One Night with Sole Regret 02 Tempt Me (11 page)

Adam lowered his gaze and stared at
his reddened knuckles.

“
And Shade will do anything
to get Adam riled,” Owen continued. “He knew it would piss Adam off
to make a move on his girl, so what does he do? Makes a move on his
girl.”

“
Maybe I'm genuinely
interested in her,” Shade said, his deep voice gruff. He removed
his ruined sunglasses and stuffed them into a pocket.

Shade had gorgeous dark blue eyes set
off by thick, black lashes. There were all sorts of emotions
swirling around in their depths. Madison wondered why he hid those
beautiful eyes behind sunglasses at all hours of the day and
night.

“
Yeah?” Adam asked. “If
you’re so interested in her, what's her name?”

Shade shrugged and shook his head.
“Like I give a shit.”

Owen released a heavy sigh. “Maybe
it's time for you two to apologize—”

“
I'm not apologizing to
him,” Adam grumbled.

“
What the fuck do I have to
apologize for?” Shade bellowed.

Owen rolled his eyes and shook his
head in annoyance. Gabe, who was sitting directly across from
Shade, lifted a foot and nudged Shade in the knee with his toe.
Gabe gave Shade a pointed glance, and Shade sank back against the
seat to stare out the window again. Madison released the breath she
hadn’t realized she was holding.

The limo slowed and turned into a
drive. When the car pulled to a halt in front of the hotel, Shade
was out the door before the driver could come around to open it for
him.

“
Jacob,” Gabe called. “Wait
up.” He unfolded his long and lean frame from the back seat and
jogged after Shade.

Madison could hear Shade muttering
under his breath to Gabe, “I'm going to fucking kill
him.”

“
You know he does this,”
Gabe said. “Don’t let it get to you.”

Kellen's hands loosened from Madison's
wrists, and she darted across the seats to dab at Adam's lip with
her thumb. “You shouldn't fight. Someone could have been seriously
injured.”

“
Don't start,” Adam said.
He pushed her aside and climbed from the car.

She hesitated. Should she go after
him? He seemed awfully upset, and she didn't want to make matters
worse. She was pretty sure the animosity between Shade and Adam
wasn't a recent development.

“
Go talk to him. He listens
to you,” Owen said. “Maybe you can help him figure out why Shade
has been pissed off at him for four years.”

Four years?
“Do you know why?”

He shrugged. “Nope.”

“
Maybe I should talk to
Shade about it. I don't think Adam knows what the problem
is.”

Kellen grimaced. “Not a good idea.
Adam has a hair trigger as far as you're concerned. Just go cheer
him up. You’re the only one who ever makes him smile.”

She wasn't sure anything would make
Adam smile tonight. Especially not when she had to get on his case
about smoking pot. What the fuck was he thinking? If his parole
officer found out, agreeing to drug counseling would not keep him
out of prison this time. She hoped Shade had been blowing hot air
and Adam hadn’t slipped up—especially somewhere he could get caught
so easily—but she remembered how guilty Adam had looked at dinner
when she’d asked how he was making it. She’d been suspicious then,
but had decided to trust his word because she knew he needed that
trust as part of his treatment. And she needed to extend her trust
because she loved him.

“
Are you coming?” Adam
said, peering back into the car, his eyes seeking her in the dim
interior.

Her heart skipped a beat. She didn’t
have a choice but to confront him. She had a feeling things were
going to go from tense to disastrous, but she couldn’t let this
slide.

“
Yeah,” she said. She
scooted across the seat and out into the warm night air.

Adam took her wrist and
stalked toward the building. She had to jog—boots clomping on the
cement—to keep up with him. He didn't say a word to her in the
lobby, the elevator or the corridor. Why was he pissed at
her
?

He unlocked the door to his suite and
opened it. When she paused to stare up at him, he avoided her gaze
and ushered her inside.

The door closed and before she could
turn, he stepped up behind her, wrapped his arms around her waist
and held on to her like a drowning man clinging to a capsized boat.
His entire body trembled against her.

“
You okay?” she asked after
a moment. She stroked the tense muscles in his forearm.

He released her abruptly and moved
into the spacious room. “Why wouldn't I be?”

“
You seem
upset.”

“
The vocalist of my band,
who
used
to be my
best friend, basically told me he wanted to replace me. Why would I
be upset?”

She knew he was being sarcastic, but
she needed to get him to talk seriously about this issue with
Shade. “I'd be upset,” she said. “And hurt.”

“
I'm not hurt, I'm
pissed
. I'm not sure why
he thinks
I'm
the
one who needs replacing. Maybe if he didn't try to lead the band
like a dictator instead of considering us all equals, I wouldn't
feel the need to get under his narcissistic skin.”

“
So you do show up late on
purpose?”

“
Not always.” He took a
deep breath. “Consciously.”

“
What started the animosity
between you? Owen says Shade's been pissed at you for four years.
It must have been something pretty substantial.”

“
I don't remember,” Adam
said. He scrubbed his face with both hands. “I was having a rough
patch at the time. Doing lots of drugs. I don't remember much of
anything from those few years. Bits and pieces of disagreements,
but nothing that would give him a reason to hate me so much. When
we started the band we were best friends, but now?” He shook his
head.

“
Have you asked him why
he’s angry with you?”

“
Yeah, I ask him what
the
fuck
his
problem is all the time.”

She stepped closer and laid a gentle
hand on his chest. His heart thudded hard against her palm. “Have
you asked him in a non-hostile manner?”

Adam drew away and sank onto a sofa.
“We can't interact without being hostile.”

“
Except on stage.” For
nearly half an hour, both men had looked genuinely pleased to be in
each other’s company.

Gaze distant, Adam scratched the nape
of his neck. “We kind of lose ourselves onstage.”

