I always thought that language was melodramatic bullshit to make the story more interesting.
Nope.
It’s real.
My mouth? Watering.
The delicate center at the apex of my thighs? Oh yeah, definitely coiling with low, insistent heat.
One look at him, and my legs pressed together. Heat gathered, throbbing dull and hot, pulsating—NEEDneedNEEDneedNEED.
God, I was still wasted, but at least there was only one of everything—if I focused and moved slowly.
Lexie, beside me, was still partially holding me up, but she had eyes only for the spectacle on stage.
“Lex.”
“Mmm.” A verbal response, but her eyes were on the singer on stage, tall and dark haired and lean, angled up to a mic like he was making out with it, belting a song I’d heard on The Highway a hundred times.
This must be Myles—Lexie’s crush, and my savior’s boss.
“Lex.”
“Hmm.”
I palmed her face, turned her attention onto me. “Alexandra.”
She blinked. “What?”
“I’m sorry.”
She was fully with me now. Hugged me. “No apologies.”
“I’m the older sister. I should be the responsible one.”
She shook her head. “No. I told you, we’re cutting loose. No responsibility. No older or younger, no roles. Just you and me, and whatever happens.” She squeezed me hard. “Just next time, stay close.”
“The crowd moved all at once, and I got swept away. Pushed and bounced around like a frigging pinball, and spat out the far side.” I sighed, bitterly. “And then these guys started talking to me, surrounding me, and to stay away from them I backed up and ended up at the barricade. And they were…they were playing with me.”
“I’m so sorry that happened, Char-Char.”
“I was fighting them. But they were just laughing, even when I hit them. I was so scared, Lex.”
She squeezed my hands in hers. “Baby, you’re okay.
“I know.”
I glanced over and saw him, my savior.
Off in the wings, a guitar strap looped loosely over one shoulder, a small tuner clipped to the headstock of a weathered classical acoustic guitar. His head was tilted to one side, eyes shut, ear close to the strings, plucking, twisting a tuning peg a hair, plucking again, glancing at the tuner to verify.
Done, he stood and waited, one hand on the neck.
God, his shoulders were so wide. Hard. Round, strong. His back was like a wall. Arms rippling with lean, toned muscle. His hair was messy, a pair of mirrored aviators slid back on his skull, long-since forgotten. Both arms featured full-sleeve tattoos, but it was too dark and he was too far away to see the details. I vaguely remembered my head flopping against the warm skin of his bare chest as he carried me—effortlessly, easily—and seeing on his right bicep part of a tattoo, a row of crosses, each one with initials. It was a vague, hazy memory, but somehow I could see those crosses as clear as day, in my mind.
The song ended, the stage lights dropped to black, and Crow strode onstage, traded the singer guitars, giving him the acoustic and taking the electric. Back off stage, he plucked a cloth from his back pocket and wiped the strings carefully and thoroughly, bringing it back into perfect tune and replacing it on the rack of guitars, stuffing the cloth into his back pocket again.
“He really hurt those guys, Lex.”
She was quicker to give me her attention this time. “They deserved it.”
“I mean, yeah—they’d have raped me for sure, if he hadn’t stepped in. But he…he really, really hurt them. There were six of them, and he just…” I shook my head, visions of fists and feet and knees and elbows moving with surgical brutality. “He was an angry, avenging god, and they were pathetic little children caught up in his fury.”
Lex snorted. “Wow. That’s…a very specific image, hon.”
“You don’t know, Lex. You didn’t see what he did to them.” I shuddered. “He could have killed them. They’re definitely going to have permanent disabilities.”
“They were going to rape you, Charlotte.” Her voice was hard. “Don’t give those pieces of shit another thought.”
“It was just so easy for him. He wasn’t even breathing hard when he was done. I don’t think they got a single hit in.”
“Good for you. Bad for them, but you reap what you sow, right?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I guess.”
She tilted her head. “What, Charlie? You’re thinking something you don’t want to be thinking.”
How could she tell? My brain was swirling, whirling. Tumultuous and chaotic.
