“Can we go somewhere to talk?” Viveca
asked.
“About what?”
“About what’s going on with you and Maddox
Bradley.”
Beth shifted so the tray was between herself
and the reporter. “I have no intention of being in your magazine. I
just wanted you to have the truth.”
“Which you wouldn’t care about if something
wasn’t going on between you and Maddox. Come on, you wouldn’t have
called if you didn’t want me to follow up.”
“I only left my first name because the
receptionist demanded it, and I only mentioned Minnesota, not
Bluestone Lake. I didn’t invite you here.” Would Maddox think she
had? No, he knew her better than that. Didn’t he?
“It didn’t take a genius to find out where
Maddox used to spend his summers as a kid. And it didn’t take a
genius to find out who he spent them with. So was Maddox your first
love?”
“No comment.” Pulse pounding, she swung away
with the tray and tried to get Quinn’s attention. He could kick the
woman out.
Viveca followed. “If you don’t tell me, I’m
sure I can find someone here who can.”
Beth pivoted. “Look, there’s no story here. I
just wanted to make it known that he’s not in rehab somewhere. He’s
just trying to help the town he loved.”
“And the woman he loves, too? I saw him
talking to you earlier, Beth. There was a definite tension
there.”
Blood heated her cheeks. Damn it, why wasn’t
it darker in here? And why wasn’t Quinn paying attention? He always
paid attention. “You misread the situation. Listen, I don’t want to
be rude, but I really don’t want to talk to you. I have customers
to take care of.”
“I’ll pay you five thousand dollars for an
exclusive interview.”
She turned to the woman, eyes wide. That kind
of money, she could get her father off her back, for a while,
anyway. But it would mean exposing herself—and Maddox—to the world.
She…couldn’t. She couldn’t. It would be dirty money.
But when was the last time she’d been offered
an easy way out? God, the temptation. But it would amount to a
betrayal of Maddox, and her own privacy.
She shook her head. “No, thanks. It would be
a waste of your money. There’s nothing to tell.”
But her heart pounded as she walked away. Had
she just made a huge mistake?
By the time Maddox finished playing, Viveca
was nowhere in sight, and Beth had a huge mess to clean up, along
with the other five waitresses. At some point in the night, Linda
had disappeared. Typical. In fact, Beth didn’t remember seeing her
for a long time, and she’d been bussing her own tables.
Quinn helped now, and Beth braced herself,
waiting for a question demanding to know Linda’s whereabouts. But
he stayed silent.
After the band packed up their gear, Maddox
approached.
“I’m busy.”
“I see that.” He gathered some bottles from a
nearby table.
“I don’t need your help. And remember what
happened last time you tried.”
“I’ve learned some things since.” He wrapped
his fingers around four bottles and carried them to the recycle bin
at the bar.
Since he wouldn’t go away, she considered
telling him about the reporter in town, but didn’t want to have a
conversation. Maybe he’d leave.
But he didn’t. He stayed until Quinn declared
the bar acceptable, and walked out with the waitresses. Maddox
caught Beth’s hand and drew her back as the others walked to their
cars.
“Maddox, I’m tired and I don’t want to talk,
and…”
He gave her hand a tug, just enough to have
her stumbling forward into his arms, and he lowered his mouth to
hers.
If she was honest, he gave her plenty of
opportunity to slip away, but she preferred to think she had no
choice as their lips met, as his tongue slid over her lower lip,
then deeper, as if he was hungry for her. And God, it felt good to
have someone wanting her, focusing on her. She’d denied herself
what she wanted for so long. She wrapped her arms around his
shoulders and heard his hat hit the deck with a thunk. His
breathing deepened as he folded her closer, leaning her against the
log siding of the bar. His erection pressed insistently against
her, and she rolled her hips against it before she realized what
she was doing.
He lifted his head. “Let’s get out of
here.”
She opened her mouth to say she couldn’t,
that she needed to get home, that she didn’t want to set a bad
example for Linda. Instead she said, “Okay.”
