He kissed her belly and then remained on the floor, resting his cheek on her as they both caught their breath.

  Harlow had to blink her eyes a few times to clear her vision after that climax roared through her system. Her limbs felt like noodles as she wiggled her toes to get the feeling back. Miles’s hair was soft and so very cool against the fingers of her left hand, still tangled in it.

  He rose and she watched as he stalked, naked and gorgeous and absolutely fucking hard, into the bedroom and then out again moments later holding a condom.

  Thank god.

  “Awesome. I’m not sure I could have walked that far,” she managed to say as he approached.

  The grin he gave her in response was wicked and it sent a chill—the good kind—down her spine.

  “Do you have the energy to bend over the back of the couch?” he asked, silky and really sexy.

  She managed to stand and move around.

  “The shoes put you at a perfect height,” he said as she listened to the rip of the condom wrapper and the crinkle and stretch as he pulled it on.

  He could have been giving a weather report and she’d still be panting, needing whatever it was he wanted to deliver. He drove her wild with the way he touched her, with the way he used a toe to spread her feet wider. The front of her body brushed against the nap of the couch fabric. Enough sensation to be nearly too much.

  “My hands smell like you,” he said as he lined up at her back and bent to kiss her where her neck met her shoulder. “I love it when I fuck you before we show up at the venue so I can have you all over me.”

  Wordless, she pressed back against him, wanting more.

  “Shhh,” he said, kissing her again. “Patience. We’ll get there.”

  She growled, hating to wait when his cock was just right there and ready to be in her. He traced through the folds of her pussy, and she squirmed, pushing back toward him.

  “Just wanted to be sure you were ready,” he said.

  As she was still wet after he’d gone down on her, she was quite sure she was more than ready, but it never hurt to double check.

  And then, blessedly, the head of his cock bumped against her, sliding slowly into her pussy as she breathed through it, stretching around him as he got all the way to the root and paused as they both got some control.

  “Nothing on earth feels this good. In you so deep, with your pussy so tight around me, so hot I’m scalded through the damned latex. Mmmm, perfect. I never want to leave.”

  When he withdrew a little, the bead on his piercing stroked over all her best, sensitive spots deep inside, sending little arcs of pleasure pinging through her system.

  She closed her eyes as she rested her cheek against the couch, holding on and bracing as he began to fuck her. First it was slow and so, so deep. The rhythm of it hypnotic. He petted his palms down her back and over her hips, gripping there as he sped slightly and made shorter digs of movement that seemed to spark up all the nerve endings inside her.

  “More,” she wheezed.

  He shifted a little, bending over her body a little more and it changed the angle slightly. Her eyelids flew open as she realized she was on her way to climaxing again. Twice in such a short period wasn’t usually this easy.

  Apparently, everything was easy when it came to Miles and his dick.

  Miles took one of her hands and led her to her pussy. “Make yourself come again, beauty.”

  She didn’t need to do much more than touch her clit with the tips of her fingers, letting him do most of the work as he continued to thrust into her.

  Harlow let her eyes drift closed again as she gave over to how good it was with the fat width of him so deep, with that piercing, with the way his muscled thighs felt against the backs of her own. He was so strong but she knew he’d never use that to hurt her. Would in fact go as far as he could in the opposite direction.

  “So close. I can feel your cunt gripping me tighter and tighter. You’re so wet, baby. It’s driving me to distraction.”

  His movements got a little less controlled and she knew he was close too. Concentrating, she tightened herself, working those inner muscles around him until he grunted, and she knew they were in a race to see who came first.

  The sight of those fingerprints where he gripped her hips while he fucked her made her lightheaded with delight.

  Orgasm built and began to yawn wide, sucking her in and with her, Miles as well. He pressed so deep she gasped, pinned between him and the couch as she came so hard she saw stars against her closed eyes and felt the jerk of his dick inside as he climaxed.

  He put an arm around her waist, pulling her back to the bedroom as he helped her onto the mattress and went to dispose of the condom before joining her.

  “Give me fifteen minutes and then I’ll make us drinks while you scoop us both some ice cream,” she said as she snuggled into his side.

  “You’ve got a deal.” He kissed the top of her head.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-TWO

  Harlow couldn’t stop smiling. She and Miles were on the back of a golf cart being driven through a large festival space to where her dad’s band had lunch set up.

  Metal festivals hadn’t changed much since she’d toured with her dad. The usual suspects of food and drink stands, of people everywhere dressed every which way. So much hair. “Best hair in the industry. Hands down,” she told Miles as they passed by a group of teenagers, some with hair to their asses, one with a mohawk, a wide variety of colors too.

  This had been her summer camp. Her weekends at the lake or a family reunion. “Being here just feels comfortable, you know?” she said to Miles.

  “When it’s not my band it feels like I’m at a theme park. I can dawdle here and there, see whoever I want. I know where everything is. Yeah, I totally get it. I feel the same.” He kissed the top of her head.

  “It is weird though that one of your godfathers is the lead singer of Dark Divine,” Miles said. She’d just told him that a few days prior when he’d made some comment about Marky Archer’s ability to hit those high notes and still be metal as fuck.

