Sweet Ache

Chapter 22

HAWKIN

The rhythm owns my soul.

Rock and Vince are playing off the beat that Gizmo’s pounding out like it’s a song we’ve practiced time and again. My lips are stretched in a wide grin as I bob my head, fingers drumming on my leg, because we haven’t just jammed for the sake of jamming in forever and the music we’re making off the cuff right now is fucking killer.

Just like the good old days.

I adjust the soundboard to make sure we’re recording this just in case we link notes we want to keep for anything new. We’ve had some killer shit come out of jam sessions before. Quinlan’s sitting on the arm of the couch, head angled to the side, eyes steadfast on mine, and a smile on those sexy-ass lips of hers. Goddamn, the music’s calling me, but hell if that sleepy smile and those bedroom eyes don’t have me wanting to say fuck the music for the first time ever in my life.

With my guitar in my hand, I walk over to her, needing one taste to tide me over a little bit longer. A thrill shoots through me, tightens my sac, at the sight of her sitting up a little taller when she notices my approach. I take the back of the body of my guitar and place it against her back and pull her into me. Her tits pressed against my chest, her nipples so hard it’s impossible not to notice the feel of them, make me doubt my decision about the music when I could be fucking her instead.

Damn. I have a serious weakness for this woman.

When I look into her eyes, I try to read what’s there but we’ve either had too much to drink for me to comprehend it or she’s guarding what she feels. Regardless, I notice and love the way her breathing changes the minute I touch her like this. It tells me she feels whatever this is too.

I press my lips to hers and sample what I plan on taking later. Damn if the warmth of her tongue, the taste of her beer, the softness of her lips doesn’t have me swearing as she pulls away from me and against my guitar still pressed to her back.

I release her, and she falls to the couch behind her. And I can’t help but glance down to her tits, her legs, and what’s in between before flashing her a smirk and looping the strap over my neck. Ideas of just what I can do with my favored instrument and my hot woman later flash through my head as I walk over and plug my guitar into the amp.

Fuck. I just might have to cut this jam short with that image floating in my head.

I close my eyes, feel the music for a minute—the beat, the rhythm, the notes—before I can jump in. My body rocks to it instinctively as I find my chords to join the guys. And it’s easy enough to do because we’ve been playing together for so long that I know where Vince is going to go with his riff and how to come in when it starts to fade some. Gizmo leads me into the jam, and Rocket rolls in right after me.

I concentrate, fingers moving to hit those first notes in synch with the guys, and I open my eyes for a moment to glance over at Vince to make sure he’s good with where I took it on my side. He nods his head as he chimes back in. Knowing we’re in sync, I close my eyes again, let my head hang down, and allow the world around me to slip away with each passing note as I become a part of the music that has saved and comforted me most of my life.

Losing myself in the music, I let go all of my anger from the fucked-up phone calls tonight from Hunter begging for money to probably get his next fix. The beat erases my past, bit by bit, memory by memory, sadness by sadness until all that’s left is the here and the now: my best friends around me, Quinlan watching me, the music cleansing me from responsibilities I never asked for.

“You built me up. You tore me down. Left me to wear your poisoned crown …” The lyrics I’ve been toying with come without warning, and I’m so in my own head that I don’t even realize I’ve said them aloud until I notice Rocket slow down his pace to keep with what I’ve belted out. I keep my head down, trying to avoid feeling vulnerable as I sing the words that come to mind and tell my story, but it’s no use. Putting my thoughts to words then penning words to paper before turning them into lyrics is equivalent to cutting open my soul to expose the dirty, dark, bloody secrets I hold close. Every fucking one of them.

And yet I continue the temporary purge of my misgivings.

“I am not weak. I am not strong. Just a man left walking in a world where you made sure I don’t belong.” My voice breaks on the last word, and I squeeze my eyes shut as my fingers still on the guitar. The room falls silent around me, Gizmo’s labored breathing from drumming the only sound of life.

“Holy fucking shit, dude!” Rocket says, surprise and admiration lacing through his voice. “Was that the shit you’ve been working on? Just … wow!”

He says something else that I don’t catch because I’m so busy trying to come to grips with the things I just said, the feelings I just scraped from the scars on my soul that now feel open and raw. The things everyone around me knows about already. But coming out this way, through the emotion of a song, is so much more real than a monotone blow by blow.

I sucked at school but I remember learning that Orwell said good writing is like a windowpane. Too bad my lyrics are more like tempered glass, reflecting how I’m so broken and shattered, the shards never falling because they’re being held up by invisible strings. Someday though all the pieces are going to come popping out one by one, till all that’s left is a gaping hole surrounded by irreparable shatters.

