Ghost Note: A Rock Star Romance

by Vicki James

  Just when I thought Danny was going to kiss me again, he pulled away and fell back on his arse, He took a moment to stare at me with longing before he swung his legs out and draped them over the edge of the bed, so he was sitting beside my head. I looked over in confusion, but he soon reached for me and pulled me closer until I was kneeling beside him.

  “I don’t want to look down on you,” he said quietly. “I want to look up and have you in control. I want you wrapped around me when you sink onto my dick—every part of you, Zee. I want you clinging on like I’m the only thing that can keep your head above water.”

  With an aroused, yet shy smile on my face, I did as he asked. I climbed onto his lap, wrapping my arms around his neck, and I positioned myself over his erection, circling and teasing him with the heat waiting there for him. My fingers pushed up through his hair, while his strong muscles curled around my body, and he let his palms slide up and down my spine.

  “Perfect,” he whispered. “The view from where I’m sitting is incredible.”

  I smiled at him, feeling the blush rise in my cheeks. With unrivalled control, Danny’s arms tightened around me, and he slowly guided me down until I felt the tip of his dick pressing against my entrance. I was so wet, and the thought of what was about to happen only made me grow more and more aroused.

  “Sink down and wrap your legs around me,” he ordered, never taking his eyes off mine.

  I did. I did exactly as he asked until I was wrapped around him, holding on tight.

  I moved down slowly, feeling myself stretch when he filled me like only Danny could. My mouth popped open, and my breath got caught in the back of my throat until I couldn’t take any more of him. He was so fucking deep, and the ache of having him inside me was beautiful.

  Danny stilled when I did, his expression mirroring my own.

  “Fuck,” he blew out in a heavy breath. “Fuck, Zee. Fuck.”

  I wanted to say something profound, but my eyes felt like they were rolling into the back of my head, and my nipples were painfully tight. No words could or would form. My body was a live wire, waiting for that next touch.

  Danny slid a hand to my hip, a seductive, masculine groan rumbling in his chest before he did the same with his other hand. His fingers dug in with brutal force, and it only made my skin prickle more. I welcomed the pain of him being anchored to me. I welcomed anything he had to give, no matter the agony.

  “Christ, I forgot how good you feel,” he moaned, his jaw ticking tight as he tried to compose himself. “I just want to hold you. Like this. Forever.”

  His dick twitched inside of me, making me clench around him and coax another low rumbling moan.

  Without another word, he began to lift me slowly, before he dropped me back down again even slower, his strength guiding me into a rhythm that created the most perfectly torturous friction I’d ever felt. Curling my arms around his neck a little tighter, I dropped my damp forehead to his and kept my eyes open, letting him guide the way. His hands were made for making sweet music, and I felt every melody running through my veins as I stared at him, breathing him in. I was the first instrument he’d ever learned how to play, and nothing could ever change that.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off him. His breaths grew heavier, and I let him guide me up and down… slowly at first, until his need became more desperate, and he began to tense beneath me.

  Every muscle in his body grew tighter, and every breath he released belonged to me.

  Our rhythm gained speed; power too. Soon, Danny lost all delicacy as his need for relief built up, burning me from the inside out. He hit my G-spot over and over again until I began to see stars, his strength overwhelming. His name wasn’t only in my mind anymore; it fell from my lips with every second breath, a soft demand for everything he had to give. The sensations inside me felt dangerous, and I was suddenly a rebel unable to get enough of the very things she’d been avoiding for so long.

  Danny never let me go.

  He never stilled, faltered, or broke for air.

  The tighter I held on, the faster he moved. Muscles I didn’t know I had, burned, and a fire almost painful began to spread from my toes until I couldn’t take it anymore.

  His name fell from my lips one final time, loud and guttural, and when I came around him, hard and desperate for this blissful wave of release to last forever, he tensed inside of me and did the same.

