Color Me Crazy (16 page)

She turned his hands over and ran her fingers across the tattoos at his wrists. He knew what she was searching for, and her breath caught when she found it. A lump rose in his throat when she lowered her head and delivered a soft kiss on the raised scars across each wrist.

When her eyes met his again, they were filled with tears. “Why?”

He pulled his hands gently away and tried to shrug. He’d bared enough already. “Shall I have another go at that omelet?”

Julian knocked softly on Cleo’s door. She might be napping, and if that was the case, he didn’t want to wake her. The Dolls were coming back in a couple of hours to finish their session. It would probably be another late night.

“Come in,” she said.

She was curled up on her love seat, hair damp from a shower.

“I’ve brought someone for you to meet,” he said.

Cleo stood and crossed her arms in front of her breasts. “Wait, I’m not dressed—”

“We don’t mind,” he said, casually strolling in. She looked ready to make a run for it. “Hold on, it’s just me and my guitar.”

She rolled her eyes and plopped back down. “You had me in fight-or-flight mode.”

“I know,” he said, smiling. “That was my intention.” He set a small amp on the floor next to the love seat. “Scoot.”

Cleo moved over to make room, and he sat. She leaned back, not the least bit uncomfortable with him seeing her in a worn pair of pajama shorts and a camisole top so thin you could almost see through it. Actually, you
could
see through it. He cleared his throat and tried to appear as if he weren’t staring at her breasts, which was hard, because he was.

“You’re ridiculous,” she said. “And so is that guitar.”

He forced his eyes away from the outline of a nipple back to her face. “No need to be jealous, Lava Locks. It’s not a woman. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s distinctly male.”

“Of course it is. It’s a phallic symbol with strings. Does it have a name?”

He laughed. “No name. Our relationship transcends the need for such things.”

She rolled her eyes, but they were keenly alert. He knew she was interested in hearing the story. It was a tough one to tell, but in light of her recent frustration over not knowing every single detail of his past, he’d decided to tell it.

She pulled up her legs and settled back against the armrest as if awaiting a bedtime story.

“My dad—well, actually Addie’s dad, Paul Wheaton—bought this guitar for me when I was eight years old. It was a consolation prize for taking Addie away from me. He’d remarried, and Addie was going to live with him. He offered to take me, too, but Mum wouldn’t let him. I was garnering attention with the violin, and she loved it. She also loved gin and vodka, but that’s another story.”

Cleo’s mouth opened briefly, but she shut it. She furrowed those brows, though, and crossed her arms in front of her chest.

“And I changed my name to Wheaton, with Paul’s blessing, in my midtwenties. So, I never lied to you about my name. Julian Andrew Wheaton is my legal name. I’ve only met my birth father two times, didn’t see the need to keep his name.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It doesn’t sound like you had much going on in the parenting department.”

“It wasn’t that bad. At least I had my guitar when Addie left. For a long time, it was the only friend I had. And for a short while, it was the only possession I had. Because when I was twenty-two, a couple of years after I’d been kicked out of the band, I sold everything I owned, except for this”—he held up the guitar—“in order to buy drugs.”

“You don’t have to talk about this with me. You’re right. Who you were isn’t who you are now. I don’t need to know everything.”

He suppressed a grin. If he walked out right now, she’d pop an aneurysm. “Shut up, Big Red. You’re dying for the details.”

She frowned but didn’t deny it.

“My years in Slice were hell. I wasn’t mature enough for the stress of being in a band, much less a successful one. The constant touring, the ego wars…it exhausted the shit out of me. Playing guitar helps the synesthesia because I can control the colors, but doing it in front of tens of thousands of people is another story. One guitar can’t cancel out the roar of a crowd, and I barely held it together on stage. I began having more and more debilitating episodes, so many the band was crippled with cancellations. But then I found a magic cure.”

“You did?” She looked up at him, her eyes full of hope.

“Heroin.”

Her face fell. “Sorry. I’m stupid.”

“You’re just innocent. Anyway, heroin stopped the episodes cold.”

He longed to tell her that her voice, or lately, even the thought of her, had the same miraculous effect. But instead, he continued his tale. “Soon, I not only loved heroin, I needed it. I went from being a functioning junkie to a nonfunctioning junkie pretty quickly, and Mitch—he was all heart, you see—kicked me out. It was especially shitty of him, since he was the one who turned me onto it in the first place.”

