Between Octobers Bk 1, Savor The Days Series (54 page)

“What ‘way’ would that be?” My voice sounded
weird: quiet and rough.

He didn’t get to respond because the doorway
behind him was suddenly filled with marching bodies. Four guys in
oversized jeans and plaid shirts. Another band had just made their
entrance.

Jake moved in close, speaking into my ear.
“If you’re interested in the answer, please, find me after?” His
breath felt hot on my neck, his lips briefly brushed my temple.
“You come find me, Angel, and I’ll show you the way.”

I turned about ten different shades as
I awkwardly mumbled a pre-show blessing, “Kick their asses,” and
went back to find Avery waiting at the mouth of the hallway. I
slapped my hand against my forehead, feeling like a clown.
Kick their asses? Why not, ‘have a great show’? Or
‘break a leg’?

“You did fine,” Avery assured me later. And
when I told her what Jake said, we had major giggles over it. She
was super happy for me and encouraged me to act on what I was
feeling.

“I’ll think about it.” I whispered.

“A hot-ass rocker . . . Scratch that.
The
hot-ass
lead singer
of your favorite band just offered himself to you! He’s all
you talk about.” She knocked on my head, doing her best Biff Tannen
impression. “Hello, McFly? What’s there to think about?”

The very idea made me nervous. What if he
didn’t mean it? Or worse: he did mean it and then was disappointed
in me after?

All of the angst melted to extreme
excitement when Analog Controller took the stage. Jakes’ gifts had
the audience aglow, screaming with righteous enthusiasm. He was on
fire, too, holding the steady flame of his eyes on me throughout
the show. I watched his mouth smooth over the mic-head as he
sang:

If I were smart, I'd run.
You kill for pleasure. Torture for fun.
Expectation gives way. You’ve won.
Just come over here, you look like fun.

I jumped and moshed and sang along to
every song, enjoying his attention and the growing need sparked by
the words he whispered to me in the back room. I wanted to
know
his way
; the path he’d
promised to lead me down. When the set was over, I cheered until my
voice cracked and the band disappeared into the bowels of The
Mystic Muse.

Avery and me went with the flow of traffic,
dispersing to other parts of the club once the stage was empty.

By the time the next band was introduced,
most people were crowded up at the front once more. But Jake was in
back, sitting at the bar amid a small, lingering crowd.

I was sure approaching a guy was the hardest
thing I had ever done, but he made it easier. First with his
invitation, then with his freshly showered hair and head-to-toe,
dark brown outfit that made his milky skin seem like it had been
dipped in caramel. His not-so-baggy jeans gave just a peek of the
top of his boxers. His long, thin t-shirt gathered at his waist
like he hadn’t taken the time to pull it all the way down.

“Keep performing like that, Jake, and the
label reps will turn into groupies.” I gushed, trying to be
funny.

He turned his powerful eyes on me. “I don’t
pay attention to groupies.”

I wasn’t sure if he heard my lame joke, but
knew that his response was molded by modesty. There were at least
half-dozen women in his vicinity after that performance. But he was
telling the truth, he didn’t exchange anything more than
pleasantries with them.

He was leaning against the bar holding his
complimentary drink of choice—Jack and Coke. Every guy in the band
got free drinks. He had a believable fake ID. We all did, but mine
only said I was eighteen.

He eyed me as I gushed, trying to tell him
how much I loved what he had created.

“You know what I love?” He interrupted, and
there was something in the way he stood and leaned in with his
hips, like he was going to tell me something very important and
couldn’t risk the words getting lost in the surrounding noise.

“What?” I barely breathed, remembering the
way he whispered in my ear.

Jake leaned in close, setting his lips at
the shell of my ear and speaking low, “I love that you thought
about my offer and came to find me.” He drew back and into his
glass, gulping down the last of his drink. “How old are you,
again?”

Avery was standing behind him, talking with
the drummer, Max, and a group of other people. Her eyes popped wide
when she heard the question.

I started to answer, “I’m seventeen,”
but Avery’s rapid hand signals flew behind Jakes head, screaming at
me,
“Say ‘eighteen!’ you idiot!”

