“Yeah, you’ll get used to it.”
She wriggled against me. “NO, I mean…Ilikeit.”
I chuckled, patted her thigh. “Then just you wait till I open her up a bit.” I put it in gear, let out the clutch and nudged the throttle, easing off gently for Charlie’s sake. “Ready?”
She squeezed tight, nodded against me. “No. Yes. Yes.” Clinging, terrified.
I just laughed. “Relax and enjoy the ride, honey.”
I pulled away, feet skimming until I was balanced, and then propped my feet up. Checked over my shoulder, pulled off the shoulder and onto the rural highway. Slowly added speed, feeling Charlie still tense.
“Open your eyes,” I yelled over my shoulder.
She shook her head, but then I felt her slowly relax, a breath of wonder. “Ohhh…oh wow.” This was more felt than heard, this expression of wonder. She sat up a little straighter, still clinging to my midsection with a death grip, but she was looking around now.
The rural highway sped past us, cows and fields, trees, billboards, the yellow and white lines keeping us company.
As the miles sped past, she relaxed her grip a little, her seat loosening until she was comfortable on the bike. Breathing easy, and I could just feel the ear-to-ear grin she was wearing.
Being on the road on my old Chief eased my tension, gave me something to do besides stew on my boiling need to mark Charlie asmine. That was a whole separate worry, the need to mark her, the sense of ownership. Not in a chauvinistic way, just in a territorial, possessive way. This woman ismine.
But she wasn’t.
She was going to Alaska.
I was on tour with Myles, and we still had…I counted and realized we were almost at the end. Denver, Albuquerque…a couple others which eluded me, El Paso, and then the last stop, our sort-of home base city, Dallas.
What then?
Myles hadn’t decided. He had a notebook full of lyrics; I had a head full of melodies. We might take time off and record, he’d said. But we may just take time off. We’d been touring nonstop for several years now, only pausing in Nashville long enough to lay down an album every year or so.
Now, with his thing with Lexie, it may be break time for real.
Which, shit, meant I could possibly explore things with Charlie.
If that was what I wanted. If that was whatshewanted.
If that was possible.
Was it?
Did I?
Did she?
God, I had no clue.
I just knew I wanted to fornicate with the woman in the worst way. Maybe that’s all it would be, some good old-fashioned sex.
I tried to believe that, but couldn’t.
Still, I’d been alone for so long—alone in the romantic sense, I meant; Myles and I had been touring and writing and playing together in one capacity or another since we were eighteen. Ten years. It was all I knew.
But shit, and hellfire. Charlie was sparking something hot and deep inside me. Something that made me hunger for…
I couldn’t put my heart there. Couldn’t.
I had no permanent home.
