…

When it was over, when she could finally think again, Jamison laid her head back against the cool metal of the trailer and just breathed. She’d had sex before, even made love before, but nothing and no one could have prepared her for this. For Ryder.

He made love like he sang—darkly, dangerously, and with an incredible attention to detail that left her a quivering, boneless mess. For the first time in a long time she felt satisfied. Even more, she felt soft. Like everything inside of her had melted into a puddle of goo.

Which wouldn’t be so bad if she hadn’t felt her heart—and the barriers she’d very deliberately erected between herself and Ryder—melt right along with everything else.

Panic began to set in with that realization, obliterating the post-orgasmic glow that made her want to stay right where she was—even if that place was backed up against an equipment trailer—forever. Heart racing, hands trembling, fear vibrating through every nerve ending she had, she waited for Ryder to put her down. To move away. To slide the defenses he wore so seamlessly back into place.

But he didn’t. Didn’t do anything but rest against her, his face pressed into the curve of her neck, his body pressed into her own. She could still feel him there, inside of her, was desperately afraid that she always would. In the last few minutes, Ryder had done more than fucked her. He’d taken her over completely.

Panic became full-blown terror. Suddenly she wanted to struggle against him. To demand that he put her down so that she could find that distance again. She needed to breathe, to think, to be by herself if only for a few minutes so that she could rebuild the defenses he had shattered so completely.

She’d spent years of her life lusting after Ryder, wanting him beyond all good sense and comprehension, but now that she’d had him she was only more confused.

What did this mean for them? For her? For him? Were they together? Or was she a moron for even thinking like that? Of course you are, she told herself as she fought the urge to shove him away. It was stupid, ridiculous really, to imagined she was anything special when she thought about how many women Ryder slept with in a year or a month or even a typical week.

She wanted to be different, wanted this moment between them to be more than that, but how could it be when she’d thrown herself at him like just another groupie? Twice now he’d touched her and twice she’d gone up in flames without him taking her for so much as a cup of coffee. It was preposterous to think she was anything more to him than a quick lay. A good time.

And yet even as the thoughts formed, she knew she was being unfair to Ryder. Knew she was letting the hysteria get the better of her. He was her friend, had been her friend and her champion and her hero for more than a decade. Just because they’d slept together—just because they’d scratched the itch that had been building between them for days now—didn’t mean that she was suddenly nothing to him. Of course she meant more to him than some groupie whose name he didn’t know.

So did that mean they were going to be friends with benefits now? she wondered. And if they were, how did she feel about that? Could she keep her feelings for him at bay long enough to indulge in that kind of relationship? Or would the fact that she was crazy about him—or just plain crazy—preclude them from being anything more than what they were at this very moment?

“Hey.” Ryder lifted his head. “I can practically see the wheels spinning in your head. Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”

She swallowed the lump in her throat, forced a breezy tone she was far from feeling. “Are you kidding? That was fabulous.”

“It really was.” Jamison heard the smile in his voice, and smiled in return despite her misgivings. It was hard to stay freaked out when Ryder laid on the charm.

She waited for him to pull out, to move away, to make some excuse about needing to get back to the bus. He did none of those things. Instead, he put a hand under her chin and tilted her head back and to the side until she had no choice but to meet his eyes.

It was hard, harder than she would have imagined possible considering he was still inside her. Somehow, though, these quiet moments with him felt more intimate, more frightening, than letting him into her body had.

But she wasn’t a wimp, wasn’t some little girl to run away from her fears or the consequences of her actions. So, instead of shrugging him off or wallowing in her own insecurities, she put on her big girl panties and forced all the conflicting emotions down deep inside of herself. Chose instead to focus on the practical. “We should probably get back to the bus soon.”

“What if I don’t want to go back?” He shifted a little, angled his hips so that he hit a particularly sensitive spot inside of her. “What if I want to make love to you again?”

Jamison gasped, arched back against him as she felt her body respond. She couldn’t help it. Despite the fears and doubts that had taken up residence inside of her, she knew she wouldn’t turn Ryder away. Not when he was in this playful mood. And not when he wanted her. It might not be the same way she wanted him, but it didn’t matter. Nothing did at that moment but him and the pleasure they could bring each other.

