by Lisa Gillis
Quickly, she averted her eyes, but she had looked long enough to find his backside as pleasing as his front.
“Thanks again. About Rusty. Probably shouldn’t have brought him on tour, but I did. And it would kill me if something happened to him.”
Genuinely impressed by his attachment to his pet, she smiled as she sipped, and his eyes seemed to hone in on her throat as she swallowed.
“So, are you here with someone? At the fest?”
“My friend.” Switching her drink into the other hand, she pressed the cooled fingers against the back of her neck as she joked, “But she deserted me for the first junk this side of the fence.”
Only the barest husky chuckle followed that answer, and she wished she could take it back. Had selling Liv out as a groupie made herself look like one?
“What kind of music do you listen to? Obviously not mine...” Again, that sweet yet sardonic smile that was already becoming addicting.
Rusty finished lapping up at least half of the water and sprang onto a cushy leather bench-style couch. Swinging her eyes from the pup to its master, she again felt wowed by both his looks and the charisma exuding with his every breath.
Just a few weeks ago, she had learned to hate tattoos, but now as her eyes ran over the ink decorating both arms, she saw not hurtful memories, only beautiful art. The inside of his left forearm depicted a guitar neck faded into his wrist. Sheet music bars spiraled around biceps and triceps, and she wondered what the song was. He took another sip, and the movement of his arm broke her fixation.
Remembering he had asked a question, she answered, “Everything. Mostly rock. A little metal. But I don’t know most of these bands.” With the last part, she alluded to the festival. “They are harder than my normal listen.”
“You don’t know mine?” Shaking her head, she asked if he had played his set yet. Now he was the one to shake his head. “It’s two hours from now. I’m just chillaxin. Trying to get in the mindset, you know?” She found herself nodding, as if she knew, and he held up the beer with yet another engaging grin. “Best cure for stage fright.”
“Stage fright?” Dubiously, she doubted this claim while her eyes riveted to the way the bottle touched his lips and the swallow convulsing his Adam’s apple.
“I guess you find that funny too.” Challengingly, his gaze held hers, and a slight grin quirked the corner of his lips.
“Who wouldn’t?” Defensiveness coated her words, and determination kept her shy gaze on his face. “A musician afraid to perform...”
“It’s not uncommon.”
Although he sounded slightly rebuffed, she still couldn’t seem to stop debating her position. “Well, if I were afraid of dogs,” here she pointedly glanced at Rusty, and the pup’s ears flattened against his head, “I wouldn’t be a veterinarian...”
“No?” Those dark brows mockingly arched, and the gleam in his eyes was amused, no longer offended. “Not even if you put a Band-Aid on a lost puppy, and some guy saw that and decided that you were great with Band-Aids. Then, the guy offered you a quarter of a million dollars to take care of a whole litter of puppies?” Rusty’s ears quickly perked when his master glanced his way.
The comparison obviously alluded to performing and record contracts. Not lost was the pun of ‘band aids.’ Eying him with a new respect, she wondered, “Is that how it happened with you?”
Shaking his head, he paused for another sip of his beer then teased, “No, I would never put a Band-Aid on a puppy. Impractical with all that fur...”
Normally, she was not an eye roller, but she felt the unconscious action and saw the answering gleam in the depths of his dark eyes. How easily she had relaxed as if he was a familiar friend, yet at the same time, every neuron transmitted awareness of this man.
Jack was turning her on, simply by standing, more than Kel had affected her in the midst of so much more. Because of that, an override was occurring, her words and actions governed by libido and impulses instead of logic and instinct. He remained silent, assessing her next sip as closely as she had done his.
Relaxing into the sweet spell that seemed to settle around them, she whispered, “So, the best cure for stage fright...is this?” She tilted the bottle for an extra sensuous sip.
Dark eyes welded with hers conveying instinctive and primal understanding, male to female.
“Well, maybe not the best-best...” His voice deepened a few decibels, and the husky whisper was possibly the most sensual sound ever to reach her ears.
“What’s the best?” Her inquiry rode more on a breath than a whisper.
With her fiancé, she had made the first move hundreds of times and with college hook ups a few times when extremely inebriated. Now, despite this guy being a stranger and her being relatively sober, she tailed her fingers down bare skin, from the art just above the first row of pecks, to the still open fly.
Struggling for casualness she couldn’t feel, she tipped the bottle for another sip and wanted so much more than that swallow. Not for a favor, or because he was famous. Simply because an intimate connection with him became something she needed– even if it only came down to her knees on the cool tiles of the floor.
Jack had more in mind. His bottle clinked as, reaching behind her, he deposited it on the granite counter top. Next, he used one long tan finger to hook a strand of her hair, pulling it over her shoulder.
Automatically, her body leaned into his as he closed the two steps between their toes. Her heart pounded hard, racing with the knowledge that she might be kissed by him...this man that awakened lusts of a nature that she had never felt in her twenty-two years.
The anticipation when his head dipped sent the blood roaring through her veins.
