Chapter Thirty-Five
Maddox
There’s no real routine on tour, just cities that blur together, set lists that are etched into your brain, and moments so fast they hardly seem real. Shows bleed together, nights turn to mornings, and privacy? I hardly remember what that was.
Not when we’re packed in with Beau and Eli, Reign and his crew, noise and life moving a hundred miles an hour.
And I wouldn’t trade a second of it.
Because this—the music, the momentum, the madness—is everything I’ve ever wanted.
And somehow, in the middle of all that, we find it. She and I, sneaking into back hallways and dark corners. Between sound check and stage call.
Stolen time, stolen touches, stolen temptation.
At some point, you’d think I’d remember we’re on tour. That the band is watching, that when Thea said to sort it out, she probably didn’t mean like this. But logic doesn’t come into play when it comes to Paige.
I can’t stop reaching for her. Not when I know what it feels like to be wanted like that. And now that I’ve had it, I can’t go back to the silence that came before her. It’s like sucking in oxygen after drowning, and every second without her feels like slipping back under.
Whatever’s shifted, it’s hit her, too. I see it in the way she looks at me, bitten lips and eyes dancing with invitation.
Because the next thing I know, it’s fast and filthy, half-dressed and hidden.
My hand around her throat in a locked green room.
Her mouth on my neck while Eli laughs ten feet away.
Her fingers wrapped around my cock, mine deep inside her, both of us dangerously close to forgetting where we are.
She makes me reckless. Turns me into the kind of guy who forgets his career, his bandmates, every reason I should’ve stayed away in the first place. She makes me act like I’m seventeen instead of twenty-eight.
But every time I try to pull back, I remember the way she looks when she comes, her soundless screams, head thrown back, throat bared.
The feel of her mouth, the taste of her lips, and the high it gives me, not from the orgasm, but from the way she lets me forget, lets me lose myself in her for a while.
And I’ve been chasing that feeling ever since.
I glance down at my notebook in my hands and smirk. Even our comments feel different now, just like everything else.
Maybe if you spent more time focusing on your lyrics and not on me, you’d write something half decent.
Careful. That smart mouth will get you in trouble.
You liked this smart mouth last night.
“Are you joining us or not?” Eli asks from the sofa, sprawled out with his head propped up on Beau’s arm.
An old movie’s paused on the mounted TV, something we’ve all seen before, as I set my notebook down, heading over to join them. Paige tracks me with her eyes as I drop to the floor in front of the seat she’s on, curled up under a blanket, her head resting on the pillow.
I settle back against it, my shoulders brushing the side of her calf where her legs are bent. It’s casual, unnoticeable by the guys across from us, and I feel her tense for half a second before she shifts closer.
“Okay, I’m here, you can press play,” I grumble, leaning an arm on my leg as Eli resumes the movie.
We’ve barely made it through the first scene when something warm ghosts along the nape of my neck, featherlight, almost not there at all. Paige’s fingers sneak past the hem of the blanket, trailing just under my collar, making me shiver.
I sit there, impossibly still, my cock growing in my sweatpants as she draws lazy patterns on my skin for what feels like hours, tracing the edge of my hairline, dipping under my shirt.
A low chuckle from the sofa has her jerking her hand away as Beau says something to Eli, their voices muffled by the sound of the TV.
I shift slightly, letting my arm rest behind me, my hand dipping under the blanket enough to graze the side of her ankle. Her fingers return, the both of us sitting like this, tethered, pretending nothing’s happening, while underneath, I’m burning.
Something vibrates near my head, and Paige jumps, rummaging around next to her and pulling out her phone. Laughing under her breath, her thumbs type out a reply, before setting it aside again.
“Everything okay?” I whisper, cringing as soon as the words are out. “Sorry, wasn’t meaning to be nosy.”
“It’s fine. It’s just my best friend,” she says, idly returning to play with the ends of my hair. “She’s going to come see us play when we get to New York.”
“Alright,” Beau says just as the credits roll up. “I’m beat.”
“Yeah, me too,” Eli agrees, stretching with a loud yawn. “You coming?”
Sliding my hand out from under Paige’s blanket, my fingers curled around her calf for most of the movie, I stand, shaking my head. “Nah, gonna work on some lyrics for a bit.”
“I’m going to tidy up here first,” Paige says, pointing to the empty bowls of popcorn scattered over the small coffee table.
“Night, guys,” Eli calls out as he heads toward the bunks. Beau trails behind him with a lazy wave.
The lounge goes quiet, just the soft background noise from the TV, Paige still sitting there, legs now stretched out, the light from the screen flickering across her face. She doesn’t move until the final note fades, then slowly peels the blanket off her lap, letting it fall to the floor.
Another minute passes before she whispers, “This is hard.”
I glance down at her, frowning. “The tour?”
“No,” she whispers as her eyes lift to meet mine. “This. You. Me. Not being able to touch.”
Smirking, I glance at where the guys disappeared, before leaning a little closer, my voice loud enough that it’s only for her. “I knew I was irresistible.”
She rolls her eyes, her lips twitching like she’s trying not to smile. “Oh, shut up.”
“What? You brought it up,” I murmur, my gaze dropping to her lips. “Do you expect me not to react when you say shit like that?”
“I didn’t think you’d be this calm about it.”
