Twisted Rhythm: A Dark Rockstar Romance (Twisted Rhythm Series Book 1) Read online

  “Well, I’m assuming you and Mr. Colter don’t condone this type of internet content and that you certainly don’t encourage fisticuffs.”

  “Fisticuffs? Who the hell even uses that word anymore?!”

  Rachel stood.

  “Mrs. Colter...”

  “Look, I’m not thrilled my kids got into a fight or that they’re browsing Amanda’s or Jake’s or Wade’s social media but let’s get one thing straight, they’re good kids. And I really resent you implying otherwise and insinuating Matt and I are anything but responsible parents and,” she continued, “I sure as hell don’t like your tone!”

  She could hear Mark and Jenny snickering in the kitchen and wasn’t all that surprised by her satisfaction. She was sick of always playing nice, being nice, having to be the nice one because her sister was oh so bad. And perhaps more than anything, she was tired of living on the fringes, in the shadows, while Amanda sparkled in the limelight. She was downright sick of only getting the chance to creep into visibility when she had to apologize for Amanda’s antics, lap up the dirt and sanitize Amanda’s mess when it splattered all over her family or inconvenienced someone in this godforsaken little town.

  “Please,” Myer begged, “Calm down. I wasn’t implying Jenny or Mark aren’t usually well-behaved children or that you and Mr. Colter don’t intend to be responsible parents.”

  “Intend to be responsible parents?” Rachel spit the words. “We are responsible parents but excuse me when the real world seeps into the warm and fuzzy fairyland you like to call home or bleeds its way into your squeaky clean anal retentive school that you’d enclose in a bubble if you weren’t already too fucking busy stuffing bubble wrap up your scrawny ass!”

  Howls of childish laughter burst from the kitchen.

  Myer leapt to his feet.

  “You’re upset now and that’s certainly understandable but there’s no need for this type of talk. I’m willing to overlook it under the circumstances. Perhaps we can discuss this later once you’ve calmed yourself and Mr. Colter is available as well.”

  “Oh really? Do you think I can’t handle my own children without my husband’s help?”

  “Of course not. I was merely thinking that this situation with your sister must be overwhelming and having your husband’s help and patience would be a welcome support for all concerned.”

  Rachel stepped closer to Myer, now far past her boiling point.

  “You know absolutely nothing about the situation with my sister. You in fact, little man, know absolutely sweet dick all about Amanda, or Jake, or even Wade. You know absolutely fucking nothing about what it’s like to be Amanda’s sister or what it’s like feeling trapped in this stinkin’ hell hole of a small-minded gutless little town.”

  Myer inched towards the door.

  “You know zip, nada, a big fat zero,” Rachel continued, edging closer, “about what it’s like being insignificant, dispensable, goddamn invisible until your awe-inspiring worshipped sister does something to make people remember you also exist and that you’re lucky enough to breathe the same exalted air. So,” Rachel sneered, “my ambitious kids paid attention to what’s goin’ on, so they got in a kiddie fight at school. Big motherfucking deal. Can you blame them?! Step into the real world dickwipe!”

  Myer swung the door open, scrambling towards his SUV. Rachel followed, screaming after him. Like a lunatic, one neighbor later told the press.

  “Maybe we should all step outa Conroy into the real world, huh? Hang handcuffed by studded belts from the rafters and fucking party! What d’ya think of that you dickless wonder?!”

  “Not much...” Rachel mused as Myer sped off.

  It hadn’t turned out to be such a bad day after all.

  ***

  Wade took a quick bite of his burger, Bernie’s lunch special, Texas Wrangler Bad Boy Melt, and reached for his chiming cell. Expecting more Facebook notifications of friends’ replies to his post for Jake, he wasn’t ready for what he got. Although he’d prayed something like this would happen, he wasn’t actually prepared for when it did. Not nearly as magnificent as a personal message from Amanda, it was communication from her nonetheless. And not the not-so-sweet kiss off he’d been expecting. He handed his phone to Jesse, proudly displaying Amanda’s tweet.

  Jesse read slowly, shaking his head.

  “Don’t get your panties in an uproar,” he laughed. “This is classic drama, Amanda-style. What she really wants, buddy, is to piss off Jake, get his juices flowing all jealous and hot and bothered the way she likes him.”

