Crush (11 page)

He may as well have told her to go home and practice biting the back of her own neck.

“Do as I say,” he commanded. “If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you, it was always yours.”

“I swear, Bernie, if I had any other friends, I’d cut you loose so fast. Was that supposed to be at all helpful?”

He gave her a genuine hug. “It’s written on the wall over there. I was just reading it out loud.” He gripped her shoulders and spoke directly to her. “Go home. If you need me, you can always page me at the concert.”

“Could I go to the concert with you?”

“Either you’re beginning to stink of desperation, peanut, or someone forgot to flush one of these toilets.”

“I know!” she grimaced. “And it’s so embarrassing.”

“Go home,” Bernie said very precisely. “Take a shower. Read a book. Count the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin. It’s Saturday night and I can’t babysit you any longer because I have to get to the Arena.
Your
knight awaits!”

* * *

Even though Miranda lived only two miles from the
Herald-Star
, it had taken her almost an hour to get home. She had spent most of the time sitting behind the wheel of her car, stuck on Massachusetts Avenue in Boston’s evening rush-hour congestion. Ordinarily, her horn would have joined the broken symphony coming from the other cars, but she couldn’t work up the heart to honk at anyone, not even the pierced and tattooed teenaged skateboarder that had darted into the street from between two parked cars.

Two blocks from her apartment, she had stopped at Mama Brown’s Sandwich Shop on Columbus Avenue to get a cubano for dinner, and she had forgotten to put a quarter in her parking meter. She hadn’t batted an eye when she’d left the shop to find a neon-orange ticket under the wiper blade of her Toyota. Boston’s meter people were the human equivalent to the Ebola virus: they struck fast and hard and there was nothing you could do once you were tagged.

A stranger’s car illegally occupied her assigned spot behind her apartment building, leaving her to park a bit too close to a fire hydrant four blocks away, but she didn’t cuss or complain. Her sandwich tucked under her arm like a rugby ball, she had stepped in gum as she had walked home, telling herself that she would feel better after the concert, once Lucas had performed and left town again. She wouldn’t miss him any less, but she wouldn’t feel quite so neglected once he was in a different time zone.

She took a shower, which didn’t help her mood, and then dimmed her lights and put on some music. It only reminded her of Lucas, even though she was listening to Al Green and not the type of music Karmic Echo played. She lay on the sofa, her forearm covering her face. “I can’t go on like this,” she said. “I’m acting like an infatuated seventh-grader. And I never acted this way even when I
was
a seventh-grader.”

What am I gonna do?

The answer that came to her was as obvious as it was simple. “I could call
him
, damn it.”

She sat up. That was it. All she had to do was call the Arena and ask for Lucas’s manager. The man might give her a song and dance about Lucas being too busy to talk to her, but at least she’d know once and for all where she stood.

Her door buzzer sounded just as she started for the wall phone in the kitchen. Bernie had his own key and no one else ever visited, so that meant her uninvited guest was probably the very person she didn’t want to see.

“Jordan!” she hissed through gritted teeth, wondering what part of “Don’t ever bother me again” he’d failed to comprehend during their short goodbye the previous night. She ignored the buzzer and went for the phone. She searched through her work address book, looking for the business card Kenneth Morgan had given her at Conwy. It was as good a place as any to start and might actually have a useful phone number on it.

Her visitor leaned on the buzzer. The noise was maddening, but at least the building manager had heeded her warning to never let anyone into the building on her behalf. The persistent buzz eventually stopped and Miranda assumed Jordan had finally given up, until she heard footsteps tromping up the fire escape outside her open living room window. She ran to the front closet and grabbed her emergency defense system—a Louisville slugger. Pressing herself to the wall by the window, she was ready to knock her intruder out of the ballpark.

“Miranda?”

