“Nervous why? My goodness, Adrian, you’re not only gifted, you’re very successful.”
“Answer my questions.”
She sighed. “Because not everyone gets a blue ribbon. You should know that more than most. Yes, I’m good. I’m very talented, as a matter of fact. Of the people playing piano, I’m up there, of course. Just not quite enough. If I’d started earlier or had more lessons. If, if, if. Anyway, I did some studio work for a while in my last years at school. I wanted to be a concert pianist and that just didn’t work out. I’m good. Just not that good. And then Miles came along and what was I to do? I’d been living in a grotty little apartment in Hell’s Kitchen, which is one thing for a young adult, another entirely for a newborn. And how would I pay for rent if I stayed home? How would I take care of a baby if I was at auditions and taking all the extra classes and jobs I could, which were often in the evenings. I made a choice and I’ve never regretted it. I have my music still. In fact, Elise asked if I’d be willing to do Carmina Burana for her school.”
“She did?” Adrian grinned, kissing her knuckles. “Neither of you told me!”
“She only asked me via text earlier today. They’re doing a joint performance with a choral group. There’s a version of it for two pianos instead of a full orchestra. It’s a challenging but really wonderful piece. I told her I would. It’s in March.”
“Congratulations. I can’t wait to hear it. As for the rest, well, you chose Miles. Every time you choose our son.” He kissed her softly. “That makes me love you even more. You gave it up for him.”
“I gave it up because chances were that even though I could have made some money and gotten gigs, it wouldn’t have worked with me as the single mother to a young child. Life is all a benefit/cost analysis, Adrian. You make choices much the same every day. You could be on tour right now making even more money but you chose to take time with your family. And you’re making this choice to try something new because it feeds you artistically. That’s important. Making good choices is important.”
“I want to try something darker and harder. I’ve been writing a lot lately. Since I found out about Miles. I have some songs I think are pretty amazing, Erin agrees. And if Reg agrees to take me on, it could be a big bust or a career change. Either way, I can afford something that doesn’t quite make as much money and I feel like I have this small period of time to take some chances.”
“I’m excited for you. I can’t wait to hear the songs and I have zero doubt you’ll be hugely successful. How can Thorne not like you?”
“He’s mercurial. He only takes projects that appeal to him on a personal level and he only works a few times a year.”
“All right then, how do we make him choose you?”
He laughed. “Ah man, that’s better. You make things better. Thank you. I’m going to play a few songs for him tomorrow. Just me and my guitar, he says. I told Miles he could come watch, but he has to stay in the booth. Do you think he can do it? Would you go with him?”
“Yes, he can handle it and there’s nowhere else I’d rather be than listening to you.”
“It won’t be the whole time. There’s a private, one-on-one meeting first and then if he likes my pitch, he’ll ask to hear the material. Jeremy will come to breakfast tomorrow. He’s on a red-eye tonight from Los Angeles. He’s got a pitch worked up for me. Thank God for him, that’s all I can say. We’ll all go over together.”
He tipped his head back and looked up at the sky. “You know, all I could think of when I was away from you both was how I was looking up at stars you couldn’t see and how much I hated it. I’ve never been much convinced a man could have a good balance between career and personal life, but you and Miles give me hope. I feel like when I talk about music you understand. That he understands too.”
“We both do. I love to hear you talk about music. It’s like you open up a super secret place inside and let me in.”
“You and Miles are there now too. My most special things.”
She blinked away tears. “He told you about that?”
“He did. I like the most special thing idea. I like being able to talk to you and have you know what I mean.”
“Well, I don’t know much about how the music industry works at your level. I just know it’s hard to expose what you bring out from inside to the public. And it’s harder for you than it ever was for me. People fill arenas to see you. That’s some serious exposure there.”
He stood up and pulled her close. There, under the stars, across the country from home, she swayed with him to a song only he knew but she felt like she’d heard before. Wanted to hear it again.
“Adrian! Hey, is that you? Do you want to introduce your lady to the viewers at home?”
That this was bellowed through a bullhorn from a tiny boat some hundred yards away did not mitigate Gillian’s distress. Adrian put her behind him and backed into the house where Gavin was.
“Gavin, we’ve got company. Paps know we’re here.”
“On it. I just checked on Miles, he’s sound asleep, but I’m setting the alarm when I go out. You two stay in here. I’ll handle the authorities.”
Gavin swung his bulk from the seat he’d been occupying. Within hearing, but giving Adrian and Gillian privacy.
“Damn it. I didn’t even get twenty-four hours. One of the neighbors might have tipped them off for a couple of bucks. Or they followed us from the airport earlier. Who knows. We need to move.”
“Neighbors call the media? Really? You think they’d hate having the press here with all the noise and nosiness.”
