Gently, fingers grasped and intertwined with mine. With a sad sigh he brought our joined hands to his lips and kissed each finger. “Is it selfish that I want to keep you to myself for another night?”
I leaned my head back against the seat and smiled up at him. “No. Not selfish at all, because I want the same thing. Too bad that we can’t have everything that we want…”
“Fuck that,” he muttered heatedly. “I’ll fix it so that we can have every night together, Layla.”
I frowned. “How are you going to do that?” I asked. “What does that mean?”
He was already shaking his head. “Don’t worry about it.” Leaning in, he kissed me, making me forget anything he had just said. His fingers tangled in my already horribly knotted hair and pulled me closer. I wanted to climb across the console and straddle him, have sex with him right here in the driveway!
He pulled back just enough to press his forehead against mine. “Go, Layla,” he whispered. “Go before I do something crazy like drive back to Beverly Hills.”
“Jesse…”
“Please, go. I’m not strong enough to…” He released me and fell back against his seat, his eyes closed tight. “Good night, baby. I’ll call you in the morning.”
When he didn’t move to open his door, I slowly reached for my own. “Good night, Jesse,” I whispered before slipping from the SUV.
Swallowing hard to keep my tears from spilling out and making me sob, I walked quickly back to the guest house. How crazy was it that I didn’t want to be away from him for even a night? My heart was actually aching, clenching more and more with each step that took me away from him.
No, no, no! No! Last night—when I had told him I loved him—that had just been in the heat of the moment. It wasn’t true. It wasn’t. I couldn’t be in love with him this soon, this deeply!
But my heart was saying that I was a liar…
Muttering curses under my breath, I opened the door to the guesthouse and walked inside. Lucy was watching television in the living room with a plate of Chinese food in front of her. I stopped and dropped a kiss on her dark head. “Hey, baby doll. Where’s Lana?”
“In the shower,” Lucy informed me after swallowing a mouthful of fried rice and shrimp. “We went swimming with Drake earlier, and she was itching.”
I smiled. “So she and Drake made up?”
Lucy nodded, her attention going back to the television and the episode of Sponge Bob that was on. “Yep. We spent the whole afternoon with him. Then he ordered Chinese, which is awesome, but he left when I had to take my bath.”
“Well I’m glad you two had a good time.” I placed another kiss on her sweet smelling head and turned toward the bedroom. “It’s getting late, sweetheart. As soon as Sponge Bob goes off head to bed, okay?”
“Okay,” she called after me.
The shower was still running when I walked into the bathroom. I could hear Lana humming happily over the running water and couldn’t help smiling to myself. “Hey!” I called to her as I sat on the edge of the toilet seat.
The shower curtain was pulled back enough, and Lana’s head peeked around. She gave me a sly grin. “Hello, stranger. Enjoy your date? A date that lasted more than twenty-four freaking hours?”
I was sure that I was glowing with just how much I had enjoyed myself. “It was the most amazing night of my life.” That was as much detail as my seventeen year old sister was getting. “I heard you had some company this afternoon. So you and Drake are okay now?”
“More than okay.” She pulled the shower curtain back but didn’t stop talking as she continued to shower. “He apologized to me, I forgave him, and then we went swimming. After that, he came over here and we watched movies and ordered dinner. I didn’t want him to go back to the main house, but it was getting late and Lucy needed a bath.”
“Sounds like you guys enjoyed yourselves.”
“I enjoy every minute with Drake…no matter what we are doing.” Lana muttered more to herself than to me.
I sighed. “Lana…”
The water turned off and the curtain snapped back. “Stop worrying so much about it, Layla. I’m not stupid. I know that he’s thirteen years older than me. I know that I don’t stand a chance with him. We are just friends. I know. I know. I know!” She jerked a towel off the hanger and wrapped it around herself almost angrily, but when she stepped from the tub and faced me she was smiling, even if it didn’t quiet reach her eyes. “Just. Friends.”
