Worthy of the Harmony (Mountains & Men Book 2) (10 page)

I have to take a deep breath, pushing aside all thoughts of him bending me over the couch…

My tongue glides across my glossed lips as I close my eyes, losing the battle against my memory.

Smack!

“That's for saying I have the maturity level of a fifteen-year-old.”

Smack!

“That's for ignoring my calls.”

A shiver races down my spine as my eyes flash open. Looking at myself in the mirror, I notice my cheeks are flushed, as if he fucked me five minutes ago.

“Fucking hell,” I cry out, cupping my hands around my face. “What is happening to me?”

Just then, a knock sounds at the door, making my heart race—and therein lies my answer.

Sage. Fucking Sage McCoy is happening to me.

For a moment, I don’t move. My reflection is like a bright neon sign, warning me that I’m doomed. With every day that goes by, I want him a little more. Right here, right now, I could cut my losses. I could tell him that I can’t do this. That I can’t be exclusive. That I can’t be his
doll face
. But in truth, I can feel my body rebelling against the thought. I can feel his pull from beyond the barrier that’s keeping him out of my apartment right now. I practically came,
just seconds ago,
remembering how good it feels to be owned by that man—that twenty-one-year-old man with a voice of a rock star and a body of a god.

I
am
his
doll face
, his
baby doll
, his
gorgeous girl…

I am Millicent, the woman with the fractured heart, never to be whole again; and that bastard is chipping away at me, piece by piece.

“Doll face?” he calls through the door, banging a little harder.

I take another deep breath, nodding at my reflection—silently assuring myself that I will survive this fall.
I will
. Then, without looking back, I hurry to meet him. When I open the door, his face goes from flustered to relieved to stunned. I watch as his eyes travel from my head to my toes and then back up again. I can feel the heat that spreads across my chest and up my neck, and I curse my body for being so damn transparent.

“You look—
amazing,
” he murmurs.

Giuseppe’s isn’t the fanciest Italian restaurant in town. In fact, that’s part of the appeal. It has more of a homey feel, a lot like the place where I ate growing up. Nevertheless, I figured a date with Sage called for a dress, at the very least. I chose my dark green bandage dress with the capped sleeves and the zipper that goes down the front. I paired it with my nude stilettos; and even with the extra height, Sage still has at least three inches on me.

He’s wearing black Chucks and black jeans—which is not the least bit surprising—but he’s completed his ensemble with a gray button-up shirt, the sleeves rolled and pushed up over his elbows, exposing the generous amount of ink on his left arm.

God, he’s sexy.

“You look nice, too,” I say, feigning a sense of calm I have yet to grab hold of since he first knocked at the door.

He smirks at me as he takes a step in my direction. Then he reaches around my waist, pulling me against him tightly. “You feel that?” I can hear it as my breathing grows shallow in response to my awareness of him. My lips part in an attempt to suck down more air. “Do you feel that, doll face?” he asks again, sliding his hand a little lower, pulling me a little closer. I manage a nod and his smirk grows wider. “With you in that dress, this will be a very long and uncomfortable meal. I think you’ve earned yourself a little punishment, baby doll.”

I reach up, gripping my hands around the back of his neck. “Just shut up and kiss me.”

His chuckle is lost in my mouth as I free a sigh into his. One of his hands rests securely just below the small of my back and the other slides up and around my neck, his fingers buried in my hair. He kisses me long and hard and I know my lips are starting to swell, but I don’t give a single shit.

“Fuck. Me. Millie,” he breathes against my lips. He rests his forehead against mine and I can tell he’s staring at the small amount of cleavage I’m able to manage in this dress. He shakes his head and then backs away from me. “If we don’t leave now, we’ll never leave. And I promised you a date, gorgeous.” He holds out his hand, wiggling his fingers. “Let’s jet.”

I nod, turning to grab my clutch from off of the coffee table, and then wrap my fingers around his. He gives them a squeeze as I shut and lock the door behind us, and I swear, another piece of my heart goes missing.

HE WALKS ME
to his car—his
black Audi convertible—
and opens the passenger side door for me. I remember the first time he made the same gesture. I was drunk and desperate with desire, anxious to leave The Brew Cycle so that we could be alone; but I wasn’t so out of it that I didn’t take note that his vehicle didn’t seem to make sense in regards to what I knew about him. Three and a half weeks later, it
still
doesn’t make sense.

How does a twenty-one-year old college drop out—part time rocker, part time barista—own such a sleek, modern, sexy sports car?

As he slides into the driver’s seat and starts the engine, I decide that I’ve endured the mystery for as long as I can. “Sage?”

“
Millicent?
”

I fight the urge to press my hand against my chest, but I so desperately want to. It’s stupid, of course, but the irrational part of my brain assumes that if I cover up the place where my heart resides, then he’ll stop stealing bits and pieces of it.

For reasons I cannot explain, I adore the way he says my name. My
full
name. No one calls me Millicent. Since I was a child, I’ve introduced myself as
Millie
. It’s not that I don’t like
Millicent
, it was just easier to use my nickname. Then, of course, there’s my mother, who hasn’t called me by either of those names since I was six years old. To her, I am
Tatiana,
or
Tati.
After my father left us, she refused to refer to me by the name that he had chosen. My middle name had been her choosing. Only
she
calls me Tatiana, and I don’t respond to it fondly.

