Chapter 17
Chapter
Seventeen
Tatum
The industrial washer swirled around and around in a hypnotic wave of soap and water. I wished everything could be washed clean as easily as the band’s laundry.
The hum of the laundromat had lulled me into a meditative state that almost helped me put out of mind how badly I was fucking up my life.
What the hell had I been thinking in making that offer?
I hadn’t. At least, not with my big brain. My vagina was clearly overriding my better judgement.
After our discussion the day before, when Otis had stormed out after defending my honor—I still needed to track him down and make sure he was okay—everyone had disappeared to different corners of the bus, writing, playing, and resting as we got on the road, headed for Mississippi.
It had all been a little anticlimactic, to tell the truth.
Not that I’d expected all of us to fall into some hedonistic orgy just because I’d offered to fuck anyone who wanted some stress relief, but the way everything had continued on as normal had thrown me off balance.
I needed perspective.
Leaving our laundry to its spin cycle, I stepped outside and pulled up my contacts.
“Bitch, do you know what time it is here?” Ruby’s sleep-roughened voice sent a shudder of relief through my body. She’d know what to do. She always did.
“I need your no-bullshit take,” I said, leaning against the brick facade and idly watching the cars go by.
“Tell me what’s going on while I turn the coffeemaker on.”
While the sounds of a coffee grinder came down the phone, I outlined the troubles I’d had with Harvey’s dick, the general competitiveness of the men, the glory hole incident, and what led me to the solution I’d come up with the day before.
When I’d finished, the line was silent except for the dripping of her machine.
“If I’d known giving head was in your job description, I’d have vetoed our manager and kept you for ourselves.”
Asshole.
“I don’t have the tongue dexterity to eat pussy. Dicks are easy, put your mouth on it and suck.”
A woman in a sundress glanced at me as she passed, and I gave her a saccharine smile. If you don’t appreciate my conversation, how about you mind your own fucking business?
“Ohhhh, honey. Next time I see you, I’m bringing bananas. Cock sucking class will be in session.”
I barked a laugh, thinking of the time in the eighth grade when she’d insisted on giving similar lessons to a classmate who came out to her.
“Can we be serious for a minute?”
“Okay, fine. The thing with Calix sounds like it was seriously hot. Are you sure he didn’t know it was you on the other side of the glory hole?”
“I don’t see how he would have, but that’s not the point. I need help here.”
Ruby’s silence told me she was done teasing me, and the call may actually turn into something productive.
“Okay. You said you’re in Mississippi, right?
I’ll send a doctor to do some discreet blood tests and make sure Harvey isn’t going to give you anything transmissible.
Tobias either, for that matter. I know Calix thinks he’s not injecting, but we don’t know if he’s telling the truth, or if he already has something you have to be concerned about.
I’m all for my girl getting all the dick, but you need to be safe about it.
I think it would be worth talking about exclusivity during the period of this arrangement and have you all start taking PrEP as an extra precaution.
Make sure those assholes cover up, too.”
I swear, in another life Ruby could have been a doctor if her bedside manner weren’t so god awful.
“Okay, all of that sounds really good. Any other thoughts?”
“Make sure there are firm boundaries around consent.”
That was going to be an interesting conversation. My biggest concern was Tobias’s ability to give consent with his drug use.
I’d felt oddly protective of the less abrasive twin since the moment we’d found him in that suburban drug den. Maybe because he was clearly hurting from invisible wounds, or maybe because when he called me Angel it didn’t feel like he was harboring ulterior motives.
The crunch of running shoes on the sidewalk drew my attention away from my phone call a moment before I was hit by a solid, sweaty body. I caught a glimpse of purple hair before my lips were caught in a punishing kiss.
Seven a.m. on a public street, in front of a laundromat, was not the time for a heavy make-out session, but I felt myself melt into the moment anyway. Harvey may have been a sex-driven, self-centered asshole, but he sure knew how to kiss.
I gripped his sweat slicked shoulders as Ruby’s voice chirped through my phone, but I couldn’t pull away, caught up in the salty taste of his lips.
His hands mapped my body, roaming from my hair to my breasts, down to my ass in a circuit, like he was trying to prove something to himself.
As I felt him harden against my hip, I forced myself to disengage.
The last thing we needed was someone putting a photo on social media and letting the label executives in on how I’d decided to tame my band members.
“Harvey, hey. Slow down.”
I planted a hand on his forehead and forced his head away, smiling into his dazed eyes as he ran his tongue over his lips.
“Did you have a good run?” I asked, eyeing his tank top and running shorts.
Calling him an exercise fanatic would be an understatement, and with so much of his body on display, I couldn’t argue with the results.
My attention caught on the noticeable tent in his shorts, and with a quick glance around the street, I pulled him through the door and past the washers and dryers to a back corner where he could calm down in a semi-private place.
I realized my mistake almost instantly. With a quick glance to check the cameras, Harvey pulled me into his body with a smirk.
“Tatum King, answer me this second, or I’m calling 911 on your ass.” Ruby’s voice sounded far away, and I didn’t resist as Harvey took the phone from me.
“She’ll call you back.”
Ruby’s threats were cut off mid-sentence as he ended the call and took my wrist. With gentle movements, he maneuvered my hand between us and ground his erection against it, his eyes growing heavy with lust.
“You think you could help me out with this?” he asked, letting out a deep groan as he moved his hips in undulating waves.
Instead of responding with words, I slipped my fingers under the waistband of his shorts and gripped his smooth flesh.
“Fuck,” he gasped, spearing his fingers through my hair and bringing my mouth back to his.
A thrill ran through me as somewhere in the laundromat a machine beeped the end of its cycle. We were in a public building, but the threat of being caught did nothing to dampen the excitement of the moment as Harvey’s cock kicked hard in my hand.
“Fuck yes. Just like that,” he praised.
I ran my thumb over his head again, spreading his precum to lubricate the slide of my fist over his length. A murmur of voices on the other side of the machine he leaned against made me pause, but his only response was to take over the movement, thrusting into my fist with increasing urgency.
He buried his face in my hair, one hand reaching up to cup my breast as he whispered in my hair, “Don’t fucking stop. I’m so close to coming all over your pretty little fingers.”
He swallowed my protest with another kiss as his movements became more erratic. Pulling away just far enough to tug his shirt up and expose ridiculously chiseled abs, he came in long spurts, head thrown back in an ecstasy that made him look younger, more vulnerable than his usual cocky smirk.
“Thank you,” he whispered as his shudders faded.
I froze, unsure if the words were meant for me or someone else. It became irrelevant in the next moment as he brought his head level, eyes sparkling with his trademark playboy smirk, and stole a random shirt off the top of the dryer to wipe his cum-spattered abs.
Without another word, he straightened his clothing, winked, and sauntered out with his head held high.
What the fuck had just happened?