Resisting the Musician (a Head Over Heels Novel) (Entangled Indulgence) (15 page)

In the end it didn’t matter, for Dash’s eyes slid past the drummer and found hers.

Her belly clenched at the thought of what might come next. Would he be surprised? Would he be pissed? Or worse, would she not matter at all?

She wasn’t his girlfriend. Despite her obsession with schedules, they’d specifically made no plans for what had unfolded between them beyond the moment Lori took the stage with Callie. If he’d done this gig a month from now it wouldn’t have—or at least
shouldn’t
have—concerned her.

His eyes never leaving hers, Dash said something and the other men glanced up the alley before fading around the side of the van leaving a clear path for Lori. Then, he lifted a paper cup to his lips, took a sip, and waited.

Rubbing her cold arms, high heels clacking on the uneven concrete, Lori headed up the dark alley. The closer she got, the more her heart thumped, the more her skin contracted and her muscles forgot how to function.

While he sat there, big, broad, oh so cool. And hot. Plays-guitar-like-a-god type hot. She wasn’t a groupie type by any stretch of the imagination. And yet the closer she got, the more the music bubbled inside her—his light-fingered piano, tireless drumming, but mostly the deep, thick, rolling throbs of his beautiful guitar.

And right alongside it the need to ask him why; why he hadn’t told her, why he hadn’t trusted her to be there.

Better that than ask herself why his answer mattered to her so very much.

But when she got to him, instead of asking she found herself filling the space between his legs, leaning into him, taking his face in hers and pouring every ounce of respect and admiration and fear and desire into a kiss.

At least she knew her concern that he didn’t care one way or the other was misguided when he wrapped his arms around her, hauling her close. He tasted of scotch and coffee and heat and Dash. And he devoured her, as if out here, in the open air, surrounded by the ambience of the city, the latent energy he’d held trapped inside had finally been let free.

A tuneful whistle somewhere in the darkness brought her back to the present and she remembered they weren’t alone. Her cheeks filling with heat, she disentangled herself, tilting her forehead against his as she wrapped a hand around his loose tie and tugged. But Dash kept a hold of her waist as if he knew she might bolt given half a chance.

“If I knew that would be my reward, I’d have played again sooner.”

“Yeah, right,” she said, her tight laughter floating on the still night air. “I was out there tonight. You could have any woman in that audience. And her friends. And quite a few of the guys, if that was your bent.”

He pulled her closer, till she toppled into his lap. Then, toying with the hemline of her flirty skirt, the backs of his knuckles brushing her thighs, he said, “Lucky for you, it’s not.”

Lucky? In that moment she felt like she was standing on a cliff, a heavy wind at her back and nothing but jagged rocks below. Like comeuppance was upon her for all the fisherman who’d fallen for her namesake’s song.

“You were amazing, you know,” she said, her hand sliding around his shoulder, into the hair at the back of his neck.

“Nah. I missed chords. I came into the third stanza of the first song too early.” And when she finally found the guts to look him in the eye, he breathed deep, stopped playing and wrapped his finger around her thigh and said simply, “You came.”

Lori’s heart stopped right then and there. It plain gave up. Making her wonder how it had functioned before that point.

“Did you think I wouldn’t?” she said. “Is that why you didn’t tell me? Or because you thought I’d misread the invitation somehow? Because I wouldn’t have. Or is it because I’m such a hard ass? Did you think I’d be some kind of shrew, telling you how to do it better? Because I only act that way with people I know have potential.”

She thought of Callie, sitting alone in her studio, curled over her sketches, struggling to do what had always come so naturally. Wondered for the first time how it must feel to have her big sister hovering over her, pushing her, telling her not to waste the chances she’d been given. Like anybody needed that kind of pressure. Like anybody wouldn’t try to find a way out. Like accept the first marriage proposal they ever got…

Dash turned her to look at him, and the thoughts and emotions whipping behind his warm brown eyes left her feeling stripped bare. “You’re a hell of a woman, Lorelei Hanover, did you know that?”

“What? No. I just—This isn’t about me. How did this all even come about? Going from nothing to a gig seems like such a big move.”

“The time was nearing when I’d have to play again, what with the guitar near finished. Then I realized it wouldn’t feel real unless it was witnessed.” He gently swept her hair off her face. “Not much does, I’ve discovered recently.”

