Taut Strings: A Rock Star Romance (River Valley Rebels)

by Gabrielle Sands

  “Cole, they’ll be here any second,” I said even as I tangled my hands into his untamed hair and pulled him closer.

  His lips were impossibly soft as they descended onto mine, but his hands were firm on my waist.

  Last night, while bartending, I’d once again spent a good chunk of the time trying to process my feelings for all of them. I was in a physical relationship with three men. Up until this point in my life, I’d never been interested in more than one guy at a time. Most of my life, that number had been zero. And then there was Abel. Despite the hot and cold nature of our relationship, I was drawn to him, too.

  “I’m starved from not seeing you this weekend,” Cole said between kisses, his throaty voice bringing me back into the present moment. “It will be very hard to concentrate during practice.” He ground himself into me to emphasize his point.

  My earlier thoughts scrambled like fireflies. “Tonight?” I panted.

  “It’s a plan.”

  The distant sound of a car approaching made him take a step back, his lips beautifully flushed.

  “Cole, did you show up early just so you could take all the credit for the surprise?” Ezra chastised once he got out and took in the passes sitting on the hood of Cole’s car.

  “Dude, I got them through my hook up, so I sure as hell am taking all the credit.”

  “Is everyone coming?” I asked.

  “Think so,” Ezra said. “We wanted to do something fun together and thought you could use the distraction after the week you just had.”

  My heart swelled at the thoughtfulness of their surprise. I hadn’t had someone take care of me like this since the death of my parents, and I’d forgotten how good it felt. I squeezed their hands, hiding the ball in my throat behind a grateful smile. “Thank you. It means a lot.” The idea of all of us going to a concert together filled me with giddy anticipation.

  Ezra grinned and pulled me toward the building. “Silas and Abel are driving together. They should be here in a few minutes. We can wait for them inside.”

  The fact that neither he nor Cole had pressed me for information on what happened between the guitarist and I didn’t go unnoticed. I was both relieved and…disappointed. A part of me craved to fess up, to stop holding on to secrets that served us little purpose, but I was still afraid to put the relationship between the four of us into words. What did they really think about it? What did it mean to them?

  It couldn’t have meant much. The end had been spelled out from the beginning.

  Ezra’s hand traveled to the small of my back as he led me inside. “By the way, what happened to your driver?” I asked, realizing I hadn’t seen the SUV with the bulky bodyguard in a while.

  “He’ll be driving us to the concert on Thursday,” Cole said. “Our record label wanted us to keep him around when all the stuff with Charlie was going down, but things have been pretty calm, so they’ve laid off a bit.”

  “Yeah, we got some pretty crazy letters when news of his death first got out,” Ezra added.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Upset fans blaming us for not seeing it coming or not doing more to help him. Of course, none of them know that Charlie hid his issues better than any buried treasure.”

  “That’s awful.” To deal with a close friend dying while being under that kind of a spotlight was something I never wanted to experience.

  We had four tracks left to record at the studio this week, which meant we had to stay focused. Still, the guys didn’t seem too stressed about getting it done. Even Abel was doing his job as producer in a calm and efficient way that stood in stark contrast to his attitude when we first started.

  Despite being pleased with the fact that we’d likely get the recording done on schedule, the prospect of saying goodbye to the guys weighed on me heavily. I hadn’t asked them what they planned on doing after this week, and every time I tried to, the words couldn’t seem to get out.

  Cole and Ezra coming home with me on Monday was a welcome distraction. Ezra backed me into Cole’s hard chest and pushed his hands up my shirt before I had taken my boots off. His calloused hands molded around my breasts, the rough skin creating delicious friction against my already puckered nipples. Their bodies enveloped me, firm and eager, grinding against all the right places and making me moan.

  My head dropped back, landing on Cole’s chest. “Even a few days away from you is too long,” he murmured against my hair before pushing it to one side and baring my neck. His hot breath skated over it, his lips barely touching the pulsing vein. “Did you think about us while we were gone?”