“
But offstage your egos get
in the way.”

Adam smirked. “What egos? We don't
have egos.”

Madison chuckled. “Oh no. You're both
exceedingly humble.”

“
You've seen me humble,” he
said, slipping an arm around her waist and directing her to sit on
his lap. “No one else gets to see me like that.”

Which was probably one reason why
Shade busted his balls all the time. “I like that humble guy,” she
said.

“
Yeah?”

She nodded.

“
But not the egotistical
guy,” he said.

“
I like that guy too, but
he's not as loveable. Probably why Shade punches him in the
mouth.”

“
I don't want to talk about
Shade now,” Adam said. “I want to get lost in you and forget about
all this bullshit.”

She turned sideways and leaned against
his chest, snuggling into his warmth. “Did he hurt your
face?”

“
Not too bad.” He chuckled.
“Couldn't get a wide enough swing in the car, or he would have
nailed me to the floor.”

“
I hope you two can make
amends,” she said. “I think you’ll both feel better if you talk
things through.”

“
Maybe.” He was quiet for a
long moment. The only sounds were the hum of a mini-fridge
somewhere in the room and the occasional voice in the hall. He
stroked her arm with the back of his hand as he collected his
thoughts. “I’ll try to talk to him without goading him into a
fight,” he said. “His attitude just pisses me off.”

Madison could tell the
feeling was mutual. “I’m sure you can find a way to reach him.” And
she needed to find a way to reach Adam. She hated to hit him with a
second confrontation now, but she couldn’t ignore what Shade had
said in the limo about Adam’s drug use. They had to face this issue
before drug
use
became drug
abuse
. The difference was a slippery slope for an addict; it didn’t
take much for one to lead to the other. “So has smoking pot
backstage become routine or was it more of a onetime
thing?”

The hand methodically rubbing her bare
arm went still. “I didn’t—”

“
Don’t lie to me, Adam.”
She could deal with his problems, but not his lies. She wanted to
trust him—about everything—but she couldn’t trust a
liar.

“
I wasn’t going to lie. I
was going to say I didn’t tell you, because
 . . .
I don’t like to
disappoint you. It makes me feel guilty. I don’t like that
feeling.”

“
You feel guilty for
disappointing
me
?
Is that why you’ve been working so hard to stay clean?”

“
Yeah.”

She cringed. He still had
some work to do. “Am I the
only
reason you fight addiction?”

“
It’s a good enough reason
for me.” His lips brushed her hair. “You’re the best reason I’ve
ever met.”

The woman in her wanted
that dependence—that
tie
between them—but the counselor knew it wasn’t
healthy. “Adam.” She turned on his lap and cupped his face in her
hands. Her feelings for him bubbled to the surface, making her
chest ache and her voice raw. “Baby, you need to stay clean for
yourself, not for me. You can’t fully recover that way. What
happens to you when I’m no longer in your life?”

He went very still, his eyes clouding
with hurt or anger or some combination of the two. “Are you still
planning on leaving?”

“
Breaking it off would be
the most logical thing to do,” she said. Especially now that she
knew he had latched on to the wrong reason to fight his
addiction.

His gaze shifted to her
forehead, and he sucked a deep, ragged breath into his chest.
“
Fuck.
”

She touched her fingertips to his chin
and waited until his stormy gray eyes focused on hers. “Sometimes a
girl has to listen to her heart instead of her head.” Because even
though her heart was blind and dumb, it was still clever enough to
befuddle her head with constant thoughts of Adam.

His arms tightened around her. “What’s
your heart say?”

She clutched the fabric of her dress
over her chest. “My heart says you rock.”

He chuckled and pressed a kiss to her
temple. “But your head doesn't say that?”

“
Nope. My head says you're
trouble.”

He chuckled. “Smart head.” His hand
slid over her breast and squeezed gently. “So what does your body
say?”

Arousal uncoiled low in her
belly as her breast swelled in his hand. “My body
screams
you
rock.”

His thumb slipped inside her clothes
and brushed her nipple, rubbing it until it puckered and strained
against his maddening touch. She failed to stifle a groan of
longing.

“
That’s two out of three.
Majority rules,” he said.

Adam eased her onto her back on the
sofa and shifted his hips to rest between her legs. Supporting his
weight on his arms, he stared down at her with the strangest
expression on his face.

“
Madison?” he
whispered.

She couldn’t find the presence of mind
to answer—could only stare up into his handsome face with her pulse
thrumming wildly in her ears. He’d never looked at her with this
level of intensity in the past. She wasn’t sure if her
pitter-pattering heart could take the passion behind his
gaze.

“
I have something I need to
tell you. I want you to promise you’ll believe what I say. Don’t
question my words the way you question everything.”

“
I don’t ques—”

“
Shh, baby. Listen and
accept.”

“
Adam?”

“
Believe, Madison.
Promise.”

“
Okay. I
promise.”

He took a deep breath. “I
lo—”

A loud knock at the door cut him
off.

Adam closed his eyes and swallowed.
“Fuck,” he growled, squeezing his eyelids together as tightly as
possible. “I’ve lost my nerve again.”

Usually overflowing with
confidence, his inability to say three simple words—or
not
so simple
words—rattled him to the core. True, he’d never said them to anyone
in his life, but he knew love was what he felt for Madison. It was
more than gratitude for saving his life and his career and his
sanity, he loved her. Not for things she’d done for him or the
things she continued to do for him, but because she was his heart.
He’d been missing that fragile organ for so long that he hadn’t
realized it was gone until she’d filled the hole inside his chest.
And now whenever she so much as hinted at taking his heart away
again, he couldn’t tolerate the pain. It clawed at him, deep within
his chest, threatening to leave him the shell of a man he’d been
before he’d met her.