The Price of Love (Rockin' Country Book 2) (2 page)

The smooth, dark tone of his voice caused her to close her eyes and lean heavily against him, her knees no longer able to hold up her weight. She turned her face into his neck and nipped him there with her sharp teeth. “I missed you,” she whispered.

“Missed you too,” he answered her back, running his hand through her hair. “More than you fucking know.” He moved away from her when he saw Liz approaching and cleared his throat. Didn’t matter if he had put a ring on it, he still felt weird showing the kind of chemistry they had in front of their parents. “So you’re gonna get that one?”

“Yeah. Mom, what do you think?”

“I love the color; the yellow will go well with your darker hair. It’s a little low-cut though. I think you’re gonna need to wear a camisole or something underneath it.”

Hannah hid her smile. “I was planning on it.”

Liz’s phone went off, and she struggled through her bag to find it and answer it. “It’s your dad, I better take this.”

They watched as she walked off for some privacy.

“I really hope that he’s calling her and asking her to come home. I love her, but I haven’t seen you in weeks,” she blurted out, causing Garrett to laugh.

He put his hands in his back pockets and rocked back on his heels. “We’ll be alone soon enough. It was really nice of her to set this up for you. I don’t think you would have been honest with me about how much you missed me.”

“There was nothing that we could do about it. Record companies are record companies.”

“True, but we could have asked for a few days off.” He put his hands on her shoulders and rubbed there. “I’ve been dreaming about you for the last week. I feel like I’m not sleeping at all.”

“Funny that you should mention that. I’ve been having some pretty…vivid…dreams myself.”

His dimples appeared in his cheeks, and he ran a hand down her arm before clasping their fingers together. “I can’t wait to hear this.”

“I don’t know that you’ll
ever
hear it.” Her face flamed. “But know I had them, okay.”

He opened his mouth, but quickly shut it as Liz made her way back over to them. “I need to go. Your dad needs help at the shop.”

“Okay, Mom, I had a good time today.” Hannah hugged her tightly. “If you wanna get together tomorrow, just let me know.”

“I’ll talk to your dad and see what he wants to do,” Liz commented, holding her arms open for Garrett.

“It was a pleasure seeing you again after spending so much time talking on the phone.” He gifted her with a smile.

Hannah noticed her mom’s cheeks getting red. She couldn’t help but shake her head. Even her mother wasn’t immune to Garrett’s charms. They watched Liz walk away, and Hannah pinched his side. “You are way too cute for your own good,” she laughed.

“What can I say? Women want me.”

*  *  *

H
annah gripped Garrett’s hand as they walked down West End towards his car. She loved being in Nashville, even though it wasn’t exactly easy for the two of them. Here, they didn’t have to worry about paparazzi, and people weren’t surprised to see them walking down the street. They could be more free here.

“I’m so excited you’re here,” she said again, gripping his arm with her free one. She clasped his left hand and gingerly ran her finger over his wedding ring. It still gave her a secret thrill that he was the type of man who liked to wear it and didn’t take it off.

He swung her bag in the opposite hand and smiled down at her. “I’m excited to be here too. It only sucks that I’m not here for longer.”

“How long did you get off?” she asked as the two of them approached the car.

Garrett walked her to her side and opened the door for her, playing the gentleman for her, before walking over to the driver’s side and having a seat behind the wheel. “I flew in today; I’m here all day tomorrow, and my flight leaves at eight p.m. the next day.”

Not long enough at all, but they would do what they had to do and enjoy the time that they could get together. She bit her lip to keep her emotions at bay. The two of them had chosen this life and they had chosen to get married—no one had forced them to do either of those two things, but sometimes being responsible really sucked.

*     *     *

“I guess Shell already left,” Hannah laughed, seeing a note on the kitchen counter. She leaned down, reading the hastily scribbled handwriting, as she put her bags atop the granite.

“Is it weird for you that she still lives with you?” Garrett asked, throwing the car keys next to the bags and having a seat on one of the bar stools that made up the kitchen area.

“Why would it be weird?” She shook her head. “Do you not want her living with me?”

This was a slippery slope, Garrett realized, but he’d already opened his mouth. “When I come here, I kinda just want to spend time with you; we get so little of it.”

She could see where he was coming from, but she couldn’t kick Shell out; she’d lived here ever since Hannah had bought the little craftsman bungalow. “I don’t know what the solution to this problem is.” She laughed nervously.

He got up from where he sat and walked around the counter. “Maybe it’s time for me to put roots down here too. I think it’s time for us to take the step of finding something together.”

This was big, huge in her mind. Even though the two of them had been married for almost four months, they’d never bought anything together. Purchasing a home together signified something she had been scared to hope for from him. Ridiculous, she knew, but a slow smile covered her face.

“What?” he asked, smiling back at her.

Hannah walked over to where he stood and slipped her arms around his neck. “Buying a house is something that married couples do!”

He chuckled, one dimple showing in his cheek. “Well, babe, we are married.” He held his left hand up to show the wedding ring she’d put on there.

“I know, but we don’t get to do too many of the things that normal married people get to do.”

Garrett smiled slowly. “Then we’ll do this, and we’ll devote ourselves to it while we’re recording. I want to do every imaginable
married
thing possible.”

