“Tea, tea, and more tea,” I say, sipping a cup of organic peach rooibos with honey and watching Lilith sit in the sunshine with her new digital drawing tablet. The bus door is propped open to take advantage of the weather, a gentle breeze sneaking in along with the sounds of a city—people, traffic, construction, fucking life at large. “Most of this will have to go back to Seattle on the bus. I have no idea how tea and customs and all that shit works.”
“You've never been out of the country?” Lilith asks, her eyes lifting briefly from her drawing to watch me. She's wearing a sundress today that I've never seen; I think she dug it out from one of her boxes. The fabric is white, covered in cherries, and there's a matching headband. All put together with a pair of burgundy velvet pumps I bought her in Chicago, and she looks like a fifties pinup/housewife—in the best possible way, of course.
My cock thickens and I lick my lip, turning back to the box and rummaging through crumpled newspaper to find a pair of red candles tied with twine, a pendulum crystal on a chain, and another book. This one's labelled The Art of Perfect Sex: Using the Occult to Achieve Sensual Bliss. Based on the last two weeks, I don't think any of us needs help in that department, but I grab it and toss it into the duffel bag on the floor, the one I'm taking on the plane out of Montréal.
“Nope. I take it you haven't either?”
“Not once,” Lilith confirms. “I got that passport because Kevin promised me that when we got married—which was always soon, soon, soon, relax, Lilith—that we'd go on a fabulous whirlwind honeymoon around the entire globe.” Her lips—slathered in this sumptuous deep red color—twitch invitingly. “I guess you guys get to take me on the honeymoon of my dreams, huh?”
Her red brows raise up, but she keeps her eyes locked on the screen, her charm bracelet jingling as she draws. Looking at her now, I am beyond fucking grateful that I went with my gut instinct and invited her along. If anything, I'm more intrigued now than I was in Atlanta.
“Like I said, my speciality is making dreams come true.” I wink at her when she looks up at me, refusing to let the dark shadow of my past take over this moment. I feel like everyday since Atlanta it's been getting worse. I can't figure out if that's because I was so worried about Lilith that I started imagining the awful things that might've happened to her and then connected those to my own past … or maybe if it's just fucking time for me to face my demons.
I think of those hummingbirds again, the ones outside my bedroom window. Somehow, the beauty of those birds hasn't been tainted for me, not even when I was raped in that same room, looking at that same window, staring at those same birds.
“Hey,” I say abruptly, as much to catch Lilith's attention as to distract myself. “You want to do something? I mean, I know tonight's a big night for you, but we're in NYC, Cutie. It seems silly to just sit around here.”
Lilith sets the drawing tablet aside and turns to face me, leaning forward on the couch, hands curled around the edge of the leather cushions. She looks so eager, so excited. It makes me want to be eager and excited, too.
“I'm not ashamed of being a tourist,” she says with all due seriousness. “I will go to the Empire State Building, visit Times Square, go to the wax museum …”
“There's a fucking wax museum?” I ask and she nods, making me laugh.
I lean my head back for a moment and then drop my chin to look at her, pushing my glasses up my nose with two fingers.
“That,” I tell her with a flashy grin, “is what I want to do. Where is it? What is it?”
“It's called Madame Tussauds, and it's actually in Times Square. We could kill two birds with one stone and at least walk around a little so I can say I've been there. It's just a big building full of hyperrealistic wax figures modeled after real celebrities.” Lilith pauses and bites her lower lip, waggling her eyebrows at me. “Are you sure you guys aren't on display in there yet? I bet basically everyone that visited would take selfies with their hands on your junk.”
“Is my junk that impressive?” I ask with a flirty voice, setting my tea aside and leaning my palm against the counter.
“It is to me,” she replies, and the air gets a little thick for a moment there.
