Joy Ride by Desiree Holt (bill gates best books TXT) 📗

be playing just for you,” he whispered in her ear before leaping back onto the stage.

A voice rose just enough to be heard over the crowd. “He’ll get tired of you soon, you know.”

Emma turned and found the redhead’s face inches from hers. She blinked. “What?”

“You’re not his style. I am. So why don’t you just take your little self out of here and leave the big boys to us.”

She looked away, doing her best to ignore the woman. Not to get riled.

Lacey poked her arm with a sharp-nailed finger. “Did you hear me? You’re out of your league here.”

Her words were so close to what Emma had been thinking. She didn’t need someone like this redheaded bitch reinforcing it. She breathed a sigh of relief when the first notes of a song split the air and the sound filled the room, killing any further ability for Lacey to be heard.

Emma made herself focus on the music, on Marc, shutting everything else out of her mind.

The final set was electrifying, jam-packed with an energy that pulsed through the club and wrapped itself around the people there. By the last song, the crowd bumped, swayed, and gyrated as one person, as if an extension of the music poured over them. Emma was almost regretful when the band said goodnight.

Almost.

People crowded the stage clamoring for Marc’s attention, along with the other band members, while they packed away their instruments. Emma tried to make herself invisible, leaning against the wall by the back door. She breathed a little easier when he was able to break free. With his guitar case in one hand and the other firmly clamped around her arm, he hustled her out the door.

“Before someone else wants to hang out with me,” he muttered. “Where’s your car?”

She pointed to the spot she’d managed to squeeze into.

“Okay. I’ll come around from where I am on the other side. You can follow me like always. Okay?”

She nodded.

“Then let’s do it.”

Emma was a bundle of nerves as she followed him to his house, and she couldn’t have said which of the many things caused it. Maybe it was taking a stand with her folks after all this time, something she was many years past due for. Or venting her anger at Andrew. Or dumping her uncertainty on Annie and hearing her friend tell her life was for taking chances. She smiled in the darkness of the car. Maybe it was even the purple streak in her hair or the slightly sexy new clothes. And the confrontation with that bitch, Lacey, certainly hadn’t helped. She definitely wasn’t used to women like her—hard, edgy, balls-to-the-wall. Could you say that about a woman? Whatever it was, she had the feeling she was about to cross some line tonight, and she wasn’t quite sure she was ready for it.

But I’m going to do it because my heart—yes, my heart—tells me I should. And whatever happens, happens.

When Marc unlocked his front door, she was prepared for him to grab her and kiss her senseless the way he usually did. But instead as he walked in, he flipped a switch to light a small table lamp and placed his guitar next to an armchair. He then turned to her with that crooked grin in place.

“I thought maybe tonight you might actually want to see what my place looks like.” He winked. “I mean, before I hustle you into the bedroom and rip off your clothes.”

She giggled. “That might be nice.” And yes, she really wanted to see all of where he lived. See another side of the man who made hot music and even hotter love.

When she’d placed her purse on the lamp table, he took her hand and pulled her into the middle of the room. “I even cleaned up for you just in case. Although, I had to kind of rush through it.”

“Oh? How come?”

“I’ll tell you later. Well, what do you think?”

She moved in a slow circle, taking everything in. The floor was a polished hardwood with a colorful rug in the conversation area. Part of the room was filled with comfortable, overstuffed furniture; most of it arranged to face a big flat screen television mounted on one wall. On another wall was a framed modern painting in vivid colors.

“You like modern art?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I like this one. My cousin painted it. She gave it to me for a housewarming gift.”

Hmmm. So he had a family and they did things like people she was used to. The more he revealed of himself, the more she came to believe him when he gave her bits and pieces of his so-called normal background—more normal than she thought in the beginning, for sure. It widened her comfort zone, helped her feel a little less insecure about this whole thing with her Guitar Man. Was it really possible that their background weren’t as different as she imagined? Could they find more and more common ground, something beyond the hot and sweaty sex? Did his background mean that she could really believe the things he said to her in the heat of passion?

Geez, overthink much?

Emma circled the room, once more. Next to a big armchair was a stack of magazines, the top one with a guitar player on the cover. On the coffee table in front of the sofa, a pile of notebooks had been neatly stacked, precisely aligned. Oh yes, he’d gone to some trouble here no matter what he said.

“Did you do all this yourself?” she asked, knowing what a humungous job it must have been, especially the floor.

“A lot of it. My dad and my brothers helped.”

More normal stuff. First about his dad. Now the family picture was fleshing out more, changing more her perspective of him. She wondered what his mother was like. Controlling, like hers? Or supportive of her children? Warm and friendly or cool and distant? Was there a preconceived image he had to live up to or was he lucky enough to