“We all have this tat,” he’d told her before he left the bedroom. “Different locations on the body.”

“Even David?” The drummer always looked so elegant and urbane.

Fox had grinned. “You’d be surprised what David has under those Ar-mani suits he likes to wear.”

Now, as Fox bent to put the bottle of wine on her dainty bedside table, she glimpsed the intricate pattern of black ink on the top of his right arm that he’d told her had been created for him by a friend who was a tattoo artist. Incorporating musical notes and hidden words, it was a puzzle that could be unraveled only by someone who really knew Fox.

 That arm was otherwise bare of ink, except for a horizontal line of characters directly above his pulse point.

“What language is that?” she said, brushing her fingers over the characters, still not quite believing she had the right to touch him.

“Move your hand to the left and down and I’ll tell you.”

Heat in her cheeks as she saw he was semi-aroused. “How can you…” She waved in the general direction of his groin.

“Because you’re built and I have a high sex drive.” Grinning at her renewed blush, the lean dimple in his cheek devastating, he passed her the plate and got into bed. Or onto it.

“Under the sheet,” she ordered, trying to retain some sense of control when she knew it was far too late where Fox was concerned. “I can’t focus with you naked.”

A very male laugh, a hand in her hair as he drew her to him for one of his slow, drugging kisses.

“You know how to touch a woman.” It came out throaty, soft.

“I’ve had a lot of practice.” His smile didn’t disappear, but there was a sudden, disturbing falseness about it.

Molly knew she’d be fooling herself if she believed she knew anything of Zachary Fox, the man behind the rock god, but she couldn’t stay silent when every instinct she had screamed at her to speak. Fighting her discomfort at discussing such an intimate thing, she said, “I’m not going to turn on you because you are who you are.” She’d known exactly who it was she’d invited into her bed and that his sexual experience far outweighed hers.

“Especially,” she added, fingers curling into the sheet, “when I’m the beneficiary of all that practice.”

His smile became vividly real again, gorgeous and of a man who was enjoying being with her. It troubled her how quickly he could do that—withdraw from a situation while appearing involved… but that was only something she’d have to worry about if they were on the road to a relationship. That simply wasn’t in the cards, even had Fox not been seriously out of her league.

The media, tabloid and otherwise, was fascinated by him.

After having been savaged to shreds during her father’s ignominious fall from grace, any kind of media attention was Molly’s worst nightmare. It had been endless, article after article, whisper after whisper, innuendo after innuendo. She’d fought and fought, refusing to allow the agony of it to crush her, to give the bullies at school the satisfaction of seeing how badly she was bleeding inside, but then a policeman with a solemn face had come to tell her she was an orphan, and she’d broken.

The fractures had never quite healed right.

But it wasn’t Fox who’d caused the teenage girl she’d been such terrible hurt, and at that instant, she couldn’t forget the pain she’d sensed behind his earlier words. “Did a woman hurt you?” She knew she’d crossed another line as soon as the words were out, couldn’t find the will to fill the air with others in order to call them back.

An unreadable expression on Fox’s face. “No, it wasn’t a lover.” With that inscrutable answer, he leaned across to claim a tender, suckling kiss before getting his lower body under the sheet as she’d asked and reaching for the food. “Here.” He popped a bite of cheese into her mouth and she understood the topic was closed.

Chewing, she swallowed and told herself it was better this way. Because the more she saw of the real Zachary Fox, the more she liked him. “Those characters aren’t like any Asian language I’ve seen,” she said, focusing on his body instead of on emotions that had no place in a temporary relationship, “though they’re close.”

“Hmm.” He fed her another piece of cheese.

Molly scowled, though she wanted to trace the curve of his lips with a fingertip. “Are you going to tell me?”

“What? And ruin one of rock’s greatest mysteries?” He ate a cracker with cheese on it, a wicked smile in his eyes. “What the fuck is that on Fox’s body? Was he stoned when he got the tat? Did he just get a drunk tattoo artist?” A raised eyebrow. “Or is the bastard pissing with everyone for the fun of it?”

“I won’t tell anyone,” Molly cajoled, feeling young and playful in a way she’d never expected, in a way she’d never been. “Cross my heart.”

“Do I look like a sucker?” Tapping her nose with a single finger, he reached over for the fancy wine Molly had bought in case Thea had time to come over, her sister being a wine buff.

Leaning down over the side of the bed to snag a Swiss Army knife from his jeans, Fox used the corkscrew to pop the cork, then drank straight from the bottle. She must’ve made a sound, because bringing down the bottle, he winked. “I’ll replace it with something better.” Holding out the wine, he said, “Bet you’ve never done that before.”

Molly shook her head. “I don’t drink.”

“So this is all mine?” Fox grinned. “Excellent.”

Having braced herself for questions, she blurted out, “Most people ask about the not-drinking,” then wanted to slap herself for making it an issue. Why couldn’t she keep her mouth shut around Fox?

“It’s bad musician manners to bring it up,” he answered, “’cause you never know who might be in AA or detox.” Wrapping an arm around her shoulders, he hugged her close. “But since you already did, and also since you don’t show any signs of an alcoholic jonesing for a drink, I’m guessing you’ve been around someone who drank?”

“Yes.” With that, she took a cracker, loaded it with a big hunk of cheese, and bit down. She might’ve made a mistake in her surprise, but the idea of discussing her mother with Fox had her chest going tight, her lungs strained—it was one thing to let go, another to trust him with the vicious pain that had shaped her. “Why didn’t you bring the grapes?”

