Always (33 page)

“Sorry, I went on a longer ride this morning. It was later than I realized when I hit the peak. Hope you don’t mind that I rode straight here.”

Justine shook her head wordlessly, fascinated by a glimpse of Dillon’s life she’d never seen. Hearing him talk about bike riding was a very different thing than seeing him riding up to her house, glistening with sweat, his shirt sticking to his chest. He was an actual
athlete
. He looked powerful and strong. She couldn’t tear her eyes away.

“Hey,” he murmured as he moved past her— just inches away— and into the house.

“Hey,” she finally replied, barely audible.

“Where’s Gracie?”

Justine had to clear her throat before she could answer. “Gymboree with Meggie.”

“Mind if I grab a water?” he asked. “That ride was a killer. I’m dying.”

He didn’t wait for her reply, since he was as familiar with her house as with his own. When she caught up to him in the kitchen, he was bent at the waist, leaning into the refrigerator, arm propped on top of the open door. Every muscle and tendon in his tanned forearm stood out in sharp relief, highlighted by the sheen of sweat coating his skin. He found a bottle of water and stood up, twisting the top off and tipping his head back to drink. His eyes closed as he swallowed. Justine watched his throat working, and watched a bead of sweat roll down his neck, track over the rise of his collarbone and disappear into his white t-shirt.

Her mouth went dry. When did he become so… hot? She’d always found him attractive, but after everything they’d been through, it had been years since that fact had any sort of visceral impact on her. Not like the full-body melt-down she was currently experiencing. Her face felt frozen, while the rest of her was heating up. She felt strangely light-headed even as other parts— more interesting parts— felt heavy, swollen.

He lowered the water bottle after having downed most of it in one long gulp. Then he lifted the hem of his t-shirt, bringing it up to wipe the sweat off his face, exposing the flat plane of his stomach and his well-defined abs. A sparse trail of hair sprinkled down the centerline of his abdomen, disappearing underneath the low-slung waistband of his basketball shorts— so low the cuts of his hipbones were visible. He had hipbone cuts.
Dillon
had hipbone cuts.

Justine swallowed thickly, overcome with the urge to lick him,
climb
him. Jesus, when did he get so ripped? How had she not noticed? Seeing him day in and day out must have blinded her to his raw appeal. Well, she wasn’t blind anymore. He was all she could see, every hard, sweaty inch of him.

He lowered his shirt and flashed her another broad, white grin, oblivious to her lust-struck face. “Can I run through the guest shower before we get started? You’ll like me better that way.”

She closed her eyes and nodded. He didn’t mean anything by it. He was talking about sweat and working in close quarters in the studio all afternoon. Except now she was picturing him upstairs, naked, in her guest bathroom, and close quarters, and sweat, and she couldn’t breathe again. Her thighs were pressed so tightly together that her muscles ached. Holy hell.

She kept her eyes closed until he left the room and didn’t exhale again until she heard his footsteps on the stairs. Then she bolted for the safety of the studio.

If she thought all her inappropriate thoughts would go away once the session musicians were there with them, she was wrong. Suddenly all she could notice, everywhere she turned, was Dillon. The way his shirt stretched taught across his well-defined shoulders as he leaned forward to adjust the mic. The way his perpetually sleepy eyes flashed up at her now and then while she was singing. The way he’d absently rake his fingers through his dark, messy hair when he was listening to playbacks. And always his hands. Those long, guitar-player’s fingers with the calloused fingertips. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from his hands.

Once, he caught her while she was completely zoned out, eyes glazing over as she watched his fingers form a D-chord on the neck of his guitar.

“Justine.”

She looked back to his face and blinked. “What?”

“Which one? Or neither?”

“Which what?”

His face showed the faintest trace of amused exasperation. “Which note? Do we need to call it a day? You don’t seem like yourself.”

She cleared her throat and shook her head. “No, no. I’m fine. Just, um… thinking.”

“Okay,” he said slowly, still watching her. He knew her too well, of course. He wasn’t going to buy “I’m fine” for very long. She needed to pull it together.

