Morning Man (13 page)

Her eyes flew open. She pulled back from their kiss, tugging the papers sticking out of Tack’s unbuttoned shirt pocket. “Hey now, what do we have here?”

“Nothing,” he said, trying but failing to snatch them back. “C’mon, it’s nothing.”

Turning away from his reach, she began unfolding the slips one by one. Well, whaddya know–each of them showed a girl’s name and phone number. “Stacie? Oh, and who’s this one from…Tanya? Was that the stacked redhead or the cougar in pink?” She smirked, peeling the last one open. “This one just says ‘FB.’ FB?” She searched her mind. “Fuck Buddy?”

“I didn’t get a chance to empty my pockets before we left.” He shrugged. “They mean nothing. Girls give me those all the time.”

“Oh they do, do they?”

“Yeah, and I throw most of them out.”

“Most of them.” She echoed. “Ooh, I wonder who’s going to make the final cut tonight? Because if I were you, I’d definitely hang on to FB’s number. You never know when it might come in handy.”

He put down his beer and swung her knees back toward him so they were face to face again. “Listen. When a hungry man’s salivating over a beautiful filet he wants but can’t have, sometimes he’ll settle for a hamburger.”

“Well, maybe a man shouldn’t have to settle,” she said, searching his eyes. “Maybe he needs to speak up and say exactly what it is that he wants.”

Tack grabbed the slips, tearing them in half with a fast rip before tossing them over his shoulder. “This,” he said, cupping her face in both hands and tilting her up to meet his lips. “I want this.” He urgently fused his mouth to hers, kissing her long and deep enough to erase any trace of doubt in her mind. She fell helplessly into the heat of him as he licked further into her mouth, stoking a fire low in her belly that quickly spread and set her ablaze. She pried his fingers from her cheek and guided them down to her breast, aching for his touch. The exquisite relief she sought was right there in the palm of his hand, holding and kneading and squeezing until she became lightheaded from the want. He moaned into her kiss and she responded by arching her back, offering up more of her mouth and breast to him.
To hell with waiting, let’s get naked
. Her mind reeled, panting to catch up to the lusty rush of lava coursing through her body.

“Day…what th–?” CJ interrupted. They abruptly broke apart as he charged up the walk and stormed the porch, scowling at her before narrowing his eyes on Tack. “You? Just what in the hell do you think you’re doing out here?”

“Looks like I’m kissing your girlfriend, Chachi.”

“Ex-girlfriend,” Dayna corrected. Her foggy head spun like she was high on a crazy love drug, her body ripening, her lips pulsing, her face tingling. She loved it.

“Right. Ex-girlfriend.” Tack nodded. “So why don’t you just mosey on inside and let us get back to what we were doing.”

CJ didn’t budge. “You told me you were going to work, Day.”

“I did. We just finished a remote.”

He stared down Tack. “You also said you weren’t sleeping with this scumbag.”

Now he was really pissing her off. “Not that it’s any of your damn business, but we haven’t slept together.” She fired back. “But I’m telling you right now, if he’s even half as good in bed as he is at kissing, we just may rattle some windows tonight.”

Tack arched an eyebrow and grinned. “Not to brag or anything, but I’m pretty fucking fantastic.”

She returned his smoldering stare, squeezing his solid thigh through the faded blue denim. “Mmm…I can’t wait to find out.”

Without breaking their gaze, Tack told CJ, “Run along, son. She’s got herself a real man now.”

“This is my house!” CJ protested. “And you’re not welcome here, Collins.”

She didn’t buckle. “I live here too and I say Tack can stay.”

“The hell he can.”

Tack inflated his chest. “I really don’t want to spoil tonight by fighting, sugar. But I’ll lay him out flat on the lawn if you want me to.”

As much as she would have loved to see CJ cut down to size, it probably wasn’t a good idea. Tack had a solid forty pounds and a good five inches on him, making it entirely possible that CJ would snap like a dry twig. “Maybe we should just call it a night,” she said softly, resting her palm against Tack’s silver medallion and picking up his heat radiating beneath it. He nodded.

