Chapter Fifty-Five
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
BONNIE
My dad allowed us to order pizza from the Italian place down the street. I chuckled and hugged him tightly when he started talking about processed foods. Eventually, Zeb offered him a smoke on the balcony, and they retired there for much of the evening to chat about our political hellscape.
Gemma and I eventually withdraw from the living room where Mads, Andi, Wren, and Reed are curled up watching a horror movie—well, halfway watching it. The only one actively awake is Mads.
I tug a strand of his wavy hair when I pass him by, affectionately telling him goodnight, and he manages to pinch my wrist in response.
I’m trying not to think about the phone call. The entire afternoon has been one big distraction, and I don’t want it to stop.
I flop face-first onto the bed the second the door clicks behind us. The mattress swallows my groans. “So tired,” I grunt.
Gemma slides her hands up my back, gently squeezing my muscles. Another defeated noise leaves me, and she bends down to kiss my shoulder.
“I’m going to fuck you on your throne, rockstar,” she says, the words a vibration in my ear.
I close my eyes as she slides her hands down my sides, lifts my shirt, and begins kissing my spine.
“Watching you work there today… Every time I see you sitting behind that kit onstage... It does something to me,” she breathes.
She pulls my shorts up by the waist, wedging the seam between my ass cheeks. Her hips drive into my bare ass, and an elongated groan leaves me.
“Shh…” she reminds me.
“They’ve heard me before, trust me,” I grunt.
Because, god , the things we used to do in front of one another during that first tour would terrify any regular person.
“They’ve never heard you like this,” she seems to promise.
She’s probably right.
I practically melt into the mattress as she continues kissing down my back. I feel her warmth shift as she lowers herself, fingers grasping the bottom of my shorts. Another pitiful noise leaves me. She curls her fingers into my ass cheeks and pulls them up and apart. I flinch as her tongue slides over the thin fabric.
“Fuck, Gemma,” I mumble into the sheets.
She presses her thumb to my center and drags it up and down my pussy as she concentrates her mouth on the material covering my hole. I can’t help wiggling my ass a fraction, and the motion garnishes me a hard slap in response.
Holy fuck.
I’ve never been stung that beautifully before.
I feel it in my bones. It quakes my insides, tenses my muscles as my body tries to work out the delicious pain. Thank fuck the mattress muffles my pathetic whimpers.
I’m a goner.
Gemma lips curve against my skin. “That just made you so wet, rockstar,” she rasps. “Should we add paddling to our list?”
“Hell yes,” I beg.
She brushes her tongue over my entrance and sucks the fabric between her lips, her thumb slipping beneath it to brush over my clit. I shudder at the feeling, almost giddy at the deliberate way she’s touching me.
After another ass slap that brings tears to my eyes, she stands and turns me over. I’m putty in her grasp, entirely giving into whatever plan she has. Her lips land on mine, and I throw my arms around her neck.
Her hands work beneath my ass again before she grabs and pulls me onto her waist. I hook my legs around her waist and hold on, not daring to break from our kiss as she walks us across the room to my kit. Her knees hit the floor, my ass perches on the stool. And as she starts kissing her way down my throat, I reach for the hem of my shirt. It snags on the crash cymbal when I throw it sideways, making it wobble for a beat.
I don’t bother getting it off as she brings my nipple into her mouth and hooks her fingers into the waistband of my shorts.
My fingers entwine in her curls. She drags my shorts off, exposing me to the cool leather stool. I crane my head back, my elbows brushing the snare, head hitting one of the toms behind me.
She’s still teasing my nipples and scratching my sides when she hooks my legs over her shoulder and stretches her finger down my pussy. Chills erupt over my arms. I’m swollen from how many times she’s made me come within the last forty-eight hours, and yet, I’m still just as desperate for her as ever.
I could listen to the noises her mouth makes when she’s licking me all fucking day long.
“Shit, Bonnie,” she mutters as she sinks a finger inside me. “Such an eager little slut tonight.”
“You turn me into a worthless whore,” I grunt.
