by Kyra Davis
“You,” I whisper, “inside of me . . . now!”
And in one swift, ferocious movement he flips me over onto my stomach and then I feel him between my legs, and then that insane sensation of him pressing inside me with a rapturous force. I gasp in pleasure, my cheek against the soft sheets, my back against his hard body. His thrust is so strong, so deep it feels as if he’s asserting his authority, declaring me his as he claims me. It only takes a moment until that ache inside me strengthens, bringing me to the brink. “This is what you want, isn’t it?” he asks, his voice both teasing and authoritative.
Yes is what I mean to say, but it comes out as a primitive groan. His hands are squeezed between my flesh and the mattress, toying with my breasts; his lips are on my ear, growling more words that I’m now too delirious to understand. He turns me on my side, his chest still pressing into my back. I gasp again as he changes to a half-kneeling position, lifting my top leg up into the air to give him the full access he wants. I feel cradled against him, and yet the ferocity of his movements is utterly irresistible. “Go ahead,” he says, his voice louder now, firm, insistent, “come for me. Right here, right now.”
And in less than a minute I do. The orgasm rocks through me, sending me into a crazed state of bliss. I bite down hard on my lower lip to keep from crying out and alerting my neighbors through these paper-thin walls. A moment later I hear him call out to me, his member pulsing inside me as he comes.
Carefully he lays my leg back down, his hand stroking my back before he collapses against my mattress, lying flat on his back while his sweat remains on my skin and mine on his. We just lie there, breathing. It’s so good in so many ways.
And yes, this man does know how to make me happy. And I . . . I almost feel safe.
It’s just that when he called out to me, he didn’t call me Mercy.
He called me Melody.
CHAPTER 13
IT’S A FEW minutes before ten in the morning when my phone rings. Ash is in the shower and I’m only now getting out of bed, tired and pleasantly sore, wearing nothing but my favorite oversized Red Hot Chili Peppers tee. “Hello,” I yawn into the receiver.
“Hi.”
I stiffen at the sound of Brad’s voice and I’m suddenly feeling very awake. “What do you want?” I ask.
I hear his sigh, and for a second I imagine I can feel it, too, that it’s tickling my ear and he’s right here, next to me. “Look,” he says, “I was hoping for a chance to talk to you before our rehearsal tomorrow afternoon. Can I take you to lunch? We could meet up at one?”
“No thank you,” I chirp and hang up the phone. Two seconds later the phone rings again. “Hello?”
“Mercy,” Brad says, a little exasperated now. “I really think it’s a good idea that we talk.”
“Yeah,” I say, glancing toward the closed bathroom door. “I know you do. Otherwise you wouldn’t have asked me to lunch. But as with so many other things, you and I disagree on this point.”
“We have to play together. It won’t be good for the dynamics of the band if there’s tension between us.”
“Hmm.” I walk over to the kitchen and pull some ground coffee out of the refrigerator. “We don’t actually have to play together. I mean, I’m the lead singer of the band. You’re the drummer. So maybe we just need a new drummer.”
“You’re not going to find another drummer with my talent in time for our next gig.”
“We might,” I counter as I select two cups and a coffee cone. I’m out of coffee filters so I use a paper towel. “There are lots of drummers in LA. And you’re not that good.” From the bathroom I can hear that the water’s been turned off.
“Mmm, I’m pretty good.”
I laugh. I can’t help myself. At that moment Ash opens the door and steps inside the common space wearing nothing but a bath towel secured around his waist. Drops of water glisten against his light brown skin, somehow making him look both dangerous and vulnerable at the same time.
“Look,” I say, tearing my eyes away from him. “Why don’t we just forget the whole thing? We’ll just pretend it never happened and move on.”
“Sweeping things under the rug, leaving things unsaid, those are never good plans,” he replies. “Let’s be adults about this.”
“Are you saying I’m childish?” From the corner of my eye I see Ash walking over to the couch to retrieve his clothes.
“I’m saying that your plan to pretend that something that happened didn’t happen isn’t . . . mature.”
