Gio Read online

  In this month, I’d spent more time sitting by the phone and waiting for his call than living my life.

  He returned to business. “Your manager will receive your check and the new contracts in an hour.”

  “I’ll send the tracks to you tonight.”

  “When will you have some new songs for me? I don’t want to rush you, but I’m...eager. Or maybe I should say eager to hear them.”

  “I planned on working on the new ones tonight.”

  “Oh wow,” he said. “I didn’t think it would be that fast. Christmas Eve is tomorrow. You don’t have plans?”

  Embarrassed with my lack of a social life, I avoided the question. “I’m just excited to write more songs for you. I’ll definitely start tonight.”

  “And…your boyfriend won’t be upset with me for having you work?”

  “If I had a boyfriend, I think he would be proud that I’m writing for you.”

  “Interesting. Why’s that?”

  “I wouldn’t date a guy that didn’t have taste in music, and your songs are amazing. He would totally be a fan.”

  “No cuffing season for you then?”

  I grinned at his question. One of his many number one songs was Cuffing Season. It was the idea that during the fall and winter, people who would normally rather be single or promiscuous found themselves along with the rest of the world craving to be cuffed and tied down to a serious relationship. Mainly, they jumped in a relationship so they wouldn’t be alone during the cold weather.

  “Correct,” I said. “No cuffs over here.”

  “And will you be with family?”

  Shocked, I couldn’t believe he was still pushing for more personal information. Sadly, I didn’t like that I sounded so boring and plain. I was sure for the holidays, he’d been invited to all types of celebrations and galas, whether he decided to go or not.

  “No, my family is in the south. I just moved to New York, so I only have a few associates, mainly my vocal coach and manager. Basically, for Christmas, I’ll be eating a pint of eggnog ice cream and watching ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ for the fiftieth time.”

  “You’re an ice cream during the winter type of girl?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know why, but when you answer one of my questions, I just want to ask you five more.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. I hadn’t even thought he would be interested in anything about me.

  “Either way, you should be with someone who loves you,” he said. “I’m not judging. I just had to say that. Life is short.”

  “I’m going to work on talking to other humans next year. This year, I’m focused.”

  “Me too, which is probably a good thing for both of us right now.” He sighed and moved onto another topic. “I really should go.”

  “Okay.”

  “I can’t wait to play with your songs this evening.”

  Excitement rippled through me.

  “Have a Merry Christmas, Simone.”

  “You too.” I hung up with hard nipples and wet panties.

  Why does this always have to happen?

  I put the phone down and dove my hand down my panties. Slickness covered my fingers. My sex pulsed with desire. It wasn’t the singing that turned me on. It was him.

  Remember your promise to your heart. No more dating musicians. Stay focused.

  At eighteen, I had become a member of my ex-boyfriend’s band H.O.T.R.A—Hut of The Reflecting Afterbirth. My ex, Bobo, had only wanted to write the songs, so our music was as bad as the band’s name. We still had mild success in the U.S. and even toured Belgium, Austria, and Canada. But my ex drowned in the idea of fame and groupies verses the beauty of music. I’d caught him cheating with bright-eyed fans more than I heard him say he loved me. By the time I turned twenty, I’d realized I’d given all my power to him. All my joy and respect.

  I left the band, failed at being a solo artist, and dedicated five years to writing for others. Now, at twenty-five, I had to make the decision of whether I would repursue a solo career or continue focusing on songwriting. Bob Dylan claimed that music was a young person’s game. As each year stacked up, I hoped he was wrong.

  Focus. Get Gio and anyone else off your mind. Figure out your path and stay on it.

  I pulled my hands out of my panties.

  Usually, I recorded my songs and sent them to a prospective client. Initially, I’d done that with him, and he’d asked my manager to set up a phone call meeting. Then, he had me sing to him over the phone and continued our meetings like that. But somehow, singing to him always made me wet and hungry.

