Prologue: After Party

After a couple of rounds of drinks with Queenie and Gretchen and her band and crew, Stephanie and I headed back up to our rooms. We shared a hug, and disappeared behind our own doors. I was way too wound up to sleep. I downloaded the pictures and videos from my camera to my laptop, and was reliving the night; something I’m sure I’d be doing thousands of times in the near future.

I laughed when I got to the pictures Stephanie took of me and David. The goofy grins on our faces were just priceless. We look like we’ve been friends forever. I just might have to make one of these the background on my computer. The picture of the kiss I was going to keep for myself. Well, maybe I’d share it with Sam and the Harem.

I looked at the clock, sighing at the time. I had a 12:30 train, and check out was at noon, a mere nine hours away. I knew I needed to get some sleep, but I was just too wired. I tried a hot shower (and a cold one too, truth be told) and that didn’t help. I had thought ahead when I was packing for this trip, knowing what these guys did to me on a normal day and knowing that meeting Richie and the others was going to put me over the top. After the backstage experience, I was launched into the stratosphere. I am SO glad I packed a special something to ease the tension. I looked at my open suitcase, reassured to see my chance for release in sight, but didn’t move toward it.

Instead, I stalked around the room and finally cracked open the mini-bar cabinet. Thank God for Diet Coke. I practically lived on the stuff, and I had drunk more than enough alcohol for one night. A jolt of caffeine was probably the last thing I needed, but I needed something, and I wasn’t ready to reach for the happy stick quite yet. I considered going next door to bother Queenie, but thought better of that; she’d kill me. Lucy would slaughter me for even thinking about bothering her, and I wasn’t about to go back down to the bar. So, Diet Coke it was. I couldn’t drink it warm, though, so armed with keycard and ice bucket, I left my room.

As I passed Lucy’s room, I could hear a low voice say something that sounded like “Fuck, Lucia!” and I giggled. Good for her. She’s been looking forward to this for a long time. Years, in fact. I couldn’t wait to talk to her later. Wonder if she took my advice about the leg irons?

I finally found the ice machine tucked in next to the elevators. While I was filling my bucket, I heard the elevator doors open and someone get out. I hid out in the vestibule, not wanting to be seen – I was walking the halls of this beautiful hotel in my nightie and bare feet. Not like anyone really cared who was out and about at 3 in the morning, but even though I looked cute, I really didn’t want to run into some stranger in the halls. My nightie was actually an above-the-knee slip in a jungle print (leopard spots I think, or maybe cheetah spots; I can’t tell) trimmed with black lace. It had a matching shortie robe that I had cinched closed at my waist. This was just one of another in the long list of indulgences I made for this trip. My face was scrubbed clean of makeup and my hair was gathered on top of my head in a messy knot, and bits of it kept falling out of the scrunchie.

After a few minutes had passed, I peeked out. Seeing nobody, I let out the breath I was holding, and headed back to my room. I wasn’t overly concerned with watching where I was going, and was lost in my thoughts. As I rounded the corner, I crashed headlong into a wall; at least that’s what the man’s chest felt like. He grabbed me and held me close with solid strong arms, and when I struggled to free myself, he just held on tighter.

At this point, my instincts and training took over. I dropped the ice bucket, tried to knee the guy in the nuts but couldn’t, so I stomped his instep, and he said “OW! Jesus.” The voice was familiar, but I was running on adrenaline now, and I didn’t spare a thought for who it sounded like.

I turned slightly in the man’s firm grip to gain some leverage before I shoved at his chest for all I was worth. Taking two steps backwards, I assumed a defensive stance; my weight evenly balanced, feet shoulder width apart, knees slightly bent, chin lowered, and fists up in front of my face.

“Hey there, Hathor,” that familiar voice said.

I blinked. The haze of fear and adrenaline was fading, and I recognized the person I just attacked. I groaned and dropped my arms limply to my sides. “Jesus, David? What the hell are you doing here?”

He didn’t answer. He was just staring at me. I groaned again. My hair was all falling down, my color was high, and my breath was coming in great gulps. I can just imagine what I looked like now. I’m sure ‘cute’ didn’t even come close.

“Hello?” I took a step forward and snapped my fingers in front of his eyes. “You in there?”

David nodded his head and smiled. “Yeah, yeah. Shit, are you OK? I didn’t mean to startle you like that. I was so not expecting you to attack me like that.”

I shrugged, not about to apologize. “Yeah, well, I was so not expecting to be grabbed in the hallway.” I smiled back at him. “I’m alright though; I think I handled myself pretty well. You let me go, didn’t you?” I remembered trying to knee him, and started laughing. I had to clap my hands over my mouth to keep from disturbing the neighbors. He looked at me like I needed to be Sharpie’d. “You do realize I stomped on your foot because I couldn’t get my knee up to jam your balls, right?”

