Playing the Pauses Page 5

  Whatever the hell that was, it was not casual sex.

  Jax is rubbing his hand in soothing circles on my back, just a little bit too fast. “Kate?”

  I pull away, dashing a hand over my eyes, and lie straight to his concerned face. “It was news from home. Everybody’s okay, I was just...shaken up.”

  He frowns down at me, swaying a touch, and his eyes are bloodshot. Beneath the scent of his cologne is a hint of perfume.

  I wrinkle my nose. Maybe more than one kind of perfume, actually. “Wait, are you drunk?” I ask. He straightens up, but overcorrects and a smile tugs at the edge of my lips. “Did you really just get back from a club and then come to my room to ask about layover times?”

  He looks guilty.

  “That flight is in three weeks, Jax, jeez!” I shake my head, my smile growing. “Go find a date already. Have some fun.”

  He stuffs his hands in his pockets, looking even guiltier. “She’s asleep.”

  My eyebrows shoot up and a laugh bursts out of me. “You left some girl in your room so you could check on flight schedules? Seriously?”

  “I’m sorry, I know it’s late. But it was bugging me, so I couldn’t sleep. And I promise, she’ll be gone in time for us to get out of here in the morning. Lobby at 7:15, right?”

  “Oh, Jax...” I pinch the bridge of my nose, looking down as I shake my head, still chuckling. “You’d better believe there is no way I would ever take less than a three hour layover from Florida in the summertime.” I wave him off. “Now get out of here and catch some sleep. Big day tomorrow, you’ve got lots of hearts to break.”

  He gives me a lopsided smile. “’Kay. Sorry about your news. You sure you’re good? Jera likes to play first person shooter games when she’s upset, and they’ve got a full PlayStation setup on my flat screen upstairs. We could blow away some bad guys...”

  “I will be absolutely fine,” I promise both of us. “I always am.”

  Chapter 4: Unconditional

  Airports are my favorite place in the world. Growing up with a mom as chaotic as mine, I guess it makes sense that clearly labeled corridors would draw me in. Especially when they’re staffed by calm employees with their name badges clipped at a precise ninety-degree angle while their fingers tap, tap, tap away on keyboards, getting everyone exactly where they need to go.

  This morning, maybe I could use a name badge of my own, a little ninety-degree action to straighten out a life that suddenly feels full of oblique angles.

  I stare vaguely at the email displayed on my phone, swallowing a sigh as I consider if I should count heads a third time. I think I managed to get the whole crew and all their odds and ends to the right gate. Except with the way I’m feeling, it’s not out of the question that I might have swapped out the drum tech for a stray bellhop.

  I glance over to check on the band. Jera sits on the floor with her back leaned against the wall, Jax asleep with his head in her lap. Over the top of him, she’s playing poker with Danny and two of the rigging guys. While I watch, she laughs and points a warning finger at the taller of the two crew members. It’s a great shot, but I’m not in the mood to play paparazzi for the sake of the band’s Instagram account.

  Danny deals the cards, his silver ring glinting as it catches the overhead lights.

  I glance away, clicking off my phone and pushing to my feet. “Anybody else need a Starbucks?” Jera immediately raises a hand and gives me a pleading look. I smile and send her a nod.

  Danny tosses his cards down. “I’ll go with you.”

  Shit. I nod, while practicing my newly-honed technique of looking at him while not really looking at him at all. Especially not his eyes. Or his hands.

  We only make it halfway to the coffee shop before Danny reaches for my arm to guide me out of the flow of passing travelers. I slip past his touch and move to the side with him, my chest tight like there’s not quite enough air in here.

  “I had a question for you about where the instruments are stored,” he says.

  My head snaps up. Am I really getting off that easy?

  Danny scrubs a hand over the back of his neck, apparently having perfected his own version of looking-without-looking. “I had to ask around last night to find my Fender and it turned out it was in a van in the parking garage. Plus when I got down there, the back door was unlocked and I don’t know...” He shrugs, his black hair blasting in every direction like he’s been fidgety today. “I just don’t think it’s safe to leave them there at night. I know it’s a pain to move all Jera’s drums into the hotel every day, but I’d be happy to do it. She’ll talk your ear off about buying a really fancy, expensive set, but the truth is she’s put this one together to sound exactly the way she wants. She’d be devastated if something happened to it.”

