Riot (2 page)

“If I say no, what will you do? Go home with one of them instead?”

“You won’t say no.”

I scoff at him. “Shows what you know.”

When I spin away from him, he squeezes up behind me again and presses his lips against my ear. “You won’t say no because you know all the things I want to do to you.”

He starts telling me exactly what those things are, and my toes curl in my peep-toe pumps. Goose bumps spread from my ankles to my ears, and I abruptly hop off my stool.

“Where are you going?” Joel calls after me.

“To see if you’re a man of your word!”

Chapter Two

B
Y THE TIME
we make it to the bus in the parking lot of Mayhem, Joel’s groping hands have my blood rushing. If he slid them over the curve of my ass and squeezed one more time, I was pretty sure I was going to strip naked wherever we happened to be standing.

I reach for the bus door but don’t even have time to open it before he steps against me, pressing me into it. I brace myself against the cold black metal, and his palms cover the backs of my hands. He clasps our fingers together and raises our hands higher, working his jeans against me and kissing the back of my neck. I reward him by rocking my hips, rubbing my ass firmly over his attentive length, and he quickly spins me around, claiming my mouth in a way that makes everything dark. The moon and stars go black. Oxygen leaves my lungs. My heart stops beating and all I can feel are Joel’s teeth nipping at my lip and the cold metal of the bus biting against my bare skin.

I reach down and rub him outside of his jeans, which probably gets me even more turned on than it gets him. He moans low in his throat and impatiently tugs me away from the door so he can pull it open.

“Fuck,” he complains when it doesn’t budge. He yanks on it again, but still it doesn’t move.

I’m so frustrated, I want to scream. Instead, I manage to simply say, “You don’t have a key?”

“Not on me.” He looks around the deserted parking lot until he spots something that makes the corner of his mouth tug up, and then he grabs my hand and tows me across the lot. There are tons of cars, but everyone is inside for the headlining band, so I’m not worried when Joel pulls down the tailgate of a random black truck that I’m sure doesn’t belong to anyone he knows.

I barely have time to squeal in surprise when he wraps his hands around my waist and effortlessly lifts me onto it. He steps between my knees, buries his fingers in my hair, and pulls me to his mouth again, kissing me like I’ve wanted to be kissed all night. My hands are fumbling with the button of his jeans before my mind even processes what they’re doing, and his are sliding up my thighs to push my dress up to my hips. Before I can finish with his button, he finishes the job for me and reaches into his zipper, pulling himself out. A second later, his hard length is begging entry between my legs, and I want him so badly that I’m surprised I manage to say what I say next.

“Condom,” I pant, my breath leaving in a wintery swirl.

“Lie back,” he breathlessly orders, fishing a condom from his pocket and tearing it open. I watch him roll the rubber on, involuntarily tightening my thighs around his hips in anticipation of what’s to come. His fingers lift to smooth over the thin fabric covering my pert nipples, and then he applies pressure, urging me to lie down.

I can’t believe we’re doing this here, in the middle of a damn parking lot, on some stranger’s truck, but if I don’t get him inside me soon, I’m pretty sure I’m going to do something humiliating like cry and beg for him to fuck me.

And wouldn’t he just love that.

I lie back against the hard metal, fisting Joel’s crisp T-shirt in my hand and tugging him closer. With my hand in his shirt, my legs curled around his hips, and his fingers gripping my waist, he eases inside me in a single long thrust. I feel every inch of him drive its way inside me as the moan that escapes my lips penetrates the night sky.

He’s thrusting in and out of me at an overwhelming pace when I hear a group of people talking. I quickly push myself up to search for the sound, and Joel stops moving, but the group continues walking and never sees us. He starts moving inside me again, slower now, but my mind remains elsewhere until he tugs the top of my strapless dress down under my breasts, exposing my already firm nipples to the icy air. They’re extra pink from the cold, and when he caresses them with the warm pads of his thumbs, I have to bite my lip between my teeth to keep from whimpering. It feels so good that, when he removes one of his hands, I almost beg him to keep touching me. Instead, he circles his arm behind my back to hold me in place as he leans forward and closes his burning hot lips around a chilled pink tip. My head falls back and my fingers weave into his stiff hair, silently demanding that he never stop what he’s doing with his tongue regardless of who might see us.

