The Farther I Fall (10 page)

***

After load out, they all walked back to the hotel in twos and threes. Gwen stayed near Lucas, still on alert and scanning everyone they passed. When they reached the suite, Lucas said, “If you'll excuse us, I need to talk to Gwen.”

“What?” Gwen snapped to attention.

“Come on.” He opened the door and pushed her through. Laughter came from the other side of the door, and someone wolf-whistled.

“About damn time.” That sounded like Sally.

When the door closed, Gwen found herself backed against it with Lucas staring down at her, eyes darkened with intensity.

“You don't mind, do you?” he asked.

“I thought you were avoiding me.” Her tone was mild and much calmer than she felt. Her heart was already racing in anticipation.

“I was. Now I'm not.” He pressed his hands to either side of her head and leaned in closer. “You know, I thought the first note might've been from you. I thought you were flirting with me.” He closed the distance between them with a fierce kiss, one that spiked the second (or was it third?) rush of adrenaline of the night through her body.

She reacted without thinking, snaking one hand up to catch in the hair at the base of his scalp. “If I'm flirting with you, you'll know it. I don't play coy. Ever.” She tugged softly and he gasped. “I know you're bigger than me, but did you really think you would be able to manhandle me in here and have your way with me?”

“No.” He caught her free hand and brought it to his lips, running his tongue along her fingers. “I thought you'd give in faster than this.”

On the one hand, she could give in. She could let him be the one to do the taking, let him have her, have control. On the other hand, all of the fantasies of bringing him to his knees, making him utterly hers—was she wrong to think he wanted that too? He was watching her, waiting for her decision. She smiled up at him and let his hair go, sliding her hand around to his cheek. “This isn't going to happen entirely on your terms, you know.” She pulled him down and nuzzled at the side of his neck.

“Good.” His voice softened, and he pulled back to kiss her. This one started gentle, almost delicate. His lips moved over hers, featherlight, the touch of his tongue so faint she thought she might have imagined it. It made her shiver down to her toes, and only made her need greater. She tightened her arms around his neck and pulled him closer, parting her lips to invite him inside.

He groaned and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her up and nearly off her feet. They stumbled as he devoured her mouth, and he put a hand up to the door to steady them. “Bed,” she gasped, and they started moving toward it in concert, still kissing and clinging to each other. He fell back onto it, pulling her with him. He murmured against her skin, “God, I want you.”

Before she could react, the room phone rang. She growled in annoyance and let him go, rolling across the bed to answer. Over a background of chatter and laughing, Craig said, “Is anyone naked yet?” The background laughter got more uproarious.

“Fuck you,” she said.

“Not my job. Kiss Lucas for us, mm?” She hung up while he was still giggling and rolled her eyes at Lucas.

“You might want to take that off the hook. They'll never stop calling.” She reached back behind the nightstand, unplugged the phone, and held the cord up for him to see. “Even better. Come here.” She turned and scooted over, settling at his side, brushing a stray strand of hair back from his face and stroking her fingertips down the side of his face. He leaned over to kiss her once, gently. Then, because that didn't seem to be enough, he kissed her again, lingering. Then nothing seemed to be enough. He pulled her closer, wrapping his arms around her and kissing her with a slow, hungry intensity. She let him pull her jacket away, forgetting the shoulder holster.

“Where the hell did that come from?”

Her face heated up as she drew the gun from the holster, checked the safety, and tucked it into the nightstand drawer. “It just . . . seemed like it might be necessary.” Mentioning his brother here, now, was a bad idea.

“How long have you been carrying that around?” The way his eyes moved over her face was breathtaking in its intensity.

“Since the day after Detroit.”

“You're serious about protecting me.”

“Right now I'm serious about touching you.” She unbuttoned the dark gray shirt he wore, tugging it away.

“Is it legal?” He meant the gun; she knew he did.

“Absolutely,” she breathed, pulling his hands under her T-shirt. “Unless you Americans have passed some law against touching before sex.” She kissed him so he couldn't ask any more questions.

When he finally took off her T-shirt and bra, his fingers brushed lightly across the scar tissue on her shoulder. He looked a little awed, and she fought to keep from flinching. His touch didn't hurt, exactly, but she pulled away, sliding her hand down his chest.

He lifted a hand to her cheek and turned her face toward his. “Don't hide from me. You're beautiful. This”—he rested his palm, heavy and warm, against her scar—“is beautiful. It means you survived and you're here with me.” He leaned in and kissed her, slow and thorough, his tongue stroking against hers while his hands rested on her shoulders.

