Chapter 123

She opened the door as he came closer and closed herself outside with him. “Hey there.”

Jon rocked back on his heels, his eyes shuttered. “Hey.” He tugged a hand out of his pocket, rubbing the palm down his jeans. “Welcome to the recording studio,” he said with a wry smile. “I honestly forgot you were there.” He stared at his shoes, then back up to her face. “How awful is that?”

She grinned. “Hmm…half and half.” She brushed her knuckles down the middle of his t-shirt, the rustle of his chest hair tickled beneath the cotton. “I love that you forgot I was there long enough to show me the real deal.” Her arm went around his waist. “I don’t like watching you get yourself worked up though.”

He stepped into her, his hand in her hair as he kissed the side of her neck. Tugging her into him he sighed. “I’ve been fighting with this song in my head for awhile. I just need to find the answer to it, that’s all.”

“I’d like to say it’s me that’s distracting you, but you forgot I was there,” she said and pinched his butt again.

“Hey now! Same cheek?” She laughed as he rubbed at it. “I’m going to have a bruise.”

“I’ll kiss it and make it feel better, later.” She sighed with faux dramatics. “Oh wait that’s right you—“

He brought the same hand up and covered her mouth. “You’re killin’ me, here. Believe me when I tell you that I’m going to show you just how much I want to see and feel you naked.”

“You started it,” she said around his fingers and pulled her head back and laughed when his hand came down around her butt this time in a solid slap. “Hey!”

“You’re a tease of the first order.”

She wrinkled her nose and stood on tip-toes. “And you love that about me.”

With an exaggerated sigh to match hers he leaned down. “I guess so.”

“Uh huh, big sigh. You’re such an ass.” He caught her mouth, laughter bubbled through the kiss as she felt him relax against her by degrees. She was learning things about him a bit backwards, but the end result was the same. Her very complex, very hard working man wasn’t flawless. He dealt with frustrations and setbacks just like any other person. And he certainly wasn’t putting on airs when it came to his level of perfectionism. He was the real deal and somehow that made it even more amazing to her. How she managed to have this man fall in love with her, she’d never know.

His kiss went from teasing and light to deeper and darker while she’d been musing. She felt her blood thicken and her heart rate trip as his thumb traced the line of her jaw. He knew her inside and out—in fact he was doing his best to exploit the inside at the moment. Her head swam as she held onto her sanity by her fingernails. What she wanted to do was clear everyone out and show him another use for the control booth.

The stitch in her side decided it had better plans for her than the mind melting kiss Jon was working on. Pushing past the pain, she flicked her tongue along his lower lip and was rewarded with a soft groan from Jon. The next wash of pain knocked her over. She sagged against Jon and cried out.

Jon’s fingers gripped her waist as his arms locked. “Tessa?”

She shut her eyes against the stabbing pain and managed to get her footing. “Just give me a second.” The pain subsided as quickly as it kicked in. She stood up straight, blinking quickly as Jon’s hand cupped her face.

“Tessa!”

She frowned. “What the hell kind of Mexican did you order?” She teased as his blue eyes went dark with worry. She folded her fingers around his and kissed his palm. “I’m okay. I guess that Mexican kicked my ass more than I thought. I haven’t felt good since lunch.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

She gave him a bland look.

“Hey, you can come into the studio anytime, darlin’, don’t give me that shit.” He dropped his hand to her back and rubbed. “It’s not food poisoning is it?”

“I don’t think so. Maybe just a mix of way too much junk.” She smiled. “I’ll be fine. In fact, why don’t you keep working and I’ll head back to the house for a bit of a nap. I need to get back to the store to work on inventory tonight.” She rubbed her thumb through the worry line creasing his brows. “Now, none of that. I’m fine. I already feel better. It was probably just gas,” she laughed. “Very romantic and very gross, but probably true.”

He gave her a half-hearted laugh and kissed her lightly. “Alright, you go lay down and I’ll check on you in a bit.”

Standing on her tip-toes, she demanded a better kiss than that. When he drew it out slowly and leaned his forehead to hers she felt better. “Don’t let the song get you down. It’s beautiful, emotional and simple. All the things you’re not used to. You’re so used to layering things to make it big, maybe leave it sim—“ she pressed her lips together. “Listen to me going on.” She laughed, “It’s your song. Go do what you do best. I’ll go do what I do and just forget I opened my mouth.”

