“That’s right. My fans are cool, laid-back. They’re no hassle.” He eased Mena closer and she curled into him, her arms draped over his shoulders. “I like my life this way. My music this way.” And if it sometimes felt too easy, he only had to remember the blinding fear he experienced on stage at the piano or Jay on his knees chucking at the side of the stage to know he’d made the right call.
“Thank you for telling me.” She kissed him; a soft kiss full of comfort. No judgment, no trying to tell him he was wrong, talk him out of it, or make him try again.
The next breath he took felt cleaner, sharper. “Wanted you to know the truth.”
“I need to te—”
He cut her off because he needed to kiss her thoroughly, deeply, over and over again, with her glasses on and then, when they got in the way, with them off. With her body pressed close, with his hands on her hips and his heart open so wide, it was dumb luck it didn’t fill with water and drown him.
He kissed her until he felt her shiver and then he got them out of the spa and rubbed her down with a thick towel. It was another excuse to touch her all over and it took some time. She kept getting wet from touching him. He kept encouraging her. She said they needed to talk more. He said they needed to talk less. They were both thoroughly dry and steamed up by the time the mosquitos discovered them and it was time to move the party horizontal.
He found her glasses and with her hand tucked in his, they went upstairs to bed where with the moonlight streaming into the room it got a whole lot more deep and meaningful and no one needed to see anything up close or far away, no one needed to say anything, no confessions, no questions, just to breathe into each other’s skin and feel the soak of pleasure.
Every kiss added meaning, layer over layer of it. Joyous, lazily seductive, sharply addictive, hungry. Every touch brought understanding: what she liked, what she needed, what made her shudder and want, sigh and cry out.
He was deep inside her when he came. She was deeply, happily sleepy after she did.
Great night. Ten out of ten. Would do again. And Again. And Again.
Next stop, sex-satisfied coma.
It was the sun that woke him, way too early, bouncing into the room with an entitled attitude like it had an official backstage pass. He fumbled for the remote to close the curtains before it woke Mena too, taking the time to drink in her sleeping form, only half-covered by the sheet. That’s when he noticed the mark on her exposed hip. Mottled, circular. Shit, he’d bruised her. Was that what she’d been going to tell him, when he’d cut her off, not to handle her so roughly? He looked closer, wanting to touch the spot, soothe where he’d hurt, horrified he’d not taken enough care.
He made out shapes in the dark stain. He peered closer and made out letters, a shooting star. Not a bruise.
E. X. T.
He knew the style of those letters, as if they’d been tattooed on his own skin.
Head full of discordant notes, he didn’t need to see any more. He hit the button to close the curtains and got out of bed. Snagged some cut-off sweats to wear and got out of there.
He played Florence till his fingers cramped and then moved to the drum kit and played till his knees ached and his back pained, and his arms burned, and the confusion became disappointment and dripped off his skin. It should’ve been enough.
That’s where she found him. She came into the room wearing his T-shirt and a come-back-to-bed expression. “I missed you.”
It wasn’t enough.
Was this some kind of sport for her? A fucking nasty game of entrapment. For his money? That had to be it. All that fake indecision for professional reasons just a play to lure him in.
He stared at her, sex hair, tousled and tossed, her glasses in her hand, those long wonderous legs that she’d wrapped over his arse. She was naked under the shirt, the points of her nipples showing, the curve of one hip.
So physically different from when they’d first met, he’d not seen it clearly.
Then she’d been sharp, angular, dark hair, pale skin. Now she was a fucking beautiful deceit.
Maybe there was an explanation, maybe she’d set things straight.
“Was I too rough?”
“No.” A smile, but he saw the caution in it. “You were just right. Except you’re out of bed already.”
He touched his own hip. “I didn’t mark you?”
She’d tell him. She’d explain and it would make sense.
“You?” She shook her head. “No.” Her face was stripped of color, but for the darkness of her eyes.
Disappointment curdled into anger.