  He handed Wade back his phone.

  “She’s got plenty ‘a ways to rile Jake up. Why tie me in?”

  “Why’d she tie you in five years ago? I hate to keep sayin’ this but it really didn’t mean anything to her then and it doesn’t mean anything real to her now. Don’t get caught up in this shit, man, any more than you fuckin’ already are.”

  “So what?” Wade asked, “I just challenge this woman-battering motherfucker and then ignore it when Amanda responds?”

  “She’s not responding to you so much, Wade. She’s responding to the situation. To the game. To her opportunity to keep it wildly alive and stormin’ with Jake.”

  “And you’re such a fuckin’ expert on women?” Wade hissed. “How many Playboy playmates ya got on the go? When’s the last time you laid it out with someone as gorgeous and exciting as Amanda?”

  “None and never, buddy,” Jesse sighed. As usual, this was going nowhere fast.

  Then his cell chimed and apologizing, he began answering a text of his own. Which was fine with Wade, who, left to his own thoughts and devices, let his mind wander to that incredible night at Mustang Cherry’s, and the Maple Leaf Motel.

  As the bar slowly cleared a half hour after last call, Jesse had leaned into him, whispering, “Maybe we better get her out the back door.” They both eyed the paparazzi, casually sipping the last of their drinks and chatting at the bar. So, Jesse and then Sam, slowly sauntered through the double doors into the kitchen and Wade grabbed the drink from Amanda’s hand.

  “Let’s go,” he said, but she was reluctant to put down her beer. “I’ll get more,” he said, smiling. “We gotta ditch your friends there at the bar.”

  She eyed the photogs knowingly. This was a game she knew well.

  “OK,” she said, “but grab beer and food on our way out.”

  Cameras raised for one last time as they strolled towards the kitchen, Wade yelling to J.T. they were going to grab some take-out. In the back, Marty was more than happy to oblige. He showered Amanda with larger and more lavish compliments as he loaded Styrofoam containers with everything she pointed out and then ran to grab even more goodies that weren’t even in sight.

  “I’ve owned Mustang for more than 20 years,” he glowed, “and never had such a fantastic night!”

  As Amanda laughed and smiled, Wade pulled out his wallet and counted bills.

  “Got a case of Bud for us, Mart?”

  “Sure I do,” he fawned, “But put your money away! It’s on the house for Conroy’s brightest star here.”

  And so they left, laughing and running to Wade’s truck that Jesse had pulled in the back for them. And landed in room 14 at the Maple Leaf Motel just a few minutes up the road.

  “Gimme a beer,” Amanda gestured as she sprawled out casually on the thick blue-and-white-flowered comforter of the dilapidated queen-sized bed.

  Gazing at her in near disbelief, Wade smiled. I can’t believe my fucking luck, he thought, and popped one open, handing it to her before grabbing one of his own.

  “You sure you really need another one?” he smirked as he perched on the edge of the bed beside her.

  “Sayin’ I’m drunk?” Amanda smiled.

  “Yup.”

  Drunk and accessible, he was thinking, and couldn’t take his eyes off her. Her fringed leather mini skirt snaked seductively up her thighs to her crotch as she relaxed back. Her sparkling blue eyes were dreamy and welcoming, semi-h
idden by sensual wisps of bangs as she eyed him intently. Her long, shiny blonde hair cascaded across her breasts that were barely covered by her bikini top and flowed rich and generous onto the bed as she tossed her head back.

  “So, seriously, not that I’m complainin’, but what brings you to Conroy? Last I read somewhere, you said you’d rather be impaled at the gates of hell than ever come back here.”

  Jake, she remembered dismally. Jake and the cheap, vulgar whores he was messing with. Jake, and his arrogant, superior attitude, she remembered with an ice cold stab at her heart.

  “Felt like a visit, that’s all,” she said.

  But he didn’t believe her. Remembering how she’d been too ambitious, too adventurous for Conroy even when he’d dated her. He remembered too how his infidelity had hurled her over the top. How his selection of Brittney had expanded the already monstrous depth of her disgust for this little town. How devastated and depressed she’d been. How destroyed. And broken.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked, maneuvering higher on her elbows, remaining on her back.

