Raw Rhythm

by Cari Quinn

  She’d only managed to decipher two words out of the jumble in her head anyway.

  Beautiful nightmare.

  What did that even mean? Nightmare worked for Mal, but beautiful he was not. His cock kind of was, although not physically—cocks as a rule were fairly ugly, even if they were sizable. His definitely qualified as that. Right now, she could barely remember her own cell number but the imprint of his dick on her ass earlier had made quite the impression.

  Of course, she’d also seen it naked in person. Multiple times. The guy had an exhibitionist side as long as her legs.

  Long, yeah. And wide. Her thoughts were concentrated in one area, and that was nowhere good.

  She grabbed the second pillow she’d attempted to do inappropriate things with earlier and shoved it under her head to join the first. They were both lumpy, and she was too wired to sleep. She still didn’t fully remember taking the E earlier. It was as if she’d zoned out for the moments between walking down the hallway to the bathroom and returning to her table in the club. Teagan had been laughing, and she’d bought them a couple of drinks, though she’d been careful to ask, “You sure this is okay?”

  Elle had already been drinking it by then, and hell yes, it had been okay despite her usual disinterest in alcohol. But she’d been floating already, and nothing seemed as hard or scary with that cushion of chemicals between her and the world. She’d grown too used to having it, and then she’d grown almost as used to having nothing between her and life except the cold, rough ground of reality.

  But within a few minutes, all of that had faded away into a blissful fog of nothing. Jules didn’t hate her anymore. Nicky and Li weren’t watching her like hawks.

  Randy wasn’t dead.

  She shut her eyes as her throat grew tight and hot, then struggled up into a sitting position. No. Trying to sleep and failing was the worst thing she could do while she was crashing. Or on her way to crashing. She didn’t even know anymore. She’d had a lot of alcohol. At least it had seemed like a lot. Everything was indistinct, except Teagan asking again and again, “Is this okay?”

  Teagan had been around when Elle had first started to spiral in high school. Back then, her friend was known as squeaky clean. The kind of girl you didn’t party with, because she was too pure to taint. Elle had liked her a lot so she’d hidden some of the harder stuff she’d been doing. Teagan had figured some out as the years passed, and then she had moved away with her family for her senior year in New York and she’d never realized exactly how deep Elle had gotten.

  God willing, she never would—because Elle wasn’t going back to that place. She wasn’t. One fucking slip wasn’t going to define her.

  She climbed off the bed and threw back her head as her stomach pitched. Christ, she already wanted more. Once the taste was in her system, she craved it like she’d never craved anything else.

  Except love.

  Her head was still messed up, and her thoughts were all over the place. She couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t settle.

  So she went back to the one thing that soothed her even in the midst of chaos.

  Music. Always music.

  She scrolled to a different playlist with thick, fumbly fingers. Her anger was gone now, drained into despair. She needed to sing and dance, to make this room disappear.

  To forget that she’d shit where she ate, and now Mal knew she was a fucking junkie. Though he’d seemed as if he’d known before. He’d always acted as if he knew something.

  She tried to line up her memories of Mal. The weird looks, the sly comments that were too knowing. But everything dissolved like sand under the wind. She couldn’t hold on to anything but the R&B music coming through her headphones.

  Thank God she had those with her. She never left home without them. In case.

  None of the songs were just right. They made her edgy too. She tried singing along with a few of them. Probably sounded like a dying cat. Maybe Mal’s neighbors would get mad and kick him out. That made her smile. Almost. This was a rental, right? Had to be. Mal wasn’t a New York sort of guy.

  She wasn’t a New York sort of girl either, but she didn’t know if she could ever go home. If she even had a home left.

  The next song came on and she started to sing without thinking. When the smooth oldies R&B hit ended, she hit replay and sang through it again, stumbling over the words, making up new ones. Laughing a little with every mistake.

  If you were a lifelong screw-up, you should at least laugh, right?

