SailtotheMoon (16 page)

“I had a sandwich earlier. Are you hungry?”

He shook his head. “Maybe we should sleep and get an early
start.” He moaned low in his throat. “But don’t look at me like that. Shit,
Laura, sleep?” With an effort that bunched the muscles in his arms and shoulders,
he moved away and picked up the phone. He ordered a simple meal, cold cuts and
salad, with a bottle of elderflower cordial. Then he put a call through to
Chick and asked for transport in the morning. “I’ll be in touch,” he said, in
answer to what must be Chick’s concern. “I’ll be okay. I’ll have Laura with
me.”

He sounded anything but certain, but looking at this man,
this gorgeous man who was all hers to touch and kiss and love, she knew she’d
never let him down, if it was within her power to do anything for him. And when
he put the phone down, she attacked him, rolling on top of him and making him
laugh in surprise. “You promised,” she said. “Again.”

This time she wanted to make love to him. Try to show him
the openness and honesty he’d shown to her.

Zazz gazed up at the woman he’d said “I love you” to and
knew he’d done the right thing. He was happy. She grasped his cock and the
familiar sensations enveloped him, delight from the heat of her hand, the
dampness of her pussy as she straddled his thighs. He wanted to spend a long
time worshipping her. He let her take him, do what she wanted, because anything
she did was right. Even when she bent and licked him, ending with inserting the
very tip of her tongue into the slit at the top of his cock. She made him wild
with wanting her. He remained lying on his back, shoulders propped against the
bank of soft pillows behind him. But he couldn’t resist cupping her head in his
hands, letting her silky, tousled hair flow over his skin, caressing him as she
moved.

She sucked and he moaned, his body arching of its own
volition, trying to push into the warm, wet haven of her mouth. Her tongue
stroked him with a silky, almost sly touch, and oh fuck, he should have more
control than this. “So good. So fucking good. You have to stop, sweetheart, you
can’t do this.”

Her only answer was a throaty chuckle, a sound he felt as
well as heard. It vibrated over his cock, and then she did it again, picking up
on one of their songs. He concentrated on identifying it.
Heartbreak
, that
was the one. A strange one to pick, but maybe she was operating on autopilot.
Heartbreak
was about that, about the day or two after a love affair breaks up. But it had
a nice melody. A
very
nice one, he decided as she ran her tongue down
the length of him and then up before taking his cock head back in her mouth.

Zazz lay back, let her do whatever she wanted. Even if that
was to cradle his balls in one hand while she grasped the lower part of his
cock and worked it in time with her sucking. “Oh shit, you do this so well.
Baby, I want you. I need you. Ah fuck, God, I want inside you. Bring that pussy
here, give me something to do.” She raised her head and shook back her hair.
Their eyes met and they smiled. Her mouth was wet, her lips red. She blinked, a
slow, lascivious movement.

Then she moved, turned around to give him a perfect view of
her beautiful backside. Rounded, and right for his hands. He took hold, drew
her up and moaned his approval as she lifted one knee and climbed over him,
lowering herself slowly. Growling, he pulled her down and sucked her clit into
his mouth.

She surrounded him. He tasted her spice and tartness, a
flavor he’d recognize to his dying day. Great to feel her clit hardening in
response to his steady sucking. He stroked her backside, slid his hands lower
and pushed two fingers deep into her pussy. Such lush, wet heat, so soft, with
the resilience of muscle when he pressed a little harder, exploring her. He
added another finger. She could take it. Her turn to moan. He wanted some of
that gorgeous luxury. Leaving her clit reluctantly, he switched hand and mouth,
letting her crease slide against his mouth until he found her entrance. Now he
could taste her for real, drink what she was giving him. She responded by
sucking his cock in deep. She held his cock tight, as far as her fingers could
reach around him, then worked him in a steady rhythm that could only end in one
place.

Zazz didn’t try to minimize the sounds he made, the
slurping, suckling as he ate her out. She was soaking now, enough to wet the
fingers of his other hand, the one not working her clit, and sliding them
slowly, one by one, into the sweet rosebud of her arse.

Furnace heat surrounded the digits, sucking him in to an
impossibly tight place. She flinched, then relaxed, deliberately letting her
body shift position slightly, stick her bottom in the air, hollowing her back
to let him get at her. With fingers and tongue and mouth he worked her hard,
knowing he didn’t have much time because what she was doing should be outlawed.
She’d make him come in no time, less than that. He was determined to get her to
go first, because once he was done, that’d be curtains for a few hours.

