“Oh, and don’t worry,” she purred. “I always return the favor.”
“I’m not worried.” He shimmied down her curvy body. “All I want is that sweet pussy on my mouth.”
A movement in the connected bathroom caught his eye and he shifted his gaze to the doorway, his hand fisting in the sheet beside Melissa’s hip. Jazz stood just inside the threshold of the other doorway, utterly still. With her pigtails, cutoffs and bare feet, she looked like a kid. All she needed were scuffed knees. But her eyes weren’t young. They watched him with an understanding way beyond her years.
Dull horror and embarrassment and something else, darker and edgier, coursed through his veins. He waited until Melissa turned her head and mouthed the word, “Go.”
She held her ground. Not moving. Barely breathing from what he could tell.
Obviously she needed a nudge to get the hell out of where she had no business being. Short of getting up to shoo her away—which would be bad on too many levels to count—he had no choice but to continue and hope she got the hint. Fast.
Melissa flicked her tongue over her teeth. “Do I need to draw you a roadmap? Go south.”
“I know right where I’m headed. No detours.” Bracing his hands flat on the mattress, Gray ducked his head and caught the eager tip of her breast between his lips. He sucked harder than he had before, more than a little off-center from the knowledge that they had a spectator.
Fuck, if he closed his eyes, he would swear he could smell that watermelon-scented lotion Jazz was always smearing all over herself. She’d sat on his bed last week and he’d had to run his sheets through the wash twice to get every last trace of the scent out. Now she was filling up his bathroom with that same damn smell.
Whose bright idea had it been to move her into Brent’s old room? He couldn’t share a bathroom with a spy.
A spy who was still standing there, head tilted, eyes narrowed, as he slid down Melissa’s body and yanked at her panties. He rolled them over her uptilted hips and practically attacked her pussy, so pissed off and turned on he didn’t know what the hell he was doing.
Jazz shouldn’t be there. He shouldn’t be getting harder from knowing she was.
She was too young, a girl who’d seen and survived way too much. She wasn’t ready for this. If he wasn’t some kind of pervert, he’d get up and slam the door he’d accidentally left open.
Even though he knew she liked to come into his room that way. Even though he’d never locked a door to keep Jazz out in the months she’d lived in his—their—home.
Even. Even. Even.
Melissa moaned as he speared his tongue deep, completely without skill. He’d lost the rhythm. The beat to their movements was gone. He raised his head, not to seek his lover’s expression, but Jazz’s.
Their gazes locked. And held.
She fumbled behind her for the doorknob and stumbled into the room at her back. She looked for all the world like a doe who’d crawled off into the bushes to die after being hit by a car she’d never seen coming.
Fuck.
Shutting his eyes, he lowered his head to finish what he’d started.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Now
“You two can play your little song. Nice.” Nick snorted with obvious derision. “Too bad we’re a band and not Sonny and Cher, huh?”
“I’d like to hear it,” Deacon said.
Jazz dropped back into her chair and groped for the chain around her neck. Gray glimpsed the flash of purple she flipped between her fingers and smiled behind his hand. She’d never taken that guitar pick necklace off in all the years since he’d given it to her, though he’d never actually seen her use it for its intended purpose. “I’m not sure I remember—”
“I remember.” Gray hoped like fuck he remembered. Before, he would’ve been able to bring back the melody without even looking at the sheet music they’d scribbled together during those long nights in his basement. But before was a long time ago.
A wrinkle appeared between Jazz’s brows. If he’d been closer, he wasn’t sure he would’ve been able to stop himself from leaning in to kiss it. “We set it up for two guitars.”
“We have two guitarists,” Gray replied, well aware of her nerves whenever the spotlight shifted her way. There was a reason Jazz had drifted behind a drum kit rather than choosing to focus on guitar, and it sure as hell wasn’t talent. She had it in spades with whatever instrument she picked up. Keyboards, drums, guitar—she was proficient in all three.
What she didn’t always have was confidence, though no one but Gray knew that. He would’ve bet his last dollar that no one in Oblivion had seen beyond her wild-colored hair and iPhone stunts and crazy antics to the girl beneath who still never felt quite good enough.