“So fucking tight,” I said through gritted teeth. It was too much. Just too fucking much. I could have died like this, delirious with pleasure, and never regretted it for a second. “I swear your cunt was put on this earth to drive me out of my fucking mind.”
Water lapped over the sides of the tub as I stroked in and out of her slowly, leisurely, her nose and lips barely above the water line, her eyes squeezed shut tight and submerged.
I barely made a full lap before I started to come, premature in my absolute, body consuming pleasure. It was just too much sometimes, the utter completeness of it. It was a mystery I ever kept any control of myself, buried inside of her like this. It was sheer dumb luck that she followed me as I shook and groaned with my own death throes.
My mouth stayed glued to her ear even after the water ran out, the tub empty, whispering over and over how much I adored her.
“I shudder to think what kind of action this porno tub has seen.” I could hear the smile her voice as she spoke against my cheek.
“Dean has you calling it a porno tub too, huh?” I asked sternly, finally pushing up on my arms to look at her.
“Dean? Hell no. I basically hear white noise whenever he opens his big mouth. I call it a porno tub because it’s a porno tub. You could fit six people in here.”
That had me hardening my jaw and studying her.
“Watch a lot of porn, do you?”
She rolled her eyes at me, pursing her lips in that adorably bratty way of hers. “I don’t, no, but my ex used to watch it all the—“
I stopped her before she could finish, feeling that now familiar red cloud of rage overtaking my vision. I tried to grasp a handle on it, but it was elusive. “I don’t want to talk about skinny jeans, and I sure as fuck don’t want you to tell me how he liked to get off—“
One soft hand to my cheek had me shutting my mouth, and feeling like a jerk.
“I don’t want to talk about him either. Calm down, okay? I get it. I like to pretend there was never a Nat, so I get it, but you can’t turn into a caveman every time I say the wrong thing.”
I nodded, moving to stand, closing my eyes and groaning with the slow pull out of her before making it to my knees and then my feet in the wet tub.
I stepped out before helping her do the same. “Well, the good news is, I think you get a five minute break before I attack you again, but what will we do with all that free time?”
She laughed, giving me a fond look and a kiss on the chin.
I stayed for an entire week, ignoring my phone, ignoring the world.
“Fuck ‘em,” I told her. “This is what I need. I can’t go back without more.”
She smiled that smile where I saw myself and forever in her eyes, and gave me everything. She was selfless, my Danika, keeping nothing for herself.
I thought that too brief respite would help me. It made perfect sense to me that after a week of filling myself up with Danika, I’d stay full for a while. It would buy me some time, before I started to feel so empty again.
It didn’t work that way, not at all.
It was just the opposite.
The contrast unraveled me faster. What I’d left behind, the constant using, the highs followed by the strung out lows, only the lows were more unbearable than ever. I couldn’t exist as me, couldn’t stand how that felt.
Not without her.
Most days, I needed chemical assistance to even get out of bed. There was always a party, always something to do with our record label, something that lasted until morning. And our studio sessions always seemed to get later and later, and less and less productive.
This is not a good place for me to be, I thought, at least once a day. There were no brakes at our little band crash pad in L.A.
“It’s like I’m watching a fucking gnarly flashback scene from an episode of Behind the Music,” Adair, the replacement lead guitarist said to me one night, as we caught Dean snorting coke off some groupie’s bared stomach in the house’s tiny kitchen.
I laughed. In spite of myself, I was starting to like the guy.
Adair was very tall and lean, with flinty gray eyes, and crazy unruly brown hair that was dyed blue half the time. He wasn’t far behind Dean on the drug and groupie binging scale, but he had a point.
“You have to finish a fucking record to ever get on any damn show, and thanks to that hot mess across the room, that is not happening for us.” I sounded bitter.
I was bitter.
Adair poured us each a shot of whiskey. I’d lost count of the shots I’d had that night, but I grabbed the glass with one hand, my other still holding my cigarette, and clinked glasses. “Bottoms up,” I muttered, downing it. “Here’s to getting out of L.A. as fast as fucking possible, no thanks to Dean.”
“It’s not so bad,” he mused. “Worse for you, since you’re the only one with a girlfriend. But, hell, I don’t feel sorry for you.”
He caught the look on my face and grinned. “Don’t try to kill me or anything. I know the deal. Everyone has warned me not to talk about her. Well, except for Dean. Dean has given me some spectacularly bad advice about telling you…well, never mind that. But you know, I’ve seen her, and you don’t have such a rough deal. Hell, even I would go without pussy a few days a week for a girl like that.”
My empty fist clenched, but I could tell that he wasn’t trying to offend, and I took a long drag off my smoke as I tried hard not to let my temper broil. “So tell me, what has everyone been telling you?”
He grimaced. “Well, let’s see. Cory told me that you nearly beat a man to death for basically touching her arm.”
That made me laugh. The truth was crazy enough. No one needed to be making anything up, but it was amusing. I knew that Cory was just exaggerating to make his point.
“He told me not to flirt with her, or curse in front of her.” I did not have a problem with either of those pieces of advice, so I just nodded at him to go on. “And then Kenny told me that you nearly castrated a guy for standing too close to her. Said you stage dived into him, stopped a whole performance for it.”
I was clutching my stomach, laughing too hard to hold it in.
“And Kenny also told me not to talk about how hot she is, or make any comments about any part of her body, even after I see her dance, and if I do see her dance, definitely never mention it to you.”
That was very sound advice, I thought.
“What about Dean? What was his advice?” I was only asking because Cory and Kenny’s advice had lightened my mood. They were good friends.
“Nothing useful and nothing I care to repeat. I know that Dean is full of shit, so I usually do the opposite of whatever he says is a good idea. He’d watch me get my ass kicked just for a good laugh. No offense, man, but basically, I plan to stay as far away from her as possible. Hell, I plan to avoid looking at her. Speak when spoken to, also seems to be a good idea.”
I clapped him on the shoulder, more cheerful than I’d been in ages. If only every man in the world could take a page from Adair’s book. “On the contrary, my man, that’s just what I prefer.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
DANIKA
I mingled. It wasn’t my favorite thing, but this was the kind of party that called for it. The only people I knew at the function were in high demand, my boyfriend and Frankie, a famous TV personality, included.
I was in L.A. for the weekend, coming to Tristan instead of him coming to me, for a change. It took me less than five minutes at one L.A. party to know that this was not the place for me. I’d thought Vegas was bad, but L.A .was the pretentious version of it.