We were halfway through the haunted house when I realized that Dallas wasn’t in front of me any longer. My heart lifted into my throat and I turned around, nearly knocking over the two college kids behind me. “Dallas?” I called her name, pushing against the next group.
“Dallas!” I couldn’t see her anywhere.
Someone in black jeans and a black T-shirt, who was hidden in a corner to make sure everyone didn’t cause trouble, came out and grabbed my arm. I shrugged the skinny man’s arm off. What the fuck was he going to do to me anyway? My left leg probably weighed more than him. “Sir, is there a problem?”
“My girlfriend. She was with our group but I can’t find her,” I told him over my shoulder as I kept walking, my eyes searching almost frantically for her. I didn’t know why, but I knew something was wrong. My stomach was in knots, my heart pounding. Strobe lights were flashing all around and actors were stepping out to scare whoever walked past.
Then I heard it and my heart actually stopped.
Dallas’s scream.
“Dallas!” I bellowed her name, and pushed some bulky-looking guy on the ground as I tried to get into the next room. The scream came again and I knew if I didn’t find her in the next few seconds I was going to throw up.
A clown holding a bloody hatchet popped out of a closet as I entered the room. Her scream cracked open my soul and I nearly fell to my knees in relief when I spotted her. But her face was a mask of fear. Her eyes were wide, with frightened tears streaming down her cheeks. No one was standing near her as she crouched down in the corner, her eyes darting between the closest clown to me that had just popped out of a box, to the dummy lying on the ground a few feet from her that was dressed up like a clown with guts spilling out of its abdomen, and then to the very real clown in the opposite corner with a funny-looking stuffed dog in one hand and a very bloody knife in the other.
“Dallas.” I breathed her name on a sigh of relief and crossed to her.
When her eyes finally landed on me she reached her arms out and clutched at me like a scared little girl. I pulled her to her feet and she buried her face in my chest, sobbing. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”
I stroked my hands down her bare back, pressing her closer to me. “It’s not real, baby,” I whispered against her ear. “Nothing in this room is real but you and me.”
“Get me out of here, Ax. Please.” She sobbed harder. “I can’t deal with this… I can’t.”
Unable to handle the sound of her crying, I lifted her into my arms. The skinny guy was standing right behind me and we were alone in the room except for the freaking clowns. Apparently they had stopped the groups from entering for the moment. “Where’s the closest exit?” I demanded.
The skinny guy turned around and I followed him. Dallas wrapped her arms around my neck and buried her face in my hair, hiding her eyes from the clowns. The next hall had an exit sign and I pushed through it with Dallas clinging to me and shaking. The slightly cool October night air greeted us and I sucked in a deep breath. “You’re safe now, baby.”
The sobs slowly faded, but she still clung to me as her body shuddered with little hiccups. As badly as I had wanted her to hold onto me, I never wanted it to be like this. I stroked her hair back from her face, brushing kisses over the top of her head, down her jaw and neck. Anything to distract her from the fear that was still making her tremble.
“I didn’t know you had a phobia of clowns,” I murmured after we had been sitting there for a while.
Dallas let out a long breath, letting go of some of the panic that still gripped her. “It’s not something I share with most people. Being scared of clowns is the stupidest fear known to man…”
“What happened? What made you so scared of them?”
She scowled. “You would laugh if I told you.”
“Try me.”
“I don’t want to talk about it, Ax.” She pushed back from me slightly and my arms tightened instinctively. I wasn’t ready to let her go yet.
“Everyone has stupid fears, baby,” I told her. Mine were crazy and childish. I saw a shrink once and only once, because she had told me I had mommy issues. What the fuck did that mean? I was scared to tell people I loved them because my mother had refused to tell me she loved me? What-the-fuck-ever!
“Like what?” She raised a brow at me, daring me to tell her what my fears were.
“I have a fear of falling,” I told her.
“No way!” She shook her head, causing her ponytail to brush against my hand still stroking across her shoulders. “Falling?”
Falling in love… But I wasn’t going to tell her that. “Crazy, huh?”
