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Four days on a tour bus with a woman I have a serious crush on, and now my body aches too much to even put the moves on her.
“Sam!” I call out across the lawn where we’re setting up their stage. “Where do you want this?” I point to the speaker I’m holding.
“Up your ass would be fine,” he yells back at me. He grins, though, so I’m pretty sure he’s joking.
I set the speaker down and wait for instructions.
He walks over to me and claps me on the shoulder. “We can let the set-up crew finish the rest of this.”
“You sure? I can keep going,” I tell him. I’m lying, but still.
“Well, I can’t. I plan to fuck my wife later, and my back isn’t going to let me if we don’t quit soon.”
“Well, there’s that,” I say. My face floods with heat.
He stares at me, his eyes narrowed, and then shakes his head.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“No, it’s something. Say it.”
“What’s going on with you and Finny?” he asks.
I shrug. “Nothing. Why?” I look everywhere but at him.
“Because,” he says slowly, “she’s my family, and I want to be sure you’re in it for the right reasons.”
“And what reasons would those be?”
“The good kind. Not just the I-want-to-get-in-her-pants kind.”
“I have good intentions. And the I-want-to-get-in-her-pants intentions. And the I-want-to-make-her-fall-madly-in-love-with-me intentions.”
His eyes open wide. “Damn. You’re one pussy-whipped bastard.”
“You’re right.” He’s right. I am pussy-whipped. I watched her walk by me this afternoon, and she winked at me once, and it was all I could do not to chase her down so I could kiss her right then and there, in front of everybody. “You think I have a shot?”
I sit down on the speaker and he sits beside me.
“Finny’s a strange bird,” he replies. I open my mouth to protest, but he shushes me. “Hang on,” he says. “Finny’s amazingly talented as a musician. She’s fierce on those strings, but she’s afraid of everything.”
“She doesn’t act like she’s afraid of anything.”
“She’s a good actor, too.” He points a finger at me. “But as long as you have good intentions, I’ll leave you two alone.”
I nod. “You have nothing to worry about. My intentions are honorable.” Well, I kind of would like to get in her pants, too, but still honorable.
“Just be easy with her,” he says. He pinches his lips together. “I take that back,” he says. “Don’t be easy with her. If you pussyfoot around, she’ll never tell you how she feels.”
“How do you think she feels?” I ask him.
“I think she likes you a lot.” He points over my shoulder. “She can’t take her eyes off you.”
All the girls and Emily are standing on the stage, and they’re testing the microphones and stage equipment. Finny holds up her thumb to show that her setup is okay. She looks over at me and smiles and I lose my breath a little bit.
“I’m not worried about your intentions anymore,” Sam says quietly.
“Why not?”
“Because when she smiled at you, you looked like the happiest guy in the world.” He grins at me. “Congratulations.”
Marta walks around the corner and she’s pushing a double stroller. Sammy, Sam’s two-month-old, is in one bucket seat and my son is in the other. She stops in front of us. “I’ve decided to keep both the boys tonight so you guys can get some rest,” she says.
My brow shoots up. “What?”
She grins at me. “It’s purely selfish. I like the little guy, and he likes me, and I think you need a break.”
“I can’t ask you to do that,” I object.
“You’re not asking. I’m telling you.”
“Are you sure?” My heart leaps in my chest at the thought of a night of uninterrupted sleep.
“Emilio and I got a hotel room so we would have space for the cribs.” She winks at me. “Enjoy a night with no babies or parents on the bus.”
My face gets hot. Surely she’s not suggesting…
“Dude, I think she just told you to go get laid,” Sam says, leaning his head toward mine.
“She did not.”
He grins. “She totally did.”
Marta turns back to face me. “She totally did,” she says. She smiles at me again. “I may be old, but I’m not dead.”
I lean down and kiss my son on the forehead. He turns his head like he wants to nurse on my cheek, and I let him nuzzle for a minute. God, he has my heart. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” I tell him. I kiss him, lingering over his tender skin a moment longer than I should, I know. “Call me if you need anything?” I tell Marta.
“Of course.” She steps up onto her tiptoes and kisses my cheek really quickly. Then she says quietly so only I can hear it, “Finny’s afraid to sleep with a man.”
Finny has slept with a lot of men, I think.
“Sleeping with a man is so much more intimate than having sex with one.” She stares hard at me. “You know?” Then she walks away and takes my son with her.
“Dude, can you give me about twenty minutes before you come to the bus?” Sam asks me.
Seriously, he’s asking me to stay away so he can make love to his wife? I grin at him. “It takes you twenty minutes?”
“No, today it’ll take me two, but I’ll give her twenty, if you can stay away.”
“You got it.” I look down at my watch. “Starting now.”
Sam walks over to Peck, whispers in her ear, takes her hand in his, and pulls her toward the bus. She laughs and pretends to struggle, but he won’t take no for an answer. Finally, he wraps his arm around her and guides her, with her laughing all the while.
Finny looks so damn pretty standing there on the stage that I can’t stay away from her. I walk up slowly, and go to her. She’s with Emily and Logan. I don’t know Logan very well, but I know he’s pretty easy to talk to. He has a cochlear implant he just got, but he had pretty good speech even before that, from what I understand. I walk up to Finny and put my hand at the center of her back. She leans into me without even thinking about it, and it makes my heart go all trippy.
“You have plans tonight?” I ask her. I press my lips to her temple and linger there. Her eyes flutter closed for a second.
“Nope. You?” She gazes at me shyly.
“You want to go to dinner with me?” My heart is racing for some reason.
She reaches up, cups my face in her palm, and stares into my eyes. “Aren’t you tired?”
