Satellite of Love (27 page)

“I noticed. A little excitable too.” Her heart fluttered as he pulled her into his arms and not in the preferable way. The anxiety from the argument still crackled through her nerves. She pressed against his hard, solid body.

“Too bad we can’t skip dinner and head back to the hotel.”

“You skip dinner and you’ll run out of energy.” The jittery anxiety wasn’t going away.

“Can’t have that.” He ran his fingers through her hair. “Let’s eat so we can go someplace more private.” He grabbed his clothes and started dressing.

“I’ll go heat everything up.” She backed out of the room.

In the dressing room, everyone was almost finished and they were working on song lyric koans. She heated up their meals and had them on the table by the time he came out. Sitting next to him, she could hardly eat.

She’d thought she was used to the tension. Hah. Everyone chatted as if nothing unusual had happened even though Jason had an ice pack on his cheek. Before long everyone was being loaded into the bus for the long ride to the hotel. Michael settled onto the couch, still bandying around song titles so she sat down beside him. Resting her head on his shoulders, she tried to employ some of the tricks the roadies had taught her for sleeping anywhere, anytime. Nothing worked. She felt like she’d been drinking Mountain Dew all day long.

At the hotel, Michael pulled her into the room and pressed her against the door. “I love you and I want to be with you forever,” he said.

Unable to meet his gaze, she looked down and bit her lip. “I’m sorry I treated you like a little boy.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter. Do you forgive me?”

“Of course I do.” He brushed his fingers through her hair. “Baby, to be honest I don’t think it was really about you anyway. Touring is rough. We bicker. You got caught in the middle and took it seriously.”

“But I do treat you like a little boy sometimes.” She stared down at his shirt. He had her trapped between him and the door. Not that she minded, but he did seem to like to have these conversations in close proximity.

“And sometimes I like it, just not so much in front of my friends.”

“I can stop.”

“Promise me you won’t stop loving me.”

She looked up. His dark eyes seemed a little fearful, but she didn’t know why. She’d been the one screwing things up. Since the moment she met him, she’d been treating him like a child and he was no child. “I love you, Michael.”

He cradled her cheek in his palm. “Good, keep it that way.” He leaned over and kissed her. She pulled her body tight to his as if it would erase all her tension. His kiss deepened as he slipped a hand around, captured her nape. She shook with the need for him. Heat washed through her. Her skin came alive to the light brush of his fingers.

Waltzing her backward, he eased her onto the bed, trailing his hot mouth down her neck. When his hands touched her, they were hungry. He unfastened her jeans and slipped them off her in one motion with her panties and socks. Before she’d taken another breath, he was on her and in her. She cried out. Her body swelled around him, ready and hot. She arched as he thrust into her again. Clutching him, she was swept along by him. Loved. Cherished. Forgiven. He caught the back of her head, turned her lips to his and kissing her, thrust into her one last time. Over the edge she tipped, into a rich swirl of bliss.

Still buried inside her, he collapsed on her chest with his face pressed into the curve of her neck. “You’re all I can think about. I can’t believe I haven’t screwed up on stage. I love performing, but I love our private shows too.”

“You’re not thinking about quitting, are you?” He hadn’t mentioned it since that day in April, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t been thinking about it. “I know how much you love doing this. I don’t think it’s going to be easy for you to give up.”

“I know.” He nuzzled her neck. “I want that and I want this. All I want is everything. Is that too much to ask?”

How was she supposed to answer? The urge to promise him that he could have all of her nearly overwhelmed her, but she managed to keep her mouth shut. She breathed deeply and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. His hands roamed over her skin. Little tremors of pleasure rippled through her as he stirred inside her. He moaned against her flesh, starting to rock against her slowly.

He drew her ear lobe between his lips, sucked it gently as he stroked in and out. “God, I love you.”

Maureen ran her hands down his back, feeling his muscles moving under his skin. Head lolling on the pillows, she was swept by his strength until rapture took her again and everything dropped away.

* * * *

Bear swore he heard
Swing
playing from somewhere on the other side of the room. Why their current hit would be playing in his hotel room, he couldn’t imagine. He reached for Maureen, but she slid away. “Where you goin’?” he muttered.

“My phone is ringing.”

“Your phone?” He opened his eyes in time to see her snatch her purse off the dresser and dump it out.

She grabbed her phone and flipped it open. “Hello? Denver, why?”

Bear sat up and brushed his hair off his face. The clock beside the bed said eight. They hadn’t fallen asleep until after four. Who the hell would be calling her at this hour?

“What?”

Her tone sent a shiver down his spine. Today was their day off. Other than a flight to the next city, they didn’t have to do anything all day long. He’d hoped to spend every possible minute in bed with her having sex and the silly conversations he was starting to enjoy almost as much as the sex. Her tone made that unlikely.

“How is that my fault? My class did well.”

Bear threw off the covers and crossed the room. He wrapped his arm around her waist, but she didn’t relax against him. “What’s wrong?”

“A couple of board members are trying to blame the district’s low test scores on me. This is insane. How can anybody believe it?”

“Easy,” Linda said. “You aren’t here to defend yourself. They aren’t going to renew your contract.”

“Oh my God.” Maureen pulled away from him to lean on the dresser.

“What does that mean?” Bear asked. The stone in his gut already knew.

