by K. Bromberg
I love the opportunity to watch Hawke work. He gets this little crease in his forehead when he jots down lyrics and reworks them on the pad. He also does this thing where he bites his lower lip as he strums out the chords on the guitar with his eyes closed before he brings the words into it. Something about his process is most definitely sexy.
Every time I see him stare off into space in thought, I wonder how he’s really doing, and I can’t help but remember the look on his face as he stared at his mother, the hurt and shock and devastation in his expression. It was so brutal to watch, so heart-wrenching to stand by and not be able to do anything to ease his pain.
He’s shut down still, not really talking about it, and yet I know the truths he learned are making him question everything about what he’s grown up believing. Maybe that’s why he’s poured himself into his music the last couple of days.
After this past week, I know my mom’s old adage describes Hawkin perfectly: Sometimes the strongest people are the ones who love beyond all faults, only truly grieve behind closed doors, and fight battles that nobody knows about. My only hope is that by losing himself in his music, he’s been able to process everything.
Besides leaving the house for his last lecture today, he hasn’t really left the studio much according to Vince. But in Vince’s eyes that means Hawke’s coping, he’s working through it with music, and that’s a good sign.
Hawke glances up and smiles softly, the guitar falling silent. It takes a moment for me to realize I’ve been caught staring at him and the smile on my lips is out of pure reflex.
“Hey, how’s your paper going?” he asks as he grabs a handful of M&M’s.
“If it included a hot rocker guy writing a song, then I’d say it was going great…. You’re distracting, Play.”
My stomach flutters at the full-fledged grin he gives me in return. “I can distract you in other ways if you’d like.” He raises his eyebrows and my heart squeezes at the comment because it’s the first time he’s pseudo flirted with me since everything happened.
Maybe Vince is right, maybe the music is helping.
“I’d like that. Maybe I can inspire you with my wicked ways to write a dirty song.”
“Sweetness, every time I touch this guitar I’m reminded of you.” He smirks, my eyes drawn to the guitar and my body reacts viscerally. “But there are plenty of other instruments in here; we can try to add another one to our sexed-up band.”
I start to clear the papers from my lap, not one to turn down the look in his eyes or the hints of what they say he wants to do to me. My old, playful Hawkin has emerged from hiding and a part of me sighs in relief. He reaches me the same time I have a clear lap and drops to his knees between my legs.
Leaning forward, he bestows a tender kiss that causes that sweet, slow ache to burn in my core. He slips his tongue between my lips, and I swear to God I can taste the next sixty years when his mouth connects with mine.
The thought startles me. Shocks me enough that I break away from the kiss. A tide of panic flutters within me but at the same time, I know what I just felt was real. With our faces inches apart I stare into his eyes, my hands smoothing over his jaw as I let the idea settle some.
“I know, I’m sorry,” Hawke says throwing me for a loop.
“What?”
“You have every right to question me right now with everything and how I’ve been acting and—”
“That’s not … I’m not questioning … I just …” My voice trails off as I realize he thinks I’m hesitant to kiss him, to be intimate with him, because of how closed off he’s been the past few days, when in reality it’s because I’m so overwhelmed with feelings. How do I tell him that and not freak him out? I can’t. Not with everything he’s going through.
“Hawke, it’s not you at all. I—”
“You guys gonna come out of your sex studio long enough to join the party?” Vince asks as he barges in the room. A knowing laugh falls from his mouth when he sees our positioning. “See, I knew it. Shit, I owe Rocket ten bucks. I told him that there was no way—”
“We’ll be there in a minute,” Hawke shouts over his shoulder. “We’re kind of busy.” He leans in and kisses me again, a little piece of Heaven amid the chaos that’s been surrounding us as of late. I slide my hands up his torso, anxious to feel him and touch him, show him somehow, some way that his past is his past, and that his future is wide open.
I moan into his mouth as his strong hand slides up under my shirt, rough to soft, and finds my breast, thumb grazing over my nipple as his mouth seduces me. I sink into the feeling, the emotion surrounding us, and can’t think of any other place I’d want to be.
Hawkin’s phone buzzes with a text and we ignore it as my hands start to tease and tempt and taunt his bare flesh, loving the heat of him beneath my fingertips, the bunching of muscles, the connection being made. His hands work wonders on my breasts, his fingers finding their way beneath my bra so his calloused fingers pleasurably scrape across my sensitized flesh. My head falls back as I lose myself to the sensation and he moves his mouth to the span of skin on my neck to place openmouthed kisses there.
His phone alerts another text. “Such a popular guy. I guess I should feel lucky to be in your presence,” I tease breathlessly, my senses in overdrive.
“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be than right here, right now,” he murmurs with his lips against my neck. His phone alerts again and he mutters, “Jesus Christ!”
“It might be your …” And my voice fades off, afraid to bring up his mom, but I’m already worried.
He swears again and leans back to the table he was writing lyrics on and grabs his phone. God he looks sexy with his hair all mussed up by my hands. He looks at his phone and scrunches his face up momentarily before slamming his phone down. I cringe at the sound and worry what’s wrong.
