Dammit, JT, you’re a romantic old fool. You vowed patience and you have none. You promised to stay away and you haven’t.
He’d gotten lost in chastising himself and hadn’t noticed just where his feet had been leading him. He found himself facing the dirty, beat-up door of the service exit to the back parking lot. He sighed and pushed on the door, hoping to find it unlocked. It wasn’t even latched and swung open easily under the light pressure from his fingertips.
The cool night air slapped him in the face, pulling him from his dark reverie. The tourbus. He hoped it was far enough away to rid his mind of the lingering wash of her emotional discord.
The arc-sodiums of the parking lot bathed everything in a surreal orange-yellow light. The low-growing shrubs in the parking medians appeared almost black (yet somehow still green) under the alien overhead lights. JT’s fast-moving form cast multiple shadows as he crossed the lot to the sleek black camper-style buses. As he drew nearer, he realized he hadn’t brought the keys for the door. He hoped that either the guard had left the door unlocked when he did his last walkthrough (normally a terminable offense) or that he would be standing nearby and let him in.
The security guard was nowhere to be seen, so JT approached the door and simply tried the handle. It turned freely in his hand. Well, usually that’s a bad thing, but tonight it’s good, at least for me. He slipped inside and locked the door.
The interior of the bus was awash in light made even stranger by the extreme tint on the windows. The odd colors and stark shadows combined with the alcohol steeping his brain and percolated his stomach into queasy knots. I can’t look at this freaky light any longer. I think a nice, uncomfortable nap on that concrete mattress in the back bedroom is just the thing. I can lay down, close my eyes and forget everything (except about feeling too alone) and try to catch some sleep.
JT knew he was the only one on the bus, but still, there was something about the silence that urged him not to break it and he stepped lightly, toe first, his shoes only making the slightest hush against the thick pile carpeting. He continued the quiet steps into the tiny bedroom. The light filtered in thin lines through the closed window blinds and even though the light was faint, JT immediately saw there was something wrong with the bed. It was too flat, too empty, too….devoid of pillows. With a flash of unease, he took a wary step further into the room. He heard a muffled noise, and something was moving in the narrow strip of floor between the bed and the wall. The sound became lost in a hissing groan from the same place, accompanied by a muted thump as something hit the wall.
Shit! Did one of them sneak a woman in here? And why my little room and not the other bus? Their own bus? ‘Cause it sure as hell wouldn’t be Rafe. Brianna’d have his balls in a sling if she ever found out, and the man cannot keep a secret to save his life.
“Paul?” he stage-whispered, guessing at the most likely suspect. And why on the floor, when the bed’s right there?
A louder groan came in answer, then ended abruptly with a wheezing intake of breath. I don’t think I want to be part of this. Maybe my room upstairs in the hotel won’t be so bad, after all. Kori’ll be in my mind up there, but at least I won’t have to watch someone who isn’t me having sex.
“Never mind. You don’t have to answer. Just make sure you lock the door when you’re done. I didn’t see the guard anywhere about when I came in.” He turned to leave, shaking his head slightly in amused embarrassment.
“Don’t….” whispered across the odd blue-darkness toward him. “JT…stay…” Another shushed breath followed. “Help…me.”
JT stopped and spun back, all traces of amusement wiped away. That sounded like…
“Mark?” JT took a tentative step closer to the source of the voice. “Is that you?”
Another groan played across the dark room, ending in a quiet half-sob of pain. “Motherfuck,” the voice mumbled from between clenched teeth.
JT closed the remaining distance to the bed in several strides, no longer caring who it was. There wasn’t enough room between the bed and the wall for two people, so JT crawled across the mattress and stopped at the edge, looking down. Bloody hell.
Mark lay sprawled in the narrow space, clutching one pillow to his chest, his head propped unceremoniously against the wall. The other pillows lay over his legs and torso. Mark’s skin looked as blue-white as the walls in the alien light. Wide eyes haunted with agony met JT’s and sweat streamed small rivers down his cheeks. A sweat stain was spreading from the neckline of Mark’s shirt. JT kicked himself for leaving his cellphone in his room.
