4. Piper

CHAPTER 4

Piper

T he blonde chick begged to go down on me. I didn’t even fuckin’ want it. I never want it. But warm bodies and soft tongues are good for forgetting, even if only for a few seconds. So I make the little slut fall on her knees and crawl to the wall where I’m standing. She puts on a show, too, preening as the band hoots and hollers. The only one who doesn’t humiliate her is Shiraz. She shakes her head and looks away as if pained by the image.

I’m not a shell on stage. I don’t feel empty and miserable. On stage, I’m at home, but once the roar of the crowd dissipates and the adrenaline-high ebbs, the emptiness floods in.

I fill those broken hollow parts of myself with pretty girls and pretend. I look for her in every girl I fuck, and if I can’t see her face in the recesses of my mind, I indulge in the lie that she never left me. It’s gonna be hard with this one, though. Her golden locks interfere with the delusion.

I unbuckle my leather pants and tug them down to my knees. I used to shy away from fucking groupies in front of my bandmates, but the alcohol and the burning need to feel something other than sorrow dissolved my reluctance. It doesn’t matter, anyway; they never care to watch. Like me, they’re drowning in misery. Guess I could’ve gotten wrapped up in worse things than being a borderline sex addict. Like drowning in drugs and joining the twenty-seven club.

The blonde is good at licking pussy. Got to appreciate a sexually liberated woman. Is she a slut? Sure. But fuck it, so am I. So are ninety-nine percent of all men. Humans are whores. It’s all about the right offer and asking price. For this chick, it’s being able to say she licked the pussy of Piper Pain, the lead singer of Lifeless Lies. For someone else, it might be a billion dollars.

“Good girl,” I coo as the blonde’s tongue performs acrobatics on my clit. It’s obvious this isn’t her first rodeo, and I appreciate that.

I rest my head against the wall, closing my eyes to focus on the pleasure she’s giving me.

I didn’t see Kaye at the show. She wasn’t at the last one, either. Still a fuckin’ chicken. She’d rather hide than face me. Is she still in the closet? When I first saw her name beside Gutless Void, I frantically searched online for any information I could find on her, but there was nothing. The only images that popped up were of her standing beside the band with a stern expression and her arms crossed over her chest. Nothing about relationships or her personal life.

I’m already bored with the blonde between my legs. I tug at her hair and guide her head to where I want it. “That’s it. Show me what a desperate little slut you are. Make me believe no one can tongue fuck me like you. If you do a good enough job, I might bring you on the bus for a few nights.”

Laughter bubbles up inside me as the blonde enthusiastically goes to work. I lean back on the wall, and that’s when my gaze locks with hers. Kaye Cavendish.

She doesn’t move. Her eyes shuffle between my face and the girl between my legs. I smile at her. Hold her gaze. I want her to watch. To see another woman giving me pleasure. For her to believe that I’m over us.

But you’re not. The blonde at your feet proves you’ll never get over Kaye .

I chase the intrusive thoughts away, hooking a leg around the groupie’s neck and humping her face as I gaze at the pretty girl who’s haunted my dreams and nightmares for ten years. Wonder if the little groupie sucking my clit right now would dye her hair dark brown? Her curls are similar enough to Kaye’s.

I smile at Kaye, thinking about her pretty little face, all scrunched up in disgust while I fuck this girl in front of her. I expect her to drop her head and shuffle from the green room, but she returns my smile with a cocky one of her own and opens the door wide.

“You all know the green room isn’t the place for your hookups, right?”

She still sounds the same—a sultry jazz singer who oozes sex appeal and sin.

“Ohmygod. It’s Kaye Cavendish,” a redhead squeals as she jumps off Ryker’s lap, almost tripping over her feet to get to Kaye.

I want to laugh at the stunned look on my lead guitarist’s face as he realizes he’s lost some pussy to a road manager. Not sure who he’s kidding, anyway. It’s not like he’d ever fuck a groupie. That man only has eyes for our drummer. The way he gazes at her, you’d think she hung the sun and the moon and held the secrets to the meaning of life. Too bad Shiraz is oblivious.

The redhead saunters over to Kaye. I’m fine at first. Cool as a fuckin’ cucumber. But then the bitch touches Kaye, her long red fingernails gliding over Kaye’s navy-blue suit jacket. Those suits are such a smoke show, the opposite of who Kaye Cavendish really is. The sweet girl, trying to look tough.

