“I’ll be upstairs,” she purred, “working on that welcome song for the boys.”
She didn’t mean his boys. She meant for the Buzzards. Flint scowled at this hitch in his plans. “I don’t have time to help you write a song.”
It was bad enough suffering through the ignominy of calling up all his old friends and begging them to participate in the concert. It was hell telling everyone he wasn’t available for backup. It would be pure damned torture to help Jo write her ticket out of here. He’d been avoiding her place for more reasons than his kids.
“I only need a little inspiration,” she murmured. Releasing his arm, she stroked his thigh just as the rest of the crowd stood up and cheered.
A part of Flint stood up and cheered with them, and it had nothing to do with the mayor’s call to arms.
As Joella disappeared into the talking, excited crush of people exiting his back room, Flint focused on getting his kids out of here and up the road.
He didn’t have music or business on his mind as he rushed them out the door.
***
Nervously, Jo tucked a stray curl behind her ear and returned to tuning her guitar. Flint had provided her with the sheet music he’d composed for her lyrics. She’d been practicing every chance she had—which was a lot more empty time than she wanted.
He had been so stone-faced and inaccessible these past weeks that she’d backed off to regroup. Everyone was caught up in the excitement of the concert, and multi-tasking had become a way of life. So it wasn’t as if Flint was avoiding her. Or vice versa. They were just overwhelmed and avoiding potential pain.
She understood that. She was as guilty as he was of looking for excuses to steer clear of confrontation. She hadn’t agreed to the record company’s cash settlement yet. Her family had another few weeks before money ran out. Elise said it was good to make the record executives sweat. If Jo decided to sue instead of settle, the bad publicity might sink the album, so it was better to wait for the album’s release to bring in money first.
She simply couldn’t stand the frustration any longer. Working side-by-side with Flint five, sometimes six, days a week, finishing each other’s sentences, handing each other the needed tool without asking, laughing and joking together, was just too damned intimate. She was a horny nest of nerves, lust, and uncertainty. She despised uncertainty. She couldn’t see love and marriage in their future, so what in heck did they have?
They could at least work out the sex part before they set the café on fire. Or the church. Or any other place they came in contact, which was just about the whole town. She’d even run into Flint at the supply store, and it was a wonder they hadn’t found a cleaning closet and just had at it that day. Who knew that nails were such a turn on?
The phone rang, but she continued practicing a chord Flint had written for one of her funnier lines. She loved what he had done with her lyrics. She could actually think of them that way now, as lyrics. Not ditties or silly poems, but real songs. She owed him for that. It was because of him that she was brave enough to consider holding out for copyright and not just cash.
The band hit a practice note in the room below. They usually didn’t start until seven, but they were scared stiff about playing backup for some of the biggest groups in the country. Even Flint had been infected by the Buzzards’ fear and had helped them out a bit. She hoped he wasn’t down there now, ignoring her invitation.
The answering machine kicked in and Amy left a message about selling pillows at the concert and another about Friday night’s menu. The dinner meals on weekends had been working out well. Flint had paid off part of the new oven, but he still wouldn’t order an espresso machine. Jo couldn’t blame him. It was far better that he was paying Amy for her efforts.
She heard the tread of heavy boots on her stairs and hastily checked her breath and smoothed her hair. Bare feet tucked under her, she called a cheery greeting at the knock on her door. She prayed she didn’t look as nervous as she felt. She wasn’t used to being nervous around men.
Flynn Clinton was more man than she’d ever known, in more ways than just the physical. But it was the physical setting her heart racing now.
He entered looking all Johnny Cash broody in his black T-shirt and jeans, with a hank of hair falling in his face. He carried a pint canning jar containing roses he’d stolen from someone’s garden. He didn’t smile when he saw her, just closed the door behind him and approached the couch with a look that boiled the July-steamy air.
“No song writing,” he insisted, taking the cushion next to her and replacing the guitar on her coffee table with the bouquet.
