ROCK F*CK CLUB (Girls Ranking the Rock Stars Book 5)

by Michelle Mankin

  “C’mon, babe.” Nicholas held out his hand to me. “You get my mouth. I can’t wait to taste you,” he said, and I experienced a hot, full-body shiver. “Jag, your loss. Sorry, man.”

  “You’re a lucky bastard, Arrow,” Jagger said.

  I turned to look at him and Linnet. He didn’t look upset. His hips lifting off the mattress, he thrust between Linnet’s spread legs. Her eyes fluttering closed, she looked blissful. Her hands on his chest, she parted her lips as he thrust in and out of her.

  “Babe, c’mon,” Nicholas said again to me, and I turned to focus on him.

  “Join this party,” Lark said.

  I nodded. “Okay.”

  Wet and ready, I took the hand she offered me. Using it for balance, I climbed onto the bed and straddled Nicholas too. Only farther up, my legs spread open above his wide shoulders. The skin of his chest was hot against the cheeks of my ass.

  “This is a pretty view.” Staring up at me, his hazel eyes darkened.

  He grabbed my ass, a rounded globe in each hand, and brought my quivering pussy straight to his eager mouth. I trembled as he kissed me there, right where I needed the heat and suction the most.

  Behind me, Lark moaned. “So good. Your cock is so hard, Arrow.” She reached around me. Her feminine hands finding and cupping my breasts, she squeezed my tits as she began to ride him hard.

  “Fuck,” I said.

  My nipples were so tight, they scraped her palms. I arched my spine to deepen the friction. They grew tighter and tighter still. I could hear the rhythmic slapping of her and Nicholas fucking behind me. Nicholas’s licks synchronized with the tempo of the slaps, and my clit swelled. Wetness rushed from me. Nicholas lapped it up as if he were ravenous for the taste of me.

  “Yes, oh yes.” Lark’s speed increased. Her grip on my tits tightening, she pinched my nipples hard.

  Nicholas groaned. The vibrations traveled up my channel before he pierced it, fucking me with his tongue.

  The prize we were all straining for rushed up for me.

  Hot and furious, I arched my hips into Nicholas’s mouth and pressed my tits into Lark’s hands, flooding Nicholas’s wet tongue and firm lips with my desire. Wave after hot wave, I came and came. Lark and Nicholas came hard and fast in a frenzied rush with me.

  “HEY.” LARK RAPPED ON the bathroom door. “You going to stay in there all night?”

  “No.” I cleared the condensation away from the mirror after my shower and stared at myself. With my hair up in a messy bun and my face scrubbed clean of Carla’s magic, I tried to reconcile the woman I saw reflected back at me with the way I felt.

  Had I really just had sex with four people?

  “Jo, come on. You might not need to talk about what just happened, but I sure do.”

  Firming my lips, I turned away from the mirror. The answers I sought weren’t in my reflection. They lay deeper within.

  Popping the lock, I emerged in a cloud of steam.

  “Jeez.” Lark waved her hand in front of her face. “Did you leave any hot water for anyone else in the hotel?”

  “Doubtful.” My lips twitched.

  “There she is.” She gave me a relieved look. “I was afraid you might be awkward with me afterward.”

  “Um, well.” I raised my pierced brow. “Not sure I feel comfortable undressing in front of you anymore.”

  “Or me in front of you, huh?”

  When I started to shrug, she yanked away my towel, and I gasped.

  Lark scoffed at my shocked expression. “Seen your nude ass a shit-ton of times. Get over it, and get over yourself.”

  She turned away and tossed my towel back at me. It hit me in the face, and the deeper truth of what I think she was trying to tell me did too.

  Snagging my favorite yoga pants with the mesh slashes from my open suitcase, I drew them on quickly, then the first cropped tank I found. It read fuck you in big block letters.

  I snorted. That seemed about right.

  Crossing the room to join Lark, I dropped down on the corner of the bed where she sat. “Hey. I’m still me, and you’re still you. We’re band sisters and the best of friends. Nothing’s going to change that.”

