by Cari Quinn
Jazz hustled forward. “I’m with you sister.”
A blonde haired man came in the front door, grocery bags filling his arms. “I have more contraband.”
Gray took a bag and peeked inside. “Oh, hell yeah.”
Jazz rounded the island covered in spoons, cans of flavored whipped cream, bins of what he knew was expensive ice cream. After Gray unpacked the counter was covered with more candy than was offered at one of those Fro-Yo places that dotted every corner in the city.
Margo peeked around the corner with a curious Cody in tow. He spotted his master and hotfooted it into the kitchen.
Simon met her at the base of the stairs. “Hey.”
“Hi.”
“Sorry I took off.”
She lifted one shoulder. “It’s been one of those days.” Their eyes met since she was on the second to last stair. She curled her arms around his neck. “We’re doing okay, Simon.”
“More than okay. We’ve got adult ice cream over there.”
Her lips curved into a slow smile. “Is that so?”
“I’m thinking we should steal one of the whipped cream cans for later.” He waggled his brows. “Hazelnut liquor.”
“I think that’s a very good plan, Mr. Kagan.”
He drew her down the last stair and into the chaos. Who needed kids to have fun? An hour later everyone begged off with ice cream bellies and a little bit of a buzz.
There wasn’t that much alcohol involved in the ice cream. Gray and Jazz were very handsy. Good thing she was already knocked up. The way Gray was looking at her, she would have been by morning.
Logan herded Izzy upstairs for bed. Simon was pretty sure the reluctance was more for show than reality. Zeke and Cody had disappeared to his girlfriend’s house in town.
That left him and Margo alone. He wasn’t ready to go back upstairs and closet himself away with her. Not quite yet.
He wandered into the music room as Margo finished loading the glass bowls into the dishwasher. He flicked his fingers down the spines of albums until he found what he was looking for. “Man after my own heart,” he muttered as he slid the jacket out of the rack of records.
Of course the musician that didn’t have this particular greatest hits album needed to be disowned. He settled the needle at the edge of side two.
The chug of the dishwasher sounded just before her heels across the tile. “Why, Mr. Kagan, are you trying to seduce me in another room of Logan’s house?”
He skimmed his fingers over the glossy piano cover as Steve Perry’s anthemic voice soared into the vaulted ceiling. “I gotta cover them all.”
“We’re going to be barred at the door.”
“Someone should get laid in this house. Poor Izzy and Logan sure aren’t.”
She laughed. “Izzy can’t wait to get that baby birthed.” Margo shuddered. “I can’t even imagine. And now Jazz is going to have another one. Just…wow.”
He crossed the room to her, curling his arm around her waist and settling her against his body in a slow box step. “Random question.”
She curled her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck. “Hmm?”
“You didn’t want to do the kid thing did you?”
Her eyes went huge. “No. We’re still in agreement there, right?”
Simon tipped his forehead down to meet hers. “Definitely.” He’d never wanted to do the kid thing. Even with the water practically effervescing with baby fever inducing hormones, he didn’t feel the urge to procreate. Practice, sure, but he didn’t really need to leave his mark on the world that way.
Just his music.
The familiar pang was so sudden, he stumbled on her foot.
“Watch it there Johnny Castle.”
Simon snorted and rolled his hips against her before twirling her out and back. He stiffened his arms. “This is your dance space, this is my dance space.”
Her delighted laugh soothed the last of the nerves that had been riding him since they’d arrived.
He twirled her around and around as “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’” ramped up. Guitars, piano, and the driving beat of the drums may have been just a little out of his time frame if he’d been a normal kid.
But he wasn’t.
He’d lived off the old records and tapes available to a poor kid in Carson. He’d learned to sing those songs along with the staples of the radio of his youth. But it was the eighties that he’d most identified with.
A throwback to a time where music was about pleasure, not the angst of the nineties, or the pop induced early 2000’s.
He stopped spinning her as the song wound down into the hissing heartbeat of space between songs on a record. Her cheeks were rosy with color and her long dark hair floated around her face. She looked young and carefree—she still was of course. Neither of them were old by any means.
But Margo had been an adult even before her license had said so. He envied that maturity sometimes. It was easier to act the clown, or the eternal bachelor, than to own up to the mistakes he’d made in his career.
The mistakes he’d made as a man in love with a woman that was so far beyond his scope.
And there was a part of him that wondered if one day she’d wake up and discover that he really wasn’t worth the effort. Every single day that worry got bigger, the closer they got to the studio and into the huge emotional animal that was Oblivion, the more he stressed about it.
As the next song from the album started, they swayed into a slow dance. The song was exactly what he’d been waiting for. Nerves climbed up his belly and clawed at his throat.
He didn’t want to have this talk. Didn’t want to voice anything that was eating at him because it just might tip the scales in the wrong direction. But just how long could he go on with this sitting on his shoulders?
