by JJ Knight
I can’t stand up anymore, feeling this way. I find the wall with my back and slide down. One of the Deluca support staff comes running over to me in the hallway and asks if I’m okay.
I signal for her to bring me water.
“Acqua,” I croak.
Dylan says, “What’s that? Are you learning Italian?” He sounds excited.
“Just a few words.” I lick my dry lips. I should ask him about the photo, so he can put me at ease. But the words won’t come to me. I don’t want him to think I’m going to turn into some jealous freak every time we’re apart.
“Say something in Italian for me,” he says. I can barely hear him over the sound of the crowd in the background.
I say the only thing that comes to mind. “Quando è il matrimonio?”
“Matrimonio.” He lets out a low chuckle. “Jess, we both know when that is. And I’m counting down the days.”
I cup my hand around the phone and ask, “So the wedding’s still on? A week after I get back from Rome?”
“Unless we get married there when I come to visit.”
I hold my free hand over my chest. His gritty voice in my ear sends waves of pleasure into my body.
“I wish I was there with you now,” he says, his voice low like a growl. “Where are you?”
“At the distributor’s office.”
A woman who works in their accounting department comes over to where I’m sitting on the floor and hands me a bottle of chilled water. She pats my leg and gives me a sympathetic look.
I turn away from her and tell Dylan, “I miss you so much.”
“I miss you too, Blue Shoes. Your voice, your sweet smile, and your body. I wish I could touch every inch of you.”
Heat rises inside me as I think of Dylan touching me.
“Remember that day in the emergency room?” he asks. “I had to have you. It was truly an emergency.”
I squeal at the layer of silliness over top of his raw sexiness. I feel like I’m melting right now, falling apart at the mere idea of him touching me.
“Of course I remember,” I whisper. “Someone could have come through those curtains at any moment.”
“You love danger,” he says. “You love it when I grab you by the knees and spread your legs.”
My voice catches in my throat. “Mm hmm,” I answer.
His voice comes through the line, and I can practically feel his hot breath on my ear. “You love it when I grab your hair and pull your head back. When I kiss your neck. When I taste your throat and then move my way down. Unbuttoning your shirt. Grabbing your beautiful breast and putting your sweet nipple into my mouth.”
“Mm hmm.” I hold the chilled water bottle to my forehead to keep from catching on fire.
“You taste so good,” he says. “You feel so good. I’m losing control, just thinking about pushing up your skirt and sliding down your panties. I’m going to touch you slowly.”
“Yes.”
“I’m spreading your legs, and I’m kissing you. All the way down your body. I’m tasting your sweetness. Flicking you with my tongue. You’re going wild, moving around. I grab your thighs and hold you down. I use my mouth and tongue to make you lose control.”
I whisper, “Are you hard right now?”
He murmurs, “I can’t go on stage like this.”
“I wish I could help you.”
“You’re too far away. If you were here, I’d be inside you right now. I’d pull you somewhere out of the way, but not too private. Just behind a curtain. I’d pull up your skirt and hold you against the wall.”
I try to speak, but all that comes out is a soft moan.
“I’d check first with my fingers,” he says. “I’d tease you, draw it out. Then when neither of us could wait any longer, I’d cover your mouth with mine while I slide into you. You’d hold on tight, your legs around my waist, while I drive you up against the wall.”
I moan again.
“You’d beg me to take it slow. But then I’d slow down, and you’d beg me to go harder. Harder. And I would. I’d give you everything you want. Everything you need. And the whole world would have to wait, on the other side of the curtain.”
More people pass by me in the hallway, looking down at me with curiosity. I snap out of Dylan’s daydream and crack the lid off the bottle of cold water.
“What’s happening there?” he asks.
I take a long drink and wipe my mouth. “Ah. Just drinking water. I was in danger of catching on fire for a minute.”
“I wish you were here, because I am on fire.” He groans.
I smile, feeling proud of the discomfort I’m causing him. “When are you coming to Rome? Please tell me you’re coming tomorrow.”
There’s a pause, and the background noise comes back. It sounds like a guy is talking to Dylan. I can’t hear what he’s saying. I’m so glad it’s not a girl talking to him, at least.
