by Terri Lane
“I only said all that stupid stuff about no commitment and ‘one time only’ because the depth of my feelings for you scares me.”
“As soon as you stopped texting me in that sweet way of yours, I started to lose it. I almost flew out to Hawaii.”
“Will you give me another shot? Please?”
If he’d been standing in front of her, asking her to give him a chance a few weeks ago, just after they’d slept together, she would have been over the moon and jumped at the opportunity. She adored him and would have done anything for him.
But this wasn’t then. What he’s actually said after he hooked up was that he didn’t do commitment – and now… well, things were different now.
She had just got back from Hawaii, where she had been the lead dancer in the music video of the very sexy, very talented rock star Rex Ryder. She hadn’t intended to fall for him while she was still hung up on Travis, but she did. Rex was sweet, kind, and so much fun. He had drawn her in with his sweet personality, and he’d been on her mind ever since.
Now Rex really wanted to be with her, and not just as a hook up but in a proper relationship. The only reason they hadn’t already made it official was because he had told her to give it a week to think over whether she really wanted to be in his life, with its constant travel and media intrusion.
Despite those drawbacks, she had just decided that he would be worth it all – no matter what the cost. But now… with Travis standing in front of her, giving her those eyes and offering her what she’d pined for only a few weeks ago, she didn’t know what she thought anymore. The only reason she had decided to let Travis go was because she assumed that he didn’t want her; that he really meant that he did not ‘do’ commitment. Now that he seemed to have changed his mind, she didn’t know that to think.
“I’m sorry Travis,” she told him. “This is all a bit much. I’m tired, stressed and jetlagged…” she wanted to be honest with him and tell him about Rex too, but this didn’t seem the time or place for that. They were standing in the middle of the airport for crying out loud. “And you’re here, saying all of these things… I just, I need some time alone to think.”
He looked utterly crushed by her words. So much so, that she almost backtracked and completely changed her mind, but she forced herself to stay strong, knowing that it was the best thing for everyone involved. She couldn’t just jump into something with this guy, knowing that her head was all over the place, knowing that she’d just decided to be with Rex only moments before.
“I’m sorry,” she finally said sadly, wishing once more that she hadn’t gotten herself into this mess.
“It’s okay, I understand,” he replied, looking like he had been expecting her to just fall into his arms. “But will you at least think about what I’ve said?”
“Of course,” she insisted – knowing that she wouldn’t be able to think about anything else. “Of course I will.”
“Okay, well I’ll see you soon then?” he asked. “You will let me know when… when you’ve decided?”
“Yes,” she nodded vigorously. “Of course I will. This isn’t… it’s not goodbye or anything. It’s just… I need some time that’s all.”
Just tell him! She scolded herself, but the words wouldn’t come out. Just tell him the truth.
“Okay, bye then.” He kissed her lightly on the cheek, and turned on his heels and walked from the building. She sadly watched him leave, wishing that everything was different.
But he wasn’t the only one in the picture anymore. He’d made it clear that he wanted space – if he’d never said that, then she would have waited for him.
But he’d left her waiting for too long. He could wait for a change. It certainly wasn’t tit for tat, and she didn’t want to be petty about it, but she couldn’t change what had happened, and she couldn’t make things better without some time alone to think it through.
***
As she finally got back to her parents’ home – where she’d been living after the nasty break up with her cheating ex-boyfriend Greg – she showered, and then locked herself in her room for some privacy.
She called her friend Lauren for advice. She might have only just reconnected with her, but she knew that she would give her an honest opinion which was exactly what she needed.
“Lauren?” she gasped as soon as her friend answered the phone. “I’m back from Hawaii. Are you free to talk?” Tears filled her eyes, but she didn’t let them fall just yet. She needed to get some answers from her friend first.
“Yes, of course. How are you? How was Hawaii? How was the music video?” So many questions that she didn’t really have the time to answer. If Travis hadn’t turned up at the airport with all his confusing words, she knew for a fact that she would be having a really nice chat with her friend, but she was far too distracted for that.
“It was great – but I’ve got myself into a bit of a pickle,” she admitted, feeling the coldness of indecision and confusion descend on her.
“Oh God,” Lauren groaned, sounding shocked by her friend’s admission. “Really? Tell me everything.”
“Okay, well you remember me telling you about the meeting with that music producer – Travis Bunney?”
“Yes, he got you the dancing job on the music video in Hawaii,” said Lauren.
“Well… the thing is… we kind of ended up sleeping together.” She hadn’t told her friend that part at the time because she was afraid that people would assume she only got the job because of that – but now there was no more room for pride. Now she needed to just lay it all out on the table to try and get some perspective.
“You did?” Lauren squealed excitedly. “Why didn’t you tell me? What was he like? Was he amazing? Oh my God, the good girl Abbie that I knew in school would be shocked by this!”
“So, so good,” Abbie replied, remembering the sexual awakening that she had had with him. “Unbelievable – but afterwards he told me that he only ever did one night stands.”