  “Not even me grabbing your tits and grinding on you?”

  “Not even that.” Heat hit my cheeks at the memory of how abandoned I’d been. I smiled. “It was hot as shit.”

  “It was, right?” She returned my smile, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I always worry how people will react when they know.”

  “Know what?”

  “That I like kinky sex, I guess,” she said with a shrug.

  “You mean be judgmental about it?”

  She nodded.

  “Fuck ’em if they are. They’re shits. Probably envious that you’re in touch with your own sexuality. The world’s too fucking repressed. No one should look down on you for what you do in your bedroom.”

  “Or in a hotel while the cameras are rolling,” she said.

  “Or in a bathroom, or outside on a motorcycle, or any-fucking-where else. Right?

  Her gaze brightened. “Exactly.”

  “Fucking honored you included me,” I told her, and her coppery eyes twinkled.

  “You should be.”

  “I am. Truly.” I moved closer and leaned a hip on the bed right beside her, then reached out to squeeze her thigh. “I love you. I should say that more often. You and Linnet. You’ve been there for me when I needed friends the most.”

  “We are there for you. There’s no expiration date on love.”

  “Yeah,” I said but sighed, because I knew there was. “This stuff. The RFC. I thought it was just a means to an end. That I had myself all sorted out. But maybe I don’t.”

  “You wouldn’t be alone.”

  “You seem to be much more sorted out than me.”

  “Not so much.” She looked troubled.

  “I don’t have all the answers,” I said. “But if there’s something you want to talk through, I can listen. Maybe we can figure it out together.”

  Not meeting my eyes, Lark said, “I like Nicholas. A lot.”

  “There’s a lot to like, from what I can tell. Have you told him?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Not a lot of opportunity. We’re never really alone. We’re always with Lin and Jag.”

  “You have the opportunity now.”

  Lark bit her lip. “I’m afraid. What if he’s not interested in getting to know me better?”

  “You like what you have with him now?”

  She nodded. “Yes. Of course.”

  “Yeah, I can definitely see the problem.” I tapped my chin. “I guess you have to decide if you’re willing to settle for what you have, maybe even lose it, if you try for something more.”

  An unfamiliar ringtone came from my cell. I went to retrieve it from the pocket of my jeans.

  “Oh fuck,” I said when I pulled it out and saw the caller ID on the display.

  “Who is it?” Lark asked.

  “Gale LaFleur.” My brow creased. I didn’t know who had given him my number.

  “Ah.” She nodded like she knew everything.

  “What the hell does ah mean? What do you know, or think you know, that I don’t?

  The cell rang again and then stopped, rolling the call into my voice mail.

  Lark grinned at me. “You like him a lot. I think you have the same problem I do.”

  “Um, no.” I shook my head. “He and I are friends.”

  “Friends that want to fuck the hell out of each other.”

  I stilled. When my phone rang again, I jumped. “That scared the crap out of me.”

  “He scares the crap out of you.”

  I didn’t look away from her. “Definitely.” He wasn’t like the other guys I knew and found fairly easy to manage.

  “You want to keep his friendship, or let him know how you feel and maybe lose that friendship?”

  “It doesn’t matter how I
feel, Lark. My situation is totally different from yours.”

  “How so?” she asked.

  “Joey’s Band is my priority. You know that.”

  “You could try for something with him and still keep the band a priority.”

  “Gale’s not the type of guy to settle for second place.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “No.” I blew out a frustrated breath. “He might compromise. He probably actually would for the right woman. But that isn’t me.”

  “Why don’t you think so?”

  “I’m not free.”

  “Because of the RFC?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s not forever.”

  “No. But my past is a forever I can’t escape.”

  She frowned. “You take on too much of the blame for what happened.”

  Lark didn’t know all of it, and neither did Linnet. Only Dolly knew the full truth.

  “His past and my past will never fit together.”

  “Maybe if—”

  “No,” I said sharply. “No maybes with him and me.”

