Travis is there for me. He helps me and practices with me and patiently teaches me when there’s something I don’t understand. Which is ridiculously often.
Angelo, the band’s producer, finds all this as tedious as hell, but Travis seems enchanted by it. He likes that I need him. He wants me to rely on him. Part of him seems to almost thrive on it.
It sometimes concerns me how much I need him.
It was never my plan to need anyone. Especially not this much.
To make matters even more tangly, we have outrageously hot sex every chance we get. And while I can’t get myself to entirely admit that, emotionally, I desperately need him … physically, I am crazy for Travis Tucker. I simply can’t get enough of him.
To say that he feels the same way would be an understatement.
He says my body is his haven and his fantasy. We retreat to his apartment many times a day. We make love all night. He’s demanding and relentless and such a fierce, beautiful lover that all I can do is feel and cling to him as he takes me to the very limits of what I can handle. I drink him and I take him into my body worshipfully. He has so deeply saturated me with his seed and his passion that he has changed me with it. Our bond feels important and necessary. Travis has infused me with his essence so thoroughly, I don’t like to think about ever having to go without it. I’m addicted to his body and the pleasure he forces me to take. That part of him, I can admit, I love.
The L word, though, is a tiny thorn between us. He’s said it to me twice, after knowing me for a week. I haven’t said it back and I know he wants me to.
The fact is, I only left home a few weeks ago. I’m eighteen years old and I always thought the road of my life would have hills and bends and unexpected corners along its slow cruise. I don’t feel ready to commit to anything yet for the rest of time. As beautiful and addictive as he is, if I tell him I love him, it’ll lock this into place in way I’m not sure I’m ready for yet.
He doesn’t push me but I can tell … it’s a thing.
There’s another thing, too, that irritates Travis like nothing else does.
Chase.
Now that I have a phone, he calls me all the time. At least once a day and sometimes more. He sends me photos. He likes everything I post. I get messages from him constantly and he’s become more insistent about reconnecting.
I do want to see him and it’s been nice to catch up on more of his news.
But it’s the one thing Travis is very definitely not easy-going about. Especially when Chase told me he got a ticket to our upcoming show in Portland. Travis has been surly about it ever since he found out.
“Of course he’s going to come to the show, Travis,” I told him. “He’s my best friend. He wants to see me sing.”
Travis hates when I call Chase my best friend. “How can someone you haven’t seen in four years be your best friend? I’m your best friend now.”
When he said that, I kissed him and laughed at him gently. “You’re not my best friend.”
“What am I, then?”
“You’re my very gorgeous … lover.”
“I can be both,” he said to me, then proceeded to give me four back-to-back orgasms to prove his point.
My phone rings. It’s Chase again.
I’ve just finished a meeting with the band, the sound crew, the production crew, the lighting crew and the publicity crew about the tour schedule. We’re leaving tomorrow morning in a fleet of buses and equipment trucks to drive to Los Angeles. My opening act will consist of eight songs and Travis has helped me perfect each one. All of them are on my album of sixteen songs which is now finished and available for download on all the major music platforms. I’ll appear on stage with his band to sing the third song of their first set each night of our tour.
I’m sitting in a chair by the wall of windows and the Nashville loft is, as usual, full of people. Travis is talking to Roxie in the open plan kitchen area and he’s distracted. So I take the call.
“Hey, Chase.”
“Hey, Roo, how are you? Excited? Nervous?”
“Terrified. But, yes, excited. I can’t believe this is really happening. I can’t believe I’m actually going on tour.”
“You’ll finally get to see the world.”
“In two days I’ll be in California. I’ve always wanted to go there.”
“And now you’ll get your chance. Let’s make a plan to meet up after your show in Portland. Can I get a backstage pass or something? I can’t wait to see you, Roo.”
“I’m sure I could get you a pass. I’ll ask Travis.”
“I never pictured you with someone like Travis Tucker. Wow. I mean, I just think you’ll get tired of the age gap and the playboy lifestyle after a while. I keep telling you that you and I are meant to end up together, Roo. You’ll see. You need someone who’s more on your wavelength. Eventually you’ll want someone who knows you, like I know you.”
Chase is always saying things like this. I don’t answer. If Travis happens to overhear, I know for a fact it won’t go down too well, to put it mildly. I’m not sure what he would do, but I don’t want to test him or provoke him. It’s becoming more and more of an issue the closer we get to the tour.
“Ask Travis what?” I hear over my shoulder. I glance up at him and he’s as rough-edged and dazzling as always—and extremely pissed-off looking.
Carefully, I say, “Chase was wondering about a backstage pass,” adding—even though I’m not sure why: “He wants to meet you.”
“I’ll think about it.” Travis takes my phone and hits the end button before handing it back to me. “Okay, I’ve thought about it. The answer is no.”
“Why not? That was rude, by the way.”
With that, I’m scooped up into Travis’s arms and he’s carrying me towards his—our—bedroom. “I’m going to show you the true meaning of the word rude right now, darlin’.”
He takes me to bed, kicking the door closed. He lays me back and peels off my clothes sort of aggressively, kissing my breasts, sucking on my nipples roughly. “Mine,” he growls, holding me down. He kisses his way down my body, licking my pussy greedily, eating into me and making me squirm with the lewd, hungry delves of his tongue. His coarse-silk hair rubs against my thighs, tickling me. “I don’t want him calling you all the time. How many fucking times a day does he have to call you?”
“It’s not that many.” His scratchy beard rubs against my tender, sensitive flesh and I gasp. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Oh, it matters. A lot. Because you’re mine.”
I get that he’s a big lusty alpha male and he’s claiming me as his territory or whatever but it’s all a little over the top. All I’m doing is talking to an old friend once in a while. There’s no harm in that. Travis’s jealousy is overblown, that’s all there is to it.
I make the mistake of pointing this out to him. “I’m not actually yours, Travis,” I whisper. “I’m mine.” He latches on to my clit and sucks on me as he pushes two fingers inside me, rubbing his other finger over the secret cove of my ass, working every sensual trigger I possess. He sucks my clit, milking strongly as his fingers slide, until I’m just about to come. He knows exactly what drives me crazy, but he’s teasing me. Punishing me. He avoids a rhythm, making me wait. But by now I’m so turned on I feel loose and reckless. “Please, Travis. Do it.”