He laughed. “Yeah, I kinda figured that out. Thanks by the way, for, you know, not trying harder.” We fell silent, our laughter fading to chuckles, then stopping altogether.

The silence stretched and was becoming awkward. I became acutely aware that I was standing in the hallway in nothing but my nightclothes. I was talking to a man I’d been flirting with for quite some time earlier, and talking about his balls. I had a bucket of ice spilled at my feet – ice I surely would need later, as my gutter girlfriends would tell me. Shit, I needed to regroup. I crouched to pick up the bucket and said something inane like “I need to get more ice,” and spun away, stalking back to the machine.

What the hell was he doing here? I mean, I can guess; he was coming back from the general direction of my room. But, my little inner voice said, he may have been looking for Teek or Richie or, hell, I don’t know anybody. Sometimes I hate that little bitch that lives in my head. I filled my bucket again, and glanced around to make sure I was alone, and grabbed a piece of ice and put it to the pulse point at my throat. Sigh.

I closed my eyes, and leaned against the wall for a moment, and when the scrunchie hurt my head, I pulled it out of my hair and looped it around my wrist. I ran my hand through my hair to try and tame it while I let the ice do its magic – the cold was helping me calm down. I opened my eyes to see David standing there, watching me, something like hunger in his deep blue eyes. I could just imagine what I looked like, standing there with my hair tousled, ice cube melting against my skin, sending little icy rivulets of water down my nightie, and making my nipples pucker. Hey, that didn’t sound too bad, actually. And David wasn’t complaining.

He held out a hand and I watched my shaky one slip into it. He led me back to my room, and used the keycard I had left in the hall to open my door. As I shut the door behind us, I wondered how the hell he knew what room was mine. Then I decided I didn’t care. What mattered was that he sought me out. Again.

I got distracted by a trilling noise from the hall. Who the hell is taking a cell call in the hallway at 3 in the morning? I, being the nosy beyotch I am, opened my door little to see a tall, gorgeous man walk by, saying “open your door”. He stopped outside of Queenie’s room! Oooh, WKG came to cash in on the Jovi love. Good for him -- better for Steph! I think she was feeling a little left out earlier, but she’d never say anything to us. I closed the door with a smile, and turned back to David.

I wound my hair back up into the scrunchie while David took off his jacket and tossed it over one of the chairs. He was still wearing the shirt I had taken off of him earlier. It was paired with soft, tight denim that hugged him in the most interesting way, and battered black cowboy boots. Truth be told, it wasn’t all that bad a shirt. I just knew he always got crap for his stage garb, and at the time, it had been a good tool to use. Now, I remembered what his body felt like under the shirt when I trailed my hand across it. I remembered what his skin felt like when I slipped the shirt from his shoulders, and God help me, I wanted to take that shirt off of him again; other things as well, but the shirt to start.

David was walking around the room, and he stopped at the little table by the window, and smiled at the roses on the desk and the unopened box of chocolates next to it. He turned to me, an eyebrow raised.

“From Zan. I mean Richie,” I laughed at my mistake. “Sorry, still can’t separate the fake name from the real. He sent that to each of us, and this too,” I held up my wrist, so David could see the bracelet.

“He always did know how to treat the ladies right,” David said on a chuckle.

I laughed, remembering the noises I heard from behind Lucy’s door when my little ice adventure started. “I wouldn’t know; I’ll have to ask Lucy later,” I quipped, making him smile.

I was at a loss for something else to say. This was unusual for me. Twice in the span of ten minutes, I was at a complete and utter loss. I wanted to ask him why he came, but I didn’t really know how. The silence was killing me, however, and I had to say something. When in doubt, I rely on what I know, which is cracking wise. I smiled at David and said, “So, baby, I see your taste in clothes hasn’t improved with meeting me. Didn’t I take that shirt off of you once already tonight?”

David didn’t smile. Uh-oh. “You don’t have to do that, you know,” he said softly, sitting on the bed. He patted the space next to him, and I waited until I had sat down to answer him.

“What do you mean?” I had a good idea, but didn’t really want to admit it.

“Use your wit as a defense mechanism,” he said, taking my hand, “not against me, anyway. I’m not going to hurt you.”

That was certainly open for debate. I know he’d never hurt me physically – he’s just not that type of guy, but he did have the power to hurt me. If he hadn’t shown up here, he wouldn’t have that power, but he did so he does. Does that make sense? The fact that he’s here told me something, though I was afraid to think about exactly what that something was.

David was studying me, and I had to resist the urge to duck my head. I blushed, and looked anywhere except at him. My gaze settled on the open suitcase on the stand against the wall next to the mini-bar, and I got distracted. My blood ran cold as I saw my toy nestled right there in my lingerie in plain sight. Well shit. How the hell do I subtly close that thing? I frantically searched for some excuse to cross the room.

