It was new. I didn’t like new. I liked predictable. I liked order. I liked to-do lists and checklists and schedules. I liked knowing what to expect. I liked knowing what to feel, what to say, what to do.
I didn’t like having zero freaking clue about what I was feeling, why, or what it meant. Why did my sex ache? Why did I feel like I was empty inside? Why did I feel this inexplicable need to touch, to be touched?
This was not mere horniness, or at least not as I knew it.
This was something far, far wilder, deeper, and more dangerous.
It scared me stupid. Probably why I couldn’t form a coherent thought.
“Hey, Earth to Charlie.” He was grinning at me.
I blinked. “Um. What?”
He arched an eyebrow. “Been staring at me like I was somethin’ to eat for nearly a minute, babe. You hungry or something?”
Or something. “Uhh, sorry?”
He turned away from the stage, tugging me with him. “Maybe you oughta sit down. Not sure you’re totally with it yet.”
Hand—big, rough, strong, warm. Folding around mine, enclosing it.
I wanted to sit down.
On him.
OHMYGOD. What was wrong with me? That was a Lexie thought, not a Charlie thought.
Dumb drunk Charlie needed to go to bed before her alcohol-loosened libido got her into a situation she wouldn’t want to be in, sober.
Like in bed with Crow.
I blushed, thankful for the darkness which hid my burning cheeks. In bed? With Crow? Like that would happen.
I bet he has a huge, veiny cock…
I heard stupid Lexie’s stupid whispered, taunting words thundering through my head, on repeat.
Huge, veiny cock.
No, no, no.
I didn’t want to know, didn’t want to know, did not want to know how big and veiny his cock was.
Stop thinking that word, Charlotte Grace. Stop.
“You want a cock or anything?” I heard Crow ask.
I blinked at him. “Excuse me?”
He chuckled. “I said, you want a Coke or anything?”
I realized we were back in the trailer. I shook my head. “No, I don’t drink soda. Another water would be great, though.”
“You oughta eat something, soak up the booze.”
I blanched. “God, I couldn’t possibly. Not yet.”
He shrugged. “Later, then. You’ll get hungry, if you stay awake long enough.” A pause. “Well, I gotta get ready to put Myles’s guitars away. Ya’ll just hang tight here. Shouldn’t take long.”
“Okay,” I said.
He didn’t leave, though. Just smirked at me with an arched eyebrow. “I need my hand back, sweetheart.”
I stared my hand, which was locked around his. “Oh.” I unclenched my hand from his, shook my hand. “Silly thing. Must have a mind its own.”
Crow snickered. “Don’t they always?” He strode off toward the stage, where Myles and the band were finishing their encore, waiting for Myles to exit the stage so he could take the guitar.
Lexie was grinning at me like the cat who ate the canary. “You want his dick.”
“Shut up.”
“You do.”
“Shut up, Alexandra.”
“You do realize saying my full name doesn’t actually contain any magical powers, right?” She made circles with forefinger and thumb of each hand, stacking one hand atop the other, and mimed an up-and-down stroking motion. “Cock, cock, cock,” she sang, falsetto and pitchy, “you want the cock!”
I shot her the evilest, ugliest, most death-inducing stare I could summon. “I will leave you at the next hotel, Alexandra Rochelle. I swear I will.”
She just snorted. “Oh stop being so damn uptight. Say the word, woman. Cock. It’s not bad. It’s not dirty, it’s just a word.”
“No.”
“I will shout it as loud as I can.”
I glared. I knew she would. “Don’t.”
“I play that game in the cafeteria with my friends all the time.”
“You do not.”
“I silenced the entire cafeteria once. I shouted ‘big fat cock’ so loud it echoed. Got reprimanded by the dean, who was eating lunch in the cafeteria at the time.”
“You are twenty-one years old and still playing the penis game?” I asked, incredulous.
“The penis game is for amateurs.”
“You’re impossible.”
She grinned, shrugging demurely. “Yep.” She booped my nose. “Now. Quit being an uptight, stick-up-the-ass Goody Two-shoes and have some fun.”
