He drove his knee between my legs, forcing them open. The hand that had held my face now sank into my slick heat, probing me and stretching me with two fingers that teased at the exquisite pleasure to come. I wrapped a shaking hand around his thick length and began stroking him, squeezing him. He responded in kind by thrusting his fingers deeper. The roughness of his touch left no room for thought. There was only feeling. And the feeling was good.
Sean groaned, his breathing more and more erratic. His lips devoured mine hungrily, greedily, but it wasn’t nearly enough. Not for him. And definitely not for me. When he rolled off me and returned a second later, I barely had time to register the fact he’d slipped on a condom before plunging inside of me to the hilt. I gasped, pleasure and pain entwining together to forge something delicious and raw. Something primal. He pulled out and slammed in again, mouth smothering my cries before they could leave my lips.
Each thrust of his hips added kindling to the fire in my belly until I was sure there would be scorch marks on the sheets when we were done. The pleasure was intense. Unyielding. I felt like a rag doll tossed on the waves, and Sean was the only thing keeping me from sinking into endless, dark oblivion. At least for now.
When I did go under, it wouldn’t be a slow, suffocating descent. He would tear me down, down, down, until the pressure threatened to pop my skull. And I knew when he did it would be explosive and beautiful. Just like him.
Sean pulled out and flipped me onto my stomach, roughly yanking my hips up and entering me from behind. I moaned into the sheets under my cheek, clutching onto them for dear life as he reached a hand under me and rubbed my clit. His strokes came hard and fast, just like his breathing and masculine grunts of exertion.
Something had snapped in him today, and even though I knew he was troubled because of it, I couldn’t bring myself to wish that pain away. If anything, I hoped he would take out all his future frustrations like this.
Magma pooled in my core. I was close. I started thrusting back against him, our bodies meeting with loud smacks that reverberated through the small space. I screwed my eyes shut, my hair standing on end. My body tensed, waiting.
So close.
So fucking close.
Sean growled and leaned low over me, sinking his teeth into the back of my shoulder.
I screamed.
Pain and pleasure hit me like a cannonball to the chest. My body seized. Somewhere in the distance, I heard Sean roar and felt him pulse inside of me. But I was in a blissful fog, aware only of my pounding heartbeat and the feeling of joy washing over me.
We didn’t speak afterward. We didn’t need to. Sean had said everything he needed to say in the urgent rhythm of his hips and the fiery demand of his mouth. We would talk about the fight he had tonight another time, perhaps, but he needed something else from me now.
Sean cradled me in his arms, holding me close to his chest. I felt his breath wash down the back of my neck, his lips grazing the crown of my head. The sudden shift from passion to peace was oddly comforting because I knew I’d been the one to give that peace to him. And it warmed me to the core.
But sleep didn’t come as easily for me as it did for Sean. I was wrought with emotion over what this fight meant. Obviously, I didn’t know the whole story, didn’t know how things had actually gone down. But I’d never seen Sean like this before, and the only thing that had changed since the tour started was our relationship. Whatever that relationship was.
And what if this change was too much for the band to take? Could I handle being Flagship Inferno’s Yoko? Was that a burden I was ready to bear in the name of my feelings for Sean? It was a lot of pressure to take, and even wrapped in strong, comforting arms, I felt uneasy.
But worrying myself about what may or may not happen to the band wouldn’t do me any good. Not now, at least. The most I could do was try my best to keep things together, to help guide Sean through whatever emotional pitfalls were on the horizon.
And the fate of Flagship Inferno? That was a problem for another day.
I snuggled further into Sean’s embrace, into his heat, and let sleep take me.
Forty-Four
Sean
Brrinnnggg.
Fuck. What was that?
Brriiiinnng.
The annoying trilling sound broke through my thick haze of sleep, demanding to be heard. Not today. I pulled the woman in my arms closer and let the sound of her gentle breathing overtake the sound of my phone, ringing from wherever the hell I left my pants last night.
Soon, I was back asleep. So comfortable. So content. The world outside didn’t exist, there was just me and Hazel, wrapped around each other like we’d grown this way from seeds in the dirt. And everything was–
Briiiiinnng.
Fuck.
Hazel stirred. “Whaa…?”
Briiiiinnnngg.
“Shhh…” I kissed the top of her head. “Just ignore it.”
“What if it’s important?” she murmured sleepily.
I tightened my arms around her. “There is little in the world more important to me right now than sleeping and holding you like this.”
She gave a satisfied grunt and let out a deep, leisurely breath. The ringing stopped, and once again I drifted.
Briiiiiiinnnnngg.
Motherfucker.
Hazel groaned. I chuckled and kissed her on the head again before slowly extricating myself from the blankets. Apparently, someone was determined to get a hold of me, and the more I wondered who it was, the more dread settled in my gut, oily and thick. It was early. Someone this determined to get in touch with me must’ve had a reason to be doing so. And it couldn’t be a good one.
I grabbed my phone off the nightstand and silenced the ringer, then shoved on a pair of boxers and slipped out the trailer door.