His eyes brightened, as if he’d been waiting
for her to say the other, and he grabbed her hand as he stepped
back. They hurried down the steps to the truck, where he pinned her
again, his mouth hot, tongue stroking with a sexy promise, before
he released her and shoved her inside. He followed and kissed her
again, as if he couldn’t bear to let her go. She curled her fingers
in his hair briefly before he pulled away to start the truck.
Her pulse pounded in her ears as he drove
toward the lake house, a drive interminable in the silence. He kept
his hand on hers, and when he stopped at a stop sign, he gave a tug
and kissed her again, then took off with a squeal of tires.
Her legs were shaking by the time he pulled
in front of the lake house. Anticipation made her weak as she
followed him up the steps. She wanted to feel his hands on her, his
mouth on her, his body against her, inside her. She’d forgotten how
good it felt to be aroused, and to know it was going to be
satisfied.
He closed the door behind them, hard enough
for it to bounce open again, then he pressed her against it, his
hands sliding down over her ass to her thighs, parting her so he
could step between them and stroke with his hips. She moaned
against his mouth, and he eased his kiss sideways, over her cheek
to her ear, then her throat. She was so focused on that, his touch
on her breast surprised her. He circled her nipple with his thumb,
then bent his head to cover it through her T-shirt.
She whimpered and pushed against him as he
suckled, then grabbed at his T-shirt, reaching beneath, stroking
her palms over the hair on his flat belly. Then she couldn’t
resist. She unbuckled his belt and slipped her fingers beneath his
waistband.
Suddenly she was spinning, then falling, and
her butt hit the stair seconds before he lowered himself on his hip
beside her, holding his weight on one hand while fumbling with her
jeans with the other. Together they managed to shed the denim and
she tried to struggle to her feet, but he clasped her arms and
shifted to kneel between her legs, looking up at her with a naughty
grin.
“I’ve wanted to do this all night.”
“Oh, God,” she managed, as he lowered his
mouth to her sensitive flesh. She watched him, just for a moment,
before she threw her head back, gripping the rails on either side,
and screamed her pleasure.
After she’d melted into the stairs, he eased
back and pressed a kiss to the inside of her thigh, then grinned.
He rose and drew her to her feet. When she swayed on
orgasm-weakened legs, he tucked his shoulder into her belly and
lifted her, bare ass up, and carried her up the stairs. He tossed
her onto the mattress, breathing a little heavy, and opened his
jeans, one-handed, as she stripped off her shirt and bra.
Both were naked when he came over her, only
the rustle of plastic slowing him as he sheathed himself. Then he
was inside her, stretching her still-pulsing flesh, filling her.
She lifted into him and tucked her feet against his ass, holding
him deep inside her for a long moment, looking into his laughing
brown eyes before they deepened.
“I need to move.”
She loosened her grip and he withdrew, almost
completely, before thrusting, deep and sure. Then again and again,
stoking her desire back to its earlier fever pitch so that she
shifted, angling her hips so each stroke brought her closer, every
sensation spiraling tighter, winding her up. When he added his
touch, she spun apart, crying out, clasping around him, digging her
fingers into his arms to ground herself.
He groaned, stiffened, his body a rigid line
over hers as he came. Then he kissed her, long and sweet, before
withdrawing from her and pulling her close.
“I’ll be back,” he said as he stroked her
hair back from her face.
“Where are you going?”
“Nashville. Then a few other places. But I’ll
come back for you. You believe me?”
She shifted to look up at him. “Why wouldn’t
I?”
“Because I didn’t come back last time. And
you don’t exactly trust.”
She slid her hand over the hair of his chest,
unable to comment because he was right.
He lifted his head from the pillow. “You
don’t believe me.”
She couldn’t lie to him, though she was
damned good at lying to herself. “I don’t need you to come
back.”
She expected him to withdraw, to get mad.
Instead, he flipped her onto her back, pinning her arms to the
mattress, his erection growing against her belly.
“This after I made you scream twice? Maybe I
need to do more persuading. You need me in your life, Beth. You
want me here. In your life. In your bed.”
