On The Edge, page 5
“Mine, too.” Markus bites his lip and nuzzles into my neck. “At least, there was a time where you could’ve been.”
My heart beats faster. What’s happening? Are they… Do they know how I felt back then? I thought I’d hidden my feelings for them well; they always treated me like I was one of them, their best friend, but other than a few touches here and a lingering smile there, I didn’t think they wanted me. And now here I am, seven years after they abandoned me, and they’re trying to stake a fucking claim like it was something that had happened all along?
I’m stunned silent, but Adam shoves the bartender back, barking at him to get the drinks and to add it to On The Edge’s tab. The bartender’s eyebrows shoot up and he nods, scampering away to do what he was told.
Adam turns to me and his murderous expression melts away. He’s nervous now, like he didn’t just go fucking rogue and declare I was his. What the actual fuck?
“Mel, I don’t know what you saw up there, but…” Adam steps closer, putting his hand on my waist and ripping me out of Markus’ grasp. “Whatever you thought, it wasn’t what was actually happening.”
“I saw a single girl shooting her shot at a single guy. She got a little handsy and you didn’t mind. That’s what I saw.” I shrug my shoulders, turning toward the bar and waiting for the hottie behind the bar to bring my much-needed alcohol.
“Echo, you know that wasn’t it.” Adam covers my body with his, whispering hotly in my ear. I can feel every inch of him pressed against me as he traps me between him and the bar. His heart beats hard against my shoulder as I watch his fingers grip the wooden bar on either side of my body to keep me firmly in place.
God, hearing him call me that so softly, so roughly, so possessively in my ear is delicious and so hot. I’ve missed hearing it so much.
How many times have I fantasized about this exact scenario? Only there weren't as many observers, and definitely not this many clothes between us.
I groan. It’s throaty, reverberating through my body, and I know he felt it. Embarrassment burns through me, but right as I’m about to pull away, Adam pushes himself flush against me, leaving not one inch of space between my back and his front.
I can feel everything. He’s half-hard in his jeans and he grinds his hips against mine so there’s no question if I feel him or not.
“Do you want me, baby? Is that why you’re acting jealous?” Adam’s never been this forward with me, but I guess a lot can change in seven years. He kisses my neck, nipping slightly at the skin beneath my ear and my head drops back against his shoulder. His voice, his hands, his body, the fact that I’m acutely aware that we’re being watched; I feel my pussy clench and my wetness drips into my G-string. “Because I’ve spent the last seven years wanting you.”
My mouth is suddenly very dry as I take everything in. Everything he said, everything he’s doing to me. Everything he just confessed.
“Adam,” I moan. The clinking of a filled tray hitting the bar in front of me jolts me out of the bubble of lust and desire I’m in.
My eyes fly open—when did they close?—and I’m greeted with the sight of the bartender looking at me with disdain as he serves the drinks I ordered.
“Thank you.” I nod to him sheepishly, feeling slightly bad for flirting with him only to turn right around and basically let Adam try to get me off in front of everyone.
I’ll give him a big tip. I go to hand the bartender my card, but Markus beats me to it.
“Just add it to the tab upstairs.” He raises one eyebrow, heavy with smug satisfaction, and the bartender’s eyes widen before he nods in understanding.
“Got it.”
I take my first drink from the tray and quickly down it, the whiskey burning in the best, most familiar way. I have a feeling I’m going to need to be a little inebriated for the rest of the night and all the bullshit they’re going to push-and-pull me with. Especially since Adam hasn’t moved an inch and now Markus is also crowding me.
Slamming the empty glass down, I move on to one of the tequila shots.