“Fucking Hunter,” he grits out. “The lecture’s over so he must be back on the prowl for drugs again. How is it possible he’s asking for money? He gets more than enough. Goddamn it!” He shakes his head and runs a hand through his hair before raising his eyes slowly to meet mine. “I’m sorry—this is … this is just how it is with me. I’m trying to change this—how I need to fix him and help—so it’s going to take me some time to not react … to not enable him. You deserve better than this….” His voice trails off and he lowers his head.
I scurry over to where he sits on his knees and mimic his posture. I force his head up with my hands and stare into those gray eyes of his that do funny things to my insides, even now when he’s looking at me with regret. “Hey, rocker boy … I don’t want anybody else though, I want you.” I love this hitch in his breath from my words, love knowing that it can affect him that way because maybe one day he’ll be able to tell me what I see in his eyes … that he feels the same way about me.
“Quin …”
“Look … I’m here, okay? I’m not going anywhere. It’s going to take time and I get that.” I lean forward and use my lips to reinforce the words. He pulls me into him and uses his tongue meeting mine to tell me he understands.
The door at our back flings open, the noise of the party escalating tenfold from when Vince did what seems like minutes ago. “Hawkin motherfucking Play! Get your and Trixie’s ass out here now!” Gizmo says with a drunken laugh. “It’s time to party!”
The tenderness of the moment is gone but I still have Hawke in my arms. “We can escape if you want…. After this week, you might not want to …”
“Nah,” he says with a chuckle. “I’m okay.” He kisses me one more time. “We’re coming, Giz!”
Note to self: Never let Rocket mix me drinks again. Holy shit, he makes them strong!
My mind’s a bit fuzzy as I wander downstairs looking for Hawkin, wanting to make sure he’s okay after all of the shit from this week. And I might want to take him upstairs and have my way with him because every time I think of him, I feel that ache deep in my core and know the only person who can sate it is him.<
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“Have you seen Hawkin?” I ask a group of women, my buzzed mind not registering until it’s too late that they’re probably here angling for the man that I have and they might not be too friendly.
“Why, who are you?” The redhead sneers.
“I’m with the band,” I say, my own private joke because they think I’m just another floozy on the long list of them here tonight.
“Really?”
“Is it true what they say?”
“Do they like to tag team?”
All three questions are thrown at me at once and I can’t focus on a single one of them because I catch sight of Hawkin across the room. “Sure, yeah …” I leave them behind, on a mission to walk up and kiss him to prove to them I am indeed with the band.
About fifteen feet away from Hawke, I stop when I see him arguing with Vince. I can’t hear what they’re saying but can tell by the body language that Hawke’s not happy. I walk closer, curious and cautious at the same time.
“Why are you pushing this so hard?” Hawke asks, his jaw clenching.
“Deal’s a deal, man.” He shrugs his shoulder and catches my eye, immediately standing down. He holds his hands up in mock surrender and backs away. Hawke shoots daggers at him and Vince just laughs with a shake of his head. “I’m off to the head. Let me know when you change your mind.” He turns to leave the kitchen, and when he walks past me, he stops to kiss me on the cheek. “Convince your man to come and play, Trixie.”
It takes a minute for his words to sink in and by the time they do, Vince is gone. I’m not sure what in the hell he means but shrug it off because I meet Hawke’s eyes and even though there’s underlying irritation at Vince, I can also see the desire we unleashed earlier simmering beneath it.
I walk toward him; the sight of him slightly unkempt, with a carefree smile he hasn’t possessed for days calls to my libido on so many levels it’s ridiculous. He brings a shot of something to his mouth and I don’t even give a second thought to what it is because I know I’ll taste it on my lips momentarily.
He hums deep in his throat when I step up into his body and there is something so inherently sexy about the sound—knowing that I caused that reaction—that together with the feel of his firm body against mine lets me know there will be no interruptions this time.
He looks at me, eyes darkening and one hand sliding beneath my shirt a beat before our lips meet in a hungry, no-holds-barred kiss. His empty bottle clatters on the counter behind him so that his other hand can join in the temptation. I lose myself in the taste of the tequila on his tongue, and the hypnotizing feeling of his hands on my body.
The music thumps hard around us, the noise buzzes, and the faint scent of cigarette smoke wafts in from outside but it’s as if none of it hits me because I’m consumed by everything about him: his taste, his cologne, the groan I can’t hear but can feel against our connected chests, the heat of his body. I don’t care who’s watching because it’s almost as if the overwhelming emotions that he’s experienced all week long are manifesting themselves into our mutual desperation.
“Upstairs. Now,” he murmurs against my lips, and I’ve never heard more perfect words. He grasps the bottle of tequila behind him in one hand and my hand in the other without saying anything further and walks with purpose through the crowd. I can’t see his face but he must have a determined look on it because not one person stops him to talk when that’s been the norm for the evening thus far. At the bottom of the stairs, I catch the eyes of the three wannabe women and just smirk. Call me bitchy, but I can’t help it, I’m with the one they were hoping to land tonight.
