Unchained Melody (22 page)

Ryan made no move to trade places with Hunter and that made Callie grin because she’d orchestrated the evening to turn out that way. She’d always known that Hunter had ‘it’ and in her moments of doubt, watching him pale in comparison to Ryan’s natural talent again and again, she’d clung to her beliefs anyway and she was being proven right that night. Michael Hutchence had never had as much stage presence as Hunter did, there and then. Carlos Santana had never strummed with such passion, and Mick Jagger had prowled around the stage like a kitten compared to the lion Hunter was in that moment. He moved beautifully, sinfully and though his golden good looks still made him look like a Backstreet Boy lost at a Pearl Jam concert, it was working for him now- not against him. His soul was shining through like a true musician and just as a bonus- he was so pretty that Callie could see the desire in the eyes of every girl in the room who wanted to crawl onto the stage and lick the sweat from his bicep. His white shirt was already clinging to him from sweat, showing his washboard stomach beneath, and Callie knew if given the chance, she’d press her tongue where his shirt was occasionally riding up and work her way up to sample the skin beneath the silver chain at his neck.

‘Hunter is so fucking hot.’ A female voice beside her hissed at whoever was on her other side.

‘You take him, I want Ryan Weaver.’

‘That bassist isn’t bad either. Damn!’

Callie giggled to hear the girls fawning all over her best friends and would-be lovers, and then sobered to realize that if she’d just given in to her urges, Ryan would be driving her up the gorge there and then. She shifted her gaze to Ryan, allowing her heart to thump in appreciation of the way he was making love to the neck of his guitar instead and accepted that it was better this way. When his serious face was composed in concentration like that, he was the sexiest man on the face of the earth, but it was his hands that truly mattered- and they needed to be on his instrument, not on her. Not tonight.

Then a hand rested on her waist and though Callie didn’t look around, she didn’t have to. She’d been expecting this visitor for ten minutes. ‘Are they here?’ She whispered.

‘They are.’ There was a smile in Thespia’s voice. ‘Perfect timing too Cal. Your guys are blowing the room away.’

‘I know.’ Callie glanced at her sister, and then scanned the room noticing the agents immediately. They’d tried to dress ‘rock’ as agents always did was as always, their shoes were too shiny, their hair too perfectly styled, their clothes too trendy to have been slung on while hungover, but had probably been pressed instead. But how they looked didn’t matter- where they looked did. And they were grinning at the band onstage and trying to inch closer than the other, exactly as Callie wanted them to do.

‘So slide…’ Hunter’s voice was doing that purr thing again and Callie didn’t have to look to know that his eyes were on her. She felt the heat of his gaze just beneath her neck. She swayed her hips again to the sexy, slow beat and then glanced up to wink at Hunter. He grinned and lowered onto one knee, extending his hand to her, and Callie took a step towards him without intending to.

‘I’ve got to let you know…’ Hunter’s hand dragged her onto the stage in one fluid movement and yanked her body up against his. His eyes were shining, his breathing heavy, his face animated with that thrill of music intoxication he’d gotten Callie drunk on. When he rasped: ‘You’re exactly my kind,’ his voice filled her, paralyzed her, melted her. She wasn’t a Muse, she was a fan. The singer of her dreams was making love to her with lyrics in the biggest moment of his life and she knew how much she meant to him, that she’d been able to keep his focus trained on her despite how overwhelmed he must have been by his own success.

One moment their lips were only inches apart and the next, everything went silent, went still and then, they were kissing. Callie moaned as Hunter’s lips forced hers apart, as Hunter’s fingers pulled her to him by her sweaty hair, how Hunter’s guitar swung out of the way and allowed their bodies to ram together. She heard Ryan drop one chord, heard the room whoop in excitement as the lead singer took exactly what he wanted when it suited him like only lead singers could. Hunter tasted like lime and Tequila and Callie was getting drunk from that too as he forced her lips further apart, stroking her tongue sensually with his. Her fingers twisted the damp and thin cotton of his shirt and drew him closer, needing to soak in the heat from the taut flesh beneath and Hunter growled, broke the kiss off whispered: ‘Meet me backstage after this set,’ and then released her like a limp rag doll.

Callie swayed for a moment and the room cheered again and then Hunter was singing and she felt her eyes on him as she gingerly sank to her backside on the edge of the stage and slipped down again into the crowd, who were jostling her in congratulations, probably unaware that he was her close mate and that she’d probably just shattered the guitarist beside him. She couldn’t look back at Ryan. Didn’t want to. She was afraid that if she did, she’d stand Hunter up.