“At least let me get one if you’re going to slam them back like that.” Markus picks the one out of my hand. My lips are still damp from the whiskey, but he takes a lime wedge and wets my lower lip with it before setting it in between my teeth. “To new beginnings and second chances.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Adam announces as he picks up a shot and cheers Markus, both of them knocking the shots back. Markus bends down, pulls the lime from my lips with his teeth before sucking on it. I’m mesmerized as I watch him in the flickering light, squeezing the lime into his tempting lips with his fingers. He sets it down on the bar top before looking back to me with a heated stare, keeping my gaze before bending down and kissing me roughly.
Fuck me—he can kiss. Wow.
His tongue slips along my lips, lapping up any lime juice left behind. He breaks the kiss before I’m ready and my lips chase his.
“Beautiful,” he murmurs, seemingly unaffected by how he just rocked my world.
Adam bites a lime, drinking the bitter liquid before setting the rind down on the bar, sighing. “I bet it was so much better from your lips.” Adam’s eyes zero in on my lips. His blue eyes are so dark from want, they look midnight-blue in the low light. My lips are probably red and puffy from the ferocity of Markus' kiss, but I bite down softly on my bottom lip anyway. Feeling brave, I take the last shot and throw it back, then take a new lime from the plate, wiping it all along my lips slowly, keeping eye contact so he knows what I want.
Because if this is some fever dream… I’m not wasting it.
It’s up to him now.
Adam wastes no time. He curls his body around mine, twisting my head so his lips can reach mine from behind. Sliding his hand up the front of me slowly, so fucking sensually it makes my nipples pebble, it makes a home around my neck.
I didn’t know choking was a turn-on for me. But it most certainly is. Or maybe… maybe it’s just an Adam thing. He’s holding me so dominantly, so possessively, that I can feel our need. His tattooed hand rests protectively along the column of my pale throat and it makes my knees weak.
Adam pulls back when I start remembering that I need air to live, and I immediately miss him.
“Delicious,” he whispers in my ear.
Markus picks up my other drink, handing it to me, then hands another that he must’ve ordered to Adam before taking the last one for himself.
“Let’s dance, Songbird.” He takes my hand and drags me onto the dance floor.
I used to love dancing with the guys. We’d drive out to an empty field and turn the headlights on Adam’s truck and they’d take turns swing-dancing with me in the beams of light while the darkness surrounded everywhere else. I remember laughing so hard, feeling so loved and cared for, that my heart clenches at the memory. When Markus pulls me onto the dance floor here, I’m struck with just how much has actually changed.
There are so many people surrounding us, I’m a little worried we’ll get separated. Maybe that’s what they wanted. To tease me, to pretend they care and then leave me behind. Again.
You are not going to let them have any more of your tears, Melody. If they leave, they leave and you will survive it, I think, clenching my jaw to try and protect myself from what I know is possible.
But then they surprise me. Adam puts his hands on my hips, guiding me behind Markus, who has a tight grip on my hand. Once he finds a spot he likes right in the middle of the crowd, he turns around and pulls me tight against his chest. Slotting his thigh between mine, Markus sways us in time with the music. Adam’s hands tighten on my hips as he draws closer behind me, moving with us in a breathtakingly sexy rhythm.
I’m in a rockstar, ex-best-friend, high school crush sandwich and I’m pretty sure I could die a very happy woman now.
Wrapping one arm around Markus' shoulders, I lean back and wrap the other around Adam’s neck so we’re one complete unit. Markus' thigh is rubbing against my pussy in a way that stokes the fire already building in me. My skirt is short, but in order for his thigh to be so close, I have to pull it up more.
One corner of Markus' lips pulls up in a sly, confident smirk. “Can’t choose, can you, Melody?”
I freeze.
Those words…
It’s what everyone used to bully me with in high school. “Just can’t choose, can you, whore?”
The worst was when I was confronted and I had to lie, deflect, throw them off the scent. Each word I said felt wrong coming out of my mouth, but it was better than being pushed into the lockers or covered in juice in the locker room. Everyone in high school thought I was their playmate. Their whore. And what’s worse, I wanted to be. I wanted them all.
