Unchained Melody (23 page)

Callie lifted her hips to meet his thrusts again and mewled in ecstasy. ‘A girl can hope right?’ She sheathed her fingers in his hair, gripping him, and that action pressed her breasts into his lips. ‘And pray that he still wants her like she once wanted him?’

‘You really wanted this?’ Hunter was quickly coming apart. She was too slick, too tight and she wasn’t wearing a bra so when her nipple grazed off his lower lip and instantly grew taut, it was all he could do not to sink his teeth into it. He wanted to eat her, devour her… nibble on every inch of her flesh. ‘You wanted me Cal? Tell me you wanted me.’

‘I wanted you Hunter!’ She rolled her hips again. ‘God you were so hot. Even then. When I touch myself, I imagine you coming through my bedroom window where I’d be lying naked, waiting-’

Hunter sank his teeth into the soft flesh of her breast and emptied himself deep inside her with a guttural moan, pushed too far over the edge by the picture she painted to have a hope of hanging onto his orgasm. He couldn’t help it- he’d jerked off to that exact fantasy every night for three weeks since the ballet, as though Callie had been beside him, whispering it into his ear. And when she made a whinnying noise and sought out his mouth with her lips, her breathing excited as though his pleasure was doing her in, Hunter knew that he was in love with her again. And that maybe, he always had been.

*

Callie’s memories had not come back with the loss of her virginity, and so as she allowed Hunter to lead her back out into the crowded bar, it was all she could do not to cry, because since the moment that Hunter had broken through her maidenhood and absolutely nothing had changed; Callie had been unravelling.

Callie had wanted her first experience to be special, but it annoyed her that it wasn’t her first experience- she’d done it before. Time and time again. Sure her body had been virginal but her soul was not. And according to Thespia, she used this exact body a lot, and had since the beginning of time, so part of her had been wondering if maybe it wouldn’t hurt. Maybe she’d be as responsive after penetration as she had been beforehand but no- as wonderful as the experience as it had been, and as good as it had felt towards the end, the shock of being broken open had almost made her scream.

So, she was pissed off. She’d wanted to come with Hunter. She’d wanted to know what to do and half expected that she’d automatically know what to do to make that the experience of his lifetime, but she had nothing to compare it to and it had bloody well hurt in a way she hadn’t psyched herself up to deal with. She was just a stupid twenty-four year old with a twenty-four year old body. No fireworks, but no: ‘Wow I’m really doing it!’ moment either. Never had she felt so like she was straddling two different worlds but getting the benefit of neither, as she did then.

But Hunter was grinning like a lunatic, and his fingers were laced through hers possessively as he steered her back to where he’d found her and that was heating her again despite her frustration. Only this time, when they arrived on the dance floor, he turned, wrapped his arms around her and rested his head on her chin, swaying her to the music which had slowed down considerably. The band had started with Korn but was now onto Nickleback and Callie wrinkled her nose, not because they sounded bad because the woman on vocals was actually pretty incredible- but because the set list was out of order, and was going to mess with the energy of the room. It was a rookie mistake.

‘You’re incredible, you know that?’ Hunter asked, straightening to grin down at her. ‘That was…’ He bit his lip, flushed scarlet and attempted to look away but his face ducked back to hers. ‘I’ve never felt that kind of… connection before. With anyone. I know it’s not the same for you because you’ve never felt any connection, period, but trust me Callie, I feel like that was a first for me too.’

The teenage girl inside her had had her growth rudely stunted at seventeen, when she’d been told to act her actual age, which was well over five thousand. But that teenage girl had not vanished and she flipped Callie’s tummy for two different reasons then; rolling it one way at the realization that Hunter had had other lovers and that she had not been his first as she’d once hoped, and then rolling back the other way to see the earnest expression on his face which made her believe that what he was saying was true. Emotion pricked at her eyes and heart and she averted her gaze, noticing Thespia in the far corner of the room, and dying a brief death inside as the reality of her situation hit home; she was not embarking on a great romance; but a literal Greek tragedy.

It had never been this real before. But now that she was back in their lives- back in the centre of the life that she’d once dreamed would be hers- she felt all she had at stake. Instead of enjoying her future, and falling in love with her best friend, she was going to have to make him fall in love with her so his heart would be a big, swollen easy target for when she ran the lance through it. It was… despicable. They were cheek to cheek, hand in hand, heart-to-heart, and yet they didn’t even exist on the same plane.

‘Callie?’ Hunter’s whisper was full of concern. ‘Honey are you okay?’

