Have Mercy: A Loveswept Contemporary Erotic Romance (10 page)

“Sex?”

“Ha! Well, yeah, actually, it probably does. But I was going to suggest waffles.”

Tom closed his eyes and groaned. “God, I could eat all the waffles in the world right now.”

“Then let’s go.” Emme took his hand. It felt warm and solid in hers, even though it shook. She laced her fingers through his.

They ended up at a Waffle House on the other side of the interstate connector road, the bright yellow booths and scent of frying grease banishing the darkness outside. There was even an old-fashioned jukebox full of old country songs. The table was sticky and the menus were stained, but Emme could see Tom exhale as he slid into the booth, his shoulders slipping out of that painful hunch as he did.

They ordered coffee and massive quantities of fried carbohydrates. Tom toyed with his coffee cup, watching with amusement as Emme tucked into a plate of hash browns with cheese.

“People are going to think we don’t feed you,” he said.

Emme licked a drop of syrup off her fork before answering. Enough time on the road made most food taste the same, all of it processed and greasy and vaguely unappetizing. But something about sharing the meal with Tom, alone, made everything taste better. “I think the music industry would prefer me skinny—nothing but martinis and one measly olive, or maybe champagne and air. But this body needs fuel.”

She hid her grin at the appraising look Tom sent her. “Whatever you’re doing, keep it up. It’s
working for you.”

Oh, that was nice, that acceptance and admiration. He’d seen her without the armor of her dress and heels and lipstick, and still obviously approved.

Tom made a face before continuing. “Besides, who garnishes a pretty woman’s martini with just one olive? When I bartend, gorgeous women get at least three.”

Emme batted her lashes at him. “Oh really? Does that mean you’d give me three olives?”

Tom batted his lashes right back at her. “Baby,” he breathed, “I’d give you the whole jar.”

“You sure know how to sweet-talk a girl.” Emme watched those dimples appear behind the scruff of his two-day beard, saw him sink a little lower into the booth, limbs unfurling as he ate. She shoved the last of her cheese-laden hash browns into her mouth, watching him bite into his toast.

Amazing how much better she felt at the thought of taking care of him, feeding him. Comforting him.

“So.” She swallowed a sip of her coffee. “Want to tell me about it?”

She could see the conflict in his eyes between wanting to share and wanting to shut down. He even squirmed in his seat like a little boy in trouble.

“What if we go question for question again?” she asked. “You answer mine, and then you can ask me anything you want, and I swear by the Girl Scout Law that I’ll answer honestly.”

Tom swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing, but he nodded. He smiled, although it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Jesus, you’re a force of nature,” he muttered. “I’ll share, but … this story really doesn’t make me look good.”

Emme tapped her foot against his under the table. “You’re talking to the Whore of Babylon, responsible for the breakup of one of the most acclaimed indie bands of the past five years. I know all about looking bad. Even my own mother is disappointed in me.”

Tom’s expression darkened at that. “What the fuck is wrong with people?” He shook his head. “Oh, wait. Your mom. Shouldn’t say that about her.”

Emme hid a grin. “In this case, I’ll let it slide. But I want to hear about you. Don’t change the subject.”

“Okay. So you know how I told you I’m not good at moderation?”

Emme nodded and tried not to lean forward. She felt like she was trying to get a wild animal to eat out of her hand; any sudden movement might scare him away.

Tom sighed. “It’s a family trait. I saw from my dad what could happen if you let an obsession
take over your life. His was drinking. I’m lucky, I guess. I was born a boy, and because of that J.R. took me under his arm. Taught me guitar. But you know, old blues musicians don’t look at a little girl and think, ‘I ought to teach her how to play.’ So no one did. And my sister … I was in charge of her a lot. Made her dinner, put her to bed, made her do her homework. But I wanted to do my own thing, and I didn’t watch her as closely as I should have. So she … turned out more like our dad.”

“She drinks?”

