Ripped

  He pushes his finger inside.

  I spread my legs wider apart and moan.

  He sucks my lower lip into his mouth and releases a low, heady groan as he brushes another finger along my entry. I’m trembling with need as he ducks farther down and sucks first one breast, then the other as he continues fingering me. A fire burns in my tummy, and I squirm as my body begins tightening.

  “Don’t let me come without you,” I moan.

  “With or without me, you’re coming now.” He circles his thumb over my clit, and I remember him promising me, One day, you’ll beg. . . .

  “Please. I like watching you come with me. Mackenna, please.”

  He stops to look at me, both of us panting harder than ever.

  “Say it again.”

  “Come with me.”

  “The please part.”

  “Please, Mackenna,” I moan.

  He growls, using his teeth to tear open a condom packet. Soon he’s armed and ready, and he’s pulled my legs around his hips, and with a thrust, a gasp, a groan, we’re moving together. His dancer’s body, muscles trained for strength and flexibility, moves over mine, cock filling me. Moans of ecstasy slip past my lips as I stroke my fingers up his back to cup the hard, clenching muscles of his ass. We find our tempo and our breaths become ragged—our bodies moving like we’re extensions of each other.

  As he kisses me again, mouth moving deftly over mine, my emotions whirl and skid, and the fire in my cunt spreads to my heart. My walls are down. I can’t stop them from tumbling. I’ll raise them when it’s over, I think to myself, but in this moment the smell, feel, and taste of this man consume me. This isn’t just a fuck.

  And I know it.

  As he pumps rhythmically into me, he seems about as lost in the shape and texture of my body as he does when he sings. The harsh look of ecstasy on his face unravels me, and when the involuntary tremors of orgasm begin, I arch to take more of him, surrendering completely as a hot, powerful climax rages through me, tearing my breath away.

  I feel him come, and something just loosens in me as his body flexes in orgasm. A tenderness washes over me as I clutch his body tight to mine and whisper, “That’s right, come with me, Kenna.”

  His groan is deep as he buries it in my mouth, and when we sag, he rolls us to spare me his weight as he kisses me, whispering into my mouth, “On a scale of one to ten, how’d that go for you?”

  “A million.”

  He laughs with me and squeezes me in his arms, and I swear his ego just went Shrek-sized. “You look like a conquering Napoleon, don’t you. You feel like you got it all right now,” I say, groaning tiredly.

  “Nah. Napoleon was a little guy. I, on the other hand, am huge.”

  “Your ego is huge.”

  “Babe, my dick is just as huge as my ego, and they both enjoy being petted by you.”

  His husky, cocky way of teasing makes me smile, but I hide my smile against his chest and just lie there, feeling happy and still dazed by our lovemaking. By the new feeling of peace between us. We’re still in bed, sweaty and silent, hands somehow still wandering aimlessly over each other, when there’s a knock on my door and a familiar voice calls, “Mackenna, open up.”

  Mackenna groans as he stalks naked to open the door. “Not now, Leo.”

  “Answer your phone, man.” Leo spares a glance toward the bed, where I’m clutching the sheet to my breasts. “You won’t be thrilled with it.”

  He leaves as Mackenna grabs his phone and checks the messages. “My dad’s parole officer. Fuck.” He punches the number and starts pacing until someone apparently answers. “Hey. What’s up? So when was it that you last saw him? No, I haven’t heard.”

  After a brief discussion, he hangs up. “Son of a bitch!” He falls to the bed and breathes deeply, dragging his hands down his face, then down the back of his head and all the way to his shoulders. “Dad’s skipped his last two parole sessions. They can’t find him. He quit his job. Jesus!” He looks at me, shaking his head. “I send him money, you know. But my condition is that he works. Otherwise he’ll dick around with drugs again. Well, it seems like he is.”

  Something’s squeezing my chest so hard, I have trouble getting any words past my throat.

  “Kenna,” I say, reaching out to make contact with his back, his shoulder, anything. But suddenly he seems so tense and unapproachable, I stop before making contact and draw my hand back. “I’m really sorry.”

