A very satisfied-looking Fox, his jeans still on, knelt on the floor beside her. Placing his hand on her abdomen, he touched his lips to hers, his tongue owning her mouth. "How about I make breakfast?" Self-assured fingertips around one of her swollen nipples, a nipple he'd sucked until she begged.
It wasn't the only thing he'd sucked.
She slapped at his shoulder, her aim off. "Be quiet." Another ragged breath. "I'll make breakfast--soon as I can move." Right now, her muscles were jelly. "I think I might be dead."
Chuckling, Fox kissed her again, stroking his hand up and down her body until she wrapped an arm around him, loving the sensation of being petted by that strong hand. Her stomach chose to growl right on cue.
Breaking the kiss on a blush that made him dip his head, lick along the upper curve of her breast as if to taste the color, she said, "I need my robe." Before he made her forget everything.
Once again, he grabbed his T-shirt. "Raise your arms."
He bit teasingly at the side of one of her kiss-reddened breasts before tugging the soft gray fabric down over her head. Padding to the bathroom to tidy herself up a bit, she returned to the kitchen a few minutes later, her feet stuffed into fluffy purple slippers shaped like monster claws that Charlie had given her as a joke gift, her hair corralled into a loose braid, and fresh panties on under the T-shirt.
Fox was sprawled on the couch, the remote in hand while a cartoon played on the television screen. Stomach dipping at how right he looked there, how painfully good this felt, she forced her gaze off him and put on the coffee, then began to gather up the ingredients for omelets.
Since that would hardly fill Fox up, however, she put out some bread to be toasted, then went hunting to see what else she had. "Fox, do you want fried potatoes?" It wasn't like he had anything to worry about in the weight department--the man was pure firm, strokable muscle, the energy he burned onstage brutal.
He also, her body reminded her on a ripple of remembered pleasure, burned energy in other ways.
"Hell yeah." A grin over his shoulder that cut through the afterglow to hit her straight in the heart. "Come kiss me."
"Not risking it while I'm starving," she said, using humor to bury her worry at how fast she was falling for a man she could never hope to claim. "Next thing you know, I'll be naked again."
"I'll never say no to naked Molly." He prowled up off the sofa to take a seat on a stool on the other side of the counter, pouring himself a cup of coffee while she quickly peeled and sliced the potatoes, the pan already heating up.
"What do you think about Sydney?" he asked without warning.
Disappointment pinched at Molly at the idea of losing even a tiny part of their month together, but she wasn't surprised he was interested in a visit. The Australian city was only a three-hour flight away.
"I visited with Charlie last year and loved it. We were total tourists"--she laughed softly at the thought of how much fun they'd had--"even did a cruise around Sydney Harbour." Putting the potatoes in the pan, she looked up to meet the dark green of Fox's gaze, hoping he couldn't see how much she was already missing him. "You can book flights easy enough, even at short notice."
"I'm going over end of the coming week." He grabbed a piece of the green pepper she'd diced for the omelets. "Favor for a friend. He set up a charity concert, but the entire band he booked just went into rehab."
"What?" Molly turned around. "All of them?"
"Might be a publicity stunt, but yeah, it does happen. Except for those premade boy bands"--a smirk--"a lot of us were friends first, and friends get into bad shit together." He ate another piece of the pepper. "Who else are you going to shoot up with but the people you trust most?"
Molly had never heard even a whisper of drugs attached to Fox, wouldn't have been attracted to him if she had, but she couldn't not take this opportunity to make certain. "Have you--"
An immediate shake of his head. "No, not my deal. Music's my addiction."
Relaxing, she whipped up the first omelet. "I didn't realize bands as big as Schoolboy Choir could move so fast."
"Normally no, but like I said, Marc's a buddy, and he's raising money for a children's charity. It would've been a problem if we were already doing a concert in the city, but since that isn't the case, there's no bullshit red tape."
She poured the omelet into a second pan. "So he'll refund the people who wanted specifically to see the other band?"
