Chapter twenty-eight
Carter
The last of the light skims across Lake Como, the surface incredibly flat and still, it almost looks fake. There’s no ripples or breeze to make it move. It’s turned into a huge sheet of black glass, waiting for night to swallow it.
I stand at the open window with a cigarette between my fingers and think, Yeah, this is the shit people write ballads about and somehow get wrong.
I take a slow drag, the burn familiar, and my brain does what it always does now—goes straight to her.
I’m one lucky bastard. She’s back in my life with a camera, sharp tongue, and those gray eyes I’ve missed since we were kids.
I’ve always loved her. Even when I tried to bury it.
Telling Liam is now a priority. I owe him that, even if he knocks my teeth in.
All I can think about lately is the end of the tour. When I don’t have to act like she’s another crew member, especially when she’s the first thing in my head every morning and the reason my whole ribcage feels . . . full, in a way that actually fucking lasts.
I want her in New York with me. She’ll argue about it, no doubt. She argues on principle. But I need her on my side of the world. I can’t move to Sydney. It’s too far from everything I’ve built and too far from the band.
“You ready?” I call, flicking ash out the window onto the stone deck below.
Her voice drifts from the bathroom. “One second.”
I take another drag, turn when the door opens—and nearly inhale the entire cigarette.
She steps out in a slip of a dress that’s mostly black, with a slash of deep red curling up the side of her body like a lick of flame. Her hair’s loose and glossy, eyes lined dark, mouth painted perfectly red, making my dick, thumb, and mouth all volunteer at once to smudge it.
“Jesus, Vi.” I let my gaze take a slow tour because self-control is not on tonight’s menu. “We’re having dinner with the family, not hitting a premiere.”
She shrugs. “I wanted to look nice.”
“You always look nice.” My voice comes out gravelly. “Come on.”
I crush the cigarette on the windowsill, take her hand, and her fingers slot into mine. We head out, down the wide staircase, and through the open doors onto the lower patio.
The villa looks different at night, more rugged and alive than the postcards people imagine. Thick old stone holding the leftover heat from the day, and heavy beams stretched overhead. Lanterns hang off iron hooks, lighting up the flagstone and the long table set under the vines.
“It’s beautiful,” Vi says.
“It is,” I answer, looking directly at her.
She levels me with a dry stare, and I wink at her because, apparently, I’m a sap now.
Everyone else is already seated, the table overflowing with bottles of red wine, open and breathing.
Bowls of pasta steam beside slabs of freshly baked bread and antipasto boards loaded with olives, cured meats, and an obscene amount of cheese.
Staff move quietly in the background, topping up glasses, setting down more plates, working with the ease of people who have done this a thousand times.
Dameon lifts his glass in salute, Hailee leaning into his side. James gives me one of his tiny nods while Cora tears a piece of bread, stuffing it into her mouth with a single-minded focus. Zac lets out a low wolf-whistle until Chloe smacks his shoulder.
Beyond them, the lake is now a smear of black ink. The breeze is still warm, though, full of basil and tomatoes with a hint of wood smoke from the pizza oven inside.
I pull Vi’s chair out. She sits, and I take the one beside her, pressing my knee to hers under the table, and don’t move it. I find her hand and drop it on my thigh, trapping it there.
Tonight, I’m feeling good . . . I’m at peace.
Dinner goes down the way it always does with this lot—loud, chaotic, and nobody waiting their turn to talk. People stealing bites off each other’s plates, swearing they’re done drinking while topping up their glasses.
I’ve missed this. Missed them. Missed having my people in one place.
Zac’s halfway through a graphic Eden story when Chloe grabs his arm and hisses that he absolutely cannot say the word moist at the table, not while Cora’s trying to keep her pasta down.
Cora flicks an olive at both of them. “I’m fine,” she protests. “But if anyone mentions bodily fluids, I will start gagging.”
James just chuckles and spreads a hand over her bump, his thumb rubbing slow circles, like that alone can keep the baby and her stomach calm.
