Tainted (15 page)

The car ride through town was silent and awkward. We’d talked a lot on the phone, but now, it was different in person. We both knew that we needed to have
that
conversation—the one where we laid all of our cards on the table—but neither of us wanted to bring it up. At least, I knew I didn’t. It was going to be painful to talk about everything that had happened in the months leading up to our breakup, and I wasn’t quite ready to dredge up those memories.

I picked up my phone and started playing on it just to do something other than sit quietly. After checking my emails, I glanced up to see that we were already on I-79. When we passed a sign indicating we were going south instead of north to the airport in Pittsburgh, I looked at Drake.

“We’re going the wrong way,” I said.

“Are we?” He grinned.

“Um, yes. I thought you said we were going to Pittsburgh to fly back to Los Angeles. We need to go north, not south. You’re heading toward Charleston.”

“My bad.” He stared straight ahead.

“Drake, where are we going?”

“I thought it might be nice to take a road trip.” He glanced over at me. “That way, we can have more time alone together before I have to go back to work.”

“We’re driving to L.A.? That will take days!” I exclaimed.

“That’s the point. I told the label I wouldn’t be back for a few days. They know that I’m not to be bothered.”

My mouth hung open. “Can you even do that? I mean, isn’t the label your boss?”

“They are, but we’ve all been working our asses off for them. Brad has been great, and he completely understood that we needed some time off.”

“Look at you, throwing your rock-star weight around,” I joked.

“Yeah, I’m a big bad rock star now. Bow down to me.”

I rolled my eyes. “I remember having this exact conversation when you took me to get my tattoo. I didn’t bow then, and I won’t do it now.”

He laughed. “I thought you might have hated me back then. It was so fun to mess with you.”

“I never hated you. I just didn’t like you.”

Okay, that was a lie. Even then, I’d known that I was falling for this beautiful man. I just wasn’t willing to admit that.

“Do you remember the time when we went with Amber and Logan to that dance club? Logan got wasted, and we had to drag him to his dorm room,” I said.

“I remember that night, but it wasn’t because I got to feel up Logan. I distinctly remember feeling you up,” he said, still staring straight ahead.

I could never forget that night. It was the first time when I’d gotten a real chance to feel Drake’s body against my own. That was a memory that would always be burned into my brain.

“I remember,” I whispered, still thinking about the feel of his hands on me.

“We’ll have to do that again sometime.” He smirked at me.

“I thought we were taking it slow,” I countered.

“We are. We weren’t together back then, and you had no problem grinding your ass against my dick.”

He looked at me with lust-filled eyes that I hadn’t seen in a long time. I squeezed my legs together, surprised at how turned-on I felt from just his words. I was the one who had made the let’s-go-slow rule, yet here I was, aching for his touch. It had obviously been way too long since I’d had sex. When I added the time up in my head, I realized that it had been over nine months since we’d been together. It was no wonder I was acting like a horny teenage boy.

My stomach clenched as I wondered if it had been as long for Drake. I hadn’t asked if he’d been with anyone when we were apart. I was afraid of the answer he would give me.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, noticing how quiet I’d become.

“Nothing,” I lied.

“I know you well enough to know when something’s bothering you, so tell me. We’re starting over, remember? No more secrets.”

I bit my lip, wondering how on earth I was supposed to ask him if he’d been faithful to me. “I…it’s just…well, were you with anyone while we were apart?”

He tensed. “I wondered when this conversation would come up. I wasn’t with anyone, but…”

Oh no, there was a but. I was afraid to ask, but I had to. “But what?”

He sighed as he ran his hand through his hair. “Right before I went into rehab, the band and I went to this club. I had too much to drink, and I was already high. A girl approached me, and she looked so much like you that I thought it was you.”

“What happened?” I whispered.

“I don’t remember it all, but I do know that I ended up in a back alley with her.” He glanced over at me. “Nothing happened, I swear. I kissed her, but that was it. I kept calling her Chloe, and she got pissed off and left my drunk ass there.”

