Sweet Ache

by K. Bromberg

  “Pussies,” Vince mutters, making a show of checking his watch to tell them they’re leaving way too early in the night.

  “Well, yeah, that’s next on my agenda,” Griff says, all four of us laughing. “And definitely in the plural sense too.”

  “Early flight back to the tour,” Kellan explains as he shakes my hand. “Thanks for letting us play tonight. My best to your family.”

  “Thanks for playing, man. Appreciate it!”

  The guys finish saying good-bye to Vince and when they clear the space in front of us, I look up and my eyes lock on to Quinlan’s. Goddamn. She’s a few steps behind Luke, her hand’s in his, but he’s leading so she has the freedom to hold my stare.

  And fuck the jolt that hits is like a live wire running rampant through my every nerve. It’s like I’m seeing her for the first time and shit, it’s not like she’s doing anything other than walking, but it’s as if she just made so many things that are off-kilter inside me even out.

  The thought unnerves me enough that when they approach, I focus on Luke with glances aimed her way intermittently. But it’s not enough.

  I love the feistiness that sparks in the golden color of her eyes, the desire too, but I’m also intrigued to recognize her uncertainty over whether or nor I’ll keep the promises I made earlier. And that tells me so much: that she’s all-in with whatever this is between us. So I give her the only response I can with Luke present. I dart my eyes down to where my mark on her breast is hidden to let her know I’ll live up to my words. No doubt there.

  Even better is the hitch in her breath when she understands my intentions.

  We make niceties for a bit and I just want to buy Luke a drink to occupy his mouth so he stops talking for a minute. He’s a decent dude and all … just currently sitting with his arm around Quin. And she’s mine.

  Between the subtle and fleeting meeting of our eyes and the way her tits bounce beneath the tank as she moves instinctively to the music’s beat, it takes every ounce of my effort to be attentive to whatever Luke is trying to talk about. I just nod and smile, pretend I’m more drunk than I really am because I learned a long-ass time ago that gets me out of having to converse with people when I don’t want to. All the while my mind fixates on the aggressive desperation in her touch in the backstage bathroom what feels like a lifetime ago.

  “Let me buy you a drink,” Luke offers as he stands up. “What’s your poison?”

  Fuck if I’m going to tell him in the VIP lounge we have servers bring us our drinks, that we don’t have to make a trip downstairs to the bar. Because now I get to be alone with Quinlan.

  “Jack and Coke. Thanks.” I nod to him.

  He holds his hand out to help Quinlan up and I swear it takes everything I have to not tell him she’s staying here. “I’m gonna stay here,” she says, reading my mind. I bite back the laugh when Luke glances back and forth between the two of us, my comment about losing the girl to a rock star from earlier obviously having left its impression. “My feet hurt,” she explains, lifting up her tanned calf in a move that has thoughts of running my tongue up its inseam clouding my mind.

  I lick my lips and when I look up from her sexy-ass heels, Quin’s eyes are focused straight at me and are now full of libidinous hunger. It’s almost as if the longer we’re within each other’s proximity, our attraction is irrefutable, growing stronger. And she must sense that the desire in her eyes is unmistakable to Luke as well because she averts her gaze suddenly as if she knows she’s giving too much away.

  But the damage has already been done. I’m sold. Check please. Time to go.

  My dick’s already rising to the occasion because if the look in her eyes showed me just a smidgen of the tigress beneath, I’m already done for.

  But Luke remains and stares at her momentarily, confusion in the narrowing of his brow while he mouths to her “You sure?” to which she replies, “I’m fine. Really.”

  I can feel him looking but I just keep my eyes focused on the mix of lights flashing over the crowd of gyrating bodies below. I continue to gaze elsewhere because it’s easier than looking into Luke’s eyes and lying to him.

  Shit, I’m nowhere close to being a saint but usually if I steal a man’s woman, it’s not literally right from under his nose. The crux of the matter though is that Quinlan definitely isn’t his—to anyone on the outside it’s easy to see—but obviously he still thinks it. And I don’t want to be a dick or rub his face in the fact that she’ll be going home with me tonight and not him.

