Bubba swallowed hard, fighting the urge to tell her that he was fine with ripping up their contract, right here and now. He’d rather have the Marisol who kissed him like she’d been dying for everything he wanted to give her than a business partner any day of the week. He’d had several managers approach him after the open mic night, but he hadn’t felt this drawn to a woman since he and Casey broke up a few years after high school.
Still, no matter how much he wanted to let his heart—and cock—do the talking, he had a meeting tomorrow morning with Wendy Dann and her people. Wendy wasn’t country music royalty just yet, but she was a major star. The chance to open for an act like hers, while her original opener was out of commission for vocal node surgery, was a once in a lifetime opportunity. If he landed this job, he could tell his asshole boss at the electric company to go fuck himself, and put his five-year career as a lineman behind him. He’d been relieved to be spared his older brothers’ fates as slaves to the family ranching business—he loved his family and spending long weekends at the ranch, but he’d never felt the call of the cows the way John and Cole did—but it wasn’t his dream to maintain overhead transmission lines, either.
No matter what the rest of the Lawsons had to say about it, music was in his blood. He never felt more alive, more at home, more at peace and generally right with the world than when he had a guitar in his hands and his lips inches from a microphone. Singing was the only thing that had ever lit a fire inside of him, and he didn’t want to risk losing his shot to transform his passion into a career because he was too hot for a woman to focus on the big picture.
So, with a deep breath and a brittle smile, Bubba swallowed the words on the tip of his tongue and said, “Just business is fine with me.”
“Good.” Marisol smiled, but Bubba would swear she sounded disappointed. “Then go get some rest and I’ll pick you up at six-thirty tomorrow. We want to be sure we’re on time. They’re making an effort to squeeze in this meeting before Wendy gets on a plane to Nashville for her week off, and we need to be there bright and early to show how appreciative we are.”
Bubba nodded, plucking his new, three-hundred-dollar cowboy hat off his head and running a hand through his hair, still feeling a little strange wearing a hat for stage dressing. Back in Lonesome Point, you wore your cowboy hat so your nose wouldn’t burn off by the end of a long day working outside. He was definitely out of his comfort zone in the designer hat Marisol had picked out for him. So far, almost all the money he’d made at his gigs had gone right back into clothes and headshot photographs and half a dozen other things he hadn’t realized he needed to launch a country music career. He couldn’t afford to derail things now, when he was so close to making good on his investment.
But as he swung into his truck, and Marisol crossed the parking lot to her vintage Spider convertible, Bubba couldn’t help wishing things could be different. For the first time in his life, he was defying his family’s party line and looking for a life outside of Lonesome Point. If he met someone special right now, it wouldn’t have to end the way things had ended with Casey, with a sad goodbye because most girls want to grow up and leave a small town behind, not settle in and raise a fifth generation of Lawsons with their high school sweetheart.
In Bubba’s gut, he knew he’d return to Lonesome Point eventually, no matter where his new career might lead, but in the meantime he had the chance to see what it was like to date someone he wouldn’t have to run into at the supermarket every other day, someone he hadn’t known since elementary school, and whose mama wasn’t friends with his. But so far, he hadn’t met anyone who intrigued him, let alone made him think about what it might be like to fall in love again.
No one but Marisol, the one woman who was off limits.
“Just my luck,” Bubba mumbled as he started the truck and drove across the nearly abandoned parking lot, doing his best not to peek into his mirror at the convertible behind him. Marisol had made it clear they were never going to be more than friends and colleagues, and Bubba had learned his lesson about pining for impossible things a long time ago.
Still, he couldn’t resist one last glance in his rearview as he pulled out onto the deserted street—wondering how long he’d be able to honor his “all business” promise with a woman who was everything he wanted, wrapped up in one irresistible package.
CHAPTERTWO
Marisol turnedup the radio and sang along, belting out a harmony to “Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places,” ignoring the strange looks she received from a mini-van full of buzzed-looking soccer moms, and the honks from a pickup truck full of frat boys heading back to UT Austin.
She hoped the sing-a-long would help take her mind off a certain cowboy and his set-a-girl’s-panties-on-fire kiss, but by the time she got back to her apartment to find her roommates still at work and yet another sink full of unwashed dishes in the cramped kitchen, visions of The Kiss still swam through her mind, making her heart pound as she brushed her teeth and got ready for bed.
Robert Lawson. She should have known he’d kiss like a tornado sweeping through a trailer park.
