I could handle whatever he wanted to give. Whatever was bothering him, I was here. “Harder,” I whispered. “Harder, John.”
I had nothing to hold on to but his head. I worked my fingers into his still damp hair, and tugged on it, using it as my tether, as he moved me up and down. I was going to have bruises from his fingers on my waist after this, but I hardly cared. It didn’t take long before he had me shaking and panting his name again. This time, as my orgasm ended, he wrapped his arms around me gently. He held me still as he came inside me. His breath hot and uneven against my neck.
I’d put him into this weird mood. But I think I helped break him from it. He pulled out. I turned into him, and I hugged him tight. He hugged me right back. The sex had been intense, but this moment was more so. I wasn’t even sure what had happened. But whatever it was, I think we came out of it on the other side stronger.
“I l-word you, Danielle,” he whispered.
This time I didn’t tell him not to say it, I just kept hugging him.
~ CHAPTER 31 ~
JOHN
The more I fell in love with Dani, the crazier I felt. I’d all but lost my damn mind. Not to mention, how had she noticed her name amongst the chaos on my skin? It wasn’t that big or the design that different from anything else around it. But she’d found it within seconds. And when she did, my anxiety and my fears and all my insecurities meshed.
For a small moment I was so pissed at her. My life before her—it might have been a little boring, but it was predictable and safe. It was mine. It made sense. But since she came pushing her way in, nothing made sense anymore. I couldn’t fucking breath half the time. She was all I could think about. She had me longing for things I had no business longing for. And now, I had her name permanently on my skin thanks to how bat-shit crazy I’d become.
I’d been rough with her, taking out that anger on her, when that wasn’t who I was or who I wanted to be. I held her now, wishing I could erase the last few minutes. “I’m sorry,” I said against her hair.
“Don’t apologize for making me come. Never apologize for that.” She nestled in a little closer to my chest. I don’t think she’d ever held onto me like this before. It was everything. But it made me wonder—was she poison or the cure to every ailment on this planet? I didn’t know yet and that was my issue.
Then she really surprised me when she blew softly on my skin. “I want to touch it, but it looks red.”
She meant her name. She stared at the fresh ink. My skin started to buzz under her gaze. “I need to wash it again with the soap I have for new tattoos. I shouldn’t have done it. It was impulsive, and I’m never impulsive.”
She loosened her grip, staring at me for a second. “And I should be mad as hell at you for doing it. But I’m not. Not even a little bit. It was impulsive, yes. But you and I, our thing, it’s impulsive too. So this fits with us. I want you to pierce me. And then I’m going to always have a piece of you with me just like you now have a piece of me with you.”
With that one sentence, I didn’t feel half as crazy anymore. Or so foolish for my impulsive tattoo. She liked it. I loved that she liked it. “Is that what you’ll think of every time you feel that little piece of metal move against your clit? You’ll think of me?”
“Yes. If you put it there, yes.”
Holy shit. I hadn’t thought of it that way. “You know, for some women, that kind of piercing helps you get off easier.”
“I know,” she said slowly, biting into her lower lip with her teeth. “I know.”
Her eyes were burning through me. This conversation had me hard once again. I kissed her, taking a quick taste of her mouth. I needed inside her. But there was more to say first. “Then fuck yes—I’m going to pierce you. Christmas day, though.”
“What?”
“I’ll do it on Christmas.”
“Why not tomorrow?”
“We can’t have sex for six weeks after you get it done. I need a month of straight fucking you to make up for the month I’ll be without. It could be my present to you. Or one of them.”
Dani sat back on her ass. “Oh my God,” she mouthed, running her hands through her wild, post-sex hair, not looking at me.
My heart sank. I had pushed her. I said too much too fast again. I needed to learn to just shut my mouth and take only what she was ready to give.
“I have a boyfriend,” Dani blurted out.
Um? “What the fuck?” A burst of anger shot through me. “This whole time?”
“No. You. The boyfriend is you.” She shook her head. “You’re my boyfriend.”
