Jesus.

My head. My heart. The pressure building between my thighs... My body's betraying me in every way it's able to today.

My phone vibrates, startling me, with a text from Vera: You need to come to work-right now. TRUST ME!!

A glance at the clock tells me I'm already really late for my shift. The VIP crowd will be let in within the hour. But I force myself to leave and I head in BackBar's direction, anyway. It takes me forever. Stupid traffic. And when I finally arrive, I'm still breathing heavily. I pull into a parking spot and sit, for a few extra moments, trying to get myself together. But my mind is too filled, my emotions spin too violently. Gage and Zoey.

Zoey and my Gage.

Except he isn't really my Gage. I told him I didn't want anything serious. Then I kissed someone else and told Gage about it. Of course he took me at my word about not wanting more with him. Why wouldn't he?

Still, I ache all over. In my gut. In my heart. Even at the pulse points of my wrists.

This is exactly what I was trying to avoid. Feeling things. All I wanted was to have fun, and instead, I'm a wreck.

This summer, this stupid, stupid summer, is not turning out to be the escape I wanted. And now it's halfway over and I have to go back to school soon and...I don't even know if I want to go back to school.

Especially after giving up the internship.

For the first time, I wonder if I've made a huge mistake. I bragged about the internship before I left North Carolina. My classmates were jealous-and I kind of loved it. Jesus. Could I have been more arrogant? Now I have to go back and admit I passed it up. There's not a single person who won't think I'm an idiot.

I am an idiot.

I don't want to think about this anymore, not any of it-that's one thing I'm sure of. So I head into work, ready to lose myself in the ebb of pre-VIP fans. Hoping I'm too late for my shift to see Luca before the show.

Though the parking lot and amphitheater entrance are loud and jammed with people, the space inside the patio is calm, mostly empty. None of the band is here anymore; they must all be getting ready. The song of the opening act, Paranoid Orange, booms over from the amphitheater.

There's only one guy sitting at the bar, grabbing a beer from Clark. I cut across toward them, but Jared calls my name from the deck.

He's fiddling with the microphone stand and pauses to scowl at me when I approach. "Feeling better, I take it?"

Oh. Right. Vera told him I was sick. But if she covered for me, why did she tell me it was so important to come in? "Yeah. Sorry I'm late."

"Where's your shirt?"

Shit. I glance down, tugging at the hem of the tank top I'm wearing instead of my employee polo. "I forgot."

"I guess it doesn't matter." He stands, his knees cracking, and hops down to where I stand. "Your boyfriend is-"

"Gage is not my boyfriend." It's never felt more like the truth.

Jared rolls his eyes. "I'm not talking about him-but where is Gage? He's late, too... Did you guys spend the day getting it on or something? And if so, I won't dock you for lying about being sick if you give me details."

"Uh, no. On both accounts. Don't be such a skeeze, Jared." I have no patience to deal with him right now. I wonder if Zoey's late, too. If she's scheduled today. Maybe she's got Gage playing hooky the way I planned to.

"Hey!" Vera joins us and flicks a finger against Jared's chest. "Did you tell her the news yet?"

"I'm about to." He sighs. "Your boyfriend, Luca James, is a real pain in my ass."

I don't bother to respond, but Vera bounces on her toes and nudges Jared with her finger again. "Tell her already!"

"He got you off for the night."

"He...what?" My mind immediately goes to a place it shouldn't, thinking about Luca getting me off, and the smirk across Jared's face tells me he knows exactly what's on my mind. I frown, clenching my jaw until the images in my head fade.

"He wants you backstage before the show!" Vera practically squeals. "And front row seats for the concert-and he got them for me and Teagan, too!"

"Teagan's here?" I glance around, but don't see her anywhere.

"That's what you're thinking about right now?" Vera shakes her head, disappointed in me. "You really are weird."

I almost laugh. Almost. But the sad truth is that my brain can't make sense of much at the moment. Luca wants to see me. Gage is with Zoey. Teagan's somewhere around here. I miss my parents. I have no idea what I'm doing with my life.