His hips never break pace as he teases one nipple and then the other, frying every neuron in my brain. With his spikes and stubble pricking my palm, I urge him to take his fill, pulsing around him and feeling like I’m about to shatter into pieces. His tongue flicks over the pink peak he’s holding between his lips, and I reflexively squeeze tighter all around him. It’s like my body is trying to draw him in and force him out all at once, which means it’s just as confused as the rest of me.

“Joel,” I moan, tightening and untightening and bursting apart and coming back together. I haven’t tumbled over the edge yet, but God, I’m close. I’m so, so, so close.

Joel stands up straight and strokes my swollen clit with the rough pad of his thumb. I’m playing with my still-moist nipples when he lifts his thumb to his mouth and runs his tongue over it.

“I’m already soaked,” I pant, frustration cutting into my voice because I’m teetering on the precipice and desperately need him to just push me over. If sex in public was more my thing, I’d already be there, but it’s hard to relax when the sane part of me—no matter how small that part may be—is nervous about getting caught and possibly arrested.

“I know” is all he says. With his ice-blue eyes locked on mine, he lowers his thumb and circles it over my moist nub again. One . . . two . . .
oh . . . God
. . . three . . . four times. My hips jerk, and he lifts his hand to his mouth again. He slowly curls his tongue around his damp thumbprint and licks every bit of me off of it.

The sight of him—this unbelievably hot fucking rock star who could have had any girl he wanted tonight—savoring the taste of me . . . it ignites a white-hot fire that erupts from my core and floods every cell in my body. My eyes roll back, my fingers tunnel into my own hair since there’s nothing else to hold on to, and my legs tremble violently. Joel suddenly thrusts every inch of himself into me, pinning my knees against his hips and pushing into me like he wants to make me fit him, only him, and no other man ever again.

“You feel so fucking good,” he growls, his husky voice making the fire inside me blaze hotter until I’m melting all around him.

A white cloud of gasped curse words swirls from my lips toward a blanket of burning stars, and Joel throbs inside me as he sends up a cloud to match. He pumps into me until he has nothing left to give, and then he rests both hands on the truck bed to hold himself up, his head hanging and his shoulders rising and falling with each panting breath he takes. When he’s gathered enough strength, he lifts his chin to give me a self-satisfied smile that makes me tighten around him all over again. His eyes close and he makes a sound that makes me do it yet again. Each time I tighten, he moves inside me involuntarily, and if he doesn’t pull out soon, I’m hoping he has a second condom in his pocket, because we’re definitely going to need it.

I’m not sure if I’m disappointed or relieved when he slowly pulls out of me and slides onto the truck bed, but when he collapses onto his back beside me, his arm pressed tight against mine, I’m nothing but content.

“That was fucking hot,” he says, and I smile to myself, somehow summoning the strength to pull the top of my dress back up and the skirt of my dress back down. He sits up far enough to take off his jacket, and then he lays it over top of me and lies back down.

“Can I have my panties back?” I ask.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I’m keeping them.”

I smile even wider and stare up at the night sky with him, feeling cold on the outside and molten on the inside. I know I should get up and walk away, try to pretend I’m not as affected as he is by what we just did, but I’m far too satisfied to move. Too satisfied to
not
smile and stay put beside him.

Even when the show inside ends and the guy who owns the truck starts shouting curses and death threats as he jogs toward us, I can’t do anything but laugh. Joel grabs my hand, leaves a sticky souvenir behind for the truck driver, and races back through the parking lot with me until we burst through the doors to Mayhem.

Inside, we part ways so I can go to the bathroom and put myself back together. I run my fingers through my thoroughly tangled curls as best I can, and then I freshen my makeup and try to wipe the stupid smile off my face.

Yes, sex with Joel is amazing. Always amazing. Like mind-blowingly, life-alteringly, really freaking amazing. But it’s still just sex, and I don’t want him or anyone else thinking otherwise. I don’t ever want to catch myself looking at him like those other girls look at him—with a dumb smile on my face and desperate hope in my eyes.

When I get backstage, he’s hanging with the rest of the guys from both bands, along with Rowan and Leti.

My best friend immediately narrows her gaze on me. “Did you just have
sex
?”

My eyes widen and I smack Joel’s stomach, but he just laughs. “I didn’t say anything!”

“Then how does she know?!”

“Girl,” Leti says, circling his hand in front of me, “you are looking
thoroughly
sexed.”