“No,” he frowned and caught her hand as she tried to back up. “Tell me.”

“Well, your voice was just so beautiful through most of the song. Then it was like you were overthinking it or something. All the emotion just stalled, I guess. The beginning was so gorgeous,” her hands fluttered. Hell, she didn’t know how to explain it. “It was just heartbreaking. I think there was more power in that than anything else.”

It was a sight to see, she thought, as Jon’s brain whirled right before her eyes. She watched as he closed in, his eyes changed, and the laughter slipped away. Jon the creator and artist flowed hot in eyes. He leaned forward and kissed her hard. “Gotta go, you just gave me an idea.” He turned back to the door then stopped and turned back. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Her heart skidded to a halt. Even vibrating there, something obviously working in that brain of his, he’d stopped. She laughed as his eyes slid away to the studio. Well, sort of stopped. “Go, I’m fine. I’ll go get a nap and you—“ He had the door open and was talking to Shanks even before she could say work.

She followed him inside and made the rounds, saying goodbye to all the guys. She was a distant blip on their radars as Jon’s excitement spread. Bent over the board, he and Shanks listened to a playback, motioning for Richie to come over. Even Tico and Hugh were focused on what was going on. David seemed to get it almost instantly, scribbling in his notebook as he walked to the keyboard.

Backing out of the room, she headed to house and up to their bedroom—well, hell. His bedroom, she shook her head and did a quick look around. Her bathrobe was hanging next to his off the bathroom door. Her shoes dotted the floor of his closet and the armoire boasted a good quarter of her work clothes. She’d taken over the bedside table on the left, even leaving paperwork behind on his desk.

When had that happened?

Shaking her head, she curled into his bed. It wasn’t nearly as fun alone, but she had to admit, the man had good taste when it came to luxury. She dropped off with the memory of the studio and Jon repeating on a loop in her overtaxed brain.

~

“The last section to do is the merch tables,” Nic said as she arched her back. “Man, I don’t want to crawl around the kids section again for at least—“

“Until next Sunday.”

“Ugh,” Nic moaned. “That’s not nice, Tess.”

“Hey, you were the one that wanted to do the reading for the anniversary of, Where the Wild Things Are.”

“Yeah, well I’m stupid, now aren’t I?”

Tessa laughed and lowered to her knees to start pulling the assortment of blank notebooks and journals out, flipping to verify the SKU numbers. “Well, Stupid, how about we finish this and get the heck outta here before 1am?”

Nic stared down at the floor then back up at the shelves and pouted. “Alright, but I’m working from a chair. I can’t get on that floor one more time today.”

“Why don’t you go do bookmarks and bookplates and I’ll stay over here?”

“Deal!” Nic headed to the front of the store. Luckily the both of them worked well under pressure and apart, not to mention their mutual love of all things music and loud when they were doing this sort of thing.

As she verified merchandise against her log, she let the music soothe her. Even at top decibel, it made the tedious bearable. Not to mention it kept her from thinking about Jon’s intense and tired face when she ducked in to say goodnight. They were still hashing out the Memory song, but there was a light in his crystal colored eyes. He was close, leaving determination to blaze there more than tired.

She wasn’t sure if it made her a head case to be turned on by all that purpose, but there it was. Part of her wanted to blow off work and lure him into the kitchenette and get a taste of all that buzzy intensity. She had a feeling it would probably power her up until the wee hours of inventory monotony. But the fact that he’d barely acknowledged her when she ducked her head in…well, that had certainly been a buzz-kill.

“Just worry about your own work, Tess,” she muttered to herself and flipped through notebooks in a triple count.

Three hours later she found her way out of the notebooks, address books and stationary with blurry eyes and an aching back. The one good thing about inventory was that it was a great time to organize as well. The stationary section hadn’t looked this good since her opening.

“Tess.”

She jumped and the pile to her left slid out in a fan like cards. “Jeeeze, Nichole.”

“Sorry, I thought I was walking loud enough.” Nic grinned.

Gathering them up she stood and shoved them into the display. “You ready to head home?”

“I would stay longer, but Adam’s going to have us out in the road in about four hours and I need to have some semblance of sleep to be his navigator.”