“Fuck. You.”
I hang up the phone and slam it down on the counter.
“Who was that?”
I look up to see that Ash has his pants on; his shirt hangs in his hand.
“It was just my drummer,” I grumble.
Ash hesitates a moment. “The big guy?”
“He’s not that big,” I snap. “I mean, I guess he’s probably six threeish and he’s got kind of a muscular build, but he’s not Hulk Hogan or anything. He—” I’m interrupted by the ringing of the phone. “Oh for God’s sake!” I snap up the receiver. “What?”
“I was out of line,” Brad says.
“Aren’t you always?” I note dryly.
“Look, I just want to clear the air. If you don’t want to have lunch, let’s have coffee.”
“I don’t want coffee. I don’t want lunch. What I want is for you to learn to take no for an answer. You want to see me? Show up for rehearsal. I’ll let you stare at my back while I perform . . . Oh that’s right, you think that’s uncouth.”
I hang up again.
“So,” Ash says, turning his back to me as he puts on his shirt. “I take it the two of you have some sort of thing going.”
“What? No!” I turn back to the mugs; for a split second I can’t even figure out why they’re there. I’m that pissed and that flustered. “We just had a disagreement, that’s all.”
“It didn’t sound like a disagreement between two people who are only friends.”
“That’s because it wasn’t. It was a disagreement between two coworkers . . . or band members, or whatever. I was going to make coffee, do you want some?”
“Sure. So if you two don’t have a thing then why was he asking you out?”
I turn and give Ash a blank look.
“The coffee?” Ash reminds me. “The lunch? The learning to take no for an answer?”
“Oh, he wasn’t asking me out. He just wanted to talk through some stuff before rehearsal.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Really, that’s all it was.” I turn on the kettle. And reach for the coffee grinds. “Do you take cream? I mean, I sort of hope you don’t because I don’t have any. But I have 2% milk and—”
“If it was a date, and I didn’t want you to go,” Ash interrupts, “would you?”
I pause in the middle of scooping coffee into the makeshift filter. “I just told you, he wasn’t asking me out on a date.”
“But if he had been, and if you hadn’t just been in an argument . . .” His voice fades off for a moment as he tries to regroup. “What I’m asking is, if I told you that . . . that I don’t want you going on dates with other guys, would you be cool with that?”
I turn to face him, tablespoon still in my hand. “Is that what you’re telling me?” I ask in almost a whisper.
He takes a deep breath and then gives me a curt little nod. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s what I’m telling you.”
I lean back against the counter. I’m twenty-two years old and no one has ever asked that of me before. I mean, okay, lots and lots of guys have wanted to party with me, sleep with me, and quite a few have done both. But not one of them has ever wanted anything that even resembled a commitment. At least not with me. Not with Crazy.
“Mercy?” he says. I can hear the note of anxiety in his voice.
“What? Oh . . .” I meet his eyes and carefully put the tablespoon down behind me. “Yeah, I mean . . . yes. I’m okay with that. I won’t date anyone else . . . no one
but you.”
Even as the words leave my mouth I can feel the accelerating pace of my pulse. Excitement mingled with just a splash of panic. But Ash’s smile is just what the doctor ordered. He steps up to me, and weaving his fingers into my hair he pulls me to him, kissing me deeply. “You know what?” he says as he pulls away. “Forget the coffee. Let’s go out. We have celebrating to do.”
“Yeah?” I ask, now beaming at him, my heart going a mile a minute. “What are we celebrating?”
“My pilot!” he exclaims. “Your new boyfriend is going to be a superstar! Now put on something hot. I know this great place that serves caviar omelets and mimosas.”
“I don’t know if I’m in a mimosa mood.”
“Neither am I.” He laughs. “But they also make a kick-ass Bloody Mary.”
As the kettle starts to boil he steps away to find his shoes. I turn off the burner and put the cups back into the cupboard. So I’m dating a man who is going be a superstar.
