Phoenix Rising Rock Band: The Series

by Kathryn C. Kelly

  Forty-five minutes later, I’m in the SUV, heading to Parnell and Cassandra. 288 is backed up with vehicles and I grit my teeth. Life leaps by on this fucking highway. More time is wasted in bumper-to-bumper traffic than actual movement. It takes another thirty minutes to reach the Southwest Freeway, where we find more of the same. If an accident happens, we’ll be stuck for hours. At the thought, I consider a helicopter to get me from place-to-place, if I ever find myself in the city again.

  When we exit on Weslayan, the anticipation I should feel turns to dread. Cassandra’s image floats into my head, but, Georgie keeps interfering.

  I have more in common with women my own age and older. The next hours fucking Cassandra are imperative to prove my life is the same as usual. When Kiln turns onto a private access road in an already exclusive neighborhood, I tense. Soon, the white painted brick house with the black ironwork greets me. A moment later, we halt in the driveway.

  Pres hurries to open the door for me. He’s so much less of an asshole than Kiln.

  “Give me a couple hours.”

  “Yes, sir,” he says.

  My gaze collides with Kiln’s in the rearview mirror. Unlike Pres’s verbal response, Kiln’s is a curt nod. If he gave a fuck about me, I’d think his emotions were for a different reason. Maybe, he’d feel some concern about my association with both Georgie and her mother.

  His main concern is my ability—or my inability—to make money. If I’m caught in another scandal…but fuck him…he voted with them, too. For all I know, he suggested it.

  Before I press the doorbell, Kiln and Pres speed away. Not thirty seconds later, the door opens. Cassandra, herself, greets me in a short negligee that opens to the front, revealing her panty-less state. Hazel eyes flecked with gray sweep over me.

  I enter the coolness of the house and the closing door echoes in the pristine white elegance of the hallway.

  The moment she steps toward me and glides her fingers over my chest, Parnell says, “Cass?”

  He’s standing at the top of the curving staircase. His feet are bare and he’s shirtless. Doesn’t matter, whenever I look at him, all I see is an asshole.

  “You can’t touch others outside of our games.”

  Really, ass wad?

  The rule doesn’t work both ways. My aunt’s his mistress. Obviously, Cassandra doesn’t give a fuck about his decree. Her pussy was mine to do with as I pleased after my concert and Parnell-free.

  Tuning their chatter out, I follow Cassandra to the staircase. The place where I ran into Georgie the other night. The day after our encounter in the room at the mansion, when I had no understanding of her belief that no one would miss her.

  “Sloane?”

  I haven’t moved farther than that fateful step. Cassandra’s questioning tone sends me closer to the end of this game. Sinking into her pussy should be top priority.

  But… “I can’t do this.” I don’t even want to. I back down one stair, not flinching at Cassandra’s narrowing eyes.

  Parnell shoves a hand in his pockets and jingles coins. “You’re free to have fun with Cass while I’m with the woman who’s waiting for us in the bedroom.” He frowns. “Not the original girl.”

  Not Abby, he means.

  “At least this one’s older,” Cassandra bites out and faces me.

  Her higher position offers me a spectacular view of her shaved cunt. I take another step back, choosing who has my loyalty. Twice, I’ve stuck my dick in Cassandra. To her, though, I’m nothing but cock. She doesn’t even like my music. But Georgie…I can’t betray her.

  “Two women are yours to enjoy, Parnell.”

  He rocks on his heels and sighs. “Are you certain? You specifically requested…” His voice trails off.

  Back to Abby again, but he can’t make a big deal that I only agreed to this if he changed his bed partner.

  Lips tight, Cassandra pins me with a look. “Let me speak to Sloane alone.”

  “Five minutes, Cass.” He squeezes her shoulder as he walks off and throws over his shoulder, “Change his mind for us.”

  His tone placates Cassandra, as though she were a child. While his actual child is treated as an afterthought, coddled when necessary but mostly ignored.

  “It’s her,” she whispers, her eyes devoid of emotion.

  I lift a brow. “Georgie, I presume?” She’s the only her we’re mutually acquainted with.