“Have you ever faced your fear?” she asked, tilting her head to the side to study me in the dim lighting from a nearby street lamp and the glow sticks from a group of teenagers walking by.
“Once,” I nodded. But before I could tell you how I felt, you decided I wasn’t worth your time. I didn’t say it aloud. I should have. I should have told her right then that she was the only girl I had ever really been in love with. “Dallas…”
“There you two are!” Harper exclaimed as she came around the side of the building with Shane and the others right behind her. “Where did you two go? One minute you were behind me and the next you disappeared.”
Dallas’s nails bit into my arm, and I glanced down at her. She had a pleading look in her blue eyes and I knew she didn’t want me to tell them the truth. That surprised me. Didn’t Harper and Linc know about her fear? Did they know the reasons behind it?
“We decided to bail and talk.”
Chapter 5
Dallas
The thumping on the door woke me. Startled, I sat straight up in bed…
A king sized bed.
What the fuck?
It took me exactly five seconds to remember where I was and how I had ended up there. This wasn’t the room I had seen yesterday, the one I was supposed to be sharing with Natalie. This room was bigger, though only slightly. The window facing west instead of north.
The thumping on the door came again. “Get your lazy ass up!” I thought it was Shane who was yelling through the locked door, but it could have just as easily been Drake. “The girls are already packed and starting to head out.”
Beside me Axton grunted and pushed himself into a sitting position. “Dude! I’m going to murder you.”
A deep, sexy laugh drifted to me. “Nothing I haven’t heard before. Get up, throw your shit in your case and let’s go… Oh, and tell Dallas that Harper has been looking for her.”
My still half-foggy mind cleared and I felt my face heat with a mixture of embarrassment and shame. I lowered my head, letting my long blonde hair hide my face from the man sitting very close—and very much naked—beside me.
“I’ll be out in a few,” Axton called back and I breathed a sigh of relief when I heard Shane’s heavy footsteps fade away as he left.
I didn’t lift my head. I couldn’t face him, couldn’t face what I had done. Damn my weakness for this man, and damn him for exploiting it. He had seduced me with every innocent brush of his fingers against my skin, his every murmured word as we had walked through Universal Studios last night. From the moment he started massaging my aching shoulders, I had weakened. The moment he lifted me into his arms and I had found my salvation from one of my worst nightmares, I was done for.
After Harper had found us, I had tried to be strong. I really had. But it was impossible not to feel his eyes on me, to feel the heat from his body as he had walked behind me through the other haunted houses. So it had been all too easy to cuddle into him when he had put his arm around me as we got onto the Transformers ride. While Harper had been transfixed by the movie ride experience, I had been making out with Mister Rock God.
Of course I was going to blame it on all the beer I had drunk last night. As well as the fact that I hadn’t drunk anything in two years. Maybe I would get away with saying it was because I had been so fucking horny and had gone
without for just as long as I had alcohol.
Harper and Linc would see right through that half-truth in a heartbeat. I had gone a lot longer without sex than just two years. As much as some people liked to think I was a slut, I could count every man I had ever been with on one hand and still have a few fingers left over. The man beside me had been the one to ruin me for any other man, though. The one who had stolen my heart without much trouble, then shredded it in two when his feelings for his ex-girlfriend had reared their ugly head.
“We need to talk,” he finally said after I had been sitting there staring at the sheets for a few minutes.
I snorted and raised my gaze from the sheets to meet his hazel eyes. Right now they were a mixture of brown and green, but last night they had switched several times from brown to green and back again. When he was thrusting into me, forcing me to keep my eyes on him, his eyes had been green. As soon as he found his release, those crazy eyes switched almost instantly back to brown, until he started fucking me all over again.
“That was what you said last night when you asked me to come back to your room with you. The only words to ever leave your mouth were, ‘Fuck, you’re wet for me, baby’ and a few ‘I can’t wait to taste your scorching pussy’.” I pushed my hair back from my face, wishing I still had my ponytail holder so I could get it out of my way. “That’s the way it always was with us, Axton. Every time we should have been talking we were fuckin’ instead.”