“I did!” I snapped. “And look at the trouble it got me into.”
“Oh, that was just bad luck, bad timing, and assholes being assholes. And you not being used to drinking.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “And that’s not the kind of fun I’m talking about.”
“I’m not saying that word, Lex. I can, and have, but I have nothing to prove right now.”
“Not what I’m talking about either. I’m talking about a certain tall dark and handsome drink of very fine water. Whom you are absolutely bonkers for.”
“I’m not bonkers for anyone.”
“You wouldn’t let go of his hand.”
“I’m still very woozy. It’s made me forgetful.”
“Sober enough to know you have to let go of someone’s hand.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Can you get off my case about this?”
She leaned forward, elbows on her knees, chin in her hands, watching Myles as he paraded backstage, shirt off, sweaty, high-fiving his bandmates, and taking swigs from a bottle of something. “When was the last time you had sex?” She asked, turning her face toward me but keeping her eyes on her prize.
“Six months, two weeks, and four days ago,” I answered, the words tumbling out without even having to think about it.
She blinked rapidly, turning a stupefied stare at me. “How the fuck are you alive right now?”
“You do realize sex is not actually literally essential to being alive?”
“It is if you’re doing it right,” she said. “And was it good?”
I shrugged. “It wasn’t the best sex Glen and I ever had, but it wasn’t the worst.”
“Did you come?”
I flushed, because I apparently run hormone-high, now. “No.”
“Was there foreplay? Did he go down on you? Did you at least sneak into the bathroom after?”
“No, god no, and no.”
“Wait.” She turned her body to face me, grabbed me by the shoulders and held me in a death grip. “You said ‘god no’ for the middle question, which was the one about him going down on you. You said ‘god no’ as if this was a foregone conclusion, which leads me to the worrisome conclusion that our not-so-esteemed Señor Twinkle Mouse did not, in fact, provide you with regular and enthusiastic cunnilingus. Hi-Myles-I’m-so-excited-to-meet-you-I’m-Lexie-please-can-I-kiss-you-even-just-once.”
This last all in one rushed breath, because Myles had sauntered up at that moment, grinning like a fool, sweat running in rivulets down his lean, ripped torso, a white towel around his neck, a bottle of water in one hand and a bottle of Jameson in the other.
He wore black leather pants like he’d been born in them, shit-kicker square toed boots, and a worn, curved-brim gray Coors hat that looked like it had been chewed on by a dog, set on fire, and then attacked by an angry cat.
He was a rock star god, is what he was.
Lexie was staring up at him, open-mouthed, now that she’d barfed up her hero-worship ode.
“Just once?” He dropped to his knees, wedged his waist between her thighs, set his bottles on the floor, wrapped one hand around the back of her head, and kissed her absolutely stupid.
As in, when he pulled back, she blinked like a scared fish, and then sucked in a frantic breath.
He took a swig of whiskey but didn’t swallow it, held it in his mouth, grinning. Yanked her against his mouth, and she whimpered in surprise,
and then the two of them did something ridiculous and complicated with the mouthful of shared alcohol.
Again, he pulled away, but only an inch or two. “Jesus, woman. With a mouth like that, you can kiss me till the cows come home.”
“Moo?” Lexie breathed, inanely.
Myles laughed, and then grunted in surprise when Lexie smashed her mouth against his and took her turn kissing him like she owned him.
“Okay then,” I said, and carefully levered myself to my feet. “Time to go.”
They ignored me, kissing like long-separated lovers.
I stumbled out of the trailer and in search of Crow.
I found him backstage, leaning over a crate, clicking guitar case latches. He saw me, and smiled. “Hey there, beautiful.”
Like he’d known me forever. It made my gut do something flippy-floppy, and my heart do pitter-patter nonsense.
“Hi,” I mumbled. “Am I in the way?”
He glanced around in a broad gesture—the area was empty but for part of the drum kit, a few monitors, and piles of cords. “Nah, babe. Park that sweet ass on the crate there and tell me a story.”
Sweet ass.
What?