  I gazed out of the window, trying to focus on something else.

  Snow continued to fall outside, covering the borough in thick, icy layers of white. Christmas was in two days and I hadn’t even put up a tree, bought any gifts, or sent cards. In fact, for the past three months, I’d barely left my apartment. It was all about the music every minute of every day. I had to win. I would reach my destiny. I would show my mother and father that I wasn’t crazy. That it was all worth it.

  I should call Mom and Dad. They’re probably wondering what’s up with me.

  They were down in South Carolina, living a normal life, and not chasing a crazy dream. Both of my sisters had already married and were expecting kids. They thought I was a bit looney to put family and marriage aside to focus on my career.

  I doubted they expected me to even come down in visit.

  I’ll call tonight. There’s too much work to do.

  I picked up my headphones and swiveled in my computer chair. The upstairs neighbor’s TV came through the ceiling muffled. He was a retired army captain who loved my songs.

  I checked my watch. It was ten in the morning. I had five more hours before I would have to stop singing. I’d agreed with all the other neighbors to keep the racket down once they arrived from work and school. After that, I would hopefully go to sleep, being that I hadn’t slept last night.

  All work and no play makes Simone a horny, lonely girl.

  I sipped coffee that had gone cold since making it, and then yanked one of my microphones in front of my face.

  I’d turned my tiny living room into a studio. Musical instruments were hooked up everywhere. Microphones dangled from the ceiling. Blue covered the whole space from the floor to the walls, and even the couch and items on my book shelf were blue.

  The Gullah had many superstitions. One of them was fear of haints or spirits. We didn’t believe spirits could cross over water, so we painted blue on our porches and doors to ward off the evil spirits.

  Being that I was in a box apartment in Brooklyn struggling to pay high rent, I had no porch and the landlord wouldn’t let me paint the outside of the door. But on the inside, he gave me free reign and I went crazy coating the place in shades of blue.

  But some nights, when I sat alone on my couch with the snow falling outside and the streets dead empty, the blue made me feel so cold, so gloomy.

  In that moment, my mind wandered back to Giovanni.

  What will you be doing tonight? What beautiful woman will get to kiss those soft lips and hear you whisper how much you love her?

  I figured he had big plans. He probably had a private jet ready to fly him off to Europe to hang mistletoe with princesses and other royalty. And when he looked under his Christmas tree, he had everything he desired and more wrapped up in a little bow.

  What does the man that has everything write on his Christmas wish list?

  I grabbed my notebook and worked on a new song…one with no begging.

  Focus, Simone, focus.

  Chapter 2

  Giovanni

  Musicians don't retire;

  they stop when

  there's no more music in them.

  ~Louis Armstrong

  Simone. Simone. Damn, I love the way you beg.

  Sighing, I hung up the phone and leaned back in my chair. I closed my eyes as her song danced in my head. She had a sinful tongu
e, curling out notes and giving me the sensation of her mouth on mine. With that voice, I couldn’t think of why she wasn’t already a star.

  “I’m covered in cream, and you’re just licking.”

  I visualized her legs spread apart in front of me and my mouth diving in. Hot cum threatened to burst from my cock. From the moment she started her second song, I’d unzipped my pants and had that wicked monster in my hand, rubbing the tip, thinking of her as she sung those sexy lyrics.

  “Please, baby, come all over me. Please, fuck me until I can’t see.

  It was a wonder I hadn’t come on my pants and spilled that white liquid all over my studio floor.

  Damn her.

  Simone did that to me, had me gripping my cock every time her beautiful voice flowed.

  The first time I heard her sing, I yearned to hear more. Never had I reacted that way. I hadn’t even looked her up, didn’t want to see her picture. It would hurt the fantasy in my mind. Not that it would matter what she looked like. She could have one leg, purple skin, and three eyes. If she sang in front of me, I would shove my cock deep inside of her.

