On the Road: (Vagabonds Book 2) (New Adult Rock Star Romance) (21 page)

He had no idea what he was doing to me, but it was unbelievable.

As my orgasm began to subside, I moved my hips, sliding past his fingers and shoving him inside me.  Having that rock hard dick inside made me feel amazing once more, only I focused my attention on my motion.  It might not be ladylike to have a lot of sex with a lot of guys, but it made me good at sex.  I knew what men liked.  Yeah, blowjobs would always be at the top of their list, but I’d decided that I was going to be very picky about whose dick I let in my mouth.  Lots of guys loved anal sex too, but most men were simply satisfied with any attention you would show their cock.  I’d made it my mission to not only make sure I was taken care of during sex but could also make it as pleasurable as possible for the guy too.

So CJ was going to benefit from my year on the road.

Being on top, I knew how to move my hips for maximum pleasure and I was also good at reading signals.  His eyes, his breathing, his body language would tell me what he liked and what he didn’t.  “Fucking amazing,” he breathed.  Yeah—he could verbalize his enjoyment too.

As I drove his cock into me over and over, I felt another built-up orgasm sneak up on me again, and my thighs began to clench against him once more.  He too groaned aloud in pleasure as my fingernails dug into the flesh of his chest.

When we were done and catching our breath, I looked down at him, a slight smile on my face.  He smiled up at me too and I almost said it.  I almost told him I loved him.  But thank fuck I didn’t.  A smile was all he was gonna get.

“Choke” ~ Kittie

Chapter Thirty-three

LYING IN CJ’S bed with my head on his chest was nothing short of feeling like heaven.  He was strong and felt so right.  The smell of sex was heavy in the air, more noticeable than I’d ever observed before, and I figured that was because I was completely sober.  I was in the present and my brain was fully accounted for.

I was swirling a finger on his shoulder absentmindedly, feeling full of bliss unlike anything I’d ever known.  After a while, he said, “Sorry.  We forgot to take that picture.”

“What pic—?  Oh, yeah…all dressed up.  Oh, well.  Maybe we’ll have to do it again then.”

He laughed.  “Yeah, I think so.  I love seeing you in a dress.”

I smirked even though he probably couldn’t see it.  “I’m doubting I’ll ever see you in a tie again.”

“You never know.”  We were quiet for a few minutes until CJ said, “So…worth the wait?”

Yeah—probably one of the best times in bed I’d ever had but, for some reason, I didn’t want to tell him that.  Maybe I was still miffed that I’d had to wait all that time.  My voice probably sounded pouty when I said, “Yeah.”

“I, uh…should probably talk to you about something.”  I could feel him stirring underneath me—and I didn’t like the sounds of that.

So I tried not to sound alarmed but I sat up anyway.  “Okay.  What?”

He sat up to, lending credence to my belief that something was going on.  And I wondered why he was telling me
now
instead of earlier—not that anything would have stopped me.  “I think you know I really care about you, Kyle, but…”  He swallowed…and it made me nervous.  If he was going to tell me that that stupid Pepper J whore really
was
his girlfriend, I was going to pull back and clock him hard on the jaw.  Maybe more than once.  But I was going to reserve reaction for when he actually spoke.  “I can’t get into anything serious right now.”

A huge weight slid off my shoulders.  I don’t know why at that moment hearing that he didn’t want to have any kind of real relationship was better than him already having a girlfriend, but it was.  I nodded.  “That’s cool.”

He smiled.  “Great.  I just—you already know what it’s like on the road, and I’m not ready to settle down.  Not by a long shot.  But, if you’re cool with it, I would love to keep seeing you while we’re on hiatus.”

I grinned back, feeling loved when I probably should have been threatening his balls.  “Yeah, I’m cool with it.”  I imagined hours and hours of hot sex with him—so nothing else mattered.  But as he pulled me into his arms and kissed me before lying back down and running his hand over my hair, it started to wash over me that I wasn’t getting what I wanted.  I had somehow managed to fall in love with this guy—but the feeling wasn’t mutual.  He wanted to play the field from now until I had no idea when…and I was so in love by this point that I was happy to share him.

At least he was being honest, right?

Stupid girl.

* * *

The Vagabonds were going to start practicing our new material come the day after Labor Day, so I was surprised when I got a call from Vicki’s mom in mid-August.  “Kyle, we need to meet with you and all the girls in the band.  Can you make that happen?”

