After I post a video to Instagram of the empty venue before fans start to arrive, Vinny takes me from the tour bus to the backstage room at the Red Rocks Amphitheater in Denver. Mark stands in the doorway looking like absolute perfection. He’s wearing a black shirt and jeans. His dark hair’s a flawless disaster, his scruff is that gorgeous length that’ll tickle without burning, and his eyes glow a bright green as they land on me.
Before I even step foot into the room, Mark closes the physical distance that separated us for the past couple hours for soundcheck and getting ready for this show. It’s always been his dream to play this venue, and tonight Vail goes down in music history. His arms loop around me at the same time his mouth crashes down to mine. I don’t even have time to wonder what happened to Vinny as I’m completely consumed by Mark.
His peppermint mouth attacks mine in the sweetest and sexiest way as everything around us melts away into a carnal craving.
He pulls his lips from mine, and I stand in a daze for a beat before I notice that all eyes are on us. Well, almost all eyes. Ethan, who finally admitted he doesn’t hate me a couple nights before Mark and I got married, is otherwise engaged in his little corner. I glance around the dressing room, which is really cool. The room is built right around the famous red rocks of this venue, so when I look at one of the walls, I’m actually looking at the side of a mountain.
I don’t have much time to focus on the walls, though, because Mark’s arm fists my bicep and he leads me over to a door. “Vinny, stand outside the door upstairs.” He looks around and his eyes land on Ethan’s security guard. “Chuck, stand here. Neither of you lets anyone in for the next five minutes.”
He glances at me, the heat and intensity in his eyes knocking me back a step. I immediately know what he plans to do on the other side of this door with me, and I want more than five minutes. “Ten,” I demand.
He grins down at me then looks at Vinny and Chuck. “Five to ten minutes. Stay at your post until I come get you.”
I giggle, and Vinny opens the door. It’s a tunnel with a stairwell, and Vinny takes the steps two at a time before he disappears out the door at the top. The door behind us closes, and we’re locked safely in this tunnel with no interruptions for the next five to ten minutes.
I can’t help but take in everything around me as we step inside. This is the greatest tunnel I’ve ever seen in my life. The white walls are coated with black ink, signatures and scribbles and words everywhere. I read a few of the names, recognizing musical greats—names that are on my playlists right beside Vail. Names are written on the flat faces of the stairs, on the handrails, on every available surface—singers and drummers and bassists and guitarists. Musicians and bands.
Mark pulls a black marker out of his pocket and walks over to the wall. He writes his name in his distinct scrawl over some faded ink on the wall.
He walks up a couple steps. I follow behind him and watch as he writes the word fucked. He kneels down to one of the steps and writes his wife, Reese Fox, and then he stands, walks up a few steps, and finds a small spot on the wall to write in this tunnel. He turns around and writes today’s date on the opposite wall.
He throws the marker across the room when he finishes writing, and I watch as it bounces off a famous singer’s name on the wall before it lands on the floor next to a legendary guitarist’s name.
I raise an eyebrow at him. “Oh, you think so, do you?” I ask, my voice a challenge.
“Oh, babe, I definitely think so. I think we need to celebrate our two-month anniversary as newlyweds.” Mark takes a self-assured step toward me, and his gaze lands on mine.
A needy ache presses between my legs. “I think you’re definitely right.”
He laughs, the sweet sound music to my ears after everything we’ve been through. His hands grip my waist, fingertips digging deliciously into my hips. “We need to have a little talk first, though.”
A tremble of fear darts down my spine. “About what?” I ask, forcing a calmness into my voice I don’t quite feel.
His fingers move down and cup the outside of the crotch of my jeans. “Skirts and dresses make for much easier quickies than jeans.”
I giggle. “So this is a quickie?”
His lips find my neck, his words breathing heat against my skin. “If I could spend the entire night doing this with you, I would. But I have a pretty important gig in an hour.”
I giggle. “I have a question for you.”
He pulls back and looks at me with alarm.
“One time you said it blows your mind that you couldn’t wait to be with me. Why did that blow your mind?”
The alarm in his eyes morphs into something dark and dangerous—but somehow at the same time gentle and full of love. “I’ve never wanted to put anyone or anything ahead of my music. It’s been my first love for the past fifteen or twenty years.” He closes his eyes and draws in a breath. “But you’re different, Reese. You’re first. You’ll always be first.”
