Hammers, Strings, and Beautiful Things Read online

  When our fingers interlocked for the first time, I could feel my insides ready to burst. I should have just kissed her. I mean, she laid out all the clues face-up as if showing off her royal flush, knowing she was going to win the whole pot. She was in her robe with nothing underneath, and I was one knot away from seeing what I could only imagine was the most beautiful naked body—toned from yoga and dancing, with pores cleared from clary sage. All I had to do was roll over and kiss her, but knowing that all the pressure and control was on me, I froze. Was it because I’d never made a move before? Was that the real reason why girls kissed me first? Because this whole time, I’d thought it was because I didn’t have to try, and instead, I really was just too much of a coward to do it myself, and those girls knew it, so they had no other choice but to kiss me?

  She clasped my fingers tighter as her forehead pressed between my shoulder blades. I knew if I didn’t take advantage of this moment, I’d be walking into Madison Square Garden the next day—the most famous arena in the world—beating myself up because I didn’t kiss her when the perfect opportunity presented itself. My mind would be more wrapped up in blaming myself for missing an opportunity to kiss her than taking in every moment I should while performing in front of a sold-out Garden. I’d rather have my mind clouded with the wonderful feeling of her lips dancing on mine than the ghost of them.

  I flipped over to face Reagan. Through the darkness, I watched as her eyes narrowed on me as if I was the only thing in the room. I looked down at her full, kissable lips, then at her collarbone and where the robe met in front of her chest.

  Don’t overthink. Just do what you want to do.

  I grabbed the robe, feeling the soft Egyptian cotton in between my fingers as they slowly trailed down the hem toward her breasts, barely grazing her skin. “I liked your song choice last night,” I said softly.

  “Oh, you did?”

  Instead of full confidence embodying her tone, it sounded like it wilted down to half. Darkness blanketed us, a romantic view of the city adding speckles of light outside. Our faces were mere inches from each other, and the more I felt the robe in between my fingers, the more the silence pushed itself into bed with us.

  “Yeah. I liked both song choices, actually,” I admitted. “They were pretty direct.”

  “I feel like I have to be direct with you.”

  “You do? Why?”

  “Because I’m lying here in my bed, completely naked underneath this robe, and you still haven’t kissed me yet.”

  My heart actually skipped a beat. It stuttered multiple times in a row, and in that moment of stuttering, my brain and stomach did a synchronized flip like Olympian divers off the ten-meter platform.

  I finally reached the knot in front of her stomach and began untying it. Slowly. Because she had no problem going slow with me. “Because you never answered my question.”

  “What question?”

  “The one I asked you after the Nashville show.”

  The knot fell open, and I glided my hands onto her warm, naked skin. At the touch, I heard her suck in a gasp. I felt the little abs as I slid my hand down her flat stomach to her upper thigh. Just doing that, the air around me heated considerably.

  “And I responded with two weeks’ worth of cuddling,” she said, and I could feel her tense up as if holding in any other gasps that needed to come out. “Thinking that maybe one of those nights, you would actually do something and make a move.”

  I stopped exploring her skin. “Seriously? It was all on me?”

  “Hey, you were the one who proposed it.” The tension evaporated from her tone, and full confidence took over. “Like, I know for a fact now that I’m going to die alone because I’ve, like, aged twenty years just waiting for you to make a—”

  I jumped on top of her pelvis, pinning her to the bed. She finally stopped yapping and looked up at me with shock. Thank God. Reagan Moore stopped running her mouth. To reward her, I let the robe fall to her sides, finally revealing her beautiful body, and I reminded myself that I needed to keep breathing if I wanted to enjoy more of her. But it was so hard to when so many things were happening in my stomach, and I couldn’t focus on what to take in first. Her perfect breasts that I knew would fit right into my palms. Her perfect stomach. Her perfect collarbone. God, how was someone this beautiful? I had no idea.

