Savage Melody--Sample (Book 1 of The Savage Series)

Chapter 3

Holland

I wiped the smallest smudge of mascara away and grabbed a Q-tip from the small box on my vanity.

After leaving JB three years ago with nothing but my clothing, all my s**t was secondhand or brand new.

Well, new when I could afford it.

Meaning all my s**t was pretty much secondhand except for my bed, which I refused to buy used. Bedbugs and s**t. Those little fuckers were near impossible to kill. They were right up there with cockroaches and those horrid cases of antibiotic-resistant bacteria you found in the local public hospitals. MRSA or infections that caused you to leak pus from open sores on all manner of body parts.

Gross.

My date was in forty-five minutes, and I hadn’t a moment to spare. I still didn’t know what to wear and was bouncing ideas in my head as I made my eye makeup smoky and sensual. At least I hoped I did. For all I knew, I looked like a raccoon who’d been on a garbage binge for a week and hadn’t slept the whole damn time.

I f*****g hated makeup. And makeup tutorials. You know, those idiotic things you watch on YouTube that are either brilliant or make you look like a complete chola? Irritating. I took all my makeup looks from magazines. I didn’t need to look like a hooker or some drag queen that was out for a night on the town. And Kyle was pretty laid back, so it took a lot for me to try to tame down my habit of overdoing it.

I liked dramatic looks. The pity was, I couldn’t always cut it. Too much eye makeup and I ended up looking like Bozo the Clown after a bar fight. Other times, I went completely without and ended up looking strangely washed out. Like those weird alien heads you saw on the sides of the roads in the arid southwestern states in a nod to Area 51. There was no middle ground. I didn’t do subtle, and I didn’t do plain.

My text message alert came on, and I looked at it.

Fucking JB. It was his third text since leaving TKO, and he wouldn’t leave me alone. I was screwed since I couldn’t block his number because I was their PR rep. Their PR rep. Repping for Savage Melody. Again.

Fuck my life.

JB: Babe, I’m gonna call you.

JB: Answer your f*****g phone.

JB: Dammit, Holly.

Yeah, telling me to answer my f*****g phone was really going to work. Tell me you got someone pregnant or have a cracked-out hooker in your hotel room, and I’m your clean-up girl. My ex calls me babe and wants to talk? No f*****g thank you.

A fourth message buzzed, thankfully from Kyle this time. He was inquiring if we were still on, and I gave him my subtle version of hell yeah.

Holland: Of course.

It was as much enthusiasm as I could muster at this point since JB was on my mind.

I spritzed on my favorite perfume and walked through a cloud of it, turning around. Repeated.

Lather, rinse, repeat. It worked for perfume as well.

I dabbed a bit between my breasts, hoping he would be able to smell it while his face was stuffed between them with his d**k inside me. For good measure, I added some to my armpits. Because you never know when your favorite brand of deodorant would start to fail you. It’s happened before.

Forty minutes later I was ready when my phone rang. I picked up eagerly.

‘Hey, beautiful. You ready?’

I grinned, saying a silent hell f*****g yeah in my head and letting Kyle know I would be down in a minute. It was difficult to get into my apartment building, and it was only our second date. He could meet me in front to pick me up.

I know, I know. I wouldn’t let him see my apartment, but I want his c**k shoved up inside me. I’m a complicated girl. I don’t really go for much anonymous one-night s*x, but this is L.A., and there are crazies everywhere. Something to do with the normal-to-celebrity ratio the entire county had going on. It sucked in every brand of weirdo around. Like a black hole of mental health disorders and vegans. At least the high-rise apartment building I was in was crowded enough that it would be hard to figure out which floor I lived on, much less which exact apartment.

Maybe I’d let him into my Chamber of Doom on the third date. Well, we’d see how tonight went.

Kyle was smiling, wearing light-colored chinos and penny loafers. s**t. I didn’t think they even made those babies anymore. Still, he looked good in them, probably the only surfer boy that did. He wore a green polo that stretched tight as he uncrossed and then crossed his arms again, giving me a small peck on the lips as a greeting.

“Hey, babe. You look hot in that,” he told me, opening my door with a twinkle in his eyes.

I looked down at what I was wearing, a springy-blue sundress that I had worn maybe once to one of those hippy-dippy beach weddings people in Southern California liked to have. It was nice, but not too nice. The matcha drinking, surfer-girl style nice. I thought it fit well with what he was wearing, and I sighed internally, relieved.

“And you make preppy look particularly sinful with what you’re wearing,” I told him, not giving him too much to gloat over.

“s**t. I am wearing something a little on the preppy side, aren’t I?” he asked, the side of one lip quirking up. “Don’t tell anyone how well I clean up, though. I have a reputation to live up to. Anyone finds out I don’t always wear speedos and live in the sea and my surfer game is toast.”

“Does a surfer actually need any game?” I asked. “I thought all your game was played out on the waves.” No one ever thought, ‘Wow…a surfer. He must be clever and interesting to talk to’. At least no one in SoCal did. You didn’t date a surfer for his non-existent MENSA scores.

