31. His Favorite Groupie
HIS FAVORITE GROUPIE
SAWYER
This is weird—getting ready with someone else for a performance. But weird good. I think.
For now, it’s mostly just weird knowing Chloe will be here any minute to help me prep. I step out of the shower, dry off, and wrap a towel around my waist. I grab another one, run it through my hair, then add some gel. Well, it helps make it messier for Sam.
I head to the bedroom to get dressed when the doorbell rings.
For a hot second, I weigh pulling on boxer briefs and jeans before I answer the door or not.
But a man shouldn’t keep a woman waiting.
I head downstairs in nothing but a towel slung low on my waist. When I spot Chloe through the window, a warm, fizzy feeling spreads in my chest.
I yank the door open.
Her lips part. Her eyes take a long, lingering tour of my body. “Is this Christmas morning?”
I fiddle with the towel knot but don’t take it off. “Here’s your present, sweetheart.”
“Thank you, Santa,” she says, walking inside, her canvas bag from yesterday on her shoulder. She keeps it tucked tight to her, then folds it over when she sets it down on the floor.
She rolls her lips. “Are you sure you have to go to karaoke?”
“I like to be a man of my word,” I say.
She shakes her head, then sighs as she lifts her hand and drags her nails down my chest, over my chest hair, and on a beeline straight for the towel. “Answer the door this way all the time.”
Those words echo—all the time.
They wrap around the ones I said last night about her dog. Every time he’s here.
We’re using words that imply more than once. That say this is ongoing. That indicate we’re a thing.
Hell, she’s coming with me to karaoke tonight. Maybe we are a thing?
My head’s a little scrambled with how much I like those thoughts. More than I want to. More than I should.
But here they are, making themselves at home in my damn heart. I try to blink off the fog of feelings as I drag a hand through my damp hair, focusing on tonight.
I nod toward the kitchen. “We should do the tattoo.”
She heads toward the pristine white counter, where I’ve left the temporary tattoo. “This is gorgeous. I just love it. I love roses.”
And I love watching her joy in the art—the way she studies the red petals, the long green stem, even the thorns on the rose that lays on top of an old-time microphone.
“How did you pick this?” she asks, raising her face.
“I like roses too,” I say, even though the admission makes me feel vulnerable in ways I don’t love. What I love more though? The look in her hazel eyes—passion, and wonder—as I hold her gaze. “So pretty, don’t you think?”
I’m not talking about flowers or ink right now. Pretty sure she knows it too.
“Yes,” she says, a little breathless, and my heart is beating too fast.
I clear my throat. “So, first I like to make sure the area is clean and dry. Since I just showered, we’re good to go. And yes, I shaved my forearm.”
Her eyes dance. “You’re a karaoke pro.”
“I am. The next step is you peel the plastic layer off and place the tattoo face-down on my forearm, then hold a damp washcloth over it for thirty seconds and then gently remove the backing paper. Then I just need to be careful with it for an hour.”
“Got it,” she says, heading to the sink and wetting the cloth, then returning to me.
With her eyes flickering, she peels off the plastic, then runs her thumb over my forearm where she’ll put it, making my skin heat up. She lays it down, gently covering the area with the art and paper, then grabs the washcloth and presses it down.
While she holds it, she looks up at me, her eyes wide and curious. “Did Katya help you get ready?”
I shake my head. “She knew I did it. But she never helped.”
“Did she ever see you perform?”
“Once or twice. She said, and I quote, ‘It was good,’” I say with a shrug, like Katya’s perfunctory response was no big deal. “But looking back, I don’t know that I was dying for her to go. It wasn’t her thing. I didn’t want to force it on her. It was just my thing.”
“Well, I like it,” she says, then holds her hand tighter around the ink.
There’s something intimate about her doing this—helping me prep, so eager for this whole night. I swallow roughly, trying to sort out the mix of emotions hitting me about this woman making a place in my world, in my private nights.
But having no success.
Thirty seconds have passed, so she carefully peels the backing paper off. “It’s amazing,” she says, her voice full of wonder.
“You’re good, Chloe,” I say as she stares—shamelessly stares—at it.
She looks at me, nibbling on the corner of her lip, before she glances at the clock. “We have an hour, you said?”
“We do,” I say, my voice smoky, full of possibility.
“Well, Mr. Silversmith,” she says, like we’re both in on the biggest secret in town. “I’d like to finish what I started a while ago. Too long ago.”
Then this beautiful, feisty, fiery, upbeat woman tugs at my towel and tosses it on the stool.
My cock springs free, hard and at attention. Well, I’ve been hard since she walked in.
With a wicked glint in her eyes, she drops to her knees on the white-tiled floor and says, “Hello there, handsome.”
I laugh. “You’re talking to my dick.”
“Dick and I have a very good relationship,” she says, licking her lips, then kissing the head, making me suck in a breath.
And as much as I want to let her suck me off right here in the kitchen, I know the floor is no good for those knees.
“Couch, sweetheart. I’ll put a pillow down on the floor for you.”
“Aren’t you a gentleman?”
“I’ll fuck your pretty mouth like a gentleman.”
A minute later, I’m on the couch, my legs spread, my hands speared in her hair, my eyes staring at the hottest sight ever.
Chloe, kneeling on a white pillow, drawing my dick in deep, licking, and sucking. Fisting the base and taking me all the way, her lips stretched wide and wet.
She moans around my cock as she sucks me deep, and I groan louder than I ever have. “Fuck, that’s so good. Just like that, Chloe. Just like fucking that.”
She looks outrageously pleased as she sucks me mercilessly, fearlessly. She licks wicked stripes down my cock, then slides those nails up my thighs. My muscles shake. My chest is on fire.
