Total pages in book: 180
Estimated words: 168121 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 841(@200wpm)___ 672(@250wpm)___ 560(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 168121 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 841(@200wpm)___ 672(@250wpm)___ 560(@300wpm)
The muffled vibration of his electric guitar floated from the basement. She tossed her coat on the couch and swung into the stairway, heart pounding, her hands slick with sweat.
He’d asked her to marry him. Woke her that morning with his mouth between her legs, his teeth pinching her clit, and said, “Marry me.”
She told him to buy her a ring and brush up on his charm, but neither of those excuses were the reasons for her non-answer. She’d anticipated his proposal for weeks and needed the day in town to accomplish the response she’d planned out.
At the bottom of the stairs, she tugged off her boots and slipped into the music studio.
He squatted on a stool at the center of the room, his shirtless back to her, and a guitar in his lap. “Roll it again. Pick it up from the third verse.”
The rest of the band flickered across the widescreen on the wall, moving in and out of camera shot. The angle showed the L.A. estate’s basement studio, the drum set, and the couch where she’d spent numerous hours watching them practice.
Laz rose from the couch and shuffled to his amp, clicking it off. “We’ve got this. Let’s call it a night.”
Will fidgeted with the tuners on his bass and rubbed his furrowed forehead. Behind him, Rio scooted away from the drums, twirling a stick in his hand, grinning at whatever Laz was doing off camera.
“Let’s take a break, then we’ll roll through it a couple more times.” Jay seated his Les Paul in the guitar stand beside him and straightened his back, flexing his shoulders and thrusting his elbows behind him in an upper-body stretch. “You’re consistently a half beat late into the segue between the chorus and the second stanza.”
His leather pants sagged an inch or more below his narrow hips, exposing a tantalizing panorama of sculpted lines over his lower back and the ridges of his ass. She licked her lips, her nostrils flaring to accommodate her heavy breath.
He bowed forward, forearms on his spread knees. The ambient lighting accentuated his sexiest muscles, the contour of his V-shaped torso beneath the animation of black, red, and brown ink.
The pads of her fingers tickled to worship him. She covered the few feet between them and rested her palms over his scars.
The tightness in his back melted away beneath her hands and he leaned back until he was looking at her upside down. “Mmm. Practice is over, guys.”
The faces on the screen glanced up and a chorus of ‘Hi Charlee’s’ bounced back. She gave them a chin lift. “Hey. You taking good care of Nathan?”
Rio shook his head. “That’s Tony’s job. Besides, we rarely see them. They don’t leave the bedroom.”
She pressed her lips against the soft vertical grooves between Jay’s eyes, giddy and content that Nathan had found happiness. “He is, after all, a very rich man. He can do whatever the hell he wants.”
Sure, Roy’s money was tainted, the means by which he accumulated it questionable. When Jay refused to touch his share of the inheritance, she reminded him the fucker stole nine years of her life and was responsible for putting Jay through her death. Twice.
Point made, they spent the money indulgently, donated to charity, and gave an ample sum to the family of the murdered guard and his niece. It also funded the elaborate dungeon in the room next door. The irony of that was bitter sweet.
Wil stepped so close to the camera, she could count the follicles of his eyelashes. He fluttered his eyes, his cheeks puffing up. “We’ll see you in a couple weeks? And you’ll give me the tat I emailed to you?”
The mermaid with a skeletal face and huge tits? What a goofball. Damn, she missed those guys. “Yep. Two weeks.” They would spend the rest of the winter in L.A. while The Burn recorded their new album.
“Good deal.” Wil’s arms reached up, and the image on the screen shook as he wiggled something on the camera. “Signing off.”
The screen blinked to black.
Jay reached back, grabbed her waist, and shifted her until she stood between his legs. Wrapping his arms around her hips, he tucked her belly against his chest. The gold in his eyes gave way to darkening shades of brown as he stared up at her. “How was your day?”
“Crazy busy.” She touched his dimple, lost in his heavy-lidded eyes. “I really need to go in more often to keep up with the schedule.”
“Nonnegotiable. I fucking dread the one day a week separation as it is.”
No sense arguing it. They were leaving in two weeks.
He walked the fingers of one hand around her waist and inched up her thermal shirt. “Any memorable tats today?” His lips shimmied over her naval.
“Mm.” She closed her eyes, shivered against the smooth texture of his mouth. “Some guy from Montreal asked me to ink the letters S E X E. One letter on each finger.”