by Ally Blake
So instead she sat stock still. Stopped breathing when his gaze reached their table. When those deep brown eyes seemed to snag on hers, her heart beat so hard it felt like it was about to explode out of her chest.
Then the other players snared, twanged, plucked, creating a cacophony of tuning that also settled and Dash leant down to hook the guitar into some kind of amp.
Then his fingers were rolling over the strings, as if trying to pull up a memory he couldn’t quite catch. And everything Lori condensed into one single thought; the hope that he’d do great.
Then with a one two three shout from the drummer, they were off. And jazz, sweet and soulful, rose and fell, slamming into the walls of the bar and back again as the husky voice of the singer ground out lyrics of heartache, redemption, and loss.
The air crackled with energy, and the crowd—who before this had been rowdy, boisterous, and vibrant with the hum of beer-soaked revelry—sat in spellbound silence, glowing eyes reflecting the light from the stage, faces soft with rapture.
And beneath it—the rhythm, the heartbeat—was Dash. Tugging smooth sonorous slides from what amounted to a hollow hunk of wood. Sounds Lori felt more than heard, sounds that trilled over her skin, trilled into her chest. And she felt herself come over all balmy and liquidy, like warm honey was sliding through her veins.
She wondered if the crowd had a clue what they were witnessing that night. If they’d ever know that they had a super star in their midst. Or if it would simply remain in their memories as a night of phenomenal music.
In person, his charisma was elusive, contained. But he shone up there, the smoke curling about his knees like a caress, the down lights creating golden glints in the hair over his ears, making him seem twice as bright as anyone else up on that stage.
“Good lord, he’s fantastic!” Lori flinched at the voice in her ear, then turned to find Tracey bouncing on the chair beside her, eyes bright with rum and fandom. “And soooo gorgeous. Oh my dog! If he can get that kind of sound from a hunk of wood imagine the kind of sound he might pluck out of me!”
Lori lifted her thumbs to her temples and pressed hard, her eyes shifting to where Lita laughed at Tracey who was clearly a few drinks ahead. Sydney swayed with her eyes closed.
Callie was the only one not watching the riot. She watched Lori with a small knowing smile. “I did tell you he was awesome.”
Lori shouted back, “You might have told me that was a warning rather than a recommendation.”
Callie looked like she might be about to leap over the table to bestow a hug, so Lori gave her a grin. As if everything was hunky dory.
When it was anything but.
…
Forty minutes later it was over. Forty minutes and two more jugs of Black Russian cocktails. After taking turns at the piano, the drums, even the double bass, and looking right at home at each and every one, Dash was first off stage with the band ambling off as casually as they’d entered. The hum of the crowd filled the silence.
Lori’s ears were a little fuzzy from the noise. Too fuzzy to hear the girls talk wedding plans. At least that’s what she told them when she excused herself to go for a walk. Through the other tables, past the bar, and outside.
The sudden cool of the near midnight air gave her chills, but she rubbed her arms and kept walking till she found what she was looking for. Well, found his car first; in the alley to the left of the Ezy Mart, the cream curves of the vintage Bentley she’d seen in his garage gleamed in the moonlight.
Two more steps into the alley and she found the man himself—sitting on the tray of an open-backed van, the insides lined with foam, fading curtains, a couple of rolled up mattresses and a bunch of musical equipment.
The top couple of buttons of his white shirt were undone, the knot of his tie yanked halfway down his chest. His long fingers toyed with a white paper cup. And as he laughed with a couple of members of the band, he seemed…happy.
Lori’s feet came to a halt. Caught between wanting him to know how mad she was, and disappearing before he knew she was ever there. Which, after having spent a lifetime making it impossible for anyone to ignore her, was an odd sensation indeed.
In the end it didn’t matter, for Dash’s eyes slid past the drummer and found hers.
Her belly clenched at the thought of what might come next. Would he be surprised? Would he be pissed? Or worse, would she not matter at all?