She shivered as his thumbs smoothed over her cheeks and his gaze followed. “But you didn’t want it to be witnessed by me?”

His eyes slid back to hers. Warm, deep, rich, soulful. “I didn’t tell anyone about the gig, Lori, because there was a good to high chance I was going to chicken out.”

As much as she wanted to, she didn’t believe him. Couldn’t. His reasons for keeping her at arm’s length had to run deeper. Had to be something to fear. Or why would her chest still feel so tight?

Like a dog with a bone she couldn’t let it go. “But you told Jake.”

And with a rueful sigh, Dash said, “I had to. If he found out another way he’d have come. And I knew he’d understand.”

“And you thought I wouldn’t?”

“Lori, come on.”

“What. Hit me with it. I can take it.”

His hands left her face to run over her shoulders and away, leaving her feeling the cold. “This was a big deal. Something I wasn’t sure I’d ever do again. Something I’d built up into a kind of demon inside my head. A big one with sharp claws and red eyes and toxic spit. While you… You’re not afraid of anything.”

She opened her mouth to tell him exactly how afraid she knew she could be. Of being left alone. Of being the sole caretaker of another person’s future. Of how the swift force of her feelings for him scared her to the center of her very bones.

But she’d spent her life maneuvering so that no one could ever screw her over, and giving him that kind of insight would be akin to handing him a loaded weapon.

She simply couldn’t do it.

Just like he’d molded his life to a point where he only had to rely on himself.

Knowing his history, she understood the instinct, but that didn’t stop it from hurting like a sonofabitch. Because she knew that she could claim to be loyal and discreet, she could shout it till she was blue in the face, and yet she had a photo of the music in her phone and an agenda to which he was none the wiser.

So instead, she slid a hand deeper into the back of his shaggy hair, kissing him so that he couldn’t see how afraid she was that he could well be the best man she ever knew, and she’d screwed it up before it had even begun.

“You’re shaking,” he said against her mouth.

“I’m cold.”

“Not that cold.”

And he kissed her again, showing her how not cold he could make her. And he was right. He could warm her, thaw her, melt her like nothing and nobody else.
Him
, she thought,
only him.

“Lori! There you are!” A Montana-born drawl echoed down the alley. Lori came to only to find Sydney tottering around the corner, elbow linked with Tracey’s. “We’ve been looking for you everywhere!”

Damn. The girls. She’d forgotten they were even there.

“What’s going on?” he asked. As she tensed, Dash’s hands tightened on her waist. She could have thrown Jake under the bus for having given up his secret, but it would only have reflected badly on Callie, and she’d long since been programmed not to let that happen.

“I’m so sorry for what is about to happen.”

“Hello again,” Tracey cooed, dropping into a curtsy as they neared the van and she saw who Lori was sitting upon. “Remember me? I’m Tracey and you’re gorgeous.”

“Ah, the girls’ weekend,” Dash said, his grip on her easing back, even while he didn’t let her go. “Evening ladies.”

“
Rowrrr
,” Tracey purred.

“Okay,” Lori said, springing to her feet to grab her assistant before she tried to lay one on Dash. Together she and Syd managed to manhandle the smaller girl away.

Dash’s fingers curled around the tray of the van as Tracey winked and blew him kisses and Sydney pretended like she wasn’t freaking out a little at being so near someone famous.

Any last doubts Lori might have harbored that Dash had been smart in not telling her about the gig evaporated. In her efforts at always being proven right, she kept stomping all over his desire to keep his private life private
. Just kicking it about with her big elephant feet. Such feet didn’t deserve to wear such beautiful shoes.

And that was that; she was officially cracking up.

“I’d better go, okay. Round up the others. I have the horrible feeling our night has just begun.”

Dash nodded. Then said, “There’s another set in half an hour.
You
could stay. I’d see you home safe.”

It was a hell of an offer. Watching him play, only this time knowing he knew she was there. Wanted her there. Cared that she was there. Taking him back to her place afterward, his swarthy skin and dark suit against her crisp white sheets…

And the girls traipsing in at some ungodly hour, singing
High School Musical
songs at the tops of their lungs as Sydney somehow found enough ingredients to make the best pancakes on the planet and Lita searched cable for whatever season of
The Bachelor
she could find.

