Beats (18 page)

Toombs stares at me, defiance rolling off him in tangible waves. I tune into his heartbeat. It’s running a marathon, competing with mine.

“Fine. If you won’t talk, I will.”
Oh God, Gianna, please don’t screw this up.
I inhale deeply, but it does nothing to calm me. “I…I really like you, Toombs. But I respect your relationship with Rax. Tonight was meant to be my last stand with you. I planned to give you back to Rax when we finished, even though it”—
kills me
—“hurts to let you go. I know love when I see it, and you two definitely have it for one another. I can’t come between that.”

“You already have.”

“What?”

He stomps away and paces like an angry tiger in a cage. “Come on, Jinx. You know how I feel about you. Don’t make me say it.”

My jaw drops. “No, I really don’t. You confuse the hell out of me. One minute you’re all over me, the next, Rax shows up, bosses you around, and you’re back to being his bitch.”

He snaps his head up and targets me. Oh shit. I’m officially prey to a very pissed-off tiger.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” I dip my chin and bite my thumbnail. Yep, now I’ve done it. “I should go.” I make for the door.

“Yeah, go. Run away from me like you always do. Run away from the band while you’re at it.” A cymbal crashes behind me.

I jump and face him. He hasn’t a clue what’s going on in my life right now. If I were a lesser, vindictive person, I’d spill
everything
about Rax and his infidelity so I could have Toombs for myself. But Rax was right. I won’t tell because it would kill Toombs. And despite how angry I am now, I love him too much to hurt him. That job belongs to Rax.

As long as Rax controls the information flow, nothing will change. Rax holds all the cards. In life and in love, it seems.

“You’re right. Maybe I am running away from the band. I’ll admit it’s been a real struggle for me to work on the new album. But I’d never run away from you. At least not out of spite or for selfish reasons.” The rush of emotion scoops me up by the scruff and shakes. No stopping me now. My soul’s secrets are about to become public property.

“The truth is, I’m
jealous
of what you and Rax have. When you’re together, I see more than just sex. I see intimacy and devotion. I wish you felt that way about me.” I slap a flattened palm to my chest.

He snaps his eyes to mine, and his Adam’s apple bobs over an audible swallow. “I
do
feel that way about you.” His voice strains.

What?
My heart flutters inside its bony cage. Elated, but still entrapped by forces beyond my control.

“About
both
of you.” Clarification is a bitch.

I bite my lip as I ride the anchor down to the bottom of this sea of fuckery. “I can’t share you. I’m just not built that way. I’m sorry, Toombs.”

He sits on the bed and looks at his hands in his lap. The hurt expression on his face tames the tattoos and piercings. He almost looks apologetic. “Jefferson.”

Amid wanton body quakes and racing thoughts, I scrounge enough resolve to cool my jets and say, “What?”

“It’s my real name. Jefferson Toombs. Descendant of Robert Augustus Toombs. The guy they named the county after.”

The ice crystals in my chest melt and bleed away once again. How does this guy make me hot one minute, furious the next, then leave me soft as lamb’s wool in the end? At least we’re talking. “You’re kidding. Wasn’t he a bigwig in the Confederacy?”

“Yeah. He was a total fucking racist. Not proud of that, but you can’t return your family for a refund.”

“No, you can’t. I guess I got pretty lucky.” I sit next to him. Feels weird to discuss serious stuff while we’re both naked, and he just stuck a drumstick up my pussy. But it’s also kind of nice. “I’m Gianna Donato.”

“Gianna.” He looks sideways at me. I’m not sure which gets me more: hearing him say my real name or seeing the soft, genuine glance that comes with it. “That’s really pretty. Italian?”

“My dad is. Mom’s a Southern mutt. She’s where I got the Hardwick from. It’s easier to pronounce than Donato.”

“Why Jinx?”

“Why Badcock?” I smile. “Wait, don’t answer that.”

He laughs. Ice cracks.

Jefferson
.

“I don’t think your cock is bad at all, by the way.” I glance down.

He blows me off with a shake of his head and awkwardly takes my hand. “Don’t shut me out, Gianna. I…care about Rax. But…Shit. I care about you just as much. Maybe more. Please don’t close the door on me.” His face is at war with his words.

He meets my eyes. A fresh flood of tears gathers in mine, but his are steady and strong enough for the both of us.

