Three of Hearts (7 page)

“I was afraid of this,” Ben muttered.

Lucas sighed and shoved a hand through his hair. I remembered only too well what that felt like, his thick, soft hair . . . My respiration sped up again, and I started to panic even more.

Lucas frowned. “Hey,” he said. “You look like you need a paper bag over your face.”

I frowned at him. “What the hell does that mean?”

“For your breathing. Relax.” He edged closer, and his hand rubbed my back in a slow rhythm. “Relax, babe. It’s okay.”

I pulled the duvet up over my head. Lucas’s soft chuckle permeated the thick layer. His hand continued its soothing strokes, and the darkness and probably lack of oxygen eased my panic.

Gentle hands tugged the duvet away from my face. Lucas handed me my tank top and pajama shorts. “Here. Put these on. We’ll talk later. We need to get moving.”

Okay, enough of the sweet stuff. He was back to take-charge Lucas.

Ben gave Lucas a long look as Lucas rose off the bed, then turned his gaze back to me, the skin around his eyes tight, his lips set into a straight line.

The room spun as it had the night before after the drinks I’d had. Yep, freaking right the hell out. I tried to gather my thoughts and get control of my trembling body. I sucked in a long breath and fumbled beneath the covers to tug on the shorts. When it came to putting on the tank top, it seemed ridiculous to hide beneath the covers when they’d seen everything I had, and that meant
everything
. So I dropped the duvet and pulled on the top, my breasts tightening as I knew they watched. I swung my legs over the side of the bed and sat there for a moment. “Okay,” I said. “I need to get dressed and pack.”

We were going home. Home to Nashville. After being on the road for so long, I’d been looking forward to getting back to our house and normal life, and back to writing and recording. But now . . . How normal could things be? My heart kept up that fast, frantic rhythm.

“We’ll meet you in the lobby for breakfast,” Lucas said, heading for the door. “How long? Ten minutes?”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Ten minutes to get ready? Clearly he knew how low-maintenance I was. “I’m not really hungry. I’m just going to get packed. You guys go on and have breakfast without me.”

Lucas nodded. “Okay, sure, babe. We’ll be back.”

They left me alone again. I still sat on the edge of the bed, hands planted beside me. I looked down at my toes, all professionally pedicured with peony-pink polish. Well. This was mortifying. Lucas’s cocky assumption that we’d be doing it again that night made my insides do another slow roll of lust, even as it terrified me. On the other hand, I got the feeling Ben wasn’t so eager. Confusion twisted up inside me as I considered rushing to the phone to change my flight.

No. How could I run from them when we lived together? Somehow we’d have to deal with this.

I rose from the bed. I’d better get busy.

I hit the shower, then searched for clothes. It was a travel day, so I dressed in my favorite faded low-rise jeans and a T-shirt—but, acknowledging the fact that there could be photographers anywhere, the T-shirt was a silky slub-knit white with silvery graphics on the front, my boots were bronze-and-black Lucchese, and I added a small fitted jacket in charcoal, super-soft leather.

When I went to do my makeup I expected to look like hell, but strangely, once I faced myself in the mirror, it wasn’t that bad. I’d slept like crazy after . . . well,
after
. And even though I might have drunk a teensy bit too much last night, I looked okay. I took inventory of how I felt: I didn’t feel hungover. My thighs felt tight, which reminded me of lying with them spread apart while Ben and Lucas pleasured me. Heat curled low in my belly and my nipples tightened, clearly visible through the thin T-shirt; color washed into my cheeks. Huh. I actually looked . . . good.

I dried my hair, did a quick run over with the flat iron, and added mascara to my pale eyelashes and some gloss to my lips. Then I paused and slowly pulled out an eye shadow compact. As I applied more makeup and tousled my hair, it struck me that I wanted to look nice for Lucas and Ben. Crazysauce.

I’d become an expert packer even though it was tedious, so I soon had my suitcases neatly filled and zipped up, ready to go. I was scanning the room for any overlooked items when someone knocked on the door again.

