Falling for You (Starlight Valley Book 1)

by Hunter J. Keane

  “No.” He smiled and shook his head. “I figured it was obvious that I did all of this for you.”

  “You left me,” I said suddenly. “I waited on the roof for an hour and you never came.”

  Wyatt sighed and took a few steps forward. I wanted to back away, but there was nowhere for me to go. “I’m sorry, Brooklyn. What you told me in the café left me spinning. I had been in love with you since I was 16 and I’d always assumed you didn’t feel the same way. When you told me that you’d been in love with me, too, I didn’t know how to process what I was feeling.”

  “I think it says something that your strongest instinct was to run,” I said.

  “It probably does,” he agreed. “I’m not running anymore, Brooklyn. I’m standing right here. I love you and I always have.”

  I dared to look into his eyes and once I did, I couldn’t look away. “What do you want me to say?” I asked.

  He smirked. “That you love me too would be nice, but I’d settle for you agreeing to give me a chance to win your love.”

  “There are a lot of people waiting for you right now,” I said.

  “Don’t.” He took another step forward and he was right in front of me now. “Tell me what you’re really thinking right now.”

  “I’m thinking that you and I have spent two days together in the last eight years. How could either of us possible know how we feel about each other?” I gestured wildly around me. “You just brought me up on a stage in front of 50,000 people to sing this incredibly intimate song that I wrote ten years ago about my unrequited feelings for you. Don’t you think that maybe that experience is causing us both to feel things that might not be real?”

  Wyatt’s cheek twitched. “Do you really think that?”

  “I don’t know what I think anymore, Wy.” I shook my head. “Just a week ago, you and I hadn’t talked in eight years. We can’t possibly be in love right now.”

  “Alright.” He looked away. “If that’s how you feel, I won’t try to convince you that you are wrong. But please don’t pretend to know how I feel about you, Brooklyn. That night we spent together eight years ago was the best night of my life. Is it so wrong for me to want all of my nights to be like that?”

  “That night was a mistake,” I whispered. “We were both drunk.”

  He laughed dryly. “That’s the only reason it happened. We’ve obviously never been good at being honest with each other when we’re sober. But just because it took alcohol for us to acknowledge our feelings, that doesn’t mean those feelings weren’t real.”

  “Even if they were real, that was eight years ago.” I wrapped my arms around me, feeling painfully exposed. “Look me in the eye and tell me that you know for sure you still feel that way about me.”

  Wyatt looked at me easily and said, “I still love you, Brooklyn. I’m sure of that.”

  “I can’t tell you that I feel the same, Wy. I’m sorry. I know that’s not what you want to hear.” I put a tentative hand on his arm. “I think I just need more time.”

  “Time?” He smiled sadly. “I can give you time, love. I’ve already been waiting since I was sixteen. What’s a few more weeks?”

  “Maybe it won’t be that long,” I said in consolation.

  “I should go. I need to do this meet and greet thing.” Wyatt was trying not to let his hurt show, but I could see it in his eyes.

  “What are you doing after that?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I’d been hoping to spend the rest of the evening with you.”

  “That sounds nice,” I said, squeezing his arm.

  “Alright.” He forced a smile. “I’m going to put on a shirt and get this over with. Do you want to come with me or wait in here?”

  “I’ll go with you. I should make sure Trisha is alright taking care of the girls alone.” I started to move my hand away from his arm, but then I changed my mind and leaned close to him instead, kissing his cheek. “For what it’s worth, I think that I could easily fall madly in love you again, Wyatt Hudson.”

  The spark returned to his eye and he smiled genuinely. “Then I’ll do everything I can to make that happen.”

  I waited for him to pull on a shirt and then followed him out of the trailer. I was surprised when he offered me his hand, but I took it without hesitation. As we rejoined the fans waiting backstage, I suddenly felt very exposed. At least a dozen cameras were pointed at us and I tried to hide behind Wyatt.

