Rock & Roll Nights: The Lila and Rivers Edit

28. Lila

28

LILA

G od, he looked bad.

I hadn’t seen him up close in a couple of days, now, and though he’d looked rough the last time I’d seen him—all dark shadows and stubble—he looked even worse now. His eyes were haunted, his lips pressed tightly together like he was trying to keep his secrets locked in. His skin was pale and he was sort of hunched, tucked into himself.

Withdrawn.

Gone was the flashy, charming man I’d met on that first night, when he basically invited himself to the room I was sharing with Anna. Gone was the flirtatious smirk as he asked me questions about myself and called me Sunshine Girl. Gone was the dreamer, the rebel, the devil-may-care rock star I’d wanted to kiss.

The guy who’d gotten me drunk and then taken me to bed and fucked me like it had been both a pleasure and a dream, and then woken me up hours later to do it again. I bit my lip and let my mind flit back to that first night, when his kisses had been molten lava on my nipples and belly and his cock had been hard as steel between my legs. The breath he’d exhaled as he slammed into me that first time, then gone so slow I wanted to scream.

The scream I’d given him when he made me orgasm.

I jerked at the thought and came back to the present. We weren’t in bed right now. I didn’t have time to be daydreaming. Head of me, Rivers was sitting alone on a swing in a park in the middle of the night, his eyes haunted and his lips compressed. This wasn’t my rock star. This was the lost boy who didn’t know where he was going or what he was doing and was desperate for someone to actually see him.

And not for the first time, I found myself trying to figure out what the hell had happened to him that left him so scarred. I mean I knew a lot about him—he’d won a music contest and found himself thrown right into the music industry with only a manager and agent to look after him. He’d already been playing the guitar by that time and had been labeled a phenom by those who heard him. His voice, barely developed, was gritty and charming in a kid so young, and the world had taken him right into their arms and become obsessed with him.

Or at least what they knew of him.

Looking at him now, though, I wondered again how much they’d actually known of him. Not much, probably. The trivia you could find on any standard search, and the stories his publicity team had put out about him.

But none of those stories covered anything from his past. They started when he was fourteen and never bothered with the boy Rivers Shine might have been before he was discovered.

I wondered if his publicity team had just buried that boy in the past and left him to fend for himself.

He shifted uncomfortably in the swing, which had to be at least two sizes too small for someone his size, and tipped his head back and forth. “Not sure this is exactly your scene, Sunshine Girl.”

A thrill ran through me at the use of the nickname and I grinned, unable to stop myself. “Maybe not. But maybe I’m here to bring a little sunshine into your darkness.”

That brought a reluctant snort out of him, and I took that as the only invitation I needed. I set one foot in front of the other, hesitant at first, but when he didn’t argue with me, I took another step, and then another, and before long I was sliding into the swing next to his and turning to look out over the dark playground.

“A deserted playground,” I noted quietly. “Pretty spooky. You hang out in these sorts of places often?”

There was a long silence as he decided how he wanted to answer that—or maybe thought about whether he wanted to answer at all—and when he did start speaking, his voice had a hitch in it. “Not really. But I wanted some quiet tonight.”

Right. And then I came barging right in.

If he was expecting an apology, though, he wasn’t going to get it. I’d been looking for him all night specifically because I didn’t think he should be alone right now, and I wasn’t going to give up on that idea yet.

“I can be quiet,” I murmured. “If that helps.”

He chuckled softly at that, and another set of shivers ran through me. God, what was it about him? Why did making him laugh feel like such a fucking victory? Like I’d just accomplished the impossible? Why did I even care ? This was a guy I hadn’t known up until a couple weeks ago, and aside from that first week of pure chemistry, he hadn’t exactly gone out of his way to charm me.

Wait, that wasn’t true. He had gone out of his way to charm me. He’d been doing it since the moment I met him. What he hadn’t done—and what I’d desperately wanted for him to do—was keep me. Draw me close to his side and hold me there, murmuring into my ear about how much he wanted me and how he’d never let me go. Make love to me in sun-filled fields and then again in deserted meadows in the middle of the night. Gaze into my eyes as he told me no one else had ever touched him the way I could.

So yeah, sure, that was a little bit dramatic. And maybe rushed. That didn’t change the fact that it was what I’d wanted. It also didn’t change the fact that he’d completely failed to deliver on any of it. So why the hell was I sitting here blushing like a twelve-year-old with her first crush about having made him laugh?

