“Lark—’’
“No, don’t.’’ I held up a hand before Maxen could say more. I didn’t want his pity or any words showing his sympathy. I didn’t need this and I didn’t think it was that appropriate considering what happened last night. “Right now, I need to face Caleb and put an end to this once and for all.’’ I crossed my arms over my chest, trying my best to breathe normally, but I was still panting from anger and a nervous energy I was desperate to unleash. “It’s not like it isn’t already over anyway.’’
“Is it?’’ Maxen asked with a rough voice.
I opened my mouth to reply, but it was lost on me when I noticed the look he was sending me. It sent shivers down my spine. He had had the same look last night, right before leading me to his bed.
“Uh… hm…’’
“I think we should go,’’ Harley spoke up suddenly when it was obvious I was unable to make a complete and coherent sentence.
I startled a bit at the reminder that Maxen and I weren’t the only ones in the room. He had the ability to make me forget what and who’s around. It’s uncanny.
“Yeah, let’s go. See ya later, and Lark,’’ Dex said and brought a hand to my shoulder. I made a conscious effort to tear my eyes off Maxen to look at the brown-haired man. “I know how you are, so when you go, make sure you know what you’re about to face. You can’t evade paparazzi as easily as you may think.’’
With these words, Harley and Dex left, and Maxen and I were alone again. My anger at Caleb was still there, but it was tampered by Maxen’s presence. With everything that’s been happening since we woke up this morning, I haven’t had the time to reflect on our night together and what it meant, if it meant something. All that’s on my mind was how amazing he’s made me feel, but it was just sex. Amazing sex.
And right now, I had some nuts to bust.
“You’re going, huh?’’ Maxen pointed out with a sigh and a barely-there chuckle that shook his shoulders. “You’re a piece of work, you know that?’’ The warmth in his voice softened the bite of his words, and I couldn’t help but join him and laugh. It’s a foreign feeling to be laughing while everything in me was coiled so tight I was ready to burst.
“You should pity Caleb.’’
He walked to me, shaking his head and stopped when he was towering over me, invading my personal space. All I could see was his big body. All I felt was him. I wasn’t sure if it was a good or bad thing that not once did I think about taking a step back and putting distance between us.
“I can’t pity a man who had you but is dumb enough to let you go and hurt you. He’s a lucky bastard and an asshole.’’
He put his hands on my hips and snaked his hands to the small of my back, real close to my ass. Suddenly, it was hard to swallow, to breathe and think. With his big hands on me, everything inside me stirred, coming back to life until all my nerves seemed in tune with this man who’s larger than life and a lot more than I’d have ever thought.
“Don’t start.’’ I put my hands on his pecs and let my thumb play with the barbell in his nipple until I heard him suck in his breath.
“You’re the one playing with fire, babe,’’ he replied, voice hoarse as one of his hands fell to my ass and gripped me tightly.
I gasped and went on my tiptoes closer to him until I wound my arms around his neck and pushed my breasts against his chest. “We can’t right now, Maxen.’’
“Later, then?’’ he asked, and I picked up on the hopeful note in his voice, but I was already too far gone in him to wonder why he’s so interested in keeping me with him longer than his usual ‘fuck them and leave them’ modus operandi.
I nibbled on my lower lip and nodded before I weaved my finger through his thick blonde hair and pulled his head toward me. He didn’t resist, and as soon as I closed my eyes, he attacked my mouth with a kiss I would never forget.
***
LARK
I didn’t bother knocking at the door. After all, it’s my damn apartment too. My name was as much on the lease as his was even if the furniture was all his. I scowled at the door and quickly opened it. With my set of keys dangling noisily from my fingers, I walked in with a determination bordering on volatile rage. I looked around the living room furnished with black sleek modern furniture and an anthracite couch in front of a big TV and didn’t see Caleb. Then, I heard the fridge door closing and the rattling noise from the bottles inside.
With my purse still on my shoulder, my little black dress from the night before and my high heels, I stalked to the kitchen and faced the man I had thought I wanted to build a life with. When he registered that I was really there in front of him, he straightened up and drilled his fingers on the kitchen island so stark white it was a wonder it wasn’t damaging my retina.
Caleb didn’t seem half as attractive as he used to now that he has shown his true colors. His metrosexual look, neatly cut brown hair and his equally brown eyes and perfectly shaven cheeks weren’t doing anything to me anymore. All I wanted was to taint his pale cheek a deep red in the form of my hand.
I pointed a finger at him and didn’t care that I looked ridiculous with my wrinkled dress not suitable for noon. I didn’t give a damn either when he cast a dark look at my outfit and me as a whole. He’s always been after me to dress classier, more like a businesswoman should, according to him. And he had always been on my ass whenever I would curse. I’ve ignored all this for the sake of our relationship because I thought we were going somewhere, because I thought I should think about settling down with someone and Caleb was a good choice.
I’d deluded myself for too long and that hurt probably more than his betrayal and rejection.
“You’re an asshole, you know that?’’ I bellowed and took pride when he startled.
“Lark, come on. You don’t need to yell or curse to make your point.’’
