Cannon (A Step Brother Romance #3) (23 page)

"It's like being inside an oven," I say.  "Is it like this all the time?"

"Hot as hell now, freezing cold in the winter," he says.  "Welcome to Bagram Air Force Base."

I'm in Afghanistan against my mother's expressed wishes, but I had a gap in my schedule and even she could reluctantly agree that it would be good publicity.  A nice side bonus of the trip was that there was no way short of Hell itself freezing over that my mother would join me.

But I didn't do this to get away from my mother, although my motives were, I admit, partly selfish.  The non-selfish part of me wanted to do a USO tour so I could give something back to the people serving over here.

The selfish part of me missed Hendrix.  Present tense, actually --
misses
Hendrix.  I don't know how you can miss someone you hate so much, how you can loathe someone yet crave them with every fiber of your being, but I do.  My mother wanted to arrange a meeting between Hendrix and I, something that would play well on television, go viral on social media -- a dramatic reunion between the country star on her USO tour and her Marine stepbrother.  The Colonel said it was a stupid waste of resources, flying Hendrix in from wherever-the-hell he is out in Afghanistan just to see me.  When he mentioned that it would be dangerous for Hendrix and whoever was with him to travel, convoy from wherever they were just to catch a plane to see me, I refused to let anyone get in touch with his unit.

Part of me still fantasizes that I'll walk out on the stage tonight, and Hendrix will be there in the crowd, smiling at me with that cocky grin.  It's naive, a stupid wish, and even though I know it is, a little piece of me is crushed when it doesn't happen.

PRESENT DAY

In the back of the limo, Hendrix slides his hand between my legs, and I swat it away.  "Seriously," I whisper.  "We're almost at the studio.  Don't even try it."

He laughs.  "Make sure you mention in the interview how totally full of yourself you are," he whispers.  "Because I wasn't even attempting to get it on with you."

"Whatever, dude.  You're always trying to put your…" My voice trails off and I glance at the tinted mirror that separates us from the driver. 

Hendrix puts his mouth close to my ear and it gives me chills when his breath tickles my skin.  "Cock?" he asks.  "Put my cock in your warm wet pussy?"

He says the words, and it's like an automatic response – I'm immediately wet.  "Stop," I order, sliding to the other side of the seat.  "Behave."

"Yes, ma'am," he says.  But he's chuckling under his breath.

I stick my tongue out at him, and he grins at me.  "Careful sticking your tongue out like that, sweet cheeks," he says softly.  "Or I'll give you something to lick."

"Right here in the limo?" I ask.  "You wouldn't dare."

Hendrix starts unbuckling his pants, and I squeal, louder than I mean to, and the driver cracks the window, asking if I'm okay.  Hendrix, of course, is the epitome of angelic.

"Yes, I'm fine," I say, glaring at Hendrix as the window goes back up.

Hendrix takes my hand and presses it against the front of his pants, showing me his hardness.  I should snatch my hand away, but I let it linger there a moment too long. When the car comes to an abrupt stop, I jerk my hand away and look out the window, feigning innocence.  Feigning professionalism. 

What the hell happened to my professionalism, anyway?  I'm a giant ball of need and want and desire, preoccupied with Hendrix.  We're like two high school kids, unquenchable in our thirst for each other.  I'm surprised my lust for him isn't written all over my face, visible for the entire world to read.

At least, I hope it's not.

I watch him sometimes when he sleeps.  He doesn't know, but I watch him as he dreams, his sleep fitful.  He hasn't told me what he dreams about, and I haven't asked.  But my heart hurts for him.

On the television set, the reporter asks me questions, easy ones about my album and last year's tour.  "You recently auctioned off your entire closet and raised half a million dollars for a veteran's organization."

"It's hard to believe I had that many clothes," I say, suddenly embarrassed.  It was little more than a decade ago that my mom could barely afford to buy us sneakers.  Now I'm wearing thousand-dollar shoes.

"Some people have criticized the move as a blatant act of consumerism, cleaning out the old to make way for the new."

"I –" I pause for a moment.  I'm supposed to stick to the script, talk about how veteran's issues have always been important to me, about how I wanted to make a donation that was personally important and not just write a check.  Hendrix stands on the side of the set, and he winks at me.  "You know, it actually wasn't my idea at all."

