Syren's Rebirth (Syren Series)

by Jennah Thornhill

  Sarcastic twat.

  “Anyway, I had her exactly where I wanted her wet and wanting more, and just as I was… you know, finishing, I kinda… well… I shouted out Steph’s name,” I finish sheepishly.

  I don’t know what I expected when I told them, but stony silence wasn’t it.

  The pair of them are both looking at me with disbelief on their faces, staring at me as if what I’ve just told them is a joke.

  “Well, say something, don’t just stare at me, you pair of pissing idiots.”

  Johnny gets up and goes to the fridge, pulling out a bottle of water each and handing them to us, then he finally speaks.

  “Wow, L. I don’t know what to say. I’ve never done that before, even before I settled down and fucked about, I was never that stupid.”

  “Thanks,” I answer him, not feeling like he’s helping me at all.

  I give a small grimace as I look back at Connor and see that his jaw is clenched shut, so tight I swear I hear teeth crunch under the pressure. The tension is rolling off him in waves, his pupils have gone onyx black.

  Fuck.

  As if he’s been possessed by aliens, he throws himself at me across the island, knocking us both onto the kitchen floor just as his fist connects with my nose.

  “You bastard, do you realise what you’ve done? She’s not gonna come back now, Allie is going to go ape shit when she finds out!” he roars, as he lands another clean punch to my jaw. I don’t fight back, he’s right and I deserve his wrath.

  Connor is pulled off me, giving me a chance to breathe.

  “Come on Tyson and Bruno, we’ll have less of that shit. I’m sure Mel will come back and all this will be for nothing.”

  Johnny tries to calm the situation down. Once he’s pulled Connor off me and shoves him behind his back, he holds a hand out to me and helps me up from the floor.

  “Now if you girls have quite finished rolling around on the floor, I suggest you go get yourself cleaned up.” He indicates to the blood I can feel trickling down my face. “And you,” he says, pointing at Connor. “Stop being dramatic, yes he’s been a dick but I’m sure he can fix this mess.”

  Now I see why he used to work for a notorious drug lord, our Johnny can be very authoritative when it suits him.

  Twenty minutes later, I’m freshly showered and dressed. Only now I can’t leave and go fix the shit I’ve got myself into because my front door is still in pieces. Seeing me staring at it at the bottom of the stairs, Johnny comes behind me and pats my shoulder.

  “Go, L. I’ve got this covered for you.”

  Giving him a sharp nod and a smile of thanks, I grab my keys from the hall table and race out of the house like I’ve got a rabid animal chasing me.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Melissa

  Once I’ve put Syren down for his mid-morning nap, I potter around and clean all the mess up we’ve made with our painting activity we’ve just finished. I’m just picking up the last paint pot when the front door slams, making me jump and the blue paint pot to drop out my hand, splashing me in the process.

  Fucking fabulous.

  “Melissa?”

  What the shitting hell?

  “Where are you? I need to talk to you woman.”

  He’s got to be having a laugh, there is no way I’m talking to him, especially not here. I’m still very pissed off with him. Silently stepping back, I try to hide behind the playroom door thinking if he can’t find me he’ll go away.

  With no such luck, I don’t make it in time. Just as I think I’m in my hiding place I hear him come barrelling around the corner and come to a sudden halt.

  “If you think you can hide from me, then you’re sadly mistaken Miss Wright. Your shoe is still sticking out, which is a big give away.”

  Bollocks.

  Stepping out from behind the door, I give him what I hope is my best evil glare. I know I’m failing when my eyes betray me and look him up and down, at the same time my tongue has a mind of its own as it’s currently out licking my lips.

  My own body is betraying me, it’s remembering everything we did last night. A cocky chuckle pulls me out of my reverie, so I place the scowl back on my face and hope it stays there this time.

  “What do you want Liam? I have nothing to say to you.” My voice has an edge to it, that I didn’t know I was capable of.

