Revelry (Taint #1) (22 page)

“I got mauled by a fucking were-cat in the bathroom. I barely made it out alive. Please get me out of here.” He leans into me—or he attempts to lean—but instead, he stumbles and uses his hands to steady himself. By holding onto my boobs.

I raise a brow at him. “Really?”

“Shit, ssorry,” he slurs. “Fuck they’re nice tits.”

I shake my head, about to tell him that I know exactly what game he’s playing at when a woman with huge boobs, bad ratty extensions and nails like talons grabs Coop from behind. “There you are, rock star. You ready to rock my world?”

His eyes go wide as saucers, and then he shoots me a panicked, pleading look before he turns to face her. “Guess you found me.”

“I sure did, big boy.” She touches one of those long talons to the tip of his nose and her free hand slides across the front of his jeans. Coop lets out an undignified whimper.

I roll my eyes. “I’m sorry, but if you could take your hands off my boyfriend’s cock, I’d really appreciate it.”

“Boyfriend? Oh no, honey, the things he just did to me in that bathroom—he ain’t nobody’s boyfriend.”

“I didn’t do anything, I swear,” he says, holding his hands up in a placating gesture.

“Save it, Ryan.” I grab his collar and try to look as if I’m not about to lose my shit laughing. “You can explain yourself back in our hotel room.”

I’m kind of surprised she doesn’t follow, but instead calls out something about how his band sucks, and she’ll never illegally download another copy again because they’re not worth the risked jail time.

I’m still dragging him by the collar when we make it to the elevators and hustle inside before Ivanna Be a Big Kitty can come out after us.

“Well, that was totally worth getting out of bed for,” I say.

Coop slumps against the wall. “Shit. Is the room spinning?”

“How much have you had to drink?”

“A lot. Or not enough. I hate elevators as much as I hate airplanes.” He pushes the button for the ground floor repeatedly, and then he leans back against the mirrored wall, tilting his head back and closing his eyes. “Zed kept plying me with shit, and then we thought it would be fun to go to the bar like regular joes. I lost Zed after the third shot to Urtha Kit’s friend, who thankfully for him was a lot better looking than Urtha was, and then I got stuck at the bar and she followed me into the rest rooms.”

Does that mean he wouldn’t have called if Urtha had been hot
? I let out a sigh and fold my arms over my chest, glaring at him.

“You know you’re really going to have to stop drunk dialling me, Cooper—”

Coop crosses the elevator, he clumsily shoves me against the wall, but there’s a bar at my back, so I shriek. “Ow … what the hell are you doing?”

“Distracting myself.” He pulls the pen from my hair and tosses it aside and then he slides his fingers into it and he presses his mouth down on mine.

He pulls away.

A beat passes. We stare at one another, and then we’re both moving. I rake my fingers through his hair and pull him down to me. His mouth covers mine, tongue thrusting past my lips to tangle with my own. Coop pushes his body against me, and I push back as his hands move down to my arse and squeeze, hard.

He slides one hand over my hip, his fingers digging into my flesh. I moan against his mouth and then it dawns on me that he tastes like alcohol, and I probably taste like toothpaste, because he’s been drinking and I haven’t. And that means that no matter how much I want to strip, to shove him up against the elevator wall and ride him like a mechanical bull while shouting
yeeehawww
at the top of my lungs, I can’t. Because Cooper is inebriated, and I’m not. I need to back away … right after he gropes my boob. I mean, his hand is already under my shirt, it would be rude not to let him.

Oh, sweet mother of god, I knew those calloused hands would feel incredible on my body.

“I want you, Ali,” Cooper says, as he lays kisses down my neck, licking and sucking. I close my eyes, unable to believe I’m about to put an end to this feeling.

“You’re drunk,” I whisper. Right now it feels as if he’s not the only one. I’m drunk on his touch.

“I am drunk.” He nods. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want you.”

The elevator dings, announcing our arrival. The doors open and the people on the other side stand there, waiting for us to vacate. I take Cooper’s hand and lead him out of the lift and through the lobby. We get to the hotel doors and we’re instantly bombarded with screaming fans and flashing cameras. Cooper ducks his head, shielding his face against the flashing cameras. We’re pushed and pulled in every direction, and then the bodies of women trying to get closer to him prise our hands apart.

