23. Kelsey
Kelsey
The guys are messing around and flirting with the stylist for the photoshoot while she pulls things off a rack for them to put on.
Each guy has their own signature style. Kodiak with his flannels, beanies and shit kickers. Bronx has his white sleeveless tanks, and amazing ink. Golden is at home in a huge hoodie and his sneakers. Riot has always been black and white, leather jacket, leather cuffs.
Sex on fucking fire. The way that man could get me drenched. God, I wish my body didn’t still respond to him the way it does. I wish I didn’t still find him as attractive as I do.
The woman sticks to their style vibes in the pieces she hands out to each of the guys.
“You wanna help me look good, Scary Girl?” Kodiak winks at me. He likes me, he admitted as much, but he also gets a kick out of irritating the crap out of Riot for some reason I am yet to discover.
Whatever his reasoning, it works. Riot stops conversing with the stylist to scowl at Kodiak.
By the time I unfold the leg I have under me and get up from the couch, Riot is stalking toward me.
My belly does this funny little flip-flop. “You already look great.”
Riot’s hand wraps around the inside of my elbow. “You’re with me.”
“Do I have a choice?” I ask quietly but firmly.
“No.” He forces me to keep up with him as he crosses the floor to an area set up for changing in. He pulls me inside and yanks the curtain to shut out the others before turning on me. “You don’t seem to understand the rules, Little Vandal. I told you to stay away from my bandmates.”
“I like Kodiak.” I shrug.
“Yeah. I can see that.” He gets in my space, herding me until my back is against the wall. His hand goes around my throat and his thumb presses against my bottom lip.
My mouth waters. I want to press my lips together and swallow. I want to dart my tongue out to lick them. The urge to bite the tip of his thumb, to suck it...
I press both my hands to his chest. “You need to back off.”
“Do I?” He slips the tip of his thumb between my teeth, his gaze narrowing in on my mouth. He strokes my tongue with it. “You don’t think I know that’s not what you really want.”
My treacherous, fucked up body responds by soaking my panties. Fuck I hate him for being capable of making me want him after everything.
He lowers his face until we’re cheek to cheek. “Why don’t you drop those panties like we both know you want to.”
“Why don’t you just take what you want.” I lift my chin, daring him.
“I think I will.” He grins salaciously while he pins me to the wall with his body. Between us, he digs his hand under the waist of my pleated skirt and into my panties. His fingers barely skim my clit as he pushes two of them inside me.
My head lolls back against the wall as he curls them and makes a come-hither motion that creates sparks with each stroke.
He captures my jaw, tips my mouth up, and consumes my whimper. His tongue thrusts against mine, almost mimicking fucking. He grinds his palm into my clit as he brushes his square fingertips against my cervix.
I grab his biceps as I sink onto his fingers. The sensation of an orgasm starting to build takes hold. “You still do that thing you used to.”
He freezes. “What?”
“Nothing.” The precipice of my orgasm recedes. A few more strokes and I will combust. “Please. I’m so close.”
His steely gaze seems to chill the air around me. “No, it’s not nothing.”
“Riot?” My head is spinning, my breaths quick and shallow.
Controlled, he keeps his fingers inside me but doesn’t move. “Why are you here, Kelsey? Why show up after almost two years? After everything you did.”
“What I did? What you did, you mean.”
He moves his fingers from side to side once. “Answer the question.”
“I had nowhere else to go.” I hate admitting it. Hate that while he flourished I didn’t just flounder but barely survived.
“Nowhere else to go.” A look of disgust on his face, he draws his hand out of my panties. His stare is blunt and disbelieving. “Or you fucked someone else over and you’re running from them.”
“You don’t know anything about me.” I shove him, eyes stinging and vision wavering. “What happened to make you such a prick? You used to be a good man.”
Although that might be generous. He was, at least, a good friend. Or was I deluded about that too?
“You did,” he says flatly. “You broke me, Kelsey Peterson. You ruined my fucking life.”
I laugh. It’s wet and sour and makes me want to cry, but I laugh. “It doesn’t look like your life is ruined.”
Rushing out before he can say, do, or blame me for anything else, I’m surrounded by sympathetic stares. Not only from the guys, but from the photographer and the stylist and their assistants.
Heat crawls up my throat and into my face. Did they hear my whimpers before our fight? Did they hear me beg?
Bronx takes a step in my direction. “Kells—”
“No.” I’m shaking. The back of my eyes are burning. “Don’t come near me.”
He stops where he is. Kodiak and Golden both look at me like they feel sorry for me.
