Musician's Monsoon (5 page)

Sophie’s knees almost buckled, but to her credit, she remained upright. She glanced back at Lorraine, who wandered aimlessly, then turned to Zane, feeling mischievous and free. “You up for an adventure?”

He arched an eyebrow. “Always.”

“Do you have a little bit of time before you have to hit the road again?”

“We’re here for a day.”

She grinned and placed her palms against his chest. “She’s drunk, so she won’t move that fast. I can steal her car. She’ll find her way to a hotel.”

He stared at her in shock. Gradually, his surprise melted into amusement. “Bad teacher,” he teased.

She shrugged. “I have my moments.” Actually, she usually didn’t, but now seemed like a good time to start. She bit her lip. “You game?”

His gaze softened, and he cupped her cheek in his palm, feathering his thumb across her lip. “Where are we going?”

“Let’s go chase the storm,” she said in excitement. “Get a front row seat to nature’s rock concert.”

The way he looked at her melted her heart in a dangerous way, and she knew she was in trouble when it came to this man. But, for some reason, it was okay. It felt right, somehow.

He reached for her hand and squeezed, giving her a smile that said a thousand things. “Ready when you are.”

Sophie screamed as she and Zane made a mad dash toward Lorraine’s car. The parking lot was pretty well abandoned, so they had a straight shot, but Lorraine caught on faster than Sophie had been anticipating.

“Sophie?” Lorraine called right as the two of them reached the car. She wobbled in their direction. “What are you doing? Who are you― Oh my gosh!” With superhuman speed and more agility than she should have possessed at that moment, Lorraine started sprinting across the parking lot. “What are you doing with Zane Blake?” she screeched.

Sophie fumbled with the keys while Zane tugged on the door handle of the passenger car, not that that would do any good.

“Hurry up!” he half shouted, half laughed. “Someone let the freak out of the circus, and she’s coming straight for me!”

Sophie laughed so hard she snorted, and she dropped the keys in the process.

“Sophie!” Zane cried. “You’ve already tried to kill me twice tonight. Whatever I did to piss you off so badly, I’m sorry! Just don’t hand me over to your cousin. I’m begging you!” He yanked on the door handle again while Lorraine let out a hair-raising banshee shriek.

Sophie messed around with the keys while laughing and finally managed to yank the door open. She jumped in and reached over to unlock the passenger door right as Lorraine got to the car. Zane all but vaulted in and slammed the door, locking it for good measure.

Sophie turned the key in the ignition, and Lorraine ran around to her side to pound on the window. “Sophie! What are you doing? Stealing my car? Why are you with Zane Blake? Are you for real right now? Or am I really just
that
drunk?” She staggered away from the car with a hyenalike cackle. “I have to be hallucinating, because I know my stupid, boring, plain Jane cousin would be the last person to attract the attention of a
rock star
!” She laughed again. “This is a joke, right? Am I on camera somewhere?” She stumbled around the parking lot shouting for the nonexistent camera crew to come out.

Sophie’s hands froze on the steering wheel and, for one humiliating moment, she fought tears. She didn’t know why, but right then, the words Lorraine had always hurled at her hurt worse than they ever had. Maybe because Zane had almost had her believing she was something special for half a second.

What was she even doing here with him? This was stupid. She should go back home. Take him to his hotel and then drive back to Flagstaff with her heinous cousin. Go on with her life―her
boring
life―and just teach school and go about her routine. That was safe. That was normalcy. She wasn’t the type of person for whirlwind adventure. Not rational, teacher Sophie.

Zane made a strange growling noise in his throat that brought Sophie out of her thoughts long enough to frown and question his actions as he pushed the passenger door open and got out of the car. “Where are you going?” she called. He ignored her, but she saw him pull out his cell phone and stab in a number, mumble something, then stab in another number.

He strode around the car and she heard him mutter, “I need a cab at the Marquee Theatre, please. Now.”

Her heart fell even more. He was done with her. He’d probably finally realized that what Lorraine said was true. He shouldn’t be wasting his time with her.

She jumped when her door opened and he held his hand out to her. With a frown, she looked up at him in confusion.

He smiled softly, stuffed his phone back in his pocket, and waited.

Slowly, more out of morbid curiosity than anything else, she slid her hand into his. He eased her back out of the car and said nothing, but placed the sweetest kiss to her cheek before turning and heading back toward her cousin.

“Hey!” he called.

Lorraine spun so fast she almost fell over. “Zane!” she shouted. She ambled over to him, giggling ridiculously, and Zane reached out to grasp her shoulders and stop her from crashing into him. “Hey, sexy.” She went for a purr, but it came out a slur. “That’s a record for Sophie. Usually guys get bored with her after only three minutes instead of five.”

Sophie saw tension coil through Zane’s broad shoulders, and he snatched Lorraine’s wrist before she could roam her questing hand across his chest. “Look,” he spat out. “I’m only going to say this to you once, so it would be in your best interests if you paid attention.” He turned and started to stride back toward the theater, dragging Lorraine along behind him. “I have no desire to be in the company of a trashy drunk woman with more plastic parts than flesh and blood ones. However, I also don’t feel right letting my date’s cousin wander the street a hot mess, so here’s the way it’s going to go down. I called you a cab. You’re going to get in it. I’m putting you in a nice room at the Marriott. Sleep it off and get over yourself.”

With impeccable timing, the taxi showed up right as Zane reached the front entrance. Sophie followed behind at a safe distance.