Lauren was right about one thing – Abbie had been such a good girl in school. Maybe not studious, as she leaned more towards the athletic side of things, but quiet and sweet.
“Ooh,” Lauren could feel the pain in those words, and it left her a little speechless. “That’s harsh.”
“Yeah, it was. I know that he’s a player and everything, but it still stung,” she sighed. Remembering how cold that night had left her. How hurt she’d been to find out how he felt. She didn’t have any high expectations of him at the time, but that hadn’t made it any easier to hear. “So I went off to Hawaii… and I kind of fell hard for Rex Ryder…”
“Rex Ryder? You’re going to be in the music video for Rex Ryder? That’s huge – you’re going to be so well known now!”
“You’re focusing on the wrong thing here,” Abbie laughed, actually feeling a little better from her friend’s reaction. At least she hadn’t jumped down her throat and told her that she was a horrible person. “Yes, and he showered me with attention and made me feel really special.”
“Are you going out with him now?” Her friend could barely contain her excitement. “Are you going to be his celebrity girlfriend?”
“Well… he told me that he wants to date me, but that his life is a constant media intrusion, which sucks… he told me to take a week to really think about it.” She recalled the moment that he said those words and her heart melted all over again. She knew that the choice should be easy, and she really had no idea why it wasn’t. Why was she struggling so much with this one?
“What is there to think about?” Lauren exclaimed. “This is Rex Ryder. The awesome, hot, talented, dreamy Rex Ryder… and he wants you.”
“Well, here is where it gets complicated,” Abbie led into the rest of the story. “Travis met me at the airport and begged me to give him another shot, and now I really don’t know what to do.”
Silence.
Lauren’s stunned silence caused Abbie’s heart rate to kick up another level. She was expecting
an outsider to have an easy answer for her, but it seemed like she really didn’t. She thought that Lauren would stick to the fact that she should chose Rex, but it seemed that she could sense the indecision coursing through Abbie’s veins through the phone line.
“So… which one do you like best?” She asked eventually. “Do either of them feel right?”
“I honestly don’t know,” she admitted, wishing it could be that simple. “They’re both so different and I like them equally in different ways.” Rex was sweet, safe, and caring. Travis was sexy, dangerous, and a player – why was she so equally attracted to two very different men? It really didn’t make any sense. “What the hell am I going to do?” She threw her head in her hands in despair. “This is a mess.”
“It isn’t,” Lauren reassured her in the calming tone that she only used when things were deadly serious. “You haven’t committed to either man so you haven’t done anything wrong, but I think that you need to be honest with both before you can move forwards.”
“Yeah…” Abbie agreed, knowing just how difficult that was going to be. “You’re probably right.”
Abbie sighed, wondering why the solution had to be even harder than the problem. As she hung up the phone, she tried to imagine the way that things would play out in an ideal world – just to try and figure out where her head was really at – but she found herself drawing a frustrating blank. She was utterly bewildered and had no idea what to do.
***
Abbie bit the bullet and called Travis the moment she woke up, wanting to get the very difficult meeting over and done with before she had any time to talk herself out of it. Her intention had been to meet in a public place, so that nothing would get out of hand, but as soon as his chocolate-smooth voice got on the other end of the line, she found herself agreeing to go to his place without even thinking about it.
He just had this way of convincing her to do things, without her even realizing it. She didn’t even notice until it was far too late. Rather than being a quality that she hated about him, it kept her on her toes. After being in such a stale relationship for such a long time, it was nice to have something a little different to deal with.
As the cab picked her up, and whizzed her along the city, she felt her nervousness rise. She knew that this was the right thing to do, but that didn’t make it any less difficult. It was going to hurt Travis a lot, telling him about Rex. That was the last thing that she wanted, and it might just push him away forever. If everything that he’d told her was true, then he hadn’t let any woman close to him for a very long time, and now he was about to be crushed by the first person whom he opened up to.
Urgh no, the thought of upsetting him almost put her off entirely. The more that she thought about it, the more aware Abbie became that she might end up with neither Travis nor Rex, and that cut to her core. She dreaded the idea of losing both of them.
As she pulled up to the building, she found Travis already standing outside to welcome her in, which made her feel even more anxious. He looked excited, as if he knew that she was coming with good news, expecting her to give herself over to him completely – and a big part of her wished that was exactly what she was doing.
“Hi,” he grinned widely, with his arms outstretched. “How are you?”
She glanced him up and down, drinking in that gorgeous muscular body, that smirk that seemed to always play on his lips and those sparkling eyes that sent her insides crazy with passion. Did he have to make this even more difficult by being so damn good looking?
“F… fine,” she stammered back, trying her best to match his expression, but from the way that his face fell, she clearly wasn’t doing a very good job. She always had been like an open book – a fact that she cursed herself over all the time.
“Come on in,” he eventually said, sounding resigned, almost accepting already that this wasn’t going to go well. “I’ll make us both a coffee.”
