Chapter 18
When the hotel room door clicked shut behind me, something close to relief skittered through me. The smile I’d forced to my lips fell, leaving my cheeks aching. I’d enjoyed the bus rides so far, especially when I got to ride with The Brightside.
I couldn’t enjoy it tonight. After the hospital, all I’d wanted to do was launch myself into Lewis’s arms and never let go. But I couldn’t. Especially not on a bus with his bandmates already eying us with rightful suspicion. The man was delusional if he thought his friends hadn’t figured us out.
San Diego had been a whirlwind that I wouldn’t forget any time soon. My nerves felt like they’d been caught up in a never ending roller coaster. I’d gone from the high of performing to the terror of watching Nia fall, to the long wait to find out if she was okay. All while I itched to grab Lewis and shake him before either of us could be flung into James and Nia’s positions.
The drive to Glendale had passed in a blur of dark highway and darker thoughts. All I’d wanted to do was curl up next to Lewis and reassure myself. Instead, I sat there with that painful smile, nodding and laughing where necessary.
Even at a careful distance, I’d been able to feel his concern. One look, and I knew he wanted to be next to me, giving me exactly what I needed. Unfortunately, he hadn’t acted on it. Couldn’t risk the others noticing.
And that was the crux of it, wasn’t it? The razor’s edge we walked every fucking day. The constant, exhausting vigilance of maintaining a facade, of pretending we were nothing more than colleagues, friends at a stretch.
When all I wanted, with a desperation that frightened me, was to fall into his arms and let the rest of the world fade away. To bury my face in the crook of his neck and breathe him in, to feel the steady thrum of his heartbeat against my cheek and know, bone-deep, that I was safe. Cherished. Loved.
Lord, I was trying to be careful. But every stolen kiss, every secret touch, felt like a ticking time bomb. A held breath, a wish cast into the void.
How long could we keep this up? How long before the weight of it all came crashing down on us?
How long before I collapsed beneath the pressure? Because the day would come. I was exhausted, tired of hiding. Of pretending. Of living in constant fear of a slip-up.
A gentle knock at the door startled me out of my spiralling thoughts. It was late, well past midnight, but I knew who it was without having to open the door.
I crossed the room on silent feet, pulse fluttering wildly as I pressed my eye to the peephole. Lewis stood on the other side, his dark hair tousled, his eyes shadowed with fatigue and something else, something rawer. Something that tugged at my soul and made my breath catch.
I opened the door, just a crack. Just enough for him to slip through. He eased the door shut behind him and flipped the lock with a soft snick.
And then he was on me, his hands cupping my face, his mouth finding mine with a desperation that stole my breath and my reason in one fell swoop. I melted into him, into the solid heat of his body and the way he gripped me like he was afraid I might disappear if he let go.
He walked me backward into the room, still kissing me like a man drowning, until my calves hit the edge of the bed. We tumbled onto it, graceless and heedless of the squeak of protesting springs.
He broke away only to strip off his shirt, to fumble with the button of his jeans. I watched him through heavy-lidded eyes, my own hands clumsy on the hem of my oversized sleep shirt. The one I’d bought just before we left LA, a cheeky black number with “I’m with the band” emblazoned across the front in neon letters.
It seemed funny at the time. A private joke, a wink at the secret part of my life I couldn’t share with the world.
I am with the band. And it’s slowly killing me.
But I shoved the thought down, buried it under the rush of sensation as Lewis’s hands found my bare skin, as his weight settled over me, heavy and perfect. This was what I needed. What I craved like air, like sunlight.
Him. Us. This.
Even if it was only in stolen moments.
“How’s Nia?” he asked, the words a hot rush against my collarbone. “Is she…”
“She’ll be okay,” I said, threading my fingers through his hair, marvelling at the silk of it. “Concussion. Bad one. But she’ll recover.”
He exhaled, a shaky gust of relief that skittered over my skin and raised goosebumps in its wake. “Thank Christ.” He pressed a kiss to the hollow of my throat, a benediction. “And James? He’s staying with her?”
I hummed an affirmative, arching into his touch as his hands skimmed my sides, my hips, removing my panties. “Yeah. Taking a week off tour. His bandmates are cool with it.”
“Good. That’s good.” Another kiss, this one open-mouthed and hot against the hinge of my jaw. “I was worried. About both of them.”
“Me too. Lord, me too. When I saw her fall, I…”
But I couldn’t finish, couldn’t voice the fear that something worse had happened, that I couldn’t stop imagining us in that position.
Lewis sensed my hesitation, my unspoken distress. He pulled back just enough to meet my eyes, his own dark and fathomless in the muted light filtering through the hotel room curtains. “She’s okay, cariad. You said it yourself.” He smoothed a thumb over my cheekbone, his touch achingly tender. “It was an accident. One we’ll all learn from, but she’ll be back before you know it, and it’ll never happen again. We’ll make sure of it.”
I wanted to believe him. Wanted to let his words, his conviction, wash over me like absolution. But I couldn’t. The seeds of doubt had taken root too deeply.
What if it did happen again and it was him next time? How would I get any information on his condition? I didn’t have any way of contacting his mother or sister. What if it were serious and no one could help him?
The thoughts chased themselves round and round my head, a dizzying, sickening spiral. But I couldn’t voice them. Couldn’t lay that at Lewis’s feet. Not when he was looking at me like that. Like I was something precious, something worth risking everything for.
So I did the only thing I could. I kissed him, hard and desperate, pouring everything I couldn’t say into the press of my lips, the slide of my tongue. Begging him without words to make me forget, to chase away the shadows and the doubts and the gnawing, relentless guilt.
Just for a little while. Just for tonight.
And Lord bless him, he understood. He met me kiss for kiss, touch for fevered touch, his hands and mouth worshipping me with a reverence that bordered on the divine. He mapped every inch of my skin like he was committing it to memory.
Like this stolen moment might be our last.
His talented fingers stroked me until the thoughts quieted and nothing but he reduced me to aching, shivering need. The orgasm tore through me faster than I expected, but he was ready for it. His body hovered above me, hard and ready and perfect.
“Missed you,” he rasped, eyes burning into mine as he notched himself against my entrance. “Missed you so fucking much.”
A choked laugh escaped me, disbelieving and thick with unshed tears. “How?” I asked, breathless and unravelling. “We were together all night. On the bus, backstage…”
“Not like this,” he growled, flexing his hips in a slow, devastating grind. Sparks burst behind my eyelids, pleasure searing me from the inside out. “Never like this. I could be standing right next to you, close enough to touch, and it’s never enough. I need you like this, bare and open and mine. Need to feel you, taste you, be inside you so deep there’s no telling where I end and you begin.”
His words shattered me, swept me under like a riptide. I clung to him, nails biting into the flexing muscles of his back, anchoring myself to the only solid thing in a world gone soft and hazy with sensation.
“Show me. Show me how much you missed me.”
And he did. Oh lord, did he. With every thrust of his hips, every drag of his cock against my inner walls, he branded me, claimed me, ruined me for anything and anyone else. The pleasure built and built, a tidal wave cresting, threatening to pull me under.
But even lost to the magic and madness of his touch, even drunk on the taste of him and the broken sounds of need he breathed into my skin, I couldn’t fully surrender. Couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that this was all too good to be true, too perfect to last.
That every moan, every sigh, every whispered endearment was a countdown to the inevitable end.
Because it had to end, didn’t it? I couldn’t tell if he truly wanted the alternative—me, wholly and publicly his.
Even loving him as I did, I knew myself too well. I couldn’t be his secret forever.
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