  “No, Mr. O’Neil.” My back is wall-straight. “I will take care of it and that will not happen again.”

  His eyes come up to mine, ivy green lightening to brown and he looks...tired? Maybe disappointed? “Hey, I know it’s not your fault. If you were in charge of instruments, they’d probably be in a humidity-controlled vault with fingerprint access. I just have no idea who takes care of that sort of thing and I figured you would.”

  “So the instruments were down there all night in an unlocked van?” My stomach clenches queasily.

  “No, I was with them. They were fine.”

  I blink. “Danny, you didn’t have to sleep in a cargo van.”

  “Didn’t need to sleep. I wanted someplace quiet to play, and the van worked. No big deal.”

  He sat in a van in the parking garage playing his unplugged bass all night? I can’t hold his gaze, so I push both hands back through my hair and let a sigh explode out of me. “You should have come to get me. I would have taken care of it.”

  He slides his hands into his jeans pockets. “Um...”

  This is why you don’t have hot, soul-scraping sex with people on your tour. Because then they don’t come to you when they need something. I stuff down my irritation with myself for the moment and make eye contact.

  “Danny, listen to me. I don’t care if the Queen of England is giving me a pedicure: if the band’s instruments are in danger, I want to hear about it before my toenail polish is dry, do you understand?”

  The corner of his lips twitches up and he nods, but now that we’re looking at each other again, his eyes are searching mine. I start to fidget with my purse.

  “Last night,” he says, very quietly, “we didn’t talk about boundaries.”

  “No, and we don’t need to. It won’t happen again.”

  He pauses. “That’s not what I was going to say.”

  “You didn’t need to.” I give him a tight smile.

  He ducks his head to try to catch my eyes. “So we’re...cool?”

  “We’re cool.”

  He straightens. For a moment, he is very still, his face troubled. And then he jerks a nod and turns back toward the gate where we left the rest of the band.

  He played his bass in a cargo van all night. I hug my arms around myself, watching him go and trying not to feel any of the things ricocheting around inside my chest. If he wasn’t going to say it was a mistake, what was he going to say?

  Danny’s stride is tense as he arrows straight for Jera, who appears to be trying to tease a sleepy Jax into playing poker. Danny squats down and ducks his head to speak in her ear. Her chin snaps up as she listens, and she hands her cards to Jax. Danny pulls her to her feet and starts away in the opposite direction of me, towing her along while she half-jogs to keep up with his longer legs.

  Shit.

  My brain snaps out of its daze and right back into work mode. The level of emotion coming off Danny is going to lead to fighting or fucking or both, none of which need to be done in front of the plentiful camera phones of the American public. I start after the pair at a near-atomic speed walk, trying not to draw more attention.

  The least I can do is get them a private VIP lounge to have it out in. Honestly,
what was I thinking? I guessed there might be something between those two on the first day, I just didn’t think I’d be the spark that ignited the powder keg. Or that we wouldn’t make it through the first week before they started breaking Jera’s sweet-faced boyfriend’s heart.

  Danny and Jera take a hard left beneath a sign for prayer rooms. Breaking into a scooting little jog, I clamp my purse to my side and dart into the artificial flower garden that provides a foyer to three separate rooms. Each set of double doors is pale wood, with a circle of clear plexiglass in the center embossed with a symbol: a cross, a star and crescent, and on the third, an OM. That’s the door that’s still faintly swinging, but I beeline over there and peek inside just in case.

  A glimpse is enough to be sure they’re alone. I turn around, catching my breath as I scan the flower garden. Nobody. Okay, well, at least I can make sure nobody walks in on them and snaps a shot that will end up in the tabloids with little black “censored” boxes over the important bits. When I told them to drum up more public notice, this is so not what I meant.

