“What are your plans after the tour ends,” I find myself asking, if only to distract myself.

Her voice is slightly husky with sleepiness. “Not sure. I’ll still help out the band with social media. But I won’t be around to take pictures, obviously.” Her slim shoulder shrugs. “Brenna’s been talking to Harley Andrews’s publicist. Apparently he’s looking for a social media expert.”

My eyes snap open. “Harley Andrews, the movie star?” The sodding “sexiest man alive” according to People magazine? I’m going to kill Brenna. Throw her Louboutins in the harbor.

“That’s the one. Can you believe it?” Sophie sounds so bloody happy, while I’m fighting being ill. “He’s got a movie coming out in a few months. Set in the outback of Australia. So the idea is that he’d go on a press junket there first. I’ve always wanted go to Australia.”

My back teeth meet at hearing her dreamy sigh. Considering the average flight to Australia is over twenty hours, my chances of visiting there are nil. And Sophie wants to travel the country with Harley Sodding Andrews and his supposed irresistible charm.

I pull her a little closer under the guise of getting comfortable, and then clear my throat. “Sounds like a good opportunity. However, just so you have your options open, I know that Maliah is also looking for someone.”

Ponce. You dirty, opportunistic ponce.

Sophie’s head pops up. “Really? I love her music!”

“Oh?” I’ve only heard her listening to the woman a thousand times by now. “Well, I could put in a word.”

“Ah, sunshine, you’re the best.”

Not hardly. Just a jealous prat.

She leans in to give me a quick, friendly kiss on the cheek. My body reacts before my mind can stop it. In a blink I have her, my hands tunneling through her hair, holding the sides of her head to prevent her from retreating. And she stills, shock widening her eyes, her lips hovering inches from mine.

I can’t move: I just hold her imprisoned, staring at her in similar shock.

Let her go, you git.

I try to make my fingers release, but my body has locked up, protesting. The soft warmth of her panting breaths caress my skin. She’s so close, I can almost feel her lips—those lush, pouty lips I want on me. Anywhere, I’m not particular. No, first I want to kiss them, lick and suck their plump curves. I want to feel the slickness of her tongue against mine.

My abdomen clenches, and I swallow down a groan, my chest heaving. A tremor starts deep in my gut, and my cock pulses. It wants in, deep and snug.

Let her go. Kiss her. Let her go. Kiss her.

Rage fills me that I am so cocked up, I can’t act like a normal man.

I don’t know what she reads in my eyes, but her lips part, a little gasp escaping that I can practically taste. Christ Almighty, give me strength to let her go, or let me do her right.

The choice is literally ripped from my hands when she moves back, slipping out of my frozen hold.

“I have to pee,” she says baldly. The panic in her voice scrapes against my skin, and I flinch. But she’s already up, fleeing to the bathroom.

When the door shuts, I flop onto my back and let out a pained breath. What the sodding hell have I done?

Outside the open windows, a woman’s laughter echoes. I wince and rest a forearm over my eyes. I’d wanted to know how Sophie would react if I made a move. Running to the toilet appears to be the answer.

Nausea roils in my gut.

From the bathroom comes the sound of water, and I know she’ll return soon. A part of me doesn’t want her to. But I need to apologize.

She’s quiet when she gets into bed, crawling tentatively under the covers.

Words clog in my throat.

For the first time since we’ve started sleeping together, she doesn’t draw near. I feel the absence like a cold hand along my skin. I turn to say something, but she beats me to it.

“Good night, Gabriel.”

The finality in her voice, and the clear warning that she doesn’t want to talk, settles like a stone in my heart.

I swallow hard. “Good night, Sophie.”

On the opposite sides, I stay silent, listening as the soft sounds of her breathing slowly change into the steady cadence of sleep, and dread fills me.

I can’t do this any more. I cannot keep denying myself, and I clearly cannot keep my hands off her. Yet the idea of never sleeping next to her again fills me with inexplicable fear.

In her sleep, Sophie turns with a deep sigh, and her hand reaches out to me. I don’t move a muscle, but the whole of my being concentrates on the brush of her fingertips against my forearm. Such a small thing, her touch, barely even true contact, and yet I cannot pull away for the life of me.

Be her friend. I can do that. It will torture me, but not having this will outright end me. So I will tuck my needs away, put them somewhere deep and dark, and turn my efforts toward making Sophie feel happy and safe.

Chapter Fifteen

Sophie

 

* * *

 

“You okay, hon?” Jules yells in my ear. She can’t be heard any other way at the moment. Kill John is going full tilt, and music pulses around us.

I must look miserable if she has to ask right now. I give her a wide smile that feels pained. “Just a bit tired,” I shout back.

She nods and says no more, but I catch her quick, worried glance.

I’m a terrible liar. But what do I say? Hey, I think Gabriel almost made a move on me the other night. Only, how lame am I? Because I’m not sure.

God, I must be losing it if I can’t even tell if a man is making a move.

I am wreck. My mind is stuck on last night, going over every moment in detail.

I went to kiss Gabriel’s cheek. And he grabbed me, holding me close as if he’d also been unable to help himself. At first my heart had jumped into my throat, a heated elation rushing through me. I wanted him to kiss me more than I wanted my next breath.

But he didn’t. He stared at me as if I pained him, as if he was pissed. That look flipped everything on its head.

Had I gone too far by kissing his cheek? Was he telling me to cut it out? I panicked, so embarrassed I could have cried.

And call me a chicken shit, but I just couldn’t ask him what that look had been all about. Not then.

I might have caved this morning, but by then Gabriel was back to his slightly ornery but always solicitous self.