Alex must pick up on how uncomfortable I am and remains quiet. My phone sounds with a text alert. I fish it out of my bag and see a message from a number I don’t recognise, but I know it’s Noah.
Unknown: You were wonderful.
Unable to control the rush of pleasure I feel with his words, I smile at my phone. I save his number and quickly return it to my bag. But the text makes something bother me. I turn to Alex. “How did you know how to find me?” I hadn’t texted him the address. I couldn’t, because I don’t know it.
He looks a little unsettled for a second. His jaw tics and he grips his fingers around the steering wheel.
“I followed you here last night. It’s my job to keep an eye on you.”
If anybody else had done the same, it would be creepy. But with Mac on tour, Alex is my bodyguard—not that I need one when Mac’s gone. I eye him a little longer but decide to let it go. While looking at him, it dawns on me there’s something very different about him.
“The baseball cap suits you.”
He rubs the back of his neck and shrugs. “Bed hair.”
Eight Months Later
LIZZIE LIES IN my arms, and her steady breath tickles over the skin on my chest. Eight months we’ve been doing this and it’s not getting old, far from it. We’ve spent the whole day watching black and white films, apart from when we ordered pizza, and fucked. I’ll never be tired of that. I slide my hand around her waist to find her hand, entwining it with mine.
“Noah, are you awake?” Lizzie whispers, her voice breathy.
Her daft question makes me smile. I just moved. “Yeah.” I tighten my arms around her and lean in to kiss her temple.
“I love being here with you. Being cocooned in your arms. Held like you fear I might vanish at any second.”
“You planning on disappearing on me?” I ask. My voice’s gruff and my heart squeezes at the thought. But I do hold her like that.
“Never,” she answers confidently. And I feel her smile against my chest.
I let out a relieved breath I didn’t even realise I was holding as she continues.
“I thought I understood what love was, but the dream became battered and broken. I always believed love was a safe place, like here.” She traces the tattoos on my chest. “But did you know love could be twisted and painful? I know it’s really stupid, but I never realised it could hurt, not without betrayal.”
I can’t figure out where she’s going with this so I let her continue, but my chest gets tighter with each word.
“I’m worried because I love us. This.” She peers up at me through her lashes. “But I’m frightened by what I feel for you. It’s stronger than anything I’ve ever felt before, and it could crush me if I let it.” She moves her hand down to rub circles on the forearm wrapped around her waist, her gaze follows it.
Without exact words she just told me she loves me and I want desperately to tell her something she wants to hear, but I can’t.
“I don’t know what to say, angel. I could beg you to let me in, to trust me, and I could promise that I’ll never be that man, that I’ll never hurt you. But—” I shift so I can look into her eyes. “It’s probably likely. I’ve never done anything like this. Never wanted to.”
I keep to myself the reasons why and continue. “You distorted my world, made me view things a little differently. You made we want things I’ve never thought about before. Made me think about a future. But I can’t promise you I won’t mess up, and I can’t promise you a happy ending.”
The warning needs to be out there, no matter what feelings swirl around in me. I’m not relationship material and if we continue down the path we’ve taken she may get hurt, fuck, she will get hurt.
She turns in my arms and sleepily nods into my chest. “This makes me happy.”
Those few little words make me fucking ecstatic. Instead of telling her, I pull her a little tighter against me.
Her fingers work over my abs and down over my tattooed brand. “Why Underdog?”
My insides clench and I hope she can’t hear the missed heartbeat. She’s never questioned it before. “Because I’ve always been one.”
Her face moves against my chest as she snuggles in further. “I doubt that.”
“Shh, angel. Go to sleep.”
I place a kiss on her forehead and breathe in her scent as she drifts off. Her breaths even out as I stare down at her beautiful face. My chest swells with a foreign emotion watching her engulfed in my arms. This thing between us has grown, turned into something I never expected, wanted, or dared believe I could have. But she doesn’t know the whole me. And that small fact holds me back.
I wake early and throw my legs over the edge of the bed. The movement produces a soft noise from Lizzie. My morning glory sits heavy between my legs. I’m not sure which I want the most, to take a piss, or to wake her up and take her again. Unfortunately the need for the bathroom wins out.
As I’m about to stand, there’s a vibration from her phone on the bedside table. I’m not nosey but it’s five in the morning so maybe it’s important. Leaning towards the phone, I glance at the screen.
Mac: I’m home, tour ended. Where R U? I missed U baby <3
Mac? Shit. The boyfriend. He’s home early from tour; he wasn’t due back until next month. I’ve had her to myself for months and my stomach tightens at the thought of sharing her again. He’s flown in a few times for a day here or there, but this is different. He’s back, full-time. My fingers squeeze around the phone. Smashing it is too tempting, so quietly I place it back down. It’s either that or fight the urge to scroll through her personal messages and see if there’s any other loved up shit on there.
My nails dig into my head when I scrub over my hair and down my face. What am I going to do? Why the fuck should it bother me? I’ve never cared before.
I’ve never cared before? Before what? Her…
The thought of him touching her in ways I touch her sends a wave of nausea through me. Or could it be the beer? Yeah, that’s it. Getting out of bed, I snatch up my underwear and head to the bathroom. I flip the lid on the toilet and dry-heave a couple of times. Nothing comes out. Not a fucking thing. I’m guessing it’s not the beer.
My heart still pounds and my stomach churns, making me rethink the cause. Jealousy would be a new concept for me.
I raise the toilet seat, taking my now semi-hard cock in my hand, and wait for it to go down so I can do what I came here for.
Is his bigger than mine?
Why the fuck should I care what size his cock is? Mine’s fucking awesome. But the thought of his being anywhere near my girl has the great effect of killing any hardness in mine, so at least I can take a piss. I shake off and pull on my boxers, but I can’t shake the feeling.
Shutting the lid, I hesitate from flushing. I don’t want to wake Lizzie. After the quickest, and quietest, hand wash in history, I chuck on some sweats and head downstairs to the kitchen.
My girl?
She’s not mine. I grab the coffee, milk, and sweetener, and make myself a big mug. The swirls of steam send me into a trance.
Not mine.
Anger begins to mix in with my pounding chest and the nausea twisting my insides.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
With both hands, I grasp the work surface edge and hang my head. All I need is a couple more seconds and this feeling will go away. A few deep breaths and it’ll all be fine. I inhale deeply twenty times. I count each laboured breath, but it doesn’t work.