Cleo gasped.

“Not you, too,” he said. “What is it with women thinking Mitch is an angel?”

“I’m just surprised, is all.” She reached out and laced her fingers through his. Warmth descended like honey, settling in his groin.

“Nobody helped you? Where was Addie?”

He gently removed his hand from hers so he could concentrate on his story. “Addie tried to help, believe me. But I wouldn’t let her because accepting help meant giving up the drugs. I had a ton of money and wasn’t ready to do that. The money, by the way, was completely gone in months.”

“Yikes.”

“Habits are expensive. Anyway, soon I’d sold everything, all my other guitars and instruments. Every piece of furniture, the gold records on my walls, the Grammys on the mantle, the toaster, the fish aquarium—you get the idea. All gone. Eventually, I was evicted, so I walked the streets with this guitar strapped to my back, looking for my next score. Sometimes, I played on the corner, with no amp, mind you, and people tossed me money out of pity.”

Her hand moved toward his again. Pretending not to notice, he shoved his fingers in his pocket. “So, one evening I was walking down the street, freshly released from rehab and already scheming on my next fix and how to get it.”

“Rehab didn’t help you?”

“You have to want to get better, and what I wanted…” He stopped. What he’d wanted was to die, and he’d been pissed that he hadn’t managed to pull it off.

Too intuitive for her own good, Cleo gently pried his hand from his pocket and ran her fingers over the raised scar at his wrist. He wasn’t ready to reopen that wound, and he pulled his hand away.

Cleo got the message. She leaned back, digging her bare toes into the couch cushion beneath his thigh. Thus anchored, she looked deeply at him through shiny green eyes and waited for him to continue.

“The only thing I had left was slung across my back. There was a dealer on the corner. Knowing desperation when he saw it, he lit up at the sight of me. He was about to give me a twenty-five-dollar rock—um, that’s crack, by the way—for a four-thousand-dollar guitar.”

From the shocked look on her face, he doubted any of Cleo’s previous or current friends or acquaintances had ever bought crack. “I had one hand on the rock and one hand on my guitar, and I just froze. I couldn’t let go of it.” He ran his fingers along the body of the Les Paul.

“Now, the kid had his heart set on the deal, and he wasn’t going to let me off so easily. About fifteen minutes after I walked off, he and some pals jumped me and damn near killed me. I woke up with a smashed-in face, a broken arm, and no guitar.”

Cleo made a small, strangled sound, as if she was trying very hard not to cry and was losing the battle. He didn’t do well with crying women. “Hush, sweetheart. You’re stealing my thunder.”

She pulled it together, and he reached out and touched her cheek. “This might be a spoiler, but I promise you I lived happily ever after.” He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and continued. “By some miracle, I still had all my teeth, but no guitar.”

“How’d you get it back?” she asked.

“I was in hospital because of my injuries. The day I got out, I was walking down Sunset, thinking about how things really hadn’t changed for me all that much, and already eyeing the street corners.

“I walked past a pawnshop window, and there it was—my Les Paul. I fell to my knees on the sidewalk. The shop owner recognized me and came out. I made quite the scene, if I remember correctly. People were gathering around, starting to enjoy the show, you know? Then this homeless guy reaches in his pocket and pulls out a dollar. He handed it to the shop owner, and then everybody started pulling out money. It was crazy. Before I knew it, the guitar was in my hands, and I took that shit as a sign. I checked back into rehab, worked my ass off to get clean, and I’ve been clean ever since. And I rarely let this guitar out of my sight.”

“Oh, Julian, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so careless with it.”

She got it. And he wanted to kiss her. Like, he
really
wanted to kiss her. “You didn’t know. I was a prick. I’m the one who should be sorry.”

“Are you going to play it for me or what?” she asked between sniffles.

He stood and strummed the first chord. The music entered through his chest like a fist. He played it back out, sending it into Cleo in deep reds and browns, warm and smoky, like the hues of Eric Clapton.

Her eyes drifted shut with a sigh. He smiled at how easily she was swept away.

He built the intensity slowly through rhythm and volume, putting a knee on the love seat and lowering himself gradually until he sat. Cleo pulled her feet in to give him more room as he held out a warm note, and he watched her sink beneath its weight.

