He smiles a sad smile at the mention of the trial, then he kisses the ring on my hand, and then, well . . . then he pulls me by the small of my back against his hard, broad chest and kisses me stupid. “I love you. Always,” he husks out.
There are ways people love you.
There are all kinds and types of love, I’ve found.
The way you love pets. Your friends. The way your parents love you. Your cousins. And there was this whole other way Mackenna and I loved each other.
Our love was like a raging storm and a harbor: unruly and unstoppable, wild and endless, but steady and safe . . .
Or so . . . my fool seventeen-year-old heart thought.
Months later, I sat on a rickety old bench for hours, until the park grew pitch black, empty. I could’ve been robbed or maybe even kidnapped, it was so dark. I was so stupid and naïve, I still waited, my toenails freshly painted, my shoes new, my dress the one I thought I looked prettiest in—at least one of the few that was not black but a light yellow. And I waited, running my hands down my loose hair. I twirled my promise ring on my finger until the base of my finger grew red and I realized he wasn’t coming. And my eyes stung and my lungs closed when the figure that appeared that night was my mother’s, my mother who couldn’t possibly know I was dating him, extending her hand.
“He’s not coming,” she whispered.
“He’s coming, Mother. I’m leaving. You can’t stop me,” I said with more conviction than I felt.
“I don’t need to stop you. I just convicted his father, Pandora. You won’t be leaving with that boy. He’s not coming. I saw him with someone else. I’ll wait in the car.”
With someone else . . .
Just like my dad.
Mackenna lied to me.
And just like that, Mackenna broke me. . . .
FIVE
HAZED
Pandora
Okay, so here’s the deal. A fact of life I’ve just proven. Everyone believes rock bands live in this sick little world, where all the band members get stoned, drunk, and laid, curse and argue, and every day is like this big ol’ party?
Well, it’s true.
They rehearse, of course. They work—some of the time. But holy shit, do these people know how to party. Even Trombone Guy, Violin Guy, and Piano Guy are hitting the booze tonight.
Party animals.
The whole lot of them.
“You wanna drink?” Violin Guy offers, but when I say no, I watch him simply shrug and leave with his buddies, the Harpist and the Flute Guy¸ instead.
Really, all I want to do is go to my room and order a burger and French fries, but we’re supposed to be “partying,” and the cameras are making sure not to miss a single moment of the stupidity happening here.
I even begin to wonder if some of it is purely for marketing purposes.
Hanging close to a cameraman so he won’t tape me—I’m sure I’m wearing my most sour, tart face—I spot Mackenna by the beer pong. The amount of alcohol around here is mind-boggling. Body shots all over the place. Beer pong, drinks, booze, drugs. Even a shisha is going around.
I might try that if I were with my friends. Mel and Brooke, Kyle . . .
As it is, I won’t drop my guard for a second, especially with Mackenna Jones nearby and a thousand cameras around us. Imagine me drunk? With Mackenna nearby?
I might kill him.
I might . . . well, he’s so disgustingly male, I might feel him up while I kill him.
His lean arms are resting on the table as he waits for his opponent to throw the ball into his beer cup. His opponent happens to be one of the twins, and after he fails to make his shot, Mackenna smoothly dumps the ball into his cup, laughing while making the Viking—I think it’s Lex—drink.
Yeah, those two are pounding the booze.
I want to stop staring, but I can’t. Mackenna laughs out loud a lot, and the sound easily reaches my ears even though I’m across the room.
He’s changed in all these years. He’s still got that aura of a boy, but he’s so much a man now. I can’t stop cataloguing the differences. His jaw is squarer and slightly shadowed. Fuller lips. Thicker throat. He’s got muscles on his arms like there’s no tomorrow. He’s just so tan and . . . man. I watch as he waits for Lex to throw the ball into his beer cup again.
Then I notice that a dancer, Letitta, keeps eyeing me maliciously. She cranes her neck out like a mean bird as she comes to me. I’m disappointed to see the cameraman follow.
She hovers by my side and signals in the direction of my gaze.