I’m not saying surfers are dumb. I’m sure there are plenty that graduated high school, maybe even went college. But I had been living in L.A. for two and a half years and had yet to meet one that had a college degree or enough wit to entertain me after one conversation.

Sometimes it was like dating a cardboard cutout of a person. Pretty, but no substance.

But, as I said, I didn’t date Kyle for his witty banter. The guy was hot. He was blond with sun-bleached curls and a smooth, cut chest. His abdominals should have hymns written in their honor, and his V-line was one that I wanted to lick until my tongue went numb. Maybe I could get on that later. Hopefully. And with the looks I was getting from him in my dress, that was turning out to be a definite possibility.

Kyle climbed into his beach-ready cheap-as-s**t car and started it up. It was a Honda and had more miles on it than JB’s mattress, so I was assuming he had it tuned pretty regularly.

“I’ve got a competition coming up in a few weeks,” Kyle said as he drove down the highway on the way to...who knew where? He still hadn’t said. “I was wondering if you wanted to come and watch. It’s in Malibu.”

Malibu had lots of beachfront property and hardly any beach. It made me think the competition was a small but an important one. Why else invite me to watch him if there wasn’t something to be gained from a triumph?

“When is it?” I asked, trying to get a read on him. It was hard when all he did was smile, even when I was questioning him. He was either truly a happy person, or too dopey to realize I’m skewering him with little jabs to his ego half the time.

“Three weeks from this Saturday,” he told me. “Can you make it?”

It was a Saturday, and since I worked a regular nine to five day most weeks, there was a good chance that I probably could.

Then again, with Savage Melody, chances were also fair that one of those idiots would f**k something up that I’d have to sweep under the rug. Honestly, my money was on JB. He was the ultimate f**k-up.

“I’ll have to look at my calendar, but if I’m free then, sure,” I said. That was ambiguous enough of an answer to close the topic, but, as I implied earlier, surfers—namely Kyle, in this case—were not the sharpest tools in the shed. He opened up on the topic and waxed poetic over...waxing. Both his board and his abs and chest.

Now, I am all for manscaping. It kept me from having hairs stuck in my throat, but waxing on a man was 50/50 for me. A little too much waxing and I’m liable to think you’re bi or straight up—hardy ha-ha—gay. Fortunately, for surfers, it was a lot like professional swimmers. They did it because it helped them surf. I heard getting chest hair stuck in the wax of your board hurt like hell.

That was, thankfully, something I would never have a problem with. Ever.

And chest hair sucked. It covered lickable tattoos and pecs, around the n*****s and...well, I personally found it unsightly.

I wondered if he manscaped below his board shorts, too.

“They’re putting a lot of us up in the Malibu Beach Inn.” My head swung in his direction. The place was swank. Maybe this wasn’t such a small fry competition as he made it out to be.

He had me at Malibu Beach Inn.

And I was definitely going to try and find out how much manscaping this boy did before the competition.

§§§

Kyle took me to a beachside inn with a dining room that looked posh but was definitely catering to the beach-going crowd. No one wore a tie, and few women wore heels. Most who did wore strappy sandals like myself, and a few sensible heels made their appearance, though nothing over a few inches.

Dinner was fine, Kyle chatting about his upcoming competition with the one-track mind surfers seemed to have in regards to the ocean, ocean, and everything about the ocean and water and waxing. And surfboards. It would have bored me if I wasn’t so busy undressing him with my eyes.

And his eyes. They were a gorgeous sea-green. No wonder he loved the ocean. He could have been born a Titan and I wouldn’t have been surprised. Except for the fact that they were mythical and as real as a man who didn’t think first and foremost with his d**k.

Or maybe I was wrong. Kyle didn’t seem too intent on eyeing up my chest, though his gaze did slip lower every once in a while when he decided to take a breath before continuing his ’101 Things You Didn’t Know About Surfing and Always Wanted To’ monologue. He could have told me salt water made his d**k bigger and I would have been none the wiser.

Every so often, he moved his chair closer to me until he was sidled up right next to me, his head leaning as close as it could without knocking into mine.

“Holland?”

“Hmm?” I was too busy staring at his pillowy lips to understand a word that was being said.

“Did you want to go back to my place after this?”

“Sure,” I said immediately.

That was my date version of hell-f*****g-yes.

“I have videos of my previous tournaments if you want to see.”

Smile? Gone. I was going to literally die if I had to watch hours of surf competitions with him breaking down all the moves and explaining why he didn’t place first on that particular day.

“Or we could do other things.”

If I’d had a d**k, I’d have one hell of a raging boner right now. And it would have stood straight up at his invitation of other things. I guess his first suggestion was just his way of gauging how the date was going. It was kind of smooth and a little bit sloppy at the same time. I didn’t know how he did it, honestly. If he wasn’t so pretty, I’d probably have left when we’d gotten past ‘Malibu’ and landed on ‘competition’.

The check was brought, and I was pleased to see he wasn’t a cheap tipper. I hated guys like that. Giving ten percent instead of at least the 15 that was expected. They ended up being cheap dates and even lousier in bed. Greedy. It’s why I always gauged whether or not I would sleep with someone—well, possibly—by how much they tipped. Kyle tipped about 20%, and my heart sang in my chest. He was going to be fun.