  He shakes his head, over and over, lost to his thoughts. “If I’d known it was going to be this way, I would’ve just let him serve his sentence. I did the equivalent of slitting my wrists to get him out early, and this is what he makes of it. This is what he makes of his chance to do something good with his life.”

  I’m so bad at this. Torn between the need to console him and the fear of how much I care about the haunted look on his face, I just watch him get dressed.

  “He’ll be all right. Maybe he found a new girlfriend and lost time in her bed?” I suggest.

  “Optimism? From you?” His lips curl softly, and he shakes his head. He leans over. “You really are a softie.”

  “Am not.”

  “I’m pudding too. At least, I am with you.” He walks to the door and leaves me with that. How can he fucking leave me with that?

  Well, he does, and for the next half hour I text Brooke and Melanie in a group chat.

  Me: Do you believe in second chances?

  Mel: Absolutely.

  Brooke: If Rem hadn’t given me a second chance I’d be fucked right now.

  Mel: If I hadn’t given Grey a second chance and I hadn’t been spared my life, we’d be fucked now too and NOT in a good way.

  Me: Ok. Just asking.

  Brooke: Pan, why didn’t you tell me you had a thing with Crack Bikini’s Kenna Jones? Remington plays their “Used” song all the time before a fight starts!

  Me: Cause I hate their songs, that’s why.

  I’m lying, of course. I just hate one song. The one about me. Although a lot of them do talk about anger, being used, and being betrayed—as if I were the one who walked away and left him to pick up the pieces of his heart.

  But if any of that hell was true for him too, what’s going on right now? Why are we getting tangled up in each other all over again?

  He could fuck any of his fans, like Jax and Lex do after concerts. He could fuck any groupie, any one of his dancers. They clearly miss him in their beds.

  But, like junkies, one taste of each other and we’re obsessed.

  “Danger,” that little voice whispers.

  Oh, shut up, brain! You’re too damn late.

  I squeeze my eyes shut and find myself adding his father’s name to my talisman bracelet.

  TWELVE

  THERE’S ALWAYS THAT ONE ASSHOLE STONE YOU TRIP ON TWICE

  Mackenna

  I left ten messages on his cell phone as I waited for my flight. By the time I landed, he’d left a message. Said his parole officer had found him and not to worry myself over it. Yeah, right.

  He’d left a hotel name and room number too. I pick up a key at reception and end up having to scribble a couple of autographs, until I’m finally on the twentieth floor, popping the door open to find my father slumped in a chair out on the terrace, staring off into space.

  A room service tray holding two glasses of champagne is set up by the window. “What the hell is up with you, Dad?”

  The anger on my face gives him pause, and it takes him a hot second to get words out of his open jaw. “Hell I . . . you’re here? Son . . . I wouldn’t be ditching parole if that bitch hadn’t made it such a pain in the ass. I need freedom, Kenna, I’m choking here.”

  “Look up, Dad. You see that? That’s fucking sunlight. You want to get a good dose of that every day, then you do your fucking parole.”

  “I said I’m choking. Feels like I’m still in jail, only with a wider mile radius.”

  “Jesus,” I curse, then lean over, trying to reason with hi
m. “Dad, I know exactly how you feel. You feel trapped by your circumstances, but don’t carve yourself a worse one.”

  “Do you understand? Do you really?”

  “You fucking know I do.”

  He forces out a smile and looks away, over the traffic and the city. “ ‘Carry on my wayward son,’ ” he quotes, his dark eyes framed with the same dark circles he came out of prison with. “Remember that song? You rocked it.”

  “Yeah, I rock everything I touch with my tongue.”

  A chuckle. “ ‘There’ll be peace when you are done,’ ” he continues, raising his eyebrows in question.

  “You damn well know I want my freedom too. We’ve talked about this before. I’ll move you back to Seattle when I’m done so I can see you more often. Just don’t give anyone reason to put you away—you hear me? Be smart about this, Dad, Jesus. I fucking worry about you. Just think things through.”

  “Like you’re smart about that girl?” he counters.

  Fuck, I knew he’d bring her up.

  Every part of me is tensing to defend her.

