Chapter Four
Over the next few days I did everything in my power to stay clear of Emmett. Mrs. H’s house was huge—by far the biggest house I’d ever lived in—but even then he seemed to be everywhere. On Wednesday morning, I’d stumbled into my bathroom scrubbing sleep from my eyes and yawning just to find Emmett shaving in front of the mirror in nothing but a pair of boxer briefs. Then, when I couldn’t sleep last night, I snuck down to the kitchen for a drink only to find him on a call arguing about his producer. He’d called after me when I skulked off, but I hadn’t looked back.
And now, here he was again—dressed in only a pair of jeans and standing in my doorway. God, why hadn’t I closed the door?
“You were singing,” he mused.
Closing my laptop, I slid off my bed. His green eyes dropped to my legs. I was wearing shorts, but my tee shirt was so long it covered the hem. Judging from the way the corners of Emmett’s lips threatened to tug into a smirk, he probably thought he’d walked in on something naughty. I made a mental note to hack a few pairs of my jeans into longer shorts.
“I sometimes do that outside the shower,” I said. I struggled to keep my gaze level with his, knowing that if I dared to let my eyes wander to his tattooed flesh, I’d eventually ogle his abs and the sculpted V of his torso. Though just thinking about the high points of his body made my eye twitch. “With you around, it seems to be safer than singing in the shower,” I added.
He glanced at my legs again. “You were singing Dierks Bentley.” Without an invitation, he strode into my room, walked right past me, and a moment later, I heard the daybed mattress squeak. “I could’ve sworn you told me you weren’t into country.”
I would never admit I’d bought the CD earlier this evening or that some invisible force had steered me toward a section in the music store I rarely walked toward. He would automatically assume that invisible force came from me thinking way too much about him. He’d be right. Fisting my hands, I spun around on my bare feet to face him. “I don’t remember ever telling you what music I listen to.”
He leaned back on his elbow, giving me a mighty fine display of the chest and abs I’d been so determined not to leer at, and grinned. “I made an educated guess based on what you sing in the shower every morning.” He listened to me? I flushed and looked away, drawing a chuckle from Emmett. “It’s a Friday night, and you’re holed up in your room.”
“I’m researching colleges.” Which was the truth. I was fortunate enough that there were a ton of schools in the area for me to apply to next year. I pretended to be interested in arranging the bottles of body spray and lotion on my dresser, keeping a cautious eye on him as I said, “There’s nothing wrong with thinking about my education.”
A smile finally emerged, lighting up his entire face, and butterflies flitted through the pit of my belly and into my chest. “It’s a Friday night, and you’re researching colleges and singing the fucking blues.” He shook his head and tsked me. God, even a sound of admonishment sounded sexy falling from his lips. “That’s a shame, Kinsey.”
I nearly knocked a lamp off my dresser whirling around to say, “Well, I guess you should be ashamed too. It’s a Friday night and instead of picking up women in bars, you’re in my bedroom riding me.”
I regretted the words the second they slipped out, especially when he gave me an incredulous look, followed by a quick glance at my own bed. “Believe me, Angel, I’m not riding you.”
“Don’t be dirty.”
“Then don’t think it.” He got up slowly and sauntered across the room, stopping once his bare toes brushed mine. He leaned in close to me and studied me closely, so I put on my best poker face. Considering the intoxicating scent drifting from his bare chest—and the sight of his bare chest in general—it was a difficult task.
“I’m curious, Kinsey—do you want me to go out and spend the night … somewhere else?” I thinned my lips into a tight line, so he continued speaking, his voice soft but rough. “Is that what you think I should be doing?”
I turned my back to him, but he moved closer to me and his green eyes found mine in the dresser mirror. His face was close to my hair, and when he inhaled and a look of sheer desire passed over his features, I almost lost my self-control. “You’re a grown man,” I whispered. “It shouldn’t matter what I think you should be doing.”
“But you think of me.” It wasn’t a question but a statement, and I held my chin higher, refusing to respond. He bit his bottom lip, a sexy gesture that made my heart race. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
“Cocky much?”
“Oh, hell yeah.” He bent his head until his lips brushed my ear, making me defenseless. Making me want and need something from him I was scared to verbalize. “Kinsey?”
Turning my face just slightly toward his, I squeezed my eyes shut. “Hmm?”
His minty breath fanned my face, stealing my breath out of my lungs. When he made another move, it wasn’t to kiss me, but to say, “Get dressed.”
My eyes flew open, and I realized he’d taken a step back. Dragging my fingernails across my palms, I turned to look at him and rested my ass against the dresser. A few bottles of the lotion I’d been so focused on arranging fell over, but I didn’t care. “Why?”
