Backstage Pass

Chapter 13

He moved away from the table and went into the bathroom. Water splashed into the sink. Myrna took a deep breath and climbed to her feet. She had assumed he was the type to ask every girl he liked to marry him. Was she honestly the first? She still didn’t want to get married—not ever—but she knew she should be more sensitive to his feelings. He couldn’t understand why she kept turning him down. She should probably explain it to him. She fingered the lump on the back of her head and then the long, thick scar beside it.

She followed Brian and stood in the bathroom door, watching him scrub off his stage makeup.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“What do you have to be sorry about?”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you. I thought… I didn’t realize you treated me specially.”

He looked at her. “Why wouldn’t I? You are special.”

She snorted. “Brian, you could have any woman you want. There’s nothing special about me at all.”

He shook his head in disagreement. “You sell yourself short, Myr. You’re wonderful. And I don’t want just any woman. I want you, but I guess you’re totally against the idea of marrying me.”

“Brian, I’m not against marrying you. I’m against marrying anyone. Besides, we barely know each other, how could you even contemplate such a crazy idea?”

“Sometimes you just know.”

“Know what?”

“You know when it’s real. This. You and me. This is real. I’ve never had anything that felt so real.”

“And to me it’s not real at all. It’s like a fantasy.”

He looked down at the sink. “Okay, that hurt.”

“I’m sorry.”

He looked up at her and smiled sadly. “Don’t apologize for your feelings, Myrna.” He approached her in the doorway and touched her cheek. “I think I know what it is. Tell me about your ex-husband.”

She flinched and turned away from him. He moved behind her and circled her waist with his arms, drawing her up against his body. She didn’t realize she was trembling until his steady strength settled behind her.

“I don’t like to talk about it.” Her trembling increased as flashes of memories assailed her.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured. “You’re safe.”

Safe.

Brian did make her feel safe. And for that, she’d tell him a little so he would understand there wasn’t anything wrong with him. It was her. “Jeremy was a good man when I married him. He just drank sometimes, and when he was drunk, he became a different person. At first, he got belligerent every couple of months. And then, every couple of weeks. At the end, he was drunk every night. He’d accuse me of things, things I’d never done, never even considered doing. He thought I was having affairs. He was paranoid. Cruel. When I denied it, he’d—” A broken sob cut off her words.

She dashed away her tears. Why was she crying? She hadn’t cried over Jeremy in years. She’d left him in her past. He couldn’t hurt her anymore. But even she recognized that as a lie. He hurt her every day.

Brian turned her around and held her against his chest.

She wrapped her arms around him, drawing on his strength. “He’d threaten me until I admitted doing whatever he accused me of. f*****g some guy. Touching or flirting with or even looking at some guy with too much interest.” Myrna looked up at Brian and his face blurred behind her tears. “You have to believe me, Brian. I never. I would never. I didn’t cheat. Not once. I never even considered it.” Her fingers curled into his shirt.

Brian’s arms tightened around her. “I believe you.” He rubbed his lips against the side of her head. “Did he hit you?”

She shook her head. “No, not while we were married. Strange as it sounds, I sometimes wish he had. It would have made it easier to leave. He mostly yelled. Made me doubt myself. Sometimes I can still hear his voice, screaming at me, calling me a w***e. If our problems had stayed between us, I might have been able to deal with it, but Jeremy confronted several of my male coworkers and accused them of seducing me. He even got several of their wives involved. I had to leave my first faculty position because of it.”

“Why did you stay with him?”

“I was stupid; I kept forgiving him. He’d say, ‘I love you, Myrna. I love you. I love you. That’s all that matters. I love you.’ I believed it for so long. I don’t know how many second chances he earned by bastardizing those three words. Hundreds. I can’t even stand to hear them now. Those words repulse me. Remind me of my weakness. My stupidity. I think the worst part was, as a psychologist, I knew what he was doing to me—I knew—and hated myself for taking him back over and over again, but I couldn’t break the cycle. I wanted it to work. But…”

Having already said too much, she bit her lip and fell silent.

His hand brushed over her hair and he kissed her temple. “But you left him, right? So you’re not weak. You broke away.”