“What?” I asked, speaking to what we’d been talking about rather than addressing the question in my mind. “I can.”

He swung over and bumped against me gently. “Liar,” he murmured.

I turned to him, my mouth open in something that could have been angry shock. “Excuse me? I never lie!”

“You also never shut up. If you’re not telling me a story about yourself, you’re pointing out dragons in the clouds. Or going on and on about how great the blueberry pie is. Or writing a song. Or?—”

“Okay!” I interrupted. “You’ve made your point. But I can be quiet. I’m serious.”

Right, so silence wasn’t my most natural state. I liked the sound of talking because I enjoyed the connection to other people. I liked to hear about them and make them laugh. Watching them as they came out of their shells and shared themselves with me. I liked doing the same for them. But that didn’t mean I always had to be making noise.

Seriously.

He reached out, grabbed the chains of my swing, and turned me toward him, then slid his knees between mine. I gasped at the sudden contact, the energy that zapped through me as his legs pressed against mine, and bit my lip. When he pulled my legs up around his hips I nearly came undone. One moment I was in a swing and the next I was basically straddling his lap.

And he was enjoying it. His face was caught in shadow, but I could see the gleam of his eyes. The sudden flash of his teeth.

The smirk that told me he was laughing at something he hadn’t told me yet.

“What?” I whispered.

Leaning forward, he brushed one finger down my nose as I fought not to lean against him. Not to arch my back and purr like a cat at the feel of his skin against mine.

“I don’t want you to be quiet,” he whispered.

My voice was barely a breath when I answered. “Then what do you want?”

“Tell me a story. Tell me about where you grew up.”

The recoil was so sharp it almost made me sick. I’d been expecting him to kiss me or tell me something sweet, and instead... he wanted to hear about my family?

Talk about a letdown.

Still, if he wanted it...

“I have younger sisters,” I said quietly. “Several of them. And when we were young, we put together a band of our own. Used to do performances for my parents. We’d set everything up—a whole stage in the living room, with a curtain and everything—and then drag our instruments onto the stage. One of us would go get my parents and make them sit on the couch to watch. And then we’d draw the curtain and play something.”

“Your own music?”

“No,” I said sarcastically. “We were kids. We hadn’t written anything yet.”

“So what would you play?”

At this, I felt myself start to blush again. “Usually something by Blondie.”

“ Blondie? ”

I reached out and poked him in the shoulder. “Hey, they were popular in my household.”

“Not exactly Nashville’s normal sort of music, though.”

I shrugged at that. “My dad loved them. He used to produce for a punk rock band and brought a lot of his music home. We grew up with that stuff.”

“Obviously. And what’s your favorite song?”

“In the world?” I asked, wondering at the change of topics.

“No. By Blondie.”

Ah. “‘The Tide is High,’” I said, without having to think about it. “Obviously.”

“Obviously.” This time I could hear the smile in his voice. Hear the lightness in his tone. “So, you and your sisters were up there on your homemade stage rocking Blondie when you were, like, eight, and then you... decided to take up country music instead?”

The impending laughter had the last words turning up slightly, and I reached out to poke him again, already knowing that he was making fun of me. Knowing that this was about to turn into a session where he asked increasingly ridiculous questions about something that he found entirely too funny. To my surprise, he grabbed my hand before it could get to him and did some fancy kung-fu-twisting thing that ended up with me actually in his lap my legs neatly trapped by the chains of the swing and his hands wrapped around my ass.

And meanwhile, he laughed. It grew from chuckles into outright gales of mirth, the force of it shaking him underneath me. I struggled against him, half furious, but he trapped me in his arms and held me there while he laughed harder and harder, the sound of him echoing through the dark night around us.

“It’s not funny!” I snapped, struggling again.

His arms got even tighter around me, and I stilled, knowing that I wasn’t going to get away. I was also starting to realize that all my struggling was only grinding me harder against him, and what I’d taken to be the swing at first wasn’t. He was hard as a rock and pressing up between my legs, his cock ready and wanting me.

And God, I wanted him. I was wet and hot and nearly panting, being this close to him again. We hadn’t spoken all week and had barely touched each other, and in the space of five minutes my body had remembered exactly how he felt and how much it wanted to feel him again.

