God, please, let him be ready for company by then.
“Then Sed and I will come at noon,” Jessica said.
As if Trey would want to see her at all. Brian glared at her. She didn’t belong here. He didn’t want her here. He knew Trey wouldn’t want her around either. But maybe Sed deserved her, because he was hanging on her every word like a lovesick tool.
Myrna had a bit more tact. The traitor actually seemed to like Jessica. Brian’s need to lash out grew exponentially by the minute. He said his goodbyes quickly, but avoided Sed, lest he punch him in the face. He couldn’t very well punch Jessica. He grabbed Myrna by the elbow and hurried to the elevator, hoping to God that they could get the hell out of this oppressive fucking hospital before he was forced to confront Sed face to face. He wasn’t sure he could control his rage at this point.
“Why are you so mad?” Myrna asked as he hammered on the down button at the bank of elevators.
“I’m not.”
“Bullshit, baby. You’re like a ticking time bomb.”
He couldn’t deny it, so decided to vent. “Why did she have to come back now of all times?”
“Who?”
“Jessica.”
“Do you have a problem with her?”
“Yes, I have a problem with her. I hate her fucking guts.”
“Why?”
“Because,” he yelled and commenced to lean solidly on the down button.
Myrna gathered him into her arms, and he stopped harassing the elevator.
“You don’t hate her,” Myrna said.
“I do.”
“No, you hate that she turned one of your best friends into a pussy-whipped douche.”
He almost chuckled. It came out more like an exasperated gasp.
Myrna squeezed him, and he relaxed slightly. He knew he’d gotten himself overly aggravated on purpose; it was a whole lot easier to focus on hating Jessica than on loving Trey. Brian would never play the guitar again if they lost that ornery little shit. No one would be able to replace Trey in Brian’s life or his career. No one.
“Take a deep breath and let it go,” Myrna said. “You’re not going to change Sed’s mind about her. If they’re right for each other, you’re going to have get used to her and if they’re wrong for each other, they have to figure that out on their own.”
“I know,” he said. “I just can’t deal with it on top of everything else.”
“We’ll sort it out when Trey’s better.”
He knew she was right. He needed to focus on the more important tragedy in his life. And when Myrna kissed him, he was sure he could let go of his disapproval of the romantic relationship between a rather large douche and the pussy that whipped him. At least he thought so until Sed stepped up beside him with the woman in question hiding behind his broad back.
“Hey,” Sed said.
“Hey,” Brian answered, and it would have stopped at that if Sed hadn’t been dumb enough to talk about what was bothering Brian.
Brian’s heated and loud argument with Sed escalated quickly. The idiot couldn’t see what a blight Jessica was on everyone’s life, not just his own. When the elevator finally arrived, Myrna shoved him inside with Sed and said, “We’ll meet you at the bottom. You two have a little talk. Or slug it out. Whatever.”
Oh, they were going to have it out. Minimal talking, maximum slugging.
“How could you take her back?” Brian yelled at Sed. “Do you realize how much shit you put me through while you were trying to get over her?”
“Is it my fault your chicks like to fuck me better than they do you?”
Perhaps he should have been grateful that Sed knew how to push his buttons. He’d needed to explode, and Sed had just pulled his trigger. Brian punched Sed in the jaw, his knuckles protesting the force of the blow. Sed hit the back of the elevator car and then launched himself at Brian just as the elevator doors slid shut. Sed popped him a good one in the mouth, and Brian let loose all the fury that had been building inside him since his honeymoon had been so unceremoniously interrupted by the jackass and his trophy stripper. Brian was completely winded by the time he realized how one-sided the fight had become. Sed was far larger and a much more experienced brawler than he was, so why was he landing two or three punches for every one of Sed’s? His anger spent, Brian took a step back and glared up at Sed, breathing hard and clenching his fists.
“Feel better?” Sed asked before he tongued at the blood on his split lip.
“I won’t feel better until you dump that fucking bitch.”
Sed wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. “You’re going to live a miserable life then, my friend.”
If Sed kept Jessica around, that would make two of them. Or rather as soon as she up and left him again, Sed would back to his miserable ways. She’d dumped him once over money—did he really think the money-grubbing bitch had changed so much in two years? Brian closed his eyes and let out an exasperated huff.
“If you need to punch me some more, you better get on with it,” Sed said. “We’re almost to the lobby.”
