20. Rae
20
RAE
Rae: How was it?
I text Harrison when the plane pulls up to the gate at La Guardia. I’ll be in New York for a few days to see Annie and perform my final gig, but the timing meant I had to leave the same day as Harrison’s meeting with the zoning commission.
Harrison: No bloodshed.
My chest unknots a degree, but I don’t totally buy it.
Rae: I want a picture.
Moments later, the joke’s on me because he sends through an image of of his chest, abs, and the trail of hair leading to the band on his boxer briefs.
I nearly drop the phone.
The woman next to me must be pushing seventy, and she makes a sound of appreciation. “Well done.”
“Thanks.” I swallow a laugh and type back.
Rae: Just getting off the plane. I’ll call you later. My neighbor thinks you’re hot.
I tuck the phone away to disembark.
I’ve got it bad. Since Kian’s wedding, I’m falling even harder for him.
We’re both on the go, and I don’t know what getting more serious means, but I miss Harrison when he’s not around.
Uncharted territory. That’s what this is.
Tomorrow is a huge gig that will decide Wild Fest, but I’m thinking about Harrison.
By the time I get into the hotel and get through some emails for the show tomorrow, it’s late.
It’s three hours earlier in LA , I remind myself as I hit his contact.
Harrison answers the video call on the second ring. “I was concerned my photo gave you a heart attack.”
His gruff voice makes me grin.
“No, but the woman sitting next to me on the plane enjoyed it.”
He cocks his head. “She single?”
“And at least seventy.”
“Perfect.”
“You’re not,” I remind him. “Single or seventy.”
He laughs, and I notice his shirt, open at the front to expose a tantalizing glimpse of skin. I swallow.
“Why were you naked earlier?”
“Trying on some new suits.” He’s in motion the next second, flipping the camera to display half a dozen jackets.
“You’re a clothes whore.”
“I bought you something too.” He flips the screen back, smirking. I’m curious what he got me, but he continues before I can ask. “I’m flying to London tomorrow for a few days. A few conversations with senior Echo staff.”
“Oh.” I’d almost forgotten he has work outside of LA because he’s been here so much. “Did you get the approval for the club?”
The backboard of his bed appears as he shifts onto the mattress. “Not today. I have more urgent matters to attend to first. Mischa’s been causing problems.”
It always seems as if his vendetta trumps what he could create in the future.
“Are you ready to decimate the competition and claim the top spot in Wild Fest’s fan vote tomorrow?”
I stop pacing and sink onto the couch, staring at my computer on the coffee table that contains the set I’ve worked and reworked. I make a face to hide the nerves. “I have a set. But nothing feels right.” I pull up the track I was planning to open with, then click to another and another. I leave the third one running, turning down the volume so it throbs in the background as we continue talking. “I’ve done some research on the crowd. The club sent me some demographics, and…”
He groans, and I trail off.
“My beautiful girlfriend is an exceptional producer who still doesn’t understand what the people want.”
“Which is?”
I frown at my Ableton software, wishing there was an answer that didn’t rely on my own intuition.
“What I already have.”
His voice lowers, and I flick my gaze back to the phone screen. His firm mouth is parted as he shifts back, eyes darkening.
The music pulses in the background like a dark metronome.
Awareness heats my blood, has my body taking notice.
“Set your phone down. Somewhere I can watch you.”
A breath trembles out from between my lips. But I do it, glad to not have to make a decision for once today.
When the phone is propped against my computer, I lift a brow. “Anything else?”
His gaze takes me in, my pajama shorts and tank top, my messy hair around my shoulders.
“Lose the shirt.”
I hesitate a beat before stripping it off.
I’m half a dozen feet from the window but on a high floor. It’s unlikely anyone can see in, but I feel exposed anyway.
I’ve been naked in front of Harrison plenty of times, but this feels different. When his breath goes shallow, his gaze lingering on my lips, my shoulders, the curve of my breasts, the hard points of my nipples, I shiver.
“You’re stunning, Raegan. If you knew half of what you did to me...”
A wave of light-headedness washes over me at the desire in his voice.
“Touch yourself. Let me see it.”
My heart thuds in my chest, skipping at his request. It’s a challenge, but more than that, it’s a plea.
When I skim a hand up my stomach, over my breast, he exhales tightly.
I like that I have this much power over him.
That high urges me on. I pinch my nipple and squeeze the mound of flesh surrounding it, rewarded once by the sensations flooding through me and again by Harrison’s groan.
“Fuck. You do this to them too, you know. You can’t see it from the stage, but they want how you make them feel. More than that, they want who you are.”
They want Little Queen , I correct in my mind. But it’s hard to think with what we’re doing. What I’m doing.
His hand slips out of the camera’s view, and the visual glitches. I imagine his hand wrapped around his cock. Stroking.
If I asked to see it, would he let me?
But that’s not what this is about, I realize as the track changes to another of my songs.
I rise from the couch and tug my shorts off, laying them on the cushion before I sit back down.
My hand goes back to my breast, the other one drifting down.
I slip it between my folds where I’m wet, and my head falls back on a silent moan.
