Make Me Stay

Caroline:

When someone says “Make me stay” in the most dramatic, lovesick kind of way, most people think it sounds desperate, weak, or needy. I, for one, think it sounds like all of the above! I’m not stupid, and I sure as heck am not desperate. In fact, I’m the complete opposite of weak. I’ve lived my live with a steel trap around my heart, and I don’t need anyone--especially a man. So how in the hell did a wannabe rock star get me to say those three words...make me stay?

Kane:

One-woman man? You’ve got to be joking. I was a rock god...in a bar...in a small town...eh, details. I was getting women like I was their gift from God. I was going to make it big. My band and I were going to bust out of Small Town, USA, and we were going to knock the panties off every woman in sight. So, when I caught some sexy groupie touching my baby...my beautiful guitar, did I want to test those waters? Hell, yes! But did I want to be a one-woman man? Hell, no! But after that, all I knew was that I wanted to make her stay.

KUDOS FOR
MAKE ME STAY

In
Make Me Stay
by ME Gordon, Caroline “Kitty” James is determined not to commit to sexy Kane Lawson, lead singer of the band, One Night Stand. Kane is equally determined to make Kitty his, despite the issues they both face. He woos and wins her, or so he thinks. But when Kitty walks away and breaks Kane’s heart, it may be more than they can overcome. With a solid story from both points of view, a strong plot, and lots of steamy sex scenes, this is my kind of book. ~
Taylor Jones, Reviewer

Make Me Stay
by ME Gordon is a steamy romance told from both the heroine and the hero’s POV in first person. At first, I wasn’t sure it would work, but it did, quite well. Our heroine, Kitty James brings a lot of baggage when she reunites with her father after a four-year estrangement. And it’s not physical baggage but mental. Her mother’s death has left Kitty unable to commit to relationships. She also has a dream job in New York after her summer in Nowheresville, Maryland, is over. So what if she has to leave the only guy she has every loved behind when she goes? Relationships never work out anyway, right?
Make Me Stay
is a fun, heart-breaking and heart-warming story of love, loss, and forgiveness. Add in the hot love scenes, and you have a story you will want to read again and again. ~
Regan Murphy, Reviewer

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

What can I say? The men of One Night Stand came into my life and stole my heart, each of them with their own stories, their own demons.

You see it all started one night when I was driving down my hometown’s historic downtown main street. There's this bar at the end, high above the street, and as I drove by I could see people inside, laughing and listening to music. I wondered what it might be like to go to that bar every week and see the same band play. What kind of music would they be playing? Would they be gentleman, would they be wild and sexy? What would they look like? That night I came home and wrote the first five chapters of
Make Me Stay
.

Make Me Stay
was an amazing book to write, and it sure wouldn't be as great as it is now without the help of these awesome people: To Faith, my editor, thank you for not killing me for over using the word “toward.” I’m still learning so much from you, and I can’t wait to keep learning and working with you. To Lauri, thank you for seeing something in me and getting
Make Me Stay
out there for everyone to read. To Melissa, you are beyond talented. You’ve taken my ideas and made them not only into amazing book covers but beautiful artwork.

To this next group, I hope you were telling me the truth when you said you loved this book: Dora, Susan, and Jessica, thank you for your support.

A special thank you goes out to my friend April. You were the first person to read
Make Me Stay
, and I was a little terrified I might scare you away so early in our friendship, but I think it just did the opposite. Thank you for encouraging me and helping me.

To my development team person, Meaghan. Thank you for listening to me rant on and on about the people talking in my head and for helping me make sense of it all.

To my children, thank you for being patient with me. I love all four of you equally, with all my heart.

To my husband, thank you for being so supportive and for getting up every morning and working so hard so that I can stay home with our babies and write sexy books about other men. I love you more than you could ever imagine.

It is my hope that everyone who reads this book falls in love with the men of One Night Stand as much as I have.

MAKE ME STAY

M E GORDON

A Black Opal Books Publication

Copyright © 2016 by M. E. GORDON

Cover Design by NAME

All cover art copyright © 2016

All Rights Reserved

EBOOK ISBN: 978-1-626944-81-7

EXCERPT

We had everything together. How could she leave all that behind...leave me?

I ran through the parking garage, after parking my truck in the first spot I saw. It might have been a handicapped spot. I wasn’t really sure and, right then, I didn’t give a fuck. I bought a ticket so I could get back to the gates. I was rounding the corner when I heard them announce the flight that I knew Kitty was getting on.

I got to the gate, scanning all over but it was nearly empty, the sign above the doorway that lead to the plane was flashing last call. I went to make my way down to the plane, but the ticket lady stopped me. When I looked down the walkway, there at the bottom was Caroline. The large woman still blocking my path, I called to her, “Caroline!”

“Sir, you can’t go down there without a proper ticket,” the pudgy woman said, taking another step forward to block me.

“I need to get down there!” I said frantically.

“I’m sorry but, no ticket, no plane.”

What a bitch.

“Caroline!” I yelled, again.

Kitty stood there, a slight hesitation in her body that I had come to know so well, staring at me. I could have sworn she was going to run back, run to me--that is, until she lifted her chin, fixed the bag on her shoulder, and walked away, taking with her what was left of my heart.

DEDICATION

To the Upper Deck Bar in

Historic Downtown Mount Airy.

