Hard Rock Improv

by Ava Lore

  I shook my head. “You guys are international rock stars and you still care about points on your credit card?”

  “Well...yeah,” he said. “You never know when you’ll go back to being a nobody.”

  I stared up at him. “You could never be a nobody,” I said.

  His eyes softened. “Are you buttering me up, Rosalita?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe.” In truth, I wanted him to remember that he didn’t deserve to be treated like shit by his family. A frown crept across my face.

  “What’s wrong?” Manny asked.

  My mouth twisted. “I’m just wondering why you haven’t petitioned to have your medical power of attorney revert to you,” I said.

  A snort escaped him. “Oh please. Remember when I said these islands were like small towns in the middle of the ocean? Well, they can get pretty corrupt, just like every other small town, and since my uncle and his kids live here they know more people. I’m pretty sure they’ve been greasing palms all over the place, cozying up to the cops and making friends with the judges.” He shook his head. “No thanks. The kind of media shit show that would come out of me fighting them wouldn’t be worth it.”

  My frown deepened. “That doesn’t make any sense,” I said. “They can’t pay off every judge or bribe every cop. And I don’t even think they can commit you without coming to L.A.” This was not my area of expertise, but everything about this sounded fishy to me. “How did you avoid them getting full power over you?”

  “I had an agent at the time so they weren’t able to claim my financial interests weren’t being represented, and officially I was my aunt’s ward, who lives in San Antonio, so they couldn’t get full control over my legal affairs.” He sighed. “My aunt couldn’t leave San Antonio, and I didn’t want to leave the music business, and my uncle was the one who could uproot his life since he didn’t have a life, so she let him have medical after they found coke in my system.”

  He gave a bitter laugh. “She thought it would be good for me to have someone to look out for me. Keep me from the hard life. She told me that since she couldn’t be there, she wanted someone to be able to commit me to rehab if I needed it.” He sighed and lowered himself over me, the weight of his body pulling the hammock around us like a cocoon. His body was hard and hot, distracting me from my questions. The scent of him overpowered me and I swooned and writhed.

  “But...” I groped for words.

  His hands found my hair. “Does it really matter, Rosa?” he asked as his hips bore down against mine, the length of his cock, hot and heavy, weighing against my mound. “It’s nothing I can change. If I gave them even an inkling that the gravy train was coming to an end they’d either make my life a living hell in the media or have me locked up. I don’t want to do that again.”

  His lips met the pounding pulse of my heart below my jaw. “I, um...” I tried to think as waves of sweet desire washed over me. “I don’t think that’s how it works, Manny.”

  To my surprise, he pulled back and frowned. For a moment I thought he was going to ask me what I meant, but what he said instead was, “I don’t want to talk about it, Rose. Let’s just forget it.” His voice wasn’t sharp. Not exactly. But it was like the dull side of a blade pressed against skin. At any moment it could flip around and slice me open.

  My breath caught in my throat as my heart seized up as though he held that cold, dull steel to its tender walls, but then he leaned in and kissed me, and I found myself once again floating and insensate, though the sting of his rejection still prickled inside me.

  Tomorrow, I thought muzzily to myself. We can talk about this tomorrow. I’ll ask after breakfast, when he’ll be in a good mood...

  Then his hands were under my shirt and on my breasts and I forgot all about making plans, pulled under by his sweet mouth on mine and his rough hands on my skin. Far away the waves of the beach washed against the shore, and the scent of flowers was all around us as he moved down my body. The hammock swayed with his movements, and I stiffened as he maneuvered, afraid we were about to flip out of the hammock all together, but then he said, “Shh. Relax and let it flow.”

  “Flow?” I mumbled, but then he was curling around my lower body, cradling us both in the strong fabric as he slid my shorts and panties down my legs, leaving shivers behind. The night air was warm but my skin exploded into goose bumps as his fingers trailed across my skin, brushing over my ankles, up the insides of my thighs.

