Backstage

by A. m Madden

  Tara laughs before she gives me a playful shove. “Don’t talk about my friends like that. She gave us the house all weekend. We have the place to ourselves to do as we please.”

  “Well, I please to be inside you in every room of this big old house…and the deck…and the beach. Are you up for that?” Her smile fades, and she looks away. “Hey, what’s wrong?” I ask, tilting her chin so she is looking into my eyes.

  “Nothing.”

  “Tara?”

  “Can we take it easy? Slow?”

  I’m such a shit. Lesson number one in having a loving relationship, her needs come first. In frustration, I scrub my hand over my face. “I’m so sorry, Baby. Of course we will.”

  “I didn’t mean to kill the moment.”

  “Stop. Baby, I’m just happy to have you on my lap right now.” I wink, teasing her to lighten the moment. I gently push on her back so she lies against me, her head in the crook of my neck. Her breathing evens and her body grows heavy. As she falls deeper into sleep, I rub my hand over her arms, her back, and her hair.

  “I love you, Tara. I’m new at this. Bear with me,” I murmur against her hair. She shifts and tightens her arms around me, but otherwise doesn’t stir.

  She fits against me perfectly.

  She’s right where she needs to be. More importantly, she’s where I need her to be.

  She never woke. Not when I carried her in, removed her shorts, or tucked her into bed. I debated finding a different bed to sleep in. I didn’t want her to think I was trying to persuade her into anything she wasn’t ready for. I really did just want to hold her all night. God, I’ve never had the desire to hold a woman all night, but with Tara, I just want to wrap my arms around her and never let her go.

  She’s changed me so much. Like an angel sent from Heaven, I feel at peace when I’m with her now. All the conflicts that plagued me when we first got together are gone. More than just the safety threats, it’s also my own demons that are no longer controlling my thoughts. I still worry I will disappoint her, hurt her in some way. I’m also concerned she will hurt me by leaving me. I decide that if we were to ever part again, it would be by her doing. I’m not going anywhere.

  I thought of all the reasons she could use to try and push me away. It would never be because of trust or lack of. I may have a reputation, but I would never cheat on her. It’s other things I worry about now. I’m content being with her, just her and I. Would she be? What happens when she decides she wants more, like a family? It’s not something I would ever agree to.

  I force myself to stop thinking thoughts of losing her. Fuck, I just got her back.

  Without realizing, I trace lazy patterns on her shoulder and arms. She stirs and sighs. “Do you ever sleep?” she asks in a raspy voice against my chest.

  “Yes.”

  “I think you’re a vampire. I’ve never seen you sleep. You’re awake when I fall asleep, you’re awake when I wake up.” She shifts so she can lean on my chest, looking up at my face. I tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Her skin is smooth as silk. I love how it gets smoother the further my finger travels from her ear to her neck.

  “It’s hard to sleep when I have you next to me. It’s like looking at the sun.”

  She laughs adorably, “You’re quite the charmer, Mr. Taylor.” Her expression turns serious as she watches me.

  “You okay?” I ask, concerned that another memory is ruining our moment.

  “Are you?”

  “Me? I’m perfect, Baby.” I lift her chin to place a single kiss on her sweet lips. Before I can get too greedy, I pull away. Tasting her is like taking just one hit of your favorite drug. You can’t stop at one.

  “I laid a lot on you last night. Did I scare you?”

  I shake my head before she even finishes her sentence. “No. It may be hard to believe, but I’ve wanted to hear you say that you needed me since the day I walked out of your hospital room. It killed me leaving you. I knew I had to. I argued with myself that if you wanted me, decided to be with me, I wouldn’t be able to fight it. If you didn’t, I’d find a way to move on. The bottom line is I just wanted you to be happy.”

  “I knew I needed to fix me before I could fix us. You’d never believe me if I pledged my undying love for you that day.” She sits up abruptly, turning to face me. “I also needed to fix me for myself. I was in a very dark place. I decided I wasn’t going to be a victim. Does that make sense?”

