She shakes her head determinedly. Mouths something. Something close to, Let me.
And when she rolls us over so she’s on top, my hearing comes back in a popping whoosh.
“Watch,” she says, unabashed and beautiful as she displays all of herself in the late afternoon light.
She moves my hand to my dick, so I can feel her sliding up and down, so I can see the way her lower lips flare at every lift, the way she coats me with lust.
Then, she brings my other hand to her throat and lays it there as she moans.
“Use it all,” she says, chin tilted up so she looks at me with slanted, sinful eyes. “Don’t rely on sound, because fucking me requires everything from you.”
I emit a loud swallow as my gaze travels to the way her breasts bounce, how her abdomen contracts each time my cock goes all the way in, the way my fingers go wet as I feel her pussy sliding, how my palm on her neck absorbs the vibrations of her building orgasm.
“F …” I can’t finish the curse.
Senses overridden, I lift my hips and meet her halfway, faster, deeper, my teeth exposed on a growl.
I feel all of her.
I want all of her.
I have all of her.
Taryn’s name is on my lips as I roar out my release, spilling into her and gripping every part of her body she’s given over. Her hair is tousled, her nipples are hard and rose-colored, her face flushed with the same color.
Watching me come sends her straight up, and she rubs her clit enough to catch the tail end of my orgasm and join in with her own.
With her eyes, the liquid depths of her soul, on mine, we meet our ends with equal desperation.
26
Taryn
I lay breathless, my fingers intertwined with his.
My head rests in the nook between Easton’s neck and shoulder, and I can hear every rapid beat of his heart as we exhale our recovery.
Light filters through the window, outlining his profile and the peach-fuzz of his skin. Tiny dust particles glint in the air against the setting sun above us.
It feels so perfect, all of it. And if I don’t think too hard, I can believe it.
Easton squeezes my shoulder, pulling me closer. “You okay?”
I nod, my tangled hair sticking between his skin and my temple.
“That was … it was perfect timing.” He kisses the top of my head. “I was about to lose my fucking mind.”
I lift off his warm, hard chest, glad to talk about anything but myself. “Something happened?”
“Ah …” He shakes his head, closes his eyes. “I’m not with the band anymore.”
My forehead pulls taut. I swear my heart stills. “What?”
“It’s complicated,” he says during a deep sigh. “They don’t think I’m—they don’t think I can play right anymore.”
“No. They found out?”
“Not exactly.” His Adam’s apple bobs as he stares in the opposite direction. “They seem to have it in their heads that I’m a drug addict.”
Automatically, I guffaw. “That’s insane. You set them to rights immediately, I’m sure.”
Easton remains silent.
“East?” I prompt. After a few more seconds of silence, I ask slowly, “You didn’t let them believe you’re addicted to drugs, did you?”
“I … might’ve.”
“But why?” I rise into a sitting position, pulling the sheets with me and crossing my legs. I drag my tangled mop of hair to one side of my head and continue, “You’ve been together since you were teenagers. You could’ve been honest with them. Tell them what’s really going on.”
His attention swerves to me, and he hooks my free hand, gently massaging my palm. “Like you did with me?”
I send him a suspicious glance. “I’m not understanding.”
Easton lifts my hand, exposing my bare arm, and twists it in the light. Light that has become much too revealing. “These bruises. They’re much too big for a ten-year-old’s fingers.”
“That’s …” Frantically, I try to think of something plausible to say. “I never said it was his hand.”
His head angles against the pillows. “What was it then?”
“It, uh—” I clear my throat, and his eyes narrow. “You’re flipping the conversation. We’re talking about you, and the fact you’ve walked away from the one thing that’s kept you sane. Your dreams. Willingly, I might add. All to cover up what? The fact you won’t be able to hear? There are plenty of deaf musicians—”
“Taryn,” he murmurs.
“I looked it up, East. I even spoke to Jamie’s music teacher. Without mentioning your name, but I think she’d be an excellent resource, as she’s deaf herself and plays multiple—”
“Taryn.” His gaze goes sharp, but when he traces my bruise, it’s tentative. “I don’t expect you to bare your soul to me. God knows I’ve kept enough from you. But I need to know the source of this.”
