Messy

By Katie Porter

Alec Davies is an aging-out rock star.

He’s twenty years older than me.

He’s also my father’s ex-best friend.

Dad used to be the lead guitarist of The Skies, an icon of the 90s British music scene. His fights with lead singer Alec were legendary, and so was the band’s self-destruction. I’ve hunted down Alec to tell him that Dad is back in England and determined to die at home. Ending our first encounter by riding Alec’s face is not the smart thing. Saying “yes” when he wants to reconcile with my dad and offers his townhouse as hospice – it’s not the smart thing either, but I do that too.

This is a stand alone, full length romance. Happily ever after guaranteed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bryant Street Publishing
• Release date: Jan 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9781094437842

Katie Porter

Katie Porter is the award-winning writing partnership of Lorelie Brown and Carrie Lofty, which began in 2010. Both are multi-published in several romance genres, and both are RITA-nominated. U.S. Army veteran Lorelie is a law student, true-crime devotee, and avid knitter. With an MA in history, Carrie is a tutor and textbook editor who loves movies and backcountry hiking. They live in the Chicago area.

Book preview

1

Harlow

I don’t fuck groupies anymore, he says. You’ll have to leave.

I’m not a groupie.

He’s sweaty and beautiful. His dark hair is long enough to skim past his eyes to the tops of his bold cheekbones. He holds a water bottle, and his black shirt is half unbuttoned. He’s breathing hard, which is unsurprising considering he’s been singing for more than an hour. He throws himself into the chair in front of the dressing mirror and slants a glance at me.

I notice you’re not denying you’re here to fuck me.

I’m not! Heat hits the tops of my ears and the back of my neck.

I haven’t been this humiliated in years—and I have never, ever lied this hard in my life. All I can think of is throwing myself in his arms and licking the sweat off his neck. I want to bury my fingers in his hair so I can hold his head and take his mouth.

I’ve known of Alec Davies all my life. In my house, he’s spoken of as if he’s the devil himself. His name is spit with hatred, and there’s usually curse words folded around it. That Fucker, Alec might as well be his whole name.

He’s the reason my dad isn’t a member of The Skies anymore—hasn’t been for more than twenty-five years. That’s my whole life plus a few months.

Alec’s dressing room is empty, save the two of us. I had to pull in a lot of family favors to be let in. Before The Skies broke up, they were known for sharing a big dressing room, even when Alec was at his most diva. Not anymore. The one Alec gets for his solo career is small, with a couch along the back wall. There’s an en suite bathroom and a typical chair set in front of the overly-lit mirror. It doesn’t seem like Alec has made much use of his space. It’s bare of makeup or changes of clothes.

A small desk in the corner is covered with papers, though. On top of the stack is a pair of reading glasses. While I was alone in this little room, I’d picked up the glasses, held the wire frames between my fingers, balanced them on my nose. The papers are covered with scribbles of poetry or lyrics. Maybe they’re both. I looked at them too. I have little shame.

He’s watching me through the mirror. His eyes are blue, but they’re not a young man’s blue. They’re shadowy, nearly grey. His cheekbones are sharp, and the lines arching around his mouth are deep.

I haven’t felt comfortable enough to sit down, not even when I was alone here. The pounding rhythms of old hits from The Skies’ had came through the walls, turning my heartbeat into something I didn’t own. Then had came the slower, drugging singer-and-piano riffs of his later smaller solo career. He uses those to twine his audience’s lifeblood around his ego. And now that I’m here, looking at him, I still don’t own my heartbeat. My pulse pounds in my ears and at my temples.

I drift closer to him, then closer still when he keeps watching me. The way he looks at me, that intensity—it’s more than the way most men have touched me.

When I’m within arm’s reach, I trace a fingertip across the top of his back, from shoulder to shoulder. He’s slender, but maybe more substantial than slender. Maybe he’s the kind of man who keeps running because he can’t stand the idea of being comfortable enough to hold still. His shirt is wet with the sweat he’s earned by singing and dancing and reveling in the adoration of a thousand people.

If you’re not a groupie, who are you?

Would you believe me if I said I were a ghost?

He lashes out and wraps a hand around my wrist. His fingers are long. My knees melt. You don’t feel like a ghost.

Maybe I’m anyone you want me to be.

