Until Tomorrow: A Flirting With Trouble Novel (16 page)

If I thought I was in love before, I was mistaken.

This moment is the moment I fell in love with Wyatt Sands—watching him channeling his former life in a way that’s a fucking inspiration and hoping against hope that I can do the same thing for myself.

As Wyatt finishes his drum solo, I can’t help but clap. When I do, his head shoots up and he whips around.

“Carson. Hi.”

He’s breathless and grinning and I don’t think he’s ever looked more beautiful or more sexy. I can’t help myself. I drop my purse on the ground and stride across the room, then duck down and capture his lips with mine as I straddle his lap.

For a second, Wyatt is frozen in shock, but it only takes him a few seconds to react—and when he does, it’s a delicious mixture of lips and tongues and bodies grinding against each other.

“Is this how you’re going to start saying ‘Hello’ from now on?” he asks as his lips move from my mouth to my jaw. “Because, if so, I’m all for it.”

I snicker as I pull his collar aside and start laying sucking kisses along his neck. Wyatt groans and squeezes my ass with both hands, grinding hard up against me.

“I love hearing you play,” I murmur against his skin. “It’s so fucking hot. And I get the best of both worlds—serious student and prolific musician.”

It takes me a second to notice that Wyatt’s stopped kissing me and I pause to pull back.

“What?”

I can tell by his expression that he’s uncomfortable, so I slide off of his lap. He shakes his head as I do, then grabs my hand and kisses it.

“You didn’t say anything, gorgeous.”

I watch as he slides from the small round stool to his wheelchair. Once he’s settled in and pulled on his gloves, he meets my gaze again.

“I was just giving it one last go before I put it up on Craigslist.”

I blink at him.

“Are you—are you sure?” I ask. He gives me a sad smile.

“Look, losing Zeb and getting in the accident all at once—it was a double whammy of the worst goddamn kind. I know that the music wasn’t at fault, but playing can still be really challenging. I’m not entirely sure it’s something I want to keep doing.”

“You really want to stop playing for good?”

He nods. “I can get good money for the kit.”

“You don’t really need money,” I counter.

“I don’t really need drums, either.”

I open my mouth to speak, then close it. While I disagree with him, and I really fucking do, I know that his drums and the music itself continue to remind him of all he’s lost.

“Well, it’s still great to hear you play,” I say tentatively. He cocks a half grin and wheels a little closer.

“Oh yeah? You got a thing for musicians, Ms. Tucker? ’Cause I sure as shit got a hard-on for teachers.”

I squeal as Wyatt slides a hand up under my butt, then tips me back into his lap. Before I know it, he’s wheeled us back into the living room, then through to the bedroom. He deposits me on the bed and I scoot backward, watching him as he sets the handbrakes to lock.

Watching Wyatt in action—any action—is sexy as fuck, but watching him rise to standing does something to me physically. Maybe it’s the shift from sitting to oh-my-god tall. Maybe it’s how strong and muscular his frame is as he rises from the chair. I don’t even know. All I can be sure of is that when he begins to crawl up the bed and over me, I can feel a loosening deep inside me. My body gets hotter and all I can think about is him pressing against me and on me and in me in ways I’ve never allowed anyone to enter me before.

“I’ve been thinking about you all day,” he murmurs as he climbs over me. He bends to press his mouth against my collarbone and feathers soft kisses along the exposed skin. I squirm and slide my hands up over his shoulders, reveling in the muscles flexing beneath my fingers.

“Oh, have you?” I ask, my voice gravelly and low. “Please, do tell—what exactly were you thinking about?”

“Hmm.” Wyatt hums his approval as I begin to lift my shirt up, rising enough for me to slide it up and over my head. I’m wearing one of my favorite bras, a hot pink silky push-up with a lacey black overlay. Wyatt clearly appreciates it, too. He practically growls as he nips at the ample overflow of flesh above the demi cups.

“All I want,” he whispers, “is for you to strip down to nothing but this sexy fucking bra and a pair of panties. Can you do that for me?”