“God, you feel good.” He thrust against her, groaned when her still sensitive sex clenched around him. “I don’t want to leave you.”

“So don’t.” The words slipped out before she could stop them.

He laughed and she felt the vibration of it deep inside of herself, in her heart as well as her body. Ryder didn’t laugh nearly enough. “I’m sure that would go over well. I could just see Jared’s face if I walked onto the bus with you riding me like this.”

“It’s not Jared’s business what we do.” She tightened herself around him, stroked him from the inside.

“Do that again.” His voice was deeper, huskier than it had been even a moment before.

She did and his head fell forward until his forehead rested on her shoulder. “God, you feel good, Jamison.”

She lit up a little, thrilled deep inside that he’d used her name. That he hadn’t called her baby. “So do you, Ryder.”

He didn’t say anything more, just reached between their bodies and stroked a soft thumb over her clit. She was still sensitive from all her previous orgasms—not to mention the hard, driving rhythm he’d set while he’d fucked her—and still she responded to him. She couldn’t help it. There was a part of her that believed she would respond to him forever. That wherever or whenever he wanted her, she would come running.

The thought terrified her all over again. So that even as she teetered on the brink of a brand new orgasm, she reached a hand behind her, pushed at his hip. “Stop.”

She sounded so turned on, so breathless, that she wouldn’t have blamed him had he ignored her. It wasn’t like she could disguise how much she wanted him, after all.

But she’d underestimated Ryder. He stopped immediately, not just the stroking of his thumb but everything else as well. “Sensitive?” he whispered against her damp skin as he pulled out of her in a warm rush that left her feeling immediately bereft.

She squeezed her eyes shut, fought back the tears as she nodded against the trailer. If only he knew just how much.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come at you like that.”

“I wanted you to. It was—” She turned her head so that her eyes met his for the first time since he’d slipped inside of her. “Wonderful.”

He smiled then and her heart stuttered a little in her chest. Because it wasn’t the smile he gave the hoards of screaming fans, wasn’t the smile he gave the other guys or his friends or even the women he slept with. She’d seen all those smiles a hundred—a thousand—times through the years. No, this was his Jamison smile. The one he kept just for her, and the fact that he was giving it to her now helped settle her like nothing else could.

After all, who was she to complain about the way things had played out? Wasn’t this what she’d wanted all along? For Ryder to see her like a woman? For him to hold her and love her, if only for a little while? When they’d first started making love, she’d sworn to herself that she would take whatever he had to offer without strings or complaints. She wasn’t planning to go back on that promise to herself within minutes of fulfilling it, was she?

Because it wasn’t like she was looking for happily ever after with him—hell, she was smart enough to know that wasn’t going to happen. Not with Ryder. Not with his background and not when he didn’t believe he had a happily ever after in him.

She disagreed, thought he would one day make a woman a fabulous husband—once he came to understand that a lot of the shit in his life really wasn’t his fault. She’d spent years trying to prove it to him—as had Jared—but neither of them had ever gotten through to him.

And then Carrie had come along and he’d been better. For a while. Right up until she’d been attacked at one of the band’s shows. Ryder had been onstage singing while she’d been raped in the dressing room, and the guilt and rage had nearly killed him. How could it not, when Carrie had constantly blamed him for what had happened to her? Even her suicide note had been a fuck-you to him, a cacophony of hatred and pain that blamed him for everything bad that had happened to her.

And Ryder had believed her. No matter what Jamison or Jared or any of the other guys had said, he’d never again been able to see past the villainous view of himself.

Blinking back the tears that came every time she thought of what he’d suffered, Jamison traced the art on his left arm. Like the phoenix he’d had tattooed on himself, he’d risen from the ashes of his nightmare of a family. Had reinvented himself. But was still so locked inside his own perceptions of himself, still such a victim of the damage his family—and Carrie—had dealt him, that he couldn’t see past the bars.