by Zoey Derrick
I slipped into bed and wrapped my arms around my woman, my wife, the girl of my dreams.
We spent most of Monday in the hotel room. Raine worked from one of the chairs in the sitting room. The unknown caller didn’t call at all on Monday.
I took her out for dinner at SkyCity - atop the Space Needle. For someone anti-romance, I sure as hell pulled this one off. Tomorrow is our Seattle show and then we’re on the bus to Portland and finally on to Los Angeles, home and two final shows to end the tour. Four more shows then I can get started on our house and our lives. I never felt like being a drummer was ever a burden before, but right now, all I seem to want to do is devour Raine every chance I get.
There is nothing sexier than that gasp of breath in your ear on the first thrust.
That’s how I was woken up on Tuesday and what a fucking way to wake up. Dex buried inside me, though I think we fell asleep that way last night.
“Ahh,” I cry out as everything comes alive. My heart is racing, my body is humming and Dex is pounding mercilessly inside me from behind. His body is a blanket over mine, holding me to the mattress as he thrusts in and out.
He licks and bites at my shoulder and I cry out. “I’m going to come,” I practically scream.
“Come, princess, come for me.”
I call out his name as I explode around him, but he doesn’t slow, he just keeps pounding into me through my orgasm, desperate to build me back up quickly. I can sense his urgency, he too wants to come and I know he won’t do it without me. “Give it to me, harder, please,” I beg him and he complies without hesitation and I love it. He shifts so that his right hand is on my left shoulder and his left is on my left hip, altering the sensation and depth. “Fuck,” I cry out. He releases my shoulder and smacks my ass, hard. “Argh!” I know why he smacked me and I fucking love it. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” I cry.
He continues to smack my ass, once for each cuss word.
“You’re cussing on purpose, aren’t you, pet?”
“No Master, it feels so fucking good, I can’t fucking help myself.”
He growls, “I love it when you fucking challenge me.” He smacks me again and again.
“I’m so close.”
“Then fucking come.” His hand wraps into my hair, pulling my head back, immobilizing me completely. His other hand wraps around my neck. He doesn’t squeeze, but he’s testing himself and me.
“Oh my god,” I cry out as I explode all over his dick inside me. Just the feel of his hand against my throat is enough to send me toppling and spiraling over the edge.
I wake up again a little while later and he is snoring softly next to me. My phone beeps. I grab it off of the nightstand to see that there is a text message and I notice that it’s now nearly eleven.
Talon to Raine, Dex, Calvin, Eric: sound check at two.
I roll over and snuggle into Dex. He wraps his arms around me. “Gotta wake up, bubba.”
He grumbles and it’s so fucking cute. “Come on, bubba, you have sound at two. Do you want food?”
He grumbles some more and nods. I kiss my tattoo on his chest and climb out of bed to use the bathroom and order him some lunch.
The rest of the day flies by and before I know it, it’s show time. Dex walks right up to me, dips me backward and kisses me hard and fast. He elicits some whooping and hollering from the guys and it makes me blush like an idiot and causes me to giggle. He lifts me up in an embrace. “Break a leg, bubba.” He smiles wide and takes the stage.
I stand there with Kyle and Addison watching the show. We chat a little between songs when we can actually hear our own thoughts. When the band’s break comes, Dex charges off of the stage, pushing me against the wall, holding me close and kissing me with fervor, much like he’s done every show and I fucking love it. He’s is sweaty and gross, but I don’t care.
The band finishes their set and their encore which sends Dex right into the shower for the greenroom. Like all the other shows, with the exception of Orlando and Miami, I wait for him with the rest of the guys who do their fair share of ribbing on me about being with Dex. I have to admit, it’s kind of fun and they do it with the utmost love and affection, it’s obvious that they have a soft spot for their brother.