The guys all laugh hard, and when Adam raises his hand in the air for a high five from Joel, I’m thankful that Rowan elbows him in the ribs.

I shrug and grab a water bottle from a nearby table, untwisting the cap and trying to play it cool. “Whatever. I was just trying to prove something.”

“What’s that?” Joel asks as I take a sip. I lower the bottle and smirk at him.

“You aren’t a man of your word.”

Chapter Three

W
HEN
R
OWAN WARNED
me about Joel’s snoring, she described it as a polar bear in need of an exorcism. But the sound I wake up to the morning after the concert is more like a demonic Rottweiler trying to chew its way through cement.

I kick my foot behind me to wake the Rottweiler up. He’s on his back, and I’m on my side facing away from him.

He startles, but then the demon-dog starts chewing again.

“Joel.” I reach my hand back and fumble it over his stubbly face to wake him up. “Get up.”

He bats at my arm and whines for me to stop.

“Get up¸” I groan, rolling toward him and trying with my hands and feet to push him out of my bed. “It’s time for your walk of shame.”

He rolls on top of me to get me to stop pushing him, putting all of his weight on me and squishing me into the mattress.

Wide awake and
not
happy about it, I fist my hand into his hair and slowly tug his head away from where it’s planted next to my face. Nose to nose¸ he gives me a smile full of wicked intentions, and then he resists my grip to press his lips against mine in a kiss that causes my fingers to loosen and my skin to flush.

Last night, he came home with me and lived up to every single promise he had whispered in my ear at the bar earlier that night. He’s like a drug in my veins, one I need to quit before I lose myself completely. I try to muster the willpower to turn him down, but his name is a weak protest on my lips. Just a breathless word that I manage to say before he drops those lips to my neck and steals any resolution I had.

Half an hour later, he’s still in my room and I’m walking to the bathroom down the hall, every step I take reminding me of just how many hours over the past twenty-four he’s been inside me. I’ve left him stretched out on my bed so I can take a cold shower and try to get my head straight—which is nearly impossible when I imagine him sprawled naked on top of my covers with his hair a mess and my fingernail scratches marring his skin.

After a quick shower, I get dressed and do my makeup in front of a mirror in the bathroom, and then I walk back to my room with a towel wrapped around my head and a mask of impatience on my face. It works to hide the smile permanently threatening to bloom anytime Joel so much as glances in my direction.

“You’re still here?” I ask, barely giving him a sideways glance before I plant myself in front of my vanity to comb out my wet hair.

He chuckles and stands up, stretching his arms over his head. He’s slipped into his soft-worn jeans from the night before, but they’re barely clinging to his hips, held up by a too-loose studded belt. There’s just something about a guy with tattoos—something about Joel, with the neck of a guitar inked on his forearm and black script curling up his ribs—that makes brain function impossible. I’m drooling over the reflection of his toned, tattooed torso when my eyes drift up and I realize he’s caught me staring. The corner of his mouth quirks into a cocky smile that makes my cheeks redden, and I quickly turn my eyes away, wishing he’d put his damn shirt on so I could stop wanting to tackle him back onto my covers.

“Can you give me a ride to Adam’s?” he asks.

Most nights, Joel crashes on the couch in the living room of the apartment that Adam, Shawn, and Rowan share. Some nights, he stays with me. And other nights, he stays with airheaded groupies who should really punch themselves in the face.

I knew he’d ask for a ride, which is why I’ve already texted Rowan and Leti to tell them I’m dragging them out for breakfast, but I give Joel a hard time anyway because it’s too tempting to resist. “I think I’ve given you enough rides this morning, don’t you?”

He laughs and steps up behind me, giving me a sweet smile in the mirror. “You look beautiful this morning.”

He’s so shameless about his ass kissing, it’s hard not to smile back at him. With a barely managed straight face, I say, “Are you saying I don’t look beautiful other mornings?”

“You look
especially
radiant this morning,” he says, dipping his chin onto my shoulder and giving my reflection a cheesy smile that makes me laugh in spite of myself.

“Whatever. Put your shirt on and I’ll think about it.”

I give Joel a ride and curse myself for doing it. Mind-blowing sex is a mutual exchange, but since when did I also become a free hotel room and complimentary taxi service? Next time, I’m kicking him out right after—I don’t care
how
toe curling the morning extracurriculars are.

