by Vivian Lux
"Jesus Christ!" I complained. "I thought you were cutting my hair, not shaving me bald!"
"You're not bald," she scoffed, then she stepped back, staring at me appraisingly. I wanted to reach out and grab her, to pull her onto my lap and bury my face in between those tantalizing breasts. Her slim waist was right there, begging for me to wrap my hands around. Her T-shirt was sheer enough that I could see her bra straight through it, and my dick strained against my pants. I gripped the toilet seat tightly as she leaned over me again. Her hair brushed my shoulder, raising goosebumps on my skin, and filling my nose with her light, clean scent. She snipped around my head, and I watched with dismay as my trademark locks fell to the tile floor, but I held my tongue.
I held perfectly still as she worked, shuffling around me in a slow circle, groaning softly as she strained for the hard to reach place in the very back of my head. "Can you?" she asked, and finished her sentence by pressing down lightly on the back of my head. I bowed, staring eye level with the zipper of her jeans. The little silver tab glinted, teasing me with how easy it would be to take it in my teeth and unzip her, tooth by tooth. What color would her panties be? And was she wet for me the way I was hard for her? My fingers, and my tongue, ached to find out.
"I just need to," she murmured, reaching behind my head. "Can you? Let me just reach over, Oh!" she yelled as she overbalanced.
Quicker than instinct, I reached out steady her. Only to have her freeze like a statue. For a long, drawn out moment, we both were still, her breathing the only sound other than the racing of my heart. I looked down to where my hand rested on her thigh, steadying her.
She was watching it, lips parted.
I slid it higher.
Chapter Seventeen
Celia
His hand was there.
Right there.
And he was watching me, waiting to see what I would do.
All I had to do was brush it away. It was just a simple matter of standing up straighter after regaining my balance so that he didn't need to have it there anymore.
That's all I needed to do. But I didn't do it. I didn't move away.
And I didn't stop him as he slid his hand higher. I didn't say a word as he moved it, brushing up the front of my thighs before sliding inward towards the place where a sudden, desperate ache was centered. I barely even breathed as a slow grin spread across his face. I didn't even move as his fingernail raked slightly over my seam.
But my breath caught, and that little sound shattered the silence. He let out a noise of his own, a soft low growl that sent vibrations through my body, then turned his face upward to mine.
I don't remember who moved first. All I know is that one second we were frozen, staring at each other, and I looked into his eyes without that curtain of hair shielding me from the penetrating blue of his gaze, and the next second I was kissing him.
Or, more truthfully, he was kissing me. Claiming me, his other hand snaking up and twining into my hair to pull me down closer to him. I stumbled and gasped as his fingers raked across my scalp, and his tongue took the opening of my parted lips as an opportunity to find mine. He tasted like Scotch. Like music. He kissed me like he knew exactly how I wanted to be kissed, like no one had ever kissed me before. There was no hesitation, there was no sense of trying to figure anything out. No, he already fucking knew.
Just like he knew how to move his hand between my legs, pressing upward and letting me arch my hips, grinding into him. My body was betraying me on every level, my heart thudding so hard it was timed to the beat of the voice in my head, wrong, wrong, wrong. This was insane. I was the daughter of a record executive, kissing her talent. There was no way I could spin this into something appropriate. I would never be taken seriously in the industry again. But I was still kissing him anyway because the sweep of his tongue against mine was almost enough to drown out all of that doubt.
"Fuck, lass," he breathed and in the moment I absolutely loved the way he kept calling me lass, that thick brogue making it sound like a song. "You like that?" he asked as he moved his hand some more. "You're so hot you're going to burn my hand up. Are you wet too, Celia?"
It was ridiculous. He wasn't even touching my skin, just moving his fingers over my jeans like we were a couple of teenagers making out in my parents' basement and yet what he was doing to me felt more intimate than if we were stripped naked under a blazing spotlight. The edge of his palm knifed upward, catching me right where my need was centered. "Yes," I gasped.