Chapter 29
QUINLAN
We reach Hawke’s room and he pushes the door open, sets the bottle down, then closes the door. The minute it shuts behind us, giving us a reprieve from the thumping bass below, we collide together in a mass of desperate desire turned into burning need. We’re all hands and mouths and moans and grinds, body to body, need against want, desire fueled by lust. I can’t get enough of him. Not now, not ever, and I just allow myself to feel this, feel him, and not think.
He puts his hands in my shirt and pulls it over my head, throwing it behind him without thought, his mouth back on mine. Then he pulls away, shocking me from the lack of connection despite the heat of his breath panting over my lips. “I’ll be right back. I have a surprise for you,” he murmurs against my groan.
“Nooo! Don’t leave.”
He leans in and places a lingering kiss on my lips that I try to deepen to entice him but to no avail. “You’ll like it—I promise. Get naked for me and I’ll be right back.”
“It better be good,” I grumble.
“Have I disappointed you yet?” He says with a flash of that grin that makes me want to do dirty things with him. “Here,” he says thrusting the bottle toward me.
“Are you trying to get me liquored and loose?” I tease, taking the bottle and setting it down on the dresser. I’ve had enough to drink tonight. Besides, no amount of alcohol has the ability to intoxicate me as thoroughly as the man in front of me.
“Sweetness, I don’t need liquor to get you loose,” he whispers against my ear and then shuts the door behind him as he leaves.
I stand in the darkness for a moment, kind of pissed and kind of excited all at the same time because I know it must be something good for him to leave me in the middle of I’m about to get laid time.
I strip down and slide between the sheets suddenly leery that there are a hundred or so people downstairs and any one of them could wander up and open the door. I close my eyes, imagining Hawke’s mouth on mine and all the ways he can manipulate my body, then I slide my hand into the wetness between my thighs and rub gently. It’s nowhere near as satisfying as when Hawkin does it but I know it will make me more ready, allow my orgasm to come that much quicker, and man if I’m not ready to come.
The door opens, a dark shadow against the brightness of the light behind him, and I sit up in the bed, my sheet falling around my waist. “What took you so long?”
“Well, shit.” The voice has me grabbing for the sheet and pulling it up around me as fast as possible despite the darkness of the room. “Hawkin actually wants to do this.”
“Vince?” I ask in an unsteady voice, trying to wrap my head around what the hell he’s doing in here, and then my mind processes his comment. “Do what?”
I have a surprise for you. I hear Hawke’s words again from moments before as my mind recalls several times since we’ve met where there has been the innuendo about a threesome. I thought it was just guy talk, macho bullshit, but that mixed with the comment from the groupie girls downstairs causes my heart to start pounding rapidly. Is this really what Hawkin wants?
Vince’s laugh is low and suggestive and as much as I want to say the idea doesn’t turn me on, it does. What woman doesn’t want to be pleasured by two men at the same time, if not just to check it off her sexual bucket list? Of course it’s crossed my mind, but does that mean I’d actually follow through if I had the opportunity …?
I guess I’m about to find out the answer.
I’m not one to be talked into anything, especially on the sexual front. The idea of this threesome unnerves me and at the same time sends that tingle of desire in my core into overdrive. Do I want to do something like this? Is this something Hawke’s used to doing? What if I start to go for it and then chicken out?
My mind wars over all of this in a matter of mere seconds while my palms start to sweat and my body trembles with indecision and the unknown. “Did Hawke tell you to come up here?” I ask with an unsteady voice, and I know it’s a shitty thing to ask, like I doubt him, but I can’t help it.
“Rocket said he was looking for me where he makes music because he needed me to help with something. I went to the studio and he wasn’t there, so I tried here and I …” He whistles low and quick. “After his tiff in the kitchen I wasn’t expecting this, but shit, Trix, I’m game if you are?”
I’m stil
l unsure how I feel about this, excited yet nervous, wanting to and at the same time fearful about how the dynamic would change if we went through with a threesome. Add to that, the man I want is Hawkin, hands down. Vince is good-looking in a lot of ways but Hawkin just affects everything within me like no other man has done before.
Vince’s question hangs in the air with the lingering excitement of the unknown. And then Hawke’s smile from earlier tonight flashes through my mind, the ease, the relaxation; the old Hawkin that I’d missed was back, and if doing this for and with him keeps it there, then I’m good with the idea.
Besides, I’m usually open to new experiences and this most definitely would be one…. I just have to go into it with an open mind and defined limits.
“I … um …” It’s all I can manage, glad Vince can’t see the flush in my cheeks through the shadowed darkness of the room because then I’d really feel like the naive little girl right now.
“It’s okay, Q. We’ll take it slow. Only do what you’re comfortable with. Hawke and I may have done this a time or two,” he says, providing me with a strange comfort.
“Sorry, Q, I can’t find the surprise,” Hawkin says as the door opens and closes behind him.
“I’m right here, man,” Vince says, and although I can see only Hawke’s profile, I can see the double-take action of his head.
“What—”
“Can’t believe both of you are game after all of the shit you’ve been giving me over this.”
The room falls silent momentarily as Hawke walks the length of the room to where I’m perched on the bed. Nerves start to hum within me and I suddenly wish that the bottle of tequila was closer because hell if I’m not going to need some liquid courage now that this is about to happen. Hawke sinks down onto the bed beside me.