§§§

I dropped my purse by the door and onto a small table next to an ornate crystal bowl. It was empty until Kyle dropped his keys in it and gripped my shoulders before colliding his lips with mine.

He had kissed me before. A sweet kiss on the cheek. A lingering one that had his tongue slipping into my mouth slowly. This kiss was on an entirely different level. It consumed me and made a moan leave my throat the moment his tongue came in contact with mine.

In other words, it was hot. Like steaming hot. So hot, I wondered if I had stepped off the earth and was now waiting in line at the gates of Hell hot.

My hands slid up his chest before snaking into his hair, my fingers curling into his long, wavy locks before tugging him close.

He groaned, and I felt a small chill zip up my spine as his fingers found and released the zipper in the back of my sundress.

“Kyle,” I murmured when his lips traced a soft line over my chin and down my throat.

He grunted, his lips too busy to make words form. I wasn’t complaining.

“Bed...bedroom.”

He was off like a shot, pulling me toward the back of the apartment he lived in—thankfully alone—as he pushed down the bodice of my dress and drank in the sight of the half-bra I wore under it. It somehow both pushed my breasts up and together, making me look larger than I was.

God, I loved that f*****g bra. It was the Godiva Chocolate of intimate apparel.

He kissed across my collarbones as he tried to unsnap it from the back. It was a front snap, but I was so lost in the moment that I couldn’t open my mouth to explain the wonders of it. He’d figure it out soon enough.

Or maybe not.

He lapped at the soft skin above the bra line and worked his way to the middle, his hands coming to the front. He had finally figured out this was no normal bra, the tricky little thing. He stopped as his face was stuffed—just how I had imagined it earlier—between my t**s and pulled back. There was saliva in my cleavage. A whole f*****g lot.

Kyle sneezed.

And sneezed again.

He sneezed so many damn times his eyes became red and puffy, and I was about to give an obligatory ‘bless you’ at any moment. Just as soon as he stopped his carousel of endless sneezes.

“Are you...” Sneeze. “Are you wearing perfube?” he asked.

“Yeah. I put some on before leaving my house,” I told him.

“’lergic,” he mumbled, sounding like he had the world’s most intense cold.

“What?”

“I’b allergic,” he said. “Scents, flowers, perfubes. Fuck.”

Oh f**k.

“Is your throat closing up? Do you have an epinephrine pen?” I panicked, eyes widening as I looked around the room as if I could cast a spell to find some sort of antihistamine or drug to help.

“Baffroob.”

“What?” I clearly wasn’t banging on all cylinders. I should have known he meant.

“Baffroob!”

I scuttled off to get whatever I could find in the bathroom. It was neat, thank God, so it wasn’t hard to find what I was looking for.

An Epi-pen.

I held it out in front of me like it was a sacred, true piece of the original cross, and gave it to him. His face was starting to swell, and it was all I could do not to panic and call 911 immediately.

I’d killed Kyle.

Oh, God was I going to Hell.

He uncapped the lid and stabbed himself on the outside of his thigh before dragging a deep breath into his lungs. It rasped and rattled around in there, and I immediately hurried him off toward the living room, pulling my bodice up and nabbing my favorite bra and stuffing it in my purse before I grabbed the keys and Kyle and headed to his car.

I did 95 on the freeway towards the nearest hospital and rushed him inside before I realized I hadn’t parked the car, just plunked it at an awkward angle at the front of the building where ambulances would pull in, and rushed him through the doors.

The keys were still in the ignition.

Fuck.

Anyone could take it.

Oh, well. It was either his Honda or his life. You figure it out.

“Allergy...Epi-pen...can’t breathe,” I breathed out, watching as the nurse at the front desk looked from between me and Kyle, trying to figure out who the injured party was. I pointed to Kyle, unable to get another syllable out.

The nurse looked closer at Kyle and his face, which was starting to resemble a grapefruit, and moved her heavy ass. Honestly, the girl had the ass that ate the crowd. J. Lo-sized.

I scuttled off to take care of actually parking the car and not making it a menace to the gun-shot victims and stab-wound toting ambulance drivers that would probably be coming around shortly. Because, let’s face it. It was L.A., people, not f*****g Romper Room. Violence was as commonplace as plastic surgery in some parts of the city.

In my mind, though, plastic surgery was just another form of violence. Have you seen those after-photos, the ones taken just after people got their faces sliced open and stitched back together? f*****g creepy.

His car was still parked in the same place I’d left it, but was now getting a ticket. I had the police officer give it to me and promised I’d pay it as it was basically all my fault. I moved his car to the proper visitor’s parking lot and ran back inside the hospital.

The nurse who escorted Kyle back brought me into one of the emergency rooms where Kyle was already hooked up and being given fluids, needles sticking out of his hand like big accusatory fingers pointing straight in my direction.

You did this, they seemed to accuse. You almost killed him. You’re a horrible, horrible human being.

