Twisted(25)

On her fucking ass, right there in the middle of the club.

Gray shoved the paper away and ground the heels of his hands into his eyes. “What the fuck is this, Cricket?”

“Aww, you didn’t read the article.” She made a tsk tsk noise. “One of the ‘special friends of the couple’ said they were giggling and groping each other as they left, and Nick mentioned something about ‘making magic together’. Sounds like those two are a real item, doesn’t it?”

“Stop it.” He pushed his hands through his hair and locked them behind his neck. His head was pulsing like a freaking strobe light. “Leave me alone.”

“No can do, handsome. See, you crashed here last night without giving me…well, anything. I thought maybe this visual would get you to finally pull your head out of your ass long enough to acknowledge the facts.” Her candy-sweet breath fluttered over his cheek and he shrank away as if it was the foulest stench he’d ever encountered. She only laughed. “Your little drummer girl isn’t yours anymore, loverboy. She belongs to someone else now.” Her fingers danced over his bare torso—why the hell was he half naked?—on their way to toying with his belt buckle. At least he still had his pants on, thank God. “And you belong to me.”

“I don’t belong to anyone.” But he didn’t push her away, because he’d noticed something even more disturbing than her meandering hand.

The lower part of his stomach burned, as if it had been branded. A quick investigation told him why. Apparently he had a new tattoo, and it was a classy one. A small black arrow started right below his navel and pointed downward, captioned with a charming slogan—this way to Oblivion. The O in Oblivion had been adorned with a skull and crossbones, in keeping with each of the band members’ decision to get an Oblivion tattoo.

Nice to know that even when he was clearly out of his mind, he still followed the acceptable band tat format.

“Christ almighty. What did you do to me?” He traced the words while he flipped through his memory banks of the night before. All he remembered was Jazz. Kissing her. Holding her close for a brief snatch of time. That irritating band meeting before walking away from her to get more blow. Snorting it the moment he’d arrived at Cricket’s, because he’d been desperate to forget finding Jazz with Nick. Again.

After that, nothing.

“I didn’t do anything to you. Nor did you do anything to me. Unfortunately.” With a heavy sigh, Cricket rested her arm on the back of the sofa and toyed with the ends of his hair.

He elbowed aside the pillow wedged against his hip. Apparently Cricket’s living room couch had been his bed last night. So much better than waking up in her actual bed.

“So, ah, just to clarify, we didn’t have sex.” He glanced at her. “Right?”

“No. You worked your way through my stash, demanded Jeremiah do a new tat for you on the spot and passed out halfway through. How many days had you been up straight?”

“I don’t know. A lot.” Probably three or four, minus a couple of short naps. He’d forgotten what it was like to just go to bed at a regular time and sleep. When he did manage to doze off, nightmares usually woke him up in a few minutes. Sometimes they were of crazy horror-movie type shit. Other times he dreamed of the day he’d burst into Brent’s room at the sound of Jazz’s screams, only to find her pinned beneath his brother.

That memory never left him, no matter how much he snorted.

“I could tell. As hot as you looked with your eyes rolling back in your head, I went up to my own room alone.”

He let out a grateful breath. “Good.”

“Not so good. You still owe me. Actually, you owe me even more than you did before.” She tapped her bright red nails against her mouth. “Any ideas on how you’re going to start repaying me? And when?”

Jesus. Not this again, first thing in the morning. He rubbed his hand against the throb in his temple and swallowed the dust in his throat. He’d need to brush his teeth with a Brillo pad to get that toxic taste out of his mouth.

“You managed to cough up the cash for this,” she said lightly, tracing a nail over the arrow that led south. As humiliating as the tat was, he couldn’t deny the flare of interest beneath his waist the farther down her nail crept. And that shamed him more than being in her debt.

He didn’t want Cricket. He didn’t want to want her or what she stood for. That probably made him a hypocrite. Or just a delusional junkie.

Fuck, he wasn’t a junkie yet. He still had control. Maybe it didn’t seem like it, but he could walk away from the coke anytime he chose to. He just hadn’t chosen yet.