  Shivers erupted down my spine. “Yes.” I did think of them, even when I was with Silas. Even when the guitarist’s thick cock had been deep inside my cunt. It was like all four of them were braided together and pulling the strings apart only created a tighter knot. I couldn’t separate the desire. God knows, I’d tried. I didn’t want just one of them. I wanted all of them. Even Abel, though I knew nothing could happen with him, not when our remaining days together were racing at a break-neck speed to zero. I couldn’t forget how his eyes had shone when he’d said I had power over them. I couldn’t forget how my heart had pounded when I’d thought we were about to share a kiss.

  We stumbled into my bedroom, tearing each other’s clothes off with desperate haste. “What did you imagine us doing to you?” Ezra asked, falling back onto my bed and pulling me down to straddle him. His fingers landed at the nape of my neck, slid into my hair, and tugged.

  “I imagined your head between my legs. I imagined you thrusting into my mouth. I imagined both of you inside of me again.”

  Cole made a strangled sound that sent a jolt of pleasure straight down to my core. He was kneeling behind me, on the bed between Ezra’s legs, and his hands landed on my ass, prying the flesh apart. I couldn’t turn to look at him, Ezra’s hand held my head in place, and I felt a pang of shame at the thought of him examining me there so carefully.

  “What else?” Ezra prompted, as if he knew where my mind was going and wanted to bring me back into the moment.

  I swallowed, forcing the shame down. “I imagined you losing control. I imagined your grunts and groans and moans. I imagined coming apart on your tongues until I forgot how to form words.”

  “Did you imagine my tongue here?” Cole rasped and licked over the hole he’d been studying.

  I gasped as the feathery sensation went straight to my clit. “I promise I will next time.”

  He laughed, the vibration of his tongue adding to the pleasure starting to build and making me whimper. Ezra put pressure on the back of my head, lowering my mouth to his. I kissed the drummer, pushing past his lips and tasting his need with the frantic swipes of my tongue.

  Frantic. That’s what we were. I wondered if they had thought about our impending separation as much as I had, and if a part of them was already saying goodbye. How many more nights like this would we have? What if this was our last?

  Cole pulled away, placed his thumb over my clit, and pushed a finger up my ass. My thoughts were wiped blank, replaced by battling currents of pain and pleasure. “Fuck,” I growled against Ezra’s mouth.

  “He’s getting you ready for me this time,” Ezra murmured.

  “How thoughtful,” I whispered with a grin.

  The drummer released my hair and scooted up on the bed until his cock pointed at my mouth. He propped himself up on his elbows, meeting my lustful gaze with his own. “I want to watch you take me in your mouth.” His abs flexed with anticipation as I licked the drop of pre-cum off his fat tip and lowered my mouth onto his cock.

  He pumped into my mouth while Cole worked me into a breathless frenzy with his fingers. The orgasm started from a single point deep inside my core before expanding and consuming every part of me. I moaned as I came, and Ezra pulled me off him to kiss the sounds right out of my mouth.

  They switched spots and positioned my body until I was sitting on top of Cole, his hard ridge pressed against the wetness between my l
egs. The sight of the handsome bassist beneath me made me forget to breathe. I took him in slowly, loving the drama playing out across his flushed face as he watched himself disappear inside of me. He gripped my breasts, squeezing the nipples hard enough to hurt just as Ezra nudged me from the back with his lubed-up tip.

  I hinged at my hips, lowering myself onto Cole and pressing my breasts against his chest to give Ezra better access. The thought of being filled by both of them at the same time never failed to elicit a frisson, no matter how many times we’d done it by now.

  Ezra gripped the back of my neck and pushed in. We moaned in near unison, the friction of their cocks was impossibly perfect against every nerve ending inside of me.

  “God, that’s good.” Ezra’s voice was rough. “It’s so tight.”

  I remembered to breathe. “Can you feel Cole through me?”

  “Oh yeah,” he groaned.

