by Wylde, J. D.
Now, if she could just get rid of the image of that man in her head.
The one who looked exactly like Bobby Wayne.
* * *
There were only two things that kept Bobby Wayne up at night. A bad race and a hot woman.
And this particularly smokin’ hot woman had kept him up all night.
And without benefit of mind blowing, life altering sex. Or even bangin’, just-to-get-laid sex. There’d been no sex of any kind– and she’d still kept him up all night.
She said she wanted out.
He knew Lauren, and he knew her well. This wasn’t like her. And why the sudden drop off the country music scene? Yeah, he followed her career even though she’d walked away from him. He knew the buzz. It was at a feeding-frenzy level. Her sudden, indefinite cancellation of future shows. The uncertainty of where she was. Or what she was doing.
And then she shows up here, out of the blue, after no contact for a year to tell him she wants out. Her asshole of a business manager could have handled that. She didn’t have to come in person.
Something wasn’t right.
He pushed his coffee cup aside. Scraped his hands down over his beard-stubbled cheeks. She might have said she wanted out, but that kiss, that hotter-than-hell kiss they’d shared, the way her body melted into his, the way she sucked his tongue deep into her mouth, and the stark yearning in her eyes said different.
Hell, he knew different.
She still wanted him. As much as he still wanted her.
And Bobby Wayne wasn’t above using this old house she loved to get what he wanted.
She walked into the kitchen.
The only clue she wasn’t as cool and detached as she wanted him to think was the stutter step when she’d spotted him at the table. And the nervous gnawing of her bottom lip. The lip he wanted to suck into his mouth and soothe with his tongue. And the air around them crackled with awareness. It pierced his skin. Flowed through him like a good shot of bourbon, heating every cell.
“I want out, Bobby Wayne,” she quietly told him, picking up right where they’d left off last night.
“You’re in the South, sugar. Have some coffee first.” Bobby Wayne lifted his own now-cold cup. “Only you Yankees save the world,” or destroy it, “before breakfast.”
Home-basing it out of Nashville didn’t make her a Southerner. He knew where she came from. He knew everything about her.
Except why she left him.
She made no move toward him. Or the coffee. “We need to talk.”
Oh, they needed to talk all right. He jerked his head toward the high-tech coffeemaker sitting on the granite counter top. “We make nice first, and then we talk business. It’s the way of the South.”
She moved with Yankee briskness toward the counter, the fringe on her shirt doing a little two-step over her breasts as she marched by him. Her scent, the one he could conjure up in his restless dreams teased his nostrils, taunting him. She reached up to open the old oak plank cupboard door and the swiftness stopped. Her palm hovered over the ancient wood before slowly sliding over it with a loving caress. She’d restored those cupboards. The master bedroom, bath, the media room, his office and study, and a few other rooms were a beautiful blending of old with new, an endeavor she’d spearheaded and for the most part, oversaw when they’d restored the old mansion.
And while he entertained fantasies about her sliding her hands all over him, she opened the door. Reached inside for a cup. Her shirt rode up from her hip-hugging jeans and Bobby Wayne’s eyes honed in on the patch of skin exposed. Skin he’d licked and tasted and wished with all his heart he could taste again. She sloshed little more than a shot glass’s worth of coffee into the cup. Up-ended the sugar bowl over it and stirred the mountain of white until it all dissolved. She sat the spoon aside. Turned. Stiffly leaned against the counter. She was a terrible example of being at ease. Her eyes connected with his and so did the arc of awareness that always sizzled between them. She lifted her cup in mock salute. Arched one elegant dark eyebrow. “You happy now?”
“As happy as I’ve been since hittin’ the wall,” he honestly told her. He hadn’t felt this hopeful since Doctor Sadistic told him his life was over. And didn’t that just about make him pathetic? Him, actually happy because his ex-wife, and not even his current ex-wife, was shooting dagger eyes at him across the room. He really was a freakin’ loser.
Her brows knit together as she studied him way too close.
He shifted in his chair.
“What happened?” she softly asked.