And she didn’t want that either. She was going backstage. She was going to end this before shit got too serious for her to get out of.

‘Oh boy.’ Thespia was grinning like a maniac. ‘That was hot, Callie. You just got that boy a deal of some sort.’ She wriggled her eyebrows. ‘And people say I’m dramatic. Hunter there could make Shakespeare look underplayed.’

‘Your presence probably isn’t helping,’ Callie muttered, feeling dizzy and out of synch with herself. She pressed her fingers to her lips, feeling the wetness from Hunter’s lingering on hers and knew that she wanted more.

21.

When the set was over and the crowd was going off their nut and the emcee was attempting to calm them all down so he could say whatever he had to say and remind the audience of who’d they’d just seen, Hunter couldn’t get his guitar off fast enough. That was unexpected. He’d always imagined this moment, imagined how he’d stand there and milk the crowd for every last clap because well, he was a dork and didn’t have the discipline of ‘cool’ that Ryan had, who always sauntered off like he had a card game he had to get back to or a beauty in the backseat of his car waiting for his return with her legs open.

But Hunter was the one with the beauty -hopefully- waiting for him as he’d told her to, and every second he wasted onstage was a second that Callie might second guess herself and bolt. Besides, he could feel the absolute chill of Ryan’s blue eyes watching him as he strode to the back of the platform, and Hunter didn’t want those eyes to stab him with guilt. Ryan had been the one to crank their rivalry up a notch by asking Callie out the second he could, cutting Hunter off, leaving him out. Attempting to freeze him out. It had made him feel insecure, Callie’s open willingness to go to dinner with the first to ask, but now that her cherry taste was sweet on his tongue, there was no way he was going to let doubt or contemplation get between him, and the way she was going to taste everywhere else.

And there wasn’t a chance in hell that he was going to let Ryan make him feel bad about it!

‘Oi! Where are you going?’ Nick asked, standing up to literally strain the sweat out of his limp brown hair. ‘What if they want an encore?’

‘My part of the song ended a minute ago,’ Hunter teased, stopping only to take a quick swig from a bottle of water he’d left behind their banner. ‘I’ll let you catch up with the drumming and be right back, kay?’ He winked and Nick laughed.

‘Hey Hunt… what’s covered in four thousand tiny bruises and lying in an alleyway?’ He pegged his empty bottle of water at Hunter’s head. ‘A guitarist who’s told too many drummer jokes!’

Hunter laughed and lunged off the back of the stage and pulled open the door to the corridor. It was dark in there, silent. At the end, the corridor forked off in two directions, one towards the kitchen and office of the bar and the other towards the exit. He went left and stopped short when he saw the shadowy figure leaning back against the wall, and heard the shallow breathing he knew so well. He’d dreamed of Callie’s sweet, frenzied breaths for almost a decade and his heart began to thump with excitement to hear it now. Behind her, the EXIT light was glowing a soft green and the though the rusted security door was shut, the door itself was open offering a glimpse of the car park and streetlights behind. It allowed just enough light in to illuminate the way Callie’s chest was rising and falling, how she had one hand pressed to her heart, and the other to her eyes, like she was still trying to collect herself.

Hunter walked towards her, slowing his steps, wanting the anticipation of the moment to build as it always had in his fantasies. When he was close enough to reach out and touch her he stopped, then leaned against the opposite wall, staring at her contemplatively, wondering who would speak first. Wondering if either of them should. The silence between them was so thick that it seemed to envelop them in a world of their own.

Callie’s hand dropped from her eyes and they shone in the grainy grey light. She stepped towards him, and he saw a glimpse of her teeth as she smiled and whispered: ‘I’m afraid that nothing is ever going to be the same once we do this.’

Hunter swallowed but tried to appear at ease. Cool, cool, cool. Ryan would be cool. Elvis would be cool. He had to be cool. ‘Once you do what?’ He asked casually.

And then Callie began to lower herself and when she ended up kneeling in front of him, reaching for the zipper of his jeans with trembling hands while those big brown eyes glowed up at him with undiluted awe, Hunter felt himself lose the cool he’d never had.

‘Once I show you just how much I appreciate your… talent.’

‘Show me,’ he demanded, and then groaned softly when Callie’s hesitant hand curled around his thickening cock and pulled him from his jeans. It bounced, he quaked and then, Callie’s hot, soft lips were suckling on the tip of his erection.