But they don’t need to be. I collect my jacket from the couch. Shrugging into it, I hurry to the exit before any of the others realize I’m leaving.
Out on the street, I let the pain overwhelm me. I drag in thick breaths that don’t relieve the tightness in my lungs at all as I rush along the pavement.
Maybe I should have told him about Marco. About poor dead Heaven. About Loverboi. But what would it change?
It’s better if I don’t involve anyone else anyway. Just get through the next few months and disappear somewhere new.
Eventually I run out of steam and I slow. I shrug deeper into my jacket when the wind picks up, whipping strands of my hair around and into my eyes.
My nape prickles.
It’s probably Rook. There’s no way he didn’t follow me out of the shoot. Even so, I spin around to check.
Something catches the corner of my eye, but it’s gone before I can make sense of it. It did look like a person stepping back into the shadows. Didn’t it? I would swear it did.
I scan the area while I pull out my phone to try and work out where I am. Is this closer to the hotel or the photo shoot? Should I head back or keep going in the direction I’m heading?
My pulse gets faster the longer I’m out here alone. Not moving. But I can’t load my maps for some reason.
Rook is suddenly in front of me. “Stay close.”
I stick to him as he moves toward the spot where I thought I saw someone. Maybe one of Marco’s guys. Or even Marco himself. It turns out to be an alleyway I somehow didn’t notice. A line of dumpsters sit against one wall. “I need to warn you—"
“Show yourself,” Rook orders when something moves at the far end of the dumpsters.
The guy that steps out looks tattered and rough around the edges, but he doesn’t give off Marco level danger vibes. His gaze is desperate.
Rook’s posture loosens. “Tell me, were you planning on mugging the lady?”
“I need money.” The man lurches toward us.
“I don’t have any,” I admit.
“You do. Look at you,” the man says.
“No, I really don’t. If I did, I would hand it over. You look like you could use it more than me.” I touch Rook’s shoulder. “Do you have any?”
Rook glances sideways at me. Probably isn’t sure what to make of my desire to give this would-be-mugger money.
“Sometimes people just need us to be kind. I’ve been in bad spots myself. Having someone help me out is the only thing saving my ass right now. I’m sure I can get the money from Bronx to pay you back.” And then I’ll pay Bronx back from what he gives me at the end of the tour.
Rook pulls out his wallet and takes all the money out of it. “I’ve got a couple hundred. That do?”
I take the money and walk toward the man.
“Don’t try anything,” Rook warns him.
I’m shaking as I hand the money over. I could be wrong. I’m hoping I’m not. This situation could still turn violent. But sometimes we make stupid decisions when we’re desperate that we might not make given a choice.
Like not paying attention to my surroundings the day I was pushed. If I’d been alert, I could have saved myself from the pain and the heartbreak that followed. I could have done something to protect my baby.
“Thank you,” he says. “This is going to feed my family.”
I clasp his hand between mine. “Promise me you’ll exhaust every other option before you do this again.”
He nods and then ducks past me and Rook before running out of the alley.
“You look like you were expecting someone else,” Rook says when we get back onto the main thoroughfare. “Care to fill me in on the who and why?”
Hugging myself, I grimace. “I saw something I shouldn’t have seen. Committed by someone I wish I’d never met. I thought it might have been him.”
“Got it. You expect this person to come after you?” His jaw tightens as he continues to be alert to our surroundings.
“Yeah.”
“Who knows?”
“Bronx is aware of some of it.” I cast my gaze to the ground, feeling sick to my stomach. There is a lot I don’t want anyone to ever find out.
“And you didn’t take it to the cops?”
“He has connections.” I could go, but it’s my word against his, and the cops didn’t believe me the last time.
“I’m going to have to tell the rest of my team,” he says.
“I know.” Because as long as Marco is out there, I’m not safe and neither is anyone around me. “Let me tell the guys? It should come from me.”
“Of course,” he says.
We fall into wary silence until we get back to where the guys have finished up with their photo shoot. We all climb into the car.
Kodiak sits up front. Riot slides into the middle row. Avoiding Riot, I get into the back seat with Golden. And Bronx takes the vacant space next to Riot.
“How are you doing, Special K?” Golden offers me a gentle smile as he stretches one arm along the back of the seat. He’s taken off his hoodie, and it’s crumpled on top of his pack on the floor. His headphones are around his neck.
“Fine. How was the rest of the shoot?” Dropping down next to him, I play with the split ends of my fishtail braid. How do I hide while traveling with the world’s most popular rock band? I can’t.