She wasn’t his girlfriend. Despite her obsession with schedules, they’d specifically made no plans for what had unfolded between them beyond the moment Lori took the stage with Callie. If he’d done this gig a month from now it wouldn’t have—or at least shouldn’t have—concerned her.
His eyes never leaving hers, Dash said something and the other men glanced up the alley before fading around the side of the van leaving a clear path for Lori. Then, he lifted a paper cup to his lips, took a sip, and waited.
Rubbing her cold arms, high heels clacking on the uneven concrete, Lori headed up the dark alley. The closer she got, the more her heart thumped, the more her skin contracted and her muscles forgot how to function.
While he sat there, big, broad, oh so cool. And hot. Plays-guitar-like-a-god type hot. She wasn’t a groupie type by any stretch of the imagination. And yet the closer she got, the more the music bubbled inside her—his light-fingered piano, tireless drumming, but mostly the deep, thick, rolling throbs of his beautiful guitar.
And right alongside it the need to ask him why; why he hadn’t told her, why he hadn’t trusted her to be there.
Better that than ask herself why his answer mattered to her so very much.
But when she got to him, instead of asking she found herself filling the space between his legs, leaning into him, taking his face in hers and pouring every ounce of respect and admiration and fear and desire into a kiss.
At least she knew her concern that he didn’t care one way or the other was misguided when he wrapped his arms around her, hauling her close. He tasted of scotch and coffee and heat and Dash. And he devoured her, as if out here, in the open air, surrounded by the ambience of the city, the latent energy he’d held trapped inside had finally been let free.
A tuneful whistle somewhere in the darkness brought her back to the present and she remembered they weren’t alone. Her cheeks filling with heat, she disentangled herself, tilting her forehead against his as she wrapped a hand around his loose tie and tugged. But Dash kept a hold of her waist as if he knew she might bolt given half a chance.
“If I knew that would be my reward, I’d have played again sooner.”
“Yeah, right,” she said, her tight laughter floating on the still night air. “I was out there tonight. You could have any woman in that audience. And her friends. And quite a few of the guys, if that was your bent.”
He pulled her closer, till she toppled into his lap. Then, toying with the hemline of her flirty skirt, the backs of his knuckles brushing her thighs, he said, “Lucky for you, it’s not.”
Lucky? In that moment she felt like she was standing on a cliff, a heavy wind at her back and nothing but jagged rocks below. Like comeuppance was upon her for all the fisherman who’d fallen for her namesake’s song.
“You were amazing, you know,” she said, her hand sliding around his shoulder, into the hair at the back of his neck.
“Nah. I missed chords. I came into the third stanza of the first song too early.” And when she finally found the guts to look him in the eye, he breathed deep, stopped playing and wrapped his finger around her thigh and said simply, “You came.”
Lori’s heart stopped right then and there. It plain gave up. Making her wonder how it had functioned before that point.
“Did you think I wouldn’t?” she said. “Is that why you didn’t tell me? Or because you thought I’d misread the invitation somehow? Because I wouldn’t have. Or is it because I’m such a hard ass? Did you think I’d be some kind of shrew, telling you how to do it better? Because I only act that way with people I kn
ow have potential.”
She thought of Callie, sitting alone in her studio, curled over her sketches, struggling to do what had always come so naturally. Wondered for the first time how it must feel to have her big sister hovering over her, pushing her, telling her not to waste the chances she’d been given. Like anybody needed that kind of pressure. Like anybody wouldn’t try to find a way out. Like accept the first marriage proposal they ever got…
Dash turned her to look at him, and the thoughts and emotions whipping behind his warm brown eyes left her feeling stripped bare. “You’re a hell of a woman, Lorelei Hanover, did you know that?”
“What? No. I just—This isn’t about me. How did this all even come about? Going from nothing to a gig seems like such a big move.”
“The time was nearing when I’d have to play again, what with the guitar near finished. Then I realized it wouldn’t feel real unless it was witnessed.” He gently swept her hair off her face. “Not much does, I’ve discovered recently.”