That made me think that she was going to tell us Vicki couldn’t be with us anymore—nothing was worth her baby girl turning into a junkie.  I sent a group text to Liz, Kelly, and Barbie, trying to figure out when the four of us could go to Vicki’s house together.  Liz called and we chatted, and she said, “Be prepared to help me find another drummer.”

“Yeah, that’s kind of what I was expecting too.”

“Probably better for her.”  I could hear the remorse in Liz’s voice, but she was her typical stoic self.

It was a week later that we were all able to meet at Vicki’s house.  I was glad we hadn’t planned to begin rehearsals and recording until the fall, because that would give us time to take care of whatever was going to happen after this meeting…although the first week in September might not be feasible anymore.

I was pleasantly surprised to feel happy at seeing my bandmates again.  I’d been so fucking sick of them when we finally got home.  They all had little habits and quirks that had driven me crazy—even Kelly.  Mild-mannered, always smiling and look-on-the-bright-side Kelly even pissed me off with her perennially positive outlook.  Yeah—I’d needed the vacation, but now that I was in the room with the other girls, I realized they meant more to me than I would have admitted at first.  They felt like sisters.  We had done something huge together and it took a little time away to give me some perspective.

I loved them like sisters.  Yeah…even Barbie.

And that filled me with a sadness that threatened to hollow me out, knowing Vicki might not be part of our team anymore.  But I tried to smile instead.  I hugged her, shocked by how frail she felt, almost like she was nothing but a layer of skin covering her bones.  Still, I smiled at her because I’d missed her and I loved her, and I was glad to see her alive.

She’d scared me a lot over the past year.

She had a haunted look in her eyes, though, and dark circles under them.  Vicki’s mom was a pleasant hostess, offering us all iced tea and lemonade before we settled in.  Barbie was even only five minutes late, so I considered her to be on time.  Kelly kept us entertained before our vocalist got there, telling us that her big brother and his wife had had their first child in May, so she’d been staying with them, enjoying her nephew and chilling.

The only news I had to report was CJ—but I kept my mouth shut.  My friends would find out soon enough, but they wouldn’t be surprised.  I think I didn’t feel like sharing it because CJ wasn’t really my boyfriend.  He was more like a friend with benefits—and, for some reason, that didn’t seem like anything I wanted to share with my friends…probably because the FWB status hadn’t been
my
decision—it had, instead, been something I’d agreed to live with.

None of my friends seemed to have much they wanted to share either, but my other three friends at least looked well-rested and healthy, unlike Vicki.  The time off had done them good, but I wasn’t so sure about our drummer.

Vicki’s mom sat down and said, “Thanks so much for agreeing to come over, girls.  Vicki and I both appreciate it.”

“We wouldn’t miss it, Mrs. Graham,” Liz said.

“Oh, please call me Danielle, Liz.”  Liz smiled but said nothing.  “Anyway, on to business.”  She swallowed and wrung her hands.  That was when I could tell how hard this was for her.  I got the feeling that Vicki wasn’t planning on doing any of the talking, and I didn’t think I could really blame her.  If her mom pulled her out of the band, that wouldn’t have been Vicki’s choice.  Sure, she might see the wisdom in it, but she loved the band.  I couldn’t imagine her willingly leaving, and talking about it might prove impossible.  “Vicki had a really hard time on tour.  She enjoyed it—probably a little too much—but there are some things that happened that all of you need to be aware of, things I don’t think you knew about…things that fueled her addictions.”

All of us were quiet.  We all
knew
about Vicki’s addictions, although I didn’t know if we had any idea of the scope or severity.  Danielle grabbed her daughter’s hand and gave her a gentle smile before continuing.  “She was in rehab for thirty days.  It was…hard…but she made it.”  I could tell from Danielle’s eyes that it was more than
hard
for her to watch her daughter suffer withdrawal symptoms on the first step to recovery, but I was glad that she hadn’t chosen to ignore Vicki’s addictions.  “But that’s not why I called you here.  Our family has a history of addiction and it’s something we’re familiar with.  We’ll get through that.”  She took a deep breath and paused, looking over at Vicki again before continuing.  Then she looked at each one of us and asked, “Did Peter sexually abuse any of you?”