She didn't trust herself to speak, shaken that he had voiced her exact thoughts on her injury. Instead she let him pull away her jeans, watching the shifting expressions on his face. “Gwen.” His voice was a hushed breath as he quickly pulled off his boots and peeled away the leather pants. “God, Gwen.” Now it was a plea. She'd already seen him naked. But naked and pleading for her—well. That was new. Biting her lower lip, she held out her arms to him.

And heard her mobile ringing.

“Ignore it. It's them again; you know it is.” He bent over her and pulled off her panties with agonizing slowness, each brush of his fingers against her skin making her want to pull him down against her. He crawled back across the bed and settled down with one thigh between her legs. Her right thigh brushed against the swelling length of his cock. When he sank down to her, the sensation of skin-to-skin contact from head to toe made both of them gasp. They kissed, their mouths wet and open and wanting. She couldn't stop touching him, couldn't stop running her hands up and down his sides, over the taut muscle and slightly-too-prominent rib cage, coasting over his hip bones and down his thighs.

He touched her with dizzying surety, skimming over her hips and back up, sliding up the sides of her breasts. The movement teased her nipples against the hair on his chest, making her bite her lip against a whimper.

“I want—Gwen, God, I want—”

She shifted her weight and pushed him over, straddling his thigh, letting it slide between her legs as she moved back. It was all she could do to keep from grinding against him. Instead she mouthed her way across his chest to tease a nipple with the tip of her tongue. “What?”

“You. Everything.”

Smiling against his skin, she trailed her tongue over his pectoral muscles, salt and sweat sparking on her taste buds. She watched him as she wet her left hand with her tongue and reached down between them to tease her fingers along the underside of his cock, drawing a low, aching moan from him.

He didn't let her take the lead for long, but drew her up to kiss her, sitting up to meet her halfway. She kept up a slow, steady rhythm over his cock, stroking a thumb over the head, while he licked and bit a trail down the side of her neck, setting her nerve endings on fire. He cupped one of her breasts and lowered his mouth to it, teasing her with his tongue all around the nipple before finally lightly sucking. She whimpered and arched her hips against his thigh, wanting him to feel how wet she was.

He nudged her to her side, and she gasped at the light tickle of his fingertips sliding up her thigh. She reestablished the squeezing stroke on his cock and leaned up to kiss him, pushing her way into his mouth with her tongue. The tips of his fingers parted her labia, dipping in enough to trace a path up from her entrance to her clit, the way already slick and hot. He groaned into her mouth and broke the kiss, bringing his fingers up to his mouth. She shivered, watching him lick each one of them clean.

“I need more.” His voice had gone hazy and low. “Let me taste you.”

She couldn't have said no if her life depended on it. He lay back down and urged her up, pulling at her hips until she was straddling his face. She tried to keep her weight off him, but he pulled her down, burying his mouth against her cunt in a deep, lascivious kiss. He wasn't just licking her; it felt as if he were using his entire face to drive her mad. His stubble tickled and scraped against her sensitive skin while his tongue drew long, teasing lines; now and then it dipped inside of her. He sucked and nibbled and licked; once or twice she would have sworn she even felt his nose brushing her clit.

She couldn't keep still, or quiet. She moaned and rocked her hips against his face, trusting him to keep her steady and keep her from hurting him. Overwhelmed at how good he was, she dropped her head back and closed her eyes. Then he started fucking her with his tongue, stiffening it inside her and letting her work her hips against it while the fingers of one of his clever, clever hands found her clit. Her breath came in soft cries that were getting louder. She could feel him moaning, better than any vibrator she'd ever owned.

It was too much and not enough at the same time. Then he switched. His tongue went back to work on her swollen clit and he slipped two fingers into her. She cried out loud enough that it echoed in the bedroom, the extra fullness inside her so good, so intoxicatingly good. The world narrowed down to his tongue and his hands and her hips, rocking together in a steady rhythm. Each thrust was a dual pleasure of stretching and stroking, and her body took over control from her brain entirely. She pushed down against his face, hips spasming; her voice raised in a series of sharp wordless cries; her muscles locked and trembled; her vision went white.

She was faintly aware of his hands guiding her back down to the bed, brushing her hair back from her face, while she could only stare at him, panting and wide-eyed. He leaned down to kiss her, and his face was hot and damp and smelled like her. She could taste herself in his mouth, and the thought sent a tingling rush between her legs. “You'd damn well better have some condoms,” she murmured.

“Bathroom. Shaving kit.” He looked overwhelmed, as if his desire left him in shock. She found what she needed, her hands shaking as she tore it open. She stroked his cock with one hand before rolling the condom down with the other.

