CHAPTER 4
Three hours later, after a successful surgery where she’d removed a sock from a chocolate Labrador’s stomach, thus saving his life, Rae returned home to Chestnut Village. She’d been home for a little over fifteen minutes, only having the chance to feed her totally spoiled and incredibly fat, ginger-colored tabby, Harry, before a knock sounded. She peeked through the curtain on the thin window next to the front door and found Travis, his head pressed against the slab.
God, she needed her best friends Kate and Tessa. They’d know what to do and how to handle all this. But only she and Travis were there now. She drew in a long, deep breath as her heart wavered, but her mind held firm. “Travis,” she said loudly, ensuring he heard her through the closed door, which in this old house was easy since it didn’t have an airtight seal. “You can’t be here.”
“I don’t want you to let me in,” he said through the door. The heaviness in his voice had her turning around and leaning against the wood for support as he continued. “I understand why you can’t do this. I don’t want to cross any emotional lines that may hurt you. That’s not why I’m here.”
He paused, and the silence felt like seconds long before he addressed her again. “I’m here because I want you to know that last night, and even today, the few minutes I had with you, have been the best time I’ve had in a while.” His voice blistered. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me, and I want you to know that you deserve the world in any way you’d like it handed to you. That you were, and always will be, the most genuine thing I’ve ever known.” Then she heard silence followed by the creak of the old wooden stairs beneath his feet, telling her he was leaving.
Again…
Forever…
Earlier at Rebels, she’d been able to walk away from him. Even at the reunion, she could leave him. But something about him leaving her changed the game. Her heart pounded, and the panic of him departing sent her into a frenzy. It was the way he needed her, had reached for her. There was just something between them that she couldn’t ignore, no matter what her mind told her to do. In that second where he’d laid bare all his emotions, holding nothing back, she was bared alongside him.
She didn’t want him to go.
Logic be damned, she spun around and whisked the door open, not even considering all the reasons she shouldn’t.
Travis whirled around and stood there, breathless, his chest heaving. She said the only thing she could, and used his line from earlier, turning it back on him, “Don’t go.”
She couldn’t quite recall what happened next. All she knew was that in the seconds since she’d spoken, she’d ended up in his arms, and they were back inside her house with the door closed.
In her small foyer, he spun her, pressing her back to his chest as he began kissing her neck, his hands exploring her until he cupped her breasts, squeezing and massaging. She gasped for breath, barely surviving his intensity, and leaned her head back to rest against his chest, her moans echoing his. He caressed her as if his hands were made for her body, and she liked it. No, she needed the ferocity of his touches. She couldn’t let him walk away, despite her head screaming at her that it was the right thing to do.
His mouth settled by her ear while he massaged her breasts harder and groaned each time. She shivered. His touches unraveled her. It was like he’d been desperate to feel her, starved for the way her body warmed beneath his hands, and now that he had her, he couldn’t stop.
“Travis,” she whispered, arching into him, eager for more.
He turned her around to face him, and she caught sight of his face. Eyebrows drawn, mouth parted, eyes smoldering; one look, and he set off a fire inside her that only he could extinguish. He grunted, apparently equally affected by what he found in her expression, and then he kissed her, stealing her breath. She followed along, keeping up with the way his tongue twirled with hers, opening her mouth at just the right times to let him own her. His hands trailed over her face, her arms, her hips, until he squeezed her bottom, grinding her against him. Only when he received her breathy moan did he gather her in his arms and move them the few steps needed to the entryway table.
There, he rested her bottom against the tabletop and grabbed his shirt, pulling it over his head in that fast way men do. She had one second to look at him. Lean and ripped; his muscles spoke of power and protection, and of man. But before she could look further, his lips were on hers again, his tongue brushing across hers, captivating her once more. She moaned breathlessly, as he inched her shirt up until he had it over her head, leaving her in her white bra.