“Yeah, I finally left him, but it didn’t matter. If anything, it got worse. He stalked me. I thought he was going to kill me. I got a restraining order. He ignored it. They’d arrest him and he’d be out of jail almost immediately. He was a well-respected man in the community. Wealthy. Old money. Highly educated. Charming. Most people had no idea what he was really like. And those who did were too afraid of his family’s affluence to do anything. After I left him, he followed me everywhere for months; his footsteps always echoed mine. I’d often find him standing outside my house. Watching. Leaving little love notes in places he knew I’d find them.” She shuddered. “But because he never hurt me physically, they wouldn’t do anything. Verbal and emotional harassment don’t carry the same weight as physical abuse. I understand why, but it didn’t make it easier to live through it.”

Brian stroked her back and her preferred numbness returned. Why was she telling Brian all these things? She’d never told anyone the full extent of her terror.

“The divorce,” she whispered. “The divorce was horrible. He refused to sign the divorce papers, so we had to go to court and I relived the entire ordeal in front of a judge. The accusations. The things he said to me. How he humiliated me in front of people I wanted to respect me. Thank God the judge believed me and pushed the divorce through, even though Jeremy contested it. The day I was legally free of him, the day our marriage officially ended, was the best day of my life. I never want to be trapped like that again—by the word love or the institution of marriage.”

“So after the divorce he finally left you alone?”

She shook her head. “He refused to accept it. He kept stalking me. Continued to refer to me as his wife. When I started dating again, he snapped. In his mind, I was cheating on him. I’m sure Jeremy slashed my date’s tires while we were having dinner. Then one night he broke into my apartment and waited for me to come home. I don’t remember much of it, just waking up in the hospital two days later.” She took his hand in hers and lifted it to the uneven ridge on the back of her head. “This scar. He gave it to me. Hit me with the fireplace poker, knocked me out cold, beat me within an inch of my life, and then the i***t called an ambulance.”

“Jesus Christ.” Brian pressed his lips to her temple.

“He confessed to the whole thing and went to jail. I changed my last name, moved, and covered my tracks, so he’d never find me again.” That’s why she’d been so scared when Brian had found her so easily. She reminded herself that Brian had known to look in Kansas City. Jeremy would not. He couldn’t find her. He couldn’t. He didn’t even know her name. But the flowers… Jeremy knew gladiolas were her favorites.

“Thank you for telling me,” he said. “I understand a few things about you that were bugging me.”

She bugged him? “What kind of things?”

He hesitated. “I… Well, I notice you tend to freeze up for a few seconds when we try something a little kinky.”

She flushed. “You noticed that, huh?”

“It’s like you, the real you, is this uninhibited, open, s****l being, but something makes you feel it’s wrong. It’s not wrong, Myrna. It’s wonderful.”

“Somewhere in my head I know that, Brian, but I’m damaged.”

He squeezed her. “No. You’re perfect.” He kissed her temple again. “Perfect.”

Her breath came out in a gasp and she tried to pull away, but he tugged her closer. “Please don’t make it impossible for me to live up to your expectations, Brian. This is too much. Too soon. I can’t handle it. I feel… trapped. Don’t…”

Brian tilted her head back and gazed into her eyes. He kissed a stray tear from her cheek. “I’m not that guy, Myrna. I accept you for who you are.”

“I know,” she whispered.

“I would like to kill that guy, though. Do you have his address?”

She shook her head. “I have no contact with him. I haven’t seen him in four years.”

He held her quietly for several moments and she reveled in the feel of his strong arms around her. So safe.

But still scary.

He tugged her back by her shoulders and stared down at her. “So I guess what you need most from me is emotional space.”

“Yes.”

“And time.”

“And patience,” she added.

He nodded. “I’ll try to give you what you need, but it won’t be easy. I’m pretty into you, Myrna.”

She smiled, staring into his warm brown eyes. “I’m very much into you, Brian.”

“I guess you wouldn’t like me to use the l-word then.”

“Not unless it’s lips.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him hungrily.

“Lips is a very good l-word,” he murmured.

“Yeah, so is lust.” She pulled his shirt off over his head and flicked her tongue over his n****e. “And lick.”

“I’m particularly fond of let’s go.” He took her hand and tugged her toward the bedroom.

