by Nicola Haken
“I’ve waited forever for this moment,” I said quietly, squeezing him a little tighter. With my free arm, I plucked the corner of the duvet from the edge of the bed, throwing it over both of our naked bodies. “Promise me you won’t run from this tomorrow – run from us.”
Sawyer was silent for a little longer than I felt comfortable with, but eventually came the words I needed to hear – or at least, the best I could hope for right now.
“I promise to try,” he said, his voice weak. “That’s all I can offer you right now, Jake. But I meant what I said, nobody can know about us.”
“That’s fine with me.” For now. “You can trust me. Always.” I reached around to the bedside table, setting the alarm for two hours time like I promised. “I can make you happy, Sawyer. Just give me the chance to show you.”
Those were the last words spoken between us before I drifted into a satisfied sleep, with the man who owned my heart and soul wound tightly in my arms.
Chapter Seven
“Fuck!” I blasted, throwing myself out of Jake’s bed so quickly I stumbled and whacked my knee on the bedpost. “Double fuck!” I whined, hopping across the room towards the en-suite.
“What’s wrong?” Jake asked, rubbing at his eyes.
“It’s six o-fucking-clock! I need to get out of here!”
“Shit, Sawyer, I’m so sorry. I set the alarm I swear,” he apologised, climbing out of bed after me.
“I know you did. I just… I don’t have time for this. Where the fuck did I leave my pants?”
“They’re on the dresser. I folded them.”
“Why?”
“I’m just a tidy guy I guess,” he said, shrugging. After pulling my pants on quickly, I turned around to grab my shirt. Then I felt strong arms snake around my waist and my mind was conflicted whether I should melt into them or push him away.
“I need to go,” I barely whispered, relaxing into his embrace. He started kissing along my neck and then pushed his hips forward, pressing his obvious erection into the small of my back. “Later,” I added, a promise I intended to keep.
“You’re not running?” he asked huskily before nibbling on my ear lobe and driving me fucking insane.
“Not today,” I teased, but he didn’t appreciate my humour.
“Not ever,” he affirmed, digging his fingers firmly into my hips and pulling me even closer to him. Closing my eyes, I sighed contentedly. How could this feel so right, so natural, when the back of my mind wouldn’t quit screaming at me that it was wrong?
“Jake!”
“Fuck!” I growled, grabbing Jake’s hands and shoving him off me when I heard Laurelin’s voice on the other side of his door. “What the hell is she doing here so early? Shit!”
“Calm down,” Jake tried to soothe, but when he put his hand on my shoulder I flinched, shrugging away from him. “Sawyer,” he added firmly. “You could be in my room for any number of reasons. I’m your goddamn bodyguard! Stop worrying!”
“At least get dressed before you let her in.”
Rolling his eyes, he headed to the closet and quickly pulled on a pair of sweats and a hooded top. I gaped at him for a little longer than I should. Since he’d been back I’d only seen him in suits and business attire. He looked great dressed so casually – younger, more carefree.
“Put the kettle on. I’ll just tell her we’re discussing arrangements for the tour bus this evening,” Jake said, amazingly calm and collected – like he always is. I admire that about him. Nodding, I bent down to drag on my shoes and then headed over to the kitchenette area. I was surprised to see the surfaces looking used. Mine is pristine – untouched. Same goes for the rest of the guys, seeing as we take the easier option of ordering room service for absolutely everything.
“Today’s papers,” Laurelin snapped, strolling straight into the living area. “There’s another story. People are talk- Oh…” she cut herself off, noticing me spooning coffee into the two mugs set out on the counter. “Sawyer,” she added, blood rushing to her face when she realised her mistake.
Instantly, I was reminded why I actually came here last night. Jake had completely captivated me, forcing me to forget everything that existed outside of his arms. The rumours. The press. The fucking gossip that no one would tell me about.
“That’s why I’m here,” I stated, giving up on making coffee and striding into the living room. “To find out what shit is being dished out by the press, and more importantly, why the fuck no one has told me about it.”