  Already forsaken and humiliated by Jake, a new stab of insecurity enveloped her.

  “Not happy to be here with me?” she asked. “Don’t tell me you’d rather be with that cheap skank Jenny from tonight or maybe even Brittney again?”

  “Brittney?!” he gasped, surprised.

  He’d kicked Brittney to the curb eons ago. And Jenny was one of the ten or so babes he currently had on the go.

  But Amanda glared at him suspiciously.

  “Jenny’s just some chick I spend time with now and again. And Brittney’s been history for 1,000 years or so.”

  Amanda’s look softened and he breathed a sigh of relief. Jesus, how could he have been so incredibly stupid to lose her, dump her and give up such a good thing? Just looking at her, being in the very same room with her, sitting next to her, made him crazy and literally made his heart and groin ache. Less than an hour ago he’d been confident, smug, lecherously entwined on the dance floor with her, yet he was petrified to so much as try and touch her just now.

  They both took a long, cool drink of beer and she sat up to face him.

  “Wade,” she whispered, leaning forward till their foreheads touched and her smooth, silky hair brushed against his cheek and upper chest. “I’m so, so tired,” she admitted. “Of struggling and still getting lost. Of my life and almost everything I’ve created, of everyone in it, of struggling to find myself again in the middle of it all and coming up short, coming up so goddamn fuckin’ empty no matter what I do every time.”

  She wrapped her arms around him, fell recklessly into his chest, and cried. Shocked and at a loss for what to do, how to comfort her and what to say, he merely held her. Close. And wrapped his trembling hands in her hair. When, finally, she raised her head to look at him, gaze deep and trustingly into his familiar eyes, he composed himself and found the strength and courage to speak again.

  “Tell me what you want,” he said softly. “Tell me what you need.”

  She ran her skillful fingers through his long, wild black and blonde hair.

  “I just wanna be me,” she whispered. “No spotlights, no cameras, no pedestal, no expectations. Everyone I count on lets me down.”

  Kicks me in the gut, she wanted to say.

  “I just wanna be who I was, the best of who I was, who I really am,” she whispered as she realized this for the very first time. As all her jumbled, disjointed, crowded thoughts gathered and merged into this one consuming reality.

  “Wade, you always made me feel so strong, so invincible and special, before you...” she caught herself. “Do that for me again. Do that for me now.”

  Her unhesitating openness and surprising vulnerability fueled his strength, reminding him of who he’d been back then, who he could be right now. Tonight was her long-awaited homecoming. And this was his repentance.

  He leaned forward and kissed her, for the first time in a very long time, and tangled his fingers in her long, silky blonde hair. As he eased her down on the bed gently, his heart raced and soared. Her deep, uninhibited moans as he pressed his mouth over hers roughly, skillfully slipping his tongue inside, blocked out everything around him. All he knew was her, what she’d been to him back then and what she meant to him now. As she kissed him feverishly, hungrily, as they wrestled on that creaky bed in that sleazy motel, they wanted each other completely, body and soul.

  In those hours, for that short time, he knew she was his again, entirely. Her lavish life in L.A. forgotten, her numerous accomplishments and goals pushed aside. Fame and wealth disintegrated like smoldering cinders between them until they both lingered on the same level. Her infamous, idolized rockstar boyfriend thrust in the gutter. Even when her cell lit up with his constant texts and calls. So as she lay there gasping underneath him, begging him to give her all he had, he took her down crudely to the place she wanted to go. Where she was just Alison inside of Amanda, where she was safe and free again and never alone.

  “Wade, be with me,” she beckoned, wrapping her long, toned legs around him, tangling her hands in his hair as it hung into her face, across her neck and breasts. “Make me feel what you did before.”

  He took a long, long look at her, at her gorgeous face and innocent, dazzling eyes. And sitting up, bracelets and chains jangling, he threw off his jacket, yanked his muscle shirt up and over his head and unzipped his leather pants.

  “Hurry,” she urged, maneuvering to her knees, yanking at his waistband, gently pushing him to lie down as she peeled off his pants. “I want you Wade,” she whispered. “I want you now.”

