Roadie (Rock-Hard Beautiful Book 2)

by C. M. Stunich

  With a quick thrust, Michael's inside of me, grinding his pelvis to mine, taking me so hard and fast that I barely have a moment to catch my own breath. He fucks with these deep, long movements, searching me out, seeking me in a way I've never felt another man do.

  I don't know how Vanessa ever hid anything from Michael when she was sleeping with him; it feels impossible to keep secrets, like he's deeper inside of me than just the place where his cock is moving. But then, maybe he didn't fuck her like this? Maybe this is just for me?

  I pretend that's the truth because it feels good, so damn good.

  He never stops kissing me, not even for a second.

  I don't expect to come, not with this quick, wild rutting, but I do. I lock my legs around him and arch my back, digging my nails into his strong shoulders. I gasp against the onslaught of his tongue, the relentless motion of his hips. They're merciless, driving right through my orgasm, into the hypersensitivity on the other side. I have to squeeze Michael tight, grip him hard, just to be able to breathe through the pleasure.

  His orgasm hits him like a baseball bat, tightening up every muscle in his body, drawing this awful pained sound from his throat. I feel like I'm soothing a wild animal for a second there, taming it with my silken heat.

  It's the wildcat metaphor again, I guess.

  “Holy shit,” he whispers, sitting up, looking down at me like he's never seen me before. “Who the hell are you that you can fuck like that?”

  “Me?” I ask as he sits back and fixes his jeans in place. “I don't think I was the one doing the fucking.”

  I adjust my shorts and sit up, too, my legs lying across his lap.

  “Guess not,” Michael says, grinning at me as he leans over and slides a pack of cigarettes across the table, pulling one out and putting it between his lips. He settles into the cushions and looks over at me with this look of pure male satisfaction on his face.

  It gives me the chills—in a good way.

  “Want one?” he asks, offering me a cigarette.

  “No thank you,” I say as he swings the lid closed and tosses the pack back on the table, lighting up with a silver lighter from his pocket. Michael looks me over carefully as he smokes, a white cloud drifting up toward the open window behind the couch. I can tell it's open because a slight breeze ruffles the curtain, dripping molten orange sunlight into the room. “My dad …” Fuck. This shouldn't be so hard to say, but it is. I can barely squeeze the words out. “And my mom,” I add, taking a few shallow breaths to get my grief under control, “they both died from cancer, so I try to stay away from cigarettes.”

  Michael cringes slightly and then looks at the cigarette in his hand with a chagrined sort of expression.

  “Well, shit,” he says, putting it out in a glass ashtray that's sitting next to his bare foot on the black lacquer surface of the coffee table.

  “You don't have to put it out on my account,” I say, but he shakes his head, dark razored hair falling around his face as he leans forward and trades out his smoke for the discarded screwdriver. “I don't mind if you smoke; I just choose not to.”

  “Maybe later,” he says, noticing my phone sitting on the edge of the couch cushion near his leg. I think I dropped it there when he grabbed me. I was so caught up in lust that I don't quite remember. “Can I make that call to Kevin now?”

  I smile as he grabs one of my feet with his free hand and examines the painted surfaces of my toenails, covered in hot pink gloss.

  “He's a fucking douche; you won't get anything productive done with that call.”

  “It'll make my morning,” he tells me as I cross my arms over my chest and watch him watching me. His gaze is predatory, but protective, too. An interesting mix.

  “Do I get to call Vanessa after?”

  He shrugs loosely, offering the drink up to me. When I shake my head, he downs it and sets the glass on the table.

  “If you want to. She's a crazy bitch though. I wouldn't if I were you.”

  “Okay then,” I say, throwing up my hands in surrender. How can I say no when my lips are swollen and tender from his kisses, when my body feels languid and warm and satisfied? “Call Kevin Peregrine and ask him why he burned all my paintings, stole my laptop, and changed my cloud drive password.”

  “Alright, now you're fucking with me,” Michael says, turning to face me with my phone in his tattooed hands. “He burned your art?”

