Love Me Two Times (Rock Royalty Book 8)

by Christie Ridgway

  “Filthy,” Ren agreed.

  “But there was Gwen. Sweet Gwen.” Beck looked back at the photo. “I remember now that she insisted we take that picture because I was moving out. She wanted a last photo of us all together.” He rubbed at the strange ache in his chest, surprised by it. Surely he didn’t have a sentimental bone in his body.

  Hadn’t he walked away from Jewel without a second thought or any promises, despite their smoking sexual connection?

  Which brought him back to the reason for his visit.

  Yet he stalled, not sure if he was ready to contemplate—let alone speak of—the reality of what she’d told him.

  Beck gestured to the photo again. “Is this one of those that you said Gwen left you?”

  “No. We’re much younger in that set.” Ren popped open one of the credenza’s doors, then hesitated. “Would you like to see them?”

  “Okay.” He shrugged. “Sure.”

  Ren reached inside the cabinet and then slid a thick album on top of the wooden surface.

  Beck stared at it, recalling what the other man had told him. They were of us when we were little kids. Playing. Collecting eggs on Easter. Dressed up on Halloween.

  All of which Ren had blanked from his mind.

  “So you know,” Beck said, staring at the album’s fake leather binding. “I remember more than the naked tits. I do remember us playing together as little kids and hanging together during holidays in the early years.” He cleared his throat, glanced at Ren, suddenly needing to acknowledge that long-ago friendship. “The two of us were inseparable.”

  The other man blinked, then shoved a hand through his hair. “I don’t understand. Why…what the hell happened?”

  “The Lemons. As usual.”

  “Those fucking Lemons.” Ren cursed. “Tell me—”

  He was cut off by the distant sound of someone entering the house from the direction of the garage. A cheerful voice called, “I’m home! Where’s my stud muffin?”

  “Cilla,” Ren said, his mouth quirking in a little smile. Then he glanced over, going serious again. “I…she’s always so damn happy, Beck.”

  “I understand.” Ren didn’t want her spirit dampened. “It’s a story for another day.”

  They found Cilla in the kitchen. Even though she couldn’t have been gone long, Ren cupped her face in his hands and tipped up her mouth for his kiss. She popped to her tiptoes, clearly all-in with the idea.

  “You guys are disgusting,” Beck said pleasantly, when they finally came up for air.

  “Jealous,” Ren proclaimed as Cilla came over to greet him with a hug.

  “You know it,” Beck answered, and slid his arm around Ren’s woman to keep her by his side, just to hear the other man growl again.

  Cilla laughed, and Beck got why her fiancé marveled at her gift for happiness and wanted nothing to mar it. She was sunshine, pure and simple, and Ren clearly basked in its warmth.

  Beck couldn’t imagine Ren ever forgetting Cilla, no matter how hard he’d been hit in the head. With all the heat that he and Jewel generated between them, how was it possible he couldn’t call their affair to mind? God, you’d think he’d remember getting her beautiful body naked at the very least.

  “What brings you by?” Cilla asked, interrupting his disgruntled thoughts.

  He glanced at her, then suddenly wondered if she knew the identity of Jewel’s child’s father. If everyone knew, except for him.

  It made him feel a fool.

  So he scowled at Cilla, who was putting groceries away in a pantry space. “Do you know the who the baby daddy is?”

  “The what?” Her big Maddox blues went wide as she looked at him over her shoulder.

  “Jewel’s kid. Who’s the kid’s daddy?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t pry.”

  Which meant Cilla was clearly innocent of keeping that from him, which dragged his mood even lower.

  “Fuck,” he muttered, and rubbed at his temples.

  “What’s going on?” Ren asked.

  “Jewel says it’s me.”

  Two jaws dropped. Ren and Cilla glanced at each other then back at him. “You?” they said together.

  “Can I get a beer?”

  Ren wasted no time fishing a trio of bottles from the refrigerator and passing them out. “Are we…congratulating you?”

  Beck sent the other man a baleful stare.

