Hurts So Good

by Mallory Rush

  He breathed in the strong smoke and cursed her some more. Who did she think she was, getting under his skin and messing with his brain? He hoped she was satisfied; this was one of the worst dry spells he could remember since when.

  If something didn't give and give soon, he wasn't going to be able to pack in pigs, much less a full house of paying guests. No one had to tell him—though Lou already had—that he wasn't up to snuff. He didn't have the same swagger onstage, and it didn't help matters that every time he glanced at the bar, his mouth went dry and his notes went flat.

  Neil lit a smoke with the one he was about to crush. At this rate he wouldn't need to worry about overhead and Christine, since he'd have emphysema before the year was out.

  Then again, maybe liver disease would get to him first.

  As he reached into his back pocket, a soft knock sounded at the office door.

  "Yeah?" he yelled. "Who is it and whaddaya want? Unless someone died, scram, 'cause it's gonna be your funeral."

  The door cracked open, and a thin stream of light cast a slender silhouette onto the floor.

  "Neil? I'm sorry to bother you, but Lou had to get home early and everyone else is gone." She paused as if waiting for a reply that didn't come. "I brought you the money from the cash register—the club manager was out, and you forgot to empty it when you closed up."

  He didn't forget. He just hadn't wanted to get that close to his Achille's heel, and damn Lou, too, since he'd promised to bring the money himself.

  The silence stretched long and thick between them, and even from where he sat, he could see her shift uneasily.

  "Neil, the tray's getting a little heavy," she said, breathless. "Where should I put it?"

  "On my desk."

  "I can't see. Where's the light switch?"

  "Leave it off and take your best shot. Proprietor's prerogative."

  "But I'm afraid I'll trip and drop it."

  "Trip, and I'll pick you up. Drop it, and we'll have more fun than scrambling for throws from a Mardi Gras float."

  "If you insist, boss." Gone was the soft tone; her voice was back to its hoity-toity clipped accents. "But if I do fall, don't bother to catch me. I can pick myself up." She added on a whisper he didn't think he was meant to hear, "Lots of practice."

  He watched her move in while his mind cast about for some way to end their stalemate. That kiss had turned him inside out, but he couldn't bring himself to take back the rules she wanted nothing to do with. Some rules could be bent, most couldn't. He never made one without having a good reason to make it.

  The cash box landed with a thump on his ledger.

  "Care to take me on for a game of darts?" Dumb idea, but it was the first thing that came to him. "Darts in the dark. I get black, you get red. Forget the navel, we'll vie for either nipple or thereabouts. You rack up the most zaps, and I'll raise your wage. But if I win, you give me a kiss. Make it good enough, and I just might raise your wage anyhow."

  "I don't think so, Neil. Catch me later, when I'm up to taking you on. I'm ready to crawl alone into my bedbug infested bed."

  "Wait." He crushed out the cigarette and quickly got up. "I'll walk you home."

  "No thank you," she said politely. So politely he wished she was back to calling him names. Then he'd have an excuse to be a bully again—only he'd be a slyer bully, one who knew she didn't take to ultimatums.

  He beat her to the door. Shutting it, he sealed them in darkness. She was so close to his chest, his thighs, he felt her body heat, lush and defiant, mingle with his. Her scent was fresh and feminine, some lemon-and-lavender smell he'd never detected on any woman but her.

  "Not even if I let you buy the beignets and coffee on the way? You did offer, and I'm calling in my rain check."

  "And I'm taking a rain check on the rain check."

  He didn't know how to deal with her evasion. The shoe was on the other foot, and he didn't care for the fit.

  "You don't seem to want my company. My 'inflated ego' takes exception to that. Tell the truth, chere. Afraid I might melt some of that ice you've wrapped around yourself? It's so thick I don't even pick up my own money for fear of frostbite."

  "Careful, Slick. A woman might get the impression that she's managed to intimidate the master string-puller himself."

  He stepped forward; she matched him with a back step.

  "Either it works both ways or we're dancin' in the dark." Swiftly, he secured a hand at her waist. His other hand brushed a breast before sliding down her arm to grip the hand he expected was ready to take a swing.

