Authors: Paige Toon
Johnny's Girl
Johnny’s Girl
First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2013
A CBS COMPANY
Copyright © Paige Toon, 2013
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.
The right of Paige Toon to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
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eBook ISBN: 978-1-47113-351-0
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Typeset by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh
His kisses start at my ankles and trail all the way up my legs, over my back and up to my neck.
‘Mmm,’ I murmur sleepily, rolling over and coming face to face with him. His green eyes are piercing in the morning sunlight that spills through the floor-to-ceiling windows. He
kisses me slowly, deeply, and I feel that very familiar and
very
delicious spark of desire as he settles over me, his tanned, toned arms trapping me and keeping me exactly where he wants
me.
Which is exactly where I want to be.
‘I love you,’ he says in a low voice, pulling away and staring at me seriously.
‘The feeling is very much mutual,’ I reply with a smile.
And then he’s kissing me again.
What a lovely, lovely way to wake up.
Johnny is brushing his teeth when I come out of the shower. I dry myself off and he spanks my bum as I join him at the sink.
‘Oi!’ I laugh, wrapping my arms around him from behind and staring at his slightly fogged-up reflection. He rinses his mouth out and turns around to face me, wearing nothing more
than a pair of white boxer shorts and his tattoos, which decorate his arms and part of his torso. I glance down at the small one that he had done recently on his left pec, in swirly black writing:
Nutmeg.
I run my fingertips across it with amusement.
‘I still can’t believe you did that.’
Nutmeg is the nickname he gave me when we first met.
He strokes his thumb down my jaw, tenderly. ‘You are a part of me,’ he says gently. ‘And now,’ he adds with a grin, spanking my bum again, ‘you will
always
be a part of me.’
I giggle and slap his stomach, then I go and pull my blue, orange and pink block-coloured maxi dress out of my suitcase. Possibly for the first time in my life, I didn’t want to waste time
by unpacking.
‘Do you have to wear that?’ Johnny asks, wandering out of the bathroom.
My face falls. ‘Don’t you like it?’
‘I prefer you naked,’ he replies with a twinkle in his eye.
I tut good-naturedly and get dressed. ‘Well, I’m hungry. And sadly, you haven’t brought me to a nudist resort.’
‘Damn. That possibility didn’t even occur to me.’
I grab a rolled-up T-shirt out from the suitcase and chuck it to him. He catches it and pulls it over his head, accepting my clothing choice without a second thought.
God, I love being married to this man.
‘What are you smiling about?’ he asks me with a raised eyebrow.
‘I love being married to you,’ I tell him softly.
‘The feeling is very much mutual,’ he repeats my earlier phrase with a smile. ‘Now throw me my jeans, Wife.’
One year and four months ago, I married the love of my life: rock star Johnny Jefferson. I fell for him when I worked for him as his personal assistant. He was a nightmare back then – a
proper bad boy: womaniser, drink and drug problems… Urgh, I still hate thinking about it. But allegedly he fell for me, too, even though he struggled to show it at times.
Well, that’s a bit of an understatement.
I thought I’d made the biggest mistake of my life when I fell pregnant. These days I can’t believe I ever regretted it, because we have Barney – our beautiful blond-haired,
green-eyed boy.
And of course, now we also have an eight-month-old baby, Phoenix. But he arrived after marriage. Just. I’m pretty damn fertile, as it turns out.
We have left our two gorgeous boys with my parents in a beach house in Malibu for one night – which is the longest Johnny could persuade me to get away. I know they’ll be safe and
sound – I miss them, but Johnny and I needed this break together.
I’m back in America for the first time since leaving it two and a half years ago. Johnny has had to come back and forth for work recently, but he’s kept his trips short and sweet. He
always asks me to join him, but Phoenix has been so young. That’s the excuse I’ve used, but Johnny knows the real reason. The truth is, I’ve been in no hurry to return to this
country after the way I left it. Too many bad memories. They still haunt me.
‘Why don’t we have breakfast here?’ Johnny asks suddenly.
‘Oh, I didn’t think of that.’ I just assumed we’d walk to the restaurant. ‘Do you think it’s too late?’
‘I’ll call them,’ he replies casually, wandering over to the desk phone.
Silly me. This is Johnny Jefferson we’re talking about. He always gets what he wants.
In the end.
Yep, he got me too, eventually. But I made him work for it. I slide the glass door open and step out onto the private deck, which is suspended over the grass-carpeted cliffs below. The ocean
stretches out before me, deep blue underneath a pale blue, cloudless sky. I sit down on a sun-lounger and pull up the hem of my dress, letting the warm morning sun soak into my legs. It’s
been a bitterly cold winter back in England. It feels like it’s gone on and on and on. It was pouring with rain when we left – absolutely bloody miserable.
I take a deep breath of the cool spring air and slowly exhale. We’re in Big Sur at my favourite resort of all time, the Post Ranch Inn. I came here for the first time with Johnny when I
had only recently started as his PA. I stayed in a Tree House then, with views of trees and the Santa Lucia mountains beyond, while Johnny stayed in an Ocean House. Now we’re in a Cliff
House, with a secluded terrace and our own private spa tub. I glance at it now and smirk as I remember how, er,
hot
we got in there last night.
