Irresistible Refrain

13

All by myself in the front lounge of the bus, I stared out the window, watching the snowflakes drift down one after another adding to the already foot and a half high berms along I-95. We were headed south on our way to the Atlanta show. War was passed out in the back. He’d been like that since I finally returned late last night. He’d made me so mad earlier that I’d skipped the show, wandered around Philly until it got dark, and then camped out in a local book store thumbing through fashion magazines until they closed.

It was nearing dawn and I still hadn’t slept any. I rested my head in my hands. The Appalachian pines stood along the roadside, lonely sentinels, tall and dark except for their adornment of white. A similar winter wonderland scene had been the picture on the front of our prom invitations. Prom and Bryan had been on my mind nonstop since our conversation in the elevator.

2 years ago

I set the vellum prom invitation down on my comforter and crossed to the dresser, looking at myself in the mirror. I was in love with this dress. So what if it didn’t fit the winter theme. It was a genuine vintage sixties dress with spaghetti straps, a straight bodice, and a black lace skirt over a blush pink under layer. I’d added a black silk ribbon around my neck instead of jewelry and let my hair cascade long and straight around my bare shoulders.

I practiced a smile. I needed the practice, since I hadn’t been doing much smiling lately. Not since I’d told Bryan how I felt. Not since that kiss on the beach. Not since I’d bared my soul to him in that ballad.

I’d been so naïve, thinking that the kiss had been special, that it had meant something. What it’d meant was that Bryan was a guy like any other, taking what was thrown at him, and not the honor bound knight on a white charger that I’d made him out to be since I was a little.

Bryan didn’t want my love or the action. He hadn’t come around since then and he didn’t spend any time with me at all unless it was with the band or in a group setting.

Any remaining doubts as to where we stood were eliminated when I came out of class a few days later, following my usual shortcut across the quadrangle, and saw him with his tongue down Misty Rivera’s throat. Misty Rivera was one of the biggest sluts in the school.

Get over him Lace Lowell, I reasoned with myself. He’s not worth it. But as the days turned into weeks and graduation drew closer, I’d learned that reason didn’t mean jack shit when it came to matters of the heart.

I pressed my lips together and turned away from my reflection. Tonight wasn’t about Bryan. It was about War and me, and about going forward. War loved me. War wanted me. I was lucky to have him. Most of the girls at Roosevelt High wished they were in my shoes. It was time I showed him how much I cared.

I glanced at the bedside clock and frowned. My handsome guy was late, over an hour now. I hadn’t realized. Why hadn’t he called?

“Lace.” I heard Dizzy’s voice through the door.

Finally, I thought as I opened it.

Dizzy’s eyebrows rose. “Where’d you get that dress?”

“A yard sale. Took it in a little bit.” I shrugged.

“You look really beautiful.” He took my hand and placed it on his arm, escorting me down the stairs.

“Why aren’t you dressed, Diz? I thought you were going with Elaine.”

“There’s been a change in plans. I’m running out to the drug store for War, then going over to his place. He’s sick off his ass. Told me he’s been retching his guts out for the past couple of hours.”

“Oh, no! Why’d you let me get all dressed up?” I heatedly complained descending the stairs, and then froze when I saw Bryan standing there.

“Hey, Lace.” Bryan gazed intently at me. “You look incredible.” In a traditional tux with a black bow tie, his long brown hair practically tangling in his long lashes, he took my breath away. “Hope it’s ok if I take you instead.”

“Sure,” I managed, practically drowning in his sexy hooded eyes. He stepped forward and slid a white rose wrist corsage bracelet on my arm. Goosebumps broke out all over me as his fingertips brushed across the delicate skin of my inner wrist.

Dizzy’s brow creased as he looked back and forth between the two of us. He cleared his throat. “Bryan can I see you in the kitchen for a minute?”

I heard the sound of harsh whispers as soon as they disappeared behind the swinging door. I started to move closer to try to hear what they were saying when Bryan suddenly came back out. “Where’s Dizzy,” I asked perplexed.

“He went on.” Bryan placed a hand on the center of my back and guided me toward the front door. “We’d better get going. We’re already too late for your dinner reservation. We’ll miss the dance if we don’t leave soon.”

I saw the limo as soon as I stepped out onto the front porch. I glanced shyly at Bryan. “You don’t have to do this for Warren.”

“I’m not doing it for him.” He stared at me, the overhead porch light illuminating the intense gleam in his eyes. He reached out and ran a hand through my hair, sifting the individual strands through his fingers. Somewhere in the distance a car door slammed. “I’m doing it for you,” he admitted with a half-smile. “You deserve a night like this. Come on.” He took my hand and led me to the limo.

The night was pure magic. For the first time in my life, I felt like the fairy tale princess I’d always dreamed of being. I didn’t even try to pretend it was the dress. I knew it was being with him. Arm in arm dressed in my finery, I let go of all my concerns, lived for the moment, and danced with my prince. As we moved together, I unashamedly allowed myself the pleasure of touching and looking at him, without even attempting to hide how I felt. He held my hand cradled to his chest and by the time the last slow song of the evening came on, I had convinced myself he felt the same way about me that I did about him.

Back in the limo, I snuggled close to him, laying my head on his strong shoulder while he stroked my hair. I sighed contentedly. But before long, I glanced out the tinted window and saw we were pulling up to my house. Was it midnight already?

I didn’t want this night to end. I couldn’t bear to go back to a reality where he was so close and yet so distant. “Bry,” I began, tilting my head to look at him.

“Yeah, Lace,” he replied absently as he stroked my cheek and stared at me.

“Come inside with me.”

I felt the sudden tension in his body.

