“Oh don’t worry, I’m getting there, Sienna. After you say yes. And before you ask, you’ll have a job,” he says, and I open my eyes to look at him. The grin he’s wearing widens. “I need your wardrobe expertise, but I’m not going to lie and tell you my reasons for wanting you with me aren’t mostly fueled by greed.”
The part of my brain that’s not a blurry hot mess from what he’s doing to my body realizes just how much sense this proposal makes. I’ve been working as a personal wardrobe consultant ever since I moved back to Nashville—and I’ve worked freelance for a few musicians. Plus, Lucas’s music and my job are the reason why we initially met two and a half years ago in the first place. I’d worked wardrobe on the set of the “All Over You” music video, and Lucas and I had hit it off. Clearly, it hadn’t worked out, but my time on set with his band had a lasting impression on me.
“I’m not much for cramped spaces,” I blurt out.
“I am.” He gives me a wicked smile as his fingers pick up speed inside me. I dig my fingernails into the pillows, the headboard—whatever my hands come in contact with— and he rubs the pad of his thumb around my clit. “And don’t worry, we’ll be in a hotel more than on a tour bus.”
But we’d still be on a bus. And despite what Lucas has said about wanting to keep me around, anything could happen. I’m not aware that I’ve started to clench my teeth until Lucas stops touching me. It’s always been a nervous habit of mine and it drives him insane. “Please don’t stop,” I hiss.
“Come on tour with me.”
He’s asking a lot, he has to know that. I can’t give him a direct answer right now because it’s not possible—how can it be when I’m shivering beneath him, and I can feel every inch of him pressed up against my hip as he touches me?
I run my tongue over my lips and nod. “I promise I’ll think about it.”
His shoulders relax a bit, and I let out a satisfied moan when he slides his erection inside of me. He takes his time, going agonizingly slow, until he’s balls deep and I’m biting my lip to keep from clenching my teeth. And he sighs. Lucas-Effing-Wolfe actually sighs. For me.
“I’ll just have to fucking convince you to come,” he growls.
Over the next couple of days, Lucas doesn’t directly ask me to come with him on the band’s tour again. Instead, he uses his mouth and hands and body, and his music, to persuade me to come on the road with him. By the time he drives me to the airport in Knoxville on Friday morning, I’m tempted to tell him I need another couple days of convincing, despite the fact I’ve had a very limited amount of sleep in the last several hours and my body feels like I’ve spent days doing nothing but hardcore Pilates.
Then I remind myself that I have been contracted to do a job this weekend—wardrobe for a debut singer’s photo shoot in downtown Nashville. I have to go back, even if it’s just to take care of one obligation.
My flight home is scheduled to leave at 10:45 a.m., and Lucas gets me to the airport with an hour to spare. As I check my bag in, I can feel his eyes on me, and I know he’s expecting me to give him an answer about the tour before I leave.
“When are you driving back to L.A.?” I ask as he walks me to security.
“Flying. Leaving late this evening, and Kylie’s driving my car back after she uses my place this weekend.” He gives me a distant smile. “I want you coming home with me, Sienna.”
I’m sure if I could see his eyes, I’d tell him anything he wanted to hear. Luckily he’s wearing sunglasses—the same ones he put on the few times we left his place during the last 48 hours— but any diehard Your Toxic Sequel fan would be able to spot him from a mile away.
He’s that memorable, and the tattoos don’t exactly help him blend in.
“What the fuck have you done to me?” Lucas drags me to him, burying his face into my hair, breathing me in. “I’ve never cared about goodbyes and then you come along and make me need you.”
I swallow, trying to push down the tightness building up in my throat. I don’t want to be a big baby and cry, especially since I know that this isn’t it between us. Still, goodbyes are painful—they rip into you and tear you apart no matter how long they actually last. “I love you.”
He looks me in the eye. “Come on tour with me, even if it’s just for a few cities.”
And I think it’s because I hate goodbyes so much that I nod and say, “I’ll give you an answer by the end of this weekend.”
We kiss then, like it’s for the last time, though there’s a good chance I’ll be with him for nearly two months on the road. By the time I board my flight forty-five minutes later, though, I have a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.
We couldn’t even last 10 days with each other before.
As I take my seat near the middle of the plane, I shove the negative thoughts from my mind. I refuse to let it screw up the way I’m feeling after my time with Lucas.
To my surprise, my brother is actually at the airport on time to pick me up when my flight touches down in Nashville. Seth greets me at the baggage claim grinning like an idiot, dressed in his usual attire of cargo shorts, bright boat shoes, and Polo shirt.
“You look surprised,” he says.
“You look incredibly . . . Chuck Bass.” When he gives me a look of confusion, I continue, “Didn’t think you got my text.” I’d sent him a message early this morning asking him to pick me up, but he never answered.
Four and a half years younger than me, my nineteen-year-old brother is notorious for not picking up his phone. “Do I ever let you down?” Seth asks.
I snort and lean over to grab my oversized bag off the conveyor belt, but he immediately steps in and plucks my luggage out of my hands, slinging it over his shoulders. He wiggles his light brown eyebrows. “I was busy when you texted but next time I’ll make sure to stop just to let you know I’m on my way, deal?”
My nose wrinkles at the thought “Seriously? You have to tell me that?” He grins as I move my head from side to side. “Thanks for making the conversation totally awkward.”
“Anytime I can make shit weird for you, Si.”
Seth’s Dodge Ram pickup truck is surprisingly void of its usual collection of Burger King bags and old mail when I climb inside of it ten minutes later in the short-term parking lot. I sniff a few times. A wintergreen air freshener
“So . . . is she nice?” I ask as he starts the engine. She must be if he took the initiative to clean his truck.
“Nice enough. Maybe I’ll, you know, bring her to meet you and Gram if things work out.” He merges onto I-40. “I think you’ll like her.”
I turn on the radio, which is tuned to a station I know he hates. The sound of The Pussycat Dolls blasts through the truck for about ten seconds before I jab another button, switching to a rock station that’s in the middle of airing an add for a local car dealership’s Christmas in July sale. “This is serious. You’ve given her control of your radio.”
“Don’t be such a nosy ass.” After he switches lanes, he looks over at me, his brown eyes searching. “So . . . you went on a work trip to Knoxville? Why didn’t you just drive?”
“Now who’s being nosy?” I counter. Seth isn’t exactly Lucas’s biggest supporter, mainly because of the dilemma with Gram’s house earlier this year. I take a deep breath before saying in a sugary voice, “But yes, something like that. The front-man of Your Toxic Sequel has asked me to be his personal wardrobe consultant during their national tour.” My words sound so professional and rehearsed I’m sure my expression is just as surprised as Seth’s.
“Damn, that’s awesome, their new music—” he begins, but then he pauses and frowns. “Wait, that’s Wolfe’s band, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it is. And?”
Seth’s top lip curls. “And that son of a bitch is the front-man. You told him to fuck off, right?”
“No.” My voice exudes confidence that’s impossible for me to feel at the moment. “I didn’t. I haven’t given him an answer, actually.”