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Chapter 9
Dax pulled into the employee parking lot behind The Plate and tried to shake the picture of Ginny in her thin cotton, see-through bra and underwear from his mind. But his memory was not like an Etch A Sketch, instead the image seemed to be seared into his subconscious. Branded into the landscape of his brain.
Which he wouldn’t think was a problem except for the fact that his other head was reacting to it as well. He wasn’t at half chub. He was at full mast. Even after taking matters into his own hands in the shower he was still rock hard. It had taken him less than five strokes before he came so hard he’d seen stars. He was hoping it would take the edge off. It hadn’t.
If anything, the temporary relief had only served as a primer. Like some kind of solo foreplay. He’d had to pull out his tightest boxer briefs just to keep himself pinned down. After putting on his jeans and thermal he’d added a hoodie that covered the area in question. At this point he was starting to think he would be spending the rest of the time Ginny was here in hoodies that concealed the weapon that she triggered.
They hadn’t spoken about their bathroom run in at breakfast or on the way to the studio. He knew that he shouldn’t have opened the door to ask her what she’d forgotten, but he couldn’t help himself. He’d wanted, no needed to see her again.
He’d been with sexy women. Women that made men drool. Women that made men fight. Women that made men lose themselves. He’d never gone that far. It wasn’t that he hadn’t appreciated their beauty, he had. He appreciated every single woman he’d ever been with. But, over time, with that appreciation came a certain amount of immunity to it. He’d grown desensitized to the point that he’d taken them for granted. He didn’t feel anything beyond physical desire when he saw a beautiful, naked woman.
The second Ginny walked into the bathroom this morning she broke through all of that. He’d reacted to her differently than he had to any other woman. He felt her all the way down to his soul. She’d obliterated his indifference until he felt raw and exposed. Not physically. Yes, he’d been naked but it wasn’t about that. She’d made him feel emotionally bare. She’d done it with the seductive hourglass shape of her waist dipping into the flare of her hips. The mouthwatering curves of her full, heavy breasts. The outline of her round pink nipples and the patch of dark hair above her sex that was visible through the thin material of her underwear.
The simple thin white cotton bra and panties that she’d had on were not what you’d find in a Victoria’s Secret catalog. But they were the sexiest thing he’d ever seen anyone wear. Seeing her in the thin cotton, her hair wet and falling around her glowing face that was scrubbed clean was a heady combination of provocative innocence.
Seeing her had inspired every cave man instinct he’d never known he had. He felt things when he looked at her. He felt them not skin deep, not bone deep, he felt them all the way to the molecules that made up his DNA. He felt things on a cellular level. And he wasn’t sure how the hell he was going to deal with that for the time she was here. Because this was a temporary situation. She’d didn’t live here. They didn’t have a personal relationship, no matter what he felt.
As he got out of his truck and made his way up the steps to the back entrance he couldn’t help but think about the night that he’d brought Ginny home the first time. He’d met her a few weeks earlier at the grand reopening and had wanted to talk to her that night. In fact, when he’d seen her he’d even said that he was going to marry her. But she’d left with her manager before he’d gotten the chance to do any more than say hello.
But as fate or destiny or chance would have it, Ace flew her back for his then-girlfriend now fiancée’s party a month later. Dax did not let that opportunity pass him by. He made sure he seized the day.
He’d been the first person to greet her when she arrived and he’d been lucky enough to be the person she’d gone home with that night. She’d only come back to his house in the first place because she’d told him that she’d just bought a house and was disappointed that it was turnkey because she’d wanted to do some of the renovations herself. He’d told her that he’d just bought a craftsman that needed a ton of work and she’d wanted to see it.
Now that he was thinking about it he realized that it wasn’t like they’d been flirting. They’d bonded over real estate.
He unlocked the back door and on his way up the steps he ran into Stephanie.
“Hey!” She smiled when she saw him. “I heard that Virginia Valentine is staying with you.”
“You did?” Dax knew that Riley knew about Ginny’s arrival because Dax had been pulled off Riley’s team, but he didn’t know why Ace would have been told about his new assignment.
“Yeah. Do you know how long she’s going to be in town?”
“No. I don’t.” As much as he loved Stephanie—and he did, she was a doll and he couldn’t be happier for his friend to have found her—he couldn’t help but feel protective over Ginny. He didn’t like that people knew she was here. He knew it was a small town, but he’d been hoping that she might be able to fly under the radar for a little while. “How’d you know she was in town?”
“My sister told me. She heard it from her friend Jules who works at the grocery store. Jules said that Virginia was shopping there yesterday and told her that she was in town working on her new album with Chase and that she was staying at your house.”
As relieved as he was that the information hadn’t come from anyone that worked at Elite, he realized that now he had another problem. From what he knew about Stephanie’s sister Simone, she wasn’t one to keep a secret to herself. More like she was the godfather of the gossip mafia in Harper’s Crossing. Which meant there was a very good chance that half, if not all, the town now knew that Ginny was here working on an album with Chase and staying at Dax’s house.
His shoulders immediately tensed. “Do you know if Simone told anyone else?”
“I’m not sure.” Stephanie’s brow furrowed. “But I know Jules took a selfie with her and I’m pretty sure she Snapchatted with her too.”
Shit.He hated social media and this was part of the reason. Information spread like wildfire and once it got ignited there was no way to contain it. He made a mental note to set a Google alert to his phone. That way he’d know what the world knew about Virginia Valentine.
With this new information coming to light, he knew that it was a very good possibility that she was exposed. What the general public knew, the paparazzi knew. That upgraded her security status to CP or close protection. During the site assessment of Chase’s studio there was no risk detected, meaning that while she was there she was considered safe. But now that her location had been compromised he didn’t trust that there wouldn’t be a breech.
Not wasting another moment, Dax turned and started back the way he came.
“Is everything okay?” Stephanie’s concerned voice sounded behind him.
“It’s fine. I have to go. Can you let Ace know I can’t make the meeting?” He didn’t wait for her response as he rushed out the back door and quickly made his way to his SUV and hopped in. As he started the engine he checked his phone and didn’t see any missed calls from Ginny or Chase. Chances were, everything was fine. But Dax didn’t take chances. He relied on facts. On certainty. The only way he’d be certain that she was safe was to see it with his own eyes.
***
“We’re getting there.” Chase Malone sat in front of his mixing table and played the track back that she’d just laid down. “The middle eight needs work. We can definitely tighten it up but I think we have the rest.”
They’d been in this session for over six hours. She’d been in the sound booth for the last four and she was exhausted. Most of the producers that she’d worked with had her do several takes for safety, but Chase was different. He broke down eight counts. He isolated lines and tweaked separate syllables of single words. He was a perfectionist and she knew her album was going to be all the better for it.
