by RB Hilliard
“Grant,” she breathed. I switched nipples and continued pumping. Slow, shallow thrusts. There’s my girl, I thought, as she began to move with me.
A sexy-as-hell moan escaped from her lips as she closed her eyes and dropped her head back onto her shoulders. She was lost in the moment. I wanted her with me. No, I needed her with me. “Eyes on me,” I commanded. Her lust drugged eyes slowly opened. While waiting for her to focus, I continued delivering slow, shallow thrusts. Once I had her full attention, I picked up the pace. “Tell me you feel it.”
“I feel it,” she panted.
“Tell me it means something.”
“I need to move,” she groaned.
“Tell me,” I repeated.
“Grant!” she hissed.
“Tell me,” I growled.
“It means everything, now let me move!” she shouted. More than satisfied with her outburst, I captured her lips with mine and kissed the fucking hell out of her. With an angry growl, she yanked her mouth free and, in an attempt to take charge, she dug her nails into my shoulders and rode her anger out on my cock. When her breaths turned choppy, I knew she was close. Needing a little more time, I grabbed her hips and pulled her in tight. Her eyes flashed with frustration when I slowed down the tempo and forced her to feel our connection.
“It means everything?” I asked. Her eyes closed and she dropped her forehead to mine. I was getting closer, but I wasn’t letting go until she said it one more time.
“Yes,” she whispered. With a smile on my face, I picked back up the pace.
“Never felt like this,” I ground out between thrusts.
“Never,” she repeated.
Not able to stand it any longer, I lifted her off of me. The moment her ass hit the sofa, I dropped to my knees, pulled her to the edge and sunk back in balls deep. As I dug my hands under her ass for leverage, she grabbed my shoulders and wrapped her legs around my waist. Lifting her hips up, I pulled out and slammed back in. Her honey scent drove me – faster, harder. I wanted all the way in – to dig so deep I’d never find my way back out. Most of all, I wanted to finally be able to call every last inch of her mine.
At the same time her pussy clamped down, I felt her clit pulse. She whipped her head back, arched her spine and shouted my name. The second my name left her lips the orgasm zinged up my spine and exploded from the tip of my cock. My mind was officially blown. Sex had always been good for me. Sex with Mallory was fucking phenomenal. I rode my orgasm to completion and then collapsed against her.
Once we could function again, Mallory pulled back and said, “You cannot keep doing that.”
“Doing what?” I innocently asked.
“You have to stop coercing me into confessing my inner feelings while we’re having sex, Grant.”
I tried not to smile, but she was seriously funny when she was pissed. With a half-shrug, I said, “A man has to do what he has to do, babe.” She let out an exasperated huff and tried to pull away, but I wasn’t ready to lose her yet. I ran my lips over her shoulder and smiled when she relaxed back into my arms. “I like having you in my house,” I confessed.
After a long pause, she finally gave in. “I like being here. Tell me about it. How did you find it?”
“How about this, let’s get cleaned up. Then we’ll raid the kitchen. I promise to tell you everything while we’re eating.”
Half an hour later we were camped out in my bed feeding each other cheese and crackers. I told her how Ava used to work for Dale’s parents before coming to work for him.
“Ava knew what was happening and she tried to help, she really did, but Dale fought her every step of the way. A few weeks before we released him from the band she told him she couldn’t do it any longer. Things got ugly and she walked. Like everyone else, she blames herself for his death.”
“It wasn’t your fault Grant. Please know that.”
“I’m getting there. Each day is better than the day before,” I confessed. “Anyway, Luke sold their place right after Dale died and bought a two bedroom townhouse. By that point Ava had pretty much decided to retire. Then I found this place and I knew how much she would love it, so I asked if she would be willing to move into the back cottage and take care of it for me.
“That was so sweet of you. How did you find this place?” Mallory asked.
