Out From Under Read online

  Her voice was so soft, yet feminine; he liked listening to her talk.

  “Well, you have good taste. As long as you don’t mention Demi Lovato or Taylor Swift, we’re cool.”

  She turned toward him and he could feel her gorgeous eyes on his profile. “I never said I didn’t have those artists on my iPod. You assumed I’m too cool for school. I love ‘Heart Attack’…it is such a cool song about a young woman who doesn’t want to fall in love and ‘I Knew You Were Trouble’ is one of my favorite songs. I listened to Red almost non-stop after Clooney and I broke up.”

  “I forgot…you’re young…some of your music tastes—”

  “What about my music tastes? If I had a theme song for you, it would be…‘Up In The Air’ by Thirty Seconds to Mars. What would be your theme song for me?”

  They were stopped at a red light and he looked over at her. His theme song for her suddenly came on the radio and she arched one of her perfect eyebrows.

  “This song…‘Locked Out Of Heaven’ by Bruno Mars.”

  Trista laughed out loud. “You don’t know me, Linx. There is no way in hell you feel anything for me, except maybe a throb in your dick to get me into your bed and that’s cool. It won’t happen tonight, by the way, but I am not big on the word, ‘never’.”

  “Do you want to go back to my place?” he questioned, unable to stop the words from tumbling out his mouth. “I mean just to talk. I won’t touch you in any inappropriate way what-so-ever, I promise.”

  “I thought you would never ask. Sure, let’s go.”

  He breathed a sigh of relief because for just a moment, he thought she might have demanded he take her back to her cousin’s house.

  TRISTA ASKED FOR a full tour of his house. He obliged, showing her around while she held a Heineken and closely walked side by side with him.

  What made her so different from all the other women he’d been with?

  Well, for one, she didn’t find him intimidating in any way and she wasn’t desperate. She was very comfortable around men and didn’t seem the least bit nervous to be alone with him.

  Linx knew he should have left the situation alone but he had to ask. “Why aren’t you worried about being in my presence without your bodyguards?”

  They stopped in front of the ugly fucking Picasso painting that his interior designer had picked up at auction. He had been convinced when the designer had told him that it would be worth a mint when he decided to sell it. Personally, he would have preferred a Jackson Pollack to this fugly painting taking up prime real estate in his caramel painted hallways.

  “Are you asking me if I know how to defend myself?” Trista inquired, swigging from her bottle of Heineken.

  “Well, yes.”

  Trista walked up to him and spread her legs slightly. He could feel his back pressing against the wall. The painting next to his head seemed irrelevant as she pulled a small, black gun out of her bag.

  “I grew up in the country, sweetie, everyone learns how to shoot. Thanks to my brother, I have a variety of protection, most with the serial numbers filed off, but this one is registered…and before you ask, yes, I have a gun license.”

  “Is the safety on?”

  “Of course. You don’t carry unless you could actually go through with it, pull the trigger, and actually murder a human being. I don’t take carrying this lightly, and I know all about guns and gun safety. This is a Walther P22, similar to James Bond’s gun, but it’s not the same model. Don’t worry, I won’t use it, you’re not a threat.”

  Trista backed up from him and replaced the gun in her handbag.

  “How do you know that?” Linx wondered, guiding her back toward his sitting room.

  She looked back at him before turning her head to stare straight ahead. “I have been around enough and seen enough to know you’re one of the good guys. Yeah, I think you wanna get laid, but I know you wouldn’t force yourself on me. That’s all I care about and I feel…safe with you. Everybody has a sixth sense…the key is to listen to it and you’ll keep yourself out of a lot of crappy situations. I live by mine.”

  Linx smiled as they sat on his comfortable, midnight blue leather wraparound sofa. Its color went perfectly with the gunmetal gray painted walls.

  He picked up the remote and switched on his sound system. “Lost Without U” began to play and a small smile appeared on Trista’s face. She kicked off her shoes and lay back on the sofa, her head settled against the arm rest.

