“Fine.” I let a slow smile crawl on my lips. Truce, my ass. She wants me. It’s plain as fucking day.
So much for my resolve to keep my hands to myself, but fuck if it isn’t hard when she’s dressed like that.
So I’ll humor her for a bit. I’ll play her game of not wanting me when every damn thing about her says she does. Then I’ll take what I want. “We’ll play your way. Then we’ll play mine.”
I want more of those lips. Of the taste of her. Of just her. Definitely even more than the sixteen-year-old did for that first kiss, years ago. And sure as hell more than the twenty-three-year-old me did the last time.
I forgot what it was like to have to work at getting a woman. The thrill of the chase. The desperation for the victory.
Ironically, it’s only ever been Bristol I’ve had to chase.
The woman standing before me with cheeks flushed and eyes skittish as she tries to deny she wants me just as much as I want her.
“There is no playing anything other than the guitar,” she says.
“The lady has jokes.”
“The lady has a job to do.”
“Ah, yes.” I watch her ass as she walks across the room. It’s hard not to, especially when she moves to avoid looking at me. “The never-ending questions. Christ. Tell McMann that the writing is what it is. My muse is silent—or maybe she died. Who the fuck knows. Art is tragic or some shit like that. No doubt, he’ll hear that sound bite and have people rushing in to try and fix shit that can’t be fixed.”
“Sounds promising.” She looks over her shoulder and lifts her eyebrows in challenge.
“A documentary isn’t exactly my thing. You know that. I know that. They know that. But apparently, it’s a necessity to polish my tarnished image. An image that I could give a flying fuck about.”
“You care,” she says and turns to face me, those intelligent eyes of hers studying me. Looking closer than I want them to. “You care more than you let on.”
“I don’t need to be a media darling. Never have been. Never will be.”
“And yet you still care.”
“Only to the extent that people still buy my music.”
“Is that why you’re solo? You need to chase a new high?”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning you left something good once before to chase the high. It seems only fitting you’d do the same again.”
There’s the dig. The subtle reminder that I walked away from her but no acknowledgement over my lack of options. It was my dad’s fists, his disapproval, and staying with her, or leaving it all behind and trying to make something of myself.
There is no correlation between back then and what happened with Hawkin.
No connection other than my dad fucking things up for me once again.
But he doesn’t belong in this moment. In my head. Not when the woman I’ve thought about more times than not over the years is standing before me, tempting me with her sass and her grit and a body that I’m more than itching to touch.
It’s amazing how easily you can disregard how connected you are to someone when there’s so much other than noise in your life. But I’ve never forgotten Bristol. She’s everything a sane man would want. She’s the ultimate prize, but I’ve never been in the running. And I never will be.
“I’ll give you that one dig, Shug. But how come you’re allowed to bring up the past and I’m not?” I take a few steps toward her, the urge to touch her stronger with each passing second. “I mean, if we’re going to go there, then let’s talk about the last time we saw each other.”
She stares at me with what feels like a million unspoken thoughts in her eyes that I wish she’d voice. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
Liar.
“No?”
“We knew what we walked into that night. We did it willingly. We did it knowing we were going to both walk away with a bit more closure than we had before. I woke up. You were gone.” She swallows forcibly but keeps her chin high as her words hit me where it hurts. “You made it more than clear that’s all there was to it. Even picking up the phone was too much for you. I wasn’t just some groupie, you know.”
The hurt in her voice hides beneath the bravado. “No one ever said you were.”
“You didn’t have to say it, Vince. Actions spoke loud enough.”
I sigh. What did I expect her to think? “I had my reasons. Ones that—”
“Save them. I don’t care.”
“That’s not fair.” Fuck. I run a hand through my hair, wanting a drink but needing to have this conversation without it. I purse my lips and shake my head. “Guilty as charged.” I hold my hands up. If only she understood the why behind it. “Walking away is something I’ve seemed to have mastered and mastered well.”
“We called a truce. It doesn’t matter anymore.” Her smile is shaky, but there nonetheless. “See how that works? How easy it is?”
She says the words but for the life of me, I don’t believe her any more than I believe myself.
“Nothing is ever that easy, Shug.”
Our gazes hold. “True.” She lifts her chin at the platinum record on the wall for Make Me Fall, Bent’s massively successful single. “Why’d you leave Bent?”
