by Lily Cahill
Jax wrapped his arm around his mate and pulled her body against his own as they walked out into the night to head for Chicago. They fit together perfectly, a key fitting into a lock. And Jax smiled, sure for the first time in his life that everything, everything was perfect.
Chapter One
Emily
EMILY ST. CLAIR STRAIGHTENED HER string of pearls for the hundredth time. Nerves jangled through her, making her manicured hands quake and her stomach roil. She stared up at the expansive cabin—called a “camp” here in Maine—and pulled in a cleansing breath.
“Okay, Em,” she muttered to herself. “You’ve got this. You are a confident, competent publicist, and you deserve this.”
She laughed at herself and straightened the necklace again. It lay in a perfect circle against her heather gray silk blouse. But it still felt off, not quite right. Kind of like herself. Did she deserve this? It was her first solo assignment with Epoch Records, and it was handling the notoriously party-heavy band, Wild Harts. Did her manager, Sven, give her this job because she’d proven herself at the label … or because of her last name? It was a discomforting thought that had scratched at the back of her neck for years. Through her Upper East Side prep school where she’d graduated top of her class, through her business classes at Harvard, even through her relationships. Was it Emily St. Clair earning the accolades and connections, or was it her father’s power?
Emily tugged at the sleeves of her tailored black jacket and pulled her shoulders straight. She may never find out, but that couldn’t stop her from trying her hardest to do her job. And right now, that meant wrangling the men of Wild Harts and getting them some good press.
Stairs climbed from the gravel parking pad up through terraced wildflowers to the giant oak doors. Emily said a silent thank you for choosing wedge heels and not skipping her run yesterday in the flurry of packing to leave for Maine. She paused before the big oak door and gave herself a second to catch her breath, nerves gnawing at her insides. It was now or never, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to go slumping back to New York a failure.
Emily rapped smartly on the door and waited, her Birkin bag nestled in the crook of her elbow and weighed down with a laptop, tablet, two phones, and a sampling of the tabloids that had recently covered the Hart brothers.
Emily didn’t know who she expected to answer the door, but it wasn’t a woman.
“Tiff Anderson?” Emily asked, even though she was fairly certain. She’d done her homework.
Tiff smiled widely and held up her hand, wiggling a diamond on her ring finger. “Hart, now.”
Emily cocked her head. That hadn’t been in her research.
Tiff opened the door wide to usher Emily in and shrugged. “We had a small affair in Chicago last weekend. Just my family, a friend, and Jax’s brothers. You must be Ms. St. Clair.”
“Please, call me Emily.” Having another woman around settled Emily’s fraying nerves almost immediately. Tiff was a hopeful ally in the next few months as Emily attempted to change the story surrounding Wild Harts. “And a honeymoon in Maine? That’d make a good story, you know.”
Tiff smiled again. “The honeymoon will be after the record is done.” Tiff sighed. “If it’s ever done. We’re thinking of going to Montana. I want to see where Jax is from.”
Emily smiled, her wheels turning. A well-placed story in a women’s magazine about one of the Hart brothers finding love and settling down could really play well. It’d sure beat yet another sloppy photo of Chase and Bret burning through alcohol and women while the world grew impatient for their follow-up album. In fact, it seemed the more time dragged on between the end of their tour and the delay with the new album, the less the story of Wild Harts was about the music and more about the partying. For rockstars, wild antics could lend some authenticity and make them seem fun, but never if it overshadowed the music.
“Come on,” Tiff said, leading Emily deeper into the house. “The guys are excited to meet you. Though, fair warning, I think Bret is just excited to have a single woman in the house.”
“Oh, I’m not single,” Emily said automatically. She’d been dating Asher Longchamp since college, and the relationship was … comfortable. More than anything, it was safe. Asher came from the same world as Emily, and in the upper echelons of money and power, that brought with it safety.
Tiff chuckled. “That’s never stopped Bret, but I’ll let him know to leave you alone.”