I pull my hand back, holding it gingerly against my stomach. “No. You don’t.”
“Is someone hurting you?”
“Are you deliberately hurting yourself?” I hurl back.
“Excuse me?”
“I don’t think Nocturne Court kicked you out. I think you let it get to this point so you could quit. Because you don’t want them to know you’re going deaf.”
“Fuck, Taryn.” He throws the sheets off and starts to get out of bed. “Why are you—”
“You lost your hearing when we were having sex.”
Still seated on the bed, he reaches up to massage his temples and says tiredly, “I can’t keep up with you right now.”
“You couldn’t hear me, Easton. But with my help, you learned how to find pleasure with your other senses. And it was awesome. Wonderful.” My voice lowers at the memory, but I raise it to go on. “You can relearn things, East. This proves it. The things that give you the greatest pleasure can be found again, if you’d only—”
“What if I don’t want to?” Easton drops his hands from his head. “What if this is all I’ve been dealt? A few years to live my dream. To play like I’ve always envisioned—loud and crass and hearing every damn beat that comes from my hands. If this is all the time I’ve been granted, I don’t want to waste it by starting from scratch where my peak will be some half-assed version of myself. I want to blast forward with what I have and then, when it comes for me…” He twists his lips and shrugs. “I’ll give up. Because I don’t want to play anymore, knowing the kind of talent I lost.”
“Your friends—your band—they have no idea you’re going through this. How can you assume they’d desert you?”
“Because once they find out, I’ll be done for. Career over. Rex will kick me out for good. Make Pete the bandleader,” he mutters. “And I’m not done yet. It’ll be easy to convince them I’m not on drugs and they’ll bring me back in. Much easier than the truth. I’ll piss in a cup and be back drumming by tomorrow.”
“That’s not the Easton I’ve come to know,” I whisper. “You’re hiding. Pretending. And it’s hurting you. You can’t keep doing this. Eventually you’re going to have to face that you’ll be different. And you’re in no way prepared.”
He flies off the bed and whirls to face me. “Tell me who the fuck is hurting you, Taryn!”
I jolt at the venom in his tone. “Don’t stand there and shout like you have every right to know what’s going on in my life when you can barely get a grip on yours.”
Easton’s eyes stretch to their whites, and he points at me. “Then don’t lecture like you have an all-access pass to everything that’s going on with me!”
“I’m worried about you!” I shout.
“And I’m fucking worried about you!”
I pull the covers higher up my chest, feeling more exposed than when I was stark naked and riding him like a hyena in heat.
“Y-You’re right,” I stutter. “We don’t know enough about each other to dig this deep. I think it’s time I get dressed and—”
<
br /> “Know enough?” He scoffs. “Know you? I fucking know you, Taryn. I know you’ve busted your ass since you were nineteen and pregnant to get where you are in this moment. I know you protect your son like a lioness and would rather describe his bike as a beast-mode DeLorean than let him wallow in anything that makes him stand out from the ‘normal’ kids. I know you taught him that being different makes him cool, again and again, until he finally believed it, and you wish it could work the same with me. I know you’re a defense lawyer because you have a sense of justice and fairness and I know you are the most decent, strong, and beautiful woman I’ve ever fucking seen.”
He dives deep for a breath when he finishes.
The bed seems to shift from under me, and it’s with unsteady feet that I hit the floor and stand in front of him, chin tilted up, back arched, hiding my trembles beneath the sheets I brought with me. “And I know you’ve had an affinity for music since you were a preteen and it’s not something you’d give up just because it things are getting difficult. Your soul sings lyrics, your fingers itch to bring notes to life, and you play for yourself more than you do to an audience. You can’t lose that. You shouldn’t. I know you’re patient because of the way you treat Jamie. With decency. With normalcy.” I bare my teeth, my eyes watering at the same time. “With humor. And anyone who’s kind to my son is a fucking great human being in my books. You’re not a goddamned coward, Easton, despite how you’re acting right now. You’re a fighter.”
We stare each other down, unblinking, furious, until Easton breaks contact first—
And laughs.
I stumble back, nearly tripping on the bedding. “You think this is funny?”
He drops his chin, glances sideways at me and says, still chuckling, “Are we really fighting by flinging positive traits at each other?”