"...went back with Norris already," Vera's saying when my attention makes its way back to her. She points across the patio, to the guy sitting at the bar. "Luca left his manager here to take you back with him."

"I'm not hiring college girls anymore. You're all way too unreliable." Jared stalks away from us.

"Blah, blah," Vera watches him, shaking her head again, but grinning, too. "He's jealous."

"Of me?"

"Wow-no." Her smile falls and she looks at me like she can't believe how self-obsessed I am-and she's right. I want to eat my insensitive words. "He's jealous of me because I'm not falling all over him anymore."

"Right. Sorry. I'm sorry." I take her hand and squeeze it. "I'm not thinking straight today."

"Whatever. It's cool." She twists her hand out of mine, though, so I'm not sure I believe her. I don't blame her. "Let me introduce you to Marx."

Luca's manager, Marx, beer bellied and surly, takes me backstage in a completely different way than I went last night, and loops me straight to Luca's dressing room.

"He's in there," he tells me, gruffly. "Hurry up with him. The opening act, whoever they are, is halfway through their show."

"Paranoid Oranges," I say. But he's already turned back the way we came. "Such a nice guy," I mutter after him.

Then I take a deep breath and knock on Luca's door.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE.

Luca opens the door to his dressing room, yanks me inside, and pulls me into his chest so fast I nearly twist an ankle.

"Hey." The word squeezes from my mouth as the tightness of his grip makes it hard to breathe. "I can't br -"

He swallows the rest of my words in a kiss.

A hot, heavy, rough kiss.

And I give it right back to him. The pressure of his mouth on mine, the tight grip of his hand around the back of my neck, the solidness of his abs against my body-it's like an explosion erupts beneath my skin. I need it. His mouth. This kiss. I crave it. I can't drink him in fast enough.

I need more. I need to stop replaying Gage and Zoey in my mind.

I shove my hands against Luca's chest and push him backward, stepping in sync with him, until the backs of his legs hit the front of a couch and he falls back into it, taking me with him. And in one twist he's on top of me, my back pressed against the arm of the couch. One of us bites my lip in the process, but the pain barely registers; in fact, I almost like the sensation. Still, he pulls up, away from me, breathing heavy.

"Well that was unexpected." I drag a finger across my lip, enjoying the tingle remaining there.

"Where were you?"

"Somewhere that doesn't matter now." Still high from the exhilaration rushing through my veins, I reach out to stroke a finger across his forehead and down his cheek. It comes away damp. "You're sweaty."

"I've been pacing. I had an idea I wanted to tell you, but then you didn't show up. You're throwing me off my game, Cassie." He glares at me, but the upward twist at one corner of his mouth tells me he's not truly mad. "I didn't think you were coming."

I try to bite back a smile and fail. "Guess that doesn't happen to you very often?"

"Patience isn't my strong suit." He tugs at the collar of his T-shirt. It's black with the diagram of a skeleton across the front-something I'd usually think worked only on Halloween, but he makes it look good in July-and the sleeves are cut off, so that his tattoos stand out more than ever. I fist my hands against my stomach to keep from running them along the art on his skin. And I clamp my tongue between my teeth for the same reason. But that doesn't help. I scoot off of the couch and cross the room to perch on a stool, a safe distance away.

Now that I'm too far away to give in to sliding my tongue along his skin, I release it to say, "What's your idea?"

"Maybe I don't want to tell you anymore."

"Fine. Have it your way." I laugh at his petulant expression. "But for the record, I didn't know you arranged for me to have tonight off to hang out with you, so I didn't know there was a need to rush."

"But you knew you'd be seeing me. I thought you'd rush anyway." He stands and prowls, not unlike a sleek jungle cat, toward me. Stopping short of the blockade in front of me, created by my pressed together knees.

It's very, very hard to keep my eyes on his. "You're lucky I'm not mad about losing the money I could have made."

"You didn't even show up for your shift."

I lean toward him a little bit, raising my brows. "Which is why I'm not mad."

"Good. Because I've been thinking..." He trails off, watching my face.

His hesitation makes my stomach jump for some reason. I watch his face for a clue. "Yes?"

