Sacha got a single good spank in.

I don't know what I'd been thinking hitting him. This was Sacha. I should have known he was going to retaliate somehow. And he did. In the blink of an eye, he flipped me onto my stomach and smacked my butt so hard there was for sure going to be a bruise there tomorrow.

The special thing about my relationship with this guy, the thing that made us and what we were different, was that we were both laughing our asses off the entire time.

Not in a million years could I have ever imagined thinking that getting spanked by another person could be both funny and also pretty damn sexy. I could blame the latter on the fact that I'd seen his tight and cute butt cheeks seconds ago. My Sassy was something special. If there was a fraction of a doubt in my brain that I was crazy for this guy, that I felt a connection with him that trumped any other relationship I'd had in the past by leagues in the sea—it was smashed.

"You bitch!" I screeched against the bed cover, bucking my hips away.

Heavy weight fell over me, his chest pressed against my back, and I could feel his lips on my neck. "Princess,” he said it with a snort.

"That hurt!"

He cracked up harder, kissing me over and over again. "Gaby," he murmured. "I'd say I'm sorry, but I'm not."

I howled in pain until his palm smoothed from my side over my lower back and slowly inched down to cup my still aching ass; I sucked in a rabid breath. That large palm stroked, rubbed and kneaded the flesh gently. What did I do? I arched my freaking back.

His free hand pushed up the back of my shirt, up, up, up until all the material bunched over my breasts and the middle of my back. "You're so smooth," he said in a husky voice right before hot, wet lips were dragged down my spine. "God, Gaby," he groaned as I curled into him even more.

"Hmm?" I mumbled incoherently, relishing in the sensation of his mouth and warm skin on mine.

I felt something infinitely times warmer than his lips and much more wet at the small of my back. He licked me. Oh my lord, Sacha—the most gorgeous man in every universe—was licking me. Both of his hands slipped around my waist. His fingers prodded at the elastic of my sleeping pants, before pulling it down erotically slowly.

It wasn't until I felt his mouth on my shoulder and his fingers dipping inside the front of my panties that I thought the earth shattered into a million fragments. "Sacha," his name hissed from my lips.

He moaned my name in return, those long, lightly callused fingertips brushing over my the lower seam of my body, not stopping until he swept over the slit there multiple times. "Fuck," he hummed into my ear. A single finger dipped into me at the same time he used his other hand to pull my back against his upright chest. The position gave him access to my neck, where he started sucking lightly.

I cried out when he slipped another finger in me, fingering me so slowly I couldn't breathe from the sweet anticipation. What the hell my hands were doing, I really had no clue. I think they'd landed on his thighs, squeezing them tightly. "That's so good."

He hummed, nipping me lightly on the slope between my neck and shoulder. "I want you so fucking bad."

The rocking of my hips against the twisting and scissoring of his fingers should have been enough of an answer to his request, but I turned my mouth to kiss him, long, deep and slow. It was only when I pulled away from his lips that I nodded. "Please."

Sacha yanked my shorts and underwear down my legs a second later, giving me a light slap where his hand had been last. Moist lips kissed one cheek and then the other before I rolled over into a sitting position. His mouth covered mine again, kissing me slowly, sucking one lip and then the other into his mouth while his hands fiddled with the bunched material of my shirt, pulling it up and over my head.

His eyes swept their way down, a great breath of air filling his lungs as he did it. While I hadn’t opted to get the biggest boobs in the universe, I liked Lucy and Ethel more than enough. They were now both a small C-cup with only tiny lines for scars on the bottom of each. They looked as natural as they possibly could. Sacha pushed me onto my back gently, dragging his open mouth and lips down my chin, over my jaw, neck, collarbones, before settling over my right nipple. It wasn't my imagination when I felt him shudder over me.

I was pulling his shorts and boxer briefs down his hips with my hands and then my feet when I couldn't reach anymore. My fingers roamed their way up and down his smooth back from shoulder to ass. Legs opened wider around his naked hips. The more skin I saw—both that smooth, lightly tanned skin and the one painted in black strokes of ink—the more I couldn't comprehend how lucky I was.

"You’re driving me nuts," he groaned, lapping against my nipple. "I need you right now.” The heavy, hot feel of his cock brushed against my inner thigh as he rolled his hips. "Can I?"

The “yes” exploded off my tongue in a rush.