  "Didn't mean to touch you there, much as I want to. Dance with me?" He could feel her faint tremor as well as her stiffening spine. "I'll hum the tune I'm having trouble working out. I'd thank you for your help."

  "Why do you think I can help?" There was a crack in the ice. He heard it in the soft shadows of her voice, the slight give of her tensed muscles. He pulled her closer.

  "Because it's something I'm writing for you. And like you, it's driving me a little crazy because I know it's there, and it's incredible, only me and the muse are playing hide-and-seek. We're in synch for a few measures, but then it goes one way and I go another."

  "Like last night... and every night since you laid down your terms and I exercised my right of refusal? You've been tailing me, Neil. Why?"

  "Just getting my exercise. And making sure you get home in one piece while I'm at it. Got a problem with that?"

  "Yes!" She gave a disgruntled snort, followed by a long sigh. "You scared me, Neil. Maybe you meant well, but you scared me all the same. I've lived in bigger towns and in worse neighborhoods, where I rode the subway alone after midnight. But never have I run into my apartment, fearing for my life. You should have asked to walk me home, the way you just did, instead of being so sneaky about it."

  "But you turned me down—the same reason I saved my breath before. Didn't mean to scare you, Andrea. If you'd told me you thought you were being followed, I would've 'fessed up. And then walked you home. Whether you liked it or not."

  "Don't tell me Neil Grey's appointed himself some kind of guardian angel after he made sure I realized, in no uncertain terms, that he's no more than a fastidious devil on the make. Which one are you, Slick?"

  Neil leaned against the door as he tightened his hold and pulled her, unresisting, with him. Lord, but she did feel good. Too damn good. The woman was turning him to mush, a disgusting, quivering heap of male flesh that had never felt anything like this in his entire rags-to-riches life.

  "Which one am I? When it comes to you... some of both—not that I like it. I worry about you being on the streets alone at night. But I do want to make it with you, in the worst sort of way. I'm a helluva lot more comfortable with the second than the first. Big surprise, huh?"

  "I'll tell you what the big surprise is: discovering you're concerned about my well-being when I haven't exactly been Miss Congeniality."

  "That's putting it mildly. You've had a smile for everybody but me. The only looks I've gotten from you—when you've even bothered to look—could shrivel prunes."

  She laughed softly, a breezy wisp of sound that tickled his ears, while her breath, which smelled faintly of cloves and cinnamon, teased his nose. He breathed her in, and his brain whirled while his hormones forgot he was way beyond getting turned on by a scent and the feel of a woman's covered breasts against his chest.

  "Then I suppose I made my point, and I can put my voodoo doll away," she said. "I'll be sure to take out the pins before I go to sleep tonight."

  "Don't tell me you bought one of those damn things. A person can't even go into a convenience store anymore without seein' those ugly little monsters, and—Where did you stick those pins, anyway?"

  "Let's see... I gave you cavities and toe fungus and jock itch. Sorry, Neil. I was mad."

  "Guess I'm lucky you didn't give me impotence too."

  "Um... I did."

  Neil chuckled. "Didn't work, chere."

  "Obviously," she
said, a bit shyly, but also pleased. Before he could sort out the impact that particular combination had on his senses, she changed the subject. "Now, about that tune you're writing for me—"

  "We'll get to that. First, you tell me something. When you came in here tonight, I got the feeling—just for a bit—that you might be willing to call a truce. Were you?"

  "It was my original intention. Lou was going to bring you the money, but I asked him to let me. 'More power to ya, chile' were his words, I believe. He also said that he knew you weren't the easiest man to put up with, but there were reasons for that, and a smart gal like me would put aside her grievances long enough to find out why, because 'underneath all that ugly meanness, there do be a whole lotta soul.'"

  Neil scowled. He didn't appreciate Lou playing matchmaker by touting qualities of his that no longer existed. Then again, he wasn't yet in a position to give up the few points he'd scored with Andrea. By the time they played it out—why did that certainty suddenly make him wish for a swig?—she'd realize Lou had sold her a bill of rotten goods.

