Reflex

by Madelynne Ellis

  No taking the coward’s way out.

  “Spook?” Her voice immediately knotted itself around his senses. “Thank God. I thought… I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to…”

  “You’re hitting on the wrong guy.”

  Silence. Then, “Did the gig go well?”

  Part of him wanted to howl with laughter at her attempt to right the balance between them with a bit of post-show analysis. The rest of him wanted her to stand her ground and keep on hitting him with the same stinging bullets she usually fired.

  “Spook?”

  “Yeah.” He managed to dredge up a reply from the bottom of his lungs. “It was good. A fitting end to the official tour.”

  “Cool! That’s good that you went out on a high. I’m just sorry I couldn’t get out and see you guys. It’s been an eternity.”

  There’s the gig in Monte Carlo. Could you get to that?

  “Wailing guitars would certainly be an improvement on whining cats. ‘Give me the food, hooman.’,” she said putting on a voice. “‘No, not that food, different food. Anything but this offensive muck you’ve dared serve up. How can you think I would lower myself to eat this shit?’”

  A little of the tension in his neck and shoulders eased away. “Ever considered re-homing the ungrateful wretch?”

  She laughed. “All the damn time, but Ewan would kill me, and Theo would use it as an excuse to acquire something significantly more terrible.”

  Sounded to him like re-homing her brothers might be a sound plan.

  “Is he still threatening you with eight legs?”

  “Yup. The bastard even set up a tank the other day, and put one of those life-like plastic ones in it. I almost throttled him after I’d finished peeing my knickers. You don’t mind spiders, do you? Because, I have to tell you, His Magnificence Ronnie the Pretty is even more shit scared of them than I am. One crawled across the sound mixer and he nearly let off the fire extinguisher over it.”

  “I’m cool with creepy things.” He stuck two imaginary fingers up at Ronnie the Pretty.

  “Thank heavens for that. You don’t kill them though? You put them out?”

  “Even the big, fat furry ones.” Actually, he normally just let them go about their business in the corner, or whatever, which wasn’t so different to how he treated his sex obsessed band mates, disregarding the occasional picture. “So, did you wait until it was just the two of you, corner him, and suggest he tan your arse?”

  Shit!

  “Wow!” she gasped. “Did I hit a nerve mentioning his bubble butt?”

  “No.”

  “Yeah, well it sure sounds like it. I did not, as a matter of fact. Should I have done?”

  “You should do what the bloody hell you like.”

  “Hm,” she crooned. “I think you’re jealous, Spook Mortensen. Which is hilarious, I might add. You don’t need to be. Ronnie’s a sweet little lamb. I don’t think he could hurt anything, excepting spiders. And besides, my interests are very firmly fixed in one particular direction.”

  “Foolishly,” he muttered. “I can’t give you what you want, Alle.”

  “Spook, you have, you can, and you do. I’m not going to pretend to understand why you think otherwise, but I’m all ears if you want to explain it.”

  Yeah, that wasn’t happening. Ever. Bad enough that he knew what he was, without clueing in anyone else.

  “Hm,” she said in response to his silence, as if it was expected.

  “All right, you tell me this, Mr I’m Not Jealous Only Mysterious, if I had asked him, and he had striped my behind, would you have liked to hear me confess?”

  What the hell sort of question was that?

  Obviously, not.

  Except that didn’t gel with the scarily squirmy physical response he was experiencing. His heart did a little jig again, but this time it didn’t make him want to dial an ambulance.

  Fuck it. Yes. Yes, he would. Jeezus! What sort of man got a buzz off having it recounted to him how some other fuckwit had striped the arse of the woman he fancied?

  And now… now, he was sporting enough friggin’ wood you’d be forgiven for thinking he’d just delivered said spanking, not just speculated about whether he’d like to hear about her playing with other men.

  You are one sad git, Mortensen.

  “I’d have you send me a photograph,” he said.

