“Last relationship you were in?”
“Besides psycho China? Odette. I didn’t cheat on her, but I struggled with wantin’ to cheat on her. She deserved better. How she didn’t end up hating me is a miracle. After that, I took what was freely offered. I was livin’ the dream. Then all that weird shit started happening. It spooked me. Way more than I ever let on. Around the same time, my buddy Mack LeFabre, lead singer in Southern Cross . . .” He paused. “You know who he is?”
“Yeah. He’s another one of those hot, brooding singers, so I’m guessing there are always chicks lined up outside his shows too.”
He nodded. “So this woman contacts his manager and says she had Mack’s baby. Mack’s like, no way. He always uses a condom and he’s never with the same woman more than one night. He agrees to the paternity test. It’s positive. So he and his lawyers meet up with this skanky Jamie woman and her lawyers. When he sees her, the mother of his kid, he doesn’t even remember her.
“He tells me later he was quietly freakin’ out the entire time, because something felt off. When she named a ridiculous amount of money she’d need for child support, he lost it, and the lawyers ended the meeting. As they’re walking out of the building, another woman approaches him, and he vaguely remembers her. She tells him she and Jamie were both in his tour bus that night, but she—not Jamie—was the one he had sex with. Twice. While they were doin’ a little sixty-nine for round three, evidently Jamie pawed through the damn garbage and fished out the used condoms.”
“No way,” she breathed.
“Sounds like some freaky thing on one of them medical TV shows, but it happened. Not to be crude, but she sucked the come out of the used condoms with a syringe, shot it into herself and made herself pregnant. It’s a huge mess because no matter how it happened, Mack junior is still his kid. He all but offered her every penny he had so the boy could live with him, but she refused. So Mack has limited visitation, huge child support payments and has to live with the knowledge that this psycho bitch is raising his son and there’s nothin’ he can do about it.”
“That’s horrible. But, Devin, why are you telling me this?”
“Because it could’ve happened to me. That’s when I decided no more sex with groupies. No more stupid chances. I had a paternity scare once. And as long as you asked, groupies prefer givin’ head to straight-up f**king anyway. Or they get off showing their wild side by providing me with live girl-on-girl action.”
“You like girl-on-girl?”
“Darlin’, all guys like it. No different jerking off to it whether it’s on the computer screen or happening right in front of me.”
“God. I can’t believe we’re talking about this. So you’ve been hiding these revised ‘no sex’ groupie parameters from everyone?”
“Yes, because it seemed like . . . by not f**king them, I was makin’ a personal choice. Dumb as that sounds. And like I said, the ladies lie about getting f**ked by me—regardless if they do or not.”
“The last time you had sex—”
“Was about fifteen minutes ago, and, baby, it was amazing,” he murmured in her ear in that deep, sexy voice.
“It was amazing. But you know what I mean.”
“The last woman was an old girlfriend. She was separated from her husband, and it just sort of happened.” Devin spun around until they were face-to-face. “Then came you.”
Liberty covered his mouth with hers because she’d heard everything she needed to.
After he had thoroughly scrambled her brain with a ferocious kiss, he backed off, treating her tingling lips to soft nibbles as they continued to share the same air. “Liberty.”
“Mm?”
“Come up to my cabin with me. If we leave from here, we can be at Flathead in eleven hours. Less than that if you drive that car as fast as I suspect you do.”
She laughed softly.
“You already have extra clothes, but I hope to keep you mostly naked anyway. We’ll stop in Casper, get food and any other supplies we’ll need.”
“So we’ll stick with the original travel schedule? Because I’m not leaving my baby in an airport parking lot in Montana for three weeks.”
“No, we’ll stay at the cabin a couple of days, then drive back to Colorado and fly out of Denver to Portland together.” His eyes darkened. “But we’re takin’ a car service to the airport—you won’t need the King Kong twins’ services.”
“They do draw extra attention.”
“So what do you say? You and me in the fresh mountain air?”
“Sounds like fun.”
“It will be. Now, to my next question. Ever been f**ked on your car?”
Her belly somersaulted. “No, but that’ll leave scratches, not to mention a big dent—”
“Not the way I plan on doin’ it. And the only place I’m gonna leave scratches? Is the beard burn on the back of your neck when I bend you across the trunk and pound into you from behind.”
She shivered. “Uh. Sure. You want to do this now?”
“No. I’ll let it be a surprise. I just wanted your permission because I know how much you love that damn car.”
Chapter Twenty-six
Late-afternoon sun spilled through the curtains, waking him from his unintentional catnap after a hot, sweaty bout of sex.