“I—” The corners of my lips pull, but I force them flat. “That doesn’t negate the point. My point.”
Easton closes the space between us and cups my face. I gasp at the contact. The heat.
“Okay,” he says in surrender. “We’ve established that we understand more about each other than we let on. I care about you, Taryn. More than I ever should. Yet, here I am.” He searches my eyes. “And now that I’ve had you, I don’t want to let you go. But I do want to kick the everlasting shit out of whoever left those marks on you.”
I hold his wrists, attempting to pull him away, but he remains firm. “I’m handling it.”
He continues searching my face, then comes to a conclusion. “I believe you. You’ve handled your shit singlehandedly for a long time. But I’ll make you a deal. I’ll let you try to teach me how you and Jamie listen and learn music without using hearing. I’ll even let you refresh my sign language ability. If you let me in on what you’re hiding. I’m here for you, Taryn. I know I walked away initially, but that was a mistake. You’re not alone anymore—”
I cut Easton off, searching him. “You’d tell your band the truth? If I explain to you my past, you’ll return to Nocturne Court with open honesty?”
Easton hesitates. “If I can grasp music competently, if I can come back to them strong, then yeah. I’ll tell them. But not as this. Not while I’m weak and unsure and a fucking baby learning Frère Jacques again.”
I lean back, and he lets me study every part of him for a lie. When I’m satisfied, I lift my sheet-dress and say, “We should get clothes on for this. And we’ll need a drink. It’s going to be a long night.”
And I pray I can get through it.
27
Easton
“I got married really young. When I was eighteen.”
My brows shoot skyward at that, but only for a millisecond. I don’t want to spook Taryn, so I very nonchalantly say, “Oh?”
She reclines in her seat, gripping her wine glass so tight I’m afraid she’ll shatter it. We’re seated at my hightop table, a two-seater I propped near the sliding doors to my poor excuse for a balcony. I’m on the fifth floor, there’s not really a view, but the fact my landlord can say “small terrace” on the lease gives him great arm-wrestle advantage.
The view that matters is directly in front of me, disheveled, sexy, and vulnerable. Back when we were in bed and Taryn threw her hair to the side, her shoulders bare, right after sex, I controlled the urge to pounce. Every part of her begs to be tasted, yet here we are. Instead of having sex again, she’s telling me she has an ex-husband.
My cock, understandably, is unamused.
“He was older,” Taryn continues, laying the rim of the wine glass against her lips, but not sipping. She stares out the clear sliding door instead. “Fifteen years older, actually.”
I nearly choke on my beer. “Holy shit. He was sleeping with a seventeen year old?”
“Eighteen,” she corrects firmly. “I was eighteen when I started seeing him and got pregnant.”
“And nineteen when you had Jamie. So you were barely eighteen when a thirty-three year old started banging you.”
Her gaze cuts to me.
“Sorry,” I say. I’ll get nowhere with her if I swerve into the anger zone. “I’ll be good. Please go on.”
“I don’t tell people for this exact reason. The judgment. The stares. Yes, I’ve been married before. Yes, it was a quick engagement. So fucking what?”
I snag what’s important. “How long were you together?”
“When Jamie was five, almost six, I left Bryan. So, we were together about five years.”
“Have you dated anyone since?”
If Taryn’s put off by my digging, she doesn’t show it. “Yes. No. Not really. The few men I’ve tried haven’t worked out. I’ve never introduced anyone to Jamie. There almost was one, once. Sort of. But as soon as he found out I’d been married before and had a child at home, well … he’s not here, so you see where that went.”
“Those men aren’t men if they can’t handle some baggage,” I say after swallowing a big, cold gulp of beer.
She responds with a sad smile and sips her wine. “Thanks for that.”
“It’s true. Show me one dude who hasn’t fucked up and made mistakes in his past, and I’ll show you a virgin with a golden pussy that tastes like top shelf whiskey.”
Taryn laughs into her drink.
“Uh—sorry again. Guess you don’t need vulgar right now, either.”
“It’s refreshing, actually.” She sets her drink down and makes that throat noise signaling nervousness. “And the marriage was perfect, at first. He was older, yes, but that meant he was established. Settled. Mature, intelligent. I was fresh out of high school with no money and had strict parents who never let me date or get a job until I was eighteen.”
