Vaguely, and only because I didn’t have the pleasure of being high at age fourteen.

“We didn’t even have hair on our balls back then. Besides, I shagged her long before he started dating her.” I waved him off dismissively. “Laura left him because he was a miserable sod who gave her very little attention. He’d been itching to go on this tour and join us in L.A. When they broke up, I took him in, bought him a plane ticket, brought him to California, same as I did with you. The way he repaid me was throwing Fallon and Will together. Guess what? I still hired his arse as my drummer. Well, now he owes a debt, and I finally chose a way to collect it. He’s going to see what it feels like when the girl slips from between your fingers. Spoiler alert—it’s not pretty. Not by a long shot.”

The lift door slid open. The walk to our suite was so quiet our footfalls on the carpeted floor echoed on the walls in dull thuds. It was eleven fifty-four. Part of me wanted to see if Indie would come out to the hallway at midnight willingly, but the greater part didn’t give two shits. There were songs to be written. She was going to help me whether she liked it or not.

“You staying outside?” Blake rubbed his forehead tiredly, his other hand already on the doorknob.

I nodded toward my babysitter’s room. “I’m finishing this tour with an album.” It was a declaration, not a wish.

“With the amount of mess you’re creating in the process, you goddamn better.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, slamming the door in my face.

Eleven fifty-five.

I stood and stared at her door, wondering if Lucas was there. Surely, he wasn’t so daft as to try to mess with what was mine. And that was the naked, raw truth. Indigo Bellamy was mine. I paid her to be here.

She was at my disposal, for better or worse.

I was going to use her.

And fuck her.

And taunt Lucas with her, because he had nowhere to go—he’d literally have to see it. Day after day. Night after night. Like I saw Fallon and Will on every website, in every magazine, and every media outlet in the world. Kissing, hugging, smiling for the camera. “Bushell Finds Love!” “State of the Art: Will Finds His Muse!” “Love on Lankford Lane.”

Eleven fifty-six.

I swore her door was taunting me.

I was sober enough to recognize this wasn’t logically plausible, yet somehow, it was. I needed to knock and get it over with, but something stopped me.

Eleven fifty-seven.

A sound came from behind the door. A cross between a groan and a moan. Was Waitrose touching her? Was she touching herself? My blood heated in my veins, my dick hardening in my briefs. I imagined her mounting a white hotel pillow, clutching it between her sun-kissed thighs and riding it with her fingers deep inside her pussy. She was so small, I wondered what she’d look like from the inside. Pink and tight and easily bruised. I wanted to stick my tongue in and check. To rip her panties and see if her bum was the same color as her bronzed face and shoulders. The need to know was carnal. Like this was the greatest mystery one could possibly unearth.

Oomph , my cock strained against my zipper, swelling to a point where I felt my pulse thudding through its veins.

Eleven fifty-eight.

Footfalls fell along her room. Back, forth. Back, forth. She was probably packing, not masturbating. I cupped my dick through my jeans, rearranging my junk and cracking my neck. Right. I needed a fuck. Stardust was still a no-go. She was the get-to-know-you-first type of bird. I made a mental note to jog from the plane the minute we landed in Japan and stick my cock into the first set of open legs I could find. Maybe even at the airport. No matter if I got caught. It wasn’t like there was one person in the western world who hadn’t seen my cock yet. Including Indie herself. And the way her eyes had brightened when she’d looked at it…

Eleven fifty-nine.

Restless. Why the fuck was I restless? She was nothing to me. And yet, she was obviously something. It was the album, I decided. It was doing my bloody head in.

Midnight.

The door was still closed. I didn’t hear her little feet or feel her approaching, and I should have. Body heat had the ability to move through wood and steel and space. My jaw clenched and my fist curled around her doorknob. It was pointless. The door was automatically locked, and even I was perceptive enough to acknowledge I had no right to barge into her space.

Twelve oh-one.

The girl wasn’t going to comply. What a little spitfire, she was. I raised my fist to knock on the door. The second my knuckles were about to connect with the wood, it swung open. Indie stood there, her eyes swollen and red. Somewhere in my throat, there were words I couldn’t say. Mostly profanity, so it was probably good I kept silent.

“I need someone to hold me tonight,” she croaked, hugging her midsection. Her eyes fluttered in defeat at her own sincerity, like she was giving me something precious. Her weakness. And of course—I took it. I stepped into her room. If there was anyone doing any holding of Indigo Bellamy on this tour, it was going to be me. She pushed me away, her palm connecting with my chest, and stepped outside into the hallway with me.

This evening, when she’d told me about her parents, I’d felt sorry for her. It looked like her parents had actually been decent human beings.

“Let’s keep it impersonal, shall we? Weren’t you the one who made the rule about staying out of each other’s rooms when we write? The hallway is neutral.”

“We’re way past neutral, and fuck if you aren’t being difficult again,” I grunted.

“I’m allowed to be whatever I want tonight.” She sniffed.

She was probably right. I wasn’t an orphan, but I might as well be, with parents like mine.

Not giving her the chance to resist, I immediately wrapped my arms around her body, holding her like breakable china. She wasn’t as boney as I’d thought she’d be. In my mind, she felt like hugging a sack of marbles, when in reality, she was soft everywhere. It made me tighten my arms around her, like she could slip through my fingers, like mist.

My chin rested on the top of her head; her nose was buried in my armpit. She was warm and silky. Delicious, really. I wanted to take her like a drug. All at once, in one gulp. I wanted to overdose on her like cocaine, and heroin, and crack, knowing the destruction I was willingly inhaling into my body. Because Indie, like drugs, was a temporary fix. Once our three months were up, she’d leave my surly arse and run back to what was left of her dysfunctional-yet-loving family.