The Ex Factor: A Second Chance Enemies to Lovers Romance, page 13
He joined in with the applause when the set ended. He sipped his beer and accepted what he knew was coming. You couldn’t step into the Blue Bird and not expect to have your name called out if you were even remotely famous. It didn’t take long.
“So, I see we have some serious talent here tonight,” the emcee said, tipping his head in their direction. “Hart-Rivers in the house, y’all. Give them a warm welcome.”
Chance gave him a wave and turned and did the same to the room. Jolene blew a kiss to the emcee.
“Now, I don’t usually ask this.” The guy was in his forties, wearing sunglasses, and a black vest with designer jeans. Chance didn’t recognize him but he was clearly very comfortable on the stage, and his words didn’t sound particularly apologetic. He had the crowd and he knew it. “But my mother always said it never hurts to ask, so what would y’all think about coming on up here and singing us a song?”
There it was. Chance looked at Jolene. She was already shaking her head no. But Chance knew she was saying it because of him. Maybe it was time for him to bend a little. He was the one who had brought her here in public. So he couldn’t shy away from the spotlight. “I’m in,” he told her. “You feel like singing a song with me, JoJo?”
“Really?” Her eyes were wide. When she realized he was serious, she grinned. “I’d love to.”
“Cool.” He was ridiculously pleased that he could make her that.
He stood up and held his hand out to her. She took it, and he impulsively reached over and gave her a kiss. Her eyebrows shot up as she pulled back and looked at him.
“Really?” she repeated more softly, though he assumed this time she was referencing the kiss.
“Really.”
Everyone in the room was clapping and whistling already and they hadn’t even done anything. This was going to be fun.
“What should we sing?” he asked.
“Whatever you want.”
“Whiskey Kiss?” It was one of their hottest songs, both on the charts and in the lyrics. They’d written it one night naked in bed, and he had alternated picking his guitar and stroking on her. The memory made him wish they were alone and repeating every minute of that night.
“Oh, you are feeling feisty tonight, Chance Rivers,” she said. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”
He leaned over and whispered, “You’re going to have a whole lot in you in another hour or two. Can you handle it?”
“I can handle anything.” Jolene dropped his hand and stepped up on stage in front of the mic.
He chuckled and took the guitar being held out to him. Strap over his head, he fiddled with the instrument for a minute, getting the feel of it in his hands. He’d been playing since he was three years old, when his guitar had been bigger than him. Playing was the way he expressed himself the best, and he felt like he had a lot to say tonight.
Jolene was torn between just enjoying herself and feeling damn anxious over the way Chance was behaving. She had always thought she could only predict him up to a certain point. He was impulsive, he was moody, he was prone to outbursts. It had irritated her to no end that he could just switch emotions on a dime for no reason whatsoever and she was powerless to stop it. She could usually see it coming though. And she was sure something was about to go down with him tonight. He was in a weird mood.
But he definitely didn’t seem angry. In fact, he seemed the exact opposite. It wasn’t like him to be willing to step into public without a prearranged reason, and it definitely wasn’t like him to be willing to jump up on stage and play impromptu. The song he’d chosen was sexy as hell too, and one that always made her think about his strong, naked chest behind his guitar, his eyes boring into her like he wanted to devour every last inch of her. Twice.
He was looking at her that way now. Plus he’d kissed her. In full view of seventy-five people.
“Hello, everyone,” she said, voice low. It was a pleasant switch to be in such a small venue and she could make eye contact with the majority of the people in the room. “Thanks for letting us come up on stage tonight. Chance and I are working on a new album and we needed a break from writing, so this is perfect.”
She glanced over to Chance and gave him a nod. He started strumming his guitar, giving her a wink in return.
As usual, all of her worries, her tentativeness, disappeared when she opened her mouth and sang. She loved to massage the words, to coax the emotion from the melody, to tell the story of the lyrics to her audience. One of the few talents she possessed in spades was the ability to connect with a room full of people, to make them feel something when they listened. Her voice was high and sweet, the only thing about herself she felt her father had truly admired. He had always told her she had a church voice.
In a way, she did feel spiritual when she sang. She brought joy to her fans, and that meant something to her.
As she sang, shifting her gaze from the audience to Chance, and back, she realized for the first time that if everything went away, all the money, all the fame, all the awards, she’d still have this--her voice. Some of the tension and anxiety she’d been feeling about failure melted away. It was all good. Everything was good. She’d made peace with Chance and peace with her career, no matter what happened with either of them.
Elle had always told her she was terrible at living in the moment, but up on the small Blue Bird stage, the room dim, the tables dark and sticky, she was enjoying the hell out of it.
Whiskey Kiss was a song about sex, a song about falling in love.
She looked over at Chance again, standing there, owning that guitar that wasn’t his, commanding the music. He was so goddamn sexy. She wanted him to grab her and take her behind the bar and bang her like a screen door on a porch during a tornado in Oklahoma.
Given the look on his face, he was feeling the same way. She didn’t want to drive back to the cabin. She wanted to check into a suite two minutes up the road and have him tear her up until she was exhausted and hungry and unable to walk straight.
