“I don’t know. I haven’t heard from
Dad today, and he didn’t mention anything yesterday when I saw
him.”
“
I was about to have
dinner. Want to join me?”
“Oh, yeah.” He pushed past her and
headed toward the kitchen. “I thought you’d never ask.”
By the time she caught up he was
already taking plates from the cabinet. “Make yourself at
home.”
“Don’t mind if I do. What are we
having anyway?” He opened the oven door and peeked inside. “Looks
like chicken casserole,” he said, reaching for the potholders she’d
left on the counter.
“King Ranch Chicken. Cathy gave me the
recipe.”
He lifted the hot dish and set it on
top of the stove. “One of my favorites. My mom used to make
it.”
She handed him a serving spoon and he
ladled generous servings onto their plates. They moved to the table
and sat.
“The casserole looks great. I love all
the kids, but every few days, I need a break. I guess it’s
different when they’re your own, or at least you know you can’t
take a break, so you grin and bear it. Anyway, a quiet meal for two
sounds pretty good.”
She laughed. “I wondered how long you
would last out there. Don’t get me wrong, they’re a great bunch of
kids, but after living out there all alone for months, it must be a
shock to the system to have all those people around.”
He stopped eating and fixed her with
an intense look. “This may sound crazy, but the house is happier
with all of them around.”
“Oh?”
“It’s hard to explain. The house seems
more alive when it’s full. It feels sad when it’s just the dog and
me. I don’t think we make enough noise, or something.”
“Maybe you should move a drum kit into
the living room and practice there instead of the barn.”
Hank smiled. “Yeah, maybe I should. Or
I could get myself a house full of rug rats and cure the problem
once and for all.”
Mel dug into her meal. “Don’t go
there,” she admonished. Glimpses of the children they could have
ghosted through her mind. Longing whispered along her spine. She
clenched her fork in one hand and the napkin in her lap in the
other. It was a silly dream. A fantasy for normal people. The man
sitting across from her wasn’t normal people and neither was she,
so entertaining fantasies about a happily ever after with Hank was
the last thing she needed.
The phone rang, and she jumped to
answer it. Anything to take her mind off her dinner companion and
the impossible dreams his casual remarks brought to
mind.
“That was Uncle Jonathan,” she said
when she returned. “He said he’s going to stay at your dad’s place
tonight. Do you know someone named Miriam?”
“Miriam Wallingford. She lives next
door to Dad. She’s a widow, has been for about twenty years. Her
husband died young, and she never remarried. Why?”
“They’re playing cards at her house
tonight. He said Henry would take him out to the farm tomorrow. He
said something about there would be room in the car.” She frowned.
“Why wouldn’t there be?”
“The sound guys are crashing at Dad’s
house. They should be coming in tonight. It takes dozens of people
to get everything just right. We’ll have musicians coming in over
the next few months too. They all stay at the local motels or in
Dallas if they’re only here for a day or so. The farmhouse can only
hold so many.” His eyes twinkled with amusement. “Last time, we had
a guy from Austin drive up. He slept in his van out at the farm. He
was kind of strange, but he knew his way around a
violin.”
“You’re good for the Willowbrook
economy.”
He grinned, helping himself to more
casserole. “It’s all selfish on my part. I’d much rather spend my
time and money here than anywhere else. Willowbrook is
home.”
Mel picked at her food. Even though he
was engrossed in his meal, his gaze was on her more than his plate.
Her skin tingled with awareness of the blatant male attention
coming from across the table. Logic told her to feed him and show
him the door before he fully swallowed his last bite, but her
libido was being anything but logical. Where her brain urged
caution, her body yearned for reckless abandon. She couldn’t stay
in Willowbrook. She couldn’t have the life she wanted with a man
like Hank, but she was an adult, and these were modern times. She
could indulge in a purely physical relationship if she
wanted.
Even as her heart called her a liar,
she glanced across the table. He’d put his fork down and his
crumpled napkin lay beside his plate. Their eyes met, and the
smoldering heat in his gaze was like a flash flame stealing the
oxygen from the room.
“Hank,” she pleaded.
“Don’t,” he said, reaching for her
hand. “You want me to stay. I can see it in your eyes.” His thumb
swept her wrist, found her pulse. “Your heart is racing. You want
this night together as much as I do.”
“We shouldn’t.”
“Why not? There’s something between
us, Mel. You know it, and I know it. We’re good together. Let me
stay tonight.” He squeezed her hand and tugged it across the table.
He leaned in and brushed his lips across her knuckles. “I need to
be with you.”
Her resolve, already thinner than mist
on a summer morning, evaporated.
“I need you, too,” she
whispered.
“Say that again. Please.”
She took a deep breath and when she
exhaled, the stale air carried her last bit of sanity with it. “I
want you, too.”
Hank was out of his chair, sweeping
her up in his arms before she completed the sentence. His mouth
came down on hers. She wrapped her arms around his neck and parted
her lips in invitation.
She didn’t resist when he maneuvered
her down the hall to her bedroom. The moment the door clicked shut,
she reached for his shirt placket. He pulled back to watch her
hands. One by one, the buttons came loose. She tugged the fabric
from his waistband, continuing until his shirt hung open. He
planted his feet, his hands fisted at his sides, and let her
explore. She flattened her palms against his stomach, sliding them
over his abs, over his chest and flat male nipples to his
shoulders, pushing the shirt away, inch by torturous inch until at
last her hands skimmed down his arms, sending the shirt to the
floor.
She leaned in closer and grazed his
chest with her lips. Slowly, she trailed feather light kisses over
his body, creeping lower with each pass, until her lips grazed the
top of his jeans.
