My Heart's Blood (Hard Love & Dark Rock #1) (8 page)

Chapter 18

Trace

My god, the taste of her lips was glory.  The feel of her body against mine, the smell of her hair, the richness of her brown eyes—glory.

For a moment I wanted nothing more than to end the show and take her back to the hotel.  I wanted nothing more than the taste of her lips, the feel of her body, the touch of her bare skin against my own.  I wanted nothing more than more of her.

I’d hardly even thought of being with a woman for nearly a year.  And now, there was nothing in the world I wanted so much.  It was like a year's worth of longing had been stacked up, stockpiled like gunpowder, and the kiss was a spark in the barrel.

But the sound of Sara's keyboards called to me, the pulse of Sergio's bass reinforcing those plaintive keys.  They'd started on the intro to "The Spirit Within"—one of our first hits, recorded back when we still weren't even old enough to come into a club like this one.  The melody was resonant with yearning and agitation, a perfect emotional tone to what I was feeling.

I thought of the forgotten set list, feeling sure that this song hadn't been planned until later.  Sara had started it now, had picked this song for whatever reason, and if she wanted to play it I owed it to her, and to the band, to play my part.

I kissed the girl, Anne, one last time—only daring a brief touch of the lips for fear I'd be drawn back in—and then hurried toward the front of the stage where I'd left my guitar.  I lifted the guitar by its neck, threw the strap over my shoulder, snatched a pick off the mike stand, and started to play.

We dove into that song, went after it like a pack of wolves taking down a wounded elk—all deadly grace and savagery.  I hadn't felt more emotionally in tune with the song in years, and I felt myself being drawn deeper and deeper into it as we played, abandoning myself to the lyrics.  I sang the last verse with my eyes shut tight, completely immersed in the song, oblivious to everything else.

No sooner had the last chord been struck, Micah started picking out the lead-in to "Cry Havok."  I opened my eyes, remembering where I was, noticing the burning in my throat and the slick sweat coating my skin.  Just a moment to reorient myself to the world, to take a gulp of reality, and then I dove back into the music, plunging into the depths.

There's something magical about playing in a band, about locking into sync with a group of people so that what you do is a perfectly blended part of a larger whole.  When it's right, it's transcendent, better than any drug-induced high.  It makes you feel like you're not just one with the band, and not just one with the crowd, but that your one with the entire universe.

That's how I felt that night—completely in sync with the band and the music, completely free from the loneliness and despair that had been lurking beneath my surface-level barrenness.  We went from song to song, never bothering with the prescribed order from the set list, all of us following some higher order, knowing what each other would do before they did it.

It was cathartic in the truest sense of the word.

And after we'd finished all of our hits—after we'd rocked that crowd all the way down to their marrow, until they were just as sweaty and exhausted as we were—we hustled off stage, embracing each other, smiling and laughing and smacking each other's backs.  Even Sara had a grin on her face, the haunted look temporarily absent from her eyes.

The crowd's cheers pulled us back on stage, their voices loud enough to raise the roof.  Instead of delving into our list of b-sides, we performed a cover of The Cure's "Lovesong".  And when the last verse ended and the instruments went quiet, I lead the audience in singing the key line to that song, repeating it again and again until it became a chant, a mantra, a credo for us all:

I will always love you

I will always love you

I will always love you

I will always love you.

Things were a blur after that, all of us riding a collective wave of exhilaration.

Anne's friend—the girl I'd seen waving her panties in the front row, the same girl who'd exited the green room just before we'd entered it—had made her way to the stage wing.  We stumbled down the hallway, laughing and yelling.

Somebody handed me a towel and a shirt, and I dried myself off and dragged the shirt on over my head, feeling the chill now that I'd left the crowded main hall.  I put my arm around Anne, and the feel of her body against my side, the swell of her hip and the press of her breast when I pulled her close, kept my spirit soaring, exultant.

