Bullet (59 page)

“Are you kidding?  Ethan?  The guy who fucked around on me more than once?  We haven’t been together in a long time, Brad.  That ship sailed a long time ago.”

“And then there’s Jet…”

“Jet?  Seriously?  Brad, he and I broke up…almost a year ago.”

“Bullshit.  You guys hooked up again last…November or December, wasn’t it?”

I sighed and tried not to roll my eyes.  “We made out.  That was it.
And we decided friends only.”

“And the band, Val.  That’s why we stayed away in the first place.”

“That was
your
idea, and if mine and Ethan’s fucked-up relationship hasn’t ruined the band…”  I was starting to feel pissed.  I took a sip of my water.  “Know what?  You don’t want to, just grow a fucking pair and say so.”  I stood.  “Jesus.”

“Val, that’s not it—”

“Good night, Brad.”  I walked to the front door and left without looking back.

I stormed down the hall the few feet to my room.  God, was I angry.  It made me remember that saying, that hell hath no fury.  Yeah, but I
wasn’t just a woman scorned; I was a woman spurned.  And, yeah, it stung.  And from all people.

When I got to my room, I decided I was going to brush my teeth and go to bed, and I’d play some angry music on my iPod to help me drift off to sleep.  So when I got done brushing, I took off my shoes and peeled off my pants and turned back the covers.

There was a knock at the door.

And I was pretty sure I knew who it was before I even got out of bed.
  Still, just to be sure, I looked out the peephole.  Yep, it was Brad.

So what should I do?  Should I answer it and let him explain to me what he’d wanted to say back there?  Or should I just pretend I didn’t hear the door and go to bed?  He could still say what he had to in the morning.

But Brad and I didn’t have a relationship like that, and that’s why I opened the door.  We’d always been open and honest with each other, even when it hurt, and I wasn’t going to stop now.  I took a deep breath, trying to remove the sour woman-scorned look off my face, and pulled it open.

I could tell just from his expression that he hadn’t expected to see me without my pants.  But he was cool about it.
  Frankly, he’d seen more of my skin onstage, so I wasn’t concerned.  “Can I come in?”

I nodded, pulling the door open enough for him to pass through, and then I closed it.  I wasn’t going to say a word.  I was going to let him spit it out, get it off his chest, and then let him go.  There was no sense in prolonging the agony.

We walked to the center of the room and faced each other.  “I
know
you’re not with those guys now, but that doesn’t mean your heart’s not.”  I just stared at him, hoping my face looked unamused if nothing else.  “And I promised your dad.”

I couldn’t help myself.  I started laughing.  “That was over two years ago, Brad.”

“I don’t know what’s so funny.”

I cocked my head.  “Seriously?  Brad, he was worried about my virtue and of some guy forcing me to do something I didn’t want to do.”  I couldn’t help myself.  W
ith him there and my mind roaming back to what I’d been considering earlier, my eyes wandered back to his lips.  “Do I look unwilling to you?”  I stared into his eyes again, challenging.

He was struggling.  I could see it.  Time to kick him while he was down.  I continued, “I might not remember what he said word for word, but three words stuck in my mind—
without her consent
.  Know why I remember that?”  He shook his head.  “Because up until that point in my life, I’d been told how premarital sex was a sin, and I should save my virginity for marriage, although my mom decided to spring on me right before college that if I loved a boy, it would be enough.”  I inched toward him.  Holy shit.  Why was I being so ballsy?  “For my dad to throw in that he’d kill anyone who touched me without my consent…well, that kinda blew everything else out of the water.”  I was just a breath away from Brad when I said, “So give me one
good
reason why we shouldn’t do this.”

His voice was soft.  “I can’t.”

That was all I needed to hear.  I snaked my hand around his neck, but I didn’t force him to bend his head down to kiss me.  He did that all on his own.

