Hung Out: A Needles and Pins Rock Romance (15 page)

P
eople swarmed the edgy interior of the club. The band was destroying their set. Alcohol might as well have been flowing from a waterfall as plentiful as it was. Everyone held a drink, some two. They leaned against the bar. Sat in booths or on high stools. Danced or bobbed heads to the music.

It wasn’t his scene tonight. However, coming out of his cave for New Year’s Eve was logical in many ways. Rubbing elbows with people of the industry was something he needed to take seriously. He’d done the session Jax had mentioned, as well as the one with Green Envy. He had less than a week to commit or not to the Rattler gig. What he wanted was his own gig or at least one in an established band.

From his corner of the VIP area, he scanned the faces, looking for Colt. The woman to one side of him was chattering away, and the blonde beauty on his other side would not shut up about wanting to dance. Five minutes later when Colt’s date returned without Colt, Gage had enough.

“Excuse me.” He motioned to the blonde.

“Yay. Finally!” She clapped her hands as she slid out.

“I’m not dancing. I’m going to the john.”

“You got a bump?” Her head tipped and her lip poked out in a pout.

“No.” Weaving, he lost her in the crowd and kept going.

Between songs, the ten minutes until midnight announcement came and a buzz lit the crowd as everyone scrambled for drinks and position. Position being at their date’s side. Looking back, he saw Colt’s date was still alone. So where was the asshole?

The last thing he wanted was to make a new year’s toast with some skank he didn’t know. After taking the fastest piss ever, he emerged from the bathroom with the intention of being out of this place by midnight.

“Oh. Sorry.” Automatically, his arms shot out, steadying the woman he’d slammed into. Looking beyond her, when the women’s restroom opened, he watched in disbelief as Scarlette emerged.

The hallway was narrow, and with one sidestep, he blocked Scar’s way just as she noticed him. Her lips parted in surprise, and the sexy action took his mind to other places. Times when they’d parted in pleasure. Or parted in an invitation to deepen their kiss. Or parted right before they went around his cock…

They stood so close, he could feel her body heat. So close, he could look down the generous neckline of her clingy shirt and imagine sliding his cock in the shadowy valley of cleavage. She brought up a hand, flattened it to his chest, a gesture for him to clear the way. But the chemical current zapped her as hard as him. He could tell because she gulped and stepped back, an action aligning her to the wall. If he were a gentleman, he’d step aside. But since he’d never been that, he stepped forward, trapping her between him and the wall.

“I didn’t know you were here.” Her words were breathless.

“I didn’t know you were here,” he returned.

From the main area, the countdown began. Ten. Nine. Eight.

“I need to go.”

Seven.

“What’s your hurry?”

Six.

“I… It’s the New Year countdown…”

Five. Four.

“Yeah. Whatever you’re doing at midnight, you’ll be redoing for the rest of the year.”

Three. Two.

It hadn’t been a conscious effort, so when the pad of his thumb grazed her bottom lip, tingling like fire up his nerve endings, he sucked in a breath.

One.

“Happy New Year, Scar.” His lips collided with hers.

Her lips parted, but before his tongue moved in, they were interrupted.

“Fuck, man. You just steal my girl’s New Year’s kiss?”

He twisted his head just enough to see the man advancing on them, and then returned his attention to Scarlette. Her cheeks flushed, and she held his questioning stare without providing the answer he wanted.
Was she someone’s girl?

Her shove took him by surprise and she twisted to her freedom, sputtering apologies to the dickwad. “Derrick, I’m sorry. I was trying to… That’s―”

“I know who the asshole is.” The other man’s look was soft and worried as it touched over Scarlette’s face, but his eyes hardened to two dark coals when he looked over her to find him looking on.

The stab of a thousand needles pierced his soul when the fucker wrapped her to his side and moved off with her.

Instead of bailing out, Gage returned to the VIP section where he found the two of them swaying on the dance floor to Auld Lang Syne—kissing. Fuck. Why couldn’t he look away?

The song ended, and she laughed at something he was saying as they moved toward the bar. Unable to stop the self-inflicted torture, he opted to stay and watch some more. He even put an arm around each of the women on either side of him—Colt’s date included since he was still gone. But Scarlette never looked over.

She and the asswipe disappeared through the exit after emptying their drinks. The moment they were out of sight, he signaled a server. “Shots all around,” he indicated his table. “A double for me, please.”

“Yay, Gage! I knew you weren’t going to be a grump all night!” The blonde beauty did the annoying handclap thing again.

Steeling his eyebrows from the scowl he felt coming on, he smiled instead. Looking around the table, he considered his prospects for the rest of the night. All were bangable. Extremely. But he was tired of toying around.

Allison eyed him back quietly. Colt had always hated her. But she wasn’t that bad. In fact, if he was looking for a woman to do more than bang him blind and then disappear, he could see himself hanging out with Allison.

“Want to dance?” He didn’t break their gaze.

“Sure!”

“Hey!” Blondie protested. “I’ve been wanting to all night.”

“Tough titties.” Allison slammed down her shot and eased out of the booth.

