He smiled then. “Not yet. Actually, I had an ulterior motive for asking you here tonight. And not the one your naughty little mind is working at. Well, not only that one,” he said, grinning now. “I listened to your disc. You have a real talent for lyrics, Syd. I was hoping… you might help me out on this new piece.”
A little thrill shot through me. “I don’t know if I can,” I said. “I mean, I’m not a professional or anything. Any songwriter in Nashville would jump at the chance to work with Dex Wilder.”
“I don’t want a professional, I want you. You’re good, Sydney. And we have a connection. I feel comfortable with you.”
He looked out over the lake. “I’ve never talked to anyone here about my sister or her kids. But you, you make me feel so at ease, like I’ve known you forever. It’s…easier to open up to you.”
In a flash, I realized why every song Dex Wilder ever sang was about beer or parties or his favorite pair of boots. As much as a bad boy and a risk-taker and a successful artist as he was, Dex was afraid to show what was on the inside. It all made sense now. And suddenly I did feel close to him.
“OK.”
He turned back to me. “You’ll do it?”
“I’ll try. Just don’t expect too much.”
He leaned in then and kissed me. Given what we’d shared in that public park two years earlier, in his dressing room and even over the phone, it was a really innocent kiss. But it was far more intimate than any of the things we’d shared without our clothes on.
He pulled back and smiled at me. “Thank you.” He held my gaze for a minute than grabbed his guitar again. “I was thinking about something like this for the bridge.”
* * * *
Six hours and an apple pie later, we had two verses and a chorus of Dex Wilder’s first non-party song. We had moved inside around midnight and were sitting in his library. I sat on the floor with my back against the couch. He sat behind me on the sofa, his knee bumping my shoulder every now and then.
It turned out to be a song about a summer love, sweet and bittersweet too, but still upbeat and hopeful, just like his music. He came up with some fabulous hooks and I just added to and expanded the images he’d created, once I saw where he was going with them.
It was easy once I closed my eyes and pictured one particular summer night when the excitement and passion of a summer fling came flooding back. I didn’t ask what Dex was thinking of when he wrote the music. I probably didn’t want to know. I was sure it wasn’t the same image of a cowboy and a girl in a toga that I was thinking of.
Even though I could never be in a room and not be aware of Dex as a man, the creative energy had sapped the desire to jump his bones for once, and the words came more easily than I thought they would. We were a good team. He played, I wrote and we tried different words, different keys and combinations until everything sort of came together as a whole and I knew we’d nailed it. Dex did, too.
“I think the label is going to love this.” Dex said. “I’ve been wanting to branch out, try something different.”
“The regular stuff seems to be paying pretty well,” I pointed out. “This is great. But it’s a risk.”
“It’s not about the money. It’s about getting back to the reason I fell in love with music in the first place.”
I stopped scribbling and looked over at him.
“I didn’t grow up easy,” he said quietly. “I didn’t get along with my folks and got in trouble a lot. Music was always there when I was pissed about something. It was an outlet. An expression. A way to get out what I was feeling.”
I nodded. “I know what you mean.” The geography was different but he could have described my teen years. The disconnect between me and my parents, the way music was always somewhere I could escape to. The reason I’d moved to a city five hundred miles from home where I knew nothing and no one.
“I’ve gotten away from that these last few years,” Dex said. “I still love music, but it has become more of a job than a joy. I feel like I’ve lost touch with what drew me to it in the first place.”
“Well, I think you’re off to good start finding your way back.” I smiled up at him.
I could see the first light of dawn peeking through the wooden blinds on the tall window of his library. We’d stayed up all night. And were both still fully clothed. But I hadn’t had much sleep the day before and my eyes were starting to burn. I stifled a yawn and rubbed at the tension in my neck.
“Tired?”
“Yeah. Getting there.”
Dex set his guitar down and moved behind me so that I was sitting between his knees. He kneaded my shoulders in firm, deep strokes with his big, warm hands.
“God. That feels good.”
“I aim to please,” he said smiling.
He massaged my shoulders until the tension disappeared. My eyes drooped, and I let my head fall to the side and rested my cheek on his knee. Dex stopped kneading my shoulders and stroked my hair, running his fingers through the long tendrils. It was relaxing and comfortable, though if I hadn’t been completely exhausted, I would have been jumping his bones right then.
“Come here, baby.”
Dex leaned over and practically lifted me up to the couch beside him. He grabbed the throw from the back of the sofa and setting me against him, covered us with the soft blanket.
He hummed softly under his breath and pressed a kiss to my forehead.
“I should go home,” I said, fighting sleep. “I have to work tomorrow. Today. Whatever.” I yawned again.
“What time?”
“Um, noon.”
“I’ll make sure you’re up,” Dex said, stroking my hair, Just relax for a couple hours, OK? I don’t want you driving home so tired. What would I do if I lost my co-writer?”
I smiled and snuggled into Dex’s warmth.
“’kay.”
But I didn’t get to sleep very long at all. I woke up when Dex shifted me off his lap and went to answer the intercom.
“Mr. Wilder. There’s a situation outside.”
