All He Feels - Dax & Ginny (Crossroads Book 11)

by Melanie Shawn

  She definitely didn’t have enough life experience to fill an album, but she could talk to people. Research. Ask them what their moment was. The moment they knew. She knew several couples in town and it was a small town, she was sure those couples knew other couples.

  Just like that the vision of her album, of her first music video crystalized in her mind like a ship coming into port through dense fog. It appeared hazy in the distance but then came closer and got bigger and clearer until it was docked right in front of her.

  Excitement raced through her veins because she knew that for the first time she wouldn’t be shut down by execs that thought she had “good ideas” but wanted to go in a “different direction.” Over the years she’d learned to read between the lines of statements like those. They wanted less artsy and more mainstream. Less creative and more commercial. Mainstream and commercial sold. They were proven commodities. Artsy and creative were not.

  She’d known that she’d felt stifled in her label contract and under Shane’s management before now, but what she hadn’t realized was how freeing and liberating it would be to get out from under those things. It was like a hundred pound weight was lifted off her, she felt so light and free.

  Grabbing her bra she placed her arms in the loops and clasped it behind her back before stepping first her left foot and then her right into her underwear and pulling them up her legs. When she got them on she realized that she’d left her body lotion in the bathroom and hadn’t put it on in her haste to get the lyrics down. She could skip that step in her morning routine, but her skin tended to get so dry in the winter that if she did chances were she’d suffer for it later.

  Without giving it a second thought she opened the bathroom door to retrieve her body lotion and gasped when she saw Dax standing in front of her in nothing but his birthday suit. For some reason, instead of apologizing and shutting the door to give him privacy she stood frozen in place, mouth agape, staring at him in all of his naked glory.

  Yesterday, when he’d answered the door wearing only a white towel around his waist, she was speechless at his male perfection. Today, she was speechless, thoughtless and motionless. She couldn’t form a thought to save her life. All she could do was stare.

  It was sad that at twenty-two this was the first naked male she’d seen up close and personal. In real life. In 3D. And what a 3D image he was. Now she knew how Emma Stone’s character in Crazy, Stupid, Love had felt when she’d seen Ryan Gosling’s character shirtless. Dax looked like every part of his body had been photoshopped. He was so tall. So masculine. So dominating. From his wide shoulders rounded with muscles, his broad chest, rippling abs, powerful thighs, to his large appendage between his legs that she couldn’t stop looking at and was growing right in front of her.

  “Did you forget something?” Dax’s voice snapped her out of her momentary mental freeze tag. “Or did you want to join me?”

  Her eyes shot to his, expecting to meet his stare. Instead she saw that his gaze was running up and down her body. That’s when she realized that she herself was pretty close to naked. The only problem was, her body did not look like a work of art. That spurred her into action.

  “Oh…sorry. Yes. I mean no.” She shook her head and stepped back. Fumbling slightly over her feet as she grabbed the doorknob to close it as she backed out of the bathroom. “I mean yes I forgot something, no I wasn’t going to join you. Sorry.”

  She shut the door so loudly it may have been characterized as a slam and stood staring at the white wood. The room was quiet except for the sound of her labored breathing. She was still trying to come to terms with the perfection that she’d just come face to body with when the door opened again and she jumped and gasped in surprise.

  With a calm air of authority and zero modesty or embarrassment at his nude state of undress, Dax casually asked, “Did you say you forgot something?”

  Ginny opened her mouth to speak, but at first nothing came out. She tried again and was able to force out, “Lotion. I forgot my lotion.”

  Turning to the side he reached across the counter and picked it up then cool as a cucumber (and as large as one too!) he handed it to her.

  “Thanks,” she croaked as her fingers brushed against his.

  “No problem.” He grinned, the grin that made her insides throw a party and go crazy, then he closed the door.

  As she stood, catching her breath she knew for a fact that she was very much out of her league. And she was pretty sure she loved it.

