“Also, let’s not forget the very good-looking rock star who’s nearby. He can probably throw a good punch. Or poke your ex in the eye with a drumstick.” Harper shifts on her butt but is otherwise unaffected by my warning stare. “Say, how’d it go at the hospital, anyway? Is there some light at the end of the tunnel in this shit-fueled night?”
Sighing, I make my way to the kitchen, searching for a cold, frosty, open wine bottle in the fridge. “That’s a story for another day.”
“Didn’t go so well, huh?”
I don’t even bother with a glass.
23
Easton
The hospital releases me without any issues.
Unlike the last time, I can make my way out on my own two feet. I had one of our roadies drop off my bike in short-term parking this morning while I waited for the discharge papers to go through, and I’m headed there, trying to ignore any memories of the lecture from the audiologist a few hours ago.
Your hearing is going. Yes, I know.
It’s only a matter of time—yep, got it.
You need to start making plans for the—my future is my music. I’ll play until I can’t play anymore.
You are now definitively at 65% hearing. Does that mean I can still create songs, write lyrics, smash those hits on my drums, and live my life the way I want it? Yes? Good. I’m leaving.
Spinner visited this morning, his laptop open in his hands well before he stepped in. There was some damage control to unleash, and he was communicating with our PR person about how to go about explaining to the press why I collapsed.
“Dehydration,” I said to him. I’m starting to lose meaning of the word, I’m saying it so much.
But Spinner isn’t one to argue, especially when there’s an easy answer to be had, and he left it at that.
Otherwise, it’s a good start to the day. My ears are back, I can still get on my ride, and the band is at the studio, crunching out some new songs and experimenting with our set list.
I can go there right now and pretend everything’s good again.
Except, when I’m on my bike and growling through the streets, swinging through city blocks and passing by the wails of sirens and hubbub of pedestrians, I don’t head to the studio.
After finding a spot on the street to park, I stride into a midtown building. It’s only when I reach the 38th floor and I duck behind a column as Astor walks by that I think maybe I’m doing something stupid.
Taryn won’t get out of my head. The way we left things … I’m not sure I’m making the right moves anymore. All I know is, I have to see her.
From memory and after a carefully crafted sin of a smile to the receptionist, who let me pass with a gasp, I make it to Taryn’s office.
As soon as her blonde head comes into view, bent over files spread out on her desk, a sense of relief overwhelms me.
Just the sight of her makes things a little better. I can’t explain it.
I knock lightly on the open door. “Taryn?”
She looks up, eyes flaring subtly, but she collects herself and leans back against her chair. “Easton. What are you doing here?”
“Would you believe it if I said I’m checking up on my case?”
She offers a tired smile. “If I were still your lawyer, maybe.”
After a few awkward seconds, I say, “Mind if I sit for a minute?”
“Sure.” She gestures to one of her visitor’s chairs. I don’t hesitate.
I splay my legs, folding my hands in between and leaning forward. “I, uh, came to apologize. For what I said to you at the hospital last night. I wasn’t—well. I wasn’t in my right mind.”
“It’s understandable.” Her smooth demeanor softens the longer she studies me. “That kind of diagnosis, it’s not easy to digest, no matter how many times it’s repeated to you. And the more I think about it, the more I realize, I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did.”
My brows jump.
“Throwing my son in your face like that, I mean,” she clarifies. “If I’ve learned anything, it’s that every person is different. Deaf, hearing, when you lose sound, when you don’t. A cochlear implant is a very, very personal decision. And …” Her brows pinch. “I didn’t mean to make Jamie sound like he had any less of a life. He’s a happy, healthy boy, and approaches the world with the same gusto anyone else would—”
“Taryn,” I break in gently. “I know.”
She takes a breath. “How are you feeling?”
“Honestly? I’m not sure. The audiologist noticed I’m looking at mouths more than eyes when people talk now. I guess my body’s getting ready for the big transition.” I laugh hollowly.
