Losing Track: A Living Heartwood Novel Read online

I NEED TO GET the fuck out of here.

  Mel’s been in the bathroom longer than needed, and I know she knows I’m aware of what’s going down in there. She’s got a stash. I’m pretty sure it’s not blow, because she’s more than skeeted up; she’s overly wired and teetering on sketchy.

  Jesse looked like he was jacked on meth. And if that’s what she’s on, then she’s not coming down for a long while. Only thing I can do is keep her from getting bored, going out and doing something that might get her hurt, until she comes down. Which won’t be pretty.

  My own cravings are through the freaking roof. Just knowing she has a bag of something in there is causing my hands to slick with sweat. My stomach to roil with cramps. It’s for just this reason I choose to be a loner. I should have kept it that way.

  I’m two seconds from walking out the door, needing to put my fist through something, when Mel exits the bathroom.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” she says. “We were getting somewhere. Don’t ruin it.”

  I exhale, so tired my bones ache. But I commit to staying just long enough to make sure she won’t up and leave the moment I do. “All right, then. My turn.”

  As she thunks down beside me, close enough for me to smell the girly-scented shampoo she uses, I curl my hands into fists and ask my question. “Did Jesse…take advantage of you?”

  Her face pales. “Fuck, Boone. What kind of question—?”

  “Did he?” With everything she said back at the bar, I got the clear impression something as fucked up as that went down between them. Which is why I cannot understand how in the hell she’s still hanging around the asshole.

  If she wasn’t coasting on losing her shit earlier tonight, he’d be a dead man right now.

  Mel shakes her head. “No. I mean, no. It wasn’t the most pleasant experience…but I was really fucked up. And we’ve had sex before.”

  “Doesn’t mean a guy can’t rape someone he’s had sex with before,” I counter. She’s smarter than this.

  She blanches, then recovers quickly, anger evident on her face. “Hey. We were getting it on, and I’d just shot up. I started to spiral, like really hard. I did change my mind…but it was too late. I don’t think he heard me, or noticed how messed up I was. He was way messed up too, and just really caught up in the moment.”

  “That’s not what you said in your sudden moment of clarity back there.” I jerk my head, indicating back at the bar. “You seemed to blame him. And I think that’s the truth. Look, shit happens when you’re fucked up. I know. But regardless of how high I was, ever, I never forced myself on a girl. Shit, there’s been many times I could’ve. They probably wouldn’t have even remembered the next day. But that’s beyond fucked up. Even if he didn’t realize right in that moment…he sure as shit knew afterward.”

  She’s fidgeting with her pink bandana. Agitated. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. So much shit went down that night—I’ve swept it all away. It may come up during a bad moment here and there, but it’s so far down on my list of concerns. Of what matters. Of what counts…” she trails off, lost in her own thoughts. And I realize this convo needs to happen when she’s clear-headed.

  I change the subject before I get so pissed off I end up hunting Jesse down. “What’s with the pink bandana?”

  “Uh-uh, that’s two questions.” She waggles her slender finger at me.

  “The first doesn’t count. Because you’re still battling the truth, I don’t think you can actually answer.”

  This makes her even more frustrated, and she tugs the bandana from her wrist and holds it out. “Because women can’t join the MC, my friend and I decided we’d wear our own colors. We’d be our own little MC together. So that’s what it is.”

  I smile. “So you really are a Pink Lady.”

  She rolls her eyes. “We’re so much more bad-ass than that, dude.”

  I snag the bandana and loop it around my fingers. “Is this the friend you lost?”

  Keeping my gaze on the pink material, I avoid looking at her. Wait for her response. I’m sure of the answer, but I want to hear it from her. If she’s so close to this person, then I’m positive I’d have met her by now.

  “Yeah,” Mel says. “Which means I’m an MC of one now. How lame.”

  “She died recently. She’s who you lost before you got sent to Stoney. Why what happened with Jesse takes a backseat by comparison.” I glance up. Her dark eyes are far away. Unfocused. Her pupils are barely visible little dots. Shit, how much has she done?

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” she says. “Let’s put twenty questions on pause, all right. There’s something else we need to get out of the way.”

  “What?”

