American Diva

by Julia London

  “Then where are you?” Lucas asked, his voice full of suspicion.

  “At Dad’s,” she said, and turned away from Jack’s gaze.

  Lucas didn’t speak for a moment. “You’re at Gene’s?” he said, his voice less accusatory.

  “Yep. With him and his new girlfriend. She’s younger than I am.”

  “Oh hell,” Lucas said. “So where is Muscle Man?”

  “Ahh . . .” Audrey squeezed her eyes shut. “Ah . . . not sure. He’s around somewhere. I don’t know.”

  That seemed to satisfy Lucas. “I needed to talk to you,” he said, moving on without asking about Allen or Gail, or her, for that matter. “I have agreed to add a few tour dates—”

  “What?” she exclaimed, opening her eyes.

  “Audrey, listen. Your single has been number one for a month now. Your album just went platinum. We are sold out in every venue, and your business and talent manager and I think that it’s worth the expense of adding a couple of extra nights to the schedule.”

  “But I have to be in the studio in two months and I have written exactly two songs, Lucas. I need time to write.”

  “We’ll find the time. But right now, I think this is what we need to do.”

  “I don’t!”

  “Audrey,” he said sternly, “let’s please not argue about this right now, all right? Do you think it’s easy holding down the fort while you’re off dealing with Allen’s shit? I just wish you would let me manage our career like we agreed without giving me grief every time I make a decision.”

  “So I’m not allowed to at least have a say in it?”

  “Oh God,” Lucas groaned. “Go have a cocktail or fifty with your family and I’ll talk to you when you get back.” And he hung up.

  He hung up on her. Audrey’s jaw dropped. She stood frozen for a moment, staring at the faded carpet.

  “Is something wrong?” Jack asked.

  Everything was wrong. Her life was wrong. “I just . . .” She just what? She just wanted something, something she couldn’t name. She turned around and looked at Jack, tossing the phone onto a chair. He was leaning up against the bar, propped on one arm. His gaze followed the phone then shifted back to her.

  “You just what, starlight?”

  Audrey bit her lip. “Lucas added some tour dates,” she said quietly. “He didn’t ask me, he just did it.”

  “Cancel if you don’t want to do them,” Jack said.

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  Because she had handed so much of her life over to Lucas, that she didn’t know how to cancel tour dates, didn’t know how it worked or what it would mean or even who to call. She felt helpless. “Because . . . because I really don’t know anything anymore, other than I want . . .” Goddammit, tears were filling her eyes again.

  “Audrey,” he said, his voice full of concern. He was moving away from the bar, toward her.

  “I want you.”

  The words spilled out of her from a place she didn’t even know she could tap. She reached for Jack, but he was there before her, taking her in his arms, holding her tightly to him. “I don’t want to want you, but I do! And it’s getting worse, Jack. I can’t think of anything but you, I can’t seem to feel anyone but you.” As the words came out of her mouth, a fleeting panic swiped through her as she realized what she was doing, and she instinctively put one hand against his chest, pushing lightly. “Oh God help me, I am so going to hell—”

  “No,” he said, covering her hand on his chest and holding it there. “Don’t. I want you, too . . . in the worst way,” he said, and lowered his head to kiss her, his mouth moving hungrily on hers, his tongue tangling with hers.

  She could feel her body heat through her dress, could feel her blood rushing to the surface. He touched her hair with his hand, caressing it, then moving to her face, angling her head up to his. She felt herself passing the point of no return, surrendering her heart to him.

  Jack groaned deep in his throat and moved his hands down her body, over her shoulders, to the sides of her breasts, cupping them, squeezing them, then down her ribs, to her waist and her hips, lifting her and pressing her against his erection.

  His mouth moved to her jaw, and he trailed a path with his tongue to the hollow of her throat, then down to kiss the crevice between her breasts. He slid farther down her body. She could feel his mouth, wet and warm through the fabric of her dress, burning her skin beneath. He slipped his arms around her waist, lifting her off her feet as he kissed her, twirling her around so that the backs of her legs were up against the couch.

