Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
“My apartment is only about ten minutes away,” Stetson said after dragging my luggage into the truck bed and pulling himself into the driver’s seat.
“Your apartment?” I asked. “I got a hotel room for the night.” Although, now that I knew he expected me to stay with him, I wished I hadn’t.
“Oh. I just figured you were going to stay with me. I would sleep on the couch of course,” he admitted. “You didn’t think I’d invite you to my show and then expect you to pay for your own hotel, did you?”
I shrugged. “It’s not a big deal. I had points from my credit card, so it was basically free.”
“Yeah. Of course. Whatever you’re most comfortable with. Uh, where’s the hotel?” he asked.
“Down near Broadway,” I said.
He flicked his wrist up until his expensive gold watch displayed the time for him. “Shit.”
“What?” My heart started a low thud through my ears as I worried what he was going to say next.
“Do you need to go there before the concert?”
“Um”—I motioned my hand up and down my body—“yes. I will absolutely not be wearing leggings, a sports bra, and a cropped fuzzy jacket to your concert.” It didn’t matter if it was ten degrees or a hundred and ten degrees, if I was flying, I was wearing a warm jacket.
“I wouldn’t mind.”
There it was. His smart-ass mouth that I’d grown to enjoy.
I knew I said things felt comfortable, and they did, but Stetson had seemed a little off—quieter and more reserved, not his usual unbothered self—until that glimpse.
“I won’t have time to take you all the way downtown to Broadway before I need to be at the show, not with rush hour traffic. We can go back to my place, and I’ll have someone take you to the hotel, does that work?”
“Yeah, of course.” I didn’t want to be a nuisance, and I sure as hell didn’t want to make him late to his own concert.
“Great, because we’re already here,” he said, pulling into the parking garage of a very tall building, shifting the truck into park.
“You good?” I asked. Stetson was always making sure I was okay, and the entire drive he had one hand white knuckled over the steering wheel and the other playing a constant beat against his denim-covered thigh.
His hand stayed put on the gear shift. “Preshow jitters. They never go away no matter how many times I get on stage.”
Duh. The show. Of course he was nervous.
“Understandably so. I can’t even imagine the pressure you feel every time you walk out there,” I said, resting my hand on top of his without thinking and giving it a gentle squeeze. “But you’re gonna be great. You could do this show in your sleep.”
“This one feels a little different for some reason.” His eyes drifted from the floorboard to me.
A rush of heat spread like wildfire across my cheeks.
“There’s Michael,” he said.
“Michael?” I asked.
Stetson lifted his arm, motioning to a tall man dressed in all black standing at what appeared to be an apartment entrance.
“Who’s he?”
“That’s my head of security. He’s been with me since I started in this business,” Stetson replied.
Security.
That seemed so official, so serious. But then again, I was sitting next to Stetson Walker and we’d crossed into Nashville city limits, which meant all bets were off, so a security detail made sense.
“Right,” I said, peeling myself from the seat and grabbing my bag that lay next to my feet before cracking my door open. “In Quincey Falls, it’s easy to forget the whole famous thing, ya know?”
“Trust me, I know. But you’ll get used to it.”
Would I, though?
The thought of being under a constant microscope hadn’t really crossed my mind, but now I couldn’t stop thinking about it. The idea of people just waiting to pick you apart every chance they got had my coffee from earlier splashing around my rib cage.
I swallowed, attempting to clear the invisible lump in the back of my throat.
I needed to tell him about the adoption, and I would, but not yet. Not until after the show. He was already anxious about it, that much was obvious, and I wouldn’t be the one to heighten his nerves.
His palm slid to my thigh, the sudden touch sparking a tingly sensation in the tips of my toes that crept all the way up my brain. “I promise,” he said.
I shifted my head toward the driver’s seat just in time to see a storm rolling through his eyes, turning them a deep shade of midnight blue. This touch was different than the hug we shared earlier. This touch was laced with suggestion, and we both knew it.
Before I could collect my thoughts, he was out of the car and opening my door.
“Holy shit,” I mumbled under my breath before he could hear me.
“Hey, y’all,” Michael said, his accent even more Southern than both mine and Stetson’s combined. “This must be Ms. Carson.”
“Yes, sir. The one and only,” Stetson said.
“Hi, it’s nice to meet you,” I said, stepping up and offering my hand. “But please, call me Scarlett.”
Michael shot a look over at Stetson.
Stetson nodded. “I told you. Whatever she wants.”
