He barked out an even deeper laugh.“Okay, forget my idea, that’s a much better one.Let me get some feet on.Wait, maybe shagging first, then bus stealing, then more shagging.”
 
 “No.”She nervously wetted her lips.“I mean…no.I didn’t mean to say that.I don’t know why I said that.Forget I said that.”
 
 “I am never forgetting you said that.Any time, you just give me the nod, and I’ll be ready to enact it.”
 
 “Stealing buses is bad.”
 
 “Well at least you didn’t say shagging me is bad.”
 
 Shagging him definitely wasn’t.It was simply forbidden.
 
 Paul let his bent leg flop to the side, which dragged the edge of the towel around his waist apart, revealing the tail of his dragon curled around the inside of his thigh.The knot around his waist held… just about.
 
 Unlike her.
 
 “You don’t need to use the force, Castle.You can just ask me to undo it, and I will.You can drink your fill, touch, tease.I’m yours to treat as you will.”
 
 The sad… unbearably… frustrating thing was that he meant it.Truly meant it.Providing she didn’t compromise his core principles; he’d do anything to make her happy.She wasn’t even sure what that looked like.Not so long ago, she’d been very certain what happiness was—hadn’t she?It hadn’t been a distant speck on the horizon that jumped position whenever she blinked.Why were her feelings running amok?
 
 She’d chosen.
 
 She did love Nash.
 
 Nothing was going to change.So why did it feel as though she was stuck on a runaway train, hurtling towards a set of points?One leg of the fork led to a cliff edge and the other to utopia, but it was impossible to tell which was which.
 
 Paul feathered his fingertips over the fold of the towel.
 
 “Don’t.”
 
 “Don’t, what?”
 
 Loosen the towel.Treat her to what her eyes were virtually popping out of her skull to see.
 
 “Get dressed?I mean sure, I’ll lay about semi-naked for you some more if you like, Castle, but didn’t you invite your—”
 
 “Yes.I mean, yes, you should put some clothes on before Nash arrives.”She didn’t need Nash putting naked man and his girlfriend together and reaching an answer that wasn’t three…fuck…two.“I’d rather not have my relationship implode.”
 
 The way Rock Giant sucked his tongue suggested he’d have rather less issue with that.
 
 “Paul.”
 
 He gave a sultry blink.“Old Joy Division gets jealous of you ogling other men, does he?That must make life tricky, given you’re sharing a bus with him and three buddies.”
 
 Nash never worried about her looking at them.Maybe because they were his bandmates, and he trusted them.What did that say about their relationship, though?He trusted his bandmates, but not her?He wasn’t threatened by his bandmates?He’d realised that rebuking her for catching the occasional glimpse of willy or naked butt cheeks would be hypocritical, considering his current favourite pastime was watching them fuck groupies?Not that he wasn’t frequently hypocritical, if she thought about it.“Don’t assume you know what our relationship is like.”
 
 He nodded.
 
 “Please get dressed.”
 
 “I’m working on it.”
 
 But not in any sort of timely fashion.He reached for the joggers, drew them up his legs excruciatingly slowly.To his shins, to his knees, then thighs.Her heart hammered, anticipating the rap of Nash’s knuckles on the suite door, then him entering to find her gawping at a still mostly naked man.
 
 She squeezed her eyes closed as Paul undid the towel.
 
 “All covered.You can look.”
 
 While he’d certainly covered his gear stick, that layer of thin cotton hid nothing.The soft grey fabric stretched taut across his abs.Dammit, she could count the sodding rungs of his ladder from the lowest barbell near his balls all the way up to near his navel and the Prince Albert through his tip.Nine.Damn!Nine.