RUTHLESS: The Complete Rockstar Romance Series Boxed Set

by Vivian Lux

  Jane tossed her hair over her shoulder and waved her hand dismissively. "Oh please. This feels perfectly normal to me. I'm used to fucked up band dynamics."

  "You guys have drama?" I asked. That was news to me, but actually not surprising. Wrecked's music was as dramatic as they came.

  Jane rolled her eyes. "If I could start over again, I would have a hard and fast rule. Never date your bandmates."

  Rane grinned. "We follow that pretty well."

  "Helps that four-fifths of us are related," Keir added.

  "And none of you are my type," Balzac rumbled.

  Jane grinned. "Perfect. Keep it that way." She looked over to where Maddie and Scarlett were sitting, watching this whole exchange warily. "And don't you two worry," she laughed. "I've learned my fucking lesson."

  Maddie smiled and slid from her seat. "I love your stuff. I can't wait to hear what you guys come up with."

  "Me neither," Jane grinned, kneeling down to open her guitar case. She pulled out a battered Les Paul and ran her fingers idly over the glossy finish. "Let's get started."

  "We, ah, we're kind of missing our drummer," Rane pointed out.

  "No you're not," came a sullen voice behind Jane. She stepped to the side and Lowell appeared, looking sheepish. "I'm here."

  "You good?" Rane asked briskly.

  I looked up at my brother. His eyes darted from side to side and he shoved his hands in his pockets and stared at me. "I want to meet him," he said, ignoring everyone's stares as his eyes bored into me.

  I lifted my chin at him. "You will," I said defiantly.

  Lowell nodded once. "Soon, okay?"

  I swallowed. "Okay."

  He nodded again, took a deep breath, and then his face relaxed into its normal, happy-go-lucky smile. He turned to a startled looking Jane. "You're from New York, right?"

  She nodded. "Brooklyn."

  "But not originally, no, right?"

  Jane shook her head. "No, I'm from Upstate. Little town in the Finger Lakes. You've never heard of it."

  Low looked at me and raised his eyebrows. "Try me," he prodded. "We're all from Buffalo."

  "Okay sure," Jane laughed. "It's this tiny little tourist trap called Reckless Falls, on the south end of Ganangua Lake."

  I startled so badly I nearly dropped my tea. Low hooted in delight. "No shit, really?"

  Jane looked alarmed.

  "We used to vacation there as kids," Low explained, pointing to me. "Me and my sister. Is the family campground with that awesome dammed up swimming area still there?"

  Jane smiled. "As far as I know. I haven't been back in forever."

  "Did you like it there?" I asked. "Growing up in that town?" I realized I was staring at her like she was some kind of alien, but I couldn't help it. Reckless Falls had this rosy tinted haze in my brain. I knew that I was remembering something that wasn't true. There was no way we actually were that blissfully happy as a family. But in my divided brain, the one that insisted on sorting life into black and white, right and wrong, good and bad, our vacations in that little town represented everything that was good with my family. When we were whole and innocent. Before I ruined everything by telling my secret and tearing us apart.

  Jane must have seen the desperation in my eyes because her expression of amused detachment softened a bit. "It was nice," she said, in a rushing exhale. "I kind of miss it, but you know how small towns are."

  "Not really, no."

  "Everyone in your business. My god, in my high school, the same boys who wanted to date you were the ones who threw worms in your hair in preschool. It's hard to grow or change when you're in a place like that. Everyone thinks they already know you. There's no chance of ever starting over."

  I clenched and then flexed my hands, my fingers tapping out inaudible scales before I could stop them. "Sounds awful," I observed.

  ""Yeah," Jane laughed. "Why do you think I fled?"

  "To make music with us," Keir interjected. "Let's get to work."

  Alan, who had spent this whole interlude flicking through a battered old Stephen King paperback, suddenly sprang to life. "Just let me check levels on Jane's mic," he said into the monitor. "Go ahead and sing me a few bars?"

  Jane nodded, sliding on her headphones. The rest of us busied ourselves with warming up and tuning.

  The first note slid up my spine, raising goosebumps along the way. Keir froze and a slow smile spread across his face.