I felt horrible, but the nightmare was only beginning.

“Hol?”

Fuck me.

JB

“What are you doing in the emergency room?” I asked as the poor schmuck in the bed next to her turned fifty shades of red and purple before my very f*****g eyes. And all in the matter of seconds, mind you.

“What are you doing here?” she retorted in response. “Finally have to bring a cracked-out hooker to the ER?”

She turned to face me, and I was suddenly very aware of my d**k as it knocked against the inside of my leather pants.

Fuck. She wasn’t wearing any damn bra.

I knew Holland’s t**s almost as well as I knew my own c**k. I had seen them in a bra, under shirts, tank tops, in a tiny-ass f*****g bikini, wrapped around my d**k, and it was very, very apparent she was bra-less under that light blue sundress she wore.

And it wasn’t for me. Probably for that sad fucker who was sitting next to her on a hospital bed, head resembling a bursting eggplant.

“Have a good date?” I had to ask. Because it was there and right in front of me. Apparently, the date had started well—hence the no-bra situation. Holland always wore one, and the loser she was with ended up in the emergency room somehow.

“Fabulous,” she said scathingly. “Grade A. Best second date ever. We’re planning on marrying next week and popping out a couple of babies before the year’s up.”

The dude in the hospital bed was so out of it, he didn’t even respond. Maybe his ears had swelled up too and he couldn’t hear what she was saying.

“What are you doing here, JB? You usually keep the carousing and mayhem to concert nights or the weekends,” she remarked, eyes still curious as to my reasons for being in a hospital.

“I was visiting a friend’s mom who’s in the cardiac unit,” I told her. It was the honest to God truth, too. “Came out to find a place to smoke and saw you walking into the ER. Had to come to check it out and make sure you were okay.”

Her narrowed eyes spoke of her doubt. I didn’t blame her for not believing me. If I was her, I’d think I was a lying sack of s**t, too.

I needed to mend that—and quickly.

It was my fault completely, but I was willing to beg and plead on my hands and knees if it would get her talking to me, and I wasn’t the one who usually did the begging.

“Bull.” It was one word, and yet it said it all. She didn’t believe me. That was fine. She didn’t trust me. I could gain it back. I had to, because I was done. Done pretending my life was fine. Done pretending I didn’t miss her every waking f*****g moment for the past three years.

Every unconscious moment, too.

I was done pretending she wasn’t my life, and that I didn’t need her—all of her—in it.

§§§

At one point, the ER nurses shooed us out, saying they were taking the red-faced blond with elephantiasis of the face to get bloodwork done. Apparently, having a rock star in the ER was distracting.

I followed Holland out the ER’s door, walked a good distance away, and lit up a cigarette.

“You can’t smoke out here,” she ground out, her voice sharp.

“It’s a free country, and I ain’t doing it in the hospital itself. Who am I hurting?”

“It’s the law,” she simply said, ever the PR agent.

Right. All the damn hospitals nowadays didn’t allow smoking on their grounds. But Holland forgot something. I was a f*****g rock star and I basically made my own rules. I was not just being cocky. It was the truth. I’d never been kicked out of a bar, even in my sloppiest moments.

“Do you think he’s going to be okay?” she asked. I had to think for a moment about who she was speaking of before responding. As far as I was concerned, elephant man was a non-entity.

“He’s at a hospital. He’s fine,” I responded before taking a drag.

And not that I cared if the dude ended up with a swelled-up face for the rest of his life. It might be a humbling experience for the little s**t.

“What happened?” I asked. Again, because I had to. “He allergic to v****a?”

“No.” Her voice was so small I almost dropped my cigarette at her tone. “He’s allergic to perfumes.”

“Had his face shoved up between your t**s now, did he?” I knew Holland, better than she would admit. No bra plus her tendency to dab a little something extra between the ladies equaled anaphylactic shock to those allergic to fragrances. Good thing it wasn’t on his d**k. Or maybe that wasn’t a bad thing if he had a tiny c**k like I suspected.

“None of your business,” she said, her voice cutting again.

“You’re not wearing a bra and you always did dab a little extra perfume between your tits.” I shrugged. “It’s not an out-of-this-world guess, babe. Still wearing Cool Water like some chick born in 1989?”

Cool Water. I loved the smell of it on her. Made me think of kissing her in the rain. Coming all over those gorgeous t**s of hers and marking her with my own personal scent.

“Things change, JB,” she said, her voice soft again. She was all hard edges mixed with soft ones. It was maddening, the mood swings the girl had. My girl.

I leaned in, took a whiff of her.

Still Cool Water.

“Some things change. Some things stay the same,” I said into her ear just as she shivered at my closeness. It certainly wasn’t the cool night air that affected her that way. It was still 80 degrees out at 10 PM.

“What’s his name again? Kirk?”

“Kyle. Kyle Peterson. He surfs.”

I snorted at her answer.

“So, he’s stupid,” I said in reply. Surfers usually were. At least the kind I had met. Dumber than a box of cornflakes after a full frontal lobotomy.

“Not stupid. Athletically inclined.”

“So really stupid.”

