His Melody (21 page)

She yawned and shifted against him. He stroked her hair, using only his left hand to drive. What in the world was he doing? It was best not to think about it. Yes, she’d be gone soon and at least he had one helluva memory and a lot of other good ones from her being there. But it was best not to analyze or think and he was so glad they weren’t talking. It was the best and most comfortable silence he’d ever shared with anyone. He kissed the top of her head without removing his eyes from the road and then slipped his hand to her shoulder, trailing his fingers over the fine hairs there, raising goose bumps on her skin.

Her hand slipped between his thighs and unzipped his pants.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Will you be able to concentrate on the road if I do this?” She gently bit at his earlobe as her hand reached past his zipper and into his boxers.

“Sure,” he said, his breathing shallow.

She pulled out his penis and stroked it in a way that gave him tortuously slow, sweet pleasure as her lips nibbled at his neck and jaw line. Her strokes became faster, more insistent, and his breathing matched the pace.

It didn’t take long. It’d been so long since anyone else had touched him like this, and
he’d never been touched by her
like this.
Outside of his head anyway.
Still, he came so quickly that he surprised them both. Tucking him back in and zipping up his pants, she gave him a quick kiss before snuggling against him again.

Her eyes had burned into his all night. She was something special. She had to get out of there and it was good she was going, but he knew he’d never forget about her. Never forget one thing about her or her red dress.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Melody paced her room Wednesday morning—well, the room she’d come to think of as hers—while talking to Saeed. She didn’t go into town to work at the garage that day because it was ostensibly her last day in Sweet Neck. She had sent Saeed the demo, sneaking off to the post office one day at lunchtime to do it. He’d called her to tell her he’d listened for once. Thankfully. He’d Googled the Rhyme Doctor and had been curious. Also thankfully, he liked what he’d heard.

“I know, Saeed, but getting him to come to this showcase might not be all that easy.” Melody nibbled her lower lip. The showcase was now less than two weeks away. “My car is fixed now, and I’ve burned through all my excuses to stay here and if I brought it up to him now…I think he’d just get upset and refuse to come.” She’d racked her brain for excuses to stay in town, but couldn’t think of any that Austin might buy. No matter what she said, he’d probably be suspicious of her true motives for delaying her return to Atlanta.

Saeed’s tone changed immediately. “Melody, I did not say anything about you being in the clear. This showcase is still your last chance.”

“I know, I know.” Melody pressed a hand against her forehead. Austin had trusted her last night. He’d opened up and shared things with her in ways that couldn’t have been easy for him. She still hadn’t processed what had happened the night before at Myrtle’s or in Austin’s truck. Now she was being asked to get Austin to do the impossible. She’d brought it on herself, sure, but still. “I just, I need some time to think.”

“You do not have a lot of it.”

“Thanks.” Like she didn’t realize that.

“Well, I have to go.
Busy day ahead of me.
I will see you at the showcase, and this Austin, or else I do not plan on seeing you again. We understand each other?”

“Perfectly.” Melody flopped down onto the bed.

“Good.
Because I will have some very important people with me.
And if you make me look like an idiot in front of them, losing your job will not be the worst thing that has happened to you,” he said. Like he needed any help making himself look like an idiot.

It took a lot of strength to hold back the smart aleck remark he’d begged for with that one. “Yeah.”

She wrapped up her call and tossed her phone onto the bed. Pressing the heels of her palms to her forehead, she tried to think of ways to dig
herself
out of the mess she’d made.

#

Austin walked into the house, and she heard him clunking up the stairs in his heavy work boots. Her heart thumped harder with every step he took. She went out to meet him, and he grabbed her in the hallway near her room and wrapped his arms around her waist, lifting her off the ground. She forgot all about her conversation with Saeed and the stress it’d caused.

“Hi,” he said, burying his face in her neck;
his voice was muffled by her skin
. He set her down, but kept his arms around her waist. Nothing had ever felt better than being this close to him did.

She laughed. “Hi.” She turned to face him and pressed her forehead to his. “How was your day?”
What are we doing here? This can’t possibly end well. I don’t sleep with the label’s artists.
She thought as his lips closed over hers, and her stomach quivered. She sank into his arms. All she knew was that his touches turned her into melted butter. They made her forget everything else in the world.

“It was good.” He moved his hand slowly up and down her back. “Your car is all fixed up. New engine is in and ready to go.”

“Oh.” She tried to hide her disappointment.

“Does that mean you’re leaving?” he asked.

“I don’t want it to. At least not yet.” She pressed her body against his. He groaned and shifted a little, but not before she felt the hard ridge of his erection against her stomach.

He pulled back a little. “You’re going to have to eventually, though.”

She kissed his lower lip. “I don’t want to talk about that.”

“This isn’t a good idea.”

Yeah. She knew that. Reaching up, she gave him a full kiss on the lips. “I don’t want to talk about that, either.”

He wrapped his arms around her and gave her a long, deep kiss. “You’re incredible,” he said between kisses. “This is all I think about ever since the first time we kissed.”

She reached for him
again,
drunk on his kisses and touches. She had a problem. She was never going to be able to get enough of him.

He pushed one hand into her hair, and the other slipped under the hem of her skirt. His hand crept up her thigh while he smothered her in kisses. Pushing her head back slightly, he moved his lips down to her throat. She let out a low moan and pulled him closer. She wanted to take him into her room right that moment and bend her over, but everyone would be sitting down to dinner soon. As if to prove her point, Leigh Anne called up the stairs, telling them dinner would be ready soon and she could use some help getting it on the table.

They walked down the stairs side by side. She said, “You know, Donnie’s not that bad of a guy.”

