Girl in Love (30 page)

“Jesus Christ, Mike. She doesn’t have to memorize all of their life stories,” Lulu broke in. “Give her a friggin’ break.”

“That’s not what I’m saying.” He gave a slight shake of his head and shrugged. “All I’m saying is, I can get not letting
everyone
in. The way shit went down with you and Tray, I can see how you’d want to be careful. And it’s not easy trusting people in this business, period. But when it comes to your band, you might want to at least make an effort. Let them know you’re human and you actually give a shit about them.”

She pulled her knees up to her chest. It felt like the man had just torn her skin off and shown everyone her battered heart.

She’d changed. She knew she had. But she also felt like she’d had to. Otherwise she’d just keep trusting the wrong people, giving them everything she had to give, and winding up empty and alone. At least this way she was alone by choice.

“I need to know something. Tell me the truth, Brennen. Please?” She hated the pathetic pleading tone in her voice, but she had to know.

He smirked at her, and she glared hard at him before he made an inappropriate comment.

“Trace and…Trace and Gretchen. Are they a thing or not? Was it all media hype or was there truth to any of it?”

Trace’s bass player and friend tilted his head and stared at her intently. Then he ran a hand through his messy blond hair and shrugged. “You and the kid who recently parted ways with the tour. Were you a thing or not? Was it all media hype or was—”

“I got it,” she said, putting a hand up. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

Lulu handed her another bottle of water from the fridge. “Ignore him. What the hell does he know, right?”

“No, he’s right,” Kylie said softly, taking the drink from her friend. “I shut people out. It seemed easier that way, after everything. Until…” She trailed off, unsure as to how to explain.

“Until you had to face him again. He’s not exactly the type of guy you can shut out.”

Kylie swallowed, the knot in her throat threatening to choke her for what seemed like the millionth time recently. “Yeah,” she managed to get out.

“Well, I don’t know that Bass Boy is exactly the best person to be giving life advice, but I do think there’s at least one person you should talk to about how you feel about Trace. Get everything out in the open and go from there.”

Her brows dipped in confusion. The sham of a relationship she’d faked with Steven was over. Her cover was blown and she was pretty sure everyone knew that.

“Kylie,” her friend prompted. “I think it’s time you talked to
him
.”

The bus stopped and she realized they were at the hotel. That wasn’t the only thing she realized. Her friend was right. Painfully so.

“Can we stop in the hotel bar before we head to the room? I need a drink.”

Mike’s eyebrows shot up. “You just passed out from dehydration and you want to—”

“Yes,” Lulu interrupted, glaring at Mike as she did. “Yes we can have a drink. It’s been a crazy few weeks. You’ve earned yourself a drink. But just one, Ky. You did just pass out on me after all.”

Kylie still felt sick and slightly dazed as they got off the bus and walked toward the hotel.

If she was going to tell Trace Corbin how she felt about him, how she
really
felt, she was going to need a hell of a lot more than one drink.

B
ECAUSE HIS
manager was a decent guy and also a decent-sized pain in the ass, he’d kept on and on at him until Trace got on the bus and rode to the hotel with the band.

Danny asked if Kylie was okay, and Trace mumbled that he wasn’t allowed to check on her apparently.

He felt like he had a babysitter from the second they arrived at the hotel in Greensboro. Danny and Pauly flanked him closely as they passed the hotel bar.

“What the hell is the deal with you two?”

“Nothing,” they both answered a little too readily.

Pauly glanced at his phone. “Hey, I’m starved. How about we let the crew unload everything and we go grab some dinner?”

Trace’s eyes narrowed. Pauly and that damn phone. He was beginning to wonder if his manager was selling classified government secrets on the thing. “Something going on I should know about?”

He’d had it with whatever overprotective dad shit they were trying to pull. If something was going on with Kylie, if she was worse off than they were telling him, then he was going to find out and do something about it. The more they evaded discussing her, the more hell-bent he became on finding her right that second and making sure she was really all right.

Danny spoke up before Pauly could answer. “How about we all go out to dinner? Round up the band and—”

“Stop. Stop with the distraction techniques.” He wasn’t entirely sure what was going on, but they were definitely trying to keep him from something. “Tell me what’s going on.”

He swung his imploring gaze from his manager to his fiddle player and back again. Neither of them met his eyes.

“I get it.” His chest tightened, and he was surprised to realize that his feelings were hurt. “There’s a bar here. And probably a mini-bar in my room. So naturally everyone’s worried I’m going to get wasted and take this whole tour down with me.”

He shook his head. When neither of them answered, he pulled the room key he’d been given out of his back pocket and stalked toward the elevator alone.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, fellas,” he tossed over his shoulder. “Really. Means a lot to me.”

“Trace. Son, wait,” Danny called out, but it was Pauly who reached him first.

Pauly Garrett was a patient man. He was also a smart man who’d been blessed with the gift of foresight. And he’d been Trace’s manager for as long as he had because he’d learned to spot potential explosions before the necessary components gathered in one place. Trace usually appreciated that about him. But this time, he just wanted the guy to give him the benefit of the doubt. For once.

“I am worried about you.” His manager sighed. “But it’s not about the bar, Trace.” He nodded to Danny to go on with the rest of the band. “Not exactly.”

“Okay,” Trace said slowly. He pressed the button for the elevator. “So what is it?

He heard his manager pull in a breath. Jesus. Was someone dying?

“Trace, you know I try not to interfere with the things I don’t have to interfere with. But sometimes, I’ve stayed out of your personal life only to wish later that I’d said something. Something that maybe could’ve prevented—”

The elevator dinged as it reached them. Trace looked up at the red light to see which door was about to open.

