Sultry Groove (Reckless Beat #4) (21 page)

Sean watched his
pixie leave, the anger building inside him, unrelenting, taking control. As soon as his front door slammed with her departure, he swiped the bowl of salad off the kitchen counter and threw the fucker as hard as he could against the plaster wall, sending vegetables scattering.

Sidney gasped. Ryan cleared his throat. And Mason approached, getting within swinging distance.

“Back the fuck off.” Sean pointed an aggressive finger at his friend.

“Christ.” Mason held up his hands. “Calm the fuck down.”

“
Calm the fuck down
?” he yelled. “I’ve just lost the one thing that’s been getting me through this fucked stage of my life, and you expect me to calm down? Go to hell, Mason.”

Sean clenched his fists and stormed down the hall, thankfully making it to his bedroom without thrusting his knuckles through the wall. He fucking liked her. The days away had given him a brilliant new perspective. He’d taken the time to decompress. Sidney wasn’t his obsession.
She’d
been his distraction. When the careers of his fellow bandmates were skyrocketing, he’d been stuck in the gutter searching for something to take his mind off what everyone else was achieving around him. His interest in his best friend’s fiancée wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. Not when he now felt nothing at all for her apart from friendship.

The difference between Sidney and Red was that the attempt to distract himself with Sid had never worked. She’d never made him feel better. She’d never had the ability to take his thoughts away from the disappointment in his life. So he’d kept pushing, kept pinning his hopes on finding the moment when she would.

He didn’t need to push with Red. She made him happy with merely a smile or the blush of her alabaster skin. Even now, his failed career aspirations meant nothing in comparison to witnessing the justified hatred in her eyes before she walked from his penthouse.

“Sean.” Sidney’s soft voice drifted from the hall.

The last thing he needed right now was her—the woman who caused it all. “Fuck. Off.” He winced as soon as the words left his lips, and slumped on the bed. The more he thought about it, the more he despised the way Sidney and Mason treated him. They’d known his state of mind wasn’t stable, and still they’d continued to shove their happiness in his face.

It was bullshit.

It was disrespectful.

And just as reprehensible as how he’d treated his dancer goddess.

His door opened with a squeak, and Sidney peeked her head around the frame. “Can we talk?”

He ground his teeth together, entirely too close to saying something he knew he’d regret. “Leave me alone, Sid.”

She pushed the door wider and stepped into his room.

He glared at her, then broke the connection to hang his head. “I’m not in the mood to chat.”

“Then listen.” She sighed. “I’m sorry she left. It was my fault. I was the one who wanted to come today to make sure you were OK. You were quiet in New York. I was worried about you.”

“Why?” He pushed to his feet. “Why the hell do you even care? You never gave a shit about me when I was losing my mind over you. What changed? Did you figure out you enjoyed the attention?”

Fuck.
He was an asshole. A motherfucking piece of shit.

“That’s not fair, Sean.” Her gaze softened, filling with pity he despised. “I still care for you. I always have. You’re like a brother to me.”

Sean released a bark of sardonic laughter. “A brother?
A fucking brother
? Jesus Christ, Sidney.” That comment would’ve stung if he was still neck-deep in obsession with her. It didn’t matter now. The only thing that did was the pain he’d put Melody through, especially when she already had so much to deal with.

“Why couldn’t you leave me alone to get over you? All this time you’ve made it harder. Dragging out the pain.” Things would’ve been different if they’d given him space. “
Christ
. You both knew how I felt.”

If only they’d left him alone. He would’ve had time to gain the perspective he’d just figured out. He would’ve been stronger. Then again, Mason might not have felt sorry enough for him to dedicate a music clip to the worthless Reckless Beat drummer, and Sean never would’ve met Melody.

He hung his head and closed his eyes, seeing the tortured expression of Red staring back at him.

“My infatuation with you was never a secret, yet you kept dragging me along. Smiling, laughing, fucking hugging me at every opportunity. You both drove me insane with the constant necessity to be a part of an engagement party I didn’t even want to show up to, let alone say a fucking speech. The two of you drove me deeper into the shit fight I was facing.” He opened his eyes, ignoring the way she hugged herself.

“I’m sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter anyway.” He glared at her, hating how useless he’d been in the face of loving her. “I don’t feel that way toward you anymore.”

Melody may have started as a distraction, but she was far from it now. She’d become a part of his life he didn’t want to lose. She’d morphed from a fleeting interest into a building fascination he didn’t want to let go of.

“I-I’m glad.” Sidney’s throat convulsed, hitting him like a blow to the gut. “It was never my intention to make this harder for you.”

“Mine either,” Mason added from the doorway. “Here I was thinking I was helping you out by keeping you involved.” He stepped into the room, his face set in a scowl. “I’ll meet you in the car, kitten.”

