It was an odd thing to say. Especially when I was naked. And he was naked. And our heads were pushed together as if we were performing some ancient form of greeting.
“Thank you?” I repeated. “For what?”
“For giving me what I didn’t deserve.”
We didn’t get far into our kiss when Lawson’s phone began vibrating atop the chest of drawers.
“That’s probably—what time is it?” He darted a gaze around the room, but of course the digital clock was still covered. “Did you check the time?”
“It’s almost 10:30.” I retied my robe, vacated the bed to grab his phone. “Hope you didn’t have any appointments this morning.”
He scrubbed his face with his hands. “Just our flight at noon.”
I handed him his phone, allowing my eyes to roam his bare chest, his hips where the white sheet fell down just far enough to reveal the curve of his ass.
This man had made love to me last night.
All night.
I’d never be able to look at him again and not think about it. About his body hovering above mine, inside me. Under me as his hands guided my hips.
“Yep,” he said and clicked accept. “Mornin’, Katie. Yep, yep, we’re up.” He threw off the sheet and jumped out of bed and my eyes hungrily followed him, half-amazed, half-jealous of his confidence. Especially when I was still clutching my robe like a Bennett girl. “Getting in the shower right now. Yep. I’ll meet you down there, no problem.”
He hung up and tossed his phone on the bed. His eyes met mine, his lips ticked up to one side. “Shower?”
I swallowed. “Together?”
“Yeah, you know. Wash each other’s hard-to-reach places.” He grabbed a clean pair of boxer briefs from his suitcase. “Preserve water, save the environment.”
“I don’t think that’s how it works.” Plus, it seemed incredibly intimate. Which was funny, I acknowledged, because what was more intimate than sex?
This. This was.
“Come on, Columbus. Grab a pair of your pretty little underwear and come take a shower with me. It’ll be fun.”
I gave in. Of course, I did. Who wouldn’t have? And he was right. It was fun. More than that, we talked and laughed and, yes, he did wash my back, which was definitely hard to reach. I scrubbed his, too, allowed the cascade of the shower to wash away the soap. Then I kissed his shoulder blades. One followed by the other. He was marvelously built, Lawson. Smooth and lean, not overly bulked like a gym-god. No, his muscles came from lifting equipment. I’d seen him carrying speakers, drum cases, wardrobe boxes. He didn’t sit back while his crew did all the work.
I placed a kiss to his spine, in the shallow valley where I’d run my fingers over and over as he moved in me last night. I wanted him then and I wanted him now. Wanted to make love in the shower. To have him push my back to the slick tiles and drive into me again and again.
Yes, that was me. The wanton, virgin-turned-nympho who desperately needed to listen to her body’s pleas for rest and repair. She decided to seduce Lawson Hill while he was rinsing shampoo out of his hair.
“Babe, I want to. Man, do I want to,” he said, gripping my hips and pulling me to him. We were perfectly aligned, his hardening cock pressed against my center. All I had to do was lift my leg over his hip, guide him inside. “But I’ll never hear the end of it if we miss our flight. Katie’s a stickler for punctuality.”
Usually, I was, too. But responsibility seemed to be slipping through my fingers as of late. Quitting my job, running the roads and skies with a country superstar. Waking up late because I’d opened my thighs for him all night long.
What the heck was wrong with me?
“Right.” I backed off him, feeling awkward. And maybe a-little-a-lot embarrassed. “Sorry, I—” Apparently have no words. Again.
“Don’t you dare apologize.” He tipped my chin, ducked his head so our eyes met. His lashes were dark, soaked and clumped together in places. “I’d take you straight back to bed, if I could, and I plan to, once we’re back home. Don’t think you’ll escape me that easily.”
I chewed my lip. Imagined us making love in my bed, in the guest room where I’d spent the last several nights since Dad left. Or in his bed. Yes. In his bed, which probably smelled like him. The couch, all the couches, his piano stool, the kitchen, the countertops in the kitchen.
“For now, though, we gotta get out of Vegas. Okay?”