It felt like the floor had fallen out from under us.  Why was she asking that?  I shook my head but then looked around the room, wondering if I was, once again, the only one not invited to the party—not that I would have wanted to attend.  But my other bandmates shook their heads—first Kelly, then Liz, and Barbie, but she was slow about it, making me wonder if she was hiding something.  But as I was starting to put the pieces together in my mind, Vicki’s mom continued.  “I am very glad for your sakes that he didn’t.”  She inhaled before she said, “I can’t say the same for my daughter.”  There were shocked murmurs among us all, but I felt a little relieved that I wasn’t the only one who’d been in the dark.

“Vicki, why didn’t you say anything?”

She shrugged but her mom continued doing the talking.  “Who do you think fed her drug habit?”  I felt a chill charge through my spine like a horse running for the gate.  “Vicki didn’t just do this on her own, girls.”  Well…something her mom didn’t seem to know, but I wasn’t about to correct her, was that Vicki had had a hand in her addiction as well.  I’d seen it firsthand myself.  I wasn’t going to say that Peter
hadn’t
been abusing her, but I did know that Vicki was likely a willing victim.  She’d do anything for her next fix.  But, for all I knew, Peter might have been the start of it all.  Vicki could have been getting her own drugs in an effort to try to get away from him.  I’d never fully liked Peter but had believed in his vision.  With this new information, though, he’d just given me a reason to hate him for life.  Vicki might have had a lot of issues, but I loved the girl, and it sounded like, under the right circumstances, it could have happened to any one of us.

“Vicki had an abortion last week.  She wasn’t sure if the baby was Peter’s or that dipshit Andrew’s baby, but it doesn’t matter.”

We were all quiet for a moment.  I couldn’t speak for the rest of my bandmates, but I hadn’t expected these revelations.  Liz broke the silence.  “Well, we’ve obviously got to get rid of Peter and Andrew.”

The look on Danielle’s face was one of obvious relief.  “We were hoping you’d feel that way.”

Liz looked around the room.  “Any objections?”

I and Kelly shook our heads immediately.  Barbie acted like she was thinking about it before nodding in agreement.  “Fuckers are
gone
.”  I tried to analyze why she’d hesitated—maybe because she felt like Peter was the only reason why we allowed her to continue to be part of our band or maybe it had something to do with Andrew.  Really, though, I was the only one who had major issues with her and, even then, she was a mere annoyance who pissed me off.  She was
still
part of the band and I couldn’t see us functioning without her.

Liz spoke again.  “So…knowing all this, how are you feeling, Vicki?  Are you rested?  Will you be ready to rehearse in September?”

Vicki looked down at her hands but, once more, Danielle did the talking.  “As long as that fucker’s not involved, she’ll be ready.”

What would that mean for the Vagabonds?  For starters, it meant we had some work to do.

Chapter Thirty-four

I MIGHT HAVE, from time to time, hated the fact that Liz was from money, but she was not your typical rich girl.  She wasn’t into fashion (well, I’m talking
seasonal
fashion where designers tell you what you should and shouldn’t like from year to year—she was more a classic rock type of dresser), girlie shoes, or designer bags.  She wasn’t into namedropping or fine dining.  She didn’t talk about last year’s family skiing trip or their annual summer vacation to Cabo.  She didn’t talk about Botox and she definitely hadn’t invested in breast augmentation.

She was wealthy, but she didn’t act like it.

I credited the music.  To be rock or even punk (where her predilections led her) meant rebelliousness but also struggle.  Rich people—at least all the ones I’d ever known—couldn’t typically relate to a lot of those themes—partying while drinking cheap beer, trying to scrape together money to pay the rent, going to a regular school with regular kids…there was nothing aristocratic about our music, and Liz had learned to experience that life through the music she’d discovered she loved.

Life on the road had solidified it.

Even though Liz now owned her own place (well, her dad might have forked out the money for it), she still relied upon her parents for a few things, and this was a case where I didn’t blame her one bit and was, in fact, grateful…because the first thing she did after learning about Vicki was call her family’s attorneys to get us out of our contracts with Peter while ensuring we still had a record deal with our label.

