God, had she ever been more beautiful? Completely in her element and on point, she crossed her shapely legs and lifted her eyes to meet mine.
“Beau Mason,” she said in her best Midwestern accent, in a voice that came from her belly. “Thirty years old. Retiring from a successful country music career. What led you to this decision?”
“It was time,” I said, sitting back in my chair. “Time to settle down. Time to start living. Life on the road is rough.”
“Let’s talk about life on the road.”
I raked my hand across my jaw, trying to conjure up a way of explaining how shitty and dark those years were without offending my fans. After a brief phone call that morning with my publicist, he’d given me a list of canned responses, telling me to tell my fans only what they wanted to hear. “Life on the road was fun, but it was also a little lonely. After the roar of the crowd dies down and everyone goes home for the night, it was just me, my guitar, and a tiny little bedroom in the back of a tour bus. Gives a man a lot of time to think.”
Dakota glanced down at her notes and shifted in her seat. “You’ve sold over one hundred million albums in the last decade. That’s got to feel surreal for you.”
“It does,” I said. “Most days I don’t feel like I deserve the kind of success that’s followed me all over the world, but there’s no denying it. It’s a part of me now.”
She rattled off a few more statistics and named some specific platinum songs I’d had before re-crossing her legs and leaning into me. “What does a man who’s had more success than he’s ever dreamed of do when he’s reached the top? What’s next for you?”
“I’d like to think I’m on a slow decline back to normal. I plan on writing songs and fading into the background. My heart’s my compass, and my compass is pointing back home to Darlington, Kentucky.” I placed my hand over my chest. “The quiet life awaits me.”
“Your final performance is in a couple weeks. Madison Square Garden,” she said with an amused journalistic lilt. “Tickets for that show sold out in seven minutes.”
“Yeah, I’m definitely feeling the pressure there. But it’s going to be a good show. I promise my fans that. They won’t forget it. And the show will be broadcast live on Pay Per View for those who can’t attend.”
“You’re known for being very tight-lipped when it comes to your personal life,” she said. “What are some things you can share with the viewers at home that they might not know about you?”
“I’m just a simple man,” I said with a half-smirk. “There’s not much to me besides dust and bones and a determined kind of personality. Once I get my mind set on something, there’s really no changing it.”
“Like your retirement,” she said with a modest laugh. Something about being interviewed by her was calming, though I suspected part of it was her delivery. Her voice was sweet enough to dissolve tension and her eyes held a trusting sparkle. Interviews had been the bane of my existence for the bulk of my career, but she made this one feel easy.
“Exactly. No talking me out of that,” I laughed, rubbing my hand across my knee.
“Cut,” a voice yelled. “Let’s take five.”
Harrison appeared out of the darkness, approaching Dakota and leaning into her ear. Her face fell and then tightened as her eyes shot in my direction.
“I’m not doing that,” she said. “No.”
Harrison slipped a hand into his pocket, like he was trying to pretend her objection didn’t rattle him. “As your producer, I’m telling you to ask these questions. It’s your job, Coco.”
“No.” She leaned away from him, our gazes still locked. “Not like this. It’s my interview, and I will not be taking it in that direction.”
Harrison disappeared into the background as someone else counted us in and Dakota turned herself back on like the flip of a switch. She continued asking me general questions, and I continued giving general answers, trying my best to guess what the masses wanted to hear.
“And that’s a wrap,” a man said, stepping out from behind the cameramen and pulling the headset off his head. “Good job, everyone.”
Dakota pulled the mic pack off and sat her notes aside.
We stood to leave, and I grabbed the hook of her elbow, pulling her into me and leaning into her ear. “Meet me in my dressing room in twenty minutes.”
***
I changed into jeans and a t-shirt and my favorite pair of boots and washed my face, hunching over the sink and waiting for that knock that would bring me my Dakota. It wasn’t but ten minutes until she just walked right in, shutting the door behind her.
“You wanted to see me?”
“I missed you, Dakota,” I said, walking toward her one slow step at a time.
“You didn’t call.”
“Neither did you.”
“I didn’t know what to say.”
“I wanted to give you a little space, that's all.” I reached for her hip, placing my hand in the scooped out indentation just below her waist and pulling her into me. “They say absence makes the heart grow fonder.”
“Absence can make the heart do all kinds of things.”
“Want to get out of here?”
She bit her lip, nodding slowly and bending to my will. We bolted out of the studio, dashing down Midtown and heading south with no particular destination in mind. Crowded sidewalks filled with five o’clockers forced us to dash and dart, dip and weave, and finally I grabbed her hand and pulled her closer to me, making us like a rock holding strong against the stream. The rest of the world would have to go around us.
Taxi horns flooded our ears and diesel fumes filled our lungs as city smells wafted up from sewer grates. What beauty Dakota ever saw in that kind of thing was beyond me. I gazed up at a sea of tall buildings and skyscrapers, blocking the view of the perfectly sunny sky above and making it feel just a shade darker than it should’ve been at that time of day.
“How long are you in town?” she asked.
“I leave tomorrow morning.”
A deafening silence contrasted against the city symphony around us. “I’ll be back next weekend for the show. You going to come?”