After picking up Leti, I drop Joel off and trade him for Rowan, and then I drive myself and my two best friends to IHOP. Thanks to my driving and ability to tune out Rowan’s pleas for me to slow down, we beat the church rush and don’t have to wait to be seated.

“So I suppose you’re all wondering why I called you here today,” Leti announces once we’re settled in a booth. He clasps his fingers on top of the table, and I share a look with Rowan. She’s sitting next to him, looking just as confused as me.

“Uh, I called
you
here,” I argue.

Leti reaches across the table to take my hands in his. In a lavender My Little Pony T-shirt, with his wavy ombre hair pulled back by the bright rainbow sunglasses on top of his head, he says, “Sweetie, we’re staging an intervention.”

“We are?” Rowan asks.

Thanks to Joel, I got next to no sleep last night, so I really don’t have the patience for this. Pulling my hands away, I say, “What the hell are you talking about?”

My eyebrows are scrunched tightly in Leti’s direction when our server, an elderly woman with more than her fair share of pancakes collected around her middle, pops by to take our drink orders. As soon as she’s gone, Leti gives me another teasing smile. “The first step is admitting you have a problem.”

I lift my eyebrow at him. “And what’s my problem, pony-boy?”

“You’re an addict. We’re here to help you.”

My gaze swings to Rowan, but she just shrugs and shakes her head.

“Okay. I’ll bite.” I dramatically take Leti’s hands in mine again and drape myself across the table to meet him halfway. “What am I addicted to? High heels? Hair spray?”

He grins and says, “Oh, something much more dire.”

“Lip gloss? Glitter nail polish?”

He smirks at me. “You’re addicted to whatever is causing you to have those ghastly purple bags under your eyes, and my guess is that the culprit is hot and spiky and rhymes with
bowl
.”

I can’t help chuckling before I release Leti’s hands. “Jealous?”

“Incurably.” He turns his pouting face to Rowan. “Are you sure none of the other guys are gay?”

“Positive.”

“Bi?”

Rowan shakes her head, long blonde strands tumbling from her messy bun. “Sorry, don’t think so.”

“Curious? Confused? Impressionable?”

Rowan and I both laugh, and Leti sighs and deflates in the seat.

Our drinks arrive, and I’m tearing open three sugar packets at once when he asks, “So what exactly
are
you and mohawk-boy anyway?”

He and Rowan stare at me expectantly while I finish stirring the sugar into my coffee and answer, “Why do we have to
be
anything?”

I don’t expect them to get it. Rowan hopped from being in a three-year relationship to living with a guy she’s head over heels in love with. And Leti flirts around a lot, but he seems to be holding out for the right guy. If we weren’t friends, I have no doubt these two would think I’m a slut. And technically, I guess the shoe fits, but so what? I like boys. I like sex. And if I’m safe about it and no one gets hurt, what’s it matter what I spend my nights doing or who I do those things with?

Leti takes his sunglasses off his head and points them at me. “Well you two aren’t
nothing
. You’ve been hooking up for months now. How many times is that? Like a thousand?”

“What’s it matter?” I ask defensively. “I just haven’t gotten bored with him yet.”

Rowan gives me a look. “Do you remember when you told me I liked Adam, and I kept insisting we were just friends?”

I hold up my hands to derail that crazy train before it picks up steam. “Joel and I are NOT you and Adam.”

“Aren’t
you?” Leti asks.

I swing my sparkly purple fingernail back and forth between the Tweedle sisters. “Look, ladies, this isn’t some cheesy Disney movie where Rowan gets a boyfriend and their two best friends end up together too and it’s like one big happy weird little freaky family. This is
me
we’re talking about. And
Joel
.”

“Okay, first off,” Rowan says, stirring her orange juice with a straw, “
Shawn
is Adam’s best friend, not Joel. Joel is more like . . . a mascot.” She grins to herself and stops stirring. “And second, you’re different lately.”

“Am not,” I argue, casting an exaggerated smile at our server when she interrupts our conversation to set down our food. Rowan immediately snatches up the syrup and soaks her pancakes. Then she hands it to me and I do the same.

“Are too,” she insists. “You care what Joel thinks of you. You never care what
anyone
thinks of you.” She pours a second coat of syrup on.

“Joel is a game.”

“And what’s the prize if you win?”

