Hot and Bothered(16)

                “And the nurse.” She said it matter-of-factly, with the same sympathy that always undid him.

                He couldn’t speak. He just nodded.

                “Mark. It doesn’t have to be the world’s most heartfelt apology. It just has to be an apology. This time I’ll be there when you deliver it.”

                She’d moved from steel to supplication, and he could already tell it would destroy his resolve—that, and the implacable reality of his father’s debt. Mark was crumbling inside, and there were no inner reserves with which to shore himself up. Haven’s compassion had started his undoing, somehow, on Thursday. It was always the urge to let down your guard that killed you in the end.

                “I don’t want you there when I deliver it.” As good as surrender.

                “Well, tough luck,” she said. “After last night’s fiasco, I promised Jimmy I’d stick close to you for anything that might attract public attention until the tour.”

                Stick. Close. To. You. His pulse kicked up. “You agreed to follow me around for six months?”

                “If that’s what it takes.”

                “You really want this gig. You begged Jimmy Jeffers. You came all the way out here and—” He wasn’t sure what to call what she’d done to him. Bossed. Pleaded. Unleashed something he wished she’d left pent up.

                She didn’t quite meet his eyes. “Yes.” She scuffed the toe of her shoe lightly along the floor, and his eye followed the line of her leg. Today’s skirt was more standard issue, black and midthigh length. Nice, lean, strong thighs he’d like wrapped around his waist.

                “I like a good challenge, and you want to do this because you love your dad. And maybe because you’ve done nothing for the last ten years but play wedding gigs and make cameo appearances for screaming groupies. I can’t imagine you find that very satisfying.”

                You forgot something, he wanted to say, with the same fervor that urged him to put his hands in her hair. I want to do it because you’re going to follow me around for the next six months. And even though I shouldn’t want that, even though it’s suicidally stupid for me to want that, even though you will never mean those looks you give me, I do. I want that.

                “No,” he said instead, because she was right. “It’s not very satisfying.”

                “So let me help you apologize to Pete Sovereign, okay?”

                He understood defeat well. It was his friend. “Okay.”

                “And let me help you clean up your act, okay?”

                “Okay.”

                She eyed him suspiciously. Smart woman. His motives were about as impure as it was possible for them to be. They were dirty and male and all about the dark secrets her body was keeping from him, the ones he wanted to unfurl, one sweet mystery at a time.

                “Why are you suddenly so agreeable?”

                You.

                “Free haircut,” he said, and she laughed, a real, open, musical laugh, and his heart pounded almost out of his chest.

                * * *

                HUNKS OF MARK WEBSTER’S hair were hitting the floor, and Haven wasn’t feeling as satisfied by that as she’d expected to.