The Fire and the Roar Page 3

  “Babe, I missed you. Missed this. Missed your skin…your moans…”

  “Ow!” Sharp metal gouged into my back, and I lifted, reaching over to see what the heck was there.

  Wreck raised his head from between my legs. “What is it, baby?”

  I snatched my notebook and pen from the mattress and tossed them. “My notebook.”

  He held my blurry gaze, his tongue circling my clit. “You had that kid on your bed?”

  “W-what?” I held on tight to his messy head of hair. Messy from the wind and the dust on the road, he took to get here all night. Get to me. “No, no. I was on the b-bed, he was on the floor. Oh…Oh…” Thick, long fingers slid inside me, searching, finding their home. My head knocked back.

  “That so?” I lost his mouth from my center, his absence a torture.

  “Oh no, no…I mean…” His palm slapped my clit once. My eyes snapped open. Again, now in a thudding rhythm, a constant pressure from his heavy palm pressing up against me. I twisted, the wall of pleasure insurmountable, his fingers inside me urgent. Demanding.

  I climbed, I flew. “Wreck!” I exploded, my fingernails digging into his scalp.

  His one hand went to my ass and massaged a cheek as he planted kisses on my middle. The sound of our heavy breaths filled the humid air. He turned over, scanning the room as if for the first time. “Wow.”

  “What?”

  “This is quite a mess you got going on here.”

  My fingers brushed his glistening lips, lips wet with me. “It is, isn’t it?”

  “Not like you at all.”

  “We were writing, working out a couple of songs all day before the show…and then we had to be at the bar, so we dropped everything and took off and…”

  “Hmm.” That muscle along his jaw tightened again. I knew that him having to deal with me on the road, away from home, away from him for weeks at a time with five other men, took a lot of trust. But we had that. I also knew that it was a lot to ask of any man.

  “Living that rock star life already.”

  “No baby, really—”

  He squeezed my ass gently. “I’m glad you’re getting work done.”

  My fingers curled in his beard. “I love you, you know that?”

  His grin met mine. A low, rumbling chuckle rose in his throat, and I reached up to kiss him, my hands in his gorgeous thick hair. “I know. Oh, I know.”

  He took me in his arms. “I don’t want to let you go,” he murmured in my throat. “Don’t want to leave you again.”

  I clasped him even tighter, his face buried in my neck, his chest expanding with a deep breath, a deep sigh.

  I held him tightly. “Just a little bit longer.” I thought that every time. Said that every time. But how much longer?

  “We keep telling ourselves that,” he whispered.

  “Baby, I’m usually the one freaking out.”

  “Seeing you in the middle of trouble set off a panic in me, and I’m having a rough time coming down.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I was only trying to create a distraction to save Teddy’s ass, and I…”

  “I love you going to your compadre’s rescue, baby. Your sense of loyalty, you putting yourself out there to do the right thing. But I’m begging you, please be more careful.”

  His voice carried the burden of a heavy weight, fatigue, dread. Me being out on the road with the band had been his idea, to begin with. His idea to keep me safe out of Meager and also happy doing what I loved, chasing my dream. My heart filled with warmth that bubbled and rose like hot caramel. Gratitude. Responsibility.

  “You’re right. I couldn’t think of anything else. There wasn’t any time.”

  His warm hand stroked my middle. “Never is.” He let out a short laugh.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “I’ll bet you wished you had a gun handy to have let off a shot in the air to really get their attention instead of using your boobs.”

  “Well, yeah, but—wait, are you implying that my boobs aren’t showstoppers?”

  “Your boobs are my showstoppers.” He raised up over me, his tongue lashing at the underside of a breast, swirling around, his teeth nipping at my curves. “You feeling me?” His warm breath fanned my skin.

  I giggled at that time worn phrase, squirmed, my teeth grazing my lip as he devoured my breast. “Oh yeah, yeah, I’m feeling you….”

  A hand slapped my ass. “Good.”

  I hissed in air at the delightful sting. “I’m so excited that you’re here, but I thought you were going on a run to the Colorado chapter this week?”

