No, she didn’t want excitement. What she wanted was blissful normality: a job she liked; a steady, faithful man; a house on an ordinary suburban street; a sedate minivan with room in back for the slobbering family dog. But… when she was living that safe, stable life, the memory of her night with a smart, sexy, roughly tender rock star would be a hidden treasure, a quiet acknowledgment of the other Molly. The Molly who might’ve lived a life more adventurous and less ordinary in another time, another place… a Molly who, in this world, was a little too broken to ever again be permitted to hold the reins.


Fox hadn’t become the lead singer of one of the best-selling rock bands in history by being a shrinking violet. No, he went after what he wanted, no holds barred. And the raw promise he could feel between him and Molly? He had to know where it would lead, the need so strong he hadn’t felt anything like it since the day he’d figured out that music was his escape, the air in his lungs.

Which was why he was leaning against the wall beside Molly’s apartment at five that afternoon, a guitar by his side.

The elevator doors opened at a quarter after the hour, Molly going motionless two steps outside of it, the doors closing silently at her back. Yeah, she hadn’t expected him, but Fox was ready to work with that. Waiting patiently as she took a deep breath and completed the trek down the corridor, he drew in the scent of her, his gaze lingering on the fluttering pulse in her neck.

 “How did you get past security?”

Fox smiled slowly at the blurted-out question, wondering if Molly knew how bad she was at hiding her emotions. He liked it, liked that he saw the real Molly, not an illusion she’d created to tempt him—not that she had to do anything but smile to tempt him. “I told you the security sucks.”

Unable to resist, he reached out to run his finger down one creamy cheek flushed with a mix of surprise, passion, and, he was certain, sweet, hot feminine anger. His guess was borne out when Molly unlocked her door with jittery hands and put down her handbag on one corner of the bench, her fingers trembling before she curled them into her palms. “You’re breaking the rules.”

“What rules?” Closing the door, he leaned back on it and willed her to face him. Much as he loved the shape of her from the back, he liked watching those expressive eyes whisper her mood to him.

Shoulders tight, she turned. “This was supposed to be a one-night stand.”

“Ah.” Folding his arms over the plain black of his T-shirt, he said, “How about a one-month stand instead?” He knew he had to play this exactly right. Molly was wary of him, and yeah, he could understand why. To have her in his life beyond a fleeting instant, he’d have to win her trust.

She jerked up her head. “What?”

“Why not? I like you. You like me.” He smiled—because the reason Molly had needed to jerk up her head was that she’d been staring at his chest. “Admit it.”

Sitting down on the bench, she began to unzip her boots, very obviously not looking at him. “You’re okay for a rock star.”

He wanted to bite her, then pet her until she was limp and languid in his arms. “We burn up together.” Deliberately modulating his voice—his instrument—for maximum effect, low and bedroom rough, he saw her fingers stutter on the zipper. “I’m here for a month. It’s an easy equation.”

When the words “Let me think about it” fell from her mouth, he thought she might’ve been as startled as he was, her lips parting on a slight gasp—as if to call back the declaration.

Crouching down, he began to tug off her boots, distracting her from her thoughts. He had no intention of playing fair. There were very few things he’d ever truly hungered for in life, and he’d never been given any of them. He’d claimed each through sheer, unrelenting will and the grim refusal to surrender.

Now… now there was Molly. “Are you kicking me out?”

 “Don’t you want a different woman each night?”

He heard the tremor she tried to hide, and knew she’d said words similar to those that had lit a spark under his temper the previous night on purpose. Molly Webster was trying to scare him off because she was finding it difficult to say no.

Gut tight and blood hot, he got rid of her remaining boot. “You really have a high opinion of me.” Expecting warm, supple skin under his hands when he slid them up below the hem of her skirt—because he was more than happy to use her physical response to him to tie them together—he found an unexpected barrier instead. “You said no stockings.” The material under his touch was silky and soft and smooth.

“They’re tights.”

Body hardening even further at her breathy response, he traced the fine fabric another fraction past the hemline of her skirt, kept going. “Thigh-high tights.” Suddenly, they were the sexiest things he could imagine. “I want to see.” See the rich cream of her skin against the frame created by the deep gray and blue pattern, kiss every satiny inch.

