Текст книги "Rock Addiction"

Автор книги: Nalini Singh

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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

Chapter 33

Molly stubbornly shook her head.

Stripping off her jeans, he settled between her legs again, so damn pleased with her that he’d play with her all night if she wanted. “Maybe it’s the car,” he said, undoing the buttons of the cardigan she wore as a top. “That’s what has you so hot.”

The fact she’d run into his arms, her need for him open and unhidden, it meant everything, his passion for her about far more than lust. He wanted to pet her, pleasure her, cherish her. “Seems like you’re getting me to do this under false pretenses.”

 “It is,” Molly said, tone breathy, “a very nice car.”

“Just for that, I’m not going to put my mouth on you.”

Molly flexed her fingers against the flawless red paintwork. “What if I ask nicely?”

“It’d have to be very, very nice indeed.” God but he fucking loved that she trusted him enough to let her body be his favorite instrument.

Shivering as he peeled apart the sides of the cardigan to bare the lace-covered mounds of her breasts, his lover said, “Please, Fox.” A feminine whisper that wrapped him in silken chains tinged blush pink with the color on her cheekbones. “Please put your mouth on me.”

Never had he talked this much during sex, but this was Molly and there were no rules. “Hmm, good start,” he said, pressing a kiss to the delicate skin of her breastbone, “but I don’t know if you really mean it.”

 “Maybe I don’t want your mouth.” Her hand gripping his hair, tugging him up with a scowl. “I can take care of myself.”

Smoldering heat in his blood. “Oh, you’ll be doing that one day soon. In front of me.” It would be an erotic fantasy come to life. “But since you’re being so uncooperative today”—he stroked his hand down one silken thigh, to her restless movement—“maybe you don’t deserve an orgasm.”

Chest heaving, she wrapped both legs around his hips to hold him to her, the denim of his jeans scraping against the cream of her skin. “You are a bad man and I adore you.”

Ah fuck, but she knew how to cut him off at the knees. Totally hers, he kissed her, one hand at her throat, the other on the plump curve of her breast. When she broke the kiss to gasp in air, he took his hand off her throat to run his mouth over the slope of it, continuing downward until he reached her breasts. It only took a second to push down the cups, bare her to him, her nipples lush berries in his mouth.

“Fox.” A husky moan, her hands on his shoulders. “I want you.”

That did it. The leash snapped. “Be a good girl for my cock”—he reached down to push aside the gusset of her panties, undo his jeans—“and I’ll use my mouth on you later.”

Molly’s skin tinged hot pink, but his smart, sexy librarian didn’t back down. “I always am for you.”

Pretty damn sure he’d spill then and there, he shoved up her thigh and pushed into her in a single thick thrust, both of them sprawled out on the hood.

 “Fox!”

“I have you.” Bracing his hands palms down on either side of her head, he looked into brown eyes drenched in pleasure, the pupils dilated, and found he wanted to hear the words Molly gave him, the ones that made him feel ten feet tall. But he didn’t know how to ask for them, how to tell her how important those words were to his soul.

Then she raised her fingers to his lips, tracing the shape of his mouth. “My gorgeous, talented Fox. I’m so glad I wake up next to you every morning.”

Shuddering, he stroked her thigh and found the patience to rock her slow and easy, his Molly who didn’t only fight for him, but who gave him what he needed with a generosity that tore him to pieces. As the world splintered around them, he could only hope he gave her the same, hope that she saw no lack in her life.

He couldn’t lose her. Not his Molly.

Three weeks later and Molly felt as if she was living in a dream world. The band was now officially on tour and had been for the past five days. Though they were surrounded by crew, and had—until an hour ago—been accompanied by a reporter from the most iconic magazine in the industry, Molly was the only one who was attached on a strictly personal basis.

