Badd Mojo Read online

  I heard my part in my head, a quick looping series of chords that would circle around Canaan's melody. I hunched over the ukulele and strummed the first chord, went immediately into the second, strummed there a few times in a quick rhythm, and went back to the first chord, then the second. I strummed but the next time I did this, it was in a lower key, and Canaan provided a harmonic counterpoint as he peeled out another long quavering high hum. We didn't have to talk about it, we didn't consult. This was improv, and I'm at my best when I'm improvising. I feel the music, hear the next part in my head...I can almost taste the notes as they flow through me, almost see them; I've always wished I could have synesthesia, the ability to see sound as colors. As Canaan ran with his riff--hammering on from note to note in slow, sliding progressions--I continued my looping series of chords, dropping my register when he went up, going up when he went down, my ukulele creating a skirling counterpoint to his guitar's slow wail.

  There was still something missing, though. What was it?

  Ah, there it was--I felt it, and since we were alone and just jamming, I went with it, let it out.

  I started humming, a low note at the bottom of my vocal range, soft, quiet. And then, as we kept playing and our counterpoint harmony increased in intensity, his notes coming faster together, my chords skirling faster and faster around his, I let my voice creep higher and higher, louder and louder, from a hum to a vocalization, from a vocalization to a wail. It built and it built, until Canaan wasn't just hammering on from note to note but shredding now, and my fingers were flying on the fretboard, strumming as fast as I could, holding a long high howling wail. I was rocking on the stool as I held the note, strumming hard, fingers aching as I danced from chord to chord in an absolute frenzy, faster than I've ever played.

  We held the frenzy, carried it to its absolute maximum, and then Canaan glanced at me, nodding once, twice, and a third time--on the third nod, we both silenced our instruments.

  And just stared at each other, stunned at what we'd just done.

  "Holy shit, Aerie."

  "Uh, yeah."

  "That was..." He shook his head, at a loss for an accurate description of his feelings.

  "It felt like sex," I blurted.

  "Exactly." He stared hard at me. "But not just any sex."

  "Really crazy intense sex," I added, "where it's so good you're just sort of stunned stupid at the end."

  His gaze didn't waver from mine. "So, in other words, like every time we have sex?"

  "Jamming together felt like fucking, for you?" I held his gaze in turn.

  "Yeah, it kind of did." He tilted his head side to side. "But...more intense, in some ways."

  "How?"

  "Music is...it's deeply, intensely personal. For me, at least. Playing like that with you, it...it felt like sharing something unique."

  "You jam with Corin all the time," I said, trying to not let this conversation go where it felt like he was taking it; I didn't want it to go there because I doubted he was going to say what I wanted to hear, and I didn't want to feel the hurt and disappointment I knew was waiting for me on the other side.

  "Yeah, but that's different. He's my brother and my twin, and you of all people know how that's different, Aerie."

  "Yeah, but--"

  "With you, it was...cathartic, and...exhilarating. With him it's just comfortable and familiar." He broke the stare, glancing down as he idly fiddled with his whammy bar. "With you it's...I went to a different place, mentally, emotionally."

  "I did too."

  He glanced up at me again. "Aerie, I--" he broke off, sighing in frustration, his eyes searching mine. I could see a billion different thoughts and emotions rippling across his expression, none of which he seemed capable of verbalizing.

  "Don't, Canaan," I said, my voice low, almost a whisper. "Not right now."

  "Don't what?"

  I plucked a string. "Don't go there. Not yet."

  "Why not? I thought you'd want--"

  I interrupted him. "I do, but not now. With everything that's going with Corin and my sister, plus my mom, I just...it'd be too much."

  "I don't want you to think I'm not--that I don't--"

  "Canaan." I reached out and put my finger to his lips, silencing him. "Shush, okay? Play about it, if you need to get it out right now. We'll talk...just later."

  It was odd; that I was the one avoiding the conversation he was stumbling into. But...it was obvious to me that he hadn't really thought this through; that he hadn't come to grips with his feelings. He still needed time. And, honestly, so did I. Yes, I wanted more with him, but I wanted it to happen in a way that would set us up for long-term success. Stumbling into things blindly would just create more trouble.

