Outlaw Country (8 page)

“Because I opted for some better company this evening.”

Gracie liked how direct Colton was. He wasn’t much of a talker, but when he did, his words were powerful. Lots of rumors flew around about the bad boy country singer, but she liked the side that he was showing.

Colton looked over, letting his head fall to one side. “I assume Mrs. Hart’s always been Miss Hart’s manager?”

Gracie nodded. “She has.”

“Always gonna be that way?”

“I don’t know, actually. I’d be nothing without my mother, but the last year has been a real strain. She’s a great manager and a great mom, but I don’t think they go well together, you know?”

“I don't know. Kitt and I are orphans.” He said it so matter-of-factly that Gracie’s heart almost broke. “I’ve been on my own from fourteen on.”

Gracie turned from the lake to Colton. “On your own like...foster care?”

He crushed the empty can in his hands and flipped the cooler open for another. “Nah. Got sick of bouncing from home to home, so I split and started hitchhiking around the south.”

Gracie didn’t know what to say. Never knowing her father had been tough, but to lose both parents? She couldn't even comprehend. She kept her mouth shut and let Colton talk.

“That’s how I started playing guitar. I got friendly with some buskers in Memphis. Worked a few odd jobs and bought a guitar from a hock shop. Traveled, learned to play, and started out in coffee shops.” Colton raised his beer to the almost full moon. “Now I’m on tour with number one hit princess Gracie Hart. Rags to motherfuckin’ riches, baby.”

The adrenaline from the show had worn off, and Gracie could feel a different drug making her heart race. She tried to picture Colton on his own out in the great big world. She knew that she had led a gifted life, and it only made her heart ache more for him. She should’ve said something, but she was afraid the lump in her throat would give her emotions away. She raised her can of beer, and Colton bumped his can against hers, spilling some beer down her arm.

It traced a path directly under her arm, and she shot up, squealing as the cold liquid ran to her armpit. Colton stood up, laughed, and tried to find something to help Gracie out.

“Oh god, oh god. It’s so cold!” She laughed and jumped around like a maniac as she twisted her body. Her phone fell from her pocket, but Gracie could only focus on the beer tickling her as it ran down her skin.

Colton looked around in the darkness, trying to find something to give to Gracie. Besides the chairs and the cooler, the place was nothing but nature. He pulled his t-shirt up and over his head. As Gracie squirmed around, he grabbed onto one of her arms and pulled her in close.

As Gracie pressed against Colton, he wiped her arm. She was frozen. The close proximity caught her completely off-guard, but she was planted against the shirtless man that she had been fantasizing about for two weeks, her heart flying. The cold beer on her skin was the last thing on her mind.

For a moment, the two were standing silent and still in the moonlight. Gracie stared up into Colton’s eyes. He smiled, and it might have been the first genuine smile she’d seen from him. It wasn’t cocky or smug. It just was. He looked different to her. He wasn’t Colton Wade, the bad boy. He was Colton, heartfelt singer.

He leaned in, and Gracie’s lips parted as she sucked in a breath. The muscles in his chest tensed as he bent forward ever so slowly. She closed her eyes, every daydream and fantasy destroyed by the reality before her.

Colton kissed her. He took her in his arms and broke through. Every song they sang on stage was like foreplay. It forced them to look each other in the eye and sing lines about love, lust, and sex. Gracie would’ve gone crazy if Colton hadn’t kissed her.

Gracie’s body was on fire. Colton’s touch set her ablaze, and his lips fanned the flames. Shepard had been a good kisser, but Gracie could barely remember what it felt like after the first with Colton. He leaned her body back. She had always wondered what it felt like to be manhandled. He was in total control, taking what he wanted and giving her what she needed. Gracie moaned as she felt Colton’s tongue split her lips.

Gracie was living in a dream. Later on, she might chastise herself for letting herself go, but she wanted to live in the moment for once in her life. She wanted to take chances, risk her heart, and go for broke. Colton was far more than a “go for broke” kind of guy in her eyes. He wasn’t the kind of person that wasted opportunities, and Gracie didn’t want to be, either.

His lips abandon hers, but only to explore down to her neck. On stage Gracie wore backless dresses with low cuts. She didn’t show off her breasts, per se, but she did like to feel sexy. She thanked her lucky stars as Colton’s lips and stubble made their way to her shoulders.

A breathy sigh escaped her lips. Her knees weakened. Gracie tried to remember if she had that same feeling of really living with Shepherd. As Colton’s finger brushed from Gracie’s gear down her neck, she knew that she hadn’t felt anything like Colton Wade before.

Her hands danced over his muscles. First she squeezed his arms. They were defined and rigid. She could see hints of tattoos in the moonlight. They seem to cover his whole chest, but there wasn’t enough light to make them out. She ran her hands up to his broad shoulders, feeling how easily he was holding her. A tight T-shirt had shown off his muscles, but with the shirt gone, his bare chest made it clear just how manly he was.

“Dear god, is this happening?” She wanted to laugh out loud. Gracie wanted to shake her head and wake herself up from the dream. It was everything she wanted. It was every desire come true.

Colton laughed, but the sound was muffled since he was kissing her neck. She could feel him smiling. She could feel his stubble against her skin. Shepard had always been clean-shaven, and he’d had softer skin than Gracie. She couldn’t name a single thing soft about Colton. That thought made her eyes open wide. Something that was anything but soft pressed against her below his waist. It made her heart come to a complete stop for an instant.