  He steps into my personal space so we’re almost chest to chest, just like we were last night. I try to calm my breathing down to a normal pace, but it’s just not happening. Having him this close to me makes me want to rip his clothes off. Just as I’m having these thoughts his lips come crashing down onto mine and before I know it, I’m kissing him back and I’m running my blue painted covered hands through his hair.

  “I’m so sorry Mel, please forgive me,” he pants out between kisses.

  Then, like a cold bucket of freezing cold water has been thrown over me, I realise what I’ve done… again.

  “No, no, no!” I manage to get my voice to say as I push him away from me with what little strength I have left. I can’t allow him to treat me the way he did last night, then just fall into his arms when he comes calling. I’m better than that.

  “Liam go away, please, last night was a mistake for both of us. You came to me looking for someone else and when it comes down to it, I’m not her, I never will be and I won’t live in my sister's shadow. I’m worth more than that. I won’t be second best, not now, not ever.”

  I don’t give him a chance to respond to what I’ve just spewed at him, I walk out of the room and head straight up the stairs to get a clean top from my bag, one that I keep here for emergencies, such as splattered paint.

  For the past three days I’ve managed to avoid all things Liam, I’ve had to for my own sanity. I’ve tried my damn hardest to forget our moment of weakness, or should I say my moment of weakness, but it still haunts my dreams at night. No matter what I do I just can’t shake him off. Only now, I’ve got no choice but to see him, today is the day we all leave for the tour. I’ve dreaded this moment, but I won’t let Connor and Allie down, they need me whilst they do their jobs. Also, if I didn’t go I know I’d miss Syren as if he were my own child, we’ve gotten so close since I’ve started working for the family and the way his little face lights up when I walk into the room, it just melts my heart.

  Grabbing my suitcase I wheel it out of my flat, locking the door behind me and head to my car.

  You can do this Mel, just think of Syren. He’s the reason you’re doing this.

  I repeat this to myself the entire drive to the Blackwood estate, only the second I pull up in the drive and see his car sitting there I crumble and feel the tears start to leak from my eyes. I’m falling in love with my sisters ex and it’s breaking me. I’ve tried to stop it, but when I think about him my heart skips a beat every time. My stomach gets the butterflies and when I picture him naked I get wetter between my legs than I ever have before.

  Wiping the tears away with the back of my hands, I take a deep breath and climb from my car. Getting everything I need from the back seat, I plaster on a big fake smile and enter the house to rounds of laughter and loud chatter.

  “About time, we’ve been waiting for you,” Liam greets me in a not so friendly manner as I enter the kitchen.

  I can’t blame him, I’ve done nothing but avoid him and give him the cold shoulder. I deserve the way he’s been with me, but on the other hand, he deserves that treatment after what he did to me.

  “L. Pack it in aye mate,” Connor warns him.

  I see him shrug his shoulders as if he couldn’t give a shit before he takes the bottle of water he’s holding and has a large gulp of it.

  “Whatever. I’ll be waiting outside,” he says, then walks out the front door. Not once does he look at me and somehow that hurts more than if he’d physically slapped me.

  “He can be a right twat when he wants to be,” Max pipes up, breaking the uncomfortable silence that Liam’s departure has caused.
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br />   “Don’t worry about him, he’s just got a bee in his bonnet. He’ll come out of his strop in time, he needs to learn that not every female finds him irresistible,” Johnny tells me, as he comes over to me and gives me a one-armed hug.

  The chatting amongst everyone resumes, Liam’s tantrum forgotten, for now. Syren babbles at everyone making us all laugh - even he thinks that his uncle Liam is being an arsehole. We’re all pulled out of our conversations when we hear him shout from the front door.

  “Cars are here.” The miserable fucker can’t even sound happy when telling us something so simple.

  Collecting our luggage, we all pile out of the door to find three white Range Rover sports parked in the driveway, each with their own driver. I stand completely still, I know how famous this family is, but I still can’t wrap my tiny brain around the luxury they live in. These cars make my tiny beetle look like a shed on wheels. Everyone else has packed all their things into the cars and I’m still standing there staring like an idiot when I hear.

