Strung Out (Needles and Pins #1) (11 page)

“No. She’s really not.” Her expression turned to stone.

He didn’t argue with her. After all, he’d lived several years with the self-absorbed woman and had existed through his dad’s very public divorce from her.

“Well, your dad would be.”

Her look shot to his face, and he wanted to bite his tongue. He knew she had been too young when her father died to remember him. But surely, she’d done searches on the internet and had seen the same things he had. A man adored by his fans, and a man who adored his baby daughter. There were a few interviews with her father’s band in which her father was holding her in his lap. There were documentaries since his death that included candid video shots where the man’s face for the brief period of time after her birth was alight and untroubled.

Perhaps he should have stayed off the subject of her dad though. Simply because it was what it was. The death of a musician who had become a junkie.

“Well,
I’m
proud of you.”

She smiled up at him and leaned her forehead on his shoulder. “I’m kind of proud of me too. I mean, if there’s anyone I didn’t want to become, it was my parents. And maybe it was wrong, but that was my drive.”

“You succeeded.”

“In some ways, I guess. For now. But you can’t fight your genes, you know?” With that innuendo, she waggled the pen at him for emphasis, and he suddenly felt guilty for letting her partake.

“A couple of hits doesn’t make you an addict. Fuck, Scar. It’s been a weird night. We’re unwinding. Just give it back.” He snatched the device from her, inadvertently sending it flinging over his shoulder in the process.

Both gazed into the black void where it had flown, and she took a step, bending. “You got a flashlight? Or turn on the car lights…”

“Leave it. It’s probably in the middle of Malibu Canyon Road.”

Watching the headlights far below, she giggled at his joke, and his annoyance vanished. He chuckled along with her.

She returned, leaning against the car beside him. The chirping of nightlife was a musical backdrop to the silence, before she spoke. “I wasn’t as turned off by tonight as you were. That’s what I was really talking about. And it makes me think that no matter how hard I’ve tried to justify my interest in porn, that I have more of my mom’s genes than I want.”

He was quiet, taking that in, wanting to not fuck up his reply, but she continued.

“Some of the stuff creeped me out. The paddles. The cages. But the wax was kind of hot. Seeing how freaked you were, though… Well that killed it for me fast.”

“It was the stranger pouring it on me that killed it for me. I could totally get into that in a different setting.”
Shit. A flash image of Scarlette pouring the scalding wax on his chest sent the blood racing straight to his cock
. “You liking that kind of stuff and watching it, that doesn’t make you a slut. That makes you hot blooded. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Or maybe I’m a slut.”

“Are you?” he countered.
Why did it bother him suddenly that she may have slept with dozens of partners, as he had?

“There’s a guy I have classes with. We hook up. But I don’t feel anything for him—and he doesn’t for me. It’s easy. You know? No strings.”

“That doesn’t sound slutty,” he reassured, trying hard to banish the images of her and some other guy.

“Before him, I tried the relationship thing, but it didn’t work. I cheated on the only serious boyfriend I had.”

This stopped his wayward thoughts. She’d hit a trigger. “Why?”

“I told him it was because he was gaming all the time and ‘what did he think would happen?’ I told him it was his fault.”

“And? Why did it really happen?”

She seemed to consider. “I think because he’d been flirting with this girl in one of his games. And he found out she lived in driving distance. I was afraid he was going to cheat on me first.”

“Maybe he would’ve.”

“Doesn’t matter though. Does it? Doesn’t make what I did right. I’m destined. My own unfaithful, stripper mom named me Scarlette.”

“I like the name Scarlette.”

“You wouldn’t if it was your name and you read The Scarlet Letter.”

“Read it. Still like the name. It’s sexy. Damn, Scar. Is that why you go by Scarla? Trust me, you’re nothing like…”

“My mom. You can say it.”

“I was going to say those kinds of women—or my ex-wife.”

“Your what? YOU were married?”

“For all of six months. It was stupid. I was high. It was after a show. I’d known her a few weeks. And one night, we got on a plane for Vegas. Said our ‘I dos.’”

“That’s insane!”

“Tell me about it.”

“That was rude of me. I meant it in crazy admiration. For being so spontaneous.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Yes, I did. The poor man who ever proposes to me. I can’t see saying yes on the spot. I’ll have to think about it for a few weeks. A few months!”

He laughed.
Poor man, indeed. It would be torture wondering if someone like Scarlette would get away.

“Who is she? Anyone I would know?”

“No. She was a model. But unknown. Until she tried to fight the prenup anyway. That kept us both in the press for a while.”

“I never saw.”

“Good.” He hated to think of Scarlette reading some of the crap printed about him.

“How’d you have a prenup? With it being a Vegas wedding?” And she joked, “They do those at The Little White Chapel now?”

He felt his mouth twist in a wry grin. All my dad’s doing. A standard prenup had been ready and waiting since before I was twenty. Sadly enough, I would have stupidly married her without it. Knowing my dad would flip the fuck out if I didn’t use it made me call our lawyer in the middle of the night and have it filled in and waiting at the hotel.

“Turns out that was good. Lucky even.” The lilt of a jest grazed the word lucky. Her gaze lingered on his profile, and her words were softer. “What happened between you two?”