  By the way he looks at her, it’s gonna sting enough, so I don’t need to rub salt in the wound.

  He’s stuck in an awkward position, where he doesn’t want to recant on his offer and lose the cool-guy vibe he’s been trying hard for the past hour because he’s nervous his girl is going to want to be played by me. He’s definitely right on target with his thinking, but staying here or getting a drink at the bar isn’t going to change the fact that I’m going to kiss Quin the minute he’s out of sight.

  I bob my head to the beat and continue to ignore him until he walks past Axe holding guard at the top of the stairs. Axe nods softly to me, and my body remains stationary as my eyes follow Luke’s movement. The after-show adrenaline rush is still riding high within me but fuck if it’s not being overwhelmed by the lust storming through my system.

  He disappears, and I don’t even have a second to think before Quinlan and I meet halfway across the distance separating us on the couch. The unsated need drives us. Without speaking we both know that time is fleeting between us and our mouths find each other’s through the darkness.

  The urgency of this stolen moment serves only to intensify things between us. There is no hesitancy, no words exchanged, no preamble because it’s clear what we both want and need from each other right now. Contact. Skin to skin, tongue against tongue, fingertips to bare flesh.

  There’s no thought given to my voyeuristic bandmates scattered around us or the fact that we’re in a very public place because the fuel to our desirous fire has already been lit. There’s no turning back now.

  Take and sate and claim. Those are the thoughts that fill my mind as her mouth brands itself to mine.

  Without prompting she climbs atop my lap, her skirt hiking up as she presses herself against my dick that’s already rock hard and begging to fuck her. And shit, it feels like heaven. The heat of her pussy grinding against where I want it the most. And I love that she’s not shy, love that her hunger to sample is as riotous as mine right here in the wide open, because there is nothing sexier than a woman who refuses to give a fuck what other people think of her.

  I’ve done the sex-in-public thing before, done the drunken plunge on a couch without shame, but there’s something about Quinlan right now—the muted sensation of what could be between us, her fingers fisted in what she can grab of my hair, her tongue taking just as much as she’s giving to me—I don’t know what exactly holds me back but as much as every ounce of testosterone in my body is begging for me to unzip my fly and go for it, I can’t. Fuck yes, this is only a bet I reaffirm in my mind between her tongue obliterating my thoughts but I know a quick fuck on the couch won’t be enough for me.

  Not with Quinlan.

  From the pounding in my heart and the constriction in my chest I know I’ll just want more. I might only get one shot at her alone without Luke there and I’m sure as fuck going to enjoy every goddamn second of it: to watch her parted for me and take me all in, watch her eyes roll back in her head as I make her come, hear her voice yell my name as she loses control.

  And fuck yes I want her—now, later, every which way possible—but not here. Not like this.

  It takes everything I have to make my body respond to my brain’s request. To ignore the question running through my mind on why Quin’s different and that this—fucking on a couch—isn’t enough for me. To ignore the tightening of my sac as she grinds herself on me, to disregard her tits pressed against my chest or the taste of her on my tongue.<
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  Every last ounce of restraint. But I do it.

  My hand is fisted in the mass of her blond curls and I pull the strands just hard enough so that she notices and complies. A gasp falls from our mouths as our lips separate. Our faces are inches apart, eyes glazed with desire and searching each other’s for any explanation of how this attraction vibrating between us can be so strong.

  I see the minute she understands that I’m not going to take this any further—fuck am I stupid—because her lips form a no and she tugs her head against my grip.

  “Not here. Not like this,” I groan as she presses down against my lap, her body begging for what I’m withholding and fuck if she’s not making this harder than it already is. “Ditch him. Come home with me right now.” I grit the words out, pained to even have to ask.