“Wait, what?” Lorraine grumbled. Then her blurry eyes lit up. “Oh, we’re going straight to the hotel then? You move fast.”

She tried to grope him again, but he restrained her. “
We
are not going anywhere.
You
are going to the hotel by yourself. Sophie and I are going to go enjoy our date.” He opened up the back door of the cab.

“You and
Sophie
?” she hollered. “This really is some kind of joke, isn’t it?”

He sneered at her, his disgust more than apparent. “The only joke I see around here is you.” He all but pushed her into the cab and slammed the door, then told the driver where to take her and handed him some money.

Sophie stared, shocked, as the cab drove off with her inebriated and obnoxious cousin. She slid her gaze over to Zane, who had his back to her. He stood tall, strong, his blond hair cascading down to his mid-back. Stick him in some medieval attire, put a sword in his hand, and he really would have looked like a warrior of old. She swallowed hard, and her heart skipped a beat as he looked at her over his shoulder.

She saw his shoulders move in a sigh before he walked back over to stand in front of her.

“I apologize for all of that,” he murmured.

She blinked in bewilderment. “Why did you do that?” Her voice came out in a breathy wisp of sound.

His brilliant green eyes met hers. “I told you it bothered me when you said negative things about yourself. It apparently bothers me worse when other people say negative things about you.”

“B-But why? You don’t even know me.” Her mind was spinning wildly out of control, and she was having difficulty processing anything that was currently happening.

“Does it matter?”

“I just…I’m pretty used to defending myself most of the time.”

He shrugged. “Everyone needs a champion once in a while.”

She stared at him for a long moment, long enough that he arched an eyebrow and started to look self-conscious. Then, she did something so out of character she wondered what kind of weird magic was in the air tonight. She slid her palms up his chest and linked her fingers behind his neck, all but attacking his lips with hers in a fervent kiss.

He responded instantly, slipping his arms around her to pull her tight and close against him. He dominated her mouth until she was dizzy and gasping. When she pulled away, she buried her face against his shoulder and closed her eyes, relishing his warmth and his strength, wanting to soak it into herself so she’d always remember.

His chuckle vibrated through her as he stroked his hands down her hair. “Now, you see, Sophie,
that
was anything but boring.”

She felt her face flame, so she snuggled closer to him in order to hide her complete embarrassment at her forwardness. He didn’t seem to mind. “This kind of stuff never happens to me,” she mumbled into his shirt.

“That’s the third time you’ve said that tonight.”

She finally pulled away to look up at him. “Well, it keeps getting weirder!”

A mischievous smile played around his lips. “Well, I’m not the one who put out my eye, karate chopped me in the neck, and then attacked my mouth right now. That’s all you. I’m just trying to go with the flow. Your cousin has to be smoking something, because this is, by far, the least boring night I’ve ever had.”

Sophie’s heart did something funny at his words, something dangerous. The last thing she needed to do was become attached to a famous musician. That had disaster written all over it. But regardless of what her common sense told her, if Zane kept saying such nice things to her, she was going to be in trouble.

She didn’t have much time to contemplate this because he nuzzled his lips against the side of her neck and her ear and she lost all rational thought. “You smell like cherry blossoms,” he murmured. “It’s driving me insane.”

Her face burned for, what, the ten-millionth time that night? She pulled back slightly and looked up at him. “Courtesy of Bath and Body Works.”

He raised his eyebrows and grinned. “Just an FYI, a
boring
woman wouldn’t wear such sexy fragrances.”

She rolled her eyes. “Okay, would you stop it with that? I’m going to blush myself into the ground.”

He laughed softly and slipped an arm around her waist so she couldn’t get away. “I’m just trying to tell you…” He pushed back some rogue strands of her sandy hair and gazed down into her eyes, all traces of teasing vanishing. He sighed. “Sophie, I don’t know what you’ve been led to believe you’re whole life, or who’s told you that you were boring, but it’s BS. All of it.” He smiled and traced the line of her jaw and the column of her throat with his fingers. “If you’re not too tired of me yet, I think there may still be some storm for us to chase. You still up for it?”

“Of course I am.” She didn’t recognize the sensual, breathy tone of her own voice, and she definitely didn’t recognize this new impulsive part of her that had been dormant for the first thirty years of her life. But, for some reason, she didn’t hate it. In all reality, it was kind of exhilarating.

Zane’s grin should have illuminated the entire parking lot. He reached down and took her hand. “All right, let’s go. I’m hungry. Are you?” At her nod, he squeezed her fingers and led her back to Lorraine’s car. “I’m pretty sure the only thing open right now is Jack in the Box, and if we’re going to catch up to the storm, we’d better get it to go. Is that okay? I know it’s not romantic, but…”

Sophie giggled. “Zane, I’m a teacher, and I’m single. Do you know how many nights a week I eat takeout? It’s not a big deal, I promise.”

He laughed, stopped in his tracks, then turned to take her face in his hands and kiss her again. Thoroughly. Sophie thought her lungs were going to burst from want of breathing but lack of remembering how. She was beginning to get used to the feeling of his lips on hers. It was both invigorating and petrifying.

When he released her, his grin was wolfish and wonderful. “Come on. We have a storm to catch up to, I’m starving, and I’m having an issue with my ailment.”

She frowned as she followed after him. “Your ailment?”

He threw a smile back at her over his shoulder that should have been outlawed. “Yes. I’m running a fever. I think I’m totally ‘hot for teacher.’”

She rolled her eyes at the complete cheesiness of his quoting the Van Halen song title, but her face betrayed her by flushing warm…again.