  She fell into him, her kisses sweet fire, her heated breath scorching his neck as she kissed him there too. As their lips met again, they tasted each other with warm, intimate memories of times gone by, of a life forgotten until tonight, with all the dormant desires awakened by fresh passion and the mutual need for raw, unconditional acceptance and strength.

  As he hastily undressed her, with skilled hands and movements she remembered from her teenage wet dreams, she encouraged him, smoothed her hand boldly down his stomach and squeezed his cock roughly in her hand. Stiff, throbbing, so ready for her. Just the way she liked it. Just the way she remembered.

  He leaned over her, grasping her forcefully by the hair and smiled, “See you haven’t changed a bit.”

  Through her powdery fog of passion and desire, Amanda smiled, “I play even better than I did before,” she teased. “And I taste sooooo much better than I look.”

  Wade laughed.

  Amanda sprawled backwards, stretching out on the bed, and spread her legs for him wide.

  A wave of sizzling electricity heated his crotch, pulsed up his cock like consuming fire. As he crawled towards her, Wade was mesmerized. She’d looked spectacular in Playboy, the object of so many of his lone wet adventures, but she surpassed this by light years in person. Made his solo excursions seem like child’s play. Reality never felt or looked so good, he thought, as he slid over her, bending down to kiss her, long and hard and deep once again.

  “Tell me what you want,” he whispered, his lips still on hers, his long, sensuous hair veiling her face.

  “You know what I want,” she gasped, but Wade persisted.

  “Say it for me,” he urged.

  Arching her back seductively, tangling her hands in his hair, Amanda complied.

  “I want you to eat me,” she moaned. “Lick me...lick my pussy till I cum.”

  About time, Wade told himself, pleased that, in this way at least, Amanda hadn’t changed at all. Triumphant that, after all this time, he still had what it took to turn her on, to make her horny and to squirm and beg.

  Amanda looked at him intently.

  “Not gentlemanly to keep a lady waiting,” she scolded.

  He smirked.

  “Whoever said I was a gentleman.”

  But he slithered sensually down between her trembling legs. Firmly grasping her thighs, he spread them wider, and
moved in for the kill.

  She moaned, deep and carelessly, as his tongue slowly massaged the inside of her thighs, so close to her wet spot, so close to home. As he efficiently wound her up to a frenzy, so he could hungrily take her down.

  Energized as her moans grew louder, Wade buried his face deeper between her legs, covering most of her pussy with his mouth, and sucked hard on her clit as she pumped and writhed in appreciation. As he intermittently sucked her and flicked her clit skillfully with his tongue, Amanda sat up to watch him.

  “Do it for me baby,” she crooned, gently running her fingers through his hair.

  Already barely aware of her almost constantly ringing cell and the numerous texts pouring in, it all faded for Amanda as Wade firmly ran his tongue down the length of her pussy, slowly parting her lips and then finally, sliding his tongue inside. She lay back to enjoy his gift of heaven, and as his fingers replaced his tongue inside of her and his lips and tongue worked her clit over again, she moved her hips to his rhythm.

  “Gonna squirt for me baby?” he groaned.

  Oh God, she’d actually forgotten! He was the first of only a few of her lovers that had actually been able to make her squirt. But before she had a chance to answer, his delving fingers hit their mark. Hooking onto her G-spot just inside her pussy, Wade tugged gently, then with just a little more pressure, until the warm spasms of orgasm engulfed her, convulsed her to the bone, and she gushed her load uncontrollably, inescapably wetting Wade’s face and long, wild hair.

  “That’s more like it,” he murmured, smiling, and seductively crawled upwards over top of her to pin her arms above her head.

  “Guess I still got it, huh?” he boasted, leaned down to kiss her, and his weight glued her to the soaking bed.

  This time as she kissed him, running her hands over his shoulders and down his muscled back, she was aware of her cell phone and the hoard of texts and calls that had to be Jake. Must have finished with his whores, she stewed silently. And more likely, must have seen some news and YouTube footage by now of her big night here on the town.

  Even as she worried, grieved and agonized over Jake, she reeled as Wade pressed firmly on top of her, his cock hard and pulsing against her stomach and then down lower, gently poking at her between her legs. She gasped at the rousing warmth and electricity inside her and knew her mission here wasn’t even close to being done.