  As I sat there in his lap, with his dick still inside of me, pulsating and satisfied, I couldn’t do anything but take a mental snapshot of that perfect moment between us.

  At least this time I knew it was going to be my last…

  And it was a time worth remembering.

  I could prepare myself for this goodbye, even if I already knew it was going to hurt more than the first.

  Twenty-Four

  The early hours of the morning arrived, and Danny slept with his arm around me while I listened to the steady beat of his heart. The night had been more than I could have dreamed of, and more than anything we’d done together in our years as boyfriend and girlfriend.

  Last night, we’d acted like it was our one and only time… and now it was over. That’s the problem when you build things up in your mind; they come to an end eventually, no matter how much you enjoyed the performance.

  My head was resting on the shoulder with a daisy tattooed upon it. It was the grungiest looking daisy I’d ever seen. He’d inked a reminder of me on his skin, and then he’d dropped the bombshell.

  He still loved me.

  Yeah, Daisy, but he’ll also still be leaving.

  Closing my eyes, I pressed a kiss to his chest and let it linger there. He released a sleepy moan before he turned on his side to face me and curled his arms around my body, burying my head into his chest. He smelt so clean and manly, and I wanted to bottle the scent of him up to save for the days when I knew I was going to miss him the most. He smelt like home, and my heart ached for it, even while drowning in the scent of him.

  I had so much to say, but the words were bouncing off the walls of my mind, and I couldn’t seem to pick out the ones I needed to form anything that would make sense.

  “You okay?” Danny asked sleepily.

  “Just… thinking.”

  “Try sleeping instead. It hurts less.” He pulled back to look at me.

  I blinked up at him with sore, tired eyes and offered a small smile. “Ha-funny-ha.”

  “What are you thinking about?”

  “About this house, and how I’m probably going to have to leave it. Find somewhere else to live.”

  He scowled; his hard lines visible as the moonlight poured into the room. “Why?”

  “Well, I’m never going to be able to have another man in here now. Not after you. Not after… that.”

  He couldn’t contain his smug smile no matter how hard he tried. “Don’t move. I like it here. It feels like you.” Danny ran a thumb over the apple of my cheek.

  “Something to think about, I suppose.” My gaze drifted down, focusing on his collarbone as he continued to stroke me soothingly. I caught sight of his tattoos again. “When did you get all of these?”

  “Pretty much straight after I went to Brighton with the guys to record the first album. There was a tattoo place around the corner from the flat we shared.”

  “Which did you get first?”

  “Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to.”

  My eyes rose to meet his. “The daisy.”

  “The guy who owned the tattoo studio is one of the best. He has people flying all over the world to get a session with him. He was really into his music, so we decided to make a deal with him. If he worked out of hours to ink us up, we’d invite him over to the studio to jam with us. We were cheeky little shits, but Halo doesn’t care about any of that. We got him to make the deal and—”

  “Halo? He’s the lead singer, right?” I remembered him from the YouTube videos I’d watched. “The one with the piercings and the weird black hair.”
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  Danny’s brows rose. “You know the guys in the band?”

  “Not really. I gave up on music the day you gave up on us.”

  “What?” he whispered, that frown deepening.

  “It sounds lame, but when every song reminded me of you, I couldn’t take a second of it any longer. If it had lyrics, I didn’t listen.”

  “Zee, that’s crazy.”

  “Is it?” I asked. There I was, more vulnerable than ever, laying my most embarrassing truths on his chest.

  “How can you live in a world without music?”

  “That part was easy. Living without you was way harder.”

  His face fell, and Danny stared at me helplessly. He didn’t stop rubbing his thumb over my cheek, and the weight of it felt heavy now, like sympathy was attached to the moment. I tried to pull away, but he held me in place and shook his head against the pillow.

