by Vi Keeland
Once Dylan found out we were together, he’d know things started behind his back. And that would definitely not sit well. I wouldn’t put it past him to fire In Like Flynn and make it out to be their fault in an attempt to blacklist them.
And I know from experience that keeping any relationship private when you’re in the public eye is nearly impossible. Any way I look at it, Flynn seems to lose. So I just keep looking at it. Over and over again.
I toss and turn for a half hour more, thinking about tomorrow night. We arrive in Austin and I can’t wait to see Avery. She’s never been a fan of Dylan, so I’m sure when I fill her in, she’ll be all team Flynn. I might be shopping for a forum to validate what my heart is telling me to do.
Even though it’s early, even for me, I slip out of bed, tiptoe into the bathroom to wash up and head out to the lounge area.
“Hey,” Flynn’s voice surprises me. He’s in his usual morning position, arms spread wide on the counter, waiting for the coffee pot to finish brewing.
“You’re up early.”
“Couldn’t sleep.” He looks down at my t-shirt, where he’s undoubtedly greeted with a stiff salute, then back up to me with a flirty grin. “Come here,” he says in a low, incredibly seductive voice. The simple two words make my belly flutter in that delicious way. Then he slowly crooks his finger at me.
I deliberate for a second, turning around to look at the door closed behind me, and then back to Flynn. He simply waits with that sexy smile for me to come to him. Totally sinful.
I want him.
No, I don’t.
God. Yes, I absolutely do.
I walk the half dozen steps to stand before him, my feet barely finishing their last step when his hand wraps around my neck and his mouth crashes down on mine. One hand keeps a tight grip on the nape of my neck, his thumb snugly holding my throat; his other goes to my ass and he pulls me firmly against him. Oh god. Firm. Firm is definitely what I feel.
The man truly steals my breath away. I’m a puddle on the floor by the time he releases me. “Morning.” The sound vibrates against my lips, but I feel it much lower.
My good sense finally returns, and I take a step back. I’m on a bus with my boyfriend and the rest of his band and any one of them could walk in at any moment. I clear my throat, still shaken from his kiss, and go to sit down. “Yes. Umm. I couldn’t sleep either.”
Flynn fixes our coffees and brings the two steaming mugs to the table. Unlike every other morning, he slides in the booth next to me, rather than across from me.
It’s a tight fit, our shoulders and thighs pressed up against each other. “What are you doing?”
“What do you mean?” He lifts his mug to his mouth—the mouth with the wicked grin—and sips with a devilish gleam in his eyes.
“Why are you sitting on this side?” I squint.
“Ah. Because it’s harder to reach from the other side.”
I’m afraid to ask. “Reach what?”
Instead of answering me, he trails his fingers along my thigh and then, with eyes blazing, he pulls my thighs wider apart under the table.
My breath audibly hitches. I should stop him.
Should.
Yes, I’m going to.
Stop! Wait…I screamed that in my head, nothing actually came out.
His fingers travel up the inside of my thigh.
I should stop him.
No, don’t.
Higher. Yes. God, yes. Do.
No, don’t. I’m really going to stop him.
The words get stuck in my throat. And the next thing I know, his fingers are stroking me. Up and down, over the thin material of my night pants, but it feels incredible nonetheless. The way he watches me so intently, with so much desire in his eyes, shoots through me and I can feel my wetness grow.
Oh, God.
His fingers find my clit and he rubs small circles, the lace of my panties causing just enough friction that I think I might actually be able to come with only his fingers on me through my pants.
“Oh god.”
“Feel good?” His voice is hoarse.
I nod and let my eyes flutter closed. Pressure inside me starts to build.
And build.
I’m so consumed, I can hear the sound of my own heartbeat pulsing loudly in my ears. Which is probably why I don’t hear the door open.
Luckily, Flynn does and his hand is gone.
“Why are you up so damn early? Come back to bed.” Dylan’s sleepy voice jolts me from my pre-orgasmic haze, like I’d just stuck my finger on a live wire.
I almost choke trying to speak—my mouth is suddenly so dry. “Umm…I couldn’t sleep.”