That was why when Darcy, this bitch who was obsessed with Kai, cornered me in the band room the day before the guys left me, I tried so hard to get her away from me. I did the only thing my seventeen-year-old brain could think of at that moment to make the hurt stop.
I denied everything, tried to hide my true feelings and shrug it off. I told her they were like my brothers so maybe she’d stop calling me a sex-starved bitch. I told her I didn’t want them, didn’t think they’d be anything, just so the bullies would leave me alone. After I lied, she laughed, pushed me down and spit on me, calling me every insulting name in the book and saying how no one would ever want me; how no one would ever want someone so fucked up.
And it turned out she was right, because they never answered my calls after that and vanished. That only made the bullying a million times worse.
Besides, they wouldn’t have ever been okay with my feelings and I could never have asked them to be. I want to be shared, I always have. More than that, I only want Reis, Adam, Markus and Kai to share me.
Pulling myself from the memory, I rip out of their shared hold and run toward the bathroom.
I can’t be here.
I can’t do this.
They left me.
They left me.
And I don’t even know why or what I did to deserve it.
I push my way through the crowd as fast as I can, finding the sign for the ladies bathroom, bursting through the door to catch my breath. Do not have a panic attack right now, do not have a panic attack right now.
“You’re not sixteen anymore, Melody. They can’t–they don’t–have such a hold over you,” I tell myself shakily in the mirror, seeing my smudged eye makeup and black hair falling out of my messy bun. I look ravaged. I look breathless. “This all has to be a dream you can’t wake up from.”
The bathroom door slams open, hitting the wall, and in burst two angry looking rockstars.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Markus growls. A toilet flushes and a girl in a short dress looks at them frightenedly before trying to leave, but runs into Adam. He steps aside with an eyeroll to let her out before closing the door behind him and locking it.
Locking us in. Together.
“Better answer him, Mel. Where the fuck do you think you’re going? Running away from us? Oh, no. That’s not happening. Not again.”
SIX
That kiss was… It was completely unlike any kiss I’ve ever had.
There’s no way in hell I’m not pursuing her now.
Not that there was ever a real chance of that anyway. Fuck what Reis and Kai said. I want her, I miss her. I know now at twenty-five what I should’ve done at seventeen—fucking talked to her before leaving. I’m not letting her go without getting the whole story.
Feeling her body push back against me at the bar was enough to make my jeans tight. Then grinding against her on the dance floor while she held onto Markus and I? I barely held back from flipping her tight little skirt up and sliding my dick into her right there.
But Markus had to fuck it up, like usual.
One minute she was pulling us tighter and the next, she was gone.
Melody is shorter than most of the crowd, so I immediately fucking panic and dart off in the same direction she went. Markus stands there stunned, like an idiot. But out of the corner of my eye, I see him come alive and run toward me, toward her. When I break through the edge of the crowd, I can’t find her.
Fuck. Fuck!
“Where’d she go?” Markus sounds as worried as I am. Our eyes dart around, watching the crowd like hawks for our girl. Off to the side, I see a door close.
Like a kid on a treasure hunt, I point and yell, “There!”
Running quickly into a fancy-ass bathroom, I throw open the door just in time to see Melody breathe deeply and jump as the door hits the wall. The beautiful brown swirls in her eyes tell me exactly what she’s thinking. I watch as they widen so much, I can practically feel her sadness.
What happened? Why is she so sad? Did she really not like us in any way?
That can’t be it, because she responded so well to us out there. So immediately. So passionately.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Markus snaps, stepping forward.
It’s then that some girl runs out, leaving us alone in the bathroom with Melody. So when I close the door, I make sure to lock it.
There won’t be any interruptions for what I want to do next.
“Better answer him, Mel. Where the fuck do you think you’re going? Running away from us? Oh, no. That’s not happening. Not again.” I step in front of Markus. He fucked this up and I won’t it happen again.
“Adam,” she whimpers as a tear runs down her cheek.
