Elliott Redeemed

by Scarlett Cole

  Elliott laughed sadly. “I tried. But she was on vacation, and I didn’t want to see her backup. I’ll do it when we get back.”

  “Helping Daniel . . . I don’t think it’s going to bring the redemption you’re looking for.”

  Elliott looked over to Nik. How had he read his mind so clearly? How did he know he just needed one chance to right the wrongs, to prove he wasn’t the sum of his compulsions? If he could get through this test, he’d be able to get through anything.

  That’s what he told himself on the flight that evening to their next stop, where he was planning to meet up with Kendalee if Adrian stopped being a dick about looking after his own son.

  New York.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “Sit the fuck down,” Lennon said. “I can’t relax with you bouncing around like a slinky spring on coke.” He was stretched out on a long black sofa, eyes closed, ankles crossed, hands behind his head, as they always were just before they walked on stage.

  Elliott flipped him the bird, and Jordan laughed. “She’ll be here,” the big guy added.

  “We gotta go,” Dred said as he stepped back into the room.

  “Can’t we wait five more minutes?” Elliott asked. Kendalee’s plane was supposed to have landed an hour ago, but air traffic control had held it on the ground in Toronto because of thunderstorms. The end to this sticky humid summer couldn’t come quickly enough. He checked his phone again. No messages from her. She should be close. He called her cell phone again but it switched to voice mail, and as much as he loved hearing her sweet voice, the one that still held a hint of giggle that brought a smile to his face, he was disappointed. Tonight was supposed to be their night. He’d been looking forward to playing for her for the first time.

  “Sorry, man,” Dred said, slapping him on the shoulder. “There’s a curfew on the building. Can’t play over, and those technical difficulties the opening act had took an age to resolve.”

  For once, the roar of the crowd didn’t get him excited. The growl of disappointment in his head was louder. He closed his eyes and inhaled the smell of too many bodies packed into a tight space, focusing on the vibration of the stage beneath his feet caused by the stamping of their fans. They deserved better than a man going through the motions because of his own personal shit. Parking his worries, he lifted his guitar in the air and walked to his favored spot to the left of the stage.

  “You ready, New York?” Dred yelled into the mic, and the crowd screamed in response, hitting Elliott right in the chest.

  Fuck. He loved this. With every ounce of what he was feeling, he strummed the opening chord to “Broken” just as Lennon hit the beat on the drums. His fingers flew up and down the frets, something that always amazed him, despite the hours of practice he’d put in.

  One song blurred into the next as he absorbed in the energy of the crowd, using it to fill up the holes that spending time with Daniel caused.

  Dred made his way toward him on the stage. It was hard to imagine the hard front man whose presence filled the stage had been reduced to tears by a video call with his baby girl only an hour earlier. He screamed the chorus as Elliott played the hook, then moved his mic away. “She’s here,” he yelled in Elliott’s ear, and tilted his head toward the other side of the stage.

  Elliott looked past Nikan and Jordan, who were busy on the right. Kendalee was finally here, and shit . . . his dick noticed too. She was wearing a black dress that skimmed her thighs, heels that highlighted those great legs of hers, and the fitted biker jacket he’d left as a gift before he left. He’d placed them on the bed for her to find after he’d gone.

  Fuck it. Nobody had ever said that he needed to stay stage left. Without taking his eyes of her for a moment, he strode purposefully to the right, and, as the song finished, he pulled the jack out of his guitar.

  “Switch,” he yelled at Nikan.

  “What the fuck,” Nik replied as Elliott yanked the jack out of Nik’s guitar and inserted it into his own.

  Dred laughed at the two of them and pointed behind Nik, who turned and saw Kendalee. “A fucking chick. I should have known,” Nik shouted as he inserted the jack for Elliott’s amp into his own guitar.

  With business taken care of, Elliott hurried to her. “You’re late,” he teased before pressing his lips to hers.

  “You’re hot.” Kendalee grinned as she ran her tongue across her top teeth.