I lick my lips, then nod, already pushing my skirt down over my hips. Beneath it, I’d donned a thong made of sheer black lace. Wyatt dips his head to nibble at the skin along my side and I keen out a little moan.

“Now what?” I ask coyly, playing with the elastic waistband of my panties. But Wyatt just shakes his head.

“No, those are staying on, gorgeous.”

He reaches back behind his head and yanks his T-shirt off, then sinks down until his weight is balanced both on his arms and on top of my body. His flesh feels hot against mine and our eyes meet in almost a mirror-image. His brown ones have never looked deeper and I feel as though I could fall right into him and never return.

“I want your panties on,” he says slowly, bending down to capture my earlobe between his teeth, “so that I can just slide them to the side when I feel how fucking wet you are. How wet I make you.”

I groan and close my eyes. “You keep talking to me like that and there’ll be no problem getting me wet,” I admit. When I look back at Wyatt, he’s wearing a knowing little smirk.

“Oh, you like it when I talk dirty?” He captures my mouth with his, swirling his tongue into mine with an expertise that is impressive at the very least. “You like it when I tell you I want to fuck your pussy so hard that the only words you know are ‘yes’ and ‘please’?”

Oh, sweet Jesus. This man is fucking potent as hell.

“Yes, please,” I say, meeting his gaze with a raised brow.

“God, I fucking love you,” Wyatt says, grinning.

I freeze then, blinking up at him. The heated gaze he’s been giving me almost immediately softens and he leans down to kiss me softly.

“Sorry. Probably not the most romantic way to tell you, but . . .” He shrugs. “Fuck it. I love you, Carson.”

I’d already told him I loved him, during an orgasm no less. At the time, Wyatt had been willing to let it go, to not say anything or call me out. Now he’s managed to make me feel like he’s still the first one who actually said it and I’m disproportionately grateful. I lean up on my elbows and press my mouth to his.

“I love you, Wyatt.”

Our eyes lock as he reaches down and slides my thong to one side, then shifts up to pull his jeans down to his knees. I yank at the back of his pants and tilt my pelvis up, pressing my wet core up onto his hardness.

“God, baby.”

Wyatt doesn’t even pause—he just plunges into me. I involuntarily arch my back, digging my nails into his back as I press up against him. He slides into me then retreats with a steady rhythm and I bite down hard on my lower lip, forcing myself not to cry out. I could come already and want this moment to last. Every time Wyatt’s ever touched me, I’ve just wanted to freeze time completely.

“Your body is a goddamn miracle,” he’s saying in my ear as he begins to quicken his pace. I moan as he speeds up, his cock sliding in and out of me in a way that nudges every nerve ending as he moves.

“Every time you touch me, I feel alive,” I say quietly. Wyatt meets my gaze then and we don’t look away as he begins to pound into me. As my eyelids begin to lower, he reaches up and grips my chin.

“No. Look at me. Watch me as I come—watch as you make me come.” His words are enough to push me up and over the precipice. I climax hard—too hard to keep my eyes open as I sail far beyond my body and into a universe of pleasure I’ve only begun to discover with Wyatt Sands. Seconds later, he follows me, giving two hard thrusts before emptying himself into my body.

For a long moment, we both lay there, sweating and breathing hard in unison. I run my hand over Wyatt’s prickly scalp, tenderly touching his scar with my fingertips. He burrows into my breasts and breathes deep before taking a nipple into his mouth and sucking hard.

“Mmm,” I groan, flexing my legs around his hips. “Does that mean you’re ready for Round Two?”

Wyatt laughs and shakes his head before pushing himself up over me.

“I’m ready for a shower, more like it.” He grins down at me. “Wanna join me?”

I push up to my elbows and glance at the clock. “Sure. I’m supposed to grab some dinner with Cyn and Rainey tonight and if I went looking well-fucked, I’m sure they’d have plenty to say about it.”

“I’d imagine so,” he says, grinning. He flips over to one side and pulls his boxers on, then goes to shift back over to the wheelchair. Before he can slide off the bed, though, I grab his arm.

