Until We Burn (6 page)

I turn around and walk back
toward the house, but she takes two steps and grabs my arm. I pause.

“But you didn’t,” she says hesitantly,
a bit unsure now. “You didn’t meet me.  My name’s Jacey.”

I sigh.   “Your name
doesn’t matter.”

I keep walking, ignoring the
way she sucks her breath in, the way she calls after me in agitation, the way
she gives up and stops in defeat.

I might be an asshole, but I
don’t lie.

Her name doesn’t matter.

Not to me.

I leave the entire situation
behind, out of my sight and out of my mind.  Within a few minutes, I’m
standing in front of Kira again.

“All taken care of?” she purrs,
reaching for me.  I nod, burying my face between her heavy naked tits as
she unbuckles my belt.  “Bind my hands with this, and come on my face.”

She doesn’t have to ask me
twice. 

“You’re such a dirty girl,” I
whisper in her ear as I push her onto the couch and bind her hands above her
head, just tight enough for the leather to bite into her flesh.  Just the
way she likes it. 

And then I grasp my dick in my
hand and fuck my fist, just the way
I
like it. 

For just a second, for some
strange reason, the blonde
chick’s
face pops into my
mind, her eyes wide and brown.  I have no idea why, but I shake my head to
clear it.  I focus instead on the matter at hand. 

Within another two minutes, I
come on Kira’s face, spurting in a cream-colored arc that spatters onto her
tanned skin. She licks a drop from her lips and grins at me.

“Welcome home, lover.”

“Don’t call me that,” I shake
my head as I pull my jeans back on and collapse next to her.  She rolls
her eyes. 

“Why?  It’s what we
are.  You always come back to me, Dom.  You know that.”

I unbind the belt wordlessly,
tossing it onto the floor.  I might always come back to her whenever I
come home, but I don’t fuck her.  Not really.   I haven’t
actually fucked someone in years.    

“
Lover
would indicate
that I bury my dick in your sweet pussy,” I glance at her, then reach out to
run my finger over the swell of one of her tits, then trail it downward to her
crotch.  She arches toward my touch. “And you know I won’t do that.”

I pull my hand away abruptly
and Kira scowls.  “Yeah, I know that.  What I
don’t
know is
why.  Dominic, you’ve got needs too.  Fucking someone in the ass
can’t possibly fulfill them. Neither can watching other people fuck or jacking
off and coming on my face.  Sex isn’t just sex, Dom.  You need all
the good stuff that comes along with it.”

“Oh, I do, do I?” I ask, amused
now. “Like what?  Like having women get attached and hoping that I’ll
marry them?  Or worrying that I’ll get some fucking disease or…”

“Just stop,” Kira interrupts me
with a glare.  “
I know you
, Dom.  I know you. I know why you
do what you do.  You don’t want to get close to someone again. You don’t
want to give them that kind of power over you.  But Dom… it’s time.
 It’s time for you to finally get over her and come back to life.”

“One, don’t talk about her,” I
instruct Kira icily, staring at her hard.  “You know better than
that.  And two, are you insinuating that I’m not living?”

Kira sighs as she pulls her
shirt on, forgoing her bra.  She stuffs it into her purse and glances up
at me.

“You know damn well what I’m
insinuating.  You’ve been a shell for six years, Dom.  Six fucking
years.  That’s a long time.  I’ve been patient.  I’ve done
everything you needed.  But there comes a time when a girl needs to be
fucked.  I’ve got needs, Dominic.”

I have to chuckle now, at the
idea that I’m the only one Kira’s depending on for her ‘needs’.  “Oh,
yeah.  Because you don’t have anyone else to fulfill your needs when I’m
not here?”

She glares at me.  “You’re
a dick sometimes.  I’ve got to work early in the morning, so I’ve gotta
go.  Call me tomorrow, ok?” 

I nod even though I know I
won’t. I bury my face into the couch cushions, realizing I’m suddenly exhausted
and just want to sleep.  I don’t even hear Kira leave.  But I do hear
when someone else comes in a few minutes later, right when I’m ready to slip
into sleep. 

“Dom, what the fuck?  You
were supposed to pull me out of the game so that I didn’t lose my shirt.”

I reluctantly open one eye to
stare at my brother and find that he
actually
lost his shirt. He’s
standing in front of me bare-chested.  My eyes dip down and I cringe.

He lost his pants, too.

