She finally pulls back and looks at me, her hands clutching my face. “Did you see that?” she asks.
“See what?” I have lost all my wits in her kiss.
“Me playing. Did you see it?”
I nod, nuzzling my nose into her neck. “You were amazing.”
“I know! Wasn’t I? Oh my God, I want to go back out there.” She unclenches her legs from around my waist and drops her feet to the floor. She starts to pace back and forth across the room, chewing on her fingernail. I can’t see her lips moving at all, but I lean against the wall and smile at her. “What’s so funny?” she asks, stopping to look at me.
“Nothing,” I say. I walk to her and brush her sweaty hair from her neck. “You’re just so f**king beautiful.” She shivers as I blow across her neck.
Her hand comes up to cover mine where it lays on her shoulder, and I get more comfort from that little touch than I ever have from a girl I’ve been inside. “Thank you for bringing me here,” she says.
“Thank you for coming with me.”
“I haven’t had this much fun in a really long time,” she admits. She’s glowing.
I lean down and kiss her, because she’s that damn pretty. She hears something from the doorway, and turns to look that way. “I’ll be right there,” she says, holding up a finger. She looks up at me. “They’re ready to get started again.”
“I have to get back to work, anyway. The owner just sent us back here because he was afraid I was going to f**k you on the stage.”
She covers her mouth with her hand. “So, they think we’re having sex back here. Are you serious?” Her eyes are wide.
I can’t keep from grinning. “Probably.”
“Do you do that back here often?” she asks.
I freeze. I don’t want to answer her. Because I have done it. She doesn’t push for an answer. But she heaves a sigh and shoves herself away from me. I feel the loss of her immediately. “Don’t do that,” I say, taking her face in my hands. “I can’t change my past.”
She looks deep into my eyes and says, “I know. I didn’t ask you to. I just have to go back on stage.” She kisses me softly. “Can we come back to this later?” she asks, grinning. She’s nearly vibrating with excitement.
She’s not mad at me. Thank God. “We can come back to this as often as you want.” Any time. Any place.
She darts away from me, and I tug on her fingers to hold her back. She pulls back from me slowly and I ache with wanting to jerk her back into my arms. But she turns and runs away.
She hops back up on the stage and I follow her. The lead singer turns to her, scowling. “You and Logan, huh?” he asks. I can read his lips from where I’m standing.
She grins and nods her head.
He says something that looks like, “Figures,” before he scowls and turns toward me. I point to her and point to my chest and mouth the word “mine” at him. He gets it. He totally gets it. He might not want it to be true. But he knows she’s not in his future. She’s my future.
I go see Abby and get Kit a root beer. She’s been sweating up there for an hour, and they have another set to do. I point to the root beer lever on the fountain and raise my brows. “For you?” Abby asks, with a pointed finger as she fills a glass. I point to Kit. She nods and drops two cherries into it. I turn to take it to Kit and Abby tugs on my sleeve. “Where did she learn to play like that?” Abby asks.
I shrug. I have no idea where she learned to play. All I know is that she’s good. I can tell by the way the crowd is reacting to her. My heart is filled with pride for her. And it’s filled with a lot more. A lot more that she’s probably not ready to address yet.
I take her root beer to her and stand by the side of the stage to wait until she’s done with the song. But she marches down the steps, her fingers flying over the strings, and she leans over, taking the straw into her mouth. She sucks it greedily, and there’s not a man in the room who’s not envious of me right that moment. She never stops playing, but she drains the glass. Then she smiles at me, kisses me quickly and struts back up the steps and onto the stage. Great. Now I have a hard on and so does every man within a twenty foot radius. Suddenly, she runs back down the steps. She nods toward a cherry in the glass and I lift it to her lips. She takes it against the tip of her tongue and closes her lips around it. She pops it off the string with a gentle tug. She nods to the other, and looks at my lips. She taunts me with her grin, and I lift it to my lips and open my mouth for it. I tongue it from the stem, taking my time with it, playing with her, until she leans over, opens her mouth over mine, and takes it back from me.
I pretend to look offended, but I’m so f**king turned on that all I can do is look like an idiot.
Emily
I crash onto the stool at the end of the bar I’d vacated when I took over the band’s guitar, and lean my elbows on the table. A grin I can’t suppress tugs at my lips. Abby clinks a root beer down in front of me. “That was amazing!” she says as she tosses in two cherries.
I nod. It was pretty damn amazing. I’m still trying to catch my breath. I lift my wet hair off my neck and roll it into a lump, then let it go.
“You been playing for a long time?” Abby asks. She wipes the bar down with a rag.
“I think I was playing before I could walk,” I admit. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t have a guitar. “My grandfather gave me my first guitar.” My dad was all for it, until it became the only thing I was good at.