“She wasn’t f**king with you. She was expressing her insecurity about her relationship with you and her position in the band, and she was asking you to tell her she was wrong. You didn’t do it.”
Now he did open his eyes. He stared me down like I’d just awakened him from a long winter’s nap.
“Sorry!” I exclaimed. My tone let him know I wasn’t sorry at all. “Am I fired, too?”
“Maybe,” he grumbled. “Why were you giving me all that guff about the tip jar? You’re the one who got Charlotte started in the first place.”
“Oh, no. All this between you has been going on for a long time. You neglected to tell me before you dragged me here.”
“The point is the gig,” he said impatiently. “I’m in the wrong mind-set for the gig. Now I’ve got to turn this thing around somehow.” His dark eyes, warm beneath his long, dark lashes, slid to meet mine. I realized by degrees that he wanted me.
Self-conscious, and trying not to be, and not a hundred percent sure I was reading him right, I held his gaze, waiting for him to make the first move. When he did, tingles raced up my arms. He took my hand and tugged me closer. “Come here.”
I held back, not stepping forward until the strength of his pull overcame the gravity rooting me to the spot. But when I did give in to his momentum, I led with my chest and dropped my shoulders so he could catch a glimpse down the front of my dress.
He looked where I wanted him to look as we stood as close to each other as we could get without embracing. In the warm night I could feel the heat of his body through his shirt and my dress. Slowly he raised his eyes to meet mine. “Would you mind helping me get in the mood?”
“I thought we were supposed to act like we don’t like each other.”
“Around Ace and Charlotte.” He lifted his thumb to stroke my lip. Through the coating of lipstick, his touch made me shudder. “Let me kiss you just this once,” he said.
Just this once was a refrain with him. He was the devil in disguise, the handsome but low-down, no-good sneaky guy from a thousand country songstresses’ revenge plots. Yet there was no way I was turning him down, any more than I could have turned down playing this gig. Ace and Charlotte weren’t peeking around the corner of the building at us—too frightened by Sam’s sudden and insistent exit, I thought—and there were no windows on this wall that they could spy through. Anyway, the two of them were Sam’s concern, not mine. We were on the side of the building facing the deserted end of the street, not Broadway, so there was nobody at all to see us.
I said coyly, “Boys don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses.”
He gave me a small smile, then solved the problem by carefully sliding my glasses off and folding them into his back pocket. His other hand never left my mouth.
I opened my lips, letting his thumb dip inside.
His dark eyes widened and he watched me for a moment, like he’d expected to get slapped, not invited, and now he wasn’t sure how to proceed.
Only for a moment. His thumb slid from my mouth down to trace my jaw. He cradled my chin in his hand and lowered his lips to mine.
His mouth was unexpectedly hot, like he’d been drinking coffee, or I was even more thoroughly frozen than I’d thought. But he didn’t force the kiss into a big production like Toby had during our first encounter. His mouth pressed mine almost chastely, until I felt the very tip of his tongue rub along my bottom lip.
I felt like gasping with pleasure and shock, but I didn’t want him to know how he was affecting me, in case he didn’t feel the same way. I kept my mouth on his and inched forward instead, slipping my hands around his waist. Except for a few brushes against him at the mall, this was the first time I’d touched him. I’d thought, and Ace had confirmed, that Sam was an athlete. I still wasn’t prepared for how solid he was underneath my fingertips.
I shouldn’t have worried that he wasn’t enjoying this as much as I was. As soon as I touched him, he inhaled sharply through his nose, pressed his hand more firmly around my jaw like he never wanted to let me go, and wrapped his other arm around my back. The stubble on his cheeks pricked my face. He kissed me more deeply—still taking his time, but eagerly enough to let me know the feeling was mutual. We took turns leading each other down a dark spiral.
He pulled away, blinking at me like he wasn’t quite sure what had happened. He glanced at his watch. “We have to go in and get started.” Then he looked into my eyes with an intensity that let me know there was nothing he’d rather do less.
After a year spent feeling worthless, and several months with a boyfriend who treated me like he was making do with me until he found someone better, I was really enjoying Sam. I knew I was being ridiculous, and I half thought he was setting me up and faking the whole thing, because he was too cute and the situation was too perfect. Maybe I was about to get cut down, but as good as I felt right then, I was willing to take the chance.
Surging with more power than I’d felt since I could remember, I rubbed my thumbs down toward the waist of his jeans before I let him go and drew back. “Is that what you needed?” I said in a teasing voice I didn’t know I had. “Are you in the right mind-set now?”
“Uh-huh,” he affirmed, eyes still wide on me as if he couldn’t quite focus. He acted like kissing me had blown his mind. It was adorable. “Wow. Yes. I wish we had a song about this on the playlist. Or maybe we do.”
Seeing a strange shadow across his mouth, I drew his handkerchief from my dress pocket. “Uh-oh, lipstick.”
He chuckled as I cleaned him up. “Not my best look?”
“What about me? Am I smeared?” I pursed my lips and lifted my chin to give him a better view.
“You’re perfect.” He pulled my glasses from his back pocket, unfolded them, and set them across my nose. Brows drawn together like he was deep in thought, he took my hand and tugged me around the corner to begin our gig.
6
I expected Sam to drop my hand as soon as we entered the building so Charlotte wouldn’t see us and pitch another fit. But he didn’t, for whatever reason—maybe because he thought he might lose me in the crowd that had packed the place while we went missing. The sidewalk outside the bar had been just as empty when we walked in this time as when we first walked in. I had no idea where these people were materializing from. They crowded the floor and overflowed onto the ramp we struggled up.