Текст книги "Rock Addiction"
Автор книги: Nalini Singh
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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 21 страниц)
Chapter 31
“You should be safe in our home,” he said at last. “You shouldn’t have to fight to get inside, shouldn’t have to deal with those fucking bastards screaming at you, watching you.”
Molly wanted to kick herself—she’d just pointed out how protective he was of her. Of course he’d react badly to the idea that she might feel threatened in any way. “I feel so safe with you,” she whispered. “More than I’ve ever felt, even before the scandal.” To no one had she ever been this important, this precious, worth protecting. “Those photographers? They’re annoyances; gnats. I know I get the deer-in-the-headlights look sometimes, but that’s because it’s all new. I’ll get used to it.”
Fox’s hand clenched on her thigh. “Why should you have to get used to it?” It was a growl. “I want to make music—it’s what I’ve always wanted. When did wanting that mean people have a right to invade our privacy?”
“It’s not fair,” Molly said, “but if we allow that to grind us down, we allow them to win. I’d rather we just live our lives, because one thing is for certain—you and I, we aren’t going to break.” It was a promise.
“No, we’re not.” Closing a strong hand gently around her throat, he ran his thumb over her pulse point. “But if one of those parasites ever pulls the kind of shit with you that they tried to pull with me today, all bets are off. I will destroy him.”
“Don’t do anything that’ll get you thrown in jail,” she said, looking directly into his eyes so he’d know she was dead serious. “You leave me and I will never forgive you.”
Fox’s thumb went motionless against her pulse. “You mean that.”
“You know what my parents did,” she said in answer, her mind roiling with memories of her father’s ugly crimes and of her mother’s alcoholism. “Their choices left me alone and nearly broken. I’m trusting you not to do the same thing to me.” It was the biggest trust she’d ever given in her life, and her voice shook with the sheer, unrelenting weight of it.
Fox held the intimate eye contact as he spoke. “You’re more important to me than any pap. I’ll sic the lawyers on them—and I’ll tell the overpriced sharks to bite hard.”
Swallowing the knot in her throat, she touched her fingers to his lips. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me for not being an ass.” He gathered her close, and they sat there for a long time, listening to the late-night wind whisper through the trees around the property, the waterfall of the infinity pool a peaceful murmur in the background.
“Tell me about Charlotte,” he said some time later.
“Charlie? Why?”
“She’s your family like the band’s mine. I want to know her.”
Yes, her rock star understood her. In ways no one else ever had. “We met on the first day of nursery school,” she said, his heartbeat strong under her palm. “I remember her giving me her pail in the sandbox so I could build a giant sandcastle. Then she ran around and made sure no one disturbed my creation.”
Her lips curved. “That’s who Charlie is in a nutshell—sweet and generous and loyal.” A woman who deserved a man who understood and cherished the treasure in his arms. “She’s so honest and kind, I’d worry about her, but Charlie sees people for who they are.” Though Molly wished her friend’s innocence about the world hadn’t been shattered as it had been.
Fox buried the fingers of one hand in her hair. “Were you good girls at school?”
“We weren’t teacher’s pets, but neither one of us is rebellious by nature.”
“Yet you ran off with a no-good musician, and you keep talking about some guy called T-Rex with Charlie.”
Molly slapped playfully at his chest. “You’re not meant to listen in!”
A rumble against her as he laughed. “I can’t help it. I’m fascinated by how you and Charlie can chat for two hours without running out of things to say.”
“I could do that with you, too, though you’d probably ask for phone sex.”
“Abso-fucking-lutely.”
Bursting out laughing at the unrepentant statement, she nuzzled a kiss to his throat. “What was the worst thing you did as a student?”
Fox whistled. “That’ll take some thinking. I made it my mission in life to be a problem—until I realized nothing I did would make my mother want me enough to stand up to the prick.” The acceptance in his tone was almost worse than the echo of old pain; Molly couldn’t imagine how badly he must’ve hurt until the wound scarred over.
“Then,” he said, “I became a model student. I think the teachers thought I’d been possessed, especially when I turned out to be freaky good at algebra.”
“I hope you apologized to the teachers you drove crazy,” she said, taking her cue from him and keeping it light; Fox didn’t have to rip open old wounds, didn’t have to bleed to invite her into himself.
“Naw… but I, uh, sponsor a program for kids like me.”
The unusual hesitancy of his voice had her sitting up, her eyes locked with his. “A program?” It was a soft prompt when he fell silent.
“The ones who don’t have anywhere to go for the holidays,” he elaborated. “The program means they get to travel to another country, spend the time with a host family.”