Emily peered around as she followed Tiff. It was a gorgeous place, with soaring, vaulted ceilings and an open layout. Massive, floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over the Maine woods and the seashore.
“This place is gorgeous,” Emily said.
Tiff beamed over her shoulder at Emily and led them toward a large, rough-hewn wooden table. “Jax picked it out. I’m a photographer, and he knew I wanted somewhere by the water. I’ve got a Down East Maine photo series running in Travel & Leisure a few months from now.”
“I take all the credit for Tiff’s success,” said a warm voice from behind Emily. She and Tiff turned at the same time.
Jax Hart leaned against the wall behind them, his arms crossed and his eyes light. His focus was only on Tiff for a moment, and Emily was nearly bowled over by the love she saw in the man’s face. Emily heard Tiff snort with laughter and watched a wide smile bloom on Jax’s face. He finally looked at Emily.
“You must be the new publicist. Here to whip us into shape?”
“Something like that,” Emily said. She deposited her bag onto the table and straightened her shoulders. “I’d like to get started right away, actually. I have some ideas for story placement in the, um, right media,” she said delicately.
Jax chuckled. “You mean we aren’t going for another ‘Harts Gone Wild’ story in Star?” Jax leaned his head back and bellowed for his brothers. Soon, Emily was introduced to Bret and Drew. That left only Chase, the drummer. Along with Bret, Emily was most worried about keeping Chase in line.
“I haven’t seen him this morning,” Drew said quietly, sharing a significant look with Jax.
Bret rolled his eyes. “He’s probably still with the ambassadors from that college. Last I saw, they were in the studio out back.”
College ambassadors? That sounded promising.
“I’ll go get him,” Emily said.
Bret frowned. “That might not be the best—”
Emily stood tall. “Bret, I am not going to lie. We have a lot of work to do and no time to waste. You make some coffee for us, and I’ll be right back with Chase.”
Emily was pretty proud of herself for asking Bret to make them all coffee. It helped establish her authority among them. In fact, this was all going quite well so far. She really thought the love story of Tiff and Jax could be picked up by someone big, and just a few moments with Drew had given her an idea to place him not as Dreary Drew, but the strong, silent type. Women would go nuts for that.
The house extended back farther than Emily had anticipated, with a giant loft overhead and four bedrooms on the first floor. Emily located a back door down a long hallway and stepped out into the wonderfully crisp early fall. A small path wound through trees and rocky outcroppings toward a structure at the back of the property. It looked like a converted barn, but Emily figured it had to be the “studio out back” Bret had mentioned.
Emily approached the door and held her hand up to knock, but paused. Something like giggling issued from the studio. She frowned. Those must be the college ambassadors. Emily knocked loudly and stood back to wait.
No one answered. But there was quite a bit more giggling. And another sound, one that tickled at Emily brain with familiarity. It almost sounded like ….
Emily knocked again, louder this time, then opened the door.
She gasped so loud, everyone else in the studio went quiet.
Chapter Two
Chase
CHASE HART HAD HAD A lot of fun in his life, but this might just make the top of the list. He hadn’t slept in t
wenty-four hours, and his body thrummed with alcohol, molly, and arousal. Jesus. Four women. Four women at once.
Chase pulled his fingers from the woman’s slick pussy and told her to stay right there. She was sitting on the soundboard, her legs spread wide. She went to work pleasuring herself while Chase stepped back, and the sight of it nearly made him forget the drink.
He was not wearing a stitch of clothing, hadn’t been for hours, but he padded over to the liquor bottles piled on a side table and poured himself a shot. On the couch, three other women from the local college’s intramural field hockey team were doing body shots off their naked torsos. He made a mental note to join them in just a moment, then tipped back the tumbler of whiskey. It burned through him, made him go dizzy for a long second.
God, he could destroy a burger right now. Or maybe some pancakes. He glanced at the clock and realized it was nearly lunchtime. No wonder he was starving. He’d been on a liquid diet since the night before when he and Bret had driven into town for some low-key drinks at the local bar. But then the field hockey girls had come in, and the whole “low-key” plan had been shoved out the window. He grinned to himself to think of how scandalized Drew and Jax had been when he and Bret had arrived home at two in the morning with six women. Bret had led two women back to his room—both tall, sporty brunettes—and Chase had tripped his way back to the studio with the others in tow.