His lips angled against hers, testing with a frictional brush, then his tongue was swiping in a way that stole her breath. After a teasing pull with his teeth, he deepened the kiss and her tongue eagerly mingled with his.
There was not a way to pinpoint what was different about this kiss from any other she had ever had, but it was incomparable.
Hot and sweet, it kept her hoping that it would never stop.
When it did, she couldn’t care after all because this luscious attention had moved. The touch of his lips singed the side of her neck, and a shiver screamed down her spine as this concentration continued to her throat and trailed to the other side.
His fingers splayed over the ribs beneath her arms, and his thumbs lazily traced their sensitive targets making her wish the thin barrier of her bra and shirt nonexistent.
Resting her forehead on his shoulder, she pressed closer putting her lips to the skin of his chest. Deeply, she breathed in his showered scent and tried not to worry that she had sweated for the better part of the day. Her hands flattened on his chest, greedy for the feel of his skin, then encircled around to the muscles of his back. With the addition of his tongue to these searing kisses, her knees gave out, and she clasped his torso for support.
A groan left her lips, and after a moment, he suspended this delicious torture. His hands roved, roamed, and when she was able to do more than hang on, she took a taste of the tan chest that had tantalized her senses from first sight.
This caused him to pause as she continued, and without the distraction of what he was doing, she gave herself over to what she was doing. With a slight push to separate them, his fingers fiddled with the hem of the stretchy tank top she wore.
“Marissa?”
Her ears savored the sound of her name in that deep timbered drawl, and then her muddled mind comprehended that he was waiting for permission in one form or another.
Pushing at his hands, she yanked at the shirt herself, and the air conditioner cooled her fevered skin as the scrap of material fell to the floor. His fingers immediately inflamed it again as they slid here and there, appreciatively pausing on curves and contours. Guitar calloused fingers caught on smooth silk, and impatient with the lacy triangles hindering his new targets, his fingers dipped beneath the red fabric wher
e they caressed and teased with toying tugs until crazed, she unclasped the garment hoping his wandering mouth would move that direction.
Her feet left the floor, and she found herself perched on the counter while he gratified that longing. The shaggy strands of his hair were silky against her chin, and the pads of her fingers pressed into his scalp unconsciously holding him to her as she gulped back a moan. Her gaze fell on Rusty finding the animal intently watching. Blocking out that bizarre image she pressed her eyelids closed, but the enhanced sensation from doing so, and the next swipe of his tongue caused her head to loll on her neck and her eyes to fall open to the track lighting on the ceiling.
With no bra to hinder, his lips, tongue and teeth generously lingered with tickling swirls and laps of liquid fire, tugs and nips that tightened her grip– each pulling at some current connected to the fires flaming her innermost core, and pulling stifled moans past her lips.
This sensory overload came to a gradual end, his thumb brushing one of the damp tips, then her moist lips. His head leaned to hers as he stared into her eyes. She felt a crushing weight. Not the physical one she wanted of his body against her, but a mentally crushing letdown when she saw the resignation in his look.
“Don’t be mad...” The breath of his whisper brushed her face.
Mad? Was there a word for this ugly spectrum of emotions suddenly churning and charring her insides? She wanted to scream in frustration and cry in shame. He was famous. She was a regular person— not even a hot groupie. Had she really thought someone like him would–
Extracting a paper, he laid it on the counter top. Pridefully, she blinked away the ache behind her eyelids to peer as he prompted her attention to the typed paragraphs. Her peripheral vision perceived the tiny box of foil packets in the same drawer.
“I have to do this...” His halting explanation seemed regretful. “And there is no right time or way...believe me...”
Somehow, her senses and her mind calmed enough to read, and afterward, she raised her eyes expecting hidden camera men, announcing some sort of comic reality show, to pop out of one of the many paneled doors. Most likely, her expression was comical enough for ratings, but Jack’s return look was earnest and even slightly pleading.
A minute later, she scrawled her name and date into a blank line declaring in writing that she was a willing participant of this passionate encounter; and two minutes later, she lay tangled with him in a full-sized bunk, the brief intermission forgotten. Maybe she should have felt offended, but more eminent was the previous pact of his lips, tongue, and touch– not legal jargon on a paper.
“Mmh... wait...did I sign off on...this...” she teased once, barely managing the utterance, and his next action pleasurably punished her taunting words.
In college, she and her girlfriends had often compared their hook ups to carnival rides, analyzing each on a scale with the carousel being slow but boring. Jack was a coaster, beginning fast but slowing many times before those wild and anticipated thrills of the track.
When their breaths mingled as something besides gasps and groans, he dropped his head touching his lips to hers for yet another mind-twisting kiss before moving slightly away. A hand maintained contact resting on her hip.
This was always the awkward moment. The memories of hook ups from years ago were suddenly fresh. The moment of pretending to sleep so one person can sneak out or–
The dog. As if knowing the indecency was over, or maybe he had watched, she sure wouldn’t have known, Rusty peeked his head over the bunk.
