29. Pulling It Together
IAN
In the end, I had to dig up Archer and Mal. They were sitting in one of the hotel bars with Charlotte and some of the crew, halfheartedly fending off hopeful fans, and they bailed on that scene as soon as I texted. Nicky needed support, so they came.
They appeared in my high-roller suite (the Las Vegas digs were even more opulent than usual) and sat with us as I made Nicky explain again. She’d gotten over her crying jag, and I was grateful. There were some moments when I feared she’d become unbalanced, but she pulled it together after I held her for a very damp ten minutes.
Nicky latched on to Charlotte immediately and wound up sitting on the floor with the dog, who wiggled around until she could lick Nicky’s tears, which made Nicky laugh at last.
“And how are you supposed to be stealing all these shirts?” Mal asked.
“I have no idea,” she answered. “I have reason to know”—she shot a look at me—“that there are cameras everywhere in these stadiums. I don’t see how I could possibly be stealing a single thing, much less box after box. Six hundred sets of bracelets!”
For no reason, I did the math while pacing the length of the living room. Six bracelets in a set. Three thousand, six hundred individual bracelets. What a useless factoid.
“And your counts are right,” Archer confirmed.
Nicky nodded, pulling gently at the loose skin at Charlotte’s neck. Charlotte inched closer to Nicky. “Right not just to the box, but to the shirt. I mean, we count every single shirt that gets taken out of a box but not sold. Every single one. They’re all accounted for.”
“So, it’s not you doing the stealing,” I said. “It’s whoever’s unloading the cases from the truck and loading them back up at the end of the night.”
She shook her head. “Very unlikely. Those are union jobs. Every stadium has its own workers to move the merch. Just like you guys can’t move your own guitars or your drum kit from the truck. The union guys do it. There would have to be a conspiracy in the six cities where I was in the merch booth, but not in the five when I was in the VIP suite. You see?”
“And it only happens when you’re working the merch booth?” Mal was like a terrier worrying a toy.
“That’s what Bruce said.”
“Well, you only have Bruce’s word,” I said. “He could be lying.”
Nicky shrugged hopelessly. “Why? Why would he do that?” Her fingers stroked over her laptop. I knew she was dreading the moment when she checked her email to see what her adviser had said. Would he kick her out of the MBA program?
To come so close and to miss getting her master’s—it would drive a person insane.
Archer slid gracefully from the couch onto the floor and bumped Nicky with his shoulder. “This is a good thing, Nick. Now you can focus on promotions for Aftermath.”
She smiled weakly at him and then jumped when Mal slid down on her other side. “Yeah,” he said. “Nothing’s going to happen to you. And if it does, you’ll come work with us and make us megastars. We can’t do this without you, honey.”
I joined the huddle, plopping on the ground in front of her. Charlotte wiggled in delight at having all four of us around her. “We’re with you, Nicky. We know you didn’t do it, and we’ll take care of you.”
At least she was smiling through this round of tears. “Thanks, guys.” She took my hand over Charlotte. “Although I’m not sure what you can do.”
“Beat someone up,” Mal said contentedly.
“Alert the media,” Archer added. “We’ve got contacts now.”
“Cut the power,” I offered. “Entire stadium plunged into darkness. Let’s see them sell their merch then.”
“Cut the power after Aftermath goes on,” Mal suggested.
“Naturally.”
Nicky was giggling. She no longer looked like a ghost. The brittleness in every movement had backed off. “You guys are the best.”
“You’re the best,” Archer corrected. He kissed one cheek, and Mal kissed the other. I made do with kissing her hand, but I’d make up for that later. “Now what?”
She sighed. “Will you guys stay here while I check my email?”
“Right here.” Mal made a show of wiggling his butt more firmly into the thick carpeting. He fished her laptop out of the tangle of legs and paws and licking snouts. “Go ahead. What’s the worst that could happen?”
Her sigh was watery, but she opened the laptop and keyed in her password. We waited with her.
“Nothing.” she said at last. “No word from my adviser yet. Should I email him?”
We shared a long look. “Bruce said he told your adviser everything?”
