Chase shook his head, then inhaled smoke, coughing once more. He glanced at the cigarette, then tossed it away half-finished. "Not doing it for me," he muttered, then looked back at Cleo, who was examining the glowing orange tip of her cigarette.
"Cleo, listen--what happened, with us, in there," Chase waved his hand at the glass door. "I'm not sure...I mean..."
Cleo laughed, puffing smoke from mouth and nose. "You don't have to explain, Delany. I get it. It happened. It was good, in the moment. You're...I won't deny, in one way that was the best sex I've ever had. But in another way, it was really, really fucking awkward. I've never gotten it on in a bed with other people." She drank from the bottle again, hissing as it went down. "That's more Kylie and Leah's scene. I've never shared a guy before."
"I've never done anything like that either," Chase admitted. "And like you said, in a way, it was great. Having all three of you go down on me...that was intense. But with you and I--"
"If we'd been alone, I think it might have been different," Cleo said, cutting in over him.
"Yeah."
"But as it is..." Cleo shrugged. "I don't think I could do anything with you again and not have the image of tonight in my head. Even now, all I can see is Kylie and Leah taking turns on you while you kiss me."
Chase ducked his head, a feeling of mutual understand washing between them. "Yeah, exactly."
Silence stretched out, and Cleo finished her smoke, tossed it away, and swigged from the bottle. Chase finished it, and they stood side by side, watching the three a.m. Vegas crowds hustle and bustle below them.
Finally, Chase broke the silence with the question burning unspoken between them. "So...you and I...is there something there?"
Cleo didn't answer right away. "I don't know, Delany. I don't know." She crossed her arms beneath her small, hard breasts, turning to face him. Her hazel eyes met his, and they searched each other silently. Eventually, Cleo shook her head. "No, I don't think there is. I think there could have been, but..."
Chase nodded. "Yeah, I know what you mean. I almost want to say, 'I'm sorry', or that I'm kinda disappointed. You're a cool chick, and you're hot, and talented. I think there really could've been something."
Cleo shrugged, a little lift of one shoulder. "But that back there...it was fun, but it's not something I'll do again."
"Me either."
Cleo tilted her head, considering her next words. "Also, Chase? I'll say this totally honest. I don't think you're over that other girl. The one you sang the song to."
Chase looked away. "That's complicated."
"Meaning you don't want to talk about it."
Chase stared at the yellow headlights coming at them, the red taillights moving away; as a kid, he'd always thought of the stream of headlights as "bees" and the river of taillights as "wasps."
"I am over her. I mean, I know she's gone, she doesn't want me. I'll admit that still hurts, but I'm past hoping it'll change. She's with Jeff, and she's happy. That's good enough for me. I'll move on. I'll be fine."
"I know it's none of my business," Cleo said, "but I don't think this is the way to go about getting over her." She waved at the hotel room again, meaning what had gone on earlier.
"No, you're probably right. But...I don't know. It's not something that makes sense out loud. I'm not trying to forget her, just...god, how do I say it? I need to get rid of the hold she has on my heart." Chase ran his finger back and forth on the railing, staring at the path of his finger rather than meeting Cleo's too-knowing gaze. "For a long time after she made it clear she didn't love me, I couldn't do anything. I couldn't make myself care about anyone. All I could do was play and write music. Which is all good and well, but...I can't let the pain rule me. I have to get over her."
"I thought you were over her."
"I said it's complicated."
"Meaning you have no fucking idea what you're feeling, because there's just too much going on."
Chase laughed. "Yeah, pretty much."
"My advice, for what it's worth? Give it time." Cleo rested her head against his shoulder, and they stayed like that for a long time. Eventually, Cleo pushed away. "Now get out of here."
"What about Kylie and Leah?"
"They'll be fine. This is what they do. They're...complicated. I'll tell 'em you said 'thanks for a good time.'"
After he got dressed and left the hotel, drunk and dizzy and confused, Chase wandered Vegas on foot, trying to sort out what he was feeling.
He'd told Cleo the truth about Anna; he was as over her as he would get, this soon. Seeing her had hurt, had dredged up a lot of emotions he'd worked to bury. But it had also reinforced the fact that she was gone.
But what he hadn't told Cleo was how Jamie had affected him. She was still there, in his head. Under his skin.
