Page 74 of Kiss and Tell

“I’m sorry,” I repeated. “I know there’s nothing I can say to make it better.”

“You are making it better,” he said. “I was so lost. I had no idea what I was going to do with my life. I’d always been about the music. All that drinking and partying and picking up women… Those were the only other things I knew how to do, but all of it felt so hollow.”

He rested his forehead against mine and closed his eyes.

“But now, with this bar thing, I enjoy waking up every day. I have something to look forward to. I have a real future, with real goals.” He opened his eyes, meeting mine. “And it’s all because of you.”

“That wasn’t me,” I said. “You accepted your brother’s offer before I even came along.”

“But I didn’t take any of it seriously,” he said. “Not until you showed up.” He gave me a rueful smile. “Hell, for that first meeting, when Jessie said I looked like I’d just rolled out of bed, she’d been right.”

“I had noticed you actually wore a shirt with a collar for the interviews today,” I said.

“I’m trying,” he replied.

We fell silent as we stared into each other’s eyes.

All those times Connor had talked about his past as a musician, I’d accepted it at face value when he said he got sick of the lifestyle. I supposed a part of that was true, he didn’t enjoy the constant traveling. But for a guitarist to be diagnosed with nerve damage in his hand… It must have been devastating.

I could imagine Connor sitting in a doctor’s office, fingers rapidly drumming a nervous pattern, his mouth pursed and tense while waiting to hear his results.

I could imagine the look on his face when the doctor told him his diagnosis. It might have been disbelief at first, unwilling to accept it. Then his wide-eyes would have narrowed in suspicion, wondering if the doctor really knew what they were talking about, wondering if he should get a second opinion. But eventually the magnitude of it would have set in.

I could imagine the utter despair in Connor’s eyes and, although it was only in my mind, it made me want to weep.

“I’m sorry for unloading all of this on you,” he said. “I’ve made you cry twice tonight. I’m an asshole.”

“You’re not an asshole,” I told him. “And don’t be sorry. I’m glad you told me. I know how difficult it must be to talk about this.”

Connor brushed the hair back from my face and placed a soft kiss on my lips.

“Thank you for listening,” he said.

“Thank you for trusting me with it.”

I returned the kiss, intending for it to be as soft and quick as his. He buried one hand in my hair and pressed the other to the small of my back, urging me closer and deepening the kiss. I let him, relaxing into it, letting his mouth capture mine again and again, until we were both breathless.

When he pulled back, his cheeks were as flushed as mine felt. The anguish in his eyes had receded, replaced by a dark glimmering heat. He opened his mouth to speak and my heart jumped with anticipation.

“You should probably get going,” he said.

“What?” My jaw nearly dropped. “Why?”

Connor ran his hands up and down my back, from the nape of my neck to the swell of my ass.

“Because you’re sexy as hell and I want to tear off your clothes and make you come so hard you’ll scream my name, but I made a promise and I’m going to keep it.”

A shiver ran through me at the hunger in his voice. It was the same hunger I’d experienced that night in the hotel room. Just the memory of it, the phantom sensation of Connor’s hands on my naked skin, set my body on aflame.

I tangled my hands in the messy hair at the back of his head.

“What if I want to stay?” I asked.

“You really think I have that much self-control?”

“I’m hoping you don’t.”

His eyes flashed dangerously as he tugged me to his chest.