Chapter 7
(Johnny)
Our two perfect weeks in Palm Springs were about to come to an end and I wasn’t ready for that to happen yet. Every night had been something different. Drag bingo, a drag performance of Hocus Pocus , a candlelit dinner at an Italian restaurant that served some of the best shrimp cocktails I’d had in a long time, and several nights floating beneath the stars, letting our hands brush as we enjoyed the warm nights and the peacefulness of being alone together. We held hands as we walked along the streets, popping into shops when something caught our eye, like all the gummies I’d gotten at the dispensary, because damn. I’d switched from smoking to vaping because it was less harsh, and in the process I’d started limiting how much of the devil’s lettuce I smoked. Didn’t mean that I didn’t love the buzz, I was just aware of the years creeping up on me. Creeping up at thirty. Might not seem like a lot to most, but I felt like I’d been running up and down the road forever.
“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.”
Whipping my head around, I expected to see someone on fire, or at the very least, a couple guys in ski masks with guns rushing out of the jewelry store across the street. Instead I was blinded by the flash of someone’s camera phone, and it didn’t stop at one. No matter how many times it happened, I was never prepared for it. The illusion he’d been lost in as he’d sauntered down the street was shattered as someone started yelling.
“It’s Johnny Amaral, oh my god, it’s Johnny from Blissfully Immune! We just saw you at Rocktoberfest!”
“Johnny, can I have your autograph?”
“Johnny, can I have your baby?”
Somebody touched my hair and I whirled, only to have Draven’s arm wrap around me as he snarled at the person not to touch me. His voice was drowned out by the crowd, but they couldn’t do anything about his size as he treated them like the buildings in a classic Godzilla film and began mowing them down. I just clung to his side and let Draven shove us free of the crowd.
Fingers laced together we raced down the sidewalk, several voices calling out to us as they pursued us back to the hotel. Fuckin’ hell. It never failed to throw me when people were this persistent, and invasive. It sucked making a spectacle of ourselves as we raced through the crowded lobby and into the safety of an elevator, whose doors were still closing when our pursuers burst into view. They were securities problem now, not that it sat right with me. I intended to personally thank them as soon as it was safe to do so. Could you tip security? Were they allowed to accept it? My thoughts were a whirlwind of questions and frustrations as we made our way back to our room.
What the hell had given us away? I was usually so good at flying under the radar until I wanted to be seen.
Like out at the clubs, where Draven and I had made a game of teasing one another into a frenzy before we’d retreated back to our hotel room to work it all off. Dammit, that had probably been stupid. All those people with their camera phones blasting us all over social media, of course people were aware that we were in town. Awareness meant vigilance, and those people had nothing better to do than spend their nights stalking the streets, hoping for a celebrity encounter.
I’d never seen anyone swipe a keycard as fast as Draven did, and the force with which I was propelled into the room made me stagger and take several steps in order to regain my balance. By then, Draven had locked the door and slammed the bolt shut, kicking the wood for good measure.
The fury in Draven’s eyes when he turned reminded me of the night Draven had learned that his band’s ex-roadie had been responsible for the pyro accident that had ended his singing career and left their drummer scarred. He was the same man who’d been responsible for my best friend being electrocuted at one of Damaged Saint’s early return shows. It had only been luck, and Keegan’s quick thinking in knocking the mic stand away from him, that had kept Jagger from being hurt too badly. The ex-roadie was behind bars now, having taken a plea deal to avoid a trial and the evidence and public admission that would have buried him.
I sat on the edge of the bed while Draven paced and snarled what I was certain were curse words, but his voice was completely shot after his efforts to shout down the crowd. The only sounds in the room were the heavy tread of Draven’s footfalls and the hammering of my heart in my ears. All the energy I expended onstage meant I hadn’t even been winded by the run, but fury and frustration were another matter, and they were much harder to come down from.
The last night. The last fuckin’ night. Who the fuck did those fuckers think they were, ruining it for us that way? My fingers scrabbled for the phone in my backpack, and slid over the plastic on one of my gummy packs in the process. I popped three then resumed the hunt for my phone, withdrawing it to type a scathing message on the first social media platform my finger slid across.
To the fuckers who just chased me down a crowded Palm Springs street like a pack of hyenas, fuck you very much! I’m entitled to have a life offstage, one that doesn’t involve people invading my personal space, blinding me with the flash on their cameras and touching me without my permission. If you are a fan and really give a shit about the band and our music, then fuckin’ act like it and don’t put my mental health and wellbeing in jeopardy by mobbing me like it’s a fuckin’ music festival. I am prepared for that kind of attention when I’m at an event. This wasn’t an event. This was the street, with other people, innocent people who could have been hurt when you decided to fly into a frenzy of screaming and waving phones. Hell, I thought something was being killed, until I realized that I was the target of all that energy. Maybe you don’t realize it, when you’re fanboying and fangirling out that way, but it’s jarring and overwhelming. The last thing it will make me want to do is sign anything or stop and talk. Think about that a moment before you ever think about chasing me again. The only thing it will get you is arrested.
I posted it and tossed the phone on the bed as I fell back on the pillows, glaring at the ceiling as I waited for the gummies to kick in. Draven’s shadow fell over me as he came down on top of me, pinning me to the bed with his body, his hands, and his intense gaze moments before he claimed my lips. I could feel the tension and adrenaline still coursing through him as his fingers gripped my hair, his lower body grinding against mine as we made out.
