by Lisa Cardiff
Before You
by Lisa Cardiff
Before You
Copyright © 2014 by Lisa Cardiff. All rights reserved.
First Print Edition: February 2014
Limitless Publishing, LLC
Kailua, HI 96734
www.limitlesspublishing.com
Formatting: Limitless Publishing
ISBN-13: 978-1496024480
ISBN-10: 1496024486
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.
Dedication
To my family with love.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Epilogue
Chapter One
The minute Aubrey Keaton walked into the bar, she wanted to turn around and walk right back out. The smell of stale beer, sweat, and something suspiciously resembling vomit assaulted her nose. Dark wood paneled walls combined with low lighting made it virtually impossible to see anyone’s face. She looked down at her phone to check that she was in the right place for the third time since she pulled into the parking lot fifteen minutes ago. This was the place. She shoved her way through the crowd, looking for her boyfriend.
This was it. The day she and Camden had been planning for the last six months—no—for the last six years. Not less than two hours after completing the final exam of her last semester for her Masters of Fine Art degree, a semester early, she hit the road for Los Angeles. Aubrey and Cam would have an entire month together, and then she would go back to Colorado and find a job at an art gallery in Aspen, which was near her hometown. She loved art. It flowed through her veins. Her mother was an artist, and if she could do anything she wanted, she would be one too, but that wasn’t going to happen. Naturally, working in a gallery was the next best thing.
She and Camden had been dating since their senior year in high school, but they had known each other since she moved to Carbondale, Colorado to live with her grandmother when she was ten years old. Camden lived next door, and from the minute they met, they were inseparable. Meeting Camden and living with her grandmother was the best thing that had ever happened in her life. It marked the first time she had experienced anything resembling stability in her life.
Standing on her tiptoes, she surveyed the room, looking for Camden’s wavy blond hair. Normally, the color stood out like a beacon, and she could find him anywhere, but the bar was so dark and crowded that she was lucky if she didn’t inadvertently grope a stranger. After five minutes of searching, she gave up, hoping he would come looking for her when he saw her text.
Sliding into a stool at the bar, she spun around on her chair to face the dark stage at the back of the room. Camden and his new band were playing at the bar tonight, so they were likely in the back somewhere getting ready. She had never met any of the guys before, but she felt as though she knew them given how much Camden talked about the three of them. If they weren’t all guys, she would be insanely jealous about how much time they spent together and how much Camden respected and liked them.
Feeling the kind of aloneness that a person could only experience in a crowded room where everyone appeared to be having fun except for her, she pulled a hair tie out of her purse and lifted her long brown hair into a messy ponytail, trying to look busy so no one approached her. Turning her head to the side to order a drink, she felt someone brush against the side of her body. Startled, she looked up and found herself looking straight into the steely gray eyes of a man she didn’t know.
A warm, foreign sensation chased down her spine and her heart pounded against her ribcage. She felt completely out of her element. He was the type of man who bled charm and sex appeal from his pores. Looking at him made her wish she had stopped at the last rest stop and applied some makeup or at least combed her hair and changed out of her rumpled, coffee stained t-shirt. He was shockingly handsome—there was absolutely no denying it.
He ran his fingers through the front of his brown hair, pushing it out of his eyes, and a faint smile lingered at the corner of his lips. “Are you lost? This doesn’t look like your kind of place.”
His smooth voice tingled across her nerve endings like a physical touch, and rational thought escaped her. “It’s not. I’m meeting someone.”
“Is it too much to hope that the person you’re meeting is a female?” His eyes slanted in her direction, simmering with an unnamed challenge, their eyes locked for much longer than was appropriate for two complete strangers.
He had an interesting and demanding face, not traditionally handsome, but it was so much more. Masculine strength and charisma were stamped into every feature of his shadowed face, from his square jaw to his long straight roman nose. He wore dark indigo jeans that hung on his narrow hips and a tight, gray long-sleeved t-shirt that stretched across the toned muscles of his chest. There was something sinful about the fact that she could almost imagine how he looked beneath his clothing. And his lips, she couldn’t begin to describe them other than to say they were sensually molded and devastatingly provocative.
Aubrey was still examining his lips with too much concentration when they curved upward. Abashed, her gaze shifted to his eyes, and to her utter horror, he seemed to know exactly what she was thinking. She had been caught basically drooling over him, and while she instinctively knew that every woman in the bar probably had a similar reaction to him, she hated that he managed to intrigue her more than was appropriate when she was supposed to be looking for Camden.
“Did you get an edifying look?” he asked before she could answer his question.
Speechless, her mouth hung open in shock, but when she saw the playful look on his face she regained her composure, meeting his eyes with a mocking smirk. “I’m meeting my boyfriend here.”
