The Power to Break Read online

  I exhale all the anger inside me, but all it does is hang in the air around me. I breathe it right back in, and it settles in my guts like a bad rash.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  MACI

  I finally get up the nerve to open the door, and Griff was right. Ethan stands just outside it, one foot propped against the wall and a cigarette dangling from his lips as he taps away on his phone. He looks every inch the bad boy from my dreams as he stands there.

  He pulls the cigarette from his lips with a pinched thumb and forefinger. “What the fuck is going on with you?” he asks me, his voice tense and gruff with anger.

  I roll my eyes at him. “I have a sound check to get to.” I start to walk away from him, but he grabs my bicep before I can get away and pulls me back toward him roughly.

  “Answer my goddamn question.”

  I look him dead in those brilliantly blue eyes and say, “Fuck you.”

  He lets go of my arm and shakes his head. “Goddammit.” I start to walk away from him, and then I hear him mutter, “I don’t even know why I’m bothering.”

  I whirl around to face him. “You know what?” I ask, my voice probably much louder than it needs to be as we argue in a hallway where anyone could hear us. Maybe we’ll get real lucky and Maniac Mike will still be around to catch this exchange on video. “I don’t, either.”

  “This.” He says it like a sentence then motions between the two of us with his cigarette. The smoke wafts toward me, and I want to take a deep drag off it. “This bullshit right here is why I don’t do monogamy.”

  I’m at a crossroads. I can take the easy path and stay mad, or I can take the harder path, push him to his limit, and keep working toward the goal I set for myself.

  My answer is simple. I always work to reach my goals. It may kill a piece of me, but where Ethan is concerned, it’s killing a piece of me that was already dead.

  “Who was she?” I ask, my voice bitter. I don’t care. I don’t care. If I say it in my head enough times, it might be true. Except I do care, despite everything, and that’s why it cuts so damn deep.

  He scrubs a hand through the delicious scruff on his cheek. “Who was who?”

  “That girl getting off your bus this morning,” I say.

  We turn down a hallway and suddenly we’re backstage. I’m steps away from walking around the curtain to take my spot on the stage. I feel all out of sorts with Ethan following me around like a lost puppy, and I wonder how lost he must feel to be the one acting that way. From all accounts, this isn’t who he is.

  The squeaks of his shoes pick up the pace and close in on me. His hand tugs on my shoulder, but I keep my eyes focused ahead. I see the stage in front of me, the place where I’ll bleed out my emotions for the people gathered to listen.

  “That wasn’t what it looked like.” His voice is low and raspy and too close to my ear.

  “I don’t have time for this,” I hiss.

  “I know. You need to get to check. But listen to me, Mace. It was Chuck’s sixteen-year-old niece.”

  He grabs me by my shoulders and forces a hard kiss on my mouth. When he pulls away, he says, “And even if it wasn’t, I told you yesterday, I don’t want anybody else. Not anymore. It confuses the fuck out of me, but it is what it is.”

  I consider that for a second, and then I say, “And it isn’t what it isn’t.”

  His eyes shadow with pain, and then I spin on my heel and head out to the stage to do my job.

  * * *

  We have the night in Houston after the show. Tomorrow we’ll travel to New Orleans. I’m at my hotel when I get a text from Ethan.

  Ethan: Can I see you?

  Frankly I’m surprised he asked. It’s not typical of him.

  Me: Not tonight.

  Ethan: Why not?

  I don’t know how to respond to that. My best move in this game is to play hurt, but he claims he didn’t do anything that would warrant me feeling hurt.

  Me: I just need a night.

  He doesn’t respond, and I’m not sure if I just pushed him into some other woman’s arms or if he gets it. I take out my contacts to give my eyes a rest, pour myself a glass of wine, and slide into the tub. My entire body relaxes, but my mind keeps going until I drink enough wine to allow it to start to dull. I pull on the hotel’s huge, fluffy, white robe and then I slip into bed and into a deep sleep.

  The bright red numbers on the clock tell me it’s four in the morning when my phone alerts me to a text. I squint at my phone and then slide my glasses on.

