Hung Out: A Needles and Pins Rock Romance (81 page)

He pulled his shirt off and sat beside her, legs extending out of the cubical so that only his ass ended up damp.

Her eyes roamed the shower. “Why is it blank?”

His gaze followed hers, taking in the shiny white tiles. “My housekeeping gals say I got to let ’em clean it sometime. On tour’s that time.” He eyed the lines and numbers on the bench. “Besides, it’s not blank anymore.”

“Wait till you hear it.” She was more than excited about it. She was cocky and sure of herself. A budding musician.

“I can’t wait.” He couldn’t help it; his eyes drifted to her twin peaks. “Hum it to me.” Her chest rose with a negative sigh, and he cajoled, “You said you were humming it before I came in…”

She obliged, and he leaned his head back, staring into one of the showerheads, captivated by her voice and the melody. When she was done, she explained the nuances, and her face flushed with his quick praise.

“I missed it here.” Setting the capped marker atop what would become a future Scarlette Rose hit, she finally got to her feet without a shred of modesty in front of him.

It felt right.

 “I don’t have the right tiles, so I have a whiteboard on the wall next to my tub.” She stretched an arm out and grabbed the towel hanging on the rod next to where he now stood. Pausing with it hanging from the fingers of one hand, she reached the fingers of the other out, tracing the singed rose on his chest. “Gage?”

“Hmm?” He felt trancey. Like he was inside a perfect bubble that might burst any second. But it was a happy bubble. He was more than content to float until it popped.

“I’m ready now. If you are.” She swiped at her hair with the terrycloth, and his gaze followed its every stroke along her body and limbs.

Ready?

His confusion must have been obvious.
Ready?
He was torn between jumping her and dropping to his knee despite no ring.

“I’m ready to figure us out.”

“I’m ready to figure us out too.”

“Is it going to kill your career?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t care anymore, though. What about you? You’re on the verge of something huge.”

“I don’t care either. I’ll still make music. But I can do that on an island somewhere. I don’t care about the rest.”

“The spotlight seemed to suit you. You were really digging it. Don’t lie.”

“I had a taste. You’ve had the feast. So if you can’t do this, I understand. I just need to know before I give my whole heart to you again. Because if we do this thing, we can’t hide our relationship forever. And this is feeling like…”

“Like what?” He’d seen her bite back the words with a wary dart of her eyes to his face. He was sure he knew what she’d been about to say, but he wanted to hear it.

“…a forever thing.” Her admission was quiet.

“It
is
for forever. You think I’m letting you go again?” Drawing her against him, he held on tight.

They kissed, migrating into the bedroom. He shucked his wet clothing, and only when he saw her digging through the bag he’d packed for her, did he pull on a pair of boxers.

Jumping her and fucking until they were both comatose was his first instinct. Hell, it seemed like it was his only instinct anytime she was running around without clothes and saying sweet, sexy shit. But, given what she’d been through, he was putting his cock in check.

He turned around, just as she did, and his jaw dropped. Still totally naked, she held the bottle of Champagne Rose.

Her eyes widened, taking him in, pausing in clear surprise on the Diesel elastic band at his waist. “Are you too tired?”

“Fucking never.” He hooked his thumbs in the elastic and disposed of the boxers, slinging them aside. Moving in close, he cradled her head in his hands. “I was trying not to be a selfish son of a bitch who can only think of doing bad things to you.” Left unspoken was ‘after the night you’ve had.’

“We made plans for this champagne.”

“Mmh, hmm.” He brushed his lips to hers. “Refresh my memory.” Just thinking about the words coming from her mouth had his cock standing at attention.

“Pouring it down your body so I can lick it off.” She swayed, the tips of her tits tickling his skin as she spoke.

“I like those plans. But I thought there was more.”

“To hold a sip in my mouth and suck you off while it bubbles around your dick.”

“Fuck, Scar…” He ground said dick against her. “You’re such a wicked bitch. You’re killin’ me…” Biting her bottom lip, he held her gaze, daring her to say the wrong thing again. “What else?”

Finally, ‘sip,’ ‘suck,’ and ‘pussy’ spilled from her lips, and he fell into a hypnotic-like stupor watching the formation of the dirty words and hearing the hitch of anticipation in her voice.

D
espite their slutty talk, things slowed down once they were stretched across the bed. They traded sweet, gentle kisses and tender touches. Like a song, these would crescendo into crazed moments of bruising, biting kisses, rough passionate grasps and desperate clutches. And then back down again.

They stopped to catch their breath, and he swiped the bottle from the bedside table. He’d already stabbed the opener into the cork and now he worked it. The top shot off, and she screeched when he held the spew over the bed instead of off it. Wiping her fingers down her belly, she swiped at the spray of liquid coating her skin and put her fingertips to her mouth. “How are we going to toast with no glasses?”

His brows shot up. “You really want glasses?”

“Maybe.”

He wiped a fingertip down her skin, trailing it down past her waist, way past the spilled champagne, barely brushing the lips he had yet to kiss tonight. “I can get glasses…” He tasted his fingers. “Might take me a while to find ’em.”

Rising up, she grabbed the bottle. Tipping it to her mouth, she took a sip. “C’mere.”

Like molten black lava, his eyes blazed, and he snatched the bottle back. “Nope. Me first. Or you. Depending on how you look at it.” He sucked in a sip and she saw his throat bob. And then another sip, and his head dropped for that intimate kiss.