  “Okay, too soon,” Ren muttered.

  Cilla took a sip from her beer and set it aside. “When did this all come out, if I may ask?”

  “Today. She dropped the intel, kicked me out, then I drove over here.” He swallowed a bracing mouthful of cold brew, which did nothing for his foul mood. “Oh, and between kicking me out and me getting in my car, she told me I have a teeny, tiny dick.”

  Ren released a quick burst of laughter, then tried smothering it. “Um, sorry.”

  Narrowing his eyes, Beck glared at the other man. “I do not have a teeny, tiny dick.”

  “Then maybe she’s mistaken, and you’re not really the father,” Cilla said in a helpful tone, even though she looked about to laugh too.

  On a sigh, Beck turned to her. “She’s your friend,” he said. “Do you think she’d lie about something like that?”

  “No. I don’t think so.”

  He dropped his head back to contemplate the ceiling. “I don’t think so, either. And she offered to have a paternity test done right away.”

  “Wow,” Cilla said after a moment. “You’re a father.”

  And the old words came on the heels of that. How did you let this happen? How could you have been so damn careless?

  Only this time it was his own conscience berating him for fucking up the…the fucking so that he got Jewel pregnant. A pregnancy she couldn’t tell him about because he’d fallen off the face of the earth.

  He shifted his gaze to Ren. “Why didn’t I keep my dick in my pants?”

  “For the usual reasons, I suppose.”

  “Yeah.” That chemistry between them was a force unto itself. And Christ, though he couldn’t recall having sex with her, he knew how he liked sex, with him bossy as hell and her melting with desire. A part of him—a lot of him—was so damn pissed that he didn’t have a single memory of Jewel stretched out on sheets.

  Or on her knees.

  In a chair, naked while he fed her.

  That thought caused a twinge at his temple. A memory? A fantasy? He put the cold bottle of beer against the faint pain.

  When he brought it down, he noticed a frown of concern between Cilla’s brows. “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Peachy.”

  “Any memories coming back? Anything at all?”

  “Not really, no.” He swallowed more beer and tried not to think of what Jewel might look like without clothes. “I have the vaguest of impressions sometimes, though. Of a redhead.” Her taste. Cherries.

  Cilla opened her mouth, started to say something. Then closed it.

  “What?” he demanded.

  “Well, it’s probably confirmation you don’t actually need.”

  He sighed. “Lay it on me anyway.”

  She glanced at Ren, then looked back at Beck. “That night at The Hideaway, when I said I saw you talking with Jewel at the bar?”

  “Yes…”

  “Her hair wasn’t the exact brunette it is now. It had dark red highlights. She told me she didn’t keep them up once she got pregnant.”

  Brunette with dark red highlights. Yeah, that sounded about right. He concentrated on the idea, trying to conjure up an image that he could make into a real memory. But nothing happened. His brain had either lost the affair with Jewel forever or had yet to make a new pathway to it.

  Was their fling the reason he’d been so disquieted by the continuing memory loss? But that didn’t seem like him. He enjoyed women and had taken many to bed, but he knew he was the wandering sort, so he had an easy-come, easy-go attitude.

  And he made sure the women he was with
felt the same way. Hadn’t Jewel confirmed it?

  We had a brief affair and you were up front from the very beginning that you had the big expedition planned. That there wasn’t going to be an ‘us’ except for the short amount of time until you left.

  She’d been fine with that, apparently. Except she didn’t seem the type for something so…frivolous. That didn’t seem exactly the right word. Yet in his opinion, sex didn’t have to be a serious event leading to a lifelong commitment.

  Still…a very temporary affair? It didn’t seem to fit with what he sensed about Jewel. Or what she’d want for herself.

  Maybe motherhood had changed her.

  “What worries you most?” Cilla asked now. “Did Jewel say what she expects from you?”

  “I’ll take care of the kid financially if it’s mine,” Beck said quickly. “Don’t doubt that.”

  “The ‘kid’ has a name,” Cilla replied gently. “Soul.”