  I moved my hands up her stomach to her chest so I could skim my thumbs over her nipples, and her breasts did fit perfectly in my palms. Gently. Slowly. Her nipples hardened against my fingers as I traced the tops of them. I swear, all Reagan had to do was lie there naked, her stare tracking mine wandering over every inch of her body. She elicited a rush that made me shiver, and she hadn’t even undressed me yet.

  She reached for my T-shirt and slid her hand underneath so her fingertips ran along the waist of my shorts. Closing my eyes, I pulled in my lips and released a pleasured sigh, trying to revel in the wonderful and thrilling anticipation of the first kiss. She pulled my shirt toward her, and I lowered myself on top of her, studying the way her eyes begged me to stop teasing and to finally kiss her. But I wasn’t done taking her in yet. Someone as beautiful as her needed to be appreciated.

  Patience.

  I could feel her nipples pressing into my shirt, and God, did I want my shirt off so I could fully enjoy the touch of them against my own. My cheek moved hers to the side so I could finally kiss the soft skin of her neck. Inhaling the clean smell of the body wash, I worked my way up her neck, nibbling, running my tongue in circles, and then moved to the other side of her neck to do the same thing. Her hands clasped on to my back, and with one suck at the right spot, a muted moan stopped at her tightly closed lips as her fingers dug into my back.

  My heart raced as I kissed underneath her ear and then her cheek and then finally her lips. Those lips I spent weeks fantasizing about every night finally kissed me back. My whole body ignited like I’d taken a drug I’d never tried before, a drug forever superior to all the ones I had. The kiss quickly turned passionate, picking up aggression and speed, proof of how ravenous we were for each other. Feeling her tongue against mine sent a sharp warmth to my center. She breathed a faint moan into me, and hearing the sound of pleasure coming from her forced me to position my leg in between hers to elicit more. That was when she aggressively pulled my shirt over my head as if it was the most insulting thing she’d ever touched. Finally, I was topless, and wasting no time to close the gap so my nipples could meet hers, and God, her warm skin touching mine was even better than I imagined. I found her lips again and sucked in her bottom lip before caressing my tongue with hers, feeling how much we needed each other with every movement. Her fingers slipped into my hair and firmly held a bunch of it, demanding me to continue kissing her and welcoming the subtle, undulating rocking my waist made against hers. Her tongue trailed across my bottom lip before sucking it into the grip of her teeth, and the feeling her kiss injected into me was something so wonderful and warm and rousing, I had no idea what to do with all the feelings raging inside me other than to pull my mouth away from hers so I could kiss all the other parts of her body. Because it needed to be done.

  My chest burned with all these different desires: all the ways my hands wanted to touch her, all the ways my lips wanted to kiss her, and all the ways I wanted to move my body against hers. As I thought about the infinite possibilities, I went straight for the source that spiraled a jolt of electricity through my whole body, her breasts. I took them into my mouth and lightly sucked on each until my suction pulled a moan out of her, and then I moved to the next one to do the same thing. With each movement my mouth made, her head tilted back a little more into her pillow, and she let out sighs while her nails raked along my back.

  “Blair,” she muttered through a moan. I glanced up at her, and she clasped desperately on to my face. “I really need you. Right now.”

  “Patience. I’m busy.”

  “I’ve been patient. For seven months. And then some.”

  “You ne
ed to be properly warmed up.” I lifted upward to kiss her collarbone while I played with her hard, protruding nipple. “I gotta fuck you right.”

  She let out an erotic whine and then tossed her arm over her eyes in defeat. I kissed her body from her neck to the valley of her breasts down to her flat stomach, and then slid my tongue across her waistline. At that, the fist she had in my hair became tighter, and her whole body relaxed.

  I drew circles around the fabric of her underwear, teasing down to her center where I realized she wasn’t lying when she said she didn’t need to be warmed up anymore. Feeling the wetness I was shocked I could give her, I pressed my thumb into her, and her lips parted to expel a groan. Her fingers tightened in my hair as I bit the top of her underwear and used my hands to assist my teeth in taking them off. After I tossed her pink panties aside, I spread her legs open, positioned my body comfortably on the bed, and started kissing the inside of her thighs as each kiss led the way closer to her.