“It’s not a big deal,” Laurelin tried to appease. “You know better than to read the papers.”
“Don’t bullshit me, Lin. If it wasn’t a big deal you wouldn’t be here right now. Whatever’s going on must be holding some weight and I want…no I deserve to know what it is.”
“I’m not really sure. I’m only the messenger. You should talk to Claire.”
“I tell you what, you go and talk to Claire and tell her to get her backside to my room before breakfast.”
“Okay,” she agreed, blushing with apprehension. Laurelin didn’t like being put on the spot, or me being mad at her. I would apologise later. Right now, I was too pissed off. “I’ll call her, see if she’s awake.”
“You do that,” I said acidly, running my fingers through my messy hair. With that, she turned on her heels and scuttled out of Jake’s room.
“Bit harsh don’t you think?” Jake murmured the second she closed the door.
“What’s going on, Jake? And please, don’t you lie to me too.”
“You know I wouldn’t,” he said genuinely, reaching out to take my hand. Instinctively, my arm twitched in an attempt to shrug away from him, but his fingers brushed mine and I melted into his touch. “There have been several stories lately. A few blokes coming out of the woodwork and selling stories about their… relationships…with you.”
“WHAT? I’ve never had a fucking relationship! How many guys are we talking about here?”
“Four so far.”
“Well that’s bullshit! I’ve never been with…” Fuck this was hard, and yet I was only talking to Jake. How the fuck was I supposed to confront this shit with anyone else? With management? With the press? “There were never that many,” I tacked on with a heavy sigh.
“You know how it works, baby…” Baby…a simple term of endearment I’d been called countless times before, yet for some reason, hearing it from Jake’s mouth made my chest tingle. “Someone sees a story, figures it probably paid out well for whoever sold it, and they jump on the bandwagon. They’ve probably never even met you. But you have lawyers for this kind of stuff, remember? Try and ignore it. It will blow over, I promise you,” he assured, squeezing my hand as he brought it up to his lips. He planted featherlike kisses on each one of my knuckles and it almost brought me to my knees.
“What are we doing, Jake?” There were a thousand different meanings to my question.
“We’re taking it one day at a time. No pressure. Just enjoy us, Sawyer.”
“You could lose your job if anyone found out, and I couldn’t stop it. They’d say you couldn’t protect someone you had an emotional attachment to efficiently. They’d think…”
“I will never let anything happen to you. I can and I will protect you.”
“I’m… fuck I don’t know what I am anymore.”
“Hey,” he said softly, snaking his arms around my waist and pulling my body into his. “You’re afraid. I know you probably can’t imagine it but I’ve been where you are right now. For years you’ve been living the only way you knew how, the way you thought you should be… and now I’ve come back into your life and turned your whole world upside in just a couple of days. It’s okay to be unsure, to feel scared… but promise me when it feels like it’s getting too much, you’ll come to me – even if it’s me that’s causing you to feel like this.”
Angling my head back, I closed my eyes and forced out a breath.
“Promise me, Sawyer,” he demanded, sliding his h
ands up my arms and squeezing my shoulders firmly. “Promise me you won’t try and work whatever’s going on in your head out alone. Whenever you do that, you only end up pushing me away. I can’t do that again, I’ve waited too long for this.”
“You’re serious aren’t you? When you say you’ve never stopped thinking about me?”
“Yes,” he breathed without hesitation. Then he brought a palm to my cheek and my head involuntarily snuggled into him. “Not one day has gone by where I haven’t thought about you… wanted you… needed you. The closest I could get was to follow your career, and it comforted and tortured me in equal measures.”
“You’ve watched my career?”
“I came to see you last time you were in Sydney,” he admitted, a coy smile tugging at the corners of his soft lips. “I have hours and hours of footage of you – interviews, concerts, music videos…”
“Wow.”
“I love you, Sawyer. I’ve always loved you.”