  Man was he on fire today. He couldn’t trust himself within ten miles of this woman. Best they stick to their not quite, barely almost, late night chat perv-athon text marathons. At least that way all he had to worry about was his rock hard dick and not landing himself in a cell or a mental ward.

  “What would you do with it? If I sent you a picture like that?”

  No, no, no. She was not supposed to respond to his nonsense.

  Add it to his collection.

  Spend inordinately obscene amounts of time admiring it, while envisaging tracing his tongue over the welts.

  Telling himself it was okay to admire it as a piece of art, just so long as he didn’t jerk off over it.

  Wanking like bloody crazy over it.

  This was fucking insane. He was not this person. He didn’t toss himself off over photographs. Being celibate wasn’t just about saying no to the guys and girls, it applied to self-love too.

  “Are you thinking about stroking your cock?”

  How the fuck could she see into his head?

  “Because, I have to tell you that I’d really like it if you did. It’d be crazy hot.”

  “Shut-up!” he blurted. Heat sizzling in his cheeks.

  “Spook, the next time we meet up—”

  Yeah, about that.

  “—will you tie me up like you did in the limousine, and come all over me? I want you to get it in my hair and all over my face, and I want you to rub it into the stripes you’ve left on my arse.”

  “Alle,” he gasped.

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? I’m not the only one who gets off at the idea of it. Does it make you hard imagining it?”

  He groaned. There was no holding it in.

  “Spook, are you hard now?”

  Was he hard? His traitorous cock was bloody nodding in agreement, and there was a reel playing in his head of her tied up and bent over, while he dished it out like a fucking pro.

  He must have made another noise, because he heard her breath catch and then quicken.

  “Spook, I know you like being in charge, but what if, just this once, you allowed me to dictate?”

  “Dictate what?”

  “The terms of your pleasure. Your surrender.”

  He gave a dry huff-like laugh.

  “I’m serious. Now, be a good boy, and do as you’re told. I want you to unzip your fly and stroke yourself. Imagine it’s my hand.”

  What the hell sort of crazy train was this? “Alle. I’m not going to do that.”

  “It’s not you doing it. It’s me.”

  “What makes you think I’d let you touch me like that?”

  “I don’t think it. I know it. You like what I do to you, even when you’re protesting you don’t. You wouldn’t move to stop me until after I’d wrapped my palm around your cock. Then, you’d clamp your hand around my wrist so hard that it’d hurt, and you’d get all up in my face about me putting my hands where they don’t belong. But you’d be jerking my curled grip up and down even as you said it, because really, you want it, and you want to come. I think you want to so badly right now your balls are practically on the verge of mutiny. I mean, tell me, when’s the last time you actually came? I’m kind of scared you’re going to say it was the last time we were face to face.”

  “Yeah.” He agreed to the last point, not the rest.

  “Shit, that’s mental. I need to come and take care of you.”

  So many chances, so many opportunities to tell her he was free to make them meeting up a reality, but how could he when she had the power to affect him like this. It was way too risky.

  “Unzip yo
ur fly, Spook. Give it a squeeze. Go on, one cheeky squeeze from me.”

  No way. “I’m in a public place.” Like that was the deciding factor.

  “A supremely quiet public place. Don’t pretend like there’s anyone around to see. You’re alone. Come on, touch yourself. Just this once. Allow yourself to feel something, to be just a little out of control.”

  “I’m not going to do it, Alle.” One touch might not erode the control he had over himself, but who was to say one touch wouldn’t lead to two, and two to a stealthy jerk lying in bed later, images in his head—and then what? Wanking over photographs, constantly rubbing them off in the shower, sliding between her thighs without a care in the world. He could not allow himself to fall into that darkness, and drown.

  Eight years—nearly nine—of celibacy had kept him safe… and kept him sane.

  You wouldn’t deprive a girl of her fantasies now, would you?

  “I think I ought to go now.”

  “Spook. Don’t. I just miss you, okay. I want to see you.”

