A surprised look crossed her face. “What?”
“If we’re going to do this, I want you here for it.”
She blew out a breath, pointing to her breasts with both hands. “I’m here. Naked. Did you not notice?”
She was so angry, Taft realized. At him, for some reason. “Did I scare you?”
Lana jerked at the sheet below them, pulling it up around her. “Scare me? No way.”
He wouldn’t rise to the bait. “What’s wrong? Tell me.”
Lana tossed her head. “Apart from the fact that now I have blue balls? Nothing.”
They were big words, meant to shock him, Taft knew, but then Lana rubbed her nose roughly and Taft saw through the move to what it was – she was trying not to cry.
“Birdie.” The word came easily to his lips, and he opened his arms. “Come here.” He’d hold her for a while, and listen to her heartbeat slow. Then maybe they could try again. Or maybe they’d wait and she’d sleep, and then he’d make her coffee and pancakes in the morning when the sun flooded yellow through his dining-room windows.
She flopped onto her back instead, throwing off the sheet. “I’m just going to get myself off, that okay with you?”
She wasn’t really checking in with him, that was clear.
Taft lost his breath as she reached down between her legs. Her fingers – the ones he’d watched play her guitar so adroitly and emotionally on stage – did the same with her clit. She played her own body well, her back arching, her cheeks reddening. She turned her head to look at him, her eyes dark with lust. “You do it, too. You touch yourself. I want to watch.”
But Taft’d had just about enough of being ordered around in his own bed by a total stranger. “Nope.”
“Come on.”
He laughed. Her voice was imperious. This was a woman who took care of herself, who was used to getting her way. He loved it. “You’re so fucking hot, woman, but I’m just going to watch and there’s nothing you can do about that.” He slid down the bed so her body was flush against his. He could smell her: lightly floral with a slight musk of desire. His cock pressed against her hip, and with incredible effort, he restrained himself from pushing against her. He palmed her belly and felt the muscles contracting there as she continued to touch herself.
“Fine,” she growled. “Whatever.” She arched again and kept her eyes closed, her fingers thrumming faster.
Well, hell. She was already pissed off at him.
So he kissed her.
She gasped, but she didn’t draw away. Her mouth was soft – so much softer than he’d expected, and smaller, too. She tasted like tequila and something lightly minty. Taft had the feeling that he could kiss her for a year or seven without getting tired of the feeling. She breathed into his mouth and then kissed him back. Taft felt the bed lurch below him.
Her mouth was hot, so much hotter now. Her tongue met his and the kiss went deeper, harder. She challenged him and he responded. Her teeth clacked softly against his, and she gave a moan low in her throat that made him almost blind with desire. He’d never felt so hard in his whole life, and it didn’t matter – the only thing that mattered was that she made herself happy.
Her hand was moving faster now, and he could hear how wet she was. He kissed her harder – she gave a small cry.
In a surprise move, she grabbed his hand from her stomach, moving it to her pussy. “In?” she said against his mouth. This time it wasn’t an order. It was a question.
He slipped one finger inside her. “More,” she demanded, but he was in charge now.
“Maybe.” He drew his head back so he could look down at her. Her whole body felt flushed and hot, and her skin was pink at her chest. She arched again, pushing herself against his hand as she kept working.
“More!”
“Who am I to argue with a lady?” He gave her lip a quick nip, and then pushed three fingers inside her. He curved his hand so he could stroke her G-spot, and she gave a scream. He felt her start to come, the muscles inside her clenching so hard it almost hurt. Good thing he was used to strumming. He caressed her velvety, wet skin, pressing, pushing. Lana held his wrist, holding his hand inside her as she bucked against him, and her other hand continued to play her clit. He kissed her then, claiming her mouth as his, and she gave it to him as if it was what she wanted more than anything, and her eyes flew open and she looked right at him, right into him, and then she came around his hand with a roar.
Lana shattered.
It felt like a gift.
He got ten seconds – maybe fifteen – of her lying quietly next to him, her chest heaving. Then she rolled away from him and was off the bed in an instant.
“Hey.”
She ignored him as she put on her clothes. She didn’t meet his eye.
“Wait.” Lana was back to pushing him away, back to being angry, and he had no idea why.
Lana gave him a scathing glance. “Hey, pal, you don’t need me. If I have to get myself off, then you do, too.”
“I couldn’t give a shit about that.”
She looked surprised at his vehemence, but not enough to slow her stride. Still stark naked, Taft followed her. “Tell me what the hell just happened back there.”
She pulled open the door and was gone before he could even repeat the words.
He sat on the couch, the leather cool on his heated skin. He took a deep breath.
What the actual fuck?
Chapter Fourteen
Lana waited in room twelve, her back against the door, until enough time had passed that she knew he must be gone.
Taft Hill, here in Darling Bay.
The man she’d given her song to.
Okay, she’d sold it. Fair and square. She was rich because of it.
But she was still so angry with herself for selling the song.
And with him for taking it.
It wasn’t his fault, she was smart enough to know that. None of it was. Her reaction to him certainly hadn’t been on him, not at all.
That had been all her.