Sacha pulled back. His heavy, beautiful green eyes were hooded with lust and something else I couldn't decipher. He slanted his mouth against mine before pulling back to press our foreheads together. One finger brushed over my breast while another one stroked across my jaw.

I closed my eyes because it all seemed like too much. The way he felt over me, the way his eyes made me feel like I wasn't my own proprietor. But I felt like a coward doing it, so I opened them again.

He smiled at me gently before reaching over me, digging into his backpack for a second, retrieving a small box from inside. "You're a dream come true," he said softly once he was back in place, kissing me over my heart.

Catching sight of the black and gold wrapper in his hand, I glanced back up at his face. "You're perfect," I told him.

Sacha kissed me, pulling away to look down. I could see his hands shaking as he tore open the condom and sat back on his heels. I don't know how I didn't babble something like “holy shit” or “oh my God.” In the times we'd spent in my bunk before, everything we ever did was over clothing. I'd never put my hands on his naked flesh. So when I glanced down his bare, hard chest and the symmetrical, block-shaped muscles of his abs to see his thick, long cock hard and proud in the air, I sucked in a breath.

He rolled the condom over the broad, blunt head between his thighs and over the thickening shaft that stretched wider at the base. Sacha wrapped his hands over my hips to pull me toward him once he was fully sheathed. The bulbous head slipped up and down my lower lips, the tip rubbing over me so nicely I whimpered.

One more kiss and he was dropping to his elbows, caging me in between his biceps. Another soft, gentle kiss and he was adjusting himself to press his smooth head in me. Slowly, he pushed. I spread and stretched around him, inch by inch until he was buried to the hilt. The short, brown hairs of his base were pressed to my smooth lips.

Sacha let out a noise that sounded strangled, but I pressed my forehead against his shoulder, trying to make it through how full he made me feel.

After a minute or five, he pulled out of me slowly before sliding back in at the same languid pace. Then again. And again. Slow, slow, slow, he worked his hips and organ deep in me. "I'm not going to last that long," he whispered, kissing the corner of my mouth.

"That's okay." It was more than okay. Better than okay.

"You feel so fucking good. I'm sorry," he panted, giving me a sharp thrust upward.

I cried out.

"Everyday. I want you everyday," he groaned. "You're the best thing in the world." He flipped us over after that, never pulling out of me or losing contact with our mouths as we rolled. "Ride me," he begged. "I want you to come."

I smiled at him, blissed out and feeling more amazing than any human being should be capable of. But I slid up and down his long cock slowly. It seemed like less than a minute later, I was sweating and riding him faster. "Oh my God."

His hips pumped up, out of rhythm and sync, and I came so hard, my abdominal muscles cramped. I'd barely come out of my orgasm, still seeing spots in my eyes, when he pushed into me even faster, panting into my neck. Sacha went tense all over, pressing his lips against my chest with a muffled, "Fuck!" He came, riding out his orgasm inside of me.

In the minutes after he'd calmed down, thrown away the condom and crawled back into bed, I felt like I was living in a dream. Sacha was curling around me, pushing my hair out of my face and grinning from ear to ear—a smile that put every other one to shame.

"What's that look for?" I asked him, running my hand over his tattooed arm.

His smile turned dopey and sweet. "You make me so fucking happy, Princess. You have no idea."

---

"You're dumb."

Sacha scoffed, slipping his hands over my feet to set them into his lap. We were sitting on his bed playing Uno in Berlin. Earlier that day, we'd walked around with Julian and Freddy and then followed that up by going to the venue for the show. Now that everything was over, we could finally allow exhaustion to hit full force. Almost three months of nonstop touring was finally taking its toll on all of us.

Eli and Gordo had been sick for the past week. Mason looked like he'd gotten into a fight with a chupacabra and lost. Poor Carter looked thinner and paler than normal. The other TCC guys weren’t faring much better. Our bodies weren't made to be on the move so much on such erratic sleep and inconsistent diets, but our hearts were trying to keep up.

I think the only thing that kept me going was Sassy.

And the piece of Malykhin between his thighs.

Ever since that night in Zurich, we had turned into horny teenagers. No bathroom or hotel room was spared. It was fucking fantastical. Magical. A wet dream come true.

My heart and body weren’t match for this man.

"It's not my fault that I know how to play the game," I laughed.

He flicked me on the forehead. "There's no strategy to it, you're just getting lucky."

Taking a card from the deck, I threw it at his face. "There is a strategy. You can't keep putting down all your Draw Fours and Draw Twos when you get them, duh. You need to wait until you only have a few cards left, and then make me eat shit."