I stood and pulled her into my arms. “Okay.” I kissed her check, pretending like I believed her. Because while it might be true for Drake that they were just friends, I knew my sister, and what she was feeling was far stronger than mere friendship. I could see the truth in her eyes.
Lana was in love with Drake.
Jesse
I wanted to talk to Emmie as soon as I got home. I had things that I needed her to handle for me. But Nik said that she was asleep, and I didn’t want to bother her if she was comfortable. She had been having insomnia lately, and if she was finally getting some sleep, I wasn’t about to interrupt that.
So I put all the things I needed to do to the back of my mind for now and dropped down on the sectional with my band brothers. It was just the four of us doing nothing more than watching football and drinking beer. It felt good to relax with them.
Half time came and Shane got up to get us all more beers. Drake was tossing back Jack Daniels and chasing it with his beer. It was the first time I had actually seen him with a bottle in a week, and I had already gotten use to him being sober. I watched as he swallowed glass after glass and hated that I was witnessing the old Drake, not the new one that had laughed more in the past week than I had ever heard from him in the life time that I had known him.
When the bottle was empty I took it from his slackened fingers and pulled him up. “Let’s go, Drake,” I urged softly. “Time for bed.”
He sighed but didn’t resist. He stumbled a little as I helped him up the stairs. In his room, he just fell onto the bed, and I took off his shoes and jeans. But I wasn’t going to let him just pass out, not without an explanation. “So, what happened? You and Lana have a fight?”
“Yesterday,” he confirmed. “Crazy girl didn’t want me buying her things. Said that I was trying to buy her.” Drake laughed but it in no way held humor. “But I apologized today.”
“She didn’t forgive you?”
“Nope. She did. Spent the rest of the day with her and Lucy.” His words were getting a little slurred now, but I had years of experience learning how to understand drunk Drake. “One of the best days of my life,” he muttered so low that I almost didn’t hear him.
I frowned. “So why the fuck are you drinking?”
Drake’s eyes were about to close when they snapped open and he glared up at me. “Because I want her so fucking much! Because I feel like I need her to breathe. Because she’s seventeen fucking years old!” he shouted at me.
I dropped down on the edge of his bed, facing my friend who was so troubled with himself. “Dray, she’s beautiful. A blind man could see how beautiful she is. And it isn’t just on the outside. She’s really sweet, man. Lana is special.”
A tear leaked from the corner of his eye. “I know that,” he whispered.
“And I think she has some strong feelings for you too.” The few times I had actually seen them together I had witnessed the way Lana looked at Drake. I had worried about her feeling too much for my friend. That she would get in over her head with an infatuation that she would quickly outgrow. But after talking to Layla until the sun came up that morning, I also knew that the girl was more mature than most thirty-year-olds I knew. She was wise for her years.
But to Drake her age was a major problem. There was a reason why he always ended up with the cougars that followed us from city to city on our tours. He never looked twice at the younger girls that tried to get into our beds. He was scared to death of being labeled a pedophile. “What are you going to do?” I aske
d after we had both been quiet for a few minutes.
Drake scrubbed a hand across his damp eyes. “Nothing.”
I bit back a curse. “Nothing? So you just go on being friends, but slowly killing yourself with alcohol to numb your pain?”
He shrugged. “I can’t touch her. I won’t touch her!”
Frustrated I ran a hand over my head, hating the stubble that I felt under my fingers. “Have you at least talked to her about this?”
“No. She’s too young to understand. I’m not going to burden her with it all.” He closed his eyes, already drifting off to sleep. “Thanks for taking care of me man,” he muttered as he passed out.
I glared down at my friend. He looked at peace in sleep now, but soon the nightmares would invade that peace and I would hear his screams from my room. I was sure that the alcohol made the dreams that much worse, but there was no explaining that to Drake. Muttering curses under my breath, I tugged the comforter up around him and left the room.
