Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Sleep had been achieved in unintentional bursts.
When Bryn’s wake-up alarm went off, she was knuckle-deep in Vivian with her back arching off the bed.
Now, sitting in the back row of a panel on narrating children’s books, Bryn felt like a coughed-up hairball.
Vivian, however, looked as perfectly composed as always.
It might be unfair if it wasn’t such a turn-on.
Knowing that just hours earlier Vivian, so poised and polished she’d make a royal look like a slob, had been a writhing mess for her was intoxicating.
It was hard to listen to the craft differences between middle grade and chapter books.
All she could hear was Vivian’s moans reverberating in her mind.
“Your gaze is completely unfocused,” Vivian whispered against her ear when she leaned over, arm over the back of Bryn’s chair like she didn’t mind who speculated.
Like she was making a wordless declaration.
Like she was intentionally making her remember all the filthy things she’d whispered for her already. “I fear your mind is elsewhere.”
Heat flooded Bryn’s face when Vivian shot her a glance. When she confirmed with a lopsided smirk that she was, in fact, nestled between her thighs and drinking her in rather than sitting in an ugly beige ballroom. At least that’s where she was in her imagination.
Bryn shifted but resisted squeezing her thighs together.
Somewhere between sore and overstimulated, she still wanted more.
Wanted more of Vivian until she was a full-body bruise.
And even that much pain wouldn’t deter her.
She was hooked, irrevocably and completely and embarrassingly hooked on Vivian.
Halfway through a masterclass on working with a voice coach, all she could think of was having Vivian to herself again. They’d barely had any time to talk the night before and there was still so much about Vivian to learn. An entire lifetime for Bryn to catch up on.
They followed the crowd into the busy hallway and out to the lobby where the line for lunch was daunting. Bryn was going to suggest leaving the hotel to get something else during the break when Harvey’s greeting cut her off.
“If it isn’t the voice of the summer,” he said when he met them a few feet from the person checking conference credentials.
Bryn pulled her phone from the back pocket of her jeans. She did a double take when Harvey started to talk to her rather than Vivian.
“Wait, what?” Bryn looked between Harvey and Vivian. They both looked like they were hiding a secret. And hiding it badly.
Vivian gave him a look that read like permission. Bryn might have been annoyed about conversations happening behind her back but the unusual amount of notifications on her phone was distracting.
“That’s what Mel Scott called you over breakfast this morning,” he replied, obviously expecting Bryn to have a reaction. To know who the hell that was.
Bryn glanced at her phone again. She had over a hundred notifications on the Siren app. With her latest audio uploaded only that morning, it was too soon to have accumulated so many all at once.
Her stomach tensed. Bryn wanted to think that she’d somehow gone viral. That maybe some influencer mentioned her somewhere and sent a drove of new listeners.
But fear suffocated hope. Had Seraphina or Richard told people?
Harvey’s mouth was moving and Vivian looked proud, but all Bryn could think about was Seraphina and Richard regaling a crowd with what they’d learned about her. That every attendee was listening to her—
“Mel Scott only produces Platinum Voices,” Vivian explained, trying and failing not to smile.
Ten more notifications appeared on her screen, sending her heart plummeting.
“He’s casting the lead in the full-cast production of Heir to the Obsidian Throne,” Harvey added, grin broad and unabashed when he mentioned the romantasy juggernaut. “A versatile ingénue with a warm, engaging voice.” He wiggled his brows. “He expressed interest in listening to an audition sample.”
Another five notifications. Something was wrong and Bryn needed to know what or she was going to projectile vomit all over the nice marble floor. Or maybe faint. Or both. Puke then faint.
She looked up, struggling to catch up because Harvey was still talking and Vivian’s expression told Bryn she should adjust her own.
“Oh! Me?” Bryn belatedly registered his point.
He laughed, looking at Bryn like she was a particularly silly ferret hanging from the top of her enclosure.
“Yes, you!” He turned to Vivian. “Haven’t you prepared her for what’s coming?
If there’s something you can count on in audiobook publishing, it’s that everyone wants the same voice after a hit.
And a new platinum voice that’s an overnight sensation…
” He grinned. “You’re about to be very busy. ”
Bryn wasn’t sure how to respond but thankfully Vivian did and saved her from herself.