Jo swallowed at the sight of the gorgeous colors of the roses—yellow and orange and pink and even a lovely silver-purple. Just the rich perfume made her stomach go all weak. He was courting her, in his own inimitable way. Not with fancy jewelry or expensive florist bouquets, but with flowers he’d hand-picked with her love of color in mind.
“I’ve been practicing your songs,” she said breathlessly, eyeing the flowers but focusing on her words. “I have a lot to learn, but the way you put together notes that fit right in with what I was trying to say—” She halted for breath at the lift of Flint’s dark eyebrows but managed to continue. “You can’t give up music!” she cried.
There, she’d said it. The words had been bubbling in her for so long that she couldn’t contain them any longer. If he could keep writing songs, playing… Maybe they could form some future together. There, she’d let that hope out of the bag.
“I can and I have,” he said, firmly dismissing her hopes. “My kids come first.”
She had to give him credit for not offering to ride out of here on her dreams. He could be wooing her into dropping the lawsuit, and she’d probably be dumb enough to cave. Instead, he was helping her fight Randy and ruining his own future in the process.
Without further discussion, Flint wrapped an arm around her shoulders and dragged her toward him, showing her exactly why he had come here.
Hot, deep, and hungry, Flint’s kiss scorched clear to Jo’s toes. She forgot all her carefully prepared speeches, all her brilliant insights, all her impassioned pleas. She forgot everything except the way Flint’s mouth belonged on hers, her hands belonged in his hair, and their tongues were meant to stroke.
He had her sprawled against the sofa cushions under him before she could remember if this was even what she wanted.
“You smell better than Amy’s muffins,” he declared, taking time from her bruised lips to sip at her earlobe and nibble her neck. “I’ve been wanting to take a bite out of you for hours. Days.”
He had his hand up her shirt and cupping her breast as he said it, and Jo took his flattery for the sweetest love song she’d ever heard. “You smell like fried onions and mint Listerine,” she laughed as he nuzzled the base of her throat. “Mama must have fed you.”
“I’m trying to seduce you, if you don’t mind,” he growled, unhooking her bra front. “No kids or parents are allowed in our heads right now.”
“Can’t be avoided,” she murmured, tugging his shirt loose of his jeans and rubbing her palms up his hard abdomen, thrilling at the rough texture of hair over hard, hot flesh. “Life is about family. Sex is about family.”
Flint halted his depredations to rise up on one arm and stare down at her with a concerned expression. “Are you trying to tell me you’re pregnant?”
The anxiety reflected on his strong masculine features caused Jo to chuckle and smooth his forehead. “Hardly. I’m not that kind of girl,” she teased.
Instead of looking relieved, he frowned. “It would be simpler if you were.”
Before she could question, Flint lifted her from the sofa pillow and drew her tank top over her head, flinging it toward the guitar. When he fastened his mouth on her breast and sucked, Jo forgot what she wanted to ask. All confusion fled beneath a wave of desire.
He rearranged their positions so her backside was against the sofa and he was on his side facing her.
He used both hands to push her breasts together and lap at them alternately. “You’re so real,” he said between strokes. “I need you to keep me grounded.”
She’d heard better praise, but Flint’s words were far more honest than the fancy lies others had told her. “Grounded” spoke of connections and commitments and all those things she craved and never had. She feared she couldn’t have them now, but that fear was lost in the power of the moment.
“Ground me then,” she muttered, fumbling for his belt buckle. “Ground me before I explode like one of Amy’s light bulbs.”
Flint laughed and kissed her hard, sliding his hand inside the waistband he’d loosened. “My thought exactly. Plug me in before we both burn up.”
He tugged off her shorts and panties, pushing them down to her knees so she could kick them off while he unzipped. When they were both naked, he stopped, propping himself on tendoned forearms above her, his eyes glowing with appreciation while he studied her supine position.
Jo had to remember to breathe beneath that heated gaze.
