Exquisitely Hidden: A Sin City Tale

by M. Jay Granberry

  Hell, yeah it is. Such a good fucking morning.

  He can wake me up like this every day, all the days. My body is trembling. Sensation overloading my system, short-circuiting my brain.

  All I can do is feel.

  His hand on my erection, his tongue . . . oh God . . . his tongue, it’s hot and wild, a fiery brand sending heat rushing up my shaft. I rock back into his grasp, demanding more. Moremoremoremore. He gives it to me, diving in, with wet French kisses punctuated by the occasional ass slap. Pleasure distorts the headboard in front of my face and might have collapsed my lungs because I feel goddamn breathless.

  “Fuck, baby,” I say on an inhale, pumping my hips, seeking out the friction of his hand.

  He opens his palm and slides it down the sensitive skin of my inner thigh. I feel a gentle kiss on my hip bone and another at the base of my spine before his chest lands on my back, sweaty, sticky, heavy, the weight of a man—my man lowering me to the mattress. If I die right now, having felt this way—consumed, wanted, cherished, adored, sexy, gorgeous—it’s all been worth it. Adam is so worth it.

  “You good. I can’t go slow,” he says between breaths. “Can’t wait.”

  “Hit it like you need to,” I all but beg.

  “That’s what’s up.” He groans and I can almost picture the smile on his face, his peaches-and-cream complexion flushed, abs tight and knotted, flexing with every breath.

  I hear the distinct crinkle of a foil wrapper and the telltale snap of the top on the bottle of lube right before his slicked-up dick slips between my ass. He taps at my entrance. Once. Twice. Three times. Taps turn into shallow strokes that ease him in slow. Just the flared crown breaching that tight ring of muscle. I hiss at the burn as my body stretches to accommodate him. He fills me in one steady stroke. His hips start to move in a heady rhythm.

  Riding me.

  Filling me.

  Pushing me so close to the fucking edge I was hanging by a hang nail and a prayer. I wrap a hand around my stiff cock, jerking myself.

  “Guahhh . . . you feel so good,” I pant.

  “Don’t. You. Fucking. Come,” he demands through clinched teeth interspersed with growling breaths. Thrusts come faster, harder. Angled to massage my prostate. I look at him over my shoulder, our eyes lock, and it’s all too much.

  The sight of his long, elegant fingers digging into my hips, and the sounds of our skin slapping with every well-placed thrust. The smell of us, our sex, our sweat pushes me over the edge.

  “Right there, baby. I’m right there . . . right the fuck there . . .”

  Suddenly he pulls out, rolling me on my back, mouth engulfing my dick, deep throating my length in one hot, wet slide.

  “Oh shit, baby,” I cry out. Come rushes up and out of my shaft. Cresting waves of the most intense pleasure drag me under and roll me over. For a second, I’m blind and deaf from pure sensation.

  He rolls me to the side and brings his chest to my back. My body aligns to his, positioned perfectly. He’s in me again with one hard thrust, pistoning his hips, fucking me hard. A jackhammer pace that all too soon has wrecked, hoarse moans escaping his mouth, signaling he’s about to come.

  He grows impossibly hard inside me and then he shoots his release, grinding against my ass, until the last pulse leaves his body.

  We stay there, a sticky, spent pile of bodies and limbs until our breaths slow and he slips out of me.

  “I love waking up with you,” he says, placing a kiss on the hairline at my neck.

  “Anytime, baby. But I wanna get your fine ass out of this bed. Let’s go to EAT.”

  “After all that I’m starved. What are you in the mood for?”

  “EAT,” I repeat. “It’s a cool breakfast spot off Fremont and Sixth. You’ll like the strawberry biscuits. That shit melts in your mouth. So good you might think about slapping ya momma.”

  I laugh but he doesn’t. And I realize what I just said. Asshole. He found out a little less than five months ago his mother died and I’m over here making jokes. I turn in the circle of his arms, resting my forehead on his. “My bad. I wasn’t thinking.”

  “Baby, no. That’s not a big deal but why don’t we stay in. I still haven’t tried the menuless restaurant.”

