Ever Lonely (Ever James Band Book 1)

by Kimberly Lauren

  "Well, now they’ll be on high alert, right? On their best behavior?"

  “You’re leaving?!” Rhett cried.

  “Only for a few days.” I waved him off. I didn’t need Rhett’s unease to scare Beau into staying.

  Beau scowled at me as he pulled the door open wider. Then he paused. "Is this what the fuck was going on yesterday when you two weren't coming out of the building?" There was a moment of silence, and he shook his head. "You know what? Don't answer that. But I do think you need to think long and hard about this. You're both professionals, and you're at the start of something great together. I’ve heard your practice sessions. Don't muddle it all up with hormones."

  The door clicked closed before either of us could respond, and the room was heavy with our silence.

  Don’t muddle it all up with hormones.

  I couldn’t have come up with a good rebuttal if I’d tried. Rhett and I had been pouncing on each other every chance we got. I’d been excited about the way he made me feel and the immense attraction I felt for him. The feelings…this attraction… wasn’t that all fleeting? Even Noah mentioned last night that the initial butterflies-in-your-stomach feeling was temporary. How long before the butterflies went away? Then again, some days I didn’t even believe they were butterflies; some days they were full-fledged earthquakes. I wanted to write songs about how I felt about Rhett. A whole damn album, really.

  I hated this sense of uncertainty—as if I needed to convince myself that what I was feeling was shallow and basic. Had any of my past boyfriends made me this crazy? I started to think through the list when the man who was wreaking havoc on my emotions seized my attention with just one look. “Get out of your head,” he said, his voice hard.

  “What?”

  “I know what you’re doing” His words were rough but authoritative. “Quit.”

  “Rhett, I can’t just—”

  His lips froze my words. He was relentless and consuming. He didn’t want me thinking those things any more than I wanted to think them. Only he might actually succeed at stopping me.

  “Do you like when I do this?” he asked as his tongue made a lazy path down my neck. I arched my neck, already begging for more. “Hmm?”

  “You know I do,” I breathed.

  He made a tsking noise under his breath, but his lips continued their route across my collarbone. A shock of pleasure caused me to push my body against him.

  “What about this? Do you like this?” His lips moved over the swell of my breasts.

  “Rhett,” I gasped. “You already know the answer to that.” My hands gripped his arms.

  “Sassy girl…” he admonished. “Of course I know the answer. But I want to hear the answer. From you.” His teasing lips drew my nipple into his mouth. “Stop being so stubborn and just say ‘God, yes, Rhett, your mouth makes me forget all others.’” To drive his point home, he bit down hard enough to make my hips shoot up. My grip on his biceps tightened, and a long moan emerged from somewhere inside of me.

  He lifted his head, and I covered my eyes with my hands before I could see his face.

  “What?” He chuckled.

  “That stupid dimple of yours is showing. I just know it.” I peeked through my fingers at his genuinely confused face.

  “My what?”

  “Your dimple.” I quit hiding and ran my fingers down his face. Then I tapped the area next to the right side of his mouth. “Right here. I don’t see it all the time, but when I do… it makes me…”

  His face moved closer to mine. “Makes you what?”

  I traced my hands down his back, and when I reached his waistband, I pushed his pajamas off his hips. “It makes me want to give you whatever you want.”

  He kicked his pants off. “Well, that’s easy because I only want you.”

  I wanted to scoff. Easy? I had never heard the word ‘easy’ used to describe a relationship with me. Because it just wasn’t. My career carried too much baggage.

  I grabbed Rhett’s shoulders and moved him down onto the bed. He could have easily resisted, but he complied all while keeping eye contact. Snatching a condom I’d seen lying on his nightstand, I quickly sheathed him while simultaneous straddling his body. His eyes never left mine and seemed almost as if they were searching for something within me.

  When I lifted up to lower myself onto him, he gripped my waist tightly and stopped me. “Give us a chance,” he whispered.

