I feel a chuckle rumble through Evan, and he squeezes me. "Babe... if it makes you feel any better, I hate that shit too. I hated getting pulled away from you, because you're like a damn security blanket for me. I'm just as wigged out by these things as you are. I'm trying to figure this shit out too."
This surprises me, and I pull my head back to peer up at him. His green-golden eyes are soft and beautiful as he gazes back down at me. "Really?" I ask.
"Really," he tells me. "I mean... I love playing music, and recording it, and I've come to love being on that stage. But up there, I'm still removed from it all, you know what I mean? What I don't like is having to play these games. Of having to politic with people, and figure out who wants to take a chunk out of me and who doesn't. And the only thing I know for sure is that you, Emma... you don't want to take a piece of my fame. You just want me."
That's true.
So very, very true.
"That helps," I admit quietly. "To know you have some of the same insecurities."
"This is all new to me," he says. "This business is new, and this relationship is new. Both of which are unlike anything I've ever experienced before. But I'm going to trust in this. I'm going to trust that it's all going to work out for both of us."
I let my head fall forward so it bumps into his chest, and I heave out a sorrowful sigh. "I'm so sorry. I handled this badly tonight."
"I kind of liked the jealousy though," Evan teases me.
"Liar," I tease back and look back up at him. "But I promise... I'll try to be better at handling that."
He grins at me. "I'm sure you will. Now can we have makeup sex?"
"Absolutely," I say with a laugh, and then step into him for full-body hug. "It's the only reason I left in the first place. For the makeup sex."
Evan gives a grunt of disbelief and picks me up. He turns and tosses me onto the bed on the other side of my suitcase, then starts to crawl his way over it toward me. "If you ever leave again without telling me, I'm going to tie you up and redden your backside."
A warm thrill of pleasure goes through me at the thought of that, and whoa... I've never thought of being spanked as being sexy before.
Perhaps I need to be a little more disobedient in the future.
CHAPTER 19
Evan
I open my eyes, lift my head from the couch, and look past the sleeping black dog at my feet.
Yup... Emma's still at her desk, face leaning toward the laptop, and intently reading something.
With an internal sigh, I close my eyes again and try to take a nap. I've found that a quick twenty to thirty minutes of sleep the afternoon of a show does wonders for my energy to keep me going. And while I've not found the couch on the bus to be any more comfortable than before, and would probably be able to fall asleep if I just went back to the bedroom, I don't want to miss an opportunity if Emma decides to take a break from work.
If that is the case, then well... there is any number of things we could do. Go for a walk. Drink a cup of coffee and talk. Or my preference... I could take her back in the bedroom and fuck us both to an amazing orgasm.
But I'll take anything really.
After the last show tonight in L.A., we'll be moving on to San Francisco, then off to Portland, then Denver, followed by Chicago. While I'm enjoying this concert tour immensely, I'm really missing Raleigh and a somewhat normal life. A life where perhaps Emma and I can go on more dates. Where I can work on my music during the day while she pours over contracts or some shit like that. At night, we could cook dinner together, hang out, and watch TV, and well... of course, we'd fuck before going to sleep.
In the morning, I'd cook her pancakes before work and send her dirty texts during the day so she didn't get too buttoned up on me.
Fuck, I want those things a lot, and I didn't realize just how much that lifestyle would appeal to me until Emma came into my life. I can even see past that to perhaps marriage and children. Yeah... I can see a lifetime with her for sure.
But for now, I'll settle for a bit of her time this afternoon, because I find myself spending every moment together with her as an opportunity to reassure her doubtful sensibilities. Emma trusts me, but I need her to trust herself and what we have. So I need to continue to make sure she sees what we have is the real deal.
"Evan," Emma says with excitement, and my eyes pop open to look at her as my head rises up again.
She swivels the chair to face me and points back at her laptop. "We've got an offer to settle."