  My legs parted for him as if by magic, and then his fingers were brushing over the dampness at the apex of my thighs, softly stroking my pussy lips and clitoris, and when I pried my eyes open—when had I closed them?—I saw his golden eyes watching me in the darkness. Bright, like the eyes of some wild jungle cat stalking its prey. I sucked air through my teeth, my breath catching at the thought of him hunting me down and having his way with me. Which was what he was doing, wasn’t it? He was seducing me, distracting me. The kind of predator that lures its prey rather than chases.

  But is that really the case? my brain whispered to me. Isn’t he the hunted? Isn’t he in danger?

  My chest tightened, and I wanted to speak, to force him back to the issue of his cousins, of the fact that he had no control over his life, but the memory of his voice, sharp and so close to rebuking that it had left a wound across my heart, kept me from speaking. I shoved the thoughts away and struggled to concentrate on what was happening here and now.

  Manny helped me come back to the present by suddenly insinuating one long, rough finger inside me, and I gasped, my lip finding its way beneath my teeth. “Ah,” I sighed as my hips thrust up into his hand.

  “So wet,” he said. “You’re so wet.” He drew his finger out and slipped it into his mouth, sucking softly, his incredible cheekbones becoming more prominent as his cheeks became concave. I wanted to run my tongue along those cheekbones. Along every tattoo on his body.

  He slid up the hammock then, curling around my body until we were half-spooning and hopelessly tangled up in each other. Hot breath and hot skin, sweat slicking between us, blood burning in our veins. Between my legs the pounding pulse of my heart made my pussy feel heavy and full, throbbing with need, and when Manny reached around me and slipped his hand between my thighs, he met no resistance.

  “Fuck me, Rosa?” he whispered.

  “Yes, please,” I sighed back at him.

  He planted his mouth on my ear, sucking and nibbling as he pulled out a condom and did the complicated maneuvers to roll it on before pushing his cock up against my waiting entrance and then sliding inside.

  I closed my eyes and let him cradle me from behind, and together we moved and swayed in the breeze, suspended in time, and I closed my eyes and drifted from one orgasm to the next while Manny plied my body with his. He moved in me, and pleasure coursed through my veins, but when he finally shuddered against me, his balls tightening against my ass as his cock pumped out his load, the pleasure receded, and by the time Manny had shuffled off his condom and I had pulled my clothes back on, the ache in my chest returned.

  That night, snuggled against Manny’s warm body, my head on his shoulder, I stared out into the darkness, listening to the waves wash against the shore while loneliness lapped at my heart.

  I didn’t sleep much at all.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Are you all right?” Rebecca asked me for the tenth time.

  I turned and scowled at her. “When are you going to stop asking me that?” I snapped.

  “When you tell me the truth.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Guess I’ll keep asking, then.”

  I clenched my teeth and turned my face out to the sea. We were both sitting on the beach while filming continued and I couldn’t shake the sudden melancholy that had gripped me since Manny had shared his troubles with me the night before and then...blocked me out. I didn’t want to admit it, since this was supposed to be a fun vacation, a break, where Manny and I fucked a bunch and had a good time, but he’d hurt me by refusi
ng to talk further about the problem of his extortionist relatives.

  And that was stupid. I knew it was stupid. We’d known each other for all of six days—if that—and I was pretty sure I’d been brought along for some fun casual sex rather than to become his private legal counselor and personal therapist...but I was still hurt.

  This is why you don’t do casual relationships, my brain griped at me. This is why you should stick to the Plan. You get too attached too quickly. Some guy sticks his dick in you and you get all clingy and think you’re entitled to the rest of his life.

  To make matters worse, I’d tried to bring it up with Manny when we’d woken up that morning.

  The only downside of sleeping in a hammock with another person was that you couldn’t help but wake up when they did, so I’d opened my crusty eyes at the crack of dawn as Manny tipped himself out of our little suspended cocoon and padded across the wooden porch to stand at the edge and stretch his magnificent body.

