“Angel?” he muttered into her mouth.
“Yes?”
“Are you able to . . . move in that position?”
“You told me to sit on your lap and kiss you,” she said, her lips pecking the tip of his nose. “I’m just following instructions.”
He recognized the teasing light in her eyes and couldn’t be cross with her.
“So, if I requested that you fuck me . . .”
“I’d fuck you. But I was hoping you’d want to make this last a while. Take it slow.”
She pressed her feet to the floor and lifted her hips slowly. He groaned as pleasure rippled through his flesh. His breath caught when she stopped—his tip barely penetrating her—and then she slowly lowered over him again.
“Slow,” he said, threading his fingers through her hair and tilting her head back so he could suck kisses down her throat. “Slow is good. So good.”
But making love was the only thing he wanted to go slow with Lindsey. He was on the fast track to falling for her completely and making himself vulnerable again. He knew he was opening himself up for more heartache, but he didn’t care. Josie had been his first love, but a voice deep inside his heart told him Lindsey’s love would be everlasting, so as she pushed him beyond the peak of rapture, he held her tight and silently vowed to never let her go.
Chapter Eleven
In a hurry because they were late for the engagement party, Lindsey tucked in the end of Chad’s dressing, stretched a shrinker sock over the bandage, and pulled the leg of his shorts to conceal the redressed wound. The stitches were healing fast with no signs of infection, and the swelling had gone down substantially. The shrinker sock was doing its job. Even though she’d shown him that she knew how to massage the area to help with circulation, healing, and desensitization, he hadn’t let her do it since that one time in the bathroom a handful of days ago. But she hadn’t pushed the issue. She wanted him to be comfortable with his body, and if it bothered him when she cared for his leg, then she’d keep her interactions to redressing his wound as efficiently as possible and focus her attention on the rest of his body. He only allowed her to redress his leg now because both his hands were bandaged, his scraped knuckles covered with gauze.
He’d fallen during physical therapy a few days ago and had taken his frustration out with both fists on the wooden ramp that had tripped him. He hadn’t asked her to accompany him to a PT session since. She wasn’t sure why he cared so much that she’d witnessed his little meltdown, but she pretended like she hadn’t seen it an would never bring it up. She knew he wanted to use a prosthetic right away, but he still needed to strengthen his left leg and toughen his right so that the skin and muscle weren’t overly sensitive to bearing weight with a prosthetic device. He said he wanted a blade, insisting it would be best for running, and he planned to run everywhere after he was freed from his wheelchair. But first he had to heal and learn to walk before he could run, and he had no patience with his body.
“I think I should skip this party,” he said.
She stroked his hair, but he still avoided her gaze. “I promise you’ll have fun. Everyone wants to see you.”
“Wants to stare at me, you mean.”
“There might be some staring.” She leaned in to kiss his arousing lips. “But who can blame them? You’re hot.”
“If you say that too much, it comes across as insincere.”
The sentiment was anything but insincere. Chad was hot. Maybe she did tell him a bit too often. She’d never felt the need to verbally remind any of her past lovers how attractive she found them, so why did she do it with Chad?
“You’re not cute,” she said. “Your brother’s cute.”
“Gee, thanks. I didn’t mean you should go from one extreme to the other.”
“You’re more handsome than cute, but that’s not quite the right word either.” She nibbled on her fingertip as she saw past the still-healing cuts, the scrapes, and the almost completely faded bruises on his face.
He blinked at her in annoyance. “Don’t hurt yourself trying to describe me.”
“I have no problem finding the right word. Hot. You’re hot as fuck, Chad Mitchell. I’m sorry if my descriptions aren’t poetic enough for your liking.”
“Fine,” he said, throwing up both hands and trying to hide a pleased smile. “If you say I’m hot as fuck, I’m hot as fuck.”
“Thanks for agreeing with me. I’m sure you think I’m hot too.” She winked at him.
“No,” he said, his voice softening. “Your beauty is ethereal.”
Her breath caught. “Ethereal?”