Dylan looks from Flynn to me, eyes narrowing suspiciously. “Come on, I’ll wear you out until you’re tired enough to sleep for a few more hours.”
Not knowing what the hell to say or do, definitely feeling guilty as hell, I nod.
“Excuse me,” I say with a shaky voice to Flynn. For a second I panic that he’s not going to move, that everything is going to blow up in my face. Flynn turns and catches my eyes, searching for something. His jaw clenches and then he stands to let me out. I feel his cold stare following me the entire way back to my room.
I try to get a minute alone with Flynn the rest of the day, but he’s either very sleepy or intentionally avoiding me, because he spends the remainder of the bus trip in his sleeper. I’m pretty certain it’s the latter, only I have no idea how to fix things. Well, that’s not exactly true. I know how Flynn would have me fix things. Me, on the other hand, I’m not sure what it is I want to fix. My stomach churns with a mix of guilt and grief. I don’t trust my own judgment anymore. From the moment I laid eyes on Dylan so many years ago, I fell deeply. But my feelings have never grown. Whereas, every day I fall a little deeper for Flynn. Do I really not know the difference between infatuation and love at twenty-five?
The sun is quickly disappearing behind the city skyline as we arrive in Austin, and everyone is anxious to get off the bus, especially Flynn. We pull into a spot and Flynn hops off the bus and walks toward a car parked a few spots over. A guy gets out and the two bear hug, slap each other on the back a few times, and then promptly disappear.
“You ready?” Dylan’s been curt with me since this morning. I went back to the room, but I just couldn’t bring myself to fool around with him. Not after Flynn’s hands were on me. It’s not the first time I’ve rejected Dylan’s attempts over the last few days and he’s beginning to grow impatient.
“Sure.”
“Do you have everything? The bus can’t park here tonight, so you won’t be able to come back and search for a pair of heels, or whatever it is you forget this time, after we get out.”
“I have everything. Wait. Do I need heels?”
Dylan rolls his eyes. “I don’t know, Lucky. What do you normally wear to a club?”
“A club?”
“Yeah. A club. I told you earlier, but you weren’t paying attention. Again. A friend of Flynn’s owns a club in Austin and is going to rope off an area for us. So bring shoes, or whatever other shit you’re going to need.”
Great. Just great. I can’t wait. A night out on the town with not one, but two men who are angry with me.
The Capitol may be the largest nightclub I’ve ever seen. And that’s saying something, having grown up in New York and traveled half my life with my dad’s band. During the day I would bet people pass right by the unremarkable building and assume it’s just an old warehouse. But the line that stretches all the way across the front of the club and disappears around the side tonight is a testament to its popularity. If this place is at capacity, the rest of the bars and clubs in the city of Austin must be empty.
Easy Ryder’s security breezes us from the dark SUV directly into the club, skipping the line that people are waiting on and causing a murmur of interest as we pass. Inside, the first floor has a live rock-and-roll band, a tremendous dance floor, and bars outlining almost the entire expansive perimeter
. Looking up, I see two more floors, a balcony wrapping around each, protected by a wall of glass. People mill around, watching the crowd dance beneath them. Men who resemble tree trunks guard the entrance to the upper levels.
All the guys from Easy Ryder and their dates, except Linc and Flynn, pile into an elevator, and we’re escorted to a glass room on the second floor above the dance floor. It’s truly glass—the floor, the walls, everything. I look down and watch a mob of people swaying on the dance floor. Distracted, I don’t notice the guy I saw pick up Flynn outside of the bus today walk in. He takes one look at my face and smiles, knowing exactly what I’m thinking. “It’s one way…they can’t see up your skirt.”
I look around the room—there’s a bar in the corner, a couple of guys who look vaguely familiar, but no sign of Flynn. Lydia, Mick’s wife, walks over and hooks arms with me. “You look like someone ran over your dog.” I’ve met Lydia a few times. She’s smart, sarcastic and has zero filter—if it pops into her head, it comes out her mouth. She’d get along great with Avery. I’m actually looking forward to introducing them tomorrow night at the show.
“I’m just tired. Haven’t slept so good.”
