by Zoe York
They didn’t talk on the way back to the hotel.
When they arrived, he followed her silently to her room. She didn’t open the door. He wasn’t getting an invite tonight.
He leaned his shoulder against the wall. Not going anywhere, but not expecting to come inside, either. Good. She crossed her arms in front of her body and he groaned.
“Hey,” he said, holding out his hand. A formal peace offering. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For overreacting.”
She gave him a small smile and took his hand, shaking it solemnly. “Good.”
But she wanted more, now. She wanted an opening to tell him how she felt.
They stood there, her hand in his, for a long enough beat that her heart started to ache, and then he pulled her closer. She almost resisted the tug, but that would be foolish. She wanted a hug more than anything else, and she let herself relax against his chest.
He smoothed his hand over her hair.
“You deserve way better than a guy like me,” he said roughly. The rawness of his words and the matching burn in his eyes made her throat close tight.
Why on Earth would he think that? She shook her head. “That’s a stupid cliche. I deserve to be happy. To not have a guy throw barriers in my path to finding my own happiness.”
“Pretty sure I failed on that front today.”
“Yeah, you did.” She sighed. No kisses for you tonight, mister, she thought to herself. “But just today. And it’s just a stumbling block because…”
Because we didn’t see these big feelings coming.
Because we’re human and scared.
Because there’s a time limit here and we haven’t talked about that.
“Because I want to make you happy.”
Oh. That was a pretty good answer. She swallowed. “You do?”
“So much it scares me.”
Even better. Good that they were scared together. “I know the feeling.”
“But I really don’t think—”
At the end of the hall, the elevator dinged. She pulled back and got out her room key. She didn’t need to say anything for him to understand the conversation was over.
He waited a beat, then nodded. “Good night. I hope you sleep well.”
She let herself into her room, once again closing him out on the other side of the door. That didn’t feel right in the least, but she’d let him twist in it tonight. There was always tomorrow.
* * *
— —
* * *
Dean slept like total shit. His eyelids felt like sandpaper when he finally gave up pretending he was going to get any more rest and wrenched himself out of bed at half past five. He threw on his shoes and zipped his phone into a pocket in his running shoes, then hit the street. Dawn was just cracking over the horizon as he headed away from the hotel. He ran until the light changed, then turned around and pushed himself harder on the way back.
He walked up the six flights to his floor to cool down, but stopped short as soon as he stepped out of the stairwell.
Liana was approaching his room from the other direction.
She stopped, too.
“Morning,” he said, wiping sweat off his brow.
She started walking again, meeting him at his door.
He pushed the card into the slot. It lit up green and beeped, the sound loud in the early morning quiet of the muffled, carpeted hallway. Equally loud were his breathing and his heartbeat. He wasn’t ready for this, whatever it was. “You’re supposed to text me when you leave your room.”
She held up her phone, an unsent text message on the screen. I’m coming to your room. “I didn’t send it because I was afraid you might duck out if I did.”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
“I hoped not, but…”
“What are you doing here?” He was being rude, but he was scrambling to catch up.
“I should have invited you in last night.”
“No. We needed some space.”
She moved deeper into his room. He stayed near the door. He needed to hop in the shower before they talked.
Liana didn’t notice. She turned, her fingers twisting in the soft cotton of her t-shirt. “I dreamed about you last night,” she said softly. “About your hands and your mouth. I missed you.”
Jesus. His mouth went dry. “I—”
She waited.
He didn’t say anything more. He couldn’t.
She moved closer again. He took in her yoga pants and t-shirt. Bare face and loosely twisted hair.
“I need a shower.”
“I could scrub your back.”
So. Damn. Tempting. “Give me two minutes.”
“If you take more than three, I’m coming in there.”
He wouldn’t. He threw himself under the spray when it was still cold and did the world’s fastest once over with shampoo from head to toe.
When he re-entered the main room, a towel slung low around his waist, she was curled up in the chair beside the window.
She gave him a lopsided smile. “I like the towel.”
He stopped a few paces from her. “Should I get dressed?”
She shook her head. “If this goes as I plan, we can go back to bed together for a few hours.”
His dick pressed against the cotton terrycloth at that promise. He told himself to settle down. There was a solid chance this wouldn’t go according to her plan. “Maybe I should dress anyway.”
“Or maybe you should take off the towel completely.” Her eyes danced as she slowly, languidly unfolded herself from the chair and reached her hand for his. “Come on.”
He let her lead him to the bed. They lay side-by-side, facing each other, hands tangled in between their bodies.
“I like you.” Her eyes sparkled, brave and bright. “In a too-much, too-soon kind of way. It’s really scary. But I want you to know that.”
He nodded slowly. “I like you, too. So much. But I’ve got a pretty shitty track record with relationships.”
“Me, too.”
He shook his head. He couldn’t let her think it was the same. “No. You’ve been burned. This is different.”
She gave him a too-knowing look. “You’ve always been the one to break it off.”
