Chapter 3
Stella
Things are already progressing at a heart-thumping rate.
This may have been the goal when I left the house tonight, but I wasn’t expecting to be quite this successful.
When the drummer approached me at the bar, I think I almost peed my pants.
His sexy-as-sin smoulder had my knees weak and my panties damp before he even started talking to me.
And the way he spoke, his voice low, warm, and rich, I swear I would listen to him read my building’s ancient washing machine instructions on loop.
And now, I’m alone in a closet with him. Is it a smart-girl move to go to a private area with a man you just met? Absolutely not.
Did I have any power within me to stop me from following him? Absolutely not. And now, I’m not convinced I won’t combust before he touches me for real. Heat and desire and carnal ache engulf me.
I can’t hold myself back anymore as I surge up to meet him, desperate to have his lips, his hands, his body, anything I can have on me. There’s a slight, wanton tremble in my limbs as he fully takes over all my senses, stealing my breath and drowning me in his soft, clean scent.
The air is knocked out of me as the tantalizing drummer presses me to the door, deftly locking it as he reaches down the back of my thighs.
I squeak when he hoists me into the air, pinning me between the door and his hips.
My legs wrap around him on reflex before he takes my mouth possessively.
The way he moves with confidence, like he knows exactly what to do to me makes heat pool low in my belly.
The grip he has on me isn’t predatory, only forceful enough to make me shudder. I moan into him, my eyes closing before I realize it, as I move to grip his short hair tightly.
The lazy dominance of his kiss turns my insides molten as his hips drag against mine, the thick ridge in his jeans grazing between my thighs with the most delicious pressure that has me panting under him. This is what I was after, the craving I’ve been itching to satisfy.
“Hmmm, strawberries,” he murmurs before plundering my mouth again, stealing any thoughts I might have otherwise had.
His hand is braced against the back of my neck, trapping me against him.
He can trap me however he wants, I think to myself as pressure builds inside of me. I grind my pelvis against him and the hold he has on my ass tightens. I’m aching as he slips his hand between us, teasing the waistband of my leggings.
I can’t hold back a whimper as he slips his fingers inside, skipping my panties entirely, and I can read the exact moment that he realizes how wet I am for him.
A groan rumbles out of him as I angle my hips, giving him all the permission he needs to start stoking the fire he’s built in me.
I can barely catch my breath, focusing on the sensations of him playing me and nothing else.
All of my attention has narrowed to this one point. This one touch.
There is nothing but him.
I’ve made out with people before, and more than one has been generous enough to get me there, but this is another experience altogether.
It’s as though he can read me and predict every movement needed to have me falling apart for him.
This huge, impossibly delectable man is going to make me come in the back of my workplace and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
Nothing that could make me want to stop it.
My thighs begin to quiver as they tighten around his middle, needing him closer.
“Tell me your name, sunshine.” His voice is low in my ear, making every one of my nerve endings a live wire. I have to take a moment to find a spare brain cell he hasn’t obliterated before I can answer.
“You don’t need it, stud,” I whisper, feverishly pulling him back into the kiss, tasting his drink from earlier and melting at the faint scrape of stubble I hadn’t noticed before from his jaw.
“Well,” he says, pulling away just enough to get the words out while still sucking on my pulse point, making it very, very difficult to think, “What can I say, I’m a gentleman.
I prefer to have a woman’s name before I make her come all over me.
” A small whine slips out of me as I rock my hips harder.
I’ve never felt urgency like this before, a desperation to have someone. He’s lit something in me that I don’t ever want to put out.
“Please,” I beg.
“Please what?”
“Please don’t stop!” I’m so close, desperately chasing release as he focuses on my clit.
The small circles he rubs are killing me, overwhelming me until the dam breaks and I’m unraveling for him, panting sobs escaping me.
Light bursts behind my eyes as I ride it out, my hips never stopping their rhythmic pressing into his hand.
I lean my head back against the door, trying to catch my breath, lungs heaving in the smell of sex and his cologne.
At first, I think he’s going to put me down, but he only removes his hand and holds it up for me to see. It shines with my own arousal, and I nearly come again when he puts it in his mouth and draws it out slowly. My mouth hangs open as I witness it. I want to lean in. I want to taste.
