His Melody (30 page)

“Thank you,” Austin said. He wanted her to know how much it meant to him to have that ring to give to Melody, but the words wouldn’t come to him.

She threw her arms around him and squeezed tightly. “Just go get my future daughter-in-law, will you?”

Austin grinned. “Can and will do.”

At least he hoped he could.

Chapter Forty

Austin drove to Atlanta in record time and found the Midtown address that his mother had given him. He got there on Friday evening. Less than twenty-four hours to go until the showcase. He didn’t have a plan. He didn’t even know if they would let him perform. He knew only one thing at that moment. He had to see his Melody.

Walking up to her building, he took a deep breath. He stared at it for a moment, trying to think of what in the world he was going to say. What would it be like seeing her again? Especially after the way he’d stormed out like an idiot on Tuesday.

A voice interrupted his thoughts. “Coming in?” A slim, pretty blonde woman who appeared to be in her mid-twenties held the main entrance door to the building open for him. She gave him a warm, flirtatious smile.

“Yeah. Thanks.” He smiled and walked through the door behind her. He wet his lips and headed through the lobby to the elevator bank. After pressing the up button, he paced back and forth for the few moments it took the elevator to get to him.

It took an eternity for the elevator to go up a few floors. As soon as the door opened, he strode down the hall to the door to apartment 436 and knocked. When Melody opened the door, the look of shock on her face was priceless. So was the look of the rest of her.

Only a tiny pair of shorts covered her long, silky legs. His gaze slowly moved up to the tight tank top that hugged her in all the right places. Especially since she wasn’t wearing a bra.

His eyes met hers again, and he could tell she was pissed.

Before she could say a word, he pulled her to him and drove his lips against hers. They stumbled into the apartment together, and he shut the door behind them.

Backing her against a wall, he said, “I need you.”

“You never gave me a chance to explain,” she said between kisses. “You wouldn’t listen to a word I had to say.” She pulled her mouth away from his, but she seemed reluctant to do it.

“I know.” He traced his fingers lightly over her throat.

“No.” She put her hand over his and dragged it away from her neck. “You can be so pig-headed.” She glared at him.

“I know that, too.” He whispered the words against her skin.

“I said no. Do you have any idea how pissed I am right now?”

“I need you so much right now,” he whispered before tugging at her earlobe with his teeth.

She moaned, pulling him in for another kiss before wrapping her legs around his hips. He unzipped his pants and pushed her shorts and panties aside. He filled her, and she gasped before resting her head on his shoulder. She dug her nails into his back, tightened her legs around him, and called out for him over and over again. He grunted into her hair. Being without her had been the hardest thing he’d ever done. He’d been crazy to think he could let her go. They fit together perfectly. This was where he belonged.

They pushed against each other harder and harder. He grabbed her hips, massaged his fingers into the flesh of her bottom. She came with shuddering gasps, which brought on his climax. Then she lay limp against him. He gently set her on the ground. She reached for his hand, and he gave it. She led him to her bedroom. She sat on the corner of the bed, and he stood in front of her. He brought both of her hands to his lips and kissed each of her fingers.

“You know, you can’t just flit in and out of my life when you feel like it.” She pulled her hands away from his. “And what we just did was nice—okay, really damned good—but a relationship is more than sex, Austin.”

He nodded and grabbed her hands again. “I know that.” He mumbled the words over her fingers. Then he said, “I don’t have any plans to leave you ever again.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Really? You seemed pretty dead set against every having anything to do with me when I left Wednesday.”

He sat beside her on the bed. “When you left, I realized everybody had been right except me.” He lay back on the bed and pulled her back with him. “I felt a hole in my heart as soon as I knew you were gone.”

“What about your shop? And never leaving Sweet Neck?” She lay on her side and looked up at him. “My life is here in Atlanta.”

He caressed her chin with his thumb. “Avery and Donnie can handle the shop. It was always more their dream than mine. In a way, Donnie was right when he said I stole it from him. That’s probably part of the reason I was so mad about it.” He pushed her tank top up to the undersides of her breasts and trailed his fingers over the skin of her abdomen. She shivered. He said, “I’m not giving up the shop completely, but I’ll be more of a silent partner.”

“I see,” she said, shifting closer to him.

His fingers dipped down to play with the waistband of her shorts. “That C.D. that I snapped in half in your doorway right before I stomped out like a fool was an updated demo. It sounds more like the real me than the one you found.”

“Yeah?” her voice was barely above a whisper.

“I brought a copy of it with me.” He pushed her shorts and panties down her thighs, and she kicked them the rest of the way off.

“Are we done talking?” she asked.

He rolled on top of her, careful to settle most of his weight on his forearms. “Yeah,” he said, looking into her eyes.

She spread her legs, letting them rest on either side of his hips. “Thank goodness.”

He chuckled and kissed her lips before removing her tank top and turning his attention to her breasts.

Chapter Forty-One

After they’d made love for the fourth time since Austin walked into her apartment a few hours earlier, Melody propped herself up on her elbow and looked down at him.

“What?” he asked. He slung his arm around her waist.

She smiled and spread her fingers out over his well-muscled chest. “Nothing.”

“I doubt that,” he said, pulling her fingers to his mouth. “Remember that night in my truck? Coming back from Myrtle’s?”

She grinned. “Of course.”

“You nearly killed me that night.”

She laughed. “That was a good night.”

“Sure was.” He kissed her palm. “This showcase tomorrow night, there’s not much of a chance they’d still let me perform, huh?”

She shook her head. “Nope.”

He sighed against her hand. “I’m sorry.”