  But it’s no use arguing with Dad about her. I shrug and say nothing, my jaw tight.

  “Son, she’s toxic to you. You might want to be sure she’s into you before you go and drop a good life for the life of your dreams, only to find out it’s all a castle in the air, boy.”

  “She’s real to me” is all I give him, and I growl it out in a thick whisper.

  He sighs and drops his face in his hands. “Sorry, just can’t forget how her bitch mother put me behind bars.”

  “Dad, you got yourself behind bars. See? We reap what we sow. Nobody made you deal, nobody made you make that choice. Own it. I’m owning the choices I made too, and one of those put me in a tight spot. Nobody made me do it. I had to. We just have to do some things sometimes.” I scrape my hand down my jaw, because holy shit, those choices hurt.

  “You made a deal with her, didn’t you? That’s why I’m out. That’s why I should still be there. That’s why my parole sucks—that controlling bitch probably knows you’re traveling with her daughter now and is still trying to meddle with you two!”

  “It’s crossed my mind.”

  He stares at me, his eyes widening. “So what are you going to do?”

  “She’s not fucking up my life twice, she’s not taking two people I love twice. Just be good, Dad—tomorrow doesn’t have to be today. Mine isn’t going to be. I’ve made mistakes. I hurt people I cared about. I’m fixing it.” I pat my dad on the back and lean over. “Fix your life the way you want it. Think of another job, I’ll pull some strings. Just give me time to get us back to Seattle. And do your parole.”

  “Mackenna . . .” He stops me as I pull open the terrace door. “You’re the reason I hang on. When we lost your mom . . .”

  “You did your best. I know. Come on, let’s get you home. I’m taking you out later today.”

  THIRTEEN

  IT PAYS TO BE PATIENT, AND GOOD THINGS COME WITH SILVER EYES

  Pandora

  Two days he’s been gone, but he arrives back just in time for the concert. The cameras were everywhere in his absence. Olivia, Tit, and half a dozen of the other dancers were being nice to me. They even asked if I wanted to hang with them the other night. They were going dancing.

  “Pandora?” they prodded.

  “Thanks, but I’m staying in tonight,” I said.

  The cameras are trained on me from the moment I step out of my room. They filmed me in practice with Yolanda, right down to filming me while I asked the twins if they’d heard from Mackenna.

  I’m only free in my room, but other than when I’m calling Magnolia and Mother, and trying to answer some client e-mails to keep my work from piling up when I return to Seattle, it’s lonely.

  Tonight I couldn’t watch the concert. My legs are too sore from dancing. I’ve been taking cold showers and using ice packs, but I can’t wear my boots and walk at the same time, so I tell Lionel I don’t feel well and will stay in the hotel during the concert.

  So here I am, waiting out in the hall, sitting on the floor and leaning against the door of Mackenna’s room, staring at the scuffs on my boots, when I hear the elevator ping and the sound of the guys joking around fills the hallway.

  It’s almost inexplicable, the way my heart turns over in my chest when I catch sight of him. He’s wearing a pink wig, much like the one he wore the first day I saw him, and he’s dressed in gold leather pants, and sporting little flecks of glitter on his golden chest. He wears his everyday uniform of chains, bracelets, and tattoos.

  And I want to lick, kiss, touch, suck, and fuck the living daylights out of him. I also want him to take me in his arms and tell me he’s all right. That his father is all right. I want to tell him he’s lucky that he even has a father. Whether he’s fucking up his new life or not, at least his father is alive. Unlike mine. His father has a chance to say he’s sorry, make things right. My father was never able to even attempt to explain that the trip was “not what it seemed,” or that he wasn’t “involved with his assistant.” He never got the chance to tell me that, no matter what, he’d always love me.

  The laughter fades when the three men spot me. There are two women accompanying them, each draped over one of the twins. Mackenna is alone, and when he looks at me, I know he is alone because of this—of the electricity suddenly sparkling all the way from where he stands, to right here, where I sit.

  “Hey, Kenna,” I say, trying to stand. The action is a bit awkward on account of my sore muscles.