Brian laughed and scrub the tension out of his forehead with his palms. “Fuck, Sed. You’re an idiot around that woman. Don’t you recognize that?”
“Yeah. But does it change how I feel about her?” He shook his head. “Not one bit.”
Maybe seeing her in a different light would change his mind. “If it wasn’t for her, Trey wouldn’t have been injured. He could have died. He could still die.”
Sed lowered his gaze and shook his head. “If you’re going to blame someone for what happened to Trey, blame me. She didn’t ask me to grab her off that stage.” He chuckled and rubbed his jaw. “In fact, she was pretty pissed off about it.”
“So pissed off she landed on her back with you between her legs?”
Sed scowled. “I know you’re upset, but watch your fucking mouth. I won’t let you talk about her that way.”
The elevator dinged as they reached the ground floor. Brian stumbled as a pair of hands reached into the car, grabbed him by the shirt, and slammed him face down on the hard tile floor.
“Whoa,” Sed said. “Easy with the guy’s junk. He has a new wife to bone tonight.”
Brian doubted he’d be doing very little boning for the rest of the night, but he did appreciate Sed’s concern for the well-being of his junk. He wouldn’t mind equal concern for his chest and face.
“Hospital security. We saw the pair of you fighting in the elevator,” a voice said from somewhere above where Brian lay sprawled with a sharp knee in the center of his back.
“We’re friends,” Sed assured the guard. Somehow he’d avoided getting forced to the ground. Maybe the pair of guards didn’t think they could take him on. “Just needed to work out a bit of tension between us. We’re good now. Right, Brian?”
“Peachy,” Brian said with a grunt of pain.
“Haven’t you ever needed to knock some sense into a friend?” Sed asked the guard.
“Not in a hospital elevator,” the guard said. But he removed his weight from Brian’s back.
“Sorry about that. We could do a repeat in the parking lot if Brian’s game,” Sed said.
“No thanks,” Brian said. “I’m good.”
Someone helped Brian to his feet, and Sed wrapped an arm around his shoulders. Brian wasn’t sure if the bro-hug was for show—so that the security guards would believe they were friends—or because he needed someone to lean on, but Brian didn’t mind. In fact, Sed’s arm around him gave him a sense of strength and well-being. Sed had that kind of effect on people. He just had horrible taste in women.
As much as Brian liked hearing the guards reminisce about ass-whuppin’s they’d delivered and received at the hands of friends, he was awfully glad to see his beautiful new wife step off the elevator a few minutes later. He didn’t even care that Jessica was with her. Soon he and Myrna would be alone together in their hotel room and Brian could pretend he was okay about Trey, withou
t everyone watching.
Chapter Ten
Back in the hotel room, Myrna circled the suite to turn off all the lights except the lamp next to the bed. Brian sat on the edge of the mattress and fiddled with the alarm clock.
“We have to be up in two hours,” he said, his voice hollow with exhaustion. “Sorry our wedding night didn’t go so well.”
She sat beside him on the bed and took the alarm clock out of his hand to set it on the nightstand.
“Me too,” she said. “But we can take an extended honeymoon in a few months. Once the tour is over. And Trey is better.”
He lifted his head, allowing her to see his dark eyes strained with fatigue. The bruises around them weren’t helping him look any more alert.
“I could try to make love you to you if you want,” he said.
“We don’t need to have sex again,” she said and almost laughed when his shoulders sagged with relief. The poor guy was used to having to satisfy her insatiable sexual appetite for him. “I’ve had plenty of sex today, but I do need to make love to you.”
She scooted off the bed and settled on the floor at his feet. She untied one of his boots and pulled it free, tossing it aside before massaging his instep through his soft, white cotton sock. He murmured a sound of pleasure in the back of his throat. She repeated her attention on his other foot and then urged him to lie back on the bed with his legs dangling over the edge so she could unfasten his jeans. He lifted his hips and she tugged them off. Staring up at her wearily, he held his arms open to her.
“Come here, wife. I need to hold you, remind myself that you’re really mine, and think about all that’s good in my life when everything else has gone to shit.”
She blinked back tears, her heart panging with empathy. She knew he loved Trey—not in the way she’d been fixating on for most of the day, but as a friend, a colleague, and someone he could always depend on.
“I was going to massage your back,” she said. “Help you relax.”
“I’ll feel most relaxed with your head right here.”