Tessa frowned. “Oh, that’s right. You guys have that wedding in Vermont this weekend. Why didn’t you remind me? I would have sent you home hours ago!” She chided.

“I know, but you needed to finish this up—“

“I could have taken care of it, just because the plan was to finish inventory today doesn’t mean it had to be done. Go on!” she shooed her. “Go, before Adam has my head.”

Nic leaned in and hugged her. “I’m glad things are starting to settle down. You and Jon are doing well, the shop is even turning a profit. It’s nice to see things falling into place. Now we just have to find a way to break the ice between you and Dorothea and it will be all good.”

Late nights were a haven for heart to hearts and man, she didn’t have the energy for it. Her mushy best friend would get all teary eyed, then she would. Nope, none of that. “Let’s not jinx things, darlin’.” Tessa turned Nic around and pushed her toward the backroom. “Go home. I’ll just finish up here and get the heck out of here.”

“I don’t want to leave you hear alone.”

“I promise, I’ll be behind you in twenty minutes.”

“If it’s twenty minutes, then I’ll wait,” Nic said stubbornly and stopped walking.

“That’s twenty minutes you waste here when you could be driving home and slipping between the sheets with that big, delicious hunk of a brunette.”

Nic turned and grinned. “Well, he is a bit hunkalicious, huh?” Her brown eyes lost a bit of her twinkle. “Of course after your hunk, mine looks like a—“

“Yours is just as delicious.” She started pushing again until they were in front of the closet off of her office. “You and Adam could use a couple of days away from the store and away from covering for me. I wanted to thank you for coming in today. I knew you had the day off for a reason.”

“I would have been here doing the inventory tonight anyway. Don’t worry about it.” Nic shrugged into her jacket. “Just don’t stay too late.”

“I won’t, I promise.”

“Now, we’ll see if Adam likes the little hot pink nightie I picked out for the trip. Maybe we’ll make that baby this weekend.”

“Oh my God!” Tessa hauled her into a tight hug. “You guys are trying?”

“Well, we’ve been waiting until Adam’s done with school, but with the whole Christmas thing and playing with Sophie. We just don’t want to wait anymore. I know it’s going to be crazy to do it while—“

Tessa hugged her harder. “Oh don’t even worry about what ifs. We’ll work it out. Oh, I’m so happy for you guys!”

“You know, you and Jon would make a pretty baby.”

Tessa stepped back, crossing her arms over her belly. “I don’t know about that. He’s got a pretty little brood on his own. Besides,” she waved it away. “We haven’t talked about that kind of future. Hell, I haven’t even met his parents yet.”

Nic went quiet and hugged her one more time. “There’s plenty of time for that stuff. You never know, he might just surprise you.”

“Okay, enough with the smushy mushies. Get out of here. Have a great time and praaaaactice.” Tessa smirked, “A lot.”

“I intend to.”

She bolted the door behind Nic and waved as she got into her car. Frowning, she smoothed her hand over her belly. She’d never thought of having kids before. Her career had been so important for so long. The Chapters goal had been her focus for so long that she’d never even entertained the thought of making little Tessa and—

She shook her head. Nope, not going there. She didn’t even know if Jon wanted another kid, or if they were heading to a place where kids were even on the table. Hell, she hadn’t even met his parents for God’s sake.

She rushed around the store, turning the music up louder to block out the doubts that always seemed to be just around the corner. She was being stupid, just like always. What was it about that man that made her so happy and lost in doubt at the same time?

Gathering up the inventory log she ran one last report and logged out of the system. Heading to her office she stopped. What the hell? A pretty little green and red wreath hung from the top shelf right as you walked in the door. Considering they were in the last part of February…she sighed.

Opening her office door, she dumped her binder and grabbed her purse and coat leaving them at the front door. How the hell had she passed the stupid thing that many times? Dragging out the ladder she used for the high shelves she climbed up.

If she didn’t snag it now, she’d forget tomorrow for sure. The angle was awkward standing on her tip-toes she caught the lower branch and popped it, but the small wreath hook held firm. “Dammit.” Leaning out just a bit more she lifted it again. “Just a little—“

Fire screamed up her side and across the front of her. As the ladder tipped and the floor came for her she felt like her insides were being ripped apart.

Then nothing.