It was her smile.
Eyes glowing from within as her whole face lit up, that smile had knocked him sideways at the party. Then had come her blushing smile in bed when he made a very dirty suggestion midway through their second time around, followed by her smart and funny response as her self-protective shields fell enough that he'd caught a glimpse of the heart of her.
Each glimpse had only deepened his craving to know more. He didn't only want to fuck Molly; he wanted to talk to her, wanted to hear her use words like "nefarious" and discover what else might come out of her beautiful mouth. And he wanted that brilliant, real, full-body smile turned in his direction.
"It's not just sex," he said into the silence that had fallen between him and Noah. "It's something else." A thing for which he didn't have a name, but that he knew in his gut was important, rare. The idea of turning his back on it made every cell in his body scream "Hell, no!" "I have to hear the whole song, learn the entire melody." Figure out if this was a song with staying power... or one that would fade into history without leaving a mark.
His shoulders grew tight.
Thrusting a hand through his hair, the blond strands glinting in the sunlight, Noah raised an eyebrow. "She good with that? Being involved with you isn't exactly going to be a picnic for her once the media gets hold of the news."
"Molly thinks we had a one-night stand." Not that he could blame her. It wasn't as if he'd made his intentions clear--but he had a feeling those intentions would make Molly run hard and fast in the opposite direction.
So he just wouldn't tell her.
Chapter 5
Work kept Molly busy, the library buzzing with a mix of adults and children as well as keen university students after some of the older material held in the archives. And if parts of her body twinged and throbbed in unfamiliar ways, they'd settle soon enough, erasing any lingering physical trace of Fox's possession and leaving behind only memories--memories she had no intention of smothering.
Her dream of a stable, happily boring life hadn't changed, would never change. It made her stomach lurch to even think about the horror that had been the unforgiving glare of "fame" after her high-profile father was found with that underage girl, the constant whispers and stares.
No, she didn't want excitement. What she wanted was blissful normality: a job she liked; a steady, faithful man; a house on an ordinary suburban street; a sedate minivan with room in back for the slobbering family dog. But... when she was living that safe, stable life, the memory of her night with a smart, sexy, roughly tender rock star would be a hidden treasure, a quiet acknowledgment of the other Molly. The Molly who might've lived a life more adventurous and less ordinary in another time, another place... a Molly who, in this world, was a little too broken to ever again be permitted to hold the reins.
Fox hadn't become the lead singer of one of the best-selling rock bands in history by being a shrinking violet. No, he went after what he wanted, no holds barred. And the raw promise he could feel between him and Molly? He had to know where it would lead, the need so strong he hadn't felt anything like it since the day he'd figured out that music was his escape, the air in his lungs.
Which was why he was leaning against the wall beside Molly's apartment at five that afternoon, a guitar by his side.
The elevator doors opened at a quarter after the hour, Molly going motionless two steps outside of it, the doors closing silently at her back. Yeah, she hadn't expected him, but Fox was ready to work with that. Waiting patiently as she took a deep breath and completed the trek down the corridor, he drew in the scent of her, his gaze lingering on the fluttering pulse in her neck.
"How did you get past security?"
Fox smiled slowly at the blurted-out question, wondering if Molly knew how bad she was at hiding her emotions. He liked it, liked that he saw the real Molly, not an illusion she'd created to tempt him--not that she had to do anything but smile to tempt him. "I told you the security sucks."
Unable to resist, he reached out to run his finger down one creamy cheek flushed with a mix of surprise, passion, and, he was certain, sweet, hot feminine anger. His guess was borne out when Molly unlocked her door with jittery hands and put down her handbag on one corner of the bench, her fingers trembling before she curled them into her palms. "You're breaking the rules."
"What rules?" Closing the door, he leaned back on it and willed her to face him. Much as he loved the shape of her from the back, he liked watching those expressive eyes whisper her mood to him.
Shoulders tight, she turned. "This was supposed to be a one-night stand."