  Goddamn, she was beautiful. “You are so getting laid later.”

  “Promises, promises.” She ran her finger along his jaw and kicked out her hip. “I came all this way to sleep with a rock star.”

  Lennon’s drums kicked in for the next song, and unlike Dred, who had forgotten his lyrics the first time Pixie had watched him, Elliott nailed his intro as he began to back onto the stage. “Then the rock star you shall get,” he yelled.

  As the concert ended, Elliott reveled in the fact that it had been his best-ever performance, inspired wholly by the woman to his right who’d danced and cheered as if she were listening to a nineties pop compilation rather than a metal gig, ever so slightly and adorably off beat. He was about to take her back to his suite and fuck her until they both collapsed in a sweaty mess.

  “Come on,” he said, switching his electric guitar with an acoustic on the rack. He grabbed her hand and led her to the steps.

  “Want me to take your guitar?” Billy, one of their roadies, asked as he handed Elliott a towel.

  He ran it over his face and threw it back to him. “Nah. I need it.”

  “You were amazing, Elliott,” Kendalee said as she hurried to keep up with him, those sexy-ass heels of hers tapping on the concrete next to him.

  He stopped, and Kendalee jerked to a halt as he tugged her into his arms. “No,” he said, placing his palms on her cheeks. “You are amazing.” Ravenously, he pressed his lips to hers, allowing his feelings for her to flood out in one kiss. “And I can’t wait to get you back to our room.” He scooped her into his arms and she laughed fully, the sound hitting him hard in the groin. “Tonight, I’m the rock star, and you’re going to be my groupie.”

  Elliott marched out of the side door into a second limo that he’d ordered to allow them to travel separately from the rest of the band.

  “If I’m the groupie, do I get to do whatever I want to do in the back here?” Kendalee asked as he climbed in after her, placing his guitar on the long side seat before taking his place next to her in the limo.

  He took her hand and slid it along his already stiff cock. “Baby, you can always do whatever you want.” He pressed the button that raised the divide between them and the driver.

  Kendalee slid the jacket off her shoulders, then shocked the shit out of him by dropping to her knees and positioning herself between his legs.

  “Honey, no . . . you don’t need to . . .” he began, but she had already unbuckled his belt and lowered his zipper.

  “For one night, I’m your groupie, and you are my rock star. That’s all there is to it,” she said.

  “But I’m all hot and sweaty. I should at least clean up at the hotel or—”

  She placed her hand over his mouth, and he playfully nipped at her fingers. “What was it you said to me once? Oh, yes. Two things, sweetheart. I don’t go for all that showering-before-sex bullshit. It shouldn’t be clinical or minty fresh. It should just be real, and dirty, and spontaneous. And two, the time it would take you do to that, I could be doing this.”

  Before he could respond, she’d taken him in her hand placed her lips around him. Elliott inhaled deeply, roughly, as his cock adjusted to the sensation of Kendalee’s sweet mouth. The heat. The wetness. The way her hand stoked him up and down as she sucked, gently at first, then firmer. He slammed his head back against the seat.

  Using her tongue, she licked around his head in a firm flicking action that had his abs tightening and his eyes squeezing shut, even though the sight of all that glorious strawberry blonde hair of hers between his legs, set against the darkness of the l
imo and the occasional flicker of orange from a passing streetlight, was a sight that would be long engrained in his memory. “Jesus, Kendalee.”

  He looked down at her, and she had the audacity to wink as she took him deeper, and deeper.

  Christ. He knew it was nasty, but he took a fistful of her hair in his hand. When she popped her mouth off the end of his cock, he knew he was going to get busted for his playful tugging.

  “Guide me, Elliott. Exactly how you want me.”

  His vision blurred slightly at the sight of her, lipstick smudged, telling him to take her how he wanted. “You sure, Lee. Because this”—he gestured between the two of them—“is enough.”

  “I want to try it, and you promised to be my rock star.”

  He leaned forward and kissed her lips that tasted of him. “Babe, I’m always your fucking rock star. Now suck my cock.”

