by Cherrie Lynn
Mike waved the offer away. “I don’t need anything. Just thought I would come see how you’re doing.”
“Recording, getting ready for the tour, normal shit.”
“Was Rowan telling you about what happened today?”
Zane narrowed his eyes. “Savannah already called you too, huh?”
“Is Rowan okay? She’s worried about her.”
“Then maybe she and her mom need to lay the fuck off, what do you think?”
“I agree. Honestly, I do. But they don’t need input from the guy who did him in, Zane. I respect that boundary. I only told her I would check to see if you’d heard anything.”
“Don’t worry about her. Whatever damage they do, I’ll make it better as best I can.”
“I think maybe you need to lay off too.”
“Fuck that. You set this up, man. You brought this girl to me. You thought it would make her feel better to meet her favorite singer. Okay, fine. But guess what happened? I like her. And whether she’s ready to admit it yet or not, she likes me. Now you’re telling me to back off. I mean, what the fuck? You’re treating me like a goddamn puppet: ‘Here, sing your fucking songs for her, make her smile.’ Then you jerk me back when I start thinking about getting involved because in your eyes I’m some kind of damn reprobate or something . . .”
“That’s not true and you know it, Zane. You’re my brother and I’ve always tried to protect you.”
“I don’t need it anymore, Mike. I don’t. All that shit with Mom is ancient history. I’m in a different world now, and it’s my world.”
“Because you did so well with it at first,” Mike said, his expression hard and accusatory.
“You’re right. I didn’t. But I got straight, all on my own, no help from you. Because you know damn good and well I wouldn’t have gotten clean if I didn’t want to.”
“I know. But nothing in my life has ever scared me, little brother, like watching you go down the same spiral I watched Mom go down, because of this world. It keeps me up at night to think about you getting caught back up in it.”
“If anything is going to make me use again, it’s you riding my ass.” He cringed inwardly at Mike’s expression then, and shook his head, feeling like a pile of shit. “I didn’t mean that.” Rubbing his eyes, he stood up. “You want to hear some of the stuff we’ve been working on?”
Mike still regarded him warily, but he got to his feet. “Yeah. You know I’m proud of you, right?”
“I know.” Somehow, hearing that always made him feel ten years old again.
But he hadn’t been thinking when he made the invitation. He led Mike back down to the studio, but he hadn’t even gotten to the controls when he heard his brother say from behind him, “Good likeness.”
Turning, he felt his shoulders deflate when he saw his lyric book in Mike’s hand, still open to the sketch of Rowan he’d been working on while he was talking to her. Her sweet face he’d drawn with flowing, angelic lines, her full lips he remembered the exact shape of because he’d stared at them for so long the night of their date, memorizing their curve, wondering at their taste. And he still didn’t fully know the latter, because he’d kept their kiss so brief, so chaste. Mike saw all of that right then, and he tossed the book down on the couch with a grim and knowing look in his blue eyes.
“I suppose Savannah will hear about that,” Zane remarked.
“No. I’ll recuse myself. You two are adults. Do what you will.”
It was nice to hear, but Zane knew his brother too well. He didn’t believe it for a minute.
Chapter Seven
Wow. Wow.
The songs he’d suggested to her before had been sexy. This one positively dripped sex.
He’d told her to think of him.
God, he wanted her.
Rowan exhaled as the song trailed sensually away, her pulse slow and throbbing. She could feel it in places that made her lick her lips and squeeze her thighs together. Hopefully he wouldn’t call for a little while, or . . .
Her phone came to life. Zane’s FaceTime request, already.
She shot up in her bed, straightening and tucking stray hairs away, swiping up under her eyes to clear any eyeliner or mascara that might have run after she cried in her car on the way home. For a moment, she considered not accepting until she could pull herself together, but the need to see him was too strong and undeniable. She answered, smiling when his face appeared. “Hey.”
