Ripped

“Please stop trying to make me into some simpering fool over you. Just kiss me.”

  “You’ll never be a simpering fool, just tell me you missed me,” he says, looking at me, gaze fierce.

  I make a noise of protest, and he laughs softly. “Fine,” he whispers, brushing his lips to mine. I think I’ve gotten away with it, so I move to kiss him. But before I can crush my lips with his, he tells me, “But I missed you.”

  FOURTEEN

  PLANS

  Mackenna

  We’re in a tangle. No cameras. Nothing. Nothing but me and her. She’s sweaty and smells like sex, and that’s just the way I want her to smell.

  I want her to smell like me.

  Hell, this here—her hair with that pink streak spread out on the pillow and her limbs around me—this is so fucking perfect, I don’t want to even go take a piss.

  I want so much more, I’m a greedy fucking man. Greedy as fuck when it comes to her. I growl softly and nip at her shoulder, murmuring, “I need to go talk to Leo.”

  She sighs, stretches. “About what?”

  I look at her; she’s a pistol and a half, and I love having my hands full with her. “I’ll tell you later, woman. Cover up so I at least get my mind out of your luscious curves.”

  “I’m hot and sweaty. I don’t want to cover up.”

  She groans, and I bury my own groan in her neck. “And I don’t want to leave this bed.” Now I nip at the soft, tender tendon of her throat. “But the sooner I talk to him, the sooner I can come back here.”

  “Mackenna,” she laughs, her arms tight around my neck, “are you seriously going now?”

  I smack her ass playfully. “Yeah. I’ve got big plans for your future.”

  “Come on! Stay here. Tonight I wanted . . .” She looks at me with those pitch-black eyes, then frowns as if she doesn’t like what she was about to say. They’re heavy-lidded, her eyes. “I want us to be friends,” she says at last.

  “Friends?” I repeat.

  “Yeah. I want . . .” She sits up warily, tugs her hair. “I want to try to move on, Mackenna.”

  “You want to move on from me?”

  Fuck me, but that’s just not what I wanted to hear. Still, I sound casual. She’d never guess the size of the blade I feel sticking out of my gut right now.

  “No. From the past,” she says.

  “Really,” I say, without inflection.

  But I can’t let go. I can’t let go of the past. How can you let go when all you want is to turn back time and make a different choice? And yet she looks so fucking hopeful, as if this right here is the moment where she can finally live a happier life.

  I don’t want to tell her that that’s not what I want.

  “Your hair is fucking crazy.” I tug on the cotton candy streak.

  She flashes a brief but rare smile. “Tell me about your crazy wigs.”

  “My wigs are cool, babe. You better watch what you say about them.”

  “Do you like wearing your wigs, or is it something they make you do?”

  “The wigs?”

  “No! Idiot! Leo—your contract.”

  “Nah, I do it myself. Makes it easier. Like stepping into a persona. I dig it.”

  “Because you’re fun. You always did like to have fun. Oooh. And like the technique of pretending no one out there is me. Your jinx.”

  “You’re not a jinx.”

  “All that pot smoke your bandmates blow out is messing with your head. You don’t make any sense. Explain.”

  “You’re not a jinx. It helps when you’re the only one I’d want to make proud of me.”

  An intense but secret expression flickers in her eyes.

  My lips curl, an empty smile.

  “That’s news to you?” I laugh. “You’re the only one I’ve never been good enough for.” I’m putting it all out there. “Knowing it’s not you out there relieves some of the performance pressure.”

  “I . . .” She blinks, her face losing some of its color.

  “Cat got your tongue?” I lean in and tongue her mouth.

  She tongues me back, and I sigh and pull her closer. She sighs back, relaxing into the present. No more past. Fuckups. Mistakes. All those years. All that pain. All that impotence. The frustration. Gone.

  She closes her eyes when my fingertips reach her scalp, and her tits rise and fall against my chest, awakening my cock to come play again. But I can’t yet. There’s something I must do first.

  I kiss the top of her head. “Go to sleep.”

  “Why? For your information, meathead, I wasn’t planning on kicking you out tonight.”

  “Gotta talk to Leo.”