A nod. "He figures he'll make that up with the increased ticket sales." Fox shrugged, his shoulders rippling with the lithe muscle that felt so beautiful under her touch. "Plus, we're here, and it's a low-stress outdoor gig."
Putting the fried potatoes on a couple of thick paper towels to drain, she flipped the omelet. "I'm sure you'll draw a huge crowd." The words "legendary" and "iconic" were already being used in connection with the band's name--Schoolboy Choir's sheer, raw talent was as obvious as their love of music.
"You could be a part of it."
Air was suddenly hard to find. "Are you asking me to go with you?" she said at last.
"It's on Saturday night. You could leave work a little early if you don't want to take the whole day off, be there in plenty of time."
Molly bit the inside of her cheek, her throat thick. The fact was, since she usually never requested unanticipated vacation days, her boss wouldn't quibble about either a half-day or a full day. "You'll take this the wrong way," she said when she could speak, turning to face Fox with her breath painful in her lungs, "but I don't want to be known as the woman you're sleeping with."
His lashes lowered to hood his expression. "Yeah, how else should I take it?"
"You'll go," she said, gripping the counter behind her and fighting back tears. "After a month, you'll go. But I'll still be here, living my life. Being famous, even by association... I can't handle it, Fox." Already, her stomach churned at the idea of being known as "Fox's Secret Lover," the headline sure to be splashed across the magazines.
Molly might have decided to break out of the box into which she'd wedged herself at fifteen, but fame was the one thing she'd never touch, not for anything or anyone.
Not even a man who made her wish for an impossible dream.
Heart aching and throat raw from holding back her emotions, she turned back to the stove and plated the omelet, then poured in the other one while pushing down on the toaster lever to start the bread. "Don't be angry," she said quietly, aware it'd be difficult for him to understand the depth of her aversion to the idea of fame without knowing the ugly background responsible for her gut-deep abhorrence.
Yet she couldn't tell him, couldn't bear to see pity--or even worse, disgust or speculation--in his eyes. She understood she wasn't being rational, that Fox wasn't like the teenagers who'd alternately shunned and tormented her after the scandal broke, but this was the one point on which she simply couldn't be rational. It hurt too much.
Fox flexed his hand on the counter, his eyes on Molly's back. "I get it." Shoving a hand through his hair, he blew out a breath. "Shit, yeah, I get it. I once walked a girl home from a bar in London because she was drunk and the next day, she sold her story to the tabloids." It had been early on in the band's career, but Fox had never forgotten.
"Turned out we had a 'mad sex romp' in the seconds it took for me to make sure she got safely inside her place." He'd felt like such an idiot for falling for what had obviously been a setup, given that the tabloid had pictures of him in her doorway. "That was her claim to fame and she milked it for all it was worth."
The second omelet done, Molly put it on a plate then came over to wrap her arms around him from the back. "Well, whatever happens"--she rubbed her cheek against his skin, the open warmth of her affection a powerful drug of which he couldn't get enough--"I promise not to sell the videos I made of our mad sex romps."
He half-turned to tuck her under his arm, realizing his librarian was trying to make him feel better. The tenderness he felt for her dug its tendrils in even deeper, the emotio
n a punch to the gut. "Funny." He scowled. "Not."
Rising on tiptoe, eyes laughing, she rubbed her nose against his.
He was fucking undone. Just gone.
"Do you have a real one of those?"
"What?"
"A sex tape?"
"There was this time with an entire professional cheerleading team..."
Her expression was priceless.
Shoulders shaking, he claimed a hard, fast kiss. "Gotcha."
"Funny. Not." She pulled his hair in a retaliation that just made him want to haul her into his lap and mess her up with his mouth, his hands. So he did. It was the best damn breakfast he'd ever had.
They drove out of the city and down the coast that afternoon, the stark autumn scenery stunning through the windows of the low-slung car as it ate up the road. Stopping for ice cream at an isolated corner store, they took seats on the grassy verge of a windswept beach. Low tide as it was, the sand seemed to go on forever, smooth as sugar and sprinkled with minerals that made it glitter under the sun.