We stare at each other for a long time, and I wonder how she's going to do, seeing her hometown, being reunited with her dad's ashes. I'm scared to see her fall apart; I don't want that for Lilith. She's an amazing young woman, and when I'm with her, I don't feel lonely. I mean, I always have the guys obviously, but … there's something in her spirit that calls to mine. She eases that awful ache inside of me.
Copeland pounds up the front steps in his running clothes, a white tank sticking to his body, sweat dripping down his muscular legs. It's his thing, to take a run in every city. He's been slacking a little lately, but I don't blame him. It's hard to want to go out when staying in is so much goddamn fun.
“Wax museum,” I say and Cope's eyebrows lift in question as he grabs a white dishrag off the counter and runs it down his face. “You want to go?”
“Why the fuck not?” he asks, looking from me to Lilith. Michael's taking a shower and Ransom and Paxton are talking in the Bat Cave, but I'm sure they'll want to go. Sometime soon I'd like to take Lilith out on a date, just me and her—like when she went dancing with Cope—but for now, I like being in a group setting.
All of these people, all of these emotions running wild … it's easy for me to forget my own trauma for a while.
“You want to grab the others?” I ask Lilith as she stands up and moves over to me, the breeze playing with that gorgeous dress of hers. Without any explanation, she walks over and kisses me on the cheek, putting her mouth to my ear.
“I'm not wearing any panties underneath this dress,” she says, and then pulls away to head down the hall.
Before we leave, I head into the bathroom to put my contacts in … and I make sure I'm not wearing any panties either.
The museum really is in the center of all the action, tucked in Times Square amongst all the flashing signs, the tourists, the shops. There's enough anonymity here that we can walk around without being recognized, our silent bodyguards blending into the crowd and escaping my notice as usual.
We stop for food and drinks at the Hard Rock Café—come on, we just had to—and then hit Madame Tussauds with a nice buzz. Frankly, I think that was a pretty brilliant decision.
“This place is totally creepy,” I say with a grin, standing in the middle of a room meant to look like a swag Hollywood party. There's a red carpet, a faux fountain, backdrops of the city with flashing paparazzi cameras. Situated around the room are A-list stars in disturbingly realistic detail, down to freckles, eyelashes, and tiny eyebrow hairs that the visitor's booklet Lil bought at the front counter says were hand placed by the artists.
“This is great,” Lilith says, giving a frozen statue of Taylor Lautner a fake kiss. I snap a picture with her phone and she grins at me, taking it and slipping it back into that pink leather purse of hers. One of the things I've noticed about Lil—and which I totally dig—is that she doesn't spend a lot of time staring at her phone.
She's not out and about to fill her social media pages or pretend like she's having a good time; she's serious about actually doing shit, living life, making memories. Yeah, she takes a picture every now and again as a memento, but then she puts the cell away and breaks out that smile of hers.
“I know we should do the floors in order,” she says, examining the map as the rest of my bandmates cluster around us, “but I kind of want to skip straight to music and then backtrack.”
“Whatever you want to do is fine with me,” I say as Lilith rubs her thumb over the bathroom icon on the page and gives me a look. Like, the same look she gave me before we left. It still says no fucking panties. “Actually, yeah, let's do music next.”
“I feel like I'm in a crazy taxidermist's shop,” Ransom says, poking a grinning Anne Hathaway in the forehead as he walks by. “Or maybe like I'm in that old horror movie, the o
ne they redid with Paris Hilton. Cope, you like horror movies. What's that one called?”
“House of Wax,” he says with a smile, pressing the button to call the elevator. “And yeah, those are based around a wax museum so you're on the right track. All we need is a fire and a creeper bent on vengeance and we could make the third incarnation of the film.”
“Hey Michael,” Lil says as we hustle into the elevator together, a few curious faces—real ones this time—craning to watch us go. I guess there really are a few people that recognize us here. “What kind of movies do you like?”
“Movies?” he asks, chewing his lower lip for a second in thought. “Sci-fi, fantasy, anything that gives me a break from reality.”
“Reading works even better,” Cope quips and Michael gives him a look.
