Chapter 9

Jude

It was 11:39 p.m. when I managed to pull away from the backstage party, I headed for the bus parked in the private part of the arena. Several other buses were parked there, too. The celebrations that usually took place after the exhibitions kept everyone in the parking lot afterward. Loud music thumped from inside a few of the buses. A gaggle of young women ran to another tour bus as I kept an eye trained for Ava, who’d managed to disappear twice on me—once during the show, and then a second time backstage.

Anger simmered in me as I stalked through the hot night in the direction of my bus. I had no idea what Ava’s problem was, but I planned on finding out tonight. Part of her job was to get the entire feel of what it was like to live my life. She wanted to write the damn article about me. She’d accepted the job proposal.

It didn’t help that she wanted to fight against any sort of relationship we could have. I never asked for a commitment. I just wanted her for myself, at least for the short period of time we would be together.

The flash of headlights caught my attention. I stopped walking as the black SUV pulled up alongside me. The window rolled down to reveal Chuck, who looked exhausted and sweaty from the entire evening.

“You heading back to the bus?” Chuck asked.

I rested my forearms on the edge of the window. “Yeah. I’m too tired to even think about celebrating like the rest of these fuckers around here.”

“Might be a good idea to pass on it. There are some young and questionable women running around the parking lot.”

“Good to know,” I said wryly. “I’ll make sure some of the other racers use common sense when it comes to women.”

Like I have any sense when it comes to Ava.

Chuck seemed to read my mind as he nodded to the bus in the distance. Lights were on, a sure sign that Ava was still awake.

“She’s been in the bus for the past couple of hours,” he said. “She figured you were out enjoying another female’s company, so she voted to stay in the bus instead of a hotel room.”

I rolled my eyes at her noble decision to step aside to let a female groupie have her way with me. I had seen the jealous spark in her eyes before she turned away to hurry in the opposite direction.

“Very nice of her,” I said cynically. “I’ll give you a call in the morning. We have to roll out within a few hours of dawn.”

Chuck nodded his balding head. “Right on, boss. Have a good night. Stay out of trouble.”

“I always stay out of trouble,” I said, taking a step back as Chuck rolled up the window with a chuckle.

I walked past another tour bus but stopped short when I heard Billy Thor, a nineteen-year-old racer, call out my name. He sat beneath a sunshade next to his bus with his team and a few fans. He reminded me of a country boy, with his damn cowboy hat, his tight jeans, boots, and a ripped shirt. He was a scraggly thing, too, but he could race his ass off when he really concentrated.

“What up, JJ?” he asked, clasping my hand tightly. “Just wanted to say good show out there, man. You’re the best for a reason.”

I nodded at him. “You did great, too, bro. I was able to watch a little bit of your exhibition when I was backstage.”

I swept a glance over the young female fans who were seated beneath his sunshade. I caught sight of a cooler next to them that was undoubtedly full of beer. Years ago, I had done the same thing. I had thrown my first party at fourteen years old, when my parents were in jail for a weekend for hitting one another.

Curling my fingers around the back of Billy’s neck, I pulled him in close to me to whisper into his ear, “Listen, man. I really like you. Just be careful about those girls over there, okay? I don’t want to see you go into the slammer for tapping the underage ones running around here.”

“You don’t tap any groupies?” Billy asked, visibly surprised by that. “I figured with all the woman around you—”

“It’s rare,” I said, and it was rare. The women I had slept with over the years rarely came from the exhibitions, despite what the tabloids said. I refused to let that part of my life be tainted by getting tangled up with the wrong woman.

Billy glanced at my bus in confusion. “I’m confused, then. There’s a woman doing yoga in her bra in your bus. You’re telling me that you aren’t hitting that?”

I fucking wish that I was. I glanced over at the bus, but I couldn’t catch any sight of Ava. I looked over at Billy, who looked away with a guilty expression. I couldn’t help the grin tugging at my lips.

“I’m sorry,” he said, cheeks reddening. “I thought you were in there, so I was peeking through the windows when I saw her.”

“If it was someone else looking at her, I’d kick their ass,” I said, squeezing him fondly. “Just a bit of advice is all, bro. Stay out of trouble tonight.”

“You, too. I appreciate it, man.”

Billy returned to his seat beneath the sunshade. I nodded goodbye to him before I hurried along the row of buses until I reached mine. I peered inside one of the windows to find Ava in a pair of black yoga pants and a white sports bra. Her dark hair was in a loose braid around her back. Music, the type of serene music I heard in elevators, played softly from inside.

My mouth went dry as I watched Ava bend over gracefully to touch the front of her toes with her fingers easily. It gave me a nice view of her perfectly tight ass cheeks that were highlighted nicely through those yoga pants.

