A flush spreads down my body. I bring my coffee to my mouth, taking a giant sip. The hot liquid rushes down my throat and I rub my tongue back and forth between my teeth. “G.o.d, I wish I remembered that time.”
“I plan on making you sit on making you sit perfectly still,” he says, his hazel eyes gleaming with desire and power. “Dipping my fingers, my fruit, inside of your body. Tasting you. I’ve grown addicted to the way you taste, Red.”
I feel the throb deep inside of me, and I shift in my seat. “And let me guess, you don’t plan to do any of that until I say the word, right?”
“You’re so f**king smart, Sienna.”
†
Lucas is broody the entire jet ride to Georgia—which, really, is over before it even begins. He sits sideways, taking up two seats and writing in his notebook. Every once in a while he glances up at me, tilting his head to one side, reading me.
I want to know what he’s writing—if it’s about me or us. I want to know what thoughts creep through his mind every time his eyes settle on me. There’s so much I want to know about Lucas Wolfe that it’s dizzying and I’m left with a racing heart.
He finally acknowledges my presence when the jet lands, as we prepare to come off board. Towering over me, he cups my face with one hand, pushing hair away from my temple. I reach up and pull the tips of my fingers through his hair. He trails his lips down my face, pausing for a moment to claim my mouth. “This is going to be so hard.”
“What?” I pant, as his finger—fingers—slide between my lips. He slides them back and forth, and I gently bare my teeth down the way he’s taught me.
“Being around you, knowing you’re so close to becoming mine, and not being able to f**k or taste or have you whenever I please because the next few days are so hectic.”
“There’s always our hotel,” I say, stroking my hand against his erection.
He releases a m.u.f.fled noise, grabbing my fingers away from his body and trapping them over my head. “Yes . . . there’s always that.”
†
A limousine—the first one I’ve ridden inside of since prom more than five years ago—carries Lucas and me to the hotel, the Four Seasons Atlanta. Even though I’ve been able to witness Lucas’s fans reaction to him in Los Angeles and at The Beacon bar in Nashville, it’s nothing like the reaction he gets in his hometown. The hotel has had to beef up security because some gossip column leaked that Lucas is in town.
Before I exit the car, he stops me, pulling me back down to straddle his hips. He pulls one of his oversized beanies over my head. Sliding a set of ridiculous hot pink shades over my face, he says gently, “Wouldn’t want more gossip about you and us finding itself onto the web.” He tucks my hair underneath the knit cap, making sure every red strand is hidden out of sight. The gesture is so intimate it makes my breath wobbly. “Do not talk to the press,” he commands.
“Yes, Mr. Wolfe.”
“Say my name one more time.”
“Mr. Wolfe.”
Then he kisses me with a hunger that makes me want to rip his clothes off right then and there. “G.o.d I could write songs about the way you say that.”
“Just like you’ll write songs about my a.s.s?” I tease.
“Every part of you,” he says in a voice that tugs at my heart. Squeezing my breast hard one final time, he taps on the window, indicating to the driver that he’s ready to face his fans.
†
Almost as soon as we’re settled into our hotel room, Lucas has to leave to take care of some last minute details. I don’t mind his absence, at least not for a little while, because it gives me an opportunity to admire the view of Atlanta from our room. And it’s stunning. We’re staying in the Presidential Suite, on the top floor, and the room itself is decked out, with marble flooring and lush furnishings and a king size bed. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit how anxious I am to test that bed out with Lucas.
After I take a long bath where I shave my legs and wash my hair, I spend my time making phone calls and answering emails, both his and mine.
When I call Gram, she sounds relieved to speak to me. “Are you doing alright?” she asks.
“Yeah, I’m fine, I . . .” I start, pausing when I hear her sniffling. “Gram, what’s going on?”
“It’s Rebecca,” she says. I listen, stony-faced, as she tells me about how my mom had gotten into a fight in prison with several other inmates after stealing a pair of shoes. I feel that bitter feeling in the pit of my stomach, the shame, as she talks about Mom having to be sent to the county hospital for surgery. “I don’t understand why she’d take someone’s shoes, Sienna. I put money on her books. I give her as much as . . .”
I sink down on the floor, leaning my back to the side of the sofa. It looks like I won’t have to confront Gram about my mother. She’s revealed that she’s been going to visit mom herself, but I wish with everything inside of me that I could be the one suffering instead of her.
My grandmother has stopped talking now. I hear her sobbing quietly on the other end and a creaking noise. She must be in bed. I ball my hands into fists, banging them into the couch.
“Gram, I can’t yell at you about going to see her. I’m not going to argue with you or any of that because I’ve got no room to talk, but please, please, please stop letting her take advantage of you.”
A few years ago, when Mom’s whereabouts were discovered after she skipped town, the bounty hunters had caught up to her approximately two days after the $300 grand cash bond Gram paid was forfeited to the court. If my mother’s worthless a.s.s had been caught just 48 hours earlier, Gram would never have been in this situation.