Chapter 29 #2
The knock came right as he leaned in. Jodi jumped. Her nose hit his chin at the same time that her knuckles grazed his hip. Paul caught her hand before she could drag it into her body and held it fast against his. “Do you want me to let him in?”
For at least a fraction of a second, she considered it. He saw all the possible repercussions play out across her face. Nash growing tired and walking away. Nash calling security and breaking down the door.
“Paul, what happens when you do? What are you going to say to him?”
He shook his head. Nothing. Sometimes fewer words served you better than a multitude, and until he had her permission to give Curtis Nash his marching orders… Well, he was just going to have to endure.
He kissed her knuckles, then released her to open the door.
Nash faced him, attempting to look chill, a pair of dark glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, that he pushed up into his hairline on seeing Paul. He shifted uneasily. “Jo here?”
“Yep.” Paul about turned, leaving the door open for Nash to follow.
The man’s gaze rushed suspiciously from side to side, as if he expected to find a Dalek on the balcony or his woman tucked under Paul’s duvet naked and flushed.
In actuality, she remained exactly where Paul had left her, only looking twice as panic-stricken, and clinging to what looked suspiciously like one of his socks.
The condoms were safely out of sight in his pocket.
“What’s going on?” Nash resumed his arm folded defence measures. “Jo?”
“We’ve been hanging out, waiting for you, ain’t that right, Castle?” Paul said.
“Yeah,” she squeaked.
Ire immediately flashed in Nash’s eyes, as if he’d caught them red-handed mid-bonk. If only! A few more minutes and maybe they would have been. That’d have been something for Curtis Nash to fix his peepers on.
“Paul took a shower,” she blurted, like that would explain everything and somehow dissolve the ridiculous tension that now existed. Predictably, it did the opposite. That was his girl, guaranteed to enact the nuclear option in any scenario while attempting to do the opposite.
Nash’s frown deepened.
“I didn’t watch or anything,” she continued, eyes growing wide. “Nash, I only meant that he… He was sweaty from the show. I stayed in here…while he.”
None of this required explaining. Paul could feel those gulps she was taking between breaths.
Flustered, she reminded him of Ronnie. He too had a habit of making his mouth run and blurting things that’d land him in increasingly deeper shit, rather than extracting him from whatever threat had presented itself.
The difference was that Ronnie tended to blab other people’s secrets over his own.
Paul let them eyeball one another, while he took a seat on the bed. Jodi looked at him expectantly, like he could dig her out of the pit she was desperately still shovelling dirt into. Nash didn’t seem sure whether he should attempt to drag her from the room or take a seat.
“Yeah, we all needed to shower post show too. It’s why we came back here.” He opted for the seat, planting his skinny arse on the opposite bed to the one Paul had settled himself on.
“Black Halo gave me a ride back.” Jodi remained on her feet.
“Yeah.”
“We got mobbed as we arrived. Not me. I mean them. They did.”
“Uh-huh.” Nash’s gaze ping-ponged between him and Jodi. He’d nod at her when she spoke, but every time his gaze would then dart back to Paul. Not to his face, mind. To his… Ah! Yes. Turned out that weird vibes didn’t negatively affect his dick. It was still uncomfortably stiff and ready to party.
Boy was checking him out, counting rungs. Interesting.
“Nine,” he said.
“What?”
Paul didn’t bother to elucidate. If Nash wanted to play dumb, that was his business. Didn’t mean he had to play along. “Want to watch me fuck her with it?”
Okay, he wasn’t really sure where that question had come from. He was easily as surprised as Jodi and Nash. The pair of them gawped at him with twin open mouths. One he’d like to sock a fist into, the other possessed a tempting pink tongue his own was itching to duel.
“What the fuck, man? No.” Nash peeled himself off the bed. “Why the fuck would you think I’d want to watch anyone fuck my fiancée?”
“Well, I’ve heard that you like watching.”
“Excuse me.”
Paul sniffed. “Is that not true? According to the grapevine you spend a significant portion of every day wanking yourself stupid while you watch your bandmates get off.”
“That’s not… bit of an exaggeration…so what if I do…not the same.” Nash cleared his throat. “It’s not the same. Anyway, she’s not into that stuff.” To Jodi, he said, “He doesn’t seem to know you very well.” And to him. “Can’t even get her to—”
“Don’t speak for me, Nash. Don’t tell him I’m not into—”
Nash seemed so surprised by her speaking up, he actually sat down again. “Jo, babe, you hate having an audience, even an audience that’s next fucking door, passed out drunk, or too busy getting off themselves to worry about us having a good time.”
Or maybe, you fucking cockwomble, you just fail to make her feel safe.
“This is different to that. It’d be you watching.”
Nash was back on his feet again, crowding her.
Jodi raised her hands. “I’m not saying we should do it. I’m just saying it’s different. It wouldn’t be like doing it and people accidentally overhearing. It’d… I’m just saying don’t say no because you think I wouldn’t be into it. Only say no if you think you’re not.”
Paul stirred, pulling his back away from the headboard. That’d been quite a determined speech. He might go so far as to say a promising one.
Nash pulled Jodi towards him, so she was hard up against his body. “So, you’re saying you will if I want to? Why would you think that I’d want that?”
“I don’t... I just... You’re always watching Balin. I thought maybe one time you’d like to watch me instead. That maybe you’d like to include me. That I could do it for you.”
Nash chewed on that like it was a piece of gristle. Guy kept on shooting him suspicious glances. Paul nonchalantly scratched his chin. All he’d done was proposed shit; where things went as a result was up to them.
“What you mean is that you’d like permission to shag him.”
“Mate, if she wanted to fuck me, she could have done so a thousand times by now.”
At any other time, that remark would probably have earned him a fat lip, if not from Nash, then from one of Paul’s own band mates determined to ensure he didn’t pickaxe the tour.
Luckily none of them were around to intervene, and Nash betrayed an actual display of brain cells for once and didn’t mouth off.
Still, there was no blinking way he was going to let this happen. None.
“Look, if the pair of you aren’t interested, feel free to mosey on off to your own room and get on with whatever plans you have for the night.
” Paul fought hard to make himself sound chill even though his heart was galloping, and he had more riding on this than was wise.
He really wanted her to stay. He definitely didn’t want her going anywhere with dickhead, who would probably punish her for Paul’s temerity.
Nash clasped her hand. “Let’s go, babe,” he said proving Paul right. “Let’s leave the sad bastard to wank off on his own.”
“Okay.” She gave a hurried nod.
They made it two steps before Nash brought them to a halt. “Then again...”