No Quarter (NOLA's Own #2) (40 page)

I was never cool with that kind of shit. Hitting a woman in the face was just disrespectful. It didn’t do shit for me. But he was getting off on it. And then…he fuckin’ backhanded her and knocked out one of her fuckin’ teeth. I saw it fly out of her mouth.

Then, he spit on her, right in her bleeding little face.

I’d never forget his face when he looked straight at me and told me, “That’s what your fuckin’ Baby Girl deserves.”

My heart…
oh God
…my Baby Girl never, ever, ever deserved to be treated like that.

My heart fuckin’ froze in my chest, and this guy, who I’d shared so much with, thought that I would allow someone to touch Kenna like that, spit in her precious face like that…

In that one second, I was done.

I picked the poor girl off the floor, blood streaming from her mouth. She wasn’t even crying, and that freaked me out the most. She was just so numb to it all.

I told her we were done, it was over, and Devon just laughed at me and called me a pussy.
Whatever.
I didn’t care. I helped the girl get dressed, and I tried to find her tooth, but that shit had disappeared somewhere. So, I gave her enough cash to get dental work done if she wanted.

She promised she wouldn’t call the cops, that she had been asking for it…

Fuck, that was so wrong. No one asks for that shit.

Devon just shrugged it off, but I got dressed and got my shit and left. I went to X’s and Flipper’s room and told them that Devon and I argued, and I left it at that. I crashed on their couch and avoided leaving the room until it was time to check out.

I spent that time thinking back over the past six weeks, over everything I had done, everything I had told Devon. I freaked the fuck out.
Who had I become? What…what had I done to my soul, living like a fuckin’ deviant like that?
I hadn’t, at any point since leaving home, done anything with myself other than get fucked up and screw some freaky chicks.

What was worse was that I came to the fuckin’ conclusion that Kenna had been taking all the blame for my fucked-up-ness. I had blamed her for me making an ass of myself, for me not being the man I should have been. I hated myself even more for that.

I was filth. I was garbage. I wasn’t worthy of that sweet, gorgeous goddess who had robbed me of my soul when I kissed her that hot, balmy night so long ago. I didn’t deserve her. I didn’t deserve my lifelong dream I’d had with her by my side, the mother of my children, the muse of my entire existence.

I was broken. What would she want with me? What would I have left to offer her when I was finally able to go home?

What does it matter? She let me go.

After that, we left for Switzerland and got back into the studio.

A few months went by, and I met a cute little thing who had her own flat and liked rockers with big dicks. Long blonde hair and cornflower-blue eyes, Brigid took me in and made me feel almost normal. I had been depressed for so long, lonely and miserable, that she felt good to be around. The guys liked her all right—well, Jason thought she was good for her drug connections, if for nothing else. She introduced me to heroin, and the few times I was on that, I was able to just…let go.

But in the end, it wasn’t in me to like that shit too much. Something inside me kept reminding me that I wasn’t supposed to walk down that road, that there were greater things ahead of me.

I wanted to love Brigid. I wished I could’ve fallen head over heels for her, so I could tell Kenna to fuck off and then get on with my life. But I knew there was no way…because I couldn’t fuck Brigid either without holding my dick, not wanting to really be inside anyone but my Baby Girl. If I ever found her again, it would be the one thing left I could give her that no one else really ever had.

All of me.

Not even that very first time, I couldn’t get it all the way in before my ex screamed out in pain and bled all over the fuckin’ place.

Something inside me knew that Kenna would be able to take it all. She had been made for me. Or I had been made for her. Whatever the case, no one else could have it. It was hers.

That was how I was able to just get up and leave Brigid. And I knew I’d fuckin’ hurt her. We had been planning that she’d come with us on tour. But right before we were scheduled to leave, I was asleep with Brigid in my arms…and Kenna came to me.

It was a new dream, not the one where she and I were married and had a houseful of our awesome brats. This one, we were lying in my old backyard, looking up at the stars, and she was saying the same shit I’d heard in my head when she did that salute at the last show. I’d do it at the end of our shows now, so if she ever saw them, she’d know I was still thinking of her.

“I honor the place in you where Spirit lives. I honor the place in you, which is of Love, of Truth, of Light, of Peace. When you are in that place within you and I am in that place within me, then we are One.”

And that was it.

I woke up, and the woman in my arms…it was as if the seven previous months meant nothing to me.

I had heard
her
voice, had felt
her
hand in mine, and it was all I needed. I was, in that one waking moment, a whole man. I knew who I was and who I needed to be.

And none of it was with Brigid.

The next day, we left. I left a screaming, crying woman in my wake. I promised myself no more fuckin’ girlfriends. It wasn’t fuckin’ worth it. The next woman I would commit to would be Kenna. She was the only one.

We toured all over Eastern Europe, Russia, Japan, and then back through to Italy and Spain, finally landing in Germany to record
Addicted Masochist
. That took a little over a year. We got a break for six months. I thought about going back home to look for her, but I was scared that if I found her, I wouldn’t leave again, and we had a tour scheduled. So, we all stayed in Germany, and then we toured the British Isles and Scandinavia.

That was when I met a really cool chick. There was just something so familiar and charming about her that I couldn’t help but want to get to know her a little. She was sweet, and although I knew she was a bit of a groupie with the other bands touring a similar circuit, it didn’t bother me because I wasn’t looking for anything serious.

I told Camryn I wouldn’t mind if we were friends that hooked up when we could, and she was all for it. I ended up tellin’ her a lot about myself, more than I had with just about anyone, even Brigid. I guessed because Camryn wasn’t my girlfriend, I felt like I could tell her about my Baby Girl.