  “So, the million dollar question is, why don’t you have a girlfriend? You’re sexy, young and in one of the biggest rock bands out at the moment who don’t suck. Are you really picky or just hard to please?”

  That certainly wasn’t a question Linx had imagined he’d be answering, but he decided to take a stab at a decent answer. Finishing his Heineken, he answered, “Bad marriage. I have two kids and an ex that sucks money from me like I am made of it. I guess the whole situation rattled my cage a bit…I guess you could say I’m both wary and gun shy now. Not to mention that I live in one of the fakest cities in the world. Women don’t want Lennon Carter, they want Linx, band member and bassist for Winter’s Regret. They want the brooding rock star with a tat covered body and a cock that can fuck all night. Just like women don’t want to be reduced to just their tits and pussies, men don’t want to be reduced to the size of their cock and wallet.”

  “You don’t seem so brooding now. I never really picked that up from you, but you definitely are damaged goods. Your wife did a number on you, all right.” Trista sat up and finished her Heineken before he took the bottles, stood and strolled into his oversized kitchen. He dumped them into the recycle bin and grabbed two more.

  Linx closed the refrigerator door and was face to face with Trista. He’d never heard her enter the kitchen.

  “Sorry. I didn’t scare you, did I?”

  “No,” he replied, his voice deep and a mixture of honey, whiskey and sexual undertones. “So, why don’t you have a boyfriend?”

  She laughed and it was light and almost musical. “Well, let’s see. I’m fucked up because of my parents and brother. You see, they recently began their dirt naps—along with the young woman who would have been my future sister-in-law—at the Pine Bluff Cemetery. Then, there’s Trey. He’s my overprotective, gangster older brother who is part of an MC and has an issue with his sister being a woman, instead of a child. I escaped him, but now I am stuck with my ultra-famous older cousin who also still thinks of me as little girl. Makes it kind of tough to actually have a real life—know what I mean?”

  His gaze narrowed at her as he warred with the desire to pull her to him “But you’re eighteen and have the whole world ahead of you. You have plenty of time to get serious with someone. Your only goal in life right now should be to have fun.”

  Trista stared at him, her sky blue eyes bright. “I’m down with that.” She moved closer until they were merely inches apart. “I wanna see the tats on your chest.”

  Linx laughed, though he wasn’t nearly as confident as he sounded. He pulled off his wife-beater with nervous and shaky hands.

  His chest was covered by a series of roses, with a gun displayed on each side.

  “Were they your favorite band growing up?” she asked, as her fingertip softly traced the design in his skin.

  “No…I was much more into hip-hop as a kid. Rock may have been the way out of the ‘hood, but I have a diverse taste in music too. 2Pac, Eminem and Dr. Dre were more my scene back then. The tattoo represents South Boston, the part of the city that I called home for eighteen years. It’s got this beauty, hence the roses, but it’s also marred in crime and violence, so the guns. I got away from all that shit but this tat reminds me of how different my life could have been if I’d stayed,” he explained, opening the Heinekens and handing one to her.

  His throat felt itchy and dry; he’d practically demolished his bottle while she was just getting started on hers.

  “I know Boston quite well. My dad was born and raised there,
second generation. His family is from Northern Ireland. My mom moved to Boston with her family as a child, but they were upper-middle class so she never saw the rougher areas of the city. She and my aunt were quite sheltered…I guess it was a surprise when Talia’s mother married someone from the wrong side of the tracks, so to speak.

  “Anyway, Mom and Dad met at a MIT university party although she attended BU. They were an instant match made in heaven. My grandparents were happy with my mother’s choice of partner, and suffice to say and they approved of the marriage. Trey, Tristan and I were all born there in Boston, but we moved to Pine Bluff when I was young. I don’t remember much about my childhood there.”

  Linx didn’t know what to say to that, his mind wandering back to his young days in Southie. A long silence ensued, and he shook his head. Time to change the subject.

  He certainly had no intention of telling her about his childhood or his parents’ courtship. It seemed so ordinary in comparison to the life he lived now and he cherished those memories. It was the only part of his life that he felt he owned and kept him grounded. It also reminded him that none of the “fame shit” was real.