  Chapter 9

  Dax pulled into the employee parking lot behind The Plate and tried to shake the picture of Ginny in her thin cotton, see-through bra and underwear from his mind. But his memory was not like an Etch A Sketch, instead the image seemed to be seared into his subconscious. Branded into the landscape of his brain.

  Which he wouldn’t think was a problem except for the fact that his other head was reacting to it as well. He wasn’t at half chub. He was at full mast. Even after taking matters into his own hands in the shower he was still rock hard. It had taken him less than five strokes before he came so hard he’d seen stars. He was hoping it would take the edge off. It hadn’t.

  If anything, the temporary relief had only served as a primer. Like some kind of solo foreplay. He’d had to pull out his tightest boxer briefs just to keep himself pinned down. After putting on his jeans and thermal he’d added a hoodie that covered the area in question. At this point he was starting to think he would be spending the rest of the time Ginny was here in hoodies that concealed the weapon that she triggered.

  They hadn’t spoken about their bathroom run in at breakfast or on the way to the studio. He knew that he shouldn’t have opened the door to ask her what she’d forgotten, but he couldn’t help himself. He’d wanted, no needed to see her again.

  He’d been with sexy women. Women that made men drool. Women that made men fight. Women that made men lose themselves. He’d never gone that far. It wasn’t that he hadn’t appreciated their beauty, he had. He appreciated every single woman he’d ever been with. But, over time, with that appreciation came a certain amount of immunity to it. He’d grown desensitized to the point that he’d taken them for granted. He didn’t feel anything beyond physical desire when he saw a beautiful, naked woman.

  The second Ginny walked into the bathroom this morning she broke through all of that. He’d reacted to her differently than he had to any other woman. He felt her all the way down to his soul. She’d obliterated his indifference until he felt raw and exposed. Not physically. Yes, he’d been naked but it wasn’t about that. She’d made him feel emotionally bare. She’d done it with the seductive hourglass shape of her waist dipping into the flare of her hips. The mouthwatering curves of her full, heavy breasts. The outline of her round pink nipples and the patch of dark hair above her sex that was visible through the thin material of her underwear.

  The simple thin white cotton bra and panties that she’d had on were not what you’d find in a Victoria’s Secret catalog. But they were the sexiest thing he’d ever seen anyone wear. Seeing her in the thin cotton, her hair wet and falling around her glowing face that was scrubbed clean was a heady combination of provocative innocence.

  Seeing her had inspired every cave man instinct he’d never known he had. He felt things when he looked at her. He felt them not skin deep, not bone deep, he felt them all the way to the molecules that made up his DNA. He felt things on a cellular level. And he wasn’t sure how the hell he was going to deal with that for the time she was here. Because this was a temporary situation. She’d didn’t live here. They didn’t have a personal relationship, no matter what he felt.

  As he got out of his truck and made his way up the steps to the back entrance he couldn’t help but think about the night that he’d brought Ginny home the first time. He’d met her a few weeks earlier at the grand reopening and had wanted to talk to her that night. In fact, when he’d seen her he’d even said that he was going to marry her. But she’d left with her manager before
he’d gotten the chance to do any more than say hello.

  But as fate or destiny or chance would have it, Ace flew her back for his then-girlfriend now fiancée’s party a month later. Dax did not let that opportunity pass him by. He made sure he seized the day.

  He’d been the first person to greet her when she arrived and he’d been lucky enough to be the person she’d gone home with that night. She’d only come back to his house in the first place because she’d told him that she’d just bought a house and was disappointed that it was turnkey because she’d wanted to do some of the renovations herself. He’d told her that he’d just bought a craftsman that needed a ton of work and she’d wanted to see it.

  Now that he was thinking about it he realized that it wasn’t like they’d been flirting. They’d bonded over real estate.

  He unlocked the back door and on his way up the steps he ran into Stephanie.