I laughed humorlessly and hearing myself like this, the hair on the back of my neck stood to attention. “And you needed to go to that journalist to blabber of course. What went through your mind, Caleb? I didn’t do anything to you. I don’t get how come we went from you proposing to me to you throwing me out of our place, being a tyrant at work and going behind my back to tell the public about Maxen and me.’’ My voice came out crisp and my words were harsh, coming out in a flow I didn’t think I'd be able to control.
“In the two years we’ve been together, not once you told me you were married. And to that… rock star! I thought you had more class than that.’’ Caleb’s eyes bore into me before he looked away as if my sight brought him too much disappointment.
“I could say the same about you. Do you think what you’re doing is classy? You barely gave me time to pack a bag the other day, and you’ve been downright awful. At thirty years old, I think it’s very pitiful and immature of you.’’ I gave a cursory look around the kitchen and scoffed.
It was strange, but it seemed like this mess of a marriage was opening my eyes.
This apartment was nothing like me. Caleb was nowhere near the kind of man I would think was for me. Since that trip to Vegas, I’ve been making choices to prove to myself and everybody else that I was a responsible adult as if to balance my marriage out. I had been insane to believe I could be someone else.
“I reacted on an impulse,’’ Caleb said.
I glanced back at him, and for the first time, I saw the sign of agitation. He brought a hand to his neck, a hand I knew didn’t have any calluses contrary to a certain big and muscular blonde I knew intimately, and he rubbed as if trying to get rid of tension.
“But why? Damn it, I don’t get why you’ve been pushing me away since that night. You didn’t give me the opportunity to explain anything.’’ I put my purse on the kitchen island and watched Caleb’s mouth twist. He hated it when I did this, but right now I took an unhealthy pleasure in torturing him with that tiny move on my part.
“I’ve been honest with you from the get-go, Lark. Always!’’ He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself dow
n. “Marriage is important to me and I thought it was for you too.’’
“I was twenty-one and in college. I’m not the only one who did something stupid when in college with friends in Vegas.’’ I leaned my hip against the island and massaged my temple. Blood beat hard, enhancing the headache that had been growing since I climbed in that cab behind the hotel. “If you loved me, you’d have given me enough time to explain everything to you, and you wouldn’t have acted like you did.’’
“If I loved you? I proposed to you, Lark!’’ he yelled, and I gasped at hearing his loud voice booming in the kitchen. It’s the first time I’ve heard him yell. He closed his eyes and his neatly trimmed eyebrows bunched. “I love you. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been so hurt that I went to a sleazy journalist to give them this story. I… I’m sorry.’’
“You’re sorry. Is that supposed to make everything better, Caleb? Have you seen what they’re saying about me in the papers and how Kinky Shine’s fans are insulting me on the internet? I checked on my way over in the cab, and I had to take down my Facebook account when I saw all the nasty messages on my wall. Nothing you can say will make things right. I would have been fine with my marriage to Maxen going public because of our divorce, but knowing the man I’ve been with for the last couple of years is behind the leak? It’s something else. I don’t think I’d have been more hurt if I had caught you fucking your secretary in our bed.’’
He frowned at my use of the f-word, but I didn’t care. I didn’t have to try and make him see me like I was worth his time when he wasn’t worth mine. My heart didn’t even break over it. It should, shouldn’t it?
“Tell me something, Lark. Do you love me? Since we’ve met, not once did you tell me that you knew these rockers, that you’re a married woman or that you’re the one who designed the band logo. And yes, I’ve pieced that info on my own. I remember that drummer telling in interviews that a college friend made it for them.’’
“I haven’t seen these guys in years, Caleb,’’ I replied with a bone-tired sigh.
“Alan is still in contact with them, isn’t he? I remember once when he said that his musician friends agreed to perform at his bar and I didn’t understand what the big deal was. Now, I know.’’
I bit on the inside of my lower lip and straightened up, pushing away from the kitchen island. I grabbed my purse and rummaged around in the inside pocket. My fingers came into contact with the soft material of the ring box. I had kept it in my purse for a while thinking I’d end up with the ring on my finger. Now, it had no purpose in my purse or anywhere near me. I didn’t want it anywhere near me.
I took the box out and sighed. I stared at Caleb and found him staring at it, partially swallowed by my hand. I put it on the kitchen island and retreated. “I don’t think there’s anything left to say. I’ll grab some clothes and will have movers take my things next week. I’ve been a fool thinking we ever had something here.’’ I waved him off and turned around, ready to leave. I had thought I wanted this confrontation to put him on his knees and make him pay for what he’d done, but I was sure now that what I needed was real closure, something definitive.
“Something happened with him. Maxen, I mean.’’
I stopped right before leaving the kitchen, and I glanced back at Caleb over my shoulder, frowning deeply. “I have nothing else to say to you, Caleb, but Maxen is a lot more man than you’ll ever be. He wouldn’t treat me like you did, and of that I’m sure.’’
“A womanizer like him? You’re delusional if you think he won’t cast you aside as soon as he’s done with you, Lark.’’