"Fuck. Yes. Say yes to me again, Celia," he begged, his hand moving faster. I sagged forward, slumping against his shoulders, and a noise keened up from the back of my throat. His hand moved away and I almost shouted in frustration until I felt him tug at my jeans. "This zipper has been teasing me for too long," he growled, and was he...oh fuck yes he was unzipping it with his teeth. He glanced upward, rumbled something profane and then yanked it down the rest of the way with his fingers. "You smell so fucking good, I need to know how you taste."
The fact that he was sitting on my toilet right now, the fact that I had to brace myself against my sink as he yanked my jeans down, the fact that I was awkwardly splayed out in front of him at the most unflattering angle possible, all of that didn't matter. Because the second his tongue slid against me, I exploded.
It was like a bomb going off in my brain.
I've never been a girl who could get off immediately. I need time, attention. I need to be in the right mood, maybe some soft candles and a scented bath first. I need about a half a bottle of wine in me before I can even begin to loosen up enough to kiss someone, so the fact that I was wanting this surprised me almost as much as the fact that I came the second his tongue touched my clit.
It was madness. It was insanity. My arms splayed out, windmilling wildly and knocking the towel off the rack as I clutched it for dear life. Ewan devoured me like a starving man at a buffet and if he knew I was coming, and coming hard, it didn't distract him in the slightest. He seemed wholly focused on the movements of his tongue and the quick, oh god was his finger inside of me? was that two? what was he...? oh god!
The sensation was too much. I threw my head back and a silent scream died in my throat as my whole body went rigid with shock.
"Holy shit," Ewan murmured against my clit. He pulled back, and I blushed to see the wet sheen on his chin.
"Holy shit," I echoed breathlessly. The waves of pleasure had barely subsided, but my cheeks were already heating up.
I made to yank up my jeans, but he stayed my hand. "Hey lass," he said in a ragged yet somehow still gentle voice. "Don't go pulling a runner on me now."
I was still breathless, half from the intensity and half from the rising panic that was now clawing its way up my throat. "Fuck," I exhaled, looking at him and then having to look away. "Why did you do that?"
He chuckled. "Because you seemed to enjoy it."
"Well, yeah but..."
"But what then, lass?" He leaned back on the toilet, his half-finished hair flopping back away from his face. "You know I fancy you, yeah?"
I bit my lip and looked down at him and something inside of me crumbled. I felt it. "Yeah," I breathed. Then my breath caught. "You want me to?" I bent awkwardly, making to kneel.
"I'm not about to make you kneel down and suck me off while I'm on the toilet, lass," he scoffed, standing and lifting me to my feet. "I know you think I'm a filthy rocker and all, but I've got standards too, you know."
I looked at him in shock and then suddenly burst out laughing. "You do?"
"Oh aye." He let his fingers trail up to brush under my chin. "They're very high."
This kiss was softer, sweeter. Traces of me still clung to his lips and tongue, but instead of making me feel filthy, it made me feel strangely cherished to taste myself on his mouth. My hands lifted of their own accord, making to rake through his hair, but then I paused and pulled back. "Oh shit!" I laughed. "I never finished your haircut!'
He turned and looked at himself in m
y cracked bathroom mirror and grimaced. "You've butchered me, lass."
"Sit down," I ordered. "Let me clean it up."
"What if I like it dirty?"
"Sit."
He sat back down again, grinning up at me, then sighed heavily. I bent again, aware of how my nipples tightened being so close to him. My pussy still throbbed a desperate "hey!" reminding me of what we'd just done, but I focused hard on just finishing up.
And soon I didn't have to work so hard to focus. Each snip revealed something about him that I didn't know before. This close, I could see his stubble, and the way it swirled along his jaw. I could see his jaw itself, that much was a revelation, hidden as it usually was behind that curtain of hair. I could see it clenching and the pulse beating at his temple. It seemed more rapid than it should be, but then again my own heart was racing too. I felt like I couldn't get a full breath, because every time I inhaled, my lungs were filled with his scent. I could almost taste him, swallowing greedily as more saliva gathered in my mouth than made sense. It was like I was smelling something delicious to eat when I been hungry for far too long.
I worked diligently, trying like hell to focus on the task at hand and not how close his eyes were to mine. With one last snip to even it out, I stepped back and looked at him.