Kaye’s eyes slowly roam from my face down my body, landing on my hand holding the platinum blonde head to my pussy. Kaye jerks her gaze up. She squints, and her pretty lips tilt up before turning into a straight line. One hand is a fist, while the other grabs the redheaded groupie and drags her toward her. The anger and pain burrowed deep within me snap back to a time when I was desperate for a girl who was with someone else.

The obnoxious flash of the alarm clock reminded me it was midnight. I should be deep in slumber, but my hand was between my legs as I fingered myself, listening to my brother fuck the pretty brunette who’d been running through my mind for the last year.

My free hand bunched the pillow as I placed it on my face and screamed in frustration.

It wasn’t right to get this turned on hearing your brother fuck his girlfriend. It wasn’t acceptable to want your twin brother’s girlfriend. But God help me, I wanted Kaye Cavendish. I wanted her so badly. I stared at the ceiling, thinking about all the ways I would devour her flesh until she begged me to stop.

She thought my brother was her savior, but Larken didn’t deserve her. I saw how he treated her like a dirty secret, forcing her to climb through his window in the middle of the night and scurry out before the sun rose in the morning.

He’d once professed his undying love for Kaye and waxed poetic about their forbidden passion for each other. He’d insisted they were like Romeo and Juliet, star-crossed lovers tortured by the conventions of society. I wasn’t sure my brother had even read that play. If he had, he’d know that Romeo died for his love while Larken Hughes was petrified at the prospect of a stern lecture from his mommy if he invited his so-called love over for dinner.

They had nothing in common. Other than what sounded like mind-blowing sex. Sex I wanted to be having with her. My finger rubbed my clit as I focused on Kaye’s moans. The way her cries escalated when she was on the brink of release. The soft mews she made. I longed to hear those sounds as my tongue tasted her.

“I’m close, Larken. Don’t stop,” she begged.

I wished my parents’ room was up here and not on the main floor. A part of me wanted my mother to banish Kaye from our house and shame Larken so I didn’t have to listen to him getting what I wanted.

I closed my eyes and pictured her in my bed. Images of her fingers on my clit flooded my mind. My lips parted. I whispered her name as she moaned his, and we came in unison.

The door to the joint bathroom I shared with Larken opened, followed by the rushing tap water. She never lingered in the afterglow. It was always the same. Kaye had sex with my brother, then ran into the washroom and cried while he passed out.

Usually, I stared at the ceiling and pondered the pain that caused the sorrow escaping her lips, But at that moment, all I could think about was how she was suffering alone. It irked me in ways I didn’t understand.

Jumping out of bed, I threw on a pair of shorts and a tank top and headed to the washroom door. I didn’t bother knocking. I turned the doorknob and pushed my way in.

Kaye didn’t register that another person was in the room. She sat on the floor, arms wrapped around her legs, her entire body shaking as violent tears cascaded from her eyes.

I wanted to sit with her, put my arms around her, and give her my shoulder to mourn her sorrow. I wished I had words of comfort or a magical elixir to ease her suffering. The stabbing pain in my heart demanded I fix this, ease her pain, take her burdens, and shoulder them so she wouldn’t have to.

But I stared at her and nonchalantly blurted, “Why are you crying?”

Kaye’s head shot up, her cheeks wet, her eyes bloodshot. She didn’t answer my question. Instead, we stared at each other in silence.

I entered the bathroom barefoot, the tiles icy beneath my feet. I sat across from her, ignoring the cabinet handle digging into my spine. “Did Larken hurt you?”

She shook her head. “No. Larken would never hurt me physically.”

I moved closer so she could hear my hushed tone. “Then why are you crying?”

“It’s hard fighting to live when all you want to do is die.”

A vise gripped my heart as panic rose in every fiber of my being. It wasn’t Kaye’s words that frightened me, but the tone in which she said them—matter of fact, direct, and full of pain. Guilt wracked me, thinking about how I got myself off to the moans of the saddest person I’d ever seen.

I didn’t know what to say. My first instinct was to shake her, tell her she was being ridiculous and selfish. That she had people who cared about her and could help her. But I wasn’t sure if those were lies I’d be telling her or lies I had devised for myself. So I told her the truth.

“If you die, I’d miss you. So please stay.”