He grimaced, making the lip ring in his bottom lip pout out. “Yeah, I know. It’s one of the many mistakes I made with you.”
“Wow.” My eyes widened and I knew I was being a total bitch, but I didn’t really care. “I never thought you would actually admit that you made mistakes. Are you sick?” I touched a hand to his forehead.
Axton grabbed my hand as he pushed me back against the pillows, pulling my hand to his already stone-hard cock. “You have such a smartass mouth, Dallas. And if I didn’t want it sucking my dick so badly right now I would tell you a few more things that would really surprise you. So instead of talking like I know we need to do, I’m going to fuck you until neither one of us can remember our names and then I’m going to drive you to Harper’s house in Santa Monica so you can spend some time with your friend. But tonight we are going to talk for sure.”
My mouth had gone dry the minute I touched that white hot, satin covered titanium rod he called a dick. I couldn’t think past how I wanted to suck his cock just as much as he wanted me to. So I agreed with him and then pushed on his chest until our positions were reversed and I was kissing my way down his chest.
I took my time, wanting to make sure I paid homage to every tattoo I loved. Like the music note on his right pec. Or the hoop through his left nipple. I tilted my head, examining it better. I had dared him to get this piercing one night. I never thought he would actually do it, but he had kept his eyes locked on mine the whole time it was being put in. Of course I had to get my tongue pierced that same night, because it had been his stipulation. A piercing for a piercing.
Bending my head I rubbed my studded tongue over his tiny hoop before sucking it into my mouth and pulling back ever so slightly, tugging just enough to make his hands tangle in my hair and keep me against him. “Damn, Dallas. I love that fucking mouth of yours.”
I grinned against his flesh before pulling away to continue kissing down his chest. The hard, defined edges of his six-pack abs gave me something else to explore, further delaying what I most wanted to be kissing and licking. I traced my fingers over each one, following the trail with my tongue. He tasted of sweat and something tangier, kind of spicy and a little sweet. I knew that it was Axton’s unique flavor, remembered that it had been that taste that had kept me going back for more.
My tongue dipped into his belly button and his fingers tightened in my long, thick hair. A line of dark hair, just slightly lighter than the dyed, inky black hair on his head had me following the trail with my lips. I kissed down the V of his groin until I was inches away from ten inches of broad, hard, hot dick.
The memory of how good he had felt deep inside me just a few hours ago made me whimper and I let my tongue skim over the pink mushroom-shaped head. The taste of my own desire still lingered along with his pre-cum. I grasped his hard shaft in my left hand and stroked upward, producing a few more drops of that addicting substance that I could feast on for days. I licked it away as if it were juice melting from my favorite Popsicle.
“Tease!” he muttered, pulling on my hair just enough to make it hurt a little.
I could feel my own growing desire dripping down my thighs and I used my free hand to stroke myself as I took his cock fully into my mouth. The head of his dick hit the back of my throat and I swallowed, taking him deeper. His growl of pleasure had my fingers rubbing over my clit faster, producing more liquid heat to make his eventual possession easier to accept.
“I can smell your need for me, baby,” Axton breathed. “Let me eat you. Let me taste that sweet pussy.”
No way was I moving, not when I could feel his balls tightening. He was close and so was I. I lifted my wet fingers and let him suck, letting him have the taste he claimed to need. I switched hands, holding him only with my mouth while he sucked on my fingers and I touched myself with my left hand.
My thighs began to tremble, my stomach tightening as I felt my release building. I sucked him deeper, moaning around his thick cock as my inner walls started contracting. The vibrations from moans triggered his own and I had to pull my hand from his mouth to hold on as he filled my mouth with hot shots of his release over and over again. I couldn’t swallow it all, couldn’t keep it all inside my mouth. It dripped down my chin as I continued to suck on him even as I kept rubbing out my own orgasm.
When he pulled my head from him we were both breathing hard and I was shaking from the power of my release. It was like he hadn’t given me four mind-blowing, earthshaking orgasms last night. I was wasted, completely useless as I cuddled into his side and closed my eyes.