“What the hell, Sin?  Put
some fucking clothes on.”

My brother grins, that cocky
rakish grin that his fans love so much as he plops himself down onto the sofa
next to me, buck-ass naked, crossing his feet at the ankle on the coffee
table. 

“You wouldn’t have to worry
about it if you’d pulled me out of the poker game like I asked you to,” he
shrugs, picking up my glass of whiskey and drinking it all.  “Those drunk
chicks know how to play poker.  Or I just wanted to take my clothes
off.  One or the other.”

I glare at him.  “I
couldn’t bail you out because I was taking care of a situation for you. 
Fuck, man.  You’ve got to stop having these parties. Someone’s gonna get
raped or killed and they’re going to sue the shit out of you.”

Sin only grins, unconcerned.
 “If they’re dead, they can’t sue me.”

I can’t argue with that
logic.  Instead, I tell him what he missed, not that it bothers him
much.  He sees it all the time. 

“Thanks for fixing it,” he
tells me casually, as though near-rapes are normal.  I roll my eyes. 

“Anytime.  Now can you get
some fucking clothes on?”

He waggles his dark
eyebrows.  “Sure.  If it makes you insecure to look at my
package.  You might be older, but I’m bigger and that’s what counts.”

He’s also ridiculous. 
He’s not a centimeter bigger than I am, but I don’t waste my breath telling him
that.

He yanks one of my shirts out
of my suitcase and pulls it over his head.  Then a pair of my pants. 
He forgoes underwear, which means I’ll have to burn those jeans. 

“I forgot to ask how long
you’re staying,” he asks as he settles back into the seat, unconcerned that he
just ruined my favorite jeans.  “Long enough to catch a show, I
hope.  It’s all I’ve heard about for months from Duncan… how you don’t
even come watch your poor little
brothers
play.”

I roll my eyes.  “Poor
little brothers? I think both of you are doing just fine.”

Sin snorts, “Only as well as
you, big bro.  But whatever.  We have a show coming up in Chicago
next month.  If you want to fly back in, we’ll get you backstage passes.”

I shake my head. “I’ll
try.  Filming starts
  in
a couple of
weeks.  But I’ll see what I can do.  I don’t want to upset baby
Duncan.”

“What about me?”

My youngest brother saunters
into my room, dropping onto the sofa next to Sin.  Neither of them have
any personal space issues, that’s for sure, because now we’re all three crammed
onto the one sofa.  And we’re too big for that shit. 

“Nothing,” I assure
Duncan.  “I just said I didn’t want to offend your ovaries by not coming
to your next show. I’ll try like hell to be there.”

“That’s the furthest thing from
my mind right now,” Duncan announces, cracking open the can of beer in his
hand.  “You can see me bang on the drums any time.  What I’d like to
bang tonight are the half-naked women beyond these very doors.  I fucking
love your house, man,” he tells Sin.  “Oh, and there’s a chick asking for
you.   Said she wants to make sure you know that your brother rescued
her.  Or some shit.”

Sin rolls his eyes, but I elbow
him.  “It’s probably the girl from the pool.  You’d better talk to
her and autograph her tits or something.  You need to keep her happy so
that she doesn’t think to call the police.  You don’t want that kind of
press, dude.  Not after Amsterdam.”

The mere mention of how the
tabloids had ripped Sin’s band up over a wild party in Amsterdam a month ago is
enough to sober the two of them up.  There had been some underage girls
there, groupies who had lied about their age and if it wasn’t for the more lax
laws in Europe, my brothers would’ve been screwed. 

Sin nods now.

“Fine. Take me to her,” he
tells Duncan. To me, he hands the bottle of whiskey and says, “Do you ever get
tired of being right?  Jesus Christ.”

“Not yet,” I tell him as I gulp
down a few swigs, then slide down into the sofa again, closing my eyes. 
“It’s a burden though.”

My
brothers
chuckle as they walk out and I relax, enjoying the way the whiskey has relaxed
my muscles, the way the warmth has spread to every bit of me.  It helps me
stay numb… and numbness is a welcome fucking thing.   

When I’m numb, I feel safe enough
to slip my hand into my pocket.  Not for my dick, although that’s normal
for me, too.  No, I wrap my fingers around the cool stone of the pendant
that is always there, encased in a white shell and resting against my leg.

The last thing that fills my
mind before I sleep is a color.

Aquamarine.