  “In retaliation when I called him out on his cheating, on the …” I can't even say the word syphilis. That word is just loaded with negativity, with betrayal, fear, disgust. “On the disease he gave me,” I whisper and Michael's lips purse.

  He looks away for a moment, and I wonder if he's thinking about the mistakes that he made with Vanessa. The fact that she was cheating on him doesn't wipe the record clean of his crimes. But then, I got to see firsthand how intensely he was committed to keeping his promise of changing his ways. Our attraction was fierce, heady, but he didn't give in. He held on tight all the way through to the end.

  “Here. Unblock his number and I'll call.”

  I take the phone, my fingers brushing against Michael's. Despite the fact that he's still touching my foot, that we just had sex, I get a thrill up my arm that travels straight to my heart, making it beat fiercely and wildly with want.

  “There.” I unblock the number and hand my cell back to Michael, waiting with nervous butterflies in my stomach as he hits the screen with his thumb and makes the call.

  “No,” is how he answers the phone, his voice this low, dangerous razor of sound, “this isn't the quote crazy bitch on the phone, it's her fucking man.”

  Her man.

  I have to smile at that.

  “Yeah, motherfucker, you heard me. It's Michael Luxe.” Michael Luxe. I love his name, the way it rolls off my tongue. His first name's so ordinary, so plain, but paired with the unusual last name, it sounds … well, kind of like a rockstar's name. “I'll bet you do, you son of a bitch.”

  I glance back as Paxton steps out of the hallway in black sweats and nothing else, looking stupidly sexy with his hair tangled and wild on top of his head.

  “Who the fuck is he talking to?” he asks on the edge of a yawn. “And where the hell's my coffee? That little bastard over there knows to make me a pot if he gets up first.”

  “Listen to me: you give me that goddamn password to Lilith's cloud drive and I won't get on the next plane out of here to come and kick your sorry ass to next Sunday.”

  Pax's brows go up and he walks over, staring at his friend with a vaguely amused expression on that devilishly handsome face of his.

  Michael sits up, his jaw tightening, his purple eyes darkening with anger.

  “You think I give a shit about lawyers? Will a restraining order keep my foot out of your ass? Give me the password or I'll make good on my threats. I can have people at your place within minutes with a single Facebook post. Or would you rather pictures of that tiny dick of yours made their way around social media?”

  There's a pause as Michael bends down and grabs the pink Sharpie from the floor. He places the tip of it against his own bare midsection and writes the word carrie89124 across his washboard abs.

  “What about the laptop, you limp dick?” he asks as my own eyebrows go up. “Then you'd better undelete that shit and email it to Lilith. She has so much crap on you, man. I've seen the pictures on her phone. If I were you, I'd seriously consider fucking off.”

  Michael hangs up the phone and tosses it onto the coffee table.

  “Bloody hell, Mikey, what the fuck are you doing?” Pax asks.

  “Don't call me Mikey,” he says, slipping out from under my legs with a slight smile. “I was just having a conversation with Lilith's ex.”

  “One day in and you're already calling to intimidate past boyfriends. I warned you it'd get heavy with this man around,” Pax says, watching his friend disappear down the hallway and then reappear with a computer in his hand. He passes it over to me.

&
nbsp; “Log onto your cloud drive with this,” he says, ignoring Paxton and pointing at the password on his abs. I flip the lid and try it, not really expecting much—or anything at all—from Kevin. But when I click through and find myself face to face with pages and pages of digital art that I never thought I'd see again … I lose my breath completely.

  “Fuck,” I whisper as I quickly change the password to something Kevin will never guess.

  “Is Carrie the name of one of the girls he cheated with?” Michael asks, sitting back down next to me, studying the expression on my face as I click through the colorful images and feel my heart racing wildly. There are even photos of the physical paintings that Kevin burned. It's all here, all of it.

  “No … it's … Carrie's his favorite movie,” I whisper as I try not to cry again. I've been crying all week at sad, horrible things; the last thing I want to do is cry at the happy ones, too. “But not because he actually likes the film, just because he thinks young Sissy Spacek is hot.”

