by Shandi Boyes
“We’re not fucking, Beautiful. We’re adoring. Worshipping.” His eyes stray to mine, bristling with lust and admiration. “Loving.”
Excitement zaps down my spine when he lines up his cock with the entrance of my pussy, giving my clit two welcomed swipes during the process.
The friction is so torturous, I beg, “Please, Noah. I need you.”
With his fingers woven through my hair and an adorable grin on his face, he sinks into me slowly. It’s a slower pace than my buzzing clit was hoping for, but nothing can take away from its brilliance. I’m full all over. My heart, my body, and my soul.
After wrapping my arms around his neck, I match the rolls of Noah’s hips. We move as one, the sheer pleasure unexplainable. This isn’t about him or me. It’s about us. Together. As a couple.
My breathing shallows when he lowers his hand to scrub his thumb over my clit. He places the perfect amount of pressure, circling it in a way that has every muscle in my body heightening for release. I moan, unable to keep my eyes open for a second longer. The sensation overtaking my body is out of control. I’m heating up everywhere.
“That’s it, Beautiful, just like that.”
Even while making love, Noah’s voice is pure heaven. It serenades me into a trance-like state, one where I’m certain my body can’t endure another orgasm in such a short period. We’ve had weekends where we did nothing but fool around, but not even those had me hitting the record-breaking number of orgasms I’ve experienced the past ten hours.
When a quiver shudders through me, an egotistical grin morphs onto Noah’s face. It’s more wondrous than arrogant. He feels my race to the line approaching, and he won’t let anything stand in its path.
“Leg up, Em, take all of me.”
He positions my right leg higher on his sweaty hip before increasing his thrusts. It adds to the tingling sensation racing through my veins while also allowing the last inch of his cock to sink into me. His moan when he’s fully seated is the hottest thing I’ve ever heard. It spirals me into a madness that makes stars dance in front of my eyes.
“Ah! Oh... oh!” I sound like a feral animal!
Noah pumps into me another three times before he growls my name in a husky grunt while shuddering all over.
Several hours later, Noah pulls his truck into the multi-story parking garage at Ravenshoe Private Hospital. After hearing Nick's complaint about the hospital's food being as bland as cardboard, Noah thought it would be nice to bring the new parents some of their favorite take-out for lunch. I jumped at the chance. I'd never turn down an opportunity for more baby cuddles.
News of Jasper’s birth must be circulating the gossip sites, as there are over a dozen paparazzi waiting outside the main entrance. The crowd looks similar in size to what we handled yesterday at Bronte’s Peak, if not a little heavier.
After pulling his truck into the first vacant spot, Noah shuts down his engine, then swings his eyes to me. “You go in first, then I’ll follow in a few. I don’t want them barging over you to get to me.”
“Okay. I love you.”
I press my lips to his cheek, hoping it will ease the agitation in his tone, before slipping out of his truck. Butterflies take flight in my stomach as I make my way to the double doors, my hands slicking with sweat, my heart racing. I’m beyond nervous the paparazzi will recognize me from my date with Noah yesterday.
I had no reason to fret. Other than an appreciative gawk from men older than my dad, they don’t pay any attention to me. I enter relatively unscathed.
I don’t see Noah being quite so lucky.
Chapter 40
Noah
A grin tugs at my lips when Emily walks past the paparazzi unnoticed. I kept an eye on social media the past twelve hours, worried our run-in yesterday would have her name circulated by the media, but it was unwarranted. Excluding the shots they got when we exited Bronte’s Peak Café, Emily’s face was sheltered by my leather jacket.
If they took the time to sit down and study the blurry, wide-eyed image, they’d eventually put two and two together, but with the paparazzi being more annoying than smart, I don’t see that happening within the next week or two, and by then, it will be too late. My relationship with Emily will be public knowledge.
At the start of our agreement, I explicitly stated the record company's ruse of making the public believe I'm single would only be temporary. I did what they asked; now it's time for them to uphold their end of the deal. I'm going public with my engagement mere weeks before marrying the love of my life.