  “Considering what day tomorrow is, I got special permission from our Prez and left Colorado a day early. Our schedule’s changing and I’m not sure I’ll be able to come to Minnesota in a couple of weeks, though, but I thought I’d much rather surprise you tonight for tomorrow. It was worth it, even if it’s just for one night.”

  Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. Only that famous passage from Shakespeare’s Macbeth came to mind as I watched Wreck light a cigarette.

  Tomorrow. My heart stopped.

  OH FUUUUUUCKKKKK, TOMORROW IS VALENTINE’S DAY!

  FUCK

  FUCK

  FUCKKKKKK

  How could I have forgotten Valentine’s Day? No, it’s not as if we were in high school or junior high where these holidays were monumental, essential events, but still….Valentine’s Day! What an idiot I was.

  Hadn’t Georgia remarked over the phone to me a couple of weeks ago how she’d set up a really cool Valentine’s Day front window at the General Store? Not the usual floating hearts, but this year she’d created a tableau of buffalo and horse figurines with red foil hearts attached to their bodies, charging over a fluffy plain of cotton clouds, with cupids floating up above, aiming at them with their arrows. A Barbie and Ken doll in full cowboy gear were on horseback in the distance.

  How could I have forgotten? What kind of girlfriend was I? A CRAPPY ONE.

  Wreck eyed me as a stream of smoke left his lips. He rubbed at the side of his jaw. “Man, I can’t wait for tomorrow…”

  “What? What do you mean?” I leaned up from the mattress.

  Wreck got up from the bed in his bare magnificence and stalked to his huge leather jacket, a hand digging in an inside pocket at the chest. He returned to me, a taut smile on his lips.

  “Here.” He put a small box on my bare tummy. “For you.”

  A jewelry box stared back at me.

  “Honey,” my voice croaked, my mouth dried. I sat up and took the small black box trimmed with gold in my hands.

  “Happy Valentine’s Day, Is.”

  I snapped it open. A ring. A wide cuff of a ring covered with small dark red garnets. “Oh, it’s so beautiful.”

  “It’s an antique I found in a store going out of business in Deadwood. It’s Black Hills gold, the guy said. Wanted you to have something from home to remind you where your heart is.”

  “My heart’s with you, wherever you are,” I breathed.

  “I know.” His voice was low, husky. His eyes filled with water.

  I clasped his hand. “I don’t want you spending your money on trinkets—”

  “It’s no ordinary trinket, baby, and I wanted you to have it. I want to be able to get you more, buy you—”

  “Honey…”

  “Anyhow, the guy owed me. We helped him out with some insurance problems he was having.”

  “Hmm. That was kind of you.”

  “It’s the Jacks’ way, babe.”

  I raised up and threw my arms around him. “I love it. It’s gorgeous. Thank you. Put it on me.”

  His grin returned as he took my hand in his and slid the ring on my middle finger. A gasp escaped me at its perfection.

  “When you’re singing, I want to be able to see it on your hand when you grab that mic stand the way you do.”

  “How do I grab the mic stand?”

  “With authority,” he said without hesitation. “Like you fuckin
g mean it. Every note, every word.”

  “I do,” I whispered.

  “I know you do. You’re on fire when you perform. The red’s for that.” His lips tipped up into a slight smile. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat, and his gaze suddenly fell to my leg where his hand stroked my thigh. “I couldn’t bring you roses.”

  “I don’t like roses.”

  He laughed. “Those stones are a nice deep red.”

  “I rich, dark red, my favorite kind. It’s gothic, it’s—”

  “It’s not diamonds—”

  “It’s our fire. And I don’t give a shit about diamonds.”

  “But it sparkles all the same. And it’ll sparkle to me all the way to the back of the theater, all the way around the arena.”

  “Yeah, the arena.” I fingered the incredible ring. Dark smoldering red. Wine and fire.

  “Someday, honey. You’ll see. You’ll be headlining the biggest arenas.” He brought my hand to his lips and kissed my fingers, the ring. “Love you, baby.”