  “Completely,” I reach out to take her hand. Since last night, I’ve touched her in one way or another. As long as she’s breathing the same air, I will have to touch her.

  Her tiny hand squeezes mine tightly. She sandwiches it between both of hers, running her thumb over my calloused palm and sending a jolt right to my cock. I force myself to think of something else to calm myself down, like Hunter’s pale ass. I meant it when I said we would go slowly, but Trey Taylor has no idea how to go slow. Even worse, the word slow is not in my cock’s rolodex of commands.

  I left her in her panties and tank top last night, and now I regret not leaving her shorts on as well. Her legs folded beneath her, the patch of pink cotton I can see between her thighs, her thin tank top that shows off her pebbled nipples are all mocking me at the moment.

  Hunter, Scott. Hunter, Scott. Hunter, Scott, I chant in my head.

  I watch her through skeptical eyes when she crawls between my legs and lies over my body. While she was sitting all the way over there I was safe with the fact that my cock was hardening in spite of my chants. With her over me, there’s no hiding it. Now I wish I had left my jeans on as well. Maybe they would be providing a better barrier, because my boxer briefs are failing miserably.

  “What are you doing?” I ask when her hands roam all over my bare chest.

  “Do you not want me to?” she narrows her eyes like she doesn’t believe that for one minute.

  “Do you?”

  She nods slowly before bending to place a kiss on the center of my chest, then one on each nipple. I run my hands down her back, slipping them under her tank. Her skin is so warm against my hands. I can feel the heat of her pussy pressing against my cock.

  “Are you sure, Baby?” I ask genuinely. I can see a cold shower in my immediate future if she decides she’s not ready. “You asked me to go slow. I don’t want you doing something you aren’t ready for just to please me.” I point down to my cock and add, “He’ll survive.”

  Her eyes shine brightly when she looks up. “I want you to erase my last memory. I want you to take over my thoughts. I need you to.”

  Motherfucker.

  She caresses my clenched jaw. “Just love me, Trey.”

  I move my hands to bury them in her hair, to hold her head still so I can stare into her gorgeous eyes. Those eyes stir me as much as her lips do or her body does. I slant my mouth over hers, claiming her with one slow kiss. So many things have changed. I hated kissing. Despised it. I can’t get enough of kissing her, especially now that I know she’s mine.

  She squeals when I flip her around so she is now beneath me. Her eyes widen, but I’m not sure if it’s from anticipation or fear. Slowly, my brain reminds me. Go slow.

  “We’ll go slow.” I use the words out loud to remind her that I heard her words last night.

  She nods and smiles shyly. “I want you to make love to me, Trey.”

  Make love to her? I’m not sure I know how. I made love once in my life. I was a stupid kid back then. I’m not sure I am capable of making love. I have no idea where to begin.

  “Teach me,” I plead.

  Her response is to kiss my lips slowly. She nibbles on them, moaning as if she’s eating a delectable delicacy. With this kiss, she accomplishes so much. First of which, she stirs me up again, making me want more of her. She makes me want to taste every inch of her, slowly savor every inch of her. With this kiss, she also takes hold of my heart. She doesn’t squeeze it causing pain. When it comes to my heart, aches and pains are the only thing I’m accustomed to feeling
. She caresses it. She strokes it slowly with each beat. She warms it with each kiss.

  Hating to have to pull away, I’m torn. I want to keep kissing her all day, all night, but I also want to taste her all day, all night. My cock, being the prick it is, protests at this new chain of events. It screams at me to move along. I should have jerked off before so it couldn’t distract me now. Ignoring the painful hardness that usually controls my brain, this time I let my heart take the wheel. Shit, things have changed.

  In slow motion, comically slow, I remove her tank top, revealing her beautiful pink nipples. The swell of her breasts rise and falls as she watches me. I mold my hand over one, feeling her hardened nipple press into the palm of my hand. It’s begging to be sucked. I steal a glance at her, before taking it into my mouth. I can feel her hands wrapping in my hair, holding me to her breast, wanting more.

