The Girl of Diamonds and Rust (The Half Shell Series Book 3) (11 page)

Why isn’t he here with me, still asleep? We fucked ourselves into quiet.

I sit up in bed and notice the light coming from the living room. I pick up my panties and Neil’s shirt from the floor, pull them into place, and exit the bedroom.

My eyes widen. Neil is sitting on the sofa, fully dressed, lacing up those hideous black army surplus boots so popular up here.

“Where are you going?” I ask, crossing the room to him.

Neil shrugs and doesn’t look up. “Just out for a walk. I’m kind of restless.”

I become aware he is tense and agitated.

“Do you want me to dress and come with you?”

“You don’t have to do that. I’d rather go out alone. I need to be alone sometimes, Chrissie.”

Coldness prickles my cheeks from the edge in his voice and how he nearly snapped at me. I stare at him.

Neil closes his eyes and exhales slowly. “It’s not you, Chrissie.”

I sink down on the sofa beside him. “I didn’t ask if it was me. Why were you so quick to say it wasn’t?”

He shakes his head, brushing his messy chestnut waves back from his face, and then smiles. “Because I know how you think. You don’t need to say it for me to know what you are thinking.” He leans in and drops a fast kiss on my lips. “I won’t be long. I’m just going to walk for a while.”

“OK.” My eyes follow him to the door, but this feels strange to me and I don’t know why.

At the door, Neil pauses. “Go back to sleep, Chrissie. I won’t be long.”

The door shuts and I sit, staring at it. That was odd. Really odd. But then, there has been a lot of oddness since we got to Seattle. Being in Seattle has always affected Neil strangely, he hasn’t explained why to me, but I shouldn’t be surprised by the brief flashes of
weird Neil
while we’re here.

I try to dismiss my sense of unease. It is illogical and Neil would never do anything to me that should make him wanting to walk at night alone something I should be suspicious of. Neil is not a slip-out-to-cheat kind of guy. He’d be honest with me. He would confess. He wouldn’t be able not to.

I consider going back to bed, and then sink deeper back into the sofa. I’m wide awake now. I click on the TV and turn the volume down low, since I’m not sure if Josh or Les Wilson are asleep in their bedrooms.

My gaze roams the mess and junk everywhere. It’s a good thing I’d forgotten how awful this apartment was before I decided to join Neil here. Three guys living in a run-down flop house; that’s what this place looks like. Still, it’s kind of fun living with Neil in this hideous apartment. We are all sort of like a rowdy family here and there is a sense that something bordering on exciting is always happening.

I’m never bored here, and it is never quiet, too quiet, like it is in Jack’s house.

The guys bicker. They laugh. They bullshit and tell stories; stories about the road, stories about girls, stories about anything, and stories about nothing. They create music. They play music. They party. They fuck. Yep, that’s pretty much guy world. Guy world, it seems, is the same everywhere.

I turn off the TV and move to the bookcase. Lots of pictures here. Some of them make me cringe. The guys with girls from the road. The guys performing. The guys misbehaving. Shit…I pick up a picture…I wonder if Les Wilson’s girlfriend has seen this?

Lame, Chrissie, lame
. She must have. There is no way to be in the living room and miss these darn photos. I set it back and continue to study the rest of the pictures. There’s only one here I could give Neil shit over, him downing shooters from between some girl’s tits at what looks like an after-party. But that’s it. Just one. And since I don’t know when it was taken, it could have been when we were broken up, so there isn’t any point to giving him shit over this.

I smile as I stare at the photo, though I suppose I shouldn’t be smiling. It’s just he looks kind of shy even grabbing an alcohol shot with his lips from a girl’s breasts.

