Reflex

by Madelynne Ellis

  “Cold shower you took, was it?” he grouched, before scratching irritably at the stubble covering his jaw.

  Xane snorted. “It was, and I don’t mind admitting it. Unlike you, I have no issues with self-care. So yeah, I rubbed one out. A couple actually. You’re as hot as sin when you let yourself enjoy the good things, and you did give me the full multi-sensory experience. Only a robot wouldn’t have been turned on by that.”

  Xane was very much not a robot. He had emotions enough for four with some left over. It still disturbed him that Xane so casually accepted what had happened, with barely a twitch of discomfort. Admittedly, it wasn’t anything the guy hadn’t seen before, but still…

  “Are you going to beat yourself up over it? Because seriously, what’s the point? You want her, but you won’t let yourself get near her, so you enjoyed a nice fantasy of it instead. I’m not judging.”

  Spook glared at him, but Xane merely shrugged. “Watching you is always inspirational.”

  “Fuck off,” he growled.

  “Fuck you?” Xane deliberately misquoted. “You know I totally would if you’d let me.”

  “You’re in a relationship… ships.”

  “Doesn’t mean I don’t think about banging other people. There’s no law against imagining. Judging by how wound up you currently are, you need to spend a whole lot more time indulging your fantasy life.”

  Spook buried his nose in the coffee mug and scowled as he drank. “Maybe I’d prefer not to be thinking about her at all. And maybe I’m not exactly thrilled to learn I was last night’s porn channel entertainment.”

  It more than mildly disturbed him that he’d put on any sort of show at all. He avoided wanking as a matter of course. Bad enough that his body had betrayed him without witnesses to the act.

  Not just any witness either, but one who was disturbingly comfortable with it.

  Fine, so Xane practically lived for sex, but that didn’t make it okay. It made it… He didn’t know what it made it. Something. Something that grated on his nerves, and was presently inducing toothache. Conscious that he was gritting his teeth, he purposefully flexed his jaw.

  “For fuck’s sakes, Spook. I was going to get off anyway, and it’s not like I lay alongside you tugging it.”

  “Small mercies,” he muttered. “That I only have your word for.”

  Xane rolled his eyes. Now finished with the hairbrush, he discarded it on the bed.

  “You should call her.”

  “I don’t want to fucking call her.”

  “She’s probably worried sick about you.”

  Low blow. “You sent her a message to say I was okay, didn’t you?”

  Xane lifted his shoulders, and slowly let them drop. “That’s not the same as hearing it from you.”

  He was right, but it didn’t change anything. “I’m not calling.” For a whole multitude of reasons. Even pushing the intricacies of their non-relationship aside, he didn’t want to relive any part of last night. Too much of it was still far too clear in his head. More importantly though, “I’m not calling her and telling her I’m okay when it’s an outright lie.”

  He didn’t lie – not like that.

  Xane came closer, and made a space for himself on the side of the bed by Spook’s knees. He folded his hand over the top of the one Spook had on the outside of the covers. “Talk to me.”

  The fuck? They’d had this conversation already. “There’s nothing to say.” Spook snatched his hand away from Xane’s touch. It didn’t help. Xane only grasped it again, and started rubbing his thumb back and forth over the pulse point on Spook’s wrist in an infuriatingly soothing manner.

  “I’m not going to piss off.”

  “Honestly Xane, there’s nothing to say. Some jerk wanted to fuck me. He’s not the first, and probably won’t be the last. Yes, he copped a feel. No, I’m not thrilled about that. Yes, I’d like to sever his nuts from his body. Anything else you’d like me to divulge?”

  “Allegra—where’s it going?”

  “Nowhere.” Was his response abrupt? Well, that’s because he was tired of repeating himself. Hell, if it wasn’t for the fact he abhorred the idea of mucking with body chemistry –last night’s drunkenness was an acceptable lapse under the circumstances – he’d have considered chemical castration.

  A lack of a libido at this point would be a godsend.

  Instead a fever was building inside his veins due to the mere mention of her and sex within the same ten minute time frame.

