Hard Rock Roots Box Set (37 page)

The power flashes again and this time, it stays off for a moment and the emergency lights kick in, kissing my blue-black hair with red, highlighting my tattoos, bathing me in beautiful crimson light. I drop the microphone and tear off my shirt. I'll admit, I'm a little lost in my frenzy, but that's alright. That's what the crowd came here to see, so that's what they're going to get. Me. Bloody, my heart beating outside my chest. They better take a close look because it's the only chance they'll ever get to see it.

“
When she's with me, I am not just a man,
” I slam my fist on my chest and crouch low, shouting my words above the din of the crowd. Ronnie's cymbals ring out bright behind me. Jesse, Trey and Josh keep on strumming it hardcore, even though nobody can hear them, even though it's a serious tonal fuck up. Doesn't matter. Right here, in this moment, the music has transcended amps and speakers and cords and wires. It's all soul in here, baby. All torn up, twisted, fucked up soul. “
I am part of a whole, a LIVING, breathing, FUCKING bit of the universe. And all because of my one woman, my ONLY woman.
” I'm on my knees now and I'm screaming, just shouting this shit out, my voice cracking and breaking like glass, like my balls never dropped and I'm a damn kid again.

The power switches on again and I roll on my back, reaching above my head and using the cord that's wrapped around my wrist to drag the mic back to me. Sweat pours down my face and clings to my lashes, runs my black liner down my face and teases the star tattoos at my hairline.

“
She was there for me when the world was dead.
”

“
When the world died!
” My boys back me up with the lyrics I wrote but never understood. I just sang 'em and I
felt
them. Now, I get it. Might seem stupid. Might even seem like a crock. I don't know much about Naomi, right? Things could get screwed up between us. But you know what? It doesn't matter. When love takes hold of you and bites down, you may as well just surrender because if you fight it, you're fighting the one thing on this earth that's worth living for.

“
She was with me when I was rotten on the inside, when I bled black blood and told white lies. She was with me when the sky fell and the day turned to night, when the seven plagues descended upon me, my one woman was there.
”

And off it goes again, the power fails and succumbs to nature's infinite power. I hope we have fucking generators or some shit because I think that tonight, she's given all that she'll give. It's our turn to take a step back and reevaluate things.

“
And when I go to bed,
” I growl, hoping that somebody can hear, that there's at least one person in this screaming, shouting mass that's absorbing my voice, my words. “
With my only woman, I taste the sweetness and the shame. My one woman's a fine wine to my caving, aching, suffering pain.
” It's so loud in here now that I can't hear the words that are tumbling from my lips, getting caught on my tongue ring and my lip rings, snaking out into the warm air like curses and blessings both. When I lift my chin up, I can see people scrambling around backstage, struggling to get some sense of order going in here.

I roll around onto my belly and unhook the mic from my wrist.

The song is still inside of me, begging to get out, clawing at my throat with hooked claws, but if there's nobody to hear it, I'm holding it in. I want
someone
to listen to me, to understand what I'm going through.

I push up to my knees and gaze out at the crowd. They're in a full on riot now, shouting my name, calling out to me, cussing, screaming, kicking, biting. It's a madhouse down there and I am King. I swipe my arm across my face and glance over to my right. There's a figure emerging from the darkness of the stage entrance, bathed in dark shadows and bloody red flickers of dying light. I look back over the crowd. They're going to start evacuating this place soon, before this pit of demons turns on itself.

“Turner.”

My head snaps to the right. That voice … There is no fucking way. In this craziness, I'm imagining things. I stare hard, squint my eyes and try to focus.

The power flares to blinding brightness for a second, highlighting blonde hair, orange-brown eyes. And then it's gone again and I'm rising to my feet, stumbling towards the figure with my arms outstretched. I can't see
shit.
I trip over one of the lines of tape that keep the cords down and fall against a heaving chest.

As soon as my hands touch her bare skin, I know who this is. Without a doubt, I know I'm looking at Naomi Knox.

My hands slide up on either side of her wet face as I gasp for breath and try to still my whirling mind.

“Naomi,” I whisper as I caress her skin and hot tears slide from my eyes and fall down my face. I can't fucking believe I'm standing up here onstage
crying
like a little bitch. But I can't help it. I can't reign it in and neither can she.

“Turner,” she whispers, and I just want to hug the shit out of her, squeeze her so tight that she melds into my skin. I've
got
to fuck her, just so I can feel her body hot and warm around mine, so I can promise myself that she's really here, that she's really okay. She's back. She's back, and I'm the first person she came to. She came to
me.

Heat and electricity sear through us both where we're touching, and I'm pretty fucking sure that the lightning in the sky must be hitting this church and surging through us both, filling us up with energy and want and need and hollow friggin' desperation.

I kiss her lips hard, press my hot sweaty ones against her cold wet ones and I taste her, eat her up as my cock rises to meet her, to grind against her soft body. If she's crying, too, I don't know, but she's here, she's just fucking here and I'm never letting go of her again.

Reluctantly, I drop my hands from her face and wrap my arms tight around her, pulling her into me, holding so tight I'm sure I'd break any other woman. But not Naomi. Naomi Knox is unbreakable.

“I missed you so fucking much,” I tell her, but she doesn't respond, not right away. She feels cold and a little weak, and parts of her are bruised and bloody. I don't know what happened, but I'm going to find out. I kiss her again, locking my lips tight with hers as the power goes on and off again, killing our night vision, hiding me and my only woman in plain sight. She kisses me back, fierce as fuck, biting at me, nibbling my lips, crashing her teeth against mine. Her nails dig into the bare skin of my back and draw blood as we stumble back and slam into the mass of curtain that hangs down from on high.

