Hot and Bothered (4 page)

He
was
nice and broad. Haven’s fingers tingled sympathetically as Judy’s moved. Haven wanted to check out exactly where that seam fell on those excellent shoulders, but she sat on her hands instead, lest they start dancing through the air with vicarious excitement.

They were in the large fitting area in the personal shoppers’ suite, and Mark stood on a carpeted platform facing a three-way mirror. Today had included altogether too many mirrors, and she wished she didn’t have to see Mark’s reflection or her own flushed face anymore. He kept looking above the button of the suit jacket that restrained her breasts and meeting her glances with his intense gray-blue stare.

Her own clothes felt limp with heat and damp. Strands of her hair had come loose from her updo and now clung to her forehead and cheeks.

Haven Hoyt was not feeling very put together at the moment.

Judy tugged on the shirt to check the fit over Mark’s pecs, brushing the cotton-silk blend across his chest as if there were a speck of dust she needed to remove. “Tough to fit you for a shirt when you’re so big through here. That’s a good thing.” Judy looked up at Mark through her eyelashes.

Haven had never really thought about it before today, but Judy was attractive, for an older woman. She had platinum-blond hair and strong bones, and she looked great in her silver tunic, indigo jeggings and knee-high black boots. She seemed to be having fun.

Of course she was having fun, because she had her hands on Mark’s chest. Haven had noticed his size the other day at lunch, but there was something about this particular blue dress shirt that emphasized his strength and bulk. Maybe it was just Haven’s fond feelings for dress shirts, but more likely it was Mark. Judy kept messing with the buttons, as if making adjustments, but Haven was pretty sure her motives were baser.

Still, if Mark needed his buttons checked, Haven would be willing to help out. In fact, she might be willing to go to the mud pit with Judy for the privilege. And Haven didn’t do muddy, any more than she did outdoorsy or sleep-in-a-big-T-shirt or
just have a few people over and I’m sorry I didn’t have time to clean the house
.

Judy shamelessly ran her hand over Mark’s butt—was that
really
necessary?—to emphasize the clean fit of the charcoal-gray dress pants. That butt was a mighty fine specimen, Haven mused, giving up on not having an opinion. It was firm and high and tight and round and she bet he knew how to use it to great advantage as leverage for—

“Nice line in front, too.” All three of them stared at Mark’s crotch in the mirror. Whatever Mark was packing under there was evident even under the “nice line” of expensive dress slacks. She briefly wondered whether it was arousing to have them both staring at his endowment like that. It would be pretty embarrassing to get an erection right now. Wouldn’t it?

She raised her gaze from the front of his pants and found herself staring into Mark’s eyes. He raised an eyebrow at her, and she watched her own face turn the same flaming pink as her nail polish. Heat swept through her, tightening her nipples and pooling between her legs. Mark’s dimples deepened, even though his mouth didn’t quite break into a full smile.

She wasn’t going to make it. She was going to die of frustrated desire before the shopping session was over.

As much as she wanted to deny it, her body had decided this was foreplay.

She’d never been attracted to a client before. Never. She’d done image makeovers on male clients, and she’d sat in Judy’s upholstered seat while Judy ran her hands over different sets of equally impressive shoulders, pecs and abs. Mark Webster should not have been any different, should not have been turning Haven’s excellent brain to mush.

“I’m going to get some water,” she said, and for that, she got a full-on Mark grin. It was a startling, marvelous thing, bright and white and all the way into his eyes, and she ran the hell out of that dressing area.

For the rest of the fitting, she stood at the far edge of the room, out of his sight in the mirror. He went through plain white T-shirts, a new, unscuffed leather bomber and several blazers and jackets. He tried on baseball jerseys and printed T’s, fine-gauge sweaters and casual button-down shirts, ties, a pair of suspenders, new gym clothes.

He looked good in all of them. He looked as though they’d been made for him, as though he’d been sculpted to fill them perfectly.

Haven was fatigued from the effort of watching as Judy checked the fit of a raglan sleeve over Mark’s substantial biceps, knelt at his feet to make sure the trousers broke over expensive Italian leather shoes the way she wanted them to and—this was the final insult—ruffled his hair as she placed a fedora in a ridiculously sexy tilt over one gray-blue eye
.

Haven’s only hope was that Saturday night with Jewelry Marketing Guy would turn out better than the last six or eight dates. Maybe Jewelry Marketing Guy would be so smart, so thoughtful, so interesting, so brimming with pheromones that she would want to sleep with him on the first date. Then she wouldn’t need to imagine stripping Mark out of his formfitting new wardrobe, thrusting her fingers into his thick, scrumptious hair and pressing her mouth—actually, her whole freaking naked body—against his.

