36. Kelsey
Kelsey
It’s impossible to sleep with Riot prowling back and forth behind closed doors. Even when he finally stops, and the whole bus is asleep besides the driver, I can’t find sleep.
The rain, and the hum of the engines in our convoy, as we get closer to our next concert location provides a backdrop to my messy emotions and pained thoughts.
How long until he works out that he was going to be a dad? How long until I have to fill him in on why I kept it to myself? That he isn’t a father. That we don’t have a child. All we have is heartbreak.
Perhaps it’s too cruel to start that conversation this way but finding the words... making him believe them when he doesn’t trust me... seems impossible.
If he would have believed me, when I told him I didn’t steal the money, I might have had cause to believe in him. Even though my desire to break a guitar over his head has waned and I could have that conversation reasonably, I have doubts about how he would take the truth.
Cracking thunder overhead makes me jump. It rumbles over my already stretched tight nerves. Dragging the covers up to my chin, I huddle deeper as the rain turns heavy.
I’m not scared of a little thunderstorm. The ominous sounds, the rain that drowns everything out, or the dark shadows that creep all around.
My heart isn’t beating fast. My feet don’t want to run. There’s another crack, this one short and sharp like a gun being fired.
“Jailbait.”
My stomach lurches. It was lightning, not a gunshot. I’m not scared of storms.
Did the covers over top of me move, or is that creepy sensation the hairs on my legs standing on end?
“That’s it. Fight me, jailbait.”
Marco’s voice is in my memories. In my head. He’s not here on the bus where I am surrounded by strong men and security. I’m a grown ass woman. I should not be scared of storms.
“Go ahead and scream. No one will hear you.”
My breath comes in shallow gasps.
Another crack of thunder has me scrambling up the bed into the corner, a scream escaping me. I slap a hand over my mouth to cut it off.
“Kelsey,” Riot says, warning me he’s there before he draws the curtain back.
He keenly assesses every inch of me before his gaze locks on mine. “It’s the storm, right?”
My pulse starts to slow.
“Are you coming down? Or do I need to—”
I scoot out of the corner to the edge of the bunk where I wrap my legs and arms around him.
He draws me out of the bunk, his arms banding tightly around me. He squeezes the back of my neck with one hand.
“Is our girl okay?” Bronx’s sleep-gritted voice reaches me.
He’s aware I hate storms. So is Golden. None of them know why.
“Yeah. I’ve got her,” Riot tells him, carrying me to his room.
It smells sweet in the small space. There’s half a joint in an ashtray on the nightstand and the window is open.
He stands next to the bed with me in his arms. “You want to climb under my covers on your own. Or you want me to put you there?”
“Put me there.” I stroke his chest, my lips seeking the side of his throat. Needing to feel anything outside of my memories. Needing the distraction from the monsters in my head.
“On top or on bottom?”
“Bottom.” I need to be under him. I need his weight crowding out the weight of the man in my nightmares. I need him to keep me in the here and now where Marco isn’t.
Kneeling, he places his palms either side of me on the mattress. I cling to him as he presses me into the yielding surface.
“More.” I whimper as I kiss his jaw, soothed by his frame pinning me down.
He finds my ass with one hand, his grip forcing our bodies closer together while he lowers himself onto his other elbow. His weight is crushing. It constricts my ribs and makes every breath hurt. I need this. I need the pain to keep me centered.
Another roll of thunder has me clenching my knees around his hips. I dig my nails into his back.
“You never told me what Marco did to you.” His voice in my ear grounds me. “I could see he was mean. Violent. I didn’t think—"
“I’m not going to talk about this,” I say.
He stiffens.
“I don’t want to talk about it with anyone. Ever. If I had wanted to, you would have been that shoulder I cried on.” And he would have been sweet and careful with me back then. He would have done everything in his power to make me feel better.
I don’t need to feel better about it. I don’t need to relive it and try to find a way to move forward. I have nothing to be ashamed about. I didn’t make Marco do what he did. I survived it. “I don’t want to remember it. Or think about it. Or relive it.”
“What do you call this?” he asks staring down at the way he’s holding me down. “If not reliving it.”
“Obliterating it.” I press my hands to the sides of his throat and lock our gazes in the dim lamp light. “Please, Riot. Distract me.”
He hesitates. “That’s what you need? You’re sure?”
“Yes.” I rock my core against him, giving my focus on how he hardens for me.
“You’re going to tell me if you change your mind?” he asks. “If you want to stop?”
