Real Ugly (10 page)

When I hit the bus, I pause next to our bodyguard – can't remember his name for shit – and squint at him with tired eyes.

“Naomi stop by for me?” I ask, and the man smirks. Makes me want to hit him in the fucking face. Who the fuck does he think he is? “What's your problem, man?” I growl when he just stares at me. He doesn't speak, doesn't bother to answer my question, and I swear on my fucking cock that I'm about to fire his ass when I hear moans emanating out from the bus. Normally, I'd just ignore that shit, but the look on the bodyguard's face tells me that there's something else going on here.

I tear up the steps and pound down the bus into the bunk area, snatching Josh's curtain back so hard that it comes off the rod and falls to the floor.

Naomi Knox is completely topless, draped over Josh's shirtless chest with one of his gloved hands resting on her lower back. The blankets are covering their lower halves, so I have no idea how far this has gotten, but it doesn't matter; I'm seeing fucking red. I am blinded by it.

“What the fuck, man?” My voice explodes in a roar and next thing I know, I'm grabbing Josh by the hair and yanking him out of the bunk and onto the floor. Naomi rolls to the side and comes up on her feet behind me, dressed only in her fucking panties.

Josh comes up swinging and I'm glad to see that he's still got his boxers on.
Good. If he'd have fucked her, I'd have killed him.
Why that is exactly, I have no fucking clue, but I'm drunk off my ass, and well, let's just say inhibitions … what inhibitions?

“Screw you, you motherfucking whore,” Josh screams as he smashes me hard in the jaw and sends me stumbling back into Naomi. “You don't deserve her. You don't deserve any woman, you piece of shit!” Soft flesh presses against me as Naomi and I collapse to the floor, and then it hits me, this memory of a girl pressed against into a bed, eyes wide with tears rolling down her cheeks. I can hear the words,
I love you,
over and over and over again, and then it just fades, blacked out by a rush of alcohol, and I'm up and swinging again.

Josh's nose cracks under my fists and blood sprays out across my face as I pummel him back against the bathroom door and pin him there nice and tight, getting so close up that we could fucking kiss.

“You touch her again, and I will fucking kill you,” I tell him, watching his blue eyes shimmer with rage and his jaw shake. Josh is young, too fucking young, and he isn't one of us. I think that's what pisses me off so much. Jesse, Ronnie, Treyjan, and I went to high school together. We
survived
shit together. And then Travis dies, and we get this fucker as a replacement, this bottle sucking baby who can't even drink yet, and he … he, what, Turner? What did he do wrong? I step back suddenly and throw my arms up.

Josh wipes his hand across his bloody face and glares at me, trembling like a fucking cougar ready to strike. He's not done yet, so I take another step back to get out of range.

Out of range of Josh that is; Naomi is a whole other story.

She spins me around and grabs my face in her hands, coming close enough that I can smell her – a mixture of cigarette smoke and laundry detergent.

“You are not a fucking hero!” she shouts at me, digging her nails into my cheeks and drawing blood. My hands come up and wrap her wrists tight, attempting to push her back, but she's stronger than she looks, and I'm drunk off my ass, so we end up in a complete standstill. “You're not saving me from anything!”

“Let go of me, you fucking cunt,” I snarl as she presses her forehead into mine. I can hear Josh panting from behind me, and the rage boils up again. Now, I want to beat them both up, Naomi and Josh. I try to move her back with the weight of my body, but she holds tight and we end up crashing together, front to front, and then I find my hands sliding around her waist and caressing her body, feeling up the plump flesh of her ass, the gentle curve of her back, her tits.

She doesn't stop me, but she keeps yelling.

“You don't own me,” she says. “You don't have any claim on me, so what do you think you're doing? What is it that you want?”

“Right now, just you, baby,” I tell her and then she's biting my lip and kissing me so hard that blood fills both our mouths as we crash our teeth together. She sucks on the piercing in my tongue and swirls her own around it, flicking the metal hard while she climbs me, wrapping her legs around me and relaxing the pressure on my face.