  He’s instantly by my side, helping me up by the elbow. “You okay? Leo said you weren’t feeling well.”

  “Headache, but now it’s gone. Who knew?” I lie, smiling softly.

  He smiles back at me and slips his key into the slot. He tugs me inside with him, and my knees feel weak when he grips my hand in his bigger one as he goes to get his toothbrush.

  “Mackenna, he okay?” I ask. I’m so anxious on his behalf. I know firsthand how much, how very much, Mackenna loves his dad. “Your dad.”

  “Yeah, they found him.”

  “Do you need something . . . ?” I swallow, because it’s so hard to say what comes next. “Do you need me?”

  He turns around, and I’m bowled over by the soul-searing, heartrending, raw need I see in his eyes. I suddenly don’t need words. My whole body responds to that look. “There are cameras here,” he whispers. Then, silently, he takes my hand and leads me down the hall, toward my room. He shuts the door behind us.

  “What happened?” I ask him.

  “He got drunk. Passed out in some hotel with some whore.”

  “Oh, god, I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah. Well. At least he wasn’t dealing.” He doesn’t sound too convinced that all is well, though.

  Something’s bothering him, and the urge to appease him is stronger than ever.

  I quickly say, “Look, my dad fucked up too, Kenna. But he could never . . . fix things. Your dad still can.”

  He pries off his wig, tosses it aside with a sigh, then goes into the restroom and comes out with a damp towel, which he slowly swipes across his muscled, sparkling tan chest. “Do you ever wonder what would’ve happened if your father had the chance to say he was sorry?” Mackenna asks me.

  “He didn’t care, he betrayed us.” Guess that’s all I can do; repeat what my mother’s drilled into my head for years.

  “Oh, Pink, he cared,” he contradicts. “Anyone who really knows you can’t help but care. That friend who defended you at the concert when you veggie-bombed me? She cares.”

  “Melanie?” I smile when I think of her. She’s my opposite, and I need her. I need her in my life the way any living thing, except for a parasite, needs the sun. “Brooke, Kyle . . . I guess they care too,” I admit, then, on impulse, I unlock my phone and show him a picture of Magnolia as he continues wiping the glitter off his arms.

  “She cares for me most of all.”

  “Look at that. Who’
s that little thing?”

  I love his grin so much I ache in a delicious way inside my heart. “My cousin. Her mother battled leukemia but lost. Magnolia saved us—saved my mother and me. I don’t know where we’d both be if she hadn’t come into our lives.”

  “We need a little cape for her with a big ‘M’ so she knows she’s a superstar, huh?”

  I smile as I set my phone aside. “You’re teasing me, but I like the idea. She’d love that. She doesn’t want to be a princess, and she seems more inclined to be a cape person.”

  “Like her Aunt Pink?”

  I smile and he chuckles with me, then he turns somber. Oh god, I missed him. I’ve only been with the band two weeks, but I’ve felt his absence over the last few days. And I missed him more than ever.

  “You know, the band . . . ,” he begins but stops to take a breath. “When Dad got arrested—when my life went to shit and I lost everything I loved—” He holds my gaze and nods solemnly. “The band saved me too.”

  I feel that ever-present pain, acute as ever as it pricks me. “I’m glad it saved you, Mackenna,” I whisper.

  “I fucked up, Pink.”

  “How? Because you walked away?” I don’t know why I ask this, but the words are out before I know it.

  “No.” In slow, predatory moves, he approaches me. “Because when I could finally come get you, I didn’t. I didn’t think you’d want me to, but that shouldn’t have mattered. I should’ve come back for you.”

  “No, you shouldn’t have. Because my kitchen would’ve had more ammunition than just tomatoes.” I fake laugh, trying to lighten the mood.

  Unfortunately he doesn’t find that funny.

  Before he can push me and find all the cracks in my walls—which are becoming weaker and weaker by the second—I pull his head down and start nibbling on his lips.

  “You miss me?” he suddenly demands to know. He eases his mouth away until it is less than an inch from mine. He tortures me by holding it still, keeping it from me. “You miss me?” he asks again, sliding his hands under the fall of my hair.