I feel hollow now, afraid to look up, afraid to keep my head down because more memories might come that I don’t want to think about. I feel more vulnerable than I have in a long fucking time and I know for a fact it has to do with Quinlan. I’ve let her in when I usually keep everyone at arm’s length unless it’s for that quick rocking in the sheets before I roll them out the door.

The realization hits me that maybe now after hearing my from-the-heart lyrics she’ll realize who I am, what I come from, and that I’m not enough for someone like her. Yes, I’ve told her about my past but something about music reinforces the damage within me.

The thought hits me hard because hell yes, we’re fucking good together but at the same time, she’s got her shit together, her life together, while my number one hits don’t mean shit when my life’s shadowed daily by the next phone call from Westbrook, the next request from Hunter, the continual demise of my mom.

When I pull myself from my thoughts and find the wherewithal to raise my head, Vince is making sure the recording is there and then I see him flick the switch turning the soundboard off. Rocket and Giz are nowhere to be found. He meets my eyes with a nod of his head, a shift of his eyes over to where Quinlan sits behind me, and then walks toward the door.

I track his movement, too chickenshit and embarrassed to meet her eyes just yet. Vince stops with his hand on the door and says, “You did good, man. Let’s hope it feels as good for you to get out as it did for us to hear.”

All I give him is a single nod in acknowledgement as I fiddle with the strap on my guitar before he closes the door. Sighing softly, I turn around on my stool, eyes still focused on my fingers as I rein in the needy bullshit I don’t want to deal with right now. Hell, right now? Who am I kidding? How about never want to deal with.

And I feel awkward for the first time ever with her but I know it’s only the mixture of alcohol and exhaustion and shit with Hunter that’s making me feel this way.

“So …” I say, trying to find my way through the minefield I’ve led us into. “I’m feeling a little …” My voice trails off as I find irony in the fact that I’ve just sung lyrics so honest and telling, and yet now I’m uncomfortable saying how I feel about it.

“Did you say something?” she asks, her tone chock-full of confusion that has me lifting my eyes to meet hers. “Sorry, I wasn’t listening. I was too damn busy thinking about having sex with you.”

The smile comes naturally to my lips, and it matches the desire that’s a constant when she’s around. “Is that so?” I rise from my seat, swing my guitar to rest against my back, and walk toward her, wondering how she can know a comment like that is just what I needed to break up my sudden discomfort.

Standing in front of her, I enjoy listening to her breath hitch when she runs her eyes up the length of my body. And then those eyes of hers—liquid amber—lock onto mine, her eyebrows lifting as if to say What are you waiting for?

And I don’t know why I’m waiting, but there is something about the moment, the lyrics, her being here that makes me want to stand here a minute and let it all sink in before I lose myself to her.

Because that’s what’s going to happen. I can deny it all I want, tell myself I’m a man who needs no one, let alone the same set of lips to kiss him before sleep each and every night, but I’d be lying to myself. And not very well either. Maybe it’s Quin, maybe it’s the idea that I’m finally so fed up with Hunter I know the last straw is about to break. Maybe it’s the realization that my mom may still be here but I really lost her all those years ago…. I’m not sure. What I do know is that I crave the normalcy of a relationship, a home life without the constant shadow of grief and weight of a promise that’s not mine to keep.

I crave the love that will make me weak and know it’s not in the cards for me.

Her hands on my hips shock me from the shit suddenly clouding my head and bring my thoughts to exactly where they need to be. Right here. Right now. On her and how she’s touching me and just what I should do with this guitar.

She pulls me closer and I go willingly, my dick front and center as she sits before me. I gasp, a shot of straight lust streaking down my spine when she snakes her fingers beneath my shirt and scrapes her fingernails along the top of my waistband.

I’m instantly hard—it’s a thing with her—where when I’ve had more than my fill over the years it sometimes takes me a minute to catch up to the predictability of the moment. But when Quinlan touches me, I’m already thinking about how I’m going to want another night with her when the sex we’re about to have is over.

Wanting more sex is a given, but rarely with the same woman time and again.

Her fingers make quick work of my zipper but instead of pulling my pants down, she leans forward to where my cock is now begging for attention and looks up. A slow siren’s smile turns up the corners of her mouth before she darts her tongue out to wet her lips and fuck me; between the hunger in her eyes and her mouth open and willing, I know she’s about to destroy me in every pleasurably painful way possible.

