Damage Control

  I moved up over her, high enough to keep my weight off of her, but low enough that her nipples were hard pebbles against my chest. She wrapped her legs around my waist, arched up against me. My cock was throbbing, aching, and the heat coming from her was almost too much to bear.

  “Are you sure this is what you want?” I asked, brushing back her hair from her flushed face. “We can stop right now.”

  She reached up and grabbed the back of my neck, nails biting into my skin. “Don’t you dare. I want you inside me.”

  I knew I should get up and retrieve a condom from my bedside table, but I hesitated. This was her first time, and even though it was selfish, I wanted something that made this more than just another fuck. I didn’t know what we were to each other, or where we were going to go from here, but I did know that what I felt for her was nothing like what I’d felt in my past.

  “Are you on the pill?”

  Her eyes flew to mine, startled. A second later, they widened. “I am.”

  “May I…?”

  I didn’t finish the question before she answered, “Yes, please.”

  I kept my gaze on hers as I reached between us and positioned myself. “You tell me if I hurt you.”

  “Just go slow,” she said with a nervous smile. “You’re bigger than anything else I’ve had…” The flush on her cheeks deepened.

  “I thought you said–”

  “Virgin,” she interrupted. “Yes. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t taken care of things myself.”

  Fuck. “Sometime soon, I’m going to want to see that.” I slid the tip of my cock inside her, barely an inch but she still caught her breath.

  “You want to watch me…ahh…” Another inch and she was already squeezing me like a vice.

  “Hell, yes,” I groaned. “I want to watch you fuck yourself with your fingers, with toys, but right now, Paige, I just want to fuck you.”

  Her legs tightened around me, and she raised her hips, taking me deeper in one smooth motion. “Then stop talking and do it.”

  I bent my head, kissing her hard and fast. “Yes, ma’am.”

  I drove the last couple inches into her and we both cursed. She was hot and tight and perfect. I rocked against her, keeping some pressure and friction against her clit as I waited for her body to relax.

  When she started to move underneath me, I reached down to cup her ass, then slid my hand to her thigh and pulled her leg higher. Skin against skin, we moved, neither one of us speaking. Usually, silence during sex freaked me out, but now, I found myself too preoccupied with studying all the nuances of her expressions, something new appearing with every stroke.

  Pressure coiled low in my stomach, and I could feel my balls starting to tighten. I was almost there, but I needed her to get there first. I rose up on my knees, wrapping my arms around her waist to pull her up with me. Her mouth crashed into mine, and she ground down on me, our rhythm becoming jerky and uneven. It was nothing like the polished and smooth motions I’d had with others in the past, but this was somehow more real.

  Her.

  Me.

  This.

  I bit down on her bottom lip, and she cried out, her body seizing around mine. I cursed, clutching her close as I thrust up into her, my own orgasm taking my breath away. Her muscles contracted as I emptied myself inside her, and as pleasure coursed through me, my mind cleared of everything except her.

  As we started to come down, I lowered us to the bed, keeping her in my arms even as my cock slid out of her. Normally, I’d be rushing to get away, or freaking out since I was home and couldn’t exactly go anywhere, but I was content where I was at the moment.

  “I should go,” she said after a couple minutes, breaking the silence blanketing us. “I mean, I can’t–”

  “Relax. It’s okay. I’ve got you,” I said as I kissed the top of her head. She relaxed back against me, and I tightened my arms around her.

  I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, but for the first time in a long time, my world had stopped spiraling, and I felt grounded.

  I’d been awake for the last twenty minutes, staring at the ceiling, but it wasn’t because anything was wrong. All of the restless energy I’d had before was gone, and so was the depression. I didn’t want a drink. I was quite fine with lying here, hands folded under my head, thinking about my night with Paige. She’d left this morning, but we’d spent the night together, which was a first for me.

  This morning hadn’t been nearly as awkward as I’d thought, though there’d been plenty of half-sentences and pregnant pauses.

  Pregnant.

  Shit.

