Brody (Default Distraction Book 1)

by A. S. Roberts

  ‘I’ll be seeing ya.’

  Without waiting for his reply, I pulled open the heavy, white glossed door, placed my Aviators back over my eyes and re-entered the world wearing the only “costume” I was comfortable in.

  As I strode out of the house in Harley street, London, a solitary flash bulb went off across the street. It had to be from the paparazzi.

  Fuck! I responded as only Brody Daniels would.

  I could see the stories in tomorrow’s papers, “Brody Daniels, lead singer of Default Distraction, stuck up his middle finger in response to us waiting outside his doctor’s office. With his trademark lopsided grin, he pushed the Aviators up higher on the bridge of his nose. Then he confidently ran down the steps and jumped into the waiting Limo, giving us no answers as to why he was in Harley Street.”

  Once the door to the car was closed and I was behind the blacked-out glass, I immediately flicked up the lid on the centre console and grabbed at the bottle of Dalmore that I knew would be waiting for me. The black metal seal had, as I had already requested, been removed. My fingers lifted the black stoppered plug out with ease and forgetting all about the cut-crystal tumbler that rested on the highly polished, mirrored glass, I chugged down several large gulps. With my hand still holding on tightly to the opened bottle I leant my head back into the leather of the car seat and closed my eyes. The warmth of the whiskey started to spread around my body and I began to relax into its familiarity. As it spread I slowly let out a long audible sigh and tried to come to terms with the diagnosis I had just been given.

  How did it make me feel? How the fuck would I know? More pain than I could handle had caused me to shut that part of me down a long fucking time ago.

  I spent two more minutes thinking before I chugged down half the bottle.

  My unwelcome thoughts became haphazard.

  Eventually, I no longer needed to ask myself the questions I feared hearing an answer to. As if by magic the amber liquid dampened down the fire of panic in my gut.

  I passed out into the heaven of oblivion.

  Someone patting me on the back brought me out of my memory. I cracked open more water as I received a few more slaps on the back as people walked past.

  ‘That was great.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You’ve still got it, man.’

  ‘Thanks.’ I saluted them all with my water bottle.

  It was all mindless talk.

  Not for the first time my mind went back to Amy.

  Was it possible to fucking miss someone you had only met two days ago?

  Stupidly, I felt more alone than I had in years, it was as if just being around her had reminded me what it was like to want and need someone.

  ‘I’ll letcha choose one, Daniels.’

  The thoughts in my head evaporated as I heard Cade’s voice. When I didn’t respond, he kicked the side of my boot with his.

  ‘Nah, thanks. I can choose my own. Thanks anyway, asswipe.’ I didn’t look up, I knew he was offering me one of the groupies that were hanging all over him as they each vied for his attention.

  Thank God, he appeared to be keeping the whole fucking thing PG.

  I stood up fast. I needed out of here, it all felt too fucking claustrophobic.

  I nodded to Cade, Liam and Raff as they turned towards my sudden movement and I walked towards the double doors that Winter had been leaning against only a few minutes before. I knew the smaller, smart looking room to the side of the ballroom had another door that would take me towards the back of The Manor. I could jump into my vehicle and go for a ride.

  I already knew where that ride would take me to. I had played every part of last night over and over in my head. But certain parts I’d replayed more than others. I could still see her bare pussy in front of my eyes as I’d pulled her towards me using her garter belt. I could still smell how much I’d aroused her. The way her ass had turned pink under my hand. The sounds that had left her mouth when I fucked her so hard she’d screamed. The bit I replayed the most was when I had fallen asleep holding her close to me. Never had I fallen asleep with anyone in my arms, apart from my dad.

  I felt at peace with her wrapped up there, she eased my memories. Although I had no fucking idea what the hell I was going to come up with tonight to get her to talk to me. I had made up my mind this morning I wasn’t giving up on her. I needed her and I felt in some way she needed me. I shook my head to dislodge the thoughts, because she probably wouldn’t even fucking be there anyway.