  I’d laid in the gently swinging hammock and watched as the rising sun gilded his finely sculpted body in gold and pink and red. I’d had little sleep, but when you get to wake up to a sight like that it’s hard to be too grumpy. So I admired him instead.

  He’d glanced over at me and grinned. “Buenos dias, bonita,” he said. “And how did you sleep?”

  I smiled at his use of Spanish. It was so charming, especially since he grew up in Hawaii instead of in the American southwest. I wondered if he’d grown up listening to his parents speak it amongst themselves whenever they wanted to keep something secret or share a private joke. “I slept okay,” I lied. I gestured out to sea, where the sun was turning the waves strange colors. “It was beautiful. I liked watching the ocean and listening to the waves. Definitely better than listening to the cars back home.”

  “You think so? I always think the cars sound like waves, myself.”

  I’d had to laugh at that. “With honking and screeching tires and wailing sirens?”

  He shrugged. “You never know what kind of sea monster is going to come out of the depths. Perhaps he will sound like a fire truck when he comes.”

  “Then that’d be the least scary sea monster I’d ever heard of.”

  He snorted. “Maybe so.” He crossed the wooden deck back to where I lay, his eyes fixed on mine. I couldn’t help but stare up into them as he leaned over and kissed me, his touch gentle but his mouth demanding. I felt the energy coursing through him, drawing me into his orbit, seducing me. I knew I couldn’t break away on my own. All I wanted was the rush of heat and sweet desire that flowed up my body, through my veins, to where we touched. Every thought was abolished when he kissed me. I wanted that, more than anything.

  Take away my thoughts, I begged him.

  But he broke the kiss and stepped back, his hands on mine, drawing me out of the hammock. “Ready for some breakfast?” he asked.

  I hesitated.

  He frowned. “What’s wrong, Rosalita?”

  Looking away, I bit my lip, trying to figure out how to talk to him about everything that we had discussed last night. “I...”

  His hand squeezed mine, and I looked up to see his smile, so compassionate and kind, spreading across his face. “What is it, bonita?” he asked me. “Whatever it is, I will help you.”

  In my chest, my heart squeezed painfully. I swallowed, hard. “I mean, about what we talked about last night...” The hand on mine stiffened, but he didn’t pull away, and foolishly I thought that meant he was open to what I had to say. “I think you can get your rights back,” I said in a rush. “There’s no reason for you to not have them. Any court appointed psychologist is going to look at you and see that you’re completely competent—”

  His hand released mine, and I fell back into the hammock. “Drop it, Rose,” he said, and the dark scowl on his face was like nothing I had ever seen before. His shadowed golden eyes glared with the intensity of the sun.

  I bit my lip and nodded, hoping he would take my hand again, but instead he turned away, and while he laughed and spoke with everyone else that morning, he was cold to me from that moment onward.

  And it broke my heart.

  Stupid, I thought. You’re an idiot. How could I care what he thought of me, or how mad he was at me? He was just a fuckbuddy. He’d just brought me along for the ride, some way to distract himself from the problems that plagued him in these islands.

  I hugged myself.

  “Hey,” Rebecca said, cheerfully. “What’s wrong, Rose?”

  I scowled at her. Abruptly, I stood up and turned away. “I’m going for a walk,” I announced. “Don’t follow me.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” I heard my sister mutter behind me, but I was already stalking across the warm sand.

  Filming was going well today, as far as I could tell. The song had been repeating the chorus over and over while Sonya sang and held long, gossamer lengths of cloth about her body in the floating breeze. She looked like an angel in the sunlight. Her face was soft and compassionate while the cameras were rolling, and I was dying to know what she was thinking inside during those moments where she looked almost happy instead of angry with the world.

  Manny, Kent and Carter were all still rolling around in the waves, and I’d heard talk that they were heading out in a bit to a nearby pool to complete the underwater part of the filming. I wondered if Manny would invite me or if I’d somehow upset him enough to cause him to forget about me for the rest of the trip. I didn’t think so, given the strange magnetism between the two of us, but I’d been burned before by physical lusts. Anyone who relied on her cunt to tell her what to do was a fool.