“Why do you think I call you angel? Did I ever tell you that I thought you really were an angel when I first opened my eyes in the hospital and you were smiling at me from above? I thought you were there to deliver me to heaven.”
She shook her head, her heart buoyant with joy. He always lifted her up, no matter how far down she slid.
“I’m glad I’m not really an angel,” she said. “The world is a better place with you in it.”
He flushed slightly. It wasn’t the full-on blush his cute younger brother displayed regularly, but Chad’s humanity was showing. Lindsey loved watching him slowly open up so she could see what he was made of on the inside. She wasn’t sure how it was possible, but his inner workings were even more gorgeous to her than his drool-worthy exterior.
“Are you ready, then?” she asked. “I think all the guests have arrived. You get to be fashionably late among rock stars.”
“Okay, but don’t hover. I hate when you hover.”
“You do?” She bit her lip. She thought he liked her attention.
He grinned. “I love when you hover in private,” he said, “but it’s emasculating when you do it in front of everyone.”
Emasculating? She loved that he used extraordinary words. With all the brawn, heroism, and hotness Chad had going on, he didn’t need multisyllabic words to make an impression, but he continually impressed her on every level.
“I pinkie swear not to emasculate you in public.” She lifted her right pinkie finger and hooked it through his for a shake. “But I’m going to baby the hell out of you in private.”
“Deal.” He sucked in a deep breath. “Let’s do this.”
He smoothed both hands over his pale blue shirt—wiping the sweat off his palms, maybe—and wheeled himself toward the back door. Lindsey could hear the muffled sounds of conversation coming from the backyard. She was a little nervous too, to be honest. Now that two-thirds of her prospective baby daddies knew they were in the clear, the group was likely to wonder why she’d even been invited. She planned to swipe some DNA from Adam later. And if Jacob showed up—which seemed unlikely considering he was the one who broke up the band—she’d be getting that final sample by any means necessary. She wasn’t sure it mattered who the father was at this point. She could make a life for her and her daughter without him in the picture, but maybe she’d have some peace of mind if she knew who he was. And her daughter would probably want to know. She felt bad for trying to force her way on Owen at the beginning. She’d never been more desperate in her entire life, and he’d invited her in. Continued to look out for her. What a great guy. Both Mitchell sons were amazing, selfless men, so she had to give accolades to their parents for raising them right. She hoped she could be as good a mother as Joan was. The woman should be given sainthood for being so generous and caring toward the destitute groupie who’d tried—and failed—to trap her son.
Owen opened the back door and peered inside. “There you are,” he said to Chad. “I thought maybe you chickened out.”
“Lindsey was fixing my bandage,” he said.
She squeezed his shoulder for reassurance but allowed Owen to wheel him out of the house like some prize he’d procured. Chad had spent so much time warning Lindsey not to belittle him that he’d forgotten to tell his brother to knock it off.
“I’ve got it,” he growled at Owen, who released the chair grips as if
they were hot iron.
The chair careened down the ramp. Everyone was already staring, but Lindsey caught the cringes and concerned stares of the guests as Chad stopped the chair’s forward momentum with his bandaged hands. She was sure his knuckles were killing him, but she kept her distance. Damn, it was hard not to hover.
Chad took a deep breath and continued to the bottom of the ramp. Lindsey felt the hostility radiating off him as his glare shot from one quickly averted gaze to another.
“I told Owen this was a mistake,” he said. “Sorry to ruin your fun.”
He spun his chair around to start back up the ramp, but Lindsey purposefully blocked his way. She knew he wouldn’t run her over. Or she’d thought she knew that until she saw the anger simmering in his stormy blue eyes.
She leaned close to him and touched his cheek, whispering into his ear. “You’re not going to scare off that easily, are you?”
The muscles of his jaw flexed beneath her fingertips, but he shook his head slightly.
“You’re strong and brave and hot as fuck,” she murmured into his ear. “Every time you see me, know I’m thinking those things because they’re all true. If you start to care what anyone else thinks, focus on me. Now go have a good time. I’ll give you some space.”