Whatever I want?
I aggressively rubbed my lips back and forth, hoping for a distraction because my thoughts had already hopped into the saddle and were ready for another ride.
“It’s nice to finally meet you, Scarlett. Our boy Stetson here hasn’t been able to stop talking about you. Me and the rest of the guys were starting to think that maybe you were just a figment of his imagination.”
The comment forced a tiny laugh to escape my mouth.
“Is that so? Only good things, I assume…” I was talking to Michael, but I was looking right at Stetson as a grin crawled across the lower half of my face.
“The best actually,” he confirmed before moving on. “I’ll be running Stetson to the stadium here in a bit, but then I’ll be back to come get you whenever you’re ready.”
“Actually—” Stetson cleared his throat. “I need you to take her downtown to get ready at her hotel before the show, and then she’ll be staying there tonight.” The words were so forced he almost seemed mad he had to say them.
“That’s not a problem at all. Are you wanting to head there now?” Michael asked, trying his best and still failing to mask his surprise.
Stetson’s lack of eye contact and rigid expression must’ve been the confirmation I needed because before I knew it, my mouth was moving, saying exactly what I’d been wanting to say since we were in the truck.
“If it’s easier, I can just get ready here…” I offered. “If that’s still okay with you?”
He maintained eye contact with me and only me as he unclenched his teeth, a sinister grin taking over his entire face. “Michael, would you mind getting Scarlett’s bags out of the truck bed and bringing them up?”
“Of course not.” I wasn’t looking in Michael’s direction, but in my periphery, I swore I saw a smirk.
“Thank you, sir,” Stetson chimed in. “I’ll be back down here in about forty-five minutes.”
“Don’t be late,” Michael insisted. “I don’t want to listen to Mark.”
“Did you hear that? Don’t make me late or you’ll get me into trouble,” he said, his eyes flashing to mine, as they flirted with even more suggestion now.
“Got it.” I saluted. “You’d better get your ass in gear then,” I said, before walking toward the entrance of the building.
I needed to decide how the next forty-five minutes were going to play out, because only about two hours ago, I had convinced myself this trip was simply a friend supporting a friend, and yet, within five minutes of being here, I was desperately craving him. All of him.
Michael must’ve assumed I was out of earshot. “I don’t know what’s going on with you two, but all I can say is don’t fuck this one up, Stetson. I know a good thing when I see it.”
“I’ll be damned if I don’t try my best.”
I smiled as a warm feeling flooded my flesh. I pulled the glass door open and shuffled inside, but I didn’t shut it behind me. I heard the sound of Stetson’s boots echoing in the hallway.
“You heard that, didn’t you?”
“Heard what?” My words lied, but thankfully Stetson couldn’t see the smirk that galloped across my face as the elevator dinged.
We both strolled inside, and I wasted no time brewing up the most ridiculously hot scenarios of what could happen once the doors closed.
The desire was overpowering, allowing all my inhibitions to get sucked right out of the moving doors as my whole body pulsed and my blood ran hot.
I shot him a come and get me look.
With one eyebrow cocked and his tiny jaw muscles working overtime, he reached across my chest, intentionally grazing my nipples with the back of his hand before he pressed the number thirty-nine with the tap of a card.
My body shivered, and the tension in the air was so thick it made it hard to breathe.
“What are you waiting for?” I asked.
“Fuck it,” he said, dropping the bag in his hand.
His body collided with mine, forcing my back onto the cold mirror that covered the walls around us.
A moan left my open mouth and drifted into his before he swallowed it up.
We were so ravenous you would’ve thought we’d never touched each other before.
Our mouths only disconnected when one of us came up for a breath of air.
He propped my ass up on the railing that conveniently lined the perimeter of the confined space as my legs curled around his lower half, pulling him as close as I could.
“Goddammit, Stetson, I need you,” I pleaded.
His fingers snaked their way under my waistband before slipping inside, a whirling sensation filling my center. He plunged deeper with each kiss, the pleasure of both his tongue dancing with mine and his fingers inside of me had me hovering at the edge of my climax.
“I can’t fucking get enough of you,” he said, low and winded. “And here I thought I might never get to do this again.”
The warmth of his words in my ear had the hairs all over my body on high alert.
“Please don’t stop,” I panted, obvious desperation in my voice.
“I have to,” he said. My eyes popped open at the same time the elevator beeped. He scooped me into his arms with a sense of urgency.