What? Now I was lost. Adrenaline still pumped through my veins from thinking she had some other guy. Thank God she didn’t. But me? How did she jump to that conclusion? We were just us—just casual. Not something with that sort of label. My hands began to shake.
“Spending Christmas together. Thanksgiving. Making promises—like you won’t touch other girls’ vaginas. The tattoo on your chest. John, you’re my fucking boyfriend.”
My mouth hung open. She had a point. We were doing lots of boyfriend/girlfriend things. Hell, she was practically living with me.
“Let’s go take a shower. You got me all sweaty. And you said you needed to wash the tattoo again, right?”
“Um?” I swallowed. “Yeah.”
Dani left the bed, her beautiful ass on display as she walked to my bathroom. It took me about thirty seconds to realize that she wasn’t upset about the boyfriend thing. She was matter-of-fact about it. Content, even. The girl who didn’t do repeats and wouldn’t kiss me in the beginning—she was okay with me as her boyfriend.
Knowing that, knowing that she wanted me like that, made me okay with the label.
Dani Mills was my girlfriend.
~ CHAPTER 32 ~
DANI
I slept like the dead that night. John had thoroughly worn me out—in all the best ways. In the morning, when I finally peeled my eyes open, I had no idea how late in the day it was.
“Hey. You’re awake.” John stood at the side of the bed, pulling on a pair of jeans over his inked legs.
“What time is it?”
“Late. Sydney needs my help in the kitchen. We do this together every year.” He tugged on a long-sleeve shirt next, giving me one last glimpse of his lean torso. He looked delicious. The longer I knew him the more I wanted him. Was it supposed to work that way?
“Is it always just the two of you?” I asked. “And Rhett?” This was me digging at his past a little. He’d never mentioned his parents before. I don’t think he had parents. I wanted to ask him flat out, but it wasn’t easy for me to ask stuff like this.
“Some years we go to New York. But my parents aren’t very conventional. My mom has never cooked a turkey in her life.” He paused, staring at me. “You thought they were dead, didn’t you?”
“You haven’t mentioned them before.”
“Ask. I’m your boyfriend, you can ask me that kind of shit.” He had this smile on his face that made my chest feel warm and gooey. He wanted me to know.
“Okay.” I’d never asked anyone this kind of shit. I sat up, clutching the sheet against my naked chest. “What do your parents do on Thanksgiving if it isn’t eating turkey?”
“Travel. Party. I don’t fucking know. I can check my mom’s Instagram. That’s usually how I know where they are in this world. My extended family gets together for holidays. But I avoid them.”
“So you’re rich?”
“My family is. My grandfather left me this house when he died. Which was surprising considering he hated me for my decisions. But I live off the money I make now as a tattoo artist, nothing else. The taxes on this house are a bitch. I get by, but having it in my name wasn’t quite the gift I thought it would be. I’m thinking about selling it or donating it to the town of Corolla. Something to get it off my hands. But, as ostentatious as this house is, I love it. You have no idea how much it annoys me that I love this house.”
I thought about
how I’d made such a fuss about him piercing other girls. He had said he did a couple of those a week, and that was money he’d be losing because of me, money that I realized he probably counted on to pay for the taxes on this enormous house.
He sat down on the edge of the bed. “Where’s your family at today?”
I sighed. That was the problem with sharing—now I had to tell him my mess. But I told him. I told him because I wanted him to know, too. “My family is my cousins’ family. My Aunt Dixie and Uncle Buck—those really are their names by the way—they host Thanksgiving every year. They’re my only family. I don’t know my dad. I never knew him. And my mom lives in Florida somewhere.” I shrugged. “These are the things I always keep to myself.”
“I’m your family, too,” he said in response. His eyes were so blue in the morning sun, and so intently on mine.
“What?” I breathed.
“That falls in the boyfriend category of things I can say, right?”
My heart was thudding, my chest growing warm. “No. But it’s right in the John category.”
