Insider (Exodus End #1)(31)
Author: Olivia Cunning

Toni hopped off the sofa. “I’ll go.”

“Is it my favorite company?” Trey Mills said as he let himself into the room. He was already dressed to go onstage, and Toni couldn’t stop her heart from skipping a beat. “Oh,” he said. “Company I don’t recognize.”

“This is Toni. Remember I told you someone was writing a book about Exodus End?”

“And you’re chatting with her in your underwear?” Trey asked.

“If I was going to seduce her,” Reagan said, “she’d already be naked with her legs wrapped around my neck.”

Toni’s couldn’t bring herself to meet their eyes. Reagan had been joking about that, right? Toni had never considered doing anything sexual with another woman, but now she wondered how a woman’s touch differed from that of a man.

“I need to get to the meet and greet,” Toni said, rushing into the bathroom to collect her socks and boots. She sat on the toilet lid to put them on.

She could hear Trey’s deep voice and Reagan’s answering laugh. Were they laughing at her? Probably. She’d made a fool out of herself. Toni secured her hair back with a blue scrunchy that matched her blue blouse which matched one of her socks. Her other sock was gray and matched her long skirt. She looked like she should be shelving library books, not going to a metal band’s meet and greet. Perhaps she should’ve splurged on new clothes for this assignment. She might not stick out like a poodle in a pack of Rottweiler’s if she tried to fit in a little better. She glanced in the mirror and pushed her glasses up her nose. She hated wearing contact lenses, but maybe . . . She turned her head this way and that, making kissy faces at herself in the mirror. Maybe she wasn’t as plain as she thought. Maybe she was actually pretty. Maybe if she put on some makeup and sexier clothes, Logan would start thinking of her as more than a friend. More than a temporary sex partner.

And maybe she should worry about her job instead of what she looked like. She’d never really cared about such things before. And Logan seemed to be attracted to her regardless.

He’d been the one to show her to the women’s dressing room so she could take a shower. He’d even stolen a kiss before claiming he needed to catch a nap on the bus or he’d be worthless that night during the concert. She wondered if he was still sleeping. And how much he’d mind if she woke him.

A naughty idea forming in her head, she hurried out of the bathroom and found Trey kneeling on the floor between Reagan’s legs with a sucker stick protruding from between his lips. He had both hands wrapped around Reagan’s upper thigh and was asking her about the notes she had drawn on her leg.

“I’m going back to the bus,” Toni said when neither of them noticed that she’d entered the room.

“Okay,” Reagan said. “We can talk more later.”

“Thanks,” Toni said, feeling intrusive.

She slung the strap of her messenger bag over her shoulder and left the room. The tour’s regular security guards now recognized her and let her pass without accosting her, but the stadium’s security stopped her several times as she made her way outside to the area where the buses were parked.

By the time Toni entered the bus, she’d almost convinced herself that she shouldn’t bother Logan. That he did need to sleep and he’d probably be mad at her for waking him. She was thinking that until she found that he was alone on the bus, unconscious in his bunk, wearing nothing but a tangled sheet. She took a moment—a long moment—to admire the smooth skin of his naked back, the tattoo inked on his shoulder, the bit of naked buttocks exposed above the edge of the sheet, the bend of one bare leg, the muscular arm half obscured by his pillow, and all that golden hair surrounding his peacefully sleeping face. He had a half smile on his strong lips. She wondered if he was dreaming about something nice. She could only hope that it was her.

She continued to admire him until nothing could have stopped her from climbing into that bunk next to him and molding her body to his hard-muscled form. He started awake with an inrush of breath through his nose and lifted his head to see who had climbed into bed with him. Toni doubted she was the first to force her attention on the man, and would probably not be the last, but the smile he gifted her pushed those thoughts aside.

“Is it time to get up?” he asked, rubbing one eye with a knuckle and yawning.

She shook her head.

“Good,” he murmured before tugging her against the wall of his chest. His hands slid down her back and grabbed her ass to pull her more securely against him.

She lifted a trembling hand to caress the warm skin along his side. She’d never really touched a man before. She wanted to experience all the differences between his body and hers with her hands and when she got up the nerve, with her lips.

“Can I touch you?” she asked.

“Isn’t that what you’re doing?” he said in a drowsy voice.

“Everywhere?” she clarified.

“Mmm,” he murmured. “I think I’m going to like this.”

“Will you tell me what feels good for you?”

“If you pay attention, it should be obvious.”

She smiled. Finally, something she excelled at. “I’m good at paying attention.”

He scowled. “I’m not. The only thing I’m good at is being a fuck-up.”

She rubbed his worried brow with her fingertips until his flesh relaxed beneath her touch. “You’re not a fuck-up, Logan. You’re . . .” Wonderful. She sighed internally, not wanting him to know how infatuated she was with him already. Or maybe her jumping into his bunk with him was a dead giveaway.

“Prove it. Name one thing I’ve done in the past twenty-four hours that wasn’t impulsively stupid.”

“Impulsive, yes, stupid, no. You’re a creature of instinct.”

“So now I’m a creature?”

“A man,” she corrected. “A sexy one who I can’t stop thinking about, even though I know I should be paying attention to my work.”

“I have the same annoying problem when it comes to you.”

“You don’t have to say things like that to get into my panties,” she said with a grin.

“But I do to make you smile.” He kissed her, and she melted against him. His lips moved to her jaw. “Besides,” he whispered, “it’s true. Why do you think I shoved both feet in my mouth at that radio interview?”