by Tracy Wolff
And so, as she was pouring cream into her coffee, she just did it. Just blurted it out.
“Why, Quinn? Why is he so hard on himself and not on others? Why does he always expect the worst of himself? He’s a good guy—you know that way better than I do. So what is it that makes him hate himself so much?”
Quinn shook his head as he stared into the depths of his coffee. Silence stretched between them—awkward and uncomfortable and filled with a million unspoken things—and for a minute she was certain he wouldn’t answer her.
Not that she blamed him. In his eyes, she was probably just another stooge who worked for the label, a ditz who was there to increase the band’s online presence without having a clue who they really were. And yet she willed him to answer anyway. The desire to know what was hurting Wyatt was a need deep inside of herself, a compulsion that had nothing to do with the label and everything to do with her convoluted feelings for him.
Still, when he finally shook his head and said, “It’s not my story to tell,” she felt the loss like a punch to the gut. She tried to hide it, but she really was as bad an actress as she was a liar. Or at least that’s what the look on Quinn’s face said.
“Look, it’s bad,” he told her after he picked up his cup and drained the near-boiling liquid in a couple of long sips. “It’s really bad. That’s all I can tell you. And that it wasn’t his fault, though he doesn’t see it that way. He blames himself, has blamed himself for more than twenty years, and nobody’s been able to convince him differently. Not the shrinks he’s seen or the counseling groups he’s been a part of or any of us. In his story, he’s the villain, and there’s not a damn thing any of us can do to convince him otherwise. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you’ll come to accept Wyatt’s shortcomings as just part of the package.”
Chapter Fourteen
Wyatt sat at a table in the corner of the dark bar and stared at the drink in front of him. Two fingers of the best dark tequila the place had. It was his drink of choice—had been for as long as he could remember—and as he sat here, in this dive bar he’d found in what felt like the middle of nowhere, he wanted it more than he wanted his next breath. More than he wanted this nightmare to be over. More than he wanted just about everything…
Except Poppy.
And his band.
He was used to needing the band—and the guys in it. It’s why he’d let himself get talked into rehab again, after all. But Poppy…Poppy was something new. Something desperate and dangerous and all-consuming that clawed at his insides a little more with each second that passed.
He could be at her apartment right now, he told himself viciously. Kissing her, holding her, fucking her as slowly or as quickly as he’d like. All he had to do to make that happen was get up from this fucking table and walk out of this fucking bar.
But that wasn’t how this was going to go down, was it? Oh, he could talk a good game, even in his head, but the truth was, this glass of tequila owned him. It fucking owned him, and nothing—not Poppy, not his bandmates, not his fucking drums—was going to change that. Not tonight, and probably not ever.
With that thought blinking in the front of his mind like a particularly gaudy Christmas display, he picked up the tequila.
Rolled the cool glass between his fingers.
Listened to the clink of ice cubes against the sides.
Watched as the amber-colored liquid shifted and rolled.
And tried not to feel like a total fucking asshole.
It didn’t work, but then again, he really hadn’t expected it to, had he?
Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath and sucked the harshly sweet scent of the tequila deep inside of himself. As he did, he couldn’t help remembering what it felt like going down. The burn in his throat, the ache in his chest, the sweet warmth and lassitude that started spreading through him as soon as he finished his second drink.
He wanted it bad. Wanted all of it so fucking bad.
Lifting the glass to his lips, he told himself to go for it. Told himself he was just going to fall off the wagon eventually. Why shouldn’t it be today? Why should he keep fighting on what was rapidly turning into one of the worst days of his life?
He’d quit the band, after all. Had walked away from more than a decade of friendship because he was a gigantic pussy who couldn’t take the heat. But he’d been running from his past—from himself—for so long, he didn’t know any other way to handle his shit.
Nine million dollars.
That’s how much it had cost his friends to buy him out of his latest fuck-up. Nine million dollars. It was hard to fathom, considering a few years ago they’d all been living together and still had trouble coming up with the nine hundred dollars for rent each month.
And yet they’d done it. They’d fucking ponied up nine million dollars because they were loyal no matter what, and this was how he was repaying them. By sitting in a bar with a glass of tequila and throwing away three months of hard-won sobriety.
It would have happened sooner or later. Everyone knew it—Bill Germaine, who had said as much on the phone call this morning. His friends, who didn’t think he could be trusted around so much as a bottle of beer. Fuck, even his counselor at rehab had told him it was going to happen. Admittedly, he’d used it as a cautionary tale about why Wyatt needed to deal with all the shit he carried around, but the message was the same.
He was going to fuck up.
He was going to fail.
He wasn’t strong enough to stay sober.
And they were right. They were all right—every last one of them. And all he had to do to prove it to them was tilt this glass a little and take one long, glorious swallow of the tequila he craved like most people craved air.
“I gotta say, Jennings, I was glad to get your phone call. I was starting to think you’d disappeared off the face of the earth.”
He looked up from his drink in time to see Rollo slide into the chair opposite his.
“Rehab. Got out the other day.” He went back to studying the tequila.