There were people in the hallway, lining the walls like a gauntlet we had to pass through, all of them with plastic-covered backstage passes hanging around their necks.  I recognized the Rolling Stone photographer from earlier, working with a new lens, but I hardly paid any of them any attention.  I wanted to get out of that hallway, out of that club.

A big security guard at the end of the hall pushed the doors open, and then we were out in the alley, the cold and the dark washing over us, penetrating right through the thin shirt.  I looked up, but I couldn't see any stars—the fog was too thick.  Even so, the freshness of the air was lovely, invigorating, after the cramped heat of the club.

A second later, I heard the roaring of a crowd.  I looked toward the street, saw the mob of people held on the other side of the police cordon.  A strange feeling of déjà vu caught me.  Just a few hours ago, we'd been in this same alley with this same crowd yelling and screaming.  It felt like years had passed since then.  It felt like a memory from a different life.  I felt completely different.  Transformed.  I felt as excited as I used to feel after the shows on our first big tour, more alive than I'd felt in a long time.

What had changed?

I looked at the girl next to me, the light shining in her dark hair.  Maybe Joey had been right all along.  Maybe all I needed was a girl.  The right girl.

A part of me said that I might be expecting too much, moving too fast.  After all, I'd only seen the girl for the first time that night, and I'd hardly had a chance to exchange more than a few sentences of conversation with her.  But honestly, that part of me was a pretty small part, and I was used to ignoring it.  As an artist, I didn't base my actions on reason or logic nearly as often as I based them on passion, on feeling.

And this girl… for the first time in a long time, she was making me
feel
things again.

The limo had room for eight people.  We probably had at least twelve people pile in.  Even Sara joined us, leaving the town car to Bernstein.  She sat at the front with Sergio and Angel, the three of them sharing seating meant for two, leaning in and chatting with an energy and interest I hadn't seen in Sara in a long time.  The night was magic, and I wasn't the only one feeling it.

Joey had a bottle of whiskey in the limo, and he cracked off the plastic wrap and lifted it for a slug.  He passed the bottle around, everybody drinking, everybody already drunk.  High on the crowd and the show and the night itself.  By the time the bottle came to Anne, it was already a third empty.  She raised the bottle to her lips and took a sip, her mouth puckering, her eyes squeezing tight shut.  A shudder went through her, and she shook her head back and forth.  When her eyes opened again, they glittered like gems.

I took the bottle and gulped down a fiery mouthful, feeling it burn its way down my throat, settling as a glow in my belly.  And then I leaned in and kissed her again.

Her lips were soft, but her mouth burned with the whiskey, and with desire.  I could feel my own need echoing back from her.  She opened her lips, and I slipped my tongue into her mouth, tasting her.  In my chest I felt nearly hollow from yearning, and my heart thundered, pumping blood straight to my cock.

Miracle after miracle.  Even the antidepressants couldn’t quell this fire.

I heard Joey cheering from across the limo.  I glanced over at him, saw him raising the whiskey bottle in salute.  Anne's friend sat beside him, her eyes fixed on Anne, a look of almost motherly love showing in them.

Back at the hotel, we caught the elevator to our floor.  Part of me wanted to take the girl straight back to my room, but another part of me thought it would be better not to separate her from her friend.  And so for a while we sat on the loveseat in the suite, making out like horny teenagers, getting drunker and drunker on each other's kisses as the rest of the band continued to laugh and drink and party all around us.

In the end, she was the one that suggested we take it to the next level.

"Trace," she said, her voice just a little breathless, from passion and maybe from nerves, too.  "Is there somewhere we can go, just the two of us?"

"Come with me," I said, my heart beating hard in my chest, my cock throbbing against my jeans.

Bernstein had arranged for each of us to have a private room, but the suite had two bedrooms too.  I took her to the smaller one, down the hall from the party.  We could still hear the music and laughter through the closed door, but it felt comfortably distant.

