Hard Rock Roots Box Set (76 page)

“Because I'm a rock star,” is all he says, and although I don't know that I'd want a BJ with a condom on, I take it and open it up, slipping it over his cock and watching as the muscles in his belly contract in anticipation.

“Bottoms up,” I say and Ronnie chuckles, tangling his fingers in my hair and guiding his swollen dick into my mouth. I reach up and cup his ass, using my position on the floor as a free pass to feel him up. There are tattoos everywhere down here that beg exploring. I let my fingertips play over his thighs, tease his balls. The whole situation reminds me of the utility closet, and I pause, remembering the way he slumped against the wall, how he stayed silent through most of it. The Ronnie here is a completely different person, or at least he's trying to be. He's standing tall and straight, body hard and unyielding, and the sounds that escape his throat are pure pleasure. I want to pretend that some of this change is because of me, but that's impossible, right?

“Lola,” he groans, letting his head fall back and his eyes close. “Fuck.” I slide my mouth back, using my saliva as lube to pump his cock with my hand.

“You better damn well tell me how amazing I am because a condom for a BJ is a prostitute move. You're lucky I'm not feeling pissy about it.” Ronnie lets go of my hair and grabs my wrist with his hand, pausing my movement. He looks down at me and our eyes meet. The world around me spins, and even though I try to blame it on the hot heat of the shower, I don't know if that's true.

“It's not to protect me, Lola,” he says, yanking me to my feet with almost no effort. My body slams into his, my bare breasts pressing up against his torso, skin to skin, hard to soft.
Feels so damn good.
“It's to protect you.”

And then he throws me down over the countertop and steps up behind me, grabbing my hips and sliding his wet dick into my pussy. The pleasure release is intoxicating, like I'm getting high, shooting up with a hit of Ronnie fucking McGuire. He moves inside of me, nice and slow this time, getting deep, burying himself as far as he can go. I can feel my ass jiggling with each thrust, feel the power in his body and suddenly, I feel the desperate need to see him. My hands come up and brush the mirror, wiping away the fog and the condensation enough that I can see him behind me, can meet his eyes in the mirror and watch his muscles move. The water droplets sliding down my skin feel like bits of molten flame, burning pathways into my flesh. My breasts are crushed against the countertop, taut nipples scraping over the yellow granite.

I'm not going to sugarcoat it. I've been with a lot of men in my life. Maybe too many. But none of them have made me feel like this, made my body quiver like jelly, blown my fucking mind with a couple of thrusts and a throaty growl that curls my toes. Ronnie McGuire is the wrong sort of guy, the one that your dad warns you about when you're a kid, like a monster hiding in the closet waiting to leap out and grab your snatch. He's got too many fucking kids, done too many drugs, and been disconnected from life for so long that it's like he's still stumbling around, disoriented. But that's what I like about him. He might be twenty-eight years old, but he's got the fresh feeling of new life around him today. The smell alone is making my head spin and my heart soar. It's infectious.

“Tell me you don't hate me,” I groan, slamming my hips back against him, feeling the sweat on his torso, the crush of his fingers. Drumming makes strong arms, and Ronnie's are like steel, locking me in place, holding me down and grinding my body into dust.

“I don't hate you, doll,” he groans, slapping against me, melting into me. “Far from it. I think I like your face.”

“Like your face more,” I whisper, and I have no idea what we're really talking about.

“Doubt it.”

Ronnie's hand comes around and brushes my clit, drawing a scream from my throat as he goes in balls deep and bumps against my cervix, tingling my bones and shaking me to the core. I imagine Turner and Naomi out there listening in, but do you want to know how many fucks I give? I'll give you a clue. It's less than one.

“Lola, baby, you're so fucking hot,” he whispers, leaning down over me and scalding my ear with hot heat. “Just looking at you makes me want to shoot my fucking load.”