When Dex joins us, I repeat our routine of beer and sitting on his lap. Tonight is especially insane. More VIP tickets were sold than usual because they’re based on a percentage of attendance, and Seattle is one of their biggest shows. It’s around eleven thirty when Rusty comes up to me, leaning in, and he whispers in my ear, “You guys should get your stuff ready to go and I need to talk to you.”
“Oh okay,” I say with a smile, not wanting to alarm Dex. He looks at me and I kiss him on the cheek. “Be right back, bubba. Gonna go wrap up in the dressing room so we can bolt when you’re done.”
“Good girl,” he breathes into my ear and I shiver.
I climb off of his lap and follow Kyle out of the room; he’s going to clean up too. When I step out of the room, I follow Rusty into one of the other rooms. Mills is inside, on the phone.
“I understand that, but she no longer lives there and she’s turned in her keys, terminated her lease, she is not…no, I will not allow it.”
“What is going on?” I whisper to Rusty but my eyes are on Mills.
“Give him a minute.”
“I can assure you, she is not now, nor has she been anywhere near that place in more than two weeks and I have a mountain of people who can attest to that.” There is a lengthy pause. “No, and I’m one of them. Least of which is the fact that we have a hotel receipt, plane tickets, confirmations and what not to verify her whereabouts.” Again he pauses, listening to whoever is on the other end. “Why are you focusing on her? You have two fucking witnesses that can place two people at your scene, running away, you told me flat out one was distinctively male and the other a small male or female, and if you’d bother to look into Ms. Montgomery’s license information, you’d see that she does not meet your requirements. If you want to keep pursuing this, I will get more lawyers involved in this and bury your ass in paperwork for the next fifty years.”
My heart starts pounding, hard. I sit down in a chair, listening to his conversation. There are a number of things that are starting to click together and click into place…the emails, the phone calls, the… the…two weeks, I haven’t been there, I turned in my keys…my apartment, my old apartment…Jesus. I sob into my hands.
“That’s what I thought, now if you’ll excuse me.” I hear some shuffling but I can’t quite look up. “So help me god, I am going to have that detective’s balls for lunch tomorrow.” I’ve never heard Mills so fucking aggravated before and it scares me even more. “Raine, do you want me to get Dex?”
I shake my head. “Just tell me what happened.” I’m afraid of Dex sugar coating, not telling me something or excluding me altogether, I shouldn’t feel that way but his overwhelming need to protect me is too much sometimes.
“Your old apartment…”
“I gathered that.” I look up at him, he’s a little wary.
“Your apartment was determined to be the starting point of a fire that broke out early yesterday morning. There are witnesses that place two people, though unidentifiable, at the scene shortly before the fire broke out.”
“Was anyone hurt?” I ask, unable to breathe.
“No, but the fire destroyed three apartments and damaged four others.”
“Am I responsible for this?” I ask.
“No,” Rusty answers. “You’d already turned in your keys, and if I have any understanding of a psychotic’s mind, it’s that seeing the apartment empty was probably what set him or her off. Unable to continue with their harmless harassing.”
I snort. “Harmless? They destroyed my fucking apartment,” I snap, looking at Rusty.
My snapping causes me to hear something in the back of my head, Dex barking at me for getting snippy. Shit.
“So why do you guys know about this? I gave over my keys
what…two weeks ago?”
“That’s why you’re here. I just got off of the phone with an LAPD detective who was determined to have you for dinner tonight. I was not going to allow you to be brought through the mud when you’ve obviously been here the whole time since the fire and your whereabouts since turning in your keys are likely accounted for.”
“They are,” I whisper. “Dex and I were in Vegas, I was staying in a hotel in downtown Los Angeles until I moved in with Dex before flying to Denver.”
“Can anyone outside the two of you corroborate your presence in Vegas?” Rusty asks.
“Derek Hunter, Dacotah Miller…”
“What about that first Wednesday night after Miami?” Mills asks.
I look up at him. “Why Wednesday?”
“Because apparently there was some prior vandalism in and around your apartment Wednesday evening, Wednesday night,” Mills tells me.