I stretch up and kiss him. Not with passion or lust but with all the love I can tap from the overflowing well inside me. As long as Rax is a part of our equation, I can’t verbally admit my deepest feelings. Speaking the words gives them life—permanency neither of us is ready for. But my body can speak on my soul’s behalf. If Toombs happens to translate its cryptic, primitive language into meaning, so be it.

“The first time we did it, I didn’t like watching you with Rax,” he says. “The second time fucking pissed me off.”

I know how he feels.

“And when he took your ass…” Toombs shakes his head and shifts his gaze away.

I thumb the hairs of his goatee, coaxing his attention back to me. “Whose eyes did I stare into when I came?”

He sighs. “Mine.”

“The only ones that matter.” I nudge my lips into his, and he accepts my kiss with a slow blink.

“You don’t like him.”

I can’t insult Toombs’s best friend and lover, so I evade a direct answer. “Rax isn’t the guy for me.” I follow up with the truth. “I can’t be what he is to you. He’s Dom to your sub. Sadist to your masochist. That whole thing…I just don’t get it.” I wish I did.

“You seem like a fast learner.” He flashes a shy smile.

I laugh. “Jefferson Toombs, are you flirting with me?”

“Jeff. Or Toombs. And maybe.” He looks away like an embarrassed schoolboy.

My pulse pounds so hard, I can hear it. “For the band’s sake, we can’t see each other any more after tonight.”

His eyes protest, but his mouth doesn’t back them up. Resignation. Also a bitch.

I need so badly to have sex with him before we go our separate ways, but I’m afraid the intimacy might change my mind. Without Rax here to get in our way, I’m pretty sure I’d latch onto Toombs and never let go.

“Tell me what you want from me, Gianna, and I’ll give it to you.” The resolve in the hard set of his jaw doesn’t match the hesitancy hiding in the lines of his face.

I want you to kick Rax to the curb. I want you to throw me down and take me like I’m the last woman on Earth. I want you to scream at the top of your lungs that you love me.

A chill passes over my skin. I wrap my arms around myself. “I want you to hold me.”

Without missing a beat, he pulls me into his tattooed embrace, smoothes my hair, and curls his fingers under my chin so I have a clear view through the windows of his eyes. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear his body was telling me he loved me too.

Chorus Two

February 25 – Baton Rouge, Louisiana

I wake up with Toombs curled around me. Protective. Loving. This is no ordinary morning after. I’m alone with
him
.

Last night wasn’t the nonstop sexfest I expected. What I got was better. We didn’t talk much, and I’m okay with that. I tuned into his heartbeat, absorbed his organic rhythms, savored the feel of him down the length of my back.

So
much better than sex. And this memory of waking up with him—just the two of us—will stay with me forever.

I trace the intermingling colors and lines of flayed skin—embedded ink and faded scars—on the arm around my middle. I wonder what the tattoo needle feels like.

“Why don’t you have any?” Toombs’s voice behind me is rough from the night’s disuse.

I startle. “Didn’t know you were awake.”

“I’ve been watching you sleep for an hour.”

Why’d he have to go and say that right before I have to tell him goodbye? “You must’ve been bored out of your head.”

The bed sheets rustle, and he takes a long length of hair from above my ear. He carefully separates the strands into three sections. “Not bored. You’re peaceful when you sleep. Don’t have that dark cloud hanging over your head.”

I try to turn, but he stops me. “Be still.” More tugs on my hair.

“What are you doing?” I reach back. He pushes my hand away.

“You didn’t answer my question. Why no tattoos?” he says. His fingers weave, and the bed shifts with his motions. He’s braiding my hair. Toombs Badcock is braiding my flipping hair. I could seriously die.

“I don’t know. I guess I wanted my ‘rebellion’ to be a little more private, so I went for piercings instead.”

“The types and placement of yours tell me you have a wild streak you don’t want anyone to know about. Except maybe for the few people you let inside that big old wall you got up.” He fidgets some more.

“Are you a psych major or something?”

“No. I’ve just watched enough people to know what makes them tick. You’re the perfect example of the virgin and the whore. Every guy’s dream.”