A beat.

“Maybe a little.”

I frowned. Holland hated stupid people, and here she was dating one. Unreal. It’s like she took my exact opposite and decided to f**k it. I certainly wasn’t stupid. If I hadn’t started my band and decided to roll with it for good or bad, I would have gone to a university, though I doubted there were many investment bankers or lawyers as tatted up as I was.

Plus, I hated authority. I would’ve been held in contempt for so long in the courtroom, I would’ve seen my 30th birthday before seeing freedom again. Yeah, it was probably best that I stayed away from anything legal or any job needing a boss hanging over me. I was best as my own supervisor.

I was one lucky motherfucker.

“You see his tiny prick and decide to kill him, or was this just bad luck on his part and you weren’t aware of this allergy of his?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Just me and my stupid bad luck,” she said, mumbling the words.

She was right. She had some crazy bad luck at times. Mortifying public ones, too. I didn’t regret them. She was cute as hell when her face was all pink with embarrassment.

Fuck. I missed seeing her face that way. Whether it was flushed with excitement, embarrassment, or lust, I wanted to see it all. All her emotions. I even missed her at-times idiotic neuroses.

“What’s wrong with your friend’s mother?” she asked, pulling me out of deep thought about how red her face got after I made her come on my d**k.

“Clogged artery,” I said. “Something called ‘the widowmaker’ or whatever.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

I shrugged. “She was lucky. Came in here to get a test done and ended up finding the clog. They’ll put a stint in her chest and she’ll be just fine.”

She was silent, looking away from me. I know why she did it. At least, I hoped to God I knew why.

Holland still had feelings for me. It’s why she was dating the exact opposite of me, why she couldn’t stand the sight of me. Or at least pretended not to.

Most importantly, it was why she wasn’t telling me to f**k off and get out of her sight.

I flicked the rest of my cigarette away, not caring whether it landed in the bushes or on the street.

“Hol, can we talk?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said sullenly. “I’m your PR agent, so unless you want to talk about image, I’m gonna say that’s a hard pass.”

“Babe—”

“Stop calling me that!”

There’s my irritable girl.

“I’d say I’m sorry, but you’re still a babe,” I told her, smirking.

She made a noise like she was disgusted, but I saw her face redden, the color washing down to her neck as it often did when she was enticingly flustered.

When she didn’t say anything else, I continued to wax poetic—in my own signature way.

“You’re still so f*****g gorgeous you make my d**k hard just by looking at you,” I said quietly. There was an ambulance pulling up, and I didn’t need to add a heart attack at my words to whatever was going on in the back of it. “I still remember what it’s like to feel you coming on my c**k and fingers—on my lips. I can still taste your cunt on my tongue. I can even differentiate the color of your face between embarrassment and lust. I still know you hate stupid people and always will. So why did you go out with that poor fucker in the ER, Holly? Because I know it wasn’t for his mental capacity to keep you entertained, and I damn well know it’s not like you to f**k and chuck someone.”

She didn’t say anything for a solid ten seconds.

“We were going to go to some surfing competition in a few weeks together,” she said. “We were going to stay at the Malibu Beach Inn. I’ve always wanted to stay there.”

“You’re not going,” I growled, fists clenching tight at my decree. It got her to look at me, though.

“I doubt he’ll want to see me at all after I almost killed him,” she said honestly.

“Good,” I gritted out, because again, I couldn’t help myself.

Her head snapped up at me and she read the meaning in my eyes.

“It’s not good. Kyle was sweet. Sure, he’s no Whiz Kid, but that wasn’t what I was after.”

“You were after good d**k, sweetheart. Something you wouldn’t get attached to,” I told her. “Something you probably wouldn’t have gotten with him at any rate.”

“Like you’d know,” she scoffed.

“I know how you f**k, and how you like to take it, Hol. I know how you kiss and how you can suck my d**k like a f*****g Dyson. You think he was going to be rough with you the way you like it? That boy’s got ‘p***y’ written all over his face. He’d probably be sweet and gentle and want to f*****g cuddle afterwards. You aren’t like that. That’s not what you need, babe. You need—”

“You don’t know what I need,” she spoke, her voice arctic. “And I don’t need you to tell me your hypothesis on what kind of f**k my dates are.”

“You need my d**k—that’s what you need, sweetheart,” I told her. “Long and thick and nice and tight between your p***y lips. A rough f**k with my hands all over you. Smacking your ass, squeezing your t**s, biting your n*****s. You need my hands gripping you as I pound into you like I’m trying to f**k you through to the floor or straight through a wall. That’s what you need. You don’t have to say it. I already know.”

“And I know you’re still the same cocky bastard I left three years ago,” she told me, her jaw tightening. “I know you’ve changed, and so did I. I don’t think your change was for the good or I wouldn’t be here to clean up your messes.”

My hand reached out to grip her arm. She gasped as my fingers branded her skin. Her squeak was even louder when I yanked her body into me.

“The only mess I need cleaning up is the one you left me in three years ago,” I confessed. “You took my heart with you when you left me, Hol. I need you to give it back to me.”