As she swung her leg over to straddle him again, she kept her eyes on his face. He reached down to hold his cock steady, and she lowered herself onto him. The first initial push, that hard, delicious intrusion, made her gasp in pleasure, her eyes falling closed.

Slowly they found a rhythm together, hips sliding and twisting. She couldn't stop kissing him: shoulders, neck, mouth. The temptation was too much, so she took his hands in hers and pressed them back to the bed, gauging his reaction as she rode the motion of their two bodies.

“So good,” he groaned, arching beneath her. She tightened her hands and he whimpered.

“I want to make you come, just like this,” she murmured, biting at his earlobe. Everywhere they touched was hot, skin damp and slicker by the moment. With each thrust their muscles clenched and flexed against each other's bodies and she lost herself in the push-pull friction of his cock sliding in and out of her. His fingers dug into her hands and she groaned loud enough to echo in the room.

“Oh God.” Lucas's normally smooth baritone was higher-pitched, almost a whine. “Yes. Fuck me, Gwen.” The last word cut off and Gwen felt the sudden pulsing twitch inside her as he came. She watched his face, with its glazed eyes and parted lips, and followed him into the depths a second time, her hips jerking and shoulders shaking.

Slowly, gradually, she relaxed against him, trailing lazy kisses over his chest, listening to the low, purr-like rumble of contentment it earned her. “I should move.”

“Don't you dare.” He tightened his arms. “Not yet.”

“No, really. We're . . . sticky.” She laughed and he let her go. She slipped the condom off and fetched a warm damp cloth to clean them both up—then her mobile rang again. “Oh for fuck's sake—” She grabbed her jeans to retrieve the phone, looked at it, and answered it with a stab of her finger. “Yes. Okay? Happy now?”

Craig laughed. “Good for you. Took you both long enough.”

“Go to bed. We're leaving early in the morning.” She hung up and looked over at Lucas, who was wearing a lazy, brilliant smile.

“Come back to bed.”

The flight was an almost-nothing trip—thanks to the miracles of time zones and flying east, they would land before they departed. Gwen faced a dilemma: Lucas was scheduled to go tape an interview for a local radio station's breakfast show at the same time she needed to do her usual job overseeing setup for the gig. She couldn't be in both places at once. She mentioned as much to Lucas as they reached cruising altitude and the seat belt sign flickered off.

“It's the middle of the day,” he said. “I'll have a driver. It'll be fine.”

Her lips tightened. “Want to know how many kidnappings and assaults I've seen happen in broad daylight?”

“This isn't a war zone, Gwen.”

“Close enough.” Her fingers rapped at the armrest between them, fidgeting. Lucas had the window seat, so she looked out the window across the aisle.

“Listen to me. I've had creepy fans before. It's part of the job.” He reached over and took her hand, stilling it. “Yes, this one has gone a little farther, but ultimately, it's just another creepy fan.”

She shifted to face him. “He could be on this bloody flight and we wouldn't know it. He knows your schedule. That's happened before, has it?”

“Well—”

“I didn't think so.” She drew her hand away gently, then sighed and rubbed her forehead. “I don't suppose there's any convincing my sister you need a driver with security skills, is there?”

He sniffed and leaned his head back against the armrest. “Two years ago, maybe. Profit margins are too tight these days.”

“Well, they'll be a hell of a lot tighter if there's no star onstage.”

“There's been no indication he wants to hurt me.”

“Do you read the papers?” She couldn't keep the edge out of her voice. A hundred worst-case scenarios had gone through her mind since the first night in Detroit almost a week ago. “That's how it starts. And as soon as you stop living up to whatever fantasy he's got cooked up, he's going to come after you.”

His hand snaked over to cover hers again. “Maybe I won't,” he murmured, eyes alight. “I'm very good with fantasies.”

“I'm serious, Lucas.” She tried to pull her hand away, but she didn't try that hard. Instead he drew her hand toward him and placed it over his heart.

“So am I. Think we're a mile up yet?”

“A—what?” Then she got the reference. “If we are, it's only going to be for about ten more minutes, so stop right there.” She did take her hand away then, because feeling his heart under her palm was more intense than it had any right to be. “Listen, we need to figure this out. I'm not letting you go to the radio station alone.”

“
Letting
me?” The mischief vanished and his eyes narrowed. “Gwen, the schedule is clear. They're picking me up. I'm going. We're too short-staffed for you to spare anybody, and you most certainly aren't available.” They glared at each other. “Go on. Who can you spare?”

“Craig—”

“Please. Are you going to play engineer now?”

