Page 1 of Rock Giant
CHAPTER 1
Paul “Rock Giant” Reed
Twenty-four hours earlier
“Jeezus, is there nowhere on this bus free of shagging?I swear you’re all at it 24/7.I’m trying tofuckingsleep.”
Paul “Rock Giant” Reed slumped back in his bunk and pulled a pillow over his head.It failed to block out thebafumperingnoises coming from across the narrow aisle of the tour bus bunk room.
“I’ve not done it anywhere on the bus,” Ronnie, the band’s keyboard player, replied.
Paul turned his head so he could see from beneath the pillow and jerked his curtain open.Ronnie was leaning over the edge of his bed on the adjacent top bunk, his dark hair spilling forward as he looked down at the bunk below, whose curtains were closed, but from which the noises were coming.
“Bravo.”Paul gave him an insincere clap.“Doesn’t really counterbalance the rest of them.What the fuck, Ash!”
“Quit whining ’cause you’re not getting any,” Ash, one of the perpetrators of the noise, said.His curtains began rippling rhythmically.
“We’re being as quiet as we can,” his wife added.
Paul groaned.That was the problem.They were trying to be stealthy, hence they were being ten times louder than they would have been if they’d just got on with it, instead of communicating in stage whispers, and giggling every time the bed groaned.Now, admittedly, if you were up for a masterclass in dirty talk, then there was plenty on offer here to get your teeth into, but what he wanted was another hour of blissful slumber.He folded his arms over the pillow, folding it around his head so that it blocked his ears, but it barely deadened Ginny’s appreciative squeaks or Ash’s indulgent groans, and his noise-cancelling headphones had gone walkabout again.
“Fuuuck, can’t you just bloody get on with it and ejaculate?”
“Don’t come yet,” Ginny countermanded.
“Not gonna.”
Course not.Mr Stamina here was going to continue making the walls vibrate for eternity.Bastard.That is, it was great that he finished these days instead of dishing out pleasure for no discernible reward, but still… give a guy a break.He needed his zzz’s, they were playing a gig tomorrow.
“Right there.Yeah… Just like that.You’re so fucking good, Mr Gore.”
“You’re so fucking hot, Mrs Gore.”
Now they were just messing with him.
He endured another few minutes while contemplating alternative accommodations, but it wasn’t like there was anywhere else on the tour bus he could safely take a quiet nap.Their frontman and drummer, Xane and Luthor, had co-opted the back bedroom, along with their girlfriend, Dani, and he was pretty sure that their rhythm guitarist, Spook, was next door in the bus’s tiddly entertainment suite with their sound gal for the weekend.That pretty much left their minuscule kitchen as a no-sex zone, and the seating area there wasn’t remotely big enough to comfortably house his limbs.Then again, he’d take silence over comfort at this point.
Ronnie had started narrating the session like he was a sports reporter for the Sexual Olympics.
Paul dropped to the floor and plodded downstairs.Turned out he was wrong about Alle and Spook.Alle was handcuffed to the kitchen table, bent over its surface with her naked, cherry-red arse in the air.At least Spook had manners enough to plant a brew in his hand as he scooted between them and the fridge, heading for the front exit.It seemed the only place he was going to find any tranquillity was in the great outdoors.Maybe he could find a hedge to snooze under.
He’d forgotten to pick up a T-shirt, so he claimed one from the merch box balanced on the fold-down second driver’s perch.Ginny could scold him later.Like he gave a shit.
The shirt barely stretched over his chest and sat right on his waistline, proving the XXL sizing to be an outright lie.No doubt she’d tell him it was babydoll fit or some other shit.Like babydolls were anything but adorably soft and chubby.
The world outside was a blank white canvas.Mist swaddled most of the surrounding countryside, but it seemed fields stretched in all directions, save one thick with woodland.Paul stretched and curled his toes against the sodden grass as he supped his brew.Tea.Green.Just the right strength too.Utter bliss in a mug.Spook was a fucking saint.Gold star, Mr Mortensen.Gold star.
A couple of sheep bleated at him from the other side of a hedgerow.“Morning to you too.Best make the most of it, mate.It’s not going to stay this peaceful for long.There’s a bunch of metal heads on the way.”Within a few hours, the mist would have burned off.He could already feel the hint of sun, and the place would be swarming with people, and tents would crop up like mushrooms to litter the horizon.Between the constant burr of voices and stomping feet, there’d be the kick of drums and bass slicing through the air and vibrating underfoot.He lived for it, but that didn’t mean he didn’t appreciate the chance to absorb a little silence.
He’d stopped yawning by the time the bus door opened behind him, and Spook’s girlfriend, Alle, came down the steps, no longer showing off any flesh.“Sorry about that.We didn’t think anyone would be up and about this early, otherwise...”She shrugged.
“Best laid plans, eh?”He preferred walking in on Spook and Alle to any of the others.He wasn’t sure why.Ultimately, sex was sex, and generally not that much fun unless you were actively involved, and it certainly wasn’t because he was likely to witness anything less risqué between them than any of the others.The tamest option was Ash and Ginny, but simultaneously, Ginny was likely to bite his head off if his gaze roamed, and Ash turned into a scrappy terrier likely to savage your ankles if he thought you were ogling his woman.Xane and Luthor didn’t fucking give a toss who saw anything, and Spook… Spook was as likely to invite you to kneel as hurry you along.
He wasn’t interested in kneeling, but he didn’t mind seeing the odd bit of skin, and of course, there’d been that time in their early days, when they’d asked him to join in.Not that he was angling for a reprise, much as Alle had the sort of curves he very much appreciated.
“Hey,” Alle leaned her head against his arm.Despite being taller than the average woman, she still only came up to his shoulder.“You okay?”
“Awake too bloody early, but otherwise peachy.”He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze.“Suppose I can get some yoga practice in.”