"Ah." Folding his arms over the plain black of his T-shirt, he said, "How about a one-month stand instead?" He knew he had to play this exactly right. Molly was wary of him, and yeah, he could understand why. To have her in his life beyond a fleeting instant, he'd have to win her trust.
She jerked up her head. "What?"
"Why not? I like you. You like me." He smiled--because the reason Molly had needed to jerk up her head was that she'd been staring at his chest. "Admit it."
Sitting down on the bench, she began to unzip her boots, very obviously not looking at him. "You're okay for a rock star."
He wanted to bite her, then pet her until she was limp and languid in his arms. "We burn up together." Deliberately modulating his voice--his instrument--for maximum effect, low and bedroom rough, he saw her fingers stutter on the zipper. "I'm here for a month. It's an easy equation."
When the words "Let me think about it" fell from her mouth, he thought she might've been as startled as he was, her lips parting on a slight gasp--as if to call back the declaration.
Crouching down, he began to tug off her boots, distracting her from her thoughts. He had no intention of playing fair. There were very few things he'd ever truly hungered for in life, and he'd never been given any of them. He'd claimed each through sheer, unrelenting will and the grim refusal to surrender.
Now... now there was Molly. "Are you kicking me out?"
"Don't you want a different woman each night?"
He heard the tremor she tried to hide, and knew she'd said words similar to those that had lit a spark under his temper the previous night on purpose. Molly Webster was trying to scare him off because she was finding it difficult to say no.
Gut tight and blood hot, he got rid of her remaining boot. "You really have a high opinion of me." Expecting warm, supple skin under his hands when he slid them up below the hem of her skirt--because he was more than happy to use her physical response to him to tie them together--he found an unexpected barrier instead. "You said no stockings." The material under his touch was silky and soft and smooth.
"They're tights."
Body hardening even further at her breathy response, he traced the fine fabric another fraction past the hemline of her skirt, kept going. "Thigh-high tights." Suddenly, they were the sexiest things he could imagine. "I want to see." See the rich cream of her skin against the frame created by the deep gray and blue pattern, kiss every satiny inch.
She put her hands on his, halting him when he would've pushed her skirt up to her thighs. "I haven't said yes yet."
"Yes, you have, Molly." Fox held her gaze, sweeping his thumbs slowly across the delicate skin above her tights. "I can feel it in the pulse under your skin, hear it in your voice, scent the damp heat of you on my tongue."
Maybe, maybe he'd have found the strength to walk away from the intoxicating intensity of the pull between them if Molly had been indifferent to him--though far more likely, he'd have done everything in his power to change that, because he wasn't the walking-away type, not when it came to the things that mattered. But Molly wasn't indifferent.
Skin coloring on the heels of his words, she tried to squeeze her thighs together. He blocked her by wedging his body between them. "Don't be embarrassed, baby." Shifting position slightly, he caught her lips in a teasing, coaxing kind of a kiss. "You have no idea how unbelievably hot I find it that I make you so wet."
&nbs
p; When her hand came to rest on his shoulder, her fingers just brushing his nape, he had to exert steely control not to deepen the kiss, not to pull down her panties and take her then and there. That would leave him in the same position he'd been in before she let him in tonight, Molly skittish and unsure.
He had to be smart about this, coax her as he'd coax a difficult chord from the guitar. With sweet patience and hard-eyed determination. "You make the rules." Pressing a kiss to the hollow of her throat, he stroked his thumbs over her skin again. "Tell me what you want."
Molly swallowed. Fox was right; she wanted him as much now as she had during the hours they'd spent tangled in the dark. But a single night she could justify. Anything longer threatened to take this beyond a moment of wildness and into far more perilous territory.
"One month," she whispered near soundlessly. "After that, you leave and never contact me again." It was a stipulation born of the pain inside her, a pain so old it had its own heartbeat, a dark heaviness that was a terrible ache.
"That's clear enough." A kiss on her jaw, the movement of his thumbs on the sensitive skin of her inner thighs radiating pleasure that pooled in the throbbing bundle of nerve endings between her legs.