He grabbed her shoulders, pulling her
up. “Not yet,” he growled, crushing his mouth down on
hers.
He seized control. Her T-shirt and
shorts hit the floor in record time. He backed her to the bed,
following her descent onto the patchwork quilt. She wrapped her
bare legs around his jean-clad hips, and he raised her slightly,
easing her fully onto the bed.
Rough denim abraded the sensitive skin
on her inner thigh. Each article of discarded clothing took with it
a layer of her hesitance until she wore nothing but her need. She
forgot everything when he kissed her, every reason why they
shouldn’t and couldn’t be together. Every reason she couldn’t love
him.
She thought she might die before he
removed his jeans, freeing his bold erection. She closed her fist
around him, loving the velvet-covered steel.
Chapter
Sixteen
She needed. Oh, how she needed him.
Her body silently urged him to end the torture.
“Don’t move.” He leaned over the edge
of the bed and snared his jeans. A second later, he knelt between
her thighs. He groped through the pockets of his jeans, found what
he wanted and tossed them back to the floor. A small string of
condoms slipped from his shaking fingers and fluttered onto her
stomach. His cock rocketed, and he grinned. She closed her hand
around him, forcing a groan past his teeth. Emboldened, she managed
to sheath him. When she reached the base, he grabbed her
wrist.
“I can’t wait any longer,” he said,
reaching between them to test her readiness. His fingers slid
easily through her moist folds.
“Please,” she begged.
Then he was there, pushing into her,
claiming her, filling her.
She closed her eyes, concentrating on
the fullness between her legs. He played her like a master
musician, coaxing her body to sing until every nerve ending
screamed for release. He varied the tempo, set the rhythm. His
hands stroked along her thighs, finally caressing the point of
their union. His thumb found her clitoris, flicking over it in sync
with his thrusts, driving her up, up, beyond their world, into a
universe where sweet music built to a crescendo. Her fingernails
dug into his back as she sought her release. She was so
close.
He’d never heard music as beautiful as
the soft cries from her lips when she climaxed. He continued to
play her sweet body until she relaxed beneath him. He cradled her
head between his hands and covered her lips with his. Only then did
he seek his own release, driving into her welcoming heat to a
rhythm only he could hear.
His physical body expressed the
miraculous communion, even as his soul translated it into an
ingrained language of notes and melodies that became a part of him.
As he poured his essence into her, the music ran hot through his
veins, became as much a part of him as Melody had become. Spent, he
collapsed on top of her. The notes were there, and there they would
stay until he could commit them to paper.
Mel slid her heels down the mattress,
bracketing Hank’s limbs between hers. His hard body pressed against
her, still joined intimately. She managed to raise her arms and
press her hands against his slim hips skimming them over his taut
buttocks. Slowly, she stroked his sweat-soaked back until her arms
curved around his neck. She flicked her tongue out, tasting the
skin at his shoulder. Salty and uniquely Hank. A taste she would
never tire of.
Hank raised his head and trailed hot
kisses along the pulse in her neck. He nipped her and eased the
sting with his tongue. She made a small sound, part groan, part
purr.
“Don’t move,” he said, pulling out of
her.
Mel pulled the sheet over her nude
body, chilled without Hank’s heat, and watched the muscles in his
firm backside as he padded to the bathroom. She stretched. A few
areas would be sore in the morning, but she didn’t care. Maybe
remorse would come along with the soreness, but watching Hank
return to her, his desire for her blatantly obvious, she couldn’t
think of anything but having him inside her again.
He dove under the sheet and pulled her
against him. “Again.”
“Yes,” she said.
Chapter
Seventeen
“Good morning,” he said, his voice
husky with desire.
“Good morning.”
And just like that, she went into his
arms. He had never felt as much for anyone as he did Mel. Her body
seemed made for his, and when he was inside her, he didn’t want to
be anywhere else ever again.
Much later, as she lay in his arms,
the morning sun slanting across their sated bodies, Hank murmured
against the top of her head. “Come out to the farm with
me.”
Her body tensed from head to toe.
Silence stretched across a heartbeat. Two. God, he hated the idea
of spending time with him was something she had to think about when
spending time with her was all he thought about these
days.
The words
forget it
, were on the
tip of his tongue when she shifted against him.
“Why?”
He tightened his hold on her. “Because
I need to know you’re there.”
It was the truth. He couldn’t imagine
going through the day without her near, close enough to touch, but
he didn’t think it would be a good enough reason for her—not yet
anyway. She felt the connection between them, he was certain of it,
but because of who they were, she refused to acknowledge it. She
would. Eventually. He needed to keep her close so he could convince
her what they shared could overcome any obstacle in its
path.
“You can watch us work,” he said. “I
talked to the guys, and they agreed to let you write about the
band. You could write a book about the recording process from start
to finish.”
She sat up and pulled the sheet around
her. “You don’t know what you’re asking me to do, Hank.”
“Yes, I do.” He scooted up so his back
was against the headboard. “I’m asking you to confront your past. I
know how hard it will be for you. I want to be with you, Mel. I’m a
musician. It’s who I am, and if you can’t learn to accept it, then
I’m not sure what kind of future we have together. I want a future
for us, and I think you do, too.”
He was right. She did want a future
with him, but she was enough of a realist to understand it could
never be. If she was smart, she’d pack her bags and leave
Willowbrook today, but apparently, she was the stupidest person on
the planet because she wasn’t going anywhere. She wanted more time
with Hank, and if she had to confront her past to do it—she would.
But it would be on her terms.