Chapter 17
BOBBY
The sun rises over the horizon outside Willow’s bedroom window, painting highlights and shadows on the walls and the curves of her body.
She’s curled into my side, her head on my chest as my fingertips dance along her skin.
Every fiber of my being strains for her, though I know my cock is too spent to go again yet.
Though not inside her, I feel connected with her as we lie here, relaxed into one another.
Moment stretched, a tattoo on my soul in the shape of your smile.
“I wish you could come with me,” I whisper. The truth is, I’m nervous and could use her at my side to help me stay calm and not fuck this opportunity up. If these Nashville people like me and my music, this could change everything . . . for me, for my family, for Willow and me.
“Me too, but Unc . . .” Her voice tapers off, and she doesn’t finish the thought.
There’s no reason to. I know Hank needs her here more than I need her to go with me.
He’s had a rough week for some reason. One day, I thought he seemed a bit pale, but he brushed me off grumpily, and he’s been bitching about having to do everything himself while simultaneously sitting on his ass and directing everyone else around.
It’s made for some long shifts and late nights this week.
In fact, we’re not up early for my Friday flight to Nashville.
We’re still awake from last night’s Thursday two-dollar draft crowd.
The bar closed at two. I’d helped with cleanup, but we still hadn’t gotten out of there until after three, then we’d made love twice, knowing that the weekend was going to be long and lonely.
But possibly the start of something amazing for my music.
“It’s fine. I’ll fly out there, meet with these folks, do their dog and pony show, and be back on Tuesday. You gonna be okay without me?”
She will be. I’m sure of it. However, I’m not at all sure that I’ll be okay without her.
I think my weekend is going to be filled with thoughts of ‘what’s Willow doing right now?
’ and obsessively refreshing her blog like a fucking creeper.
I already told the family to come by Hank’s as much as possible to check on her.
They gave me shit for it, but they’ll do it.
She laughs sweetly. “Me? I’ll be working my butt off slinging drinks and answering all sorts of nosy questions about you this weekend. I’m more worried you’re going to go out there and be blinded by those big city lights and not come back to me. I’ve seen how pretty they can be.”
Humor is woven through her words, but I can sense a true fear deep inside. I squeeze her tight, laying a kiss to her forehead, and promise, “There is nothing and no one that could ever make me stay away from you. I love you, Willow.”
Her cheek lifts against my chest, letting me know she’s smiling again. I did that. I make her happy, and I’ll do everything in my power to keep on doing that time and time again.
“I love you too,” she whispers into my pec right before she returns the kiss, her lips against the skin right over my heart.
Tattoo my heart with your kiss. It’s already whispering your name with every beat.
“Come here, sweetheart.” I roll to my back, pulling her on top of me. Her knees bend, dipping into the mattress on either side of my hips. “Can you take me again?”
Honestly, I want her sore. Not because I want her to feel pain, but because I want her to remember me with every step she takes while I’m away from her. I want her to feel the void where I belong inside her body, knowing that I’ll fill it as soon as I get back.
She bites her lip, nodding as her hips already sway back and forth along my hardening length, spreading her juices over me.
My tip teases along her entrance, and I’m fighting every urge to slam into her.
I want to feel her with nothing between us for a moment.
No condom, no barriers, no walls, just raw and real, allowing me to fully claim her body and mark it with my cum.
Even the thought puts me on the edge in an instant. “Shit. Condom.”
“I’m on birth control,” she whispers.
My eyes move from where we’re so close to joining up to her eyes.
Those gray mood rings are glittering, emotions swirling there that I can’t name.
I don’t want to try right now, but later, I’ll picture this moment as though it’s one of Willow’s photographs and try to put labels on everything I see, everything I feel.
“You sure?”
In answer, she lifts her hips and I line up with her pussy. Holding around her hips, I guide her down my shaft in one hard, quick thrust.
“Oh!” Her voice is high, broken at the end as a shiver runs through her body.
“Fuck.” I’m surrounded by absolute heaven—tight, wet, hot bliss.
Her nails dig into my chest for purchase, and I arch into them, wanting that sharp bite of her mark on my skin. I use her hips, pushing and pulling her faster and harder.
This is not gentle lovemaking. And though it’s rough and primal, it’s not fucking, either. This is claiming, me of her and her of me. Though we’ll be apart for a few days, she’s mine and I’m hers. This trip doesn’t change that. Hell, nothing would change that.