“Simon.” She slid one hand from his neck to his cheek. Her thumb grazed his cheek. “This song is the ultimate prom song.”
He snorted. Thanks to high school it had truly become to the go-to song for high level schmaltz. “Ah, babe, it may have become a prom song staple, but it’s so much more than that.”
“Yeah?” She swayed in his arms, her thighs brushing his as her knee slid between his legs. “You going to pin me? Give me your class ring?”
He pulled her left hand down off his shoulder. “Already got you a ring.”
She grinned. “Why yes you did. And it’s a beautiful one.” She thumbed the band until the stone sat in the center of her finger.
“I want a real band there.” He traced a line under the stone.
Her lips parted. “This is a real ring.”
“It deserves a matching band. One that I can wear too.”
She stepped back. “We had our ceremony.”
He grabbed her hand and brought her wrist up to his mouth. Her pulse was fluttering madly and her color was high again. “That was enough a year ago. Not anymore. Not for me.”
“Simon…”
“You’re mine Violin Girl. You’ve been mine from the minute I saw you in that studio.”
She curled her fingers around his as he pulled her hand between them, against his chest. “Of course I’m yours. I promised you that I was.”
“It was a safe promise. One that had a magic loophole. I don’t want that anymore. I want the real deal. The license, the papers, the signatures on the dotted line.”
Her pupils went wide.
He rushed on. He was in it. There was no turning back. The vortex was right there, ready to swallow him whole. Might as well take a knee to go along with it.
“Get up,” she whispered.
He shook his head, on one knee in front of her, her hand still in his. “Will you marry me, Margo Reece?”
33
Margo
Margo’s breath caught. Of all the things she’d been expecting tonight this was bottom one hundred. Hell, bottom one thousand.
Her mind was utterly blank and an entire ocean was roaring in her head.
This man w
as everything to her. The first thing she wanted to breathe in every morning, the last touch she reached for before she fell asleep. The nights he wasn’t with her she couldn’t sleep. Half the time she found herself out on the couch with George curled behind her neck.
Neither of them liked the nights he was gone.
She’d made her promises to him in Paris. They were forever promises in her heart, but the words stuck in her throat.
Yes.
Wife.
Bound.
To him.
For all time.
He was the only one that fit her in every way possible. Mentally, physically, spiritually—there was only one man.
Simon Kagan.
This man.
“You ask this of me, and you better believe that you’re not going anywhere.” Her voice shook, so she cleared her throat. “No second chances. There’s no divorce here. There’s no other woman on this planet but me. If you can make that promise right here and right now, I’ll—”
He stood up and grasped her shoulders, then slid up to cup her face. “There couldn’t be another woman.”
“You say that now…”
He shook her. “I’m not your father.”
Her teeth snapped together. She gazed into his silvery blue eyes. Really looked—no teasing glints, no flirtation, no mockery. His eyes blazed with intent.
It was a little frightening.
“I’m not lying when I said it’s always been you. When you’re old and gray, I’ll still be chasing you around the bed. I might need a cane, but it’ll just be a useful tool to hook your arm or something. I’ll drag you back to me kicking and screaming Viagra flooding my veins.”
She laughed and his face blurred with tears that wouldn’t stop flowing no matter how much she blinked them away. “Why now?”
“Do you have any idea how hard it is to introduce you? I want to scream to everyone that your mine.”
“I am yours.” She curled her fingers around his wrists. “I’ve been yours.”
“I want to say wife and mean it. Not to trip over the words.”
She shook her head. “They’re just words.”
“Then it won’t matter if we put a license behind them.”
She blew out a shaky breath. The fear was so stupid. She was married to him in every way except this one detail. “You’re right.”
“Of course I am.”
“Please don’t make me call you an asshole three minutes after I say yes.”
“Well, fucking say yes. You’re killing me here.”
The waterworks started again. “Yes. Yes, I’ll marry you.”
His chest expanded and he sucked in a breath. “It’s not good to do that to a man you know.”
“It’s character building.”
“I’ve had all the character building that a person can stand this month, but thanks.”
She wrapped her arms around his waist. “I suppose that’s true.” She tipped her head. “Speaking of…you don’t have enough to deal with, you wanted to add proposal to the list?”
“I have you, so the rest I can deal with.”
Unprepared for such a sincere response, she tipped her head back. Was there any way to keep the tears from rolling down her cheeks? What the hell had gotten into him? She sniffed. “You sure do.”
He brushed away her tears. “Good. Now, I’m going to bring you upstairs and seduce the hell out of you.”
“Is that right?”
He stepped back. “Damn right.” He swung her up in his arms.
“Simon!”
“Don’t kill the moment here, woman. I’m being romantic.”
She hooked her arm around his neck. “Okay, go ahead. Romantic away. But if you fall down those stairs with me in your arms, I’m going to kill you.”
He shifted her until she was comfortably clasped in his arms. His very strong arms, actually. Yay for workouts. She was shallow enough to enjoy the side benefits of him taking his frustrations out in the gym.
