CHAPTER 8
LANGSTON
As we listen to the playback on one of the songs we’re recording, even though it’s still on the rough side, and we’re far from studio technicians, I can’t help but smile as I think about the last week with Cove. I’ve experienced some of the best moments of my life with her.
We’ve talked about so many fucking things. We’ve allowed ourselves to be vulnerable and open. We’ve made music. We’ve made love and found passion.
How could that be anything less than an impossible dream come true?
That first night after we finally let all the tension, all the worries, all the things holding us back fall to the ground and we came together, we spent hours in each other’s arms. Did I bury myself in her again and again? You better fucking believe it. Even though it was amazing, it was the moments between, when we talked, that have reverberated in the depths of my soul.
My hand was gliding up and down her back when I suddenly asked, “Why aren’t you with a band working on songs for an album instead of being here with me helping with a comeback that might never happen?”
She blinked up at me, a small smile playing on her lips. “I’ve always been about the music,” she started, her eyebrows pulling together like she was looking for the right words. “I’ve never really been interested in being on stage.” She took a deep breath and blew it out slowly, vulnerability shining in her blue eyes as her voice dropped to a whisper, “Being on stage scares the hell out of me.”
Then it was my turn for my eyebrows to pull together. “Didn’t SO find you because you put your music out on social media?”
“That’s different,” she insisted even though I wasn’t so sure. “I didn’t have to look out into the crowd to do that. It was just me in my bedroom playing my songs in the hope that someone would take notice because I didn’t know any other way to get my stuff out there. I was hoping for a miracle. It’s not like a lot of label scouts are in nowhere Montana looking for a songwriter,” she joked.
I nodded slowly, understanding her fear. My heart thudded in my chest as I readied myself to share with her something I’d never told anyone before, not even Conley. “What to know a secret?”
One of Cove’s eyebrows arched in question, her tone solemn and serious, “You can tell me anything, Langston. Your secrets are safe with me.”
A solid part of myself, a piece I had walled off a long time ago, one that never allowed myself to let anyone all the way into my soul before, melted with her vow. “I know,” I murmured and kissed her forehead. With a deep breath, I let the truth tumble from me, “Getting on stage scared the hell out of me too.”
She reared back and her mouth hung open. “What? No,” she exclaimed.
“It’s true,” I tried to play off my confession as no big deal, even though I knew it was. “I’m sure I’m not the only performer who feels that way, but it was always really difficult for me to step out on stage every single time. Maybe that’s why it was easy to fall into drinking and drugs,” I mused, “because it helped give me the semblance of courage. And I wasn’t going to let Conley down. We had this dream and part of making it happen was going out on stage and playing. I,” my voice broke, and I cleared my throat before trying again, “I haven’t been on stage since he died.”
My woman’s eyes softened in understanding, but I didn’t see pity there. Only compassion. Only adoration. Only love.
The muscles in my body tightened as I realized, with her love shining on me, I had fallen in love with my Songstress. Did it happen the moment I saw her? Did it happen slowly as we worked together, the music fusing us into something I wasn’t going to ever be able to walk away from?
I shook it off, afraid that she wasn’t ready to hear such a big confession. Not yet anyway.
“Do you not want to perform anymore?”
Her question was spoken softly into the silence between us, but it struck me like a fucking battering ram. Did I? I hadn’t stopped long enough to even consider if I did or not.
Yes, I was always scared to step out on stage. I did it for Conley even more than myself. But, did I want to give it up? Wouldn’t now be the perfect time to do so? Without ever trying to revive a career I drove into the ground through grief and my own actions?
“I think,” I started, trying to puzzle through my own feelings, “I think I want to try?” Cove watched me without judgement in her eyes; she simply gave me space to feel, to muddle through. “Part of me feels like I owe it to Conley, to not allow his death to end his legacy.”
Cove smiled at me, pride lining her features. “You owe it to yourself too, Langston. In many ways your life was ripped away from you.”
“No,” I tried to correct her, “my actions were at fault. I could have tried to bounce back after Conley’s death. The label wanted to keep me on, but I was more interested in self-destruction than the music.”
“Because you were grieving your best friend. The label didn’t help you. They must have seen you struggling, but they didn’t help hold you together.” She bit her lip, her eyes imploring me to listen and look at the past through a different lens. “I don’t think the guys of SO and WPF would have allowed that. They would have been there to help hold you together, to pick you up. They wouldn’t have allowed you to spiral because they look at the music industry and their label as a family.”
Her words burrowed into my heart, making it pump harder while also filling me with warmth. She was right. I didn’t even get to spend all that much time with the guys in SO, but I knew it was true. They cared. Their focus was the music and the family they were creating with the label. They wouldn’t have left me out there in the cold, unforgiving world. They would have helped me.
I took my woman’s mouth in a brutal kiss, her words rattling around in my head about owing it to myself to keep going, to get back out on the stage. When we broke apart, we were gulping down lungfuls of air.
“This is my last chance,” I rasped, not saying anything she didn’t already know.