“No matter what happens with us,” he went on, “no matter how long we have. After... I’ll always be here for you. You’re always welcome. Any Thanksgiving or Christmas. Whatever. Come stay with me.”
He seemed so sad as he said this. Like we were doomed to fail. He called me his family, and then in the next sentence he acted like I was going to break his heart. Oh... but he’d still open his doors to me even when I was no longer his? For what, me to come fuck him one more time?
John stood. He smiled like he hadn’t just said something crushing. He bent to give me a small kiss, before leaving the room.
I sat there for a minute, steaming mad. What the hell? I didn’t understand him. Why did he see this as temporary? I mean… in the beginning, I was certain it was. Because all the guys I fucked were temporary. Now I wasn’t so certain. I wanted him to be not certain with me. I thought when he talked about ‘six weeks of not having sex after my piercing’—I thought that meant he was thinking of a future with me.
I was off the bed, on my feet, throwing on whatever clothes I could find, and downstairs a minute later.
In the kitchen, everyone was there. Sydney, Rhett, John, and Luke. It smelled wonderful—like turkey and pies. Everyone stared at me as I came into the room.
“Morning, beautiful,” Luke joked sarcastically. “Thanks for finally joining us.”
I was aware I had crazy bedhead, no makeup, and John’s sweat pants on. Everyone in this room already knew we were screwing. So I didn’t care if they saw me looking like this.
“I wrote a song last night,” Luke announced to all of us. “Can I play it for you? See if you can add a beat?” What the fuck? Luke never wrote lyrics. Caleb was our main lyricist. Luke was lying through his teeth.
“Fine,” I breathed, knowing he was only saying this to get me out of the room.
“Great.” He dropped the knife he was using to chop potatoes, wiping his hands on a dish towel before he walked over and tugged on my elbow. He pulled me out of that room so fast, I felt like a kid heading to a timeout.
We went straight to the garage where my drums and his guitar were.
“Don’t do something stupid,” he said to me, picking up his guitar, tweaking at the strings.
“What do you mean?”
“Just take a minute and breathe. Whatever it is... don’t end things with John on a whim when you’re pissing mad.”
“I wasn’t about to end things with John. Maybe yell a little. But not end things.” I went to my drums and sat down on my tripod seat. I found the sticks I’d left on top of the snare.
“I love John,” I said out loud. I wasn’t ever going to tell John that. But I’d tell Luke. “I don’t think he sees a future with me past a few months. But whatever.” I took my frustrations out on the drums, banging my heart out for a minute.
Luke didn’t join me on the guitar, which made me pause on the drums.
“You love him?” Luke asked, his mouth hanging open.
“Yeah. Don’t say the l-word again. But yeah. That fucker.” I meant John. “That motherfucker. He worked his way into my heart. And I don’t know why, but I think he thinks we are doomed or something. It’s probably my own fault. Since I’m weird about guys. Or maybe the fact that he hates that I’m famous. He likes to seclude himself. He likes this house—I think because it’s away from everything else. He likes his life simple. And I guess I’m the opposite of all that.”
I hit the cymbals as hard as I could.
“Have you told him about Alexander?”
I shook my head slowly, tears in my eyes. I would never tell John about Alexander. I would never tell anyone about him. I would never say his name again. Until two seconds ago, I hadn’t heard Luke say it in almost ten years, either.
“You should.”
“And you should tell Rebecca how you feel,” I shot at him. As soon as I said it, I knew I shouldn’t have brought up Rebecca. I was under sworn secrecy to never say that girl’s name again in Luke’s presence. Because Luke had crushed on her hard when she dated Caleb. And then she disappeared, never to be seen again, until recently. She was the mother to Caleb’s kid. She was currently living in Caleb’s house—trying to be family or some shit like that. Luke had kept his feelings to himself the entire time Caleb dated her. And he was keeping them to himself all over again now. Why else would he be here spending Thanksgiving with John and me instead of with everyone else?