  My post-coitus high crashes at his words. At the intent behind his words. I play it off. Don’t let on how much it hurts. Every time he does it, that flame that burns between us dims, flickering in the wind of his denial.

  “It’s all good. I have the day off. So, I’m a head out there.”

  “By yourself?” he asks, surprised.

  “I’ve done a lot of stuff by myself since I got here.”

  Regret and disappointment flash in the depths of his eyes. Quickly covered by his lowered eyelashes.

  “Where is this place again?” He looks like a deer in fucking headlight. He swallows the panic percolating under the skin of his frustration. Then he squares his shoulders, his head kicking up as he injects his spine with a little steel. “Let’s go.”

  Adam

  “Didn’t I tell you?” Seth asks around the biscuit in his mouth.

  I have to give this one to him. I’m not big on bread in general but this shit right here is awesome, and on top of that the hipsters in the little restaurant have no interest in me. I got a couple of lingering stares but that was all.

  Our waitress stops by the table. Shocking pink hair piled on top of her head, ring glinting in her nose, and cheerful smile stretched across her face. “Would you like a refill before your food comes out?”

  “Nah, I’m good,” Seth says.

  I nod, a little out of my element here. This is the first time I’ve gone to bed with someone, woken up to that same someone, fucked like it was the end of an era, and repeated it again. I’ve never sat across a table, in the light of day, at a restaurant ordering pancakes, of all things, with the man I had in my bed the night before. One that I actually care about.

  But for him I want to be that. At least as much as I can be.

  It doesn’t take long for the waitress to bring steaming hot, fluffy piles of pancakes to the table. She sets warmed syrup and Nutella on the table.

  My stomach let’s out a growl. “These as good as the biscuits?”

  “They might be better,” he mutters.

  My eyes roll at the first taste. “Damn . . .”

  “Adam? Is that you?” I freeze at the sound of a voice. I haven’t heard it in ten years. The one that used to make my skin crawl and my stomach curl. Mrs. Norcross, the old woman that ran the group home, stands at the edge of my table. Why is she in a trendy breakfast joint instead of the Denny’s around the corner from the old house I’m sure she still lives in?

  “Mom, I’m just going to run to the restroom before we head out,” a slender, dark-haired woman says, touching Mrs. Norcross’s hand as she passes.

  The pungent cigarette smoke wafting from her clothes overpowers the smells of pancakes and bacon. She places a bony hand on my shoulder, catapulting me back in time. My mind yells NO! Don’t touch me. Not like that. But my voice is trapped behind fear and panic.

  Helplessness keeps me frozen in my chair. “You were always such a pretty boy and just look at you now,” she says in that deep, nasty-ass smoker’s voice. Her fingers slither down to the tendons right below my clavicle and I push to my feet, toppling the chair behind me. The walls start to close in, trapping me.

  I have to get out.

  I shoot up from my seat and speed walk past Seth and the woman whose house was one of horrors and nightmares and make a beeline for the door. The bell at the entrance rings as I push through and, when I’m outside, I finally take a deep breath.

  Lacing my fingers over my head, I look up at the sky, trying to force air to replace the dread in my lungs. The atmosphere is clean and blue, void of clouds and smog. The sun on my skin is warm. This is real: the sun, the air, the solid ground beneath my feet. These are the things that are real. That woman in there can’t hurt me, not anymore. T
he fear is just an illusion. An illusion created in the heart of a young boy who is a man now.

  “What’s going on, baby?” Seth’s voice comes at me from a distance, concern obvious in the careful tone. “Are you okay?” He reaches for me and I stumble back automatically, flinching out of his grasp. I clearly see Seth and, on a cognitive level, I know he would never hurt me but it’s like my mind is trapped between the present and the past and overwhelming emotion makes it impossible to separate his touch from the ones that hurt and degraded me.

  He holds his hands up. Showing me that it’s okay. That he’s okay. But it’s not. Nothing is okay. He approaches me with tentative steps, like I’m a cornered animal, ready to bare teeth and attack, which isn’t far from the truth.

  He wraps his arm around me but before the other can join it, I place both of my palms on his chest, pushing hard enough to make him stumble back on his heels. “Adam . . . baby . . . talk to me.”