I sat up rubbing my eyes. “What? What’s going on?”
Dex peeked through the window of the library that faced the front of the house. He looked back at me and he wasn’t smiling. Holding my gaze, he hit the button on the intercom. “Marcy, call the police.”
Chapter Six
I dragged myself off the couch, wrapping the blanket, still warm from our bodies, around me and stumbled to the window.
Outside was a swarm of photographers crowding my car and the house.
“Damn it. I left the gate open last night.”
“What do they want?”
Dex turned to me and ran hand through his hair. “They probably want to know if I’m acknowledging my love child and if I plan to support the baby.”
“What?”
Dex walked to the couch and sat down. It was the first time I’d seen him genuinely angry. “Remember that crazy woman in Tulsa?”
“Yeah. The one who thought she was your wife.”
Dex nodded. “Turns out she’s pregnant and told everybody the baby is mine.” He rubbed his eyes. “My publicist told me yesterday she was running her mouth to the press but I told him not to worry about it. That no one would believe her and it would all blow over.”
“It didn’t.” I wrapped the blanket more tightly around me.
“No.”
I’d seen the woman on television. She looked like a lot of his other conquests. Tall, blonde, big boobs. If he’d slept with her... “Could it be yours?”
He looked up at me, shocked at first. Then his mouth tightened into a thin line.
I shrugged. “I mean, if it is, it’s ok. It’s not like you and me...well it’s none of my business.”
“Is that what you think?” Dex said asked through gritted teeth.
It wasn’t a denial. I wanted to believe it was all just tabloid bunk, I really did. But I’d read about the wild nights spent on the road with anonymous women who looked just like the al
leged baby-momma. Dex Wilder had a reputation. And it seemed his partying, free-wheeling lifestyle was about to land him in family court. If lawyers were involved, there had to be at least some substance to the story, right?
Sirens blared as two squad cars pulled up, scattering the throng of reporters and photographers.
“I’m going to have to go talk to them,” he said, tucking in his wrinkled blue shirt and smoothing his hair. The trademark scruff was starting to reemerge along his jawline and apart from the frown marring his full lips and chasing away his ready grin, he looked like the Dex Wilder I’d known before last night—back to looking like his poster and living up to his reputation. The guy I’d spent time with, talking and laughing and writing music with had disappeared.
“Oh, sure. I need to get going anyway.” I folded the blanket and put it back on the sofa. “Do you have my CD?”
“Over there on the table,” he said, looking out the window again.
The police were herding the photographers out through the front gate, but that didn’t stop them from snapping pictures as they left.
I grabbed the disc and my shoes and headed towards the door. I could only imagine what my hair and clothes looked like, let alone my make-up. It probably looked like I’d had a wild night in Dex Wilder’s bed, like countless other women he’d met on the road.
Dex and I went downstairs. “Be careful, Sydney,” he said as he walked to the front door with me. “They’ve probably run your license plate number by now. If anyone shows up at your apartment, call the cops.” He smiled faintly. “Or just come back here.”
I shook my head. “I’ll be fine. But thanks anyway.”
Dex opened the front door and walked me to my car. The police officers were escorting the last of the camera-wielding maniacs down the driveway towards the front gate.
“This didn’t exactly end up like I planned,” he said while I dug my keys out of my purse.
“Yeah.” I unlocked my car and Dex opened the door for me. “I had a good time, though.” Well, until I’d found out he’d most likely fathered a love child.
“Me, too.” He caught my arm before I could duck into the car and pressed me into the side of the car with his big, hot body. Even though I was disturbed by what I’d learned, my libido wasn’t. My breath caught at the contact and he gave me one of those irresistible smiles before lowering his mouth to mine and taking my breath away with his kiss.
He loved my mouth slowly, thoroughly until I could barely breathe. I dropped my shoes and wrapped an arm around his neck. Dex grunted lightly and deepened the kiss, using his tongue to caress all the sensitive places in my mouth until pleasure hummed through my veins and I was seriously considering heading right back inside with him.
I could feel how much he was enjoying the kiss, too. His erection poked into my thigh and all I wanted was more.
He broke away, smiling. “Now that’s a good morning kiss,” he said. “Are you sure you can’t stay?”
He nudged against me, just in case I hadn’t felt his arousal the first time. I had. Boy, had I.
“We could cancel what we have going on today and spend the day playing hooky.” Dex flicked my hair back from my neck and whispered in my ear. “I haven’t even shown you my bedroom.” Dex set his talented mouth to work on the sensitive part of my neck just below my ear. I tilted my head to the side and let him.
His other hand eased up my thigh and under my skirt. But he stopped with a groan. “The cops. I forgot about the cops.”
He pulled away and just as he did, a lone photographer darted from behind the line of hedges by the driveway and sprinted down the gravel drive like the devil was on his heels.
“Shit,” Dex said staring after him. His muscles tensed, and I had the feeling if I wasn’t holding on to him, and if he didn’t have an erection the size of a fence post, he would be chasing that rascal down.
The police were driving back up from the gate and Dex let me go.
I took the opportunity to slip into the driver’s seat before I changed my mind and decided to stay.