  Best to stick to having earthshaking sex mostly devoid of intense emotional connection. I mean, don't get me wrong, there was a very real and very undeniable bond between Canaan and me. There were very real emotions in our sexual relationship. But it was all...subsurface, so to speak. Unexplored. Unspoken. Buried deep.

  Truth be told, I was afraid.

  Of Canaan. Of the connection. Of us. Of us not panning out.

  See...down deep, in my heart of hearts, I'm a romantic. But I'm always the pragmatic one between Tate and me, the less outwardly emotional one. The thinker and planner versus Tate's reactionary, put everything out there, seat of her pants personality. Tate is fiery and fierce and not just a little crazy, and a lot impulsive--obviously, seeing as she's pregnant. Me? I tend to stay in my head more than I should. I overthink things. I keep my emotions pinned down inside me.

  It's weird, though. Because Tate is emotional and crazy, but when it comes to the deep stuff, she doesn't ever deal with it. I may be outwardly emotional in a crisis or something, but I still deal with my shit. I cry when I need to cry. Tate lets it all build up until she has this epic blowup, whereas I tend to blow up in the moment. After Tate has her explosion, she's done and over it, whereas my explosion is just the start of me spending hours, if not days, running the situation in my head over and over and over again.

  It's complicated, is what I'm saying.

  I'm emotional, but I'm also not.

  God, boys are right--we are complicated.

  Canaan was watching me as all this flitted through my head, my finger still on his lips, our eyes locked, searching each other.

  "Okay." He nodded, sighing. "Fine. Talk later, play now." He grabbed my finger and playfully bit down on my fingernail.

  Which was hot...providing a nice little distraction.

  "Canaan, it's not that I--"

  He put his finger on my lips. "Now who's trying to talk about things? I thought you wanted to jam instead of jabber?"

  I grabbed his hand, keeping my eyes on his and, with excessively over the top eroticism, slid his finger into my mouth. I pursed my lips around his digit, and we mimicked oral sex.

  "Goddammit, Aerie..."

  I licked his fingertip before letting him take his finger back. "What?" I asked, playing coy.

  "Now I'm horny."

  "We literally just fucked, Canaan. Like, less than an hour ago."

  "And when you suck on my finger like that, it makes me horny all over again."

  "It does?" I asked, pretending innocence. "And why would that be, do you think?"

  "Because you sucking on my finger makes me want you to suck on my cock, Aerie, that's why."

  "Oh." I set the ukulele aside. "I see."

  "You see?" He played a little riff, absentmindedly noodling. "What is it you see, Aerie?"

  "I don't know, Canaan. What is it you think I see?" I stood up, prowling toward him.

  He stood up, backing away from me toward the door to the studio, and I followed him; his guitar's cord was long and curly, like an old-school telephone cord, long enough that he could walk across the entire studio and lock the front door so no one could interrupt us. He eyed me as I stalked toward him, communicating my arousal in the spark of my eyes and the sultry sway of my hips.

/>   His casual noodling turned into him playing a song, which took me a moment to recognize as "Closer" by Nine Inch Nails. We shared a grin at his choice of song as I stopped inches from him.

  "I think you see that when you look at me like that, you make my cock so hard it hurts." He tilted his guitar away from his body.

  I dropped my gaze to his zipper, which was straining, bulging. "I see." I sank to my knees, staring up at him. "You know what I see?"

  He kept playing "Closer."

  "What do you see?"

  "A painfully hard cock in desperate need of a good sucking."

  "Is that so?"

  "Do you know the words to that song you're playing, Canaan?"

  "Sure. It was one of the first songs I learned how to play and sing at the same time, just because it was so dirty and I was thirteen."

  "I'd love to hear you sing it to me, then." I licked my lips as I teased him, tracing the zipper with my fingernail. "Serenade me while I suck your cock."

  "For real?"

  I flicked open the fly of his jeans and slowly lowered the zipper. "Do I look like I'm joking?"

