I grip his wrist and tear his hand out of my jeans, trembling when his fingertips drag over my clit in the process. Wyatt thinks he has me figured out. He thinks that just because my body responds to him, I’ll fall into his bed tonight, and I’ll get over him being a dick.

This time, when I step around him, he doesn’t stop me because he’s certain I’m ready to go back to his hotel room. He’s certain we’ll end the night with angry sex and start the morning with it, too.

So, it must be a shock to his system when I say, “Have a wonderful night, McCrae. Let’s try this again in the morning when you’re not planning on taking your frustrations out on my girlie bits.”

***

When I let myself into my empty hotel room half an hour later, I tumble into bed, and it’s a shame that my thoughts are still focused on the way his hands felt. Unable to sleep, I take a shower, standing beneath the steady stream of piping hot water until my skin starts to burn.

“Get out of my head, McCrae,” I complain aloud as I dress and get back into bed.

Of course, he doesn’t. And this time, when thoughts of Wyatt assault my mind, I stupidly allow my brain to take things a step further. I think back to the night he showed up at my hotel door—the first time, right after he confronted me about my cutting in the back of Sinjin’s Expedition. When I close my eyes, and let myself be dragged into the memory, I can almost hear Wyatt’s knock on my hotel door—that night is still that vivid in my head.

“Who is it?” I ask, getting up off the creaky hotel bed. On my way to the door I stop and turn down the volume on the CD player, which is blasting Chevelle. I look out the peephole, expecting my brother to be there. It’s not him. Instead, Wyatt McCrae is outside my door, his hands deep in the pockets of his jeans. I draw back in surprise. A few seconds later, when he knocks again, I finally find my voice. “Wyatt? Are you—is everything alright?”

His lips move into a grin, and I lean my shoulder against the door as I watch him. Wyatt McCrae is breathtaking. I’ve always known he was gorgeous—I mean, it’s obvious—but suddenly, it’s impossible for me to simply look the other way.

“You worry too much. Everything’s fine,” he promises. Twisting his lips to the side, he leans closer to the door, like he’s trying to see what I’m doing through the other side of the peephole. “You gonna let me in the damn room, Kylie, or do I have to beg you?”

I throw the door open without thinking, not stopping to care that my long black hair looks messy, or that I’m not wearing a bra beneath my Yellowcard tee shirt. Not that it matters. I don’t exactly have very much going on in the boob department.

“What the fuck are you listening to?” he asks as he comes inside. He shuts the door behind him before turning to me and making a face. “You bailed on dinner with me to hole up in here and listen to Chevelle? You sure know how to stomp on my ego, don’t you?”

He’s just teasing me, right? When he called my room nearly three hours ago, I declined going to dinner with him and the rest of the band because my thoughts were still reeling from our talk earlier this afternoon.

“Is there something you need from me?” I blurt out, lifting my gaze up to his, letting myself be pulled in by his stunning blue eyes.

His expression is unreadable for several seconds, but then he shakes his head. “I don’t always need something from you, beautiful. I just wanted to check up on you. Make sure you’re alright.” 

Beautiful. He’s calling me beautiful.

Dear God.

I turn my back for just a moment in order to catch my breath before facing him once again. Sitting on the edge of the hotel bed, I bring my knees up to my chin and pretend like his eyes don’t follow my every move. “I wasn’t hungry when you called. And I was reading,” I finally say.

“You’ve gotta eat, Kylie.” He rocks back on the balls of his feet and then leans against the desk on the other side of the room. “So, I came by to walk you to—” But then his eyes land on the balled up fast food bag in the wastebasket by the door, and to the drink sitting on the nightstand, and he shrugs his shoulders. I can’t help but notice the sudden look of disappointment on his face. “And you’ve already gone by yourself.”

“Sorry.” And I am. I would have never walked across the street to grab something from McDonalds if I’d known Wyatt would show up at my door like this. Alone. Even if my brother did more than likely send him to check in on me. “You can tell Lucas that—”

Wyatt quickly interrupts me. “He doesn’t know I’m here.” As my lips form into a silent “Oh,” he winks at me and pushes himself away from the desk. Panic rises in my chest as he walks over to the door. “Alright, beautiful, I’ll see you in the morning when we leave for—.”

Before I can stop to think, I’m on my feet and halfway across the room. “Don’t go, Wyatt. Please just ... stay.”

He drops his hand away from the door handle, and suddenly, he’s in front of me, towering over me before I can process that he’s moved. “You okay?”

“No. I mean, yes. It’s just that ...” How the hell do I tell him I don’t want him to leave because he’s all I’ve thought about since we stopped in Livingston and checked into this hotel. That, I can’t remember a word of the book I’d been reading tonight because my thoughts were solely on him. “You called me beautiful,” I say hoarsely.

“Yeah, you are.”

“Why?”

He offers me a crooked grin. “You’re asking me why you’re beautiful or why I called you that?”

Both. But instead of answering his question, something compels me forward, as close to him as I can possibly be, and I stand on the tips of my toes and lift my mouth. I don’t know what I expect—for him to push me away or for him to kiss me hard and passionately—but he surprises me when he murmurs against my lips, “You’ve fucked with my head this entire trip, Kylie. I feel like a dick for wanting you, for ...”

I close my eyes. “For what?”

“Look, if I kiss you, if we do this, there’s no way I’m walking out that door tonight. I won’t be able to keep myself from touching you. I want you, Kylie. You have to have realized that by now.”

No, I hadn’t.

But then again, I’ve never been good at paying attention to what’s right in front of me. Maybe, I never will be.

I reach up, draping my arms over his toned shoulders and linking my fingers together behind his blonde hair to pull him to me. When our lips meet seconds later, it’s electric—lovely, mind-altering electricity. After he pulls away from me, I open my eyes sluggishly, not wanting to lose the moment I have with him.

“I don’t want you to leave tonight,” I say, my tone confident despite how fast my heart is racing. “And I don’t want you to stop touching me.”

Now, more than eight years later in another hotel room and a different city, those memories are still powerful enough to make my eyes burn. I fist my hands into the sheets and squeeze my eyes tightly together.

“You’ve fucked with my head this entire trip,” I whisper aloud, “so give it a rest, McCrae.”

Chapter Nine

Shortly after four thirty the next morning, I hear a key card slide into the lock to my room. I’m still so wired from the night before that I’ve yet to fall asleep. The slight clicking noise on the other side of the door makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Fully alert, I slide myself into a sitting position and grab the first weapon I can find—my boot. After what happened back at the hotel in New Orleans, no one can blame me for being on edge.