He looked up at me from under heavy lidded eyes, and I pressed my lips together critically. "I think we should shave the sides," I said. "Can you do that?"
He grinned a lazy, triumphant grin. "Nah, lass," he said. God his accent made me weak. "I'm thinking you'd best be doing it all. I wouldn't want to muck up your good work."
I swallowed and reached down into my overstuffed drawer. His eyes glinted in amusement as I pulled out the electric razor. "Dare I ask why a lass like you has a beard trimmer in your possession?"
I bit my lip and said nothing, and he let out a low whistle. "Don't move," I ordered.
"She's a bossy one," he said softly, but he bent his head willingly as I pressed it down. Only his eyes remained on mine. My hands were trembling, but I managed the first pass with the razor, making him shiver violently. "Tickles," he murmured but bent his head again dutifully.
I held my breath as I passed it again in a clean line, shaving a part into the undercut. A few more passes, and I stepped back again.
"Wow," I said without meaning to.
He looked up at me, and I swallowed hard. His cheekbones, his jaw, the way his face was composed into a mass of planes and shadows... I knew he was good-looking before, but now, revealed from underneath that curtain of hair, he was goddamn breathtaking.
And then he grinned, which made it all the worse. "Wow, huh?" he echoed teasingly.
I swallowed, feeling myself blush. "Well," I said petulantly. "You look a hell of a lot better."
He brushed the hair off of his jeans and then stood up. Turning, he gazed at himself critically in my bathroom mirror. The jagged crack bisected his face into a funhouse mirror of shapes, but he stared at it like he could see everything clearly. I stood behind him, watching him watch himself. He didn't speak for a long time, and I held my breath. For some reason it really mattered to me that he liked it, that he saw himself to the way I did right now. "You think I look better this way?" he finally asked.
I nodded. "I do," I said. It was the truth. He had never looked better. It was doing funny things to my heartbeat.
Finally he nodded once. "Aye then," he said. "Then this is how I want to look."
Chapter Eighteen
Ewan
My head was still stuffed full of Celia-fueled fantasies as I walked the six blocks over to the address that August had texted to me. It was a gorgeous late spring day in New York, one of those rare days where the breeze carries a whiff of lilac from some hidden back garden instead of the subway exhaust and the baked in scent of urine-soaked sidewalks.
The memory of Celia's smile as she gazed into the mirror with me, pleased as punch about my transformation at her hands was more than enough to dispel the lingering weirdness of having my head shorn like a sheep. The lilac-scented breeze felt odd whispering past my exposed ears and it was almost a fucking sensual experience because of whose had had exposed them.
Fuck. I wanted to call her. Right now. My fingers itched to dial her at work, just to hear her laugh. Would she still give me the same epic levels of shit now? I hoped what we'd done last night wouldn't change that. I liked her mouth. I like a lot of things about her mouth.
On the road I'd never had to worry about the morning after, because I was always leaving. That was the expectation and none of the chicks who'd shared my bed had actually wanted more than just a few orgasms at the hand of the guitarist from Wrecked. I'm not the star of the show and it suited me just fine. No need to complicate things.
But I had the feeling that Celia — classy, mouthy Celia — wasn't going to be down with this being a one-time thing.
And to my surprise I found that suited me just fine.
I just hoped she wouldn't turn all love sick and weird after we'd...well fucked wasn't exactly the right word. My nearly twelve-hour case of blue balls could attest to that. But watching her come...yeah, that was not an image that was going to leave my head any time soon. The way she threw her head back and went still and silent, like she was afraid she would shatter, kept playing over and over in my brain. Next time — and there would be a next time, I would make sure of it — I wouldn't let her stay silent. Next time I'd make her scream.
The sound of shouting broke in through those pleasant thoughts. I shook my head and paused with my finger on the buzzer of the low gray building in front of me. The shouts sounded like Jules' voice and he sounded pissed.
The security guard buzzed me in just in time for me to see Jules go storming past the doorway with August in hot pursuit. I caught a glimpse of Niall in a corner, looking like he wanted to be absorbed into the floorboards and then behind him...
