Worth the Trouble Read online

  “My mom’s home,” I whispered, as Tyler kissed his way down my throat. “We’ll have to be quiet.”

  “You’ll have to be quiet,” he reminded me with a chuckle. “Let’s see how you do.”

  Then he covered my nipple with his mouth. I bit my lip to keep from crying out and dug my nails in his shoulder—punishment for teasing me. Tyler hadn’t shaved all week and he rubbed his stubble over my skin, leaving a trail of beard-burn down my belly. He dipped his tongue into my navel, a little preview, and I shivered.

  “Tyler,” I whispered, pushing him lower, lower. I groaned when he went past his implied destination to nuzzle my thighs with his prickly pre-beard. “Oh God, please…”

  “Please what?” He parted my thighs with his palms, kissing my inner thigh between his fingers. “Tell me.”

  “Ty…” I pleaded, my fingers moving through his hair—it was longer than usual, because Album was set during the seventies, when guys let it grow. I made a fist in it, pressing my hips up. “I’m begging you…”

  “Not yet, you’re not.” He grinned up at me from between my legs.

  “Is that what you want?” I asked. “To make me beg?”

  “Say it.” He parted me with his fingers, splaying my pussy open, taking in the sight. I could feel his breath, warm against my sex, and shivered. God, I wanted his mouth.

  “I want your mouth,” I whispered, rocking my hips. “Please, lick me.”

  “Mmmm, good girl,” he praised, and then he dove in.

  And I cried out, surely loud enough for my mother to hear, if she was listening or nearby, but by then, I didn’t care. I felt Tyler chuckle at my response, but I didn’t care about that either, because his skilled tongue was making my hips tilt and my nipples harden and my juices flow down toward the mattress.

  “Don’t stop,” I whispered, both my hands in his hair now, making the same circles with my pelvis that he was making with his tongue. “Oh fuck! Ty!”

  “Mmmm!” he managed, but there was no other response, because I was coming all over his face, panting and gasping and quivering all over. I managed to bite back a scream by throwing my forearm arm over my mouth and literally biting down.

  God, he made me crazy. He made me a slave to my lust for him. It was shameless, the way he made me beg and wiggle and squirm.

  “My turn.” Tyler rose up over me, kissing me on the mouth, forcing his tongue in, making me taste myself. I sucked greedily at his tongue, feeling the heat of his erection through his boxers, hard against my thigh.

  “Gimme,” I gasped when we parted, my hand already snaking under the elastic of his boxers to grasp him in my fist.

  “All yours, baby,” he assured me, letting me push him to his back on the mattress, lifting his hips as I yanked his boxers down. His cock sprang free, beautifully hard, making my mouth water in anticipation.

  “Now it’s your turn to be quiet.” I gave him an evil grin and he laughed, but that stopped when I slid him into my mouth. I loved watching his face when I sucked him, the way he drew his lower lip between his teeth, the way his brow started to knit the closer he got to coming. He let out a low moan when I took all of him—as much as I possibly could, anyway—deep into my throat.

  “Fuck,” he whispered, opening his eyes to watch me come up on his length, stopping to trace my tongue around the head. He shuddered when I did that, grabbing a handful of my hair.

  “Shhh,” I reminded him, licking the frenulum, teasing, back and forth. “Gotta be quiet, remember?”

  “Stop talking.” He pressed my head down. “Keep sucking.”

  So, I did, no longer teasing. I sucked him—long, hard, cheek-hollowing strokes from tip to base. Tyler managed to keep his groans to a minimum, although the hand in my hair got tighter and tighter as he guided me up and down his length, setting my pace. I loved it when he did that.

  “Wait, wait,” he gasped, pulling me off. My lips felt swollen and hot from the friction. I looked up at him through half-closed eyes, feeling my pussy throbbing, aching for him. “I want to fuck you.”

  “This bed makes too much noise,” I reminded him hoarsely, although my clit quivered just thinking about having him inside of me. We’d tried fucking the first night we were here, but the mattress squeaked like there was a mouse trapped between it, so we’d resigned ourselves to quieter versions of sex for the week, at least when my mother was home.