“Christ, Rae…” He moaned, kissing between her breasts, on her stomach, paying attention to her body; not leaving any of her untouched. “How you feel…” He dragged his nose across her shoulder. “The way you taste…” He kissed along her collarbone. “You drive me fucking crazy.”
God, the things he said. This wasn’t the boy she remembered. This was a man, and she wanted him so badly. She threaded her hands into his hair as he kissed her ribs, her belly button. He trailed his tongue up her side, and she giggled from the tickle. When he lifted his head, she spied his grin before he took her mouth again, owning her with his special brand of addictive passion.
That’s why Travis excelled where other men failed. He took his time. He waited for her body to come alive before he dared to remove her pants. He kissed and hesitated. He urged and guided. And by the time he removed her panties, she was soaking wet and more than ready for him.
“Goddamn it,” he practically purred, and her eyes rolled back as his fingers slid across her slick heat, slowly dragging her arousal up to her clit, where he played with the little bud. “I like the way you want me, Rae,” he added. “The way you need me.”
She couldn’t wait. Not any longer. His body was so close to hers, his touch… God, she’d wanted him like this for so long…for so many lonely nights when her heart bled for him. She reached for his belt. “Condom?” she asked.
With quick hands, he pulled out his wallet, then grabbed a silver packet before he thrust his pants and boxer briefs down and kicked them away. Once he had the condom free from the wrapper, he said, “Kiss me.”
She did, again and again, as she felt him applying the latex over the hard cock resting on her stomach. He sucked on her lips, her tongue, until suddenly he turned her around.
Facing the wall now, she stared at herself in the mirror over the table. A foreign look of desire was there in her dilated pupils, in her puffy, red lips, and in her flushed cheeks. Even to her, she looked blatantly desperate, but she didn’t care.
“Take me,” she begged.
In the mirror, over her shoulder, Travis’s heated eyes burned into hers. Boldly stating he wasn’t the eighteen-year-old she remembered, he reached for her leg, placing her knee on the table, opening her up for him. He didn’t wait. With his eyes on hers in the mirror, he entered her from behind right to the hilt.
“Fuck,” he groaned, tossing his head back.
She lost herself in the pleasure, but she couldn’t stop looking at him. The strength of him, and the way he used his whole body to engulf her in passion consumed her. To have him back inside her was everything and so much more. She’d wished for this moment for years. She’d been tormented by it, imagining him thrusting inside her as he did now. And with each slap of his pelvis against her bottom, she felt the walls she’d erected to protect herself crumble. She craved him. All of him.
She moaned, vocalizing the maelstrom that he created inside her. And like he heard her need, he wrapped his arm around her and pressed her back against his chest. In the mirror, she stared at her breasts bouncing, and the way he claimed her so perfectly, somehow making her feel beautiful and sexy all at once.
But then she lost sight of his potent eyes as he dropped his head onto her shoulder in the crook of her neck and murmured, “Give me what I want, baby.”
Her eyesight blurred, and then her lids eventually shut against the pleasure. Her loud moans echoed with his, as skin slapped against skin, his hard cock driving up inside her. His warm, sweaty body pressed against her, the strength of his arms around her, and the scent of him swirling in the air drove her higher.
“Oh, yeah, baby,” he grunted. “Just like that, Rae. That’s what I want.”
Her inner muscles squeezed harder, her arousal soaking him more, as he laced his fingers into the back of her hair, thrusting harder, faster now, not relenting until she gave him exactly what he wanted. And that was her body surrendering to the pleasure he provided.
With a final thrust forward and a loud scream, she gave him everything, shuddering and breaking apart around him until she stood there bare and vulnerable, a mess of orgasmic bliss.
His arms held her tightly, and his sweet, soft kiss on her shoulder brought her back to the moment, as he lowered her leg to the floor, pulled out, and then turned her to face him. His condom-covered cock pressed against her stomach as he kissed her, properly and perfectly, devouring the remainder of her whimpers until her climax had fully released her.
Only then did he look at her. She raised her hands to his face, staring at him intently as he lifted her bottom onto the table, hooked one leg under his arm, and entered her in one swift stroke.