  Determined, I made the few strides towards the heavy wooden door and turned the handle. I walked in quickly before anyone followed me and closed it behind me as quietly as I could. The room was only lit by the flames of a blazing log fire. It had a warm and comfortable feel to it and I felt my tense body begin to relax. I peeled off my Aviators and hooked them into the neck of my T-shirt. My eyes began to adjust to the dim light.

  I started walking through the room towards the door I needed. When the flames from the fire reflecting on something on the low table caught my eye, I stopped. I felt my throat hitch at the realisation of what it was. Almost on automatic pilot my feet moved towards the dark glass bottle with the flames of hell reflected in its shiny surface. I moved around one of the two large couches in the room to get nearer to the bottle. As I leant down to pick it up, my heart accelerated as my fingertips gripped its smooth neck. I exhaled through my open mouth as I comprehended that a small amount of liquid was still swishing around in the bottom.

  Go on, do it.

  My arm moved on its own, lifting the bottle so my eyes could register what my brain had already fucking concluded.

  For fucks sake Brody… put it down.

  The words of “Regret” were still running through my fucking head and I knew that right at this moment in time, I was yet again at another make or break moment. My addictions were piling forward in my head. Presenting themselves where they weren’t fucking welcome. But even though they knew that, they continued to scream loudly telling me how they would make me feel better. They shouted out purposefully how they and only they could help me. Yelling, they set out all the reasons of why I should listen to them. How they would give me the release I needed. I gripped hold of my forehead in my struggle. With my body tensing up my facial tic returned. From my left eye, I could see the flick at the very bottom of my view.

  Do it.

  Do it.

  Lose yourself…come back to the darkness. You’re not strong enough to stay in the light.

  You’re not meant to live in the light.

  Guilt and blame are your life, come back to the storm.

  The feeling inside me was so intense, it was like drowning. The feeling of going under was pushing me to give in. I knew I needed to drown to soothe the pain inside me. To soothe the guilt, the blame and the desolation. My loneliness was all too fucking consuming.

  My demon was too strong to fight.

  Do it.

  My right arm continued to lift the bottle almost in slow motion as I fought to swallow down the overwhelming battle inside me. My left hand had left my head and was now balled tightly into a fist, so tightly my fingernails dug deep into the fleshy part of my palm. I hoped my nails would cut into my flesh, marking me as the spineless, guilt ridden bastard I knew I was. Still my arm lifted. My mouth clamped shut and my teeth gritted together so fucking hard I felt my teeth might break under the pressure.

  With the bottle raised to just a few fucking centimetres from touching my mouth, I finally gave in to the inevitable. I opened my nostrils to inhale the smell of the alcohol inside the darkened glass with the flames of hell on its side. I allowed my brain to recognise the stench of my demon.

  But instead, all I could smell was Amy.

  My eyes that had been squeezed tight in forced tolerance, flew open.

  I inhaled again, still smelling her musky scent. My arm lowered the bottle away from my mouth in a sudden unwavering movement.

  All I could smell was her. The neck of the
bottle smelt of her, the air around me smelt of her. My heart accelerated again, but this time it wasn’t in panic, it was in acceptance.

  ‘Heeeey, issss mine…itsssss mine… and itsssss my friends’, go get your own! Put. It. Down.’ A slurred voice hit my ears as I placed the bottle back down on the table top.

  ‘Amy?’ My eyes that had gradually got used to the dull light in the room looked away from my demon from hell, towards where her voice had come from. I found her, and my body instantaneously relaxed. She was lay on one of the huge couches. She looked tiny, curled up in the foetal position with a cosy looking blanket over the top of her.

  ‘Mmmm hmmm,’ she replied, as I watched her arm flap the blanket away from her body. She revealed her gorgeous little body, barely wrapped in a black, lace dress. Her breasts were just about being contained within the deep V that seemed to go all the way down to her crotch. Okay, maybe I was exaggerating, but hell my dick twitched at the eyeful I was getting. ‘Hellooooo, Daniel from my dweeeams.’

  My previous internal fight was forgotten. I felt my head nod and my mouth pull into a wide smile. A small snigger left my mouth. She didn’t know it but unwittingly she’d saved me.

  I moved over to her and knelt beside her. Without even thinking twice I ran my fingers across her forehead and temple, lifting her chestnut hair away from her face. I needed to see her gentle brown eyes.

