The Rocker Who Cherishes Me
I let my eyes travel around the room as I stood there wondering if I should just go back to my own bus. Nik was sitting on the couch with Wroth, his ice blue eyes smiling at me as he lifted his Corona to his lips and took another swallow. I smiled back, because it was hard not to do so when you had that dream of a man flashing that killer smile at you. I might have been stupidly in love with Wroth Niall, but I’d always had a small crush on Nik. What woman wouldn’t crush a little on a man who looked like a yummy bad boy but acted like a true Prince Charming?
I knew that Wroth’s eyes were on me, could feel the fire in his gaze like a physical caress as it skimmed over me from head to toe and back again. I kept my own eyes away from him, however, feeling oddly shy.
One of the reasons I’d stayed so long over at Layla’s bus talking to my friends was because of him. I didn’t know how to handle myself around him at the moment. Waking up in his arms, followed by one of the most amazing foreplay sessions known to man, had left me feeling vulnerable. When I’d woken up with him beside me that morning, I’d just lain there watching him sleep for the longest time. My heart had ached more and more with each passing moment as I’d fought an internal battle with myself.
Could I forgive him? Damn it, hadn’t I already done so?
If I were being honest with myself, then the answer was simple. Yes, I had forgiven him. We had not made any promises of exclusivity, not really. It might have hurt—still hurt—but he hadn’t been mine when he’d cheated on me. This time around I wanted things to be different. I wanted him to make promises, wanted to know that he was mine and only mine if we went any further.
I just didn’t know how to ask for it without further humiliating myself.
Nik scooted over on the couch, making room between himself and Wroth. With a wink, he patted the seat next to him. “Come sit with us, Rissa. We could use a hot chick to even out the testosterone stinking up the place.”
“It does stink in here,” Lana muttered around a bite of the noodles she was pushing into her mouth with her chopsticks. “Does it smell this bad over at your bus, Rissa?”
“Worse,” I assured her with a laugh as I took the offered seat between Nik and Wroth.
As soon as I sat down, Nik draped an arm around my shoulders and Wroth made a growl in protest. “You wanna lose that arm, bro?”
Nik chuckled, not scared of Wroth’s threat. “I’ll take my chances.” He winked down at me again and I couldn’t help but grin back. “How you been, gorgeous? I feel like we’ve barely gotten to talk since the tour started. Em says you’re doing a great job with the kids. And, thanks, by the way. Apparently I’m adding a freakin’ dog to my family this Christmas because of you and that damn Wizard of Oz movie.”
“So Mia gets her Toto?”
“Have I ever not given my baby what she wants?” Nik grimaced. “I should probably stop spoiling her so much. She’s going to be as bad as her momma before long.”
“What planet do you live on?” Drake demanded. “She already is.”
Shane grunted his agreement. “Worse. I never put on tiaras and played princess tea party with Emmie when she was Mia’s age.”
“You didn’t just admit that,” Wroth snorted. “Are there pictures?”
“None that you’ll ever see, bro.” Shane took his seat once again and crossed his legs. “Better watch out. You spend more than ten minutes in the same room with Mia and you’ll have a sparkly tiara, plastic clip-on earrings, and lipstick too.”
“Lipstick!” I giggled at the picture that Shane had just put in my head. It was hard enough to imagine big, beautiful Shane Stevenson playing dress-up like that, but now to picture Wroth in the same position? I laughed so hard tears slipped from my eyes. “What color?”
“Mia’s favorite color is peach,” Nik commented. “It makes Shane’s eyes sparkle.”
“Shut up, fucker.”
For the next hour that was how our night went. The Demon’s Wings guys tossed out snarky comments about each other, calling each other names, but you could tell that they loved and respected each other. The four Demons were more brothers than bandmates. They had always had each other’s backs, no matter what. There was more love in their strange family-by-choice than I’d ever seen in one that was family by blood.
During that time, I could feel Wroth’s tension. He was waiting for a sign from me to leave. I was torn between wanting to stay and hang out with our friends and leaving so that we could have some alone time. Thoughts of our morning together made me squirm a little as I sat there beside him, feeling the heat that was burning the entire left side of my body where it brushed against his.