  She said she was on the pill, and I believed her, but nothing besides abstinence was one hundred percent. Sine and Alix were proof of that. I hadn’t been as shocked by his acceptance of the situation as Jace had been, but at the time, I’d thought how glad I was that I wasn’t in his position.

  Except now, I was thinking about what would happen if I was in that position…and it actually didn’t sound that bad. Not that I wanted Paige to get pregnant. Certainly not right now. But the idea of having a baby, of her having my baby–

  My phone rang, the ringtone telling me that it wasn’t the person I wanted to talk to, but I still had to answer it.

  “Hey, Chester.”

  “Be at my office in forty minutes.”

  “What–”

  He’d already hung up. I rolled my eyes and tossed the phone onto the table. At least he gave me time to take a shower.

  When I walked into his office forty-five minutes later, Chester was all smiles which, considering the state of his teeth, wasn’t really a good thing. It also made me wary, because when he smiled like that, it usually meant he was up to something.

  “What was so urgent?” I asked.

  He motioned for me to follow him, and I sighed. There was no talking to him when he got some idea in his head. He wasn’t the best manager in the world, and I’d always been able to afford better, but Chester was the one who’d found me messing around on a guitar in a college coffee house and offered to negotiate my first contract. He’d never cheated me that I knew of, and he’d always fought to get me the things that were important to me. We weren’t friends, and most of the time I didn’t really even like him, but he’d done right by me professionally.

  Especially when it came to hiring Paige.

  I owed him a lot more than my musical career now.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked, not liking the vibe I sensed in the air.

  “Everything’s great,” he said as he moved to his desk, but his eyes were twitchy, a faint sheen of sweat on his forehead making me wonder if he was on the verge of a heart attack.

  “Then why—”

  A giggle came from behind me, and I turned slowly to find a blonde on the couch. Not just any blonde. Her.

  Mitzi was only twenty-three, but she’d aged nearly a decade since I’d last seen her. She’d streaked her hair with hot pink, replacing the purple she’d had before that, but her attempt to look like a teenager made her look more desperate than anything else. She’d lost so much weight over the past couple months, and she’d always been thin to begin with. Her skin was leathery, wrinkled and sagging.

  And the moment I saw the table in front of her, I knew why. Bottles of alcohol, some empty, some not. Rolled joints. Cigarettes half-smoked. White powder. Needles and rubber tubing.

  She smiled up at me. “Hey, baby.”

  I was frozen in shock.

  I’d known about some of it. The pot and the alcohol. I knew she’d smoked too, but I hadn’t let her do it around me. I hadn’t known about the harder stuff though. If I had, I would’ve tried to get her help.

  I shook my head, breaking the grip of surprise that had held me. “What are you doing here, Mitzi?” Seeing her didn’t hurt anymore. Hell, it hadn’t actually hurt in a while. Even when it happened, it’d been more humiliating than painful, especially after she’d blamed me.

  “Chester and I were just talking
about old times.” She leaned forward and rubbed her finger across the powder residue, then rubbed it on her gums. “All the fun we had.”

  My feelings for Mitzi were gone, even the negative ones, but I liked to think I was still a good person. A decent guy who couldn’t sit by and watch someone destroy herself.

  I crouched down to put myself on her level but didn’t touch her. I couldn’t bring myself to do that. “I’d like to help you, if you’ll let me.”

  She let out a shrill laugh, rocking back so hard that one shoulder of her shirt slipped off, dropping low enough for me to see the top of her nipple. “I don’t need your help.”

  “Come on, Reb, I’ve got some fine whiskey calling our names. We need to sit down and talk.”

  I straightened, glaring at Chester. “What the hell? You’re the one who forced a public relations rep on me because I was drinking too much, and now you’re offering me a drink? And what the fuck’s with all that shit?” I waved my hand at the table.

  He gave me a sour grin. “That’s me taking care of your business.”

