Tyler doesn’t offer a piggyback to his loft and I doubt my dress could accommodate it. Instead, we trudge upstairs, side by side, our footsteps echoing in the stairwell.
I undress in my bedroom, lay the Marchesa dress across the air mattress and throw a T-shirt over my head. When I hear Tyler exit the bathroom, I take my turn brushing my teeth and washing my face, leaving it blank and pale without makeup. I unpin my hair but its sprayed-in curls remain, floating around my face like a halo.
I exit the bathroom and the loft’s lights are off except the small lamp on the shelf by my bed. Tyler must have turned it on. Is this a signal that he doesn’t want me in his bed? My heart plummets with disappointment.
No.
I won’t let Tyler push me away. I won’t let him withdraw when every part of me craves his touch and he craves mine. Maybe he’s too ashamed from tonight to show it.
I climb the stairs to his bedroom loft. He can hear me and see my silhouette in the light that filters through the warehouse windows. I see his profile in shadow, smell his familiar scent and feel his suffering.
I pull my T-shirt over my head and drop my panties on the floor, wanting our skin-to-skin closeness more than anything. I peel back the sheet on my side of the bed and snuggle against the hard plane of his back as he curls on his side away from me. He doesn’t speak.
I fit my body behind his, my knees behind the bend in his knees, my stomach and thighs cupping his boxer-clad rear. My lips trail kisses across his shoulder blades and I snake an arm around his waist, pulling my chest against him tightly.
“Stop it, Stella. You don’t have to pretend.”
These simple words hurt, but they’re wrong. I tighten my hold on his middle, my fingers running up and down his abdomen and along his sternum. He doesn’t protest again and so I sweep my hand left and right, connecting with his nipples and feeling a tiny jerk in his body each time I graze one of his piercings.
“This isn’t pretend. This is real.” I’m whispering and kissing his back and willing him to open up to me but he still doesn’t respond. “You told me yourself. Facts are real and stories might not be true. Whatever the truth is about that story tonight, I don’t care. I care about who you are. How we are together. And I want you. Fact.”
I trail my hand to Tyler’s boxers, feeling his muscles harden when I come within inches of his shaft but don’t touch it. My hand continues down along the top of his thigh to his knee, as far as I can reach, then I reverse course and let my fingers creep up his body again, this time infinitesimally closer to his center.
Tyler groans and rolls on his back, his arm outstretched for me to lay my head on his shoulder. Is this encouragement or surrender? I can’t tell, and so I let my hand continue to wander, each time closer to him and more overt, more needy.
I feel his body respond beneath his boxers even though the rest of him is still. With my ear to his chest, I can’t see his face to gauge his reaction, but he doesn’t push me away. Lying on my side and stroking him, I shift my top leg forward and drape it over his knee, widening the part in his legs.
Tyler sighs. Is it contentment? Resignation?
My fingers slide beneath the waistband of his soft, knit boxers, grazing his curls. I continue my rhythmic touches, letting long moments pass as we’re quiet here in the dark. It feels safe. It feels right. And it’s nothing like I’ve ever experienced, lacking the pull of a bad boy’s frantic fingers on my skirt, the clumsy squeeze of my breasts and painful tweak of my nipples.
Tyler’s just lying here, letting me touch him. Comfort him.
I lick my lips against my shallow breathing, knowing what I want but afraid to take it. It takes several long minutes as my fingers skate across his warm, soft skin to work up the courage to do this.
Why am I so hesitant? I’ve done this dozens of times before. But with Tyler, it’s uncharted territory.
I lift my head off his chest and he doesn’t pull me back. I’ve decided he needs to erect some kind of neon stop sign before I’m going to quit. I push myself to my knees and hook my thumbs under each side of his waistband, tugging down until he lifts his hips to give me access.
This is permission.
I climb over one leg and position myself between them, my hands keeping a steady rhythm that brushes across the hair on his thighs and between his legs. His knee shifts an inch or two to the side.