  ‘Hi, Amy. You feeling okay?’ I smiled.

  ‘Oh… the best dreams…’ Her eyes fluttered closed and she smiled a look of pure contentment.

  ‘The best dreams, Amy?’ I whispered into her ear as I got nearer to her, the pull of inhaling an even stronger smell of what I was sure was white musk had consumed me. I just wanted to be close to her, to hold her in my arms. I wanted to wrap myself around her like a shield, to defend her from whatever the hell she was running from. Equally, I needed her presence to save me from myself.

  ‘Ooooo, you talk toooooo, itssss a loverly dreaaaaam.’ I watched her eyes fluttering as she tried and failed several times to focus on me.

  A sense of alarm coursed through my body, as I got a fucking idea of just how drunk she was.

  ‘You’rrrre my protectorrrr… I made you go awayyyyy and close the door BEHIND YOU!… and nowwww you’re BACK!’ All her words were slurred and her voice raised in rhythm and tone as she overly pronounced everything that seemed to be important enough to her for me to understand. Just then, with the last word of the sentence, her hand uncurled from beneath her chin and she flung her arm open wide. The back of her hand cracked me across my jaw and instinctively made me pull away. Her movement gave me an even bigger fucking eyeful of her white, soft breasts, doing their best to fall out of her dress.

  ‘Ooooo gooooodiieeee!’ she exclaimed. ‘I can feel you too… itsssss an errrrotic dreeeeeamm. They’re the besssssst ones,’ she slurred at me, smiling.

  ‘I’ll take your word for it, beautiful.’ In an instant her smell, presence and humour had pulled me out of the deep, dark hole I had almost carelessly allowed myself to fucking fall back into. I seriously was a lucky fucker.

  Without even thinking once, let alone twice, I slipped my arms underneath her and swung her easily up into my arms. She felt right there, so fucking right. Just holding her steadied my world. The loneliness and despair I had felt only a few minutes ago fell away.

  I needed her and at this moment she needed me. I knew right then and there I was going to convince her that she needed me as a permanent fucking fixture.

  I stood up tall and straight as she snuggled up close to my chest. One arm found its way behind me and the other hand she rested on top of my chest. I felt stronger with her in my arms, she supressed my demons and my fears. Her hand stroked gently over the top of my T-shirt until my nipple became hard under her fingers.

  ‘Mmmm, you’re soooooo hard.’

  My dick twitched in response, and I managed to supress the laughter rumbling up inside me. Thankfully no one was in earshot, she almost sounded like she was starring in a fucking porno. That sigh, those words and the way she lazily spoke them were for my ears only.

  ‘Are you rescuuuiiing me again, Daniel?’

  I didn’t answer her as we left the room, through the door I had been looking for earlier. If she let me, I wanted to always be around to rescue and protect her, the same way she inadvertently found the ability to salvage the wreck that was Brody Daniels.

  My bladder implored at me. Adjusting my position, I rolled over onto my back. Squeezing my eyes tighter together I tried to fall back to sleep. It was no good, there was no way I was going to be able to sleep without relieving the pressure. Without opening my eyes, I swung my legs over the side of the bed and tried to put my feet down.

  Where the hell was the floor? My feet swung around in the cool air as I tried to find something solid with my pointed toes.

  It must be the Champagne, I had misjudged where I was on the bed and was in the wrong position. I edged my bum further over the edge, finally my toes found the floor and I sighed with relief as they took my weight and I could stand up. I walked around the bed and tapping the bottom corner I set off in the right direction to find the toilet. Walking more steps than I thought I should be doing, caused me to feel a little apprehensive. Seriously, I was never drinking Champagne again, it literally went straight to my head. Finally, my outstretched hand found the door knob and I pulled on it, making the door open. I took the couple of steps I needed and stepped inside.

  This isn’t right.

  I opened my eyes, desperately trying to see. I could feel things in front of my face.

  I must be dreaming.

  Suddenly my world became just a little brighter.

  ‘You looking for something, Amy?’

  I froze.

