Unstoppable (Fierce) (17 page)

A stage hand knocked on her door. “Three minutes,” he alerted before he headed off down the hall.

She linked her arm with mine. “That’s our cue.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Nashville, Tennessee

February 13, 2012

Jace wasn’t too thrilled by my change in plans for the Nashville trip, but we finally decided on a compromise. We’d get there two days early, so we could have two days – uninterrupted – just to ourselves. As far as Shelby knew, we weren’t due until that Wednesday. This gave us a little down time when we wouldn’t be torn every which direction.

On
Wednesday, I’d go stay with Shelby and her family, like she wanted. I figured it was the least I could do, considering I was a lying, two-faced, no-good cheat who was basically doing to her what I thought my best buddy Bree had done to me.

In fact,
it was worse.

When I found
Bree’s bracelet in the back seat of Eddie’s car on my eighteenth birthday, I immediately assumed that she had been canoodling with the boy of my dreams. And if she had, she would have done so not knowing – in fact – that was what he had been. I played my teen dream crush on the most popular boy in school very close to the vest. I didn’t want to be ridiculed or worse, talked down from my lofty aspirations.

Whenever you dream big, there is always that well-meaning person who wants you to rein it in so that you don’t wind up disappointed. This was the story of my life in
small-town Iowa, where the best I could hope for was a job teaching choir at the one and only high school.

So even though
Bree and I had been best friends since grade school, I never once would have taken her into my confidence about my crush on Eddie, or even my dreams to have a singing career that would take me all around the world – much like it was doing now.

Ironically I ended up married to the most popular boy in school as well. I guess that’s what I get for dreaming big. It’s not that your dreams won’t come true; it’s that you might regret them every day thereafter
if they do.

I guess one person’s confetti is another person’s really shiny trash.

Shelby, on the other hand, had shared her budding infatuation with Jace quite candidly with me. She took me into her confidence and awarded me her trust, as one does with a friend. I was the one, once again, not forthcoming about how I truly felt. Every time the opportunity passed in conversation to be open about what was truly happening, I was essentially lying to her. I let her hang her heart on a doomed crush with a man she had no idea was taken – by me no less – simply because it was too complicated and risky to be honest. Yet I called her my friend – truly my best friend on the tour.

I had plenty of excuses for this duplicitous behavior, some altruistic and some not. But ultimately
it came down to one inescapable fact: I was a lying, two-faced, no-good cheat. Guilt dogged me until I finally agreed to stay with her in Nashville, where I hoped to find some way to make things right… or at least better.

When I stepped off the plane in Nashville, however, all the drama and the angst took a backseat to seeing Jace again. He
really was worth any price I had to pay.

I got to the hotel first, so it was my turn to set the stage for romance. I ordered an extra dozen roses, to scatter petals across the floor and the bed, reserving some for the oversized bath. With a grin I unpacked a fragrant bubble bar and bath bomb from one of my favorite cosmetics companies, along with a package of tea light candles.

When Jace arrived an hour later, he found a path to the bathroom where I waited, up to my neck in perfumed bubbles, surrounded by a sea of candlelight. Music played in the background, songs from my MP3 player I had created especially for our time together.

“Hey beautiful,” he said with a lazy grin
as he leaned against the doorframe. He held up a bottle of bubbly. “Thirsty?”

I scooted to the edge of the tub, running my hand up his leg. “Hungry,” I said in a low growl.

He chuckled as he uncorked the bottle and handed it to me. I watched him peel his shirt from his lithe body, tossing it over in a dark corner. Our eyes met and locked as he unzipped his jeans, sliding them easily over his hips and kicking them free. He sat on the edge of the tub to remove his artificial leg and dressing, then swung easily over to join me in the warm water.

He wasted no time in pulling me to him for a deep, hungry kiss. His hands slid across my wet, bubble-covered skin, all the way down my back until he cupped my ass and lifted me toward his lap. “God, I can’t believe it’s really you,” he said against my mouth. “We’re really here. Alone.”

I nodded with an incoherent moan. I wanted him so badly I ached. I explored his mouth liberally with my tongue as my hands drifted down his muscular torso and across his taunt stomach. When my fingers dipped lower, cupping him in an eager little grasp, he sucked in a sharp breath. He grew hard in my hand as I stroked him under the water.

“You naughty little girl,” he playfully growled into my neck. “You’re not wasting any time.”

“I want you,” I said simply.

He tilted his head to look at me. His hand traced the curve of my face. “I need you,” he confessed as he tugged my hair free from the pins holding it up away from the water. “I can’t breathe without you, Jordi.”

I rewarded him with another kiss as I straddled him. His fingers dug into my hips as I ground against him, savoring how hard he was for me. I did that…and it made me feel like a goddess. He watched me gyrate against him, his eyes on the body I hid from the world. Yet he thought me beautiful… desirable…perfect.

Neither one of us could speak as I slid him inside of me. He opened me with his hard body, resurrecting me with his touch. I held him deep inside of me for a long moment as I stared into those eyes that had never held one ounce of cruelty or ridicule.
In his eyes I saw amazement and wonder. They were a mirror of everything I wanted to be.

He cupped water in his hand to rinse my torso free from residual bubbles, baring my body even more for his eyes, his fingers and his mouth. He took one full breast in his hand, bringing it to his
lips. I gasped as he covered the painfully erect nipple, lapping over it with his tongue, making me shudder all over. I began to move against him, grinding myself down. My back protested but I didn’t care. I just needed to feel him inside of me, filling me, making me whole.

