#Kissing (Rock and Romance #1) (4 page)

Chapter 9

The forceful banging on the door knocks everyone into silence and stillness. Over the dull thrum of the music from the concert, still playing in my ears, I gesture toward the entrance. "Someone answer that for fucks sake." I hide a smile.

One person's hesitation is excusable, but the frozen mass of people makes me question my efforts. I cut a glare at a guy wearing a leather jacket and distressed jeans, challenging him to man up and answer the damn door. He jumps to his feet, but Mitty reaches it first.

Three guys, each dressed in various incarnations of firemen's gear appear in the doorway. One wears the typical yellow uniform with reflective tape, another dons duck pants and red suspenders along with a helmet, and the third, dressed in a blue pair of pants and matching jacket turns his serious expression on the crowded room.

Mitty ushers them inside. I detect a meaningful smirk on his lips.

The one wearing the yellow uniform, who must be sweating under the heavy material, says, "We're responding to a complaint."

Everyone remains still as though they fear the police are close behind. More than a few sets of eyes land on Mitty as though to ask what to do, but he doesn't say a word.

The firefighter with the suspenders draws a deep breath, his chest muscles rising and falling. Gravely, he removes his helmet and then he repeats, "We're responding to a complaint," his pause is brief before he adds, "that you're not having a good time!"

Music comes from somewhere, and the fire fighters shake their hips, removing uniforms and layers of clothing underneath. I can't say I have a type, except for a hot rocker and a boy I have to forget about daily, but I find no fault in the three extremely toned, tanned, and hot men performing for the room, courtesy of
Gentleman and Blonds
.

The atmosphere changes from the standoffish brand of casual cool to flushed faces as the girls and a healthy amount of guys get cheeky as they slip bills between the fireman's' G-string straps and dance along seductively. The room heats up and there's an abundance of skin and cheering and laughter.

I don't break character, the disillusioned sylph, upon my perch in the corner of the living room. Apparently, this draws the attention of the fireman wearing suspenders and briefs, tight ones that do little to conceal his giant bulge. He strides over, hands clasped behind his head, and gyrates in my face, thrusting upward. He thrusts and thrusts some more.

I call upon every muscle in my face not to give into a smile, which would most certainly prompt girlish giggling and only encourage him.

He turns, shaking his muscled ass in front of me. I slide fully into the chair. His balls, barely contained, sweep close to my face. He takes my change of seating as an invitation to grind up against me. His enormous bulge brushes against my leg.

Over his shoulder, Niko appears from behind door number two.

I lift my arm in a wave, making sure he sees what he's missing.

Niko's gaping pupils land on me and at last, I produce a smile, accompanied by a laugh that says
you want me? I'm over here
.

Niko isn't short, but he's not as big as the fireman-stripper. However, he makes up for it in the quintessential rock star attitude, and a robust case of jealousy.

With a cocky smile and lacking a polite British tone, Niko snarls, "Pardon me." He reaches over the stripper's shoulder, takes my hand, and pulls me to my feet.

The stripper could care less and moves onto a girl more interested in his advances than making her boyfriend envious.

"I didn't know we were entertaining." He backs me toward a wall, bracing an arm over my head.

"Niko, you can be sure I was the one being entertained. You should have invited me to get a massage." My lips spell disaster if he doesn't kiss me.

"Clearly." He leans in.

"What is it that they say? Idle hands are the devil's—," I whisper.

"Good thing I wear a halo," he croons. His damn voice.

"We both know that's not true."

With his free hand, he grips my ass, lifting my pelvis toward his.

I pull him close, our chests and hips meeting. But his bulge doesn't quite match the stripper's and not because I'm comparing size, but rather, density. I'm annoyed all over again at whatever he snorted behind the closed door.

"What are you on?" I ask, venom building in my voice.

"Want me to share?"

"You know I don't do that kind of thing."

"Come on, it'll be fun. It's good shit." He sniffs and wipes his nose.

I shake my head. I've never tried cocaine or other powders because my brain already moves at the speed of light; there's no need to accelerate it.

"The fun I want to have, well, it appears—" My eyes slide below his waist. "It appears you won't be able to deliver."

His face passes through hurt and then embarrassment before he snaps it into drug-fueled indignation. Not righteous, just stubborn and erroneous. I hate it when he gets high, but of course, his drug of choice helps him forget this simple fact, making him think he's the center of the universe—, which nearly everyone in the room supports.

He takes a step backward, giving a guy wearing a Halo's shirt the invitation to break into our conversation. The strippers, now part of the party, do shots and dance with some of the girls. I slide away and find the sucker who's playing the music.

