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

by Michele Callahan

  Chapter Eleven

  Erin tried to get her feet to stop tapping out a beat on the floorboard of Chance’s car, but he hadn’t turned on the radio, which left her to deal with the constant stream of music in her own head.

  The melodies never stopped. And nerves just made them worse.

  Chance hadn’t asked for her address, but he pulled onto the highway without asking and she realized he was actually taking her home.

  Just like she’d asked. A total gentleman.

  Screw that.

  In a bold move that Erin Michaelson never would have made if she lived a hundred years, Eva James reached across the seats and settled her hand on Chance’s leg, just below his groin. “I was thinking, maybe we could go to your place tonight? My brother invited people over and my house will be noisy and crowded.”

  Chance’s leg tensed beneath her palm, but he didn’t ask her to remove it. No, his right hand dropped from the steering wheel to cover hers, trapping her there, close enough that the growing swell of his erection pressed wicked heat against the side of her hand. He was hard as a rock, but he turned to look at her.

  “You sure that’s what you want?” He wasn’t talking about the drive, and they both knew it.

  “Yes.” What the hell was that? Are you sure? What kind of question was that? Most guys she knew would have just thrown her over their shoulders and stormed off to their caves. Not Chance. Unless… “You don’t have to.” She tried to tug her hand free of his hold, but he tightened his grip and lifted her trapped fingers to his lips to nibble on the tips.

  “I want to, trust me. I just want you to be sure because…”

  “Because?” His mouth explored her fingers with mixed tenderness and heat, alternating between soft kisses and hot suction. If he gave that kind of attention to her clit, she’d explode.

  “Because once I get you in my bed, I have no intention of letting you out of it.”

  Oh, so he was going to flirt like that? A huge grin lit her face and she relaxed into her seat. “Bring it on, Romeo. I can take it.”

  He continued to torture her the rest of the way to his house, which wasn’t more than a couple of miles from hers, but in an upper-middle-class neighborhood. He pulled the car into an immaculate and very organized garage.

  The door closed them in and he got out of the car, walked around to her door, and held it open for her.

  She grabbed her overnight bag and stepped out. When he closed the door behind her, she leaned back against the car and he crowded her, right there against the car. He pressed his pelvis to hers and she gasped. So hard. So fucking hot.

  “You sure this is what you want?” He ground his hips in time to his words and she leaned her head back onto the roof of his car so she could stare up at him. She stuck out her chest in silent demand and lifted one leg to wrap around the back of his knee, pulling him closer to her wet heat.

  “Yes. But I have to tell you something first.”

  “What?”

  “Shipton records offered me a record deal.”

  “That’s great. Congratulations.” She groaned in approval as he lowered his head for a scorching-hot kiss.

  “But there’s more.”

  “What?”

  “I have to move to L.A.”

  He froze instantly, his entire body stiff as a steel beam. “When?”

  “In a few weeks.”

  The silence stretched and Erin was afraid he was going to reject her now, shove her back into the passenger seat of his car and drive her straight home.

  He took a deep, shuddering breath and raised his gaze to meet hers. “Then I guess we’d better make this good.”

  He tried to pull away so he could lead her into the house, and Erin would have let him, but Eva James was a wild woman who wanted him inside her right here, right now, up against the side of his car, like a total sex maniac.

  She kissed him again as she unbuckled his pants and pulled his hard length free to play with it.

  “Ah, fuck me, that feels good.”

  “Kiss me.” She played with him with her right hand, but lifted her left to the top of her corset, not to untie the laces, but to lift her breasts free of the tight top. They plumped over the top to rest in plain sight, her nipples hard points all too eager to feel the strong pull of his mouth. She lifted the necklace from her torso and dropped it on the floor.

  Chance’s eyes darkened and he took what she offered him, lowering his head to lave attention on her breasts. Every flicker of his tongue made her knees weaker. Then he suckled, pulling her flesh deep into his hot mouth and swirling his tongue around her hypersensitive nipple.

  Her whole body went up in flames. “I want you.”

  He nibbled his way up to her neck, where his love bites along her collarbone sent shivers over her entire body. “I want you, too.”

  “Right now. Inside me. Fill me up. Please.” The last word had come out as a whimper, but apparently he liked her lack of finesse, because he pulled his body back, out of her reach. A second later his hand found the sensitive skin of her inner thigh, then explored higher and higher until…

  “Fuuuuck, Erin.” He dropped his lips to her neck, just below her ear, and nibbled there as his hands worked magic, teasing her clit. “This is what you had on all night? Onstage? You are practically naked under this skirt.”

  Erin leaned her head back in bliss as he slid two fingers past the thin string of lace that covered her sex. She had on her skimpiest black thong. “All night, and all I thought about was you.”

  “You are a very dangerous woman.”

  Oh, yes. She felt all kinds of dangerous right now.

  He fucked her with his fingers, slow, then fast. Hard, then soft, until she couldn’t think. And he stood over her, watching every nuance of her expression until she was a quivering mess.

  He stopped moving completely, his fingers as deep inside as he could go, his palm pressed rock solid to her clit. She was so close to release the thought of actually begging for it seemed inevitable. When he didn’t move, just held her, hot and open and totally under his control, she opened her eyes to find him staring down at her.