Her eyes burned. Blinking rapidly to fight it, she said, “That’s wonderful,” her throat thick.
Fox shrugged. “It’s not the same as being with your own family, but I thought maybe the excitement of seeing another country would help blunt things. Anyway,” he continued quickly, “the principal writes me now and then. He says most of the kids stay in constant contact with their host families and choose to go back to the same families year after year, so I figure maybe they’ve chosen new families like I did with Noah, David, and Abe.”
There was so much she didn’t yet know about this gorgeous, talented man. Each piece, each facet, he revealed, it tumbled her deeper and deeper into a love she knew would forever define her. “You’re doing an incredible thing,” she said, and when he looked uncomfortable, cupped his face. “Your girl is allowed to say mushy things like that about you. She’s allowed to think you’re wonderful.”
“As long as you don’t tell anyone.” A scowling warning accompanied by a squeeze of the arm he had around her. “Let’s go for a drive.”
“Now?”
“It’s a beautiful night. I want to show you my town under the stars.”
Late as it was, the paparazzi had scattered and they were able to exit the property in the Lamborghini without stress. The drive proved to be romantic in a sweet, old-fashioned way, which she would’ve never expected of Fox. After a stunning moonlit half hour along the Pacific Coast Highway, the sea crashing to shore on one side, Fox circled back through Sunset Boulevard, stopping to buy her hot chocolate—complete with extra marshmallows—from a canny food-truck driver who’d set himself up within sight of night-shift workers on a road-repair project.
“Mmm, smells divine.” She took a sip of the sweet liquid and settled in to enjoy the sound of Fox’s rough purr of a voice as he gave her a personal tour, the tall palms on either side of the boulevard exotic to her eyes.
“Did you ever play in the clubs around here?” she asked some time later when they hit what he told her was the Sunset Strip, the area dazzling with spotlighted billboards and pulsing with nightlife.
“We had one of our first big breaks at that club over there.” Fox pointed out a tiny doorway with a huge line. “Owner’s nurtured more talent than most in this town.” He kept the car at an easy speed as they continued down the Strip, the gleaming black limo in front of them obviously cruising the sights as well. “You know that TV show you like? The detective one? Check out the convertible next to us.”
Molly’s eyes went wide when she did. A second later, she let out an “Eep!” and sat back while Fox started laughing. Shoving at his arm, she tried to scowl through her beet-red face. “I can’t believe he… that she… at a traffic light! Where anyone could see.” There was no way to miss the sleek blonde head bobbing up and down in the lap of the chiseled actor in the driver’s seat.
“Pity”—Fox hauled her over for a hard, wet kiss before the light changed—“I was hoping it’d give you ideas.”
It did, but Molly wasn’t about to put those ideas into practice anywhere public. On a less populated stretch of road, however, and in a car that wasn’t so low-slung… “Keep driving,” she said, voice husky. “Show me Guitar Row. I read about it online.”
“That’ll be better in the daytime. We’ll come back another day, have a real look around,” he promised, pointing out a billboard up ahead that featured Schoolboy Choir and their upcoming concert dates. “When we first came to L.A., we used to walk up and down Guitar Row, salivating over all the instruments we wanted but couldn’t afford.”
Fascinated, she put the empty hot-chocolate cup in the holder and turned slightly in her seat. “Did you four meet at boarding school?” It was something she’d assumed but didn’t know for certain.
“Yes, at an honest-to-God choir tryout. The music teacher forced us to go.”
“No!” She grinned. “You were in the choir?”
“Hell, no.” A growl of sound. “I sang flat and off-key on purpose. So did the others—Noah and I were friends already, but that’s when we decided we were soul mates with David and Abe, too.” A pause as he slowed the car to allow another limo, this one virgin white, to merge into traffic, a topless woman popping out of the sunroof to blow kisses their way before she was yanked back down.
“Was she wearing giant bunny ears?” Shaking her head, Molly shifted her attention back to the rock star who intrigued and compelled her far more than anything around them. “What happened next?”
“We made music together,” he said simply, and brought her hand to his mouth for a kiss. “Starting out, we crashed in a cheap two-bedroom apartment, working every day job we could to make the rent and feed ourselves.”
Molly could hear the passion in his voice, knew the dream of music had driven him. “How old were you?”
“Eighteen. Right out of high school.” He placed her hand on his thigh as he shifted gears. “Noah and Abe, they both come from heavy-duty money, but it was an unspoken rule that we did this on our own. Best decision we ever made—money’s never come between us, and the band? It’s ours, no one else’s.”