It took a Herculean effort to stand straight and step away—both because her back was killing her and because Chad still wore an uncharacteristic look of uncertainty across his face.
“Hey, Chad!” Gabe called from across the yard. “Nice haircut. You don’t mind if I steal that style as my own?”
Several people gasped at the insensitive remark, but Lindsey smiled as the tension drained from Chad’s body. She could have kissed Gabe for putting Chad at ease—well, if Gabe would have let her, which she doubted, seeing as this was his engagement party.
“Banner, you aren’t cool enough to pull this off,” Chad shot back, swiping a hand over the bandage on the side of his head.
Gabe’s crimson-tipped Mohawk and scalp dragon tattoos were a tad more daring than Chad’s half-shaved head, but Gabe rolled with it. He crossed the yard, tugging his fiancée behind him by one hand.
“That’s a fact,” Gabe said as he approached. “Chad Mitchell has always been the coolest guy on the block.”
“That’s because only old ladies live on this block,” Kellen said, and Lindsey could have kissed him too, except Dawn would probably cut her lips off if she tried. Kellen patted Owen’s arm. “Oh, and Owen here.”
For a split second, Lindsey thought the two of them had finally made up, but Owen leveled Kellen with a venom-laced glare and pulled away. Dawn, who was watching the former best friends, deflated with disappointment and made a slapping motion with one hand as if trying to knock sense into one or both of them from a distance.
After Gabe introduced Melanie to Chad and they each had thanked him for his service in the military, he wheeled off with newfound confidence. Lindsey told Chad how awesome she thought he was on a daily basis, but he was right, the impact of her words had lessened with repeated gushing. It was great that someone else had lifted him up. He needed that reassurance whether he thought he did or not.
Lindsey stepped up to Gabe and squeezed his arm in gratitude. “Thank you for making him feel normal.” She dropped his arm to hurry after Chad.
They hadn’t even made it to the next group of partygoers when Chad glanced over his shoulder and offered her a soft smile. “Hovering,” he said quietly, and she cringed.
Sorry, she mouthed.
She forced herself to turn away and tried to find a friendly face in the crowd. One appeared in front of her almost instantly.
“Oh hello, Jordan,” she said, wondering how long he’d been following her. “How have you been?”
“Kind of bored now that the tour’s been canceled,” he said. “You’re looking good, Lindsey.”
Sole Regret’s lackey-of-all-trades was only a couple of years younger than she was, yet she thought of him as a kid. He was a real sweetheart, though. He always went out of his way to help her out.
“Thanks. I feel like a duck-buffalo most days.”
“A duck-buffalo?”
“Waddling and lumbering at the same time.”
He laughed a little too uproariously, and she couldn’t help but smile. He tried so hard to connect with her.
“You’re staying with Owen?” he asked after he’d caught his breath.
“Just until I can find a job and get my own place.”
“You can crash at my apartment if you ever need to,” he said. “It’s not very big—just one bedroom—but I can take the couch, and you can have my bed.”
“That’s sweet of you, Jordan,” she said.
He was doing that clingy thing he tended to do. It sort of reminded her of how she’d acted when she’d first shown up pregnant behind the stadium in Houston. She cringed inwardly at the person she’d been. No wonder the band had wanted to leave her on the side of the road.
She spotted someone she needed to talk to making his way toward the chow line that was forming along the buffet table. “I need to talk to Adam,” she told Jordan.
“Oh, I’ll come with you. I wanted to ask him if he’s got an extra guitar I can borrow. I play some, you know. Been practicing. Do you like guitar best? Or drums?”
“Bass,” she said. And not just because it was the instrument that Owen played.
“I could play bass.”
