Fade Into You (Shaken Dirty #3)(33)

“The others are used to waiting for me,” he told her as he pressed kisses along the line of her jaw. “Besides, I’m not very good at ‘shouldn’t we’s.’”

“Yes, but you need—” She broke off on a moan as he crooked two fingers deep inside her and found her G-spot.

“What I need is to watch you come again,” he muttered against her skin, his thumb circling her clit.

She didn’t think that was going to be a problem, considering the fact that she was already close. She’d always known he was magic with his hands—anyone who paid attention when he played the drums had to know that—but still, what he was doing to her body was absolute art. Absolute heaven.

“Wyatt,” she gasped as he twisted his fingers and she climbed even higher. “Wyatt, I—”

“It’s okay,” he whispered, his breath hot against her ear. “I’ve got you, Poppy. I’ve got you.” And then he pulled her closer, his arms tight around her as he pinched her clit with one hand and her nipple with another.

That was all it took to send her soaring over the edge, orgasm thundering through her like a drum riff. Wyatt held her through it all, his talented fingers coaxing every cry, every whimper, every ounce of pleasure out of her until she was boneless. Mindless. Until all she could do was curl into his chest and cling.

He held her as she came down, his calloused fingers stroking her back, her neck, her cheek, as she trembled against him. He pressed kisses into her hair, whispered about how beautiful she was, how sweet.

It wasn’t what she’d expected from him, but it turned out it was exactly what she needed. She clung to him for long seconds, dropping kisses along his neck and collarbone and whatever parts of him she could reach. At least until Wyatt’s phone buzzed with a series of quick texts.

He ignored it, but she couldn’t. No matter how much she wanted to spend the rest of the day out here with him, he had a job to do. And so did she. At least for now.

Reaching into his pocket, she fished out his phone and held it to him. Though initially all he did was scowl at it—and her—eventually he relented and took the thing.

His scowl only deepened as he scrolled through the texts, although that might have had something to do with her taking advantage of his preoccupation to scramble off his lap and straighten her clothes once again—and taking extra care to make sure she was out of his reach as she did so.

“Time’s up?” she asked after he fired off a couple of texts in quick succession.

“Something like that. Ryder’s threatening to come looking for us if I don’t get my ass back there.”

“Of course he is.” She all but shoved him onto the path to the house. “You did drop a hell of a bombshell back there. Is it any wonder they’re freaking out?”

They didn’t say anything else as they walked back to the studio, both lost in thought. She was doing her best to figure out how to convince Wyatt to change his mind about quitting Shaken Dirty, and he was thinking about…God only knew what. She could only imagine what was running through his head after that awful call with her father.

Once they reached the studio, he headed toward the front door with her hand still firmly clasped in his. She stopped him with a murmured, “I’m going to get going now.”

“You don’t have to leave,” he told her.

“Yeah, I do. This is between you and them.” She nodded toward the recording studio’s front porch, where Jared, Ryder and Quinn now waited impatiently. They must have been watching for them from the windows.

He followed her gaze then nodded grimly. “At least let me walk you to your car.”

She stared at him incredulously, as did the rest of his bandmates. “I’m fine,” she finally told him. “You need to stay here and fix this.”

…

Poppy was right. He did need to fix this, did need to make them understand why his decision was the best one—the only one—for Shaken Dirty. But since he didn’t have a f*cking clue what he was going to say, he figured taking a couple more minutes wouldn’t hurt.

“I do. But it’s not going anywhere.” He glanced at the others. “I need five more minutes.”

“What you need is your f*cking head examined,” Quinn snapped back. “Have you lost your f*cking mind?”

“Five minutes,” he repeated, knowing it would only antagonize his best friends more. But he’d walked out on Poppy the other night to go on stage after going down on her in that alley. After his whole wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am performance there, he was damned if he was going to do it again, even if the band was falling apart around his ears.

At this point, taking two damn minutes to walk her to her car wasn’t going to cause any more damage than had already been done. To prove it, he looped an arm around her waist and propelled her toward the path that led to her car.

“They want to talk this out because they think there’s a solution.” He lowered his mouth to hers, dropped a kiss on her shiny pink lips. “Plus, it occurred to me as we got back to the studio—despite what we’ve spent the better part of our time together doing—I don’t have your phone number. And since I’m no longer an official member of the band, I won’t be seeing you—”

“You are, absolutely, still an official member of the band. Both you and the label have what I assume are ironclad contracts for a reason—so that hotheaded idiots can’t just decide to blow up a billion dollar band in a pissing contest.”