“Hey, you.” His dark hair was loose, the way she preferred it, falling past his shoulders. Judging by the instruments arranged behind him, he was in the studio he’d shown her the other night. “You look beautiful,” he said, surprising her. The way his dark gaze caressed her face, even through the filter of technology, did nothing to assuage the ache in her body. Could he see how turned on she was?
“Thank you,” she said, hearing the breathless quality of her own voice.
“So . . . you’re still just lying around in bed, looking beautiful?” The way he grinned made heat rush to her face. Of course, he could see the headboard behind her.
“I guess so. You’re alone, right?”
“Yeah. Mike actually left a few minutes ago.”
That made her pause. “Oh. What did he have to say?”
“Nothing much.”
“Has he talked to Savannah?”
“He has, but he didn’t go into it much. He wants to stay out of it, Rowan. So don’t worry about him, all right? He knows his boundaries and even if he hasn’t said it, I know he’s still so eaten up with guilt that—”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, the clipped words pouring out before she could give much thought to them. Then she cringed, thinking about how it sounded, seeing the stricken look on his face, and she softened her voice. “I can’t go back there. I only want to go forward. That’s the problem, Zane . . . with Regina and this whole thing. I don’t want to forget; I never want to forget. But what she wants to do feels like wallowing, and I’m so tired of that. So, so tired. If I give in to this now, what will it be next?” She sighed at the way her mouth was running away with her. “And there I go, talking about it. I’m sorry. That’s all I have to say.”
“You talk about it or not talk about it all you want.”
“I listened to the song,” she confessed, needing the change of subject.
“What did you think?”
Rowan thought about her first impression, when she was focusing mostly on the rich, sinful sound, before the sensual lyrics had begun to filter in to her during her second listen. “It made me think of something that might be playing in a smoky twenties speakeasy, with a girl in a sequined dress draped across the piano,” she said.
“Oh yeah? It makes me think about fucking in the woods.” He stared her right in the eyes when he said it, and she nearly choked.
“That’s . . . quite literal.”
“Mm.” He looked at her, long and steady. Long enough to make her a little uncomfortable. “You’re blushing.”
Her hand fluttered impulsively to one cheek, her heart rate kicking up even further, which only pumped more blood into her face. A vicious cycle. “Um, Zane? I . . . maybe I should go.”
“Rowan.” His phone shifted around, the view behind him changing slightly. The sudden steadiness let her know he’d set it down, aimed at his face as he looked earnestly at her. “Imagine we had nothing standing between us,” he began, and she knew this would be a conversation she wasn’t quite ready to have.
“But we do,” she insisted.
“In this fantasy, we don’t.”
“We’re not in a fantasy. We’re in reality.”
“Don’t you want to escape from reality, just for a little while?”
God, yes. Oh, God, did she ever. “Yes,” she whispered.
“I’d love to be the one to take you there, angel,” he murmured.
Her mouth ran dry, her tongue felt thick. “It’s wrong,” she managed to say around it, even as her body throbb
ed in time with her heart, betraying her. The way he’d called her that . . . when she felt like anything but.
“Wrong? Says who? Because no one is here but you and me. And I don’t think it’s wrong, and I would never judge you.”
“But you’re not even here.”
“I know. And I can’t be, I’m needed here. But you could be here in less than three hours, away from those people who hurt you. I could make it happen.”
What killed her was that she wanted it so badly her eyes filled with tears. She was so used to crying over the ruins of her life that it almost felt good, cleansing, to cry over something else. Zane watched her eyes well and spill, well and spill, his own intent expression softening. “I would kiss those away,” he said, which only made more spill as she sucked in a breath, tears dripping in steady rivulets down her cheeks.
Wiping her face with her free hand, she shook her head, though her words twisted a knife in her heart. “I can’t. I want to, please believe me. But I can’t.”
“But you’ll think about coming with me on tour? If you can’t do this, do you think you’ll be able to do that, or will you back out at the last minute because of some sense of obligation to them?”