“I’ll call you,” he said, leaning in the window for another quick kiss.
“Ok.” The promise gave me a thrill I couldn’t quite describe. The public version of Dex—hard-partying, womanizing, possible baby-daddy— made me want to put him firmly in the “for a good time, call” column. But now that I’d seen the other side of Dex, the part he’d kept hidden from the world but revealed in his new song, I wasn’t sure I should see him again. I could no longer be in it just for the sex and I knew that if I let myself think of him as a guy I might have a potential future with I’d end up hurt and disappointed when the next former hook-up came out of the woodwork, and the next and the next. I didn’t want to be that politician’s wife who stood by her man at the press conference as he admitted to sexting half the women in his Congressional district.
He’d implied he wanted more from me than sex, but I just didn’t quite buy it, knowing about his past. So if I couldn’t keep my feelings for Dex confined to just the physical, it was best to let him go altogether before I got into something I couldn’t get out of without a broken heart.
Dex stroked my cheek and I rested my face against his warm palm in a silent goodbye.
“I have to fly out to Houston for a few days, but I’ll call you,” he said. “Be careful, Sydney. Promise me you’ll call right away if you have any problems.”
* * * *
A few days later, I discovered I had problems. Big problems.
The first pictures hit all the trashiest tabloids first. You couldn’t tell it was me in the blurry photos of us outside by my car, but eventually, as Dex had predicted, someone traced my license plates and my name showed up in the captions. Then other names like “Wilder’s New Plaything” and “Bimbo of the Week” got tossed around as the story was picked up by more magazines and websites.
It was mortifying seeing myself in publication all rumpled with Dex’s hands up my skirt, looking like we’d were about to go at it right there against my car. Of course, the worst part was that we hadn’t done anything at all that night but have a beautiful dinner, write a kick-ass love song and fall asleep on the couch together like an old married couple. But that didn’t sell papers, so I was the new Wilder Woman, and according to the stellar reporting at these news outlets, knocking up one woman up while ho-ing around with another was just another Thursday for Dex Wilder.
“Here’s a new one,” Becca said, as I was pouring coffee into a gigantic “I Hate Monday” mug. It wasn’t Monday but it might as well have been.
I turned and glared at the newest magazine cover Becca was holding. I had always wanted to be on the cover of a magazine, but I had fantasized about getting the cover of Rolling Stone in an awesome Annie Leibovitz portrait, not looking like the slut of the week on the cover of a cheap tabloid. I peeked out the tiny kitchen window over the sink. There were already two or three guys with cameras milling about on the sidewalk.
“Man, is he hot.”
Becca was drooling over the pictures of Dex in the spread detailing the whole nasty scandal of his love child and his new girl-toy.
“Yeah.” I sipped my coffee. That’s what had gotten me into this in the first place. I should have just walked away the very first night I’d met Dex instead of giving in to his Southern charm.
Becca looked up at me. “I don’t see why you’re so bent out of shape. This is great publicity. You look great.”
“I look like a slut.”
Becca shrugged. “So what? It’s Dex Wilder, Sydney. Dex. Wilder.”
“I know his name.”
Becca put down the paper. “He called again last night.”
“So what?” I echoed back at her. Dex was the last person I wanted to talk to.
“It’s not his fault, you know. He just attracts attention.”
“Because of his well-earned reputation.”
“You knew about his reputation before you went to his house.”
Becca had a point. “I know.” I sighed. “I’m a sucker for a bad boy, I guess. Just like all the others.”
But that truth didn’t mean I had to keep punishing myself. Getting involved with Dex was a bad idea on many levels. And who knew how many other women were pregnant with his babies? I couldn’t live like that, wondering who was going to show up next, baby in tow.
No, it was better to nip this, whatever it was, in the bud. If I could just find the strength to ignore his calls, the sad tone in his voice when he left a message asking me to call him, asking if I was OK, surely all these softer feelings just beginning to blossom for him would disappear. It hurt, yes, but not as much as it would a month or two months or a year down the line if I continued to get closer to Dex. But I didn’t feel like explaining all that to Becca.
“It’s better this way,” I said to Becca. “I’m done with Dex Wilder.”
Becca shook her head. “You’re nuts. So there are a few photos. Just think what he could do for your career. No more Willie’s Wagon Wheel.”
“I’m not sleeping my way to a record deal,” I said, truly angry now. That’s exactly what some of the tabloid articles had suggested once someone found out about me and Road Kill.
“Yeah, but it’s helping. How packed was the Chug last night?”
It had been standing room only. But a lot of those present had cameras and were not there for the music. The guys in the band loved it. They had no problem whoring me out for a few more fans and another couple of bookings.
“Oh, this came for you in the mail today.”
Becca handed me a plain white envelope with a record company’s logo in the return address. I ripped it open. My hands started to shake. “Oh. My. God.”
“What?” Becca jumped up and come to read over my shoulder.
“Sydney! You did it! You made the top twenty-five!”
Becca hugged me and I read the letter again just to be sure it wasn’t some kind of joke.
I’d dropped off my demo at the studio coordinating the contest just in the nick of time on the morning I’d left Dex’s.
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