  He spent the next thirty minutes greeting every fan and signing autographs and taking pictures. Wyatt spent even more time with the twins and their friends, much to their delight. He was utterly charming and I could understand how he’d captivated so many people across the country. It was clear that Wyatt was doing exactly what he had been born to do.

  “Trish, I’m going to stay behind with Wyatt if that’s okay. Can you handle six girls on your own?” I kept my voice low so no one else would hear.

  “Absolutely.” She grinned. “Have fun. I’m living vicariously through you.”

  Wyatt came over and held out his hand again. I took it with a smile and followed him away from the fans. More pictures were taken, but Wyatt didn’t even notice. He was too busy watching me.

  “You doing okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah, of course.” I tilted my head. “Why do you ask?”

  “The celebrity lifestyle can be a bit exhausting when you aren’t used to it.” He waved absently at some members of the crew. “Good show, guys.”

  “Aren’t you worried that pictures of us might appear online?” I said quietly.

  “Worried?” He shrugged. “Brooklyn, there are thousands of pictures of me online. That’s just part of the gig.”

  “I mean, pictures of us.” I gave him a meaningful look.

  He eyed me curiously. “Are you worried about that?”

  “I’m not the one that has a carefully crafted playboy reputation to protect,” I said.

  “Every playboy settles down eventually,” Wyatt said casually, squeezing my hand. “When he finds the right woman.”

  I noticed a line of fans that were still waiting at the gate. They screamed when they saw Wyatt and frantically waved their arms.

  “Is it like this all the time?” I asked as he waved to them.

  “Now do you understand why I wear the hat?” He shot me a pointed look.

  “I still prefer you this way,” I said, reaching up to run my fingers through his hair. I had meant the gesture to be playful, but we both froze at the touch. “Sorry,” I mumbled, looking away.

  “Don’t be.” He turned and headed toward the trailer. “I just need to grab my bag from the trailer and then we can head out. Any thoughts on what you’d like to do tonight?”

  “Can we just go somewhere quiet and talk?” I asked.

  Wyatt nodded. “Sounds like a perfect plan to me.”

  It only took a minute for Wyatt to grab his bag and guitar. When we stepped back outside, a car was magically waiting for us. Wyatt waved the driver back and opened the door for me. Then he turned and quietly gave the driver a destination that I couldn’t hear.

  “Where are we going?” I asked after he had climbed in next to me.

  “It’s a surprise.” Wyatt smiled mischievously. “I think you’ll like it.”

  “I’ve loved everything else about tonight,” I replied honestly.

  Wyatt draped his arm over the back of the seat behind me. He looked much more relaxed now that it was just the two of us behind tinted windows. “It’s nice to have someone to decompress with after the show.”

  “What about your band?” I asked.

  “Those guys are still in the party and pass out phase of life,” Wyatt said with a grimace. “I love them, but I can’t keep up with that lifestyle anymore.”

  “I never thought I’d see the day when Wyatt Hudson would rather spend the night talking to a girl instead of partying,” I teased.

  He just looked at me and said matter-of-factly, “I just had to find the right girl.”<
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  “Smooth,” I said with a laugh. “You’ve really perfected that sexy and broken rock star thing, haven’t you?”

  “Except in my case, I actually am incredibly broken.” He turned and stared out the window.

  I worried that I’d said the wrong thing. “You’re not more broken than the rest of us, Wy. You just have the eyes of the world watching you.” He stayed quiet, staring out into the night. I put a hand on his thigh and rubbed it softly. “You were mesmerizing tonight. I couldn’t take my eyes off you when you were on that stage.”

  “You’ve seen me perform before, Brooklyn.” He turned to me with a look of guarded hope in his eyes.

  “Not like that.” I stared right into his eyes. “Why did you bring me on that stage?”

  “Because I wanted to sing with you again,” he said simply. “I wanted to look into your eyes and say the things I should’ve said years ago and I knew that singing with you was the only way you’d let me do that.”