  He put his hand on her thigh and lifted his head. His eyes, as blue as a hot summer sky, were glowing. “I want to make love to you,” he said as his hand slipped beneath the hem of her dress, sliding up her bare thigh to the thin strap of underwear that rode over her hip bone. “I want to fill you up and take away the loneliness.”

  No one had ever said anything as sexy to her. “Oh, Jack,” she murmured, and took his head in her hands, nipping at his lips.

  He caught her mouth with his and slipped his thumbs beneath the straps of her dress and slowly pushed them from her shoulders.

  The dress slid from her body, drifting down to a pool at her feet. Beneath it, she was wearing nothing but a thong. Jack drew a steadying breath as his fingers skated over the breasts, tweaking her hardened nipples before sliding down to her waist. He turned her around, taking in the entire view of her.

  “Damn, you’re beautiful.”

  When he turned her around again, Audrey put her hands on his shirt and quickly ran down the row of buttons. Jack shrugged out of the shirt, and tossed it aside as Audrey ran her hands over his thick shoulders and pecs, and down his belly to his hips. She glanced up at him as she slipped her hand into the waistband of his shorts and unbuttoned them.

  Jack gave her a demonic, hot-blooded smile. His erection was straining against the fabric of his shorts, but he grabbed her hand, pulled it away from their bodies while he slipped his other hand into the waist of her panties. “Uh-uh,” he said with a wink. “You first.”

  He moved his hand to the swell between her legs, palming her. When Audrey drew a shaky breath, Jack chuckled wickedly and slipped his fingers into her slit.

  She gripped his arm. “Are you particularly fond of these panties?” he asked. She shook her head. With a wolfish grin, he suddenly snapped the elastic and tossed them away. Now she stood before him completely bare, except for her recent Brazilian wax job. Jack’s eyes greedily took her in before he pushed her down on the couch. When Audrey reached for him, he pushed her again, so that she was slouched against the back.

  “Just sit back,” he said, and moved between her legs. His tongue darted into her belly button before he painted a line down to the top of her sex. Audrey’s breath was coming quicker; her hands gripped her thighs as he slowly pushed her legs apart and used his thumbs to spread her open. He dipped his head, teasing her with the tip of his tongue and his breath.

  “Ah God,” she whispered.

  He smiled at her. “I’m going to make you come like you’ve never come before,” he promised, and dipped his head again, this time plunging his tongue deep into the folds of her flesh.

  Audrey gasped as he nipped and sucked the kernel of her desire, two fingers moving deep inside her. She bucked against him, making mewling sounds of pleasure as Jack licked her to oblivion. And when she came, she cried out, arching her back, pressing into him.

  He waited until she had come down from her high before sitting back on his heels. Spent, Audrey touched her fingers to his shoulder. He caught her hand and kissed it. “Jack. That was . . . that was unreal.”

  He laughed as he stood up and pushed his shorts down. His engorged penis sprung free, and he took it in hand, stroking it almost thoughtfully as he looked down at her, sprawled on the couch. “You know what, sweet cheeks?”

  She shook her head.

  He grinned. “I think I can make you come again.”

&
nbsp; She smiled and pushed herself up. “I don’t know,” she said as she reached for his sinewy thigh and pulled him close, so that she was eye level with his cock. “I think it’s your turn.”

  He groaned as she removed his hand and closed her mouth around the tip of him. He caressed her head, moving slowly into her mouth and out again as she teased him with her lips and her tongue.

  For Jack, her mouth forced him to exercise a Goliath-like restraint. He wanted to take her then and there, plunge into her, and fuck her with the strength of ten men. She teased his body to a precipice and he wanted to leap, to fall headlong into that sea of pleasure. He wanted it . . . but he wasn’t quite through giving her pleasure.

  He eased her back, put his hand under her chin. “Stand up,” he said, holding out his hand to her. Audrey stood, slipping her arms around him. Her skin was baby soft and hot against his skin. He loved the way she smelled—a mix of sweet perfume and the arousing smell of a woman well satisfied.