  “I need to talk to you.” Danny’s voice may be low on the register, but wow, does it carry.

  “No shit,” Jera says. “You just dragged me half a damn mile through an airport by my elbow. Are you about to have my baby or what, O’Neil?”

  He takes a long, audible breath before he says, “I used to be a Dom.”

  Pause.

  “I’m sorry, but what in the ham sandwich did you just say to me?”

  “A Dom. A Dominant. It’s a term in the BDSM world for someone who controls the sexual experience of a submissive partner.”

  “I know what it means, Daniel. But I’m trying to hear past the TMI alarm blaring in my head to understand why you think you need to explain this to me in front of the damn Buddha. Crap, I just swore in front of the Buddha. Are Buddhists against swearing?” She pauses. “Oh my gosh, your whip tattoo, and your bed. I am such an idiot, aren’t I? Does Jax know?”

  That’s why he didn’t knock on her door. He’s in love with her, and the poor girl is as vanilla as anything gets without plopping a cherry on top. I slap a hand over my eyes and lean back against a planter. This is very not good.

  He fucked me brainless two doors down from her and the whole time he was probably picturing her face. He took me from behind, after all, tied firmly to face forward.

  I drop my hand away from my eyes and the first thing I see is a painting of Jesus on the opposite wall, pitying brown gaze trained right at me. I scowl back at him. It’s not like I knew, for crying out loud. I was just dying from sexual frustration after a two-year kink drought.

  Danny hasn’t said a word and the absence of his voice is carving out a hollow place in my stomach.

  A woman with a headscarf comes into the flower garden. I paste on a polite smile, edging more in front of the door to the Buddhist room. She ignores me and turns into the crescent and star room. I pray to whatever deity can hear me from the waiting room that the walls are thicker than the doors.

  “So what are we talking? Whips and chains? Dungeons and costumes?” A beat passes, and Jera’s voice goes thin. “Needles? Is that why you finally got your piercing license?”

  “Everything.” I can practically hear the word hit the floor between them. “Canes and O-gags, chains and rape fantasies. I did everything they wanted, Jera.”

  I close my eyes, aching for him. Any fellow fetishist knows what it means to tell your truth and have somebody recoil. You want what you want, but when somebody looks at you like that makes you a pervert? That’s the kind of mark a thousand Leather Pride parades can’t carry away.

  “I thought you were the Dom. Doesn’t that mean you get whatever you want?” Even Jera’s sarcasm is getting shaky. The girl is way out of her comfort zone here.

  “A mediocre Dom, maybe. A good one talks it out with the sub beforehand and then figures out the finer points on his own, because if she has to ask, it breaks the fantasy space. And I don’t know where it comes from, Jimi, but...”

  I glance away, the nickname pulled from the acronym of her name somehow making me feel like I’m intruding even more. I move farther from the door, keeping an eye on the people passing in the corridor.

  “It’s something I’ve always just been able to do,” he says. “I know what the subs need and I never refuse.”

  “Do you...like it?”

  I flinch and blow out a breath, pulling out my iPhone and clicking on my email to distract myself. I may have to be here to keep this convo just between them and the poor, pious lady next door, but I don’t need to eavesdrop on Jera breaking his heart into a thousand tour-canceling, band-shattering pieces. Though what I probably ought to be doing is booting up my tablet to update my resume.

  “That’s the thing, Jera. I don’t know. If they were turned on, I was hard as a rock, but now, I...I can’t tell.” When his voice drops, I catch myself tipping my head to listen. “I can’t tell how much is me and how much I’m just absorbing from them.”

  “What, so you’re some kind of sex psychic? Where the hell were you when I wasn’t getting laid for eighteen months because I thought my lady parts were defective?”

  My iPhone screen dims and prepares to lock while I stare bug-eyed at it. Jera? Sweet little Jera thought she was frigid? That must be where some of the happy blushing comes in when she’s showing me pictures of her boyfriend.

  “You needed to be loved, not fucked. Not exactly my forte.”

  I’m glaring at the Jesus portrait again, iPhone sagging in my hand. So wait, they were never together? What the hell is it with these two, then?

