Vivien does wonders for my self-esteem. I feel like I’m the best version of myself when I’m with her, and I don’t even have to try. It’s as effortless as breathing. Pulling her into a hug, I rest my chin on her head and hold her close, wishing I never had to let her go. She completes me, and I’m not sure I’ll ever be whole again without her. If I could open myself up and tuck her inside, I would. “I never think that, and I don’t do it for any reason except I like looking after you and I like making you happy.”
“Well, you’re really good at it, Dillon.” Her hands trace a path up my chest, and she cups my face. We stare deep into one another’s eyes, and my heart thumps wildly in my chest. That familiar electricity surges around us, enveloping us in a bubble. My arms tighten around her, and my heart swells to bursting point. I could stare at her all day. I love every single thing abouther. Holding her in my arms is the best feeling in the world. “I love being with you, Dil, and I’m excited to spend the summer with you.”
Unspoken words hover in the air, but neither of us will articulate them.What’s the point?We both know the inevitability of our demise. Talking about it all the time won’t change that fact, and I’m trying not to think about it too much because it’ll only cast a shadow over the time we have left, and that’ll defeat the purpose.
“We’re going to have the best summer ever,” I say, pressing a fierce kiss into her hair. That’s one promise I fully intend to keep.
35
AGE 20
“She’s getting on my fucking nerves,” I tell Jamie as I glower at Aoife across the table at Whelans. As soon as Ash and Viv got up to go to the bar, she turned her simpering gaze on me.
“Has she said something to Viv?” he asks before gulping a mouthful of his pint of Guinness.
I shake my head, gripping the edge of the chair in frustration as Aoife bats her eyelashes and fixes me with a flirtatious smile. “She’s stuck to her word. She isn’t giving Ash or Viv any grief, but I’m sick of her eye fucking me any chance she gets. It’s bloody disrespectful to me and to Viv.”
“Have her barred then.” Jay shrugs, stretching his legs out under the table and crossing his feet at the ankles.
He sure has changed his tune. I arch a brow, surveying my best friend. He’s happier than he’s been in ages, and I’m convinced something is going on with Ash. I haven’t been around our gaff much to confirm it, but I’m pretty sure he hasn’t fucked any bird since the Trinity Ball. At least, he hasn’t gone off with anyone after our gigs, and he’s as much of a pro as me now at deflecting attention from the groupies. “You wouldn’t care?”
“Nope.” He pops the P. “I was done with her back in April.”
I’m so tempted to pry, but I don’t go there. It’s not really my business. I’m waiting until one of them says something to me.
“I don’t want to do that to her, but it’s looking like it’s my only option.” I remember Aoife’s heartfelt plea about how she doesn’t have much besides the band and the scene in her life. I don’t want to take that from her, but she’s bringing this on herself.
“Do what you need to do, mate. I’m cool with it.”
“Here, babe.” Viv hands me a bottle of beer before depositing her pink gin and 7Up on the table and dropping back onto my lap.
Setting the beer down, I grab the back of her head and pull her face to mine. The instant my lips crash onto hers, everything settles in my world. She has no idea what she does to me, for me. She doesn’t understand how she soothes every ragged, jagged, broken part of me just by her presence. My girl doesn’t let me down, devouring me back with the same intensity and subtly grinding on my erection. I love how much she loves sex and how she’s down to try anything in bed. She’s every bit as insatiable as me, and we couldn’t be any better matched. We just work, full stop.
“You were so freaking hot on stage tonight, Dil,” she pants in my ear as she scrapes her nails back and forth along my scalp in a way she knows I love. “All I kept thinking the whole time you were up there is you’remine. Those girls can scream their lungs out and throw their panties at you all they like, but I’m the one you’re coming home with.” She nibbles on my earlobe.
“Always, Hollywood.” I palm her arse. “I only have eyes for you.”
“I know.” Her eyes fill with emotion. “You show me all the time.” She grabs my face in her small, soft hands. “You have no idea how happy that makes me or how sexy you are. You own that fucking stage, babe. You have this indescribable stagepresence. I know the guys are disappointed nothing happened with that scout, but it’s going to happen. You guys are too good for it not to. You’re a bona fide rock star, Dillon, and you’re going to make it. I feel it deep in my soul.” She presses her palm in the middle of her tits.
“Your belief means everything to me.”
“It’s easy to believe in you. You’re hardworking, and you have talent and determination oozing from your pores.” She moves on my lap, and I groan as fresh need charges the blood flooding to my cock. She flashes me a wicked grin. “But it’s more than that. I want only the best things for you, Dillon. I want to see you soar, and I’ll support you any way I can. If there is anything I can do, any way I can use my contacts to help, you only have to ask.”
My heart is pounding like crazy, and an unfamiliar feeling spreads across my chest, infusing every part of me. I don’t have the words to properly express how much her encouragement and support means to me. “You’ve already done so much. Just knowing you want this for me is more than enough.”
“Always, Dil. I’ll always support your dreams.” Viv leans down, sliding a sneaky hand between the gap in our bodies to grab my crotch through my jeans. “I fully understand how every woman wants you, but they can’t fucking have you. You’re mine, and I want you right fucking now.”
“I love when you get all possessive.” I squeeze her arse, uncaring who sees. I want every fucker in this place to know she’s mine and I’m hers.
“It comes naturally,” she says before her mouth slams down onto mine.
We ravage one another, and a chorus of catcalls and wolf whistles ring out along with calls to “get a room!”
“I’ve never fucked in a public bathroom,” she purrs in my ear.
Hell yeah. I like where this is going. “Want me to rectify that for you?” I growl in her ear.
“Yes, please.” She jumps off me so fast it’s like a superpower.
