I was right about the spirits of the past inhabiting this city. Dallas is a man possessed.
I can’t form a coherent sentence so I agree to his request wordlessly. Spreading my legs farther apart for him, I lean back on his chest.
“Only for you,” I whisper, and they’re the last words I speak before he slides into me, groaning as he fills me and gripping my hips with both hands.
“Fuck, Robyn. You’re so damn hot. I can hardly control myself.”
“Then don’t.”
This is insane. Anyone could look up right now and with a second glance they would know exactly what we were up to. But I can’t bring myself to feel anything other than exhilarated. Everything is brighter, more vibrant with him inside me. Time slows and I can hear every breath he takes, see every pinpoint of light down below.
I know the exact moment when he begins to lose himself inside me. I’m acutely aware of the change when hard thrusts become a slow, intense grind.
“Come for me, sweet girl. Let me feel how much you enjoy being a dirty girl out here for the world to see.”
My insides clench around him, propelled by his sexy words.
“Dallas,” I whisper, because I feel myself falling. Not off the balcony but into oblivion with him.
“Come for me, Robyn. Show me how much you love this, how hard it turns you on knowing they could see, knowing they could watch me fuck you. Show me how dirty you can be, sweet girl.” His middle finger hits my clit at precisely the perfect moment and it flings me over the edge. His name rolls off my tongue over and over as he finishes inside me. “That’s my girl,” he whispers between gentle kisses on my neck. “My sweet dirty girl.”
I lie face-to-face with Dallas—his arms wrapped around my naked body—after we’ve both come more times than I can count. For a while we just laid there, catching our breath, but somehow that turned to satisfied smiles and now he’s staring into my eyes and we’re both in danger of unleashing the truths of our souls.
“I was starting to wonder if we were ever going to get to this part of our agreement. You kept walking me to my door and saying good night like you couldn’t wait to kick rocks.”
Dallas gives me a sad smile. “I wanted to be sure you really wanted this. The truth is, I feel like us being on this tour together is the universe allowing me to make up for lost time.”
I nuzzle my head beneath his chin so I can listen to his heartbeat. And so I can escape the intense moment where I might say something that I shouldn’t. “Lost time?”
“When you decided not to go on the road with us that summer, I was surprised, to say the least. But when you ended things between us, it wasn’t something I was at all prepared to deal with. You tried later, to explain, I think. And I handled it like a stupid, cocky kid not used to not getting his way when I should’ve heard you out.”
Lying here in postcoital bliss with him exposes my vulnerable side. This is not the route we should be heading down if we’re keeping this casual. Rehashing our past is the opposite of casual.
“I bombed show after show that summer. The tour ended abruptly and we didn’t get asked back to a single venue. Want to know why?”
Speaking of bombs, he just dropped one on me. I didn’t know this because I spent most of that summer avoiding him.
I take his face in my hands and latch my gaze on to his—needing a physical connection to gather the strength I need to hear this.
Dallas takes my silence for a yes and continues. “Every song I’d written, the majority of the ones on the set list, they were about you. Or at least inspired by you. I couldn’t get up there and give it my all when I was singing about a girl who’d dumped my ass.”
His confession wedges into a crack in my heart, causing it to take off, beating in triple time.
After kissing him gently on the mouth, I take a deep breath and try my best to explain something I should have told him years ago.
“Dallas, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know and I never meant to . . .” To what? Ruin his life? Destroy his dream? No wonder he never wanted to speak to me again. The frustrated anger I saw on his face when I appeared on this tour makes so much more sense now. I try to speak over the lump of emotion constricting my throat. “I should’ve told you the truth that summer. I should’ve—”
“It’s in the past, Robyn. All of it. And I’m enjoying the hell out of our present so I just wanted to clear the air without having that hanging over us.”
“We were so young and I—”
His hands tighten around my hips, cutting me off. “I know. And you were right anyway. I needed to focus on my music and you had a full school schedule to deal with. It all worked out how it was meant to, just like you said it would.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and try not to wince at how much that hurts to hear. I tried to tell him about my mom, about why I really ended it, a few weeks after our breakup, but he wouldn’t hear me out. He avoided me anytime our paths crossed and practically shut down his ability to hear anytime I opened my mouth in his presence, which is understandable since I ruined his tour that summer. So maybe now isn’t the time to come clean, either.
But I wasn’t right. It was the wrong way to handle it and I know that now. It occurs to me in the form of tears pricking my eyes that if I hadn’t ended our relationship abruptly the way that I did, maybe the band would have gotten recognized sooner. Maybe he wouldn’t be Dallas Walker solo act and he’d be living his actual dream with his band.
“So Midnight Bay seems like a decent company to work for,” he says, completely changing the subject. I should probably feel relieved and yet I don’t. “You happy there?”
I nod, swallowing the guilt his apology unearthed from deep in my soul. “Mm-hm.”
“You’re a hard worker. They’re lucky to have you.”
“They might not agree if they knew what we were up to right now. It’s a family-oriented business with some pretty high moral standards.”
“My lips are sealed, sweetheart. Promise. Besides, I’d never let them fire you. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but I’m a pretty big deal these days.”
I laugh softly. “Oh yeah? And is it as amazing as you thought it would be? Performing to huge crowds and being on this tour, getting to live your dream?” I trail a manicured finger in circles on the forearm he has wrapped around me while I wait for his answer. Part of me wants to hear that he’s happy, that he’s just as happy as he would be if he’d made it with his band intact.
“It is. Or at least, I think it is.”
I angle around so that I can look him in the face. “You think it is?”
He pulls me closer, kissing me lightly on the lips. “Yeah. For the most part. It’s like there’s been an exchange of sorts, one I didn’t realize I’d agreed to.”
“I’m gonna need you to man-’splain that to me, please.”
He lets out a small chuckle, then sighs and I feel his chest rise and fall. “It’s like I agreed to be this version of myself I didn’t expect to have to be. Dallas Walker. Performer Dallas.”
I don’t say anything as I settle back into the spooning position so he continues on.
“Dallas Lark is ‘real me,’ you know? The one that you’ve known for years. The one who harasses his sister constantly to make sure she’s okay. I had a cheeseburger and a slice of apple pie alone in a diner on my birthday and realized that I was actually homesick for a place I’d been planning to leave since the day I arrived. But nobody really knows that guy—the one who has pie alone or gets to come back to you after each show and has the pleasure and privilege of tasting and touching you, of filling you and watching you come undone while I—”
“Dallas!” I call out, interrupting him suddenly. “I get the picture. Either move on or we’re not going to finish this conversation.”
He laughs low in my ear when I wiggle my backside against him.
“I don’t know. It’s just, I didn’t realize that I’d have to cut myself in half, be the two different guys. But that’s the price, apparently. I lose my last name but I get to live my dream every night. I don’t know if it’s an even exchange either way.”