  “Who else?” she spits at me.

  Does she really fucking expect me to admit I’ve contributed to the delinquency of a minor? Still, a partial truth cuts down the chances of tripping myself up. “She’d be humiliated if our hookups gets out. Someone has to think about her.”

  “Hookups? That’s a crass description of our rendezvous. She isn’t the one you should care about. I am.”

  I shake my head.

  “Yes! The girl upstairs? She’s thirty. Parnell…all he talked about was your arrival as if he couldn’t wait to be rid of me.” She touches herself, opening her pussy lips. Moisture glistens from her and she sends me a pleading look. “I have needs, too.”

  Clenching my jaw, I glance away.

  “He’s driving me insane. I’m dying inside. When you came to our bed, it was the first time he’s brought me a younger man.”

  And that was by accident. If not for my father’s urgent business trip, he would’ve been here to join them in bed.

  “You’re a beautiful woman.”

  She straightens and hunger sweeps over her features. “Then prove it to me and fuck me while Parnell has fun with that girl.”

  Predatory now, she massages her clit and my hard dick cheers me up. But thoughts of Georgie chase me, so I won’t act on the need to fuck. Not with her mother at least.

  “Are you coming?”

  “If I take you to bed this afternoon, then what?”

  “Then we find time to do it again.”

  “Will Parnell allow that?” I cock my head. “How would we hide this from your children?”

  “He wasn’t with us Saturday.”

  “Which I regret. I don’t need an angry husband breathing down my throat.”

  She rubs her neck. “Josh is out of town and Georgie’s out of our way. She’s in the hospital. They’ll never know.”

  At her callous words, my attempt to let her down easily comes to an abrupt end. Her selfishness disgusts me, evaporating my pity towards the situation she’s in with her husband. “I don’t want you.”

  Her mouth drops open and her spine stiffens. There’s nothing more I have to say. I’m not too far from the studio, so I decide to walk there, hoping someone recognizes me to remind me just what my music means to me.

  Cassandra

  “This is Abby, Cass.”

  I smile tightly as Parnell presents a blonde woman to me. She’s about twenty-six or seven—and that’s pushing it. But she lights up a room, commands attention with her expressive brown eyes and pretty face.

  Abby’s perfume fills the space in my peach, silver, and white study. She’s standing here as if she owns it.

  “Nice to meet you, Cass,” she says in a sultry voice, not bothering to wait for my invitation to sit, just taking it upon herself to do so. She’s wearing little white shorts and a tank top that just covers her breasts. Nail art decorates her toenails, showcased in white flip-flops.

  I have no idea why she’s making me so uneasy. I’m still floundering from Sloane’s unanticipated rejection yesterday.

  “She’s joining us today,” Parnell announces.

  Protest rises to my throat, but I only shake my head. “Where’s Sloane? He was supposed to join us. You promised you’d call and convince him to participate today.”

  At the mention of Sloane, Abby titters.

  “Something funny?” I demand.

  “Not in the least,” she responds but the joke is on me. She knows something that I don’t.

  “Sloane can’t make it,” Parnell informs me.

  He doesn’t meet my gaze, so I know he
didn’t make an attempt to contact Sloane.

  “So you’ve found a replacement? Shouldn’t it be another man?” I press.

  Abby bends and kisses me on the mouth, catching me off-guard. She pinches my nipples before sliding her hands to the waistband of my slacks. “I can make you feel good, too,” she swears, gazing at me through her lashes. “Parnell can fuck me while you watch and decide if you’d like me to taste you.”

  I wait for him to offer an alternative, answer my questions, and not be so enraptured by the woman in front of me. Since we’ve started bringing others into our bed, I’ve been with women. But something about this is different, too much so for my liking. Unable to pinpoint the problem, irritation surges in me.

  Maybe, Georgie being in the hospital has thrown me off. What I am aware of is how much I feel as if I’m floundering, that an inferno is raging around me and it’s threatening to consume me. I’m old, but not so old where my feelings have atrophied. I’m still young. Age is only a number, so why does Parnell only have eyes for the young woman he’s ushered in. I’m invisible to him.