After settling back down on the couch, I wrap a comforter around me. Life isn’t bad here. It’s not exactly good either. It’s just different.

~~~

Hands gently shake me. My eyes fly open. Neil is standing above me and the room is filled with mid-morning light.

“Fuck, why’d you wait up for me?” he asks, a not fully concealed edge to his voice. “I told you not to.”

I yawn and toss the blanket off me. “I didn’t wait up. I fell asleep out here.”

Neil starts walking to the bedroom. “I’m going to take a shower and go to bed. Let me sleep until dinnertime. We’ve got the sendoff on the road party tonight that Ernie put together and I’m really not in the mood for it. Let me sleep today.”

The door shuts before I can answer him. Crap, what was that all about? Everything about him screams that he wants to be left alone, but I follow Neil to the bathroom anyway. He’s already in the shower when I get there, clothes in the hamper and steam on the mirror.

I ease up to sit on the edge of the vanity counter. “Have you just been walking all this time?”

“Pretty much,” is his abrupt response through the shower glass.

“Is anything wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong, Chrissie. Just because I do something without you doesn’t mean there is something wrong.”

My cheeks flush from that one. “Good to know. I’ll try to remember that one.” I say it deliberately silly and Neil laughs.

He opens the shower door and peeks out at me, his green eyes smiling. “I love you, Chrissie. Now go away and let me shower.”

I laugh, tossing a towel at him. “Wouldn’t you rather have me in the shower?” I ask, raising my eyebrows.

“Not today. Any day, all days, but not today.”

The shower door closes. He starts to wash himself
there
, and seeing him through the blurring glass of the door, touching himself
there
, lathering himself
there
, knowing what he’s doing yet not seeing it clearly enough, gets me extremely hot.

I’m about to take off my shirt and panties when the water shuts off and the door opens. Neil grabs a towel, rubbing it across his head, then swiping his body before wrapping it around his hips.

I don’t know why I ask it, but I do. “Where did you go last night?”

Neil looks up, startled. “I told you. For a walk.”

“Until 10 in the morning, Neil? You expect me to buy that one?”

I don’t know what he sees on my face, but he tosses the towel onto the counter and walks from the room.

“Fuck, Chrissie. Are you really going to start getting jealous now? After all I’ve been through with you, now is when you decide you can’t trust me and start becoming jealous? Is that what you’re telling me?”

Of course, the way he says it makes me sound stupid. I follow him to the bedroom and pause just inside the doorway. Neil is already in bed, lying on his back. He stares at me. I stare at him.

Neil starts to laugh, shaking his head at me. “Jeez, Chrissie, I can’t believe you got jealous. But you are so cute when you get princess-ape-shit jealous.”

He laughs harder and I glare at him. “I’m not jealous. I did not get anything close to princess-ape-shit jealous.”

He turns onto his side, his cheek resting in his palms, his soft green eyes bright with humor. “Yes, you did. Admit it. You’re jealous.” His expression changes into
sweet Neil
. “I kind of like it. You being possessive and jealous for a change.” Then comes a subtle darkening of his gaze, and I feel it
there
. “It’s a fucking turn-on to see you be jealous over me for a change. Why don’t you come back to bed for a while? You should probably sleep, too. We have a long night tonight.”

“I don’t want to because you’re being a jerk and you won’t answer me. Worse, you’re making fun of me and I hate that.”

That came out more peevish than I wanted it to, but it makes Neil’s eyes gleam more. I wonder if I am starting to feel a touch possessive and jealous over him. He certainly thinks so and he’s enjoying it.

Glaring at him, I sink down on the bed, sitting on my knees, close to him without touching him.

“You’re such a conceited jerk,” I murmur, tight-lipped. “Do you get jealous over me?”

He eases back against the pillow, hair pushed out of his face by his palm, his gaze serious and tender. “All the time.”

I lie on my side, facing him. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

His laughter is not of humor. It is more a rattling of exasperation. “How could you not fucking know that? I think of you all the time when we’re not together. I get jealous when I don’t know what you’re doing. You’re the first girl I’ve ever felt this way about.”

My brows hitch upward in my forehead. “Really?”

He nods. It sounds like fluff, the kind of thing you say to a girl to put to rest questions you don’t want to answer, and yet Neil is never anything less than honest with me and in my center, in a sweetly warming way, it feels like the truth.

“You didn’t feel that way about your ex?” I whisper cautiously, since it is territory we don’t discuss very often.

His eyes lock on mine. “You are the only girl I’ve ever felt this way about.”

