person other than Annie and Jax who can see through my bullshit.
Still, I’m not about to tell him I lost control the moment she peered up at me with those doe eyes wanting to collect on what I owed her.
Turned out I was on the receiving end of something priceless.
I’m man enough to admit that the best moments of my life have been spent holding that woman.
And yesterday, she was wild. From the second I found her under those tight shorts, soaked and squirming, it was a breakneck descent into madness.
I wanted nothing more than to free my swollen cock and sink into her as far as I’d go, to see her beautiful body arch and writhe on that dark wood backdrop.
But I spent the last two years knowing Annie and I ended because she got over me first.
Still, the way she looked at me, the way she asked me for it…
It took everything in me to remember we’re not together.
Beck squeezes a stuffed toy hard enough it squeaks. “I’m relieved to hear it’s nothing serious. Because you were fucked up after it ended. You both were.”
I round on him, boxing him in against the shelf. “Go on.”
“She couldn’t go with you, and you couldn’t stay. Someone had to be the bad guy. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have moved on—not just from her, with your life.”
Hearing it spelled out is bringing up old feelings.
Not even the bitterness of leaving, but the things it’s taken me two years to appreciate.
How fucking incredible she is.
How much I loved her.
How much she loved me.
“You didn’t tell me she was seeing someone,” I say. “Did you think I’d be jealous?”
“Did I think you’d look like you’re looking right now? Yes.”
“But they broke up,” I say, pouncing.
He frowns. “I heard. He’s some big producer type. And—please use this for good, and not evil—apparently he cheated on her. A casting couch situation with some actress.” Beck reads the disbelief on my face. “Fucking tool, yeah. You know our girl has always had some issues believing she was enough. With all she’s accomplished, I hope she sees it and never gives the guy another look.”
I turn that over as I start toward the cash register, dump truck in tow.
I hope to hell she didn’t fall for Ian because she thought she needed him. The fact that he hurt her makes me want to crush the only good fist I have left into his face.
But thinking of the ex has a dark thought occurring to me.
I liked the idea she wanted me yesterday, wanted another shot at how we’d ended things.
Was he the reason she was questioning herself in the first place?
I’m not stupid enough to think what happened between us was some kind of a sign—we’ve both moved on, I’ve got an album to make and she’s finishing a show—but fuck it, I need to know.
“Tyler.” Zeke walks into my dressing room after sound check, and I shift back in my chair.
The guys from the band are around me, talking amongst themselves, but when he enters, they nod deferentially before ducking out into the hall to make themselves scarce.
The exec drops onto the arm of the couch. “You’ve been posting on social.”
“You proud?” I drawl.
“The venue you tagged is in Dallas.” He frowns. “There’s a strict competition clause in your contract. You can’t record for any other label.”
“I was visiting an old friend. Remember, I’m on the first vacation I’ve had in two years. Once I get through this surgery, I’ll be back in the studio to finish the album.”
“You know your career has nothing to do with your hand.”
I shift back in my seat, a humorless smile pulling across my face. “You’re saying that day Jax and I went to your house senior year, if I hadn’t been able to play, you still would’ve offered me a deal.”
He narrows his gaze. “Two hundred years ago, men figured out how to make music with machines. The player piano. The music box. Everyday people could have music when they wanted—accurate, predictable, perfect.
“Being proficient in playing doesn’t make you a good musician. Being proficient in feeling—in believing what you’re doing so much it makes someone listening, someone watching, connect with it—that’s what it’s fucking about.
“That’s what I saw in you that day. A quiet, gives-zero-shits kid who came alive the second he picked up a guitar.”
His words are unsettling, though I’m saved examining them too closely when my phone buzzes with an incoming call from Annie.
“Regardless of the outcome of