Becky
I didn’t do things like this. I hadn’t been with anybody since Aiden’s sperm donor. He had been my first, and so far, my only. Between parenting, going to school, working and taking care of Mom, there wasn’t time for extracurricular activities.
The ache of missing Mom was profound, I couldn’t breathe without feeling it, and I couldn’t escape my thoughts, or at least…I hadn’t been able to until Travis flashed his killer smile at me.
Kissing Travis awoke something primal in me, a hunger that I hadn’t known existed, and it ignited when my robe fell open on its own accord. Or maybe his expert hands had untied it, and I just hadn’t noticed because I was too busy nearly coming undone from just his lips and the way he kissed me.
Never, in all of my life, had I been kissed like that. Like I was wanted, cherished.
I moaned, and he swallowed it. He tugged my bottom lip gently with his teeth and my hands raked through his hair. His hands squeezed my ass as he lifted me against him and pressed me against the hotel door.
“Bed?” he suggested, and I moved against his hardness in response. He carried me to the mattress, practically falling on top of me.
Travis’s hand cupped my cheek. He brushed my hair out of my face, his eyes smoldering and my heart pounding. For several beats, he looked at me like that, like he could see into the very depths of my soul, and as if what he saw there didn’t frighten him.
Our lips collided again, tongues stroking and teeth nipping at tender flesh. I pulled on the buckle of his belt, releasing it, and used my hands to free him from his jeans. I loved the way that he felt in my hand—velvety smooth, thick and long and so very hard. He let out a low hiss when my fingers brushed across his tip. His tortured expression made me feel more powerful than I’d ever felt before.
He made me feel desired.
I watched as his finger gently brushed against my core. His eyes widened at my body’s response to him, and I flushed. He tugged his wallet out of his back pocket and grabbed a condom before discarding his jeans somewhere on the floor.
Once he had the condom on, I crawled over top of him, moving my wetness against his tip. “Fuck, you’re gorgeous, Becs,” he murmured reverently. He slipped his hands through my open robe and held me, almost guiding me, as I slowly dropped down on him, taking him to the hilt. I paused, my eyes locking on his as I rocked my hips.
I thought it would hurt, but I was too turned on. I thought he’d be selfish—I only had one lover to compare him to, and he was as selfish as they came—but Travis wasn’t. Everything about this moment felt ethereal.
Travis gave me the control, he let me set the pace. He was gentle and thorough, even as we moved frantically against each other.
With Richie, I never had an orgasm. Often times, he was too lazy for foreplay. I was never ready for him like I’d been ready for Travis, and that was just with one look. The kissing…that had been foreplay in itself.
My orgasm came hard and fast, and I’ll never forget the look on Travis’s face when I trembled around him. His brows furrowed and his eyes drank in the sight of my pleasure, the feel of it. He kept moving my hips, driving into me several more times before he found his release. He shuddered, pulsing inside of me.
His eyes were wide with wonderment, and he was looking at me in a way he never had before. He tenderly brought his hand up to cup my cheek. As his thumb brushed across my swollen lips, I drew in a heavy breath.
Everything about that moment scared me. The look in his eyes, the tenderness of his touch, the feelings being with him that way had brought up…it was all too much.
I moved off him and laid against the mattress, tugging my robe together. I tried not to look at his heavy cock as he removed the condom and tossed it into the waste basket beside the bed.
Travis let out a sigh of contentment and rolled over to face me. His peaceful expression changed when he looked at me. “Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked, his brow creasing with concern. His hand came up to cup my face once again and his green eyes peered intently into mine.
“Nothing’s wrong,” I told him. “I’m just…that was…” I trailed off, unable to complete my train of thought. My body was still tremoring with little shocks of pleasure. I never knew that sex could be like that. Had I known, I wouldn’t have ever gone down this path with him.
It would only lead to my self-destruction.
For some stupid reason, this revelation depressed me. I could feel the tears brimming, but I held them back. I’d wanted this, and Travis had delivered. I tried to control my breathing the way my therapist had instructed. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. I’d had many therapists over the year to help me deal with my varying levels of trauma, and they all had similar methods of coping with the crippling panic that would hit me at odd moments.
“I know,” he grinned, buying my excuse. He pulled me to him so that my head rested against his shoulder and my breasts settled against his rib cage. I could feel his heart pounding beneath the palm of my hand. “That was incredible, Becs. You’re so stunning.”
