FUCK. I NEVER THOUGHT she would say yes, but fuck.
I switched tactics. “You’re clearly not safe here.” If she wasn’t going to tell me what happened and I couldn’t convince her to come with me, then I was calling Neil and Talon’s friend, André Luna. He owned a personal security firm in Miami. I’d never hired him, but I’d heard his company was the best in the business, especially in dangerous situations. I’d beg him to get someone up here to watch out for her. I didn’t give a fuck how much it cost. I wasn’t leaving without knowing she’d be safe.
“And I’d be safe on the road with a rock band who gets mobbed by screaming fans?” she countered.
“It’s not like that.” Most of the time. And the times it was, I could protect her. We had security details at every stop on the tour and she’d never be alone.
“Right.” She turned away from me.
Goddamn it. “What do I have to say?”
She pulled the covers up around her. “Say anything you want.”
It’d been strained between us since she’d turned legal, but up until now, that strain was all me. I’d kept her at arm’s length. I didn’t smile back when she smiled at me. I didn’t engage her in conversation unless she spoke first. I didn’t give her a single fucking thread of anything to grasp on to where I was concerned. I was polite, but fucking distant. Now I knew what the hell that felt like, I wanted to take every goddamn day back I’d wasted with her.
“Move over,” I demanded, kicking off my shoes.
She didn’t budge. “You said you were taking the couch.”
Fuck. “If you want me to, I will.” I hated not seeing her face.
She didn’t respond, but she also didn’t move over.
I walked to the other side of the bed and laid the fuck down.
She tried to hide her surprise, but I knew her too well. Her expression remained stoic, but her eyes widened slightly.
I brushed a strand of her soft hair off her face, and like an asshole, thought of what it would feel like wrapped around my fist. “You doing okay?”
She stared at me for a long moment. “What are you doing?”
Trying like fuck not to touch her. “I never thought the first time I shared a bed with you, you’d need oxygen.”
She pulled my comforter closer to her. “I’m sure a lot of girls need oxygen around you.”
I didn’t smile because she didn’t mean it as a joke, but she should have. “Ask what you want to know, Elyssia.”
“I don’t have anything to ask.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Why are you still lying to me?”
“I don’t need to ask you a question to know that you and your band have a lot of fans.”
“Are we going to dance around this?” Because I was tired of staying away from her.
Heat touched her cheeks. “Pretty sure I’m not doing any dancing.”
No, she wasn’t. I was the one changing the rules. “You want me to go first?” I didn’t wait for a response. “I’m not who Marcus says I am, not on the road and not when I’m home. You know me enough to know that.”
Her voice dropped to a whisper, and her gaze strayed. “I’m not sure I know you at all.”
I reached out and tipped her chin so I could see her eyes when I said what I had to say. “I don’t sleep around.” Not since I figured out no matter who I fucked, none of them were her.
She went perfectly still. “I didn’t ask that.”
Despite the oxygen making me angry as fuck every time I stopped to think about why she needed it, her beauty took my breath away. She was so damn gorgeous and innocent, I wanted to mark her as mine. “You wanted to ask.”
“What are you doing?” she barely whispered.
I held her gaze and did what I should’ve done a long time ago. I fucking jumped. “I came home this week for you.”
Nothing in her expression changed. “The band’s not here?”
Shit. “They are.” I paused for only a fraction of a second before I answered, but it was enough.
She gave me her back.
“Elyssia.” Damn it. “Stop turning away from me.”
“I’m tired, Ben.”
My timing shit, this whole fucking trip a goddamn mess, seeing her injured—I couldn’t not touch her anymore. I gathered her soft hair in one hand. “Lift your head, baby.”
Her whole body went stiff. “Why?”
“Because I’m going to hold you. Lift.”
She raised her head, and I slid my arm under. When she tentatively rested against my bicep, I didn’t settle for the win. Greedy as fuck, I went for more. “Trust me,” I murmured, pulling the covers back and lifting the hem of her shirt.
She sucked in a sharp breath that made her cough.
“Shh, baby. Give me a second.” Swallowing down rage at the mottled bruising on her back, I gently placed the still cool ice pack against the worst of it, then pulled her shirt back down.
She let out a ragged breath. “Thank you.”
I was going to kill the motherfucker who did this to her. “Welcome,” I ground out, settling my arm over her waist, which was thankfully not bruised. “Let me know if this is too much pressure.”
Her chest rose and fell with a breath, but she didn’t say anything.
I took her hand and wove my fingers through hers. Her soft scent everywhere, I never wanted to let her go. “This okay?”
“Yeah.” Her voice, her response, they were both strained.
Damn it. “You need to let me know if I’m hurting you, Elyssia.” Her hand was so damn small. Her whole body was small. She was barely over five feet, but I’d never noticed until this very moment how damn fragile she actually was.
“You….” She cleared her throat. “You’re not hurting me.”
I fucking exhaled and kissed her temple. “I want you to get some sleep.”
Except for the sound of the oxygen, my bedroom filled with a kind of silence I’d been craving for years. But she didn’t relax in my arms and her breathing didn’t even out into a pattern of sleep.
I brought our clasped hands to my lips and kissed her knuckles. “Talk to me.”
“I’m not that girl,” she blurted.
“What girl?”
“A fan.”
My ego took a hit. “I’m not asking you to like my music.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t, but you’re leaving in a few days.”
I wasn’t sure where the hell she was going with this, but I stupidly grasped at the opening. “That’s why I want you to come with me.”
“I can’t.”
She didn’t say she didn’t want to come, she said she couldn’t. Her brother, I got it. I didn’t fucking like it, but I got it. My lips a fraction of an inch from her neck, I couldn’t fight the pull anymore. I left a soft kiss on her neck. “You want to know what happens if you don’t come with me.” It wasn’t a question, and I had every intention of answering it, but she beat me to it.
“I live my life.” Her throat moved with a swallow. “You live yours.”
“No.” I nudged the oxygen line with my nose, then kissed just below her ear. She smelled like fucking heaven. “You wait for me, and I come home to you.”
She drew in a sharp breath. “You’re talking as if….” She trailed off.
“As if I want more?” I squeezed her hand. “I do. A lot more.”
Her body, her breath, they froze. Then she fucking crushed me with two damn words.
“I don’t.”