  I needed to end things with Gale. Even friendship with him was too risky. I typed out a quick text.

  Josephine: Can’t come tonight. I’m busy. Truthfully, too busy to be the type of friend you deserve. Wishing you the best, which will be better with me out of your life. [Insert heart emoticon] Jo

  My heart pounding, I bit my lip and hit send.

  “Josephine!” Loud knocks accompanied Gale’s voice from the hallway. “Open the fucking door!”

  I was standing close enough that I heard the beep of my text going to his phone. A few seconds of silence followed, probably as he read my text.

  “Oh, fuck no.” He resumed rapping, only harder. “Open the damn door, you coward! I know you’re in there!”

  I opened the door. It was all I could do, right? I didn’t want hotel security to get involved.

  Gale glanced over my head. Apparently, Lark had waved at him. “Hey, Lark.”

  He lifted his chin to acknowledge her and seemed calmer when he returned his gaze to me. The slight twinge I’d felt when Jagger had looked at me was nothing in comparison to the major quake that Gale’s slow once-over gave me.

  “Shoes on or you go barefoot. Either way, you’re coming with me. Now.”

  “OKAY, MR. BOSSY,” I said, stepping past Gale in my unlaced boots to enter the hallway outside my hotel room. “Let’s go, if you’re so fired up to go.”

  “Watch it, you little shit. I’m pissed at you.” Gale left the door to close behind us and gestured for me to accompany him.

  “Why?” I asked, and he exhaled sharply.

  “You know why.”

  “I’m not sure exactly.” There were a plethora of options to choose from.

  “You blew me off.”

  “I sent you a text.”

  “A Dear John text to end our friendship.”

  “A Dear Gale one, actually. I don’t know anyone named John.”

  “Yet.” Looking frustrated, he stopped at the elevator and raked a hand through his hair.

  “Yet who?”

  I lost my ability to think coherently as I watched glossy layers of brown slip through his fingers, only to glide back into place again. Well, not back into designated assigned places. He didn’t seem to have a certain style or use any hair product that I could tell. Just tumbled out of bed seemed to be his current look. It was another good one.

  He grunted and slapped the call button. “Stop looking at me like that.”

  “Like what?”

  He shifted and narrowed his eyes on me. “Like you want things from me that a friend shouldn’t want.”

  “I want to touch your hair. It looks so soft. Can I . . . do you mind if I . . .” I blew out a breath.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Okay.”

  I stepped closer, close enough to feel his heat. My gaze on the tumbled disarray at his temples, I dove my hands in, delighting in the thick heaviness of it. He made a humming noise that reminded me of a lion purring.

  Gale had a mane of hair, all right, and he was certainly big and dangerous. But I didn’t want to stop, even if the sound he’d made was some sort of predator-to-prey warning. Splaying my fingers wider, I continued sifting through the layers.

  “Not silk,” I murmured. “Satin.”

  “Josephine,” he said in a deep rumble that made me shivery. “Don’t.”

  The elevator doors slid open. Linnet was inside.

  Seeing us, she froze. “Whoa.” Her eyes rounded. “I mean, hey. Have you seen my sister?”

  “I think she’s still in my room.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Well, I’ll see you around. If you’ll excuse me.”

  Gale shifted. I dropped my hands from his hair, and Linnet scooted past us.

  “Get in the elevator,” Gale said gruffly.

  “Okay.” I stepped inside.

  He pushed the button for the lobby, and down we went.

  “It’s only a couple of flights,” I said, feeling the need to babble. “We could’ve just taken the stairs.”

  “Really?” He glared at me. Apparently, he didn’t feel the same need. “You want to talk about inane shit like that after what just happened?”

  “Nothing just happened.”

  The elevator door slid open, but it was well-oiled. I clearly heard his muttered expletive, and so did a woman and a young girl who were waiting to get in.

  “Excuse me.” The woman shook her head, clucking her tongue at him as we exited.

  Scowling, Gale grabbed my arm.

  “Where are we going?” I asked as he dragged me along.

