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My lips curve into a smile, my heart fluttering. "Yeah? You going to be my hero, Cowboy?"

"No." He dips his head, brushing his lips across mine in a soft pass. "I'm just going to be yours."

My stomach bottoms out, my heart clenching. He has no idea how badly I want that. I think, if someone held a gun to my head and forced me to choose between him and music, I could die happy choosing him. But there is no gun to my head now. There's just reality. And the reality is that I'd always wonder if I could have made it. I'd always feel like I gave up before I even gave music a chance. I'd always miss it.

As much as he resents his mom for the choices she made, I understand them. It's impossible to walk away from a dream when that dream is part of you. But sacrifices carve out pieces of your soul, too. It's only after you make them that you realize you might have made the wrong ones.

Is that what I'm about to do here? Make the wrong sacrifices? I'm fucking terrified that maybe I am.

"What's wrong, songbird?" Bishop asks, his eyes drifting across my face like he sees a little too much.

"Nothing, I just…" I don't know what to say, how to make sense of the mess in my head. It's grown louder since he left this morning. It's a storm now, raging out of control. I press my lips to his in a hard kiss, desperate to silence it. "I just need you."

He grunts, palming my ass. "You want me, Callie?"

"Yes." God, yes. Every minute of the day.

"Where's your dressing room?"

I grab his hand, and we practically sprint down the narrow hallway behind the stage and into the small dressing room. There isn't much to the room, just a vanity and a tiny sofa shoved into the corner. It's an office or a stockroom they converted into a dressing room. But we don't need much, anyway.

As soon as the door closes behind us, Bishop has me pressed against it, my legs around his waist. My head thumps against the wood, his name escaping my lips in a moan.

"Did you miss me today, songbird?"

"Every minute," I moan, writhing as he slips his hand beneath my skirt. His fingertips trail up my inner thigh, leaving little fires in their wake.

"Missed you too," he breathes, attacking my throat with biting kisses I feel everywhere.

I reach for his belt, my fingers clumsy as I fight to loosen it. They slip when he presses his thumb to my clit, sinking his finger inside me all the way to the knuckle.

"You're soaked, baby."

"I know," I gasp, clawing at his zipper.

He fucks me with his fingers, the wet sounds filling the dressing room. I barely hear them over the frantic pounding of my heart. Finally, finally, I manage to claw open his zipper, delving my hand inside.

"Fuck," he groans, the sound low and gritty. He bucks his hips into my hand, his cock hot and hard against my palm. "That perfect fucking hand feels too good, Callie baby."

"You'd feel even better inside me."

"Is that what you want? You want me inside you right now?"

"God, yes, Bishop."

He chuckles at my enthusiasm, batting my hand away to line himself up. I whimper when he slips his fingers out of me, hating how empty I feel without some part of him inside me. I think I'm already addicted to the way he fills me, to the way he fits inside me.

"Look at me," he murmurs, then waits until our eyes lock before pushing forward. It's more intimate this way, more intense. I feel him everywhere again, like he's claiming every part of me as he stretches and fills me.

Neither of us look away, not even when he's all the way inside. We just stare at each other. He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, his lips curving into my favorite crooked grin. "You're so fucking beautiful."

"Bishop," I whisper, trying to tell him…everything. That I've fallen in love with him. That I don't want to lose him. That I want him to chase me. That I'll choose him if that's what he wants. But all I manage to say is his name, over and over.

He groans, rocking into me in steady pulses that leave me reeling. "I'm never giving you up, songbird," he breathes against my lips. "You hear me?"

I sob his name, praying to God that he means it. He has to mean it, because I'm not sure I can survive any other outcome. I'll learn to live without music. But I can't live without my heart when he has every damn piece of it. He stole them all. Every time he showed up, every time he was kind to me, every time he smiled at me or touched me, every time he reminded me that there are people in this world worth trusting, he stole them.

My head thumps the door as he drops me harder, fucking me deeper. I choke on his name. I'm already so close to the edge.