  “It can’t go anywhere.”

  “It could if you let it.”

  Which he was not going to do. He threw back the covers and got out of bed.

  “Why not give it a chance, Spook? You know it’s what you want.”

  “I do not.” He bit his own tongue, and screwed up his mouth into a sour pout. “Fine, you’re right. But, I don’t want to want her. Ergo I’m not doing a bloody thing.”

  “That should be a song,” Xane mused. “I don’t want to want her.”

  “Feel free to write it. I’m going in the shower.”

  That ought to have ended the conversation and granted him some privacy, but no. No sooner was he under the spray than Xane gate-crashed the bathroom. He took a perch on the side of the bathtub.

  Spook glared at him through the misted glass of the cubicle.

  “I think we should talk about why.” Xane raised his voice to be heard over the noise of the shower spray.

  “You know why, Xane. I’m not rehashing this for your pleasure. Now could you piss off, please?”

  “You’re frightened. I get it. It’s a big step. Plus, you’re out of practice.”

  “Fuck off,” he muttered under his breath. Keeping Allegra at arm’s length had nothing to do with his sexual prowess and how much practice, or lack of, he’d had recently. Frightened – yeah, he’d accept that one. And with cause.

  “You know I’m mithering you over this for your own good.”

  And there I was thinking it was to sate your passion for salacious gossip.

  He upended the shampoo bottle over his hand, and proceeded to lather. Just fucking leave me alone.

  No such luck. Xane was a tenacious bastard.

  “Do you really think you can deny that part of yourself forever?”

  “Yes, actually.” Maybe… Flashes of how Alle had made him feel last night at the back of the arena left him shivering. He rotated the temperature dial.

  Okay, so maybe not. But at least his cock didn’t jerk to attention the way it had last night. Thank God for small mercies. He’d given Xane one display too many already. Although, the room was so steamed up now, he doubted Xane could see much of anything.

  As if cued by his thoughts, the extractor fan kicked in.

  “Call her,” Xane insisted again.

  Spook stuck his head out of the shower. “No!”

  “Ask her to get her sexy butt to the gig tonight because you need a blowjob and a damn good fuck.”

  He groaned. “Goddamn you, Xane. Don’t you even think about calling and saying that.”

  Xane raised his hands. “Dani would kill me if I ever said that to another woman. Also, it doesn’t really work as a pass along message. That’s the sort of request best expressed in person.”

  “I don’t want any of those things,” Spook blurted.

  Xane cackled, and kept on laughing the harder Spook glared at him, until eventually, when even the misted shower screen failed to block out the offensive baying, he growled, “Fine, you bloody win. I want her. So what? Wanting something and doing something about it are two very different things. I want to kick you repeatedly in the nads at the minute, but it doesn’t mean I’m actually going to do it. Look, I get that you’re so sex obsessed you’re never going to understand, but I genuinely don’t want to go there with her. If we could keep things one hundred per cent platonic between us, then I’d see her tomorrow. But I know that’s not what she wants. Like you, she has sex on the brain—”

  “And
you don’t.”

  “I do not think about sex every minute of the fucking day.”

  “No, you think about sex-adjacent things.”

  It was as if Xane pushed a flippin’ button, unleashing a montage of erotic images into his brain; rope, cuffs, white palm prints on a beautifully reddened behind. Images sliding one over the top of the other in his mind, like he was flicking through the pages of a scrapbook.

  “I’m really going to fucking punch you in a minute.” None of those things belonged in his head. None of them. He didn’t want them there.

  “Do that, and we’ll end up somewhere neither of us are prepared for.”

  In the steamed up glass, he caught a sudden vision of Xane on his knees, cock in hand, while a trickle of blood ran from his nose. He was staring upwards with his mouth open.

