Tainted Butterfly

by Terri Anne Browning

  “Nah, I’m good here,” he said with a smug grin as he lifted his beer to his lips.

  “You’re such a pain in the ass,” I grumbled, but I stayed where I was.

  This felt like old times, before he had moved away and things had changed between us. Sitting there, talking to Sin, with Gray including me and making me feel like I was special and important to him, was something I hadn’t realized I’d missed until right that minute.

  I began to relax, falling back into the familiar and enjoying myself for the first time since I had given in and told Gray I would move in with him and Jace. As the night wore on, I found my eyes growing heavy and rested my head on Gray’s shoulder. His hand tightened its hold on my hip and he tucked me closer against him as I gave up the fight and let sleep take me while knowing I was safe in this man’s arms.

  TWENTY

  Gray

  Emmie Armstrong’s office was downtown. She owned four of the thirty floors she used for everything from offices for her staff to a recording studio for her clients to record demos. We already had one demo Emmie was presenting to various record labels for us, but today, we were going to do another one.

  This time, it was with one of Kin’s songs that she had written herself. We might not get along half the time, but the chick had some serious writing talent. Since she could play the guitar almost as well as I could, I didn’t question her when she explained how she thought the solo for one of the songs should sound.

  From the control room, Shane Stevenson was sitting at the switchboard, waiting patiently for us to go over last-minute changes Kin had thought of the day before. The bassist for Demon’s Wings could have done anything he wanted now that the Demons weren’t touring as often, but his passion seemed to be in helping newbies to this part of the music world get their name out there.

  Since this was only a demo, we could record everything at the same time. But, if it had been for an actual album, we would have had to record the drums and my guitar separately in isolation booths to keep the instruments from interfering with the microphones for everything else.

  As Kin finally left us to get started, I glanced through the soundproof window into the control room, where Kassa was watching us beside Shane. The Demon was talking to her as he messed with a few controls, making her laugh. Not for the first time that day, jealousy punched me right in the gut. I kept telling myself that the older rocker was only being friendly, that he was a married man with kids at home, but when had that ever stopped a guy before? Kassa was beautiful, had the body of Aphrodite herself. Every guy who saw her wanted her.

  And I was no less immune. I wanted her like a drunk wanted his next drink, like an addict who was desperate for his next fix. And I couldn’t have her. Things were just starting to get back to normal after the last fuckup I had caused, and I couldn’t risk alienating her more.

  Turning her head from the Demon, Kassa saw me looking at her and waved.

  I grinned. “Be good,” I told her, knowing she couldn’t hear me but could easily read my lips.

  Her eyes widened before she rolled them at me and flipped me off. Laughing, I blew her a kiss. Beside her, Shane said something that had her cheeks turning pink as she looked at him in shock. She adamantly shook her head, which had the guy shrugging, an amused look on his face.

  A moment later, Shane’s voice filled the room. “Okay, guys. Let’s just do the song all the way through once to see what you sound like then take it from there.”

  An hour later, we had a working demo for Kin’s song that we were all happy with. I carefully put my guitar in its case while the others packed up their stuff.

  “I gotta get to work,” Cash grumbled as he set his bass in its case. “Fuck, I hate that damn job, but I’m making a killing in tips.”

  “It’s your pretty face,” Jace said with a laugh. “Those cougars are always slipping you their numbers with a big tip.”

  “Dude, some of those cougars are smoking hot. I’ve hooked up with a few of them, and fuck, man, they can get freaky.”

  “You always were into older chicks,” I laughed.

  “Hey, nothing wrong with that. It beats having to ask for ID to make sure the girl is legal.” He lifted his case and slung it over his shoulder. “I’ll see you fuckers later. And do not come in to the restaurant tonight. I see enough of your ugly faces as it is.”

  “Aww,” Kale pouted. “But I was gonna leave you a good tip and ask you to come home with me.”

