Troubled Times Read online

  “Oh wow.” I looked at him with new eyes. “I guess things really can always get worse.”

  “I don’t seem to have a bottom.” He grinned, leaning back, arms thrown wide, resting on the back of the seat. “That’s me, a bottomless pit.”

  “Do you have brothers or sisters?” I asked.

  Tyler shook his head slowly. That’s what I thought I remembered.

  “You have a brother, right?”

  “Yeah, just the one.” I made a face. Mr. Perfect. Between my brother and my fiancé, I was sandwiched between Mr. Perfect and Mr. Responsible, and I was the messy crap in between. “And my dad has a new wife and a kid, so I have a half-sister, but I’ve never even met her.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Eight.”

  “Wow.” Now it was his turn to exclaim over the sad state of parenting in America.

  “He’s a publicist. Lives out in California now with the trophy wife,” I told him. “That’s how I got front row seats. At least he’s good for something.”

  “Did your mom remarry?” Tyler leaned over to pour himself a shot of Jack at the bar. He offered me one, but I shook my head.

  “Ha. No. She’s off men forever,” I said. “According to her, they’re all dogs.”

  “Well you know...” He knocked his shot back. “She’s kind of right. We are.”

  “Thank you for reinforcing my worst fears.”

  “You’re welcome.” He laughed.

  “You’re not a dog.” I poked him in the ribs as he settled back in the seat.

  “Oh yes I am.” His gaze darkened as he looked at me. “Just seeing you in that dress makes me pant.”

  “Sir, where to?” A voice came over the intercom and I jumped, glancing out the window.

  “Where to, my fair maiden?” Tyler inquired with a lift of his brows.

  “We don’t have to be there for a while yet.” I shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  “Go for a drive, Jeeves,” Tyler told him, pushing the button. “Just get us to the church on time.”

  “I’m not marrying you.” I stuck my tongue out at him as the limo began to move again.

  “If I was proposing, you’d know it.” He slid over, pressing me against the side of the car, and pushed another button. The window hummed downward.

  “It’s freezing!” I complained, already starting to shiver.

  “I’ll keep you warm.” He nudged the fabric of my dress aside and kissed my shoulder blade. “Look at the ice on the river, I bet people used to walk over it.”

  The driver was taking the river drive, a long, winding road that ran parallel with the Detroit River.

  “Oh, they did,” I assured him. “My grandfather was a bootlegger. He used to carry alcohol from one side to the other during prohibition. They lived on Grosse Isle. Right over there. It’s a little island.”

  “Huh.”

  “What’s the matter?” I glanced back to see that little furrow between his brows again.

  “It just occurred to me, I never met my grandfather. Either of them.”

  “I’m sure they were both awesome.” I kissed that spot again, loving the way it smoothed out under my lips when I did.

  “How do you know?” He smiled.

  “Because you’re awesome.”

  “What if they were both assholes?” he countered.

  “Well, my father was an asshole, and just look at me.” I giggled, turning around and pushing him back against the seat so I could straddle him. “A pillar of society.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short, sweetheart.” Tyler reached over to roll the window up, which was a relief because my back was completely exposed in this dress. “You are pretty fucking awesome.”

  “Well look at us, we’re just full of awesomeness,” I teased.

  “I’m gonna fill you with awesomeness if you don’t stop wiggling like that.”

  “Like this?” I settled myself right over his crotch, feeling his erection through the fabric.

  He let out a low groan.

  “Ever had sex in a limo?” he asked, sliding the shoulders of the dress down to reveal the fact that I had no bra on underneath. Couldn’t wear one with a dress like this. That fact made his whole face light up.

  “Nope.”

  “Well let’s fix that.” His mouth covered my nipple and I moaned.

  Turned out there were bowls filled with condoms in the limo too.

  I’d never really understood the word insatiable until I met Tyler. I thought I knew what it meant, but I hadn’t really experienced it, not until Tyler had me in his arms. His lust was limitless, but it wasn’t Tyler’s need that taught me the meaning of the word, it was my own. I couldn’t get enough of the man. Even when he was inside of me, even when I had him grasped between my thighs, rocking in his lap with a fervor that scared me, I wanted more. More.