Will it happen tonight?
For three years Gracie had dreaded losing her virginity. She’d heard horror stories about pain and blood. She and Shepard had come close, but her fears had stopped her from going all the way. His lips began to explore more of Gracie’s skin. He became bolder by the second, Gracie began to think it might happen.

Colton’s hands slid down her back. A heat and pressure begin to swell inside of Gracie. When Colton grabbed her ass, Gracie let out a gasp that turned into giggles. Colton bent her farther backwards, and Gracie laugh harder. She threw her arms around his neck out of fear that she’d fall back against the dirt. When Colton pulled her back up, she jumped and threw her legs around his waist.

Colton had a wide smile. “Damn. Southern girls
do
move fast.”

She couldn’t help but pout. “And how would you know that, Mr. Colton Wade?” Gracie was plenty aware of Colton’s favorite hobbies. Booze and women were the top two, and they were tied in a dead heat. She didn’t want to think about all the women who he had been with in the past. She just wanted to think about that moment, straddling him in the moonlight in rural Tennessee.

Out of the corner of her eye, Gracie caught something light up on the ground behind Colton. Her phone sent a white light shooting up, and her poor heart stopped. Colton had cleared every thought from her head, but seeing her phone brought fear and responsibility rushing back to her.

“Oh god, my mother!” she cried out, trying to pry herself from the handsome, shirtless man.

He let her down with an exasperated sigh. As Gracie wiggled herself away from Colton, he shook his head. He had the idea she would want to move slow, and he could tolerate that for a while. Colton knew damn well that he could get some pretty much anywhere any time, but there was something about Gracie that he just had to have. Maybe it was the unattainable aspect, or maybe it was the good girl thing. Whatever it was, he knew that he had to be patient. His cock, on the other hand, wanted her that very second.

Gracie scooped her phone up from the dirt and tapped her finger on the screen. “Hi, Mother. I know, I know. I’m fine, everything’s fine, you don’t need to worry. I had my phone on silent, and I didn’t know you were calling.”

Colton was totally into Gracie, but the mother? Damned if she wasn’t one hell of a pain in the ass. He watched as Gracie paced and frantically made her apologies. Even before she gestured towards the truck, he knew what was coming. They’re fun was over, and it was time to return the pretty little virgin to her overbearing mother. Again, Colton tried to convince his throbbing cock that it would get what it wanted in time.
 

Colton wasn’t a fan of the saying, “Good things come to those who wait,” but as he saw Gracie pass in front of the headlights to get into the truck, he told himself that Gracie wasn’t a good thing. She was a bad thing just waiting for her chance to let loose.

“We’re on our way back to the hotel right now, I promise.” Gracie gave him the saddest, most apologetic look Colton had ever seen. He fired up the truck to take her back to the real world.

“You’re lucky I don’t send that awful boy away. You realize he needs us, not the other way around, right? He’s just hitching a ride on your popularity. It makes me sick. And then for him to pull what he did tonight?” Kathleen’s heart was at full steam. Her talk with Roger had calmed her down some, but the second that she saw Gracie, all those emotions flew right back.

Her daughter wasn’t listening. She was just waiting for her moment to fire back, saying “He didn’t
pull
anything, Mother. I’m not stupid, you know. I knew exactly what was going on.” Gracie’s voice grew louder. Kathleen looked around, as if she would see a crowd in their hotel room. “I’m an adult. I can make adult decisions. Jesus, I don’t even know why you hate Colton so much.”

Gracie threw herself down on the bed, her body shaking as she silently cried. Kathleen thought it was an attempt to get her to soften, and it wasn’t going to work.

“Because he’s exactly like your father.” Kathleen’s voice was hard and sharp. Her daughter spun around in the bed, her eyes already red from the tears.

Kathleen was fully aware that bringing up Gracie’s father could backfire on her, but she spoke from a place of impulse.
 
Kathleen rarely talked about Eric. She didn’t like bringing up the memories, and she didn’t want to encourage Gracie to go out and find him. Kathleen half-expected him to show up every time a royalty check came in the mail. She feared that he would come with flowers for the daughter he had never shown interest in. She feared that Gracie would fall for it, too. Eric was just charming enough in that way.

Gracie’s sadness turned to anger in a split second. “How would I know?”

“I’m sorry, but your father is not the type of person that you want to know. He’s a user. He used me, and as soon as things changed, he left me, Gracie. He left us. He never wanted to get to know you, and he never wanted to be a part of your life. Being a single mother is hard enough, but I’ve also had to carry that guilt with me.”

“What guilt?”

A sad smile came to Kathleen. She had to admire and envy Gracie’s innocence. She longed for that innocence on tough days. Today is one of those tough days, she told herself.

“What guilt?” Kathleen was glad that they had moved from fighting to a dialogue, even if it was a dialogue about something she detested. Lowering herself down to the bed, Kathleen turned to her daughter. “I feel guilty for everything he never did. I feel guilty for every birthday he misses, every Christmas when it’s just the two of us, and for stumbling through everything he should’ve been here to teach you. Shepard was a big awakening for me. I taught you everything I could, but I think a father figure could’ve done a better job.”

“What could he have taught me?” Gracie rarely said her father’s name, and Kathleen took it as an act of solidarity between the mother and daughter.

With a shrug, she said, “I don’t know. I’d like to think that a good father would teach you what a good man is really like and how to spot them. I think it’s clear that I’m pretty bad at spotting good men. My track record is sub-par in that department. You know how much I liked Shep. I’d thought he was good for you. I was just as devastated as you were, Gracie. And now…and now Colton?”