  ♥ ♥ ♥

  NO SURPRISE TO find out Lionel has company when I knock on his door. He ushers me into the living room while Tit wraps herself with a bathrobe and pouts from the bed.

  Lionel shuts the door between the bedroom and sitting area, blocking her from us. “What happened at that rodeo bar was unacceptable, Leo,” I warn.

  “Just trying to get a couple good scenes, something organic and natural. Damn, you love jumping into fights.”

  “Yeah—but not when she’s in it,” I growl, pacing around like a caged tiger, watched, taunted, pricked. “I need to get her out of here, Leo,” I finally tell him, spinning around to face him.

  “You don’t need to do anything except work her out of your system, Jones.”

  “I want to drive separately.”

  His eyes nearly bug out. “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me. Pandora and I are heading to New Orleans and Dallas on our own. I want her away from the cameras, the fans, the girls. Everything.”

  “You can’t just up and leave. We have a movie to film, and the producer wants her on the stage of Madison Square Garden. She needs to practice. Plus, your job is to give us some meaty shit for film—that is, if you still want what you asked for?”

  “You let me drive separately with her, I’ll help her with her dance routine. Hell, I’ll practice the kiss until it’s perfect. I’ll even give you a new song. God knows, it’s in my head all the time. Look, she doesn’t like flying, and the cameras are driving me nuts.”

  “You want it all, dude, you want me to give you what you want—”

  “Look,” I interrupt, narrowing my eyes as I aim my index finger his way, “you’re gonna get the kiss and I’ll also give you a song. One last song before you release me from my contract. That’s more than fair.”

  Leo looks constipated, but I don’t fucking care. With his eyes narrowed on me as he seems to let everything sink in, I let him watch me call a rental service and get a car for Pandora and me.

  As soon as the call ends, Lionel is on me with a furious glare, tightening the sash of the bathrobe that just so happens to match the one Tit was wearing. “You fucking her? Heard on camera there was fucking. We want to see some fucking action, Kenna.”

  “You’re not going to see shit.”

  “I’ll give you what you want,” he relents, “but only if you make this movie worth remembering.”

  “Leo, we had a deal,” I remind him. “You said you’d release me if I went along with this bullshit. You wanted the kiss, and all you’re getting is that kiss.” Kissing Pink in front of thousands of fans, her lips on mine—hell, I know she’ll be angry. But she gets her chance to let the world know my song is bullshit. Not that I care all that much. Every complaint in that song is because I’ve been in love with her for years.

  “Fine. Go drive her around in a car, I don’t care. But I get that kiss and that song or you get nothing, you hear?”

  I head for the door. “I hear.”

  “Make her want it, Kenna!” he calls.

  “Oh, she wants it.” I slam the door shut after me.

  Just not as much as I fucking do.

  My father has a second chance, and I realize now that so do I. Difference is, I’m not screwing mine.

  When I slip back into her room, she’s lying in bed and quickly rises up onto her arms whe
n I arrive. You could never fall asleep when you knew I was coming, could you, baby?

  “Hey,” I say, struggling with the sensation of carrying a grenade inside my chest. Grenade about to go boom!

  Holy shit, I feel powerful things for her.

  I feel everything for her. Anger and protectiveness. Possessiveness and pain. I feel fucking good with her. I feel . . .

  “Come back to bed,” she whispers, lifting the sheets.

  God, I’m not fucking it up this time.

  FIFTEEN

  A ROAD TRIP WITH A ROCK GOD

  Pandora

  “Mackenna, I’m not getting in that car.”

  “I see two choices for you, Pink, and two only. It’s either the jet or the Lamborghini. Your pick.”

  “The door doesn’t even open right! What’s with that, Kenna? You have a big dick—you don’t need these gadgets to feel like a man.”

  “Stone, seriously, get in the fucking car.”

  “Jones, you want the entire highway to look in your direction as we go to the airport? Is your rockstar status not enough to make you feel good about yourself?”

  He laughs. “Babe, we’ll be passing by so fast no one will get a glimpse of our faces. Come on.”

  He slams my suitcase and a small duffel into the trunk, then comes around and yanks the door open. “What are you waiting for? Get in.”

