“Were you watching me sleep?” I ask, my voice groggy from disuse.
“Maybe,” he says, his tone cheeky.
“Well, stop it.”
His hand stops moving.
“Don’t stop that!” I cry.
He laughs and restarts the small circles that already have me so turned on that my hips are rising to meet his rolling digits. “I like watching you sleep,” he says quietly.
I open my eyes. “Why?” I look into his deep, dark gaze and he doesn’t break contact with me. He doesn’t shrink away.
He half-shrugs. “You’re pretty, soft, and I know you don’t have panties on.”
My heart skips. “You think I’m pretty?” I ask, my voice high and anxious.
He snorts. “You know you’re pretty.”
“No,” I say, drawing the word out. “Sometimes I don’t feel very pretty.”
“Are you kidding? You have legions of fans who want you.”
I cover his hand with mine to stop its moving. “They want Star. They don’t want me.” I look up at him. “They don’t know my real name isn’t Star. They don’t know my favorite foods or my insecurities. And they don’t care if I know theirs. I can guarantee you they wouldn’t notice the color of my eyes or whether or not I have freckles on my ass. They would just want to fuck me. That’s it.”
“Star isn’t your real name?”
I shake my head. “No.”
“What is it?”
“Does it matter?”
He frowns. “Yes, it matters.” He lifts his hand from between my legs, and I’m afraid I just made a big mistake. I grab his hand and hold it over my heart. I don’t want to be disconnected from him. I’ve gotten used to intimacy with him. I don’t want to lose it.
“You sure you want to know?” My voice squeaks.
He wraps a lock of my hair around his finger and rolls it around. “I do.”
“My parents called me Jessica. Jess for short.” I don’t talk about my parents much.
“Star is a stage name?”
I shake my head. “No, it was a fresh start. Peck got a new name first, and we all wanted one. So we all picked bird names. I’m the Starling. Emilio said we could have whatever we wanted, as long as what we wanted didn’t include boys or drugs.” I giggle at the thought of it.
“You love him a lot, don’t you?”
I look up. “Melio?”
He nods.
“Yeah, he’s my dad. Don’t get me wrong. My real dad was great, but when he died, and Mom died with him, there was no one left.”
“I thought you had an aunt and uncle.”
An unattractive snort leaves my throat. “We did. But they only wanted Tag.”
“Is Tag short for something?”
“Our last name—Taggert. He was Ben Taggert Jr, but they called him Tag.”
“Are you going to talk to him when we go back?”
I heave a sigh. “I guess I’ll have to.”
“I think it’s nice that he wants to reconnect,” Josh says.
“I think he just wants money. I’m not sure. I have to find out.”
“I don’t think so,” he says. “He seemed pretty interested in you and Wren.”
“I used to write him letters. He never responded to a single one of them.”
“Are you sure he got them?”
“I don’t know. I always assumed he did.”
“Yeah, Lilly’s mom thought that, too. But I never got any.” He bumps my shoulder. “You should give him a chance.” He draws a finger down the bridge of my nose and lingers at the tip. “I’ll go with you if you want, when you see him. Or you could just invite him to my place. Neutral ground.”
“Maybe.” I scoot closer to him and tuck myself into his side. “Are you happy you came here?”
“Oh, yeah, definitely.” His hand lies flat on my belly, and I realize he’s under my shirt and that my mound is bare. I pull the shirt down to cover myself. “Don’t do that,” he says. “I like this.”
“Like what?”
His cheeks turn red. “I like having you in my bed with no panties on with your hair all mussed from sleeping on my arm. There. I said it. I like it. I like having my hand under your shirt and your pussy bare. I like the sweetness of it.” He looks embarrassed, so I don’t say anything. It’s almost like he just laid himself open to me for a second.
“I was thinking the same thing.”
He brushes my hair behind my ear.
I take a deep breath and then blurt out, “I like the intimacy of this weekend. I like you. Lots.” I take a breath when he starts to fidget. “I mean, I know you didn’t plan for this to be more than a weekend, and I’m okay with that. It’s just this, and that’s all it is. But I do like it.”
“This was just sex for you, right?”
Ouch. That hurt. But I rush to say, “Yes. Just sex. I get it. I shouldn’t have gone on and on about it. Sorry. I didn’t mean to make you think I wanted it to be more.”
“What if I said I do want it to be more?” He kisses my cheek, and his lips hover over me, waiting for me to say something.
But I have to catch my breath before I can speak. “You want it to be more?” I squeak. I clear my throat.
“What if I said I did? What would you say?”