“I’d like to watch you perform sometime.”
“I was able to drool over you onstage last night and tonight, so I suppose it’s only fair that you get to do the same. I’ll check my calendar and see what I have coming up. I think I have an event next week in Prague.” She scrunched her brows together and tilted her head slightly. “Or maybe it’s Rome next week and Prague the following week. Or is it Warsaw?” She chewed on her lip, her features tense with concentration.
Kellen tried not to look too astonished, but he was most likely failing at that. “You perform overseas?”
Dawn shrugged. “Quite a bit, actually. At least when I’m not on a deadline for some composition. There’s a different appreciation for classical music in Europe. Its roots are there, if that makes sense. It’s like how Nashville is immersed in country music and New Orleans in jazz; Prague is all about classical. You’ll have to come with me sometime when you’re not on tour and experience it for yourself.”
“Now, that would be cool.” And not something he’d ever thought to do on his own. This woman could broaden his horizons far more than he could broaden hers.
“We’re here.” She leaned close to the window and peered up at the tall hotel.
Already? Kellen hadn’t even noticed the taxi had stopped. The door was opened by a helpful valet, and the tidy older gentleman offered a hand to Dawn. She thanked him graciously, and Kellen scrambled out after her. She linked her arm through Kellen’s and placed a hand on his bare belly, which instantly began to quiver beneath her light touch.
Maybe they should stay in after all. He did have more rope in his luggage—a soft and supple length in a muted sage green and a coarser coil of red that would likely leave marks on her pale, freckled skin. He’d take his time with each knot this time. He could already picture her as a bound work of art, so beautiful he’d have no choice to but to eat her sweet pussy until she came and came and he unleashed his cock and plunged—
“I don’t think Owen likes me much,” Dawn said, drawing Kellen out of his fantasy so quickly that he groaned aloud.
“What makes you say that?”
Kellen had noticed Owen trying to draw his attention from Dawn most of the day. Like Kellen would want to experience Owen’s ordinary when he had the extraordinary at his side. He could see Owen any time. Owen without Lindsey in tow. Dawn would be going back to L.A. soon, or to Rome or Prague or someplace equally less Texas. She’d said so herself.
“Just a vibe he was giving off,” she said.
“It’s Lindsey. He’ll be less weird once he rids himself of her.”
“Isn’t he kind of stuck with her for life? Or at least the next twenty years or so?”
Kellen’s stomach plummeted. “Don’t say that.” They ventured toward the elevator since he still had his keycard from earlier.
“Do you always have such a hard time accepting reality?” she asked and then bit her lip. “I’m sorry. Sometimes my tongue gets away from me. I didn’t mean to just blurt that out.”
“No, you’re right. Sara is gone and will never be replaced. Owen’s gotten a girl in trouble”—maybe—“which comes with lifelong responsibility. I’m with a beautiful, intelligent woman who will soon discover I’m not worth the headaches I cause her.”
“That last part is definitely not reality,” she said.
He grinned. “Hey, I’m trying here.”
In their suite, he found a plain white V-necked T-shirt in his luggage and pulled it on. The fabric felt stifling and restrictive against his chest and back. He immediately wanted to take the shirt off again. He’d just opened his mouth to tell Dawn that they should stay in after all when she stepped out of the bathroom in an elegant black dress. He blinked at her, trying to remember how to make his mouth function as his gaze journeyed from her simple up-do that showed off the length of her slender neck down the curve of cleavage hinted at by the low-cut bodice of her gown and along the narrowing of her trim waist, the slight flare of her hips, the long length of her shapely leg, and to the slender ankle and spike-heeled shoes that made his toes curl in appreciation. And then his lucky eyes took the reverse journey back to her face.
“You just happened to have that dress in your luggage,” Kellen said when he found his tongue.
She ran her hands over the silky fabric that clung to her devastatingly gorgeous body. “All the clothes I have with me are like this. You don’t like it? Should I change?”
“What? Hell no. You’re the most stunning woman I’ve ever laid eyes on.” He frowned down at his jeans and T-shirt before meeting her gaze again. “I just feel a bit underdressed.”
She grinned. “You look overdressed to me. I’ve become accustomed to ogling your shirtless chest, belly, back, shoulders, arms.” Each word came out a bit slower than the last as she eyed each part she listed.
She licked her lips, and his gaze was drawn to the small bumps at the tips of her breasts. He had a sudden, powerful urge to draw those hardened nipples into his mouth and slide his hands up the backs of her thighs. But that would be entirely inappropriate. Unrestrained.
“Maybe we should stop at a hardware store on the way back,” he murmured. “Pick up some rope.”
“Only if I get to tie you up this time,” she said.
He grinned. He liked the sound of that.
As she stood on the elevator clutching her small purse, he couldn’t help but stare at the lovely length of bare leg showing along the slit up her thigh. She looked far too classy and sophisticated in her form-hugging black dress to be hanging out with the likes of him.
It turned out that the Carousel Bar was built on an actual carousel. It even spun slowly in a circle. Kellen had to wonder if the bartender at the center suffered from vertigo. Every chair along the rotating bar was occupied, so Kellen stretched to look over the crowd for a table on the unmoving part of the floor.
“Dawn O’Reilly?” a woman’s voice carried over the crowd. “Shut the fuck up! Why didn’t you tell me you were in town?”
Beside him, Dawn sucked in a breath. Before Kellen could even blink, Dawn was being drawn into an exuberant hug by a young woman and then being shaken back and forth to make sure the hug stuck. Or broke Dawn’s back; Kellen couldn’t tell which.
“Come sit with us,” the excited stranger said. “We have a great table by the piano.”
“Great. Is there a performance tonight?” Dawn asked.
“There’s a performance every night. You know that.” The woman finally focused her gaze on Kellen. “Is this guy with you? I thought you swore off dating.”
“I swore back on the moment I laid eyes on him.”
The still-unnamed woman laughed. Her enormous Afro of loose curls made her pretty features look uncommonly petite. “Can’t blame you there. But Jimmy will be heartbroken. You told him you were gay.”
“So he’d leave me alone.” Dawn cringed. “He’s not here, is he?”