  “Stop trying to leave me,” he whispered. “I have some things to put right while I’m here.” Without another word, he pulled me back against his warm chest, wrapping his arms around me and lulling me into a false sense of safety I knew was temporary. “Tomorrow night. Keep it free. I’ve got something I need you to see. And no, I’m not telling you what that is. You’re just going to have to trust me.”

  I woke to an empty bed with no idea what time of day it was.

  Exhaustion had turned my body to a limp noodle, and when I checked my phone screen through squinting eyes, it read 7:37 a.m., forcing me to drop back down into my pillow with a dramatic thud. Today was going to be a long day. I’d barely slept a wink, but the beautiful ache between my thighs and the satisfied hum in my belly reminded me that it had been worthwhile.

  Everything I’d ever put in a box and shoved into the darkest corners of my mind had now been dragged to the front and reopened. The dust had been blown off the top, the moths dying in there had been set free, and all that was left was this great big foggy confusion that was giving me a headache.

  And now I was alone again. Danny had gone.

  Turning over, I shoved my head under my white pillow, and I wrapped it around my ears, groaning loudly into the mattress as I kicked out my legs in a temper tantrum that only I would see.

  “Way to go, Daisy,” I mumbled against the sheets. “Way. To. Go. You’re such a weak arse. Five years, thrown down the drain in five days. You stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid—”

  “Is this going to go on for a while? Because I may need to turn off the stove so that the bacon doesn’t burn if it is.”

  Danny.

  “But don’t stop on my account.” He chuckled. “This is entertaining.”

  Clearing my throat, I lifted an edge of the pillow up to see him leaning against the doorframe, wearing nothing but his jeans. His strong arms were folded over his chest, and that smug, satisfied look he wore should have made me angry. Instead, it made me melt, and all the tension I’d woken up with drifted away with the return of my smile.

  “I thought you’d left,” I croaked.

  “Clearly.” He smirked.

  “How much of that did you catch?”

  “All of it. I even saw your just-fucked hair when you checked your phone. Sexy, by the way. Not many women could pull that look off the way you do.”

  I raised a hand and gave him the middle finger. Danny laughed before he pushed away from the door and walked over to yank the pillow off me. I tried to protest, but it was useless the second he ran a hand down my naked spine.

  Back tickling had been our thing when we’d been together. I could be mad as hell with him over something, and the second his fingertips trailed up and down my spine in that soothing, yet hypnotising way, I forgave him. I often forgot what I’d been mad about to begin with.

  Danny sat on the edge of the bed, and my eyes closed as he drew patterns on my skin.

  It was almost better than sex… but not quite. Although it had, more often than not, led to that when we’d been together. Tickling had been his tool to get whatever the hell he wanted from me.

  Now, it seemed like a tenderness that was too intimate in the broad light of day. Still… I couldn’t tear myself from his touch. In all the time he’d been away, my body had been wound up tightly, and I was only now realising just how much so.

  “I could let you do that all day,” I mumbled, half of my face mushed up against the mattress.

  His fingertips were soon replaced with his soft kisses, and that sleepy arousal within me stirred to life. He trailed them up and down my back, with a single fingertip following the path of his lips until he ended up by my ear.

  “Get up,” he whispered, nipping my earlobe lightly with his teeth. “I’ve made coffee, and I’m making you breakfast with what little food you have in.”

  “I don’t want food. I want—” you, but my words were cut off by the obnoxiously loud rumbling of my stomach. Blinking my eyes open, I looked up to see his face next to mine, and his brow raised.

  “You were saying?”

  “Okay, maybe I do need food.”

  Danny chuckled and pressed a kiss to my forehead before he stood back. “Get some clothes on. Your house is freezing first thing in the morning.”

  “You could always put a shirt on.”

  “That doesn’t sound like much fun for you.” He winked. “Hurry up. I have eggs to scramble and an adorable Devonshire girl to stare at.”

  He turned to leave, and I watched him and those perfect muscles in his broad back disappear.

  “He’s making me eggs,” I said quietly to myself. “Of course he is.”