  “So did it work?” Michael asks, lounging on the couch with that bad boy swagger of his. It's different than Pax's, rougher, wilder, more … animal. If I had to compare them to supernatural creatures, I'd say that Paxton was the vampire … and Michael was the werewolf. Equally hot, just different.

  “It worked,” I say, tugging down the lid of the computer so I can look at Michael's face. “All my art is here.”

  “Do you actually have any pictures of your ex's cock?” Paxton asks, the song lyrics on his chest catching my attention for a moment before I slide my eyes back up to his face, that cold cruel perfect face of his. But God, it's hiding so much hurt. So, so much. Now that I'm here to stay, I'm going to try to pick him apart, I know I am. I can't help it.

  “None,” I admit with a sad smile, closing the computer completely. “I told you that I was repressed sexually. I didn't think to take any, not for my own purposes or for any future thoughts of revenge. I thought Kevin and I would be together forever.”

  “That's what I thought about Chloe,” Pax says, but he doesn't elaborate, just heads over to the counter and starts making coffee. Michael watches him for a moment and then turns back to me, taking my phone and unbuttoning his jeans again.

  “What are you doing?” I ask, a slight flush coloring my cheeks.

  “Giving you the upper hand,” he says, snapping a picture of his junk and passing the phone back to me. He looks so fucking confident when he does it, like there's not a thing in the world that could sway him from this path. From me. Our third official day together and he's so goddamn intense.

  I love it.

  “I don't think I could use this to blackmail you the way I could've used Kevin's,” I say and he laughs, the sound so different than it was a few days ago. “But thank you anyway. I'll keep it close.” I lift the picture up in salute and then set the phone back on the coffee table.

  Michael's eyes never leave mine, locked with my gaze, breaking through all my walls without even trying. I feel so bare and naked in front of him, it's a little disconcerting.

  “Okay, guys,” Muse says as he steps out of the hallway and leaves the door open. I can hear the shower running, can see Copeland moving around in the dark, digging things out from under his bunk—more books by the look of it. “I just called one of the local art museums and guess what? They rent that shit out.”

  “An art museum?” Pax asks, turning and leaning back against the counter, his mouth in this sideways smirk that I find intriguing. “For our little artiste over there?”

  “Exactly,” Muse says, an unzipped sleeveless hoodie over his bare chest and a pair of long black cargo shorts over combat boots. Unlike the other two boys in the room, I don't think he's just lounging; I think he's already dressed for the day. “What do you say, Lilith? You want to visit an art museum after hours?”

  “Do I?” I ask, feeling this lightness in my chest that I know can't last. My dad hasn't been gone long enough for the hurt to fade into a shiny pink scar. No, this wound is just scabbed and like with any injury, there's a chance it'll be ripped off, torn clean, scraped away. I could still bleed. And I know, deep down, that the end of this portion of the tour puts me back at home, face to face with my own reality. But why shouldn't I ride the highs while I can? “Are you kidding me? That would be a dream come true.”

  Muse grins, pushing his hood back and revealing the perfect curve of his black and silver mohawk, his hazel eyes sparkling like the wings of a dragonfly.

  “That's my specialty,” he says, perfecting a small bow, “making dreams come true.”

  “If we're going to spend all of our post-show evening in a dreary old museum, then I want fucking sushi beforehand,” Pax says, pouring two cups of coffee … and bringing one over to me, complete with cream and sugar.

  My cheeks flush and I almost squeal as he sits down right in my fucking lap.

  “You like fish, Lilith? Because I know I do.”

  “You're so fucking crude,” Michael says with a slight roll of his eyes, getting up to make his own coffee.

  “I happen to love fish,” I tell him as he rolls that tempest-tossed gaze down to my face, studying me with a practiced eye, one that I'm sure is used to picking up on the weaknesses of others. I look right back at him, let him see as deep into me as he wants. It's almost a challenge. Here are all my faults, Pax, all my fears and worries and dreams. Wield them against me however you want.