"Hudson?" I asked, befuddled to see him, "It's Hudson, right?"
"Hey there," Hudson drawled, looking downright uncomfortable even as he leaped up from his chair to shake my hand. "Sorry about the drama," he said in an indeterminate accent that could only be described as ‘California-Southern.’ "I had no idea it'd be an issue."
"What drama?" I asked, turning to Niall. "What'd I miss?"
Niall glanced at me. "Nice hair, mate," he said. "You look less like a serial killer." Then he shot an apologetic smile to Hudson. "Seems our manager's been making promises without letting us know."
"Yeah," Hudson jumped in. "She said you guys were into it. So I signed on because fuck yeah I want to sing with Wrecked..."
"Wreckage," I corrected.
"Yeah," he grinned. "That too. Anyway, I had no idea you guys didn't know I was coming on right away. Nice hair by the way. Diggin' the clean cut vibe."
Niall's mouth twitched. "August booked us studio time," he said, clearly changing the subject away from my hair.
"What?" I exploded. "We haven't even rehearsed together yet!"
Hudson pointed to the back of the building. Somewhere on the other side of a low partition came more shouting. "Yeah, that's what Julian..."
"Call him Jules," I warned. "Otherwise you're gonna have a time."
"Yeah, see now shit like that is why I'm sorry we're meeting for real like this," Hudson groaned. "We should have had a fucking beer first." He looked at me imploringly and I was again reminded of Jules calling him a Golden Retriever last night. Those were puppy dog eyes for sure and the business-minded side of me could see the girls eating that shit up. "I'm sorry man, I get excited and I just jump into shit without thinking. It's a thing I have."
"Yeah, well, Jules was a cunt," Niall said stiffly.
"What'd he do?" I asked, straining my ears to catch the distant sound of shouting. They were still at each other's throats. Jesus, what had I missed in my Celia haze?
"He went off," Niall shrugged. "Called August a meddling, pushy cow."
"Oof," I grunted, shaking my head.
&
nbsp; "Don't feel too bad for him. I think she can give as good as she gets." He turned to Hudson. "What did she call him again?" he asked with a devilish grin.
Hudson held up his fingers, ticking them off one by one as he said, "A spineless, shit-eating, sycophant with bad teeth."
I burst out laughing. "I've never noticed a problem with his teeth." I turned in the direction of the sound of a slammed door. "Think he'll come around?"
"Don't you remember?" Niall prodded. "He did this when I joined."
I blinked in surprise. "No, I don't."
Niall laughed. "Yeah you wouldn't notice something like that unless it smacked you n the face. He definitely was pissed. Said you two didn't need some overeducated pouf in the band."
I winced. I definitely didn't remember that, but then again I always brain-dumped the bad stuff and clung to the good stuff. It was part of my DNA to ignore the bad shit. It's the only way I'd let things with Killian get so out of hand. "Oi mate," I said. "Sorry bout that. He can be a real cunt."
"He did it with Killian too," Niall reminded me. "When he joined on."
"Yeah well, in the end he was right about that."
"He doesn't like change," Niall said. "And August is..."
"Changing everything," I finished. "Everything is changing, and really fast too." My mind flashed back to Celia.
A door slammed and suddenly Jules reappeared. He stormed his way over to a chair where he sat down without a word and started flicking through his phone. His knee bounced so fast it practically vibrated.
August swept past him without a second glance. She glided up to the three of us with a beatific smile on her face. "So we've sorted out the schedule a little better," she said. I glanced over at Jules who was fairly vibrating with rage. In contrast, August seemed as cool as a cucumber. "I've already talked to the building manager about booking this rehearsal space," she gestured at the cavernous empty warehouse around us, "for an extra two weeks so you have more time to get comfortable with the new line-up." She flashed a reassuring smile at Hudson who grinned back eagerly. "And as for studio time." She paused and her eyes darted to Jules who snapped up from his phone to glare at her. It looked like she was barely suppressing the urge to stick out her tongue at him. "I can postpone that until we feel more confident about a new album." She smiled tightly, brushing a hand over her wild red hair. "That sound good, boys?"