His gaze searches my face. I hold my breath. Will he recognize me? Will he know who I am? But after a long, lingering moment, he gives a minuscule shake of his head. He doesn’t let go of my wrist, though. I don’t know who you are.

I don’t know who I am either.

I think that’s the first full truth you’ve told.

I kiss him. Or rather, I put my mouth over his because I don’t want to hear any more truth. His mouth is perfect. The shape of his lips is delicate, the bottom lip fuller than the top, and he feels as if he’s taken by surprise for only a moment, for only one of my triple-time-fast heartbeats. Then he’s kissing me back. More than that, he’s taken over the kiss.

He still has me by the wrist. Far off I hear the bottle of water bounce and splash to the ground. He locks me into place with his other hand at the back of my head. We’re breathing the same air, trading it back and forth in hot bursts. His tongue plunges into my mouth. He’s surges half out of his chair just from force of kissing me.

He yanks his mouth away. I don’t fuck groupies anymore.

I lean in, trying to kiss him again. His grip in my hair holds me at teasing distance. His tongue flicks out and touches my bottom lip.

So don’t fuck me, I whisper. I’m sure you can think of other ways to occupy our time.

Maybe I said the wrong thing, because he doesn’t move. I see his brain working, which is the last thing I want. I put my hand flat over his mouth, afraid of what he might say. The tip of his tongue comes out to play. He tastes me. His eyes slip shut and his head dips a bit, as if he’s a defeated emperor. A king losing territory.

To me.

His grip skims down my body, not as an exploration but as a transition. His palms reach my hips, and then it’s all about possession. His hands could own me. My fingers are shaking. My stomach is sick. I thought I’d been bringing him a message, but I guess I was fooling myself. Messages can be electronic. Messages can be robotic. Honestly, I’d been looking for this, by confronting the dragon of my father’s fairytales to see if he’s as bad as I’ve always been told. Or if the man I binged on YouTube, watching his performances and music videos, was the real one. I wanted a way to lash out at the past, both the one I’d been fed and the one I’d gone looking for.

He doesn’t turn and push me toward the makeup counter. No, the aging rock star fucking the twenty-something girl in front of the mirror would be too much of a cliché. He wraps those long fingers around my hips and ass and carries me to his desk in the corner, pushing only his glasses out of the way.

He puts me down on his work—his poetry, his lyrics.

Here? My voice is breathless. It sounds as young as I haven’t felt in years.

If I’m going to break my rules like this, I’m taking your come home with me.

The words are too crude for that pretty mouth and those aristocratic features. I make a sound as if I’ve been punched in the gut, but I feel it in my pussy. Hot and wet. Clenching where I want him inside me.

He shoves a thumb in his mouth and wets it. He reaches under my oversized sweater and down into my stretchy leggings, then moans when he finds I’m not wearing panties. It’s my turn to moan when he pushes his thumb in deep. He doesn’t skim past my clit. Nothing so polite for him. He invades me straight away. Maybe he wants to know how wet I already am. How tight I’d be. How much of this turn me on.

He hooks inside, rubbing the flat of his thumb against the front of my channel. The stretch of skin at the base of his fingers—a place that would be fleshy on any regular man—rubs my lower lips and swollen clit. His thumb inside me is going to drive me mad. I catch the heel of my boot on the edge of his desk. He grabs my ankle with his free hand and shoves it roughly over his shoulder.

The movement tips me back, with my spine sharp against the wall. I tuck my chin against my chest, ready to ride this to the end of the tracks. This rough business will get me what I need, coming all over him and his precious words—the art that makes him think he’s so goddamn special.

But then he frees his hand from my leggings. He doesn’t go far, only far enough to lewdly suck that thumb into his mouth. His gaze locks on mine, or maybe mine is locked on his. We’re both breathing hard, although he still seems in control and I resent him for that. I want him as worked up over me as he gets when performing. I want to be his audience. I crave his body straining over mine and his lithe, muscled power slamming into me.

What? I ask.

No fucking, he says, and I’m not sure if he’s reminding me or himself.

He captures the waistband of my pink paisley leggings and shoves them down to the tops of my boots. I lift my hips off the table to help.

He heaves my loose sweater up to my shoulders. I hold it up. He grunts when he sees I’m not wearing a bra. A woman in his dressing room without any underwear—he’s probably second guessing my not-a-groupie bullshit. But my leggings are thick and my tits are small enough and a bra is a nuisance under an oversized cable knit.

