Hollin’s eyes skimmed the page I was on. The particularly filthy page where everyone watched the heroine get spanked. Like how bad of luck did I have?
“Hollin,” I growled.
He smirked up at me and passed it back. “I was just curious.”
“Asshole.”
I flopped back into my seat with the Kindle in my lap. Hollin stepped around me and took Blaire’s empty seat.
“What do you want?” I demanded.
He grinned. “Why did you lie about what you were reading?”
“Why do you care?”
“Well, I didn’t pin you as a classics reader.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. I thought you’d read nonfiction or something.”
“Like biographies?” I asked dryly.
“Or…I don’t know…self-help or business or productivity stuff.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Why?”
“You seem like you’re a hundred and fifty percent on all the time.”
“I am,” I ground out.
He laughed darkly. A sound that went straight to my curling toes. “And yet you’re reading…that.”
“I can like romance and be a smart businesswoman.”
“Clearly.”
But there was a sparkle in his eyes. A light that I hadn’t seen before. It wasn’t his teasing. It was something else, something sultrier. As if this had opened up his entire world. Like it had blown his mind that I read raunchy romance novels. And he…liked it.
He nodded his chin at the book. “That what you always read?”
“So what if it is?”
“Nothing wrong with it. It’s just…hot.”
My cheeks flamed at the word that had come out of his mouth. The way his eyes slid down to my lips. The tension in his body at the thought that I was reading about sex on the regular. Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I needed to somehow swim out of the deep end. Otherwise, I wasn’t going to be able to breathe. Or think. Or exist.
This wasn’t how things were supposed to go with Hollin. He was supposed to needle me, I’d tell him to fuck off, and we’d part. This was…personal. It was definitely so much more personal.
I pulled back from that thought. This was Hollin Abbey. He didn’t care about anything but the chase. He didn’t give a fuck about me. He was interested in the book because of sex and nothing else.
“Hot,” I said flatly as I came to my feet. “Well, thanks. Needed to know you thought I was hot to survive today.”
He huffed. “But didn’t you?”
I rolled my eyes. “Whatever you want to believe.”
Then, I made a hasty retreat to where my friends were sitting. I didn’t turn my book back on the rest of the flight and tried to stay present as the girls chatted about logos, photography, and posing. But still, my brain was always a little aware of Hollin’s presence at any given time.
10
Hollin
My brain was on sex.
How the fuck was I supposed to focus when Piper was reading a girl getting her ass spanked? Because I sure as fuck could not focus on anything else. I kept getting flashes of me bending Piper over my lap and doing the same shit. But Piper’s ass wasn’t mine to spank until she came.
And she’d jumped away from me as quickly as she could when I told her it was hot. That she was hot.
Usually, I let the innuendo do its job.
Today, I hadn’t been able to do shit.
We landed in DFW Airport and took a car to the hotel near AT&T Stadium. Campbell was already at the venue, doing sound checks for the show tonight. He’d gotten us all rooms at the hotel the band was staying at. Being in Campbell’s world was something else,.
I’d come to a few of his shows in LA before he was famous. It wasn’t a red carpet as they were fighting their way up. But after their first album took off, the first show I went to with Dad and Nora was a disaster of epic proportions. Campbell and Dad had gotten into it, and a fire had been lit under all of us. Dad pretty much didn’t come to shows anymore after that. He loved Campbell’s fame enough to not want to cause any trouble for him.
Everyone was getting ready for the show. Campbell had promised to send a car for us to get to the venue. I had time to kill before we had to do that. And still, all I could think about was Piper.
My cock was already filling my pants. I pressed the heel of my palm against it to push it down. I was hard, just thinking about her. I’d seen her half-naked a week before, and now, this.
I’d enjoyed riling her up for a while. It was our dynamic. But something had changed when I saw that ring, when she let me put her in my shirt. Now, I wasn’t just getting under her skin. I wanted to get under her. Or over her. Or put her over my knee. Whatever the fuck way she’d let me take her, I was up for.
And thinking about it right now was helping nothing. My cock certainly wasn’t listening. Or maybe it was because my head was full of filthy thoughts of Piper Medina. It was stiff as a board now. So fucking hard that it was painful.
Jesus! I needed to get this under control before we went out again.
Which, of course, was the moment I considered how Piper could help me get it under control. I had a very vivid thought of watching her deep-throat my cock, and it was all I needed to pop the button on my jeans and slide down the zipper. Maybe I’d take care of this before we all left.
I’d just slipped my hand into my boxers when someone knocked on the door to my hotel room. I stared at the ceiling in dismay.
“Yeah?” I called out.
“Hey, Hollin.” Piper’s voice carried across the divide.
I groaned softly, my eyes rolling into the back of my head. Even her voice was turning me on right now. I was fucked. Seriously fucked.
I stuffed my cock back into my pants and adjusted them to hopefully hide the giant boner I had for her. Then, I opened the door, covering most of my lower half with the door.
“Yeah?”
Her eyes flitted across my face. Uncertainty in every glance.
And, fuck, she’d changed out of her jeans and T-shirt and into a fucking black minidress. She didn’t wear a ton of dresses. But now, I got a full look at her toned golden legs. I jerked my head back up to meet her gaze.
She crossed her arms, which only pushed her tits up in the square cut of her dress. “Julian sent me down here to let you know that we’re drinking in his suite. He’s two doors down if you want to join us.”
Julian must have gotten a sick pleasure out of asking Piper to get me. He’d seen the way I looked at her last weekend. The way I’d been around her on this trip. He was probably laughing his ass off right now.
“Sure,” I said automatically. “Let me grab my…wallet. I’ll meet you.”
“Fine.” She sashayed her tight ass away from me.
I bit back a groan at the sight. Fuck.
“Go down. Go down. Go down,” I hissed at my dick as I stepped back into my room.
It had a mind of its own, but after a few minutes, it wasn’t entirely noticeable, and I headed down the hall to Julian’s suite. All I knew was that I was walking into a concert still so fucking turned on, with the woman I was interested in, wearing nothing but a skimpy dress, and I hadn’t had time to take care of business. Fuck. Me.