Hot and Bothered Page 12
He crossed his arms protectively. “I guess—I guess I did it because I wanted someone to convince me that the music mattered. It’s pretty thankless, you know, being a musician. You work your butt off, you pour your soul into it, and you’re lucky if you have an audience, and then you’re lucky if the audience enjoys themselves. And these guys came to me and they said, hey, we can make you famous and rich, and you’ll have an audience every night, and they’ll show up and clap and throw themselves at you. And maybe it was just too much for me to resist.”
He flipped the cooked eggs onto two plates, not quite meeting her eye. The lines on his face looked more pronounced, making him seem suddenly old again, the way he’d appeared that first day in the restaurant. She hadn’t realized how carefree he’d become with her recently. She thought of the man in the restaurant, how angry and worn-out he’d been.
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” she said.
“I sold out,” he said quietly. “I sold out my music.”
His voice cracked with the pain of it, and she felt it in herself, like a line fissuring through her own chest. She wanted to do something, anything, to give back to him what he felt he’d lost. He’d made a very human decision all those years ago to be recognized for his work.
“It’s not finite,” she said. “It’s still in you. I heard it the other night. It’s not something you sell out and then it’s all gone. It’s still there for you if you want it. If you wanted to make the blues thing happen, I am totally convinced you could.”
He let out a breath then, as if he’d been holding it, all the time they’d been talking. All the time she’d known him, maybe. Maybe all his life. He’d been waiting for someone to absolve him.
He took her in his arms and kissed her so fully and so deeply that she almost said, “Forget breakfast,” so she could take him back to bed. But then her phone buzzed and she pulled back, pretending she hadn’t seen the look on his face—still quizzical, but now disappointed. The beginning of the deeper disappointment he would feel in her one day not too far off. She went in search of her phone, finding it in her purse on the floor of the bedroom. She wasn’t sure how it had failed to wake her up, because she seemed to have twenty-two new voice mails.
There was no way that could be good.
She started to panic almost right away, her mind searching for explanations—something had happened to her family, someone had seen her groping Mark in the cab, someone had released video of their exploits in the dressing room to the press.
“I have to listen to my voice mail,” she called to the kitchen. “I have a million messages, apparently, and I only have that many when there’s a crisis. Since you’re my biggest client, that means the crisis is very likely to be you.”
“Haven,” the first message began. It was a stranger, and at least there was no death or urgency in the woman’s voice. “This is Suellen Marvel at High Note magazine. We know Sliding Up is planning a comeback tour, and we’d like to talk to you and set up an interview with Mark Webster.”
All the other voice mails were variations on that one. Damn it. They’d lost control of the timing of announcing the tour. Someone—she suspected Jimmy Jeffers, though she knew better than to accuse him—had leaked word of the possible tour to the media. She bet Jimmy had gotten tired of his stars squabbling, tired of waiting for Mark to capitulate and Pete to act like a human being. She bet this was his way of forcing their hands.
All the reporters who’d called her seemed to know that Pete Sovereign was a wild card, that his participation wasn’t yet ensured. Some were dubious that he could be convinced, and a few even said they didn’t believe that Pete and Mark could ever work together again. Many of them seemed to question her ability to make Mark Webster show-ready, and two mentioned Celine Carr’s Caribbean high jinks, doubting flat-out Haven’s ability to keep a PR situation from turning into a circus.
Well, they could shove it, because she didn’t doubt her abilities.
Except that—
What had she done?
If sleeping with her client wasn’t turning a situation into a circus, she had no idea what was.
A total of seventeen separate reporters had contacted her. But only one of the calls made her heart pound—the one that mentioned knowing that Haven had taken Mark to Nordstrom yesterday, and asking what that trip was about. That caller also knew that they had left the department store together, though, it seemed, not where they had gone. But it was way too close for comfort. They were being watched. They were being watched far more intensely than she had imagined.
She cursed herself, her unruly, out-of-control desire for Mark Webster. How had she let this happen, not once, not twice, but three times? How had she allowed herself to be sucked in deeper each time?
She’d chosen sex over her career, that’s what she’d done. Like some horny politician Tweeting photos of his dick or accepting blow jobs under the desk.
She had to regain control.
Maybe it was better this way. Rather than waiting for the clock to run out, for Mark to realize she wasn’t good enough for him, maybe it was better to be the one who brought things to a neat and tidy conclusion.
“Mark.”
He flipped a slice of bacon, and didn’t look at her. There must’ve been something in her voice that warned him he wasn’t going to like what she was about to say.
“Someone leaked about the tour. The press is on to us.”
“What does that mean?” His tone was suspicious.
“We have to be—we have to be more careful.”
“You mean we have to be discreet.” He said it flatly. “And I know that really equals ‘celibate.’”
“Mark.”
“Haven.” He crossed his arms to match hers.