But when my name falls from Sage’s lips—his rich, manly voice caressing it—it steals my breath. Every time. I’m sure he knows, which is why he does it, but I couldn’t stifle my reaction even if I tried.

“Doll face?” he says with a chuckle, reaching for me. His warm palm covers the top of my hand before he laces his fingers between mine, holding my hand upside-down. For a second, I wonder why he’s positioned our hands this way, and then it clicks as he moves them over the gearshift. I wrap my fingers around the smooth surface and he clutches mine effortlessly as he accelerates down the road, shifting to a higher gear.

Now, I’m feeling oddly turned on.

He chuckles again, pulling me from my thoughts, and it dawns on me that I haven’t said a word since I spoke his name.

“Um—I’ve been meaning to ask you about this car.”

“What about it?”

I furrow my brow when I realize that every version of my question sounds horribly rude. As if he can read my thoughts, he speaks before I can.

“You want to know how I can afford it.” He doesn’t phrase it as a question, but as a statement. I look at him hesitantly and he peeks over at me with a knowing smirk. All I can offer in return is a nod. “It was a gift from the good
Dr. Harold Montgomery,
” he says, exaggerating his emphasis on the name I’ve never heard.

“Who is that?”

“My brother-in-law,” he says with a grin.

I shift in my seat, turning toward him as much as my seatbelt will allow. His answer only sparks more questions. “I’m confused,” I admit. “Your brother-in-law gave you a sports car and Rosemary drives an old, beat up, VW Bug?”

Sage laughs. “Better not ever let her hear you talk about her baby in that tone. She loves that thing.”

“Sage,” I mumble, wishing for a straight answer.

He sighs, giving my fingers a squeeze before he concedes. “When Pepper turned sixteen, my parents bought her a car. When I turned sixteen, they bought me one, too. When I turned
eighteen
, I pissed them off and they took it away and gave it to Rosy on her sixteenth birthday.”

“So you used to—”

“No,” he cuts me off with a shake of his head, sure that he knows what I was about to say. “Rosy only drove my old car until she graduated high school, at which point she had saved up enough money to buy the car she drives now. It was her way of asserting her independence.

“Anyway, I went about a year without a car. It wasn’t a big deal. I’d moved into the house with the guys by then and they helped me out when I needed it. Plus, we weren’t so far from campus that I couldn’t bike when the weather was nice. Then, for my nineteenth birthday, Harry and Pepper decided to gift me with this. It was Harry’s. Carter had just been born and, with two kids in car-seats, he needed something more practical.”

“That’s very generous.”

He nods and I watch as a small smile pulls at the corners of his mouth. “Yeah. You’re right. It was sort of their way of showing their support.”

“What did you do to piss your parents off?”

“I didn’t choose the college they wanted,” he replies with a shrug. “And when I told them I wasn’t going to leave the band for school, they told me I was free to do whatever I wanted—just not on their dime.”

Again, his answer floods my mind with more questions; but this time, I keep my mouth shut. I know, eventually, my curiosity will get me into trouble. I certainly don’t want to talk about my parental issues, so I won’t badger him to talk about his.

“What about you? How’d you end up in Fort Collins when you grew up in Jersey?”

“Oh, well…” I pause, completely aware that his broaching the topic of my relocation is entirely my fault. If not for me starting the conversation with my nosey questions, then for me agreeing to go on this date in the first place. It’s just as he told me weeks ago—getting to know each other is what dating is all about.

I decide that avoiding the topic of my mother is paramount, and I come up with the most vague explanation possible. “I just wanted to go somewhere different—be somewhere far away. I only applied to universities in the west, and Colorado State appealed to me the most. So—here I am.”

“You never thought about going home after graduation? You don’t miss it?”

“No. I don’t miss it at all,” I answer, the words coming out faster and harsher than I intended.

He gives my fingers a squeeze and I look over at him when he lifts my hand to his lips, kissing my palm as he smiles over at me. “You just miss your favorite Italian restaurant.”

Grateful for the segue, and for his awareness that the topic of
home
is an uncomfortable one, I smile and nod at him. “Precisely.”

Given that it’s the middle of the week, Old Town Fort Collins isn’t crazy busy. There are definitely enough people out, seeing as the weather on this fine September evening encourages an outing, but it’s not so crowded that we can’t find parking. As we exit the car, crossing the street to head the short distance to Giuseppe’s, Sage takes my hand. I can’t help but notice that it’s becoming another habit of his—one that I kind of like, which worries and thrills me at the same time.

The Italian restaurant is located just a couple doors down from the corner, in a long stretch of food places that line the street. When we step inside, the hostess looks up at us and
immediately
her eyes brighten at the sight of Sage. I don’t think much of it at first, as I’ve seen the way women respond to him—myself included—but then the glint in her eye turns mischievous before she speaks.

“Hey,
stranger
,” she practically purrs. “Long time, no see.” She props her arms against the hostess stand and leans forward, exposing a generous amount of cleavage that puts mine to shame. Suddenly, I wonder if I’m invisible.

“Hi, Kathy,” Sage replies, his tone seemingly indifferent. “Table for
two,
please,” he says, lifting our joined hands.

Finally, she looks my way. Feeling suddenly visible again, I smirk at her, boasting with my eyes that while she mans the door, I’ll be enjoying a meal with the delicious man whose fingers are wrapped affectionately around mine.