“Yeah, maybe not to you.”

“I hate seeing how you two treat each other.
You’re lucky to have each other
,
you know that
? Family is important,” Melody said, thinking of her own family.

“Speaking of families, you don’t talk about yours much,” Austin said.

“There’s not much to say. It’s been just
me and my mother
since my dad died. I was an only child, and my parents were only children, so I don’t have aunts, uncles, or cousins.” She stopped at the foot of the stairs, and he stood next to her.

“Tell me about your dad.”

“He was a musician, too.” She gave him a sad smile. “Jazz.”

He squeezed her hand and kissed her forehead.

“Then I was married, and that obviously didn’t work out. So I’ve always wanted a big family more than anything, but I’ve never gotten to have it. You have one, but at the same time, you don’t. And it’s because you’re stubborn, both of you,” Melody said.

“I’m sorry, but that’s just the way things are between Donnie and me. Ain’t never gonna change.”

“Don’t you want it to?” Melody asked as they walked toward the kitchen.

He shrugged. “Not particularly. If he wants to be an ass, fine with me. I don’t care.”

“The problem is this. I think you do care about your relationship with your brother. You may not want to, but you do.” She slipped into the kitchen and left him outside of it, staring at the dining room table.

At dinner, they all talked about Melody’s car being fixed and ready to go.

“So I guess you’ll be leaving us soon, huh?” Leigh Anne asked, looking the way Melody felt about it. “We’ll be sad to see you go. We’ve really enjoyed having you here.”

“Thank you,” Melody said, picking at her green beans. “I’ve enjoyed being here just as much if not more.”

“When do you think you’ll be heading out?” Leigh Anne asked.

“I don’t know,” Melody said truthfully with a sigh. She’d made a rent payment to her apartment complex online and transferred the money from savings to checking to cover it the other day, so she didn’t have to rush back. She could live off her savings for a month or two to go before she really started to put a dent in her New Career reserves. Still, she needed to get back and start looking for a new job. Besides, she missed her mom and Jen. But leaving Sweet Neck meant leaving Austin. Or did it?

She glanced at across the table at him, and her face warmed when she realized he was staring right back at her. “I’ll be leaving in a few days, I guess,” she said. “I wish I didn’t have to, though.”

“So do we,” Leigh Anne said, giving her a knowing smile. “So do we.”

“Yeah, there’s a lot to Sweet Neck I’m gonna miss,” Melody said, looking across the room at nothing in particular, hoping she wouldn’t give herself away if she didn’t look at Austin while she spoke.

After dinner, Melody and Austin made out in her room like horny teenagers. He stripped her down to her panties, and they were dangerously close to finishing what they’d started last night. They would have to stop soon. No sleeping with the label’s artists—no matter how sexy. Plus, there was still something they needed to talk about.

She pulled back for air and said, “What if you came with me?”

“What if I what? Huh?” Austin asked before pressing his lips to her neck. He teased her nipple with the pad of his thumb.

“I’m an A&R exec. You’re a musician. It makes sense,” she said, trying to warm him up to the idea of the showcase.

He stopped kissing her neck. “Ex-musician. Besides, there’s the shop. My mom. The fact that I have no desire to ever leave Sweet Neck again,” he said. He pulled away from her and sat up straight in the bed.

“You don’t understand what I’m trying to say.”

“I know perfectly well what you’re trying to say,” He laughed humorlessly. “I wasn’t going to say anything, but I’ve heard of New Face records. That’s the label Aphrodisia’s signed with, right?” Aphrodisia was a German rapper who’d taken her name from the Greek goddess Aphrodite and the word “aphrodisiac.”

Melody sighed. She’d hoped that wouldn’t come up. “For now.” Aphrodisia was threatening to break her contract, and unfortunately—for many reasons—she was the only thing keeping New Face afloat at the moment.

“So you want me to be a gimmick just like Aphrodisia, huh?”

“She’s not a gimmick. The
media’s trying
to make her into one because she’s a novelty.”

“Say whatever you want, I told you what I went through before. I don’t want to be anybody’s marketing ploy ever again.”

“She’s more than a marketing ploy. You don’t see a female rapper of South American descent from Germany every day, sure. But she’s got talent.”

“Yeah? Well, novelty wears off. Trust me. I know.” Austin ran a hand over his face.

“Austin, this won’t be like before.” She put her hand on the side of his face.

He chuckled. “The funny part is you actually believe you can control something like that. It’s not something you can promise because it’s not something you can know. You can’t promise the world in a contract, Mel. No matter how much you’d like to.”

“That’s not the way I look at things.” She moved closer to him on the bed. “For me, it’s all about good music. Not genre or sub-genre or flash and dash or flash in the pans.” She kissed his shoulder. “I want you to come back with me. We can build something great together. Just the two of us.”

“Just the two of us, huh?” He gave her a disbelieving look. He slid off the bed and stood in front of it. “I think it’s about time I go to bed.”

“Just think about it, please.”

“Good night, Melody.”

“Night,” she said, shaking her head. Yeah, this was going to be just as hard as she’d thought it was going to be.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Thursday, Melody convinced Austin to shut the shop down at noon because business was slow. She told him she wanted him to take her fishing because she’d never been. They headed out to the parking lot and got in his truck. He wasn’t shy about glancing over to appreciate her calves and shoulders. She wore a pale pink cotton halter-top and jeans rolled partially up her calves.

Once they got into the truck, Austin plunked a straw hat over her head. She laughed and reached up to adjust the hat.

“It’s good for you,” he said, grinning. His hand lingered on the side of the hat. “Keep the sun off.”