  Kendalee grinned as he slid his hands into her hair, grabbing fistfuls, and held her head exactly where he wanted until the limo pulled to a halt.

  “Shit,” he said as Kendalee clumsily returned to her seat while running the tip of her index finger around her lipstick. “You can fix that all you want, but the color in those cheeks will tell everyone you just went down on me in the back of this limo.”

  “I don’t have it in me to care. Plus, I’m in New York. It’s not like I’m going to run into anybody I know.”

  Elliott zipped his pants over his rock-hard cock with seconds to spare before the valet pulled the door open.

  They hurried through the lobby and to his room. The entire elevator ride was a lesson in patience . . . he couldn’t wait to get her naked. His cock ached. He threw his guitar down on the bed, then turned and pushed her up against the wall. Kendalee groaned as he slid his hands down her ribs to the hem of her dress before peeling it off over her head. Unable to wait, he slid his hand down her stomach, under the waistband of her underwear.

  “Christ, you are wet,” he whispered against her neck.

  “It’s you, Elliott. You do that to me.”

  He stepped back from her. “You really want the rock star tonight? Not me?”

  “They’re the same, right?” she asked, teasing him by sliding her own fingers into her underwear.

  “Well, the rock star does stupid shit all the time.”

  “Like what?”

  Elliott grabbed the bottle of champagne he’d arranged to be delivered on ice. Carefully, he removed the foil. “Well,” he said, as he removed the wire and pressed his thumb under the cork, which let out a long pop as it opened, “hotel room damage has been known.” He took a sip straight from the bottle. It was dry, fizzy. But he was already drunk on her.

  Kendalee laughed. “Should I ask how?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Because,” he said as he placed his thumb over the top of the bottle, “I’m going to show you.” With a wink, he shook the bottle as hard as he could, then allowed it to spray in all directions and soak the two of them.

  “Elliott!” she squealed as champagne poured over her breasts.

  He leaned forward and sucked a nipple, which tasted fucking amazing. “Want some?” he said, offering the neck of the bottle to her lips.

  “Sure,” she said, placing her lips to it. At first he was gentle, allowing her to swallow some, but then he tipped it further and laughed as she spluttered and put her hand to her mouth. “Oh my God,” she coughed. “You’re crazy.”

  “Quite possibly. Want to see something else?” He took her hand and led her to the bed, where he picked up his guitar and guided her to lie down. Quickly he stripped off the rest of their clothes. At the bottom of the bed, he picked up the guitar.

  Completely naked, he put the guitar strap over his head. Half soaked with sweat, champagne, and a burning desperation to just climb over the bed and fuck her, he strummed the unmistakable chords to the Eric Clapton song “Layla.”

  “Elliott,” she squealed again, and he loved the way she said his name. “Play it quietly,” she instructed.

  He shook his head. “You wanted the rock star, honey. Well, here I am.”

  And when Kendalee fell back on the bed in fits of laughter, he silently prayed that she’d always want him exactly the way he was.

  * * *

  Daniel was going to love it.

  Back in Toronto, two nights after having a wonderful evening in New York, Kendalee took one last look around the room Elliott had created for Daniel. It smacked of permanence, something she yearned for. Something she craved. Why else would the man put this much time and money into decorating a room in his house just for her son? His initials, DW, were on the wall. Huge silver letters filled with lightbulbs, against a dark blue wall. A large bed with a pull-out one underneath it—For when he has friends over, Elliott had said. She wasn’t completely sold on the idea of the flat-screen TV, the gaming system, and the surround-sound speakers. It all seemed a little overkill. But it felt petty to complain when Elliott had worked as hard as he had to give them both a place to live. A home.

  Daniel had been hanging out with some friends in one of the community rooms, so she had taken the opportunity to sneak home to shower so she could look pretty for whatever Elliott had planned for the two of them later and to check out Daniel’s room.

  One week.

