Crash and Burn (Love You Like A Love Song #1)

by Michele Callahan

  “Why not?” Protecting children from fucked-up situations had become his only mission in life. He knew how much difference one person who cared could make in a kid’s life. He’d learned it first hand.

  “I’d be in jail for murder. People can be real assholes.” Her left hand was fiddling with the tongs of her fork, and he covered it with his own.

  “Yes, they can. You know a few assholes, huh?” He asked as a joke, but to his shock, she answered him honestly.

  “My mom was a sad drunk who wrapped her car around a tree when I was fifteen. My dad wasn’t really around much. They got divorced when I was four. But it didn’t matter. He couldn’t stay out of the casinos, and the money he didn’t lose, he shot into a vein. So, after mom died, AJ and I were in foster care until we aged out.”

  Shit. And he thought his early years had been fucked up. “Meth?”

  “Heroine.” Jesus.

  “I’m sorry. Is he still alive?”

  She laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. “Yes. I don’t know how, but he is. He’s been in and out of rehab so many times I lost count. He lives in a group home for addicts that’s run by one of the churches a couple miles from here. He’s clean, at the moment. Or at least, that’s what he says.”

  “So, you still talk to him.”

  “AJ thinks I’m too soft, but yeah, I do. It’s stupid, but I keep hoping he’ll change.”

  “And it hurts when he doesn’t.”

  She nodded and he squeezed her hand but was forced to let her go because their waitress appeared out of thin air to bring their food. Her brother was right. She was too soft, and it sounded like she needed someone to look out for her. A very primitive part of his psyche rose up and demanded that he take the job. He wanted to be there for her. He wanted to be the man in her life, the one she counted on when things got ugly. He wanted it with a vehemence that shocked him.

  Hell, with a background like that, it was a fucking miracle she’d agreed to go anywhere alone with him.

  When the waitress was gone, Erin focused her complete attention on smearing butter over her Belgian waffle. “So, are you sorry you asked me out for waffles? This is all a little heavy for a first date.”

  “Look at me, Erin.”

  She paused with the apricot syrup poised over her plate.

  “I’m not going to freak out about anything you tell me. I’m not afraid of the truth. My parents were meth-heads who were both dead by the time I was seven. My foster mother adopted me, and all three of my brothers. We all have crazy shit in our pasts. Everyone does. It’s part of being human. But we either focus on our past, or we choose to create a different life. Moving on doesn’t make you a tragic figure, it means you’re strong, and smart enough to learn from your pain instead of living in it.”

  She studied him for a full minute and he let the silence stretch so his words could sink in. She blinked at him and he found that as sexy as he thought she looked in her Eva James gear, he missed her blue eyes. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking behind the amber-colored contacts. And he really, really wanted to know what she was thinking right now. He’d just shoved his fucked-up past in her face like an idiot.

  Erin finally looked away and kept herself busy drenching her waffles in syrup. “You’re pretty intense.”

  “I don’t like bullshit, and I don’t play games.” Chance wanted to be perfectly clear on this, not only because it was true, but because his gut was telling him that she needed to hear it.

  “So, no bullshit? Then why didn’t you ask me out before? Why wait until tonight to make your move?” She took a bite of her waffles and moaned softly with pleasure the second the light orange syrup touched her tongue.

  Shit. He wanted to hear that sound again, and not over waffles. “You mean, why didn’t I ask you out during my guitar lesson?”

  She nodded, took another bite and fiddled with her spoon as she waited for his answer. He took his time. This was critical, and he didn’t want to screw it up.

  “I didn’t ask you then because you would have said no.” He stirred two packs of sugar into his coffee and watched the dark liquid swirl around the silver handle of his spoon. She watched him butter his own waffles and pour the standard maple syrup over the top.

  “Maybe. But you still could have asked.”

