Page 21 of The Encore Effect

All around her, the members of Midnight Storm fell back into their usual joking, the tense moment between Beckett and Jackson all but forgotten. But Kat hadn’t forgotten, and the weight in the pit of her stomach twisted uncomfortably.

Once Gideon and the driver boarded the bus, she excused herself and slipped away to her bedroom—their bedroom. The usual cotton sheets had been exchanged for some kind of black, silky material, the bed strewn with rose petals. Beckett’s overnight bag sat at the foot of the bed beside her own, and an industrial-sized bottle of lube stared at her from the bedside table next to the largest box of condoms she’d ever seen.

“Do you like it?” Nico called from the front of the bus, the laughter clear in his voice. “It’s the honeymoon suite!”

Beckett appeared at her side, scowling at the room like it had personally wronged him. “What the fuck?”

“We all got noise cancelling ear plugs, too, so you can… you know,” Nico added, barely holding back his laughter.

A low growl emanated from Beckett’s chest and he spun around, advancing on his bandmate. “Becks, no.” Kat grabbed his arm. He froze on the spot, staring daggers at Nico. “He’s just teasing,” she whispered.

Logan shot a disapproving glare at Nico. “Ignore him. We’re all happy for you. Really. It’s good you two finally found your way back to each other. I always knew you would.”

Her lungs burned as Logan’s easy confidence knocked the wind out of her.

“One big happy family. That’s us,” Jackson said, emptying the last of the champagne into his plastic flute.

She had to get out of there.

“I’m going to bed,” Kat said. She squeezed Beckett’s arm and felt the muscles tense and flex beneath his shirt. “Don’t hurt them.”

“No promises.”

Alone in the bedroom, the sound of the guys laughing and joking floating through the closed door, Kat carefully cleaned the rose petals off the bed and changed into the tank top and shorts she usually slept in. She debated leaving her bra on, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to get comfortable that way. Besides, it wasn’t like Beckett hadn’t seen her breasts before. The sheets were cool and slippery beneath her skin as she slid into bed. Luxurious. Like being surrounded by water. Not that she’d ever admit that to Nico, the jerk.

She wasn’t sure how long she lay there staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep. Long enough that the noises on the other side of the door died away as the guys climbed into their bunks. At last the door soundlessly slid open, Beckett closing it behind himself. He shuffled through the narrow walkway around the edge of the bed and gently lowered himself to sit on the empty side, as though he were being careful not to wake her. Reaching between his shoulder blades, he pulled off his t-shirt in one smooth movement, tossing the fabric on the floor at his feet.

Kat’s eyes roamed over his back in the darkness, the flicker of passing headlights briefly illuminating the tattoos that wrapped his arms and climbed the side of his throat, leaves and flowers and vines in vibrant colors against his skin. The muscles of his back flexed as he rolled his head on his shoulders, stretching out the stiff muscles there. She had the strongest impulse to reach out and dig her thumbs into the tense musculature, to massage away the knots rippling beneath his skin.

“This alright?” he asked into the darkness. She jumped at his voice, the question unexpected in the stillness of night. He glanced at her over his shoulder. “I can go back to my bunk.”

“This is fine,” she said, shifting beneath the sheets as her body recalled the last time she’d heard the deep rumble of his voice in the dark of night. “They’ll be suspicious if you sleep out there now.”

He seemed to consider this. “Why are you doing this?”

“You’re the one who told the press we were engaged.”

“But why are you going along with it?”

“Jo said—”

“I know what Jo said.” Frustration flared his nostrils as he turned towards her, those slashes of light emphasizing the slope of his nose, the cut of his jaw, every sharp angle thrown into stark relief in the shadows. “Why did you agree?”

“Why did you?”

He seemed to debate with himself and she watched as something steely and determined hardened in his eyes despite the exhaustion in the lines of his face. “Jackson doesn’t need another public flogging. He’s not always this…”

“Irresponsible?”

He nodded, and she found herself hanging on his every word. It was the most real thing he’d said to her in years. “Calling attention to it makes it worse. Everyone thinks he doesn’t care about anything, but he does. When they write that shit about him…” He shook his head, scrubbing his hand through his hair. “They don’t know him. If I can take the heat off him until the tour is over… He’s my brother. If the roles were reversed, he’d do the same for me.”

“Would he?”

His Adam’s apple bobbed with his slow swallow, rippling the roses on the side of his throat as though the petals were caught in the breeze. “What’s your reason?”

She looked off into the darkness. “I made a deal with the label.”

“Your bonus?” he asked.