She laughed, following him. “That’s two words.”

“Semantics.”

Myrna crawled out of bed, slid into the discarded white sundress she found on the floor, and stumbled toward the bathroom. They’d been driving two days straight to play a show in Florida. The band would play an hour, and then the crew would break down the set and be back on the road by midnight to head up the Eastern seaboard. She honestly didn’t know how these guys maintained their sanity. All they did was ride on a bus all day and night, constantly moving from city to city with no time to enjoy the places they traveled.

After using the bathroom, she contemplated returning to bed, but decided Brian would wake up and then she’d spend several hours with his slim hips between her thighs. Not that she ever considered that a bad thing, she just had work to do and found herself entirely too distracted to get anything done.

Myrna shoved a stack of papers to the side of the square dining table, sat in the she-didn’t-want-to-know-why-it-was-sticky booth and booted up her computer. Now that she’d designed an appropriate survey, she spent her evenings interviewing groupies. Her project was moving along beyond her wildest expectations and she had a huge backlog of data. While she waited for a shoddy Internet connection, she sorted musical score sheets from pages of beer-stained data, pulled a sucker stick off one page, and eyed a mysterious brown spot apprehensively. The guys were slobs and had no respect for her personal belongings. She only tolerated the mess because she didn’t feel it was her place to correct them.

She checked her email and answered half a dozen distraught messages from her graduate students. Myrna was working on creating a data spreadsheet when the bus slowed and pulled to a stop. She craned her neck to peek out the heavily tinted window on the other side of the bus. Another fast food restaurant? Gag!

Jake climbed from the driver’s seat and stretched, his mouth opening in a wide yawn. He started when he noticed Myrna sitting at the table.

“I didn’t know anyone was awake,” he said. “Do you want some breakfast?”

“Coffee would be fantastic.”

“One coffee coming up. Make that two. I’m about to pass out.”

Jake exited the bus, leaving the door open so fresh air could circulate into the cabin. Myrna heard the unmistakable screech of her Thunderbird’s tires next to the bus. The roadies were abusing the hell out of her car and the miles were adding up quickly. As convenient as it was to have a car at their disposal, she was going to have to put it in storage. Driving the extra vehicle disrupted the roadies’ sleep rotation, which she recognized as a safety hazard.

The bedroom door opened and Brian emerged. He blinked his eyes in the early morning sunshine and smiled at Myrna when his gaze focused on her. “There you are. I’ve been waiting for you to come back to bed for over an hour.”

He didn’t even try to conceal his nakedness or his rock hard c**k jutting into the space before him. This was exactly why she hadn’t returned to bed. He never allowed her time to catch up with her work. His diversions were always spectacular so it wasn’t as if she could say no. She didn’t want to say no. Her body was already responding to his on some subconscious, primitive level. She’d expected their mutual delirium to decline now that they were together 24/7, but it intensified with each day. She’d never experienced anything like this. She was hopelessly, madly, deeply in lust.

“I was trying to get some work done,” she said.

“Are you finished now?”

“Uh…” She knew she wouldn’t be able to concentrate with images of naked-Brian burned into her retinas. “I can take a little break. Actually, we need to do something with my car.”

His eyebrows lifted and he grinned. “Great idea. Your car. I’ll go find some pants.”

“Wait, you misunderstood.”

He’d already disappeared back in the bedroom, however.

He emerged a few minutes later in jeans and a T-shirt. Her heart thudded in anticipation. She climbed from the booth and went to find shoes while he used the bathroom. At the exit, they waited for Jake to climb the bus steps with two coffees.

“Oh, Brian, you’re up. Here, you can have my coffee.” Jake tried to hand a cup of coffee to Brian.

“Keep it,” Brian said. “Myrna and I are taking the Thunderbird. We’ll meet you in Tampa this evening.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Brian. You get lost in your parents’ backyard.” Jake handed Myrna her coffee.

She took a sip of coffee and made a face. Too strong and black.

“My parents’ backyard is huge. But don’t worry, we’ll get there.”

Jake shrugged. “I think Dave has the keys. I saw him get on the other bus a minute ago.”

“Thanks, Jake. And dude, you look like s**t. Why don’t you wake Sed and have him drive for a while?”