I ground my teeth, but the thought wouldn’t dissipate or recede back inside, no matter how hard I tried to shove it down. “It’s dumb.”
She smirked. “I bet I know.”
“You couldn’t possibly.”
“You think it was hot. You being in trouble, and him saving you.” She grinned wide and bright. “You think you should be more shook up by what happened, but all you can think about is him.”
“Shut up!” I snapped. “You don’t know that.”
She just laughed. “Oh, I do now, girlfriend. You are turned on like a motherfucker.”
“I am not.”
She slid closer. “Own it, Char-Char. Nothing seriously bad happened to you. It was gross and scary, but he stopped it before it got bad. And yeah, he’s fuckin’ hot as hell, in a big bad wolf kind of way.”
I let my head sink back against the couch cushion. Groaned. “It’s so dumb.” Another groan. “I’m so dumb. I was such a drunken idiot, Lex. The things I said, god, I won’t be able to look him in the eye.”
Lexie cackled. “Newsflash, darling, you’re still drunk. How you’re even awake right now, I’m not sure.”
“Me either. I shouldn’t be.” I tested my legs, pushing against the floor, and got nearly to what my yoga teacher would call a sloppy version of chair pose. Fell back, dizzy from the effort. “Nope, I will not be upright any time soon.” I held my head in my hands as the world spun like a top. “Still very, very drunk.”
“Yeah, you’re not sobering up that fast, baby girl. It just doesn’t work that way.”
I’d finished the water, both bottles Crow had left—and even his name was sexy. It fit him: he was dark and sharp and intelligent and cunning and predatory and sleek.
“I wonder where he got the water,” I said. “I want to be more sober faster.” That didn’t sound right, but I couldn’t bring myself to care.
I had my eyes closed, felt something cold and wet pressed against my cheek. “Here.” A low, powerful voice, smooth and dark.
I opened my eyes, and Crow was there, kneeling in front of me, his chest against my knees. Pressing a bottle of water to my cheek. His eyes were pools of inky darkness, swallowing me. I could just see his throat in the shadows, and could almost make out his pulse. Was it beating as hard as mine?
“Thanks,” I said.
“How the hell’re you awake right now? Thought for sure you were done for the day.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t sleep easily, even drunk, it seems.”
“Don’t fight it,” he murmured. “Just let it all spin around you. You’re safe.”
“Don’t like being out of control.”
Lexie was watching the exchange, biting back a smirk, but remaining silent.
He nodded. “I know what you mean. Feel the same way.” He glanced at the stage, listening. “Song’s almost over, gotta go. Guitar change. Just wanted to check on you.”
I just nodded, as gently and shallowly as I could manage, to keep the world from spinning off its axis. “Okay,” I whispered, dumbly.
He went, and I watched him go. The man had a beautiful ass. The jeans wrapped around it, seemed to cradle the taut hard globes.
“Man’s got a great ass,” Lexie muttered.
I laughed, feeling myself blush. “Yeah. I noticed.”
�
��Oh, I bet you did.” She elbowed my ribs. “He’s into you.”
“He is not.”
She ruffled my head, playfully condescending. “You’ll understand when you’re older, but when a man likes a woman, he looks at her a certain way.”
“Oh shut up. You couldn’t see how he was looking at me in this darkness.”
“I could fucking feel it, Charlie. I know what a man looks like when he’s digging on someone, okay? And that man wants you.”
“He barely met me. I was stupid drunk—I’m still stupid drunk. He can’t want me.”
Lexie just laughed. “I think he saw enough to know what he likes.”
I glanced down at my chest. “What, am I popping out of my shirt or something?”
She cackled. “No, dummy. It’s just you.”
“Drunk, embarrassing me?”
She side-hugged me. “Believe it or not, you don’t hold your liquor well.” She said this with her voice dripping sarcasm. “It’s obvious you’re not a hard drinker, and it’s cute.”
“Cute.” I growled, an unladylike sound Mom would not approve of. “Cute is the kiss of death.”