I shocked us both by giggling. I threw my hands over my mouth to stifle the sound.

His eyes widened in shock. “That wasn’t the reaction I had expected.”

“I’m sorry. It’s just so funny. The poor girl thought she’d landed a rock star, and you couldn’t even remember her name.” I laughed even though there was nothing funny about picturing him with someone else in an alley.

He chuckled. “I’m glad you find it more amusing than she did. The stupid skank left me nearly unconscious in a back alley by myself. Luckily, the guys and Jade came looking for me, and they got me back to my room.”

“Was it bad?” I asked.

“When we were apart?”

I nodded.

“Yeah, it was bad. I don’t really want to talk about it while I’m driving. I want to focus solely on us when we have that conversation, okay?”

“Sorry,” I mumbled.

“Don’t ever be sorry for asking me something. I promise that I’ll tell you whatever you want to know, but not while I’m going seventy miles per hour down the interstate.” He took my hand and held it up to his lips to kiss. “I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you, too.”

“Glad to hear it. You know, I have to ask, too. Have you been with anyone since me?”

I glanced over at him. He was gripping the steering wheel so hard that his knuckles were turning white.

“I haven’t. I went on a few dates, but I wasn’t interested in anyone but you. You’ve ruined me for life.”

He smiled as he eased his grip on the steering wheel. “You have no idea how happy that makes me. Every minute of every day, I wondered about what you were doing. I thought I was going to go nuts from picturing you with other guys.”

I raised an eyebrow. Was he serious right now? I wasn’t the one who was constantly surrounded by people throwing themselves at me.

He must have noticed the look on my face. “Okay, maybe you do know what I’m talking about.”

“Um, yeah, I do.”

We spent the rest of the drive to our first stop in silence as if we were both afraid to say something wrong. It seemed like we were teetering on the tip of an iceberg. With one wrong move, we’d come crashing down into a cold and unforgiving ocean of pain. I didn’t know about him, but I didn’t want to crash and burn. I wanted us to learn to trust again.

It was late evening when we exited the interstate and pulled into a small hotel. It was no Hilton, but it wasn’t a hole-in-the-wall motel either. The lobby was clean and brightly lit with an older man sitting at the reception desk.

“Can I help you?” he asked as we walked up to him.

Drake glanced at me. “Do you want one room or two?”

I’d never even thought about that question. We were supposed to be taking it slow, and while sleeping next to one another wasn’t something major, it also wasn’t slow.

“Why don’t we get a room with two beds? I suggested, happy with the compromise I’d come up with.

“Works for me.” Drake turned back to the man in front of us. “One room, two beds.”

The man tapped on his keyboard for a few seconds before frowning. “I’m sorry, but we are out of double-bed rooms. I do have two rooms with one bed available if you’d like.”

Well, crap. Drake glanced at me and gave me a questioning look. I didn’t know what to do.

“It doesn’t matter to me,” I said.

There—I was off the hook. Drake could decide how we slept.

He shrugged and turned back to the clerk. “We’ll take one of those rooms then.”

I hid a smile. I’d secretly hoped that he would say that.

The clerk took Drake’s credit card. After he charged the room to it, he handed it back with two key cards. “Here you go. You’re on the first floor. Just go down that hallway there, and it’s the third door on the right.”

“Thank you,” I said.

I turned and followed Drake down the hall and into the room. We’d each brought a small bag inside, and we set them on top of the dresser. The room was just like the lobby. It was clean but not flashy. I liked it. I was sure that Drake was used to spending his nights in fancy hotels, but I preferred something simpler, and he knew that. I appreciated that he was staying here for me.

“Why don’t you shower first? I’ll call Jade and let her know we safely made it this far.” He pulled his phone from his jacket.

“Sure.” I pulled a pair of pajamas from my bag and walked to the bathroom.

I took a quick shower and returned to the room to see Drake lying on the bed with his eyes closed. I tiptoed quietly around the room, thinking that he had fallen asleep. I nearly jumped out of my skin when he spoke.