Cove’s smile lit up my world like a fucking supernova. “But I have your back, Langston. You won’t fail. WPF will love these songs and they’ll help figure out what a band looks like for you. You’ll go into the studio and record a full album with all the bells and whistles. Then they’ll release it with all the power of the label behind it. You’ll tour again.” Her eyebrows furrowed together, her hands gripping my shoulders where I felt her nails dig in. “You’ll have to be brave and be strong,” there was a plea in her eyes that I instantly understood.
“I will be,” I promised her, “because you’ll be right there at my side.”
She gasped, “What?”
I chuckled and shook my head, “I’m not writing songs, recording, or going out on tour without you. How could I? You’re my muse, Cove. The music is nothing without you.”
Then I slid inside of her, again, and the worries about what happens next, about my past, about what we couldn’t foresee but fear all the same, evaporated like mist on the water.
“I think,” Cove sighs next to me, her voice tinged with an emotion I can’t decipher and pulling me out of my memories of how much light this woman has gifted to me, “it’s done.”
I grip my woman’s chin and turn her face so she’s looking at me. There are unshed tears in her eyes, but that won’t do.
“You’re amazing, Cove. Don’t forget our promises. This is just the beginning.”
She nibbles on her lip, her nerves on full display. Her voice is a worried whisper, “Do you think they’ll like the songs?”
“They will,” my voice is hard and without even a hint of doubt.
“This is a chance for me too. It might be my only chance,” she mutters.
“Naw,” I shake my head before rubbing my nose against hers, “this is just the beginning. I’ll make sure of it. I won’t do this without you. I can’t.” She nods and closes her eyes, taking a deep breath and calming herself. “Thank you.”
Her eyes snap open, confusion staring back at me. “For what?”
“For coming into my life? For helping me find music again. For helping me take the pain, the loss, and turning it into beautiful songs that will touch so many more than just me. For giving me a chance.”
Cove smiles at me and it is pure fucking warmth and love.
Our mouths find each other, both seeking, both needing. Her hands grip my clothes, pulling and peeling. I’m right there with her.
With a press of a button, I start the playback again on the songs we’ve written and recorded together before I pick her up and sit down on the couch. Cove straddles my hips, trapping my cock between us. I can feel the heat and slickness of her pussy.
“Songstress,” I groan and grip her hips. When she reaches down and grips my cock, positioning it at the entrance of her tight, wet heat, I almost blow. My jaw clenches and demand, “Ride me.”
The feeling of her pussy sliding down my length is like nothing I’ve ever felt before. “Yes,” she moans, her back arching as she throws her head back, “Langston.”
I have to focus on helping her slide up and down my dick, it’s the only thing grounding me. There’s no fucking way that my woman is not going to find pleasure before me. No fucking way.
“So tight,” I growl, “so fucking wet for me.”
As she bounces on my cock, I’m mesmerized by the sounds she’s making and the sight of her tits bouncing in my face. I lean forward enough to suck on her hard peaks between my lips, nipping at it and making her gasp and grind down on my pelvis as I fill her to the hilt.
“That’s right,” I encourage her. “Never letting you go. You’re mine. Say it,” I demand.
“I’m yours,” she mewls.
I watch in awe as she rides me, a flush coloring her skin as pleasure and light pour from her. It’s a fucking sight, one everyone should be able to witness, but will never be able to.
Because she’s mine.
I’m never sharing this with anyone. Fucking never.
I’m not sure I deserve this woman, but I’m just selfish enough not to give a fuck.
I need her too much to let her go. I love her too deeply. She’s become everything to me.
It should scare me how fast this has happened, but it doesn’t. Not when it’s so damn right. Conley’s death and my fall from the top showed me that I can’t take anything for granted in this life. It can all be ripped out from underneath us too soon and in the blink of an eye.
“Mine,” the chant starts out softly, spilling from my lips every time I’m fully buried inside of my woman. It’s a prayer, a promise, a plea.
Her walls start to ripple around me, and my balls draw up, telling me that I won’t be able to hold off for much longer. I bite down on her hard nipple and the shriek of pleasure that comes from my woman and the way she clamps down on me as she comes has me seeing double.
I roar out her name as I grip her hips and hold her steady as I fill her to the hilt with my cock. Every pump of cum filling her sends shockwaves through both of us.
As she slumps against my chest, I can feel the pounding of her heart and the way it matches my own. My hands run up and down her back, needing to touch her, to reassure myself that she’s right here in my arms.
Far too soon we’ll have to go back to Denver. We’ll have to share the magic that we’ve found in our bubble in the mountains. Reality is waiting, but right now, right here, we can ignore it for a little while longer.
I stand on shaky legs, still buried inside of my woman.
Her blue eyes meet mine, her voice breathless as she asks, “What are you doing?”
“Taking you to bed. We have a lot to celebrate, my Songstress, and I want to enjoy you and keep you all to myself for a little while longer.”
Cove melts into me, her grip tightening around my neck as she nods. “Show me what you got, Mr. Rock Star.”
I chuckle, my cock hardening inside of her and making us both groan when she giggles, and her walls tighten in response.
Soon. We’ll go back to reality soon.
But not yet.