  “Just . . . give me some space.” I squeeze my eyes shut. Panic still a steady thread pulsing at my temple and leaving a metallic taste in my mouth.

  “I will . . . but can you tell me what happened?” he says once again, stepping closer to me and touching my shoulder. I jerk away from his touch.

  “No! Just leave it the fuck alone. Jesus. I don’t need this shit. I don’t need you with your babys and concern. I told you from the beginning I don’t do relationships. You don’t have to take care of me. I take damn good care of myself. Just leave me . . . the fuck . . . ALONE!” I shout the last word. My voice trembles with frustration.

  I watch the concern wilt on his face replaced by a cool mask of indifference.

  “Adam, don’t do this . . .”

  “Do what?” I spit. “What I should’ve done months ago? Ended this before is started?”

  He ignores my hurtful words, and demands in an unflinching voice, “Tell me who she is.”

  The panic that had started to subside rushes back, pumping through my veins, making my arms and legs tremble, and my stomach dance.

  I’ve never said it out loud. Not to anyone, even Sin. People don’t care about the little boys who are violated. Forced to perform sex acts like a dog turning a trick for food, or new shoes, or . . . I press the heels of my hands into my eyes, trying to push the images out of my mind. But they won’t go.

  This time I can’t make them leave.

  “Baby . . . who was that woman?” he asks again. Softer this time. Pleading. I turn to walk away and when I hear his footsteps behind me, I pause and face him. “Don’t follow me. I just . . . I just need time, okay?”

  He nods and stops moving, watching me with worried eyes. I turn away from him, at first walking, then jogging, and eventually sprinting from the restaurant. Maybe if I go fast enough, I can outrun the past.

  Seth

  Something is seriously wrong. There have been hints about the sick and twisted shit Adam was exposed to. I just never thought it had been at the hands of a woman. We haven’t spoken since that morning at EAT. Outside of band functions I haven’t seen him and, even then, he’s been quiet and sullen.

  I’ve shown up at his house a couple of times, and that was maybe even worse because he looked through me. The day shit blew up and he ran from me I went back inside the restaurant to ask the old woman, who had to be in her eighties, the questions Adam refused to answer.

  She stood there happy as you please, telling me all about the time Adam spent in her home. Completely unaware of the distress she’d caused. From his reaction and the brief conversation, it didn’t take a genius to figure out she’d abused him. I don’t know if it was sexual or physical or emotional. More than likely all three and it made me sick.

  I sat on the other side of the table and watched him literally try to fold in on himself to avoid her.

  He’d been terrified. I’ve never seen that type of fear up close, at least not in the civilian world. He’d gone so still I had to watch the movement of his chest beneath the cotton T-shirt to ensure he was breathing.

  “Seth?” I look up to see Aiden standing in the doorway. “Time to roll. Sin and Adam gotta hit the stage in the next hour.”

  I put on my game face and walk the short distance into the living room of the villa. I hear Adam’s voice before I see him.

  “Would you stop moving?” he says, pulling a brush through the matted tangle of curls.

  “NO! It hurts!” Tori’s shriek reverberates around the room. All eyes turn toward Adam and he consciously makes it a point to ignore every last pair of them.

  “It wouldn’t hurt if you would stop moving.”

  I’ve heard him have some version of this conversation more than once. She doesn’t like to comb her hair, or brush her teeth, or take a bath, or eat anything besides waffles and bacon.

  Women are supposed to be the fairer sex. Adam’s little sister seems happiest looking bedraggled and smelling like the puppy she keeps asking him to buy.

  Tori squirms in his grasp and she slips out of the seat, running to Sin, climbing on her lap, and glaring at Adam with smug victory.

  “What’s going on, puddin’ pop?” Sin dips her head so she can see Tori’s face, acting like she didn’t just hear her screaming at the top of her lungs.

  “I don’t want to get my hairs combed.”

  “You don’t? Why not?”

  “Because he . . .” she points at Adam with an accusatory finger. “Will make me have two ponytails.”

  “And you don’t want two ponytails.”

  Tori shakes her head emphatically.

