Chapter 17
seventeen
Josh
I wake to cold sheets and an empty bed. For a second, I think maybe she’s just in the bathroom but the longer I lie here, the heavier the silence gets.
The room feels too quiet.
Too still.
My chest tightens as I stare at the spot where she slept, the pillow still holding the faintest shape of her head, and the ache settles in fast. I didn’t think it would hit this hard.
It’s not just disappointment, it’s panic.
Did she regret it? Did I screw this up somehow? Did I move too fast? Push her too far?
Kate is a people pleaser, so did she choose not to tell me to stop because she didn’t want to disappoint me? Did she do things she didn’t want to do?
“Fuck,” I groan, scrubbing my hands down my face.
The next time I see Eric, I’m apologizing for giving him such a hard time about waking up the next morning without Tyler and being a fucking mope, because I get it now.
I press the heels of my hands to my eyes and let out a slow breath. Last night meant something, I know it did, but now I can’t help but wonder if it meant more to me than it did to her.
The beep of a keycard followed by the click of the door opening has me propping myself up on my elbows, and when Kate rounds the corner carrying coffees and a bag from a bakery down the street, I feel like I can breathe again.
“Morning, superstar,” she says, smiling and setting the paper bag of food down on the bedside table. She sits on the side of the bed and hands me one of the coffees. I grab it with one hand, her wrist with the other, and pull her to me.
“I thought you left,” I say against her lips, holding myself back from kissing her. Giving her time to pull away if she does have regrets. When she doesn’t, relief floods my chest and I kiss her, groaning when she kisses me back.
“I left a note,” she says, nodding to the table where she placed the bag of food.
“Oh,” I say, laughing nervously and running a hand through my hair. “I didn’t even think to look.”
“It’s alright,” she says, grinning. “I’m still not thinking clearly either.” She leans in to kiss me again and I am suddenly very aware that I’m still naked under this sheet.
Her mouth is soft and warm and familiar, and the second her tongue brushes mine, the groggy haze of sleep evaporates. My hand finds her waist, tugging her closer until she’s straddling me, my cock standing at full attention beneath her.
My hands slide up her back under the hem of her shirt and—wait, this is my shirt. I pull back to study her and sure enough, she’s wearing the t-shirt I had on at dinner last night.
I flip us in one motion, pinning her beneath me. Her legs wrap around my waist like it’s second nature, like her body remembers every place I touched her last night and wants more.
“I was going to let you recover,” I murmur against her neck, kissing down the column of her throat. “But then you waltz in here wearing my fucking shirt and now all I can think about is taking it off.”
“You don’t have to be gentle with me, Josh,” she says, arching into me, nails lightly dragging down my back and leaving goosebumps in their wake. “I’m not going to break.”
“Careful, sweetheart,” I growl, dragging my mouth along her jaw. “You say things like that, and I’ll have to remind you what I’m capable of.”
She tilts her chin, giving me full access to her throat, and I don’t waste the opportunity, sucking a mark into her skin, my teeth grazing just enough to make her gasp and her thighs tighten around me.
“You still want this?” I ask, voice low, lips grazing her neck, fingers slipping beneath the hem of my shirt that’s still covering her body.
“Yes,” she breathes.
I slide the fabric up slowly before I tug it off over her head and toss it aside. I remove her shorts and throw them over my shoulder next. My palms move up her sides, thumbs brushing the underside of her breasts. She’s already squirming beneath me, desperate and needy and so goddamn perfect.
“You looked so fucking good in that shirt,” I murmur, kissing a line down between her breasts. “But you look even better out of it.”
My mouth closes over one of her nipples while my fingers pinch the other, and she arches again, her head falling back against the pillows as she lets out a moan.
I shift lower, kissing a trail down her stomach, pausing at her hip bones just to hear the desperate sound she makes when I skip where she wants me.
“Josh,” she whines.
I glance up, meeting her eyes. “Tell me what you want.”
