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CHAPTER FOUR

Kane

“Holy shit, you booked a suite?” I asked, unable to hold back my shock and surprise as Austin led me into his huge open-plan room at The Library with gorgeously large windows hung with heavy curtains that looked out onto the dark street. The room was simultaneously modern and classic, spacious and cosy—juxtapositions that shouldn’t have been possible but somehow were. I’d stayed in their suites before but never this one, and I thought it was my favourite so far.

Or maybe that was just the company.

“Yeah boy,” Austin said as he shut the door behind us, his other hand still in mine. “I wanted to treat myself to something fancy.”

“You definitely did that.”

“Right? The bathroom’s like a whole motherfucking spa! The bath has a fucking hot tub setting and the shower… God, I could film so much content in that shower.”

I rolled my eyes at him, trying to ignore the way my stomach wriggled strangely. I didn’t want Austin fucking anyone else in that shower. I wanted him to fuck me. “Seriously?” I asked. “That’s the first thing you think of?”

Austin smirked and I yelped in surprise as he spun me around and pressed me up against the wall, his face suddenly inches from mine. “Are you jealous, kitten? You know I’m not thinking about anyone else. I love shooting porn but it’s still work.” He leant closer, brushing his lips against my ear. “And you can’t tell me you never think about work outside of shoots or rehearsals? You never watch a film, or read a book or a play, and think about how you might play a role? You don’t lie awake at night dreaming about being on set? Or awards you might win? Tell me you’ve never done any of that.”

“I—” I couldn’t, though, because Austin had me bang to rights and he knew it. Smug bastard. “Fine, you win.”

“Thank you.” He kissed me softly, his other hand cradling my jaw as he teased the seam of my lips with his tongue. I tried not to moan but it was impossible. Austin knew how to take me apart with only a kiss and I was putty in his hands. As he pulled away, I chased his mouth but all he did was chuckle softly. “No, baby, not yet. I have a surprise for you and you need to be at least half-dressed when it arrives, not naked and screaming my name.”

“I don’t scream,” I said petulantly as Austin stepped backwards, his hand still in mine.

He grinned. “Yeah, you do. And I love it. Remember all those times I’ve had to tell you to be quiet? Or make you be quiet?”

“Yes?” I squeaked as my face flamed. I’d always known I was a mouthy bastard but there was something different about having it confirmed like this.

“I know you do,” he said. “I never tell you because I don’t want to hear it. It’s only so we don’t get caught.” He pulled me close with a simple tug on my wrist, his other hand catching my waist as he tilted his head down for another kiss, his words caressing my skin. “That and I’ll admit I get possessive. I don’t want anyone else to know what you sound like when I’m inside you. Those pretty sounds belong to me.”

His kiss was rougher as he claimed my mouth and I melted into his arms. There was something about the idea of being Austin’s that made my pulse race, and suddenly Luke’s voice flashed into my head, asking me if I wanted things to change and reminding me that we’d been dancing the same dance for ten years. The thought almost made me gasp and if Austin hadn’t been holding me, I’d have jumped away like a startled cat.

He still noticed, though.

Because of course he did.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, pulling away and searching my face.

“Nothing… I just… remembered something awkward and it made me cringe. Do you ever get that? Where your brain suddenly reminds you of something super embarrassing and you want to run away.”

“Sometimes. But not usually while I’m being kissed.”

“Sorry, it was…” I scoured my brain for an actual memory to fill my excuse and nearly cringed when I hit upon one. “Remember that time I sucked you off in that bathroom when we were eighteen? At the teen awards show in LA? And then security came in looking for us and started knocking on all the stall doors and…”

“You had to stand on the seat and hope they didn’t look over the door while I pretended to be violently ill?”

Austin was almost laughing and I shook my head as I fought back my own. “Dude, you did not have to suddenly start farting on command and pretend you had diarrhoea. That was fucking gross.”

“It got them to go away, though, didn’t it?”

“I was stood right behind you! It was disgusting.”

“You don’t have brothers, do you?” Austin asked teasingly. “You’ve never been held down while they fart in your face or try and dutch oven you.”

“Again, gross.”

“Seriously? Did you and your bandmates never do stupid shit like that while you were on tour?”

“Er… no.” I felt my face fall as the memories of living under twenty-four-hour surveillance came to mind. I tried to push them away, but it was hard. Austin had never asked me questions like this before either. And it surprised me. We’d known each other for so long, but we’d never bothered to look beneath the surface until now. I didn’t know what had changed, but I wasn’t opposed to it. It was nice to have someone to talk about shit with. “We were always… supervised. We weren’t even allowed to share rooms.”