Tingles took over every part of his body, like pleasurable
pins and needles prickling his suddenly sensitive skin, heating his body. He
tensed, holding the moment when the climax became inevitable as long as he
could, pulling her clit, caressing that place in her arse that would ensure her
pleasure, and sucking the juices as she gave them to him.

A slight change in the flavor told him she was getting
there. Then she was tightening and releasing his fingers—three by now—and
jerking her hips in an instinctive effort to get away. He wouldn’t let her. He
used the hand he’d been playing with her clit to grasp her around her lower
back and hold her steady. He was determined to get every last drop out of her.

Then he exploded. Only word for it, and for a man who made
his living out of playing with words, that was saying something. He shouted
against her flesh, felt her hesitate, and then dip to take all his essence into
her, suck it down, drink it as he’d done hers.

Limp as the proverbial wet noodle, he managed to roll her to
the side of him and then help to turn her. He wanted to hold her now. They
kissed, sharing flavors, and he loved the scent and taste of him in her mouth.
He’d never have ended the kiss, but weariness swept over him like a tidal wave and
he knew, despite his good intentions, he wouldn’t be awake for room service.

* * * * *

A few hours later, Beverley woke them and took them to the
little airport in London Docklands, where they got a flight to Manchester. What
it was to have money, Zazz mused.

Zazz was in no mood for the photographers who routinely
waited outside the first-class exit, so he plowed straight through them, Laura
tucked by his side.

A few paparazzi sniffing for celebrities hung about outside.
He gave them a wave and told them, in passing, that he wanted to catch up with
his father. But his dad might be out, staying with friends, so they were
probably wasting their time. Christ, he hoped that was true. Let him not be
lying in a gutter somewhere, or a nameless patient in a hospital with someone
who didn’t know about his complex medical history. To them Jimmy A would be
just another old man, an encumbrance blocking a bed. But to him, that was his
father, the man he’d tried so hard not to love. And failed.

All through this Laura remained by his side, focused and
responsive. She didn’t cling, but she was there when he needed her, so he could
hold her through the flight, take her hand when they got through the airport
madness. The only surprise she expressed was when he got behind the wheel of
the rental car, a nondescript mid-range model. “I’ve never seen you drive.”

He shot her a tight grin. “Learned on the cars my mates used
to steal. We’d joyride and then return them. I was lucky not to get caught.
Most of them were. I got my license in London, so you needn’t worry you’re
being driven by an illegal.”

He used the London method of driving, taking corners fast,
dodging in and out of traffic, which made most passengers he drove catch their
breaths, but she took it in stride. Maybe she was as anxious as he to find out
what was happening and what they could do. Maybe she drove like he did. The
thought that he had so much yet to find out about her made him smile, even now.
Even when thoughts of his father gnawed at his stomach, threatening to give him
the ulcer he’d dodged for years.

Driving gave him something to do, and it would keep the
paparazzi at bay. If they needed security, Beverley had given him a number to
call and put the company on standby. Stupid fucking thing, that. All he did was
write and sing, and it had come to this.

All his dad had done was play, but he’d lived in an age when
it wasn’t cool not to take drugs. Getting addicted meant you were even cooler.
His father’s rehab and recovery had been precarious, and if he’d fallen now,
Zazz didn’t think the old man would recover from it. Old man. At sixty-four,
people didn’t consider themselves old, but Jimmy A surely was. He had kidney
problems, back problems, eating problems because of his ruined mouth.
Unexplained headaches that had worried Laura, because they made him violently
ill. She’d told him in one of their emails and he’d told her it was part of the
addict’s experience. Too fucking scared to come home and face his past. Afraid
he might get dragged back in.

So here he was, well and truly in. His dad meant so much
more to him than he’d allowed himself to believe. What worried him to the point
of screaming was the thought of his father ill without anyone who understood
him with him. Or dead. No, not that. Please. He’d only just begun to rebuild
his relationship with the old man.

He took the corner of the road too fast. Just as well nobody
was coming. His parking wasn’t exactly perfect either, but at least it was
legal. He barely checked before they left the car and headed for the flat. The
lifts were out of commission again, but the two flights of stairs didn’t make
him or Laura pause. It would his father. He had to get him out of here.
Sentiment couldn’t keep him there. If he promised to keep all the things Jimmy
wanted, maybe he’d agree to move.

