Everything: A Singed Wings Novel (13 page)

Propping her hands up on her hips, she glared at me. “Of course I swear. Don’t look at me like that. I’m not an idiot. But please tell me you’re still interested in her. She’s so damn adorable. I already love her. Tell me what your first time was like. I’ve been waiting for this day for years.”

And she’s successfully redirected the conversation.

I sagged back against the pillows behind me and made some sort of grunting noise. “We didn’t have sex. Just messed around,” I admitted, shifting my attention out the window. I wasn’t used to talking about this kind of stuff with anyone. I preferred to keep my private life… well, private.

“What? Why not? You wanted to, right?” she asked, scooting me over so she could join me on the bed.

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe because we were
interrupted
.” I cut my eyes back to her and raised my accusing eyebrows. She whispered a quick “sorry” before I added, “But, hell yeah, I’m still interested, and I told her so. You know I’m not gonna play no bullshit games.”

“What’d she say?” she prodded, eyebrows raised hopefully. “You actually have her for a class right? Come on, bub, dish the deets. I already know now, so you might as well. Plus, I’m sure you’re dying to tell someone. Maybe I can even help you out.”

Repositioning myself to where I was comfortable, I spent the next half hour recapping the previous week to my sister, including the incident with Scott at Empty’s and the scene with Jayla in the cafeteria and how they tied into the Belle-effect. When I finished, bringing her as current as class that afternoon, minutes before Ashlynn decided to accost her in the parking lot, I did feel better, lighter for having unloaded it on someone else.

“Do you have a plan? And do you really think Mr. Carroll is trying to hook up with her too?” my sister questioned, seeming truly interested, which was rare since it didn’t involve her.

I blew out a frustrated breath and shrugged. “I
know
Mr. Carroll is looking to make his move, and fortunately that morning he caught me in her room, he thought I’d gone in there to put in a good word for him.” I snickered. “But as far as a plan, I guess just make myself so irresistible she finally gives in to what she wants.”

“And you’re sure that’s you?”

Scowling, I jack-knifed up to sitting and grabbed my guitar off the floor. “I may not have much experience with this shit, but I know she feels it too. Hell, she basically admitted it, but said she couldn’t do anything about it since I was a student.”

“Then why not wait until after graduation? If you really have this connection-thing like you say, it should still be there in a few months,” she suggested.

I twisted around to look at her. “Hello? Did you forget we leave the end of June for nine months? And the three weeks before that, Dad said we’re gonna be doing all kinds of promo stuff to hype up the tour. Once we graduate, we’ll be gone more than we’re here.”

“So let’s pretend you do get her to break, and you guys start seeing each other on the DL. Then what happens when we leave?”

“I don’t know, Ash!” I ground out, pinching my eyebrows together in frustration. “I’m seventeen, not twenty-seven. I’m not talking about marrying her, for crying out loud.”

Right then, the door to my bedroom swung open and our dad walked in. “Damn straight,” he huffed, his gaze bouncing back and forth between the two of us. “Neither of you are getting married for a long-ass time. We’ve got too much music to make first. Now get your shit together. We’re leaving for the bar in fifteen.”

Dad trudged out and headed back downstairs as Ashlynn crawled off the mattress. Stopping at my doorway, she looked back over her shoulder and smiled. “I’m cheering for you, bub. Just be careful, okay? For both of your sakes.”

THAT NIGHT, AS
we played on the inside stage at Empty’s, I kept one eye on the door at all times, hoping, wishing Belle would walk through it. But a little past midnight, as we loaded up our instruments and amps into the back storeroom and got ready to go, it was clear she wasn’t coming. Not that I really ever thought she was. Thankfully, neither Dad nor Ashlynn mentioned my lackluster performance. It was rare for me to have an off-night, and it wasn’t like I’d fucked up or anything, but they both knew my mind was someplace else.

My parents and Ashlynn stayed at Empty’s when I left; Mom was catching up with some old friends, while Dad and Ashlynn were tinkering with a new drum set he’d gotten her. I wasn’t in the mood to be social, and none of them seemed too surprised when I told them I was heading home.

By the time I walked through the front door and disarmed the alarm, it was almost one in the morning and I was dead on my feet. My stomach growled as I passed by the kitchen, but I didn’t even have the energy to make myself something to eat. All I wanted was a nice hot shower and my bed. Performing live was exhausting, even when you gave it a half-ass effort, and after a week of restless nights thinking about Belle followed by getting up at the butt-crack of dawn for school, I was spent, both mentally and physically.

I lumbered up the stairs then took the hottest, fastest shower of my life as I simultaneously scoured and scrubbed the sweat and grime off of me. Throwing on just a pair of boxers, I turned the light off, the music on, and dropped onto my bed with a
thud.
Closing my eyes, I openly welcomed the sweet land of sleep.

Except it never came.

I rolled from my left side to my right and back to my left again. I pulled the covers up, pushed them down, and then did the one leg in, one leg out thing. I lay on my stomach and buried my face in the pillow, before flipping to my back and staring at the ceiling. I tried adding pillows for more support, but when that didn’t help either, I chunked them across the room with a rumble.