Her whole body went weak at the sound of the voice she had heard only in her dreams for the past month and a half. “Lucas?” She dropped the bat and opened the window wider, and Lucas climbed into her living room with the easy grace of a shadow. For a moment he stood there, looking at her. She wore a silky black shirt that was two sizes too big and unbuttoned to the middle of her chest. Black, man’s-style sports briefs revealed the sensuous lengths of her elegantly muscled legs and the supple rounds of her backside. She looked more delicious than she had in any of the memories he’d conjured during their time apart.

Miranda smiled for what felt like the first time in years.

“I called your paper but I was told that you’d gone for the day.” He framed her face in his hands. “Your home number is unlisted, or I would have called first. I had to come by. I had to see you.”

“I can’t believe you’re here.” She clasped his wrists, squeezing them warmly.

He took her hands and pressed his lips to their backs. He was touched by the tremble in them. “Are you disappointed?”

Smiling, she shook her head. “Surprised. Not disappointed.”

“I have missed you so, Miranda,” he said, grossly understating his feelings. Her parting kiss in Wales had bewitched and bedeviled him, and had replayed so many times in his mind, he had worn holes in the memory. Throwing himself fully into the Asian leg of the tour was the only way he’d been able to give himself any peace.

“You could have called me.” She cringed. That was the thing she’d least wanted to say to him.

“If I’d heard your voice, I would have dropped everything and come to you on the Concorde,” he said. “Karmic Echo would have been sued for millions, my mates would have strung me up with my own guitar strings and the world would have known that I’d gone ziggy for a woman I’d only just met.” The backs of his fingers tickled over her cheeks, and the innocent gesture sparked a meltdown deep within Miranda’s lower abdomen. “I could wait for you because I knew you were worth waiting for. You missed me?” Lucas dared to hope.

Never one to easily share her feelings in words, Miranda jumped into his arms, wrapped her legs about his waist, and kissed him, burying her fingers in his hair and tasting the night air on his lips. He supported her weight with one arm, and cradled the back of her head with his free hand. Her lips parted and coaxed him into deepening the kiss, and she felt him rise between her legs.

“Good,” he said in a husky voice between kissing her throat and suckling her earlobe. “I was hoping we could pick up where we left off.”

“I was just worried,” she said on a heavy breath as she set her feet back on the floor.

“About what?”

“About not seeing you again. And about seeing you again. How did you get here without causing a riot?”

“I rode a bike over from the Arena.” He pointed to the Harley-Davidson motorcycle parked below her window. “I hid in plain sight, as it were. Just another guy in a helmet on a hog.”

The motorcycle explained his scuffed leather pants and jacket. She appreciatively eyed the big bike. “That looks like way more fun than Bernie’s Vespa.”

“I’ve been crazy the past several weeks.” He cradled her to him, kissing her fingers one by one. “Right here, right now, I finally feel sane. I want you to come to the show tonight, as my guest. I brought an extra helmet.”

“Give me a minute to change.”

“I like what you have on.” He toyed with the plunging neck opening of her shirt.

She slowly withdrew from his embrace. “I think I’ll wear my athletic singlet. Or maybe my high-cut Bermuda shorts and thong sandals.”

He laughed as she trotted off. Miranda bounded up the open stairwell to her bedroom. When she caught her reflection in the mirror above her dresser, she did a double take. She didn’t recognize the wide, shining kaleidoscope eyes, or the fresh, relaxed features. For the first time, she looked as though she were dancing to the joyous music of her own heart.
Bernie’s right
, she mused silently.
Happiness makes me beautiful.

Chapter 6

It had taken Miranda exactly two minutes to pull on a pair of slim black jeans and black penny loafers. But once she was dressed, she had spent another ten minutes trying to decide what book to take to the concert. “It’s just something to keep me busy backstage,” she had explained as she’d tucked the paperback into her coat pocket. Lucas had laughed all the way down to the street.

Once they had reached the Arena, Miranda was certain that the ride on the Harley would remain the best part of the evening. Lucas had moved in and out of Boston’s awful traffic with the ease of a lifelong resident. Sitting behind him, framing him between her legs with her arms tightly around his torso, had been as enjoyable to her as it had been to him, perhaps more. Lucas had liked the feel of her against him so much that he had driven around the block twice before roaring into the restricted section of the underground parking garage.