Molly loved the insight into the band’s friendship, into Fox, and kept urging him to continue. So engrossed was she in his stories of what it had been like to go from flat broke to filling stadiums with screaming fans that it took her a while to realize they’d left the lights of the city behind to prowl up one of the hills. “Where are we going?”
A sinful smile, the dimple lean and gorgeous in his cheek. “Best make-out spot in the city.”
The row of cars at the top, complete with steamed-up windows, proved him right.
Pushing back his seat once he’d parked, Fox said, “Come here, Miss Molly,” and maneuvered her into his lap.
She snuggled close. “This is so romantic.” Los Angeles spread out in front of them like a twinkling carpet, the lights fireflies in the dark.
“Does that get me points?” Fox ran his hand under her unbound hair to touch her nape.
Skin taut at the tone of his voice, she said, “Depends.”
“On what?”
“On what you intend to do with the points.”
“Trust me?”
It was no longer even a question. “Yes,” she said, “this earns you many brownie points.” Nervous anticipation in her veins, she looked into eyes shadowed by the darkness inside the vehicle. “What do you want to use them for?”
Fingers trailing up her neck. “A little rope.”
“You want to tie me up?” Molly’s voice was husky, the sound a caress over Fox’s senses.
“Yeah.” He cupped the lush warmth of her braless breast through the T-shirt she’d thrown on over jeans, enjoying the simple pleasure of being able to touch her as he pleased. “I’ve always wanted to try it.”
“You’re telling me Zachary Fox, rock star named Reigning Sex God by a certain men’s magazine three years running,” she said, her breast pushing into his palm as she leaned closer, “has never tied up a woman during sex?”
“Even a Reigning Sex God has to develop his tastes.” He rubbed his thumb over her nipple. “By the time I realized it was something I wanted to try, that girl I walked home from the bar had sold her story to the tabloids. I didn’t trust anyone enough to play those games.” Molly though… she could have every one of his secrets.
He was hers.
“Some people would say I’m being naïve believing that—”
Ice in his blood.
Screwing up her nose, Molly glared at him. “I said some people. I know you don’t lie. You never have, not from the start.” A pause. “Though you did let me assume you were perfectly happy for our relationship to end after a month.”
Fox winced. “You ever going to forget that?”
“No”—Molly tugged at his lip ring—“I plan to hold it over you for the rest of our lives together.” Shifting position to straddle him, she held his gaze with the clear brown of her own. “Thank you for never lying to me.”
He heard the honesty, saw the vulnerability she didn’t try to hide. “I never will, baby. Even if I know what I’m about to say will piss you off.” Tucking his fingers under the edge of her T-shirt, he stroked the bare skin of her lower back. He’d always been a tactile man, but with Molly, it was more than that—it felt good deep inside to touch her, as if he was where he was meant to be. “Speaking of which… I got you something in New York.”
“Other than the ridiculously expensive robe with which I’m madly in lust?”
“The robe was a present for me.” She’d accepted that with open pleasure, but this next gift might slam up against her boundaries—it continued to frustrate him that she made no demands on him financially when he wanted to give her the world, wanted to make her happy. “It’s in my front jeans pocket.”
Chapter 32
Wiggling her fingers into his left pocket, Molly brushed something rigid and hot. “Is that it?” she asked, feeling sexy as only Fox could make her feel.
“That’s for later.” A wicked promise. “Try the other pocket.”
Molly managed to get her fingers inside despite the way the fabric had pulled taut because of his seated position, touched velvet. Working it out, she saw it was a pouch from a high-end jewelry store he must’ve ducked into when he went to get the donuts yesterday.
“…you should know I plan to spoil you. Let me.”
The memory of his words broke her heart as she considered what this gift meant to Fox. And it had nothing to do with money.
“Are you going to open it?” A fine tension to his body, lashes lowered to shade the expression in his eyes.
She could swear her commitment until she was blue in the face, she thought, but it would take him time to accept that she didn’t need enticement to stay. Until then, she’d never turn down a gift, no matter how outrageous, never hurt him with what he’d read as a rejection. “I want you to show me,” she said, handing him the bag.
Lips curving, he tugged open the little gold tie and poured a tumble of glittering gemstones onto his palm before picking up one of the earrings and holding it out. “I don’t want to poke holes in you.”
Aware she was handling thousands of dollars, she carefully hooked it on, then added its twin. “So?” She tucked her hair behind her ears to better show off the precious stones.
“You make them look beautiful.” Sliding one hand under her tee and onto bare skin again, he cupped the back of her head with his other and smiled in the way that always made butterflies take flight in her stomach. “Want to make out?”