“Really? He must not be very bright to leave a woman like you alone in a bar like this.” His hand brushed her arm above her elbow so lightly she almost questioned whether it was a figment of her overly tired imagination, and yet she knew from the warm sensation still teasing her arm that it was real. She felt that touch in every cell of her being.
Aubrey shot him a confused look, but before she could respond, a tall blonde woman in a tight red dress that was working overtime to conceal her lady parts put her arm on the man’s shoulder. “Well, hello there, Jax. Have you missed me?” She leaned in to his body and whispered into his ear while c
onveniently putting her cleavage in his direct line of sight. With what Aubrey guessed was meant to be an alluring smile, but one that came out more predatory than anything, she whispered, “Maybe you want to visit the storage closet with me again tonight. We could have a repeat of last weekend.”
Aubrey tried to ignore the disheartened flip of her stomach caused by the woman’s proposal. It didn’t matter what this man did or didn’t do. She didn’t know him and she would never know him. He was a stranger in a bar, nothing more.
Jax’s face became unreadable. “I’ll catch up with you later, Katie. I’m busy right now,” Jax replied dismissively, shifting away from the woman, so she plainly understood he wanted her to leave him alone.
Katie shot Aubrey an angry look and looked back toward Jax. “But you never answered my text about going to my parents’ house for dinner tomorrow.”
“Katie, you know I don’t do the parent thing,” Jax responded forcefully as he glanced over his shoulder. “We’ll catch up later.”
“Fine. We’ll talk later.” Katie flipped her hair and turned to leave.
Jax glanced at Aubrey, tilting his head to the side, surveying her response to the woman’s comment. “I’m not dating that woman. She’s just a… family friend, nothing serious,” he said in a lazy voice.
“Good to know. I can rest easy knowing that you don’t hop into closets with random strangers. For a moment there, I was worried for your safety,” Aubrey replied, searching the room for Camden again.
“Ah, you heard that,” he replied, a slow, startling white smile spreading across his face. “Well… in case you’re curious, I’m definitely not interested in her tonight. I have other things in mind.”
She couldn’t control the heat that flooded her face. “I have no interest in what you do or don’t do,” Aubrey said, scanning the room.
Jax shot her a wry glance and his voice deepened enticingly. “Really? Because from the way you looked at me earlier, I got the distinct impression that you were interested.”
“Impressions can be wrong. Like I said earlier, I’m meeting my boyfriend here. His band is playing tonight.”
The man rose from the barstool and regarded her curiously. “There’s only one band playing here tonight.”
For the first time, Aubrey noticed that he was really tall and she had to tilt her head back to meet his gaze. “Right, Chasing Ruin. That’s his band. He plays the guitar.”
Setting his beer down on the bar, his eyes traveled over her body and face with frank masculine appreciation. “Ah, you must be Aubrey, Cam’s girl from home.”
“Yes,” Aubrey replied, smiling. “Do you know Cam?”
Jax shoved his hands in his pockets, his gray eyes enigmatic. “You could say that. See you around, Aubrey.”
Aubrey watched his back as he wove through the crowded bar until she couldn’t see him anymore. She didn’t really understand what had happened between them, but she didn’t have much time to ponder it before the lights flipped on above the small stage at the far end of the bar.
Almost immediately, Cam bounced onto the stage with his guitar followed by two other men and Aubrey smiled when she saw his familiar head of bright blond hair. Camden was dressed in faded jeans and a plain white t-shirt.
The two men trailing Cam couldn’t have been more dissimilar if they tried. The first man was all brooding darkness, whereas the other one was playful lightness. Dressed in a fitted black t-shirt with black jeans and heavy black boots, the dark-haired man slid behind the set of drums and flipped his drumsticks into the air, mesmerizing the audience with the black tattoos curling up his toned arms.
The other man picked up the bass guitar, smiling intimately at the crowd, his blond hair spiked in every direction. If there were such a thing as a living Ken doll, he was it. With fitted dark jeans and a tailored dress shirt, he didn’t look as if he should be playing bass in a band, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have admirers. Women grabbed at his ankles when he neared the edge of the stage. He clearly loved the attention.
Interrupting the scene created by the living Ken doll, the drummer banged his drumsticks together, and the lead singer ran onto the stage with his back turned away from the crowd. He ran up to the other members of the band, saying something to each one before addressing the audience. When he turned around, Aubrey’s mouth fell open. It was Jax. The amusement twinkling in his eyes earlier was noticeably absent. He was all business. His intense eyes scanned the crowd, eager women screaming as his gaze passed over them.