Rollo must have heard it all before, because he didn’t look surprised. He also didn’t comment on the irony of a guy sitting in a bar waiting to buy smack less than seventy-two hours after getting out of said rehab.
God bless drug dealers. As long as you had money, they were so much easier to deal with than shrinks.
“Your friends were looking for you.”
Wyatt’s gaze shot from the tequila to the guy whose number he’d had on speed dial for way too long. “What’d you tell them?”
“What do you think I told them? That I hadn’t heard from you in months. It’s not like it’s really a lie, now is it?”
Wyatt nodded as he continued to roll the drink between his hands. As he continued to stare into its depths and imagine the sweet burn of oblivion that it promised.
“Have you decided how much you want?” Rollo asked, voice low and hand in his pocket. He wasn’t nervous—they’d done this hundreds of times before—but he was cautious, his eyes darting toward the door and around the room in a never-ending loop that made Wyatt tired just watching it.
“Three grams should do it,” he said, and tried not to think about what a coward he was. What a fuck-up. What a goddamn, pathetic excuse for a human being. Pretty hard to avoid it, though, when the voice in his head was doing a damn good job of cataloging the million and one things that were so very, very wrong with him.
Rollo looked surprised. “That’s all? You don’t want anything for the rest of the week?”
Fuck. How much of the stuff had he been using before rehab that Rollo didn’t think three grams would last him longer than a day? He knew he’d kind of lost track there at the end, but still. Fuck.
“Nah. Three’s good for now.”
Wyatt dropped some bills on the table and the dealer shrugged. “Whatever you want.”
Seconds later, he passed the small bag of smack to him under the table. Wyatt palmed it then slipped it into the pocket of his j
eans. And it was done. Just like that he was back to being the weak-ass junkie he’d been for so long.
He was so proud.
“Pleasure doing business with you,” Rollo said, reaching for the glass of tequila still in Wyatt’s other hand. He drained in it one gulp, then placed the empty glass on the table between them.
“What?” he asked, when Wyatt lifted a brow at him. “You’ve been staring at it for as long as I’ve been here. I figured that meant you weren’t going to drink it. Call me when you run out.”
He shot Wyatt a quick grin and a mock salute then disappeared as quickly and silently as he’d appeared. And Wyatt was left alone with three grams of pure smack and his very guilty conscience.
It wasn’t a good combination.
…
Two and a half nerve-wracking hours after Quinn left—after promising to let her know when and if they found Wyatt—Poppy’s intercom buzzed again. Expecting it to be one of the other guys, she refused to get her hopes up. At least until the doorman told her that Wyatt Jennings was there to see her.
“Send him up!” she all but shouted into the phone. And, after quickly texting Quinn to let him know Wyatt had surfaced, she ran to the door and opened it. No playing it cool this time—she wanted Wyatt to see her when he got off the elevator. Wanted him to know someone was waiting for him.
Quinn hadn’t given her details, but by the time he’d left, she’d figured out enough to know that having someone waiting for him who wasn’t a member of Shaken Dirty would be a novel experience.
Sure enough, when the elevator dinged, Wyatt got off with his shoulders slumped and his head down. Like it hadn’t even occurred to him that she would be watching for him.
“Wyatt.” She called his name, a million questions dancing on the tip of her tongue.
Are you okay?
Are you high?
Where does it hurt?
Can I help?
They were all right there—especially the last one—but when he looked up at her with tormented but clear eyes, she bit every single one of them back. Instead, she just held her arms open to him.
He stopped dead a few feet from her door, like he didn’t know what to do with what she was offering him. With another man, she might have taken offense. With Wyatt, it just made her heart ache more, and before he could say anything—before he could do anything—she launched herself at him.
He caught her—of course he did. No matter what Wyatt thought of himself, no matter what he’d done in the past, she knew he was a stand-up guy. It was in his eyes, in his face, in the gentle way he touched her.
And then she was wrapping herself around him, arms and legs and body twining with his as she pressed kisses to his jaw, his throat, his too-prominent collarbone.
I was worried about you. Again, the words were on the tip of her tongue, and again she bit them back. The last thing he needed was to know that neither she nor his bandmates had expected to find him sober tonight. That wasn’t a comment on him, but the situation. Her father’s epic douchery had driven her to drink more than once in her life. How could she expect Wyatt to be any different?
“I’m glad you’re here,” she told him instead, in between kisses. “I missed you.”
It was no more than the truth.
He groaned in response, the deep, heartfelt sound of a man finding redemption—or maybe just escaping from hell. And then his mouth was slamming down on hers, lips and teeth and tongue tasting her, taking her, demanding everything she had to give him.
She gave it all willingly, took all of him in return as she poured herself into the kiss. Poured herself into him.
Licking her way along the seam of his lips, she nuzzled at the corners of his mouth before sucking his lower lip between her teeth and biting down softly.
He cursed then, a low, reverent sound that had heat skating down her spine and sparks of electricity sweeping along her every nerve ending. Relishing the feeling—reveling in it—she took instant advantage of his parted lips, skimming, stroking, sliding her tongue along his as heat continued to build white-hot between them.
