reputation

by Dr. Rebecca Sharp

  For years I’d written about this man, but the only music that could ever convey what was between us were the beats from our hearts, the rising and falling scales of inhales and exhales, and the lyrics that my body sang from only his touch.

  This love was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard.

  And I broke down. Tears that had been streaming down my face since the last verse, now flooded with new. He pulled me tight to him, raining kisses down on my hair and face. “I’m so sorry, Blakebaby. I’m so sorry I hurt you.”

  I pulled back so I could look at him again. “It’s ok.” My weak and watery smile probably suggested differently.

  “I didn’t deserve you… I don’t deserve you,” he whispered hoarsely, his voice torn up by the ragged emotions that had been locked away for so long. “I was stupid… so fucking stupid.”

  “Zach…” I whispered his name, my lips searching for his.

  Obliging me, his mouth slanted over mine. His kiss was demanding yet gentle, like a rip current, pulling me with a dangerous force that could only be felt underneath the calm waves. His tongue slid between my lips, searching and stroking mine. He explored every corner and licked every crevice of my teeth like he wanted to taste whatever remained of his song.

  I sighed, slowly blinking up at him when his mouth pulled back slightly.

  “That is what I wanted to do,” he began softly. “When you finished singing that day. I wanted to walk up on stage and kiss you like this—like I’d been dying to ever since the day you fell off your bike and onto me—the day you forced me to realize that you had breasts and long, long legs… and that you were no longer a little girl.”

  “You did?” I asked dumbly simply because I just wanted to hear him say it again. Correction. The fifteen-year-old me that had been suffering inside wanted to hear him say it again because she never thought this moment would come.

  He nodded, his thumb brushing over my cheek. “And then,” he continued, “I wanted to look into these shining, midnight-blue eyes and tell you that, all this time, I’ve loved you in secret.”

  My heart exploded—like a star or an asteroid that finally collides with something greater than itself. A million little pieces fragmented around a love that was greater than our past, greater than our pain, greater than this ruse, and greater than my reputation.

  “And I loved you without reason,” I confessed. “My heart has always been yours.”

  The stakes were high, but I’d waited long enough for this moment where this love was ours.

  And seventeen years after the day when I learned that sometimes losing something can be the best thing, I also learned that a heart exploding is vastly different from a heart breaking even though they both ended in pieces. That’s what the stars were in the sky—shining bits of my heart that couldn’t hold together with the love I felt for him, shimmering in their splendor.

  My heart beat out of my chest. My soul shone through my eyes.

  Blissful and utterly petrified. Completely and desperately frightened of what can happen when you finally have everything that you want. His lip twitched, only inches from mine. His body solid and burning against mine, his arousal creating a permanent hollow in my stomach, his intoxicating blend of pure male and potent desire invading every pore, his lips touched mine before he mouthed, “Blakebaby, I don’t deserve your heart, but it’s the best thing that’s ever been mine.”

  I moaned into the kiss. Some love stories might picture this kiss as the epitome of sweet and loving. Not ours. Ours was hot and needy. Our love was raw laced with ravenous. I was on fire as his hips ground against me, still seeing stars even though my eyes were closed. My whole body salivated for more of this friction.

  My arms locked around his neck and I climbed him like ivy around the thickest, hardest… hottest tree. I needed all of him and I needed him now.

  I needed to replace the last bit of that memory with this—with Zach taking my willing heart and my needy body.

  He groaned into my mouth as I rolled my core against his erection, quickly losing my mind as the friction set off warning flares everywhere in my body.

  I barely caught his curse before my back was flat against the floor I’d been standing on hours ago, Zach jamming his arousal against where I wanted him.

  “Zach…” I breathed.

  He reared back and I choked, thinking he was going to leave us both hanging.

  His stare was love and desire that mingled predatorily.

  With a sexy smirk, he said hoarsely, “As much as I love the yoga pants, Baby Blake, all I want you wearing right now is starlight.”