The ‘honey’ created a yawning hole in her heart where her fictional murmur was supposed to be. Callie pressed her lips into a hard, thin line, trying not to cry, and then Hunter turned her just so and she found herself staring at Ryan’s back, or rather, the female hands sliding down the back of Ryan’s jacket, polished bright pink and glittering nails dragging tracks through the supple leather as the woman pulled him tighter into a wet kiss. Ryan’s profile was contorted into a very sexual, very primal expression as he ravaged the bottle-blonde in his arms. A jolt of shock made Callie flinch and avert her eyes from the scene and now the tears really were dropping onto Hunter’s shoulder. Who was she? What kind of girl was so crazy about two men and turned them against each other just to pitch jealous fits when someone else picked up what she’d heartlessly discarded? Callie’s eyebrows pulled together as the tears flowed. And when she dared open them again, a shudder went through her when she saw one of Ryan’s eyes crack open, half-sneer at her even as his mouth worked against the other girl’s before closing his eyes again and apparently losing himself in his vengeful make-out session once more.

It hit Callie hard, right in the pit of her stomach. She broke away from Hunter, feeling the grief, not of losing a would-be lover to another woman, but an old friend hurting her irrevocably and on purpose. Like she’d hurt him. The irony of the situation was not lost on Callie. She was about to turn to Hunter and tell him that she had to go run off and take her pill or something, or that she was crying because she was falling in love with and afraid it wouldn’t work, but then she saw the two talent scouts she’d arranged for Thespia to bring grinning as they made their way across the floor. Not to her of course, but to Hunter.

His moment hadn’t arrived yet, but he was about to be vaulted there. She turned to her friend, squeezed his hand and allowed a shiver of victory to race through her as she understood just how over the moon Hunter was about to be. ‘I just need a minute,’ she said, leaning into his ear to whisper. ‘And by the look of those guys, they need twenty million of yours.’

Hunter glanced at her, perplexed. ‘You know them?’

But Callie smirked. ‘Everyone’s talking about them Hunter. The Fork In The Road is playing here in a few weeks, and those guys-’ she nodded. ‘Are looking for their opening act for the concert; a local act.’

Hunter whirled on her. ‘Are you fucking serious? How could I not know this?!’

‘I think you might have been a bit preoccupied of late.’ Callie grinned at him and he blushed. But the truth was, no one knew about the platinum-album band coming to Araulen Valley yet, because Thespia had only finalized the deal the week before. Callie smiled and stepped away. ‘Anyway, I’ll make myself scarce-’

But Hunter’s fingers tightened around hers and fear filled his eyes. ‘No Cal, don’t leave me!’

She smiled, touched, and then tried not to grimace as she realized that there was no way she could infer otherwise- and no way she would ever really be able to be there for him. ‘I’m just some wild fan of yours Mr Marks,’ she pointed out. ‘because you are just that cool, remember?’ She winked and backed off, leaving Hunter where he belonged.

*

Hunter popped the champagne bottle and Callie squealed as the liquid overflowed and dribbled down onto her bare chest. Her nipples hardened, but she was shielding her face and looking away, giggling too much to notice that he’d lost focus on the champagne completely and was bending to lap it off her beautiful tits with his mouth. It ran off her curves and onto his sheets but Hunter chased it and attempted to catch every rivulet with his tongue.

Callie stiffened, realizing that the moment had gone from playful to somewhere else and her chest expanded with an inhaled breath when Hunter’s tongue flicked off the peak of her left breast. ‘Hey…’ she purred, guiding his head to the other breast, crying out softly when he suckled on her. Her long legs parted around him, loosely hooking over his calves, opening herself to him even as she whispered: ‘Baby we only just finished what… round three?’

Hunter’s heart warmed again on the word Baby again and he nudged his hardening erection into her inner thigh. ‘Do you need a break?’ He asked huskily, his voice was all but gone. It was almost five a. m and he’d done nothing but shout with joy all night, dance with Callie, bury himself in Callie and then start dancing all over again.

They’d won, not only the Battle Of The Bands, but the slot opening for The Fork In The Road. It was a night of personal triumph, and the scout who’d asked them to take the spot had actually pulled Hunter aside afterwards and told him that he was incredibly talented, and that he’d have a chat to one of his friends at Sony about coming to check the concert out.

Coming to check Hunter out. It was the stuff of fantasies!

And yet… what he was really celebrating was the triumph he couldn’t stop kissing. The triumph he’d uncorked his champagne for in more ways than one. Callie, Callie Callie!

