A Rocker's Melody (Dust and Bones) (28 page)

“Come on,” he coaxed, nibbling on her earlobe at the same time that he finally slipped his fingers beneath her bikini bottom. “You can multitask. I wanna know. You’re all these different colors. Yellow and pink and blue and purple. Which one’s your favorite?”

His fingers swirled and stroked with practiced ease, and she gasped. It was clear that he was teasing her, just enjoying the feel of her against his skin. She knew he could do this with her for hours and not tire of it.

“I don’t have a favorite,” she confessed, giggling as he kissed and sucked on her neck. His fingers moved lower, two of them slipping deep inside her, causing her to clench down on them. Her giggles trailed off into moans; he felt amazing.

“Gun to your head,” he taunted, pressing and twisting his fingers. He could play her like an instrument, but it wasn’t just his skill as a musician that made him so adept at this—he had put in time with all his sexual pursuits.
I’ll never be upset about his life of debauchery. God bless those girls for letting him practice so much.

“I couldn’t pick,” she gasped. “They’re all me. Sometimes I’m pink and girly and sometimes I’m yellow, bright and alive. Sometimes I’m blue, because I miss the sea or I’m feeling melancholy. Sometimes I’m purple because I am a goddess.”

“You’re my goddess,” he agreed, fumbling with the strings of her bikini bottom with his other hand. “You’ll always be my goddess. I need you.”

“I need you, too,” she whispered. He untied the strings and peeled her bathing suit away. She could feel him pressed against her ass, naked and hard and hot. She mewled in protest when he removed his fingers from her body, but he shushed her and pressed desperate, hungry kisses to her neck and jaw and ears as he eased his cock inside her.

“God, yes,” she cried, reaching her hand around to tangle it in his hair. She loved this, being with him; she wanted to see his face, and she opened her mouth to tell him so, to ask him to move...but the words froze in her throat. She couldn’t ask him to change positions. She was filled with the terrible certainty that if she changed anything about this moment, he would disappear.

“You’re so warm,” he muttered, thrusting against her. His hands hungrily roamed over her thighs, her hips, the swells of her breasts. He pulled the cups of her bikini down roughly and pinched her nipples. He bit at her neck and she came, suddenly and almost painfully. “I’m sorry I hurt you,” he whispered, still moving inside her.

“You didn’t,” she denied. This was rough, but it was nothing she couldn’t handle. The pain was incidental to the overwhelming pleasure he was bringing her.

“I’m so sorry,” he repeated, gripping her hips with both hands as he plunged into her ever more insistently. He pushed her forward, until she was lying on her stomach in the sand, her hips tilted upward as he thrust almost helplessly behind her. Her face pressed into the sand.

“I’m drowning you,” he said, though he showed no sign of slowing his movements.

“You’re not,” she promised, and it was true. She still had no problem breathing. She reached her hand up again to curl around the back of his neck. His skin felt like ice. “You’re cold.”

She tried to move, to finally switch their positions. She would be able to warm him up if she could wrap her limbs around him. She wanted to hold him so close he would never feel the chill again. But he resisted her movements, pushing her hands back into the sand with his own. His fingers were freezing.

“Let me in,” she begged him.

“I can’t,” he whispered. “I’m sorry, Mel, I can’t.”

Suddenly he released her hands and left her body. She scrambled to her knees and reached out for him, but he was already gone. The sea air turned frigid and she shivered, standing naked and alone before the stormy sea. She called out his name, and her voice echoed along the empty beach.

He was gone.

**

Melody was still softly crying his name when she woke.
Just another nightmare.
Lennon rested his massive head on her knee, staring up at her with wide, worried brown eyes. She absently scratched behind his ears, both aroused and disturbed by the dream she’d just had. She didn’t need a psychotherapist to analyze what it had meant.

Never be with a man you think you can fix,
her father had wisely warned her, back when she had barely been a tween.
If they need fixing, there isn’t a do-it-yourself kit in the world that’ll get the job done
.

But Dylan didn’t need fixing, because he wasn’t nearly as broken as he
or
her father thought. He just needed someone to keep him warm. He just needed to be reminded occasionally of how much he had to offer. Melody would be willing to spend the rest of her life reminding him that he deserved to be loved, if it would keep him safe. She needed him to be safe.

