I’d never told him – mostly because I knew he would have gone ballistic – but I found out a few weeks after we’d broken up that the first guy I’d slept with, Sam Douglas, a notorious music world bad boy, had openly shared some of the more intimate details of our three week relationship that made me regret ever saying hello to him. After that I’d always been afraid to let go with anyone else I slept with, because the guys I dated were egotistical assholes, and I was so afraid they’d brag about sweet, young Sydney Chase getting all crazy between the sheets. Those were the last things I needed being said about me.
Ryder was the first guy I’d trusted not to do that. I knew whatever happened between us wouldn’t ever leave the bedroom. He wouldn’t even tell Jake. And that just reconfirmed my thoughts that he was the most wonderful guy I’d ever known.
“Challenge accepted,” Ryder said softly, as he chuckled against my neck, his breath warm, his voice reverberating against my skin. Then he started to kiss his way south, his lips taking care to kiss and suck and lick almost every inch of my body as he made his way lower and lower.
I was instantly glad I hadn’t put clothes on the night before when his head dipped between my thighs and his tongue met my most sensitive area.
“Oh God!” I cried out, and he chuckled against me.
“That’s one,” he said, so I smacked his head.
He looked up at me. “You want me to stop?” he asked, but I knew he wasn’t really serious. He was just bating me.
“Hell no,” I said, putting my hands over my head to brace myself as he slid a finger inside me and started moving it rhythmically, slowly driving me absolutely mad. “I think you proved me wrong.” It came out breathless. “Please, carry on.”
He smiled and lowered his head again, making me cry out again and again until I lost control completely and called out his name in one loud outburst, my hands pressing the headboard as hard as I could, my toes curling involuntarily as wave after wave washed over me in sweet ecstasy.
Ryder pressed one kiss to the inside of my thigh before he slid off the bed, leaving me there to ride out the high I was feeling.
“Where are you going?” I asked when I saw him walking away.
He smirked at me over his shoulder. “Follow me if you want to find out.”
Oh damn. When did he get so sexy? Seriously!
Giving myself a few minutes to come back to earth, I finally slid out of bed and followed where he’d gone into the bathroom only to find him back in the hot tub, the water bubbling around him, his head leaned back against the tile. I noticed he’d closed the blinds, blocking out most of the morning sunlight from the room and essentially bathing us in complete privacy.
“Found you,” I said, as I leaned against the doorway to the room.
His eyes opened to look at me, drinking me in for a few seconds. “Care to join me?”
I smiled. “If you insist.”
He shrugged. “We only have about thirty minutes until you have to be up, so I figure we’ll make the most of them.”
“I’m already up,” I reminded him.
“Thanks to me.”
“What do you mean?”
He shrugged. “When I called last night to ask for a wake-up call, I was informed that you’d already requested one for nine. I changed it to eight, because I wanted us to have some time.”
“You really are a smarty-pants. I love the way you think,” I said, smiling as I started to walk toward him.
As I stepped into the water, I took note of the condom wrapper lying on the tile behind his head. He’d thought of everything.
“I just know that in a few hours, I’m not going to get to touch you the way I want to, so I figure the only way I’ll be able to get through is by wearing us both out so I’m not tempted.”
“I’ll still be tempted,” I told him, knowing it was true.
“Yeah, me too,” he said, grinning at me.
Just liked I’d done the night before, I slid over his lap, my knees on either side of his legs, and he pulled me closer so our bodies were flush against each other. I let my hair fall around his face like a curtain, closing off everything around us as he kissed me, slow and languid, his lips moving in time with mine, slowly seducing me with such a simple yet erotic gesture. I felt his hands run up my wet back as the bubbles around us splashed and sprayed, and I sunk down onto him so close that he was practically inside me.
He pulled back from the kiss and looked up at me. “Good morning,” he said softly.
“Best morning I’ve had in years,” I told him. “Although it would have been better if you’d been in bed with me.”
“Sorry about that. I was up at seven-thirty, and I couldn’t sleep. Had we been at your house, I would have made breakfast, but here all I could do was order room service. I hope you’re hungry for pancakes.”
I smiled. “I’m starving.”
He grinned back at me. “Well, as soon as you want them, they’re in the kitchen.”
I leaned forward and kissed him. “I want you first.”
“Ah, I was hoping you’d say that.”
He nodded and brought his hand to the back of my head, kissing me softly again. Reaching my hand blindly, I felt along the tile for the condom and pulled it down under the water. Still kissing Ryder with everything in me, I slid back enough to give myself room to open the condom and slide it over the hardness that had been pressing against me in such a sweet and agonizing way. We only had so much time left, and I was going to make the most of it.
* * *
Another ride to a new city, an interview with a magazine, two fan meet-and-greets, another show that was incredible, and the end of another long day, but what made this one different than any of the others was that I’d gotten to share it all with Ryder. And because of his sheer proximity the whole day, I couldn’t keep the smile off of my face. A part of me was fearful that everyone around me would know exactly what was going on between us, but if they did, they didn’t say anything.