“I won’t.”
He wraps his hand around my throat and tips my head back. His fingers tighten slightly on the sides of my throat. “Kelsey, you need to tell me you remember our word.”
I nod. My chest is tightening and my head is beginning to swim, and it is precisely what I need from him. “I remember.”
“Don’t tell me you remember. Tell me the word,” he says soft but stern. “I can’t give you what you want until you do.”
“Skittles,” I whisper.
He leans in and growls in my ear, “Good girl.”
The adrenaline... the fear... the ugly, dirty, scarred parts of me recede.
I’m in Riot’s bed, in his arms, in his care.
We can hate each other and hurt each other but the minute I say that word he becomes my safe place.
He will stay my safe place until we come to the end of our night together or I say the word again.
“I’m going to undress both of us.” He peels his hand slowly from my throat. “Can you handle that, Little Vandal? If I get off you... to make it easier to remove all these clothes.”
I shake my head. I’m reluctant to let him go. I’m scared to not feel him all around me in case Marco crowds back in along with the storm.
He draws in a deep breath and lets it out while he stares into me like he can see all my secrets and my fears and everything that makes me tick. He stretches over me and picks up the joint. Sticking it between his lips, he picks up his lighter and sparks a flame to the end.
Putting down the lighter he draws on the joint.
I lick my lips to moisten them.
He holds the joint between his fingers on the bed as he lowers his mouth to capture mine. His tongue pushes its way between my lips along with the smoke, spreading the intoxicating, pungent haze into every crevice.
I tangle my tongue with his as the drug creeps into my lungs. It makes things fuzzier. It eases the tension inside me. It’s sin and sex and ownership in smoke form. Riot Maddox does things to me that no one else can do.
Sharing the rest of his joint with me in that manner, he strips away our shirts in between inhaling the smoke and kissing it into me. He molds and massages my tits. Outlines each of my nipples with a deliberate slowness that gives me goosebumps and sends sparks to my core.
The entire time he holds me down, straddling my thighs and keeping one hand around my throat.
When the joint is finished, he grinds out the butt in the ashtray. His full attention on me, he sucks deep hot patches into my flesh from my throat to my shoulder to my tits. I arch into the marks he’s leaving, blocking everything out but the way my body is responding.
Curling my fingers in his hair, I revel when he moves down my body and runs his tongue down the center of my torso. He digs the tip into my navel, tugs the piercing there between his teeth. Hooking his fingers into my sweats, he drags them off.
My thighs stick together when he brings them up between us. Kneeling between my feet, he bites my kneecap before tugging my legs wide. “Little Vandal, are you still good?”
“Mmhmm.” My knees drift back toward each other, and I grip handfuls of his sheets in anticipation.
“I’m going to need to tie these in place, aren’t I?” he murmurs, drawing a line from one knee up my thigh to my clit.
“No.” My pussy clenches. She drips.
He kisses my other knee, and along the inside of my thigh. “Keep them apart. Every time you can’t, I’ll stop. Got it?”
“Yes.”
He growls. “Yes, what?”
“Yes, Rockstar.”
“Let’s see if you can still be a good girl.” His lips cover my entrance. His tongue delves inside. The noise he makes is ravenous.
I arch from the bed as a clap of lightning brightens the room. He uses a palm to clamp me in place while he continues to eat.
My breaths grow into sharp, needy, little pants.
He moves his tongue to my clit and spears me with two fingers. Pumping them in and out of me, he finds that spot deep inside that has me whining for release. My thighs clamp around his ears.
Riot stops. He looks up at me, a devilish gleam in his eyes.
The level of my pleasure dips.
“Ready to try again?” His voice vibrates over my skin.
“Yes.” I spread my knees wider. Knot my fingers in his hair.
Slowly, he builds me up again. His fingers pressing and stroking in all the right ways to rebuild my orgasm quickly.
I undulate under his demanding tongue, grinding into his mouth as my big O becomes my entire focus.
Except there go my knees again. Closing around his head, clamping down and giving him more time to edge me to the brink of insanity.
I lose count of how many times he demands my orgasm only to deny it when I break his rule.
“Riot, I need... please... I need you to fuck me.” I thrash as he draws back once more. I’m a sopping mess of my juices and his spit. I am aching and empty and desperate for him to move inside me.
“Let me help you keep those knees apart.” He climbs up over me, settling his weight over me and pressing his cock to my entrance. My knees stay apart with his hips wedged between them.