It had always amazed her that her thoughts could race around different topics while she sang without losing track of the lyrics or her pitch. But this song was intrinsically sexual and given what she was feeling, she knew it was coming across to the room. When she sang the last note and let it hang in the air, the bar was dead silent for a good twenty seconds.
Then the applause erupted, with a few good catcalls for good measure.
“Thank you,” she said. “Thank y’all so much. We’re so happy to be here tonight. It’s like coming home to be singing up here on this stage.”
The emcee, whose name she hadn’t caught, jumped up next to her. “Care to do one more?”
“Oh, no,” she demurred. “We came here to hear some music, not steal the stage. But thank you, you’re so sweet. We appreciate all the love.”
Chance handed the guitar back to the musician who had been performing and shook his hand. He reached out and indicated for her to exit first, his hand on the small of her back. For all he had protested letting the media think they were a couple, he was awfully touchy-feely tonight. She was glad she’d taken some time with her makeup because a dozen people had just used their phones to record their impromptu performance. She gave it about three minutes before Ginny started blowing up her phone. Though she honestly did not give a damn what her manager thought.
But she did give a shit what Chance thought, and at the moment, there was no telling what was rattling around in that man’s head.
When they sat back down, she had her answer.
He leaned over and murmured in her ear. “Hey.”
“Yes?” If he started talking dirty to her, they were going to have to leave. She had a decent poker face, but he lit her girl bits up like a blowtorch when he got to talking nasty, and she couldn’t hide that from anyone, let alone a whole crowd of curious onlookers.
“I love you.”
Jolene reared back so fast she almost fell off her chair. What the hell? He had never told her that. Ever. Not once. Not even when she had felt it so hard and true and pure from staring into his eyes that she would have bet money on it. But he’d never said it. Not even when she had ached to just reach out and pull the words from him, so she could let herself go. Let herself fall totally and completely in love with him. But he hadn’t. So she hadn’t.
They never got there.
But now, sitting in the damn Blue Bird, in full view of Nashville, he dropped an L bomb on her?
“What are you talking about?” she managed to whisper, her heart racing erratically. She went to take a sip of her beer, but her hand was shaking so she abandoned the attempt. The beer wasn’t what she wanted anyway. She wanted a shot of whiskey and an explanation.
“I love you. I always have, but I just never said it, which makes me a fool.” He skimmed a thumb over her lip and looked her straight in the eye. “But it’s true. I love you.”
She started to say something, she wasn’t sure what, but the band started playing and drowned her out. Thank you, baby Jesus in the cradle. She fell back against her chair, accidentally kicking Dolly. She reached down to pet the dog, needing to collect her thoughts, unable to look at him. Now he loved her? Seriously?
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” He had lean in extremely close to be heard over the music.
Oh, she had a thing or two to say.
“You’re about a day late and a dollar short,” she murmured back, suddenly sad and hopeful all at once. She didn’t want to tip her hand, but Lord, she wanted to see if they could be something better for each other a second time. “What am I supposed to say to that now, when we’re broken up?”
“How about you say we’re not broken up. How about we give it another go.”
She just stared at him, heart racing. This was crazy. Insane. But she hadn’t gotten over him because she wasn’t over him. She wanted more. She couldn’t read his expression. He was earnest, but otherwise, his eyes were hooded, his body close to hers, but tense. “Are you sure? Is that what you really want?”
He gave her a slow nod. Reaching out, he briefly touched her hair, his eyes sweeping over her face, his intense expression relaxing into a soft smile. “It’s what I really want. I love you, JoJo. Damn, I do. I just love you and I promise to be a better man this time around.”
Dang it. She felt like jumping up and whooping in triumph. Kissing him, and laughing and crying. But what a goddamn idiot he was for springing this on her right then, right there. He was so goddamn stupid and sexy and sweet and damn it, she loved him. She loved him hard.
All she could do was nod, a rapid up and down indication of her consent.
This wasn’t a good career move. If they had crashed and burned the first time, what would happen the second go round? Nuclear meltdown.
But right now, it wasn’t about her career. It was about her being a woman.
Who hadn’t stopped loving this man.
“I love you too,” she whispered. “Now get me out of here.”
Chance didn’t hesitate. “My place or yours?” he asked. “I’m not hauling ass back to that cabin tonight.”
“Yours. It’s closer and my sister isn’t there.”
He made a face. “I forgot about Elle. My place it is then.”
“Are we really doing this?” she asked.
“We’re doing it all, darlin’. Everything.”
Well, then. It was an offer she would be a fool to resist.
Mama didn’t raise a fool.
She stood up.
Twelve
Sometimes Chance didn’t even understand himself and this was one of those moments. Why would he pick here, now, to tell Jolene he was in love with her? But he was impulsive, always had been. He had looked at her and he had felt it with such certainty, there was no holding back the words. They just fell out of his mouth.
Her reaction had been about the best he could hope for. She was clearly shocked, and maybe a little bewildered, but she also looked happy. She looked like she loved him in return.