If he could find him.

Kelsie opened the door on their first knock. She looked
terrible, her face unmade-up for the first time since Zazz had met her, her
eyes huge in her pale face. “He’s not here,” she said.

If she hadn’t gotten out of the way, Zazz would have pushed
past her to get in. He needed to see for himself. Shit, oh shit. He heard the
front door slam but saw the state of the previously tidy room. Liquor bottles,
at least six, lay strewn about, all but two empty. He picked one up and tossed
it aside again. Whisky. The cheap kind, the kind someone who wanted to get
drunk fast might buy. Saucers used as makeshift ash trays overflowed. He
frowned. Jimmy hadn’t smoked. Said the cigarettes dropped out of his mouth
after his accident, made him look stupid. But the saucers held a collection of
hand-rolled stubs, so maybe it wasn’t only tobacco they’d been smoking.

Fear clutched at him, turned his insides to dirty laundry
swirling around a washing machine, but he ignored it in favor of searching the
rest of the flat.

Everything except the kitchen and living room were as they
should be—neat, most things in their places, reasonably clean, just as his
dad’s caretakers kept it.

He confronted Kelsie, Jimmy’s new case worker. “Fuck, how
could he do such a stupid thing?”

Kelsie glanced away, avoiding meeting his eyes. “I think it
might have been something I said.”

“Go on.” He held himself in, very still, waiting for an
answer. Laura stood between them, saying nothing, taking everything in. A referee.
They might need one.

Kelsie swallowed. “I said he should get out more.”

Zazz breathed out, a sigh of tension released. “Is that it?”

“N-no. I said it would be good for him to pursue his hobby,
maybe take his trumpet and see if anyone wanted to listen. He said he could
still play a little, so I thought it might be good for him.”

Zazz listened now, in total disbelief. “
Hobby?
You
called it a hobby?”

“Well, I know he had some hits once, but he hardly made Top
of the Pops…” Her voice trailed off into faint nothingness.

Zazz chained himself with restraint, felt like that
character in the old sitcom about the war who said she’d explain things only
once. “That horn was his life. Jimmy A was one of the most influential and
innovative jazz trumpeters in the world. People teach his stuff at
universities, God help them. Because it can’t be explained like that, can’t be
copied. When those gang leaders smashed his mouth, they destroyed something
millions of people took pleasure in, copied. Loved. Yes, he could still play,
but not like he did. Not the miracle that he was.” He breathed deep, let it
out, his fists clenching into tight balls at his sides. “It was also his
downfall. Don’t you know that jazz musicians can teach rock musicians how to
take drugs? Jesus, woman, Chet Baker was a walking pharmacy, and my dad met him
and showed him where to get the best snow in town.”

He saw her blank face, glanced at Laura, relieved to see
that she understood. He turned his attention back to Kelsie. “The jazz scene in
the seventies and eighties was full of addicts. My dad came here partly to get
away from that scene. Even here, there’s something. And you sent him back?”

“The Band On The Wall is a perfectly respectable place these
days.” Kelsie put up her chin.

“You mentioned it by name?” He slapped his forehead. “Fuck,
Kelsie, didn’t you do any research? You know my dad’s an addict, so you send
him back to the scene that made him one? The Band’s a great place, but not all
the people who go there are so great. Like with Murder City Ravens, people hang
around, offering us stuff. All the time. And the talent gets it for free.”

Kelsie glared at him. “Like father, like son?”

He didn’t bother to answer that one. “Shut up. Unless you
can tell us where he is, shut the fuck up and get out.”

He turned his back on her and reached for Laura, not caring
that Kelsie would see how much he needed Laura right now. She came without
question, nestling close, letting him hold her until he stopped shaking.
Mingled rage and terror filled him.

“Did you alert the hospitals?” Laura asked. Kelsie must
still be here then.

“Yes. Nothing. I left an alert.”

Good, or maybe not, considering he could be lying in some
hovel somewhere, dead or dying, arm full of junk. No, Zazz couldn’t bear to
think about that. It mustn’t be true. His dad had tried so hard to stay off the
stuff, but without his methadone, he’d start to experience withdrawal. Then
he’d go on the other stuff. Then he’d die.

Zazz swallowed back his panic. That was the last thing he
needed now. The answer came to him. “We’ll spend the rest of the day looking
for him, and then if all else fails, we’ll go to The Band On The Wall.”