We flew here by helicopter yesterday morning. Johnny usually prefers to drive the mountain roads, but he doesn’t have any of his supercars in America anymore, and anyway, we didn’t
want to use up our time travelling when we’re only away from the kids for such a short stay.
My parents have been wanting to come to America for years, so they jumped at the chance when Johnny offered to fly them over from the South of France for a three week holiday in return for
babysitting the kids for a couple of days. We had to put it to them like that, otherwise they would have felt like they were taking advantage of his generosity. They still offered to pay for their
own flights, but Johnny wouldn’t hear of it.
‘Drop in the ocean, Nutmeg, drop in the ocean.’
He teases me with this catchphrase anytime I think twice about buying anything.
‘All sorted,’ he says as he steps out onto the deck behind me.
‘Cool, well done,’ I reply.
He touches my cheek and then comes to sit on the sun-lounger next to me. Raking his hand through his dirty blond hair, he looks out through the glass surrounding the deck at the water beyond. I
smile at him.
‘Nice, eh?’
He keeps his eyes on the view. ‘Beautiful,’ he says under his breath.
‘You alright?’ I ask, sensing his thoughtful mood.
He glances across at me and narrows his eyes. ‘Don’t you miss it?’
‘What? Big Sur?’
He shrugs. ‘Yeah. LA. America. The weather.’
‘No…’ I reply hesitantly. ‘I mean, I love
this
…’ I indicate our surroundings and the sunshine. ‘But, I don’t know…’ My lips
turn down. ‘It
has
been nice coming back,’ I say carefully. ‘It’s been better.’ I flash him a small smile and he looks momentarily pained, but then he leans
across and presses a kiss to my temple.
‘I love you,’ he says meaningfully, staring into my brown eyes.
‘I know,’ I reply with a wry grin.
‘Come here.’ He tugs on my arm and pulls me on top of him. He pushes my light-blonde hair off my face with his rough fingers, which are calloused from years of playing his guitar.
‘Happy anniversary,’ he murmurs.
‘Happy anniversary,’ I reply with a smile.
We couldn’t get away for our actual anniversary. This is our belated celebration, and it was worth waiting for.
‘You make me so happy,’ he says. My insides swell with happiness and contentment and I slide down a little so I can lay my face against his chest. His strong arms encircle me and I
bask in his warmth.
The feeling, as we keep saying, is very much mutual.
After breakfast we go for a wander through a forest of enormous redwood pines soaring over our heads. The last time I was in this forest, I gave myself a hot flush imagining
Johnny and I together. I come clean to him about this now.
‘Did you?’ he asks with a flirtatiously raised eyebrow, pausing for a moment and leaning back against a huge tree trunk. It’s dark and quiet in here, the only noise coming from
birds singing in the high tree tops. He takes my hands and pulls me closer.
‘I remember you going for that walk, actually. I thought about coming to find you.’
‘You didn’t?’
He nods, seriously. ‘I did. After that night in the hot tub… Mmm.’ His voice is deep and sexy. ‘I wanted you.’
Even now, even after all this time, I blush at his intonation.
‘You should have come to get me,’ I tell him.
‘I thought you were into Christian,’ he replies, and it surprises me to see a flicker of pain cross his features. It still bothers him, still hurts him to remember that I got
together with his best friend after I fled LA – and him – the first time.
I place my hands on his chest and then I slip them up and under his T-shirt, wanting to touch his taut stomach. He breathes in sharply and smiles down at me.
‘It was always you. You know it was always you,’ I say quietly, looking up into his eyes, which are darker in this subdued light. ‘This is what I wanted to do,’ I tell
him, sliding my hands around his waist.
‘Is that
all
?’ he asks with amusement.
‘What did you want to do with me?’ I respond with mock outrage.
‘You really want to know?’ He gives me a look and it sends a shiver rocketing up and down my spine.
I nod slowly. He takes my wrists and spins me around, pinning me up against the tree trunk. He presses his body hard up against me from behind and kisses my neck.
I gasp. ‘You’re so naughty.’
He stills. ‘This is not me being naughty.’
I smirk and turn back around to face him. ‘You know we can’t, right? Someone might see us.’
‘Live dangerously, Nutmeg.’ He kisses me and then nips my bottom lip with his teeth. I know how much he wants me. It’s, well,
obvious
.
I put my hands on his chest and gently, but firmly keep him at bay. ‘You’ve done enough of living dangerously for both of us,’ I say, and the look on his face makes me giggle.
‘Do you think you’ve shagged me more in the last couple of years-’
‘Not two years yet,’ he interrupts.
I roll my eyes. ‘Okay, Mr Pedantic.’ I continue. ‘Do you think you’ve shagged me more in the last “not quite two years” than you shagged all of those
groupies?’
‘Jesus, Meg!’ He looks horrified as he takes a step away from me.
I laugh. ‘I want to know!’
‘How to lose a guy his hard on,’ he exclaims, looking down at his crotch. This only makes me snort, but he’s not finding it as funny as I am.