  She takes the bandana from me and sets it on the table behind her, then swings a leg over one of mine. Her knee presses between my thighs. Heat builds in my stomach, an ache in my nuts, and I push away from her.

  “Don’t do that,” she says, and places her palm against my chest. I’m sure my heart is knocking so hard she can feel it. “Don’t. Okay? We don’t have to make love or fuck. But you need to let yourself off the hook some. Give yourself some release, Boone. Or one day, you’re going to kill one of those guys in the ring.”

  Her breathy words zing right to my dick. The traitor. Somehow my brain skips right over the crucial stuff, hearing only “make love” and “fuck.” Not the part where she’s actually concerned about me, which is now starting to register as she slides her hand down my chest.

  I plant my hand atop hers, stopping its progression. “I appreciate your concern for your fellow backyard brawler,” I say, circling my fingers around her wrist. “And for me. Honestly, Mel. I get what you’re trying to do. And you think it’s some kind of favor…but—” Dammit. Last time I rejected her, she got hurt. How the hell will she respond all messed up like this?

  Luckily, she skips ahead for me. She tugs her hand out of my grasp. “Fine. I got it. Not into girls, right?” She sinks her hands into the couch cushions and pushes herself backward, leaning her head against the sofa pillow.

  I feel my face screw up, and I twist around to confront her. “What? You think I’m gay? I thought we already covered this. I told you—” What the hell? How…who…my brain is going over every kind of signal I could’ve possibly sent to indicate this. “Are you getting me back for that first day, when I assumed—” I cut myself off, realizing that the day we met, I made an asinine comment about her and the friend she’d lost. Damn. I’m such a dick sometimes.

  But she laughs as she rests her hands on her stomach. My gaze is drawn right to her bare midriff. The tantalizing layer of flesh peeking out above her low riding jeans and her inched up shirt hem. I swallow hard, adverting my gaze.

  “Okay, okay,” she says. “Not gay. Just celibate and highly constrained.”

  From my peripheral, I watch as her fingers push her shirt up another inch. Trace the smooth skin of her stomach. “So…explain this celibacy thing to me. Are you not allowed to even pleasure yourself?” She flicks open her jeans’ button. God, have mercy.

  Running my hands down my face, I groan a curse into my palms. “No, I take care of business when I have to.” I don’t want to leave it at that, like an invitation. I quickly follow with, “But I’m a grown man, not a hormone crazed teen. I have restraint.”

  She smiles. Sexy as hell. “I’m sure it still gets a little hard. Pun totally intended there.”

  This conversation, along with her fingers teasingly snaking below her white panties, needed to be over five minutes ago. “Mel, listen. You’re not right at this moment. Why don’t I fix you some food—” I cut off, knowing food is the last thing she can force herself to ingest. If she’s on coke or meth, her appetite is nonexistent.

  But shit, I have to deter her attention to something. “TV. Let’s go watch TV until you start to come down.” I palm my forehead. “Shit. You don’t have one. You have really got to get a TV. And some other stuff around here to keep you busy.”

  Her smil
e only widens. “Christ. Do I scare you that badly? I’m not forcing myself on you, guy. I’m just pleasuring myself. My hands will remain on me, I promise. That shouldn’t bother you, right?”

  My jaw clenches as I watch her arch her back, angling herself into a better position, her hand moving underneath her underwear. Why the fuck am I watching. I attempt to get up, needing to walk the solid-as-a-rock hard-on off, but her bare foot springs out and traps me, then she lays her leg across my lap.

  “Don’t leave me like this,” she says, all breathy. “I feel like something’s clawing beneath my skin. I just need a little release.”

  Hell. I push my back into the cushion, look at the plain wall in front of me. “Mel, I can’t let you do something you’ll regret when you sober up. You’re high as a fucking kite right now, and tomorrow…” I sigh. Even trying to rationalize with her is a waste of breath.

  She moans, and the sound curls in my stomach, stretching my skin. I’m strung tight, and as she arches her back, her thin T-shirt pulling tight against her breasts, her nipples peaking, all I can do is stare. Miserable like a son-of-a-bitch.

  “I won’t regret shit,” she says. “Just relax.”

