“People who live in a town small enough that they know everyone,” I snapped. “And if that’s the case...”

  I put my hand up to the visor and ran my fingers along the space between the flap and the ceiling. When I didn’t feel anything, I pulled the flap down.

  A set of keys came down with it, and I laughed, grabbing them up and holding them in front of Rivers’ face.

  “Turns out you’re not going to practice your hot-wiring today,” I whispered. “Get in.”

  He made to get into the driver’s seat but I shoved him toward the passenger door. “I don’t think so. I found the keys. I’m driving.”

  “Unfair,” he mumbled, but he hustled toward the other side of the truck and climbed in, throwing our bags into the back on his way.

  I was already behind the wheel with the truck on and in gear by the time he was seated, and I swerved away from the curb the moment he had the door closed.

  “God, let me get my seat belt on!” he said, surprised.

  “Hurry it up,” I said, my eyes on the rear view mirror. “We’re stealing a truck. I don’t think this is the sort of thing we want anyone to see. And we definitely don’t want the photographers getting any pictures.”

  “Take it easy,” he said. “No one even—”

  At that moment, someone came tearing out of the store the truck had been parked in front of, shouting. Moments later, several other people joined him, each of them shouting above the others.

  I screamed and Rivers shouted, “Step on it!”

  I didn’t need further encouragement. I jammed my foot down on the accelerator and went tearing forward up the street, my heart pounding with either excitement or terror—or both—and one thought in my mind: I’d just stolen a truck.

  So I could continue on tour with Olivia Johns and Connor Wheating.

  And it was all Rivers Shine’s doing.

  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 definitely planning to return it, and that meant it wasn’t actually stealing, in my book.

  Just borrowing without permission.

  Lila must have realized that I wasn’t going to agree with her on that point though because she shuffled around a bit and got quiet for several moments. We were laying 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 little in case anyone was chasing us.

  And I hadn’t asked her, but I suspected we’d both also 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.

  Like 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 other people.

  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. “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?”

  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 hadn’t had time to stare at the clouds.

  And I hadn’t had anyone to stare up at them with me.

  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. It was like... magic. I hadn’t been able to see anything, and then with a wave of her hand, Lila had changed that.

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

  When I looked to the next 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.

  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 this 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 and the... I didn’t know, the heart-expanding fullness it had given me 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 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 paused long enough to brush 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 pressed on.

  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 brush 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, threading my fingers through hers, she let me, her gaze clashing with mine and her eyes fathomless.

  I found the opening between her legs with the head of my cock, closed my eyes in 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.

  Maybe I should start.

  RIVERS

  We screeched into town about an hour before the next show was supposed to start, and though every cell in my body wanted to go find Taylor James and tell her exactly what I thought of their little publicity scheme, I grabbed Lila’s hand, went into the hotel to get a key to my room and drop our things off, and then headed directly downstairs to the venue. This town was larger than the last, which meant our hotel had more than three floors, but the place had been built weird. Instead of housing the music hall in a different building, they’d decided to put it on the first floor of the hotel itself.

  That little detail aside, the size of the town came with some complications. More people. More buildings. It would take more time to find Taylor, and I wanted at least an hour in which to give her a piece of my mind.

  We didn’t have time for that right now.

  A large part of my brain also didn’t know what, exactly, I was going to say to her. Was I furious that they’d left us behind? Yes. Was this one more publicity stunt done at my expense, after a lifetime of watching other people use my life for their benefit? Yes.

  And that was starting to get really, really old, though underneath the hurt was an echoing thought that this was the life I’d signed up for, and at least publicity made me useful.

  Beyond that, though, was a much bigger, much more attractive thought.

  Taylor’s little publicity stunt had given me hours and hours to be alone with Lila. And it had been possibly the most beautiful afternoon of my entire life.

  You see my conflict. I was so angry at Taylor that I wanted to scream at her… but I also couldn’t get over the fact that she had given me a chance to experience Lila in all her glory. And I didn’t think that would have happened unless we’d been alone. Stuck in a meadow in the bed of a truck we’d essentially stolen. Staring at the clouds.

