"He wants you to come work for him, doesn't he?"
"Kind of. He said he'd like to hire me as a consultant to do some research into the nuts and bolts of actually starting an artist-run indie label from the ground up." She was glowing as she told Drew the great news. "Thank you for telling him about my idea."
"This is all you, Ash. Your brains. Your ideas. Your enthusiasm. I can't wait for everyone else to meet you and see what I see." He brought her closer and leaned in to kiss her. "But you should know I'm going to keep all of your beauty, and your gorgeous sensuality, for myself."
"They're all yours."
Her lips were soft and sweet, and so damned seductive beneath his that he lost the thread of everything but her for several heady moments. But he didn't want to wait any longer to tell her his news either.
"There's actually another reason that I'm glad you're going to be working with Grant on figuring out how to put together a new record label. I've decided not to sign the second Chief Records contract."
"Wow. That's huge." She studied his face for a few moments before smiling and saying, "You're really happy about it, aren't you?"
"I didn't realize just how handcuffed I felt working for someone else. Or maybe it was that I didn't want to see it, because it was easier to follow the plans that have worked for their other artists. At least at first." He looked down at their linked hands and told her the rest of the truth he'd only begun to understand. "At first, my songs couldn't come because I was shutting down my feelings to block out my grief over losing my mom. But then when I thought I needed to stop falling in love with you, that's when everything broke completely apart. Because I couldn't stop falling, Ash, and it tore me up to even try. Just destroyed me. Once I knew I loved you no matter what, and that I wasn't going to let anything keep us apart--that was when everything finally started to make sense again. You're the person I've been looking for. The woman I've been waiting for. The only one who can help me see the things I've been hiding from. And the only one who can pull me from the darkness with nothing but a look, a touch, a smile, a kiss."
But instead of giving him one of those smiles, she whispered, "I'm so sorry."
"Sorry? For what?"
"You once said I would never hurt anyone, but I hurt you when I wasn't brave enough to tell you that I loved you, too. I do, so much. I just thought we could never make things work because we're so different. And it was easier to tell myself I was holding back because of my dad and his relationship with my mom than it was to face the truth. You're the brightest light I've ever known--one of the brightest lights on the planet. And I thought I wasn't exciting enough or strong enough to be, well, enough for you."
"You aren't just enough, you're my heart. My soul. I love you, Ash. The brainy side of you. The wild side of you. I love all of you, exactly the way you are. And even though I'll always miss my mom, every day of my life, it feels now like the wounds are finally starting to heal."
Just as she'd held him in the desert, she simply pulled him close now and laid her cheek against his chest. He didn't know how long they stood holding each other, just that music played inside of him the entire time. Music he needed her to hear.
"I know you just listened to me play for over two hours, but there's a song I'd really like to play for you."
Without saying a word, she slid her hands from around his back, picked up his acoustic guitar, and handed it to him. As soon as she was on the bed in front of him, sitting cross-legged so their knees were touching, he began to play and sing.
*
Drew had never looked so serious, or quite so shy, as he did just then. He should have been a world away from the larger-than-life star she watched perform on stage every night. And yet, with just his guitar and his voice, he was even more powerful.
Especially when she realized where his lyrics had come from.
You're inside of me.
Every second of every day.
Every look.
Every touch.
Every kiss.
I was lost until you found me.
I was hurt until you healed me.
Until you took me all the way
Inside.
She'd said the words while they were making love--I want you inside of me every second of every day--and though it might have sounded like nothing more than desire, Drew had known the truth all along.
That she was saying she loved him the only way she could.
Tears streamed down her face as he played, but they were happy tears this time. Tears of wonder. No, she and Drew weren't exactly the same, but where they didn't overlap, they filled each other's gaps and made each other whole.
When he was done playing, he put his guitar down, then took her face in his hands and kissed her. So sweetly that her heart flipped over in her chest at the same time that her body ached for him to take the kiss deeper. Neither of them spoke as he slowly, silently stripped away her clothes--every caress awestruck, every kiss he pressed to her soft skin reverent--and she did the same for him and then slid on protection.
And then there was no more patience for either of them as they fell onto the bed in each other's arms. Their hungry mouths wrote the melody, their desperate hands played the rhythm, and their breathless gasps of pleasure sang the lyrics for the beautiful new song they were writing together.
Epilogue
"I can't believe we have front-row tickets to this show." Taylor turned to look behind her at the thirty thousand screaming fans who had come to hear Nicola Sullivan and Drew Morrison do the kickoff show for their fully acoustic combined tour. "I heard it sold out in seconds."
"Perks of being related to one of the people on stage," Justin Morrison said as he grinned back at one of his favorite people.
