Hard Rock Roots Box Set (130 page)

“It's beautiful,” Naomi says, tracing her finger above my back, writing her name in the air above my sweaty skin.

“Do you want a mirror, man? To take a look at it?”

“Just
do
it,” I growl, reaching out and curling my fingers through Naomi's. “Make it happen.”

“You're the boss,” Nicco says with a shrug, starting up his machine and touching the needle to my back. I've never been a little bitch about getting inked, but hell, this hurts even
less
than usual. I'm riding this euphoric high that's so good that it can only be bad when I finally come crashing down.

Naomi watches for a few moments in silence and I study her, trying to stay still for the needle even though I'd rather reach out and slip my fingers under her skirt, find out if she's as wet and ready for me as I am hard and aching for her. And then another brilliantly drunken idea explodes in my head like cum from a horny dick.

“I'm marking myself as yours,” I slur as Naomi stares at the needle with hungry eyes. “So it only makes sense that you do the same. You're mine now. I want to see it in ink.” Her gaze flicks to mine and her brows rise up nearly to her hairline. “Nicco, she gets one, too.”

“How the fuck old are you anyway?” Nicco asks Naomi and I roll my eyes.

“Really, man? She's eighteen, so shut the fuck up and give us what we want.”

“Eighteen, my ass,” he mumbles, but we're breaking all kinds of laws right now, so what's another? “I want double what you promised to pay me.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever. I'm like, fucking rich now. A trailer park brat with six figures in the bank.”

I lay my cheek on the table, the smell of antiseptic and tobacco teasing my nostrils. It's as sterile in here as a nun's virgin cunt, but
goddamn
is it cluttered. There're posters on all the walls, the ceiling, the doors. With my vision as blurry as it is right now, the only thing I can seem to focus on is Naomi, on the muddy toes of her boots, the artful rips in her black and red miniskirt, the way the lights seem to light her hair up like the sun on the California coast.

“You cool with that?” I ask as Naomi narrows her eyes in thought. “My name, splattered in ink across your body?”

This girl, this serenading little songbird punk bitch tough-as-nails hard-ass chick, she nods her chin once, sharp and firm.

“I want it, Turner,” she says and oooohh … shit. My dick gets even harder. How is that even possible? “I want it.”

“And you'll get it, babe, just as soon as we're done here.”

“Shut the fuck up,” she says, but she's laughing and her face is carved up into all these little cracks, like there's this stone shell plastered across her expression. I want to peel all the bits away until all I can see is a grin and a smile. “You're as pervy as all the articles say.”

“Seriously? No, I'm way worse,” I scoff and she grins, squatting down low so we can stare into each other's eyes while I get inked. “I do things at night that are illegal in some states.”

“Please,” she says, but her eyes are twinkling and my heart is starting to pound like crazy. “You can't scare me away with that crap. I'm ready.”

“For what, your fucking wedding? Jesus, how long have you two known each other?”

“Shut the hell up, Nicco,” we say in unison. And then we both grin. I like the sound of that, our voices tangled together like our fingers are right now, hands clasped tight in the space between us.

“So, where you from, Knox?” I ask and try to resist the urge to kick Nicco in the stomach when he sighs dramatically, pressing the machine into my skin way harder than I think he should. Whatever. Screw him.

“Here,” she says, staying in that squat, not caring that her skirt rides up her thighs and flashes me tantalizing little snatches of … well,
snatch.
Hot. “Born and … well, I won't say raised, but passed around. I was adopted, once, but my parents died in a car accident.” Naomi smiles again, but this time it's a crispy, bitter shell.

“Eh, parents are overrated,” I say with a shrug. “I had my biological mom and she used me more like a punching bag than anything else. One year, I had to go to school without a single tooth in my fucking skull.” Naomi's eyes go wide, but I'm not trying to brag here, not trying to play
who had it worse.
This, this is simple truth. And secrets kill. This girl should empty hers right here and now before they kill her. “Life isn't about how much pain you endured, but how much you
survived.
”

“You know,” Naomi says, plopping back onto her ass, the gray cement floor a stark contrast to the paleness of her skin. “You're not as dumb as you look.”

“And you're pretty enough you could probably get away with murder.”

A chill takes over Naomi's body and she sucks in a harsh breath.

“You have no idea,” she murmurs. “No fucking idea.”

“You alright there, Knox?” I ask as I lean over and cherry fuck the tip of her smoke, lighting it with my own before leaning back and pressing myself against the outside wall of the hotel. My fresh tat grumbles in protest, but it's early morning and the inky blackness of night is starting to leach away at the corners of the sky. Ain't no way my drunk ass is moving from this spot until I finish my cigarette.

“It didn't hurt as badly as everyone says,” she tells me, inhaling and then tugging the smoke from her lips with two fingers. One of her boots is held tight against her chest, her bare foot with its black painted nails tapping rhythmically against the dirty, gum spotted pavement beneath us. This girl was born to play, to sing. I can see it in the way she walks, talks, inhales that frigging tobacco. Each and every movement she makes is a note, and I'm so into this song that I've already memorized the lyrics. “Hope that's not the only thing they're exaggerating,” she adds under her breath, but I'm too stupid and drunk to realize she's referencing her virginity. Silly me. My logical mind makes a note of it, but it's too buried under the influence to care much.