‘I don’t know,’ Callie admitted, but even as she said it, her neck curved back, causing another rivulet of champagne to run down to the soft underside of her chin and Hunter growled and caught it with his lips too. ‘I’m sore… but is it weird that I kind of like knowing why I’m sore? That it turns me on when I think of you inside me, opening me up?’

Hunter dissolved into a puddle of affection and glee on top of Callie, pressing his ear to her chest and grinning when he heard her heart pounding there, before entering her slowly in response. ‘Hmm let me see…’ he groaned as he sank to his hilt within her. ‘Yeah.. that’s definitely a turn on…. We might have to do it a few more times though just to be sure...’

22.

It was almost 8 am when Hunter realized that he might have actually exhausted his ability to celebrate; in the physical sense anyway. As heavy as his body was beginning to feel, his mind was still too excited to go to sleep. So he pulled Callie against him, curling his naked body around hers and yanked his comforter up to shield their bare skin from the chill of the winter morning. Luckily, they’d made love so many times that the champagne-splashed sheets had dried from their body heat.

The stereo had been playing all night, sometimes cranked, sometimes soft and now, Hoobastank’s The Reason was drifting across the room to them and Hunter snuggled into Callie tighter. ‘How were you still a virgin until last night?’ He asked, wondering if he could kiss every one of her vertebrae without letting cold air in.

Callie shifted slightly, moving her hand under her hip. When she lifted her hand, there was a guitar pick in it. ‘This must be the third I’ve found in your bed…’

‘The princess and the pick.’ Hunter kissed her cheek and grinned.

‘The princessss and the prick who doesn’t make his bed…’ Callie drawled, but she winked at him. ‘And what do you mean about me being a virgin just last night? Haven’t we been having sex for three thousand years already?’

Hunter laughed, kissing the pulse in her neck. He could not believe the effect this girl had on him. Funny, sweet, talented, pure, gracious, strong… she was a million songs waiting to happen. And she was his.

‘No seriously,’ he said. ‘I get that in the back of your mind, you knew this might happen one day. Or at least, you knew that we’d cross paths again.’ He dug his fingers into her ribs at that one, she flinched again and giggled, though it was a self-conscious bubble of guilty laughter this time. ‘But when I saw you at that performance of yours, that guy was all over you, calling you ‘honey’ and…’

‘We were seeing each other.’ Callie admitted, sighing. ‘But it was just stage chemistry that got out of hand.’ She paused and Hunter knew exactly what she was talking about- he’d seen Callie’s gaze smolder when Nathan had lowered himself onto her, seen Nathan’s hands linger in places longer than his ‘art’ had demanded. ‘But never really out of hand.’ She rotated in his arms to look at him, and her cheeks were pink. Her cloud of hair was tangled possibly beyond repair, and she’d never looked more beautiful. ‘I wasn’t untouched last night Hunter. I’ve had… interactions over the years. Only I never saw the same guy enough times in a row to actually trust them enough to… you know.’ She shrugged.

Hunter thought that over, chewing on the inside of his cheek. ‘So is that why you slept with me? Sort of as a means to get it over and done with when there was someone available who you trusted?’

Callie lifted one dark eyebrow. ‘What are you actually asking?’

Hunter swallowed. ‘If it could have been Ryan’s uh, Pick, you woke up on instead?’

He expected Callie to look shocked, then insulted and maybe even pick a fight. But to his dismay, she sighed and looked down at Hunter’s chest. ‘In the back of my mind, I always assumed it would be you,’ her voice was worn and delicate, ‘but…if you’re asking me if I trusted Ryan that much, and if we could have gotten equally carried away in the heat of the moment…’ she glanced up at him, somewhat apologetically. ‘Can I just say, that I’m glad it was you and leave it there for now?’

Hunter was hurt. He reached down, laced his fingers through Callie’s and brought them to his lips, suddenly feeling insecure, which was unusual for him in a romantic situation. ‘There’s a chance I could accept that but Callie… ’ He snuggled closer still, feeling his breathing thin from the altitude of his steadily climbing feelings for her. ‘I sort of want to admit to you, that I love you. And I’ve been working myself up to it all night. But-’ he felt his throat tighten. ‘I don’t want to say it, if you aren’t going to say it back. So maybe, if you feel what I do… you could do me a massive favor and tell me that you’re giving me your heart, and that it’s mine to keep…?’ he swallowed again, feeling foolish for the way he was stumbling over his greatest truth. ‘Not Ryan’s?’