The attention that the other band members garnered earlier faded into the background as all eyes in the bar focused on Jax. Aubrey noticed his appeal when he approached her earlier, but on stage, he commanded attention, and that was before he even opened his mouth. She secretly admitted that his sexual magnetism eclipsed the rest of the band members, who had looked so impressive before she saw Jax on stage, Cam included. Now she understood why Cam was so excited about the prospects of his band.
When Jax’s eyes land on her, somehow Aubrey managed to keep her face composed, but her perfidious heart raced double-time. Physically incapable of pulling her eyes away from his penetrating stare, she soaked him in. He really had the most disconcerting eyes. Being Cam’s girlfriend, she knew she should look away and ignore him completely. Instead, his mischievous smile held her hostage, making her feel as though they were sharing some private, intimate joke, and against her better judgment she found herself returning his smile.
“We’re Chasing Ruin. Thanks for coming to see us tonight.” His eyes were glued to hers as if they were the only two people in the bar and she had the unnerving desire to get closer to him, to trace the lines of his face. She hadn’t seen Cam since Christmas, and he was all but forgotten.
Jax raised his hand, signaling the band to begin the first set, and words flowed out of his mouth. Even with the fast pace of the song, his voice flooded her senses. It was smooth like honey caressing her skin, bewitching her and everyone in the crowd. Wow. Words escaped her. He was the whole package. Cam was right. This band had potential to go all the way.
Then he redirected his attention to the group of girls screaming for him just below the stage. Bending down, he reached his hand toward the devoted fans, making the girls beam in delight. And just like that Jax, the lead singer of Chasing Ruin, had already forgotten her, which was fine. She didn’t need or want his attention. She had Camden, her best friend since childhood and her boyfriend for the last six years.
Chapter Two
Jax Carmichael watched as the beautifully fake Katie ran her hands all over his body, bored beyond belief even as he managed to mumble encouraging words in her direction. Usually sharing a meaningless moment with an equally meaningless woman was a perfect way to end the night after a performance. He could drag Katie back to the storage closet and let her make good on all the ridiculous things she was murmuring in his ear with annoying frequency. It might even be momentarily entertaining to see what exactly they could do in that closet.
The sad fact of the matter was that he’d rather be talking with Aubrey, though he wasn’t exactly sure why. Her hair was a disheveled mess, her clothes were boring and rumpled, and she wasn’t wearing any makeup, but that wasn’t what caught his attention. From the moment he saw Aubrey walk into the bar, he knew he had talk to her. She was the first real person he’d set his eyes on in weeks, perhaps his entire life. Growing up on the fringes of Hollywood with a dad in the industry meant that real people were hard to find, but he knew she was different when he spotted her looking lost near the entrance to the bar, and before he could second guess his actions, he slid into the barstool next to her.
Up close, she was undeniably beautiful and not in the obnoxious, overly surgically enhanced way. Her skin glowed, her almond shaped amber eyes tilted upwards with an impish glint, and her smile fascinated him. He had never seen anyone whose entire face lit up like that. From the minute he first glimpsed that smile all he could think was that he wanted to be the person
who put that smile there every day.
When she claimed to be meeting her boyfriend at the bar, he wasn’t deterred. He saw the way she looked at him. He was very familiar with that look. Many women offered him that look, but with her the look wasn’t calculated. He had piqued her interest. She denied it, but he knew it was true. He was happy to play the game until she admitted her interest. After all, watching her and talking to her was undeniably intriguing.
Then, she mentioned that her boyfriend played in the band and just like that, his plans to seduce her crashed and burned. She was Cam’s Aubrey and the pieces of the puzzle came together, the way Cam sang her praises and talked about marrying her. Not that any of that nonsense stopped him from taking advantage of his new status as a member of an up and coming local band. Despite all Cam’s shortsightedness and glossy eyes when it came to fame and the music industry, Cam never once insinuated that anyone could take Aubrey’s place in his life.
Women walked in and out of Cam’s life these last two months as though he had some sort of revolving door in his bedroom. Jax laughed with the other guys in the band and told Cam not to get hung up on anyone, but now he understood why Cam had no intention of letting her go. If he had her, he wouldn’t let go, either. He just hoped if he found someone like Aubrey he would have enough sense to treat her better than Cam did.
“Jax, come meet Bre,” Cam called out as he walked toward Jax’s booth in the corner of the bar.
Jax glanced at Cam, his arm wrapped around Aubrey’s—no, Bre’s—waist. Standing abruptly, Katie tumbled off his lap. As he reached his hand out to greet Bre, a light pink blush stained her cheeks.
“You’re Jax. The singer for Chasing Ruin,” she commented, her voice just barely above a whisper.
“Yep… the one and only. Nice to formally meet you, Bre.” Jax held her hand, studying her in silence, his thumb caressing the inside of her wrist. He could tell he made her uncomfortable, but he couldn’t resist the intimate touch.