As soon as he’d thrown her over his shoulder in his apartment, Lana had been covered in sweat. She’d lost every bit of oxygen she’d ever had in her blood. Her head had pounded, and she could feel her hands start to shake. Everything had gone dark, even though she could tell he’d turned on the lights in his bedroom.
Taft had deposited her on his bed, and there’d been nothing in the man but desire and fun and lust. She’d hurled herself at him anyway. She’d been a hellcat, and she’d confused him immediately, she’d known it, but she hadn’t cared.
He hadn’t felt safe.
So she’d taken control.
She’d put the condom on him.
She’d taken him inside her.
When he’d pushed her off (who did that? Jesus Christ!) she’d given herself pleasure, as a kind of fuck you. She would show him, throwing her around like a slab of butchered beef.
But as she’d bolted from of his apartment building that night, pulling her sweatshirt around her like it could possibly warm her, she’d realized she hadn’t shown him a thing.
He’d shown her kindness.
Taft had lain next to her, and he’d touched her perfectly. Expertly. He’d slid his fingers inside her and he’d been the one to make her come. She’d stroked herself, getting her to the almost-top. But the way he’d touched her inside had been what had made her explode.
He’d been so nice to her.
Screw that guy.
Lana Darling didn’t need nice. She’d needed money, and now she had it. She’d needed out of the business, and now she had a hotel to rebuild.
But now Taft Hill was here.
In her town.
I’m the kind of woman who hides from men in a hotel room with no roof.
No. No. No.
Lana pulled open the door carefully. She looked out into the garden.
No one.
She skittered to her room, cursing herself as she went.
Lana sat and thought. Har
d.
Then she called Ballard Brothers Building. She left a message. She didn’t need them. No. But it might be useful to have extra hands. It would make the work go faster.
Her cell rang, and it was a number she recognized, thank God.
“Hey.” Jilly, her best friend in Nashville, sounded as chirpy as the damn birds outside. “What are you doing?”
“Hiding.”
“From what?”
“The world,” said Lana.
Jilly laughed, the sound of it easing the tension right between Lana’s shoulder blades. “There’s my girl. So how’s it going?”
“I don’t know where to start.”
“At the beginning. What happened when you got there?”
“No, I mean I don’t know where to start with the whole hotel thing. It’s horrible. The entire place is falling apart. There’s only one habitable room, and I’m in it. So it’s not a hotel at all right now.”
“Eh, you’ll do fine.” Jilly’s voice trailed off as if she were looking at something else. “You ran that place on Sixth for how long?”
“I didn’t run it.” Lana had worked front desk at a hotel with three hundred rooms. She’d checked people in, giving them upgrades when they slipped her a twenty. It hadn’t been hard work. “They paid crap, anyway.”
“Oh, yeah.” Jilly’s voice trailed away once more.
Lana said, “What’s wrong?”
“Why?”
“You have that sound in your voice.”
Jilly sighed. “Got fired again.”
“What?” Jilly was a music producer, but in Nashville that was like being an actress in Hollywood. There were too many of them. The ones willing to do the work the cheapest way possible were the ones who got hired. If you weren’t willing to sell your soul for the price of a latte, you weren’t going to get anywhere. “Who fired you?” Lana would find them and chop them down at the knees.
“It doesn’t matter. I’m just not sure what to do next. I kind of … I kind of want to get away. Go far and do something else.”
Lana clutched her cell. “Come here.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“What’s the business like out there?”
Lana laughed. “In this town? We’re it. This is not a music town.”
“There you go.”
“But you produce. You can work remotely, can’t you? You already do almost everything on your computer. Fly out for sessions, and that’s it.”
There was a pause on the line. “You’ve said there’s no place for anyone to stay there.”
“We’ve shared a bed before. Or I can buy an air mattress.” Hell, she could blow off the entire idea of the hotel and buy a cheap house near the beach. She’d sit on the porch and watch sunsets while writing incredibly cheesy songs that Jilly would produce and put on iTunes where they’d make whole pennies a day. “Just come. You can help me hammer things. You good with pliers?”
“No.”
“Plumbing?”
“Hell, no.”
“What about electricity?”
“Strangely enough, still no.”
“I’ll find something for you to do. Just come,” Lana urged.
“I’m pretty sure you have to rent your hotel rooms to tourists, not out-of-contract producers. Aren’t you on a beach there? Isn’t that expensive? I’m pretty sure that even though you hit it big with Taft Hill’s song, you still remember what it’s like to be a starving artist.”
Lana’s song. It was her song, not his. “Taft’s in town,” she blurted.
A silence followed her words. Lana checked the screen of her phone to make sure she was still connected. Wireless service was spotty at best in Darling Bay. “Are you still there? Jilly?”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m still here. I’m just trying to figure out if those words you just said actually go together. Taft Hill? He followed you?”
“You wouldn’t believe vacation, then, huh? A beach getaway?”
“A guy like him goes to Cancún or Malibu or Miami. Not Darling Bay in the back of beyond.”
“Hey!”
“You called it the sticks with sand.”
“True. But I was here every summer growing up. It was the sticks to me.”