Because Rebecca was probably with Caleb today, at Buck and Dixie’s house—that was why.
Luke started to play.
So I started to drum.
Effectively ending our conversation.
~ CHAPTER 33 ~
JOHN
The table was set, the dinner ready, and Dani was in the garage making noise. She’d been playing with her cousin for two hours straight. Her music sounded angrier than usual. I shouldn’t have called her my family. For three seconds, could I just keep my fucking mouth shut with her? I couldn’t. I physically couldn’t. I was going to lose her if I kept this up.
“Want me to go get them?” Sydney offered.
“Yes,” Rhett said. “That’s a good idea.”
Sydney scooted out of her chair, leaving me alone with Rhett. I was certain he told her to go just now because he was going to ask me his ‘yearly’ question. Every year on Thanksgiving the same words came out of his mouth without fail.
“I’m gonna ask Sydney to marry me today,” he said as soon as my sister was gone. Damn him—same thing every year.
“We’ve talked about this three times before,” I groaned. “I won’t give you my blessing or my permission or whatever you want to call it until she’s out of college.”
“I’m not asking for your permission this time. I’m done waiting. I love your sister. You know I do. You know I will take care of her for the rest of my fucking life. Stop standing in our way, John. I’m asking her tonight. And that’s that.”
Every person I knew loved this guy in front of me. He was charismatic, friendly, outgoing—the opposite of myself. Aside from him sleeping with my ex Shelley, a few years before his first kiss with my sister, I really had no reason to keep holding onto my animosity toward him. Why did I keep doing it? It was exhausting.
“You’re right.” I let out a breath. “I’ve always stood in your way. I won’t anymore.”
“Does that mean I have your blessing?” Jesus—his face lit up like the Fourth of July. It wasn’t like I just called him my brother.
“Yes.” I rolled my eyes. “You have my blessing. As antiquated as that is in itself.”
The happiness spreading over this guy, who at first glance seemed more like an MMA fighter than a romantic, was something else. It was a side to him I hadn’t seen before. Then Luke, followed by Sydney, came back into the room.
“Where’s Dani?” I asked.
“She went upstairs to change,” Luke answered, looking between Rhett and me wit
h confusion, taking a seat at the end of the dining room table. “She’ll be quick.”
“Rhett?” Sydney asked, moving slower into the room. “Rhett?” she said skeptically.
He nodded.
And my sister let out a squeal. She covered her mouth as joy physically spread over her. She must have known Rhett asked me this every year. She must have seen on her boyfriend’s face the second she came in the room—seen that he was finally going to ask. Maybe it had never really been Rhett who needed my permission—but Sydney who wanted it. She went to him, as he sat there, bending over to kiss him in front of us.
All I could think about was Dani. How she was about to miss this while Luke and I had to endure it. I stood, leaving my chair, stepping away from the table, giving them their space. Luke followed my lead, standing with me on the edge of the room. My heart thudded in my chest, and it wasn’t because I didn’t want my sister engaged to Rhett, it was because I needed Dani to be here.
Relief rushed over me in the next second when she came into the room. In new clothes now, a little sweaty from all her drumming, but thank God she was here.
I caught her wrist before she could walk past, and I tugged her to me.
It was perfect timing because Rhett was up from his chair and already down on one knee. He pulled out a ring and I noticed, even from across the room, that his hands were shaking.
“On our first Thanksgiving together, I told you I loved you,” Rhett started. “And every Thanksgiving since, I ask myself the same question. Why isn’t she my wife?” Fuck—I groaned on the inside. I hadn’t realized how much of an influence I had over them. “I can’t wait anymore. I knew it was you the second I looked into your green eyes that day on the crates. The second I gave you that first kiss. The second your brother hit me in the face. The second you came back into the bar for me. I knew then that you were going to be the girl to change my whole life. And you have. I love you. I’m a better man because of you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Marry me, Sydney Francesca Michaels—marry me.”
Never Kiss a Rockstar (Never Trust Book 2) Page 11