A pained expression contorted Callie’s features. She looked over his shoulder, then bit her lip and looked down again. A tear rolled down her cheek. ‘I gave you my body last night Hunter,’ she whispered hoarsely, and the rolled into his body, turning her face away. ‘You only feel like it’s more than that because sleeping with me coincided with the best night of your life. Let’s not put so much pressure on this so early in, okay? I’m not going to say I love you to appease your rivalry with Ry.’

Hunter’s heart seized. For so long he’d taken it for granted that Callie would be his the moment he dealt with his bullshit Three Amigos stuff and embraced her with both hands. When she’d stared up at him the night before, he’d thought for sure that he’d seen love in her eyes and that look had made him recognize how deep his feelings ran for her. Hadn’t she looked at him like that? She had. And not for a second had Hunter believed that she’d given herself lightly! But now… now he was drowning in self-doubt. Had he let her down? Not lived up to the fantasy? He would have felt so much better if Callie had orgasmed, but her virginity had hampered that sort of thing. Would Ryan have found a way? Would he yet? Would that make a difference? He needed to know that he was all she needed.

And then Callie’s arm swept behind her, caressed his ass through the comforter, pulling him closer. ‘I’m going to go to sleep… but Hunter?’

‘Mmm?’ He asked, unable to speak for fear that he would cry.

‘I’m trying to resist falling in love with you because I know I will lose myself if I do.’ She paused, her words lazy when she added: ‘But I think I’m resisting my destiny.’

Relief made Hunter curl around her, yanking her tightly against him so he could let his tears run into her hair where she wouldn’t feel them. ‘I love you Callie,’ he whispered. ‘More than anything.’

But Callie did not respond. Her breathing had already become deep and even.

*

Callie awoke to the sound of beautifully fluttering piano keys. She closed her eyes and stretched, listening to the achingly sweet melody, but her eyes flew open when the music suddenly stopped and she heard a male voice go: ‘Oh shit.’

Callie rolled over onto her side and looked around Hunter’s room, which was an absolute mess, but there was no sign of him. She stood, pulling the sheet around herself, and squinted at the full light now filling the room, burning off the chill she’d snuggled against Hunter to combat. It had to be well after lunch.

Callie side-stepped old, greasy pizza boxes, a recorder, steered around a plastic guitar from one of his games and ducked to step under her black halter top from the night before, which was dangling from one of the stilled blades of the ceiling fan. Blushing, recalling how he’d pulled it off her while entering the room the night before, she opened his door and the sound of that same sweet melody, being plucked harder than the last time, filled the tiled hallway. She shuffled down the hall, trying not to trip, and when she stepped into the open living room, which adjoined a modern and immaculately clean kitchen (Ryan’s doing no doubt) she saw Hunter at last, and her breath caught in her chest.

Hunter was shirtless, all golden in a puddle of sunlight streaming through the open window behind him, hunched over the black baby grand beneath him while his hands flew along the keys. His eyebrows were furrowed in concentration, the muscles in his arms flexing sexily as his head moved, charting the passage of his fingers. He was so lost in the music that he did not even notice her enter the room. The cigarette clamped between his lips dropped ash into his lap.

‘Shit!’ Hunter said again, muttering to himself as he took a drag of the cigarette and then stubbed it out in an overflowing ashtray in front of him. He leaned over the music stand with a pencil in his hand and scribbled at something furiously as he exhaled.

‘The dancer spins enchanted,’ he muttered. ‘Eyes closed on pointed toe, she’ll twirl until the end of time, my love she’ll never know.’ He leaned back, raised his fingers over the keys, read something and then began to play while softly singing: ‘The music box is all she needs, the chime is all she’s known, my heart could pen a symphony, but to her song, she spins alone.’

Tears pricked Callie’s eyes. She’d seen rock star Hunter the night before: she’d let him dribble champagne over her sex, watched him bounce above her on the bed, naked head-banging to Rammstein, and she’d knocked a joint out of his hand when the lead singer of Calypso had offered it him. He was funny and sexy and a little bit wild and still very much a man-child, but still her Hunter, her boy next door.

But this was Hunter the composer, and his voice was so melodic as it accompanied the tune of his own creation to lyrics so touching that Callie wanted to fly to him and cover him with kisses and cry: This is it Hunter! This is you! This is where I’m leading you to this is who you’re supposed to be!