  The few things around me were clothes, hanging in what I could only presume was a walk-in wardrobe and the voice was Daniel’s.

  What the hell had I done? I remembered dreaming about him talking to me, but that was it.

  ‘Amy?’

  This couldn’t be happening, could it?

  I blinked a few times and then stared straight ahead of me like a rabbit caught in the headlights. The smell of his cologne forced its way into my reluctant nostrils and I let out a deep sigh of remembrance as it captured all my senses, like semi-reluctant prisoners.

  Perhaps I’m still dreaming?

  But I knew I wasn’t, my bladder was screaming at me to find the toilet.

  Oh, my God! What have I done? How did I end up wherever the hell I am, and how did I end up with him?

  ‘Amy? Oh fuck, don’t tell me. Now she’s sleep walking,’ I heard him mumble in a sleepy, gravelly voice that went straight to my core.

  The bed moaned as he shifted around on it and still I remained frozen to the spot, stood in the walk-in-wardrobe, surrounded by his clothes.

  His ring-filled hands lightly found the tops of my arms and I shivered in response at the contact. My cheeks flushed as I allowed him to gently remove me from my hidey-hole. I relaxed into his touch, closed my eyes and permitted him to silently guide me.

  ‘Okay, one foot in front of the other…that’s right…careful…let’s getcha back into bed.’ His deep, caring voice caressed my soul with his tenderness and concern as he steered me from behind.

  A few steps in, I carefully opened my eyes and took in the large bed we appeared to have been sharing. The sight that met my eyes wasn’t just a slightly disturbed bed, made that way as we had both clung on to either side keeping a six-foot-wide chasm between us. No, it was a mess and the mess was in the middle. I didn’t know what the time was and how long I had been in the bed with him, but we had obviously spent that time very close together.

  ‘Oh my God!’

  Suddenly we halted, he had stopped guiding me forward.

  ‘Amy… you’re awake?’

  ‘It appears that way,’ I managed to get out on a small squeak. ‘What have I… what have we done?’ Frantically I tried to sort through in my hea
d anything I could remember from last night. The last thing I remembered was dancing around to Raff’s band and dreaming I was speaking to Daniel. That was it. I remembered nothing more. I let out a sigh of resignation.

  He didn’t move a muscle, he just stood resolutely behind me. The only part of him that was moving was his large hands as he methodically rubbed up and down my bare arms.

  ‘If you’re asking if we had sex again… we didn’t. Call me old-fashioned but I don’t do unconscious women.’ His hands stopped rubbing my arms and firmly he turned me around to face him.

  He was almost completely naked in front of me, naked apart from a pair of black fitted boxers. I lifted my gaze up quickly from his boxers, then up over his sculpted tattooed chest and bravely I made my eyes find his. At the very first contact, I heard myself release a very audible gasp. His eyes looked heavy, tired and what I found in the very depths of them made them appear to be tortured.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I managed to put out into the electrically charged air around us.

  ‘Let me recap for you. I found ya late last night in a room all by yourself, drunk. I could have left you, but I didn’t want to.’

  Where the hell had Lauren and Winter gone? I’d never forgive them!

  I felt my brows furrow in question. His arms lifted from my shoulders and his warm fingers brushed my hair away from my face. His thumbs caressed my eyebrows almost ordering them to flatten down under his ministrations. Once my face had relaxed his hands once again found their place holding me.

  ‘You were drunk. I was worried about you.’ His voice had taken on a harsher tone. ‘Drinking by yourself is a fucking game changer, whatever the reason you might think you have to do it…DON’T!’

  My eyes widened at his reprimand. It was like a red rag to a bull.

  ‘I was not drinking by myself!’

  ‘It sure looked that way to me,’ he accused.

  ‘Just who the hell do you think you are? We have a one-night stand and now you think you own me! I’ll drink whatever and whenever I bloody feel like it. I don’t need anyone to parent me. I never have before and I’m not starting now.’ I moved my arms, suddenly lifting them quickly and bringing them down on the broad forearms holding me. In self-defence class, it was a manoeuvre we had been taught to break someone’s hold on you. My arms came down on his fast, but he never even flinched. His muscular arms kept their same solid hold on me.