He patted the center of his chest, and she couldn’t deny that she very much wanted to rest her head over his heart. He tugged his shirt off, and she shed most of her clothes. She left her panties in place, hoping to remind her eager pussy that she didn’t have to fuck Brian to show him how much she loved him.
They snuggled together beneath the covers, her head on his chest and his heartbeat thudding steadily against her ear.
“I’m sorry I behaved like a regular asshole at the hospital,” he said, his voice rumbling through his chest. He covered his eyes with one hand and sighed.
“That was behaving like a regular asshole? What are you like when you behave like a huge asshole?”
He chuckled halfheartedly. “You don’t want to witness that.”
She stroked his belly absently, willing her mind to calm down so she could get some sleep.
“What am I going to do if he doesn’t recover?” Brian whispered.
“I told you not to let yourself think like that.”
“I can’t help it.”
“He’ll be fine. He’s Trey-motherfucking-Mills. A little head injury won’t keep him down for long.”
Brian traced lines over the bare skin of her hip. “Maybe once he’s better we can invite him back into our bed. It would be okay when it’s not our wedding night, right?”
Myrna bit her lip. As sexually fulfilling as her threesome with Brian and Trey had been, it had been more of a mind-fuck than she’d anticipated. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said after a long moment.
“Why not? I thought you enjoyed it.”
“I did,” she admitted.
“Well, I enjoyed it. He enjoyed it. What’s the problem?”
She was almost afraid to say it. “He loves you.”
“I love him too.”
The words slashed her heart to ribbons, even though she was almost certain they were talking about different kinds of love. “But are you in love with him, Brian?”
“Huh?”
“Nothing,” she said, afraid that by discussing it, Brian might realize he was in love with Trey. She couldn’t lose Brian. Not now. Not when she’d finally given him her heart. It would destroy her.
Brian was quiet for a long moment. “Do you think he’s actually in love with me?”
She bit her lip and nodded. “I know he is,” she said, mortified when her voice cracked.
Brian’s arm tightened around her, but he didn’t say anything. She was almost in tears by the time she found the courage to say, “I’m so afraid he’ll end up coming between us, and I feel so bad for feeling that way—especially now that he’s hurt—but I can’t help it. I don’t want to lose you, Brian. I can’t lose you. I just can’t.”
There. Her greatest fear was now out in the open. A hot tear leaked from the corner of her eye, and she dashed it away angrily.
“You won’t lose me, baby, and Trey won’t ever come between us. I’m in love with you. I was never in love with him. It was just sex, Myrna. Even when Trey and I fooled around as teens, it was just sex.”
For Brian maybe, but she was sure it had meant a lot more than that to Trey. “I know,” she said, though her heart was still clouded with doubt. “I just… It makes me jealous to share you with him. Don’t you get jealous when he touches me?”
“No, I get a raging hard-on when he touches you.”
Yeah, and that wasn’t normal.
“But when Sed touches me—”
Brian stiffened. “Did he fucking touch you? I’ll break his goddamned fingers.”
Myrna slapped his belly. “No, he didn’t. Why are you so jealous of Sed, but not Trey? I don’t understand.”
“Because… Because he’s Trey.”
As if that explained anything. “And?”
“Well… I trust him implicitly with every aspect of my life. Even with you.” He tipped his head to kiss the top of hers.
And yet Brian claimed not to be in love with the man.
“But if you’re not comfortable allowing him into our bed—”
“I’m not,” she said hurriedly.
“That’s fine. We’ll find something else to give us pleasure.”
She snuggled closer to her husband’s chest, her heart swelling with affection. She believed what Brian said. He wasn’t in love with Trey. She had nothing to fear but her own insecurity.
“All I want is you, Mr. Sinclair.”
“You have me, Mrs. Sinclair. Always. If there ever comes a time when I feel Trey might threaten our happiness, I won’t hesitate to set him straight.”
“Promise?” she said, feeling a bit juvenile for asking, but she needed him to say it.
“I promise. I’m yours, Myrna. Only yours.”
She was counting on that. And counting on Brian to never break her heart. She knew if he did, she’d never take a chance on love again.
“And I’m yours, Brian,” she whispered. “Always.”
Sweet Love of Mine
Epilogue to Wicked Beat
A Sinners on Tour Encore
by Olivia Cunning
Chapter One
Sitting at a red light, Eric banged his head to the music blaring from the speakers and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel of his beloved ’67 Corvette. He followed the song’s drum progression around the circle with his improvised drumsticks and