Whole Lotta Love: Rock Star Hearts - Book #1

by Amity Cross

  Vanessa slapped him and clucked her tongue. “Any excuse to be an idiot.”

  “He’s just trying to be chivalrous,” I said in his defence.

  “You need an escort?” he asked. “It’s dark outside.”

  “Na, it’s cool. It’s not too far.” I grabbed my jacket off the back of the chair and shrugged into it. “See you at the shop tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, of course,” Vanessa said. “I’ve got nothing else to do.”

  “You can always come and slap some toppings on some pizzas,” Hugo said. “It’s better than slapping me.”

  She rolled her eyes and gave me a wave. “Be safe, Juni.”

  “See ya.” I waved and forged a path through the pub, spending all my willpower points so I could make it out the door without looking over my shoulder.

  It was only two and a bit blocks until I got home, so I shoved my hands into my pockets and braved the chill. Crossing the carpark, I left behind the bright lights of the Mariner’s Arms and stepped onto the empty main street.

  “Hey!”

  I turned at the sound of a male voice, a sad part of me hoped it was Sebastian, but unfortunately it wasn’t. It was Robbo. The same Robbo that’d apparently made a bet that he could ‘bag’ me before summer comes. Sighing, I kept walking, putting my head down and increasing my speed. I was so not in the mood for this.

  “Hey, I’m taking to you.”

  He grabbed my arm and pulled me around, his fingers digging into my flesh. I was hit in the face with a waft of alcohol and alarm bells started ringing.

  Robbo was the typical small-town douchebag that everyone knew was a little rough around the edges, but just brushed off because you can’t cure stupid. He got drunk five nights a week, still lived at his parents’ place, and worked sporadically at the local mechanic when he was sober enough to pick up a spanner without killing himself or someone else. Real top-notch material. Guys like him thought it was their right to own women and treat them like trash.

  “You’re drunk,” I said. “You better go home.”

  “With you?”

  “Excuse me?”

  He edged closer, forcing my back to hit the wall of the fish ‘n’ chip shop.

  “C’mon, Juniper,” he slurred, rubbing against me, “you know you want this.”

  “Robbo!” I exclaimed, shoving him hard with both palms, but he wouldn’t budge.

  His hand twisted in my hair, pulling my scalp painfully, and he started to kiss my neck. Trembling, I swallowed bile and tried to push him away.

  Hands were grabbing at my jacket, trying to slip underneath my top, and fear began to rise hot and hard inside of me. I was stuck, pinned against the wall with no way out.

  “Get off me!” I screeched.

  “Shut the fuck up,” Robbo snarled, slapping his hand over my mouth. “You’re a little prick-tease, Juniper. You think you’re too good for us. You’ll see how good I am when you come on my cock. You’ll like it when my cum is in your mouth.”

  My eyes widened as he reached for the button on my jeans.

  “You’re a wild one, aren’t you? I bet you scream.”

  I thrashed against him, and then he was torn off me and shoved across the footpath. He stumbled, almost falling into the gutter, but it wasn’t him I was looking at. It was Sebastian.

  “Get your filthy fucking hands off her,” he snarled, prowling towards Robbo. “When a woman says no, she means no.”

  “Walk away, hero,” the douchebag shot back.

  “You walk away.”

  Robbo launched himself at Sebastian, blindly swinging. I let out a yelp as Sebastian ducked, twisted, then slammed his fist into the back of the guy’s head. Robbo’s eyes rolled, then he dropped like a stone.

  Sebastian’s gaze flew to mine. “Are you okay?”

  “You dropped him with one hit,” I exclaimed, my hands shaking. “You just...”

  I was in shock. This was shock, right? Sebastian was the bad boy who got into trouble everywhere he went—fighting, getting drunk, trashing hotel rooms, fucking needy groupies, no wonder he was good with his hands. He played guitar like a god, punched out guys for kicks, pleasured lots of vaginas with his fingers—the list went on and on.

  “Are you okay?” he asked again, taking a step towards me.