"And," she rasped, "we're exclusive for that month."
His hands tightened on her flesh. "No one else, I promise." Another teasing, tormenting brush of his thumbs, the callused pads scraping erotically over her flesh. "Come here, baby." The seductive invitation in that whiskey-and-sin voice stole her will, threatened to destroy everything she'd worked for in life.
Dangerous, he was so dangerous. Still, she dipped her head that final inch and kissed him. Her control of the contact lasted approximately two seconds. Gripping her nape with one hand to hold her in position, Fox kissed her, not raw and deep as she'd expected, but with a slow attention that had her entire body aflame, the ring on his lip a hard accent. He slid his other hand higher up her leg at the same time, making her stomach flutter, her inner muscles clench.
"Such pretty, soft skin." It was spoken against her mouth, his lips curving in a smile as he licked playfully across her own. When she shivered, his eyes darkened, his kiss deeper but just as slow, as if this rock god had all the time in the world to kiss and caress Molly Webster. His hand gently squeezed her nape.
Warning bells clanged in her mind. It felt as if she were drowning, kiss by slow kiss, Fox coaxing her into deeper and deeper waters. "The bedroom--" she began on a slightly panicked breath.
Eyes lazy, hooded, he kissed away her words before glancing down at her legs. Her heartbeat was in her mouth as she watched him push up her skirt to expose the pale skin of her upper thighs.
"You make my mouth water." Lowering his head, he pressed a single wet kiss on the inner curve of her right thigh, his stubbled jaw rubbing against her flesh.
She clutched at his hair, the strands dark silk against her palms. "Fox, we--"
Shifting his grip to under her thighs, he pulled her forward on the bench, her hands falling to the leather seat cushion to brace herself as he altered her center of gravity. "Hmm," he murmured, the green of his gaze holding her own for a second that stole all the air in her lungs. "What's the rush, Molly Webster?" He bit down over the tendon in her neck.
Hands back in his hair, her fingers spasmed into a tighter hold, her breath a tremor.
"Bad Fox." Licking out, he soothed the sensual hurt with his tongue. "There, I'm behaving now."
She shuddered, surrendered under the gritty seduction of his voice, sought his mouth with hers. It was clear she wasn't the one setting the pace tonight, but she no longer cared. Not with Fox's strong body between her legs and his hands on her own, his kisses drugging her to a languorous pleasure that made her want to explore him as slowly as he was exploring her.
Groaning, Fox shifted one hand into her hair, unraveling the twist, but didn't take over this time. No, he let her kiss him, let her play with the lip ring that fascinated her. Molly felt oddly shy as she went to--
Her home phone rang.
She ignored it, her lower body melting at the way Fox continued to stroke his thumb over her skin as they kissed. No rush, no hurry, nothing but pleasure, her bones heavy with it.
The phone kept ringing.
And ringing.
Finally, the answering machine kicked in. Molly was a mass of helpless flesh by that point, couldn't have cared less who it was. But the worried female voice, familiar and beloved, intruded more effectively than a scream. Sudden panic slicing through the sensual haze, she pushed at the wide shoulders in front of her. "I have to get this."
Fox released her without argument after taking one look at her face, and she ran to grab the handset on the counter that separated her living area from the kitchenette. "Charlie, what's wrong?"
"Oh, you're home." Her friend's voice, a low whisper, broke on the last word. "I just..." A deep inhale. "There's someone else in the office, and there shouldn't be. I came back from the bathroom and heard them moving around."
"Leave," Molly said, her fingers rigid on the handset.
"No." Charlotte took another shaky breath. "It's probably only the building security guard doing an unscheduled round, but could you stay on the phone with me while I go check it out?"
Molly bit back her instinctive negative reaction to her friend's plan, knowing how important it was to Charlotte that she not crumble under the weight of what might be an imagined fear. "I'm right here."
Having circled to the other side of the counter, Fox, his expression grim, caught her eye and mouthed, Problem?