His lips touched mine, but this time it didn’t stop there.  His kiss was passionate, just as I’d suspected it would be.  There had been so much between us for so long, so much we’d denied and buried and pretended wasn’t there, and now we were just going to let it play out.
  So I wasn’t surprised when our kisses weren’t sweet and tender and were instead forceful and demanding.  And I was pulling the bottom of his t-shirt up before I even realized I was doing it.

He helped.  I’d seen that chest a lot over the last few years, because he would take it off onstage a lot, especially during summer months.  I knew he was rock hard
, and I’d noted each new tattoo as it had appeared on him.  Brad had always had a beautiful body, but I’d tried to pretend it didn’t affect me at all.

Now, though…now that I had unfettered access, I was going to play.  But he wasn’t fucking around either.  He too started pulling my shirt over my head
, and I lifted up my arms and helped throw it on the floor once it was at my wrists.  As soon as it was off my head, Brad bent at the knees and, hands on the back of my thighs, lifted me up.  My body seemed to fit his perfectly, my legs wrapped around his torso as he walked toward my bed.

He lay me down on the bed so that my knees draped over the edge.  I felt like I was going to melt into the mattress.  He kissed me on the lips again, and then he moved to my neck and just by touching the skin there, my breathing grew more erratic.  But he moved down, his moist lips brushing my collarbone, then the t
op of my breast.  I sighed and arched my back as he reached behind my back to undo the clasp.

One of my hands was in his hair, the fingers lazily looped in his locks, but the other hand was helping me maintain control.  The tips of my ring and middle finger were in my mouth
, and I was biting down on them just enough to keep me from losing it and either grabbing Brad by the shoulders and ordering him to fuck me or just doing my best to rape him.  No…I had to hold it together.  And so, as he pulled the bra off my shoulders and arms with excruciating slowness, I wasn’t surprised when first a sigh escaped my lips and then a groan as his mouth touched one of my nipples.

It was maddening, and I wondered now why I’d told Brad no all those years ago.  But as his lips moved to my cleavage and his tongue traced a thin trail down my belly, that thought flitted away.  Sweet Jesus…he wasn’t wasting any time
, and yet I still felt impatient and needy.  It had been too long since I’d been with a man and to have it be this one in my bed…my brain couldn’t process it.

His hands were on both sides of my panties
, and I lifted up my hips to help him slide them off.  I was so glad I was wearing some of my cuter panties.  If they weren’t on display onstage, I wasn’t always so worried, but tonight I’d been wearing a pair of lacy black boyshorts.  I knew they were flattering on me, and some subconscious part of me was grateful they were what I had on.

I highly doubt he even noticed the damn things, though.  And then I realized that—
oh, my God
—he was going for the coup de grace.  He wasn’t going to take his time and introduce me to mini Brad.  No…his tongue was headed straight for my pussy, and I wasn’t going to stop him.  I just hoped I’d be able to keep it together enough to not orgasm after one touch.

He slid off the bed
, and he moved his hands under my ass to pull my bottom to the edge.  I was close to writhing, but I managed to keep it together.  Then I felt his fingers manipulating my labia, and I let out a sigh that was louder than it should have been, somehow laced with a bit of a desperate cry.  I wanted him.  I needed him, and I doubted I’d ever been this desperate for a man’s touch before.

That first tongue stroke.  Delicious.  Maddening.  Made me cry out for mercy.  But he didn’t stop.  No.  And it took me a second to figure out what else he was doing, because he was creating a sensation I’d never felt before.  And then I puzzled it out.  Holy shit.  Somehow, he was sucking on my clitoris, that tiny little flap of skin down there and it was excruciating.  I was already ready to slip off the edge into that wild abandon of orgasm, but I gritted my teeth and willed myself against it.  I felt my hands balling up the sheets into my fists, fighting against it, not wanting it to end so soon, but then I thought of Brad again and that was it.  I gave in to the pleasure and moaned aloud as a wave of nirvana took over my body and transported my mind into outer space.