“The usual.” He shrugged a shoulder like it was no big deal. He didn’t want to talk about the accident that might have ended his career.
“It doesn’t look like the usual.” Her eyes did a slow slide down over him. “You look…”
“Sit down, sugar,” he told her before she made her own assessment and concurred with Sadistic’s diagnosis. It was bad enough the rumor mill had already concurred with him. He hooked the chair beside him with his bare foot. Pulled it away from the table and closer to him. If she was going to be in the same room with him, it might as well be close since on top of him didn’t appear to be on the breakfast menu.
She pursed her lips. She obviously didn’t like his abrupt close of subject.
Too bad. He didn’t like thinking about a life without racing. Or a life without her.
She pushed off the counter. Marched toward him and took the seat directly across from him. At the far end of the table, only about a half-a-mile away.
He scowled. “You know, it’s times like this that I really hate the enormity of this house.”
If they had a small one, instead of this mansion, with an even smaller kitchen, he could have her corralled, wedged up against the refrigerator, or better yet, up on top the counter. And she would have her legs spread wide, wrapped around his waist, her warm wet heat sliding down over his dick as he filled his hands with her breasts and her mouth with his tongue. He grew hard at the image.
“Buy me out, Bobby Wayne.”
So much for taking advantage of morning wood. “No,” he told her, getting down to business whether he wanted to, or not. And not the business he had in mind. “No buyouts.”
He could be as tough as she was.
Her shoulders slumped and the fight he’d witnessed last night was gone. As aggravating as it was, he missed it. Damn, he’d missed her. “I need out.” Her voice was so quiet, so full of sadness, it tore at his heart. “I can’t own this with you anymore.”
“Why not?” He could only think of two reasons. And he didn’t like either one of them.
He should have gone after her.
Here’s your chance now, the voice inside his head told him.
Listening to it for once, he got up. Walked the length of the table and knelt down in front of her. He took her hand. Rubbed his thumb over her trembling fingers, and with his other hand, he gently pushed back the dark brown waves of hair that shadowed her face. “Why, sugar?” He looked deep into her eyes. “Why after a year-and-a-half do you wanna give up your home? You love this place.” Almost as much as she’d loved him at one time.
She tugged her hand free. Covered her eyes with her hands and she struggled to breathe. Struggled not to cry. And he wanted to hold her. To pull her close and never let her go. But he no longer had the right. And she’d probably knock him on his sorry ass if he tried.
She dropped her hands to her lap. Slowly lifted her head. Shook it side to side. Grief filled her eyes. “I can’t own this with you anymore, Bobby Wayne. I can’t. I just can’t.”
“Sugar,” he gently reached for her hands. Squeezed them in his. “If its money – if you’re in trouble and need to sell, I’ll give you whatever you need, but don’t give up this house.” Don’t give up on me, he wanted to say, but swallowed the words. “This is your home,” he said instead. A home that meant everything to her. A home that meant more to her than he did, considering she’d kept it when she’d let him go.
> “We’ve both moved on,” she whispered.
“You’re the one who moved on,” he growled as the age-old anger surged through him.
“You’re the one who got married before the ink was dry on our divorce papers!”
“Because you walked away without giving us a chance!” he yelled. And he’d been too stubborn, too focused on burying his hurt with hard racing that he’d let her go. And when he’d cooled down, when he’d finally come to his senses, it had been too late.
“You lied to me, Bobby Wayne!” She banged her palm off the oak table top.
“I never lied to you.” He hadn’t. How could she even think such a thing?
“Then what do you call my singing career?”
Chapter 6
“Amazing talent and extraordinary good luck,” Bobby Wayne told her with absolute honesty. She was amazing. And the opportunity that had unfolded for her was what dreams were made of.
“That’s not what Jeremy said.”
“Fuck Jeremy!” The cocky, way-too-sure-of-himself business manager who’d insinuated himself in Lauren’s life would say anything to get her away from Bobby Wayne. Ironic that Bobby Wayne had played right into the bastard’s hands. Or maybe moronic was the better word.