  Narrowing my eyes at my husband, I clear my throat. “I don’t want to do this today. I want you and I to spend some alone time together.”

  “Not today, Cassandra,” he says absently, his hand at the small of Abby’s back.

  Guiding her to the spot next to me, Parnell kneels down. Abby doesn’t hesitate to remove her shorts and throw open her legs. Without responding to me, he swipes his tongue over Abby’s plump clit and groans in satisfaction.

  He loses himself in eating her juicy cunt, forgetting my presence entirely.

  Chapter Six

  Georgie

  Still breathing with the help of oxygen, I flick through the television, finding nothing interesting, pausing on the hospital access channels out of sheer curiosity. Who’d watch this shit by choice? Aggravated, I switch to the next channel, but give up when I see a rerun of Matlock.

  It’s bright and sunny beyond my window. It should be storming to match my mood. That it isn’t depresses me further. Focusing on yesterday’s visit from Sloane cheers me up. I wish I could’ve talked to him longer, ask how his concert went. Without my cell phone and iPad, I don’t have much to go on. There was just a brief mention on the local news and a small clip of him onstage. Nothing more than I already know.

  My door opens and I sigh. I’m sure it hasn’t been two hours since my vital signs were checked or my blood was drawn.

  “Here for vampire food?” I ask and look up, unable to stop my fluttery heart or my huge smile. A warm glow flows through me at the sight of the gorgeous man with the brown-black hair and clear blue eyes. “Sloane?”

  “Need company?”

  He raises an acoustic guitar and I almost swoon from giddiness. I suck in an extra dose of oxygen. “As long as it’s you, I’m always open for company.”

  Eyes twinkling, he shakes his head. “You’re so coy.”

  Instead of thin leather bracelets, he’s wearing leather cuffs with spikes. His hair is messy and I itch to run my fingers through the strands. A T-shirt with layers of nails hanging from the material is stretched over his chest.

  “You’re so sexy,” I counter, removing the oxygen lines going into my nose and sitting up. Drawing in a deep breath, I wince at the pain and cough. “If I remember, I told you so the night we met.”

  “Georgiana,” he says in soft warning, sitting in the bedside chair and propping his guitar up. The headstock of the real one aligns with his tatted headstock when he bends his wrist. The flex of his muscles quicken my pulse. He seems oblivious, demonstrated by the disapproving lecture he launches into.

  “First, you need to replace the fucking oxygen. Second, we need to forget about what happened the night we met.”

  I lower my lids and bunch my sheet. “I know. I want to—“

  “You lied about your age,” he says flatly. “Not that anyone will give a fuck. It’ll all be on me.”

  “I’m so sorry I put you in that position.”

  “Position?” he echoes with a wicked smirk.

  He gives me an under-eyed look and I flush, giggling, the anxiety in my belly unclenching.

  He smiles at me. I shift in the bed, ignoring the discomfort of my IV and the beeping monitors. All I see is Sloane and the smolder flaring in his gaze. My body responds immediately to his raw sensuality, and my face burns in embarrassment at how open I feel to his probing look. He has to see my desire. It’s too strong, too intense, to go unnoticed. In his presence, the darkness inside of me morphs into a bright light and kindles into a hot flame. “I’d never do anything to jeopardize you.”

  “Why’d you do it?” he asks. “And was it only my dick you were willing to suck or anyone who happened upon you while you waited for asshole?”

  Although anger flashes through me, his question is legitimate. His dick was stuffed in my mouth within twenty minutes of meeting him and he didn’t even know my name. Shame replaces everything else and I think about Crowell. If he was here, he’d give me something to make me forget and I’d be able to pretend I don’t have a care in the world.

  “Well?”

  Hanging my head, I wheeze a breath. “Crowell gave me the coke,” I begin, not sure where to start.

  “And?”

  “He brought me in that room and told me he’d be back in a few minutes to collect payment.”