Fifteen minutes later, she was chewing her bottom lip and watching him in the recording booth as he leaned over the sound board to discuss something with the engineer. She was gripping the mic stand so hard her knuckles had gone white.

No sex— that was her problem. She hadn’t had sex in way too long. Not since last Christmas, before she broke up with Ian. All she needed was some hot, throw-down sex. The problem was, she was no longer someone who could go pick up an anonymous guy at a bar. She didn’t want to do that anyway. Maybe when she was younger, single, childless. Now casual sex with some virtual stranger held no appeal. Sex with
Dillon
, on the other hand….

Damn.

Now she’d gone there, thought about it,
pictured
it— and she couldn’t
stop
thinking about it. Wanting it. Wanting him.

This was Dillon. Almost anybody else in her orbit was a smarter choice than Dillon. Aside from the fact he was her best friend in the world, they were also in the middle of recording an album together. There was no way she’d do anything to jeopardize the album. Justine stopped short when she realized she was thinking of it in terms of when it could happen, rather than whether or not it should. Dear God, she needed to be so careful. This was dangerous, risky ground. Hormones were one thing, but this was something entirely different.

As she watched him still deep in consultation with the engineer, she made a deal with herself. They had maybe another few weeks of work on the album. She’d keep her hands to herself as long as they were still working together. If she was still this… obsessed when the album wrapped— well, then she’d decide if she wanted to take the chance.

December, 2013

“What if the echo beat in the back was a half step lower?”

“Slower?”

“No, lower. Here, listen.” Dillon moved a few levers on the sound board and hit the playback again. The song pulsed through the sound system all around them, but they sat with their heads close together like they were still sharing a single set of headphones.

“Oh,” Justine breathed when she heard what he meant. “I like that.”

“No, wait…” He kept fine-tuning, changing it incrementally, and on the last playback, he knew they had it. It settled into a groove he could feel in his gut.

“That’s it,” she grinned. “It’s perfect.”

“Nothing’s ever perfect.”

She elbowed him. “Perfect for me, Mr. Type A.”

He chuckled and typed a few keys, backing up the track on the hard drive. “Well, I think it’s a wrap.”

“Do you know what this means?” She was beaming, almost bouncing in her chair with excitement.

“You’re done?”

“Well, until the label picks over these last few tracks and gives me a million suggestions, but yeah, we’re done!”

Dillon laughed. “Congratulations on number three, Ms. James.”

“As always, I couldn’t have done it without you. Come on. We’re celebrating.”

She grabbed his hand and tugged him out of his chair and out of the studio. He let her hang onto his hand and lead him through her dark and quiet house. The studio musicians had finished up a couple of weeks earlier. For most of the month, Dillon and Justine had worked mostly alone, fine-tuning and tweaking in the studio. It was after eight. He’d stayed for dinner, as he often did, and they’d decided to finish up the last track after she put Grace to bed. Meggie was out in her own place behind the pool.

A fifteen foot tall Christmas tree was lit up in the sitting room as they passed through, making the room glow softly. In the kitchen, she rooted through the refrigerator until she unearthed a bottle of sparkling cider in the back. She waved it overhead in triumph.

“I got this two months ago so we could celebrate when we finished.”

“Very nice of you.”

She retrieved glasses out of the cabinet while he popped the cork on the bottle.

“You can drink what you want,” he said as he poured two glasses for them. “You know, something real. I’ll be fine.”

She squeezed his arm. “I know, but I don’t mind. I want to share this with you.”

“Even crappy sparkling cider?”

“Especially crappy sparkling cider.”

Justine raised her glass to him and he clinked his to it. “Well then, to the album,” he said.

“To
our
album,” she corrected before taking a sip.

It was a quiet and intimate moment, one of a million they’d shared that he valued more than most anything in his life. It was them, it was theirs, the night, the music, the connection. Dillon took a second to close his eyes and appreciate it, the miracle of his life, despite the odds. Maybe he didn’t have everything he wanted, but he had a lot. So much more than he deserved, in some ways.