With a smile on my face, I narrow a black cap down until it covers my eyes. The paparazzi’s lights aren’t just annoying; they’re blinding.
I’ve barely stepped down from my truck when they spot me. Camera flashes hinder my vision a mere second before I’m hit with a range of questions.
“Are you the reason Hope broke her engagement to Tom Dempsey?”
“How long have you and Hope been in love?”
“Are you rushing down the aisle because Hope is pregnant?”
I remain silent, not answering any of their questions, but my curiosity is piqued as to why I’ve been linked to Hope Bennett. I don’t even know who the fuck she is.
I give two security officers a grateful dip of my chin when they stop the paparazzi from following me into the hospital lobby. They usher them outside as I head to the elevator banks on my right to head to the maternity ward on the third floor.
With the hospital on near lockdown status, the elevator doors ding open not even a few seconds later. As I enter the sanitary-smelling space, I spot Emily leaning against the wall, seemingly waiting for me. That’s a shock. I didn’t think even I could trump her wish to squeeze Jasper to within an inch of his life.
When I notice the concerned wrinkle popping between her brows, I increase my pace. “Everything okay?”
Emily shakes her head. “No. Yes.” She huffs. “I don’t know. Jenni is upset. Nick just told her about the tour. She’s not taking it well.”
I understand how she feels. I’m struggling with the idea of leaving again, so I can imagine how torn Nick and Jenni feel. She only gave birth to their son yesterday.
“If worse comes to worst, we can look into alternative arrangements until Nick can join us on the road. It may not be this tour, but I’m sure we’ll add more soon.”
As Emily nods, I guide her to the hard plastic chairs lining the corridor. In silence, we wait for Nick to give us the all-clear to enter. I’m not overly patient, and I hate that I’m wasting precious time with Emily before my flight this afternoon, but this isn’t a decision Nick and Jenni should make in haste. They deserve some time to deliberate.
Approximately twenty minutes later, Nick exits Jenni’s room. His brows are hanging as low as his shoulders, and his eyes are crammed with moisture. He appears as devastated as he was the night I drove him to the hotel after Jenni told him she was getting an abortion.
“I’ll meet you in there.” I kiss Emily’s lips that are still swollen from our night of lovemaking before nudging my head to Jenni’s room.
She reads me as only she can before nodding. When she enters Jenni’s room, I gesture for Nick to join me on the chairs as hard-lined as Delilah’s lips when I piss her off. He slumps into the chair with a groan, his hand shooting up to scrub his watering eyes.
“I can’t leave now. She needs me.” He keeps his emotions at bay, but his crackling voice gives away his true response. He’s stuck between a rock and a hard place. “Just the thought of leaving Jenni already sucks, let alone wondering how much Jasper will grow while I’m gone. I don’t want to leave them.”
“Then bring them on the road with you.”
Nick scoffs, either shocked by my suggestion or annoyed he didn’t come up with it himself. I realize it’s the former when he groans, “I can’t take a baby on tour.”
“Why? I don’t know much about babies, but I’m reasonably sure they just eat, sleep, and poop. Can’t they do that anywhere?”
Nick’s teeth graze his bottom lip as he considers my response. After a few seconds of pondering, he sits up straight in his chair as his eyes stray to mine. They don’t look as pained as they were moments ago. “Do you think it could work?”
I shrug, truly unsure. “It can’t hurt to try though, can it?”
“It could work.” He sounds as if he’s trying to convince himself more than me, and just like every decision he makes, he escalates it rather quickly. “It could work. Noah, you're a genius!”
Grabbing my face with both of his hands, he plants a kiss on my lips. I yank back, disgusted beyond words. “Get the fuck off me!”
I wipe my lips with my shirt as he bolts into Jenni’s room. The grimace crossing my face morphs to a grin when he declares my genius state to Emily and Jenni so loudly, two towns over hear him.