“Life on the road is tough.” She looks over at Mick and Dylan. “Even tougher with moody assholes like them.” We both laugh. “C’mon, Lucky. Let’s go live a little. These old bastards are going to stand around and drink beer. I see a cute bartender with shot glasses and a dance floor calling our name.”
I do one shot for every two that Lydia does; the two I drink have my head spinning and yet she seems perfectly fine after her four. I’ve got to be the biggest lightweight to ever own a bar.
An hour later I’m on my second fruity drink. The music is pumping and I feel it in my veins. Or perhaps it’s the alcohol. Either way, it flows through me, taking away all my worries. The crowd downstairs has thickened, the music has changed from rock to more of an R&B. Bodies sway with a sensual vibe.
“Come on. Let’s go dance.” Lydia grabs my hand. We stop by the booth that Dylan and Mick are sitting at. Mick waves off his wife, not caring where she’s going. Dylan, on the other hand, gives me a look of annoyance.
“Why don’t you come with me, then?” I yell over music that seems to have gotten louder since we started talking.
“Go. But save some of your energy for me later,” he says. I’ve feigned everything from tired to a headache the last few days every time he’s tried to get intimate.
Down on the dance floor, the music is so loud that I can’t even hear myself think. Which is exactly what I need. A new song with an incredible beat fills the air and I start moving my body, letting the music take control of my mind.
“There you go, beautiful girl. Let whatever is bothering you go,” Lydia says, but I more or less have to read her lips. She closes her eyes and joins me in getting lost in the music. A few guys try to dance with us, but we shoo them away and keep to ourselves. I lift my arms over my head, letting my hips sway from side to side, and my eyes drift closed.
I’m at the fringe of awareness, lost somewhere in my own semiconsciousness, when I feel it. Goose bumps break out all over my skin before I even understand what it is that’s happening. I open my eyes and, like metal to a magnet, I see him. Flynn. He’s two floors up, standing against the glass wall, and his blue eyes are burning into mine. Even with all the space between us, the anger is clear in his eyes. I watch as he tosses his drink back and hands the scantily clad waitress his empty glass without so much as a glance in her direction.
“You okay?” Lydia asks, noticing I’m frozen on the dance floor.
“Yeah. I. Uh. I was just looking at the VIP rooms upstairs, trying to figure out which one we’re in.”
“Oh. We’re right up there.” She points to the second floor. To the room directly below where Flynn is standing. Still zeroing in on us, Flynn follows our gaze, and I watch as he looks down and sees all the guys from Easy Ryder beneath him. He can see down, they can’t see up. It makes me wonder how long he’s been standing there. Was he watching me the last hour in the room directly below him?
Not knowing what to do under the scrutiny of his stare, eventually I attempt to dance again. But I’ve lost the vibe—the atmosphere changed from being lost in the moment to being lost in the man. Another drink is definitely in order. Lydia pouts but leaves with me, again hooking her arm into mine as we make our way into the elevator to return to the second-floor VIP room.
Security pushes a button and the doors slide open. Inside, the guard presses number two…but then I realize there is no button for the floor above us. “There’re only two floors on the panel. How do people get up to the third floor?” I ask.
“You need a security card.” He motions to the top of the panel. “Slips into the slot and takes you upstairs. Boss man, his friends and employees only.”
I know I’ve had way too much to drink when I start singing in public. It’s only a whisper of the words, but the beat thumps along in unison with my heart and I feel the words as I sing the song “Someone New” along with Hozier. The last few lines of the chorus croons about falling in love a little bit more every day with someone new. I sing the words looking up, wondering if Flynn’s singing them looking down at me too.
Eventually, the song comes to an end. Still staring up at the opaque glass ceiling, I blow out a shaky breath. Feeling bereft, I decide I need a few minutes of privacy to clear my head. Dylan’s busy arguing with the tour manager when I excuse myself telling, him I need to find a ladies’ room, but really I head to the elevator to search for some desperately needed fresh air.
The security guard is on the phone, but he opens the door to the elevator when I arrive. A few seconds later, the doors slide open—I hadn’t even noticed we weren’t going down. “Boss man wants to see you.” The hulk of a man extends his arm, gesturing for me to exit the elevator.