I start laughing. “Yeah, those two, plus Cami and Tristan and a legally binding piece of paper that is date and time stamped.”
“A what?” Mills says with honest shock and curiosity in his voice.
“Yeah, it’s called a marriage license,” I giggle.
Mills’ jaw drops to the floor, then he looks from me to Rusty and back and forth a few times.
“No way?” Rusty says. “You guys got married?”
Mills’ shock and the dropping of his overall hard exterior has me laughing really hard. “Yeah, we did.”
We all burst into a fit of laughter, then I turn serious. “Beyond that, Derek, Cotah, Cami and Tristan were with us until at least two in the morning before we crashed. I think that night is covered pretty well. We stayed in Vegas with Derek and Dacotah until Saturday, then I checked out of the hotel and moved what stuff I had left into Dex’s apartment. We went to Addison’s condo Tuesday night for dinner before we got on the plane for Denver and as you know, I’ve been here ever since. The one and only time I was in my apartment, Ryan was there. They handled the rest of the cleanup. When I turned in my keys, I walked to the apartment with the manager for an inspection. It was still missing the appliances, but other than that, Ryan and his crew had painted and cleaned up what they could. That was the last time I was anywhere near that building. I thought they were supposed to have security there?”
Mills shrugs, “Well, that’s where this fire will fall back on them. If they cut security after you moved out, they left it wide open. They were told by Ryan several times to keep an eye on the place until new tenants moved in, obviously they didn’t do that.”
“Are they going to go after Raine for this?” Rusty asks.
Mills looks at me with a genuine smile on his face. “Not if I have anything to say about it. There are too many people that put you too far away at the time both crimes were committed.”
“The first phone call…” I look at Mills. “What time did the fire start?”
“They believe between four and four-thirty, the nine-one-one call came in at four thirty-two,” Mills tells me.
I look at Rusty. “The first phone call came in at three fifty-nine.”
“Dex?”
“Yo?” I holler back at one of the crew members.
“Hey, sorry to bug you, but we’ve got a bit of a problem.”
“What’s up?”
“You might want to see for yourself.” I look down the hall where I’ve been waiting patiently for Raine to come out with our stuff.
“Yeah, alright.” I follow him out the back of the venue and Kyle is coming in. “Hey man, is Raine on the bus?”
“I didn’t see her, she still in the dressing room?”
“I don’t think so. I’ll go check in a minute. I gotta go with him,” I tell Kyle.
“Yeah, I heard some commotion with the crew, I just let it go, figured they were comparing dick sizes again. Let me grab Talon and Addie and I’ll be right out.”
“Yeah, okay.” I go back outside, wondering where Raine could be, but I forget all about that when I get out to the bus area. There is a large pile, looks like… “What the fuck happened?” I bellow.
“We don’t know. We were loading up stuff, and we left them here like we always do, they’re last on first off. When we came back they were like this.”
“Why didn’t you get the security team?”
The dude just shrugs and I stare at my now spray painted drums and the words- manwhore, asshole, scumbag. But I don’t give a shit about that, every single head has been slashed with a knife.
“Give me fifteen minutes, or less and I’ll be ready to go,” I tell Rusty as I step inside the dressing room.
The minute I close the door, a hand wraps around my mouth. Dex? Then a light flicks on and there is a woman sitting in the chair before the mirror. I want to scream, I do scream, but I am held hard and unable to make a sound that projects loud enough to be heard. “About fucking time you showed up here, you slut.” Michael’s voice in my ears sends an icy chill through my veins.
“You should have answered your phone. I could have told you all this over the phone, but instead, you had to be a stuck up little cunt and ignore my calls.”
I struggle in his arms, fighting to get myself in a position to at least stomp down on his foot with my own, but he’s holding me at a distance, making it difficult.
“You have something that belongs to me,” the woman in the chair says. “You see, I tried to do this as amicably as possible, but you wouldn’t listen, you fucking whore.” I watch as she twirls a knife in her hand, pressing the tip to her finger, letting the light reflect and flicker around the room. The word whore on her lips gives me a clue that maybe she was the one to trash my apartment. Sam, perhaps?