“How’d you meet him?”
“Uh.” She looks to the ceiling and scrunches her brows. “He was the uncle of one of my friends in high school.”
Choking commenced. I really need to learn not to suck anything back after I ask her an open-ended question.
“Holy fucking Christ,” I say once I get my throat under control.
“Not what you expected, huh?”
“Can’t say I saw any of this coming, no.”
Her expression turns solemn. “Do you want me to stop? I understand if—”
“No. Absolutely not. This is your truth, and I want to know it. It doesn’t affect how I feel about you. Shocks the fuck out of me, sure, but it doesn’t gross me out. I mean, hell.” I gesture over at her. “Look at you now. And look at me. There’s a clear winner.”
She gives a closed-mouth smile in response, and I sense she’s still suspicious and unsure how I’ll react once her full story’s out. I don’t want her to feel that way, so I reach over and rub her forearm with my thumb. My attention’s drawn to the purple-red flaw on her soft skin, and it’s a harsh reminder of why we’re having this conversation. I grow serious.
“I won’t interrupt anymore,” I say.
She stares down at my hand. “He treated me like I was precious, and God, I can’t tell you how good
that made me feel. At first, we met in secret. He didn’t want anyone to know, understandably. But the truth always has a way of revealing itself.” Taryn sighs. “My friend found out first. Bryan and I … we were making out in his car in his driveway and she was stopping by for help with her Economics homework. She couldn’t forgive me after that, I …” Taryn puts a hand to her forehead, and I squeeze her arm in encouragement.
“And then I got pregnant. After telling Bryan, we agreed we had to let my parents know, then his family. They ostracized us. My mom, she couldn’t believe it. I grew up in a very religious home, and this, well, it hurt her deeply. Despite it being her grandchild, she didn’t want anything to do with it. Me. Him. Dad was furious he couldn’t press charges against Bryan since I was a legal adult.” Taryn meets my eyes. “It was a mess. It was a goddamned mess, and I was a kid with no idea what I was getting into, other than that I was in love.”
“Happens to the best of us,” I murmur.
“Bryan had money, a home, the ability to take care of me, so the answer, back then, was clear. We’d get married, I’d move out of state with him to Massachusetts for a while—I’d gotten a full scholarship to Harvard, and he said he’d go with me, and we’d move there. That I didn’t have to drop out of college even though I was pregnant—we’d make it work. That’s how perfect he made it sound. We’d live happily ever after with our new baby.”
“You’re not an idiot for thinking that,” I say. “We all have crazy dreams at eighteen. I wanted to be a famous rockstar. Wanna guess how well my parents took that little tidbit?”
It’s becoming harder for Taryn to smile, the deeper she delves, and my brows come down in concern. I don’t want to let go of her, so I keep my hand where it is.
“It was as I imagined, for a while. Bryan scored a great job in finance. I was able to enroll in Harvard. But then, our baby was born. I struggled to keep up with my classes, but I somehow made it work. We hired a nanny so I could keep up. But then she started saying things about Jamie. That he wasn’t responding normally, and with her twenty years experience with newborns, I grew concerned. We took him to the pediatrician where he had a boatload of tests. Including a hearing screening. Which he initially passed. Everything was normal when we brought Jamie back home. Tiring, brutal and crazy with a newborn, but normal. Until I started noticing that Jamie wasn’t responding to things correctly, too. Like, there was a time Bryan accidentally set off the fire alarm when Jamie was two months old, and he didn’t jump or startle. At three months, he should’ve recognized my voice, yet he never looked at me when I started talking. Only when I got his attention. We took him back to the doctor and … yeah. Jamie was diagnosed with congenital hearing loss. It was devastating for us. I remember clutching Jamie and clutching Bryan and wishing it weren’t true.” Taryn blinks herself out of the memory. “Anyway, I was determined to be strong for Jamie. Learn what I needed to, buy what we had to in order for him to be comfortable and happy. He wasn’t a candidate for the implant, so I resolved myself to learn sign language—understanding that my son would be completely deaf. I refused to love him any less. I tried to do all that. I had to do the best that I …” her voice cracks.
Playing You: Players to Lovers, Book 4 Page 17