I swallowed, not sure how to process the way he spoke; no one had ever spoken to me the way he did, and I wasn’t sure if I loved it or hated it or some baffling combination of both. Moving carefully, balancing precisely, I hopped up on a chrome-and-black sound equipment crate, kicking my feet like a child.
“Tell you a story?”
He winked at me. “Yeah. Talk to me.”
He had another guitar in hand, looking it over carefully, examining each string, the bridge, the neck, the frets, the tuning pegs, the headstock, the backside, and the little bar thingy on the front. He wiped it down with the cloth from his back pocket, settled it in the case, snapped it closed, and fit the case in the crate with the others.
“Um. I’m absolutely mortified at my behavior.”
He didn’t look up at me from his work, but snorted nonetheless. “Don’t be. We’ve all been there.”
“You have?”
He nodded. “Yup.”
“Most embarrassing drunk moment, then,” I said.
He propped the red-and-gold electric guitar on his knee, foot braced on the crate, and twiddled the strings as if playing a solo, though without amplification the strings produced nearly no sound. “Hmmm. Okay, so. I’m twenty. Eight years ago, that’d be. At a bar in…Yuma, I think it was. Me, Mo, Panther, Zoom, Crutchy, and Clint were all bellied up to the bar.”
I shook my head. “Wait, who?”
“Nicknames, babe. My brothers from the club.”
“Club?”
He reached over one shoulder and patted his back. “The MC. Keep up, shorty.”
I shook my head again. “I’m a very sheltered upper middle-class white girl from Connecticut.”
He laughed. “Well that explains a hell of a lot. MC means motorcycle club.” He turned so I could see the patch: “AzTex” in one semicircle on top, “Texas” in a semicircle underneath, with a serpent in a recognizably Aztec style in the middle.
“Aztecs?” I read. “You’re in a motorcycle club?”
God, can I please stop acting so boneheadedly stupid? Please? I’m faster on the uptake than this, usually, I swear.
“Founding member, sort of.” He fiddled with the guitar. “My pa and uncle were founding members, ma was an old lady, aunt was an old lady. Cousins and I were all raised in it.”
“Old lady,” I repeated.
He snickered. “Don’t take offense. It’s the just the term.”
“So who’s your old lady?”
He frowned at me. “Don’t have one, never had one. And I’m more or less retired. You don’t really ever retire from an MC, but being that Pa and Uncle Snake were the founders, I get special dispensation to sort of do what I want.”
“Uncle Snake.” I laughed. “And your friends are Panther, Zoom, Crutchy, and Clint. And you’re Crow.”
He nodded, and set the guitar in the case. “Yup.”
“Anyone with a normal name?”
“Well, sure. They all had normal names. Mo was really Morris, Panther was…Mike, I think. Zoom was Ezekiel, so not normal, but normal-ish. Crutchy was…well, he was old as dirt and older than the hills when I was a little tyke, so I don’t know his real name—not sure even Pa or Snake did, matter of fact—and Clint was just Clint.”
“What was your dad’s name?” Why was I so curious?
“Coyote.” He said it with a decided accent—coy-OH-tee. “Coyote Crow.”
I blinked. “Wait, that means Crow is your last name?”
He shrugged. “It’s complicated.”
“Your name?”
“Yup. I’m half Apache, half Comanche. My family had traditional Western Apache names, a few generations back, but somewhere around the turn of the century one of my grandfathers decided to…whiten…our names, in a weird way. To fit in off-rez better, I guess, I don’t know. I’ve been called nothin’ but Crow since I was in diapers.”
“I see. But you do have another name.”
He looked at me then, dead-on, eyes not really humorous anymore, and I shivered. “Not tellin’, Charlie. Nothin’ personal, just not into sharing my full name.”
“Okay, sorry.” I swallowed. “Hope I didn’t offend you.”
“Names have power,” he said. “You people go around giving out your whole name to everyone. Not our way.”
I thought about that. “Yeah, you’re right.”
He grinned, that easy humor back as fast as it left. “Myles find your sister?”
I leaned backward, glancing into the dim interior of the trailer—now that the show was over the lights were lit and the backstage area illuminated, but it was still shadowy inside that trailer. I saw something moving, writhing, and I looked away.
