She slid her glance over to me and when she responded her tone was even, but firm. “Max. I appreciate your standing up for me but you... can’t.” I opened my mouth to justify my actions but she held up a hand and halted any excuse I had. “You’re a good guy but I’ve got to handle this stuff on my own.”
Keep it casual.
“No problem. I got out of my swim lane. It won’t happen again.”
She looked surprised. I guess she was expecting a debate.
“Seriously, I’ll be a good boy. I promise.” I smiled at her as I crossed my heart.
“I doubt that.” Kit groaned and buried her face in her hands. “I’m so sorry for letting that get out of hand. I shouldn’t have yelled at you.” She lowered her hands and looked at me finally, regret shining in her eyes. “Forgive me?”
“No. No. I stuck my big fat nose where it didn’t belong. Besides, Bridget explained to me...”
“What did she tell you?”
“Is there something she shouldn’t have?”
“That’s not an answer.”
Kit looked seriously alarmed, so I jumped in to soothe her fears. Looking around to make sure no one was watching us, I touched her hand. “No deep, dark secrets, I promise. She just explained a few things.”
I leaned closer, breathing in her scent. She leaned into me, her head resting on my shoulder and my heart clenched in my chest. Her body was warm, relaxed, and so soft pressed against me. I squeezed her hand and waited for her to look up. When she did, I took one look at her tired eyes and decided on my next move.
Standing up I dragged her with me, heading towards the doorway. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
She dug in her heels and tugged until I stopped with a sigh and looked down at her. She smiled sweetly at me, but I wasn’t fooled. Especially, when I heard the steel in her voice. “Where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise.”
She shook her head, wrinkling her nose in protest. “I don’t like surprises.”
I pushed her out the door. “Somehow I knew you were going to say that.”
14
Kit
“So, where are we going?”
Max rolled his eyes at me for the hundredth time and shook his head. “You really don’t understand the concept of ‘surprise’, do you?” He continued with exaggerated patience. “Let me explain this again. If I tell you where I’m taking you, then it isn’t a surprise.”
I stuck my tongue out at him and shot death–ray glares at his smug face. “I don’t like surprises.”
He snorted, but kept his eyes focused on the road. “No kidding.”
I stared out the window of his truck, moodily watching the passing scenery. I really didn’t like surprises. Surprises always ended badly. Even if the planner tried to orchestrate the perfect thing to do, it was always a toss–up as to how the surprisee would take it. I’d watched a reality TV show where a couples’ anniversary party started—and ended—as they stumbled through their front door half–naked, with her hand down his pants. Not good.
For me, the memory of a time when I had no control over my life was too fresh for comfort. I’d worked so hard to gain control, to plan when things were going to happen. I wasn’t good at going with the flow.
The past year had made me really want to hold on tight. When you can’t always control your body, it adds a whole new layer of control freak to the mix.
“You don’t have to gloat over there. It’s not like you don’t have your faults.” I wanted to bite back my remark the minute it passed my lips. I’d been edgy since my fight with Ron this morning. That whole scene had been happening more and more lately and I knew that, sooner rather than later, I’d have to do something about Ron.
Max laughed at my attempt to put him on the defensive. He drawled out his response with a nonchalance that made my teeth grind together. “I’m sure I do. In fact, I am also a control freak.” He cut me a sideways glance. “It takes one to know one.”
I squirmed in my seat as he hit too close to the mark. “You guys have to stop watching so much ‘Dr. Phil’ at the firehouse.”
He was shaking his head. “No, no. I’m serious. I get it. You have life smack you around and you try to keep it from happening again by holding on real tight. For the most part it works, but it’s exhausting.”
Yeah; no kidding. I watched his profile as he drove. “But, sooner or later something breaks free.”
“And bites you in the ass.”
Max made a turn off the road, his face clouded by the thought of whatever had taken a piece out of his hide. He’d mentioned a bad breakup. Must have been a bad one. Is there such a thing as a good one? I reached over and laid my hand on Max’s thigh. He glanced down and laced the fingers of his free hand with mine.
He pulled off the main road onto a dirt path that snaked alongside corn and soybean fields. Cattle grazed in the far distance as the day surrendered to the pull of the night. The sky was purple and orange and shot with reddish gold. I lost track of the turns he made as we wound our way through the beautiful hills of Tennessee.
He pulled the truck into a stand of trees bordering a pond and came to a stop alongside at least two dozen other trucks and vehicles. A bonfire flickered from a clearing surrounded by portable folding chairs.
It was a party.
Not one of the industry parties I was used to attending. This one had a couple of kegs, music and a bunch of twenty–somethings enjoying the fact that they were young. This was not what I expected but my heart sped up with excitement.
Max hopped out of the truck and grabbed two chairs from the back before coming over to the passenger side and helping me out.
“You okay with this?” he asked, his arm around my waist as he pulled me close.
“Yeah. Very okay.” I leaned into his touch as we navigated the sea of folding chairs, coolers, and couples dancing.
Trucks were pulled up around the perimeter and people sitting on open tailgates waved at Max as we passed by.
