Who Do You Love (Rock Royalty Book 7) Page 7

  If they were involved, they’d want him to get the message loud and clear.

  Yet the fire ants were organizing another tap dance, and he could feel the itch of them everywhere. Rubbing his hands through his hair, he cleared his throat. “We should figure out where you’re going to stay tonight. Ren’s?”

  Her brows rose. “I don’t need to go anywhere. I appreciate your friends fixing the broken panes. That’ll do until tomorrow.”

  “Payne’s house, then.”

  She stared at him. “I’m not disturbing Payne and Rose at this time of night.”

  “It’s not safe—”

  “The patrol car will be coming by every so often.”

  She’d looked sleepy and confused when he’d first arrived, but he could see she was becoming more awake by the second. The muzziness of the tequila wearing off, he supposed.

  “What’s this all about, Eamon?”

  “Just looking out for you, honey.”

  Her spine snapped straight.

  Whoops. Wrong thing to say.

  “I’m here,” he hastened to say. “So if you need me to help you pack a few things, drive you someplace…”

  “But you don’t want to be here,” she said. “You broke up with me, which is a clear statement you’re not interested in ‘looking out for me’ either. Though I assure you I don’t need a keeper.”

  Eamon shoved his hands into his pockets. Stay cool. Stay in control. Don’t give any emotions away. “Just because we’re not together doesn’t mean I don’t care about your welfare.”

  Her eyes narrowed to green slivers of ice. “Why does that sound like I’m a stray dog you once tossed a bone?”

  Frustration made his fingers curl. “I don’t mean it that way. I’m just saying—”

  “You hurt me by breaking up with me out of the blue, Eamon.”

  He deserved that. It had killed him to do it, but he’d thought—still thought—it was for the best.

  “You humiliated me that night at Satan’s Roadhouse.”

  “I know.” It had seemed the safest thing to do for her, turning his back. That way, if anyone happened to be watching, they’d be convinced she meant nothing to him. “But still, if you came across me and I had a problem—”

  “If you were on fire, I wouldn’t waste my spit.”

  Ouch.

  Her voice rose. “If you were starving, I’d put my leftovers down the garbage disposal.”

  She really had it in for him.

  “If you…if you…” She jumped to her feet. “If you were cold, I’d send you ice cubes. If you wanted water…”

  Her rant continued, but he didn’t hear a word, because Si had come to the kitchen doorway, one of Cami’s guitars in his fist. Eamon had seen it cradled in her arms dozens of times, her partner in imagination and in her art. If truth be told, he had almost been jealous of it on occasion, because he’d wondered, if given the choice, whether she’d choose the instrument over him.

  Staring at what had happened to it, he lost all pretense of cool and control as rage burned in his gut and a freezing hand closed over his beating heart. His eyes going dry, he ran his gaze over the wooden body, taking in each of the holes some shooter had drilled into its surface. They were ragged and splintered and ugly.

  The symbol of Eamon’s life touching Cami’s. The symbol of him caring too much for her.

  It was ruined, the guitar, and no longer a rival for her attention.

  Instead, it was the message. For him.

  Cami shuffled out of the hotel bathroom wearing baggy sweat pants and an oversized flannel shirt she’d grabbed from her closet at home. As she tugged at the hem, she belatedly realized that it was one that Eamon had left behind. Damn. What had possessed her to grab the thing?

  She should have torn it into shreds once he dumped her, she thought, glaring at the man in question, who sat propped against the headboard of one of the two queen beds in the room.

  He ignored her as she made her way past him to the other white duvet-covered mattress, his attention on his phone. The room was illuminated only by the light she’d left on in the bathroom and the screen of his cell, its glow accentuating the masculine bones of his face.

  If he felt her gaze on him, he ignored that, too. All night he’d found a real talent for disregarding her—her wishes anyway.

  From the instant he’d seen the destruction of her guitar, he’d turned into a force of nature. His body rigid and a muscle ticking in his jaw, he’d grabbed her arm with implacable fingers, towing her from the kitchen toward her bedroom.

