by Lisa Suzanne
He pulls his lips from mine, and I stand in a daze for a beat before I notice that all eyes are on us. Well, almost all eyes. Ethan, who finally admitted he doesn’t hate me a couple nights before Mark and I got married, is otherwise engaged in his little corner. I glance around the dressing room, which is really cool. The room is built right around the famous red rocks of this venue, so when I look at one of the walls, I’m actually looking at the side of a mountain.
I don’t have much time to focus on the walls, though, because Mark’s arm fists my bicep and he leads me over to a door. “Vinny, stand outside the door upstairs.” He looks around and his eyes land on Ethan’s security guard. “Chuck, stand here. Neither of you lets anyone in for the next five minutes.”
He glances at me, the heat and intensity in his eyes knocking me back a step. I immediately know what he plans to do on the other side of this door with me, and I want more than five minutes. “Ten,” I demand.
He grins down at me then looks at Vinny and Chuck. “Five to ten minutes. Stay at your post until I come get you.”
I giggle, and Vinny opens the door. It’s a tunnel with a stairwell, and Vinny takes the steps two at a time before he disappears out the door at the top. The door behind us closes, and we’re locked safely in this tunnel with no interruptions for the next five to ten minutes.
I can’t help but take in everything around me as we step inside. This is the greatest tunnel I’ve ever seen in my life. The white walls are coated with black ink, signatures and scribbles and words everywhere. I read a few of the names, recognizing musical greats—names that are on my playlists right beside Vail. Names are written on the flat faces of the stairs, on the handrails, on every available surface—singers and drummers and bassists and guitarists. Musicians and bands.
Mark pulls a black marker out of his pocket and walks over to the wall. He writes his name in his distinct scrawl over some faded ink on the wall.
He walks up a couple steps. I follow behind him and watch as he writes the word fucked. He kneels down to one of the steps and writes his wife, Reese Fox, and then he stands, walks up a few steps, and finds a small spot on the wall to write in this tunnel. He turns around and writes today’s date on the opposite wall.
He throws the marker across the room when he finishes writing, and I watch as it bounces off a famous singer’s name on the wall before it lands on the floor next to a legendary guitarist’s name.
I raise an eyebrow at him. “Oh, you think so, do you?” I ask, my voice a challenge.
“Oh, babe, I definitely think so. I think we need to celebrate our two-month anniversary as newlyweds.” Mark takes a self-assured step toward me, and his gaze lands on mine.
A needy ache presses between my legs. “I think you’re definitely right.”
He laughs, the sweet sound music to my ears after everything we’ve been through. His hands grip my waist, fingertips digging deliciously into my hips. “We need to have a little talk first, though.”
A tremble of fear darts down my spine. “About what?” I ask, forcing a calmness into my voice I don’t quite feel.
His fingers move down and cup the outside of the crotch of my jeans. “Skirts and dresses make for much easier quickies than jeans.”
I giggle. “So this is a quickie?”
His lips find my neck, his words breathing heat against my skin. “If I could spend the entire night doing this with you, I would. But I have a pretty important gig in an hour.”
I giggle. “I have a question for you.”
He pulls back and looks at me with alarm.
“One time you said it blows your mind that you couldn’t wait to be with me. Why did that blow your mind?”
The alarm in his eyes morphs into something dark and dangerous—but somehow at the same time gentle and full of love. “I’ve never wanted to put anyone or anything ahead of my music. It’s been my first love for the past fifteen or twenty years.” He closes his eyes and draws in a breath. “But you’re different, Reese. You’re first. You’ll always be first.”
The full force of his words hits me. I can’t help myself. I act on complete instinct as I attack.
I go for the mouth first, the place where his words leave his tongue, and I brush that tongue with my own. I know he’s going on stage soon and he might have work to do, but this comes first for him.
If it blows his mind, I’m not exactly sure what it does to me.
He kisses me back with a fiery passion. My fingers dip beneath his shirt so I can feel the smooth, silky skin of his back, and then I move my hands between us to treat myself to the ridged muscles of his abdomen. He lets out a soft groan and slips his hands down the back of my jeans to grasp two handfuls of my ass, and I moan.
He grins against my mouth as he knows he has me where he wants me. I’ll do anything for him—anything he wants, anything he asks, anything he needs.
He pulls his hands out from my jeans and pulls his shirt over his head. He tosses it on the stairs, probably covering some Grammy award winning band’s name, but right now nothing else matters.
My shirt stays on as he works the button of my jeans and pushes them down to my thighs. My hands are busy running over every available inch of his exposed skin, wanting more—craving more, but knowing we’re limited to ten short minutes in a tunnel.
“Bend over. Hands covering Josh’s name.” I look down and see the signature of the lead singer of a rock band. I cover his name with my hands as I was told, my ass up high, the air of the tunnel cooling my exposed, hot flesh.