He tasted bittersweet, like the songs he wrote. Like coffee and clove and strawberry lollipops all mixed up together. It was a taste she was growing to love, one that was rapidly becoming as addictive to her as Wyatt himself.
The thought of being addicted to Wyatt—of needing him—scared her, had her holding herself back, just a little. As if he sensed her withdrawal, his hand came up, cupped the back of her neck, tilted her head this way and that as he delved deeper, taking more and more and more of what she had to give with each second that passed. But he gave as much as he took. Somehow he gave even more.
She cried out, burrowed even closer, and then Wyatt was backing her into the apartment, his body plastered to hers as he slammed the door behind them.
He didn’t take time to lock it, didn’t take time for anything as he propelled them across the living room until her back was against the nearest wall and her legs were around his waist.
After Quinn’s visit, she’d changed into yoga pants and a tank top, and now Wyatt’s hand was down the stretchy, comfortable pants, his thumb stroking her clit even as he sucked love bites into the curve of her neck.
She tried to reciprocate, tried to slide a hand between them to stroke his very hard cock through his jeans, but he grabbed her hand, pinned it against the wall above her head as he continued to lick and suck and bite his way along her neck and shoulder.
It was a total turn-on that he was strong enough to hold her up with only one hand and the hips that were pressed so intimately against her own. Then again, everything Wyatt had done to her from the moment they’d met had been a turn-on. Everything about him was a turn-on, like the universe had designed him specifically for her.
The thought terrified her, had her squirming against him as she started to throw roadblock after roadblock up in her head. Was she insane? Thinking like that about a guy she’d just met—and not just any guy but Wyatt freaking Jennings? Fucking him was one thing. Worrying about him was her job—and because she was a decent human being. But falling for him, really falling for him? It was a disaster waiting to happen.
She’d spent her whole adult life wanting to prove her father wrong, working her ass off to show him that she could run the label as well as he could. And that she wouldn’t fall for the talent, wouldn’t let her desire to make some rock star happy cloud her vision.
And now, here she was, sleeping with Wyatt. And fighting her father about his place in Shaken Dirty. She was standing up for Wyatt—and standing against Li—because it was the right thing for the band. And, in turn, the right thing for the label. But if she and Wyatt were together, that’s all her father would see. That she was letting her emotions get in the way of the business. That wasn’t good for her aspirations, but it also wasn’t good for Wyatt. For the band.
Not to mention the fact that falling for him was a bad fucking bet. He was an addict, one straight out of rehab who shouldn’t even try to have a relationship until he’d been sober at least six months or a year. It was part of the program and made perfect fucking sense, and yet here she was, building fairy tales about him—about them—in her head. Hadn’t she learned yet that fairy tales didn’t happen? At least not to girls like her, who wanted to run the kingdom and be swept off their feet.
“Hey, you okay?” he demanded as he slid two fingers inside of her, twisting them so that he had immediate access to her G-spot—and her attention.
“I’m fine,” she gasped, her body arching against his as she forced everything but the pleasure to the back of her mind. Pleasure—mind-numbing, body-shattering pleasure—she could do. It was the rest of the stuff she wasn’t so sure about. “Better than fine.”
“Oh, yeah?” He flicked his thumb over her clit even as he continued to stroke her deep inside. “Then let go, sweetheart. I need to feel you come for me. I need—”
He broke off as just that easily, her body followed his command, flyin
g into a thousand different pieces as she came and came and came.
“Fuck, yeah, baby,” he groaned, his eyes gleaming as he avidly watched her fall apart. “I love watching you come.”
“Well, you’ve—” Her voice broke and she took a few seconds to get her breath back before she tried again. “You’ve certainly made sure it happened enough in the last few days.”
His grin was wicked as he twisted his fingers inside her again, sending new tendrils of heat curling through her sex. “Oh, sweetheart, I’m just getting started.”
Because she knew that was true and because she also knew if she gave him just a few more seconds he would have her begging for another orgasm, she squirmed away from him, lowering her legs so that she was once again standing on the floor. Unsteadily, yes, but she was standing so she was totally counting it as a win.
Besides, she wanted to talk to him before things went any further. Wanted to check in with him, to see where his head was at. It was important for him—and the band. And, she admitted a little reluctantly, the label.
“Do you want something to drink?” she asked, putting a little distance between them so she wouldn’t melt back into him at the first touch of his hand. She considered the fact that her knees only wobbled a little another win. “I’ve got coffee, Dr Pepper, water…” Her voice trailed off lamely as he quirked a brow at her.
“Dr Pepper’s not exactly what I came here for.”
“I know what you came here for,” she answered, shooting him a wry grin. “And we will definitely get to that. But don’t you think we should talk first?”
The easy grin slid off his face, as did the remnants of desire. His eyes grew shuttered and only the wild, storm-tossed blue of them let her know that he was in there. And that he was hurting. Everything else about him was blank. Empty.
Wrapping an arm around his waist, she propelled him toward the kitchen and the granite ledge that had two barstools tucked under it. “Sit,” she told him, shoving him gently toward the closest one. “Have you eaten?”