“It’s a long story.” I point to my guitar. “And McMann wants progress that I can’t make if I’m telling it.”
“You’re so full of shit. You said yourself that your muse is dead.” She lifts her eyebrows.
Christ. Do we really have to do this? There are much better things I’d rather be doing than talking about this shit.
“Like I said, it’s a long story.”
“Most are.” She shrugs. “What happened?”
“Hawke and I got in a fight. Words were exchanged. Threats were made. A lot of things were said that can’t be unsaid. Happy?”
“No, because it doesn’t seem that you are. What did you fight about?”
Nothing. Everything.
I’ve been asked this question a hundred times and never wanted to talk about it. Why do I want to talk about it with her?
I lace my hands behind my neck and sigh. “Look. I was in a bad place and said a lot of shitty things. I made my bed and now I’m lying in it.”
“It’s easy to take words back. Even easier to say you’re sorry for what you did.”
I meet her eyes and feel like she’s talking about more than just Hawkin right now.
“It’s complicated.” My answer stands for the fight and how I left things with her last time. I wonder if she knows that.
“Misery often is.”
“Who said I’m miserable?”
She crosses her arms over her chest. “You forget that I know you too.”
And isn’t that the fuck and the fight of it? She knows me, and as much as I like that, it also means she can see right through me.
“You’re right. You do. And that means you know the only thing on my mind right now is how I don’t give a flying fuck about truces.”
“What do truces have to do with anything?”
“They don’t. Not when all you want to do is talk about shit that doesn’t matter while I stand here obsessing over how much I want to kiss you again.” Her cleavage is looking pretty spectacular with her arms crossed like that, and I’m desperate to stop talking about futile crap.
“Vince. I’m serious. Clearly you’re—”
“I’m serious too. I’ve humored you. Answered your questions even. Studio time is precious and we’re wasting it, so now it’s time to get back to what I want to talk about.”
“And that was what?”
Jesus. She even has to ask? I stride the three steps forward and grab the back of her neck. I’ve had plenty of women, I won’t lie. But there has always been something . . . magical about Bristol. Her intelligence, her beauty, her presence. It seems like anytime I’m near her all I can think about is want. So I say the words that need no further explanation. “This. Just fucking this,” I say before slanting my lips over hers and claiming them.
Her startled gasp gives me access, and I slip my tongue between her lips to meet with hers.
Fucking hell.
My groan says it all as she reacts and gives in to the desperation of a kiss that feels like we’ve anticipated for seven years.
I’m still nowhere near good enough for her, but fuck if I’m not going to enjoy every goddamn second of this kiss.
It’s been too long.
Too long without her taste. That soft moan in the back of her throat. The sting of her fingernails as they dig into my biceps. The feel of her body against mine.
I take without asking. Tongue and teeth and lips. Fingers tangled in her hair.
Already wanting more.
Already needing more.
“No.” Bristol presses against my chest and pushes me back. “I can’t. We can’t.”
“We did. We are. We will again.” I reach for her again and she shakes her head forcefully, her eyes wide.
“No. I’ll get fired.”
I snort. “You’re so full of shit.”
“No. I’m serious.” She paces the length of the room. Her hands moving just as much as her feet. “Lilah Glasnow was fired last month. She slept with a client. McMann found out.”
“Like I give a fuck about Lilah what’s-her-face.”
“But you give a fuck about me so it should matter. I mean . . .”
Jesus. She’s cute when she rambles, and I’m definitely not complaining about getting to watch the sway of her hips as she paces, her words tumbling out.
“Bristol. For the love of God, stop.” I stride over to her and block her path. She tries to dodge to the right and I stop her. Then the left and she collides squarely with me. Tits against my chest. Her lips close once again. “Kissing’s not sleeping so we’re all good.”
“This isn’t a joke. I’m serious.”
“I am too. Fuck McMann. How would he ever know that we kissed?” We need to get over this hurdle, Shug, because I plan on doing a whole lot more than just kissing when it comes to you. “Who’s going to tell him?”
“He’ll just know. Someone will say something and—”
“Come here,” I say.
“Absolutely not. Don’t order me—”
“Bristol.”
She doesn’t budge—she never was one to take orders—but her eyes track me as I walk over and turn the lock on the studio door. “See? Now he can’t know. Easy.”