  He breaks our gaze when Ransom slips out of the bathroom, also shirtless—wow, seriously? five shirtless guys in one room?—but with a towel slung over his head like a hood. He carries that scarred but perfect body of his into the kitchen and leans against the wall near Michael while he waits for a turn at the coffee.

  I swear, as soon as he enters the room, I smell violets, even from all the way over here. The scent is intoxicating.

  “I can't take all the credit for the museum thing though,” Muse continues as he starts water boiling for his usual cup of tea. “Cope and I came up with it together.”

  I share a secret smile with Copeland as he carries his shirtless butt into the room and takes one of the chairs across from me, putting his feet up and propping his head on his hand.

  “He damn well better have,” Ransom whispers, “after that shit he pulled last night.”

  “Eh, that was nothing compared to your sins though, now was it?” Pax asks and the room goes quiet. Fuck. I thought they were starting to work through their shit? But I guess ten days is nowhere near enough to clean up four years of bullshit.

  Ransom ignores his friend as Paxton adjusts our position so that he's sitting less on top of me and more next to me.

  “What's this about a museum?” Ran asks instead, eyes heavy-lidded and dark as he turns back to the room with his coffee.

  “Big family date at the art museum,” Muse says, slipping one hand into his pocket and observing his friend carefully, studying his mood. “You want to see some, uh, American Art created from the Colonial Era through the Second World War?”

  “I have no fucking clue what that means,” Ransom says with a husky bedroom laugh, “but I'll look and pretend like I have an opinion that matters. I'm sure Pax'll be good at this, what with his expensive education and all that.”

  Ransom's tone is friendly, conversational, but at the casual mention of his name, Pax goes completely cold and detached, turning away and focusing on the front door with an acuteness to his gaze that scares me a little.

  “Do you have an art background?” I ask and Paxton snorts.

  “I have an uptight boarding school background,” he says, and that's that. I can tell he's done talking about it.

  “Okay,” I say softly, laying my hand atop his. But I'm not done trying to pull Paxton's layers apart.

  I'm just getting started.

  The show in Charlotte is an early one, the doors opening up before the sun has even set.

  “Love what you've done with the shirt,” Cope says, examining the mutilated white tee with the boys' signatur
es and my own name scrawled across the front. I've shortened it to mid-thigh, cinched the waist with a few careful stitches, and cut off the sleeves. I also added a deep V-neck, slanted just right so that it doesn't cut off any of the band's signatures. Paired with black high heels and some bracelets, I feel like a rockstar's girlfriend.

  Mmm.

  Like the rockstars' groupie?

  Either one. I've decided it doesn't really matter. Labels aren't as important to me as they used to be.

  “Thank you,” I say, waiting as the boys gather up together in the living room, dressed in their finest. It looks like tonight they've all pulled clothes from the trailer that one of the roadies tows with a truck. Ransom took me over there to take a look earlier. It's practically a fantasyland in there, laden with alternative clothes and shoes, like the glittering hoard inside a dragon's cave. It seemed surreal, all of that beauty in one place like that.

  Anyway, the guys are all wearing things I've never seen before, each one of them hot enough to make my thighs clench, my pussy heat and swell, my tongue run across my lower lip. It's almost too much, the sensory overload. My nipples pebble beneath the white shirt-dress and I find myself touching my hand to the pounding rhythm of my heart.

  “You guys look … fucking amazing,” I say as Ransom slides an arm around my waist, dressed in a red mesh hoodie over a black tank with a white cross on it. I think he wears it ironically since I doubt he's in any way religious.

  “It's not just us that look good tonight, sweetheart,” he says softly, stirring my hair with his breath, the wicked sexy press of his lips against my forehead almost enough to drop me to my knees. “You look goddamn edible.”

  “Do I?” I ask, trying to be coy, totally failing because when I look up into those eyes, they look as deep and dark as wet earth on a forest floor, nourishing and anchoring the trees that tower above it. There's so much in Ransom's gaze that it'd take a lifetime to discover all his little nuances. I find myself wanting to at least try.