“No, Lace,” he whispered after a long moment. “I can’t.”

Rejected.

Again.

A sharp pain sliced across my breast bone. I squeezed my eyes shut and blindly reached for the door handle.

His hand closed over mine. “Lace, listen.”

“No,” I hissed. “Why Misty Rivera, Bry?”

He cursed under his breath. He took my chin in his hand and gently tilted my face back. “Because I can never have the one who really matters to me.” He brushed a soft kiss across the side of my mouth.

So this was about War. Seeing the determined set to his jaw and the steeliness of his stare, my heart sank.

“Let me walk you inside.”

Bleakly, I nodded.

Outside on the sidewalk, I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to ward off the sudden chill that made my teeth chatter. He took off his tuxedo jacket and draped it around my shoulders. The warmth and the spicy scent of him lingered in the material.

I fumbled with the key at the front door and he took it from me. Once we were in, he dropped the key into the glass bowl next to the phone. It rang with a tone of finality.

“Goodnight,” he started but trailed off as he caught a glimpse of the disappointment I hadn’t been quick enough to hide from him. He reached out and turned me back to him, his grey green eyes intently searching mine. “You’re not going to cry, are you?”

“I never cry.”

“What’s this,” he asked softly, running a fingertip under my eye.

“I’m just tired. The cold wind…”

“You’re lying.”

“So are you, Bryan Jackson.” My hands fisted. “Denying what’s between us.” I handed him the tuxedo jacket, and kicked off my shoes. I tossed my hair back and took a deep breath for courage. I could do determined, too. I peeled off one of the thin straps of my dress, first one shoulder, and then the other. I looked him straight in the eyes daring him.

Bryan didn’t move.

But the dark flash of his eyes and the flare of his nostrils emboldened me. I reached back and released the hook and lowered the zipper. The dress puddled at my feet in a black and pink pool of chiffon and lace.

Shoulders back, chin lifted I stood before him completely vulnerable and nearly naked in a strapless corset, matching panties, and gartered stockings.

He stood still a moment longer and then eyes full of fiery intent, he reached for me and in one step he claimed me, crushing his lips and his body to mine.

“Lace.”

“Huh.” Dazed, I turned toward the sound of his voice. I hadn’t even heard the door slide open. His heavy lidded eyes were within inches of my own. Bryan leaned over the bus banquette, looking sexy as sin his hair all tousled from sleep.

I shook my head free of the tangled webs of the past.

“I called your name twice,” He reached over and rubbed a strand of my hair between his fingers. The subtle yet familiar movement made my scalp tingle. “What were you thinking about?” he asked in that low intimate voice of his that made everything else in my body tingle.

“Prom night,” I whispered.

He blinked.

“It seems to keep coming back to that for us,” I whispered. He looked much as he had the first night I’d seen him on this bus, only no jeans just black boxers and those low enough on his hips to make me think of only one thing. And he was close enough that I could act on that thought. I extended my arm out and laid one palm against the smooth skin at the center of his bare chest and the other one a lot lower.

He swallowed and glanced behind us. The door to the sleeping section of the bus was closed. He grabbed my elbows and tugged me out of the banquette. I stumbled forward, feeling the rock hard strength of his chest through the thin material of the button down shirt of War’s that I’d worn to bed. My breasts tightened instantly against his warmth and my mouth parted at the exact moment that his lips touched mine. A flood of heat rushed through my blood. The intensity of my longing after all this time was almost too much to bear.

I whimpered as he pressed me into the partition, the wall an unyielding surface behind me, his chest, his hips, his thighs, and his erection even harder. He began devouring me everywhere his mouth could reach. His lips, his tongue, and his teeth doing wicked things to me that made me moan and beg for more.

He lifted my hands stretching my arms up over my head and pinning them against the wall in his tight grip. I felt the cool air caress my skin as the oversized sleeves of my shirt slid down to expose my arms all the way to my elbows while he pressed impassioned wet kisses across my cheek and then down my arched neck.

“Dammit Lace, stop me. We shouldn’t be doing this,” he rasped in a raw voice before drawing my earlobe between his teeth and then tracing the shell of my ear with his talented tongue. Breathing heavily, he eased back and stared down at me with lust filled eyes. “How am I supposed to get over you when you respond to me like this?”

He wasn’t over me?

This was news to me. It seemed to me all our conversations had been past tense.

“I don’t want you to get over me,” I whispered, angling my hips forward and rocking over him. My body took over, ignoring the faint protesting voice of common sense in my mind.

He groaned, and then suddenly he went completely still.

Certain we’d been discovered, I turned my head to look over my shoulder. No one was there. The door was still closed. Confused, my eyes went back to him to find that he was staring at my bared arms.

“Fuck.” Bryan yanked both my hands down and flipped them over at the wrists. When his head came back up his eyes were bright with fury. The look on his face almost made me wish War had found us instead.

I tugged my wrists free and pulled down the sleeves of War’s shirt while trying to ease away from him. Cold shame doused the raging desire that had consumed me only a moment ago.

“Whatcha shooting up, Lace? By the looks of those track marks, I’d say you’ve got an expensive habit.” The evenness of his tone was at complete odds with the fire blazing from his eyes. “War helping you out with that?”

I didn’t answer. I tried to twist away, but he caged me in with his arms.

“I can’t believe you’d get into something like this. Not after all you went through with your mom.” Exhaling heavily, he dropped his forehead to mine. His eyes were so close I could make out the pixilated variation of grey and green as well as read the concern that had filled them.

His gentleness crumbled any chance I had of keeping him out.

“What is it, Lace?” he rephrased again voice low.

“Heroin,” I admitted softly.