  She reaches down between her legs and rubs her hand over me. I grind my teeth, so amped up that I swear to God I feel like a damn teenager being touched for the first time. “Hawke,” she moans my name into my ear, and hell if it’s not the sexiest sound on the face of the earth. “I want you.”

  How the fuck is a man supposed to resist when she says that?

  Our mouths are back on each other’s, greed winning and hell if I’m going to repent for this sin because I plan on making a whole helluva lot more of them by the end of the night. We don’t bother to speak, since the music is so loud that even if we did, the only thing we’d be able to feel is the vibrations against each other’s chests and there’s something innately hot about the notion that we’re talking through actions only.

  My hands slide under the back of her tank top and find purchase against her soft skin as she holds tight to my neck in what I take as a possessive show that she won’t let me pull away from her again.

  And shit, I’m a guy who loves to be in control but this—right here, right now, with her taking the lead—is seriously hotter than fuck.

  The music may be loud and my blood is hammering in my eardrums but I hear Axe’s warning whistle across the distance. It takes a moment for me to stop our kiss so that Quinlan can understand that Luke is on his way upstairs. A part of me doesn’t want to stop, wants him to walk up, see his date currently dry-humping my dick and consumed with an urgency to have me. I know it’s a bastard of a thought but it would mitigate the complications and choreographed dance we’re stepping to not hurt Luke’s feelings.

  And why do I care? Why do I give a rat’s ass about the shock value of him seeing this when I’m going to end up with the girl in the end? I know the reason, and it bugs the shit out of me and causes me to tear my lips from Quin’s.

  Because it’s something Hunter would do.

  “Quin. Luke. Coming,” I pant into her ears as I physically lift her off my lap but have a hell of a time removing my hands from her arms and breaking the connection. I stare at her, her lips swollen, cheeks flushed, and those eyes of hers a dark storm of desire staring wide-eyed and inviting.

  And something about the look on her face and the goddamn dub step of my heart tells me that this is so much more than a bet.

  I shove up off the couch and walk away from our section toward the railing overlooking the floor below, my head spinning from the alcohol and the potency of her addictive fucking kiss. I catch Vince’s sly grin from his seat and he just shakes his head at me and taps the heart on the inside of his wrist. The fucker. Gizmo has his arm around a hottie as well from the meet and greet. Looks like he’s at least going to get lucky because by the way this shit is going tonight, my balls are going to be so goddamn blue I might as well pick up the sport of handball.

  I brace myself on the railing, and blow out a breath as I try to figure what the hell it is about Quinlan Westin that’s reeling me in like no chick has before. Women come, women go in my life without much thought. I’ve had steady relationships, monogamy isn’t the problem, it’s when they start having feelings that I start shutting down. And yet right now I’m ready to raise the white flag before I’ve even parted her thighs.

  Not gonna happen, Play.

  But then when I look over my shoulder to where Luke is handing her a drink and raising mine up to me all I can think of is him out of the picture.

  I run a hand through my hair, determined to focus on anything else besides the clusterfuck of my thoughts—the killer performance we gave tonight, the fact that my vocal chords feel incredible even after the extended set we did, or that I can still taste Quin’s lips and smell her perfume on my hands.

  Get the girl, Hawke. I laugh out loud to myself. That’s the funniest fucking line I’ve ever said because I always have the girl, normally no work needed and yet now I’m seeing how the other half lives—and this shit sucks.

  It’s just all of this shit with Hunter and Mom not doing well and now this bullshit seminar I have to do to prevent further damage that’s fucking with my head. The disturbance in the force crap is not for me.

  And neither is she, but sometimes you can’t fuck with fate.

  Time to get the girl.

  Chapter 14

  QUINLAN

  I’m listening to Luke but secretly watching Hawkin under the cover of the club’s darkness. His drinks have been coming at a steady pace for the past hour.

  I don’t know what it is that Hawke does to me, but it took every ounce of restraint I had not to mount him right then and there on the damn couch. His dick was so hard and felt so good rubbing between my thighs, never mind the way he kisses—the complete obliteration of senses and thoughts—all of the sensations made it so difficult to pull away even though I knew Luke was coming.