“That’s what he said.” Nicky frowned.
“Oh, he’s stealing it all. He’s the thief, and he never wrote your adviser.” Mal spoke with confidence, but Nicky wasn’t so sure.
“But what if he did send this mess to Mr. Diventura?” She looked up at me. “What do I do?”
It took me no time at all. “Write him. Tell him what happened. He’s your adviser. Let him advise you. If Bruce told him all this shit, you want to get your version into your adviser’s hands right away. If Bruce didn’t tell him, then some weird shit is going on, and your adviser needs to know about it.”
“Write him,” Mal agreed.
“Tell him everything. Tell him about Bruce,” Archer added. “Mal is right. Bruce is the thief.”
“Or Bianca,” I offered.
“Or both of them,” Mal said.
“Pornstache. Don’t forget him,” Archer offered.
“Please. Stop. I need to get my thoughts in order.”
I nodded, knowing how to help her. “Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do. You guys are going to take Charlotte for a walk. I’m going to order a gross ton of dinner from room service. Nicky is going to take a hot bath in absolute silence. We meet back here in half an hour to eat together. Then Nicky will write her adviser. Then she and I are going to bed, and you guys can go pick up show girls or something. Anyone got anything to add?”
My plan was met with approval. The only change came after Mal and Archer left with Charlotte, when I tried to run a hot bath for Nicky in the huge Roman tub.
She stood small in the huge bathroom, gripping her own arms as if she was cold. “I was so eager to be with you before this,” she said mournfully. “Bruce took away my lust, and I really resent that.”
To see Nicky deflated hurt my soul. I wrapped her in a bear hug. “I’m going to be here. We’ve got plenty of time. No matter what.”
Her arms crept around me, and she pulled herself closer. “Help me, Ian.”
“Whatever you need, baby. What can I do?”
“Clear my head. Make me forget.” She reached up, lifting her face to mine.
Was it wrong, with my girl so upset, that I grew into steel against her? I dropped my head to meet her, sliding my mouth over hers softly until I couldn’t resist a delicious lick. She moaned under me and shifted to fit herself to me more closely.
My hands became fists behind her. “You don’t want a nice hot bath to relax you?”
“I want a nice hot shower. With you. Warm me up, Ian.”
Aughhh. My thoughts became considerably more primitive. I walked her backward to the huge multihead shower enclosure, peeling clothes off her as she stripped me. I fumbled for the hot water at one end of the shower and tried to work out the controls while she traced the cords in my neck with her tongue. One of the great victories of my life was that I maintained my sanity long enough to turn on both showers, as well as the overhead rain feature.
The hot water came up almost immediately (tankless commercial water heater, said the plumber in my head, a voice so annoying that it kept me from coming the minute the heat hit my cock, for which I supposed I should’ve grudgingly thanked my father).
The water sluiced down our bodies, making her skin pinken and glow. “Ohhh,” she sighed. She turned in a slow circle, letting the water push into her muscles. Her pale hair deepened in color as the hot streams reached down to the tiny muscles of her scalp.
I ducked my buzzed head into the stream to join her in the heat. Almost too hot on my head, the water was warm and soft and hard at the same time, beating against nerve endings now stretching tighter.
Her circle allowed me to admire the curve of her ass, the grace of her side, the artistry of her breasts. She caught my hands and pressed me to her, my fingers cupping the glorious, hot curves of her before I leaned down. I matched the heat of my mouth with the shine of the water on nipples puckered tight and tempting.
“Nicky,” I groaned, going from one breast to the other. “You ruin my sense of timing. I want to go so slowly, but look at you.”
“We don’t have enough time for slow.” I heard her smile. She held my shorn head between her hands as I played with her. “You should have told them to come back in an hour.”
“I’m so sorry I didn’t,” I said, my mouth full of temptation. “I thought you were enjoying the company. I want to help, you know.”
She growled softly when I sucked at the crest. Then her hands were pulling my head up. I stood again with furrowed brow. “What?” I was enjoying that, I would have said if I had more clarity of brain.
“If the goal is to make me feel better . . .” she said as she kissed my neck.