“No, cute can be super sexy. If you’re cute and hot in a certain way, you end up with a combination men will go dumb-dumb for.”
“And you seem to think I have that combination of cute and hot?”
“I mean, I’m into men, not women, and I’m your sister, but I think so, yeah.”
“Well, bully for him. But as soon as I can move, we’re leaving.”
Lexie just laughed like I’d said something hysterical. “Oh Charlie, you silly goose. I am way, way too buzzed to drive anywhere, number one. Number two, we’re in the middle of nowhere, and it’s midnight, and I guarantee there’s no hotels with vacancies within fifty miles of this festival. Number three, I’m sitting backstage mere feet from Myles fucking North. If you think I’m missing out on my chance to meet him, you’re on drugs, babe.”
“Meet? Is that all you want to do with him?”
“Hell no! I’d have the man’s babies.” She paused, and I felt her mood darken, go heavy. Then, as if the moment had never happened, she laughed, merrily. “I would let that man fuck me doggystyle on the stage, if he asked me to. Right there in front of everyone.”
I sighed. “You would not.”
She sighed, staring at him. “No, I wouldn’t. The things I want to do to him are wayyy too X-rated.” She laughed again. “Backstage is private enough. For starters, at least.”
“Lex. Come on.”
She shook her head, glancing at me, serious and brooding. “This is where you just have to let me be me, Charlie. If he comes on to me, I’m going with it. Judge me for it if you must, but I would absolutely let him have his wicked way with me backstage. It’s Myles North. It’d be worth it.”
I rolled a shoulder. “You do you, honey. That’s not my way, but if it’s yours, go for it. Just don’t…well, never mind. You can take care of yourself.”
She was silent a moment. Then spoke, her attention on the stage, but her words to me. “If your guy Mr. Crow was to hit on you, you’re telling me you wouldn’t let it play out?”
“I…I don’t know. Yes, I’m attracted to him. But I’m confused by it.”
“Confused? What is there to be confused about?”
“He scares me.”
“And?”
“And being scared horny is just weird.”
“He makes your pussy wet, doesn’t he?”
I sputtered, “ALEXANDRA ROCHELLE GOODE!”
“He does, doesn’t he?” She leaned closer. “He makes you want to do things you didn’t know were a thing.”
“Stop.”
“Like climb up on that big hard body and make him forget his own fucking name.”
“ALEXANDRA,” I hissed. “Stop!”
I wriggled. Because the image of climbing on top of a man like Crow did indeed make certain portions of my anatomy, which I had thought were essentially atrophied at this point, get all gooey and shivery.
Lex was watching me intently, biting a thumbnail and grinning in the dark. “Ohhh, baby, you are gone.”
“Shut up.”
“Stop fighting it, Charlie. Just go with it. This is as safe an opportunity to go a little wild and get a little dirty without repercussions as you’re gonna get. Stop overthinking it and just go with the flow.” She tickled my ribs. “And if the flow lands you riding that man’s cock, then all the better. You’d be a hell of a lot less uptight if you got boinked.”
“Lexie, there’s so much wrong with that statement I don’t even know where to start.”
“Let me guess, in order, you take issue with the words ‘cock’ and ‘boink’?”
“Yes.”
She leaned close, whispering. “I bet he has a huge, veiny cock. Thick, and throbbing and hot and hard as a steel fucking spike. Eight inches and thick as my wrist, or I don’t know men.”
I closed my eyes, refusing to let her goad me into revealing my runaway imagination.
“I bet that stubble of his would be scratchy and soft against your thighs as he ate you out…”
“Shut the hell up, Alexandra!” I lurched upright, away from her. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
My legs gave out as the world span crazily, and a big hard body pressed against me. A strong arm wrapped around my waist, holding me tight. “Got ya. Again.” That voice, like a lion’s feral snarl put into a human throat.
I put my feet under me, but he didn’t let go. “Hi.”
He stared down at me. “Gotta stop meeting like this, sweetness.”
I swallowed. Heat—so much heat. Radiating from him, and billowing inside me.