So, I improvised “I’m . . . s-super close to
eighteen. Hours away, actually.”

Jake set his empty glass on the bar and
wrapped both arms around my shoulders. “Really? Well, lucky me. And
lucky you, too. Happy Birthday, Beautiful.” His voice was syrupy
sweet as he took my hand and led me towards the back of the
club.

The second we were out of sight, his hands
were on me. His smooth palms caressed my jeans, stuffing their
fingers into my back pockets. “What’ch you got in there?” Through
the layer of denim, he cupped one side of my butt and offered a
vicious smile, “Nothing but ass.”

No one had ever touched or spoke to me that
way before and I’m not ashamed to say that I loved it. It was every
fantasy I had turned reality as I pulled him closer. Emboldened by
desire, I grazed my nose along the intoxicating scent of his neck.
Heaven. A slight edge of clean sweat still lingered there, as if
during his post-show shower he’d rinsed very quickly, as if he
couldn’t wait to get to me, as if he wanted me as much as I wanted
him. I pressed him against the wall of the dark hallway, but Jake
pushed back, pressing his lips over mine. Pouring desire into
me.

This was so much better than the waist
touching and the pocket-play. It was . . . blood boiling, liquid
fireworks.

His hands moved up from my hips to my waist.
They stretched around the circumference before he pulled away and
chuckled. “You’re so tiny.” I followed his gaze down to my waist
and was surprised to see that the tips of his thumbs were only a
few inches apart. “You’re like a little bird. I better be gentle, I
don’t want to break you.”

I had never thought of myself as thin or
tiny and I was going to say so, but stopped when Jake gave his lips
back to me. I felt movement and then I was pinned between Jakes
chest and the wall.

The next time words were exchanged, we were
inside the bands old cargo van. It was a beater—big and
clunky—covered in graffiti and stickers, with no seats, only a huge
open area in the back. Jake spread a blanket over the worn carpet
of the van floor and we fell inside, never breaking our hold on one
another. He pinned me beneath him, pressed his hips into me, using
his knees to push mine apart. The sweet pressure of him did strange
things to me. A new kind of friction that made me greedy, made me
want every part of me to touch every part of him. My hands seemed
to know what to do. I didn’t even have to think about taking them
from his face to touch his shoulders or sliding them down his taut
arms and back.

“Angel.” Jake breathed into my mouth, took
my breath and gave me his own. “Angel. I want you so bad.”

After this confession, before I had a chance
to respond, Max opened the backdoor. There was a pile of equipment
beside him. it was time to load up. Max looked at Jake, rolled his
eyes, and muttered something about getting a room. So, our steamy
moment was put on pause. I hid my embarrassment behind my hair as
we got out to help.

Once all the equipment and instruments were
loaded, all of us, including Avery, smashed inside the old Dodge
van, off to Analog Controllers’ motel.

The problem then became privacy. The band
was sharing one room with two queen size beds.

Andrew claimed one, Max claimed the other.
Avery laughed from a chair in the corner. But I could tell she felt
sorry for me.

“Take a walk?” Jake asked, nudging my
elbow.

We strolled the empty corridors of the
motel, passing up ice machines and payphones. An older couple
passed us. They were both dripping water, wrapped in towels, and
holding hands, talking with one another in a way that said they had
been together for a very long time.

“Sorry.” Jake murmured once they passed.

“For what?” I stopped walking.

“For not thinking ahead. For not being able
to finish what I started.” His eyes smoldered. “We could just make
out in the van?”

I was standing in front of a glass door. The
one the older couple had passed through. Just beyond it was the
motels’ enclosed pool. I looked through the smoked glass at the
empty lounge chairs, the sparkling water, and pressed on the door.
It was unlocked. We walked inside and Jake pushed the door closed.
His long fingers deftly turned the deadbolt, locking the door from
the inside.

He turned back to me, wide-eyed. “Is this
okay?”

I felt my body straighten, preening as I
nodded. “Definitely.”

He took my hand in his and pulled me towards
another doorway that was labeled ‘employees only.’ He took a quick
look through the room without stepping in and reached one arm
inside. The lights of the swimming area went out.

