ROCKED BY GRACE (LOVE AND CHAOS SERIES Book 1)
Page 22
“And, if you dump his ass, I’m available,” Dex added.
“Dex,” Zane growled.
“What? Did I say that out loud?”
All three of them answered. “Yes.”
“Aah. Sorry about that.” He looked at Rafe. “Carry on then.”
Rafe raised his glass. “To Grace and Zane.” Most of the people stayed and clapped their support. “Champagne is on the house in apartment…” He eyed me.
“3B.”
“Apartment 3B.” When we climbed back through the window, I was amazed to see champagne flutes covering my table and counters. In the living room, a banquet table was set up and people in uniforms were bringing in chafing dishes and vases of flowers.
It was a pretty rowdy night, and I came to know what being just short of chaos was like. We were exhausted when everyone left and agreed to clean what little the caterers had left in the morning. Lying in bed together, after so much noise and action, the quiet was welcome. As I was drifting off to sleep, Zane tapped my foot with his.
“Are you laying like a four?”
I smiled. “I am.”
He turned his head to look at me. “Wanna do that forever?”
“Sounds like a plan.”
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
Thank you for reading ROCKED BY GRACE, part of my LOVE AND CHAOS SERIES. I hope you enjoyed it. Now that you've read the book, won't you please consider writing a review? Reviews are one of the best ways readers discover great new books. They don't need to be fancy or long, just a sentence or two honestly describing your opinion of/experience with the book. I would sincerely appreciate it.
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ROCKED BY LOVE
LOVE AND CHAOS SERIES, BOOK TWO
ROCKED BY LOVE
CHAPTER ONE
Rafe
Perhaps diving into the crowd wasn’t one of my best ideas ever. But when the muscle bound security guard standing right in front of them was doing nothing, I had to take matters into my own hands.
Seriously? How can you ignore something happening a foot away from you? Pussy.
I’d noticed the tall guy being an ass to the girl earlier in the set, so I had my eye on them when it happened. Jericho and I were playing back to back when he, the equally muscle bound man in front of the security guard, started getting physical with his girlfriend. The look of terror on her face was enough to set me off, so I hit an off chord to get the rest of the band’s attention.
“Hey! If you want to hit someone with long hair, why don’t you come up here and take on one of us.”
“Uhh…Rafe…?”
I forgot that he was the only one of us with long hair now. Still, Jer followed me to the front of the stage where I whipped off my guitar and headset, handing them to him. If I’d thought about it and not solely reacted, I might have come up with a better solution. For the most part I thought trading violence for violence was something only idiots did. But sometimes an ass kicking is what’s called for.
“What’s your problem?” he barked back at me.
“I’ll tell you what my problem is pal,” I was so mad I was spitting. “My problem is it makes me sick to watch a two-hundred-fifty pound loser shoving around his hundred-pound date.”
“She’s mine, I can do with her what I want.”
That was it. I lost my mind. Rage propelled me and I jumped off the stage.
Now, I wasn’t the fighter in the band—that’d be Zane, for the most part—but I could hold my own. We’d been in our share of fisticuffs over the years, mostly in the sleazy holes we played in when we were starting out. We’d had drunk guys harass us—which Zane took exception to, igniting a fight—or we’d have brawls start off on the floor in front of us, see some guy out numbered or out classed, and felt the need to get involved. Learning to hold my own required me getting the shit beat out of me a time or two, but when push came to shove—literally—I was forced to learn how to defend myself, and forced to learn it quickly.
It was a decent leap from the stage, so the first pain I got was from the shock of hitting the ground. Security was looking like they had no fucking clue how to handle it when a rock star confronts a dick in the crowd, so they sat there shuffling their feet. The asshat wasn’t even paying attention to me. I could have totally taken advantage of that, but I’m a gentleman, so I didn’t. He was again yelling at the girl and had clamped onto her elbow. She was cowering and trying to placate him, and when he drew his arm back, another girl grabbed onto it. So there was one brave hundred-pound girl taking on this steroided out bastard while a whole platoon of security people sat with their thumbs stuck up their asses.
When I reached them, the guy had shaken off the girl who came to her friend’s assistance, which landed her on her ass and fueled my anger even more. Now she was shrinking back and he was advancing on her, while her friend looked on, shell-shocked. Everyone else in the vicinity acted like they were protecting their girlfriends and had opened up a decent size hole so the action was front and center. A not quite waist high metal barrier was between us, but the guy could finally hear me, so he took his attention away from the women he was battering for a second.
