by Lyrica Creed
Tipping it forward, I closed my eyes for the barest second before viewing the back. A thorny vine twisted around a beautiful scarlet colored rose. My fingertips brushed the shiny lacquer protecting the paint, and I discovered the slight nicks in the wood, likely from a belt buckle.
He had held this. He had cherished it. He had created magic with it.
And I realized this was the closest I had ever been to my father.
Oh, there were pictures and videos with a million views each of him holding me, playing with me. But I didn’t remember those times. This guitar was something he had touched and held—more than he ever had me. Something that possibly had lingering traces of him on it, somewhere in some fashion…
A flash of reality pulled me from my reverie. Suddenly realizing I wasn’t alone, my eyes darted accusingly to Colt who was studying his phone screen. Straightening to my feet, I pushed the instrument toward him, unable to get it out of my hands fast enough.
I didn’t stay to watch him lock it back up. Leaving my coffee cup, I sprinted back to the guesthouse where I spent a few minutes kneeling before the porcelain throne. Thirty minutes later, I had taken a shower, neatened the guesthouse, and had all of my things packed up.
Chapter 30
Vanilla ice cream. Flowers?
He nuzzled closer to the smell, filling his senses and continued to doze.
Warm breath. Warm body.
He extended an arm and a leg and curled the warmth to him and continued to doze.
A phone ring. Not his.
His eyes opened to see a finger adorned with black polish and sliver flecks mute the sound.
“When did you get here?” As he mumbled the inquiry, two contradicting instincts hit him at once. Un-fucking wrap himself from around Scar. And wrap her tighter in case she pulled away.
“Not long ago.” A puffy pillow beneath her cheek muffled her words.
“What time is it?” He didn’t want to turn away from her long enough to look at his phone.
“Don’t know.” She pulled the sheet up to their shoulders. “Just hold me so I can sleep for a while. Okay?”
He wrapped her in a python grip and didn’t question his blessing.
He dozed in and out, but she never seemed to completely still. His phone was blowing up as usual, and he reached back, feeling around for it, and powered it off in case it was keeping her awake.
Finally, when her jeaned leg moved against his bare one for the umpteenth time, he whispered. “Can’t sleep?”
Her sigh warmed his bare chest. “No.”
“Me either.” Because I’m thinking about shit I hate the most to keep this boner in check. Dog crap on bare feet. The grandma strippers video one of the guys had texted him. Toads bloated and dead in the pool.
“What’re you doing in here?” Her breath on his skin when she spoke again killed all of his efforts.
You mean sleeping in the guestroom—your room—as opposed to my own room? Where did he begin? He couldn’t tell her being in his own bed, where he’d retired in a blissful hazy high too many times to count, had him jonesin’. And he sure couldn’t tell her he’d missed her so much he’d hoped to smell her in these sheets.
The last part hadn’t worked out. After cocooning himself in the bedding, all he had whiffed was freshly laundered linens. Damn housekeeping. He had been so disappointed, he’d intended to cancel the service and live like a pig.
“The mattress is firmer.” He brushed a fingertip against the ends of a long strand of her hair as he fibbed.
“Back problems?”
“No. Just in the mood for something different.”
At this, her head popped up and her brows drew together. “Did you have someone over?”
Ah. His bad for telling her about the downstairs hookup room. The truth of that had come out on one of the nights when they had shared a bottle of wine by the pool and opened up about anything and everything.
“I’ve never slept in this room before last night,” he reassured. The urge to feather the hair tips against his lips was so strong; he moved his hand far away.
“So you did or didn’t have someone over?”
“I didn’t. Do you care?” She did. He could see it in her eyes. Why? For the same reason he went mentally ballistic at the thought of her and Colt?
“Yes! I sleep in this bed!”
Not the answer he wanted. “But I told you—” He’d been about to point out that even after he had assured her the bed was ‘safe,’ she had relentlessly asked about other women. Then he realized what she’d inferred. “Are you back?” His heart pounded, at least one hundred twenty eight beats per measure as he waited for her answer.
“Until my flight back. I didn’t want to spend my last week not seeing you.”
Who needed Clear Morning? That answer sent him flying high. The night she had left, he thought he had fucked up beyond all hope, but here she was. And he wasn’t going to fuck up again.
As if reading his thoughts, she raised sarcastic brows. “So, if you could refrain from keeling over between now and then, that would be great.”
Ouch. Right for the jugular.
“What if I feel the need for a little CPR?” He arched his eyebrows right back.
“That’s so unbelievably not funny.”
“I know.”
“Sounds like some fucked up stupid shit your guitarist would say.”
Ouch. Now THAT was the jugular. Damn. It didn’t feel good for his joke to be compared to a spew of Colt’s insensitive word vomits.
And why had she phrased it like that? Why hadn’t she said Colt’s name? What had happened between them?
Simply the thought drove him out of bed to the adjoining bathroom.
He hated that Colt had caught him watching her in the pool and that he had defended his actions by emphasizing her being his stepsister. The other guy had so many reasons—as if a man needed reasons—to want to get into her pants.
There had always been competitive sparring between the two of them when it came to the women. But Scarlette was in a whole other league and her appeal was different for each of them.