I said it before, and I’ll say it again: Thank God for Diet Coke.

I smiled weakly at David, and gently extricated my hand from his. Shaking, I stood and crossed to the can of soda I had left on the cabinet, and subtly (so I thought) bumped my suitcase making the lid close. I couldn’t get the can of soda open with these damned fingernails, plus my hands were shaking. David was behind me in a flash, his arms on either side of me, doing it for me. I put the can down on the cabinet again, and hung my head. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve been hiding behind my wise-ass persona for so long – longer than I’ve been ‘GSA’ – that it has become second nature to me now.” I was babbling, but there was no helping it. I took a deep, steadying breath. “There is a normal girl in here somewhere; I promise.” I was fidgeting with the bracelet on my wrist, and was petrified to turn around.

“I know; I saw her out in the hall. I’d really like to meet her again when she isn’t trying to kill me,” David said, and he leaned down to press a kiss on the back of my neck. That brief contact made me gasp. When I didn’t pull away, he did it again, and wrapped his arms around me from behind. He pulled me to him and nuzzled my neck, nibbling on the sensitive flesh there. I could feel the heat of his skin through the thin fabric of my nightclothes, and I felt his erection press against my ass. He slowly unbelted my robe while he kissed my neck, and gave it a push to make it fall from my shoulders. He chuckled when he saw the tattoo on my shoulder; a delicate dragonfly. He kissed it gently and whispered in my ear, “Damn Hath, do you have any other surprises for me?”

“I just might,” I whispered; afraid that anything louder would break the spell. “Are you saying you want to find out?”

David turned me in his arms and looked down at me. My expression was full of trust and wanting and longing, and absolutely no smart ass. GSA has left the building. It was just Hath now. “Oh, hell yeah,” David said, a moment before his mouth dropped onto mine.

His lips were soft and full. He held me close to him, his hardness pushing into the softness of my abdomen. David pulled the scrunchie from my hair and tossed it to the floor. Long, nimble fingers pushed into my locks and rubbed at my scalp. I let out a little moan, and he smiled against my mouth, breaking the kiss. “That moan I know is for me. You like that?” he asked, pulling away a little.

“Yes,” I breathed. My heart pounded a little harder when I completed my thought out loud: “your fingers are magic.”

“Darlin’, you have no idea,” he said, chuckling sexily.

“Show me,” I said, my eyes locked onto his and a slight flush crept over my neck. It was meant to come out as a dare, but slipped out as a breath.

“Well, hello there, Hathor,” David said, sipping from my lips. “It’s nice to see you again.” David slipped his hands from my hair and let them trail down the sides of my face to rest on my shoulders. His thumbs traced my collarbone while his fingers met behind my neck. God, his hands were big. He started rubbing small circles into my neck while his thumbs stroked lazily. He leaned in to gently kiss me and smiled.

I brought my shaking hands up to the buttons on his shirt. One by one, I slipped them open. “You know,” I said softly as I eased the little bits of plastic through their holes, “you really don’t have to wear these awful things to get attention from the ladies.” I kissed each inch of flesh I revealed. “We do notice you just fine, you know.”

This time, when I slipped the garment off his shoulders, I pressed a long kiss to the center of his chest. David had grabbed onto my hips and was holding them rather tightly. I looped my arms around his neck, and kissed my way slowly up to his mouth, taking my time and tasting him; nipping at his Adam’s apple and gently biting his chin. When our mouths met, I pushed my hands into David’s curls and groaned. They were so soft and silky. I couldn’t help myself; I tugged on one to see how long his hair would be if it were straight. It stretched down well below his shoulders; it would be glorious wet. Maybe I’d get to see that later.

David grabbed my ass, and hauled me up against him. I tightened my hold and rose up on my tiptoes so he’d press into me where the ache was fiercest. That brief contact made me cry out; the sound muffled by his mouth. David broke the kiss to smile at me. “Jesus, you are a screamer, aren’t you?” he said with wonder.

“I may be a smart ass, but I’m not a liar,” I said. I was trembling in his arms; on the very edge of losing control.

“Is something wrong?” he said softly, the back of his hand smoothing my cheek. “You’re shaking.”

“No, David, not a single thing is wrong” I said, reaching between us to give his cock a gentle squeeze. That contact made his eyes close and his head drop back. “How about with you?”

“Not a damned thing.” He scooped me up, making me squeak, and deposited me on the bed. He reached for the button on his too-tight jeans, and I scrambled to the edge of the bed just as he unfastened it, and stilled his hands.