“Yeah. Yeah, okay. One minute,” he says to the guy, then, “Sorry, Jess. I gotta go. As for my flight… the new album is going slowly, but I’ll fly out as soon as I can. I promise. Wait for me. I love you.”
“I—” The call ends before I can say goodbye.
I finish drinking the entire bottle of water, and then return to the meeting.
The presentation goes well. I can’t stop smiling. The girl presenting the ideas probably thinks I’m happy with what she’s working on. I am, but mostly I’m in a daze from my phone call with Dylan.
When I get back to the hotel room, I close the curtains, climb into bed, and pretend he’s there with me.
His voice rolls through my mind, and I can feel his hands on my body.
Chapter 17
The next morning, I wake up with a smile on my face.
With every day that goes by, Dylan’s visit to Rome gets closer and closer. I don’t know when he’s coming, but it could be today. That would be just like him to surprise me.
In fact, when I call him during my lunch break and get his voicemail, I imagine that he’s on an airplane, heading my way.
The day’s meetings have gone about as well as can be expected.
Chet seems distracted, though.
We’re having a private lunch, just the two of us.
I ask him, “Is everything okay with you? Have you gotten bored of shoe shopping already?”
“Just homesick,” he says. “There aren’t enough sushi places in Rome.”
We’re at a sushi place right now, but neither of us got a good feeling about the raw food, so we ordered cooked dishes. My teriyaki chicken was okay, but I’m missing homemade food. Dylan makes incredible marinated steaks on the outdoor grill, and I’d kill for one right now.
“At least my side project is going well.” Chet’s green eyes dance, daring me to press him for details.
“Side project? Do you mean the talent-scouting thing? Finding your dream girl, whose voice turns you into a puddle of lust?”
He grins. “Jess. You make it sound so dirty.”
“It is dirty,” I tease. “Musicians are sensitive and talented. They’re more than just sex objects.”
He shakes his head. “I should have gone into finance. Life would have been much simpler.”
“But not as fun.” I take a sip of my sparkling water and think about my own career expectations. I’ve always loved music, but I didn’t want to be a musician. When I took my business management program, I dreamed of one day working for a music label, but I didn’t really think it would happen.
Now my dreams are all coming true.
I should probably look around Rome for a wedding dress, because I’m going to need one.
* * *
At the end of another day of life and work in Rome, I climb into bed with my phone.
There’s a new voicemail from Dylan, which I play and re-play.
He doesn’t say anything in the message. He just strums his guitar and hums a melody. This song doesn’t have any lyrics yet, but I can still hear every word in my heart and sou
l.
This song is about love, about us.
I take a break from replaying the message to look up his Avalon performances. The publicist he works with has uploaded a ton of short clips under his YouTube channel. There are a few live versions of him doing one of the songs he was working on when I left. He sounds amazing. Of course. He is Dylan Wolf.
He waves to the crowd and thanks them at the end of every song. In some of the clips, he sits on the edge of the stage and talks casually to people, mostly girls.
My phone dings with one of those alert notices.
I give my phone a dirty look. Thanks a bunch, phone. You gobble up half my text messages, then give me stuff I don’t even want.
It’s another alert about Dylan, like before. This time it’s a link to another video of his Avalon performance. I didn’t see this under his YouTube channel, because it was uploaded by an anonymous user.
When he’s finished playing, this video stays on longer. Dylan sits on the edge of the stage for a bit, then jumps off, into the crowd.
A crowd of women flock around him. They’re rude, pushing each other away to get closer to him. Most of them are dressed for clubbing, but a few of them look like hookers.
The ones with their big boobs sticking out of corsets are the ones who are the most desperate to get near Dylan. They toss their hair and move in like hungry jungle cats.
He keeps on grinning, pretending to be surprised by all their fawning. I hate it when he acts like he doesn’t know the effect he has on women. They all go cray cray for his innocent act, of course.
My grip on the phone tightens as my hand tries to make a fist.
He pretends he doesn’t notice the girls pressing their bodies against him. He keeps talking to the crowd, asking if they liked the new song. I can’t hear every word he’s saying, because this footage was shot from a distance, but I catch snippets.
“It’s getting late,” he says. “Shouldn’t you be at home, in bed?”
They all scream and beg for him to take them home and tuck them in.
“I can’t,” he says. “There are too many of you.”
