The bourbon was a slow burn in his throat, a familiar ghost of the previous night’s obliteration. Robin stood at the floor-to-ceiling window of his Miami suite, the city’s evening glitter a taunt. The ice in his glass clicked once, a tiny sound in the vast, silent room that still smelled, beneath the citrus cleaner, of other women’s perfume and his own shame.
His phone buzzed on the marble counter. Lyle, his promoter. The name felt like a weight. He answered.
“Don’t tell me you’re drinking alone again.” Lyle’s voice was all false cheer and transactional concern. “The boys from the label are at Elysium. Three models, fresh off the runway. They’re asking for you. Says it’s not a party without the headliner.”
“I’m good.” Robin’s reply was flat. He watched a yacht slide across the black water of the bay, its lights a careless string of diamonds.
“Come on, man. Last night was a reset. Shake it off. You’re Robin Thicke. This is what you do.”
“What I did,” Robin corrected, the bourbon making the words slurry. “I’m not doing it tonight.”
A sigh crackled down the line. “This guilt trip is bad for business. Look, if the solo act is getting stale, change the script. You’ve got that young thing now. April.” Lyle’s tone turned conspiratorial, slick. “Bring her into the mix. A threesome. She’s a model, she’s young, she’d probably be into it. Test the waters. See how open she is.”
The suggestion landed in Robin’s gut like a cold stone. He saw April’s face in the diner, the wary hope in her eyes when she agreed to go with him. He saw her beneath him in the Ohio hotel, whispering his name like a secret. “She wouldn’t.”
“You don’t know until you ask. Could be her fantasy, too.”
“I’m not asking.” The finality in his own voice surprised him. It felt brittle. “I’m not… I can’t lose her, Lyle.”
“Fine, fine. Saint Robin.” Lyle backed off, the pragmatist shifting gears. “Then at least have her here. The press loves a new couple. Good optics. Invite her on the tour for the last few dates. Makes you look stable, devoted. Helps with the… other narrative.”
The other narrative. Paula. Julian. The custody threat that still hung over him, a sword he’d barely dodged. Stability. The word was a joke, but the impulse wasn’t. He needed her here. He needed the anchor of her, the proof that something in his life wasn’t ruin. “Yeah,” Robin heard himself say. “Okay.”
He called her. Her voice, sleepy and soft from Ohio, wrapped around him. He didn’t mention Lyle, or optics, or swords. He just said he missed her. That the tour felt empty. That he wanted her with him.
She agreed. She could be there in two days. The simple certainty in her answer filled a hollow place in his chest, just for a moment. He hung up and finished the bourbon, the temporary warmth almost convincing him he was a man who could keep a promise.
The next night, the stage lights were a physical heat. The crowd’s roar was a wave he rode on autopilot, his body performing the choreography of fame while his mind replayed April’s voice. After the final bow, sweat cooling on his skin, he walked back toward his dressing room through the backstage labyrinth. That’s when he saw her.
Leaning against a concrete pillar, a backstage pass dangling between her breasts. Kristen. Her dress was a scrap of crimson latex, her curves a blatant, voluptuous challenge. Her hair was honey-blonde, her smile knowing. “Incredible show,” she said, her voice a low purr. “You pour your soul out up there.”
He should have kept walking. He knew the script. He knew this character. But his eyes tracked the impossible swell of her hips, the deep valley of her cleavage the pass nestled in. The hollow from yesterday yawned open, wider, hungrier. The promise to April felt like something he’d dreamed. This was real. This was now. This was a distraction he knew how to use.
“Thanks,” he said, his performer’s charm clicking on, a switch he didn’t decide to flip. He stopped. “You a fan?”
“Of the music?” She pushed off the pillar, closing the distance. The scent of her, vanilla and ambition, cut through the smell of sweat and wiring. “I’m a fan of intensity.” Her hand brushed his damp forearm. “You look like you could use a drink that doesn’t come in a plastic cup.”
He led her to his hotel suite. He didn’t speak in the elevator. His blood was a dull roar in his ears, a white noise to drown out thought. The door clicked shut behind them, sealing them in the quiet, opulent tomb.
