Chapter 17
SEVENTEEN
Katie
I tried to regret it. Honestly, I did. I tried to second guess myself and freak out, tried to have my usual good-girl reaction to anything that might go wrong. I tried to be embarrassed, and just like when I’d jumped him and kissed him the first day, I wasn’t. I only felt giddy.
I was in bed. With Travis White.
In. Bed.
Granted, he was on his side of the bed, and I was on mine. We were both clothed—me in my pajama shorts and top, him in a pair of loose plaid flannel sleep pants and a white tank top that showed his hot-as-hell tattoos. We were on top of the covers, propped up on pillows against the headboard. We were not touching. But it was night outside, and we were alone in bed together.
In. Bed.
This was much different than when he slept downstairs. I was close enough to notice new details about him—sleep details. His bare feet were flawless, not ugly and weird like some men’s were. No. Of course Travis had feet that could have been carved by Michelangelo. The lamplight made his skin glow even more golden than usual. He sprawled easily with my script propped on his bent knees, turning the pages as he read. He was truly gorgeous, and after two weeks away from him, it hit me all over again.
He sensed me staring, and he glanced at me. “I’m almost done,” he said. “Be patient.”
I nodded, letting him think that I was leering over him because I was eager about the script, not because at this proximity I could get tantalizing whiffs of his skin. Not because I was thinking dirty thoughts I’d never thought about any man before, like imagining running my tongue along the perfect line of his collarbone.
Right, the script. It was called Honor Student , and it was about a high school teacher—me—who becomes convinced that one of her teenaged students is a serial killer. The story follows her life unraveling as she becomes more and more obsessed with the student, following him around and looking in his windows, never leaving him alone. Murders are happening, and she’s convinced this seventeen-year-old kid is a killer. It was a dark story, twisted and unsettling, completely out of character for me. I thought it was amazing, and I couldn’t wait to play her.
Travis turned the last page and flung the script onto the bed. “Holy shit,” he said. “That ending.”
“Good, right?” I said.
He shook his head. “I didn’t see that twist coming at all. But it’s all there in the previous scenes when you think about it. It was set up the whole time. What a mindfuck.”
“A good mindfuck?”
“A very good mindfuck.” He handed the script back to me. “You should do it.”
“You think I can?”
“I think you’d ace it. Seeing you play that part is going to blow people’s minds. It’s going to blow Edgar Pinsent’s mind.”
“That’s the idea,” I said, though to be honest, I hadn’t thought about Edgar Pinsent when I read the script. I had just thought it was an amazing story. “If you like it, I’m going to take it. They want to shoot in L.A. next month. I’ll have to go back for script meetings and prep.”
Travis nodded. “All right.”
“Are you planning to stay in Portland?”
“For a while.” He scratched the back of his neck, and I watched in fascination as his arm moved, the tattoos flashing out of my line of vision. “It depends on how tomorrow goes. Which reminds me, you’re going to be on your own for a few hours tomorrow. I have a meeting at the Road Kings’ studio to talk about a record deal.”
My jaw dropped open. “You’re going to a meeting about a record deal? That’s amazing.”
“I’m dreading it,” he admitted. “I talked a lot of shit about the Road Kings when my band was on top. I was a cocky asshole, and now I pretty much have to ask them to give me a chance. My ego isn’t happy about it.”
It was such a vulnerable thing to admit. Unexpected. I liked cocky Travis, but I liked Travis in a reflective mood even more. I moved closer to him and sat with my legs crossed, facing him. “Just tell them you’ve changed,” I offered. “Tell them you’re sorry.”
Travis rolled his eyes. “I can’t do that, obviously.”
“Why not?”
“They’ll think I’m weak.”
“If you don’t, they’ll think you’re a jerk.”
“Better a jerk than a doormat. I have to act like I don’t care whether they want to do this or not. It’s the only way.”
I sighed in frustration. “Why are men?”
“I don’t know. I’ll just tough it out. Either they’ll like the music or they won’t. If they do, I’ll stay here for a few months to record an album. But it’ll be easy to go to L.A. whenever you need me. No more parties by yourself. Our deal is still on.”
The deal. Right. I picked up my phone—I had spent my time scrolling while Travis read the script—and swiped it awake. “We were noticed at the airport,” I told him. “Check it out.” I opened Instagram and turned my phone for him to see.
