It was too much.
I needed a moment.
The intensity of the situation I was in wasn’t lost on me.
I was alone with Zane Andrews in his hotel room, and I’d all but propositioned him on the beach.
At least that’s how it felt.
Like there was this unspoken understanding between us, the minute I grabbed his hand, I was agreeing to never look back.
But would he?
Would he look back on this moment and regret it? Would he wish he wouldn’t have taken a chance on a girl like me?
The muscular profile of his body used to intimidate me. Slowly, he pulled his shirt over his head. My breath hitched.
It didn’t mean anything.
He just liked being naked.
He’d said as much to be before.
“This is the first time in years I’ve been able to stay alone and not be freaked out. Then again, Will’s next door.” He tossed the shirt onto the couch, still not turning around.
“Will?” I asked mouth dry.
“My agent.” He answered while unbuttoning his jeans and pulling them off his body.
Okay. I really needed a time out.
Or a chair.
To sit in.
Pass out across.
I tried to suck in more air as his designer jeans made a loud thrash against the slate floor.
There was nothing hesitant about him, Zane wasn’t the type to get nervous or insecure. At least when it came to the one thing he was secure about.
Himself.
His own body.
What he owned.
What he kept close.
Kept close.
I rolled the sentence around in my head, then shakily slid out of my sweater and placed it across the couch, rubbing my arms to create some friction as I slowly made my way toward his towering body.
“Are you leaving soon?”
He didn’t answer right away, instead, his gorgeous head of dark hair hung forward in defeat. “I’m not sure….yet.”
He was waiting.
I knew it.
He knew I knew it too, his stance changed from confident to determined as every muscle grew rigid across the planes of his stomach, wrapping around his back.
Nobody had the right to be that beautiful, man or woman.
Or that comfortable in their own skin.
Even naked in the shower I had the horrible habit of pointing out every single flaw, feeling my skin to see I was gaining weight, making a face at parts of my body that didn’t flow right.
Not Zane.
Never Zane.
“Zane…” His name was a whisper across my lips.
His head turned, eyes locked on mine, he waited.
Why was this so hard?
Why was he making it so difficult?
When you let me keep you in my arms for longer than a few minutes---when I’m yours to keep right back.
“Yeah?” His eyes drank me in. “What is it, Fallon?”
“I want longer than a few minutes,” I admitted with a large gulp of air. “I want to keep you back.”
In two strides he was in front of me, reaching for my face, kissing my mouth, sliding his lips down my neck, his hands fluidly lifting my dress over my head only to have his mouth return.
“No take backs,” he murmured across my neck before his eyes once again focused intently on mine.
“No take backs,” I agreed, deepening the kiss as my hands danced along his muscular shoulders, my fingers greedy as they dug into his hot skin, nearly combusting as he flexed beneath those same fingertips.
He was super human—confident in every caress, every kiss, like he’d done this hundreds of times before, but when he pulled back, anxiety flashed.
“Do I need to get the marshmallows?” I joked between kisses.
“No.” He burst out laughing. “No.” Zane sobered. “I’m pretty sure I need to draw the line somewhere, and marshmallows and sex are probably your hard limit, yeah?”
“My hard limit was ants,” I said deadpan.
“You think you’re funny don’t you?” His eyes twinkled.
“Please still keep me.” I begged in a teasing tone.
“I’ll think about it.” His kiss was fierce as his gruff voice rolled over me like a slow-building fire. Every kiss fanned the flames, feeding them with his special brand of oxygen, leaving me powerless to do anything but kiss him back, prove to him that I wasn’t going anywhere and that he could trust me.
“You’re too good at this,” I whimpered when I looked down and noticed I was naked. I’d literally felt nothing, I’d been thoroughly seduced, as if he’d snapped his fingers and my clothes had just disappeared.
With a laugh, he shrugged. “I’m just good at distraction.”
“Why would you need me distracted?”
Our bodies pressed close together, he held me in his arms and kissed my forehead. “You may have second thoughts about sleeping with a virgin.”
“Or I may think it’s the best thought I’ve ever had.”
“Ever, hmm?”
“Ever, ever.” I nodded, needing to taste him again, almost losing my nerve when I felt his length press against me.
It had been a while.
And none of them had been like Zane.
There would never be anyone like Zane.
“I want this, with you…” Zane sounded hesitant. “But, Fallon, you can’t say anything, alright? In my own time I’ll tell people if I even need to, but right now, the focus needs to be on the movie and the album, not my sex life. Can you do that for me?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I can do that.”
“Thank you.”
“Why are you thanking me?”
“Because I know I can trust you with my secrets, and if I can trust you with those…I can trust you with this.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Zane
PLEASE, GOD, DON’T LET me be wrong about her, about what I felt, what I saw when I looked into her trusting eyes.
I wanted her physically.
I craved her emotionally.
To be able to stay in a hotel room by myself—had been like defeating a giant. She had no way of knowing that, but what do you say to the person who, inch by inch, holds your hand while you tell them about the invisible monsters, the type that, to anyone else, make no sense at all, but to you, are crippling?