The fabric envelopes us, draws us in as I press her back tight to the wall and move against her, feeling her soft breasts through her shirt, her tight ass beneath my fingers. She holds herself with her arms around my shoulders and pulls away for a moment to take a breath.

“I thought you were going to come save me,” she says. “How stupid was that?” With a growl, I lift her up and slam her hard against the wall, too hard maybe, but it's hard to think with all of this adrenaline and power surging through us both. Behind me, the crowd keeps yelling, fighting to get to the stage, rallying against the bouncers. Things are getting dangerous in here, but I don't care. I can't stop. All I can see is Naomi Knox.

“Oh, shit, babe, that's not fucking stupid at all. I've been looking for you since you went missing. I'd have crossed the world for you, walked on fire, crawled across a bed of pins and needles. Fuck, I mean just
fuck,
Naomi.” I press my forehead into hers as she digs through my hair and tangles her fingers up, tugging at my scalp with ferocious anger.

“Why?”

It's such a simple word, but there's no simple answer for this. If I could, I'd slice myself open and just spill my insides out on the floor. That mass of glittering entrails would be my answer, that bloody, pulsing mess. I just
exist
for this woman. I can't even believe I ever met her and let her go. I should've held onto her tight and kept her forever. If she'd have me, that is. A woman like Naomi, man, she can't be caged. If she stays, it's because she wants to. And I want her to want to.

“Naomi Knox, I told you before. I lived crooked, so I see straight. I was blind, so now I fucking see.” I kiss her again, but she doesn't return the favor. Instead she drops one hand between us and unbuttons my pants. Thank the fucking gods I don't ever wear underwear.

“That doesn't make any sense,” she hisses, grabbing my lower lip between her teeth. She glances up at me and her eyes are just this side of wet, just moist enough that I think something could grow in there, turn that desert into a forest. “You're lucky you sing good.”

Her hand strokes my cock, slides down the slick, sweaty shaft and cups my balls. She isn't being gentle when she squeezes them, and I grit my teeth, watching her face, her semi-crooked nose, her lips that remind me of a strawberry, red and round and juicy as shit. I drop her feet to the floor and she uses her other hand to pull off my shades, switching them to her face and sliding them up her nose.

“What happened?” I whisper through the crashing and the grunting and the screeching behind us. Here, wrapped in these curtains, we may as well be in a different world. I let my hand fall between us and go for her jeans. She lets me unbutton them but stops me when she sees the bracelets.

“Mrs. Turner Campbell?” she asks, voice hardening, coming out of this strange, electrical fog we're both tangled in. I slip one off and pull her hand from my cock, sliding the bracelet over her thin, bruised and bloody wrist. She tries to jerk away, but I pull her back hard and kiss her again, shoving her pants down, pulling her against me and dropping us to our knees. Naomi comes with and lets me lay her there on that stage, lets me pull her acid washed jeans off one leg as I press my half-naked sweaty body against hers.

“There can be only one,” I tell her as she groans into my mouth and pulls me inside of her, wrapping her legs around me and forcing my cock where she wants it to go. I glide into her slick pussy so easy it's almost criminal. The ride is smooth and wet, soaking me, drenching me in her as people scream and clamber over one another. As the violence out there gets worse, the heat in here intensifies, burns me up from the inside out, washes over me and threatens to bathe me in flames. Neither of us is thinking clearly. We're just desperate to feel each other, to connect to that other half and walk whole, standing tall on two strong legs.

Naomi lets her head fall back and sucks in a deep breath, clenching tight around me, holding me inside her as I drop my lips to her throat and kiss away the rain.

“Turner!” I hear Trey shouting my name, but I don't respond. Anything outside of this is inconsequential, blurry and smudged compared to this straight line, this clarity of character and self. I'm so fucking glad that I'm sober right now. I haven't had sober sex in
years.
It's a whole new experience, like I'm getting my cherry popped all over again. Well, you know, metaphorically speaking.

“Why didn't you come for me?” she asks, sounding confused. We probably shouldn't be doing this. I should be holding her, carrying her back to the bus and making her comfortable. I need to get her food and water and find out what the fuck happened, if … if
anything
happened to her.

I slam my hands on either side of her face, looking down at her with a frown. But it's not for her. It's for me. I let her down. I should've done better.

“Naomi,” I say, and I mean the words that crawl from my trembling lips. “I will spend the rest of my fucking life trying to make that up to you. I'm a drugged up, fucked up, piece of shit asshole, but when I think about you, I want to be better. I want to make things better.”

“Turner!” Trey's still calling out my name, probably terrified that I've been swept up in that writhing mass of hell. Little does he know I'm in fucking heaven right now.

Naomi and I grunt and grind and slam our bodies together in the most wicked of ways. My cock pummels her pussy and my balls slap her ass, creating a kind of sinful music that's impossible to recreate, no matter how hard we try. And trust me, I do try. With every snarl, every growl, every well-placed riff and slamming melody, we're trying to find this perfect note of love and sex, infuse it into the crowd so they can greedily gobble up a taste.

I savor Naomi's bare body, wondering if it felt this good the night we first met, when I took her virginity without even knowing it. But everyday, my memory gets better, pulled up from the vault of my mind, stored away carefully until I was ready for it. I pound her sweet flesh hard and she covets mine, clamping down around me and taking me prisoner. We rut like animals in heat, fucking and slamming and melting into each other until that pleasure builds up and hits us hard. I grunt and grind into her, spilling my seed and my anger and my pent up frustration, my longing and my misery and my hope, all of it shoots inside of her as she claws at my neck and arches her back. She's the most beautiful fucking thing I've ever seen, stretched out beneath me, filled with me, covered in sweat, soaking my crotch with her hot juices.