“Take it, sweetheart. Take my cock and take my cum. Tell me you want it,” I demand.
She gasps at my dirty talk, still shocked every time, but I can feel what it does to her. The filthier I talk, the wetter she gets. She comes near-instantly when I make her say things my sweet girl would never say on her own.
“I want it.” She’s holding back, and I give her a punishing stroke. Her head falls back, exposing her neck as her mouth falls open. “I want . . . your cum. God, I want to feel it, Bobby.”
I grunt, her words sending me over the edge. My whole body tenses, and an electric jolt shoots from my spine through my cock as I spill inside her. Bare for the first time. The thought of painting her with my cum is powerfully heady and so fucking sexy. But I need her to come too.
Staying inside, I swipe a thumb across her clit, fast and soft like she loves it and tell her, “You feel so good, Willow. Let me feel you come.”
She explodes, losing the rhythm, but I keep pounding at her and rubbing her as she comes and comes.
She has never looked so stunning as she does right now—glistening with sweat, hair plastered to her forehead, naked and bare physically and emotionally, sitting astride me, with our combined cum making an utter mess of us both.
Fuck, I love her.
She collapses over me, panting erratically.
“That was . . . that . . . wow.” She gives up on sentences, making me smile.
We lie like that for several long minutes, luxuriating in each other’s body and presence. Eventually, I slide out of her, and she squeals, rolling off me as if I give a shit about having our combined cum on me.
“I’ll get you a towel. Hang on.” I climb out of the bed and head to her bathroom. I wet a washcloth and wring it out, but by the time I get back, Willow is snoring softly. Guess this long week is catching up to her.
Probably wore her out, my ego chimes in like a cocky bastard.
I decide to let her sleep while I get cleaned up to head to the airport, but I can’t help picking up her phone from the nightstand.
I take a close-up of her face, fully relaxed in sleep, then one of her whole body, half-covered by the nest of sheets we left.
I send the pictures to myself then leave them for her to find when she does her next blog posting.
Beautiful girl.
My girl.
Airports suck. Planes suck. Hotels suck. The city sucks. People suck. Everything sucks.
Or maybe I’m just nervous.
That’s a distinct possibility.
I’ve traveled a time or two, but it was for family trips when I was a kid, mostly.
Traveling alone to what might be my new destiny is a pressure I hadn’t anticipated.
And though my shoulders are broad and strong, this responsibility is something Brody usually handles.
Not me. I’m the backup to the backup. Brody, Brutal, then me.
Hell, Shay fits in there somewhere too, so maybe I’m her backup too.
“Mr. Tannen? Mr. Marshall will see you now,” the receptionist says behind a fringe of long, dark lashes, dyed blonde curly hair, and deep red lips. She gestures with one hand toward the hallway and I follow her.
To my destiny.
To my doom.
Both? Fuck if I know.
But at the wooden door, I take a steadying breath. Whatever it is, you’re good, Tannen.
Know myself, who I am, and where I came from. Take it or leave it.
Great in theory, but I’m really hoping they take it and want me and my music. My dream is so close I can taste it. All I have to do is not fuck this up.
“Bobby!” Jeremy’s voice is louder, his presence larger in this room than it had seemed at Hank’s last weekend. “Come in. Glad you got out so quickly. Big city treating you okay?”
He’s trying to put me at ease, setting the tone for the room, which means he’s the alpha dog here. I wasn’t sure that was the case, but now, there’s no doubt. If there’s one thing I can do, it’s read a room.
“Thanks. Yeah, checked into the hotel. It’s nice. Bed has six pillows.” I add that detail to highlight how fancy the hotel is, but the few people in the room smile as though I told a joke.
I scan the room, seeing a round conference table with six people seated at it.
They’re mostly young, in their twenties and thirties, I’d guess, a mix of guys and girls, each with a folder in front of them.
The woman seated closest to me quirks one salon-sculpted, perfectly-shaped brow when she sees me realizing that the folder has my name on it.
I’m not sure what to feel about that. On one hand, that someone took the time to make six folders with my name seems important.
But file folders naturally end up in file cabinets, which means there are likely hundreds of folders just like these.
Folders of folks who took their shot and flew, and some who fell flat back down to Earth.