Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
OLLIE
Oh my god, it was happening again.
Had I imagined this so often that I’d manifested it into reality? That had to be the reason. There was no other explanation for why Luca was sucking me into his mouth.
Groaning around my shaft.
Rolling my balls in his hand.
Making me feel so good I wasn’t sure which way was up.
“Right there,” I moaned as he tongued my glans. I had no problem touching him this time. Wild horses couldn’t stop me from winding my fingers through his hair. “That’s it.”
Luca pulled off my dick for a second, smirking up at me. “So…not so straight?”
I rolled my eyes, using his hair to tug him back towards my cock. “Obviously not. But maybe you better make sure.”
He chortled but returned to his task.
Turned out that saying his name as I came wasn’t an issue. Stopping everyone else from figuring out what we were doing was. I shot down his throat with my teeth clamped onto my fist to keep me quiet.
After, Luca stood with a quiet chuckle. Examining my hand, he gently kissed the indents my teeth had left behind. “We need to figure out a better way to keep you quiet if we keep doing this.”
“We shouldn’t.”
He was quiet for a second, his green eyes serious. “Are you still in love with Suzie?”
The laughter that barked out of me was far too loud. “Jesus, no. I don’t think I’ve been in love with her for a very long time. That door is well and truly closed.”
“Good.” Luca hummed, dropping my hand and instead cupping my face. “So that’s not why you don’t want to do this again?”
I closed my eyes to escape the intensity of his stare. “No. I’m not saying I don’t want to. I’m saying we shouldn’t.”
“That’s never been a good-enough reason for me to not do something.”
“Why am I not surprised?” I opened my eyes to find Luca studying me softly. “I don’t get it though. Why did you bring me here?”
He let me go abruptly and turned away, scowling into a mirror on the wall at the damage my fingers had done to his hair. “I didn’t.”
He set about fixing his hair while I watched his reflection carefully. “Really? Then why did my boss tell me the deal would only go ahead if I was the assigned journalist?”
Luca tensed. “She wasn’t supposed to tell you that.”
I stepped closer, purposefully invading his space.
Luca might’ve had the upper hand when we came in here, but one thing about me was I liked to get the truth.
It was what made me such a good journalist. I was like a dog with a bone when I could tell someone wasn’t giving me the whole story.
“Why me, Luca? Was it just because you wanted to hook up again?”
“No.” He fiddled with his shirt, his head bowed.
I echoed his earlier statement. “Liar.”
He spun around to face me. “It wasn’t that. If that’s all I wanted from you, I would’ve called you before now.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
I hadn’t realised how much it bothered me until the question slipped out.
Luca’s lips parted in shock before he swallowed. “You told me not to.”
I had? Shit, I couldn’t be mad at him for respecting my boundaries. “Okay, so why am I here now?”
“Two reasons. First, Kevin insisted we needed to have a journalist covering this tour. The only concession he’d agree to was that I could pick who. You already know I have…you know…”
“Anxiety attacks?” I asked gently, reaching out to touch his shoulder. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“I know that.” He gave a shaky laugh, brushing it off in a way that told me he didn’t know. “I’m not expecting that to happen, but I trust you won’t cover anything if it does.”
“Of course not.”
“Plus, if I have to have someone hanging around us constantly, I want it to be someone I’m comfortable with.”
Surprise slid through my veins. “You feel comfortable with me?”
“Obviously.”
Butterflies kicked off in my stomach at his quick response. Like it was the easiest question in the world for him to answer. “What was the second reason?”
I’d barely finished speaking when the plane hit a patch of turbulence, the floor dipping under our feet. It threw Luca off balance, sending him flying towards me. Instinctively, I opened my arms and caught his weight.
The plane righted itself, and suddenly Luca and I were only inches apart. I couldn’t stop myself from tracing over the sharp lines of his face. The light freckles dusted over his nose. The flecks of amber in his eyes.
Every time we’d touched, Luca had been the one in control, but this was different. Now it was me holding him, my mouth leaning over his, already dying for another taste.
A loud laugh from beyond the door slammed me back to earth, reminding me of where I was and how much I had to lose. Luca wasn’t any guy. He was the most famous musician on the planet. And for the next six weeks, my career—my entire life—relied on behaving like a competent professional.
I wasn’t going to throw that away for a fling with Luca.