Gage hardened himself against a niggling feeling of guilt and ignored the blonde’s eyes boring into the side of his head as he downed his own shots and stood. He was doing the right thing for once. If he wasn’t, he’d have taken Goldilocks home and somewhere in the midst of sticking his dick in one of her lovely holes, he would have given her the spiel to be gone by morning light. Instead, he was going to make an attempt at dating Allison.

W
ere we dating?

I considered the question when Logan shrugged out of his jacket and draped it over my shoulders as I stepped from his car. He had invited me to a movie, but we had ended up at a club supporting the gig of a friend of his.

My fingers lifted, twisting the guitar pick pendant on the necklace he’d given me for Christmas, and we walked close enough to brush elbows as we paced toward the house. Colored Christmas lights glowed although the holiday was more than a month passed. Looking at the string across the eave above the Victorian porch, he grinned. “I can take those down for you.”

“I like them.”
They add color to my corner of hell…
I answered his question and considered my own as I unlocked the door.

No. To qualify as dating we would have shared a goodnight kiss whenever he dropped me off.

Since being introduced to me by Gage before he’d gone into rehab, Logan had been a constant in my life. But swapping class notes and texts during the last few weeks had evolved into non-school related activities. So far, we went to shows on Sunset, or watched the surfers on Venice Beach, or any number of outings.

But once we arrived here to my apartment, he walked me to the door, sometimes stayed for a soda or beer, and never treated me as more than a friend.

“Coming up for a bit?” I invited with a tip of my head toward the stairs.

“I can’t. Got an exam to cram for.” He shifted his weight from one high top to the other.

And then, with a swoop of his mouth, he caught me on the lips!

“See you later,” he mumbled, straightening. Leaving me bewildered, he hopped over the steps and achieved a graceful landing on the walkway. He waved just before ducking into his car.

From inside the house, I paused before going upstairs to watch his taillights through the window. Were we? Actually dating now?

I was in bed later that night, surrounded by my study notes when a text confirmed it.

Of all the men in L.A. and beyond, how could I have let this happen? It didn’t matter how much he made me laugh or how sweet he was. He worked for Gage and that nth degree of separation was too close for comfort. I could easily put an end to it right now with one simple text or even the lack of a return text.

Instead, I found myself replying.

“W
here’re you going?” Gage lifted his cheek from the comfort of the pillow, cracking his eyes enough to watch Allison pull on the red thong and black skirt she’d been wearing when she arrived.

Ignoring her bra, which was dangling from an empty guitar stand, she poked her head through her shirt. “Home?” Cocking her head, she curved a smirk. “That’s still the rule right? And you know me. I always play by your rules.”

Rolling onto his back, he lay, letting the breeze from the fan brush his bare skin while perusing her tousled, half-dressed appearance. “Yeah you do. I outta spank your ass though for leaving without making sure everyone else does.”

“Speaking of?”

“That Trish or Tonia or ‘whatever her name was’ friend of yours. Stuck around too long.”

“Almost a year ago? You do hold a grudge, don’t you?” She wedged her bare feet into some kind of boot and sandal mutant shoes.

“Nah. I just collect my debts, no matter how old,” he retorted suggestively.
Good God. Had it been almost a year since the night Scarlette had first walked through the door of this house?
How did the thought of her still hurt so much?

Allison moved closer, bending to the nightstand for the cigarette in an ashtray. Lighting it, she sat on the edge of the bed and put it to his lips. “Well, I like a good spanking as much as the next girl, even if it is a year old. But just so you know, that twat was no friend of mine. She wanted to meet the great Gage Remington and she had enough party favors to convince me.”

Shutting down his body’s twitch of response to the mention of lines and lines of snowy coke, he breathed in another hit and passed the smoke back. “About the rules. What if I said they don’t apply to you anymore?”

Whipping her head around in surprise, she eyed him with a startled look and then collected herself. “Fall asleep with Gage Remington? Stay—all night with Gage Remington? As in wake up—next to Gage Remington?”

“Fuck. Shut it before I take it back.” Inwardly though, he was laughing at her antics. And it felt as good to enjoy a woman’s company, as it felt crappy.

“Am I the first to be so privileged?” She continued her taunts, and his chest constricted painfully, as he remembered waking each day to Scar’s rumpled hair and sweet, makeup-free face.

Jackknifing up, he dropped the smoke to the ashtray, and twisted enough to pin Allison face down onto the bed. Bunching up her skirt, he paused to admire the two globes separated by a red strip of material. Fisting a hunk of her hair, he bent close to her ear. “You serious about that spanking?” His other hand tunneled between her thigh gap, and he curled two fingers into her. When her consent came out as an indistinct moan of pleasure, he withdrew his fingers from beneath her thong. “Yes or no. Say it so I know you mean it.”

The moment a clear yes sang from her lips, his hand drew back. The sting of his fingers against her ass was gratifying. Again. Again. Until the skin of his hand burned, and her pale skin gradually blistered from pink to red. The sound of each smack and her occasional muffled screech drove him on. Or was it the image of Scar, naked and writhing beneath a Belizean prick that fueled each swing?