Rock Addiction (Rock Kiss #1)(11)

Damn right he’d touched Molly. And he planned to do it again. “She’s mine.” Sex usually worked women out of his system; it had only worked Molly in deeper.

Noah angled his body to stare at him. “What?”

“Molly. She’s mine.” This was no longer about anything as simple or as easily handled as physical attraction.

“I need more coffee.” It was a groaned-out statement from his bandmate. Grabbing Fox’s cup as well, Noah went back to the machine, returning a few minutes later to say, “You’re serious?”

“Deadly.” Fox drank from the full cup the other man had handed over. “You know when you get the whisper of a melody in your head, or the murmur of a song? And you have the gut feeling that if you could just hear the rest of it, just capture the music”—the need an ache as frustrating as it was piercing—“you’d have something f*cking amazing?”

Noah nodded.

“Yeah well, that’s what it feels like with Molly.” The most compelling whisper of his life. “I’m not about to walk away from that.”

“Could just be lust,” Noah said bluntly. “It can hit hard, leave a man seeing stars, and then it’s over.”

Fox thought of Molly, of what her body, her scent, her taste, did to him.

His own body hardened at the memory. Yeah, their physical chemistry wasn’t in question; he could’ve happily stayed in bed with her all day today and been greedy for more. The things he wanted to do to Molly Webster… But despite their erotic connection, sex wasn’t the first thing that came to his mind when he thought of Molly.

It was her smile.

Eyes glowing from within as her whole face lit up, that smile had knocked him sideways at the party. Then had come her blushing smile in bed when he made a very dirty suggestion midway through their second time around, followed by her smart and funny response as her self-protective shields fell enough that he’d caught a glimpse of the heart of her.

Each glimpse had only deepened his craving to know more. He didn’t only want to f*ck Molly; he wanted to talk to her, wanted to hear her use words like “nefarious” and discover what else might come out of her beautiful mouth. And he wanted that brilliant, real, full-body smile turned in his direction.

“It’s not just sex,” he said into the silence that had fallen between him and Noah. “It’s something else.” A thing for which he didn’t have a name, but that he knew in his gut was important, rare. The idea of turning his back on it made every cell in his body scream “Hell, no!” “I have to hear the whole song, learn the entire melody.” Figure out if this was a song with staying power… or one that would fade into history without leaving a mark.

His shoulders grew tight.

Thrusting a hand through his hair, the blond strands glinting in the sunlight, Noah raised an eyebrow. “She good with that? Being involved with you isn’t exactly going to be a picnic for her once the media gets hold of the news.”

“Molly thinks we had a one-night stand.” Not that he could blame her. It wasn’t as if he’d made his intentions clear—but he had a feeling those intentions would make Molly run hard and fast in the opposite direction.

So he just wouldn’t tell her.





Chapter 5


Work kept Molly busy, the library buzzing with a mix of adults and children as well as keen university students after some of the older material held in the archives. And if parts of her body twinged and throbbed in unfamiliar ways, they’d settle soon enough, erasing any lingering physical trace of Fox’s possession and leaving behind only memories—memories she had no intention of smothering.

Her dream of a stable, happily boring life hadn’t changed, would never change. It made her stomach lurch to even think about the horror that had been the unforgiving glare of “fame” after her high-profile father was found with that underage girl, the constant whispers and stares.

No, she didn’t want excitement. What she wanted was blissful normality: a job she liked; a steady, faithful man; a house on an ordinary suburban street; a sedate minivan with room in back for the slobbering family dog. But… when she was living that safe, stable life, the memory of her night with a smart, sexy, roughly tender rock star would be a hidden treasure, a quiet acknowledgment of the other Molly. The Molly who might’ve lived a life more adventurous and less ordinary in another time, another place… a Molly who, in this world, was a little too broken to ever again be permitted to hold the reins.




Fox hadn’t become the lead singer of one of the best-selling rock bands in history by being a shrinking violet. No, he went after what he wanted, no holds barred. And the raw promise he could feel between him and Molly? He had to know where it would lead, the need so strong he hadn’t felt anything like it since the day he’d figured out that music was his escape, the air in his lungs.

Which was why he was leaning against the wall beside Molly’s apartment at five that afternoon, a guitar by his side.

The elevator doors opened at a quarter after the hour, Molly going motionless two steps outside of it, the doors closing silently at her back. Yeah, she hadn’t expected him, but Fox was ready to work with that. Waiting patiently as she took a deep breath and completed the trek down the corridor, he drew in the scent of her, his gaze lingering on the fluttering pulse in her neck.