  All of the air left my lungs. He wanted us to be… together. More than just two bodies that enjoyed each other.

  All of the reasons why we shouldn’t flooded my brain. Everything would work against us. We would eventually work against us.

  “Why do you look surprised that I would even suggest that?”

  “Because...” My mind drew a blank. I had exhausted all of my excuses.

  “Have you finally run out of reasons to fight against this? Because when you give in, you’ll see we can be pretty amazing.”

  I couldn’t hold back my smile. He wasn’t lying. The few intimate moments we’d shared had been mind-blowing. And that didn’t include the magic I’d felt when writing lyrics and creating music together.

  “But we barely know each other. I just met you a few weeks ago…” I knew it was a weak argument even as I said it.

  He cocked his head at me as if telling me I could do better than that. “For someone who wanted me so badly last night, you sure are pushing me away today.”

  I sighed. “I know. I’m just as confused as I sound.”

  “Look, I’m not professing my undying love for you or proposing marriage. I’m just asking you to give us a chance. I’m asking you to be mine.”

  “Well, you have proposed marriage…” I smirked.

  “Hey, when a girl can belt out Stevie Nicks better than Stevie Nicks, I have to take a shot.” I laughed when he winked at me.

  Looking down at Rhett as he lay beneath me, I took him all in. His callused fingers that could strum the life out of a guitar gripped my hips. His sculpted chest rose up and down with each breath he took. His Adam's apple bobbed in his throat as he swallowed restlessly. Those perfect lips that hummed the most painfully beautiful melodies opened slightly. I felt him harden beneath me, more than likely from my blatant perusal of his body. Could I be his?

  "Get out of that head of yours, Pipes," his rough voice interrupted my out-of-control brain.

  I tried to lower myself onto him again, but he maintained his grip. I admired his restraint. Something that wasn’t going so well for me.

  “I’ll try,” I finally said. He let out a beaming smile and loosened his grip. “But as far as anyone else is concerned, we’re just bandmates.” His hands immediately constricted again, this time around my waist. “When it’s just you and me, we can be together. When we’re alone, we can try and see if this thing between us is real.”

  “It’s real,” he said without even an ounce of doubt.

  I lifted my finger for him to hush. "But out there we're just bandmates."

  “No.”

  I leaned forward so my hands were back on his chest. "We try it this way or not at all. I'm not about to go make our relationship public so they can cheapen it. We'll be destroyed before anything even begins. Right now, we want the attention only on our music.”

  He started to say something but closed his mouth. I watched as my words began to sink in. While the wheels were turning in his head, I pried his fingers from my waist slowly.

  "Rhett, every single one of my boyfriends has been set up by my label. Every. Single. One. All for the same reasons. Stir up controversy. Grab attention. Sell records. Outside of the two years I attended high school back in Ohio, I have never met a boy on my own and let things happen naturally. Never." I ran my hands down his chest. "Please, I want to do this the right way."

  I was able to grab hold of him, and while he was still distracted by everything I had just confided, I lowered myself down onto his cock.


  “Fuck, Ever!” he groaned loudly. I closed my eyes and lifted my face toward the ceiling. Finally. Nothing had ever felt as good as he did. I let myself adjust to his size and relished the little shocks of pleasure I felt having him this close again.

  With my hands on his chest, I began to move up and down. Rhett ran his hands over my hips and up my stomach until he palmed my breasts. His abs clenched as he raised his hips toward me and held his position, halting me from being able to move.

  “You and me?” he asked. I was pretty fucking amazed that he had the strength to hold me up like that.

  “This can only end in disaster,” I breathed through my clenched teeth. I had been quickly finding that climax again.

  "Only if we let it." Mercifully, he dropped his hips and let me begin moving on top of him. My hands grazed the hot skin on his chest, and I couldn't stop myself from dipping down to taste the skin on his neck. I felt the appreciative rumble from his chest.

  God, he was everything I could ever want in a man. I hated that this industry was going to chew him up and spit him out.