  “Yeah, I-I could’ve...” I glanced at Robbo’s comatose body and wondered if I really could’ve kicked him in the cock before he managed to cross the line.

  “He’s bigger than you, and he’s drunk,” Sebastian stated. “You don’t have the strength.”

  “That’s a little condescending, isn’t it?”

  “I’m not being an arsehole, Juniper. I’m just stating facts.”

  Standing over Robbo, I glared at him with as much disgust as I could manage. I couldn’t even walk two fucking blocks home in a town with the population of a hundred without getting assaulted.

  “Do you want me to call anyone?”

  I looked up at Sebastian and for the first time since Vanessa told me who he was, I didn’t see the rock star. I saw the guy from the beach. The good guy who came to my rescue. He was right, and I was stubborn. Reality sucked.

  “Thank you,” I murmured.

  “You’re welcome.” He seemed to have forgotten Robbo was there, but I still felt his hands on me.

  “I wish we didn’t have to live in a world where women have to look over their shoulders,” I declared, anger heating my veins. “Fuck this.”

  Bending over, I hooked my hands underneath Robbo’s back and tried to heave him over.

  Sebastian frowned. “What are you doing?”

  “Rolling him into the gutter where he belongs.”

  “Want a hand?”

  “I can do it myself.”

  “I know you can. I just want to share in the satisfaction of knowing I played a part in him waking up in a pile of shit.”

  I grunted and hooked my hands underneath Robbo again. Sebastian leaned over beside me and together, we rolled the drunken arsehole into the gutter.

  “He deserves worse, but that’ll do for now,” Sebastian said, wiping his hands on the back of his jeans.

  “Were you following me?” I blurted.

  His brows knitted together. “Why would I do that?”

  I shrugged and sunk deeper into my jacket. Why would he? Because he was a creep, or because he wanted to make sure no one else was. I wasn’t sure if he was the knight in shining armour or the player people warned you not to tangle with.

  “At least let me take you home,” he said.

  “You’ve been drinking.”

  “I only had one and I didn’t finish it,” he argued. “I’m only a raging drunk behind closed doors.”

  I smirked and nodded towards the Page Break. “I’m going this way.”

  He fell into step beside me and when I stopped in front of the shop and fished out my keys from my pocket, he frowned, clearly confused.

  “You live above the bookshop?”

  “So?” I retorted, well and truly riled up from my near miss with Robbo. “Too lowbrow for you and your mansion on the hill?”

  “Why are you so pissed at me?”

  “I’m not pissed at you, I’m...” I sighed and shoved my key into the lock. “I’m pissed at the circumstances.”

  He leaned against the window, following my every move like a hawk watching a mouse. “Which are?”

  I shook my head and shoved into the darkness of the shop.

  “Juniper?”

  Turning, I found Sebastian lingering on the threshold, his face in the shadows.

  “I’m just rattled,” I murmured. “You were right. I...” My chest heaved with a melancholy sigh.

  “I can stay if you want.”

  Confusion pushed its way into my mind and I pinched the bridge of my nose.

  “Or not,” Sebastian murmured, the open door letting in the nighttime chill.

  “I’m a real fucked up mess,” I said, throwing his words back at him. “You can stay, i
f that’s what you want, but if you want to go, I get it.”

  His lips curved into a grin and he closed the door behind him. The lock clicked into place and he stepped farther into the shop, just past the counter and into the music section. Thankfully, romance was on the other side.

  “So here we are,” he said, his face in shadows.

  “Yeah... Here we are.”

  10

  Sebastian

  I followed Juniper up the stairs to the apartment over her bookstore.

  Her perfect arse swayed in my face as she climbed in front of me, and I swallowed hard, rearranging my cock while she wasn’t looking. Last thing she needed was another horny arsehole trying to creep on her.

  The building was old and full of creaks, wavy floorboards, and crumbling paint. The door on the landing looked at least a hundred years old, and as she opened it, I found myself wondering how many ghosts were wedged in its crumbling plaster.

  She turned on a lamp across the room and as my eyes adjusted to the light, I looked around, taking everything in.

