Full Circle (Rockin' Country #3) (9 page)

It had been a whirlwind from the moment Jared looked over at the side stage and saw Shell standing there. He wasn’t sure how they’d managed to make it out of the venue and to the car then to the hotel suite. The only thing he’d had time to grab was his guitar and a change of clothes.

“I hope you don’t mind that I ordered us dinner in.” She smiled at him, but it was shaky.

Jared knew she was always a little nervous around him, because she was never completely sure where she stood with him. That was his fault, and he was going to do his best to rectify that. “I love that you ordered us dinner in. I don’t want to share you with anyone else looking like this.” He tilted her chin up so he could capture her lips, teasing them open with the tip of his tongue.

“I look this way for you,” she confessed as they pulled back, the air in the room heavy.

He grabbed her hand and pushed her away from him. “Spin around for me.”

With him it was always like this. He was a man of such few words that Shell always did what she was told. There was something about following his orders that she loved. So with a glance up into his brown eyes—eyes that were hot with desire—she turned a small circle on the tips of her high heels.

Jared bit his lip as she did so, playing with the lip ring that was there. This woman was everything he’d ever wanted in one package, and he knew he hadn’t worshipped her enough. These last few weeks of being separated and seeing the relationship that Garrett and Hannah had managed to have was his undoing. He had to have this woman—body and soul. The lavender dress she wore was short and had ridden up as they had touched one another; now it stopped just below the swell of her ass. The stilettos she wore accentuated her calf muscles and put her near the same height as him. Unlike Hannah, she wore no jacket, and his eyes took in the delicate swell of her shoulders and collar bones. Her blonde hair surrounded her like a halo.

“Do I pass inspection?” she teased, her blue eyes twinkling.

“You more than pass inspection. You’re fucking hot, and I’ve missed the shit out of you.”

She had missed him too, more than she wanted to admit to anyone. It had been hard, staying away these weeks, trying to convince herself that she was doing the right thing when she hadn’t been sure.

“I’ve missed the shit out of you too.”

He didn’t want to ruin this, but he had to know, so he broached the topic. “Have you thought more about coming out on the road with us?”

Turning her back to him, she walked over to the glass windows that encompassed this suite. Hannah’s name got her huge favors when she decided to cash in on them. Looking out over the skyline of Charlotte, she contemplated if she wanted to go through with her plans or not. It wasn’t a decision she’d come to lightly, and she so badly wanted to make the right one. She felt the heat of his body as he walked over to where she stood and pressed her against the mirrored glass. When he placed one hand on either side of her head, she was effectively closed in.

“I asked you a question,” he whispered darkly into her ear.

She tilted her head away from his mouth, opening up her neck to his lips. He took full advantage, nipping at the tender skin there. She breathed heavily as she put her hands on the glass next to his to steady herself. It had been weeks since she’d felt his touch, and she was dying. “I want to stay with you. I’m going to do online classes, but I don’t want to miss you anymore. If Chris can make it work, I can make it work.”

At those words, Jared could have shouted to the world, proclaimed that he was the luckiest man alive, and run through a burning building for her. Instead, he removed one hand from the glass and slipped one shoulder of the dress down before the other and pulling it below the lace strapless bra.

“Thank you for taking a chance on us.”

Pulling his other hand off the glass, he inched it down her side and to the edge of her dress, pulling it up and over her ass, baring the skin there. His intake of breath was sharp. “You haven’t been wearing underwear this whole fucking night?”

Glancing back behind her shoulder, she shook her head. “Nope. Happy Valentine’s Day.”

It was those words that caused him to attack. Reaching down, he wrenched the fly of his pants open, pushed them down around his knees, and in one quick thrust claimed her.

Shell gasped as she was pressed against the cool material of the glass. Could anyone see them? Did anyone know what they were doing? Her head fell against the glass as he pulled out and pressed back into her body. She had missed this, she had missed him more than she admitted even to herself.

Jared knew he had to see her. Pulling out of her tight heat, he turned her so that he could see her face. “Do you love me?” he whispered, pushing the skirt up higher so he could grasp her around the ass and press her against the glass.

She wrapped her legs around his waist, nodding her head at his question.

“Tell me.” He pushed back into her as he gripped her thigh, holding her so she wouldn’t slide down the slick surface.

“I do love you, Jared, and it scares me,” she gasped out when he pushed deeper inside of her.

Not able to stand the look in her eyes, he put his forehead at her neck, his body heaving for air. “It scares me too,” he admitted. “I love you so much, it scares me too.”

Those words were the most beautiful words she’d ever heard in her life.

*     *     *

Hours later, they lay in bed, wrapped up in one another’s arms. Jared cleared his throat. “I never gave you your Valentine’s Day gift.”