  I hurt myself on him, with him, for him. I wanted to feel everything, the beauty and the pain, the pleasure and the final, inevitable release—it had never felt more like dying than it did with him. Tyler was the end and beginning of my everything, full circle, around and around. I came back to him like a woman starving for something more precious than life itself. I didn’t understand my own feelings, that overwhelming sense of desperation that overtook me the minute we were skin to skin. I was afraid of it, but that didn’t stop me from embracing it.

  “Oh fuck, Katie, don’t,” Tyler groaned when I ground my hips into his, my dress pushed up, pulled down, panties aside, thigh-high stockings already starting to run from the friction we created between us.

  “Don’t what?” I gasped, capturing his mouth with mine, biting at his lower lip.

  This couldn’t go on like this. That was my only dizzying thought as we fucked each other in the back of the limo and I wondered if there were cameras, if the driver was watching, but I didn’t care. I would have fucked him in the middle of a hotel lobby if he wanted me. I would have gone to my knees and sucked him off on stage in front of millions if he wanted that too. I would have done anything for him, anything at all.

  “Don’t make me.” His hands gripped my ass, pulling me in tight, hard, into the cradle of his hips, his cock so hard it was like a throbbing length of steel pipe I could almost taste at the back of my throat.

  “Make you what?” I whispered, squeezing him with my muscles, all of them, rippling, contracting. I loved hearing him moan and try to hold back. “Come? You don’t want to come yet?”

  “Fuuuucccckkk.” He raked his teeth over my collarbone, nosing my shoulder, then lifting his head to search my face with those dark and stormy eyes. There was something there I didn’t understand, but I recognized it. It was the same tidal wave I felt coming for me, ready to sweep everything in my life away with one disastrous motion.

  “Katie, please.” His mouth trembled, that look of suffering, poised between pleasure and pain, making my heart and my sex throb simultaneously. “Please, don’t. I can’t take it.”

  “Yes, you can.” I kissed his mouth, felt the quiver of his lips, the crushing, vast feeling in it, and it just made me want him more.

  “I can’t, I can’t,” he whispered into my mouth, but he could. We both could. Neither of us had a choice. We were being swept up into something much bigger than the both of us, completely out of our control. “Don’t make me fall for you. Don’t make me...”

  “I’m not doing it.” I whimpered and rocked on him, lost in the feeling, drowning in the sticky, hot sweetness, afraid of what was coming, unable to stop it. He met my eyes, wet with emotion, dark with fear, but lit up inside—he was on fire for me. “We are, Tyler. We’re doing it. Together.”

  We were, and it wasn’t just fucking. Something otherworldly happened in the back of that limo. It wasn’t the alcohol or the weed or the fact that I was having sex with a rock star, him with an avid fan. I wasn’t Katie anymore and he wasn’t Tyler—and yet we were more ourselves than we’d ever been. I was closer to my center, to the infinite core of my own being, when I
was with him, than I knew I’d ever be again. If—when—I had to walk away from this man, there would be a giant, gaping hole ripped away inside of me in the space he’d once occupied, and I would never, ever be able to fill it this completely again.

  “Katie, Katie, my sweet, sweet Katie,” he moaned and thrust up into me, as if he could impale me so completely I would become a part of him somehow. “Oh fuck, don’t make me want you so much, please, God, I can’t stand it...”

  He was in so much pain and I knew just how he felt. How horrible, how desperate, how vulnerable it made me feel, to want something—someone—so much. The feeling engulfed us both, annihilating everything in its wake. Tyler wasn’t Tyler and I wasn’t Katie—we were us, together, a new entity altogether.

  “I have to have you,” he growled and grabbed my hips in his hands, thrusting me up so hard I had to put my palms against the ceiling of the limo to keep from hitting my head. He drove me higher and higher, toward the roof, toward the sky beyond, toward infinity.

  “I’m yours, Tyler,” I gasped, hard to get the words out even in short staccato as he fucked me deeper, slamming into me, my teeth jarring in my head.