Justin and Taylor had been friends from their first class at Stanford, a bio lab where they'd been partnered up. He'd never met anyone as smart. Or as beautiful. But she'd had a boyfriend from high school, and even though he was all the way back in Rochester, New York--and sounded like he didn't come anywhere close to being worthy of her--Taylor had remained faithful. From everything she'd told him, though, it sounded like her parents had set the whole thing up as some sort of modern-day arranged marriage. The guy never called, and Justin had wondered more than once if Taylor's boyfriend was as faithful to her as she was to him.
They'd been platonic friends for more than three years. Three years in which Justin had tried like hell not to step over the line with her. But damned if it wasn't getting harder by the second. Especially when she was wearing a tank top and jean shorts due to the heat at the outdoor summer concert. Her clothes were downright demure compared to some of Drew's fans, but he still thought she was the sexiest woman he'd ever set eyes on.
"And I'm so glad that everything worked out for Drew and Ashley," Taylor said as she tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear. A lock that Justin was dying to feel flowing through his fingers. "I thought they were sneaking romantic glances at each other that night in New Orleans for his birthday."
And yet, somehow, she'd never noticed all the glances Justin was constantly sneaking at her. "They're a perfect fit." Just like we could be, he found himself thinking before he could shut it down the way he always had before. "And I know Grant is really happy to be working with both of them on the new label. He said it's a perfect combination of his expertise with social networks and theirs with the music business."
He was glad that his family was slowly starting to heal from losing their mom, especially Drew and Sean, who had both fallen in love. Justin had been lucky to have Taylor there for him from the start. But even though he couldn't ask for a better friend, more and more lately, he'd gone to bed eaten up by frustration.
The stage lights were still down when Drew and Nicola started to play "Fire and Rain" with Drew on guitar and Nicola on piano. Slowly, the stage lights began to rise as their mesmerizing music floated out over the packed amphitheater...
And as Taylor grabbed Justin's hand and sang along softl
y in an adorably off-key voice, he had to work harder than he ever had before to fight the craving that only grew bigger with every second that he tried to hide his feelings from his best friend.
*
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Watch for Justin Morrison's story, LOVE ME LIKE THIS, coming soon! And be sure not to miss KISS ME LIKE THIS, the first book in the Morrison family series, about Sean Morrison.
*
Millions of readers around the world have fallen in love with Bella's New York Times & USA Today bestselling series about The Sullivans! Please also enjoy the following excerpt from THE LOOK OF LOVE (The Sullivans, Book 1).
Chloe Peterson is having a bad night. A really bad night. The large bruise on her cheek can attest to that. And when her car skids off the side of a wet country road straight into a ditch, she's convinced even the gorgeous guy who rescues her in the middle of the rain storm must be too good to be true. Or is he?
As a successful photographer who frequently travels around the world, Chase Sullivan has his pick of beautiful women, and whenever he's home in San Francisco, one of his seven siblings is usually up for causing a little fun trouble. Chase thinks his life is great just as it is--until the night he finds Chloe and her totaled car on the side of the road in Napa Valley. Not only has Chase never met anyone so lovely, both inside and out, but he quickly realizes Chloe has much bigger problems than her damaged car. Soon, Chase is willing to move mountains to love--and protect--her, but will Chloe let him?
Chase almost missed the flickering light off on the right side of the two-lane country road. In the past thirty minutes, he hadn't passed a single car, because on a night like this, most sane Californians--who didn't know the first thing about driving safely in inclement weather--stayed home.
Knowing better than to slam on the brakes--he wouldn't be able to help whomever was stranded on the side of the road if he ended up stuck in the muddy ditch right next to them--Chase slowed down enough to see that there was definitely a vehicle stuck in the ditch.
He turned his brights on to see better in the pouring rain and realized there was a person walking along the edge of the road about a hundred yards up ahead. Obviously hearing his car approach, she turned to face him and he could see her long wet hair whipping around her shoulders in his headlights.
Wondering why she wasn't just sitting in her car, dry and warm, calling Triple A and waiting for them to come save her, he pulled over to the edge of his lane and got out to try and help her. She was shivering as she watched him approach.
"Are you hurt?"
She covered her cheek with one hand, but shook her head. "No."
He had to move closer to hear her over the sound of the water hitting the pavement in what were rapidly becoming hailstones. Even though he'd turned his headlights off, as his eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness, he was able to get a better look at her face.
Something inside of Chase's chest clenched tight.
Despite the long, dark hair plastered to her head and chest, regardless of the fact that looking like a drowned rat wasn't too far off the descriptive mark, her beauty stunned him.
In an instant, his photographer's eye cataloged her features. Her mouth was a little too big, her eyes a little too wide-set on her face. She wasn't even close to model thin, but given the way her T-shirt and jeans stuck to her skin, he could see that she wore her lush curves well. In the dark he couldn't judge the exact color of her hair, but it looked like silk, perfectly smooth and straight where it lay over her breasts.
