DRASTIC (Book 4 of the Soundcrush Series)

Chapter 66: Smart Girls Combust

I love this song, Bulletproof Weeks by Matt Nathanson. I think in the love scene to follow you will maybe understand why I chose it. I think the only place Bodie feels bulletproof--safe, sure of himself--is in Marley's arms...

Marley

Three Weeks Later

The morning light, or maybe Bodie's wakefulness, pulls at me. I sigh as my eyelids flutter open, and I stretch into my hotel pillow. My eyes focus on Bodie's tatted bicep beside me. A pair of parallel drumsticks line his arm, wrapped in the tribal tats that ride up his shoulder and spill down his pec, encasing his Sixmob tatt.

Bodie is lying with his opposite arm tucked behind his head. He's staring at the ceiling calmly.

I trace his Sixmob tattoo. I don't know why. It's not a thing to be celebrated, but it's a part of him and I like to trace it to remind us both that I've accepted it.

Just like I've accepted that he's going to struggle with his sobriety, until Daemon and drugs and Cain Priestly are past and not present.

I think he's taking speed again. Not regularly, not for recreation, but only when he truly has nothing to put out there on the stage. Twice since he's been back from Thailand, he's gone from nearly comatose to vibrant and charismatic in half an hour. I'm pretty sure the change was not emotional but chemical.

I don't like it, but I am not devastated by this turn of events. I am a psychologist trained in addiction, and I am not naive. I knew when I signed on for this life that Bodie would likely relapse at times.

It is a very rare addict that goes from heroin to never touching another substance again in their life. There's a part of me—Dr. Watkins--that wants to stage an intervention, because I believe if I asked him, he would tell me the truth. But Jasmine keeps watching and waiting and trying to find a way to help him that lets him keep his dignity.

I know why he's taking speed. He's physically exhausted because he barely sleeps. Something happened on his trip that has resurrected Cain Priestly's ghost for him. He wakes from bad dreams. To the point that he dreads trying to sleep at all.

Right now, I don't ask him if he slept last night, because it's likely to start another argument. He's asked me over and over to get him a doctor that will prescribe him some sleeping pills, but I won't do it. I keep suggesting he try meditation, yoga, acupuncture, another analyst to talk about his dreams. I've even told him we could go back to informal therapy sessions between us, but he refuses that. He's tried some of the new-agey stuff, but he says it doesn't help. I don't think he gives it a shot.

I could get him a Hollywood doctor to prescribe him something, all right, but Kade and I have combed the literature, and there really are no safe sleeping aids to take while on methadone. It will put him at risk of severe sleep apnea. He might simply stop breathing and drift away. The thought makes me tighten my hand around his bicep.

My grip on him causes a  sexy grin to break his contemplation of the ceiling. He pulls my hand to his mouth and kisses my palm, then pushes it flatly down his eight pack. "Jasmine, if you are gonna squeeze a part of me, there are other, better, options..."

He keeps moving my hand until it glides over his velvety and very firm cock.

"What were you thinking about, looking at the ceiling, that got you this hard?" I smile, kissing up his shoulder.

He turns to face me, hoisting my right leg over his hip. "Loving you," he murmurs, kissing down my sternum. "Always...loving...you..." His mouth plants itself on my nipple and my thoughts dissolve into the ether that is us.