  I padded down the beach, the sand burning and squishing between my toes, watching the filming take place. I was continually amazed at how deftly the cameras caught nothing but the musicians and the occasional set prop rather than the gaggle of people surrounding the set and the trailers parked at the other end of the beach in some kind of cinematic wizardry that I didn’t understand.

  I reached the spot where Manny and the others were splashing in the waves. Right now it looked like they were attempting to wrestle in the water, and if it hadn’t been for the fact that the assistant director was yelling at them through her megaphone I would have guessed that they were just fooling around.

  “Cut!” the director yelled, and they stopped trying to drown each other. Carter spotted me and waved. Manny didn’t even look in my direction at all.

  Throat tight, I turned away and headed further down the beach.

  I didn’t know where I was going, only that I knew I wanted to get away from where I had been. That sort of thing could be confused for profound, but frankly, I wasn’t in the mood to get profound. I was busy kicking myself, angry that I’d messed up the good thing Manny and I had just started to get going.

  Figures, I thought as I made a beeline for a lovely patch of trees further down the beach, of course you’d screw it up. You have no standard operating procedures for a casual relationship.

  Shut up, brain, I said. I wished I’d grabbed some of the wine that had been in the beach house. I could have used it right now to stave off the cruel thoughts that plagued me. Miserable, I shoved my hands in the pockets of my shorts and kicked the sand with my bare feet, watching it fly into the air, up and down, up and down, as I walked.

  I don’t know how long I strolled down that beach lost in my own dumb thoughts, but when I finally lifted my head and looked around I found that the set had turned into a tiny dot in the distance. I couldn’t make out individual figures, just an amorphous blob of people, moving this way and that way in the pursuit of the perfect music video. I envied them. I didn’t have anything to occupy my time like that.

  With a sigh, I turned to look back up the beach, to see where I was going.

  Yago Reyes stood in front of me.

  I might have squeaked or squealed. I don’t really remember. All I remember is him laughing and taking a step forward as I took a step back.

  I hadn’t real
ly got a good look at him yesterday, but now that we were alone on the beach, in the sun, every detail seemed to become monumentally important: the way the sun shone on his greased-up black hair, the way his dark, muddy eyes watched me with predatory intent, the way the stubble on his cheeks dotted his face with pale blue pinpricks, the way his light cotton shirt floated in the breeze, open to reveal a wife-beater beneath. He had tattoos, too, like Manny did, but his tattoos were poorly drawn and inexpertly made. His face was cruel where Manny’s was kind, and I knew instinctively that he had something planned for me.

  Oh, I thought. Oh god.

  I took another step back and looked around, my eyes darting to the trees, my heart fluttering in my chest like a butterfly trapped in a net, but he appeared to be alone. With protective instinct I slipped my arms around myself and hunched my shoulders, glaring at Yago with as much disdain as I could muster.

  “What do you want?” I said. “This is a private beach.”

  His smile, so sinister, grew wide into the grin of a shark, and he stepped forward, following me. “Oh yes,” he said. “I know. And I know who really owns it. It’s not one Miss Sonya Kyle, is it?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I said, suddenly realizing that this place must be part of Manny’s holdings. My lawyer side, always willing to rise up and protect me in any circumstance, said: “What does it say on the deed of ownership?”

  Yago’s grin turned to a scowl. “Don’t pretend you don’t know,” he said.

  I shook my head. “I’m not pretending anything. I’m just along for the ride.”

  He tilted his head. “Oh?” he said. “You’re not in it for the money that my little cousin can get you?”

  I blinked. Despite every warning bell in my head howling like a klaxon, I had to know why he was saying these things. Perhaps it would help me find the key to getting Manny free of his cousin’s control. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. My voice was stiff, but Yago seemed to think it was amusing.