“It’s Friday night. Mim is in bed, and we’re both far from tired.” He trailed his eyes over my body, once again not bothering to hide the fact that he was checking me out. “Figured my trip here wouldn’t be complete without raising some hell with you.”
“No.” I shook my head vigorously, but he retaliated with a very slow, very wicked nod.
“Oh, hell yes, Angel.”
“I’m not twenty-one,” I pointed out. Of course, that had never stopped me before I moved in with Mrs. H. “I’m seriously the worst person to take out.”
“Yeah, well I wasn’t either for the last few years. Luckily for you, you don’t have to be twenty-one to get into a bar.” Backing up toward my door, he took in my pinched expression and chuckled. “Meet me at the truck in twenty minutes.”
♫
Somehow, we ended up at a country bar for open mic and karaoke night, and I ended up with a big stamp on the back of my hand broadcasting my age. In my shorts, button-up blue flannel shirt, and a pair of Converse I’d had since I was fourteen, I felt underdressed among the cute and sexy sundresses and tight jeans and cowboy boots most of the other women were wearing. I shrugged it off. With my body’s constant reaction to Emmett, it was probably best I hadn’t put any special effort into what I was wearing. Shoving my hands into the back pockets of my shorts, I followed him to a tiny booth close to the stage after he’d grabbed a beer.
“You ever come here before?” he asked.
Snorting, I slid into my seat. “Not sure if you’ve noticed, but I’m about as boring as they come.” When he lifted a dark, skeptical brow, I glanced at the stage where a couple of girls were singing The Wrecker’s Leave the Pieces. “At least I am nowadays.”
“Ah, hell.” He tipped his bottle to his full lips. “Nowadays?”
I didn’t see any point lying to him. “I spent six months in juvie for walking out of a store with a big screen TV.”
He froze mid-sip, then plunked the glass back to the table. He scratched his hand through his thick, brown hair. “You’re messing with me, Angel.”
“I wish I was joking.” Grabbing his drink, I swallowed a giant gulp before sliding it back across the table to him. “I had a very nice, very oblivious gentleman load it into a buggy for me and then I pushed it right out of the store. My dad sold it for god knows what, and I ended up … well, screwed.”
His green eyes narrowed, but he never released my gaze. “Was it your idea?” He traced his thumb around the rim of his bottle, where my lips had just touched. “Or your dad’s?”
“Does it matter?”
He offered me a ghost of a smile and lifted one of his broad shoulders into something that resembled a shrug. God, this man was confusing. “Was it your i
dea?”
For a moment I focused at the glare on the stage as a twenty-something guy strummed an acoustic guitar and crooned a song I’d never heard before. I could still hear my father promising that everything would be all right, that if I did that one thing I’d be helping them. That we would be something that wasn’t broken.
I’d been ridiculously stupid.
“My dad asked me to do it.” Automatically, my fingers closed around the key I wore around my neck. I cast a bitter smile at Emmett. “Needless to say I’ll never take his shopping advice again.”
Rubbing his smooth chin, he was quiet for a long pause. What was he thinking? As much as I told myself that being the least bit attracted to Emmett Hudson was a stupid idea, inside I panicked at the thought of him getting up and walking off. Finally, he stretched his arms and linked his fingers behind his head. “What’s the story behind the key?” He nodded to my necklace, at the key I’d painted with red fingernail polish. “You’re always playing with that thing so it must be something.”
Dropping the necklace, I skimmed my tongue over my teeth and focused my hands on something else—drumming my fingers on the table along with the woman belting out Jolene on the stage. “More bullshit dealing with my parents, but that’s a story for another day.”
He looked like he wanted to ask more questions about it, but then he slid his drink back across the table. “Here.”
“I’m good. My parents haven’t screwed me up so much I need alcohol to talk about them.”
“No, Angel. It’s liquid courage.” When my brow furrowed in confusion, he elaborated, “You didn’t think I’d bring you here just to listen, did you? You’re too goddamn good to be singing alone up in your room on a Friday night.”
My lips parted, but he leaned over the booth, pressing his finger to my mouth to keep me from objecting. His touch twisted my stomach into knots, and the intensity burning from his stare did a number equally as brutal on my heart. “One song. One song, and I’ll never ask you again.”
I didn’t believe that for a second, but when he dropped his finger from my lips, I sighed. “One song.” I jerked the karaoke catalogue from the center of the table. “And just so you know, I literally know five country songs, including the one I was singing alone in my room.”
“Figures,” he drawled.
After I selected a Carrie Underwood song that had played so many times on mainstream radio, it was impossible not to remember the lyrics, I scribbled my name and the song on one of the strips of paper in the basket on our table and handed it to Emmett. “There.” I gestured to his bottle of beer, which was sitting between us. “No liquid courage needed.”