She put her hands on his, halting him when he would’ve pushed her skirt up to her thighs. “I haven’t said yes yet.”

“Yes, you have, Molly.” Fox held her gaze, sweeping his thumbs slowly across the delicate skin above her tights. “I can feel it in the pulse under your skin, hear it in your voice, scent the damp heat of you on my tongue.”

Maybe, maybe he’d have found the strength to walk away from the intoxicating intensity of the pull between them if Molly had been indifferent to him—though far more likely, he’d have done everything in his power to change that, because he wasn’t the walking-away type, not when it came to the things that mattered. But Molly wasn’t indifferent.

Skin coloring on the heels of his words, she tried to squeeze her thighs together. He blocked her by wedging his body between them. “Don’t be embarrassed, baby.” Shifting position slightly, he caught her lips in a teasing, coaxing kind of a kiss. “You have no idea how unbelievably hot I find it that I make you so wet.”

When her hand came to rest on his shoulder, her fingers just brushing his nape, he had to exert steely control not to deepen the kiss, not to pull down her panties and take her then and there. That would leave him in the same position he’d been in before she let him in tonight, Molly skittish and unsure.

He had to be smart about this, coax her as he’d coax a difficult chord from the guitar. With sweet patience and hard-eyed determination. “You make the rules.” Pressing a kiss to the hollow of her throat, he stroked his thumbs over her skin again. “Tell me what you want.”


Molly swallowed. Fox was right; she wanted him as much now as she had during the hours they’d spent tangled in the dark. But a single night she could justify. Anything longer threatened to take this beyond a moment of wildness and into far more perilous territory.

“One month,” she whispered near soundlessly. “After that, you leave and never contact me again.” It was a stipulation born of the pain inside her, a pain so old it had its own heartbeat, a dark heaviness that was a terrible ache.

“That’s clear enough.” A kiss on her jaw, the movement of his thumbs on the sensitive skin of her inner thighs radiating pleasure that pooled in the throbbing bundle of nerve endings between her legs.

“And,” she rasped, “we’re exclusive for that month.”

His hands tightened on her flesh. “No one else, I promise.” Another teasing, tormenting brush of his thumbs, the callused pads scraping erotically over her flesh. “Come here, baby.” The seductive invitation in that whiskey-and-sin voice stole her will, threatened to destroy everything she’d worked for in life.

Dangerous, he was so dangerous. Still, she dipped her head that final inch and kissed him. Her control of the contact lasted approximately two seconds. Gripping her nape with one hand to hold her in position, Fox kissed her, not raw and deep as she’d expected, but with a slow attention that had her entire body aflame, the ring on his lip a hard accent. He slid his other hand higher up her leg at the same time, making her stomach flutter, her inner muscles clench.

“Such pretty, soft skin.” It was spoken against her mouth, his lips curving in a smile as he licked playfully across her own. When she shivered, his eyes darkened, his kiss deeper but just as slow, as if this rock god had all the time in the world to kiss and caress Molly Webster. His hand gently squeezed her nape.

Warning bells clanged in her mind. It felt as if she were drowning, kiss by slow kiss, Fox coaxing her into deeper and deeper waters. “The bedroom—” she began on a slightly panicked breath.

Eyes lazy, hooded, he kissed away her words before glancing down at her legs. Her heartbeat was in her mouth as she watched him push up her skirt to expose the pale skin of her upper thighs.

“You make my mouth water.” Lowering his head, he pressed a single wet kiss on the inner curve of her right thigh, his stubbled jaw rubbing against her flesh.

She clutched at his hair, the strands dark silk against her palms. “Fox, we—”

Shifting his grip to under her thighs, he pulled her forward on the bench, her hands falling to the leather seat cushion to brace herself as he altered her center of gravity. “Hmm,” he murmured, the green of his gaze holding her own for a second that stole all the air in her lungs. “What’s the rush, Molly Webster?” He bit down over the tendon in her neck.

Hands back in his hair, her fingers spasmed into a tighter hold, her breath a tremor.

“Bad Fox.” Licking out, he soothed the sensual hurt with his tongue. “There, I’m behaving now.”