  “I can fix that.” Tyler got up, taking me with him.

  My mother had bought all new furniture for the “guest bedroom,” as it was now called—funny, my older brother’s room had been left exactly the same, but my room had become the “guest bedroom”—and that set included a bed, two night stands, and a long dresser with a mirror attached.

  “What are you doing?” I whispered, glancing at the closed door as Tyler put his arms around me, edging me backwards.

  “Fucking you,” he growled, grabbing my ass in both hands and lifting me until I was sitting on the dresser. It was the perfect height.

  “Ty!” I hissed his name, my arms going instinctively around his neck, clinging. “Wait.”

  “No.” His cock rode the seam of my slit, up and down. “Put your legs over my shoulders.”

  “Put my… what?”

  Tyler shifted his weight, sliding his arms under my knees, forcing my feet up over his shoulders, folding me practically in half.

  “Oh God, Ty,” I panted, but then he was inside me, filling me.

  I moaned—not softly either—as he started to fuck me, deep and hard. The dresser rocked a little, but the mirror had been anchored to the wall, so there was no banging of a headboard, no squeaking of the bedsprings.

  “Harder,” I whispered, meeting his eyes, so dark with lust it made me feel faint. “Fuck me, Ty. Fuck me harder.”

  He did, driving deeper, bottoming out with each thrust. My clit ached, and I reached down with one hand—keeping the other looped around his neck for balance—rubbing furiously. He moaned when I did that, hips pistoning into me like a machine.

  “Gonna come,” he panted, voice hoarse. “Oh baby, I can’t… I can’t—”

  “Yessss!” I hissed, my pussy already starting to spasm. I was so wet, I was sure my juices were dripping down the front of my mother’s new cherry wood dresser, and we were about to christen it even further.

  “Come for me,” he groaned, fucking me so hard he forced my breath out in short, hot pants. “Come for me, now!”

  I did, grinding back against him, my heels digging into his shoulders, feeling his cock pulsing deep inside of me. I felt every hot pulse of his orgasm, and I was glad that he captured my mouth with his, drowning both our moans of pleasure in a hard, desperate, greedy kiss. We shuddered and clung to each other.

  Tyler grabbed my hips, letting my legs down so I could wrap them around his waist, and he carried me like that back to the bed. He didn’t slide out of me, though. He stayed in, putting me on the mattress, shoving me down with his hips as he moved on top of me.

  “I love you, Katie,” he whispered, still moving, his cock only half-hard. “God, I love you.”

  His words made me melt, brought instant tears to my eyes. I couldn’t imagine loving a man more than I loved this one. I felt sorry for other women, who didn’t have Tyler. And God knows, there were plenty who wanted him. But I was the one he wanted. I was the one he’d chosen.

  “I love you, too,” I whispered back, welcoming the weight of him, wanting it all. I felt completely taken by him this way, when he curled his body around me and let himself rut deep, as if he could push all of himself inside of me and stay there.

  His breath grew ragged in my ear, but his movements never increased. It was a slow, easy, delicious sort of fuck, perfectly timed and controlled. The bed springs didn’t make any noise at all, but I did, crying out when he made me come yet again, before he came again, too, whispering my name like the sweetest song in my ear.

  We laid there for a while, just like that, connected, feeling whole and cont
ent. We probably would have fallen back asleep eventually, but then my mother knocked on the door.

  “Katie?”

  “Just a minute, Mom!” I called, trying find the covers—but we were on them.

  “Just wondered if you two wanted to go out for breakfast?”

  I met Tyler’s eyes and shrugged, telling him silently that it was up to him.

  “Sure!” Tyler agreed. “Give us a minute to get ready.”

  We hadn’t gone anywhere out in public since we got here—I think both of us had agreed, without talking about it, that holing up would keep the rest of the world away. There was no paparazzi up here—but if we went out in public, someone could recognize Tyler—even in the Midwest, everyone knew Trouble—and before long, everyone would know where we were.

  “When she says breakfast, she means the local Greasy Spoon,” I said as he climbed off me and reached for his boxers.