“Get to the point, Pauly.”

“It’s about Kylie. And I don’t want this to come out wrong but—”

“Is she okay? Dammit. I knew I should’ve—”

“She’s fine. I swear,” his manager assured him.

“Then what is it? What’s going on with her? I’d appreciate it if you stopped jerking me around.” The elevator door glided open, and thankfully the plush red cavern of it was empty.

Trace stepped on and his manager followed. He had to hold his room key in front of a black panel to get to the private floor he was on.

“She’s looking for you. But Trace’s she’s been—”

Before he uttered another word of explanation, she was there.

Flanked by her friend and Mike in the same fashion he’d been guarded by Danny and his manager moments ago.

Trace barely registered the curse Pauly mumbled under his breath.

His arm shot out to hold the doors open.

When his gaze collided with hers, her blue eyes burned so bright he couldn’t fucking breathe. It was her. His girl. The one who’d given him all of herself, heart and soul, that very first time. Readily and without hesitation.

The walls she’d had up all this time were gone and she was locked in his stare.

She wore a dark blue dress that slid tantalizingly off one of her smooth bare shoulders and her favorite boots, but the way she looked at him, she might as well have been stark naked.

His world suddenly became a very fragile place made entirely of glass. The wrong move, the wrong word, would send it all crashing down.

“Get off the elevator, Pauly,” he said evenly without taking his eyes from hers.

“Trace, I don’t think you—”

“Get. Off. The. Elevator.” His chest pumped in response to the considerable effort he was making to operate his lungs. “Now.”

His manager shook his head and stepped off the elevator.

He didn’t look up into the worried faces of the other three. Because all he could see was her. And she was in desperate need of something. He hoped like hell it was something he could give her.

If it was what he suspected it was, then he was going to make sure she got what she needed again and again.

With a slight lift of his chin, he invited her to come to him.

He was either dead, dreaming, or witnessing a miracle, because she came to him. And she kept coming until her body was nearly against his.

Once she was inside, he moved his arm and allowed the elevator doors to close, cocooning them in privacy.

“Heard you were looking for me.”

“I was,” she said softly. “Looks like I found you.”

Holy hell, that look. He couldn’t even begin to comprehend what that look did to him. Every ounce of confidence he’d lost, the mistakes and the failures, the disappointment he’d been to so many—it all just ceased to matter.

His whole damn world hung in the delicate balance of that look.

Because he knew now that she still saw him. She still looked at him and saw that man she’d convinced him he could be, the one she trusted, had faith in, and believed was worthy of her.

“So you did. What can I do for you, sweetheart?”

Desire-drenched need flashed in those eyes of hers. “I think you know, Trace. I think you’ve always known.”

He forced his throat to swallow. His hands twitched. As did his dick.

Apparently Kylie Ryans had decided to test him and see if he meant all those dirty things he’d said to her on the bus. It looked like she was about to call his bluff. He’d told himself a million times that if he ever got another shot, he would be careful with her. He would take it slow. Do things in the right order.

But each floor they rose, each breath of hers that he breathed in, his self-control dissipated. Inch by inch, layer by layer, until it was a thin vapor he could no longer grasp onto.

“How are you feeling? Earlier you gave everyone quite a—”

“I’m fine, Trace,” she assured him. “More than fine.”

She took a step closer even though there wasn’t really any more space to move into. He gave up on restraining himself and pulled her to him. What the hell, he figured. All of his cards were already showing anyways.

“I might not be able to take it slow, Kylie Lou. It won’t be gentle or sweet like you deserve. I might…hurt you.”

God he didn’t want to hurt her if he could fucking help it. He wanted to please her, give her a pleasure so deep and undeniable she’d never even think of anyone besides him being inside her.

“Maybe I don’t want it to be gentle or sweet,” she breathed against his skin. “I can take it. I think…I think I want it to hurt.”

Fuck me.
He was a goner.

Her fingers slid up his chest as her lips brushed the stubble on his chin. He bent down and wrapped his hands under her ass as tightly as he could. Lifting her onto his waist, he slammed her against the wall of the elevator hard enough to rattle the whole damn thing.

He groaned as she pressed herself against the rock-hard ridge in his pants. He heard her sweet surprised gasp as she took in a breath.

“Feel that, baby?” he hissed through his teeth.

The whimper that escaped her lips in response said hell yeah she felt it. She gripped the hair at the nape of his neck hard enough to make his eyes water as she nipped and licked his earlobe. Her thighs flexed around him and he groaned in anticipation of her tight heat. He couldn’t wait to get inside her. To give her every single inch of himself.

His hands raked up her hips and back. Her thick, blond curtain of hair surrounded him. He was drowning in her and drinking her in, breathing her in, every way that he could.

He was about to hit the emergency stop button and fuck her in that very elevator when the chime sounded and the door opened. Taking a second to catch his breath, he set her down as gently as he could manage and pulled her by the hand toward his room.

“Come on, baby,” he said, squeezing her hand as they made their way down the hallway together.

“Trace,” she said, lust dripping from the needful ache in her tone.

“Yeah, Kylie Lou?” he rasped when they reached his door.

“I need you. I need you so bad.” Her voice broke, as if she might be about to cry. She’d been strong for so long. He knew good and well how much it had hurt her to confess her need.

He planned to soothe that pain and that need. Soon. He turned and pressed his forehead to hers and closed his eyes. “I know. I know you do, pretty girl. You have me.”

H
E DIDN’T
kiss her on the mouth until they were safely locked in his room. But the door had barely closed behind her when she gripped his arms so hard he wondered if there’d be bruises. He fucking hoped so.