  “You’re so damn beautiful.”

  She had no words. There was nothing safe to say. He made her feel too much, so much more than she’d expected. No words. She didn’t want words.

  She lifted her hands to his head and dragged him down to devour him with her kiss. She told him with tongue and teeth and lips how much she needed him, how hot she burned for him. Just for him.

  His touch changed from slow exploration to driving purpose. He held her trapped in the kiss, devoured her with his mouth as his touch ruled her body. His touch became harder, faster, relentless in its demand for her body to obey him. To come at his command.

  She cried out, shattering into a million tiny pieces, the orgasm more intense than anything she’d ever felt before. In the still sane part of her mind, she knew why she shattered, why she let herself crash and burn. Because he held her still and safe and utterly protected.

  The moment her senses began to return to her control, he moved again, driving her to a second orgasm, this time he touched her and put her breast in his mouth.

  Wrecked. Totally, completely wrecked. And he still hadn’t given her what she really wanted.

  Him.

  “Chance, please.”

  He kissed her neck, along the slope of her chin, then up to her lips. “We have to go in. I don’t have any protection out here.”

  No condoms in the freaking garage? What was his malfunction? She laughed and reached into the bra section of her corset where she’d sewn in a small pocket. She pulled the condom from its hiding place and held it up in front of his face. She planned ahead.

  “I want you right now.”

  “You’re crazy.” His chest rose and fell in ragged breathes as he removed his hand from between her legs and massaged his way up her ass to her waist.

  “Let me.”

  His response was a rough nod
and he braced his hands against the roof of the car and closed his eyes as she ripped the wrapper open.

  A guttural curse left him as she dropped to her knees and took him into her mouth, loved and sucked and licked until he ordered her to stop. “I won’t last.”

  If his tone didn’t convince her, the shaking in his legs left her feeling supremely satisfied with her effect on him. She wanted him out of control and desperate.

  She wanted him to feel like she did.

  Erin rolled the condom over his length with a tight fist and he groaned, pushing into her hands.

  “Catch me.” She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and jumped, straddling him. He braced his legs and caught her slight weight, his hot hands up under her skirt. She wiggled as he kneaded her ass.

  She leaned back until her shoulders hit the car, then risked removing one hand from his shoulders to reach between them and get his hard length exactly where she wanted it.

  Her damn string of underwear was in the way.

  She moaned in frustration and rubbed the bulbous head of his erection along her wet heat.

  “Rip them off.” She moved her hand lower to trail her fingernails along his balls and he shuddered. “Now.”

  “My pleasure.” He ripped her thong away and dropped it to the floor of the garage.

  “Yes.” He was so fucking hot. She slid him home and tightened her legs around his hips, drawing him as deep as she could into her aching core. “Fuck me.”

  Chance looked straight into her eyes and she refused to look away. She wanted him like this, hard and fast and so fucking out of control he shoved her back against the car and pumped into her like a piston.

  He let the caveman loose and her head fell back on her shoulders as an orgasm hit her, harder and more intense with his thick length stretching her open for his possession. Her release triggered his and moments later they were wrapped around each other struggling to breathe.

  He gathered her close, still buried deep inside, her ear pressed to his chest where the staccato beat of his heart matched her own. He slid his hands behind her to cushion her back and nuzzled at the soft skin along her jaw.

  “You okay?”

  She nodded, but it was an utter lie. Two words crushed her heart into pulp. The feel of his arms wrapped around her, protecting her, caused a near panic deep inside as Erin realized she was totally, utterly and completely screwed. Erin’s practical voice screamed from the depths to let go, to get away from him and go home. Mission accomplished. Erin Michaelson knew better than to fall in love.

  But Eva James was firmly in control of her body at the moment, and Eva wanted to stay in Chance’s arms forever. Eva dared to think about the future, to think that this might mean something more to Chance than hot sex, be more than just an adventurous one-night stand. Eva wanted to risk everything. Eva wanted to throw caution to the wind and trust. She wanted to drop the walls around her heart and soul and let Chance in, even if she had to leave him behind in a few weeks.

  Eva wanted to fall in love.

  And if Erin wasn’t very, very careful, Eva James would destroy her.

  Chance set her down on the garage floor, rearranged both of their clothes—what was left of them—and lifted her bag to carry it inside.

  When he held out his hand, she slipped hers into his warm hold and allowed him to pull her into his house. But she didn’t look around. She didn’t want to see where he lived. She didn’t want to know anything more about him. More information just meant more to torture herself with later. Better if she didn’t know where he spent his evenings. She didn’t want to know what he looked like in his kitchen, or lounging around on his couch on a Sunday afternoon. Those were all details that had no place in her future life.

  This was supposed to be a sexy fling, nothing more. There was still time to salvage the situation. In a couple weeks she’d be gone. She needed to remember that. Long-distance relationships did not work. She couldn’t say no to Shipton, and she didn’t expect Chance to give up his career to chase her around the globe on tour.

  Sex. That was all this could be. Just sex.