  “Nothing wrong with that,” he told me, yanking on his jeans. “I love Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. Everyone needs a little greasy spoon in their lives.”

  “No, I mean literally—the local diner is called The Greasy Spoon.”

  He stopped in mid-button. “You’re kidding.”

  “Serious as a heart attack.” I grinned back at him. “Which is what you’ll have if you eat there.”

  “You know me. I love to live dangerously.” He laughed. “Besides, it will make your mom happy.”

  “Okay, let’s go eat junk food.” I relented. “But not too much. I need these talented hands functional, mister.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  * * * *

  “Rob and Sabrina’s babies are getting so big,” my mother remarked over bacon and eggs. “They sent me a Christmas card. Beautiful family.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Tyler agreed, sopping up his eggs with toast. I was sure the eggs weren’t organic, and I didn’t even want to think about what was in the toast—and the fructose-filled jelly he’d slathered on it—but we were splurging.

  “Tyler, you can call me ‘Mom’,” she admonished, for like the millionth time that weekend.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he agreed, then realized what he’d said and quickly corrected himself. “Uhhh—Mom.”

  “Better.” She laughed. “So… when are you two going to have one?”

  I knew this subject was going to come up eventually. I was surprised she’d waited this long. I caught Tyler’s eye and he shrugged.

  “Twelfth of never.” I gave her a dark look over the rim of my coffee cup.

  “Well, that’s probably best,” she said, stirring sugar into her coffee. Oh, the snark. Gee, thanks, Mom, I thought but didn’t say. Then she looked up and saw the expression on my face. “I just mean, you know, you have so much going on, between Trouble’s tour and the series.”

  Right. What I saw on her face was, “You can barely take care of yourself, let alone a child.”

  But she wouldn’t say that, at least, not in front of Tyler. She’d probably say it later, just to me. She couldn’t hold it back forever—I knew that much. She’d let it slip, one way or another. Luckily, the waitress came over and interrupted the track this conversation was on.

  “If I can get you anything else…” The waitress put the bill down on the table. “Just let me know…”

  “Thanks.” My mother smiled up at her.

  The waitress turned to go, but then she stopped, turning back to look at Tyler.

  “I’m sorry, but… are you…” The waitress glanced across the restaurant, then looked back at Tyler. I knew what was coming. “It’s just… the girls over there at that table were wondering… aren’t you Tyler Cook?”

  My stomach sank when I looked over at the table full of teens, whispering behind their hands and giggling. I met Tyler’s eyes and saw that slight edge was back, a slight stiffness in his shoulders, and cursed my mother’s idea to go to breakfast.

  “What would Tyler Cook be doing here?” I asked the waitress, holding out my half-full coffee mug. “Think you can get me some more coffee? This is cold.”

  “Sure.” The waitress—her name tag said Elaine—gave me a nod, a look of confusion on her face.

  She knew it was Tyler—probably knew who I was, too. Our wedding had been a day of mourning among Trouble and Tyler Cook fans everywhere. But it was hard to contradict someone politely when they said they weren’t who you thought they were. At least, outside of Hollywood. In Hollywood, you couldn’t pretend, like I was now. The spotlights—and the odds—were too good there.

  “It’s not getting any warmer,” I prompted, and Elaine flushed and turned toward the kitchen. The girls looked up at her expectantly as she approached the table, shaking her head, and there was a little outburst of disbelief and more glances our way as she delivered her news.

  “You didn’t have to be rude, Katie,” my mother said, keeping her voice low. “I have to live here. Besides, everyone knows already.”

  “I’m sure they do.” I sighed, seeing the way Tyler’s spine straightened. Waiting for fans to approach was like putting on armor. “I was just buying us a little time. Do you want to go?”

  I was talking to Tyler, not my mother.

  “It’s okay.” He was watching the table out of the corner of his eye, I could tell. So was I. The girls were whispering and talking and gathering up their courage. It wouldn’t take them long before they decided, and then one of them would approach, since their send-the-waitress plan had failed.

  “We just wanted to keep a low profile, remember?” I reminded my mother, who started to protest. “You don’t want a million people swarming the house, do you?”