  Now I’m in such a clusterfuck of a position—seems like a constant since Hawke’s come into my life—of hurting Luke in order to take what I want … but denying how I feel, how Hawkin Play makes me feel, is not an option.

  My mind’s been running scenarios all night long and I just can’t seem to find a way to make this all play out without anyone getting hurt and that’s a shitty feeling all around. I’ve been in his shoes before and it sucks, it hurts, but I try to rationalize that I’ve been there after months of fidelity rather than a single date. But it doesn’t matter, I still feel guilty.

  So I’ve had a few more drinks than normal, laughed a little too loud more times than I care to count to feign like I’m having a blast instead of sitting with damp panties and wondering just how Hawkin fucks. He’s a contradiction in so many ways—the cocky asshole, the rock star player, the protective brother, the consummate band member, and yet underneath all of that I can’t get a read on the side of him that he lets slip every so often. The side I want to know, intimately.

  Luke leans in again to kiss me and while I’ve tolerated it several times, I can’t do it anymore. To not feel is to be dead and this girl likes to be made to feel alive. I’m sure it’s the alcohol bolstering my actions but instead of kissing him back dispassionately as I have the other times, I push up out of my seat and wiggle my hips.

  “I want to dance! You want to come with me?” I ask, knowing damn well he won’t after catching snippets of his conversation with Rocket earlier about his two left feet.

  “No. Nah. Not me,” he slurs, his alcohol intake making its presence noted as he holds his hands up in front of him despite the resignation in his eyes that tells me he wants to be the one grinding up against me on the floor.

  I scrunch my nose up in apology and wish that Layla was here—a little girl time on the dance floor is always fun, especially to protect your backside from drunk bastards trying to make advances you don’t want. For when I have to use the name Trixie.

  The music changes as I hit the floor, completely ignoring the several male hands that have already touched my arms asking for me to have a drink with them, and a David Guetta remix beat slams through the speakers. The alcohol, the unrequited sexual tension that’s controlled my body the past three hours, leaves me with each step that I push through the throng of people. I claim a small space in the middle of the floor and begin to move amid the undulating mass
of club-goers. The lights play over the people around me and I let myself get lost in the beat and from my thoughts.

  I dance a few more songs, glad I’ve pushed far enough into the crowd that I’ve been left alone by the guys trolling for action on the fringe of the floor, when I become too hot, my feet too sore in my heels, and decide I’m done. The beat of the music, the energy vibrating through my body, has only served to reinforce that I have to take this chance with him.

  Making my way back up the stairs, Axe nods his head in greeting when I clear the landing. I walk on steadier feet toward the crowd of guys around the table where we’ve been sitting all evening.

  Hawkin’s eyes find me first and a shameful smirk tugs up one corner of his mouth. The sight of his reaction to me does funny things to my insides. As I approach, I hear Luke groan out while the rest of the guys begin a chant I can’t quite make out. I swear to God it sounds like make it count—the irony of the saying Hawkin no doubt put to their game is not lost on me—but I’m unsure because they stop as I get closer.

  “A bet’s a bet, man,” Hawkin says, shifting his attention toward Luke, who is obviously on his way to getting plastered right now, judging by the glaze of his eyes and the ridiculous amount of empty shot glasses lined up on the table in front of the band.

  “Fffuuuccckkkk!” Luke slurs and lifts the glass to his lips with a defeated laugh. “Remind me never to challenge you to this again.”

  Gizmo erupts into laughter. “Dude. You never challenge musicians to a shot contest. We have hours on tour buses to build up tolerance to this shit—we’ll win hands down every time. Especially that fucker!” he says, pointing at Hawkin, who just leans back with his half-empty Jack and Coke in one hand and an empty shot glass in his other and watches with amusement.

  “Rocker trumps racer every time,” Hawkin laughs, his eyes glancing over to Vince as Luke chugs the shot back.