  It didn’t take me long to get up and throw on some leggings, a T-shirt, and my grey fluffy dressing gown. By the time I’d found my slippers and trudged downstairs, I was still only half awake.

  The radio was playing softly in the corner, and it wasn’t until I sat down at the small kitchen table and looked over at a shirtless Danny parading around in front of the stove, with a pan in one hand and a spatula in the other, that I realised it had been a while since this kitchen had sounded so… alive.

  If it ever had.

  Music and romance filled the air, sweeping me up in a cloud of what could have been as Danny’s head bopped along to the track that was playing.

  He slid across the floor, moving from place to place with ease, doing whatever he needed to do, and acting like he knew where everything was. He looked like he’d lived here with me for the past two years. Like this was his home, and as I watched him and those damn back muscles go to work, I realised that he didn’t look like he belonged here at all. Everything about him, his face, his attitude, his talent, his aura… they were too big for this small world of mine. I fit into this life of cold, tiny kitchens, and reading a magazine by the plain little lamp in my living room. I was content with silence and Groundhog Day. But Danny…

  No.

  He’d been made for so much more, and it had never been as obvious to me as it was right there and then, as I watched him pouring milk into a pan, biting down on his bottom lip as his head bopped and jammed to the music.

  When he spun around to face me, his smile erupted and took my breath away.

  “Music?” I said, making it sound like a question my brow raised.

  “That a problem?” he asked, rolling his head from side to side.

  I laughed, unable to stop my giddy heart from finding joy in his happiness. “Apparently not. Make yourself at home.”

  “You can join me for a dance if you like?”

  “Without coffee first? What are you? Some kind of madman?”

  “Right.” He spun smoothly on the heels of his feet, reaching around to grab a hot, steaming cup of coffee, before he danced his way over to me, his every move matching the beat of the music even when he passed it over to me and dropped a kiss to my forehead. Reaching to cup my cheeks, he held my face in his hands and unleashed perfect white teeth through a smile. “Good fucking morning, Daisy Piper.”

  “Good morning.” I beamed.

  “Fuel up. Once that�
��s gone, we dance.”

  “Dance?”

  “Yeah, you know… move your feet, shake your body, even let your arms have a little fun,” he teased, demonstrating some moves as he went.

  “I never realised how bossy you were.”

  “People only say someone’s bossy when they’re jealous of their determination to get shit done.”

  “Sure, sure.” When he turned away, I rolled my eyes.

  “Roll your eyes all you want. That dance is happening.”

  The hot coffee I was about to swallow came tumbling back out into my mug. “How the hell did you see that?”

  “I don’t have to see it to know it’s happening. It may have been five years, but you haven’t changed that much.” Danny laughed softly and shook his head, his shoulders moving back and forth as the song picked up pace. “Fuck, I love this tune.”

  “What is it?” I asked after taking a successful drink and dropping my mug back on the table.

  “I should be offended by your lack of music awareness, but I’m going to slide over that issue and begin to educate you. This, my Zee, is Sunshine of Your Love, by a beautiful British rock band called Cream.”

  My Zee.

  “Never heard of them.”

  Danny turned around sharply, all humour falling from his face. “Daisy…” he warned.

  “It sounds kinda noisy.”

  “Noisy?”

  “Yeah.” I scrunched up my nose. “Dum dum dum dum… dum dum dum dum dum dum. That’s all I hear.”

  “Hold your tongue. That, there, is one of the greatest bass riffs ever composed. Can’t you hear it?” He brought his hands in front of him, his air guitar firmly in place as he bit down on that damn lip again and began to match the deep notes of the song perfectly. “That’s a Jimi Hendrix influenced riff if ever there was one. You’ve gotta wonder if Hendrix ever knew how big he’d become—how many artists he’d influence with his shit, including Jack Bruce.”

  “I’ve heard of Hendrix.”

  “I should fucking hope you have.”