Despite the beauty, the cool temperature meant there were only three other people on the beach, and they were far out near the water's edge--a bundled-up toddler and his parents. Nearby, there was only a long piece of driftwood worn smooth by time and water and the occasional seagull pacing the sand for tiny crabs and mollusks.
"This is the best date." The unsophisticated words spilled over Molly's lips, she was so happy.
Picking up her hand, Fox kissed her palm, the caress unexpectedly sweet. "Yeah, it is."
She curled her fingers around his, let him taste her ice cream, took a big bite out of his, which made him cry foul and attempt to claim it back in a laughing kiss. There would, she thought as he wrestled her giggling form to the grass, be no forgetting Fox. It wouldn't only hurt when he walked away, it would be brutal.
Strong, intelligent, and talented, he'd marked her deep inside.
That talent was in haunting evidence later that night, when--having picked up his acoustic guitar on the way back from the beach--he played for her. Lying curled up naked under the sheet in bed, a jean-clad but otherwise undressed Fox in a chair facing her, Molly listened and felt her entire body ache at the harsh beauty of his music, the edgy sound distinctively Fox.
"I can't figure out how you create something so extraordinary from a few strings and your fingers." She could listen to him forever. "Play it again, please."
Fox's smile was quiet, the look in his eyes unreadable as he complied. "It's not finished yet."
"Will you," she began, hesitated, took the plunge. "Will you play it for me if it's done by the time the month is over?"
A long look. "Yeah, baby. I promise."
For some reason, she believed in his promise, despite the fact she'd spent a lifetime learning not to trust. "Thank you." Then she lay silent as he moved his fingers over the strings with a grace that astounded and compelled. When he added his voice, keeping the volume low to avoid disturbing her neighbors, she felt her heart stop beating.
A fallen angel might have a voice like that, she thought, hard and pure and with an unashamed sexuality to it that invited the listener into sin. It made her eyes burn, tears roll down her face.
Setting aside his guitar as the last note faded from the air, Fox walked over to kneel beside the bed. His hand slid into her hair, his lips touched hers... and Molly felt herself fall, her shields crashing in splintered shards at her feet.
Chapter 11
Fox held Molly in his arms after she fragmented in pleasure. He'd touched her with all the tenderness he had in him after she cried while listening to the song he'd been working on for weeks, the final pieces coming only today. Because of his beautiful Molly who did things to him he didn't understand, who spoke to him without lies, who made him wish he were a better man. It didn't matter. He wasn't going to give her up.
Brushing back her hair when her breathing quieted, he looked down. "Hey."
A shy smile before she snuggled back down against his shoulder and traced the song lyrics on one side of his torso. "Was this your first tattoo?"
"No, that was the inner-wrist characters."
"Did it hurt badly?"
"Like a bitch." He laughed at the memory. "But I was with the guys--all of us decided to get inked to celebrate our first number one--so none of us could make a sound. Afterward, we went and got drunk and whined like pussies."
Molly's laughter was music he knew he could never capture with chords and notes.
"I have something for you," he said after they'd lain in warm silence for several minutes. Reaching down to snag his jeans, he tugged out the folded piece of paper he'd put in the back pocket this morning. "Here."
"What's this?"
He knew the instant she found the answer to her question. Her cheeks went bright red, but he knew she was listening when he said, "I'm clean, Molly, and I haven't been with anyone but you since that medical report. I wanted you to have the info before I asked you if we can ditch the condoms." Even young and stupid, he'd never taken chances, but he wanted to be skin-to-skin with Molly, brand her from the inside out.
Yeah, it was primitive as hell. Fox didn't care.
"Oh." Molly carefully folded the report back into a neat square and gave it to him to put on the bedside table. "Why--" She coughed to clear her throat. "Why did you have this done?"
Fox thought about how to answer that without betraying something it wasn't his business to tell. "Friend needed to go get checked after he did something idiotic, and I went with him. Moral support."
