Ransom Read online

  “I don’t want to waste any more time,” he says, pulling back so he can look into my eyes. “I want this with you. Forever.”

  I nod, reaching for him again, but he turns to grab a tissue from the side table. He brings it to my face, wiping away my tears so gently it somehow makes me want to cry all over again. He grabs another tissue for himself.

  “Better?” he asks. “Or do you want more tea?”

  I shake my head. “I’m fine.”

  “Your poor little eyes,” he murmurs, running his fingertips beneath them. “I hate it when you cry.”

  “I’m sorry I look so gross. I imagined this moment a lot of times, but I never imagined it with swollen eyes and a red face.”

  He laughs. “Do you really not know how beautiful you are to me right now?”

  “Whatever—”

  “No, not whatever, Daisy. You’re perfect.”

  The look in his eyes tells me he actually means it. A man so gorgeous his face is plastered on magazines actually thinks I’m beautiful.

  He gives me that ridiculous smile that takes my breath away. “Now kiss me again.”

  My lips find his, and I can’t help but exhale against his mouth. I feel so relieved. Relieved to be here, finally, where I’ve always wanted to be. Relieved that he, somehow, wants me too, even after everything I’ve told him.

  “Daisy,” he whispers, and there’s relief in his voice too. “Finally.”

  “I need you. I need you, Daltrey.”

  He moans and presses his lips harder against mine. Then his tongue is gently running along my mouth, and I open for him, greedily taking him in. I whimper the moment my tongue touches his, the sensation better than anything I could imagine.

  Suddenly, his hands are everywhere, as if my whimper was the permission he’d been waiting for. They press into my lower back, against the swell of my ass, up over my sides, so gentle over my tattoo, until he’s cupping my breasts. I press my body against him, wanting more.

  He pulls away, and I gasp, my need for him almost painful. He falls to his knees in front of me, his head tilted back, so he can stare up at me. Slowly, he lifts his hands to the hem of my shirt and begins to push it up over my belly. Impatient, I grab my shirt and pull it over my head.

  “You’re so gorgeous,” he whispers.

  I laugh a little, but the sound comes out broken. “You’ve seen me in a bikini before, Daltrey.”

  He shakes his head. “Not the same.” Then he presses his lips to my stomach, kissing my skin softly.

  I gasp, threading my fingers into his golden hair. He kisses a trail across my skin as far as he can reach. Heart pounding, I reach behind me and unclasp my bra. He makes a strangled noise in his throat and reaches up to grasp the straps on my shoulders. He pulls them down so slowly I think I’m going to explode from the anticipation. Finally, the cups fall away from my chest.

  Daltrey goes very still. “You have no idea,” he says gruffly, “no idea how long I’ve wanted this.”

  I can only shake my head, knowing he can’t understand the depth of my yearning for him. I’ve been waiting for this moment my entire life.

  I take his hands, and place them over my breasts. He groans, squeezing gently before he releases me and takes my hands. I’m disoriented, and it takes me a few seconds to realize that he has brought my wrist to his mouth. First one and then the other, he kisses my scars.

  “I love every inch of you,” he says, his voice thick. “Every joy in your heart and every mistake in your past. I love you, Daisy. All of you.”

  I’m crying again, and he stands, pulling me against him. He kisses the tears from my eyelids before kissing my lips again. He walks me backward until the backs of my knees hit the bed, and then we’re falling into the mattress, Daltrey on top of me, his lips trailing paths of fire across my cheek, my collarbone, my breasts. I struggle to free him from his T-shirt, my hands getting tangled in the fabric until he helps me.

  Once he’s pulled off his shirt, he hovers over me, his bare skin inches away. I run my trembling fingers up over his belly. The muscles contract at my touch until I reach his chest. And then I register what I’m seeing. An unfamiliar tattoo, a small, simple flower I’ve never seen. One he must have gotten in our year a part.

  A single daisy, right over his heart.

  “Daltrey.”