  He took his good ‘ol torturous time, first pulling my shoes off. Then, leaning over me, tugging my shirt up over my head before reaching one hand under my arched back and deftly unhooking my bra, my breasts spilled from the lace. I watched the battle inside him play across his face as he stared at my swollen and needy tits. My chest rose and fell unsteadily, so desperate to be touched by him. And then I watched the moment he lost, his mouth swooping down and latching on to one taut peak.

  Laving over the bud, his hand cupped and kneaded my other breast. I writhed on the floor, racing towards the pleasure he teased me with as my orgasm stayed just ahead of me out of reach. My hips arched, searching for his hard cock to rub against. Hell, I would have even settled for a leg. A thigh. A hand. Anything.

  But he didn’t give in. No. He stayed and proceeded to bite and suck my other breast while I whimpered, feeling like I was reaching for the moon—right there but so far out of reach.

  With a pop and a grin, he released my nipple, looking up at me from underneath hooded eyes. His golden gaze pinned mine as he continued what he started—undressing me completely, my yoga pants and underwear gone in one smooth motion.

  Then his eyes roamed and mine trailed along. My nipples were rosy red and glistening in the moonlight, my stomach quivered as pent up desire made my body twitch uncontrollably.

  His eyes flicked to the empty seats. “I wonder how many fans picture you naked when you’re up on stage.”

  “I-I think,” I said with a weak voice, “that I’m the one who’s supposed to picture them naked.”

  “Do you?” He raised an eyebrow.

  “No!”

  He nodded, his eyes flicking back to me, drifting down until I felt his stare on my sex.

  “I picture you naked,” he continued with a sexy smirk, his hand that was resting on my knee slowly drifting down the inside of my thigh.

  I bit my lip, feeling my sex clench, needing him to get to there faster.

  “O-on stage?” The words just left my mouth when I felt one finger slide down my slit. My hips jerked up but his finger pulled away.

  “Everywhere.” His expression darkened as he lifted that finger to his mouth and sucked.

  “Zach…” I pleaded.

  “Now I don’t have to picture it; now, I can remember it,” he growled. “Naked. On stage. This perfect pussy wet and ready for me.”

  I couldn’t even get out a ‘yes’ before he pushed two fingers inside of me. One hand planted on my hips, pinning them to the floor as his other hand worked its magic. I whimpered and cried for more of his touch, but he wanted to watch. He stayed kneeling above me as his fingers pushed in and out of my slick channel, his palm rubbing over my clit.

  My heels dug into the stage, trying to push myself up harder against his hand. He wouldn’t let me, but he gave me what I needed. In and out, he hit the same spot every time. And when I reached the point where my breath was gasping in but not releasing out, he curled his fingers hard into that sweet spot and I exploded. His hand couldn’t control my hips that were powered with my climax as they jerked against him.

  “Wow…” The word rushed out, hardly even sounding like me.

  I heard his tight chuckle. “We’re not done yet.”

  Goosebumps washed over my body. “No?” I swallowed hard watching him begin to lie down between my shaking legs.

  “You should know, B
lakebaby,” he blew over my swollen folds, the warm heat of his breath making my inner muscles clench greedily for more, “every song has at least three refrains.”

  My brain processed his words in staccatoed syllables while my body interpreted them as whole notes. I cried out as his tongue flattened at the base of my sex, sliding all the way up to swirl around my clit.

  “And my name on your lips as you come is your refrain.”

  I shoved my fingers through his hair, grateful that he hadn’t worn his iconic baseball cap. Threading through the locks, I tugged harshly, partly as punishment for torture and partly because my sex was desperate to feel his tongue.

  I felt the warm rush of air from his laugh before his mouth sank down over me. There was no more teasing. I felt it in the way his fingers dug into my hips, the way his body felt tight and on edge between my legs, and the fury with which he shoved his tongue inside my passage—he was close to losing control.

