Nalini Singh - Rock Addiction

“So,” he said, lifting his head, “how should I punish you?” The lean dimple in his cheek invited her kiss, the ring in his lip her favorite plaything.

An ache in her heart, Molly didn’t want to continue the game all of a sudden. “Later,” she whispered, her breasts rising and falling in a choppy rhythm. “I need to feel you inside me.” Needed to hold him close. “I love you.”

Expression altering to raw tenderness, he rose above her and tugged the knot in the pillowcase open. “You are such a bad girl. That’s the second time you’ve messed with my plans.” He dipped his head. The taste on his tongue her own, an erotic intimacy between them, he put one hand on the inside of her thigh and pushed into her, slow and relentless.

It drew a sound of acute pleasure from within her throat, her fingers buried in his hair and her legs locked around his hips. Fox kissed her throughout the loving, his forearms braced on either side of her head, his tattoos familiar and unique.

“My Molly.” It was a guttural sound against her ear as he came in her arms.

When Molly got a message from Fox two days later to say he’d be out with Noah for a couple of hours, she didn’t think too much of it. If he wanted to go off and do manly stuff with Noah, she didn’t mind. Just like he didn’t mind if she spent an hour on the phone with Charlotte or went out with Thea when her sister flew in.

Now she decided to e-mail Charlotte before getting to work at the little desk Fox had found for her; it fit perfectly in one corner of the living area of the coach.

It turned out Charlotte was online, so they video-chatted. Her best friend’s life had become very interesting of late.

Molly ended the session with a smile on her face so wide it was probably blinding. “Go, T-Rex,” she said with a little fist bump before forcing herself to concentrate on her work. Her eye fell on the bowl of strawberries on the desk as she opened her laptop and her smile grew impossibly wider. Diamonds were one thing, but Fox had a way of remembering the small things she loved.

Eating a couple of the juicy strawberries, she knuckled down. The work did eventually engross her, and darkness had fallen by the time she looked up. She got up, stretched, then decided to see if anyone was up for dinner—Fox’s and Noah’s afternoon out had apparently been extended.

Not that she was surprised, given what the men got up to, and it wasn’t what people might expect. The last time Fox had disappeared—with David and Abe—they’d returned after drag racing around a special track built for speed. Gleeful as small boys, they’d been buzzed for hours.

The door opened in front of her at that second, Fox on the other side.

“Hey.” She smiled, noting he didn’t look any the worse for wear. “Dare I ask?”

A deep grin. “I got a tat,” he said, jumping into the coach and pulling the door shut. “Noah came along for moral support, but he ended up with one, too. Not as amazing as mine though.”

Proprietary of his body, Molly said, “Show me.”

He took off his T-shirt, leaning back against the coach wall as she gingerly lifted the edges of the gauze bandage taped partway down his chest, just slightly to the left of center. “Fox”—she scowled up at him—“this is right over your heart.” She knew a tattoo needle couldn’t penetrate through muscle and bone, but still. “What if you’d been hurt?”

He squeezed her hip. “Worth it.”

“It better be a work of sheer geni—” She froze as the gauze pad came off enough that she could see the ink, black against skin reddened from the recent work. It was shaped like a rectangular stamp, the kind businesses put on letters to say “Confidential.” This one said something else.

Molly’s Property.

Eyes burning, she pushed fisted hands against his abdomen as his arms came around her. “Idiot.”

A kiss, his lips curved.

“What happens if we break up?” she said, so overwhelmed her mind was a mess. “They’ll make fun of you, call you Folly’s Property.”

 “Guess you better not dump my ass then or there goes my entire image.” His dimple appeared. “Especially after I suffered hours of pain for you.”

She touched her fingers delicately to the ink, leaning forward to brush a featherlight kiss over it as tears rolled down her face. No, he might never be able to say “I love you,” those words yet hard for him, but he had other ways of making his point.

“Aw, hey baby, don’t.” Reaching down to cover the tat with the gauze again, he cuddled her close. “It doesn’t hurt. I was just messing with you.”

“Happy tears,” she managed to get out.

“You like it, then?”

“I love it.”

When Fox ripped off his T-shirt in the middle of the concert the next night to throw it into the crowd, realization slammed into her. God, she’d been slow. Fox hadn’t just told her he loved her; he was telling the world.

Hugging her arms around her waist, she tried to hold the tidal wave of emotion inside, her breath rasping in her chest. Maxwell stopped on his way past her, patted her on the shoulder. “What did he do?”

“Be wonderful.”

“Huh.” Squeezing her into a hug, the crew boss said, “I thought you hadn’t heard it.”

“Heard what?”

He touched a finger to his earpiece. “Sorry, got to check out one of the speakers.”

Forgetting his words when Fox turned to shoot her a grin before facing the roaring crowd once more, Molly just stood there. The man was going to kill her. Never had she thought she’d be so loved, so wanted, so cherished and adored. Taking out her phone, she texted, “I’m stupid in love with you,” to his phone.

That phone was currently in her other jeans pocket, so he wouldn’t see her message until after, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that it would be waiting for him whenever he checked. Sliding away her own phone, she frowned at the sudden silence in the stadium… and then the air filled with the pure sound of a single electric guitar. Even before lifting her head, she knew it wasn’t Noah but Fox on the instrument.

He bent his mouth to the mike as he continued to play. “This song is for my Molly, who is the best fucking thing that’s ever happened to me. Also, for those suicidal idiots sending her fan mail asking her to run away with them, I will hunt you down and rip off your nuts.”

Laughing and crying as the crowd went wild, Molly wanted so badly to kiss him. Those words were so Fox. So her man.

He waited until the crowd quieted down once more before beginning the haunting intro to the song again, the ferocious power of his voice holding a rough tenderness as he began to sing. Noah, Abe, and David fell in gently in the background, Fox’s voice and the guitar holding center stage until they slammed into a pounding beat as a unit.

It was hard rock and it was a love song, though the word “love” was found nowhere in the lyrics. The chorus was six words, a single voice, the music cutting off as if the band was one being.

My heart. My soul. My home.

Molly had tears streaming down her face by the time it ended, the crowd insane for a song she felt in her bones would become a classic. When Fox strode off the stage to drag her onto it, she went without argument, wrapping her arms around him and kissing him in front of the band, the crew, the audience of thousands.

He was hers, and she didn’t care if the whole world knew how much she loved him.

Lifting her up against him, his arms steel, he spoke words for her ears only. “Since I’m already your personal and private property, will you be mine?” The dimple appearing. “It would really suck balls to be called Folly’s Property.”

It was a marriage proposal only Fox would make. “Yes, yes, yes.” She punctuated each word with a laughing, crying kiss, uncaring of the flashbulbs and the lights and the eyes that watched them. “Always yes.”

The smoky green exultant, his kiss a branding, he turned to grab the mike. “She said yes!”

The crowd thundered and screamed as the rock star who’d been meant to be Molly’s one-night stand pressed his forehead to her own and whispered, “I’m yours.”

I hope you enjoyed Molly and Fox’s story! If you’re curious about David and those sinfully enticing memos he’s been writing to Thea, then keep an eye out for Rock Courtship, coming September 30th! (Let’s just say the Gentleman of Rock has some serious moves.) I’m also currently at work on Charlotte and T-Rex’s book and having so much fun with these two.