  She grabbed her bag and escaped into his bathroom. Door locked, she used her phone app to call for a car. Like a coward, she took care of her needs and then stalled, hiding out in the tiny room until she knew the car waited outside. When her exit was assured, she grabbed her bag and waltzed out of the bathroom as if nothing had happened. No sizzling-hot sex. No bone-crushing emotional turmoil. No desperate screaming from her breaking heart to stay exactly where she was, to take a chance.

  Nope.

  Nothing at all.

  Erin was firmly back in control as she breezed past him in the kitchen, gave him a chaste kiss on the cheek, ignored the confused look on his face, and ran for her life.

  Chapter Twelve

  Sunday morning, Chance pulled up to the music shop to find a dark green minivan where Erin’s white car had been parked the week before.

  So, she rocked his world, ran away, ignored his texts, wouldn’t answer her phone, and now she was trying to skip out on his guitar lesson?

  Fuck that.

  Chance didn’t bother unloading his guitar, just pushed open the glass door and walked into the shop. Sure enough, no Erin.

  “Where is she?”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Walker. I’m Ginny, one of the other teachers. Erin asked me to fill in for her this morning. She wasn’t feeling well.”

  “Right.” Chance turned on his heel and got back in his car. He pulled out his cell phone and stared at her number. He could call her again. Text her again. Leave her a thousand messages and demand answers he’d never receive. Or he could drive to her house and pound on the door like an out-of-control stalker.

  He was still so pissed that he would probably scare the hell out of her.

  He sent her a text.

  No guitar lesson today? Who would’ve ever guessed Eva James was such a coward?

  He waited a full sixty seconds before sending his second message.

  I’m coming over.

  He drove straight to Erin’s house, which took all of ten minutes. When he pulled up to the curb of the older-style bungalow, the white-and-yellow curtain that covered the front window dropped and swayed.

  So, she’d received his texts. Good. Now it was time to get a fucking explanation for the other night.

  She had been pure fire in his arms, so fucking hot they hadn’t even made it into the house. She had whimpered and moaned and said his name like it mattered, all while wrapping her wet heat around his cock. Hell, she hadn’t even begged him to take her, she’d demanded it. He was pretty sure she had single-handedly ruined him completely. No other woman was going to measure up, not after that.

  And she was leaving. Maybe that was why she had run away. Was she just one and done with him? Had she used him for sex, and now just wanted to blow him off?

  The car’s engine had barely shut down before he was pounding on her front door. “Erin. Open up. It’s Chance.”

  He heard the deadbolt turn and stepped back so she could open the door.

  Except it wasn’t Erin that stared up at him like he’d lost his mind, it was AJ. And by the looks of his rumpled clothing and smeared face, he hadn’t been home long, and he definitely hadn’t showered recently.

  “Where is she?”

  “She doesn’t want to see you, man. Go away.” AJ tried to close the door on him, but Chance stopped him with his foot.

  “I don’t think so. She owes me an explanation, and I’m not leaving here until I talk to her.”

  “Aghh! You’re making my head hurt. Just go away.”

  Chance looked down at AJ, and made sure he had the young man’s attention before he continued, in his lowest, most threatening voice. “Your lovely sister owes me an explanation, and I’m not leaving until I get it.”

  “You know who she is?”

  “Eva or Erin, I don’t care what name she wants to use, but she’s going to talk to me.”

 
“You guys have sex?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Right. Figured you did.” AJ scratched his goatee and shrugged. “Whatever, man. She’s upstairs in her room. This is too much drama for me. I need a beer.”

  “It’s nine o’clock in the morning.”

  “So?”

  Chance stepped into the living room of the house and looked around. Worn-out rugs, tattered furniture, and empty beer cans littered the place. The television was an older model and the plastic casing had broken off the side and bottom, making it oddly lopsided. A video game was going on the screen and two half-dressed women were sprawled on the couches, one clearly passed out, the other giggling as she played the first-person shooter in shorts and a pink bra.

  “Come on, AJ. I’m getting killed over here.” She pouted at her plaything and AJ abandoned all pretense of protecting his sister to join her on the couch. The young woman handed AJ the controller and curled against his side, clearly out of her mind if AJ was her dream man.

  Chance just hoped the girl was of legal age.

  Looking around on his way up the stairs, he could see Erin’s attempts to make the place as much a home as possible. A few family photos were hung along the wall, all of a younger Erin and AJ, usually just the two of them. Near the top, a photo of the four members of the band had been framed with the words First Gig and a date etched into the wood. The date was five years ago, and AJ looked like he was about sixteen at the time.

  Dirty socks and shoes lined the upstairs hallway, all men’s, and he didn’t enjoy the reminder of the clichéd phrases stating that men were pigs, but walking through this house, his rage grew. No wonder Erin hadn’t wanted him to come in the other night. The whole house was trashed.

  His early years had been a disorganized mess, but he didn’t remember too much from that time in his life. No, what he remembered was a tough-as-nails mother who never let “her boys” disrespect their home by using it as a dumping pit.

  As much as he tried to keep an open mind about AJ, for Erin’s sake, today wouldn’t help the cause. Right now, he wanted to drag that idiot brother of hers by his scruff and tell him to clean this shit up.