  He tightened the strap of his guitar so it was higher up and tight against his body. "Holy shit, Aerie."

  I tugged his tight black jeans down his thighs and then his underwear. "That's not how the song goes, Canaan."

  "Okay, okay, um..." He breathed out a shuddery breath as I palmed his length. "'You let me violate you...'"

  He sang the intro as I fisted his length a few times, and then, when he started the first verse, I took him into my mouth, swirling my tongue around the plump head.

  "Mmmm--" This was a sound of surprise from me as I backed away. "You taste like latex and semen."

  He was strumming, in between verse and chorus. "I'm...sorry?"

  "You have alcohol upstairs?" I asked.

  He nodded. "Sure. Some vodka, I think."

  "Then I'll just have to rinse the taste out of my mouth with some vodka while you return the favor."

  "Sounds--ohhhhh shit--sounds good..."

  The oh shit was because I had, without warning, returned his thick, straining cock to my mouth, taking him as deep as I could all at once. He was game, though, and kept playing and singing. The fact that he was struggling to keep his thoughts together, struggling to remain coherent as I went down on him honestly only heightened the intensity of his performance of the song. He was pausing now and then to suck in sharp breaths, letting them out in long gusty sighs before going back to singing, and occasionally he'd stutter over the lyrics, or stumble as he devolved into groaning.

  I was watching him, watching his face as I pumped his cock at the base, watching his expression shift with his emotions. Canaan was normally pretty hard to read since, like me, he tended to keep his emotions off of his face. Now though, I could read him easily.

  I mean, obviously the primary thing he was feeling was pleasure, seeing as I had my mouth around his cock. But beyond that was a myriad of other emotions. He kept playing, his eyes closed as he sang the second verse, and then he started the chorus and his eyes snapped open, and his gaze was intense, fierce, hungry, and each word of that chorus he was singing directly to me, for me, meaning each and every word.

  You know the song--turn it on and listen to it, and picture this:

  Me, on my knees. My hands around Canaan's long thick perfect cock, stroking him slowly as I wrapped my mouth around the tip, tongue circling. Imagine Canaan, a guitar in his hands, fingers playing that low, snarling, erotic, driving riff, staring down at me, singing those beautifully raw and delightfully dirty lyrics to me, but you have to hear his voice, rough and straining, gasping here and there as I took him deeper and sucked harder, the raw power of his voice compelling in its vulnerable intensity.

  Picture him, tattoos on his arms shifting as he played, lip ring glinting as he sang, septum moving with the rhythm of his head as he nodded to the beat. Picture him staring down at me, willing me to hear in him singing more than just the words. Chocolate-mocha puppy-dog eyes piercing and hot, long brown hair thick and glossy and loose.

  Picture me, both hands fisted around his cock, stroking faster and faster beneath my mouth, then letting go to claw my fingernails down his hairy, muscular thighs. Picture me, taking him into my throat and backing away again and again, eyes turned up to watch him as I slid the upper few inches between my lips, over and over again, sucking, cheeks hollowing.

  Canaan was growling the lyrics, the final chorus, as I brought him closer and closer, until he was gasping and his hips were driving and he was stuttering over the final repetition of the chorus.

  "Aerie..." he breathed.

  And then he came.

  I pumped him slowly through his orgasm, cheeks hollowing, throat working as I swallowed his cum. Canaan was holding back, wanting to fuck my mouth, but stopping himself. I wondered if I should tell him, sometime, that I secretly want him to stop holding back, to give me his wild side, his rough and uncouth and dirty side. Oh, we get plenty dirty together, but he's always considerate, to a degree. As nasty as we can be together, there's an element of restraint to the way he fucks me.

  And I want that edge gone.

  But I don't know how to tell him that.

  I've been trying to communicate that without words, in the way I am with him.

  But...he hasn't picked up on it.

  I need to just tell him.

  God, there seems to be a running theme here, doesn't there?