  Jane closed her eyes and started singing the opening bars of Uttered a cappella, her voice an alarm-bell, a siren song, a clarion call. Low visibly shivered and Maddie's jaw was almost on the floor.

  "Holy shit, yes!" Keir cried when she finished. "That's it, that's fucking it!"

  Jane laughed and clapped her hands. "So we good?" she turned and asked me.

  Her grin was fucking infectious. "Yeah." I nodded. My heart was racing ahead of itself, the music pulsing through my blood. "We're fucking great."

  When we finally stumbled out of the studio, breathless with excitement, the sun was low in the sky. The guys wanted to go celebrate our new vocalist by getting shitfaced. But I waved goodbye and promised to see everyone tomorrow.

  I had a Rory-sized keyboard in my backseat and my own breakthrough to celebrate.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  True

  "Hey True, when you gonna play again?" Miggsy called from across the bar.

  I grinned and sat down at my usual stool, nodding to Pat Halligan who was blatantly eavesdropping. "Well I was waiting to see if anyone wanted to hear my shit again," I confessed.

  Miggsy, bless him, picked up my hint right away. "Hey Patty, when you gonna have another open mic here? I was thinkin' I should sign up."

  "You play?" I was surprised.

  Miggs nodded proudly. "I started playing when I was four. Made it all the way to first chair in my youth orchestra."

  I narrowed my eyes. "Wait, what do you play?"

  He lifted his beer bottle to his mustachioed lips with his thick, sausage fingers. "Flute," he said serenely.

  I was saved from laughing myself into a coma by the sound of the front door slamming open. "I need to fix that spring," Pat muttered.

  I turned to look over my shoulder and sighed. "Just how I wanted to spend my day off."

  Johnny Banner scanned the crowd. When his gaze alighted on me, his reptilian eyes gleamed evilly. "Truman!" he called, loud enough for the whole bar to hear. "Man, I need to buy you a drink!"

  This was bait and I needed to not rise to it. I knew that, but the whole bar was waiting for my response and my pride was on the line. "Yeah, I think you should," I said, leaning back against the bar.

  Banner's nose twitched and I grinned. I'd robbed him of the set-up for his joke. "You know why?" he prodded.

  "Do you need a reason?"

  "Because!" he crowed. "Your wife sucks dick like a champ!"

  In an instant I was off my stool. I couldn't see anything but red. Red haze, red face, red blood as it sprayed from Johnny Banner's nose when my first connected with it. It splashed across my front, staining my T-shirt and dripping onto the floor where Banner lay groaning.

  "I think you broke his nose," Miggsy said calmly.

  "Shit," I sighed.

  "You'd better get out of here," Miggs urged. "I'll deal with this."

  "Thanks man," I sighed, rubbing my knuckles. I didn't give a fuck about Banner or the potential legal trouble. I cared that this might get back to Lizzy. And that I'd just made whatever vendetta Banner had out for me ten times worse.

  Lizzy, Lizzy, what the fuck are you doing?

  I rushed home and hopped in the shower, but not before stripping and stuffing my bloodstained clothes in the trash. I'd take that out back and burn it in a barrel. Maybe I was overreacting, but if there was a chance they could use this to take Roar from me, I wasn't about to risk it.

  The sound of tires coming up our gravel road wasn't anything unusual, but in my heightened panic, I ran to the window and ducked down
out of sight to peer out...

  And saw a beautifully waxed SUV rolling on four brand new tires.

  In an instant I forgot all about Johnny Banner's stupid nose. I pulled on my jeans and booked it for the front door with enough speed to let me know what I liar I'd been to myself when I said I needed to end things with Piper.

  I wasn't about to break anything off.

  And I sure as fuck wasn't about to fade away.

  I yanked open the screen door, sending it slamming into the outside of the trailer and said the first thing that came into my head. "You're here."

  Piper unwound herself from the driver's seat and lifted her dark shades. "I am," she replied. It seemed a lot easier this time for the corner of her mouth to lift up into a smile. Like she was really, actually, happy.

  I bounded down the steps and came to a skidding halt in front of her, my heart hammering inside my chest. She was here, she'd come looking for me, holy hell was it pathetic how happy that made me? Did I care that it made me pathetic?

