Bullet (43 page)

He nodded.  “Okay.  Good.  Just…you really
are
our muse, Val.  I…”  His voice drifted off, and he stared in his coffee.

“What?”

I saw his jaw clench but then he forced himself to look at me.  “I feel the need to protect you.”

This time I did smile.  “From what?”

He shook his head.  “Lots of things.  I…just want you safe.”

“I
am
safe, right?”  He raised an eyebrow.  “Right?”

“Yeah, sure.  You are.”  But he didn’t believe it, and I knew it stemmed from my torrid relationship with Ethan.  I’d gotten a little better about keeping myself quieter, but those walls were thin
, and we lived in tight quarters.  Brad knew exactly how hard I’d fallen for Ethan, and I think that’s where his concern came from.  “Just…”  He blew air out of his mouth, almost as though he were tired.  “Just remember you have a friend here, okay?”

I smiled and placed my hand on his.  “I know that.”  Of course, Ethan
would
walk in just as I did that.  His eyes narrowed, but he sat down at the table without saying a word.  I pulled my hand back to myself and took a sip of my coffee.  “Hey, how’d you sleep?”

He shrugged.  “
For shit.”

Brad said, “There’s plenty of coffee if you want it.”

“Nah.  I
know
what I want.”

Brad and I glanced at each other.  I knew what he was thinking.  He might have been right, that Ethan was craving some synthetic pick-me-up, but I thought he might have also been talking about sex with me.  He hadn’t even looked at me in any such way that would indicate it.  It was just a feeling I had.

Brad was in no mood, though.  “Think it through, man.”

Ethan rolled his eyes.  “Fuck off, Bradley.”

I was starting to grow weary of the constant friction between the two alpha males of the household.  I felt like I was walking on pins and needles while they continually picked at each other.  Before Brad had a chance to say anything else, I said, “Can we please stop?”

Brad sighed.  “I
gotta go to work anyway.”  He stood up and rinsed out his coffee cup.  “Nice talkin’ with ya, Val.”

I was a little ticked with Ethan for pushing Brad away.  I knew Brad cared for Ethan just as much as he did for me, if not more.  But Ethan just couldn’t see past his own ego.  After the front door closed, Ethan wrapped his hand around my neck.  His eyes were intense.  “So what’s going on with you and my bro?”

Was he
jealous
?  “Nothing.  You know Brad and I are close.”

His voice was low.  “I know you
were
very close.  Anything I should be worried about?”

“No.  Of course not.”  I sighed.  “Don’t be that way, Ethan.”

“
What
way?”

“Possessive and covetous.”

He raised an eyebrow and sported a cockeyed smile.  “Covetous?”

“Yeah.  I’m with
you
, Ethan.  I
love
you.”

His smiled turned lascivious.  “Then let’s go fuck.”

I didn’t know that I cared for his crude way of asking, but the look in his eyes changed my mind.  I’d finally bought my own stash of condoms that I kept in the nightstand next to my bed, and I insisted on using them.  In the past month, I’d enjoyed multiple orgasms and had had sex in several different spots in our apartment, in various different positions. I’d even managed to successfully deliver in the blowjob department. I was enjoying exploring my sexuality with Ethan, and he was open to anything I suggested.  When I needed him to, he took it slowly, and he somehow knew exactly what I needed—how and when.

So, even though I’d need to get ready for work in the next half hour, I thought I could give him that time
.  So I stood up and grabbed his hand, leading him to my bedroom.

The door wasn’t even closed when he had his hand wrapped around my neck
again and started kissing me hard on the lips.  Just like always, though, I was primed and ready to go.  It didn’t take much anymore.  Just looking at him or thinking about him was enough to get me aroused.

He kissed me a few times and then I started unbuttoning his jeans.  He reached under my robe and pulled down my panties
, and I wondered…the floor, the bed, the stool by the mirror?  But no.  He grabbed me by the shoulders and turned me around to face the wall.