  “My business?” I could feel Mitzi’s eyes on me, but I said what I needed to say. “She and I ended things months ago. She’s not my business anymore. But she still doesn’t need to be using any of that shit… especially with you! What the fuck, Chester?”

  He shrugged, seemingly unaffected by my anger and my accusations. “She’s a grown-up.” He poured two drinks and held out one to me while he started drinking the other.

  I glared at him. I knew I should leave, but I also knew I couldn’t leave things like this. This was my fucking manager, and I needed to understand why he was doing this.

  “I’ll just have some water.” I moved to the small fridge he kept over on the counter and got myself a bottle of water and twisted off the lid.

  “Suit yourself,” he said with another shrug. “I didn’t have a problem with you drinking.”

  I stared at him, the bottle frozen just inches from my mouth. “What?”

  He rolled his eyes. What had happened the Chester I knew? I looked around the room, searching for hidden cameras. Was I being punked?

  He waved a hand at me. “You said I hired that girl because I had a problem with you drinking, but that’s not why. You did some stupid shit, and we needed things to cool down. She seemed like a good way to get that done quick.”

  I shook my head. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mitzi pick up one of the joints and light it. The sickly-sweet smell joined the rest of the scents in the office, and I was tempted to take back the whiskey just to get my mind on something else.

  “Now that she’s done her job,” Chester continued, “you can knock off the charity shit.”

  I could only stare at him. “Excuse me?”

  Mitzi let out a cackle, and another puff of smoke came with it. “You look like a pucking fussy.” She frowned. “Nope. That’s not it.”

  “The label’s gonna think you went soft.” Chester poured himself another drink. “If you were some pussy pop star, that might fly, but you’ve got an image to protect. Two weekends are enough.”

  I remembered what Paige said about why she hadn’t just given me the first community service project she could find. Basically, that it was the difference between paying a penance and actually changing how people saw me. She saw me as a good man, and I wanted others to see me that way too.

  “Reb.” Mitzi grabbed my arm. “You really gotta try this shit. It’s amazing.”

  Her pupils were so wide that I could barely see any color at all.

  I jerked my arm away. “You need to stop that shit.”

  She stuck out her bottom lip. “Why’re you always so mean?”

  It was the sort of thing a spoiled child would say, but all it made me think of was how she’d said me being ‘mean’ had been the reason she’d cheated. And that hadn’t been the least of the accusations she’d thrown my way.

  Surely I was being punked, or could two people I thought I knew have changed so drastically? Or had I just been to stupid or self-absorbed to see it?

  I set my bottle of water down on the table. “I need to take a piss. Get your head on straight, Chester, and then we can talk about how things are going to be from here on out.”

  Twenty-Two

  Paige

  With my limited knowledge, when a woman lost her virginity in a toe-curling experience with a drop-dead gorgeous rock god, she tended to tell someone. Her best friend usually. Maybe her mom. But I couldn’t tell anyone. Even if I’d had someone I considered a close enough friend in whom I could confide something like this, I still wouldn’t do it. Not while I was working with Reb.

  Which meant I had no one to help me sort through all of the thoughts crowding my mind.

  “Paige, can you come here?” Sybil called from her office.

  I hurried inside but didn’t bother taking a seat. No matter how polite her question, she wasn’t asking me to have a conversation. She wanted to tell me to do something.

  “I can’t get ahold of Chester Lhaw. His check bounced, and Mr. Dwight wants you to go talk to him about it.”

  I frowned. “Re…” I cleared my throat, blinking rapidly to clear my confusion. “Mr. Union’s check bounced?” That didn’t sound right. “Shouldn’t I talk to him directly? I haven’t really had much contact with Mr. Lhaw, but I don’t think he handles Mr. Union’s money.”

  Actually, I knew he didn’t. Something here wasn’t adding up.

  Sybil gave me a sharp look. “Just do as you’re told and get back here with a new check.”

  I was tempted to point out that I doubted upper management had specifically requested I personally go get a check. As far as I was aware, Mr. Dwight didn’t even know my name. But, then, I’d been suspicious for a while that Sybil had been pawning off some of her work on me. I didn’t mind, not when I knew I could count on satisfied clients to be honest about who’d actually done the work.

