Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
JC
It’s always the same, right? The frustration that follows after-the-fact regret. Those moments in your life where you wish you could change what you said.
Or the things you didn’t say.
I’m spooning Gia in her bunk, both of us naked as the day we were born.
The rattle-hum of the bus vibrates beneath us, like one of those old motel beds where a quarter could shake up your night.
She’s asleep, her breathing slow and steady.
Gia insisted we crash together last night, and who was I to protest?
She needed my atonement, and I needed her forgiveness.
We flew too close to the sun and almost torched the beginnings of us.
After two panicked laps when I returned to the bar last night, with Gia nowhere to be found, my heart cratered. I knew what had happened and kicked myself for being such an idiot.
When she tried to shore up her emotions at the lake, she caught a tear with her knuckle, but they kept on coming. It made me think how vulnerable she must have felt the other night, giving herself to me. To break in front of me, to be wholly at my mercy.
Tenderness crowded my heart: a sense of caring, duty even, of doing the right thing.
But can I deliver?
I’ve poured a lifetime of dedication into building up walls, but I would give a limb to know I was doing this right, or even just that I wasn’t tearing them down horribly wrong.
The bus creaks and groans, cutting a wide circle.
It feels like we’re navigating down an off-ramp, leaving the Autostrada to motor into Milan.
The motion shifts Gia’s body, my morning wood now pressing hard between the curves of her ass.
I feel my self-control crumbling, close to snapping like it almost did in the park last night.
Because it did cross my mind to do exactly what she wanted.
Turn that park bench into our personal fuck station, forget Amber and all the intensity, and light up Gia’s body until she screamed.
Forget myself for being an idiot.
For not having the courage to express my own love.
“Morning.” Gia’s voice is slow and sexy, heavy with sleep. “I can feel you.”
I brush a kiss against the curve of her shoulder. She smells like wet lake and sweet candy. “Hey. Can I get you anything? Water, coffee?”
“You know what I want?” she asks, half turning. “To cuddle all morning.”
I smile back, more than a little relieved. “Even better.”
She props up on both elbows, lifting her mouth for a kiss. I taste none of last night’s bitter-cold accusations as her tongue twirls with mine. Just raw, morning Gia. She moves her mouth to my chin, dropping kisses along my jawline, before studying my face with a lazy smile.
“You’re so hot with sleep crusties.”
I wipe sand away, laughing. “My teen idol image just went up in smoke.”
“You can idolize me.”
Gia sinks back into the pillow with a demure smile.
How beautiful she looks, stretched out on the bed like Manet’s Olympia, hand over her privates, ankles demurely crossed.
A flower in her hair and a satin bow tied around her neck are the only things missing.
The explosions in my chest are more scandalous than Manet unveiling his art.
Despite our joking around, our connection feels different this time. Still physical and electric, but also serious. This is not some do-it-for-the-plot situationship. Our lives have become increasingly intertwined to the point that reversing feels impossible.
Not that I want to.
“What’s the plan?” Gia asks, the implication clear as day in her expression.
I blink, trying not to look at her smooth pink folds tucked between her legs. I feel a rush of possession—to bury my face in that velvety skin and never come up for air.
“I thought we were cuddling.”
Her eyes twinkle. “There’s a box in the corner behind you.”
I turn and bash my head on the top of the bunk. Softly cursing, I dig around until my fingers find the box of condoms.
Gia whispers, “But we have to be quiet.”
I slant her a look. “I take it you’re talking about yourself?”
She smacks me on the arm with a fiery “Jameson!” and I shrug back, trying not to laugh. I get lost in the breathtaking endlessness of sex, the peaks and valleys and ripe centers. I’m not a talker or a screamer.
Gia, on the other hand.
Well, as if her singing voice didn’t give it away.
“Hey, I’m all for losing our minds, but I don’t want you to be out five hundred bucks.” I tip my head toward the sound of Brady and Tai snoring hard across the hall.
Gia laughs under her breath. “I’ll use the pillow.”
I settle between her legs and trail kisses up her inner thighs. She gasps and cradles both palms around my head, pinning me in place. I gently tease her clit with little flicks of my tongue, the smell of her sex filling my nostrils.
Her body tightens, and a soft, broken sound spills from her lips. I look up, catching her eyes in the dip between her breasts. “You okay?”
Her chin starts to wobble around the edges. Even in the low light, I can make out her stormy expression, like she’s struggling with something I don’t understand.
“Fuck me, JC. Make it all better.”