“He’s such a good fuck.” Her greedy, beady little eyes slither over Mackenna, and, wow, her smile is just like I imagined Cruella De Vil’s right before she skins the fucking puppies.
An evil feeling crawls through me when I realize she, of course, has fucked that body in far more ways than I ever, in my stupid innocence, could have. I force a smile onto my face and twirl my pink strand of hair as I say, “I know, I broke him in.” I start to leave, but her voice stops me.
“You think you look cool and badass, but you don’t. Not really.”
“Thanks. I’ve been wondering what you thought about me. Now I can go rearrange my whole personality to suit you.” I look at the guy behind the camera, who’s grinning like he’s just struck gold, and I try to keep my cool, even though my anger is simmering under the surface of my skin.
She scrunches her face up until she looks like a little gremlin. “He hates your guts, girl. I swear the lyrics of ‘Pandora’s Kiss’ just needed to add the fact that he wished you dead. Why would he even look at you, if not to break you right now?”
I laugh. This kind of laugh, I’m actually used to. The kind that means I’m the opposite of happy and mirthful. “He already broke me, there’s nothing to break anymore, and when I reglued myself, I made it a priority not to put the heart back in. So it’s cool. Thanks for worrying about me. Your concern is touching.”
She jumps ahead of me and grabs one of my arms. “And yet you keep staring at him like you think he’s yours. He’s not.”
“Let go of me unless you want me to punch you,” I warn.
“Wow. You’re just like a man, aren’t you,” she says.
“Hey, Tit,” Lex calls, coming over to her and eyeing us both as though sensing we’re about to have a real live catfight, right here. I’m surprised he didn’t ease back and enjoy the view.
Maybe he isn’t such a douche bag after all.
Tit’s face switches in an instant from angry-gremlin mode to sweet-coquette mode as he comes over. He wraps his arm around her waist and kisses her on the mouth. God, I can’t believe these guys just pass around a woman like that.
Or actually, I can.
But I can’t believe they call her “Tit.”
I turn away when I catch Mackenna surveying me with a strange kind of proprietary gaze. Red plastic cup in hand, he starts walking over, and a ball of nervousness fires up in my belly as he approaches. Will you puleeze stop making me nervous, asshole? I want to yell.
“Making friends already?” he says with a smirk.
This smirk is different, though. Almost as if he’s displeased with Tit, which is ridiculous.
And suddenly I remember how, on the weekends after Thanksgiving, I’d escape with him. I remember us going to the ice rink, the day snowed in and cold. We’d watch guys making ice sculptures and we’d skate, and I loved to press close to him because he was always so warm and strong and steady on his feet. We’d see the frozen ice, stiff and white. I’d put on my skates, line up my boots, walk unsteadily into the ice. Then I’d slide over it, and he’d circle me like he was born on it. My Ice Man with silver eyes and warm skin and the world’s most perfect lips. Muscled and strong, it was always so easy for him to reach out and spin me like a top. And then he’d stop me from spinning with a hug, hold me close, and lift the ears of my cap so he could whisper, “You’re so hot you’d thaw this whole ice rink within hours.”
My heart melts a little
as I remember, and I try to reach for the ice I need to guard myself against him. He’s no longer the boy I skated with, hid with, and thought myself in love with. He’s a famous rockstar who plays with women. Me being the first of legions and legions of others.
“What? No reply?” he asks me. To be honest, I don’t remember what we were even talking about, but his lips quirk and he adds, “Not so sure about yourself when you’re not armed with vegetables?” There’s a playful challenge in his eyes, that bad boy gleam that still makes my pulse skittish.
“Kenna, do you want a cupcake?” one of the dancers asks as she comes over and nearly decorates his face with it.
“Not now,” he tells her, shoving the offering away, his eyes homed in on me. His alluring voice—his chiseled cheekbones, that twinge of charged air—is torture to my girly parts. Tor-ture. I feel a little drunk from having the attention everyone wants.
“More drink?” she presses hopefully, offering her red cup to him.
That catches his attention, and he stares at the red cup. “What you got there?”
I don’t intend to stay here and watch this poor girl embarrass our sex in this way, so I head off in search of Lionel. I need my room key.
