Fade Into You (Shaken Dirty #3)(7)

Not that she was going to say all that to some guy she’d just met—no matter how intriguing or sexy he was. Instead, she said simply, “It wasn’t that kind of breakup.”

He nodded before lifting the cigarette to his lips again. “I know how that goes.”

“Is that why you’re out here? Hiding from a bad breakup?”

He snorted. “More like hiding from myself.”

She studied what little she could see of him—the lean chest, the chiseled jaw. “Oh, yeah? How’s that going for you?”

“About as well as could be expected.” He took one last drag of the cigarette before dropping it to the ground and crushing it beneath the heel of his worn, brown Dingo boot. Then he reached for her. “Hey. Come here.”

She was an intelligent woman, one who’d met thousands of musicians in her day.

One who knew better than to fall for the line of some too-smooth roadie behind a club.

One who had a job to do at this very club, a job that she really needed to get started on.

But there was something in his voice, something in the way he held himself in the shadows—in the way he’d clutched that cigarette like a lifeline—that hit a nerve deep inside of her. Her own loneliness, maybe. Or the anger churning in her gut over this whole farce, and the father who had forced Caleb and her into it.

She loved rock. Loved everything about it. The way it was a fist in her gut, an angry punch to her heart, a tug between her thighs. For so long she’d tamped that down, had ignored and hidden and been ashamed of that part of her, because that wasn’t how a label rep was supposed to respond to music. It wasn’t how Bill Germaine’s daughter was supposed to feel.

But here, now, with the visceral beat of it pouring out of the club, she couldn’t ignore the need anymore. Tonight, when the show was over—when Shaken Dirty had played their set—she’d be her father’s perfect little soldier again. Business-like, no-nonsense, the woman she needed to be to show him that she could do this job. More, that she deserved a chance to do it. But for now, for this moment, she was going to say to hell with all the “shoulds” and “had tos” and just enjoy the hell out of the music and this man. This beautiful, sexy man who seemed to embody everything she couldn’t be, everything she couldn’t have.

And so, she went when he reached for her.

So she let him wrap his hand around her wrist and tug her gently toward him until she was standing between the deep V of his legs.

So she let him put his other hand under her chin and tilt her face up to his.

She couldn’t see his eyes. He was still in the shadows—they both were now—but that didn’t matter. Not when he was letting go of her wrist so that he could slide his hand from her hip to her waist to the sensitive spot on her lower back. And definitely not when he slid his fingers under her shirt and tickled the delicate skin of her back before dipping them slowly, inexorably, beneath the waistband of her jeans.

She knew she should protest, knew she should step back—she didn’t know this guy at all—but his words echoed inside of her. Slammed up against her own walls and all the things she kept hidden deep inside of herself.

Which was why, instead of protesting, she let him. Hell, she nearly begged him to do it, her head falling back to bare her neck to him even as her lower body arched against his.

He accepted the invitation, a dark, rumbly sound coming from his chest as he leaned down and pressed his lips against her collarbone. It felt so good. He felt so good, and it had been so long since she’d done this. So long since she’d given in—to a man or to this side of herself.

Sparks of desire caught fire inside of her at the first touch of his mouth, making her wet. Making her need. And that was before he licked his way to the hollow of her throat.

Before he trailed hot kisses up the side of her neck to the delicate spot behind her ear.

Before he nibbled softly at her earlobe, his breath hot and moist against her skin.

She gasped then, at the pain and the pleasure of it, her hands clutching at him as she arched her back. Offered him more. Demanded more.

“I like that sound,” he murmured, nipping sharply at her ear before lowering his mouth back to the point where her neck met her shoulder. “Let’s see if we can get you to make it again.”

She was so, so, so totally on board with that plan. Especially when he started licking at the sensitive bend, his mouth hot and soft and just a little bit wet as he sucked her skin between his teeth and gently bit down.

This time the sound she made was more moan than gasp—half arousal, half pained denial—and he laughed a little at her response, a stark, sexy sound that only made her wetter…and more desperate.

She pulled at him then, sliding her hands into his shaggy blond hair and tugging, hard. She wanted—needed—to know what those lips felt like pressed against hers.

He wouldn’t give in, though. Wouldn’t give her what she wanted.

Instead he teased her until she gasped. Until she whimpered. Until she begged. For his mouth. For his touch. For the release she could feel building inside of her from just the press of his mouth on her skin. From just the tangle of his fingers in her hair.

And then he was turning her, turning them. Pressing her back up against the wall and dropping to his knees in front of her.

Before she could even assimilate that, his mouth was on her breast, his teeth biting gently at her nipple through the thin layers of her T-shirt and bra.