Chapter Eighteen
When Final Revelations exits the stage after their encore, I long to follow the magnetic pull backstage, to find Dax.
Reading my mind, Brooklyn nudges me in the ribs. “Go.”
I shake my head. “I can’t,” I say meekly.
Indecision roots me to the spot. I can’t go to him, but I can’t bring myself to leave yet either. The crowd bottlenecks trying to exit the venue, and the four of us stay planted in our little corner by the barricade.
“Ooh,” Drew says excitedly as my phone buzzes at my back—his front—where I tucked it into the waist cincher.
Easing it out, I nearly drop it when I see the name on my screen.
I swipe to open the text from Dax, and Drew rests his chin on my shoulder, not even bothering to pretend like he’s not reading the message, too.
trailer 4. five minutes.
Drew drops his arms from around me, raising them in victory overhead. “I fucking knew it.” He holds his hand out to me. “Five dollars.”
I raise my brows at him.
“Oh, don’t pretend like you’re not going,” he says with a click of his tongue.
“What?” Brooklyn asks. Cupping her hand behind mine, she angles my phone screen toward herself and then to Charlie.
Nosy motherfuckers, the lot of them.
“I’m not a part of your bet,” I remind Drew, opting not to respond to his other statement because, yeah, I’m going. Taking my hand back from Brooklyn, I tuck the phone into the corset.
“See you at home?” Charlie asks. As our designated driver, he takes my keys from his pocket, twirling them around his finger before palming them.
“Someone could see,” I say under my breath, uncertainty gnawing at my insides. I desperately want to go to Dax, but the logical part of my brain knows it’s a bad idea. Unfortunately, other parts of my body are screaming quite loudly, drowning out logic.
I meet Brooklyn’s gaze, her expression softening when she sees the panic no doubt in mine. Even in the harsh house lights, she looks damn near angelic. “Maybe we could avoid the crowd,” she says slyly. “If we went out the back.”
It takes the guys a minute to catch on, but soon they’re nodding. “Yep, yep, great idea,” Drew agrees enthusiastically.
We begin pushing our way across the venue, toward the back door that leads to the trailers, rather than the main entrance.
Once outside, I pause, turning back toward the door. “Wait, where are Reid and Tyler?”
Brooklyn ushers me on, her eyes scanning the numbers posted to the trailer doors. “We’ll find them,” she says, not at all worried. “That is not your problem right now.”
With a gentle nudge, she guides me toward a set of trailer steps, a large 4 on the door.
“In fact,” she says, taking my face between her hands, “you have the opposite of a problem right now.” She winks. “Have fun, babe.”
Before I can knock on the door, it opens, Marcus, Jonah, Cain, and Barrett spilling out of it. “We’re going, we’re going,” Cain grumbles, as if I’d complained.
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Barrett says, laughing raucously. I don’t think there’s much he hasn’t done.
The four of them link up with my friends, exchanging hugs, and I smile at the sight before slipping through the door. As it snicks shut behind me, Dax turns.
He’s ditched his costume, back in his band tee and jeans, his fly undone as if he just pulled them on, a peek of his boxer briefs visible as he crosses the room to me.
He presses his forehead to mine, walking us backward until my back hits the wall.
The trailer must have showers, his scent wrapping around me like the evergreen inevitability of us.
He exhales as if he’s been holding his breath all night, longer even.
Planting both hands on the wall beside my head, he leans back, taking in my costume unabashedly.
His attention drags over me like an invisible hand, warmth spreading everywhere he looks.
A flush tinges my chest pink as his attention goes to the modest swell of my breasts, the pleather corset belt, the dress that I’ve neglected to tug down, the black fishnets that disappear into my boots.
His left hand cradles the back of my neck, tilting my face up to meet his gaze, his amber eyes inky black with lust. “Do you know how hard it was not to stare at you all night?”
My mouth goes dry, and I swallow thickly. “Maybe I should dress sexy more often.”
“You’re always sexy,” he says offhand, like it’s ridiculous I could ever think otherwise.
I laugh through my nose. “Yeah? My oversized T-shirts really do it for you?”
Dax meets my gaze, and my pulse jumps beneath the grip of his palm.
He ducks his head into the crook of my shoulder.
“You have no idea”—he nips my neck affectionately—“how bad,” he continues, his other hand coming off the wall to rest at my waist, “I want to slip my hands up under those shirts.” His hand slides up to cup my breast, his thumb toying with the neckline of my dress as he squeezes gently.