“No.” God, he was way too underdressed for this kind of admission. “That would be better some ways, maybe.”
“Dean.” She said his name lightly, but there was a new strength in her voice.
He made himself look her right in the eye, and hold his gaze there.
She lifted her eyebrows and gave him a gentle glare. “Fatalists forever, right? I know you don’t trust relationships. That’s not a big surprise to me, I promise.”
“And yet when I tell you that I’m not good enough for you, you ignore me.”
“Because I still want you. Flawed and likely to push me away at some point. I. Still. Want. You.”
He had trouble wrapping his head around that, because his track record almost guaranteed they’d crash and burn. That he’d let them, maybe even passively engineer it, and he didn’t want to do that to her. He didn’t want to hurt her out of some misguided fear of commitment.
“It’s okay, you know. I'm not going into this blind. I know we come from two different places. I know that you can’t let yourself want too much.” The softness in her voice just about killed him.
And she was so, so wrong. He tried to be equally gentle, but it was hard, because that wasn’t his nature. “You don’t think I want you?” He took a deep breath. “I want you so much it hurts. I want you in ways I don’t understand, because you’re not my type.”
“Gee, thanks.” She stuck her tongue out at him.
“The type I allow myself.” He scrubbed his face with his hands. “Because the truth is, I like everything about you. Everything. And that scares the shit out of me.”
“That’s the nicest sideways compliment anyone has ever given me.”
“It wasn’t meant
to be…let me start again.”
She shook her head. “You don’t need to. I get it.” She paused. “You never let anyone get this close to you?”
He shook his head. It was kind of an idiotic thing for a grown man to admit to, but she deserved the truth.
“So all your relationships…”
He finally voiced what he’d danced around before. “I’ve waited for them to fall apart. Encouraged them to die a natural death, maybe. And you deserve a guy who will fight for you. I’m not that guy.”
“Trust me, fighting tooth and nail doesn't work either.” She kept looking at him, steady-like, as if he hadn’t just said he wouldn’t fight for her. Or maybe like she’d heard him and opted not to believe him, which took a crazy level of faith he didn’t have in himself, and he told her as much.
She just shrugged. “But if you figure out what you want, you won't let it get away. You’ve told me about how that is in every other facet of your life. It just hasn’t happened in love yet. And maybe it won’t. But I’m not afraid of…” She trailed off. Loving you. Maybe that was the end of that sentence. Or maybe it was something simpler. Wanting you. Giving it a go. Those were more likely.
But even if it was love she was hinting around, that didn’t scare him as much as he thought it would.
If you figure out what you want, you won't let it get away.
He wanted her that much. He wanted her with every cell in his body.
They lay there for a moment, and then she glanced away. “Can I tell you something else?”
His voice was hoarse when he finally remembered to answer. “Anything.”
“I had a bit of revelation last night. It was an emotional show, you know, because I was strung tight from the night before and yesterday morning. And I’ve always run scared from those big emotions. That’s what happened in Savannah, the night before I flew up to see Hope. The night before I met you.” She slid her fingers through his, pressing her finger tips against the blanket beneath them. He watched as she flexed her hand, then pulled it free of his so she could rub her knuckles with her thumb.
“May I?” He touched her gently and she nodded.
He rubbed her fingers, rolling the skin gently as he massaged up and down each digit, and slowly she continued. “In Savannah, my fear got the better of me. And maybe last night wasn’t fear, but it was still a lot of big emotions, and I didn’t let the wave pull me under. I didn’t mean to, but I feel like I crested it, instead. And it was so powerful.” A tear popped out of the corner of her eye, just one, and she didn’t stop talking. He watched as it rolled down her cheek and plopped onto the pillow. The whole while she kept talking in an awe-filled voice. “I’ve always been so scared to give up that control. To really let go. And I didn’t need to be scared of it, you know? Because there’s magic there, in the places we get pushed.”
“Yeah.” He wouldn’t have put it like that. But now that she had, damn but it made sense. “Control is a big deal for me, too. I don’t know what it feels like to let go.”
She re-focused on his face, her eyes soft. “Maybe I can help you with that.”
“You think so?”
She walked her fingers across the bedspread until she was close enough to touch his bare chest. “I know so.”
“How are you gonna do that?”
“First, I’m going to get you out of that towel. And you’re not going to move a muscle until I say so.”
“That wasn’t what I meant.”
“Too bad.” She pushed him onto his back and stroked her hands down his chest. Under her touch, his muscles tensed, a faint tremor whispering that she had him. “And after tonight’s show, I’m going to take you to Nashville, and show you where I come from.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“I can’t wait.” And damned if that wasn’t the truth.
“For Nashville?”
“For all of it.”
Chapter Twenty
“WHEN you said you were going to show me where you came from, a hole-in-the-wall bar was not exactly what I pictured,” Dean said, sipping his beer and looking around the crowded honky tonk a block off Broadway where Liana got her first break.