Down the table, Dameon keeps stealing roasted peppers off Hailee’s plate, testing how badly he wants to die. She glares every time his fork lands, but she still lets him get away with it.
Hailee eventually shifts her gaze to Vi and grins around the rim of her wine glass. “Violet,” she says, drawing out her name, winding up for trouble. “You never told me how you ended up at Eden.”
I aim a look at Hailee that says, Are you fucking kidding me right now? My shoulders are already tight because, no matter how you spin it, I’m the reason she ever walked through those doors.
Vi shrugs, easy, swirling her wine. “Well, when I was seventeen, this dickhead pushed me off his cock and told me to never touch him again.”
The table slams into silence.
Zac coughs on a laugh. “Whoa. Going straight for the jugular. Respect.”
Cora stares at me. “Carter?”
I scrub a hand over my face. “It wasn’t like that.”
Dameon leans in, eyebrows halfway up his forehead. “What was it like, then?”
I glare at Vi, who’s way too pleased with herself. “You giving them the clickbait headline or the full story, Storm?”
“Fine.” She taps her fingernail against her glass. “He wakes up from a dirty dream, realizes I’m recreating it on his dick in real time, panics, and tells me to never touch him again.”
James actually chokes on his wine. “Jesus.”
Chloe’s fanning herself, overheated from the alcohol, or the conversation. “This is the most chaotic origin story I’ve ever heard.”
“Hang on,” I cut in, grasping for dignity. “She was underage. And my best friend’s little sister. I completely freaked out.”
Vi lifts a shoulder again. “It fucked me up,” she says, matter-of-factly. “Shattered my confidence. Not that I had much. But, hey, I wouldn’t be where I am now without having gone through it.”
I groan. “I apologized.”
“You did,” she says. “And I did too. I learned a lot at Eden about boundaries and consent. It helped me realize that I shouldn’t have crossed that line, but the rejection . . . The rejection really hurt.”
“Vi.”
She finally looks at me properly, and there’s enough softness in her eyes to keep me from swan-diving off the terrace into the lake. “We were kids,” she says, aiming the words at me. “Emotionally stunted idiots with shit childhoods.”
“A shit start,” I mutter. “Doesn’t mean we get a shit middle or end.”
Chloe bites her lip, grinning. “So, Eden was . . . what? Your revenge arc?”
Vi thinks on it. “More like therapy that paid well.”
Hailee lifts her glass. “Queen.”
Dameon jabs his chin at me. “You do realize she built an empire of men lusting after her because you freaked out over a teenage boner, right?”
“Can we not phrase it like that?” I grit out.
Zac leans back, smug. “Vi comes out of this looking like a total badass. You . . . not so much, brother.”
Cora reaches across and covers Vi’s hand. “And now look at you two,” she says. “All grown up and disgustingly in love.”
Vi laughs softly.
I shake my head, trying not to smile. “You know I’m never living this down.”
“You’re not wrong,” James deadpans.
Vi sips her wine, eyes glittering with trouble. “Good. Keeps you humble.”
I lean closer, drop my voice so it’s just for her. “You know what else keeps me humble?”
“What?” she breathes
“Your mouth around my cock.”
Her lips part, and the table fades out around us.
Dameon clears his throat pointedly. “I vote we relocate to the water before Carter fucks Violet on the pesto.”
I’m not arguing.
I steal a kiss, catching Vi’s bottom lip between my teeth before I let go. She tastes like pinot noir and trouble. Best drink I’ve had in months.
James pushes up, grabs the expensive whiskey he brought from Australia and a stack of glasses. “Come on, degenerates. I want to get my dick wet before Cora goes into labor.”
Cora rolls her eyes.
I lace my fingers with Vi’s and lead her down the stone steps to the lake.
The night air carries the freshwater scent.
Down by the water’s edge, a row of padded loungers and low chairs sits facing the lake, lanterns flickering on small tables between them.