We found an empty bench, and Dakota pulled me to it, wrapping my arm around her when we sat down. “I don’t know. Addison’s wedding is that weekend.”
An empty, crinkled potato chip bag skirted and skipped down the curb followed shortly by a sheet of newspaper. Up ahead, a man with a clipboard was flagging down anyone who dare walk past him, asking if they had just five minutes for a quick survey.
“Excuse me. I’m really sorry to both y’all,” a woman said from behind the bench. We whipped around to see a middle-aged mother with three children all dressed in head-to-toe University of Texas apparel. “You’re Beau Mason, right?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, offering a smile and pulling my arm away from Dakota.
The woman pulled out her phone and handed it to Dakota. “Would you mind taking a picture of us?”
Dakota obliged her as I posed between the woman and her smiling kids.
“We’re huge fans of yours,” the woman gushed, her hands shaking slightly as she took the phone back. “We just love your music.”
“Thank you. I appreciate that.” I waited for them to leave before sitting back down with Dakota, though in the distance, I saw a group of college-aged girls huddling and staring as they walked our way. “Take me to your apartment, Dakota.”
“I just moved in today,” I said as we walked south. “Everything’s still in boxes.”
“Doesn’t bother me.” Beau took my hand again as we walked, pulling me close almost possessively. “Just wanted a little privacy.”
He drew out the word “privacy” long and slow, with a twang that sent a rumble to my core. The days we’d spent together the previous week, and the nights we’d shared, were all still fresh in my mind. We walked with an urgent, untamable stride, inhaling lungfuls of city wind and basking in things unspoken.
I liked being wi
th Beau again, but it was always when we spoke that things got all kinds of complicated. We rode the elevator to my new apartment in one of Wilder’s buildings, and not but two seconds after we’d flung the door open, Beau pinned me against the wall.
“What are you doing to me, Beau?” I breathed, my thoughts scrambling to make sense of this powerless woman I was becoming.
“I reckon it’s the same damn thing you’re doing to me,” he growled. “You and I have been unfinished business long enough now. ‘Bout time we finish this.”
My heart raced, my body yielding to his like snow melting under the sun. The Ice Queen was officially thawing. In fact, she was becoming quite feverish with each passing second.
His hands cupped my face, his fingers tangled in my hair. Lowering his mouth onto mine and depositing a honey-sweet kiss, I breathed him in. With nerves firing in rapid succession each time he pressed his body firm against mine, my tongue danced against his.
And then his kisses grew hungry, leaving my mouth in search of bare flesh. Still dressed from my interview with him, there wasn’t much that remained uncovered. His fingers left my hair and worked each pearl button of my blouse until it gaped open wide, revealing a preview of my lace bra.
His hands worked the button of my pants, tugging them off along with my panties before I kicked them aside and let my blouse fall off my shoulders.
Beau hoisted me up, wrapping my legs around him, and carried me over to the sofa, one of the only things in the entire place that wasn’t in a cardboard moving box. I straddled his lap as he lowered us down into the downy cushions, and a hint of his bulge pressed against my core.
I wanted him.
So badly.
But at the same time, I couldn’t shake what Harrison had whispered into my ear earlier. He wanted me to ask Beau what really happened with Daisy Foxworthy, which meant Harrison knew something I didn’t.
Beau’s hand gripped the underside of my jaw as his other found its way behind my back, unhooking my bra and letting it fall.
“You’re so fucking beautiful, Kota,” he said with a teasing half-smile as his teeth raked his full bottom lip. He leaned into me, closing the space between us again as his lips crushed mine. A swelling sensation between my thighs sent my mind into a blank state, like an animal with primal urges that overrode everything else.
My eyes trailed over his shoulder to the city view outside my uncovered window. It would’ve bothered Coco tremendously to be two seconds from making love in front of the world, but Dakota didn’t care.
Dakota wanted Beau. She was a slave to his love and always had been.
Nothing else mattered.
I gripped the bottom of his t-shirt, pulling it up over his head and disheveling his thick dark hair before crashing into him once again, our bare skin fusing together. My hips bucked and rolled, grinding against his lap in anticipation of what was to come.
Beau unbuckled his jeans, pushing them down just enough to expose his throbbing cock. Pulling a rubber from his wallet, he sheathed himself and then sent his hands to the small of my back, hoisting me down onto him and sending a torrent of electric rain rushing down my spine. His right hand slid around the front of my hip, his thumb massaging my clit as we rocked in tandem, meeting each other movement for movement.
His opposite hand grabbed a fistful of my hair, pulling my head back. Beau’s lips seared into the sensitive flesh of my neck, branding me kiss by kiss with his soul. Our rhythm became desperate, his kisses greedier. I lifted my ass higher, coming down onto him harder and deeper, faster and more desperate. With each impalement, I banished every thought that briefly fluttered across my brain that told me this wouldn’t work.
Rocking.
Rolling.
Grinding.
Each second brought me closer to the edge. With labored breathing and my body tightening around him, an intense explosion inside me heightened every emotion – good or bad – coursing my body.