“Jake I-”
“Shh,” he commanded, placing a gentle finger over my lips. “It’s too soon for you. I’ve sprung so much on you in just a few days. I don’t need you to say it back. Not yet. I just needed you to know that this isn’t some lame attempt to relive my youth, or to mess with your head. I’m back here because I was fucking miserable trying to live without you, and I owed it to both of us to return to you and try. If you knocked me back, at least I’d done all I could and I wouldn’t spend my life with regrets.”
Before I had chance to rethink my decision, I craned my neck to the side and leaned in to kiss him. His body stiffened for a brief moment, no doubt from surprise at my forwardness, but then he relaxed into the kiss, winding his fingers into my hair and dipping his tongue into my mouth. Neither of us had shaved yet, and the sound of our stubble scratching together sent delicious shivers down my spine. Everything about him felt right. He’s a strapping man – built, strong… yet he has the most tender touch I’ve ever experienced. Our bodies fit together perfectly, our cocks resting at a similar height, enabling our arousals to rub together.
“I need to go,” I whispered, reluctantly pulling away from his mouth. “How are we going to do this?”
“Work together you mean?”
“Um, yeah,” I muttered quietly. The shame I felt embarrassed me – it felt like I was letting him down. Even so, going public with this was not, and will never be, and option.
“Don’t worry – I promise not to pounce on you in front of the guys. We will find a way to do this, baby. I promise.”
“Baby – you can’t call me baby.”
“You don’t like me calling you baby?”
“No I… I, um…I do like it. But you need to be careful you don’t slip up when we’re not alone.”
“I won’t let you down, Sawyer,” he promised, cupping my cheek. “You can trust me.”
I wished I could say the same, but in truth, I didn’t know if he could trust me yet. Despite how wonderful his arms felt when they were wrapped around me, I still didn’t know if I would run for the fucking hills the first chance I got.
“I’ve really gotta go,” I said. Leaning over and lightly kissing my forehead, Jake nodded.
“Don’t be too hard on Claire. You know you’ve been acting like a complete shit to her ever since I got here?”
“Yeah,” I agreed, sighing. “But in my defence she’s annoying as fuck at times.”
Laughing softly, he rolled his eyes at me.
“Go on, go,” he said, shooing me towards the door. As my hand pressed down on the door handle, he gripped me from behind and positioned his lips against my ear.
“If you jack off in the shower, make sure you think of me,” he whispered, ensuring that I would indeed be jerking off in the shower.
“You’re gonna kill me, Jake Reed.”
“But not before showing you the world, Sawyer Knight.”
Inhaling deeply and trying to ignore the throb in my cock, I eased away from him and opened the door. After quickly scanning the corridor to make sure no one saw me leave, I practically sprinted to my suite. Once the door was closed behind me, I slid straight to the floor, propping my back up against it and letting my head fall into my hands.
Then I inhaled for what felt like the first time in hours.
“THANK YOU, LONDON – AND GOODNIGHT!” I called out to the twenty-thousand plus people in front of us, screaming our names and waving banners with our faces on in the air. The crowd went crazy, jumping up and down and screaming so loudly the stage vibrated beneath my feet.
The lights dimmed, and after unhooking my guitar from around my neck and pulling out my earplugs, I ran off the stage with the guys following behind me.
“Fucking amazing show!” Kip hollered, clapping me on the back as we jogged down the steps backstage. He was right – this feeling was like an addiction. The crowd, the atmosphere, the music… it’s euphoric. Glorious. It makes you feel like a freaking god.
“Sure was!” I agreed, wiping the sweat from my forehead on the back of my forearm. We were swallowed by our security team as soon as we hit the bottom step. Jake and Neil flanked me either side, ushering me towards the exit.
“The car door is open and waiting for you,” Jake told me, even though I was fully acquainted with the protocol. Nodding, I continued down the large corridor and to the exit. With one arm shielding me, Jake used his other to open the fire door where we were met with arena security who guarded the doors while we made it to our respective cars. Somehow, photographers had found a way into this private part of the arena grounds, they always do, and I looked to the ground, ignoring them as they yelled my name and tried to blind me with flashing lights.
