by Melody Grace
“Good.” Dex’s gaze darkens. The intensity between us could light the city block on fire, but then suddenly, the door swings open behind us, and people start to file into the club. Dex makes a noise of frustration. “What do you say we ditch this thing and go check into a hotel?” he murmurs, his lips quirking in a smile.
I want to say yes, but I force myself to stay cool. “You came here to see Austin, remember? Come on.” I tug his hand, then add a flirty grin. “What was it you told me? Patience.”
Dex chuckles, following me into the club. I look around curiously, taking in the rustic, open space and the small stage in the corner. It’s a far cry from the massive stadiums I know the band was playing in their prime. Here, maybe a couple of hundred people are cramming into the small space, with peeling classic rock posters on the wall, and graffiti autographs on every surface.
I see people staring—not just at Dex, but at me too. Men’s eyes sliding over my outfit, an appreciative look on their faces. My pulse kicks. I’ve never been looked at like this before, and although my first instinct is to try and act invisible, I force myself to stand straighter and walk confidently across the room. Tegan told me a hundred times that that only way to wear an outfit like this is to own it, and watching their reaction, I realize, she’s right.
“Do you realize every guy in here is wishing they could take you home right now?” Dex murmurs, draping a possessive arm around my shoulders.
“They’re all out of luck.” I smile at him, slipping my hand around his waist—and over his back pocket. “I’m taken.”
The look Dex gives me makes my toes curl: full of seductive promise. We’re being jostled by people, the room filling fast, so Dex leads me around the stage area, and through a door that’s guarded by a burly security guard. The guard lets us through with a nod, into the small backstage area. It’s more of a hallway than a real room, I notice: strewn with cables and amps, and even more crammed than the bar out front. But here, the talk is loud and relaxed, dozens of cool-looking people relaxing with beers, clearly familiar old friends.
“Dex, my man!” People slap his back and bump fists when they see him. “How you been?”
“You know,” Dex shrugs, still holding me tight. “I’ve been around.”
“When are you going to drop some new material?” one of the suits asks, an eager look on his face. “Anything you want, just say the word.”
Dex shakes his head. “Not me, man. Talk to Eddy.”
“Aww, you’ve gotta see sense one day,” he sighs. “I’ve got a platinum disc with your name on it!”
Dex nudges me through the tangle of people until we find Tegan in an alcove, chatting to a tall, bronze-haired guy in faded jeans and cowboy boots.
The man’s face lights up when he sees Dex. “Shit, I thought she was kidding me when she said you were coming!”
He strides towards Dex and embraces him in a bear hug. They do the manly routine of slapping each other on the back before stepping away.
“Miss this?” Dex says, with a wry smile. “Never. I want to see the look on the crowd’s face when you hurl all over them.”
“That was one time!” The man I take to be Austin howls. “And I was hungover as fuck. You’d be sick too if you’d done ten shots of God knows what the night before.” He laughs, before noticing me standing here. Right away, he turns on a devastating smile. “Well, hey there darlin’,” he drawls with a smoky look.
Dex throws his arm around my shoulder again. “This is Alicia,” he says meaningfully. “She’s with me.”
Austin drops the smolder. His grin turns friendly. “Nice to meet you.” He reaches to shake my hand. “I apologize in advance for the show.”
“Don’t say that!” Tegan interrupts. “You’ll do great.”
Austin gives a self-conscious grin. “I don’t know about that. I said I wanted to start small, get my feet wet with something low-key, but I guess someone leaked it.”
“Never mind the crowd,” Dex smirks, “what’s up with those boots? Don’t tell me you’ve gone country.”
“Fuck you,” Austin drawls, then breaks into a smile. “So what if I have? I’ve been telling you for years, Jonny Cash was the baddest guy in town.”
“Austin here was always trying to make us listen to his country playlists,” Dex tells me. “Remember the time you tried to add steel guitars to the backing track on ‘A Hundred Nights’? I thought Connor was going to smash your amp in.”
There’s a beat. The easy smiles falter. Then Austin raises his beer bottle. “Rest in peace, man.”