"I want you to come on the road with me." He puts his hand on my thigh, as though to steady me. Which, a moment later when his words sink in and threaten to rock me off the stool, is a welcome thing.

"You don't..." I stutter. What am I trying to say here? "I mean, we haven't even had..." I can't bring myself to talk about having sex. It's too clinical. Too awkward. Isn't that the point, though? Isn't that why someone like Luca James would invite someone on the road with him? For sex?

"But we will," he says, catching what I couldn't say aloud, his hand sliding a little higher.

I should push him off. Instead my legs slide the barest fraction of an inch further apart, making my next words a lie. "You shouldn't sound so certain."

"No pressure, Cassie. But I'm pretty good at reading people-at reading you." His hand inches a little higher. My legs slide a little wider and he closes the space between us, his hips against my knees. "I want to spend more time with you. If you get naked with me, all the better. If you don't...well, I'll be sad and I'm pretty sure we'll miss out on some pretty fucking awesome moments. But I'll live. All you have to do is say the word if you want me to stop." He pushes my knees farther apart with his hips.

My entire body revs, with him between my legs this way. He drums his fingers along the inside of my thigh, watching my face, intently. "I don't think you want me to stop."

I'm going to tell him to stop.

I am.

He should stop-and I can't go on the tour with him. (Though my mind is reeling at the invitation.) I open my mouth to tell him, but at this exact moment my brain reminds me that Gage is with Zoey right now. It's just a blip of a thought and it's dismissed almost before I'm finished thinking it. But the reminder is there and so instead, "Don't stop," slides out of my mouth.

His eyelids shutter halfway and he looks out at me, all smoke and smolder, from under long dark lashes. "The things you make me want to do, Cassie. You have no idea..."

My entire body goes hot, blazing.

He slides one hand around the small of my back and the other slowly skims the rest of the way up the inside of my thigh. And he begins to work his thumb along the lining of the denim between my legs, the pressure growing heavier with each trail, back and forth, back and forth.

If his hand wasn't at my back, there's no doubt I'd melt right off the stool. I should swallow, I need to swallow, but my mind won't work enough to let it happen.

"Tell me you'll think about it." Back and forth, back and forth.

"I can't." I can't think about anything-I can barely remember to breathe-while his thumb traces me the way it's doing now.

"Yes, you can."

"I can't run away from my life." But in the back of my mind, in the one distant area that isn't about to lose itself in what Luca's doing to me, I remind myself that it's exactly what I've done so far this summer. Going on the road with Luca... Isn't that just another level of escape? I could leave. I could avoid watching Gage and Zoey at work-and the constant reminder that she opened her heart when I couldn't.

I could avoid running into my parents.

I could avoid being in the same town where my brother is buried.

"Cassie." Luca leans in until his mouth is less than a whisper away from mine. "Come with me." His breath, cool and fresh, washes over me. And ping, ping, ping, the nerves under my skin jump toward him, like little magnets drawn to the allure of his ridiculous face.

"Why?" There. A logical question. "Why do you want me to come with you?"

He sighs. "Because I like you. I like spending time with you. I like your sass-and I really like to make you blush."

"Because girls don't ever say no to you, and now I've become a challenge?" I have no doubt this is part of it, at least. And...I'm not entirely sure that I care. At the moment, all I really care about is the warmth blooming in my belly. The tingles flowing along the path his thumb creates between my legs.

He doesn't deny my words. "Because I can't stay here to get to know you better, to get to keep doing things like this"-his thumb presses a little harder, back and forth, back and forth, oh, God-"because I leave tomorrow and that's not enough time with you."

"I..." I need to tell him no. But my toes are curling and my stomach is filling with flutters. If I tell him no, he'll stop doing what he's doing and that is the last thing I want right now. "What would I even do if I came with you?"

"Whatever you want." His hand at my back presses harder against me, like the force will make me say yes.

Whatever I want. No worries. No cares... "I have a job here."

"So? If it's about the money-I'll find a job for you on the road. You could...you could help with my campaign."

His campaign. Against drugs.

Something so, so important to me.

But that doesn't sit right, because, "I know why you want me to come with you. I know where I'd spend my nights. I wouldn't take money for that."