Rock & Roll Nights: The Lila and Rivers Edit

14. Rivers

14

RIVERS

I stared up at the clouds scooting along above us, my hands behind my head and my eyes half closed.

“I can’t believe we just stole a truck,” Lila said again.

“Relax,” I said. “I’ll have one of roadies take it back. That means it’s not stealing. It’s borrowing.”

I could feel her looking at me, her eyebrows probably furrowed and her eyes inevitably narrowed. “We took it without asking, Rivers. That’s stealing.”

“Oh, my sweet summer child,” I murmured, trying very, very hard not to smile at how naive she was. I mean sure, we’d taken the truck without permission. But I was planning to return it, and that meant it wasn’t actually stealing, in my book.

Just borrowing without permission.

I’d done things that were a whole lot worse, and I’d seen things that made all of this look vanilla. Yes, the guy who owned the truck was probably running around tearing his hair out right now, trying to decide what you did when a rock star and his new girlfriend stole your truck. But he was going to get it back and have a great story to tell. No lasting damage.

No memories that would keep him up at night, bleeding into his brain every time he closed his eyes and making him wish he could bleach his memory just to forget how horrible humanity could be.

But that was neither here nor there. The fact was, we hadn’t actually stolen the truck.

Lila must have realized that I wasn’t going to agree with her on that point, because she shuffled around a bit and got quiet for several moments. We were lying in the bed of the truck, which we’d parked in a meadow we found halfway to our next stop. We hadn’t needed a rest, not really—the drive was only about two hours—but we’d both thought it was a good idea to get off the road for a while in case anyone was chasing us.

Not that they would be. I’d seen towns that small before and they didn’t normally have a police force. They probably shared a sherriff’s office with the surrounding towns, and it would take hours before that office would roll anyone out to take a report. The chances of someone chasing us were very small.

I hadn’t told Lila that, though. When she suggested we get off the road just in case, I’d agreed quickly. And I’d done it for purely selfish reasons. I’d wanted to prolong the drive at least a little bit. This was the first time we’d been together outside of a hotel full of people who either knew us or wanted something from us, and it felt... I don’t know, like we’d escaped together or something.

It was just the two of us out here on the road, with no one else watching or taking pictures or wondering whether we were going to be able to keep appearances up. No judgement, no pressure, no rules. Just me and the sunshine girl out in the world, free at last.

Okay, so I didn’t know if she felt any of that. But I certainly did.

“What are you thinking?” I asked quietly.

She let out a chuckle. “I was thinking that the cloud right above us looks like a dragon.”

It wasn’t anything like what I’d been expecting, and I looked over at her, surprised. Were we living in the same world right now? We’d just stolen a truck and were alone for the first time since that first night, and she was thinking about dragons ? “You were thinking what?”

She turned and met my eyes, her eyebrows lifted. “You never played that game when you were a kid? Like, making up stories for what the clouds looked like? Searching for shapes and then deciding what those shapes meant?”

No, I thought. When I was a kid, I’d been too busy getting through the chores my foster parents—all three sets of them—had given me. Or I’d been hiding from the older kids in the group home. The ones that thought it was funny to play pranks on kids littler than them. Or I’d been reading any book I could find on the music business and teaching myself to play guitar, positive that the music industry was going to be my way out of my situation. I’d been teaming up with Noah, Matt, and Hudson to take care of Molly, our adopted little sister, and keep her out of the sorts of homes that some of the other girls were sent to.

I’d been fighting for my life, same as all the other kids. I hadn’t had time to stare at the clouds.

And I hadn’t had anyone to stare up at them with me. My friends would have thought I’d gone crazy if I even asked.

Now, though, I turned back to the sky and tried to see what she was seeing.

“A dragon?”

“Sure.” Her hand shot into the air over us, and she pointed. “See, there’s its head. And right there is its wing. And its tail is that part that comes down around the bottom.”

And just like that, I could see it. A dragon, twisting back on itself with its wings spread and its tail coiled around it. He was roaring at the next cloud over, and I wondered what that cloud had done to piss him off. Maybe something was hiding in that cloud. Something dangerous. Maybe the dragon was protecting us.

A guardian angel we hadn’t known about, that had followed us on this crazy adventure.

The whole story was insane, of course, but even so, it felt like magic. I hadn’t been able to see anything in that stupid cloud, and then with a wave of her hand, Lila had changed that. She’d opened up a whole new world I hadn’t even realized existed.

She was a witch. It was the only possible answer.

When I looked back at the other cloud, though, I saw something there, too.

“That one’s a dog,” I said, pointing at the smaller cloud to the left.

“A dog?”

“Yes! See it? The part on top is its head, and there’s its body and its leg...” I put my hand up and gestured, trying to figure out how to explain that a cloud was actually a dog, and wondering why the fuck it was so important to me that she be able to see it.