Dex nods.
I slide my hand into his and squeeze. He gives me a quiet smile before turning back to Austin. “So, you all set?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be.” Austin gulps his drink. “I’ve got a bunch of songs, going to release an EP at the end of the month.”
“Digital-only, or indie release?” Dex sounds interested.
“I’ve got a small label willing to cut a couple thousand units,” Austin replies. “I’m putting up most of the money myself, so we better hope it sells.”
Their words are going way over my head, so I catch Tegan’s eye. “Bathroom?” I ask her quietly.
“I’ll show you.” She rolls her eyes at the guys. “Leave these guys to geek out alone.”
I follow her back through the crowd and into the main club to find the women’s restroom. “You want a drink?” Tegan asks.
“Thanks,” I reply. “Jack and coke?” Then I stop. Should I be asking someone who’s just got out of rehab to be buying me alcohol? But Tegan sees the look on my face and smiles.
“It’s OK, I’m not going to relapse at the sight of a drink. Besides, booze was never my problem.”
“What was?” I can’t stop myself from asking.
She gives me a wry grin. “Bad boys.”
Tegan heads for the bar, and I duck inside the bathroom. It’s tiny, papered with more flyers and scrawled graffiti, and a door on the stall that won’t bolt.
I’ve just ducked into the stall when there’s a burst of noise as the door swings open again and a couple of girls enter, their conversation loud and clear to hear.
“I thought he was in rehab.”
“No way, he’s been training as a Buddhist monk in Nepal.”
“I don’t care where he’s been. Dex Callahan is looking fine.”
I pause, curious to listen.
“Who was that girl he was with? The redhead.”
“Who cares?” The other voice laughs. “You know he never leaves with the same girl he came with.”
My heart twists.
“Right, I forgot,” she giggles. “Let’s see if we can sneak backstage. I want to find out if the rumors about his, you know, are true!”
The door swings open again, and then there’s silence.
I slowly emerge from the stall and rinse my hands, catching sight of my reflection in the cracked mirror. I look like a stranger: pouting lips, smudgy lined eyes. For a moment, I feel a crash of insecurity. What am I even doing here? I’m not some rock chick, at ease slamming back tequila and hanging backstage. And I’m definitely not cut out to be just one in a long line of groupie conquests—a temporary plaything for Dex until he gets bored and moves on to the next willing, nubile girl.
I catch my breath, forcing myself to calm down. I’m over-reacting. Just because those girls think Dex is still the wild party guy he used to be, that doesn’t make it true. I know better than anyone that he’s changed.
He’s still wild, but that devastating magnetism has been unwavering, fixed on me since the moment we met. He’s been clear, he wants me—all of me, completely.
But for how long?
I brush away the whispers of doubt, and head back out into the bar. The lights have dimmed, and the show is about to start, but I find Tegan and Dex at a table right by the stage. The best seats in the house. I look around for a free chair, but Dex catches me round the waist and pulls me into his lap instead. I smile, melting against him.
&n
bsp; “Hey,” I whisper.
“Hey yourself,” he murmurs back, his lips vibrating against my cheek. “Did I tell you yet how unbelievably sexy you look tonight?”
I feel a flush of awareness ripple through my body. “Yes, but feel free.”
He chuckles, shifting me in his lap so I’m sitting with my back pressed hotly against the front of his body, his arms wrapped tight around me, locking me in place. “I can’t wait to get you out of this shirt,” he tells me in a low, gruff voice that only I can hear. Dex strokes the fabric against my stomach, making me shiver. “And that skirt…Although, maybe I won’t take it off you,” he adds, placing a hand on my bare knee. “Maybe I’ll just shove it up around your waist and fuck you still wearing it.”
I jolt with surprise, blood rushing in a delicious hum right between my thighs.
Dex chuckles again. “I love how easy it is to shock you,” he murmurs into my ear as the group talks on, oblivious to us. “How turned on you get when I talk dirty to you.”