They sat together at the counter for a while longer, sipping at the too-sweet sparkling cider and discussing the album. They both had strong thoughts about the first single, thoughts not shared by the label, and Justine was gearing up to fight them on it. She’d probably win. She usually did these days. There was another tour in the offing, too, which she was alternately dreading and looking forward to. He was dreading it, too, because it meant long months of her being gone. But he had his other work now. He was in high demand as a producer these days, and he could stay as busy as he chose to be. Now that Justine’s album was done, he planned on booking a lot of work. It was still best to stay busy.

“Hey,” she reached across the counter and rested her hand on his arm. “What are you doing for Christmas?”

“Um, bike ride?”

Justine shook her head firmly. “You’re coming here. Christmas with a toddler. Shredded wrapping paper and stuffed animals the size of a house. Come on, you know you want to.”

He chuckled. “It sounds great, actually. Sure, I’ll come. I wouldn’t miss it.”

She smiled up at him, her eyes sparkling gold in the ambient glow from the Christmas tree, and slid her hand down to cover his. “You’d better not.”

He glanced down to her hand. It hadn’t gone unnoticed that she was more affectionate than usual lately. They’d always been physically comfortable with each other, but in recent weeks, he’d noticed her trailing fingers, her lingering touches. Maybe he’d have chalked it up to wishful thinking on his part, except once or twice he’d glanced up and caught her looking at him with what he could only describe as lust. The idea that Justine might want something with him, after all this time, was a little bit thrilling and a whole lot terrifying. Because at the end of the day, he worried about her reasons, or more to the point, her lack of reasons. She’d been separated from Ian for most of the past year and to the best of his knowledge, there had been no one else. She spent all her time outside the studio with her toddler daughter. It was entirely possible she was just…horny. God only knew he was. And that was nowhere near enough for him.

So when her eyes got a little sultry, and she licked her lips more than once, he knew he’d better get out of there before something happened they couldn’t undo.

He flipped his hand over until they were palm-to-palm and squeezed her fingers. “I’d better go.”

She sighed and slid off her barstool, following him to the front door. He stopped and turned back to her.

“Congrats again on finishing the album. You really should be proud of it. It’s good work. Your best yet.”

“Thanks,” Justine said, reaching up to hug him. He hugged her back, a long, gentle embrace like ones they’d shared a thousand times before. He could feel the warmth of her breath on his neck as she tucked her face under his jaw. Then he felt her lips ghost across his skin and his breath stalled in his chest. Without thinking, ignoring all the ways this could be a bad idea, his hold on her tightened. She sank closer to him. He closed his eyes. All his noble intentions were crumbling to dust.

In the dim front hall, there was nothing but their whispered breathing and the smell of her hair and her warm body under his hands. Her name was forming on his tongue, a question, but he couldn’t make the sound, not when he felt her lips on the underside of his jaw, on his cheek. He turned his face down to hers and found her mouth with his and every question went unasked. Instead, there was only this moment, this kiss, fragile and breathless, as neither dared to move. She exhaled first, and pressed against him with purpose, with desire. His flared up to match, because God, he wanted her. The fire was always banked, but the heat was still there, buried in the dark. A little breath of oxygen made it roar to life. His mouth opened over hers and finally he was tasting her sweet mouth, her lips, her tongue. Her hands slid up into his hair, fisting, pulling his head down. He moaned, low in his throat, and his fingers curled into her waist. One hand released, slid up her spine, under her silky, thick hair, and cradled her head. His thumb stroked her cheek and she angled her face to kiss him deeper.

Drowning. He felt like he was drowning. So long he’d wanted this and it was so much better than he could have guessed. He couldn’t stop touching her— her face, her neck, her shoulders, the small of her back, her hair. Her hands slid over him, gripping his neck, moving over his chest. They swayed, shifted, closer to each other, bodies pressed tight together. His hand traced down her side, over her hip, fitting her against him. His pulse pounded and his body woke up, screaming with need. He felt her hands fist into his shirt and then she was unbuttoning it.
Undressing him.
When her fingers slid inside, along his chest, he broke the kiss with a gasp. He reached up, grasping her face in his hands, resting his forehead on hers, dragging in ragged breaths.