Fade Into You (Shaken Dirty #3)(77)
He caught her around the waist, tried to hold her a little away from him. “I’m sweaty and gross,” he warned.
She just rolled her eyes as she pressed her body against his. “If you think the words rock and roll sweaty and the word gross belong in the same description, you’ve obviously never seen yourself,” she said as she slid her hands into his hair and pulled his mouth down to hers for a real kiss.
“Oh, yeah?” His dick grew even harder at her words, and the way her body curved so soft and inviting against his own. “Rock and roll sweaty is different than regular sweaty?”
“So, so different.” She nuzzled his jaw. “You look so f*cking hot like this that it was all I could do not to climb on stage and rip your clothes off.”
“Just so you know, the next time you feel that? You should totally go with it.”
She laughed, nipped at the sensitive spot behind his ear. “You don’t think your fans would have a problem with it? Or the other guys?”
“The other guys can bite me. As for the fans, the guys would just be impressed I could land a girl like you.”
“Oh, I’m sure that’s what they’d be. Impressed. And the girls would do their best to rip my face off.”
“I’d protect you, sweetheart.”
She snorted. “I’m pretty sure your protection is suspect.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He wrapped an arm around her waist, pulled her away from the wall, and started walking her backward down the hall.
The little smirk on her face told him she knew exactly what he was up to. Not that he was exactly aiming to keep it secret…
When they got to the door at the end of the hallway, he raised his brows in silent question. She giggled a little—a totally un-Poppy-like sound—then reached behind her to push the door open.
There were so, so many reasons he was nuts about this woman.
He spun her around so that she was facing forward—he didn’t want her to trip on the small steps leading down to the alley—but kept an arm around her waist because he wasn’t ready to let her go. Then again, there was a part of him that was pretty sure he’d never be ready to let her go, a part of him that was rapidly figuring out that Poppy was it for him.
“I’m crazy about you.” The words were out before he knew he was going to say them.
She whirled back around to face him, eyes wide and lips parted in surprise. Which he might have been sweating, except he could see the joy there, too. Even before a huge grin swept across her face.
Then she was throwing her arms around his neck and mashing their mouths together with more enthusiasm than technique. He figured it was just another sign of how far gone he was for her that he liked this kiss just as much as any of the others. Maybe more.
And when she whispered, “I’m crazy about you, too,” against his lips, he felt like the whole world had opened up in front of him. The fact that he was sober to feel this, to experience it, meant more than he ever would have imagined it could.
His hands went to her hips, then slid down and around to cup her ass. But right before he lifted her against him, she stopped him with a hand against his chest and a murmured “Wait.”
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” he asked, pulling back so he could get a decent look at her face in the dim light. But he’d deliberately maneuvered them into the shadows, which meant he couldn’t see her eyes or even her expression. “If you don’t want to do this—”
“It’s not that,” she told him. “It’s just, there’s something I need to tell you.”
He didn’t like the sound of that, at all. Any more than he liked the dread in her voice. Pulling back a little more, he guided her toward the club door and the small pool of light that surrounded it. The look on her face, when he could finally see it, only reinforced his impression that something was very, very not right.
“Okay,” he said, stroking a hand over her cheek. “What is it, sweetheart?”
She turned her head, nuzzled his palm, then took a deep breath and blew it out slowly even as she wrung her hands together.
“You look like you’re about to get a triple root canal or something,” he said, trying to joke around and ease her obvious stress. “Is it really that bad?”
“It’s pretty bad. And I want to say up front, I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry. I know it probably won’t matter to you, but I really did have the best intentions. So if you could just listen to me before you freak out—”
His brows were at his hairline by now. “I’m not normally in the habit of freaking out, but if you think it’s that bad, maybe you should just spit it out. Get it over with.”
She froze for a second—even her breathing seemed to stop as he waited for her to make up her mind. But then she nodded. Took a deep breath. Squared her shoulders like she was going in front of a firing squad. “I’ve been lying to you since I got here. I mean, not really lying, more omitting. But still, lying.”
He’d be lying to himself if he said his blood didn’t run a little cold at her words. But he’d spent a big part of his early life assumed to be guilty before he had a chance to explain anything, and so he just nodded, saying a very cautious, “All right,” as he waited for the rest of the story.