Beats of Life (Perception Book 5)

by Shandi Boyes

  I chuckle softly when she steps off the stairwell and walks right past me, not appearing to recognize me. Her beautiful wildflower and hay smell engulfs my nostrils the instant she floats by.

  I quietly walk up behind her, fighting the urge to grab a handful of her delicate backside.

  “You get more beautiful every time I see you,” I truthfully inform. Every day I spend with her, I fall in love with her more.

  She spins around so quick she nearly loses her footing. I go to grab her but she quickly regains her footing before I have the chance. I feel her intense heated gaze slowly roaming over my body from the black polished dress shoes my mom forced me to wear with my tailored fitted black tuxedo. I chuckle softly when she smiles at my wonky bow tie. No matter how many fucking times I tried to get the bastard straight, it would go wonky again. After Marcus’s fifth attempt to get it right, I angrily pulled it off and threw it to the ground. He chuckled loudly, before handing it back to me. “It’s all part of the look,” he said. Look my ass, that bow tie fucking hates me. I ended up storming out of the hotel room with it sitting wonky and had completely forgotten about it, until now.

  Today’s ball is the third annual fundraiser for Serena’s foundation. It is also the first time I have worn a tuxedo. I have worn a suit twice before. Once to my sister’s funeral and once for Noah’s wedding. Normally, I use any excuse I can find to turn up to an event in plain clothes. One of my most regularly used excuses is that the attendee’s know they are getting a drummer, so they intern expect a drummer to turn up, not a penguin in a suit. But today I wanted to wear a tuxedo. Why you ask? For no other reason than the look Kylie’s eyes are projecting right now. Even hidden behind her dark purple sequins mask, I can easily see the lust beaming out of her beautiful eyes.

  Suddenly, her face morphs into shock. She intakes a sharp inhale of breath and her shocked eyes turn back to mine.

  “Oh my god Slater, what happened?” she questions quickly, closing the distance between us.

  Her hands instantly lift to run over the top of my scalp. Her face is a cross between amused and panicked.

  “Your dreads,” she whispers softly, like she thinks she is dreaming. “They’re all gone,” she continues. Her eyes rapidly fill with tears and they dart between mine.

  I nod my head, confirming what her eyes can’t believe. My dreads are gone. My head is bare and feels cold and lonely with the crew cut the hairdresser had given me earlier today.

  Kylie runs her hand over my scalp again and a small giggle escapes her lips. “You look like Brad Pitt,” she informs softly. I roll my eyes. Her, Emily and Jenni are fucking obsessed with that guy. I seriously don’t get it. He is more than double their age for crying out loud.

  “But at least ten times hotter,” she continues when she notices my reaction. This makes me smile largely. I pull her in close to my body by her tiny waist.

  Her hand shoots up to run over my head again, making me worried that she may like the crewcut more than my dreads, since this is the third time in the past minute she has ran her hand over my head. Although her nails scratching my scalp does feel pretty nice.

  “Don’t get used to it, I’m growing my dreads back,” I inform sternly, wanting to ensure she fully understands there is no chance in hell I am keeping this haircut.

  She smiles largely, so large my dick instantly stiffens. “Good,” she whispers seductively. “Because I love your dreads,” she continues, causing my dick to get that hard it hurts. I pull her in closer to me in an attempt to hide my erection from the gala attendees walking around us.

  “Why did you cut them off?” she questions softly. Her minty breath fans my mouth since we are standing so close to each other.

  “For Serena’s foundation,” I respond.

  It fucking killed me watching the hairdresser cut off my dreads that I have been growing since I was fifteen years old. It was even more painful than getting me into this tuxedo. But when an anonymous bidder places a bid of three million dollars for me to cut them off, I am going to cut them off. My hair will grow back, but that amount of money will be a huge help to the families that are suffering through what my family went through. It also means people won’t have to struggle like Kylie did when she went into remission. My mom has made a few changes to Serena’s foundation the past three months. Now we don’t just help the people suffering from ALL, we also help the survivors. People like Kylie who are left unemployable because they can’t get health cover. It pissed me off when I found out what had happened to Kylie. She went through the fight of her life and she still had to fight even after she went into remission. That is fucking bullshit. No one should have to go through that. So the three million dollars the anonymous bidder bid on top of the ten million dollars ‘Rise Up’ contributes each year will really help boost our new campaign.

  “Someone placed a bid of three million dollars for me to cut them off,” I inform, triggering Kylie’s mouth to pop open wide in shock.

  “Holy crap,” she whispers softly, her eyes darting between mine.

  “I guess that three hundred dollars I saved for the auction isn’t going to cut it,” she continues with a little giggle.

  Fuck, I love her and her little giggle.

