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Out of respect for your choice and for myself, this is goodbye, Stella.
The initial hit of indigo eyes feels like the strike of a crowbar being leveraged against my chest. Tightening my grip on my pint, I kick back in the booth, resolved that she’s a snake. A beautiful snake, but a snake just the same.
I grew up in a whirlwind of notes, tuned by melody, shaped by lyrics.
Music is as necessary for me as the air I breathe.”
“We don’t have to be friends, Easton, and I may grill you for the truth, but I can promise you that I won’t sacrifice any part of you for them.”
Mom tends to get emotional more often than not, forever wearing her heart on her sleeve. She’s always felt things on a deeper level than most people do.
My mind drifts again to the beauty who rode in my truck, seeming as confused as I was today.
One thing I’m growing more suspicious and sure of, is that she’s not here for an article, even if she’s refusing to admit it. The second thing is that she wasn’t expecting to be attracted to me, at all. That surprise was mutual.
Easton isn’t an all-around grump, he’s just…private, and it seems he saves his smiles for his people.
Just as I think it, his eyes find mine, his lips lift, and he beams at me with the most beautiful of full smiles, and the thunder roaring through my chest increases exponentially.
“Pretty sure we should keep fair and ethical out of our conversations due to hypocrisy.”
“I don’t think a lot of people realize they live around echoes of defining moments in their lives.”
“I want you to remember this moment. Right here, right now, just you and me in a fucking SUV, taking a drive to nowhere.” He looks at me pointedly. “Promise me you’ll remember this.”
“No, no, Natalie, no,” he shakes his head profusely. “Not with music, never with music. It’s where we discover common ground.”
“You just fucking fell out of the sky, didn’t you?” The cabin of the SUV clouds with energy as a surreal gravity threatens to draw us closer. “In a way,” I swallow, “I guess I did.”
“You know, you’re really a nice guy on the B-side of that mastered A impression of a total asshole.”
“I’m right here,” he whispers, the words resonating a second before bringing me to a scene in Drive. Reid typed out those exact words for Stella on her laptop minutes before they collided in their first kiss.
Easton Crowne is not some budding star. He’s a supernova. He’s undoubtedly a prodigy—a genius disguised in a beautiful, but highly breakable—human package. At any time in the future, if he so desires, he will become a world-renowned star.
More than anything, I want to cling to his star as it burns the brightest—if only to be with him for a little longer.
You don’t deny yourself anything you want in life because of timing. That’s a coward’s excuse.”
“You want honesty? I’ve never been so attracted to a man in my life.”
“I’m also thinking you’ve never been properly kissed, fucked, or loved and that you caught a glimpse of something you want for yourself.”
“But you’re right, you’re absolutely right. Hell, maybe this was inevitable…I’ve been reading and writing human interest stories my entire life. Incredible moments,” I sniff. “Other people’s defining moments and echoes. So, what do I go and do?” My eyes spill over. “The worst fucking thing imaginable to a man who means everything to me. Just being here, meeting you, is a betrayal in itself, Easton—of the worst kind.” Fear rolls through me at the idea my father might already know where I am. “If he found out I was here, with you, I don’t know if he could or would ever forgive me.”
“You’re a little more villain than you think.”
“If you weren’t so determined to keep me out of your bed, I’d be fucking the breath out of you right now, Natalie.”
“In my mind, I’ve already sunk inside you a thousand times.”
“At least now I don’t have to wonder what your mouth tastes like.”
What appears to be bold black feather tips peak along the side of his neck. He’s the gasp-worthy blond in contrast to Easton’s breath-stealing tall, dark, and strikingly handsome.
How can two people who claimed to love each other so much just walk away from each other?”
My love for storytelling came naturally, and my admiration for him is what led me on this path in the first place.
“Do you like a little cock on occasion?”
The longer we linger, the physical curiosity becomes a beating, breathing presence between us.
Every part of me wants to grip her in my hands, dominate her with a kiss, unwrap her, taste her, and fuck her so thoroughly that words become unnecessary.
When her eyes dart my way, I decide to swing the bat in the opposite direction, intent on some sort of satisfaction for what we’re denying ourselves before I let her go. Digging my earbuds out of my pocket, she grins when she sees me produce them.
It has the power to draw everything out of you that you can’t fully grasp on your own. For you, it’s fuel, trust me,”
If I’m unable to act on any of it, I at least want to relay to her what she’s making me feel, and it’s through borrowed words I’m doing it, which keeps us both relatively safe.
The crack in my chest becomes a gaping wound as I free-fall into what I’m feeling, pouring myself into her, which ignites a crazed need to possess her.
I can’t pinpoint exactly when it happened, but all that matters to me right now is how strong this pull is; though foreign, it feels fucking amazing.
Feeling bitten and battling the venom of her kiss, I only grow more aggravated as the threat of the clock eats away at me.
Kissing her was heaven, but fucking her before she flees from her self-confessed biggest mistake would be a hell I don’t want to sign up for.
I know what this is and what it isn’t, and there’s not a lot on the isn’t side.
“You deserve every amazing thing coming your way, Easton Crowne, and when it happens for you, I’ll get to kick back and say I knew him when.”
I could live a hundred more years of life and will never forget the way she looked at me while I sang for her in the hotel. That will go untouched in memory, as will our kiss tonight.
“When I miss her too much to go from one day to the next without her, only then will I consider putting the job last.”
“You’re beautiful…” His eyes snap to mine. “…and I feel sorry for you.”
He nods, his features shadowing with the same knowledge—that we both just stole something we were never supposed to have. We both made the decision to exist in this moment, and we both have to live with it.
“You have nothing to worry about, okay? I’ve been very careful. I haven’t had sex in a long time. I’m clean, I swear to you. Jesus, I’m so sorry I did that.”
I hate so much that Easton Crowne is the most beautiful secret I’ll ever have and will forever be the one I’m forced to keep.
“Please, let me go,” I whisper. “I don’t think I can,”
“but I refuse to fucking deny whatever is happening here. You know I won’t.”