  How crazy is this? I don’t even know what she looks like or her personality and I can’t stop rubbing my dick to her songs.

  In the end, looks never mattered. The heart, the passion, the soul did. The sensations that came from being around someone so captivating, that shit thrilled me, had my cock in my hand unwilling to let go.

  And she was fucking talented. She deserved all the money I gave her and more. In fact, she should be on my album singing duets with me, but...

  Simone. Simone. With that voice, I would lose control.

  It didn’t help that I hadn’t had sex in a year which was damn near biblical for me. Usually, I drowned in women.

  I’d been living in this cabin nestled in the mountains of Utah. If one would even call it a cabin. I sat on sixty acres. The place had twelve bedrooms and fourteen bathrooms. I’d bought it at forty-nine million. There was plenty of privacy, an indoor pool, a dining room that seated twenty, a fitness center, library, and a garage that could fill twenty-eight cars.

  Besides the house staff, no one else lived with me and I loved the alone time.

  And then, I’d heard Simone’s recording and began daydreaming about her strolling through my hallways, letting her voice ride the cool air. For now, the phone calls were enough to feed me and keep me moving forward on my album.

  However, there was no doubt in my mind that she was the songwriter I’d been searching for.

  Jason would’ve laughed at me if he was here. He would’ve thought I was stupid for not flying her out to my studio by now. We should’ve been working on the album, exchanging each other’s creative energy within the walls of my music lab.

  Granted, Jason would’ve also tried to fuck her. With a voice and talent like that, we both would’ve fought over her.

  Should I have her come out here? Or can we continue creating over the phone?

  I knew the answer. She should be here. I just was too scared to admit it. Death did that to people. It made me fear more, over analyze every moment of life. Made me try to be more cautious with every step that I took.

  Damn you, Jason.

  Jason’s overdose had almost killed me.

  We’d grown up together, met in an elite private school for celebrity’s kids, and had never left each other’s side. We both loved music, fast cars, and gorgeous women. When I decided to sing, he wrote all my songs. And with each hit, we partied hard, enjoying our success.

  Enjoying it too much.

  Our lives had been a constant spinning carousel of hedonism. Due to our crazy times, I was sure our souls had shrunken to tiny prunes. However, Jason had been the champion of debauchery, while I was more of a spectator and participant every now and then.

  Months before he died, distance started to come between us. I didn’t like the drugs and Jason couldn’t party without them. My addiction was always music. But Jason loved to get high and remained in a perpetual whirlwind of cocaine and vodka. Toward the end, it was hard to watch his downfall.

  You never listened. Should I have yelled at you more? Would it have helped?

  Some asshole scientist friend had told Jason that creativity peaked around twenty-three and left you forever. That stupid concept remained with him for life. When we both turned twenty-eight, he was convinced he’d lost all his talent. According to him, heroin and cocaine helped him write because he couldn’t naturally come up with lyrics. I ended up becoming his mother and father all rolled into one, constantly reminding him to eat and telling him to bathe when he walked around smelling like sex and alcohol.

  After our second Grammy, we bought this huge private jet; a drug-fueled, flying sex den. And Jason loved it trashy. Shag carpeting coated the floor. Leopard print scaled the walls. A thirty-foot-bar stood in the center. Women constantly packed the plane—fans to groupies, singers and models.

  But after a while, it became too much for me. I began to seek silence more than conversation. I started sneaking off and hiding away to write verses instead of diving into the orgies happening all around me.

  We should’ve never bought the plane. We did too much. We partied too hard.

  By our third Grammy, Jason had the great idea to start shooting heroin. It was like he couldn’t get high enough. By then, life had become too fast, too much. The women and partying started getting in the way of my true passion—music. He barely wanted to be in the studio. All he wanted to do was fuck and get high.

  “Come on, Gio! A fourth album? We’ve got more money to spend in two lifetimes,” he’d said. “Why do you want to do another album?”

  “Because music is how I breathe.”