Emily and I stay at the hospital for nearly two hours before time gets the better of us. I’m due at the airport in an hour, and I haven’t started packing. I hate that I’m leaving again, but this time, I won’t let others influence my decision. I’m a grown man, so it’s time for me to start acting like one.
Emily and I have a little ways to go before we’re back to how we were months ago, but with the blame for our stumble falling solely on my shoulders, I’m the one who is responsible for getting us back there. Then, once things are back on track, I’ll explain the real reason for my absence. It will seem ridiculous when I admit my stupidity out loud, but at the time, I felt like my world was crumbling.
When the elevator dings, announcing we’ve arrived at the foyer, my eyes drift to Emily. “Wait for me out front, and I’ll pick you up on my way out.”
Grateful to skip a second gauntlet run with the paparazzi, Emily nods before stepping out of the elevator car. Our fingers remain entwined until the very last second, only unlocking when flashing bulbs brighten an eerie afternoon sky.
“Be careful,” Emily whispers before breaking away from my side.
I sign in relief when she makes it through the media contingent without incident. I’m nowhere near as lucky. I once again get hammered. The questions flung at me are identical to the ones I got on the way in. They all focus on Hope Bennett. I’m eager to find out about our supposed connection, but not enough to let it gobble up my remaining hours with Emily.
After picking her up from the front of the hospital, I make my way back to Jacob’s to pack. It’s done between feather-like kisses and playful touches. Neither of us want to separate again, but there’s a new understanding bristling between us. We’re both determined to make this right again. We stumbled, but it’s how we rise from our fall that proves how strong we really are.
Once I’m ready to go, Jacob travels with us to the airport. He’ll take Emily back to school once I’ve boarded my flight. When we reach my boarding gate, I shake Jacob’s hand and pull him in for a man hug before shifting my focus to Emily. While kissing her goodbye, I try to convey how much I love her and that I’ll miss her more than she’ll ever realize.
I’ve always expressed myself without words, but I’m finding it difficult today. I have so many things I want to say, but not enough time to say them. That’s the most frustrating part of my life lately. Not having enough hours to achieve all the things expected of me.
When I pull back, Emily has tears in her eyes, but her next set of words proves she understood the meaning of our kiss. “I love you too, Noah.”
I swipe at the blobs of moisture close to falling down her cheeks. “No tears, please. It’ll kill me to walk away from you while you're crying.”
“Sorry.”
After scrubbing her eyes, she forces a fake smile onto her face. It’s not her breathtakingly beautiful smile, but it lessens the pain tearing me in two when I spin on my heels and walk away from her, only glancing back six hundred trillion times at the woman I’m going to marry one day. One day soon.
The flight back to LA is long and uneventful. With Jacob always one step ahead of the game, he set up a new cell phone for me earlier today, but with the wi-fi in flight on the fritz, I’ve got nothing to do but twiddle my thumbs.
While scrolling through my new phone, I chuckle out loud. Jacob not only arranged for me to have the same number, but he added all my contacts as well. He’s great like this. I just wish he’d give my offer to become my assistant more thought. I may be riling him, but in reality, if he said yes, I’d jump at the chance.
As I walk down the gangway, I call Emily to let her know I've arrived safely. She’s been back at school for a few hours and is already in bed. Clearly, my efforts to exhaust her were spot on.
We talk until my phone beeps with another incoming call. “Sorry, Em, I’ve got another call coming in. Can I call you tomorrow?”
“Of course. I love you.”
After returning her declaration of love, I lower my phone from my ear to connect my second call. My brow cocks when I notice it’s Cormack calling. With the late hour, I expected it to be the fire-breathing witch I’ve been ghosting the past twelve hours.
I hit connect before pushing my phone to my ear. “Hey—”
“You're a fucking genius!”
My ego gets stroked from Cormack’s shouted words. This is the second time today I've been told how terrific I am. They better be careful, or I might start believing them.