  From underneath me, Rhett pumped in and out. "Fuck, I can't believe this is real, Pipes." His gruff voice interrupted my analysis of his skin with my lips.

  I found his lips and showed him how real it was as I lost myself in his swift, delicious movements underneath me. He pushed me up by my shoulders when I started to clench him tightly. "No, not yet. I need to watch you when you come for me."

  My robe slid off one shoulder, and with his hands still around my waist, Rhett stopped moving. He let me ride him and discover the exact rhythm I needed to reach those bright stars behind my eyelids. The muscles in my legs were burning, but I was on a mission. He eased some of the work, helping to lift me up and down on his cock.

  “Rhett!” I cried. I could feel the beginning of something amazing. When I opened my eyes, I was shocked by the pure lust and adoration I saw in his. This was the look a man gave a woman he had been with for years. A woman he knew inside and out. It was too honest… too raw.

  As we stared at one another, I felt him begin to swell inside of me. Then his hips started to pump infinitesimally as if he had no control over them. His ocean blue eyes pleaded with me, and I couldn't hold back anymore.

  Wave after wave of pleasure sailed through me. I had a death grip on his shoulders as I rode out each intense surge of my orgasm. My mind went blank from the euphoria, and before I realized it, his name had repeatedly left my lips.

  Rhett’s eyes never left me, and I felt as if I glowed under his close attention. When I eventually came down from the intense high, I could see his restraint was now gone. He flipped me onto my back effortlessly and quickly thrust into me. The change of position hit a place inside that hadn't been awakened yet today. I gasped at even the idea of being able to come again.

  “No…” I moaned. It was too much. “Yes, yes, yes,” I cried in almost the same beat. I raised my hips to meet his drives.

  “No or yes?” he growled in my ear. He was going after what he needed now, and I was just here for the wonderful ride. "Which is it, Ever?"

  “Yes,” I gasped. “Always yes.”

  I held onto his back, feeling the tight muscles flexing underneath my fingers. When I scratched across the skin, I felt his quick inhale of air. It was the sexiest noise a man could ever make.

  I was a goner. He groaned as he came inside of me, pumping mercilessly until my orgasm had stopped pulsing around him. With a huff, he fell to the side and we lay on our backs, panting.

  "Are you two finished yet?" Lola's voice called from outside of Rhett's door, followed by a feverish pounding on the wood.

  “The fuck? Seriously?” Rhett pulled the sheet over his condom-clad cock. I sighed as it disappeared from view.

  “3, 2,…” I started before the door crashed open.

  “I heard the chanting and the final grunt.” Lola waltzed into the room as if she had done us a service by letting us finish.

  “I thought you went home?” I asked, sitting up. Rhett followed suit and pointlessly tried to cover my breasts. I swatted him away. “If you can’t already tell, she’s seen it all and then some.”

  “You don’t want to know about the ‘some.’” Lola laughed.

  “Try me,” Rhett objected. My fingers squeezed his thigh underneath the sheet.

  “I was riding with Beau, remember?” Lola’s expression became serious. “He was watching the hallway cam live on his phone and almost jumped out of the car when he saw those two nutjobs in the hallway. Are you guys okay?” Before we could say anything, she answered for us. “Of course you are. I heard the climax from the kitchen.”

  Rhett sighed loudly and leaned toward me. “Do you have any semblance of privacy?”

  “What’s the meaning of privacy again?” I teased.

  “Something about being free from unwanted interruption or disturbance in your private life,” he responded.

  "Nope. That definitely left the building years ago."

  He once again tried to pull the sheet up under my arms, and I appeased him by allowing it. "It's more for me, at this point," he admitted.

  He looked down forlornly and readjusted himself under the sheet. I eyed him with a wicked smile, and he groaned.

  "No way, there's no more time for that." Lola pointed to Rhett's completely covered yet undeniably obvious arousal. "You've had your fun, but you two are supposed to be in the studio. You will not suck on live television tomorrow.” She heaved a large garment bag onto the bed and began pulling out clothes. One by one, she tossed them to us and gestured for us to get dressed.

