Someone to Watch Over Me (17 page)

Tate pressed a brief kiss to my lips before
I could go. “Go kick Carter’s ass.”

“
Fine. I
accept.”
Carter and I shook on it, and
then I made for the stage. Marshall led the way while Taylor took
the rear. Evan and Derek stayed behind with the band. I felt like
I’d stepped out of a fairy tale, though that could’ve been all the
beer I drank. I had several bottles, attempting to numb the reality
of my situation. Everything was going too smoothly. Deep down
inside, I knew my string of good luck was bound to
expire.

“Are you nervous?” Marshall asked.

“I think I might vomit.”

“
Piece of
cake
. You’ve got this.” Turning me toward
him, he apologized yet again. “I shouldn’t have jumped to
conclusions, Coop. I’m sorry for questioning you.”

“
It’s fine.
It’s not like I haven’t used
similar
excuses before. Maybe if someone had called me on it back then, I
would’ve left Grant sooner.” I wrapped Marshall’s torso in a brief
hug. “Thanks for caring enough to ask.”

“
I
’ll always have your back.” In
Marshall-like fashion, he promptly deviated to a more comfortable
topic. “What’s your line up?”

“
Get the
girls together. It’ll buffer Carter’s mood when I nail
this.”
A tiny part of me worried that I’d
screw up, but I quashed it down. I’d sung this song before, so I
was confident that I could hit all the notes, and I knew the words
by heart. After all, I wrote it.

“You hate doing that routine.”

“
I do,
b
ut I’ve had a few drinks so I don’t
really care right now.” Unable to contain my excitement, I began
jumping in place. “I’m getting a band, Marshall! A
BAND!”

Consequently
, I remembered how
bad my back hurt, which quickly put a hamper on my giddy bouncing.
“Damn,” I said, pressing a fist into my side. “I’m gonna feel that
tomorrow.”

Nonetheless,
I was up. One by one, the band filtered offstage as they put down
their instruments. Like last night, the heat was stifling. At least
it would keep me somewhat limber.

As the last band member walked off and I
walked on, I prayed that I could hold my stomach down. The air
smelled of beer and body odor, not a pleasant combination.

I picked up
the microphone and waited patiently for the
noise to die down. “Thank you. Appreciate it.” Cupping his
hands around his mouth, Carter shouted a lewd request. “No, Carter,
I’m not going to take off my shirt. Sorry.” I had to pause for the
catcalls and hooting to subside again. “And that’s totally
cheating, by the way.”

He was
getting them wound up for a titty show
and I was about to perform ‘in the manor of the church.’
Considering the majority of the audience was men, he might just
succeed in getting me booed off the stage.

“
What’s
that?” I placed my hand to my ear. “You’ll be my bitc—I mean
bassist if I nail this performance?”
Again, the audience erupted into a raucous clamor. Ha! Take
that, Carter Strickland! Tit for tat was good for the ego. So were
the six-pack of beers I drank. As you can imagine, I was feeling
good. I had a decent buzz going on. I was feeling no
pain.

In my head,
I changed
my approach to something more
attuned to their moods. Soulful wouldn’t cut it with this crowd.
They needed something more upbeat.

“
Sweetheart,
” Carter called over
the crowd, “I know you’ll nail the performance; I’m just pointing
out that you’ll sound much better unrestricted by all that
clothing. It has to be confining.”

Tate
promptly
emptied my remaining ice water
on Carter’s lap. Carter gasped, sucking a sharp breath, suitably
deterred from any further taunting and jeering. As the two
commenced in a tense and more private conversation, I cleared my
throat and raised the microphone.

“
Bear with
me, boys, and I’ll give you a treat, but I have something I need to
do first. Carter’s made me a challenge I can’t pass up. No, it has
absolutely nothing to do with taking off my shirt.” They were
persistent in their bid for boobs; I’d give them that. The good
thing was I didn’t mind as long as I had Marshall and the stage
between us. “Sorry.”