Now…I was game for trying new things.  This whole thing had been entirely new to me a month ago.  But this didn’t feel like play.  It felt like punishment, particularly because it felt like he
’d slammed me up against the wall without any regard for me.  He was inside me in a matter of seconds, pounding into me with fury.  Yes, maybe I was reading it all wrong, but it didn’t feel right.  It felt like he was angry with me.

But then, just as I was getting ready to ask him what the fuck was going on, he held me with passion.  He kissed me on the neck ravenously, one hand massaging my left
breast, the other moving below.  He continued pumping into me, but he was stroking my clitoris and, no matter how upset I was that I felt like he was taking his frustrations out on me, I couldn’t help that I was going to orgasm.  There was no stopping it.

My hands had been splayed up against the wall, but as I gave in to my basest desires, I reached behind me and drove my fingers into his hair.  In seconds, I cried out as I climaxed.  He
slowed as he came too and leaned me into the wall.  His hot breath was in my ear, his hands holding me aggressively and as though he didn’t want to let me go.  It wasn’t until he withdrew that I realized he hadn’t worn a condom.

And then
I
was angry.  I didn’t want to be like my friend Jill.  I didn’t want to have to make the decision to have an abortion…or not.  I didn’t want to have to beg Ethan for his help with an unwanted baby.  No matter what the press said, I knew the pill wasn’t one-hundred percent reliable.  I didn’t want to have to worry about that—or if Ethan’s indiscretions would give me some nasty STD I’d have to contend with.  I was pissed.  We’d had this conversation before, too many times.

I struggled against his rough hands and finally managed to turn around.  “Ethan, what the hell?  Where’s the condom?”

He wasn’t with me.  His mind was off somewhere else.  He looked angry…and then he looked far away.  He didn’t answer at first.  He looked like he was going to start yelling.  And that’s when I said, “Oh, my God.  You’re high, aren’t you?  What the hell?”  I reached down and pulled my panties up from where they were sagging against my ankles.  “Get out of here, Ethan.  I have to get ready for work.”

“Come on, babe.  Don’t be mad.”

“Seriously.  Get the hell out.”  And when he finally left, I leaned against the door.  I couldn’t make the tears stop falling.

* * *

We didn’t have any more incidents like that during the fall.  It was back to business—and love—as usual.  Yeah, we were uncomfortable in the apartment, but we were playing some good gigs and getting to know a lot of fellow bands.  We even played a wedding reception.  The happy couple liked to bang their heads, as did a good many of their guests.  I felt out of place without any tattoos or piercings, and that inspired me to get my first tattoo—just a simple tribal armband on my upper right arm.  But in addition to the usual venues, we played a few strange gigs like that.  I wasn’t complaining—Brad kept us working.  The money from the music wasn’t great, but it was something.  We were making just as much off our merch as we were the playing the shows themselves.

Money was tight
, and Brad sat the guys down one day, urging them to find jobs.  “It’s no problem for
me
, man, to withhold your part of the rent, utilities, and groceries, and then give you what’s left.”

Ethan rolled his eyes.  “So just
do
it.  If we need more money, we’ll figure it out.”

Brad kept his cool.  “You better hope I’m able to keep booking enough that it
does
cover all that shit.  Otherwise, I’ll kick your ass out.”

Ethan just glared and lit up a cigarette.  Oh, yeah.  That was something else.  I knew he’d smoked on occasion, but he undertook it as a regular activity that fall as well.  I suppose it was a cheaper addiction to feed when compared with some of his other preferred activities.  I didn’t know for sure, though, because I’d never purchased them myself.

One afternoon when Brad was at work and I had the day off, Nick and Zane had gone somewhere—to pick up some beer for that night after the gig maybe.  I thought maybe it would be a nice chance for Ethan and me to just talk.  Things were feeling strained between us, and I just wanted to discuss what was going on.

He was on Brad’s laptop in the living room
, and he was oblivious to me as I walked into the room.  It didn’t help that he had some Chelsea Grin blaring out of the speakers.  He did that a lot, and I wasn’t sure why or how he was able to tune me out.  He sat on the couch, and so I was able to walk in and sit next to him.  He was absorbed, and so I decided to kiss his neck, get his attention.  But that’s when I noticed what he was doing.  He had up some Yellow Pages-type listing, and he had an entire page of people named
Richards
.