She’d expected to be cornered by the reporter sometime during the fourteen days he shadowed the band, beginning with Schoolboy Choir’s pre-tour preparations. She’d even worked out strategies to answer what she’d guessed would be intrusive questions, but the man had treated her with a kind of absent politeness, otherwise ignoring her existence. Molly had been delighted but mystified.

It was Maxwell who cleared things up for her.

“He thought you were flavor of the month,” the crew boss said with his customary bluntness. “Since he’s planning to write the definitive article on the band at this point in their career, he’s not going to bother to include what he thinks is a bit of pussy.”

Molly could feel herself turning bright red. Booming with laughter, Maxwell hugged her close to his bulk. “Don’t worry about him. He’ll kick himself later when he realizes his ‘definitive article’ has a hole the size of Alaska because he couldn’t see what was right in front of his face.”

“Damn straight,” Molly said, tugging on her Schoolboy Choir cap when Maxwell released her.

“Good girl.” His grin could’ve been of a proud father. “Boys don’t have a concert tomorrow and we’re not on the road, so get ready to paint the town red after tonight’s show.”

Molly might’ve been surprised at how circumspect the entire band had been the past five days, if she hadn’t understood the demanding physicality of the concerts. Dedicated to their music as all four men were, giving a mediocre performance simply wasn’t acceptable—it wouldn’t only disappoint their fans, it would mean letting down the other members of the band.

As a result, they were more than ready to blow off some serious steam. “Wear the red skirt,” Fox said, patting her on the butt after he’d showered off the sweat from the show. “With the sparkly top.”

The “sparkly top” was a low-cut sequined halter in shimmering gold he’d bought her two days ago after spotting it in a boutique window across from their last hotel. Trying it on with a strapless push-up bra and the skirt she’d fixed after Fox tore it in New York, Molly whistled at her own reflection. She looked hot. Feeling confident and happy, she spent time straightening her hair before pulling it back into a sleek ponytail. A bit of careful makeup, with the focus on knockout red lips, and she was done.

“Oh holy hell.” It was a harsh groan from the open bedroom doorway, Fox having slipped out to the living area of the hotel suite to raid the room service cart while she dressed.

Turning around on skinny black heels, she propped a hand on her hip, her stomach flipping at the heat in the smoky green of his eyes. “I love this outfit.”

Fox, dressed in camo-green cargo pants and a white T-shirt that hugged his biceps, began to prowl closer. “Not as much as I do.”

Molly held out a hand. “No way. I didn’t go to all this trouble for you to mess me up.”

Fox’s eyes gleamed. “Bet I could change your mind.”

“No bet. We both know I’m easy where you’re concerned,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck and drawing in the clean bite of his aftershave. “You’re all smooth.” She rubbed her cheek against his. “Not that I don’t like you rough.”

Fox cupped her butt with possessive hands. “I know just how rough you like it, Miss Molly.” Squeezing her curves, he ground his aroused body against her. “I’m absolutely going to mess you up.”

“No, you don’t.” It took serious effort to break out of his hold, the flesh between her thighs already damp. “I want to see what you guys get up to on a night out.”

“I sure as hell won’t be getting up to the same things now that I have you in my bed. Which is where I’d like to be right now.” Despite his frustrated growl, he held out his hand. “Come on, let’s go watch the other guys’ eyes pop out.”

The smug satisfaction in his tone made her want to drag him to the sheets. “Wait,” she said, fighting the temptation, “I have something for you.”

He watched curiously as she picked up a little bag emblazoned with a shop logo and pulled out a black leather cuff. “I thought this wouldn’t break rock star fashion protocol,” she said and closed the cuff around his left wrist, the studded design an echo of the belt hidden beneath his T-shirt.

“When did you get this?” he asked, admiring the workmanship.

“Secret.” Sliding her hands into the back pockets of his jeans, she kissed his jaw. Her glossy lipstick left a red imprint, but liking her mark on him, she didn’t immediately wipe it away. “I get to spoil you, too, you know.”