Tom nodded. “It didn’t start that way. She got into trouble a lot. I think she wanted the attention. But then, once she started, it was all over for her. I guess it’s like that for some people. That’s why I never let myself.” He took a long drink of his coffee. “The thing is, she’s really smart. When she’s sober and gets her shit together, she does really well. And I thought she was doing better. As long as she was going to AA, I let her stay in my house while I’m on tour. And then today, I get a call from my bank. She tells me it’s because the washing machine broke and flooded the basement and she needed to get it fixed, but …”

“You don’t believe her?”

“I want to. But I can’t.” Tom ran a hand through his hair, making it all stand on end. “If this were the first time there’d been a broken fan belt or a screwed up appliance or something …” He gripped his mug with both hands. “I cancelled her debit card, but the only way to get my money back from the disputed charges is to file a police report. And I can’t do that. She’s my baby sister. I can’t just call the cops on her.”

Emme watched him as he raised the mug to his lips, holding on as if that cup held all the secrets of the universe, and letting go of it would make the whole world shatter. Something in her chest felt too tight.

“How old is she?” Emme asked quietly.

“Twenty-five. Six years younger than me. Old enough to know better, but she’s still such a
kid
.”

Emme reached across the table and laid her hand over his, uncurling his fingers from the coffee cup and lacing them through hers. “I’m sorry,” she said, and she meant it. The thought of Tom as a little boy making dinner for his baby sister when he’d rather be playing guitar tore something inside her. She traced his knuckles with her thumb, feeling the indentations and hills of his hand, the strength and gentleness in it.

Tom cleared his throat. “Thanks,” he said. “But I’m all out of questions for you. How about you just tell me something about yourself? You pick.”

Emme thought for a long moment. He’d probably figured most of it out by now, but that instinct to test him, to see how he’d react, still screamed inside her. Would he live up to her hopes?

Emme pressed her foot next to his under the table. It wasn’t quite obvious enough to be called footsie, but it was a tiny little bit of connection that was all theirs, hidden from everyone else. “So you know I sang backup for Indelible Lines. And you know they broke up.”

Tom nodded. “And everyone seems to blame you, for some reason.”

“Probably because everyone believes I fucked a married man. While I was on tour with him and his wife.”

“Did you?”

Emme shook her head. “No. But … I might have. I almost did. I wanted him, badly, and I followed him around like some lovesick kid every day of that tour. He had to know it, too. And nothing ever happened, not really, but it sure looked like it did, and his relationship with his wife was already almost over. And then one day, these pictures got published online and it was just us talking, I swear, but no one believed me, and he never even tried to stand up for me. And after a while I gave up trying to defend myself, because it didn’t make a difference. I might as well have fucked him, because the result was the same, in the end.”

“Yeah, well, even if you had, you weren’t the married one. He was. He was the one who made a vow. And you were just a backup singer, right? So keeping the band together wasn’t your job either.” Tom shrugged. “I guess I don’t see why you have to be the bad guy.” He frowned, then. “And what the hell kind of man lets a woman take the fall for him? The very first thing he should have done was make it clear that you weren’t at fault, in an interview with every blogger on the goddamn planet. Even if you
had
slept together.”

It made sense when Tom put it that way, but what he said was so different from what she’d heard from
everyone:
the press, Dave, even Jared himself. Her own mother. Her own conscience. “You are the only person who has ever seen it that way. Why?”

He thought for a moment. “My sister, I think. I’ve heard the things people—other men—say about her, and it pisses me off. She’s trouble, she’s crazy, she’s a slut. That sort of thing. I agree, she’s sort of trouble, but she’s got an addiction, right? And on top of that, being a girl, she didn’t get the same chances I did. Plus the guys who say that shit are usually doing the exact same thing as her, just not getting judged for it. It’s not like I approve of everything she does, but it pisses me off that she gets it all so much worse because she’s a woman. And trust me when I say that her childhood was full of
shit that I was spared, because she was a girl.”

“That’s very enlightened of you.”

“Fuck that. It’s just fair.”

If she were free from guilt, how would she tell the story? She’d been no innocent, and certainly no victim. She’d also been young, and she’d never had a boyfriend before, just a series of disappointing college hookups. It wasn’t an excuse, but Jared had seemed—untouchable. Safe. Okay to flirt with, because he was married and wouldn’t,
couldn’t
, flirt back. Except that he did, which had been the biggest disappointment of all, even worse than when he’d let her take the fall for him.