  I hopped out of bed, buck-naked, and looked at the outfit Lola had chosen for me. After pulling on the lace boyshorts, I yanked the tight army green denim up and over my legs. There was a zipper that went up the inside of each of my ankles, all the way up to my thighs. It was rocker-chic and very sexy. I slipped on the black Giuseppe strappy heels and then unzipped the pants a little on each side so they would overlap.

  “I think we can handle getting dressed by ourselves.” Rhett glared at Lola.

  “You better get used to me, mister,” she scolded. “I need to make sure the fit is right. Everyone will see what you’re wearing, and I won’t be made to look a fool!”

  “You’re not even my stylist,” he mumbled.

  “Actually, Sienna picked that out.” She gestured toward the pile in front of him. “Boy, you sure are crabby for just getting laid.”

  “Lola, let the man at least take his condom off in peace,” I reprimanded.

  “Oh,” she mouthed as she turned her back to him. That was all the privacy he would be getting from her.

  I crawled across the bed and smirked when Rhett froze from my actions. I was still topless, and it seemed to be highly distracting for him. I took advantage of that and threw back the sheet. Before his brain could catch up, I gripped his now rock-hard erection and slipped the condom off.

  The deep rumble of his groan was so damn sexy it spoke to my now unfortunately clothed area. I wanted to curse at Lola for being in the room. I could definitely go for round two. And by the look he was giving me, Rhett could go for rounds nine and ten.

  “Guys…” Lola warned. “I’m turning around in five seconds. Cocks out or not. What part of ‘you don’t have time for this’ do you not understand?”

  “I never thought you’d be a cock-blocker,” I said.

  Rhett scooped up his clothes without looking at them and stomped off to the en suite bathroom. I couldn’t help but gawk at the red scratches down his back. They looked just as sexy as I had pictured them.

  Lola handed me a black bra and then proceeded to help with the crisscrossing straps that wrapped around my ribcage. I wondered what kind of shirt she had planned if I needed this daring of a bra. She pulled a soft white cotton t-shirt over my head. My arms easily slipped through the sleeveless holes because they were huge. It was ripped almost to my waist on the sides, giv
ing the bra its own peep show. The whole outfit was edgy yet casual. Perfect for an entire day at the studio.

  “What else is she wearing?” Rhett’s deep voice called from the open doorway.

  “What do you mean?” Lola asked, clearly not following. “Sienna picked this out for her to wear today, and it’s fabulous.”

  “She’s wearing that… out there?” He gestured toward the door. “It’s fucking winter.”

  “She’ll wear a jacket outside, of course.”

  “And when she’s inside?” he shot back.

  “She is in the room.” I hated when people spoke about me like I wasn’t present. “There’s nothing wrong with my outfit. I’m wearing it.”

  “Your tits are out...”

  “I’m. Wearing. It,” I repeated.

  He let out a frustrated breath and finally nodded his head in defeat.

  "Damn, if he has an issue with that…" Lola gestured toward my outfit as if I were wearing a snowsuit. But she was right. This was nothing.

  I rolled my eyes and messed with my now dried curls in the mirror. They were wild and I was definitely sporting a just-fucked look, but that was how I liked it.

  “You know, Rhett…” Lola broke the tension in the room. “You really need to take it easy on her. Ever already has a naturally hoarse voice. You make her scream like that, and her voice will be shot.”

  His eyes darted to mine, and he looked genuinely worried. He grabbed my hands. “Maybe you shouldn’t sing today. Just hum along or something.”

  “I’m fine.” I waved them off. “I’m a professional, remember?”

  “Let me know the second you feel anything’s off,” he urged.

  “I’ll be okay. Now let's get going before we really get in trouble.”

  Lola led the way out the door, but before I could follow, Rhett grabbed my waist. "Wait up…" He pulled me in close and looked down at me. "Sorry, I'm new to all of this."