  There was a brand-new Blake Tyler song being sung from this stage right now—one that would never come out the exact same again. Moans spiraled from my mouth as his tongue drove into me over and over again, the firm velvet rubbing against my muscles and licking my juices from them.

  My head ground back into the hard wood of the stage and the stars in the sky mixed with the ones in my head as Zach sucked hard on my clit and my climax rocketed through me.

  “Fuck.” The word was a Band-Aid over my pulsing sex.

  I lay limply as he pushed himself up and ripped his shirt off over his head. I wasn’t sure if I had limbs anymore. Or if they worked.

  One part of me still worked; still throbbing, my core clenched as I watched Zach unzip and chuck off his jeans and boxer briefs. I swallowed the pool of saliva that collected in my mouth seeing his long erection jutting out from his hips.

  I was about to have sex. On stage. Under the stars.

  With Zach Parker.

  I may be a popstar, but I never thought I’d be classified under this type of exhibitionism.

  I let those thoughts drown me for a second, my gaze held captive by his, and wondered how this dream turned out to be a reality.

  He knelt back down between my thigh, his hands shoving them wide. Desire rushed from my core as he stared at me. He loved to do that, I’d learned over the past few weeks—to stare and take a moment to appreciate my sex spread wide for him. He liked to watch as it made me hot and impatiently horny. He liked to watch me squirm and my pussy drip in anticipation.

  Leaning back over me, his mouth took mine with long slow strokes of his tongue. I felt him prod at my entrance that was gasping for him. Supporting himself on both hands, his hips flexed and pushed the blunt head of his arousal just inside of me.

  Don’t get me wrong—I loved his fingers and his tongue.

  But this fullness and the need for it was what drove me out of my mind.

  “I’ll never get tired of being inside you.” His lips etched over mine as he slid all the way home.

  A silent, strangled gasp escaped my mouth before he swallowed it. I was still reeling from the last two ‘refrains,’ my core sensitive and used, but still he took. And I willingly gave.

  I arched my hips, needing him to move faster. I inhaled his growl before the moment of sweetness was over and he slammed into me. The amphitheater was perfect for resonating the sound of our flesh frantically slapping together, the moans and grunts of desperate need in a delicate situation.

  For the first time in my entire life, I was on a stage and not putting on a show for the rest of the world.

  At least I hoped I wasn’t.

  This moment was just for me—and all for us.

  I felt it coming. Every muscle fiber tensed like I was preparing to take the biggest hit of my life. I braced myself as my pulse quickened like a drumroll for desire.

  Zach had brought me here—he’d taken a situation so public and turned it perfectly private. He’d taken the Blake the world knew and grounded her to the Blake that I was.

  “Blakebaby,” his hoarseness drifted into my mind. “I love you.”

  The dam broke.

  My orgasm crashed around me, the potential of it held back for so long behind the wall of words that hadn’t been spoken until this moment.

  My fellow stars now knew to whom I’d hitched my shine as I screamed his name. My body clenched around him, pulling him deeper and harder inside of me. I felt his low drawn-out groan before I heard it. I felt the way his body shuddered. I felt every push and pulse of his dick against my muscles. And I felt the hot jets of his release soak into every part of my body.

  We gasped for air like it was going out of style—chests rising and falling together in an angry tug of war for the limited space between us. I didn’t want to move. I never wanted to move.

  “Holy shit, Blay.”

  I tried to laugh but he was heavy lying on me so it just sounded like I was gasping for air.

  “Fuck.” He pushed up and stared down at me. “Sorry.”

  I stared up at him, wondering again how all of this could be real.

  “Say it again,” I whispered.

  “I’m sorry,” he repeated before kissing my nose with a grin.

  “Not that part.” I rolled my eyes because he was doing this on purpose. “The part where you said that you loved me.”

  The grin fell away, replaced with a look that burned red—red with desire and possession and untouchable love.