  “There aren’t anywhere near a million people in these parts, Katie.”

  “It’s just an expression.” I rolled my eyes.

  And then they were coming over. Not one of them, but all four of them.

  “Would you sign my napkin?” The tall one, darkly pretty for a Midwestern girl, clearly the confident ringleader, held out a pen and a clean napkin to Tyler.

  “Sure.” He didn’t deny her—he never did. I was the one who tried to protect him, when I could, from situations like this. The first couple times you had your meal interrupted by a fan weren’t awful, but eventually, it got exhausting. Still, Tyler was always sweet to fans. Too sweet, in my not-so-humble opinion, as I watched him lean over and smile so each girl could take a selfie with him.

  “Thank you so much. You’re the best. You’re bae!” the tall, confident girl gushed, and I gritted my teeth when she quickly stole a kiss from Tyler—on the lips, no less—before running off to join her girlfriends, who were already back, giggling around their table.

  “Bae?” My mother blinked in surprise, clearly taken aback by the whole scene. “What in the world?”

  “It’s a think the kids say,” Tyler told her, smiling over at me. It hadn’t been that long ago that I was one of those “kids,” going to Trouble concerts and screaming myself hoarse. Granted, “bae” wasn’t an expression back then—we called good-looking guys “hotties”—but the sentiment and the silliness were the same.

  “It means ‘before anyone else’,” I told her. “At least, that’s how it started. The kids call their boyfriends and girlfriends ‘bae’.”

  My mother wrinkled her nose. “But they don’t even know you.”

  “They think they do.” Tyler shrugged.

  “Girls say it when they see a cute guy,” I explained. “He’s so bae. Or he’s my bae—even if he’s some celebrity she’s never met.”

  “I think we’d better go.” My mother nodded toward the waitress, who was finally coming back to fill my coffee cup. She didn’t look happy.

  “Oh, she knew I was lying.” I sighed, pushing the chair back from the table. “Ty will make her happy. Come on, Mom, let’s go pay.”

  Of course, Tyler was sweet to the waitress, too, and signed an autograph for her on her pad—and let her take a selfie. I gritted my teeth while I paid the bill and my mother said how kind Tyler was to his fa
ns, and it wasn’t until we were out of the restaurant, headed to the car, that I finally said something.

  “Don’t you get it?” I snapped, as she unlocked the car with her key fob. “Those selfies they took in there? Guaranteed they’ve already been posted to those girls’ Facebook pages or put up on Instagram. We’ve got twenty-four hours, maybe forty-eight, before the press shows up.”

  “Here?” She laughed, but then she saw the serious look on my face. “Surely they wouldn’t come up here…?”

  “Well, it was fun while it lasted, eh?” Tyler said, jogging up to join us. “Thanks for the hospitality, Mom. I really loved staying at your place.”

  “You don’t have to go?” She looked between the two of us, then back at the restaurant, where we could see the girls around the table, all of them with their phones in their hands. “Just because of that?”

  My phone buzzed in my pocket and I sighed. Already?

  “Who is it?” Tyler asked as I pulled it out to check.

  We’d told Rob and Sabrina where we were going, and why—they both assured us they’d handle the fallout and the press for a week or two. Rob even said he’d handle Arnie and the label. Maybe we’d taken advantage of their shock, running away while the devastation was still fresh, but I didn’t really care.

  I looked at my phone, expecting to see Sabrina’s number, but it wasn’t. It was a desperate text.

  I need help. I’m in California. Can I come see you?

  “Who is it?” Tyler peered over my shoulder.

  “It’s Jay.” I blinked back at him. “She’s in California. Looking for us.”

  “Who’s Jay?” my mother asked.

  “It’s a long story.” One I wasn’t going to tell her if I could help it. “We should go home.”

  Tyler sighed. “I guess our vacation’s over.”

  Chapter Three

  We couldn’t fly commercial home. Couldn’t even take the little puddle jumper from the local airport back to Detroit Metro. That’s how fast it happened. We managed to get back to my mom’s place and pack our stuff—all the while, my mother dismissed our fast-acting as paranoia—before the first car appeared in the driveway.