  “Mine!” He sounded both surprised and eager at the thought. “Fuck, Katie, you’re mine!”

  “Yes!” I wanted to convince him, to make him know it, feel it. I cupped his face in my hands, rubbing my thumb over his pouty mouth, searching his eyes. “Yes, yes!”

  “Say it.” He bit at my thumb, raking his teeth along the pad, and I felt it everywhere, as if all of my nerve endings were centered there. “Make it true, Katie. I want you. Fuck, I want you so much.”

  “I’m yours.” I watched him suck my thumb into his mouth, felt the hungry throb of his cock inside of me at the words. My other hand slipped down lower, into the unbuttoned front of his shirt, his skin damp with sweat. His cock swelled inside of me, and I could have sworn I felt his heart swelling in his chest under the press of my hand.

  “Say it again,” he pleaded, meeting my eyes. “Tell me.”

  “Yours,” I insisted, rolling my hips, hearing him moan. There was power in that moment, in those words, I’d never known before. “I’m yours. Take me. Make me...”

  “Mine,” he whispered, and with one final, low groan, he let it happen. He crushed my mouth with his, driving his cock up into me, hips parallel to the road, lifting me all the way to the ceiling as he came. He sent me over the edge in that moment. I shuddered and clung to him, afraid to let go, afraid not to.

  Tyler moaned and rolled me under him on the seat, and just when I thought it was over, it had begun again. He was still hard inside of me, thrusting, rutting deep, my pussy so wet it soaked the leather underneath us as we fucked. Oh God, I was so close to orgasm, holding back, whimpering and wrapping myself entirely around him like a vine around a stake, stretching upward to the sun.

  “Fuck, Katie, take it!” he cried, shuddering and collapsing onto me as he came again, and I cried out with him, my body shivering all over with my own climax, such a sweet, throbbing, final release. It went on and on as I thrashed underneath him, spread and pinned, impaled like a butterfly open on a tray. I was caught, trapped, owned, and his. Most of all, his.

  “More,” I whispered, kissing his stubbly cheek, his neck, his ear, both of us damp with sweat and sin and so much sweetness it hurt to move. I ached all over with it. “Oh God, Tyler, what’s happening?”

  He shook his head, his mouth finding mine, crushing the words under his lips as if he was afraid I might speak them out loud. For a long time, there weren’t words. We kissed and clung to each other, breathing hard and trying to regain some semblance of normal, but it was impossible. Even when we were both dressed, side by side again on the seat where something strangely miraculous had happened between us, everything was changed, and we both knew it.

  Tyler’s hand found mine and squeezed, even as his gaze watched the world pass by outside the window.

  We both had a huge appetite by the time we got to the restaurant. It was a little weird, knowing my father had proposed to my mother right there, in the last booth, the one we were coincidentally seated at, right by the fireplace. But the steaks were perfect, and I tried oysters Rockefeller for the first time—those were a no—and baked escargot with brie, which was a definite yes. Dessert was a berry crème brulèe, and of course, there was wine. Before, during and after dinner. We didn’t have to worry, because neither of us was driving.

  “Did you have a good time?” Tyler asked as the limo sped over the bridge, back into the old US of A. It was winter and already dark out there, the lights on the bridge and the lights of the city making everything seem a little more magical.

  I nodded, smiling, feeling his hand massaging the back of my neck, remembering what we were doing on this seat just a few hours ago. We were headed back to the hotel to do it some more, and that was fine with me. I liked the way Tyler looked at me—like he really was a dog and he could eat me for dinner.

  “I like you, Katie.” His fingers tickled the little hairs on the back of my neck, sending shivers down my arms, goose bumps, hardening my nipples. “I can’t remember the last time I had such a good day.”

  “Me too.” It was true. For me, it wasn’t just a good day, it was, like the day. The best day ever. The one I’d remember just before I died. “But I know it can’t last.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Experience.” I snickered. “When everything’s coming my way, I’m usually in the wrong lane.”

  “Feels like you’re gonna get hit by a truck?”

  “Actually, it already feels that way.” I stretched and then snuggled up against him. “I’m sore and tired and pretty sure I’m going to be left for dead at the side of the road at some point.”