If he’s safe, I’m probably going to have to beat him up.

“You’d beat someone up for Mommy, wouldn’t you?” she murmured to Lennon. He affirmed her words with a sloppy kiss and a low woof. “Good boy. If Dylan won’t listen to reason, I’ll get you to rough him up for me.”

Suddenly her phone rang, loud and piercing in the silence. Melody gasped. She banged her elbow on the headboard and nearly gave poor Lennon a black eye as she hurled herself across the bed to grab the phone from where it lay on her nightstand.

Tank’s number came up on the screen.

Well, it was about time. The last thing Jesper had told her was that the band would be heading over to Snake’s house in Topanga to see if he was harboring their fugitive. That had been—she glanced at the clock—four hours ago? What could have possibly taken so long?

Maybe they hadn’t found him. Maybe they
had
found him, and he’d put up a fight. Maybe they’d found him and lost him again, the way she had lost him on the highway back in Oklahoma.

“I guess there was a lot of traffic on the Canyon?” she said when she answered the call, feeling defensive and upset.

“Mel.” Tank’s voice was heavy and hoarse, as if he’d been yelling or arguing with someone. Under different circumstances she would have felt bad for him.

“So, did you find him?” she asked, trying to let go of the gnawing feeling in her stomach that told her the whole world was about to fall out from under her.

“Jesper’s on his way over to your place,” Tank said slowly.

Her brow furrowed in confusion. “What? Why would Jesper…”

There was a knock on her front door. Lennon barked once. Melody was suddenly seized by the absurd urge to huddle in bed and bury her head underneath the covers.

“There’s been an accident, Mel.” That was why his voice had sounded so thick. He hadn’t been yelling, he’d been crying. Tank, big, strong, burly Tank, had been crying.

Numb shock—and naïve hope—kept her functioning on autopilot. She hung up on him and hurried to the door, her heart beating in erratic patterns, alternating between slow, pained beats, and spurts of panic-fueled speed. Fumbling with the knob, she wrenched open the door. Jesper stood there, his eyes red and empty. Though pain and terror shot through her, Melody’s eyes remained oddly dry.

“What happened?” she asked, though she found herself dreading the answer.
Don’t say the words, Jesper. If I lose Dylan, if something’s happened to him...I won’t be able to survive.

“There’s been a car accident. Snake was driving. Dylan was the passenger. Both wasted.”

Thump
. Melody suddenly found herself on the floor—her knees had given out. A buzzing sound filled her ears, and she struggled to draw breath. It was as if all the oxygen had left the room. Her head spun, her vision went blurry.

Jesper knelt before her and put a hand on her shoulder. She shivered at the touch; she felt feverish and nauseous, still unable to fully process what she was hearing, still grasping onto a last, foolish shred of hope.
Please God, don’t do this. Don’t let this happen. He
has
to be all right. It can’t end this way.

“Dylan…” he began.

“Tell me he’s okay,” she whispered, in a voice she wasn’t quite sure he heard.

Jesper shook his head.

The world fell out from under her.

It was all over the news, all anyone could talk about. Obsessive fans swarmed outside the hospital, desperate to know the salacious details. Nurses and orderlies whispered behind their hands and cast them furtive looks. It was an endless barrage of speculation and rubbernecking.

How did he die?

Was he drinking?

I heard there was a hooker in the car.

The body was burned so bad it had to be identified by dental records.

Melody sat in a stark, sterile waiting room, staring blankly into space. Jesper and Tank were with her. It had only been a couple of hours since Jesper had led her to his car and driven her to the hospital, but to her, it felt like days.

There was only one other person in the waiting room aside from the members of the band, a young woman with poorly-dyed blonde hair. She was glued to the television, and she turned up the volume as a news anchor began delivering a special report. Melody felt perversely amused as her gaze flickered to the screen and she saw the story.
What do you know? Band’s big enough to get a spot in regular programming. Dad will be thrilled.