Lucas, and by extension Miranda, began receiving the VIP treatment the instant he took off his helmet and shook out his hair. While waiting crewmen nattered like howler monkeys at Lucas, he helped Miranda from the bike as though they had merely stopped for burgers and fries on any Main Street in America.

A Karmic Echo crewman took the bike and helmets while Lucas maintained charge of Miranda, holding her hand tightly to keep her from being separated from him once they entered the Arena’s congested underbelly. Miranda was no stranger to this part of the building. She had often been one of the media sheep forced to flock around hockey or basketball players to gather quotes or finish interviews as they went to their limos and chartered buses. Security was much tighter now because of Karmic Echo’s presence. Lucas led Miranda through four security checkpoints and still had yet to reach the dressing rooms. People were everywhere, some in the green uniforms of Arena security while others were part of Karmic Echo’s huge road and stage crew. Most of the people milling about were female Karmic Echo fans who had scored limited access backstage passes from radio shows, the tour’s sponsors, Karmic Echo crewmembers or the Arena.

Miranda almost jogged to keep up with Lucas’s brisk pace. She held his hand in both of hers, sure that if she let him go she’d never find him again. She half wished she were out on the concert floor with Bernie, but when Lucas smiled at her, she decided that she was perfectly happy where she was.

After what felt like a mile of twists and turns through half the population of Eastern Massachusetts, they were ushered into a large, quiet odd-shaped room that looked like a typical hotel room—at a very expensive hotel. A white leather sectional sofa lined the wall opposite a giant, flat-screen plasma television. A fully stocked bar, on which sat a gigantic fruit basket filled with Cristal champagne and Godiva chocolates, rested against the wall facing the door. Another wall was completely mirrored and framed by theatre lights. A wide white shelf bisected the mirrored wall, forming a table upon which sat a guitar case.

Lucas took the case to the sofa. He opened it, and with great care withdrew an onyx Fender electric bass, his favorite. He sat on the sofa and braced his right foot on the low white table before him, then settled the instrument across his lap. He picked out a few soft notes while Miranda sat on a tall stool at the bar, watching him. His head bowed over his instrument, his expression was serious, as though he were working on calculus problems rather than music. Her gaze was drawn to the movement of his lips as he softly sang part of a song. When he lifted his face and fixed his heavenly eyes on her, Miranda came the closest she ever had to an actual swoon.

He smiled softly. “You’re looking at me strangely.”

“It’s always amazed me how English people speak in perfectly incomprehensible accents, but then when you sing, you sound like you’re from Nebraska.”

“First off, I’m Welsh, not English, woman, and second,” he set aside his bass, “get over here.”

She joined him on the sofa, sitting thigh to thigh with him. “I shudder to think how many rock guys like you have spread their booty cooties all over this thing.”

“Booty cooties?” He put an arm around her. “I was told that this dressing room is new. Everything, even the insulation in the walls, had to be replaced after Blind Rage played here last week.”

“I heard about that,” Miranda said. “Bernie refused to cover their concert because of their lyrics bashing women, homosexuals, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Jews, Catholics, Muslims—”

“Blind Rage is about stirring up controversy, not making fit music. Good bands, authentic bands, are rare these days.”

“You have to look outside the mainstream Top 40 charts to find good music,” Miranda observed. “My mother comes from Bahia, ‘The Land of the Drum.’ I grew up on samba. It’s rich and colorful music that makes you want to move. It makes you feel alive. You can’t beat Tito Puente, Chavela Vargas, Luiz Carlos da Vila…I can’t dance, but those guys make me wish I could.”

“Perhaps you can’t dance because you haven’t found the right partner,” Lucas suggested.

To avoid pursing that debate, Miranda asked, “Whose music do you like?”

“U2, of course, and Outkast from your side of the pond.” He mentioned their names with reverence. “I really like Missy Elliot. She’s a visionary, a true artist.”