I lowered my face, wanting to look into his eyes as he came inside me. Beau caught my bottom lip between his teeth before kissing me again and releasing a deep groan before shuddering and releasing himself.
I fell onto him, our chests heaving together and the coolness of the apartment air wrapping itself around us. With deliciously sore lips, I smiled, breathing in a sated contentment that was quickly replaced with plaguing doubts.
How funny that the boy I’d sworn off could give me one knowing look and bark out one command and I’d dropped my panties to the floor without a single objection.
“Come home with me, Dakota,” Beau said, breaking the silence that made the thoughts in my head blaring and loud. Our eyes met, locking like magnets and making me forget how to breathe for a second as the future flashed before me.
“You know I can’t do that.” I climbed off him, sitting beside him.
He pulled my legs across his lap. “You know I can’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”
For ten years, I had an ache in my heart where he should’ve been. And now my heart was flooded with more Beau than I knew what to do with. My body and soul had damned the torpedoes and blasted full speed ahead without so much as consulting my head, and now I was stuck in some sort of murky area where one wrong decision could demolish the life I’d worked so hard to build.
“It’s not that simple,” I said with polished regret. “I have a contract at work. I might get promoted…”
And you might break my heart again.
Oh, and I gave our baby up for adoption ten years ago, and I’m scared you might hate me for it.
“I realize I’m offering you the world when you’ve got your own one right here,” he said, “but I don’t care. I’ll wait. I’ll wait for you, Dakota. Because I don’t want anyone else.”
All the reasons it wouldn’t work flooded my mind, though they were all rooted in one thing: fear.
It was funny though, because fear had never stopped me from doing anything before. I prided myself on being fearless and brave, climbing mountains and ruthlessly pursuing dreams like my life depended on them.
But there I was, afraid to love Beau, really love him. Afraid to tell him my secret. No, I was terrified.
“This is my home now. This is my life. This is who I am. Maybe we fit together like two puzzle pieces when we were kids, but we’re not going to fit together right now without the help of a good pair of scissors and some strong glue.”
He smirked, flashing a deep dimple on his left cheek before his face fell. The afternoon sun spilled in from behind us, highlighting the grimace of his expression and hiding the scar just above his lip. “I’ll bring the scissors. You bring the glue.”
“Even if I gave you another chance, I know myself. I’ll hold you at arm’s length, one foot on the ground,” I said, adding, “because there’s always going to be a part of me waiting for you to break my heart all over again.”
“I was careless with your heart,” he said. “I was selfish and egotistical. I turned into someone I hardly recognized – someone that had the power to destroy you – and that’s why I stayed away.”
I picked at the gray Belgian linen fabric of the sofa.
“Why you don’t believe me?”
“I don’t know what I believe.”
“Damn it, girl, you’re about as decisive as a kid at an ice cream shop.” Beau ran his hand against the smoothness of my naked shin, reminding me that we’d just shared a magical moment of delicious unrestraint, which had vaporized the second it was over.
“Why now? Why after all this time?” I asked, resting my cheek against the back of the sofa and staring into his tempered gaze as he studied me.
“In ten years, no one ever made me feel half the things you did.”
I silently agreed. Every man since him, including Harrison, only ever paled in comparison. I’d told myself that love wasn’t always fireworks, and I believed my own lies enough to settle for a soft, second-rate, boring version of love instead.
“Maybe I don’t deserve you,
” Beau said. “But it doesn’t change the fact that I still want you to be with you, and it doesn’t change the fact that for the last ten years, I looked for you in every place you couldn’t be.”
I had looked for him too. While I’d never allowed myself to actively seek him out, I could never quite shake the feeling that our paths would cross again when I least expected it.
“I never doubted for a second that my soul would find yours again, and now that it has, I’m not letting you go.” He took the crook of my arm, pulling me into his lap. His fingers lifted to my lips, grazing them as if he were trying to memorize what they felt like. “Some people are real, Dakota, and some people are just an illusion of something real. And you? You’re the realest fucking thing I’ve ever known.”
His lips crushed mine as he breathed me in.
“I’d give it all up for this,” he said, placing his index finger against my beating heart. “That’s what I want. I don’t need a fat bank account or a fancy house on the water or a hundred thousand people screaming my name. I need this.”
Beau’s words seared my heart like a branding iron, the same way his promises had once upon a time.
“Maybe my word is shit to you,” he said. “But love isn’t what you say, it’s what you do. I’m sorry that some twenty-year-old kid left you with a bunch of empty promises and a trampled-on heart, but let this thirty-year-old grown man make it up to you.”
I teetered back and forth between the only two things I’d ever wanted in my entire life, and I couldn’t have them both.
“I need to digest all this,” I said, breaking my silence and climbing off him to gather my clothes. His face twisted into a smirk that indicated he was accepting my challenge. “Please don’t do that.”
“Don’t do what?”
“Look at me like that.”
“How did I look at you?”
I gathered my bra from the floor and slipped on my panties. “The way you always look at me.”
With an enchanting flicker in your eye and a flash of your dimples that heat my core and tighten my chest until I can’t breathe.
“I’m not making any promises, Beau,” I said, stepping into my pants.
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