by Maggie Marr
“Rhett?”
My head hung down. I fought the urge to look into Tasha’s eyes. How would she not see it? How weak I was when I was with her? How unworthy of her? How, while I wanted to be the man she needed, I didn’t even fucking know if I ever could be that guy.
I pushed down the pain and cast the hard plain gaze into my eyes and looked at her. Our eyes met. Like a flash, the hopefulness was gone from her, as though she’d felt it too, that vulnerability. But as I looked at her she pulled back from her emotion—from that edge—with a cool nonchalance. Nonchalance toward the place where only fools tread and humans abandoned all hope. That place called love.
Chapter 9
Tasha
Rhett walked into the sunlit kitchen wearing only a pair of grey sweatpants. Air blasted from my lungs and my ribs tightened. He might be a mistake, but he was a beautiful mistake. Last night my fingers had trailed over all that lush skin. Seeing him here, in the daylight, in my kitchen, was enough to stop me from breathing.
“Why so many clothes in the guest room?” he asked and walked toward me, where I stood frozen beside the coffeemaker.
“Uhh.” I shook the vision of male beauty from my mind and forced the neurons in my brain to start firing again. “Daddy,” I said. “He always kept tons of extra clothes in there in every size in case an artist or a friend crashed here, or if they just wanted to use the beach house.”
Rhett poured a cup of coffee and took a long sip. “So this place was your Dad’s place?”
I nodded. My heart hurt at the mention of Daddy. I supposed it always would. He’d been my bright star, my biggest friend, and he’d taught me so much.
“The beach house was always a Left Coast place. We’d stay here for a couple weeks in the summer, but the rest of the year the company used this place to entertain, and as a spot for artists to hang while they worked on their albums.”
“That explains the display of hardware and the recording studio.”
“You saw that?”
“I don’t sleep much.” He set his coffee mug on the counter. “But I did get to play with some guitars that I’ve only ever dreamed about using.”
“Do it. That’s what the room was built for. It’s meant to be a candy store for any musician. Kind of a dream come true.”
I glanced around the open-aired main room attached to the kitchen. A baby grand piano was in front of the giant bay window that looked out at the ocean. “You can’t imagine the hits that were written here.”
“Oh, I can imagine,” Rhett said. He scooted closer to me. My whole body vibrated with his nearness. My pulse spiked and my breathing took on this short shallow feel. He hadn’t even touched me and my response to him was immediate and intense. Fuck. I wanted him all the time. His lips were near my ear and his breath was on my neck as he lifted my hair and pulled it behind my shoulder. “I’ve done my research. I know of a number of hits that were both written and recorded here.” His lips pressed to the flesh of my neck just behind my ear and I bit my bottom lip. “In this very house.” My toes gripped the hard slate tile of the kitchen floor. I was wet already and I fought the urge to turn to him and press my breasts to his naked flesh and let my hands slip under the grey sweatpants where I knew his cock was already hard.
“You live here full time?”
I nodded. “After Daddy …”
My words drifted off, as they often did when I spoke about my father. Here, in the kitchen, with Rhett’s hand rubbing down the front of my belly and his hands slipping beneath the waistband of my shorts and finding the tingling spot that was ready for him, I didn’t want to do anything. I simply wanted to feel. To feel this.
“I didn’t stay in his house in Beverly Hills, where I grew up. That just seemed … I don’t know … that just seemed strange. So I live here.” I turned toward him and his hand stayed beneath my shorts and his finger trailed along the crease where my body met my thigh. A gentle soft sensation that caused my body to erupt.
“I can see why you’d want to stay here,” Rhett said. “It’s beautiful.”
“I’ve been here nearly eighteen months.” I didn’t mention that before I’d moved here to Malibu I’d been living with Johnny Tucker. If you could even call it living together. I stayed there. He came and went. There was a multitude of other women that were also in and out of the house. During those wild days it was as though I’d been one of many in a harem of women. And yet, I’d been weirdly okay with the way we lived … until I wasn’t. Then I left.
