Whole Lotta Love: Rock Star Hearts - Book #1
Page 2
“You need to get laid.”
“Yeah, by who?” I shot back. “There’s zero cocks around here.”
“There’s plenty of cocks.”
“None I’d let inside my pussy,” I muttered tossing aside the book.
“Then I know what I’m getting you for your birthday. A penis-shaped vibrator. A big one.”
I laughed and rubbed my eyes. “All my dreams are coming true!”
Vanessa sighed and flopped down onto the chair behind the counter. “Who do you think it is?”
I flushed, hiding behind a pile of romance novels I wanted to list on eBay. I’d dismissed that Sebastian guy, but part of me wished he’d stuck around. Nobody interesting ever did.
“In the beach house? No idea,” I replied. “Maybe it’s some rich prick who’s on a pretentious sabbatical or something.”
“Maybe it’s a hot rich prick.”
“You remember Hugo, right?” I asked. “The guy you married two years ago?”
Vanessa laughed and held up her hand. “With a diamond like this? It depends on the day.”
I glanced at the little diamond on her engagement ring and frowned. “It’s not the size of the diamond—”
“It’s the size of his cock,” she finished for me.
“I was going to say heart,” I complained.
She smiled and leaned back in the chair. “I know. You’re a hopeless romantic, you know that?”
I grunted and looked out the window. Beyond, the storm clouds had sunk their claws into the landscape and were dumping their load on everyone in their path.
Hopeless was the perfect word.
2
Sebastian
She didn’t know who I was.
I glanced over my shoulder as I walked up the beach, the wind making my eyes water. Juniper was tugging on Ziggy’s lead, dragging him out of the surf. If she wasn’t so beautiful, I would’ve laughed.
She’d been direct, slightly sarcastic, and thoughtful. Her hair was the shade of copper, sparking as the wind tore through it. Emerald eyes had stared back at me with a hint of apprehension that dulled their shine. A small-town girl with zero interest in what Sebastian Hale was doing on a beach in the middle of nowhere.
I looked back one last time and wondered if I should go back. Na, it was reckless. Climbing the stairs, I breathed in the salt air, basking in the afterglow of my brush with anonymity.
It felt good. Really fucking good.
Up top, my car was the only one in the lot. A 1969 HT Monaro GTS 350, a classic Australian muscle car, painted back with two silver ‘go-faster’ stripes down the centre of the bonnet. I’d bought it at auction a year ago, had it repainted to suit my taste, then let it sit in a garage in Melbourne. I guess I could call it my one-hundred and sixty-five thousand dollar getaway car.
Unlocking the driver’s side door, I slid in behind the wheel and closed out the winter chill, my thoughts still swirling around the woman on the beach. Our encounter had felt normal, or at least what I thought normal was supposed to feel like. Was that what it felt like to be no one? A simple existence seemed the farthest thing from my grasp right now.
Movement on the stairs caught my gaze and I slumped behind the wheel as Juniper came into view. She crossed the road and walked towards town, Ziggy out in front with his tail wagging. I stared after her, wondering what was underneath her baggy coat.
Fuck, I was such a dumbarse. Going after the first pair of tits I came across wouldn’t solve anything. If she didn’t know who I was now, then it was only a matter of time. The tabloids had already started reporting my supposed disappearance, and when those vultures got a whiff of blood, it was game on.
Once she was gone, I turned the key in the ignition and brought the car to life. The engine purred despite the cold, and I shifted into first gear. Peeling out of the carpark, I turned away from the tiny blip of Point Mambie and made my way up to the bluff.
The beach house I was renting was five bedrooms, three bathrooms, two living spaces, an outdoor entertaining area, an open-plan kitchen, but at least it was an anonymous waste of money. No one knew I was here and the solitude was exactly what I wanted. It was just me, the sky, and the ocean beyond.
The garage door closed behind me just as the first raindrops began to fall. I hadn’t been up this early in a long time. Eight a.m. was a normal time for most people, but for a night owl like me, it was about the hour I fell into bed, but I didn’t feel tired.