“You,” she pants.
“Where?”
“Here,” she says, sliding her fingers through her already soaking core. “I need your mouth on me.”
I smirk and grab her wrist. “Good girl.” I move her fingers to my lips and suck them into my mouth, groaning as the now familiar taste of her coats my tongue.
Settling between her thighs and parting them gently, I grab her hips with my hands as I lower my mouth to her center and taste her like a man starved.
I will never get enough of this. Of her. Of the way her fingers twist in my hair and her hips rock into me. I don’t stop. Not when she gasps, not when she moans my name, not when her whole body trembles beneath my tongue.
Because if she doesn’t think she’s going to break, I’ll keep going until she shatters.
Kate and I spent the morning in bed before dragging ourselves to the shower to get cleaned up and ordering room service for lunch because we were both too exhausted to leave.
After lunch, she disappeared into her room, saying something about a job I hired her to do while I fell back into bed and crashed hard, completely wiped and in desperate need of refueling my energy reserves for the show.
Now, I’m sitting in the greenroom staring at my phone, waiting for sound check and the punchline to the knock-knock joke Kate has baited me into.
Kate: Knock knock.
Josh: Who’s there?
Kate: Ah.
Josh: Ah who?
I’ve been staring at the little bubble in the corner for what feels like five minutes, and I smile knowing she’s probably making me wait on purpose. Drawing out the anticipation.
Kate: Werewolves of London.
I laugh out loud.
“Dude, what is with you?” Eric asks, kicking my hand with his foot.
“What?”
“You’re all…smiley.” He waves a hand in the general direction of my face, like I’ve offended him by having the audacity to be in a good mood. “And you just giggled.”
I blink at him, my brain catching up to the fact that I was just sitting here grinning at my phone and laughing like an idiot at Kate’s joke.
Shit. I am all smiley. Rookie mistake.
I clear my throat and attempt to wipe the evidence off my face, but the damage is done. Max and Kevin have abandoned their conversation to zone in on me like vultures circling a fresh kill.
“I did not giggle,” I lie, reaching for the water bottle next to me just to do something.
“Yeah, you did,” Max says, narrowing his eyes. “And it’s weird. You’re only this happy when you get an extra chicken nugget at McDonald’s or when someone sneezes like a cartoon character.”
Eric leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “So, who is she?”
My grip tightens on my phone. These guys are like family, and I know I can talk to them about anything, but when it comes to Kate, I feel protective.
I can take whatever crap they throw at me no problem.
I’m used to it. I just don’t know how she’d handle it, and until I do, this thing with her needs to stay under wraps.
“What are you talking about?”
“You tell us,” Eric says, looking way too smug. “Because unless you recently came into possession of unlimited nuggets or a video of a dude sneezing himself out of his own chair, you’ve got that look on your face.”
“What look?”
“That, I met someone look,” Max says.
I scoff. “That’s not a thing.”
“It’s a thing,” Kevin says, raising a quizzical brow and pointing at me. “And you have it.”
I shake my head, and my gaze falls back to my phone, which I immediately regret because they all see it.
“Oh my god,” Max gasps, dramatic as hell. “You were just texting her, weren’t you?”
“Texting who?” I say, shrugging with as much indifference as I can muster and Eric smirks. Fucker. This is, no doubt, payback for the last several weeks of us—and by us I mostly mean me—being on his case about Tyler.
I force out a laugh that sounds more like a wheeze. “You guys are way off base.”
Kevin cracks his knuckles, looking thoroughly entertained.
“Okay, so let’s walk through it. He gets back from the fundraiser a few weeks ago acting more jittery and weirder than usual,” I flip him off as he continues, “and now every time he thinks no one’s looking, he’s grinning at his phone like a lunatic. Which means he met someone.”
I exhale through my nose, trying to play it cool. “Maybe I met someone.”
I regret the words the moment they leave my mouth.