  “Are you ready?” the bassist asked, his hand rubbing circles over my back.

  “Yes.” I clenched around them, and they both hissed.

  “How are you so fucking perfect?” Cole asked, beginning to thrust beneath me as Ezra did the same above. “How can you feel so goddamn good?” Under the lust there was something broken in his voice.

  Ezra’s hand clamped down harder on my neck, pushing my cheek flush against Cole’s chest.

  “I don’t know,” I blubbered into the dark patch of hair covering his pecs. “I don’t know.”

  We fucked until everything I imagined came true. By the time my second orgasm crested, I was a pile of soft muscle and vibrating limbs, incapable of speaking or thinking about anything other than the divine sensation of being pressed between the two of them.

  Ezra followed right behind me, pulling out and coming on my lower back in hot spurts. When Cole met his release, he gripped my face between his hands, the gold flakes in his eyes glistening like the surface of a lake on a cool summer night.

  “Where have you been all our lives?”

  “Here,” I answered simply, still descending from my high.

  “The answer to everything,” Ezra whispered, trailing his fingers down my spine. “Right here in our old home town.”

  I shut my eyes. It was still my home, but for them it was just a memory. A postcard they’d pulled out to look at for a while before they’d bury it back in the box.

  Cole’s fingers trailed my cheek. “Whenever we’re together, I know everything will work out just fine.”

  How badly I wanted to believe his words. But I knew that a moment this perfect could be no more than a dream.

  ABEL

  Well, fuck. Somehow, I went from trying to keep Adeline away from the band to agreeing to ask her to join us.

  If that wasn’t some voodoo shit, I didn’t know what was.

  As much as I didn’t want to admit it aloud, the bastards had a point. As we neared the last few days of working together on the record, it was obvious to any idiot that she helped bring the chaos that was our personalities together.

  Even Kyle, my favorite sound engineer, was spewing praises. “You really have unbelievable chemistry. I’ve never seen a session musician integrate so smoothly with a band.”

  I know, asshole. I fucking know.

  Her playing was impeccable. Somehow, over the past three and a half weeks, she had gotten even better than that first night at the Barnyard, and sometimes I got chills just listening to her play.

  But they were all sleeping with her. That bothered me, and the problem was that I didn’t know if I wanted to stop them or join them. It was easier to stay away when I knew I wouldn’t be seeing her again in a week. But if she agreed to join us, how could I keep denying the attraction I felt?

  She brought my muse out of its self-imposed coma. She was working fucking miracles, and as much as I hated it, a part of me was in awe of that as well.

  On Tuesday, while she played, her tattoo peeked out of her sleeveless tank top, over and over again. It was a cheesy, basic, small-town-girl tattoo, but the word taunted me like a high school bully. How many times had she looked at that tattoo and found the courage she needed? How many times did I have to look at it for me to do the same?

  As we were packing up to leave, I saw Ezra and Cole were eager to get out, so I pulled them aside.

  “Stick around for a while longer.”

  That seemed to irritate Cole. “Dude, we kinda have a thing.”

  I didn’t miss how his eyes flashed toward Adeline, and it riled me up. She looked gorgeous today in her tight black jeans and a gray tank top that emphasized the soft curves of her chest. If I had to guess, these two were planning on doing things to her I’d been dreaming about for weeks.

  “Do you want her to agree or not?” I bit out. “I have an idea.”

  Cole sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Fine. I’ll be right back.”

  He ran after her, probably to tell her that their fuckfest would have to be postponed.

  Silas was sitting on a chair and studying me with thoughtful eyes. “If I didn’t know you better, I would think you were jealous.”

  I glared at him, refusing to acknowledge his assumption, even though it was true.

  Cole strutted back in and raised a brow at me. “So?”

  I walked over to the desk and pulled out a few sheets of notes. “Here’s the song we wrote together. I think it fits with the album and could slide right in between track six and seven. I was thinking we figure out your parts, rehearse it a few times, and play it for her.”