The house was still unfamiliar. Finding my way into the kitchen, I picked up my mobile phone and checked the screen. The last thing I wanted was a direct line to the outside world, so I’d left it behind. Bad news was, the world wasn’t ready to let me have a little fucking peace and quiet just yet. While I’d been wandering on the beach, Josh had been blowing up my phone with messages.
Josh was the lead guitarist in the band I fronted, Beneath. The band that was the cause of all my current problems. Bad boy rock stars who were as shallow as a bottle of five-dollar vodka. We were known for getting blind drunk and trashing hotel rooms, getting stupid tattoos and pulling dangerous stunts—you name it, we’d probably done it. We’d been boys who’d had a bunch of money thrown at us and grew into men who didn’t know any different. Like that was an excuse.
Sebastian Hale was good for a night of wild times, fucking in public places, fucking in all kinds of positions, screwing with authority, paying for damages, paying for everyone’s booze and blow, getting my cock sucked for my trouble, but at the end of it all, I was alone. A year ago, I was all over it, revelling in the destruction and the quick fucks, but now... Shit, I didn’t even know.
Glancing at my phone, I scrolled, my mood growing worse and worse with each text.
You can’t just leave, man. What about the band?
We’ve got a fucking album to release, you arsehole.
There’s three other guys in this band, or have you forgotten?
You better be fucking dead.
You want to tank your career, fine. Don’t fuck with ours.
Gritting my teeth, I typed in a reply and hit send. I’m coming back.
A few seconds later, I got a reply. When?
Rage pooled in my gut and I flicked the phone onto silent and tossed it onto the counter. When? Fucked if I knew.
Striding into the living room, I draped myself over the couch and grabbed my laptop, but my email was in worse shape.
I scowled at the screen as image after image loaded. My face had been crudely Photoshopped into meme after meme by a bunch of callous keyboard warriors. There I was Beneath a rock, a hot girl, a sewer grate, a parked car, a drum kit... It kept going on and on.
The headlines on the gossip sites were worse. Is Beneath over? The rock star life finally catches up to wild child, Sebastian Hale.
Note to self, don’t set up a Google alert for your name when you want to disappear.
“Arseholes!” I slammed the laptop closed and glared out the windows at the storm that’d rolled in while I’d been dragged into the latest episode of Beneath chaos.
Rain lashed the floor-to-ceiling glass, arcing across the deck and obscuring the million-dollar view of the ocean beyond.
This was what I’d always dreamed of—playing music for millions of people, touring the world, my bank account etched with multiple zeros. I snorted and rubbed my eyes. Give a kid a million-dollar advance and watch him spiral out of control.
We could really fucking play some great music—I could play—but the fame had killed it. My life was empty. It wasn’t about the music or the message anymore. All people were interested in was what crazy stunt we were going to pull next. Sebastian Hale, bad boy. Mother’s, lock up your daughters.
The only person in the world who didn’t seem to know me was the mysterious Juniper. At least for now.
I didn’t know a thing about her, but if that was it, it was more than enough. She had zero expectations of who I was supposed to be. This was a clean slate; I could be real with her.
Reaching for the bottle of scotch on the coffee table, I curled my fingers around the neck, the glass cold against my skin. I hesitated, my lip curling. After a moment, I sat back on the couch and pushed my laptop aside. Getting drunk would only stall the inevitable. I’d forget for one night, then tomorrow my head would split open.
Shit, I was a mess. How the hell did I get here?
3
Juniper
The storm had cleared by the next morning.
Walking down the main street of Point Mambie, I stepped over a puddle and sighed. Everything was empty. The road, the shops, my heart—everything.
“Hey Juni!” a thick-accented voice shouted. “What’s shakin’, babe!”
Turning, I smirked at Hugo, who was leaning his head out the window of Rizzo’s Pizza Bar. His apron was smeared with tomato sauce and his black, curly hair was in more disarray than usual. It could only mean one thing—he’d been inventing again.