  He smiles down at me, but there’s pain in his eyes. “I told you, you always had me. No matter what.”

  I reach for his face, needing his lips on me, and he eagerly complies. My entire mind is focused on him, my whole heart caught up in his movements, his kisses, his fingers. He unbuttons my jeans and pulls down the zipper. When his fingers slip into my panties and brush against me, I cry out and grab his shoulders. I come hard, just from his touch.

  He smiles down at me, the most beautiful, triumphant grin I’ve ever seen. “We’re going to be so good together, Daisy. I’ve always known it.”

  I can only continue to cling to him, knowing I’ll be lost if I let go. He kisses me while he removes first my jeans and then his own. Kisses me while he tugs my panties down. Kisses me while he slides deep inside of me, finding the place he should have always been.

  “I love you,” I gasp, looking up at him. He’s gorgeous, moving inside of me, so much concentration and joy and ache in his face. I tell him so. “You’re beautiful.”

  He gives a short laugh. “You have no idea what beauty is, Daisy.” His eyelids flutter closed. “My Daisy.”

  He’s wrong, though. I do know beauty, because I know what it is to love him, this kind, loyal, talented, passionate man. There’s never been beauty like him. I lived in the world without him, colorless and cold, for far too long to doubt that.

  I try to tell him, but I can’t form words. It feels too good, Daltrey on top of me and inside me, surrounding me, overwhelming me with his body and his kisses and his whispers of love. I can only whisper his name as I hold him and fall into oblivion, him right behind me.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Daisy

  I wake up to bright light, which is strange because Karen is fanatical about shutting the blinds before she goes to sleep. I open one eye. A heavy arm is draped across my waist, a tattooed arm that most definitely does not belong to Karen or Paige.

  Everything that happened last night comes back to me in a rush. Kissing Daltrey at the Empire State building. Coming back here and telling him everything. The way he held me and told me that he loved me, how we kissed, how his hands felt on every inch of my body.

  Holy shit! I slept with Daltrey last night. After years of dreaming about him, wishing for him, it had actually happened. He said he loved me, that he wanted me, and we had sex.

  “You awake?” he whispers.

  I turn slightly and look up to see him smiling down at me. “Good morning,” I whisper, my cheeks going hot.

  His grin grows, taking on a bit of an arrogant turn. “Good morning. You’re pretty when you blush.”

  I smack his arm. “No teasing.”

  He grabs my hand and pulls me against his body. “Oh, there will be plenty of teasing. Just like there’s always been.”

  I snuggle into him, kissing his shoulder. “I guess that’s okay with me.”

  “Nothing’s going to change, Daisy. You and I will continue to be best friends who tease each other and have ridiculous amounts of fun together. Only now there will be more kissing.”

  I laugh against his chest. “I can handle that.” I yawn loudly. “What time is it, anyhow?”

  “It’s pretty early. Go back to sleep.”

  “When do you need to get up?”

  “We have a band meeting in a few hours. I’ll try not to wake you.”

  “It’s okay,” I murmur, warmth from his body spreading through me. “I don’t mind if you wake me up.”

  I try to stave off sleep for as long as I can, enjoying the feeling of his bare skin against mine far too much to want to miss a moment of it. But it’s so comfortable here in his bed, his
fingers brushing through my hair. And after all of our walking and all of the emotional purging of yesterday, I’m pretty tired.

  The next thing I know, he’s leaning over me, kissing my forehead.

  “Daltrey?”

  “Shh. I’ll be back, okay? I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “Have a good meeting,” I whisper, my eyelids fluttering closed again. The last thing I feel is his lips on mine before sleep claims me again.

  For the first time in a long time, all my dreams are happy ones.

  ***

  “Are you whistling?” Karen asks, staring at me from the doorway of the crew bus. “I’ve never heard you whistle.”

  Paige peeks around from behind her. “Daisy! There you are. We were worried about you.”

  “Seems like we worried for nothing,” Karen says, crossing her arms. “She looks pretty damn happy to me.”

