Strung Out (Needles and Pins #1) (15 page)

“S
ure it was her?”

“Yes!”

Her scream was so shrill, Gage almost plugged his ears.

“Why do you keep asking me that? Wait, the PI called, didn’t he?”

They were lying on the pad surrounded by pillows in the theater room watching DVR’s of ‘That Metal Show.’ He reached for the remote, backing the volume down. “He just texted.”

When Scarlette had seen her friend, he had hired an investigator to track the limo down and therefore Ivy. Earlier in the week, the Private Investigator had reported to them. He’d made prints from the video, traced the limo by the license plate, and had questioned the occupants. The girl hadn’t been Ivy. Gage had demanded the investigator check into it more and hadn’t told Scarlette yet. Until now. Now because he’d gotten a text confirming his guy had a face to face with both the drivers and the passengers in the car. They had all named the same girl who wasn’t Ivy. Now he pulled the picture up for Scarlette.

“This is who they are saying the girl is. She’s the girlfriend of one of the band members.”

She took his phone from him and stared for several long seconds. Her hand fell to the cushion, and then she sat up and studied it again. “This isn’t who I saw.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay. But I don’t know what more to do. Do you want me to have him watch the house?”

“Which house? There were three others in the car besides her.”

Exactly
. He watched the emotions play over her face and hated feeling helpless.

“Besides, it would cost a lot. To have him do that.” She passed the phone back.

“Doesn’t matter. Hell, Scarlette, we’re the lucky ones. We never have to worry about money.”

She remained quiet, her hands now folded across her stomach just above the waistline of her distressed black denim shorts.

“We’ll get someone on all the houses. Don’t think about the cost. I’ve spent money on stupid shit. I bet you have too.” Now she twisted a wry smile, and happy to see that curve of her lips, he teased. “Yeah? Really? I was joking about you. What has the practical and responsible Scarlette splurged on?”

“Does my mom’s psychic count?”

Her grin had been deceiving, and now his own fell away as he noted the tinge of bitterness coating her inquiry.

“Your mom has a psychic?”
Of course she did, whether she wanted one or not, it was fashionable
. And the Henni Smythe he remembered was fashionable at all costs…

“
Had
a psychic.” Her lips pursed, and this time he recognized the hostility. “When she ran up an arrears balance of more than fifty thousand, he quit seeing her.”

The anger in his chest burned so strongly that he pressed his fingers to his ribcage. It was something he’d never considered, but should have known. He wondered how much of Scarlette’s inheritance the woman had blown through. He now reflected how fortunate it was that half of Tyler Conterra’s estate had been socked back into a trust fund.

The press was abuzz regarding Scarlette Conterra’s upcoming birthday since the amount had quadrupled three times over since his death. Already rock royalty, Scarlette was about to inherit another fortune and reign.

Since her father’s name was everywhere lately, it was no surprise when almost on cue, an ad trailer previewed an upcoming documentary and Tyler Conterra’s face filled the screen.

The resemblance between father and daughter was striking, now that Scarlette was only a few years younger than her father had been in his last pictures.

Her eyes fixated on the screen, and he curled his grip around the remote in case she wanted the channel switched away from what she was seeing. The thirty-second preview soon faded to the show they had been watching, and he let the clicker fall again.

His fingertips skimmed her hair. For the fiftieth time, he studied the unnatural shade and realized how stupid he’d been to blow the cover she’d so carefully created. “I thought you just decided to go red.” Hell, in his defense, women changed hair colors like shoes… “But it’s to help you stay down?”

“Yeah. These eyes when combined with that weird blondish-brown hair color make it impossible for me to hide.” She was still lying down, and she crossed her bare ankles. “You missed my raven years.”

“I’m glad. Can’t picture you with black hair.” He sifted the tresses through his fingers and looked up from her sexy manicured toes—toes he had the sudden urge to run his tongue over. “Red though… You look good in red.”

His fingertips slipped to her chin, and his callused thumb ran over the softness of her lips. Her lashes flickered in initial surprise and then her eyelids seemed to fall instinctively closed.

“Is it hard for you? The twentieth coming up?”

As well as Scarlette coming of trust fund age, the press had been gearing up for the twentieth anniversary of Tyler Conterra’s death. Books, documentaries, new ‘never before released’ footage and pictures. The event was only a couple of weeks away. And she was in L.A. looking for her friend instead of safe from the media on an island in Seychelles or somewhere equally as desolate.

He wasn’t speaking only of the hype surrounding the upcoming date, and he knew she wasn’t either when her reply was a whisper.

“A little.”

Gage had still officially been her stepbrother during the tenth anniversary of her father’s death. The frenzy had escalated. Paps were stalking her, even outside her school, and Tyler Conterra was a constant name on any media source. One evening when flipping channels had landed on her father’s picture, he had turned the television off and turned to her with the same question.
“Is it hard
for you, Scar?”
She had ended up sniffling on his shoulder and admitting her confusion at mourning for a man of whom she had no memory.

“It’s such a fucked up world sometimes.” His whisper was empathetic, and of its own accord, one of his jean encased legs moved until it covered her lightly tanned ones.

She remained quiet, her eyes on the television screen. Continuing to hold her closely, he felt around for the remote to return the volume to normal.

“I don’t know what to think anymore.”

His fingers paused without pressing the buttons on the device. “About what?”

“Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I didn’t see Ivy.”

He reached for her hand and twined their fingers together.

“Where could she be?” She squeezed his hand and didn’t let up.

“We’ll find her.” But he wasn’t so sure any more. All he knew was that he would continue looking forever, if that’s what she wanted.

“Can I have some of that?” Releasing her grip, she gestured across the room.