“I’m still awake, you know. You don’t have to go into super-secret-ninja-stealth mode just for me.”

I laughed. “Maybe I like being a ninja.”

He rolled his eyes. “I’ll be sure to get you a ninja outfit when we get back to L.A.”

“Gee, thanks.”

He stood and grabbed a few things out of his bag before walking to the bathroom and shutting the door. I threw the covers down and crawled into bed. I listened to the pipes whine inside the walls as I stared at the ceiling. I was suddenly nervous about sleeping in the same bed as Drake.

You have to take it slow. You have to take it slow. You have to take it slow.
I repeated this mantra over and over inside my head. Hopefully, I could convince myself before Drake came back to bed.

I had just convinced myself that I would be good when he opened the bathroom door and stepped back out into the room. He was wearing only his boxers. I couldn’t help myself as my eyes traveled down his body. He had always been fit, but it was obvious that he had been working out in L.A. His body looked incredible, and I suddenly felt inadequate, especially in my pajamas. How the hell was I supposed to measure up to him?

I glanced up at his face and noticed him watching me with a grin.

“See something you like?” he teased.

“You did that,” I gestured to his almost naked appearance, “on purpose.”

He wasn’t playing fair.

“I did. I just wanted to see if I still had the same effect on you.”

“Well, you obviously have your answer. I can’t look away.”

He grinned as he stalked toward me. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

My eyes widened as he crawled across the bed until he was hovering over me.

“Wh-what are you doing?” I asked nervously.

“I don’t know if I can take this slow. I want to kiss you until we don’t know where we are. I want to feel you pressed up against me, skin-to-skin, heart-to-heart.” He leaned down and ran his lips across my nose. I didn’t breathe until he leaned away.

“We can’t. We have too much to sort through still,” I whispered as I stared at his lips.

“One kiss isn’t going to hurt anything.” He leaned down again, stopping just before his lips touched mine. “Just one kiss.”

When his lips met mine, I closed my eyes. Electricity shot through my body, and I wrapped my arms around him, pulling him down on top of me. He ran his tongue along my lips until I opened them to allow him access. He moaned just before he slipped it inside. I shuddered when I felt his tongue ring. This felt amazing. How had I survived without this for so long?

My hands ran along his back, my nails digging into his skin. When my hips lifted to grind against him, he moaned again. I wasn’t in control of my body anymore. He was.

He pulled back, breathing hard. “Damn it. You make me lose control too easily!”

I kept my eyes closed. I knew I’d be a goner if I saw his eyes darkened with lust. There would be nothing in this world that could keep me away from him. When he rolled off of me, I took a chance and peeked over at him. He was staring up at the ceiling, and his chest was rising and falling hard. With only his boxers on, it was apparent that he hadn’t calmed down. I lifted my hand to wrap it around his shaft, but I caught myself at the last second. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. We had to work through everything before we took the next step.

“You okay?” I asked stupidly.

“No, I’m pretty sure I’ll be walking around hard for the next week after that.” He glanced over at me.

“Sorry,” I mumbled.

“Don’t be. I started it. I couldn’t help myself. It’s been so long since we…well, you know.”

I grinned. “Since what?”

He reached over and began tickling my ribs. “Since we slept in the same bed. There—how’s that for an answer?”

“Very good. I’m impressed,” I teased as I squirmed to get away.

“I’m sure you are. Can I ask you something?”

“I don’t know. Can you?”

He gave me a pointed look. “I’m serious.”

“Sure. Go for it.”

“Can I hold you? I won’t do anything else. I swear. I just want to hold you while we sleep.”

I smiled, touched by his sweetness. “I can live with that.”

I rolled onto my side, facing away from him. He pulled me tight against him and wrapped his arm around me.

“Good night, Chloe. I love you,” he whispered into my ear.

I love you, too,
I said in my mind, unable to let myself speak the words just yet.