When he'd kissed Cleo on the balcony, the reason he'd pulled away was because all he could think of was Jamie. The pained, tortured look on her face when she'd torn herself away after their kiss. It was brief, but that one kiss had held more tantalizing pressure than Chase had ever felt. He'd been ripped apart by that kiss.
Cleo, Kylie, Leah...he'd had fun, but now, alone after the fact, all he could think of was Jamie. Where was she? What was she doing? Was she with someone else?
He imagined her at a bar, a bottle of beer in her hand, leaning into some half-drunk asshole with groping hands. The thought of some other guy's paws on Jamie's full, hypnotizing hips sent a pang of hurt through Chase. The idea of her going home with that guy, stripping for him, kissing him, touching him, letting him touch her ivory skin...it made Chase crazy with irrational jealousy.
He tried to banish the images, but he couldn't. All he could see was Jamie's fiery curls and green gaze, and then he would see some faceless male clawing at her skin, the sweet flesh that should belong to Chase, but didn't.
He could feel her palm scraping over his scalp as she kissed him, her balm-slick lips sliding on his, teasing him, her full breasts pushing against him, nipples pebbling against her bra hard enough to feel through the cotton.
"Fuck," Chase growled aloud.
He swerved off the sidewalk and into a doorway, the bumping bassline from within the club promising a few hours distraction, at least. He sat at the sticky, scratched bar, watching fake-breasted strippers undulate against silver poles. He stuck to beer, lost count, lost track, lost time. The strippers became the same person, after awhile, delirious images of Jamie, naked, dancing just for him.
Eventually, he felt Gage slump onto the stool next to him, pry the bottle from his fingers, and drag him out of the club. Gage never said a word, just propped up Chase's dead weight and dragged him into a cab, into their hotel, into bed.
Day came, and with it the oblivion of hangover pain, the haze of travel, set up, performance, and the familiar ritual of going from one show to the next, now drowned in a constant ocean of alcohol.
Women came and went, but none of them stirred his interest.
Jamie stayed in his thoughts, until eventually numbness set in.
CHAPTER 3
Jamie was drunk. Like, really, really drunk. The kind of hammered where she couldn't remember where she was, how she gotten there, or what was going on. She was conscious, but unable to form coherent thoughts. She'd been this way for awhile, she thought. She was starting to gain some control over herself, over her awareness.
Focus, Jamie, she told herself. Wake up.
She wasn't really asleep, but it felt that way. She needed to get her bearings. Something was happening, something was going on. Something not right. Deep breath, think hard, blink...blink.
Jamie breathed in, cleared her vision, squinting straight ahead. A blur of colors, a wash of inchoate images; the faint scent of booze on someone's breath, close, aftershave, male deodorant, male musk; soft breath on her face, the sound of male grunting above her, flesh against flesh, the wet sucking sounds of sex. She focused again, forcing coherency to the world: blank white above her, a ceiling with a trapezoidal area of brighter w
hite from a window. Jamie squinted to her right, saw a window in triplicate, shadows beyond, an orange dot of a streetlamp, a gibbous moon.
The sounds of sex continued, and then Jamie became slowly aware of physical sensation. The sex was happening to her. Another sound filtered through the haze of alcohol: feminine moans of sex enjoyed. Her voice, moaning softly. She was having sex.
Jamie gathered herself together and focused once more, this time on the blurry pale skin and dark hair and pale blue eyes above her. No one she knew. Thick, shaggy brown hair the color of walnut shell, unkempt, uncut. A goatee, thick as an overgrown shrub, with a few days worth of growth on his cheeks between the goatee and his long sideburns. Pale blue eyes watching her, slightly unfocused, dilated, reddened. A weak chin, thin features, thin, dry, cracked lips. Jamie continued her perusal of the man she was having sex with, almost apathetically. She wasn't sure who he was or why she was having sex with him; he certainly wasn't attractive, not in the way she usually liked her men. He looked young, younger than she, more of a manling, a man-boy, which was also not her type. He was skinny, all hard angles and thin, wiry arms, hairy legs. Again, so not her type.