“I’m going to get the security guard. We need to take you to hospital. And to let Kori know where you are.” He crawled backward, afraid of startling Mark if he jumped from the bed and took off running, although every fiber of his being screamed for it.
“No!” Mark choked out. JT stopped.
“It’ll pass…” Another shuddering breath. “It always has.” He groaned and clutched the pillow closer to his chest with one hand. The other wrapped tighter around his midsection. “It’s better now than it was before….” He inhaled sharply, his face a mask of pain, “…you got here.”
“If this is better, then you must have been a real mess earlier on,” JT replied, resuming his backward creeping, albeit slower, hoping Mark wouldn’t notice and stop him again. “I can’t let you just lay there in agony, Mark.”
“They can’t help. All they’d want to do is keep me there, hook me up to their machines. I won’t…errrggh.” Mark clenched his jaw. “I won’t be a burden or a delay on this tour. This is your job, JT. I’ll be….okay.”
I think we both know that’s not true. Not in the long run, anyway. But I’m not going to be the one to say it. JT stopped moving again and settled onto the bed cross-legged, now just as afraid to leave Mark alone while he fetched help as he was to stay and get none. “I’ll do whatever you say. These are your wishes, and Kori’s concurred. I have no right to go against them, whether I agree with you or not.”
Mark took a deep breath, only hitching once this time as he inhaled. “Trust me. This is definitely better than earlier.” Mark’s voice was stronger, but still rough around the edges. “I guess I blacked out for a while. I don’t remember sweating all over my shirt. So this is absolutely an improvement.”
JT considered the possible options and decided to let the episode play itself out. The guard would be amongst the buses all night, and he could call an ambulance if need be. Damn. I hope this is the right thing to do.
“Shouldn’t we at least let Kori know where you are? She must be wondering, it’s gotta be past time for last call.”
“Nah. She knows we went out together, and if we’re both still gone… Let her think whatever she wants about what we’re doing or where we are.” Mark’s breathing didn’t sound quite so labored now. “She trusts you, so whatever she thinks we’re doing won’t be that bad.” He chuckled once but it ended in a growl of suppressed pain.
JT noticed that Mark didn’t say that he trusted him. “So what’ll we tell her, then, that we were doing?”
“The usual manswer.” This time, Mark did manage a slight laugh.
JT didn’t even pause. “Nothing. I can remember that.” His soft chuckle joined Mark’s in the diffused blue gloom.
Mark quieted again. “I don’t want her to know about this. It had to be the beer. My liver can’t handle alcohol any more. I know I can trust you not to mention it.”
JT heard his words, and the unspoken ones were just as clear. I can trust you, can’t I? He felt a twinge of guilt. Mark could trust him to keep a secret from Kori, he just couldn’t trust him to keep his hands off her. Nor his mind. It seemed to have been straying in her direction since the moment he met her. But I can keep that secret, too.
“Absolutely. If we both wake up on the bus in the morning, we were too drunk to remember the room numbers. Wouldn’t be the first time.”
“That works for me.” He stifled another small groan.
“We should move you up here to the bed. You’ll be more comfortable, Mark. That floor’s gotta be miserable and cold.”
Mark snorted. “It’s as soft as that mattress. But really, it’s not so bad. And the spasms seem to be easing. I don’t want to move and start ‘em up again. Feel free to take these pillows off my legs if you want them, though. I’d toss them up, but I think my arms are frozen where they are.”
JT grabbed up the pillows and tossed them to the floor, then tugged the comforter off the bed and shook it out over Mark.
“Wouldn’t want you to catch a chill. Want one of these pillows behind your head?”
Mark sighed, feeling warm for the first time in hours. “Believe it or not, no. The wall is keeping me uncomfortable enough to distract me from my gut. Thanks for the blanket, though.”
JT arranged the pillows so that he, too, was semi-sitting. He didn’t want to get too comfortable and risk falling asleep. He lay back and let his thoughts drift. After a short while, a sleepy voice sounded from the floor.