More permission. Encouragement, even. I smile in the dark and plunge my fingers deep between his legs, stroking the seam behind his sac and then across it. He hardens further, his erection standing up from his body, and I bend to take him in my mouth.
Tyler’s breath quickens as I plant soft kisses with my lips and light flicks with my tongue. I pace myself as I listen to his body, his breath in sharp hitches and gratified hisses, his muscles as they tense and relax. I bring him deeper and his hand fists in my hair, my cadence building as I respond to the pulses in his body.
His scent washes over me and I revel in my full capacity to sway him. It’s intoxicating. I think of the ice cubes, when I lay still and Tyler used their sharp cold to explore my body. Now I’m exploring his and my fingers find new ways to draw exquisite reactions from him.
Tyler’s stomach tenses as he pushes himself up on his elbows. “Stella.” His breathing is ragged and he says my name like a plea.
I release him from my mouth and sit back on my feet, my hands still stroking him. His dark-lashed eyes reflect the glow of city lights. “Let me. Let me in.”
Tyler lies back against his pillow again and opens his hands, palms toward me. “Come.”
I move my knees over his legs until I’m straddling him, my center wet and wanting just above him. When I lower myself over his thickness he groans. I slide forward and back on top of him, letting my moisture coat him, but he’s not inside me yet.
The electric current between us builds from a quiet hum to an insistent buzz, as if I’m rubbing a sweater to generate static on a cold winter day. Tyler moans again and his arm reaches above his head to yank open a drawer in his nightstand.
I still, his hard length throbbing beneath me as Tyler’s hand paws desperately in the drawer for something. Oh. A condom. How did the better-safe-than-sorry mantra that I always remember with bad boys get sidetracked in this erotic moment?
I know. Because this isn’t just sex.
Tyler’s frustrated and I lean forward to help him, draping my body across his chest to reach past him and find a foil packet in the drawer. I feel his hands slide up my ribcage and stroke the sides of my breasts and it’s like the lights come on as I feel him finally, intentionally respond to me.
My hand lands on a condom and I snatch it from the drawer victoriously, sitting up as I straddle him and tear it open. I pinch the tip and roll it down slowly, letting this be part of our deliberate, gentle union.
Tyler’s hands make slow circles around my breasts, the rough pads of his thumbs grazing the tips of my nipples. I feel my breasts tighten and I arch my back to give him access. He lifts his head and pulls my body forward to taste them.
His tongue adds fuel to our fire and I’m nearly screaming in anticipation as I push against his chest and angle my hips again, this time catching the tip of his shaft against my cleft. I roll my hips forward and press down, his thickness stretching and filling me. I ease into this overwhelming sensation, as gradually as I can stand it, until I reach his root.
I release the breath I held, but I don’t move on him. Not yet. I’m giving him the space to take us forward.
Tyler’s hands descend to my hips, reaching around to cup my ass and urge me up a little, then back down on him. I feel my core clench as he fills me and withdraws, our cadence increasing as our breath comes harder and faster.
My skin tingles where he touches and grips me, when he quickens the pace and then slows us. He pushes my chest slightly, encouraging me to lean back as he hits a new spot inside me that sets off fireworks in my body.
Sizzle, crackle, pop.
The sounds from our kiss on the bridge on the Fourth of July feel like they’re part of me, replaying in my head as he takes the reins and moves us faster together.
Boom, hiss, fizz.
I’m in overdrive from our connection and the energy builds inside me, every nerve turned inward to experience what’s happening at my center. Tyler strokes me hard, his thumb pressing between us, and suddenly I’m launched into the sky like a firework, feeling my body explode into sparkling points of light.
His movements follow me as I descend like the sparks, and when it seems like the light is fading he thrusts again and I’m launched in another explosion of light and sound and color.
I ride these eruptions as Tyler harnesses the energy in my body, guiding me past the places I know to a map of the stars. When I feel like I can’t take it any more, like I’m flying too high and falling too fast, he jumps with me, his own explosion sending streams of light across my sky.
