Page 26 of Unleashed By Eden

My deep purple nails look almost black under the cabin lights. I stare at them, then catch myself chewing on the side of my thumb. It’s an old, disgusting habit. I thought I had killed it somewhere between leaving Jeanine’s home and my first gig. Apparently, Carter brings out the worst in me. Or maybe just the parts I left back in high school.

“Why do you go to Eden?” I throw the question back at him, knowing it’s not technically my turn but curious enough to test him.

He watches me, then lets out a breath.

“Because I crave control,” he says simply. “I need the release it gives me that I can’t get anywhere else. My life is fucking chaos. I don’t get much say in it. I essentially belong to the people. Eden is the only place that’s mine, where I can fuck the way I want to fuck with no phones out and no media fallout.”

His eyes darken, pinning me in place.

“I love bringing my woman pleasure,” he continues, voice dropping. “Controlling how she moves, what she does, when she goes over the edge. I want to control it all. I like the pain of waiting, eventually folding into pleasure, watching her eyes roll back, knowing I did that. I want to be her everything in that room, her whole world, for as long as she’s with me. In return, I want to take care of her, give her everything she needs. I want it all on me. All the weight. All the responsibility.”

His gaze holds mine, completely steady and unashamed.

Fuck. Me.

I was not expecting an answer like that. I was expecting some throwaway rock star line about hot girls, privacy, and no strings. Instead, he’s handed me something that sounds dangerously like the truth.

My clit pulses, and my core contracts around nothing. I lock my thighs and force my body to stay still, because the last thing I need is for him to see that his little monologue has my blood pumping.

“And that brings me to my next question,” he says.

“Wait. Just . . . wait.” I hold up a hand and shake my head. I need a second to unscramble my thoughts, shove my hormones back into their box. He’s still the guy who cut me out like a tumor. That doesn’t get erased because he has a gifted mouth and knows how to wield his words as well as a guitar.

“If you’re about to ask me to be your goddess for this tour,” I say slowly, “to fuck you and be your release or whatever, you can fuck right off.”

His mouth opens. I keep going. “Let me be very clear. I will never touch you. I will never fuck you, paid or otherwise. The mere idea of you even thinking that could be on the table . . .” I let out an angry little huff. “Makes me kind of stabby.”

My eye twitches. My fingers tingle with the urge to feel the Swiss Army knife tucked into my boot. One of the perks of flying private: bags get scanned, people don’t. Still, I’m not actually going to pull it out; that would be career suicide.

“Whoa. No need to get stabby,” Carter says, hands coming up in surrender, eyes wide for once. “And I wasn’t going to suggest that, anyway.”

I stare at him, flat.

His lips twitch.

“Okay, I was totally going to suggest that,” he blurts. “But in my defense, I had to ask. I would be stupid not to.”

“Well, you can get it out of your head,” I reply. “I’m here to work as a professional photographer, not to be your submissive fuck buddy.”

“Understood.” He gives me a mock salute, that beautiful grin tugging at his mouth, making it annoyingly hard to keep my glare in place.

He pulls the collar of his white T-shirt up, covering the lower half of his face, hiding his smile. But his eyes crease at the corners, giving him away completely.

I bite the inside of my cheek, look away, because I’m not rewarding that.

Dickhead.

Chapter nine

Carter

“Can you turn the mic down? I might as well be singing a cappella here,” I say into it, squinting out across the empty stadium toward the sound booth.

One of the sound techs throws me a thumbs-up.

“Testing, one, two, three,” I try again. The echo is still loud, but it doesn’t override the music anymore. “Better. Thanks, man.”

Kai claps his sticks together, counts us in, and we slam into “Closer.” We save this for the encore, the last song before the lights come on, the one that sends the stadium wild the second the opening beat hits the air.