She followed him behind, wondering if he was now wishing that he had agreed to meet her in the public place that she’d originally suggested. Maybe all of this would have felt a lot less awkward if they had.
With the coffee mug clasped tightly between her fingers, she took a few deep breaths to work up some bravery, then started talking, needing to get this done before she lost her mind.
“Thank you for having me over,” she said, trying her best to sound calm. “I think we really need to talk about what you said to me at the airport.” He nodded, pursing his lips together in an expression that Abbie really didn’t like to see. “I… I… Oh God, look if you had said all that stuff to me before I went to Hawaii, then I would have fallen at your feet. I like you so much, and I would love the chance to give us a shot.”
“I…” he started, but she was on a roll now. She couldn’t let him derail her because then she might never get to say all that was washing around within her.
“The only problem is, you left me thinking that you didn’t want to be with me, and your texts to me while I was in Hawaii just proved that. They were so impersonal.” She stared right at him, and said the words that he needed to hear. If he hadn’t made her feel that way, she would have remained faithful to him. “I kind of… had a fling with someone out there. Someone who wants to be with me.”
She recalled the humiliation when she read over their messages, realizing how one sided everything was:
Hi Abbie, how is the shoot going? Travis
Really well thank you Thank you so much for getting me this job, it’s amazing. Miss you, Abbie xxx
How are things in Hawaii? T
Oh my God… stunning! It’s really lovely here, you would love it! Abbie xoxox
It was embarrassing to see their mismatched feelings so clearly displayed for her to see, and the revelation had cut her deep, which was why she had started to message him in the same clinical manner – something that he clearly hadn’t liked.
His face turned ashen, but his expression remained determined. “Do you want to be with him?” He asked, with a steely quality to his voice, as if he was preparing himself for the worst news possible.
“I don’t know,” she replied honestly. “My head is all over the place. I don’t even know what to think right now.”
Almost in an instant, he moved next to her and he clasped her hands in his. “I don’t mind,” he told her, deadly serious. “I completely understand why you did what you did, and I really don’t blame you. I was a douche bag, so of course you went to someone else. All I’m asking is for you to give me a chance.” The glimmer of hope that she wasn’t totally ditching him shone on his face, leaving her even more mixed up than ever.
“I… I don’t know,” she stammered, feeling the room start to spin. With Travis sitting that close to her, it took all that she had just to hold it together. “I really don’t know…”
But then he leaned forward and kissed her, and everything else just totally spun from her mind…
***
He was utterly irresistible, that was Abbie’s problem. When she was with Travis, all that she wanted was to be with him. She caved in to her desire, molded her body to his, and embraced that amazing kiss. She was aware that she should pull back and that she should instantly leave before things got out of control, but she found couldn’t tear herself away.
As his muscular body pressed up against hers, she groaned excitedly, remembering just what he could do to her body and how much she wanted that again. Again, she found herself in a situation where sleeping with Travis would be wrong, and again she just couldn’t control herself.
She ran her fingers through Travis’s hair, while his hands made their way around her waist, pulling her closer, claiming her as his in a way that she wasn’t totally sure she was comfortable with.
Or was it? As she succumbed to his pull, she realized this commanding, domineering side of him was something of a turn on. It was different, something that she wasn’t used to at all, and it really excited her. It taught her something about herself that she never w
ould have been able to learn otherwise.
Bolts of pleasure raced through Abbie as Travis pushed her back into a lying position on his couch, and he started to kiss all down her neck. His lips felt amazing on her body – they left her hot and cold all at once, causing her to crave him more and more.
“You’re so good,” he gasped to her. “I never should have let you go.”
His words made her swim with desire, and she gripped on to him tightly, not wanting to let go. All of a sudden, she realized she never wanted to be without him, and she couldn’t believe that she’d allowed herself to be swayed – even if it was by the very sexy and charismatic Rex Ryder.
Thoughts of Rex vanished as she started to feel that thick, throbbing erection pressing up against her. The memory of the heaven that it took her to once before flooded her mind, pushing everything else out. After having a stale relationship with a cheating scumbag for three years, in just one encounter, Travis had made her feel things that she never had before. The memory of that encounter intensified the way she was feeling now.
Eventually Travis pulled back from Abbie, and began slowly to peel her clothes away from her body, staring passionately into her eyes the entire time. That hunger he had for her was something that she treasured, it made her feel like the most amazing sexy goddess on the planet.
“Gorgeous,” he eventually said when she was completely naked for him, and that word was enough to have her pawing at him, wanting to see that hot body all over again too.
He had abs like no other, and simply laying her eyes upon them again made Abbie gulp in pleasure. That body was so sexy that there was hardly any surprise that she couldn’t control herself around him!
He hovered back over her and kissed her once more, while she ran her fingers all over his length once more. Then, with one movement that completely shocked her, he flipped her over onto her front, and he started to explore her from a brand new angle.