She let him kiss her because he was so good
at it, let him arouse her because it felt so good. Even let herself
think, I love you, as he glided inside her body, his weight over
her. But she didn’t let herself believe his promise.
The bar was even busier the following night.
At first Beth attributed it to being Maddox’s last night. But so
many of them were alone, and not making an effort to make friends.
More reporters? It was possible. And the way they were looking at
her…oh, hell. They were reporters. What did they know about
her?
If it wasn’t so busy, she’d get Quinn to let
her go, but she couldn’t do that to him. Briefly she considered
consulting Leo, who was a reporter, about what to do, but Trinity
was already doing so much for them, she couldn’t ask. So she’d
ignore them and pretend she was no one.
Only Maddox didn’t let her remain anonymous.
He watched her and grinned when he caught her attention. God,
everyone was going to know what they did last night, the way he was
looking at her. Did he have no sense of self-preservation? Didn’t
he know they were reporters?
He gave the band a break, then dragged the
microphone closer to a stool he’d been using off and on. “I’d like
to play a song for you guys that I haven’t played in a lot of
years, but being back here reminded me of sitting on the hood of my
car and playing it for a special girl.”
Oh, hell, no. She froze in one spot, her gaze
riveted to the stage. He bent for a guitar case, but instead of the
expensive acoustic he’d been playing, he pulled out a battered
Gibson.
The one she’d bought him fourteen years
ago.
He met her gaze across the room and leaned
toward the microphone. “This guitar has seen me through a lot of
hard times. There were days it, and the belief of the person who
gave it to me, were the only things that kept me pursuing my dream.
So Beth, this one’s for you.”
He strummed the first notes of the old KISS
ballad, and she was swept back to those long-ago summers when he
would sing her that song. It wasn’t only on the hood of his car,
but he’d even sung her lyrics when she’d been working at the diner
or when they’d been walking to the park. She hadn’t been able to
listen to the song since he went away.
Suddenly, her arms were lighter and she
looked up at Quinn, who’d taken the tray from her.
“Go to him. The man is telling you he loves
you.”
“I—can’t. All these people.”
“Beth, for crying out loud.”
“He’s leaving.” Her gaze drifted back to
Maddox, his fingers folded around the neck of the guitar she’d
given him, the body scratched, missing the veneer in some places.
He said he’d be back. He hadn’t lied to her since he’d been here.
Could she believe him? Could she hope? The way he was watching her,
his eyes full of promise…
Her feet were moving before her mind could
send them the signal that this was a bad idea, falling for him
again, declaring her feelings in front of the whole town, the whole
world. But as his voice dragged out the last note, he set the
guitar down, his arms open and ready as she came into them. Cheers
swelled around them when he lowered his mouth to hers, stroking her
hair back from her face. And then she heard nothing but his
breathing, felt nothing but his heartbeat as he kissed her, long
and sweet.
“I will come back,” he promised quietly.
Suddenly, she didn’t want to leave his arms.
She would have to go back into the crowd, have to face their
curious expressions and comments. Here in Maddox’s arms, she was
safe.
“I have to get back to work.”
“Come home with me tonight. I leave at first
light.”
“I can’t. Linda.”
“I already talked to Adam. He said he’d stay
with Linda and Jonas tonight.”
Her face heated. “You talked to my brother
about spending the night with me?”
“He knows it’s my last night in town. He
wants you to be happy.”
She cocked her head and scowled. “And you
both decided if I got laid—“
“If we spent the last hours I have in
Bluestone together,” he corrected. “Now, go back to work so we can
get out of here.”
Her heart thrummed with nervous anticipation
as she turned back to the crowd. She let her imagination wander to
what it would be like to spend a whole night with him, without
worrying. They could make love, fall asleep together, make love
again, have breakfast together, all the things real couples did.
Her excitement almost allowed her to ignore the speculative looks
from the customers, the intrusive questions from the reporters, the
hang-dog look from Dale.
She eased through the crowd toward him and
laid a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry, Dale.”