  I edge inside and when he leans over, my insides stir, as if my stomach is in a blender. “Why are you doing this?” His eyes hold mine as he reaches for the belt and slowly starts strapping me in.

  “Easy. Because I want to. I want to be away from those bozos . . . and alone with you.”

  His scent reaches me, and it annoys me that I sound breathless—even if I have been fucked ten ways to Sunday already. “You sure woke up chivalrous today. I never thought you’d grow up to be such a gentleman.”

  “I can be gentle, just not with this car.” He settles down in his seat, then snaps the belt on with a cocky smile. He strokes the wheel almost with the same loving care he strokes me with, then sets the GPS, his arms bulging, the flex of his muscles causing an uncomfortable tickle between my legs. He starts the car with a big roar and presses the pedal, and the engine roars even more.

  “So, is there an ulterior motive for us driving to the airport?” I ask.

  “We’re not heading to the airport.”

  He smirks and zooms us out of there with a screech of tires only fast, scary cars with expert drivers in movies make. Before I can demand specifics, he drops our windows and the sunroof, and the wind presses his shirt to his chest, every muscle grabbing my attention. I take in the buildings that we pass, then nothing. Every couple of minutes, my eyes drift to him. I can’t stop. The wind is the only actual sound, but in my head, there are a thousand.

  Why did he leave? What does he want with me now? Does it matter? Do I want to take his love, just so I can fling it back in his face? Or am I trying to prove to myself that I’m loveable? Or am I doing this—this thing with him—simply because it’s the thing I’ve wanted most, my whole life?

  “So what’s the plan?” I ask.

  “We road trip to Dallas, spend a night at a hotel, then arrive for practice before the concert. We’ve got to beware of the fucking paps, but I’ve got my lucky cap for that.” He looks at me, raking his eyes up and down. “Want to stop for a couple of disguises?”

  “I can always wear your mohawk.”

  He smiles and reaches out to take my hand, bringing it over to his thigh, keeping his hand on mine as he hums a Mozart song. I swear it’s so fucking sexy when he hums that I almost wish he wouldn’t. It’s sexy because he likes real music and can play piano and guitar like a devil. All because of the way he listens to the melody, then repeats it, but with his own twist.

  The wind doesn’t even touch his buzz cut, and it’s sexy. How it stays in place. He’s holding my hand, and that’s sexy too.

  And dangerous.

  Danger! I pull my hand away. “Let’s keep it real, okay? There’s no point in pretending shit if we’re just fuck buddies.”

  “Really now?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “So, what am I supposed to do? What’s my role?”

  He’s amusing himself; I scowl.

  “Nothing. You be yourself—an asshole—and I’ll be me.”

  “Charming as always?”

  “Wow, seriously, what did you have for breakfast today?”

  “You’ll be my woman.”

  “The way you say it like I have almost no choice is irritating. But yes, fine. And we just . . . fuck. On occasion. And on that day when I have to kiss you, I’ll dance, making a complete idiot of myself. Then we finish with whatever terms, and I leave.” I stare out the window, but I hear him laugh, like I’m hilarious.

  “I happen to hold my fuck buddies’ hands.” He grins and stubbornly takes my hand back. I groan, and he laughs.

  “What have you got to lose? I know you haven’t been with a man since me. I know that guy at the hotel parking lot was a friend.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I just know,” he dismisses. “What do you have to lose, letting me hold your hand? I’ve held it tons of times before.”

  I hesitate. I want to say something snarky, but the way he looks at me, his face uncharacteristically somber, calls for the truth. “Because you’ll hold my hand, and I’ll get used to the way it feels, and before I know it, you’ll let go of it . . . again,” I say, my heart hurting as I pull my hand free once more.

  His hand comes to rest on the wheel, clenching it tight. I stare out the window, then burst out, “You’re . . . it’s not like you’re normal, or me . . . or this is normal. Dude, we’re in the middle of a fucking concert tour, with all your whore dancers licking you up. I’m just the one you’re banging.”