Jamie focused on the rest of her awareness. He did seem to know what he was doing, sexually. Decent rhythm, stroking evenly. He filled her well enough. Not huge, but not tiny. She could feel him inside her, so that was okay. He didn't weigh much, so she wasn't being crushed. That always sucked. He wasn't grunting like some kind of hog, which was nice, just softly groaning low in his throat, a constant sound.
Time to finish this and figure out what the fuck was going on. Jamie pushed at his shoulder. "Roll over."
"'Kay," he said, and complied.
She settled onto him, making sure to keep her weight evenly distributed. He was just a skinny little guy, no sense in breaking him. She would have to hold back a bit; besides, she was feeling queasy and dizzy, and not really in the mood for a wild frenzy.
Jamie adjusted the angle of her hips and set a slow rolling rhythm, supporting her weight with her hands next to his face. A little close for comfort, since she didn't know him and wasn't attracted to him, but she could feel a little orgasm coming along nicely, so there was no sense in stopping now. Maybe if she closed her eyes, it would help.
She arched her back and rolled her hips, and let herself gasp a little louder as the tip of his cock hit close to her G-spot. Not right on, but close. Close enough.
Then she felt a palm on her side, running up her ribs to cup her full, swaying breast. Wait a second. There were already two hands on her waist, holding her in place. The extra hand gripped her boob, too hard, groping and fumbling awkwardly.
What the fuck?
The hand roamed over her back and down her spine to explore her ass. Jamie turned her head, craning to see who else was in bed with her. She was too drunk to panic, and this seemed like consensual sex anyway. But...two guys? Hell no. The hand slipped up her back and over her shoulder, then back under to grope her tit again. It was a pudgy, hairy hand, short fingers, greedy fingers. Strong, clumsy fingers.
She peered dizzily behind her and saw, yes, another man. This one was the polar opposite of the guy beneath her. Short, stocky, a bit of a belly around the middle, a mat of hair on his chest, small, beady eyes and wet, thick lips. Watery, bloodshot brown eyes, moon-face features. Way, way not her type. And he was on his knees behind her. Was he...? He wasn't. No. No....
Yes, he was.
The moon-faced second guy was on his knees behind her, gripping his short, thick, uncircumcised penis in his hand and stroking it along the crease of her ass.
Um, no.
She croaked, but couldn't get words to come out. She was close to coming, which wasn't helping matters, but having moon-face behind her ostensibly preparing to anally penetrate her was one hell of a turn off.
She croaked again, trying to get the "fuck no you aren't doing that" out past her lips, but it wasn't working.
Then Moon-face spoke. "Are you ready for Big Ben?" As he said this, he gestured with his penis, probing her asscrack with the tip of his cock.
That got her powers of speech working. "Big Ben? Did you just refer to your penis as... 'Big Ben'?"
The guy beneath her choked back a laugh. Jamie felt an orgasm quavering within her, absurdly, impossibly timed. She couldn't stop her body's rolling rhythm now. Couldn't.
Moon-face--whose name was probably Ben...she seemed to hazily remember meeting a Ben...and a Brad--hesitated, licked his lips, assessing whether she thought this was funny and/or hot.
"Yes?" He said, his tone of voice lost between a statement and a question.
Jamie, coming now, couldn't quite express her disbelief. "Are you--oh god, oh god--are you fucking serious? Big Ben? Does that make the rest of you--oh god, yes--Little Ben?"
The guy beneath her laughed out loud, now, and then groaned as he came. Jamie didn't feel the hot rush of seed when he spasmed, so he was wearing a condom, thank god.
Jamie felt something hot and hard probing her ass again.
"No, asshole." She threw herself clumsily off the guy beneath her, away from the probing nastiness of Big Ben/Little Ben. "And I also mean that literally. No asshole. Not for you. Not for anyone. Not ever."
Jamie may have been...experienced, sexually, but she drew the line at anal. Not gonna happen. Especially not like this. Not with him.
Ben shrugged, his face pouting comically. "Um...okay, then."
Jamie was overcome by a rush of dizziness, and lay back in the bed, palm over her eyes.
"So...can you at least help me out, here?" Ben asked. "You can't leave me hanging like this."
Jamie squinted at him, feeling floppy and disconnected from herself, severed from reality. She was beginning to come down a little, and she found herself not caring about anything, especially now that her virgin little asshole was safe from probing.