I knew there was no going back.
From this scene, her gorgeous naked little body. She was at least a foot shorter than me, curvy in all the places that made a guy want to stop and take notice, her ass round.
Her color was bright as she visibly swallowed and then licked her lips. “Zane, you can trust me.”
“Okay.” My voice shook, and like peeling off layers and layers of clothing as winter turns into summer, I felt myself internally shed every single wall I’d ever put up when it came to sex—to sharing that part of my soul with someone else. I left them on the floor.
The death of my grandmother.
The abandonment I felt at my sisters refusing to contact me until I got famous.
The shame at being accused of raping someone, when I was the near victim.
The anxiety of crowds and their demanding screams, and how it always reminded me of my own screams in my bedroom after my grandmother died.
When I was locked in my closet.
For two days without food.
Because the lady at the orphanage couldn’t get me to stop crying, and I was bothering the other students.
I had one bag of marshmallows with me.
And a coloring book.
The head lice that followed.
The sickness of wearing clothes that weren’t mine.
The itchy feeling of being watched.
I let out a little gasp as it all fell, crashing metaphorically to the floor over and over and over again like pieces of ice hitting the ground.
“My God.” Fallon covered her face with her hands and burst into tears.
Not how I envisioned my first experience being.
Except I think—she was crying for me, for the person I felt like I had to be all the time. And for the scared little boy, I still was.
She grabbed my hand and linked her fingers with mine, as tear after tear slid down her face. “Let me love you.”
Nobody had ever said that to me before.
They all wanted to screw me.
They wanted me to screw them.
They wanted. They wanted. They wanted.
They took. They took. They took.
They stole. They stole. They stole.
I nodded, hands trembling as I cupped her face and brushed a soft kiss across her lips, my tongue tasting the salt of her tears.
Tears shed for me.
She tugged me toward the bedroom. Of course she’d know where it was; she cleaned the rooms.
The moonlight cast a silver glow through the partially open window as the wind lifted the curtains in an ethereal dance of shadows across her face.
She took the lead.
I let her.
Not because I couldn’t.
But because she asked me.
She asked permission, to show me something that nobody ever had. How could I deny her that? How?
I would like to think, my life truly began, when Fallon grabbed my hand and pulled me onto the bed, then slowly crawled on top of me and kissed me.
She kissed my eyes.
My ears.
My nose.
My mouth.
My eyes again.
As the tears dried across her beautiful face, her eyes lit up with wonder. More kisses slid down my chest, driving me crazy, making me want to take the moment from her and sink into her.
That’s what I wanted.
But it wasn’t what I deserved.
Or her.
So I let her keep kissing.
And when I thought I was going to lose my mind, when her mouth found the one part of me that I’d never let any girl touch.
I let myself go.
I closed my eyes, grit my teeth, and let her love me.
And when that same mouth trailed farther down my body, only to come back up as the chill of the wind hit every wet kiss, I shivered and trembled.
My hands roamed across her back, and I lifted her up just as I slid down, my mouth pleasing her in ways I knew my hands never could.
She moaned, arching back against me, her hair a tangled mess of darkness as it slid against my stomach.
We didn’t talk.
Words have a way of shattering precious moments in time, moments where talking won’t ever enhance the situation.
She cried out, her hands tugging my hair as I slid her back down my body and kissed her open thigh.
Her watery eyes met mine and in a hungry kiss I grabbed her body and flipped her onto her back, sinking myself between her thighs.
I reached for the nightstand, but she grabbed my hand and winked shaking her head and whispering “pill” just as she hooked her legs behind me and pulled me all the way in.
“Damn,” I muttered across her mouth.
“So now he talks,” she joked softly as I moved against her.
“He’s kind…” I thrust slowly, so many feelings, her warmth, her body clenched around mine, hard verses soft, warmth and searing heat. My brain was firing so fast that I couldn’t focus on one single thing that made the moment amazing, but everything at once, in this huge epic combustible explosion of nerve reactions, not to mention privilege, that she was opening up to me—trusting me. “…of busy…right now.” I finally finished my sentence as she cried out, her breathing heavy as liquid heat surrounded me.
I wanted this forever.
No. Longer than that. I wanted it longer than that.
She kissed me deeply, her tongue sliding against mine, it was too much, the feel of being inside her, the feel of her tongue as it flicked inside my mouth, mimicking my every movement.
“You can lose control, you know.” She said pulling back. “It’s us.”
“It is us.”
I swallowed her scream as I fell over the edge, and felt her come right along with me.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Fallon
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Zane sat up in bed while I held up my hand motioning that he needed to give me a minute. When I returned with a bag of marshmallows his grin was so huge it took over half of his face. “Best sex of my life and you bring me marshmallows in bed? Who are you?”