She leans forward and presses her mouth to the material snug over my cock and blows hard and long. The hot air from her mouth seeps into the fabric and feels like it’s wrapping around my dick. It’s like she’s giving me the hint of a blow job, the tease of what she can do, and it feels so fucking good, I roll my head back and enjoy it.

Quinlan does it a few more times as her fingers tease the small amount of skin that she’s bared. I roll my head to the side as she tugs my jeans and boxer briefs down, my dick springing up when she clears it. And before I can open my eyes and look down at her, she has me in her mouth.

Our brief conversation from earlier flashes through my mind: handing her my latest test results showing a clean bill of health, her showing me her pack of birth control pills and a promise her test results are the uneventful kind like mine.

And thank fuck for the forethought of that conversation because a blow job with a condom on is nothing compared to the feeling of a wet, warm mouth sliding over rock-hard flesh.

I hiss out a breath, maybe her name, I don’t know because that would mean I’d have to think and right now there is absolutely no thought as her tongue slides across my head, dipping in to lick the drop of precum there. She wraps her lips around my crest, that fucking fantastic tongue owning me as it circles around and turns my knees to Jell-O. I’m gonna come on the spot.

I moan again, my hands gripping into her hair in reflex, gently urging her deeper although I’m pretty fucking sure I don’t need to give her any hints because the woman knows how to give a blow job. And I’ve had a lot of blow jobs, the quintessential go-to from a groupie to try to get something more.

But Quinlan does this … ah … I forget what I’m thinking about because my eyes roll back in my head and her name falls from my lips as she takes me all the way into the back of her throat and her fingers press in that spot just beneath my balls that causes bursts of heat to ignite and that ache to burn.

“Feels so fucking good,” I say in an exhale of air as she begins to bob her head onto the length of my cock: fingers stroking, mouth sucking, moan vibrating against my sensitized flesh. She looks back up, mouth full of me and her cheeks flushed, and for some reason it’s that right there that pushes me to the point of no return.

My muscles tense, my balls tighten up, my dick swells to the point of painful as the coiled ache of need unfurls and explodes. I lose my mind, can’t process anything except for the rush of pleasure I can only express with my jerking hips, my hands fisting her blond curls, and the cry of release sounding off the walls surrounding us.

It takes me a moment to come back to reality, for my breath to calm and my muscles to relax. When I open my eyes, I look down to see her sitting back on the couch, putting the cap on the bottle of water she just took a sip from, and a smug smirk on that mouth of hers that can own me like that any day.

We hold each other’s gaze, exchanging words we don’t have the courage to say aloud. And I can tell she’s just as freaked as I am by it because she starts laughing at me. Fucking laughing.

Talk about going from feeling like a king to being knocked down to feel like a pauper.

“What?” I ask, smiling wide because goddamn, she’s beautiful. And incredible … in ways I never imagined when I saw those long legs of hers standing on the steps of the lecture hall as she argued with Axe.

“You look kind of funny,” she laughs out as I look down at my own body and see how I look through her eyes. I have my shirt on, guitar still strung to my back with the strap across my chest, pants bunched around my shoes, and my dick just hanging out there.

When I look back up and meet her eyes, I fight my own smirk as I remove my guitar in a slow, deliberate motion over my head and lean it against the edge of the couch. I toe off my shoes and step out of my pants, hands stripping my shirt over my head, all while our visual connection never breaks.

“And you,” I tell her, fumbling for the words to make sense because fuck, I never have to try at this kind of shit—have never really cared—but something about tonight, about the song, about what she just did to me, makes me want to care. She makes me want to be worthy enough to be with her.

“Me?” she asks, with that slight taunting raise of her eyebrows and purse of her lips as she waits for me to tell her what to do.

“Hmm, so many things I want to do to you, Trixie.” I slide my eyes up and over her body, so many curves, so many places I want to get lost in. Leaning over, I place my hands on the back of the couch beside her head and dip down to taste that mouth of hers, the perfect combination of temptation and salvation in the simple meeting of our tongues.

Her eyes light up when she hears my comment and it’s such a turn-on how her mouth falls lax when I pull back and just stare at her. “Stand up,” I order and I see the slight hesitation in her movement before she slowly rises from the couch. The funny thing is that as much as I demand a woman give me the reins in bed, there’s something sexy as hell in the fact that she questions handing her control over to me. It’s as if she’s telling me I don’t need you, don’t have to do this to feel needed, but I want to.

And fuck if that wouldn’t bring this man to his knees.

Her hair falls down around her shoulders when I lift her shirt over her head. I lick my lips and slide my eyes over the lacy pink bra, my dick already stirring and ready for round two at just the thought of what’s hidden beneath. My fingers tickle over her stomach and push down her jeans, and I’m momentarily mesmerized by the matching panties underneath.