  “You think you know me so well, Wyatt Hudson.” I continued to stare into his eyes while inching my hand up his thigh. “I’m not the same girl that you remember.”

  He leaned even closer until his lips were just an inch away from mine. “I can still see that girl. When you were singing tonight, she was shining through you and she was breathtaking.”

  The car came to a stop, jarring us both. Wyatt pulled away and I removed my hand. He glanced out the window. “We’re here,” he said.

  I didn’t recognize anything I saw outside. “Where is here?”

  Wyatt ignored me and exited the car. He reached a hand back inside and I took it. When I stepped outside, I was surprised to see another car waiting for us. Our driver was moving Wyatt’s bag and guitar into the other car.

  “What is this?” I asked.

  “That’s my car,” he said. “We’ll need transportation to get home and I don’t want Clyde to be stuck waiting here for us.”

  Wyatt shook Clyde’s hand when he was done and then I watched as Clyde drove away. Wyatt was busy pulling items from the trunk.

  “Is this the part of the night where you murder me and dump my body?” I asked.

  “No, but you’re not wrong that this would be an excellent place to get rid of a body.” Wyatt grinned at me.

  I took a closer look at the area around us and I suddenly knew exactly where we were. “This is Starlight Lake,” I said, stunned. I hadn’t been to the lake in ten years.

  “So you do remember it,” he said. When he turned away from his car, he had a bundle of blankets and towels in his arms.

  “What do you have planned?” I asked suspiciously.

  “Don’t worry about it.” He started down the path the led to the lake and I had no choice but to follow him.

  He walked right to the edge of the lake and spread a blanket on the ground before dropping the towels on it. When he straightened and looked at me, the sweet Wyatt Hudson from the car had been replaced by the sexy Ryder Strong from the stage.

  “I have a theory about this lake,” Wyatt said. “I think that since this is the place where I first fell in love with you in the daylight, maybe it will also be the place where you fall in love with me in the moonlight.”

  “That’s an interesting theory,” I said.

  Very slowly, he started to peel his shirt over his head. I said nothing, but I couldn’t look away. He stripped off every layer of clothes and stood before me, naked. “I’m going into the water,” he said. “It’s up to you whether you join me.”

  I continued to stare as he walked into the lake until the water was up to his waist. The moon was nearly full overhead and it bathed him in a seductive glow. He tilted his head back and looked at the sky before diving headfirst into the water, disappearing for a moment before resurfacing a few yards away.

  After taking a deep breath, I started to remove my shirt. It was warm for a September evening, but not warm enough to be skinny dipping. My teeth chattered as I hurried out of my clothes. I must have lost my mind to be walking into the lake stark naked.

  Wyatt turned as my feet hit the water and I forced myself not to immediately dive for cover. He had let me stare at him unobstructed, so I returned the favor. Just as the water was high enough to reach my waist, he came over to me.

  “You’re shaking,” he said, running his hands up and down my arms. “You need to submerge yourself. That’s the best way to acclimate to the water.”

  I nodded as my teeth continued to chatter. I knew he was right, but that didn’t make the prospect any more appealing to me.

  “Come on. We’ll do it together,” he said, putting an arm around me. He counted to three and we both jumped forward. The initial shock took my breath away, but I started to feel warmer within seconds.

  After I resurfaced, I looked around for Wyatt. He was swimming slowly a few yards away. His form was nearly flawless and I remembered that he used to swim all the time when we were teens. It had been his favorite form of physical therapy after the accident. He looked over and caught me staring.

  “See anything you like?” he teased.

  “Absolutely,” I replied. I was in shallow enough water that I could stand but still have the water covering most of my body and keeping me from freezing completely.

  Wyatt swam over to me, stopping just a foot away. He was a lot taller than me and the water didn’t reach his chest. I noticed a tattoo that I hadn’t noticed earlier.

  “Is that what I think it is?” I asked, voice shaky, and not just because I was cold.

  “If you think it’s the lyrics from Daylight, then yes.”

  The opening line of Daylight had been written in a circle: In my darkest times, you were my daylight. In the middle of that circle was one letter– B.