“Tempting,” she said, the rumble in her voice making it clear that was an understatement. “But I can’t.”

“I’ll stay,” Tracey said over her shoulder. “Long Cool Drink of Water over there just has to say the word.”

Lori and Syd took that as the sign to head back up the alley.

“But he’s yours isn’t he, Lori?” Sydney stage whispered. Very loudly.

Lori found a second wind to move faster. But not fast enough that she didn’t hear Dash’s laughter follow or notice that it made her heart grow a size bigger in her chest.

Chapter Ten

Dash paced from one side of his dark foyer to the other, wearing a groove in the rough floorboards, eyes on the front door as if itching to be on the other side. For a guy who’d done his all to put as much space between himself and the world beyond as possible, that was saying something.

The gig the other night had done more than remind him why music had never been just a job for him, that it filled him and fuelled him and defined him and made everything clear. Merely stepping out his front door with guitar in his hand and a vintage three piece suit on his back had been like walking through the looking glass. And coming home that night, alone, adrenaline still humming through his veins, it was as if the wall between the two worlds had simply never been.

The bark of a dog preceded the throaty roar of Lori’s Roadster, and before he knew it Dash was out the door, shielding his eyes against the sharp sun.

The sky was the kind of blue that usually came later in the year on those mid-winter days when the fog cleared. The air crisp with the scent of the forest surrounds. And the legs angling out of the car long, sleek, and mouth-watering. At the end of them a pair of black ankle boots with heels like arrow shafts.

He slowed, his lungs suddenly tight, as she alighted the car. A vision of citified elegance in a sleeveless black and white checked dress that started at the base of her neck and stopped at her knees yet showcased all the curves in between so that every bit of him yearned.

Muttering to herself as she slid her phone into her oversized bag, Lori ran a hand over the tight twists of her neatly braided hair, before remembering Barbarella. She leaned back into the car, one foot lifted off the ground, the fabric stretching across her superb form—heaven help him—to lug the guitar case from the backseat.

When she finally turned to find him, he was ten paces away and holding himself there by sheer force of will alone.

Even with her usual huge sunglasses covering her eyes, there was no editing her reaction. She sucked in a quick breath before swallowing hard, her fingers tightening on the strap of her bag, color flooding prettily into her cheeks.

It was the first time he’s seen her since she’d left him in the alley after the gig. Since she’d kissed him with such sweet uncertainty. Since watching her walk away, he’d been left with a sense of blind enthusiasm for whatever came next. Since the life he’d so diligently constructed felt like it had been turned on its head.

The urge to go to her, to thank her, to tell her, to bend her over the gleaming hood of her powerful car and mess up all the neat was a powerful one. And raw. Tapping into deeper, more primal parts of himself he’d locked up tight for so long he hadn’t been aware they’d be so easily unleashed by a few pairs of sexy high heels and the muscle memory of playing a tune.

“Going somewhere?” she asked.

“No plans to.” Hands clenching and unclenching as he slid them into his pockets. Dash paced himself.

A hand slid to her hip, nails long and black, pointer finger tapping against the jut. “You’re wearing a button-down,” she said, tipping her head so that her eyes roved over his custom-made khaki shirt, thorough enough to take in every button, every stitch. “And jeans that don’t have a hole in them somewhere.”

He tugged at the turned cuffs of his shirt. In his efforts to disappear from the world he’d also forgotten how much he’d liked dressing well. Had disregarded his love of smooth cars and nice wine. Purging not only the big, but the small pleasures of life. No more.

“And as for the shoes…” she said, her voice fading as she licked her lips. Actually slid her tongue along the seam of her perfect pink mouth as she narrowed her eyes at the pair of brand-new, hand-stitched, nut-brown McQueen boots he’d found within the boxes of forgotten clothes underneath the bed in one of his spare rooms.

“These old things?”

Her gaze lifted, caught at his. Green, vibrant, stunning. Lit with desire and the fresh fragility he’d seen there the other night… Before she nudged her sunglasses back into place.

“You’re really not on your way somewhere?” she pressed.

Nothing had been planned, but the energy coursing through him in response to the woman standing on his driveway—as shiny, and dangerous, and tightly cocked as a new pistol—meant saying no to her wasn’t an option.