  “You’d be happy too,” I say, leaning back in my seat, “if you’d spent your night being ravished by a famous rock star.”

  After a moment’s pause, they both start shrieking.

  Paige practically knocks Karen over in her hurry to get into the bus. “Oh, my God!”

  “You little slut!” Karen cries, laughing, as she throws her arms around me.

  “Shut up,” I say, around my own giggles. “Everyone will hear you.”

  “Who cares?” Karen says. “If I slept with a member of Ransom I’d want the whole world to know.”

  I shove her away, rolling my eyes. “Well, I don’t.”

  “Oh, Daisy,” Paige says, looking like she might cry, “I’m so happy for you.”

  “Thanks,” I say. “I’m pretty damn happy, too.”

  “So what happened?” she asks, pulling me to the couch. “When I saw you packing, you seemed so upset.”

  I tell them all about the day Daltrey and I shared, pausing to allow them to squeal at all the romantic parts. When I tell them about freaking out, and how I told him everything, they both get quiet, squeezing my hands.

  “But then it didn’t matter, not really, because he loves me anyhow,” I say.

  “Aww,” Paige sighs, while Karen says, “A point which he made clear by boning you all night?”

  “Karen!” Paige yells.

  But I only laugh. Nothing’s going to bother me, not today. Everything seems a hundred times funnier, the world around me brighter, cleaner, more beautiful. It’s a world in which Daltrey loves me, and nothing can change that.

  After they’ve drilled me for as many details as they can get, I decide we should start earning our keep. “We need to get going,” I say. “There’s work to do.”

  We grab the boxes of extra merchandise and make our way into the venue. There’s more in the storage areas under the bus, and it takes us the better part of an hour to get everything into the building. I don’t see anyone from the band while we work.

  I slipped out of Daltrey’s room before he came back from the band meeting, so I haven’t seen him since he left this morning. Even though I know it’s ridiculous, I miss him already.

  I thought that finally being able to kiss him, to touch him however I wanted, would dull the desire I’ve felt for him all these years, but I was wrong. If anything, having a taste of him makes me want him all the more. By lunchtime, I’m seriously regretting my decision not to wait in his bed for him to come back. I should just live in his bed.

  “Hey, Levi,” Paige calls.

  I look up from the stack of hoodies I’m folding to see Levi striding across the venue lobby toward us. I smile in greeting, but it slips from my face when I see how serious he looks.

  “Hey,” I say as he reaches the merch table. “What’s up?”

  “Have you seen Daltrey?”

  I frown. “Not since this morning. I saw him before the meeting.” I can’t help the blush that floods my cheeks, but he gives no indication that he notices.

  “No one’s seen him since the meeting,” he says, running his hands through his hair. He looks stressed, a fact that sends a chill through me. Levi is never stressed. He takes everything as it comes, the calm center of the storm for all the band members.

  “What do you mean no one’s seen him?” I ask.

  “He left the meeting to go upstairs to his room for a few. We were supposed to meet back in the lobby to get to the photo shoot, and he never came down. When we went up to his room, no one was there.”

  “What?” I’m definitely scared now. “Did you call him?”

  “He’s not answering. I got a text from him about a half hour later telling me that he was fine but taking care of something and to tell his dad sorry.”

  “What?”

  He shakes his head. “That’s exactly what I texted back. But he never responded, and he hasn’t answered anyone all day.”

  “Did he take Frank or Benny with him?”

  Levi doesn’t answer immediately, and I realize he’s scared too. Sure, he’s stressed and probably worried about work-related repercussions, but below that, he’s afraid. “No,” he finally says. “He didn’t take either of them. As far as we can tell, he’s alone.”

  “Let me try,” I say, pulling out my phone. I press Dalton’s number on my Contacts list, and put the phone to my ear. Straight to voicemail. Frowning, I send a text.

  Where are you?

  I stare at my phone, expecting to hear from him any second. Daltrey never makes me wait. But he doesn’t text back.

