Page 61 of Before You Fell

They know the dynamics of what I am about to do.

For one second, I see the future waiting for me, its teeth bared.

Silence where songs used to be. Lyrics that never get finished. Jett, Jax, and Cruz looking at me with the kind of disappointment they don’t bother hiding when you finally fuck up something too important to laugh off.

For one second, I see it all. The band. The songs.

Then Willow’s fingers tighten around mine and every noble thought in my head gets on its knees and dies.

I keep walking.

Tomorrow can choke on the guilt. Tomorrow can clean up the wreckage. Because tonight, I’m fucking her.

The hallway off the main floor is packed with staff, drunk girls gossiping, some asshole yelling into his phone over the music, and two idiots having the least interesting argument in human history outside the bathrooms.

There are too many people. Not enough privacy to fuck her the way I want to.

Willow pulls on my arm, dragging me back to her mouth.

I groan into the kiss and crowd her against the nearest stretch of wall, trapping her in. Her hands disappear beneath my shirt, her fingers dragging over my ribs, and my cock throbs hard enough to make me swear against her mouth.

I have had women under me. Over me. Bent over hotel furniture where I fucked them senseless and somehow one touch from Willow has my cock acting as though it just crawled out of puberty. Frankly, after the miles I have put on this cock, I expected the bastard to show a little professionalism.

My mouth claims hers with all the greed God gave me, and by the time her head tips back against the wall and she breathes my name, something dark and smug rolls through me.

Mine.

Fuck romance. Romance is for men with flowers, clean intentions, and the patience to wait three dates for pussy.

I am not that man.

I am the asshole who has spent years watching other men breathe too close to her, imagining how their faces would look after I introduced them to a wall. And now she is here. Under my hands. Mouth open. Nails in my skin. Saying my fucking name like she has any idea what it does to me.

She doesn’t.

I bite the side of her neck instead, just enough to make her gasp and clutch my shirt tighter.

One little sound from Willow and my cock goes stupid, hard and greedy and ready to embarrass us both.

A staff door opens down the hall and a man steps out carrying a crate of empty bottles.

I pull back because if I keep my mouth on her for one more second, I’m going to forget about doors, people, laws, and every other boring little invention standing between me and getting my cock inside her.

The door swings slowly behind him, but not quite catching.

And there it is. A fucking invitation.

I grab Willow’s hand and pull her down the hall. The guy looks up as we pass, his eyes flicking once toward us before he decides whatever the hell is going on here is none of his business.

I shove the door open and pull us inside, making damn sure it closes behind us.

The room beyond is small, dim, and packed with stacked liquor boxes, spare bar towels, a metal shelf, and a narrow counter shoved under a cracked mirror. It smells of lemons, dust, cleaning spray, and spilled alcohol.

For half a second, there is only the muffled thud of music through the wall and the sound of our breathing.

I kiss her before either of us gets stupid enough to talk. Because talking has ruined nights like this before.

All I want right now is to fuck.