A kid with his hat on sideways and half a headphone pressed to his ear hovers over a complicated set of cables attached to his laptop and a few speakers.

With a single finger, I reach over to his device, and press pause. The quieted beat is long enough for a knock on the door to be heard over the now livelier and less inhibited chatter—except the hippies, they're just as mellow as ever.

"This is a rock band. We need rock and roll. The dance music was fine for the strippers, but the Halos are real guitars, drums, and bass. Nothing prerecorded, auto tuned, or filtered in the studio. Got it?"

He gawks as though I just spoke really bad Japanese. The light behind his eyes is as dim as that in the room.

"Go ahead. Push buttons. Find the tunes. You can do it."

He just stares at me.

"I'm not missing out on sleep right now to have a mediocre time or listen to crap music." Because before everything else, I was here for the music.

Niko, probably seeing me talking to another dude, appears with a peace offering. A pink drink that matches the fine lines in the whites surrounding his dark eyes.

"Niko," the deejay says.

I step in front of him, blocking the potential for fanboying. "What is it?" I ask distractedly, still not content with the deejay's music choice.

"Something to get you drunk enough to have sex on that table with me while everyone watches." He points at a table littered with bottles and cups.

"I thought we decided that couldn't happen." I stare at his crotch, as annoyed as ever.

His face smears, but he quickly recovers. "By the time you're done with that, I will be." His hand in mine belies the dysfunction of our relationship—more imperfections I try not to think about.

However, right now, I don't care because the balloons arrived and the assembled guests start a water balloon fight, just as I intended. Balloons smack chests, and arms and legs. People wince as the cool water and colorful flecks of vinyl explode. More clothing comes off.

I lead Niko to the balcony.

My laugh is a delighted cackle, stopped only by a balloon smooshing my boob. Or maybe it's a hand on my boob, but I don't care because Niko was right about that drink—it worked some kind of magic.

The outside air does nothing to cool the heat building between us as he smothers me with his lips. I pull away and push his shoulders back and he drops into a chair. I sway my hips, wind my arms overhead, and lean forward. I press my breasts close to his face, but not too close. I return to standing, hiking my shirt overhead before flinging it behind me.

His dark eyes hunger for me or more of whatever he thinks he wants. My goal is to distract him long enough for us to have sex and then sleep sometime in the next twenty-four hours.

I unbutton the top of my jeans and Niko undoes the zipper, pulling my hips closer, his lips meeting the exposed patch of skin; he's starving now.

Like the stripper, I grind against him, swiveling, teasing, and working low enough to see if I'm having the desired effect. The bulge is decent, and I continue as balloons sail by, warm water drips down my back, others land between us. I inch my jeans lower. Niko's attention and the now-raging party is the exact kind of closeness and chaos I was hoping for.

Chapter 10

Then Niko's gone. The greasy guy, Malcolm or Maxwell, with his shirt unbuttoned, and a girl on his arm, interrupts. Niko loses focus. I gain an intense hatred for the sleazy couple. I tuck my arms around my chest and turn around, scanning the ground for my bra and shirt.

"Maz," Niko says, getting to his feet.

With a shifty glance, Maz, not Malcolm or Maxwell, says, "I wanted to let you know I'm leaving. If you, uh—"

Niko's eyebrows, lifted with intrigue, divulge Maz's purpose at the party. He has what Niko wants, more than he wants me right now.

I snap, "So nice of your mother to teach you manners." I level them both with a glare. "But she left off the part about not interrupting your host. I hardly think Niko needed a formal adieu. A polite note on a piece of stationary would have been sufficient. Shit, even a follow up text tomorrow. Or better yet, don't bother. I'll help him cope when you don't write or call. Chocolate or ice cream and a chick flick usually work wonders." It didn't, at least for me. Anyway, Maz isn't worth remembering
my
manners.

Maz's lips form a question, but Niko subtly shakes his head. As the pair turn to leave, I hear Maz say, "That bitch is cracked, has him whipped—"

I shout, "Don't let my tail slap you on the way out," but his reaction is just his bony back as he melts into the crowded room.

Niko lifts to his feet, but I push him back into the chair.

"You don't need that shit," I say.

"I was just having fun."

"We were just having fun, a minute ago, right here." But there is no more fun to be had between us, not right now anyway. I let the barbed words lash him as he walks away.

I linger on the balcony, staring up at the sky. The stars blur and sobriety becomes a notion in the cold night air.

Kingston provides me with another diablo while a balding man gives a nearly-naked girl a hug. When he pulls away, his red T-shirt says
Eat it!
with a slice of pizza on the front. The scent of cheese and dough winds its way through the smoky room. A line of girls form in front of him. I can't make heads or tails of why, but at least five guys are amused enough to involve themselves, tearing off their shirts and asking for hugs too.