  Ezra’s face lit up with a smile. “That’s brilliant. Show her what our original material with her could sound like.”

  I nodded. “We play it for her on Thursday, then we pop the question.”

  “Didn’t know you could be such a romantic,” Cole jabbed.

  “Don’t make me regret this.”

  The guys were impressed with what we had written. “This is different,” Ezra mused, his finger tapping on his bottom lip. “But I’m digging it a lot. I think this could inform our direction for the following album.”

  We worked on the song for a few hours, figuring out the other instruments and making small adjustments to what was already written. Last time we had tried to do this during rehearsals, we’d been at each other’s throats within the hour. Now, we were united by a common goal—getting Adeline onboard—and that was enough to keep all of the egos and pain at bay.

  It was close to eleven when we finally called it quits.

  Ezra stayed behind while the other two left. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked, leveling me with his steady gaze.

  “Talk about what?”

  “What’s been going on between her and us.”

  I grit my teeth. “You’re sleeping with her. You can spare me the details. If I want to learn about the specifics of three guys nailing a girl, I’ve got a dozen of websites for that.”

  His expression didn’t waver. “You said you were worried about the band dynamic. Talk to me.”

  Clearly, Ezra was back to his old ways. I rolled my eyes, rubbing at my cheek. I knew he wouldn’t let up until we had the conversation he wanted. “You’re operating in an alternate reality. As far as she’s concerned, after this week, she’s never going to see you again. You may have managed to convince her to be with you in the short term, but an occasional orgy is a hell of a lot different than being seriously involved with three dudes at the same time. Three dudes that want to become her bandmates. If she decided she wants to join the band but walk away from your relationship, are you going to be ready to accept that?”

  Ezra bit down on his lip. “Honestly? No. I don’t think I could accept that. I’d hope she’ll agree to at least give us a chance.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “A bit coercive, don’t you think? Here, join our band and guarantee yourself a sparkling career, but only if you’ll keep fucking us.”

  He shook his head. “Abel, it’s not like that between us. It’s not just sex. I want to be with her, and I think she wants
to be with us.”

  But she didn’t want to be with me. Even if Ezra was right, and she agreed to the band and to the relationship, where would that leave me?

  “You have a point, though,” he added. “It’s always been her choice. If she says no to either of the things we’re offering, I’ll do everything in my power to get her the opportunities she deserves. She was born to be a musician, with or without us.”

  “That, I can agree with.” A moment of silence passed, and I took a step toward the door, sensing the conversation was coming to an end.

  “Abel,” Ezra called out, making me pause. “What about you and her?”

  I met his gaze. “Nothing. There’s nothing.”

  From his expression, I could tell he didn’t believe me, but what concerned me more was that I didn’t, either.

  ADELINE

  On Wednesday, when Abel said Ezra and Cole had to stay behind to rerecord some parts from earlier tracks, Silas walked me to my car and insisted I come over to his place.

  We dropped my car off at my house before driving together to his. We didn’t make it out of his condo’s garage for a long while.

  “Thank God you have a big truck,” I said between gasps, holding on to the handlebar near the window for leverage as I rode him on the reclined seat.

  He smirked. “This is definitely the best use it’s ever gotten.”

  The windows were fogged up by the time we were done, and we both laughed at how teenage this whole thing felt. In a weird way, I did feel younger when I was with the three of them. During moments like these, the things I constantly worried about disappeared for a little while, and I felt carefree.

  Once inside his place, we ordered dinner, and I was finally ready to discuss what was happening between the four of us. We were alone for the first time since Ezra and Cole had barged in on us the morning after my confession to Silas. I still didn’t fully understand how Cole had been so right in predicting Silas’s calm reaction, but I was ready to find out.

  “I’m sorry I ran away from that first kiss,” I told him, leaning back into the couch. “I felt like such a bad person for hooking up with Ezra and Cole a little over a week later. I thought you’d hate me if you ever found out, even after Cole tried to hint that you wouldn’t. I guess I just…found it hard to believe.”