“Who are all these people and where are we?” I asked as he claimed our spot by the fire and set up our camp chairs.
“The usual crowd. People I went to school with, firefighters from other stations. They’re all cool so you don’t need to worry about them being weird about who you are.”
“I’m off the clock?”
“Absolutely. No Super Kit here.” He dragged me close again and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “Just be a twenty–one–year–old woman with a hot date who can’t keep his hands off you.”
“I like the sound of that.”
“Good.” He leaned in to kiss me but we were interrupted by Dean and Shannon appearing out of nowhere. They were good at that—it was their superpower.
“Here’s a beer, Max. You obviously need to cool down,” Dean handed over the bottle with a smile. “And here’s a Diet Coke for you, Kit. Max told us it’s your favorite.”
“It is. Thanks.”
“Everybody,” Dean shouted out and most of the party–goers turned to listen. “This is Kit and we’re all under direct orders from Max not to mention that she’s a celebrity and not to ask her for an autograph. No photos and no requests for her to sing at your wedding. I’m looking at you, Tara and Glenn.” A pretty girl stuck her tongue out at Dean while the guy who must be Glenn flipped him the bird. “Any violators will have their nuts crushed. Direct quote. Carry on!”
“Dean, you’re a jackass.” Max shoved his friend, but Dean kept laughing.
“Did you really say all that?” I asked Max.
“Yep.”
“Including the nut–crushing thing?”
“Yep.” He stuck his hand into the back pocket of my denim skirt and smiled. “I just wanted you to have a good time.”
I stared at him. Damn, but he kept surprising me. First Jolene, and now this.
“Good surprise, Max.”
“I’m sorry.” He cupped his hand to his ear. “Can you repeat that? I’m not sure I caught it.”<
br />
“Don’t push your luck, buddy.”
We all sat down, the warmth of the fire just enough to chase away the chill of the summer evening as the sun went down.
“So, how was the Bluebird thing?” Shannon asked.
“It was good,” I answered. “More friends than industry people there and that’s how I like it.” I nudged Max with my elbow. “And our guy did fine. Didn’t even break out in hives when they took his pictures.”
“The miracle was getting him there at all,” Shannon said. “Max is the only person in this town who goes out of his way to avoid anything about the music industry. Ever since Sarah died.”
Even if I hadn’t been looking at them all, I would have felt the tension descend on the three of them like a downpour. Max tensed and looked ready to beat feet back to his truck while Dean was concerned and Shannon stricken with regret. Whoever Sarah was, she was not a happy conversation starter. I was dying to ask about her but I’d told Max to stay in his box not an hour ago so I needed to give him the same courtesy and respect the boundaries of our fling.
“Well, you handled it like a pro and I’m glad you came,” I said, reaching over to grab his hand and weave our fingers together. The tension in his muscles eased when he figured out I wasn’t going to push the topic.
“Kit sang this amazing new song. Had the crowd eating out of her hand,” Max said with a smile in my direction. “It’s going to be her next number one.”
“From your mouth to Liam Connor’s ears.”
“Forget that asshole. He doesn’t know a good song when he hears it.”
“My favorite is ‘Troubled Times’.” Shannon shot a glance at Max, daring him to stop her from violating his rules. “If you don’t mind, can you tell me about it?”
“I don’t mind. I love talking music with people who love it as much as I do.” I noticed that several people around us were listening so I pitched my voice a little louder and smiled to include them. “I wrote it when I first got to Nashville. I had two hundred dollars, my guitar, one pair of shoes and three pairs of jeans and T–shirts in a backpack. I was staying at a shelter trying to dodge the cops and social services because I didn’t want to be in the system.”
Max let go of my hand and placed it on my upper back, his strong fingers warm against my skin as he offered me his support. I accepted it, letting it be what it was.
“I was pretty low and feeling pretty sorry for myself but there was this guy at the shelter who had this dog he couldn’t bring inside. One night while he was sleeping, somebody killed his dog. He found him the next morning tied up where he left him.” I could still see the image of the old man hunched over the body of the animal, weeping as he held him in his lap. I’d never heard such a lonesome sound in my life. “He was heartbroken and all I could think is that I’d thought I was the only person who had trouble. Somebody else was always going to have it worse than me until it’s my turn to be the one on the bottom. I decided then I wasn’t going to borrow trouble.”
“Live with what you have,” Dean added.
“Yep. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes bad.”
“That must have been hard, growing up on the streets?” Shannon asked.
“I survived.” I shrugged it off, refusing to go back there and let it have any of my present. “I was so busy getting by that I didn’t realize I’d missed so much until years later. I never got to hang out at a party like this. No football games. I didn’t even learn to drive until two years ago.”
“Really?” Max was surprised. “I was driving on the farm at twelve.”
“I was too young and then I rode the bus or walked when I first came to Nashville. Then when I was old enough to get my license I had people driving me everywhere.” I smiled at the leap that my life had made when Paul Brandt found me at the Bluebird.
“So what else didn’t you get to do?” Max asked. He waved his arm as if I could have the universe. “Your wish is my command.”
I looked around the party, watching the couples sway to the music.