“One of the techs—”

“No, absolutely not. Besides, you can't spare them any more than you can Craig. Gwen, no one is available
.
”

She sat back against her seat with a huff of breath. “Shit.”

He leaned over and breathed in her ear, “You can't protect me all the time.”

She closed her eyes, because it was true. You couldn't protect someone all the time, and she knew that truth better than anyone.

***

Maggie decided to go with Lucas to the radio interview at the last minute, which didn't do much to make Gwen feel better. If anything, now she had two people to worry about. She kept an eye on the clock.

Craig caught her. “They'll be fine.”

“If they're so much as five bloody minutes late, I'm calling the police.”

“And they'll laugh at you.”

Gwen's mobile rang and she answered without looking. “Lucas? You make it there all right?”

“He's not with you?”

“Uhh—yes, hello.” She made an apologetic gesture at Craig and walked away to take the call somewhere quieter. “Sorry, Lee, I didn't realize it was you. He had an interview with a local radio station.”

“You let him go alone?”

She ran a hand over her hair and fought the desire to pace. “I'm assuming you know your brother. He made a sound argument for going without me. And we are staffed pretty tightly.”

“Did I make a mistake asking you to do this?”

“I did tell you I wasn't trained for it.”
Yes, you did. Hire someone who knows what they're doing.

“My brother can be very charming,” he said. “I'd hoped he wouldn't be able to worm his way past your better judgment and convince you to make an emotional decision—”

Her patience snapped. “If I had made an emotional decision, your brother would be locked in his hotel room right now. Or else I would be ignoring the job I'm actually getting paid for so I could be sitting right next to him with my hand about four inches away from my gun.”

“Gwen—”

“Look. I get it. You're worried about him. But Lucas is an adult, and he's even surprisingly rational at times. You know him. How do you think he would react if I started forbidding him to do things? Hm?”

No answer.

“He'd do it anyway,” she said. “Without telling me. This way? I know where he is. I know who he's with. I know when he's supposed to be back. And he trusts me enough to tell me his plans.”

“That's what I always thought too. We gave each other so much trust he wound up in rehab three times,” he said. “If he knows you're making this personal, he's going to try and snow you. Don't let him.”

“What happened to thinking I'd be good for him?”

“I didn't say he'd be good for you.”

She took a breath, biting back her first angry response. “Whatever happened between you two in the past, this is not that. Someone has been with him almost constantly for the entire tour,” she said. “He's clean. And now with this—this
person
tracking his every move, the last thing he's going to do is give them a chance to find him vulnerable.”

“I hope you're right,” he said finally. “I hope he deserves your trust.”

“I hope he's able to earn yours back.”

“Well.” It was as much a sigh as a word. She recognized surrender when she heard it. “I'll leave you to it then.” He rang off, leaving her rankled and glaring at her mobile.

“Who was that?” Craig asked as she rejoined him.

“One of Sam's lot. Had some questions about the accounting.” She lied without a second thought. Whatever issues there were between Lee and Lucas weren't anyone else's business.

“Right. Everything okay?”

“It is now, yeah.”

She kept her eyes on the clock, and it was the longest hour and a half of her life. Lucas and Maggie came back to the theater with a few minutes to spare, just in time for sound check. Lucas and Gwen didn't touch, but he stood at her shoulder and gave her a smile that made her insides lurch.
I hope he deserves your trust.

She hoped he did too. The alternative was too painful to contemplate.

***

Gwen was on the stage in St. Louis setting up equipment with the techs when she heard it: a low hum from one of the amps.

“Craig, can you hear that out there?”

Craig, up in the booth, sighed over the PA. “Yeah. Damn.”

“The wiring in this place is shit,” the guitar tech said, addressing the vast space of the auditorium. “Gonna be a fucking nightmare.”

“Can you work around it?” Craig asked.

“Maybe. I'll be able to tell more during sound check.”

“That's cutting it a little fine,” Gwen said. “What's going on? Use small words.”

“Bad grounding,” Craig said. “Sort of like radio static. Should be able to track it down, but . . .”

“But what? What's the worst that can happen here?” Gwen didn't need this in an already packed day.

The tech scratched the back of his head. “Electrocution's always the worst that could happen, but not likely.”

“Reassuring,” Gwen said. “What else?”

“Aside from the hum? If we can't track it down, Lucas might get a spark or two off the mic.”

Craig sighed. “He'll bitch for a week.”

“Right. So get it sorted, both of you. Yeah?” Gwen left them to the job, adding it to her mental checklist.