“What is going on, then?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s because ‘Blame Me’ blew up. I knew he’d need more songs from you, I told you he would.”
Lana rolled to her back and closed her eyes. It was good to have Jilly’s voice in her ear. “He’s a songwriter. And he didn’t say anything about that.”
“Then he’s just in love with you.”
“Um.” Over the line came clicking sounds. “Are you on your computer while you’re talking to me?”
“No, never.” The clicking stopped. “Didn’t you say he was the worst sex you’ve ever had?”
“Did I?”
“You said, and I quote, ‘I left before he could get his rocks off, that’s how weird it was.’”
“I said ‘weird.’”
“But you meant bad.”
“I meant weird. It was the weirdest sex I’ve ever had.”
Jilly laughed, and Lana could almost see her dark-brown eyes dancing. She’d have an empty coffee mug next to her, like she always did. She’d pick it up, be disappointed by its emptiness and set it back down, forgetting to refill it. “Nothing wrong with kinky, lady.”
“I agree. There’s not. But that’s not what it was.”
An exhaled breath. “You have to tell me what happened. What could possibly be so weird that you ran away across the country? And apparently made him chase you?”
That wasn’t why Lana had run. In truth, without the money she’d gotten from “Blame Me,” she wouldn’t have been able to go very far, and she sure as hell wouldn’t have come back to Darling Bay. She had sworn she’d never return until she could stand on her own two legs.
Now she could. It felt both good – victory! – and terrible – it was money she hadn’t really made. He’d made the money, with his fame, and she just got a good percentage of it. “I’ll tell you someday. It’s not a big deal.” Lana held the phone so tightly against her ear she knew her cheek would be red. “I tried pulling out some drywall this morning. It did not go well.”
“I don’t actually know exactly what that is, but it has wall in the word, so I’m assuming it’s important.”
“Apparently not. That’s what the internet said, anyway. Do you feel safe where you are? Like, do you look around the room and feel secure?”
Jilly said, “Sure. Besides the fact that the faucet is leaking and the landlord won’t return my phone calls.”
Lana twisted and kicked her legs up so that her sock-clad feet rested on the wall behind the bed. They landed with a hollow thump. “It’s just a lie. Those walls around you? You could take them down in an hour. I always thought they were hard and strong, you know? They’re walls. We trust them. Believe in them. Turns out a hammer and a little pressure pulls them right down to the studs. Which is a phrase I never understood until early this morning. The only things behind the drywall are studs and wires and spiders and, in this case, mold.”
“How terrifying. Thank you.”
“Come out. I’ll show you.”
“Seriously. You’re not going to do this all by yourself, are you?”
Lana bristled. “You don’t think I can?”
“I know you. I know you can do anything you want, but you sometimes take on stupid challenges when there’s no reason to.”
It was true, so true, but she couldn’t admit it. “Like what?”
“Like when you unpack your car after errands and you insist on carrying eleven heavy bags inside by yourself even though your friend is standing right there with empty hands, trying to help.”
“That happened once.”
“It was my beer that you dropped. I could keep going. What about the time you walked to the ER after breaking your foot? Or th
e time you –”
A knot tightened at the base of Lana’s neck. “Please don’t. Look, I know you’re right. I just called a construction company. Left them a message. More hands, you know?”
“You asked someone for help? You’re kidding.”
“Stop.”
“I’m so proud of you!”
“Seriously. Cut it out.” She flexed her feet, pressing her toes into the wall. She was tempted to kick, to see how much force the wall would take from her body before it gave, but damn it, this was the only usable room. She was not going to shack up with either of her blissful sisters. “I figure it can’t hurt to ask them what they think. Even though they’ll probably lie to me and tell me I can’t do anything.”
“Okay, I’ll think about it. Hey, how is it going with your sisters?”
Lana’s cell vibrated. “Hang on.”
It was a text. Can you meet at the saloon to talk about the hotel project this afternoon? Around five? Jake Ballard.
“Oh, good. The guy just confirmed.”
Jilly squealed. “Taft?”
“No, construction guy.”
“Tool belts are hot.”
“I thought you were in a girl phase.”
“Well, yeah, that’s your gender-normative brain, isn’t it? Only men get to wear tool belts? I went on a date with a carpenter last week, and she showed me her tool belt.”
“Now you’re talking.”
“Only it wasn’t a belt.”
Lana laughed. “I get it.”
“But there were tools involved.”
“I bet there were. Is there a joke in here about screwing something in?”
“Oh, yeah.”
Lana snorted. “Gotta go. Come out here and stay in my run-down hotel. Bring the carpenter. I could use the help.”
“Don’t tease me.”
“Love you.”
“You, too.”
Lana let the phone fall to the pillow next to her. She turned to her side and looked out the partially open curtains.
A Heart Song rose bloomed outside – it was one that their mother had planted. She’d loved flowers almost as much as she’d loved her children, Lana had sometimes thought. Lana had faked an interest in gardening (much preferring the dirt and the worms to anything that bloomed green and boring above ground) just to be near her mother sometimes. They’re my babies, too. Her mother would rub at the dirt at her hands. Just like you.
The Songbird Sisters Page 8