  And when I put my mouth on her, she let out a loud gasp, pulling my hair in the sexiest way, and her back arched off the mattress.

  I swirled my tongue in circles on her, alternating between motions and pressures, but each stroke generating a different sound and movement from her body. When I knew she was ready, I glided my fingers into her and felt myself become wetter the more I felt her. She secured my head right where she wanted me, and I relished each aroused cry and undulating movement against my mouth. The whole time I went down on her, I could hear my heartbeat drumming in my ears. My throat was so dry, the exact opposite of what was happening underneath my underwear. I felt insecure, even though the way her hips moved against my mouth, how her hand applied more pressure on the back of my head, how she breathed and vocalized her pleasure should have been an indication that there wasn’t a reason for me to be nervous or insecure.

  “Oh God,” Reagan belted out, and that plucked me away from worrying and back to the present.

  Her breaths got shorter. The movements of her hips became faster, circling around my mouth, searching for what she’d been needing for seven months. She clung to the headboard, and the sounds I was able to pull from her went straight to my center; it was almost as if she was pleasuring me through her noises. And just as I moved my fingers faster and sucked on her, she let out the release she’d been waiting for, the release I’d been waiting for. The sounds she made caused me to melt into her bed, and a part of me was disappointed that it was over because I wanted to listen to her longer. She shivered as she rode out the rest of her orgasm, until her body collapsed. I waited for her to gather her thoughts, kissing the inside of her thighs while I enjoyed the lingering, pulsating movements around my fingers still inside her.

  “Oh my God,” she said breathlessly while resting her hands on her forehead. “God. Seven months I’ve bottled that up.”

  “Hopefully, it was worth the wait?”

  “It was…it…yes…worth the wait.”

  “Let me do you again.”

  Her head tilted downward, and I had to admit that her gaze looking past her breasts and in between her legs was the best viewpoint a lesbian could ask for. I lightly kissed the top of her, wanting so badly to replay the last five minutes all over again.

  “But I want to do you—” she said.

  “No, I need to get you off about two more times. And prove to you I’m not a pillow princess.”

  She tossed her head back, acquiescing. “God, I’m gonna die tonight.”

  Her hand slipped through my hair and gently directed my head back down to her to shut me up. I loved how she still took the reins and told me what to do in the gentlest and not so gentle way. I could have melted and died at that point. She could direct my head wherever, and I would have equally been aroused.

  I gave her two more, and by the end of it, I couldn’t wait anymore. I swear one more moan from her or one more rock against my fingers and mouth, and I would have lost it.

  After I kissed from her center up her stomach and to her lips, she wrapped her sexy legs around my waist, flung me on my back, and stripped my underwear off. Then she paused. As her bare bottom sat on my pelvis and pinned me to the bed, her eyes took in my naked body, as if she really needed this moment before she could continue. The way she scanned my body sent a powerful hum to every nerve ending that comprised me. She reached for my dream catcher tattoo, and those delicate fingers sent chills all throughout me as she traced the feathers up to the dream catcher, where she drew invisible circles over the ink. Just as I closed my eyes to fully enjoy her touch, her fingertips went to my sleeve and skimmed along the designs of flowers and geometric patterns until they cut off at my shoulder. Her hand kept going, flattening so she could feel my collarbone and my neck that wouldn’t stop twitching from my pulse. Her palms ran across my breasts, slowly, going back to the nipples to feel them once more.

  “You’re really pretty,” she said so softly, and something inside me burst open, hearing the vulnerability in her voice. If I wasn’t already ready for her, that would have done it completely.

  “No, that’s all you,” I said, and once the words left my mouth, I hoped to God she couldn’t hear the subtle tremble in them.

  She shook her head and continued to wander all over my body. “Nope. You know I’ve always had a crush on you, right?”