“How long till you have to get back to work?” he asked, taking a step her way.

She fiddled with her watch, hooked her bag higher on her shoulder, and said, “As soon as possible.” His disappointment was rich, thick, telling. Until she added, “Unless you’ve got a better offer than a staff meeting with a staffer on their third warning, a call to Thailand to complain about an incorrectly-dyed fabric, and about three hours’ worth of quarterly reports?”

“Come on,” he said, holding out a hand.

A moment, a breath, then she threw Barbarella back into the car, the
beep beep
of her remote lock echoing through the trees, and she came to him. Eyed his hand. And—with a frown and an outshot of breath—took it.

Her hand was cool in his, small. The palms soft against his work-roughened mitts. And stubborn as she was, it only made him laugh. Fill with laughter in fact. She might be frickin’ hard work, but it made the moments when she yielded all the sweeter.

When they reached his garage, he bent, wrapped his finger around the unlocked handle of the roller door and yanked. The door creaked from underuse. He grabbed the keys to the Bentley, the only car not under wraps, making a mental note to just sell the rest. He’d found his favorite, so why keep the rest?

Lori continued looking at him like she was waiting for the other shoe to drop even as she slid into the passenger seat. But even that couldn’t quell the odd sense of euphoria that had settled over him.

Dash jogged around the car and slid into the driver’s seat, the leather at his back cool and supple. The engine purred readily to life, but it was nothing compared to the sizzle that coursed through his veins as Lori dropped her bag to the floor, shuffled deeper in the seat, turned her head and shot him a smile.

“Where to?” she asked.

“Does it matter?”

He couldn’t see her eyes behind those big, black sunglasses, but the corner of her mouth kicked. “I had an errand I was going to run in Templeton later. We could go there now.”

“Done.”

The car shot out of the garage, bouncing over the ruts in the unkempt road. Jagger and Bowie came bounding out of the tree line, barking, before falling behind.

And with the wind rustling their hair Dash drove them out of his property and away.

Within twenty minutes they hit the small town of Templeton, a scenic little slice of Americana, with its quaint local shops around a perfect green square complete with a brilliant white gazebo.

A town rich with antique stores, cafés, and fresh food shops, they considered him a local and not a retired superstar. Dash never had to go any further afield to keep himself alive and kicking.

He pulled into a parking lot outside the hairdresser, smiling like some kind of fool as two little girls went skipping by with ropes. A pair of mothers followed behind, both heavily pregnant. A swallow swooped overhead before disappearing into a tree.

“I’m hungry,” he said, squinting up into the sunny sky as its warmth permeated his clothes, his skin, his everything, and he found himself glad to be out in the world.

“Are you ever not hungry?”

He turned to his passenger. She’d taken off her sunglasses, and stretched her arms overhead. The wind had whipped some blonde strands from her neat hair and added pink to her cheeks. Hungry? More like wild, limitless, indefatigable.

He leaned over and kissed her as if it was the most natural thing in the world. She met him half way. As kisses went it was a mere whisper of lips. And yet its quiet insistence, its longing restraint, its promise of things to come, seared him to the soles of his shoes.

When Lori pulled away it took a few moments before her eyes fluttered open, and the darkness in her eyes was the perfect flipside to the brightness of the day.

Her next blink was slow, languorous, sweet, and caught at him like a hook to the gut. It jerked, tugged at his insides, and hurt so good.

Once again he took her hand as he helped her from the car and they walked the town, physical hunger having fled as a new one took its place.

Her heel catching on a crack in the sidewalk, Lori grabbed his elbow. Once she’d steadied, Dash slipped her hand through the nook and held on tight. She let him and her long legs kept pace with his.

The owner of the hardware store came out as they passed, asked after Jagger and Bowie, grinning like he’d come out better in the deal.

The butcher tried to lure them inside with a beef strap.

The baker waved them down, gave them a bag of free croissants, and asked after Reg.

“Are they a thing?” Lori asked, licking away a flake of pastry after they’d moved on.

“Who?”

“Reg and the baker. The guy blushed when he asked about him.”

Dash blinked. Thought about it. “Every time Reg comes over he brings cream buns or apple pie. And here I was thinking he came all the way out here so often because of my sparkling personality.”