Chase stumbled back to the woman—Ashley, he thought her name was … or maybe it was Amber—and pulled her off the soundboard. He pushed her toward a chair and bent her over the back of it, grabbing a fresh condom as he did. His dick slid into her easily and he pumped hard, his fingers grasping her sharp hips. He was sore, and his eyes stung, and his throat was thick, but he couldn’t stop. He had to fuck her, then the others, then maybe her again. The need to keep going, to never stop, was a drumbeat inside of him that he couldn’t ever seem to sate.
The girls on the couch were giggling as they watched, and the woman he was pounding his cock into keened loudly. Chase growled and thrust harder. Each pump of his cock was an affirmation—he was unstoppable. He was a goddamned rockstar, and nothing was forbidden to him.
Bright light exploded across his field of vision and someone gasped. Chase squinted against the glare of light and stopped suddenly. He pulled out of the woman, and she mewled. But he forgot all about her. He forgot about everything, every damned thing, as his eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness.
Jesus. No.
The woman at the door was aghast, her pert mouth hanging open and her brown eyes wide. She tugged at the sleeves of her black suit jacket—Jesus, she looked like she’d just come from a ladies’ tea in the city—and stumbled back a step. Then she turned on a heel and disappeared.
“Fuck,” Chase swore loudly. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”
He didn’t think, didn’t consider his options. His body took over. He yanked on his jeans and ran after her.
No. No, this could not be happening. Chase grimaced as the sunlight hit him and jogged barefoot down the path after the woman.
What sort of sick joke made her walk through the door. He didn’t even know her name, all he knew was that face.
Up ahead, the woman strode down the trail, and her entire body was pulled taut like a snare drum. And Chase hated he could sense that from so far away. The connection between them was already strong. Chase growled his anger and ran faster. He hated that he did that too.
“Hey,” Chase called. He caught her in another long stride and laid a hand on her shoulder. She spun around and hissed like his touch burned her.
The woman curled her lip and looked up at Chase with an ice-cold glare. Her brown eyes had gone hard as rocks. Chase nearly fell back with the hatred he saw in them. Chase felt more naked in that moment than he had a few minutes ago. He buttoned the top of his jeans and crossed his arms over his chest. He refused to feel ashamed or cowed by this woman. What did she know of him? What did her opinion matter to him?
The pit of Chase’s stomach curdled. God, her opinion mattered so much, despite how much he willed it not to. He didn’t even want to let his mind think the word, but it filled him anyway.
Mate. She’s my mate.
No. He wouldn’t fall victim to that. Being fated wasn’t destiny, it was a prison sentence. He wasn’t willing to change his life for a woman he’d never even spoken to. But oh God, he wanted her to speak, to hear her voice. His desires warred within him, and it made him sick. Or maybe that was the alcohol and drugs and lack of sleep and hunger and a whole host of other demons gnawing at him from the inside out. Chase pushed down that thought and glared at the woman.
She was shorter than him by a head, even in her heels, and her face was delicate. Or it would be if it wasn’t a mask of disgust right now. Her eyes were big, her nose and chin pointed and delicate. Her mouth was pink and shaped into a Cupid’s bow. And her body was … Jesus, it was perfect. Lush and curvy and soft, yet he suspected those curves hid strength. He could sense it in the way she walked.
Chase shook his head against the desire creeping through him and stared down his nose at this woman. “Are you going to introduce yourself, or do you just go barging in on people in silence?”
The woman gasped again, but recovered quickly. She held out her hand in introduction, but then apparently thought better of it and pulled her fingers into a fist at her side. “I’m Emily St. Clair, your new publicist. And you, Chase Hart, are going to be my problem child, aren’t you?”
Chase grimaced. “I’m no child, lady. And I’m definitely not your problem.”