“Let me,” I said, and slipped my fingers into his waistband, grazing the tip of him. Blood was pounding in my head as I slowly unzipped his jeans, and pushed them down his legs. David toed off his boots, and kicked his pants away. I laughed when I saw his boxer shorts. I couldn’t help it. The shorts said “It’s Only Kinky The First Time”, and just tickled something in me.

“Are you laughing at me, Hathor, darlin’?” David was standing there, bold as you please with his hands on his trim hips and a smirk on his face.

“Oh no, baby,” I said, pulling him to me by the waistband of his shorts. “Not at all.”

He climbed up onto the bed, and I scooted back as he stalked across the polyester bedspread toward me. I laid back, and David stretched out alongside me, bringing his mouth to mine and sliding a hand under my nightie. He lifted the fabric up over my hip, showing him another tat – this time the Patriots’ flying Elvis. “Well, well, well,” he said. “More ink, huh?” He leaned down to kiss it and the brush of his hair against my thighs made me shudder.

“Yeah,” I said breathlessly. “There’s one more to find,” I said, teasingly.

“I’ll get there,” he said, and kissed his way up under my nightie, lingering on my breasts. His mouth worked first one, then the other peak until they were almost painfully hard. I was having a hard time staying quiet but I knew that Stephanie was next door and I really didn’t want an audience tonight. David slid his thumb into the curls at the apex of my thighs, and found the hard little button hidden there. He rubbed lazy circles over my clit while he slid two fingers into me. He stretched me, and I thought I was going to lose my mind. This time, the scream escaped me before I could stop it. Fortunately, I turned my head and jammed the side of the pillow into my mouth first. David just chuckled. I could feel the waves building; sweet release was coming.

He withdrew his hand, and I thought I would weep. He eased my nightgown up and over my head, and now I was naked – usually not something I’m comfortable with, but when David looked me up and down with those deep blue eyes, and I saw nothing in them but lust and admiration, I relaxed. I sat up to drag David’s boxers off of him, gasping at the size of him. He made my little toy seem just that – little. I needed better toys. Damn. I grabbed his arms and pulled him over so he was lying on top of me. Locking eyes with him, I hooked a leg around his waist and arched toward him. David chuckled. “Anxious are we? We don’t have to rush, you know.”

“Speak for yourself. I’ve been wound up since I got on the train,” I looked at the clock, “yesterday morning.” I was running my hands across his chest, teasing his nipples and scratching at his skin. “I’ve been ready to pop since I heard you call my name backstage. And you stopped touching me.” What the hell. He wants the real me, right? Here goes nothing. “If you don’t help me out here, I’m gonna have to resort to other means.”

“Oh yeah?” David was intrigued, raising an eyebrow at me, and smiling. “Is that what you were trying to hide in your suitcase?” Shit. Busted.

“Yeah, and I don’t wanna do that when I’ve got a better happy stick right here.” I grabbed him and squeezed hard. “So, whaddaya say? Gonna help a Goddess out?”

By way of answer, David thrust hard into me, making me gasp. God, he felt so good. I nearly came then, but by some miracle was able to hold on. He fused his mouth to mine, and began slowly stroking in and out of me. The waves were cresting and I was gasping for breath and crying out his name before I could stop it, squeezing him impossibly tight.

David chuckled and sped his pace, not giving me a second to catch my breath. Before I knew it, I was barreling toward the edge again, then being shoved mercilessly up and over. My head was thrashing back and forth and I think I dug my nails into his back because David hissed and slowed his motions. With a gentle kiss on my lips, he rolled us so I was on top of him. He urged me up, and I started riding him, my hands splayed on his chest. The clever fingers of one hand found my clit again, and rubbed gently. His other hand crept up to my breasts and stroked and plucked at my nipples.

I closed my eyes and let my head fall back. His fingers were truly magic. The waves of my orgasm were coming up again fast, and I opened my eyes and dropped my hands to either side of David’s head. I rose and slammed onto him over and over again. My breath started coming in great gulps, and my arms started to shake. I stared into his eyes as the passion overtook me, and groaned his name low in my chest. He rolled us again, and pushed my knees up toward my ears. He pounded hard and fast, and I screamed as he cried out my name and I felt him pulsing inside of me.

He sunk onto me after the pulsing stopped, and he kissed me gently. “You weren’t kidding,” he said, rolling off me and tucking me under his arm. He was trailing a lazy hand up and down my arm, making me shiver. “You are a screamer, and you sure were ready to pop.”

“And I did, baby,” I said, kissing his chest. “Several times. On both counts.”

David chuckled and looked at me. “And I haven’t even found that other tat yet,” he said lazily.

I checked the clock and smiled. “And I don’t have to check out for another eight hours,” I said.

“And I haven’t made you pass out yet.”

I grinned at him and said “You win.” Then I threaded my fingers into his hair and dragged his mouth to mine again.