Total pages in book: 35
Estimated words: 34629 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 173(@200wpm)___ 139(@250wpm)___ 115(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 34629 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 173(@200wpm)___ 139(@250wpm)___ 115(@300wpm)
Relief isn’t what I should be feeling, so that’s not a good sign.
I went out tonight trying to find someone to fuck. To try to get out of my head. But then it somehow turned into projections of finding my own Locke.
Cash found his soul mate when he was seventeen years old. They were apart for a long time, but they made their way back. I’ve never felt anything like that.
The chance of going out and finding it in a stripper is slim to none, but when that photo was leaked, my sense of control slipped. I had no control over that situation. This one I do.
My gaze finds Thorne’s who’s sitting opposite us. He’s using that judging stare I’m used to seeing from him, and it’s as if I can read his thoughts.
Ready to back out yet? We haven’t left the tarmac.
He thinks I can’t do this. I can’t try to have a proper relationship. And now he’s all but said he won’t get rid of Andrew for me, I’m doubly stubborn about making this a great vacation. One where I can fall in love.
Real love.
I want to be able to go to sleep next to someone and not worry about them posting a photo of me naked. I want to be able to not worry about them going to the tabloids to tell them about “My one night with Sebastian Rose” where they claim I serenaded them with a Cash Me Outside song while I was balls deep inside them.
Totally false.
Because that would be creepy as fuck.
Maybe they imagined it because they wanted me to sing to them.
Thorne gives us an assessing gaze and then focuses on Andrew. “So, Lemon. You’re a stripper? Paying your way through college?” He mutters under his breath, “Or high school?”
“Nope,” Lemon … Dammit, Andrew, says gleefully. “I just like doing it.”
“Sex positivity,” I say. “I like that. You’d know what that is if you ever got laid, Thorne.”
“It must be good money.” Thorne takes another jab while our flight attendant brings him his usual scotch on the rocks.
Andrew smiles like Thorne’s implication isn’t intrusive as fuck. “It’s not rock star money or anything, but I can earn anywhere between one to two grand on a good night.”
Thorne’s drink goes everywhere as he almost chokes on it. “A night?”
“Five nights a week. I do okay.”
Thorne does the math quickly in his head. “Fifteen hundred on average times five, that’s almost four hundred thousand a year.”
I snort. “Isn’t that more than what we pay you?”
Andrew giggles. “Don’t tell the IRS. I don’t think prison orange would suit me.”
“Orange is the new lemon,” I quip.
The flight is only a couple of hours, and it’s in the wee hours of early morning, so the cabin is quiet, but I can feel Thorne’s stare on me the whole time. I understand he’s disappointed in my actions, but he’s making me all self-conscious and shit.
Which is why when Andrew pulls a blanket over us and reaches for my cock, my first instinct is to swat it away.
“Sorry,” I whisper. “Just ... not here, okay?”
He looks confused but nods.
“Are you tired? You should sleep.” I open my arms so he can lie across the seats and put his head in my lap instead.
“Thank you. You’re sweeter than I thought you’d be,” he whispers.
Yeah, I might have a reputation for being the complete opposite of how I’m acting, and not that long ago, I probably would’ve accepted a silent handjob in front of my bandmates, but I want this to be different. I need this to be different.
I mindlessly run my fingers through Andrew’s bleached blond hair while he rests, and I throw my head back on the seat to try to get in some sleep too, but it’s useless. Because that stare. I lift my head and meet Thorne’s eyes.
Fuck, those blue orbs are intense.
I can feel everything he’s putting out. Anger. Disappointment. I don’t have the energy to fight him though.
He glances down at Andrew, and I swear his eyes turn green with jealousy, but that can’t be right.
My cock responding to that thought and not the dude’s head in my lap is also mystifying. When Thorne’s eyes roam back up toward my face, something passes between us.
I don’t know what, but it’s confusing. I’ve never seen Thorne in this light. I don’t even think I’ve seen him rattled. There’s something definitely there, though.
Or I’m mentally exhausted from the last twenty-four hours, and I’m projecting crazy thoughts because maybe, just maybe, Thorne is the closest thing I have to a stabilizing figure in my life.
Thorne’s lips part, as if he’s about to say something, but then a feminine giggle from the back of the plane sounds, and our connection, or whatever it is, is gone.
I turn in my seat to find Jasper taking his groupie up on her offer to get freaky on the plane, unlike me. We ignore the shenanigans going on back there and pretend it’s not happening.