The reporter leans forward, furrowing her brow, which I'm certain is one of those "listening skills" they taught her to do in journalism school to appear thoughtful.  "And who do we have to thank for this?"

"It was a friend's idea," I say.  "I mean, my stepbrother's.  Hendrix's.  He's a friend.  And a veteran.  I guess, well, you could say he orchestrated the entire thing."  I'm babbling, nervous when I talk about Hendrix, and I have to force myself to stop and take a deep breath so I don't continue to babble and confess all my secrets on set.  I can already feel the heat on my cheeks, the flush I get when I talk about Hendrix.

She nods and smiles.  "After the break, we'll hear more from the lovely Addison Stone, and she'll sing one of the songs from her upcoming album."

"No, mom."  I'm on the phone with my mother, who says something snide about "sticking to the script," followed immediately by an indictment of my television wardrobe.  Hendrix rolls his eyes when he hears me speak, able to tell immediately who it is, and I turn the other direction, but he follows, standing in front of me with a glint in his eye.  When he mouths the words, "Hang up," I shake my head, and he smiles smugly before reaching out and sliding his hands underneath my skirt.

When he discovers I'm not wearing any panties, he gives me a look, the look that tells me exactly what he wants from me.  My mother is in the middle of a diatribe about the importance of my image, and I murmur "uh-huh" every few seconds, but what I'm really focused on is Hendrix and his magic fingers that are meandering lazily between my legs, stroking me, sending waves of pleasure rippling through my body.

Hendrix whispers in my ear.  "Hang up on her.  I'm going to keep going."

I shield the phone from him, trying to maintain my composure.  "I can't," I mouth.  Surely he understands the importance of playing along with my mother, my manger.  And with the record studio.  So I pretend to listen to her while I watch Hendrix shrug, and kneel at my feet, parting my legs with his hand.  I don't make a pretense of resisting, because I want him more than anything.

My mother's voice seems to get smaller and smaller, disappearing until it sounds like she's in a tunnel someplace far away, as Hendrix covers my pussy with his mouth, his tongue exploring me the same way his fingers were a moment ago.  I exhale heavily, trying not to moan.  "Yes, mom, I'm exercising.  Yes.  Hendrix has me on a new workout program."

Hendrix pauses to look up at me, his lips shiny with my wetness, then reaches around me and slaps my ass cheek loudly.

"It was nothing, mother," I say.  "I think Hendrix dropped something."  Meanwhile, Hendrix is eating me like I'm his last meal on earth, pulling my clit into his mouth with greater ferocity when he hears me speak to my mother.  I clutch at him, intending to pull his head away but in reality pulling it closer.

When he slides his fingers inside me, I do moan.  Out loud.  While on the phone with my fucking mother.  I cough to cover it up, but she asks what's happening.  "I – I think I'm going to be sick," I blurt out.  "Nausea."

She says something about vomiting being an acceptable form of dieting, but I hang up on her before Hendrix can do anything else, and throw the phone across the room.  It bounces off the sofa and falls onto the floor with a clatter, and right now I don't care if it's broken into a thousand little pieces.

Hendrix strokes me with his fingers.  "About time," he says.  "I was thinking I was going to have to bend you over and slide my cock inside that sweet pussy of yours in order to get you off the phone."

No one has ever talked to me like this, just bandied around words like "cock" and "pussy".  Of course, no one has fucked me the way Hendrix does either.  And I do mean fucked.  Hendrix fucks me the way I thought only happened in movies, passionate and rough and sweaty, hair-pulling, earth-shattering sex.

"Now that I'm off the phone, what are you going to do?"  I ask, and he looks up at me, his eyes clouded with desire.

Then he does what I want him to do – he slides his fingers from between my legs, bends me over the sofa, and fucks me the way I want him to.  He rides me hard and fast, jerking my head back as he pulls on my hair, and when I come, I scream his name before collapsing into a sweaty heap against the sofa.

Afterward, he runs his hand down my back and over my hips.  "Let's get the fuck out of here, Addy," he says.

"Where?"  I'm not sure if he's talking about today or permanently, and I'm not sure I care.

"Road trip?"

I grin.  "You have the schedule.  You're the boss.  Can we?"

"Say it again."

"Say what?"

"Say I'm the boss."

I laugh and try to slap him from where I stand, but I can't reach him, bent over like this, and Hendrix chuckles.  "I'm not saying it again.  I think you misheard me the first time."