As they stood up and he tugged on Dolly’s leash to leave, he couldn’t prevent a shit-eating grin from splitting his face. So his timing could be slightly better. It was what it was. He was going to take his woman home and use his tongue much more effectively.
When they hit the sidewalk, Jolene paused to fan herself. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were glassy. “I don’t know what to say,” she said as they headed towards her truck. “I feel like we should talk about things.”
He didn’t want to talk. “What things?”
“Things. What we’re doing. Why we’re doing it.”
He wanted to just feel for tonight, not analyze and criticize and assess and plan. “Let’s not make this complicated. Let’s make this easy.” He stopped and looked at her. “You love me. I love you. We’re together. That’s it. Just let go, baby, let’s just enjoy it.”
“We did so much enjoying, we never got to talking and look where that got us.”
He didn’t want her to worry. “Then we can talk all day tomorrow. You tell me everything you ever wanted to say.” He cupped her cheek. God, she was so beautiful. “But tomorrow. Just give me tonight.”
There were suddenly tears in her eyes and he wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. All he knew was that seeing Jolene cry made him feel like he was a man who was willing to do anything on the face of the fucking earth to please her.
“I don’t want to fight,” she said.
“I don’t either, JoJo. I’m damn sure it is better to fight for each other, then to fight with each other. I want to fight for us.”
Her eyelashes swept down over her cheeks and her expression softened. “Sometimes, Chance Rivers, you have the soul of a poet.”
That hit him hard. He had never felt this way about a woman. She made him feel… worthy. “You flatter me, darlin’.”
“You do all kinds of things to me.”
Someone bumped into Chance and he suddenly realized there was a group of people outside the front door smoking and giving them curious stares. “Let’s go home.”
The desire on her face then instantly gave him a hard on. He wanted to take her against the wall the minute they stumbled through the front door.
It wasn’t a long ride, just ten minutes, but every one of them felt painful and endless. Jolene was humming a tune under her breath along with the radio and Dolly was panting in his ear, wedged between the two front seats, totally unaware of how unwelcome her presence was at the moment. He couldn’t complain though since he was the one who had insisted Dolly join them on this trip in the first place.
The house was a rental. The house he’d bought five years ago currently had renters living in it, because he had moved into Jolene’s house the previous winter. It had seemed like a wise financial decision, until he’d found himself homeless after their breakup. After a week in a hotel, he’d randomly picked a place off the Internet and had moved in quickly. Jolene had never been there, and he still had boxes lying around in every room. He hadn’t hung a single picture on the wall or bought any new furniture. It was a place to rest his head at the end of the night, nothing more.
There was however, one thing he had prominently displayed on the fireplace mantle.
Their Song of the Year Grammy.
It was the first thing she noticed when he led her into the house, hand in hand, her curious gaze searching the room.
“Nice décor,” she said, amusement in her voice. “Boxes and guitars and an award propped on the fireplace. Our award.”
He deserved that. “I told you I was sorry for lifting it. But I shipped that one back to you. This was always mine.” He pulled her up against his chest. He nuzzled her ear, loving the way she shivered at his touch. “I would like to state for the record that cuddling with a Grammy isn’t nearly as fun as cuddling with you.”
Jolene put her arms around his neck. “You can cuddle me hard all night, Rivers.”
“How about I start at the top and work my way down?” He loved the way she smelled, so fresh and sweet, and how soft her skin was. He wanted to explore her slowly, thoroughly, despite the overwhelming urge he had to take her against the wall. She loved him. Him. She saw through him or around him or deep inside of him and loved him despite his flaws.
Talk about a gift. The woman was amazing.
“You can woo me slowly later. Right now I just want you to be bossy as hell and take me. It’s what I love about you. It’s what drives me crazy about you. But I want it and I want it hard.”
Chance almost choked on his own desire. Holy hell, the woman was a five-alarm fire. “What my lady wants, my lady gets.”
Without giving her any time to respond, he spun her around by her shoulders and gave her a push in the direction of his bedroom. The bed wouldn’t be made, he could guarantee that. He never did. But he figured she knew him well enough to not be offended. Besides, his bed was like him. Messy. He’d always been just as messy on the inside and he was on the outside.
“Turn right,” he told her.
His room was small—they were basically by the bed the moment they stepped through the door. But as she moved to climb on, he grabbed both of her hands to stop her. “Feet on the floor. If you’re going to wear a dress, I’m going to take advantage of it.”
“What?” She started to glance back at him, but he gave her back a soft shove and she tumbled forward onto the bed. “Oh, you are taking this far too seriously.”
“You said bossy. I’m giving you bossy.”
“I hate it when you’re right.”
“No, you don’t. You love it.”
Shifting her hair off of the back of her neck, he trailed his fingers down his spine. She had her palms flat on the bed, head turned so she could watch him. The arch of her back was beautiful. Her ass rose high and tight, perky even through the flowing dress she wore. He didn’t think she’d been so fond of sundresses the summer before. He was really enjoying this new fashion phase she was in.