I glance down at Knox's tat, a scrawl of words that spell out my name.
Turner Dakota Campbell.
The bright red letters pop out at me, a pair of black knives in the background, and a smattering of blood drops blooming against her swollen flesh.

“I felt like a page in a notebook,” Naomi says, gazing off into the distance, making me wonder again how someone this young can look so goddamn old. I'm about damn ready to buy her a box of adult Pampers or whatever. Jesus. What happened to make this chick look out at the horizon like she's searching for her fucking soul in the clouds and stars and stray shafts of sunlight. “The needle was a ballpoint pen in blue, bright blue, and I was a lined page with nothing to say and no story to tell.” Naomi drops her cigarette to the ground and crushes it out with her bare foot.

Oh shit.

Badass.

When she turns to me, she looks like she's about ready to march into battle.

“I have a story now,” she says, reaching out and taking me by the wrist. We both know
why
we came to a hotel, but holy crap, being with this girl is like being in a tornado, getting thrown this way and that.

I toss my cig into the parking lot and step up close to her, exhaling my last lungful of smoke against her mouth.

“And that story is … you're fucking mine tonight, Knox.”

“Vice versa,” she snaps and I laugh, letting my head fall back for a moment before I look down at her with sultry smoke and devilish things lurking behind my eyes.

“
Vice versa,
” I growl, yanking her to me and thrusting my tongue between her lips the same way I'm going to do with my dick. I want to see her swallow me up with that luscious little mouth, take my whole cock into her throat and taste my come. And then I'm going to fuck her until the sun comes up and Milo files a missing persons report on my ass. “Get your butt in here.”

I drag Naomi into the lobby and toss a credit card onto the counter, taking her into my arms and making out like a pair of teenagers on prom night. I'm so hungry for this chick that I should get food stamps. Fuck.

“Make me hurt as good as that needle, Turner,” Naomi says against my mouth, making me crazy, making me growl loud enough that the woman behind the counter looks terrified when she hands me our room key. “Make me hurt so good tonight that I can't remember any other pain but this. Make it all go away, Turner. Take it away.”

“Fuck yes,” I groan, dragging her to the elevator and smashing my palm into the buttons. I don't even care what floor we're on. It's that awkward time of day between
partied all night
and
up way too damn early for my own good.
If somebody sees us, they can go screw themselves. “Taste me, babe. Eat me up.”

I reach down and undo my pants as Naomi tosses her bags to the ground and digs her fingers under my shirt, feeling up my muscles, tracing each line with her nails, drawing the breath from my lungs as I free my cock and let it spring free. The expression on her face is priceless, this wicked mixture between awed innocence and devilish destruction.

Angel. Devil. This girl is both and then some.

When she falls to her knees in front of me, I wrap my fingers in her hair and guide the tip of my cock to her lips, tracing the sexy bottom curve before letting her take me into that perfect fucking mouth. Her eagerness glides around my dick along with her tongue, tingling my body with the untried movements of her hand as she tries to figure out where to touch, what to grab.

Is this chick a virgin?

I mean, I
know
she is, deep down. I'm not an idiot, but when I'm drunk … well, I guess I am
kind
of an idiot. I try not to let that bother me. I've screwed virgins before, sure, but … why the hell does this feel so different?

I push my cock further into her mouth, murdering the thoughts in my brain with one controlled thrust of my hips. I try not to move too hard or fast although I kind of just want to fuck her mouth. And then make love to her. And then fuck her again.

Groans spill from my mouth like lyrics to a song, some gritty duet we're spinning together on the floor of this elevator. I don't even know where we are or how we really got here, but I feel like it's exactly where I always meant to be.

“Taste me, baby. Eat it all up.” Naomi moans around my cock, wrapping her fingers around the base of my shaft and letting me move inside her mouth, grind against her tongue until my body's shuddering and I'm spilling myself into her throat. She stays there until I slump back against the wall, panting hard and hornier than ever. “Holy crap, you are so getting it when we get into that room.”

“You taste like … like lust sounds.”

Her voice is grainy and perfect, all rock goddess to my god.
I can't let this girl go. She's too perfect. Way too perfect. I can't be my usual idiot self.

“What?” I ask, too messed up to appreciate her poetry, too stunned by the dark liner around those orange-brown eyes as she rises to her feet and stares me down with that violent defiance and strength that drew my gaze to her in the first place, helped me pick her out in the mass of the crowd.

“Never mind,” she says, but her cheeks are flushed and her pupils are dilated and we're both way beyond ready for this. A smile curves her mouth as the elevator doors slide open and somehow, we end up on the right floor. “Ask me tomorrow, okay?”

“That's a promise,” I say, and it is because I really do think for whatever reason that we might
have
a tomorrow. Never granted that privilege to a groupie bitch before. But this girl … “My word.”

It's a promise I'll break, but how the hell was I supposed to know that?

I should probably tell Turner that I'm a virgin, but I don't want to freak him out and besides, it's not like I'm some ignorant schoolgirl that doesn't know dick about … well,
dick.
I've been around the block a little, okay?
But this is different.

I swipe my hand over my hair as Turner shuts the hotel room door behind us, taking in the room with a single sweep as I toss my bags to the floor. It's a suite, a nice one, way nicer than anything I've ever been in before. There's a small couch, a chair, a bistro table for two, and a TV. Through the doors to the bedroom, I can see a king-size bed waiting with crisp white sheets and fluffy pillows.