Even my styling team was relatively quiet, even though I knew they suspected something. I wasn’t giving anything away, and neither was Ryder as he sat on my couch reading his textbook while I got ready for the different activities lined up for me throughout the day. The drive up to New York had been relatively short, but I’d been busy since we’d arrived, and Ryder had alternated between watching me in action and reading for his classes. He’d broken out a textbook for his other class, Agriculture and Natural Resource Law, halfway through the day and had starting reading that for a while.
“Learning anything exciting?” I’d asked him when we were getting ready to head to the first of two meet-and-greets.
Seeing him leaving his book behind to follow me was a reminder of how different our lives were. It was like we lived on two different planes of the same world, but I didn’t mind it so much anymore. I figured he could teach me all about the earth and politics, and I could get him backstage at my concerts. It was nice trade-off, and with him there, it allowed me to do my thing while he did his. It gave me hope that if we did things right, our relationship could really work.
“Nah,” he said, smiling at me, the backs of his fingers grazing mine softly, but I knew he was only kidding. He loved school.
I leaned closer to him. “Maybe you can wow me with your knowledge later – you know before bed. We can consider it foreplay.”
He laughed. “Yes, because protecting our natural resources is a turn-on to so many girls. I can’t tell you how many women I’ve brought back to my room just by telling them about recycling initiatives alone. And don’t get me started on soil conservation.”
I smacked his chest playfully with the back of my hand. “Hey now, I do not want to hear about you using your brains to flirt with other women.”
He laughed. “Yeah right, like that ever worked.”
“Hey, it made me think of a parade of hot co-eds dressed like slutty librarians filing into your room all with one thought in mind.”
“Yeah, to sleep with Jake,” he said, which made me laugh, but I didn’t think for a second that it was true. I knew Ryder had pulled his share of women in the past, but if I had anything to say about it, he’d never kiss anyone but me ever again.
“Well played,” I told him, and he flashed me one of his adorable, dimple-popping smiles that I loved so much.
When we went back to my dressing room after the second meet-and-greet, he put the books away and talked to everyone while I finished getting ready for the show. And when we walked to the stage, we weren’t alone, so we had to keep up the friend-type conversations we’d been having all day, which was getting exceedingly frustrating. I just wanted to kiss him already. It had been too long since our morning spent in the hot tub and then again in the hotel bed.
More importantly, I needed to talk to Chris, but every time I’d seen him throughout the day, he’d been on his cell phone or with other people, so I hadn’t been able to have the very important conversation with him that I needed to have. I hoped Ryder wouldn’t get upset. I’d have to make it a point to talk to Chris after the show, and if I couldn’t talk to him, I’d go to Laurie.
Right before I headed under the stage, Ryder grabbed my arm. I turned to look at him, and he smiled. “You look beautiful, and you’ll be amazing tonight.”
“Thank you,” I said genuinely, just wanting to grab his face and kiss him, but there were like a hundred people nearby.
“I’ll be cheering for you from the wings,” he promised me.
“I’ll be looking forward to after the show,” I told him, lowering my voice so only he could hear me.
His smile widened. “Me too.”
“You ready, Syd?” Ralph, the guy who basically ran everything backstage, asked me, pretty much telling me to get to my spot since we were starting.
I winked at Ryder before I headed underneath the stage only to be propelled into the air a few minutes later. When we finished the opening number, I snuck a glance to the left to see Ryder standing in the wings smiling at me. I smiled back and pranced to the front of the stage to greet the audience.
Chapter Eighteen
Ryder
“Hey man. You’re Ryder, right?” I heard from behind me, a guy’s voice drawing my attention away from the stage where Sydney was singing and dancing to one of her high energy songs.
I turned to face the person who apparently knew who I was.
“Hey,” I said, trying to figure out how I knew him. He looked familiar, and I figured we’d probably met at some point over the years. Sometimes the people who worked with Sydney got jumbled up in my mind since there were so many of them.
“I’m Dillon Paulson,” he said, sticking his hand out to shake mine, and all the air went out of my lungs in a whoosh.
“The boyfriend,” I said, hesitant to shake his hand.
Then he cocked his head to the side and raised his eyebrows. “I thought that was your title,” he said, low enough so only I could hear him.
I eyed in him for a few seconds, unsure if he was being genuine or not, but it seemed like he was. I reached out and shook his hand. He was a good looking guy, even I could see that, but he had that pretty-boy look about him that was almost too polished, only to be offset by the array of tattoos peeking out from his shirt sleeves and collar.
“It’s nice to meet you. Syd told me all about you last weekend after she went to see you. She seems really happy.”
“She is,” I said coolly.
I couldn’t help it. I was secure in how Syd felt about me after last night, but I still felt animosity toward the guy who was preventing us from being out together.
He smiled. “Good. I’m glad to hear it. She’s a great girl.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked him, not all that excited to see him. Sure he seemed nice, but what I really wanted to know was what his visit meant for me and Syd.