I’m losing all sense of the world as pleasure pounds through me. Hot and fast, like an engine revving to sixty in no time.
I’m close already, and I grip her head, moving her up and down on my dick, grunting as I go. But it’s a lot for her to take, so I’d like to think I’m a gentleman as I say, “This okay?”
I ease out so she can answer.
“It’ll only be okay if you’re hitting the back of my throat.”
Dear god. I think she’s perfect for me.
I punch my hips, fuck her mouth, and lose my ever-loving mind as she sucks me so hard that I’m coming in seconds, my vision going black, my body crackling.
And somehow, my heart coming along for the ride too.
She’s got me by the balls, and by the organ in my chest too.
I’m so fucked, but right now, I don’t care.
* * *
Every rose has its thorn, and every song has one too. For the Poison power ballad, it’s the belting.
That’s not normally a problem for me with the tune though. I’ve performed it so often, and it’s fun to sing.
The challenge tonight is brand new. Not singing every single line to Chloe.
It’s the first number in my set, and I vow to focus on the whole audience when I stride onstage after Duke’s intro.
As the music begins from the karaoke machine at Pour Decisions, I make a point to make eye contact with everyone. Well, as many of the everyones as I can.
The group of nurses. The construction workers.
A couple that comes in every week—they’re in their seventies, I’m guessing.
They both have gray hair and wrinkles, but they dance their asses off.
There’s a group of women likely here for a girls’ night out, judging by the sequins, polished nails, and constant hugs.
And a pack of twentysomethings—my money’s on friends from college.
Most wear blinged-out T-shirts from the local university.
I sing to them, too, so I don’t give short shrift to the audience by focusing solely on Chloe.
When I reach the chorus though, I figure she deserves her moment to be sung to.
Right before I belt out the title lines, I find her near the front.
Her red hair is swept up in a bun. A few strands frame her face.
The wicked grin on her pretty pink lips is somehow sexy and exuberant at the same time.
It says there’s no place she’d rather be than right here. But when my eyes take a full and proper tour of my woman, I blink. Do a double take as I read her shirt twice.
She was not wearing that T-shirt when we drove over here together.
I try to fight off a smile. It’s not fucking working.
Because…Chloe’s wearing a shirt that says Sam Silversmith Makes Me Hit the High Notes across her chest. It has to be from one of those while-you-wait print shops.
Bet she made it today. That thought revs me up.
And feeds my own damn enthusiasm to sing. There’s just something special about crooning to someone who wants to be here. Someone who’s as into this as I am. I belt out the chorus to the whole crowd, but it feels different tonight.
Because I’m sharing my secret with someone who wants to know it.
At the end of the song, I lock eyes with her.
No, I’m not simply sharing Sam with someone who wants to know—Chloe’s the one I want to share this part of me with.
* * *
Chloe flops down on her bed, sweaty, cheeks red, lips bruised, smelling like sex and cinnamon.
“I just fucked a rock star,” she says, still panting and murmuring after coming hard not long after we arrived at her home post-show.
I drag her close. “Sweetheart, the rock star fucked you.”
She rolls her eyes. “Please. Let me have my moment.”
“Whatever you want,” I say, then drop a quick kiss to her neck, inhaling her once more and letting her scent go to my head.
And my heart.
“I want…to go again. To Pour Decisions,” she says, propping her cheek in her palm as she shifts to her side, looking at me with hopeful eyes.
Like she thinks I might say no.
I tap my chin. “Hmm. Let me consider it.”
She sighs, over the top, then swats my shoulder. “Sawyer.”
“That’s Sam to you, groupie.”
“Sam would say yes to his favorite fangirl,” she says, a tease in her tone.
I roam a hand down her arm, and she trembles the slightest bit. Even after an orgasm. She’s so responsive, and I fucking love it. No, I’m addicted to it. “Sam would say yes…under one condition.”
Her eyes pop. “You’re going to blackmail me now?”
“It’s not blackmail. More like a performance request. A theatrical superstition if you will.”
“Fine, fine. I’ll blow you before each performance.”
A laugh bursts from me. “How’d you know I was going to say that?”
She blows on her fingernails. “Let’s just say I’m good too.”
“You sure are,” I say, then furrow my brow. “I’m not performing next week though.”
“Oh, you’re not?” She sounds so disappointed I almost want to tell Duke to add me to the schedule. But it’s not feasible.
“Can’t. I’m going to rest my voice that night. Gotta save it for this fundraiser I’m doing for a ball-busting piano accompanist.”
“She does drive a hard bargain,” she says.
“Speaking of hard bargains, I believe you owe me some duck juggling.”
After we straighten up and pull on clothes—boxer briefs for me and a loose T-shirt for her—we head into the living room where Captain’s curled up in his dog bed. He lifts his snout when we arrive in his domain.
“A show for a show,” she says, picking up some ducks.
“A coping skill for a coping skill,” I add, since that’s karaoke for me, juggling for her.
Captain cocks his head, his ears pricked. Chloe tosses the first duck, the second, the third, and then holy shit, she adds a fourth that I didn’t even know she was holding. A fifth now.
I can’t look away. My Chloe is juggling five rubber ducks in the living room, and I’m not sure I’ve ever been happier. It’s weird, this feeling. But not unwelcome at all.
It feels like…like Darling Springs is becoming home. And so is Chloe.
When she sets down the ducks, I clap loudly. She takes a bow, then I pat my thigh. “Come here, you multi-talented goddess.”
She parks her sweet ass on my lap.
Yes. Home. I nuzzle her neck, thinking about that word. “I’m going to adopt a dog this weekend. Want to come with me?”
“I thought you’d never ask,” she says, then lets out a shriek of excitement that’s the loudest thing I’ve ever heard.