  “Yeah. That name…”

  “Jewel once told me the song ‘Heart Full of Soul’ means a lot to her.”

  Beck’s heart thumped against the cage of his ribs. Hell.

  His father, Hop Hopkins, had named all his sons after musicians he admired. He’d put Beck on his firstborn’s birth certificate because of that song. When Jeff Beck joined the rock band The Yardbirds, that was the first single on which he’d played guitar after replacing Eric Clapton.

  Hell.

  No doubt he’d told Jewel that story during their affair. It was the kind of thing a woman asked about when they were naked in bed. Meaning, no doubt he was a fucking daddy.

  Beck, a daddy.

  The only thing left uncertain was if he’d be as shitty a one as his own.

  Chapter 6

  Jewel was folding clothes when her grandmother showed Beck into the cramped laundry room. With a wave, the older woman left them alone, noting she was off to bridge with her cronies.

  Swallowing, Jewel gave the visitor a careful glance, unsure where they stood. “I didn’t hear you come to the door.”

  “I arrived just as your grandmother was leaving.” He looked about the small space as if expecting a monster to leap out from behind the washing machine. “Where’s your, uh…the baby?” he finally asked.

  “She’s taking a nap,” Jewel answered.

  He nodded. “She sleeps a lot, I guess.”

  “Babies do.” She returned her attention to the pile of Soul’s little outfits, hoping he couldn’t detect the fast beat of her heart. If it wouldn’t appear weak, she’d insist they leave the narrow confines for a larger room where she could put more distance between them.

  The only way to play this, she’d decided after she’d pushed him out of the house the day before, was to drop the insults and keep everything businesslike between them.

  If he ever came back, she’d told herself then.

  Now here he was. She cast him another quick, sidelong glance and thought he appeared a little tense despite his casual pose—one shoulder braced against the doorjamb, his feet crossed at the ankles. Today he wore a faded T-shirt and jeans that had probably been washed on river rocks in some exotic locale—they were worn to white at the seams and along the fly.

  She jerked her gaze from that part of his anatomy and felt her face heat.

  The dryer. It was humming and warming up the room, that’s all. Because she’d promised herself to avoid thinking about their previous relationship and how…close they’d once been.

  This was no time to get personal. This was no time to allow nostalgia or any other emotion to soften her. She had to keep her cool and make sure her demeanor was nothing but composed and dispassionate.

  It didn’t help that she was in shorts and a T-shirt. Both were soft cotton and loose, but the bottoms exposed a lot of her legs, and the top dropped off her shoulders from skinny straps so she was bare there, too.

  “What’s this?” he suddenly said, leaning forward to snag an item off the tumble of clean clothes. It was a pale pink plush hoodie, size twelve months.

  “Um, a jacket?”

  He turned it over in his big hands, lifting the hood and then inspecting the bunny ears sewed on the top. His expression was so perplexed that she almost laughed as he wiggled first one appendage and then the other.

  “A very fashion-forward jacket, I assure you,” she added, biting back a smile.

  “Dressing as rabbits is big on the kiddie runways?”

  “And kittens, and puppies, and bears.”

  “I’ll have to take your word for it, I guess.” He tossed it back on the pile, then picked up a tiny sock with blue stripes. “And this? Is it a nose warmer?”

  She laughed and relaxed a little, aware he was trying to reduce the tension between them. In appreciation of the effort, she smiled at him. “You’ll have to check out her shoes. They look like they belong to a doll. She has tiny feet, even for an almost one-year-old.”

  “She must get that from you,” Beck replied, “because I have very large feet, size 13.” He let a moment pass. “And you know what they say, big feet, big…”

  Dick. She’d called his teeny tiny the day before. “I’m sorry for what I said about…that.” Her face heated up again. “It was because I was mad, not because it’s true.”

  “Yeah. I figured. Since we have a child together, surely you know…” He let that hang in the air.

  Her imagination filled in the blanks. She knew the length and circumference of him intimately. The first time he’d curled her hand around it and showed her the rough—nearly harsh—strokes that he liked, she’d thrilled at the masculine power of it.