There was something about him, something more than the handsome features, the drool-worthy body, or the smoke and velvet voice smoother than twenty-year-old scotch. Robert was more than the sum of his admittedly delicious parts. The man had charisma, his own gravitational pull, and Marisol knew she wasn’t the only one who felt it. Women literally threw themselves at him, hurling their bodies at the sun in the hopes of getting to orbit a man like Robert Lawson for even just a little while.
His star potential had drawn Marisol to Robert every bit as much as his lovely singing voice. It was one of the many things that made him a highly marketable quantity. From their first meeting, she’d been aware of him in a way she wasn’t aware of many men, but as long as she thought of his killer body, soulful brown eyes, and heartbreaking smile as elements of a package she was in charge of marketing, she was able to disregard the way her skin prickled whenever he was nearby. She could ignore the way her fingers itched to smooth over his muscled chest, her body craved his touch, and her mouth watered just a little when he was close enough for his delicious scent to drift her way.
She could even manage to joke to herself about how ridiculous she was. The man wasn’t a pan of bacon, for God’s sake, and nothing but a pan of bacon should make a person’s mouth water.
But now, even after catching a whiff of the rancid-smelling taco meat Carrie and Mac, the two slobbiest roommates in history, had chucked into the already overflowing trashcan, her mouth was still watering. She couldn’t stop replaying The Kiss, over and over and over again, until her thighs ached and her skin itched all over. She kept remembering the way Robert had fisted his hand in her hair, taking control with an assurance she wouldn’t have thought him capable of. Robert was sex on a stick, but he was also a consummate gentleman. He was a sweet, country boy who loved his family and friends, was loyal to a fault, and rarely got riled up about anything.
But now Marisol knew he tasted even better than he smelled, and was the kind of man who wasn’t afraid to spank a girl during a first kiss.
Marisol had been so shocked by that swat—and socompletelyturned on—she hadn’t pulled away from Robert as soon as she should have. Instead, she’d stayed in his arms, pressing closer to his muscled body, her tongue tangling feverishly with his, silently begging for more.
If she’d been the woman she was two years ago, she wouldn’t have stayed silent. The old Marisol would have let him take her home, take off her clothes, and takeher, every wicked way he wanted. The old Marisol wasn’t afraid to indulge her desires. She’d been a force to be reckoned with in business, but when it came to pleasure, she hadn’t enjoyed calling the shots. She’d wanted to be tied up and teased, to hand over the reins to her pleasure to a man who enjoyed being in control.
She didn’t know if it was the strong woman in her that craved an even stronger man, or something twisted in her psyche that made her melt like an ice cube in the desert when a man fisted his hand in her hair, but soft and sweet didn’t do it for her. It never had, and it never would. Andthat’swhy she’d sworn herself to celibacy. If she couldn’t have what she wanted—and she couldn’t, the disaster with Shane had proven that—she didn’t want anything at all.
For almost two years, her sex drive had stayed dormant, and she wasn’t about to let it out of hibernation now. Robert was off limits. Not only was he her client, he was exactly the kind of man her kinky libido craved like a caffeine addict craved her morning coffee fix. Only worse. Robert was an alpha male with the kindest smile she’d ever seen, a man who would spank a woman one night, and spend an hour rewiring the light fixtures in her crappy apartment the next. He was a sweet and sexy conundrum, a charming mix of contradictions, and it would be so easy to fall for him. To fall hard and fast, like a watermelon tossed from a twentieth story window, destined to splatter into a million pieces when it connected with the concrete below.
She’d never be able to have a purely sexual relationship with Robert; she’d known that even before she’d seen the hurt in his eyes when she’d insisted they keep things “all business” between them. They were already emotionally involved. They had a connection, something more than friendship or attraction, something that made her feel like she’d known him her entire life, though they’d met less than a month ago. The way her defenses had come tumbling down the moment their lips met made it clear she wouldn’t be able to indulge her desire for him without losing control. If she let herself tease her fingers through the flames they generated when they touched, it wouldn’t be long before her entire world caught fire.
Robert was dangerous. Robert was a heartache waiting to happen, and the last place she should be looking for love was in his arms. She understood that. But was understanding enough to keep her hands, her lips, and all the other parts that yearned to touch Robert to herself?
She didn’t know, and the not knowing kept her lying awake in her lonely bed long after all good business women should have been asleep.
* * *
Bubba was still fightingto push memories of Marisol’s kiss from his head—and wash the taste of her from his mouth with the last beer in his hotel’s mini fridge—when his cell rang. He glanced at the screen, foolishly hoping it would be Marisol calling to say she couldn’t sleep either, but it was his brother John’s familiar number.
“What’s up, man?” Bubba muted the television. “You’re up late.”