“Do I have to wear this stuff all the time?” Mark turned to ask her the question. Sullenly.

It was probably a good thing that he was still a pain in the ass. A hot, trouble-making, pain in the ass.

“Not when you’re locked in your own apartment.”

He sighed. “I hate you.”

His eyes told her he didn’t.

“I’ll wear this home,” he told Judy. He was in a gorgeous fine-knit striped V-neck sweater and butt-snugging jeans. Haven wanted to beg him not to wear those clothes out of the store. To have mercy.

He went to the men’s room while Haven paid for his things. She’d bill the whole lot back to Jimmy, and Jimmy would take it out of Mark’s tour earnings. God forbid Mark screw up again, because Haven had no idea who’d foot the bill if he torpedoed his chance to be part of the tour.

Judy handed Haven Mark’s shopping bags, plus an unmarked plastic bag. “The clothes he wore in here,” Judy said. “Unless you want me to just throw them in the trash right now. Or burn them.”

Haven took the bags. She felt a peculiar tenderness for the ratty jeans and the tortured jacket, and on top of that she had a totally perverted desire to pull out the T-shirt and see if she could detect Mark’s scent in it. Not the expensive hair-care products and fabric sizing from today, but the real Mark smell of coconut, leather and clean male sweat.

“Nah,” she told Judy. “I’ll give it to Goodwill.”

“They might not want it. That jacket—”

“I know,” Haven said fervently.

While she waited for Mark, she tucked the plastic bag of his clothes into one of the shopping bags, where it couldn’t tempt her.

4

H
AVEN
DIDN
’
T
HAVE
a thing for celebrities. She liked to think that was a good trait in an image consultant, because she didn’t freeze up or go all fangirl around them. She didn’t fetishize fame or worship actors or read about British royalty with stars in her eyes. They were people just like anyone else, who had to do their jobs plus manage all of that expectation and public scrutiny.

Just people.

And, Haven would also have said about herself, Haven had
believed
about herself, that she didn’t have a thing for musicians. As a teenager, she’d never screamed or launched herself onto a stage or pulled off her top because some hot musician had thrust his pelvis in her direction.

However, she was reconsidering her position, watching Mark Webster play the guitar at Village Blues.

She’d tried to get Elisa to come out with her, but Elisa had muttered something smug about a night in with her boyfriend who’d been on the road too much. So here Haven was, sitting by herself at a little table in a dark club that was lit by a meandering string of white Christmas lights. She was sipping a glass of decent red wine and trying hard not to make eye contact with the motley assortment of men who made pre-makeover Mark look like a fashion plate.

Now she was glad she was here by herself, because she wanted to be able to ogle him without a perceptive female friend catching her at it. She didn’t want to share the experience with anyone else, or process it out loud—she just wanted to watch him do what he was doing.

There was, of course, something inherently sexy about the guitar, about all that strumming and stroking, about the grip he had around its neck, sliding up and down while his other fingers worked in well-coordinated harmony. You couldn’t
help
thinking about other things. Especially when the guitarist in question was Mark, with the jaw and the cheekbones, with the biceps that bunched and forearms that corded as his fingers clutched string to wood. He wore a form-hugging old T-shirt and ripped-up jeans—they’d bought them pre-ripped during the shopping spree, a compromise between his desire for well-worn and comfy, and her need for him to look like he hadn’t dug his clothes from a Dumpster.

So, yeah, she was thinking about other things, but that was before he’d begun his solo.

She didn’t know the tune, and she didn’t know much about blues, but she knew passion. And the look on Mark’s face, the rush of synchronized motion that came from his big, beautiful hands, the way his whole body contracted and arched, rocked and swayed—that was passion. He could coax the guitar to make sounds she didn’t even know how to describe, crisp dots, sharp clenches, long wails of music. She bet he could make it say anything he wanted it to. She bet he could make it deliver a whole Shakespearean monologue.

Her mom and her sisters would love this guy, and she was sure he’d love them. Mark was a guy who lived big, lived out loud. Her mom gave whole workshops on this kind of thing—the authentic life, the artist’s life.

She tried not to think about the look on his face and failed. There was no way she couldn’t see it as a sex look. Her body was definitely reading it that way. It said he was following his bliss and following it all the way down.

It made her
feel
things.

For one, it made her wish she had something like that in her life, some creative outlet that could take her out of time, out of her body, and let her express herself the way Mark could. Her mom made pottery, and even though the bowls were misshapen and the sets never matched, her mom looked as if she was in heaven when she was up to her elbows in gray mud. Haven even owned a set. She just didn’t...use them when people came over.

