Lita walked past James to the lamp and flipped off the gentle light before returning to his tense figure, sliding between his outstretched legs…and opening the robe. “Feed yourself.”
The air crackled as James stood slowly, so slowly, rising to his full height. When Lita glimpsed his changed expression, she realized that—at her invitation—a change had snapped through him like a cracking whip, despite the way he rose without hurry. The vampire’s dirt nap had officially ended and the invisible leash was no more. Power rippled over his beautiful body as it pressed close, a hand finding her hip inside the robe, squeezing, his mouth sliding against her ear.
His breath went choppy after issuing a single unexpected command.
“Crawl.”
Lita had a blister on her ankle. It rubbed and rubbed against the back of her red Converse, growing angrier and bloodier by the hour. All it would take to fix the injury was a Band-Aid, but she didn’t have time for that shit. Didn’t have time to take her shoe off, remove the protective strip from its paper packaging and apply it. Performing such a practical task wouldn’t make sense when the world around her had been painted different colors, and normal, everyday activities proved impossible. Sleep wasn’t happening and the act of procuring food seemed like a monumental effort just to feel sick afterward, so she simply walked. Walked and walked around Los Angeles with headphones covering her ears, the star of her own depressing music montage.
Empty didn’t begin to explain the sensation beneath her bones. She felt…dead. In a way, she was. This life, the band, had all been orchestrated by James. Their conversation the morning after they met was still vivid in her memory. Crystal clear and sparkling like drinking glasses fresh from a dishwasher. James had asked her, “What do you do, Lita?” And she’d answered, “I drum.”
That was all it took. He’d found a lead singer and a bass player within two weeks, throwing them together inside rented studio space, and thus, Old News was born. James’s life prior to that time was still a mystery to her. To everyone. If what he’d said before leaving was true, his every action over the last four years had been in the interest of helping her. Out of guilt? Kindness? Lita didn’t know. But none of it seemed real without him standing at her back, watching her from behind dark sunglasses.
Holy, holy shit, she missed him. Okay, they’d had their fair share of squabbles and arguments. More than their fair share. But there’d been some incredible moments wedged in there. Like the time the tour bus had blown a fan belt in Mexico and they’d shared a six-pack on the roof, staring at the sky and waiting for help to arrive. Or the time she’d convinced him to walk out on stage and sing the encore with Old News, which he’d started with a scowl on his face, but ended up smiling.
Dammit. The way he’d left was unfair and stupid, and she wanted to rage at him. Fine, he’d been right about one thing. Lita hadn’t understood the intensity of his needs. He’d blindsided her with the force and sharp quality of them. They were complicated and dark. But her response had been…light. The blinding, white light of an atomic blast. She’d liked James holding her down and saying those frightening words into her hair. Liked the abrasive tone of his voice, liked her strength running out, little by little, until she could only submit. That almost unbearable lift in her stomach, the glorious clearing of her mind…she’d been chasing that feeling by causing trouble for so long, never quite achieving it.
He’d left before she could get a handle on her runaway desires, what they meant, how to voice them. If he’d just given her a minute, she would have begged for more. Would have reassured him that the trust between them was still intact and nothing could damage it. Nothing except him leaving. Leaving her to this existence he’d created and managed from behind the scenes, but neglected to leave the instructions behind.
James wasn’t even home, so they couldn’t properly have it out. His old Mustang wasn’t in the driveway of his house in Santa Monica. Hadn’t been for three days. He’d vanished. And part of her worried that starving nineteen-year-old girl had fabricated his existence in the first place. After all, who gave up their own life in exchange for some scrawny, homeless girl’s success? No person she’d met before him, that was for damn sure. Her own parents hadn’t been in the picture since she turned sixteen, having moved down to Mexico with the settlement they’d received when Lita’s mother broke her ankle on a public bus. After that, she’d floated, living with friends until meeting her one and only boyfriend.