He captured my lips for another kiss as he guided my hips. I braced against the tiled wall as we lost ourselves to each other. The ache in me couldn’t be easily satisfied. I needed him deeper. I wanted him to reach so far inside that he became a part of me. Our kiss broke but our eyes were locked solid as we raced together toward the abyss. He toppled blissfully over the edge first, his hands gripping my shoulders to slam me down on him as he released himself. I was triumphant as I stared down at him, my hair falling like a curtain across my face.

One hand sneaked around my neck as he pulled me for another kiss, while his other hand slipped in between our bodies. While he was still rigid inside of me, his finger surrounded my clit, slipping easily along my smooth skin. I gasped in his mouth. He captured my bottom lip between his teeth and his eyes bore into mine while he sent me into outer space with his magical fingers. He didn’t stop until I was screaming from pleasure, my body a quivering mass all around him.

I collapsed against the strong wall of his wet chest. It had been a long time coming, but it was always worth the wait. His heart thundered against my ear as he cuddled me close. “My Jordi,” he murmured.

“Always,” I said.

We were prunes by the time we got out of the tub, but neither one of us cared. We spent the rest of the night, sprawled on the bed completely naked, exploring one another. No TVs, no phones – just us. We fed each other from the room service tray, decadent treats that were more delicious when shared. Kisses tasted especially sweet after a plump, juicy bite of a strawberry.

“You’re my favorite dish,” I giggled as I ran a bit of whip cream along his chest. He propped himself with both arms behind his head as he watched my tongue follow the trail down his body. Every time I took him into my mouth, he caressed my hair with his hand. He knew what a victory it was for me to savor him, given the abuse from my childhood. He always insisted that I never had to push myself to do it, but I wanted to bring him pleasure the same way he would bring me pleasure.

And he always rewarded me
in kind, so it was a win either way.

He watched me as I slid him deep into my mouth, that same look of amazement on his face – as if he couldn’t believe that he was there with me and that I
was loving him. He shuddered beneath me as I teased him with my tongue. I loved reducing him to a quivering mess of goo. It made me feel sexy and powerful . He was helpless beneath me, allowing me to take control. When he came it was like total submission.

He pulled me up into his arms and wrapped me tight in his embrace. His voice was so soft it nearly cracked when he finally confessed, “No one has ever loved me like you.”

I couldn’t imagine but I didn’t argue. I just wanted to savor the moment. I loved being in his arms. I felt loved, wanted… safe. It was if nothing bad could happen to me wrapped in the circle of his embrace.

He truly was my hero.

Our two days together were idyllic, even though we never left the room. We didn’t need to go sight-seeing, that would come later. We only had 48 hours to ourselves, and we were going to make every second count.

Our marathon of love made me grateful yet again that my mother had insisted on my getting on regular birth control when I was a teenager. My doctor had
originally prescribed it to handle my painful, heavy periods, but she kept paying for the prescription all the way through my adolescence without any complaint. It was as if my uptight, morally rigid mother accepted that this was just part of being a modern woman. “Be responsible for yourself,” she had cautioned me in our one and only conversation about reproductive health. “Because no one else can be trusted.”

It was the only real wisdom she had ever imparted.

Now the only real health issue I had to worry about was my back. Jace was equally concerned, but he gave me hours of pleasure that could offset any of the pain I had gone through. He gave me long, loving massages and even switched positions so he would not put any extra strain on my back. This meant long, luxurious lovemaking from behind while we both lay on our sides. We fell asleep that way, and woke up that way. He pampered me in every way possible, from rubbing my back and feet to taking care of all our practical needs like ordering food. I had never felt so spoiled.

“I wish we could stay like this forever,” I murmured against his chest.

“Why can’t we?” he asked as he twirled a lock of my hair around his finger.

“Jace…”

“Yeah, it’d suck for a while. But wouldn’t it be worth it?”

I propped up to look into his face. “You’re worth everything,” I told him. “And you deserve everything
.”

“You
are
everything,” he asserted softly.

I smiled. “You always know what to say.”

“But you’re not changing your mind,” he filled in.

I leaned in close. “I plan on loving you forever. We can withstand a few months to secure our future. And,” I added as I trailed a finger along his stomach, “when we’re old and wrinkly and celebrating our fiftieth anniversary, we won’t even remember how hard this was.
Because we’re going to have a lifetime to make up for it.”

With a sigh he leaned back on the pillow. We had reached the same old impasse. “Fine,” he said. “But tell Shelby at least. I feel like such a dick every time she looks at me with those
big, hopeful, trusting eyes.”

“So do
I,” I confessed. “And we should. We’ve lied to her for so long. I wouldn’t be surprised if she never forgave us, even if we come clean tomorrow. That’d make the rest of the tour a real joy, wouldn’t it?”

He rubbed his eyes with one hand.
“God, what a mess. So what do we do?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Just keep going forward, trying to minimize the damage, I guess.”

He ran his fingers through my hair. “Do you ever stop trying to protect everyone?”

“Please,” I scoffed. “It’s my fault we are all in this mess. I can’t even let you go because I’m selfish and greedy.”

He eased me onto my back. “You’re lucky,” he grinned. “I happen to find that hot.”

When his mouth descended onto mine, everything else ceased to matter. We let the real world rage on outside our hotel room door as we stole every last minute we could to be together. We didn’t even get dressed until a half hour before we were due to check out.

Within an hour I was sitting inside a hired car, alone, on my way to Shelby’s family home in Henderson, Tennessee.

Shelby shot out the door the minute the black luxury car slid up to the curb. She was wearing jeans and a western shirt tied at the waist, and she practically jumped into my arms when I exited the car. “Jordi!” she exclaimed. “I’m so happy you’re here. We’re going to have the best time, I promise.”