She shivered as his thumbs smoothed over her cheeks and his gaze followed. “But you didn’t want it to be witnessed by me?”
His eyes slid back to hers. Warm, deep, rich, soulful. “I didn’t tell anyone about the gig, Lori, because there was a good to high chance I was going to chicken out.”
As much as she wanted to, she didn’t believe him. Couldn’t. His reasons for keeping her at arm’s length had to run deeper. Had to be something to fear. Or why would her chest still feel so tight?
Like a dog with a bone she couldn’t let it go. “But you told Jake.”
And with a rueful sigh, Dash said, “I had to. If he found out another way he’d have come. And I knew he’d understand.”
“And you thought I wouldn’t?”
“Lori, come on.”
“What. Hit me with it. I can take it.”
His hands left her face to run over her shoulders and away, leaving her feeling the cold. “This was a big deal. Something I wasn’t sure I’d ever do again. Something I’d built up into a kind of demon inside my head. A big one with sharp claws and red eyes and toxic spit. While you… You’re not afraid of anything.”
She opened her mouth to tell him exactly how afraid she knew she could be. Of being left alone. Of being the sole caretaker of another person’s future. Of how the swift force of her feelings for him scared her to the center of her very bones.
But she’d spent her life maneuvering so that no one could ever screw her over, and giving him that kind of insight would be akin to handing him a loaded weapon.
She simply couldn’t do it.
Just like he’d molded his life to a point where he only had to rely on himself.
Knowing his history, she understood the instinct, but that didn’t stop it from hurting like a sonofabitch. Because she knew that she could claim to be loyal and discreet, she could shout it till she was blue in the face, and yet she had a photo of the music in her phone and an agenda to which he was none the wiser.
So instead, she slid a hand deeper into the back of his shaggy hair, kissing him so that he couldn’t see how afraid she was that he could well be the best man she ever knew, and she’d screwed it up before it had even begun.
“You’re shaking,” he said against her mouth.
“I’m cold.”
“Not that cold.”
And he kissed her again, showing her how not cold he could make her. And he was right. He could warm her, thaw her, melt her like nothing and nobody else. Him, she thought, only him.
“Lori! There you are!” A Montana-born drawl echoed down the alley. Lori came to only to find Sydney tottering around the corner, elbow linked with Tracey’s. “We’ve been looking for you everywhere!”
Damn. The girls. She’d forgotten they were even there.
“What’s going on?” he asked. As she tensed, Dash’s hands tightened on her waist. She could have thrown Jake under the bus for having given up his secret, but it would only have reflected badly on Callie, and she’d long since been programmed not to let that happen.
“I’m so sorry for what is about to happen.”
“Hello again,” Tracey cooed, dropping into a curtsy as they neared the van and she saw who Lori was sitting upon. “Remember me? I’m Tracey and you’re gorgeous.”
“Ah, the girls’ weekend,” Dash said, his grip on her easing back, even while he didn’t let her go. “Evening ladies.”
“Rowrrr,” Tracey purred.
“Okay,” Lori said, springing to her feet to grab her assistant before she tried to lay one on Dash. Together she and Syd managed to manhandle the smaller girl away.
Dash’s fingers curled around the tray of the van as Tracey winked and blew him kisses and Sydney pretended like she wasn’t freaking out a little at being so near someone famous.
Any last doubts Lori might have harbored that Dash had been smart in not telling her about the gig evaporated. In her efforts at always being proven right, she kept stomping all over his desire to keep his private life private. Just kicking it about with her big elephant feet. Such feet didn’t deserve to wear such beautiful shoes.
And that was that; she was officially cracking up.
“I’d better go, okay. Round up the others. I have the horrible feeling our night has just begun.”
Dash nodded. Then said, “There’s another set in half an hour. You could stay. I’d see you home safe.”
It was a hell of an offer. Watching him play, only this time knowing he knew she was there. Wanted her there. Cared that she was there. Taking him back to her place afterward, his swarthy skin and dark suit against her crisp white sheets…
And the girls traipsing in at some ungodly hour, singing High School Musical songs at the tops of their lungs as Sydney somehow found enough ingredients to make the best pancakes on the planet and Lita searched cable for whatever season of The Bachelor she could find.
