Page 36 of Jealous God
“You’re having second thoughts?” For a second, he sounded worried. I turned my face towards him, reaching for his face.
“No, not second thoughts. I just think it’s strange.” I shrugged. “It was only a few days ago you seemed to hate the sight of me.”
“Never hated you. I mean, you drove me insane, you still do.” He shot me a look. “But I never hated you. You fucking scared me.”
“Scared you? Am I that scary?”
“Yeah.” He sounded resigned. “And no, you’re not scary, you’re amazing, and any guy would be overjoyed to have you on his arm.”
Reaching up, I pulled his head down to mine. Finding his lips already half open, I licked at them. “Well then, aren’t you the luckiest guy in the world?” I laughed, settling myself back down on the pillows and closing my eyes.
“Yeah, I am. Until this tour is over, you are all mine.”
TWENTY-ONE
Jax
Iwoke up alone. My hands automatically reached for her but came back empty, and the sheets were cold. Frowning, I rolled over, my eyes falling on the empty space I knew she had occupied through the night because I had watched her sleeping like some kind of creeper. I hadn’t been able to drift off, my gaze on her for at least an hour just before dawn when we finally finished fooling around. Squinting, I fumbled for my phone, which turned out to be dead. I hadn’t even thought about charging it last night. I had been far too busy doing...other things.
Elodie shaped things.
From the other side of the closed door, I could hear voices. Not low, sleepy voices, but loud, automatically familiar voices. The band was out there, all of Dionysus Rising by the sounds of it. Which meant it was probably a lot later than I thought it was. Pulling on my jeans, I opened the door and met with a dense cloud of smoke. Not the cigarette kind either. This was sweeter and more pungent. Waving it away, I padded towards them barefoot and bare chested. I had been right. They were all there. Everyone including two of our security but excluding Erik, who was notably absent. One of whom was, surprise, surprise, Chance. That guy seemed to be everywhere I was recently, or, more specifically, everywhere Elodie was.
I shoved the thought away as I searched them for any sign of Elodie.
“Lost someone?” Louis laughed, an opened bottle of beer in his hands.
I plucked it from his fingers gratefully. “What time is it?” Not that it really mattered. Sure, water or juice would have been healthier, but we were on tour. And this was a few days to kick back and relax. I twisted the top off.
“A little after two.”
A loud snore made me jump. The beer spilled over my knuckles. “Who’s asleep already?” Nudging Louis, I took a seat next to him, forcing myself to not look around anymore. I wanted to know where Elodie was, but I didn’t want them to know that I wanted to know. It was kind of exhausting pretending not to be into someone. No wonder Dion had gone off the rails. For all I knew, it was Elodie who was snoring away behind one of the curtained bunks.
“Driver,” Dion said with a grin, and went back to whatever conversation he was having with Tate.
I frowned. Driver? If our driver was asleep, then who the hell was behind the wheel of the bus? “Then who…?” But from the stupid expressions on my bandmates faces, I knew even as the words left my mouth. Before I could stop myself, I was on my feet, weaving my way towards the front. And there she was: curls wild around her face, aviator shades that looked very much like mine covering her eyes, and her tanned body tucked into the tiniest denim shorts I had ever seen. She made my mouth water.
Not taking her eyes off the road, she grinned in my direction, giving me a flash of white teeth as she steered the bus down the long expanse of straight tarmac.
“You’re driving the bus now, huh?”
“Don’t blame us,” Dion called from behind me. “It happened to come up that she used to want to be a bus driver when she was a kid. And you know us. We are all about making dreams come true.”
I laughed. “Do you even have a licence?” I directed at Elodie, bending down to press my lips to her cheek.
“Yes, of course.” She turned her face ever so slightly to mine to accept another kiss, this time on her lips, before turning back properly to the road. “Now, please step back. You shouldn’t talk to the driver. Please stay behind the line.”
I looked around for the line that wasn’t there but was on every bus back home and laughed. Making my way back to the others, I settled myself back next to Louis. None of the others were looking at me, but he was.
“She's pretty special, isn’t she?” he asked, studying me over the rim of his beer.
“Yeah,” I agreed with him.
She was really fucking special alright.
* * *
Forty-five minutes later,we made Elodie pull over. Or more specially, Tate pulled the bus over. As much as we trusted her on the straight road, it was more than my nerves could handle watching her try to attempt to pull the big machine in alongside the others. My faith in her driving abilities would only stretch so far, plus I had another, shadier motive for getting her from behind the wheel as well. Namely that I wanted her on my lap.