Hunter’s fingers dug into the exposed brick behind him as Callie drew him over her tongue and to the very back of her throat in one prolonged pull that made him think he was dying from exquisite pleasure. She made a soft sighing sound, as though she enjoyed the kiss as much as he had and he hardened even more in response. One hand left the wall and cupped the back of her head, threading through her hair until he had enough to grip before drawing out of her mouth and sliding in again. He didn’t force her to take him all in but she sucked when he stopped and he felt himself hit the back of her throat. Stars exploded. His balls grew tight and heavy, already begging to empty himself into her willing mouth.

‘Oh...’ Callie moaned around him and then her tongue flicked at the tip of him, catching a drop of his essence and then swirling around, generating more. Hunter’s knees almost buckled. The pressure of her mouth was so tight that it could have been… Hunter’s eyes rolled back into his head and his cock jerked in Callie’s mouth. He didn’t know how long he’d be able to hold his release back because not only was Callie amazing at it, but she was fulfilling one of his most epic fantasies, worshipping on her knees like the good little groupie she was supposed to be; his and his alone. Still, he wanted something hotter, tighter, something that could take the violence of his frustration the way her throat would not.

‘Mmm…’ Callie slid her lips along the length of him like a flutist. ‘Baby you feel so good in my mouth...’

Baby. Not ‘mate’ not ‘pal’ not ‘Hunt’ but ‘Baby.’ Her baby. Hunter groaned, bent down, and pulled her up by her upper arm. He turned them so that her back was against the wall, used his knee to spread her legs and then slipped his hand up her skirt.

‘I’m going to feel better here,’ he whispered, and almost lost it in his jeans again when he felt how soaked her panties were when his fingertips brushed against the damp fabric gathered between her legs. ‘Oh shit…’ Hunter leaned his head against the wall above her shoulder and sucked in an unsatisfying breath, trying not to black out from desire. ‘You are so wet Cal. So, so wet…’

‘You did this to me,’ she panted into his ear. ‘You always do this to me when you sing Hunter.’ Her hands slipped down his sweaty arms and then she hooked her thumbs over the edge of his jeans and inched them down a bit. ‘You were so on tonight I actually had to touch myself when I came back here...’

A glottal sound escaped Hunter, her whispered words threatening to unravel him prematurely again. He could not believe that he’d just fronted Lonesome October for the first time and rocked it out and now Callie was backstage to worship him for it. It was the stuff of epic fantasies and he had to kiss her to shut her up because one more dirty word and he was going to lose it.

But her lips were so soft that he sunk into them and that only increased the excitement eradicating his nervous system. As he teased her tongue with the tip of his own, he gently brushed her entrance with the tip of his finger, slowly parting her, dipping his fingertip in, checking that she was as ready as she was. She moaned and when her muscles gently tightened around his finger, he stiffened all over.

‘Fuck you now,’ he grunted releasing her thigh long enough to snap her underwear at the waist and shove them into the pocket of his jeans. Then he took her hips and lifted her into alignment with him. ‘Explore you later.’

Callie’s eyes were wild as she tightened her legs around his waist and slung her arms over his shoulders. Hunter had tried this position before but it had never worked well, but he was stronger now and Callie had the build of a panther and he instantly knew that it was going to be off the charts good. There was something so hot about what they were doing and where they were doing it; Musician and fan. Spontaneous screw backstage. Best friend stolen from the other… it was illicit and raw and everything Hunter had ever dreamed his first time with Callie would be. Using his weight and one arm to hold her up against the wall, Hunter caught himself and guided it up towards her heat, sealing his mouth over hers, and groaning into her mouth when he first entered her; hard, sharp and hotter than anything he’d ever felt.

‘You’re so tight,’ he panted between her parted lips, feeling her stiffen as he drew back to get better leverage. Then he thrust into her, hard and felt Callie yelp and bury her face into his neck just as he hit resistance and surged onwards, too out of his mind with desire to feel her fingernails in his shoulders, feel her legs tighten around him until the initial cry of triumph left his throat. That’s when he heard her cry out softly again and shove her face into him harder, holding tighter, hanging on… but no longer squirming. No longer murmuring his name. In fact, there was a dampness on his shoulder that took the longest time to make sense.

