and you don't even remember their names. In the dull morning light, you slip away not leaving a trace of yourself behind."
The Firecracker was getting a bit carried away.
"I don't slip away. I never go back to their place. They come to my hotel room. And I don't think those women want me leaving 'traces' behind, if you know what I mean."
Still, she had a point. That was exactly how I treated women. I
hadn't even once stopped to think how they felt the next day. At least I wasn't a bastard, full of promises about a life together. I never even said I'd call. It was just "nice knowing you" as they left. But maybe some of them thought there was some kind of unspoken promise. After all, I'd assumed there was some kind of understanding between Rose and me. But now that I thought about it, she'd never said anything. She'd never even told me a single detail about her life that I could use to find her. I didn't know where she worked, or where she lived, or... anything.
"Is that her perfume I can smell?" Fay asked. "It's awfully strong. Didn't it put you off?"
Her perfume? Yeah, you could still smell it lingering in the air.
"Maybe you should ask to change rooms," Fay said. "Otherwise, you're going to be crying yourself to sleep with that reminder of the love you lost."
Ha. I wasn't about to admit that I'd put the "Do Not Disturb" sign on my door on purpose, so they wouldn't change the bed linen. I could smell Rose on the pillowcase and in the bed. I wanted to keep hold of that as long as I could. I didn't think it was strong at all. Fay must have an overly sensitive nose.
"I don't cry myself to sleep," I told her. "Anyway, what's happening between you two?"
Not much shut Fay up, but that sure did. Her face reddened, and she stared at the carpet. Crow just held his usual silence. I took that to mean Fay was willing, but Crow was holding back. He was an idiot. She might be an annoying kid when she hung around you all the time, but onstage, she set the place alight. She had some kind of magic, like a jolt of pure charisma. It wouldn't be long until every guy in the world was in love with her. Crow should get in on the ground floor. He obviously liked her. He just needed to stake his claim.
"So, what's the next step?" Fay asked.
"Next step? Huh?"
"You can't let her get away. You'll spend the rest of your life regretting that. You'll compare every woman you ever meet to her, and every single one of them will be lacking. You'll do everything you can do to forget her, but you'll probably just turn to drink and end up a burnt-out husk of a man."
Rock Mayhem: 8 Complete Rock Star Romance Novels Page 54