He passed along the slip to the closest waitress—a petite redhead who spent a little too long batting her eyelashes at him. “You’re popular with the ladies,” I pondered aloud as soon as she strutted away. “So far the waitress and a bartender have eye-humped you, and I’m pretty sure the chick who accidentally bumped into you at the door groped your junk.”
“Now who’s being eloquent?” He put his elbows on the table and bent his head. Swallowing hard, I did the same until our foreheads almost touched. “You think I give a damn about the waitresses or the one with the grabby hands?” When I responded with an incoherent murmur, he lowered his voice to a whisper. “Want to know what I’m thinking about?”
I shook my head. Hell, who was I kidding? I was dying to know what thoughts rolled around in that gorgeous head of his. “Tell me.”
“Kissing you.”
Oh.
Oh my.
Unconsciously, I sucked in my bottom lip, and his eyes followed. His beautiful green irises darkened as he watched me. “I’ve been thinking about kissing the hell out of you for nearly a week. I’m curious, Kinsey. I want to know how you taste, how your body would feel, whether your hands would—”
“I got it.” Dear god, I definitely got it. I placed my palms flat on the table to steady myself. “How many girls do you feed that line to?”
Before he could answer, the open mic host called my name, and I gratefully jumped up from the booth so fast, I would’ve fallen flat on my face if I weren’t wearing tennis shoes. “Wish me luck.”
I was surprised when he followed me toward the stage. After he spoke to the guy who’d performed with the guitar, he walked across the wooden platform carrying the instrument. Stepping away from the mic, I eased toward him, frowning when he slung the strap over his shoulder. “What do you think you’re doing?”
He grinned, and I swore I heard a few swoons off stage as he positioned his long fingers over the fretboard. “Just go with it, Angel.”
Shakily, I returned to the mic, my eyes never leaving his as he skimmed his fingers over the strings. It took me a second to realize the chords he played were not the Carrie Underwood song I’d picked, but another familiar tune. Listening to the stripped down, sexy intro, my thoughts were instantly taken back to the sight of him standing in the shower with beads of moisture clinging to his tattooed chest and a sexy smirk playing on his lips. I inhaled and exhaled. Said a quick prayer. And then sang the first few words into the mic.
“She grabs the yellow bottle …”
It was hard to sing—hard to even breathe—with him standing so close to me, his long fingers stroking the strings of the guitar intimately as I belted out the song I’d been singing the day we met, but I got through it, even when I felt his body brush against mine during the interlude. My body stiffened when he moved his mouth closer to the mic and the sensual sound of his voice poured over the room.
Oh god, he’s singing with me.
Undressing me and every other damn female in the place with his voice.
“… I think that she knows,” he murmured, his green eyes locking with mine. “… she’s got me hooked …”
What a bastard—a sexy, talented bastard.
By the time he strummed the last chord and the applause threatened to burst my eardrums, my knees were weak. He put his hand around my waist, steadying me. “Me wanting to kiss you?” His sweet breath fanned my ear as we took a bow. “It’s a need now. A necessity.”
“That was a dick move,” I said through my teeth. “Playing that song.”
“It’s only a dick move if it got you all hot and bothered, Kinsey.”
Well, it had.
I left the stage with him a few paces behind me. Realizing I should make a quick getaway while he returned the guitar, I located the restroom sign and skulked into the dimly lit recess. I nearly made it to the door, but then warm fingers closed around my wrist. He twisted me around to face him and dragged my body to his. He was all warmth and hardness and felt good. Too damn good. My throat went dry.
“You barely even know me,” I croaked, but my body betrayed me, molding so perfectly with his, my breasts flattened against his chest. A smile touched his lips.
“I know you want my lips on yours.” He pushed my arms above my head, pinning them against the wall behind me. “Just one kiss.” He lowered his head, his lips barely brushing mine. “And I’ll never ask again.”
“And then we pretend this never happened?”
His thumbs massaged little circles into the palms of my hands and a wave of longing crashed through me. “Just this once,” he promised.
I could handle that. I could let this man kiss me this once and never think about his touch or his mouth again, couldn’t I?
But then, his mouth slanted over mine, fierce and demanding. The air left my lungs in a sharp gasp that burned a path right through the center of my body. He groaned—rasped my name in a strained voice—just before his tongue flicked over the center of my lips. I parted them willingly, inviting him to explore my mouth, meeting his tongue with my own. He tasted amazing, sweet and minty.
Right.
And so damn wrong it made me hurt all over.
I moaned when he released my arms to roam his hands over my body—one at the base of my neck and the other at the small of my back, just above my ass. He d
idn’t draw away from me until one of the bathroom doors flung open and a trio of giggling women danced into the hallway. We were both breathless, and his only response wasn’t words but a gesture.
He skimmed his thumb along my cheekbone.
And I knew there was no way in the world this would be just one kiss.