She and Bent needed to discuss what had happened. If they didn’t, an awkwardness would fester between them, and then it would be impossible to do her job. Bent had overreacted and lost his temper. That was fact and they would discuss his lack of self-control. No excuses. It had been inappropriate and he needed to know she was not okay with it.
“I just don’t want you thinking…” He scratched at the wavy curls on his head. Wild and unrestrained, his hair flopped over his eyes, hung over his ears, and brushed the top of his shoulders. With his strong jawline, molten eyes, and sculpted facial features, the man was beyond devastating.
“Look, we’ll talk about it later.” Now was not the time for a talk.
She stabbed at the button that would open the outer doors of the gondola. The glass door slid open and they stepped inside. The gondola shifted with their weight and the doors closed. Bent went to the control panel and pushed the lever which would begin the gondola’s slow rise up the steep cliff-face.
Unlike the suspended swimming pool, the gondola didn’t trigger her fear of heights. Perhaps it was the sound of the metal wheels turning on the tracks, or the intermittent screech of the supporting cables overhead, but she felt safe encased within the glass and steel car.
And then there was the million dollar view.
Rising off the beach, they traded views of the rocky shore and pounding surf for a bird’s eye view of the majesty of the ocean. The horizon stretched out to forever, and each foot of elevation brought more of its splendor to the eyes. The constant churning of the waters swirled with the tidewaters. Beyond that, rolling swells kept the water in constant motion.
She peered through the glass, trying to see if she could spy a seal frolicking in the waters, or the ghostly shape of a great white hunting below. Forest told her whales could be seen as well, but she didn’t think it was the right time of year for them to be in these waters.
Bent’s weight shifted behind her. His massive hand reached over her head to press against the glass. She stiffened and shifted to the side. There really was only room for one person to stand and stare out the back window.
His soft laugh filled the small space with a low rumble. “No need to move, pixie, I have the perfect view over your head.”
She held in a soft laugh. He was right about that. If she leaned back against him, the back of her head would barely meet the wide expanse of his chest. Pressing her forehead against the pane of glass, she tried to ignore the overwhelming nearness of him. He was practically pressed against her.
Why hadn’t she been able to control her reaction to his choke hold? He wasn’t her foster father, but the behavior had been so deeply ingrained it was instinctual. That wouldn’t be a part of the discussion they would have later. It would never be.
Dear lord, but he had noticed. Worse, he’d picked up on her submissive surrender and reacted to it.
That terrified her more than anything else, because there was only one reason for Bent to have reacted the way he had. He had to know about such things. Which meant Bent leaned toward darker things when it came to sex.
Going into this job, there had been no illusions about who her client would be. She was providing intensive physical therapy to a rock star. A man surrounded by needy groupies at all hours of the day came with a certain reputation.
Which was fine. It was totally fine.
She had no interest in a relationship with any man, especially a rock star. Except now everything had changed. Bent knew her secret, or thought he did. Maybe she was overthinking things and assuming too much. Nevertheless, it complicated everything, especially since he smelled amazing, looked incredible, and once he rehabilitated would be unstoppable as a rock legend amongst rock gods.
She was totally fucked, because an impossible truth stared her in the face. It flooded her senses. It filled the very small interior of the gondola with an undeniable truth. She was attracted to Bent.
That needed to stop.
Now.
Before her entire world unraveled.
Before she ruined what might be her last stab at getting Paul back.
She needed Forest and the nearly limitless resources which he could draw on. If she failed to hold up her end of the bargain, she’d lose her access to the one person who could bring Paul home.
The gondola lurched. She took a step back to steady herself and came up solid against Bent’s hard frame. He wrapped his good arm around her waist to steady her.
“Hang on. I got you.” She didn’t need his help, but he gave it without thought.
Maybe there was a gentleman buried beneath the hard façade of the rock god.
The wheels screeched against the metal rails, moving over a rough spot, and the overhead cables whistled with the wind.
“We’re almost at the top.” His low rumble provided reassurance.
She didn’t need it. She wasn’t scared, but she was incredibly aware of the close quarters, his incredible natural scent, and the rising flutter in her belly.
Indeed, their view was now beyond breathtaking, and the day couldn’t be more perfect. Deep blue skies extended far overhead. High wispy clouds drifted in from the ocean. A slight haze of salt in the air smudged the horizon in the distance. Above and below, seabirds called out to one another as they soared the thermals and hunted for their next meal.
She wobbled as the gondola came to a sudden halt, unprepared for its arrival at the top of the cliff. Bent’s grip around her waist tightened, then released suddenly as the door opened wide.
“Did you find it?” Forest’s gravelly voice rumbled the air.
She turned to look at him, moisture pooling in the corners of her eyes.
“No. It’s gone.” She tried to hold back the sadness in her voice, but her words came out as an unmistakable sob.
“Piper…” He practically pushed Bent out of the way. “Move it Lover Boy.”
Bent retreated, hands held out as Forest wrapped her into his protective embrace.
“It’s okay, sweetie.” Forest smoothed her hair. “It’s going to be okay.”
If only that were true.
