“Bad everything? Please, Stella, I’m panicking here.”
At his insistence, my chest raw and full of doubts that until that night didn’t exist, I stepped out of the tub and was in his arms, straddling his lap and soaking his suit pants.
“I can’t help you if you won’t talk to me,” he whispered into my hair.
“I just want to leave my mark, you know?”
“Baby, you are. Your audience is growing, you have a fan base, and it’s just a matter of time. Stella,” he said, his voice guttural. “Are you saying you want out?”
Blue eyes struck me, plucking every string in my chest, reminding me of our story.
“No, God, no, Nate.” I wrapped my arms around his neck, soaking him in my past. A past I never wanted to touch him.
“Stella,” he ground out, his cock hardening beneath me, “despite the fact this may make me seem insensitive or a selfish prick, I need to fuck you, right now.”
“Yes,” I hissed, his lips crushing mine, punishing me for making him doubt us. Nate stumbled backward blindly with me latched to him.
“What are you doing to me?” he rasped out as he gripped my ass and spread me over his bared stomach, his back flat on our bed. Pulling his cock out, I gripped it tight in my fist while he looked up at me with deep blue soul. His eyes closed with a groan as I sank down on top of him.
“Tell me what to do,” he said, his eyes flaring as I slowly moved up and down his thick dick. My soaking wet hair dropped water over his thighs. He grunted as I squeezed him between my legs, my heart pounding, my need for him spurring me to the brink.
“Nate,” I cried, as the tears flooded my eyes and I ripped at his chest in an attempt to get in.
His voice cracked as he flipped us and nailed me to the bed. “Am I losing you?”
“Please, Nate,” I begged, opening my legs wider, and he sank until we clicked.
“Answer me.” He pressed me down and began to move, grinding into me as he fisted my hair. “Stella,” he demanded.
“I love you,” I replied as he picked up his pace. I clung to him, desperate, desire coursing through my body, the past and the present colliding for the first time. And still, it was Nate I made love to. Nate, I wrapped myself around. Nate’s name that I moaned out when I came. He hooked my leg over his shoulder, sinking deeper, fusing my clit to his cock as I came undone, once, twice, his eyes pinning me with his accusation until he came unhinged, pumping his release while he bit the flesh of my breast.
We lay in a pile of sedation as I ran my fingernails through his hair.
“Tell me what to do,” he said softly.
I cringed at the anger in his voice. He had every right to be angry. “I love you.” It was the truth and my only answer. And we drifted off to sleep for the first time as strangers. But I was determined to leave the woman he wasn’t familiar with behind, just as I had before, to give him the woman he deserved. “I love you,” I whispered again into the dark room as he slept. But jade colored words kept me awake.
You love me, too.
Drive
The Deftones
Eight Months Later
I typed furiously on my keyboard as I glanced at the notes I had taken at the show. There was a new band circling Austin that I knew without a doubt had potential to go far. I hadn’t been that passionate about any up and coming groups since the Sergeants, and I was busting my ass to do them justice. I was hoping for the same outcome and success the Sergeants had. I ignored the flicker of memories that tried to surface at the comparison of the two bands. They had a similar feel, charismatic but with a different sound. But it was there, the fire, the need to spread the word.
“So fucking beautiful,” Nate whispered as I smiled at my keyboard.
“I’m almost done,” I promised. I took a look at the clock. It was close to midnight.
“Liar,” he said sweetly as he took the seat opposite me. I glanced over my monitor and my breath hitched. His gaze was filled with what his words relayed. “Sometimes I look at you and I can’t believe how close I was to giving up.”
I paused my fingers. “Giving up?”
He waved his hand. “In the beginning. You were so young and I didn’t for one second think you would stay here.”
“New York called this morning,” I said with a wink, “want me to return it?”
“Only if you agree to shoot me first,” he said before he bit his lip in thought.
“I’ve never been to New York,” I said.
“You would eat it alive,” he said with confidence. He walked around to where I still pounded out my admiration for the lead singer, who played keyboard, guitar, and had recently mastered the band’s first demo. Nate scanned through my article.
“That good, huh?”
“Yes, Nate, I think I may call Roger Morris. You think he would listen to me?”
Nate ran his fingers through my hair. “Baby, your opinion matters.”
I paused my fingers on the keys. I had waited five years to hear him say those words.
I looked up to him. “You’re an authority now. That’s why LA called, Chicago called, and New York called. They want music’s new literary voice.”
My lips trembled as he leaned down. “It’s the truth. It’s not because I love you, or you’re the most beautiful woman in the world, or you make a mean pan of enchiladas, or you have a Midas pussy.” He grinned wickedly at his crassness. “It’s because you earned it. Your opinion matters—yours, Stella Emerson.”
“Midas pussy?” I laughed as happy tears flooded my eyes.
“Yes, shall we demonstrate its effects?” He glanced over his shoulder at the empty newsroom that housed over thirty employees.
I looked at the empty room behind him. “Did you ever think it would be this big?”
“God, I hoped,” he said, arms crossed as he stared at the room with a dreamy smile. “I think it’s time I gave it a rest.”
“Huh, that’ll be the day,” I said and cringed at the small amount of bite in my words.
“Well then, I guess you better get packed, because that day is tomorrow.” He laid two plane tickets on my desk. I picked them up and saw our destination.
“OH MY GOD, NATE!”
“Seven days in Mexico, you, me, and Midas.”
All the promises he’d broken were swept away with this one grand gesture. I understood his drive, I let the needy girlfriend take a backseat to both our ambitions, but the paper was thriving and there was enough middle management to finally and safely escape.
I gripped him to me. “Thank you!”
“Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Yes!” I said, beaming.
“We don’t leave until six tomorrow night, so let’s go have some fun. Jon Jon has us covered.”
“Where?” I asked, saving my article and throwing it into my flash drive.
“This week is all about Stella,” he said, his arms around my waist as he grabbed my blazer and held it while I slipped my arms through. I had on heels, slacks, and a blouse. I felt sophisticated and sexy, and it reflected in the eyes of my companion. “Let’s do a Stella thing.”
Hand in hand with my man, we walked toward the packed bar. “You’re an old man. I’ll understand if you don’t want to stay all night.”
“I got your old man right here,” he said wickedly as he brought our linked hands briefly and discreetly to his crotch.
“How crude,” I mocked shock.
“You know you love it,” he said without expecting an answer, which I didn’t have to give.
I walked past the long line and nodded to the doorman, Gerry, who waved us in.
Nate whispered into my hair. “My woman is such a bad ass.”
“Damn right,” I said. “I’ve been sweating my ass off for years, earning shit pay for this privilege.”
Nate furrowed his brows, but his twitching lips gave him away. “I paid you decently.”
“It was enough to buy toilet paper, you cheap bastard. A trip to Mexico is a good way to start making it up to me.”
“I could have pulled intern on you,” he said with a sigh.
“You wanted this too much,” I said, waving a dramatic hand over my face and body.