He dropped the notes lower on the scale and picked out an intricate melody that floated down and hovered in the air above her head, misty swirls of purple and red. As the notes drifted lower on the scale, his eyes drifted lower on Cleo.

Her hard nipples poked through her camisole. Instinctively, he tickled the strings with the tips of his fingers, watching in unbelievable awe as the perfect nubs beneath the thin blue fabric became even harder. Licking his lips, he played a pink note, wondering if those delicate delights stretching the fabric of the camisole were the color of cotton candy, or slightly lower on the subtle chromatic scale, like the juicy flesh of ripe peaches. His mouth watered.

He played down even lower, noticing the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. Her knees parted a little, then a little more, as she leaned one leg against the back of the couch. With the neck of his guitar, he gently applied pressure to the inside of the other knee. Meeting no resistance, he pushed harder, and her legs opened wider. Her eyes were still closed, like she was in a hypnotic trance. The jewel-colored tones poured out of the Les Paul and surrounded her, shimmering and trembling like an orgasmic aura. Could she
feel
what he was seeing? He strummed faster, blurring the lines between making music and making love, and dropped the neck of the guitar so that it slid up the inside of her thigh. The back of his hand brushed her skin.

A low note seeped out of the guitar, becoming one with a soft moan that came from Cleo’s lips. He shook the neck slightly, producing an aching vibrato. Cleo shone with a light sheen of sweat, and her cheeks were flushed. He brushed his knuckles across the sweet spot between her legs and watched in wonder as she arched her back, letting her head fall over the armrest of the love seat. He couldn’t believe it. One more note and she was going over the edge. He
wanted
to send her over the edge. “Come on, baby—”

At the sound of his voice, everything came to a crashing halt. Cleo’s eyes flew open, and her legs snapped shut.

He quit playing, and silence filled the room. Why had he opened his stupid mouth? She sat up and glared at him with the outrage of a woman who’d just had her ass pinched in a bar. Not exactly the climax he’d hoped for.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, feigning innocence and trying not to look postcoital.

“What the hell was that?”

“What?”

“What you just did. What were you doing?”

“I was playing guitar is all.”

“Ha!”

“Well, actually I
thought
I was playing guitar, but baby”—he smiled and added in a low voice—“I think the guitar played you.”

Cleo didn’t fall for it. She stood and pointed to the door. “I don’t get played,” she said. “Not by a guy and not by a stupid guitar.”

He stood, picked up his amp, and headed out. But before Cleo could kick the door shut behind him, he replied, “Oh, but I think you just did, Big Red. And I think you liked it.”

Chapter Ten

Julian appeared completely relaxed. He wore an easy smile, his ankles were crossed as he leaned against the counter, and he flirted mindlessly with the hotel clerk. But Cleo noticed his fingers in his pocket, fiddling with those picks. He wasn’t as relaxed as he appeared.

The desk clerk clicked away on her keyboard as if she were writing a dissertation rather than checking for vacancies. “I’m sorry, Mr. Wheaton, but there are no other rooms available.”

“Are you sure?” he asked. “Don’t you have some sort of presidential suite you could upgrade us to? I don’t care how much it costs.”

Cleo rolled her eyes. Money was no object when it came to getting away from her.

“No, sir, all of our suites are booked. I’m so sorry, but Utopia Records only requested one room.” Glancing at Cleo, she lowered her voice. “Would you like us to send up a rollaway?”

“By all means,” Cleo interjected. “I don’t want to be responsible for the deflowering of Mr. Wheaton here.”

“No, we can’t have that,” Julian said, smiling. “I’m as pure as the newly driven snow.”

The clerk gave Julian an inviting gaze that was anything but pure and probably against hotel policy. Good grief. Cleo stomped off to the elevators, arriving in time to squeeze in with a family wearing mouse ears. Julian came around the corner just as the doors slid shut.

He was being such a baby about the room. They’d shared a bed before without incident. But ever since he’d played that stupid Les Paul for her, he seemed convinced she’d have an orgasm if he so much as looked at her. And she had
not
had an orgasm when he’d played. Maybe she had felt a small pre-orgasmic twitch when his hand brushed her, but luckily, she’d snapped out of it just in time.