by Ally Blake
He felt the moment she knew he was there, a stiffening of her shoulders, a twitch in her cheek, and then with lightning flashing behind her vivid green eyes they found his.
She had to tilt her face to look up at him as he neared, making her seem smaller, more precious, reminding him of the woman she became late into the night when it was just the two of them, and the quiet. The va va voom had hooked him, but this was the woman he’d fallen in love with.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey.”
“You did good.”
“I did terribly. But your friends were so cool they drowned me out beautifully.”
“True.”
She smacked his arm. Even that touch was enough to infuse him with her electric energy. Energy he’d missed more than he’d been able to put into words. Energy he never planned to miss again. He took her hand and warmed it between his as he tried to find the words he needed to say.
“Lori, I don’t even know how to begin to explain…”
“You have,” she said, wrapping her spare hand around his. “You did. Over and over again. I was too stubborn, too used to barreling over anyone and anything in order to get my own way or to really hear you.”
Dash breathed deep. “I hear you didn’t record the song.”
Her cheeks flushed as she shrugged. “It wasn’t mine to record. Better to have left it all for Jake and Callie.”
“The PR…”
“I’ll find another way.” A self-deprecating smile kicked at the corner of her mouth, while her shining eyes told him so much more. She’d heard him. Considered him. Surrendered her own needs for him. Just as his steps back into the real world had been because of her.
“I feel like I’ve been let off the hook way too easily.”
“Nah,” she said, pulling his hands closer. “I get soooo many points for that. Points I’m pretty sure I’ll use up pretty fast.”
“I’m looking forward to it.”
Looking forward to what came next. For the first time in years Dash felt like the past was behind him and the best was yet to come. Being with her would be wild, loud, frustrating. He knew he’d swing from wanting to kiss her till she melted, to wanting to hide in his shed so as to catch his breath a hundred times every day.
But being without her would be impossible.
“So what’s with the hair?” he asked, leaning in to breathe her in under the guise of tugging at a wild curl.
“Lita sent stylists to help us look the part.”
Her eyes flickered a little at the mention of her friend. The friend who’d given him the perfect excuse to a safe emotional distance from the woman before him. But now he moved in, dropping his hands to her hips, knowing even that was too much distance.
“What you look,” he said, his voice dipping, “is edible. Like cotton candy.”
Her hand lifted as if to hold him back but instead it landed on his chest, her fingers curling into his shirt, one hooking behind a button and tugging. Then her bright eyes fluttered close as she whispered, “Dash.”
Before he did what he was aching to do and took her right there in the overcrowded dressing room, Dash swung the guitar case onto the bench. “I want to show you something.”
Dash snapped the lock, opened the case, his heart kicking at the scent, the distinct swirls of the redwood panels, the shine off the new bronze strings.
Lori crossed one leg over the other as she leaned in beside him, her hair tickling his arm so that he had to grip the case so as not to kiss her till she promised to love him forever. But there were more things that needed saying first.
“Is that…?” she asked, eyes lit with delight. “Did you…?”
“It is. And I did.”
“Wow. May I?”
“Be my guest.”
She lifted the guitar out of its case with reverence and cradled it just so, this woman who’d never held an instrument two months before. Gaze roving over the components, fingers following, slowing over the front panel that she herself had buffed.
And over the top of the guitar that had brought him halfway back to the real world, he leaned in and kissed the woman who’d taken him all the way.
Her breath escaped on a ragged sigh and as he slid his tongue along the seam of her beautiful lips, she opened to him, taking everything he had to give.
But now that he was sure what he wanted, he wanted it as soon as humanly possible.
He took the Lorelei and put her back in her case, and surveyed the room. Between them and the door was a growing crowd. The tiled floor a mass of boots and heels and discarded beer bottle caps and spilt booze.
For once in her life Lori’s feet were bare, her shoes god only knew where. So he did what he had to do and lifted her into his arms and carried her out of the room.
“What are you doing?”
“Shut up and let someone else carry you for a change.”
She ducked her bare feet as they rounded the doorway. “But my shoes!” she cried reaching out. Then, as it became clear he was stopping for nothing, said more quietly, “I love those shoes.”
“Turns out I’m sleeping with someone in the business, I’ll get you more.”
“Lori?” a voice hollered from somewhere, Dash glanced sideways to see Callie coming down the hall with a glass of champagne in one hand and Jake in the other. “Oh,” she said, with a smile that split her face in two. “Carry on.”
“Jake,” Dash called, walking backward as he planned to halt for nobody.
“Yeah?”
“There are two guitars in there I don’t want to see go missing—Barbarella and Lorelei. Grab them.”
“Done!”
Dash turned and continued down the hall. His breaths coming harder, his heart racing.
“You named her after me?” Lori asked, her breath wafting across his neck, making him feel warmer than he had in days.
“Who the hell else?”
Lori blinked up at him, then—“Callie, grab my shoes!” Lori called out, lifting to yell out over his shoulder.
“I will!” Callie promised.