“Tempting,” she said, the rumble in her voice making it clear that was an understatement. “But I can’t.”
“I’ll stay,” Tracey said over her shoulder. “Long Cool Drink of Water over there just has to say the word.”
Lori and Syd took that as the sign to head back up the alley.
“But he’s yours isn’t he, Lori?” Sydney stage whispered. Very loudly.
Lori found a second wind to move faster. But not fast enough that she didn’t hear Dash’s laughter follow or notice that it made her heart grow a size bigger in her chest.
Chapter Ten
Dash paced from one side of his dark foyer to the other, wearing a groove in the rough floorboards, eyes on the front door as if itching to be on the other side. For a guy who’d done his all to put as much space between himself and the world beyond as possible, that was saying something.
The gig the other night had done more than remind him why music had never been just a job for him, that it filled him and fuelled him and defined him and made everything clear. Merely stepping out his front door with guitar in his hand and a vintage three piece suit on his back had been like walking through the looking glass. And coming home that night, alone, adrenaline still humming through his veins, it was as if the wall between the two worlds had simply never been.
The bark of a dog preceded the throaty roar of Lori’s Roadster, and before he knew it Dash was out the door, shielding his eyes against the sharp sun.
The sky was the kind of blue that usually came later in the year on those mid-winter days when the fog cleared. The air crisp with the scent of the forest surrounds. And the legs angling out of the car long, sleek, and mouth-watering. At the end of them a pair of black ankle boots with heels like arrow shafts.
He slowed, his lungs suddenly tight, as she alighted the car. A vision of citified elegance in a sleeveless black and white checked dress that started at the base of her neck and stopped at her knees yet showcased all the curves in between so that every bit of him yearned.
Muttering to herself as she slid her phone into her oversized bag, Lori ran a hand over
the tight twists of her neatly braided hair, before remembering Barbarella. She leaned back into the car, one foot lifted off the ground, the fabric stretching across her superb form—heaven help him—to lug the guitar case from the backseat.
When she finally turned to find him, he was ten paces away and holding himself there by sheer force of will alone.
Even with her usual huge sunglasses covering her eyes, there was no editing her reaction. She sucked in a quick breath before swallowing hard, her fingers tightening on the strap of her bag, color flooding prettily into her cheeks.
It was the first time he’s seen her since she’d left him in the alley after the gig. Since she’d kissed him with such sweet uncertainty. Since watching her walk away, he’d been left with a sense of blind enthusiasm for whatever came next. Since the life he’d so diligently constructed felt like it had been turned on its head.
The urge to go to her, to thank her, to tell her, to bend her over the gleaming hood of her powerful car and mess up all the neat was a powerful one. And raw. Tapping into deeper, more primal parts of himself he’d locked up tight for so long he hadn’t been aware they’d be so easily unleashed by a few pairs of sexy high heels and the muscle memory of playing a tune.
“Going somewhere?” she asked.
“No plans to.” Hands clenching and unclenching as he slid them into his pockets. Dash paced himself.
A hand slid to her hip, nails long and black, pointer finger tapping against the jut. “You’re wearing a button-down,” she said, tipping her head so that her eyes roved over his custom-made khaki shirt, thorough enough to take in every button, every stitch. “And jeans that don’t have a hole in them somewhere.”
He tugged at the turned cuffs of his shirt. In his efforts to disappear from the world he’d also forgotten how much he’d liked dressing well. Had disregarded his love of smooth cars and nice wine. Purging not only the big, but the small pleasures of life. No more.
“And as for the shoes…” she said, her voice fading as she licked her lips. Actually slid her tongue along the seam of her perfect pink mouth as she narrowed her eyes at the pair of brand-new, hand-stitched, nut-brown McQueen boots he’d found within the boxes of forgotten clothes underneath the bed in one of his spare rooms.