As one wave after another came crashing over me with each delicious tongue stroke (for he’d stopped the technique that had driven me out of my mind), I was more aware of him.  He had one arm on my right thigh and it felt possessive; the other hand was splayed on my belly, just underneath my left breast.  I didn’t see them; I felt them.  And then the orgasm began to wave, and that’s when I was aware that I was probably the loudest I’d ever been, and I was crying his name over and over in between grunts of some other language I’d never learned but surely communicated what I was feeling.

Yeah…I could die now.

Chapter Thirty-six

GOD, BRAD HAD
never looked so cute, so sexy, so fucking gorgeous than that moment when I opened my eyes and saw him moving in for the kill.  I thought,
Take me.  Yes, take me.

He was over me on all fours, straddling me
, having dragged me back up to the middle of the bed.  I wound my fingers through his hair.  I didn’t want to be crude or demanding, although inside I
was
brimming with demands.  Suddenly, the night was young.  The best, the sweetest request I could make was to tell him, “I want to feel you inside me, Brad.”  He was already on it, though, reaching for the wallet in his pocket, hanging on the chain draping off his jeans.

He leaned over to kiss me
, and my free hand was sliding over his chest, appreciating the feel of the hard muscle under the smooth skin against my fingers. 

He threw his wallet on the bed next to me and broke away from my
kiss.  “Just a sec.”  I looked to see him peering into and feeling in his wallet.  “You fucking kidding me?”

I felt the expression on my face change.  I knew what he was referring to without even asking, but somehow I had to hear the words for it to become a reality.  “What?”

He looked pained.  “I don’t suppose you have any condoms, do you?”

Shit.  When I’d been
with Ethan, I’d trained myself to carry them so Ethan’s concealed weapon couldn’t harm me, but Jet had always been prepared, so I had gotten out of the habit.  I winced.  “No.”  I took in a deep breath as he continued to look in his wallet, hoping against hope he’d miscalculated and surely there was one more there…right?

Well, that shouldn’t stop us.  No, I didn’t want him coming inside me, but I saw no reason
for a lack of condom to interrupt us.  “I could—”

He shook his head.  He was fighting it.  His jaw was clenched.  “No.”  I saw him swallow.  “
I can go buy some.  I wonder if there are any here in the public restrooms in the hotel.”

I was still breathless from my orgasm.  “I bet the gift shop would have some.”

“They’re long since closed, Val.  Gotta be.”

He was pretty calm for a guy on the edge.  I’d give him that.  “Well, uh…
a convenience store, maybe?  There’s gotta be one nearby.  I saw a Walmart too.  They’d have one for sure.”

“Yeah.  Okay.  You don’t mind waiting?”

I almost laughed.  I’d just had a crazy orgasm, and he was asking me if
I’d
mind waiting?  “I’m coming with you.”

I saw a smile touch the corners of his eyes.  “You will?”

“Yeah…only fair, right?”  I kissed him.  That probably wasn’t the best idea, but I couldn’t help myself.  His eyes…they were wild.  “You sure you can drive?”

He nodded
, but I didn’t know that he was too sure.  He sat up, and I jumped off the bed.  I pulled my t-shirt up off the floor and slid it over my head and then dashed to the bathroom where I knew my jeans were and slid them up over my hips.  Fuck the underwear—no bra, no panties.  We were in a hurry.  I glanced at myself in the mirror.  My hair was a little mussed but
damn
did I look satisfied.  And I knew it was probably just the beginning.

Back in the other room, I searched in my luggage and found the one pair of sandals I’d brought with me.  Every other shoe I had was mostly for the stage or
too-hot-for-July metal stuff—boots, mostly—too much for a sultry summer evening.

By the time I had the shoes on, he was ready to go, save adjusting himself in his jeans.  “You
gonna be okay?”

He chuckled, and it seemed such an easy laugh, in spite of what I knew he must be feeling.  “Thanks for being a good sport, Val.”

I’d grabbed my room card and stuffed it in my back pocket, then grabbed his hand to lead him to the door.  “
I’m
the good sport?  Do you not know what you just did to me?”