Backstage Pass: Behind the Music (8 page)

Jesse showed up while I was sitting on the couch, still feeling very disheveled and discouraged. He let himself in and without hesitation strode across the room and pulled me into his lap.

“Doing okay?” he asked.

I pressed my face into his neck and shook my head. “Not yet.”

“Can I do anything to help?”

“Nothing will help.”

We sat there for a few minutes while he rubbed my back and sang to me. “I bet I know something that would help.”

He sounded a little too chipper to have a real plan, more like a distraction, which was enough. “What’s that?”

He lifted me to my feet and stood. “Go get dressed. I’m taking you to dinner.” The way he said it made it sound like it was a giant event and he was taking me somewhere fancy.

“I’m not sure I’m up to seeing a bunch of people.”

“This is totally private.” He covered his heart with his hand. “Promise.”

“But what should I wear?”

He
tipped his chin and his soft gaze skittered across my body, warming me with his appreciation. His fingers found mine and he lifted them to his lips.

“
How about something an excited new mom would wear. Or something that makes you feel beautiful, or sexy. Or mine.”

I blushed and ducked my head. “You’re embarrassing me.”

He brushed a stray lock of hair behind my ear. “Good. Because I think you’re all of those things. And I think you’re going to be an amazing mom.”

The backs of his fingers brushed my cheek and I basked in the glow of his attention for one more minute before retreating into the bedroom. I didn’t have a lot of clothes that
made me feel like any of those things that he’d described. But I did have one of Kerri’s sundresses that she’d left after a late-night party. It was jade green with pink and yellow flowers along the hem, and on her it made her look thirteen but I’d always wondered what the cut of the dress would look like on me. I mean, not always wondered, like I was some sort of closet fashionista, but just when I caught a glimpse of it in the closet.

So now I pulled it on, surprised at how the baby doll cut cupped the fabric beneath my breasts then flared out over my invisible pregnant tummy. I twisted quickly left and right, too giddy and silly at how the fabric flared away from my hips. I wasn’t sure where he was taking me, but this dress did fit all of his descriptions. I brushed my hair and pulled my bangs away from my forehead, then swiped gloss across my lips.

I tried to remember how long it had been since we’d gone out on a date. A real date, not just lounging around here eating popcorn and watching movies. I was a little sad to realize it had been weeks, months. Even before he’d gone on tour. Our relationship had been anything but normal. We’d never had the opportunity to just be two people dating, exploring each others’ worlds and figuring out where we fit.

Our dating life had been one series of complications after another. I didn’t see how being pregnant was going to change that, but tonight was a nice start. I hoped. Easy to say when I had no idea what he had planned.

I came out into the living room, finally pulled together so that I could see past my own drama enough to notice the new jeans he’d been wearing and how the dark denim clung to his thighs and dipped sensually in the middle of his stomach.

Though I hadn’t meant to, and hadn’t even noticed, I’d pick a dress that matched perfectly with
his button-up shirt. I hoped that didn’t make us too much of an old couple already.

If Jesse noticed my targeted couple matching, he didn’t say anything, just smiled and held his hands out for me. “You look stunning. A beautiful mother-to-be
.”

I grinned back this time, not embarrassed by his compliment. There was something pretty cool and fantastic about being a future mom. “Are you going to tell me where we’re going?”

He curled my hands through his arm and led me out to the car. “No. I don’t think so. I think I’m going to make it a surprise.”

I shrugged, content to go anywhere he wanted to take me. Especially considering the dress code he’d established for the evening.

He rolled down the windows and a warm breeze tickled my hair as he wound us through town. His fingertips grazed my knee and gently stroked back and forth. I was so glad he wasn’t pressuring me to talk about Mom and what had happened. Even thinking about it reopened the wound, so I turned my face to the window and watched the trees go by.

He drove us past
the university and into neighborhoods I didn’t recognize, but ones I had silently envied as I’d made my way through random landscape architect papers and exams. There were some pretty amazing designers here, and ones I hoped to work for after finishing school, but now I wasn’t sure what was next for me or for school.

As he drove us deeper into the neighborhood, I couldn’t help wondering where in the world he was taking us. There weren’t any restaurants up here, at least none that I knew of.