He echoed her position, his hands on her lower curves and his smile deep. “I’m already spoiled, but I could get used to this kind of a surprise.” Eyes dropping to her lips, he went to kiss her, sighed. “Damn it. I’ll ruin your pretty makeup.”

“Come here.” Lipstick or Fox’s kiss? No contest.

Noah wolf-whistled when he saw her ten minutes and a quick touch-up later, and suddenly she was being hauled to his side, one muscular arm around her waist. Startled, she landed with her hand on his T-shirt, the fabric black with silver detailing. The guitarist, she thought, could’ve stood in as a model for a fallen angel—beautiful and with an aristocratic look to him, his eyes holding a sardonic edge he made no effort to hide with people he didn’t like.

“Forget about that schmuck,” he said, motioning at Fox. “Don’t you know blonds do everything better?”

Fox claimed Molly back. “Find your own woman. I’m not sharing mine.” Nuzzling a kiss to her temple, his hand curving proprietarily over her hip, he glanced at David. “Car here?”

“Yep. Outside.”

The “car” proved to be a Hummer stretch limo, complete with a full bar and tiny lights on the roof that looked like stars. Sliding onto the black leather seat that ran along the side opposite the door, Molly accepted a flute of sparkling grape juice from Abe. “Thank you.”

He winked, thick lashes coming down over a dark brown eye, and turned up the music until it pumped through her blood. Soon afterward, everyone had a drink, the sunroof was open, and Fox’s arm was around her neck as they cruised through the city en route to their first stop.

Molly had only gone clubbing that one disastrous time, never partied with a boy, never made out in the middle of a dance floor. Fox was no boy, but he absolutely made out with her in the midst of the pumping mass of bodies that was the hottest club in town. Molly knew there had to be cameras around, but the place was all but dark, and she was in too good a mood to ruin the experience by focusing on the outside world rather than her man.

As Charlotte had said, being caught in the arms of a sex god was hardly anything to be embarrassed about. So she danced flush up against Fox’s hard body and when he demanded a kiss, opened her mouth for him, her hand curled over the warmth of his nape. The muscle and tendon of him moving under her touch as he kissed her was as hot as the weight of his hand on her ass.

Swaying with her under the pumping music, Fox scowled at Abe when the keyboardist cut in, but let her go. The members of the band were the only men to whom he’d surrender her. Soon as any other male even looked interested, Fox made it very, very clear Molly was off-limits. It was an intoxicating feeling, to be so publicly branded as his.

They went from club to club as a group, walking in at the front of every line. “This could go to a girl’s head,” Molly said, nuzzling at Fox’s throat in the shadows to the side of the dance floor.

Bending closer to her ear, his breath hot and intimate, he ran his hand down her side, stopping to caress the curve of her breast. “Does that mean you’ll suck my cock when we get back—after I tie your hands behind your back and bind your ankles together?”

Molly felt her skin blaze, wasn’t ready for the kiss he laid on her, her ponytail wrapped around his hand. “You are so sexy when you blush.” A delicious bite of her lower lip. “So?”

Molly somehow found the will to speak through the pulse of arousal low in her body. “If I say yes,” she whispered in his ear, her lips touching his skin, “you’ll have me on my knees in the hotel room so fast my head will spin, and I’m having fun.” Not that she’d last long if he decided to persuade her. “I like being out with you and the guys.”

Hands on her hips, he squeezed. “I can be patient when I know what I’ve got coming.” Taking her hand on that low promise, he led her through to the VIP section of the club, no doubt leaving a generous tip with the bouncer whose hand he shook on the way in.

“Do you always tip so well?”

“I waited tables when we were trying to make it,” he said. “Worked as a bouncer, too. You wouldn’t believe the number of big shots who never tip, the jerk-offs get so used to being given everything for free.”

Molly went to part her lips to reply when there was a holler from the other end of the bar, and two seconds later, Fox was being lifted off his feet by a big black guy in a flawless charcoal-gray suit. David, who’d entered right behind them, received the same treatment a few seconds later. “Damn!” the stranger said. “You didn’t tell me you were coming in!”