“I would never have pegged you as an Outkast or Missy Elliot fan,” Miranda said.

“You can’t see an old white guy like me down with Andre 3000 and Miss E., is that it?”

“No…well…yes,” she confessed.

“When I was a kid, I’d sit up listening to my dad play with some of the Motown studio musicians who’d come to London to record with English artists. My dad would be in heaven. You should have heard them. Until then, I never knew that my dad had soul, that he had rhythm! Up ‘til then, Tom Jones was the only Welshman allowed to have rhythm.”

Miranda laughed. “I’m glad that he passed some of it on to you.”

“That’s not all he passed on. My dad taught me that music doesn’t know race. It’s something you feel, something you share. It comes from under your skin.” He stroked his fingers along Miranda’s jaw. “You have such lovely skin.”

“
Branca-suja
,” Miranda sighed.

“What’s that?”

“It means dirty white. My
avó
, my mother’s mother, used to call me that. She didn’t like how I was so much darker than my mother and my sister. I don’t know what she expected, seeing as how she used to call my father
bailano
.”

“Ebony,” Lucas translated aloud.

Miranda gave him an appreciative smile. “Impressive.”

“Brazil is one of my favorite countries to visit,” Lucas said. “The people are so diverse.”

“There’s been so much intermarriage over the centuries between the Spanish, French, the native Indians and Africans that people literally come in every color,” Miranda said. “When we used to go to Bahia, to visit my
Avó
Marie Estrella, no one ever asked me if I was mixed or if I was black or Hispanic. It didn’t matter, not with just about everybody being mixed with something else.”

“What’s it like here?”

“You generally have two colors in good ol’ Boston: white and not white. Co-existence is possible, but rarely seen.”

“It’s been difficult for you?”

Miranda dropped her eyes. “When I was a kid in Silver Springs, we lived in a predominantly black neighborhood. People thought my mother was white because she’s so fair-skinned. The kids used to think I was mixed. I suppose I am when you boil it down, because obviously there are some European genes in my family tree. But I consider myself African American and Afro-Hispanic. My father is black, my mother is Brazilian
negro branca
.”

“There were only two black students in my school when I was young,” Lucas said. “One was from London and the other had come from Jamaica. Most of the black people I came into contact with were American musicians and singers who worked with my dad. My dad was the minority in those situations, but he never had any problems.”

“I didn’t have any problems until I hit the
Herald-Star
newsroom,” Miranda remarked. “Most of the guys I work with were born and bred in Massachusetts. This tiny little state is their whole world, and sports is their religion. I flew into their world like some lost exotic bird. I think they resent that I’m a woman more than they resent my race. I don’t know…I guess some guys are threatened by a woman who knows the difference between Lou Holtz and Lou Piniella.”

“Lou Holtz turned the University of South Carolina Gamecocks into a winning football program,” Lucas mentioned smoothly. “Lou Piniella was the coach of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays baseball team.”

Miranda’s eyebrows arched in surprise. “You know your Lous?”

“I’ve picked up a few things here and there.” Lucas brought his face closer to hers.

He might have shown her a few more things he’d learned if someone hadn’t knocked on the door and announced, “You’re on in five, Mr. Fletcher.”

“He must be new,” Lucas said. “Else he wouldn’t be calling me ‘Mr. Fletcher.
’
” He stood, taking Miranda’s hand and bringing her with him.

“I could stay here,” she said, “and read until you’re done. If that’s okay.”

He picked up his bass. “If you’d rather, sure. But if my preference means anything, I’d like you to come up with me. We musicians like showing off onstage for our girls.”

“That’s just it. I’m not sure I’m up to being one of the girls.”

“What are you talking about, Miranda?”

“You didn’t see all those women out there? Each one of them had lots more hair, lots more makeup, tons more boobs and way less clothes than I do. You can’t tell me that you didn’t notice them.”