“Leaving the party early?” Mackenna calls as I leave.
I direct my answer to Lionel, who I’ve spotted, instead, watching the manager put his whiskey down as I reach him. “I’m tired. If it’s okay with you, I already gave a juicy tidbit to one of the photographers.” I point at the blond guy.
“Noah? Good. Appreciated.” He flips a key out. “We’ve got the entire floor. There’s a communal media room that will be open in the presidential suite. Some food storage closets in the hall.”
“Thanks.”
It takes me a while to make sense of the rooms. This is an extended-stay hotel, so the rooms are more like apartments. I hear footsteps behind me—shuffling, then giggles. It sounds like Tit and Lex, making out, but I’m not sure. I don’t bother to turn around. The urge to get away from whoever is behind me hits and on impulse I grab the next doorknob and it opens, so I peer into pure darkness.
Before I realize it’s some sort of closet, the door slams shut behind me and a celebration ensues just outside.
Great.
Fucking perfect.
They’ve locked me in here. Just like Mackenna predicted, I’m being hazed. Damn, I hate him being right.
I press my ear to the door, straining to hear them outside. They’re still out there, and I hear giggles combined with male whispers. Sighing, I look around the closet and wonder if I’m going to sleep in here. It’s a four-by-four space and not long enough to take me stretched out on the floor. So, what, I’ll sleep sitting? All fucking night? No. When they leave, I’m going to try to unlock this sucker.
Minutes pass until, suddenly, they grow mysteriously quiet. I sense them still out there, waiting for something.
But what?
Then I hear the voice. Even though it’s muffled, I know exactly who it belongs to, because all the little hairs on my arms rise to attention.
Fuck no. Please. Anyone but him.
“What did you fuckers do?” Mackenna growls under his breath. When nobody answers him, he adds, “What? Is she in there, you pricks?”
“Hell, I don’t know. Why don’t you check and see for yourself, dude?” one of the twins answers.
There’s a cackle.
And then I hear the low, sensual, male sound of Mackenna’s panty-wetting, heart-melting, toe-curling chuckle coming closer. “Seriously? You’re such assholes.”
He gets the door to open and there he stands, those eerie silver eyes fixed on me. And they are on me. Like a touch. Doing things to my heartbeat that I don’t like but I can’t stop. There’s a tattoo on his forearm, a ring on his thumb, a thousand leather bracelets on his wrist. His lips curl, and I hate the feeling I get, like a bell chiming in the pit of my stomach. I especially hate the little tingle I get when he stretches out his hand.
“Hey,” he says as he studies me with amusement. “Told you, didn’t I?”
He talks to me good-naturedly, with one sleek eyebrow up high, and I feel a flush creep up my body as I stay rooted to my spot, bravely battling a surge of unwanted lust and old, familiar anger.
I want to get out of here, but I don’t like that he gets to play the hero.
Laughter rings out behind him, and before I can take his offered hand or brush snottily past him—which is what I was actually planning on doing—Lex and Jax shove him and, suddenly, all six feet three of Mackenna is crashing into the closet.
The door slams shut behind him. “Woo! Remember seven minutes in heaven, Kenna?” Lex shouts against the door. “How about seven hours in hell, dude!”
They start humming “Pandora’s Kiss,” and anger rushes through me. I fist my hands at my sides and close my eyes, praying for retribution one day.
Sounding bored as could be, Mackenna replies, “Very funny, douche bags,” and turns to grab the knob just as there’s a loud screeching of heavy furniture being dragged across the floor outside.
“Are they seriously blocking the door?” I ask, trying to sound bored as well, but in actual fact, I’m alarmed. They are seriously locking me in here?!?!?! With Mackenna?!?!?
This is beyond hell. So far beyond I don’t even have a term for it, but the closet already smells of . . . man. Man-wolf, and alcohol, and . . . ugh!
True panic floods me when I hear more screeching. The guys seem to be piling chairs against the door and jamming them against the doorknob. I mean, what the fuck?
After the screeching, there’s a bang. “Careful, Kenna, she bites!” one of the twins calls out, laughing again.