Molly had never made out in a car with a boy. Even the idea of it had nauseated her after her father was caught in his luxury sedan with his underage lover. “I might freak out,” she warned, because while she felt fine now, the past had a way of biting when she least expected it.
Fox didn’t ask for explanations; his expression told her he got it. “I can handle a freak-out. Especially if you let me get to third base.”
They steamed up the windows, almost got busted by the cops, and there was no freak-out. It was the best date of her life.
“You look happy,” Thea pronounced a week later when they met up at a sunny little café a couple of minutes’ walk from Thea’s office, the two of them choosing an outdoor table.
Molly took a sip of her passion-orange tea. “I am.” She was starting to believe she and Fox would be okay, even in this hothouse atmosphere. “Is that stubble burn on your cleavage?”
Thea shoved her sunglasses up on top of her head to glance down, groaned. “Damn it. I thought this neckline was high enough.” She pointed a finger at Molly. “’Fess up. You told David to write memos.”
Molly gave her innocent eyes.
Snorting, Thea picked up her phone to check her e-mails.
“So?” Molly prompted, used to the way her sister multitasked.
“So… I guess we’ll see if I can trust him while the band’s on tour.” A whisper of pain, an echo of the brutal blow her fiancé had delivered, the cheating, supercilious piece of crap.
Molly didn’t know if her sister’s heart could take another beating without permanent damage; she truly hoped David was the man she believed him to be. “I thought you’d be traveling with us?”
“No, it’ll be one of my associates. I need to remain at base command for the most part so I can quickly stamp out any fires.” Thea’s eyelashes flicked up. “The other guys, how are they handling what’s happening between David and me?”
“No one’s making a big deal of it,” Molly said, conscious Thea continued to worry about the possible repercussions of being involved with a client, especially if things didn’t work out. “They mess with each other all the time, but not on this topic.” Tight as the four were, it was clear Fox, Abe, and Noah understood exactly how important this relationship was to their bandmate. “We’re all rooting for you.” Smiling, she said, “As your sister, I hope that stubble burn is the first of many.”
Thea laughed, her tension easing. “I’m considering flying in to meet up with the band during some of the tour stops, so you never know.” Spooning up the foam from her cappuccino with one hand while typing a return message with the other, she turned the conversation back to Molly. “Are you looking forward to the tour?”
“Yes and no.” Molly watched a bouncy, tanned woman walk by with two tiny dogs on leashes, each dog pure white with a diamanté collar. It wasn’t until the woman had passed that Molly noticed she was wearing four-inch Perspex heels and had another fluffy white dog in the handbag slung over her elbow, her fingers curved to show off hot-pink talons. “Sometimes I feel like I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole.”
“You’ll be fine.” Thea nibbled at her bran muffin. “Stay grounded, don’t allow all this”—a wave at the flamboyance and wealth around them—“to taint what you have with Fox.” She took a drink of her coffee before saying, “Why yes and no?”
“I’m excited because I get to travel with Fox, watch him perform.” Molly would never get enough of watching him onstage. “But I’m worried about the pressure it might put on us—it’s an intense environment.” Pausing, she admitted, “I’m so possessive of him, Thea. I hate it when he poses with female fans without his T-shirt, even though I know it means nothing to him.”
Her sister turned off her phone, gave Molly her full attention. “Have you spoken to him about it?”
“We fought about it after Sydney, but I haven’t brought it up since.”
Thea shook her head. “Do it, Molly. Otherwise, he’ll end up hurting you without knowing it, and you’ll become angry and resentful.” She held up a hand when Molly would’ve spoken. “I’ve worked in this industry for a decade and the couples that make it are the ones who have no secrets. Because even a tiny thing can act like a grain of sand against skin, rubbing and rubbing until it makes you bleed.”
Two days later, Thea’s words circled in Molly’s mind as she sat at home watching the live broadcast of a prime-time show: Schoolboy Choir was currently being interviewed by the witty, likeable host. The host’s questions—which the guys were handling without problem, shooting back good-humored retorts—weren’t what had Molly’s nerves taut. That came courtesy of the other guest, a tall, curvy blonde in a dramatic, figure-hugging dress of deep blood-orange.
A major recording star in her own right, Carina had sung a chart-topping duet with Fox for Schoolboy Choir’s most recent album, the rock ballad as hard as it was romantic. Molly had loved it. Until now. It only took her a couple of minutes into the interview to realize the other woman was intelligent as well as talented and physically blessed. She’d also clearly not been faking her enjoyment of the sultry kiss she’d shared with Fox in the music video for the song.