  “Pack a bag,” he’d ordered. “You’re not staying here tonight.”

  Unnerved by his reaction, she’d found herself obeying and soon enough she was hustled into the passenger seat of his car, her small tote tossed onto the rear seat.

  “I guess it’s okay,” she’d told him, sneaking a glance at his stern expression as he settled behind the wheel. “Until I get that glass installed tomorrow.”

  He’d pulled away from the curb, his gaze focused out the windshield, driving as if he was alone in the vehicle with no company other than his dark mood.

  She’d tried once again to cut through the tension. “You can take me to Ren’s. He stays up late.”

  His eyes had slid her way for a moment, but he still hadn’t said anything.

  Wrapping her arms around herself, she’d gone ahead and given Eamon directions to her brother’s, which he hadn’t acknowledged except to adjust the controls on the heat blowing out of the dash. Her leather seat must have been heated, too, because all of her became pleasantly warm…and pleasantly sleepy.

  A stomach full of Mexican food and tequila followed by an adrenaline chaser had done a number on her. She’d already been crashing, half-asleep in a kitchen chair, when Eamon arrived at her house. Though she’d rallied upon his appearance, now drowsiness overwhelmed again.

  And while she’d continued to slumber, he’d checked into a hotel and then carried her into the room.

  She’d roused when he set her on the nearest bed, her bag plopping beside her.

  “What are you doing?” she’d asked, her voice hoarse and her mind disoriented. “What are we doing?”

  “In the morning we’ll sort that out,” he’d said. “Now it’s time for you to sleep.”

  Which brought her to this moment, in which her best choice seemed to follow his decree and crawl under the covers. The pillow did look inviting and because Eamon did not, she wiggled between the sheets. Tomorrow she’d have the energy to assert herself. Then she’d remember all the reasons she should be pissed at him and all the arguments against spending even seconds in the same room with the man…

  Such as the fact that she liked the feel of his shirt against her skin. Too much.

  Turning away from him onto her side, she folded her arm under her head and breathed in his scent left on the flannel. Sleep, she thought, willing herself into that state.

  But the mental command didn’t work, not when he was so close, not when the sound of his slow breathing seemed to be anything but hypnotic. She tried playing music in her head—an old trick—but even that couldn’t distract her.

  After a few minutes, she turned over, plumped her pillow, and opened her eyes. He remained as before, fully dressed except for his shoes, long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, head bent over his handheld device.

  “Tell me something about yourself,” she said.

  He glanced over. “What?”

  “Tell me something about yourself. Before, you didn’t even tell me your last name.”

  In the dim light she made out his rising eyebrows. “Why didn’t you ask then? Why didn’t you ask anything?”

  Because I was a foolish romantic. Because the mystery surrounding you was almost as intoxicating as the sex.

  She opened her mouth to make the confession, then frowned. “No. It’s my turn for questions.”

  He shifted, drawing up one knee and resting his phone on the cap of it. “What e
xactly do you want to know?”

  There was a worry she’d had since the abrupt break-up. There’d been no warning—at least none that she’d detected. So the one explanation that had presented itself was the simplest…a prior commitment.

  Cami sucked in a breath. “Are you married?”

  His head jerked back. “No.” Then he shoved a hand through his hair. “I… Shit, Cami, it didn’t occur to me that you’d imagine that.” He sounded sincerely regretful. “I’ve never been married or engaged, nothing.”

  “That’s good,” she said, trying to maintain a light tone. “Because despite being surrounded by all kinds of excess growing up, it turns out I have a thing about monogamy. And commitments.”

  “Me, too,” Eamon said. “I don’t make them—not romantic ones, anyway.”

  It stabbed like a knife beneath her heart. She sucked in a soundless breath, telling herself she should have seen that comment coming. That since they were over, the words had no ability to hurt. The enchiladas she ate for dinner must be to blame, she decided. Yes. Just a touch of indigestion.

  “Did I lead you to believe otherwise, Cam? Because if I did, I’m sorry about that, too.”