  I hadn’t even realized I was reaching out until my fingers grazed his skin. I followed the line of the B, carefully tracing it. “What does this mean?” I said even though I already knew that it stood for Brooklyn.

  “It means I’ve had you with me every day for the last eight years,” Wyatt said, putting his hand on top of mine. He pressed down and I could feel his heart pounding as fast as my own. “I wrote Daylight the morning I left New York and I got this tattoo a week later.”

  “Why?” I couldn’t fathom why Wyatt would’ve gotten a tattoo to remind him of me when I’d ended things so dramatically. “I was pretty cruel to you that night.”

  “You were,” he agreed. “But right before that, for just a moment, you were mine. I wanted to remember that moment.”

  I couldn’t believe that Wyatt still wanted to be with me after what I’d done to him that night. Even more so, I couldn’t believe that he remembered that night fondly. It was then that I realized that he really must have loved me. My other hand slid behind his neck and I pulled his head down. My lips closed over his eagerly and he responded without hesitation. As his tongue danced over mine, my body tingled in anticipation. His hands slid over my butt and he lifted me against him. I wrapped my legs around him and he slowly started carrying me out of the water, his lips still on mine.

  Despite the warm flush running through my body, I was shaking as we left the water. Wyatt pulled away a little and laughed. “Man, I thought this was going to be so romantic.”

  “It was,” I assured him. “But now the hypothermia is setting in.”

  Without the water surrounding us, I was acutely aware that my naked body was pressed again his in a very erotic way. There was no way that Wyatt wasn’t thinking the same thing, but he stayed focused on carrying me back to the blanket and then set me back on my feet before wrapping a towel around me.

  “You okay?” he asked, unconcerned about his own naked body.

  “Yeah.” I nodded furiously and bounced a little on my feet. “You should worry about yourself.”

  “Me? My entire body has been numb since the second I saw you standing naked in the moonlight,” he said, touching my cheek.

  I opened my arms and wrapped them around him, drawing the towel around bo
th of us. His body warmth was very appreciated. “Let’s see if we can do something to bring the feeling back,” I said, pushing my body against his in a very suggestive way.

  “Yep, that’s working,” he said, brushing my wet hair away from my face.

  “I can tell,” I said with a giggle.

  Wyatt stared at me for a long time, tracing his fingers over my cheek, along my jaw, and down my neck. Each inch of ground that he covered was torture and ecstasy in equal measure. “We should get dressed,” he said in his trademark raspy voice. “It’s too cold to be doing this outside.”

  “I’m fine,” I insisted, but my body was still shivering.

  “Get dressed. I’ll reward you later,” he promised, ducking his head to kiss my shoulder and causing me to moan. “I’ll kiss every inch of your body once we are dry and warm.”

  “Dry?” I frowned. “I’d think you would be aiming for the opposite of that.”

  “You are naughty girl,” Wyatt said with a crooked smile. He squeezed one of my butt cheeks and said, “Believe me, when I’m kissing your body later, neither of us will be left disappointed.”

  I reluctantly pulled away from him and began to dress. My body was glad to have warm clothes on, but I would’ve much preferred Wyatt to be wrapped around me. I helped him scoop up the wet towels and blanket and we hurried back to the car. He dumped everything in the trunk and opened the passenger door for me.

  “That looks like a decent-sized backseat,” I said suggestively.

  “We’re not teenagers anymore,” Wyatt said with a chuckle.

  “I don’t know if I can wait for us to find a bed.” I gave him a shy smile and was rewarded with a long kiss.

  Wyatt convinced me that waiting would be the smart thing to do. We were technically still on public property and if anyone caught us going at it in his backseat, it would end up being plastered all over the news. Yet another perk of being a celebrity.

  It wasn’t until he turned onto the street that led to Trisha’s house that I realized he was assuming we would use my bed.

  “I don’t know about this,” I said hesitantly. “I don’t bring guys home with me.”