“Sorry, man, but reading about fucking cowboys and CEOs and shit …. well, fucking just doesn't sound like a lot of fun to me.”
“There are other genres of books besides romance,” Cope says, but Michael's got his bad boy swagger on now, so there'll be no compromising. I grin as I watch them tease each other all the way down to the bottom floor. When you first get to the museum, they make you take the elevator up to the top and work your way down.
I guess we're just seriously unconventional up in here.
“You could even try reading comics, you know, so that there are some pictures.”
Michael punches Cope gently in the arm as we pile out and into a room packed with more wax figures. As the guys disperse throughout the room, Lilith grabs me by the wrist and yanks me over to the bathroom, pulling me inside before any of the employees can catch us.
“I want a quickie,” she says, breathless, cheeks flushed. “With you, right here.”
“How long have you been planning this?” I ask as I grin and grab her by the hips, walking her backwards into the red stall at the end of the line. Luckily, the bathroom is currently empty.
“Since I got back from coffee this morning,” she tells me, and I raise my pierced brow at her, locking the stall door behind us and using the bat tattoos on my left hand to caress the side of her face. “I didn't know if we were going anywhere today, but I figured I could at least get you to come outside into the parking lot with me.”
“The parking lot? You are a naughty girl, Lilith Goode.”
I lean in to kiss her and she stops me with a palm on my chest.
“What's your middle name?” she asks suddenly and I laugh.
“Micah,” I say and then I'm kissing her, pressing her body against the—thankfully—clean looking white tile walls. My heart beats this insane fucking rhythm in my chest, this frantic quiver that makes me feel a little dizzy. “I was named after my uncle,” I whisper, taking a slight break between kisses to give her a little more of my story. I want to give her all of it, but … sometimes even I can't remember.
I think to protect myself, my brain tore my own story into pieces. Sometimes it hides certain scenes or faces or moments from me. But my uncle, he was the only person in my family that cared about me, that treated me like I was family. When he was alive, I was safe. After he died … that was when everything started.
I don't need to go over that shit and process it or heal or whatever else that Michael is doing with Vanessa, Cope with Cara, Ransom and Paxton with each other. That's not what I need. What I do need is to get it out there, tell Lilith so that she knows. I just need her to understand, that's it. I think if I do that, I can stop dredging up these feelings, seeing these skeletons grinning at me from beyond the grave.
I cut my own thoughts off by kissing Lilith deeper, sweeping my tongue along hers, sliding my hand up to cup her full breasts through the fabric of her sundress. Her mouth tastes like roses and fucking sunshine to me, but maybe I'm just imagining that because I'm so attracted to her?
The fingers of my other hand curl in her red hair, falling like spun rubies across my skin, making my cock that much harder as the silken strands tease the sensitive inner part of my wrist. Her hands end up curling around the waistband of my black and white striped skinny jeans. She grazes the sensitive skin of my new tattoo, but I don't mind. I just want her to touch me—everywhere.
The main door to the bathroom opens, the chatter of a few young girls coming along with it.
“Did you see that? That was Beauty in Lies out there.”
“One of the figures?”
“No, like literally four of the five band members.”
“No fucking way. You're so full of shit.”
Lilith smiles against my mouth as I bite back a chuckle. I can't remember if we're in the ladies' room or a unisex bathroom, so I figure it's probably best to just keep my mouth shut.
The stall next to us opens, feet shuffling under the door.
Lilith lifts her eyes to mine, reaching down to undo my pants, sliding the quivering heat of my cock into her palm. I shove her skirts up around her hips, reach underneath her ass and lift her against the wall. It's just basic frigging biology from that point, my shaft pressing up against the scorching heat of her core, my hips thrusting, her body opening up to me.
Lilith buries her face against my neck. Shit, she even bites me in her attempt to keep quiet.
The sound of flushing toilets and running sinks drowns out any little sounds we might make as my pelvis grinds Lil into the wall, taking her hard and fast, giving her a quickie just like she asked.