“I get this is all fun and games to you, but this is my—”
“Excuse? Justification? Because from where I’m standing, you enjoyed that kiss just as much as I did. It seems every time you give in just the slightest, you put up a fight to justify why you shouldn’t. We both know you want this as much as I do. First it was the truce and now it’s McMann.” I shrug. “If you don’t want me, just say it, and I’ll walk away.”
I watch her lips. I wait for them to deny me. Seconds pass as our breaths remain the only sound in the room.
“I thought studio time was precious,” she finally says. I don’t want you, never falls from those lips.
I bark out a laugh. It’s all I can do because I want to pin her against that wall at her back and knock those gold records off. “It is. I think I can make an exception this once.”
She shakes her head. “You don’t understand. You’ve never played by the rules so why would I expect you to do so now?”
“Fine,” I finally say, pained as it is. “We can play by the rules.”
Her eyes flash and her mouth shocks in an O. She wants to bend them just as much as I intend on breaking them.
Perfect.
“I forgot how hard it is for you to color outside of the lines, Shug,” I murmur as I step into her and trace a fingertip over her collarbone. She sucks in a breath, and it’s all I need to hear.
I’ve read her right.
She wants this.
She wants me.
But she doesn’t know how to give in to what she wants.
Thank fucking God I know how to do it for her.
“So we’ll follow the rules.” I lean in, my lips right at her ear, and her perfume in my nose. “There’s a whole hell of a lot we can do.”
“Vince.” My name is part plea, part protest, and a whole lot of gray area in between.
I love gray areas.
I lean back. “McMann says we can’t sleep together. Fine. So that means sex is off the table. Care to define that term for me, though? Sex?”
She gives me a look—eyes wide, lips parted, cheeks flushed. That look alone is enough to get me hard.
“No touching.”
“No?” I study her. “So if I were to do this, we’d be breaking the rules?” I run the back of my hand down her arm, then slide my fingers over her midsection, before gripping her hip and pulling her against the length of me. There’s no mistaking what she’s doing to me. My rock-hard, confined-by-my-jeans cock speaks for itself.
“Yes.” She’s breathless. Affected. “No touching.”
“Hmm.” I bite my bottom lip, the pain a handcuff on my restraint. “It wouldn’t be touching if you slid your fingers between your thighs and I watched. I mean, that definitely wouldn’t be sex, right? It would be me enjoying your company is all.”
“We can’t—”
“But we wouldn’t be touching. Just like if while you were spread eagle over there—ass on that soundboard, thighs wide so I can watch those red nails of yours work over the pink of your pussy—I were to free my cock from these jeans and stroke it while I watched . . . I mean, that would still be coloring inside the lines, wouldn’t it?”
She emits a sound I can’t decipher, but I’d hedge my bets it’s more on the side of desire than denial.
“And if I brushed my lips against yours,” I say, so that with each word, our lips share just a whisper of a touch, “and then ran my tongue over your lips just like this, I wonder if you’d consider that coloring right on the lines or if it’s outside.”
“Vince.”
“Yes, Shug?” I murmur, my fingers itching to touch and my body begging to take.
“I want . . .”
“Or is skin-on-skin contact your definition of touching? I could close my mouth over your nipple like this,” I murmur around a mouthful of cloth and pebbled peak, “and technically we wouldn’t be touching.”
But her head dropping back and the arch of her chest pressing her more against my mouth tells me I’m oh so close to breaking that will of hers.
“I can’t,” she moans.
“Ah, but you just said you want, and I sure as fuck want too,” I murmur as I drop to my knees in front of her and do the exact same fucking thing I did to her tit but this time to her pussy. “Hold on, Shug. My hair is there to grip if you need to.”
She yelps as I hike one of her legs up over my shoulder. Immediately she fists my hair for balance at the same time I close my mouth over her.
I draw in a deep breath, drowning in everything that is Bristol Matthews . . . everything that is but the goddamn taste of her.
But I work my tongue over and against the fabric. I trace the lines of her lips as she starts to swell and her pants grow wet.
She bucks her pussy into my face—no man would ever complain about that—and a soft moan floats through the studio as I do the best I can given the restrictions.