Her eyes narrowed after widening marginally. “I would give it back to you,” she said. “If I knew you even had one.”

Ouch.

“I have one, baby.” I moved in even closer. “It’s torn up, but it still seems to have a direct link to my c**k when it comes to you.”

She was quiet for a moment, her jaw working in anger. Or regret. Or...something.

“Let go of me,” she replied. If it wasn’t for the breathiness in her voice, I would have believed she really wanted me to. But, no. There was something under that tone that told me I was correct.

I affected her.

Fuck. Yes.

“And what if I don’t?” I asked. “What if I kiss you or slam you up against the wall? What if my hands slide up your creamy thighs and finger f**k you until you come?”

“JB.” It was a mewl. A needy one at that.

“What if we go into a supply closet in the hospital and lock the door behind us so I can bend you over and f**k that tight little p***y I’ve been missing for three f*****g years? What then?”

“JB, I don’t—”

“You do,” I interrupted. “You want everything I just said, but your pride won’t let you admit it to yourself. I still affect you.” I leaned in. “I can smell your wetness, baby, and it smells like heaven.”

I didn’t give her a chance to refute that. I leaned in and laid one on her, fusing my lips to hers before spearing her with my tongue and tasting something that had been missing for way too f*****g long.

Holland. She must have still loved chewing fruity gum. She tasted like watermelon. I f*****g loved watermelon gum because of her. It was all she chewed for the week before our break up. Whenever I thought of her now, I remembered watermelon and s*x. Sometimes she would chew gum right before I f****d her, and she’d forget to spit it out. I’m honestly surprised she didn’t swallow it with the intensity of her orgasms. I could wring her dry with my d**k.

No matter what she’d said before about not wanting me, her tongue said differently. It thrust into my mouth like it was f*****g me, and I groaned against the sweet taste of her lips.

My hands gripped her hips, and I was a second away from hauling her off into the bushes to debauch her when the whoop of the leaving ambulance broke our little slice of heaven.

“f**k,” I muttered, her lips a whisper away from mine.

My curse broke whatever hold I had on her, and she wrenched her body away from me.

“You...you shouldn’t have done that,” she said. “I’m on a date.”

“A date.” I laughed. “A date with a man who looks like he was attacked by a jellyfish to the face. His pretty little puss will be looking pretty rough over the next 24 hours, ya know. I doubt he’ll be in any mood to d**k you down like you want. And his tongue? Probably swelled up and s**t. I know how you hate sloppy tongue on your p***y, sweetheart.”

Her jaw clenched again, eyes becoming hard.

“You changed, JB,” she said. “And so did I. Maybe a little sloppy tongue is just what I need.”

She did an about-face and walked off toward the entrance to the hospital.

But I had done what I needed to do. I planted the seed there.

And knowing Holland, I knew she’d be thinking about that kiss—and my words—for days to come.

Holland

JB, that irredeemable asshole, knew exactly what he was doing.

I stumbled through the doors of the emergency room trying to steady my heartrate by breathing slow and deep, knowing the further away I was from Jamison Bettes, the better off I was.

Kyle. The guy I was supposed to be kissing was back in his little cubicle in the ER department. A nurse was talking to him, and he was signing papers. His face…well, it looked better, but still red and irritated. It was almost back to a normal size, and I smiled sadly at him from my place by the halfway open pull-back curtain.

Once the nurse left with the paperwork, he sighed and looked up at me. “Was he a friend of yours?” he asked.

I knew exactly who he was referring to. Hell, I think the shitty wallpaper knew at this point.

“A client of mine,” I said, not wanting to get into the more intimate details of JB and our relationship. Former relationship. “Singer. Savage Melody.”

Kyle nodded before grunting. “I’ve heard of ’em,” he said. “He’s the sloppy drunk that f***s anything with a wet hole. His reputation precedes him here in L.A. Probably across the country, too.”

I didn’t know why—well, I guess I could imagine—but that rankled me, and my feathers were definitely being ruffled.

“He’s not that bad,” I said, trying to be diplomatic instead of giving my usual sass. “Hasn’t contracted an STD yet, anyway.” That I knew of.

Kyle laughed, a bitter chuff of air passing his lips. “The doc said I could go but to come back if the swelling started up again,” Kyle told me, his voice low and sad.

“I’m so, so sorry about this,” I said, moving toward him. He had a band-aid at the crook of his elbow where some fluids had been pumped into him. “I didn’t know you were allergic, and I always use a fragrance on a date.”

He nodded at me, resigned. “It’s okay,” he said. “I never said anything about my allergy, and I’m so used to dating other chicks that hang out at the beach that it’s been a while since I’ve had to tell anyone about it.”

“I...” I paused, trying to think of what to say. “I parked your car in the visitor’s lot. I’ll go get it and pick you up at the entrance.”

He nodded, completely silent. Since I still had his keys in my purse, I walked out without saying a word.

Realizing I hadn’t killed my date and that he was able to leave somewhat intact, I moved quickly to the parking lot, grabbed his car, and moved it so I could pick him up by the ER doors. Once inside, he stiffened in the passenger seat.

