Page 20 of Only for the Moment
“It happens sometimes,” Clint was saying. “All artists have dry spells. And we have been a bit overrun with this tour. Maybe you just need to get laid.”
The pizza lodged in his throat. Tyler walked by with a freshly opened beer, and Clint snagged the bottle from the man’s hand, passing it to Isaac to guzzle down. His laugh made Isaacwant to punch him.
“I do not need to get laid,” he croaked when he could breathe again.
“Not what I’ve heard,” Matt crowed nearby. “Seems there’s this tight redhead that’s—”
He’d thrown the empty bottle toward his guitarist before he’d even thought the action through. Luckily Matt was a good catch.
“Yeah, definitely need to get laid,” Tyler agreed.
“Fuck off, the lot of ya,” Isaac growled.
His bandmates wandered toward the half-empty pizza boxes, their jibes about his sex life drifting his way. Pricks. He didn’t need to get laid.
God, no. What he wanted to do with Kennedy wasn’t nearly that simple. This morning, her kiss—he shifted on the stool, his finger fumbling off the keyboard. Restraining her had left the cool, confident woman off balance, and him drowning in the desire todo it again, over and over until they were both too exhausted to try again. But he wouldn’t. He couldn’t.
He’d had plenty of women, some beneath his ropes, some simply beneath him, but it was never more than that, never because he had to have them. Going to Kennedy after he’d talked to Grace had been a compulsion; kissing her had been a drive he couldn’t ignore. He hadn’t wanted her—he’d neededher. That was dangerous for a lot of reasons, but mostly because he shouldn’t want to let her in. One kiss had told him that. If he took her to bed, he wouldn’t be able to get enough. And outside of bed? She was independent and headstrong, the worst kind of woman for him to be interested in. Needing her would be like trying to control water without a cup.
He didn’t need anyone. Not after losinghis brother and his life. He couldn’t risk it.
“Look! Just the thought of gettin’ it on has him playing something new.”
What the— He glared at Matt. “What?”
Clinton stepped up beside their guitarist and nodded at the keyboard where Isaac’s fingers still rested on the keys. “What you were just playing. It’s good. What’s the inspiration?”
“I’m tellin’ you, man,” Matt crowed, “it’s the redhead.”
And fuck if the pain in the ass wasn’t right. If he’d been playing something new, Kennedy was the cause; he’d been thinking about her. And yet now, his mind was blank.
An odd mix of emotions—relief that his mind seemed to have generated a new collections of notes, even if he hadn’t been aware of it; shame that he couldn’t remember what he’d played, that he’d lost the spark he so desperately desired—churnedin his stomach. He clenched his jaw against the need to lash out. His mates weren’t responsible for his creative block; he was. And as much as it galled him to accept help… “I—” He shook his head. “I’m not sure what I was playing.”
Matt leaned on the nearby table and began humming. “Like this.”
Jordan picked out a couple of notes on his bass, underscoring his bandmate’s song.
Tyler, wanderinginto the room, began to bob his head and blow across the lip of his beer bottle, adding the faintest whistles to the melody.
“That’s good, Matt.” He picked out a few notes on the keyboard, mimicking the man’s humming. “Again?”
The next album was their livelihood, and the men in this room deserved to succeed just as much as he did. So he swallowed back his pride and worked what they gave him.And tried to accept the fact that, out of control or not, Kennedy might very well be the key to breaking open whatever was locked up inside him.
