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Her mouth forms a cute little O shape, her eyes widening at my words.
“Yeahhh,” I draw. “I thought you sent her after what she told me. Thought maybe I was crazy to try.” I lean my head down to press my forehead against hers, but I don’t miss the tears that prick her eyes. “But I had to anyways.”
“Rex,” Aria whispers, my name both a gift and a curse in that tone on her lips. “I can’t be in the spotlight like you. I can’t be center stage.” I kiss her forehead to soothe her worries and inhale that sweet tropical scent that is Aria.
Hell, maybe it’s to soothe my own.
“I don’t expect you to be, babe.” Sitting back, I hold her jaw in my hands and look her dead in the eye. “After this tour, I’m out.”
All the color drains from her face. She pushes to sit up, propping herself up on an arm and running a hand through her hair.
“What do you mean, ‘out’?” she asks over her shoulder, her words barely above a whisper. As if speaking any louder will break the little bubble we’ve created here.
“I mean out. Out of the band. Out of the spotlight.” Aria blinks at me, slowly, absorbing the emotion behind my words. “I don’t need it like I once did. I’d rather take my chances with you.” I grab her wrist and tug until her torso meets mine.
“That’s stupid as hell.” She blurts, her color, and her attitude, returning full bore.
Holy shit, that’s hot.
She pushes up from me and kneels beside me, armed with a cocked brow and a pillow. I barely get my arm up and my laugh out before she launches into an attack on my face and upper body.
“You!” She thumps me and I snort. “Can’t let!” Thump, thump, straight to my aching gut. “Down your fucking brothers!” Thump. I fucking howl at her assault to my head, neck, my shoulders. The material spreading static like wildfire with each point of contact, tugging at my hair, shoving the shit over my face and into my mouth.
Heaving, she sits back on her haunches, still fisting one corner of her fluffed weapon and pushes back her mussed hair with the other.
“The first fucking thing you ever told me about was them.” She reminds me, as if they weren’t a heavy factor in making that decision. In every decision since the beginning.
They were the biggest factor aside from her, actually. Mac was the first person to support my decision, as always. But the others? They were just as important.
Fin’s sat at Ma’s dinner table on more than one occasion, gobbling up her famous cobbler just like Mac, Leo, and Toby did as kids.
Toby learned bass in my garage at fourteen, giving As Above the first beat we ever wrote a song to.
And Leo? Even though we tried our best, he never could learn an instrument. So you know what he did? He went out and got a fucking business degree to help us manage the band. He hasn’t missed a beat, yet.
Fin didn’t find us until later, but I was glad as hell to have been in the presence of a guitar god for this long. To have him write with us and play with us was a blessing.
In fact, the end of this tour leads us right to an award show with Fin as the nominee.
I mean winner.
I admire my crew, the motley bunch of ‘em and I’m touched by her response.
“Babe,” I snicker, my heart full and my hands finding her skin like a moth to the flame. “We’ve sold millions of records, played in thousands of cities across the world. Had some of the finest meals and slept in a bus for a really long fucking time. I’m not letting them down at all.”
I claim her lips with mine, hot and ready. Slowly, I ease her back until her spine meets the mattress and my body covers hers.
I’m ready to finish what we started. To explore her curves and sample her skin.
To fuck her like I love her.
And then make love to her like I missed her.
So, I do.
26
AURORA