"That doesn't make any sense," he frowned, poking me in the side before putting down a blue four.

I groaned and put down a blue Skip. "Says the man who hasn't beat me once."

Sacha laughed. "I can beat you at plenty of other things."

Which was the truth but I shrugged, smiling. "Maybe but not this, sucker."

Four moves later, I'd won again. He grabbed the messy pile of cards and tossed them in the air with a snort. "That's what I think about you winning."

"You suck."

He fell back onto the bed, pulling me down alongside him. "You suck way better than I do," he murmured, kissing my neck.

I shivered, tilting my head up so he could get a better angle for more skin. "True."

Sacha dragged his hot tongue over the shell of my ear. "Gaby?"

"Yes?"

His hand slowly stroked down my arm. "We only have a week left," he said in a soft voice, reminding me that our time together was coming to an end.

I moved my head to kiss his jaw, ignoring the anxiety it caused in my stomach. "I know."

"What are we going to do?"

Clear gray eyes met mine, something like worry or sadness filled in the edges of his lashes. I'd been meaning to ask him about it, but I was a chicken. In that moment, I regretted that I hadn't brought it up earlier.

"Make it work?" I offered him.

He threw his head back and laughed. "No shit." Fingers wrapped around my wrist, pulling my hand to his chest. "This has to work."

"Oh yeah?"

Sacha nodded, still smiling. "Yeah, Princess. It does."

I kissed his cheek, slinking one leg between his. "I know." I kissed his cheek again. "Who else is going keep you entertained if you don't have me?"

After a brief pause with no answer, we looked at each other and laughed.

"Julian?"

He kissed my nose while his chest vibrated with a rough chuckle. "I love you."

The admission crushed my heart, flattening it out and ruining it for the rest of my existence. "I know."

"You do?" he asked me softly.

"Yep." I pulled away from him to get a better glimpse at the smooth texture of the skin on his face and the long, dark lashes that framed his colored eyes. It wasn’t necessary to think of all the things he did and had done to let me know he cared about me, mainly because for the first time in my life, I felt his affection. His attention. I felt Sacha in a way that had no explanation or reason. I knew love in its many forms. I knew how I loved Eli in a way that made perfect sense because we’d been stuck together for so long. I knew how I loved the other two baboons, but this… was nothing like that. It was undeniable, bright and massive.

It was a rainbow, a unicorn, a million-dollar lottery ticket and happiness incarnate all rolled into one thing.

"I love you. So much."

His smile was the size of Jupiter and brighter than the sun. "I—," he stuttered, flushing. "I—"

"You can get it out," I teased him.

Sacha smirked. "How much?"

"How much what?"

I rolled my eyes. "I just said ‘so much.’ A lot. Too much." I hummed in my throat. "Why?"

"Because if you don't love me very much, I have a lot more work to do until you do," he stated.

That was suspicious. "Why?"

"Because I don't think I'm going to like being away from you when the tour is over." He tugged on my earlobe, wrapping his arm around my waist to hoist me on top of him. He was hard already, pressing against the thin material of his boxer briefs.

"I don't think I'm going to either," I admitted to him, trying not to rock over his thick erection but failing miserably. "You don't have to tour again for at least a few months after this, right?"

He nodded against me. His fingers slipped underneath the hem of my shirt. "No. We're just writing until we're ready for the next album. This is the last tour for the cycle."

"We'll figure it out," I promised, letting him peel off my shirt. His thumbs brushed over my nipples slowly. Looking away from the movement of his fingers, I smiled, taking in that handsome face. "We have to."

---

"Twelve men?" The van driver, who was also our translator, confirmed with Julian our group number before relaying the information to the receptionist working at the front desk of the hotel in Muenster.

I shot a side-glance over to my brother, who was standing next to me. "Pretty sure I'm not a man," I whispered.

Eli snickered, throwing an elbow out to catch me on my lowest rib. "Notice how no one bothered to correct him?"

"Jerk."

"Just speaking the truth, Flabby. You're pretty much a dude." He laughed. "Except Sacha thinks you're pretty, and I guess you do have nice hair."

"I think your hair is nicer, you douchebag.” I elbowed him back. "But thanks for telling me you like my hair."

Eliza rolled his eyes, poking me in the forehead before we followed Christof, our translator extraordinaire, down the hallway that led to our hotel rooms. "Want to go eat at that little restaurant we passed on the walk over here?"