  Not a fucking chance. I was in love.

  "Hey," I said, keeping my hands clasped tightly behind my back.

  "I remembered where you live," she said, blinking in the harsh sunlight. "You showed me, after all."

  "Yes I did, I remember." How could I forget the night I met you?

  She stood still for a moment, as if she was remembering too. Then she turned back to her SUV. "I brought something. For Rory." She gestured to her backseat.

  "Okay. Well, she's at school."

  "Oh." She looked deflated and laughed a little. "I forgot about school. Been a while since I've been around kids."

  I peered into her backseat and my heart sank and rose at the same time and though it seemed impossible, I fell even more in love with her.

  On her backseat sat a perfectly Rory-sized keyboard. A little piano for my little girl. I had to blink several times before I could look at her again. "That's awesome. She's going to love it. You can leave it for her if you want?"

  But Piper was distracted by something. "Wait, if she has school, don't you have work?"

  "I'm off Mondays and Tuesdays," I explained. And if I hadn't knocked Banner's face in, I would have missed you coming by. Thanks for that, Johnny.

  She looked up at me. "That sucks."

  I shrugged. "I'm used to it. It's kind of nice when I have shit to do, go into town or whatever. Not as many people in my way. Plus there's usually fewer people at Halligan's Gives me time to think."

  She nodded. "I like being alone too."

  "I figured you might."

  "You figured, huh?"

  What else could I say? "Yeah."

  Her eyes blazed. "You think you've got me all figured out after last night, huh?"

  "I learned a few things, I think." Like that I'm in love with you. "Do you want to talk about them?"

  She chewed on her lip for a second, then winced. "No."

  She confounded me. Everything I thought I knew...

  Lizzy always wanted to talk forever and ever, ad nauseum, amen. This was unknown territory for me. "All right then," I said slowly. "Well, I told you already. I'm not going to do anything you don't want to do, so if you don't wanna talk to me, that's fine. But I want to talk to you. Can I do that?"

  She looked down at her shoes. "What do you want to say?"

  "Well?" I moved just as close to her as I could, close enough to smell that scent of hers, close enough to see that hummingbird pulse at her throat. I still ached to put my lips there, to flick my tongue over her collarbone and suck a line of kisses down to her breasts... "I kind of want to tell you how sweet you are for bringing Rory a little piano. But I'm also kind afraid you'll rip my balls off if I call you sweet."

  "I'm not mean," she said. "I'm just..."

  "Careful?"

  "Maybe that's it. Sure."

  "Protective?"

  Her eyes blazed with that same fierce light. I was growing very fond of that fierceness. "The more people know about you, the more they can fuck with your head."

  "If you know me," I couldn't help but ask. "Are you going to fuck with my head?"

  She looked down again. I could see the truth as she wrestled with it, starting with a shiver at the base of her spine. I held my breath, waiting. "No," she said slowly, then winced. "Maybe." Then she looked me right in the eye, pleading. "But I won't mean to."

  I reached out and brushed my fingers down her cheek. "Same here."

  She looked up at me. "You can kiss me now," she said.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Piper

  "You can kiss me now," I said. No, begged. Please kiss me, I didn't say. I'm going to wilt and die if you don't.

  The storm in his eyes whipped up, dark gray battling the deep blue. I didn't recognize the expression there, but my body responded on instinct, turning to face him, lifting my mouth to his.

  His lips landed lightly. Not on my lips like I expected, but on the side of my jaw, warm and inviting. I could hear him hesitating, holding his breath and waiting for me.

  I closed my eyes and nodded. "Again," I whispered.

  This time his kiss was lower, behind my ear, that soft, secret place half hidden by hair. He brushed it back first, unwrapping me like a treasure, then pressed his lips to the spot.

  I could feel the strain of it, what it cost him to go so slowly. But when he pulled back there was no impatience in his eyes. He was not frustrated with me. I wasn't pissing him off by wanting him to go slowly.

  And that made me want to go faster.

  "Now here," I whispered, pressing my finger to my lips.