Eventually I couldn’t stop from yawning and Wroth jumped up, taking me with him. “Time for bed, sweetheart.”
“Goodnight, Rissa,” the guys called as I silently waved goodbye.
“Don’t forget that movie night is at my bus this weekend,” Lana called after me.
I made a face at her. “Nothing in the horror genre, if you please.” Lana and Harper both had a thing for scary movies, but I couldn’t stomach them. And being scared was my least favorite emotion to feel.
Lana pouted. “You’re no fun.”
“I’ll bring a few to choose from,” I told her, ignoring the pout. “How about Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?”
“No!” Lana shook her head adamantly. “No way. You want to talk about scary? Nothing freaks me out more than seeing that sexy-ass man like…that.” She shuddered. “Anything but that.”
I laughed and waved again before following Wroth off the bus.
The air was humid but there was the hint of rain on the soft breeze. I inhaled deeply as I walked down the row of buses, enjoying one of my favorite scents. If I’d been back on the farm with the promise of rain in the air, I would open my bedroom window and wait for the rain to come before letting it lull me into a deep, peaceful sleep.
Strong arms suddenly wrapped around my waist from behind, making me gasp in a mixture of surprise and delight. My shyness came back twice as bad and I leaned my head back against Wroth’s chest. His jaw was deliciously rough with his evening beard as he kissed my neck, making me shiver.
“I love our friends, Mari, but you were starting to kill me in there,” his sexy voice rumbled against my ear. “And if you let Nik Armstrong put his arm around you like that one more time, it’s going to be your fault when Emmie suddenly has a one-armed husband.”
I couldn’t help the giggle that escaped me at his threat and turned in his arms, my shyness fading as I wrapped my arms around him and buried my face in his chest. “Poor Nik,” I laughed. “But I doubt that having only one arm would distract from his sexiness.”
Wroth tensed and I knew I’d just woken up the jealous rage monster that had been simmering for the last hour while I’d sat next to another man who had teasingly flirted with me. I wanted to laugh at the idea of Nik ever having romantic or sexual thoughts of me. His ice blue eyes only saw Emmie and that wasn’t likely to ever change. But that didn’t matter to Wroth right then.
I had to admit that I liked that he was jealous. That he hated the mere idea of someone else touching me…or that I considered another man sexy. It was adorable, really.
“You think Nik is sexy?” His voice was low, but would have been no less powerful if he had roared.
I smirked up at him, my eyes twinkling with amusement. “I think a lot of guys are sexy, Wroth.” A growl escaped him and I lifted my hands to cup his face. I couldn’t see his eyes in the faint glow from a distant street light, but I could tell from the way his forehead was scrunched up that he was glowering down at me. “That doesn’t mean I want them. I only want one sexy rocker touching me, honey.”
“I love you, Marissa.”
My heart melted at those words. When he’d first said them to me just the morning before, I’d been stunned by them, unable to believe I was actually awake and hearing those treasurable words that I’d always hoped to hear from him. But I’d never imagined that he would
say them again. Wroth just wasn’t the vocal type. I’d figured that he had said them once and that was most likely all I would ever get. To have him say them again, to have those three little words that could heal or cripple a person spoken by this man was truly a miracle in his own right.
And I didn’t know how to respond to them. I knew instinctively that he wanted me to say them back. We both knew that I loved him more than anything; it wasn’t a secret that I’d ever tried to hide from him. But I couldn’t utter them. They wouldn’t even come when I opened my mouth to speak.
The pause was a short one, but it felt like it went on for eternity before he lowered his head and brushed his lips over my own in a kiss so soft that it brought tears to my eyes. “I love you, sweetheart,” he breathed against my lips. “Let’s go to bed. I need to hold you tonight.”
Swallowing around the lump of tears clogging my throat, I nodded and let him take my hand as we continued on to the bus that was our home for the next few months.
Chapter 13
Marissa
“If one more person says the words ‘milk jugs’, I’m going to do bodily damage.”