“Ali,” he shouts, but I can’t see him through the throng of fangirls. I’m jostled about a bit more and I turn back, trying to get away from the press of bodies, when he pushes through the crowd, taking my hand and hurries us back inside the hotel.

“What are you doing? I ask.

“Getting us a room.”

I wait until we’re a little further inside the lobby when I grab hold of his arm. “We have a room. Two of them, actually. Back at another hotel.”

“And there’s a legion of fangirls between us and it.” He’s shaking, his face pale, and his hand is clammy in mine. “Have you ever just wanted to be someone else, Ali?”

“Yeah, all the time.”

He studies me, as if he’s not happy with that answer. “And what did you do when you felt that way?”

“I took a walk to clear my head, or I went and drank so much that I could pretend I was someone else.”

“Help me be someone else.”

“What do you mean? You can’t be anyone else. You’re Cooper Ryan.”

“Help me be the guy you talk to night after night on the tour bus, when everyone else is asleep. Tonight I just wanna be that guy. I want to feel normal, just this once.”

“Okay, let’s get you a room. We can talk out what the hell just happened when you’re not about to pass out from exhaustion and too much booze.”

Twenty minutes later, I pull off his boots as he lies face up on the bed where he’d fallen. I’m not doing anything crazy like removing his pants or anything. That would be dumb, because he’s more Adonis than I can handle fully clothed—strip him bare and I’d never want to leave this room again. I lean over to set a glass of water down on the nightstand and Coop reaches out, grasping a strand of my long hair between his fingers. “You should run, Ali-Cat. Run away before I decide to keep you forever.”

My gut knots, and desire jackknifes through me. I pull away, chanting over and over in my head,
He’s drunk. Do not sleep with him
. “Okay. Why don’t you try sleeping it off, and by the morning you’ll remember why this is such a terrible idea?”

“I want you, Holly,” he slurs. I freeze, snap my eyes shut and swallow hard.

“Right.” I clear my throat, trying to mask the way my voice breaks, or the sharp, ragged inhalations I’m taking to keep from crying. “If you have everything you need, then, I’ll just go.”

“I don’t have you,” he murmurs, eyes still tightly closed. “I’m so fucking lost without you, Red.”

I can’t listen to this anymore. Even if every syllable didn’t cut me to the bone, the fact remains he’s telling me this in confidence because he’s drunk, and he’s telling me because he thinks I’m her. Somehow it hurts far more than finding my boyfriend of five years with his face buried in another woman’s pussy.

“I have to go.”

“No!” he shouts as I slip out into the hallway. I close the door and lean heavily against it. I bang the back of my skull against the wood and slide down to the floor.
I am so fucking stupid
.

E
ventually I pick myself up from the floor and take the elevator down to the lobby. I walk through the hotel and I exit out onto the street. The fangirls are still there, but they don’t notice me without Cooper Ryan’s hand threaded through mine so I walk right by them.

The strip spreads out in front of me and I follow the lights until I reach our hotel some thirty minutes later. My feet hurt. My heart hurts, and my head definitely hurts from all the thoughts pinging around in there.

I pass one of the many hotel bars and decide to stop for a drink. I could just go to my room, but I’d rather not be alone with my thoughts right now. Better that I share my misery around, even if I am sitting alone. At least it won’t be as bad as that unnerving silence up in my room. I order a Mac and Jack’s, preparing to find some quiet dark corner where I can skulk and make up stupid stories in my head about how pathetic the lives of the people around me are when I smack head-first into a heavily muscled torso. I follow the line of black T-shirt up to the gauges and the neck tattoos and finally up to Levi’s face. I frown.

He smiles. “Whatcha doing here on your own, Red?”

“Well, I was avoiding the lepers, but it looks like that’s done with now.”

“Why do you pretend to hate me so much?”

“Oh, that’s not pretend,” I snap.

He wraps his fingers around the bottom of my glass, taking it from me and tossing back more than half of my beer.

“Hey, I was about to drink that, arsehole.” Tears prick my eyes, and I step out around him because the last thing I want is to show any sign of weakness in front of Levi.

“Hey.” He grabs my arm and I turn and face him.

“Listen, I’m really not in the mood for this.”

“You still wanna meet Josh Holme?”

I stare blindly at him. “Uh … yeah. It’s pretty high up there on my list of things to do before I die.”