“We can’t keep doing this.”
“Haven. We’re not doing ‘this.’ This—” he gestured, encompassing both of them, her apartment, the kitchen, breakfast “—is not a this. It’s us. It’s—”
“It’s messy. It’s foolish. It’s dangerous for you and for your father.”
He closed his eyes. “Haven, I like you. I like you way too much for games.”
“I know,” she said. “I like you way too much for games, too. That’s why we can’t play this one. I want you to have what you need, and that means being—celibate, if you prefer—for the time being. Until the tour is well underway, or maybe even over.”
“Couldn’t you drop me as a client? Couldn’t I work with someone else?”
“Not now,” she said. “Seventeen different reporters know we’re working together. If you went to someone else, then everyone would want to know why.”
“And we could explain. We could tell the truth.”
The truth was evident in how she’d felt with him yesterday. In the dressing room, in the cab, in her bed.
But truth wasn’t her job. Jimmy Jeffers had given her a task: clean Mark Webster up, make him ready for the tour. Even if Mark thought he didn’t want her to, she had to stick with the plan.
And she had to find a way to make him understand.
“Oh, hell,” he said, before she could speak. “You don’t want to. You want the tour. You’d rather give up what’s happening between us for your career, or whatever it represents to you.”
“It’s not just about my career,” she said. “It’s about yours, too, and about your father. I can’t turn everything we’ve both worked for upside down for something that might just be a fantasy. I mean, here we are, and I’m your fairy godmother, right? You know, people write articles about this in image consulting–trade magazines. Don’t fall for your creation. It’s a huge danger, to make someone over to be exactly who you want them to be, and then when they’re how you want them—clean shaven and short-haired and well dressed and behaving like you’ve told them to, fall in—”
Maybe some people would have had a moment of revelation right then. Oh, my God, I’m in love with him! Or I might be, anyway! And they’d stop in their tracks and say, Love trumps everything, let’s throw caution to the wind and just go with the flow here. But that was only half the equation. Suspecting she might have fallen in love with him didn’t tell her anything about how he felt about her. And even if he believed himself to be in love with her—
She cut off her own runaway thoughts. “When you make someone over, you can think they’re someone they’re not. And they can try too hard to be who you want them to be. That’s not good for either of you. You’re not my creation, you’re a real human being. So let’s give you the time to be that person before we complicate things any more.”
Mark turned away, then back, his eyes dark. “Don’t say, ‘let’s’ like it’s a decision I agree to. I hate the idea. What I want is to go back to bed with you and stay there for another few days.”
God, that was an appealing suggestion. Her body still held the imprint of his and she craved more, not just of what he could do to her physically, but more of him, the man who knew her weaknesses and wanted her anyway.
But she shook her head slowly. There were vultures closing in on them. “Hiatus,” she said. “Mark, please.”
He hung his head for a moment. Then he straightened and looked her in the eye. “I’ll make you a deal. You can have it your way. But first, we eat breakfast. And then we go back to bed.”
How much harm could it do? It wouldn’t be a hardship to go back to bed with him.
What would be a hardship was stopping after that.
Well, life was tough. Sticking to the plan was difficult. Image was demanding work. But it was good work, too. Necessary work. “And then we take a break.”
He nodded. “If that’s really what you want.”
“It’s the right thing for you, too,” she said. “Trust me. Going forward, I’ll make sure you have an acceptable date on your arm for all the events, and it’s not going to be me. I’ll find you another date for the fund-raiser. I’ll be there, but not with you. Just there.”
“Making sure I don’t screw it up,” he said bitterly.
“No—don’t be ridiculous. Just—” But of course he was right, wasn’t he? She’d be there in case anything went wrong, to rein him in or advise him.
“Will you have a date, too?”
“I think it would be for the best,” she said.
“Let the record show, I think this sucks,” Mark said.
She nodded. “The record will reflect your feelings.”
She wanted to tell him just how much she thought it sucked, too. It caused an ache in the middle of her chest, a lump so big she could barely breathe around it. But she was afraid that he’d talk her out of this if he knew how much she hated it. And right now it felt as if her plan was the only thing keeping her heart safe.
* * *
IF HE WAS going to take a forced break—and maybe, though he hoped it wasn’t so, a permanent one—from Haven Hoyt, then he was going to make their time together count.
They finished breakfast and cleaned the kitchen, and doing dishes was apparently better foreplay than he’d realized, because when they both reached into the soapy water for the same dish, her fingers had slipped between his, back and forth, in and out, until he lost his mind and crushed her mouth to his in the kind of kiss that went on and on, breaking off only for breath, resuming with more ferocity than before. Their kisses were hungry, and even mean sometimes, and then sweet for as long as they could stand it until they got desperate again.