This time I expected it to be Lucas and Ben, though I peeked through the peephole to make sure before opening the door. Ben held out a huge cardboard cup of coffee and a small bag. “Here.”

I took them automatically, my mouth watering at the scent of rich, dark coffee. I shot him a grateful look. “Thank you.”

“I know you need your morning caffeine.”

I felt an urge to kiss him, but he stepped back. Kissing him was a crazy idea anyway.

Ben pointed to the bag. “And we got you a bagel. You’ll starve if you don’t eat something before we leave.”

He was right, dammit. My lips pursed as I nodded.

“All packed?” Lucas started toward my suitcases, then gave me an up-and-down appraisal that heated my skin. “You look great.”

Oh my god, what was going on here? “Thank you,” I choked out. “And yes, I’m ready.”

“The car’s waiting. Our stuff’s already down there. Let’s go.”

I slung my big slouchy purse over my shoulder and clutched my coffee and bagel as the guys grabbed my cases, and we headed down to the lobby.

We were at about thirty thousand feet, through our Chicago connection and well on our way to Nashville, when I couldn’t stand it anymore. The guys had both wanted to sit beside me, and since I didn’t really care where I was seated and it made them happy, I sat between them in the row of three seats. I was acutely aware of their long legs and muscular thighs on either side of me, their broad shoulders brushing mine. Lucas kept talking about anything and everything—the tour, the concert last night, our plans for resuming work, song ideas, not to mention flirting like crazy with me—but didn’t seem to notice that Ben and I were not really responding. In fact, the scowl Ben wore had the flight attendant casting him uneasy glances.

I was one of those people who needed some alone time. Ben and I were both like that. We loved performing, but there were definitely times we needed to recharge our batteries. Ben had a moody side to him. When he needed some solitude, he got grouchy. I think I might have been the only person who ever pointed that out to him, because he’d scowled at me, seeming surprised the first time I told him to take a break and go build something by himself. Then he’d laughed. He was really critical of himself, down on himself if he didn’t play his best or made a mistake, and it made me feel good to make him laugh. Which I apparently did without even trying.

Lucas, on the other hand, fed off the energy of people around him, almost high on it after a concert. We’d had to clue him in pretty early on to the fact that he couldn’t expect to hang around us every minute of every day, because as much as we loved him, that would suck the life out of us.

This was one of those times.

I took a deep breath. “Lucas.”

“Yeah?”

“You need to stop talking.”

He blinked at me.

“Ben.” I turned to him. “Put your earbuds in and listen to some music. You’re acting all broody.”

Ben’s eyebrows lowered and his mouth tightened even more. Then he let out a breath. “Yeah.” He pulled out his iPhone. I did the same. I tried to let music soothe me for the rest of the flight, and it helped somewhat, but my stomach was still fluttering wildly thinking about what had happened and what was apparently going to happen again.

Brandon had arranged a car service to take us home when we landed in Nashville. It was a short drive from the airport on I-40, then onto Briley Parkway, then McGavock Pike where our house was. When we’d started to have some success, somehow the idea had been broached that the three of us should move into Ben’s house. I’d been living in a dumpy apartment, and Lucas’d had a downtown condo that he hated. It made perfect sense that we share Ben’s big house. He’d bought it mainly for the huge garage where he’d run his carpentry business. He’d gotten a good deal on the house because it needed so much work, but since that was his trade, he’d had no problem doing the renos on it. It had five bedrooms, four bathrooms, studio space for us to work, a living room and a main-floor family room, so we could all easily have our own space when we needed.

In the backseat of the car, my insides twisted into knots as we sped along I-40. But I couldn’t keep it in any longer. “Okay. We need to talk.”

“Now?” Lucas glanced at the driver, then back at me. “You want to talk
now
? We’re almost home.”

I nibbled the nail on my index finger. “I’m sorry, but I really need to know . . . what’s going on.”