Rhett’s other hand clasped my ass and pulled me toward him. His finger slipped away from the seam of my thigh and pressed upward between my folds. A gasp flew from my lips.
“Feel good?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
His lips pressed to mine and my mouth opened to him. My body was opened to him. Desire washed over me thick and molten. I craved his touch in a way I’d never experienced, not even on the best days with Johnny. His tongue slipped into my mouth and entwined with mine. Heat burst through my chest. His finger pressed against my slick nub and my hips hitched toward his cock, toward his finger, toward him and the insane amount of pleasure his touch provided me.
He yanked at my tiny shorts and they dropped to the floor. I was bare and exposed and I wanted him. My hand slid beneath the elastic of his sweatpants. His cock was so hard and so ready for me. I grasped him and stroked upward over the soft skin of his shaft. A low moan in his deep whiskey-rich rhythm and blues voice pulsed from between his lips. A deep tingle uncurled from the tips of my toes upward to my sex. His finger slipped into me.
I wanted him inside me. I wanted him to fuck me. We’d just spent most of the night wrapped in each other’s arms and yet my desire for him was still present, a deep hunger. His hands slipped from me and he lifted me and set me on the kitchen island. My legs wrapped around him and pulled him close. His hands spread over the flesh of my belly and his lips, so hot, pressed to my nipple and pulled it into his mouth. My head fell back with the pleasure of his kiss, the heat of his mouth, the sensation of his tongue as he rolled my nipple around and sucked.
He spread my legs with his hands. His fingertips on the soft skin of my inner thigh were like fire. Sunlight, reflected off the infinite ocean, poured into the kitchen. His fingers parted me. I watched. His eyes were open and he spread my silken folds wet with desire. His tongue darted over his lips as though looking at a tasty treat. He looked up at me; his face now inches from my sex.
“You’re beautiful.”
He trailed a finger around my folds and watched me. My face creased with anticipation as he circled me. Breath stalled in my chest. That one touch, I needed that one touch of his fingertip on the sensitive nub at the top of my sex. He pulsed another finger into me, then two. Still he didn’t touch my clit. His fingertip danced near that spot but did not touch. A deep and low moan came from inside me, a want and a need. Again my breath caught and paused, I waited for his touch. The one touch my body needed to spiral over into the abyss of pleasure that I knew waited for me. Instead his lips kissed my thigh. A long languid kiss upon my tender flesh. Slowly, he moved his mouth upward. All the while his fingers pulsed in and out of me, never touching the hard tingling spot between my legs.
“You’re teasing me.” Frustration laced my voice. Frustration and want and need.
“Doesn’t it feel good?” he asked. He looked up over my mound. A wicked gleam lit his eyes.
“Yes, it feels good,” I panted. “But your lips on my clit would feel better.”
“You should have asked sooner,” he said. His mouth, that smart mouth, that held the magical voice, was on me. Fast and hot and sucking hard. His tongue swirled over my nub; the nerves already lit with anticipation were overwhelmed with sensation. I dropped back onto the island, supporting myself on my elbows. My hips thrust upward wanting more, wanting his mouth, needing him to pull me over to the other side. His tongue circled my clit again and again and again. His lips sucked and pulled. The heat built and built
to a furious flame, and then over the edge I fell. Slicing through pleasure, unable to breathe, to move. My hips circling and his hands holding me down. I fractured and tore and the pleasure ripped through me.
Then he was up on the kitchen island above me. His cock hard and thick and ready to give me what I wanted.
“Now,” I whispered. “I need you in me now.”
And with one slow stroke he was inside. A stroke that was powerful and yet gentle. He slid into me. My body knew him and opened to him. My body took him in fully, surrounding the hard heat that was his cock. He slid back and forward and back. He held himself above me and his eyes were locked to mine. Beautiful eyes. Eyes filled with emotion that scared me. How could I have feelings for this man? How could I ever let myself be vulnerable with him? Open my heart to him?