"The copyright case?" I ask as I push up to a sitting position, slightly dislodging Sirius from my feet. The pup opens his sleepy eyes, yawns, and then lays his head back down on his paws.
"Yes," she says as she throws a thumb over her shoulder at the laptop. "The senior attorney just emailed me. He'd received all of my discovery requests I mailed last week and said that before he spent time and his client's monies answering them, he wanted to make some effort at settling."
"Did he say how much?"
She nods at me. "One hundred thousand."
"For each band member?" I ask to clarify.
She shakes her head. "Total. For all of them."
"Holy shit," I say in amazement. "You must have scared them shitless with those questions you sent."
She grins at me, her cheeks flushed with excitement. For while a hundred thousand dollars seems like a lot of money, it's really not. Not compared to the millions I've made off the songs in dispute. And Emma and I have spent a lot of time talking about what I wanted to accomplish with this lawsuit, and first and foremost was my integrity and that of my music. I was never going to admit that they held the copyright with me to the creation of the music.
But it didn't mean I wasn't willing to offer some money to make them go away, with a confidentiality requirement demanding the suit be dismissed with absolutely no discussion as to the terms of the settlement or if there even was a settlement.
"What about the confidentiality clause?" I ask.
"They've agreed to it," she says, her smile beaming brighter.
"You are fucking amazing," I say in awe, because no doubt they're offering to settle because of Emma's well-crafted questions. She did so much research and knew the elements they'd need to prove their case so well, she was able to hone in with incredible specificity on all the ways in which they'd fail to meet their burden. Their attorneys know when they answer those questions, the case is going to collapse.
"Well, not really," she sort of mumbles with her gaze dropping down.
"You're fucking amazing," I reiterate firmly, and then I nod my head toward her computer. "So jump on it. Write him back and tell him we'll pay it."
"I think we should make a counter offer," Emma says as her head tilts back up and she gets a little competitive gleam in her eyes. "I mean... if one hundred thousand is their original offer, I'm sure they'd accept less."
Pushing up from the couch, I walk over to Emma and pull her up from her chair. Smiling down at her, I say, "Look at you... just itching for a legal fight, aren't you?"
She gives me a sheepish smile. "It is kind of fun knowing they're on the run."
Laughing, I tug on her hand and turn to the bedroom, leading her down the short hallway. "We'll pay the offer to just be done with it."
She tugs back and I stop, looking over my shoulder at her. "Well... I should email him back then."
I pull on her hand until she walks right into me. Wrapping my arms around her waist, I bend my head to give her a quick kiss before saying, "Let them stew a bit. And we'll go 'celebrate' this win in the bedroom."
I expect her to laugh, and for her eyes to sparkle with desire and mischief, but she just looks back at me solemnly. "Once that case is finished, you don't need me anymore."
And fuck... a pain stabs me in the center of my chest at the thought. "Well, maybe we should hold off for a few days. Well, maybe for a few weeks."
"A few weeks would be good," she says upon a soft breath, and it gets me right in the g
oods--by that I mean my heart--that she wants to stay with me on tour as much as I want her to. The woman who couldn't wait to get back to Raleigh to take a new job doing contract law wants to travel the country with a rock star.
It takes nothing but a few moments to get Emma into the bedroom, shut the door on Sirius' face before he can come in, and get her naked. She's riding high on her achievement, feeling the burst of confidence that comes with it, and looks like she could handle something a bit dirtier than what we normally do.
This thought causes me to go achingly hard, and I make quick work of getting her ready.
This means I instruct her to get on the bed on her hands and knees, facing the top of the bed where a headboard would normally be. Of course, there's not one, just the ledge to the large window in the back of the bus.
I can actually see her body trembling with anticipation, perhaps a little bit of unease, as she positions her naked body as I ask, and then looks back at me over her shoulder.
Christ... I could bust a nut just at the way she looks right now.
So trusting but not without adventure in her look.