“I’m all right. See you in Tampa.” Jake chugged his coffee and headed for the bathroom at the back of the bus.

Brian led Myrna to the car, where she waited, sipping her bitter coffee, while Brian retrieved the keys.

Within moments, he climbed in next to her and started the car. “Did I even tell you good morning?”

She shook her head. “You don’t think so well when all your blood’s in your smaller head.”

“Smaller?”

She laughed. “What I actually wanted to do with the car, before you jumped to conclusions, was find a place to store it while I’m on tour with the band.”

“So you didn’t want to suck my c**k while I drive?”

“Well, yeah, now I do, but that’s not why I mentioned the car in the first place.”

Brian pulled out of the parking lot, leaving the tour buses behind. “It’s nice to have the car with us. It’s handy for errands and we can get away from the guys for a few minutes. Maybe we can get a trailer and pull it behind the moving van.”

She smiled. “That would work perfectly.” She slid across the bench seat and kissed him on the cheek. “The roadies will appreciate it, too. They all look like the walking dead.”

“They’ll get some rest soon. Just ten more days on the road, then we have a week off. You’re coming out to Los Angeles with us, right?” He took her cup of coffee from her and took a drink. He winced, took another sip, and returned the cup to her hand.

“Los Angeles?” she said. “I don’t think so, Brian. I can get caught up on my work during that time. You’ve got more tour dates after your week off, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” he said quietly.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Shot down again.” He fashioned his hand into a gun and mimicked shooting himself in the chest.

“Are you pouting because I have to work?”

“I don’t pout.”

Sure looked like pouting to her. “Are you whining because I have to work?”

“No, I’m whining because you’d rather work than spend a week in L.A. with me.” Under his breath, he muttered, “Why do I always sound like the chick in this relationship?”

“Won’t you be working on the new album anyway?”

“So?”

“So, it will do us both good to have a few days to collect our thoughts and get some work done. I have the damnedest time concentrating when you’re near. All this slacking bothers me.”

He took her hand and put it on his crotch. “Does that feel slack to you?”

“No one said you were slacking. You’ve been composing and putting on one awesome show after another.” She loved to watch him when his attention was elsewhere. She could ogle him without making her infatuation blatantly obvious. The length of his black lashes fascinated her. When he blinked, her attention shifted to the harsh line of his well-sculpted cheekbone covered with a light shadow of beard.

“You’re not slacking,” he said. “You’ve been doing your survey things with the groupies.”

“I have,” she agreed, “but collecting the data is the tip of the iceberg. I have to analyze the data. Do statistics. Hopefully, find some interesting trends in the results and write journal articles for publication. This project is really important to my future and I have a lot of work to do.”

“And I interrupted your work again this morning.”

“I wish I could say it annoyed me that you’re so distracting.” She grinned and squeezed his c**k gently with the hand still in his lap. His body tensed. “I’d be lying though.”

Myrna placed an open-mouthed kiss under his ear and gently sucked his flesh into her mouth. His growl of approval made her n*****s taut.

She unfastened his pants and found him lacking underwear. His c**k sprang free, and she wrapped her hand around the base.

“Can you drive?” she asked.

“I am driving.”

“With your c**k down my throat?”

He grinned at her. “There’s only one way to find out.”

She kissed the corner of his mouth and lowered her head. She licked the length of him, drawing her tongue over the smooth skin rhythmically and blowing cool breaths across his flesh to draw delighted shivers from his body. He placed a hand on the back of her head, trying to urge her to suck him into her mouth. She resisted, wanting to tease him. She squeezed and relaxed her hand at the base of his c**k while she trailed her tongue over his flesh. He grew harder. And harder. Myrna’s own excitement began to get the better of her. A shame to waste something this hard in her mouth.

There was a loud honk as one of the tour buses pulled up beside them on the four-lane highway. Myrna sucked Brian into her mouth.

“Ah God,” he cried. He hit the brakes.

Myrna jerked her head away so she didn’t bite him as he swerved off the road. They drew to a shuddering halt on the shoulder, with two wheels on the pavement and two in the grass. He slammed the gearshift up into park and reached for her. “Turns out that no, I can’t drive with my c**k down your throat.”