She swiped at her cheeks, unwilling to cry in front of the men, and separated herself from Forest. “I think I’m going to go back to my room for a bit.”
“What about lunch?” Bent looked disappointed.
“I’m not hungry anymore. I’ll see you at two.”
Without waiting to argue about lunch, she dodged between the men and loped into a jog, needing to place distance between her and the men.
Virtual Reality
Bent
“What the hell did you do to her?” Forest’s accusation had Bent pausing.
“I didn’t do squat to her.” He pushed past Forest, moving quickly. He didn’t need a conversation.
Except that wasn’t happening. From the lifting of Forest’s brow, Forest sensed the lie. He was on Bent in half a second, matching Bent’s long stride easily.
“Running off in a huff?”
“Not running. I’m hungry.”
And thoughtful.
His mind replayed every minute of his time with Piper on that beach. Something had happened and it had everything to do with what Bent had done, beginning with acting the asshole during their session.
There’d been no reason not to grab her pen. He’d had plenty of time to snatch it up before the wind sent it careening to the beach below. He hadn’t because he knew it would piss Piper off. Getting her riled up amused him. He couldn’t avoid pushing her buttons. Poke. Poke. Poke. He went at her until rewarded with an explosive reaction.
He didn’t do that with anyone else, and that made no sense.
Only instead of explosive anger, she’d rewarded his ass-holery with profound sorrow. He hadn’t seen that coming. Hadn’t expected it. And he had no idea what to do about it.
He certainly had had no intention of following Piper down to the beach. The idea of searching for something like a tiny pen on a beach made the needle in a haystack analogy
look like child’s play.
What the hell had Forest been thinking forcing him down to help anyway?
Forest’s meddling hadn’t helped. In fact, it had only made things worse.
He’d kept pushing Piper, looking for a reaction. Their constant bickering had led to another explosive outburst, not from her, but strangely from him. His over-the-top reaction, and that choke hold, had changed everything.
What the hell was he going to do about that?
Piper, whether she knew it or not, was submissive as hell. That triggered something deep inside of him. And of course there was the other side of that coin. He’d found a trigger. That meant someone had hurt her in the past. Rage boiled to the surface with that realization.
He wanted to tear whoever that was limb from limb, but who?
Piper’s submissive nature faded to the background of his thoughts. He’d unwittingly uncovered a deep-seated fear within his fiery pixie. What the hell was he supposed to do with this little tidbit of knowledge?
He should do nothing. Theirs was a professional relationship, but his dick had taken notice. Now, it was hungry, which meant Bent was royally screwed. He was screwed because Piper might be one of the very few natural submissives, not a player, but the real deal. He was fucked and it was all Forest’s fault.
“What the hell is going on in that head of yours, Lover Boy?” Without realizing it, Forest had corralled Bent and led him poolside.
“Nothing that matters to you. Like I said, I’m hungry.” He glanced around the pool deck, but didn’t see any signs of food. “Have you eaten yet?”
“You’re not going to chase after Piper and have lunch?” Forest’s eyes sparked beneath the blazing sun. It wasn’t a good look on him. The icy-hardness of his expression made his words sound downright menacing.
“You heard her, she’s not interested.”
His blood churned to protect her from an unnamed threat in her past. In the present, he had no outlet to exorcise his protective instincts. There was no enemy. His gut churned with the inability to take action. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t avenge his pixie. It would take time, and she would hate him for shoving his nose in her business, but he would uncover the truth. Then, he would avenge her.
He shrugged his shoulders, trying to loosen the tight bunching in his shoulders. “Besides, we spend far too much time together as it is, and that little beach walk didn’t exactly help.”
“You should’ve found the pen.”
“You knew that wasn’t happening.”
Forest’s tight-lipped expression had Bent wondering exactly what Forest’s intentions had been.
“I’ll call and have lunch brought over. I want to show you something.” Forest walked over to a stack of his VR gear. He picked up two headsets and two pair of gloves.
The last thing Bent wanted was to spend more time with Forest. He wanted to chase after Piper and start digging for answers. If he did that, she would clam up. He knew this, and with a long breath out, he resolved to exercise patience. Besides, it would be good to calm down before he had to spend more time with her.
His dick didn’t like that. The fucker throbbed and demanded indecent things, but Bent was the one in charge. He wasn’t going off half-cocked. The mystery of Piper Raines would be solved with time and finesse. He could start now with the man who brought the fiery red head into his life.
Forest thrust the gear into Bent’s hands. “Put that on.”
Not wanting to look like an idiot, he watched while Forest donned the gear first. The headset fit over his temples, goggles attached to a swivel. He kept them in the up position. Earbuds fit into his ears and he adjusted the straps so the whole thing fit snug. Made of an odd fabric, the too small gloves stretched easily over one broad hand and one emaciated appendage. He hated looking at the wasted mess of his hand. Wires extended from the gloves and dangled in the air.
Forest went back to the table and brought back two belts. He strapped his on and connected the dangling wires to a wire harness.
“You ever done VR before?”
“Nope. VR virgin here.”
Forest smirked. “Well, I’ll be damned. Didn’t think the great Bent was a virgin anything. All the other guys can’t get enough of this shit. Are you fucking with me?”