Emily laughed shortly. “According to my manager at Epoch Records, you are definitely my problem.” Emily looked Chase up and down and sneered.
“Oh, don’t get your pearls all twisted,” Chase shot back. With the prim outfit and the shoulder-length blond hair and the jewelry, Emily St. Clair looked like she was overseeing a church function. Chase took his time looking Emily up and down just like she’d done to him. She wasn’t the only one who could judge here. “Not sure if you’re aware, but you’re the publicist for a rock band, not the Junior League.”
Emily straightened her pearls, almost subconsciously, then snapped her hand away and grimaced. “I am perfectly aware of my job, thank you. I think it’s you who doesn’t realize you’re acting like a professional screw-up. Shall I just name a few issues that are affecting the band?”
She barreled on before Chase could tell her not to bother. He was on intimate terms with all his problems.
“Alcohol issues—whiskey is your drink of choice.” Emily held up one finger, ticking off all the “problems” she saw with Chase. “You sleep around and don’t try to be smart about it, leaving enough tabloid fodder to keep reporters in the black for months. You’ve left your brothers hanging more than once, holding up completion of the new album. Already, Wild Harts is three months behind with recording the new album. You’re supposed to go to Brooklyn in two weeks to cut the record, but I have a feeling you’re going to have to push that back. Again.”
Chase snarled. “Anything else I’m lacking? Maybe you want to critique my performance back there.”
Emily’s cheeks flared crimson for a moment, and she finally looked down. “I’m on your team, Chase. I’m trying to make sure Wild Harts is a band that continues to be successful for years, not some washed up has-beens. But unless you learn some self-control, you and your brothers won’t be able to play county fairs, let alone sell out stadiums.”
Emily looked up and met Chase’s gaze and wouldn’t look away. She set her jaw, and it just made Chase want to capture her lips with his own. Instead, he took a step back. His blood ran hot with anger and desire, and he had to shove his hands in his jean pockets to stop himself from wrapping his arms around Emily and claiming her as his fated mate.
After a moment, Emily turned around. “I’m meeting with your brothers in the cabin to talk ideas for publicity and turning the story around, and I’d like it if you joined us. But we’ll make p
lans without you if we need to.”
Then she left Chase standing alone in the woods. Goose bumps rippled over his exposed skin and he raked his fingers over his shorn head. He almost turned back toward the studio. Maybe he could fuck his way to forgetting he’d met his mate.
But instead he strode directly into the woods. He was furious, worked up to a hot pitch that made him want to roar. But more than anything, his whole body itched with a demand to talk to Emily St. Clair again.
Chase could feel the change rolling through him before he quite knew what was happening. Through the haze of a growing hangover and bone-deep fatigue, he felt his arms and legs thicken, his torso expand. He dropped to all fours as his hands shifted into paws, long, sharp claws scratching against the forest floor. Chase growled and shook his great, shaggy head back and forth. His mind cleared, the simplicity of being a bear washing him clean. Or, clean enough.
Chase stretched out his powerful limbs into a run. He sprinted through the forest, darting around trees and vaulting boulders. Chase’s bear was corded with muscle, his fur dark brown and thick. He was stockier than his brothers’ bears, bigger in size than Jax but not quite as agile as Bret. He didn’t have quite the sheer power of Drew, but he made up for it with stamina.
He needed to run, to let his bear free, more frequently than his brothers. Without it, he was afraid he’d go mad. So run he did—fast and hard until his muscles burned and his heart hammered against his ribs. Chase ground to a halt near the edge of a rocky outcropping that jutted out over the ocean. He sucked air into his lungs, the sea salt sharp in his nose and mouth.
Emily.
She flooded back into him with every second he stood still. Emily, his mate. His heart beat her name and his lungs breathed in the memory of her. Chase growled and shook his muzzle back and forth. Why couldn’t he forget her? She was just another woman. So he’d had a vision of her when he came of age. He’d had plenty of dreams in the years since; he’d forgotten her face with plenty of women. Chase repeated it to himself: She was just another woman.