  But he'd let her find that out for herself. For some crazy reason he needed her, and he planned to keep her around for as long as he could.

  "Then if you came up here, sympathizin' with my troubled waters, why did you change your mind and get nasty with me?"

  "You got nasty when I came in, so I gave you a dose of your own medicine to see how you liked the taste. Force of habit, Neil. You've got your bad habits, I've got mine."

  "Was it force of habit that had you turning me down when I offered my strollin' company? You could've taken it even further than that. Maybe set me up by making a quick date with one of those regulars I've seen slipping you their numbers and getting too chummy with you for my liking."

  She laughed that laugh again, only this time it didn't meet with his appreciation. This time it took another whack at his masculine pride.

  "Don't tell me you're actually... jealous?"

  Jealous—him? Certainly not. Only fools who let a woman dicker with their insides felt such nonsense.

  The kind of nonsense he'd been cursing himself for all night and every night that he'd followed her to see that she wasn't just getting home safely, but alone.

  "You've had plenty of smiles for them and none for me," he growled. "If you'd been of a mind to do more than stick pins into a voodoo doll tonight, you might've hooked up with one of those eager beavers, all the time laughing that pretty little laugh of yours while you knew I watched around a dark corner."

  "Why would I do something like that?"

  The million-dollar question he couldn't answer. He only knew it had to do with greed and betrayal. The price paid when a man let success seduce him into giving everything to keep it and he began to hate himself for what he'd become. Desertion that came in many forms, and—

  And suddenly, he was there again, somewhere he didn't want to be. Nursing a bad case of jet lag while his ulcer churned around two months' worth of junk food and catered hors d'oeuvres. Schmoozing with those who went by the name of Clout when all he wanted was a meal with a wife who didn't answer the phone though he'd been calling at all hours. Lying awake through another sleepless night in yet another maid-service-clean room in some town just like the one he'd left behind a day before.

  Home at last in L.A. Hearing a shriek from his bedroom. Christine! Racing up the stairs of the mansion, fearing his wife was being raped—or worse.

  It was worse. He saw his life clearly in the picture of two sweaty bodies thrashing on his bed. Later Christine would say that she'd screwed the record company's head honcho to boost Neil's career. And she did so enjoy the benefits she'd earned for herself, even if she did have to put up with a husband who hadn't been changed by fame, who still talked like a poor boy reared by bayou folks.

  He watched them climax, then shut the door. Softly.

  "Neil? Neil, I asked you a question. Why would I be so cruel as to set you up when you were trying to protect me?"

  "You tell me," he demanded, trying to forget what could never be forgotten. "Why would any woman?" Then, wondering if Andrea had some answer he hadn't been able to find, he shook her, then stopped, afraid he wouldn't be able to quit. "Tell me."

  "I can't. I can't understand any woman turning on a man like that."

  "You're sure?" Still unconvinced, he persisted. "Sure you wouldn't cram some humble pie into my mouth to watch me gag?"

  "For God's sake, Neil, how could you think me capable of such a thing? I've eaten enough humble pie in my life to know it's not pleasant. I don't have to shove it down someone else's throat to make a point." She said it in that peculiar streetwise but untouched way she spoke sometimes.

  "The truth is," she said gently, "I fully intended to let you walk me home. I just wanted you to 'fess up' first. You play hardball. Consider it a rookie's attempt to take on a pro."

  Damn her. Damn her for reducing him to all but begging for the honor of walking her home when it was a given all along. Christine had done a real number on him, but even she hadn't messed up his ability to create. This tough little number had a hold on him as no woman ever had before, not even his ex.

  Dangerous. The woman was more dangerous than the queen in a bevy of killer bees roosting on his too-willing person.

  "Make you a deal, Hot Lips—if I may be so bold as to call you that, since you've made a believer out of me. I'll dance with you in the dark, if you'll walk me home."

  Chapter 6

  "Do I get a good-night kiss, or even better, one right now to seal the bargain?"

  The brush of her lips over his knocked out whatever sense was left in his brain.