“Keep preaching to the choir,” I whisper back, looking at him in the mirror, at his dilated pupils, his swollen mouth, his hard nipples. But I like the dirty talk and he knows it. I'm squeezing around him, milking his cock with my body, drawing that fucking stallion seed from his dick. I won't ever admit it aloud, but I think it's hot Ronnie has four kids. It makes me think of him like some sort of Fertile Rock God. If it wasn't the stupidest fucking idea in the world, I'd let him give me a baby. Or maybe I'm just saying that because I'm all wrapped up in primal function and animalistic desire. “And keep fucking me with your fat fucking dick. Fill me up. Come while you're inside me.”

He groans, the sound broken and fractured, like his humanity's being drained out of him, leaving nothing but the most basic desires inside his chest. I put my hands on the counter and brace myself, so there's almost no give, so we're coming together as fast and hard as is physically possible.
God, shit, damn. Ronnie bangs like a dunny door in a storm. I could get really used to this.

I watch him in the mirror, see the skin on his face tightening, his eyes rolling back. I can even see his lips trembling as he grunts, bending over me and slamming down hard, coming inside the condom with one last sound of pleasure. The sight of that, the feel of his hard body inside mine, the rhythm he's pounding out on my clit, it's enough to make me scream, to let loose and pour it all out, my voice echoing around the room and back at me.

This time, the cops don't break down the door.

When they knock, Turner and Naomi answer it for us.

Chapter 15
Ronnie McGuire

Lola Saints is sleeping in my bed while I sit at the end and smoke a cigarette, nothing but a towel wrapped around my body. My friends don't seem to mind which is nice because I can't even imagine putting any clothes on right now. My body's just too hypersensitive. Even the fucking towel is giving me a hard-on. I just want to climb up in bed and fuck Lola again. Not that we haven't had our fair share of time this evening. The bathroom counter, the shower, the bathroom floor.

“Never quite heard a lady scream like that,” Turner says, smoking a joint at the table, Naomi sitting across from him with a beer in her hand. She gives him a look and takes a sip, a lot calmer than she was earlier when she was talking to her manager. Even with Lola finally giving us the all clear to talk to America, we didn't learn anything new. The chick actually flipped out when we started explaining things. She doesn't want to discuss it unless we're in person, so for now, we're playing a waiting game. It's hard, won't lie about that. I wish I could just walk down the hallway now and knock on Cohen Rose's door, beat the shit out of him until he can't get up without some serious assistance from a stretcher. And then I want to get the others, make sure they know exactly where I stand on all this.
Back off or fuck off. Your choice. And if you decide the latter, be prepared for some serious destruction.

“Maybe you're not doing it right?” I ask him and he scowls. I point down at my crotch. “There's this little pink thing there. That's called a clitoris.” Turner picks up a phone book and throws it at me.

“Thanks for the advice, asshat. Let me tell you about another invention out on the market. It's called a condom. Just thought I'd tell you about it since you have like sixty-eight kids or some shit.” I take a drag and blow the smoke out slowly, smiling.

“It's four, Arkansas,” I say, purposely butchering his middle name.
Dakota.
What the fuck ever, right? They're both states. He ignores me this time and drums his fingers on the table. I keep seeing him look over at Lola, like he's not sure what to think. Obviously, he heard us in the bathroom. He must know that I really like her. It was him that slipped that condom in my pocket the first time. I know he wants me to be happy. All my friends do. I know they talk about me behind my back, about how depressed I am, how I'm their worst nightmare. In a way, I feel like I'm at least partially to blame for all the partying and the sleeping around and the general fuck-offery. Nobody wants to end up like poor, pathetic Ronnie. I get it. Love's the last thing any of them ever wanted, but it's the first thing I should've taught them to value. “Have you told anything to Dax yet?” I ask Naomi, and she shakes her head.