“That one was yours,” he growled against her mouth. “This one is mine.”
Then, there was no thought, no conversation, only loud, throaty moans filling her foyer. Fiery eyes locked onto her, Travis pumped his hips with rapid speed, his pelvis banging perfectly against her clit every time until he found a rhythm that furrowed his brow and intensified his expression. His mouth parted, then pressed against hers as he took what he wanted. Her. Roughly. Passionately.
Until she felt the widening of his cock, which either awakened her climax from before or brought on a new one altogether. And as his groans became louder, his thrusts a little more urgent, she dug her nails into his shoulders, riding the intense wave. She watched the way his eyes widened before they pinched shut, as he stiffened and roared, bucking and jerking his climax, and she soared right along with him, crashing into a mindless space.
Many minutes later, a sudden meow snapped her back into the present, and had Travis glancing down.
“And who’s the little voyeur?” he asked.
Rae glanced at her feet and laughed. “That’s Harry.”
“Well, Harry, let’s get one thing straight,” Travis said firmly, parting from her and wrapping an arm around her waist to help her off the table. He kept that arm firmly in place, and when he looked at her, his eyes became intense, and his voice grew thick. “Rae is all mine tonight, so your demands will have to wait.”
Travis gathered Rae up in his strong arms, and she wrapped her legs around his waist, as he began to carry her up the stairs toward the bedroom. But as Harry meowed, she laughed again, and said, “I think he might disagree with your statement.”
Travis grinned. “Too bad for him, the only pussy I care about tonight is yours.”
* * *
An hour later, standing before the small, ceramic bathroom sink, Travis cupped the brisk water pouring out of the faucet and splashed it onto his face—his only recourse to cool the blistering heat burning within. He blew the water off his lips and glanced up, staring into his gray eyes that even he didn’t recognize anymore at times. Beads of water dripped off his hair and nose, and the longer he stared at himself, the more lost he felt.
Torn by all the things he couldn’t change, he splashed his face again with the cool water before grabbing the hand towel resting on the round hook and drying off. Just as he returned the towel to its place, his phone vibrated in his pocket. When he pulled it out and looked at the screen, the text from his manager immediately sent his tense mood into a downward spiral.
You weren’t on your flight. What’s up?
Travis frowned at the text, desperate to shut the world out, giving him a little more time in the past. The present would come back and suffocate him soon enough. He fired off a return text: I need a couple more days.
Not waiting for Scott’s reply, he muted his phone and tucked it back into his pocket. Some things weren’t for his manager to decide. And after coming off a world tour, Travis deserved a weekend off, no matter that he paid Scott a hefty sum to ensure that his schedule was always busy and that his name was always right in front of everyone’s face.
With one last look in the mirror, he left the bathroom, finding Rae dressed in black tights and a long, gray shirt that hung off one shoulder. Sitting cross-legged on the end of her bed, she didn’t have to say anything. Her soft eyes said it all. “You want answers,” he stated.
She nodded. “I think I deserve them, don’t you?”
“You do.” He took a seat next to her, keeping his feet flat on the hardwood floor, resting his elbows on his thighs. “This is a complicated conversation,” he admitted.
“It can’t be that complicated.” She rested her hand on his forearm.
He stared down at the way she comforted him. If only she knew that comfort was exactly what he’d been missing in his life. “There are times I look in the mirror and don’t even know who’s looking back at me.”
“Like, you’ve changed?”
He nodded, staring down at his bare toes. “I can’t even tell you when it happened, more to the point, why it happened. I only know it did. One day, I woke up and felt like I stood in a world I didn’t even know anymore.”
“But you love your life?”
“I love parts of my life,” he gently explained. “I’m mad about the music. I adore the crowds, the energy that gets created when I make music. The rest, I don’t love.”
She paused, and he looked at her. Only then did she say, “It’s the people in your life that’re the problem.”
Of course, she got him. She always did. “I’ve got the boys in the band, but they’re all married now, did you know that?”