“Amazing show,” Jake whispered to me with what can only be described as a proud smile. He didn’t need to touch me for me to feel him all over my body. Sliding into the back seat next to me, his warm breath swept over my face, his spicy aftershave teased my nose, making me want to bury my face in his neck so I could inhale the full scent of him, and his gaze brought prickly goosebumps to my skin wherever his eyes landed on me.
As soon as Neil slipped into the front passenger seat, Jake immediately shifted into ‘professional’ mode. It was like he had an inbuilt switch that turned him from lover to bodyguard in an instant. Diverting his gaze to the windows, flicking his eyes from one to the next as if looking for any signs of threat, he straightened his body, squared his shoulders and didn’t look me in the eye again.
“We’re heading straight for the tour bus. When we arrive, you need to get straight out of the car and straight onto the bus. Apparently there’s already quite a crowd gathering, but with no barriers in place you can’t afford to stop for them.”
“Got it,” I said, though really I hadn’t heard a word. All I could think about was how tight his pants looked, and how my fingers were twitching to unzip them and release the pressure. That was shortly followed by thoughts along the line of ‘What the fuck am I doing?’
“Is Elle travelling with us on the bus?” I asked, wondering why she didn’t answer the text I sent her before the show.
“No. She’s dealing with something at home so said she’ll travel up by herself tonight. I-”
“I don’t want her travelling by herself,” I interrupted.
“If you’d let me finish,” Jake began, “I was going to add that I told her I didn’t want her traveling alone and so I’ve arranged for Jim to stay behind and accompany her.”
“Oh,” I muttered, feeling like a bit of a douche. I need to start remembering that Jake isn’t just my ex-best friend from high school who I can’t stop thinking about, he’s also our head of security. He’s the best in his field. He knows his job and I should start trusting him to do it.
“I know my job, Sawyer. While Elle is on the tour as your stylist, she is part of our team. I’m here to protect our team.”
“I know. Sure. Sorry,” I mumbled. Deciding keeping my mouth shut for the rest of the relatively short journey, I flopped m
y head back onto the padded headrest and closed my eyes. It eased the stinging caused by a mixture of smoke and sweat created on stage, and although fully conscious, I relaxed into my seat, slouching with my knees apart, and just…thought.
Turned out thinking is a dangerous pastime for me these days, given the raging hard-on taking over my pants. I sat up, shifting my position slightly in an attempt to inconspicuously relieve the pressure on my dick. Fuck these jeans were tight. Seconds later my phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it free, expecting it to be Elle replying to my earlier text.
Jake: Uncomfortable isn’t it?
Huh?
Daring a sideways glance in his direction, I held my phone up and looked at him in utter confusion. Then my gaze followed the movement of his hand down to his crotch, where he traced the outline of his evidently swollen cock through the restrictive black material of his pants. I squirmed in my seat, forced out a cough to clear the lump forming in my throat and turned to the window. The effect Jake had on me completely baffled me. Sure I’ve been attracted to men before, but never to the point I had a constant erection in their presence, and most definitely never to the point where I couldn’t seem to think of anything else but them.
When we reached the bus, it was a military operation to get us all out of our cars and straight on board without being ambushed by the awaiting crowd. I always felt a pang of guilt whenever we couldn’t afford to stop and take a minute to chat with fans. We owe our whole career to them, and they deserve some attention when they’ve waited outside in the cold so late at night to see us. And Christ it was cold – not unusual for late March in England – and I zipped my leather jacket right up to my neck after stepping onto the bus. It hadn’t had a chance to heat up yet.
“Ugh, this bus is a heap of shit,” Matt grumbled, slinging his backpack onto the couches at the back end of the bus. Personally, I didn’t see anything wrong with the bus. Granted, it’s not as big or comfortably furnished as the bus we have in the States, but it’ll do the job. “Why the fuck couldn’t we just fly?”
