19
PIPER
“Then command me, Pipes,” he rasped. “I’ll give you everything you ask for.”
His blue eyes were so glazed with need and hunger, it left me breathless. But more than I wanted a repeat of our wake-up quickie, I wanted to trust him. Simply accepting him at his word was not possible for me. As kids, his words had more often hurt me than anything else. I needed hard-core proof, and to get that meant I would have to suffer right alongside him.
The smart thing to do was to go slow, not to jump on his cock as quickly as I already had. Even if it had been the best I’d ever had. But this wasn’t like anything I’d ever experienced before. Slow and steady was for the best, for both of us.
That didn’t mean I couldn’t torture him a little along the way.
I wrapped my arms around him and buried my face in his neck. Sinking my teeth into his neck, I felt his entire body shudder, and I licked my lips with satisfaction. “I’m going to bed,” I whispered in his ear.
“Okay,” he said with a groan, his bottom lip slightly pouted out.
“You can sleep on the couch if you really want to stay.”
“I do.” He tightened his arms around me when I started to pull back, but after a moment, he slowly released me.
Before I got to my feet, I gave him a quick kiss on the lips. As I straightened, I dropped my gaze to the obvious erection stretching the left pant leg of his sweats—and quickly had to remind myself that slow and steady was the rule I definitely shouldn’t break. For now. “You can’t take care of that. Only I can touch it until I say otherwise.”
“Damn, you’re mean,” he said with a grin. “Fine. I’ll just have to walk around half bent over for the foreseeable future.”
Laughing, I took a step back. “Goodnight, Cannon.”
“Night, Pipes.”
I stopped in the bathroom to take off my makeup and brush my teeth before I crawled into bed. I didn’t bother to change into my pajamas, just kicked off my shorts, took off my bra, and then pulled the thin throw over me. Below me, I could hear Nala’s snores as she slept on the bunk with Hymn. Across from me, on the top bunk, I wasn’t sure if Trinity was sleeping or not since her curtain was drawn.
Plugging my phone into the charger on the little shelf beside the tiny window that was extra tinted so I could look out but no one would be able to see inside, I laid my head on my pillow and closed my eyes. I was exhausted, but five, then ten minutes passed, and sleep eluded me.
My brain refused to turn off so I could get some rest. The events of the night replayed in my head. The club. The sleazy guy getting dragged off by his pissed-off daddy, whining like a spoiled little boy having his favorite toy taken away. My talk with Cannon and his confession.
Was I crazy to want to give him a chance? Maybe. Was I still going to? Yes. It would either show me that the Cannon from our childhood really was the real him, or that he’d actually grown up and had become the man part of me had always hoped he would turn into. The man I’d secretly crushed on.
Sighing, I turned onto my side, hoping the position change would lure me to sleep. Another ten minutes passed, then twenty. I was starting to give myself a headache from the noise in my head. With a groan, I climbed out of bed and changed into a pair of thin sleep shorts and a baggy shirt. Grabbing my pillow off the bunk, I walked back into the living room.
Cannon was stretched out on the couch, the pillow from the night before under his head and a fresh blanket spread over him. With his phone in one hand and the other folded under his head, he seemed just as wide awake as I was.
When he heard me coming, he lowered his phone and lifted his head. “Can’t sleep?” he murmured.
“No,” I complained as I walked over to the couch. I dropped the pillow at his feet, but instead of lying down on it, I climbed on top of him.
The arm he’d had under his head came around my back, his fingers resting just above my ass. Like magic, the noise in my mind calmed, and I felt my eyelids get heavy. I felt his lips touch the top of my head before he turned his gaze back to his phone.
“Anything interesting going on?” I asked, fighting a yawn.
“Nah. Just going through Luca’s latest pictures of Violet and Love Bug on Instagram. I usually have to go through the hundred or so pictures he posts every day before I can get to sleep.” He turned the phone so I could see the screen. “Look at this sweetness.”
I lifted my heavy lashes to look at the picture on the screen. Violet and her daughter were sitting in the grass, the sun setting behind their house in West Bridge, Tennessee, making their eyes glow in a way that could only be described as breathtaking. But it was the look of pure love on both their faces as they looked at the camera—or rather, at the person holding the camera—that filled me with warmth.
“Knowing there is this kind of goodness in the world, and that Luca is protecting them both, is the only reason I can get to sleep sometimes,” he said quietly. Releasing a heavy breath, he flipped through a few more pictures before placing his phone on the floor and arranging the blanket over me. Searching for my hand, he entwined our fingers.
My eyes were already drifting shut, suddenly too heavy to remain open. I didn’t know if it was his warmth seeping into my muscles or the sound of his heart beating under my ear like a lullaby luring me to sleep. Whatever the reason, I didn’t really care. I felt comfortable and, oddly enough, safe.
Loud knocking on the door the next morning slowly penetrated my brain. Groaning, I shifted and quickly remembered where I was as Cannon’s arms tightened around me.
“Go away!” he yelled. “People are trying to sleep.”