“Yeah, I’d say he did.”
He sidled over to the crate I was sitting on, leaned against it and lifted up onto his tiptoes—his hands braced on my thighs, and he was so close I could smell him, and it made me dizzy and mushy inside, the pungent man-smell of beer and sweat and leather.
“Oh, yeah, he found her alright.”
“I think they found each other,” I said.
He eyed me, hands on my thighs still. “That so?”
“He took a pull of whiskey and spat it into her mouth, or something. And I think she liked it, judging by the way she kissed him back.”
He laughed. “You gonna stop them?”
I shook my head. “No. She’s a big girl. She can make her own choices. And she told me she’d go along with pretty much anything he wanted, if she had the chance.”
He chuckled wryly. “That’s a dangerous thing. Myles is awful fuckin’ creative, and ain’t super big on giving much of a shit about what people think.”
“You just described Lexie.”
His thumbs moved in circles on my leg, and I worried my skin would burst into flames where he was touching me, even though I had on leggings and he wasn’t touching skin. “So they’re a perfect match, it sounds like.”
“That or they’ll kill each other,” I said, my voice faint. I looked down at his hands. “You’re rubbing holes in my legs.”
He followed my gaze. “Oh. Whoops.” His thumbs stopped. Then his hands slid a little higher. The movement resumed, and his lips curled in a sly grin. “New spot. Better?”
I nodded, dumbly, and then realized what I was saying and put my hands on his, intending to stop him, but instead just ended up with my hands resting on his as he kept rubbing my thighs with his thumbs.
“Silly things,” he said, “must have a mind of their own.”
“That’s my line,” I whispered.
“Stole it.”
I looked down—his hands were well up on my thighs now, getting kind of daring. Close to parts which were beginning to sit up and take notice at the promise of attention.
Down girl, I told myself.
I
felt my nipples disobeying, going firm, hard, aching.
Why was I even letting him touch me this way?
Oh, right. Because it felt like he was setting me on fire, and that was new, and I didn’t like new.
But I liked this new.
I liked being on fire, as long as he was doing the igniting. Didn’t I? Seemed that way, but it was all new to me, and I wasn’t sure how I felt.
Or what I was feeling.
Was my vagina supposed to tingle when he wasn’t even touching it? Should I feel this ridiculously damp and hot down there?
Apparently I’d had no real understanding of true desire, or need, or sexual arousal…until now. Not until Crow.
This was inconvenient.
Disconcerting.
And deeply, intensely difficult not to act.
Crow
She was good. Too good. Just sweet as sugar and sexy as sin, but something told me she’d sort of lost track of feeling sexy at some point in her life. Damn shame. But the good girl, the girl who didn’t know how to talk to me, couldn’t hold her liquor, got uncomfortable the closer I got, and went stiff and tense as a board when I touched her…was fuckin’ impossible to resist.
I wanted to see if some of the squeaky clean would rub off on me. Get her just a little dirty.
I shouldn’t, god, I really shouldn’t. She was just genuinely a good, decent person.
One who didn’t seem to know what to do with the goddess body she had.
Good and holy fuck, did I want to show her.
I craved her curves, her skin. More of her. All of her.
Stupid of me, but I did. She was too good for an old road dog like me—sure, I was only twenty-eight, but I’d packed several lifetimes of hard living into those years, and felt every bit of a thousand years old, most days. Looking at the pale creamy skin around the V of her shirt where I got tantalizing glimpses of mouth-watering, resistance-melting cleavage, I wanted nothing more than to bury my face there…on my way south. She wasn’t wearing a bra, I was pretty certain. Just those big beautiful tits of hers pressing against soft cotton, the shape of them outlined, nipples peaked.
I bet she’d moan so sweet when I take those lovely things in my mouth…
Shit.
Stop, Crow.
She wasn’t a one-hit wonder. Not a groupie or backstage bunny to tumble with in the corner of the bus, when no one was looking. This was a woman you fought for and held on to, a woman you kept as long as she’d let you. A woman you stayed up all night hoping she’d be there in the morning.
Not So Goode Page 9
