(Complete Rock Stars, Surf and Second Chances #1-5)

by Michelle Mankin

  I also hope that wherever I go at the end of this journey, you’ll know I’m watching you both and wishing great things for you. I wish most of all that I had a chance to hold you, sweet baby, like I held your sister the day she was born.

  I love you. I hope you never doubt that.

  All my love and my best to you both,

  William

  “Do you want to take them to your hotel room to read with Ash?” I asked Fanny after we finished the last one. The fact that Diesel was the person I most wanted to share the letters with besides my sister was telling.

  “No, I don’t think I could manage it.” She swiped a hand across her cheeks, brushing away the remnants of her tears.

  “Another time then.”

  “Yes. We should try to get some sleep tonight, but as soon as possible, we should laminate them. He wrote them in his own hand. It’s . . .”

  “All we have left of him.” I finished her thought.

  “We have Waverly.”

  “We do.”

  “That’s a lot.”

  “She’s pretty great.”

  “She’s excited about the babies.”

  “She’ll be a wonderful great-aunt.” I placed my hand on my abdomen. “I’m excited about the baby too.”

  “Are you really, Hols?”

  I nodded. “I couldn’t see a way forward before. My mind was too cluttered by the past and a dream I lost before it had ever been fully realized.”

  “Do you see a way forward now?”

  “Yes. I think I do. Or at least, I have enough light for the next step.” I stopped to try to frame what I’d learned into words. “I went looking for our dad, thinking if I found him, I would find the answers I needed. But I realize now that everything I need is already inside me.”

  “That’s wise.”

  “I don’t know. I feel like if I were truly wise, I would’ve reached this point sooner.”

  “We’re all on different paths. We have to go at our own speed on our own journeys.” Fanny covered my hand with hers. “What’s your next step going to be?”

  “Diesel. I have to share with him what I’ve discovered.”

  “Which is what?”

  “Mainly that happiness is more than just a place or even a single person. It’s the love two people create when they’re totally vulnerable and honest with each other.”

  After I hugged Fanny and closed the door, I picked up my phone and called Diesel. He didn’t answer, so I left a message.

  “Hey, it’s me. I love you. I think you probably already know because you know me better than anyone else. But I needed to say the words.”

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  * * *

  Diesel

  Moments after hearing Hollie’s message, I banged on the door of her hotel room, this time with my heart in my eyes and that organ inside my chest going fucking haywire with hope.

  “Babe,” I said, my gaze raking over Hollie as soon as she opened the door wearing a pajama set with the hotel logo on the shirt pocket. “Say it again.”

  “I love you.”

  “Holy fuck.” An explosion of light and heat like a volcano erupting went off inside me. “I love you too.”

  I dove my hands into the silken waterfall of her hair, balancing her skull on the pedestal of my fingers and framing her beautiful face with my thumbs. Sweeping the sensitive but calloused pads over the creamy softness of her skin, I searched her glittery gray gaze for a long moment, seeing the miracle of her words and the magic of my own reflected back at me.

  Lowering my head, I took her mouth, claiming it and her for my own. She parted her lips, giving me her breath, and I groaned my approval, accepting all of her.

  “I need to show you what it means to me to hear you say those words.” I walked her backward, stepped farther into the room, and kicked the door closed behind me.

  “Would this showing involve your cock?”

  “Hell yes, it will, and you naked and on it as soon as possible.”

  “It’s only a bunch of talk without any action.”

  “I’ll show you action.”

  I reached for the lapels on Hollie’s pajama top, and her eyes widened. She gasped as I ripped it open. The tiny pearl buttons flew through the air.

  “I don’t have any other pajamas,” she said as I glided the separated halves off her slim shoulders.

  “You won’t need any. Not while I’m around.”

  “Oh, Diesel.” She sighed, her arms twining around my neck as I bent to lift her into my arms.

  “Oh, Diesel, yes, you’ll be saying in a minute.” I took her directly to the bed.

  “Promise?” Her pretty pink lips slowly lifted into a smile.

  “I would give the world to you on a silver platter, just for a single one of your smiles.”

  “I don’t want the world.” On her back, she shimmied out of her pajama bottoms as I drew my shirt over my head.

  “What do you want?” I unbuckled my belt and drew down my jeans and boxers while she watched me, propped up on her elbows. “Tell me, and I’ll get it for you.” I grabbed a condom from my pocket and set it on the foot of the bed.

  “You.” Totally naked and glorious in her glowing skin and sexy curves, she stretched her delicate arms out to me. “I just want you.”

  “Me, you’ll have.” I grabbed her ankles and tugged.

  Elbows flying out from under her, she collapsed onto her back, her arms going over her head and her long hair fanning out over the sheets as I drew her to me.

  “Diesel, what—”

  “Trust me.” I spread her shapely legs apart and put a knee to the mattress between them.

  “I do. But we really should talk first about the baby.”

  “Do you really feel like talking right now?” On my hands and knees, I climbed over her.

  “No.” Hollie reached up for me, and I lowered my head to take what she offered.

  “It’s not the baby anymore, anyway.”