Lori wriggled and settled deeper into his arms, then ran a finger down his unusually smooth cheek. “I’m glad you came.”
“I’m glad you’re glad,” he said as he rounded a corner and pressed through the black curtains leading to the front of house. The crowd was thicker now, the doors having been opened to the throng.
“I’m glad because I wanted to explain some things myself.”
He stepped back behind the curtain and in the dark corner with the muffled noise of a hundred strangers beyond, and shuffled her into a more comfortable position in his arms and said, “I’m listening.”
Playing with the top button of his shirt, she said, “My whole adult life I’ve worked toward one goal—the success of our business. But I might as well have been chasing the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. What I was looking for, striving for, wasn’t really there. Meaning I’ve been measuring the value of my life all wrong. Then I met you and realized that being a somebody isn’t nearly as wonderful as having a somebody. And being somebody to somebody else.”
Her gaze slid up his neck, over his mouth, to his eyes. Her mouth twisted a moment before she laughed, the sound husky and sexy as all get out. “That made no sense.”
Dash lifted her higher, till she sank against him, her warmth pervading his clothes. “Lorelei, you’ve been my somebody since the second you banged on my door. You, with all your gusto and gumption, kicked the thing open and let in the sunshine.”
“It’s when you say things like that that I realize just how hopelessly I love you,” she said, her voice broken, her gaze full.
“Not hopelessly.”
“No?”
“I love you, Lorelei—tempter of saints, wearer of weapons disguised as footwear, tempestuous, stubborn creature that you are. And if you’ll have me,” he said, easing his lips closer to hers, “I’d like to be your somebody, too.”
Heat flashed in th
e vibrant green depths of her eyes before she threw her arms around his neck and her lips found his.
After days spent not knowing if he’d ever get to see her again much less kiss her, it was all he could do not to drop her feet to the floor, press her against the dingy wall and prove it. But he was on a mission now. A mission he wasn’t about to undertake in the back rooms of a club.
With that he pressed a place-saving kiss on her gorgeous mouth before pushing out into the crowd.
“Do you know what you’re signing up for?” she said. “Because I’m hard work.”
“Really?”
“And I can be a little difficult if I don’t get my own way.”
“You don’t say.”
“And you know what Marilyn said?”
Dash used his shoulders to nudge his way through, thankful for the years spent cleaning his own gutters, dragging fallen branches away from his house, chopping his own wood, as he made a beeline for the nearest exit. “Who?”
“Marilyn Monroe.”
“Never met her.”
Lori laughed, her fingers curling into the hair at the back of his neck as she dropped her ear to his chest and snuggled in. “She said, ‘If you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure don’t deserve me at my best’.”
He shifted her weight in his arms. She was not a tiny woman, the woman he loved. And the spray in her hair had probably added ten pounds. “Are you trying to make me change my mind?”
“Making sure you’re sure.”
“I think you’re under the misapprehension that you chose me. Of all the women in all the world, I picked you. I want only you. I’ve loved only you. You’re mine, Lori. So bring it.”
With that he pressed on through the short tunnel to the exit.
Only to find he’d taken her through the club’s front door.
And that’s where he screeched to a halt as the crowd still surging behind the velvet rope went wild. Then a wave of disappointment followed along with a buzz of, Awww, it’s not them. Until someone shouted, “That’s Dash Mills!” And the squeals nearly burst his ear drums.
“Quite a crowd,” Lori said, astounded laughter on her voice. “Can you believe they were so desperate to hear me play?”
“Not for a single second.”
Now, enough mucking about. Time to get her naked so he could hose the goop out of her hair and then he’d lick off every speck of glitter and make love to her till she hit a high C.
And then? For the first time in living memory that felt not like the most lonely question there was, but one full of beautiful possibility.
“I can’t believe you used to have to put up with this,” Lori said, waving now to the baying crowd. “The tiny crowd inside was terrifying! How did you stand it?”
“Girls,” he said, blowing a frizzled strand of her hair off his face, as he spied his car. “Girls and money.”
And then, as her laughter floated up into the night sky, he picked up the pace, coming within inches of the surging crowd as they hit the alley.
Cameras flashed, meaning she wouldn’t be his own private joy for long. The world would soon know he was writing again. It might even discover he was building guitars. These things he’d have to take on the chin. The fact that the world would definitely know that Lori Hanover was his was okay by him.
“Where are you taking me?” she said between kisses before with a whoop he tossed her into the passenger seat of his car.
He ran around the trunk, vaulted into the driver’s side without bothering to open the door, then gunned the engine and took off. Heading out of the city. Heading toward trees and quiet. And seclusion.
“I’m taking you home.”
Epilogue
“Have you decided what you’re wearing yet?” Lori asked, motioning to Callie’s feet.
“My wedding shoes?” Callie’s mouth twisted a moment before she shook it off with a shrug. “Not a clue. It will come to me. It always does.”
“Get in here, woman!” Jake called from the door leading inside the private jet. The thing was painted blood red with The Rift Shifter scrawled in big black letters across the side.