  He hesitated for only a second, long enough for me to hear the long, drawn out sigh of relief. Or maybe that sigh was my own. I didn't know. I didn't know anything anymore. I only felt. The wall that had contained my feelings, holding them back for so long, finally broke when his lips touched mine. Not broke, fucking exploded into a million pieces, just like my insides as I sagged against him.

  I'd never kissed anyone liked this, but in the moment it was suddenly all I'd ever wanted. I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him closer, closer, I needed to be closer, I needed to feel the heat, it was melting the last chunks of ice around my heart.

  His mouth was warm, his tongue seemed to be asking, exploring, but slowly turned greedy and devouring. I rose up on my tiptoes as he took my lower lip between his teeth and bit down. "Just like you wanted," he hissed against my mouth.

  I whimpered, nodding, "Again," I begged, but he already knew. The sharp sting turned into blooming heat that radiated down my spine and I felt that same heaviness gather there that I'd felt last night. I was already craving the feeling.

  "Piper..." The way he groaned my name made me reckless. I pulled him closer, yanking his shirt from his waistband. He pulled it over his head and my fingers sought out every inch of that burnished skin.

  "Get a fucking room!" came the cry from across the road.

  "Shit," he moaned into my mouth and pulled back.

  A guy across the way raised his beer can in our direction. Heat flamed across my cheeks even as I laughed out loud. "Shit," True said again, clapping his hand over his face.

  "What?" I teased. "Not the first show I've put on."

  He peeked at me from between his fingers. "You cool?"

  I danced from side to side. Somehow, being seen had made it even better. I felt the singing in my veins, the same addictive high I got whenever I courted danger. "Seems like you're the one with the problem."

  He lifted up both hands in surrender. "No problem here. I'm just thinking maybe we might want to take this inside?"

  I hated how I winced and I hated even harder how he immediately started backpedaling. "No, shit, I'm sorry. I'm not trying to hurry you along, Piper."

  "No, I know."

  "Shit, I'm sorry."

  "Don't be." I stood on my tiptoes, feeling as light as air. "This is good," I told him, brushing my lips across his.

  His eyes softened. "This is good. I'm glad
you came by. Rory's gonna love her piano."

  I had almost forgotten the piano. "There's more too," I blurted impulsively.

  He raised his eyebrows. I plowed ahead, wondering what the fuck I was saying. "You're not doing anything tomorrow either, right?"

  He shook his head, keeping his eyes fixed on mine.

  "Well?" I said, unable to keep the words inside once they started coming. "Would you like to come to the studio? Meet the guys?" And let my brother stare you down?

  His face transformed from amused confusion to wide-eyed disbelief. "Really?" he shouted. "You're serious?"

  I laughed, giddy at how happy I could make him. "Why the hell not?"

  "Keir's gonna be there?" he stammered. "And Rane and Balzac and Twitch..."

  "Low," I corrected him. "My brother goes by Low, now."

  He raked his hand across his stubbled head. "Meet Ruthless..." he trailed off and then suddenly he pounced, kissing me full on the lips. "Holy shit," he said as he pulled away. "I can't believe this is happening."

  "Meet me there at two," I told him. I grabbed a pen and a scrap of paper from my car. "Here's the address."

  He looked down at the paper with the same sort of reverence one reserved for the Bible. "Thanks Piper," he said. He ducked his head and I swear I felt something hanging in the air, something unspoken and left unsaid between us. I knew that making the words come was hard for me, but I never expected him to have the same trouble.

  I waited for a beat, then went up on my tiptoes to kiss him goodbye, my mind already filling with the stress of the next step. Bringing him into my life like this, with Low and the band and our fractious recording sessions, was I crazy?

  But then I already knew the answer to that question.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  True

  I always thought that walking into a studio must be something reverent, like entering some kind of sacred space. Like walking into a church, or maybe a palace... Hell maybe even the Vatican.

  But Electric Sound Studios turned out to be just another gray-doored entrance in the back lot of a nondescript office park. There wasn't an angel choir or a gold-plated marble fountain in sight. Just a sea of baking asphalt surrounded by other nondescript buildings. Two ugly smokestacks jutted into the sky, blocking the view of the horizon.