And maybe it was just like the message I’m here to deliver. Maybe I came here with this in mind, where the niceties of underwear would only get in the way.

He licks his thumb again, as if he can’t get enough of the taste of me. Strands of dark hair fall across his brow. He shifts back. He dips his head. Then his mouth is on my pussy.

There’s hardly a line between before and after, no sweet kisses or warming me up. He has me. He licks deep. His tongue knows my clit. He wraps around and around it, then sucks me between his lips.

I curl in on myself. I haven’t the brains left to keep up some farce. There’s no game-playing here. His fingers dig into my thigh, holding me free and open. For him. I’m his right now.

This wasn’t how this is supposed to go. I want him. I can admit that. But the weird myth of him didn’t include him eating me out with hardly a soft touch between us.

I scrape my nails across the papers. I crunch them in my fists. Noises spill from my mouth. Slow down. Slow down.

He pulls back just long enough to lick my juices off his top lip. His cheeks are shiny, and his chin too. I’m all over him. No, he says. So simply.

I run my fingers into his hair. Silk. It’s silk, just like I expected. You’re taking me over.

That’s the point.

He drives in again, licking up the length of me, all the way from the tight bud of my ass through my wet hole and around my clit. And back down again. He eats me like he could live off me.

I clamp my thighs around his head and dig my sharp boot heels against his back. I’m coming all over him and I don’t regret a second of it. The sensations lock my chest into a violent rhythm. I don’t own my breathing. He does. He’s feeding me every second of this orgasm. He’s giving me every bit of it, and I’m so goddamn grateful.

Long, long moments later, it’s gone. I’m done.

I rest my hands on his shoulders and lean forward. Carefully. Slowly. I kiss him. My mouth slides over his, through the slickness of my come on his mouth. His tongue sweeps mine. I intentionally rock forward and back, leaving my juices on his papers. He asked for it.

I slide off the table. He stays kneeling, his legs wide and his hands relaxed on his thighs. Whenever he sings Tearing Dreams, he’s on his knees like this, always posed when he reaches the power note. I pull my sweater down and my leggings up.

I hadn’t planned that. I wander away, toward the end of the couch.

What did you plan?

To give you a message.

What was this, then?

I like that he’s on his knees. I wonder what that says about me. Revenge, possibly. Acting out, certainly.

His gaze fires. The lines digging around his mouth deepen. Acting out against who?

My daddy. He’s not well. He’s… I turn to look at him. I want to see his face while I punish him. He has only a few months to live, at most. He’s at Claridge’s. You can come see him tomorrow. He has cancer. It’s spread.

He narrows his keen blue eyes. Do I know your father?

You used to. I have my hand on the doorknob. You used to call him the brother you never had. The man you loved above all others.

Silas, he breathes.

I see the moment the realization breaks him. His shoulders bow. His spine melts. He knows he has the taste of his best friend’s daughter on his mouth.

And I leave.

2

Harlow

Alec arrives earlier than I would have expected.

I’m still sitting in the common room of our hotel suite with my plate of breakfast. As I push the tines of my fork through a puddle of beans, I look out at Brook Street. It’s just a street, but a busy one. Double-decker busses trundle by surprisingly often. I’m not used to views like this. My dad took my mom away to San Francisco when I was only the swelling protrusion that had prevented them from joining the Mile-High Club. More than once, Dad told me he’d wanted to. I attended a private school near the Presidio. The city life is the same, but it’s like the age of the buildings oozes out here, reminding everyone that London is an old city with ancient morals.

Dad and I don’t travel much anymore. He said he’d had enough of the road.

As soon as the knock hits the door, I know who it is. Dad’s medical support staff knock more quietly, as if they know how hard Dad is working at dying and don’t want to disturb him.

This knock, though. It’s hard. Bold. Wholly unexpected considering that Claridge’s is known for its respectability. The idea of an unannounced guest getting all the way to the fourth floor is unthinkable.

My fork clatters against the porcelain of my plate. I jerk a quick look toward the suite’s east bedroom, but the door is still closed, which means that Dad isn’t up. The night nurse only opens the door after they’ve gone through morning rituals—everything from changing his clothes to meds and breathing treatments. I bring Dad’s breakfast, such as it is, as soon as the door is open.

But there’s been no sign of them yet.

Which leaves me on my own to deal with my recklessness.