“You won an open-mike contest, fair and square, sugar,” he reminded her. And the prize had been a chance to sing the National Anthem at the Coca-Cola 600 race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Bobby Wayne had been captivated by the leggy brunette standing in front of the crowd that day. And he’d fallen in love with her by the time the rockets had red glared and the bombs were bursting in air. She had the voice of an angel that had captured a hundred-and-sixty-thousand race fans. And one record producer who’d just happened to be mixed into that crowd.
“You bought my career! You made me feel like the biggest fraud.”
So that’s how the bastard had spun it. “I didn’t buy your career.”
Her brows drew together. She opened her mouth, probably to rip him a new ass.
“Did Jeremy tell you that, too? Jee-zus, Lauren. I’m a NASCAR driver, not a pimp. I went after you because I wanted you.” And he’d gone after her like he’d been racing for the cup, his pursuit of her that intense, that public, that all out, petal-to-the-metal driven. “All the record producer had to do was follow my news feed and he had your name linked with mine.”
“But—”
“I didn’t buy a career for you.” But his notoriety had surely helped. “You did that all on your own talent.” And no amount of Bobby Wayne star-power would have added to that. She’d have been a star with or without him.
He stared at her, flummoxed by the damn uncertainty still brimming in her eyes. “Hasn’t the asshole ever told you yet that you’re good?”
“That’s uncalled for.”
“Oh hell yeah, it is. You can choose to believe me, or continue to believe Jeremy’s bullshit.” The man would do anything to get Lauren from Bobby Wayne. Even undermine her shaky confidence. Bastard. “I got nothing to lose by tellin’ the truth, Lauren. Can he say the same?”
Bobby Wayne had seen the manager’s name linked with hers. He’d seen their pictures together. He didn’t like them. And he sure as hell didn’t trust the man. He’d hitched his sorry-assed self to her rising star when he didn’t deserve to be even orbiting in the same universe as she did.
“What happened?”
He scowled at the abrupt switch of subject.
She lifted a finger to his forehead. A jolt of awareness shot down through him. Gently, she pushed back his hair to reveal his stitches “Why aren’t you racing?” she softly asked, as her eyes slid down over his face and body and the heat of awareness rolled though him. “Why aren’t you doin’ what you love?”
“I would be doin’ what I loved with who I loved—”
“Please.” She held up her hand, palm out, stopping him.
And while they stood nose to nose, his eyes did their own perusal, slowly sliding down over her. And the thoughts of sex evaporated. She looked more than tired. She looked worn out. Non-stop travel was hard on a body, but her weariness seemed to go soul deep. And he didn’t know why. And wished he still had the right to know. Or to ask. He wished he had the right to make her happy, to take her in his arms, and make all the hurt and bad go away.
“I need out, Bobby Wayne.”
“So we’re back to that?” he snapped. He pushed away from her. Stood, glaring at her, hating she was walking away from him again.
“You need to buy me out.”
What the hell would he want this place without her? She was the reason he bought it. She was the reason he called it home. She was the reason he still lived here when she’d moved on because his foolish heart had never given up the hope she’d come back to him. That—
He flung an arm out wide in aggravation. “Who’s gonna buy this place like it is now, huh?”
Her darks brows drew down over her golden eyes now sparking with anger. Her chin jutted up. “And whose fault is that?”
His. They both knew it. He’d been the ass to let this place be destroyed. The ass who should restore it, too – who would restore it – in his own way – and with his own greedy plan. He was that desperate, that still in love with her.
“If you wanna unload this place, sugar, it’ll need fixed up.”
Her brows drew down further. Her mouth dropped open. “I’ve already done that once!”
She had. And she’d done an amazing job.
“Then it looks like you’ll hafta do it again, sugar,” he told her. “If you want me to agree to sellin’.” And after he threw that demand down, he quickly turned. Walked through the door and nearly sprinted through the grand foyer toward the safety of his study.