I take a moment and pull open the top drawer of a built-in dresser on the adjacent wall, rummage around, and pull out two ties. Why I brought them on tour with me isn't as nefarious as you might think. I had no intention of using them for anything else other than to dress up a suit in case the occasion called for me to wear one.
But now... they're going to get put to better use.
I walk up to the edge of the bed. "Give me your wrist."
Emma eyes the ties in my hand warily, but she immediately complies, rising up to just her knees. I tie her wrist in one silk tie, and then secure the other end of it to a lighted wall sconce to the left of the window. Her eyes flare wide when she gives it a tug and finds some play in it but that it does have a limit to how far she can move.
"Don't pull too hard," I warn her. "Those things aren't all that secure."
"Oh," she says as she lets her arm go lax.
I give her a wicked smile. "And trust me... what I'm going to do to you... you're going to want to pull hard."
Emma's face flushes and her nipples tighten.
Which makes me take the short route to get her other wrist secured. I crawl across the bed behind Emma, pressing my clothed body up against her naked one. She shivers and, without me even asking, offers her other wrist. I chuckle and tie it up, murmuring, "There's my adventurous girl."
Once it's secured to the other sconce, I take a moment to lean back and examine my handiwork. Emma on her knees in the center of the bed with her arms spread wide as if she's praying to the heavens.
I scoot in closer to her and bend my head, placing my lips on her shoulder. I kiss her, then tell her softly, "So many things I can do to you in this position."
Her body shudders violently and her head falls back to rest on my shoulder. "Evan," she whispers as a plea in response.
"Spread your legs for me," I tell her as my hands go to her hips to give her some stability.
She shuffles and does as I request, and now she's spread obscenely in front of me.
"You look stunning," I praise her as I scuttle backward off the bed. Her head turns to look at me, and I give her a salacious smile as I strip out of my clothes.
When I'm completely naked, cock harder than a rock, I grab a condom from the dresser and roll it on. Turning back to Emma, I tell her, "Turn your face forward."
A small huff comes out of her mouth, but she turns to look at the window, which is covered by closed blinds. Her hands open and close reflexively, and she squirms slightly on her knees.
I crawl back onto the bed toward her, and when I reach that perfectly curved ass, I lie on the bed and turn over onto my back. Before Emma can get her bearings, I scoot backward until my head goes in between her legs, then I'm staring up at her pussy and just beyond that, her breasts. And just beyond that, Emma looks down at me with surprise in her eyes.
"Thought I was going to fuck you from behind, didn't you?" I say with a devilish grin.
She nods quietly.
"Don't worry," I tell her as my hands slide up and over her ass. "I'm going to. But right now, I want you to lower down onto my face."
"Evan," she stammers in shock.
Curving my hands around, I take her by the hips and exert pressure down. She resists me for a moment, so I cajole her in the best way I know how. "Do it, Emma. Ride my face. You know you want to."
"Oh, God," she moans, still resisting.
"You got to know, baby," I tell her, my voice dipping very low. "I want it too. Want to make you feel so good."
"Evan," she says again, this time in breathless capitulation, and then she lowers herself toward me.
She's a good girl though, considerate of me, which I find adorable. She hovers just over my mouth, making me lift my head so I can give her a tiny lick. Emma cries out and her hips tilt involuntarily, even as she rises upward.
"Get back down here," I growl at her, and just to keep her completely off balance, I slip a finger into her. She's drenched and my dick leaps in ferocious need to be inside of her.
Timidly, Emma lowers again, and I begin.
One hand on her hip to hold her tight, the other now with two fingers inside of her, and my lips and tongue focused on her clit. If my fingers weren't in the way, I'd be jabbing my tongue deep inside of her, but as it is, it's plenty busy working her to an orgasm.
Emma cries, and then she curses--which is so not Emma--and her hips start moving so she rides my fingers. I growl in pleasure as her taste overwhelms my senses, and she becomes more and more frantic to get off.
