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“Are you sure? You hit the ground hard.” He ran his other hand over the back of my head and his fingers confidently searched for any signs of damage. “I don’t feel anything.”
I was feeling plenty. I had to stop myself from leaning into his chest and asking him to keep looking for the next thirty minutes. When he pulled his hands away and stepped back, I wanted to pout. “Thank you.”
He looked towards the back of the bus. “I should shower.”
Or not. I was fine with him smelling like he smelled. Instead of voicing those bizarre thoughts, I nodded a little too aggressively and took a step back. “Well, I should go. I’m sorry I invaded your time. I’m sure y’all have things to do. I have an ex to forget, so I’ll be on my way. Thank you for taking care of me while I was out. That was kind.”
Mack, still too underdressed for my poor eyes, spoke up again. “Stay. We’re going to celebrate a show well done at a bar in town. There’s no better way to forget.”
I hesitated and looked around at the three of them. I had nothing else to do. The motel room I’d booked wasn’t anywhere I wanted to be anymore, as it was the Honeymoon suite. My overnight bag was in my rental car so I could grab it easily to change into something for the bar. Then I could just grab a ride to a different hotel for the night. Plus, if I had a drink with JAX, my brother Jagger would die of jealousy. He was a massive fan.
I shrugged. “Sure. Why not? I just need to go get my bag.”
Mack walked closer and I had to press my toes into my shoes as hard as I could to keep from scooting away from all of his bare muscles. “We’ll have someone grab it for you. In case your head is worse than we think.”
So. Many. Bare. Muscles. I licked my lips and looked down at my hand as it extended to drop my keys into his palm. What the hell was my body doing? “It’s in my rental car.”
He looked at the tag on the key with the make and model of the car. “We’ll take care of it. You need anything else?”
I leveled a look at him as shock overpowered my lust. “My job is literally to run around and assist a band manager, which usually means my job is doing things for bands. I’m supposed to be asking you ifyouneed anything else.”
He stepped even closer and I saw that he was just as tall as Jones and towered over me. His eyes were as dark as the others were light. Dark, chocolatey brown eyes that matched his hair and thick beard. Only his beard had a little salt and pepper in it that I found incredibly attractive. His head was shaved on the sides but the top of his hair was longer and messy after his shower.
Then my eyes landed on the tattoo over his heart and I realized I didn’t know enough about the band to know if staring at Mack’s bare chest was wrong. There was a woman’s name over his heart, entwined in the vines of a beautiful flower.Emily.If Emily was a girlfriend, or more, I wanted nothing to do with staring at his naked chest, lusting away. Not after finding Matthew with Miriam.
“You’re not at work. If you’re going to stay and drink with us, you’re simply Layla and we’re just a few random guys.Understand?” He threw that word back at me and when I lifted my eyes to his face, I found him smirking. He lifted his hand to his chest and tapped it. “Your eyebrows give away every one of your emotions. It’s my mother’s name. I didn’t wantMomacross my chest.”
I took a deep breath to fight the emotion threatening to squeeze my chest. So what if he loved his mother? Who cared if it was hot? Not me. “I don’t need anything else. Just my bag.”
He smiled. “Good girl. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
I wanted to hiss at him even as my panties disintegrated into a puff of smoke. I settled on rolling my eyes and turning my back to him. When he laughed, I had a feeling he’d won whatever battle we’d just had.
4
Layla
WhileIsatquietlyon one of their couches, the guys took turns taking showers and getting ready. I canceled my hotel room for the night and tried to book another, but everything was full. I decided I’d just sleep in my rental car that night and leave for the airport as soon as I woke up. I could clean up there and catch an earlier flight back home without having to wait too long, if I was lucky.
A knock on the door came a little while later and I got up to answer it without thinking. I was used to doing everything for Matthew and that attitude just extended to other parts of my life, it seemed. Iwashanging out with the biggest band at the record label. No matter how many ways or times Mack suggested I look at them as regular guys, that wasn’t going to happen. They were all over the place in the Bingham office building. How I hadn’t immediately recognized them at first showed how angry I’d truly been.
I almost had my hand on the door handle to open it when Jones’ fingers closed over my wrist and pulled me away. I stumbled from the surprise of him suddenly appearing out of nowhere and he righted me with his hands on my hips.
“You don’t know who’s knocking. You don’t answer the door unless you know who it is.” He eased me back a few steps and opened the door himself. A few seconds passed before he closed it again and turned to me with my bag. “Are you sure this is all you need?”
I took the bag but I couldn’t help myself. “You answered the door without knowing who it was.”
He shrugged. “Yeah?”
“But you just said I couldn’t.” I dropped my bag on the couch and crossed my arms over my chest.
He inched closer to me and I was immediately aware that we were the only two people in the front of the bus. “You’re tiny. If someone had bad intentions, it would be a lot easier to hurt you than it would be to hurt me.”
I scoffed. “I’m not tiny. I’m bigger than most of the women who were trying to climb up the stage at your concert tonight, I bet.”
He stepped even closer. “You’re tiny compared to me.”
“I can open doors, Jones.” I tipped my head back slightly to hold his gaze as he moved closer.