  My face inches from hers, our breaths mingling, I reached between our naked bodies and stroked my palm over the slightly rounded surface of her abdomen.

  “It’s our baby now,” I said softly, and when I glanced up, I caught a flash of wetness in her eyes.

  “I love you.” She threaded her fingers into my hair and tugged my head the rest of the way down to hers.

  I brought our mouths together, savoring the feel of her lips on mine from one angle, then pulled back slightly to realign and savor them from another. Again and again, I pressed my mouth to hers until she began to writhe beneath me, her legs restless and parted for me to move between them, which I did. My cock was hard and throbbing against her soft inner thighs. Her breasts were sexy as hell, tight tipped as she arched off the bed to score my passion-slick skin.

  “So sexy, baby.” I lowered my chest to hers, providing the pressure of my weight bearing down on her tits that she needed. I kissed her again, a gentle brush of my restrained desire to her mounting need.

  “More.” Hollie lifted her head from the bed to deepen the kiss, her mouth parted, her tongue sliding between my lips, her fingers yanking hard on my curls as if they were her reins.

  “Babe. Yes.” Groaning, I sucked on her tongue, stroking mine against hers.

  I took control of the kiss. I took control of her. Unleashing my restraint, I plunged my tongue into her mouth and brought my knee between her thighs. Her pussy drenched my skin.

  She moaned.

  Breaking the kiss, I swept my hot gaze over her. “You’re a goddess. My goddess.”

  Greedily, I caressed her hips, the hollow beneath her ribs, and her tits. They overflowed my hands. Worshipfully, I shaped them while she pressed them deeper into my palms.

  “You’re beautiful.” I praised her, watching her arch her back, her body on fire with her passion, her lips parted, her breaths ragged as I rolled and then pinched her perfect nipples.

  “I need to be inside you.” My cock was fully extended and throbbing. I sl
apped my hand to the side and grabbed the condom.

  “I’d like to do that.”

  Her eyes heavily lidded, she ripped open the packet that I brought to her mouth. Licking her lips after she had the condom in her hands, she lowered her gaze and rolled it on.

  “Please,” she said, and I felt precum spurt from my shaft as she grasped me by the root.

  “You don’t need to beg. I want what you want.”

  I swept a thumb across her slick swollen nub, aligned at her entrance, and surged inside, sliding in easily.

  “Babe.” I stroked in and out. She was hot and wet, and I felt her cunt gripping my shaft like her fist had, only better, so much better. “You feel so good.”

  “Diesel . . .” She made my spirit soar just from the way she spoke my name, like it mattered, like I mattered, like I was everything.

  “I can’t hold back,” I warned her.

  Hard, so very hard, I had to have her. Had to take her there. Had to make her mine. Diving my hands under her ass, I grabbed and lifted her into each of my thrusts. Over and over, I pumped into her.

  “Mmm.” She moaned each time I drove in deep.

  My balls drew up. The base of my spine tingled. Hollie fell into her release, and her spasms ignited the trigger of my own. She was so hot, so right for me.

  I exploded inside her, filling the condom and her with all of my love.

  The old me burned away in our passion, and a bright and blindingly beautiful us was born.

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  * * *

  Hollie

  After we made love, Diesel ran his hand through my hair. “You said your heart was born on the island. My soul was reborn there because of you.”

  “Oh, Diesel.”

  I lifted my head from where it had rested on his bare chest. My long hair slid across my cheek, parting as if of its own accord so I could look at him. He was so handsome, all that gorgeous coppery skin against the creamy pillows, his gaze burnt umber, his expression serious, and his ebony curls damp from our lovemaking.

  “What are we doing? Your life’s back on the island. Mine’s stateside. And so much of mine is up in the air. I don’t even have a place to live.”

  “Where were you planning to stay?”

  “With my friend Ernie and his partner in LA.”

  “Hmm. I have some ideas about that.” His expression soft, Diesel tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear. “We’ll work it out.”

  “I don’t want you to change your life for me.” I shivered from the brush of his fingertips on my skin.

  “Life is evolving and changing. Otherwise, you become isolated. Set in your ways. Alone, while the rest of the world passes you by.”

  “Did your dad tell you that?”

  “Yeah, the last part. The rest came from the mouth of a smart little goddess I know.”

  “I’m not little.”

  He raised a brow.

  “I can stand on my own, I mean.”

  “I know you can. I don’t want to take your independence away from you. It’s just that being alone and lost on a long dark road is what we both were until we found each other. My soul is yours now, and yours is linked to mine. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your joy is my happiness. Our troubles ours to solve together.”

  “Partners. I agree completely.”

  His lips curved. “I would like very much for you to lean on me when you need to. I would like very much for you to let my heart be your home. Let me show you how it can be, me loving you.”

  And he did. He showed me with his hands, his lips, his body, and his soul. He showed me well into the night.

  • • •

  When the dawn arrived, I opened my eyes and stretched out my arm, wanting Diesel to show me again.