  “I love you, Blakebaby.” The words felt incredible—better than the shows and the fans and the Grammys and the fame. The words filled me. He completed me.

  I licked my lip, soaking in every millisecond before speaking. “I love you, too, Zach.” The faintest hint of a smile tried to break through the heaviness of what those words meant to him.

  Unspoken. Unreasonable. Untouchable, this love of ours.

  He kissed me again softly, sealing in the words that couldn’t be unsaid, before he pushed off and rolled to the side, leaving us both lying there, on the Red Rocks stage, looking up at the stars. They winked at me in my flickering vision, knowing that what I’d found down here was worth the fall.

  Good or bad, I always knew this love would leave a permanent mark, but tonight, our love was glowing in the dark.

  Letting it go free, I never thought I’d feel this way again, but this love came back to me.

  I HAD A BAD FEELING about this.

  Blay and I spent our few free hours touring Minneapolis—visiting Paisley Park, exploring the skywalks; tonight was our only show in the city, so we tried to make the most of it. Every second with her, I regretted every second I fought to be without. I wouldn’t make that mistake again. And I was going to work damn fucking hard to make up for it.

  I just got out of the shower and picked up my phone, expecting to see an adorable text waiting for me from my girl—and there was—but there was also one from Ash with a room number and the word ‘Now.’

  To say our relationship had been strained ever since Colorado—hell, even since Cali—was putting it fucking mildly. I knew he didn’t liked the situation from the start and I knew that it had gotten worse as more time passed and more photos were taken, more stories printed; we’d given them a fairytale and it looked damn believable.

  Because now they were true.

  But he didn’t know that.

  Seeing the text stopped me in my tracks, cold sweeping over me as I thought more about it. He’d barely said two words to me since Colorado except about the band or the show. And that didn’t sit well with me as I tugged a tee over my head, reaching for my worn-out jeans.

  It didn’t sit well with me at all.

  I couldn’t stop myself from thinking that I’d been right—that we should have told him right away. The thought gnawed at me like a dog with a bone. I didn’t like being the bone. I didn’t like the feeling that whatever I was about to walk into was going to rip me apart.

  BLAKE

  Want to come warm up with me before the show? ;)

 
I groaned as my cock swelled in my pants; it was habit and excitement that made me read her text right away when I should have ignored it. Warming up before the show had nothing to do with our voices or the music. It had become our thing—these stolen moments, tiptoeing on the edge of being found out. We couldn’t keep our hands off of one another. Hell, I’d forced my body to resist her for a decade. Now, it needed to be paid back what it was due. With interest. But I think there was also a part of us that did want to be caught—not all the time, but just one time—there was a part of us that didn’t want to keep the truth of us hidden anymore.

  It was like being given the most fucking incredible gift in the entire world and not being able to share it. Not only that, but the continued thought that possessing that gift was somehow wrong of us.

  And it wasn’t wrong.

  We weren’t wrong.

  We were everything that was right.

  ZACH

  I can’t. I have to go talk to Ash.

  I debated whether or not to tell her he texted at all, but in the end, keeping it from her wasn’t an option. Plus, she needed to know that it was only something serious that could keep me from her right now.

  BLAKE

  Everything ok?

  ZACH

  I’m sure it’s just about the band. We haven’t had a whole lot of time to talk about what’s next for us.

  I sent the message hoping it would calm the both of us.

  It was Ash’s room number in the text; he was on the same floor as mine but just at the end of the hall on the other side of the elevators. The bright purple of the carpet and vibrant patterns on the walls only made the approach more unnerving.

  I knocked swiftly, barely catching my surprise when Bruce opened the door. A split second later I met Ash’s gaze in the background. Dark. Brooding.

  “Please, come in, Mr. Parker.”

  I stepped inside the suite that was essentially identical to mine. The purple from the hall carried into the space but in a much lesser quantity, substituted with orange and silver designs instead.