  Cash picked one of the drumsticks up off the floor and threw it at Kale’s head. “You’re such an ass.”

  “But I’m a funny ass.”

  He muttered something under his breath as he opened the door, but Kassa and Kin had been about to push it open from the other side. Stepping aside, he let them in before calling another goodbye.

  “Hey, I’m going to take Kassa home with me,” Kin told Jace without stepping too far into the room. “We’ll see you later, okay?”

  Jace’s head snapped around. “You’re not going to wait for me?”

  “We have things to do, babe.” She blew him a kiss. “Love you. See you later.”

  “Kassa,” I called after them when they were almost out the door. “Want to grab dinner with me later?”

  “Sorry, I have plans. See you later.” With a wave, she pushed Kin out ahead of her, and they practically raced toward the elevators before the door had even closed.

  “Who the fuck does she have plans with?” I demanded, looking at Jace, who only shrugged.

  “Probably that guy Nate from First Bass,” Sin muttered. “They seemed pretty chummy when I got to the club last night.”

  Jealousy sucker-punched me in the stomach. “She’s going out? With Nate?” I looked at Jace. “Did you know about this?”

  “Dude, you would know more about that kind of shit than I would,” he said, his hands lifted. “She’s closer to you than me, and you know it. Sometimes I even think you two have some kind of freaky ESP thing going on because you seem to know what the other is thinking without saying a word.”

  Maybe that had been true, but that had been before—fuck—before I had messed it all up. I pulled my phone from my back pocket and sent Kassa a quick text.

  Are you going out with Nate tonight?

  There was a long pause on her end before I got a reply.

  It’s just dinner, Gray. Relax. Lol!

  My hand tightened around the phone even as I told myself to calm down. Relax? She was going out with some fucking douchebag and she wanted me to relax?

  Where are you going?

  I don’t know yet. Gotta go. Talk to you later.

  I stood there, staring down at my phone, waiting for the text that said she loved me so I could tell her I loved her more, but it never came. She hadn’t said those words to me since what had happened in her car, and part of me was scared she wasn’t ever going to say them again. I gritted my teeth and reined in the urge to punch something.

  “Let’s go get a beer,” Sin suggested after taking one look at my face. “I’m off tonight, so we can hang out.”

  “I’m in,” Kale and Jace said, but I wasn’t in the mood to hang out with any of them. I wanted to know where the fuck Kassa was going.

  Did she like the bartender? Did she want a relationship with him? Did she want him to kiss her—fuck her?

  No. Nope, not gonna happen. No way in hell was I going to let that happen. I would kill that fucker if he so much as put his hands on my little caterpillar.

  “Let’s go,” I half growled, already halfway to the door.

  “Where we going?” Kale asked behind me, amusement lacing his words.

  “To find Kassa.”

  “Dude, she’s going on a date,” Jace tried to reason. “Nate’s a decent guy. She could have picked worse. Fuck, she could have picked someone like you! I trust Nate.”

  That only pissed me off more. Jace didn’t want his sister with someone like me. But what if I wanted to be with her? Was he going to get in my way? />
  I shut those questions down real quick. I didn’t want Kassa with someone like me, either. And I was never going to be with Kassa, so it didn’t matter if Jace would have actually approved or not.

  I stopped at the door to the stairwell to face the three other guys. “You coming or not?” I asked Jace.

  He shook his head. “Not. Kin would kick me in the balls if I messed up Kassa’s date. And who knows how Kas would react if I screwed that up for her. Look, she’s eighteen years old. She’s allowed to date, for fuck’s sake.”

  “What about you two?” I ignored him and asked the two guys who had been my closest friends since before my father had killed my mom.

  “We got your back,” Sin answered as I had expected him to.

  “Me too,” Kale agreed. “But I’m not killing anyone for you tonight, man. I gotta be at work early tomorrow.”

