Beats (3 page)

The “lap dance” in question was my awkward attempt at making good on a bet. My shirt was the only thing that came off, and I blamed my sorry dancing on being intoxicated, even though I wasn’t. Long, lame story.

Something pokes my butt through the jeans. Three guesses what it is. The heat of Rax’s candy-scented exhale tickles and nauseates me at the same time.

My breath races.
Steady, Jinx. Steady.

“I get it.” Chomping on a piece of bubble gum, he ambles around me. Who chews gum during sex? “You’re shy.”

His dick bounces along the denim and points accusingly when he stops before me. His fly is wide open, pants barely hanging on his hips. A clear drop of fluid poises at the tip of his cock, ready to fall. The rest of his shaft glistens, still wet with the groupie’s drying spit. He leans closer and presses that thing into my belly.

“Uh…” Not sure whether to be mortified or flattered, I quickly avert my gaze north. His tattooed chest is slim but defined, covered in reptilian scales. Blue eyes are shaded with the same darkness as those of the snakes adorning his skin. Cold. Knowing. Cunning.

I’m not the least bit interested.

Am I?

Another swallow. No.

Tiny beads of sweat dot Rax’s handsome face. His long, wavy hair is a little damp. He smells like sex.

He palms my hips, and I jump.

Grinning, he leans in. “Even shy girls need a good fucking every once in a while. Let me and Toombs break you in. We offer a 100 percent satisfaction guarantee, or your virginity back.” Follow-up laughter.

My lip twitches, and the charging adrenaline gets the better of me. I slap his face. Hard. “I’m
not
a virgin.”

Toombs growls behind me—actually
growls
like a miffed tiger. The leather couch protests as he bounds off it. My building resolve melts at the sound, leaving a puddle in my panties.

Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.

Rax’s pupils dilate with a quick, angry flare, and he flexes his muscles as if to retaliate. After an intense pause, he shakes his head and works his jaw. “That’s quite an arm you got.”

Hell yeah, it is. You don’t spend hours every day with all four limbs in constant motion, beating the crap out of stuff, and walk away with noodle arms. I may be small, but I’m fit. And experienced or not, I won’t take shit off Rax. Toombs, maybe. Rax, no way.

Rax glances over my head.

Cinnamon blossoms behind me, and I shudder.

Toombs’s presence sears my back. Sandwiched between love and hate and their respective erections, I’m no longer in control of my body.

My galloping heart shifts into fifth gear and shoots off like a rocket.

“Toombs likes a girl with…spunk.” Rax eases against my chest, pushing me into the combination of heaven and hell behind me. “Don’t you, buddy?”

“I like a girl with spunk
on her face
,” Toombs says. He rests his chin on my shoulder. His hand slips around my bare throat. Gentle, but the threat is clear.

Full-blown war breaks out inside me.

This is the moment I’ve dreamed about for two months. The moment where Toombs touches me. The moment of truth.

I still can’t look at him.

So much for eye contact, Letty. Step one of your twelve-step program gets filed under “fail.”

Rax dives into Toombs’s mouth. My lungs give up the ghost, and I quit breathing.

I’m frozen between them. Two hard-ons squashing me from either side. Two sets of lips and tongues exchanging spit as if I’m nothing more than a few lousy molecules of air separating them. Two tempting bodies cranking up the heat to boiling on my internal thermostat.

Toombs gently cups my aching breasts while he and Rax engage in the most erotic kiss I’ve never been a part of. Metal on flesh. Tender nips. Hard caresses.

As the unwitting piece of meat in the middle of this sex-wich, I should protest.

I can’t. Real Me is enjoying it way too much.

I watch despite the overwhelming guilt.

As rigid as their twin erections, I stand motionless while these two men make out beside my head. I’m sick with jealousy and hot with desire. For both of them.

No. It’s wrong. I shouldn’t—

“Are you gonna finish me or what?” an annoying voice interrupts. The groupie.

I’m relieved. And a little devastated.

The guys break their lip lock, and I shake loose of the spell they had me under. Rax glides his tongue along Toombs’s lips one last time before moving aside and urging Toombs and me to face her. Flopping against the outsides of my thighs draws my attention down. My hands. They’re shaking so hard, I can’t stop them.