I kissed her again, my hands cradling her face, thumbs brushing over her smooth cheeks.  I tilted her head back, kissing her along the side of her neck, my fingers threading through the hair at the back of her head.  Her panting breaths tickled my ear, and she smelled rich and sweet, almost like butterscotch.

My hands slipped down to her bare shoulders, her naked back.  Her skin felt like warm silk, incredibly smooth and soft beneath my palms, making me greedy to feel more of her.  My fingers went to the zipper between her shoulder blades, catching hold, pulling it down slowly, the sound a soft purr.  She sighed as my hands slipped down inside of the zipper, following the shallow groove of her spine, tracing over her delicate ribs.  My fingers bumped against the strap of her bra, and I followed the strap to the clasp, eager to unfasten it, to clear away this obstacle that kept me from being able to fully stroke her back.

I unhooked her bra, feeling her heavy breasts press against me, free from their restraint.  I kissed my way down to her collar bone, to the front of her upper chest, suddenly dying to see her lovely breasts completely bare.

My hands slipped inside her dress, following her ribs to the front, peeling the dress and bra away.  I cupped her breasts in my palms, lovely soft and dense, filling my hands.  And she gasped.

"Trace," she said.  "Trace."

I kissed her neck again, my thumbs sliding over her perking nipples, as firm and pink as pencil erasers.  I looked down, taking her in, glorying in the vision of her.  Her skin a lovely, ivory white except for across the front of her chest, where it had flushed to blushing pink.  The elegant bones of her clavicle showing clearly, making the swelling fullness of her breasts even more impressive.  I squeezed her gently, circling her nipples with the pads of my thumbs.

"Anne," I said, "you are lovely."

And then I dipped my head down, and took her right nipple into my mouth.

She gasped, her head tilting back and her eyes closing, as my lips closed around that sensitive little nub of flesh, sucking on it gently, stretching it long.  I tightened my lips around it like a collar, my tongue washing back and forth across the tip, feeling it pucker even more beneath my attention.  When that nipple was drawn tight and firm, I pulled my lips back and lapped at it like a dog, my tongue pressing that little button against the soft mound it perched atop.

I moved to the other breast, licking and sucking and nipping at it gently, the thumb of my other hand rubbing over the spit-slick nipple I'd just left.  Anne groaned and panted above me, the sound spurring me on.

I straightened my back, bringing my mouth to her mouth again, plunging my tongue in past her teeth.  She sucked my tongue in deeper, and I felt my dick throb with desire again.

I wanted to feel those hardened nipples against my bare chest.  In a rush, I reached down and caught hold of the bottom of my shirt, ripping it up over my head.  Anne gasped again, her beautiful eyes going wide, drinking me in.  She raised her hands to my chest almost reverently, tracing her fingers down the front of my torso, her touch electric.  I caught her eyes with mine, and then kissed her again, wrapping my arms tight around her, feeling her lovely soft breasts pressing against my chest, her hard nipples poking into my ribs.

We stumbled back toward the bed, kicking our shoes off, moving like some drunken, four-legged beast.  The edge of the bed came up against the back of her legs, and she lost her balance, falling back onto the mattress with a yelp.  With my arms still wrapped around her, I followed, sprawling over her gorgeous, half-naked body with my elbows bracing against the mattress on either side of her.

I kissed her lips, her neck, her breasts, working my way down to the delicate arc of her ribcage, and then to her soft belly below that.  My hands went to her dress, my fingers hooking under the fabric, dragging it down over her hips, catching hold of her panties and pulling those along too.  I had it just to the level of her lovely soft mound, a delicate thatch of curls peeking above the fabric line, when I heard her speak.

"Trace, I…"

Her voice was high and tight, nervous.  I looked up at her, my hands pausing but my fingers not letting go.

She'd propped herself up on her elbows, her head cocked forward, her eyes huge and uncertain.  Her eyebrows were pinched together with worry, and she bit her bottom lip.