  “Wreck?”

  “Yeah?” He stroked my hand, holding it tight.

  “I’m sparkling fire inside.”

  He let out a soft laugh as he stood up and took me in his arms. Together we swayed as if there were music playing, music only we could hear. My eyes closed, and I listened to my heartbeat, and I felt his thrum through mine. I held Wreck tight and burrowed closer into his heat.

  “Is—” he murmured in my ear. “I’m sparkling fire too, baby.”

  Chapter Six

  “When do you have to leave?” I slid my hand around Wreck’s great big one that was stroking my breast. We were in bed, him laying down behind me, having finished another round of lovemaking, this time, long and slow.

  He slid out of me, a hand circling my thigh, a grunt on his lips. “Early.”

  “No, really?” I twisted to face him, my fingers in his short beard.

  “Got to get back to Meager. The repair shop is backed up, which is good we got business, but I don’t want to fall behind now that the town has really warmed up to the shop. The guys keep up, but most of them are in Colorado still for the big meeting. I managed to leave a day early, which was sweet."

  “Real sweet.”

  “Plus, snow is on its way again, but I had to come to you.”

  I didn’t want to have to let him go. Again. Like we always did. A couple days here, a day there. At least we had a night together, and in our own room, not on some bus, like that time in Oregon. That was not a good time, no privacy, no nothing. But we managed it. Even though this motel was crap, neither of us cared. We were together.

  A chill prickled over my skin, and I leaned over and grabbed his big black T-shirt from the floor, and slid it on. He smoothed it down my chest. I wanted to feel his clothes on me, his warmth, his scent. And when he put it back on tomorrow, I wanted him to feel me, my warmth, my scent.

  The gold pink glow of sunrise filled the room through the flimsy curtains on the window. “Happy Valentine’s Day,” I whispered into his skin, and he planted a kiss on my head, keeping me close.

  “Honey?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I don’t have a present for you, not even a card,” I said. “I didn’t expect to see you, and—that’s no excuse, it’s—”

  “Is that why you keep sucking my cock? That has to be a record, even for you.”

  I laughed, pinching his stomach. “Maybe. But I miss my cock, and I wanted him to feel the love. My love.”

  “He did baby, he did. Trust me.”

  He picked up a box from a small plastic bag he’d dropped on the floor earlier. “I forgot, Georgia gave me these for you.”

  Valentine’s Day heart-shaped candies. “She knows how much I love these—since we were kids.” I grabbed for a box, but Wreck kept them in his hand.

  “I have an idea how we could put ‘em to good use.” He sat up over me, pushing the bedding out of the way, and ripped open the box, dropping heart-shaped candies all over my body. A shower of sugar. “Now that’s a Valentine for your man. A living card. That looks good. So good.” His fingers tapped on my thigh. “Let’s see what’s inside.”

  I spread my legs, and he bent over me, licking at the candies on my tummy, my chest. He took one in his teeth and rubbed it over my nipples and dropped it in my mouth. I laughed as I chewed. Sugar was everywhere.

  “Will you be my Valentine?” he said, licking a trail down my torso once more. A candy swiped over my clit, and my back arched. How he spoiled me. I raised my head to meet his gaze. “Why, yes, I will,” I said, curling my hips up to meet his mouth.

  On a grunt, Wreck clasped my ass firmly, the sting of his sharp grip, the anticipation of his talented mouth cutting off my breath—yessssss. Like a speeding train, I got right to the edge, and because he knew my body so well, he stopped, flipped me over, lifted my ass, and bit it as I wiggled my hips in frustration.

  “Wreck!”

  He plowed hard inside me. I was a rag doll in his grip, and I liked it.

  “I missed you, I missed you…” His cock drove faster, deeper.

  My vision blurred. “Yes, yes, yes.”

  After, Wreck’s head on my tummy, my fingers playing with his thick hair, I hummed that riff Eric and I had been working on earlier today….couldn’t get it out of my head. Still trying to find the right cadence of words to—

  “What is that?”