“I’m not the only one getting turned on.” I shift deliberately in his lap, feeling the growing hardness pressing against my ass. I turn to shoot him a wicked smile.
“Damn girl.” Dex’s eyes are black with lust here in the shadows, but before he can say another word, the crowd erupts in fevered screams. Everyone turns back to the stage as the lights go out and a single spotlight focuses on Austin, sauntering out with a guitar slung around his body, totally at ease.
“Hey everybody,” he says, adjusting the mic. “I’ve got some songs I’d love to share with you, so if everyone’s ready for the music, let’s go.” Without any more preamble, he strums a couple of chords and launches into the first song.
It’s a stripped down, country-bluesy affair, with a great lazy beat and a chorus I can already hear on the radio. Right away, the crowd gets into it: swaying along, cheering for more. Any nerves that Austin might have been feeling backstage are nowhere to be seen: he relaxes into the performance, strumming his guitar and singing in a casual drawl like he’s been doing it alone for years.
I watch Dex watching him, and wonder what’s going through his mind. It can’t be easy, watching his friend and former band-mate up there on stage—the one place I know Dex would love to be more than anywhere else in the world.
As if he can sense me watching, Dex slides his hand to my knee and rests it there a moment. He keeps his eyes fixed on the stage, but in the dark shadows here at the side of the table, he slowly slides his hand higher up my thigh.
I catch my breath, my pulse already racing. Dex traces lazy circles on the inside of my thigh, holding on to my hip with his other hand. His touch shudders through me, and I squirm in his lap, unconsciously grinding against his crotch.
I feel him stiffen in response, digging into my ass.
Dex’s grip on my hip tightens. His other hand trails higher up my bare thigh, to the edge of the leather skirt. Then, slowly, he edges his thumb up under the hemline.
My body is on fire.
Nobody is paying attention to us sitting here, all eyes are on the stage, but even if they were looking, it’s too dark in the shadows to see. It’s just me and him, our bodies pressed together, my heartbeat pounding so hard I could swear he feels it through the back of my chest.
I feel his head turn towards me, dipping a hot, light kiss in the hollow of my neck.
I inhale in a rush. I can’t believe he can do this to me with the smallest of touches, the lightest pressure dancing on my bare thigh, but already I’m wet and trembling for him. He kisses my neck again from behind, and I slowly shift again in his lap, grinding back into him until I hear a low, ragged groan.
Who is this girl? I wonder dizzily. The one who revels in her sexual power, teasing and flirting—playing with fire. The girl who leans back into Dex, shamelessly willing his fingers higher on her thigh. It’s like he’s woken a part of me I never knew existed, someone reckless and brave.
I like it. I like the woman I am with him, the charged electricity of our banter; the challenge in every suggestive game. I could have never imagined doing these things, or feeling so good, but somehow Dex overpowers all my whispered doubts about what I should do, what a good girl would do, and instead just frees me to follow my instincts, take what I crave from him without fear or insecurity.
And I need him, so much it takes my breath away.
My mind is so full of thoughts and desire that I don’t even notice the music until Austin pauses between songs, searching the crowd. “This next song, I want to ask a friend of mine to come help me out. Dex, where are you? Want to come play a song for these guys?”
The crowd explodes in screaming joy.
Dex goes tense.
“C’mon, buddy, for old time’s sake.” Austin smiles encouragingly.
Dex slowly lifts me to my feet and sets me aside. “You don’t have to,” I whisper, searching his face for some hint of emotion. He looks panicked, but there’s a glint of something else there too, a naked hunger, the way I’ve only ever seen him look at me.
He wants this, but he’s scared.
“I’m right here,” I tell him, as the crowd starts chanting his name: stamping their feet in a demanding thunder. “Dex?”
“I’m sorry,” he finally tells me, his voice hoarse, but I don’t even know what he’s apologizing for as he strides up on-stage and takes the spare guitar a roadie is holding ready for him.
“Ready?” Austin asks. Dex nods, and then they start to play.
