The nickname slipped out without warning. It felt familiar, yet also like a privilege he wasn’t entitled to anymore. He supposed she was used to people fussing with her hair, because she didn’t seem to think it was weird that he was brushing it. He was taking advantage of her attraction to him, and that wasn’t fair of him. Yet he wasn’t stopping, was he?
“What are you doing?” she asked. “You’re running as hot and cold as the flu. And they call women teases. What bullshit.”
“Which do you prefer? Hot or cold?” It satisfied him to know she was wanting more. He couldn’t help it.
“You know I prefer hot. Don’t try to be cute, it doesn’t work on you.” She reached for the hair dryer on the countertop and plugged it in. “And I don’t know if females can claim blue balls, but I don’t need you coming on to me and then leaving me high and dry.”
No one was going to be high and dry. If she could be bold enough to invite him into her shower, he would have to be an idiot not to accept what that offer had implied. He’d done idiotic things many, many times in his life, but despite his stupid fears and confused feelings, this was not going to be one of them. Not if they were both on the same page, which they clearly were. “I’m not going to do that.”
He realized he couldn’t kid himself, and he couldn’t give her mixed messages. He was about to get totally shit-faced drunk on Jolene and accept the hangover tomorrow. This might be his only chance to be alone with her for the rest of forever. After the album dropped, they’d be thrust into another whirlwind tour and promo spots, and it would never be just the two of them again. Making music. Making love.
This was their time. Their last time together, and he wanted to make it count.
“Don’t worry, sugar. We’re just getting started. I’ll be here two weeks, and you’ve got two thousand body parts. I intend to explore them all.” To lend credence to his words, he leaned in and kissed her shoulder, teasing his tongue along her warm flesh.
She turned the hair dryer on, hitting him in the face with a blast of hot air. “I guess you can start with the back of my head,” she yelled over the hum.
That made him laugh. Sliding his hands down her smooth and damp skin, he reached around her and teased her nipples into taut peaks, unsure if she would pull away but willing to take the chance. “I’m surprised you gave in so easily after all that protesting in Ginny’s office.”
“Who says I gave in?” She gave him a smirk in the mirror and moved away from his touch. Plucking her panties off the floor, she opened the bathroom door. “I’m not so sure I want your rusted truck crashing into my Cadillac right now.”
That amused him. He ditched his towel. “Since when can you ever stop a wreck?”
“Sometimes you turn the wheel at just the right moment.” She left the room.
Chapter 5
Jolene wasn’t as unaffected as she wanted Chance to think. Which was why she’d left the room, before she admitted that under the right circumstances, she might be amenable to anything he proposed. And by “right circumstances,” she meant at any point when he was touching her with his tongue or his fingers. Or both.
Yet he’d not only walked away from the shower, he’d brought up that fight again, relegating her feelings to melodramatic diva behavior. She didn’t want to revisit the past. Not the bad stuff, anyway. But there it was, and she hated it—Chance made her feel abandoned. Like he never had her back. And while an apology was a start, it wasn’t enough to undo the past.
So feeling sour with herself, with him, and with the situation in general, she’d gone for her phone as a distraction after step-walking into her panties, but when she entered her password, she saw she had notifications blowing her phone up. With a sinking feeling, she ignored all the texts and went straight for the voicemail from Ginny: “Call me. Media is onto you, and we should probably change locations.”
That wasn’t anything she didn’t know. But she had the sinking feeling that despite the shirt over her head, someone had posted pictures of her in the bra and panties. With wet hair. Fabulous. She couldn’t wait to see those. However, when she did a search, what she found wasn’t pictures but the media declaring that she and Chance were back together.
“What’s going on?” Chance asked. “Your brow is so furrowed I could plant a row of potatoes in that trench.”
“You flatterer.” Jolene rolled her eyes. She handed him her phone and went for her suitcase. She needed a bra and shirt for this—she had a feeling Chance was going to lose his shit when he saw, and if she had to listen to him rant and rave, she wanted the girls locked down when she stomped off and slammed her bedroom door shut. There was nothing to take the sting out of a flounce like nudity.
“What is this?” Chance asked as he looked down at her phone. “They’re saying we’re back together?”