I slam Naomi's body back against the cabinets in the kitchen, and I forget all about Josh. I'm pretty sure he's screaming, too, but fuck him; she's mine now. Ah, and fuck, she tastes like dirty candy and blood and sweat and ash. Best damn shit I ever tasted. Period.

My hands move up her back and into her blonde hair, tangling and tugging and testing the limits, seeing how far she'll let me go before she stops kissing me and starts biting. I have a feeling that in this case, the bite really is worse than the bark.

Naomi's nails gouge my back, digging into my flesh through the shirt before she finally takes it in two strong fists and rips it up and over my head, breaking our kiss for a moment and somehow cranking up the heat in the bus by a notch. That little burn I've got going for her turns into raging flames as I drop my head and brush a kiss across the tattoo on her chest. I'm too drunk to really register what it means right now, but I'm pretty sure it's a broken, bleeding heart.

I nibble on Naomi's nipple, sucking the hard pink flesh into my mouth and rolling it around, making sure the stud on my tongue teases it mercilessly. My eyes flicker up and find Naomi's. They're starting down at me, wide and pissed. She's angry. Good. I like angry sex, and fuck, I'm angry, too.

I grin at her, and she grabs my chin, pressing her mouth to mine as I reach down and undo my pants, pushing them down my hips as far as possible without having to separate my lips from Naomi's. My cock springs free and my fingers push aside her panties, teasing the hot wetness there as I get ready to thrust in, to finally scratch that itch.

“God, you're gonna love this, baby,” I snarl as she nibbles my lip, and then like a fucking tiger, she's swiping at me and cracking her palm against my face, nails slicing me good and spilling hot blood down my cheek. To say that I'm shocked is a friggin' understatement. Talk about mixed messages. What. The. Fuck.

I throw Naomi off of me and step back, stumbling over my fucking jeans and ending up looking like a fucking tool on the floor of the bus. She stares down at me, and her lip twitches in disgust. The expression's a far cry from the one she had just a moment ago.

“Not again,” she whispers. “Never again.”

And then she spins away and disappears naked into the night.

I thought I'd feel good fucking with Turner. Instead, I just feel sick and weak and end up collapsing into bed, coke be damned. When I dream that night, my head is full of blood and birds and gravestones. Not exactly the best images to wake up to.

The morning doesn't get any better; Hayden is whining about not feeling safe, and America is talking about hiring us a bodyguard while Dax postures around the bus with his eyes narrowed out the windows, looking for some mystery culprit that he's supposedly going to destroy when he finds them.

I sigh and ignore them all, climbing into the shower and turning on the water as hot as I can get it.

I don't want to talk about the bird thing anymore – it's just fucking weird. Demented. Insane. It has to be the person who sent the video, obviously, but that doesn't help me figure out a possible culprit. In fact, it makes it even harder for me to hazard a guess. I just want to ignore it and hope it goes away. I can only handle one detrimental, life altering secret at a time surfacing, and it seems like I'm about to drown in the Turner thing.

Why is this so freaking hard for you, Naomi? Just walk up to the man and say, 'Hey, you helped me out once, but then you ruined me. I loved you, and you broke me.'
I shiver. Yeah, I'm sure that would go over real, real well. I wash myself quickly and get out, stepping out of the bathroom in just a towel, and find myself face to face with Turner.

His hands slam against the wall on either side of me and force me back a step, effectively pinning me in the tiny square of tiled spaced in front of the toilet.

He's glaring at me, and his dark eyes are fierce, cutting through the air between us like swords, slicing up the silence and shedding its blood. His lips are pursed so tight that the piercings on either side are poking out at me like accusatory fingers. He's got on a black Amatory Riot shirt, and this time, I know he knows exactly who we are.

“
Turning the Key on the Past?
” he asks me, stating the name of one of our most popular songs. “Is that supposed to be subtle, Knox?” My lip curls up in the corner, and I wonder where the fuck the rest of my band is, where America and Spencer are, and why they just let him walk in here like this.

“I don't like people in my face, Turner, so back the fuck off. And don't call me Knox. This isn't the fucking military. The name's Naomi.” Turner slams his palm against the wall hard.

“Who are you?” he screams at me, and I have to resist the urge to knee him in the nuts. I'm pretty fucking sure that the asshole would press charges, and with last month's fiasco combined with the bird murderer psychopath fuck, it's just too risky. “And what do you want from me?”

“Want from you?” I ask with a bitter laugh. The towel slips and I just let it go, standing there proud and pissed and naked and fierce with hot moisture clinging to my skin and wet hair kissing my lips. Turner's eyes fuck me from head to toe and the leg of his pants bulges with the swelling of his cock. “Sort of seems like you're the one that wants something from me. You've been pursuing me, remember? You're the one that's following me around like a lost, little, puppy.”

“Fuck you,” he spits, stepping closer to me, driving me back. His skin is covered in sweat and his hair is mussy. I'm doubting he got any fucking sleep last night. Good. He can suffer along with me. “You seem to know me a hell of a lot better than I know you. I want to know why. You a stalker or something?”

I spit in his face and he reaches out suddenly and snatches my wrist, dragging me forward and pressing me against the length of his body. His cock grinds into my crotch and his lips graze mine. But I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid of anyone or anything. My hand travels up the wall in the bathroom and slips into the tiny drawer on my left. The hunting knife appears in my hand.

“You want the short answer or the long?”

“Don't you think you owe me both?” Turner asks, and then I've got the blade up and forward, pressing into his throat, teasing blood, loosing his grip, pushing him back into the row of bunks. I don't look at the star tattoos near his hair or the sleeve of color that crawls up his muscular arm; I just look into the black devil heart of a man who doesn't care, who can't bother to care, who's too entitled to see what's right in front of him.

“From the trailer park, a rising star,” I say as I quote a magazine article I read so long ago. I think I was sixteen then and Turner was twenty-one, the perfect idol. “I thought you were so amazing.” I laugh, harsh and dry. “God, I should've known better.” I drop the knife and step back. Turner lets me go, watching me with wide, wide eyes. “I worshipped you back then, you know? I thought that if you could do it, if you could escape the hell you grew up in and make something of yourself, so could I. And the idea that you could use music to do it? Well, shit, Turner, I thought I was in love with you.”

“You're the girl … the one … ”

Turner stops talking and runs a hand through his blue-black hair. I let the knife fall to my side and look down at his hand, at the wolf tattoos and the paw prints etched into his skin. The only sound on the bus is the soft drip, drip, drip of water on the floor as it slides over my suddenly hot skin and is replaced almost immediately with sweat. Angry tears prick my eyes.

“I went to your show in Tulsa when I was in a bad place. Made the mistake of hitching a ride home with an older guy.” The memory runs through my mind and rage explodes in my skull. “He told me I owed him for the ride home, and pushed me over the trunk of his car. He was going to rape me, but you helped me stop him, do you remember that?”

“Naomi Knox. Oh my fucking God.” Turner grips his head hard, and his eyes go wide. He's not looking at me anymore, but at my ankle. Where the tattoo is. The one that says
Turner Dakota Campbell.
Suddenly, he's exploding into action and scrambling at his shirt, tearing it away from his skin and throwing it to the floor, scratching at his back like he's got an itch. When he turns around, I see it. It's still there, surrounded by paw prints in the center of his shoulder blades.
Naomi Isabelle Knox.

Turner spins back around and just stares at me with wide eyes and a heaving chest.

“You slept with me and then you left me, Turner.” The knife falls to the floor with that same sound, that very same sound, crowding my head with memories, lacing my chest with pain. “You left me there, and then I got pregnant, and I had to make the hardest choice I've ever made. I had to say goodbye to your baby, Turner, and then I had to start over again.”