“Wait.” I swallow hard, then stand next to him. “I was wondering—let’s walk to the shower. I’ll help you.”

Wyatt’s brow furrows. “Carson, I can walk to the shower myself—it’s just easier to use the chair to get there. Quicker, too. I just maneuver more efficiently with wheels.”

I chew my bottom lip, unsure of how to word what I want to say.

“I guess I just want to encourage you to push a little harder.” I reach out and squeeze his shoulder. “Look, if you were in that chair for life, I’d be cool with it. But I know you can walk and I know that it’s difficult and I just want to encourage you to do difficult things the same way you’ve encouraged me.”

Wyatt narrows his eyes a bit, but he’s smiling at me.

“So, is this like a pep talk kind of thing?”

I shrug. “I suppose—more than anything, I just like having you standing next to me. You’re tall as fuck and I want you to reach for things when I need them.”

He barks a laugh at that, then shakes his head.

“Alright, alright, Tony Robbins. You win. But if I slip in the shower, you get to call 911.”

“Deal.”

I reach out and grab his hand as he uses his other to provide leverage. Slowly, he pushes up to standing and inhales a deep breath. I watch his face for any sign of pain or discomfort. Noticing my expression, he shakes his head.

“It isn’t painful or anything. It’s just like using muscles you haven’t used in a while. It feels stiff and a little sore.”

I run a hand over his shoulders. “Well, a hot shower will certainly help with that,” I say, smiling.

It takes a few minutes for us to move from the bed to the bathroom. Wyatt is careful as he steps forward, looking down every time, and it reminds me that our brain is responsible for each one of the movements our body makes. That we may not consider the movements normally, but when you have to make a concerted effort, it involves an extraordinary amount of management. It’s like Wyatt’s in charge of a machine that he only knows the basic information for—that he has to re-teach himself the intricacies as time goes on.

Once we’ve made it to the bathroom door, he braces himself on the doorjamb and I move to start the water and grab towels from the linen closet. The simple domestic acts feel natural in a way that’s almost scary, almost intimidating, but neither of us point it out until we’re naked and beneath the shower’s spray. That’s when Wyatt, with one hand splayed over my belly, leans in from behind and whispers in my ear.

“I like having you here.”

I turn a bit to nuzzle up into him. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” he confirms. “It’s like you live here. I like that feeling.”

My heart is in my throat then and I busy myself with shampooing my hair. The truth is that I feel the same—I love being here and assisting him, I love watching him improve and get stronger. I loved seeing him play the drums again.

“Wyatt?”

“Hmm?”

I turn to face him and force myself not to get distracted by his deliciously sculpted torso with water sluicing down it from the shower’s stream.

“For the record,” I say slowly, “I think you’re way too young and way too good to not play with a band. I get that you don’t want to replace what you had—but maybe it’s possible to move forward with the people you love who are still around.”

Wyatt shrugs, then grabs a bar of soap.

“Maybe. We’ll see.”

I roll my eyes at that, knowing I’m getting the generic guy-brush-off. It’s fine—to be honest, I know that I’ll have to work a little harder on that particular topic. And it’s fine. If there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s this—Wyatt Sands is worth fighting for, no matter how hard I have to struggle or what the fight is about.

“I don’t know, Cars . . .”

I frown at Cyn, who is shaking her head as she takes a sip of her glass of Riesling. I glance over at Rainey, who shrugs.

“I mean, it could be cool,” Rainey says. “But I think you should probably talk to Wyatt first.”

“Seriously?”

I splay my hands out on the table between my two friends. Tonight we met up at a little Mexican dive we used to frequent back in college. After several baskets of chips and a half dozen bowls of salsa, I told them my idea, which, apparently, they aren’t exactly jumping all over right about now.

“Look, Wyatt isn’t ready to rejoin the band on a permanent basis—I totally get that. But you should have seen him tonight. He was electric playing those drums. It’s a goddamned crime to keep him off stage.”

Cyn takes another bite of her enchilada and chews.

