Page 124 of The Comedown

“Holy fuck,” he groans, jerking up into my pussy with his own orgasm.

Tremors continue to rock us both, and our mouths meet in a hungry kiss, eating each other’s moans.

My heart rate still going way too fast, Julian pulls back to look into my eyes. “That’s the biggest difference between me and Bodee. He wasn’t your king.” His hands grasp my face with gentle fingertips before moving up to straighten the crown on my head that’d slid backward. “Nothing can keep me from you because I am yours.”

The bones in my body fight to stay solidified while the rest of me tries to melt at not only Julian’s touch but also his words.

“How long—”

“I was free pretty much the whole time.”

“So you just let me think… The power…”

Carefully, he takes my hand in his and lifts it up to his neck, placing our intertwined fingers on his tattoo, his erratic pulse beneath the colorful skin thumping as wildly as mine.

“The power’s always been in your hands, Collette.”

I glance between his eyes and our clasped hands, my shoulders sagging lower the deeper in thought I go.

“Come on, Poohbear. Let’s go change some lives,” he says, and I have to stop myself from telling him that he already did.

Julian

Flipped so the back of the t-shirt is facing up, I write the words that have been running through my head all morning onto the fabric, stopping to pull the material taut every couple letters. Some up-and-coming repurposed clothing company sent the shirt over, hoping I’d wear it for my birthday bash tonight, but I thought it was missing something.

Not anymore.

If I wake to find you gone,

back I’m sinkin’ to that prison of my own creation.

Creation comes out diagonal in sort of a different style from the rest—more ominous maybe?—and the marker in my hold hovers above it as I debate coloring the whole thing in and scrapping this entire idea.

It is true, but do I want everyone to know that?

Fuck it, it stays. It’s in permanent marker anyway.

Kind of like how Collette’s marked me—permanently. I couldn’t wash that shit away if I tried. Not that I’d try. I finally got her. Got her in my hands, and not just in my head. Fuck, she’s still there, but I can do something about it now.

Not right now though. After NOLA, we’ve spent almost every minute of the last week and a half together, until this morning when she threw my ass off her bus. It’s supposed to be for the birthday gift she got me of one-on-one studio time with DJ Arique to work on any song I want, any way I want. When he’s not DJing, he’s also a hell of a producer, and it’s actually a pretty nice gift. Very thoughtful.

I just…

I’m still trying to figure out why Collette couldn’t just come with me. Is it too much to ask for her naked body to be laid out, waiting for me, with like a red bow on each nipple or something? That’s the kinda gift I was hoping for. Not one without her.

Fuck. I’m an asshole. I really am looking forward to getting in the studio with someone not on my label’s payroll; I just want Collette to be with me, too.

I glance around my bus, barely making out faces through the puffs of smoke. I doubt I’d recognize them anyway. Half these fuckers I already forgot, and the other half I wish I could forget.

You think being rich and famous is somehow gonna change everything, but it doesn’t. It just changes the landscape, while everything and everyone remains exactly the same. Disappointing people are everywhere, no matter how much money you’re making. They just multiply once the zeros in your bank account do, too.

Fuck that. I don’t want Collette here.

I don’t even want to be here.

Why couldn’t Antonio drop me off? Better yet, I could’ve borrowed another half-mil sports car and let Collette drive me herself.

I’m not buying her excuse of needing alone time to make business calls either. This week, she’s already been on several with her own producer, David Yonko, and I didn’t bother her during a single one. All I did was rub her back.