  "Consider it sealed." She wrapped an arm around his waist, while she stroked the tight cords of his neck with the other. And then he felt her fingers pull off the rubber band on his ponytail and sift through the hair he'd meant to get cut last month.

  Maybe he'd wait a bit longer. The slight tug through his hair, the nails pressing into his scalp... Lordy, he was somewhere between heaven and hell but nowhere near purgatory. His own hands couldn't fill themselves fast enough. He caught the silky length of her hair, then wound it tightly on his hand. The tresses were the color of fire that all but scorched his fingers and heated up the rest of his body until he felt delirious with the fever.

  He began to sway as the first strains of his frustrating brainchild escaped the lips he pressed against her temple.

  "That was the lead-up," he confided. "Harmonica backed by bass guitar, and just a hint of a synthesizer tabbed on the sound of wind. A stormy wind."

  "I love it. What's next?"

  He didn't want to consider just why he was so thrilled that she, too, was swept up into the magic he'd long quit trying to understand.

  "Do you feel me against you, hard and hurting and alone?"

  "Yes," she whispered.

  "Then tell me if you can hear it with this." He made sounds that passed for a saxophone, while in his ears he heard scat vocals and the trill of a piccolo. "Does it strike a chord inside you? Something so deep you feel it as much I do?"

  "Yes. Yes!"

  "Describe what you feel."

  "I—I feel as if you're dipping me to the floor—"

  "I am."

  "But it's more than that." She clutched at his bent waist with an urgency that made him groan. "It's as if... I want to pull you down with me, but the anticipation's too good to give up and I'm fighting myself because I never want the want to end."

  She didn't fight him as he slowly raised her, then locked her flush against him with palms sliding over the swell of her buttocks. The feel of her flesh through the silky pants was intoxicating, and it sent him diving into the heart of the melody that had eluded him thus far.

  Now it burst forth with blinding light and sure power, expressing sorrow and ecstasy, tears and laughter. The tune told a story—their story. A lover's ballad without lyrics. Words never had been his forte.

  He hadn't expected the finale, though. A swinging duet of a
lto sax interspersed with a... harp? Where the hell had that come from? Harps had no business with horns crooning jazz.

  He didn't get it. Even after repeating it again and again while they flowed round the room as if they'd been dance partners all their lives.

  Giving up, Neil hummed it one last time and took her down, dipping her low, then lower still. The small of her back fit neatly against his bent knee, while his other knee, against the floor, supported them.

  The final strains left his lips on a whisper. He felt her hair sweep past his hand and onto the ground. He stared down at her arched neck. So delicate. So pale it seemed to glimmer in the dark.

  His mouth descended. The tip of his tongue darted into the hollow, then swirled around it before flattening against the pulse point. He heard the sound of her breathing, shallow and dry.

  He eased his knee away until she lay beneath his braced arms, then quickly swung a leg over her thighs and secured a mating position—all dominant male, hard and hunkered over a prone and soft female who was anything but soft inside. It was a familiar position, but the sensations it created were unfamiliar, bewitching. And threatening.

  "I want to kiss you." He said it like an accusation.

  "Just a kiss?" she asked.

  "No."

  "I didn't think so." A week ago he'd made her ache for more than a kiss. She still did. But now she ached for something else as well. She, with a foolish heart, was falling for this dark knight in tarnished armor, and disregarding the danger he clearly posed. But perhaps she posed a danger to him too. The odds weren't so scary when they were even.

  "Is there a chance you'd be willing to settle for just a kiss?" She held her breath and waited.

  He lowered his body to hers, and the hard male part of him nuzzled her closed legs, which begged to open for him, only for him. His powerful chest covered her breasts, which tingled and hurt with the need to be taken into the mouth that hovered over hers.

  "Would I settle for just a kiss?" he repeated. "I would. And I will. Beggars can't be choosers, and I need to kiss you so bad, I'd even beg for that. Never begged a woman for nothing before. I can't work, Andrea. Can't sleep any better. Does that make you happy, since you didn't stick me with pins to cause insomnia or creative block?"