CHAPTER NINETEEN

“Interstate Love Song”

Evan

A few days later, over a lunch of sandwiches, apple slices, and chips, Quinn and I got into a discussion about Mandy. She stood firmly in Chaz’s corner in that she wanted Mandy to pay for her lies. I’d be lying if I said a part of me didn’t want retribution. Who knew how many men Mandy had scammed. Just the thought that I’d been one of them, that she’d strung me along for nine years, was all kinds of whacked. Chaz made a valid point. If I sat back and did nothing, Mandy would be free to wreak havoc on someone else’s life. My father seemed to agree. In fact, earlier this morning, he suggested that I pursue criminal charges in addition to having the marriage declared void. Pressing charges, however, would potentially involve a trial, which would also inevitably bring with it a media shitstorm as well as being hounded by paparazzi. With Meltdown going back on tour, this would be a bad idea. Up to this point, I’d managed to keep my personal life out of the press and under the radar. If I pressed charges, the story would be splashed across every tabloid in the country. After Luke’s death, Rowan’s kidnapping, and the shit that happened on our last tour, the band couldn’t afford to take another hit.

What I didn’t tell Quinn, was that my dad had accused me of holding back. He was right. I was holding back. I hadn’t disclosed what my accountant had discovered—that Mandy had been syphoning money from our joint account and depositing it into another. I hadn’t told anyone, not because I still cared about her, but because I didn’t. I didn’t give a shit if she stole two dollars or ten million. It was only money. I could make more. I also didn’t tell her that Mandy had been blowing up my phone for the past hour. Again, not because it mattered, but because it didn’t. Quinn mattered. She was the only thing that mattered.

As I stared across the table at my future, a future so glaringly bright that I was nearly blinded by it, I made a decision. Once the annulment was final, I was walking away. No charges. No payback. Nothing.

“What are you thinking?” Quinn asked. I watched as she took a bite of apple.

“I was thinking that we should continue this discussion upstairs.”

“You do, do you?” The sight of her licking her fingers made me want to sweep the dishes to the floor and take her right on the table.

“I was thinking that you could play that new guitar for me. You know, the one you brought back from your secret mission with Chaz and never told me about.” Her pouty tone made me smile.

“I was going to show you, but then I caught you with your fingers down your swimsuit, while fantasizing about another man’s cock, and it kind of killed the excitement for me.” Clearly, I was still jealous.

A crease appeared between her brows as she narrowed her eyes on me. “You just had to bring that up, didn’t you?”

“Am I wrong?”

She stood from the table, picked up both plates, carried them across the kitchen, and set them in the sink. Then she turned and gave me an evil grin. “I didn’t plan on watching, but once I caught sight of that man’s penis, I just...couldn’t help myself.” A spear of jealousy blazed through me. I knew she was fucking with me, but still...she was talking about another man’s cock. Not fucking cool.

“It was that big, huh?” I asked.

Ignoring my tone of warning, she spread her hands to at least a foot apart, and answered in slow, clipped words, “It was king dong big.” That was it. With a growl, I shoved back from the table and stood. As if sensing she’d pushed me too far, Quinn let out a cute little squeak and darted for the kitchen door. She was fast—so fast that I didn’t catch up to her until we were right outside of the pool house. I didn’t give her time to turn around. I just smushed her flat to the brick façade and held her there with my front flush to her back.

Dropping my mouth to her ear, I said, “King dong?” Even though we were both panting heavily, she still managed to giggle.

“Is something funny?” I asked.

“Yes, you,” she shot back at me. “For all I care, that man could have had the biggest dong of the century and it wouldn’t matter a lick to me, because all I see is you. All I’ve seen since the night you walked into my bar and griped about my dirty table...is you.” Her words stunned me. She didn’t know I was Evan Walker, keyboardist for Meltdown, back then. To her, I was just a man. That hadn’t changed. To her, I was still just a man...her man.

Air whooshed from Quinn’s lungs as I released the pressure on her back. Taking a step back, I gripped the bottom of my shirt and jerked it over my head. The moment she noticed she was free, she spun around to face me.

Staring at my naked chest, she asked, “What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?” She dragged her gaze down my chest to my hands, which were busy unbuttoning my shorts. I hadn’t bothered with underwear after the shower, and smiled when I heard her suck in a sharp breath as they dropped to the pavement. “Now, as I recall, this is where I busted you having your little fantasy the other day. Had we not been interrupted, this is what I would have done.”

In a flash of movement, I had her back against the wall. Quinn stared up at me with a look of acceptance, a look of want, need...of love on her face. Dropping my mouth to hers, I licked my tongue across her bottom lip. A sexy groan escaped as she opened up for me. Deepening the kiss, I dragged my hands down her torso, where I slipped my fingers into the elastic waistband of her athletic shorts. Her arms shot to my shoulders and wrapped around my neck, and in one quick motion, I lifted her up, jerked her shorts and underwear down her legs, and lowered her back to her feet—all without breaking the kiss. In the process, however, one of my knuckles scraped across the brick exterior. As tempted as I was to lift her back up and plow into her, I couldn’t risk the brick scratching up her gorgeous skin.

Pulling back from the kiss, I bent over and snagged my shorts from the ground. Then I took her hand in mine and led her inside the pool house. We barely made it through the door before I was back on her.

“What was wrong with outside?” she asked. Her hair, having come out of the rubber band, was a wild mane of curls around her face. This, added to her sex-drugged gaze and swollen lips made her even more heart-stoppingly gorgeous.

“Could you be any more beautiful?” I whispered. She blinked. Then she smiled...and then she grabbed my cock. Air shot from my lungs as she took a step forward, pushed up onto her tiptoes, and sealed her lips to mine.

In a matter of seconds, the condom was on and I was lifting her from the ground. With her legs wrapped around my waist and her arms around my neck, I pushed her back against the wall and plunged inside.

“Yesssss,” she hissed on an explosive sigh.

“Fuck!” I shouted as shards of pleasure raced down my spine, coiled around my shaft, and squeezed. Quinn’s heels dug into my back and spurred me into action. With long, hard thrusts, I took her against the wall. Sweat soaked both of us, to the point I thought she might slip from my grasp. Slowly, I lowered to my knees and shifted my hands to her ass and lower back. This allowed me to go deeper, causing us both to groan. Nothing had ever felt this good. I knew nothing ever would. Not without Quinn.

“I’m coming!” she shouted. The moment I felt her pussy clamp down on me, I exploded. Hell. Fucking. Yes.

_______________

Two days later, after a round of sex on one of the pool lounges, Quinn and I were floating in the pool when Bobby and Tut appeared at the top of the stairs. I could see the disappointment on Quinn’s face as they made their way down the steps to us. I knew what she was thinking and didn’t blame her one bit. For one whole week—the best week of my life, I might add— it had been just the two of us.

I held out my hand. With zero hesitation she took it, and smiled when I linked up our floats. “It’s almost over.”

“I know. I’m just...going to miss this.” I was, too.

“Look at me.” I waited until I had her eyes to speak. “As soon as this is over, I promise you a million more, even better weeks, okay?”

“Promise?” she whispered.

“Promise.”

The latch to the pool gate clanked.

“Hey guys!” Quinn called out over my shoulder.

“As much as I’d like to join you in the pool, I think we should probably discuss this in front of my computer, so if you two love birds aren’t opposed, can we move the party to the main house?” Bobby called back.

“Quit staring at Tut,” I warned, low enough for only us to hear.

Her eyes danced to mine. “King dong,” she whispered, and laughing, she slid into the water and raced for the side of the pool.

Our moods sobered once we reached the house. Quinn went upstairs to get dressed, while I sat down at the table with Bobby and Tut. Bobby started with the marriage certificate. They verified that the license was valid and made sure that the certificate was in fact a legal document that we could provide as evidence. After this, he moved onto their visit with husband number one, Ned Colliard, or should I say visits.

“The guy wanted nothing to do with us. We showed up on his doorstep, showed him our credentials, and told him why we were there. We didn’t get far on that visit. He just told us to fuck off and that his wife wouldn’t cheat on him if her life depended on it. Then he slammed the door in our faces.”

“What was the house like?”

“I wouldn’t say there was anything special about it. It was certainly nothing like the house the two of you lived in, but it was nothing to cry about. We tried again the next morning.”

“This time, when Bobby tried to finesse him, I pulled out the marriage certificates and waved them in front of his face,” Tut cut in. “That got him talking.” I motioned for him to keep going.

“Shit, Tut, you have the tact of a bulldozer,” Bobby grumbled.

“Well, if we wait for you to finesse every situation, we’ll be here all day.” They sounded like me and Ehren when we’d spent too much time together.

“Don’t finesse me. Just talk,” I directed at Bobby.

Sighing loudly, he said, “Fine. Ned was extremely shocked, to say the least. He said he knew who you were and loved Meltdown and your music. He went on to tell us how he met Mandy their senior year in college. After a few months of dating, she discovered she was pregnant. This was right before graduation, so they waited until after the ceremony to tell anyone. They got married and she lost the baby when she was five months along. I hate to say this, but the guy was nice. Not just that, but he was floored by our visit.” As I listened to him talk about the woman I’d spent the last nine years with, I felt detached, as if this was happening to someone other than me.

“That’s how she lures them in,” I stated.

“Let him finish,” Tut said.

“When she lost the baby there were complications and the doctors had to take her uterus,” Bobby continued. “This led to depression and other problems in their marriage.”

“Back up a moment. Did you say the doctor took her uterus? As in, she couldn’t have children?” I asked, hoping that I’d somehow misheard him.

“You heard right. Unless she’d suddenly grown a new uterus, the bitch wasn’t carrying your baby,” Tut snapped. He glanced at the doorway and I followed his gaze to where Quinn was standing. Her eyes were on me.

“Do you want me to leave?” she asked.

Still stunned, I said, “Mandy not only wasn’t pregnant. She couldn’t even have children.”

She walked over and sat down beside me. “I’m sorry.”

“Tell him the rest,” Tut urged. All eyes went to Bobby.

“According to Ned, Amanda has never worked a day in her life.”

“Bullshit! She worked for a pharmaceutical company,” I corrected.

“Did she really?” Tut questioned. “You two kept separate bank accounts, right? I bet that was Mandy’s idea. Did you ever see a pay stub, meet any of her co-workers, go to any of her work functions?”

“No, but only because her territory was in four different states.”

“Four states other than Texas, correct?”

They had to be wrong. “You don’t get it. She told stories about sales meetings and shit all the time.” Quinn squeezed my hand and I sucked in a deep breath.

“No, you don’t get it,” Tut said, his voice sympathetically calm. “Amanda James, Collier, Walker, and soon to be Keen is what we call a pathological liar.”

“The job was a cover that allowed her to travel back and forth from Virginia to Texas without getting caught. She took the money that Ned sent home, deposited it into an account, and pretended it was from her monthly paycheck. She did the same with the money you gave her, so if either of you ever looked, you would find a sizeable amount in the account and never question it,” Bobby explained. With what I’d just learned from my accountant, this made sense.

“Damn,” Quinn whispered. Damn was right. “Ned is in the Army?” she asked.

Nodding, Bobby said, “He claims that’s what ruined their marriage.”

“What? Him having a decent job?” I inquired.

Bobby’s eyes locked with mine. “No, him leaving.” And suddenly, it all snapped into place. Mandy was fine until I left to go on tour and she could no longer control me. “You’re connecting the dots, right?” he asked.

Quinn looked back and forth between the two of us. “What am I missing?”

“Ned said that Amanda didn’t want him to go, begged him not to leave. When he refused her, she left him,” Bobby explained.

“Let me guess, she came back.”

“She came back a bitter bitch,” Tut said.

Bobby nodded. “He said things were never the same after, that she was constantly threatening to leave him.”

“Get this,” Tut added. “She apparently calmed her tits after he bought her a new car...and the house.”

Stunned into silence, I stood from the table and walked out of the room.