Effortless (Thoughtless #2)(3)
Author: S.C. Stephens

The last D-Bag to stroll into the awaiting crowd was less adorable. I rolled my eyes as Griffin sauntered through my line of sight, his hands fondling anything that he could. Some girls smacked him, others giggled. He always returned to the giggling ones. His form of signing autographs usually involved tongue. It turned my stomach, watching him. Honestly, I didn’t get what my sister saw.

Matt’s near identical released a girl he’d just deep-throated and swung his head around, looking for more prey. Unfortunately, Griffin’s horny eyes fell on me. His thin lips twisting into a familiar curl, he started walking over my way. I instinctively started backing up. Griffin was one person that I liked to keep some distance from. He had a tendency to be a little…grabby. Tucking his chin-length blond hair behind his ears, he threw his hands out to the side, conveniently brushing against a fan’s breast as he did.

"Kiera, my future lover! I’m thrilled you came to check me out." His hand went down to his cargo shorts and cupped his…stuff. "Did you like what you saw?" he asked, tilting his head.

Wanting to gag, I twisted to leave. Close enough to grab me, he sidled up and snatched my hand. When he looked like he was going to place my palm on his junk, my eyes widening in horror, my fingers were suddenly torn away from his. Stepping between us, Kellan shoved Griffin’s shoulder back. "Fuck off, Griffin," he muttered, shaking his head and rolling his eyes.

The bassist shrugged and found some other girl to touch him. I breathed a sigh of relief and sank into Kellan’s side. "Thanks."

Chuckling, Kellan kissed my head. "No problem. I know how much you love conversing with Griffin." I cringed as Kellan waved goodbye to some of the fans that were lingering, maybe hoping he’d stay and chat with them all day. No, Griffin was about my least favorite person to talk to.

Twisting us around, his arm firmly attached to my waist, Kellan started walking us away from the private area and back to the main part of the park. Almost subconsciously, like they’d follow him anywhere, his band members started trailing after him. Looking back, I watched Matt and Evan strolling along with their arms around their girls. Griffin strolled along with his hand scratching his privates. In a way, they did follow Kellan anywhere. When his parents had died, Kellan had sort of ditched everything to come up here, and they’d all followed him without a moment’s hesitation. They’d been here ever since.

Fixing my focus back on the man beside me, I slung my other arm around his waist, cinching him tight. I couldn’t imagine what that day must have been like for him. It was true that Kellan had good reason to hate his parents, they were abusive, cold-hearted bastards, blaming Kellan for all of the miseries they’d felt in their lives, but still…they were his family. The only close family he’d had. Their death had deeply affected him.

He’d only been nineteen at the time, away from their torture for only a year, since he’d run away to Los Angeles right after high school. Nearly right after the ceremony from the way he told the story. And he hadn’t told them he was leaving, he’d just done it. They’d never even searched for him. Kellan had told me once that when he finally had called them, to let them know that he was, at the very least, still alive, they hadn’t sounded like they had cared either way, like they’d done their jobs and he could live or die on his own. It was a miracle Kellan wasn’t completely messed up.

Jerks.

Griffin coming up and clapping Kellan on the back snapped me out of my dark thoughts. With Matt and Rachel behind him, he pointed to a band playing in the distance. I could hear the heavy rock beat in the sweltering air. "We’re gonna go check out some of the other bands. Comin’?"

Kellan looked back at Evan and Jenny, but they were sappily gazing at each other, absorbed in some quiet conversation that I couldn’t hear with the multitude of bodies walking back and forth around our group. A few females passing by looked at the four guys like they seemed familiar, but none of them stopped for more than a couple of seconds.

Looking down at me, Kellan started to ask me what I wanted to do. My body answered for me. My stomach growled so loud that even Jenny broke away from her tender moment to laugh. I closed my eyes for a moment while I felt Kellan’s body chuckling softly at me. Cracking just one eye open, I attempted to glare at him. He found that even funnier and laughed a little harder.

Glancing up at Griffin, Kellan shook his head. "I think we’ll get something to eat first." Smacking Griffin’s back, he added, "We’ll catch up with you later."

After watching the physically similar cousins walk off, melding into the crowd around them, Kellan smiled down at me. "Should we get some food in you, noisy?"

I smirked and rolled my eyes, but then his lips were on mine and I couldn’t have cared that he’d been teasing me. With his hand brushing over my cheek as he ran his fingers through the hair above my ear, his warm lips expertly leading mine as he forced a small space between our mouths, and the tip of his tongue flicking out to briefly touch mine, I didn’t care about much of anything anymore.

My hand reached up to securely tighten in his hair. I tried to angle him so his gently probing tongue was all over mine. All over my body would be nice too. Chuckling, he broke free from my mouth. Surprisingly, just that brief intimacy had my heart racing and my breath faster. It took so little for him to turn me right on.

Grinning crookedly, he tilted his head. "Do you need a minute?" he whispered, raising an eyebrow.

Gathering my senses, I smacked his chest and started to storm off. Wasn’t I just thinking earlier that I needed to work on not letting Kellan so completely absorb me? Hmmm, I had a feeling I’d be working on that one for a while. Feeling a little dazed, I headed off to where I thought the food was. Laughing a little harder, Kellan grabbed my elbow and twisted me the other way.