  Ethan: Open your door.

  I’m in a still-semi-wine-drunk stupor and I’m half asleep as I stumble to the door.

  “What are you doing here?” I close my eyes against the too-bright light shining at me from the hallway.

  His head tilts as he studies me. “I come bearing apologies.”

  “This is too far, even for you,” I mutter. I open my door wider and flick the light switch.

  He shrugs and his eyes move over my robe. “Goddamn, another robe. Take this one with you.”

  “Why? So you can see me in it again?”

  “Exactly.” He grins lasciviously and takes a step toward me, and that’s when I smell the whiskey.

  “Are you drunk?”

  He squints at his hands and holds his forefinger and thumb up to indicate a small amount. “Maybe a little. You?”

  I shrug, but the truth is I’m still a little tipsy. “I was. Then I fell asleep. Then some jackass woke me up.”

  He points to himself. “Are you talking about me?”

  I glance around the room. “Who else would it be?”

  He laughs. “You’re funny, Maci Dane. I like you.”

  “So you’ve mentioned. Why are you here?” I glance at the bed, but I ultimately decide it’s not the right place to sit. It’s too dangerous. I slip into a chair near the window.

  “You said I couldn’t see you last night, so I waited until morning.”

  “And you drank whiskey while you waited?”

  He nods. “And I smoked a lot of weed.”

  “Let’s get you to bed.”

  “Oh yeah, baby. Just where I want to be.” He pulls his shirt over his head, the first close-up in an actual lit room I’ve had of his torso. His black jeans hang low on his hips, and the muscles by his hips jut out at an angle so sexy I nearly toss my robe to the floor. Those damn muscles there always get to me. They make me stupid. They force me into bad decision making.

  I tear my eyes away from them before I do something I’ll regret.

  “Not for sex,” I say. “For sleep.”

  “How can you say no to all this?” he asks, sweeping his hand in the air beside his abs and down to the thick bulge pushing against the zipper of his jeans.

  “Not like this, Ethan,” I say gently.

  I can tell he gets it from the way his expression softens. He nods, strips out of his jeans, and climbs into my hotel bed wearing nothing but black boxer briefs.

  “Get ready for it in the morning, babe,” he says, and then he drifts into sleep.

  I thought I knew who Ethan Fuller was, but every time I find out something new, I realize how I never really knew anything about him at all.

  My alarm wakes us both up four short hours later. He groans when the chime of my alarm wakes him, the sound low and sexy in my ear. His arms tighten around me.

  “Good morning,” I say, warm from his body wrapped around mine. Hot from it, actually, and not from the temperature. Hot that he’s this close to me. My stomach clenches in anticipation of what might happen...what will happen—because I don’t have the willpower to stop his hands from touching me.

  It’s a betrayal, that clench of my body, that achy need of him being so close to me. It’s a real big betrayal because I don’t want to want him the way I do. I don’t want to still have the same crush on him I always had—I don’t want to be falling in love with him. I don’t want him to be holding the other end of my thread, but the more time I spend wit
h him, the more I fear he’s exactly the one who holds it.

  He doesn’t open his eyes to the morning yet, but his hand slips inside my bathrobe and massages my breast. My body arches against his as I press my breast more fully into his palm and a moan bursts from my chest as his hand firms and his fingertips pinch. I can’t help the grind of my ass back into him as I search to see how aroused he is first thing in the morning.

  I’m not disappointed.

  I feel his thick length against my ass, the two of us separated only by a bathrobe and black boxer briefs. He makes quick work of both, though. His hand is still massaging my breast as he wrestles his way out of his underwear, and then he’s suddenly hovering on top of me.

  “Still drunk?” I ask tentatively. His blue eyes are clear this morning—sleepy, but much clearer than they’d been only a few hours ago. I want him to kiss me, but I’m self-conscious about morning breath.

  He shakes his head. “Completely sober.” His voice is a sleepy husk. His brow furrows while his eyes burn into mine. He’s blurry above me since I’m not wearing my glasses or my contacts.