  Spook coated himself in shower gel and scrubbed. No. Just no. He didn’t want Xane in his head. It was bad enough avoiding pitfalls that made him think of Alle. Alle, who he’d very much like to bend over his lap right now for her part in providing the distraction that had endangered him last night. If he hadn’t been caught up in her fantasy version of what their relationship could be like, then none of the crap that had followed would have occurred. Not the knob-head who’d assaulted him, or Ava fucking Leigh getting in his face. Nor would he have wound up dead drunk and wanking for Xane’s entertainment.

  Arrrghh!

  The soap was making the cuts in his palm sting.

  He thumped the glass, whereupon Xane slid the cubicle door and stuck his head inside. “Everything okay?”

  “No it bloody isn’t. You’re in my face. I look like shit. My hand stings. My throat hurts. We’ve a gig to play, and Allegra Hutton has this crazy idea in her head that I’m going to be some sort of benevolent master who smacks her arse when she’s feeling down, and then cuddles her until the world is better again. I’m not. And I’m never going to be. That’s not me. I’m not interested in bending her to my will, or owning a slave, I just want…” He buttoned his lips together tight.

  “—to leave a kaleidoscopic patchwork of marks all over her body and then fuck her hair,” Xane finished for him.

  Spook cringed. “I said that last night, didn’t I?” Jeezus, it ought to be illegal to remind people what they said and did while drunk. He turned off the spray and stepped out of the cubicle, waving his hand for a towel. Xane passed him one. “For the record, I don’t actually want to fuck her hair.”

  “But you do want to fuck her… and leave marks behind.”

  He sucked the cut in his lip, the scab over which had been softened by the water.

  Xane shook his head. “I know that’s the truth, so why deny it?”

  “Didn’t I explain that while I was drunk too?”

  “Yeah, but I want to hear you say it while you’re sober.”

  “I want to leave marks,” he said without emphasis. “There, happy now?”

  “It’s a start,” Xane said. He finally withdrew from the bathroom. “There are more towels in the cupboard.” He waved in the vague direction of the sink.

  Spook sighed in relief.

  Too bad it wasn’t the end of it. Xane was waiting for him at the breakfast table once he’d dried off and helped himself to some clean clothes.

  “Have you discussed it with her? I mean properly discussed it with her? Because if you haven’t, what you’re doing is making assumptions about what she wants. It’s possible her wants are more in line with yours than you think.”

  Spook slid into a chair and helped himself to a glass of orange juice. Having poured that straight down his aching throat, he commandeered the coffee pot, and picked a few grapes out of the bowl of fruit salad. “Must we?” Xane wasn’t going to let this go. “Look, it doesn’t matter if her desires line up perfectly with mine. I’m not looking for a relationship. I don’t want a sexual relationship. I don’t want to have sex. Maintaining the current status quo is just fine.”

  “Lies,” Xane drawled while he smashed the top off a boiled egg. “You want the exact opposite of what you’re saying. That’s the whole issue. You do want to fuck her. If you didn’t you’d have forgotten all about her by now. I wish you’d stop letting fear hold you back.”

  “Yeah, well, we all wish for unicorns at some point.” Tormented, he sucked on a grape. Why did Xane have to analyse? Why couldn’t he just butt out of it? His probing was already pushing them way too close to certain things they’d agreed not to discuss a long, long time ago.

  “I know it’s a constant battle between what you desire and what your conscience dictates.”

  “Shut up.”

  “You know that’s not going to happen. I want you to be happy, Spook, and I know you’re good at convincing everyone else, but I know the truth. Your celibacy vow is pointless. All it’s doing is crippling you.”

  “It’s not pointless, and stop fucking pushing me. Just because you can’t keep your dick in your pants for more than an hour.”

  “This isn’t about me, Spook. I know I have issues. Nor am I hiding the fact that they’re not nearly as under control as people think. I’m just lucky in that I have people around me who are prepared to help. I’m not advocating you take my lifestyle. I’m saying there’s a woman out there who is seriously into you. Why not give it a chance?”

  “I’ve thought about it,” he confessed. “I was going to give it a chance. Leastways, I was ready to meet her, but…”

  “But what?”

  “Last night.” For anyone else that would have been explanation enough. It wasn’t for Xane. “She’s never going to agree to taking things at the pace I want.”