“Nope.”
A new acquisition, the VR gear had been purchased after the band’s USO tour overseas. Bent had an arm in a cast and fingers which barely twitched. He’d missed out on all the firsts and had never really been interested.
“Prepare to have your mind blown.”
Bent wiggled his fingers. “What are the gloves for?”
“You need them for the controls.”
“What game are we playing?”
Ash and Bash were always talking about some damn game they played. Since he tuned them out, he couldn’t even remember the name.
“Oh, we’re not wasting time with a game.”
That was a relief. His mind wasn’t in the right frame of mind for game play. The few times he’d sat down and tried to play a game on the console, the fingers of his right hand hadn’t been strong enough, or coordinated enough, for the most basic moves. He’d stopped playing that too.
“Then, what the fuck are we doing?”
“I want to show you the new pyrotechnics for the tour.”
The tour he wouldn’t be playing at. Ryker might be itching to leave, moving on to bigger and better things with his soon to be bride, but Angel Fire wasn’t ready to let the stand-in bassist leave. Bent wasn’t ready for Ryker to go. Forest knew this and kept pushing Bent to get back into playing. He pushed with all the therapists, pushed in hiring Piper. He’d made it impossible for Bent to fire her, not that he could now. Forest probably knew that was going to happen, too. Forest sure could be an ass, but Bent was roped in now.
“Fine.” He gritted his teeth and resolved to play along. “What do you need me to do?”
“First, let me show you the basics of navigating the virtual world.” Forest huffed out a laugh. “VR Virgin, I’m going to blow your mind.”
“Two things,” Bent said. “Stop calling me a virgin and no more references to blowing anything.”
Forest was gay. Bent was cool with that shit, but listening to Forest talk about blowing anything in reference to Bent was crossing a line.
“Don’t be a fucktard, ass-wipe. You’re not my type.”
“Hey, it was just a request, and not saying I am.” He’d seen the men who shared Forest’s bed. If he thought he liked a little kink, it was nothing compared to what Forest had going on, but then Forest had issues.
“Well, stop talking and lower your goggles. Listen and do as I do, little virgin.” Forest snickered as he lowered the VR headset.
“Ass-wipe.”
“Fuck-tard.”
That’s where the name calling ended, because holy mother of…VR was nothing like what he’d thought it would be. He’d envisioned a blocky, cartoonish mockery of a world. Instead, Forest had taken him to a lush rain forest. There he showed Bent the basics of the controls. It was easy. A simple flex of his fingers and he basically became something akin to a god in the virtual world.
They paused for a moment while Forest adjusted the sensitivity of the sensors in Bent’s right hand glove. A tiny tweak and he barely realized a difference between right and left hands. In the physical world, he knew his right hand was weaker. It still felt small and puny beside the left, but in the virtual world he was in charge of his avatar.
Forest used a scanner to populate a pretty damn good replica of Bent’s real body, and had adjusted the right side, bulking up the muscles of arm and chest to match the good side of his body. For the first time in months, he looked normal. He almost felt normal. The tiny adjustments in the gloves took the edge off his disability. In less than an hour, Bent barely remembered he was mangled and disfigured.
“Ready to check out the stage?” Forest turned to him and arched a brow.
Their virtual selves were
a bit odd. For one thing, they blinked weird and lacked anything but the most basic facial expressions. Those they did have, like the arching of Fake-Forest’s brow was over-exaggerated and almost comical.
“Lead on.”
“Nah, you do it.” Forest pointed to the command center. “Flip through the environs and find the set labeled Angel Fire’s Epic Concert.”
“Couldn’t think of anything more original?”
“Keep your comments to yourself, ass-wipe.”
“Just asking a question, fuck-tard.”
They bantered back and forth, trading insults, while Forest’s VR set of Angel Fire’s new stage show ran its course.
“This is amazing.” While he wasn’t actually walking, Bent felt like he was on stage. He could move around, and he did to check out the angles. He even popped into the crowd to get a sense of what it would look like for their fans. Forest had left nothing out. He had views from the nosebleed section all the way to the front row.
Bent played the simulation over and over, giving feedback on the pyrotechnics Forest had programmed in. They even timed the show to their backbone songs, making use of the maximum impact of Bash’s drumming and Ash’s vocal lead.
“Holy wow. It’s like I’m there.” He took another spin around the stage.
“Yeah, I’m really getting into this, and so much cheaper than designing all this shit in the real world. Tweaking from concert to concert is for the birds. This way, it’s going to be awesome from the very first show.”
Bent wandered over to Bash’s drum kit. “The instruments look so real.”
“They are in a VR kind of way. You can play if you want.”
“You’re kidding?” The world shifted as he swung to look at a bass guitar sitting on a stand. His gut twisted. He didn’t need more disappointment and humiliation.
“I don’t kid.”
“So, I can’t really sit down, because there’s not a seat.” In the VR world, Bash’s drum kit looked exactly like it did in the real world, but he wasn’t foolish enough to try to sit. He’d land on his ass. He tapped the foot pedal, or tried to. His virtual foot didn’t connect with the pedal. “Doesn’t work.”
Hearts Collide Page 6