His eyes followed hers a level down to the chair and tiny table beside it where he’d unobtrusively set up his extracurricular post.

“Stop looking at me like that! I’ve had it before.”

He hadn’t realized he was staring at her until she called him out on it. “No, Scar. You haven’t had that. I’m pretty sure.” He glanced behind them at the bar. “What about a shot or two of Petrón?”

“What is it?”

He knew she wasn’t questioning the liquor and rolled off their nest to avoid the answer. Selecting two shot glasses and the tequila bottle from the array of shelved alcohol, he returned.

“It’s not blow?” she persisted.

“You’ve done coke?” In desperation, he turned her inquiry around on her, mimicking her critical tone. In actuality, he felt disturbed at the possibility instead of condemning. She was so far above him. He had dug his holes deep and she was forever peering over the edge of his pathetic pit.

“Yeah, a few times. It’s all around campus.” She accepted a filled shot glass from him. “If that’s not coke, what is it, Gage? Is it K?”

Two opposite entities waged a split-second war. He wanted shamefully to evade her gaze. Instead, he searched her face for answers, and in doing so, encountered her knowing look when she read his eyes. Her repulsion revealed what she thought of snorting horse tranquilizer, and he let out a relieved breath. He could handle her disappointment in him if it meant she’d never fallen into his same horrible holes.

Clinking her glass with his, he quirked his mouth in a semblance of a grin and ignored her inquiry. “To being the lucky ones, Scar.”

But the only thing that felt lucky right now was her sitting cross-legged beside him.

S
hifting, I burrowed closer to the enveloping warmth, breathed in a heady comforting scent, and continued to drift in and out from dozing to sleeping hard.

It may have been years since I’d last rested this well.

Warm breath fanned stray hairs around my brows, and a protective weight rested on my legs and waist.

Two things hit me at once. The first was an understanding of exactly what my groggy senses were taking in. The second was the fact of a man in the same bed—draped all over me no less—was not creating an automatic panic reaction. Not even when I had a serious boyfriend had I let a man stay all night in my bed.

I opened my eyes to Gage’s vintage Dark Side of the Moon tee. We still lay on the giant lounge cushion. Similar to the morning in his bedroom after his overdose, the room was gray except for the flickering of the television. But this wasn’t his bedroom. We’d fallen asleep in the theater room watching Guardians of the Galaxy, and he was still very much asleep.

His phone buzzed. The vibration was slightly louder than normal because it rested on the bar above our heads, and I realized the sound had likely roused me.

Closing my eyes, I let myself enjoy the moment for a while longer. That was the scenario the next few times I woke—each time to the buzz of his phone. Utter bliss and back to sleep. Then when I couldn’t fall back asleep, I did crazy stuff. Like letting my fingers trace over his wrist; moving my face closer so that my lips touched the warmth of his tee shirt; brushing his socked foot with my bare foot.

He’d grown thinner during the time I’d been here. My fingers curved over a bicep, still iron hard, but too lean. Was this normal? He’d come off tour in the few months before I arrived. I knew celebrities had dual personalities. But what about physically? Was Gage also physically one person in the spotlight and another out of it?

I curled my grip into the hot muscle. He was dead to the world. I could probably do more―like comb my fingers through that long thick rocker hair or drag my fingertips across the stubble on his jaw. But I eased out of his embrace.

Unwilling to leave completely, I held my bathroom urge and listened to his phone, wondering if it was common for him to sleep through this many calls. Anyone who knew him well enough knew he didn’t wake up before noon or so.

The previous evening drifted through my mind as my gaze roved the shadowy planes of his face, lit only by the random flicking strobes of the silent TV.

The tray still rested on the table, holding whatever he’d dosed himself up with a time or two throughout our TV watching. I’d been an idiot to ask for some—even if it had turned out to be only coke. I had only had a couple of bumps ever, but I’d felt out of sorts last night. And Gage had refused me, instead of taking the opportunity to party with me. He’d even looked ashamed that I was asking—as if he was humiliated at being a bad influence.
What are you putting up your nose,
Gage?
I knew next to nothing about drugs other than coke, and the few uppers that had passed through my all night study groups.

The television caught my attention when the screen came alive with Gage. A head shot of him behind a media personality. A clip of him onstage. A pan back to the anchorperson. Another video clip of him being herded safely through the midst of a fan craze. Although the venue appeared different, I supposed the newscast was a repeat mention of the concert the other night.

His noisy phone continually broke the silence and prompted me to look for my own. Spying it not far from his, hidden among the drink tumblers and snack trash on the bar, I stretched for it. It lay right out of my grasp.

Careful not to knee him, I eased closer and reached again, over him. When he glided a hand up the back of my thigh and curved to the pocket area of my shorts, I let out a startled gasp and caught my balance with a hand on either side of him. In two seconds, both of his hands were over and then under my shirt. His touch skimmed my back and rounded to my front. Since I’d unclasped my bra in the middle of the night to sleep more comfortably, nothing hindered him from claiming a prize in each palm.

It happened, faster than I could come out of my startled stupor to stop him. And then there seemed no stopping him—not when the combination of his appreciative groan and tingling touch stifled any protests I would have made. In fact, I breathed a groan or two myself. His hands kneading, and his fingers plucking and pinching were heaven—pure and sweet rapturous heaven. Instinct had me wanting to move my knee to the other side of his waist and grind my hips to his, but I finally found my voice.

“It’s me… Gage! Cut it out, it’s me…”

“Me who?” His sexy sleep voice was raspy, and his eyes remained closed while he continued to explore. His touch tingled, leaving fiery trails in its wake.