I knew too much. I knew what his future involved. Rhett had no idea. He’d given a fool’s promise to me the night before. A promise he could never keep. But now, in this moment, he was mine and I was his and the deep desire in me was not only filled with the hard pleasurable press of his cock sliding in and out of me, but by his whole body pressed upon me. Slowly he moved in me, bringing me ever closer to that edge again. His hand slipped between our bodies and his fingers were on my clit. He pressed his fingertip to me and then stroked into me with a hard firm thrust.
“Oh my God,” I said. I clasped my fingernails to his shoulders. His face was shadowed, his eyes locked on me, and filled with desire.
“I’m going to come,” I said. My voice louder and more intense.
“Come for me, Tasha, come for me baby.”
With that I shattered and the slow methodical rhythm Rhett used to pull me to another orgasm broke free. His body moved faster, his head dropped forward, and a growl escaped from his mouth—a strong male sound that only sent me flying deeper into my orgasm. His control slipped away and his body moved faster and faster and skin slapped against skin.
“Baby, I’m going to—”
The words left him. I clenched my hand to his brilliantly hard ass and pulled him deep into me, as deep as my body would take him. Every muscle in his body tightened and a spasm gripped him as he gasped a lungful of air and stopped breathing. His gaze locked with mine and the heat traveled deep within me as he came.
Rhett
“Let’s ride up the coast to Montecito.”
“What?” Tasha turned the corner from her bathroom. She wore a pink lace bra and boy toy lace shorts. My eyes roamed her beautiful flesh. While we’d spent all of last night and the early morning fucking, my cock hardened and I fought the urge to take her again. That body, that mouth. But it wasn’t just those things. I’d slept with women who had stellar bodies and luscious lips, but there was something more about Tasha that pulled me to her. Was it the vulnerability that I saw flash through her eyes? Was it the sense that she didn’t need me, as much as want me? Was it because she was strong and independent and smart but could still turn into this lush woman with soft curves and a sex appeal that sent me to my knees? Or was it simply the entire package? How could any woman walk around looking this good and be this smart?
She saw the desire in my eyes, because a smile curved over her lips and she cocked her hip, teasing me. “You’re cut off, until we do something other than have sex.” She placed her hand on her hip and I was certain she understood the attraction she had over me.
I was so screwed.
“You mentioned Montecito?” she asked.
“I know this great bar up there. You’ve never seen anything like it. Plus the whole place is just gorgeous.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Seems a little tame for your tastes. I’m surprised you like it so much.”
“I like things that are beautiful,” I said. I stepped toward her and Tasha’s scent of magnolia and vanilla flooded over me. I leaned forward and pecked the tip of her nose. My arm wrapped around her waist. “You better tell me yes and get dressed, or I’m afraid I won’t be able to grant your wish that we do something other than roll around in bed.”
She tilted her head up to me. I couldn’t stop from staring. There would never be another woman like this. No matter how many models, actresses, bunnies, or whatever, no other woman in this world looked or felt like Tash. There would never be another Tasha Jones.
“I know a great place in Montecito, too,” Tasha said. She reached toward her dresser and glanced at her phone. “I have to go into the office for a couple hours and then I have a lunch I can’t reschedule but, after that, we could go and stay for a couple days?”
“With you?” My lips grazed her cheek and then her jaw; my hand was sliding dangerously low on her belly to that magic place at the edge of her lace panties. “I’d stay anywhere for as long as you wanted.”
“Great,” she said and gripped my wrist. She stopped my hand and a smile crossed her lips. “I’ll pack now so we can leave as soon as I get back from the office.” She scooted toward her closet.
I closed my eyes. I wanted to fuck her again, right now, here, but I knew if we started again we’d never make it to Montecito. “You’ve got twenty minutes to get your ass to the office and three hours to get home,” I called. “Can you get ready in twenty minutes?”
