“Could you have been more condescending?” He glared down at her, wondering if he should have signed with the greasy guy with the tattoos and the handlebar moustache after all.
After his first industry open mic night, he’d taken one look into Marisol’s brown eyes—eyes that sparkled with energy and ambition—and decided she was the one for him. He was giving the music career one shot, and he wanted the fiercest ally he could get on his side. Marisol might not look fierce—she was tall, but slim, with delicate features and a sexy baby deer thing going on that club managers seemed to find irresistible—but Bubba had enough firecracker female friends in his life to know a live wire when he saw one.
Live wire, he could handle. He could handle being bossed around, told what time he needed to go to bed, what he should wear on stage, and which of the new songs he and Marisol were writing he should work into his set, but he wasn’t going to put up with being treated like a dumb country bumpkin.
“I’d prefer that doesn’t happen again,” he said, his voice hard.
“I’m sorry.” Marisol let out a surprised laugh. “Did you want me to put on the kid gloves for a girl who took her shirt off in a parking lot?”
“I wasn’t talking about the girl.” Bubba felt like a fool the moment the words were out of his mouth. He usually wouldn’t care if someone made fun of his face. He didn’t know why he let Marisol get to him. Maybe it was because she was supposed to be on his side, or because the past three weeks writing songs with her had been some of the best times of his life. Maybe it was because she felt like a friend, more than an employee, and Bubba wasn’t used to friends with edges as sharp as hers.
Or maybe it was simply because he couldn’t quit thinking about how much he’d like to fist his hand in her wild hair and kiss her until she couldn’t think of a single thing to say with that pretty mouth. He couldn’t stop imagining the way she’d respond to his kiss, his touch, and how damned beautiful she’d look laid out on his bed, naked as the day she was born.
He had a thing for his manager.
A bad, bad thing.
He wished he didn’t, but the truth was even the way she sighed and rolled her eyes at him made him a little thicker.
“I’m sorry,” she said, batting her eyelashes as she slipped into pacify the talent mode. “You know I didn’t mean any of that. You’re the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. I’d take my shirt off for you in a parking lot, too, if I was a sex-starved drunk girl with no self-respect.”
Bubba sighed. “You don’t have to butter me up.”
“But I would.” Marisol grinned up at him. “Butter you up and lick you clean, if we didn’t have a strictly professional relationship, and you didn’t have a very important interview at seven o’clock tomorrow morning. You remember what we decided you should wear, right?”
“I do,” Bubba said, the comment rubbing him the wrong way. “I may look like a dumb country boy, but I can hold information in my head for longer than five hours at a time.”
Marisol’s easy-going façade cracked, and for the first time Bubba saw genuine worry creep into her expression.
“Seriously, Robert,” she said, the lilt going out of her voice. “I didn’t mean to offend you. It’s late, and I said what I knew would get the job done. I didn’t even think, and if I had, I wouldn’t have imagined something like that was capable of hurting your feelings.”
Bubba grunted. “Good old boys have feelings, too, you know.”
“I-I know,” Marisol said, her usually direct gaze flicking from the pavement, to his truck, to the streetlight above their heads. “I just…” She shrugged and rolled her eyes again, but this time she seemed more rattled than irritated. “Seriously, Robert, I can’t tell if it’s an act with you, or you’ve just never looked in a mirror, but I don’t see how you’ve made it to twenty-six years old without realizing you’re good-looking. Like…stop-a-girl’s-heart good-looking.”
Damn.
Now, Bubba didn’t know what to say. His focus had been sideswiped by the realization that Marisol thought he was good-looking, and that maybe she hadn’t been completely joking about that butter comment. The possibility made it difficult to tear his eyes away from her lips, to keep from wondering what she would taste like, what she would sound like when he made her moan. It had been a while since he’d had a chance to practice his skills in the bedroom, but there were some things a man never forgot.
Like how to ride a horse, how to change the oil in his truck, and how to drive a woman crazy.
He was imagining all the ways he’d like to get Marisol worked up—with his tongue and his teeth and his hands between her long, smooth legs—when a matching pair of squeals sounded from the far side of the parking lot.
“There he is! Robert Lawson!”
Bubba looked up to see two new blondes jabbing dangerous-looking fingernails in his direction. Three-fourths of the population of Austin was composed of different shades of bottled blond, something else that was far different from Lonesome Point. A moment later, the two women started his way, jogging the painful-looking, mincing trot of women whose impractical footwear was on the verge of crippling them for life.
Marisol propped her hands on her hips with a soft curse. “Hell, Robert. Women are literally throwing themselves at you. How can you have an ounce of insecurity in that big body of yours?”
“I’m a sensitive soul,” he said, his eyes still glued to Marisol’s face, too intrigued by the flustered note in her voice to give the blondes skittering toward them a second glance.
Marisol made a sound that was half laugh, half snort, and all sexy—at least to him. “Get going, sex god. I’ll make sure the lusty twins know you’re not interested, and call you in a few.”
“I’d rather show them I’m not interested.” Bubba’s pulse spiked as he angled closer to Marisol, knowing this might be his only chance to see if the chemistry between them was more than smoke and mirrors.
Her eyes widened. “How’s that?”
“Like this.” Bubba reached for her, driving his fingers into her hair and tightening his hand into a fist as he pulled her close and took possession of her beautiful mouth.