  He clapped his hands together after he set his beer on the kitchen counter. “So, Beautiful…what kind of fun were you thinking of having?”

  Trista smiled devilishly. He knew she was going to say something that would get her, or him, into trouble, yet he still found her fun and interesting and way too attractive at the same time. “I want to get a tattoo, but if I get one then you have to get one too.”

  “That means calling out Loire at this time of the night, but to hell with it. I’ll tip like a Rockefeller.”

  “I was afraid you would say something cheesy like that.”

  Linx winked as she burst out laughing. Instinctively, he knew it would also be a very long night.

  LOIRE SHOWED UP an hour later with her tattoo kit and asked what Linx wanted. He wanted something easy and not very complex. In the end, he chose his nickname with a barbed wire design surrounding it. He wanted the tattoo on his left forearm, and held his palm upward so she could disinfect the area before she got started.

  As she did the work with her usual accurateness and delicacy, Loire inquired, “What about you, little girl? Do you know what you want or do you want to peruse my catalogue?”

  “No, I know what I want,” Trista spoke up confidently. “I want ivy columns, horizontally placed, starting at my shoulder blades. I also want you to write ‘In Memoriam’ and these names.” She held up the small paper she had been writing on to show her.

  “Large or small? How much of your back do you want this to cover?”

  “I want the ivy column to end at my lower back, basically where a tramp stamp would be, but I want it to cover my whole back.”

  “Any color or just black ink?”

  “Black and gray ink only.”

  “You sound like you know a lot about tattoos,” Loire responded as she blotted at the excess ink before continuing Linx’s design.

  “I do. I know a lot about you too,” Trista said, her tone matter of fact. “Do you remember me? You and my brother, Trey, dated on and off in high school before your asshole Dad ran you out of town after graduation. Instead of setting up a tattoo shop in Northern Nevada, you fled here.”

  Loire abruptly stopped what she was doing and almost lost her grip on her tattoo gun. “Yeah, I know who you are. How is Trey, by the way?”

  “Dating your best friend.”

  Her eyebrows arched, though she kept her eyes on her work. “That slut? I heard she was doing porn now.”

  “She does, and she was quite happy to see you leave. I don’t know how serious they are but I find it hard to believe that my brother would marry a porn star. I think it is a laziness factor more than anything. She’s convenient and he doesn’t feel like looking for another woman. The fact that she also has sex with other women for money…well, perhaps he doesn’t mind as much. I couldn’t really tell you.”

  Loire merely snickered to herself. “Trey was something else. I absolutely fell in love with the man but…when we ended our relationship, he broke a part of me that no man has ever been able to fix. That doesn’t stop him from getting on his Harley and driving all the way down here for his tats, though. Every one on his body, I did personally.”

  Linx listened to the women’s conversation, ignoring the slight pain as Loire finished up. He looked down at her handy work, confused as to why she’d included an ampersand above his name, leaving enough space for someone’s name.

  “You’re going to want that filled in one day, trust me. The way I did it will make it easier for me to finish it, when the time comes.”

  He shrugged nonchalantly and mumbled, “Fat chance.”

  Loire bandaged his tat and he stood, freezing to watch as Trista removed her dress. She wore a pair of black lacey panties and a bra, but it wasn’t much different from seeing her in a bikini. When she undid her bra and let it fall to the floor, he couldn’t stop staring and struggled to keep his jaw from hitting the floor.

  Her skin was olive and silky, her breasts perfect and round with small areolas and pale pinkish-brown nipples that pebbled from the coolness of his house.

  “Where should I get comfortable?” she questioned Loire.

  “Linx, make yourself useful and get the portable table out of my Expedition.”

  Her words broke through and his eyes wandered up to Trista’s eyes. She was glaring at him like he had three heads. “What’s the matter? I’m sure you have seen more than your fair share of breasts. She can’t do my tattoo if I have my bra on. You’re a grown American male—I thought you would be a bit more mature about this. Instead, you’re acting like a teenage boy who is glimpsing his first pair of tits in real life.”