My eyes widened and went straight to Natalie who was sitting across from me at the sound of Dallas’s angry voice just outside of our bus. She grimaced and shrugged. Tonight was our girls’ night in and we were going to watch a movie while the guys went out and drank a few beers. Normally it was all the girls but tonight our group was going to be smaller since Lucy had a cold and Layla didn’t want to leave her, and Emmie had to deal with a few issues with the venue for tomorrow night’s concert. Kenzie had volunteered to help Felicity out with the children and they were watching their own G-rated movie on Emmie’s bus tonight.
I wasn’t sure who Dallas was talking to, but I did know what she was referring to. Since Dallas was pregnant again, she had had to give up nursing Cannon, but her already amazing breasts were larger than usual because of her new pregnancy. As were Lana’s breasts that seemed to have grown another cup size just in the last two weeks. A few days ago I’d overheard several of the roadies talking about both women and calling their breasts ‘milk jugs’. Since then it had been kind of an inside joke for the roadies.
I didn’t know how Axton or Drake had reacted to hearing their wives’ racks talked about in such a derogatory way, but Dallas was sure as heck making her opinion on it loud and clear at the moment. “You like your dick where it is, Pock? Keep laughing, motherfucker, and you’ll be wearing it stapled to your fucking forehead.”
The door to the bus opened and I bit my lip to keep from laughing as Dallas stepped into the living room. Her clear blue eyes were stormy, her face flushed with temper. Yeah, it really wouldn’t help matters to burst out laughing just then. If there was anything I’d learned in the last few weeks of touring with her, it was that with Dallas’s last pregnancy she was considerably much sweeter. Axton had joked that it was because she was having a boy and so as long as she had a little dick in her, she was okay. Now, he teased her repeatedly that they were going to have a girl. That was why she was twice the bitch at times. And twice the bitch did not bode well for the likelihood that Pock would finish the tour with his dick still attached to his body… Well, at least not to the part of his body it was supposed to be attached to.
“What was that, Pock?” Lana’s voice could now be heard through the open door. “You wanna taste your own dick before she gets the staple gun? I can make it happen.”
Natalie, hearing her sister-in-law’s threat, groaned long and loud. “Just another thing to have to worry about. I know at least one of my brothers is going to end up in jail before the summer is over.”
Outside there was a faint grumble in answer and Lana stepped onto the bus with Harper and Jenna right behind her. Jenna was laughing uncontrollably, and Harper was doing a little giggling of her own. Obviously neither had the same fear as I did about laughing at Dallas, or even Lana for that matter. Brave. They were very, very brave. When the door shut behind them Lana carefully sat down on the couch beside me, muttering a rainbow of colorful words under her breath.
Natalie handed out bowls of popcorn to the newcomers. “Who else was it?” she asked as she picked up the remote to the flat screen.
Dallas shrugged as she stuffed her mouth with salty, buttered popcorn. “Pock, Myles, Vance and Greg.” She chewed, swallowed, then stuffed more in. “Don’t worry about it, Nat. I’ll deal with those pricks. They’d just better hope Axton doesn’t get to them before I can.”
“If Emmie hears them...” Natalie sighed, folding her legs back under the baggy sweatshirt she was wearing.
Harper snorted. “I wouldn’t worry about Emmie hearing them. She was right behind us on her way to find Nik and Mia so that Mia could watch the movie with the other kids. If looks could kill, those four idiots would be burning in hell right now.”
“The redhead will let me deal with them,” Dallas assured Natalie. “Now turn on the movie, bitch. I came to watch male goodies shaking like they’re hot.”
I couldn’t help but giggle at Dallas as she wiggled her brows suggestively. She had been the one to pick tonight’s movie, Magic Mike. She and I had watched the movie together before, but it had been over a year since I’d seen Channing Tatum shaking his boys around.
“Shane does it better,” Harper informed her best friend.
“Eww!” Jenna made a gagging sound and threw popcorn at her sister-in-law. “I seriously didn’t need to know that.”
“That’s just…” Natalie made a face and shook her head. “No, just no. That’s my brother.”
