Page 28 of Rock the Chardonnay

“Hated you?” I pause, and she stops across from me. “No. Absolutely not. I never hated you.”

“I thought you did. After those first few times, it seemed like you were never around. Even for holidays, you only spent time with me when absolutely necessary.”

Something in her expression cuts me straight to my core. I’ve hurt her. I haven’t meant to, but intentions are worth about as much as three-day-old dog poo. “Daughtry, I never hated you. I’m so sorry that I made you feel that way.” She wavers, playing with the straw in her drink. It’s time to come clean. “Honestly, I avoided you because I liked you. So much. It was difficult to think when I was around you. But you were with Ciaran.” Saying my brother’s name at that moment tastes like drinking straight banana ester.

Which, by the way, is revolting.

Daughtry tosses her lemonade into a nearby trash can, and lines her body up with mine. The nearness of her cancels out everything else. “I’m not with Ciaran now,” she says, her voice like sandpaper on silk.

Alarm bells clang at full alert in my brain, but my hands flex and suddenly they’re on her hips, my fingers rustling the fabric of her dress. “I thought you had a one-time policy.”

“Rules are made to be broken.” Winding her arms around my neck, she presses her chest into mine. So much for keeping it together. Her soft breasts press into my chest, and my cock hardens in anticipation.

This is every single dream I’ve ever had, barring my recurring nightmare about being attacked by the periodic table.

Privacy. We need privacy.

My brain tells me to pause, to think about my responsibilities. I left my son with a rock band. I’m supposed to be working.

But Daughtry overwhelms my rational brain.

I’m going to be spontaneous for once.

I step away from her and take her hand. “Let’s go.”

“Where are we going?” She giggles and stumbles. That won’t do. We don’t have time for her to injure herself. I scoop her up into my arms, the fabric of her dress rustling sensuously against my skin, and I carry her toward the parking lot.

“I can’t do this in plain sight of my first grade teacher or my mom’s friends,” I say through gritted teeth.

She leans toward me and nips at my earlobe. “What is it that you want to do?”

CHAPTER 14

Daughtry

“The last time I made out in a car, I wasn’t this tall.” Declan winces as his heads hit the roof of the SUV.

I pull him back down toward me and into a lingering kiss. I love messing up his hair, and sliding my fingers along his temples. The air conditioning in the car is a cool breeze against my legs. “You missed out.”

He licks and kisses down my neck, sending pulses of warm pleasure through me. “I just missed out on you.”

That sparks something deep inside me. When I was eighteen, I spent weeks dreaming of how to cross the line with Declan and not knowing how. Then everything happened with Ciaran, and I underestimated Declan’s familial loyalty.

Which is a great quality. Not unlike his unusually talented tongue, currently tracing the line of my bodice as his hand slips up my thigh.

Declan has amazing hands. Have I missed out on twelve years of feeling these hands on my body?

That isn’t something I want to contemplate, not as I shift to move his fingers closer to my core. “Say it again.” I nip at his chin. “Call me good girl.”

“What does my good girl want?” His voice is so low it strikes a very deep chord inside me that makes me shiver. Of course, that could also have been his hands playing around the seam of my panties.

“Everything,” I say. “Your hands on me, in me. Make your good girl sing.”

Oh, and he does. For all the women who say guitarists know how to fuck, they’ve clearly never banged a high school chemistry teacher. His thumb pulses on my clit as he strums every nerve inside me. The orgasm builds like a gospel chorus, and erupts in a quiet whimper.

“Good girl,” he whispers, pulling me onto his lap and kissing me until breath is a faint memory. “I should have asked earlier, but are you on birth control?”

“Yes. I endured all the pain for an IUD but now I love it.”

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