“Looking for family?”

As though he were pulled into the moment, he slammed the lid of the laptop down.  “Nothing you need to worry about.”

I was taken aback.  “I was just asking.”
  He set the laptop on the floor and kissed me with a hunger…or a vengeance.  I’m not sure which.  And he started unbuttoning my jeans.  “Not here, Ethan.”

“No one’s here right now, Val.”

“I don’t care.  They could be back at any minute.  I really don’t want them walking in if we’re in the middle of making love.”

“Oh, is that what we’re calling it?  Making love?”  I just looked at him and then stood up.  “Don’t you like it when I fuck you?”

I could feel the anger rising in my chest.  He was being a dick, something he’d been taking a shine to.  “Fuck
you
.”  I walked away, straight to my room.  If nothing else, my relationship with Ethan inspired some killer lyrics and writing about it was good therapy, so I intended to do just that.

I heard him following me.  Odds were he’d grab me by the arm and kiss me hard until I relented and grew amorous.  It had happened enough by now that I knew that was usually how it played out.

Instead, right outside my room, he touched my arm.  “Val, I’m sorry.  I’m sorry I’m such an asshole sometimes.”

I was still stinging.  “
Sometimes?
”

He answered me with a kiss, and it was sweet and soft.  “I’m not really an asshole
all
the time, am I?”

I pursed my lips together, trying not to smile.  The last couple of weeks, yes.  He’d been a constant asshole.  I raised my eyebrows but managed not to say a thing.

“Really?”  He pulled me close, resting my head on his shoulder.  “I’m sorry, Val.  I just let everything get to me.”  He kissed the top of my head.  “I guess it makes me a real jerkwad.”  He held me close.  “Let me make it up to you.”

I muttered up against his chest.  “And just how do you plan on doing that?”

I could hear the smile in his voice.  “I have my ways.”  He lifted my hair up off my shoulder and back and kissed the exposed skin on my neck.  Damn it.  In the short time I’d even been sexual, he’d figured out what buttons to push.  Kissing my neck always made me melt and there went the anger.  And his hands went straight to the button on my jeans again.  I was at a melting point and wanted to insist we go to my room, but I was so hot at that moment, I
did
just want him to fuck me.  So I too was clawing at the button on his pants and not worrying that we still stood in the hallway just inches shy of my room.

He ripped my panties down, just barely enough for him to squeeze in.  And he tried
to sneak in without protection.  “No, Ethan.  Condom.”

He rolled his eyes.  “Fuck me.”

“That’s what I’d like to do…but
with
a condom.”  How I found the wherewithal to insist, I’d never know.  And he was pissed, but he whipped his wallet out of his back pocket and snatched a condom out.  He threw the wallet on the floor and tore the condom out of its package.  Yeah…he was as desperate as I was.

I could still hear the music coming from the living room.  It only added to my feeling of desperation—the hard, driving beat, the heavy guitar.

He lifted me up and slid me in and I gasped.  Oh, God, yes.  That was it.  I heard a tiny moan form in my throat.

“Play with yourself,” he said.

In between breaths, I asked, “What do you mean?”

God, his eyes were sexy.  “Touch yourself.  Pretend I’m going down on you.”

I looked at him.  Oh, God, yeah.  That would make for an amazing orgasm, wouldn’t it?  So as he slammed his lips down on mine, I did his bidding and shoved my hand between our bodies, snaking it down to the area that I knew now ruled me, dominated me.  My head was shoved against the wall.  His lips were mashed into mine, his hands holding me up under my arms, cutting into my skin.  And yet it all felt so good.  Then I crawled my fingers the last few inches until they were in that tight, sweaty space.  As I felt my way around and discovered that little nub I’d never touched before, I let myself imagine Ethan working his magic on me.  And how fucking intense that was.  He was in me, but I was lighting myself up.  Holy shit.  It was more than I could take, and I screamed in pleasure.