Then he kissed me. His lips were slow and gentle on mine, igniting more embers of desire but working to soothe me at the same time.
His actions confused me. None of this felt like a one-night stand. I’d seen enough movies and read enough books to know that they were supposed to be quick and dirty. Once the deed was done, they’d part ways. No emotion, no conversations. That’s what I’d expected from tonight, and the fact that I wasn’t getting it made me feel completely out of control.
I broke away from the kiss, tugging my robe back on as I practically jumped out of the bed.
“Whoa, where’s the fire?” he chuckled, still gloriously naked.
“Thank you for tonight,” I said, my mind made up. “I’d appreciate it if you could keep this between the two of us,” I added as I started to walk toward the bathroom. I wanted to get dressed and go home, where I could fall apart in peace.
“Wait just a minute,” Travis demanded. He was tugging on his jeans as I froze, my hand on the handle of the bathroom door. “Can’t we just talk about this?”
“It was a one-night stand, Travis,” I said tiredly.
“I know that,” he argued, his brow furrowed. I couldn’t tell if he was confused or hurt, or both. “But our night’s not over yet, is it?”
“I have to get home,” I told him, crossing my arms as he walked over to me.
“Neither one of us is leaving until we talk about this,” he insisted. Although he was close, he was careful to not invade my space or corner me. He gently took my hands, holding them in his as he looked into my eyes. “I can tell you’re freaked out, and I get it—I expected it Becky. I wasn’t going to come in here, fuck you and leave you, and honestly I’m insulted you thought I was that kind of person.”
I gaped at him. I had no response. “I wasn’t counting on you caring.”
I hadn’t meant to speak the words out loud, but they tumbled from my lips without consent, coaxed out by the devout look in his eyes.
“Of course I care,” he told me, shaking his head like he couldn’t believe I thought otherwise. “I told you that the other night. I care about you, I always have. Brock is the brother I never had, and you are—“
“Don’t you dare say like a sister,” I scowled, pushing away from him as my eyes narrowed. His lips twitched with a repressed smile.
“I can honestly say I’ve never looked at you like that,” he confessed.
“Because you never looked at me?” I challenged. I don’t know why I was standing there, talking to him like this when I should have been dressing and getting the hell out of Dodge, but this conversation intrigued me.
Maybe because I’d always been aware of him. How could I not be? Even before the fame, Travis was irresistible. His charisma, his dimpled smile, and those hazel eyes that sparkled with mischief were known to entice every woman he encountered. In high school, he’d had washboard abs and a dimpled smile that made every girl in a forty-mile radius swoon. He was in even better shape now, and that fact didn’t go unnoticed by me.
“Oh trust me, I’ve always looked at you,” he told me, smirking. “But the point is; I care, you are my friend. So talk to me. What are you feeling?”
I hesitated, biting my lip. “Overwhelmed,” I finally answered, almost sagging in exhaustion. I was tired of fighting my impulse to trust him. “I’ve never…it’s never been like that for me.”
“You’ve never got off?” Travis arched a brow, surprised.
I blushed, embarrassed. “Well, if I did…it wasn’t like that.”
He nodded, unable to hide his smug grin. “I won’t lie, hearing that makes me feel good.”
“I’ll bet,” I replied dryly. He stepped toward me again, his hands tugging my hips against him.
“That’s not the only thing bothering you,” he hedged, his eyes reading every raw emotion in mine. “We’re friends, right?”
“…Yes…” I breathed.
“Do you trust me, Becky?” he asked thickly.
“I do,” I replied, my answer easy and honest.
“Then tell me about it. Don’t just repress it. Lean on someone else for a change,” he said.
I pulled away from his embrace, walking back to the mattress. I sat down, drawing my robe closer to my body. “This is the first time I’ve been…intimate with someone since…Aiden’s father.”
Hearing this, Travis frowned as he sank down beside me. “You’re not feeling guilty, are you?”
“No,” I shook my head animatedly. “It’s not that…it’s just, I haven’t let anyone touch me since then and you…well, you were so gentle and…I just. I didn’t know it could be like that. It scared me.”
“Why?” he questioned, his voice soft. He brushed a strand of hair out of my face, tucking it behind my ear.
“I don’t want to get hurt again,” I whispered, closing my eyes. I couldn’t bear to see the pity in his.