Fox set aside the wine. “So you’d have to walk nude to the kitchen and get them.”

Relieved he’d taken the hint and dropped the subject of her aversion to alcohol, she shook her head. “Not happening.”

“Why not? You have an amazing body.” A bite on her shoulder, his hand sliding along the inside of her thigh. “Like that old painting of the redhead rising from the clamshell.”

The Birth of Venus.

Utterly undone at being compared to the sensually beautiful artwork, she thrust a cracker between his lips. “Shh.” His body might be so hot it should be illegal, but she was beginning to learn it was Fox’s mind that was his most dangerous weapon. Add that to his voice and it was no surprise women fell into his lap at the crook of a finger.

He ran his thumb along the inner seam of her thigh. “Want me to behave?”

Sensation curling through her body, Molly paused, not sure she did want him to behave—and he threw back his head. His laughter pleased every one of her senses, made delight bubble through her veins.

“I like the way you think, Molly,” he said, but stopped tormenting her, settling for claiming a kiss anytime he felt like it.

Fox, as she’d learned tonight, was a man who enjoyed kissing. It was an unexpected and wonderful discovery, and it made Molly realize she liked kissing, too. Especially the way Fox did it, with an exquisite patience that made her feel terrifyingly cherished.

It was only later, the bottle of wine still almost full—Fox had decided it was too sweet for him—and her lips wet and tingling, that he dragged on his jeans, held out a hand, and said, “Come on. I’m starving. Let’s go finish the takeout.”

Not hungry, but willing to keep him company, Molly said, “Pass me the robe on the back of the door.”

He picked up and threw her his T-shirt instead. Molly tugged it on, the scent of him a glove around her body. A deep warmth inside her, she got out of bed and took his hand, conscious all at once of exactly how tall he was.

“Did I tell you how hot you look when you’re dressed up all professional with your hair prim and proper?”

Molly certainly didn’t feel prim and proper now. “You just did.”

A slow smile that caught at her heart in a way that set off those warning bells again, but she didn’t want to listen. Not tonight, not when everything had been so wonderful.

“You ever wear those skinny skirts that go past the knee?” Fox ran his hands up and down her hips, the T-shirt moving softly against her skin. “The ones that look strict and professional and sexy at the same time?”

“Those”—she swallowed to wet her throat—“are called pencil skirts.”

A rumbling sound of pleasure when she shuddered at the kiss he laved on the curve of her jaw. “Yeah, you ever wear one?”

“No.” The shape hugged her body too closely.

Dropping kisses along the line of her neck, Fox shifted his hands to her backside. “I get hard just thinking about your ass in one of those skirts.” He nipped at her sensitive flesh. “Wear one for me?”

Molly thought she should probably refuse but couldn’t figure out a reason why when he was so close, the masculine scent of him short-circuiting her brain. “Okay.”

“Hot damn.” A groan, hands squeezing her lower curves. “I can’t wait to see your body in the skirt I’m buying for you.”

“Wait.” Molly pushed at his chest. “You didn’t say anything about buying it.”

“Semantics.” A hard kiss, one hand rising to grip her nape. “Be kind, Molly. Let me enjoy my fantasy.”

Her knees went weak at the rough appeal.

Molly had never been anyone’s fantasy, couldn’t find the willpower to stand strong against a rock god who saw something in her that she didn’t see in herself. For this one month, she’d be that woman, be that other Molly, the one who’d accept a rock star’s gift and who’d rise on tiptoe to tug on his lip ring. Yet even as she thought that, even as she fought the clawing echoes of memory, the panicked voice of the woman she’d spent years becoming yelled at her to stop, to think.


Fox had felt Molly slipping away over the past half hour. Frustration gnawed at him with every nonanswer she gave from across her round little kitchen table, the Molly who’d spoken to him with such vulnerable honesty in bed nowhere in evidence. Patience, he reminded himself as he finished eating, have some fucking patience.

He knew exactly what was wrong, knew that in some part of her she’d begun to realize what he already understood. That this, what they were doing, it wasn’t just sex, wasn’t just an affair—people who simply wanted to fuck didn’t talk about hidden hurts, didn’t treat each other with tenderness.

“I’m not going to turn on you because you are who you are.”

Her words continued to reverberate in his mind, so damn beautiful. She had no idea what her promise meant to him—he’d seen the truth of it in those eyes that couldn’t lie, felt it in the way she touched him. He wanted the right to that tenderness every day of his life and he’d fight dirty to get it.

“I saw an ad for a horror flick that’s on TV tonight,” he said after drinking the glass of water she’d poured him earlier. “Want to watch? You can pretend to be scared, and I can take the opportunity to slip my hand inside that cute fluffy robe of yours.”

Tugging on the belt of the robe she’d slipped into a quarter of an hour earlier in another damn sign of retreat after leaving his T-shirt on the bed, she straightened her shoulders. “I want to be up and going before eight tomorrow morning.”

“I thought you had Sunday and Monday off?”

“I do, but I want to go to the market to get fresh vegetables, dig around in the antique stalls.”

Fox stared at the woman who was turning him inside out. “You’re skipping sleeping in to get vegetables?”

Eyes sparking, she glared at him. “It’s fun. Even if the antiques are mostly fake.”

“Shit.” He laughed. “Now I have to come.”

Molly hesitated.

And Fox stopped laughing. “You want to keep me confined to the bedroom.” Anger kissed his bloodstream.