I lean into her so that I can unfasten her bra but I pull back just as she leans forward to kiss me. “Hmm,” I exclaim, part groan, part protest because I want her lips on mine more than anything … but I want her naked first. The straps fall from her arms to reveal those hard nipples begging me to graze my teeth over them.

“I think …” I say, stepping back and angling my head at her. “I think it’s time to test that rumor after all.”

Confusion darkens her golden eyes before recognition flashes in them when she sees me reach out and pick my old guitar up by the neck. Her lips tilt up in a dare of a smile as she steps into me, taking her own lead in this seductive game. “Tell me, rocker boy,” she says coyly, her tone breathless and her fingertip skimming up my chest, “is it true that you can you play this body like a guitar?”

Her fingers leave my skin and she palms her own breasts, thumbs rubbing over her nipples just like I want to, causing her head to fall back and a soft sigh to fall from her lips.

“I’m gonna bang you like a goddamn drum set if you keep that shit up,” I murmur as I use every ounce of restraint not to drag her to the floor and fuck her until we’re breathless and spent.

Her rasp of a laugh only challenges me further. “Arms out, Trixie,” I command, causing her head to snap forward to figure out what I’m going to do next.

She holds her arms out to her sides and doesn’t say a word when I stare at her body momentarily as I figure how to work this, before stepping forward. Screw it, never hurts to try new things.

I take the guitar and place it at her back much like I had earlier before the jam session except for this time, I plan on it staying in place on its own volition. I match the neck of the guitar to her outstretched arm before looping the strap around her biceps once. Next I run the strap under the swell of her tits, my mouth dipping to taste and flick my tongue over each nipple in the process. She hums in appreciation, her eyes brimming with desire when she realizes my intent after I repeat things, looping the strap around the other biceps before reattaching it to the guitar.

When I step back and look at her, trussed up on my favorite guitar, strap pushing her boobs up so that her nipples are begging for attention, I know that even though I may be the one playing her like a guitar tonight, she sure as hell is unknowingly playing with my heart by standing here so willing, so open, infiltrating every part of my life.

She’s such a sight standing before me, I can’t hold back any longer. I place my hands on the side of her face and brush my thumbs over her cheekbones before kissing her softly. Taking my time, I build up the kiss and the moment to try to curtail that constricting feeling in my chest as I try to accept truths about what I feel for her that I don’t want to face yet. I want to give her soft and gentle before I work her into the frenzy that’s coming.

I’m still moving too fast, and I want to draw this out so I drop to my knees in front of her, fingertips trailing up and down her outer thighs and then tracing the lacy edge of her panties. Goose bumps chase across her skin, visual proof of how much my touch affects her as I pull the fabric down, my lips grazing kisses here and there as I follow their descent.

“Hawke.” She moans my name softly in that please stop, please don’t stop tone that urges me on further.

There are so many things I want to say, so may things I want from her right now, but as hot as the idea of telling her them are—spread your legs more, get ready to come, how bad do you want me—I say none of them. Sometimes the use of touch to speak is all the words you need.

She gasps when she sees me take a guitar pick between my fingers and her reaction is music to my ears. I begin to trace lines very slowly up each inseam, my actions causing her to spread her legs for the access I need. She begins to writhe, pushing her hips toward my face in front of her as I reach the apex of her thighs.

I can’t resist. She’s just proven the chink in my armor of restraint because no man is going to forgo his mouth on a pussy when it’s being thrust into his face. So I give into her temptation. I move both picks to one hand while my other hand parts her slick lips. My tongue flicks out and hits her clit, moving over the bundle of nerves before sucking on it.

She moans my name into the silence of the room, and I love the sound almost as much as watching her squirm from the onslaught of sensations caused by my mouth. Keeping her sex spread apart with one hand, I use the other to take a guitar pick and slide it softly over her clit.

“Oh God!” she groans, her hands fisting in their strapped position. I guess I don’t have to worry about if she likes it or not.

“Is there something you want?” I ask, grazing her clit with another flick from the pick.

She jerks her hips forward as I sit back on my heels, my dick more than begging to get in on this action. Her tits jiggle with the motion and I wonder just how long I can draw it out, bring her to the brink and then let her fall without crossing over the edge. I have no clue but it’s sure as fuck going to be fun trying to find out.

“Hey, Quin?”

She looks down to meet my gaze. Her cheeks are flushed, her bottom lip is tugged between her teeth, and her eyes are hazy with desire.

“This studio is soundproof. Make sure you scream when you come.”