“Let’s not count our glass paperweights until they’ve landed on the shelf,” Vivian said with effortless authority.
“I forget how superstitious you can be.” Harvey chuckled. “Fair enough. When Mel Scott sidles up to you, act surprised.”
The moment Harvey was gone, Bryn finally unlocked her screen.
“What is it?” Vivian leaned in like she wanted to see what the hell had Bryn spiraling.
“I don’t know,” she half-whispered. “Something that I posted this morning.” She swiped open the app and read 320 comments shouting variations of the same thing. “Apparently, only the first two minutes of my upload has any sound, I—”
“Go take care of it.” Vivian straightened, hand on her lower back again as if it belonged there.
Like it was the most common thing in the world for Vivian to touch her—to touch anyone—with such casual intimacy.
The touch was instantly calming. Bryn took her first full inhale since she’d looked at her phone.
“Maybe I need to re-upload it. But lunch—”
“Go.” Vivian was already ushering her toward the elevators. “I’ll bring you something.”
“You wanted to sit with—”
“Bryn.” Vivian’s tone left no room for negotiation. “This is important.” She looked at the frantic comments flooding her post. “I don’t want you held liable if one of your fans has a coronary.”
“Okay.” She reached into her back pocket and handed Vivian her room key. “771 if I don’t come back before you’re finished with the—”
“Don’t worry about me.” She took the key and slipped it into a pocket hidden in her navy sheath dress. “Go, please.”
The elevator dinged open and Bryn had to stop the impulse to peck Vivian on the lips. They hadn’t discussed Vivian’s feelings on PDA. They hadn’t discussed anything about anything and now wasn’t the time to ask when all she could worry about was disappointing her fans.
“Okay, thank you,” Bryn said and crossed into the elevator.
Vivian hesitated as if she were debating getting on with her, but wasn’t sure whether she should. The closing doors made the decision for her when Bryn was too scattered to formulate an invitation.
After nearly an hour, Bryn hadn’t solved her problem.
Her frantic emails to tech support had gone unanswered and when she checked her banked emergency files, they had the same audio cutoff issue.
She cursed herself for updating her laptop’s operating system before leaving for New York.
Something in the update must have corrupted her audio files.
Resigned to recording new content because she never messed with her release schedule, she raced back downstairs to grab impromptu tools of her trade.
She loaded up on all the extra blankets housekeeping could spare and hung them from the glass shower door, the shower head, towel rack, and the shampoo dispenser.
In loose sweatpants and a hoodie she’d brought because she packed her whole damn closet, Bryn layered the floor with extra blankets, sheets, and pillows until she’d created a comfy bed suited for a Great Dane or medium Bryn.
At home, she’d have her desk and a bowl of macaroni to stir, but she’d been lucky enough to find a ripe peach. iPad in hand, she pulled up a banked script. Mercifully, those files hadn’t been gobbled up by computer goblins. Headphones in, she got to work.
She was halfway through her boss/assistant story, treating the peach like it was her assistant splayed across her desk, when she felt the unsettling vibration of a heavy door closing. Bryn pulled out an earbud and confirmed there was movement in her room. Had she forgotten the do not disturb sign?
She opened the padded glass door. Bryn was going to climb out of the shower and ask housekeeping to come back later when Vivian appeared in the bathroom.
“What are you doing here?” Bryn started to stand, but Vivian moved toward her, hand up as if telling her to stay. “I was just recording,” she explained, realizing that she should have texted Vivian that she wouldn’t make it back for the first post-lunch panel.
“Just give me twenty minutes and I’ll be finished with this.” She paused her recording software.
Soundlessly, Vivian stepped out of her shoes and into Bryn’s makeshift nest. She watched Bryn with a gaze so intense it could melt titanium. Watched her while obviously formulating a plan.
The corner of Vivian’s mouth twitched into the suggestion of a smirk. A decision made. And then, while Bryn’s pulse raced like a supercollider hurtling toward impact, Vivian reached under her dress.
Body thumping with unrestrained heat, Bryn muttered her curse as Vivian slid her lacy underwear down her mouthwatering thighs. She clenched her jaw to keep her mouth from falling open when Vivian pulled off the flimsy fabric and tossed it onto the counter.
Rather than squeeze in next to her, Vivian pulled up her dress, nearly killing Bryn with her perfect expanse of inner thigh, and straddled her hips.