By the time I made it outside, the phone had stopped ringing. A notification alerted me that I had an unheard voicemail, but I didn't listen to it. It had been Westhills calling. My heart picked up in my chest as I hastily called them back, hoping to god they'd just called me to arrange a family meeting or something like that. But I knew it wasn't true.
The balmy air outside Hazel's trailer was still and thick. The sky above me was a deep navy, with hints of dawn just barely beginning to streak across the horizon. I leaned against the cool metal of the trailer, listening to the phone ring while I panicked. Hoping. Fuck, even praying.
“Good morning, West Hills Rehabilitation Center,” a sullen, female voice answered. “Holly speaking.”
“Hi, this is Sean Morris. I just missed a couple calls from you guys.”
Holly went silent. At first, I thought she'd hung up on me, but then she gave a long, troubled sigh. “Mr. Morris, thank you for calling us back. I'm sorry to call so early.”
“It's nothing,” I said quickly. “Why did you call? Is Dave okay?”
The next few minutes went by in a blur. Holly had all sorts of empty reassurances she tried to sugarcoat the situation in, which was why I hung up on her once I'd gotten the information I needed. It wasn't her fault. It looked bad on the whole facility that one of their patients had plummeted from recovering addict to half-dead user in the space of a few hours.
Life could be so cruel.
Dave was lying in a hospital bed back in Seattle, probably passed out and pissing himself. Because of me. Because of the heroin addiction I'd sown the first seeds of in him. That I'd watched grow without doing a single thing until it was too late. He nearly died.
I didn't understand. He'd been so close to the halfway house. He'd been on the road to recovery. So why this? Why now?
I was stunned and began weaving slowly between trailers and vehicles, trying to sort out the thoughts in my head without screaming. The gravel cut into my bare feet, but I barely felt it. As far as I was concerned, I deserved it. How could I have let this happen to my brother? My blood?
I kicked a plastic cup out of my way, and it went skittering across the blacktop, rolling to a stop near
a cigarette butt stained with red lipstick. All over the lot, all over the world, there was evidence of the kind of chaos Flagship Inferno left in our wake. My wake. Whether the evidence was visible, like the lonely cup, or invisible, like the blackened piece of my brother's heart.
Everything I touched turned to trash eventually. It was one of those indisputable truths in life, like how the sun always rose in the East and beer always tasted better after a long day of work. My brother. My band, which although successful, was beginning to tear apart at the seams. And Hazel. She'd be next. If I stayed with her long enough, who knew what kind of fate I'd be damning her to. She didn't deserve that. The one good thing I'd done in god knows how long was getting her this job, and I hadn't even done it for the right reason. It was only a matter of time before I ruined that for her too.
I soon found myself standing in front of Hazel's trailer again. I'd done a loop without realizing it. I'd come back to her door without understanding why, until it hit me when I laid eyes on it.
Hazel. Sweet, perfect Hazel.
Fuck.
I tiptoed into the trailer and finished dressing. Hazel was fast asleep, one arm slung out over the part of the bed I'd recently vacated, her hair a mess of black curls across the pillow. I stood over her for a moment, heart beating so loud I thought it would wake her. She released a peaceful sigh, almost as though she could feel me close to her. Like how I could always feel when she was close to me.
I bent down, kissed her on the forehead, and turned to the door before I had a chance to change my mind, to climb back into bed and nuzzle into her neck and forget I'd ever received the call.
Outside again, I waited until I was a couple dozen yards or so away from Hazel's trailer before I called Brad. He didn't pick up right away, which meant he was either sleeping or dead. He picked up on the sixth ring, just as I'd been about to hang up and dial again.
“I'm sleeping, Rock Star. What the hell do you want?”
I gritted my teeth. “I don't care if you were sleeping. We need to talk.”
Forty-Five
Hazel
I woke up with a smile on my face. I probably slept all night with a smile on my face too. I figured it was just something that would happen often now that Sean and I were basically official. From here on out, smiles for days.
But that smile quickly dropped off my face the moment I realized I was alone in bed. No arm around me, no breathing behind me, no hot body resting next to mine. I snapped my eyes open and turned toward the wall.
Yep. The bed was empty.
My heart sank, but I tried not to think too much of it. Maybe he just had to get up early to make up with the guys. Maybe he had a good think about everything that happened last night and decided to work things out with them.
I rolled over and grabbed my phone, both to check the time and to see if I had any messages from Sean. No messages, but that wasn't the most disturbing part.
It was just past eleven a.m. Shouldn't we have been on the road already by now?
Figuring there'd just been a change of plan, which was also probably why Sean had snuck out this morning, I decided to grab a shower before doing any investigating. I smelled like sweat and man, and my hair was sticking out in all sorts of crazy angles. Whatever Flagship Inferno drama was awaiting me outside that door could wait.
After I was fresh and clean and ready to face the day, I headed out into the bright sunshine and started walking toward Brad's trailer. If he wasn't there, I'd hit up the band bus to look for Sean, even though I dreaded the thought of running into any of his other band mates. I'd thought Justin and I were, if not friends, at least friendly acquaintances. But now I was beginning to wonder if they'd all just been laughing at me this whole time. The fact that Sean didn't want to discuss it last night wasn't a good sign.