“Melody.” I step forward and the anger I was feeling dissipates. Something is off. She was just this siren, pulling us both in, and now she’s crying, trying to hold back.
What has happened to her?
“You guys don’t… There’s… It’s…” She stutters and trips painfully over her words. I know we need to talk, to clear the air, but I think she needs to hear something more important first.
I step into her space, holding her hand before pulling her in close. She melts into my body, letting me hold her. Her hips are wide, just perfect for both my hands, and a tight waist gives her an amazing hourglass figure. Her eyes follow my every movement, and her head falls back slightly as she has to look up to meet my eyes.
“Do you want me?” I ask, holding her chin in between my thumb and forefinger. A look of panic crosses her face, like I’ve discovered a secret she wanted to hide. “Tell me, Echo. And don’t lie. I’ll know.”
Echo. It sounds so right leaving my lips again. I told her back in high school that everything she does echoes within me. It started when she would sit in the garage with us while we practiced and she’d be reading, or drawing, or something just across from me. I’d watch as her foot would mimic mine while I hit the bass drum. The fourth practice, I remember smirking and calling her my little echo.
It stuck.
And I’ve missed it so fucking much.
She swallows, biting her bottom lip, and holds my forearms with both hands before I see fire in her eyes.
“Yes,” she whispers.
My heart fucking sings and my breath catches. Hearing her say she wants me is all I’ve ever wanted since I first laid eyes on her. I cup the back of her head and bring her lips to mine passionately. Our lips lock together tightly and I bask in her scent, in her taste. Licking the seam of her lips to deepen the kiss, she opens her mouth with a little gasp and I’m able to finally, finally, taste her fully.
Groaning, I step impossibly closer, making her stumble backward against the sink, but I wrap my arm around her waist to keep her steady.
Markus coughs loudly. Goddamnit.
My eyes open to see him rest his hip against the counter, and he looks fucking annoyed, but under it I can see that he’s heartbroken.
Right. I need to see what she actually wants.
And find out if it’s what I always thought she might.
I pull back reluctantly, and her lips chase mine. God, I love that. I want more. Resting my forehead against hers, I ask her the second question. One I’m pretty sure I know the answer to.
“Do you want Markus?” I ask breathlessly.
Melody’s eyes open wide and she pulls back quickly. She looks at me first, like she’s embarrassed or guilty, but then her gaze floats past mine to look at Markus.
His dumbass schools his features from real and open to looking cocky and indifferent. It might have worked for anyone that doesn’t actually know him. But I see right through it.
And apparently Melody does, too.
Melody nods, biting her lip again. “I do.”
Markus' eyes widen and he pushes off the counter to stand.
“Are you serious?” he asks, his eyebrows knit together as his eyes turn soft with disbelief. Like he finally heard the words that his soul never dared to hope for.
“I am,” she says with tears in her eyes. “I so am. I want you both.”
Markus and I look at each other, and I nod. “I don’t mind sharing. Do you?”
A slow, predatory smile grows on his lips, and he moves to stand behind Mel. “Not at all.” Markus slides a hand up her side, and he pushes away a few of the hairs that have fallen around her face and become stuck to her neck. I watch with growing arousal as he leans forward and places an open-mouth kiss on her neck.
“It looks like he wants you just as much as I do, Echo,” I whisper in her ear when her eyes flutter closed and she moans.
“I really, really do, baby,” Markus murmurs darkly against her neck.
I move my hands down her front, teasingly slow, and once I get to her waistband, I twist open the button of her miniskirt. The popping of metal and the dragging of her zipper are the only noises in the room other than the pounding bass from outside. My fingers slip just under the seam of her underwear as Melody’s breath catches in her throat, and I look at her for permission to keep going.
Markus watches her with hooded eyes, waiting on edge for her answer. I know just how much the both of us want her, but we’d never push her into something she didn’t consent to.