  “I wanted to, but I figured it would take me another week or two to warm you up to the idea. You weren’t as…”

  She didn’t let him finish. “Crazy. Slutty. Wild…”

  “No. Open. During our lesson you kept things bottled up pretty tight. You use your guitar like a shield.”

  Erin humphed and completely ignored that statement. “So, you grew up with meth-head parents, got adopted, and then decided to go to law school so you could help kids get away from their shitty parents?”

  “Yeah. I did.”

  “That’s amazing, Chance. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t see that every day. I’d lose all hope for our species.” She tried to make light of it, but there remained a serious edge to their conversation. He’d dated women for six months and never talked like this. Erin was so real, he couldn’t hide the truth, and with her, he didn’t want to.

  The waitress slipped past him and refilled his coffee cup as he looked at Erin’s serious expression. “I’m not noble, Erin. In the beginning, I thought I was. I thought I was going to save the world. By the time I realized the truth, it was kind of too late to switch directions.”

  She sipped her juice and looked at him over the top of the glass. “What was the truth?”

  “I went to law school because I was pissed off at the system. I wanted to get into the courtroom and make people bleed.” His heart was racing, and he had no idea why. But he’d never said any of this stuff out loud. Not even to his brothers.

  “You’re one of the good guys, Chance. I couldn’t do it.” She leaned back and tilted her head to study him.

  “You change the world, Erin. You write songs that help people feel like they’re not alone, that help them cope with life. That’s one of the things that fascinates me about you.” He wanted to touch her so badly, his fingers twitched. He picked up his napkin and wiped at his mouth, even though there was nothing there.

  She had a bite of waffle in her mouth and a small bit of syrup still on her lip. He wanted to lean across the table and lick it off, but settled for lifting his hand and wiping the sticky syrup from her thick bottom lip with his thumb. When he brought the sugary substance to his mouth, her eyes dilated and she watched every move like he’d hypnotized her.

  “I really want to kiss you, right now.”

  “Then kiss me.” She stood up, right there next to his chair and waited.

  He’d blurted out the thought because he wanted her to know how much he wanted her. But he’d never expected this. She was calling his bluff, daring him to stand up and make a spectacle of himself in the middle of a crowded restaurant.

  He’d been on dozens of dates the last few years, and not one of them challenged him like she did.

  Not one of those women had made him feel this alive.

  He took his time, suddenly wanting every pair of eyes in the place glued to them to witness this kiss. He was staking his claim, right here, right now, and he wanted everyone to know she was his.

  He glanced to the table next to them and noticed two young married couples watching them with more than passing interest. He did his best impression of a wolf’s grin and pulled Erin into his arms.

  All thought fled once his lips touched hers. She was a living flame in his arms and she didn’t resist when he deepened the kiss. She opened to his exploration as he took his time tasting her. Her mouth was flavored with apricot syrup and vanilla, and he rubbed his tongue against hers, mimicking what he wanted to do to the rest of her.

  She lifted her hands to the sides of his face and held him tight, like she couldn’t bear to let him go. Her breasts were crushed to his chest and they were pressed thigh to thigh, her soft stomach a heavenly distrac
tion for his raging erection.

  He didn’t know how long the kiss lasted, but one of the married men at the next table whistled and a round of catcalls and drunken shouts of encouragement brought him back to reality.

  Erin whimpered as he pulled away and he buried his hand in her hair and pressed her face to his chest so they could both calm down. That whimper of need belonged to him and he didn’t want anyone else to hear it. Not now. Maybe not ever.

  She shuddered against him and pulled back to stare up into his eyes. He could just imagine the picture they made, him in his jeans and plain brown sweater, her looking like a goddess with amber eyes and knee-high boots. “You look like a total square, but you’re totally dangerous.”

  A small round of laughter broke out around them, but Erin ignored them all, as if she truly didn’t care who was watching them. She only had eyes for him, which wasn’t helping his heart stop racing. If anything, her quiet declaration had the opposite effect.

  “We better finish eating so I can get you home.”

