Lasting Lyric (4 page)

“Uh,” she lightly laughs. Yeah, I knew that wouldn’t go well after I asked it. “I’ll just wear what I’m wearing, thanks.” Jeans and a blouse. Hmm, not very comfortable in my opinion, but it’s probably best she keep those on instead.

I usually go to bed in my birthday suit, but tonight I’ll stay clothed for her. I don’t want her getting all hot and bothered for me, because ya know…I’m one sexy piece. Women usually can’t deny me. Yet in this case maybe Lyric can. At least I think she can? Okay, whatever, once that decision is made, I tell her I have extra toothbrushes in my bathroom. She goes in there, does her business, while I change into a pair of gym shorts and a shirt. After she comes out of the bathroom, I do
my
business. Once I’m done, I find her lying on the left side of the bed, with the sheets up to her chest. I make my way over, slip under the covers and roll onto my side, facing her. She looks petrified. But why the fuck why? She’s been giving me mixed signals all night. Wish I knew what she was thinking. Maybe she wants me to hold her? She did mention having someone close to her may help her sleep better. “You want me to hold you?”

She turns her head to look at me and laughs. “Do brothers cuddle with their sisters?”

Ouch.
“Okay, fine,” I reply a bit irritated. I don’t know why it bothers me she laughed off my offer. Maybe I want her to want me too? I am so far gone and need to have a reality check. Nothing can ever happen between us. Staying friends would be the smart thing for the band, for me. Mixing business with pleasure is not cool. Yet, here we are in my bed, mixing all kinds of business and pleasure together. I shake off my thoughts, say goodnight and turn out the light.

A few minutes go by and I have yet to fall asleep. Neither has Lyric. “On second thought…yeah, you can hold me,” she says, softly and nervously.

I don’t say anything back. Instead I make her turn on her side, so her back is against my front; my right arm stays tucked under my pillow while I rest my other hand on her stomach, and my chin rests on the top of her head. This has to be the most incredible contact I have ever felt in my life. Spooning in her warmth and body are out of this world. “Is this okay,” I ask.

“Yes,” she nods, then slightly turns her head up and says, “Thank you for this, Slim.”

The pleasure is all fucking mine, baby
. I lightly squeeze her soft belly, “No problem. G’night, Charlie.”

“Night,” she breathes out.

It doesn’t take Lyric very long to fall into a deep sleep. Me, on the other hand…I don’t fall asleep for quite awhile. My mind and body won’t shut the hell off. How can it when I have this unbelievable woman in my arms? I so want these new feelings to go away. I want to go back to feeling like her brother, one of the guys. Yet, somehow my heart is feeling a different way. I can’t listen to it, though. I have to ignore all things that make me want Lyric.

Eventually I fall asleep, but dream of pounding myself inside the warmth that is slammed up against Shooter.

The next morning, I am hard as a rock. My cock is aching, pressed up against Lyrics ass. Goddamn this cannot happen, I am just not sure how she feels. While Lyric is still out like a light, I sneak my way out of bed. She begins to stir the second I leave the bed, but quickly goes back to sleep. I stare at her for a moment, wishing I could jump back in and wake her up by kissing the hell out of her.
No. Fuck no
. I shake it off, put on my running shoes and go for a run. The paps haven’t discovered where we live yet so I’m not worried of being hounded. We live in a beautiful area in Point Loma, near the beach; walking distance to the waves. I make my way to the beach, run up and down the coast until my legs can no longer run. They give out, so I walk back to the house and prepare breakfast. I am extremely hungry and ready to eat my heart out.

I have finished cooking loads of food when Lyric walks into the kitchen. I glance up from the hot pan of bacon with a smile on my face. “G’morning, Sunshine.”

“Morning.” She pulls her hair into a low ponytail and sits on one of the bar stools at the counter.

“How’d you sleep?”

“Surprisingly well, actually. Best sleep I’ve had in awhile.”

From the sound of her voice and the look on her face I’d say my holding her last night worked. “My cuddles have the magical touch,” I wink.

She lightly giggles. “What on earth are you cooking, there?”

Bacon is cooked. I turn off the heat and wipe my hands on a towel. “Anything and everything you could possibly want.”

“Looks like you’re cooking for an army.”

I shrug. “I love to eat.”

“I can tell,” she chuckles. I stand in front of her, leaning my elbows on the counter. “How do you not get fat,” she asks.

“Sex. Lots of it,” I deadpan with a smirk. Lyric’s eyes widen in surprise. I love catching her off guard. She’s too damn adorable. I laugh my ass off from her reaction. “Shit, if you could have seen your face. Oh, my God, you’re too cute,” still laughing.

“I hate you,” she mumbles out, but has a grin on her face. She looks over my shoulder, taking in all the fantastic food I prepared. “Mmm…eggs benedict?” She hops off the stool and comes around on the other side of the counter. I can sense her mouth watering and stomach growling.

“Yup.”

“Hashbrowns
and
pancakes?” She asks, amazed.

“You know it.”

“I’ll get the plates.”

“Awesome.”

We eat our breakfast and enjoy every single bite. Once we finish with breakfast and have cleaned up the dishes, Lyric goes home to shower and change, and will be back in a little while. We’re going to see my dad today. I’m looking forward to having her meet him. He’s going to like Lyric a lot. I have talked about her over the last couples years enough that he will be glad to put a face with all the stories.