  “You didn’t.” It had all been her, enjoying the moment, every moment with her mysterious stranger. He’d show up in the dark, and she’d fall into bed with him, which had led to another kind of fall altogether. Silly, romantic dreamer.

  He sighed. “Cami, I—”

  “Let’s move on to something else,” she said hastily, hoping to hold onto her dignity. “I have another question.”

  They’d go their separate ways in the morning, so her curiosity had a single last chance to be assuaged.

  “A question about…?”

  “The Unruly Assassins. Your motorcycle club.”

  Eamon hesitated. “What about them?”

  The air in the room had turned chilly, but she didn’t let his obvious reluctance deter her. “Payne said your father is the president. Is it like a family business? Do you work for the club? Does it employ you?”

  “I don’t take money from the MC,” he said shortly. “And I told you. I’m a lawyer.”

  It was her turn to rear back. “Law firm. You work for a law firm, you said.”

  “Yeah. My firm with my best friend Spence. Rooney & Sadler.”

  “Oh,” she replied, nonplused. An actual attorney? She really had never known him at all.

  “Speaking of which…” Eamon returned his attention to his phone. “It’s important I finish up this email. Good night.”

  And don’t bother me again.

  Feeling dismissed and diminished, Cami gave her pillow another punch and then flounced onto her back. Her stomach. Her other side.

  After a few minutes of tossing and turning, she detected the sound of surf filtering into the room. It took only another moment to realize the source was Eamon’s phone, playing ocean sounds. He’d used it more than once to soothe her when she’d returned home from a gig so pumped up she couldn’t sit, let alone lie down. He would run her a hot bath, hand her a glass of wine, and then she’d begin to relax as waves rushed onto sand. Better yet, next he would drop to his knees and pour liquid soap into his big hands to wash her with languid strokes, his palms sliding from her neck to her shoulders to her wrists, his fingers insinuating themselves between hers, all her flesh excruciatingly sensitized long before he ever made it to her sex.

  “Peace and love dreams,” he said now in a low voice, making her smile.

  He remembered. Once she’d told him that Gwendolyn Moon, the band groupie who was almost like a mother to her, would wish her just the same before sleep. Her eyes drifted shut as she thought about Gwen and the little girl who had been Campbell Colson, always locked away from the party.

  For a long time, she’d believed there might be peace and love there, too. If only someone would remember to send her an invitation…

  In her dream she wandered the Laurel Canyon compound where she’d grown up. It was a lush and lavish place, with a hillside orchard, a huge pool and pool house, three houses where the Velvet Lemons and their children lived. It was night, and floodlights washed up ghostly tree trunks. Thousands of firefly twinklers glittered in the limbs and from between the leaves of dense and fragrant growths of gardenia, tropical hibiscus, and star jasmine.

  Distant revelry reached her ears, the soundtrack of a happiness she’d always thought unfairly, cruelly denied her. This time she was going to join in, she decided, setting forth in the direction of the sounds.

  But she kept getting confused as she traversed the paths that wound through the property, and the party seemed only farther away with every step. Still determined, she set forth again, this time leaving a trail of stepping stones to push through grasping foliage. Bushes reached out to snag her clothes with thorny branches, and she wrenched free, her arm flailing so her fingers smashed against the rough bark of a tree that had emerged out of nowhere.

  She cradled her throbbing hand against her body and turned in a circle, trying to get her bearings. But nothing look familiar any longer, and there was a menacing feel about the darkness. The night now seemed forbidding. She sensed eyes watching her from inside knotholes and behind boulders.

  Fear overwhelmed her. Fear of being lost and never found. Fear of being never missed. Fear of being alone forever. She shivered, and tears flowed down her face, as cold as the blood chugging through her body.

  Cami.

  A voice whispered through the leaves, making them shiver like she was. Cami.

  Cami.

  Her heart leaped as she finally recognized who called her name. Eamon! Eamon was searching for her! Eamon would find her, and he’d take her to the party.

  She called to him, turning again, and then a sharp sound broke into the night, and a nearby limb snapped off a tree and fell at her feet. Puzzled, she bent for it, and another shot flew above her, hitting the trunk of another tree with a solid thwack.