  Finding the bed empty, I sat up. The cool sheet pooling to my waist, I searched the shadowy room and discovered where he’d gone. Rising from the bed, I tugged the sheet free from the mattress and wrapped it around me. Quietly, I tiptoed across the plush carpet and stepped outside, slipping my arms around his waist.

  “Glad you’re up,” he said in his rumbly morning voice that made all the parts of mine that were his shiver.

  “Why?”

  “I want to watch the sunrise with you.” Taking my hand in his, he drew me around to stand in front of him.

  “The sunrises are beautiful here over the mountains.”

  Diesel placed his hands on my shoulders. “Wherever we are, every day is new and beautiful with you.”

  His warmth seeped into me from his fingers on my skin and his body behind me. I barely registered the chill in the air as we shared the moment in silence. The streamers of pink in the lightening sky. The quietness of the water lapping gently against the rocky shore. The peace we had found with each other.

  “It’s cold. Let’s get you back inside.” He turned me around so I could precede him back inside the room. “Can we sit and talk for a moment?” He gestured to the two easy chairs by the window.

  “Sure.” I took a seat while he slid the glass door to the deck closed. I watched him fold his lean frame into the other chair, frowning when I realized he already had his jeans on.

  “Can you tell me what happened with your aunt and your father? I saw the note on the nightstand, and read it. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Of course I don’t. I don’t want there to be any more secrets between us.”

  “He loved you and your sister.”

  “Yes, I believe he did. It shouldn’t mean so much, because I’m a grown woman and don’t really need a father anymore, but it does.”

  It meant I’d been wanted, and though I didn’t agree with what he’d done and wondered how things would have turned out if he’d just told my mom the truth, I knew my father had loved me in his own way.

  “Is he gone now?”

  Tears pricking my eyes, I nodded.

  “I’m sorry.” Diesel leaned forward and gathered my hands in his.

  “I have an aunt, one that I never knew I had. And more reassurances that the things I thought were impossible are possible.”

  “Such as?”

  “Love is real. It makes a difference, and dreams related to it can happen, like the dream Fanny and I have of our children growing up together.”

  “You make me believe the impossible,” he whispered.

  “You are my possible.”

  Staring down at our joined hands, I felt something monumental shift inside me.

  This. Him. Love in action. It was transformative. Life changing.

  Diesel was where I belonged. Rise or fall. Better or worse. Come what may, I wanted him always beside me.

  I started to share, but he preempted me.

  “I want you. I want us to be together. I have an idea, one that I truly think you’ll love, but it requires some action on my part that will take me away from you for a bit. Would that be okay with you?”

  “Asking, not telling?”

  “Loving you makes me less of an asshole.”

  “I’m a goddess.” I smiled. “Goddesses can perform miracles.” Warmth bloomed inside my chest as he grinned, not just returning my happiness but increasing it.

  “A hui hou.” He stood, pulling me up with him, and planted a swift kiss on my surprised lips.

  “What does that mean?” I swayed, since even a swift kiss from Diesel was potent.

  “Until we meet again.”

  Snagging his shirt from the floor, he crossed to the door and exited the room, leaving me staring at the closed door slack jawed.

  “What just happened,” I whispered to the empty chair he’d abandoned, sinking back into my own, feeling more than a little unsteady.

  My cell suddenly rang.

  Standing, I moved toward it. A glance at the display showed my sister calling. “Hello?”

  “Hey, Hols. Diesel just left my room.”

  How is that possible? He must have been in an awfully big hurry.

&n
bsp; I raised a brow. “He just left mine.”

  “He told me to check on you. Are you okay?”

  “I guess so. Just a little stunned.”

  “Me too. He says you love him.”

  “I do.”

  “Well, he certainly is a man obsessed.”

  My lips twitched in an upward motion. “Did he tell you what he’s up to?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “Are you going to tell me?”

  “Nope.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’ll ruin the surprise.”

  “I’m not sure I’m up for a surprise.”

  “This one you will be. Trust me. I’m in charge of watching out for you. Ash and me. Until he gets back.”

  Chapter Sixty

  * * *

  Diesel

  “This is really nice of you, dude.”

  “You needed somewhere to stay. I needed a caretaker. It’s not a permanent home for you,” I warned Koa while glancing around at the old place.

  “I got it the first time you said it. This is about the twentieth time you reminded me.”

  “I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

  “You’ve got her on your mind.”

  “Definitely.” I’d called Hollie every day. Seeing her on FaceTime was nice, but it wasn’t nearly as good as holding her.

  “So the remodeling company starts on Monday. I supervise. Get free rent and a salary to keep an eye on things and send you updates.”

  “Photos and videos.” I wanted to be sure Hollie liked the things I’d picked out.

  “You got it. Not a hardship. Leaves me plenty of time to prepare for my next competition.”

  “Which is in three months?”

  “Yeah.” Koa glanced around, his expression speculative. “You really think they’ll be done by then?”

  “I hope they are.”

  It was a major renovation to get the place overhauled, made handicap-accessible, a room added on, plus the kitchen and bathrooms updated. It needed to be ready, not just to bring her back out before the baby was born, but also to get it listed on the rental market in time for the lucrative winter season.