One Night with Sole Regret 04 Touch Me

One Night with Sole Regret 4

by Olivia Cunning

All rights reserved. No part of this book may
be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means,
including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the
case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or
reviews—without permission in writing from the author at
[email protected].

This book is a work of fiction. The
characters, events, and places portrayed in this book are products
of the author’s imagination and are either fictitious or are used
fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is
purely coincidental and not intentional.

For more information on the author and her
works, please visit www.oliviacunning.com.

Copyright 2013 Olivia Cunning

Smashwords Edition

Published by Vulpine Press

Cover Design by Olivia Cunning

Cover Photo by Margarita Borodina at
www.123rf.com

Edited by E.L. Hill at www.anoveledit.com

ISBN-10: 1939276071

ISBN-13: 978-1-939276-07-0

SINNERS ON TOUR SERIES:

Backstage Pass

Rock Hard

Hot Ticket

Double Time

COMING AUGUST 2013:

Wicked Beat

ONE NIGHT WITH SOLE REGRET SERIES:

Try Me #1

Tempt Me #2

Take Me #3

Share Me: A Prequel #0.5

Touch Me #4

COMING SOON:

Tie Me #5

Tell Me #6

LOVERS’ LEAP SERIES:

Loving on Borrowed Time

Twice Upon a Time

Writing as OLIVIA DOWNING

Defying Destiny

Tonight, Owen’s band, Sole Regret, would
perform in San Antonio. Tomorrow night? Houston, maybe. And then
New Orleans. Or was it Beaumont? Owen wasn’t sure. The tour dates
were starting to run together. He just got on the tour bus after
the show and went wherever it took him. At least he knew they were
still in his home state of Texas. He’d seen his family in Austin
the night before, so some of his homesickness had abated. He loved
touring with the guys, but his family had always been a tight-knit
bunch, so he missed them when they weren’t tousling his hair as if
he were a four-year-old and insisting he have another biscuit with
his fried chicken.

Owen stood behind the main stage, watching
the crew make last-minute adjustments to the fire fountains and
spark cannons. The fans had no idea how much work went into setting
up the stage so Sole Regret could play for a mere hour. No one ever
cheered for the stagehands, but their crew’s hard work had paid
off—the band would be live in less than five minutes. Owen
appreciated all they did. He’d climbed out of bed that morning
ready to hit the stage and without the crew, there wouldn’t be a
stage.

While he waited, Owen wrapped his hand around
the dog tags dangling from a chain around his neck, closed his
eyes, and sent a silent prayer to his older brother, Chad,
currently serving in Afghanistan.
Be safe. Come home soon,
soldier. Be safe.

Owen prayed the same words before every
concert. His routine. As if the powers that be were more likely to
hear his prayers right before he went onstage. As if the energy of
Sole Regret’s fans made his pleas more noteworthy to Chad’s
guardian angel. Owen imagined that particular angel wore combat
boots and camouflage. And carried a big fucking gun. Chad’s angel
of no mercy would keep him safe. Owen had faith.

Someone leaned against Owen’s arm, and Owen
knew it was Kelly before he even opened his eyes.

Kelly’s mouth was set in a grim line, and his
dark brown eyes held concern. If Owen hadn’t known Kelly as well as
he knew himself, he’d have thought he was always serious and stern.
Kelly did loosen up on occasion, but only around people he knew
well.

The leather strap supporting Kelly’s
cobalt-blue Les Paul guitar cut into his bare chest when he lifted
a hand to give Owen’s shoulder a comforting squeeze.

“Heard from Chad lately?” Kelly asked.

Owen sometimes wondered if his best friend
could read his mind.

“He’s supposed to Skype me tomorrow morning.
Well, it will be night where he is.”

“Tell him I said hey,” Kelly said.

“Tell him yourself. I’m not your messenger
boy.”

Owen knew Chad liked to see familiar faces.
Not just family or his girlfriend or all the friends who were
waiting for him in Austin, but Kelly too. Chad had been a big
brother to both of them, mostly knocking their heads together when
they were being insufferable idiots, but he’d also stepped into a
protective role more than once. Kelly had done his part to lessen
the bullying Owen had endured in high school, but occasionally
Chad’s older, bigger fists had been necessary to get the point
across.

Owen had plenty of friends now, but there had
been a time when Kelly had been his only one. He was still Owen’s
best friend. Always would be. As members of the same band, he and
Kelly spent more time together than should be allowable by law.
That hadn’t changed. Probably never would. But other things between
them had changed in the past six months.

An uncomfortable tension had surfaced when
Owen had given Kelly a wrist cuff for Christmas to remind him of
Sara. Owen and Kelly had had a lot more fun before Owen had made
Kelly’s grief even more pronounced.
Smooth move, Owen. Fucked
that one up majorly, you did.
He kicked himself on a daily
basis for that overly thoughtful gift. Should have bought the guy a
shirt instead, since Kelly didn’t seem to own one. Owen had taken
to plotting to steal the damned cuff in the middle of the night and
setting it ablaze. Unfortunately, Kelly was a light sleeper.

“Are you ready for tonight’s excursion?” Owen
asked, shifting his hand from the dog tags to rest it on the solid
gray body of his favorite bass guitar.

“I guess so. I can’t believe the rest of the
guys bailed on us.” Kelly glanced at the other three members of the
band and shook his head at their disgrace. “What about our
pact?”

Yeah, what about their pact? They were
supposed to keep each other from getting entangled in serious
romantic relationships while on tour, but the guys were falling
like dominoes. Kelly didn’t have to worry about Owen falling into
the same trap, however. Owen had no interest in romantic
relationships. He was having far too much fun being wealthy and
single. He highly recommended it.

