“She coming?” I hear the muffled question.
“Obviously,” Mackenna rumbles. They laugh. I can still hear him under my ear. Between my legs, I tingle harder.
“Might not be such a good idea. The girls are plotting her murder.”
“Bah. This one could chew them up and spit them out,” Mackenna says.
I can’t figure out if he’s insulting me or not. Is he taking my side instead of his floozies’? Something inside me feels warm, but I quell it. It’s been too long since we were friends. Sure, we had a closet make-out, but that was crazy. Lunacy. An animal moment. Currently, I’m too weak to fight the pull of his hand. I can’t get up, but the fact that I’m right here doesn’t mean we’re okay.
I drift off again, thinking about his name. His name means “son of the handsome one.” I looked it up when I was young because everyone made fun of my name.
I’m familiar with Pandora and her mistake—letting all kinds of bad shit into the world when she opened the box. I’ve always been at war with my name. I’m angry at it because, right away, it makes me think I can never be really good. I’m a jinx. I cause bad shit and represent nothing lucky, I suppose. But him? He’s this rock god. Son of the handsome one. All my feelings return to my body in a flash when I realize he’s brushing his mouth over mine.
What’s he doing? Stop him!
My body seizes as my brain shouts the command, and I make an inventory check and hear plane motors. He’s tonguing me now. I feel his tongue in my body, a body that was last used by him. And his mouth was last used by me.
I want to get angry, but I’m too busy lying here, absorbing this kiss that’s almost like the kiss in all Magnolia’s fairy tales. She doesn’t believe in fairy tales, she says, but the truth is, I do. Now Mackenna is the villain in my story and the reason I should’ve become a lesbian. If only my body had gone along with the plot.
But now he’s kissing me like he’s enjoying me. He probably got horny and decided I was handy. I stiffen at the thought and try to pull away, when a hand cradles the back of my head to prevent me. He whispers, “Shh. I’m just tasting you.” Languorously, he fits his lips harder to mine, his mouth moving.
“You need to drug your women to kiss them,” I slur as he continues rubbing his tongue to mine.
“Just the wild ones like you,” he gruffly teases.
I cannot process. I cannot control myself when he teases me—I’ve always liked it because it makes me smile, and I never smile. He tastes good, like whiskey and lazy, cocky male. I never thought lazy, cocky male could taste so good, or that being relaxed would make me savor lazy, cocky male even better than when I am on full alert. I can’t comprehend what’s going on. The things awakening in my body. The hole in my chest suddenly feeling full.
Protests form in my brain, but they don’t reach my tongue because his slick, warm, whiskey mouth is caressing it.
He’s toxic for me, and I can’t pull away. Instead, I’m rubbing my tongue against his slowly, savoring him. When I tell myself, Enough! and edge back, he follows me and croons, “Shh, relax your mouth, baby. Let me in.”
He shifts so I can feel it—the bulge between his legs. I suddenly want it feverishly, but to my despair, I hear snickering. Then I hear him ask the flight attendant for a blanket. I didn’t even realize they still had those, but I feel him cover me. The drug is still heavy in my system and I try to open my eyes, but before I can look into his face, his lips cover mine. “How could I forget for a moment what you tasted like . . . how addictive you are . . . ,” he whispers to me. He’s devouring me with lazy abandon. He cups one breast under the blanket. I don’t know what I’m doing.
Yes I do.
No I don’t.
Yes I do.
My mouth is moving faster, and his rhythm matches mine as he thumbs one nipple. Years of repressed longing seem to flood my body and energize my mouth. Nothing has ever tasted as good as him. Nothing.
The way he felt last night crashes over me, and suddenly I’m the one kissing him back with abandon. He groans. The sound reverberates inside me. “God, that’s right. Want me, Pink? Want this? Fuck the rest. Let’s have fun. Just you and me.”
His voice jerks me back to the present.
Fun?
The pain of losing him hits me full force.
Using all the force I can muster, I edge back, wiping my mouth angrily. He looks at me and blinks as if dazed from our kiss, and we both survey each other’s mouths. He looks openly ravenous, but I’m still trying to decide how I feel. Trying to find my usual anger.
“The cameras just caught that,” I say.
“Yeah, couldn’t be helped.” He eyes my mouth again, smirking in obvious satisfaction. “You were too tempting, Pink. You smell like fucking coconut, and I haven’t smelled that in years.”
I scowl. “You’re just a pervert posing as a rockstar to hide your love of bras.”
We land. I try to reach upward for my carry-on, but he takes care of it for me. His T-shirt lifts as he pulls our shit out of the top compartment, and I can see his abs and the tattoo on the inside of his arm. It says something I don’t understand.
“What does that tattoo mean?”
He quirks one eyebrow and says nothing as his eyes move to my mouth. “Says I’m a dickhead. You know, if that mouth doesn’t look well kissed, then my name is not Mackenna.”
I’m waiting for the indignation to come, but I’m still so relaxed, it doesn’t.
“No.” I walk silently next to him. His actions have touched places I never expected. I open my mouth and hear myself admitting, “It must be nice to make a difference in someone’s life.”
He stares straight ahead and keeps his voice low while the camera crew follows the entire band and the bodyguards struggle to keep the fans at bay. “It used to be what fed me . . .”
“But?”
“But it stopped filling me up and started draining me instead. Pretty soon you’re walking with a hole in your gut, singing songs you can’t hear anymore.”
I remain quiet, a strange hurt inside me. I want it to be easy to blame him for leaving me, but he had a dream to chase and I couldn’t expect to be his everything. I want to hate him because he hurt me, but he seems so human that I can’t do anything but stay quiet and absorb the way he’s making me feel right now.