  “What?”

  She nodded. “I mean, I always thought you were hot, and the fact that you’re so crazy talented made it better, but when I saw you again in Vegas, I felt like I couldn’t stop looking at you.”

  I was so glad it was dark in the room because my cheeks warmed up. I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact Reagan Moore thought I was attractive.

  “Kiss me,” I said and caved in to the overwhelming desire to kiss her.

  She lowered herself on top of me, and our naked tops met once again as she kissed my lips. As the kiss deepened, her bare center grinded against me. I could still feel her arousal as she rocked back and forth on my thigh, lighting me up in erotic shivers from the surface of my skin to my bones. Just a few moments of grinding against me, she knew I was ready. Her damp hair and sturdy lips trailed my skin until she finally made it past my stomach, my waist, and spread my legs apart.

  “Who would have ever thought that Ms. Insults was going to sleep with the very person she was insulting?” I said as Reagan kissed my inner knee.

  She pressed her thumb into my clit and triggered a surprised gasp to fly right out of me.

  “Fuck,” I yelled and tossed my head back into the pillow to surrender myself.

  “Do you ever shut up?” She rubbed circles on me as if it was my punishment for speaking out of turn. My fingers curled over the pillow. God, she was touching me. I didn’t have to fantasize about it anymore. She was touching me; she was sending warm shivers up me from the firm circles she pressed into me. “The noises I want to hear coming from you don’t involve words.”

  “I can give you that if you just go—”

  I sucked in my breath when her warm mouth took me in, and her tongue replaced her thumb, deepening the circles. After going down on her three times, my body had never been more ready. Moments later, another gasp left me when she slid her fingers inside me. Honestly, it didn’t take long for me to come. She knew exactly what she was doing, when to speed up, when to go harder, when to change up motions. It was as if my body and her mouth and fingers spoke the same language.

  Our bodies just fit together perfectly.

  And then I lay there, completely defeated, out of breath, and depleted from the release of all the frustration that had accumulated inside me. She kissed my inner thighs again before slowly inching up to me as her nipples grazed my skin.

  “There,” she said softly, and I could hear the smile in her voice. “Now you can talk.”

  I shook my head. “Can’t.”

  “Good. I did you right, then.”

  * * *

  I was up at the crack of dawn. Processing. There was a lot of processing. I guess we were a li
ttle too distracted to pull down the blinds to hide the morning sunlight that shone right on us. The rays pouring into the room streamed on Reagan’s face nestled on my right boob, arm across my stomach, and breathing the adorable heavy puffs she did in her sleep. As much as I wanted to enjoy her, my mind went straight to what today was. A sold-out Madison Square Garden show. The pinnacle of every musician’s dream. The most famous arena in the world. And I was playing on that stage tonight. Without my grandparents or my mom in attendance.

  The thought quickly made the bed uncomfortable, despite it being a king with a fresh duvet and the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. After an hour of twitching in my spot, I noticed that my lungs suddenly became smaller; the breaths became shorter. I darted into the bathroom, locked the door, and sat on the toilet, wrapping my hands around my head. A powerful heat overcame my body as the blood pounded in my ears and the anxiety snaked around my chest. It terrified me. I lost the ability to breathe regularly. I automatically started crying as I tried to keep my heart pumping, but it was as if my lungs wanted none of that.

  I flipped the faucet on and splashed my face a few times with cold water. When I saw myself in the mirror, it was like looking through a fish-eye lens. I blinked several times to push away this distorted reality feeling. Closing my eyes tightly, I leaned against the bathroom counter as I took deep breaths to familiarize myself to where I was—in the hotel bathroom, water dripping down my face, fingers wrapped around the sink counter—trying everything to slow my pulse to the right rhythm.

  It took a few moments to go back to a regular breathing pattern. I tiptoed out of the bathroom to find Reagan still passed out in the same position I’d left her in, which lifted one of the weights off me, knowing I didn’t have to explain myself.