I watch, my heart in my throat. I’m nervous for him, but I don’t have any reason to be: he’s effortless up there, they both are, launching right into a song I recognize, one of The Reckless’s biggest hits. This isn’t like his performance at that restaurant opening in the spring, the only other time I’ve seen him play. That was stripped-down and intimate; this is loud and fast, full of pulsing energy as he and Austin trade off the verses, playing hard like their guitars could break apart from the force of their wild chords.
Dex is alive.
There’s no other way to put it. Up there in the spotlight, I see what his sister meant. This is a part of him, imprinted in his DNA. His whole body responds to the crowd, fire blazing in his eyes as he sings his heart out. For a few minutes, he’s transformed, totally free.
Then I realize, the only other time I’ve seen him unleashed, so in the moment, is when we were in bed together last night. It’s that same wild abandon, that same ferocious intensity. Dex inhabits the stage like he was born to be there, and I can see it in his eyes, he loves every minute of it.
How could he ever walk away?
The last crashing chords die away. The crowd goes crazy, the whole room flashing with cellphone cameras greedy for evidence of this unprecedented moment. But Dex doesn’t linger to soak in the applause, he bolts from the stage, cutting straight through the cluster of people towards me with a fierce look on his face.
“That was amazing—” I start to tell him, but he grabs hold of my arm and yanks me after him. “Dex,” I protest, “Wait—”
His grip doesn’t let up, digging into my skin as he pulls me through the backstage door into the narrow hallway.
“Are you OK?” I ask, worried. “Dex, talk to me!”
He doesn’t pause, dragging me past the clutter of amps and equipment and flinging open a door at the end of the hall. I stumble inside after him. I barely have time to register a dim space barely bigger than a storage closet, jammed with amps and an old couch, before Dex shoves me back against the wall and claims my mouth with a desperate kiss.
God…It’s flames and force, pure power unleashed, obliterating everything in the world. I sink against him, opening my mouth to take his demanding tongue, falling headlong into the rush as my body jolts alive and I feel his grasping hands roving everywhere.
Dex pulls back, panting hard. His eyes are still lit with the fever of performing, his whole body coiled tight with tension, radiating pure animal lust. For a moment, he holds me tight, staring deep into
my eyes. I see the anguish there, a desperate need, and then his lips crash down on mine again, and there’s nothing but fire.
25.
DEX
Goddamn.
I drive into Alicia, desperate, needing her sweet oblivion like never before. My ears are still ringing with the sound of the crowd screaming my name; my blood sings with the perfect dazzling rush of their applause, the faces staring up at me, mouthing along the words I wrote, lost in the music.
Lost in me.
I can’t take it, it’s too much, too fucking good. One song, that’s all it took, and every instinct I’d thought was under control broke free. Now all I want is to be back there, commanding them all with my music. Now I need that release like nothing before.
But she can save me. She’s the only one who can.
I kiss her to blot out the spotlight and wash away my sins. I kiss her to quell the craving twisting tight in every atom of my body. I kiss her because this, fuck, this is the only thing as good as that rush out there.
Here, grinding against her luscious body, devouring her perfect lips. I grip her tighter to me, and Alicia answers with a moan, arching up against me, bucking against the hard-on already raging for her touch.
But there’s no time to explore every inch of her body. I need more than that, I need it all. I tear my mouth from hers and bury my head against her neck, licking up against the tender skin, feeling her shiver and gasp in my arms. I slide a hand to her breasts, squeezing and palming their delicious weight, rolling her tight nipples between my fingers until she cries out in pleasure. God, she doesn’t know what she does to me. The minute I saw her standing outside in that tight leather skirt, all legs and curves and that sexy damn smile, I wanted to be right here, closer even, deep inside her, driving deep until everything is gone. It isn’t right to take her like this, selfish and hard, but I’m past holding back, I need her too bad.
Now.
I wrench away from her and spin her around, bending her over an amp. She gasps in surprise, but the gasp turns to a moan when I yank up her skirt and run a hand down between her thighs. Fuck, she’s so wet, my cock leaps as I yank her damp panties aside and bury two fingers deep inside her, pulsing high against her walls.