  There wasn’t much space up here. It was like a studio, with a living space, a bed by the front windows, and a kitchenette at the rear. Beside the fridge was another door inset with frosted glass. It was edged open, and through the crack, I could see a bathroom with mint green and black polished tiles.

  Everything was a mismatch of time periods and styles. I couldn’t decide if it looked like a New York loft, a 1970s artist’s den, or a kitsch hipster hideaway, but it didn’t really matter. All of these things were a glimpse of Juniper Rowe, and I’d take anything I could get.

  “Did you want to take a shower?” I asked.

  She scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest.

  “Not with me,” I replied with a snort. “Though I won’t say no, even though it’s highly inappropriate right about now.”

  Juniper shucked off her jacket and tossed it over the kitchen bench, her eyes downcast.

  “Nice place,” I offered.

  “I changed it after Mum died,” she said, trying not to look at me. “I kept all the things that were good about us and tossed the rest.”

  “Really?”

  “Most people hang onto everything,” she went on, “but I couldn’t. I guess I’m not attached to things. I like to live light. Well, as light as I can with all those books downstairs. But it wasn’t like I needed a pile of Tupperware to remember her, ya know?”

  She was starting to babble, which I took to be a nervous thing on her part. Being who I was and standing in her space wasn’t something to take lightly. It wasn’t like her coming to the beach house—that place was just a temporary shell. Her apartment over her bookstore was her sanctuary, her home. I was the last guy who should be in it, but here I was, powerless to stay the fuck away.

  “Some stuff is just that,” I said, agreeing with her. “It’s just stuff.”

  “I know, right?”

  “But I don’t have stuff like this.” I traced my fingers over a pile of books on the shelf beside me. They were classics like Jane Eyre, The Iliad, North and South, Persuasion, and they all looked like they were about to fall apart. The spines were bent, the pages were yellowing, and the corners were worn.

  “Like what?” she asked, her eyes on my movements.

  “Memories. Things that mean something.”

  “You don’t have anything from your parents? Or your childhood?” Her eyebrows rose. “Your first guitar?”

  I thought about the guitar I smashed over my dad’s drunken head and snorted. Why would I want to keep the shards of a clichéd past?

  “I never thought I needed them,” I murmured. “Memories are in here.” I touched my head, then my heart.

  “What about your family?”

  “I don’t have any.”

  “Another thing we have in common,” she said, standing beside me. She picked up the book on top of the stack—North and South—and ran her fingers over the cover. “My mum used to read this to me after my dad died.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Five.”

  “Your mum read you that when you were barely in grade prep?”

  “Yeah.” She laughed softly and placed it back. “I was top of my class for reading. I got all the gold stars.”

  Silence spread out between us. At least she’d settled after what’d happen outside. That was another thing I was learning about Juniper tonight, she was strong as steel.

  “What happened to your family?” she asked.

  “I was an only kid. My dad was a raging drunk who love hitting my mum.” Juniper tensed, and I resisted the urge to reach out and pull her against my side. “Finally, she stood up to him and we left when I was a teenager. It was either that, or I was going to kill the guy. The ultimate ultimatum, I guess. He died of liver failure like ten years ago.”

  “Your mum?”

  “Breast cancer. Right before Beneath got signed.”

  She gasped softly and slipped her hand into mine, sending shockwaves straight through me. The warmth of her skin felt good against mine, and some of the weight I’d been carrying eased off my shoulders. I couldn’t remember the last time I talked about my parents. All mention of them was banned from interviews, and I never brought it up with Mallory, the guys, or management—other than to make sure they were on the media no-fly list.

  I chewed on my bottom lip, wondering why the hell I just told her all that shit. I’d just let it roll of my tongue like it was nothing. Maybe it was because Juniper had shared so many intimate details about herself without so much as blinking. She’d opened up, and in turn, had opened up something in me.

  It was then that I realised I trusted her. This electrifying woman, who I’d only met two weeks ago, had lit up my life like no one else. My trust wasn’t easily won and here she was, carving me open, and here I was letting her.