He stared at the satellites among the constellations in the dark sky and considered whether to answer. However, she’d confessed some pretty personal feelings tonight. Had she done so because she was as in sync with him as he was her? He wanted to lay his own demons out for the first time, ever. His unwillingness to verbally share anything was half the reason he’d walked out of rehab.

“The house we went to tonight. The first I heard of it was when it got back around to me that my wife often visited. That she didn’t go alone. She was always with the same person. I don’t know if her relationship with him was limited to that sort of thing, or if they were having a full-fledged affair behind my back. I never wanted to know. It was hard enough to know she was getting her kicks in that way with someone else—and had never let on to me about that side of her.” A shadow fluttered the other side of his eyelids and he realized he’d closed his eyes.

He opened them to find her close, and her jeans brushed his knees as she moved between them. Her head fell back, and looking up, she locked her gaze. No rock star disgust. No rock star scorn. Only a sweet and pure sympathy with a dash of something more urgent. He wasn’t sure who moved next. Maybe they both did in synchronicity. Their lips brushed. And again, before meeting in a firm, hungry kiss. He felt the tug of his hair beneath her arms when they twined his neck.

Her fingers splayed his shirt and then tunneled beneath it. Without breaking the lip lock, she scraped her fingernails down his chest, peeling the wax away.

And holy fuck, nothing had ever felt so heavenly.

It felt too good to think of anything except laying her out over the car hood and playing this out until the end. Only because of their years as siblings did he stop with one last kiss and whisper, “Damn. That felt as sweet as the last time.”

T
he ‘last time’ he spoke of had been when we were fourteen. His father had given my mother one day to pack her things and be out of the Seattle house we lived in at the time. When he refused to let her take anything herself, insisting he would have a moving company deliver it to an address or storage facility of her choosing AFTER he went through the boxes himself, a screaming argument had ensued.

I had retreated to the pool house to wait for my mother to get me and take us to the hotel that would be our home until other living accommodations were found. But it was my stepfather who had entered the dwelling a half hour later. He informed me that my mom had left without me and that he would give me a ride or that I could stay the night if I wanted to. “You’re always welcome here,” he’d promised.

“Stay.” Gage had entered around that part of the conversation and had bribed me. “We can make spicy popcorn and watch movies all night!”

Midway through The Punisher, reality had hit me.
Would this be the last time I watched TV with Gage
? The last time he teased when I covered my eyes during violent scenes?

“You’re so far away. What’re you thinking about?” Teenaged Gage had always been perceptive, sweet, and concerned.

I rose from my recline on the couch to sit cross-legged at his feet. “I was wondering if I’d ever see you again.”

“You heard my dad. You can come anytime.”

Unless I move overseas
. I’d already heard my mother’s plans as she had recapped them over the phone several times to her friends. “What if I can’t?”

And then he’d looked at me. Understanding. Tapping into the same hopeless feeling I had been experiencing.

“I don’t want you to leave, Scar.”

I’d closed my eyes, sure tears would escape if I didn’t. And his lips had pressed to mine. Even as surprised as I had been, my eyes hadn’t popped open; in fact, I’d squeezed them tighter as our lips moved in unison. The blissful friction had lasted only a few seconds.

Settling back, his eyes had roved my face. “I shouldn’t have. I know. But I’m not sorry. I don’t regret it.”

I’d been a stupid immature young teen. Leaping to my feet, I’d grabbed some of the dishes from the table and run to the galley. The glass had clinked and clattered as I set them down. Through the window over the sink, I’d eyed the main house across the patio.
Where was his dad? What if we’d been seen?
For sure, I’d never be able to come back if we’d been caught!

I’d scooped my jacket from a chair and paused with one hand on the French doors. Turning back, I found him still watching me. But as he’d said, there was no regret in his visage.

“I’m going to miss you, Gage.”

He’d simply been comforting me. I knew that. But in my darkest moments, for years, I relived that brush of a kiss.

The dragon gate glided open as his car approached
, and I wrangled my thoughts. We’d remained silent for the few minutes it had taken to navigate the snaky roads.

He pulled the car into the garage and the automatic door hummed down behind us. We exited, and the doors fell shut with a light smack of metal against metal. What was happening? Were we really going inside with this giant elephant accompanying us?

A flash imagining of him pulling me into his arms once we were inside the house, carrying me up the stairs, and tossing me onto his bed made my heart pound.

What was I thinking?

He was my brother! As good as, anyway
.

Brother might be easier to overcome if we hadn’t shared a big chunk of our lives together during impressionable years as siblings. Once our family had blended, both of our parents had constantly called us brother and sister. We had been two lonely, only children too happy to fall into our roles. Our past was a serious mindfuck. Being attracted to Gage had me feeling more perverted than I ever had when glancing over my shoulder for onlookers while glued to porn.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have.” I whispered it as we crossed the threshold into the coatroom.

He paused shrugging off his jacket to look at me. Tossing the garment to a coat tree and ignoring it when it fell to the floor, he raised his brows. “It’s fine.”

I should have felt relief, but I only felt more uncomfortable as I trailed him through the narrow hall, past the kitchen. When he detoured toward his downstairs studio, I continued to the second floor and my room.