"Come on," he says, slapping my ass.  "Say it and I'll tell you the schedule."

"Fine," I say, with a mock-exasperated sigh.  "You're the boss.  But only when it comes to the schedule."

"What-the-fuck-ever," he says.  "Screw everybody.  We have a couple days before the awards show.  Let's road trip."

I agree, caught up in the afterglow of sex.  I don't know if it's the sex, or it's being with Hendrix that's making me giddy and reckless, but I don't care about dropping everything and taking off with him.

That fact alone should scare me.

ONE YEAR AGO

I stand in front of the door to the house, paralyzed by fear and sadness and guilt and rage and a thousand other emotions I can't possibly articulate, swirling around in my head.  Fear grips my heart, worse even than it was when I was in that hellhole in Afghanistan.

Why did I come here?  What the hell am I going to say, to her of all people?

Mandy opens the door.  She looks older than she did in the photos Watson was always showing me, dark circles under her eyes.  But I guess that's what a husband's death will do to you.  She's holding a baby on her hip -- Amy.  The baby is older now, too, and she stares at me with wide eyes like she doesn't know what the hell I'm doing here, either.

Mandy's eyes take me in, the dress uniform I wear out of respect for what I'm doing here, even though it's not official.  She's had this visit before, the official one, the one where they show up on your door with a flag.  I should have been the one to do it, the only surviving member of my squad.

I chicken-shitted out before.

Now I'm making up for it.

It's been three months.  Three months before I could face this.  Two weeks since I've been able to get behind the wheel of a fucking car at all.  I drove to Kentucky, my fingers white-knuckled around the steering wheel, my heart racing so fast I was sure I was near having a heart attack.

And now I stand here, wearing the uniform, presenting her with a flag, my pathetic attempt to give her something that makes up for her loss.  My pathetic attempt to assuage the guilt I feel for surviving the blast that should have killed me too.

An older woman comes to the door behind her, and stops when she sees me, taking the baby wordlessly from Mandy's hands.  Watson's wife reaches for the flag, her expression unchanging until she touches the fabric.  Then she falls to her knees, her hands still on it, letting out a cry that rips me to my core.

I touch her hand, intending to pull her to her feet, to say something meaningful that will take away the pain.  But when I put my hand on hers, I lose it.  A dam opens, and I can't stop the tears that stream down my face.  So we stand there, her and I, sobbing together for the life of her husband, and the lives of my friends, that were lost.

PRESENT DAY

"So where are we going?" Addy asks as she slides into the front seat and puts her bare feet on the dashboard of my shitty car.

"Really?  You're asking me that question?  Where do you think we're going?"

Addy smiles.  "To the beach."

Just like when she was sixteen.

And it is, just like we're teenagers again, Addy laughing at something stupid I say and swatting my arm from the passenger seat as we drive the seven hours to Hilton Head.  Away from all the bullshit in Nashville, Addy starts to open up.  The wrinkle that I thought was permanently etched in her forehead is gone, and she seems content and at ease.  She seems happy.

I think of the last time I took a road trip, the one to Kentucky to see Watson's wife Mandy.  The trip that tore me in two, left me broken.  I made the same trip four more times, my version of a pilgrimage, doing the thing I feared doing the most, that I thought would destroy me.  But in the end, it didn't.  Doing it kept me together.

She looks over at me while we're driving.  "You're staring at me."

I shrug.  "No reason."

"What?" she asks, her voice higher.  But she's smiling.

"You just look…happy," I say.  But it's not only her that's happy.  It's a strange feeling, being content.  It creeps up on you when you least expect it.  It's a lot like love in that respect.

"I don't usually look happy?"

I laugh.  "Fuck, no you don't."

"Well, maybe I am happy, Hendrix," she says.  "I think I might be."

I think I might be, too.

Addy covers her mouth, her shoulders shaking as she giggles behind her hand at the three college girls singing karaoke, a drunken rendition of "Don't Stop Believing."  We're sitting at a little dive bar on the beach, Addy in a cutoff jean skirt and a tank top, wearing a baseball hat.  Before we left the hotel, she worried someone might recognize her, but no one has, which leaves me relieved.  She looks like a regular college chick.  Except a lot hotter.

"Oh, you think you can do Journey better?" I ask, taking a swig of my beer.