I didn’t turn back around or dignify him with a lame come back because in a way I wasn’t sure of anything. Maybe Caleb was right and Maxen would push me away as soon as the novelty I represented had worn off, but at this very moment, it wasn’t important. I couldn’t fathom what I wanted, but I did grasp that I needed to experience what Maxen did to me a little bit longer.
MAXEN
“Look at that,’’ Dex told me, extending his phone for me to look at something.
I frowned and grabbed it, but I wasn’t in the mood for more shit on the internet about Lark and me. Since she left, I’d been on edge and I knew she wasn’t going to come back here. She told me she wanted to go back to Alan’s and while I wanted to say ‘fuck no,’ I had no right. So I shut my trap and watched her leave my hotel suite in the same dress I peeled off her perfect body last night.
I glanced at Dex’s phone and arched an eyebrow. It’s the video for the YouTube channel he went to record this morning. It’s an acoustic version of our new song, something very minimalist and it’s good. But what had me intrigued was the number of views on the damn video.
“Two hundred thousand views? What the fuck.’’ I toyed with my piercing with one hand and gave him back his phone with the other. “It’s spreading as fast as the music clip.’’
“I know. It’s crazy. Last night Harley told me that the scandal about you and Lark would benefit the promo of our new song and album, but I was sure it’d eclipse everything.’’
“You should trust your woman more. She’s smart.’’ I rubbed at my temple and checked the time on my phone. “When do you think Floyd will be here? It’s starting to piss me off waiting like this. Fuck, I should have gone with Lark. For all we know, she’s cornered by paparazzi. She’s not used to this shit like we are.’’
“Don’t worry. Lark is a strong woman.’’
I glared at my best friend and shook my head. “You weren’t the one last night with her shaking in my arms when we left the restaurant.’’
“She was taken aback, fucker. Today, knowing that it’s her man who’s responsible for this, she’s raging mad. I don’t need to tell you how you don’t mess with her when she’s feeling like this.’’
I smiled ruefully at the memories from back in college when she would get mad at me or someone else. “Yeah, you’re right.’’
Someone knocked at the door, and I sprung to my feet, ready to finally do something instead of waiting like this doing nothing but worry. I opened the door, and I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out.
In front of me, I saw Lark wearing dark skinny jeans, a long-sleeve v-neck top in a cream color and white converse at her feet. Her hair was piled on top of her head in an untamed mess. And she didn’t have any makeup on. In her hand, she had a big khaki colored duffle bag.
“What are you doing here?’’
“Um… when the cab drove by Alan’s bar, there was a horde of paparazzi there, and Alan told me I shouldn’t go there or else it’d make things worse. Basically, I’m officially homeless right now.’’ She looked away from me and fixed the space between our feet. “Are you going to let me stand here all day or what?’’
I shook myself and crouched down to grab her duffle bag from her hand. My fucking heart was doing some weird shit in my chest. She was here. She was fucking back here with me. I knew it was because she didn’t have anywhere to go and because of the media attention, but I didn’t give a fuck. She was here, and that’s all that mattered.
“Hey, Lark. You okay?’’ Dex asked from the couch. The fucker had a smirk on his damn mug when he looked at me and how smooth I was around her. I was nothing of a womanizer with Lark. I had even less game than Dex when he met Harley.
“I’m fine, but these people are everywhere. I’m pretty sure one got a pic of me with my bag walking into the back of the hotel. I bet they’re going to write something scandalous about it. Good thing I stopped at a Starbucks on my way to change clothes.’’ She pursed her lips and I was ready to pounce on her and kiss her. But instead, I tightened my grip on the duffle bag before setting it next to an armchair. She walked to the couch and sat on it, letting her purse fall at her feet.
I walked to her and sat, making sure my leg and side touched her. She glanced back at me with a small smile. I didn’t try and control my own as it broke free, stretching my lips until my cheeks hurt. When her eyes fell on my mout
h, I had to check myself before I let out some caveman growl. I was totally and utterly fucked.
“What happened with lover boy?’’ I asked, going for nonchalance by placing an arm on the back of the couch and turning my head to stare at her, but the hard edge in my voice at the mention of Caleb gave away how I’d love to bash his head in.
Lark’s face became somber, and she stared briefly at Dex still sitting in the armchair before she brought her blue eyes back on me. “Nothing much. He’s an ass, and I don’t know how I didn’t see it before. But I dread Monday at work. He’s my direct boss and this past week he’s been awful. Now that it’s over and I’m moving out of our place as soon as I can get movers to get my stuff, I’m sure he’s not going to act any better.’’
“Quit then,’’ I said and shrugged.
She lowered her thin eyebrows over her eyes. “Are you for real?’’
“What’s wrong?’’
She rolled her eyes and looked back at Dex. “He is for real. Damn, you guys have been swimming in money for too long already. You don’t remember how it is for us ‘commoners.’’’
Dex smirked at her and scratched at his face. “You’ve seen what our life is like now.’’
“Fuck, I’m not dumb,’’ I said with a glare to them both. “I’m just saying that you should quit and find another job. You know I wouldn’t leave you struggling, Lark. After all, it’s my fault.’’
Maxen (Kinky Shine Book 2) Page 15
