The hard stuff… yeah, that could wait until she’d committed to him.

Turning her face, she kissed his jaw. “I missed you last night.”

He’d missed her, too, hating the cold loneliness of the hotel bed. Now, cupping the heavy warmth of her breasts from behind, he took her mouth in ravenous demand, soothing the ragged edges of his need enough that he could take this slow. “How was dinner with Thea and Charlotte?” Meeting her best friend was on his agenda—Charlotte was clearly important to Molly, and so the other woman was important to Fox.

“I made a Thai mango-chicken salad. It was a success.” She softened against him as he moved his hands from her breasts to massage her shoulders and arms, aware how hard Maxwell could work his people.

Molly sighed and closed her eyes, the quiet expression of trust his undoing. “Can I just stay here?”

Grabbing the loofah she’d fished out of her toiletries case, he squeezed some liquid soap onto it. “No,” he said, smoothing the puffy, girly thing over her body for the simple pleasure of touching her. “I fucking hate cold water.”

Her laugh was startled, her eyes sparkling when she looked up. As she sassed him about being a tough-guy rocker, he thought of the wistfulness he’d sensed in her when she’d spoken of the amount of time they spent in bed and promised himself they’d do something silly and touristy and fun together in Sydney.

He wanted to take his Molly on a date.

Molly slept in Fox’s arms. The first time she woke, it was to the thick heat of him sliding inside her; the second time, she found herself alone, though the pale morning light told her it wasn’t yet time to go to the site—and Fox would’ve woken her for that anyway. Sitting up, she pushed her hair out of her eyes and looked around for a note. It was scrawled on a slip of hotel paper thrust under the radio alarm clock.

David fucked up. Gone to see what I can do.—Fox

David? The one the press called the Gentleman of Rock?

Frowning, she pushed off the comforter Fox must’ve covered her with before he left, his body heat more than sufficient to keep her warm when he was with her. She had to have slept through a phone call. Or Fox had already been up and grabbed it before it could wake her—her rock star, she’d learned, was a surprisingly early riser. Hoping David wasn’t in too much trouble, she showered and dressed for the day before calling Fox. It went straight to voice mail.

“It’s Molly,” she said. “Just wanted to say I hope it’s nothing serious. Talk to you when you get back.”

Since she didn’t know if Fox would return before she had to meet up with the crew, she decided to go down to the hotel’s breakfast buffet. “Mind if I join you?” she asked when she saw Maxwell sitting alone at a table in the relatively empty dining room.

“I never say no to a pretty girl.”

Smiling, Molly went to get a bowl of cereal and some toast. There was fresh coffee waiting for her at the table when she returned, as well as a glass of orange juice. “Seriously,” she said, “this is the life.”

“Not after you eat the same crap weeks in a row.” Maxwell’s heavy black eyebrows drew together in a scowl. “When we’re on tour, sometimes all I want is a bowl of grits or old-fashioned oatmeal.”

Molly hadn’t considered the situation from a long-term perspective, and as soon as she did, she saw his point. It was nice to be waited on and to have so many options at the buffet, but she’d be hankering for her own cereal within days, as well as her favorite brand of tea. “Do you carry things from home to make it easier?”

“Yep. What you’re drinking, it’s the best damn coffee in the universe—I had the hotel restaurant brew up a pot from my stash.” He took a sip, sighed. “Different folks bring different things, but most everyone has at least a couple of items.”

Molly tried to think of what it must be like to be on the road weeks or months at a time and couldn’t quite comprehend it. It made her understand some of the “diva” requests occasionally reported in the media—for what often seemed an odd thing about which to throw a star tantrum. Food, though, was only the tip of the iceberg.

 “You must miss your family,” she said, having learned yesterday that the crew boss had a wife he adored as well as two teenage children.

“Yeah, it can be tough, but the boys pay me well enough that both my boys go to a fancy private school where they rub shoulders with the children of diplomats.” Pride in his smile. “At least my kids think my job is awesome since I can get them and their friends into concerts now and then, so I don’t have the hassle of having to deal with resentment. As for Kim and me, we have phone sex down to an art.”

Molly choked on her coffee, heard Maxwell laughing that deep, chesty laugh as she tried to catch her breath. She mimed scrubbing the image from her mind, which furthered the laughter on his end, then said, “Do you know what happened with David?”

Sudden remoteness, the smile wiped away as if it had never existed. “Figure you’d best ask Fox.”

Coloring, Molly looked down at her breakfast. “Sorry,” she said quietly after realizing what she’d done. “I didn’t mean to put you on the spot.”

The friendly man sighed and reached out to pat her hand where it lay on the table. “No, I’m sorry for snapping at you—we’ve all been bitten so many times that we don’t trust anyone until they’re blood. Takes time to become blood.”

Molly met his gaze so he’d know there were no hard feelings. “I understand.” It wasn’t as if she was any different in the trust department.

Male voices sounded in the doorway a couple of seconds later, Fox walking in with David and a slender man she didn’t know. Spotting her and Maxwell, they headed over, grabbing food along the way. Fox put his plate down on her left, while David took her other side, and the unfamiliar man slid into the chair beside Maxwell. In a few minutes, the table was covered with more food than Molly could eat in a week.

“Don’t even ask,” David muttered when she glanced at his black eye, the bruise vivid against the golden brown of his skin.

Molly poured him coffee from the fresh carafe the waiter had just placed on the table. The drummer clearly needed it—it was obvious he’d spent the night in the long-sleeved, formal white shirt and black pants he wore, his jaw darkly stubbled. “Did you put ice on that eye?”

“That’s what I told him to do, but he’s too pigheaded.” The stranger stuck his hand across the table, his skin a warm, deep teak against the blue-gray of his suit. “Justin Chan, attorney for these idiots while they’re in the region.”

“Molly,” Fox growled, “stop looking at David like you want to give him a hug and smack him upside the head instead. If we were in New York, I’d call his mother and have her do it.”

“Don’t worry,” Justin said cheerily, “his folks will hear about it soon enough, and then he’ll have to explain if this is the kind of example he intends to set for his brothers.” A glance at David. “Wouldn’t want to be you, dude.”

“Oh, fuck.” David banged his head against the table. “I should’ve stayed in jail.”

Uh-oh. “Did you do something Thea’s going to have to wrangle?” Her sister had flown in late last night to be on hand for media interviews the band was doing today.

Lifting his head, David groaned. “Yes. Mary, Joseph, and the saints combined, yes.”

“She’s been working since genius here called me.” Fox bit into a piece of toast. “He was too chickenshit to call Thea himself.”

“Shut the fuck up.” Strong words, but the drummer’s tone was morose. “God, could I have screwed up any worse?”

Molly thought about it, then leaned in to whisper in David’s ear. “You might as well tell me your side of the story so I can spin it for you when Thea calms down.”

Shooting her a considering look out of a bloodshot and blackened eye, he slugged back his coffee and blew out a breath. “I decided to walk around the city last night. It’s something I do night before a concert.” He rubbed his hands over his face. “On the way back, I ducked into a bar to have a drink. It never crossed my mind that I’d be recognized. I’m the drummer—nobody ever pays attention to the fucking drummer.”