What really sucked was our money situation.  Obviously, Peter had the records to back what he said, but we wound up hardly getting anything for all our work and success.  I knew we’d had expenses both on and off the road, but I was guessing that, as part of his contract that
I
hadn’t signed (my parents had because I hadn’t been of age—not that I’m complaining, because I probably would have done the whole damn thing for free), he had a huge fucking salary.  There had also been a clause about
hired help
, meaning Andrew (who was paid for doing
what
exactly?), TT, and Bad Dog, as well as all the other people, some of whom we’d met and some we hadn’t.  I glanced at some of the expenses and some of them made sense—like renting the studio—but other things, like a charge from a spa, I had no clue.

Liz’s lawyers seemed good, though.  They got us out from under Peter, even though his contract with us had been for five years.  I would have screamed bloody murder if they hadn’t, considering he was practically a child molester.

The lawyers also managed to keep us with our label, and they were expecting an album from us before the year’s end.  While the lawyers battled with Peter, we began work on rehearsing.  It was good to be back together and playing new stuff.  Vicki seemed stronger and healthier than when we’d met with her and her mother.  She had color in her cheeks again and looked like she’d put on a couple of pounds.  She was smiling again too.

And, when the lawyers were done extricating Peter from our lives, they got an agency to represent us.  But all of this took time and all we did during those weeks was practice, because Peter was trying to claim ownership of the music Liz had written on the road—but we were going to do everything we could to keep it from him—burn it and bury it if we had to.

That would have been a shame, though, because Liz had penned some awesome stuff.  Well, I had helped with a couple of songs too, but only the music part.  She still had the gift of words much better than I.

By the end of September, we were going stir crazy, but Liz assured us things were progressing as they should.  She asked the four of us if we wanted to move into her place, because it was plenty big.  My mom and dad were okay with it, because I promised to visit every weekend, but moving in with Liz did a couple of things for me—the first thing was it saved me driving to Colorado Springs and back every day and the second was that it got me closer to CJ.  He might have declared us to be in fuck buddy status—what that meant to me was that we were going to hook up as often as we could while he was still in town.  Death Crunch was going on tour right after Thanksgiving, so I could enjoy him for a good, long while.  I think I was hoping to change his mind, make him feel about me the way I did about him, but deep down, I knew it wouldn’t happen.  I wasn’t going to let him know that it hurt—no one could know that—but I was going to take pleasure in that man while I could.

Barbie moved in too, but Kelly and Vicki stayed home.  Vicki, I think, because her mom wanted to keep her close, tucked under her wing, and I couldn’t really blame her.  Kelly, I wasn’t sure about.  She seemed to be distancing herself from us, and I wasn’t sure why.  I’d always liked her, loved her energy, but there’d been times where she’d clearly wanted to put some space in between herself and the rest of us…like she was with us but not.  When all was said and done, I started to suspect that she was pretty religious and hadn’t ever told us.  If that was the case, I could imagine why she wanted to treat us more like a job than like family.

Liz’s house.  Holy shit.  She bought a small place in Manitou Springs.  Well, smallish.  Small compared to her parents’ mini mansion in the Cheyenne Mountain region.  Small compared to the White House.  But it would be considered pretty large by middle-class American standards.  It was located in a wooded area, and I loved to drink a cup of coffee outside every morning, just to take in the view and smell the fresh air.  As the weather grew chillier with the season, I began to reconsider my outdoor coffee but, I was going to enjoy it while I could.

I was beginning to grow bored and found myself watching too much TV and eating too much crap.  There was only so much time I had to spend keeping my social media presence alive.  Besides, a lot of people online pissed me off.  Because I was feeling listless, I began considering dabbling in drugs again, but I fought the urge.  I wound up making some resolutions.  I started working out every day and reading again.  I’d been a huge reader as a kid and in my early teens but had stopped when I got in high school.  Now, I rediscovered the library and visited it once a week.  I also saw CJ as much as I could.  And then…I started writing songs too.  I bought a notebook and began writing poetry, making myself write a few pages every day.  Most of it flat out sucked—but there was always at least one line I thought would be usable by the time I was done.

That was my little secret.

The Vagabonds—we five girls—were meeting three days a week and practicing for three to five hours on those days.  Because we had to wait for all the legal shit to simmer down, we were taking our time.  We had a chance to really perfect the songs and make them as good as possible.  I found myself humming them when I was alone, falling in love with them.  Liz had outdone herself with the lyrics this time.  They covered themes like deception, growing up, finding strength in oneself, and a couple even had to do with being in a band and touring.  I felt like our musical style was evolving too, and we were writing some good music
together
—but we’d discovered that when we were still touring the first time.

