With Vin on board again, we started on my new song. The guys liked it enough that they wanted to use it in the lineup for the music festival. Miller thought it might draw some attention from label scouts. I wasn’t holding my breath after the last incident.

I was just happy to get away with my girl and my friends.

Two days before we were supposed to leave, I received a call from Sydney.

“Hey, cuz. Pick me up from Newark on Thursday.”

“Find your own way. I’ve got plans.”

“Cancel them. I’m going to come visit before I go home for break.”

Apparently, her Jersey accent had only gotten thicker when she moved to the South. It seemed contradictory to me.

“I can’t cancel, Syd. We’re playing the Poconos music festival.”

“Poconos, eh? Vin going with you?” she asked with a giggle.

“He’s still in the band, last I checked,” I said dryly.

“Change of plans. Pick me up, and take me with you.”

“You are not coming with me to the Poconos.”

“So, my flight gets in around eleven in the morning. Don’t park. I’ll just meet you outside. Are you going to be in your big, black, jacked-up truck?” she singsonged.

“It’s blue.”

“Whatever. Eleven o’clock. See you then.” And she hung up on me.

I told Ari that Sydney was coming with us, and Ari was excited to meet her. I didn’t know how to prepare Ari for my cousin. Sydney was really one of a kind.

I stopped by Ari’s place Thursday morning on my way out of town. The guys were driving the van out around noon, and Ari’s group of friends was leaving around the same time. I’d meet them there after I stopped in Newark.

“Come in!” someone called after I knocked on the door.

“I could have been a burglar or a murderer,” I said. “You just letting anyone inside without seeing who it is?”

“We let you in,” Ari said, walking out of her bedroom.

Her blonde hair was tied up into a tight ponytail that I was looking forward to using as leverage this weekend—or at least, that was the goal.

“Darlin’, I’m no stranger.”

“You’re going to be if you keep calling me that.” She closed the distance between us.

I bent down like I was going to kiss her, but instead, I grabbed her legs and wrapped them around my waist. She latched on to me as I carried her into her bedroom.

“What are you doing?” she demanded, sounding only half-irritated.

“You keep talking back to me, woman, and I’ll have to put you in your place.”

Ari laughed at me. “Put me in my place? And where exactly would that be?”

“Do you want me to show you?” I asked, sliding my hand down her thigh.

She squirmed and tried to get out of my grasp, but I had her secured against me. Her eyes fluttered closed, and I chuckled softly at how easy she was to rile up. Her reaction was only turning me on. I’d be happy to show her exactly where her place was.

Lowering her until she was resting right over my dick, I bounced her up and down over it.

Her eyes flew open. “Grant—”

I kissed her lips to hold back whatever comment she had been about to throw my way. “That’s your place, Princess.”

Her pupils were dilated, and I could tell she was fighting with herself for the right reaction. She bit down on her lip to stop herself from spitting out whatever she was thinking.

“Come on, just admit it. You want my dick, and you want it bad.”

She flushed at my vulgarity, but she didn’t deny it.

I smirked and leaned forward to speak huskily into her ear, “Don’t worry. I’m going to give you what you want.”

Ari cleared her throat and hopped down from where I’d been holding her. Her body was on fire, and all I wanted to do was fuel the flames. She turned her cute, little ass toward me to try to compose herself. I took the opportunity to admire her soft body. Fuck me, I want to bury myself in that.

“You seem pretty confident in yourself.”

“When am I not?”

She finally faced me again, a mask of composure. “That’s a fantastic question.”

“I’ve got to go soon,” I said, inching toward her again.

“Oh, right, Sydney.”

“I just have one question.” I hooked my fingers into the loops of her jeans.

“What’s that?”

“Are you bringing something sexy for me?”

“That’s your question?” she asked, dumbfounded.

“Yeah, babe, I want to see you in some lingerie. Fuck, I’d die happy.”

“Even if I brought some with me, how do you know you’d even get to see it?” she asked, teasing me.

“Who else would you show it off to?”

“I thought I’d wear it to the show and see if I got any attention.”

The glint in her eye was fucking hot as hell. The very thought of someone else seeing my girl in lingerie got my blood boiling.

“Oh, you’d get some attention all right,” I said, yanking on her belt loops. “You’d be getting my dick spreading you open. I’d let every one of those fuckers who paid you any attention see who you belonged to.”

She rolled her pretty blue eyes at me. “Voyeur much?”

“I just want to be inside you.”

“I know.” Her tough-girl routine wavered, and she smiled up at me innocently. “I…I want you, too.”

“So forward, Princess. If we had more time, I’d let you have your way with me. Unfortunately, I have to pick up my crazy-ass cousin. You’ll have to wait to ravage my body.”

“Whatever will I do with myself in the mean time.”

“Masturbate while you think about me. It helps,” I said with a wink.

“Oh my God, why do I even like you?” She pushed away from my chest, but only made it two steps back before I had my arms around her again.

“Because you can’t resist my charm.”

“Is that what you call this obnoxious, persistent Neanderthal routine?”

“It worked on you.”

Ari shook her head and shoved me toward the door. “Go see your cousin. We’ll discuss your charm later.”

I arrived at the Newark airport at exactly eleven o’clock. Sydney’s plane was late, and I had to idle while she picked up her three enormous bags from baggage claim. She suckered some poor guy into carting everything out to my truck. He practically salivated when she smiled at him. I knew chicks had reacted to me like this, but seeing a dude act this way was fucking pathetic. Grow some balls.