“Bend over, bitch,” Rax says. He rolls a condom over the head of his dick and stretches it down to the base. “Let’s give Toombs and Jinx memories to beat off to.” He snakes his fingers through her thick hair, twisting the blond into a makeshift rope. Or maybe a rein. He tightens his grip and shoves her to the couch, knees first, ass in the air. She waggles her bare butt at him.

Toombs remains behind me. His shoulder hikes up and down repeatedly as he strokes himself.

I’m officially dying.

Again, my guilt circuitry fails to engage as it should. I’m not supposed to enjoy this, but I can’t help what I feel.

My mouth is dry, but downstairs is a different story. I want Toombs’s skin against mine again. If he has to watch Rax and the girl to get him off, I can live with it. As long as he’s touching me.

No luck. Only person Toombs is interested in touching right now is himself. Or maybe Rax.

At least it’s not the groupie.

Yet.

I bite my bottom lip till it hurts, and the pain snaps me out of my reverie. Just the wake-up call I needed. Time to book before shit gets uglier.

“I gotta go to bed,” I say softly.

Toombs presses his dick against me. “I can arrange that.”

Inhibitions jar loose with those words. All I’ve pined for is within my grasp…

My ear burns where his breath tickles it. A miniflood surges between my legs. I clench them together. I’m primed for an orgasm, and he’s barely looked at me.

My imagination wanders to the many fantasies it’s concocted over the past few months—all of them involving Toombs.

I’m a raging river of indecision.

The hormonal tide finally chooses a direction, and I’m all in. I want Toombs inside me. I close my eyes and tip my head back. Imagine him filling me, pumping to a lazy, swing rhythm.
One…two…One…two…One…two…
His lips sealed around a nipple. His tongue flicking it with wet strokes.

My hips rock subtly to the beats building in my brain. His big body covering my back, he joins in the dance. He blocks out the rest of the world like a lover-protector. My head spins. I’m drunk with need.

Agonizing slowness.
Inhale. Exhale.
He winds my hand behind me. Peels open my palm and lays the gift of his dick inside it. My muscles hitch as he closes my fingers one by one around the thick flesh.

Oh. My.
God
.

I squeeze gently, savoring the unexpected rush. A straight pattern of bumpy lines ripple the top side of him.
Pearls
? My lids snap open. I look back and suppress a gasp. I’ve seen pictures of guys with genital beading before, but never witnessed it firsthand, let alone
touched
beads.

My thumb brushes the head while the rest of me breaks out in a sweat. A metal stud protrudes from the top and through Toombs’s urethra. Reverse Prince Albert.

Sweet Jesus, Mother Mary, and Daddy Joseph. Toombs just took
hot
to a new level.

I want this adorned dick in my mouth, choking me, clogging my airways. I want Toombs and his hard metal hammering me. Imagine the sweet pain of those pearls roughing me to climax…

I turn my face into his. My nose grazes his rough cheek. He’s barely smiling.

And…

Eye contact.

His metallic gaze lasers open my soul from the inside out.

I’m flayed. Exposed. Ruined with a simple look.

The bottom drops out, and my panties spring a leak. Caught unawares, my breath snags at the peak of my throat.

Toombs sees me. This man I’ve admired in agonizing silence for so long
sees
me.

And I see him too. Up close, in vivid colors. He’s a moving symphony of darkness, wicked temptation, and macabre tattoos.

He’s
beautiful
.

I try to smile, but my trembling lips fumble the play. So I damn the consequences to hell and put the hand holding his length to work. I stroke. And squeeze. And drink in the cinnamon of his soft exhalations, the fresh mint on his skin.

I surrender to the predator who has me trapped in his sights. Let him take me.

Common sense tries to creep into my sex-saturated brain, but I slam the door in its face. I don’t want to
think
about what I’m doing. Thinking will spoil everything. I just want to
feel
. Without reason or motivation or guilt.

From the couch, hurried grunts and smacks of skin slapping skin punctuate a different rhythm from the one in my ears, but I hardly notice. I turn in Toombs’s personal space—
our
space—and rest my free hand on his broad shoulder. He’s wearing a black Misfits T-shirt. It’s pulled up a little. The sight of the scarred abs bunched tightly underneath steals my wits. A new imperative fills the churning space in my gut. I want to kiss him.