But she couldn’t of course. Not just because he wasn’t supposed to know that she was his ghostly puppet-master, but because she couldn’t touch this Hunter. He didn’t belong to her in that moment any more than Callie belonged to herself. He was in Music’s hands now, and she could not interrupt that. She was about to retreat down the hallway when the front door swung open directly in front of her and she froze, shocked to see Ryan stumble through the front door, still in the clothes from the night before, and still with the blonde hanging off his shoulder.

‘What’s up?!’ Ryan was rotten drunk. In fact, he looked like shit, which was hard for someone who looked like Ryan. His unfocused eyes surveyed the room, landing first on Hunter, to his left. He blinked, swayed, stared at the piano, and then looked over at Callie. Well, not so much Callie, but the sheet puddling around her feet. He frowned, swayed again, then turned to the blonde and said: ‘Wait for me in the cab babe.’

Callie had become a statue in the hallway, aware that Ryan was still staring her and that Hunter had snapped out of his reverie and was now looking at his mate.

‘Jesus man,’ Hunter muttered. ‘Bit of a dramatic entrance there. What did you do? Drink a distillery?’

‘Or five,’ Ryan left the door ajar behind him and leaned over, rapping on the piano with his knuckles. ‘What did you do? Swallow Richard Clayderman?’

‘Yes. And he was delicious.’ Hunter’s lips twitched into a smile. Then he seemed to notice Callie, and began to get to his feet, his smile becoming genuine. ‘Hey there…’ but he hesitated before crossing the room to her, assessing his friend once more. ‘Ryan… is this going to be a scene?’

‘A scene?’ Ryan rolled his eyes, leaning against the door. He still hadn’t looked away from Callie. ‘No… no scene guys. I can admit when I’m licked.’ True to his words, there was a defeated look in his eyes which pained Callie more than his anger or jealousy might have. He pushed off the wall and began to stagger towards her. ‘I wined and dined her…’ he reached out and plucked a guitar pick from the skin of her shoulder. Callie rolled her eyes- she’d been completely unaware the one had embedded herself into her arm. ‘... and she went home with my best mate. What’s there to say but: ‘I’ll drink to that’?’

Callie winced, for it was the truth.

‘She’s free to do what she wants. If you want a sure-thing after dinner, hire an escort.’ Hunter sounded more weary and guilty than mad though. He was walking towards her now, wearing only black pajama bottoms. Callie wished she wasn’t choking on her own guilt so she could take a moment and enjoy the glorious view. ‘If you’re going to give someone a hard time Ryan, make it me, okay? I’m the one who dragged her backstage.’

‘You didn’t drag her.’ Ryan chuckled, patting Callie on the head as he approached. He smelled awful, like stale bear and sickly sweet pot and ash. ‘She fucking skipped backstage.’ He lost his balance, caught himself on the wall, and Callie pivoted slowly, mortified, knowing that she didn’t deserve the right to avert her eyes from the pain she’d caused him. ‘Was it good Callie?’ Ryan leered, leaning over her. ‘Did he do you on the back step or up against the urinal? Did he hit the spot or do you have a sore belly-button today?’

Callie winced again, and had to look away. ‘Don’t,’ she whispered.

‘Fuck you man!’ Hunter snapped. An arm encircled Callie’s waist, drawing her protectively against him. ‘Go sleep it off and we’ll apologize when you’re not being such an asshole.’

‘Oh I’m gonna sleep it off.’ Ryan drawled, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. ‘At Bonny’s place. Where I plan on staying while you two get this little fling out of your system.’

Callie found her voice at last. ‘You don’t have to go, Ry.’ She said. ‘I’ve got my own place. I’ll leave.’

‘No.’ Ryan caught her arm before she could walk away. His gaze had sobered. ‘I said that I’d deal with this, that I’d rather have you in my life, then not see you anymore. And though I’m so hurt right now that I want to rip out your heart just to beat Hunter’s head in with it, I still mean that... I think.’ He blanched and for a moment, the glow returned to his pale eyes. ‘But it’s not fun, okay? So I’m gonna go and have fun elsewhere while I try and forget that I’m a third wheel now.’

Callie was only marginally calmed by his sudden mood swing. But she still wanted to beg his forgiveness, to tell him that she didn’t want to feel a thing for either of them but felt so much, and that Hunter’s song was all that was allowed to matter to her. And it did matter. That melody… that melody had woken up every cell inside her. Even though she didn’t remember what it was like to be the Muse of music, listening to Hunter’s song convinced her at long last, that that was all she was.