  Shit.

  Shit.

  My contacts.

  Maybe he didn’t notice. I close my eyes and distract him the way a woman distracts a man. “Fuck me, Ethan,” I say. “Take me somewhere I’ve never been.”

  He dismounts me and searches for his pants. I don’t want him to be blurry as he moves naked around my room. I want him to be clear so I can memorize the view. But nonchalance is key, and if I run to the bathroom now to put in my contacts, I’ll only be drawing attention to it.

  “Will you fuck me from behind again?” I ask. I’m only asking for it that way so he isn’t looking into my eyes.

  “Whatever you want, baby,” he says. I hear the crinkle of a condom packet. “Flip over,” he commands. “Ass up and hands on the headboard.”

  “Yes, sir,” I say because it feels like the right thing to say as I turn over and get into position.

  I hear his sharp intake of breath at my words. “There’s something ridiculously sexy about Maci Dane submitting to a man,” he says.

  I peel my hands from the headboard and turn to look at him over my shoulder. “Don’t mistake lust for submission. Now fuck me. Hard.” I turn back toward the headboard and brace myself.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he says, and then I feel him as he positions himself. His hips align to mine and then he pushes into me.

  I let out a slow, long moan as he starts out leisurely, taking his time with lazy morning thrusts. I push back to meet his drives, trying to get every centimeter of him inside of me. When he’s fully seated inside, a twist of pleasure darts through my abdomen. He doesn’t even need to flick my clit like most guys do when they fuck me. Instead, he’s going to make me come just from these hot, slow pushes into me. I go flying over the edge without warning, my body pulsing and contracting around his dick, and that’s when he decides to pick up the pace.

  He slams into me, and I claw at the headboard as I try to just hold on for dear life. He hammers away, prolonging my orgasm. It’s a frenzied race to the finish line, a wild and rough ride as he bucks against me. His hands slap against the headboard as he braces himself just inches above me. I feel his abdomen cover my back as he picks up speed, shoving into me as fast and as hard as he can while I start to retreat from the high of my orgasm. He moves even faster, somehow harder inside me, and then a feral growl erupts from his chest and he stills as he empties himself into the condom.

  He bears his weight heavily on my back, and I drop flat on the bed from my position. He covers me, and it’s warm and comforting—two things I’d never associate with Ethan, yet there it is. I don’t want to ever move from this spot, but there was an actual reason I set my alarm this morning.

  Bus call is in twenty minutes.

  “I need to take a quick shower before we go,” I say. He’s still inside me and he hasn’t moved. He nips softly at my neck, and I moan as the goosebumps travel down my legs.

  He stays where he is for a few beats, his mouth hot on my neck, and then he finally lifts onto his knees. He pulls out of me slowly, and then I hear his muttered, “Fuck.”

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “Condom broke.”

  “What?” I say stupidly.

  “The condom broke.” He repeats it a little louder, enunciating his syllables.

  I turn around and sit up, and then I reach down and feel his moisture oozing from my body. “Fuck,” I say. “What happened?”

  “The condom broke.” He says it for a third time, and if this wasn’t serious as a heart attack, it might be comical. His face is pale and he’s staring at his dick like it’s going to speak back to explain what just happened. “Fuck, Mace. The condom fucking broke.”

  “How’d it break?”

  “I don’t fucking know! This has never happened to me before.”

  “Condoms don’t just break,” I say calmly. “Did you put it on right?” It doesn’t matter how he put it on. It doesn’t change what happened.

  “Of course I did. I’ve used these hundreds of times. Thousands, even.”

  I wince at the thought of how many times he’s had sex—and with how many different women.

  He squeezes his eyes shut and massages his temples with one hand. “What do we do?”

  “First we calm down,” I say. I grab my glasses off the nightstand and wrap the bathrobe around me so I’m covered up again. “You’ve been safe in the past, right?”

  He nods. “Always. You?”

  I shrug. “Not always, but for the most part. I’m not, like...I mean, I don’t have any...”

  “You’re clean.”