Dayna got up from the porch swing. “Come on, I’ll walk you to your truck,” she said, scowling at CJ as they passed by. “Asswipe.”

The front door slammed shut and Tack slipped his arm around her. “You sure it’s okay for me to leave you alone with him? He’s not mentally unstable, is he?”

“If anyone should be worried about living with a mentally unstable roommate right now, it’s CJ,” she said, leaning up against the driver’s side door. “I’m sorry our evening together had to end so soon.”

“It doesn’t have to, you know. You could come with me.” He used his whole body to close the space between them. Leaning down, he softly suckled the curve of her neck, the wet heat of his mouth and the scratchy tickle of his beard driving her wild. He cupped both of her breasts and she shuddered, clinging to his shoulders as she ached and stretched for more. Breathless, she sought out his tongue to fill her mouth, reveling in the pleasurable swell of desire that rendered her senseless. His hands slid around her back and moved lower until they gripped her bottom, pulling her hips forward to meet the hard insistence of his body. “I need you,” he panted.

“Oh God, I can tell.” She bit the corner of her lip, ready to explode as she rubbed against him. Mother of mercy. “I need you too.”

“Then let’s do something about it,” he said, his seductive voice thick with want.

In a haze of lust, she opened her eyes but couldn’t steady her focus. “As much as I want to, Tack, I really think we need to take this slow.”

He dropped his head and groaned into the side of her neck.

“I know, this is torture for me too. But I promise, delaying our gratification is going to make what’s hot so much hotter.”

He exhaled deeply. “If you say so, sugar.”

“Trust me on this. And if things get a little too intense, well, we’ll just have to think about Republicans or something.”

“It’s gonna be impossible to think about anything but having you from now on.”

“Glad to hear it.” She whispered against his lips as she caressed his sweet face. “Because that’s been my evil plan all along.”

Chapter 8

The control room door crashed open with startling force. “Both of you, in my office the instant you’re off the air.” Bonnie’s command was punctuated with an imposing glare before she disappeared again.

Tack threw his hands up. “Now what?”

“I thought we had a pretty good show.” Dayna leaned over the console. “Maybe she’s mad about the Hugh Hefner jokes. But even she has to admit, the dig about the half-dead stiff on the Viagra IV drip was hilarious,” she said with a giggle. “Dickamortis.”

He twisted his cap around backward. “I still say there’s a perfectly good reason why no Playmate has ever listed sex with an octogenarian as one of her turn-ons.” He re-adjusted his headphones and concentrated on pushing the right buttons instead of dwelling too much on the suggestive talk. Since Friday night, he and Dayna had exchanged nothing more intimate than a few knowing smiles and a lingering glance or two. Fine by him. It was bad enough that his pants grew uncomfortably tight every time he’d mentally undressed her in the studio that morning.

Dub tottered into master control a few minutes before ten, carrying a stack of CDs. Much to Tack’s surprise, he was smiling. “Morning,” he greeted.

“Hey, Dubster. How goes it?”

“All right.” Dub fussed around in the corner. “Good weekend?”

He nodded. “A couple girls were asking about your whereabouts Friday night at the Roadhouse. You should really try to make it down there.”

Dub turned around. “Yeah? Like who?”

“Some cute little chiquita, can’t remember her name. Oh, and Stacie...flirty blonde, followed around by her bone-crushing, ex-con boyfriend?”

A smile crossed Dub’s face as he stared off into space. “Ooh, yeah. Stacie. She’d be real fun.”

“If you go for the grenade-juggling type,” he said, fading out Miranda Lambert’s last notes and bringing up a final Brad Paisley tune in her place. He took off the headphones and stood up. “That’s it for me, pal. She’s all yours.”

“Thanks,” he said, as they switched spots and Dub plunked into the chair.

While Dub’s mood was amiable, Tack thought it might be a good time to mend fences. “Hey, I’ve been thinking, you know, we should grab a beer sometime soon.”