  And I try. I try so hard to calm my racing heart. Curb the intense need to feel her. But I’m mentally climbing the walls. I haven’t been this close to a woman—in this kind of situation—in what feels like forever. I’m like a fucking virgin getting a taste of something truly sexy and erotic for the first time.

  Melody is the fucking sexiest creature in existence. She holds nothing back. Completely comfortable in her sexuality, and it’s turning me on more than any woman has ever turned me on before. Nothing to do with the fact that I’ve been celibate, wanting to release the tension. If I’d fucked every day up until now, I’d still be in total awe of her.

  With deft movements, she wriggles out of her jeans. Kicks them to the side of the room. She brings her feet in, placing them directly below her bent, parted knees. My erection strains painfully against my jeans as I watch her pull her fitted shirt above her breasts. Fuck. She’s not even wearing a bra. She’s spread wide and touching herself, one hand working beneath her white panties and the other caressing her tits.

  I have to reach down and adjust my aching cock. I move the hard sucker to lay against my stomach, but I just want to grab ahold and wear it out. Over and over. I imagine kneeling over her, watching her bring herself to climax, sexy as shit, and jacking my dick until I meet her there, coming all over her slick skin.

  She moans again, and I squeeze my eyes closed. Fuck! My heart hammers hard in my chest, banging against the walls of my chest. My eyes spring open with her next throaty release. I can’t pull my gaze away from her. I’m going to go insane. Right here. Just literally lose my shit.

  And as if she knows I’m at the brink, she begins to slide her underwear off her hips. Going in for the kill. Put me six feet under. Her panties drop to her ankles, and she spreads her thighs even wider, giving me a perfect view of her smoothly shaven pussy. It’s the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen.

  I’m a man trapped in the desert, begging for water. I’m a fucking pathetic waste of a human being desperate for redemption. I want to bury myself in her, balls fucking deep, until every sin is purged from my soul.

  Her finger delicately slides inside, and I watch, hypnotized, as she expertly works it in and out. The side of her thumb massaging her clit, like she knows exactly what she likes…working herself over the edge. She uses her other hand to twist and tug at her pink nipple, her hips rocking upward, as if she’s begging for more penetration.

  It’s so hot I have to tug at my jeans, slide my palms against my thighs, just to get some friction against my throbbing cock.

  I clear my throat, suck in a mouthful of air. I haven’t breathed or swallowed this whole time, I’m sure. “Mel…I’m begging you. You have to stop.” I’m pleading. Because if she keeps at it one second longer, I’m going to drop my pants and fuck her right here.

  And I don’t want to. Fuck, I don’t want to be that guy. I turn my thoughts to that bastard Jesse, giving myself a mental splash of cold water, and my raging boner eases some. But only some. I refuse to take advantage of her in this state. She’s clearly riding a pure bliss high on crank.

  Her eyes open, her movements halted. “If you don’t get me off, I’m going to hurt so badly, Boone. I promise, it will be bad.”

  But she doesn’t give me the time to refuse her tempting offer. She sits up, gets to her knees, and maneuvers herself closer to me. “You don’t have to do anything,” she says. Swinging a leg over me, she straddles my lap, her tits right in my face. I can feel the heat of her pussy right on top of my dick. “I’ll do all the work. Just look at me.”

  I can’t help but look at her. I’m shocked in place. I’m a sex-starved, horny bastard begging for a lap dance. My hands welding to the back of the couch, stuffed into the crevice, so I can’t touch her.

  Her gaze traps mine as she begins to move on top of me, her hips thrusting forward and backward. She bears down on my cock, and a sharp hiss escapes my mouth. Her lips quirk into a knowing grin. She loves this. She’s getting off on the sheer fact that she’s driving me crazy.

  “Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to wear jeans for a lap dance?”

  I feel my forehead crease, but then I realize what she’s doing. She reaches beneath her to unsnap my jeans…but I unclench one of my hands and bring it forward, trapping her wrist. “If you do that, I will hate myself later.”

  The severity in my tone must convince her, because she slowly moves her hand away, then places both hands on my shoulders. I release a pent-up breath and move my hand back behind me to its safe place.

  “Okay,” she says, low, soft. “The friction kind of feels good, anyway.” Then she’s grinding hard against me, rocking her hips, fucking hot as hell. Her tits bounce with her movements, and she grazes one of her nipples across my lips. The feel of her softness goes right to my throbbing cock.