“That’s why it’s a surprise, asshole.” Noah’s laconic response had the older man grinning, the guitarist having just joined them.

“Fuck you, pretty boy.” Sharing a quintessentially male hug, complete with thumping back slaps, the two drew apart.

Abe, the last one to enter, held up a hand. “I don’t do girly shit like hugs, man.”

He was swallowed up an instant later and came out of it grinning, the deep smile rare on his face. Slapping Abe’s cheek with hard affection, the stranger turned to Fox. “You going to introduce us?” He was looking at Molly.

Startled, Molly found herself taking in the besuited man with new eyes. People had a way of ignoring her, appearing surprised when Fox introduced her. Seemed the “bit of pussy” wasn’t meant to have a name. It would’ve infuriated her except that Fox always made it clear she mattered. So she was taken aback when he said, “Hell no,” a scowl on his face. “You’re not safe around women.”

Flashing an undaunted smile at her, the stranger said, “I’m Shawn, but most folks call me Doc. A beautiful woman like yourself, however, can call me Shawn.” He held out one thickly muscled arm. “Let me show you things Fox here didn’t even know existed until I shared my wisdom with him.”

Fox traded insults with Shawn as they walked up a spiral staircase and into a private section that offered a view over the entire club. Shawn, Molly realized, either owned or managed the club. From the confident way he moved in this space, she leaned toward ownership. Ordering them to settle in, he called up trays of finger food from the club’s generous kitchen. Then, with food and drink flowing while the music boomed beneath them, Molly sat back and listened to the band catch up with a man who was obviously a trusted friend.

“This guy,” Abe told her, “gave us our first big break.”

Noah nodded, his beer held loosely between thumb and forefinger, the green glass of the bottle sweating with condensation. “He wasn’t a big shot then—had a tiny place that was building a serious rep, and he put us center stage.”

“Good business.” Shawn ate a spicy spring roll before continuing. “They packed out the club night after night. Had lines out the door by the end of what was supposed to be their run—so of course I signed them up for another one.”

Fox shook his head, fingers playing with Molly’s ponytail, his arm along the back of the sofa. “We didn’t pack in those crowds for weeks—not until word spread. Most people would’ve let us go, but Doc had our back.”

David clinked his beer bottle to the club owner’s. “Which is why he’d better have instruments for us.”

Shawn whooped. “You gonna jam? Hell yeah, I have what you need!”

Chapter 34

Molly watched from the high aerie that was Shawn’s domain as the band brought down the house with a rocking set that had people screaming. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to how amazing they are onstage,” she said to the club owner where he leaned on the railing next to her.

“Some musicians,” Shawn said, “they practice until they get good, others they have raw talent. Fox, Noah, Abe, and David, they always had the talent, but they had the drive too.” Leaving for a few seconds, he returned with a cocktail glass filled with decadent-looking chocolate mousse, complete with an enticing red cherry on top.

Molly groaned. “You’re going to kill me.” He’d already talked her into a frothy, creamy nonalcoholic cocktail.

“Try a spoonful for me.” He beamed at her shuddering moan when she gave in. “Good, yeah?”

“Divine.” She spooned up another tiny bite. “Fox is right—you’re dangerous around women.”

That got her another deep smile before he returned his attention to the band.

“You’re the first woman Fox’s brought into my club,” he said several minutes later. “Before, he might’ve picked up a woman here, taken her back to the hotel, but he’s never once brought anyone with him.”

Molly let the mousse melt on her tongue and tried not to think about those other women, but about the important part of Shawn’s statement. “That’s why you asked to be introduced.”

“Nope. That was because I plan to steal you away from Fox—I have an old pinup calendar in my office.” A low wolf whistle as he looked her up and down. “You’d fit right in.”