Dub slid in closer to the console. “Yeah, let’s do that.”

Tack left the studio wearing a smile, hopeful that they would patch things up. But when he opened the door to the hallway, his stomach dropped. Dayna stood waiting, her eyes glassy and distant, her arms wrapped tight around her body like she was trying to hold herself together. “What’s wrong?”

“Look at this.” She thrust a torn piece of newsprint at him. It was their morning show ad, with horns crudely drawn on Dayna, her teeth blackened and
SLUT
spelled out in large block letters. “It came in today’s mail.”

He immediately crumpled it inside his fist. He opened his arms and she went to him, burying her face in his shoulder. She trembled and he kissed the top of her head, instinctively needing to protect her while wanting to gut whoever thought such a fucking stupid prank was funny. He held her until she finally pulled back. “Take a nice, deep breath for me,” he said calmly, and she did it, managing a faint smile. “There we go, that’s better. You okay?”

“I think so.” She nodded.

“Any idea who might have sent this?” He resisted his impulse to point the finger at CJ, although he’d love to sit that greasy little punk down for a fireside chat very soon.

“No. There wasn’t a return address. Only a postmark, my name and the station.”

“If it makes you feel any better, my mailbag’s seen plenty of postcards from cowards and crazies,” he said. “Unfortunately, it comes with the territory of being a local celebrity with a publicly-known zip code. That’s why I don’t even bother posting an e-mail address on the station website. If someone really wants to get hold of me, they can call the front desk.”

She sniffed. “You’re right. Thanks.”

He put his arm around her shoulders and gave her a reassuring squeeze as they pivoted and marched toward the boss’s office. “I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Plus, I think Bonnie’s got a bug up her ass that’s gonna take our minds off this for a while.”

* * * *

The boss barely acknowledged the pair’s presence when they appeared in her doorway. “Close the door and have a seat,” she said curtly. Dayna perched in an armchair opposite the desk and Tack wisely chose not to goof around with the couch, promptly sitting in the other chair. Bonnie turned to her printer and pulled a sheet off of it. “Take a look at last week’s preliminary ratings.”

Dayna blinked twice to make sure her eyes weren’t deceiving her. The numbers were solid across the board, showing a gradual and steady incline that peaked with a sudden huge spike on Friday, the day of the billboards’ splashy debut.

“
Wake Up with Tack and Dayna
is shaping up to be a huge hit for us,” Bonnie said, her gaze stern and her thin lips still flatlined. “Congratulations. I expect to see much of the same kind of numbers for today’s show as well as the one tomorrow, the next day and the day after that.”

Dayna looked over at her partner, who appeared as stumped as she was by the strange mixed signals they were getting. “Thanks, Bonnie. That’s good news, I think.”

“It is good news.” She affirmed with a nod. “Keep it up. If we come out of this with a strong summer book, Hot Country One-oh-three is a shoe-in to land some major national advertising buys through next spring.”

That all sounded pretty good to Dayna, although she couldn’t shake the sinking feeling the other shoe was about to drop.

“You know why people tune in to your show? For the very reason I knew it was smart to team you up in the first place.” Bonnie sat back in her desk chair and swiveled from side to side as she glared at them. “In a word, electricity. When you’re on the air, the sparks are palpable. Couple effective theatre of the mind with a potent visual like your billboards, and Pop! Zing! Pow!” Her fingers flared out in front of her. “Fireworks!”

Tack scratched his chin. “Well, that’s good then, ain’t it?”

“You tell me.” Bonnie adjusted her flat-screen monitor so they could both see it. With a few keystrokes, she pulled up the website of local gossip blog,
The Rumormill
. Under the headline
Two Steppin’ Out?
was a picture of Tack and Dayna laughing on stage at Friday’s remote.

Hot Country 103 morning team Tack Collins and Dayna Cook made their debut at the Roadhouse Friday night, marking the duo’s first public appearance since the unveiling of the now-infamous billboard that launched a thousand pocket rockets.

“Nice.” He smirked, leaning forward as they kept reading.