Sidney nodded and gave Sean a sorrow filled glance before hastening from the room.
Fuck.
Just what he needed—Sidney upset and Mason puffing out his chest to defend her honor.

“Save it,” Sean muttered. “I’ll apologize when I’m good and ready.”

Mason shrugged.

“Don’t push me, Mason. If you’re looking for a fight, you’ll get one.” He was pumped, the blood in his veins filled with adrenaline he couldn’t control. He wanted to smash something. Anything. And Mason’s pretty face seemed like a prime target.

“I didn’t say a word, asshole.”

“Then what?” Sean spread his arms in exasperation. “Why the fuck are you standin’ there?”

Mason inhaled deeply and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m tryin’ to figure out how to apologize without sounding like a pussy.”

Sean scowled. “What?”

“You heard me.” Mason stepped forward, leaving them a few feet apart. “How the hell can I blame you for the way you’ve acted, when our positions could’ve easily been reversed?”

“That’s just it.” Sean huffed out a breath, releasing some of his anger with it. “Our positions never would’ve changed. Sidney never loved me. And to be honest, I now know I never loved her either. I was just fucked up about other things.”

Mason frowned. “Other things?”

“You know.” Pointing out his failures wasn’t something he enjoyed. “My career has stalled. I was sick of watching the rest of the band swarmed with interview requests and promo gigs. I’ve got nothing. Even the smothering stench of all the lovey dovey shit was choking me.”

“Then get a fucking agent and start promoting yourself outside of the normal Reckless gigs. Mitch does. And Blake did, too, before he lost his balls to Gabi.” Mason sauntered to the bed and sat on the mattress. “And if you’re lookin’ to get laid, why haven’t you gone after your girl? You should’ve chased her. Believe me, they get angrier if they have time to stew on shit.”

Sean shook his head. He hadn’t gone after Red at the time because he’d been too shocked to know what to do. He still didn’t have a clue. “I blindsided her. The first night we met, at your engagement party, I openly told her she was the perfect distraction.”

He ignored Mason’s cringe and rubbed the bridge of his nose, willing the dull throb of his impending headache to go away. “She never hassled me to explain. I think she has enough secrets of her own to understand why I didn’t elaborate. So I never exactly told her what she’d been a distraction from. It’s my fault for humiliating her like this. I deserve whatever I get. I just have no idea how to fix it.”

Mason leaned toward him and punched Sean hard in the thigh. “Dumb fucker. You start on your knees and don’t quit begging until she takes you back.”

Sean released a weak breath of laughter. He would. He’d grovel and explain to her exactly how he felt, but he already knew it wouldn’t help. Melody was a smart woman and no matter how he explained the situation, he’d used her. Plain and simple. It didn’t matter that he’d fallen hard for her in the process. He’d still sought her out the day after the engagement party to keep his mind occupied. He’d intentionally gone to bed with her that first night with the aim of keeping his thoughts off another woman.

No matter what she meant to him, or how badly he felt for hurting her, nothing he said would fix what he’d broken. He’d give her space and the time to gain perspective. At least until tomorrow when he had to crawl back to rehearsals.

“I’ll give her space for a while.” Reluctantly, he strode for the door, knowing he needed to clean the mess in his kitchen before he could use sleep as an excuse to be alone.

Mason peered up at him from the bed through a frame of wavy blond hair. “Man, I’m telling ya, giving her more time to build up her ammunition is the wrong thing to do. Women are fucking brutal when it comes to these types of things.”

Sean shrugged. “So be it.”

He deserved whatever she threw at him. He’d take her humiliation and distrust. There was no way he’d deny what he’d done was wrong. If the tables were turned, he’d be livid as hell. Jealous as fuck, too. So he’d give her time to build her armament and face it head on.

Melody was a
jackass. A used and humiliated jackass who should’ve known better. From the moment they met, Sean had been too good to be true. He’d pulled her from her newly formed shell of isolation and given her a tiny glimmer of hope for the future. If only she’d asked, just once, about being his distraction.

She’d been too caught up in the need to escape her own self-loathing, that she’d ignored all the warning signs. The many,
many
warning signs.

She’d made assumptions, not wanting to dig deeper into Sean’s life and risk breaking their connection, and the great way he made her feel. Now, she couldn’t hide from her stupidity. She’d been a
god-damn
distraction from another woman. How pathetic.

She’d never been this low before, not from the actions of a man. Apart from her dancing career, her sexuality had been her strongest asset. Men didn’t faze her. She’d never been attached enough to have a broken heart. Not even with her ex, Simon.