  She’d been singing this one since she was knee-high to a grasshopper. Little Ellie who sang and played guitar like she breathed and was such a good girl until she was the motherless child who needed another fix.

  Still was. Would always be.

  But she kept playing the music. She didn’t know if he was listening. Didn’t care if he was. He could’ve been standing outside the door and she wouldn’t have stopped, flubs and all. Thought she could sing, did he? Well, here he could hear all of her, flaws and all. Nothing censored. Nothing held back.

  When her throat was scratchy and raw, and light was beginning to peek through the slats on the blinds, she crawled into the bed that wasn’t her own. And clutched the pillow to her chest as she prayed for sleep to take her.

  Chapter Nine

  Outside the door to her bedroom, Mal hesitated with his hand on the knob. In his other hand, he gripped a sack lunch he’d had the guy at the deli on the corner put together for her during the ten minutes he’d been gone from the building. Tuna on rye, crusts cut off. Because she always did that to her sandwiches. Ridiculous. The crusts were the best part, if the bread was worth eating.

  But he wanted her to eat. She was already too skinny, and she’d consumed enough alcohol the night before to sink a buffalo. Never mind those stupid pills he’d taped under the mattress in his room. He’d probably get busted for drugs before he got out of the place. His luck.

  Eh well, he’d rather get his mug shot on a blotter than be at the mercy of any drug. Especially since she wasn’t even happy after taking them. Her high seemed to last a frighteningly short time, and then she was even more morose than she’d started out.

  Why she probably had used in the first place. That few minute respite made her think the crash was worth it.

  He’d heard her crash through the waning hours of the night. Not wanting to miss it if she had a medical issue, he’d placed a kitchen chair outside her bedroom door and listened. Not moving. His only goal to ensure she made it to morning, long enough to sober up and for that shit to get out of her system.

  Listening had almost been worse than lying in bed imagining she needed him.

  Not him. Someone. Anyone else.

  Never him.

  She’d sung most of the time he’d been outside the door. And she’d wondered how he knew she could. She must not realize how often she did it, whether she was in a good mood or bad. Last night, he’d heard every ounce of the pain inside her in her voice, raw and unforgiving—to herself most of all. With every trip up and every hitching giggle, he’d had to brace his fisted hands against his thighs not to go in there.

  Since he didn’t have a clue how to show her she was so wrong about herself—short of fucking her senseless, and then doing it all over again—he’d stayed in his goddamn chair.

  Close to dawn, she’d finally fallen asleep. Four hours had passed. Exactly four. He had watched the minutes tick down on his phone, antsy and restless at not hearing any noises from within the room. Being away from the building for even ten minutes had been hell, and he’d sprinted to the deli and back. She could be fucking dead.

  Or she’s just sleeping, dumbass.

  He wasn’t anyone’s savior. Hadn’t that been proven in sterling clarity years ago? But he could play the part of AA counselor from hell, considering he’d lived that role before.

  When he couldn’t wait a minute longer, he shoved open the bedroom door. She was curled up like a shrimp on the bed, knees up to her chest, still wearin
g the same clothes from the night before. Her tank had rolled up high enough he could just see the bottom of her bra. Some lacy concoction. Shocker. It matched the panties he could see peeking over the back of her low-rise jeans. A thong.

  Just enough of a glimpse to make him sweat alone in bed tonight.

  Her dark hair was spread over the pillows—except for the clump wrapped around the fist she’d brought to her mouth.

  “No, no, no.” The whispers were barely audible. “Don’t, Daddy. Daddy, don’t.”

  Mal’s stomach clenched so violently he feared he’d lose the breakfast he hadn’t eaten right beside her bed. Fuck, that couldn’t be what it sounded like, could it? He’d never heard anything like that from anyone. But family secrets could be locked in vaults with pretty thick locks. He should know.

  And he couldn’t listen to another second of her whispering. She was starting to thrash now, her long legs kicking out as she pushed her fist against her mouth as if to stifle the words that kept on coming anyway.