  For several long minutes I devour her breasts as if they are presented to me for my last meal. I drive her insane taking the “taking it slow” to whole new levels. By the time I skim my hand down her flat stomach into her panties, she’s begging for me to take her.

  “There’s something I need to do first,” I whisper licking my way down her body. I devour every inch of her with first my hands, then my eyes, and finally my lips. All three senses compete with each other, fighting for more. She pants my name when I remove her panties. Their dampness is making me a lot harder. I swear my cock has increased in length and width because of her.

  Her scent assaults me, adding a fourth sense to the mix. This girl is driving me crazy, and she hasn’t even laid a hand on me yet. At the sight of her wet flushed pussy, I can no longer hold back. My brain says fuck it to going slowly. She bucks at my change of pace. I drink from her, lap at her causing her to squirm. She begs, and I ignore her pleas, turning them into moans, and oh Gods, and oh Treys. When she settles down, I do it again and again. I do it all with just my mouth. My fingers ache to stroke her from the inside, to feel her warmth. I refrain, wanting to reserve that honor for my cock. He deserves some kind of reward for the torture I’m putting him through.

  I swear she passed out for a second. She startles when my lips on her ear ask, “Tired?” I chuckle at her when she places a hand over her heart.

  “Mmm,” she murmurs, her eyes still closed but now a small smile plays on her lips.

  “Need to rest?”

  She opens them and turns her head to look into my eyes. “No. I need to have you make love to me.”

  “Isn’t that what I just did?” I ask in a teasing tone.

  “No, that was the appetizer.”

  “So what I just did for you can be compared to a pig in a blanket and a beer?”

  She laughs at my analogy. “More like caviar and champagne,” she clarifies. I bend to kiss her, letting her taste herself on my lips. I drive my tongue into her mouth to be sure she gets a good taste. She’s delicious and she needs to sample it.

  “Now I want Trey Taylor on a silver platter.”

  I lift my hands palm up and tout, “Have at it.”

  She shakes her head, “No. You have a job to finish. You need to make love to me.”

  I narrow my eyes, pretending annoyance. “So you keep saying.”

  “Well?”

  I unfold her arms from my body and she pouts. With an arrogant, cocky smirk, I stand beside the bed and peel off my briefs. Her eyes focus on my cock that is sticking straight out before me in all of its pierced glory.

  Her mouth gapes open in shock. “When did you get that?”

  “A few months ago.”

  She tears her eyes away from it and pins me with her insecure gaze. “Whom have you been with?”

  “No one. I’ve been with no one. Not since we broke up.” The memory of my night with Kristin comes crashing back. “Tara, after we broke up, before I knew…” I stop myself, instead saying, “I tried to forget you. It was just one night and I haven’t been with anyone since.”

  “Trey, you don’t have to lie to me.”

  I lie beside her, pressing my cock into her thigh. I run my lips up her smooth neck to her ear. “I’m not lying.” She bends her head to look at my cock. With the tips of her fingers, she strokes my piercing as if she’s petting an excitable dog, trying to get my cock to play nice. “He doesn’t bite,” I tease.

  “What does it feel like?” she asks nervously.

  “I wouldn’t know, but based on how it feels right now with just your fingertips touching it, I’d have to say it’s going to feel amazing.”

  She meets my hooded gaze nervously. I shamelessly push into her touch, and she grips me with her whole hand. “Tara,” I pant, wanting more.

  “Make love to me,” she pleads, but her tone does not sound convincing.

  “Are you sure?”

  She nods as a small smile plays on her face. “I’m very sure.”

  “We’ll go slowly. I promise.” We haven’t had sex in months. I don’t want to assume she’s still protected. “Should I grab a condom?”

  “No, we’re safe,” she says with sadness in her tone. “I was tested in the hospital.” It’s the first time she hints to what that scum did to her. When she sees the anger on my face, she shakes her head. “Don’t bring him here. Please, Trey. It’s just us here right now. Okay? So, no condoms needed. Please, I need to feel you.” She quickly pulls in a deep breath and plants a smile on her face. She reaches for me again, driving me wild with her touch.