The road curved hard to the left and he slowed, but then turned right onto a barely noticeable driveway—if it could even be called that. I clamped down on his wrist and peered out the window. “Jesse, this isn’t a road!”

He laughed. “Oh it is, just not a very good one yet.”

The winding narrow drive ducked beneath overgrown trees and horribly neglected native shrubs and grasses that were probably amazing when this whole thing was first designed assembled. But not anymore. No one has cared for this land for a long, long time. It made me sad. The drive dumped us out into a construction zone and I’m utterly stunned.

There were tractors and giant mound
s of dirt and a pile of lumber. “What in the world . . .?” I clutched his hand and stared out the window, trying to figure out where and why he’d brought us here.

Stranger than all the construction stuff was the food truck with fat ball
oony letters that declared it the “Waffle House.” I didn’t understand. At all.

He laughed and climbed out of the car and made his way around and opened my door. My mouth just opened and closed and hung open for a bit longer. “I don’t think we’re supposed to be here,” I whispered.

He kissed my cheek. “It’s fine. I promise.”

I refused to budge, planting my feet deep into the freshly turned earth. “This is someone’s house.”

“I know the owner. He said it was cool.”

“Oh.” I looked around with fresh eyes and felt less like a trespasser. “You’re sure?”

“Promise. Want a waffle?”

The driver of the waffle truck was nowhere to be seen, but as we rounded the back of the bright blue truck his head poked out
of the side window like he’d been waiting for us. “Good evening. What can I get ya?”

Jesse eased behind me and linked his arm around my waist while
we both checked out the menu. As I stared at the menu board I thought perhaps I’d died and gone to heaven. They had a waffle for every single kind of person and I wanted one of each. There were the standard issue waffles with fruit like strawberries and blueberries in it, and then there were some crazier flavors like ham and bacon cooked into the waffle batter. One even had tequila in it—which I totally would have tried if I weren’t pregnant.

He kissed my temple. “Know what you want yet?”

“How can I choose?”

“He’s going to be here for a bit, you want to start with one and we can go around the back of the house and eat and then come back for a different one?”

I beamed up at him. Did this guy know the way to my heart or what? “How about I start with two? I want a blueberry one and the bacon.”

The chef slapped his hand on the counter with a giant grin. “And for you sir?”

“Hard to go wrong with an order like that. Make it two.”

The waffles were done in a
jiffy, and we carried our Styrofoam plates to the end of the truck where a giant crate of syrup awaited me. “Oh my!”

“Sure is a good thing you never met this guy when you were still single.”

I smiled. “Guess you better mind your manners then.”

We teased each other as he led me around construction
paraphernalia and into the backyard—or what used to be the backyard—now it was a giant overgrown disaster. There were neglected planter boxes now overgrown with weeds and plenty of uncared-for shrubs. We found a small concrete bench in the middle, and as I sat down I imagined what this probably used to look like. I really hoped the new owners were going to put in the time and effort to restore it to its amazing glory. I shoveled a corner of the waffle into my mouth and twisted around to look at the house. Three giant balconies overlooked the yard. “This is a ton of work. But it’s going to be really amazing when it’s done.”

Jesse nodded and dun
ked his waffle in my pool of syrup.

“Hey!” I twisted away. “Get your own syrup.”

“I didn’t think there was enough for both of us.”

“Ha.” It only stung a little that that was mostly true. “Did you know the waffle truck was going to be here?”

Red tipped the edges of his ears. “Maybe.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Did you call
him so he’d be here to meet us?”

“Maybe.”

I leaned into him, shoving him over with my shoulder. “You’re a nut. Who takes a girl out to dinner to an abandoned house with a food truck?”

He ducked his head and broke off another corner of his waffle. “
One who knows what her girl likes, I think.”

Even though we were still on somebody else’s property, there was something domestic and fun about it.
And honestly, we were too far gone for normal dates. “This is quite a standard to set for the future.”

He laughed. “Oh yeah, tough to overcome a construction worksite.” I could tell it meant a lot to him that I liked the amount of thought he’d put into this, and I did. I really really did. No one else would have put this together quite like this. The house thing was still a
little strange, but it was cute and definitely private.