“No problem.”
“Really? I’ve never met a women who can get ready in less than an hour.”
“Baby,” Tasha ducked her head around her closet door and wiggled her eyebrows, “you’ve never met a woman like me.”
Chapter 10
Tasha
“We’re going with the Legend cover,” I said to the publicity and marketing team in my office. I was greeted by smiles. David looked at me with a hint of surprise.
“I’m not sure how you pulled this off, but nice work.”
I looked at Cirianna, the head of publicity. “Work your magic. Start the leaks. It’s time the world knew about Rhett Legend.”
She nodded, all smiles. It was much more fun to be leaking information instead of trying to contain it. I chose the final cover art and the layout along with the fonts for the band and album names. The team filled me and David, who was joining the meeting by speakerphone from South America, in on their promo work. They told us all the “new” things they’d begin now that we had the Legend name to work with. The meeting finished and everyone left, but David remained on the line.
“Seems you do have some of your father’s magic,” David said.
Heat rushed up my neck and entered my cheeks. I didn’t want David to know what was going on between Rhett and me. David had a front row seat to Johnny’s and my affair and then breakup. He knew I’d sworn off musicians. By getting involved with Rhett, I’d broken a promise to myself.
“What do you think of our investigator?” I asked, trying to navigate the conversation away from Rhett.
“He’s not as effective as I would like. I made a few calls and I’m meeting with two other investigators later today. If your uncle is here, we’re going to find him.”
“I’d like to talk to him too.”
“The investigator?”
“I should have spoken with him in the beginning. Daddy would never have delegated something this important to anyone.” Silence came from the other end of the phone line. “Not that you’re just anyone,” I said. “What I mean is that Daddy would have kept a closer watch. He would have been meeting with and speaking to the investigator directly, with your help, of course.”
“Of course,” David said. “I’ll set up a conference call.”
“As soon as possible,” I added.
“No problem.” David said.
We ended our call. Was David irritated with my decision with regards to the private investigator or simply resistant because he wanted to handle the investigation by himself? Either way, I needed to know what was being done to find the missing money. I’d been too self-involved and consumed with grief to take over Left Coast when I should have. Now, perhaps I was being too lax in running Left Coast. Maybe I had leaned on David too hard, relied on him
too much. Daddy had loved David and thought of him as a son, but now it was time for me to run the company. To step out from behind Daddy’s shadow and take the burden from David. I had to take ownership and make decisions. I’d give Left Coast everything that I had. I would not let anyone else run the company, or be responsible for the destiny of the label. I’d abdicated after Daddy’s death and nearly lost the whole damn place. Now, with the biggest release since I’d taken over, I had to manage everything and that included finding the guy—my Uncle Lewis—who had stolen most of the assets.
I grabbed my bag and fished out my car keys. My meeting with Aileen was at her house in Beverly Hills in forty-five minutes. I swung my bag over my shoulder and waved at my assistant as I hopped on the elevator. If the L.A. traffic gods were on my side, I had just enough time to get to Aileen’s house.
A flash of Rhett and what we’d done just a few hours before in my shower and then in the kitchen flew through my mind. A tingle built in my belly with the memory of him pressing into me. His hand rubbing hard circles on my clit while he kissed the back of my neck. My entire body stiffened with the memory. Rhett’s touch melted me. When we’d still been in the afterglow of passion he’d slipped back into his hard-ass persona before he looked at me. I knew warmth and a vulnerability lay deep in his core. He couldn’t write the music he did without feeling. He felt so much and yet he didn’t seem to want to share any of that vulnerability with me. Without vulnerability and transparency, I couldn’t have a relationship with him. Especially now, when his album was about to release and he was going on tour with Johnny.
Was it possible for Rhett to allow himself to be vulnerable? Was he too damaged to let anyone into his heart? Was he able to care for me the way I needed to be cared for?
My cell phone rang and I snagged it from my bag. I pressed the green button without looking at the name or number.