“So, you’re saying you want to reunite Mortal Enemy?”

I shake my head. “Not exactly—I’m saying I want to get Wyatt to play with his buddies again. If it turns into something more, something regular, then great. If not, that’s fine, too. But at least it will be a chance for him to get back up there—to be the center of a musical universe. I’m telling you, he needs that.”

Rainey looks thoughtful.

“So, then, what’s your plan? Are you going to blindfold him and drag him to a practice session? I mean, blindfolds are pretty hot and all . . .”

I roll my eyes at her.

“No, actually, I was thinking something a little less kinky—I called over to The Factory on my way here and talked to one of the waitresses. She gave me the address of where Mortal Enemy practices and I’m going to stop by later tonight.”

I glance at Cyn, expecting an encouraging reaction. Instead, she just looks worried.

“Cars, I don’t know. I mean . . . there’s’ a reason Wyatt hasn’t been playing with his band in the first place. Shit, I don’t even know how many of his band members he’s even seen since the accident. I just think you should run all of this by him first.”

I stir my drink with my cocktail straw. “Look, I know that it probably seems a little out there. It’s just . . . well, Wyatt and I seem to understand each other. We’ve been doing this sort of immersion technique—facing our fears head-on and all that. I just think that he’ll respond to this kind of approach.”

Cyn still doesn’t look convinced, but Rainey shrugs.

“Sounds good to me. Are you planning a karaoke-turned-impromptu-concert or something?”

“I don’t know. I guess I have to see what the other band members say.” I take a long sip of my drink, then smile. “Enough about me and Wyatt and my ridiculous, twitterpated nonsense. Tell me about you guys. I feel like I haven’t really had a night out with you all in a minute.”

Rainey snorts a laugh. “Dude, you ain’t missing much. All I fucking do is work.” I cock a brow. “Still glad you decided not to take a full-time teaching position?” I tease. “You’d be off for the summer right now if you had.”

She shakes her head. “Naw—I mean, the perks would be great, but I love my kids down at the center. The management is a hot fucking mess and I know the state’s gonna come in and restructure everything soon. But until then, I get a lot of freedom to run programs and allot funds. Last week, I took all the older girls to Rite Aid and did a whole lesson on hygiene and puberty. Some of them hadn’t even been shown deodorant yet, for Christ’s sake.”

Cyn sets down her fork and shakes her head. “That makes me so damn sad. My students are like older versions of that—they’ve been without resources or support for so long, they don’t even know the difference.”

“I know.” Rainey takes a gulp of her drink. “Fucking sucks.”

“How has your time off been?” I ask Cyn. “Still working on new curriculum for the county?”

She shrugs. “Yeah, a little bit. Mostly Smith and I have been talking about the future—he wants me to move in with him, but I’m not sure if I’m ready.”

Rainey and I both turn to stare at her.

“Girl, let me tell you something,” Rainey says, shaking her head. “You need to run, not walk, to a new apartment living with that man. He’s sexy as fuck, he’s got a great job, and most of all, he adores you. Like, really adores you.”

Cyn sighs.

“I know. I love him so much—I guess I just hate the idea of moving out of my apartment because I lived there with Dad. It feels like I’m giving up on the idea that he could ever come home.”

My gaze softens and I reach over to grab Cyn’s hand.

“Cyn, your dad chose to go to Holly Fields—he didn’t want to burden you and he definitely wouldn’t want to be holding you back from your future. And Smith is your future. You know it. We know it. Your dad certainly knows it. And he loves Smith. He wants you to be happy.” She sniffs and rubs her nose, trying to blink back tears. I squeeze her hand and Rainey reaches out to squeeze the other.

“Thank, guys. I know you’re right. I’ve just been putting off talking about it and making a decision because I don’t want Dad to feel like I’m just forgetting about him.”

“He’s family, Cyn. He knows how much these things matter.”

She nods, then wipes her eyes with her napkin.

“Well, it wouldn’t be a girls’ night if one of us didn’t end up getting emotional,” she jokes.

