27. Sedona and Beyonda
IAN
Some Romeo I was. I finally got the girl, and what did I do?
I slept for thirteen hours.
I woke up once with a full bladder, but when I got back, Nicky was curled up in bed, and she looked so soft and warm and sweet that I got back into bed, pulled her onto my chest, listened to her breathe, and slept another five hours.
What a putz.
On the other hand, I felt . . . good.
Even before indulging in a joint-popping stretch, I watched Nicky. She’d woken up before me (no surprise; only coma patients sleep for longer) and was dressed and working quietly. She was in a skirt that left a lot of thigh exposed and a shirt that skimmed across breasts I had licked. Her bare feet were on the coffee table, and she had her laptop open. Sitting on the sofa where she’d first touched herself.
Hadn’t moved a muscle, and I was already hard as stone.
I hadn’t made a sound, but she looked up anyway. “Morning,” she said, a smile slowly dawning on her gorgeous face.
“Hi. What are you up to?”
She set the laptop aside and prowled to me. “Setting up the studio to record the lullaby. Want to know what my erotic dream was about? The one in the bus when I woke you up by licking your neck?”
“Uh, yeah.” I was frozen, caught on rising excitement and swelling hope.
“In my dream, you were sitting on a crate in the storeroom,” she said. “But that’s okay. You lying down will do just fine too.” Anticipation built in me. She grabbed the sheet and flung it ruthlessly off my naked body. “Hello,” she said to my enormous erection.
Maybe I was still asleep. Maybe this was the best dream I’d ever had.
“So, you were sitting on the crate, and I flung one thigh across you and sat on your lap.”
She put one knee on the bed at my hip and swung the other leg up and over. Then she sat down, just behind my cock. I gasped to feel her.
She was naked below her skirt.
“I know I said I was going to make you moan, and I will. But first . . . would you mind?”
She plucked a condom from the nightstand and eyed me sternly. Ladies’ choice. I was in favor.
I reached for the condom, but she refused to give it to me. “I’ll do that,” she insisted. “And you won’t come either.”
Her bossy tone was a turn-on. I clenched my fists and bit my tongue to hold on when she carefully sheathed my cock in latex. “Do you want me to touch you first?” I asked breathlessly.
She scoffed. “I’m sitting over there emailing people and getting wetter and wetter, waiting for you to wake up. You turned me into a—” She rose to fit herself over me.
“Wanton sex kitten?” I gasped.
“Meow.” She lowered herself onto me, and I threw my head back at the clench, the heat, the slickness.
“Oh, Nicky . . . ”
“I rode you in the dream like I’m riding you now. With your cock deep inside me. And if I swing my hips in little circles . . . oh, god . . . Ian . . .”
“Want help?” I asked breathlessly, lost in the sight of her rising and falling on me.
She shook her head. “It won’t take long. Can you stand—stand it—oh, god, Ian, right there. Right there! Go ahead, I’m going to come?—”
I thrust up into her so hard, her knees came off the bed, and she slammed back down onto me. My eyes rolled back in my head as I shouted.
She was draped over my chest when my brain cleared from the madness, and my hands were on the ass that I definitely had not had enough time with yet. “Good morning to you,” I gasped on a laugh, and then she was kissing me as I softened inside her.
Her kiss was languid and sweet. The fever had broken for both of us, and I lifted her off me so I wouldn’t make a mess.
She stretched on the bed while I disposed of the condom. The bathroom, I noted for the first time, had a shower big enough for two. Wasn’t that interesting?
I paused in the doorway to admire her, and she smiled back at me.
Now I was rested, calm, and my balls were completely empty. Amazing how clearly I could think.
“So.” I sat on the bed beside her. “Can we talk about Archer at all?”
She shrugged. “He kissed me. It was bad. That’s about it. What more do you want to know? That I was an idiot?”
I hadn’t wanted to ask if he had been one of her lovers in her recounting, but I was relieved that he wasn’t.
“You’re not an idiot. I’m just wondering if this is going to be a Romeo-and-Juliet deal. I listen to someone tell me something that isn’t exactly true and end up dead on the floor of a crypt.”
She laughed. “We’re all going to end up dead on the floor of a crypt eventually, but in this case, you don’t have to worry. Archer is okay with you and me being together.”
I shook my head. “I can’t get over the fact that he gave you up. Why would he?”
She nudged me with a bare toe. “I’m no prize, you know.”
I made a rude noise that was a compliment nevertheless. “Right. He’s not an idiot. And you’re way more than he deserves. You’re way more than I deserve, too, but I thought he understood.”
She smiled. “You know Archer is really only interested in Archer, right?”