I shake with feeling, every inch of my skin sparking like a live wire. Tyler’s hands race across my body, containing this energy and blending it back beneath the surface. I collapse on his chest with him still inside me, and he rubs my back, up and down, soothing strokes that bring me back to earth.
Tyler rolls to his side and I roll with him, my head cushioned by my pillow. As he pulls out of me I feel the emptiness and long for him to fill me again. He cleans each of us in turn, then lies back down beside me, his eyes wide with wonder as he strokes my jaw.
“Stella.” His voice is raw but his face is smooth of the worry that pinched it earlier tonight. He kisses a trail from my temple to my lips, his mouth telling me with touch what his words can’t right now.
“I’ve never—I’ve never felt like that before,” I confess, struggling to explain how our lovemaking took me to an entirely different place than just sex.
“I haven’t either,” he says, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me closer to his chest. “You took my breath away. It was—”
I hold my breath as he struggles to choose a word.
“It was more special than you could possibly know,” Tyler says finally. “You’re special, Stella. I knew it the moment I met you, but I didn’t realize—I had no idea how much you’d mean to me.”
“I’ve heard you’re crazy about me.”
“Who told you that?” Tyler’s voice is playful.
“A crazy person.” I grin at Tyler. “I think you’re pretty special too.”
“Stella, you can do better.”
I pull back from him, confusion crinkling my face. “Do better?”
“Don’t play it safe. Tell me. Say what’s real.”
“This. Between us. It’s real.”
“Name it, Stella. What are you feeling? Because I’m not caught up in some gee-whiz-you’re-cool moment right now. You just blew my mind. Don’t wreck it by saying I’m special.”
“What do you want me to say?” My voice hardens. All I did was tell him the same thing he said to me.
“Lay it all on the line. I told you I want everything, not just the easy parts.”
I hiss, that word easy rearing its ugly head again. “I don’t mean easy like that,” Tyler backtracks. “I mean I want you to trust me with the hard stuff, the stuff you don’t want anyone else to see.”
“What, like you trusted me with the stuff about Kim?” I can’t keep the bitterness out of my voice.
“You’re right. And you’re amazing, you know that? You stuck by me on one of the worst nights of my life. You stuck up for me even when I had no right to expect it.”
Tyler pulls back to look at me, his face pinched with worry and bathed in moonlight. “Look. I have to know if you want a relationship, or just a fling.”
I nuzzle my face against his shoulder to mask my disappointment. He said he’s crazy about me. He said he wants everything, even the broken pieces. But he never said he loves me.
Is this a fling or a real relationship? That’s all he wants to know. It’s like asking whether I want to skydive solo or tandem, rather than the real question: Do I want a fucking parachute?
Because without that, I’m not jumping.
I force myself to breathe, to pull my face out of his shoulder and really see him, nervous and earnest, like a teen who’s just asked out the prom queen. Even though it’s not enough, I want to give him this small thing.
“I don’t want this to be a fling,” I say, and the memory of my come-on from the first night we met haunts me. I told him then that we didn’t need a relationship to do all kinds of naughty things to each other. It’s no wonder he’s questioning my motives now.
“Me neither,” Tyler whispers, and I’m at war with myself.
After everything we’ve been through, “not a fling” is a piss-poor container for what I want my connection with Tyler to be.
I want to yell, “I love you, dammit!” even though I’m not ready to share my past with him.
I want to ask, “Do you love me back?” But I can’t force this question past my lips because if he doesn’t answer yes, I can’t bear it.
Tyler’s breathing evens and slows, and his shoulders sink deeper into the mattress. He’s asleep. My chance to ask is gone.
TWENTY-FIVE
My throat aches for alcohol to deliver me into hazy detachment, but I keep my promise to Tyler and resist. I pull up the covers and plump the pillows while my mind wanders down to the kitchen and pours an icy shot.
I wish.