She turned to him, her back against the door, her big eyes bold. He didn’t kiss her. He looked at her, this beautiful stranger, and saw only an instrument. A means to feel nothing. He reached out, his fingers finding the zipper at the side of her dress. The sound was loud in the silence. The latex parted. He pushed the material from her shoulders, let it pool at her feet. She stood there in just a black thong, her body a masterpiece of generous, inviting curves.
Then his hands were on her, not with passion, but with a kind of ruthless study. He palmed the heavy weight of her breast, his thumb scraping over her nipple. She gasped, her head falling back. He walked her backward toward the bedroom, his mouth finally crashing down on hers. The kiss was all tongue and teeth, a claiming without affection. He bit her lower lip, tasted the metallic hint of blood. She moaned into his mouth, her hands fumbling for his belt.
He broke the kiss, pushing her down onto the edge of the vast bed. “On your knees,” he said, his voice rough. He didn’t wait, undoing his jeans, freeing his cock. It was already hard, thick, and eager in a way that felt separate from the numbness in his chest. She took him into her mouth without hesitation, her lips stretching around him.
She was good. Her mouth was hot, wet, expert. She used her tongue along the frenulum, sucked hard on the head, and took him deep until he felt the back of her throat. He watched, his hands tangled in her honey hair, his hips moving in shallow thrusts. He focused on the sensation, the slick heat, the pressure. He chased the feeling, trying to outrun the image of April’s trusting face. He fucked her mouth with a growing, desperate rhythm, using her.
When he was close, he pulled out, his cock glistening with her saliva. “Turn over,” he commanded. She obeyed, presenting herself on her hands and knees, the ripe swell of her ass in the air. He knelt behind her, his hands spreading her. He didn’t go for her pussy. He lowered his head to the tight, pink pucker of her asshole.
He licked a slow, flat stripe across it. She shuddered, a shocked, thrilled cry escaping her. He did it again, then focused his tongue into a point, pressing against the resistant muscle. He worked her there, licking, probing, worshipping this most forbidden part of her with a detached, clinical intensity. Her moans were continuous now, a soundtrack to his escape. He pushed a spit-slicked thumb against the rim, applying pressure until it yielded, just a little. She pushed back against his face, begging wordlessly.
Then she turned, pushing him onto his back. “My turn,” she breathed, her eyes dark. She moved down his body, past his throbbing cock, and pushed his legs apart. Before he could process it, he felt her warm breath, then the wet, insistent probe of her tongue against his own asshole.
A jolt shot through him, electric and shamefully good. His back arched off the bed. He’d never—he hadn’t thought—but her tongue was relentless, circling, pressing, and a wave of shocking, total vulnerability washed over him, followed by a cresting wave of pure physical pleasure. He groaned, a raw, unfiltered sound, his hands fisting in the sheets. She rimmed him with dedication, her fingers digging into his thighs, and the numbness shattered, replaced by a sharp, overwhelming sensitivity. He was completely at the mercy of this stranger’s mouth, and for a blinding moment, he felt nothing but sensation, no past, no future, no self.
The buildup was agonizing, exquisite. When he couldn’t take it anymore, he pulled her up by her hair. “Finish it,” he growled. She understood, taking his cock back into her mouth, bobbing her head furiously. The dual assault—the memory of her tongue on him, the reality of her mouth on him—tipped him over the edge. His climax ripped through him, violent and emptying. He came in hot, pulsing jets down her throat, his whole body seizing, a shout tearing from his lungs.
He collapsed back, spent, gasping. The room came back into focus—the sterile hotel art, the silent air conditioner. Kristen wiped her mouth, a smug smile on her swollen lips. The numbness rushed back in, colder now, laced with the acid of self-loathing. He’d done it again. He’d obliterated himself, and the void he’d filled was already expanding, bigger, hungrier than before.
The phone on the nightstand rang, shrill and invasive. Robin stared at it, his heart a cold, dead weight in his chest. He knew, with a dread that turned his stomach to ice, who it was. He reached a trembling hand and lifted the receiver.
“Mr. Thicke,” the hotel receptionist’s polite, disembodied voice said. “Your guest, Miss Sterling, has just arrived in the lobby. Shall I send her up?”