That warmed her heart; it always did when he said things like that. There was a part of her that worried he would get sick of her, that he hadn’t honestly been ready to settle down and be with one woman for the rest of his life. Every time he said things like that, it chipped away at one more little piece of resistance.

“I love you,” she told him, reaching up and capturing his lips with hers.

“I love you too,” he mumbled against her lips.

Garrett buried his hands in her hair, sighing when he tilted her head to his liking, finally able to capture her lips the way he wanted to. It had been a couple of hard weeks in the studio. He and the guys were being rough on each other, and he had a ton of tension he needed to release. Before Hannah that had meant going out to their favorite bar, drinking themselves into oblivion, and finding some random chick to go home with. Now, he didn’t have that but he needed it. He needed his wife like he’d never ever needed her.

Grasping her hips, he lifted her into his arms, taking a moment to thank God that she’d worn a dress. He pulled his lips back from hers, burying his face in her neck and inhaling deeply. He had missed her scent terribly. That scent let him know that she was with him and she wasn’t going anywhere. Running his hands along her thighs, he clasped them around her back and walked them over to the counter. Once he sat her there, he pulled back, his green eyes connecting with hers. He loved when she looked like this, her eyes hazy, her lips swollen, and her cheeks red, because he’d done that for her, to her.

“I missed you so damn much,” he whispered before grasping the back of her neck in his hand and melding their mouths together again.

Hannah wondered what had happened in the weeks since they had seen each other, usually their time together like this wasn’t so intense. He wasn’t as finessed as he normally was, he was taking her the way he needed her. She wanted to question him, but it was obvious that he didn’t want to talk.

Running his hands up her smooth legs, Garrett separated her thighs, making room for his body in-between them. With rough movements, he unbuckled his belt, pushing his pants down just far enough so that he had room to work. His long fingers grasped her hips and pulled her to the edge of the counter, pulling her panties aside. “Sorry, but I need you,” his voice was guttural as he pushed into her.

The truth of the matter was, she needed him too, any way he needed her. Hannah loved to be whatever he needed her to be, that’s what she had always dreamed of when she thought of marriage. Digging her nails into his shoulders, she hung on for dear life as he took her hard. She moaned when his arms came around her back, holding her in place for him, to keep her from sliding.

Garrett buried his head into the crook of her neck, nipping the slope of her shoulder with his teeth. He brought one hand back up to her neck, digging his fingers into her hair and tilting her head back to expose her neck to his mouth.

“Damn, Han,” he groaned as he used his teeth to nip at the strong column of her throat. When she sighed the sexiest sigh he’d ever heard from her mouth, his release hit him like a punch in the gut. He couldn’t stop it any more than he could stop the earth from spinning, the sun from shining, or from loving this woman that he held in his arms.

Hannah was right on board with him, thrusting her hips against his, leaning up so that she could bury her face in his neck. She had thought this would end—the feelings that she got whenever they were together, the almost painful way her heart constricted when he held her like she was the most precious thing in the world to him.

He felt the rush of her breath there and sighed, clasping his arms more tightly around her. “I fuckin’ missed the hell out of you,” he breathed, willing his heart rate to slow down.

“I got that.” She grinned, pulling back and gazing up at him. “Are you sure nothing else is wrong?” It wasn’t the fact that he had taken her quickly, or even hard; they had done all of that before. This time, there had been a desperation in his movements, like he was scared of not holding her close enough, scared that she would leave.

Garrett had to look away from her probing eyes. He pulled out of her body and hitched his jeans back around his hips, before turning away from her.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, trying to hop down from the counter, but her legs were too short and she struggled before finally making the leap. It wasn’t graceful, and she was grateful that his back was turned to her.

How did he explain to her, when he wasn’t sure himself? “I feel stifled.”

“By me?” she whispered, her heart stopping. Surely to goodness after what they had shared, he wasn’t going to ask for a divorce. Right?

“No, no, no.” He held his hands out in front of him as he turned back around. “I want to make a record that’s completely different from anything we’ve ever done before. The rest of the guys are with me, but the record company isn’t. Our producer is even liking the stuff we’ve brought to the table, but they don’t want to budge. They don’t want to give us that freedom.”

The politics of having a record deal. Now that she could understand. “What are you gonna do?”

“I don’t know,” he sighed.

She could tell it was weighing heavily on him. The one thing, as an artist, that you didn’t want to do was compromise, but at the same time, your family still had to be fed. “Have you thought of making the album you want to make and then giving it to them? Letting it stand on its own merit? You guys are big enough that you aren’t going to have an exec with you in the studio, over your shoulder, every day. Finish the album, hand it to them, and then be like, ‘peace out’.”

A smile spread across his face and he laughed. “Peace out?”

“Yeah,” she giggled right along with him. “Peace out. Let’s face it, the fans that love Black Friday are probably going to gripe that it’s not the same music that you’ve put out before, and they’ll complain for weeks about it, then that song will hit number one, and the album will release at number one. The record company will then wonder why they ever doubted you. Just keep what you’re doing under your hat until you’re done. Use some of your old demos that they haven’t heard before.”