I slid a hand around her naked ankle, marveling that I was allowed to do it. “It’s really not his fault. He has older sisters. He’s the only boy and the baby of the family. They’ve been telling him he walks on water since he was born, and he’s always really surprised when he tries it and gets wet.”
Nicky laughed. “You see him very kindly.”
“Nah.” I tried to explain. “I know who he is. But he’s also loyal and funny, and his family has been my family since kindergarten. Plus, you think a humble guy can get up in front of all those people and sing his heart out?”
“You do.”
That felt like a compliment to savor, so I hid my appreciation. “He’s the front man. It’s different. And I don’t want to mess that up. If I can help it.”
She waggled her eyebrows and grabbed her phone, now neatly charging beside mine. She’d plugged both of us in. This tiny gesture of united domesticity touched me in a deep place. “I’ll text him. You’ll see.”
My heart skipped a beat. We were going public with the lust I’d been hiding for weeks. But if she was telling the truth, then Archer already knew. Which meant that by now, Mal knew too.
“There. See?” She held out her phone to show me the text she’d sent.
Tell Ian you don’t hate him for being with me
“Very subtle,” I commended her. “Quite diplomatic.”
“Hang on. He’s texting back. Well, come on. Could he be any slower?” Then she laughed and held out the phone so I could see the reply.
Tell Ian I will always have a better Pokémon collection than him
You guys want to go to lunch?
Relief washed over me. Our first fight—in kindergarten—had been about our Pokémon cards. He was still my Archer. “Want to join them for lunch?”
“Go take a shower,” she said. “You smell like sex.”
“You could join me.”
“I’m telling him we’ll meet them in twenty minutes. If I shower with you, I promise we’ll be late. Go on. You need food so you can survive when I torment you this afternoon.”
The eager chortle came out of me before I could suppress something so uncool.
As we walked to the resort’s restaurant, she shyly took my hand. That felt good, but not as good as dropping her hand to slide my arm around her shoulder and tuck her into my side. We made our entrance as a true couple.
Not that Archer or Mal cared. “Nicky,” Archer complained, “I thought we were getting a script. A storyboard. This is just . . . us in the studio. I don’t think this is the right idea at all for the video.”
Nicky had knelt to greet Charlotte, lying in the shade below our table on the terrace. “We talked about this, remember? If we had a week and a big budget, we could do a story video. But you guys don’t have time. We’ve got the recording studio for six hours only. You’re going to be there recording the lullaby. The camera crew will film you and cut in shots of you guys with Charlotte. And that’s about all we have time for.”
I appreciated the fact that she left off how much it would cost to do a longer shoot. The guys felt bad about dipping into my savings account, and I wasn’t crazy about the idea myself. But until we got the record company to up our contract, we were entirely self-funded.
Archer hadn’t thought that through. I could read his mind. He wanted a minifilm that he’d star in, and no doubt it would be a huge success. It just wasn’t going to happen right now.
“I promise.” Nicky saw his frown. “You’ll look good. All three of you will.” She took my hand again as she stood, and I tried not to swagger in satisfaction.
“All four of us,” Mal said stoutly. “Don’t forget the dog. Aftermath is now a quartet.”
“Maybe we should say a quintet now.” I looked at Nicky, but she shook her head firmly.
“Management does not count in the band. You’re recording in two days, so let’s focus on what we know and what we need to do to make the recording session go smoothly.”
Management, indeed. She managed all of us, leaving us focused, happy, and productive. She astonished me by announcing that she’d already set up my spa appointment.
“I’m not doing a spa appointment,” I said to Archer’s disgust. (“It’s Sheree’s gift to us! It would be rude to turn it down! I’m having a mud bath!”)
“Yes, you are,” Nicky said calmly. “You’re seeing a physical therapist at four. He’s going to work with you on breaking up the scar tissue.”
“I’m—I am?”
She nodded. “And I’m taking a yoga class. After that, you and I are having dinner alone in your room.”
“Our room,” I corrected.
She smiled, flaring her eyebrows in a suggestive, if polite leer. It was clear there would be rewards if I put up with a PT and scar abatement.
Well.
Okay.
If I had to.
Two kids at a nearby table had spotted Charlotte, and their mother and father were physically holding them back from swarming our puppy. Nicky took Charlotte to meet them, and in her absence, I found myself being observed by Archer and Mal.
“About time,” Mal said with a smile.
“Don’t fuck it up,” Archer said.
And that was it. My guys were okay with it.
The Sedona break was too short. We were climbing back onto the bus before I was ready to leave the glorious, lust-filled, deep-sleeping room. Ken took one look at Nicky and said, “Guess I better start calling you little missus now, huh? Good for you, kid.”
She blushed, and Ken glared at me.