My cheeks start to burn. He can’t, because there are too many of them? That’s why? I know he’s joking, but it’s not funny at all.
The women all scream. One yells, “We’re happy to share!”
His eyes flick up to the camera. I feel like he can see me watching him, even though this is recorded. He seems to look right at me for a moment.
I get a chill through my whole body and have to look away. I don’t want to watch this video. But I can’t shut it off, either.
I look back at the screen, and a familiar face pops out of the crowd.
It’s the same girl he was being kissed by in that other photo. This could be from the same night, for all I know.
My heart is racing now and my mouth is sour. I can’t look away.
The girl wraps her arms around his neck and pulls him close. The camera zooms in suddenly, into a closeup. I see their lips touch. Their lips touch and don’t pull away. The shot is tight on their faces, and nobody could deny they’re kissing. She might be a crazy fan, but he’s kissing her right back.
The video ends.
I see the replay button pop up. Replay?
My hands are slick and sweaty. My finger trembles as I press the replay button.
I watch, barely breathing, as he plays the song. This is a new song, so I know I’m not watching some old footage, from when we were broken up.
The song finishes, and he jumps into the crowd. This time, I see the girl right away. It looks like Dylan sees her, too. In fact, it looks like he’s heading right for her, and she’s the reason he jumped into the crowd.
The scene repeats, and when it gets to the point where she kisses him, I throw the phone across the room. It hits the corner of a couch and lands on the carpet. The screen is facing up, and I can hear the sound of the recording coming through the tiny speakers.
The whole crowd is cheering for him as he kisses the girl. Some woman screams, “Kiss me next!”
Then someone else yells, “Take us all home with you!”
The video ends.
Now the room is quiet.
My phone makes a ding-ding sound. There are more news alerts. Of course there are more alerts. People love to spread gossip and lies. That’s all this video is. Gossip and lies.
I walk over and pick the phone up off the carpet, muttering to myself in disgust. I don’t believe everything I see on the internet. It’s just a stupid video. These things are faked all the time. They probably slowed down some of the footage to make it seem like he kissed her back.
“She’s just a crazy fan,” I tell myself.
The alert is up on my screen. Sexy Selfie Pics of Dylan Wolf!
I snort. That sounds like half of his publicity photo shoots. Who are they kidding? The rest of the text says he was sending nude selfies to girls he met at concerts.
Yeah, right.
I click the alert, practically daring the internet to show me something shocking.
My jaw drops open. It’s a picture of Dylan, naked. Or at least a man who looks like Dylan. His face isn’t showing, and most of his lower body is in shadow, but there’s still a lot to see.
I close my mouth and let out a scoffing sound. They did a good job finding a guy who looks a lot like Dylan.
Except…
On the wall behind this guy is a very distinctive clock. It’s the one we have in our L.A. home.
This is a picture of Dylan.
Taken in our house.
My stomach pitches to the side, my mouth fills with water, and I have to run to the hotel room’s bathroom.
He’s been sending photos to girls. This is it. We’re over.
Tears stream down my cheeks as I choke and get sick into the toilet.
I can hear my phone going ding-ding-ding with more alerts.
The phone is next to my knee, vibrating with alerts. I must have brought it in here, even though I want it far away. I want the whole world far away, so I don’t have to think about anything.
The damned thing keeps buzzing, telling me there’s more. More? I can’t take any more.
I slide heavily across the white tile floor and kick the bathroom door shut with one foot. I wish I could shut every door, and keep everyone out of my personal life.
My face feels hot and feverish. Maybe I’ve caught a flu. Maybe I could just curl up on this floor and sleep forever.
The phone goes ding-ding again, then buzzes. It won’t let up.
There’s more.
With a trembling hand, I reach for the phone.
Please, let it be Dylan calling, to tell me all of this is a lie.
My heart is pounding.
Please.
BLUE SHOES by JJ KNIGHT
You've just finished reading Volume #1. The story continues in Blue Shoes Volume #2.
BLUE SHOES is a 3-book series about Jess Rivera and Dylan Wolf.
We first met Jess and Dylan in JJ Knight's 5-book series, REVENGE.
For a list of all books and projects,
click here for all JJ Knight books on Amazon.
Thank you for reading!
Love, JJ
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