By sound check the problem was more evident than ever. The amps buzzed like an angry swarm of wasps. Every time Lucas got too close to the mic he jumped back with a curse. Finally he stormed off the stage. Maggie looked at Gwen and shrugged. “Take a break,” Gwen told her, then trotted off after him. When she caught up to him in the green room, Lucas said, “How fucking difficult is it to plug in wires? Craig needs to get his shit together, or I'm not performing tonight.”

“Just—breathe, okay? We'll take care of it.” She leaned up and kissed him, meant to be a consoling gesture. She may as well have touched a match to dry kindling. He wrapped one arm around her waist and pulled her in tight.

It had been over a week since their first night together—a week of shows every night and traveling every day. Some days, Gwen kept on her feet only by the grace of caffeine and years of military discipline. For the past three nights, bed had been for sleep and not much else. They both felt the loss, the sudden spark of something new smothered by the weight of too many external expectations.

Lucas broke the kiss and moved to lick at her earlobe. “I could take you right here,” he murmured—and he had to know what his voice did to her.

“Oh? Right here?”

“Mm.” He slipped a hand up from her waist, cupping her breast through the tour T-shirt she wore. “Lean you against the dressing table, or maybe bend you over it . . .”

She whimpered, fighting the urge to wrap her legs around his waist. She wanted to let him have her, right then, right there, and to hell with the sound check or the wiring or anything else. His thumb teased over her nipple, stroking it into a tight peak while his mouth trailed down her neck.

There was a knock at the green room door. “Gwen? Craig's asking for you.” Maggie.

They both groaned. “Ignore her.” He nipped at her pulse point. To distract her further, he slipped his thigh between hers and pressed, giving her the perfect surface to rut against. The fingers of his free hand nudged beneath the waistband of her jeans, barely able to reach her butt, just enough to encourage her to roll her hips against his thigh.

Another knock at the door. “Gwen?”

“Shit.” She had a job to do. “Later,” she promised him, prying herself away. Her breasts felt heavy and pulsed with the same aching need that was between her legs. When he leaned down to steal one more kiss, she cupped her hand over the hard shape of his cock in his jeans.

“Not fair.” The ragged edge of his voice spiked need through her fiercer than ever.

“I said later.” Pushing away from him was one of the hardest things she'd ever done.

Maggie smirked when she came out. “He sulking?”

“Not anymore.” Gwen flashed her a grin and headed back to the stage. Craig and the techs were wrestling with wires and outlets and saying something about a ground lift—none of it made sense to Gwen.

“Lucas all right?” asked Craig.

“He threatened to cancel,” she said. “I think I brought him around.”

“We'll get it. It'll be fine.”

It was fine—eventually—but they lost nearly an hour to the problem. Lucas stood in the wings, leaning against a wall and watching them work. When Craig finally waved him over, he pulled his hands from his pockets and slouched toward them. “I'm not touching that mic again until one of you does.”

Craig rolled his eyes but took Lucas's place on the stage, one hand on the guitar strings, the other poised to grab the microphone. He paused, then closed his hand. “See? It's fine.”

Lucas sniffed and resumed his place. “Gwen, if I die, be sure to sue the pants off the theater owners. Craig too, if you can.”

***

The audience was buzzing and humming more than usual tonight; Gwen felt it. She tried to maintain vigilance, scanning the crowd for any sign of trouble, but Lucas was a distraction. Tonight he'd swapped his image of the haughty, remote, and untouchable idol for one that projected vulnerability like an unlocked door. Leather pants—of course—but this pair clung to his narrow hips as if in desperation, low-slung enough to give Gwen, along with everyone else who cared to look, a glimpse of the tops of his hip bones, enough to know he wore nothing beneath the leather.

The simple black tank top he wore fell a few inches short of his waist, leaving a strip of pale flesh visible over his stomach. Over it, a ratty sweater, also too short: off-white in an uneven open knit, riddled with runs and dropped stitches, hanging limply off his broad shoulders. Over everything, a battered dusty black leather jacket so faded it was nearly gray. Each wriggle and strut across the stage drove her mad. No one else should see him that way. She wanted that vulnerability all to herself.

His voice flowed through the auditorium, low and trance-like, with a hypnotic bass line behind it, and open, hollow harmonies filling the spaces around. He hardly touched the keyboards in front of him except to make adjustments here and there, instead wrapping both hands around the microphone and tilting it to his mouth. The lyrics were simple, sometimes nothing more than a low, wailing moan she could imagine in a very different context.

When he started sliding his hands along the length of the microphone in an unmistakably sexual gesture, she had to look away, unable to breathe.

Craig cursed under his breath. “Goddamn it, Lucas. Don't you dare. Not after this afternoon.”