“There you go, being the devil again,” she teased, smiling a little through her tears.
“I know, right? Here I am trying to tempt an angel. It’s as hard as I always imagined it would be, but I’m not so easily daunted. Christ, Rowan. You’re so beautiful it makes me hurt. Come to me.”
It was the fantasy. It was everything a girl with posters of her favorite rock star on the walls of her bedroom could ever want, a girl who let his voice lull her into dreams every night, who imagined meeting him someday and finding he was everything she’d hoped.
But she was a grown woman, an expectant mother. She’d left childhood fantasies in the dust long ago. “I need to . . . stop this,” she said, pushing steel into her voice as best she could. It came out weak and pathetic.
“Don’t run away.” But he sounded strong and knowing and steady. “I’ll back off if you ask me to. But don’t run.”
The only thing that made her feel more desolate inside was the thought of him backing off. Lately, he had been the only thing she had to run to. Today, he had been the first person she wanted to talk to after everything went to shit. What would she do if he were no longer there?
“It’s such a confusing time for me,” she explained. “I don’t want you to back off. But I can’t promise . . . anything right now.”
“I’m not asking for any promises. None at all.” He sighed, leaning back in his chair and glancing around before running his hands back through his hair. It was something she might like to do herself.
“What are you asking for?” she asked when he didn’t say anything for a moment.
“All I’m asking for right now is for you to let me take you away from all this for a while.” His lips curled, wicked sensuality that made her tremble inwardly. “Using every method in my arsenal.”
She could only imagine those methods. Deep in her belly, the baby fluttered, probably wondering why the hell her mom’s heart was doing flip-flops. It was a stark reminder of why she couldn’t forget her current reality to chase fleeting fantasies that would disappear like mist in the morning. What then?
“I’m really, really scared to let you do that,” she told him. “Because all my problems will still be waiting for me here afterward.”
“Exactly. But life is short. I don’t think I have to explain that to you.”
Rowan cast her eyes at the ceiling, but there was nothing beyond it willing to come to her aid. When she lowered her head again, hunger burned in Zane’s eyes. He’d been staring at her throat as if he’d like to sink his teeth into it. “I want to see all of you,” he said, low and husky, a voice he might use when he was inside her.
All of her? Her puffy, swollen, achy body? The sudden thought of him seeing her naked was horrifying. He, who, by his own admission, had fucked anything that could be fucked. How many models? How many starlets or porn stars, with their fake boobs and flat bellies and tight asses? “You do realize I’m pregnant, right? I’m big and getting bigger by the day. I gained like five pounds this week alone. My doctor actually wagged her finger at me. How sexy is that?”
“If you were here I would show you just how sexy I think it is.”
He said that now. She could understand a father loving the mother of his child’s pregnant body, finding it attractive for the life growing inside . . . but Zane had no attachments to this child. What if she repulsed him?
What if this was still all about pity? “You feel sorry for me, don’t you?”
“Are you fucking serious? Rowan. I’m not that altruistic. I’ll do nice things for people, sure. But if I pitied you, I wouldn’t be pursuing you. And I don’t think you can deny I’m pursuing you. So stop trying to make every excuse you can think of as to why this isn’t real for me. Because it is.”
“Okay,” she said quickly. “I guess that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. I don’t understand.”
“There’s nothing to try to understand, honey,” he said gently.
“I can’t come today,” she said at last, after a few moments of staring at his precious face, thinking that much was a certainty right now. “I’m sorry.”
Sighing, he wiped a hand down his mouth, his beard, and she thought about all the opportunities to feel both of them against her skin. All the opportunities she was refusing, and for what, really?
He might be pursuing her now, but she knew someone like him wouldn’t remain on that particular hunt for long. He had too many other options. Already, the thought of those other options stung her, stressed her out. She would always worry about his fidelity, wouldn’t she?