  She wanted to fuck him.

  “Is that going to be possible?”

  He turned so that he was facing the building and screwed his eyes tight shut.

  “I can’t give you what you want. I’m sorry, Alle. Truly.”

  “Don’t hang up on me. Don’t you dare.” The panic in her voice rang clear. He was letting her down. He knew that, but what the hell was he supposed to do?

  “There are other people out there who can give you what you want. I can’t. I can’t. It’s not about whether I can lift my hand. I don’t want to deal with the emotions of it.”

  “That doesn’t sound very healthy.”

  “I’m fine,” he said. “Celibacy works for me. I’m not looking to change that.”

  “There’s no one else?” she asked, quietly.

  “Alle, there’s no one else. And there won’t be. I ought to say goodnight. The guys will be wondering where I am. We’ve a party to get to, and I need to freshen up.” He also needed time to get his thoughts in line and his raging hormones back under control. Spook Mortensen did not go partying with a stiff dick.

  She didn’t say anything to that, though he could hear her unhappy sighs on the other end of the line.

  “Goodnight, Allegra.” Say goodnight, he willed her.

  All he got was silence, and he was too much of a fucking gentleman to hang up. “Alle?”

  “What? You can’t expect me to be happy.”

  “No, of course I don’t expect that. I just don’t think… I don’t want to have a sexual relationship. Not with you. Not with anybody.”

  “That doesn’t even make sense. I was there, I know what we shared. You were emotionally invested. You still are, or why are we having this conversation nine months later. And why are you fucking hard?”

  If only there was an easy way to explain without goddamned explaining.

  “Spook? Spook! Oh my God. SPOOOOOOK!”

  The cries momentarily confused him, until he realised they weren’t coming from his mobile, and that they were getting louder. Fearfully, he glanced over his shoulder. Shit! How had they got around here?

  “Alle, I have to go.”

  Not one, not two—he could have handled that. Had done so on multiple occasions—but a whole demented crowd of fans were swarming towards him. Dammit, he was a bloody fool. A quick scout of the perimeter would have told him the yard wasn’t secure. There was a whole bloody panel missing where the fencing should have butted up to the wall. He was going to get fucking mauled, and the last thing he wanted right now was anyone touching him.

  -2-

  Spook didn’t wait to hear Alle’s response. He shoved the phone into his jeans pocket and ran.

  It didn’t save him.

  The crowd reached him before he’d got more than three steps. Swarmed him, lifted him danced him around like a bottle on an ocean wave. Too many people. Too many bodies. Way too many demands.

  Things stopped making sense.

  His fist curled, as he contained the urge to lash out, to push people away. Soon it wasn’t only his clothing being touched. There were at least a dozen hands under his shirt, and others pulling at his fly. Some simply clung on. Others mapped the contours of his body, their fingerprints searing his skin.

  Not good at any time. Particularly discomforting when he was still half-hard.

  He started to pull inside himself. The rushing sound from earlier had returned to his ears. Relax. Just focus on breathing.

  Where the hell were security?

  There was no fending them off. No holding them back. It was all he could do to keep his hands in front of his face so that he didn’t end up having his eyes clawed out. The number of hungry mouths presented and seemingly keen to eat him alive was bewildering.

  “Ladies!”

  The holler resulted in a momentary stilling of the crowd, before the mayhem resumed. A figure cut through the mass, heading straight for him like a black rider, only in place of a hood and cloak, he wore shades and a security shirt and cap.

  One guy wasn’t going to disperse this lot.

  “That’s enough now ladies. Break it up. Give the man some breathing space. Believe it or not, rock stars have boundaries, too.”

  Security with a sense of humour. Brilliant.

  Some of the clawing hands actually left him. He no longer felt quite so caged, or likely to be knocked off his feet. He could breathe – well, a little. Unfortunately, those unperturbed by the arrival got more tenacious.

