I fidget and stare at the ceiling. Neil’s hand is suddenly under my shirt, his fingers working their way beneath my bra.
I grab his wrist. “Stop it. Don’t start anything we can’t finish.”
He leans up on an elbow, looking down at me, his fingers fluttering across my stomach. “You played with my body while I slept. It’s only fair I get to play with yours.”
I roll my eyes. “I kissed you. Once.”
He lowers his face until his lips are in my hair near my ear. “One kiss, Chrissie, is a lot. We were interrupted last night.”
My cheeks flood with color, but I don’t stop him as his hand moves back to my breast. He brushes my nipple with his thumb. I feel myself tighten there.
“There’s no privacy.” I squirm against his touch and kisses.
The curtain is jerked closed, blocking view of the bed from the rest of the bus.
“You’re crazy, Neil. I’m not doing it in a bus with five other guys six feet away.”
Neil kisses my shoulder and then peeks up at me, determined.
“We should take advantage every time the guys are asleep on the bus. It may be the nicest place we find to have sex for the next ten months. I don’t know who we will be sharing a room with and I don’t know what kind of dives the promoter has put us in. I’m only the opening act. I’ve been on some really shitty, low-budget tours.”
My brows lift. “You’re opening for Scream on an arena tour. I thought it would be nice. You mean we may not even have our own room?”
Neil shrugs, but gives me a contrite look.
“Thanks for telling me ahead of time, Neil.”
He nips playfully on my lower lip and then I feel his fingers trying to work open the clasp of my bra. I jerk away from him and sit, arms crossed.
Neil falls back against his pillow, exhales loudly, aggravated, and runs a hand through his hair.
“Don’t be pissed at me, Chrissie. If the rooms are too awful I’ll fix it.”
I arch a brow. “Fix it, huh? How?”
“I don’t know, but I will. I promise. Don’t be pissed.”
“I’m not pissed. I just wish you’d told me we might be sharing a room.”
Neil pulls me down on top of him and holds me against his chest in spite of my protests. He starts kissing me again.
“You’re not getting any, Neil.”
His hands flatten on my butt, molding me against him. He moves against me there. His lips dance up my neck, feather light. Not fair. And even as I tell myself no way my body starts to rub against him.
The bus lurches forward and it feels like we’re driving on the open road again. Neil stops touching and kissing me, and I frown at him, wondering why he stopped after getting me willing to screw him in the bus.
He takes in a ragged breath. “Fuck, you shouldn’t have wasted time arguing with me. We’ll be in Vancouver in a half an hour. Shit.”
“You are so conceited, Neil. We don’t need more than half an hour.”
“Very funny.” He groans. “Jeez, I’ve been horny as hell since Jack interrupted us last night and I really wanted to christen the bus.”
I can feel my eyes opening to their fullest. “Oh. Christen the bus? That’s what this is about. Jeez, guys are such jerks. What, is it a competition to see who christens the bus first? What other things do you guys christen on the road?”
He looks annoyed. “Nothing. I don’t do the girls on the road. You know that, Chrissie. It’s the best way to fuck up your life.”
I ease off him and sit with my back against the far wall, facing him. I remember what Josh told me at the camp ground.
“Not ever?” I probe. “You’ve never had sex with a girl on the road?”
He’s angry that I asked. “No. We’ve always been together when I’ve been on tour. I wouldn’t cheat on you, Chrissie. I wouldn’t do that to you.”
I fight not to let the hurt show on my face from the unintended punch those words carry. I cheated on him and somehow he loves me. We’re together again, but what I did still makes me feel awful. Neil has forgiven me. I need to learn to forgive myself.
I roll forward, crawl across the bed, kiss him on the cheek, and then lie against him.
“I’ll try not to be a pain,” I say.
Neil laughs. “That’s not going to work, Chrissie. You’re always a pain. And if this tour is as bad as the last one, you being a pain starts in about twenty minutes when we reach the hotel.”
I make a pout. “I won’t say a word. I won’t complain. I promise.”
Twenty minutes later, I hear the screeching of brakes against tires as the bus rolls slowly to a stop. Neil starts gathering our things.
“Have you been to Vancouver before?” he asks.
“Nope.”
He looks surprised.
“I was a little disappointed we didn’t have to use our passports,” I say, following Neil to the exit on the bus. “That we could just cross through the border. I really wanted a stamp. Yours is full of stamps. I don’t have any. It makes my passport look so pathetic.”
Neil’s brows crinkle. “You’ve never been out of the country?”
I shake my head.
“Not even Canada?” he asks.
“Nope. I’ve hardly been out of California.”
He shakes his head and goes down the steps. Once at the bottom, he turns to offer me his hand.
We walk around the bus and my eyes fix on the hotel in surprise. Well, jeez, this doesn’t look awful. A beautiful, high-rise hotel in an area of the city that looks upscale.
I give Neil a small shove. “You’re such a jerk. Why do you like to mess with me all the time?”
“I wasn’t messing with you, Chrissie.”
I can feel Josh watching us.
“Bullshit,” I counter. “All those stories about how tough it is when you are out on the road and how terrible everything is, they’re crap, aren’t they?”
“It wasn’t crap. It’s not crap.” Neil rakes his hair with his hand. “Jeez, Chrissie, can we not do this?”
“I’m just saying it wasn’t very nice of you in the bus to freak me out about how cruddy this is going to be. Sometimes when you’re messing with me, it isn’t funny.”
He leans into me, and quietly says, “I just wanted to get laid. We haven’t had sex in two days.”
I make a face at him and Josh passes by us, rolling his eyes at Neil in way that lets me know he’s heard every word of our argument and that he thinks I’m being a bitch.
I walk ahead of Neil into the hotel. At the front desk, I peek at him out of the corner of my eye. I struggle not to laugh. He has that Chrissie is driving me nuts look. Neil is adorable when he’s aggravated.
We are quickly checked in and handed our keys.
Neil taps his knuckles on the counter to get Josh’s attention. “We’ve got sound check in two hours.”
“I’m going to hit the bar, get something to eat and drink. You coming?”
“Maybe later. But I don’t think so,” Neil says grimly.
Ah, nice touch, Neil. The Chrissie-is-giving-me-shit tone of voice.
I am silent in the elevator as we chug our way upward floor by floor.
“Would you like me to go out and get you something to eat?” he asks. “Or are you going to order room service?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Do you want to come with me for sound check?”
“I don’t know yet.”
The elevator doors open. He shakes his head, runs a hand through his hair and waits for me to follow him into the hallway.
Inside our room, I drop my bag and I hear Neil securing the safety latch of the door. I kick off my flip-flops.
“How soon do you have to leave?” I ask.
“I’ve got about ninety minutes.”
I pull off my shirt, unfasten my bra, let it fall to the floor, and then turn toward him. His expression changes as I unbutton my jeans and pull them off.
He makes a long, ragged exhale of breath, and then wags a finger at me. “God, you are a pain in the ass. You deliberately made me think the entire way up here you were pissed and we were going to the room to fight.”