“What? What?” Her voice rose until it ricocheted off the twelve-foot-high ceilings, bouncing off him. “Wait! Where are you goin’? Bobby Wayne. Get back here right now!” Her heels clicked on the stone floor as she ran after him. “I want you back here, standing in front of me when I talk to you!”
He looked over his shoulder. She’d cleared the kitchen doorway, her temper gaining momentum as she shifted gears, hell-bent on taking him out, and every cell in his body revved at the thought of the contact. “I want this whole damn mess to disappear, you hear me, Bobby Wayne? I want my life back!”
Bobby Wayne’s heart pounded hard in his chest. Maybe there was hope. She cared about the house. Maybe there was a kernel of hope she still cared about him. She was here, wasn’t she? Arguing with him. Twisted as it was, he took that as a good sign.
“I want racing-striped flags off my front doors. And I want somebody to stand up and take the blame for all this mess, you hear me?”
“Somebody?” He spun around his own temper pushing into the red. “Just any ol’ body’ll do?” He’d seen the lovey-dovey pictures of her with that asshole manager. Maybe the wanting was all on his side, which just plain pissed him off.
“Do not twist my words.”
“How could I twist them? There’s so freakin’ many of them bein’ rained down on me, I’m lucky I’m not drownin’ in ’em!”
“Hey!” She grabbed his arm, hauling him to a stop. She spun him around, and they stood toe to toe in that hideous victory circle in the entry way. “I didn’t make this mess,” she succinctly told him, her eyes flashing with golden fire.
“But you’re gonna hafta fix it if you want me to agree to what you want. Those are my terms, sugar.”
“I do not want to hear about your terms. And about what you want.”
“Oh, yeah?” Bobby Wayne took a step closer. “I listened to you tellin’ me everything you want. You wanna sell the house. You want the house restored. You want your life back, yet you came here instead of stayin’ in your life and movin’ on. Well, you know what? I don’t think you have a clue what you want. Not really.”
Her chest heaved. Her body bristled. And still he took another step closer, invading her space, forcing her to back off, or take
the leap of faith with him. And the air crackled around them, an unfinished fiery past battling with a dark, uncertain future. And mixed in was the thrumming, revving heat which always burned scalding hot between them. No matter what damage they seemed to inflict on each other, it was always there, white hot, cauterizing any hurts and wounds. Except the last one.
“Do you, Lauren?” He took another step closer. Giving into his desire, he snaked an arm around her waist, hauling her body to his. “Do you know what you really want? ’Cause I sure as hell know what I want.” Her. And she was in his arms. Where she should never have left.
Her eyes darkened. Her mouth, the one he wanted to devour, trembled. Her tongue nervously darted out as she wet her bottom lip. She was scared. Like he’d never seen her. But she didn’t back off. She didn’t push him away.
“I know what I want,” she hesitantly replied, surprising him. She lifted her chin, her mouth nearly touching his, her breath, a barely-there brush against his chin. “I’ve always known that. And it’s never changed.” She drew in an unsteady breath. “No matter how hard I try to change it.”
And Bobby Wayne waited with his heart in his throat and everything he ever wanted in his arms. This was it. She’d either tell him to go to hell or—
Her trembling hand curled into a ball between her breasts and he saw the battle rage in her eyes. And still he held his breath. The not knowing if he would ever drive again, not knowing what his future would hold without racing in it paled in comparison to not knowing what she was going to say right now.
She held his heart in her hands.
“I tried to forget,” she breathed out. “I tried to convince myself, and I almost did. But…” Her lips trembled. Her chest heaved. “But it never changed. I never changed. And,” her eyes grew moist as they darkened with desire. “I know what I want.” Her arm slid from her chest to his.
“I want you.”
Chapter 7
This was crazy. She was crazy. It had to be the house. Or maybe Fate. No, she was definitely crazy. And then it no longer mattered what she was. She was where she wanted to be. Surrendering to the moment. To the rush. To Bobby Wayne’s mouth as he kissed her. To his lips as they devoured hers, making her forget everything but his strength, his arms wrapped around her, his rock hard body pressing into hers.