“I don’t need anything.” Shell shook her head. “Being here with you is exactly what I needed. It’s the best present ever.”

He got up, putting his boxer briefs back on before walking over and grabbing his guitar. “I kinda wrote you something,” he told her as he had a seat and started strumming some chords.

As he started singing, she listened, really listened to the lyrics of the song. They talked about love and how the man had a hard time letting his feelings show. How he wanted his lady to stay, and the only way he could make her do it was to tell her he loved her. When he finished, she had tears streaming down her face.

“That was beautiful,” she told him, shaking her head in amazement. “I can’t believe you wrote that for me.”

“Garrett helped me with some of the phrasing. You know he’s romantic like that.”

She wanted to argue that he was romantic like that too. He’d gone out of his way to do this for her. That said a lot about the man he was becoming. She watched as he sat his guitar aside and then went in search of his pants.

“I have one more thing for you.”

“I don’t need anything else, truly. This is enough right here.”

He shook his head and reached into his pants pocket, pulling something small out. It was a coin that he flipped in the palm of his hand before he went over to sit next to her. He held it out to her. “It’s my sobriety coin. I have 250 days sober, and I know without you I wouldn’t be here. In the last meeting, my sponsor talked about the important things, the things that made us want to stay sober. I thought really long and hard about it, and I knew I wanted to stay sober for you, but I kept asking myself why. It wasn’t an easy question to answer, and I know I’m not the man you thought you would be with – hell, I’m not the type of man that deserves you.” He reached over and cupped her cheek in the palm of his hand. “But I realized that the reason I want to be sober is because I want to prove that I love you, I want to prove that I am good enough for you to accept that love. So, I’m giving you my sobriety coin, and with the coin, I give you my heart. Don’t break it, Shell,” he pleaded.

Throwing her arms around him, she couldn’t help the emotion that poured out of her body. In that moment, she felt like the luckiest woman in the world.

*  *  *

March

H
annah groaned as she checked her cell phone.

“What’s wrong?” Garrett asked, looking up from the news article he was reading on his iPad.

The two of them were waiting for everyone else to get ready before they left for the venue.

“I have to have my annual next week, which means I need to fly back to Nashville for the day.” She wrinkled her nose in distaste.

“Have fun with all that.”

She rolled her head around on her shoulders, dreading the conversation she knew she had to have with him. “Actually, there’s something I need to talk to you about in regards to that.”

“Me?” They were married and all, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the details of her gyno visits.

“Yeah, you know I have an IUD. It’s time for me to take it out and decide whether I want to put another one in or not.”

It took him a minute to realize what she was saying to him, but once he got it, he scooted closer to her on the seat in the bus. “Are you saying you might want to go ahead and try for a baby?”

She pursed her lips and nodded quickly. “I think we’re in the best situation right now that we’re going to be in for a few years, and if it was to happen now, I wouldn’t be sad about it. However,” she grabbed hold of his hand, “I think this is something you should talk to the guys about too. This will not only change our lives, but theirs as well. That’s why I’m bringing it up so early, I want to give you time to talk it through with them.”

Garrett folded his tattooed arms over his chest and worried his bottom lip between his teeth. “I’m tempted to say it’s none of their business. This is our lives and our family, but I realize what you’re saying, and I think you’re right. My next question is, are you sure? You’re still young. In life and in your career. I don’t want you to regret this as soon as it happens.”

Hearing him talk about it like it was a done deal made her stomach clench in delight and anticipation. “I’ll never regret that, just like I’ll never regret this.” She ran her hand over his wedding ring.

“Okay, then I’ll have a talk with the guys about it.”

“And I’ll have a talk with Shell. Actually, we’re planning on hitting the mall tomorrow, so while we’re there, I’ll bring it up. Sound good?”

“Sounds like the greatest news ever to me.” He smiled widely, leaning in for a kiss that quickly got out of hand. It got broken up as the rest of the crew filed into the main living area and started making porno music noises. Which caused Havock to bark loudly and jump in the middle of the fray.

“Thanks, guys.” Hannah laughed as she pulled back and wiped her lipstick. It was a good thing she wasn’t as embarrassed by these things as she once was.

*     *     *

“Do you wanna stop for some lunch?” Shell asked Hannah as they made their way out of the Victoria’s Secret in the mall they were visiting in Atlanta.

Hannah had been waiting for the perfect time to tell her friend about her plan all afternoon, and now it was finally presenting itself. “I could definitely eat. I think we’ve walked like five miles.”

There was a restaurant inside the mall, so they went up to the hostess station, and to their surprise, they were shown right back to a table. “Thank you so much,” Shell said as they were seated and brought glasses of water.

The hostess smiled back at them. “It’s not every day that Reaper’s wife decides to come have lunch in our establishment.”