  “No, Daddy, please don’t. I love you.”

  “Goddammit, wake up.” Mal tossed the lunch sack at the end of the mattress and hauled her up into his arms, turning with her as her huge, shocked blue eyes flew open. They weren’t even sleepy. She shot from unconsciousness to fully awake in a blink, probably due to the fact that he was carting her straight into the bathroom and it wasn’t an easy ride. She jabbed her knees into his sides and whaled on him with her good arm and made sounds that were generally capable of slicing a man’s eardrums into shreds.

  “I’m putting you into the shower. You stink,” he said evenly, raising his voice over her objections.

  She stared at him then lifted her arm to sniff beneath it. He would’ve laughed if her tight hold on his ribs with her knees wasn’t cutting off his air. She was like a boa constrictor, trying to squeeze the shit out of him.

  A boa constrictor with the sexiest pair of tits he’d ever seen, bouncing indecently up and down while he fought to hold on to both her and his dignity.

  An erection was the last thing he needed right now.

  “I do not,” she said indignantly a second before she started hitting him again. Harder than before.

  Little Ricki was no one’s delicate flower.

  “Your nose must not be working. You sure as hell do.” He set her down and maintained his grip on her waist as he eyed her sling. “How do I get that thing off you?”

  “Excuse me?”

  He was already doing it on his own. She stopped flailing, but he was fairly certain it was from shock now. He wasn’t undressing her yet, but it was a close thing.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “I told you, you’re dirty. Besides, we have practice. Bet you don’t want those losers to think you’re a filthy druggie.”

  “Practice,” she sputtered. “I’m not practicing with them.”

  “Yes, you are. Your solo concert was great, but you still need to learn the pieces like the rest of us, Einstein.”

  She gaped at him. “You heard me?”

  “Every word. Now hurry up and help me get this sling off so you can take off your top.”

  “I can’t decide if you’re crazy or a pervert or I’m still asleep,” she muttered, still doing as he’d asked.

  Once the fabric sling was off, he helped her take off her tank, then grabbed a plastic bag off the back of the commode that had held a can of bathroom cleanser—fucking nasty toilet, man—and wrapped it over her arm like a loose plastic tent to protect the bandages beneath. “Cute polka dots.”

  She frowned at him before glancing down at her bra. “Pervert,” she decided.

  “Take off your jeans before I do it for you.” His lips peeled back. “Trust me, you won’t enjoy it.”

  Her grunt was pure disgust. She flicked open the button and started shoving them down one-handed until he raised his brows again. “What now?”

  “You can use your other hand. Do it.”

  “Um, hello, my shoulder—”

  “Yes, and they popped it back into place. You have to start building back your strength.”

  “Oh, you’re a doctor now? Where’s your stethoscope?” She stared right at his crotch, and if anything had ever been less of a come-on, he didn’t remember it.

  Didn’t stop him from popping a boner anyway. Just because she was fucking staring at his dick, even through his jeans.

  He was the biggest moron who’d ever lived.

  “I know they told you that, so don’t play dumb.” He grasped a loose wave between his fingers. “You ditched the hair color, remember?”

  Her eyes flashed, the blue turning fiery. “Did I ask you to touch me?”

  “No, but I didn’t ask you to look at my dick either.”

  Her flush was monumentally satisfying. As was when she turned around and yanked down her jeans, showing him every bit of that skimpy polka-dotted thong.

  And her perfect ass cheeks.

  “You can leave now,” she said in a thin voice tight with pain as she continued to roll the denim down her legs.

  With both hands.

  “You don’t know how to use this shower.” It was a fine excuse, and he leaned past her to twist dials and push buttons. Fancy shower, gross toilet. They didn’t go together, but you never knew what you were going to get in a rental.

  Nor did he know what he was going to get with Ricki, who ducked under his arm and stepped into the shower. He waited for her to tell him to leave again—moment of truth—but she didn’t. Instead she waited until she was in his line of sight and undid the clasp of her bra. She held the sides closed for a moment, tilting her head. “It’s not like you haven’t seen me naked before.”