This was ridiculous, I told myself. We were seeing shapes in clouds and making up stories. A little kid’s game and nothing more. Why should I care if she saw what I saw, and why the fuck did I feel like every cell in my body was working to prove to her that I deserved to be part of this game she’d created?

And yet.

I didn’t have the right words to show it to her, though, and I was just about to give it all up and slam my way back into the truck, too angry to keep playing the game, when she laughed.

“I see it! You’re right, it’s perfect!”

My heart soared, and it was so, so stupid to be so excited about something like this, but I felt like something had lit up inside of me. Something that didn’t have an expiration date or rules or expect anything of me.

And God, did it feel good.

It felt so good that before I could think about it, before I could talk myself out of it, I rolled over, pinned her to the truck, and kissed her. Not just any kiss, either. It was slow and deep and passionate, and it held everything I couldn’t say in that moment. All the magic I’d felt when I saw the dragon. The heart-expanding fullness when she saw the dog I saw.

I was officially going insane.

And I didn’t care.

I dove deeper into the kiss, savoring the feel of her fingers running through my hair and her body opening up to me, and I let myself forget about the world around us. I shut out the thoughts that never stopped running through my head, forgot about the people waiting for us, and eliminated the knowledge that there were people out there who didn’t care about me.

All that mattered was Lila. And us in this moment.

I tipped her chin up, sweeping into her mouth, and heard an answering groan from her that told me she was just as ready for this as I was. My hand trailed down her throat and over one breast, making her gasp and push up against me. God, the girl was all fire and glorious sunshine, and I couldn’t get enough. I brushed my fingers over her nipple, the bud hard and ready under her shirt, and she gasped again. And I wanted to pause there and stroke her until she was panting and ready for me, but I knew I couldn’t.

We might have found our way into some time alone, but that didn’t mean we could stay here forever.

I dragged my hand down her belly and raised the hem of her shirt, letting my fingertips drag against the softness of her skin there. She moaned into my mouth and squirmed against me, her breath coming quicker now, and I let the kiss go, pressing my mouth instead to her neck. God, she tasted good. Like roses, maybe, or fresh grass. Something beautiful and natural and pure.

Something I’d never had.

I brought my hands up to the buttons of her blouse and undid them quickly, spreading the material to expose her.

“Beautiful,” I whispered, brushing one hand down between her breasts and over her belly to the waistband of her cutoffs.

She arched up off the truck’s bed, breathing more quickly now. “Tease,” she gasped.

I felt a slow, gentle smile tug at my lips. “Just enjoying what I have in front of me.”

Her eyes came to mine, hot and needy. “Enjoy it faster, Rivers. In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re in a pretty public place. I’m not going to lay around naked forever.”

The smile on my lips got bigger. “You’re not even naked yet.”

One of her eyebrows quirked. “Like I said. Hurry it up.”

I didn’t need more motivation than that. I had her out of her shirt and shorts moments later, and seconds after that I was naked as well and laying between her legs with a blanket I’d found in the truck covering me. I leaned down and kissed her gently, trying to memorize the feel of her soft lips. And when I pulled her hands over her head in a position I already knew she liked, threading my fingers through hers, she let me, her gaze clashing with mine and her eyes darkening.

I found the opening between her legs with the head of my cock, closed my eyes at the sheer bliss of it, and slid into her, sheathing myself to the hilt. And fuck me, the girl was perfect. Tight and hot and welcoming and magical. It was everything.

Everything.

She gasped and moved her hips to take me deeper, and my thoughts shattered, leaving me with nothing but instinct. I pulled out and slid into her again, groaning loudly into the silence. And then I pulled out again, nearly crying at the perfection of it. Lila’s hips began to rock with me at that point, keeping time with my motions as I moved in and out, in and out, my movements slow at first but growing quicker with each thrust and the building tension in my lower back.

I dropped my forehead to hers and closed my eyes, trying to keep myself together. But fuck, this girl. She was gasping now, her breath coming in short bursts with each thrust of my cock, and though I’d thought she was perfect before, having her this way, not in a rushed one-night-stand sort of situation but out here in a meadow, where we’d been watching clouds and talking about our lives...

The orgasm hit me before I was ready for it, my mind distracted by the magic we’d been making, and she met me there too, her body tightening around me as I exploded into her, her cry mingled with mine as it split the silence of the meadow. We clung to each other as we rode wave after wave of ecstasy, her orgasm dragging me onward onto higher and higher planes of need until I didn’t know if I could stand it anymore.

And the moment it ended, I wanted to do it again.

“Lila Potter,” I breathed against her neck, feeling both spent and like I was flying at the same time. “I don’t even have the words.”

“And here I thought you were supposed to be a writer,” she said, her voice colored by a smile.

“I told you already,” I grunted. “I don’t write love songs.”

But now, I wondered if that was a mistake.

Maybe I should start.