What was happening to my body? A chemical reaction to too much alcohol, I bet. That’s all.
He licked his lips, his eyes raking over my face. “Ever see a concert crowd from backstage?”
I shook my head. “N-no.” Now, why did I stutter? I must be sick. The alcohol has pickled my brain and turned me into a stuttering moron.
Woman up, idiot girl.
Be strong.
He kept his arm around my waist, and I honestly don’t think I could have walked at all, much less in a straight line. His hand was on my hip, or just above it, actually. Wildly intimate, but not exactly inappropriate. He walked me toward where the guitars were, stacked in a line, waiting. On stage, Myles, in profile, had his guitar slung around behind his back and was on his knees at the edge of the stage, reaching out to touch hands of the people below. Singing, grinning. Shaking a hand, kissing another, tapping fists, from one side of the stage to the other. Back and forth, never missing a beat, a word.
I blinked against the brilliance and heat of the stage lights along the top, and then squinted through them and saw the crowd. It was one thing to be lost in a sea of humanity like that, but seeing it like this? Wow. Just…so many people. Too many to make out an individual face, except for the first few rows. How many? Ten thousand? Twenty? Thirty? Smaller than Coachella, which I went to with Cassie once, a couple years ago, at the end of college before I started at Denoyer and Whitcomb. But still massive, especially for what seemed to be a pretty lax and last-minute, barebones sort of thing. The focus was on the music, and providing enough infrastructure for the amount of people they hoped to bring in. No frills. It was…dizzying.
“How does he not get nervous?” I asked.
He laughed. “Hell if I know. He’s been performing on stage since he was a kid, though. His gramps was a honky-tonk legend in South Texas, and so was his dad, and my boy Myles there has been playing guitar and singing on stage since he was old enough to do either. Just in his blood, I guess.” He brought his hand from my hip to my shoulder—I was relieved and disappointed at the same time. “He gets nervous, though, but he just channels it into excitement. I just feel like I’m gonna puke whenever I go out there.”
“Not a performer, huh?”
He shook his head. “Nah. Not my thing.” Onstage, Myles fin
ished the chorus, and moved to the middle of the stage, brought his guitar around, and launched into a dazzling solo. “Look at the fucker showing off.”
“He’s amazing. I see why Lexie loves his music.”
“He’s talented all right. What most people don’t realize is that he practices hours a day, every day. He’s got a lot of innate talent, a lot of exposure to music of all kinds, growing up on tour and onstage the way he did, but his skill with a guitar is just that—a skill. He’s not a dazzling virtuoso. Couldn’t play for shit as a kid, just had that voice. But he learned, and he practiced, and he keeps practicing. That’s why he’s so good.”
“Impressive.” I twisted to look up at him.
Didn’t know what to say, I just…it seemed surreal that I was here, side stage, watching Myles North, with a man’s arm around me. Sure, it was just because I couldn’t stay upright on my own, but still.
He glanced down at me, smirked wryly. “What?”
I looked away. “Nothing.”
He stared down. Nodded, after a moment. “Yep.”
I frowned, tilted my head. “Yeah, what?”
“Yeah, I still find you goddamn breathtaking.”
Gulp.
Beat, stupid heart. Beat, damn you. There it was, gone nuts—THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP—like the kick drum on stage.
I swallowed, barely. “Oh.”
He reached, tugged a handful of my braid, but ever so gently. “Just in case you’d forgotten.”
“Nope.”
Weird. A million thoughts were banging around in my brain, but precisely zero of them were exiting my mouth. I just couldn’t seem to manage words. Or intelligent thoughts.
And really, those million thoughts in my head were mainly—meaning entirely—focused on the odd rhythm of my heart when I was around Crow, and the way my thighs kept wanting to press together to relieve myself of the aching heat between them. And his eyes. And the way his hand had felt searing through my clothing to my skin as it rested on my shoulder, and how I wanted it back on my hip.
I must still be super-duper drunk, because I couldn’t figure out why I was so bizarrely and strongly affected by him.