“I can because I didn’t.” He took her shoulders firmly. “You would laugh your beautiful head off if you knew how long it’s been since I enjoyed the intimate company of a woman. For twenty years, women have been throwing themselves at me. I confess, there was a time when I caught as many as I could. For a long time, I’ve wanted more than what the women out there want to give me.” His body brushed against hers and she took the flaps of his motorcycle jacket. “I want a woman who will throw her mind and soul at me, not just her body. When I least expected it, our paths crossed. And since then, I haven’t been able to think of anything but you.”

She didn’t smile, but dimples appeared at the corners of her mouth. “I’ll bet you say that to all the girls.”

“We need you onstage, Lucas,” came a hurried voice from the other side of the door.

“You’d better go,” Miranda said, though neither of them made a move to separate.

“I only knew what I didn’t want before I met you, Miranda. Now I know exactly what I want.”

Her heart thumped hard, echoing in her ears when she said, “I’m afraid to ask what that is.”

“I want you,” he volunteered.

“Fletch!” Feast’s shriek was accompanied by a furious pounding on the door. “Get your arse out here! There are paying customers waiting to watch you beat your bass!”

Lucas ignored his lead guitarist. “What makes you smile, Miranda? What’s your favorite book? What’s your worst fear? Do you like Thai food? When you kissed me on that airstrip in Wales, I knew that I wanted to know so much more about you.”

Nothing he said was foreign to her, for she had wanted the exact same thing—to know him. Voicing the desire seemed to give it more power, and words meant to draw her in instead made her pull away. “Home runs,
To Kill A Mockingbird
, spiders, and yes. Don’t expect fireworks and shooting stars from me, Lucas. I’m just a regular person.”

“If you were merely regular I wouldn’t be in this dressing room keeping my mates and thirty thousand fans waiting.”

“Then you’d better go. I’ll wait for you here.”

He reached into her coat pocket and took out her book. He read the title as he settled onto the sofa.
“
Rapturous Revenge.”
With raised eyebrows, he opened it to Miranda’s page marker, leaned back, crossed his long legs at the ankle and began to read aloud.
“
‘Her lips parted in an expression of sheer bliss as his velvet tumescence artfully breached the moist petals of her throbbing womanhood.
’
” He chuckled. “Velvet tumescence?”

Miranda lunged for the book. Lucas caught her around the waist and held her atop him. She grabbed at the paperback, which he easily held out of reach. “I never would have known you for a romance fan,” he said.

“I’m still in the closet,” she grunted, snatching at the book.

Lucas pitched the book across the room so he could use both arms to subdue her. “Don’t be embarrassed, Miranda.”

“I’m not.” A raging blush belied her words.

“Kitty Kincaid isn’t half bad, actually,” he said.

To Lucas’s regret, she stopped writhing upon him. “You know her work?”

“Her publisher once asked me to pose for one of her book covers.” He gently smoothed strands of Miranda’s tousled hair from her face. “It was called
The Virgin Whore
or
The Sergeant’s Staff
, or some such thing.”

Miranda giggled. Lucas kissed the end of her nose, which made her giggle more.

“Did you pose for it?” she asked.

“No. I had a scheduling conflict. But I read the samples of her books they sent.”

“Sure, you did,” she said skeptically.

“I’ve been known to read ingredient lists on candy wrappers if that’s all that’s available to me,” he said. “The road can be dead boring.”

“No one, not even Bernie, knows that I like to read romance novels,” Miranda said. “Promise me that you won’t tell anyone. Not your friend Feast, not your parents, not your pups, not anyone ever.”

“Kiss me, and forever seal the Pact of the Velvet Tumescence.”

Miranda happily obliged. She gently touched his lips, the chaste contact lighting fires beneath their skin. His hands went into her hair and under her coat. One of her legs slid between his and she pressed her hips into the hard ridge that had grown along his thigh. Her blood pulsated through her body, generating a heat that ignited every cell of her body. Her coat was in a pile on the carpeted floor and Lucas was kissing the bit of shoulder bared by her oversized shirt when she realized that the pulsating was coming from around her as well as within.