She rubbed her hand over the bristles of his hair and slid down next to him in bed. “Jen and I are still going to go. It’ll be a good networking opportunity if nothing else.” She rested her head on his chest and looked up at him. “You want to come with us?”

“Of course I do,” he said. “You, uh, you don’t work at New Face anymore, do you?” He wouldn’t look at her as he said that.

“No,” she said.

“It’s my fault. If I hadn’t been such a stubborn jackass—”

“Sh.” She laid a finger over his lips. “It’s a good thing. I was starting to hate it there, and Saeed was looking to push me out of the door anyway. This was just the nudge in the right direction I needed to move on to bigger and better things.”

He gave her a wicked grin. “Am I a bigger and better thing?”

“Maybe,” she said.

“Oh?”

“We’ll have to see.” She laughed as he grabbed her and pulled her to a sitting position on his stomach.

“Okay, well, let me show you,” he said. He traced circles against her inner thigh before pulling her close enough to kiss it. They were going for number five.

#

Saturday night, Austin and Melody met Jen and her co-worker, Chad, at The Spot. Jen wore a trendy, bright green knee-length dress with silver jewelry. She wore her brown, silky hair down over her shoulders. Chad was definitely Jen’s type—tall, dark, and handsome. He had short, dark brown hair and was olive-skinned. He wore dark jeans with a blazer and a crisp, white shirt.

Jen and Melody made the introductions. However, Melody already knew a lot more about Chad than he probably knew about her. Jen talked about him a lot. Chad’s parents were Italian immigrants, but Chad had been born in New York. He had moved to Atlanta for college and decided to stay after he graduated. Jen had had her eye on him for a while, but they had never been out together socially, not even as friends or co-workers, before that night.

Austin and Chad started up a conversation, and Melody pulled Jen aside.

“I see what you meant about Chad,” Melody said. “He’s gorgeous.”

Jen seemed to be restraining herself from dancing with joy. “I have good taste, right? As do you.” Jen smiled. “I see Grayson’s back.”

Melody’s cheeks grew warm, and she nodded. “He showed up at my place last night.” She didn’t know where things were going to end up with Austin, but she was glad he was back. The fact that it didn’t take much to make him run wasn’t making her eager about talking about whether they had a future together. She’d had her fill of fickle men.
Love
wasn’t worth the pain
them leaving caused
. She was already in deep enough. If she fell any more for him, he’d destroy her if—or should she say when
?—
he left again.

“Oh. We have a lot to talk about. You look great, by the way,” Jen said.

“Thanks,” she said. Melody wore a slinky, low-cut burgundy dress and the brand-new Jimmy Choos she’d bought herself as retail therapy yesterday before Austin showed up at her door. “You look great, too.”

Jen twirled and struck a pose. They laughed.

They wandered back over to Austin and Chad. The four of them sat at the reserved table that the owner of the club, whom Melody knew, had set up for them in the area where industry folks sat. Austin was getting a lot of looks. Melody wondered if people were trying to figure out whether he was Grayson the way she had at first, or if they were staring because he was friggin’ stunning, or both.

He wore dark slacks and a collared shirt that hinted at the incredible body it hid. She wanted to rip both off him at every moment. She settled for holding his hand. She thought back to the demo C.D. he’d played for her last night before they’d finally gone to sleep. It was different from the first demo she’d heard, but in a good way. It was more mature, and he was right about it sounding more like him. He definitely had his own unique sound.

Halfway through the acts, at intermission, Melody introduced Austin to some of the people she knew—execs at other labels, agents, and the managers for a couple of acts she’d courted while at New Face. Acts that her bosses had vetoed and who’d then gone on to be successful with other labels. They were walking through the club, making their way back to their table, when Melody spotted the woman who was undoubtedly the most important person in the room that night.

“That’s Ebony Brown,” Melody said to Austin, nodding to a tall woman whose considerable height was exaggerated by three-inch heels. She’d paired a black power suit with a gray blouse, and her smile was like everything else about her—tight, controlled, and a little frosty. “She works for a division of Global Records.”

“Global,” Austin said. “Isn’t that the huge conglomerate that just swallowed up a bunch of smaller independent record companies throughout the South? They’re the next big thing, right?”

“Yeah,” Melody said. She’d heard that they’d most recently gobbled up her ex-husband’s label out in California as well, but she didn’t want to bring him up in even that small way that night. A small frown of confusion tugged at the corners of her lips. “It looks like she’s coming over here.”

“Yeah. Looks like,” Austin said.

“Why?”

“I’m guessing she wants to talk to you.”

“Why would she want to do that?” Melody muttered.

Before Austin could respond, Ebony reached them and said, “Ebony Brown.” She offered her hand. “Melody James, right?”

Dazed, Melody nodded and shook the woman’s hand. “Yes.”

“You were with New Face, correct?”

Were.
News certainly traveled fast. Melody said, “Yes, I was until earlier this week.”

“Perfect.” Ebony nodded. “I thought I’d seen you around. I believe we were at some of the same private parties at the Essence Music Festival last summer. I’ve seen you at events here in Atlanta, too,” Ebony said in her brusque, business-like tone.

“Okay.” Melody still wasn’t sure where this conversation was going. Surely, Ebony had more important people to talk to than a former A&R exec who’d been fired from a failing record company.

“I was really surprised to hear that Saeed let you go,” Ebony said. “Between you and me, it seems like you were the only thing keeping that company afloat.”

“Really?” Taken off guard, Melody wasn’t able to hide her true reaction—which was shock—to that statement.

“Everybody thinks so,” Ebony said. She spoke as if what she’d said was indeed common knowledge. “Do you have your next move planned yet?”