  “Well, pussy is why I breathe.”

  And with that, he’d grabbed these Armenian twins he loved to hang with and took them to his room. The next morning, I found the three of them naked and dead in his bed. Their eyes were popped open. Dried brown vomit covered their mouths and throats. A hill of cocaine lay on their nightstand next to one needle and several bags of pills. Empty bottles were scattered around the bed. Later, the doctors found all types of drugs in their system. I contacted the twins’ parents and paid for their funeral.

  Jason’s side was a different story. I refused to give the body over to his parents or let them go to the funeral. For that reason, the media ripped me apart while my father and mother stood by my side. Jason never wanted me to reveal his secret, no matter how many times I thought his parents should pay. In the end, I knew what the world didn’t.

  Jason’s parents were big stars in television, playing wholesome roles that inspired the good in humanity. In real life, his parents were the true reason of his downfall. They gave him drugs at eight to keep him from bothering them. And then at ten, his sick mother got too fucked up off pills one night and introduced him to sex, showing him porn and forcing him to sleep with a hooker. She’d done it for entertainment. She and her friends had laughed the whole time as they’d watched.

  Fuck them. They never gave you a chance to grow, so they couldn’t come and say goodbye.

  “Goodbye.” I shook my head. “What is good about a goodbye?”

  Now, I was just this partied-out husk. It didn’t matter how many thousands of people crowded my concerts or how many millions followed and tweeted my name. I was alone.

  And it wasn’t Utah, although my manager, Midnight claimed the place depressed me.

  I was alone.

  My parents flew out from time-to-time to hang with me. But neither had retired from acting yet, still winning awards and thrilling people on screen. They’d given me an amazing childhood when other celebrity parents ignored their kids. Therefore, I didn’t like to bother them with my sadness. They deserved the freedom to enjoy their lives and not worry about me.

  So, I dove into my music. With Jason gone—my best friend and gifted writer—I searched for someone to replace him. He or she had to be passionate and disciplined. I’d almost given up
when Simone’s manager sent me her demo.

  Now, this will be a gift or curse. Which one are you, Simone?

  From the moment I pressed play, every lyric, every note, every fucking tone made my cock hard by the second. It shouldn’t have been that way. I’d been with more women than I could remember, but there was something about her. Something I couldn’t touch. Something that made me crave for more.

  Her voice vibrated through my bones and down to my soul. It pumped through my heart. It heated every inch of my flesh. I damn near stumbled as I found my phone and called her manager up.

  Simone and I were on the phone the next day, and for the rest of the month, I became too eager to hear her voice. At this point, she didn’t even have to sing a new song anymore. She could’ve just sang the alphabet and I would’ve went rock hard.

  Why does she do this to me?

  Had I not been so turned on by her, she would’ve already been here, working with me at my studio. But I needed my distance from Simone. I wasn’t sure if I would behave with her so close.

  My phone rang.

  I put my cock back in my jeans, zipped them up, and picked up the phone.

  “Yeah.”

  Midnight’s gruff voice rode the line. “How are you doing, Gio baby?”

  His real name was Franklin Tyrone Johnson, but everyone called him Midnight. He told me he’d gotten the nickname as a kid. A bully picked at his skin color, saying he was as black as night, but instead of being embarrassed, Midnight embraced his skin color and the name. Of course, that was all after Midnight beat the shit out of that bully.

  “How’s those mountains?” Midnight asked.

  “Big and cold.”

  “That’s why you need to be in LA, baby. You should be here, enjoying this sun. In fact, as soon as Candy is done with my mani/pedi, I’m hitting the pool.”

  I grinned, already imagining what Midnight looked like in his office. I bet he sat in his chair with a thousand-dollar shirt opened and his huge belly exposed for all to see. He’d told me once that he’d grown up missing meals most of his childhood. Once he made his first million, he welcomed being fat, stuffing his mouth with food and showing off that belly like it was a six pack.