  Cami!

  Eamon, desperate and drawing closer. But that meant he was drawing closer to danger, too, because someone was shooting. Someone was shooting at her.

  Arms closed around her from behind, and she opened her mouth to scream a warning to Eamon, but a palm clapped over her lips.

  Cami thrashed, desperate to break free of the terrifying hold. Then lips pressed against her hair, her temple, moved over her ear.

  “Shh, a ghrá geal,” they whispered, warm breath against her too-cool skin. “I have you. Eamon has you.”

  She stilled, coming out of the nightmare as she came awake to her true whereabouts. Hotel room. Bed. She’d kicked off the covers even though the room was unpleasantly cold. But there was a man’s heated strength behind her, his naked front to her shirt-covered back, and he wrapped his arms around her to rock her like a child.

  “A ghrá,” he crooned. “You’re safe.”

  A sob welled up in her throat. Not because of the dream that was quickly shredding to mere wisps of flimsy fear, but because of the sweet belonging that came from being in Eamon’s embrace. Despite her best efforts, the choked sound escaped her, and he murmured again then turned her, bringing her flush to his body and pressing her face against his throat as they lay on their sides.

  “Such a rough night for my sweetheart,” he said, voice as soothing as the hand he drew over the back of her hair. “No wonder you had a bad dream.”

  The cherishing touch nearly undid her. This kind of affection had been a rare commodity at the compound. Gwen had nine children with whom to share her attentions. Her brothers considered her a pesky little sister, and her father considered her not at all. As an adult, sex had provided some of the human contact she craved, and sex with Eamon had been the best of all, but her lonely heart bloomed now as he spoiled and petted and pressed kisses to the top of her head.

  A treasure. He made her feel like a treasure.

  Her arms slipped around him to cling, and he pulled back a little to study her face. A wayward tear slid down her
cheek.

  He caught it with the edge of his thumb. “What’s this, a ghrá? Can you tell me what’s so wrong?”

  Because she was so afraid she might, she lifted her head and pressed her mouth to his.

  Chapter 5

  As Cami’s sweet taste, mixed with the salt of her tears, hit Eamon’s tongue, his body morphed to iron. Not steel, that was too refined a comparison. Because for all her delicate bones and near whimsical beauty—because of them?—something about her brought out the animal in him. His hands rushed to her hips, and he yanked them tight to his body, his desire raw and primal, his cock primed to rut. He deepened the kiss, excited by the way her mouth yielded to his, and he tucked her even closer.

  In response she whimpered, her butt wiggling in his palms, and lust surged because he knew, absolutely knew, what that meant. She’d just gushed for him. If he shoved his hands into her pants like he craved, he’d find her wet. Slick and swollen and ready.

  But instead he held off, fingers digging into her as he lifted his mouth to suck in a harsh breath. Then he buried his face in her throat, inhaling her scent into his lungs as he tortured himself with the thought of her pussy, aching with the longing to be filled. It was a good kind of pain, anticipation and eagerness putting a sharper edge on every need.

  Her hands clutched at him as he trailed a line of stinging kisses along her jaw, his mouth moving to her ear. He bit the lobe, not even trying to hold back, and she jerked against him, that telltale whimper telegraphing she’d gone even wetter.

  A memory whispered through his haze of lust. Cami, naked and flushed, undulating beneath his body as he pinned her to the mattress, controlling her movement. I love your weight on me.

  Rolling, he draped his big body over her smaller one. Her gasp went right to his cock, and he ground it against the apex of her legs, the thick fabric of her pants and his jeans doing nothing to muffle the pleasure of it. He pushed there again, harder, and groaned as pre-cum spurted from his tip. Tilting her hips, she pressed up into his strength, tight little movements that scraped fleece against denim in sharp, brief strokes that in other circumstances and with other substances could spark a fire. Squeezing shut his eyes, he stayed on her, heavy, making her work for each stroke, making them both suffer in delicious, desperate, dry- humping agony.