My balls ache something fierce with a want I haven’t felt in forever. If I could manage to free my cock and stroke it while holding her, I would, but I only have so many hands, and fuck if I’m going to give up any iota of concentration right now.
“Vince.” My name is the sexiest goddamn music to my ears. I’ll do whatever it takes to hear it again.
Her scent grows sweeter as she becomes more aroused. As I work her into a frenzy. As her fingers grip tighter and as my dick grows harder.
Fuck your coloring inside the lines, Shug.
Fuck your clothing.
Fuck your rules.
But I promised to play by them—for her—just this once. Next time it’ll be for goddamn good.
She cries out when, without warning, I drop her leg, yank her against me, and close my mouth over hers.
“This. Just this,” I murmur again before I dive back in, desperate to taste so much more than only her tongue.
I want you.
Now.
Desperately.
“Vince. We can’t.” She says the words but she cups my cock.
The guttural groan that fills my ears must be my own, but hell if I remember emitting it as I’m too busy touching. Her hair. Her ass. Her chest. Her—
Pounding on the studio door jerks me back to reality. I personally don’t want to be anywhere near reality since it doesn’t include fucking Bristol on the floor.
“Oh my God,” she says as she pushes herself away from me and frantically fixes her clothing.
I watch her, chuckling. How did I forget how flustered she gets when she thinks she’s going to be in trouble? It’s adorable.
“Quit looking at me,” she scolds in a whisper-yell. “He’s going to know what we were doing. Go answer the door.”
Noah can fucking wait a second while my hard-on dissipates. That, and so I can steal one more kiss from her.
“I fucking love truces,” I murmur as my lips find hers.
“No.” She pushes her hands on my chest, struggling against me while I chuckle against her lips.
“Relax. I’m sure there’s been many worse things happen in this studio before.” I take a step back and wink as I take her in one more time. “You might want to take a seat in the booth for a few seconds. Wait for that wet spot I left on your pants to dry.”
She looks down and then back up, eyes wide and full of panic before scurrying into the booth to sit on the couch and cross her legs, seconds before I unlock the door.
“Hey. Sorry about that, Noah—” But when I swing open the door, it’s not just Noah standing there. I cough out a laugh. “Xavier. Well, this is a surprise.”
Knowing Bristol, she’s probably having a fucking heart attack at the sound of his name. When I reach out to shake his hand, I get off knowing that a minute ago that same hand was all over Bristol.
“I haven’t been getting any updates, so I thought I’d stop by myself to see how things were going.”
“Everything okay in here?” Noah asks as he steps into the booth and nods to Bristol.
“Yes. Fuck. The locked door. It’s a habit. Do it without even thinking.” I smile through my lie at Xavier who is still standing in the doorway. “I had to install those keycode locks at my house because I kept locking myself outside.”
“Good. Great,” Xavier says, walking past me and into the booth. “The writing is going—Matthews? You’re here.”
Thank God for the dim light or Bristol’s flushed cheeks, mussed hair, and nervous smile just might give us away.
“Of course, I’m here. Isn’t that what you wanted? For me to report back with an update?” she asks.
He studies her for a beat. I can see her pulse pounding in the vein on her neck.
“And yet last I checked I haven’t gotten one.”
This fucking guy and his ego. Such a blowhard. “Yeah. Cell service in here sucks, soundproof walls and all. Besides, I needed her help,” I explain before she can speak.
Be good. Don’t bait the fucker. It’s not your job at stake. Color inside the fucking lines.
Try to, at least.
“I have a text typed up to send to you,” she says, holding her cell up with what looks like a lengthy text from our distance, “but I haven’t been able to get it to send. I figured helping Vince was what was most important.”
All she needs is a bat of lashes and a curtsy to help with his god complex.
“Help? How so?” Xavier asks, eyes narrowed and arms crossed.
“Recording the session for me. Stopping and starting with each take. You know, just in case something good happens so I don’t forget what it is. It might not work for the current song, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be for the next one.”
Noah busies himself, his smirk hidden from everyone but me. He knows I’m full of shit but plays along.
Xavier looks her way again. “And here I was afraid Matthews was dropping the ball and not fulfilling your needs.”
I have a lot of fucking needs, Xav, and right now every single one of them has to do with that woman over there.
“No complaints here.” I chuckle. “Studio time’s precious, after all.”