Her eyes shimmer. “Oh, Easton.”
I wave off her concern, mostly because her sweet attention causes my gut to sway. “That’s not why I’m here. Last night was big misunderstanding, and I didn’t want you walking away thinking I’m an ass.”
“Well, I already thought that.” Her grin this time is genuine. “So you’re safe there.”
The need to be honest with her is quick and sharp. “It’s because of this secret, my hearing loss, that made me end things with us before they began. My fear. My cowardice. I met Jamie and it was so unexpected—so real—that I fucking balked. It wasn’t that you had a son. It was because I was suddenly facing what I’ve been… running away from, for so long. Deafness.”
Her grin falters, but Taryn remains soft. “I’m realizing that.”
The tendons in my neck become tense. “Tell me I made the wrong decision.”
Taryn’s eyes flick up to mine. “What?”
I stand, placing my hands on either side of her desk. Leaning down, I want her to see my intentions behind my stare. “My secret’s out, Taryn. And I’m fucking flailing. You know what the only thing keeping me afloat is?”
Unexpectedly, her expression turns to anguish. She breaks our stare. “Easton, I—”
I state the obvious, mostly because the word makes my mouth curve in the way it would if my lips were on hers. “You.”
She shakes her head but can’t disperse the sorrow. “I wanted so badly for you to say this to me, before things—so much has changed in the span of twenty-four hours. I can’t—”
“You’re talking about my diagnosis.” I bend closer, needing her to smell the testosterone, the masculinity emanating off me in waves. An animal sensing it’s mate. I can’t stop myself. It’s like last night opened Easton’s box. I don’t want to put a stop to the disaster, I want to dive right in.
“No, that’s not—”
“Stand up.”
Taryn lifts her chin. “I think you should leave. I’m sorry.”
“Then stand up and say good-bye to me.”
After a moment’s hesitation, she rises. I take in every inch of her as she moves, from her tight gray pencil skirt to the sleeveless white blouse, buttons stretched over her breasts. Her collarbone heaves with every breath.
As soon as she’s at eye level, I say, “You have a lot on your plate. Last thing you need is a failing rockstar who could lose everything. I get it. The problem is, I fucked up. I lost you before I even had you. Usually, I love having regrets—it usually means I’ve done something worth risking—but I don’t want to regret not having you. I want a chance, Taryn.” I work my jaw before I continue. Those coffee eyes, simmering with caramel, call like a Siren. I’m about to lay my weakness at her feet, and that stare of hers tells me not to give a fuck. She’ll absorb anything I have to say, melt it with her fingers, taste it with her tongue.
“I want you under me,” I say gruffly, and I swear her irises swirl. “I want to hear you whisper my name, the way you moan, how you sound when I stroke you, before I can’t anymore. I want the true sound of you etched into my memories before I lose it forever. And I have no clue when forever will come for me.”
A flush creeps over her exposed chest, coloring her cheeks and heating her gaze. I’m about to jump over this desk and start with her lips, but I control the ur
ge to claim.
Her voice comes out in a hitched, throaty sound. “Easton. You make this so hard.”
“You’ve made me rock hard, Taryn.”
The blunt fact is said with fortitude. I’ve never been this straight with anyone and it feels fucking freeing. If she says no, at least I can walk it off knowing I did—
I notice her resolve building before she does, but I don’t let the negative come from her mouth. I reach over and lift her from her side of the desk, coffee cup spilling, pens clattering, papers floating, and I press her against my chest and possess her.
24
Taryn
I’ve been kissed before.
Obviously. I’ve had a baby.
But I’ve never been so utterly ravished, so simply taken, that I flail helplessly, hands spread, floor shifting, that all I want to do is fall into Easton. Have him hold me with a body so lean and hard, it seems invincible, but with precious, buttery lips that explore recklessly.
Easton takes advantage of my vulnerability and demands more, imploring with his mouth and tongue, a flash-fire of heat.