  When my shameless thrusting starts to become more, I beg, “Please. Tara, now you’re teasing me.”

  It doesn’t take long for us to work ourselves back up again, for her to work me back up again. When we both can’t take much more, when it feels like I’ll die if I don’t have her soon, when she leans into my ear and says she loves me, only then do I finally make love to my girl.

  “More?” I ask, wiping he sweat that I feel dripping down the sides of my head. “I’m exhausted, Woman.”

  It’s hot as fuck out here, and her body straddling my hips is causing my already high body temperature to spike. It’s broad daylight. Jack’s place sits on its own private beach. The deck is far enough from the ocean for any fishermen to get a free show. The thought of doing it right here on this deck is hot as fuck, but I think my cock is broken.

  “I can’t help it. It feels so good,” she admits while sucking on my neck.

  “So you’re just interested in my bling?” She nips my bottom lip lightly and then harder. “Ow.”

  “It’s not just your bling.” She runs her tongue over the spot on my lip she just bit and adds, “It’s you. You make it feel so good.”

  “Liar,” I tease. “You’re going to have to feed me if you want more.”

  “You just ate.”

  “That was hours ago,” I argue.

  “It was? Hmm. Okay, food first and then more.” She turns toward the ocean and smiles devilishly. “Maybe with a swim?”

  “Hmm.” I mimic her. “Make it quick.” When she climbs off my lap, I slap her ass causing her to yelp.

  “Just for that I’m making you tuna for lunch.”

  “I hate tuna.”

  “I know. Leila told me,” she quips before sauntering into the house. She gives me a great view of her ass in that tiny bikini. Her long legs are tanned and her hair hangs loose. Maybe I don’t need food after all. We haven’t fucked in the kitchen yet.

  The air conditioning feels awesome when I walk into the house. Tara is busy at the counter with a phone propped in the crook of her neck. When she feels my arms around her, she leans into me.

  “Sure, that sound’s great…No, not at all…Sweetie, we’re so grateful you let us stay…Okay, love you too…Bye.”

  “Love who? Whose ass do I have to kick?” I ask with my lips pressed up against her ear. While they’re there, I pull her lobe in between my teeth and tug. She smells so damn good. Her coconut shampoo mixing with that beachy smell makes me feel like I’m in the tropics.

  “Leila’s?”

  �
�Ugh. What did that pain in my ass want now?”

  Tara giggles at my poor attempt to hate on Leila. She knows I love the girl and also knows the dynamics of our relationship. She and Leila have gotten very close. Tara confessed she used Leila to learn more about me while we were apart. She shamelessly asked all sorts of questions, from details of my relationship with Trini, to what it was like to live on a bus with me. Leila told Tara about the jokes I played on Hunter and Scott, how I would try to constantly humiliate her with bad one-liners. She even told Tara about my relationship with Lori and the dynamics of traveling with Lori’s boyfriend Matt, while on tour. She said Jack considers me a brother, and she knows I feel the same about him. I called Leila a traitor for revealing all my secrets and said I’d fix her ass with some juicy bad jokes when I saw her again.

  “She wanted to know if we were coming back to the city or staying down here this weekend.”

  “Whatever you want to do is fine with me,” I squeeze her tighter, now nibbling on her neck.

  “Really? Then you don’t mind that I told her to come down here to spend some time with us?”

  I release a heavy sigh, “Really?”

  She turns in my arms and links her hands behind my neck. “Are you upset? I’ll call her back. I just thought it would be nice to hang out with our best friends as a couple for once. We never really did that. I crave having a normal boyfriend/girlfriend relationship with you.”

  Well, when she puts it that way.

  “Best friends?”

  “Aren’t they?”

  I never really labeled my relationship with Jack or Leila except for friends. I guess they are deserving of the title. I kiss her chastely before saying, “I’m teasing. Of course I’m not upset. I owe them. They’ve both been there for me even when I refused to take any help. But if they bring Hunter and Scott then all bets are off.”

  “I love Hunter and Scott. They’re so funny.”

  “We’re through,” I deadpan, and she giggles.