I can tell he’s just trying to be nice, maybe. “I need a job that’s going to last all summer.”
He strums a chord, very gently, still watching my face. “That’s what I’m offering. I want my piano played every day. They sound better when they get used regularly. It warms up the strings. Gives them a better tone.”
This almost makes me smile and I roll my eyes, not exactly meaning to. “I don’t think that’s true.”
“It is true. Dust dulls the clarity of the sound.”
Even if he is just trying to be nice, his offer sure does sound a lot better than working as a waitress, like Rose does, which she hates because she’s always getting hit on. Or at the library, like Gigi does, which sounds boring as hell to me. I’ve spent enough time in quiet buildings where no one’s allowed to talk to each other to last me a lifetime.
I could make it worth his while. “I could clean your house for you, if you wanted. I could dust everything and shine the windows and mop the floors too.”
“I kind of like it as it is. I like the feel of it.”
Regardless, the place needs cleaning. “I could weed the garden and paint the fence too. But I really do have to save up some money this summer so it would depend on how much—”
“I pay a hundred dollars an hour.” He’s still playing my song, better than I could even play it, I can’t help noticing.
But then it registers. “A hundred?” Is this a joke? A proposition? A—
“You can work as many hours as you want. A full day, every day. Or more. Or less. Whatever you want. Starting tomorrow. And if you want to take days off to do auditions whenever you need to, you can do that too.”
I don’t know him. What I do know is that this offer is too good to be true.
It’s also too good to refuse.
I should refuse. As amazing as all that sounds, working for him will be dangerously … tempting. He knows this too. He’s smiling that lazy smile, challenging me to refuse him. He’s so arrogant about it, I almost don’t want to give him the satisfaction. “I suppose I could.”
“You suppose you could.” His smile reaches his bottle-green eyes with their dense lashes and they crinkle around the edges in a way that makes my stomach do a funny little flip. He really is stunning. He leans a little closer and his smile turns wolfish. The look in his eyes is almost daunting, like he wants to eat me alive.
I wish he would. I wish he’d touch me, and cross a line.
“Is that a yes?” His voice is even more husky than before.
I shouldn’t really even consider this. He’s making up a job, just for me, I’m almost sure of it. Why? I mean … I know why, and I’ll probably accept for the very same reason. I’m too inexperienced to know for sure, but what I do know is that this summer is going to enlighten me in more ways than one, I can feel it already.
You’re my wild, wild girl and I know what you like. Let’s go for a ride on a hot summer night. Got you in my arms, babe, feels so good and so right. I’ll hold you close all the hot summer night.
Chase kissed me once. My only kiss, when I was fourteen years old. The barely-there brush of his lips against mine before he left for the west coast four years ago. At the time, it was the most important thing that had ever happened to me.
Why is it that boys—and now men—make you feel that way? Why is it that the emotions or hormones or whatever it is they stir up give the highest highs of all, making everything else seem monotone and dull in comparison? Biology is serious stuff. Preached boundaries don’t stand a chance against animal urges, is what I’m learning.
Chase used to joke that we’d get married when we were older. He used to say that we’re each other’s destiny. I think he was trying to talk about that to me today, actually, when I avoided the subject or we got interrupted.
But Chase isn’t here. He hasn’t been here for a long time. And he’s not where I’m going.
Besides, a job is a job. A hundred dollars an hour is a lot of money. It’s a bribe, maybe. A lure. But it’ll get me to Nashville a lot faster than waitressing. There’s no way I’d get more than minimum wage at any other job in town.
Anyway, I guess you don’t go around buying multi-million dollar farms unless you’re financially secure, so he must be able to afford to pay his cleaners very well. Maybe it’s a city thing, or wherever he comes from. Now that I look a little more closely, the guitar he’s holding is a nice one. One of those expensive ones, with fancy-looking detailing.
I can handle whatever’s going to happen. I have to handle it. That’s what this real world—which is far better than the imprisoned one—is all about. It’s time for me to cowgirl up and do what needs to be done.
“All right,” I hear myself say. “I’ll start tomorrow.”
He smiles and it’s honestly amazing to me how he’s just broken the shackles of four years of indoctrination with one sexy, genuine smile that touches my heart and at the same time makes my thighs sort of tingle. “Good. I have to leave early but you can let yourself in.” His gaze lingers on my mouth, almost like he’s thinking about kissing me. A pang of longing surges through me. And even though I try to think pure thoughts, all I can do is wonder what his wicked mouth, with those perfect lips, would feel like against mine. If he’d be gentle. Or if he’d be rough.
Damn it. I’m blushing again.
But I’m too high on this new freedom and the warm effect of his closeness to feel scared or shy or as careful as maybe I should. His big, hard maleness is blowing my mind. The dangerous promise of what he could do with all those hard muscles is scaring me and alighting a small, provoked thrill in me all at the same time. There’s a bead of sweat at the base of his throat. I want to lick him there like I’ve never wanted anything in my life. I want it so bad I almost do it.
“We can go for a swim when I get back,” he says. “After you play me the songs you’ve been working on.”
It’s probably a bad idea.
It’s definitely a very bad idea.
You’re not locked up anymore, girl, I remind myself again. This is what freedom is. Live your life. Take your chances and experience things you were put on this earth to find out about. You’ll never write a good song if you don’t know what any of the stuff you’re writing about actually feels like.
He leans closer. I can smell him and it’s better than I ever imagined: all hot sun and leather-and-whiskey and man-spiced sin. “You know you want to, darlin’,” he murmurs.
Just this near-touch of his mouth is the most erotic experience I’ve ever had in my life. My lips part. My nipples are tight and painfully sensitive.
Kiss me. Bite me.
But he pulls away.
He stands up and slings the guitar strap over his shoulder. I can only stare at the size of him. He’s tall and broad and magnificent in his jeans and faded yellow t-shirt, his hair falling across his forehead in silky layers.
“See you tomorrow, Ruby.”
I watch as he walks off into the night humming the song I sang to him, his jeans hugging his body in ways I can’t even explain and I’m reeling from the realization that, just like that, everything has changed.
I don’t know how or why or what any of it means.