Molly would’ve had to have been blind to miss the flirtatious invitations Carina was sending Fox’s way. And it wasn’t just her imagination or jealous paranoia. The show had a tweet stream running along the bottom of the screen and the majority of the tweets had to do with the chemistry between Fox and Carina. Whoever was choosing the tweets to display had picked relatively tame messages, as opposed to the more sexually charged ones Molly knew had to be flooding the site, but that didn’t matter.
So shipping Carina and Fox. #perfectcouple
She is totally hot for him. Love it!
OMG, most beautiful couple or what?
We saw it first! Foxina 4ever!
Molly’s stomach knotted further with each second that passed. No one, she thought, seemed to remember that Fox had been spotted with a different woman in New York, Molly forgotten in the blink of an eye. The only thing that kept her from throwing something at the television screen was that no matter what the viewers believed, Fox wasn’t returning the signals. And Molly knew every one of his signals intimately.
Forcing herself to breathe, she consciously relaxed her death grip on the cushion she’d hugged to her chest. Fox couldn’t help it if he drew women like flies. The only way Molly would survive this relationship was if she trusted in their bond. “Doesn’t mean I can’t be a little irrational though.”
Decision made, she put a piece of duct tape along the bottom of the screen so she couldn’t see the tweet stream, and muted the TV every time Carina opened her mouth. The interview was suddenly enjoyable—enough that she didn’t mute Carina’s part in the live performance of the duet—but when the woman got too close to Fox, as if to recreate their kiss, she did throw the remote at the television.
Justifiable, she rationalized, just as Fox—strumming an electric guitar—smoothly deflected the attempt by leaning into Noah for an off-the-cuff jam session that had the audience rioting in their seats. In the interim, Abe grabbed Carina as if stealing her away. By this stage, the audience was wild, and they stayed that way as the host yelled out a good-bye message, the credits beginning to roll across the bottom third of the screen.
Molly didn’t think, didn’t give herself time to second-guess her emotions. Picking up her phone, she sent a message to Fox. You were amazing. Smooth moves with a certain Miss Touchy-Feely.
The response came quicker than she’d expected. She’d figured the audience had to be swarming the men for photos and autographs. I thought so. Just so you know—these brownie points equal more ropes.
Molly’s teeth sank into her lower lip. Promises, promises, she sent, a deep happiness inside her at the unmistakable sign that though he’d just been publicly hit on by a superstar, he was thinking about her. By the way, don’t take off your T-shirt even if a fan wants it.
Yes, Molly.
When his car purred into the drive an hour and a half later, exactly when he’d predicted he’d be home, a smile broke out over her face. Running downstairs, she opened the internal door to the garage and watched him park the Aventador, jumping into his arms as soon as he stepped out, her legs wrapping around his waist. “Hi.”
A slow smile that was so real it stole her breath. “Hi, yourself, Miss Molly. I think you missed me.”
Since the day she’d first understood she came last in her parents’ lives, Molly had been protecting herself. Charlotte alone had broken through, but much as she loved her best friend, it was nothing as terrifying and as beautiful as what she felt for Fox. And her rock star needed to know that, needed to see she was in this for the long haul.
“Yes,” she said, not hiding any of her emotions, though the exposure made her pulse stammer, her throat go dry. “You’ve been gone all day.”
A hot tangle of a kiss, one of Fox’s hands at her nape, the other under her butt. “I missed my Molly-time, too.”
They just cuddled there for a minute before Fox turned to place her on the hood of the car. Pushing her down gently until she lay on her back on the metal, her feet on the ground in front of the low-slung vehicle, he ripped off his T-shirt. “So, I’m not allowed to be shirtless when I take photos with fans?”
Molly shook her head. “No. I hate it when other women touch you.” He couldn’t totally stop that, but at least this way, they wouldn’t be touching his skin beyond the arm.
Leaning down, one hand on her breast, he suckled her upper lip into his mouth, his smile unhidden. “Then you’d better have spares backstage for me,” Fox said, luxuriating in her possessiveness.
“I will.” A firm statement, Molly watching him rise back up to his full height, her eyes following his movements as he dropped his hands to the studded black leather belt that held up his faded and ripped jeans.
“You want me, Molly?” he asked, sliding out the belt to drop it to the garage floor.
“No.” Her fingers curled into her palms. “I think you need to come here and rev me up.”
Nudging her thighs farther apart, he undid the button on her jeans, tugged down the zipper. “Want to take back what you said?”