“JT?”
“Yeah, Mark?”
“Thanks.”
JT’s brows knit. “For what?”
“Just…thanks,” Mark mumbled. He yawned loudly, then fell silent again.
The sound of Mark’s even breathing, soon followed by his soft snoring, allowed JT to relax. Still, sleep was elusive. One question kept chugging through his mind, returning time and again without an answer: what had Mark been thanking him for?
Shortly before the rising sun colored the horizon, his twisting ruminations untangled and let him surrender at last to sleep.
****
I was so stupid to think things would settle back to normal after the frantic search for JT and Mark found them both snoring peacefully in the bus. Well, as normal as normal can be when you’re going from city to city like gypsies on the run. Korina dragged a wide-tooth comb through her wet hair and sighed, wishing for the hundredth time today that she could get more than a few minutes of sleep without interruption.
No one believed their story, but nobody could get them to confess to anything more than being too plowed to remember which floor of the hotel they were on. They steadfastly stuck by each other and claimed the details were too drunkenly sketchy to make any sense.
Since then, Mark and JT had spent increasingly more time together. Kori knew that JT was thoroughly enjoying the side benefit of being her husband’s close friend; Mark was a convenient excuse to spend more time near her. She thought highly enough of JT to realize that this wasn’t his only motive. But she wasn’t dumb enough to think that it wasn’t a factor.
But why was Mark so easily accepting? He had never been so quick to trust before; people earned his confidence one slow step at a time. Was it he had no one else, except perhaps Rafe, to pass the time with during the long hours on the tourbus? Or was he hearing his lifeclock ticking ever louder and didn’t have the time to waste?
She’d told Mark about the catwalk incident; how JT had coaxed and guided her back down to solid ground despite her utter terror. Maybe knowing Kori trusted him was enough for him to have faith, too. He was decidedly closed-lipped, saying only that he wanted to really know these people, and JT specifically, with whom she would be spending so much of her time in the future. A future, he would invariably add, that he wouldn’t be a part of.
Hell, I don’t know what it is that’s between them now. But ever since that morning, they’ve been thick as thieves. Except when Mark’s sleeping. Which has been more and more, and longer and longer, ever since then. I have this suspicion that he’s getting sicker and he doesn’t want to tell me. JT sure as hell won’t. All he’ll say is that Mark told him things in strict secrecy and it’s not up to him to share. Even with me.
Damn them both, she thought as she replayed the conversation she had with JT two weeks earlier.
“But he’s my husband, JT. And he’s dying. We know that. What is so secret that you can’t tell me?”
“Look, love, the things that he told me he asked me not to repeat. To anyone. Especially to you.” His eyes bored into hers. “There’s things involving you that I’m not telling him, either.”
“That’s something entirely different, and we both know it.” She glared back, her temper beginning to boil. “What could be worse than what I’m imagining? Neither of you will tell me what really happened, and why he’s sleeping so much more these last few days.”
“I made a promise, Kori, and it’s important that I keep it. It matters to him. And to me.”
“Playing both sides of the fence is really a nasty-ass thing to do, JT,” she snapped.
He shrugged, refusing to argue with her any further. She’d get over it.
But she didn’t.
Mark noticed but said nothing, attributing her temper to too much time with people and not enough time alone. She’d warned him early in their courtship that she needed time by herself to recharge her emotional batteries. Those batteries had taken an awful beating in recent months, and she’d had few opportunities to reflect and get grounded.
Her sensitivity to others made it that much harder to find time alone, and that much more necessary. The emotions and thoughts of the people around her were like being in a crowded restaurant. She couldn’t help but overhear the loudest of the loud, and as she grew more stifled and suffocated, they became harder to block out. Mark tried to arrange opportunities for her to be alone at the hotels, but there always seemed to be someone who needed her for something. Including himself.
JT knew the reason for her attitude. He still wasn’t willing to break Mark’s confidence, but was just as unwilling to let her temper lie and hope it would blow over. Every time he tried to talk to her about it, she told him that the issue was closed and to just let it be.