It’s quiet here, removed from the hotel staff clearing the dinner table, only the sound of the water brushing the rocks and the hum of crickets.
“On your knees, ladies,” James orders as he splashes whiskey into three glasses. He passes one to Dameon, one to Zac, then holds a glass out to me.
I shake my head.
“Still off it,” I say simply. “Liver’s on strike.”
He pauses. “You sure?”
Fuck, I want it. I haven’t itched for a drink this bad since the start of the tour. My family here, the lake spread out in front of us, Violet about to kneel at my feet—this is exactly the kind of moment a good whiskey was made for.
I don’t take it.
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m good.”
I’ve finally got something I don’t want to wreck.
I pull my smokes from my back pocket and drop onto one of the loungers.
Vi sinks down in front of me, knees pressing into the warm stone.
From the corner of my eye, I see the others doing the same dance—Chloe in front of Zac, Hailee in front of Dameon, Cora settling carefully in front of James on a cushion, with his help.
I light up, squint through the smoke as Vi unbuttons my jeans and frees me. Her fingers curl around my base, and then her mouth is on me, sliding down as far as she can manage in one go.
She can’t take all of me from this angle, not with the metal and without wrecking her throat, but every glide of her mouth has my vision going static.
She pulls back and sticks the tip of her tongue into my piercings at the head and moves them around.
I groan and rest my head back, letting my hand with the cigarette drop onto the armrest.
“Fuck, Storm,” I rasp. “That tongue.”
Her other hand cups my balls, and with the right amount of pull, precum beads at the tip. I rake my thumb across my eyebrow, cigarette trapped between my fingers, and look down just in time to see her trying to take more. She gags, pulls off, saliva stringing between us, then goes back in.
Around us, it’s all wet sounds—sucks, gasps, a choke here and there. I look sideways and, yeah, it’s a fucking sight. Three men I love, the women they’d go to war for, all of them on their knees, hair grabbed, cheeks hollowed.
“We’re lucky bastards,” I say in a low rumble.
Because that’s the truth of it. Being right here, right now, with them, with her—it doesn’t get better than this. This right here is worth living for. Worth getting my shit together for. And now that I’ve had a taste, I’m going to fight for it with everything I’ve got to keep it.
“Damn straight,” Zac grunts.
I take another drag, blow it high into the night, and try to sear this moment into my brain. I slide my free hand to the back of Vi’s head, guide her into the rhythm I need.
Zac groans loudly.
I smirk. Always the first to blow.
Vi sucks harder. My balls draw up. The base of my spine tingles. My vision tightens.
I burst in her mouth with a sharp, punched-out, “Ah, fuck—”
When the twitching eases, I loosen my hold on her head and sink back, lungs working.
“Show me, Storm.”
She sticks her tongue out, my cum pooled on it, her eyes bright and wicked.
“Goddamn, Vi,” I groan, bringing the cigarette back up for one last drag. She swallows it down, then leans forward and kisses the tip of my cock. It’s already starting to swell again; there’s no recovery time when it comes to her.
I flick the cig into the ashtray beside the lounger. “Strip for me.”
She peels out of her clothes, grinning the whole time. Dress, bra, and panties—gone. Moonlight on bare skin. My own personal religion.
“Sit that perfect pussy on my fat dick, Storm,” I tell her. “And don’t come till I say.”
Around us comes a chorus of laughs and groans. I never thought I’d get to feel this level of unfiltered joy off the stage. But she’s proven me wrong.
Vi climbs into my lap, knees bracketing my hips, one hand on my shoulder for balance. She sinks down slowly, taking inch after inch, and my fingers bite into her thighs.
Sitting here, with her wrapped around me, I know exactly what the fuck I’m doing with the rest of my life.
I’m going to get my house in order. My body and my head.
Stay sober, maybe even let some shrink poke around in the wreckage.
Because she’s worth every ounce of effort, every sacrifice, every hard thing I’ve been too much of a coward to face.
She’s it.
Starting now, I’m becoming the man she deserves.