And it's goddamn fabulous.
The sex we've been having lately is great, intricate, sensual, complicated.
This? This is just two bodies fucking.
I revel in the moment, letting myself get all blah-blah bestial and male and all that shit. It feels good to claim my girlfriend, hold her in my arms, screw her with wild abandon.
I press our foreheads together, doing my best to keep our gazes locked. It makes those beautiful green eyes of hers a little blurry, but that's okay. I just want to look at her while I'm inside of her.
Lilith has this light that makes my darkness recede, this inner core of steel and strength.
For me, I think this girl is the companion that my lonely traveler was looking for.
“Oh, Derek,” she groans, her velvet heels locked behind my back, her sex silken and slick, drenching me with wet heat. The sound of her voice in my ear makes me come so hard that I can't breathe, that I almost drop her when she squeezes my cock tight, spills me into her heat with a ragged cry of release.
“Oh, Lilith,” I correct with a slight smile, holding her there for several long moments, just because she feels so damn good, because I need to be inside of her, because I like her so fucking much.
The bathroom door opens again.
“You guys in here?” Michael asks as I pull back and set Lil gently on the floor, fix her skirts, fix my pants.
“Yeah,” I call back, still breathing hard, still struggling to look away, “we're in here.”
As if he can sense that we need another moment alone, Michael leaves without a word and Lilith and me … we share a breathless kiss that rocks the heavens, shakes up hell, and leaves me a rapturous worshipper wrapped in sin and bent on penance.
I intend to find all of it—my damnation and my rapture—with the woman standing in front of me.
My hands are shaking as I lean in close to the mirror and try to finish my makeup without smudging what I've already done. Part of me feels like I'm being ridiculous … the rest of me is fucking terrified.
This is Cinderella at the stroke of midnight, still sitting in her carriage, still dressed in her gown, but racing back toward her stepmother's manor, terrified that the prince might see her for what she is—a broken, sad girl with no father, just a gaping empty spot in her heart that used to house him.
Still, Cinderella got her slipper back after the fact, didn't she? And she married the prince and lived happily ever after. I'd like for my ending to be a little more forward thinking, a little more progressive. Of course, I don't mind marrying the princes at the end of my story (ok
ay, we're not there yet but I'm speaking metaphorically), but I want something for myself, too.
I want to forge my own path.
And these guys, these young cocky stupidly rich rockstars are helping put me on that road.
The very fact that Muse is concerned I might lose myself in another relationship the way I did the last one shows me that this is about more than just sex. Between him and me … between all of us.
“I want you to come with me,” Michael says, standing in the doorway. I smile because he's the last one on the bus, afraid to leave me here like he did in Atlanta, afraid that the clock might strike twelve and I'll disappear.
“I'm coming,” I say, rising to my feet, my dress short and black and covered with skulls and crossbones. It might seem ironic to wear symbols of death on my clothes when after the show, I'll have to face the ultimate price of mortality, but I'm trying to take ownership of my feelings, claim them.
“You're fucking hot, Lil,” Michael says, his gaze raking me from head to toe, his hands dark with ink, touching the curled red strands of my hair with a sort of sexual reverence that leaves me completely off-balance. I need that right now, to stumble and watch the world shift and change around me. “Seriously. I wanted you from the first second I saw you.”
Michael—Mikey—steps up close to me, dressed entirely in black but looking anything but mournful. He's a slice of sex, a piece of night sky that makes the glimmer of the stars look so much prettier because of the contrast he provides.
“It should've been me that dragged you onto this bus,” he whispers against my ear, putting his hands on the narrow curve of my waist. “It should've been me that held you that first night when you cried.”
“No, it shouldn't have,” I say, refusing to let a single tear fall until I get to Gloversville. That's my rule for tonight: no crying until I'm home. “Because then you would've been a cheater, and I don't date cheaters.”
Roadie (Rock-Hard Beautiful Book 2) Page 21