“We have official confirmation coming in from multiple sources that Snake McCreedy, the bass player of Dust and Bones, has died today. This tragedy occurred less than two weeks after he was released from a rehab facility in Texas. Dylan Bennett, the band’s lead singer, was also involved in the accident. The men were driving down a private road in Topanga Canyon when the car allegedly went over an embankment. Mr. Bennett was immediately taken to Cedars Sinai hospital and is now in the operating room in critical condition. We’ll have more on this story as it—”

“Could you turn that off?” Melody asked, leaning towards the woman. She couldn’t stand watching the images of Snake and Dylan flashing across the screen. Snake looked so young. He had
been
young. He’d had so much time ahead of him, but it had all been cut short. Now he was leaving behind four brothers who would mourn and miss him for the rest of their lives, four men who didn’t deserve to see the media snatching up the tragedy and heartlessly feeding it to the masses for their benefit.

The woman shot her an offended glare. “Are you kidding? This is major. Dust and Bones is probably going to break up. Bands always break up when someone dies. And if Dylan—”

“Turn off the goddamn TV,” Melody spat at her, starting to rise from her seat even as she felt bile rising in her throat at the mention of Dylan’s name.

“Hey, calm down.” Jesper leaned over and put a restraining hand on her arm, encouraging her to sit. He offered an apologetic glance to the woman across from them. “Sorry, it’s just been a very long day. We’d appreciate it if you could turn the TV down.”

“Look, I was just sitting here trying to watch…” The woman trailed off as she got a good look at Jesper. Her eyes slid over to Tank, then back to Melody, and they went wide with recognition. She picked up the remote from where it lay on the seat next to her and switched the channel. An old game show rerun flickered up on the flat screen.

“Sorry,” Melody whispered, slouching down lower in the uncomfortable waiting room chair.

“At least you’re talking again,” Jesper said.

Melody frowned. “I haven’t been talking?”

“It was starting to freak us out,” Tank said from where he sat on her other side.

He said something else, but Melody was no longer listening. In fact, she hadn’t heard much of anything since she had gotten into Jesper’s car, and he had said those three magical words:
Dylan’s still alive.
Alive, but in surgery, his prognosis undetermined.

Through her muddled haze of relief and agony, she had managed to pick up other small snippets of important information: Snake had died on impact, and—contrary to the gossip—dental records had not been required to identify his body. The car had flipped multiple times, but Dylan had been flung from the vehicle relatively early in its descent.

She closed her eyes, trying not to think about anything—about the crash, about what sort of terrible shape Dylan must be in, about the horrid hospital. She’d never been fond of hospitals before, but between Emma and this, Melody had grown to loathe them. The smells, the sounds, the lingering promise of death...it was all too much to bear.

“Is there any word from the doctor?” she asked Jesper, who had spoken to one of the orderlies at the nurse’s station about ten minutes ago.

He shook his head, his shoulders slumped with worry. “He’s still in surgery. They don’t know how long it will be, but they said we should prepare for an all-nighter.”

Melody nodded and gazed around morosely, resigning herself to the longest night of her life. It was then, and only then, that she realized one of their members was missing. “Where’s Rip?”

Tank sighed. “He lost it when he heard the news. He said he couldn’t take being cooped up here, so we decided he should be the one to clean up Snake’s place and collect all his stuff. So his parents don’t see…you know.”

She didn’t know, but she could imagine. “That’s good,” she said quietly. She shuddered to think about what those two self-destructive fools had done to Snake’s house. Plus, Snake undoubtedly had questionable items lying around, both drug-related and…
other
. No one’s mother deserved to find their son’s porn collection.

“The doctor says…” Jesper’s voice caught, and he cleared his throat. His eyes began welling up again, and he blinked rapidly. “Mel, he says we should prepare ourselves, just in case—”

“He’s not going to die,” she said with fierce determination. “Dylan is going to be fine. Do you understand me?” It was this, this certainty that he
had
to be okay, that was keeping her sane. She hadn’t cried once, not on the ride to the hospital, and not in the waiting room. Because…he was going to be fine.

Melody thought back to something Grace had told her—she said that she’d refused to cry when Emma was sick because it felt too much like admitting there was something to cry about. Well, Grace had kept Emma alive years longer than any medical professional had predicted was possible. When she’d heard what had happened to Dylan, she hadn’t cried; instead, she had calmly stated that she was on her way to the hospital. If Grace could manage to be strong for Dylan, then Melody was going to have to be strong, too.