  And her own power to please him.

  She licked her lips, remembering how she’d given a little sexual payback for his easy mastery of her reactions to him by the way she’d gently taken him into her mouth the first time, bathing the crown with the softest, slowest licks of her tongue. Thrilling again when he’d sifted his fingers in her hair, his nails giving the slightest bite to her scalp as he encouraged her to take more.

  Insisted she take more.

  God. Her heart began hammering again, and she ducked her head, hoping he wouldn’t see the affect he had on her. Yes, her memories were coming alive, but it was him, the him that was the rangy body and size 13 feet and large hands holding the small sock, that stirred everything feminine and sexual inside her. Between her legs she was going soft and wet.

  Even when she was supposed to be composed and dispassionate and businesslike. Argh. Sucking in a deep breath, she considered how to get rid of him or at least how to get more air.

  She turned.

  To find him staring at that sock in his palm, as if fascinated.

  Then he glanced up at her and her heart started beating harder. His face, angled and male, fascinated her. Damn.

  “How did you learn how to do it?” he asked.

  “It?”

  “To be a parent. A mom. You seem a natural.”

  Pleasure was followed by the usual chill of doubt. “I…” For a moment she wanted to change the subject. Talk about the weather, his inevitable leaving again—Alaska, she remembered he’d said—or even that she couldn’t look at his mouth without thinking of his kisses.

  But distracting him from the important subject at hand wasn’t right or fair. To find a workable solution to their situation, she needed to be truthful.

  Stick to the facts, she told herself. Be businesslike. Unemotional.

  “Parenting, it turns out, starts simple.” So how had Jewel’s mother failed so spectacularly? She shoved that thought away. “The infant cries, you need to figure out why.”

  “My brother Reed says it begins with paying attention.”

  “Yes. Though Eli and Obie can say what’s on their mind, while a tiny baby has just that crying thing to get your notice.”

  He grimaced.

  Jewel laughed a little. “The volume starts out pretty low. The other day I heard a crying newborn at the market, and I couldn’t believe how quiet it sounded
compared to Soul when she’s working herself into a toddler temper.”

  “Hmm,” he said, rubbing the back of his knuckles along his jaw. “A temper. Another thing she must get from you. Because I know I’m a gentle sort.”

  “Right.” Autocratic, arrogant, and demanding was more like it. “That’s not how I remember things.”

  His gaze narrowed. “So it was like that between you and me.” A statement, not a question. “I wondered.”

  Jewel froze, mortified that she’d given herself away as well as the manner of their relationship. It wasn’t that she’d been a doormat or that he’d treated her like her opinions and desires didn’t matter. There hadn’t been anything formal about it, nor had they ever addressed the sexual dynamic between them verbally.

  He’d…just done things that made her wet and ready with a glance. A word. A firm touch.

  And now, as if taking pity on her, Beck cleared his throat and tossed the sock on the pile. “You didn’t struggle getting into the swing of things with the baby then? You must have learned a lot from your own mother.”

  “No.” Jewel heard the word drop from her mouth before she even had a chance to think. “She was not one to…to pay attention like Reed has figured out.”

  “No?”

  Argh. Maybe she should have come up with some sort of fairytale about Madeline and how she’d been an exemplary maternal figure. Beck needed to feel confident about Jewel as Soul’s parent and the truth was…

  “My mother is selfish and neglectful and dumped me on Grandma when I was ten years old.”

  Beck studied her face, no expression on his. His silence made her squirm, and not in that other, good way.

  In for a penny…

  “When I was small,” Jewel continued, “not much older than Soul, I was in an accident. It meant I spent a lot of time in the hospital and had several surgeries.”

  His eyebrows rose.

  “It was nothing congenital,” she assured him. “But I injured one of my legs. I actually don’t even remember it or the months in the hospital.”

  “You’re fine now?”

  “Absolutely. But…well, my mom didn’t visit as much as the doctors and nurses expected, and they made noises about getting Social Services to give custody of me to Grandma.”