Page 224 of Wicked Angel
I tightened my arm around her, holding her close. “As long as there’s nothing left for him to know.”
“They’re isn’t,” she vowed, her blue-gray eyes wide. “Whatever there is to know about me, Johnny O,” she said softly, maybe aware that Lamar was so close by, “is for you to discover.”
“I love you, Angeline.” I brushed my lips against hers, feeling what those words did to her. How her body came alive in my arms, hyper tuned to my touch. I knew I didn’t have to say the words. Hearing how I felt about her, in a song, more than cut it. She loved being my muse. But she deserved every word, and every feeling I had to give.
“I love you, too.” She shuddered a little, an echo of all those tears. “I’m sorry I got the feels so hard at your show,” she whispered. “I hope I didn’t embarrass you.”
“I love how much you feel.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. So how about I take you home… and I make you feel all kinds of things, all night long?”
She licked her lip thoughtfully, seductively. “How soon can we get there?”
“As soon as I finish kissing you.”
I kissed her, long and slow. While I kissed her, I pulled her into the back of Lamar’s car. And true to my word, I kept kissing her, all the way home.
ChapterThirty-Nine
Angeline
One year later…
Iwalked into Little Black Hole recording studio with a bounce in my step. Merritt, who was on the phone at her desk in the reception area, smiled and waved me through, and I headed deeper into the studio—through a door and down the long hall toward the large Studio A. When I pushed through the studio door, I found Johnny, Noah and Cary Clarke lounging on the couches, talking.
“Hello, rock star,” I greeted my man. I slid into his lap when he reached for me, giving the other guys a little wave.
Johnny nuzzled my neck and kissed my ear as Noah and Cary kept talking. “Hello, muse,” Johnny rasped, and a thrill of heat rushed through me. I would never not get wet at the sound of his voice rasping in my ear.
I was doomed once we got out on tour.
Every night, every show… I’d be a horny, sopping wet mess waiting for him backstage, quivering and begging for it by the time he took me… in his dressing room, in the tour bus, in our hotel suite, wherever.
I wriggled in his lap as his fingers drifted slowly down my spine. His deep, aquamarine eyes met mine, and a thrill pulsed through my lady parts. He knew he was driving me wild, and I couldn’t exactly do anything about it with Noah and Cary sitting right there.
I hadn’t seen Johnny since yesterday morning. He’d worked late last night, while I’d worked during the day. I’d been asleep when he came to bed, and he’d been gone when I woke up this morning. He didn’t usually work so around-the-clock, but right now his band, officially known as Johnny O and the Trust, was just putting the finishing touches on their debut album in-studio.
“You want to hear your song?” he whispered in my ear.
I gasped. “Yes!”
He gave a signal to the sound engineer, visible through the window into the control room, and the song started to play.
Cary got up, patted Johnny on the shoulder, and headed out, giving me a little salute.Thank you!I mouthed at him, waving goodbye. “Well, look at him,” I purred in Johnny’s ear, “heading home to his wife and child at a reasonable hour.”
“Very responsible. You gonna punish me for working late last night?”
“Yes.”
He bit my ear and I glanced at Noah, but he wasn’t looking at us. He seemed lost in listening to the song, gently drumming on his knee with a pair of drumsticks.
I sank back against Johnny as he reclined into the couch. Together, we listened to “Angel,” one of the songs he’d written for me. But it was no longer a simple, acoustic, one-guitar song, like it was when I’d heard it for the first time, the night of his showcase at Champagne, a year ago. A whole band, an orchestral string section, a deep, resonant bass drum… I heard all kinds of sounds rising into it as the song built. Everyone who’d collaborated on the album in the studio had taken Johnny’s songs and made them into so much more.
The Players and Dirty were both home on an extended tour break in the middle of their tour, and Cary had been producing the album. Johnny had taken his time to do things right; the way he wanted them done. He’d signed with Brick House Records a while ago as a solo artist; this time, the contract was in his name, so other musicians could come and go on the project and it wouldn’t change a thing. But that said, he’d had a solid band backing him up for over a year now, and it looked like they’d be sticking together. Andy Cooper on bass, Rafael Serrano on guitar, and of course, Noah Vaughan on drums.
The whole band was loving the songs, and playing them together… They all couldn’t stop talking about the upcoming tour.