  Moving her head close to my ear, she leans into me, bearing all of her weight down as she rides me. Her heavy breaths caress my ear, and I shut my eyes. Just let this happen. And I can’t lie, she feels so damn good against my dick. It’s the worst and best kind of torture.

  Against my will, my pelvis starts to thrust. Reaching up to meet her each time she comes down. As she picks up momentum, her breathing intensifies, making my dick pulse in time with my rapid heartbeats.

  Her hips circle, again and again, and she presses her chest to mine, getting as close as she can. The fabric between us an annoying barrier as she moans. She removes a hand from my shoulder and reaches down to stroke herself, bring on her orgasm. I’m so fucking tempted to touch her—do it for her. But I bite back the desire.

  “Mel, fuck…” I can feel her fingers working her clit. She’s working me right along, hitting my cock right at the sensitive part, and I can’t help it—I reach around and grab her hips. Force her down harder.

  Her hot breath pants in my ear as her arm clings to my neck, her body pressed tightly against mine, while I clutch her, helping her get there.

  “I can feel you,” she whispers. “I want you inside me so badly…deep inside, hitting that ache just right.”

  A guttural roar rips from my throat, and I sink my face into the space between her shoulder and neck, surrounding myself with her heat and scent. My hands anchor her hard to me as I thrust up one final time and release right into my boxers.

  The sensitive throb pulses from the head of my dick to my toes, radiating out, carrying the aftershock of my orgasm through my body like a tidal wave. And then Mel crashes all around me, breaking against me, as she bites down on her lip, her body seizing and contracting as she comes. I circle my arms around her, selfishly wanting to feel her come as close to me as possible.

  Her head lightly rests on my shoulder, her breaths labored, the heat of them caressing my skin. “That was so ridiculously hot,” she pants out.

  Despite the shoc
k in my system, I smile. It was beyond hot. But I don’t know how to describe it, so I stay quiet. Listening to her breaths. I’m scared to move. To disturb the serenity of the moment.

  I’m not sure if she’s feeling what I am. It’s more than sexual. More than just getting off together. It’s an openness, an honesty that, even without the heightened climax, I don’t think I’ll ever experience with anyone else. Ever.

  That one thought stills me cold.

  I close my eyes and inwardly curse. She’s high. Like through the roof. And anything she takes away from this night will be veiled by that realization.

  When she leans back, her eyes seeking, probing, I say, “Don’t downplay this in the morning.”

  She scrunches her nose. “What do mean? Dude, relax. Enjoy the brief moment of release. Finally.” She runs her fingers through my hair, then moves to sit next to me. “I’ve never done that before. Just got off like that. I’m not even…I don’t know what that was.”

  This surprises me more than anything. “You mean I’m a first for something?”

  She slaps my stomach playfully. “I’ll take that as a lapse in brain power due to sudden semen emission, and not like you were calling me a slut.”

  “Whoa.” I turn toward her, painfully aware of the huge, wet wad in my boxers. “Trust me, you have nothing on me. I’d never say that. I just want…I don’t know. Shit. I really don’t think I’m allowed to want anything. And it’s torture.”

  Her fingers lace with mine, and I can’t help but look down at them, and her bare thighs. I’m quickly getting turned on again, and really need to ask her to get dressed. But I don’t want her to. I want to carry her to the bedroom and crawl under the covers with her for the rest of the night.

  “Darla was more than my best friend,” she says, erasing every thought from my mind. I’m suddenly attuned to her, waiting for her to give me any detail of herself. Wanting everything.

  “She was my sister. Is my sister,” she continues. “Not blood related, or anything. But we were closer than that, even. And yes, I do blame myself for her death. Not directly. I’m smart enough to understand it was a fucked up accident. But—” she closes her hand, holding on to mine tighter “—one thing Doc Sid said stayed with me. Dominos. I watched out for her, and I should have protected her better. I’d looked out for her since the first day we met, threatened her piece of shit father, even hit piece of shit guys over the head with beer bottles for her…but I couldn’t protect her from the domino effect I’d started for our lives. She suffered because of me. She’s gone because I couldn’t…”