Not understated, the men in their lives. Men’s men. Manly men. Men who could quite happily rule the world.
And there was no denying Callie seemed really truly happy with her man. If she was half as happy as Lori felt with Dash, then Lori could cope with her little sister having a new center to her life.
“Remember what Marilyn said,” Lori called out as Callie headed up the windy steps into the private jet, such a long way from being curled up together in the cheap seats of the train that had taken them out of Fairbanks all those years before, pretending to be extras in Some Like It Hot.
Callie turned back. “What’s that?”
“I don’t mind living in a man’s world as long as I can be a woman in it.”
“Hell yeah.”
Shoe dilemma forgotten, Callie grinned as she jogged up the remaining stairs, scarf flowing in the wind, gorgeous shoes clacking against the metallic steps. Watching Callie sink into Jake’s arms before disappearing inside, Lori knew they’d be fine. Better than fine.
As for her? The downturn of business had leveled out. Was on the upswing, if her über-hip new PR tactics were to be believed. Lori had done plenty to make that happen, and just a little more. And having gotten there without any blood loss, only a little sweat, and not one extra tear, she felt mighty good about it.
For the first time in thirteen odd years, she was going home.
And while at any other time in her life it would have filled her with dread, Lori found herself actually looking forward to it. To seeing her Mom. To Sydney’s pancakes. To catching up with Lita again, this time with her TV crew who would show the world how ridiculously smitten Callie and Jake were—even if the contra videos made of their song hadn’t already converted many opinions on that score.
And, surrounded by so much love, so much family, after so many years spent trying to prove herself, she honestly didn’t give a flying hoot if the mean girls thought her a mad success or a tabloid punch line.
It was a miracle, all around.
She felt Dash’s arrival a moment before he wrapped a warm, strong arm around her waist. Talk about miracles.
She closed her eyes against the rise of emotion, trapping it inside and giving in to the need to hum. The hum turned—as it always did—into a song in her head; one that had been written for another couple, yet would always feel like the melody had been penned for her.
“All good?” she asked, sinking back against the wall of muscle and might.
Dash waved his new phone in front of her nose. “That was Reg. Bowie is standing guard outside the shed and Jagger is fast asleep on our bed.”
“You’re going to miss them pathetically while we’re in Montana, aren’t you?”
She felt Dash grin before his lips landed below her ear. His breath shooting heat and stars across her neck as he said, “I’m sure I’ll find ways to make myself feel better.”
Lori turned, her heart skipping at the wham bam impact of his woodsy scent and calloused hands, his gorgeousness and goodness.
“Are you ready for this?” she asked, feeling like the second she got on that plane her life would never be the same again. What with Dash’s fame having been reignited after the news was out about his writing again and rumors had begun to abound that he might just be thinking about touring with the band again.
And there was the fact that her little sister would come home married.
“The press, I mean,” she said, glancing over his shoulder at the news vans lined up behind the fence a couple of hundred yards away. “You’ve been tucked away in your cozy little corner for so long, are you okay with all the attention back in your life?”
“Never had a problem with the press. They are what they are, and never pretend to be otherwise. Smile and wave and you’re far less interesting than if you stare them down like you’d like nothing better than to kic
k them in the kneecap.”
“Just smile and wave?”
His gaze roved over her face before landing on her grimace. “Yeah. You’d better leave that to me.”
Unable to stop the smile from taking over, Lori smacked Dash on the shoulder. Then, at the heat that shot through his warm dark eyes, she lifted onto her toes to press her lips to his, and started making him feel better as soon as she possibly could.
“Get in here, you two!” Jake called. “No band is complete without their own personal luthier and his concubine.” He waved a hurry up and was gone.
Slowly pulling back from the loose warm haze Dash’s kisses always brought on, Lori said, “I’m still not sure I like him.”
Dash laughed as he took her by the hand and led her up the steps, wind whipping at his hair, sunshine pouring over his skin. “Been there. But once you make the leap to the other side, you won’t regret it. He’s good people.”
“You’re good people.”
Dash stopped, hauling Lori up to the step above his, and kissed her till she had to grip the handrail so as not to send them both tumbling.
Dash pulled back to look deep into her eyes. “What did I do to deserve you, Lorelei Hanover?”
“Kicked a kitten? Knocked over a convenience store? Voted for the Hemp Rulz Party?”
“Sounds about right.” He turned her about, gave her backside a pat, and pressed her up the stairs.
And like that they headed off to Fairbanks, Montana, where Callie Hanover was set to marry Jake Mitchell as witnessed by her sister and his best friend and enough rock royalty to sink a ship.
After which point they intended on living happily ever after.
The End
About the Author
Australian writer Ally Blake is a redhead, a footy fan, a devotee of the language of Aaron Sorkin, addicted to stationery and M&Ms, weak in the face of Italians and firefighters, married to a spectacular and ever-patient man, mum to three beings of pure delight, and a firm believer in love, luck, and fairies.
She is also a bestselling author with more than twenty-five fun, flirty romance novels under her belt with over three million copies of her books sold world-wide.