As I walked down the long line of trailers and trucks, I noticed it seemed to be a sparser crowd than the day before. All the people outside were busy packing up and getting ready to head out, which was normal enough. But the fact that some of the convoy had already left was puzzling. Why not all go at the same time? What had happened to delay the rest of the convoy from heading out this morning as planned?
Brad's door was closed, and there was a note on it that warned not to enter unless it was an emergency. I hesitated. Was wondering about what happened an emergency? Not really. But the fact that Brad even needed a note like that worried me.
I knocked.
There was a curse from inside, then the door swung open to reveal a red-eyed, scruffy looking band manager. Brad's dark hair was unkempt and wild, but he was wearing one of his signature suits at least.
“What do you want?” he asked. “Didn't you read the sign? I'm cleaning up the mess of the century here.”
I swallowed. “What happened?”
Now I was worried. Brad's jaw tensed, and he scanned me from head to toe, apparently deciding something in his head. Whatever the result, he sighed and gestured for me to come inside his trailer. I did, closing the door lightly behind me.
Before I could sit down, he handed me a white envelope. “That's what we owe you for the rest of the tour.”
I blinked, in shock. “Am I being fired?”
“You and everybody else,” he muttered. “Sean fucked off, canceled the rest of the tour.”
His words were so crazy that, at first, I figured I must've misheard them. Sean? Cancel? No way. He loved what he did. He wouldn't just cancel on a whim because he had a fight with his bandmates last night. That wasn't like him at all.
Or at least I thought that wasn't like him. But, then again, I also figured he would at least wake me up to say goodbye if that were his plan. He didn't leave me so much as a goddamn note.
“It's a fucking mess, I'll tell you that.” Brad sat down behind his desk and pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his desk drawer. “Disgusting fucking things,” he muttered. “Do you want one?”
I shook my head, and he shrugged, lighting his smoke and then leaning back in his chair.
“But how can Sean just be gone?” I asked. “He wouldn't leave like that.”
Was I stating something I believed or something I wanted to believe? The wry smile on Brad's face hinted that he, at least, thought it was a case of the latter.
“You never know with these people.” He sucked on his cigarette, the end burning red. When he exhaled, he looked at least a little bit more relaxed. “Here one minute, gone the next. Isn't that fuckin' show business for ya?”
“But why?” I didn't care that my voice came out more desperate than I intended. I needed to know.
Brad shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. He didn't give me any details, just called to say he was canceling the tour and leaving. He was gone before I even got out of bed to go find him. Dickhead.”
What the actual hell? I was suddenly furious, and that fury mixed with my confusion and the sadness that followed to form something heavy and sticky in my chest that seemed to fill me, leaving little room for breath.
“Now, I said I'd take care of you,” Brad said after a moment, clearly reading the emotions on my face. “So don't you worry. I'm going to take care of you. But right now, I've got to deal with all this, and I'm afraid you'll have to wait.”
I blinked and nodded slowly. “Of course. I'll, uh, leave you to it.”
I tried to keep my face as straight as possible the whole way to my trailer. Tried not to look at every person I passed to see if maybe they were Sean, and this was all some sort of cruel practical joke. But I knew it wasn't and that Sean was gone.
That realization broke me.
I dissolved into tears the moment I stepped through my door. I'd intended to start packing, knowing I wouldn't be able to heal until I was back at home where things made sense, and it didn't hurt so much. But before I'd even stepped toward the closet to grab my suitcase, a violent sob wracked through me, and I fell to my knees.
He left.
He left me.
Not a word. Not a th
ought. Just one second he was there, and the next he'd disappeared into the night. And my chest ached from it. I wanted to rip it open with my hands just to release some of the pain.
I'd thought we were getting somewhere together. I thought he cared. I guessed I was wrong.
I sobbed because I wouldn't see him again because he'd chosen to leave me behind. But I also sobbed because I realized, in the end, I fell for it again.
Forty-Six
Sean
It was a hot summer's night, but the heat was different here than it had been in Texas. Cool air blew in from the ocean, ruffling the bits of hair I hadn't shoved up into my baseball cap. I debated not wearing sunglasses since it was dark and it would undoubtedly be suspicious, but going into a public hospital with a profile as recognizable as mine was always dangerous. Better have them think I was weird than realize I was famous.
I entered the ER, walking straight past triage and into the trauma ward. It was quiet, and I'd found out early on that as long as you looked confident enough about where you're going, most of the time people wouldn’t question you.
Today was not one of those times.
A dark-haired nurse shot over to me as I passed the nursing station. “Excuse me,” she called. “Can I help you?”
I turned on my heel slowly, flashing her a dazzling smile. Another nurse, an older woman with a distinctly motherly look about her, joined the first. Either they thought I was a threat or they'd figured out who I was. It was unlikely to be the second.
“I'm just here to see a patient,” I said. “Dave Morris. I was told he was here.”
I hoped the nurses would helpfully point me in the right direction, but the looks on their faces told me that wasn't happening.
“We can only admit family members and spouses,” the younger nurse said. “Are you a family member or a spouse?”
I gritted my teeth. “Yes.”