I don’t like her being angry, especially with me. Gives me a hollow feeling inside, like I let her down. And dammit, she won’t let me in to make it up to her. There is that one way… I get the feeling she’ll think I’m not playing fair. But what choice do I have? I can’t tell her what his fears are, I promised; if she knew she’d only be more upset than she is now, anyway, and might blame the messenger instead of the message. I can’t risk it. This is infinitely better, although she’ll never know that. Still, she’s got to understand that I care…
He resolved to get through to her any way that he could. Fair, or not.
****
The light touches tickled at her awareness, easing her closer to the surface yet leaving her drifting. She sighed, shifting her head on the pillow, still in the warm twilight that was neither awake nor slumber. The delicate caresses faded and she slid again into the darkness.
The warm hands trailed over her skin once more, dragging her back to not-quite-awake. Their stroking grew more insistent, pulling her further toward consciousness. Mmmm, it feels so good to be touched, it’s been too long…
She was aware enough to wonder if it was a dream, but unwilling to open her eyes to find out. If it was a dream, she didn’t want it to end; and if it wasn’t, she didn’t want to alert the owner of those gentle fingers that were easing over her body.
She swallowed a groan as first one hand, then the other, cupped the fullness of each breast, the callused pads of the thumbs teasing her tips to an aching tightness. She drifted awake further and realized she was lying in her bunk on the tourbus. This was no dream and she was not alone.
I recognize that touch… He can’t do this, dammit! Not here! But I don’t know how much longer I can keep still and silent. He plays me like his favorite old guitar…
Her skin betrayed her with a wash of gooseflesh and the buds under his thumbs puckered. She moaned softly, hoping to sound more asleep than awake. He seemed not to notice and continued that same taunting brushstroke, pulling another moan from deep within her. She reached down to take her lover’s hands and remove them from her body.
JT lay alone in the tiny bedroom at the back of the tourbus. His eyes were closed, but he wasn’t sleeping.
He knew she was, though. She’d gone off to lay in her bunk and read while Mark fitfully dozed in his own berth, leaving Zach to watch a video in the main room. JT was bored with the movie (he’d seen it at least a dozen times) and had excused himself not long after she’d left, peeking his head into her curtain-enclosed bunk when he heard the soft, even breathing he knew so well. He’d watched her for a long moment; she looked so enchanting without the worry lining her face. He’d tugged the curtain closed again and retired to his room, alone.
Beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead, from both his intense concentration and the sheer effort of will to keep his hands from his own throbbing flesh. He’d played his fingers lightly over his painful arousal just one time, when he’d sensed her inching toward wakefulness, and had lost contact, all awareness of her body vanishing without warning. No distractions, JT. Just wait, and show her how you need her.
“I love you, Kori,” he whispered into the still air of the late evening. “No matter what happens, remember that.”
“I love you, Kori. No matter what happens, remember that.” The whisper played across her mind just as her hands encountered her t-shirt over her chest. No hands here but mine. And mine only just got here. Oh, hell…
Her eyes flew open, knowing what he was doing (again) and helpless to break free (again). She was in his grip as tightly as if he were actually in the bed alongside her, and no amount of wishing or struggling would change it. She could surrender, becoming lost in the heady sensations of his hands on her skin, or she could fight to not enjoy it, but either way, she was out of her own control until he was through with her. She wanted to be furious at his invasion, but when two fingers pinched tightly over one sensitive nipple and she felt his tongue gently swirl over the other, followed by an tidal wave of his desire, she was gone.
JT groaned softly in the quiet room, no longer concerned that anyone would overhear. He couldn’t let it worry him, else he’d lose her again. And he really could almost feel her heated skin under his hands and lips, taste her on his tongue. Oh, God, love, how I really need you…but this is all I can have. He sank deeper into his fantasy, dragging her right along with him.
Dream Me Off My Feet (Sex, Love, And Rock & Roll) Page 35
