“She took advantage of you.”
“We took advantage of each other,” he countered. “It could have been a hell of a lot worse.” He kneaded my foot with slow, gentle strokes.
“In what way?”
“I could have been the bad guy. Too wasted to know or care about the signals. Too full of myself to worry that a girl might say no. I could have made a woman feel the way Shayla made me feel. Used. Ashamed. Violated.”
He peeled off my sock, and the contact of his fingers on my bare skin made me feel dizzy. “That was the last time I had a drink. The last time I fucked a stranger.”
“Does your daughter know?”
Vonn didn’t break eye contact as he shook his head slowly. “No one but me and Shayla. Now you.”
He gestured for my other foot. When I gave it to him, he pulled that sock off too and pulled both feet into his lap. My feet were in Vonn Barlowe’s lap. I was suddenly sure that I had suffered a concussion and that any minute now I was going to wake up in a hospital bed.
“Vonn?”
“Yeah, babe.”
“I’m sorry that happened to you. You didn’t deserve it.”
He gave my feet a squeeze. “Least I learned from it. Now, how about you tell me why you’re sitting around here like you’re the curator of some family museum instead of out there living your life.”
“Um. Ouch,” I said, trying to pull my feet back, but he merely tightened his grip.
I saw a wink of dimple. “Come on. What are you doing alone on Christmas Eve in a four-bedroom farmhouse full of memorabilia taking care of a horse that’s not yours?”
I laughed then. “It may not look it, but I’m mid-transformation. I call it my Becoming.”
This time when he returned my foot to his lap, he settled it higher. Against the rigid outline of his cock. My insides went molten. The rush of arousal between my legs was warm, wet, instantaneous.
“I’m listening.” His voice was like gravel against my awareness.
Too bad for the rock god on my couch I’d suddenly lost the power of speech.
My heel wedged against the softness of his balls. My arch was pressed against the root of what felt like a champion erection. A hall-of-fame arousal. I wanted to replace my foot with my hand, my mouth, my everything.
I could feel the pulse of blood in his flesh beneath my sole. Still he rubbed and soothed my other foot with his hands.
My senses were on fire, and he’d touched nothing but my feet. If this was what his penis could do to me just by touching my foot, I was worried about what it could do elsewhere.
“Brooke.”
My name caressed with his rough voice brought me back.
“You said you’re mid-transformation,” he prompted.
“Right. Yes. That,” I said. “After the divorce was final, I realized I’d organized my entire life around my family to the point that when they all left, I had nothing of my own. I didn’t even have a hobby. Nothing around me fit this new marriage-less, kid-less existence,” I confessed.
Vonn remained silent as his thumbs kneaded my foot.
“So I decided I was going start living for me. It started small. With a hair cut. My clothes. Got rid of the minivan. Started boxing lessons. Got a tattoo.”
His eyebrow quirked. “Where is this tattoo?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” I said archly.
“Very much.”
“We’ll see,” I said. “Things like the house, the horse, the job, those are bigger changes. They’ll take longer. Addy’s twenty-one. She’s in college, and it’s not like she could take Whinnie with her. When I mentioned that I was thinking about selling the house, downsizing, she and my son freaked.”
“Why?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know if they think they need this place to come home to or maybe they can’t imagine me as anyone but the mom who’s lived her their entire lives. You’d think I told them I wanted to burn down an orphanage when I mentioned selling. ‘What about Whinnie?’ ‘Where will I store my six hundred boxes of Legos and action figures?’”
“So you stayed.”
“For now. I shifted my focus to the job portion of the Becoming. I started taking freelance jobs about two years ago. With the concert venues here it was easy to specialize in music. The editor at the magazine told me if I could get an exclusive with you on your thoughts and feelings about the farewell tour he’d make room on the staff for me.”
“Is that what you want?”
“A full-time job with benefits that lets me interview musical artists from all genres? Yes, please.” I took a breath. “But enough about me.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think what?”
“I haven’t had enough of you.”
“Are you flirting with me, Vonn?”
“Yes. Is it working?”
I grinned at him, then changed the subject. “Do you want some tea? I have honey.” It had been with much amusement when I discovered that the tattooed badasses of hard rocking Sonic Arcade drank green smoothies in the morning and hot tea after shows. They did yoga, and some, specifically Vonn, even meditated before shows.
“Tea would be good,” he said.
I needed a few minutes of space. Because if I didn’t get it now, I was going to crawl into his lap and beg him to fuck me. And I was pretty sure that was a journalistic no-no.
Vonn rose when I did.
“Stay. I’ll get it,” I insisted, waving at the couch.
“You’re injured. I don’t want you waiting on me like I’m some guest.”
“You are a guest,” I said flippantly as I headed for the kitchen.
“Brooke.” A warm hand on my wrist stopped me. His grip was firm.
“What?”
“How do you feel?”
Hot and bothered. Hornier than a thirteen-year-old boy at the community pool. Wetter than Costa Rica’s rainy season. “I’m fine. Between the shower and the dinner, I feel pretty damn good.”
“Good.” He pointed up. There in the open doorway between the living room and dining space dangled a plastic piece of mistletoe.
“It’s not real,” I said, referring to the mistletoe, as if the plastic nature of the leaves had any bearing whatsoever on Vonn’s intentions.
“I’m superstitious,” he countered. He was, as was the rest of the band. Drummer Kaio had to walk on stage with a drumstick in his back pocket and one in his hand. Keyboardist Steve wore the same patterned socks for every performance. When the pattern was retired, he’d used his star power to convince the manufacturer to make a few hundred more just for him.
“I want to kiss you,” Vonn said, his voice low and dangerous. “But if I do, it’s not going to stop there. If that’s not something you want, I need to hear it now, babe.”
He used my wrist to tug the rest of me into his body. This time it was my stomach cuddled up to his hard-on. My thighs quaked.
Lazily, as if he had all the time in the world, he put his arms around me, sliding his hands under my cardigan and splaying his palms over my back. We were pinned at the hip. My hands went to his chest and fisted in the cotton of his T-shirt. Suddenly, launching my career with this story seemed much less important than being with a man I’d fantasized about for a few decades.