It wasn't until Chase heard her say, "My car is definitely hurt, though," that he realized he had completely lost the thread of what he'd come out here to do.
Knowing he'd been drinking her in like he was dying of thirst, he worked to recover his balance. He could already see he'd been right about her car. It didn't take a mechanic like his brother, Zach, who owned an auto shop--more like forty, but Chase had stopped counting years ago--to see that her shitty hatchback was borderline totaled. Even if the front bumper wasn't half smashed to pieces by the white farm fence she'd slid into, her bald tires weren't going to get any traction on the mud. Not tonight, anyway.
If her car had been in a less precarious situation, he probably would have sent her to hang out in her car while he took care of getting it unstuck. But one of her back tires was hanging precariously over the edge of the ditch.
He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "Get in my car. We can wait there for a tow truck." He was vaguely aware of his words coming out like an order, but the hail was starting to sting, damn it. Both of them needed to get out of the rain before they froze.
But the woman didn't move. Instead, she gave him a look that said he was a complete and utter nut-job.
"I'm not getting into your car."
Realizing just how frightening it must be for a lone woman to end up stuck and alone in the middle of a dark road, Chase took a step back from her. He had to speak loudly enough for her to hear him over the hail.
"I'm not going to attack you. I swear I won't do anything to hurt you."
She all but flinched at the word attack and Chase's radar started buzzing. He'd never been a magnet for troubled women, wasn't the kind of guy who thrived on fixing wounded birds. But living with two sisters for so many years meant he could always tell when something was up.
And something was definitely up with this woman, beyond the fact that her car was half-stuck in a muddy ditch.
Wanting to make her feel safe, he held his hands up. "I swear on my father's grave, I'm not going to hurt you. It's okay to get into my car." When she didn't immediately say no again, he pressed his advantage with, "I just want to help you." And he did. More than it made sense to want to help a stranger. "Please," he said. "Let me help you."
She stared at him for a long moment, hail hammering between them, around them, onto them. Chase found himself holding his breath, waiting for her decision. It shouldn't matter to him what she decided.
But, for some strange reason, it did.
...Sample chapter from THE LOOK OF LOVE by Bella Andre (c) 2014
Buy The Look of Love
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Bella Andre Booklist
The Sullivan Family series The Look of Love
From This Moment On
Can't Help Falling In Love
I Only Have Eyes For You
If You Were Mine
Let Me Be The One
Come A Little Bit Closer
Always On My Mind
Kissing Under The Mistletoe
One Perfect Night
The Way You Look Tonight
It Must Be Your Love
Just To Be With You
I Love How You Love Me
All I Ever Need Is You
The Morrison Family series Kiss Me Like This
Tempt Me Like This
Love Me Like This (Justin Morrison's story)
The Maverick Billionaires series Breathless In Love
Reckless In Love
Fearless In Love
Game For Love series
Game For Love
Take Me series
Love Me
Take Me
Stand-alone Novels
Candy Store
Ecstasy
Red Hot Reunion
Tempt Me, Taste Me, Touch Me
Love On Rockwell Island series Cape Cod Kisses
Cape Cod Promises
Hotshot Firefighter series
Wild Heat
Hot As Sin
Never Too Hot
Bad Boys of Football series Game For Anything
Game For Seduction
About the Author
Having sold more than 4 million books, Bella Andre's novels have been #1 bestsellers around the world and have appeared
on the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists 27 times. She has been the #1 Ranked Author at Amazon (on a top 10 list that included Nora Roberts, JK Rowling, James Patterson and Steven King), and Publishers Weekly named Oak Press (the publishing company she created to publish her own books) the Fastest-Growing Independent Publisher in the US. After signing a groundbreaking 7-figure print-only deal with Harlequin MIRA, Bella's "The Sullivans" series has been released in paperback in the US, Canada, and Australia.
Known for "sensual, empowered stories enveloped in heady romance" (Publishers Weekly), her books have been Cosmopolitan Magazine "Red Hot Reads" twice and have been translated into ten languages. Winner of the Award of Excellence, The Washington Post called her "One of the top writers in America" and she has been featured by Entertainment Weekly, NPR, USA Today, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, and TIME Magazine. A graduate of Stanford University, she has given keynote speeches at publishing conferences from Copenhagen to Berlin to San Francisco, including a standing-room-only keynote at Book Expo America in New York City.
Bella also writes the New York Times bestselling Four Weddings and a Fiasco series as Lucy Kevin. Her "sweet" contemporary romances also include the USA Today bestselling Walker Island series written as Lucy Kevin.
If not behind her computer, you can find her reading her favorite authors, hiking, swimming or laughing. Married with two children, Bella splits her time between the Northern California wine country and a 100 year old log cabin in the Adirondacks.
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