Living with two other women—really living in a home (not on the road, eating out, and having someone else clean up after us)—was pretty interesting.  I’d never considered myself a neatnik, but Barbie’s constant messes were driving me crazy after just three weeks.  Liz, ever the diplomat, created a cleaning chart, and we each cleaned a different room each week, and it rotated—either the living room (and the hallways), the two bathrooms (okay, so that was more than one, but they were small), or the kitchen.  We all talked about what clean meant and what duties we’d do.  Barbie was a bit snippy about it at first but finally relaxed and got on board.  We also had to clean up after ourselves when we used the kitchen, and we started making a few meals together, where we’d all cook and clean together.  It was nice because we started feeling like sisters instead of coworkers or enemies.

I even tried to let go of some of my irritation with Barbie.

I worried about her sometimes, because I knew she sometimes forced herself to throw up when she thought she ate too much.  If she’d seemed to be really down on herself or did it all the time (or started to look skeletal like Vicki had), I would have worried more…but this was Barbie I was talking about.  No one loved Barbie more than herself.  She didn’t have a skewed self-image as far as her body proportion went, even though there was no denying that she seemed to think a lot more about herself than the rest of the world did.  But that was Barbie.

Rehearsals were going well and we were beginning to get our songs down pat.  By Halloween, we had our full album ready to record, so we began meeting twice a week to run through the full album.  We also started talking about what we wanted our singles to be and what the videos would be like.  We didn’t know if we’d have any say in the matter, but we were dreaming big.  Kelly just didn’t seem to be as into it as the rest of us and I didn’t know if anyone else noticed.

By then, it was just a waiting game.

CJ and I went to a couple of haunted houses on Halloween.  He made a hell of a sexy vampire, but I think I outdid him.  I was looking for cool costumes online and found a “sexy cop,” and it looked like a police uniform with shorts instead of slacks and a pushup bra—obviously not a standard cop shirt.  And heels.  It drove CJ crazy and we had a wild night of sex when we got back to his place.

When we woke up the next morning, we went to Denny’s for breakfast.  He was texting a lot and I didn’t think much of it, but when we were finishing our last cup of coffee, he asked, “You have any plans Tuesday night?”

“We rehearse that day.  We’re usually done by six, though.  Why?”

He grinned.  “I wondered if you wanted to eat dinner at my mom’s.”

I wasn’t sure what to think about that, but it had to be positive, right?  Yeah—he wouldn’t want to introduce to his mom a girl he considered to be a skanky whore. But what if his mom
hated
me?  I felt nervous all of a sudden, but I knew I couldn’t say no.  That would be even worse.  “Yeah, sure.”  I smiled as he picked up his phone and texted his mom back, letting her know I’d said yes.

I was nervous but forgot about it until Tuesday.  I’d fretted a little about what to wear and then I realized that I just had to be myself.  I didn’t have to impress her and it didn’t matter if she liked me or not.  It would be nice if she did but not the end of the world.

When CJ picked me up, he said, “Two things.  I didn’t tell mom we’re actually…you know…”

Seriously?
  The big bad rock star didn’t tell his mother we were fucking?  Well, I could kind of understand not being crude about it…but he could have
told
her we were seeing each other.  “Dating?”

“Yeah…‘cause, you know, we’re not serious.”

I needed to get used to that—his nonchalance about what he considered our
non-relationship
.  It continued to gnaw at me, but I needed to be happy with what CJ was able to give.  Better fifty percent than zero, I figured.  I was going to say something sarcastic, but my curiosity trumped it.  “So what
are
you going to say, CJ?”

He gave me a sideways glance that could have been because he was keeping his eyes on the road, but I figured it was more because he didn’t want to look me in the eyes.  “I’m going to tell her the truth.  We’re
friends
.”

Ah…the friend zone.  But that didn’t really count here.  Yeah, we were friends, but we’d crossed that line.  I knew he wasn’t going to tell his mom that we were friends
with benefits
.  He also wouldn’t tell her that I was spending the night at his place about three nights a week now.

And why?  Because in less than a month he’d be back on the road…and our incredible chemistry would likely be forgotten.