She grinned and winked. “I might have seen that in an article somewhere. And I think you might have drunk dialed me once from your drummer’s reception.”
He grabbed her thigh and squeezed. “Don’t ever be embarrassed that you’ve been keeping tabs on me.”
“God, don’t say it like that,” she said, giving him a light, playful smack on the arm. “You make me sound like a stalker. Can we get back to the point please?”
“The point is,” he said back, “that the tours are great. It’s everything I hoped it would be. Everything we used to sit and talk about. It’s amazing, Rae. If only you could see it the way I do.”
“I did see it, actually,” she said with a soft smile.
News to him. “When?”
“A year ago, in Dallas,” she replied. “I was there for a conference, and some of the girls had an extra ticket to your show, so I went.” Her eyes twinkled, pride in their depths. “You were amazing. God, I was so proud of you that night.”
He recalled the show. He also knew he’d not seen her there. “Why didn’t you text me that you were coming? Or come see me backstage?”
She shrugged, picking lint off her tights and flicking it to the floor. “I didn’t know if you had a girlfriend, and how weird would that have been?”
“I suppose, for you, very weird,” he admitted, though there’d been no girlfriend. But it wouldn’t have been weird for him. He wondered what would have happened between them if she’d come to see him. What would he have done?
All the what ifs over his life were beginning to drive him mad.
Her eyes searched his, and then she drew in a deep breath, clearly resolving something in her mind. “So back to the stuff before, that’s what all this is about, why you came back and want to spend so much time with me? It’s to remind you of what your old life was like?”
“Simply put, yes,” he said, “but again, it’s a lot more complicated than that.” He wanted her to understand, so he stuck to the simple version. “You don’t know what it’s like, Rae. I’m surrounded by people who will give me anything. All the time. I ask a question, and they tell me what I want to hear. So, when I heard about the reunion, I got this idea in my head that if I came back, I’d remember what it feels like to be around people who aren’t like that.”
The complicated version was that he wanted to see if the happiness he thought he’d felt in the past was real or an exaggerated memory. This weekend with her, he wholly believed his memories didn’t fail him.
“But,” he added, not wanting to get too far ahead of himself. He raised a hand to her cheek and stroked her soft skin. “I don’t want to hurt you in the process of selfishly taking what I need.”
She paused. “Okay, before we get into that, answer me this.” She stared at him hard. “Do you feel lost, is that what you’re saying?”
“I feel like I’m scrambling lately,” he admitted.
“Sometimes drowning?”
“Many times, drowning.” He sighed. “It feels like I’m this guy that everyone thinks they know. They’ve got me all figured out in the interviews. They know everything about me, the type of girl I should date, all these personal things about me, and yet…I don’t even know those things about myself.”
“And you thought coming back here would help you find yourself again?”
“I thought coming back here would remind me of the guy who wanted the fame to begin with.”
“That actually makes a lot of sense, and I’m sorry that somewhere along the way things got messy for you.” She gave him a sweet smile. “I remember that guy before all the fame. I still see him, but I see something better, too.”
“What do you see?” he asked.
“I see confidence,” she explained, taking his hand. “But I see sadness, and if spending time with me will make you feel better, then, of course, I’ll be here for you.”
He couldn’t waver, feeling bad enough that he’d shown up at her doorstep instead of leaving when he should have…again. “Will I hurt you, Rae?”
Her eyes searched his again before she placed her hand over his on her cheek. “No, Travis, you won’t. It was my decision to open the door and let you into my house. We have this weekend. Let’s enjoy it.”
“Are you sure?”
She smiled and nodded. “I’m sure. We aren’t the people we used to be, and I think I simply needed to see that. If you need some time with me to find your way back to yourself, I’ll be there for you, Travis, however you need me.”
Which told him she likely saw how broken he was, and perhaps the danger of loving him again wasn’t so easy. But he needed her, so the rest didn’t matter right now. Because he knew he’d picked his career over love all those years ago, and he picked wrong.