Blinking away the series of lascivious portraits in my head, I agreed, and we finished up, Lawson throwing on a pair of jeans and a fitted tee, grabbing his overnight bag and telling me he’d meet me downstairs in the lobby, while I made sure we didn’t leave anything behind. I picked out a pair of skinnies and an off-the-shoulder top, shifting the neckline to fall of the shoulder that didn’t have a hickey. I strategically moved my still-damp hair to cover the one on my neck.
Alone in the elevator, I blew out a long exhale. A jar of nerves flittered around in my belly, remnants of a long, hot night with Lawson, I guessed, and the anticipation of going back to Nashville. What would it be like, once we were there in his house again? There’d been an ease before, yes. He was so easy to be around. But now we’d slept together, and he’d already alluded to continuing what we’d started once we were—
The back pocket of my jeans buzzed, and I sighed. Retrieved my phone. The Columbus area code again. Peeved, I answered with a curt, “Hello?” and prepared to tell the political canvasser to take me off the damned list.
“Miss Evans?”
“Yes?” The elevator stopped, the doors opened, and an elderly couple stepped inside. I moved closer to the corner. “This is she.”
“Are you the daughter of John Edward Evans?”
The jar expanded to the size of a pitcher. I hadn’t heard my dad’s full name in years. “Yes. This is Harper. I’m John’s daughter. Who is this?”
“I’m Lieutenant Carlton Hartline from the Franklin County Corrections Center.”
Invisible ropes tightened across my chest. “Like the jail?”
The woman in the elevator glanced at me, eyes curious behind rose-framed glasses.
I looked away, responding when the lieutenant said, “Yes, Miss Evans,” with, “I don’t understand. Is everything okay?”
“I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, Miss Evans, but your father is currently incarcerated. We thought maybe you might want to speak with him. It would have to be during visiting hours, of course. We have a schedule online, but there’s rules you’ll have to follow. Well, here, let me just give you the rundown.”
He began rattling off the visitation schedule and acceptable forms of ID, but I was only halfway listening. Prison. Prison. My strait-laced, quiet, by the book father had gotten arrested, but why? Drums were beating in my ears, ice branching out in my veins. The elevator dinged, indicating I had reached the ground floor of the hotel. The elderly man allowed his wife to exit, then motioned for me to go ahead of him.
My feet had turned into cinder blocks.
“Miss Evans?” Lieutenant Hartline was asking. “Are you still there?”
“Miss?” the man said. “Is this your floor?”
“Um. Yes. Thanks.” I hitched my backpack higher on my shoulder, wheeled my suitcase off the elevator. “Can you tell me what he’s charged with, please?”
“What was that, dear?” The elderly man paused with his wife. “Did you ask something?”
“No, I’m…” I held up my phone. “Thanks.”
“I generally don’t like to discuss charges over the phone, Miss Evans,” said Lieutenant Hartline, “but seeing as your father told us you’re in Nashville…”
“Vegas.”
“Oh. Huh.” Papers rustling. “I’m almost positive he said Nashville.”
“Yes, we moved to Nashville, but…the charges?” Gripping the handle of my suitcase, I searched the bustling lobby for Lawson.
“Unlawful sexual conduct between an educator and a student.”
I fo
und him. Standing at the front desk. With Jenna. She was smiling. He wasn’t. But she was. A flirtatious smile that told the whole room they shared a history. Katie was there, too. Glued to her phone, as usual. Why was Jenna at our hotel? Why was Lawson talking to her? Holy shit, had the officer just said…?
Every organ in my body stopped functioning. “Wha—” I swallowed against a parched throat. “What did you say?”
“Miss Evans, I would suggest you find a way to get to Columbus. Your father’s arraignment is in two days. He hasn’t hired a lawyer, so you may wanna…well. That’s up to you and depending on your means, of course. He can always ask for a court appointed attorney.”
I was losing lung capacity. Maybe I’d lost my lungs altogether. “Did you just say my father had an affair with one of his…with a student?”
“That’s as much as I’m able to divulge, Miss Evans. If you have any further questions, you’ll need to speak with him or his lawyer, when he gets one. Okay? Have a good day.”
He hung up.