  I nod.

  “And you’re on the pill, right?”

  I shake my head as a spear of guilt stabs my ribs.

  “You’re not on the pill?” His face turns somehow even whiter as he sits on the edge of the bed. I watch as he rolls off the broken condom.

  “It’s fine, Ethan. We’re fine.”

  He blows out a breath. “I’ll trust you on this one. You know your body better than I do.”

  I nod. “And we’re going to be just fine.” I can’t make eye contact with him. I’m telling him what he wants to hear, but I’m not entirely convinced by it. “I need to shower.” I leave him there on the bed to clean up his mess while I shower and attempt to clean off mine.

  It’s futile, though. I can’t seem to scrub away the film of guilt and shame.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  ETHAN

  Mark asked me to ride with him to New Orleans so we could go over some business, and his wife is riding with Steve and Angelique. It’s sort of strange having Mark’s undivided attention, but I suppose he could say the same about me. I wanted to go with Maci, but I need a little distance after this morning’s activities. Besides, I’m ready to talk—even though I don’t really know what’s going on.

  “Penny asked me if we’d do a podcast,” he says once we’re on the road.

  We’re sitting at the makeshift “kitchen” table across from one another. I take a long pull from a can of beer. “Like a guest spot on one?”

  He shakes his head. “No. Like host our own.”

  “About what?”

  “Whatever the fuck we want. She claims people would listen.”

  “Nah,” I say. My knee starts bouncing up and down as my mind drifts back to this morning. “We’ve got enough shit going on.”

  He holds a pen poised over a notebook, but he doesn’t twirl the pen or tap his fingers or peel the label off his water bottle. He’s in business mode. “Agreed, but podcasts are huge right now and gaining popularity every day. We’d be on the cutting edge of something. Lots of celebrities have them as a way to just shoot the shit, and since we told her no on the reality show following this tour, I thought this might be a decent trade off.”

  “Then you do it and I’ll pop in for guest spots.” I finish my first can of beer and toss it in the trash as I realize wha
t a poor choice beer was. We’ll be on fucking Bourbon Street tonight—not a place for beer, but definitely a place for getting fucked up.

  “Won’t work. Penny said the sponsors want both of us.”

  I point to my chest in surprise. “Me too?”

  He nods. “They want Steve and James for guest spots.”

  “They’re gonna kill us.”

  He chuckles. “No, they won’t. They’ll be the first ones to admit how our lives changed once we did the show.” He’s talking about the reality show we were on a few years ago, the one that made us household names and helped to skyrocket our band’s popularity.

  “You think a podcast has that sort of reach?” I ask.

  “Don’t know unless we try.” He writes something on the paper.

  “What’s that?” I ask.

  He turns it around and I read his handwriting. Reach, guest spots, guarantees.

  “Guarantees?” I nod toward the paper.

  “Guarantees we have an easy out if it doesn’t work out, but also a guarantee we’re paid up front.” He scribbles more notes and more questions, and less than an hour later, he practically has me talked into it. He has this uncanny ability to do that, though—to sell me on an idea because he knows I’ll eventually agree to it if I think it’ll be what’s best for Vail. Since he’s always working in that exact same frame, we’re usually on the same page. Not always...but usually.

  We’re still hours from our destination after we’ve video chatted with Penny and agreed to the terms of our upcoming podcast. She’s working on a contract, and we handle a few other business items both with and without her.

  And then he asks the question.

  “What’s going on with you and Maci?” His tone is so blunt he momentarily catches me off guard, but I recover quickly.

  “I don’t have any fucking idea,” I admit.

  “Are you in love with her?”

  I lift a shoulder as I contemplate his question. What the fuck is love? How do I know? I know I feel strongly for her. I know she incites a rush in my chest and an unfamiliar ache in my bones when we’re apart. I know I can’t sleep, can’t move, can’t breathe without thinking of her—the tinkle in her laugh, the curve of her neck, the smell of her lavender. I know she reminds me of everything I lost once upon a time, and I know she inspires this hope I could have it all back with her.