  “Yeah, glacial doesn’t tend to do it for many women.”

  Spook threw a grape at him. It bounced off the back of Xane’s hand and landed in his coffee.

  Xane sighed and fished it out with a teaspoon. “Also, what bollocks! The woman’s waited around for you for a year already. She’s committed. Whatever taste you’ve given her clearly has her hooked. Not that I find that overly surprising. I know you’re a sexy bugger.”

  That was not a title he aspired to. He spread some toast with butter and commandeered a soft boiled egg to dip it into. “Can we drop this until later? It’s not putting me in the right headspace to play.”

  “Your hand okay?” Xane asked, immediately switching to musician mode. He wiped his mouth and poured another coffee before pushing back his chair.

  “Stings a bit. I should be okay. Have you heard from the others?”

  Xane got up and fetched his phone from the bedroom. “Ash says they’re unloaded, and they’ll meet us there. When can they expect us?” He quirked a brow upwards.

  “Ten minutes?” Spook suggested.

  Xane typed with his thumbs. “I’ve said thirty.”

  “Because?”

  His friend bowed his head and looked at his bare toes. “Because I don’t want to do this. I must have been insane when I suggested it.”

  Spook left the table and went to his friend. “It’ll be okay. We’ll get through this. All of us. Together. And, I know it’s hard, but this is the right place to say our final goodbye to him as a band.” He squeezed Xane’s shoulder. “Come on. Let’s get our act together. Have you any clean socks I can commandeer?”

  Xane gave him an up and down once over. “Apparently you found everything else.”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t want to go furtling about amongst your underwear, and wind up with the pair you use for cock warming.”

  Xane trotted into the bedroom and came back. “Socks,” he bounced them off Spook’s head. “It was just them you wanted?” He held up a pair of boxer briefs.

  Spook scowled. “I’m good going commando. Never am I ever wearing your kecks.”

  II. ALLEGRA

  -13-

  Check-in was the swiftest Alle had ever encountered. The flight, tedious according to Ronnie. Her fault; she’d slept the whole way with her head on his shoulder, murmuring endearments to a dream lover. Boy did R
onnie love to tease. Alle didn’t recall dreaming about anything. Exhaustion had held her in a firm grip.

  Ronnie talked incessantly the whole taxi ride from Nice to Monte Carlo. About what, Alle had no clue. His mind skipped about, landing in random places, while his hands wove his intense personality into the air around them. Their hotel turned out to be only a stone’s throw from the venue, so having got changed and freshened up, they walked over to join the queue of deranged metal heads waiting to be let in.

  Alle had to admit the venue struck her as an odd choice. It was beautiful. Not too large, not too small, but it felt posh. The whole of Monaco felt posh, from the paving to the sunshine to the smells wafting past them on the sea breeze. It was certainly a far cry from the one other Black Halo gig she’d attended, back in her student days, squashed into the grubby campus student union ballroom with a bunch of rockers who didn’t give a damn who they spilled their beer over, as long as they could swish their hair and mosh until they keeled over. After which, they were unceremoniously dragged outside by their mates to spew up in the bushes.

  The fans tonight were an altogether wealthier, and certainly a better-dressed, class of attendees. Although there was still a fair amount of impolite pushing and shoving, and up close, plenty of fevered stares.

  Ronnie claimed over half of them were wired on coke.

  They bought drinks and found a spot a little to the left. It was standing room only that went right up to the foot of the stage. Intimate, indeed. No crash barriers. No line of burly security guards straight out of a rugby league match. Only a mid-sized stage surrounded by glittering curtains of light. And wrapped around them a panoramic view of the Monte Carlo skyscrapers.

  Would Spook sense her presence? See her in the crowd? What if Ronnie’s backstage passes were a joke, and this arm’s stretch away from the footlights was as close as she and Spook were destined to get?

  Ronnie bowed towards her, leaning his head against the top of her fiery curls. “Which of these leather clad beasts that are about to rock our hearts out is your mega-crush on?”