“Don’t do that,” I whisper. He starts to say something else, but I move my other hand into his jeans and wrap it around his cock. It’s a coward move, but I never said I was opposed to taking the easy way out sometimes. “Don’t,” I say once more, gripping him firmly.

I feel him go hard slowly beneath my touch. He slumps forward, placing his palm flat on the bathroom mirror behind me. “You’re killing me.”

Acknowledging what he’s just said with a stiff nod, I stroke my hand up and down his length, pressing my thumb to the top of his shaft.

“Open your legs,” he breathes into my ear.

My chest is rising and falling heavily, and I want him—oh god, I want him—but I press my lips together. “No.”

“I need to touch your pus—”

I slide my fingers from his neck to his lips. “No.”

His long legs go weak, and I use this opportunity to loosen their grip on my legs. I place my feet on each side of him, nudging his jeans and boxers down his hips. When I pull him closer to me by enclosing his body with my legs, he sucks in a harsh breath.

“Fuck.” His fingertips find their way back to my hair. “Your nipples are hard, and I know you’re wet. Lie all you want, Ky, but I can see that shit in your eyes. You can’t tell me you don’t want me to touch you.”

I curl my other hand around his length, and the fact that all my fingers are on his cock, stroking and squeezing, causes him to tremble.

“No, I can’t tell you that because I am wet. I do want you to touch me,” I say breathlessly. He groans, his lip piercing teasing my ear. “But now’s not the time.”

He leans back, the smile on his face a mixture of pleasure and pain, as he shakes his head. “Of course it is, beautiful. It’s always the time.”

But he respects my wishes. He doesn’t try to touch me as I guide him to an orgasm. He buries his mouth against my neck, releasing a low animalistic sound on my skin. As he starts to untangle his fingers from my hair, he backs away, but I jerk him toward me, skimming my hands over his muscular shoulders.

“Kiss me.”

His tongue parts mine, thrusting into my mouth, punishing me for not allowing him to touch me. He sucks on my bottom lip and then my tongue, but it doesn’t bother me. In fact, it’s addictive. When he draws back, I’m slow to open my eyes.

He’s grinning, but the look in his eyes drops a brick into my stomach. It’s the look of bitter defeat. “We’ve made a mess,” he says.

I don’t fail to catch the double meaning. “Yeah,” I say softly, “we have.”

Chapter Ten

After Wyatt leaves my room, I decide to wait to try and wake Heidi, so I take a long shower that would deplete all the hot water back in my L.A., apartment. By the time I’m done, I’ve managed to calm my nerves, the trembling in my legs have stopped, and I’m articulate enough to understand. I can look my best friend in the eye without raising her suspicions about what Wyatt and I did a mere fifteen feet away from her while she was sleeping.

I spend a solid ten minutes trying to coax her out of bed, and Heidi doesn’t take the disturbance well. Eventually, I look up a Lady Gaga song on my phone.

Fifteen seconds into “LoveGame,” Heidi jolts up with bloodshot eyes and her hair flying everywhere. “That’s so fucked-up, Ky.”

“We’re leaving.”

She fumbles under her pillow for her phone. As soon as she checks the time, her expression goes blank. “You’re kidding.”

“You can sleep on the way there,” I promise. “Trust me, you’ll be fine.”

But a few minutes later, while she’s packing her belongings, she’s still irritable and drowsy. “This is bullshit.” She grabs her outfit from last night from the back of the chair and tosses it onto the heap of clothing in her suitcase. “They’re not playing in New Mexico until when? Tomorrow night?”

I roll a pair of my jeans into a compact bundle and slide them neatly into my bag.  “Albuquerque is nearly a thousand miles away from here, babe. With traffic and stops, it’s an easy fourteen hours.” Thinking of it in hours suddenly makes my ass sore, and I grimace.

“I should probably call my parents and let them know we’ll be in Phoenix on Saturday morning, huh?”

She straddles her bag between her slim long legs, squeezes it tightly together, and tugs at the zipper. If my phone wasn’t on the other side of the room, sitting on top of the mini-fridge, I would record this.

Finally, the zipper gives, and Heidi stumbles back, glaring at it. “I hate packing.”

“What you just did was disturbing on so many levels.” I rise from my spot on the floor and check my appearance one final time in the mirror. The effect that Wyatt has on me is obvious, at least in my opinion, as I study my reflection. I’m able to look past the circles beneath my almond-shaped brown eyes to see how my cheeks are flushed and how my lips seem fuller from kissing him earlier. My hand shakes a little as I trace the outline of my mouth.

Heidi clears her throat. “And you call me disturbing.” I see her reflection in the mirror as her head cocks to one side. She shuffles closer to me, stopping just a few feet away from the dresser. “So, about visiting my parents—yay or nay?”

Because she’s studying me so carefully, I respond quickly. “You should probably go see them.” I twist away from the mirror, facing her directly. “They’d be pissed if you came to town and didn’t at least meet them for dinner.”

“Probably,” she agrees, making me wonder why she asked me in the first place. “I haven’t been home since Christmas.”

“Then, you should definitely go.”

Of course, advising Heidi that she needs to visit her parents once we reach Phoenix for the last show makes me feel like shit. Over the past two months, my mom’s been good enough not to put pressure on me about coming to Atlanta, but sooner or later, her patience will wear out.

“I’m probably going to go home next month. To Atlanta,” I say.

Heidi nods her head, a smile of approval flitting across her glossy lips. “Good. I would invite myself, but you’re probably afraid I’ll meet some loser who’ll steal your parents’ car or something.”

Rolling my eyes, I shove myself away from the dresser and bend down to zip my luggage. It closes on the first try without taking as much effort as it did her. “Stop giving yourself such a hard time.” I sling the heavy bag over my shoulder, and I start coughing when it knocks the wind out of me.

Heidi’s already waiting at the door, and once I catch my breath, I join her.

“You look thrilled,” she says in a dry voice.

“Is it wrong that I don’t want to do this today? You’d think I’ve never had to sit my ass on a tour bus for days at a time,” I mutter.

“See, told you it was too damn early for this.” She twists around to give me a sympathetic look, curling her bottom lip. “I’m going to sound like a complete tool, but it’s not too much longer until we’re home.”

I’m right on her heels as she leaves our room, but I take one final peek inside before I let the door close behind us. I’ve left too many personal belongings in hotels across the country not to be cautious.

“And once we’re back, I get to do this all over again, except I’ll be taking orders from Lucas.” My voice is sarcastically chipper.

Heidi stops in the middle of the hallway, earning a frustrated glare from the housekeeper who’s trying to maneuver an oversized cart stacked high with cleaning supplies and toilet paper. I grab my friend’s bony elbow and guide her out of the way.

As soon as we get to the staircase that leads down to the parking garage, she confronts me. “You’re not fed up with your job, are you?”

I jog down the steps, taking them two at a time, so I’m out of breath by the time I reach the bottom. “I love my job.”

Still, for the first time since I started avoiding Wyatt near the end of last year, I’m wondering how working for Lucas is going to affect me once I’m back in L.A. Isn’t the proximity and common ground the precise reasons why I let Wyatt back into my life time and time again? Even if I can go through with cutting him out this time, every moment we’re together, even the toxic ones, I know I’ll doubt myself.