  Last week she paid me back the one thousand, seven hundred and twenty-three dollars that the tally on her phone told her she owed me. When she forced me to take the money, I donated it to Serena’s foundation in Kylie’s name. She then requested to know how much rent an apartment like mine would fetch so that she could pay her share. I probably shouldn’t have laughed at the expression on her face when I said her half would cost her over fifteen thousand dollars a month. After I calmed her down, we ended up negotiating a better term that would suit us both.

  “Bid on anything you want and you can pay me back,” I advise, leaning in close to her delicate neck. “You just have to pay me back like you did for your rent,” I whisper softly into her ear.

  Her breath comes out in ragged pants and her excited eyes dart between mine before she gently nods her head. I may have negotiated with her to add a few extra items onto her bucket lists in exchange for free rent. My requests were eerily similar to the ones Melanie had added seven months ago.

  “Now let’s get this party over with so I can see what you look like underneath that dress,” I say cheekily. Kylie giggles softly before accepting my hand I am holding open for her.

  “They are all as shocked by your haircut as I was,” Kylie whispers in my ear as we make our way to the middle of the ballroom.

  Kylie always assumes people gawk at us because they recognize me. I know that isn’t true. They are looking at us because she is so incredibly beautiful they can’t help but stare. Kylie didn’t even recognise me with my new haircut, so there is no chance in hell anyone in this room would recognize me. My dreads made me easily recognizable but now they that they are gone and I am wearing a tuxedo and a mask, I am completely incognito.

  “They aren’t looking at me,” I respond, pulling her in close to my side, clearly indicating to every guy in this room that she is taken. A few get the hint and look away, but a few need a stern dagger or a finger point in their direction for them to finally get the hint.

  I really wish she would wear that diamond engagement ring I brought her. I didn’t technically ask her to marry me. I just wanted her to wear it so all the roadies would back the fuck off. They still see Kylie a prime target since she has no ring on her finger, but she refuses to wear the ring I purchased. She said, until she is engaged or married she will not wear any ring on her ring finger, not even one that costs me millions of dollars.

  By the time the auction starts, Kylie already has a few wines under her belt, making her bids more daring than normal.

  “Four thousand dollars,” she bids, raising her number sixty-nine paddle into the air again. The gentleman bidding against her instantly raises his bid to five thousand dollars.

  “Ten thousand dollars,” she announces without hesitation.
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br />   Her eyes dart over to the gentleman bidding against her. He is wearing a dark blue tuxedo and a large black feathered mask. From this distance, I have no clue who he is.

  You would think I would be worried that she is bidding so high for one of my signed drum kits, but I’m not. All the money goes to Serena’s foundation and I get the benefit of Kylie paying me back in sexual favors.

  The crowds all gasp in sync when the gentleman counter bids with twenty thousand dollars. Kylie turns to face me. Her face appears slightly panicked.

  “I think I can get him to go higher,” she whispers quietly into my ear, seeking my permission. I chuckle loudly since I have just clicked on that Kylie is playing him. She can read people a mile away and she knows she has this sucker played.

  I nod my head, not even caring that she may be wrong. She turns back to face the auctioneer.

  “One hundred thousand dollars,” she announces loudly, forcing me to swallow harshly. I wasn’t expecting her to bid that high. A broad smile stretches across my face and my dick stiffens when I realize all the fun things I can add to her list for that amount of money.

  Her eyes turn to look at the gentleman across the room. She fans her heated cheeks with her bidding paddle. The room has fallen into complete silence. As each second ticks by, Kylie’s smile slowly falters.

  “One hundred and ten thousand dollars.” He counter bids, forcing one of the most radiant smiles I have even seen to form on Kylie’s face.

  She slowly spins around to face me, trying her hardest to mask her excitement, but miserably failing. “I love you, but I don’t love you that much,” she says jokingly, forcing the people surrounding us to chuckle softly.

  Once the auction hits the gavel down on the podium, Kylie pouts playfully, before wrapping her arms around my neck.

  “Sucker,” she whispers into my ear, causing me to chuckle softly.

  Kylie returns to scanning the crowd, looking for any other sucker she can bid against, as the gentleman that won the auction makes his way across the room. It is only once he is standing in front of me and I look into his eyes do I realize who was bidding against Kylie.

  “Hopefully this will make up for my lack in judgement,” Cormack says into my ear.

  Noah and I may have had a few words with him when we found out he was planning on terminating Kylie’s employment since she couldn’t get health cover. Now any employee Destiny Record hires will be fully covered by the company’s medical insurance, no matter what their previous medical history may have been.

  “It’s a start,” I reply, moving to stand next to Kylie.

  I fully plan on bidding and winning the trip to Fiji that is coming up next. A tropical island, cocktails and a secluded beach sounds like my type of holiday. It might also be an ideal place for a romantic proposal.

  Chapter 34

  Kylie

  “I can’t believe we are going to Fiji!” I scream in excitement. My loud and happy voice bounces around the elevator. Oh shit, I don’t have a passport.