“Your name, sunshine?” He’s a persistent bugger, still placing open-mouther kisses on any exposed skin he can find. A brief shiver ripples through me as I try to resist him and his devious interrogation methods.
“You tell me first,” I tease, trying to catch my breath.
“James,” he says between placing teasing kisses to the column of my throat. I bite back a whimper, lost in the way his skin feels against mine. This is by far the best kiss I’ve ever had.
“James the drummer,” I murmur as he brings his face back to mine.
James the drummer.
James the drummer.
I jerk back before he can kiss me again.
“Nessa’s brother, “James the Drummer”?”
He freezes. “Uh huh… and you are?”
“Stella.”
“Stella.”
“The friend.”
“Shit.”
“Shit.”
He drops me abruptly, rattling my knees.
“Oh fuck, sorry, I just—"
“No, I get it, totally fine.” An arctic breeze could have swept through the supply closet, for all it chills any heat between us. I just made out with Nessa’s brother.
Scratch that, Nessa’s brother just gave me an orgasm in a supply closet. Nessa’s older, really hot, totally off limits brother.
Her brother who… still has his hand on my ass?
“Umm, well this kind of sucks,” I giggle awkwardly, praying for the earth to swallow me whole and breaking the connection, “So… I’m gonna go…” I’ve almost turned the doorknob when Mr. Big Hands over here wraps his fist around mine, caging me in between him and the door.
“You can’t say a word of this to Nessa,” he growls out. Holy crap on a cracker, that voice should come with a warning and a wet floor sign.
“No kidding man, I don’t want to get murdered either.”
“She wouldn’t murder you.”
“No, she wouldn’t murder you. You’re family, I’m fair game.” He chuckles, hitting me again with that rich, deep sound.
“You’d be surprised.”
Ugh, I have to get out of here.
“Anyway, this has been…” Not knowing what this has been at all, I nod vaguely and slip out the storage room door. I try my best to collect myself as I race back to the main room. Some people are clearing out, but I spot my girls lingering near the door and hustle over to them.
“Hey, babe!” Hazel waves me over. “Where did you go?”
“The bathroom!” My voice is way too high to be nonchalant, and Hazel narrows her eyes at me through the boozy haze hovering over her. Nessa doesn’t seem to notice. “I think I’m going to head home. I’m pretty wiped and I have the early shift tomorrow.”
“You could have asked Beck for it off. You work yourself to death, and that’s coming from me.” Coming from Hazel, the workaholic, that is saying something, but I can’t exactly give up shifts.
“I know, I know. I can’t help that I like to keep myself busy.” Out of the corner of my eye I see James leave the hallway and make his way over to his band mates who are cleaning up to help them. “Love you! Bye!” I called over my shoulder, already halfway out the door.
No reason to wait for the night to get worse.
My small studio apartment is cold and quiet as I turn the lock behind me, toeing off my boots. It’s a bit run down, maybe a little cramped, but it’s what I can afford with my pathetic budget, so I’ve done my best to make it into a home. At least for now.
My bed sits at the end, right by the curtained window, with my tv across from it.
The space is covered with storage shelving, photos and postcards all over the walls, a pile of clothes on the floor, and a half-eaten cake on the kitchen table that I forgot to put away before we headed out for the night.
Luckily, I had the forethought to put a cover over the dish, so I put it in the fridge while I putter around, doing the bare minimum of tidying.
I take a look at the card on my fridge from my dad, fondly going over the old drawing on the front that he did himself.
His artwork has always been so pretty, this one depicting fresh fallen snow on a lamplit street, stars twinkling above in the sky.
It matches the picture hanging in the living room when I lived back in Caledonia.
I remember no matter how we would rearrange our decorations, that one always stayed the same.
My mom even framed it with Christmas lights one year to make it festive.
Having a small part of it on my fridge makes this place feel more like home.
I light a candle before crawling under my fluffy duvet. As far as birthdays go, this one was pretty spectacular, even if I did get gross fingers in my mouth, abandoned by my friends, and made out with my friend’s brother. Her ridiculously hot, talented, older brother whose voice sounds like sex.