He was attracted to everything about her. Colt was attracted to everything about who she was.
He had seen the look in his friend’s eyes the day Scarlette was introduced and her identity had registered.
Tyler Conterra was one of Colt’s idols. There were few musicians who wouldn’t mention Tyler Conterra as an idol. But Colt had an extreme case of hero worship. He’d paid a fortune for one of the guy’s guitars. He owned every documentary and had a playlist of every interview on YouTube. He had copies of every song, even rare demos and bootleg performances.
And here was the man’s daughter—the carbon copy female clone of him.
That train of thoughts had sent him racing the canyon roads in the dark.
Finished with his piss, he flushed and turned to the sink. Cupping his hands, he scooped water onto his face and tried to forget.
The gutted feeling when his headlights had caught two silhouettes in a passionate embrace. The thin thread of hope that it wouldn’t be Scarlette in that car when he ran out of patience waiting in his own and walked over. Seeing them together with his own eyes had felt like standing in a deluge of hail, fire, and brimstone.
Wondering if they had taken it farther after he’d returned home had almost driven him to call his assistant for a delivery. But he hadn’t. Because of Scarlette.
Because if some miracle of fate gave her to him, he wanted to be worthy of her.
Before turning the tap off, he swished some cinnamon mouthwash around and washed it down the drain.
She was lying on her back, idly petting Rascal and staring gloomily at the ceiling when he returned. When she looked his way and hastily averted her eyes, he wondered when he’d become comfortable enough with her to walk around in his boxer briefs—while sober.
“Sorry.” He bent for his jeans on the floor and stepped into them.
She was back to
studying the lighting fixture over the bed. Grabbing the remote, he angled the blinds slightly, letting a little more light in so he could see her expression better. He stretched out on the bed again, and his hand brushed hers as he settled it on Rascal.
It might be the first time his dog had ever been his wingman. He stroked the rough fur and made sure their hands continued to touch as they both petted.
Her demeanor was beginning to worry him. She had never been a moody person despite the nutty life she’d been dealt. Only a few times had he seen this type of weird behavior from her.
“Want to talk about it?” he offered softly.
“No. I don’t think so.” She inched her head closer to his pillow, and he thought he felt a tremor buzz her hand for a split second.
His mind rocketed back to a barely-teen stepsister with braces on her teeth. She had been acting odd for days, coming home from school and closing herself in her room, instead of hanging out in the poolroom playing video games with her friends and making his friends crazy with her much older-looking body and long, ponytailed hair. One evening, he’d invaded her room since she wouldn’t come into their den, turned the TV on, and propped himself on her bed. His hope had been that their routine of popcorn and movies would kick back in. She’d ended up with her head on his shoulder, clinging to his hand. The heady buzz from her touch hadn’t been the first time he’d completely understood his friends’ obsession with her. In fact, looking back on that night, he’d shown superhuman restraint for a teen when, instead of rolling his horny body onto her, he’d asked, “Want to talk about it?” Back then, she’d replied, “No. I don’t think so.” Yet almost immediately, she had spilled her guts. The next day, acting on her confession, he had tracked down, but found himself unable to hit the shrimp-sized thirteen year old creep who had apparently thought it was funny to sneak up behind Scarlette, put his hands down her shirt, and grab her tits. So he had shoved him against the wall and threatened an ass stomping if he ever came near her again.
This time she echoed the answer of the past, but instead of spilling her guts, she stayed silent, and he couldn’t take it any longer.
“Did he do something?” He’d kill him! “What did the fucker do?” Despite the violent emotions shaking through him, his tone was gentle. “If Colt did something to make you feel like this—he cut the rest of his words off when there was a definite eye flinch and her hand moved from Rascal’s lucky head to rest on the sheets that covered her stomach. “He did, didn’t he?”
“Sort of.”
And with those two words slipping in a sad sigh from her lips, his fury flamed. “I’ll fuck him up… I swear to all that is…” Already, he was fumbling for his phone. The second the black screen was in his hands, he discarded it. He was in the motion of swinging out of bed, tromping directly to his Ducati, and teaching the fucker what ‘hands off my sister’ meant, when she stayed him with a hand on his back.
Bare skin to bare skin is what actually stopped him before he even heard her next words.
“What the hell! What’re you doing?”
“I told him not to touch you… Damn, I might kill him!”
“He didn’t!” She was closer now— on her knees behind him. “I told you last night. It isn’t that way between us.”
“It looked that way.” He propped his elbows to his knees and dropped his face to his hands. The image of them in the car macking hurt his head.
“I know what it looked like. But it was just one stupid kiss. Can we not talk about it? “
“Depends. Is that what’s eating you?” Because if it was that bothering her—one stupid kiss—his bandmate still had a fist ready to meet his face.
Her forehead landed on his shoulder like old times. But her being behind him, instead of beside him skipped his pulse in a wild new way. He wished he could always be in front of her like this―be her shield from all of her demons.
“No. I’ve got shit on my mind. It’s not anything about me and him.”
He lifted his head. Dust particles floated in the sunbeams coming in through the blinds. “Can I ask you something?”