But as odd as it might seem, the word in that sentence that I find amazing is not superstar.
It’s dating. I’m not just hooking up, I’m dating.
A huge grin spreads across my face. I’m dating Ash. The man I’m fated to love.
CHAPTER 14
SATURDAY’S REHEARSAL IS hell. Pure and utter hell. And it’s partly my fault. I spent all yesterday and today fluctuating between giddiness (thanks to Ash) and anger (thanks to Brad). And when I see Brad I’m . . . well, I’m not nice. I’m short with him, sometimes dismissive. I nitpick at his performance, which is hard because he really is pretty good, and I cut him off when he tries to offer new ideas. To his credit he does not nitpick back. But he is clearly aggravated with me and has very little patience. Poor Tonio and Traci have no idea what’s going on. We get through a few songs but it’s tough, and by the time we get to the fourth one we find that we can’t go more than a minute without sniping at one another. Traci finally puts an end to it by throwing up her hands and signaling for all of us to stop.
“That’s it!” she says at the top of her lungs. “We’re all going to take a ten-minute bong break!”
“I don’t smoke,” Brad says from behind his drum set.
“Well, you might want to consider starting,” Traci retorts, “because you seriously need to mellow out. You, too!” she says, turning to me when I start to snicker. “I’ll have you all know that I ended things with Benji last night,” she chokes out. “And yet here I am, keeping it together, doing what I’m supposed to do even though this breakup may be the hardest thing I’ve ever had to deal with!”
Tonio and I exchange quick glances. We both know that this is the fifth time Benji and Traci have broken up, and it’s always the hardest thing she has ever had to deal with.
“Well I’m not saying no to a bong break,” Tonio says helpfully as he frees himself from his guitar.
“Great, are you two coming? Or are you guys just going to hang here for some cathartic hate sex or something?”
“Oh come on, Traci,” I begin, but she already has her back to me.
“Suit yourself, both options are open, but do something, because what’s going on here is not cool.”
Tonio and Traci disappear into the house, leaving Brad and me in an empty garage, staring at the silent instruments.
“I knew this was going to happen,” Brad mutters. “This is why I wanted to deal with this before rehearsal. If you could have just been reasonable—”
“Oh my God, would you stop being such a little bitch?” I snap.
“I’m being a bitch?” He throws his sticks on the ground. “All I wanted to do was talk to you, clear the air over coffee or lunch. Why is that such an outlandish proposition?”
I turn my back on him, glaring at the wall. The truth is, I don’t know why it’s outlandish, other than that having lunch or coffee with Brad somehow hints at . . . at intimacy. And for some reason that scares the hell out of me. Brad has never been a possibility, even before Ash showed back up. And Ash did show up! And we’re dating exclusively, which means I actually have my very first boyfriend. Brad’s presence shouldn’t be so much as a blip on my internal Richter scale.
And yet.
“Look,” he says, breaking into my silence. “We’re alone now.”
“I noticed.” I cross my arms in front of me. It’s cold in here. I didn’t notice it when I was singing and biting Brad’s head off, but now that it’s quiet and it’s just the two of us, the chills running through me are a little more pronounced.
“So,” Brad continues, “will you allow me to take this opportunity to apologize?”
I turn back to him, a little reluctant, a little curious. “You want to apologize?”
“Yeah.” He sighs and rubs his eyes. “Yeah I do. I’m sorry, Mercy. I didn’t mean to insult you the other night.”
“And yet you did,” I point out. “You know, I don’t need your approval, and I sure as hell don’t need your scorn.”
“Trust me.” He gets up and crosses the garage to where I stand. “I have no scorn for you. If anything I’m in awe of you.”
“Yeah, right.” I let out an awkward laugh and lower my eyes.
“Hey,” he says softly, his voice low, soothing, even seductive. “Look at me.”
Slowly I look up to find his dark brown eyes looking back down at me. Ash was right, he’s a big guy. His chest, his shoulders . . . he makes me feel positively tiny. But then he has a nice, narrow waist to offset it all. I’ve never been with anyone like Brad.