I hear him rustle around for a second and then feel his swollen head as it moves through my heat. He pushes inside with a low grunt, and I shove back to meet his entry. He holds my hips and stills inside me for a few glorious seconds, and then he starts to really move.
He drives into me, his thrusts punctuated by grunts and gasps as I close my eyes and give into the singular feeling of pleasure only he can deliver.
He pulls out and everything stops for a dizzying minute. “Stand up,” he says. “Jeans off.”
I do what he says, and he sits on the step and motions for me to straddle him. He fists his dick and guides it in as I slowly lower myself over him. I wrap my arms around his shoulders, and his hands come under my ass to guide me up and down over him. The fullness of him and the feeling of nothing between us is overwhelming. I’m filled not just with him physically, but emotionally. He fills my heart, my mind, my blood, my soul.
That feeling is what pushes me to the finish line. “Oh my God, Mark, I’m coming, I’m coming, I’m coming,” I say the words over and over as my body clenches him inside me.
He moves me harder over him and thrusts upward at the same time, finding his own release in sync with mine. My climax is prolonged as we come together too quickly. We allow ourselves a few quiet moments to luxuriate leisurely in a hallway filled with musical memorabilia and now the heady scent of sex and memory of us.
* * *
It’s obvious what we just did, but it’s not as obvious where we just did it. All eyes inspect Mark’s flushed cheeks and my rumpled shirt and disheveled hair when we walk into the dressing room.
Including Ethan’s. His lady friend is off refilling their drinks, and he speaks first over the quiet that befalls the room at our entrance.
“You find somewhere private or did you just fuck in the hallway?” he asks snidely.
“Fuck off,” Mark says.
“Good one.”
“He took me somewhere private,” I say, allowing my gaze to drift over to Mark. “And it was fantastic.”
A wide grin spreads across his face. I catch Morgan’s eye, and she winks at me as if to tell me she’s proud of me for not allowing Ethan to embarrass us. Ethan’s woman returns with their drinks and takes a seat on his lap.
“It’s time,” Steve says.
Mark nods once, and we all know this means it’s time for the pre-game that I still know nothing about. “Ladies, would you please excuse us for a bit?” Mark ask
s.
Morgan kisses James. Angelique kisses Steve, then Steve kisses baby Adelaide on top of her sweet head filled with blonde curls.
Ethan’s woman of the night doesn’t budge. He pushes her up off his lap, and I can’t help but think he’s such a dick. He’ll meet the right woman someday, though, just like Mark did.
I hope.
I smile at Mark and turn to follow Morgan and Angelique out the door. Blondie takes off in some other direction, and Vick and the security team head down a hallway that has a sign telling passersby the cafeteria is located that way.
Before I make it out the door, Mark pulls me in for another heated kiss. “I love you,” he says into my neck so only I can hear him. It’s so intimate and touching that my heart twists.
“I love you, too,” I say softly. “Only ever you.”
THE END
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acknowledgments
To my husband first, thank you for reading this series in its original form many, many years ago. Thank you for encouraging me to publish a book and thank you for your constant support and love as I published the first thirteen before I finally got around to rewriting a proper story for these characters. Thank you for whatever the future holds, too, which will include many more stories. Thank you to my little boy for being the sweetest, kindest, and cutest kid ever.
My Vail Tail Fangirls: I love your discussions and GIFs and excitement over this series. I honestly thought the support group for this series would have two people in it and I’d be one of them! I’m overwhelmed by your love for these characters who have lived in my heart for many, many years. Thanks for making the Fangirl group a fun place to be.
Thank you to my ARC team for reading and reviewing, but most of all, thank you for the messages and the love.
Thank you to Stephanie Costa for loving these characters and for believing in them. Thank you for all the great new ideas and for offering to help me manage things when I take on too much. Most of all, thank you for becoming a friend.
Thank you to Jen Wildner for loving these characters and for beta rushing this book.
Thank you to Kelly Werner for beta reading the entire series and for giving me your honesty.
Trenda Tbird Lundin, your masterful skill of editing helped me figure out exactly what I needed to do to make Reese’s story complete. Thank you for all your words of advice and encouragement.
Katie Harder-Schauer, thank you for polishing this manuscript and for your support and friendship.
Thank you to the Give Me Books ladies for handling ARCs and release blitzes for this series and the cover reveal and release party for this book. As always, thank you to the bloggers who read and review. Your efforts and hard work are appreciated.
Thank you to you, the reader. I am so grateful that you stuck with Reese through all her indecision and with me through the cliffhangers. I have never loved writing a series more than this one, and I am forever grateful that you took time out of your life to spend it with my characters.