He touched the phone and pulled it closer so we were both holding it. I watched his blue eyes focus on the photo a fan had taken of him and me. Travis was kissing me, his arm around my waist, me on my toes with my head tilted back. We looked like a couple in a movie, but better. I had never looked so easy, so confident, so in the moment in any of my movies. I looked like I had been swept up by the man of my dreams after being apart from him for too long.
Travis was quiet as he looked at the photo. I wondered what he was thinking.
“I swear I don’t scour the internet looking for mentions of myself,” I said. “My assistant sent this to me, and she only sends me the good things. You can read the comments. There are hundreds.”
Travis shook his head. “No thanks.”
“They’re nice comments,” I assured him. “People love us together. They say that they would never have put you and me together, but somehow it works. They say that we look good. That you look good. Which you do.” My cheeks burned hot, but I pressed on. “I think you look really good, Travis. All the time.”
His gaze rose to mine, and I locked into that stunning blue, unable to look away. He was so much like clear glass in that moment—I could see uncertainty, curiosity, attraction. And yet there was so much I didn’t know. We’d muddled this so-called relationship so much that I couldn’t read his intentions, and maybe he couldn’t read mine. That suddenly felt tragic. I’d kissed him the first time because I’d been reminded that life was short. Why had I forgotten again?
“It was a nice kiss,” he said softly, still holding my gaze.
My pulse leapt. I didn’t know which kiss he was talking about. It didn’t matter.
“It was a perfect kiss,” I whispered back. I reached up and brushed my fingers over his jaw, his cheekbone.
The attraction in his eyes flared, then darkened. He’d been waiting for this. He’d been feeling it. He wasn’t immune.
I thought he might say something else, but he didn’t. He leaned toward me, cupped my jaw, and kissed me.
It started slow, exploring, and then his tongue parted my lips. My phone dropped to the bed with a soft sound. We wound around each other, warm and sure, and in a moment I straddled his lap, my hands in his hair as his palms slid under my shirt and up my bare back. How did he taste so good, so satisfying? I relished the tang of his flavor, the feel of his lean body against mine. His hands explored my skin under my shirt, memorizing the contours of my ribcage, the dip of my spine, my waist.
His hair was soft in my grip, the strands brushing the backs of my hands. I broke the kiss.
“Katie,” he said softly.
In reply, I let go of his hair and lifted the hem of his shirt. Travis raised his arms and let me pull it off, dropping it to the bed. A thin silver necklace adorned his collarbone, cool against his golden skin. His tattoo ink was dark against his biceps, elegant flames licking up the curve of his right shoulder, and I had the urge to sink my teeth into that spot.
His warm hands pushed my shirt up, too, and then it joined his on the bed and I was bare from the waist up. And then we were kissing again, more urgently, as if we couldn’t get enough. His touch was dirty and respectful at the same time, wandering my bare skin with open desire without grabbing or squeezing. His shoulders were sleek and strong, the muscles sliding under his skin. His palms cupped my breasts, and all I could think was, the hottest man I’ve ever met is touching me , and I still didn’t panic, even though the lamplight next to the bed illuminated everything in its soft glow. This had never happened before. I always worried about something on my body in these moments, and I’d never had sex with a man I found half as hot as Travis. Why wasn’t I freaking out?
When he briefly broke the kiss, I said, “We probably shouldn’t do this.”
His reply was confident. “We should definitely do this.” His hands learned the shapes of my breasts, making my breath leave my body. “This is the only thing we should be doing.” His hands paused. “Unless you want me to stop?”
“I was giving you an out.”
“I’ve been thinking about this for weeks,” Travis said. “I don’t want an out.”
We kissed some more, and he turned us so I was on my back on the bed. My head landed on the script, abandoned on the bedspread, and the paper made a crinkling sound. Travis put the script on the bedside table, and as he reached, his body stretched gracefully across the bed, I slid my hands down his flat stomach and under the elastic waist of his sleep pants.
He groaned softly, and the sound combined with the heated flush on his skin as I gripped him made me crazy. When I moved my palm over him, he pressed his weight into his elbows and shifted his hips. I had never experienced anything so sexy in my life. Why hadn’t we done this the first minute we met? What were we thinking?
No, the problem wasn’t him. It was me. Travis had offered this when we met at the basketball game the first night. Had I actually told him no? Why? I needed my head examined.
He kissed me deeply, his hips doing that magical move that shifted him in my grip. “We need condoms,” I gasped when we broke apart.
“Bedside drawer.” At my look of hazy surprise, he gave me a rock star grin. “I bought them yesterday. I’m an optimistic guy.”
