“Fine. But I’m not happy about it.”
“I get why,” he said. “This is a sweet, sweet car.”
Pleased, she let her shoulders relax. “I love driving. I love speed and power and handling.”
“So letting me drive is a big concession,” he said.
“Huge. The hugest. What do you drive?”
“A squad car, most of the time.”
“What do you drive that you own?”
“I’ve got a pickup,” he said. “Getting to work isn’t optional for me, and in these winters you need four-wheel drive.”
“Well. Feel free to let her run.”
“There’s at least fifteen stop lights between here and your mother’s house.”
He was driving faster and more assuredly than she would, his big hands with the oil in the creases handling the manual transmission, feeling out the best places to shift, listening to the engine. “Where were you today?” she asked. Without thinking, she reached out to touch the grease in his pinky’s nail bed.
An electric shock coursed through the pad of her finger, straight to her throat and chest. He looked at her, but behind the blade shades his face was inscrutable. She jerked her hand back. “Sorry.”
She felt like an idiot. Ever since “Love-Crossed Stars” went big, she’d moved in circles where bodyguards were common occurrences. They all had the same hands-off vibe Conn did. She’d never cared. Life on tour was already busy and full of drama; adding an illicit affair with a bodyguard might tip the controlled chaos into disaster.
But this wasn’t tour. It was home. And Conn was … making her skin ache for his touch.
“I was at U-Pull-It taking an alternator off a ’71 Camaro,” he said.
“Oh. You said you drove a truck.”
“I do. I race the Camaro.”
She thought about it for a second. “They still run drag races at the old airfield?”
“Every weekend it’s dry,” he confirmed. He downshifted and took the left onto Hanscomb Street just a little faster than legal. The car held tight and growled as the RPMs wound down. “You know about those?”
“I grew up here,” she reminded him. “I spent my share of Saturday nights watching guys race souped-up junkers.”
“But never wanted to race yourself?”
“I’m pretty sure I’ve got some kind of clause in my contract that forbids any dangerous activities. Drag racing. Sky diving. Swimming with sharks. That kind of thing.”
Thinking of the forbidden wasn’t helping. She could feel the post-tour crash welling up from deep inside her, longing for the two things she never got enough of on tour: sleep and sex. He parked the car and switched the shades from the bridge of his nose to the back of his neck. His eyes reminded her of the blue-gray hue of the winter sky.
“Guess it’s a good thing I’m driving.”
He wasn’t conventionally handsome, like a pretty boy movie star or singer, although she’d been around long enough to know that acne scars were airbrushed away, hair thickened and extended, personal trainers and chefs hired to get those rock-hard abs. But there was something about Conn. Women would look twice. “Speaking of contracts, thanks for not giving Chris a hard time about the confidentiality agreement.”
He shrugged as he shut off the engine. “I’m not worried about it. The police union’s lawyers can handle him, and I’ve got no family to sue.”
They got out of the car and headed up the walk. On the surface, the words came out in the same light-hearted tone he’d used with the drunk guy, but still, she paused while climbing up the front steps. “Oh.”
He held the screen door for her while she unlocked the front door, her mother’s Thanksgiving wreath scratching against the wood when the door swung open. The house was quiet, dark, the curtains drawn.
“Come on in,” she said. “Mom’s at work and Emily’s at school.”
“I don’t have much to take over to my new house,” she said.
He followed her down the hallway to what used to be her bedroom. She saw him take a quick look in Emily’s room, which looked like a tornado tore through a Kardashian’s closet, then another in her mother’s bedroom before coming to a halt in her doorway. A seasoned traveler accustomed to short-notice trips, she’d packed her toiletries and pajamas as soon as she got dressed. Her suitcases were jammed between the single bed and the sewing table. Bolts of fabric occupied the rest of the available floor space, and pencil drawings with swatches and trim tacked to them covered the walls.
“Your mom sews?”
“Emily,” Cady clarified. “She wants to be a designer. She’s applying early decision to Parsons. I used to stay here but Em’s taken over my room. I don’t want to mess with her process.”
He nodded, recording the details, no more interested in it than he was in the music business.
She hoisted her suitcases. Without a word he reached out to take them from her.