Sometimes she convinced herself that the apple hadn’t fallen
so
far from the tree. Okay, she didn’t create poetry or shape pots or make music. But she created celebrities and shaped images and made people.

Haven loved her job, and that was what mattered. And there were plenty of men out there who would respect what she did, love her ability to contribute financially, and enjoy being part of her social scene. She just needed to find one.

Under the spotlights, Mark took another solo, and now he was grinning at the guy across the stage from him and trading licks, each of them feeding off the other. It made her realize something about Mark she hadn’t understood before. Why he resented the tour so much. Why he didn’t want to be a pop musician, even if it would make money and let him help his father. Even if it seemed like the sort of thing no one in his right mind would turn down.

This
was Mark, pouring himself into his music, his inner self on display for the whole room, in people’s ears, throbbing in their skin, pulsing in their blood. Of course he didn’t want to package himself up like some eighteen-year-old boy and make forgettable music for money.

The exchange between the two guitarists rose in intensity, toward frenzy. Like—

Like sex,
she thought, of course. Mysteriously, miraculously, Mark Webster had the power to make Haven think about sex
all the time
. For two years, she’d hadn’t felt much interest at all, and now...

Mark was in
her
ears, in
her
skin, pulsing in
her
blood. His music was making her wish for things she couldn’t have. Making her wish Mark Webster would put his hands all over her. Grip and slide and stroke and strum.

* * *

P
LAYING
BLUES
WAS
Mark’s therapy, and it felt good to be up on stage in that dark room, the noise so loud it rang like silence in his head as the music poured out of his guitar. His mind, his fingers and the strings were one. He loved being surrounded by a few of his favorite musicians and some ringers from the sign-up sheet, slipping into the groove, egging the other guitarist on, echoing a great riff from his buddy Jack on the Hammond B-3 organ. The drummer, someone he’d never seen before, wasn’t half bad, a hot-shot conservatory kid. People were into it, too, tapping and chair dancing and dropping conversations to pay attention.

This
was what he needed to drown out the confusion in his brain.

As he played, he pictured Haven Hoyt watching him in the mirror and his mind wouldn’t let go of the image. Her eyes had wandered over him, a shameless scrutinizing and undressing he wouldn’t have expected from a woman like her. She’d dropped her gaze when he met her eyes in the reflection, then peeked back as if to make sure he was still looking. A flirtation, even if she didn’t know it or really mean it. It had boiled his blood, fast, and several times he’d had to force himself to think about Pete Sovereign in order to keep from sporting visible wood.

A hard game of basketball with the guys earlier in the evening, plenty of pushing and fouls, yelling, laughing, hadn’t washed away the visual. None of it had brought his horniness back down to manageable. He couldn’t stop thinking about her, wondering what she was like in bed.

The first time he’d met her, he’d thought her Teflon coating was too thick to penetrate, but he was far less sure now. He’d seen that blush sweep all the way down to her neckline. He bet if he got Haven’s clothes off, got her under him, she’d be a spitfire. He bet she’d writhe and squirm and beg and whimper his name.

Oh,
hell
.

The front man, Devon, called “Seven Nights to Rock,” a twelve-bar jump blues in A with a quick four, always a crowd-pleaser. People got up to dance, and through the path they’d cleared, he saw her. For a split second he thought he’d conjured her, voodoo’d Haven Hoyt right out of the dirtiest part of his mind. How else to explain what she was wearing? Some kind of top that tied around the waist and plunged deep between her breasts—was it possible she wasn’t wearing a bra at all? The thought made him flub a riff he’d been working up. Because those breasts, sans support—

It was remarkably hard to imagine your hands on a woman’s breasts and play the guitar at the same time, like two pathways in the brain colliding. His lust tripped over the notes and made a jangled mess of his music.

What the hell was she doing here? Coincidence? Or had she come down to hear him?

If she had, he told himself, it was out of professional interest. She had to know who she was dealing with on every axis if she were going to remake him, right? She had to know where he spent his time and whether he was dressed like she’d told him to.

He wasn’t. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to put on all those pretty-boy clothes. She’d kept his favorite jeans and bomber jacket. He’d meant to get them back from her, because there was no effing way he was going to let her dispose of them. He and that jacket had been to hell and back.

Sure enough, she caught his eye, pointed at his clothes—an old T-shirt and the jeans they’d picked out together today—and shook her head. But he thought she might be smiling. Just a little.

They finished up “Seven Nights” and started in on Delbert’s “Squeeze Me In,” and he couldn’t help himself, he gave her a look.
Can you?

Her gaze fled his, sought refuge anywhere it could get to. Then, as though she couldn’t completely govern herself, she turned to him again. She met his eyes, and then her gaze dropped. Haven Hoyt was looking at his mouth. Jesus. Her expression was telling him,
Maybe so.