  Kassa

  Nate picked me up from Kin and Angie’s apartment at exactly seven o’clock. I had texted him earlier in the day to ask him to pick me up there rather than my own apartment because I’d had a feeling that, once Gray found out I was going out on a date, he would get all overprotective caveman about it, and I wasn’t sure how I would handle him if he tried to stop me from going out.

  Because we were so close, I knew how he would think, and once Nate arrived, I turned my phone off. I would probably catch hell for it later, but Gray was smart, and he would have found a way to track my phone so he could follow me. For the night, I didn’t want to think about him. I deserved to be able to go out and enjoy myself with a guy who liked me and see where things could go with us. Gray had made it abundantly clear that I wasn’t ever going to have that kind of relationship with him, so what was wrong with me going on a date with someone who did?

  There’s not, that bitchy little voice chimed in as Nate opened the door to the restaurant he had told me about on the drive over. So stop feeling like you’re cheating on him.

  So far, Nate had been a complete gentleman. Opening doors for me, flirting just enough to make me blush but not make me feel uneasy, and not once had he called me “baby” or some other random name most guys called the chick they were with because they couldn’t remember her actual name. I had unconsciously been comparing him to Gray though, just like I did with every other guy in the world. But, for once, the guy I was with wasn’t coming up short.

  Nate was kind of perfect so far. Any girl would have been lucky to get to spend time with him like this. I liked him—really, really liked him. But, as the night went by and we laughed together over dinner and then dessert while we exchanged embarrassing childhood stories, I realized that the reason I was so comfortable with Nate was because there was no sexual tension between us.

  He seemed to realize that too, because when he bent to kiss me outside my apartment door, it was just a soft brush of his lips over my cheek. “I had fun tonight. We should do this again.”

  I smiled up at him. “Yeah, I had fun too. I would love to do it again anytime.”

  “Great. Text me when you want to hang out again and we can get together.” He gave me a hug and then stepped back, grinning as he backed toward the elevators. “See you at First Bass soon?”

  “Of course you will,” I laughed. “Thanks for tonight, Nate.”

  “Anytime, beautiful.” With a wink, he stepped into the open elevator and waved as the doors started to shut on him.

  I waited until the elevator started its descent before unlocking the door and stepping inside.

  No sooner had the door shut behind me than a firm hand grasped my wrist and pulled me around to face one majorly pissed-off rocker.

  “You turned your fucking phone off?” he roared. “Do you have any idea how dangerous that could have been? What the fuck would you have done if that douchebag had turned out to be just like that Brandon motherfucker?”

  With my heart racing from the small fright Gray had given me, I easily tugged my wrist free of his hold and moved around him. “Nate is nothing like Brandon. He’s a nice guy, a gentleman,” I tossed over my shoulder.

  “Yeah, he sure kissed you like a gentleman,” he half growled in a snide voice that annoyed the hell out of me. “A peck on the cheek? How sweet—and boring.”

  I shot him a glare as I walked into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. “That’s how a friend is supposed to kiss you, jackass.”

  “And that’s all you and Nate are?” he asked, disbelief coating his tone. He crossed his arms over his massive chest and looked down at me like I was slow.

  The urge to punch him in the throat was strong, but somehow, I held it in check. Barely.

  “Right,” he said. “When are you going to see him again?”

  I shrugged as I moved around him to go to my room, not wanting to spend more time with him in this mood than I had to. “I don’t know. Whenever.”

  “I spent two hours looking for you with Sin and Kale,” he confessed as he followed me. “We checked every romantic restaurant in the city, and then some not-so-romantic ones.”

  “Kin knew where I was.”

  “She wouldn’t fucking tell me,” he bit out, stopping my bedroom door from slamming in his face with his foot. Pushing the door open, he came into my room without being asked and flopped down on his side in the middle of my bed. “She kept saying it wasn’t any of my business.”