My already high chest sits a few inches higher when Cormack advises the reason for his call. “Your acoustic performance of ‘Surrender Me’ is receiving rave reviews. It just hit the number one spot on the Billboard charts.”
I stop walking just as I hit the sidewalk of the airport. The tingling of goosebumps flutter over my arms. “What?” I mumble, not believing what I’ve heard.
I must have clogged ears from the flight. Surely, I heard him wrong. “Surrender Me” only just hit the top ten this week, and we’ve been plugging it relentlessly the past four months. There’s no way it’s jumped nine spots in twenty-four hours.
I’m proven cynical when Cormack shouts, “You did it! You got the number one spot! You have the number one single in the country, and your album is the highest-selling album this week!”
My heart beats super-fast as my feet leave the ground. “Holy shit!” I’m so excited, I’m not bothered by the dozen or more paparazzi snapping my picture. “Do the rest of the guys know?”
“No, I thought I'd leave the honor to you.”
“Awesome. Thanks.”
I stumble out a goodbye to Cormack while peering past the swarm of paparazzi to spot my driver. I find him a few seconds later standing in front of a black Escalade, holding out a board with my name on it.
During our drive to the hotel, I call the boys one at a time to tell them our news. Since Marcus has been with me from the start, I call him first. I get to kill two birds with one stone when I discover Slater is with him at the bar, sampling a range of LA throat-burning concoctions.
Marcus is quietly reserved—that’s not unusual; he’s always been the humble one of our group—but Slater goes crazy. He tells everyone around him that he’s a chart-topping artist before declaring the next round is on him.
After reminding Slater we’ve got a few months before the royalty checks roll in, I call Nick. For a man known for his eccentrics, his reply is odd. He gasps briefly in surprise before ruffling sounds down the line. It's only upon hearing the murmur of a baby annoyed at being moved do I realize why he’s being so quiet. He must have Jasper cradled on his chest.
Once Jasper is handed to Jenni, the response I expected barrels down the line. Nick hollers loudly, his shouts coming with several woo hoos!
I laugh at his response before promising to call him at a better hour tomorrow. When he hangs up, I call Emily. I wanted to tell her first, but she hates taking the fanfare away from the boys. She’s yet to realize she’s just as integral to the band as the rest of us. Without the support of our loved ones, we’d still be playing at Mavs every Tuesday night to a bunch of old ladies with lipstick smeared on their teeth.
It takes Emily a few seconds to answer, and when she does, she sounds tired. “Hey, baby.”
“Did I wake you?”
I hear her lips rise over the phone. “Maybe... but it’s okay; I love hearing your voice.” Her husky voice pops images of the fun we had last night into my head. It stiffens my cock, but not as much as what she says next: “Come on, out with it. The last time I heard you this excited was when you told me you booked us a hotel for my nineteenth birthday.”
I try to remain humble. I miserably fail. “We did it! We finally fucking did it. ‘Surrender Me’ is number one on the Billboard charts, and our album is the number one selling album in the country!”
“Noah...” Emily takes in a sharp breath like she always does when she’s about to cry. “I’m so proud of you. I knew you’d do it.”
“I couldn’t have done it without you, Em.”
A gush of wind sounds down the line, like she’s shooing away my 100% accurate statement. “Forever prepared for insults, but compliments leave you baffled.”
Her level of smarts is too much for me to handle this late at night.
When I tell her that, she laughs. “It means you earned this, so you deserve to enjoy it. Stop worrying about everyone else and lap up the glory.”
“I’d rather lap you up.”
She laughs again.
We talk for a few more minutes before my Escalade pulling into my hotel cuts our conversation short. I bid Emily goodnight with the promise of celebrating my success with those equally as deserving. I have no clue what my promise entailed until Slater and Marcus lock onto me like a missile aiming for its target when I try to slip past the hotel bar unnoticed. Slater is well past intoxicated, and Marcus is looking a little worse for wear.
With my recent promise still ringing in my ears, I accept their invitation for a celebratory drink. Before we know it, one drink turns into four, and dusk transforms to dawn.