Her lips curve against my tit. I feel her chin brushing my nipple, and I glance down to find her smiling at me. She adds another finger, making my mouth sag, our eyes lock. That devious glint in her eyes… she knows exactly what she does to me.
“Where are your new drumsticks?” she asks.
My brows narrow. “Drumsticks?”
And then, it hits me why she’s asking.
“Oh.”
Gemma snickers. “Drumsticks, pretty girl. Where are they? New ones. I can’t have you getting an infection.”
“Ah…” My eyes drop to the floor as I try to think. “There are some in my bag.”
She leans down, kisses my pussy, then stands to retrieve them. I lean back and swallow, my heart thudding in my chest.
“Rockstar, you packed toys and didn’t tell me?” she asks as she rifles through my duffle.
I huff amusedly and glance at her over my shoulder. “I always have a vibe in my bag,” I tell her.
Gemma’s quiet feet pad across the space again, lube, drumsticks, and vibe in her hands. I sit up as she sets the supplies on the bookshelf to the left of the kit. Her distractedness gives me time to take her waist into my hands and kiss her stomach. Fuck, she’s solid muscle, and yet the way my fingers crease in her sides makes me whimper. There’s a strap-on with my fucking name on it somewhere out there that I have every intention of using on her from behind. I want to watch her body bounce against my hips, and then let her make me cry after.
The fantasy raises the hair on my neck, and I drag my teeth over her skin.
She pushes her hand in my hair and yanks me back by my scalp, forcing me to look up at her. “Getting greedy, rockstar?”
I lick her again. “Yes.”
She chuckles, and I seize the opportunity to loop my hands in her joggers and pull them down—exposing the lacy panties that I begged her to put on this morning. I bite the waistband and tug as she angles my head up again, and I wonder how desperate I look with this black lace in my mouth.
“So fucking pretty,” she whispers, finger nudging under my chin.
She steps back and takes her underwear off. “Open your mouth,” she tells me.
I obey a little too eagerly. She stuffs the panties inside my awaiting hole, then pats my cheek. I can hardly swallow. Even so, she appears so damn happy about me like this that I don’t care.
“Hm… I think you need… There’s something missing… Oh. Right.”
She picks up the drumstick and braces it between my teeth. My mouth is immediately dry, saliva already daring to spill.
And in one motion, she sends me leaning against the snare again.
“Touch that gag, and you’ll regret it,” she tells me.
I believe her.
And yet, at the same time, I’m dying to know what exactly she has in mind as punishment.
An audible sigh leaves her as she sits on her knees again, jaw unhinged when she peers between my thighs. “You’re so wet that you left some behind,” she says before flattening her tongue over the leather seat, licking up the wetness I left behind. A satisfied groan leaves her, the noise making my toes scrunch. “Mm…”
I make a noise around her underwear, though no words are comprehendible.
She sits back and spreads more lube on the end without the tip, and when she slowly pushes it inside me, my eyes flutter. Delight spreads in her eyes as she slowly works it in me. In and out. I hang my head again, chin stretching to the ceiling. The snare drum wobbles slightly at the weight I’m pressing on it—trying to keep my shit together. Still, it’s nearly impossible when her tongue flicks my clit.
I groan and whimper with every deliberate thrust of the stick, every suck of her mouth. Those mouthwatering noises are back. I want to curse and scream the closer I get to orgasm, but I’m drooling, gagging, with every attempt to formulate speech.
Shit.
My body rocks, one hand in my hair, the other in hers. I’m on the verge of tears already. The kit around me rattles. I grab for the lip of the toms at my head to latch onto something to steady me as my climax climbs. I’m throbbing, trembling…
“That’s it. God, this cunt is insatiable. Will you ever get enough?” she asks.
I shake my head, and she snickers, kissing my clit again.
“Are you coming for me, rockstar?”
My thighs squeeze around her in answer. I can’t control it… the rising wave, the stars behind my eyes, the tense sensation that feels like I’m about to erupt…
I throw my hand behind me and arch off the drums as I come, the sensation cracking over me as a tidal wave that won’t stop. Gemma pulls the stick from inside me and sinks her tongue into my pussy, sucking what feels like my soul out of me—
The hi-hat cymbal crashes and topples to the ground.