“Seriously? You never had any fun or got to, like, goof off and do stupid shit like setting your eyebrows on fire or seeing who can eat the hottest chillis without dying?”

I snorted. “God no, all fun was mandatory and organised, even when we were in our twenties and wanted to go out. Club nights were strictly supervised and I was supposed to stay extra squeaky-clean because of the whole gay thing.”

“God, that’s fucked up,” Austin said softly. “I’m sorry.”

I shrugged. “Don’t be. It’s all in the past. And we still all managed to become really good friends despite that. We got really sneaky too and good at lying. They’d cover for me when I snuck off to be with you, and I’d cover for them sneaking girls in or getting wasted or high. And security would look the other way if we asked nicely—I think they kinda felt sorry for us. It was like this unspoken rule. We’d behave when out and about and we wouldn’t go out and cause trouble, and they’d look the other way when we were in hotels. Like whatever happened in our rooms was none of their business. It worked too, but in hindsight…”

“It was fucked up?”

“Yeah, pretty much. But the record label didn’t care as long as we maintained the image they’d crafted for us, continued selling out shows, and made them millions of dollars.”

“That still fucking sucks.” Austin’s expression fell but I couldn’t work out if it was sympathy or pity. “I wish I’d known.”

“I wouldn’t have told you,” I said, leaning into him and taking comfort in the warm weight of his body against me. “For one, I didn’t realise how bad it was at the time. And two, I wouldn’t have wanted to risk my career by causing trouble. But… sneaking out with you was some of the most fun I had outside of being on stage.”

When I’d been with Austin, I’d felt free. Like I could be myself with no expectations, no rules, and no strings attached. I didn’t have to be Jude Kane. I could just be Kanan.

A knock on the door startled me and I sprang apart from Austin like I was suddenly expecting the SAS to come crashing through the door.

“Don’t panic,” he said with a smile. “It’s your surprise. I’ll go and get it.”

I ducked out of sight as he strolled over to the door, pulling his wallet out of the back pocket of his jeans. I heard him pull the door open, the sound of voices, and the clink of glasses and crockery as something was pushed into the room. I frowned, wondering what the fuck Austin was up to. I hadn’t been able to catch everything he’d said to the guy at the front desk, mostly because I’d deliberately moved away so I wasn’t spotted.

Austin had joked about romance, but he hadn’t actually done something ridiculous. Had he?

“Ta-da,” Austin said, pushing a fancy trolley around the corner with a cocky smirk on his face. “Never let it be said that Austin Carter can’t do romance.”

“What the fuck?” I laughed, trying to ignore the wild, giddy feeling spiralling through my chest as I stared at the trolley. In the middle was an enormous silver platter of fruit arranged artfully around a ramekin of melted chocolate with macaroons and little pieces of cake positioned in amongst the fruit. And when I looked closer, I realised they’d been arranged to look like little hearts.

There was also an ice bucket with a bottle of Taittinger champagne and two flutes and a bouquet of white roses. Where the fuck they’d found roses at this time of night was a mystery, but this was a top London hotel. They could pull miracles out of thin air.

“I promised I had something for you,” Austin said as he walked around the trolley, picking up a plump strawberry and dipping it in the pot of chocolate. He held it out to me and it was impossible to resist taking a large bite. The sweetness of the fruit burst on my tongue, its juice running down the side of my mouth. Austin grinned and leant in to lick it up before eating the rest of the strawberry. “I also promised you it wasn’t my dick.”

“I wasn’t expecting this,” I admitted. “It’s…” I didn’t have the words. I was too in shock. We’d never done anything like this. What the hell had prompted Austin to do it now? Not that I was complaining…

“Just say thank you, kitten. And then help me eat this.” Austin picked up a cherry and popped it into his mouth. “Then we’re going to take a bath with the jets on, drink that champagne, and after that I’m going to fuck you.”

“What if I want to skip straight to the fucking?”

“Then we drink the champagne afterwards.” He held out a macaroon, the smooth top decorated with a pink powder. “What do you say, darling? Want to get a tiny bit tipsy with me?”

“Grab the champagne,” I said, relieving him of the macaroon and taking a bite. The pink powder had to be raspberry because the flavour of the sharp fruit and rich white chocolate filled my mouth. I reached for the platter and grinned. “I’m bringing this. And we’re going to enjoy ourselves. Because that party had no food and I’m fucking starving.”

Austin laughed. “I knew there was a reason I liked you, Pendleberry.”

My stomach flipped and my heart skittered in a way I’d never experienced before in my twenty-seven years.

And I couldn’t even blame the champagne.