I gorged myself on the waffle and finished the second in record time. I was
definitely not going to have a problem keeping this kid fed.

Jesse t
ook my plate. “You want another?”

I nodded and held up two fingers. He did a pretty good job of not being shocked.
“Two?” I smiled around my mouthful of syrup and waffle. He leaned in and kissed me. “You’re so damn sexy.”

I couldn’t keep the blush off my cheeks this time. He said it like he meant it, not like he was teasing a chick who’d just stuffed a thousand calories in her face.

“Back with two more waffles. Any kind or do you want a certain one?”

I shrugged and tried not to keep from laughing and sucking it down my throat.
“Any,” was all I could manage, then I swallowed. “The chocolate one though.”

“Syrup?”

I lifted an eyebrow and he laughed. “Just checking.”

After he left, I
couldn’t take it anymore and I got off the bench and wandered along the flagstone pathways. They’d been laid with diligent care. I bent over and brushed the fallen, decaying leaves and debris away. There was still a bit of moss stuck between a few of the rocks, but it would take forever to get it to fill in. I stood and planted my hands in the small of my back. What a fun project this would be to take on. Totally overwhelming, but this was why I’d always been into landscape architecture—the creation of spaces that brought out the curiosity in someone to see what was around the next bend and what tiny flowers were hidden in the curve of shade from a shrub. From the moment I’d met Jesse, far too much of this stuff had fallen by the wayside. I’d put it on the back burner on simmer, did the bare minimum to get through my classes, and forgot why I’d pursued it as a career in the first place.

If Jesse really did know the owner of the house, maybe he’d let me talk to them about designing the remodel of this. I really really wanted to take it on.

I paid the waffle guy and sent him on his way, waiting at the top of the drive to make sure we were alone before heading back to Sasha.

When
I rounded the corner, she took my breath away. The light was falling, casting soft shadows across the yard.

When I
’d bought the property, it hadn’t been for the house. I’d bought it for the yard. For Sasha. It had been a complete impulse buy, and now seeing her in it I wished I’d have done it the right way instead of buying it to ease my guilt. I wished I would have waited and brought her up here and let her decide if it was something she wanted. Sometimes I forgot that she didn’t always want me to do everything for her. I didn’t even know her style or what kind of a house or yard or bedroom set she wanted. I’d just imagined her here, like she was right now, creating a masterpiece of the yard and somewhere for us to hide away from the world and the chaos and just be ourselves.

But
I wasn’t going to try and buy my way out of anything ever again. Starting with this house. It had been an easy place to run for the night because I knew no one would bother us up here—and the waffle truck had been a genius last minute thought—but I wanted to create our life together. Not with her making decisions about babies—which thank goodness she hadn’t—and me making decisions about their houses.

Part of
me was going to miss seeing her in this yard working, but the disappointment didn’t last long. She’d make an amazing home out of wherever we lived, and with a baby on the way this one was way more work than either of them needed to tackle.

I
jogged down the stone steps to where she’d paused. “It’s a pretty run down place, but you did ask for private.” I tried to joke.

Sasha turned, a delicate blossom in her hands. “Not all of it is run
down. But yeah, it needs some love, that’s for sure.” She stared at the house. “This is such a pretty house. Who’s is it?”

I handed her the plate of waffles and tried to do something
useful with my shaking fingers but only managed to stuff them in my back pockets. I cleared my throat. Then scratched my ear and rubbed the back of my neck.

She narrowed her eyes.
“Jesse?”

“
I’d originally bought it for you, but then after the Camaro didn’t work I thought maybe I should stop trying to buy my way out of the guilt. Please don’t be mad at me. It goes back on the market as soon as the remodel’s done.”

Sasha cocked a hip and stared at the house.
“Or you could keep it . . .”

I held my breath. I did want to keep it. Badly. But only if it was something she wanted. I moved closer and settled my hands on her hips. “It’s going to be a ton of work.”

She shrugged. “I’m going to need stuff to do while you’re on the road.”

“I thought you were coming with me.”