“A deluded guy,” I shot back without thinking, and then we both laughed softly because he was so obviously not deluded. He kissed me again, and I felt the tickle of the silver chain around his neck dragging against my skin, and somehow that turned me on even more.
His lips left mine to travel down my neck, then to my breasts. The shift in position put him out of my hand’s reach. His palms slid down the curve of my waist. I reached for the bedside drawer and opened it, rummaging blindly inside.
“Not yet,” Travis said, lifting his mouth from the side of my breast. “I’m going to last about forty-five seconds. I have work to do first.”
My head spun at those words, and then his hands tugged at the waist of my sleep shorts, and I finally panicked. “Wait.”
Travis stopped. He paused kissing the skin just under my belly button and lifted his head, fixing his blue eyes on me.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I, um…” Oh, god, he was so gorgeous. “I don’t—” I pointed down my body. “I don’t wax.”
He blinked. “You don’t—What?”
“I don’t wax,” I admitted. Everyone in Hollywood waxed. It was the norm. No one in Hollywood had seen pubic hair in fifteen years. “I haven’t been dating, and I don’t do nude scenes, and I don’t do bathing suit or underwear scenes.” I was talking and I couldn’t stop. “I know it’s weird, right? I kept putting it off. Honestly, those women at the waxing places are terrifying, even when they’re trying to be nice. I always think they’re judging me. Besides which, it really hurts, and I feel like no one talks about that. If I thought someone would see, I would have made an appointment, but?—”
“Katie.” Travis’s voice was rough but patient. His gaze was still fixed on me. “I’m about to enter paradise, and you think I’m worried about waxing?”
“Everyone waxes!” I argued. “I just think I should warn you that if you keep going, you’ll time travel to 1990.”
“If your pussy is in 1990,” he explained slowly, “then that’s where I want to go.”
Our gazes locked in silence.
“Are you done?” he asked finally. “Because if you’re finished freaking out, I’d like to go down on you now.”
“Yeah, I’m done,” I breathed. His hands curled into my waistband and tugged it down. I lay back, looking up at the ceiling, my heart pounding. Travis slid off my shorts and panties, and then he gently pressed my thighs open, and then everything went away.
Everything.
In my experience, oral sex could be fun, but it was also awkward. No one should see me quite so up close in an area I couldn’t see myself. Besides which, every man I’d ever been with thought he was good at it, and every one had been wrong, even the well-meaning ones.
Travis White was a genius.
I forgot where I was, and then I forgot my own name. Time had no meaning. It could have been hours or years, but it was more likely minutes before I was a puddle of hot wax who would do anything, say anything if only he would keep going. How did he know that exact spot? Was he bending my knees?
The orgasm that hit me was so intense I twisted on the bed. I heard my phone fall off the mattress to the floor with a thud. Travis lifted his mouth off of me, and he’d barely shifted his weight and reached for a condom when I rolled him to his back and straddled his lap, kissing him. Tasting myself.
His back hit the headboard as he lifted his hips underneath me. He slid his pants down and put on the condom, and I lowered onto him with a groan as his hands gripped my hips.
I had never done this before, never jumped on a man and ridden him as if I couldn’t stand it if he wasn’t inside me. I braced my hands on the headboard and Travis moved with me in perfect rhythm, both of us wordless now, sweat slicking between us, his fingers digging into my hips. He pressed his forehead into the side of my neck and I felt him pulse inside the condom as he sighed against my skin. When I touched his neck, I felt his blood pounding, and the beat seemed as frantic as mine.
He inhaled a breath. “I knew that would be so fucking good,” he rasped.
I was shaking and exultant and terrified. I felt powerful, and at the same time I felt like my skin had been stripped raw. I felt like I had been pulled apart and left in naked, vulnerable pieces.
“Katie?” Travis asked, lifting his head. “You all right?”
“Yeah,” I breathed.
His hands left my hips and his arms came around me, squeezing gently. “Look at me,” he said.
I did as he told me, locking my gaze onto those blue, blue eyes. This was Travis. Familiar and beautiful, his hair mussed and his skin still flushed with sex. I felt a familiar warmth at the sight of him, a thrill of pleasure, even now.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi,” I said back, marveling at him. Because he’d done it—he’d made me feel as giddy as if we’d just met. He was flirting with me even now, naked and tangled together in bed. I felt myself beaming at him, unable to help it.
I was in big, big trouble.
And somehow, I didn’t care.