We kept walking. The poolside was now solely
lit by a hallway that led to showers. Jake grabbed a fluffy lounge
chair and set it in a dark corner in the back, out of sight.

I stared down at the red and white stripes
of the cushion and felt his lips on my neck. All my muscles went
limp under his sweet pressure. His arms came around my waist and
those nerve endings flared again. A fire exploded within. My hips
instinctively pushed against him. I gasped as his fingers knotted
into my hair, his nails scraping my scalp as he turned me to face
him.

“I don’t know if I ever told you, but I
think you’re very beautiful.” His palm rested against my face.

“So are you.”

His eyes seemed to search mine before making
a groping march down to my mouth. He tilted my head up to his, set
another hot palm over the place where my neck met my shoulder. His
thumb grazed my throat. I released a pleasured sigh.

“If I moving too fast, you’ll tell me,
right?” His lips grazed mine as he whispered.

I nodded, aching for his kiss. But I had to
wait. He kept his eyes on mine as he laid me down on the red and
white striped chaise. Once again, his knees separated mine, making
room for his hips as he pressed his weight onto me, picking up
where he left off in the van. A glorious shiver ran through me as
Jake hovered above me, finally closing the distance between our
mouths. His kisses were hypnotic: demanding and sweet, breathing
into me, taking pleasure and giving it back. I was dazed.
Illuminated, by his glorious blaze, dancing in the fire he
kindled.

I heard myself whine with guilt and delight
as he lifted my shirt. Guilt, that I had snuck off and left Avery,
and delight, because Jake felt so good, and more guilt because I
was acting like such a groupie, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t stop.
I could only be thankful that I borrowed Avery’s black lacy bra. It
was a little too snug, but made my boobs look great. I yanked Jakes
shirt off in turn and tossed it aside as his fingers moved to my
jeans.

Jake was the one who stopped, but only to
investigate the small set of lines over my hip bone. His thumb
grazed my side, his brows knit together as he tugged the top of my
jeans a little lower to better see the marks I had given myself as
an experiment. As I was trying to remember which underwear I was
wearing, he backed up onto his knees and I realized what was
happening.

Chagrin gathered in my cheeks and I
confessed before he asked. “I’m not a cutter. I just tried it a few
times.”

“
What do you mean by
tried
?”

“Well . . . uh, my friend, she does it. She
says it helps her feel better and I wanted to know what she meant,
so I did it with her.” I kept Avery’s name out of it, knowing she’d
want me to.

“Create a hurt that she could feel. And take
away. To make it heal.” Jakes eyes drifted as he spoke
rhythmically, as if he were reciting a poem or lyrics. Then his
gaze came back to mine with renewed ferocity. “I get it. But you
shouldn’t do it anymore.”

I nodded my agreement, setting my hands on
his beautifully bare stomach. He was lean, with subtle but powerful
cuts around each muscle group. The thin line of hair below his
belly button felt silky under my fingers as Jake leaned into my
touch.

“Turn over.” He commanded, with dark
eyes.

I hesitated a moment, confused. Then, did as
he said. Jake grabbed my hips and lifted me up onto my knees. The
denim slid slowly down my legs and I fell forward as he pulled. I
felt him touch the exposed skin on the backs of my thighs as he
peeled the denim away.

I’d never felt so vulnerable as when his
lips touched low on my bare back. I liked the way it felt, but it
was so unexpected, so alien. I froze like a thief caught in a
spotlight; glad he couldn’t see my face.

The heat of his breath disappeared. The
cushion beneath me shifted. “Angel?” I turned to face his raised
eyebrows. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

“I want to.” I was glad the lights were low.
I didn’t want him to see how tense I was.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.” I nodded.

Two thumps and Jakes shoes hit the concrete
floor behind him. Quickly standing, Jake removed everything from
his lower half in one motion. Before I could appreciate the sight
of him, he swooped back down, forcing my body onto the chaise until
he was, once more, completely on top of me. His magical kisses
relaxed me. His gifted hands held me tight.