Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 111253 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 556(@200wpm)___ 445(@250wpm)___ 371(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111253 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 556(@200wpm)___ 445(@250wpm)___ 371(@300wpm)
“It’s one of my favorite sayings,” she explained, pulling my attention to the tattoo.
The fine script was impossible to read, so I fell to my knees and inched closer. A clean line drawing of a phoenix sat between her shoulder blades, one of the lines of its tail extended down her into sharp cursive.
I am the storm.
If Nova could be put into a tattoo, this was it. This was her. It was perfect.
And I couldn’t not feel it on her.
Moving slowly, knowing I should pull back, but unable to stop, I reached for her. Her whole back tensed, but she didn’t pull back when my fingertip just grazed the tip of the bird. I followed the gentle swirls and down the tail. With each pass—each second—I connected with her, her breathing picked up. My lungs worked overtime, too, struggling to match my racing heart.
I stroked down the letters, feeling each dainty ridge of her spine, wondering how long I could drag this out. Wondering how far I could take this. When I reached the base, I held my finger there just above the edge of her shorts and soothed back and forth. With each pass, I added pressure and stretched a little further.
“Parker,” she whispered.
I added my other fingers, pushing up and in, centimeters from pressing my palm to her skin.
Then the door opened, and the guys piled in.
I jerked back to the couch, and Nova slammed her shirt back down. Oren blocked the door and looked over his shoulder at the other guys, missing the situation he just walked in on.
“We want to watch the movie, too. I love Jennifer Aniston,” he proclaimed.
They stumbled in and made themselves comfortable on the couch, completely ruining the moment. I don’t know what would have happened in that moment, but I felt the shift. I felt it in the way she kept watching me out of the corner of her eye, almost like she saw me differently and needed to study me.
Something shifted, and I planned to stick my foot in the door and burst it open.
Seventeen
Nova
“What if we played this?”
Ash braced his feet under his captain’s chair and rested his fingers along the neck of the bass, strumming the same chords we’d played so many times I’d lost track.
“The wind erodes, exposing fissures in this rock.”
I leaned forward, holding my breath, hoping that this time the words would come. He played the chord again with no words, and still, I waited. Parker looked just as on edge as me from his place in the other captain’s chair next to Ash. We just needed a break. One small tip over the edge, and I knew we’d get it.
Statistically, after so many tries, we were bound to get something. Right?
“And…”
Come on. Come on.
Another chord, his brows furrowed in concentration like he could see the words but not make them out.
“And to be honest, right now, I’d rather be coming in my sock,” Oren screeched, belting his own lyrics from his spot on the floor.
“Bro,” Brogan grumbled, stretching his long legs out to kick Oren’s thigh.
“Fuuuuck.” Parker banged his head back against the seat.
“Like a frock or a dock or a cock,” Oren kept going. “Or anything else that rhymes with rock.”
“Fucking stop,” Brogan demanded, kicking him harder.
When Oren balled up and latched on to his foot, Brogan sat his guitar to the side, and I had to uncurl from my position on the long couch to stop the expensive equipment from tumbling to the floor.
It’d been almost a month on the bus together—minus a few nights when I flew home to see the girls while the guys did publicity.
In that time, despite the odds, we fell into a routine. I continued to come up with ideas to help us feed off each other. It helped, but only so much. We built a foundation of friendship, but it only served as a cover, loosely built over the fragile tension and lust we tried to ignore. It simmered like magma under the earth’s surface, waiting to erupt at any moment. Just like when he stroked my tattoo, we continued to find ourselves in situations that put pressure on my determination to hold off.
Anytime we got too close, I just managed to pull back and direct us toward the job.
Which was going pretty bad. In this time, we’d written all of two songs, and I didn’t even love them. Maybe the tension lingered a bit too much to find the natural rhythm we used to have. Whatever it was, I didn’t like it because the bottom line was that this was my job and my chance to build my businesses into one.
“How long have we been working on this song?” Ash groaned.
“Just today or including last week?” Parker asked.
“Three hours and thirty-seven minutes today,” I answered. “At least four-hundred-and-ninety-nine last week.”