  He kissed her, then turned her around and pressed his erection against her.

  “Do we have birth control?” he asked.

  “Pill,” Audrey panted.

  “Good,” he said, and reached for her breasts, kneading and tweaking them as she moved against his erection. “Remember what I said?” he asked softly.

  She leaned her head against his shoulders as he kneaded her breasts. “Ummm.”

  “I’m going to make you come again,” he uttered, working to keep from coming himself, and buried his face in her neck. He moved one arm to her waist, and with the other, he gently bent her over the couch. He moved a thigh between her legs and spread them apart, and with one hand on her breast, the other sliding down to her clitoris, he slowly pushed into her from behind.

  He sank into heaven. Audrey groaned, lifting her hips to him as he stroked her, sliding into her warm depths, then slowly moving out again. Then sliding into heaven all over again.

  He continued to lengthen inside her while he stroked her with his hand, swirling around the tip of her pleasure. Audrey moved against him, drawing him closer and closer to the edge of a monstrous release. Her body squeezed around him, pulling him in, and just as Audrey let out a sob of pleasure and her body convulsed around his flesh, he came with full force, shuddering to an end.

  They were both panting; Jack slipped his arm around her waist and maneuvered them onto the couch without dislodging to lay on their side. As he stroked her arm, he marveled that he’d never made love quite like that, had never felt such an explosion of joy and tenderness all at once.

  Maybe she felt the same way, for when his body slid from hers, she twisted about on the couch and slipped her arms around his waist before burying her face in his neck.

  Sometime in the night, Jack awoke, stiff from sleeping on the couch. He picked a mumbling Audrey up in his arms and carried her back to one of the bedrooms. And when he lay her on the bed, she reached for him again, her mouth closing around his nipple, her hands sliding down to his cock.

  They made slow, easy love. What they had to say to one another they said with their bodies and their hands. And when they’d both found fulfillment again, and Audrey had drifted into sleep with her lips curved into a dimpled smile, Jack had a crazy thought.

  Maybe this could work. Maybe, just maybe, she would come to love him, too.

  Twenty-three

  Seeing Audrey asleep in his bed the next morning had a profound effect on Jack. He recognized all the tender feelings of being in love.

  He woke Audrey with his hands and his mouth, and when they had given in to desire again, he kicked her out of bed with the playful admonishment to hurry—they had a long drive and a long flight ahead of them. Only then did Audrey notice the time, and with a squeal, she began shoving their loose things into their bags.

  On the drive to the airport, they held hands. Audrey told him about a song she had written about growing up in Redhill and sang it to him. He told her it was beautiful, told her that he sincerely hoped one day she would do some of her old music because it was so stirring. Audrey was ridiculously pleased by the compliment and decided then and there to finish writing the song.

  During the flight back to Nashville, she sat in the cockpit with him and made him tell her about his work in Hollywood. Neither of them addressed what had happened between them or what it meant, or where it might take them. Jack was content, like her, apparently, to bask in the lightness of new love, laughing and smiling and enjoying the moment that he knew would evaporate as soon as they landed.

  Audrey was having the same incredible feelings for Jack, but in the back of her mind was a little worm of a thought that grew bigger and more insistent the nearer they came to Nashville: she had done the one thing she despised in others, the one thing she had believed she would never tolerate in a mate.

  And while she felt a tremendous amount of guilt and disappointment in herself at some level, she also felt something that surprised her: relief. Relief! She had at last admitted to herself as well as Jack what was in her heart. She was relieved she’d acknowledged—perhaps not in the most productive way—that her relationship with Lucas was over.

  It had been coming for a long time, but she had not been able to face it. Lucas was the first man who had been good to her. He’d taken an interest in her talent and her career, had helped guide it to where it was today. She wished she had ended it differently, she wished she’d done so many things differently, but she was relieved it was finally at an end.

  The hard part would be telling Lucas, of course, but she had to do it as soon as she could.

  They touched down around two, already late for rehearsal. On the tarmac, parked near the hangar, was a limo that Audrey was certain had been sent for her.