Finally, thank you to Reese Brady, Mark Ashton, and Brian Fox. These characters feel like real people, and I’ve loved them for a long time. It’s surreal to me that they’re out there in the world and their story is complete after they lived in my mind for so long. This series was over fifteen years in the making with so many drafts I lost count (I even wrote 70,000 words of Clean Break before I archived it and started over...mostly because I wasn’t ready to let these characters go yet), and I hope I gave them the ending they deserve. Even though the series is complete, something tells me I’m not quite done with these characters just yet...
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about the author
Lisa Suzanne is a romance author who resides in Arizona with her husband and baby boy. She’s a former high school English teacher and college composition instructor. When she's not cuddling baby Mason, she can be found working on her latest book or watching reruns of Friends.
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books by Lisa Suzanne
A LITTLE LIKE DESTINY
ONLY EVER YOU
CLEAN BREAK
CONFLICTED
CLICKBAIT
STALEMATE
OUTWAIT
NOT JUST ANOTHER ROMANCE NOVEL
VINTAGE VOLUME ONE
VINTAGE VOLUME TWO
HOW HE REALLY FEELS (HE FEELS, BOOK 1)
WHAT HE REALLY FEELS (HE FEELS, BOOK 2)
SINCE HE REALLY FEELS (HE FEELS, BOOK 3)
THE HE FEELS TRILOGY BOX SET
SEPARATION ANXIETY
SIDE EFFECTS
SECOND OPINION
Flip the page for a preview of CLICKBAIT, Lisa Suzanne’s romantic comedy about a dating and relationship blogger who’s sometimes a little too honest about her love life.
CLICKBAIT
© 2017 Lisa Suzanne
COURTING SANDY EGGO
posted by Courtney Sanders
FAST FIVE: WHAT NOT TO SAY ON A FIRST DATE
5. You have the kind of face that makes me want to have babies with you.
4. The last guy I was with had the biggest dick I’ve ever seen.
3. I hope this date goes better than the one I went on last night.
2. I refuse to have sex until the tenth date.
1. Your trip to the beach last summer looked really fun on Instagram.
CLICKBAIT (noun):
Material designed to get people to click on a website.
Alternatively, any activity with the main purpose of seeking attention.
CHAPTER 1
I stare at my laptop screen as the lone cursor on the blank page taunts me. I swear I had twenty-five ideas this morning, but now that I’m actually sitting down to write? Poof! All gone.
Writing is not only my passion, it’s my job. I run a very successful dating and relationship blog in San Diego called Courting Sandy Eggo, and today’s writer’s block is brought to you by the stagnation of my own love life.
I was in a relationship with a guy named Harrison for six months, but we broke it off. We weren’t going anywhere, and I thought maybe the single life would spark up some new ideas for the blog. It did for a little while, but now I just miss having someone to come home to each day. It can be hard to blog about relationships when you’re not in one.
I text my best friend Emme, who is a promoter for my favorite bar, The Port. Basically that means she gets paid to get people to the bar and then party with them.
Me: What’s going on tonight?
The clock at the top of my screen tells me it’s just before noon, so she might not even be awake yet. It sounds lazy, but the girl is up until five in the morning on a regular basis, so her schedule is just different from most normal people.
I shut my laptop—I’m tired of staring at the blank screen, and I have plenty of articles written that I can choose from to post tomorrow. I just hate relying on the archives. I want to write something new. Words generally come easily for me, but every once in a while, I hit a roadblock.
The cure tends to be a nice, long walk, but I really hate walking alone—Harrison got the dog w
hen we split. To be fair, it was his dog, but I got attached to the sweet Golden Retriever when I lived with her. I may still have a key to his place, and I may sneak in from time to time to visit Shelby…and maybe I occasionally take her for walks when Harrison is at work.
That seems like a good idea, so I walk my ass from the beachfront condo I bought when I dumped Harrison a few blocks over to Harrison’s much larger house. He’s a digital media specialist. We met when I was first filling ad space on the blog, and he gave me good advice to nurture my baby as it grew into an actual business. He makes a shit ton of money, and he loves nothing more than to flaunt it. The sex was good, but there wasn’t much more between us.
He works long hours, so I know he won’t be home. I let myself in, and Shelby comes running over to me, jumping on me and licking my face. She deserves better than neglect from Harrison, and I think that’s why I still come over to visit and walk her. She’d be a fattie without me.
I’m wondering if I should fess up and tell Harrison I’m stealing Shelby for the day. She loves Dog Beach, and I think a trip to the beach with a bunch of puppies might be just what I need to snap out of my writer’s block. But, a trip to the beach means a long day with a dog plus a bath when she gets home, and Harrison will definitely know someone took his dog out if he comes home and she smells like a fresh bath.
Or will he? He was never overly observant. He might not even notice.
Still, she’s his dog.
Our breakup wasn’t that bad—it’s not like we’re bitter enemies forever. We’ve run into each other socially a few times, and it wasn’t even that awkward. We also may have had one or two unhealthy nights post breakup.