Emme slid out of the booth. “Scoot over.”

Tom shuffled closer to the wall as she pushed herself in beside him, resting her thigh against his, the length of their legs touching all the way down to the side of her foot, pressed along the side of his. He sucked in a breath as she invaded his space, crowding him just enough to make him tense.

“I joined their North American tour almost right out of college,” she said. “I was twenty-three. I’d never really had a boyfriend before.”

“Really?” Tom interrupted. “I’m sorry, but that’s surprising.”

“This is going to sound arrogant, maybe, but none of the guys I’d met ever really seemed good enough. They were either afraid of me or they seemed like they wanted to control me, somehow. Lots of posturing, you know?”

Tom’s brow furrowed as he thought. “That doesn’t sound arrogant. That sounds like you knew your own mind, even then. It takes most people a lot longer to reach that point.”

God, he was sweet. So sweet that she wanted to push him and push him and push him. Emme rested a finger on his knee, tracing little circles as she talked. “So. I joined the tour, and you know how it is. You spend all your time surrounded by people, but it can be the loneliest place in the world.” Tom’s thigh muscle twitched as she edged her finger up along the ridge where his kneecap met muscle. “And Jared … when he and Christina sang together, they had this incredible chemistry, and I wanted to have something like that. I wanted someone to
want
me that way.”

Something about telling Tom this story was making Emme feel hot and restless. She wanted him to want her, she wanted to make him hurt and yearn, and then she wanted to reward him for it, relieve him of it, make it all better.

“So what happened?” Tom asked, his voice hoarse, as he leaned closer.

Emme traced a larger figure eight on his knee, the design looping farther up his thigh with each
pass. “I sang my fucking heart out, and he noticed. She noticed, too, but he
noticed
. And maybe, I …” Emme scraped her nails over the warm denim, scratching enough to hear the sound of her finger against the fabric. “Teased him. A little.”

She felt a shudder run through Tom’s body. “How did you tease him?”

Oh
. That question made all sorts of firecrackers ignite under her skin. Tom’s breath, coming more heavily now, leaking through those words, made him sound wide-eyed and innocent and corruptible.

Poor thing, because she wanted to corrupt him.

“Well …” Emme slid her hand farther up his leg, felt his muscles twitch as he tried to hold still. “Little things, at first. Like …” The real story was sad and more than a little pathetic. She’d blushed like a fiend whenever Jared had spoken to her, closed her eyes because she couldn’t bear to watch his face when she sang, and hardly been able to work up the nerve to talk to him alone. But she wasn’t that girl anymore. She wasn’t Emily. She was Emme now, and Emme could get her lover worked up by telling a dirty story in a diner booth. She could make a man hot telling him about games she’d never really played.

She shifted in the booth, her hip nudging against his. “I’d put a little extra sway in my hips when I walked by him. So he would imagine what I might look like under my clothes.” His thigh was hot under her hand as she traced a meandering path from the top of his leg to the inside seam of his jeans. “And if I happened to drop something while he stood behind me, and had to bend over to pick it up, well … sometimes I’d just … not wear anything under my dress.”

Tom let out a sound that Emme thought might be a combination of a laugh and a groan. “Evil.”

“Maybe. But not nearly as evil as the audio file I sent him. I let him think it was a new song, but it was me. Thinking of him. While I …”

“Oh my God.” Tom’s face had turned a shade of red Emme had never seen before. “You really did that?”

Emme shook her head. “No. Not really. But I might do something like that in the future. If you wanted.”

Tom looked at her, blushing, grinning, and said, “That’s
awesome
. Hell yeah, I want,” and all she felt was pride, not shame.

Because that was the problem, wasn’t it? In the end, she’d felt ashamed. Ashamed of her own actions, so deeply ashamed of what she’d wanted that she hadn’t even been able to defend herself for
what she hadn’t even done. And then Jared had let her take the fall in the media, and no one had even asked her if it was true—not Dave, not her own mother. They’d all just assumed the worst of her. The only person who had bothered to find out the truth was sitting next to her at this table.