Without you there would be no

One Night Stand

CHAPTER 1

Caroline

For four years I had managed to keep my distance. I kept myself busy so I wouldn’t have to think, or remember. Now I stood in front of the old building. My bags weighed me down, and so I dropped them. Spring was present, the trees all had early buds on them, flowers were poking up through the winter mulch, but there was still a slight chill to the air.

I stood before the large wooden doors, not sure if I really wanted to go through them. This building was my father’s way of coping. He bought the place in the middle of his mid-life crisis. He packed up my childhood home--without asking me, I might add--and moved from our beautiful two-story house in our relaxed neighborhood and charming little town that was right outside of New York City. And this, was where he picked...Nowheresville, Maryland.

Okay, it wasn’t “nowhere,” it was forty-five minutes to Baltimore and an hour to DC but, to me, it was a foreign country. I knew nothing about this place. Glancing from side to side, I took in the surroundings. Surprise, surprise, nothing was to my left and nothing was to my right. It was a beautiful day and I was standing in the middle of an empty main street, one of the two streets that even existed.

If someone was looking for small town USA, it was right here. Although it was quaint, with about a mile or two of shops and eateries lining either side of the street, it was empty, and old, really old. I expected people to be walking up and down the street, holding hands, walking babies in over-dramatic carriages, a kid or two on the playground across the street in the park. My father had totally lied to me.

It was a Sunday afternoon and there wasn’t a soul in sight. Craning my neck I took a deep breath and took in the tall three stories of the building. It was an end unit, in a row of attached buildings. An alley way, large enough for maybe a large SUV to fit through, separated the last building, a body shop that looked a little too rundown to actually be functioning.

The sign that hung in the middle of the ground-floor windows was lit up. I shook my head. He could have named it anything in world and all he could come up with was BJ’s? My father named a bar, BJ’s. It was the letters of his name, Benjamin James, but come on, Dad. BJ’s? Really? It didn’t help that there was another glowing, flashing sign on the other window that said
BJ’s you’ll never go home disappointed
. I should have run. I hadn’t seen my father in four years, what’s one more? I still can’t believe that I agreed to work here until I could find a job. What was I thinking?

I was in the middle of planning my escape and excuse, when one of the large doors opened.

My father practically knocked me over in an embrace. “Caroline! You’re here!”

There was something about being held tightly by your dad that seemed to take all your cares away. Holding my upper arms, he took a step back to admire me, and I got my first look at my father in the flesh. We had skyped and talked on the phone, but other than that, nothing. He was tall, with broad shoulders, surprisingly fit, his hair more salt than pepper. A few more lines appeared at the corners of his green eyes, but overall he looked good. I was relieved. I had this image of him looking worn and run down, beer gut, and unclean, but he actually appeared to be the complete opposite. His sprit was bright, and he looked happy.

If there was one thing I knew about my father, it was that he did whatever he could to make others happy. He worked his butt off when I was a kid, commuting to the city for a job that paid extremely well, but left him in a day in, day out, state of mind. He took the overtime that was offered and sometimes worked late at night, so my mother and I could have everything we ever needed.

Toward the end of my high school career, I could see my mother and father wearing down. He had moved all the way to the top of his company, but he hated it. My parents had more money than they knew what to do with, yet they were both miserable. So when I got a call, six months after my mother died, that my father had sold the house and moved here, I wasn’t too surprised. That doesn’t mean I agree with it. I mean, the man could have moved anywhere, the tropics, Europe, a log cabin hidden away. No, not my father. He decided to put roots down in Nowheresville.

“So, what do you think? Is it how you remember it?”

Remember it? What was my father talking about? He must have been getting drunk on his own liquor.

“Dad, I’ve never been here before, what are you talking about?”

Scratching his head he scrunched his face. “You probably don’t remember. You were pretty young.”

I nodded.

“Do you remember Uncle Brian at all?” he asked.

The name sounded familiar.

“Well, he’s not really your uncle, he’s my cousin. We came here a lot when you were little, probably until you were four, maybe five, I can’t remember. Anyway, this is where they live. Don’t you remember playing with his son JJ?”

I took a moment to search for anything I could on this JJ. A picture, in an old photograph binder we had, came to mind. I could see me sitting on a beach--no, not a beach, a lake. There was a little boy sitting next to me with his arm around my shoulder.

“I think I remember,” I said, still trying to recall him.

“It’s fine. You’ll meet him tonight. In the meantime, I’m sure we have a picture of you two somewhere around. Your mother use to take them all the time--” My father immediately stopped talking. Still standing before me, he seemed to be miles away in a memory. Shaking his head a moment later, he smiled down me.

I felt like I should have said something about her, comforted him, but I didn’t, because I didn’t talk about it, not to him, not to anyone.

“So, what do you think?” he asked again, showing off the brick building.

Nodding and smiling at him, I said the first thing that came to mind, pointing to the glowing sign in the window. “I guess I’ll never leave disappointed.” His booming laugh took me by surprise.

“Oh, Caroline, I’m so happy you’re here. You’re not going to want to leave.”

I huffed on the inside. I might have agreed to this for the summer, but I was moving on after that. College degree in hand, I was out of here and back to New York as soon as the summer was up and a job was in line. I needed the city. I needed the noise, people walking down the street, tall buildings. Hell, I even missed the rats in the subway. There was no way I was staying there any longer than I had to.