I rolled my eyes, feeling myself blush. “I figured you’d need some sugar after all that yelling, mainly on your part.” I tossed him one. “Cursing, which by the way, still you.” I tossed him another while he rolled his eyes. “And collapsing across the bed… still you, by the way.”
“I had a lot of pent-up sexual aggression that was just released.” His naked chest was impossible not to stare at. “You can’t just release the beast from its cage and not expect it to tucker itself out.”
I covered my face with my hands. “You did not just say that.”
“Why are you blushing?” he asked innocently. “Why do you keep trying to take all of my jobs away from me, damn it! I’m supposed to be the innocent maiden, blushing at the loss of her innocence.”
I threw a pillow at his face. “British accenting me while eating mallows in bed is not the way to get laid again, sir.”
“My bad.” He opened his mouth.
I tossed another marshmallow at him then crawled into bed next to him, placing my hand against his chest, the steady rhythm of his heart. “Tell me.”
His heartbeat picked up. “Tell you what?”
“Everything.”
I expected him to hesitate, to make a joke.
He didn’t.
Instead, Zane stayed Zane, the guy I liked, the one I was head over heels for, and he started sharing.
“My first foster parents were nice. I hated the orphanage, my sisters were adopted right away. They were younger and closer in age.”
“That’s horrible.”
“Yeah well, for some reason the parents didn’t want a troublesome boy.”
My heart broke for him. “You were a bad kid?”
“I cried.” He shrugged. “Apparently, that was enough. Weakness was enough, you know? When my sisters said goodbye, they didn’t really understand what was happening, and I felt like I was letting them down. It wasn’t abandonment to me. It was more like, I was letting my grandmother down.”
“Oh, Zane.” I hugged him tighter.
“I wrote them, they wrote back—for a while at least. I was able to visit them at their perfect house. With its white shutters, blue paint, and ice tea on the porch. They were always laughing and smiling and couldn’t understand why I wasn’t.” He swallowed. “Foster home after foster home, until the end, when I was accused of raping or trying to rape my own foster mother, the jealous bitch.”
He sat up a bit, I followed. Please don’t leave, please don’t leave.
“I had three more months in the system, three months before I could go to college on a full ride scholarship. But you can’t stay in the dorms until registration. So, I stayed on the street, worked where I could, sometimes slept on friends’ couches, and basically lived the life of a bad ass nomad until school in the fall.”
“Thus the education.”
“Yeah.” He trembled. “I took music as one of my elective courses, fell in love with basically every instrument I could get my hands on, lucky for me, my professor was…” He smiled. “He was incredible. He wasn’t even my academic advisor and he let me be his TA for a semester so I could have keys to the music building. I basically slept in there.”
I frowned. “Probably better than the streets.”
“Better than anything.” His voice grew wistful. “Music surrounded me, and music has this way of feeling alive. It didn’t scare me, my anxiety wasn’t as bad because I had life around me, buzzing, comforting me, all I needed to do was hop over to the piano
—with my bag of marshmallows, mind you—and everything was good.”
“So how did this all start?” I was almost afraid to ask, but for some reason, I felt like I needed to. Maybe for him, for me? For us. “The anxiety? The craziness? The attacks?”
“They’ve always been there. I mean as a kid I remember having them all the time. Maybe I was just so busy in college that it didn’t register? I started playing at a local coffee house. That’s where Will found me and signed me immediately to one of his friends’ labels. That was four years ago.”
“Four years and you have seven Grammys.”
“Eight.” He corrected. “Actually.” I smiled to myself at his nonchalant correction, like it wasn’t a big deal that he had one more Grammy than I assumed. I mean it wasn’t like I had any awards laying around. I won my eighth-grade spelling bee, and I was pretty sure the trophy was no more than a participation one.
“And the anxiety?” I prodded.
“Music makes you vulnerable.” His voice was distant. “You may as well invite someone into the deepest parts of you—I’ve never been able to write music without putting myself into the words, into the songs. And people, they sing them, they identify with them, they worship you for them, they condemn you for them. Suddenly, I was getting criticized for being afraid, for being hurt, for falling in and out of love. My soul was a punching bag, and nobody taught me how to be anything but that person with music. It’s always me, so I took it personally and eventually it just broke me down.” He shifted his position and muttered a curse. “The same people who wanted my autograph talked trash about me backstage. Other bands started doing the same, and it got hard, so I pulled back more and more because that’s what you do when you don’t know what else to do, you retreat. You tell yourself that by retreating, you’re really allowing yourself to lick your wounds, to heal. But instead? The mind, it takes control of so many things, plays tricks with you, lies, hell my mind is a damn liar it’s been lying to me since the day I was born. Telling me I wasn’t good enough, that everyone I loved was going to leave me, that I wasn’t worthy of love, I was able to push past that when I had goals, but when I had everything the world told me I needed to achieve to maintain that level of self-actualization. I looked down from my tower and panicked because I thought I was at the top and I was only halfway, how could that be? How does that make sense? It’s because it’s not achievable, but it was already too late for me, my retreat became my hell and it’s where I’ve been ever since.”
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