“It is,” I reassured her, my hands slipping along her ribs, over her shoulders, and down her back to her ass.
“Then let me have my way.” She stepped back, surprising me. She grabbed a thick folded towel off the high wire shelf and dropped it deliberately on the shower floor.
“What—” I started to speak, but she boldly pushed me back against the wall, the tiles deliciously cool on my heated back. “Oh, Nicky?—”
She was kissing her way down my chest, holding me against the wall, and I knew the towel was to protect her knees when she took me in her mouth.
Damn it, I was not going to come immediately. I would not.
Tankless commercial water heaters. Instant-on hot water. A circulating system to—to ensure that?—
She kissed down my belly, and then across the low strap of muscles above the pubis. My cock, jutting forward, brushed against her neck, the water still raining its heat and absolution down on us.
And then her hands.
And then her tongue.
I was holding her head before I realized I was trying to control her, to ensure she wouldn’t stop. “You don’t have to,” I groaned, hoping to counter the rudeness of my greedy hands pulling her onto me.
“I want to,” she said, and she looked up at me, her mouth open and her eyes filled with lust and wicked delight. “I want to hear you moan.”
“I guarantee you’ll—” I said and couldn’t finish the sentence as her lips closed remorselessly over the head of my cock. “Ohhhh.”
“Yes,” she said with her mouth full. “Like that.”
“I’m not going to last, I . . . ohhh.”
She wrapped me in her tongue as she took me deep, and her fingers on my ass slid in and down.
“Legs a little wider,” she demanded, coming off my cock just long enough to make her intentions clear.
I was terrified of what she wanted and also desperately excited. Tankless commercial . . . instant-on . . . instant . . .
Her wet, slippery finger found the pucker of my asshole. I jumped as much as a man can jump with his dick down the throat of a magnificent little witch. “Are you intending to—do you think I’m—fuck, Nicky! Nicky, I’m going to come!”
In response, she used her free hand to cup my balls. That dangerous finger pushed in, that mouth sucked me deeper, and I lost my fight, erupting into her mouth with a roar.
It was a good thing she was laughing since I was able to slip out of her mouth when my knees gave out. I slid down like an idiot to land on my ass on the tile floor of the shower, trapped between the wall and her kneeling body. The hot water, backed up by her now-drenched towel, lapped against my balls, and my arms fell naturally around her.
Still laughing, she collapsed into my chest and rested against me, both of us drenched in the steam and heat and rain.
“If I’d waited until we’d used any soap at all, I would have gone into you deeper.” She giggled.
“You minx.” I sighed. “You wicked, dangerous, incredible creature. This was supposed to be for you.”
“This was for me,” she said, her arms stroking along my low back.
“That’s confusing,” I admitted as I slowly regained my strength. “I don’t think I’d like to suck anyone’s cock.”
“No, you should try it,” she said, pressing her face into the water running down my chest and grinning. “It’s awesome.”
I smoothed her hair back, pushed forward by the shower’s steady stream. “I’ll take your word for it.”
“Okay.”
I kissed her because I couldn’t not. “After the guys leave, it’s my turn. Bathtub. I think I can make you feel very, very good.”
“I know you can.” She smiled and then backed away, leaving me lonely and bereft. “But between now and then, I’ve got to write an email.”
I’d ruined it—reminded her about her shitty evening. She stood and I stood with her, regretting the loss of that tiny pool of hot water that had held us. “Wait. Before you go.” I nudged the sopping-wet towel to the corner with my foot and filled my hand with shampoo. “Can I?”
She looked confused and then smiled. “You want to wash my hair?”
“I really do.”
She turned her back to me, tipping her head up. “This isn’t an excuse to soap up my asshole, is it?”
After coming as hard as I did, it surprised the hell out of me when her suggestion reached my cock. Who knew I could get hard again that quickly.
“Not at all,” I insisted. “At least, it wasn’t before now.”
She laughed and backed into me. “My hair, please. The guys will be back with Charlotte soon.”
Which was not, I thought as I lathered her lovely head, the same thing as saying, “I don’t do anal.” And wasn’t that interesting?