Page 49 of Sweet Ache (Driven 6)
It’s all eating at me, spurring on the self-doubt that always lingers just beneath the surface. Singles hitting number one on the charts, more money than I can spend, fame … They do nothing to replace the emptiness or the need to prove to everyone that I’m worthy of it all. If I can’t win over the one girl I want, then I sure as fuck am not enough to save the two people left in my life.
Fuck this. I down the rest of the drink, resign myself to the thought that I’ll go find my own fun for the night. Get lost in someone else or call up the girls from earlier, I think I have their number somewhere. Fuck, or find a fangirl who’ll be thrilled to be with me so that I can close my eyes and think of Quinlan.
I toss back the shot of Jäger on the table in front of me and when I slam the glass back down, I resolve that I need to take this back to where it all started, get my head on straight and simplify the situation. This is a bet, a challenge. Nothing more. Nothing less. A bet I have to win because fuck if I’m getting a tattoo of a pink damn heart.
Vince plops down on the other end of the couch and jars me from the shit fucking up my head and just eyes me up and down. “She show?”
“Who?” I play dumb even though I know he can see right through it.
“Your only hope at not getting a pussy pink heart tattooed on that wrist of yours.” He throws his head back and laughs.
I’m about to tell him, fuck you, because hell no, I don’t want to lose the bet. Won’t lose. But immediately the thoughts about after I do sneak in, the ones that give possibility to the things I’ll never allow in my life because they’ll make you weak. Jesus Christ, I haven’t even fucked her. Talk about a pussy predicament. Griff from the D-Bags beats me to it. “Fuck you, Vinny boy. The only pussy pink my man, Hawkin, here wears is on his lips.”
I double over in laughter momentarily before I fist bump Griff. “Classic,” I tell him. “Hey, Kellan,” I say over his shoulder when I notice their band’s lead singer on the other side of him. “You guys heading out?”
“Pussies,” Vince mutters, making a show of checking his watch to tell them they’re leaving way too early in the night.
“Well, yeah, that’s next on my agenda,” Griff says, all four of us laughing. “And definitely in the plural sense too.”
“Early flight back to the tour,” Kellan explains as he shakes my hand. “Thanks for letting us play tonight. My best to your family.”
“Thanks for playing, man. Appreciate it!”
The guys finish saying good-bye to Vince and when they clear the space in front of us, I look up and my eyes lock on to Quinlan’s. Goddamn. She’s a few steps behind Luke, her hand’s in his, but he’s leading so she has the freedom to hold my stare.
And fuck the jolt that hits is like a live wire running rampant through my every nerve. It’s like I’m seeing her for the first time and shit, it’s not like she’s doing anything other than walking, but it’s as if she just made so many things that are off-kilter inside me even out.
The thought unnerves me enough that when they approach, I focus on Luke with glances aimed her way intermittently. But it’s not enough.
I love the feistiness that sparks in the golden color of her eyes, the desire too, but I’m also intrigued to recognize her uncertainty over whether or nor I’ll keep the promises I made earlier. And that tells me so much: that she’s all-in with whatever this is between us. So I give her the only response I can with Luke present. I dart my eyes down to where my mark on her breast is hidden to let her know I’ll live up to my words. No doubt there.
Even better is the hitch in her breath when she understands my intentions.
We make niceties for a bit and I just want to buy Luke a drink to occupy his mouth so he stops talking for a minute. He’s a decent dude and all … just currently sitting with his arm around Quin. And she’s mine.
Between the subtle and fleeting meeting of our eyes and the way her tits bounce beneath the tank as she moves instinctively to the music’s beat, it takes every ounce of my effort to be attentive to whatever Luke is trying to talk about. I just nod and smile, pretend I’m more drunk than I really am because I learned a long-ass time ago that gets me out of having to converse with people when I don’t want to. All the while my mind fixates on the aggressive desperation in her touch in the backstage bathroom what feels like a lifetime ago.
“Let me buy you a drink,” Luke offers as he stands up. “What’s your poison?”
Fuck if I’m going to tell him in the VIP lounge we have servers bring us our drinks, that we don’t have to make a trip downstairs to the bar. Because now I get to be alone with Quinlan.
“Jack and Coke. Thanks.” I nod to him.
He holds his hand out to help Quinlan up and I swear it takes everything I have to not tell him she’s staying here. “I’m gonna stay here,” she says, reading my mind. I bite back the laugh when Luke glances back and forth between the two of us, my comment about losing the girl to a rock star from earlier obviously having left its impression. “My feet hurt,” she explains, lifting up her tanned calf in a move that has thoughts of running my tongue up its inseam clouding my mind.
I lick my lips and when I look up from her sexy-ass heels, Quin’s eyes are focused straight at me and are now full of libidinous hunger. It’s almost as if the longer we’re within each other’s proximity, our attraction is irrefutable, growing stronger. And she must sense that the desire in her eyes is unmistakable to Luke as well because she averts her gaze suddenly as if she knows she’s giving too much away.
But the damage has already been done. I’m sold. Check please. Time to go.
My dick’s already rising to the occasion because if the look in her eyes showed me just a smidgen of the tigress beneath, I’m already done for.
But Luke remains and stares at her momentarily, confusion in the narrowing of his brow while he mouths to her “You sure?” to which she replies, “I’m fine. Really.”
I can feel him looking but I just keep my eyes focused on the mix of lights flashing over the crowd of gyrating bodies below. I continue to gaze elsewhere because it’s easier than looking into Luke’s eyes and lying to him.
Shit, I’m nowhere close to being a saint but usually if I steal a man’s woman, it’s not literally right from under his nose. The crux of the matter though is that Quinlan definitely isn’t his—to anyone on the outside it’s easy to see—but obviously he still thinks it. And I don’t want to be a dick or rub his face in the fact that she’ll be going home with me tonight and not him.
By the way he looks at her, it’s gonna sting enough, so I don’t need to rub salt in the wound.