The noise makes me jerk upward. I yelp. Gemma grabs me around the waist, shielding me as the noise echoes, letting me bury my head in the crook of her neck.
And all we can do is laugh.
“Shh…” she says as she takes the stick from between my teeth, her word broken by her own chuckles. “I knew that was going to happen,” she says, freeing me of the underwear gag.
I meet her cackles with my own. My hands press to her cheeks, and I kiss her grinning lips. Sparks seem to fly around us, or maybe that’s just my own delusions as I come down from this release. Either way, my heart is racing.
“Everything okay?”
The knock on the door is light, Zeb’s voice amused.
“Fuck off!” I laugh.
Gemma’s lips move from my mouth to my cheek, my jaw… each one settling us down from the high. My shoulders draw up as I hug her closer, entirely relaxing in her embrace.
She starts to pull back, though I grasp a little tighter.
“Don’t let go,” I tell her.
She chuckles softly, and the next thing I know, her hands are under me, and she’s walking us to the bed once again. I hang on, only adjusting myself when she’s sitting down against the headboard.
I like resting on her like this—entirely spent, my ear against her chest to hear her heartbeat. And as I lay there and bring her hand into mine, I’m reminded of the first promise I ever made her.
I trace IOU into her palm, and Gemma squeezes my hip when I pull back.
“Can I carve my promise into your hand?” I softly ask her.
Gemma swallows. “Carve out my heart if you want it,” she whispers.
I bend sideways and take the stashed knife and lighter out of the drawer of the nightstand. Her eyes fix on me as I move off of her lap and kneel in front of her now criss-crossed legs. I pass the blade through the flame to sanitize it, and when I take her hand into mine, our gazes meet with the first cut.
Her skin breaks—the depth barely more than a practiced graze. Blood beads atop the marks, her fingers flinching slightly depending on where I cut. More than once, she sucks air through her teeth, though she never recoils or protests.
As I finish the last letter, I quickly get off the bed, run into the bathroom for a towel and the alcohol, and then return to find her staring at her hand as if it’s hitting her that I just carved a promise into her skin.
“IOU,” she says, looking at me.
“Because I owe you my life,” I say. “I do, Gemma. I owe you my heart… my body… my forever. And I’ll spend all the time we have together paying you back for everything you’ve given me.”
Her gaze softens. “I don’t want payment,” she whispers. “I just want you.”
I gently kiss her lips. “You can have me, too.”
Only a few drops of blood landed on the sheets. Even so, Gemma insists we wash her hand and pour the alcohol on it over the sink so as to not ruin anything else. And despite me telling her she’s the one who should be used to bloody messes by now, she still eyes me and smacks my ass until we’re standing in front of the sink.
“This bandage job is going to be shit, just so you know,” I say when I’m wrapping the gauze around her hand. “Mads is the one skilled at bandages. Mine usually turn out to be trash.”
She snickers. “Liam actually has a nursing degree,” she says. “He is the one in our group that takes care of this kind of thing.”
My brows raise. “No shit, really?”
“Yeah. It’s come in handy after a few jobs,” she replies. “The old ladies used to love him when he worked in the nursing home right out of college.”
I chuckle at the thought of big ole Liam helping some fragile older woman down the hallway. “I can only imagine.”
I bring her palm to my lips once it’s taped off and secure, and she smiles softly at me.
“Permission to scar you as mine,” she whispers, her thumb dragging over my forearm.
I extend my hand to her, and she shakes her head.
“I’m not cutting your hand,” she argues. “Your hands are your life. And you can’t record if you can’t play. I’m not putting your career or health in jeopardy for this. So, you can get that pretty little pout off your lips.”
Ugh.
I hate that she’s right.
“Fine,” I succumb. “You can put it over my heart then,” I say as I pull her fingers to my chest. “That’s where I want to keep you.”
She leads me back to the bedroom after cleaning the blade and grabbing a spare clean towel. I relax against the headboard, her thighs straddling over me. I run my hands up her legs as she preps me, and as I do, I note the scars on her thighs again.
Scars that look like the ones I’ve tried to hide under the bold tattoos on my arms.