"I do an excellent rendition of that song, thank you very much.  You go up there."  Addy runs her finger along the salted rim of her margarita class, and when she puts her finger in her mouth I think it's the most unintentionally sexy thing she's ever done.

I raise my eyebrows.  "I'd put you to shame, hot stuff," I say.  "You've never heard me sing."

Two tequila shots later, and there's a break in the songs.  Addy nods at the stage.  "There's your chance,
hot stuff
," she says, winking.  She thinks I'm not going to take her bait, but I down the rest of my beer and stand up.  "Where are you going?"

"You wanted me to serenade you, didn't you?"

Addy laughs.  "I didn't mean it," she says.  "Sit down."

"Not on your life, sweet cheeks," I say as she covers her face in mock embarrassment.  "Don't worry, I'll dedicate it to you."

"Hendrix, no!" she protests, but she's laughing, and she leans back in her chair with her legs kicked out in front of her, teal flip-flops on her feet, and tucks the brim of her hat down over her face.  I watch her flag down the waitress and get another shot of tequila, that she hold up at me in a "cheers" gesture.

When the music starts, I can practically hear her groan from the stage.  Okay, I can't really, but her reaction is priceless.  She buries her face in her hands as I take the microphone.  "This is for my best friend, who should just admit that my voice is much more amazing than hers will ever be."

I belt out the lyrics to Addy's first hit, "Country Sweetheart," the candy-coated pop country song that made her famous.  And by "belt out," I mean I do my version of singing, which falls somewhere on the tolerability scale between nails on a chalkboard and the most annoying sound in the world.  But I know all those goddamned lyrics, even though I wasn't into that bullshit when I was in high school.  That damn song worked its way into my brain and took up residence there, way back then.

Just like Addy did.

The other people in the bar think it's funny, that I'm doing some kind of serenade for my girlfriend, and Addy covers her face with the brim of her hat as people clap along.  When I get back to the table, I'm pretty sure Addy is going to say we need to get the hell out of there before she's recognized, since we're skating on thin ice, but she doesn't.  She doesn't touch me either, doesn't make any public display of affection that would wind up on one of the gossip sites, just laughs and shakes her head.  "Nice song choice."

"Thought you'd like it."

"I'd rather every copy of that song were just burned," she says.  "If I never have to sing it again, I'll be more than happy with my life."

"What would you rather sing?"

Addy traces her finger absently around her glass again and shrugs, not looking at me.  "I don't know."

"Bullshit," I say, my voice just a little too loud.  "I know you.  You haven't stopped writing songs."

Addy looks at me.  "Maybe I haven't," she says.  "But the label will never let me sing them."

I nod at the stage.  "You should go up there and sing one of them."

"It's for karaoke."

"So?" I ask.  "They have a band here.  There's a guitar right over there."

"They're personal," she says.

I shrug.  "Suit yourself," I say.  "But the old Addy would have grown a pair and gone up there."

"You're trying to bait me."

"Is it working?"

Addy sighs heavily.  "Not at all."

Between songs, the silence is suddenly deafening and Addy looks up.  "Fine," she says.  "Fuck it."

"That's what I like to hear."

"Me growing a pair?" she asks, standing up.  I want to reach out and grab her, pull her onto my lap, but I don't, conscious of being in public with her.

"Nah, you saying 'fuck'," I say.

Addy leans close, her hair spilling down around her face, and whispers in my ear.  "Fuck fuck fuck," she says.  "That's what I want to do to you later."  Then she walks up to the stage, leaving me with the biggest raging boner in the history of the world.

She talks to someone beside the stage, who nods a lot and then rushes to grab her the guitar.  Then she pulls a barstool to the middle of the stage where the microphone is.  The bar is filled with conversation that doesn't quiet even when Addy starts to play the first few notes on the guitar.  The low rumble of drunk conversations rolls through the room, refusing to be silenced.  Until Addy opens her mouth and sings the first note.

And then, it's like everything in the place stops.  People pause, conversations go mute, and it's like the way it is every time Addy sings.  She's got that thing, that special-ness, that tells you you're in the presence of greatness.  She sings softly, her voice lower and breathier than when I've heard her sing in the studio.

I think I stop breathing, listening to her sing one of her songs.  I tell myself that they're just lyrics, words she's singing and nothing more, that they're not directed at me in any way.  But it's hard to think that when she's looking the way she is, at me no less, singing the way she is.