Page 73 of Dedicated
He smothered the rest with a kiss, then broke away in laughter. I slid his boxers down his hips and attacked his neck, kissing a line up his throat.
“Did I tell you I’ve started running again?” I licked his earlobe, then bit down.
He grunted and slid his hand over my ass, giving it a squeeze. “Mmm, that’s sexy. Please do tell me all about your mile pace while you’re getting me hard.” His voice was laden with sarcasm, but when I reached down and squeezed his shaft in my fist, his breath hitched.
“Play nice, or I will. In monotonous detail.”
He looped an arm around my waist, sliding his hand behind the waistband of my boxers and running his finger down the seam of my ass. “Is this considered playing nice?” he asked, feathering a light caress over my hole that made my legs go wobbly.
“I think that’s considered playing dirty. Fortunately for you, I like that just as much. Now get inside me and light me the fuck up.”
“Shit,” he groaned, “I could listen to you talk like that all day.” He pulled his hand free, wet his fingers in his mouth, and returned, roughly shoving my boxers down before he teased my hole and pushed the tip of one finger inside until I moaned.
“Will you settle for all night?”
* * *
I wokearound three in the morning. The habitual waking had come back in rehab. Sometimes I just lay in the bed; other times I got up and wrote. The first night home after I’d gotten out of rehab, I’d gone downstairs and played, but it only ended up making me sad. Tonight I lay there watching the rise and fall of Evan’s back as he slept, then rolled over and stared out the window, thinking about everything that had happened over the past couple of months. My parents had flown in from Virginia to be with me for the first week post-rehab, at their insistence, and though they meant well and I understood their concern, we’d drifted apart after Evan and I had hit it big with the first album, and I’d been glad when they left again. I thought now maybe I should work on that, call them more, something.
Evan draped his arm around my shoulder, spreading his fingers over my chest, his body so warm against my back I couldn’t help the contented sigh that escaped me. I covered his hand with mine, tracing the shape of his fingers and knuckles, the calluses from his guitar strings.
“What’re you thinking about?” he murmured into my neck.
I chuckled sleepily. “I don’t even know where to start. Everything. The tour, the cabin, rehab, my parents. Every single moment that’s led to this one and how it feels so precarious and sweet at the same time. How I want you to see that I’m taking sobriety seriously. That I want it. That I want us—more than the music, even.”
“I see it.” Evan pressed his lips to my shoulder. “You wouldn’t have stuck it out in rehab otherwise, wouldn’t have called Leigh or reached out to those other people you were telling me about earlier. Wouldn’t have called your sponsor to check in tonight.” Another soft brush of his lips sent a shiver of pleasure running through me. “I see it.”
“I can’t make any promises, though, you know that.”
“I know.” He got quiet after that, and I thought he was faltering, hesitating again, but after a moment, his lips resumed their soft trek along my shoulder and he rolled me onto my back, propping up on one arm to look down at me. “You keep acting like I never did anything wrong, but I did. I shut you out after Ella, and you didn’t deserve it. At all. And I’m really sorry about that, because it changed us. So I don’t want you thinking it was all your fault. I want to be better, too.”
I closed my eyes when they began to blur and burn, and Evan cupped my chin, sweeping his thumb gently over my cheek until I opened them and focused on him again.
“There was that night at the cabin where you said I was wrong. I was. I want you and I need you, and they’re the same thing for me, too. Maybe that’s what’s been wrong with the past and with my other relationships. I kept thinking about what I needed, what made logical sense, what Ishouldwant, what Ishouldneed. And I think you’re the only person I’ve ever known who’s both the one I want and the one I need.” He dragged in a breath, bending to press a kiss to my chest where my heart beat wildly beneath, and when he spoke next, it was with his lips brushing against my bare skin. “I love you, Les, and I want you with or without the music.”
Three words that hammered into my bones. My heart felt like it swelled and ballooned into the space around us, then went soaring up toward the ceiling, because I knew he meant it, that he’d never said those words in any other relationship. They were precious and small, and they were mine to keep.
Evan lifted his head, his lips hovering in front of mine as he said it again, then leaned a fraction of an inch forward to give me a kiss that was like our music. Thundering intensity and fragile complexity all at once. It was him and it was me in unison. A perfect harmony of us both.
Chapter 41
Nine months later
Iwas anxious like I hadn’t been since our first show together when I’d been worried that somehow, despite our months of practicing together, Les and I would be out of sync or fall completely flat in front of a large audience.
I wiped sweat from my brow and tried to unstick my T-shirt from my back, then drained the rest of the bottled water Les had handed me earlier, my nerves popping and hissing inside me like live wires sparking.
“You all right there, sweetheart?” Les shot me a grin as he squeezed my shoulder, knowing the endearment would raise my hackles. I was certain he knew that I secretly liked his random pet names, but fuck if I was going to tell him. It was just a thing like many others between us. His other favorites:darlin’,sweetie, one timesugar nuts, which I guess was his take onsugar tits. That one had earned him a hard, impromptu fuck in the back of the tour bus. You know, as punishment.
What could I say? We had a weird relationship, but it worked for us. A lot of stupid moments of antagonism blended with some of the most intimate experiences I’d ever had with another human being. Most of the time, it was the simple things that got me, like when we’d be on the bus or just sitting around writing and Les would randomly plop down next to me, lie his head in my lap, and give me a cheesy grin until I rolled my eyes and pulled him up for a kiss.
“I’m fine,” I said, tossing my empty water bottle at him, then picking up my guitar. When my hands started shaking, I clenched them into fists. Five minutes until showtime.
Les bent over to sweep up the empty water bottle, crackling the plastic a couple of times in my ear to both annoy and distract me, before he tossed it in a nearby receptacle. “Still want to go out for dinner after? I got us a reservation at Fusion.”
I nodded absently. I couldn’t even think about dinner right now, but Fusion had just opened and I’d mentioned wanting to go, so it was nice of him to remember. He did a lot of thoughtful stuff like that, and it was just one more thing that showed me I’d sold him too short in the past.
“Good.” Les fiddled with the ends of his hair; it’d grown longer and unruly and thinking about how much he fucking loved when I pulled on it made me smile. He fiddled with his earpiece next. I guessed he was nervous, too. We were fresh off the tour for our fourth album,Rise—which we’d delayed for several months until Les felt confident enough in his sobriety—and playing our final show before a two-week break. We hadn’t played the Ryman in ages, and it always felt like the shows mattered a little more when we were on home turf.