  “I’m not a serial killer.” He laughed.

  “I don’t mind being ridden hard and put up wet.” I smiled. “I’m just going to miss you when this is all over.”

  “I’m gonna miss you too.”

  So, there it was. He wasn’t going to invite me along after all. And here I’d been making plans in my head, hoping, praying he’d ask me to go on tour with him. I was a fun girl, I was awesome, but apparently not awesome enough to spend a couple months with him on tour. Turned out the light at the end of the tunnel was a train after all.

  “So, you’re headed to Ohio next?” I asked, trying to face the inevitable. No matter what I’d felt happening between us, reality was going to smack me upside the head, as usual.

  “Cleveland.” He made a face. “Worse than Detroit.”

  “Gee, thanks.” I laughed.

  When we got back to the hotel, it felt familiar, like home. Tyler started getting undressed the minute we got in the door, leaving a trail of clothes to the bedroom. He came out barefoot, wearing just a pair of boxers and a smile. He had his phone to his ear though.

  “Any luck?” I asked, knowing he was trying Rob again. I’d been calling Sabrina all night but could never get through. “We could go by her place again?”

  “Maybe.” Tyler frowned at the phone, going over to the sofa and putting it on the coffee table. “Will you try Sabrina one more time?”

  I dug through my purse and found my phone. I had Sabrina on speed dial.

  “Hello?” she answered.

  She answered!

  “Sabrina! Where the hell are you?”

  Of course, she was with Rob. Thank God. They were both together, and both just fine. Better than fine, by the sounds of it.

  “She’s with him!” I stage-whispered to Tyler. Even he looked relieved. They were apparently out to dinner, just like we had been.

  “They’ve been looking for him everywhere!” I told her, referring to Rob, of course.

  “Well he’s right here,” she replied. I heard the smile in her voice.

  “I’ve called you a hundred times. Didn’t you get any of my texts?” I asked. “We even came by your house this afternoon, but no one answered, and your car was gone.”

>   “Who’s ‘we’?”

  “Me and Tyler.” I grinned. I liked saying that.

  “Give me the phone.” Ty motioned. “Tell her I need to talk to him.”

  “Sabrina, Tyler wants—”

  Tyler grabbed the phone from me.

  “Hand the phone to Rob,” he told Sabrina. “Right now.”

  He paced while he talked.

  “You missed a meet and greet with the fan club this afternoon you know. Celeste is going out of her fucking mind. What the hell, bruh? Answer your damned phone at least! When are you coming back?”

  He carried the phone with him, pacing toward the window. I couldn’t hear much, and I didn’t want him to think I was eavesdropping, so I went into the bedroom to change. I slipped the dress off and put it back on a hanger, hanging it on the hook on the back of the door. I left on the panties, throwing one of Tyler’s t-shirts over them, and went to join him. He was off the phone now, sitting on the long leather sofa, flipping through the stations.

  “Oh good, you got changed.” He smiled when he saw I was wearing his t-shirt. “Let’s sit around and veg for a while.”

  I knew what that meant even before he lit the joint he’d rolled.

  “Everything all right?” I asked as he passed the joint to me. “With Rob and Bree?”

  “Right as rain.” He nodded at my phone sitting on the coffee table. “He’ll meet us at the bus tomorrow. I already called Celeste and told her to calm her tits.”

  I giggled. For some reason that seemed incredibly funny. So, did the Pinky and the Brain episode Tyler had tuned the television to. Before long, both of us were incredibly high and laughing so hard at cartoons tears rolled down our faces.

  “Remember Rocko's Modern Life?” I asked. We were true children of the nineties, both of us.

  “Yeah!” he exclaimed. “And Bananas in Pyjamas? They were trippy as hell.”

  “And Rugrats,” I reminded him. “I hated Angelica.”

  “Who didn’t?” he snorted. “Remember Catdog? And Ren and Stimpy!”

  “They were the best,” I agreed. “Oh my God, do you remember that Dinosaurs show? The one where the baby dinosaur kept saying ‘Not the Mama! ’ and hitting the dad with a pan?”