She smiled, realizing she wasn’t going to shake Jordan easily. It was as if he liked her or something. But that was dumb. She was pregnant and older than he was. And totally not interested. She allowed herself a quick glance in Chad’s direction and found him laughing with Kellen, while Joan kept one eye on him—Lindsey wasn’t the only one who hovered over the dauntless veteran. She was happy to see Kellen had stayed at the party, even though Owen seemed to wish him dead, and that Chad held his brother’s recently acquired nemesis no ill will.
“It’s a real shame about Owen’s brother,” Jordan said quietly. “Taken down in his prime. He was such a strong guy.
Lindsey whipped her head around and leveled Jordan with a glare. “He’s still strong,” she snapped. “Still in his prime. Nothing took him down.”
She stalked off, forcing herself not to rush to Chad’s side and comfort him over words he hadn’t heard spoken.
“I didn’t mean . . .” Jordan said. He was following her still. “Lindsey, please don’t be mad. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
She showed him the palm of her hand over her shoulder, effectively telling him that their conversation was over. She spotted Adam’s girlfriend—er, fiancée, rather—sitting under Owen’s only large shade tree. Madison had a huge cast on one arm from wrist to shoulder and looked pretty fucking miserable in the cloying heat. Poor thing. The only time she brightened at all was when her gaze landed on Adam, who’d entered the chow line and was loading up two plates.
Lindsey knew for a fact that Madison hated her fucking guts, so in hopes of gaining her favor at least a little, she waved in greeting, but was ignored. So, Lindsey blew out a tense breath and steeled her nerve to approach Adam. He was talking to Melanie’s best friend, Nikki, but Lindsey had to take the opportunity to spring her request on Adam before it closed. Was Nikki one of the women who hated her? She was getting confused. Did she dare approach Adam now? She had two mouth swabs tucked into a pocket, one of them already labeled with his name. Jacob’s swab was in there too, just in case.
“Are you hungry?” Jordan asked.
“I’m always hungry,” she admitted, deciding her attempts to shake him were futile. Plus, he was pretty good at fetching stuff. Normally Sole Regret paid him to do it.
“You look a little tired. Why don’t you sit down? I’ll grab a plate for you. What are you craving?”
Calories.
“Jordan, that’s really not necessary.”
“I want to do it,” he assured her, sliding a hand to the middle of her back and urging her toward the
row of folding chairs she’d help set up earlier along either side of the long tables they’d rented. Caitlyn and Dawn had let her help do some of the setup even though she wasn’t supposed to serve as a hostess or let on that Dawn had been involved in the planning of the dual engagement party. All the keeping track of who knew what and what not to say to who and who knew something about this but not that made Lindsey tired. She’d never known so much drama surrounded the band, though she did know she was a big heaping cup of their current drama.
“I think I will sit for a while.” As soon as she was seated, and Jordan had hurried off to get in line, Chad wheeled himself over to her.
“Who’s your shadow?” he asked.
She tilted her head. “Shadow?”
“The kid with the lapdog expression who’s been following you around with a hard-on since you came out of the house.”
“You mean Jordan?”
He glanced in Jordan’s direction and narrowed his eyes. “Are you two involved?”
Lindsey laughed. “Why? Are you jealous?”
“Should I be?”
“I’m not interested in him,” Lindsey said, unable to stop herself from resting a hand on his thigh. “I’m only interested in you.”
“Why?” Chad said. “He’s got two fully functional legs, isn’t surly or bossy, and has great hair.”
“He’s also annoyingly subservient.” She looked over at Jordan and found him staring at her and Chad. He beamed a smile at her and waved.
Lindsey waved back. “But he has always been nice to me, so don’t be a jerk to him.”
“Then don’t let him touch you again.”
“He didn’t touch—”
“He did.”
“Why are you acting all possessive?” She hoped it was because he was thinking of her as more than the body that served his physical needs.
“Because you’re mine,” he said.
She was? News to her. She opened her mouth to ask him to clarify his intentions, but she caught sight of Jacob out of the corner of her eye and jumped up as if the mere sight of him released a magical power that straightened knees. She’d heard of the enigmatic vocalist’s ability to spread female thighs like magic, but nothing about a knee-straightening skill.
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