Rough Rhythm: A Made in Jersey Novella (1001 Dark Nights)(11)

Only half of her words had penetrated the graying haze surrounding James, his sole focus on her right ankle. “I can’t have this conversation when you’re bleeding.”

“I’m always bleeding when you’re standing in front of me,” she said, chin lifting. “You just can’t see it.”

His hurt lurched. “Lita…”

She stomped the injured foot, nearly spiraling him into a heart attack. “Yeah, I know. I say things like that now. Get used to it.”

The whole situation was getting out of hand. James didn’t know what her goals were in traveling three hundred miles, but she’d wasted her time. He’d finally found the strength to direct his brand of destruction away from Lita and seeing her, hearing her, smelling her, nearly touching her, was f*cking with his resolve in a catastrophic way. “Why are you wearing that?” James gritted out.

She glanced down at her attire, as if riding four buses with both thighs completely exposed was a mere afterthought. When she looked up at him again, those teeth were busy chewing away at her bottom lip, stirring his neglected male flesh. It didn’t help matters when Lita stepped closer, dropping her voice to a whisper. “I don’t think I should answer that in front of your mother, James.” She let out a shaky exhale. “Anyway, you…you’re wearing jeans.”

God, how could she make a statement of fact sound like those final strained words before an orgasm? His cock wasn’t handling the public sidewalk seduction well at all, thickening inside the restrictive denim, his balls weighed down in a hot rush. On top of his aroused state, Lita’s injury demanded his attention. Now.

“Mother, I will call you later.”

James stepped forward and scooped Lita up against his chest. Something he’d done on more than one occasion when shows got too rowdy, but it felt very different now. Instead of her protector, he was a predator carrying her away from the light. Away from normalcy, where she belonged.

“How is your father?”

He felt her breath against his neck clear down to his toes. “Awake. Alive.”

“Okay.” She laid her lips against his pulse. “Do you want to talk about why you weren’t inside when I pulled up?”

“No.” He jerked away when every instinct screamed to lean in, absorb the touch. Tell her everything. “How did you find me?”

Lita laid her head on his shoulder, running him through with an invisible sword. “I had a little help from our security team.”

“Impossible. You make their life hell.”

“Yes, I know. They might have mentioned it a few hundred times.” She exhaled, ruffling the hair at the back of his neck. The best feeling he’d had in six goddamn days. “Old News is playing two bat mitzvahs and one wedding this summer. For free. I haven’t met our new manager yet, but I doubt that will earn me a spot as teacher’s pet.”

Despite the situation with his father and knowing this moment with Lita couldn’t last, James almost laughed. “Only you.”

When they reached his Mustang, he noticed her ankle was dripping onto the sidewalk and didn’t manage to swallow the gruff sound that left him. “How could you let it get so bad?”

It took her a moment to release his shoulders when he set her down on the passenger seat. “I think…I thought if I hurt enough, you would feel it and come back. I wanted to punish you, too. For leaving.” She crossed her arms over her middle. “The only way I could do that was to punish myself.”

His hand curled into a fist on the car’s roof. “Can’t you see how wrong that is?”

“Yes. We were both a little wrong.” She held his gaze from below. “But I’m going to make it right.”





Chapter Four



Lita knew her plan was a gamble. And she used the word plan loosely.

For all she knew, it could make things worse between her and James. If such a thing were possible. The ride to the motel had been silent, his huge hands flexing on the steering wheel as they always did when Lita rode shotgun. Upon arrival, he’d ordered her to stay put in the passenger seat and for once, she’d put up no argument. The tension in him was a living thing as he rounded the Mustang’s bumper to jerk her door open. Then she was back in his capable arms, being carried across the twilight-draped parking lot.

“So. I think things went well with your mom.”

James said nothing, gaze glued to the motel as they approached.

“On the way here, the bus stopped at a Dairy Queen and someone thought I was Carly Rae Jepsen. Again.”

The man wasn’t amused. “You still haven’t explained what you’re wearing.”

“Be patient. I’m getting there.” Lita took a deep breath, hoping to stall until they were inside the room and he couldn’t bar her entry. She played with the collar of his T-shirt, her belly flipping at the dark chest hair peeking out. In four years, she’d never seen him shirtless and hoped that wouldn’t be the case much longer. When James set her down gently in front of a rusted, teal door and dug for the room key in his pocket, she watched the denim stretch across the bulge at his lap, the waistband dipping low. “I want to say something profound here, but I can only think of terrible pickup lines.”

“Please don’t say them.”