  After a few minutes, Levi sighs. “Let me know if you hear from him, okay? Everyone is pretty pissed. We had a full schedule today.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t understand. What could he have to take care of that he wouldn’t want us to know about?”

  Levi shakes his head. “All I can say is he better be back before the show. I might be able to hold off one or two, but I don’t think I’ll be able to stop all of his brothers from killing him.”

  I try to stay busy, hoping it will keep the anxiousness at bay, but I’m fighting a losing battle. What could Daltrey possibly be doing? It’s not like him to take off without a word, and it’s definitely not like him to shirk his responsibilities to the band. It took him weeks to build up the resolve needed to get yesterday off from work. Why would he follow that with a vanishing act?

  A cold feeling of dread begins to wind its way through my stomach. What if there’s a good reason for him taking off? What if it has something to do with me? Could he be freaking out about what happened between us?

  I’ll be back as soon as I can. Those were his last words to me this morning. What the hell could have happened between then and now to change his mind?

  ***

  The girls and I finish up with our prep work about an hour after Levi drops his bombshell. I still haven’t heard a word from Daltrey.

  I’m relieved when Levi returns as we’re leaving the venue. But my hopes that he might have news are dashed as soon as he gets close enough to see his face.

  “Hey,” he says, his hands in his pockets. “You guys finished?”

  “Yup,” Karen says, rolling her shoulders. “We’re going to be short on styles twenty-three and seventeen in the next few days.”

  He takes out his phone and enters the information. “Thanks, I’ll talk to Dan about the orders.”

  “What are you doing?” Paige asks, peering at his face. I can tell that she reads the same thing from his expression: he’s stressed out.

  “I was just going to start inventory on some equipment,” he says. “You guys want to help?”

  “Sure,” Karen says. “All of this physical work has done amazing things for my arms. I haven’t had to work out in weeks. This shit is better than a Jillian Michaels DVD.”

  Levi leads us to the equipment trailer. Once he has the girls started on counting various cords and wires, I grab his arm and pull him a few feet away. “Still nothing?”

  “Nothing. Everyone is freaking out. They had their second session with that Rolling Stone interviewer today. They had to tell him that
Dalt was sick, and they would make sure to set up a time for a one-on-one interview later in the week, but the guy was not happy about it.”

  “I just don’t get it,” I say. “Did something happen at the meeting? Was he fighting with Cash or something?” I once again remember him promising that he would be back. “Did he, uh, say anything about us?”

  Levi looks at me sharply. “Like what?”

  I shrug, totally uncomfortable. “We spent the day together yesterday. I just wondered if maybe I did something to upset him.” I think of freaking out all over his beautiful Empire State Building surprise and of all the things I confessed last night. My stomach clenches in embarrassment. What if he decided in the cold light of day that I was too broken to deal with?

  “Did he seem upset to you?” Levi asks, his eyes boring into mine.

  “No,” I say quickly. I’m not about to tell him about spending the night with Daltrey.

  He looks as if he wants to ask something more, but Mr. Ransome approaches us from the other end of the parking lot.

  “Daisy,” Daltrey’s dad says, his voice brisk, “I’m glad I found you. Do you have a minute?”

  I look at Levi helplessly then nod and follow Mr. Ransome over to the band bus. He and I have never been particularly close, even in all the years I spent hanging around his house. He tolerated me for the most part, I think, because he knew how much Daltrey relied on me. Beyond that, though, I was pretty sure he considered me someone who was just in the way. Since I rejoined the boys on the tour, he’s barely spoken two words to me. Then again, he always seems to be rushed, so maybe it’s not personal.

  Or maybe it is. As soon as we step onto the bus, he turns to face me. The anger and suspicion are clear in his eyes.

  “I’d like to know what exactly happened between you and Daltrey yesterday.”

  I clear my throat. I’m having trouble meeting his eyes, all my insecurities flooding back at the first indication of anger. “Um… we spent the day sightseeing in New York.”