“After we graduated from college, Nash and I got an apartment together. About a month after we signed with Happenstance his mom got sick. As you know, we each got a pretty sizable signing bonus. Nash used his to buy a house for his mom as well as to pay for her treatments. Luke and Dale went in on a place together. That way Luke would have enough money to put his sister through culinary school. I paid off my parent’s mortgage and, since Nash was planning on moving in with his mom, I began looking for a place to live. I was thinking more along the lines of a condo or townhome, but then the realtor showed me this. It was way more money than I wanted to spend, but it called to me. The sellers dropped the price three times before I finally gave in and bought it.”
“So, Luke and Dale were close?” Mallory asked.
“Like brothers. Nash and I were torn up about Dale’s death, but Luke was devastated. He doesn’t show it, but he still is.”
Mallory rubbed her hand over my hair and I leaned into her touch. “I’m sorry you all lost him,” she murmured.
“Me, too. I’ve talked enough. Now it’s your turn. You want to tell me what your dream was about? You seemed pretty spooked.” Her hand twitched mid-stroke and I could tell I’d caught her off guard.
I expected her to blow me off but she surprised me when she said, “Our head coach’s name was Salamon King. We called him Sal for short. Sal was the only person in the room with me when the doctor told me I would never ski again. I remember it like it was yesterday. He leaned over, kissed my forehead and said, ‘You were so close.’ Then he walked out of my hospital room. Two days later my face and the story about my accident was splashed all over the tabloids, including the fact that my career was now over.”
“The fucker sold you out?” I growled.
She nodded her head. “He did. He didn’t even give me a chance. He just took the doctor for his word and sold my story to the highest bidder. The sad thing was that half of what he said wasn’t even true.” I knew this all too well.
“It never is. I bet your parents flipped.”
“Boy did they ever. My dad wanted to kill Sal. We had money. Let me rephrase that, I had money, but Sal had been in the business a lot longer than I had. He knew exactly where to go and what to say. We didn’t and it was truly awful.”
“Is that why you turned to pills?”
“At the time I thought I’d lost everything. My future was the Olympics. To have no choice but to give up on that dream was devastating. The pills helped the physical pain, but I wasn’t doing well emotionally. My parents didn’t understand why I wasn’t able to bounce back. My entire life as I’d known it had been turned on its head and they expected me just to bounce back.” Her eyes lifted to mine. “If you couldn’t play the guitar or sing anymore would you be able to bounce back?”
I leaned over and touched my lips to hers. “No, I wouldn’t bounce back. I can’t imagine what you must have gone through. I’m so damn sorry. I’m also sorry I wasn’t there for you tonight when you woke up.”
“It wasn’t that difficult to find you.” Her smile turned into a yawn and I realized it was late. After cleaning up our mess, we got ready for bed. I waited for Mallory to fall asleep before following after.
The next morning I awakened to the smell of bacon and coffee. Mallory was lying flat on her back with an arm slung over her face and a soft snore pouring from her pretty mouth. Not wanting to wake her, I carefully extracted myself from the bed. After a quick trip to the bathroom I threw on shorts and a shirt and headed downstairs for some coffee. Both Nash and Ava greeted me with smiles.
I passed by Nash and said, “You’re up early.” As I was pouring coffee I noticed a strange woma
n standing on the balcony. “And who, might I ask, is that?”
“That is Rowan. Isn’t she lovely?” Ava answered.
“Rowan?” I directed at Nash.
“Rowan is Mom’s oncology nurse. You know Mom. Like a dumb ass, I asked her to join me for Ava’s famous breakfast in front of Rowan. Mom latched on like nobody’s business and the next thing I knew, Rowan was in the truck and we were driving into the hills together.”
“How…sweet,” I teased.
“Fuck you,” he shot back.
“Hush boys or you’ll scare Rowan,” Ava scolded. Nash grinned at me and we both burst into laughter. Rowan came through the door right as my cell rang and I could see why Nash was less than thrilled. Rowan was definitely not his type – My type, yes, but Nash’s type? No way. Nash liked his women thin and bony. Rowan had curves all over.
When I saw Hank’s name on the screen, I answered with, “You’re up early.”
“It’s after ten. I’ve been up since six. I’ve got the location of Sarah Harmon,” he responded.