  3

  Canaan

  * * *

  Aerie Kingsley is fucking complicated. I mean, all chicks are confusing, but Aerie? Sometimes she gets me so mixed up I don't know whether I'm coming or going. I know she's on edge about our relationship, about what our relationship is. Is it just sex, or something else? It's not just sex, and it never has been. But she's...shit, not closed off, because it's easy to tell when she's upset, but it's not always easy to figure out what she's upset about. Did I do something wrong? Am I leading her on? Is it nothing to do with me? Is it everything to do with Corin and Tate, which affects her as much as it does me? There are so many factors, and I don't know how to parse any of them. I know I like her, a fucking lot. I know sex with her is very literally life-changing. As in, I don't think I could ever fuck another woman without comparing her to Aerie, and that comparison would always leave the other woman coming up seriously short.

  But does that equate to...

  Love?

  Shit, it's hard to even think about that. Love? Am I in love with Aerie? I don't know--I don't think so. But what if I am, and I just don't recognize the symptoms? I don't know how to be in love. Being in love means, like, I have to put her first in my life, and I'm not ready for that kind of responsibility. That's a fucking lot, man, a person all wound up and tangled in and woven into my entire life?

  But if there were anyone who could be that, it would be Aerie.

  If I can see that as being possible with her, doesn't it mean that this is what it is?

  I see her looking at me strangely, sometimes. Waiting, expectant. Is she waiting for me to tell her I love her? I tried to talk about our relationship, and she shut it down. She wanted nothing to do with that conversation. Which is another confusing thing, because don't all chicks always want to talk about the state of relationships? Okay, shut up, I know--that's a gross generalization and unfair and chauvinistic of me to even think that. Right?

  I'm an ass.

  But it is weird that she seems to be waiting for something from me, but when I try to instigate a conversation to get at what she wants and what she's expecting and what we are, she avoids it.

  She didn't just shut down the conversation--she shunted us away from talking altogether and into sex. And not just sex, but a blowjob.

  I love getting BJs. I mean, duh, I'm a dude--I'll never turn down a BJ, like ever. But I'm also a thousand percent aware that her giving me a blowjob doesn't provide sexual gratification for her in any way. Sure, maybe she might get a thrill out o
f it, might enjoy in an arousing sort of way my visceral response to what she's doing to me--god knows she can suck me senseless and leave me gibbering and incoherent by the time she's finished. But her going down on me when I tried to bring up our relationship, especially after Tate and Corin's...announcement...and the blowup with Rachel, and the whole but Daddy I love him thing. Yes, I know, it was her mom, not her dad, but the movie trope is but Daddy I love him--

  Yeah...that was classic avoidance via sexual distraction.

  I benefitted from it--case in point, I'm currently incapable of speech, because Aerie blew me so good my brain isn't firing on all cylinders just yet. My mind is spinning and stuttering and wobbling, and wandering.

  Aerie is still on her knees in front of me, staring up at me, probably wondering what's going through my head. My jeans are still around my knees, and my guitar is still humming through the amp. She's got a droplet of cum dribbling down from the corner of her mouth. Her hair, long and blonde and loose around her shoulders, is a cascade of sunshine, and her eyes are soft and green with hints of amber in streaks around the edges of her irises. She's wearing work clothes: tight faded blue jeans and a black Badd's Bar & Grill T-shirt, with a pair of well-worn sneakers. No makeup--or minimal makeup, at least--just a pair of small diamond studs in her ears, fingers bare of rings, no tattoos, just her flawless skin.

  She's so beautiful that when I look at her I sometimes forget what I'm saying, what I'm doing. Like right now, I am still brainless from the orgasm she sucked out of me, and stunned silly at how fucking gorgeous Aerie is.

  I push off the door, pull myself together, and let my guitar sling around behind my back, then bend to lift her to her feet. I keep my eyes on hers as she rises to stand in front of me, tension crackling between us. I want to bear down with all the questions I have, but I don't. She's chosen to avoid, so I let her avoid. Also, I'm not ready any more than she is.

  Instead, I lifted my thumb and smeared away the droplet on her cheek; Aerie smirked, licking the drop off of my thumb with an erotic swipe of her tongue.