“They must be getting old,” Owen said with a
grin. “Don’t ever get old on me, Kelly.”

“I don’t have time to get old.”

“We could invite Tex and Jack to come with
us.” Owen was sure the roadies would be up for a little late-night
entertainment. The sex club they were going to was
exclusive—invitation only. Owen couldn’t believe there was a man
alive who would turn down the opportunity to get inside. And Gabe,
Shade, and Adam had all turned up their noses, as if guaranteed sex
with a stranger wasn’t good enough for them anymore. It had been
good enough for them a week ago. It was still good enough for
Owen.

“Nah, the crew has work to do. Tonight it’s
me and you, bro.” Kelly lifted a fist, and Owen fist-bumped
him.

“And don’t forget the ladies,” Owen said with
a smirk. “They’re the best part. You are going to actually do
something with them tonight, aren’t you?”

Kelly shrugged. “If I feel like it.”

“I think you’re getting old too.”

Kelly’s eyes dropped to the cuff on his
wrist, and he traced it with one finger. “Maybe.”

Whoever came up with that “it’s better to
have loved and lost” saying was the biggest fucking dolt who’d ever
initiated a cliché. Kelly had loved and lost, and the loss had all
but destroyed him. Owen wasn’t sure if he would ever be the same.
Kelly would’ve been better off if he’d never met Sara. The year
he’d dated her, he’d all but disappeared from Owen’s life. He’d
been so wrapped up in the woman, it had been hard to distinguish
them as separate entities. And when she’d died, she’d taken his
heart with her. Five years later, Kelly still hadn’t recovered the
battered organ from Sara’s clutches.

Owen had suffered his share of heartache, but
nothing in comparison to Kelly. Where Owen had lost love in
quantity—an embarrassing amount of quantity—Kelly had lost in
quality. Owen had long since concluded that romance was for
suckers. There would be no more heartache in his future. He was
through with trying to find someone to love him for who he was, not
what he’d become. If a guy was burned enough times, he eventually
learned to stop putting his hand in the fire.

“I could sample a few choice pies for you and
let you know which tastes best,” Owen offered, only half joking. He
enjoyed pleasuring a woman with his mouth, and he knew how much
Kelly got off on the act. Or he had. Until last Christmas.

Fuck.
Owen vowed to never give anyone
a thoughtful gift ever again. It would be tube socks and neckties
all around this year.

One corner of Kelly’s mouth rose. “I’m not
sure we have the same discriminating palate, dude.”

“If you need me to—” Owen glanced pointedly
at Kelly’s crotch. Owen longed for the days when they’d pleasured
women together. Especially the part when they’d given each other
amazing hand jobs. But ever since Owen had given Kelly that cuff,
Kelly had remained distant. He no longer helped Owen entertain
women, and he wouldn’t touch him anymore. At all. The truly
confusing part of this shift in their relationship was that Owen
couldn’t stop thinking about his best friend’s hand. Before Kelly
had backed away, their brief sexual contact hadn’t meant anything
to Owen. He hadn’t even considered it sexual contact. It wasn’t as
if he was attracted to Kelly or anything. He just liked the way
Kelly tugged his cock just right. But now that they no longer
touched each other—at Kelly’s insistence—Owen couldn’t get the feel
of the man’s perfect grip out of his head.

Owen absently stroked the thick strings of
his bass guitar. Those orgasms couldn’t have been as great as
Owen’s memory served. His mind had a way of making the things he
couldn’t have seem so much better than they actually were. He knew
how his head worked, but the truth didn’t stop him from fixating on
something best left in the past. He had to get over his bizarre
obsession. Kelly certainly had. Whenever Owen brought up their
brief brushes with intimacy, Kelly looked uncomfortable and hedged
his way out of the conversation. But maybe if they had just one
more go at it, Owen could move on. He could stop thinking about how
much fun they had pleasing a woman in tandem and how those
interludes had culminated.

Kelly had turned off like a light switch six
months before and hadn’t turned back on since. Owen glanced at him
again. It wasn’t healthy for a man to be so, well… celibate.

“I told you we aren’t doing
that
anymore,” Kelly said.

“Oh, I know. It’s not like it’s a big deal.
You just look a little
tense
.” If an over-tightened guitar
string was considered a
little
tense.

“I
am
tense, but I’ll take care of it.
Unlike you, I don’t need a different girl every other night to get
off.”

Of course.
Why would Kelly seek the
company of a woman when he had a perfectly good hand at his
disposal? If Owen had that particular hand at
his
disposal,
he might not be so anxious to hook up with some stranger
either.

Memories of Sara had done this to Kelly; Owen
just didn’t understand why his friend was faithful to a dead girl.
After Sara had passed, it had taken Kelly a couple of years to even
touch another woman. Then he’d progressed to eating them out as
long as they were restrained and Owen had been there with him. Now
Kelly wouldn’t do anything sexual with anyone, no matter how many
times Owen agreed to give him a hand or any other body part he
wanted to utilize.

When Owen had given Kelly the cuff, he’d
hoped it would be another step forward. He’d wanted the bracelet to
remind Kelly of how stupid he was being—that no matter how much he
wanted Sara back, it was impossible. She was gone. But the constant
reminder of her on Kelly’s wrist had only managed to solidify his
dedication to abstinence. He hadn’t merely taken a step back; he’d
fallen off the ladder. Sure, Kelly went to Tony’s sex clubs with
the rest of them, but he never did anything. Comparatively
speaking.

“Don’t you think it’s time to take off that
cuff?”

“Not yet,” Kelly said. “But I am a little
horny.”