I nodded at him, pausing at a door that Christof explained would be my room. My brother followed after him. I’d barely opened the door when a presence came up behind me. "Princess,” Sacha said as he reached over me and pushed the door open wider.

"Sas," I grinned up him, stepping inside.

He followed in after me, dropping his bag right by the door. "I missed you today."

"Me too," I said, dropping my bag alongside his and wrapping my arms around his waist.

He'd been busy all day. There'd been two interviews with German magazines, a television interview, then a soundcheck in a venue with bad PA equipment that took twice as long as it should have. We'd only seen each other when we’d woken up and had breakfast, and then in passing during the day. I'd spent the afternoon at the Prinzipalmarkt and the Pablo Picasso museum with Carter before we headed back to set up merch.

How the hell was I supposed to cope with not being around him in a few days? Instead of being separated by doors and fans, it was going to be thousands of miles and mountain ranges that separated us. It made my heart ache thinking about it.

"I'm really tired," he murmured, kissing my nose. "My throat is starting to hurt, too."

I winced. "Eli said something about going to eat, do you want me to bring you something back so you can stay here and rest?"

Sacha nodded, sighing. "Please. Just food. I'm just going to make some tea, shower and lay down—"

"Naked?" I asked him, waggling my eyebrows to get his mind away from feeling crappy.

He snickered. "For you, anything."

Planting another kiss on his lips that lingered decades, I dropped another one on his throat and started backing away toward the door before stopping. What the hell was I doing leaving? “Do you want me to stay?”

“I’ll be fine. I’d rather stay here and you bring me something back.”

I eyed him for a second before nodding. "Call Eli if you need me, okay?"

"I will," he scoffed halfheartedly. "Cheap-ass."

Still on my case about refusing to turn on my cell phone so that I could avoid roaming charges, I winked and walked out of the room. Eli stood down the hall with his hands buried in the pockets of his loose shorts. He waved me over before we made our way out of the hotel and toward an open restaurant.

"You all right?" I asked.

He nodded slowly, the growing curls on his head catching my attention. "I still feel like shit, and I’m ready to go home."

"I hear ya.” Because I did. I was tired of hotels, little to no privacy, and always being on the move, but the idea of not seeing the people I’d grown so close to over the last three months regularly, bummed me out even more.

Opening the door before me, he narrowed his eyes. "Did you figure out what you're doing yet when we get back?"

I groaned. "No."

"No idea?" He didn't believe me. I usually had a plan for everything.

In this case, I only had the next four days planned. After that…

"Not a single one," I sighed.

"What about your honey boo?" His question was low and cautious.

Eliza and I hadn't really talked about the situation with Sacha very much. It was weird, at least with my brother. He knew how I felt about him, using that special sixth sense, and he'd been the first one to tell me that Sacha felt the same way in return, but still. I knew Sacha's intentions were pure and honest. That didn't mean the future still wasn't scary and full of variables.

"He's planning on visiting a week after we get home."

Eliza raised an eyebrow. "Huh."

"What?"

He shrugged too slowly. "That's… soon."

"And?"

"It's good," he explained. "It makes me happy, Flabby. That kid thinks you're the greatest thing on the planet, and I'm glad he does. You deserve somebody like that.” When my eyes started to get watery at his commentary, he yanked on the end of my ponytail really hard. "No crying allowed. Stop it."

"You love me."

He groaned and looked away. "Yeah, I do, estupid. That's my nice deed of the year."

I laughed before wrapping both of my arms around his giant bicep. "Thanks, E. I'm glad you invited me to come on tour."

Eli shot me a sick glance before opening his mouth, sticking his finger part of the way inside in a gagging motion. "Trust me. We all know how thankful you are that you came on tour, you dirty whore."

He wasn't surprised at all when I punched him in the stomach.

"You two lovebirds will figure it out. I won't be touring for a while, but you're more than welcome to go out with us again when the next one is confirmed," he said. “We can still get a place together.” I opened my mouth to say we should do it, but he put up a hand. “Think about it. Give it a few weeks to see what happens, Flabs. All right?”

I nodded at him, grateful for his offer but not sure if I'd want to go on tour again after all of this, even if it was months or years from this moment. Plus, if Sacha was gone and I was gone, we'd never get to see each other. Something deep in the pit of my stomach told me this long-distance crap was going to be hard.

But all the best things in life weren't exactly supposed to be easy either, right?