This is my kind of craziness.

I don't see Niko anywhere, but spot Mitty, parked in front of a box of cheese and pepperoni pizza. I sit down next to him.

"Thanks," he says around a mouthful.

"For what?"

"For remembering that I can't make it through these things without food."

I snort a laugh and then shrug, feigning innocence.

The twinge at the corner of his lips tells me he knows I'm full of shit. "I don't know how long I can play this game," he says around another bite. "The late nights, the alcohol, drugs…I just want to play music." He takes another sizable bite. "And eat pizza."

Here's what I know about Mitty: he has the biggest heart, possibly to go along with his hands and feet, though I'm not sure they're mutually exclusive. Also, he's gay, but to my knowledge, he hasn't gotten up the courage to take what he knows inside that big heart and head of his a step farther. I'm also not sure if it's my job to encourage him, discretely of course, or if it's actually a good idea to meet a guy at a party like this.

The pizza guy and girls play what appears to be a game of truth or dare involving very little clothing and too much hairy, middle-aged skin for my liking. I stagger a little on my way to Kingston and return with a beer for Mitty. He trades me for a piece of pizza, and I sink my teeth in, warding off a sugar crash.

A door slams and Niko stumbles out of a room—door number one. He nonsensically yells at the closed door and before I tell him to go shut the fuck up, Jill gets in his face. Those two fight worse than brother and sister, not that I'd know and not that they are. Maybe like an old couple? I've seen couples fight and it turned into divorce, but they're not that either.

I'm pretty sure they slept together in the early days of the Halos. Maybe that's why Jill lords her attitude over me as though I deserve her spite or her pity for being the one to end up with him. Plus, she's not his type. She's stiff and bony, all spikes and sass. I'm slim, curvy enough—, and sharp tongued too. However, before I came along, anyone with boobs was his type.

Chapter 11

The popped balloons confetti the carpet and the music is much improved since I had a word with the deejay.

Energized by the pizza, and pissed at my boyfriend, I step onto a table, and dance. I move slow and sultry, finding the beat my heart has patiently kept for me since I gave up playing my own music.

Somehow the truth or dare group becomes involved and bodies sway and undulate next to me. A feather boa slithers around my shoulders, and I have a cigarette between my fingers even though I don't smoke. It's a perfect party moment, but one crucial element is missing.

His voice.

I teeter to the floor, and bypass Kat's outstretched hands, Jill's boot—I'm not certain, but she may have tried to trip me—and grasp a door handle. I fling it open, only instead of a bedroom, I peer into the hallway where several hotel workers wait, holding an assortment of linens, an entire cart filled with containers of popcorn, and another trailing behind loaded with candy.

I'm confident the inebriated guests of the Halos will know what to do with the delivery. I get another drink and twizzle a cherry lollipop in it before taking a lick. Kingston's jar overflows and he beams a smile in my direction.

"Which door should I pick?" I ask, using the lollipop as a pointer. "Number one or number two?"

He laughs and says, "Both."

"I like your style," I reply and promptly throw myself through door number one. Kenji and numerous girls occupy the bed. He stops mid-thrust.

One of the girls asks, "Did you change your mind?"

I try door number two, which isn't a bedroom at all, but an adjacent suite. Various collections of people, some I recognize, others wearing business suits with their ties loosened and jackets discarded, and women in gala-attire form an unsettling mixture with the hooligans and musicians hovering over tables, in corners, and passing from smoky bedrooms or possibly, other suites. The party in here is some bizarre next level shit.

I step closer to the main group and instead of hovering over an ordinary coffee table laid thick with lines of coke, there's a naked woman with huge boobs reclined on top. The thick lines of powder stripe her skin.

Niko snorts a line off the bald space between her legs.

I'm not jealous, not like he is, but don't suffer fools. Except him. Maybe this is payback for him glimpsing me pretending to enjoy the stripper or perhaps his mind is so addled he doesn't realize or doesn't care.

I want him to care.

I stride closer, shoving aside two eager dudes, waiting in line, fresh out of college, careers in finance bright in their future. My eyes land on the woman's, and I hope she sees in the reflection of mine that there are choices other than laying out like an offering at a feast, surrounded by those gorging in drugs off her smooth skin—I  hope she sees some version of a brighter present.

I stand and stare long enough for Niko's dilated pupils to meet mine. I bend over and with a mighty gust, blow away the neatly drawn lines of coke. Powder coats those closest to us. There's shouting and complaining.

I stretch to my full height. The subtle shake of my head tells Niko that he's screwed and not by me, at least not tonight or this morning or whatever time it is.