“I’ll drop you off at home and I can take an Uber from there,” I told him.

Yeah. He definitely was not going to want to see me after this. Oh, well.

As I thought, he only nodded and looked straight ahead through the windshield as I started to pull away from the curb.

“I...well, I parked in the wrong spot and you got a parking ticket,” I admitted to him when we got halfway to his place. “I have it in my purse, but don’t worry. I’m paying for it since I was the one who parked at the ambulance entrance.”

“Thanks,” he muttered, and continued to look out the windshield without even attempting to turn in my direction.

I apologized profusely again when we got back to his place. He offered for me to wait inside his house while I waited on my Uber driver, but I refused. It would have been like visiting the scene of a crime.

My cell phone vibrated with a text, and I ignored it as I got into the rideshare car and told the driver where I was going. The driver nodded and pulled away, taking the highway to get me to my apartment quicker.

By the time I had gotten home, another few messages had vibrated my cell phone. I waited until I was in my pajamas and sitting back with a glass of white wine and my TV remote to look at them. One from Kyle, three were from JB, and one from...unknown.

Biting the bullet, I opened the one from Kyle.

Kyle: Look, you’re really nice and so f*****g hot, but I think I’m good with dating women more my speed.

Bikini-wearing blonde bimbos with fake racks? I thought to myself bitterly. And who the hell breaks up with someone via text? Teenagers. Teenagers and p*****s.

No wonder I didn’t date dumb surfers often. They had two brain cells put together, and the both of them were warring with each other over which brand of board wax to use. I responded to him.

Holland: It’s fine. I prefer dating men who actually have the guts to speak face to face over immature little boys who have to do it via text. Good luck with your tournament.

Hope your d**k gets bitten off by a great white, I thought. The p***y.

It could only go downhill from there, so I went to JB’s texts.

JB: You home?

JB: Babe?

JB: I know you’re thinking about that kiss. Call me when you’re done fingerfucking yourself to the taste of my lips.

Right. That was so not happening.

I replied.

Holland: And try not to blow your load thinking about my bra-less t**s and the way they filled out my dress.

I closed the conversation and opened up the one from the unknown number.

Unknown: Can we talk? It’s Seth.

Seth.

My mind did some serious acrobatics trying to figure out who Seth was after the day I had. After a minute, I realized it was probably the drummer for Savage Melody. He was the only possible Seth I knew that could have my cell phone number.

Holland: The drummer from the band?

Unknown: Yeah, that’s me. :)

I programmed his phone number into my cell and dialed it. He picked up after only two rings.

‘Hey,’ he greeted.

“Hey yourself,” I said in kind. “What can I do for you? Please tell me you didn’t impregnate a groupie or pick up a tranny hooker, because I’ve had that s**t up to my eyeballs recently.”

He chuckled, low and throaty. Very sexy. ’No, gorgeous. I ain’t in any trouble.’

Gorgeous?

“Then what can I do for you, Seth from Savage Melody?” I asked, taking a long sip of wine after speaking.

‘You can go out with me this Friday night.’

I almost snarfed my wine. And that would have been a travesty. It was a hella good wine.

“What?” I spluttered, grabbing a napkin from the coffee table and trying to sop up the mess I had made on my top.

‘You heard me, baby. Go out with me this Friday night.’

For the love of...

“Seth, you are a client and JB’s bandmate,” I reminded him, tossing away the used napkin and getting up to grab another. “It was a mistake for me to get involved with JB when I was repping him years ago, and it would be a bigger mistake now.”

‘I’m not JB. I know when something’s good, and I don’t f**k it up when I got it.’

“Don’t you have any loyalty to JB? It would add pressure onto an already volatile situation. With Chase slinging s**t against you and JB being the leader—”

‘JB can blow me. I haven’t been with the group long enough to become his friend, and if he f****d up by losing you, that’s on him. He doesn’t have any hold on you now. You made that painfully obvious at the meeting today.’

He made a compelling argument. And with JB’s cocky attitude and texts, I was on the cusp of agreeing. But I didn’t say anything for a moment, and Seth must have sensed my momentary weakness.

‘Besides, this would be a really great way to get back at him for the s**t he pulled three years ago. Jett told me all about that f*****g fiasco. You’re not petty, but you ain’t blind either. Chicks dig the quiet, broody, tattooed rock star vibe I got going.’

“Do they also dig the cocky, self-centered side of you as well?” I asked. He only laughed.

‘They dig a lot of what I’ve got going on, personality and otherwise.’

Okay...

‘And I would be blind not to see that JB still wants you. Sure, he f***s anything with a nice, wet hole these days, but they never stay, and he never brings them home with him. It’s in and out and they’re gone, sweetheart. I have a feeling it wouldn’t be the same with you. At least, not anymore.’

“It’s still unprofessional, even if I’m highly intrigued and would desperately love to see him squirm if I said yes to you.”

‘You were f*****g JB three years ago and kept it secret. What makes you think you can’t do that now?’

“Savage Melody is a bigger name now,” I pointed out. “The stakes are higher, and everyone knows who you are. It makes three years ago look minuscule compared to the attention you’re getting these days.”