“You got that right.” I eat a handful of tortilla chips.

“How about the tutoring stuff? What’s going on with that?” Rainey asks me.

I shrug. I’m not ready to tell them about my potential student teaching position at Sun Valley. It still feels too great to be real and I don’t want to jinx it.

“Well, Wyatt’s finishing up the last few units of his poli sci class. That and his comp class were all online, so he’s been doing the work throughout the day.”

“How many classes is he finishing?” Cyn asks.

“Four—he’s already turned in the last of his music theory work and the only class he still has an exam in is his geography class.”

“Dude, have you even tutored him at all? Kind of seems like he’s doing this shit on his own.”

I grin. “The truth is that I think Wyatt just needed guidance, you know? He wanted to be sure that his ideas made sense on paper and that he could actually finish his coursework without attending the classes. I look over all of his assignments, do some light editing, that sort of thing. But frankly, he probably never needed me to tutor him. He just needed a friend.”

Cyn snorts. “Well, he certainly got a little more than that, huh?”

I pinch her arm and she grins at me. “Just saying.”

“So what’s the deal with Johns Hopkins then?” Rainey asks. I shrug.

“Honestly? I don’t know.” I fiddle with my fork, then set it back down. “I just—I know that he had no interest in going to classes on the BCC campus. I can’t imagine convincing him that he should be hitting up the Ivy League for some face time with professors who have books on the bestseller list. It just seems like too hard of a push.”

Rainey cocks her brow. “But forcing him to keep playing drums doesn’t feel that way?”

I shrug and glance out the nearby window. I wait a beat before answering.

“I guess I feel like getting him back to the music will help with pushing him forward in other ways, too.”

“Kind of a lot of pressure to put on a drum set, Cars,” Rainey says, leaning back in her chair.

“I know.” I sigh. “I know you’re right. But I just can’t help myself. I have to try.”

***

Mortal Enemy isn’t the same band—not even close. Standing in the back of their practice space, listening to them jam, I almost want to cringe. There are only two original members left—Jack Cooper and Bentz Spring—and neither of them were ever the kind of musicians who made you stand up and cheer. They’re great at their instruments—guitar and bass—but Zeb and Wyatt were the core of the band and everyone knew it. I only saw them once, and I could tell it immediately. Zeb was the kind of lead singer who could carry a mediocre group of musicians to stardom with his growling baritone and husky, bluesy croon. And Wyatt—well, suffice it to say that his drum solo was far more impressive, far more mind-blowing than any guitar solo Mortal Enemy ever churned out.

The guy who’s playing drums now is okay—he’s at least keeping time and making his kit work the song. It’s the lead singer they’ve paired up with that’s such a goddamn nightmare. Enemy’s songs were always meant to be low, rumbling tunes with quiet melodies peppered with hard-core instrumentals. This singer is far too whiny, too tightly wound to make their music work. He’s more of an Axl Rose, less of a Chris Cornell. He just isn’t right.

As they reach the end of the song, every single person in the room knows that they’ve got nothing. Guess that explains why they haven’t booked any gigs lately. I knew they were out and about, but when Deena at The Factory mentioned their rehearsal space, she seemed doubtful that they were even practicing together anymore. Like they might be giving up on the band altogether.

“Yo, I gotta jet,” the singer says to Jack, pointing to the clock on the wall. “Maria will freak if I’m not home to help with the twins before eight.”

Jack mumbles something to him and the singer takes off without so much as a handshake or high five to the rest of the group. The new drummer follows and the door slams hollowly behind him.

“Excuse me?”

Jack looks up at me, his expression a mixture of weary and confused. I give him a smile as I move toward him and reach out my hand.

“Hey, I’m Carson Tucker—I’m a big fan of your band. I’m also a good friend of Wyatt Sands.”

At the sound of Wyatt’s name, Bentz comes out from behind the amp he was tooling around with.

“Yeah? You know Hot Hands? How the hell is that kid? I swear, I must have called him a dozen times since . . .”