His finger rubbed across my chin, wiping away his release. “Don’t waste it, baby,” he whispered against my ear as he placed his thickly coated finger inside my mouth. I sucked it away, loving his taste. No man tasted as good as Axton Cage, my own personal Rock God.
Harper
I didn’t say a word as we all climbed into the back of Emmie’s Escalade. Didn’t even look at her as we took our time getting settled. There were seven of us packed inside of the huge SUV, two of which were heavily pregnant. These were all my friends and I wasn’t going to ruin the time I was going to spend with them today and in the morning by opening my mouth and bitching.
Even if I was aching to do just that.
I was sitting in the middle row between Lana and Dallas, while Lucy and Natalie took the third row with Emmie driving and Layla taking shotgun. I bit my lip hard, because not only did I not want to cause trouble the day before my wedding, but I didn’t want nine-year-old Lucy to hear the words that were going to come spilling out the minute I let myself go.
It wasn’t that I was mad—not really. I was worried. Dallas had been her own version of a zombie after her breakup with Axton the last time. I didn’t want her to go through that all over again. I didn’t want her to hurt even for a second over a guy who didn’t deserve her. When she hurt, I hurt and I was tired of hurting. Being with Shane had shown me what it was like not to hurt emotionally all the time. I had gotten spoiled and now I was terrified of feeling it ever again.
God, I was such a little wimp.
“So…” Emmie could feel—probably see—the tension in me and she didn’t seem happy about it. “Let’s address the elephant in the room, shall we?”
“Lucy, headphones. Dad’s new drum solo.” I glanced over my shoulder to watch Lucy slip on a pair of Beats plugged into her iPhone. A moment later the pounding of one of Demon’s Wings’ songs reached me, the one that had a long drum solo that Jesse Thorton had perfected within a day.
Emmie kept the Escalade
in Park and turned to face us all. “Have a good night, Dallas?”
She shrugged. “It was fun.”
Emmie grinned. “I bet.”
I gritted my teeth, but didn’t say a word. Lana’s hand touched one of my cold ones, soothing me just a little. Emmie saw my clenched jaw and shook her head. “Let it go, girl. I don’t need a homicidal bride on her wedding day. And Shane will be pissed if you show up looking defeated instead of ecstatic.”
“He’s going to break her heart all over again!” I exploded, unable to hold onto it a second longer without indeed becoming a homicidal maniac. Dallas was my best friend, my sister. We had been through hell with our mothers and had only just barely made it back because we had been there for each other. “I can’t handle it if he hurts her again. She deserves better…” I turned to look right at her, finally letting her see how upset I was. She had been so quiet ever since she finally came out of Axton’s room that I knew she had felt my tension. “…You deserve better!”
Dallas smiled and pulled me into her arms. She wasn’t a fan of hugs, of any physical contact really, but she held me close and stroked her hands over my hair. “Stop worrying about me, Harp. I know what I’m doing. This is like closure. He and I are having one last crazy weekend. I’ve needed it, actually. He’s been haunting me for so long and now I can work him out of my system and leave with a smile on my face.”
I wrapped my arms around her small waist, breathing in the soothing scent of her subtle perfume. I didn’t believe a word she was saying, but I wasn’t going to call her on it. For the moment I was going to pretend I believed her. I was good at pretending things were okay; my childhood had made me a pro at it.
Hugging her tight for another long moment to soak up the love we shared, I finally let go. “Okay, Em. Let’s go.”
Big green eyes were still narrowed on me, but she nodded her head after only a small hesitation and turned around to put the Escalade in Drive.
By that afternoon I had pushed all thoughts of Dallas and Axton out of my mind. The seven of us were having too much fun for me to let any negative thoughts affect me. We were sitting outside by the pool at the house Shane and I had bought just a few months ago. I loved Santa Monica more than I thought I would. We had tried to find a house in Malibu, but there hadn’t been anything available that either of us had really liked. As soon as the realtor had shown us this four-bedroom cottage, I had been in love with it.