  “Hey!” She smiled when she saw him. “I heard that Virginia Valentine is staying with you.”

  “You did?” Dax knew that Riley knew about Ginny’s arrival because Dax had been pulled off Riley’s team, but he didn’t know why Ace would have been told about his new assignment.

  “Yeah. Do you know how long she’s going to be in town?”

  “No. I don’t.” As much as he loved Stephanie—and he did, she was a doll and he couldn’t be happier for his friend to have found her—he couldn’t help but feel protective over Ginny. He didn’t like that people knew she was here. He knew it was a small town, but he’d been hoping that she might be able to fly under the radar for a little while. “How’d you know she was in town?”

  “My sister told me. She heard it from her friend Jules who works at the grocery store. Jules said that Virginia was shopping there yesterday and told her that she was in town working on her new album with Chase and that she was staying at your house.”

  As relieved as he was that the information hadn’t come from anyone that worked at Elite, he realized that now he had another problem. From what he knew about Stephanie’s sister Simone, she wasn’t one to keep a secret to herself. More like she was the godfather of the gossip mafia in Harper’s Crossing. Which meant there was a very good chance that half, if not all, the town now knew that Ginny was here working on an album with Chase and staying at Dax’s house.

  His shoulders immediately tensed. “Do you know if Simone told anyone else?”

  “I’m not sure.” Stephanie’s brow furrowed. “But I know Jules took a selfie with her and I’m pretty sure she Snapchatted with her too.”

  Shit. He hated social media and this was part of the reason. Information spread like wildfire and once it got ignited there was no way to contain it. He made a mental note to set a Google alert to his phone. That way he’d know what the world knew about Virginia Valentine.

  With this new information coming to light, he knew that it was a very good possibility that she was exposed. What the general public knew, the paparazzi knew. That upgraded her security status to CP or close protection. During the site assessment of Chase’s studio there was no risk detected, meaning that while she was there she was considered safe. But now that her location had been compromised he didn’t trust that there wouldn’t be a breech.

  Not wasting another moment, Dax turned and started back the way he came.

  “Is everything okay?” Stephanie’s concerned voice sounded behind him.

  “It’s fine. I have to go. Can you let Ace know I can’t make the meeting?” He didn’t wait for her response as he rushed out the back door and quickly made his way to his SUV and hopped in. As he started the engine he checked his phone and didn’t see any missed calls from Ginny or Chase. Chances were, everything was fine. But Dax didn’t take chances. He relied on facts. On certainty. The only way he’d be certain that she was safe was to see it with his own eyes.

  * * *

  “We’re getting there.” Chase Malone sat in front of his mixing table and played the track back that she’d just laid down. “The middle eight needs work. We can definitely tighten it up but I think we have the rest.”

  They’d been in this session for over six hours. She’d been in the sound booth for the last four and she was exhausted. Most of the producers that she’d worked with had her do several takes for safety, but Chase was different. He broke down eight counts. He isolated lines and tweaked separate syllables of single words. He was a perfectionist and she knew her album was going to be all the better for it.

  This was one of the many reasons that she’d wanted to work with him. Obviously his possible connection to her grandfather was another one. She still hadn’t gathered the nerve to ask him about the man in the picture with her dad, but she was pretty sure she was ready to broach another subject that she’d been apprehensive about. Not because she was scared of what his reaction might be, as Chase had been nothing but supportive. She thought that her hesitation stemmed from the fact that for the first time this album was going to be her. She’d always written and co-written her music, but it was always to fulfill someone else’s vision. This was her. For better or worse.

  Taking a deep breath she announced. “I have a new song that I think I want to be my first single.”

  Chase swiveled in his chair so that he was facing her.

  When he didn’t say anything, she continued, “Last night I had a moment and it inspired an idea. I don’t have a lot of personal experience in love and relationships but I know that’s what I want to explore. That’s the theme, the concept I want to build the album around. I think it is the most universal subject.”