Second surprise. Things were intense with his ex-girlfriend. A lot of shitty history. Neil beat up Andy Despensa and put him in the hospital for fucking her. None of this makes sense, him claiming I’m the only girl he’s ever been jealous over, but instinct tells me he’s not lying.

I mold into his side, resting my head on his shoulder, and ease forward to kiss him on the chest. My hand starts gliding across his abdomen, then lower, lower.

Neil adjusts me against his side. “I’m tired, Chrissie. Let me sleep.”

I brush him
there
. “You are also really hard, Neil.”

A rough, frustrated laugh. “I always get hard when you touch me. Doesn’t always mean I want sex.”

I stroke him lightly and he groans. I peek up at him. “No?”

He looks down at me. “Why don’t you kiss him,” he whispers, “and put us both to sleep smiling?”

Oh yuck, not that again
. Why do all guys want
that
? I continue the caresses, playing with his cock in fast little drive-bys, and he melts into my touch but nothing more. He doesn’t move into me. He doesn’t kiss me. He doesn’t touch me. Unfortunately, every time I stroke his erection I get a little hotter and anxious in my flesh.

I stare down at it, running my hand up and down the length. I’ve never done it before. Crap, I don’t even know how, but something in how Neil is luxuriating in me stroking him makes me kind of want to do it.

A first. Something sexually I haven’t done first with Alan. Something that’s just mine and Neil’s. He twitches in my fingers and cautiously I take him in my mouth. His entire body jerks in surprise and he opens his eyes, watching as I run my lips up the length of him. I pause at the tip and his penis swells and pulses in my palm. I kiss it lightly and run my tongue around it. I watch the changing lines of his face and I can feel him tightening
there
.

I place my lips around him and his eyes close, his fingers coming to my hair. I suck harder. He groans. Then I tease him with my tongue and swallow him fully.

I still.

“Don’t stop,” he says through ragged breaths. I suck harder, flicking with my tongue, and his hips pulse in the rhythm of my motion.

I feel his fingers tighten in my hair, moving me up and down on him faster, then he guides my hand back to the length of him, wanting me to stroke and suck him. It’s such a turn-on, the feeling of my power over Neil in this, his uncharacteristic selfishness, the way he is just taking what I’m giving and not offering a thing to relieve the ache in my body.

I suck harder, pushing him deeper.

“Chrissie…” He moans. “If you don’t stop I’m going to come in your mouth.” But even as he says that, I feel his body flexing within my hands, his face tightening as he thrusts into my mouth.

He cries out, spilling into my mouth, his hand clutching my head there and I still. I don’t know what to do with
it
. Do I spit it out? Before I can figure it out, I swallow on reflex. His hand drops away from me and my mouth leaves him. I kiss my way slowly up until I’m curled against him again. I kiss the underside of his jaw. It wasn’t an act I thought I would enjoy, but I did. There is something in how Neil looks, his closed-eyed pleased expression that makes me feel really good about sharing this for the first time with him.

His eyes open and he kisses me. “I love you.”

I’m a little embarrassed over having done that and more than a little pleased with how he looks like I did it well. I sink my teeth into my lower lip. “Are you both smiling now?”

Neil rolls his eyes, but his smile deepens. “Oh, definitely.” He turns on his side into me and runs the tip of an index finger along the line of my cheek. “Why did you do that? You never want to give me a blow job.”

I stare up at him. “Was it OK?”

He groans in pleasure. “Definitely OK. You can kiss him any time you want to.”

I crinkle my nose at him. “Don’t get carried away, Neil.”

He kisses my shoulder. “I need sleep. Go to sleep.”

I’m not tired, but I lie in the wrap of his body, listening to his breathing changes. I stare at his face, the softened features, the unkempt waves of hair. There are moments when we are together that I love Neil in a way that is sweetly painful.

I touch my lips against his chest. I wish I loved him in this sweetly painful way in more than just moments. I wish it were always. I’m not there yet, but the moments are good. They make me feel less anxious about this road I’m on with Neil. I try really hard to love him the way that I want to love him, but I only get moments here and there. But today it is enough.

~~~

Ernie Levine knows how to throw a party, I’ll give him that.

I lean back against the bar on the far side of the room and stare into the club. The walls vibrate from the thundering music, loud chatter and laughter. The bodies are packed in to the point that the dance floor is suffocating.

Everyone is here. The Seattle bands who are famous and in town. The Seattle bands who are not famous. And the bands that are the buzz and in the process of breaking, like Arctic Hole. Blending with them are the famous, the
not
, the trendy and the weird. The strange mix of personalities that makes up the music industry everywhere, even in Seattle.