My tattoo belongs on her beautiful body.
“And you belong with me,” Dream Melody whispers, motioning for me to join her.
My dream self doesn’t even try to resist.
Seconds later, I’m naked, too, pushing her back onto the sun-warmed sheets, claiming her lips, urging her soft thighs apart with my knee while I—
The air horn alarm on my cell blares, wrenching me from sleep.
I slap at the phone until it finally goes silent, then squeeze my eyes shut and let out a groan of need so pitiful it’s almost funny. If I wasn’t hard enough to drive nails, I might be able to muster up a laugh at my own expense.
As things stand however…
I drag my aching, frustrated body out of bed and limp toward the shower, but even after ten minutes under the lukewarm spray and a two-minute blast of cold at the very end, I still can’t completely banish the dream or Melody March from my mind.
This is turning into more than a lust crush. I’m becoming fucking obsessed with this girl.
I haven’t had a crush like this since I was…
Hell, I can’t remember ever having a crush like this. A crush so hard-core I seek out reasons to linger in the kitchen at work to listen to Melody chat with her sisters, so serious I get a weird happy/turned-on feeling every time our eyes meet, so intense I can’t bring myself to fantasize about anyone else when I’m awake and dream only of Melody when I’m asleep.
It makes me wonder…
Maybe this is more than a crush.
Dude, you just escaped a bad situation with a good girl. The last thing you need right now is hearts and flowers and all the rest of that crap. Snap out of it!
The inner voice is right. I’m not looking for anything with feelings, and even if I were, Melody isn’t an option.
I thrust the mushy thoughts from my mind like a live grenade. No more good girls, that’s the rule. But if I want to stay on the No Good Girls Wagon, I need to get Melody out of my head.
Fast.
The second John stumbles out of his room, scratching his now even-mangier beard as he heads for the shower, I pounce.
“Hey, you want to close up early and hit The Horse and Rider tonight?” I ask. “Always more girls there on a Friday.”
John squints at me before nodding once and giving a sleepy thumbs-up.
“Cool.” I grin as I snag another cup of coffee, feeling my energy levels pick up even before my second dose of caffeine hits full force.
This Melody fixation is nothing a night with another beautiful woman can’t cure, and I intend to meet that woman tonight.
Chapter 4
Melody
“Are you sure about this?” Lark pulls the car to the side of the street a block from The Horse and Rider and casts a worried look my way.
My sister can run a kitchen like a boss, but speaking at the Bliss River Women in Business club meeting is enough to give her hives. Usually, I’m the same way. That’s why we make Aria do the talking. We tell her it’s what she gets for being born first and hide in the back row by the cookie tray while she talks about branding and profit margins.
But my big sister can’t speak for me today.
Or sing for me.
Aria can’t carry a tune in a bucket. Singing is my thing.
I think…
I can still sing…right?
Or could I have forgotten sometime between choir practice last weekend and tryouts tonight?
“No, I’m not sure.” I try to pull in a deeper breath but end up wheezing instead. I’m so nervous my chest feels like it’s about to implode, and my lips are going numb. “Am I crazy? Should I go scratch my name off the list?”
“No, you have a beautiful voice! And I told you we can make it work with the catering schedule if you get the gig,” Lark says. “If this is something you want to do, then you should go for it. I just know I’d throw up if I had to climb up on stage and sing in front of a room full of strangers.”
“Throwing up isn’t off the table.”
“Well, I’m sure people have thrown up in there before,” Lark says, giving the entrance to the bar a wary look.
“Right. I won’t be the first. Or the last.” I wipe my clammy hands on the seat beneath me, willing them to stop shaking.
I don’t want to chicken out. I don’t know what compelled me to sign up to audition to be the new lead singer of The Horse and Rider’s house band, Ghost Town Double Wide, last night—the tequila or my frustration with Nick—but I scrawled my name in the last available space. I took the last audition slot away from someone else so I’m obligated by good manners to use it—even if this experiment ends with me getting booed offstage by a bunch of bikers and their babes and never being able to show my face on this side of Main Street ever again.
Or maybe in Bliss River, period.
I’ll have to move, somewhere far, far away where people have never heard me squawk off-key.
“Do you want me to call Mason and tell him I won’t be home tonight?” Lark rests a gentle hand on my shoulder. “I could go in with you for moral support and sleep over at Mom and Dad’s after.”
I shake my head. “No, you and Mason love your Saturday mornings, and this is our first day off in forever. I’ll be fine.”
I will. I’ll be fine, or I’ll make a fool of myself without any family members present to witness my shame. Of course, Lark would never make fun of me for failing, but for some reason, I don’t want her to watch the audition. This feels like something I have to do by myself, a step in a new direction that’s best taken alone.
“Okay, but call me if you change your mind in the next twenty minutes or so,” Lark says. “I’m going to swing by Aria’s on my way out of town and drop off the favor boxes she’s painting for the wedding. Are you sure Kitty’s going to be able to give you a ride home?”
“Yep. She’s doing dinner with her cruising club and is swinging by to meet me after.” I lean over to press a quick kiss to Lark’s cheek. “Love you, Sissy. Thank you for driving me.”
“Love you, too.” Lark smiles that glowing, contented smile that’s become so familiar since she and Mason got engaged earlier this summer.
It’s a smile that makes me believe in happily ever after, but it also reminds me of how alone I am. Ever since Brian and I called it quits—and even before then, if I’m honest; things hadn’t been good between us for months—I’ve felt my single status in new and painful ways.
Being alone is harder than it used to be. I long for a connection like the ones Lark and Aria have found, for a guy who will see me, understand me, and love every part of me, even the new, exploratory parts I don’t know quite what to do with yet. And I want to do the same for him. I have so much love to give, so much passion and excitement inside me just dying to get out.
But until I find this mystery man, I wouldn’t mind spending some quality time with Nick Geary…
As I swing out of Lark’s car and wave goodbye, I can’t help glancing over at the tattoo shop.
The lights are on and the “Open” sign hangs in the glass door, but I can’t see back to where Nick was sitting last night.