  “It’s the song I’ve been working on. I can’t get it right. I don’t know. Sometimes the words flow with the music. Other times it’s a cut and paste job that feels forced, and that’s the worst. I know it’s a process. There are times you have to let it go and let it dance on its own, and then you come back to it, dance it with it again and see what happens and be open to that. But right now it’s not working for me, and it’s frustrating, which is why Eric came in and helped out a little. He’s got a good ear.”

  “He’s got a crush on you.”

  “He knows where I stand. They all do. Anyhow, he’s a good guy. He pitches in everywhere, and he doesn’t bitch or complain, no matter how crappy things get, and as you know, things get pretty damn crappy.” My breath hitched.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Babe.”

  I bit down on my trembling lip. Stop. Stop.

  “Give me what you got so far.”

  “There’s still no beginning, it’s just pieces.”

  “That’s all right. I want to hear. You owe me a Valentine’s.”

  “True. True. I certainly do.” I got up and got my guitar and sat at the edge of the bed. I strummed the opening chords.

  “I want to stop time.

  Make it mine

  Make the sun turn around

  Make it hide, pull it down”

  I hummed the rest of the riff Eric had worked out with me.

  “Stop time, make it mine,” he repeated. “That so?”

  “Hmm. So I can have you.”

  “You got me, baby. Always.” He planted a kiss on my thigh, and we gave each other weak smiles. Oh, we both knew what I meant, but we weren’t going to go there. Not now.

  Wreck stretched out, twisting his body. “I like it. Keep at it.”

  “I will.”

  His warm hand clasped my leg. “You sound worried. What’s going on?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Tell me.”

  “We’re headed up to Michigan in March for this music festival, and we’re trying to get new material ready. There are going to be big names there—other bands and industry people, and of course hardcore fans of good music. We were invited to be there, and this could really lead to something. It’s important. So I’m a little anxious about us having solid material and being ready. And I want to contribute some of my songs too.”

  “You should, baby. You’ve been ready for this since the day I first saw you sing at Dead Ringers back in ’75, and you blew me away.”

  “That’s the thing, though. Now, that dream is happe
ning. It’s all real. And it’s up to us to be ready. To bring our best to the table. But what if after all this, it—”

  “Isidora Dillon, are you shitting me? You’ve never been one to shy away from tough work or a challenge.”

  “I feel like I’m at the edge of a cliff and I’m—”

  “You chose the cliff. You rolled up in your Harley to this particular cliff all on your own.”

  I blinked. My throat burned.

  He sat up, his hands cradling my face. “You got this, baby.”

  “But you’re sacrificing so much,” I whispered.

  “What? What am I sacrificing?”

  “Come on, Wreck. Not having your old lady with you at your side and having to play this we’re-broken-up charade with everybody. Being in the middle of this whole Leo mess. Putting up with me on the road with all the guys. Being worried about my safety, coordinating your brothers to watch out for me when they’re able. Then, tonight, if you hadn’t shown up—”

  “Boy, you really feel guilty about this whole Valentine’s Day gift thing, huh?” He chuckled, running a hand through his unruly hair.

  He was such a generous, good person. My greatest blessing. And I didn’t want to fail, I couldn’t fail for him. I took in a deep breath.

  He tilted his head, eyes narrowing. “Isi?”

  “This song? The words aren’t coming like they usually do. So when Eric offered to work on it with me today, I thought, hell yes, yes, help me please.”

  “And did it help?”

  “It did.”

  “Good. You can build on that, right? Keep working with him—not on a bed, though.”

  I let out a small laugh.

  “Babe—” He took the guitar from me and placed it carefully on the floor. “I know you’re worried about Leo, about us, the store, and everything you’ve left behind. But we all want this for you. Me, Georgia, your cousin the cop. All my brothers in Meager and in Colorado are behind you one hundred percent. Leo took off to keep you out of his shitstorm. For God’s sake, tonight you even had a Flame of Hell looking out for you, supporting you.”