My breath caught in the back of my throat. This was the last thing I expected him to say. “Hang on a second,” I told him. I turned to Nash and said, “Hank knows where Sarah Harmon is.” Nash stood and said something to Rowan before following me into my office. I hit the speaker and said, “Nash is here with me and we have you on speaker.”
“Good. You remember Cas, Adam and Bobby from our stop in Charlotte?” Hank asked.
“Yep,” Nash and I both answered in unison.
“They own a security business called LASH,” he explained.
“I remember Cas mentioning that,” I said.
“After our talk last night, I called Dillon. He made a call to Bobby, who is some sort of genius with computers. Bobby did some digging and got us an address in Brenham, Texas.”
“Are you sure it’s the correct address?” Nash asked.
“Trust me, it’s the correct address,” he replied. Nash whipped out his phone and started typing furiously on it.
“How long will it take you to get there?” I asked.
“A little over an hour,” Hank said.
“It will take us an hour and a half,” Nash said.
“Here’s the address. I can be out the door in ten minutes,” Hank said.
“Why don’t you plan on heading back to Austin with us? Ava would love to see you.”
“What about Mallory?” he asked.
“I didn’t say I was going to entertain you. I just said you had a place to stay for the night.” Hank laughed.
“I’ll entertain you,” Nash chimed in.
“Yeah, Nash has a hot friend with a sexy accent with him. Who knows, you might even get lucky,” I teased. Nash scowled at me and I flipped him the bird.
After Hank gave us the address, we hung up and stared at each other.
“This could be it,” I stated.
“If it’s not, we’ll keep going until we find her, okay?”
“What about Rowan?”
Nash shrugged. “We could drop her by her house on the way back down.”
“No, leave her here. She can help entertain Ava and Mallory.”
Nash quirked a brow at me. “We’re not bringing Mallory along for the ride?”
“That’s something I wanted to talk to you about.” As we made our way back to the kitchen, I explained how I wanted Mallory to take a back seat and why. Nash agreed with me. The less we involved Mallory, the better off she’d be when the shit hit the fan.
After Nash made proper introductions, we explained how we had a lead on a particular guitar we’d been eyeing and were going to go check it out. Rowan agreed to keep Ava company while we were gone. Ava and Rowan could fill Mallory in on our whereabouts when she woke up.
We arrived at Sarah’s house around noon. Hank pulled up right after us. My heart dropped when I got a good look at the house. My first thought was crack house. My second wasn’t much better. The house was the size of a shoe box, the paint was peeling off, the windows were cracked and the steps and porch were rotted out. I had no idea what we were going to find, but I was pretty damn sure I wasn’t going to like whatever it was.
“Let me,” Hank said. Nash and I watched him slide his gun from his belt and slowly make his way up the dilapidated stairs and onto the front porch. He knocked on the door. When a minute passed with no answer, he motioned us forward. As Nash and I traversed the front porch and managed to find safe spots to stand, Hank tested the front door to see if it was locked. The door swung open and we all stepped inside. The place smelled like mold and tobacco mixed with something I couldn’t quite identify and didn’t want to think about.
“What the hell is that smell?” Nash whispered behind me. Hank turned and placed his finger over his mouth telling us to be quiet. After searching the front of the house, which took all of two seconds, we found a woman in a bedroom lying face up on a bed. Bottles and loose pills were strung all over the room and it looked as if there’d been a struggle.
“What the fuck?” I whispered.
“Is she dead?” Nash asked.
The woman’s hand twitched as we neared the bed and Hank said, “Fuck.” For Hank to curse, I knew it had to be bad. When I saw the needle sticking out of her neck and the reality of the situation smacked me square in the face. As Hank pulled the needle from her neck, her eyes drifted to me. She opened her mouth and Hank turned her on her side. Vomit shot everywhere. When he flipped her back over, she zeroed in on us and softly said, “You came back.”
“Sarah,” Hank called out. Her eyes floated to him and he asked, “Who did this to you?” I jerked my eyes to him. What did he mean who did this to her. Wasn’t it obvious? She was a junkie. She did it to herself.