“I’ve got you.”
She cupped his jaw and brought his lips to hers for a gentle kiss. A kiss filled with more happiness than she thought was possible. “Yeah you do.” She kicked one foot up. “Onward!”
He strode back into the music room. “Turn that off for me?”
She leaned over and lifted the needle off the record. They’d reached the end of the album. She swiped the lever to stop the turntable. “I was wondering why you put Journey on.”
He shrugged. “You remember why, right?”
“We’ve covered many of their songs over the years.”
“The bar.”
She frowned. “The bar?”
“The bar that you were playing at in Boston.”
Her eyebrows shot up. The night that they’d played together for the first time in forever. The night that she’d first freed the wild streak that Simon helped cultivate inside of her.
She felt the flush climb her neck. “Oh, I remember the bar.”
“Wanna find a wall and reenact?”
She laughed. “I don’t think we can find a brick wall in here.”
“Come on, improvise.”
“It is what we do.”
“Damn right.” He turned with her and angled them both through the doorway to the living room, then up the stairs. Shockingly, he didn’t even break a sweat or grunt with her weight.
Smart man.
She muffled a laugh as they got to the landing. No need to wake up the various kids in the house. She pressed her lips to the space behind his ear. The one that she knew drove Simon as wild as it did for her.
He growled as he let her slide down his body just outside their door. His voracious mouth was on hers before they could get it closed behind them.
He pinned her to the door, her hands above her head, his knee between hers. “You really going to marry me?”
She nodded, her heart racing. “Sure am.”
“Just checking.” He crossed her wrists with one hand, and flicked open tie at her hip with his other. The cashmere dress slid open to his hot gaze. “Christ, you are the most mind-bendingly gorgeous woman on the planet.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to negate that statement. Her hips were too big, and she yo-yo’d up and down in her weight dependent on her stress levels. But to Simon she knew she was perfect.
And it was time for her to believe it.
The love in his eyes wouldn’t be denied.
“Show me.”
He tugged away the inside tie to her wrap-around-dress. The ultra-soft wool opened like an oversized sweater leaving her in a simple bra and panties. She didn’t really have ugly lingerie thanks to Simon’s voracious appetite for such things.
But this was as simple as she had.
The pearl gray satin and lace hugged her skin. He tucked his hand into the waistband of her panties. Those long, clever fingers slipped inside of her with just as much ease as he’d undressed her.
He knew her body. He owned her body. She didn’t have any doubts about this part of them.
For tonight, all her doubts slipped away like the lace that dropped around her heels.
He crowded into her her, his eyes never leaving hers as he pushed her over the first peak effortlessly. She wanted to scream out her pleasure, but the house was quiet.
Just like that night outside the bar, she had to swallow down the flashing passion, and thunderous reverberation of groans that swelled between them.
He covered her mouth when the next orgasm slammed into her suddenly. He let her hands go. “Don’t move,” he whispered against her mouth.
She gripped the hook on the back of the door, stretching herself taller. “Please. Hurry.”
The clink of his buckle and the metallic clicks of his button fly jeans were maddening.
“Hurry.”
“Patience, Violin Girl.”
The echoes of the past transposed over this moment. In her mind’s eye the door became that hard brick. He’d admonished her then. But i
nstead of anger and heated passion, there was just the intensity that they always brought out in each other.
No anger.
All love and driving passion.
She hooked her leg around his waist and hissed as his cock bumped against her hood. She rolled her hips, wanting to coat him with the proof of how easily he could make her come.
She should be ashamed, but all she could be was thankful. That the love matched their passion so completely.
All the crap she’d been through brought them to this. Brought him to her in this moment where she could actually say yes to him. Not out of duty, or guilt—but because there was simply no other man on this earth for her.
And no other woman for him.
He groaned as he slid inside of her. Her head thumped back against the door. “God, yes.”
“Simon, yes,” he growled against her neck.
“Simon,” she panted out on a broken plea. She rose onto her toes, gripping him even more forcefully with her other leg, until there was no air between them. Him inside of her so completely that breathing wasn’t an option.
Only the friction that they created.
Only the passion that consumed them.
Only the love that defined them.
She curled her arms around him and took each punishing thrust until her heart was hammering as fast as his against her chest. Until he jerked against her and there was nothing but the blessed warmth of his release, and the soft swell of her own in response.
Simon.
Forever hers.
34
Simon
Simon stared out the wide picture window on Sunday morning. They’d had a productive day in the studio and had laid down two tracks. One of them was what he hoped to be the title track for the album.
“Return to Oblivion” felt right. He and Jazz had hammered out the specifics of the lyrics and Gray had tightened them up. Miracle of miracles they got the track down.
Then Margo had stepped in with Logan and had created an arrangement that was so much more.
The test would be bringing it to Nick.
After walking out of the studio Thursday morning he had a lot of explaining to do. The change of venue was definitely part of what he’d needed.