His hand snaked beneath my shirt, cold fingers gliding along my ribs, making me rock up to hook a heel over the back of his thigh. We found a rhythm, rocking, rubbing, squirming against one another, our lips never losing contact, our fingers buried in each other’s hair, too lost in each sensation to even think about getting our clothes off. One of his hands slapped against my thigh, then slid beneath my ass to grip, hard fingers digging in so much that I was certain I’d bear the imprint of them through my jeans.
He tugged, like he was trying to rip the denim off my body, but the rugged material held, so he used his handhold to rock us together faster. Everything seemed to speed up and stop simultaneously, creating a crash of light and sensation, each more mind-blowingly brilliant than before. I came, crying out against his lips as he kept on kissing me, muffled grunts, groans and growls like the crescendo of a song. Everything erupted into bright, swirling sparkles of gold and white, until my body went limp beneath Draven’s as he came, too.
Melting .
Holy shit, the next sensation was an all-encompassing one, in which my body felt like liquid pooling against the sheets. Movement was the furthest thing from my mind and thought was impossible with shivers running over my skin and pinpricks of pleasure still running up and down my spine. I was still trying to figure out which way was up when Draven lifted up off me, allowing me to breathe a little easier, until he stole my breath away with the ferocity with which he undid my jeans and yanked them off.
“Not through with you!”
In the quiet of the room I could hear his snarled words, the heat in his eyes making my spent cock twitch. Clearly my body knew we wanted more, needed it, even while my brain was still trying to piece my name together.
Oh yeah.
Johnny fuckin’ Amaral.
Aunty would have a fit if she knew how often I used that for my middle name in place of the one my mama had given me.
Draven pulled me up into a kiss and while I was still breathless, yanked my t-shirt off over my head and hurled it across the room. I could only sit there blinking as he undid his jeans and shoved them down enough to expose his cock, which like mine was still drooping, but man did it look delicious.
“Suck me!”
Fuuuuuuck, that was hot. Even low, his voice rumbled with the kind of authority I’d been longing for. I’d craved it, dreamed about it, tossed coins in fuckin’ wishing fountains hoping that whatever spirts dwelt in the water would actually grant it. Now they had and oh my goddess, I was drooling as I opened my mouth and let him guide the head of his cock past my lips. His fingers in my hair held me steady, never tugging, just holding me there as I ran my tongue around the crown, smelling musk and tasting the essence of his spilt release lingering there.
“You like commands, don’t you?”
I moaned my response around him, letting my lips and tongue do the talking as he groaned, a hoarse, broken sound as he petted my hair.
“Gonna program a bunch of them into my device and watch you shiver each time I play one. Damn, you’re so good for me.”
The praise sent my soul soaring. I wanted to show him how good I could be, how good I was, and treated him to a blow job that would make a porn star envious. Sucking, slurping, filthy sounds spilled from me while his fingers flexed and tightened in my hair, which I’d always loved having pulled.
Then he tapped me on the nose, and I gazed up into lust-blown eyes and instantly understood what he wanted. I let his dick slip from my lips and let go of the hold I had on his thighs, while he slowly uncurled his fingers from my hair. We never took our eyes off one another as he slithered backward off the bed, nearly falling on his ass when his pants fell the rest of the way around his ankles.
Giggling, I waved and lay back, deliberately spreading my legs slowly, so he could watch the show I was about to treat him to. Lube was still beneath his pillow, so I slicked my fingers up and rubbed two around my entrance, raising my hips when I finally penetrated myself. I’d timed it perfectly, too, he was half in and half out of his t-shirt when I moaned, eyelids fluttering, hips rocking, just a little.
His jaw dropped as he stood there, one arm out with the neck of the shirt trapped behind his head. I licked my lips and pressed my fingers deeper, whined and bucked my hips again, hoping like hell that I wasn’t about to torpedo the whole evening, but I needed to see how he’d react.
“Fuck me, Daddy,” I begged and saw his eyes widen a fraction before he stripped the t-shirt off.
The need in his eyes had darkened to something deeper than the wicked flame that had already been there and holy shit, I had my answer. When his lips moved, I read the words as clearly as if he’d spoken them.
Call me that again.
“Daddy! Fuck me, Daddy!”
He snatched a condom from the new box we’d bought earlier, ripping it open with his teeth and rolling it on as I kept fingering myself, hips rocking as I really started getting into it. My eyes drifted closed, so I never saw him coming until he’d gripped my wrist and my eyes popped open to see him looming over me.
His lips formed the word mine as he pulled my fingers from my body and replaced them with his own. Thicker, longer, he pressed me to the bed, one hand excreting the barest pressure on my throat while he worked me open.
Holy fuck, had he been talking to Jagger? Had my best friend spilled the beans about how much I loved to be choked, just a little?
It worked the way it always did, narrowing my vision, making me whine and squirm. I nearly came when he finally filled me, bottoming out in one go and cutting off my air so I couldn’t scream.
“Mine!” he snarled in my ear as he started fucking me, the whole bed rocking with the force of his thrusts. That declaration and the way he filled me so completely narrowed my vision down even more. Even sound faded. There was just the pleasure of being owned. He kissed me rough and messy, hooked my legs over my shoulders, folded me the fuck in half, and grabbed the headboard behind my head as he hammered into me like the world was coming to an end.
I swear I died a little when I came again, and still he kept going like a jackrabbit in heat, drawing my orgasm out until I lay bruised and boneless beneath him, blissed out as he filled the condom while the stars behind my eyes erupted into a supernova.