When I finally did open my eyes, there was no pity; only tenderness and empathy. My heart wavered, along with my certainty and control.
“I will never hurt you. You don’t have to worry about that, Becs,” Travis assured me. “If you just want tonight, I understand, but I personally wouldn’t mind doing that again,” he continued, his eyes caressing me with sincerity. The charismatic, devil-may-care attitude was gone; he was open and sincere. It was a side to him I’d never seen, a startling opposite to his carefree nature.
“So, what…like a friends with benefits thing?” I asked dubiously.
“We don’t have to define it, we can just hang out when I’m back and you’re free. But yeah, basically friends with benefits,” he shrugged, grinning. “I can’t treat you like a one-night stand, Becs. You’re a friend first, and I want to see you again. It could be fun, what do you say?”
The lump of emotion in my throat made it impossible to speak. My heart was pounding in my chest, maybes and what ifs cascading down on me like heavy raindrops.
“I don’t know,” I finally said when I found my voice. I stood up on trembling limbs, my heart thundering in my chest as I stared at him with confounded astonishment. I truly hadn’t expected him to want more from me, which was why I’d approached him about this in the first place. I figured he’d be down for one night and content to go on his way, back to his life of concerts and tours and models. “What’s in it for you?”
“I get to help you face your fear of intimacy, without the pressures of an actual relationship, and I get to have sex. Lots of it. With you,” Travis winked playfully at me. “I’d say we both get something positive out of this arrangement.”
“But you could have sex with any woman, why me?”
“You’re real,” he shrugged. “I don’t have to worry about you selling what happens between us to the highest bidder, and you don’t expect me to be any more than I am.” His words were vulnerable and he seemed uncomfortable with his honesty.
I sank back down beside him, facing him, and chewed on my lower lip as I contemplated his words.
“Sex is a great stress reliever,” he pointed out, waggling his eyebrows.
I stared at him for a few seconds, weighing the pros and cons as I fought off a smile. He was right; sex was a great stress reliever. While my mind was still whirling, my body was as relaxed as if I’d spent the day at the spa. The knots in my neck weren’t bothering me for the first time in days. “If we do this, we’re going to need ground rules.”
“Like what kind of ground rules?” he asked cautiously, his lips twitching with amusement.
“Like…” I trailed off, contemplating. “Nobody can know, and you can’t do boyfriend things.”
“I’m going to need clarification on ‘boyfriend things’. Technically speaking, this would be a thing that a boyfriend does…” Travis pointed out, moving closer to me. He kissed the side of my neck while his left hand drifted down my collarbone, parting my robe. His calloused fingers teased and taunted the peak of my nipple.
As good as it felt to have his fingers toying with my breast, I needed to regain control of the situation. In one fluid movement, I’d straddled him, my eyes locking on his.
“We meet up, we have sex, we go our separate ways and we don’t tell anybody about it. You don’t text me when you’re gone, and aside from providing me with orgasms, you don’t do nice things for me,” I said urgently. Nice was bad, nice meant succumbing to feelings, and the next step after that was a place I definitely didn’t want to go.
His cock had grown harder and harder with each demand I made and he held my gaze with serious, unblinking eyes. “I think I can handle that,” he murmured, kissing his way to my breast.
I pulled into the driveway at just after two in the morning, feeling exhausted and satisfied. I was relaxed, and felt as if I could finally sleep for the first time in days.
As I turned off my engine, headlights pulled up behind me. I stepped out of the car, looking over in time to see Ezra Johnson jump from the cab of his truck.
“Hey, Becky,” he said somberly, walking around to the passenger side. The calm, sated mood I’d been in evaporated when he opened the door and my brother practically fell out from the cab. Ezra caught him before his face hit the ground. I rushed over to help him carry Braden into the house.
Tessa was sleeping on the couch, her head nestled into Brock’s lap. They both startled awake when Ezra, Braden, and I stumbled inside. I smashed my elbow off the corner of the wall, and swore under my breath.
Brock hurried over to help, and Tessa watched with wide eyes full of concern, her brow furrowed. With Brock on one side of Braden and Ezra on the other, they were able to get him downstairs to his bedroom. When they returned, the four of us stood wordlessly in the kitchen, the silence thick with thoughts we couldn’t voice.
Braden was rushing down a dangerous, destructive path, and none of us knew how to stop him.