  “Somewhere I can talk to you privately.”

  “We could have spoken privately in my room.”

  “We could have in my room, but I don’t trust myself with you anywhere near a bed.”

  “Oh.” My eyes rounding like Linnet’s had, I jogged to keep up with him. “But we’re just friends.”

  “Fucking hell!” He pushed open the glass door to the hotel gym and gestured for me to go inside ahead of him. The room was cluttered with equipment.

  I took two steps and stopped behind a treadmill.

  “Okay.” I turned around to face him, trying not to notice the door clicking closed and the way he dwarfed the small space. “You said you had something to tell me. So, speak.”

  “Did you really seriously just have a fuck-fest with four other people?”

  “Yes, I did. And I enjoyed it.” I lifted my chin. “Don’t you see how different we are? You turned down the out I gave you, John, Gale, or whatever you want to be called. Time and again, I’ve told you it won’t work for us to be friends.”

  “You fight me at every turn because you don’t want anything to happen between us.” His gray eyes narrowed. “I think you’re afraid something will.”

  “Why would I be afraid of that?”

  “I’m not sure exactly.” His expression turned analytical.

  “You’re not sure because you’re wrong.”

  “I’m right.” He shook his head at me. “Test me and see. Invite me to cross the line. Invite me right now.” He stepped closer.

  “No.” My hands fisted at my sides.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t want you to.” The urge to back away from him was strong.

  “Babe, you were practically in heat a moment ago from touching my hair.”

  “No, I wasn’t.”

  “Don’t deny it.” He placed the tips of his fingers on my mouth to shush me.

  My eyes went wide. Warmth. Roughness. His enticing scent.

  Unable to stop myself, my lips parted. If I flicked out my tongue, I could taste him.

  “Do it,” he whispered, seeming to read my mind.

  His thumb brushed a coaxing path across my bottom lip. Then he applied a bit of pressure, just a slight tug, but it was enough. He knew what he was doing. If I let him, he could give me what I wanted, what
I craved.

  “I can make you come in three seconds,” he said gruffly.

  I’d bet he could. He could do it in less than that, probably. I was close to orgasm right now.

  “No.” I curled my fingers tighter into my palms and stepped back. My chest rising and falling, I gulped oxygen for my racing heart. “Don’t do this. You said you would help me. I thought you weren’t like the others, but this is just a game to you. Some twisted game.”

  “Shh. No. Settle down. It’s okay. Here.” He opened his arms to me. “Come here.”

  I hesitated, but Gale looked so sad that I couldn’t resist him. I took one step, and he did the rest, engulfing me in his strong arms and comforting embrace. I took in a deep breath, saturating my senses with citrus, saffron, and smoke.

  “Don’t.” I shuddered as he stroked my back. The comfort was there, but so was all the rest. It was difficult to keep myself in check.

  “Hush. Just let me enjoy holding you.”

  “Okay.”

  I wrapped my arms around him, lacing my fingers together at his waist. To keep them from wandering, I told myself, but it was more that I didn’t want to let him go.

  A moment passed. Two. Three. I locked my mind, slamming it shut.

  “It doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Hmm.” He tucked a finger under my chin and lifted my head, his gaze searching mine. “What doesn’t?”

  “You had something to tell me. About the band and my drumming.”

  “I made a few phone calls while you were with Noah today. I got Joey’s Band a slot on a minor stage at Rock the Vine in Napa, and I talked to Mary Timmons afterward. She agreed to come see you perform.”

  “Why would you do all that?” I asked.

  His eyes flickered with light like a stadium full of cells on flashlight mode. “I think you know why, Josephine.”

  “We’re just friends.”

  “I like you. You like me. Holding you feels so good. I’ve wanted you in my arms since I first saw you. There’s something between us worth exploring, and I know you feel it too.”

  “Did you feel this metaphysical stuff with your wife?”

  Tension shot straight through him. “I did.” The words were thin, as if he’d wrenched them from the rubble of his broken dreams.