“It means I’m going to lose my job.” She stared at him like she wanted him to fix it, but he knew if he told her to screw the job, she’d flip out. It wasn’t a job to her. It was her life.

And she was his.

“I guess you have to go home and fight for it then,” he said.

Three hours later, he climbed out of the taxi from dropping her off at the airport. He went through the hotel kitchen to avoid the fans at the front doors who waited for the band to leave for their chartered plane, which would fly out of a different airport in about an hour. Bear leaned against the back of the elevator. When she left him in LA, she’d been upset about going. This time when she walked away from him at the x-ray machines, she’d been so consumed with this bullshit thing going on at home she’d almost forgotten to kiss him goodbye. Had it even occurred to her yet that they were apart? Or did she know and not care?

The elevator doors opened on their floor and Marc stood waiting. He whistled. “Well, I’ll be damned. Rudy said she left, but I didn’t believe him.”

“Fuck off, Marc.” Bear stalked past him. “I’m not in the mood.”

“So there really is something going on about her job?” Marc fell into step beside him. “Rudy said he thought she was going to lose her job.”

“That’s why she’s going home. So she doesn’t,” he said as he swiped his keycard.

“She went home to save her job.”

Bear turned in his door. “Yes, Marc, she went home to save her job. Despite what you think, she is not just sinking her claws into my wallet. And maybe if you hadn’t been such a dick for the last two weeks, she’d have wanted to stay with me more and let the job go.”

His throat closed. That wasn’t true. Maureen would have wanted to go back no matter what Marc did. No matter what any of them did. Down the hall the other guys’ doors stood open. Ty had been nice to her. He was nice to everybody. Brian loaned her his electronic reader during sound checks so she wouldn’t burn through so many books. She actually liked his freaky horror novels. Even Jason had tried to be nice to her. Bear had screwed that up himself. Rudy, Gene, the crew, the guys in Eldrich, they’d all been really nice to her. No, Maureen had gone back because she had a life. The exact thing he loved most about her, took her away.

“Hey, man, I’m sorry. I was trying to help you play it safe. We’re gonna swing through that area next week. I’ll apologize.”

Bear nodded. It might not help, but it sure as hell couldn’t hurt. He’d been avoiding Marc since the tour started. Since he’d met Maureen, really. Right now it would be great to have someone to distract him. “I need to get my stuff together. You wanna hang in here while I do?”

Marc grinned. “Sure.”

“What’re you guys doing?” Ty strolled down the hall.

“I’m gonna watch Bear to make sure he doesn’t slit his wrists because his girlfriend is gone.” Marc smirked.

“Cool. Can I watch too?”

“You pass out at the sight of blood,” Brian shouted out of his room.

“If he’s going to pass out somebody better make sure he doesn’t smack his head on anything,” Rudy roared down the hall. “I am not taking any of you assholes to the hospital this tour.”

Bear shook his head. Never took long to get back to normal. Inside the room, he strolled over to the dresser. She’d left behind her hair elastic with the purple rose. He wrapped it around his wrist. She’d be back. She had to be. And he’d still have the guys.

He’d have everything then.

* * * *

Maureen folded up the paper and threw it in the recycling bin. Then she picked up the stack of newspapers Linda had saved for her and dropped them on top. The editorial column had had eight letters today. Five of them reviled her as what was wrong with education in the twenty-first century. Two defended her as an excellent teacher. One was about garbage pick up. The ratio hadn’t been too much different since this mess started.

She needed to get out of the house to keep her sanity, but in public she ran the risk of having someone confront her as the sole cause for the downfall of Western Civilization. Since she’d come back from the tour, she hadn’t been able to buy her own groceries or go to the mall. All her library trips had been conducted through the pick up window at the main branch. She couldn’t even go to school and work in her classroom. Once her “scandal” hit the papers, the governor had decided a massive investigation of the state’s schools was in order. Kaitlyn thought he was jealous because she was in the papers more than he was, but that didn’t make Maureen any more popular among the staff, now scrambling to pull records for an outside investigator.

The only bright spot was Michael arriving later today. The band started a weeklong break today and was using one of their precious days off to have dinner at Mama Lena’s for no discernible reason. The restaurant was closed to everyone but friends and family of the staff.

Family. That was someplace she could go. Maureen grabbed her purse and headed out the door. Tony had written one of the editorial letters supporting her. Hopefully, it hadn’t lost him too much business. His letter had also defended his brother as solid and reliable, nothing like the drugged out, party boy rock star everyone assumed. Based on that, hopefully Tony was up for a reconciliation. She couldn’t do much about her problems, but she might help Michael.

As she pulled up in front of the garage, Eric saw her through the front bay door. He dropped the tool in his hand and ran for the back. That might not be a good sign. Before she climbed out of the car though, Tony was at her driver’s door, pulling it open and reaching in for her hand.

“Miss Donnelly, I’m so glad to see you. You heard what’s going on. I knew something like this was going to happen. Bear doesn’t even know what kind of mess he can cause.” Tony had her hand clasped in both of his. Any second, he was going to fall to his knees and beg her forgiveness. “He doesn’t do it on purpose.”

“It really isn’t Michael’s fault.”

“Like hell it isn’t.” Rusty spit on the ground. He’d followed Tony out, Eric right behind him.

“It really isn’t. I’m a scapegoat. The district’s test scores were lower than expected and they needed to blame it on someone.”