Mackenna swears under his breath and jiggles the doorknob. Their laughter intensifies, so he stops trying and turns around. The light that seeps in under the door causes attractive shadows to hit his profile as he looks at me. “All right, I’m not giving the assholes the amusement they want.”
I raise one eyebrow in an are-you-serious gesture.
He raises his eyebrows in an I’m-deadly-serious gesture.
I bite the inside of my cheek and slide down to sit on the floor, sighing dramatically.
He drops down too, and suddenly it’s so much more cramped in here. He’s so near. His thigh is all against mine. Hard as rock, and it’s having an unwanted effect on me. This is the nearest I’ve had him since . . .
Hell, I don’t know, my brain can’t get past his thigh. Against mine. Being this close to Mackenna, and his fucking X factor, is pure torture. My female parts are as responsive to him as the rest of the world is. My lungs feel leaden as I try to breathe, but every breath smells of him, and his eyes glow in the dark as he studies my profile in the silence.
The air feels charged between us. I feel awkward, like I want to say something. I guess we’d better start fighting. So I open my mouth.
“Don’t fucking ruin this,” he says in a voice that’s low and commanding.
Startled, I snap my mouth shut.
But my anger resurfaces when he leans forward and a strange surge of anticipation runs through me. “Come any closer and you’ll find my knee in your balls,” I warn.
He stops advancing and laughs softly. “You’ve been thinking of my balls, haven’t you?”
“Only how much I’d like to chop them, slice them, and add salsa to them.”
“And have them against a nice juicy taco. Hmm.”
“Ohmigod! You’re disgusting!”
I try to push him, and he catches my hands in his warm ones, making me gasp when he pins them over my head, against the wall. Outrage bubbles in my veins. I feel so trapped and helpless, and suddenly my heart is going a mile a minute, pumping in my throat. A crazy, wild wave of lust follows my outrage.
God. Seven hours of this?!?!
I groan in protest. The sound of my groan seems to do something to him, because he tightens his hold and weighs even more heavily on me. All two hundred pounds of muscled him.
Our eyes hold each other’s in the darkness, and the electricity rushes through me as I warn, “Let go.”
“You don’t mean that.”
I struggle futilely, and he tightens his hold. I nod. Yes, yes I do. I do mean it. But he transfers both my wrists to only one hand and leans his head against mine. The thundering of my heart echoes in my brain as his breath bathes my face. Oh god, he’s so close, and I’ve dreamed about being this close, in dreams and nightmares, during the day and during the night . . . I’ve dreamed of his eyes and how I used to find them always staring at me through those thick lashes of his. I’d dream and think of his lips. The top one shaped like a bow, almost as full as the bottom, the bottom one so plush and curved . . .
And then he kisses me, placing that mouth on me, cupping my head in his free hand, and parting my lips with the same lips I hadn’t realized I’d been staring at in painful hunger. The unexpectedness of his kiss makes me struggle halfheartedly to wrench free. I don’t want to want this. I don’t want this soul-searing thirst, the dreadful, inescapable feeling that I’ll break if he kisses me and I’ll break if he doesn’t. I whimper, as though it would make him have mercy on me. He doesn’t. He groans softly and tries slipping his tongue into my mouth, and when I part my lips and let him taste me because I’m clearly out of my mind, suicidal, and horny, I make a sound I haven’t ever made in my life. More than a moan or a whimper, a sound of true, quiet pain. He pulls back when I do, and so do I.
We both stare, in shock.
“Asshole,” I hear myself murmur, breathing hard.
“Bitch.”
He looks at my lips, and my sex squeezes in reaction as he lowers his head and covers my lips again, more viciously, with his own groan of pleasure.
For a fraction of a second, my body is a trembling mass of contradictions. My hands have not touched any man. Only a boy. Seventeen. Before he got the tattoo that peeks on the inside of his forearm. Before he became larger than life, a star, before he grew up to be this man.
One second, I’m a woman with a thousand walls, who rarely touches anyone or allows a hug. In the next, I’m six years younger, and he’s the guy I let in. I don’t want that girl to take over, but I live in her. This is her skin, and nobody can make it tremble like he does.