My heart drops, brick-heavy inside me. She isn’t asking for pleasure or forgiveness. It’s redemption. Trust that I can fix what we almost lost.
We huddled in the cold last night, on the park bench more forgiving than Gia’s endless string of questions. I parceled out bits from my past to appease her, without making me sound like an utter douche. And dealt with her fears about Amber.
“She caves inward, not outward,” I’d told her, watching her breath fog in the cold. “If she had a vindictive streak, I would’ve seen it years ago. We have fuck-all in common now, and I plan to keep it that way.”
Gia’s jaw unclenched, her anger melted away, and we Ubered back to the bus, wrapped in the scent of salted tears, Old Europe, and a narrowly avoided disaster.
With the worst behind us, I want to erase this from my head; blip Amber out of existence. Our magical time in the hotel wasn’t a puff of nothing—it was the start of something with Gia I’m not prepared to lose.
I wipe away a strand of hair that had found its way into my mouth and focus back on her. “I’m going to make love to you,” I whisper. “We heal gently, okay?”
She heaves in a sharp, jagged breath. My throat goes tight, and for one agonizing moment, I want to look everywhere else except her face because I don’t know what I’ll do if she says no. The silence feels like a huge bubble around me.
Her fingers digging into my scalp are the only answer I need, but, true to Gia, she amends my question with the tiniest smile.
“Not too gentle.”
“Yo! Romeo and Juliet.” Brady raps his knuckles against the wall. “Rise and shine.”
My eyes snap open. For three blank seconds, that inevitable tour moment clouds my brain. Where am I? And…
“What time is it?” My voice is thick with sleep, everything one giant craggy blur. Gia and I floated off in a pheromone haze and crashed hard.
“Eleven,” Brady says, his voice close but disembodied behind the bunk curtain. “And by the way, Tai and I accept all major credit cards. No backpedaling out of the fine this time.”
Oh, shit. So much for the pillow being any help.
Gia stirs, rolling over so we’re nose to nose. Dark, messy hair pushed back over her forehead, her eyes half-lidded, she makes a face, mostly amused. “Is he for real?”
I dust a kiss on her lips. My brain is still fuzzy from being ripped out of deep REM sleep. “Maybe I should offer a blanket payment,” I say, speaking low. “Cover us for the rest of the tour.”
“Payment before either of you leaves, please,” Brady says, ever the taskmaster. “I got shit to buy in Milan. Versace’s calling my name.”
“Dude,” Gia grumbles, singlehandedly defining a new term slangry—sleepy and angry. “Relax.”
I chuckle at that, digging around for my boxers in the tangled bedding. This isn’t the worst decision we’ve made on tour. Quite the opposite, actually.
“Three thousand,” I tell Gia. “One point five each should shut them up.” I find my boxers and awkwardly pull them on in the tight space. Ready for business in my finest SAXX.
“Offer them half that.” Gia looks very put off by the initial figure.
I nod, pretending to reconsider. “Yeah, you’re right. I have to buy you a bigger pillow, and that will cost a fortune.”
Oh, to capture Gia’s expression right now.
She jabs me with her foot but can’t stop laughing. “I don’t need anything bigger, Jameson,” she says teasingly.
“Seriously?” Brady’s voice teeters on disbelief. He’s hit his threshold, assuming he has one. “You two are genuine perverts.”
PayPal accounts loaded, Brady and Tai make tracks for their Italian retail therapy.
This Milanese soil must be blessed because it was shockingly easy to get rid of them.
In the half-light of morning, I’m barefoot and shirtless, strumming my acoustic in the lounge.
Happy as an A minor navigating a moody melody.
Gia wanders in, freshly showered, and my heart does a little flip. I like her in anything that shows off her legs, and the hem of her tight black dress falls mid-thigh as a counterbalance, I suppose, to the deep neck-line exposing the lace of her bra.
“Wow. You look great.”
With a “Thanks, homeboy,” she crashes into me, careful not to bang into the guitar.
I lean in for a kiss, only to be interrupted by my buzzing phone. It’s on the coffee table, and we both lock eyes on the screen, a weird ripple in the air. The only indication that things are still creeping in the corners from last night.
I hold up the screen, and she squints at the text from Sawyer. “Is that the name of a restaurant or a person?”
“Sounds like he’s rounding up the troops for a blowout dinner tonight. Did you pack a nice dress?”
She gestures at her black bodycon. “This semi-wrinkled one. Same one I plan to wear to lunch.”