Maybe, she mouthed back, hoping she was wrong. That was when a scream sounded from the other end of the line, followed by a thud, as if the phone had hit the carpet. "Charlotte! Charlie!"
Scrabbling, rustling sounds, then Charlotte's voice, a little breathless and holding a taut tension. Not fear though; this was excruciating embarrassment. "I'm fine." A pause, a deeper voice murmuring in the background before Charlotte returned. "I just met my new boss," her best friend groaned into the phone. "Or more specifically, I threw an industrial-strength stapler at his head."
Knees trembling in relief, Molly braced her elbows on the counter as Fox reached out to tuck her hair behind her ear. Catching the intent lines of his expression, she touched his wrist, let him see everything was all right. He didn't know Charlotte, but he'd heard that scream, too.
Maybe she'd imagined the protective concern in his expression... No, she didn't think so. Every instinct she had said this man would never stand by while a woman was hurt. Neither would he ever hurt one. Not physically. Now he rubbed his thumb over her lower lip before dropping his hand and moving to pick up a delivery menu she had on the counter from a neighborhood restaurant.
"Oh God, Molly, what if he fires me?"
Molly wrenched her attention back to her best friend. "He's not going to fire you," she reassured Charlotte as Fox turned the menu toward her. "You were in the office being a diligent employee, remember?" Not sure how she felt about the fact she was about to have dinner with the rock star who'd been meant to be a one-night stand, Molly nonetheless pointed at her favorite dish and Fox pulled out his phone to place the order.
"Right, that's right. I--" Charlotte broke off as the deep male voice returned in the background. When her friend came back on the line, she sounded half-strangled. "He just said we're going out to dinner so I can bring him up to speed on 'certain issues.'"
Molly decided she liked the new boss. "Go." Make Anya look bad, she added silently. It infuriated her that Anya--all gloss and impeccable style--dumped her work on Charlotte, then took the credit, with Charlotte too shy and reserved to push herself forward. "Order the most expensive thing on the menu."
"I'll probably throw it up," Charlotte said morosely. "I better go--he said five minutes."
"Good luck." Hanging up, she stared at the gorgeous man who'd made her bones turn to honey with his kiss and felt the butterflies in her stomach take flight again.
Terror, anti
cipation, near-painful desire... Molly wasn't sure what she was feeling, what she was doing, but when Fox turned to look at her with a half-smile on those bitable lips, she knew she wasn't going to renege on their agreement.
One month. A single, passionate month out of a lifetime. Surely fate wouldn't begrudge her that?
Chapter 6
Fox saw secrets in Molly's eyes. His instinct was to demand she share them, demand she let him in, but he knew damn well that would never work. For this battle, he'd need patience when patience was the one trait he'd never been accused of possessing. Putting away his phone, he walked over to take her hand, tug her to the door he'd found while he'd been placing the order.
A single push and it slid open to showcase a minuscule balcony--but one with a clear view of the city skyline. The fall air was crisp, the temperature having dropped since he'd entered the building. It cooled his skin, did nothing to chill the heat in his blood. Allowing Molly to go first, he waited till she turned to face him, then pinned her against the railing with his hands on either side of her body. "Food'll be here in about fifteen minutes."
"Oh. Good." Her voice was a touch husky, her eyes not quite meeting his.
Fox fought the urge to haul her to the bedroom, strip her to the skin, take her deep and long until all distance was erased. Sex was easy. He didn't want easy. He wanted Molly.
Deliberately pressing so close she had to tip up her head to look at him, he said, "Was that your friend from the party? The tiny blonde with glasses?"
Her eyes widened. "You noticed us?"
"I noticed every damn thing about you." Giving in to temptation, he kissed the line of her throat, her jaw, suckled on her lower lip.
Molly's heartbeat had accelerated under his caresses, her pulse thudding beneath her skin. Yeah, sex might be easy, but he had no problem using it to tie Molly to him while he worked on what he really wanted. "How long have you been friends?"