But there’s no denying my big relieved sigh when he’s gone and Travis is still there, holding on to me.
Chapter Eight
“Does dialing it back include kissing or not?” I ask Travis when we’re loading up the van.
It’s one a.m. now and the beat brothers are still inside the club, goofing off with Vampires and Assassins as John the Third has taken over the DJ booth and is spinning dance hits only from 1982. They’re going nuts rapping to “The Message,” and if you want to see something that defines awkward, go watch nine pasty white boys in rock bands try to rap. They think because the Beastie Boys made the jump from hardcore to hip-hop it’s easy, but it’s a relief when Kraftwerk’s “Tour de France” comes on and they start doing the robot instead, trust me.
Travis climbs out of the back of the van after arranging the cabinets in the cargo space. He stands there staring at me, hands on his hips as he thinks over his answer, which I thought would be much easier than this. Honestly? I expected him to give me a sexy little smile and to clandestinely make out in the back of the van for a few before everyone waltzes out here. But he doesn’t do that. You know that cringing, embarrassed feeling you get when you say something totally flirty like this and the guy just stares at you like you asked him for a loan? No? Well, you’re lucky because it’s awful. In the gaping maw of his non-reply, I turn red, then turn to escape back into the club when he catches me by the arm.
“Wait a minute¸” he says.
“What.” I try to sound all business, like no big deal, but this isn’t easy when you’re in the middle of a full-body cringe. “I’m sorry. I’m being stupid and contradictory. As usual.”
“I’m still trying to figure it out, that’s all,” he says. “I do want to kiss you, you know. All the fucking time.”
“You do?” I say. “Because you don’t act like it.”
“Yeah, well it’s not that simple,” he says.
“Why not?”
“Because,” he says and pauses. “Well, look,” he starts again and then stops. Then he just sort of gives up on words and instead manhandles me like I’m a piece of gear and sets me down on the tailgate of the van with my back against the bass cabinet. Steady Beth’s back doors are open but pulled in so it’s like a little private fortress around us. I suck air as he looms over me, because I know exactly what’s coming when he looks at me like that. I think I might even be trembling.
“Why don’t you tell me?” he says, leaning over me, bracing himself against the bass cabinet. “Can we kiss and still take it slow?”
“Well . . . I don’t know, I—” I’m in the middle of answering when he shuts me up with his mouth, tasting like ginger ale and everything I guess I ever wanted in a guy, because the moment his lips touch mine, my head empties of everything and anything else but him. He kisses me once and I turn all the way on from head to toe. I wake right the hell up out of some gray, foggy dream I’d been living, into this hyperspace of feeling, all of it focused directly on wherever his lips touch me. My brow, my nose, my temple. He holds my face in his hands and his lips are so soft and sweet as they move over mine, kissing my top lip, my bottom lip, and then there’s his tongue pushing inside of me and fucking hell, he’s so right. I want more. I want more now now now right now.
“Travis,” I whisper, panting like I just had a hard run.
“Yeah,” he whispers back, but I crush his lips with my own again before he can even say anything else, I can’t help it. I can’t keep my lips off of him. I kiss his chin, down his neck as he holds fistfuls of my hair in his hands.
“Emmy,” he groans.
“Stay with me tonight,” I say.
The back door of the club slams open and we hear the beat brothers still singing Soft Cell—Don’t touch me please, I cannot stand the way you tease—with the Corporate Secret guys as they make their way across the parking lot, over to the vans.
“Fuck,” Travis mutters and turns away and adjusts a very obvious boner. His face is so