Rock Addiction (Rock Kiss #1)(20)

Molly was the only lover who’d ever torn it open.

And she’d done it on their second night together. It slammed home the fact that he was already in far too deep for this to be any kind of a brief affair. Not that he’d needed the f*cking reminder. He’d never, never, reacted to a woman this way. And her stubborn blindness to the truth of what burned between them aside, the more time he spent with Molly, the deeper he fell.

Honest and smart and with a sweet tenderness to her that cut him off at the knees, she pushed buttons he didn’t even know he had.

“Stop.” A breathless demand. “You’re the one who proposed a one-month stand.”

Turning, he stalked back to her doorway just as another door opened down the hall. “Molly?” said a heavyset man wearing black sweatpants and a navy tee. “You okay?”

Fox shifted instinctively to protect her from the view of the other man, her body clad only in that silly fluffy yellow robe that drove him crazy. She flushed and looked around his side. “Yes, I’m fine.”

The stranger gave Fox a long, suspicious look before saying, “Just yell if that changes,” and shutting his door.

Fox waited until Molly’s eyes were back on him to speak, his voice harsh and his arms braced on either side of the doorway. “I might have proposed a one-month stand,” he said, “but I didn’t expect to be used and shoved out as soon as I’d served my purpose.” It infuriated him. “Or should I say as soon as my cock had served its purpose?”

Molly flinched, but she didn’t back down. “What? You expect me to let you move in for the month?” Her words came out in a furious whisper, her hands clenched to bloodless tightness even as her cheeks flared with hot spots of color. “I never did anything to make you believe I’d be fine with that. There are boundaries.”

Gripping her jaw, he said, “You don’t get to treat me as disposable.”

Shock rippled through the anger in the dark brown of her eyes. “No, I—”

“You can’t use me for sex,” he interrupted, too pissed to hold back the words, “then put me away until the next time. I will not be your f*cking dirty little secret.” Not when it was brutally clear their relationship had already crossed the line from sex to a far more demanding, far more passionate bond. “Decide, Molly.”

“I can’t.” The words were shaky, the anger draining away to leave her expression stark with pain. “I can’t become entangled in you.”

“You’d rather live half a life?” he asked without mercy, knowing he was pushing her too hard, too fast, but unable to stop himself, his response to her a violence inside him. “Always with one step backing away, ready to run to safety?” Sensing his temper was about to slip the leash totally, Fox pushed away from the doorjamb. “Make sure you can live with that choice.”




This time when Fox turned and walked away, Molly didn’t call him back. Closing the door with fingers that trembled, she slid down to sit with her back to it, the robe he’d teased her about bunched around her thighs and her eyes on the bench where Fox had kissed her until he melted her bones.

“You’d rather live half a life? Always with one step backing away, ready to run to safety?”

The knuckles of one clenched hand pressed against her mouth, Molly shook her head. That wasn’t what she was doing. She was living life on her terms—she supported herself, had a job she truly enjoyed, a best friend she loved, and a sister she’d embraced. More, she had a plan for her future and if that plan wasn’t bursting with excitement, that was exactly what she wanted.

You’re also twenty-four years old, another part of her whispered, and the only two relationships you’ve had, if you can even call those fiascos relationships, have been with men who were… comfortable. The first was married to his job, the other in love with his ex-girlfriend. Neither one tried to get anything more than a kiss. And you didn’t really care. You don’t think something might be wrong with that picture?

It was a pitiless indictment of the life she’d built out of nothing. A safe, careful, content life. Rather than a strong, purposeful plan, it suddenly sounded unutterably sad.

A tear trickled into her mouth, the taste of salt hot.

Knuckling it away, she got up and found the phone as well as the chocolate-fudge ice cream and took both back to the couch

Thea’s sleep-slurred voice came on the line two rings later. “Hello?”

“Thea, it’s me.” Normally, she’d have called Charlotte, but if her smart best friend had one area of total cluelessness, it was on the subject of men.

“What’s the matter?” Instant wakefulness.

Thea listened, not saying anything until Molly had poured it all out. “I guess it’s too late to warn you against getting involved with someone in the industry?” Not waiting for an answer, she continued. “Here’s the thing, Molly, Fox isn’t the type of guy you can be with and expect to hold the reins. That vibe he gives off? It’s not an illusion—he really is that intense.”

Sipping sounds, Thea drinking the herbal tea she’d made while Molly talked. “I’ve worked with him for over two years,” she continued, “and never once has he delegated control of any aspect of his private life to an assistant, manager, anyone. You have no idea how rare that is at his level of success.”