“We haven’t got all night, but I want to make this last,” Flint said, catching her by surprise. “No matter what we do or where we are in the future, I want this to be something we can remember in our old age.”
As if she could ever forget the rugged shoulders and chest swelling over her. A band of hair nearly hid the tattoo of a guitar on his pecs. The same band of hair ran down the flat line of his abdomen to the nest of curls at the juncture of his thighs. Jo swallowed hard as she contemplated the full length of Flint in all his male glory. That was a picture she would remember for the rest of her days.
“Dance with me,” she said, utterly astonished as the words fell off her tongue. She’d been thinking of Flint and music and sex so hard, they’d all run together.
He looked startled, then glee lit the darkness that had shadowed his eyes earlier. “That’ll work.”
In one athletic movement he was on his feet and padding across the floor to her stereo. Without checking the contents of the CD player, he hit the power button, and a Barn Boys tune roared from the speakers.
“Your favorite song,” he remembered.
Jo scrambled up from the couch before he could touch the switch. “You wrote it,” she said. “I checked the label.” She stepped in front of him, not shy of her nakedness, despite the spotlight of his appreciative gaze.
“I had too many words in my head and no other way to say them,” he admitted. “Let’s dance.” He pulled her into his arms rather than say more.
It was the most erotic dance of Jo’s life, and she figured she’d remember it to the grave and beyond. Flint wasn’t afraid to use his body to woo and seduce. He swung her to the beat of the song, then pulled her back against his chest, rubbing his muscled arm across her breasts while he pushed his arousal against her backside. He made her feel as if the body she’d been given was a gift made just for him, and not an asset to be exploited.
He swung her away on the next verse, and Jo raised her hands to display all her assets the way he liked. She loved the way his delight lifted every crease in his face and sparkled his eyes with pure male pleasure. He caught her shoulders and moved her across the floor in time to the music, swaying hip and waist in a seductive call more potent than foreplay.
By the time the song ended and the next began, Flint had literally danced her into a corner. Jo bumped into the piano keys, and bass notes rang in tune to their bare-assed dance. She held his neck tighter to keep from imprinting the G chord on her backside, and he leaned into her in a tongue-taming kiss that melted all her synapses.
Flint lowered his head to lap at her breasts, and Jo propped her hands behind her to keep from tumbling over. The keys crashed in discordant counterpoint to her ecstasy.
Between them, they played a tune that old piano had never known.
Flint lifted her to snap the lid closed over the keys. Jo jumped, then squealed when he raised her from the floor. He slid the cushion from the piano bench beneath her, and set her on it in a single movement.
“Perfect,” he murmured, returning to their kiss now that she was seated at a height equal to his.
The ancient upright piano was perfect in other ways, Jo soon discovered when Flint stepped between her legs.
“Flint, you can’t—”
But he could. Holding her by the waist so she couldn’t fall off, spreading her thighs with his hips, watching her expression as he did so, he slowly slid inside her.
Jo couldn’t tear her gaze from Flint as he claimed her. Dark fires burned behind his eyes, and his skin stretched taut with self control while she adjusted to his intrusion.
The cushion shielded her bottom and thighs. The hard edges of the upright branded her spine. And Flint burned a passage straight to her core. The pressure that had been building for weeks reached the point of explosion and strained for release. Whimpering, Jo pushed for more.
“Now,” he murmured, thumbing her breast in time to the thundering rhythm of the CD player. Lifting her, he brought her down on him, until she clung to his shoulders and wrapped her legs around his back and his front was plastered to hers.
He pumped inside her once, twice, hitting sensitive nerve endings in a grinding rhythm until the heat and pressure exploded in a tumult of song and waves of release. She screamed into his ear and dug her fingers into his skin and fell apart in his arms.
“My turn,” he whispered relentlessly.