There was nothing more I could do tonight, perhaps nothing more I could ever do. Drake refused to talk about his nightmares with any of us, especially Shane. And I wasn’t going to tell his secrets to Lana. If she was to ever truly understand him, then she would have to know all of it, but I wasn’t going to be that person.
Instead of going back downstairs, I went down the hall and fell onto my own bed. It was late, so I couldn’t call Layla. I ached to have her lying beside of me, and not just to soothe the ache in my dick. Thinking about Drake and his nightmares had put my cock into hiding. But I still ached to hold her, talk to her about all of this.
Would she understand and know what to do? Should I confide in her? I was at a loss. If I told her, she could possibly turn away, even refuse to let Lana see Drake again. That would only hurt Drake more, not to mention break a confidence that I had made almost thirteen years ago. But if I didn’t tell her…
“Ah, fuck,” I grunted. “I’m screwed either way.”
Somehow I fell asleep only to jerk awake around two thirty. Drake was having it rougher than usual tonight while he fought with the demons from his past and his own conscience regarding Lana. I sat up in bed, my fist clenched in the covers beside of me, while I listened to him sobbing. I was just about to go wake him up when I heard Emmie.
I jumped out of bed, not bothering to put on pants over my boxers I walked down the hall to Drake’s open door. Emmie was lying beside of him with his face buried in her neck while she rubbed his back. “It’s okay, Drake,” she whispered softly. “You’re safe. Shh. Shh. You’re safe.”
I stood there until Drake had slipped back into a restless sleep while Emmie continued to soothe him. After a while she drifted off to sleep too, and I moved into the room to cover them both up. Turning, I was surprised to see Shane standing in the doorway. He was covered in sweat telling me that he had been out for a run. I grimaced.
The brothers handled their disturbed past differently: Drake with his alcohol and Shane with sex. When he couldn’t get that readily, he would run until he couldn’t feel his legs. I met my friend’s blue gray eyes, and Shane quickly looked away. “Maybe we should make him see a specialist again.”
“That didn’t work out so well last time. Or the two times we talked him into rehab,” I reminded him quietly. Drake had lasted a week the first time in rehab. The second time he had put a male nurse through a window and they had kicked him out. The psychologist hadn’t fared much better. He had gone too far too soon, and Drake hadn’t been ready for that. For a month afterwards, Emmie had slept almost every night with him because the nightmares had been too much.
“He seemed like he was getting better,” Shane whispered, looking over at his sleeping older brother. “I thought Lana was helping.”
“She was. She is.” I grimaced. “But he’s also fighting himself and his feelings for her. Maybe when she’s older…”
“Yeah, maybe.” Shane turned to go. “If he lives that long.”
…Emmie…
I was startled awake by the feel of strong arms lifting me. Blinking open my eyes, I looked up at Nik who was holding me against his warm, bare chest. In the background, I vaguely heard gaging and realized it is Drake throwing up and remembered that I had spent part of the night in bed with him.
Warm lips brush across my forehead and I leaned into his kiss. “What time is it?”
“Still pretty early,” Nik murmured softly as he carried me down the hall to our room. The door was already open, and he kicked it shut behind him before putting me in the middle of the bed.
I glanced at the clock to see that it was barely after six and grimaced. Any hopes of snuggling in bed with Nik for a little while were lost. Sighing, I arranged myself so that I was lying on my side and wrapped my legs around the body pillow so that my hips wouldn’t ache as bad. The baby was getting bigger by the day, and my hips seemed to do nothing but hurt anymore.
To my surprise, Nik crawled in behind me and pulled my back against his chest. My heart filled with love, and I fought the urge to cry happy tears. “Don’t you have to be at the studio soon?”
He kissed my neck, making me shiver. My nipples instantly hardened but we both knew that there wasn’t going to be any action. I hated it, but it hurt to make love lately. Nik understood and never complained about it. “Not going in until later. Screw them. I want to hold you for a little while.”
One big hand skimmed over my expanded stomach, played with the protruding belly button that had popped out about a month ago, and then settled low where our baby liked to punch me. That little girl was silent this morning, but all too soon she would be using me as her personal punching bag.