Smiling at the blatant sweet talk, Molly scooped up a touch more mousse as the band gave in to the urgings of the crowd and began another number. “If we’re going to be friends,” she said to Shawn, “you can’t tell me about the women Fox used to pick up and take back to his hotel.”

“You know he wasn’t a virgin when you met him, right?”

 “Doesn’t mean I want an action replay.”

“Fair enough.” He hollered along with everyone else at Noah’s guitar solo.

Almost as if they’d timed it, Fox’s growl of a voice rolled out over the last riff and David slammed down on the drums. Abe’s keyboard joined in fifteen seconds later, Noah coming back in at the same time. “This is new!” she yelled to Shawn over the screams of the crowd. “Never before performed live!”

The big man’s eyes sheened wetly. “Goddamn punks,” he said, his pride clear.

Clapping and dancing along with the crowd as the band finished the song and walked offstage, she ran back to the door through which Fox emerged a few seconds later. “You were amazing!” Kissing the life out of him, she turned to the others. “That was incredible!”

“Do we get a kiss, too?” Noah drawled.

Jerking him forward by grabbing the front of his T-shirt, Molly smacked him on the lips. It was the first time she’d seen Noah thrown off balance. He recovered quickly. “Fox, sorry, man. I’m keeping her.”

 Fox wrapped an arm around her waist, his face holding the exhilaration of performing. “Not even in your dreams.”

Then Shawn was there, hugging and backslapping his “punks.” They partied with the club owner till after four in the morning. “I’ve never been out this late,” Molly confessed to Fox as they danced to a slow song.

 “You are such a good girl.” A quick, hot kiss, her breasts crushed against his chest. “It turns me on like crazy—but what turns me on even more,” he whispered in her ear, “is watching you be dirty only for me.”

Drawing her aroused body off the dance floor when the house lights flickered, he took her back upstairs to say good-bye to Shawn. David had left much earlier, while Noah and Abe had both disappeared about an hour ago—Noah with a petite black woman and a pneumatic peroxide blonde, Abe with a statuesque, tattooed brunette, her skin pure cream.

“What’s the deal with Noah?” Molly asked softly once they were settled in the far back of the limo, Fox having instructed the driver to take them on a night tour of the city. Now, with the opaque privacy screen up between the front and the back, it was as if they were in an intimate cocoon. “I could’ve sworn he was looking at Kit as if he wanted a second chance, but then he picks up women left, right, and center.”

Fox shrugged. “Noah’s got his demons. Frankly, it’s better if Kit keeps her distance.”

Molly shifted on the seat to look at his face. “That bad?”

“I think of him as a brother,” Fox said, his voice quiet and his expression solemn, “but I also know he’s not good for a woman who wants an actual relationship. We might not have partied the past few nights, but Noah was fucking a groupie or some other woman—probably women—he picked up.” It was a nonjudgmental statement of fact. “I don’t know if anything or anyone is capable of fixing what’s broken inside him.”

Saddened, Molly laid her head against his shoulder and didn’t ask further questions. As she wouldn’t betray Charlotte’s secrets, she didn’t expect Fox to betray Noah’s. “The streets are so quiet and pretty this time of night.” Rain had fallen not long ago, and everything shimmered, the lights reflecting off the tarmac. “Let’s do this in other cities.”

Fox ran his fingers lightly over the side of her face where she lay tucked up against him. “Just don’t tell anyone I’m doing romantic bullshit.”

“Tough guy.” Snuggling into him, she said, “Can we ride around for a while?”

“Long as you want.”

They stayed out almost to dawn, stopping to play barefoot in a deserted fountain and dance under the moonlight in an otherwise empty plaza. Held in Fox’s arms, his cheek against her hair and the only sound that of their breaths, Molly drew in the scent of him and felt her heart overflow with love.

“Sorry ’bout the ropes,” she said sleepily much, much later, cuddling up to him in bed.

