Rock Kiss 01.5 Rock Courtship(41)

“I hate how women come on to you.”

David blinked awake from the half-doze he’d fallen into with her in his arms. “Thea?”

“I feel stupid and jealous and I can’t make it stop,” she muttered, her head on his shoulder and one hand on his chest.

He had no idea how to handle this. Thea was so confident and so strong that he’d never expected it to come up, but he knew it was important that he—they—deal with it. Because she’d trusted him with her exposed heart, and he knew exactly how difficult that must’ve been for her after what the fuckwit who’d been her fiancé had done to her. “I wanted to kick your ex’s balls into his throat every time I saw him, and then I wanted to drive my fist into his preppy face.”

Eyes wide, Thea lifted her head, her throat marked by his kisses and the stubble on his jaw. “Since when?”

Taking a deep breath, David admitted his secret. “Since the first goddamn time I saw him.”

“David… I was with Eric when I took over the band’s PR.”

“I know.”

Her gaze sheened wet, Thea touched her fingers to his cheek. “Really? That long?”

“Yeah.”

“David, I—”

“It’s okay.” Closing his fingers on the slender bones of her wrist, he pressed his lips to the delicate skin above her pulse. “I know you, Thea. I knew you were faithful to that bastard, that you didn’t look at me the same way.” It had killed him at the time, but now he wanted her to feel the same unwavering loyalty for him.

Maintaining the intimacy of the eye contact, she said, “Do you remember holding me in my office while I cried about six months before I ended my engagement?”

“It broke me up to see you so sad.” He’d dropped by to pick up a schedule she could’ve as easily e-mailed him. Fact was, he’d wanted the chance to see her, have her smile at him.

Then he’d looked into eyes that were always vibrant, and the bruised pain he’d seen there had him drawing her instinctively into his arms. “Thea, hey, what’s wrong?” he’d asked, the need to fix it for her, to slay her dragons, a visceral need in his gut. “Baby, has someone hurt you?”

Her initial resistance to his hold had crumbled with his question and she’d sobbed quietly against his shoulder. Each tear had been a hot poker to his heart. He’d wanted so badly to do something, make it better. But all he could do that day was hold her tight.

Afterward, she’d been too embarrassed to meet his gaze. Seeing how fragile she was feeling, he’d stifled his need to demand answers and left. Neither one of them had ever mentioned it again, and while their friendship had remained strong, a subtle new barrier had grown between them in the aftermath.

That barrier hadn’t fallen until she broke it off with her ex. “You finally going to tell me what happened?” David asked, hoping to hell he never made her cry that way. He’d fucking cut off his arm before causing her such pain.





Chapter 12


Thea spoke past the thickness in her throat. “Eric and I had a fight that morning,” she said, thinking back to one of the most painful times of her life. “He didn’t say anything terrible”—the ugly words hadn’t come till right at the end—“but I knew that day that I’d made a mistake, that he wasn’t the man I’d believed him to be.”

The horrible feeling in her gut had grown and grown with each minute that passed. “When you came in, I was in the middle of trying to convince myself that it had simply been a bad fight, that we’d get through it.” She laughed and it was a sound that held no humor. “No one can say I’m not stubborn.”

David ran his fingers through her hair. “Not stubborn, just willing to fight for your relationship. I would’ve thrown a goddamn party if you’d left him, but I know it must’ve been tough to think it had all been a waste.”

Laying her head against his shoulder, the feel of his fingers caressing her hair and nape deeply comforting, she said, “That was part of it, but it wasn’t everything.” She paused, took a shaky breath.

“Hey.” He wrapped his arm more firmly around her, his other hand cupping her cheek. “We don’t have to talk about this all tonight if it hurts.”

“No.” She shook her head. “I need to tell you.” Inhaling a steadying breath, David’s scent a warm embrace, she said, “I’d met Molly well before that fight happened, discovered all the awful details of the damage my biological father had done.” Molly didn’t like to talk about the past and Thea didn’t blame her for it, but the media coverage from the time had been so unrelenting that Thea had been able to answer many of her own questions.