Alec Davies stands in the hallway. He wears an expensive black wool coat with the collar pulled up. It ought to look terrible, like when he wore sunglasses indoors to all his interviews in the 90s. It doesn’t. He looks arrogant, of course, and he looks like the sort who comes to Claridge’s often. His hair is tidier than after the show and after he’d done eating me out. Clean and shining black now, the fringe is barely shoved to one side, out of his eyes.

He’s not looking away or pretending this is a casual call. His hands are deep in his pockets when his gaze latches on mine. Do you need me to apologize for yesterday?

It’s only the offer that he might offer an apology. My mouth twists. I don’t want it. I don’t want anything from you. Unless you feel like fucking me for real.

He shifts backwards. It’s not enough to be called a flinch, only a shift of his body weight. You don’t mean that.

I lift an eyebrow. I’ll prove it if you want me to.

He finally shifts his gaze, and it’s a sensation as physical as an uncoupling. He looks me over from head to toe. Bare feet. Chipped toenail polish. Simple cotton pajama pants and top.

You’re saying shocking things on purpose then, aren’t you?

Do you think I’m trying to, what? Trap you?

His shrug is elegant I don’t know you.

You know what I taste like.

He takes a hand out of his pocket and for a moment I think he’s going to touch me. But he holds the door frame instead. My skin cries. I’m only here to see Silas.

Come in. I’m proud that I don’t even make him say please. I don’t make him beg.

He follows me into the sitting room. I don’t sit and neither does he. I take up a position near the window, craving the smell of California. Even piss can be familiar when your world is falling apart. When you’re self-destructing. My dad is dying and I’m in London. Self-destruction is just the right word for what I’m feeling.

Alec stays behind the couch, as if he needs heavy furniture to protect himself. The art deco style sofa has a wide, polished piece of mahogany along the top, which seems made for him to stretch his hands across. Where is he?

I tilt my head toward the still-closed bedroom door. In there.

Why are you here?

I’m his daughter. His only living family. The words choke and knot in my throat, and I’m breathless. I swallow the words down like glass.

He shakes his head. There are lines around his eyes. "That’s not what I meant. Why are you both here?"

He’s tying up loose ends. Trying to undo the pain of his life. Pretending it’s not too late to make up for everything he’s lost and everything he’s fucked up. I’m his escort.

How long will you two be staying?

My shoulders tense in a hard cramp. Answering this is more complicated than it ought to be. Dad hasn’t given me a time frame for this trip. We don’t have return tickets. He won’t answer direct questions. I’ve asked them. As long as he wants.

It’s kind of you to drop everything and travel with him, Alec says. Underneath I hear what he’s assuming, that I’m a typical rich man’s daughter, the kind with no career but plenty of time to traipse across the world.

The shitty part is that he’s right. I have a degree—a degree from the San Francisco Art Institute—and I’d give anything to have a career in art fraud investigations, but I am my father’s keeper. I bear that burden alone. He’s been sick for years.

The bedroom door swings open and Dad’s night nurse is there. Frank is a short, stocky black man with a smile that’s barely dimmed by having been up all night. Morning, Harlow, he says to me.

How was he last night? None of the alarms went off and no one called for me, so it was obviously uneventful. But I can’t stop myself from asking.

Good, good, Frank says. Mr. Tate is ready for breakfast.

I’ll get his porridge.

Frank offers me a nod before returning into Dad’s room.

Porridge? Alec’s voice is an echo of mine. I can’t tell if he’s judging or remembering.

I lift both eyebrows. Would you like to make it?

Then I see something that few people probably ever do. I see Alec Davies in a moment of uncertainty.

Yes, he says at last. May I?

3

Alec

No one from my childhood would recognize my life as it is now, but I haven’t forgotten how to make porridge. It’s hasn’t even been that long since I last made it for myself. I

Reviews for Messy

[Willemijn Derks · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It sure is Messy but very well written and the lovestory is wonderfull

[Egle M. · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Beautiful, heart wrenching and hot. Everything a sultry novel should be, a great find.

[Katie Chavez · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I have read many romance novels, suspense, bully, contemporary. This one is hot! The descriptions and characters are wrote in a new beautiful way. So much so, for the first time I cried.

[Luise Pf. · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I really liked this one! Funny and sad and sexy, and way deeper than I thought beforehand.