The vibrator buzzed in Jesse’s fist. His gaze flicked from it to me. My face flushed hot and my brain scrambled for words.Say something. Anything!
“I… um…”
He switched the vibrator off. Then he swallowed, dragged his gaze over me again, and tossed the vibe on the bed.
“Fuck,” he said.
He turned, rubbed the back of his neck, looked around like he’d forgotten what he was doing, and made an awkward grab for something on the floor. Then he turned back to me. “Forgot my…” He held up his cell phone, which must’ve fallen out of his pocket when we were going at it. He stared at me.
I bit my lip.
“Fuck,” he said again. Then he adjusted himself in his jeans and walked out.
CHAPTER 21
JESSE
I was sitting in some club in Atlanta at a table covered in drinks, my boys gathered around, talking shit and drinking. It was Friday night, after the show. Half-naked dancers were grinding up on poles between the tables. The dance floor was packed, a mass of bodies pumping in the dark.
Flynn was trying really fucking hard to keep his professional distance from some hot little blond who was begging him to dance with her. Mick had some wasted redhead in his lap. Letty’s wife had come up from Florida and the two of them were going at it, his hand spread possessively on the round bulge of her pregnant belly.
Next to me was an empty seat. Come to fucking think of it, it had been empty a while.
Which was when it really hit me.
It had started sometime after New York. After I’d walked in on Katie getting her sweet rocks off with a cherry-flavored vibrator.
But fuck if I knewwhyit started.
Before that, I knew she was hot for me. Butdamn. Never did I think I’d walk in on the woman pleasuring herself between dinner and drinks. If only I’d had the time to do something about it right then. But she hadn’t exactly asked me to join in. She just sat there looking super fucking embarrassed, while I stood there feeling like an ass for barging in. Like maybe I should’ve knocked? On the door of my own hotel room?
I flushed hot like a fucking school kid, my dick getting hard as I remembered it. I could still see her, lying back on the bed, her cheeks flushed pink, dark hair clinging to her neck, still damp with sweat from our make out session, her bare tits saluting me as she grappled with a pillow trying to cover up, clinging to the thing like a fucking life preserver.
She tossed the vibrator away like it was on fire, and fuck yeah, I picked it up. I had the little pink thing in my hand as I stood there staring at her, blood thundering to my dick. I clicked it on. The vibration was strong, and I could smell her on it. Cherry-vanilla sunshine and pure sex.
I had a hard-on bordering on painful by the time I dragged my mind out of the memory, all the pent-up lust from every make out session we’d had since the start of the tour aching in each throb of blood through my veins. I’d wanted to fuck her senseless every fucking day.
But I still hadn’t done it.
Mainly because the girl was playing it that way. Every night when I came to bed, she was already asleep. And I never got another fucking chance.
The east coast was a mad cyclone of shows, interviews, appearances, signings. The tour was going fucking great and the album was selling better than I’d ever dreamed, but I could hardly keep my head straight. I was so booked up, half the time I didn’t even know what time it was or what town we were in or which fucking end was up. Jude and Mick were pretty much keeping my shit together. Dirty had a massive following out east and I wanted to see every fucking face of every fucking fan while I was here. That’s what I’d told Brody when the team set out to book this thing.
But somewhere around DC, I started regretting the frantic pace... right about the time it sunk through my hard skull that Katie was getting distant. For some reason, her head didn’t seem to be in the game anymore.
Her body was another thing. She did her job and she did it well. She played her part to a fucking T, and she looked amazing doing it. To all appearances she was still crazy about me, my devoted girlfriend, hanging out backstage, on my arm at every event, tongue wrestling me in every dark nightclub we hit up. Anytime I wanted it—in public—she was there, warm and ready. But she was holding something back… holding herself back, and I had no idea why.
The girl was doing everything I’d contracted her to do, and you’d think that would be enough for me. Apparently, it so fucking wasn’t.
I looked around the table, but my so-called girlfriend was nowhere to be seen.
Correction. She could definitely be seen. She could be seen by every person in the fucking place, standing up at the raised bar, her short skirt riding up her creamy white thighs as she leaned over to get the bartender’s attention. She was standing between Pepper, who was busy talking to some dude on his other side, and some random dipshit with a mohawk who was checking out her ass. As I watched, mohawk leaned in and accidentally-on-purpose bumped shoulders with her, struck up a conversation and bought her a drink.
I cranked back several fingers of bourbon, letting the liquor heat my blood.
I watched as haircut made some kind of brilliant fucking joke. I knew it was brilliant because Katie laughed. An honest-to-fuck Katie laugh, her head tipped back, her perfect little white teeth showing, her cheeks all rosy and her eyes sparkling in fucking delight. The guy was a goddamn comedian or some shit, because I hadn’t seen her laugh like that in days.
And I couldn’t fucking take it.