“My band’s playing in the city tomorrow night, so our management team thought it might be good if we got into town tonight and made an appearance at a club that opened last week. You know, for good publicity and all.”
Yeah, I didn’t really since I’d never been asked to appear at a club. I’d never been asked to appear anywhere except the Gamma Pi date auction that Jake had dragged me to last fall. I can safely say it wasn’t my favorite experience of all time. But I knew from Sydney, who’d done a lot of appearances early on in her career, the basic gist of what Dillon was talking about.
“That’s awesome,” I told him, because I wasn’t going to be a dick to the guy.
“Yeah, it’s pretty cool. The club’s supposed to be amazing. The guys are heading over there, but our people figured it would be better if I waited for Sydney.”
“Sydney?” I asked, looking back at her standing at the edge of the stage singing one of her slower songs. I turned back to look at Dillon.
“Yeah, my girlfriend,” he said and then leaned closer to me. “Air quotes implied obviously.”
“Yeah, right. So you and her are going to this club tonight?”
“She didn’t tell you?”
Nope.
I shook my head. “It must have slipped her mind,” I said tightly.
Dillon must have noticed my irritation, because he put his hand on my shoulder. I fought the urge to shake him off and reminded myself that he wasn’t the bad guy in this situation. He was just a pawn in the game.
“Hey, no worries. I’m sure we won’t be there long. We’ll just go in, get our picture taken a few times, and then you guys can split.”
“I’m going?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.
He shrugged. “If you want.”
I looked down at the black t-shirt, jeans and green Converse sneakers I was sporting. I wasn’t sure if what I had on was acceptable for a New York City club. Of course when I was walking into said club with two of the most well-known pop stars on the planet, who would really care what I was wearing? Hell, who would even look at me?
A part of me really didn’t want to third-wheel with Dillon and Sydney on their faux-date, but I also wasn’t going to go back to the hotel alone to sit there and wait for her.
I heard the opening chords to Only With You and turned around to watch Syd sing my favorite song. She looked up and me and smiled, but her smile faltered when she saw Dillon standing next to me. She looked back at me, and I gave her a tight smile in return.
I knew this was her job, that she’d signed up to help Dillon long before we’d gotten together, but it still didn’t change the fact that it bothered me that she hadn’t even told me he’d be in the city while we were there – especially after everything we’d talked about the night before.
And I was jealous. I wanted to spend time with her. Our relationship was still new, and we were honestly trying to figure out how to exist within the confines of who we had to be in public, that having to share her, even temporarily, didn’t thrill me.
I knew she wouldn’t kiss Dillon, but she would hold his hand and pose and smile at him, and I’d have to watch it all. Unfortunately I didn’t think she’d even gotten a chance to talk to Chris about ending things – not that it would have kept Dillon from taking her out tonight since that was obviously already planned – but I was anxious to get the ball rolling on a sunset to what they were doing.
Sydney finished out the song, and the end of the show seemed to come agonizingly slow as she sung three more songs while I waited for her to come off-stage. Finally, after the encore and the bows, she exited the stage and came to stand in front of Dillon and me.
She hugged him first. “Oh, my God. I completely messed up the dates,” I heard her tell him. “I thought the club appearance was tomorrow night.”
Okay, so she’d actually chosen not to tell me about this. Did that mean she didn’t want me there either? Fine by me. I didn’t want to go anyway.
“You’re still cool with going, right?” Dillon asked, as Sydney pulled back and looked at me.
I stood there like an idiot with my hands
in my pockets knowing that she was going to be keeping her distance a while longer and I wouldn’t be getting a hug, but did I really want one now? Yeah, I did.
“I think I have to be,” she said, her eyes on me.
“It’ll be fun,” Dillon said and then turned to me. “You’ll like the guys in my band. They’re cool.”
I nodded once. “Sounds great.”
Yeah, I wasn’t going.
“I need to showered and changed, I suppose,” Sydney said then. “Can you boys give me thirty minutes?”
“Take your time,” Dillon said, and she smiled before she leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.
I cringed.
“Thanks, baby,” she told him, and I fought the urge to cringe again. This was starting to piss me off. Did she have to lay it on so thick? Then she turned to me. “Ryder, I think you left your book in my dressing room, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, I did,” I said tightly, knowing what she was doing.
She knew she’d screwed up, and if I didn’t need my eighty dollar textbook, or if I could have even afforded to buy another one, I would have left it in there. I was in no mood to talk about this. But instead, I followed her back to her dressing room in silence.
When we got there, she closed the door behind us and turned to me. “I’m so sorry about this. I didn’t know he’d be here tonight, honestly.”
I raised my eyebrows as I appraised her for a few seconds. “But you knew he was coming, that you’d have to go to this club thing?”
She bit her lip, and I knew it was her way of buying time as she tried to figure out what to say.
“Why didn’t you tell me, Syd?” I asked.
“Because I thought you’d be upset,” she confessed. “And you are.”
Only With You Page 20