44 Chapters About 4 Men (18 page)

“Let me go, Hans. Your fans await.”

As angry as I was, the look of consternation and despair on his face after that statement made me want to rent a time machine, wishing I could take back everything I’d just said. This man was a unicorn. A myth. A fairy tale. I’d somehow managed to score a tatted up bad boy with a heart of gold and a cock of lead, and what was I doing? Guilt-tripping him while he knelt in a bed of rusty screws and asbestos shards at my feet?

He should be the one leaving me. I opened my mouth to retract my words, but the only sound that came out was a surprised gasp as Hans wrapped his arms all the way around my waist and buried his face in my belly.

He turned his head sideways, just enough to speak, but kept a death grip around my midsection, “You can’t leave, Bumblebee. Please, please stay. You want to know why I don’t realize when women are hitting on me? It’s because all I can think about is you. I don’t see girls or groupies or fans out there—I just see people who aren’t you, and you. That’s it, Bee. As far as I’m concerned, everyone else is just a walking, talking hunk of flesh that I need to get around to get to you.”

He shook me a little out of frustration, then looked up at me with glistening kohl-rimmed eyes—the V of pain between them only deepening. “You’re like this pretty little Tinker Bell with your pixie hair and big green eyes, but then you’re smart as shit and full of fire and sass and all I want to do is put you in my pocket and never fucking share you with anyone.”

His grip tightened fractionally, but his voice grew significantly louder and more frantic as he continued, “Haven’t you noticed that I don’t look at you anymore when I’m on stage? It’s because I can’t, Bee. I can’t fucking look anywhere near the audience anymore because whenever I do there always seems to be some meathead trying to buy you a drink at the bar or knock you down in the pit or press his dick into your ass when you’re in the front row. Every five seconds, I see some shit that makes me want to leap into the crowd and smash some motherfucker’s teeth down his throat. It throws me off my game so bad that I can’t even watch. I just grit my teeth and try to focus on the music and pray that you’ll come find me backstage, still in one piece, when it’s over. All I want to do is protect you and I’m fucking helpless up there.”

Tears and mascara and relief poured out of me as the implications of Hans’s words sank in. I grabbed his face with both hands and pulled him up to meet my salty wet mouth. I kissed him with everything I had and realized in that moment that the real problem was never Hans. Clearly, he was even more perfect than I’d feared. It was that I’d never truly felt worthy of him.

I saw the women who hung around these bands, and I didn’t exactly fit in with my flat chest, narrow hips, and freckled skin. My wardrobe didn’t help either. These girls either wore skintight miniskirts and tank tops with their giant tits spilling out, or they looked like dudes, swimming in oversized Slipknot T-shirts and thrashing their long black hair to the beat.

I, on the other hand, looked like something that crawled out of the movie
Tank Girl
. I’d even tried to tone down the punk that night by wearing a little black dress, but it still had white Jolly Rogers embroidered all over it and was paired with my signature mid-calf steel-toed Grinders. It was as if someone had handed Pippi Longstocking a big pair of scissors, a big pair of boots, and a bottle of forty-watt hair bleach.

What the fuck could this icon of rebellion and sex possibly want with me?

Hans kissed me back like I was the last canteen in the Sahara, and I decided that my self-doubt and jealousy had to stop. Hansel obviously loved me if he was willing to breathe this fluorocarbon emulsion
1
bullshit
and
risk contracting HIV by kneeling in bloody shrapnel just to keep me from leaving him.

Until that moment, I hadn’t even known that kind of love existed. Skeletor would have chased me down, tackled me in the parking lot, and then dragged me kicking and bleeding over his shoulder back inside where he would have screamed at me until I started to believe that I was the asshole and apologized to him. Ding-Dong wouldn’t have even noticed I’d split until after he’d safely deposited at least a gallon of his semen into the hood rat with the media pass. But Hans—my sweet, sweet, beautiful, sensitive
hung
Hans—was the real deal.