I fought to keep from rubbing against him, half angry and half frustrated, while he relaxed and grew quiet, leaning his forehead against mine and breathing out.

“You’re right, I suppose,” he said. “But I love the visual of it. Tiny you up there singing her heart out about the tide being high while your parents pretend to be impressed.”

“I’ll have you know that they were very impressed,” I told him firmly. “They always thought we had talent.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt it.” He paused for a moment, and we sat there, breathing and staring at each other like we were waiting for something. “Thank you,” he finally murmured.

“For what?”

“For sharing that with me.”

I bit my lip, wondering what that was supposed to mean—and what I was supposed to do with it—and then launched into the question that wouldn’t stop spinning around in my brain. “Well, according to the game, you owe me an answer of your own. Rivers, what are you doing out here all by yourself? What’s going on with you?”

Another pause, and then: “That’s two questions, not one.”

“So it is. Now answer them.”

He was quiet for so long that I didn’t think he was going to answer me. In fact, I was waiting for him to shove me off his lap and tell me we were finished playing this game.

Instead, he cleared his throat, pulled me closer, and started swinging gently. “I’m out here all by myself because I needed the space to hear myself think. Or rather... No, I guess it’s more that I thought I could quiet the voices out here.”

Okay, that escalated quickly. “What voices?”

“The ones that tell me things I don’t like to hear.”

Right.

“We all have those voices. You know that, right? It doesn’t mean they’re telling the truth.”

“I’m afraid these ones are.”

“Why?” My voice cracked on the word, but I didn’t apologize for that. I hadn’t come out here to have this sort of conversation, and the sudden tension in the air—the emotion charging the man underneath me—felt like it was going to crack me in half.

His hands came up to cup my jaw and he stared at me so intently that I nearly did break.

“Because I grew up not far from here, and it’s bringing back a whole lot of memories that remind me of exactly who I am. Memories that make me think I’m not good. But that’s not your problem, Sunshine Girl. Let’s get you inside before all that sunshine in you dims.”

He started to stand, but I put a hand on his chest to stop him. “At some point, Rivers, I’m going to make you tell me who hurt you so badly.”

He gazed at me, his eyes so fathomless I could hardly look into them. But instead of answering immediately, he leaned forward and pressed a soft, chaste kiss to my mouth. I melted into him, wanting to slide my hands up around his neck and hold him there. Wanting this to be the moment when we finally reconnected.

And, as if I’d wished it into being, it did. The kiss went from being chaste and simple to being hot. Molten hot. His fingertips grew firm on my skin, tilting my head, and his tongue swept into my mouth. Bold. Possessive. Like he had every right to do whatever he wanted with me.

And God, I wanted that. I wanted him to take me and throw me on the ground so he could have his way with me. I wanted him out here under the stars, both of us naked to the sky and twined together like we didn’t care who could see us.

I shuddered at the thought, my body humming with electricity, and he pushed up against me in response, his cock hard and needy in his pants. I groaned into his mouth, drawn tight as a bowstring with need.

He pulled back, then slid his lips down the column of my throat. “Lila,” he murmured against me.

His voice made the shuddering even worse. I was going to come apart right here in his lap, fully clothed. He was going to push me all the way to orgasm with nothing but his lips and voice, and fucking hell, I was here for it.

Who the hell was this girl, I wondered dimly. This wasn’t me. I was never this reckless.

Then again, I’d never been with Rivers before this tour. He was definitely a bad influence on me. He made me feel things I’d never felt. Think things I’d never thought. And want things I knew I shouldn’t want.

One more thrust of his hips, and then he was pulling back and taking his heat with him.

“Someday, Lila, I’ll tell you everything. But not tonight. Come on. It’s past your bedtime and I’m guessing Anna will skin me alive if she finds out I had you out so late on a school night.”

He stood, lifting me with him, and started walking back toward the hotel. I clung to him, unwilling to let him—or the moment—go, and let my mind trail through what he’d just said.

At some point, he said, he’d tell me what was going on. Which meant I just needed to figure out how to make that happen. Hopefully before he succeeded in destroying himself over whatever darkness he thought he had in his soul.

Because that part? The idea that he wasn’t any good, or that he deserved to be alone?

Yeah, I wasn’t buying it. And I wasn’t going to let him buy it, either.