So how could she have ignored the signs? Sean had been an intoxicated wreck at the engagement party, for Christ's sake. It all began to make sense. Mason wanted to focus Sean’s attention away from the approaching wedding, while still keeping his best friend in the loop. Insert Melody and her dance rehearsals. And what about the woman performing in the music clip? Was Sasha a back-up distraction? Maybe a second option once Sean became bored fooling around with the scarred choreographer and wanted to move on to something better.

She gunned the engine and sped from the parking lot, not giving a shit that her tires squealed. For what felt like hours, she blindly drove, paying attention, yet not really noticing where she was going or what she was doing as she navigated streets and intersections, finally pulling to a stop in a suburban driveway.

Numb to the world around her, she stared blankly at her dash, wincing at how humiliating it would be at their next rehearsal. She wouldn’t be able to look him in the eye. Having to touch his perfect body would piss her off. And they still had a lot of work to do before his dance moves were fluid and ingrained into his memory.

“Melly?”

Fuck.
She squealed and flung her body around in the seat to find her sister standing on the other side of the door in black summer pajamas. A relieved breath left her lungs, and her heart gradually descended from her throat as Blair motioned for her to lower the window.

The thought of recapping tonight’s degrading events made her stomach churn. If she thought Blair would’ve let her get away with gunning the engine and fleeing the scene, she would’ve done so.

“Mel, open the door.” Her sister worked the handle, tugging in a constant racket until there was no choice but to unlock the damn thing. “I assume by your lethal stare that dinner didn’t go well.”

“Understatement.” She cringed at the flashbacks bombarding her mind. “I’m such an idiot.”

“Come on.” Her sister held out a hand. “I’ll make us some coffee, and you can tell me all about it.”

“Coffee isn’t going to be strong enough.”

Blair raised a brow, and leaned forward to pull the keys from the ignition. “That bad, huh?”

“Worse.” She slid from her seat and let her sister slam the door shut.

“What the hell did you do?”

“
I
didn’t do anything.”
Well, not really.
They walked side by side to the front door, while she tried to figure out the best way to explain what happened with the least amount of shame.

“Ouch.” Blair held open the door with a wince. “Then what did your man do?”

Everything and nothing
.

She had no intention of going into detail. Her entire life had been spent on the outskirts of drama. Dancers were always bitching about their allocated positions or their routine. Partners would cheat, and scandals would erupt. She tried to stay out of it. Gossip only took your mind off the prize and her ability to stay focused had kept her at the top of her field.

“I misjudged what was going on between me and Sean.” She also wasn’t the type to weigh others down with her problems, but the words began to tumble from her lips with no control to stop them. “It’s this whole big, messed up situation where I’m not just a third wheel, I’m the fourth.”

As they walked to the kitchen at the rear of the house, she spilled her guts. From the engagement party, to dinner tonight, she poured her heart out, uncharacteristically holding nothing back.

“He used me. How the heck am I meant to help him with the music clip now?” She slumped onto a kitchen stool and placed her elbows on the counter. “As if being a quick thrill wasn’t bad enough, I’m not even comparable to this Sidney woman.”

Blair flicked on the coffee machine and pulled two mugs from the cupboard underneath. “OK, hold up. For starters, when did this become a relationship?”

Melody opened her lips to reply, then closed them again.
Crap.
Her sister was right, this thing with Sean had never been defined as anything other than sex. They never agreed to be exclusive. Hell, they didn’t even discuss their time together being anything apart from fun between consenting adults.

“I guess it didn’t.” She winced and cupped her head in her hands to cover her heating cheeks.

“And you fell for him anyway.”

She let out a groan and nodded through the moment of clarity. This wasn’t Sean’s fault. It was hers. She needed to realize she wasn’t the old Melody, the one who had every male—and sometimes female—member of her dance crew begging to share her bed. Her success had fled, her body wasn’t the dream it used to be. She’d become overexcited about the glimpse of male attention that she’d let reality slip through her fingers.

“I’m the biggest dickwad on the face of the earth.”

Blair scoffed. “What you are, is a douche for thinking this other woman has anything over you.” Her sister’s footsteps approached, coming to a stop beside Melody. “You’re successful as hell, and sexy to boot. I don’t care who this woman is, she doesn’t have anything on my redheaded sister.”

Melody let out another lengthy groan. It wasn’t so much the clothed package she was worried about. She’d held her own in the looks department. No professional dancer could go through life denying their appearance wasn’t a major part of their success or failure. It was the underlying issues that her sister didn’t know about.

“Want to see what I’m contending with?” She peered up from her hands and met Blair’s stare.

“Yeah, sure.”

With a self-deprecating smile, Melody pulled her cell from her pocket and reloaded the website link to the sex video. “Enjoy.” She pressed play on the clip and handed it to her sister.

As the sound of sex filled the small kitchen, Blair’s mouth gaped. “
Holy shit.
That’s the guy you’ve been sleeping with?”