And I didn’t care anymore what he could possibly see in me or how long it was going to take for him to find someone curvier or prettier or more
metal
to bone. I was choosing to trust, to believe that the fairy tale really could come true, and to open myself to the possibility that a motherfucking sex panther rock star with the face of a devil and heart of a saint might actually want me too.

Hans broke away from our kiss first. Breathing hard, he pressed his forehead to mine, clutching my face in his colossal calloused hands. After a moment, he asked with his eyes still closed, “Does this mean you’re staying?”

When I replied, “No,” his face crumpled like a tin can before I could get out the rest of my sentence.

I grabbed his chin and forced him to look at me. “No, I’m not staying tonight because I have school in the morning, and it’s already close to midnight, but I’m not leaving you, Hans. I swear. I don’t know what you see in me, but I’m yours for as long as you’ll have me.”

And with that, his expression flipped from devastated to perky in the blink of a kohl-smudged eye. It was adorable. He took my arm in the crook of his elbow and said, “Well then, allow me to walk you to your car, milady.”

The walk was magical. I’d parked a few blocks away from the club in a gorgeous recently gentrified antebellum neighborhood where I knew I would not only find a free parking spot, but could also possibly walk to and from said parking spot without getting chloroformed. Even though it was a good half-mile to my car, and trying to stroll through that thick, hot summer air felt more like trudging through quicksand, Hans and I might as well have been floating overhead in a love bubble built for two.

Although my relationship with Hans had been love at first sight—the way he swept me off my feet (literally) at Goth Girl’s party set the tone for our entire whirlwind romance—I had always secretly had one foot out the door.

No matter how perfect things were, a small, nagging part of my psyche was constantly whispering,
He’s too good to be true. Rock stars aren’t faithful. He’s going to break your heart. Don’t get too attached.

But after seeing Hans on his knees before me in full-stage attire, that whisper was forever silenced, replaced by a pulsing, deafening need. For the first time in the eight months since I’d met Hans, I was all in, and all was right with the world.

Holding hands and cooing in hushed tones at each other, Hans and I turned the last corner on our way to my car. Just as the taillights of my trusty black Mustang were coming into view, Hans began leading me off the sidewalk and into someone’s perfectly manicured backyard.

Goddamn it.

Hans, like all bass players, had the attention span of a goldfish, so this wasn’t the first time that he’d been distracted by a few twinkling lights. I was quietly protesting and trying to tug him back toward the street when I looked up and caught a glimpse of the ethereal wonderland he was dragging me toward. The backyard of this particular McMansion had been wrapped, swathed, and wallpapered in thousands upon thousands of white Christmas lights—in the middle of July.

Obviously, there must have been a party or wedding, some grand celebration, here earlier, but there was no evidence of life anywhere. The rustic Italian grotto-style pool in the center of the yard was as still as a pane of glass, which allowed it to better reflect the twinkling lights coiled tightly around every tree branch and deck post within a hundred-yard radius. And speaking of the deck, the entire main floor of the three-story modernized plantation-style house was equipped with a wooden deck that boasted an outdoor kitchen, a stone fireplace, and a hot tub the size of my bedroom, all illuminated by gauzy paper lanterns suspended overhead.

Below the main floor was a patio tucked away under the deck, which was furnished with a perfect row of at least six expensive-looking teak lounge chairs with overstuffed red cushions and at least three ceiling fans, still rotating on high speed. The rustic stone tile that surrounded the pool fed right into the patio area and ended at a set of double doors that probably gave entrance into some grand basement bathhouse that was fully equipped with a spare pool, just in case.

I couldn’t even process all the beauty at once. The way my attention was flitting from one shiny object to the next must have been what Hans’s brain felt like all the time. As my head swiveled and my eyes darted around that sparkly, glowing jewelry box of a backyard, I failed to notice that Hans was pulling me farther and farther onto this obviously very private property.

It wasn’t until my body plopped down onto Hans’s lap (his signature move) that I realized he had escorted me all the way down to the patio, and we were now sitting on one of the cushy lounge chairs under the deck.

Oh no. What the fuck is he doing?

