“Huh.” Dazed, I turned toward the sound of his voice. I hadn’t even heard the door slide open. His heavy lidded eyes were within inches of my own. Bryan leaned over the bus banquette, looking sexy as sin his hair all tousled from sleep.

I shook my head free of the tangled webs of the past.

“I called your name twice,” He reached over and rubbed a strand of my hair between his fingers. The subtle yet familiar movement made my scalp tingle. “What were you thinking about?” he asked in that low intimate voice of his that made everything else in my body tingle.

“Prom night,” I whispered.

He blinked.

“It seems to keep coming back to that for us,” I whispered. He looked much as he had the first night I’d seen him on this bus, only no jeans just black boxers and those low enough on his hips to make me think of only one thing. And he was close enough that I could act on that thought. I extended my arm out and laid one palm against the smooth skin at the center of his bare chest and the other one a lot lower.

He swallowed and glanced behind us. The door to the sleeping section of the bus was closed. He grabbed my elbows and tugged me out of the banquette. I stumbled forward, feeling the rock hard strength of his chest through the thin material of the button down shirt of War’s that I’d worn to bed. My breasts tightened instantly against his warmth and my mouth parted at the exact moment that his lips touched mine. A flood of heat rushed through my blood. The intensity of my longing after all this time was almost too much to bear.

I whimpered as he pressed me into the partition, the wall an unyielding surface behind me, his chest, his hips, his thighs, and his erection even harder. He began devouring me everywhere his mouth could reach. His lips, his tongue, and his teeth doing wicked things to me that made me moan and beg for more.

He lifted my hands stretching my arms up over my head and pinning them against the wall in his tight grip. I felt the cool air caress my skin as the oversized sleeves of my shirt slid down to expose my arms all the way to my elbows while he pressed impassioned wet kisses across my cheek and then down my arched neck.

“Dammit Lace, stop me. We shouldn’t be doing this,” he rasped in a raw voice before drawing my earlobe between his teeth and then tracing the shell of my ear with his talented tongue. Breathing heavily, he eased back and stared down at me with lust filled eyes. “How am I supposed to get over you when you respond to me like this?”

He wasn’t over me?

This was news to me. It seemed to me all our conversations had been past tense.

“I don’t want you to get over me,” I whispered, angling my hips forward and rocking over him. My body took over, ignoring the faint protesting voice of common sense in my mind.

He groaned, and then suddenly he went completely still.

Certain we’d been discovered, I turned my head to look over my shoulder. No one was there. The door was still closed. Confused, my eyes went back to him to find that he was staring at my bared arms.

“Fuck.” Bryan yanked both my hands down and flipped them over at the wrists. When his head came back up his eyes were bright with fury. The look on his face almost made me wish War had found us instead.

I tugged my wrists free and pulled down the sleeves of War’s shirt while trying to ease away from him. Cold shame doused the raging desire that had consumed me only a moment ago.

“Whatcha shooting up, Lace? By the looks of those track marks, I’d say you’ve got an expensive habit.” The evenness of his tone was at complete odds with the fire blazing from his eyes. “War helping you out with that?”

I didn’t answer. I tried to twist away, but he caged me in with his arms.

“I can’t believe you’d get into something like this. Not after all you went through with your mom.” Exhaling heavily, he dropped his forehead to mine. His eyes were so close I could make out the pixilated variation of grey and green as well as read the concern that had filled them.

His gentleness crumbled any chance I had of keeping him out.

“What is it, Lace?” he rephrased again voice low.

“Heroin,” I admitted softly.

14

The airbrakes on the bus suddenly hissed, making me jump as the tour bus lurched to a stop. I was tense as fuck struggling to come to terms with what Lace revealed.

Heroin.

Could it be any worse?

“What the hell?” War exclaimed.

Apparently it could.

At the sound of his voice, I dropped my hands from around Lace’s shoulders and took a step back. Lace pulled the gaping edges of her shirt back together. Then we both stared at him, looking guilty as shit.

War obviously had no trouble putting one and one together. Without pause, he came right at me eyes narrowed and hands fisted tight, but Lace slid in front of him.

“War,” she purred seductively lids lowered to a placating half-mast. “It’s not what you think. Bryan just saw my arms. He was just getting up in my face about my using.”

War’s gaze flicked to me for confirmation.

I nodded, though I was feeling sick to my stomach, mind and guts swirling with the toxic mess of all of it. The drugs were a game changer. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I knew I had to do something. I couldn’t just stand on the sidelines anymore.

War leaned down and laid a wet one on Lace’s mouth. The mouth I had just thoroughly explored. “Go on to the back,” he told her in an authoritative tone. “Bullet and I need to talk.” Eyes on me, he dismissed her with a pat on the ass.

She hesitated, glancing out the window. “But I want to go into the hotel. Get a shower in a real bathroom.”

“You will, babe. I promise. Just give me a minute with Bullet, alright?”

She nodded and headed to the back without looking at me.

Good plan.

War pressed the button to close the door as soon as she passed through, the atmosphere between us instantly supercharged with threat.

War’s eyes were narrowed with accusation when he turned back to me. “We’ve been through a lot together, brother. So I’m having a difficult time understanding why I should find you alone with my woman again, only this time her mouth tastes like fucking cigarettes.”

Shit.

I scrubbed a hand over my face.

“I get she’s beautiful. And I’m not blind. I know you’ve had a thing for her since high school.” War continued voice low and menacing as he took a step toward me. His chin dipped and his gaze leveled with mine. “But you know the code, she’s,”

a hard shove

“off,”

another hard shove,

“limits.”

The last shove was punctuated with an exasperated exhalation.