I’m about to say something smart when my mouth clamps shut and my eyes get wide. Rowan starts to turn around, but I jerk her arms forward. “Don’t look.”

“Why?” she says, and I struggle to think up a believable lie.

“Jimmy just walked in,” I say, pulling a name out of thin air.

“Who’s Jimmy?” She starts to turn around again, and I jerk her forward again. Leti is turned all the way around in his seat, but he’s not the one I’m worried about.

“A guy I screwed around with a few weeks ago,” I lie. “He won’t stop calling me. I need you to get me out of here.” My foot knocks at Leti like a woodpecker under the table, and the expression on his face slowly turns to one of realization. I toss my purse on top of the table. “Leti, can you get our pancakes in boxes and pay with my card?”

He nods and slides out of the booth to let Rowan out, and I wrap my arm around her shoulder, spinning around like a seasoned body guard shielding her from paparazzi. I keep her pinned against my side until we’ve emerged through the double doors into the bright morning sunlight, and then I start telling her all about the fictitious Jimmy.

When we pass a silver Cobalt on the way to my car, I amp up the story to distract Rowan from noticing. “And THEN,” I say, throwing my hands in the air, “he had the NERVE to tell me I’d never forget him! Like HELLO, if you stopped calling me every two minutes, maybe I could!”

Rowan chuckles and continues walking, oblivious to the car or the way my heart is pounding in my chest. “Sounds like he really likes you.”

“Him and a million other guys. He had his chance, but he was all
hands
, Ro. And not like Joel’s hands, because those are just . . . well, Adam plays the guitar, so you know.” She blushes, and I continue rambling. “But this guy’s hands . . . God, it was like making out with the Hamburger Helper guy!”

She laughs hysterically, and my heart slows just a little. When we get to my car, I unlock the doors and she gets in. I open the driver’s side but pause before sliding in next to her. “Shit,” I say, “I forgot to tell Leti which card to use. My Visa is maxed out.”

She reaches for the handle to get out. “I’ll tell him.”

“No!” I force a smile at the startled look she gives me and add, “I’ll do it. In and out, real quick. Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”

I jog back to IHOP, slip just inside the front doors to wait for Leti, and take my purse from him when he hands it to me.

“Her ex?” he asks, and I nod while flipping through my keys to find the sharpest one. Brady broke Rowan’s heart into a million pieces when he cheated on her—and ground those pieces into dust when he did it
again
—and I’ve been itching for payback ever since. He’s here with a girl, and he’s lucky Rowan was with me or I would have scratched his eyes out right in the middle of IHOP.

With a jagged key pinched between my knuckles, I smile at Leti and say, “Smile and pretend you don’t hear this.” As we pass by Brady’s Cobalt, my key digs a deep, screeching gash into the silver paint, all the way from front to back, and Leti and I smile like lunatics. By the time we hop into my car, we’re both laughing hysterically.

“What?” Rowan asks, her eyebrow raised as she stares back and forth between us.

“Nothing,” I say, starting the car and shooting Leti a smile in the rearview mirror. I begin backing out of the spot and add, “Thanks for getting me out of there, Ro. Love you.”

I smile at the confused look she gives me but lose it less than a half-minute later, when Leti abruptly recalls what we had been talking about back in IHOP.

“So,” he says, his big head popping between my seat and Rowan’s, “Bowl.”

“I could crash this car right now, you know.”

My warning just makes him laugh. “Really? That’d be better than just admitting your feelings?”

My head snaps in his direction with a look that should make him flinch. Instead, his smile widens and I’m the one who looks away. “What feelings?”

“Mushy ones. Probably feels like butterflies. Or mashed potatoes.”

There’s a chirp at my right as Rowan barely contains a giggle, but I ignore it and let my foot weigh heavier on the gas so I can limit the amount of time Leti has to annoy me. “Yeeeah, I don’t have any of those,” I say, but I can feel his bright-as-ever smile burrowing into the side of my head.

“What about Joel? I bet his stomach is fuuull of mashed potatoes.”

“Joel has never had mashed potatoes in his life,” I counter, immediately cursing myself for going along with Leti’s stupid mashed-potatoes analogy.

I’m going forty in a twenty-five when Rowan says, “He said you’re special.”

Leti and I both look at her, and it’s only by the terrified look in her eyes that I manage to slam my foot on the brake to avoid running a red light. “He said
what
?”