“Then it will be a fun project for us to work on when we’re home. No one will bug us up here. At some point you’re going to get famous and we’re not going to be able to stroll through town. This is pretty secluded.”

“And it’s a good neighborhood. Great schools.”

She chuckled. “You didn’t really check on that.”

I pulled her to me and tucked her head against my chest. “No, but the realtor said so, and they never lie.”

Soft laugher tickled the collar of my shirt. “Do we need to decide right now?”

My hands widened on her back.
“Nope.” I breathed in her scent and for the first time, all the pending things that I should be doing fell away and I needed to be nowhere other than right here.

We stood like that for a long time, deep in the wild forest of the yard in a run-down house that I’d envisioned as our home on a snap decision with my first check for way too much money. It wouldn
’t matter where we lived, Sasha would find a way to make it a home. I wanted a part of her to be able to blossom too. I wanted her to still have a sanctuary, because there might come a day when she got tired of traveling—or I did. And I didn’t want us to have never considered where we’d end up.

I wanted to do so many things right by her.

I wanted to give her the life she’d never had.

I wanted to give our child a life that would never make her regret loving me.

***

He
bought me a house. A whole house. We were going to need to talk about his impulse purchases, but maybe not just yet. The yard was amazing and the house would be. But nothing mattered beyond the three of us. We could do this.

His fingertips drew circles on my skin and I eased closer to him, nuzzling the warm skin on his neck. We still had so many things to tell each other, but right now
I didn’t want to use words. We’d always been able to let our bodies communicate things that we’d never been able to say.

He started to hum a tune, one I’d never heard. It was nice.
Maybe this new part of our relationship could help him write another set of record-breakers. I was sure willing to do my part.

I touched my tongue to his skin, tasting the salt from the warm air.
He inhaled and his fingers tightened, then slid beneath my shirt. We couldn’t really do it right here on the sparse lawn and weeds, and the house wasn’t any better, but I could worry about that later. My lips traveled across his neck, up to his ear. I suckled the lobe, continuing the soft sexy way we’d enjoyed each others’ bodies this morning. Not that I didn’t like when he was rough and eager, but as much as his dominant side thrilled me, the loving side touched me deeply and I was a little more in the mood for that this go around. Even if we didn’t get all the way to the sex.

He moaned and spanned my back with his palms, then flicked the clasp on my bra. I smiled against his neck as I shimmied his shirt higher and over his head. It fell into a rounded
mound of clover and I had to fight the urge to draft a sexy love-making section of this very garden so we could use it again in the future. His thumbs tracked around to the front and grazed my nipples, making them tighten and harden instantly. I inhaled sharply and explored the curve of his shoulders, the new indentations in his arms from dancing and touring night after night.

Even though I didn’t really want to think
about the tour, there were some definite benefits of him being on a strict workout and eating regimen and this body was a fantastic result. I took half a step away and he moaned in complaint. I wanted to see him in the darkening day. The moon hadn’t risen yet and he was a soft outline of perfection. I could have tasted every inch of him but I settled for kissing his shoulder, then winding my way around behind him so I could cup the fullness of his chest as I ground my hips into his perfectly tight ass. “I’m going to need this naked.”

He fumbled with the hardware on his pants so fast I nearly laughed, but it was such a turn-on that I was such a turn
-on. I bit my lip and tried to wait patiently while he hopped on one foot and got his pants in a serious tangle. To keep from laughing and losing the mood, I stripped off my shirt and hooked my thumbs in my waistband.

He tossed his pants over his head and stood there gloriously naked and ready. My mouth dried
out and my tongue quit working. He was so fucking sexy. He returned to me and covered my hands with his, then lowered his mouth and claimed me. I melted into him and we took my pants off together as he laid me down on the springy carpet of grass and moss. My senses were alight with a thousand new sensations.

Overhead, the sky turned violet and
a handful of stars winked their soft light over our bodies. Jesse added musical notes to his seduction and I loved the vibration as he kissed my stomach and suckled my tight nipples. Every few seconds the sky would fill with a million more stars and I thought I was going to implode with the pressure he was building in me. But then he’d move onto a new part of my body and the pressure would subside just enough for him to rekindle it and drive me nearly out of my mind.