“Who the fuck is in there?” a man demanded, his voice one I didn’t immediately recognize. When Cannon didn’t answer, the knocking came again, only this time, it practically shook the entire bus. “Trinity, open this goddamn door before I tear it off!”
My head snapped up when Trinity came running from the back of the bus. Her hair was adorably sleep-tousled, but her dimples weren’t in sight as she sprinted to the door and threw it open. “What do you want, Jarrett?” she snarled.
“Who the fuck is that on the bus with you?” he growled back, his voice full of the kind of suppressed violence that made me shiver with fear.
Cannon cursed and eased out from under me, jerking angrily to his feet. Marching over to the door, he eased Trinity out of the way. “Hey asshole, I don’t know who you think you are, but you have no right to talk to her like that. Who sleeps on this bus is none of your fucking business. Unless you need to talk to Trinity about something security-related, take your ass somewhere else until she decides she wants to speak to you.”
I couldn’t see Jarrett, but Cannon yanked the door closed, reengaged the manual lock we used once everyone was in for the night, and then turned to Trinity. Putting an arm around her shoulders, he guided her to the kitchenette. “You okay, sweetheart?”
“Uh, yeah,” she murmured, a small smile teasing at her lips, giving us a glimpse of her pretty dimples. “Thanks for that. He was blowing up my phone, saying he wanted to talk. I told him to fuck off, and that’s when he started knocking.”
Cannon crouched down in front of her, and I sat up. “You want me to get Smith or one of the other guys to sleep on the bus tonight? Pipes and I have to fly out after the show.”
I groaned at the reminder. “I completely forgot about that.”
“Thanks, but I think I’ll be fine. That was just him being jealous. He may have sounded like he was about to tear the bus apart, but he wouldn’t have done anything to scare me.” She grimaced. “If he thought you were actually sleeping here with me…well, that’s another story. I guess when he realized it was you and that you were most likely here with Piper, he calmed down a little. Otherwise, the bus probably would have already been flipped over.”
“He’s awfully territorial for someone who doesn’t have a right to be,” I muttered. “Next time, he will probably cock his leg and pee on you.”
Trinity threw her head back and burst out laughing.
Grinning, Cannon straightened and walked over to the coffeepot, shooting me a wink. “What’s the easiest way to keep a dog from pissing on something?” We both looked at him with raised brows. “Deny it access.”
“Unfortunately, my job requires me to work alongside the head of security,” Trinity said morosely.
A thought hit me, and I stood. “Not necessarily. What you need is an assistant, someone to run interference between you and our new head of security.”
“I don’t like having an assistant.” She waved the suggestion away. “They just get in my way and throw me off. The way I like to do things can annoy some people, but it’s my own special kind of chaos that helps me get everything done.”
“I promise you’ll enjoy having this one.” I walked over to where Cannon was prepping the coffee machine and took down three mugs. “Flint is amazing.”
“But he’s going with you to LA. Won’t you need him?”
“He can email or text me anything I need to know,” I assured her. “We don’t have to be in the same place for him to be efficient. And he doesn’t like LA very much, so he will probably thank us both for a reason not to have to go.”
“Okay.” She gave in quicker than I expected her to. “But if Flint jumps ship and quits on you, remember that I warned you in advance.”
“He has to put up with me on the daily,” I told her with a snicker. “Whatever kind of chaos you think you’ll be throwing at him, you seriously underestimate his abilities.”
“No, I think you just underestimate how chaotic my job is.” Pushing to her feet, she turned toward the hall. “I’m going to get dressed. It’s going to be a long day. At least we will be traveling all day tomorrow and don’t have a show tomorrow night. You two are going to be exhausted when you join us at the next venue.”
I watched her go as Cannon filled two of the mugs with coffee. “We won’t be in LA for long,” he commented. “My apartment is closer to the studio. Do you want to stay there with me?”
Pausing in the process of adding creamer to my mug, I glanced up at him. Since I’d completely forgotten about the trip in the first place, the thought of where I would stay while I was there hadn’t even entered my mind. I had a key to my parents’ place in Malibu. My cousin Jordan still had his apartment where he’d lived before marrying Arella, which I sometimes stayed in when I was in LA. Since I was either on tour or in New York, where I shared an apartment with Hymn, there wasn’t a reason to have a place of my own on the West Coast.
“I’ve never been to your apartment before,” I mused, taking a sip of my coffee. “Does it have an extra bedroom?”
“Nope.”
I leaned back against the sink. “Hmm, so that must mean you’re planning on taking the couch while I get your bed.”
He shrugged as he turned to mirror the way I was standing. “If that’s what you want, then sure. But if you decide to invite me into my own bed, I’m one hundred percent down with that.”
“I bet,” I said, hiding my smile behind my mug.
“You have all of the control,” he reminded me quietly. “But while we’re in LA, I’d like to consider it our third date.”
I lowered my cup. “But I still owe you the second one.”
“Getting to sleep with you on top of me for the second night in a row more than makes up for missing our second date. But I have something special in mind for tomorrow night.”