Her eyes drifted back to Nash and me and she drawled, “Mellllllllltdowwwwwwn.” Then she said something that sounded like, “Happy to help,” but I wasn’t sure. She said Meltdown one more time before passing out.
Hank reached out and placed two fingers on her neck. “I can’t find a pulse. I’m going to administer CPR, while one of you calls 9-1-1.”
“What the hell?” I asked. Hank and Nash both stared at me. “How do we explain this? Nash and I can’t be here, Hank.”
Nash nodded his head in agreement. “Grant’s right. We can’t do this.”
“What? So we let her die?” Hank growled.
“I don’t like this anymore than you do, but talk about a fucking scandal,” I said.
“You’re right,” he finally agreed. As I stared down at what was left of what was probably a once pretty woman, I thought about Mallory and how this could have been her. “Cas, this is Hank, again,” Hank spoke into the phone. “Yeah, we found her, but she’s on her way out unless we get her some immediate medical attention.” He paused for a moment before saying, “And how does that look when two members of Meltdown are connected with a junkie death in the middle of BFE Texas?” After another long pause, he said, “Thanks man, I owe you.” Then he disconnected the call and said, “Let’s go.”
“We’re just leaving her?” Nash asked.
“An ambulance is on its way. If we’re here when it arrives then you’ve got your scandal whether you want it or not,” Hank answered.
On that note, we all filed out the door and hopped in our respective vehicles. Thirty minutes later Hank called to tell us that Cas had called. Sarah Harmon was dead. Once again, we’d hit a dead end. I was fucked.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Run Melba Run
Mallory
I jerked awake to the sound of the front door slamming. For a split second I had no idea where I was. Then I remembered last night’s dream – followed by my freak out, which resulted in my hunt through the house for Grant and ended in the best sex of my life. Words were spoken and promises extracted…all under sexual duress.
“Ugh,” I said out loud. Then I flopped back onto the bed and burst into laughter. I felt good, happy, alive – and all because of the man whose bed I was wallowing in
. As a tiny kernel of hope sprouted from my once dormant heart, I realized it was no longer accompanied by fear. I didn’t want to over analyze what happened last night or what effect it could have on me twelve years from now. Dwelling on the past had gotten me nowhere. I was ready to face the future – a future with Grant Hardy in it. Speaking of Grant, where was he? I sprang from the bed and floated on cloud nine to the bathroom. Once I was reasonably presentable, I floated downstairs, where I was greeted by Ava and a woman I’d never seen before.
“Good morning,” I called out.
“Mallory, dear, come meet Nash’s friend Rowan,” Ava responded. Grant mentioned Nash stopping by to practice today, but he didn’t say anything about him bringing a friend along. Rowan was sitting on one of the kitchen stools with a cup of coffee in her hands. She had a mane of dark curly hair that I envied on sight. As I closed the distance between us I noticed she also had the most amazing green eyes. She has to be Irish.
“Hi, Mallory, nice to meet you,” Rowan said as I approached, and I detected a slight accent. Yep, totally Irish.
“Nice to meet you,” I said as I glanced around the room. “Where are the guys?”
Ava let out a huff and Rowan laughed. “They went into the city to check out a guitar,” Rowan responded.
“Would you like some pancakes?” Ava asked.
Rowan and I helped Ava make the pancakes and we chatted over breakfast like old friends. Rowan was indeed from Ireland, but she and Nash weren’t a couple. She was his mother’s private oncology nurse. Because she was always around, a friendship had developed with Nash.
“I think you’d be good for Nash,” Ava announced.
After Rowan recovered from choking on her coffee, she said, “Nash is a great guy, but he’s a commitment-phobe. That’s the last thing I need in my life right now. Plus, he pays my bills. Dating my boss would be awkward.” The thought of dating Blane, or even worse, Kirkland, gave me the squeegees.
After breakfast, Ava suggested we grab some drinks and head to the pool. As luck would have it Rowan brought along her suit. Ava was kind enough to provide us with fresh towels and drinks.