“I’m not calm.” I reach for her hand and bring it to the hard outline in my sweatpants. “I’ve been going crazy for days.”
Her breath hitches, her eyes widening as we hear Beau laugh from down the hall, the sound loud enough to remind us that what we’re doing right now, the risk, it could blow everything up.
But my hand finds the side of her face anyway, guiding her upward, my fingers sliding into her hair, kissing her in the dark. It’s rushed, filthy, and her hand grips my shirt as her lips part to let me in.
I swallow her whimpers, the muffled noises I know she’s trying not to make, each one a shot straight to my balls.
Footsteps creak somewhere behind her, and we jerk apart, Paige lunging for the empty popcorn bowl and shoving it in front of my now-hard dick.
“Go write your lyrics,” she mumbles, hair fanning out behind her as she spins to grab the blanket from the floor and fold it across the chair, her breaths uneven, her kiss-swollen lips glistening in the dim light.
This isn’t just lust anymore; I don’t think it's been that way for a while now. With our secret touches and these notes hidden between the pages in my book, we’re creating something different, a rhythm of our own, off beat and careless, and one I don’t want to stop playing.
I glance up at Paige sitting at her booth, nodding along to whatever’s playing in her headphones. Across the lounge area, Beau and Eli sit half-tuned into their instruments, lazily plucking chords with no real purpose, just a way to pass time on our way to the next city.
Returning to my notebook, I reread the chorus, Paige’s note bolder than any scribble I could have scored onto the paper.
There’s brilliance here, it’s just buried under the noise. Let me help before it gets too loud. I know what it’s like. I know how hard it is to shut up. But you have this. I promise.
The ink smudges where her hand rested, and I stare at it for longer than I should before reading my lyrics again, the words clicking almost immediately with her changes.
The bones were solid before her help, and there might have been a line that needed more bite, a word that could’ve slice deeper, too, but she didn’t just fix a few cracks. She fleshed it out, let it breathe.
For the first time, I’m not writing what sounds good in my head. I’m starting to understand why it works. And it’s because of her.
She sees things I don’t, hears emotion between the syllables, and I’m learning from her.
And fuck, if that doesn’t feel like the first time I picked up my guitar and didn’t suck.
The sound of Paige humming catches my attention, quiet, soft, almost just for her.
She swings her pendant on its chain, back and forth, watching Eli and Beau now, her headphones gone.
It’s a small, familiar movement, one I’ve memorized.
But it still tightens something in my chest. It’s that feeling again, the one I try to ignore.
The one that screams what we’re doing is wrong.
More than she knows.
She shifts from her booth, moving to join the guys, dropping down next to Eli. I can’t hear what she says, but he nods thoughtfully, and then Beau plays the same chords again, this time in a different key. Her brow furrows, and she bites her lip, thinking, and then she looks at me.
“Maddox, this melody would work so damn well with the lyrics from weeks ago in your book,” she says, her eyes lighting up. “Quick, Beau, do that transition into the riff again.”
He plays it, and she sings my lyrics, words I hadn’t even shown her properly. She must’ve seen them in a glance, a flip of the page, and now she’s singing them out loud, her melodic voice filling the bus.
I knew she could write—hell, half of the tracks in the top fifty were hers at one point—but her voice…
it catches me off guard. It’s not perfect, not rehearsed, but it might be my favorite track yet.
The pacing’s different than what I imagined, but if anything, that makes it better, like a song that was always meant for her to sing.
I watch as she closes her eyes and leans into the chorus, imaging how she’d fit in with the husky tones of my voice and the scratch of Beau’s. Trained, real, perfect, creating a new layer that’s changed everything I thought I knew about our sound.
Her fingers tap unconsciously against her thigh, her lashes flutter, and a slight crease forms between her eyebrows as her mouth shapes the words like she’s tasting them.
And it hits me, hard and fast, right in the solar plexus. I rub the spot with my knuckles, unable to look away as the thought settles deep.
They say to draw from what’s around you for inspiration. But she’s becoming more than that. She’s the spark, the ignition for every lyric, every note, every song.
She’s my muse.
A silence falls over the bus as the last note fades, and Eli grins, clapping his hands in delight. “Okay, that was epic.”
“Could definitely be something,” Beau agrees, looking at me. “Whatcha think?”
I can feel her eyes on me, too, waiting. Not just for approval, maybe something else. But my heart’s beating too fast, and I can’t get the sound of her voice out of my head. My hands start to shake, fingers twitching, restless and useless.
“I—” I stand quickly, waving vaguely toward the back. “I’m gonna grab a shower.”
One of the guys calls my name, but I don’t look back. Ducking into the tiny bathroom, I flick on the faucet and brace myself against the sink. I’m not just in over my head with her anymore, I’m fucking drowning.
Now she’s the reason my lyrics are lighter, looser, better. She’s in my bloodstream, in every fuckup, in the damn set list I decided to change because she was right. In the cues I miss because I’m too busy watching her.
She’s the muse I wasn’t looking for, in every line I haven’t written yet.
Paige is my chaos, but also my cadence. The part that makes it all make sense.
I splash water on my face and drag my hands through my hair, staring into the mirror. The guy looking back at me isn’t who I used to be.
This could ruin everything, the band, the future, the dream. All the reasons why this is a disaster waiting to happen, surrounded by big flashing lights.
Only, all I see are reasons not to stop.
Not yet.