At the far right of the stage, I heard one
lonely call. “Cooooopeeerrrr!”

Smiling, I
closed my eyes, measured the beat of the music in my head. After
testing the first few notes with a soft hum, I lifted the
microphone again and purred
the first few
words. The next line, however, ended with a throaty growl,
harmonizing my emotions with the lyrics.

Where have you gone, the
man I once loved

This
cruel game you
play, I’m bloody sick of

Your fists and your words, your barbs and slurs

Cut me like a knife, why must you hurt

Can’t
take it no
more, so I’ve gone away

Now I’m free of, your coldhearted ways

You
can’t touch me,
because I’m no longer yours, oh no

I’m f
ree of your
will, and your evil lures

I’m stronger now;
don’t want you no more Mm mm

I’ll never be, what I was before

I’m not coming
back;
you’re no good for me

I know
what it’s
like, to be finally free

Now you’re all
alone,
and I’m better off

You never loved, what you have now lost

You never knew, what you have betrayed

I gave you my heart, now I take it away

Well, look at me babe, I’m hot as shit

That thing we
once
had, I don’t miss it one bit

I’m living my life, with my head held high

I’m floating up here, on cloud number
nine

I’m stronger now;
don’t want you no more Mm mm

I’ll never be, what I was before

I’m not coming
back;
you’re no good for me

I know what it’s like, to be finally free

Ok, perhaps
the song wasn’t seductive, but my singing was. I lured them right
in,
had them cheering me on, propelling
me forward with a fiery passion. Brassy, bluesy and a little rough
around the edges, I bared my soul through my song. I put as much
spit and shout into it to bring down the house with the percussion
of their hands as they clapped to the assumed beat.

I’d say I accomplished my goal. Ha! Carter
Strickland owed me a band!

I hadn’t
felt that liberated since the first time I took the stage.
I felt like I’d taken something back. That I’d
gained some piece of me lost three years ago.

I felt on top of the world.

Behind me,
the girls walked on stage, lining up in three progressive rows.
Four stood directly at my back, five behind them, and six at the
row in the back. I ditched the last of my gratitude as the
distinguished bass line of the next song began, and gave them my
full attention.

“
Sorry
girls.”
Unfortunately, they would pay the
price of this performance. The men always got grabby after doing
this number. I felt like I was throwing them to the
sharks.

Mia shrugged
and winked at me.
“Jake Whalen can grab
my ass all he wants.”

Laughing, I
turne
d to face the audience and lifted
the microphone once again. “Are you ready boots?”

♫♪♫♪

Thirty sweltering minutes later, I walked
offstage to find Tate waiting for me with a fresh towel and a
bottle of water. I wanted to kiss and hug him for it, and I did
exactly that.

Somehow, we ended up in one of the storage
rooms with my legs around his waist. Kissing like our lives
depended on it, we bumped and ground against one another, knocking
into various pieces of furniture as Tate worked his way deeper into
the small room, feeling blindly for a path along the floor.

Our tongues wrestled for dominance over one
another’s mouths. Neither of us was winning the fight. It was an
equal war of give and take. Several times, we knocked teeth,
scraping enamel against enamel in our frenzy of oral assaults. Only
once Tate was happy with our level of seclusion did he break the
kiss.

Dropping me to my feet, he spun me around so
that my back pressed firmly to his front. His hands roamed over my
body, traveling from my breasts to my hips, while he buried his
face against the back of my neck, following my spine with the edge
of his teeth.

“You were fuckin’ hot out there.” Paying our
whereabouts no mind, he unbuttoned the top of my shorts, while
licking the salt from my neck. “I want you, Coop. Now. Christ, I
want to fuck you so hard that you’ll barely walk when I’m
done.”

Well, that much was fairly obvious. I could
feel his erection through his jeans. “It’ll have to be quick. We’re
in a storage room.” Granted nobody used it, but it was still a
public establishment. The last thing I needed was someone walking
in on us.