The full force of his words hits me. I can’t help myself. I act on complete instinct as I attack.
I go for the mouth first, the place where his words leave his tongue, and I brush that tongue with my own. I know he’s going on stage soon and he might have work to do, but this comes first for him.
If it blows his mind, I’m not exactly sure what it does to me.
He kisses me back with a fiery passion. My fingers dip beneath his shirt so I can feel the smooth, silky skin of his back, and then I move my hands between us to treat myself to the ridged muscles of his abdomen. He lets out a soft groan and slips his hands down the back of my jeans to grasp two handfuls of my ass, and I moan.
He grins against my mouth as he knows he has me where he wants me. I’ll do anything for him—anything he wants, anything he asks, anything he needs.
He pulls his hands out from my jeans and pulls his shirt over his head. He tosses it on the stairs, probably covering some Grammy award winning band’s name, but right now nothing else matters.
My shirt stays on as he works the button of my jeans and pushes them down to my thighs. My hands are busy running over every available inch of his exposed skin, wanting more—craving more, but knowing we’re limited to ten short minutes in a tunnel.
“Bend over. Hands covering Josh’s name.” I look down and see the signature of the lead singer of a rock band. I cover his name with my hands as I was told, my ass up high, the air of the tunnel cooling my exposed, hot flesh.
I hear him rustle around for a second and then feel his swollen head as it moves through my heat. He pushes inside with a low grunt, and I shove back to meet his entry. He holds my hips and stills inside me for a few glorious seconds, and then he starts to really move.
He drives into me, his thrusts punctuated by grunts and gasps as I close my eyes and give into the singular feeling of pleasure only he can deliver.
He pulls out and everything stops for a dizzying minute. “Stand up,” he says. “Jeans off.”
I do what he says, and he sits on the step and motions for me to straddle him. He fists his dick and guides it in as I slowly lower myself over him. I wrap my arms around his shoulders, and his hands come under my ass to guide me up and down over him. The fullness of him and the feeling of nothing between us is overwhelming. I’m filled not just with him physically, but emotionally. He fills my heart, my mind, my blood, my soul.
That feeling is what pushes me to the finish line. “Oh my God, Mark, I’m coming, I’m coming, I’m coming,” I say the words over and over as my body clenches him inside me.
He moves me harder over him and thrusts upward at the same time, finding his own release in sync with mine. My climax is prolonged as we come together too quickly. We allow ourselves a few quiet moments to luxuriate leisurely in a hallway filled with musical memorabilia and now the heady scent of sex and memory of us.
* * *
It’s obvious what we just did, but it’s not as obvious where we just did it. All eyes inspect Mark’s flushed cheeks and my rumpled shirt and disheveled hair when we walk into the dressing room.
Including Ethan’s. His lady friend is off refilling their drinks, and he speaks first over the quiet that befalls the room at our entrance.
“You find somewhere private or did you just fuck in the hallway?” he asks snidely.
“Fuck off,” Mark says.
“Good one.”
“He took me somewhere private,” I say, allowing my gaze to drift over to Mark. “And it was fantastic.”
A wide grin spreads across his face. I catch Morgan’s eye, and she winks at me as if to tell me she’s proud of me for not allowing Ethan to embarrass us. Ethan’s woman returns with their drinks and takes a seat on his lap.
“It’s time,” Steve says.
Mark nods once, and we all know this means it’s time for the pre-game that I still know nothing about. “Ladies, would you please excuse us for a bit?” Mark asks.
Morgan kisses James. Angelique kisses Steve, then Steve kisses baby Adelaide on top of her sweet head filled with blonde curls.
Ethan’s woman of the night doesn’t budge. He pushes her up off his lap, and I can’t help but think he’s such a dick. He’ll meet the right woman someday, though, just like Mark did.
I hope.
I smile at Mark and turn to follow Morgan and Angelique out the door. Blondie takes off in some other direction, and Vick and the security team head down a hallway that has a sign telling passersby the cafeteria is located that way.
Before I make it out the door, Mark pulls me in for another heated kiss. “I love you,” he says into my neck so only I can hear him. It’s so intimate and touching that my heart twists.
“I love you, too,” I say softly. “Only ever you.”
THE END