Page 35 of Anything But Lonely

He called her his girl.

I press my palms to my face, letting my head fall into the stream of water as I groan at not only the ridiculous train of thought but just to do something with the embarrassment flooding through me.

Who cares what Liam calls her? Not me.

Not me.

After Emerson took Crew to get lunch, she texted me that they were stopping by a park nearby before the driver would take them back to the venue so I could spend time with Crew before the show.

I thought it was a good opportunity for them to continue getting comfortable with one another since it’s just the beginning of eight long months of the two of them spending almost all their time together—that, and I needed at least an hour or two before facing her again.

When we finished soundcheck, I went straight to the hotel gym, needing to burn off the residual embarrassment from the morning.

If today is any indication of how it’ll be having Emerson on tour, I need to make sure I have a handle on myself. In more ways than one.

My mind drifts to the brief few minutes where I think I might have shown my son’s nanny that I wasn’t completely pathetic—after the microphone incident and before the caveman one.

I can’t pretend I didn’t see the way she watched me. The way her eyes tracked my every movement as I sang. She looked at me like she wasn’t just listening to the music—it was like she was feeling every damn word.

I should be thinking about tonight’s setlist.

The change to the harmony in the first song.

The song we’re adding as an encore.

Instead, I keep remembering the way her eyes lingered.

How she watched me in a way that made me feel like just her gaze could strip me down to the barest, most vulnerable parts of me.

And I’d let her—that’s the part that has me so fucked up.

For reasons I don’t quite understand—reasons that have to be my body holding out for so long, wanting to be wanted.

Long enough that I'd be lying if I said I hadn't imagined crossing the distance. Jumping off the stage and heading straight to her, just to feel her eyes without so much space in between. Like wanting to be closer to the sun, just to feel the rays directly on my skin.

Long enough that when she smiled at me a few minutes later, all sharp edges and quick wit, it was enough to have me forgetting every lyric I’ve been rehearsing for years and start wondering what it would take to make her look at me like that again.

Then she opened her mouth, called me a liability in front of my entire band, and walked away holding my son's hand like she'd been doing it her whole life.

It’s been so long since a person has had this effect on me, and I blame our close proximity and that she just happens to be the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Combine that with her snark and her attitude, and how she shoved her way into my life when I needed it most, and it’s like a recipe for disaster.

I haven’t had such a visceral reaction to someone in years.

My dick aches at the thought, and I realize how painfully hard I am.

The reminder of it all—how long it’s been since my body reacted to someone like this—has my eyes closing, imagining Emerson opening the shower door, her naked body just inches from mine, only the shower steam between us.

My hand wraps around my dick, and I hiss at the contact. I can’t help but pretend that it’s her. That it’s Emerson. I try not to—try to think of anyone else. Try to tell myself that this is just a need for release, nothing more.

But then I remember the way she smirked at me on stage today, like she knows the power she holds over me in this moment, like she knows that it pushed me straight into a frenzy of lust, unable to think of anything but her body against mine.

And then it’s only her. I imagine her stroking me, up and down, so painfully slow that it takes everything in me not to grab her hand and do it for her.

No, I want to be at her mercy.

For fuck’s sake, I’ve known her for less than forty-eight hours, and, somehow, I think I already am.

I want her to set me on fire and bask in the flames—because knowing all her attention is on me is enough to have me forgetting all about the pain.