  “Besides, I couldn’t exactly tell you back then, could I?”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “I came like crazy with all these women I barely knew, and you were worried about orgasms. You thought that was what was missing from your love life.” He lets out a humorless laugh. “Remember how upset you were about Jax sleeping around? How could I have told you the truth when I knew how you condemned him for doing a tenth of what I did?”

  A balding guy in a suit comes into the foyer. I ignore him until he keeps on going past the room with the cross on the door. I bolt off my planter.

  He gives me a friendly nod and starts to step around me toward the OM-marked room.

  “I’m sorry, sir, this room is closed for cleaning.” I keep my voice as low as I can while still hitting a professional pitch.

  He frowns. “There’s no sign.”

  I dial up my smile a few notches, stepping in front of his line of sight. “That’s why I’m here. The um, Interdenominational Religious Coalition Foundation accepts volunteers to do this. To avoid the impersonality of the signs.”

  “Oh, okay.” He dips his head slightly. “Namaste.”

  I give him a little bow that hopefully looks religious-ish, and he turns to go. Edging toward the door, I strain but pick up nothing. Oh crap, they totally heard me and they know I’m out here, don’t they?

  Jera’s soft voice breaks the silence. “Come here.”

  She is not going to test out his orgasm credentials right now, is she? If they get caught going at it in a prayer room, the religious right is never going to shut up.

  “What, a hug erases your more judgmental leanings?” Danny asks, and I bite my lip at the stiffness in his tone.

  “I just needed to feel that you were still the same, the you that was out there, what, whipping girls? Ordering them around? Oh God, tell me you were being safe, Danny. At least tell me that much.”

  “Yes, I used protection. And I was giving them orgasms, Jera. According to you, the foundation of a healthy family life.”

  “Sit down, will you?” There’s a rustle of fabric like she’s tugging at his sleeve.

  I fidget with my iPhone, the gentle sadness in her voice making me squirm for whatever she’s about to say. I like Jera, enough that if she lived in San Francisco, I could totally see us being friends. But I’m going to have to shackle myself to t
his fake ficus tree to keep from bitch slapping her if she’s about to condemn him for pleasuring women who were probably begging for more the entire time.

  “Here’s the thing,” she says. “I adore Jax. If he was lonely, I’d move him into my spare room tomorrow. If he needed a kidney? I wouldn’t think twice about it, even though I’m not hot on needles and those surgery TV shows give me the creeps. But I still think him sticking his dick in just anybody he wants? Is gross as hell. And you...”

  I smack my hands down onto the edge of the planter, gripping until I can feel my knuckles ache.

  “I have a really hard time thinking about you hitting strange women,” Jera says. “Or calling them names, degrading them.”

  I shove off the planter and pace around it, fighting the words back behind my tongue that I’m dying to throw in her face. It is not degrading. When you give someone a safe place where they can relax into exactly what they need, it is fucking empowering. And yeah, there are probably some girls who are playing out their daddy issues in the dungeon, but there are a hell of a lot of girls playing out their daddy issues in suburban marriages, too, and nobody judges them for it.

  “But I love you,” Jera murmurs. “And I don’t have any trouble at all picturing you quietly being exactly what they needed you to be. Whatever you did, D, I know you did it with respect, and I don’t believe you hurt anybody. I mean, whips and chains aside, really hurt someone. I don’t think I could ever believe that.”

  I stop pacing and my breath comes out all in a whoosh. I remember the first guy who ever told me it was okay to like the things I did, after years of lying to myself and everyone else. His name was David, a college dropout who would stay up all night playing Settlers of Catan with me. I cried all over his Ikea futon when he said that, from relief that maybe I wasn’t a freak and I’d just chosen somebody a little too close-minded when I started out experimenting.

  Jera’s voice is lighter when she adds, “But jeez, stop holding out on me with the juicy stuff, okay?” There’s a short silence and her voice is muted when I hear it again. “Hey, now... Hey, you know I get all teary if you hug me twice in one day. But Danny?”