“Not too tired to show you how much I want to spend time with you,” I admit. “Never too tired for that.” I lift her hand from my face and press my lips to her palm. The hair on her arms stands up.
“How about if we go get pizza and take it back to the bus?” Her voice quivers.
“Okay.” I lean down close to her ear. “We’re supposed to give Sam and Peck twenty minutes, anyway. I promised.”
She snorts. “It won’t take Sam twenty minutes.”
I pull my head back so I can look down at her. “How would you know that?”
She shrugs. “Girls talk.” Her cheeks get rosy.
“Did you talk with them about me?”
“I told them exactly how big your dick is and that it hooks a little to the left.”
My heart stops. “It does not.”
She shoves my shoulder. “I’m kidding. The only one who knows about us is Lark. And that’s because she caught you coming out of my room. I didn’t tell her anything. Well, not about how your dick made me sore or anything.”
I grin. “I made you sore?”
“And you left your handprint on my ass.”
“It was gone before I even left that night.”
She stares into my eyes. “It’ll be there forever in my mind.”
I lean down and kiss her quickly. “Mine too.”
“So, pizza?”
I nod, and she slips her hand into mine. “I think there’s a place about two blocks from here. We’ll walk.” She reaches over, takes the ball cap from my head, and puts it on hers. “Don’t want to be recognized,” she explains.
She looks so damn cute in my ball cap that I don’t think I’ll ever take it back. She grins at me so I grab the brim and wiggle it on her head. Her grin turns into a smile with teeth.
“I really like you,” I blurt out.
Her smile tips up even bigger. “I like you too.”
“Will you do me a favor?”
“Depends on what it is,” she says, her gaze skeptical.
“Don’t make me fall in love with you unless you’re capable of loving me back, okay?”
She inhales quickly, and I panic for a moment. But then she steps onto her tiptoes and kisses me, and I know she feels it too. I can tell. The vice around my heart eases a little.
“Pizza,” she murmurs against my lips.
“Yes,” I mumble against her skin.
Suddenly, someone kicks the back of my knee and I stumble. “What the…” I turn around and find Logan staring at me.
“Emily and I are getting a room tonight,” he says. “Her mom and dad are in town and they have Kit.”
I nod. “Okay. Thanks for the heads up.”
He smiles. “Have fun.”
I try not to grin too much. “We’re not quite there yet.”
“That’s why I said have fun instead of have lots of sex.” He shoves my shoulder and walks by us.
“So, it’s just me and you, and Sam and Peck in the bus tonight?” Finny says. There’s a second bus for the others.
“Looks like it.”
“Why don’t you all get hotel room?” I ask her.
She shrugs. “We like the bus. It becomes like home after you’ve been traveling for a while.” She waits a beat.
“So we won’t be alone tonight,” she says.
“Nope.” I stare into her eyes long enough to make her cheeks flush.
She smiles shyly at me but she doesn’t say anything more.
We go and get pizzas and she fights with me so I’ll let her pay for them. “Everyone is going to eat them!” she tells me. “Not just us. I’m not letting you buy for all of us. The band has a budget for this stuff.”
“Then let me at least buy mine.”
“You’re part of the band, doofus.”
Laughter bubbles from my throat. “Did you just call me a doofus?”
“Maybe.” Then she starts to laugh too. I give her time to calm down while I take her card and pay for the pizzas. Then we start back to the bus. “I’m really glad you’re here,” she says. She puts her hand in my back pocket.
“You keep that up and I’m going to give up on being a gentleman,” I warn playfully.
She squeezes my ass and I jump, almost upending the pizzas.
“You’re going to get me in so much trouble,” I tell her. But I welcome it. I’ve never felt quite so alive. Not until I started spending time with her.
We go back to the bus and she opens the door. We climb quickly up the steps because, honestly, I want to put the pizzas down so I can grab her and pull her against me.
But when we get in the bus, she screams and turns to face me really quickly. “Oh, my God, Sam!” she cries. “Are you serious? Put that thing away. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God,” she chants to herself, her hands over her eyes as she buries her face in my chest.
“Sorry,” Sam says. “We didn’t think you’d be back for a few more minutes.”
Sam and Peck rush to put their clothes back on. I see way too much of Sam’s ass as he turns to cover Peck up with his own width. “You said you needed twenty. We gave you thirty,” I tell him. I look out the front window of the bus. Everywhere but at them, because I just saw way too much of Sam. Peck we could only see from the backside—and a really pretty backside it was—but Sam…Sam was balls deep.
“Well, when you didn’t come back after twenty, we decided to do it again. Sue me for being excited about having my wife all to myself.” Sam pulls his shirt over his head and pulls his pants up from where they were resting around his ankles.
“Sorry,” Peck says. “You didn’t really see anything, did you?” She looks from me to Finny and back.
“I didn’t see a thing,” I say.
She doesn’t look like she believes me.
“Can I talk to you for a second?” Finny asks her. “Outside?”
“Are you okay?” I ask Finny.
“I think I’ll be scarred for life,” she whispers back to me. But she’s grinning.
She and Peck go out the door of the bus. Sam reaches for the pizza box. “Dude, go wash your hands,” I tell him, snatching the box away.
“Seriously?”
I glare at him. “Seriously.”
He mutters all the way to the sink. “If I want to eat with my wife’s pussy on my hands, I should be able to do that.”
“You can when it’s your own pizza,” I toss back.
He chuckles. “Hey, don’t tell Peck you saw anything, will you? She’ll flip the fuck out.”
“Mums the word,” I tell him. But I do know he’s one lucky dude.