  “So, if Adam only gives you one ponytail, you’ll let him finish your hair?” She eyes me warily but nods.

  “Adam?” Sin calls. “Tori will doesn’t want two ponytails this time.”

  “Is that right? Then instead of screaming that I’m hurting her maybe she should just tell me she doesn’t want two ponytails.”

  He catches Tori’s eye trying to drive my home she doesn’t have to throw a tantrum if she doesn’t like something. He makes quick work of taming the wild curls and then he starts directing the roadies in a calm, authoritative voice. His voice is completely opposite to the panic-stricken airy sound I heard on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant.

  He purposefully avoids my gaze like he has done the handful of other times we’ve been in the same room.

  It takes another fifteen minutes to galvanize the cavalry and get on the road. At eight in the morning on a Saturday there isn’t much traffic in downtown Las Vegas, so our commute is smooth and uneventful. This city that never sleeps and is always teeming with manic energy feels like a town half as large with a quarter of the population. The streets are empty, the neon signs have been turned off, and partygoers have all retired for the day. When it’s quiet like this, the sky blue and massive, the mountains an awe-inspiring presence towering over the city below, its easy to find the beauty here. Vegas is never a place I had any intention of calling home, but that’s what it feels like now. This city, these people, feel like home.

  As we drive up to the rendezvous spot, centrally located and easily accessible for participants and organizers to get information and resources, the streets seem even quieter. They’ve all been closed for a two-mile radius to accommodate the fun run, which will benefit the battered women’s shelter. Sin and Adam will do a stripped-down acoustic set to help raise funds. Then their schedule is open for the next several days.

  The vehicles pull to a smooth stop in front of the stage. There is no time wasted getting out and setting things up. When I first started working with the band, I was surprised by how fast and capable the roadies are. We might as well be at Disney because the shit they do is magical, the stuff of dreams.

  “Look alive, playboy. Here comes your man,” Aiden whispers as Adam walks in our direction toward the stage. We’re stationed at the foot of the stairs, making sure the only people who gain access are the ones who need it. I follow his progression, hungry for the sight of him: the sculpted angles of his face, the broad s
et of his shoulders, and lean legs encased in ripped denim. He’s gorgeous. The quintessential picture of a rock star. Not at all what I’d typically go for. Normally I like businessmen. Dark suits, cocky demeanor, type A personality but not one from my past holds a candle to Adam.

  His long hair is in a French braid. Check.

  He’s wearing a T-shirt with Coldplay frontman Chris Martin on the front and the word YELLOW written in bold letters. Check.

  Sunglasses cover his fascinating cerulean eyes, which is a shame because up close I would see flecks of navy. An acoustic guitar and heavy motorcycle boots complete a cultivated image. Check. Check. Check.

  It’s funny how fast I got use to the intimacy of waking up next to that face and cuddling into the heat of that body. That’s what I miss. The sight of him undone and unguarded. The images that belong to me, not the fans or magazines, but in the quiet moments when he lets me in.

  “What’s up, guys?” he says with a nod, taking the steps to the stage two at a time. No acknowledgement. No secret glances at me to confirm we have a secret no one else knows, and instead of being hurt like the other times he’s ignored me, I’m angry. Fucking livid that I keep doing this to myself.

  Sin joins him on the stage, and they begin going through the motions to check the microphones and amplification of the acoustic instruments. They run through a couple of songs. Starting and stopping as they adjust their instruments. Adam told me they always tune their own instruments because it’s not just about the sound but also the feel.

  The process seems long but when they step on stage to perform, they perform immediately. There are no pauses for adjustments made at that time.

  “What’s up with your dude?” Aiden nods to Sin and Adam standing at center stage.

  “I don’t know, man.” I blow out a breath. “I think this thing finally ran its course.”

  “Oh shit. My bad, dude. I didn’t know. I thought y’all were still . . .” Together? I know what he’s thinking. I don’t know if we ever really were together. For all I know I may have been a fucking jump-off he used to pop his rocks off while on tour. I dismiss that thought almost immediately. That’s the rejection talking. Him icing me out stings. Especially because I thought we were moving in a totally different direction.