A whimper slips out of me. I’m completely defenseless against him.
“So…” He pulls back slowly, his hand abandoning my breast to wind a lock of my hair around his finger. “Is not kissing me your only rule? Because I can do a lot with that.”
My hands are on his chest, with no memory of how or when they got there. “Fuck it,” I breathe. Hooking one finger through his belt loop, I tug him to me. My other hand goes to the hinge of his jaw, guiding his face down to mine. If kissing him ruins me, then let me be ruined.
Our mouths meet with a crushing eagerness, his hand at the base of my skull angling me to open up for him, his tongue guiding my lips apart at the same time as his knee nudges my legs to do the same.
His other hand slides over my backside, squeezing roughly before drifting lower, hooking my leg around his hip.
He hoists me up against the wall before bringing his body flush to mine.
When our hips align, Dax moans into my mouth, the sound like something that’s been trapped for years.
He pulls back for a fraction of a second, smiling softly as he brushes the tip of his nose against mine affectionately, before diving back in in a way that’s both sweet and greedy.
“Fuck, I’ve missed you,” he whispers against the shell of my ear, tugging on my earlobe with his teeth.
“It’s only been a day.”
He pulls back just far enough to fix me with a look. “And you know that’s not what I meant.”
Every particle in my body vibrates with happiness.
Kissing Dax is like coming home after being away for far too long.
“I missed you, too,” I tell him, trailing a finger along his jawline, flicking his septum piercing playfully.
He catches my finger between his teeth, equally playful, as if we have all the time in the world.
But we’re good at this, stealing moments, making the most of them.
Looping my arms around his neck, I pull him back to me. True to my word, I can’t stop kissing him. I match the roll of his hips, smiling against his mouth as he sucks in a breath through his teeth. “Good thing you didn’t pull me before going on stage or it would’ve been a different kind of show.”
Dax smirks, resting his cheek on my forearm. “Bold of you to assume I didn’t have to take care of that already.” His hands at my hips squeeze, my dress bunching higher. His touch runs across my skin like lightning, gathering like a storm between my legs.
“Yeah?” I ask, laughing. The way he can make my blood fizzle with laughter and lust is unlike anything I’ve known with anyone else.
“No,” he says with a cheeky grin, nipping at the tender flesh of my inner elbow.
“But I did think about it.” He places a kiss over the spot he bit before guiding my arm from around his neck, trailing open-mouthed kisses up to my wrist. He meets my lust-hazy gaze as he places a kiss into my palm. “I think about you all the time.”
“Me, too,” I confess automatically.
I already broke my no-kissing rule. It would be foolish to break any more.
I’m about to vow to the insistent throb between my thighs that I’ll take care of business when I get home, but then I remember my home has been invaded by five people I love very much but who have zero concept of privacy or personal space. A whine of frustration escapes me.
“What?”
I sigh heavily, tracing my finger along his cheek, drawing out his dimple. “I should go, but… I don’t want to, and—”
“And?” The word is a rasped plea.
If I say this, I know exactly where this is going.
If I say nothing, if I press gently on the center of his chest, he’ll lower me down, help me fix my skirt, and we’ll leave here having blurred no lines.
Well, mostly unblurred. The ache between my legs hates that option, and I can already see myself tossing fitfully under the covers all night if this need goes unfulfilled.
It’s not a want at this point. It’s a need.
“If I go home,” I pant, “I can’t exactly ‘take care’ of this with all the squatters currently there.”
Dax’s gaze sparks, a mischievous tilt to his lips.
He hums against my skin, brushing his stubble across my forearm like a predator marking his territory.
“I always knew the devil would come for me someday, but I like this version much better.” He punctuates his sentence with a flick of the horns on my headband.
I laugh, and he places another kiss to my arm.
His hand comes up, enclosing mine where it traces anxious circles against the short hair at the nape of his neck.
“Or we can go. You make the rules,” he reminds me.
God, the way I trust him. If I trusted him less, my body would have made this decision for me ages ago. Instead, it’s flushed and needy. The way he walks the line of respecting me and knowing how to utterly disrespect me—it’s an art.
“What about you?” I don’t know why I’m stalling. My body and my mind are already made up, but I need to hear it from him, even if his body is already telling me it’s on the same page.
Dax laughs self-deprecatingly. “Whatever you want from me, take it. It’s already yours.”