  “It is,” Chase agreed.

  “So I was thinking maybe I could interview people that are in relationships and maybe even include snippets of the interviews in the music videos for the album. I want it to be a cohesive flow. And have a visual theme that connects each track. I started working on something that I think is the anchor this morning. I have the chorus and bridge.”

  She closed her eyes and let herself go back to last night on the couch. Then opening her mouth she started singing and gave herself over to the emotion that she’d felt last night.

  “If I could I would, I would live, live in the moment, the moment I knew, I knew it would always be you.

  “When you look at me, time stands still. My heart suspends, lost in the thrill. Your eyes hold me captive, a prisoner of desire. My body lights up, heated by your fire.

  “If I could I would, I would live, live in the moment, the moment I knew, I knew it would always be you.”

  When she opened her eyes she saw Chase staring at her and she immediately felt the need to defend herself. “I know it’s not traditional country, but—”

  “I’ve been working on a track that you have to hear,” Chase interrupted, not addressing her statement. “It’s for another artist, but you have to hear it,” he enthused as he started scrolling through a different pro tools session and clicked on a file named KBtrackthree.

  Music filled the studio and goosebumps rose on Ginny’s arms. It was eerie how the melody fit what she had written perfectly. Inspiration was bursting inside of her and when the music stopped playing she said, “Play it again.”

  He did and this time she began singing. Chase harmonized with her on the chorus. She freestyled a verse and grabbed her notebook to jot down what she’d come up with.

  They spent the next two hours writing, playing the music back, writing and playing the music back over and over. When they finished the second verse and put all the pieces together, Chase played the track back from the beginning and she sang what they’d created. She held the final note until the music ended. When it was over she sat back and they stared at each other. This was a moment, not like the one she’d shared with Dax, but it was significant. This was the moment that she lived for creatively. The moment that you know you’ve created magic.

  “Get in the booth. Let’s lay this down while it’s fresh.” Chase put his headphones on and started adjusting the levels.

  She’d been i
n this session for over eight hours but as she stood to go get the track down she felt energized. A buzz of excitement vibrated through her as she stood in front of the mic and inhaled deeply before giving herself over completely to the song. She didn’t just sing the words, she lived them.

  Unlike the first song they’d worked on, where she’d done take after take, when she finished the first run through Chase told her to come out of the booth. When she did he cued it up and they listened to it together. It was strange to share something so personal, but that was the music that resonated with people. That was the music that she loved as a fan and she knew her fans loved.

  “What do you think? Do you think it’s strong enough to be the first single?” First singles had so much riding on them. They either hooked people or not. A successful first single made the difference between the masses hearing your album or it ending up in the black hole of obscurity.

  Chase leaned back in his chair and ran his hands through his hair. “I think I need to make a phone call.”

  “A phone call?” Ginny repeated.

  “Yeah, to Karina Black. That was her song.”

  “Seriously? Karina Black…?” Ginny couldn’t believe it.

  She was a huge Karina Black fan. A few years back Karina, a pop star at the time, had totally changed her image. She’d transformed into this raw, real artist and songwriter. It was exactly what Ginny was trying to do now and Karina had pulled it off flawlessly.

  It had always been Ginny’s dream to work with Karina Black someday, but she’d never approached her because Shane had been Karina’s manager when she’d started out too and they had not parted on good terms. Every time she’d brought up her desire to contact Karina, to possibly collaborate, Shane had shot her down and painted Karina as a diva that was impossible to work with.

  The last thing she would ever want was for Karina Black to think that she’d stolen one of her songs. The music industry, whether it was pop, rock, country, R&B or rap was a small community. Crossovers happened all the time. Nelly and Tim McGraw. Jason Aldean and Ludacris. Snoop Dog and Willie Nelson. Aerosmith and Run DMC. Garth Brooks and KISS. Elton John and Eminem. The list went on and on.