  “Are you coming Duchess? You’ve already made us wait once today.”

  There was me thinking he was starting to be nice to me by calling me Duchess, well you know what that thought did! Scrambling down the steps, the driver who is still standing outside of the car waiting for me, takes my bags and deposits them into the boot with everyone else's. In my gobsmacked moment, I didn’t register whose car I’ll be travelling in.

  Liam’s.

  Well this should be a barrel of laughs…. Not.

  Buckling my seatbelt, I notice that Max is travelling with us as well and for once I couldn’t be happier to be in his company. The tension in the car is palpable, even Max keeps his trap shut the entire drive to the airport which is a first for him.

  When we arrive and pull up outside a gate my jaw drops again for the second time today. We aren’t travelling on a normal plane like normal people would do. No, we’re driving straight onto the tarmac to a waiting private jet.

  Someone fucking pinch me.

  “You’re drooling Red,” Max laughs.

  The idiot has taken to calling me Red because of my hair, but I think he does it to piss Liam off that little bit more. You can tell that Max having a nickname for me gets to him because he growls at Max every time he says it.

  “Sorry,” I whisper, my cheeks glowing the same colour as my hair through embarrassment.

  “This is all just... so new to me. The closest to luxury I’ve ever gotten is when they upgraded us to first class on a train to Manchester once,” I tell them as the car stops, not that Liam is listening. He’s already halfway out of the car before it’s even stopped, clearly not paying any attention.

  Having him behave like this towards me is killing me on the inside, but I’ve had to push him away. He will never get to see the real me again. I’ll always be second best and I won’t stand for that, I have to be, no rephrase that, I want to be someone's first, middle and last. I deserve that in life.

  I want to be someone’s everything.

  Slamming his door shut, he doesn’t even give the driver a chance to get out from behind the wheel before he’s grabbing his bags heading towards the plane. Leaving me and Max in our seats watching him walk away. I feel a hand go to my shoulder pulling my eyes away from Liam’s retreating figure.

  “Look, I know you two did the horizontal tango, it doesn’t take a genius to work that one out, but let me just tell you this, I’ve never seen him like this when a woman rejects him. So just go easy on him, yeah?”

  “It was more like a vertical tango,” I spit.

  “What?” The confusion on his face has me holding my sides with laughter.

  Boy does it feel good to laugh.

  “Nothing ignore me. I was being sarcastic.” I say in between my laughing fit.

  Giving me a sceptical look, as if I’ve lost my mind, he pats my shoulder again and says, “Come on, Red, let’s give you your first private jet experience. You’re in for a right treat.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Liam

  What is wrong with me?

  I’m being a total dick to her, I know it, she knows it, even the guys know it. It’s not because she told me no, like I overheard Johnny tell her, it’s more than that. When she told me she won’t be second best or live in her sister's shadow, my heart split open. I can one hundred percent see where she’s coming from with her assumption. Steph was my life and I always thought no-one could replace her, but it’s finally hit home she isn’t coming back and nothing will ever fix that. I need to move on. I need to make my life about me now, not about proving a point that I’m capable of being the man Steph needed or deserved.

  Having Melissa not speak to me for the last three days has been torture, but the fact I’ve just left her in a car with Max, that they are yet to still get out of, is making my blood boil. It’s taking everything in me not to turn around, taking a hold of her and throwing her over my shoulder. To demand that she talks to me and listens to what I have to say, but the stubborn side of me is saying fuck her. I tried to tell her what I was thinking and she shot me down. So I’m not going to be a pathetic prick and beg her.

  Screw her.

  I swear if Max touches her though, I will murder the fucker, band brother or not.

  Taking the steps up to the plane door pretty quickly, I dump my carry-on onto an empty seat before helping myself to the bar that’s built in at the back of the plane. If I’m going to have to deal with all these feelings I didn’t know I was capable of anymore and see the woman they are directed at on a daily basis, then I’m going to do it slightly intoxicated. Just then a delicate manicured hand clamps over mine as I go to pour myself a neat Jack Daniels.

  “Why don’t I do that for you, Mr Williams?”