“Maybe.”
“Why his house?” When she remained mute, he prompted, “Why Colt’s house when you left here?” Again, she refused to reply and he expelled a frustrated breath. “Why did you go there and not a hotel?”
“Hotels aren’t in my budget right now.”
The answer was so senseless, he wanted to laugh. Yet, hints had been there all along. Memories bubbled to the surface… Snatches of conversations here and there. Deep inside, he knew it was no laughing matter.
That night in the TV room, he hadn’t fully understood. He’d thought her mother’s expenditures had made money tight—not that she was completely broke.
He turned, taking in the flush of embarrassment in her cheeks. The tinge of humiliation in her eyes.
“That’s why you’re working your way through school? Is that why you didn’t fly stateside and go to the concert with Ivy?” Suddenly he wanted to punch someone again. “Why didn’t you tell someone?”
“I didn’t know until it was all gone. I was old enough to make sure the electricity wasn’t disconnected while she was passed out drunk or stoned. One of those days, was when I found out the checking account had my name on it. It took weeks of poking around before I figured out I even had an inheritance at one time.”
The image of a young girl making sure the utilities stayed on—taking care of herself and her useless parent—wrenched his gut into a knot. “You should have told someone!”
“Like who? The accountants who had already paid shrink bills, psychic bills, chin lifts and tummy tucks? Like fucking who?”
“Like me!” He’d been living like a king all these years while she’d worked in a bar for fuck’s sake. “Like fuckin’ me. I would have given you anything you needed. I would have taken care of you.”
Chapter 31
I stretched out on the sunning pad, bringing one knee slightly up, and lifting my arms above my head. I didn’t have to look toward the studio to know Gage was watching. His gaze was a pleasant tickle on my skin, and the sounds he cajoled from his guitar pulsated a pleasure point in the pit of my stomach. The combination caused a sweet, hot burn between my legs.
I was falling in love with him. Either I had been since my teen crush days and had right this second realized it, or I had fallen hard—yesterday morning with seven words.
I would have taken care of you.
Did he have feelings for me? Or did he watch me with fire in his eyes and continuously make up excuses to touch me out of desire only?
Rock stars. Bad.
I worked on my self-brainwashing technique.
Rock stars. Trouble.
But Gage was Gage. The boy who had taken care of me. The man who wanted to.
I finally turned to look. He was stretched out in a lounger, guitar in his lap. The amp was still in the house and my eyes followed the cord snaking across the wood from his chair by the pool to the room behind him.
What he was playing was amazing.
“Is that the new song?”
He answered without stopping his chords. “Hell, no. You’ve heard Fire Flight.”
“Yeah.” Most Fire Flight songs were in your face loud, angry. This tune was bluesy, haunting “I like this. A lot.”
“Thanks.”
“Seth said you were teaching him some techniques.”
“Colt and I’ve both taught him. He’s learning in stereo.” A quirk of the ‘engaging smile.’ “He’s going to be a monster.”
“No doubt,” I agreed. Gage had won awards and Colt had played in two top grossing bands before Fire Flight. Both had graced music and guitar magazine covers. “You think you could teach me?”
Now where the hell had that come from? I panicked once the words were out. One moment I had been in a blissful haze, hypnotized by the music, his voice, and the contrast of the white cottony clouds against the blue of the sky. And the next I was as
king for guitar lessons? I had no desire to learn!
“Yeah. Sure!” He sounded surprised, but eager.
There was no way it would happen. There was no time. That thought was slightly comforting. Less comforting was the thought of leaving.
A few more measures drifted over the pool and then dwindled to a pause. “You ever going to order the linguine?” he asked.
We had hashed over what we wanted for dinner and had decided on Pace, an Italian restaurant that delivered in the area.
“What are you going to do when I leave?” I grumbled about the chore and didn’t immediately leave my comfortable position to wade over to my phone.
Was my leaving getting to him too? His eyes seemed sad and distant for a moment before he recovered and retorted. “Same thing I did before you showed. Throw wild parties. Fill the pool with naked models who will order me food and bring me drinks.”
I laughed. But the sound seemed fake to my ears. The thought of nude women doing Gage’s every bidding was so not funny to me. But since he was being big brother taunting me, I served up sassy-little-sister-on-a-stick right back. “You sure you had all that going on? Pool looks empty to me. When I came I was hoping you’d have parties with hot rock stars hanging all day.”
One second later, he had vacated the chair and was in the water. Five seconds later, he’d reached my teak island and was hauling me off as I screeched.
“You need to cool off, little mermaid!”
“No, I don’t. I really don’t.”
His grip relaxed, allowing me to slide down his front until I was standing in the knee-deep water. When I shivered, it wasn’t because I’d cooled off! Quite the opposite.
“What would you do with these hot rock stars?” His challenge was a husky rumble near one of my ears.
My gaze glided from the hand underwater on my waist, up his arm, taking in the decorative ink—barbed wire music scores ran up the inside of his arm and beginning at the bend, spiraled up his biceps and triceps. “Hot rock star… Half naked in the pool…” I used his own images against him. “Hmm. I don’t know…”