  “I have to get a passport,” I inform Slater panicked. We are in the elevator making our way back to our room since the gala is now over. Just the auction alone tonight raised nearly five million dollars for sufferers of ALL. I used my three hundred I had saved to buy a personally signed drumstick from the world’s best drummer, Slater Scott.

  “You have plenty of time to get a passport. We can’t go for at least another six months,” he informs, his voice slightly panicked.

  Oh! There’s a way to dampen my excited mood. The instant Slater won the Fiji holiday all I could imagine was him in nothing but a pair of board shorts, or even better swim trunks! I have never seen him in a pair of shorts, ever! He has a few pairs of boxer shorts in the bottom of his drawers, but I’ve never seen him wear them. He normally goes commando under his jeans, so I either get him in a pair of jeans or naked. I guess I shouldn’t really be complaining about that, should I?

  Although, right now he does look incredibly handsome in a full black tuxedo. The glands in my mouth have been overworked all night from the amount of drooling I have been doing. And don’t even get me started on his new haircut. Seriously, I loved Slater’s dreads because they were him, they were one of his unique qualities, but this shorter hairstyle doesn’t hide his gorgeous face. I didn’t realize how defined his cheek bones were until he removed his mask earlier tonight. And his brown eyes appear even larger in size. Tonight, it is going to be chasing him around our room, not the other way around.

  “Jesus Christ, Kylie,” Slater mumbles under his breath. He leans over and a shiver runs through my body when his lips touch the edge of my earlobe.

  “If you keep looking at me like that, I am going to fuck you in this elevator,” he whispers ever so softly. My eyes instantly dart to Melanie and Marcus standing to the side of us.

  “Yes, even with them in here with us,” he continues, forcing my eyes to dart back to his and for my pussy to throb in anticipation.

  “I can hear you,” Melanie informs sarcastically. I try my hardest to hold in my giggles but the instant she says, “Please don’t let me stop you, I’ve been dying to see if your drumstick,” I fail miserably.

  My giggles only die down once the elevator finally reaches our floor and Slater steps towards me looking like a man who has been abandoned in a desert for the past week without any water. He is staring at me like I am his salvation. I am his bottle of water.

  “I’m going to be nice, since you are wearing heels,” he informs, his eyes slowly roaming over my body before stopping at my black pumps.

  “I’ll give you a ten second head start,” he continues. I cock my hip and stare at him unbelievably. He has absolutely no patience whatsoever. Ten seconds to him feels like a lifetime, oh except when he is in the bedroom.

  “Ten….nine…..eight,” he slowly counts in his seductive deep tone.

  I quickly kick off my heels, throw them at his chest and sprint out of the elevator before seven even has the chance of escaping his lips.

  “Seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, ready or not here I come,” he yells in one quick concession.

  I manage to make it all the way into the hotel room before he is on my heels. Because I am too busy looking behind me, I end up running straight into the entranceway table, sending the large vase of flowers sitting on top toppling onto the floor.

  “Anyone would swear you are the rock star,” Slater says chuckling the instant he catches up with me. I crook my neck back to look at him, my confusion clearly shown on my face.

  “You are always trashing hotel rooms,” he explains with a chuckle. I attempt to rebut, but the instant his lips are on mine, I am rendered speechless.

  One Week Later….

  “Thank you for bringing Melanie here last week,” I say gratefully.

  Slater smiles softly before lifting his head from looking at some documents in front of him. Once he notices that I am wearing nothing but a towel, his smile enlarges.

  “It was my pleasure,” he replies, his voice sounding extra throaty.

  I only just realized when I was in the shower that I had forgotten to thank him for bringing her here last week. He paid for Melanie to travel to us and even supplied her with her own hotel suite. Melanie and I spent most of Sunday hanging around in her room eating and talking for hours like we used too. I filled her in on everything that has been happening in my life the past several months. She seemed happy but slightly reserved and surprisingly quiet for Melanie. The only time her eyes really sparkled was when I asked her about Marcus. That girl has it bad for him. I know he walked her to her hotel room after the gala, but she wasn’t sharing any more details on what happened after he dropped her off., which is so unlike Melanie.

  “What are you looking at?” I query Slater, moving over to sit next to him on the sofa in the living room of our hotel suite.

  Peering down, I notice that he has my passport application and photos I took earlier in the week. When Slater originally won the trip
to Fiji he said we couldn’t go for another six months. Then the very next day he said he was trying to organise for us to go within the next month. I don’t know what caused the sudden change in dates, but I am that excited about going to Fiji I didn’t care when we go.

  “Cormack has organised for someone to come and collect all of your paperwork and they are going to take it to the courthouse today to get a rush order on your passport,” he explains.

  My eyebrows pull together tight and my eyes turn up to look into his.