Better yet, I want him to kiss me.

I plead through our visual lock, but he doesn’t move. In hopes of making the invitation clearer, I part my lips. He still doesn’t snag the bait. I remember what Letty said earlier about taking the bull by the horns. She would have no problem tossing Toombs to the floor and jumping his bones—

But I’m not her.

Indecision pokes holes in my brazenness and crashes my endorphin party.

I study the slab of man in my palm. It’s big and rough, decorated with several faded, pale lines. Remains of long-healed injuries?

What happened to him? Abuse? Accident? Self-inflicted wounds?

Yet another mystery. I wouldn’t mind unraveling him scar by scar. Beat by beat.

I stroke him and work my thumb over the top of his shaft just below the head, tracing the raised bumps again. Can’t get enough of those. Dear God, he’s all I’ve dreamed of and then some.

Toombs is forbidden fruit.

Which makes me want him more.

I glance up. He quirks a shadowy half smile.

Fueled by the false courage of adrenaline, I lurch for his lips.

The smile slides off, and he jerks back.

Shit.

He’s not interested in kissing. He just wants sex.

Well, of course he just wants sex, idiot.

“I’m gonna come,” Rax interrupts. Perfect timing. “Toombs. Now.”

The spell is broken. The magic diffused. The opportunity lost.

Toombs backs away, taking his dick, its jewelry, and—worst of all—his attention with him.

And just like that, I’m invisible once again.

A long, gruff groan barrels out of Rax. He pulls out of the groupie, snaps the rubber off, and unloads his cargo all over her red, handprinted ass.

Like watching a crash, I can’t look away. Even though I’m guaranteed to see something devastating—perhaps even emotionally scarring—I can’t help it.

The car accident becomes a fatality when Toombs joins them. Rax shakes loose the last few droplets of cum and takes control of Toombs’s equipment.

Oh my God, he’s gonna finish him off…

My knees knock as I watch in equal parts horror and fascination. Rax isn’t gentle. He twists and yanks and pulls Toombs by the metal piercing. Slaps and thumps his dick. Squeezes his balls. Hard. My butt cheeks clench on Toombs’s behalf. I now have a pretty good idea of where the scars came from. Toombs’s jaw ripples, and he cuts loose too, adding his white cream to Rax’s puddle at the base of the girl’s spine.

Her hips sway left and right. Her hanging breasts bounce with her giggles. She smears a line through the mess with her long, red-lacquered nails, scoops up the combination into the cup of her palm, and makes a show of sucking it off her fingers.

I want to be sick. Anger flares in my chest, and a huff sneaks out of my lungs.

I need to hit something. My hands swat my thighs. Where are my drumsticks? Damn it.

Rax grins at Toombs, slaps the girl’s butt, and then tosses her clothes to her feet. The woman folds herself in two to pick up the bundle of fabric.

“That was so hot.” She sidles up between them, and Rax and Toombs make a groupie sandwich similar to the one I was featured in moments ago.

I’m done. I’ve seen enough. Shaking all over, I lower my head and rush back to my bunk—toothbrush and pajamas forgotten. I dive into the tiny space and snap the curtain in place.

A rush of emotions hits me at once—fury, pain, lust, envy, disappointment. My mind swims. My face burns. Shame fans the flames of guilt in my chest.

What the hell was I thinking getting mixed up with them?

That’s the problem. I wasn’t
thinking
. I was too busy
feeling
.

No more of that. Feeling is only allowed onstage, behind a big wall of drums, where I can be free in my cage. I fumble through the sheets until I hit the source of my fix.

I close my lids and stroke the smooth, thin wood. Memorize the feel of the grain, the textures of the tiny nicks. Rub the sticks over my rough calluses.

Soothing. Comforting.

Safe.

I shift to my side and cradle the drumsticks between tight fists. I will
not
cry.

Blond giggles and two sets of footsteps stumble down the aisle, past my bunk. I wait for the third set. It doesn’t come.

Squeezing the wood tighter, I refuse to open my eyes. Someone is standing next to my bunk. I sense the heart beating on the other side of the drape. Same hurried rhythm as mine. Same adrenaline-fueled rush. Same wild pounding.

I feel his uncertainty through subtle vibrations in the air between us. His muted desire. His tentative interest.