“Fucking beautiful,” I murmured, already throbbing with need.

Our last kiss on the bus had ended in disaster. Ava had remained guarded throughout the rest of the drive to Boston, but all of that was going to change tonight. She had kissed me back. Her body had responded to my touch. We both wanted each other, but she had to be so damn stubborn about everything. That was just Ava’s nature.

I opened the bus door as quietly as possibly before closing it shut behind me. I slid the lock into place before drawing the shades down. I didn’t want Billy sneaking another glance in my bus to see what we were doing.

Ava remained oblivious to me coming up from behind. Her eyes were closed. A serene expression spread across her face as she breathed in deeply, holding that position with her ass high in the air. Perfectly level with my cock.

I reached out to grasp her hips firmly and pulled her backward against me. Ava let out a startled shriek, and she tried to twist around to look at me. Not willing to let her argue her way out of this one, I pressed my lips against hers in a deep kiss that muffled her protests. She struggled against my arms encircling her waist, but her lips glided beneath mine as she returned the kiss. Our tongues tangled for a brief moment before I spun her around so that I could press myself up against her.

“Stop,” Ava gasped, pulling away before I could kiss her again. “Jude, stop it. We talked about this. You know why we can’t do this.”

Frustration tore through me. “Why though? I don’t understand.”

“I already told you why.” Ava slipped away from me, grabbed her shirt, and tugged it on before turning to face me. “I thought you were going to be with someone tonight, so I didn’t think you were going to be in the bus.”

“It’s my bus,” I stated flatly. “And the only woman I’m with is you.”

Ava turned away from me to head in the direction of the bunks. She paused before climbing into one of the bunks to look at me with guarded eyes.

“There are millions of them out there. I think you’re going to be fine without me.”

“What the fuck, Ava?”

She didn’t respond and drew the curtain closed. I listened to her settle down in the bunk before complete silence descended over the bus. My erection throbbed painfully from inside of my pants. I debated ripping the curtain off the damn pole, but I forced myself to stalk back into the bedroom to slam the door shut. There would be no sleep with this damn erection throbbing for the one woman who didn’t want anything to do with me because of her own doubts.

“Fuck this,” I grumbled, stalking to the private bathroom in the back. “I’m going to get pleasure tonight, either way.”

I twisted the hot water on. Slipping out of my clothes, I stepped into the hot spray with a relieved sigh, despite the ache between my legs. I let the hot spray work away the aches in my muscles from riding hard for the past few hours before focusing on the one organ that needed Ava’s attention the most. I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to spoil an amazing orgasm, but I couldn’t stand it any longer. My entire body was going to go blue by the end of all of this.

I slammed my hand into the shower wall to resist the temptation, though. It wasn’t going to happen like this. I refused to let Ava have control over what happened between us.

After a shitty night of wet dreams involving Ava tangled up in my bed, I rose early in a foul mood to call Chuck and my driver back to the bus. Ava stepped out of the small bathroom with a towel wrapped about her damp hair when I came back inside the bus. Just thinking about her soapy and naked didn’t help matters as she climbed back into the bunk and pulled the curtain shut to avoid contact.

Breakfast was just as unbearable. Chuck attempted conversation with Ava, who answered politely, but she pointedly kept her back turned toward me. I downed a cup of coffee with a sigh of aggravation. I couldn’t stand the cold treatment anymore because it was driving me crazy in all the right, fucked up ways.

“I need to talk to you,” I said before Ava could climb up into the bus. “We need to talk about some shit before you get on that bus.”

Ava turned to look at me with a cool expression. She folded her arms across her chest as she came back down the bus steps. “What is it?”

“You’re coming along to write a piece about me,” I said, coming to a stand in front of her. “But you refuse to even get close enough to talk to me. You haven’t spoken a damn word to me all fucking morning.”

A flicker of nerves went across Ava’s face as she took a step back to put distance between the two of us. As usual. She cleared her throat as she looked away from me.

“Sometimes I have to recharge before I write. That’s all I’m doing. Writing’s a hard task that you—”

“Bull fucking shit,” I gritted out, not buying the excuse. “Are you even taking any of this seriously, Ava? Or is it some fucking joke to you?”

Ava snapped back around to glare at me.

“Of course I’m taking this seriously. Have you ever taken anything seriously in your life?”

I curled my hands into fists to keep control of my rapidly fraying temper. “Yeah, once. Back in high school. She told me to go to hell.”

Ava reared back in shock at those words. I stomped by her to go up the bus steps to let something painful settle into her for once. She had no idea what it felt like to be told to go to hell by the one person she loved more than anything in the world.