My heart begins to ache—and not only because the knife presses to my chest. I inhale a jagged breath, feeling her stiffen slightly when I run my thumb over one that appears relatively fresh.
“Do you remember the first time you did it?” I ask.
Gemma hesitates the briefest second, her throat bobbing. I squeeze her thighs reassuringly, hoping she knows she doesn’t have to hide something like this from me.
Not when I’ve been there, too.
“I was eleven,” she admits. “Mom was getting really bad—to the point that she was doing anything to get more pills. It was late. She and Dad were downstairs arguing, so I went to sit on the steps so that I could hear them… I heard my mom say that if she didn’t have to pay for my extracurriculars, she would have the money to get the meds she wanted. She was using me as an excuse for the things she was doing to get drugs. I didn’t realize she meant sucking some guy’s dick in his beat-up Oldsmobile. I thought she meant she got her meds from the doctor. Prescription. I thought she meant I was the reason she was in pain. So, I got it in my head that… if she didn’t have to worry about me, she could get better.”
Shit.
“The first time, I remember thinking that I was testing myself. I didn’t want to die, but I wanted to help her. After that, it became something I chased. It was like I could cut out the fear and sadness, like the blood trailing down my leg was the guilt I felt for still being alive.”
“Did you ever stop?” I ask.
“I did okay when my mom was doing okay,” she says, wiping some of the blood trickling down my chest. “Or rather, I did better when I had her to talk to. When I got to high school, it was the people around me who made me feel like I had to hide who I wanted to be. I tried to disappear—I wanted to disappear. Somehow the ones who wanted to hurt me still found me.”
Fuck . “I didn’t realize that,” I say, hating myself that I didn’t notice her—notice her pain. “I wish I had realized that.”
She gives me a small smile as she curves the O into my skin, careful not to go very deep. “The first day of senior year, when you walked into that Physics class, I remember that putting the blade to my skin that night didn’t have the same sensation and affect as the day before. Because suddenly, I had found something that gave me that same relief.” She pauses to meet my eyes, nostalgic euphoria in her eyes. “Seeing you smile… hearing you laugh… that was as good of a hit as that pain. To the point that, I think I got through the first half of senior year without a single cut. Christmas break nearly fucking killed me, but then we had French together second semester, and while home life was one nightmare after the other, I was able to fixate on the fantasy that one day, maybe I’d be brave enough to give you the mix CDs I made.”
“You made me a mixtape?” I ask, lighting up at the idea.
She chuckles. “I used to spend hours making you mixtapes. I crashed our family computer several times with pirated downloads. I think I even tried talking to you once on that old chat we used to have—what, that was—”
“Oh my god, the instant messaging?” I laugh. “Early internet was the Wild West. We had access to everything.”
“Yeah, no such thing as safe searches back then,” she agrees.
“You were always good with computers,” I remember.
“I was a master at MySpace,” she says, making me laugh again. “I had all the coding down. You went to my site and there was music and animations everywhere. But my Top Eight friends were all from chat rooms I’d somehow wandered into.”
“Yeah, those were probably old creeps,” I tease her.
“Probably. They all had the swoopy bangs and two-tone hair.”
“Oh, hell yeah. The hottest emo look. I miss that hairstyle—except for the heat damage. I hated my wavy hair back then. I was up at like 5 AM just to straighten it.”
“You killed that hairstyle,” she says. “And you didn’t get bullied for it like everyone else.”
“No, I did,” I counter, remembering the guys who used to corner me in the locker rooms to tease me. “But I brushed it off. In my head, it didn’t bother me. I always snapped back at them. Eventually, it wasn’t very fun for them because I didn’t cry or respond the way they wanted me to.”
Gemma finishes the final line then and blots the blood with the towel. Her lashes lift, gazes meeting, and the amusement from our conversation falls to the wayside.
She leans down and presses her lips to the space beside it.
“IOU,” she whispers. “Because I owe you my very soul, Bonnie Miller… You’re the reason I’m still breathing. You’re my light… my darkness… You’re the steady beat in my veins… and I’ll spend every day making up for the pain I’ve caused you.”