I stopped breathing for a second. Was she giving me a pass? Again? And…was she saying she wanted to…? “Kiera, are you asking me to…do you want me to make love to you?”

“Yes,” she whispered, and my body instantly responded. She wanted to close our distance with sex? Would that work? I often used sex as a distraction; I knew it was a tentative solution at best. But it was far preferable to opening up, especially since I couldn’t seem to do that anyway.

Her next words made me stop caring about her reasons; they made my brain shut off completely. “Make me feel it, Kellan…make me feel like your wife…”

My eyes fluttered closed as the words seared my body, seared my soul. My wife. I’d never heard two better sounding words in all my life. “Oh God, Kiera…I want you so much…” I miss you so much.

“I don’t know what to do, Kellan.”

The ache in her voice had me groaning, straining. Unzipping my jeans, I told her exactly what I wanted her to do. Our problems could wait…we needed this.

Chapter 28

VISITORS

I had to admit…I felt better after the sex. It did help connect us again, and while there was still way too much crap between us, the gap didn’t feel quite so large as before. A bridge had been built. Now I just had to make sure I didn’t accidentally burn it to the ground. I needed to see her. But the band still had so much to do…

“How many more songs do we need, Matt?” I asked, once again feeling weary to the bone.

Matt tilted his head. “Six maybe?”

Groaning in annoyance, I slumped forward in my chair. “Can you just pick them? My head hurts…”

Matt sighed as he glanced at Evan. “No. It needs to be a group decision, Kell.”

I slowly shook my head. “Why did I have to write so many fucking songs…?”

Evan smiled at me. “I think the better question is, why did you have to write so many great songs? If you could just stop being so talented, this wouldn’t be so hard.”

I pursed my lips at that. “I need a break. I’m going back to the bus.”

Matt studied me for a second, then nodded. “Okay, but Lana wants to record the song tomorrow night, so we have to pick one tomorrow morning.”

Running a hand down my face, I nodded. “Yeah, sure…”

We were backstage, sitting by ourselves trying to get some work done. Well, the three of us were working. Griffin had a girl on his lap, and he was paying more attention to her than us…but at least he was there. The girl tracked me with her eyes when I stood up. Hopefully she didn’t leave when I did; I didn’t need Griffin’s pissiness right now.