“I don’t think that’ll be a problem.”
Undoing his pants, he ripped open the black plastic wrapper, pulled
the condom free and dropped the wrapper to the ground. “It’ll only
take a minute. I lose all control when I’m with you.”

“You’re like a magician,” I
observed
, looking over my shoulder
. “Do
you keep those things behind your ears or something?” They were
like coins. He seemed to pull them out of thin air.

Tate grinned as he rolled the
condom on. With his other hand, he guided me down until I stood
bent at the waist, leaning over an old podium resting on its side.
My shorts had fallen to my ankles, leaving me in my thong, which he
pushed to the side. “You can call me Houdini. Now you see it.” He
slipped into me in one quick thrust. “Now you don’t.”

My breath came out choked, hoarse after my
routine on stage.

Gently, his hand closed over my shoulder,
pulling me back and toward him. At the same time, he rocked his
hips, sinking further into me. The feeling wasn’t disagreeable. The
fingers of his other hand skimmed down the cleft of my ass. “I’m
going to have this one day.”

Was he serious? Anal? “I’ve…um…never done
that before.”

“Never?”

“None…whatsoever.”

“Fuck. I need to have it.”

“Tate.” He couldn’t be serious. Warning
signals were going off in my head. “Wait...” We were in a storage
room. This so wasn’t happening.

Behind me, Tate laughed quietly. “
Not
now
, Coop. I come prepared, but not for
that
. I
just…fuck…relax for me. I need to touch you there. Just a little
bit.” When I relaxed, he slipped the tip of his finger into me,
moving methodically deeper until I began rocking against him,
matching his tempo. With his other hand, he kneaded my ass,
alternately pinching and then smoothing his palm over my flesh. My
response was an unintelligible moan, though it couldn’t have been
mistaken for anything but pleasure. “There. That’s good. Oh
Jesus.”

Again, his hips began to thrust. He moved in
slow, systematic strokes. Withdrawing, and plunging in, sinking
deeper. His finger worked in tandem. My God, I hadn’t thought I
would enjoy it like this. I experienced a heady rush from the
forbidden pleasure. I felt dirty and naughty, but at the same time,
aroused. I found myself greedy for more, wanting to push myself to
the limit.

“That feels good now, doesn’t it? You like
that? Tell me what you want, babe. Tell me you want more and I’ll
give it to you.”

I was never one for dirty talk, but if I
could’ve spoken intelligibly at that moment, I would’ve spouted off
some amazingly vulgar demands. As it stood, I moaned aloud and
thrust my ass vigorously against his hand, grinding myself against
him with little to no modesty.

Apparently, he read my body language well.
Not so gently, he withdrew almost completely and then slammed
forward. I cried out from the sudden incursion, meeting his thrust
with my own. All bumps and bruises from my fall were temporarily
forgotten.

Behind me, Tate groaned hoarsely, his
fingers digging into my hips. “Holy fuck! My God, Coop, what the
fuck are you doing to me?”

Him? What was he doing to me? Turning me
into a fiend, that’s what.

“This isn’t fucking normal.” Buried deeply
inside me, he arched his neck and closed his eyes. “Even when I’m
inside you, it’s not enough. I want to be closer to you. I want to
be a part of you. I want to lose myself in you until I don’t know
where I stop and you begin.”

Turning my head, I let my hair drape over my
face, hiding the shock in my eyes. No reason to get all freaked
out, I told myself. He was just spouting off random words and
senseless declarations in the heat of the moment. I blamed sex. It
turned men into nattering fools.

“Don’t hide from me.” Reaching up, Tate
brushed my hair from my face, tucking it behind my ear. “I want to
look at you. I want to know that you’re as lost as I am.”

I curled my fingers around the edge of the
podium as he began to move. This time, he started out slow and
gentle, holding himself back. He withdrew and eased himself in
again, pivoting his hips at the end of each thrust, as if he
couldn’t burry himself deep enough. When this proved unsatisfying,
he increased his pace, his hips and testicles slapping against my
flesh.