There was no point responding, her sister was entirely entranced with the images on screen.

“He’s fucking hot. And hung! Jesus Christ, look at that bad boy.” Blair’s brow furrowed as she raised the cell closer to her face and squinted. “Is the other guy Mason Lynch? Damn, Mel, have you been hooking up with one of the Reckless Beat men? Your sex life is so unfair.”

“OK, showtime’s over.” Melody snatched the phone and quickly worked to close the browser. Unfortunately, she wasn’t quick enough to escape an eyeful of Sean drilling into Mason’s fiancée. Even fucking another woman, she couldn’t deny the man was delectable.

“So this video was taken while the two of you were together?” Blair went back to making coffee, pouring the liquid from the pot and then adding creamer.

“No.” Melody shook her head and fought to withhold another wince. Although she hadn’t checked the date stamp on the website, she knew it happened a while ago. Sidney’s hair had been cropped short and falling around her chin in the clip, when now it was half-way down her back. “It would’ve happened before we met, but Sean’s still hung up on her.”

Blair cringed and placed a coffee mug on the counter in front of her. “That must’ve been hard to hear.”

“He didn’t tell me. He didn’t have to. I could see it as soon as they were in the same room together. It was uncomfortable—the looks, the stilted conversation, the hug that lasted a few seconds too long and parted awkwardly.” She grasped for the coffee mug and raised it to her lips for a quick, burning sip. “You should’ve seen him the night we met at Mason’s engagement party. He was a wreck. I never questioned why he needed a distraction so badly. I didn’t know him at all and got caught up in the high of his attention. I stupidly wanted to believe we hooked up because he thought we had…”
A spark? A future?
“…I dunno.”

She shrugged it off. He’d done the right thing in not promising her anything from the start. They agreed to be adult about whatever came of their time together. She was the one who ran off course and dived head-first into a pool of psycho.

He didn’t need to apologize.
She
did.

“I know you’re in a panic and not able to rationalize at the moment, but I think you’ll wake up tomorrow and realize it isn’t all that bad.” Blair looked at her with pity. “I’m not going to lie. We both know it’ll be humiliating to see him again. You need to ignore it. Just pretend like nothing happened. Or pull out the menses card and claim your cycle made you flip out.” Blair sipped her coffee, not lessening the empathy in her eyes. “He’s a rock star, after all. This is probably the least dramatic woman moment he’s had. It may not have even made a blip on his radar.”

“Maybe. I guess I’m a dime a dozen to him.”

Blair frowned. “I don’t get you anymore. What happened to your confidence? I’ve never seen you fall flat for a guy before.”

Melody focused on the liquid in her cup. Denying she’d changed was a hopeless cause. She was the polar opposite of the vibrant performer she’d been not so long ago. Her family had spent months trying to lift her spirits after she quit dancing professionally. Days upon days had passed where she’d had to distort the facts to stop them prying. They didn’t know the full details of what happened, and she didn’t look forward to the day they found out. She’d lied about the severity of the accident, her injuries, and when it had happened too.

While hospitalized in Paris, she called her parents and pretended she was still on tour. It gave her the weeks she needed to recover, both in the overseas hospital, and dealing with the local Richmond doctors once she returned. It wasn’t until she’d endured almost a month of constant dressing changes and could fake a normal walk for a small duration, that she told them she was home.

They knew there was a bike accident.

“I guess I liked him more than I thought.”

“Or you’re lying again.” Blair raised a defiant brow.

“Again?” Her sister was taunting her into an argument she didn’t have the strength to participate in. “I don’t remember lying in the first place.” The deception stung. Betraying her sister was the last thing she wanted to do. Well, second to last over telling her the truth.

Blair scoffed as Melody slid from her stool and strode to the sink with the coffee mug in her hand.

“I don’t think you realize how much you’ve hurt us all, Mel.”

The defeat in her sister’s tone made Melody stiffen. She focused on the mug in the sink, certain she knew where this conversation was heading, yet not wanting to open her mouth in case she was wrong.

“We used to be much more than sisters. You were my best friend. And still you couldn’t tell me the truth about why you up and quit a fucking fantastic career.”

No.
Melody shook her head and squeezed her eyes shut. She hadn’t wanted them to know. In reality, the truth would be all over the Internet for them to find if they searched hard enough. She’d covered her tracks as best she could. She’d played it cool, and made up a cover story to appease their curiosity.

“Mom, Dad, and I all vowed not to push you. Dad even warned me not to go snooping into your life. Don’t ask me why, because frankly, I think we had a right to know. But I did anyway. I know there was more to your accident. I gather you quit because you needed time to recover, or they were pissed that you were so reckless while touring. However, I still don’t understand how you could lose your confidence and drive to succeed. Did the accident scare you that much?”