But the man had kicked drugs and alcohol. He obviously had an iron will.
“I wish you’d reconsider,” he said finally, “but I know you won’t. You might be the only person I’ve ever met who’s as hardheaded as I am, my skittish little dove.”
That made her laugh, and he smiled to see it. “Do you have another song for me?” she asked, lying back down on her bed and rolling onto her side, carrying her phone with her. Her back had begun to ache. He watched her every move, still with that ravenous heat in his eyes, his jaw set hard as granite.
“I’m afraid I brought out the big guns on the last one, to no avail. Try ‘Briar Path’ by ERAAS. That’s with two As.”
“‘Briar Path’? Are you saying I’m prickly?”
“No. Simply trying to convey the physical pain I’m in at the moment. Wrapped in briars over you, but I’ll happily bleed.”
“Are you writing lyrics right now?”
“Why, is that good? I might use it. You know, you’re not doing me any favors, letting me see you like this.”
Lying on her bed? She hadn’t been thinking. “Should I get up?”
“No. Rest if you need to. I’ll talk to you soon. Even though I really wish I would be seeing you in a few hours. Seeing this for real.”
“This is the only real I have to offer right now, Zane.”
He stared at her for a long moment, drinking her in. “Then I’ll take it. Good night.”
* * *
Tommy’s birthday dawned gray and muggy, matching Rowan’s mood perfectly. Around ten A.M., a sluggish rain began to fall, snarling traffic and generally adding to her misery. She didn’t mind rain, as long as she could stay in. But when she was being a pushover and attending a “get-together” celebrating her deceased husband’s birthday, she wished for anything but this.
Anything.
Regina wouldn’t relent because the occasion had already been set before she even consulted Rowan about it in the first place. She had called the day after Rowan’s doctor’s appointment to apologize, though, and the two of them had settled into an uneasy compromise. Rowan would make an appearance. That was all. And it wouldn’t be a long one, and there would be little “celebratory” about it. She wanted to see Tomm
y’s family, and let herself be seen, and that was it.
Regina had not been pleased. Rowan could tell from the tone of her voice.
But here she was headed to their home on Lake Pontchartrain, a thousand memories swamping her as she parked and rang the bell. Regina answered the door, smiling as if no cross words had been exchanged. She wore a sleek, dark blue pantsuit, immaculate as ever. Immediately, she enfolded Rowan in a hug. “Thank you so much for this,” she said near her ear.
She didn’t even know what to say, since apparently all her smiles were “forced” and Regina saw right through every lie she told for everyone else’s benefit. Why should she even try anymore?
Savannah was already there, Rowan was relieved to see. She could’ve been an exact mirror image of her exquisite mother thirty years ago, her long dark hair in a lazy curl, her tunic a rich burgundy that was stunning next to her olive complexion. Such beautiful people, all of them tall and distinguished. Tommy had been too. It had hurt to look at them together sometimes; too much beauty in one place. Tiny and blond, Rowan had sometimes felt like a poodle among a family of regal Great Danes or something. It was a feeling that had never quite gone away, even if she would never admit it to any of them.
Small talk ensued; the guests wouldn’t arrive for another hour. Regina promised there wouldn’t be many. Tommy’s aunts and uncles on both sides of the family, some cousins he’d been closest to. Rowan thought back over the past few months and tried to remember if any of them had called to check on her after his passing. To her recollection, none of them had.
And it wasn’t that she was exactly bitter about that. People had lives, and they went on, even when others’ lives didn’t. She didn’t expect everyone to stop what they were doing, drop everything, and take care of her. That was ridiculous. But seriously . . . was a phone call so hard? A text message? A lunch date?
She supposed in a way this was them dropping everything and coming to see her, but they’d only agreed to it at Regina’s urging. And promises of fabulous food and wine, surely. Everything looked perfect, all of Tommy’s Cajun favorites. It was just the occasion that was fucked up.