Weakness wrapped around my knees. Tears blurred my vision. I searched for a couch, a chair, a space of floor on which to lie down. Unlawful sexual conduct. The words bludgeoned my thoughts, lashed at my ankles as I moved for a sitting area in the lobby and sank to the rug between two couches.
My suitcase fell to the floor. My backpack rolled off my shoulder, smacking my hip.
Unlawful sexual conduct.
I drew in a watery inhale. Held it. Laid my head to a glass coffee table strewn with tourist brochures and squeezed my eyes shut.
Chatter. Laughter. Doors opening and closing. Elevators dinging. Spindly fingers pulling at my heart seams, tearing off little pieces. Everything occurred in sensory segments. A series of high-lows that had my head spinning.
Unlawful sexual conduct. Prison. Lawyer. Court.
My teeth chattered. How? How could any of this be possible? Was I dreaming? Was I?
More talking. Animated, raised. Feet running. A rush of air that fanned the hair falling across my face. Hands gripping my shoulders.
“Harper?” A voice. His. Hands shaking me. His. “Baby? What’s going on? Harper, baby, look at me.”
I peeled my eyes open. Couldn’t see. Tears. Mine. I blinked and they poured out, rolled down my face, caught in the curve of my nose.
“Shit, baby, what’s wrong? Come here.” He pulled me forward, cradled me on his lap.
I shut my eyes again.
And sobbed, shaking in his arms.
“Katie!” His chest vibrated against my cheek. Warmth. Safety. “Get a car. Right now. Harper? Baby, you’ve got to tell me what’s wrong. I can’t help you, if you don’t—”
“My dad.” Ragged breaths fought the path from lungs to throat. “He’s…he’s…”
“Driver’s pulling up outside.” Katie. “I’ll get the bags.”
“Thanks.” Lawson’s lips pressed the top of my head. His body was gently rocking mine. “Whatever it is, we’ll get through it. Okay? I’ve got you, baby. I’ve got you.”
chapter nineteen
I was trying hard not to hate my dad. The news was fresh. An open wound in need of answers and treatment, possibly several stitches, and a big piece of gauze to cover it all up. Only this was the kind of wound that seeped. The sort that couldn’t be contained by fabric and adhesive. Eventually, it would surface. Spread. Overtake.
When we reached McCarran International Airport, Lawson sat me down on a marble bench, took my face in his hands and kissed me so deeply I blushed. “Stay here. I’ll be right back. Okay? Don’t go anywhere.” Said as if he really expected me to vanish the instant he turned away.
Emotion lodged in my throat as I watched him jog for the ticket counter.
Katie sat beside me. Glanced at me from the side, her smile a touch impatient. “He shouldn’t do this. You know that, don’t you?”
Yeah, I knew. Still. I didn’t need the third degree. “I didn’t ask him to.”
“That’s the thing, see. With you, he can’t help himself.” When I didn’t respond, she said, “I don’t know what it is. Well…I do, but…I didn’t expect it to happen so fast.”
“What do you mean?”
“Him.” She jutted her chin toward Lawson, who was already garnering stares and pointed fingers from passersby. The woman behind the ticket counter kept tucking strands of hair behind her ear, casting glances at him underneath her lashes. “He falls really quick, that’s true. I know you know, because Darlene told me she told you. God bless that woman, she loves him so much. Can’t blame a mama for instinct, I guess. She looks out for him. We all do.”
I watched her face, searched for an underlying meaning. A crumb of judgment. Anything. “I still don’t understand what you’re trying to say.”
Her gaze met my own. “He’s all in, Harper. This? What he’s doing? Cancelling the flight to go back home, booking another for Ohio, so you can deal with…with your dad.” Her eyebrows bent. “I’m really sorry about that, by the way. Are you okay?”
I lifted one shoulder. Let it fall. “I honestly don’t know when everything derailed, only that it did, and here we are.”
“Yeah.” She pushed out a sigh. “I’ll call the local police in Columbus, give them the heads up, just in case. We never know how people are going to react from city to city. Some are cool, giving him his space and all. Others wanna fucking tear him apart.”
I didn’t know why hearing her cuss made me laugh, only that it did. “Hopefully there’s enough people in Columbus still living under a rock, like I was before I met him.”