  Silence falls but a heaviness fills the air. I peek in his direction. Fury blazes from his blue eyes and something else, almost indefinable. Bitter envy, similar to what I experience whenever I think of Lana or try to figure out who Sloane could’ve been visiting at my parents’ house. My mind goes round and round with scenarios. Other than my mother—since he smelled like her—I don’t know who else to pair him with. Reason tells me it’s probably one of the maids. My mother is like Josh—elitist. She’d consider Sloane beneath her due to his age and his profession.

  “Did you hear me?” he growls.

  I press my lips together so I won’t moan like a dog in heat at his rough tone.

  “You had no money with you,” he offers, low.

  “You know he didn’t want my money.”

  “A cock suck?”

  A curt nod is my answer, but I’m compelled to defend Crowell. He’s a stupid ass; however, he’s my friend and has stuck by me when no one else would. “It’s only recently that he’s began to request a blow job in exchange for the powder. Most of the time, he gives me pleasure, too, so it usually isn’t one-sided.” As it would’ve been the other night.

  His jaw clenches and his grip tightens on the guitar neck before he closes his eyes. When they pop back open, they’re angrier and colder.

  “What the fuck were you doing there and would you have sucked another man’s dick if I hadn’t found you?”

  “You almost sound jealous.” The thought makes me hum in my throat.

  He doesn’t answer me, but stares me down until I give in. Blowing out a noisy breath, I plop back dramatically. “Crowell invited me to the party to meet you. He got me in. We’d only been there a few minutes before he brought me to that room. As to your other question, no, I wouldn’t have sucked anyone else off.” I chew on a fingernail to settle my nerves. “The whole thing confuses me. I’m ashamed of myself and sorry for the position I’ve put you in, but I wouldn’t change those moments with you for anything.”

  My confession is wrenched from deep inside of me, leaving myself completely vulnerable to Sloane.

  His eyes soften, roaming over me like the barest caress, and he relaxes again, easing my tension. Long fingers pluck at the guitar and his lashes lower as he gazes at the instrument. He plays no definitive tune, but it disappoints me when he stops with the same abruptness that he started. We stare at each other and, despite his demand that we forget about our first meeting, it hangs between us. Passion glazes his eyes. He’s remembering our encounter as much as I am.

  I want to know him. Really, really discover his essence. From news stories,
I already know his favorite movie and food preference. I’m aware of much more, but reading about him and experiencing him are totally different.

  “You’re beyond brilliant to have picked up a lead guitar at Maitland’s house and learned to play in a few weeks.”

  His fingers glide over the strings again and he smiles. “That’s a good story, isn’t it?”

  I lick my lips and his eyes follow my movement. “It’s true, right?” His wry words bother me.

  “No,” he says calmly, and plays again.

  This time, his voice rasps the bands biggest hit with only the acoustic guitar as the musical accompaniment. The song is more meaningful with just his croon and a solo instrument. It’s sad and haunting and seductive. Absorbing him, each small nuance, my gaze remains glued to him, so I don’t miss when he closes his eyes and loses himself in his music. I’m rapt with awe as he refocuses on me, to bring it to a conclusion. All of the emotion that he put into his song is stark in his features.

  “When I was ten, a very special girl gave me this guitar as a gift,” he says, an underlying pain in the confession. “She had a beautiful soul and I ended up loving her as only a boy could. My dad had me study piano and hired a voice coach, but she knew it wasn’t me. Mother convinced my dad to allow me to change to guitar lessons.”

  There’s a faraway look in his eyes. With him distracted, I have unfettered access to study him. His features are strong and bold, so symmetrical they are nearly perfect. If my lashes weren’t so thick and dark, his would be enviable. Instead of his usual gold hoops, he has a diamond stud in each ear.

  I swallow and think of a question to break through my fixation on his face and hair. “The girl? She was the love of your life?”

  My question snaps him out of his fog and he offers a half-smile. “If you want to say so.”

  “I don’t want to say anything about you that isn’t true.”

  He bows his head and plays another song for about a minute. I realize he does this to regain his composure when I see his smile is brighter. “Not many people know the truth of how I learned to play, Georgie.”