The Rock Star Lost His Voice, and Now He Lip-Syncs to Mine novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Bunk Four

Yuna rides the star's bus for the first time, meets the crew, and at 3 a.m. in the galley sings the bridge he can't hit against his ear while he makes her come. At dawn Bev shows her a fan clip: somebody has noticed the lip-sync.

The inside of the bus smelled like coffee, leather and a lot of men's deodorant.

Bev met me at the top of the steps with a towel and her reading glasses pushed up into her grey hair.

"Bunk four," she said. "Bottom left. Dougie snores, so I'm sorry in advance."

"Is that rule one?"

"Rule one is you stay out of every camera, every lobby and every photo, or Vaughn finds a reason to void you."

She kept going.

"Rule two, nobody on this bus has ever heard you sing. Rule three, you don't talk about the Well on a phone."

"What's rule four?"

"Rule four, Vaughn lost the argument, and he's going to be a bastard about it for a month."

Behind her a very large man with ginger hair and a paisley bandana unfolded himself from the couch.

He was bigger than the drum kit I'd been hearing for nine months.

He looked at me.

"It's her," he said. "Bev, it's actually her."

"Dougie Beck," Bev said. "He drums."

"I've been in love with you for nine months through a wall of foam," Dougie said.

He crushed my hand in both of his.

"Can I say that? Is that allowed on the bus?"

"Sit down, Dougie."

"I'm only saying, that bridge, the one tonight, I nearly dropped a stick."

Fraser MacFarlane sat at the little table at the back with a mug in both hands, not saying anything.

Up close he was bigger than he'd looked in the rain, and quieter.

He watched me.

"Why?" I asked him.

I held up my palm, where the Sharpie had run a little and STAY had gone blue at the edges.

He turned the mug a quarter turn on the table.

"I've heard you every night," he whispered. "I wanted to see who it was."

Then he looked down.

I lay in bunk four with the curtain shut and my hair across my face.

Dougie snored.

At three in the morning we were somewhere in Michigan, I was still awake, and my palm itched.

I went to the galley in my socks and a Pixies shirt.

The only light was the one over the stove.

Fraser stood at the counter in grey sweatpants and nothing else.

A notebook lay open in front of him, and he had a pen in his teeth.

His whole left arm was a fishing net of black ink, and swallows flew up the side of his neck into his beard.

He looked up at me and didn't try to hide that he was looking.

"Can't sleep?" I said.

He shook his head and pushed the notebook toward me.

On the page, in a cramped left-handed scrawl, he'd written the bridge of "Salt Road."

My bridge, with every word I'd hummed in the Well on a bad day in June.

He'd underlined one line.

"Sing it to me," he whispered. "I can't hit it."

"There are people sleeping."

"Quiet, then."

I should have gone back to bed.

Instead I walked up to him and put my hand flat in the middle of his chest, over a tattoo of a ship.

His heart went off under my palm like a kick drum.

"You're going to be quiet," I said. "Not because you can't. Because I said."

His eyes went very dark.

He nodded once.

I hitched myself up onto the counter and opened my knees, and he stepped between them.

He was warm and he smelled like cedar and bar soap, and the hair on his chest scratched my bare thighs.

I took his face in both hands and kissed him.

His mouth was soft under the beard, and he made a sound into mine that was almost a word.

I bit his lower lip, and he shuddered and gripped the counter on either side of me.

"Hands on me," I said against his mouth. "Where I tell you."

I took his right wrist and slid his hand up my leg, under the hem of the shirt, and put it between my thighs.

I wasn't wearing anything under it.

His fingers touched me, and he went still.

"Oh, fuck," he breathed, a wrecked little rasp. "Yuna, you're soaked."

"I've been listening to you breathe through a wall for nine months," I said. "Did you think I wouldn't be?"

He dragged two fingers through my wet and found my clit.

He circled it slow, with a pressure so exact it made my head tip back.

I leaned in and put my mouth against his ear.

"Now the bridge," I said. "Don't stop."

I sang it into his ear, low, barely over the hum of the fridge.

Nobody's coming to carry you.

He slid one finger inside me, then two, and curled them up against the place that makes my toes go.

So carry yourself and sing.

His breath hit my neck in ragged pulls.

He knew where I'd breathe before I did.

His fingers stayed with me line for line, slow where I slowed, pressing in when I went up.

I felt my own voice shake in my chest and travel down his arm.

I grabbed his shoulder and dug my nails in.

"Fraser."

"I've got you."

"Don't you dare stop."

"Never."

I sang the last line with my forehead against his and my thighs locked around his hips.

On the high note I came, hard, with a cry I swallowed against his mouth, his fingers working me through every pulse.

My voice cracked on the note, and for once I didn't care.

I hung onto him and shook.

He held me up with one arm around my back and kissed the corner of my mouth, breathing.

When I could see again, I looked down.

He was hard under the grey cotton, so hard it must have hurt, and he hadn't moved his hips an inch.

I put my palm over him, and his whole body jerked.

"Not tonight," I said.

His head dropped to my shoulder.

"That's cruel," he whispered, and I felt him smile.

"It's an invoice. You're getting billed for the rest."

"Aye." He laughed against my skin, a tight, silent laugh. "I'll pay."

I had sung my whole life to rooms, to machines and to a wall of foam.

I had never once sung for one person, and felt them hear every word.

I slid off the counter, and my legs almost didn't hold.

He caught my elbow, tucked a strand of black hair behind my ear, and let me go.

In the morning Bev woke me by dropping a phone onto my pillow.

"Don't panic," she said.

A fan had filmed last night's "Salt Road" from the third row and slowed it down.

On the screen Fraser's mouth hit every word three frames after the sound.

The clip had four hundred thousand views.

"Somebody noticed," Bev said.

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend