Prologue

When I woke it was dark outside, and I was snuggled in Sculpt’s arms, sitting between his legs, his lean, hard body draped around me. His fingers slowly stroked my outer thigh while his other hand rested on my abdomen, one finger circling my belly button. I turned to look up at him over my shoulder. He was staring out across the moonlit field, observing the horses in the distance.

“Eme.” He leaned into me further and kissed the side of my neck.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to fall asleep. It must have been your sexy, raspy voice.” I cuddled closer, and his arm tightened. “Did you finish the song?” His guitar lay in its case next to us.

“Yeah, Mouse. It’s good.”

I sat up, excited for him. He’d told me last week that he hadn’t written anything for the band in a year. I had yet to see them play, and I was excited to hear them, but nervous too. I mean, Sculpt was six foot three and all muscle. He has what I call sexy bedroom hair, always a little messy with the odd lazy curl that falls over his face. And he had ink running down his left arm to his elbow, which made the hot a scary, badass hot. Then put in that fact that he was in a band and did some illegal underground fighting ... Well girls were no doubt all over him, and I wasn’t ready to face the reality of what dating Sculpt entailed.

We’d been hanging out ever since I asked him to help me learn how to fight a couple months ago. I was assaulted a week before I sought out Sculpt, coming home from my friend Georgie’s coffee shop where I work. I’d been so shocked and terrified that when my assaulter pushed me to the ground I just froze.

When I pulled my head out of deep freeze, I managed to bite his hand and scream my head off, which scared the guy away. After that I was on a mission to learn how to fight back. Sculpt, being an underground fighter was the perfect choice. I’d also heard he needed money to go on tour with his band, and I was willing to pay.

He never let me.

I reached up and ran my finger over the slight indent in his chin. “Can I hear it?”

He shook his head, and despite his lack of smile, because he rarely did smile, I saw the flicker of amusement in his eyes. “No, Eme. You’ll hear it with the band on stage and me singing to you.” The amusement left his eyes, and I felt him stiffen. “Did you think about what I asked?”

I knew exactly what he was referring to. I had a perpetual war in my head for the last three days—I wasn’t ready to have my heart blasted with porcupine quills when Sculpt left me to go on tour, but I also wasn’t ready to go on the road with a group of guys I hadn’t even met yet and have Sculpt responsible for me. I planned on starting college in a month. I had a life here with my best friend Kat and her brother Matt who were also my roommates and my only family.

Ever since grade school when Kat and I had started hanging out, Matt had been there for the both of us. He was eighteen and Kat ten when their parents died in a drinking and driving accident. He’d instantly become Kat’s guardian. Since I no longer had a dad, Matt sort of became the male figure in my life. I looked up to him.

I’d snuck in Kat’s bedroom window numerous times after running away from my mom’s when she brought a new boyfriend home. Matt never kicked me out, never told me to go home, nor did he call my mom. Instead, he bought me a cell phone, programmed his number in it, and told me if I ever needed to get out of my house that I was to call him, and he’d come get me.

The three of us were close and even though I didn’t want Sculpt to leave, I couldn’t see myself leaving either.

“Eme.” His arms tightened around me. “Tell me.” He shifted, easily picking me up under the arms and bringing me around so I sat facing him, my legs bent on either side of him. It was intimate, and Christ, it was hard to resist him and not just say screw it and tell him how I feel and go with him. “Eme, tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

He watched me carefully, eyes unwavering. “You know what I’m asking, but this once I’ll indulge you. Tell me you don’t want more.”

Shit. He knew I was crazy about him. I’d been trying to keep my feelings ... well hidden, somewhat. It obviously wasn’t working. I licked my lips and tried to look away, but he was ready for that and held my head between his hands.

“Eme.”

I was so not good at this. The last person I expressed my feelings to was my dad while he lay in the hospital dying of lung cancer.

“Mouse.” He leaned in, and my hands went to his upper thighs feeling the flex of his muscles beneath my palms. “Look at me.” I did. “I want you with me. I’ll look after you.” His voice lowered. “I’m not happy leaving you here, baby.”

And that was the problem; I didn’t want to be “looked after.” I’d looked after myself all my life. My mom ... I sometimes wondered if she even remembered she had a daughter.

“Emily. I don’t play games. I told you what I want, and I know you want me.”

I didn’t know whether to be pissed or laugh at his arrogance. What I did know was that I was turned on—big time. How could he do that? I mean, he was just looking at me, and yet ... his eyes abducted me. “Sculpt ... I ...”

Sculpt tightened his legs around me. “Eme.” He gripped my chin and held me steady. He waited several seconds, and I finally inhaled a shaky breath. “I’ll never hurt you. I know you’re worried about the women.” I opened my mouth to speak, but his eyes narrowed, and I shut it again. “I’m a fighter. I’m in a band. The women will always be there, but I’m with you.”

