God, this man…
He’s even more incredible than I thought he was.
“So if we decide to try,” he continues, “then I’d want us to work out a shared custody agreement that works for both us and the baby. But I haven’t decided if I’m fully on board yet. I need some more time to think it over. It’s a big decision.”
Swiping a tear from my cheek with my free hand, I rush to assure him. “Of course. It’s huge. Take as much time as you need,” I say with a breathy laugh. “I honestly can’t believe you’re even going to think about it. It’s so totally out there.” I wince. “And now I can’t believe I said that out loud. I never know when to stop talking.”
Zack smiles. “I like people who say what they’re thinking. And I’m considering it because I want kids. I always have. But touring makes it hard to find someone to date, let alone keep a relationship going, and I don’t see that part of my life changing anytime soon.” He arches a brow. “Unless the album I’m about to make crashes and burns. Then I might be around a lot. So that’s something you should consider, whether you’d want a co-parent who was up in your business all the time.”
“So far, I like you in my business,” I murmur, skimming my nails up his wrist to his forearm. “Honestly, I’d like you even more up in my business at your earliest convenience. I’ve been thinking about it pretty much constantly since we got in the car.”
He smiles, a broad grin that makes my stomach flip. “Me, too. You are so sexy in that dress…” He lets out a shaky sigh. “I’m afraid if I look at you too long, I’m going to have to drag you into the back seat, high school style.”
“Well, it’s a big back seat,” I tease. “And parts of high school were fun.”
He laughs. “I think we’re both mature enough to wait for a bed and a closed door, don’t you? As much fun as it is to get caught making out by the cops…”
I wrinkle my nose. “No, that isn’t fun at all. Or janitors. My boyfriend and I got caught kissing in just about every closet in my high school.”
“At least he was good at something.”
My cheeks heat. “He wasn’t, actually. I was just young and…really into kissing.”
“I’m still really into kissing,” he says, leaning his face closer to mine.
“Me, too,” I whisper, meeting him halfway for a long, sweet, sexy kiss that promises tonight is going to be a night I’ll never forget, no matter what.
Chapter Six
Zack
I’m completely off the rails.
First, I shove a man into a piss puddle, then I ask a woman I barely know to come with me to my song-writing retreat, and now I’m seriously considering making a baby with her.
A baby. A child.
A life I will be responsible for and beholden to for the rest of mine. This is not something to be taken lightly or a decision to be made when I’m obviously not in my right mind.
So why am I ninety percent sure I’m going to do it anyway?
At the hotel front desk, I ask for one room—and one king-sized bed—without thinking twice. And when Colette asks if I want to grab a drink at the hotel bar before we head to dinner, I order whiskey on the rocks instead of a sanity-retaining beer.
Whiskey is trouble, but apparently, so I am.
I don’t know who this new Zack is or what I’m going to do with the mess he’s made of my life once Normal Zack is back behind the decision-making wheel, but right now I don’t care. Right now, all I want is Colette under me, begging me to fuck her with nothing between us but skin.
“You want to hear something funny?” she asks, crossing her legs on the barstool beside me, sending one curvy thigh emerging from the slit in her dress.
Christ, this dress…
It’s been killing me slowly all day long, but what a way to go.
“I do want to hear something funny,” I say. Anything to keep my mind off her thighs and how much I want to be between them.
“The sperm bank I went to didn’t have any redheads in their catalog,” she says, eyes dancing as she steers her lime around her gin and tonic with a slim black straw. “They screened them out.”
“Bastards,” I murmur over the rim of my glass as I take a deep drink. I swallow and add, “But I’m not surprised.”
“Really?” Her brows lift. “I was. What’s wrong with redheads?”
“Aside from the fact that we’re all descended from devils and witches, are genetic mutants, and have a low tolerance for pain?”
She laughs, a husky sound that goes straight to my dick. “Right, aside from all that.” She scrunches her nose. “People don’t really think things like that, do they?”
I shrug. “I don’t know, but I’ve heard from a decent number of women that they usually don’t go for men with red hair.”
Colette’s lips curve in a smirk. “Oh yeah? But they make an exception for you? How generous of them.”
I arch a wry brow. “I’m sure the fact that I used to play for one of the biggest bands in the world helped my redheaded self in the getting laid department.”
“I’m sure, but the anti-redhead thing is still ridiculous. I honestly can’t imagine what the problem is. Red hair is lovely.”
“I think it’s the pale skin and freckles that are the major deal-breakers,” I say. “Growing up a redhead in a beach town wasn’t always easy. My grandmother spent a king’s ransom on sunscreen to protect my pasty ass.”
“I don’t think you’re pasty,” Colette says. “And I like freckles. The ones on your forearms are sexy.”
She traces a finger across the back of my hand and up my arm while I fight the urge to flex like a cheesy bastard. This woman brings out the primal, stupid part of me like no one I’ve ever met.
I need an intervention.
I should call my friend Shep, tell him I’m a danger to myself in my present state, and ask him to come to pick me up before I do something stupid. The hotel is three hours from Hidden Kill Bay, and Shep is probably sitting down to dinner with his wife right now, but he’d get me if I asked him to.
He’s that kind of friend, the kind who says he’s there for you, no matter what, and truly means it.
But I don’t reach for my phone; I reach for Colette’s thigh, letting my hand curve around her soft, warm skin. I watch hunger flicker behind her incomparable eyes, and instantly, I’m hard again.
If the hostess calls us to our table now, I’m going to embarrass myself, but I don’t care.
“Do you have freckles anywhere else?” she asks in a voice that sounds as lust-drunk as I feel. “I know I’ve seen you in a swimsuit before, but I wasn’t paying close enough attention back then.”
“But you’re paying attention now?”
“Oh yeah.” She nods slowly. “So much attention. All the attention. In fact, I’m afraid I have a bit of a one-track mind right now, Zackary.”
“I’m afraid I do, too, Colette.” My fingertips press deeper into her thigh, and her breath catches on a moan so soft I can barely hear it.