Seeing the trajectory of her gaze, Jack turned admonishing his pet and then swung out of bed grabbing strewn clothing. As he pulled on his jeans, she admired the view, including the contrast of the tan line at his waist, and possessively assessed the slight curving intentions her nails had caused in the pale skin he was about to cover. Rusty playfully scampered off with a sock just as Jack reached for it, and an amused smile tipped her lips.
“Least it wasn’t anything of yours,” Grinning back, he courteously began to scoop her things up and leaned in for another quick kiss as he dropped them to the bed.
With a finger, he indicated a door and offered the shower beyond it. If this was his typical lay, he was incredible at every phase including a non-awkward afterward.
The terry towel she used a quarter of an hour later had the thread count of a flower petal as it moved over skin still tingling from every touch and kiss. She was sure he hadn’t planned on joining her, but he had, and it had been once again amazing. Realizing that he was waiting for the towel, she passed it over and concealed her disappointment when after drying, he wrapped his waist.
She couldn’t help but wonder if this connection was something out of the ordinary for him also, or if maybe it had just taken her years to discover that such chemistry could exist.
Leaning into the mirror, she scrubbed at a raccoon eye until it was gone, and automatically he passed a brush and rubber band over. Leaning in his former stance against the counter, he watched with, a gleam of admiration in his eyes. She found herself wishing that he were just a normal guy that she could see again.
Once dressed, she turned back to him as she checked her pockets for her license, money, and keys while scanning the floor for anything that may have fallen out.
“Thanks for the stage fright cure...” Although his words were jesting, his eyes seemed solemn.
“Anytime.” Giving in to an impulse beyond her control, she stood on her toes placing a kiss on his jaw and then knelt to give Rusty a pat before turning to the door.
“Oh, Mariss, wait...”
Never would she forget the shortened sound of her name as he spoke and groaned it during their short acquaintance. In bed, he had used it liberally without resorting to ‘girl’, or ‘damn girl,’ that she remembered from college one night stands.
When he pulled open a cabinet, she humorously wondered if there was something else she needed to sign, perhaps ‘satisfaction accomplished’ or something similar. But, what he passed over was a CD.
“Listen to it...you might like it.”
Stars in heaven couldn’t match the twinkle in those dark eyes.
“Thanks, I have no doubts that I will.” It was the truth. Just hearing his voice would always take her back to this time. Yet, a parting gift of his album made her feel like a groupie, which cheapened their time together.
Who was she kidding? Sternly, she squared her shoulders. ‘Put it into perspective’ might be the better realization. The tryst was tawdry. There was no sugarcoating this no matter how sweet it had felt.
“Is it cool if I get your number?” The husky rumble had her chin jerking in disbelief to his.
That was one way to cure the sleazy tramp feeling. Silently, she handed her phone over for the swap. Instead of reaching for it to text himself from it, he shot her one of those quirky grins she had come to know in such a short time.
“I, um, actually, already got it. Kind of assumed, then figured assuming was asinine of me.”
When? Before following her into the shower? While she had put herself together afterward? Not that it mattered, and she returned the smile. “No, it’s cool.”
Cool was an understatement. He might never contact her, but this mixture of consideration and rock stardom was intriguing.
Next, he was the one to drop a parting kiss to her lips before extending an arm to gallantly assist her down the steps.
With a last wave and much determination, she turned away for good, but her heart didn’t slow until she knew she was out of sight. Weaving around the trailers, she jabbed a text to Olivia and kept her fingers around the phone waiting for her friend’s return text.
Dusk was falling fast, and the crowds around the stages were now shadows illuminated by strobing rainbow colored laser light lines. Within the hour, the voice on the west stage would be one she intimately knew, and she began to debate whether to watch that show.
One thing that she did not debate was her future.
Sh
e had missed and mourned her unfaithful fiancé for the last time. There was a better relationship waiting for her, somewhere, someday. It had taken a lost Jack Russell terrier and a screamo musician to open her eyes.
FIVE MINUTES LATER:
HER PHONE JINGLED, vibrating in her hand, and she turned the lighted screen to view.
510-214-2480
Staying for the show?
9:26 PM
Maybe
Sent 9:27 PM
510-21-2480
You better ;)
9:31 PM
Oh really?
Sent 9:33 PM
Her retort apparently didn’t grab his attention enough to answer back, or possibly, he was too busy pre-show, and while waiting in vain, she added this number to her contact list under the amusing alias ‘Russ.’
FIVE DAYS LATER:
RUSS
Hey
2:12 AM
Hey
Sent 7:01 AM
FIVE MONTHS LATER
RUSS
Hey
11:35 PM
Hey
Sent 11:36 PM
Hesitantly, her fingers brushed at the screen of her phone before typing in a return greeting. After pressing send, she suddenly felt queasy when the smell of melted ice cream assaulted her already hyper senses, and she pushed at the carton until it was on the other edge of the sofa table. The message had waked her from a dead sleep. She was still in her clothes on the couch in front of a flickering television.
RUSS
How ru
11:36 PM
How was she? Not well, but he was the last person that needed to know.
Okay you?
Sent 11:37 PM
RUSS
Ok
11:39 PM