“He told me you’d never heard of him or his music.”
I looked up and his eyes were on my face, reminding me in flashes of each and every moment we’d had together. He was unfairly gorgeous, this man. And much kinder than I deserved. “Not until the night Savana introduced us, no, I hadn’t.”
“Then you really were living under a rock.”
I indicated a small space with my thumb and forefinger. “Maybe a tiny one.”
Katie sniffed, looked down at her hands. “I guess you saw her, huh? Jenna?”
I had so many questions.
I asked none of them.
“You should know there’s nothing between them anymore. At least, not for him.” Her gaze clung to my face for a full two seconds before she said, “He made it pretty clear he was with someone. In fact, he was about to introduce her to you, when he saw you on the floor in the lobby, crying.”
I said nothing, because my mind was far too jumbled to form a coherent sentence, let alone speak one. Jenna embodied the chick I would never be. Blonde, glamorous, acquainted with the celebrity lifestyle. Though I’d never heard her sing, I imagined she could. Enough to warrant a front row seat with someone like Taylor Swift, anyway.
“I think maybe she saw him last night,” said Katie, “happy, kicking ass on stage and, obviously, with you, and she felt a little stab of jealousy. Maybe a big stab of jealousy.”
“She couldn’t have expected him to be alone forever.”
Katie shrugged. “Who knows? Jenna never worried about Lawson finding anyone else, thought he’d never strive for better. He may be big in the music world, but…right here?” She set a hand to her chest, over her heart. “In here he’s a simple man from a small town. There’s like two streets, a church, a hardware store and a mom ‘n’ pop grocer.”
“I thought Baton Rouge was pretty big.”
She flicked her wrist. “He just tells people he’s from Baton Rouge, because they have no idea what he’s talking about when he says he grew up in Foix.”
That’s right. He’d mentioned that. “Yeah, I’d never heard of it.”
“Most people haven’t. It’s what Louisianans call off the paved road. Down where gators cross the streets instead of chickens and people greet each other with ‘how’s ya mama an’ ‘em?’”
I laughed. “Strangely enough, that sounds just like Lawson.”
“Doesn’t it, though? Gosh, Harper. I li
ke you.” Katie threw her arms around my neck, managing to not only startle me but to pull a chuckle from Lawson, who was making his way back to us. “Please be careful with him,” she whispered over my shoulder, low so only I could hear. “I know you’re going through a lot, and so does he, and he’s going to be there for you, because he’s a sweetheart and he likes you, but you need to be there for him, too, okay? Please?”
Our ears brushed when I nodded. “I will.”
“Good.” She withdrew, stood and hugged Lawson. “Call or text when you get there.”
He patted her back, his gaze locked on me. “You know I will.”
Lawson grabbed my hand and laced our fingers. A zing of comfort raced up my arm. “Let’s go, babe. They’ve already started boarding.”
“Bye, Katie.”
How Lawson landed us two seats together in first class would remain one of those mysteries that goes to the grave with celebrities and bigwig oil tycoons. Security escorted us through the airport, allowed us to skip lines, which earned more dirty looks than I ever cared to see again. It’s not that I didn’t anticipate a few slanted glances in our direction. But alongside the reality of walking through a crowded airport on the arm of Lawson Hill was the shame that my father had been accused of a very bad thing. One no one knew about but me and Lawson and, well, Katie, but she wouldn’t tell anyone. It was too big a risk to Lawson’s image.
His career.
A career he’d worked his ass off for.
“So, are you cool with me followin’ where you’re goin’?”
No. I wasn’t. Scared shitless might’ve been a nice way to describe what I felt. Headed to an uncertain doom, maybe, and with Lawson in-tow. Lawson in all his perfection. Lawson with his sunrise smile and golden heart. Katie was right. He shouldn’t have been with me. Should’ve gone back to Nashville, back to his pristine world, to safety.
Yet I couldn’t imagine sitting on a plane without him.
Couldn’t sketch a picture where he didn’t occupy the space right next to me.
“Yeah,” I whispered, marveled by the glow of his eyes in the sunlight. “Yes.”
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