“What’s on the menu today?” I asked, leaning against the siding.
“Leftover surprise,” he said with a grin. “Wanna try some?” He slapped a slice of something pizza-shaped onto a paper plate and thrust it towards me. “Mozzarella, olives, chicken, ham, egg, onion, capsicum, pineapple, and pepperoni, all on a crusty base with Rizzo’s world famous tomato sauce. Mmm...” He sniffed the air. “Smells good, huh?”
“You really need to work on the name.” He and Vanessa were a match made in heaven if you asked me. They were just the right amount of crazy to be complimentary.
“I could call it ‘The Lot.’”
“There you go, better already.” I glanced at the pizza and wrinkled my nose. It wasn’t the only thing he needed to work on. “Well, I’ve gotta get back to the shop.”
“Hey, if you see Ness, tell her to swing by for a taste.” He wiggled his eyebrows up and down.
“Ugh.” I rolled my eyes and laughed. “I’m so not saying that to her.”
“Later, Juni.”
I waved and made my way down the footpath towards the Page Break Bookshop, wondering what I should do with the slice of pizza. Throwing a look over my shoulder, I saw Hugo had disappeared back inside.
“Juniper.”
My heart fluttered and I turned, my gaze smacking right into the mystery beach guy, Sebastian. I’d thought he would’ve already blown through town, chased by yesterday’s storm, but here he was, all broody and smouldering. I stood awkwardly, my tongue tied in more ways than one.
He looked a little more rumpled and less fancy with his knit navy jumper hugging his broad chest and his torn, black jeans tucked into his sloppy combat boots. He smiled, and his dusky brown hair fell into his eyes. Oh fuck, his eyes.
I was melting despite the cold, and my hands began to tremble, the pizza dangerously close to falling onto the footpath.
I swallowed hard before squeaking, “Hey. I, uh, I didn’t recognise you without the beanie.”
“It’s not as cold today.”
“Nope...” Good one, Juniper. Crash and burn.
Sebastian raked a hand through his messy locks and glanced at the pizza in my hand. “Nice breakfast.”
“Ah, that’s an upset stomach waiting to happen.” I grimaced and tossed the paper plate and its contents into the closest bin. “The guys at the pizza shop have a thing for experimentation.”
“At this hour?”
“It seems to keep them out of trouble.”
We stared at one another, neither one of us knowing what to say. Was he shy? By the looks of him, he didn’t seem the type. I mean, guys who look like perfection sculpted from marble never had problems scoring in social situations. Didn’t they?
“So, what’s going on?” I said breaking the silence. “I thought you would’ve been on the road to someplace better by now.”
He gave me a quizzical look. “What makes you say that?”
“Point Mambie isn’t exactly the place people stick around in.”
“You stuck,” he noted.
“Out of necessity.”
“So you’d rather go someplace else?”
Our conversation was starting to tread in the too personal column and I shrugged.
“I’m going to hang around for a while,” he said, offering me an explanation. A vague one, but at least it was something. “I need some quiet.”
The trembling in my hands moved to my heart, but not before taking a detour between my legs. “Well, you’ll get a lot of that around here.”
“No Ziggy this morning?”
Thinking about the moment we met on the beach, I flushed. “He’s, uh, with his real mum today.” I glanced down the street, wondering why I was such a freak. “I’ve got to get to work.”
“Sure.” He looked a little disappointed and the fluttering in my chest intensified. “Hopefully I’ll see you around.”
I smiled awkwardly, wishing I had half the confidence Vanessa had. If my wiring wasn’t all scrambled, maybe I would’ve asked him out to lunch or talked about more interesting things than a dog who loved to bodysurf. But Sebastian had said hopefully...
Turning, I strode the five meters to the bookshop and pushed the door. The bell rang above my head and the sound of Ziggy’s tail thumping against the counter mixed with my irregular heartbeat. Chaos. Utter chaos.