He gave me an incredulous look, then took my hand. “You have to ask? Haylee, you have to admit . . . this has been building up for a while.”

“It has?” I blinked.

His forehead creased. “Hell yeah. You can’t tell me you haven’t felt it. There’s always been chemistry between us.”

Ben sighed. “Fuck.”

Lucas shot him a look. “All of us.”

“For making music!” Oops, that came out kind of loud. “Not for . . .”

Lucas bent over to whisper in my ear. “Sex.”

Ben sighed again. I tried to ignore him for the moment. “If you mean last night on stage—”

“Yeah, that was hot.” Lucas tightened his fingers over mine. “But it wasn’t just last night.”

My head whirled yet again. I was
so
not their type of girl. But I had to admit, last night in bed, that hadn’t seemed to matter one bit. I swiped my tongue across my lips and watched Lucas’s eyes lower to my mouth. I felt a dart of heat low in my belly.

Hmm.

My body tingled, and I was seized with anticipation of what was going to happen once we were home.

“You can make it up to us later,”
Lucas had said.

Remembering their strong, muscled bodies and how patient and attentive they’d been to me, and how I’d wanted to give them the same kind of pleasure, heat poured over me. I blinked rapidly and reached for the button that lowered the window, then shoved my face into the cool air that rushed into the car.

Lucas chuckled. “Is it horny in here, or is it just you?”

That got a laugh from Ben, and I had to join in, some of the tension easing out of me. I tightened my fingers on his hand. Ben sat on the other side of Lucas, and I wished I could hold his hand too. These two guys confused me and made me hot, but they also made me laugh. It was the craziest thing. Last night had just happened, spontaneously (sort of), fueled by a little alcohol (maybe), but anything that happened tonight, I was not going to be able to blame on a little booze and involuntary, uncontrollable lust.

I didn’t have to do it. If I told them I wasn’t into casual sex, or threesomes, or any kind of sexual relationship with the guys who were my bandmates—what would happen? Would we still be able to work together?

I nibbled my bottom lip, letting the cool air rush over my heated face.

My career was important to me. Music was my life. I’d started singing and playing guitar as a kid, with my dad’s band, traveling with him from town to town. I’d left home right after high school, against my dad’s wishes, and moved to Los Angeles, determined to have a bigger career than you could have in North Dakota. In LA, it had taken a few years of waitressing, walking dogs, and telemarketing before I actually got somewhere, singing backup vocals and actually selling some of my songs. But I’d also realized LA wasn’t for me.

I’d been avoiding writing country music, rebelling against the traditional country songs my dad’s band played, simple three-chord numbers about downer topics like drowning sorrows in a bottle of Jack. But when B.J. Avery had recorded a song I’d written, adding pedal steel and fiddle, it had been a huge country hit, and I’d decided to move to Nashville and see what would happen.

I’d soon met Lucas, who was also writing. We met at the Bluebird Café during one of their writers’ nights. I’d really liked what he was doing. I’d introduced myself and boldly suggested that we collaborate, and amazingly he took me up on my offer. And that was when the magic had started.

Lucas already knew Ben and invited him to help us record some of our demos. Lucas and I were both fair guitarists, but Ben’s guitar and fiddle skills were amazing. I played keyboard, rounding out our little band, although I could also play guitar. When we’d listened to the demo with my throaty contralto, Lucas’s bass, and Ben’s smooth background vocals singing three-part harmony, we’d all sat there and stared at each other. Were we nuts, or did we have something unique and special?

Apparently we
did
have something unique and special, given how fast things had clicked for us after that. I didn’t have the best voice in the business, but the three of us together created a fresh new sound. Alone, I was a good singer. Together . . . well, I’m not bragging when I say we sounded great.

When I thought about what I’d accomplished so far, pride swelled inside me. When I thought about what Ben and Lucas and I had created together, the success we were having, the possibilities that lay before us, it blew my mind.