He stopped only because he wanted to do something else with that mouth of hers. He had ideas and he wanted her to know about them. He wanted to leave her with images in her head and sensations in her body that she wouldn’t forget during the weeks or months when they were playing this game of hers.
He didn’t believe this was really a game, a hiatus or a break or “let’s get these complications off the table” or any of her bullshit. He believed it was an excuse. She couldn’t see him in her life or imagine going public with their relationship. In the end, she would choose her image over him because that was what she knew, because that was what was safe for her.
So, screw it, he was going to take every bit of her that she was offering right now, before she pulled away completely.
“You know earlier?”
“Yes?”
“When you wanted to go down on me and I said later?”
She stared at him. Was she holding her breath? Her eyes were wide, and she licked her lips—unconsciously, he thought.
“It’s later.”
She knelt but he pulled her upright again.
“No. In the bedroom. I want to show you something.”
He half herded her into the bedroom, and the look she shot him told him she liked him taking charge as much as he got off on it. He untied her robe and pushed it off her shoulders so it dropped to the floor.
“Lie down. Facedown at the edge of the bed. Right at the edge.”
She lay crosswise on the bed, naked, chin close to the side, ass tipped up slightly, which made him want to abandon plan A to climb on top of her and plunge in, instead. But he restrained himself, undoing his jeans but staying put.
“Commando,” she observed.
“Yup.”
“That’s hot.” She gazed up at him through thick lashes, which fed some fantasy he hadn’t even known he had—her prostrate, helplessly adoring.
Man, maybe he was as much of an asshole as the world thought. “My image consultant wouldn’t approve.” He took himself in hand and made a show of it, a slow, sensuous slide up and down his length, his thumb smoothing a drop of pre-cum over the head.
“Your image consultant could not approve more.”
“My image consultant needs to convey her approval, then.” He shed his jeans and came close, so his thighs pressed against the edge of the bed.
He had all manner of images in mind, but what she did surprised him completely. Which was to say, it was unlike the Haven he’d thought he’d known and so much like the Haven he seemed to have invoked from sheer desire. She rubbed her nose into the fold of his thigh, scenting him. “You smell so good,” she said.
“That’s hot,” he said.
In answer, she licked him. His thigh, then his balls, then the length of his cock, which jerked its endorsement. She caught his head between her lips and popped it out again, sending a shock of pleasure he felt all the way to the root and as far off as his skull. She did it again, and then she took him deep. He felt the hot, wet satin of the back of her throat, firm against his sensitive tip. She pressed him deeper.
“Jesus.”
There was the physical pleasure itself, which was massive, heat and slide and pressure and pull, the suction as her cheeks hollowed, the play of her tongue along his length and under the ridge of his head. And then there was the rest of it, the fact that she was letting him so deep, that she wasn’t guarding herself against him with her hands or restricting his movement, just trusting him not to hurt her.
She slid her palm under his balls, the other around to his ass, urging him deeper still.
“You sure?”
In answer, she hummed in her throat.
Holy hell.
He was so deep in her mouth that her lips reached almost to his base. He was torn between wanting this to last forever and the primal need to come as soon as possible. He imagined the spasms of her throat and the spasms of his cock, and almost spilled right then.
She made contented noises as she wi
thdrew and slid down again, her lips loosening and tightening, her hands massaging his thighs, moving him closer, pushing him farther away. He wanted to do something for her, too, so he stroked a hand along her back, reaching to touch her smooth, round cheeks. She lifted her ass into his hand, tipping back until his fingers, almost of their own accord, slid down and into her, into heat and wet and—
“You’re getting off on sucking me.”
She answered by curling her tongue again around the head of his cock and dropping her hand down to apply pressure to his taint. She was on her elbows and her knees, now, dipping her head, her pelvis tilted to present as much of herself as possible to his hand.
“You like it. You’re not just doing it to be nice.”
He twisted his fingers inside her, and she bucked back against his hand, seeking more, groaning around his erection.
“What if I mess with your nipple with this hand, and then put my thumb inside you and then crook my fingers around and—”
In answer, she came, whimpering against his cock, spasming around his fingers. He immediately urged her onto her back, and knelt on the bed over her. Quickly he found a condom in the night-table drawer, and before her aftershocks were finished, he was in her, taking her through the last of the pulses, his own orgasm shooting up from the soles of his feet and gripping him until it shook him limp.
Haven.
“I think you had it all wrong,” he said. “You don’t like it neat. You like it messy. You like it hard and dirty and—”
“I think...” she said uncertainly. Her breath was warm on his shoulder. “I think I like—you.”
11
PETE SOVEREIGN HAD relocated their coffee date from a big, busy Starbucks to a coffee shop that he’d described as “intimate and cozy,” and when she showed up, he was sitting at a table near the door with two mugs and two plates in front of him. He pushed one of each across the table to her. “Let me guess,” he said. “Decaf mocha with skim and a warm chocolate croissant.”