“You need to talk to your husband,” I said to Vanessa as I shucked off my coat. “He’s determined to give half the Point food poisoning.” When she didn’t reply, I turned to find her frowning at me with her hands welded onto her hips. “What?”
“Don’t walk in here like all that outside was nothing,” she stated.
“I threw the pizza into the bin, any sane person would’ve.” I screwed up my nose and leaned down to scratch Ziggy behind the ears.
“Fuck the pizza!” she exclaimed. “I saw who you were talking to!”
I straightened up and the trembling returned. I was already crushing on him, and we’d only had two awkward conversations totalling about ten minutes. Sebastian, the mystery guy who was an enigma all wrapped up in one sexy as fuck package. It was like he didn’t know how to talk to people and me... Well, I was just waiting for the moment he left. Everyone did sooner or later, just ask my dad.
“He was just some guy I ran into on the beach yesterday,” I said. “I guess he’s looking to stay a couple of days.”
“Some guy?” Vanessa rolled her eyes. “You’re clueless, you know that?”
“Why are you mad at me?” I demanded. It was way too early for an existential crisis.
“That guy is Sebastian Hale,” she stated. When I shrugged she flapped her arms in the air. “The Sebastian Hale.”
“Good for him?”
“Juniper!” she shrieked.
“What?”
“Sebastian Hale is the lead singer of the hottest rock band in the entire fucking world, Beneath. How could you not know this?”
I screwed up my nose, not understanding the hype. “I don’t listen to the radio?”
“Ugh, you’re impossible. Give that man a guitar and a microphone and he’ll make you cream in your undies.”
“That guy?” I glanced out the window for another look to verify Vanessa’s outrageous claims, but Sebastian was gone. Pressing my nose against the glass, I couldn’t see him down the footpath either.
“Yes, that guy!”
“I mean, he’s good-looking, but he didn’t induce an orgasm.” It was a blatant lie because I’d felt my undies quiver.
“You thought about it, admit it!”
I narrowed my eyes and turned away from the window. “A little.”
“Open your heart a little, Juniper. It wouldn’t hurt to spread those legs a bit, either.”
“Vanessa!”
“Do me a favour and stop pretending. You were crushing all over him.”
I glanced at Ziggy, but he’d gone back to sleep. Traitor.
; “I’m not a groupie,” I said. “If he’s some hot rock star guy, then getting tangled up with him is the last thing I should be doing. Musicians are bad news.”
Vanessa sighed and leaned against the counter. “Not all musicians are going to throw themselves off cliffs, you know.”
I ignored her and tidied the stack of books that needed to be photographed before listing them for sale online. It was a nervous gesture to disguise the fact my heart was in overdrive. A guy like that, interested in a nobody like me? Definitely not in the long-term kind of way. Short term? I felt sick. I never understood how people could sleep around, sharing bodily fluids like it was nothing. Was that Sebastian’s gig? Did he play music as well as women?
“He’s the guy who rented the beach house,” I said, putting two and two together. “If he’s here, then he wants to be alone. Guys with profiles like that like their privacy. You can’t tell anyone he’s here, Ness.”
“Wasn’t planning on it,” she said with a wicked smile.
“What does that mean?”
“It means exactly what you think it means.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“You’re hopeless, Juniper Rowe.” She clucked her tongue and raked her fingers through her blonde locks, fixing her braid.
“Yeah,” I muttered. “We’ve already established that.”
The name Beneath sounded kind of familiar. The laptop sat beside me and I glanced at it, the screen conveniently open on a new browser page.
“I’m going to search for him on YouTube,” Vanessa declared as if she could read my mind. She lunged towards the laptop and I snapped it closed.
“No way!”
“Juniper!”
“I don’t want to go down that rabbit hole.”
She pouted and crossed her arms over her chest. “Why not?”
“With my dad, it was a persona,” I explained, gesturing towards the computer. “All that is smoke and mirrors. It’s clever editing. It’s autotune and producing. It’s a product, not a person.”
“Then go find out who he is.”