I grabbed his hair even though I’d promised myself that I wanted this to be the soft, careful loving instead of the hard frantic mating that I
so desperately craved right now. We were already outside and that called to my primal need to fuck, and fuck hard and wild.

While my insides churned with a hot fire of need, he mellowed me out with soft caresses and kissing. His fingers dipped into me and I bucked my hips hard and high against the pressure.

He wouldn't be coerced. His kisses were gentle and slow and long, perfectly matching the tempo of his fingers and the notes of his song. Then he’d build the trio together, lifting me higher and higher and closer and closer before backing off and letting me ease out of the near edge of the peak and into something I thought I might be able to survive.

But only for an instant before he
showed me another new trick with my body and spiraled my orgasm higher and higher. He swirled his tongue around mine, then retreated, gentling me until I was a big mushy mess in his hands, pliable and moldable into whatever he needed. His naked skin pressed the entire length of mine and I wanted so much more of it. God, I needed him. Now and always.

I
slid my fingers into his hair and tipped my head back, exposing my entire neck. He kissed the length, then rose above me and settled between my legs. I lifted one thigh and curled it around his hip. “I need you.”

He kissed me thoroughly and
nudged my center with his thick head. I squirmed and he guided himself home. My orgasm was nearly instantaneous. Blackness descended over my vision at the same time that a million stars exploded from the center of me and I clamped down hard on the thickness of him.

He moaned and pushed deeper into me. I gripped his shoulders and thought I was going to
lose my hold on my sanity and the earth. We moved together and he lit the bonfire of another orgasm for me so we could climax together. This time I managed to stay grounded into the soft grass beneath me, but the stars grew ever closer until they filled me and I could reach up and touch them.

I felt the indentations of his spine and I couldn’t stop myself from scratching the entire length of his back as he slid in and out of me in a magical rhythm. He touched places of me far beyond the physical and I hadn’t even known they’d existed before tonight. With every thrust, he melded us together like a
molten steel, fitting us together in ways that just weren’t possible without me letting go of who I’d been before and melting into something new and strong with him.

He rose up on his knees and held both my knees against his waist as he loved me deep and strong. I curled my fingers into his thighs and held on for dear life as he pushed the limits of my universe. His chest glistened in the new moonlight, a sheen of our sweat
outlining every muscle and indentation of his body. I didn’t want tonight to end. I wanted us to stay in this cocoon of us forever.

He eased forward onto his hands and slowed, kissing me tenderly and deeply. I would never get enough of the feel of his lips. Every kiss felt like the first step of a mighty exploration and always an invitation to come with him on the trip. I didn’t understand how he did it, but it made me so eager to join him and follow him and let him take me to the most amazing places. So far, he hadn’t disappointed and tonight would not be the exception. Our bodies
fit so perfectly and I only wanted more.

Colors and bright lights twinkled above me like magical fairies com
ing out of the gloaming overgrowth to visit us and watch. Nothing had ever been like this. Not even last night. That had been a forgiveness, a healing, and moving on and over. This was something entirely new. This was a perfect crafting of something so deep neither of us would ever be able to break away. This was forever. A sealing of body, mind, and soul because now we weren’t two halves of a whole, we were two wholes merging together to become something even stronger than we’d been before. I’d never understood how people gave more than one hundred percent, but in this moment I was giving so much more than what I had to give. I was turning over one thousand percent of myself and my body with an utterly selfless need for him to receive it.

And I could feel him doing the same as our bodies worked together in a timeless harmony, accompanied by his magical tune of a new music that would only ever be ours.
No one existed here but us. We were each others’ universes.

My thighs tightened and another orgasm devoured me, melting me
until I didn’t even know who I was anymore. I couldn’t keep track of what he was doing to my body anymore, or which parts were mine and which were his. I gripped his shoulders and cried out, finally letting my thoughts fly away as my body shattered into a million pieces.

“Sasha.” He called out my name as he buried himself deep enough to touch my soul, then lowered himself and cradled me to his chest. We
lay like that long enough for the moon to rise, and if I hadn’t fallen in love with the house and the yard before then, I surely would have in that instant.