“So?” Molly waggled her eyebrows, fingers discreetly crossed and hope a bright, bright flame in her heart.
“That was before I realized he wasn’t human.” With that pert comment, her friend shifted her attention toward the restaurant section of the Viaduct. “I’m starving.”
Luck was with them and they snagged an outdoor table with an amazing view of the water, yachts and other pleasure craft berthed in neat rows in the marina. As they ate, Molly thought of everything her friend had said, everything she herself had decided about stepping out of the box in which she’d lived for so long, and sent Fox a message: Search for Patrick Buchanan and scandal.
Chapter 13
Fox narrowed his eyes at the phone screen when Molly’s name flashed up. He was still pissed at her for hanging up on him, enough that he needed to wait a bit longer—get his boiling temper down to a smolder—before he went after her and got to the bottom of this. Stubborn as he was learning his Molly could be, he hadn’t expected a capitulation.
Tapping to open the message, he frowned, then did the search. “Fuck!” He barely controlled the urge to throw his phone.
Noah, who was sitting on the steps leading down to the sandy beach, while Fox was on the porch above, stopped strumming his guitar. “Care to elaborate, oh articulate one?”
“You know how I said Molly was mine?” He dropped his legs off the railing to hit the deck. “That I planned to convince her to enter into a real relationship?”
“Tough thing to forget.”
“Yeah, well, I was an arrogant prick.” Not just then, but today, when he’d told her it wouldn’t matter if she was snapped. He’d had no f**king idea who and what he was dealing with; what he’d just learned told him Molly was the last person in the world who’d ever want to be in a relationship with a man whose life was dogged by the prying lens of paparazzi cameras.
Checking her phone again as she entered the apartment after dropping Charlotte off at her town house, Molly felt her stomach drop at the continued lack of a return message from Fox. He was likely busy with his bandmates, she told herself, not the kind of man who’d have bothered to go immediately online to follow a cryptic message from a woman he’d known less than a week.
Or maybe he’d done the search, realized how messed up she really was, and decided to cut his losses.
A stabbing pain in her chest.
Swallowing past it to release a trembling exhale, she kicked off her shoes and wandered into the bedroom to change into flannel pajama pants and a faded gray T-shirt. That done, she shoved her feet into her silly purple slippers and, pulling her hair back into a ponytail, went into the bathroom to wash off her makeup and brush her teeth. Smoothing in some moisturizer at the end, she settled into bed and picked up a romance novel she’d been looking forward to finishing.
She’d forgotten she’d stopped right before a love scene.
Her breath caught, her mind seeing not the words on the page, but the erotic scenes that had taken place in this bed a day past. This was why she hadn’t wanted to get involved with a man like Fox—that addictive gene in her body had kicked into high gear where he was concerned, until she could smell him all around her. Impossible, since she’d changed the sheets while he was in the shower this morning.
Blood hot at the reminder of why she’d changed the sheets, she looked back down at the novel, determined to read on. Five minutes and one incomprehensible paragraph later, she put the book on the bedside table and got up to make a cup of chamomile tea. She’d just taken the tea from the pantry when there was a knock on the door.
Jumping, she froze.
The short, hard knock came again, and this time, she moved, padding over to the security peephole to see a rock star on her doorstep. Her throat dried up.
“Molly.” Quiet, sexy, a little rough. “Open up.”
Heart slamming against her ribs, she looked down at her pajamas, thought about her washed-clean face… and realized none of it mattered. Not when she’d just given him the key to her greatest vulnerability.
She unlocked and opened the door.
Fox, his arms braced above the doorjamb, his white T-shirt taut against his biceps, said, “I had to steal a boat for you.”
Toes curling in her slippers even as she stood there feeling exposed, raw, she somehow managed to say, “According to a certain celebrity magazine, you’re worth a cool kazillion or two—you probably bought the boat.”
“Noah wouldn’t be too happy. He’s become attached to the thing.” A dawning smile, but his eyes were serious. “Let me in.”
Realizing she’d been blocking the doorway, Molly stepped back and Fox came in, pushing the door shut behind him and flicking the deadbolt. The sound was loud in the silence, seemed to signal an intent to stay that had her stomach in knots.
“You look good enough to eat,” Fox murmured, his hands going to her hips.
She found her own against the firm warmth of his chest.
Fingers brushing the side of her breast through the soft fabric of her T-shirt, he ran one hand up over the skin bared by the scoop neck to close his fingers around her throat. “I got your message.”
Feeling vulnerable in a way that had nothing to do with the fact he was bigger and stronger, she looked away. “Did you do the search?”
“I’m sorry, baby.” Rubbing his thumb over her jaw, he tugged back her head with the hand not around her throat and bent to take her lips. “Open, Molly.” When she obeyed, he kissed her with an unhidden male hunger and a harsh tenderness that stole another piece of her.