  Linx felt his face flood with color as he blushed and Loire tossed him the keys to her SUV. As he walked out of the living room, he could hear their laughter and for some reason her reaction to his gaze upset him.

  He knew from talking to her that she wasn’t a vestal virgin but he didn’t think she would be so wonton about her sexuality either. He had to keep reminding himself that she had grown up in a mostly male environment where nudity didn’t mean anything. It’s not like she would be getting frisky with him after her tattoo anyway.

  Perhaps that’s what had him so bothered. The whole “look but don’t touch” vibe was pissing him the fuck off. She was in his home. Who the fuck did this chick think she was?

  Chapter Thirteen

  I ADMIT THAT stripping the way I did was a bit bold, and maybe even downright mean, but it was totally worth it when Linx turned beet red. I’d seriously thought that since he’d seen so many pairs of tits on tour that mine would barely be noticed. Obviously, this wasn’t the case and I felt bad as he stormed out.

  “I suppose maybe I should put my bra back on. I don’t want him mad at me for pulling a stupid little stunt I thought he would find hilariously cheesy on my part.”

  Loire rolled her eyes. “Linx is usually the cool cucumber of the group. He’s got the major hots for you. How old are you again? Sixteen? Seventeen? It’s a dangerous game you’re playing, baby girl—”

  “I’m eighteen.” I crossed my arms, covering my naked breasts. “I have never dated a guy my age. My ex was twenty-two and I thought he would be okay with seeing me half-naked. I suppose I probably come off looking like some kind of skank but…I really want this tat to be perfect and I am not as modest about my body as I should be.”

  “You’re fine, as long as you’re legal.”

  Our conversation ceased the minute Linx walked back in with a fold-over contraption that resembled a picnic table. He set it up, not saying a word, and I couldn’t help but continuing to cover my breasts with my arms until he was finished and I could finally lie down.

  The table had a pillow-top type of foam which was comfortable, yet firm. I could easily lie on my stomach comfortably; my breasts hopefully out of sight and out of mind.

  Lo
ire began to sterilize her equipment and set up for my session, when I looked down at bare feet and a hand that held a double shot of amber liquid.

  I glanced up at Linx, keeping my chest pressed firmly to the table-bed. “What’s that for?”

  “It’s going to take a while for your tattoo. She might have to do it in two sessions since it’s almost midnight. It’s going to hurt like a son of a bitch because she will be pressing against bone. Do you have a high tolerance for pain?”

  I thought about his words, thinking I was pretty chicken shit when it came to pain, both emotionally and physically. Especially seeing as how I’d numbed myself with scotch and Xanax for the last six weeks.

  “Not really,” I responded, grabbing the glass and downing it in two long swallows. It was foul and certainly not scotch.

  “What in God’s name is that? It tastes awful.” I made a face of disgust and had him hand me what was left of my Heineken.

  “Are you insulting Jack Daniels? It’s some of the best American whiskey ever made.”

  I met his blue eyes and we stared one another down. “Yes, I have had Jack Daniels before, but I still think it’s foul. I don’t usually drink whiskey. When I’m in the mood for hard alcohol, I drink scotch—Macallan to be precise.”

  He whistled in a way that I knew was deliberately mocking me, because it got his mind off seeing my goodies. I let him get away with it since I couldn’t imagine the humiliation I’d already put him through.

  “I didn’t realize you were a woman with such expensive tastes. Beats the hell out of my ex-wife but we’ll just leave that subject alone.”

  Although he was a rock star, he certainly wasn’t a man-whore and seemed to enjoy staying in the background. He also didn’t come across as the attention seeking type. Fans of Linx liked him because he was dark, brooding and seemed serious more often than not.

  It was rumored that he wasn’t into random groupies and that he rarely took a woman to bed unless he liked her as a person. There was still hope left in the world, when a man like Linx had some respect for women, and didn’t think we were only good for what was between our legs or on our chests.