  “You are the one I’m banging, and I like my hands on you. Deal with it.” He grabs my hand again, giving me a don’t-test-me squeeze. I hesitate. His hand is warm in mine, and the air swirls around us. He rubs his thumb into my palm. “I fucking like it, Pink,” he growls.

  God, he exhausts me. Wears me out. I want to put up my walls, but instead I feel like crashing.

  After driving for a while, we stop at a diner. “Everybody’s going to recognize you.”

  Uncaring, he puts on his aviators, pulls out a navy blue cap, and pulls me inside, lacing our fingers together. He tugs me into a booth at the back, then sets his arm around my shoulder. “What do you want?”

  I flip open the menu, acutely aware of his thumb absently rubbing my neck as he looks at his menu too.

  The waitress takes our order, and when she leaves, Mackenna pulls off his glasses, turns my head around by the chin, and starts kissing and nibbling my neck in a way that makes my toes curl. I end up leaning into the nook of his arm and cuddling a little as we wait for our food. “I like driving you around in that Lambo,” he lazily admits, running a heavy hand down my hair. “Getting that pink strand of hair tangled up with your black.”

  Delightful little tingles race through my bloodstream. This is how it could have been with us. This is how it could have been if I’d told my mother the truth. If he’d shown up one day. Or we simply hadn’t needed to run away.

  “Admit it, you like the Lambo.” He rubs his silver ring over my bottom lip, the smirk on his face adorable.

  “It’s so fucking uncomfortable,” I hedge.

  “Huh. We really should find other uses for that mouth of yours.”

  He shoves all five fingers of one hand into my tangled hair and I arch my body closer, pressing my breasts to his hard chest to let him know I want him to kiss me again. Reading me perfectly, he kisses my lips—softly, as if I’m fragile. As if he wants to memorize taste and texture and shape.

  “Guys with bikes kiss their women harder,” he says. “Maybe we should trade the Lambo for a bike? Get something with power rumbling between your thighs?”

  Already, there’s something rumbling between my
thighs.

  His voice.

  The way it affects me when it gets all husky.

  “There’s no way I’m riding a motorcycle on a highway.”

  “No? No bikes?” He chuckles and spares a long, hungry look at me, his eyes laughing too. “I know what you’d enjoy doing. Other than me.” There’s that smirk again.

  “You do, do you?” I think I’m smirking too as I raise an eyebrow in challenge. I’m such a good bluffer, I bet he has no idea I’m squeezing my thighs together under the table, fighting to quell the ripple of need running through me.

  He prolongs the moment as though to heighten the suspense, his finger rubbing up and down the length of my neck now. “Well . . . do you want to know? Pink?”

  God, I can’t stop grinning. I feel . . . young. Carefree. Alive. Sexy. Cherished. “I have a feeling you’re going to tell me anyway, Kenna.”

  He slips his hand under the table and cups one of my thighs as he nods to my plate and whispers, “Finish your meal and I’ll show you instead.”

  Shortly after, on our way to this mysterious place, we pull up in front of a gas station to feed the Lambo’s apparently voracious appetite for gasoline. While I get a bottle of water, Mackenna gets some gum, M&M’s, and corn nuts, and we head out again.

  Mackenna took my hand going in and out of the store, then he takes it in the car again too. I tell myself I’m too tired to fight him, but the truth is, I like it so much, it gives me flutters every time he reaches for me. As we head down the highway, I watch, hypnotized, as he drags his thumb over my knuckles while he drives. The glint of his silver ring in the sunshine is growing deliciously familiar.

  “Where are we going?” I ask for about the third time.

  His lips hitch up in one corner. “Paradise, Pink.”

  “Mackenna, if this has anything to do with sex . . .”

  “No, babe, but you could say it’s damn well close to the next best thing for you and me.” He winks. And not far behind the wink is that sexy smirk of his.

  I’m so puzzled, I can’t think of anything close to sex but . . . sex. Kissing and necking. Making out. What’s the next best thing to sex??

  It’s not yet dusk when we stop at a school parking lot. I’ve never been in this school, have no idea what he’s plotting, but I let him guide me by the hand to a side entry. Mackenna greets a man by the door, then he quietly leads me to an indoor ice rink.