When Wyatt opens the door to our room, I brush past him and step inside, my eyes scanning around the place we’ll be staying at for the next couple of days.
The room is beautifully decorated in shades of royal blue and turquoise, but it’s small compared to the last hotel. There’s a mini-fridge, a flat screen television on a massive cherry wood cabinet, and a matching dresser and nightstand. The bed itself takes up the majority of the room’s limited amount of space.
As Wyatt adjusts the thermostat to freezing, I sprawl out on the king-size mattress and close my eyes in pleasure as the memory foam hugs the curves of my body. “I swear you’re trying to freeze me.”
“Are you fucking with me?” He snorts and cocks his head to the side. “It’s unbearable in here right now.”
From where I’m lying, I can easily see the current temperature on the thermostat, and seventy degrees is anything but unbearable. “Maybe I should go sleep with Heidi and Cal,” I tease. He comes to stand at the edge of the bed, smirking. “At least then, I won’t wake up shivering.”
“You’ll wake up shivering but not because of the AC,” he says, dragging his T-shirt over his head. He tosses it to the far side of the room, and it hits the balcony door.
He’s about to climb onto the bed with me, but then his cell phone vibrates. Releasing an irritated sigh, he takes it out of his pocket. As he studies the message, pacing the narrow space between the end of the bed and the dresser, I prop myself up on my elbows.
After several seconds of silence, I blurt out exactly what I’m thinking. “Who’s that?” I shouldn’t ask—god, I know I shouldn’t ask—but curiosity will keep me awake all night for all the wrong reasons. “Well?”
Digging his fingertips into his short blond hair, he shrugs. “Terra.” He places his phone on the TV stand without replying to Hazard Anthem’s gorgeous manager.
“Terra,” I repeat, only it sounds like terror. I lie back down and whip the edge of the neatly tucked comforter over myself, but it only covers half my body. “She knows it’s ridiculously late...or fuck, early, right?”
Wyatt yanks the blanket off me and joins me on the bed. He straddles my hips, and I stare up at him, keeping my gaze neutral. It’s hard, considering he’s moving his fingertip up and down the top of my thigh.
“She’s having a party at her place and wants us to come by,” he explains. “Nate’s there.” I don’t miss the vicious way he says the front man’s name.
I know that Wyatt has been to Albuquerque recently. I don’t know the reason why because, technically, it’s none of my business since he and I have never officially been a couple. I know I shouldn’t ask him what he came here for, but now that I know Terra has a place in this city, only one thought is rolling through my head.
“Have you fucked her?” I demand.
“Are you serious, Kylie?”
I scoot up and slide my back against the headboard. This just causes him to move closer to me. He keeps his face level with mine, so I can smell the Mentos he chewed while we checked in. I touch his chin. He didn’t shave this morning, and it’s obvious.
“Have you and Terra ever had sex?” Each word is forced out, like seven single-worded questions.
If there’s one thing I can say about Wyatt, it’s that ever since I asked him never to lie to me eight years ago, he’s been honest with me—heartbreakingly truthful at that. His blue eyes are hard as he shakes his head from side to side. “No.”
Bowing my head briefly, I’m relieved that I’m sitting down, so he can’t see how wobbly my knees are. How would I have reacted if he told me that they have been together? What would I have said? Would I have walked out if he said yes?
“Sorry I asked,” I reply. When he strokes the right side of my face, I tilt my head slightly, welcoming his touch, moaning as his fingertips brush over the sensitive spot behind my ear.
“Terra’s just with the band, Ky. After we’re done here, you’ll never have to see her again.”
In this business, there’s a slim chance of that happening, especially if Hazard Anthem goes mainstream. As long as I work for my brother, there’s pretty much no chance in hell I’ll be able to avoid Terra in the future. I narrow my eyes at Wyatt. “Why are you telling me this?”
He releases a rough sound, dragging his large hands over the strong features of his face. “Because you looked like you wanted to choke the shit out of her when you said her name.”
Based on the way he reacted last night, if Nate—or any other man—texted me well after midnight, he’d wear the exact same look. Still, I suck my cheeks in, and I deny that crap. “I don’t know Terra well enough to want to choke her, babe.”
Wyatt’s eyes challenge mine, but I glare back until he rises from the bed. “If you say so.” When my eyebrows crease together, he takes my hands in his, pulling me roughly to my feet. “Come on. Shower.”
As I search through my bag for body wash, he claims to have left one of his bags inside the Suburban. When he returns five minutes later, I’m already standing beneath the showerhead, washing my hair and softly humming “Crazy on You.” He sets something on the outside of the tub before stripping down.
“Find what you were looking for?” I ask when he parts the curtain. I glance around him to see what he brought into the bathroom, but he jerks the fabric closed, his blue eyes dancing with amusement and desire.
“Looks like I have.” Pressing his hands into the small of my back, he yanks me flush against his naked body. “Fuck, you’re gorgeous, Ky.” He lowers his mouth to my nipple, tugging it between his straight teeth, gently at first and then a little harder.
“My boobs weren’t in the Suburban,” I point out between gasps. Dragging my hands across his chest, I squeeze one of his nipples and then the other. He curses in surprise and catches my hands, linking our fingers.
“Smartass.” He kisses my fingers before releasing them. “Close your eyes.”
Sinking my teeth into my bottom lip, I shake my head. “Absolutely not, not until you—”
He spins me around, so I’m facing away from the showerhead. He covers my eyes with his hand. “Can you just listen for once?”
Pressing his body up against my back, he traces his tongue along each of my shoulder blades, sending all my senses into a chaotic frenzy, before kissing the spot in between. My muscles go taut as his mouth continues to move against my damp skin.
“I wouldn’t be nearly as fun if I followed orders,” I say despite my shallow breathing.
“So fucking true.” Lowering his fingers from my eyes for a second, he leans over to grab whatever it is on the other side of the tub. He’s back behind me, blindfolding me with his hand, before I can sneak a quick glimpse.
The surprise angle is getting really annoying, really fast. “So, why are we—” And then, I feel something new, something startlingly frigid. It’s being held between his fingers against the folds of my sex, and I cry out. When I start to shiver away from the chill, he uncovers my brown eyes, moving his hand down to cup my breast.
“Ice?” I gasp.
As if to answer me, he traces the cube around my clit, grazing it back and forth until all that’s left are his fingers stroking my center. He builds me up quickly, and I begin to shudder.
And then, suddenly, he stops. “Not yet, beautiful.”
“Dick,” I say between clenched teeth.
He slaps my ass and then flings aside the shower curtain. He dips his fingers inside the metal bucket full of ice. When he stands upright, I glance back over my shoulder, letting my eyes fall to his palm and the two cubes he’s holding.
“Remember that night in Ohio a couple years ago?” he demands.
“Thought you said no more reminding me of the past.”
“You want me to stop?” he whispers into my ear. Hesitantly, I shake my head. “Didn’t think so.”
He reaches around me, slicking the cubes over my breasts until my nipples tighten, and I realize that this is incredibly different from the night we spent in Ohio after a show several months ago. It was directly following one of our reconciliations a few weeks after blackbird tattoo number sixteen. Once the argument about his latest one-night stand was over, the lovemaking began, and we quickly forgot about the ice. By the time we fell asleep, it was nothing more than a bucketful of water.