  She sat down and ate the rest of her waffle like his world hadn’t just gone on tilt.

  Chapter Five

  Two days later Chance woke up with a headache and a hard-on. His body had refused to let him get any sleep.

  Bottom line, he couldn’t stop thinking about Erin, and every time he did, his dick got hard.

  He’d been forced to take care of business himself before he could go to sleep last night. It had been two days and he would swear he could still taste her kiss. He hadn’t added his sweater to the laundry pile, because when he pressed it to his face, it smelled like wildflowers. Like her body pressed to his. Like her.

  He would have explained that he didn’t normally grab a woman in a bar and lay one on her, but Erin was making him all kinds of crazy. And she didn’t seem to want an explanation. In fact, she was the one who was responsible for heart-stopping kiss number two.

  He rubbed his hand through his hair and hopped into the shower. He had his first official guitar lesson today, and he wasn’t going to miss it.

  He literally could not stop thinking about her. Or that apricot kiss. She’d been liquid fire, so hot she’d burned him up and left him hungry for more. He wanted more. He wanted to seduce her slowly, kiss every inch of her soft skin and make her whimper and moan, just like she had Friday night. The sound had made him harder than a fucking steel rod. He had lost track of everything but her. He’d been so wrapped up in her that he’d forgotten where he was, in the middle of a waffle house.

  Which had never happened to him before.

  Erin had made him lose his mind. And she’d called him dangerous.

  Fifteen minutes later, he lifted his new guitar out of its case, planted himself in his leather recliner and tried to remember some basic chords. Before Erin, he hadn’t touched the guitar since high school, eleventh grade, actually. Since the day he’d decided he was going to be taken seriously.

  Shoving the pain-filled memory aside with his usual efficiency, he focused completely on the instrument in his hands. He still remembered the sound of a well-tuned guitar and adjusted the pegs until each string sounded perfect. Now. G chord? C? Got it. E minor?

  That was bad. Try again.

  He glanced at the guitar shop’s card on his side table, and considered calling just to hear her voice as The Incredible Hulk stared down at him with a menacing growl from the mantle above his gas fireplace.

  His mom was probably laughing her ass off right about now. Achieving the childhood dream he’d written on the inside of that card was, literally, impossible, but he knew his mother would want him to honor it in spirit.

  So, he would learn to play the guitar. With Erin.

  Win-win.

  Maybe, if he played really well, she’d let him kiss her again.

  Half an hour later, he pulled up to the guitar shop. A small, white economy car was parked neatly in the front space. So, Erin was here. He’d been worried that she wouldn’t show.

  He parked and grabbed his guitar from the backseat. He closed the door and headed inside with his stomach in knots.

  Jeez. He was nervous to take a stupid guitar lesson? What was wrong with him? No, he wasn’t nervous about the guitar, it was all about seeing her.

  “It’s okay to be nervous, honey. It just means you care.”

  His mother’s remembered words were no comfort as he pulled open the music shop’s glass front door and walked inside. The place was empty except for Erin. She was alone in the shop, leaning over the glass with a pencil and eraser. This time, she was on the customer’s side of the glass, and he had an excellent view of her curvy backside. She looked adorable, but had circles under her eyes that hadn’t been there a couple of days ago. She looked tired.

  Her blonde hair was pulled into a ponytail and she wore a pair of flat pink sneakers on her feet. She had on a black T-shirt today with a ’70’s rock band on the front. She was beautiful, and intensely focused on whatever was in front of her. Probably a new song. Her face was free of makeup, and he found that he liked that about her. No pretenses when she was offstage. She was real. Her lips were bare and a pale pink. They looked soft and completely kissable.

  Maybe he should find another teacher, one that wouldn’t be so…distracting.

  His jaw clenched in protest before he’d even finished the thought. No.

  She looked sweet and innocent. If he hadn’t seen her onstage last night, he never would have believed she had such a wild side, a side he couldn’t wait to explore.