“Hey! What the fuck did I tell you?” I seethed. I’d like to say my high school hurdling aided me in getting over the partition, but I attacked it more like it was a pommel horse. I planted my hands on the top rail and pushed off, swinging both legs to the right to clear it. It wobbled, but remained upright. He was again towering over the girl on the ground, threatening her, and she was scooting backwards on her elbows while not taking her eyes off him. She looked more pissed than scared, though. I stepped between them and used two hands to shove him back so I could make some room to demolish the guy, or be demolished, which was the more likely outcome. But I’d always found bullies backed off when they were met with any resistance, and I was hoping it would be true in this case, too.
“What the fuck?” he shouted, and took a swing, which I easily ducked. He was probably drunk off his ass. I came back up and landed a left hook and followed immediately with my right, tagging him good with an uppercut. He stumbled back and teetered for a moment like he might go down. Shaking his head, he roared and charged me, knocking me to the ground not far from the girl, who rolled away. This is what I didn’t want. Without my legs I couldn’t get much force behind my punches and he had the advantage. Now that he had a real opponent, the guy’s anger became explosive. Luckily, he didn’t get time to land more than a few punches before security swarmed. It took a half dozen of them to wrestle him off and drag him away. I scrambled up. Fans were clapping me on the back and cheering. I offered the girl on the ground a hand. She had dark brown, long wavy hair and green eyes that had spit fire earlier but now were smiling. I pulled her to her feet. She was tall, I guess about five-eight, though heels can be deceptive.
“Are you okay?”
She brushed herself off. “Yeah, thanks.”
We turned to check on her friend, but she was gone.
“Where’d your friend go?”
A guy spoke up. “She followed that douche bag out.”
The brunette slapped her forehead. “Unbelievable. Un-fucking-believable.”
I put a hand on her arm. “As hard as it is to watch, some people can’t be helped.”
She gasped. “Your hand.”
I looked down. Blood was dripping onto the floor from my knuckles.
Jericho yelled from the stage. “Hey. Muhammad Ali. Wanna get your ass back up here? We have music to play.”
“Coming.”
The girl called out as I turned. “What about your hand?”
I shrugged. “As long as I can hold a guitar pick.” I flashed her a smile. “Gotta go.” I twisted to walk away, but she grabbed my arm.
With her free hand, she slid the sheer scarf from her neck. “Here.” She quickly wrapped it around my cuts.
“But your scarf.”
“No bi
g deal. I can get another.” She tucked the end in. ““There you go.”
I worked my fingers to see if I still had mobility. Hurt like hell, but the wrap was the perfect light, stretchy material for the job. Kept me from bleeding all over the place, but I could still use my hand. “Thanks.”
“Thank you,” she said sincerely.
“Need help up, buddy?” Jericho said pointedly. He extended his hand. The security people had moved the little barrier and were waiting for me to get through before swinging it back in place. I walked through the opening and gave Jer my “good hand.” He yanked me up and handed me my guitar, wearing a bemused expression.
“I was going to jump down and help you, but you seemed to be handling it okay. Your mouth’s bleeding, by the way.”
I wiped at it. “Yeah, thanks. You’re real friggin’ helpful.”
He grinned. “I try to be of service.”
“Sure you do.”
Zane addressed the audience. “So, you guys get a twofer tonight. A fight and a rock concert. Let’s hear it for rock star/prize fighter Rafael Santiago.”
I was settling my head mic on, suppressing a grin. “You guys are enjoying this, aren’t you?”
Zane nodded. “Immensely.”
Dex chimed in with, “Made my night.”
ALSO FROM M.J. SCHILLER
ROMANTIC REALMS COLLECTION:
TAKEN BY STORM
AN UNCOMMON LOVE
LEAP INTO THE KNIGHT
LADY OF THE KNIGHT
A KNIGHT TO REMEMBER
ROCKING ROMANCE COLLECTION:
TRAPPED UNDER ICE
ABANDON ALL HOPE
BETWEEN ROCK AND A HARD PLACE
ROCK ME, GENTLY
MIDNIGHT MELODY
REAL ROMANCE COLLECTION:
UPON A MIDNIGHT CLEAR
THE HEART TEACHES BEST
DAMAGE DONE
HOMETOWN HEARTACHE
TAKE A CHANCE ON ME
BLACKOUT
DEVILISH DIVAS SERIES:
TO HELL IN A COACH BAG
DAMNED IF I DO
THE DEVIL YOU KNOW
SATAN, LINE ONE
PITCHFORK IN THE ROAD
SIN WORTH THE PENANCE
HELL HATH NO FURY
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bestselling author M.J. Schiller is a retired lunch lady/romance-romantic suspense writer. She enjoys writing novels whose characters include rock stars, desert princes, teachers, futuristic Knights, construction workers, cops, and a wide variety of others. In her mind everybody has a romance. She is the mother of a twenty-four-year-old and three twenty-two-year-olds. That's right, triplets! So having recently taught four children to drive, she likes to escape from life on occasion by pretending to be a rock star at karaoke. However…you won’t be seeing her name on any record labels soon.