She sighs. “A thing is right. The thing that boy can do with his tongue…”
“Okay. Okay. I don’t want to hear about your Sexual Olympics.”
She laughs into the phone, just as Noel pokes his head out of the bathroom door. I frown and point to the phone so he knows I won’t be coming in. He rolls his eyes and closes the door.
I catch up with Aubrey for the next few minutes about her family. She keeps turning the conversation back to Riff. She’s asked me at least twenty times in the last few minutes if he’s asked about her or not.
After I convince her that Riff is secretly, madly in love with her she finally let’s me off the phone.
Noel steps into the large bedroom area wearing nothing but a towel. Water droplets speckle his chest and the smell of his body wash fills the room. He lays a clean pair of jeans and a t-shirt on the bed next to me and my eyes trail over his body like it’s dessert. It really is spectacular the way his muscles bulge under his skin. It’s practically art—the naughty kind that women love to drool over.
Noel laughs and I jerk my head back down to the laptop. I know he’s caught me staring, but it’s hard not to.
He pulls on his jeans, with no underwear, and throws on his shirt. Men are so lucky. They can look yummy in less than fifteen minutes.
After I’m ready, we head out of our love nest holding hands. Noel’s thumb strokes the skin on the back of my hand. This small gesture is somehow the most reassuring thing in the world.
A black town car with tinted windows waits at the entrance of the hotel. The driver, wearing a black suit, nods at Noel before opening the back door for us. Noel helps me into the car then slides in next to me. The driver shuts us in and hops in the front.
The smooth car pulls out onto the road. It’s crazy Noel has so much money he doesn’t even have to drive himself around like a normal person anymore.
“Do you still have your car?” I ask Noel.
His eyes sparkle a little at the mention of his black Chevelle. “Yep. She’s tucked away in my garage.”
His garage? “I didn’t know you owned a place.”
He wraps his arm around me and trails his fingers over the bare skin on my shoulder. “Yeah, I bought a house in Kentucky a couple years ago with the first big chunk of money I got from the record company.”
I tilt my head to the side and gaze up at him. “Why Kentucky?”
He shrugs. “Why not? No one really bothers me there. Who would expect that I live there? Plus, the rest of the guys in the band are from the area, so I got a place near them. I like the space. It’s peaceful there, you know. Reminds me a lot of where we grew up.”
“It has a lake?”
He grins. “Yep, and the dock there puts our little one to shame.”
“I’d love to see it sometime.”
His eyes lock on mine. “One day soon. Maybe after you see it, you’ll want to stay.”
My breath catches and I’m stunned. Did Noel just ask me to move in with him? It’s true we’ve known each other our entire life, but we just got back together. Am I ready for such a huge leap?
Noel runs his hand through his hair. “Every time I feel like we are moving forward, you throw me off when you freeze up like this. Like you’re not quite sure enough about me yet to take things to the next level.”
I’m taken back. How could he possibly know I even have the slightest hint of reservation? “Noel…I…”
He leaves one arm around my shoulder and threads my fingers with his free hand. “It’s okay, Lane. I know I am moving kind of fast, but I can’t seem to help myself. All I want to do is be with you. Now that I have you back, I can’t see my life without you. When I think about my future, I think about you.”
I want to be with Noel, but I don’t want to ruin this by rushing things. We’ve only been reconnected for a couple days, there’s so much I don’t know about him anymore. Four years in the rock world pretty much equals ten in the real one. Everything is always on the move here.
The most I can offer him is honesty at this point. “I want to be with you, too. I really do. But I think we need to take things slow. I mean, there’s no rush, right?”
Noel’s shoulders sag. “I guess not.”
He looks away from me and I know I’ve hurt him. The familiar pain of heart break tears in my chest. I touch his cheek. “I’m not saying I’ll never move in, or that it’ll even take that long. I’m just saying let’s see how the next couple of months go and then we can start talking about moving in together. For now, I’m here. And for now, I’m yours.”
He turns those powerful blue eyes on me and nods. “If that’s all you can give me for now, then I’ll take it.”
I know it probably won’t take me until the end of the week to feel the same way Noel does, but for now, we need to take it slow. I’m just glad he understands my side of things. Noel never was a very patient person. He’s always been an all or nothing type of guy, this compromising side of him is new, but I like it. It shows he’s grown.
I kiss his lips, just as we reach the arena Black Falcon will play at tonight. It’s another mammoth building, but nowhere near as big as the huge soccer stadium they just filled back in Ohio. It’s only my sixth day on the road with him, but I can see how a different city every night would get a little tiresome.
The car comes to a stop beside Big Bertha. Trip sits on a short concert retaining wall across from the bus and slaps his thighs with drum sticks—Tyke beside him with a hood over his head fiddling with his phone.