  And if she hadn’t confessed the truth about her past, he would have assumed she’d grown up in a perfect little house, with a yellow lab, a white picket fence and a mother that baked casseroles every Sunday after church.

  But that was just part of the big illusion used to make people feel like their own life wasn’t good enough. No one he’d ever met actually lived like that. No one.

  The nonstop tapping of her pencil ceased when he walked in and she looked up at him with a slight frown on her face. “You’re early.”

  “Not really. My lesson is supposed to start in five minutes.” He waited, expecting something…anything to indicate she wanted to talk about waffle night. Or, even better, that she wanted another kiss.

  Instead, she acted like nothing had happened, so he did, too.

  Squinting at the clock on the wall she sighed. “Right. Sorry. I lost track of time. Go on in and get set up. Take the blue chair. There’s an amp in there you can plug into.” She waved him toward the curtained door that led to the soundproof lesson room.

  “Okay.” He walked past her and tried not to be irritated with her distant manner, but the truth of it was, this reserved, cold woman was not the woman he’d held in his arms.

  What the hell had happened in the last thirty-six hours?

  <><><>

  Erin saw the flash of confusion in his eyes and averted her gaze so he couldn’t witness her internal struggle.

  How was she going to survive the next hour without making a complete fool of herself? When she put on a wig and transformed into Eva James, she could be courageous, wild enough to dare a stranger to kiss her in the middle of a crowded restaurant.

  But now she was back to normal, back to a ponytail and pair of jeans. Back to plain, boring, introverted and slightly shy Erin, the band geek. And her track record with men left something to be desired.

  Would he still want her now, dressed like this? Or had he been lying about taking a couple weeks to ask her out?

  “You’re thinking too much.” Strong arms wrapped around her from behind and she jumped as a small squeak of surprise escaped her throat.

  “You scared me.”

  “You were thinking too much.”

  “I was just working on something.”

  He pulled her back against him and she melted into his warmth, placing her forearms on top of his to hold on to him. “Working? I was hoping you were thinking about me.”

  “You were?”

  He took adva
ntage of her ponytail and lowered his lips to the bare skin on the side of her neck. “I thought about you all night, so it would only be fair.”

  “You did?”

  “Yes. I did.”

  And she’d thought he was dangerous? The word seemed so weak now. More like lethal. His lips worked their magic, and when she turned her head to the side, he shifted attention to kiss his way along her jaw. No, not lethal, addictive. Totally, fucking addictive. Which was much, much worse.

  She closed her eyes and dropped her head back to rest on his shoulder. “Okay. One kiss, Chance, and then we have to get to work.”

  “You’re a slave driver.”

  She actually laughed. “You have no idea.” AJ had used that very term on more than one occasion, usually in combination with multiple curse words and angry grumblings. “I’m focused. There’s a difference.”

  He turned her in his arms and she went willingly, resting her hands on his biceps. “And what if I want you to focus on me?”

  The mischievous glint in his eyes made her feel daring, despite the fact that she wasn’t wearing her usual Eva James armor. “What specific part would you like me to focus on?”

  His gaze flooded with heat as he smiled and lowered his nose to touch the tip of hers. “What if I said every single part?”

  ‘’That could take hours.”

  “A guy can dream.”

  So could she, and her dreams centered around tasting him again. She lifted up onto her tiptoes so she could close the slight gap between them and took what she craved, confident, for once, that this man would let her take anything she wanted.

  The idea made her head spin with possibilities and her heart pound against the back of her ribs like a drumstick rolling on a snare drum, too fast to track.

  He let her take the lead this time, and when she ran her tongue along the seam of his mouth, he opened for her and let her in.

  And just that fast, all of her good intentions went out the door. She wrapped both arms around the back of his head and pressed her body as tightly to his as she could. Lifting her right leg, she wrapped it around the back of his knee to pull him closer, but no matter what she did, she couldn’t get close enough. It wasn’t enough.