Throwing the cushion to the floor, he lifted her from the piano and laid her down, propped up her hips, and kneeled over her. Jo clung to his arms as he gave into the bass beat, thrusting and pounding until she climaxed again. Shedding his control, Flint threw back his head and roared his release.
She wanted to say Wow, but her tongue wasn’t connected to her head. The only connection she recognized was the one between them, and not just the hot and heavy one between her legs. A fine bond wrapped around them, invisible and unbreakable, a thread of bone deep understanding that they’d forged together in this moment, more durable than any the mill had ever produced.
Still holding his weight off her so he didn’t crush her into the floor, Flint pressed his forehead to hers. He didn’t say a word. Jo heard him anyway. This had to be love. She’d had sex with other men, and they’d used her and walked away. Flint asked for nothing except what she wanted to give. Whatever had happened here was large and scary, and she didn’t know how to handle it.
He wasn’t any more certain than she was. They danced some more after they recovered. They shared drinks. They talked of the mill and the concert and his sons. Flint even helped her write down the notes to the song they’d created together.
They didn’t talk of the insurmountable objects between them or make love again. The aura of their connection held them in its glow, and Jo feared tarnishing its shine.
Tomorrow, she would return to the real world, the one where Flint was losing everything he owned, and she had the power to build her future on the ruin of his.
A tear slid down Jo’s cheek as he dressed, and she wrapped in a robe to say good-bye. Flint pressed a kiss to her brow and ignored the moisture in her eye.
“One day at a time,” he murmured. “That’s all there is.”
She nodded and watched him go. Holding the terry cloth around her, she broke into a torrent of tears when she heard him talking to one of the guys in the band below.
She knew better than to love another music man. She really did. But her soul cried out for the rhythm of Flint’s, and she couldn’t stop herself. Even though he made no promises, he carried what little remained of her heart.
Twenty-six
“I’m storing the pillows in the family room for now.” Amy led Jo and Flint through her house to the slate-floored room currently buried in stacks of mill products. “I’ve wrapped them with tarps to keep the kids from bouncing on them. I don’t know how we’ll get all of them down to the tent at the mill.”
“There are enough pickup trucks around
here to haul them if you’ve got tarps,” Flint suggested. “What are those things?” He nodded at a stack of colorful fabrics covering the early American settle she’d refinished in its original maple color.
“Ina is trying her hand at making slipcovers,” Jo replied for her. “The elastic is kind of expensive though.” Jo opened one up for Flint to see, draping it provocatively over her shoulder as if it were a lacy gown.
Anyone with half a mind could see that Jo had fallen for her charismatic boss. And Amy suspected behind the neutral mask he wore so well that Flint was having a tough time dealing with his place in Jo’s life. But she wasn’t taking care of her baby sister anymore. She had her own life to hold together.
“I think the quilts will sell better, but they take forever to make. We just don’t have enough time between now and next week.” Amy lifted a blue plastic tarp to distract Flint from Jo’s performance and show him the items the former mill workers were frantically putting together as their contribution to the town’s coffers. She was proud of the miracles wreaked from the damaged fabrics, but the future still looked bleak from her perspective. Her rose-colored glasses had been smashed and ground into dirt.
Flint whistled in appreciation, and Amy smiled politely for the benefit of her guests. Before either of them could comment, the front door slammed open.
“Uh oh, I didn’t lock it behind me.” Amy clenched the tarp until she feared her fingernails would shred it. She’d had the locks changed after her last meeting with Elise so Evan couldn’t walk in on her anytime he liked. She’d never seen him pitch such a fit as he had the day he discovered the locks and had to come looking for her when he thought he’d sneak in and pack his suitcase. She had wanted to feel triumphant at winning a battle, but she hadn’t. Since then, he’d only communicated with her through his lawyer.
She knew what this invasion was about though. The bank had called yesterday to tell her the account didn’t have funds to cover a large check Evan had written.
“Amaranth!” he roared furiously from the foyer. “Where are you?”
Small Town Girl Page 26