“Nothing to be sorry about—I’ve never had a better night out.” Fox stroked his hand down her spine, the callused pads of his fingers a delicious, familiar roughness, his words a gift against her skin. “I’ve decided to save the ropes for when we have hours to play. I wouldn’t want to rush.” A kiss to her shoulder as goose bumps broke out over her skin. “Good night, Molly Webster.”

“Good night, Zachary Fox.” I love you.

Fox was the one who found Abe the next afternoon when the big keyboard player didn’t meet the rest of them for a late lunch in Fox and Molly’s suite. “I’ll go wake him,” he said with a grin. “Maybe I’ll use this ice cube to do it.” Plucking the cube from his otherwise empty orange juice glass, he wrapped it in a thick napkin.

Noah and David grinned, but with restraint. Both their heads had to be throbbing since it turned out that after Noah showed his women the door last night, he’d woken David up and talked him into another drink or five.

“The rock-and-roll life,” Molly said sweetly, “is not healthy for your livers.”

David groaned. “Fucking tequila. Never again.”

“You said that last time.”

“Shut up, you minion of evil.”

Noah splurted his coffee. “Minion of evil? Last night you were declaring your undying love.”

“I’m going to stab you in a second.”

“For the record, Molly,” Noah said, turning his attention to her, “we’ve been saints since we returned home. Saints. We didn’t want Fox’s girl to get the wrong impression about us.”

Rolling her eyes, Molly took pity on the two males and was pouring them fresh coffee when her cell phone rang. It was Fox. “Get in here, bring the others.” He hung up after that terse instruction, and she saw why when they reached Abe’s room.

The keyboardist was sprawled in his bed, reeking of alcohol, bottles strewn around him and the brunette from the club nowhere in evidence. This, Molly knew at once, was more than a few too many drinks. “He needs medical attention.” She’d seen her mother like this, the memory an ugliness under her skin.

“It’s on its way.” Fox’s jaw was a brutal line. “I called 911.”

Thinking past her instinctive anger, the rage an old one, and back to the first-aid course she’d attended during university, she said, “We have to turn him to his side, make sure he has a clear airway.” Abe had thrown up at some stage, that much was apparent, but he’d survived. They had to keep him that way until the paramedics arrived.

The men rolled Abe into the correct position while she checked to make sure his airway wasn’t obstructed. His breathing did seem to steady after the change in position, but it remained shallow, the normally rich mahogany of his skin pallid. “Has he done this before?”

“No. He drinks, but nothing more than the rest of us.” Noah’s fists were so tight his skin had gone bone white. “Cocaine was his problem, but he kicked the habit. He made it.”

Except it was clear to all of them that Abe had only switched addictions.

Five hours later, the keyboardist was conscious but in no state to get out of bed. “It was just a binge,” he said when the others confronted him in his private hospital room.

Molly had stayed outside the room, knowing this was something the four men needed to discuss alone, but she remained within earshot. Noah’s temper, from what she’d seen, was as hot as Fox’s. Abe wasn’t far behind. David was calmer, but he was furious today, white lines bracketing his mouth. If needed, she’d step in to defuse the situation before it got violent. None of the men were the type to raise a hand against a woman.

 “A binge?” Noah shouted. “You were almost in a coma!”

“Shit, lower your voice.” It was a groan.

“What the hell are you doing, Abe?” Fox asked through what sounded like clenched teeth. “You stopped snorting coke, so you’ll kill yourself this way instead?”

“What I do in my own fucking time is my own fucking business.”

“You want to go there?” David said, and he didn’t sound like the calm one at all. “You really want to say that when we might have to go onstage tomorrow without you?”

“I’ll be fine by then.”

“Have you looked at yourself?” Noah demanded. “Your hands are shaking and you can’t even get out of bed.”

“Get back in,” Fox said, then swore as there was a small crash. “Satisfied now? You can’t do anything but destroy cheap vases.”