No. He had to be making that up. No way this buffed-to-a-sheen, image-obsessed woman wanted him. He had proven that he could fluster her, but
wanting
was another thing entirely.

And what the hell difference would it make if she did? There was no way he wanted to get himself tangled up with her.

At the break between sets, she came over to him.

“You’re amazing,” she said. She had to lean close in the chaos, and her breath brushed his ear and sent signals he did his best to ignore.

He liked this way too much, her breath on his ear and her praise. He wanted to turn away so she wouldn’t have a chance of seeing how much it meant to him. “Thanks,” he said instead.

“You’re crazy talented.” Her face was so close to his that his hair prickled on his scalp.

He had to take a step back to keep himself sane. “Nah.” She was wrong about that. He’d never had a deep enough well of musical talent, only been in the right place at the right time. “I just, you know, mess around.”

“Do you play here a lot?” She was shouting.

He guided her, hand on her elbow, to a quieter corner of the room, where conversation, if not easy, was at least possible. “Whenever I can. And a few clubs in Queens and Brooklyn, too. There aren’t many blues jams left anymore.”

“I get it now,” she said. “Why you hate the pop stuff. This is you, right? This comes from your soul.”

He was startled by her words and by the rush of emotion and recognition he felt. He could only nod, and that felt inadequate.

“You ever tour?”

He laughed.

“Not with Sliding Up. Like, with these guys?”

She was wearing skinny jeans and knee-high boots, and he wanted to peel her like a banana. He had to force himself to stay in the conversation. “I don’t have my own band. I play jams. Just for fun.”

“But why not? Why not a band? You’re good enough, Mark.”

He shook his head. “I’m not. Just a dabbler. Besides, there’s no money in blues. You have to play five nights a week, and even then, you have to have a day job.”

“You used to teach music lessons, didn’t you?”

“Where’d you hear that?” It was just one of the unnerving aspects of this thing with her, that she knew so much about him and he knew so little about her.

“I sniffed around,” she said. “Talked to some of your old students, actually. They all said you dumped them.”

“I didn’t
dump
them.” He heard the defensive edge in his voice and tried to tone it down. “I decided to stop giving lessons.”

“You didn’t like teaching?”

He shrugged. He didn’t want to get into the whole reason he’d quit with the lessons.

“So—what do you do these days?”

“Like you said the other day. Live off Sliding Up’s hit, do birthday parties for groupies and fans, play weddings and bat mitzvahs.”

She made a face at him that suggested she knew how he felt about that. “Doesn’t seem like you.”

He shrugged. “What do you know about me?”

She turned away. She was blushing again, for a different reason this time, but his body chimed in anyway. His balls tightened, blood rushing into his cock. He liked her off balance. What did that say about him? He wasn’t a nice man.

She fidgeted with the tie on her shirt, a gesture so un-Haven-like he wanted to reach out and still her hand. “I just—do they let you wear those ratty T-shirts when you play weddings?”

“I have a suit,” he said. “Once in a while, I rent a tux.”

“You told the hostess—” Her eyes narrowed.

“I was making a point.”

“I should have guessed.” She frowned. “I can’t see you at a wedding, or with some little kid who’s trying to figure out basic chords.”

“I hate the weddings,” he admitted. “But I loved the music lessons. Seventy percent of the time it was just paying the bills, but I’d get through to my students sometimes, or I’d see some talent in them, or a kid who was kind of dead, you know, would come alive playing. A parent tells you their kid won’t do their homework, is flunking out of class, but practices two hours a day. It’s a rush, then.”

He was pretty sure he hadn’t talked this much in years. He wasn’t sure what had made him confess these things to Haven. She got him so heated up, and at the same time, lowered his defenses. It didn’t make sense.

“Why’d you quit?”

She was looking at him as though she could see straight through him again. He was pretty sure she knew the answer to her own question, or at least had her theories. “I screwed up,” he said. “Bunch of bad stuff happened in a row last year.”

“The video?”

Yeah, she knew all right. He’d been caught on someone’s iPhone, making out with two different women at the same party. Problem was, it wasn’t the same party. There’d been no way to prove the two spliced-together clips were from different nights because he’d looked identical in them—same hair, same two-days’ beard growth, same torn green T-shirt. He’d had his hands up one woman’s shirt, down the other’s pants. The thing went viral. “And then the DUI, a few days later. Meltdown city. Articles everywhere, blasting me for being a bad role model. You’d think the press wouldn’t care anymore, they’ve always had this love-hate thing with me. And all those articles were right. I was a shitty role model. So I quit the music lessons. I had to stop pretending to be good for kids.”