  Dark Divine had started playing shitty little clubs in Pittsburgh in the mid nineteen seventies and never stopped touring. Most rock bands playing there at the festival had been influenced by them in one way or another. Marky had seen something in Harlow’s dad, Richie and his band A Martin James Family Joint, AMJFJ as they more commonly went by, and had become a mentor of sorts. At first. But then, her dad and Marky had become close as brothers and he’d just been Uncle Marky to her.

  “My cousin Xander loves rock and roll and metal music. When I told him I was coming here today with you, he was so jealous,” Miles said.

  “Xander is the tattoo artist cousin, right? Erin’s son?”

  “Yes, that’s him. He’s ridiculously good at tattooing. My uncle Brody owns the shop Xander works at. He and another artist, Raven Warner, trained him from when he was like fourteen or so until now. He’s the one who’s doing this dragon.” Miles indicated his shoulder.

  “I’ll get him some tickets when the tour rolls through Seattle,” she told him.

  Miles’s wide open, happy smile was her prize for the offer. “Thanks. He’d love that. He wants to meet you. I’ve been texting him about you. He’s more like my little brother than a cousin. I tell him the good stuff.”

  “Aw.” She was the good stuff.

  They’d reached the tents where the different bands had set up to hang out or eat in, so Harlow began looking for her dad. She knew he’d have been told when they came through the gates and would be waiting outside for them. He did the same thing when she was coming to his house. It always said to her that he couldn’t wait to see her.

  And there he was. His formerly dark brown, waist length hair now trimmed short, shot with silver at his temples, he wore jeans and an Above Me tour t-shirt that had her grinning as hard as he was once he’d caught sight of their approach. He was, like the man at her side, a star. But more than that, he was her dad.

  She hopped down and skipped over into a big hug. “Punky, you’re here. I missed you,” he told her.

  “I missed you too,” she said as she squeezed him tighter for a few seconds more.

  He took a look at her and smiled. “You look good. Healthy. I’m glad you’re taking care of yourself.” He kissed her cheek and hugged her one more time.

  “You remember Miles.”

  They shook hands while her dad gave him the dad look. Friendly but also with an edge of parent who wanted to be sure this person would treat their baby well. “Hey, Miles, good to see you.”

  “Thanks for including me today.” Miles looked effortlessly cool. It was sort of annoying because she had to put a lot of effort into looking effortless and he just rolled out of bed that way.

  But he was also sweet and warm and good with people and her dad was smiling and looked relaxed, so there was that.

  “Come in. Lunch just got set up so we’re ready to go. I made everyone stay in here, so I got to hug you first,” her dad said as she was then hugged by a line of her honorary uncles.

  “Punky, you’re there in the middle of the table. Miles is on your left and I’m on your right. That way everyone is close enough to you to visit but I still get to be right next to you.” Her dad pulled a chair out and she sat in it, pulling it in herself.

  Soon enough, smoked meat sandwiches showed up with two different salads. This smoked meat thing was something she really liked about Canada.

  Once everyone started eating, her dad made them stop pelting her with questions. “Let her tell everyone at once. Go on, Punky,” her dad urged.

  She told them the song they’d just contracted for a movie, their gold record, singles charting and that they’d been added to two more summer music festivals in the U.S. and nearly cried at all the wonderful things they said in response.

  “Tell me good things about Harlow,” Miles asked everyone at the table, making them like him for it because they loved her too.

  “We all watched Harlow grow up,” Stuart, her dad’s closest friend, said. “Remember your gig out in San Bernadino? Still in high school if I remember correctly. Y’all were babies.”

  Miles turned to her. “God, let this be one of your stories,” he said crossing his fingers, making her laugh.

  “I don’t remember what the name of the festival was. We were still in high school and didn’t have licenses yet, so Marcella drove us.” Harlow and her dad both laughed at that. “It was hot as balls. Dusty. We were on the new talent stage at eleven in the morning or something like that. I think the crowd consisted of my dad and the band and a bunch of other dudes who were also dads and wanted to support us. Adorable.”

  “That was a very short story,” Miles said, disappointed.

  “Tell him the best part,” her dad said.

  She cocked her head, trying to remember anything notable other than being sixteen and having a bunch of dads rocking out to their music.

  “The thing you said to the guy from that other band. I can’t remember the name. Seems we’re both getting old, Harlow.”

  “Oh! That guy. I don’t know the name anymore. One of those names with the super fancy gothic looking fonts. Murder Stains or Satan’s Taint, whatever.” Harlow waved a hand because she did remember what her dad alluded to.

  “So, as I said it was the up-and-coming stage at a time most of the musicians weren’t even up. But lots of young bands were there and there was a strict timekeeper to keep things going or there’d have been nine minute guitar solos, and half the bands wouldn’t have been able to perform because everyone went over time.

  “Satan’s Taint played before us and went overtime. It was early enough in the day that the timekeeper dude wasn’t super grumpy yet, so he gave them two chances before he pulled the plug. No working mic, nothing. But there’s beef and the lead singer is yelling about being silenced and we’re just doing our thing. Roadies—not even theirs I don’t think—have shown up and are taking their gear away. There’s more whining and the other members of the band have accepted this and are off the stage.