  That was all she had left to get through. One week of sleeping at the hospital, of stolen showers. After only two nights of staying at the hospital, Adrian was already fed up with the cot, and what had been negotiated as an equal split of time had quickly become one or two nights a week for him, five or six nights for her. Plus, she was there during the days too. She hadn’t spent a night at home since New York, and while she would always do what was best for Daniel, she felt conflicted. The mom in her would always keep her by her son’s bedside, but the woman in her missed being held at night. At least tonight Adrian was going to man up and stay the night while she went out on a bona fide date.

  She wandered across to Elliott’s room and opened the door to be met with the smell of him, of the cologne he wore. She began to straighten the sheets and pillows on his unmade bed. He was spending the day at the group home in which he’d grown up. Ellen, the woman who ran it, had asked him to come over and speak to one of the boys who was having some problems. He was so good with kids—better than he even realized. His laid-back demeanor made him easy to talk to. Every day she considered asking him about his past, about the steps that had led him to who he was now. Occasionally, when he’d let a detail slip, like mentioning an old foster family or a place where he’d lived as a child in the city, she’d try to delicately steer the conversation to his past but he’d always use his self-deprecating humor, or sex, to turn the conversation away from it. Like when she’d tried to ask about the scars on his body that appeared to be burns. Part of her wanted to push, but she understood that those kinds of conversations couldn’t be forced.

  Just like the one about their future. About what was going to happen between the two of them. Once upon a time, she’d have wanted to know every detail, but so much had happened in the last few months that she was gaining a whole new level of comfort with taking things day by day.

  The box of condoms sat on the bedside table, and she couldn’t help but grin. There weren’t too many left, and Kendalee recalled some of the gloriously delicious moments they’d needed them as she opened his bedside table drawer to put them away.

  The drawer contained lighters. Five, maybe ten. Some ornate, some cheap plastic variety-store versions. She wondered why he had so many given she’d never seen him smoke, and there were no signs of candles. They’d have to get rid of them, or lock them away before Daniel came home. While she was certain he’d learned his lesson, there was no point taking risks.

  The weather was still mild as she walked to the hospital. Elliott was going to swing by to hang out with them as soon as he was finished up at Ellen’s. There was a lightness to her steps, and she realized that for the first time in nearly two m
onths, she felt truly happy. It was too long since she’d had this feeling of love in her heart. A feeling she was getting used to. Daniel was about to be released from hospital. They had a home to go to, which, even if temporary, was glorious. She’d be able to bring Daniel back to the hospital for his twice-weekly appointments, oversee his physio, and get him to school. Daily tasks like that had often seemed like a grind in her old life—before she’d nearly lost him—but now she relished the opportunity to do anything with her son.

  “You must think I’m stupid,” she heard as she approached the entry to the ward. Adrian was leaning up against the wall. In his hands were a manila envelope and one of those gossipy papers you got for free in the subway.

  Kendalee scrunched her brow. “Why would you say that?” she said, reflexively trying to figure out what she’d done wrong and then stopping herself. Why hadn’t she ever realized that this was her default around him? She’d been willing to do anything for a quiet life, including accepting responsibility for things she hadn’t done.

  “You filed for divorce. Joint custody, but he lives with you most of the time. And child support.” He waved the envelope at her, and she could only assume the papers were enclosed. She should have thought to ask the lawyer how long it would take to get the papers served. She’d assumed it would take longer. “I thought I’d made it perfectly clear that this wasn’t what I wanted.”

  Kendalee sighed. “Adrian, look, while I certainly don’t condone your having an affair, it was a sign that something was very broken between the two of us.”

  “Do you have to keep bringing that up?” he asked, his voice ripe with the exasperated tone he’d used on her so often over the last year. “Because we can fix it. I’ll go to counselling. We can go together, as a family. I don’t know. I’m seeing things differently. I’m seeing you differently. You have your spark back.”

  Her heart jolted a little at his comment. She wondered how he would feel if he knew that her “spark” had nothing to do with him and everything to do with a musician who, as clichéd as it sounded, rocked her world.