Unlike when I had told Devon about Kenna, I was able to remember Kenna with the happiness I had felt in those couple of hours I had had with her. Camryn got it. At least, I thought she did. And she was a good lay, too. She never got upset that I wouldn’t go down on her. Brigid was always so fuckin’ pissed about that. I wondered why she’d even wasted her time with me. And Camryn never bothered to ask why I had to hold my dick when we fucked.

This arrangement was working just fine for both of us—until we were all in the same hotel as Cornered Cannibal. It was for a few days back in crazy-ass Finland, the last leg of the Scandinavian circuit, before we headed to some fuckin’ hot weather in Costa fuckin’ Rica. We were all dying for some tropical heat by that point.

As to be expected, I avoided Devon at all cost, and too ashamed of what I had done, I never told Camryn about it. But I guessed Devon had noticed that I was spending a lot of my free time with this girl. One night, he found her on her own and convinced her to come join him in his room, that there was a party going on and that I was already there. She believed him.

He got her up to his room. He beat her, and he raped her. Then, that motherfucker dumped her bruised and battered body in front of my hotel room door and left her there for me to find.

Camryn was hysterical—well, that was just a given. She banged on my door, bawling her little eyes out, wearing only her bra and panties. She told me everything he had done to her, and she gave me his message—she was payment for letting his last toy—the girl he’d spit on—get away.

I fuckin’ tore that hotel apart, looking for him. But Cornered Cannibal had checked out less than an hour before. I wanted to call the police, but she begged me not to, saying she didn’t need more trouble. She worked the circuits as a makeup artist. If word got out that she’d snitched on a band member, she might not get hired out again.

So, I left it at that. She went home to California the next day to heal up before she had to find more work. I gave her some money to live off of while she recuperated. It was my fuckin’ fault. I was responsible for her suffering.

And once more, NOLA’s Junk stepped on a plane—only this time, we were one step closer to going home. A few more months, and I could start looking for my Baby Girl. After everything, after all this time…all I could think about was her.

I stopped fuckin’. No matter what my blood tests kept telling me, I didn’t feel clean enough to be worth a damn. Instead of fuckin’, I started working out like a head case. I could at least give Kenna something worthwhile to want to look at.

I caved on my birthday though. I got hammered, and Sheri offered me a blow job. Once more, Jason pounded at her while she sucked me off. Just like old times.

But after that…I swore, the next woman who touched me like that was gonna be Kenna. If I had to go all monk and be celibate for the rest of my life, so fuckin’ be it.

God, it was fuckin’ quiet. It was like that inner peace kind of quiet Kenna had told me she’d look for when she was meditating. I couldn’t look at her, not yet. I was scared shitless of what I might see in those forest-green eyes.

I fuckin’ love that color. Her eyes are the most amazin’ thing I’ve ever looked in.

But it was all out there—every fuckin’ stupid, fucked-up piece-of-shit thing I had done with my life since I saw her shining in an ocean of faces. I couldn’t take it back, and I didn’t want to. The weight that had been pressing down on me all these years was gone. If she couldn’t see past it, at least I wasn’t carrying it anymore.

Who am I kiddin’? I’ll be fuckin’ destroyed if she leaves me. I’m nothin’ without her.

I heard her move, heard her get to her feet, and I was so fuckin’ terrified. I squeezed my eyes shut and dropped my head in my hands. I didn’t wanna see her walking away from me. I didn’t wanna see how ashamed she was of me.

I can’t, I can’t, I can’t!

Kenna, my beautiful woman…I felt her come closer, could feel her beating in time with my heart. She stood before me and crouched down. I could smell her, and fuck, she smelled so good—clean and pure, a light musk that never failed to arouse every fuckin’ atom in my body.

“Phil…” Her voice had the texture of cream.

I could
feel
it
when she spoke. Soft, deep, and husky, she sounded smooth and buttery all the time.

“Yeah, Baby Girl,” I wondered when the devastation would hit me.

This woman had put up with some serious shit because of me. I was a fuckin’ wack job. I knew that. I was always flying off the handle over stupid shit, freaking out at the slightest hint that she might want out.

And now…

“Look at me,” she commanded
.

Fuck me
. Every fiber of me wanted to do everything and anything she ever asked of me.

“I can’t,” I told her, my voice breaking up into splintered bits as I desperately tried to hold back the fuckin’ floodgates.

She must think I’m the biggest fuckin’ pussy. I cry in front of her all the fuckin’ time. I think I’ve cried more since I found her than I have the past six fuckin’ years.

Well, no. Maybe not that much.

Her hands reached in between mine, and she cradled my face, lifting me…but I couldn’t open my eyes.

“Please…” she whispered.

Oh God, please let her forgive me. Please, please, I will do anythin’. Just don’t make me live without her again.

My eyes opened and met her solid clear gaze. Inside her, I could see quiet waters with tiny ripples…so cool, so peaceful, and sweet. The breeze within her was like the Breath of Life itself. I didn’t see condemnation. Bruised undercurrents surged beneath those waters, not forgiveness…just acceptance.

“Oh God, Kenna,” I choked, my chest feeling as though I would suddenly burst. Dry hot sobs were trapped in there, fighting to get out.

And she
smiled
at me! Her gentle, calm, soothing smile, and I was undone. I started shaking, and the floodgates busted wide open.

Kenna pulled me into her arms, held me to her, as my fuckin’ huge ass crashed to my knees before her.

“I’m so fuckin’ sorry!” I whispered.

“Shh…” She stroked her hand over my face, dropping a kiss on my head.

She was so strong, strong enough to hold me and rock me like a babe in her arms, while I howled like a broken little boy.

“It’s all right,” she assured me. “It’s okay.”

“How? How is it okay?”

“Because, even knowing what I do, I wouldn’t want you any other way.”

That’s why she’s my Baby Girl.

She always knew just what to fuckin’ say to make my world make sense.