The smell of him—a hint of cologne, the sharp tang of leather, the base sweat of man, has me reeling, and I clutch his jacket, rising on my toes, not only meeting, but destroying him with the same kind of passion he’s gutting me with.
In this, I can claim ownership. Every other piece of my world can be on the edge of disaster, but not this moment. Easton is open and crucial and real.
We break apart in a rush, right when his hands are about to raise my skirt. My door’s open and this is way more than office impropriety.
With animalistic breaths, he unhooks my hands from the nape of his neck and brings them down.
“Jesus, Taryn, I—”
Easton stops.
My heart crashes to my stomach the second I realize where his attention’s gone. Those disastrous pieces of my world fitting themselves back into the open.
“What’s that?” he asks.
I pull my right hand close to my stomach. “Nothing.”
“Is that a bruise?”
On instinct, I rub the red-purple ring around my wrist. “Just Jamie and I rough-housing. Nothing to worry about.”
A brow lifts. “Jamie and you … rough house?”
“Sure.” I add a shrug, calling upon every lawyer talent I have to be as nonchalant and blank as possible. “He’s a boy, after all.”
A part of me feels so disgusting, blaming a bruise on my body on my son, but the reason has to be believable. Easton can’t know the truth, that it came from my ex, that Bryan is in town attempting to derail the careful, delicate life I’ve made here in New York City.
Yet, the deception feels so wrong and awful.
As expected, Easton doesn’t question it, the ancestral notion that boys will be boys still as entrenched as it was at the dawn of time.
“I guess so, yeah,” he says, but it’s skeptical. “Tell him to ease up a bit. I don’t like seeing you bruised, playing or no.” Then, his voice turns into a low murmur, the tenor of it sending vibrations of promise to my core. “Taryn, I have to see you tonight.”
Against every instinct, I reply, “We shouldn’t.”
“Which means we should.”
He trails fingers down the bare skin of my arm, and I sigh against the shivers. “We can’t.”
I see his smile in the corner of my eye. “Which means we will.”
“We’re both going through so much,” I say honestly. “What happened a moment ago—that kiss, it was … “
“Sexy as hell.”
“Easton—” God. I’ve never seen him like this before. It’s electrifying and so magnetic that I’m having trouble finding good sense and resisting it.
It’s like his truth has given him the brashness he’d lost in his lies. But I can’t fall for it. Not before, not now, not ever. I’m way too complicated for such a catastrophic man.
“I can’t help heal you,” I say.
“I’m doing just fine being broken. Let me hear you, Taryn.”
The falter starts in my heart. My brain can’t stop it. Logic can’t handle it. Easton Mack, with his copper stare, golden skin and leather-clad armor is just that. Irresistible.
I want to hold on to him while my world falls apart around me, and that kind of need scares the shit out of me.
Easton senses the weakness, and his lips lift with feral promise.
“Hey, Taryn! I—oh. Easton.”
Astor stops short at my doorway, a file folder in her hands and suspicion in her stare. “You’re out of the hospital.”
“Uh, yeah.” Easton lifts a hand and combs fingers through his hair. “Discharged this morning.”
“Glad you let us know,” she says dryly.
“It just happened,” Easton replies, then turns back to me. “So, Miss Maddox, thanks for the advice. I guess I’ll see you around.”
I want to guffaw at his pathetic attempt to cover us up, seeming how disheveled we both are and the clear fire banking in our eyes. I give him a B- for effort.
He gets the B for doing more than I did, just standing here like a dumbfounded mute.
“No problem, Mr. Mack,” I reply as professionally as possible.
“Get back to me on the—uh—the proposal. You have my number,” Easton says, and with a small, satisfied smile, he starts toward the door.
“Hold on, big boy.” Astor lifts up a hand. “Now that I’ve unintentionally yet beneficially cornered you, what was the official word from the doctor?”
“Dehydration.” Easton recites it like he’s reading from a dictionary.