  I don’t have to raise my eyes to meet hers, to know who it is. I’d know that voice anywhere. I’ve heard it screaming my name plenty of times before. Clarissa has been our stewardess quite a few times over the years. She’s got legs that are to die for, that’s what attracted me to her in the first place, that and the fact she looked nothing like Steph. Taking my eyes off our connected hands, I start to roam my eyes down her body. From her neatly swept back blonde hair stopping briefly at her red painted lips, imagining what it felt like when they were wrapped around my dick. Finally, I stop at her six-inch heels, without thinking of the consequences because I’m that pissed off I take a hold of her wrist and drag her into the bedroom that's situated at the back of the plane. Just as I’m closing the door I see Melissa standing there, at the entrance to the plane staring at me with a tear running down one cheek. That doesn’t stop me though, she thinks I only want her because she’s the next best thing to Steph, well, I’m going to prove to her if I want a quick fuck I can get one anytime I wanted.

  Once I’ve finished giving Clarissa the ride of her life again, I tell her to leave straight away, she’s not happy about it but I don’t give a flying fuck. The minute I finished fucking her, I knew I had screwed up bigger than ever, because the entire time I was inside her I had to bite my lip to stop myself from screaming out Mel’s name this time. My orgasm wasn’t happening either for me, the only way I could come was to imagine that it was Mel who was wrapped around my dick.

  I know, I’m one sick fuck.

  As I’m trying to conjure up all the ways I can either get Mel to talk to me or at least try and make it up to her for my dickish behaviour, the door swings open so hard the handle falls off when it smashes against the wall.

  “I’m going to kill you,” Connor roars at me before dive bombing on top of me. At the same time my junk is flying about everywhere as he pins me to the mattress and rains punch after punch to my jaw and nose. Blood spurts over us both until he’s pulled back off me by Max.

  “You pair are worse than the kids, now bloody pack it in will you.”

  Well blow me down with a feather, Max can be a grown up.

  We’re thirty thousand feet in the air, I’m naked, bleeding and he chooses now to ac
t like an adult instead of a disgusting teenager. Johnny comes barrelling into the small bedroom, skidding to a halt when he sees the state of me and Connor.

  “For the love of god, you two are shocking. You,” he says, pointing a finger at me, “need to get your shit together, you’re a mess and it’s fucking shit up and you.” This time he points a finger at Connor. “You need to calm that temper of yours, Mel is a big girl she doesn’t need you fighting her corner at every turn, if she was going to quit she wouldn’t be on this plane with us right now. So I’m only going to tell you both this once and once only, anymore crap like this from either of you and I’m taking my family and going straight home, tour or no fucking tour. Are we clear?”

  Neither of us answers him. It’s as fucking scary as being in the headmaster's office at school where you daren’t utter a single word. Thank fuck he takes our silence as an answer and walks out, Max following behind him.

  “Get your dick scrubbed and get your arse out there with the rest of us,” Is all Connor says to me before slamming the door behind him as he leaves me sitting there dumbfounded.

  Leaving the bedroom, I stand at the entrance to where everyone is sitting and just take in what everyone's doing.

  Max is strumming a quiet tune on his guitar, Connor is having what looks like a heated discussion with Johnny. Allie and Karina are busy with the kids, but at the same time throwing death glares at Clarissa as she pours them some drinks. My eyes finally land on the beauty that is Melissa who’s got her head buried so far in the pages of the book she's holding she might as well be printed onto the pages. Her head is bowed along with her hair covering her face, it’s obvious she’s upset and doesn’t want to engage with anyone. Allie stops talking to K, turns to me and mouths, ‘Fix it’ indicating with a nod of her head in Mel’s direction.

  Shame washes over me for what I have done, no matter how pissed off I am, I shouldn’t have done this to Melissa. This isn’t who I am, I don’t set out to hurt people purposely. Yet I’ve managed to do it in spectacular fashion the first time I do, not only have I upset Mel I’ve hurt the only family I’ve ever had that loves me unconditionally.