  As Jack powered the plane down, he smiled at her, but his eyes reflected the growing trepidation she felt inside her.

  “I’m just going to get my things,” Audrey said, gesturing to the back of the plane.

  He nodded, then ran his hand along her thigh and squeezed her knee. “I’ll be right there.”

  Audrey crawled out of the cockpit and walked to the back of the plane, where they had carelessly thrown their things in their haste to be on their way. As she tried to sort out their things—an impossible task, given how her mind was racing—Jack surprised her by stepping up behind her, slipping his hands around her waist, and drawing her into his chest as he kissed her neck.

  “I wish we didn’t have to get off this plane,” he murmured as his hands slid up to cup her breasts. “I wish I could fly you to the moon.”

  “What would we do on the moon?”

  “These seats fold down into beds.”

  Audrey smiled and turned in his embrace, slipping her arms around his neck. “The moon is going to have to wait, unfortunately. I have a show to do. A dozen of them, actually.”

  “Ten,” he corrected her. “Just ten.” And he cupped her jaw, kissing her.

  She returned his ardor tenfold until Jack at last lifted his head. He pushed her hair back from her face. “Audrey . . .” He smiled and gripped her hand. “I need to say this. I am crazy about you, sweet cheeks. I . . . I adore you. What happened between us was real.”

  She blushed. “I’ll say,” she said low, and kissed his chin. “I adore you, too, Jack.” And oh, she did, she truly adored him, everything about him, and the way he touched her and looked at her and spoke to her like she mattered to him.

  He smoothed his hand over her hair, his eyes moving over her face. “I think I’m falling in love with you,” he said quietly.

  “Really? I’ve already fallen.”

  He smiled, almost gratefully, she thought. “Then I guess the burning question is, where do we go from here?”

  “To the moon and beyond?”

  He smiled at her optimism. “I’m afraid we’ve got some complications with lift-off.”

  “Yeah,” she said, sighing. “I have to figure out how to end it,” she made herself say, finding it surprisingly difficult to say alou
d.

  “Today?” he asked hopefully.

  It was enough that she had to end it—to say when seemed impossible at the moment. Did she tell him the moment she saw him? Wait until after the show and then walk onto the bus to tell him with dozens of people outside the door of the tiny bedroom? And what would she say? “Great show, Lucas, and by the way, I am leaving you for Jack.”

  It was too overwhelming to think of, and she shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  His smiled faded. “Well . . . soon, I hope.”

  “As soon as I can. But Lucas and I have had a long relationship. I can’t just walk in and announce it’s over.”

  “Is there an easier way?” Jack asked.

  “No . . .” Her hands fell away from him. “But I have rehearsal and a show to do, and I have been with Lucas a very long time and he’s been good to me. It deserves more than a see-you-later.”

  Jack turned away from her. His expression had changed; he looked doubtful.

  “But I am going to do it,” she said, trying to reassure him.

  He looked at her. “I hope so, because I want to be with you, Audrey,” he said earnestly. “I can’t be near you and not be with you.”

  “Jack . . . I want to be with you, too.”

  “Are you absolutely sure?” he asked, his voice gone quietly rough. “If there is the slightest doubt, please tell me now.”

  She touched her fingers to his hand and looked in his eyes. “I’m sure.” He gazed at her a long moment. Audrey could feel her entire being churn with fear and dread and an overwhelming sense of love for Jack. It was a lethal mix, turning to acid in her gut.

  Jack’s jaw was clenched shut, as if he struggled to keep from speaking. “All right,” he said at last. “I understand. But I have to see you.”

  “I’ll do my best—”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “I have to see you.” He sighed, ran his hands through his hair, and turned a full circle. “Jesus, but I never meant for this to happen. I never believed myself to be the kind of guy to hook up with another man’s girlfriend.” He looked up, his gaze piercing her. “But neither can I deny that there is something about you, girl, something that slipped under my skin from the first time we met. I can’t walk away from what we’ve shared and pretend it didn’t happen. I can’t hear you tell me you want to be with me, too, and then wait for some magical moment.”