"This was done a month ago," Molly said a little hesitantly, and he knew what she was asking.
"Fact is," he said, shifting so that she was below him, her eyes looking up into his as he braced himself above her, "I haven't been with anyone for a hell of a lot longer than that. It's been almost a year."
Her pupils dilated. "But you're so..."
"I have a high sex drive, but I got over the stick-my-dick-in-anything-hot-and-female stage a long time ago," he said and, when she didn't flinch away from the unvarnished answer, decided to lay it all out. He hadn't been an angel and he'd rather tell her that than have her wonder or get the twisted version from the tabloids.
"At first, it was like having candy thrown in my face, women waiting wet and willing wherever I turned." He'd been a nineteen-year-old suddenly drowning in money and women, with no parent to put a brake on things, and the label happy to use his exploits and those of the others to further build their hard-rock image. "I took the candy, fucked around."
He gripped her chin to turn her back toward him when her eyes glanced away, wanting her to see he was dead serious about his next words. "These days, however, I prefer to take my time, choose a lover I enjoy in and out of bed."
Molly knew and accepted that Fox was no kind of virgin, his sexual experience simply a part of him, but she found she didn't like hearing about his conquests. It made her wonder if he'd done the same things with them that he did with her. If he'd cupped a woman's face so tenderly while he kissed her slow and sweet, if he'd spent a lazy Sunday morning petting a lover until she turned boneless, if he'd wrestled with a woman over ice cream, his laughter filling the air.
It took conscious effort to push away thoughts that betrayed so much about the kind of trouble she was in. "Y...you know I haven't been with anyone else," she said, trying to sound as practical as he'd done and failing miserably, "and I had a physical for medical insurance four months ago. It was all clear." She rubbed her foot over the sheet, this conversation so far outside her realm of experience that she had to think about every word. "I'm protected against pregnancy... so I think we could." Her doctor had prescribed the Pill to regulate her cycle.
Fox brushed her hair off her face. "You okay with it? Because if you're not, we go on like we've been doing. I'm not an asshole who'll make you feel bad about your choice."
Molly thought of having Fox inside her, no barriers, all hard heat and power, and knew she wanted the intimacy. "
Yes. I can show you the insurance report if--"
"It's okay." His hand curved gently around her throat. "I trust you."
She stroked her hands over his shoulders. "Not very smart of you."
Shifting, he thrust his thigh between hers, the crisp hairs on his skin a deliciously coarse abrasion against her flesh. "I didn't say I trust every woman, only a certain librarian who loves to play with my lip ring." A more serious look. "But if the contraception fails for any reason, you tell me."
Molly's throat dried up, the discussion suddenly too intense, too much more than it should be for a fleeting relationship. Pushing at Fox, she would've left the bed, but he wouldn't let her go. Instead, flipping over onto his back, he tumbled her on top of his body. "Hey, hey, what's the matter?"
She raised her head, her breath hoarse and choppy to her own ears. "The idea of a child coming out of a relationship with an end date," she said, speaking around the lump of ice that was her heart, "it's terrifying."
His pupils jet-black against vivid green, he nodded. "I get it, and baby, if anything does happen, I will be there for you." Words potent with a raw emotion she couldn't identify. "Don't shut me out."
All at once, she remembered an article she'd read about Fox, back when he'd simply been a darkly beautiful rock star she'd sighed over from afar. "You never knew your father." She knew she was crossing another line, but Molly had realized she didn't know how to compartmentalize sex and emotion.
Fox was no longer just that fantasy rock star; he was a man whose touch made her ignite and whose smile made her breath catch in her chest. He could cook a single fancy dish that he'd promised to make her the next time they had a night together, was talented, had a temper, and a fascination with fast cars. All those pieces and so much more made up the person he was... a person who'd begun to matter to her in a way that could have no happy ending.
"I promise I'll tell you if it happens." She was the one who brushed back his hair this time, suckled a soft, sweet kiss from his lips. "I'm sorry if I brought up bad memories."