  “I’m sorry she never got to see you make it,” she said, the sound of her voice soothing.

  “Life is what it is.” I shrugged. “We’re all part of the cosmic joke.”

  Her grip tightened, and I reluctantly tugged my fingers out of hers. I had to keep the wall up between us, otherwise I’d never be able to let her go. Everything she represented... fuck. Our lives were too different.

  “So you fell into running the bookshop?” I asked, changing the subject.

  “Yeah.” She rubbed her palms up and down her arms and turned towards the couch.

  “What did you want to be?” I asked as she sat down. “Before?”

  She drew in a deep breath and shrugged. “I don’t really know. I never got the chance to think about it and now...”

  “Another thing we have in common,” I whispered. Two lost, lonely souls.

  “But you know what you want to be,” she argued. “You don’t make music like that and be unsatisfied.”

  “You listened to our stuff?” Driven by temptation, I sat beside her, close enough that our legs touched.

  She turned to gaze at me, the lamplight casting warmth across her delicate features. I counted each one of her freckles and studied the outline of her lips before resting on her eyes. A cosmos of emerald and hazel stared back at me and I waited with baited breath to hear her thoughts.

  “I did.”

  That was all she offered and I was disappointed. I never cared about that kind of shit. I just played and sang, and people liked it or they didn’t, but not knowing what Juniper Rowe thought about Beneath’s music ate at me like acid.

  “Did you like it?” Resting my arm behind her on the back of the couch, I edged closer. What did I say about tempting fate?

  “I...”

  Fuck, I wanted to kiss her so bad. My cock was hardening in my pants and it was staring to get painful. All she had to do was say the word and I’d give her everything—passion, lust, desire, a connection. The reckless fire in my heart was blinding me to everything. I wanted her beyond all reason, but—

  “This isn’t good, Juniper.” She paled, her eyes shimmering. “Wh
at if I’m exactly like your dad? I’m just another troubled musician who’ll probably leave one day.”

  “But what if you’re not?” she whispered.

  I couldn’t live with what if’s.

  “What changed?” I asked. She tilted her head to the side and my grip tightened on the back of the couch. “From yesterday? What changed?”

  Her cheeks flushed and she looked away. “Nothing.”

  I don’t think I could survive you. I remembered her words like she’d just whispered them into my ear seconds ago. They were clear and sharp and dug deep, but what she didn’t realise was that her words echoed the same ones in my soul. I was falling hard and fast for Juniper Rowe, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

  “I should go.” I was frozen, waiting for the universe to intervene.

  “Yeah,” she whispered.

  We were at an impasse.

  I stared at her, drinking her in, then, when I was sure she was going to be okay after her ordeal, I left. I walked right out of that bookshop and into the icy darkness, taking another step down the spiral.

  11

  Juniper

  Sebastian Hale, MIA. The REAL truth behind the rock star’s disappearance.

  I stood in the middle of the local IGA Supermarket, my shopping dangling in one hand, my heart in the other. My palm itched to pick up the latest edition of Stargazers to find out why he’d left his charmed celebrity life.

  My reusable bag had the words ‘I like big books and I cannot lie’ printed on the outside with a cute hand-drawn image of a fluttering paperback novel. Inside was a block of Cadbury’s Top Deck chocolate, an energy drink, and a multi-pack of two-minute noodles. I was living the high life.

  Staring at the magazine rack, I wondered how Sebastian put up with the constant speculation and rumour mongering from the press. Having his life talked about like it was a competitive sport must be hell.

  It’d been almost a week since the night we’d rolled Robbo into the gutter together. Since then, Robbo’s drunken arse waking up in a puddle of storm water had been the talk of Point Mambie. He’d been found by local police guru, Sargent Conway, who’d photographed the scene and plastered it all over social media and printed it out and stuck it on the local noticeboard. Last I heard, the photo had been shared three hundred times. On top of that, one thousand, one hundred and thirty-two people liked it, and nine hundred and forty-six people had left comments... and Conway still had his job.