I lifted my hands in innocence. “My intentions are honorable.”
“Well, it’s considered rude to have sex on the bus, you know. Try to control yourselves. Animals.”
We’d already discussed it. She and I would do our best to keep our hands to ourselves while sleeping in the back lounge. I knew Nicky had a fantasy about getting fucked in the merch storeroom, and I was prepared to make that happen.
We almost managed it in the storeroom at the Phoenix venue until a security guard appeared, blushing, to let us know we were on camera and the guys in the security suite were running a pool on how far she and I would get on a stack of boxes . . . which would have been pretty far if he hadn’t shown up.
Nicky and I repaired our clothing, cleared our own blushes, and regrouped. To my delight, it was Nicky who got the guy’s attention before he left.
“Hey,” she said. “Is there a place in the stadium that isn’t—um?—”
“On-camera?” He shook his head. “Not anymore. We even have cameras in the locker rooms, even if we have to turn them off for the female athletes. That’s something you might want to point out to that blond guy.” He nodded to me.
Ah. Archer had found a groupie.
“He probably wouldn’t care if he knew,” I admitted.
The security guard brightened. “Sure does keep the guys in the office interested in their jobs, I gotta say!” Nicky snorted in unwilling amusement, and he hastened to reassure her. “We never keep the recordings. Promise.”
“Jeesh,” she said, and looked at me. “This could have been our sex tape.”
“Grainy and out of focus,” I agreed. “Guaranteed to go viral. Win a porn Oscar.”
The security guard was interested in our chatter. “Your best bet, seriously? Have sex in the crowd on the floor tonight when the band is making a hell of a noise. You know, back to front, like.” He made an awkward dip with his hips. “Very hard to pick that out, I can tell you. Although your immediate neighbors will probably notice.”
The idea of fucking Nicky in a crowd both shocked me and made me hard again, even as I suppressed a chuckle at the guard’s tone of serious consideration.
“Thank you,” Nicky said as she turned him with a gentle but firm hand on his shoulder. “We’ll keep that in mind.”
She sent him on his helpful way before surrendering to her laughter. Her head fell back against the closed door, and I watched her with something deeper than the lust and laughter that was stretching all my muscles. “What?” I gasped through my gusts of amusement. “You don’t want me to prong you from behind while Sheree sings a love song?”
Her laughter crested into high giggles. “You’re about half a foot taller than me,” she wheezed. “We’re going to need a stepladder.”
The idea tickled her so much that I lost track of what she was trying to say, save for the words “Prong me!” that came out in chortles.
We’d had a near miss in terms of hot sex, we were lost together in laughter, and the connection between us was far stronger than it should have been for being a good ten feet from each other. Nicky was warmth. Laughter. Light.
“I’m sorry I don’t get to play with that,” she said, gesturing to my crotch once she’d gotten her breath back. “Think you can take care of that without me before you go onstage?”
She’d stumbled onto a classic performer’s nightmare, like appearing onstage and realizing suddenly that I’d forgotten all my clothes. The idea of playing hard made me surrender again to horrified laughter. “Where?” I asked. “The locker rooms? I don’t think so!”
She moved on light feet, crossing the storeroom to loop her arms around my neck and lean into me, adding delicious, torturous heat and pressure to my cock. I held her close for the sheer joy of feeling her against me. “I wish I could help,” she sighed as I kissed her. We could go no further while on camera, so I did my best to keep the kiss PG-rated.
Someone outside banged on the door. “We need gray crewnecks,” one of the merch women shouted. “Size medium.”
With a sigh, Nicky detached herself and grabbed a box, barely looking at it. She passed it out to the woman. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
The merch crew chief looked past her to me leaning against the shelves. “Take your time,” she said with a little smile. That made me stand up straighter. My scar was on display and everything.
Nicky came back with a grin curving her luscious lips. “I gotta get back to it,” she said.
“You didn’t even look. How do you know you gave her the right box?”
“There’s exactly one scanner, and whoever holds it has all the authority. It drove me up the wall, so I started my own inventory system. See?” She slapped a hand on the box by the door. “Short-sleeved white tee, size large. That’s an XL above it, and this one is a medium. I have to rearrange the stock room each time and mark the new boxes when the merch reorders come in, but it’s worth it.”
“You’re so smart.” I groped her ass, wishing I had time to pay proper attention to her—her brain.
She laughed. “Bathroom toilet stall,” she recommended, “with your back to whatever camera might be around. That’s what I’m going to do.”
I winced at the rush of blood to my cock. “You’re going to touch yourself?” I asked breathlessly.
“And think about you while I do it. Will you think of me?”
Damn. I’d almost been able to make it out the door without being so tented that I embarrassed myself in front of the merch crew.