“Drake doesn’t shake his at me,” Lana spoke up, rubbing her hands lovingly over her very large belly. There was a soft, dreamy look on her face and I just knew that she was fantasizing about her deliciously sexy husband. “He doesn’t need to.”
Harper raised a brow. “Shane doesn’t have to shake it at me, but I never complain when he does.” More gagging noises came from Jenna and Natalie put her fingers in her ears, humming to herself to drown out the sound of their voices.
“Axton hasn’t shaken his at me yet. Maybe I’ll talk him into it tonight.” Another handful of popcorn was stuffed into her mouth and she pouted down at her almost empty bowl. “Hey, you didn’t give me very much.”
I bit my lip to keep from reminding her that Natalie had given her the biggest bowl and that it had held nearly an entire bag of popcorn. Another difference between her current pregnancy and the last one was that she didn’t have the morning sickness that she had experienced with Cannon. But her cravings had already set in and nothing salty stood a chance when she was around. Dallas didn’t like it, though. The nurse in her suspected something was wrong, that her craving for salt meant that she needed the mineral. When Lana went in for her next appointment, something that Emmie had set up in a few of the cities we were stopping in for concerts and was necessary as Lana’s pregnancy progressed, she was going to see the doctor as well. Her worry was that she was anemic and she wanted to make sure everything was going as it should.
“Here,” Harper handed over her own bowl of popcorn. “I don’t want it anyway.”
“Thanks, Harp.” Dallas blew her a kiss, then frowned. “Are you feeling okay? You look kind of pale.”
I took a closer look at Harper, noticing not for the first time that the beautiful woman did look a little on the pale side. Her eyes had dark circles under them as well, making them appear almost bruised. The last two weeks hadn’t been the easiest on her, that was for sure. After the refurbished bus had caught up with us, Harper, Shane, Jenna, Ranger and Harper’s two bodyguards moved back onto it. Since then Harper wasn’t allowed to go anywhere unless at least one of the bodyguards was able to go with her. I had little doubt that the two men were standing outside the OtherWorld bus right at that moment. Her privacy was basically obsolete now and would continue to be so until the person who had ransacked their bus was identified and taken care of. Since there were no leads, not even fingerprints, the likelihood
of that happening anytime soon was pretty low.
The press had also caught wind of the incident, along with Ranger’s injuries, and had been running an almost daily story regarding either something stupid from Shane’s past, Harper’s inability to conceive, or out and out lies that suggested that Harper and Shane were having problems and were headed for divorce. I didn’t know how true the stories of Shane’s past were, but I could guess from his constant clenched jaw that the tabloids had gotten at least some of it right. The stories about Harper and Shane having problems? That was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard. Shane was crazy about Harper, and even though I’d seen storm clouds in her uniquely violet eyes, she loved him just as much. Their relationship was strong, and it would take something a lot more damning than a few tell-all stories from women in Shane’s past to destroy what they had.
“I’ll be better when this tour is over and I can sleep in my own bed for a few nights and work in my own office instead of via freaking Skype.” Harper curled her legs up under her and rested her head on Dallas’s shoulder as the opening credits came on. “Don’t worry about me, Dallas. I’m fine.”
“Promise?” Dallas still looked concerned.
Harper sighed. “I promise.”
For the next two and a half hours we watched the movie, having to pause more than a few times so that Lana could go pee. I was sure that anyone outside of the OtherWorld bus was getting a show of their own. We weren’t quiet as we whooped and yelled and encouraged the very sexy men on screen to ‘take it off’. When something happened that one of us didn’t like, we threw popcorn at the screen, booing the character.
It was great fun and I was still laughing so hard that tears leaked from my eyes as we hit rewind and Dallas stood and danced along with Channing after it was all over. She grabbed Harper’s hand, pulling her up with her and Harper joined in. Frankly, I had more fun watching them goofing around than I did watching the movie. The movie was great to watch, but I’d have rather been cuddled up with Wroth in my roost that had somehow become our roost. Wroth had gone out with the rest of his band—minus Liam who never went out anymore—as well as Shane and a few members of both Trance and Alchemy, but he hadn’t looked all that happy about it.