savvy. “Okay,” he said, shortly.
“What? Are you mad?”
“No. Of course not.” He was just done with having to make decisions about his life based on what some shutterbug thought they caught on camera. He eyed the shelf and grabbed the wine Jolene had requested. “I’m just not sure you should throw meat to the lions. They’ll keep circling back around for more.”
“What do you think we should do?”
Run away to a deserted island and spend all day making love in the sand. But there was nowhere to run and Jolene didn’t want to anyway. “I honestly don’t know.”
“I didn’t tip the media off, I hope you know that.”
She’d never been a liar, so he did trust she was telling the truth. Besides, that wasn’t her style. She wasn’t manipulative, never had been. “I know JoJo. I would never think that.” He also knew he needed to be a better man. That was what the last few months had taught him. “I’ll do whatever you want to do.”
“Why, Chance, I do believe you’re being sweet to me.”
He was feeling kind of sweet on her. It was dangerous. “I have my moments.”
“If you want to move locations, we can. I don’t want you fretting over it. We can do whatever you want to do.”
Listen to them, being all considerate with each other. It was a refreshing change. “Here’s what I want to do-- I want to cook you dinner, have a drink, and pick my guitar.”
Her voice lowered. “Oh, yeah? How about you pick me too?”
Was that a trap? Trick question? “Is that a genuine offer?”
“It’s definitely an offer.”
It might be a trap but he was willing to walk right into it. That body… damn, she was so incredibly sexy. He wanted to sink right into her softness, and never leave. Print that as a headline on the magazine.
He was glad on some level that Ginny was forcing them together. And it wasn’t just because of sex. He felt like them learning to be comfortable around each other again was positive for their album, better yet for their future tour.
And the sex was a big old bonus. He wasn’t going to lie.
“I’m not exactly sure what you’re offering, but I’m just going to feel my way around it until I figure it out.” He moved toward the checkout lane.
Jolene laughed softly. “Show me what your fingers can do, picker.”
It wasn’t his fingers she needed to be worrying about. He cleared his throat. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
When he stepped outside after checking out, he thought he heard someone call his name. He turned, grocery bags in hand, to investigate, and saw a man with a camera about ten feet away, face hidden by the lens.
It was hard to gauge whether or not the guy was taking a shot, but just in case, he gave a nod to let the man know he’d seen him. He wasn’t going to smile, and he knew that by himself, he wasn’t nearly as interesting as he was with Jolene by his side. So he just got back into Jolene’s truck himself and exited the lot.
When he pulled up to the cabin, he checked his phone quickly. Sure enough, recent tweets from a gossip site claimed “Hart-Rivers secrets soon to be revealed.”
Chance wished someone would reveal them to him because the media always made him feel like he was a chess piece being pushed around on a board and he didn’t like it one bit.
“Did you miss me?” he said, as he strolled into the kitchen where Jolene was bent over the refrigerator, treating him to a stellar shot of her ass.
She stood up and glanced back at him. “Desperately.”
“I do believe that was sarcastic. Never mind. Let’s just have a drink and get down to business.” He plunked the bags down on the counter and went for her.
Jolene tossed her blond hair back. “Or you could skip the drinking and show me what you can do to me.”
That was why he was he had been willing to put up with cameras in his face. That sexy confidence she had in spades. “Is that a challenge?”
“Call it what you want.”
It took sixty seconds to walk her up against the wall and raise her hands over her head. Damn, he had missed her.
Six
Jolene’s mama always told her she didn’t need to stick her finger in the fire to know it was hot. She should not be engaging Chance in verbal foreplay. Or literal foreplay. Or any play.