Ever so slightly, my brows lift, but I give no other indication of my confusion over the fact Easton isn’t telling his friends what’s going on.
“Really,” Astor says. It’s more an accusation than a question.
“Yeah. Really.” Easton’s hackles go up. “Look, it’s done, okay? I have to get to the studio, so if you’ll excuse me.”
“East, I’m not your enemy,” Astor says.
Easton’s shoulders slope. “I’m not trying to approach you like one. I’ve gotten a lot of questions this morning, and I’m about to deal with more before we go to the press, so if I’m short with you, I apologize. I’m pretty sick of all this shit.”
Astor puts a hand on his arm and rubs up and down. “I understand. Which is why I’m here, and Ben’s here, and everyone else is around, to help you. If you want it.”
Easton nods, and as if he can’t resist, flicks his gaze over to me before saying to Astor, “Thank you. I’ll text you and Ben later.”
“Sure.” But Astor watches Easton depart with the knowingness that he won’t.
“What can I do for you?” I ask Astor once Easton shuts my office door behind him.
Astor’s still focused on the door. “I was going to get your opinion on something to do with Chavez, but now I want to ask, what’s going on with you and East?’
My lips form into a nonchalant frown. “Nothing. He was following up—”
“On his case. The one that was over two months ago. Uh-huh.”
“He’s a thorough guy.”
“Who, out of all his friends and bandmates, asks to see you first last night after his collapse.”
“In fairness, I got to the hospital before you guys.”
“Which begs the question, why did you get there so fast?”
A sudden wave of fatigue washes over me. Tiredness from fighting. Pure exhaustion from the tense cover-up of all my flaws and fuck-ups, not only in my professional life, but now my dating life, too. “Would you be satisfied if I told you he’s going through something, and I’m trying to help him through it?”
Astor’s lips lose their interrogatory stance. She steps forward. “Thank you for that honesty. We’ve been worried about him, so as long as he’s talking to someone, I can be satisfied. And, if anything, I’m glad it’s you.”
There’s the instant need to sob, which I swallow down like acid. “I’m no
t sure you’re going to think that once I tell you what I need to tell you.”
Concerned, Astor lays her files down on my desk and steps within my comfort zone. “What’s going on? Is Easton okay?”
I rub my lips, swollen and chapped from being ravished only minutes ago. “That’s up to Easton to tell you, but I’m mainly referring to me.”
Astor angles her head. “You?”
I nod.
She lets out a light laugh. “What could possibly be wrong with you? You have the perfect persona. An awesome career, a sharp mind, a gorgeous figure and face. I’m pretty sure you’ve been crafted as the perfect woman.”
“It’s a facade,” I whisper.
Astor’s humor falls away. She reaches for my hand and grasps it gently, a response very unlike her, and therefore, all the more moving. “I’m here.”
“We should sit down for this.”
“Okay.”
Once we’re seated in each of the visitors’ chairs, facing each other, I hold onto Astor’s hand like it’s an anchor to my swaying, tarnished ship. “I need to talk to you about my ex-husband.”
25
Easton
Holy shit.
Either I’ve just made the suavest move of my life, or I’ve fucked up my chances with Taryn for good.
At this point, as I’m pushing through the lobby doors of her building, I think I probably fall in the middle. But hell, it came over me. The need. Desire. The ability to rip her blouse open and throw her across her desk, knowing without looking that there’s white lace under that tight skirt.
I’m picturing delicately stitched flowers covering her pussy as I walk, and I’m growing hard.
It takes every ounce of decency I have left not to spin on my heel and storm back into her office and take her in front of everyone. Put my mark on that luscious body of hers.
I’ve never treated a woman like a savage or had the mammalian instinct to pounce and claim my territory, but with minutes ticking down in my ears like the counter to a bomb, I can’t waste time being a gentleman. Not if I want her perfectly.
Playing You: Players to Lovers, Book 4 Page 15