Rock Chick Reawakening (Rock Chick 0.5)(40)

It was a great sweater. This would be a shame.

I just couldn’t find it in me at that minute to care.

It was time to go to bed.

And Marcus led me to his bedroom, where I was sleeping (and he would hear none of it that I could take a guest room (he didn’t have one like he’d said, he had three) so I shut up about it) and he’d just given me a goodnight kiss that led to another one that led to another one that led to a make-out session in his doorway.

He had one hand curled around the back of my neck, the other hand braced on the jamb over my head.

His hold and pose were hot.

So I was not feeling slow.

At all.

“I think maybe we can—” I began.

He lifted his forehead from mine and cut me off.

“We need to work up to it.”

“I’m up for more working up to it,” I shared with him breathily.

He took his hand from the jamb and brushed his fingers along my jaw.

“Don’t make this harder,” he ordered gently.

I wanted to make something harder.

To communicate this, I replied, “I know ways to make it a whole lot easier.”

“Daisy, honey, you lost it at dinner.”

Damn.

“We need to work up to it,” he repeated.

He was right.

And that stunk.

“All right,” I grumbled.

“All right,” he replied sweetly.

“Can we make a deal that if I have forty-eight hours drama-free, you’ll consider banging me?”

He smiled down at me. “Honey, I’m never going to bang you. What we’re going to do will not including banging.”

I didn’t know what to make of that.

“What’re we gonna do?” I asked, not to get a rise out him (in that way, or any way).

I was curious.

“We’re not going to bang.”

“Okay, so what’re we gonna do?”

“You bang someone you give a gold bracelet to to say good-bye when you’ve lost interest in banging her. The man I am does not bang a woman like you.”

Oh Lord.

His brows drew together as he watched my face. “Are you going to cry again?”

“No,” I snapped, though I was feeling close to it. So I needed a retreat, stat. “Go away. I need to crawl into your huge-ass bed, smell you on your sheets, and fight the desire to ask you to let it be me who puts a bullet into that jackass’s forehead.”

“That isn’t going to happen.”

I blinked at the sudden change in the tone of his voice.

It wasn’t just firm.

It was steel grating against steel.

“I was just joshin’,” I told him carefully.

“Well, I’m not. I do what I do. I have other concerns that I’m growing alongside those you don’t know about, you’ll never know about, but know they’re there. I do this to assure the future I intend to have. That’s the part of my life where you’ll have your place. The only part. This gets done, you live in that light. I never put you in any dark.”

“Okay, sugar,” I soothed, because I needed to soothe. The sparks flying off his steel were singeing me.

The heat went out of his gaze, he bent and touched his mouth to mine, and then he gave my neck a squeeze.

He did all this right before he didn’t play fair.

“Now, go to bed, baby. And if you do something while you’re wrapped up in my sheets that I’d love, but right now knowing you were doing it would kill me, please be quiet. I intend to be.”

My eyes got huge.

His got wicked.

Then he brushed his lips against mine again, took his time trailing his hand from my neck so his fingers went all the way through my hair before he stepped away and walked away, not looking back.

Still, I watched until he disappeared through a door down the hall.

Okay, giving you the honesty.

I watched his ass until it disappeared through a door down the hall.

But there was some shoulder watching too.

I closed the door to his room, got ready for bed, and for the first time since what happened to me happened to me, I took care of business wrapped up in Marcus’s sheets.

And really, who could blame me?

Not to mention, he’d totally primed me so it was awesome.

And not once did I think about what had happened to me.

Oh no.

After I took care of myself as quiet as I could, I rolled over, smelled Marcus, closed my eyes with a smile on my face, and slept like a baby.





Chapter Nine



Love Boat

Daisy



I sat with my bare feet up on a chair in the dressing room at Smithie’s, a cold Fat Tire beer in my hand.

The beer was not my choice. It was Wynter’s birthday. She wanted a tub filled with Fat Tire, so Smithie left one for us in the dressing room. Though it wasn’t my choice, it was the first time I’d ever had it and that beer was yum.

My contribution was a big birthday sheet cake practically covered with huge frosting roses.

Oh, and the cake also had the words Happy Birthday, Wynter! and the whole thing was covered in edible glitter dust.

I was sipping and grinning at Chardonnay, who was telling a story.

“So then I was all, ‘What’s your problem?’ And she was all, ‘I don’t have a problem. What’s your problem?’ And I was all, ‘Do you see me talking to this guy?” And she was all, ‘Whatever.’ And I was all, ‘Not whatever. You just came up to him while I was talking to him and shoved your tits in his face.’ And she was all, ‘I did not do that.’ And I was all, ‘I got eyes in my head, don’t I?’ And then the guy says, ‘You did do that. And it was not cool. I’m talking to her.’” Her face got dreamy and so did her voice when she finished, “His name was Dylan, and he was fine.”