  Speaking of the truck, I needed to get one of the roadies to take it back and return it to its owner. I’d do that in the morning.

  Right now, we had a show to get to.

  I tugged at Lila’s hand, forcing her to walk faster, and strolled through the reception area toward the stairs, my mind on the show ahead of us and wondering why the hell there weren’t any photographers around now, when Lila and I were making ourselves so obvious.

  We got into the venue to find The Leathers already halfway through their set and rushed backstage to find my band doing their prep work in the wings. I gave them all furious looks—which they’d acted like they didn’t understand—and then put Lila safely out of the way while I went to help set up.

  She, of course, didn’t stay put. Instead, she hustled forward to help Matty with a bunch of equipment and started telling him about the truck we’d ‘borrowed.’

  “Only Rivers says we weren’t stealing it because supposedly he’s going to have it returned to the owner,” she finished.

  I looked over in time to see her rolling her eyes in my direction and gave her a quick grin. “I’ll have it returned tomorrow,” I promised. “It’s not stealing if they end up getting it back.”

  “Seems like a pretty fine line there, my friend,” Matt observed.

  “Shut it, you. You aren’t the one who found yourself stranded when you were supposed to be at a show.”

  Matt smirked at me—same old Matt—and turned back to Lila to ask why it had taken us so long to get here if we’d had a truck. I froze, wondering what she was going to say. We’d spent far too long in that meadow, and though some of it had been innocent, a whole lot of it hadn’t been. What was she going to say? That we were laying around staring at clouds… or that we were making love under the sky, those clouds flying along above us and shielding us from absolutely nothing?

  Neither was a good option. Both were private, and though I’d shared most of my life with the public—and my friends—I suddenly realized that I didn’t want to share this. I didn’t want anyone else to know about what Lila and I had.

  I didn’t want anyone else touching the memory.

  “Had some car trouble,” she quipped. “Had to pull over for a while. Probably serves us right for stealing a truck, to be honest.”

  I looked up and our gazes clashed, her bright green to my dark brown.

  And in her gaze, I saw that she wasn’t going to give up my secrets. Because she didn’t want to share what we’d done with anyone else, either.

  I went back to what I’d been doing, knowing that I had the stupidest expression I’d ever worn on my face. I probably looked goofy and punch drunk. Dazed and confused and yet completely sure of something I wasn’t sharing.

  I didn’t give a single fuck what I looked like.

  I was too happy to care.

  That night, I found her in the crowd on purpose. I signaled to the guys that we were going to sing our one and only love song—which we didn’t generally put into our sets and almost never practiced—and then turned to scan the crowd for a head full of red hair and the brightest eyes I’d ever seen. It didn’t take me long. The girl would have stood out in a crowd of a million, and there were probably only two hundred in this hall.

  I sought her eyes like I was seeking shelter and when she turned to me and smiled, the world lit up. Home, I thought. This must be what home felt like. And family. Someone there for you no matter what—someone who would always be happy to see you, who would always have a hug for you and a place at their table. It was something that came so naturally to her, and yet…

  I’d never experienced that. It was new and different and so mind-altering that I almost forgot the next words to the song. My mind kicked in and saved me, though, and we launched into the chorus, our music reaching up to the rafters and filling the entire place with chords I hadn’t even thought of for years.

  God, this song was good. All about the heartbreak of feeling so much for someone you didn’t think you could hold it all in and the bigger heartbreak of finding out they didn’t feel the same way about you. The audience was definitely responding to it, though I doubted many of them had ever heard it before. They were swaying and lighting up their phones in response, their voices gone quiet as they listened.

  We should play this one more often.

  When I looked back to Lila, intent on finishing the song with her, I found that she was no longer alone. Some guy was standing next to her, close enough that his arm was pressed against hers, his head ducked down to say something to her. She was smiling in response and nodding, and I felt like whatever had been growing inside me all day had suddenly popped. The ease and peace I’d found disappeared, and in its place, a green, ugly monster lifted its head and roared.

  Who the fuck was that guy and why was he talking to Lila? Why was she smiling like she’d never heard anything so charming, and what the fuck was he doing standing so close to her?