These people obviously had a stupid amount of money and probably owned a state-of-the-art
Hunger Games
-style security system with invisible lasers and paralysis-inducing mist—I knew Hans was impulsive and needed me to be the voice of reason—but it was too late. Between Hans’s strong arms around my waist, the secluded coziness of the covered patio, and the majesty of a hundred thousand tiny lights dancing in the trees and water before me, I was already paralyzed.

Hans and I just sat in silence, enjoying the view. The fiery tree branches flickered in concert with the sounds of crickets and cicadas and air conditioners in the distance, weaving a tapestry of white noise and white light that made the dark stillness of our patio hideaway feel even more secluded. As we watched the show, tucked into and around each other, Hans and I had an entire conversation telepathically, one that was full of promises and shiny rings and
I do
s and baby names.

Beyond the scenery and intimate seclusion, I was also enjoying the feel of Hans’s tattooed arms around my body and his desire, hard and ready, against my hip. He always did have a sensitive cock—and by sensitive, I mean,
emotionally
.

Hans began trailing featherlight kisses from my shoulder up to my neck and then just behind my ear.

Mmm…

He repeated his delicate assault on the other side. Only, this time, when his mouth reached my neck, he bit down on one of the tails of the bow holding my halter dress up and yanked. Within seconds, the black fabric covering my chest was replaced by warm, damp air.

My first instinct was to snatch my dress back up and scurry off before the owners had a chance to let loose the hounds, but when Hans took both of my pierced nipples between his talented fingertips and tugged gently, I was a goner. My head rolled back onto his shoulder, and my back arched involuntarily. The psychological rush of having my breasts exposed in such a dangerous yet romantic setting took the already intense physiological experience and pushed it over the edge. That sensation alone was worth the risk of being attacked by trained killer bees.

Just as I was about to cry out from the exquisite pleasure, Hans abruptly stood up, came around to the foot of the lounge chair where I was sitting, and knelt before me. It was reminiscent of our postures from just minutes ago in the parking lot. Only now, everything had changed. Hans’s signature smirk had been returned to its rightful place, and I was ready to book a flight to Las Vegas instead of booking it to my car to cry.

Oh, and my tits were out.

After gazing at me for a moment, his eyes soft and loving, his mouth failing to hide a mischievous grin, Hans bent down and captured my left nipple ring between his lips. He swirled his tongue around and around the sensitive pink flesh until I could feel my panties dampen and my knuckles turn white as they tightened around the black frame of the chaise.

Reading my body language, Hans grabbed the hem of my dress with both hands and slipped it off over my head.

Oh my God.

I was naked, except for a red cotton thong and some combat boots, on a stranger’s patio.

And I fucking loved it.

Hans then turned his attention to my other breast, fondling and sucking, while I desperately tore at his wifebeater. Ignoring me, he made his way down my torso, planting torturously unhurried kisses in a trail that could only be leading to one place. Meanwhile, he used his hands to simultaneously pluck at the silver hoops in my nipples and guide me down onto my back in the lounge chair. Just as my head hit the cushion, his mouth hit the apex of my already drenched panties. The feel of his tongue and nose and lips probing me through that thin piece of fabric was a glorious electric agony. I wanted it to never end yet somehow culminate into a screaming days-long orgasm all at the same time.

No! I can’t come like this. Not in my fucking underwear! Hans, please!

My hips began to thrust involuntarily, begging him to dive into me, to end the torture.

Please!

And that’s when I felt a thick finger hook the sopping wet fabric between my legs and slowly drag it to the side.

No sooner had that finger slid aside the barrier between us than it was sliding inside my slippery folds, thrusting in and out at an excruciatingly unhurried pace. My womb felt like it had been pumped full of boiling hot napalm. I was going to die. It was too much. I was spread-eagled, practically naked on a stranger’s chaise lounge, with my breasts exposed to the steamy night air, my wet pierced nipples cooling into sharp points by the humming ceiling fans. Fingers that had just skillfully shredded a bass guitar in front of thousands of people were stroking my G-spot, and the playfully wicked black-rimmed eyes of a rock star were gazing up at me from between my thighs where his expert tongue was flicking and teasing the barbell piercing my clit.