“Guy can’t be that hard up.”

“Says the woman who’s at my place three times a week.”

“For guitar lessons,” she shot back.

He stopped walking, and still attached to his elbow she stopped a half pace further. “I don’t see any guitars here.”

Throat working, she looked back toward his car a ways down the block. Then back at him. Her wide, green eyes flickered between his, lots going on behind them. Before, with a wry smile, she said, “The sleepovers have been a bonus.”

“I hear that.”

Her mouth twisted as she looked down at her boots. The toes of which nearly kissed his. The ‘nearly’ became academic when he moved his shoe a half inch and she did the same. Leather sliding along leather. The scrape of the sidewalk beneath their soles doing the same to his nerves until they screamed for relief. The kind of relief only touching this woman, holding her, kissing her, sinking into her while she opened up to him, could provide.

“Mr. Mills!”

Lori’s shoe flinched away before they both looked up to find a pair of twin high school-aged girls in pigtails and summer dresses shuffling from foot to foot, hands with bitten-down fingernails gripping notebooks and pink pens.

“Sorry to bother you, Mr. Mills,” said one, glancing from him to Lori while the other gaped at him, her mouth a perfect O, “but we were hoping we could have your autograph.”

Dash hesitated, knowing that six months before, three even, he’d have backed away making some excuse and holed himself up in his cave for another month in contrition. But as the girls grinned sweetly up at him, it seemed nothing could prick the sunshine of the day.

Their mother—the greengrocer who kept him in farm fresh ingredients—bundled up after them, apologizing profusely. “I’m so sorry, Dash. They’ve grown so wily this summer.”

“They’re teenage girls, it’s in the job description,” Lori said, getting a smile from the other woman.

But when Dash caught her eye, doubt flickered over her face before she crossed her arms and looked up the street. “Sign away; I’ll run my errand. Meet you back here in fifteen.”

Before he had the chance to make a counter-offer she was gone, bag hooked higher over her shoulder, hands smoothing out her hair, hips swinging in time with the loud clack of her heels that as much as said,
Out of my way
!

Falling into the habit like it was nothing, Dash asked the girls’ names and chatted to them about school and music as he wrote out their autographs, shooting their thankful mother a quick smile as she mouthed a thank you and herded them away, leaving Dash alone on the sidewalk with the town breathing and gleaming around him.

Clueless as to where Lori had gotten to, he meandered back to the car and sat on the hood to wait. Chatting to locals who stopped to admire his wheels, others who simply waved hello, and basking in the foreign feeling of fullness that had pervaded his life.

Words like
lovely
and
special
and
sublime
didn’t sit right on his tongue, or in his head for that matter, but as the heat of the day cut through with the shadow of the lines of oak trees dappling the footpaths, Lori’s touch, her warmth, her smile were felt in all the deep raw dusty places inside of him till the caverns and caves flickered with light.

And by the time she returned, he was so ready to take her home he merely opened the car door and took her there.

…

By the time they made it back to Dash’s place Lori was as restless as a gray cloud on a wedding day.

Exhausted by the drive up from San Francisco—as she’d spent the hundred miles freaking out about the reception she might get after making such a fool of herself at Dash’s gig—she’d been utterly flummoxed finding him waiting for her, all cleaned up like he’d stepped out of a Barney’s catalogue. And looking relaxed in a way she’d not seen him before—not in the lazy strides and late breakfasts kind of way, but in the way he breathed, the easy way he smiled, and the fact that he didn’t even try to hide how glad he was to see her.

Then there was the trip into Templeton. The hand holding. The baked goods. The quiet seductive beauty of the small town.

She’d never expected anything from Dash beyond the song, never hoped, not even to herself. But seeing a glimpse of how they might be without the song holding them together…

A delectable shiver slid through her as she opened the guitar case, having completely forgotten what she’d done to Barbarella until it was too late.

She tried to divert attention back to the shiny new cell phone she’d given Dash, her recompense for Barbarella. Her errand had been to pick it up earlier at the Templeton post office box she’d
also
had to acquire for him in order to fulfill the terms and conditions of the contract. But his instant obsession with the big boy’s toy didn’t extend so far as being able to ignore the eyesore in her arms.