  Someone squeezed his arse. Someone else caged his cock in a possessive grip, and crowed in delight at finding him semi-hard. Something tore. Spook glanced down as the lower half of his T-shirt sheared away from the remainder. The perpetrator gave a triumphant cry before being ruthlessly shoved aside by the security guard.

  “Bloody hell, they’re like vultures.”

  As abruptly as they’d arrived, the hands were gone.

  Spook tentatively lowered his hands a fraction so that he could see over the tops of his fingers. Every inch of his skin prickled in a way that made him want to scratch at the flesh.

  “You all right, mate?”

  This guy obviously wasn’t part of the venue staff. With that accent, he had to be part of their crew, not that he could recall having seen him before.

  “Girls huh? Suppose you never get used to it. Come this way, right. Let’s get you back inside.”

  Spook flinched as the man’s hand hit his shoulder and turned him about.

  Keep your hands to yourself. Twitchy over the continued contact, Spook nevertheless allowed himself to be guided back into the building. He could be in the dressing room, in the shower, in about forty seconds. He needed to scrub his skin. It felt like there were bits of other people’s dirty souls stuck to him.

  The door closed behind them. “Wait.”. The crowd must have shifted him about more than he’d realised. This was a different part of the building to where the dressing room lay. There were no sounds. No roadies. No work crews. No noise, except the hum of some sort of generator. Everything was painted the same muted grey, and the faint reek of stale sweat and vomit rose off the flooring.

  “Where the hell…? I need to get back to the band.”

  “Yeah, it’s this way,” Security dude drawled, like there was no great rush. Screw that! Spook made an abrupt one-eighty towards the door they’d come through, which had the added bonus of relieving him of the guy’s grip. “Whoa! Where are you going? You can’t go back out there.”

  “Quickest way.”

  “Yeah, no.”

  Spook already had his hand on the latch.

  It took a moment when his face hit the metal panel for the impact to register. Then explosions went off right across his brain, while black holes danced in his field of vision.

  “I said not happening, fuckwit.”

  It seemed his legs would give out, but the heavy form that moulded itself to his back kept him upright.

  There were hands pawin
g at him again, one around his throat, the other exploring the delineations of his abs. “Celibate, my arse. Like anyone over the age of twelve ever looked at you and believed it.”

  The grip on his throat tightened, which created a static buzz in his ears. A trickle of blood ran down from his temple and blinded him in one eye. “I’ve seen the articles. That bitch Elspeth spilled it all for you, eh? Let the world know what you are.”

  The hell what?

  He managed to gulp down a breath, and the spike of oxygen in his lungs provided a few seconds of clarity. Whoever this guy was, he wasn’t security. No lammy. He’d probably just walked in off the streets.

  God, he was fucked.

  It was vital he didn’t pass out.

  The pain through his skull felt like someone smashing pint glass after pint glass over his head. Static filled his ears.

  “Get off me,” he slurred. He managed to jerk an elbow back into the guy’s ribs, but all that earned him was another kiss from the metal door. This one drove his teeth into his lip, so that he was now tasting blood as well as having his vision blurred by it.

  “Don’t worry, Goldilocks, I’ll give you a good time.”

  The hand on his throat tightened even as the one pawing his abs jerked down to encompass his cock. Revulsion boiled through his core.

  “Oh, look at that. Is that for me?”

  Despite everything, he was still sporting a semi. How the fuck did that work?

  Why were the body’s fight and flight mechanisms so nonsensical?

  “Like it rough, do you? Good. So do I. You’ll like what I’ve got for you. And we won’t be using lube.”

  He fought with everything he had left in him. It wasn’t enough. The jerk was rubbing his cheek against Spook’s hair. Then, a set of teeth grazed his earlobe, setting off a cold trickle down the side of his neck that congealed in the hollow of his collar bone. The world began to collapse in on itself.

  “You deserve this, you little piece of filth. You’re a fucking animal. After all you did… How’d you like being trussed up and fucking used?”