She beamed at him. “Well there’s no way I’m taking you two hours out of town to look at an abandoned trailer park. As far I’m concerned, this is where Liana Hansen was born.”
From the number of people who’d stopped to say hi to her since they’d arrived, it was clear that this was one part of her past she’d hung on tight to. He liked seeing her in her element. He was glad she actually had a comfort zone, although he’d known intellectually she must, he hadn’t seen it for himself before this moment.
They’d been in Nashville for twenty-one hours. They left Memphis after her second concert there last night, and drove through the night, arriving at Liana’s house before dawn.
He’d gotten the quickest tour ever of her home before they tumbled into bed. Sleep came first, but then they spent most of the morning making love.
He knew it wasn’t the smartest way to think about it, but there wasn’t really any other term for how it felt to be inside her. It just felt right, and boy did that worry him pretty hard.
But he knew that Liana understood where his head was at. And he knew that he’d do his damnedest not to hurt her. It was the best he could promise himself, and silently, promise her.
From across the room, a tall, young, bearded man in a faded chambray shirt waved at her.
She squealed and threw her arms in the air. “Caleb Anderson, you get over here.”
Dean took a sip of beer and tried like hell not to react to the way the younger man picked Liana up and twirled her around—and hung on to her hips for a good long while after he put her down, too.
“Tell me we’re singing tonight, Li.”
Li? Dean’s eyebrows shot up.
Liana just laughed. “I’ll cheer you on.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort, gorgeous. I want you on stage with me.”
Gorgeous? Caleb might as well have said he wanted Liana naked, which Dean was sure was about to come next.
He stood up and shoved his hand between the two of them. “Caleb. Nice to meet you. Dean Foster.”
Liana gave him a pleased smile. “This is Caleb.”
“So I gather.”
“He’s just a fantastic singer and songwriter. I’m like a one-woman fan club.”
Dean gave her a totally understanding smile. He hadn’t realized he could lie so easily with his face. “Cool.”
“Hey, there’s West!” She waved at her drummer, who shouldered his way through the crowd and shook Dean’s hand, then Caleb’s.
“Hey, man. You playing tonight?”
“Sure am. Trying to get your boss up on stage with me, too.”
“Ah, you gotta, Liana. You guys are magic together.”
Dean regretted any and all nice thoughts he’d ever had about West.
She just rolled her eyes and shifted closer to Dean. “Maybe one song, later.”
Caleb made a finger pistol and clicked his tongue at her. “I’m gonna hold you to that.”
And he did, an hour later, at the end of his set. He announced to the room that she was hiding at the back, and got everyone to cheer for her to join him on stage. After a quick whispering consult, she took the hand mic and he sat on the stool to accompany her with the guitar, another mic on a stand in front of him.
She swayed under the tiny spotlight, an angel in her crisp white cotton dress and well-worn cowboy boots. “This is a song my Mama and Daddy used to sing to each other while makin’ dinner, and Caleb and I have done it a few times, once on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry. I hope you enjoy it. It was originally performed by George Strait and the incomparable Lee Ann Womack. This is called, ‘Good News, Bad News.’” She smiled and pressed her lips together as Caleb started playing beside her. Her breathtaking beauty, that secret smile, was all Dean could see, so it surprised him when Caleb started si
nging first.
The younger man had a rich, baritone voice that filled the slower ballad, and as he sang, he became the persona of an older, broken hero looking for a second chance with the woman he loved.
And then it was Liana’s turn, and after watching Caleb, she turned to the crowd, just glancing sideways every other line as she confessed that she no longer wanted him. It was a magnificent duet that played back and forth until the crowd was on its feet at the end.
Liana gave a curtsey, set the mic back on its stand, and gave Caleb a quick kiss on the cheek before she hopped back through the crowd to Dean’s side.
He raised his bottle in a toast to her. “Wow.”
“You liked that?”
“I loved it.” He gave her a quick kiss on the temple and lowered his mouth to the curve of her ear. “I’d be jealous if you looked at him like he looked at you, though.”
“That’s just the performance.”
“He’s good at it.”
“He is.” She gave a rueful smile. “I wish I could sing with people like that every day.”
“Why can’t you?”
She waved her hands. “Complicated label stuff.”
“Ah.”
She laughed. “That’s the least convincing ah ever.”
“Well, I don’t get it.” He gave her a half-smile and tipped his beer up. “I say, you should do what you love.”
“I do, most of the time. And I’ll get to do a lot more of it by next year. Anyway, tonight is all about cutting loose, so let’s not worry about that.”
“Cutting loose, eh? What exactly did you have in mind?”
* * *
— —
* * *
Dean’s eyes crinkled as he asked that, and Liana forced herself to tamp down the heady wave of arousal that washed through her. This was about showing him the good parts of her life. The normal, “maybe we could do this together” parts. Not lusting after him so much she dragged him back to her bed until they had to get back on tour.
So she took a deep breath and leaned back against the bar beside him. “Do you want to ride a mechanical bull?”