As soon as the thought crosses my mind I feel myself blush. These kinds of thoughts are dumb and completely irrelevant to anything going on in my life.
“If you only knew how amazing you are onstage.” The man has such a beautiful baritone. Even when he’s speaking gently, like now, it feels . . . powerful. “I’m not simply talking about getting the approval of an audience; there’s so much more to it than that . . . or at least there is for you. You’re better than everyone else here.”
“Better than you?” I ask with a little smirk, using the opening to goad him.
“Yes,” he says simply. I blink in surprise. I hadn’t expected that. I’m not even sure if it’s true.
“When you walk on the stage,” he continues, “it’s like you absorb all the light in the room and then . . . then you become the light. You glow and you’re brilliant and you . . . you shine. For you to be a background dancer in a club, a place where everyone is so absorbed in their own self-importance and networking that they won’t allow themselves to give you the attention that your presence deserves . . .” He shakes his head. “Mercy, you shouldn’t be in the background of anything, anywhere. You’re the light. You’re the star.”
“I . . .” I stop. There’s no way to respond to such breathtaking praise. There’s no way to even fully process it.
“One of these days I hope you realize that,” he continues. “I hope you see who you are and what you can be.”
“I want to be me,” I whisper. “I’ve told you that, and maybe that sounds trivial. Maybe it sounds weak or unambitious, but if you only knew . . .” Again I stop myself. What on earth am I thinking? I’m going to confide in this man? About things I don’t even want to acknowledge to myself? Really?
I force a little laugh and shake my head. “Okay, I think we’re wading into the deep end of the pool here.”
“I’m a strong swimmer.”
I press my lips together and walk past him to his drum set, letting my fingers slide over the surface. “What got you into drumming?” I ask, carefully maneuvering the conversation away from me.
“Emotional reasons,” he says, a note of amusement in his voice. “Unspent aggression, angst, rebellion, anger . . .”
“Sounds like rock ’n’ roll to me.” I look back at him over my shoulder. “And your daughter? How’s she doing?”
I see the spark of understanding in Brad’s expression. He knows I’m trying to avoid a certain kind of conversation. “She’s good,” he
says, walking over to my side, picking up his drumsticks, gently tapping the cymbal to add just the lightest chime to our conversation. “She’s been asking about you.”
“She has?” I ask, genuinely taken aback.
“You made an impression on her.” He hesitates a moment before taking the conversation on another turn. “So aside from dancing at Envy, do you have any other jobs that might raise eyebrows? I’d like to be prepared so I don’t say something stupid while in a state of shock like I did last time.”
I take the sticks from him, sit down behind the drums, and tap out a light beat. “Sometimes I walk dogs. There are a lot of people in my neighborhood who have irregular schedules. They’ll be home for weeks and then all of a sudden they’ll be working three twelve-hour days in a row. So some of those people will call me to be their temp dog walker.”
“Do you like dogs?”
“Love ’em. If my landlord would allow it I’d have one. Hell, I’d have five.”
He chuckles, shifts his weight back on his heels. “Anything else?”
“Um.” I pick up the beat a bit. I’m far from being a skilled drummer, but I know how to create a rhythm. “Three days a week I do phone sex.”
There’s about thirty seconds of silence. I keep my eyes on the drums. Finally he asks, “Are you serious?”
“1-900-555-SEXX. If you watch late-night TV you may have seen our ads. The agency forwards the calls to my house, and for a few hours I just, you know, talk dirty on the phone. It’s no big deal.”
“Do you . . .” Brad takes a moment as he tries to pull together his thoughts. “Do you have a porn name?”
“Cherry Pop. I usually make a little heart out of the O in Pop . . .”
“Cherry . . .” He shakes his head, this time as if to clear it. “Do you pretend to be having sex on the phone? Is that how it works?”
“Sometimes,” I admit. “But I get a lot of fetishists. I’ve learned to really eroticize my feet. I like to say I give good foot.”