Smiling in that seductive, devilish way that he could, he nodded his head up the concrete path, opposite of where I’d been going. "Food’s that way." His smile widening, he added, "Unless you had something else in mind?" I instantly pictured finding a secluded spot in this massive campus and letting that tongue do…all sorts of marvelous, wondrous things to me. My breath stuttered a bit.

Shaking my head out of my steamy thoughts, I started marching up the path towards the one craving I’d let myself cave into here. I was not about to indulge in public sex with my rock star boyfriend. As much as he would like that, I did have some self control.

Still chuckling, still amused by me, Kellan easily caught up and slung his arm back around my waist. Smiling down at me as Evan and Jenny fell into step behind us, he murmured, "So adorable. What am I going to do with you?"

By the time we’d reached the pizza stands, I’d thought of at least a half dozen things he could do to me.

Once we were all full of food and music, and enough memories to cement this day into our brains forever, we all met back up at the staging area so the guys could get their instruments. Well, not Evan. Drums weren’t as portable as the other instruments, so one set was brought in for all of the bands to use. Except the big acts at the end of the night. They would take the time to bring in their own.

With Matt, Griffin and Kellan all having guitar cases slung over their backs, our group earned a lot more attention than before. They did have a special area for band members to exit the park that wasn’t quite so public, but Griffin, being Griffin, insisted on heading out the main gate. Out of all of them, Griffin enjoyed the limelight the most. He was already living up his fifteen minutes.

Stopping for a few more autographs and pictures, it seemed to take forever to get to the parking lot. But eventually, we did. Jenny gave me a quick hug, telling me that she’d see me tomorrow at work. Evan then gave me a huge bear hug, also jokingly telling me that he’d see me tomorrow at work.

Smiling at them, I waved goodbye as they headed off together in Jenny’s car, probably on their way to Pete’s, since Jenny had to work tonight. I’d gotten the night off, so I could spend the evening with Kellan. Because of their afternoon gig at Bumbershoot, Kellan and the guys had the evening off from the bar. Not that that would stop the rest of the boys from spending the night there anyway. They could never be peeled away from Pete’s for long.

I congratulated Matt as I gave him a scant, one-armed hug. He wasn’t as overtly affectionate as Evan was and I tried to respect the level that he was comfortable with. Smiling shyly at me, he thanked me for coming. Rachel smiled and waved goodbye as she and Matt put away Matt and Griffin’s instruments and got into Griffin’s Vanagon.

Griffin, perhaps seeing that I was doling out hugs to D-Bags, decided that he wanted to be a D-Bag, too. Checking his breath in his palm, he started striding over to me. I put my hand out to stop him, but I think it was more Kellan clearing his throat, quite loudly, that finally made him pause. Rolling his eyes, Griffin waved his fingers instead. "We’re going to Pete’s. Catch you guys later."

Kellan laughed and clapped him on the back before twisting to open the door of his sleek muscle car. A 1969 Chevelle Malibu from what Kellan had repeatedly told me. Shiny black with chrome all over, it was possibly the only possession, aside from his guitars, that Kellan cared about. He’d found it cheap in L.A. and had spent most of his time that first summer of his newfound freedom fixing it up. It was his pride and joy…and ever since the one time I’d stolen it, he never let me drive it.

Sliding into the leather bench seat, he glanced over at me as I slid in too. "Your place or mine?" he asked, exaggerating the huskiness in his voice.

I laughed as I leaned over to kiss him. Still trying to keep our relationship on an even keel, instead of bursting right into the red-hot zone that we so easily could dip into, Kellan and I were still living apart, still taking things slow. "Mine," I breathed, trying to be as sexy as he was, but, I’m sure, failing horribly. Although, he did bite his lip as he looked over my face. Flushing instantly, I sat back and ran a loose lock of hair behind my ear. "Anna’s gonna be late tonight, so we’ll have the place to ourselves."

His grin widened as he started the car, the hearty engine roaring to life, its growl as sexy as Kellan’s smile. Feeling the heat in my cheeks, I shook my head and added, "School is starting soon, so I should really start going through my stuff."

That wasn’t really what I wanted to do tonight, but the intensity of his gaze was riling my body up, and I hated how much he could see himself affecting me. I wished I could be more subtle around him.

Twisting his lip, he seemed to contain a laugh. "Uh-huh, school stuff. All right. I’m great at…school stuff." His mouth breaking out into a heart-stopping grin, he pulled his car away from the place he’d just completely rocked.

Chapter 2

Peace

We pulled into the parking area of the apartment that I shared with Anna about twenty minutes later. Kellan still had a fantastic smile on his lips as he shut the car off, and I knew he was still a little high from the adrenaline of being on stage. While I could think of no greater torture than being the center of attention in front of hundreds of complete strangers, not to mention singing in front of said strangers, he lived for it.

He was grinning ear to ear as he met me in front of his car, humming one of his songs. Smiling up at him, I looped my arm through his. I had no desire to live his life, but I would happily bathe in the aftereffects of it. We’d been through so much in our path to each other; his joy now brought me joy, too. I’d much rather see a delighted smile on his face than tears in his eyes.