Since when did sleeping become so damn hard?

Since the night I met her.

The image of Belle popped into my mind and my dick stirred to life. All I had to do was think about her and a switch flipped inside me. Pure, unadulterated desire clouded my brain, hijacking my thoughts and actions. Everything about her turned me on, driving me damn near insane.

Especially those fucking black combat boots. A contradiction to her small size and bubbly personality, she somehow made them the sexiest thing ever. They were the first thing I’d noticed that afternoon when I’d walked into class, and immediately, my mind had raced to the night we’d met and what we’d done while she wore them.

One day, I’m gonna fuck her with nothing but those boots on
…

Without realizing what I was doing, my right hand slipped under the waistband of my boxers and my fingers circled around my rapidly expanding cock. A few long, slow strokes from base to tip and I was rock-hard.

Laid out on her back atop that big desk of hers, I start with her sweet mouth
—
kissing, licking, nipping, tasting
— then leisurely move down her tight little body, giving each nipple equal attention before sliding farther south. When my mouth reaches the apex of her creamy thighs, I hike her legs up on my shoulders
, the boots hooked around my neck, and glide my tongue along her hot, wet pussy, flicking her clit.

Gradually increasing the tempo as I worked my shaft, my other hand joined in the fun, cupping and massaging my balls in rhythm with the first. A few drops of pre-cum seeped out the slit of my swollen cock and I used my thumb to swirl it around the throbbing head. My release built quickly, rising inside me.

As I worship her with my mouth and hand, she tenses underneath me, her legs squeezing my neck, fingers roughly pulling my hair, and then she explodes on my tongue with a violent shudder, screaming my name as she comes. She rides out her orgasm, coating my mouth and chin with her sweet, sticky juices, and when her body finally relaxes, I stand and line the tip of my dick up with her drenched opening. Peering down at her through lust-heavy lids, I smile at the sight of her flushed, naked body and the euphoric expression painting her beautiful face.

“Please, Everett,” she begs. “I need you inside me.”

Unable to deny her anything she wants, I flex my hips and thrust deep inside her, moaning at the overwhelming pleasure that rips through me. Her walls clench tightly around my cock as I piston in and out of her, consuming her, claiming her as mine.

My hand pumped harder and faster, while my breaths grew shorter and shallower. Lying in the pitch black of my room with “Eleutheria” by Lenny Kravitz playing softly in the background, I could almost smell the light, crisp scent of her perfume wafting through the air, could almost hear her soft, breathy voice whispering in my ear. With a muffled groan, my balls suddenly tightened and every muscle in my body contracted as I came harder than I ever had before, shooting the ropes of my release across my stomach.

Dazed, but most definitely not confused, I didn’t move for several seconds, minutes maybe, as I basked in the aftershocks of my fantasy. Eventually, I grabbed the towel from my shower off the floor and cleaned myself up then collapsed back onto the mattress and closed my eyes. If just jacking off to the thought of taking Belle could do that to me, I wasn’t sure I’d survive the real thing.

But I’d happily die trying.

I HAD JUST
stripped out of my jeans and sweater and into some leggings, an oversized t-shirt, and fuzzy socks, when I heard the front door open and close followed by Lindsey’s voice bellowing down the hallway to the guest room I was staying in. “Belle, honey, I’m home! It’s time to get our Friday on!”

Groaning at the thought of getting my anything on other than the comfortable clothes I’d just slipped into and hours of couch-vegging, I opened the bedroom door and shuffled out to the open living room/kitchen area, where my best friend had already kicked off her heels and was pouring two glasses of wine. She glanced up at me when I emerged and wrinkled up her nose disapprovingly.

“Why do you look ready for bed? I thought we were going to Empty’s tonight so you could hunt down the rockstar?” she asked, while re-corking the bottle then sticking it back in the fridge. “I even had Michael make plans with his friends so we could do this just the two of us. I was totally gonna be the best wingwoman in the world.”

I waited for her to join me, accepting the glass from her as we moved toward the couches. “Well, I appreciate the thought, but I’m just not feeling it tonight,” I half-lied, having completely forgotten to cancel the plans with her once I learned who the rockstar really was. “After all week of standing on my feet and drinking a couple of margaritas at happy hour this afternoon, I’ll probably be asleep by nine-thirty.”

She waggled her eyebrows suggestively and leaned back into the plush cushions. “Ooh, tell me about happy hour. Were you with Liam the London Love Poet? Is that really why you don’t want to go tonight?” She paused to take a drink, then in an accent that sounded more Australian than British, recited, “O, Arabelle, Arabelle, wherefore art thou, Arabelle?”

We both erupted in giggles, causing me to nearly choke on my wine. In addition to her take-no-shit attitude, one of my favorite things about Lindsey was her ability to make me smile. Even when everything had happened with Jonah in LA and I couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, all I had to do was call her up and she’d have me doubled over in laughter in no time, temporarily making me forget all of my woes.

“I was with five or six of the teachers, and yes, Liam was one of them. We went to some little Mexican food restaurant near the school. They had two-dollar house margaritas and we all split some appetizers,” I answered, once I wasn’t in in fear of snorting liquid out of my nose.