  “We plug in because we deserve electricity, thank you very much. And then the lead singer comes up to me and tries to take my mic. I mean. Timekeeper is pissed and naturally the dad filled audience isn’t pleased and there’s rumbling and dad looks. I take my mic back. He wants to explain to me why he has been wronged like I wasn’t there when their band went six minutes over their time and wasn’t wasting our band’s time. Which I said to him and told him to back off or I’d back him off. Then he told me to calm down.”

  Harlow wanted to laugh at the gasps in the room. They’d all been there but they still knew what a thing it was to say to a woman.

  “So you did time for murder and didn’t tell me?” Miles teased.

  “Ha! No. I said into the microphone, when a man tells a woman to calm down, a deep, dark fissure to her meanest, angriest self gets opened up a little deeper. Do you want to be the one calm down that finally releases all that lava all over you? No? Don't tell women to calm down. Now get the fuck off this stage.” She shrugged, pleased by that memory. “Nora counted off and started playing and he slunk off.”

  “That’s my girl,” her dad said.

  Not too long before they had to leave, Miles got a chance to speak one on one with Richie, so he took it. He knew how much Harlow respected her father and he deserved that respect. Miles wanted Richie to like him and support his relationship with Harlow.

  Richie gave him a sideways look. “Tell me about the situation in Atlanta with Gloria. Jenna said very little, but that you’d been at a dinner where something terrible went down.”

  Miles shook his head. “No sir. I don’t think I can. You need to ask Harlow. She’s the one who needs to talk to you about it.”

  “She’s trying to protect me by not telling me a lot of very bad things that came her way from Gloria, isn’t she? I should have known. She was a terrible chapter in our lives, and I just wanted to close that book to protect us both.”

  Sure. Miles agreed that in retrospect Richie should have known. Should have pushed Harlow to tell him more. But Miles also heard the way the man spoke about his child. And he’d seen over and over how much he loved Harlow. Richie might have fucked up. But he did the best he could at that time, Miles was beginning to believe.

  But there was something there. Something more than Richie trying to protect his kid by pretending away the bad shit and being the best he could to make up for it. Miles could feel it. And it had to be connected in some way to whatever the hell had ended their marriage and had Gloria dumping Harlow off without looking back.

  “Look. You need to talk to Harlow about this. She’s on tour and you’re on tour, but at some point you both should sit down and talk,” Miles said trying to be careful. If he had said nothing, he’d have felt like he failed to protect Harlow. Richie needed to know the whole story about Gloria as a mom. And Richie needed to tell Harlow the whole story about his situation with Gloria too.

  Miles simply wasn’t willing to watch Harlow suffer for other people. She could get mad at him for it, but someone needed to put her first and if it was him, that was worth the fight they’d have over it.

  “That sounds ominous.”

  Miles thought hard about what to say. “I think you know there’s more to it than a bad dinner with Gloria. And of course she knows there’s more to this entire situation with Gloria than she’s been told by you. You’re both so important to the other you’re holding things back, thinking you’re protecting one another. Silence sucks, Richie. You know it. It’s hurting you both.”

  Richie clapped Miles on the back. “You care about her a lot.”

  “Yes. I’m in love with her.” Saying it out loud made it so much more real. But not scary. “That’s why I’m urging you to talk to her. I’ll tell you one thing, because it was between me and Gloria and your sons. I let her know that if she persisted in her bullshit to harm Harlow, I would take away everything she holds dear. And I will. Gloria is a bomb waiting to explode in Harlow’s face and the longer she doesn’t know the whole story, the greater the opportunity Gloria has to use it to hurt her.”

  Richie ran his hands over his face a moment. “Yeah, okay. You’re right. I want to ask you more about this, you know that right?”

  Miles laughed. “Yeah. I get it. I would too. And if it were up to me, I’d tell you everything. But you made Harlow into the person she is, and you know she’d skin us both. She already says I’m bossy because I do thinks like deal with the door when there’s a food delivery or whatever.”

  “You do that?”

  “Yes, sir I do. Not because I think she can’t do it herself. But because I can do it for her, and I like taking care of her. She doesn’t need to go answering a hotel room door to anyone she doesn’t know at some ungodly hour of the day.”

  “You’ll do just fine, Miles. I like you, kid. Don’t fuck my daughter over or dozens of metal dads will hunt you down and beat your pretty face in.”

  It wasn’t until they’d gotten back to the hotel that she turned to him. “What did you say to my dad?”

  He could have pretended he didn’t know what she meant, but he said, “I urged him to talk to you and be honest about the Gloria situation and to ask you himself about the dinner because he wanted to know more.”

  “I made it clear that I’d talk to him after he was off tour but now he wants to talk sooner.” She put her hands on her hips, her eyes flashing, mouth set and goddamn he wanted to kiss her.

  “He asked me a direct question. I told him he needed to speak to you. He’s not stupid. He loves you. He knows there’s something more going on with Gloria. Every day this goes on the potential for you to get hurt by some fucking secret is greater. Nora told me Gloria played the long game and she’s right. I don’t want this threat hanging over you.”