“Ah ha!” Kevin shouts at the same time Max asks, “Why didn’t you say anything?”
Eric shoots me a grin so smug it should be illegal. The kind of look that says, Buckle up, buddy—it’s payback time.
“It’s not a big deal,” I insist, my heart hammering. “There was a woman at the event. That’s all.”
Eric leans back in his chair and crosses his arms over his chest. “So, you’re texting her.”
I shrug again and lean back in my chair. “Casually.”
Max squints. “How casually are we talking? Like, ‘Hey, it was great to meet you’ or ‘I really need to see you again’?”
“Somewhere in the middle,” I say, which is an absolute lie because it’s definitely the second one. I need to see her like I need to breathe.
“Have you hung out since?” Kevin asks.
I scratch the back of my neck. “We…see each other.”
Max frowns. “That’s vague as hell.”
“You’re vague as hell,” I counter, pointing at him, scrubbing a hand down my face when I realize that my retort made no sense and my brain is doing that record-skipping thing again. They all exchange a look as our stage manager pops his head in to tell us it’s time for sound check.
“Oh, this is going to be so much fun,” Eric says as we stand and head down the hall to the stage.
They’re onto me, and if I’m not careful, it’s only a matter of time before they figure out exactly who I’m texting, and this entire thing blows up in my face.
After sound check, Kevin, Max, and I head out in search of cheesesteaks because when in Philly, it’s a requirement. Eric stays behind claiming he doesn’t like cheesesteaks, but we all assume it’s so he can hang out with Tyler.
Kate is getting ready with the girls like she does every night, but I miss her.
Not that I don’t love Max and Kevin—they’re basically my brothers—but I find myself wishing I was standing on this sidewalk eating food truck cheesesteaks with her instead.
She’d probably say something like, “You think you can handle twelve inches, superstar?”, because she’s funny as hell, and I’d choke on my first bite.
We finally make it back to the arena, and my heart drops a little when I realize Kate and the girls still aren’t in the greenroom.
Seriously, how long does it take to get ready?
Then again, I’m not one to talk. I spend an hour painting my torso like it’s a canvas going in the Louvre, so maybe I should shut up.
I grab my paint and a brush and stand in front of the mirror.
Focus.
I just need to focus. I uncap the black paint and swipe a line across my pec with the brush. Easy. Clean. Sharp. Like my mind should be right now. But instead—
Kate.
Kate in my bed last night and again this morning.
Kate in the shower. Kate laughing at something Max said yesterday, snorting in that adorable way she does that makes my chest feel warm.
Kate with that little wrinkle between her brows when she’s reading emails.
Kate wearing my shirt this morning and looking like the most beautiful fucking thing I’ve ever seen.
Shit. Too much black.
“Pull it together, man,” I mutter to myself. Guess we’re going full-body black tonight. Oh, I should mix up some more of that blood red from a few weeks ago. Kate said she liked that look. The way she looked at me that night like I was something she wanted to devour…
I’d like to devour her.
Jesus. Stop thinking about devouring.
Painting. We’re painting.
I drag a hand through my hair in frustration, smudging black into the strands. Great. How’s that going to come out?
I groan.
Now my hair is a disaster and Kate’s still not here and I don’t remember where the hell we are or what I’m doing.
Red. That’s right, I need red. Kate liked the red.
I grab the red paint and a plastic cup from the counter and start mixing. The color’s a little off—more ketchup than blood—but I can fix it. I think.
I swirl the brush once, then pause.
Red.
Red cup.
Red solo cup.
Let’s have a party.
Thank you, Toby Keith.
“We should go out tonight,” I say.
“You sure Philly is the right place to go out in?” Max asks, raising a brow. “I’d rather not get murdered.”
“Alright then, hotel party,” I say, shrugging. “Have the girls get a couple cases on their way back.”
Everyone murmurs their agreement when I finally hear Kate’s laugh echo into the room from the hallway and I feel like I can breathe again.