Heat rolls off Tyler’s shoulders in waves and his breathing labors under the intensity of a dream. I watch his eyelashes flutter and squint, wishing I could crawl inside his dream and fix what’s wrong.
I would slay dragons for this man.
But Kim Archer isn’t a dragon—she’s a serpent, sly and cunning and just far enough out of my reach that I can’t touch her. I can’t hurt her for the way she’s hurt Tyler. I’m afraid my performance in front of the press wasn’t enough.
My phone lights up on my dresser, silenced but alive, and I reach for it. I hope it’s a comforting message from Beryl, but instead a text chills me to the bone.
Unknown [2:12 a.m.]: It’s a tough town, Stella. Watch your back.
Stella: What is this, a threat? How did you get this number?
Unknown: Just some advice. From an old friend.
Stella: If you’re a friend, I’m fucking Katy Perry.
Unknown: No need to be crude. And you’re fucking Tyler Walsh, unless I misjudged tonight.
Stella: I am not answering that. Who the hell is this?
Unknown: Does he play your body the way he plays the bass? Can he make you come with a flick of his finger? Or do you need someone a bit more commanding?
Stella: Stop it! Stop texting me! This is harassment!
Unknown: No, it’s torture. It was torture to look at you tonight, to see how my little star has blossomed. I have to say I was a bit disappointed in the hair, though. A bob? I like a bit more to grab onto. Remember, Stella?
Anger boils in my veins, molten lava that blisters the peace I’d found with Tyler. He sleeps while I rage, desperately alone.
This was the face I saw out of the corner of my eye at the premiere, the face that turned my blood to ice water even when my conscious brain failed to recognize him.
Stella: Dixon.
Unknown: Miss me, pet?
Stella: Not for a moment.
Unknown: I know that’s a lie. You like being a starfucker. You want the spotlight so bad you’ll let Tyler drag you through hell.
I want to scream, to throw my phone across the room, to dodge the hot barbs Dixon launches at me.
The worst part? Four and a half years ago, this was true. I wanted the spotlight so badly that I let Dixon drag me through hell—controlling me, using me and ultimately discarding me.
Will Tyler do the same thing?
Stella: He won’t.
Unknown: He already has—you just don’t know it yet.
I curse myself for letting Dixon seed my mi
nd with doubt, but it grows like a cancer. Tyler never told me about Kim—I had to find out in the worst possible way. Tyler manipulated the first story I did on the band, and how much more?
Is he playing me again?
Stella: I’d rather go through hell for Tyler than see you again.
Unknown: Careful what you wish for. If I were a betting man, I’d say the odds of both are good.
I want to get in the parting shot. I do. But my mind is seared by the pain of reopening old wounds and the fear of the future.
I hold my phone and stare at it, fumbling for something scathing to type back to the man who left me without a backward glance.
Stella: What do you want, Dixon? You never texted me unless you wanted something. Unless tonight you just want to make me feel like shit.
Unknown: I’m pretty sure Tyler already did the job. You were blindsided by Kim Archer, weren’t you?
Stella: I’m not answering that.
Unknown: Come on, Stella, you’re not that good of an actress.
Stella: FUCK YOU.
Unknown: Look, we’re getting sidetracked. I did have a reason to text. I know you still hate me for just dropping you cold. And I still hate your parents for the ridiculous legal bullshit they put me through.
Stella: They wanted someone to blame. At first I begged them not to do it, but then when you never returned my texts and emails, I was kind of happy they hurt you. I wanted you to hurt the way I was hurting.
Unknown: They got their pound of flesh, Stella. But I’m not a bad guy. I cut you off because I thought it was the easiest way to help you move on.
Stella: Easiest?!?! That’s a fucking joke.
Unknown: You were young. I do casual, but to you, I was freaking forever. It was never going to work.
I seethe. There’s the word easy, taunting me again. And since Dixon Ross, casual is all I’ve ever done. Until Tyler.
Stella: So what’s your point? Rubbing it in?
Tyler & Stella (Tattoo Thief) Page 17
