“I could have gotten you a towel,” he said, already reaching for another one.
“I didn’t feel like waiting. I’m cold.” She tucked the fabric between her breasts. “It started because I asked you to go to that dinner with the executive from the label. You know, the man who signs our paychecks.”
“Oh. Right.” He vaguely remembered that. He’d tried to bail, and she had protested, and it had escalated into all manner of poor judgment.
“But mostly it was about how you refused to do damage control after that damn picture came out. You just blew it off. Easy enough for you, since you weren’t the one humiliated.”
He had never really understood that. “People write a bunch of crap in those magazines all the time. What difference did it make?”
“This wasn’t pregnancy rumors or talking about my weight. This was the media saying you cheated on me and you not refuting it.”
He still didn’t see the difference. You either cared about the lies or you didn’t. Why was one lie more important than another? But maybe she was saying he should have had her back. “I didn’t understand how much it mattered to you. So, uh, sorry.”
She eyed him long and hard. “What is happening right now?” she asked. “I’m confused. I thought we were about to have sex, not beat a dead horse. Besides, you’re the one always bitching about the paparazzi. You just did five minutes ago. I didn’t see any point in talking about this now, but I guess I should say thanks for too little too late. Half-assed apology accepted.”
Jolene was never one for holding back. She had a point. There was no reason to go back over old hurts. “Maybe I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“Well, you did, so talk, Rivers.” She squeezed her hair into the sink with angry fists.
Was he paradoxical? He’d never thought of himself that way. Maybe she had a point. He was impulsive, and he did just say whatever he was thinking without concern for consequence. But he had just waded into a discussion he didn’t know how to finish. Especially not now, when he could think of much more delicious things they could be doing, like pulling the covers back on that big old bed and rubbing up against each other.
He wanted to talk, but he really didn’t know what to say. So he pulled some bull out of his butt. “I’m inspired. I think the next song on the track should be called ‘Fakin’ It.’ I want to get back to my guitar.”
It was safer that way. For both of them.
She took the towel back off and slowly began to dry herself.
His mouth went dry. His body hummed with the anticipation of how it would feel to sink inside her. Sex with Jolene was off the charts. It always had been. His few tumbles with Dixie since the breakup had been mediocre at best, though it wasn’t Dixie’s fault. She’d put in the time and effort, but he just hadn’t felt it. There was no genuine chemistry. Then he’d wised up and realized she’d wanted his contacts in the business more than she wanted him, which made him feel decidedly less guilty for their lackluster love life.
It was safe to say he hadn’t been satisfied, truly sexually satisfied, since that last night with Jolene. He remembered that perfectly. Not the fight. That was hazy and muddled. But he did remember the sex in great detail.
“Remember the hot tub?” he asked her.
“What?” She sounded annoyed. She hung the towel on the bar and strode over to the sink, picking up her hairbrush. With less than gentle strokes, she started to yank it through her hair.
“That last day. When we made love in the hot tub. You looked like you did just now in the shower. Dewy and sexy and aroused.”
She paused and looked at him in the mirror. “What are you doing?”
“I don’t know,” he told her honestly. She made him feel like Jekyll and Hyde. Tender one minute, sexual the next. He wasn’t trying to confuse her, but hell, he was confused himself. Misery loves company. “Just saying what I’m thinking.”
Which he had just told himself he wasn’t going to do. Damn, she tolerated a lot from him. He was hard to handle.
“Well, stop it,” she said, going back to brushing, her strokes even angrier. “You got no business thinking, Chance Rivers.”
That made him laugh softly. “Maybe you have a point.” But he couldn’t let it go at that. He came up behind her and took the hairbrush out of her hand. For reasons he couldn’t quite explain, he started to brush her hair himself, pulling through the strands gently. “Maybe I’m only good for one thing—writing songs.”
She locked eyes with him in the mirror. “That’s not all you’re good for,” she said dryly. “You grill a mean steak, too.”
That made him laugh. “Thanks, JoJo.”