He finishes his work, ties the end of my new braid into a knot, and places it in my open palm. The knot doesn’t hold. I pinch the end, but an inch of hair unwinds before I can stop it. I wish I could pour shellac over Toombs’s work so I’d have it as a reminder of him forever.

I turn in his arms and lay my free hand on his bare shoulder. The other holds on tight to the braid. God, he’s gorgeous. His sleepy eyes are for only me. His normally hard edges are soft in the early morning light. It hurts to look at him, knowing this is our goodbye. I can’t share him with Rax, and they’ve got too much history to ever let go of each other.

And I can’t have a relationship with Toombs after making good on my deal with Rax. I won’t live a lie. Hiding the facts under a blanket of silence isn’t an option if I’m going to commit. It’s the truth or nothing.

“I’m no virgin, and I don’t
think
I’m a whore. Maybe you know something I don’t?”

He strokes my pale skin, his touch setting it alight. “You’re unspoiled by ink. Pure yet penetrated. Takes balls to get nipple and clit piercings.”

I don’t think so. It’s just who I am to
me
. “What about you? You have pearls and a Prince Albert and loads of tattoos. Why beads?”

“For pleasure.”

“I’d have thought they would be painful.” I swipe my thumb across his semihard dick, rubbing the raised spots over the top of his growing shaft.

“Pain is pleasure to me.”

“Does it feel that good?”

“You tell me.”

Ah, so he got the beads not for his own pleasure, but for his partners’. “You’ve made a lot of people happy, then.” His cock is fully erect. I could have him one more time. Alone.

“Just one of them matters right now.” He stares at my lips. “Are you happy, Gianna?”

“Yes.” If only for the moment.

“Jillian’s gonna kick you out of the band,” he says.

My blood runs cold. I sit up and twist the braid around my finger until the tip turns purple. Why does he keep bringing up the band? I’m sick to death of the constant reminders of my shortcomings. I flip the covers back and swing my feet to the floor.

He grabs my arm and sits too. “When are you gonna face the facts?”

“When are you gonna leave me the hell alone about the damn band? Is that all you care about?” Anger sears my words. I wrench free of his grip, stand, and snap up the pajamas lying on the floor.

He rests his elbows on his bent knees under the sheet. “If that’s what it takes to kick your ass into gear, then yes. The band is all I care about. Get off your ass, Gianna. People depend on you, and I don’t mean just us. What about our fans? What about the girls who come to our shows and look up to you as a role model? What’s the fucking hang-up?”

I spin to face him, my hair fanning around me in a furious yellow umbrella. I point at him. “You wanna know what’s wrong with me?
You’re
wrong with me. Every time I turn around, there you are. Watching. Passing silent judgment. I’ll never live up to your greatness. I’ll never be you, Toombs Badcock.”

He bounds off the mattress, gets up close and personal, and squares his shoulders a foot from me. “Goddamn right, you won’t. Because you’re Jinx fucking Hardwick. You’re not me. You’re
better
than me. And you’re not John Bonham, or Danny Carey, or Neil Peart, so stop trying to be them.

“We’ve been on tour for months together. When we sit down to write, I watch you agonize over every beat, every rhythm. You listen to your idols and try to copy them. Your problem is you want to be everybody
but
yourself. We’re about to hit the big time. That mimicry shit don’t fly, babe. Killer Buzz Float needs its own sound. Not a Zeppelin rip-off.
I
need you to be your fucking self.”

“I am—”

“Bullshit.” He stomps over to the kit, grabs a pair of sticks and shoves them in my hands. “
This
is who you are. Stop worrying about everyone else, and
be
Jinx Hardwick.” His nostrils flare, his pupils devour the silver of his irises, and his pulse rages in my ears.

I look down. The braid has completely unraveled despite my efforts to save it. The drumsticks are cold and unforgiving, just like Toombs right now. He’s pissed at me, with good reason. I can’t be Jinx Hardwick when the Donatos suffer back home in Athens. And I can’t be Gianna when my bandmates depend on me.

I haven’t a clue who I am or how to be me.

But one thing is certain. I can’t have Toombs regardless of my identity.

“Okay. I know what I have to do.” All too fucking well.

I lay the sticks on the head of the snare, gather my belongings, and get dressed. All the life dissipates from Toombs’s expression. He’s shut down too. Just as well.

After I make good on my sex deal with Rax, I’ll be done with them both.