What if all he wanted was one night? I wasn’t sure I could do that, not with how obsessed I already was with him.
For all I knew, Luca could be like all those player rock stars you read about—bedding a different person in each city.
What if I slept with Luca, then had to watch him take other groupies back to the hotel?
I wouldn’t be able to stand it.
I dropped my arms away from Luca, taking a stiff step back. “Apologies, I overstepped.”
“No, I don’t think you did,” Luca drawled like he didn’t care about my dismissal. He wasn’t fast enough to hide the flash of hurt in his eyes.
I couldn’t do this. I needed to get away from Luca before I did something stupid…like tackling him onto the comfortable-looking bed and humping him like some feral animal. “I better get back to my seat.”
Luca smirked, but it did nothing to detract from the warning he gave. “If I see you flirting with Marta again, I’ll drag you back here and pin you to that bed until you can’t think of anything but me.”
I gawped at him. Why the fuck did that sound so appealing? Why did it make me want to go back out there and turn on the charm with the pretty makeup artist just to see what Luca would do?
Not trusting myself, I nodded curtly before turning to leave. I made it to the door before Luca called out my name. “Don’t you want to know the second reason?”
“Yes.”
Luca leaned over my shoulder. When had he even come up behind me? He nibbled on my earlobe, and I had to bite my lip to avoid moaning. My cock started to stiffen again, Luca having apparently destroyed my refractory period. “That’s a shame. I think I’ll keep it to myself for now.”
“Why?”
“Because I know it’ll drive you crazy, which will make you come back for more.”
“You’re overestimating how invested I am in what makes your brain tick.”
Luca’s chuckle made my blood heat. “I’m really not. But that’s okay. You’re also not ready to hear my other reason. One day, I hope you will be.”
My head swam, trying to make sense of what the fuck Luca was talking about. Adjusting my semi so it wasn’t obvious, I took a breath and left the room.
Before I did something else stupid.
The first stop of the tour was Rome. I practically pressed my whole face against the window as our car zipped through the city streets.
Grief hit me unexpectedly as I wondered what Mum would think of all of this.
Whenever she was in a good head space, she’d describe all the places she wanted to visit.
I hated that she’d never had the chance.
She lingered in my thoughts as I drank in the brief glimpses of another culture, a layered tapestry woven into the streets alongside cafés and office buildings. There’d be no time for sightseeing before we were on the move again, so this was my only opportunity.
Before now, the furthest I’d travelled was to Poland on a school trip to Auschwitz when I was seventeen. That was the only reason I had an in-date passport, and it was up for renewal in a few months. I hadn’t been planning on getting a new one.
But maybe I should. Maybe I should travel more. For Mum.
For me.
Thankfully, I’d managed to slip into a different car to Luca, riding instead with Arlo and his guard. Something told me that not being in a confined space with Luca so soon was a good thing.
Arlo seemed as content as me to sit in silence. Unlike me, he ignored the city views, instead scrolling endlessly through his phone. His knee bounced constantly. Was he anxious? Or was it a habit?
I’d done a bit of brushing up on the other band members overnight, but I hadn’t learned much. I knew Arlo was the youngest of the four at thirty-one, four years older than me. Like the others, he’d grown up on a council estate, the launch into fame transforming his life in an instant.
If Becky could see me, she’d probably be fuming that I wasn’t trying to extract information from Arlo. I couldn’t bring myself to flip into journalist mode, not when he was intent on keeping to himself. Besides, I’d promised these guys their space. I wasn’t about to go back on that.
We had to coexist peacefully for the next six weeks.
If Luca didn’t tempt me into insanity first. Something about him opened the tightly locked box where I kept my emotions. He made me feel out of control. Just look at what happened in that lift. And no, I wasn’t referring to the sex.
I was referring to how easily I opened up to him. How natural it felt to let him see the version of me that I tried to keep hidden away.
There was one question burning at me that I knew Arlo could answer. “Don’t you guys have a tour bus?”
Arlo snorted, answering without looking up from his phone. “Used to. We trashed it one too many times. Plus, now that we’re all older, we need our own spaces. The jet and hotel rooms work better for everyone.”
By the time I let myself into my hotel room, I was exhausted from overthinking it all. I fell face-first onto the double bed, ready to escape the Luca-focused confusion swirling in my brain.