“You like watching me?” I murmur, loving the flare of his nostrils, the rise and fall of his chest with shallow breaths.
“Almost as much as I like fucking you.”
My laugh is low. I rub two fingers over my clit, gasping in surprise at how sensitive I am already.
I stroke myself, slow at first, half tempo. Any self-consciousness ebbs little by little as my music swells in the background. My man’s ravenous expression and groans turn me on even more.
“The first time I knew you were going to be a problem was in Ibiza. You were rubbing your head because of tension headaches and planning your second set for Debajo. I’d just thrown out your meds and you were spitting venom and I kept wondering what you’d say if I laid you down on the kitchen table and ate you.”
“I would’ve said less lip, more tongue,” I tease.
His eyes flash with heat, and an emotion that makes my chest tighten.
Heat floods my skin as I dial up my strokes, my other hand slipping down my stomach to help as I arch, my head dropping back against the couch.
“Raegan, fuck.”
He’s agonized, but I’m enthralled. It’s a spell I’m weaving on myself as much as one he’s weaving on me.
It feels so good. Wild. Free.
I come on my own fingers, crying out as the shockwaves start at my core and ripple through every part of me.
Moments later, I hear his hard groan.
I shut my eyes and imagine him coming on me, spilling over my body.
When we finish, my breath coming back to normal, he asks, “How do you feel?”
I crack my eyes open, my attention cutting from his handsome face and dilated pupils to my computer and the new track that started just moment ago.
I shift forward, biting my lip as I scan the screen. “I think I’m going to open with this.”
* * *
“My ass is burning. You willingly do this?” I demand.
“Four times a week,” Annie confirms as we grab our bags and head out of the studio barre class.
“Can’t picture Tyler doing that to look good on stage.”
“He doesn’t have to. He’s done four shows a week all summer. His ass is great.”
“And you’re moving back to LA in a few weeks?”
“Yup. He doesn’t have family, and my dad’s in Dallas. We always thought we’d come back east when Tyler’s contract was up, but LA is growing on me and the winters bug him. I like the idea of raising kids in California.”
I nod toward her stomach. “Find out if it’s a boy or a girl?”
“I want to be surprised. Tyler would prefer certainty, but I reminded him nothing in life is certain.” She grins. “What about you? Are you sticking around in LA?”
“It’s as good a home base as any,” I say, shrugging. “I have the cash to get my own place and leave Beck alone.”
Between Ibiza, royalties, and more recent gigs, actual money is starting to pile up in my accounts.
“Beck says he never sees you.”
I cut her a look. “Harrison and I are dating. It’s getting serious.”
“You think? The man wouldn’t switch his breakfast cereal without a motive.”
I round on her. “I didn’t plan on this. He found out something that happened in my past, and I was so sure it would be the end, but it only made us closer.”
“What?”
I haven’t told anyone about this in years, but since the wedding, something in my chest has come loose, and I’m processing all these feelings. So, I fill my former roommate in on what happened with Zach, how I tried to bury it.
Her eyes shine with compassion, but she only puts a hand on my arm.
“If Harrison’s the reason you’re opening up about this, I’m glad.”
“He’s the reason for a lot of things,” I admit, thinking of last night and how it felt to let loose with him.
“Such as?”
“He makes me coffee,” I say bluntly.
Annie cocks her head. “And that’s bad?”
“He used to drink this terrible fucking coffee. Until I bought a better kind. And a French press. The first night I stayed over, he made it for me. The man has never cooked a day in his life, never so much as made his own tea. But he makes me coffee every day.”
“That’s really sweet.”
“This morning, I woke up, and my first thought wasn’t about the gig tonight or even seeing you. It was that I didn’t have a cup of coffee to drink knowing that he’d made it with his own damn hands.”
My exhale is heavy. “It’s like the more real I am, the more he gets me.”
“It’s awesome?”
“It’s fucking terrifying.”
“I know what it’s like to have someone see you, Rae. And I wish I could tell you that fear goes away, but it just changes. Hell, we’re married, but there are still moments I’m terrified to lose Tyler. Not because I don’t believe in him, but because I don’t believe in me. Or I don’t believe we deserve everything we have. There’s only one thing I know for sure.”
“What’s that?”
“You’re a performer. Whatever you feel, use it.”
When I get ready for my show that night, I pick out a low-cut black top and tight pants with killer boots. Then I flip through my wigs, holding up one after another in the mirror.
None match my mood.
I stare at my reflection. Dark liner, top and bottom, frames my eyes. Thick eyelashes. A tube of plum lipstick waits on the dresser.
I reach for a lip balm instead. My lips are dry from chewing on them.
Little Queen is me, and she isn’t. At the time, I thought I created her because I wanted a place to feel free and safe to experiment.
But lately, I’ve been forced to step outside my comfort zone without that protection. And I’ve survived.
They want how you make them feel. But more than that, they want who you are.
I ignore the wigs and tug the elastic out of my own hair, scrunching it so it falls around my head.
If tonight is my last chance at getting to Wild Fest, I’m going to give them a show.
I’ll give them me.