  “Because it wasn’t your business,” I muttered and went into my closet to change into sleep clothes before walking into the bathroom to wash the makeup off my face and brush my teeth. I took my time, hoping he would leave. I didn’t want to get into this.

  When I came out, Gray was still where I had left him, having made himself a little more comfortable, looking as if he weren’t planning on leaving any time soon—or at all.

  “Look, Gray, I’m tired. All I want to do is go to sleep.”

  Hurt flashed in his sand-colored eyes. “You used to want to fall asleep beside me, Kassa.”

  “Well, I don’t tonight.” I couldn’t do that with him anymore, not after what had happened between us. Not when it was still fucking with my head.

  He pushed to his feet and stood in front of me, looking down at me in a way that made me think he could see all the way inside me. “I thought things were going back to normal for us, Kas. I thought you were letting what happened go.”

  “I did—am,” I amended when he kept staring down at me. “I am putting it behind me. It’s just hard, okay? You don’t realize how hard it is for me to go from what we did—to just being friends again.”

  He caught my hands and pulled them both to his chest, right over his heart. I could feel how erratic his heart was beating, and when he bent his knees so that we were at eye level, I melted for him. “Baby, I know how hard it is. Trust me, because it is just as hard for me.”

  “I-it is?” I whispered and licked my suddenly dry lips.

  “Fuck yes, baby. It has been driving me crazy because all I think about is how good your lips taste. How wet and tight you were for me.” His lashes lowered, but not before I saw the hunger shining out of them like a beacon. “I dream of you, little caterpillar. Every damn night, you spread your legs for me and I can’t say no. But then I wake up and remember it was just a dream. A dream is all it can ever be, though, because what we have is too precious to ruin with sex. What we have, it’s everything to me Kassa. Everything.”

  His honesty wrecked me. Every word that left his mouth spun my heart into a whirlwind that took my breath away. A tear spilled over my lashes, and he pulled me into him for a tight hug, his hands stroking up and down my spine as he pressed his lips to my temple.

  “Please, don’t take that away from me, Kassa.”

  “I won’t,” I whispered into his chest, hugging him close as I shut my eyes. “Not ever.”

  TWENTY ONE

  Kassa

  I picked my towel up and wiped the sweat on my face and my neck away before taking a thirsty swallow from my water bottle. The gym was crowded, but I wa
s getting used to that and kind of liked it. The more people there, the less noticeable I felt, as if I could get lost in the crowd and just get my workout in without anyone bothering me.

  On the treadmill beside me, Gray was still going strong, and I waved my hand at him to get his attention and let him know I was going to head over to the stair climber. In the past few weeks, we had gotten into a daily routine. We worked out for a few hours and then grabbed lunch before going our separate ways for the rest of the afternoon. Then we typically met up with a group at First Bass or somewhere for dinner.

  The best part, in my opinion, was at the end of the day, when we were home again and getting ready for bed. He would shower in his own room and then climb into bed with me. It was hard to store away my feelings for him when he was in bed beside me all night long, but I was starting to get use to keeping what I felt separate from what Gray was able to give me. All in all, I was happy to have that little part of him.

  Which probably made me pathetic, but it was my life, so what anyone else might have thought didn’t matter to me.

  Gray gave me a nod, not once breaking stride as he continued his run on the treadmill, but I felt his eyes on me as I stepped onto the stair climber and hit start. I put in my wireless earbuds and let my playlist get me energized to finish up the workout. I was meeting my friends for lunch later, so I was cutting my workout in half for the day.

  Twenty minutes later, soaked in sweat and ready for a shower, I grabbed my towel and my water bottle and found Gray lifting weights. As I approached him, several of the other guys gave me interested smiles. I waved at them, which had Gray’s eyes narrowing on me.

  “Finished already?” he asked as he set his weights down and moved to stand in front of me so none of the other guys could see me.

  “I’m meeting Kin and Lucy for lunch with Angie and Carolina,” I reminded him for the third time that morning.

  “Just you girls, right?”