Bentz trails off, then scrubs a hand over his spiky, multicolored Mohawk. There’s a bleakness to his expression that tugs at my heart. I give him a smile then look between him and Jack.

“Have you all been in touch with Wyatt since the accident?”

Jack shakes his head slowly. “Not for lack of trying, believe me. I think I called him every day for the first three months after he got outta the hospital.”

Bentz’s expression is somber. “Me, too. He never picked up, never called back. I pretty much got the fucking message.”

I inhale a shaky breath and try to think. This wasn’t what I’d expected—I’d really thought that maybe the guys thought Wyatt couldn’t play or that he’d lost interest, not that he had completely cut them out of his life.

“Would you all want to grab a drink with me? Maybe we could chat?”

I don’t miss the once-over Bentz gives me and my tight black skirt.

“I don’t got nowhere else to be at the moment,” he says, grinning at me. Jack nods in agreement.

“There’s a pub about a block from here. We’ll lock up and meet you at the bar if that’s alright.”

I smile at them, unable to tamp down my enthusiasm. “That sounds perfect.”

The “pub,” it turns out, is little more than a two-booth hole-in-the-wall with a ten-seat bar and a handful of beers on tap, but it suits my purpose and I’ve definitely drunk at worse places. When the guys come in through the door, they fist bump the bartender and get drafts of Miller Light before snagging stools to my left. Once we’re all settled, I decide the best course of action is brutal honesty—and I start with the brutal served loud and clear.

“Your new singer sucks.”

Both Bentz and Jack blink at me, sort of gob-smacked, and I want to slap myself across the face. Way to go Carson, really. Nicely played. But when Bentz barks out a laugh and Jack starts grinning, I feel slightly better about my faux pas.

“Sorry—I could have phrased that better,” I say. But Jack shakes his head.

“Naw, it’s all good. We were getting close to firing his ass anyway. We just can’t find anyone even close to what Zeb was. He was something else, man. Impossible to replace.”

“Your drummer doesn’t seem terrible,” I say, attempting to be nice. But Bentz snorts a disbelieving laugh.

“He isn’t terrible in the sense that he can actually play, but he sure as shit ain’t good. Nothing like Sands. That fucker could play like no one I’ve ever seen before or since.”

I nod slowly, sipping my draft beer. I try to consider my next words carefully.

“So, you say you reached out to Wyatt and he never responded . . . Why do you think that is?”

Both men glance at each other, then back at me and shrug.

“Fuck if I know, man. I mean, after the accident, we were all reeling. We all mourned Zeb and we didn’t know if Wyatt would ever wake up. It was like a living nightmare that none of us could claw our way out of. Once he woke up though, once we realized that he was down but not out, we all tried to get him to talk to us. Our friends at the bar, our manager, everyone we could think of that might talk some sense into him. He wouldn’t talk. At first, we figured it was just the injury—that he was upset about the accident and not being able to walk. So we let it be, hoped he’d get over it. But then we hear that he’s showing up at the Factory with some chick—once for lunch and again at night—and that he’s all getting up out of his wheelchair and shit. Our buddy Moses actually called me that night to get me to come down and see Wyatt face-to-face, but he’d already jetted by the time I made it down there.”

I chew on my bottom lip, trying to make heads or tails of what he’s saying. I was there both of the times he mentioned Wyatt coming out to the bar again. I just had no idea that Wyatt’s friends and bandmates were so desperately trying to connect with him. I don’t understand why he wouldn’t be calling them back or coming to visit.

“So, like, are you two . . . together? Bentz asks me, eyebrows raised.

I can’t help the smile the spreads widely over my face and I give a half shrug.

“I’ve been helping him finish some school assignments for his degree—we’ve got a lot in common, I guess.”

When I look back at Bentz and Jack, they’re staring at me like I’ve grown two heads.

“Degree?” Jack shakes his head. “Wyatt’s in fucking college?”

I blink at both guys and nod slowly. “Uh . . . yeah. He’s just finishing up his sophomore year worth of credits so he can transfer to another school.”