  No, actually, he was practically certain he had not. Make that certainly certain.

  But he didn’t correct her, because she probably would’ve put a halt to whatever was motivating her to dare him. Probably sheer orneriness.

  Still—naked. And he didn’t care if that made him the pervert she’d accused him of being. It wasn’t as if he was going to get to see her naked any other way. Hell, this shit could fuel his fantasies for the next year.

  His eyebrow climbed, and he continued turning the dials to adjust pressure and temperature. All the while waiting for her to realize no one played chicken better than he did.

  No one.

  She sighed and let the sides of her bra go before she slipped the strap off her good arm. He managed not to look at her tits until he’d helped her with the other strap and dumped the bra outside the stall.

  When he did, he couldn’t stop.

  She was built every bit as well as he’d guessed from the tight mold of her T-shirts. Sheer perfection. Small brown nipples that seemed to tighten under his perusal, full globes that swayed lightly as she shifted to push down her panties and kick them off. She tossed them outside the shower to join her bra then braced her hands on her hips and cocked her head. “Well?”

  Fuck, he loved that she didn’t try to hide herself. No modesty here, false or otherwise. She was just what she was, take it or leave it.

  After the night he’d spent listening to her sing and laugh and cry, he knew that attitude had to be at least half bravado, but right now, he did not care. His admiration of her kicked up another dozen notches.

  And his desire to fucking run tripled.

  “Well, what?” His voice was pure gravel, and he didn’t have the breath left to raise it above the rush of the water. She stood at the back of the stall just outside the spray, the water pelting the peeling polish on her toes.

  “Well, I have seen you naked, numerous times. So there’s no reason you should be embarrassed.”

  Holy shit, she expected him to strip down too?

  He narrowed his eyes. “Are you still high?”

  She tipped back her head and started to laugh, loud and long. He hadn’t heard her laugh like that fully since—since long before this week, that was for sure. She hadn’t even laughed like that last night when she’
d been tripping and drunk.

  “No. I wish. You think that shit lasts that long?”

  Just like that, his libido cooled. She wished. So much for her realizing her mistake. He started to turn away.

  “Wait.” Her shaky exhale made him stop. “I don’t really wish. I’m still—” She made a frustrated sound. “I can’t believe I did that.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “I’ve never slipped in all these months. I barely allow myself Tylenol.” She let out a hitching laugh that sounded more like despair. “I don’t know if I can go back.”

  “Go back to what?” he asked sharply, making the mistake of looking back at her. Those full breasts captivated him, along with that tiny teasing landing strip of downy blond hair on her mound, such a contrast to the tumble of dark hair around her shoulders. Only her trembling voice could drag his attention away.

  “Home. To them. To being the me I was before.” She bowed her head and cupped her elbows in her hands, wincing a little with the movement. “I’m not even sure I can get back on a s-stage.”

  It was her stutter that had him reaching behind his head to grab a fistful of his shirt. He pulled it up and off fast, not bothering with any ceremony. His hand went to his button and zipper, and he hesitated for only a fraction of an instant.

  If this proved to be the moment from which there was no going back, he wasn’t going to deliberate. Wasn’t going to do anything but plunge in headfirst.

  He undid the button and yanked down the zipper, then kicked off his boots and pulled the denim and his boxers down his legs. He didn’t look at her. Couldn’t. Seeing anything on her face at all would be too much. Trusting himself not to push her up against the wall and bury himself inside her was a promise he wasn’t sure he could keep.

  Even if he’d only made it to himself.

  Stepping into the shower, he pulled the shower door closed. He tipped his head back into the water, letting it beat against the tension in his neck and shoulders. He soaked in the hot needles of pressure, using them to distract from the heavy weight of his erection. There had been no hiding that. No wishing it away. She’d given him her honesty, so he’d given a form of his own in return. Not the same. Never the same.