Tired, content to be in my love’s arms, I pushed all the things that were on my mind to the back and let sleep take me…
Sometime later, I felt Nik leave me. He brushed a tender kiss across my cheek then another across my exposed stomach. I sighed happily and buried my face in my pillow. “Love you, baby,” he whispered.
“Love you.”
I fell back into a dreamless sleep and didn’t wake up again until midmorning. I hadn’t been sleeping well lately. Restless legs, aching hips, and just an all-around uncomfortable feeling had made me an insomniac. Last night was the first good sleep I had had in what felt like forever, but I was still feeling exhausted when I climbed out of bed and tossed on a pair of yoga pants and one of Nik’s old shirts.
I couldn’t care less how I looked. My hair was a mess, and I didn’t even bother to brush it as I pulled it into a sloppy bun. My feet were swollen, and it hurt to walk down the stairs, but I had things to do that couldn’t wait.
From the kitchen, I could smell bacon frying, but for once the smell didn’t make my mouth water. In fact, I felt sick and had to hold my breath as I passed the kitchen on my way to my office. “I’m not hungry, Layla,” I called to her.
I heard her moving around, and a few moments later she appeared in my office doorway. She wore a concerned expression as she looked me over. “You look green, Emmie. Call your doctor.”
A small smile teased my lips, and I was ever thankful that whatever god had sent this woman to me had. In just a few weeks, I had developed a bond with Layla. For the first time in my life I had a female friend, and I actually liked it. “I will, but first I have to take care of a few things.”
Layla raised a brow. Crossing her arms over her generous chest, she leaned against the door jamb of my office and looked as if she wasn’t going to budge anytime soon. “I think you should call them now.”
I sighed and picked up my cellphone. After scrolling through my contacts, I pressed connect and waited for Dr. Chesterfield’s nurse to answer. When she did, I told her I wasn’t feeling well and the woman asked me to come in. Sighing, I took a quick peek at the clock. It was after eleven. There was so much to do and all the guys were at the studio.
Biting my lip, I glanced at Layla. “Can you drive me to my doctor? They want me to come in, but I can’t drive.” My stomach had gotten so bi
g that I couldn’t steer a vehicle without hurting myself.
Layla smiled. “Sure.”
I stood with difficulty and grabbed the keys to Shane’s car, along with my purse and phone. Really, I was going to have to make Nik buy another SUV. Shane’s car was pretty to look at, and a dream to drive, but not all that safe to be in. Crazy how I worried about car safety now when it had never even crossed my mind before I had found out I was pregnant.
Thirty minutes later, I was being poked and prodded by the misogynist doctor that was supposed to be the best in all of California. Alexis Moreitti had recommended him to me. I trusted her judgment when it came to who was taking care of her baby, so I had started seeing him too, but when he had his fingers inside of me, moving them around like he was now, I really hated the prick.
At my head Layla gave my hand a little squeeze in support, and I squeezed back, thankful to have her there with me. After a moment, the doctor stepped back and pulled off his gloves. Turning, he began washing his hands. “You are dilated to a two,” he informed me.
I raised a brow. “What does that mean?” I knew that when a woman was dilated to a ten then it was time to push the baby out. “Isn’t it too soon to be dilating?” It was wasn’t even the middle of September. I still had seven weeks to go before my baby was due.
Dr. Chesterfield gave me a reassuring smile. “Some women can go months dilated at two or even three. This is perfectly normal. All the discomfort you are feeling is normal. Your nausea isn’t so much, but I can give you something to ease that which won’t hurt the baby.” He pulled a prescription pad from his coat pocket and started scribbling. “Take it easy for a few days, Emmie. Stay off your feet as much as possible and don’t put yourself in any stressful situations. I want to see you again next week. Bring Nik too, because we need to set a date to do your C-section.”
The Rocker That Savors Me (The Rocker...) Page 13