He slid across the bench seat and pulled her to straddle his lap. His hand moved under her sundress and pushed the crotch of her panties to one side. He grabbed her hips, shifted her forward, and then filled her body with his. His fingers dug into her hips as he encouraged her to ride him. The elastic of her panties cut into her flesh each time she rose and fell, fueling her excitement.

Cars flew past them at high speed. She wondered if they could see what she and Brian were doing in the middle of the front seat. It might make someone’s morning commute a little more interesting.

Brian pushed the straps of her sundress from her shoulders and bared her breasts. He bent his head to suck and lick her n*****s, pushing her breasts together as he attempted to get them both in his mouth at once.

“God, you’re hot,” he growled. He sank his teeth into her tender n****e and her body jerked before she shuddered with release. She tightened her vaginal muscles and rose up to excite him with fast, shallow strokes. His head fell back, his breathing erratic.

“Myrna. Myrna. You’re going to make me come if you keep that up.”

A flash of blue and red lights in the back window caught her attention. “You’d better hurry up about it. We’ve just been spotted by a cop.”

“s**t!”

He rearranged her top to cover her breasts and his rapidly softening c**k fell free of her body.

“You could have finished,” she said. “He’ll have to run the out-of-state plates before he comes to talk to us.”

“I couldn’t have finished. My balls are now hiding up in my belly.”

She laughed and slid off his lap. She rearranged her panties and sat beside him. He slid behind the wheel and fastened his pants.

“It’s not funny,” he said.

“You’re afraid of cops?”

“No, I’m afraid of jail.”

“Ah, poor baby,” she said, kissing his cheek. “I’d bail you out. Hopefully before Big Bart made you his bitch.”

“How kind,” he said. “And who would bail you out?”

“I’m sure Sed would bail me out for a favor.”

Brian pinned her with an angry glare. “Don’t even joke about that.”

“A little cranky, now, are you? I told you that you can trust me. I have no interest in Sed.”

“You know, that’s exactly what Angie said. And Kristie. And Jenna. And Bethany. And Samantha. And—”

Myrna’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t have to flaunt their names. I realize you’ve f****d a lot of girls.”

“What? Are you jealous?”

“Why would I be jealous? This thing between us isn’t serious. We’re just having a good time.”

“Of course.” He slammed his fist into the dashboard.

There was a knock on the window.

“What?” Brian yelled at the glass. He took a deep breath and rolled down the window. “Can I help you, officer?”

The car was still idling, but the trooper said, “Car troubles? Do you need a tow?”

“Everything is fine, sir,” Myrna said.

Brian gripped the steering wheel. “Let me handle this,” he growled at her. He gazed up at the police officer. “Everything is fine, sir.”

The lanky man looked Brian over carefully, his hand resting on the service pistol at his hip. He turned his attention to Myrna, who sat demurely in her innocent-looking, white sundress.

“Are you okay, ma’am? I heard some yelling and arguing as I approached.”

“I’m fine.” She smiled at him reassuringly.

“And why are you parked on the side of the road?”

Myrna glanced at Brian and grinned wickedly. “My companion was having a hard time driving, so he had to pull over.”

“Have you been drinking, sir?”

“It’s seven o’clock in the morning!”

“Or using?”

“What?” Brian calmed his tone. “No, I haven’t been drinking or using drugs. I was having a hard time concentrating for… other reasons.”

“I see.” The officer didn’t look convinced. “So you pulled over to switch drivers?”

“Yeah,” Brian said. Myrna didn’t know Brian was capable of blushing until that moment.

“You should do that at a rest area. It isn’t safe to park on the side of the highway.”

“Good point,” Brian said. “Are we free to go?”

“Let me run your license, registration, and proof of insurance first. Make sure everything checks out.”

Brian pulled his wallet from his back pocket and retrieved his driver’s license. Myrna found the registration and insurance card in the glove box. She handed them to Brian, who offered the paperwork to the trooper.

“California license. Missouri plates.” The officer shook his head and then carried the documents back to his patrol car.

“He thinks I’m a shady character,” Brian said.

“You do look suspicious with all those skull and demon tattoos.”

“You don’t like my tattoos?”