His touch was proprietary in a way that made her stomach flip.
“What are you plotting?”
Thea leaned in to whisper, “I think I have a contact who’d be very interested in Esteban, and who would do his music justice.”
David took a long moment to reply. “You know the one thing no one ever says about you?”
“What?” she asked, bemused by the change in subject.
Intense tenderness in his eyes, he shifted his hand from her back to weave his fingers with her own. “How kind you are.”
Off-balance, the remnants of the shield over her heart cracked and broken, she shook her head. “I’m a hard-ass, David, you know that.” She couldn’t bear the hurt if he didn’t see her, if he wanted to remake her into another, softer woman.
David didn’t budge. “I know you’re tough as nails, Thea. I find it arousing as hell when you rip some pansy-ass tabloid reporter to shreds, all icy and polite.”
No chill in her blood now, her entire body a smile. “You are a strange and wonderful man.” And she was so freaking lucky that he’d waited for her to get her head on straight, been stubborn enough to fight for her.
“I’m not finished.” Running his thumb over her knuckles, he said, “Along with knowing you’re a Valkyrie for your clients, I also know you tracked Molly down when you didn’t have to, just because you thought she might need family.”
“She’s my sist—”
“Stop interrupting.” A mock-stern look. “Another thing I know is that you take calls from Marjorie and Ella no matter what time of day it is or whether you’re in a high-powered meeting at the time. I’ve lost count of the musicians you’ve connected with the right people, not because they could pay you, but because you believed in their music.”
He continued to hold her gaze with the unwavering intensity of his own. “I’ve seen you buying food for the homeless man on the boulevard near your office multiple times—I figure you’d get him into an apartment if he wasn’t so adamant about staying out ‘under the stars.’ We won’t even discuss your current intern, who is a sweetheart and who no one else would hire because she doesn’t look Hollywood enough.”
Stunned, undone, she fought back the tears. “Don’t tell anyone,” she rasped, catching her trembling lower lip between her teeth. “I have a reputation to maintain.”
A gorgeous, tender smile. “Your secret’s safe with me.” With that, he tugged her back to their table—now overflowing with fresh snacks and drinks. Those drinks were all nonalcoholic as they had been throughout the night, the entire band having made the decision to help Abe in his sobriety on his first night out since his binge.
It turned out Esteban was friends with the couple who owned the club and had convinced Noah and the others to stay on and celebrate the successful concert with him.
Esteban didn’t have a band, so it ended up being a small group—Schoolboy Choir, Thea, Molly, Esteban, the owners of the club, and the brunette hostess, as well as a small, competent Hispanic woman who’d been in charge of the electronics. Abe hit on her straight away, got a frosty-eyed response.
Thea bit back a grin at the look on the keyboardist’s face. “Abe’s not used to hearing no, is he?” she said to David, his scent making her want to nuzzle into him.
“Are you kidding me?” David took a drink of his ice-cold lemonade. “Every time I turn around, Abe and Noah have new women hanging off their arms.”
“Do you miss it?” she whispered under the cover of the lively conversation. “Being able to go home with any groupie you want?”
David closed his fingers over her nape, his eyes locked with hers. “I tried it back when Schoolboy Choir first went big,” he said, the eye contact searing. “I couldn’t get over how many women suddenly wanted me.” A self-deprecating half smile. “I’m hardly a babe magnet.”
“You are hot with a capital H,” Thea said, her body more than ready to pounce on his again. “Especially,” she added with a teasing smile, “when you blush.”
He scowled. “Cut that out. I don’t blush.”
Stroking her hand over his thigh and delighting in the private intimacy, she said, “Of course not.”
He leaned in so close that his lips brushed her ear. “As I was saying—I tried it because hell, I was young and it felt good to have women panting for me. I quickly realized it wasn’t me.”
Shrugging, he added, “I’m not saying I’ve been a saint, because I sure as fuck haven’t been, but random sex doesn’t do it for me. I like knowing the woman I’m with.” A nip of her ear that made her jump and thank God management had turned the lights back down after the audience left. “Then I saw you… Baby, when we’re alone, ask me how long I’d been a monk even before the day I asked you out. No one else would do. Only you.”