“You see, slutbag, I am his and he is mine, and I will no longer let you get in the way of what he and I have. You see, things are finally starting to get back on the right track with us and I will not let you derail that. I know he’s a manwhore, but you mean absolutely nothing to him. He does this all the time, he finds some woman to make him believe he’s in love with her, just so he can get what he wants, though you’re a mystery because I have absolutely no clue what he sees in you. You have no money, and frankly, you’re a fat slut willing to throw herself at someone just to get attention. And well, with Dex, it worked, because as soon as the tour is over, he will drop you like a bad habit and come back home to me.”
“You’re fucking insane,” I growl into the hand holding my mouth.
“But you see, sweet Michael here loves you and he’s more than willing to take you back, despite you cheating on him. So you go with Michael and I’ll get my man back.” She stands up and comes over towards us, knife in hand, poised and ready to strike. “Or I’ll just kill you.” She smiles a sick sadistic smile and I try to kick her, that’s when I feel a hard punch, right to my kidney and I double over in pain, crying and screaming into his hand. “I bet that felt pretty bad.” She leans over, and puts the knife in my face. “By now, Dex is getting my little message, which means the hallway is now clear of security staff, so which is it…Michael or death?” I don’t answer, I just stare at her. “I will not let my unborn child’s daddy go trolling around with a dirty little slut like you, so I will only ask you one more time, Michael or your death?”
“Where the fuck is Raine?” I shout as the security team comes running out of the venue, Addison, Talon, Kyle, Mouse, and Peacock in tow. “Where the fuck is Raine?” No one answers. “Where the fuck is my wife?” I shout and I’m met with a shit ton of baffled faces but I don’t give a shit about that right fucking now.
“Shit…the dressing room,” Rusty says, turning on his heels, everything in slow motion. I feel like I’ve slipped into that god awful dream where I’m running an endless hallway. Mills and Beck join us, I’m assuming everyone else is ushered onto the bus.
Raine…
Raine…
Jesus fucking Christ, what the hell is going on here?
Finally I make it to the door and run inside, down the hall, towar
d our dressing room, the door is closed. I slam into it before I manage to get my hand on the knob. I turn it but the door is locked. I step back, kicking at the door. God damn it. “Raine,” I shout, kicking and shoulder checking the door.
“DEEEEEEEEEEEXXXXXXXX!” I hear a scream, but it’s not behind the door. Just then the door opens.
“Welcome home, baby.”
“Sam,” I growl. “What the fuck have you done?”
“I was just making sure we could be together forever. I’m having your whore of a fuck buddy taken care of as we speak.”
I get in her face. “She’s my wife,” I growl before grabbing her wrist and pulling her from the room and right into Beck’s hold.
“I fucking knew you were trouble,” Beck growls as he pulls her arms behind her back and cuffs her.
“HHHEEEEEEEELLLLLPPPPPP!”
I turn and run toward the arena, heading up onto the stage, Mills and Rusty in tow.
I am flashed in the face with a spotlight. Blinding me, making it impossible for me to see anything.
“Raine!” I shout.
“She’s right here, asshole.” Just then the color in my eyes shifts and changes and starts to move like a video.
I turn around and on the backdrop of the stage is a video of Raine, tied up. “Fuck.”
“What the fuck do you want, asshole?” I shout.
“I just want you to watch,” he says over the sound system.
I watch as he cuts away the strings of her corset. “No!” I scream. “Fucking find her, right fucking now,” I tell Mills and Rusty. Mills starts talking into his handset and off they go.
“Oh, don’t bother trying to find us, you see, I’ve been planning this for weeks. I needed to find a way to get my woman back, and well, your fiancé gave me the perfect opportunity. You see, she was tired of your games and bullshit so we got together and found a way to flush her out. And look, here she is.” He cuts away the last of her corset and it falls open.