And then Hunter knew, and he felt a fist squeeze around his heart when he diagnosed her tears. He stilled, absolutely stunned, craned his neck away from hers so that he could stare up into her wet eyes.

‘Callie, oh Callie oh my- !’ His heart was going to break every rib he had. ‘You were still a virgin?!’

Callie blinked, smiled weakly and brushed her lips against his. ‘Is this the time to discuss that?’ She whispered.

Hunter stared at her, aghast. ‘No! Three minutes ago was the time to discuss it!’ Hunter was torn. He felt like the biggest asshole in the world for not knowing, not asking and he wanted to beg for her forgiveness, release her and come back to it when her eyes were dry and his head wasn’t spinning. And yet there he was, buried as far inside heaven as he’d ever expected to get and he did not want to stop. He’d rushed it. This should have been a special moment for her but he’d done her up against the wall like some cheap band fan and now he could not take that back. ‘You should have told me!’ His grip on her faltered as he debated whether he should release her, put her in a horse and carriage and take her to some swanky hotel or something. Wine, candles-the whole lot. ‘It’s not supposed to be like this!’

But Callie tilted her head to the side and said: ‘How’s it supposed to be?’ She frowned, looking stricken. ‘Am I… oh no, is this a turn-off for you?’

‘A turn-off?! Are you out of your damned mind?’ Against his better judgement, he pressed into her again, needing to take away some of the agony that waiting was causing him when all he really wanted to do was thrust again. Pleasure rippled through him, instantly igniting him once more. ‘I’m just worried about you! Doesn’t this hurt?’

‘Yes, but it’s supposed to, right? I mean, I knew it was coming.’

‘But I didn’t!’ Hunter wiped her dark hair out of her eyes, shifted her weight again and groaned as she tightened around him, milking him while completely unaware of it. ‘I could have been more gentle. You could have told me how you wanted it and I could have tried to... to..’

The next band up to play, Chasm, had started and a female voice he knew from school and other gigs was singing A. D. I. D. A. S. The band sounded tight, despite being muted somewhat by soundproof doors, but Hunter was annoyed at the song choice. Bon Jovi would have helped make the moment slight more tender than Korn did.

Callie’s smile was radiant and his heart responded with a prolonged thump and he wondered if he was nuts for thinking about the competition when he already had the prize in his arms. ‘Hunter, my fantasy for my first time, was to go to a gig, have my socks knocked off by a brilliant musician, have him drag me backstage and do me hard against the wall.’ She wriggled her eyebrows. ‘And the only other fantasy I’ve ever had for my first, was if it was you.’ She brushed her lips against his and smiled. ‘So can’t you see how perfect this is?’ She kissed his jaw, shifted her weight and rolled her hips against his, making him grunt and nearly drop her as the pleasure overcame him. Not just the feel of her body, but her words, her voice, that light in her eyes. ‘Cant you feel how perfect this feels?’ She grunted herself, then trembled. ‘Or is this only amazing for me?’ She inhaled sharply again and rolled her hips. ‘Yes! Oh that’s-’

‘Oh... Cal...,’ Hunter’s sharp breaths punctured his lungs as he thrust into her heat again, once, then once more, wanting to be gentle but when she gave way to allow him deeper and then tightened on him when he tried to withdraw to thrust again, there was no holding himself back. He kissed her lazily when he could, but his focus was on the friction of Callie Clay against his throbbing cock. ‘Do you need me to get a…?’

‘No- I’m protected, and safe.’

‘Thank fuck- I think I only have five picks in my pocket anyway…’ Callie giggled and he caught her lips in that smile, adoring her. ‘I’m safe too.. I just… got tested...’ He thrust again, and again, each time going a little deeper, each time a little harder. ‘Can I…?’ He voiced the beginning of the best question he’d ever asked.

Her eyes seemed to swirl with desire. ‘Inside me? Oh… I wouldn’t have it any other way…’

Hunter moaned, certain that he was going to black out. Each time he impaled himself in her, she grew a little wetter, until he was sliding in and out of her rhythmically. ‘Did you plan this this way?’ He panted, feeling his climax growing, feeling the tension begin to leave her body, telling him that she was adjusting, allowing him to shape her. He gripped her ass with his hands and squeezed her greedily and she bucked, grew slicker around him, rose higher only to sink harder and began to pant. His jeans had only ridden down to his knees and his belt buckle was clanging against the brick behind her hip with every thrust, keeping a percussive beat to his physical harmony. ‘Have you saved yourself for me Callie?’