“I don't want to stress him out anymore than I have to. He's already thinking he's going to play the show tomorrow night.” Naomi laughs bitterly and Turner narrows his eyes on her. He's jealous over Dax. How fucking precious. “But he can barely walk around without a whole bottle of pain pills. He's bruised to shit, down to the bone.” I grin. A drummer's a drummer, man. We have to do our thing. There's something about the steady beat of the instrument that soothes the soul, helps keep life in check. It's like, if you play to that rhythm, then the world will march to it, too, and everything will just fall together. “I guess we'll fucking see. America really wants us there, but … ” Naomi shrugs.

“I want my bus back,” Turner says randomly, and we all go silent. I don't think there's a single person in this room who doesn't want to get back on the road. Except maybe Lola. I look back at her sleeping face and try to think how I'd feel if I had to play in a band with people I didn't trust. I don't envy her at all. By the time this shit is done, she won't have a band anymore. At least not if I have anything to do with it. “I'm sick of the club rats Trey keeps bringing up to the hotel. I don't know if he's just trying to get my attention or what, but he could do so much better.” Naomi scowls.

“You are such a misogynistic piece of shit sometimes. Who the fuck do you care who he sleeps with anyway? It's not your business. Besides, I hate to tell you this, but your friend isn't all that great anyway.” Turner pinches the joint so hard it looks like it's going to break in half.

“Maybe we should focus on something more productive,” I say, standing up and moving over to the window. I sweep the curtains aside and look out at the city, the scattered glitter of lights and the sense that somewhere, beyond this darkness, there's more life. “Like what our next step is going to be?”

“I say we call the fucker out onstage. Everybody's looking at us right now. Everybody's paying attention. We just tell the crowd that a little birdie told us Tyler Rutledge is trying to kill us and see what happens.” I spin on Turner so fast I almost lose my towel.

“No,” I say, making sure my voice is firm enough that he knows I'm dead serious about this. “You do that, you put us all in even more risk. We don't want this guy to know we're coming, understand?” Turner rolls his eyes, but I'm not sure if he's taking me seriously or not. “Turner?”

“It was just an idea,” he says, holding up his hands like he's all innocence and purity.
What a crock of shit.
“I won't do it if you don't want me to.” He pauses. “Even though I still think it's a good idea.” I stare at him hard, narrowing my eyes. Naomi kicks him in the knee with her foot. Sometimes, when Dakota gets an idea in his head, it sticks there. “Okay, okay, I promise I won't bring Tyler Rutledge up on stage.”

Somehow, I still get the feeling that he's bullshitting me.

It's been exactly ten years, three months, and six days since I slept next to a woman in a bed. Yep. I have four kids, and I haven't actually
slept
with a person of the female persuasion in that long. Not once since Asuka died. I don't mean to have this monumental ball shattering moment; I don't plan it. I just wake up the next morning with my arm around Lola and my morning wood pressing against her ass.

“G'day to you, too,” she whispers, rolling over to face me. Her eyes are squinched shut and her finger's up by her lips. “Listen.” I keep quiet, still reeling from the idea that I crossed a line for myself that I hadn't even known I'd made. And then I broke out of it the same way. That's fucking life for you, isn't it? Always changing her tune, from a ballad to a requiem and back again. I wonder if Asuka would be proud of me. I hope Lola doesn't find it weird that I want to talk about her. I want her to know everything about Asuka Maebara – from her perfect grades to her talent with the piano to her last moments when she died in her car listening to Indecency's first EP. She admitted to studying me, my habits, my kids, so she knows more about me than I probably think she does, but I want to tell her it all anyway, even if she already knows. “Do you hear it?” she whispers again, breaking me out of my thoughts. When I listen closely, I actually do, and it's kind of gross.

“Goddamn it, Turner,” I say, sitting up and throwing one of my pillows onto his bed. The moaning and the grunting stops and then he's sitting up, the blankets falling down his back, revealing paw prints and stars and spiderweb tattoos. At first I thought he was jacking it, but then I see Naomi Knox red faced and embarrassed underneath him. Shit.

“Hey, fuck you, dude. We had to listen to your shit in the bathroom last night. All of that groaning and whimpering and screeching.”