I don’t have to ask which way to go. I walk toward the same room I was just in, only one floor up. My insides churn at the sight of a woman vying for Flynn’s attention as he stands in the corner, arms folded tightly over his chest. I may notice the tall, svelte blonde, but Flynn…his eyes are trained on me.
We stand at opposite ends of the room, our gazes locked, until he pushes off the wall and, with a few long strides, stalks to me. I can see the flex of his jaw and the darkness in his normally light-blue eyes.
His friend from today approaches us, his face going through a mental Rolodex before recognition dawns. “You’re Dylan Ryder’s girlfriend, right?”
Flynn looks at his friend, then back to me. His response is spoken into my eyes, even though his words aren’t for me. “Can you clear this room, Blake?”
Through my peripheral vision, I see his friend’s brows draw down, then understanding hits him. “Shit. You’re asking for trouble.” Blake shakes his head, but a minute later the room is cleared of everyone except Flynn and me.
Flynn looks down, then closes his eyes and takes a breath before speaking.
“My mother raised me and my sister, Bec, alone. She struggled every day to make ends meet and never had time for herself. Our dad left when I was eight. Had his secretary actually waiting in the car the day he moved out.”
He drags a hand through his hair. I reach out to touch him, but he puts his hand up. “Don’t.” The disdain in his voice makes me want to vomit.
“Bec married Professor Douchebag. My niece, Laney, has a half-sister three weeks younger than her. Compliments of her father’s TA.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. And I truly am. Although I’m not sure my words bring any comfort, since I’m the cause of his turmoil.
“I’m not the other guy.”
The irony is, he was never the other guy. From the first time we crossed that line, Dylan became the other guy. But I nod anyway, respecting what he’s saying a hell of a lot more than I respect myself at this moment.
Flynn looks down, my eyes following his to peer through the glass floor. We’re standing almost exactly
over where Dylan is sitting.
“Friends?” he asks. “Can we go back to being friends?”
It feels like a heavy weight is sitting on my chest as I walk to the elevator alone. He’s right to put a stop to what shouldn’t have started to begin with. But now, I wonder, can we really go back to being friends after we’ve been through the blur and crossed the line?
Chapter Twenty-Two
Flynn
Alana Evans doesn’t shut the fuck up. And I mean that in the nicest possible way. She’s been my sister’s best friend since third grade, and basically it’s been twenty years of one long run-on sentence. I kid Becca that Laney is really Alana’s daughter, with the lack of breaths when she gets on an excited rant, but the truth is, Laney is a lot like Alana because Alana and Becca basically grew up as sisters and they’re a lot alike. Nurture trumps nature with those three.
We park in the short-term lot at Bergstrom and make our way to the terminal. I’m used to people staring now. For the past year, a lot of people have recognized me, although they weren’t sure where from right away. These days, the recognition dawns faster, sometimes instantaneously. More heads than usual turn as we pass, but it takes my conceited ass a minute to catch on why. Alana is drop-dead gorgeous. It’s not new—she didn’t grow from an ugly duckling to a beautiful swan or anything, she’s pretty much been insanely hot since third grade. Around the age of seventeen, I thought about it for a few minutes one night when we were swimming in the neighbor’s pool and she was wearing that white bikini that became translucent when she went in the water.
It was a hot July night, the stars were twinkling, my sister had fallen asleep, and the air was thick and humid around us. I’d had a few beers and my judgment was impaired, leading me to think with my teenage dick. Luckily, one thing didn’t lead to the other, and the next morning I woke to the sound of Alana’s voice rambling on from the kitchen table. I love the woman. But there’s not enough duct tape in the world.
My ears are nearly numb by the time I catch sight of Becca and Laney at baggage claim. The little pity party I’d been throwing myself for the last twenty-four or so hours abruptly comes to an end when I see Laney’s face. Her eyes grow wide and she smiles so big, I could probably count all of her little baby teeth. She charges at me, her arms open, and nearly causes an old man to fall when she whizzes past him. “Uncle Sinn! Uncle Sinn!”