‘Yeah, but now that Savage Melody’s such a big name, we can get in anywhere. VIP lounges are private, kitten. Let me take you out. No one will ever know. We can get in through the backdoor of any club and leave without anyone ever seeing us.’

It was an interesting proposition and had delicious possibilities. One I didn’t want to pass on, to be honest. Outside of the fact that this would simply kill JB, Seth was a pretty fine specimen of a man. Built, with just the right amount of tattoos and dark hair. Sinfully captivating eyes.

Plus, from some of the promotional photos I had seen online, he filled his leather pants quite nicely.

“f**k,” I muttered as I blew out a breath. “Okay. I’m in. But if anyone sees us, this is simply a meeting between a PR rep and an artist. And if JB rips your arms off your body and beats you bloody with them, I hope for your sake you have some great f*****g insurance on them.”

He laughed a hearty, resonating boom that hit me right in the eardrums as I pulled my phone away from my head.

‘I’ll pick you up at 8 on Friday, babe. Text me your address. I’ll be the ripped dude in the metallic blue Mustang.’

So, he had a Jeep and a Mustang.

“See you then.”

I hung up the phone, looking at it for a moment like it might blow up in my face before tossing it across the couch and away from me.

Technology was going to be the f*****g end of me.

§§§

Friday flew by at work. I was cooped up in never-ending meetings with the occasional text from Seth, who was always trying to goad me into a response. His texts varied from provocative to plain, making me wonder a little bit about his curious bad-boy mystique. He didn’t give off the air of being a d**k—at least not in the public eye, as of yet.

Seth: Nice photo on TKO’s website, sweetheart. Especially love the way you fill out that tight little skirt of yours.

Seth: I’m taking you to The Heights. A new club that just opened. Some f*****g washed-up actor’s new spot.

Seth: Should I shave my face or do you like a little whisker burn between your legs when I eat you?

I gasped.

Sweet Jesus on the cross. The man is trying to kill me.

Especially when the selfies started to arrive.

I knew I never should have started bringing my cell phone with me into meetings.

“You okay, Holly?” Channing asked.

My eyes snapped up to his, and I forgot that breathing was supposed to be an involuntary action that kept a person from fainting or dying.

“Y-yeah, I’m fine,” I said, locking my screen so no one could see the photo I had just received. “There’s a, uhm...call I need to make. Quite urgent. Can you give me a few minutes?”

Nothing of consequence was going on with the band we were chatting with at the moment, and the bassist was looking bored as we discussed PR for their upcoming album. Mostly everything except for the cover had been squared away, and they certainly didn’t need me for that if Channing was here.

“Sure,” Channing told me. “Take your time. We’re just going between these three album covers. Shouldn’t take much longer.”

I nodded and clutched my cell phone in my hand like it might jump out of my arms and right onto Channing’s lap. The sneaky little s**t of an iPhone would probably open up on the damned photo I had been looking at for him as well. It was probably a new perk of the iPhone whatever-version-we-were-on-now. Those asshats at Apple were always bringing something new to the table.

The bastards.

I stalked into my office and shut the door behind me like I was being chased by an ax murderer. I immediately dialed Seth and hissed into the phone.

‘Yo,’ he greeted.

“Seth, you asshole! Quit sending me pictures while I’m at work!”

He had the nerve to laugh, and I prayed Apple would suddenly invent the technology so I could reach through the phone and strangle him. Apple owed me that one.

‘You like them?’

“Like? Are you trying to get me fired? I was in a meeting with Channing and some dumb bunch of wannabe rockers when you sent that last one! You said you’d be discreet!”

‘Babe, honestly not trying to get you fired. I mean, you didn’t actually have to open them while you were in your meeting.’

I was going to kill him. It would be premeditated and probably messy.

I really should start rewatching Dexter again. It might keep me from being prosecuted for aggravated murder and desecration of a corpse.

“I always answer my texts because you asshole artists are constantly getting into trouble! What do you expect me to do?”

‘Fine, fine. I’ll wait until after 5 to send you the video I have of me stroking my c**k to that photo of you in your work clothing.’

I think my panties disintegrated right on the spot, but I couldn’t be sure. I could no longer feel any part of me. Everything became suddenly numb at his words.

“Seth,” I warned.

’I’ll be good. I can’t help that you’re super f*****g hot looking all professional and s**t. You wear stilettos, sweetheart? I’d like to know what kind of shoe is going to be digging into my back on Friday night when your legs are wrapped around my waist and my d**k is bur—’

I hung up the phone and texted him. If he’d said any more, I would have melted into a puddle right there in front of my desk.

Holland: Don’t text me unless it’s an emergency!

I got an immediate response.

Seth: Ok, babe. I’ll only text you if this erection doesn’t go down after four hours. I hear that s**t’s bad. Getting a nude pic of you might help in that situation. Hint, hint.

I turned off my phone with a frustrated growl. f**k these damned artists. Unless one of them blew up Dodger’s stadium within the next few hours, I wasn’t going to care if any of them needed my help.