“I never danced at a prom or any school dance.”
Max followed my gaze and turned back to look at my face. He put his beer bottle on the ground and stood, lifting me with him. “Come on. We’ll fix that right now.”
He walked us over to a place near the perimeter of trucks, the firelight not quite reaching as we stepped into the shadows. He wrapped me in his arms and pulled me in close, nuzzling the sweet spot behind my ear that turned my insides to mush.
“Pretend the moon is a disco ball and the trees are crepe paper streamers.” He chuckled against my neck. “Dean is spiking the punch and I’m not hearing any part of the power ballad played by the DJ because I’m trying to figure out if you’re going to give it up after the dance is over.”
“I’d say your chances are looking good.”
“Excellent.”
We swayed to the music and I closed my eyes and let him lead. He was warm and strong and I was content to just be held as one song led to two and three. This was up there with one of my best moments ever.
“Thank you, Max. You’re sweet to do this for me.”
“Are you kidding? You never pass up a chance to hold a beautiful woman close. Dancing is the perfect excuse.”
“Sure.” I laughed, my cheek resting against his chest.
“Trust me. You do this right and you are ‘in like Flynn’ later. Women eat this up. I know what I’m talking about.”
“So what other opportunity do you never pass up?” I looked up at him and caught my breath. His face was all dark angles and shadows, his eyes hot with desire and mischief. What had been a light and playful sexual tension morphed into something sharper, darker, hotter. His voice was rougher when he spoke.
“You never pass up the chance to do this. Especially with a kickass, passionate woman who knows how to survive.”
Max kissed my cheeks, eyelids, and finally my mouth. A simple slide of lips that spiraled into a sensuous thrust and parry of velvet tongues against each other. I wrapped both arms around his neck and hung on for dear life because—have mercy—my knees had liquefied and I doubted they would support me if he let go.
“You also never, never, pass up the chance to take a woman down to the lake in the moonlight and fuck her.” He held me close, nuzzling my hair sweetly; his tender actions contradicting the raw passion of his words. I breathed him in until I heard him speak, his voice barely a whisper, “I want to see you, Kit. Under the moon and under me.”
Damn.
I wasn’t going to lie to myself. My heart was right there—ready to fall for him if I let down my guard for one minute. Hell, I already liked him. And why wouldn’t I? He was passionate, tender, funny, and endearing. Everything I wanted in a guy.
And absolutely unavailable.
We’d set clear ground rules. I’d tried this relationship stuff before and it hadn’t lasted. How could it when I spent two–hundred–fifty–plus days a year on the road? Emails, phone calls, and stolen weekends only held it together for so long and then it fell apart. Not suddenly and violently, but wrenchingly, achingly, and in slow motion like on every tabloid TV show. It was a goal to change whatever I needed to in order to have a relationship but that was tabled for a little while.
Right now I had three weeks. Three surprising, sexy, fantasy–fulfilling weeks.
And now, I had a surprise of my own.
Removing myself from Max’s embrace, I led him away from the crowd, past the line of trucks and deeper into the gloom of the woods. The lake shone with the moonlight and it was enough to see Max, to find a stand of tall trees that was shielded from the eyes of anyone else from the party.
I pushed him against a tree. As my eyes adjusted to the dimness, I saw him clearly, arms crossed across his broad chest, intently staring at me.
“Your plans are going to have to wait.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Is that right?”
“You might want to hold on to that tree.”
&n
bsp; I took one step, then another, until I stood right in front of him, our chests touching with each heavy breath. I dropped to my knees at his feet, never breaking eye contact so I saw his expression morph from surprise to “fuck yeah” in a few seconds.
I reached up and unfastened his belt, the top button on his fly and then grabbed the tab on his zipper. He kept his eyes locked on me, the tension in his jaw growing with each click of metal against metal until I reached the end. He’d done me the favor of going commando, so I reached inside and grabbed his cock, stroking it slowly as his knees gave slightly.
I licked across the head, moaning at the salty taste of his pre–cum. His fingers dug into the bark of the tree as he groaned. I’d told him to hang on for the ride.
“What am I going to do to you, Max?” I smiled, as I recalled his words from the night before. “I’m going to do everything.”
15
Max
Fuck. She was going to kill me.
I did what I could as she took me in hand and then into her hot, wet mouth—lock my knees and try to stay upright.
There was just enough moonlight for me to see my cock slide in between her pretty little lips. My skin glistened in the night as she sucked me and I fisted my hands with the extreme effort not to grab her hair and take over the slow ride of torture and ecstasy she was taking me on. Moments slid into minutes as I battled with myself to keep my orgasm at bay. It was a workout and sweat dampened my skin then turned cool with the breeze off the lake. I shivered.
She stopped. Oh, Jesus. I almost whimpered at the loss of pleasure.
“Is that good? Anything you want me to change?” Her lips were already swollen and slick with her effort as she stuck out her tongue and licked that spot under the head that made my eyes cross.
It was an effort to keep my eyes open. I didn’t want to miss a minute of this. I’d spent a lot of time fantasizing about Kit and I realized that my mind wasn’t dirty enough for where she could take me.
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