I already know what the room looks like, having seen it on a shaky FaceTime video when they first arrived. Waylon’s wide, dimpled grin, and his green-gold eyes lit up like a little kid’s as he checked out each room in their joined suite, forever ingrained in my memory.
It’s all paid for by the record company, of course. Well, with the addendum that the Lost Boysmake them money in return. Nothing actually comes free in this industry.
The heavy door slowly closes behind us with a click as it automatically locks.
Waylon doesn’t break stride as he tosses the keycard on a table, dragging me by the hand past the first closed door.
He throws open the next one, drops my bag on the floor and turns, grabbing me by the shoulders and guiding me toward the bed.
“Sit,” he says, giving me a little push.
The bed is freshly made, telling me the cleaning lady has been through. That or Waylon is the type of guy to make a hotel bed every morning.
Frowning, I backtrack. Actually, he totallyisthe type of person to make a hotel bed every morning.
Hands reach for my shirt, fingers twisting in the fabric as he starts pulling it off my body.
Looking up at him, I’m not quite sure what this weird feeling is sitting in my chest.
It only grows stronger when he steps back, hardly even looking at my bare chest as he sinks to the ground and gets to work on unlacing my boots.
His movements are almost rushed, not quite shaky in a scared way, but jittery in a way that tells me he’s impatient.
And while normally him stripping me down like this would be a total fucking turn-on, sex feels like thelastthing on our minds right now.
Once he’s got my shoes off, he begins working on my belt and fly. My hands come up on top of his, pausing his movements just as he gets the top button undone.
Our gazes crash into one another’s.
“What are you doing?” I ask him.
Waylon’s throat bobs with a swallow. “I’m taking care of you.” The words wrench out of him slow and deep. The power in such a simple sentence would send me to my knees if I wasn’t already on my ass.
He releases his hold on my jeans, pushes past my slack arms, and raises his fingers to my cheeks. They’re rough with callouses. Pretty sure I saw dried blood on them before.
But I don’t care, because he’s touching me, stroking the paper-thin skin under my eyes and watching me with such a soft look of adoration, I don’t know how my heart’s still in my chest, and not at his feet.
“You haven’t been sleeping,” he says.
I clutch my fingers in my hand. “Neither have you.”
“This wasn’t part of the plan,” he says slowly, carefully. Yet emotion still breaks through, thrumming his words. “Three more days.”
My eyes burn as I clamp down on my molars.
“I was gonna pick you up at the airport,” Waylon says, his voice finally breaking. “We had a plan. We could do this.”
I’m shaking my head.Who cares?I want to say.Who cares?
“They shouldn’t have called you,” he says in a resigned voice. His fingers fall from my face at the same time my gut falls to the floor.
What?
He pushes to a stand and turns around, clasping the back of his head. Wet dark strands of hair slipping through his inked knuckles.
I force a hard swallow. “Should I not have come?”
He freezes.