Pushing all the way in, he fucks me slow. Every move he makes is measured and planned to torture me until he’s ready to reward me.
“You’re out of practice,” he says. “Couldn’t find someone who could take my place?”
“I haven’t fucked anyone else since you, you jerk.”
He stops. He freaking stops mid-thrust. His heavily hooded gaze flares.
“Riot,” I correct myself.
“What about Bronx? And Kodiak?” He starts to move again. His fingers bite into my jaw, demandingly gentle as he pistons his hips and builds that friction to its sweetest point. “Neither of them been inside you?”
“Would you even believe me?” I cling to him.
“About this... when you need to come as much as you do... yeah, I’ll believe you.”
“Not Bronx nor Kodiak. Not anyone. Just you.”
“Because you’re mine.” He breathes the words in my ear as he fucks us both over that edge and the world around us recedes. “This pussy is mine. To fuck. To fill. And mark. Isn’t that right, Little Vandal? Whatever I tell you to do, you’re going to do.”
“Yes... Yes, Rockstar.”
“Come for me,” he growls his order. “Show me what a good girl you can be.”
“Yes, Riot... ye... Oh my...” My orgasm goes on and on and on. My inner walls tighten around him rhythmically. “God... ye... s.”
I seek out his mouth. I need him to kiss and own and command every part of me. He gives me what I need. Kissing me, he grips my hips and fucks me deeper and harder. “I own this fucking pussy. Going to leave my mark all over it. Going to paint your insides with my cum.”
Spurts of cum and heat fill my core as he comes. He groans into my neck, pinning my hips to his with his big hands holding me in place. His cock twitches inside me. It sets off aftershocks of pleasure as I come back to earth.
Around us the storm has slowed, but the rain is still heavy. The lull of the bus moving has been replaced with a stillness. The driver must have pulled over.
“Do you need me to keep holding you down?” Riot asks.
I swallow and shake my head. I’m not ready to go back to my bunk alone, but I can handle the space.
“Stay here.” He climbs off me and stands at the edge of the mattress. He stern-eyes me. “I mean it. I’m going to get a couple of things for us.”
He leaves the room naked, walking through bunk alley with his cock swinging. The guys wouldn’t care. They’ve spent enough time in confined spaces like the bus, and the occasional orgy, that they’ve seen all of each other’s... flaws. Thankfully though, they all seem to be asleep.
A few minutes later he’s back with bottled water, Reese's Pieces, and a washcloth. Placing the water and snack on his nightstand he sits beside me and carefully rubs the soft, warm cloth between my legs and over my pussy.
It’s a level of care I haven’t had since him, and the way it makes me feel is bittersweet.
We could have had everything. I would have been his for the rest of my life if he’d asked it of me.
I would have taken his orders, sometimes with a side of brat, but we both liked that.
Sometimes with me being the dominant one.
It hurts that we’ll never be what we were.
We’ll never have everything we could have been.
Twisting the lid off the bottle, he hands me the water. “Sip.”
I take a few small gulps as he rests his head against the headboard and puts his arm around me. He pulls the covers over us both.
“Snack.” He picks up the Reese's and pours a few of them into his hand. He picks out the yellow ones without me having to remind him. “Palm.”
I hold out my hand, palm up and he puts the yellow ones on it.
“You remembered.”
“I haven’t forgotten anything about you.” He puts what’s left in his hand in his mouth and chews.
Forget... maybe not. Care enough to pick through them... it’s unexpected. I hand him the water.
“Ready to sleep?” He takes a mouthful himself before closing it and putting it on the nightstand.
“I should return to my bunk.” I should definitely not want to linger.
“Sure.” Lying down, he shuts off the lamp before he reaches for me. “All you need to do is say the word. Say the word and I will let you go back to your cold, lonely bed. Or don’t say it and pretend you’re only staying in my arms because I’ve ordered you to.”
One night. One. That’s all. His bed is cozy and warm and his arms are strong. The storm could get worse again. My memories might come back. I lay down and let him pull my back to his chest. “This doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“We’ll talk about it tomorrow.” He presses his lips to my shoulder. “And we’ll go and see Doc too.”
“What?” My breath stalls.
“We didn’t use a condom,” he murmurs. “Can’t be doing that.”
How the hell could I be so stupid? How did I not notice?
His arms are a solid band around me. “Not unless you want to have my baby.”
The hairs on the back of my neck stand up.