And that was the issue. Why was he with me? I wasn’t pretty, had big hips, mousey, brown hair, and my thighs were my best feature. Most guys wouldn’t say so, because I was only five foot three, and they liked the tall, skinny fawn-like legs. I liked my thighs, because I rode horses, and they were the most muscular, lean part of my body.

He stiffened, and I recognized the russet in his eyes reflect in the moonlight. I laid my hands flat on his chest feeling his beating heart beneath my touch. “Jesus, Emily, you have to bury that shit your mother tells you. I swear if she wasn’t a woman, I’d kick her ass.”

I gasped. How did he know about my mother?

“Yeah, Mouse, I know it’s swimming around in your head like a shark eating all your confidence. Do you think I don’t pay attention? I’ve asked you about your mother, and I see what it does to you. You spent most of your childhood at Matt and Kat’s. A girl doesn’t do that if her mother is something special. I’m certain yours is not. She’s put toxic shit in your head.”

“Sculpt ... I ... my ...” Yeah. I had no words. He was right. My mom was toxic, and that was why I never saw her, not that she’d remember if I did.

He tucked my hair behind my ear. It seemed so natural; I wondered if he even realized he was doing it. “We’re exploring this, Eme. I want you on tour with me.”

“I need more time, Sculpt. I can’t suddenly decide to change my life and go with you. I have school starting and Matt and Kat ...” My voice trailed off.

Silence.

“You want to train horses. Why are you wasting your time going to college taking accounting?”

We’d been through this. “Sculpt, it’s a silly dream. I need to focus on what’s real, and that is finding a career and making money.”

“You’re wrong, Eme. You should be chasing your dream.” He sighed. “I’m leaving. Next week.”

My breath hitched, and my heart felt like it had been pierced with quills, and he hadn’t even left yet. “But I thought—”

“Things have changed. We’re leaving sooner than we planned.”

I couldn’t go. God, I wanted to, but he needed to live his dream, and I had to make my own way. I never wanted him to regret being with me. Anything I wanted in life I had to reach for myself. I didn’t want someone else supporting me. One good thing I’d learned from my mother was that if I wanted anything, I had to get it myself, because she sure as hell wasn’t going to give it to me.

“Sculpt. I can’t.”

“Emily.” He lay back in the grass scowling. “You’re overthinking this.”

“But Sculpt—”

“No buts, Emily. I can’t handle any buts. I’m pissed right now.”

“But—”

He sat up again, brows lowered. “No.”

“But you’ll like my but.” I leaned toward him and nipped his chin. That got him to ease up, and his muscles relaxed.

“I already like your butt.” His hand slid down the small of my back to my ass and squeezed. It was playful, but I could still see the darkness in his eyes, and his face was hard.

“Sculpt. My but is important.”

“Yeah, Eme, it is.” I slapped him on the shoulder, and I was glad when he laughed. “Okay, what’s your but?”

“I was going to say, but ...” His brows rose. “Before you go, I want you to make love to me.” I paused, seeing his brows rise with surprise, then I pushed on quickly before I lost my nerve. “Like now, Sculpt. Right now. Here in this spot where we always hang out together. Our place. You with your guitar, and me with the horses.”

His hands that were slowly roaming, stopped squeezing my upper thighs, and he stared at me with such intensity that I was getting hot just watching him watch me. “That’s your but?”

I nodded.

“I knew I liked your butt.” He put his hands on either side of my face and met my eyes. “If you’re in my bed ... you’re not in anyone else’s. You got that, Mouse? Even if I can’t convince you in the next week to come with me—no one else’s.”

“Okay. Same goes for you.” Surrounded by women night after night would be a lot harder for him than for me.

Sculpt stroked the side of my face. “Emily. You erase the bad in my life.”

I couldn’t imagine Sculpt having any bad. He was hot, had an incredible voice, had a body that was no doubt in the dictionary under the definition of muscle, and he had sexy bedroom hair with intense, dark eyes.

He may not laugh often, but when he did it was magical and made up for all the other times he didn’t. I sensed the hardness in him, the untouchable part that he refused to let me discover, but we’d only known one another for a couple months.

His thumb caressed my lips, and the ache between my legs intensified. My stomach wasn’t just pretty little butterflies; it was a flock of Egrets taking flight.

He picked me up and set me on the grass beside him then got on his knees in front of me. He tilted forward, and I leaned back until I was resting in the grass, and he was hovering above.

My nerves were sparking off in every direction while the twinge between my legs became a spasm of aching need. I was breathing so fast that it was like I’d run a marathon.

“Have you ever been touched, Emily?”

I shook my head too breathless to respond verbally.

“If you’re not ready ... tell me now. Be damn sure about this, Eme.”