Ben was lying down next to her, not too close, thankfully. The bed they were all three in was big, king-sized, probably. Good thing, too. Jamie watched her hand reach out, wondering what it was doing.
Oh, that.
Her hand fisted around Ben's penis and began to pump. He grunted, porcine, thrusting his hips into her hand. Jamie felt her lip curling in something that would have been disgust if she'd been able to feel anything, but, thankfully, she was numb emotionally and mentally.
And that, she abruptly remembered, was the reason she'd gotten so hammered in the first place: to achieve numbness, to forget him.
Ben grunted one last time, hips thrust up, and then came onto her hand and his belly. Jamie's eyes were closed, sparing her having to watch. She cracked her eyes open and stared at her hand, barely suppressing a shudder of revulsion.
What... the fuck... am I doing?
Jamie slid down the bed and off the foot end, glancing around the room. The only article of her clothing she could find among the piles of towels and jeans and boxers and T-shirts was her panties. She scooped them up and donned them, grateful to not be totally nude anymore.
The guy whose name she hadn't remembered yet--but which she strongly felt might be Brad--got up and found her bra and T-shirt, handing it to her wordlessly before getting a pair of gym shorts from his dresser next to the window. Ben didn't move, just watched the proceedings disinterestedly. He stared openly, not even bothering to disguise his blatant ogling. Jamie tried to ignore his leering gaze as she hooked her bra beneath her breasts and then span it around her body to stuff her boobs in.
Eventually, she snapped. "Would you look somewhere else please? Big Ben ain't getting' nothin' else from me, I can promise you that."
The other guy, tugging his shirt over his head, glanced at Ben. "Dude. Enough already. Get the fuck out."
"I'm tired, now, man."
"I don't give a shit. Get the fuck out."
Ben frowned, shrugging. "Fine, man. Whatever." He stuffed his feet into a pair of shorts that hung past his knees, then tugged a Bob Marley shirt on. As he exited the room, he said, "call
me later, Brad. We'll blaze. I'm getting an 'O' from my hookup tomorrow."
Brad nodded. "Sure thing, dude."
Jamie watched all this with a dawning comprehension. She pulled her shirt on, saw her Steve Madden sandals by the door and slipped her feet into them, stumbling from one foot to the other. "You're a stoner?"
Brad shrugged. "I smoke down, yeah. Why?"
Jamie just shook her head. "I'm really hammered. I don't remember...well, shit. I don't remember a damn thing. I wasn't even sure what your name was until 'Big Ben' said it."
Brad's face pinched in confusion. "You don't remember anything?" He stuffed his feet into a pair of ADIDAS sports sandals. "We met at Duggan's. You sat down with us and started flirting. We did some shots of tequila and then you suggested going back to my place for a threesome. I thought you were joking, but...you weren't. I couldn't believe my luck."
Jamie rubbed her forehead. "I suggested it? Shit. With you two?" She left the bedroom and found the kitchen, saw her purse sitting on the counter by the microwave.
"With us two? What's that supposed to mean?"
Jamie washed her hands in the kitchen sink, almost frantically. "Nothing. Don't worry about it. Did I drive here? Please tell me I didn't."
Brad shook his head. "I only had a beer and a shot, so I drove."
"Were you high?"
He shrugged, a tiny roll of his shoulders. "A little." He took a box of Cheez-Its from a cabinet and opened them, offered them to Jamie, who took some. "Does it matter? I wasn't drunk, and I wasn't, like, crazy-blazed. I was fine."
Jamie suppressed her desire to tell him driving high was just as stupid as driving drunk. He was her ride back to her car, so she held her tongue.
They munched on crackers, and then Brad pulled a pair of Dr. Peppers from the fridge.
After a while, Brad said, "Sorry about Ben. He's kind of a douche. He has this hookup for some seriously amazing bud, so I hang out with him. But...he's a douche."
Jamie studiously examined a cracker. "If he's a douche, why the hell did you agree to a three-way with him?"
Brad shook his head and shrugged. "I don't fucking know. You're the hottest girl who's ever paid attention to me, so I guess I just went with it for the chance to get with you. I may have been a bit more blazed than I thought, though. Now it seems like a kind of bad idea."
Rock Stars Do It Harder Page 4