I FELT INSTANT FIREWORKS THE
moment I laid eyes on Slim McQuaid Jr.. Everything I wanted in a man was standing right there in front of me. He was gorgeously tall with wide shoulders, thick arms, hazel eyes, some dark scruff on the face, which deepened my attraction toward him, and dirty blonde hair, slicked back like James Dean - a 1950’s, into the twenty-first century rock star. I got tongue tied when I was first introduced to them. I could barely form two words when Slim shook my hand. But I could tell I wasn’t his favorite person at the time. The guys did not like me; a woman taking over as their band manager didn’t sit well with them. I had to earn my way into their club and not take any of their bullcrap. I made it known I was not scared of their attitudes. Growing up with three older brothers taught me a lot on how to deal with pig headed dudes. It didn’t take very long for me to grow on them. They weren’t all that bad. I pulled my own weight and showed them I was for real and could do this job better than anyone.

In all honesty, though, the only one I really cared about liking me was Slim. I swear I saw electricity run through our veins the second our hands touched. Guess he didn’t feel anything for me. It probably was for the best, anyhow. It’s not good to get caught up in someone you work for, so I kept my distance - for a little while. I couldn’t hold out that long, though. The guys were always playing video games, and I had an itch to play with them. One of my geeky habits is playing video games and beating my competition. Yeah, I don’t play just for fun. I am there to kick some serious booty. The first night I beat Slim at a race car driving game, I either made an enemy or a best friend for life. He’s a very competitive man, and me beating him at a simple game, blew his torch. From then on, he challenged me at everything. I loved it. I was more than willing to beat him at every battle and challenge he threw at me and to enjoy every single moment of watching him wallow in his pity party. Did I regret it? Nope. Not one ounce of regret or guilt reached my blood system. You see, this way, I could hang with Slim. Not just as a manager, but as a friend. That’s how all relationships should start out as, right? Anyways, I saw more than just a man who made music and who hated losing. I saw a funny, humble, easygoing guy who I seriously came to care about. It wasn’t hard liking him on the inside, just as much as I liked him on the outside. He and I bonded. We became best friends. Yet can this friendship go beyond anything else? Does Slim feel anything for me, like I do for him?

All the times I put my head on his shoulder or spent time on his bed while he played his guitar, never made a mark within our relationship. Nothing ever happened and I wasn’t about to make the first move. He treated me like I was his sister, a buddy. Did I like that? Eh, not really, but what was I going to do about it? I couldn’t exactly tell him I had a huge, major crush on him. How awkward would that be? He didn’t see me as anything other than one of the guys. Was I disappointed? Yep. I was. Again, I wasn’t going to sulk over it forever. We were meant to just be friends and I had to accept that. Time to move on.

Time to move on, I told myself. That was until our tour bus took a detour off the road, into a ditch and onto it’s side. I was knocked out, almost died, and didn’t wake up until over a week later. I was in the hospital with only my dad at my bedside explaining to me he didn’t want me near
JINKS
anymore, and he was not going to let me see any of them. He wanted me to quit as their band manager and to recover in LA. I couldn’t say no to recovering away from here where I knew I would be taken care of but, no way, no how would I give
JINKS
up. No way, no how would I give Slim up. He meant too much to me. All the guys did. But I couldn’t fight my dad. I was too weak, too tired to get into it with him. Sadly, I wasn’t in a condition where I could talk to anyone; I was having night terrors. The doctor said it was post traumatic stress from the accident. It was getting the better of me and I had to do something about it. I left my family in LA. I did not even tell my friends or
JINKS,
and snuck off to London to sort myself out. The recovery was slow and painful, but I did it. Two months of going to a shrink helped and I was ready to resume my old life. Get back to Slim. Back to being only his friend. I wasn’t sure how I was going to do that, everytime I thought of him I got goosies. When I learned he was a basket case, while I was gone, I felt an urgency to see him. June kept me up to date on everyone; the wedding of Wayne and Melody, Slim and his distress over my disappearing. I felt torn between my heart wanting to tell him I cared for him more than just a friend, and my head warning me about the possibilities of being burned by rejection. So I chose to stay closed up and resumed our friendship as none other than - a close friendship.

Not contacting Slim for so long pissed him off and rightly so. I didn’t mean to hurt or worry him, I just needed some serious time away from everyone. Yeah, mostly of him. I wanted to get these feelings I had for him gone from my heart. Did it work? Nope. Not one bit. Did I want to stay away from Slim? Nope. Never. I went back home and had it out with him. I explained my reasons - even if some of them were lies. Eventually we worked things out and went back to being
just friends
. We talked. We drank. We ate. We watched TV. Like good ole times. I laid my head on his shoulder, felt all the tingles course throughout my veins and in between my legs. My heart began to pitter patter slightly more than usual. I looked up at him, he looked down at me and I swear to God I thought he was going to kiss me. Or maybe it was wishful thinking. He’s never shown me any kind of affection that would make me assume he felt the same as I did. So why would it be any different now? Falling asleep on his lap and then being told to take his bed confused the hell out of me. The last thing I wanted to do was stay in his bed, while he held me all night long. Did his feelings change? Racing thoughts of hope wouldn’t stop. How could they when his touch did crazy things to my insides. I wanted to burst from an orgasm the second his fingers grazed my belly. Meowing like a crazed cat, and almost having a seizure wouldn’t have been very sexy. I would have been mortified, so I had to calm my body down and take a few deep breaths. I had to get some sleep. What seemed like forever in his arms, I finally was able to drift off. I dreamt of good things for the first time in months. Cuddling with my hot stuff did wonders for stopping my terrors.