  “Of course.”

  I took a taxi to Chester’s office and thanked the driver when he expressed concern over dropping me off there. I had to admit, I was more than a little surprised to learn that Reb’s manager had an office in that part of town. I would’ve expected something much bigger and definitely in a better neighborhood. Then again, I’d already learned that Reb wasn’t really like anything I’d expected. For all I knew, his manager had an office at that location so that he could find talent others might overlook.

  The minute I stepped inside, however, I began to rethink my theory. I wrinkled my nose and hoped I wouldn’t end up with a contact high. The entire place reeked of marijuana, alcohol, and body odor. What I knew of Reb didn’t mesh with where I found myself. The place wasn’t dirty, but it wasn’t exactly clean either. Plastic plants sat at random intervals, even their leaves managing to look wilted. The desk was cluttered, the computer ancient.

  “Hello?” I coughed, then tried again when no one answered, “Hello? Mr. Lhaw?”

  “Back here.”

  A gravelly voice drifted out of the half-open door I could see from where I stood, but I couldn’t see anything else, including the owner of the voice. I didn’t particularly like the idea of going back there on my own, and everything I’d ever been told about how to be smart as a woman in the city alone told me this was a bad idea. Still, I doubted Sybil would accept an excuse for not doing what I’d been told to do.

  I took out my phone, tapped out a quick message to Reb, letting him know I was at his agent’s office, and then held my thumb over send as I walked through the door and into a smoke-clouded room.

  It took me nearly half a minute for my eyes to adjust, and when they did, I wished they hadn’t.

  Reb was there. Sprawled on a couch that looked like its better days had been some time in the mid-seventies, his eyes bleary and unfocused, his face slack. His shirt was half-off, one sleeve still around his wrist. He didn’t even seem to see me, but that could have been because he was clearly high on whatever he’d been snorting or shooting…or it could
have been due to the half-naked woman squirming on his lap.

  Half-naked was being generous. Her shirt hung over the back of the couch, and if she’d been wearing a bra, it was nowhere currently to be seen. Her breasts were small, her nipples pierced, and I could make out a tattoo, though not what it said. She had on a pair of hot-pink stilettos to match her hair and a leather mini-skirt that was pushed up high enough on her hips that I could see a hot pink thong.

  I recognized her too. Mitzi Adler. Reb’s so-called ex-girlfriend. The one he’d told me he’d caught in bed with two other men. The one who’d sent him into a downward spiral so bad that he’d needed me to fix it.

  She tossed her hair back over her shoulder, only now seeming to realize that she had an audience. She winked at me and went back to grinding on Reb. She started kissing his neck, her hand moving down between them…

  I looked away. I couldn’t watch anymore, but I refused to leave before I did what I’d come here to do. I wouldn’t cry or even acknowledge that I felt anything at all about what was going on. I was a professional, even though my heart was pounding so hard in my chest I almost couldn’t breathe.

  “Who’re you?” With his greasy hair and beady eyes, Chester looked like the stereotypical sleazy manager portrayed in movies and on TV.

  I took a deep breath and pretended not to notice that his hand was in his pants and got right to the point. I didn’t want to be there any longer than absolutely necessary. Emotions roiled inside of me…anger and disappointment, and something else. A deep, deep sadness that threatened to spill from my eyes and down my cheeks.

  “I’m Paige Ryce, and I work for the PR firm you hired on behalf of Mr. Union. Sybil Feldt sent me regarding your payment.” I ignored his greedy gaze running all over my body and wondered if I’d be able to run home for a shower before going back to work. “We need you to write another check as it seems this last one bounced. Some sort of misunderstanding, we’re sure, but we do need that payment again.”

  Chester stared at me for a few seconds, his hand moving in a motion that left no doubt about what he was doing. I was just thankful he hadn’t whipped his cock out. Yet.