I love teasing Emma and building her up slowly, but frankly right now, I need her to come fast, because I do indeed want to fuck her from behind while she's tied up, and my dick wants it more.
"Evan... I'm close," she moans.
I raise my head, pull my fingers out of her, and grab hold of her hips tightly. Pulling her hard to my face, I clamp my lips onto her clit and give her a repetitive, gentle suck.
By the third one, she's coming all over my face as she screams out her release, and my lips let go so I can smile over my accomplishment.
And I don't gentle her down. I release her, scoot out from under her body, and scramble to my knees behind her. Hands back to her hips, I pull her back slightly so her ass is angled prettily. Fisting my cock, I bring it to her pussy and press the tip into her with just a slight flex of my hips.
"Ooh," Emma moans as I slowly slide into her.
And fuck yeah... this right here. So goddamn tight, wet, and hot, and this is going to be quick and hard and rough.
But she can take it.
I've come to learn that Emma can handle pretty much anything that's thrown at her, including my heart.
"I should get back to work," Emma murmurs.
I released her from the ties over twenty minutes ago, took care of the condom, and then pulled her into my arms. We've been just lying here quietly, our breathing back even and the sweat on our bodies dried off. I'd half expected her to fall asleep, but I'm wired.
That was some intense shit we just did and rather than wear me out, it invigorated me to know Emma still has all kinds of boundaries I can push.
"You don't have any work to do," I remind her. "Once you send that email ending the copyright case, there's nothing to do until I make a decision about Phoenix or we have a press conference."
"Hmm," she agrees lazily, and then I grin silently when she says, "I suppose we could have sex again."
I laugh because I've created a monster. Turning to look at the clock on the dresser, I observe, "We do have at least an hour before I have to be over at sound check."
"Lots of stuff we can do in an hour," she ponders.
Yup... totally invigorated, and I think I'm ready to go again. But before I can roll over on top of her, my phone rings. I recognize Midge's ring tone.
With a sigh, I roll away from Emma and grab my jeans off the floor,
fishing my phone out. When I connect, I say drily, "You have impeccable timing, Aunt Midge."
I expect her to laugh and demand to know what I'm talking about, because we share the same wit. Hell, my wit is patterned off hers. Instead, I go cold when she says, "Evan... I'm calling about Emma's father."
My eyes cut to Emma as she lies on the bed, smiling at me softly.
"What's wrong?" I ask, although I can tell by the tone of her voice that I'm going to need to get Emma on a flight back East as soon as possible.
CHAPTER 20
Emma
I take a deep breath as I look at the electronic sliding doors of Rex Hospital's patient tower. I'm exhausted, and I feel grungy from the long flight across the country. It's almost eight AM, and I came straight here from the airport via a taxi.
Releasing my hold on my small carry-on suitcase, I reach into my purse and pull out my phone. I shoot a quick text off to Evan.
Made it. Getting ready to go into the hospital. Will update later.
I hit send and then drop the phone back into my purse, square my shoulders, and grab the handle of my rolling case. Halfway through my first confident stride to the doors, which cause them to open, my phone rings.
Evan.
I once again release the handle of my suitcase so I can grab my phone. Stabbing at the connect button, I take a step back from the doors so they can slide closed.
"What are you doing awake?" is the first thing I say into the phone, because it's only five AM in California and I know damn well Evan probably just went to sleep a few hours ago.
"We pulled into San Francisco about an hour ago, and Red and I went out for a very early breakfast," he says softly. "We couldn't sleep."
"I'm sorry," I murmur back. I know he has to be exhausted.
"We're worried about you," he returns.
"Well, don't be," I assure him. "I called Dad as soon as I landed and he sounds good. I'm going to go up and hopefully talk to the doctor on morning rounds, and I'll let you know what's going on."
"Okay. I miss you."
"Miss you too," I whisper back. "Now try to get some sleep."
"Okay, babe," he says, and I disconnect.