An immediate shake of his head. “No, not my deal. Music’s my addiction.”

Relaxing, she whipped up the first omelet. “I didn’t realize bands as big as Schoolboy Choir could move so fast.”

“Normally no, but like I said, Marc’s a buddy, and he’s raising money for a children’s charity. It would’ve been a problem if we were already doing a concert in the city, but since that isn’t the case, there’s no bullshit red tape.”

She poured the omelet into a second pan. “So he’ll refund the people who wanted specifically to see the other band?”

A nod. “He figures he’ll make that up with the increased ticket sales.” Fox shrugged, his shoulders rippling with the lithe muscle that felt so beautiful under her touch. “Plus, we’re here, and it’s a low-stress outdoor gig.”

Putting the fried potatoes on a couple of thick paper towels to drain, she flipped the omelet. “I’m sure you’ll draw a huge crowd.” The words “legendary” and “iconic” were already being used in connection with the band’s name—Schoolboy Choir’s sheer, raw talent was as obvious as their love of music.

“You could be a part of it.”

Air was suddenly hard to find. “Are you asking me to go with you?” she said at last.

“It’s on Saturday night. You could leave work a little early if you don’t want to take the whole day off, be there in plenty of time.”

Molly bit the inside of her cheek, her throat thick. The fact was, since she usually never requested unanticipated vacation days, her boss wouldn’t quibble about either a half-day or a full day. “You’ll take this the wrong way,” she said when she could speak, turning to face Fox with her breath painful in her lungs, “but I don’t want to be known as the woman you’re sleeping with.”

His lashes lowered to hood his expression. “Yeah, how else should I take it?”

“You’ll go,” she said, gripping the counter behind her and fighting back tears. “After a month, you’ll go. But I’ll still be here, living my life. Being famous, even by association… I can’t handle it, Fox.” Already, her stomach churned at the idea of being known as “Fox’s Secret Lover,” the headline sure to be splashed across the magazines.

Molly might have decided to break out of the box into which she’d wedged herself at fifteen, but fame was the one thing she’d never touch, not for anything or anyone.

Not even a man who made her wish for an impossible dream.

Heart aching and throat raw from holding back her emotions, she turned back to the stove and plated the omelet, then poured in the other one while pushing down on the toaster lever to start the bread. “Don’t be angry,” she said quietly, aware it’d be difficult for him to understand the depth of her aversion to the idea of fame without knowing the ugly background responsible for her gut-deep abhorrence.

Yet she couldn’t tell him, couldn’t bear to see pity—or even worse, disgust or speculation—in his eyes. She understood she wasn’t being rational, that Fox wasn’t like the teenagers who’d alternately shunned and tormented her after the scandal broke, but this was the one point on which she simply couldn’t be rational. It hurt too much.

Fox flexed his hand on the counter, his eyes on Molly’s back. “I get it.” Shoving a hand through his hair, he blew out a breath. “Shit, yeah, I get it. I once walked a girl home from a bar in London because she was drunk and the next day, she sold her story to the tabloids.” It had been early on in the band’s career, but Fox had never forgotten.

“Turned out we had a ‘mad sex romp’ in the seconds it took for me to make sure she got safely inside her place.” He’d felt like such an idiot for falling for what had obviously been a setup, given that the tabloid had pictures of him in her doorway. “That was her claim to fame and she milked it for all it was worth.”

The second omelet done, Molly put it on a plate then came over to wrap her arms around him from the back. “Well, whatever happens”—she rubbed her cheek against his skin, the open warmth of her affection a powerful drug of which he couldn’t get enough—“I promise not to sell the videos I made of our mad sex romps.”

He half-turned to tuck her under his arm, realizing his librarian was trying to make him feel better. The tenderness he felt for her dug its tendrils in even deeper, the emotion a punch to the gut. “Funny.” He scowled. “Not.”

Rising on tiptoe, eyes laughing, she rubbed her nose against his.

He was fucking undone. Just gone.

“Do you have a real one of those?”

“What?”

“A sex tape?”

“There was this time with an entire professional cheerleading team…”

Her expression was priceless.

Shoulders shaking, he claimed a hard, fast kiss. “Gotcha.”

“Funny. Not.” She pulled his hair in a retaliation that just made him want to haul her into his lap and mess her up with his mouth, his hands. So he did. It was the best damn breakfast he’d ever had.

They drove out of the city and down the coast that afternoon, the stark autumn scenery stunning through the windows of the low-slung car as it ate up the road. Stopping for ice cream at an isolated corner store, they took seats on the grassy verge of a windswept beach. Low tide as it was, the sand seemed to go on forever, smooth as sugar and sprinkled with minerals that made it glitter under the sun.

Despite the beauty, the cool temperature meant there were only three other people on the beach, and they were far out near the water’s edge—a bundled-up toddler and his parents. Nearby, there was only a long piece of driftwood worn smooth by time and water and the occasional seagull pacing the sand for tiny crabs and mollusks.

“This is the best date.” The unsophisticated words spilled over Molly’s lips, she was so happy.

Picking up her hand, Fox kissed her palm, the caress unexpectedly sweet. “Yeah, it is.”

She curled her fingers around his, let him taste her ice cream, took a big bite out of his, which made him cry foul and attempt to claim it back in a laughing kiss. There would, she thought as he wrestled her giggling form to the grass, be no forgetting Fox. It wouldn’t only hurt when he walked away, it would be brutal.

Strong, intelligent, and talented, he’d marked her deep inside.

That talent was in haunting evidence later that night, when—having picked up his acoustic guitar on the way back from the beach—he played for her. Lying curled up naked under the sheet in bed, a jean-clad but otherwise undressed Fox in a chair facing her, Molly listened and felt her entire body ache at the harsh beauty of his music, the edgy sound distinctively Fox.

 “I can’t figure out how you create something so extraordinary from a few strings and your fingers.” She could listen to him forever. “Play it again, please.”

Fox’s smile was quiet, the look in his eyes unreadable as he complied. “It’s not finished yet.”

“Will you,” she began, hesitated, took the plunge. “Will you play it for me if it’s done by the time the month is over?”

A long look. “Yeah, baby. I promise.”

For some reason, she believed in his promise, despite the fact she’d spent a lifetime learning not to trust. “Thank you.” Then she lay silent as he moved his fingers over the strings with a grace that astounded and compelled. When he added his voice, keeping the volume low to avoid disturbing her neighbors, she felt her heart stop beating.

A fallen angel might have a voice like that, she thought, hard and pure and with an unashamed sexuality to it that invited the listener into sin. It made her eyes burn, tears roll down her face.

Setting aside his guitar as the last note faded from the air, Fox walked over to kneel beside the bed. His hand slid into her hair, his lips touched hers… and Molly felt herself fall, her shields crashing in splintered shards at her feet.

Fox held Molly in his arms after she fragmented in pleasure. He’d touched her with all the tenderness he had in him after she cried while listening to the song he’d been working on for weeks, the final pieces coming only today. Because of his beautiful Molly who did things to him he didn’t understand, who spoke to him without lies, who made him wish he were a better man. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to give her up.