Her back arched when the warmth bathed her insides. She bit her bottom lip. Still, a moan escaped and immediately became a whimper when he promptly slurped any lingering traces back into his mouth.

Was this weird?

Shit. On a scale of kinkiness, with the rock star slash candy bar legend being a ten, how demented was this? She didn’t care now. Holy fuck, no. Not while he was lapping and sucking up each sip. From her pussy. From her navel. From the shallow valley between her tits. Not when his champagne-coated palate was against her tongue, making sure she had a taste too… She couldn’t care now. Would she care tomorrow? If the candy bar legend was true, had that iconic rock star’s girlfriend cared the next morning? Probably the only thing she regretted was having it witnessed, having it a topic of crude jokes, and having it thrown in her face for the rest of her days.

Damn rock stars
.

No regrets, she decided
when her eyes opened and the memories flooded. Even the unfortunate choking and subsequent coughing fit when she’d paid Gage back, sip for sip, hadn’t put a damper on how she viewed their celebration.

If she had to rate getting their freak on, well, waking up uncovered and naked with her feet in the fur of a hundred-pound dog lying on the foot of the bed would be up there on the freaky scale.

“Hey.”

“Morning.” She soaked in the sight of him as she returned the reverent greeting.

How with his hair wild about his head and eyes bloodshot with fatigue did he look good enough to eat again? Maybe the secret was all that ink. Self-consciously, she rose her one tattooed wrist to smooth wayward strands of her own hair.

“You feeling okay?” His finger trailed her cheekbone.

“I need something. Tylenol or whatever you’ve got.”

“Headache?” He seemed worried at this prospect.

She shook her head. “Just all over, you know?”

“Must be bad if you’re going all over-the-counter instead of whipping up smoothies,” he teased, but he continued to assess her with concern. “I’ll get it for you.”

“I will. I’ve got to pee anyway.”

“Scar? You sure you’re okay?” He stayed her with a gentle brush of his fingers on her neck, but his mood quickly turned angry. “I was too rough. Shit. You should have told me. Damn it!”

“No. It wasn’t like that. I just feel…”
Sore all over
. She bit her tongue on words sure to make him feel worse even thought he’d be taking them out of context. “I’m not feeling this way because of our sex.” She caught his hand and squeezed his fingers. “Gage, being connected like that—fucking you—was the only thing that kept me sane last night.”

Instead of glowing with passion at her ‘four letter’ words, he still blazed with anger. “I want to kill him.”

“What? Who?”

“He fucked you up. Those little bruises last night are now… If I’d known it was that bad… Dammit, I can’t believe I didn’t knock him the fuck out.”

She’d seen Gage on a very thin line as they’d all watched Ketchum being led to the squad car. His fingers had curled. His jaw had worked in that way she’d learned was a grit of his teeth. While his fury had touched her deeply, his restraint of it had been another sign to her that Gage had his shit together.

Reaching out, she traced a caressing hand down the inked guitar strings on his arm, and then back up the broken one. Leaving the bed, she padded to her bag and pulled a tee shirt over her head.

In the bathroom, she was as shocked as he at what she saw in the mirror. Her neck was yellow and black, finger marks clearly present. Deluged by the visible reminders of an hour in her life she had no desire to remember, she pulled the vanity drawer open. She would swallow something for her aches and even though she and Gage had showered the champagne and sex away before falling into bed to sleep, maybe she could talk him into another shower if for nothing more than to feel his soothing touch soaping her body. Keeping her eyes averted from her reflection and onto the contents of the drawer, she reached for a familiar label and froze.

Lying noxiously among the vials of pain reliever was a Ziploc bag. The sight of the syringe and other paraphernalia inside the plastic had her jerking her hand back.
Why in holy hell?

In the other room, Gage was out of the bed, and she watched him step into a pair of pajama bottoms like the ones he sometimes wore around the house. Twisting toward her, he met her eyes. His expression was sweet and gentle until he read whatever was on her face. His look dropped to the drawer, and the life seemed to fizzle out of him.

Unlike on tour when he’d adamantly denied drugs the second he thought she was suspicious, this morning, he simply lifted his brows. She held his searching gaze, and sudden clarity settled her.

Before, he had been quick to defend himself because he couldn’t stand her thinking even for a second that he’d screwed up. Now, something had changed. There was confidence in his eyes. As if he knew she
wouldn’t
jump to conclusions.

“Why do you keep it?” She wondered. Because yes. She trusted him. Because of who he was. Gage. And despite of who he was. A disturbed rock star. “Isn’t it bad to have it around?”
Tempting?

“That’s what they say. The shrinks in rehab. But, if I’m having to hide the shit away from me because, ‘fuck me, I might lose control,’ isn’t
it
controlling
me
?”

He had a point.

“If I look at it every day, choose whether to pick it up, choose whether to shoot it up, then I’m in control of my life again.”

She didn’t have a good feeling about this. But she knew Gage. He didn’t bullshit. He didn’t lie. And he was a very controlling person. “So, you just leave it there? Look at it sometimes?”

“Mostly.” A shadow of shame passed over his features.

Mostly?
There was that weird feeling again.

“What?” Her question came out in a fearful whisper.

“A few times I’ve done more than look. But I needed to. I needed to know
I
was in control. Not the other way around.”

Her spit seemed to congeal in her throat, and she swallowed the painful lump.