Abe’s response was too low for Molly to hear, but she could guess what it had been from Fox’s response. “You don’t get to pick and choose when we’re your friends. We won’t let you do this to yourself or to us again. Choose, Abe.”

“What?”

“The band or the booze, the drugs, whatever shit you want to shovel into yourself.”

A stunned silence.

Abe was the first to find his voice and it was a roar. “You can’t kick me out!”

“You’re kicking yourself out! How many times do you expect us to do this? Wait to see if you wake up? Get ready to call your mom to tell her in case you don’t?” Fox’s voice vibrated with unhidden fury. “Enough, Abe. You either want to live or you don’t.”

“I’m not trying to commit suicide for Christ’s sake!”

“You think she’d want this?” came Noah’s voice. “For you to wallow in a pool of self-pity because boo-hoo-hoo it’s too damn hard to be alive? She fucking idolized you, man.”

A charged silence, secrets hovering in the air.

“Enough,” David said quietly. “We all need to cool off before we say things that can’t be forgiven. I will not lose who we are together because of this.” A grim silence. “Any objections?”

There were none, and the three men walked out a few minutes later. Noah strode past without spotting her. David nodded and was gone. Wrapping his arm around her, Fox called up the two bodyguards he’d told to wait downstairs. “Stay here,” he ordered them when they arrived. “Watch him—and check everything that goes in and out. I find out he had any booze or drugs in that room, I’ll have your heads.”

Nodding, the two muscle-bound men took up position on either side of the door.

Molly kept her silence as she and Fox left the hospital via a loading dock not covered by the media. Everyone was whispering drug overdose, and the band had decided to let that stand. Abe’s problem with cocaine was old news, would soon fade from the screens and papers if they didn’t feed the story.

Given Fox’s mood, Molly didn’t think anything of it when he ignored a smartly dressed woman in the hotel lobby who said “Zachary” and made as if to walk toward him, her expression faintly supercilious. The elevator arrived before she reached them, and Fox nudged Molly inside.

“She didn’t look like a groupie,” Molly said, simply to break the strained quiet.

Fox’s lips twisted in a humorless smile. “They all want something.” He didn’t speak again until they were back in their room. “You okay?” Knees slightly bent, he brought himself down to her eye level.

It startled her that he’d remembered her past even in his current frame of mind. “I had a couple of flashbacks,” she admitted. “I guess it’s something I need to learn to handle. This environment—”

“No.” Fox’s voice was harsh. “You do not need to get used to this shit because it will not happen again. And never with me. Got it?”

Molly nodded. “I wouldn’t have fallen for you if I didn’t believe that.” Not after seeing up close and personal the damage substance abuse could do, emotional and physical.

“Good.” A hard kiss before he spun away and grabbed his acoustic guitar.

She left him alone by the windows, having learned he worked out his emotions through music. It was over an hour later, when the music went silent, that she took him a cup of coffee. “You’d never really walk away from Abe, would you?” Molly was fighting her instinctive revulsion to addiction to be a friend to Abe and she’d only known him a short time; Fox had known him years. “He needs you more now than ever.”

 “I’m so angry with him, Molly. We worked so hard to get him clean—we never let him down. Not once.” He set the guitar aside, the coffee forgotten on a side table. “Every time he called, day or night, we were there. Noah’s the one who rode to the hospital with him last time, and David drove his mother there when the doctors weren’t sure if he’d ever wake up.”

Fox’s voice was jagged as he continued. “She’s this tiny, fragile thing, and she cried until I had to carry her out of the room, away from the sight of her son lying motionless on the bed.” He shook his head. “Abe’s sister died as a child, and that day, it was like she was reliving every instant of the agony.”

A deep breath. “No mother, she said, should have to watch both her children die.” Hands fisted, his eyes stormy. “After that, after the detox and the rehab, he promised her he’d stay clean. Then he goes and does this?” Pain combined with the fury. “I can’t watch him go down this road again.”