“I don’t understand,” she admits when I don’t follow that up.
“Jasper and Viola belong together, Naomi. They always have, but I was too selfish and stubborn to care, and Jasper’s heart was always too big to deny me. He thought I was trying to win Viola back, and it pissed him off like nothing else that I was going out and sleeping around the way I was behind her back.”
“Were you?” she asks with something extra in her tone. Indignation maybe? I can’t blame her for it. None of my behavior on the tour is something to be proud of.
“Yes and no. I was sleeping around, but not as much as Jasper or the media believed, and never on Viola. Well, not since I was an asshole teenager. She hasn’t been mine for nearly a decade. My actions were mostly my attempt to compel Jasper into action by letting him think I wanted her back.”
“Mostly?” she challenges with a quirked eyebrow.
I shrug and grin and shrug again. “Mostly.”
“The women who used to swarm Florian made me crazy. He and I didn’t fight much, but any time we did, it was about them. They were everywhere. Sneaking into our hotel rooms, mobbing him anywhere we went. They were brutally nasty to me always, as you’d imagine. I was so young, a bit insecure, and even though I knew he wasn’t cheating, I hated the fear and jealousy those women instilled in me.”
I think about Viola for a moment. She was young, like Naomi was, when I was cheating on her all those years ago. It makes me sick that I did that to her. Absolutely fucking sick.
“I know I don’t need to be the one to tell you this, but Florian is insane for letting you go. Obviously, I don’t know what happened between the two of you, but I can’t imagine it was because he wanted any other woman than you. That seems far too impossible.”
She shakes her head, her eyes glassing over. They drop, watching my fingers as I continue to toy with her hair. She doesn’t say anything about that, and I can’t find it in me to stop. Her hair feels like spun silk in my hand.
“That’s not why we ended,” is all she says, and I don’t push her with that. It’s none of my business. And really, I shouldn’t still be here. We’re not working on the song. We’re sitting very close to each other, our bodies touching, as we talk in low intimate tones.
But there is something about her that makes me want to open up. Makes me want to bare my soul. I can’t even place what it is about her. It’s this strange intrinsic connection we seem to share. An odd force of nature that draws me to her and keeps me rooted in place when I should be anywhere other than here with her.
“I cheated on Viola. It’s why she broke up with me all those years ago. It’s the regret of my life. Cheating on her. Hurting her like that.” I meet Naomi’s eyes as the words slip from my lips. “It’s not a mistake I’d make again with any woman I was ever with.”
Her eyes bounce back and forth between mine and I hold them so carefully, so intently.
I clear my throat and change the subject. “How old were you when you started dating Florian?” I ask because I’ve Googled her. Hell, I’ve fucking internet stalked the shit out of her. She doesn’t do all that much on social media anymore, but there is no shortage of pictures of Naomi Kent.
She’s young. I know this.
But she was even younger when she was with him, and he’s a solid nine years older than her.
Her eyes are still locked on mine when she whispers, “Seventeen.”
A stuttered breath exhales from my lungs. I have nothing to say that won’t come out sounding insanely judgmental, but what the fuck? She was a teenager—a minor. I think of Adalyn out there and my fist involuntarily clenches along with my jaw. Where were her parents when that was happening?
“You’re judging me again.”
I shake my head, reaching out and cupping her cheek with my hand. “No, beautiful. I’m not judging you.” But I am judging the shit out of him. If I didn’t like the guy before, I most certainly want to kick his cradle-robbing ass now.
“It’s okay if you do,” she says, smirking at me. “I was judging the hell out of you. I hate players.”
I smile, big and wide before I can stop it and some of the tension that had been weighing me down, eases. “I think all women do, but that doesn’t stop them from screwing one.”
Her cheeks tint up with color. “Is that really all you’re after? Screwing your way through one woman after another?”
“Not anymore.” Only, it comes out all wrong. Instead of being light or playful or even defensive, it comes out full of suggestion. Laced in an unmistakable undertone. No, I’m not after fucking my way through one woman after another because I’m suddenly only interested in fucking you. That’s what my tone just intimated, and she does not miss that for a second.
It sure as hell wasn’t conscious.
Shit. I should go. I should scoop up my little miss out there and bring her back to my place so she can get a full night’s sleep. I absolutely should not inch in a little closer to Naomi, who is staring at me with wide, beautiful, terrified eyes. I most definitely should not love the way her breath hitches the closer I get.
My eyes dip down to her lips, full and pink and moist, and then back up to her eyes. She hasn’t moved or said anything, and loud, screeching alarm bells ring through my ears, reminding me all this woman represents. Just how untouchable she is.
My forbidden fruit.
My heart pounds out and I lick my lips, coming in closer and dropping my forehead to hers. I exhale a silent breath, close my eyes, and rub my nose against hers. She’s still and quiet, hardly breathing and I’ve already promised her a million things. A million things that contradict everything I’m doing now. Every thought I’m having.
Because all I can think about is kissing her.
It’s the mutiny in my mind that I cannot gain control over.
I open my eyes and shift to the side, kissing her cheek and forcing myself to pull away. I smile a bullshit smile and rise up off the chair. My dick is already slightly hard just from the thought of her lips on mine, so I covertly adjust myself with my back to her. I walk over to the piano because if I leave right now, like this, it’ll be awkward tomorrow, and I cannot have awkward between us.
Especially when I’m the one who made it so.
“Play for me what you just played.” I roll my head over my shoulder. “I mean our song, not Metallica,” I smirk. “Then, I’m taking Ady home.”
I sit on the piano bench, which is probably stupid to place myself so close to her, but again…awkward.
Naomi rises off the arm of the chair and creeps around until she’s sitting beside me. She sucks in a deep breath and twists to face me. “It’s just a rough idea. I like the idea of meeting with your bandmates tomorrow. It’s your song, Gus. I’m just here to help, so I’d never want to alter your sound or vision. But when I read what you wrote, this is sort of what sprang to my mind. I’ve been toying with lyrics for my end of it, and I think if you have time later in the week, we should work on those together?”
She ends it like a question, and I say, “Sure. Yeah, I think that makes sense to do.”
Because this is business…all business. Nothing more.