“People do it all the time. Once it amazed me. Now I suppose I’ve just gotten used to it.”
“That’s ridiculous! Why should you get used to people selling your privacy for money? These people live in huge waterfront mansions. Unless they need to pay for a liver transplant, selling out other humans to the media is unacceptable!”
“God help me, I adore you, English.” He kissed the tip of her nose.
“Do we really need to move? This house seems very self-contained. I’m fine with whatever you decide, but I don’t necessarily think we have to move right away. Will they swarm up onto the lawn?”
“No. That’s private property. They’ll camp on the street out front and then on the canal outside, all waiting with cameras to get a glimpse. I’m not as exciting as some others, or hell, as exciting as Brandon is, so there’ll be five instead of fifteen. But that’s five people with cameras trying to get a picture of my son. I’m not down with that.”
She took his cheeks in her hands and tipped his head so she could reach up to kiss him. “I love when you protect him.”
“Of course I do. He’s my son. You’re my woman. You don’t need to have pictures of every trip to get gas or coffee run on gossip sites. I have to deal with it, but you two don’t. I won’t have it.”
Gavin came in some minutes later. “There’s another who just showed up. Cops arrived, chased them off but they know just how far to stay offshore. Stick to the roof or the indoor pool and you’ll be all right. Cope wants me to ask you about adding another person to security while you’re here, and also if you’d like to move to a place in a high-rise? He’s got several contacts through the record company. Pap-free building, though you’d be losing the pool.” He shrugged.
“What’s your perspective on it?” Adrian asked, patting his pants pocket. Looking for cigarettes he’d ceased smoking some years before, she knew. Old habits die hard, as she knew very well.
“This house has great security. Anyone comes onto the dock and lights and sirens come on. Anyone tries to enter the house and same. I do think two of us running interference would be good, especially as you’ll be heading into town tomorrow and then up to Orlando. If you do the parks, it’ll be nice to have us around just to give you some space in case you’re recognized.”
Which of course he would be.
This made her appreciate Seattle even more. Most of the time he was left alone and she
knew he liked it that way.
“I’ll talk to Cope myself. But let’s get the extra guard here. I want him on Miles and I want someone with weapons knowledge.”
“Weapons knowledge?” she asked weakly.
“I told you it could get hairy out there sometimes. Chances are we won’t need it. But should anyone even try to throw down, you’d be amazed at what a former Navy SEAL or an ex–special forces Marine like Gavin here can do to defuse it.”
“I’m going to go check on Miles.”
She knew he was all right. Knew it in her heart and also trusted Gavin on his word, specifically because Adrian did. But she had to see him herself.
“Go on up, English. I’ve got calls to make. There are movies in our room you might want to check out. Audition is one of them.”
She shivered. “That one is so creepy. I won’t start without you, I promise.”
After standing over Miles where he’d sprawled on the big bed, she also checked the door to the balcony, making sure it was bolted, which it was. She left his door open, knowing she’d feel better if she could hear him if he woke up.
She liked this house. It was palatial, yes, but someone lived here too. It was nicer than a hotel room would be, though she’d go along with whatever Adrian and his team decided.
“Andy, tell me the news,” he said when Cope answered.
“First things first, everyone all right?”
“Yeah. Pap just yelled from his boat asking if I wanted to introduce Gillian to the readers at home. Fuck. Um, no, I don’t! I don’t want my kid in the rags and risk him seeing twenty-five-year-old losers living at home ripping his appearance to shreds. Or saying Gillian isn’t pretty enough or that she should wear makeup to Tart or whatever. I sure as hell don’t like it when they do it to me. I’m not going to tolerate my family being pulled into it.”
“I know, man. I’ve got several alternatives if you’d like to stay elsewhere. A penthouse or two. All with great views. A few more houses. Hotels. What do you want? Merrill is on his way. He was in Maryland so he’s already en route.” Merrill was one of the guards Adrian had used on the last tour.
“Good. She doesn’t want to move unless we have to. Gavin says this place is secure. I don’t want to scare her or Miles.”
“The area you’re in is pretty good. We can have a bodyguard on routine front-gate duty to chase off squatters. Jeremy also told me to tell you the label would send a helicopter tomorrow to get you to Reg’s place. You’re pretty big news, I guess.” Cope’s snort made Adrian laugh and relax a bit. “Gavin says you’ve got a secure situation and plenty of room. Miles is with you, as is Gillian. You can’t just move around like you normally do. Why don’t you give it another day to see? If you wake up to a street full of dipshits with cameras tomorrow, fuck it. Get out and we’ll handle it all. I’ll come out myself, if need be.”
Adrian hung up and spoke with Gavin, who reassured him all was well.
He checked on Miles, noting the door had been left open so clearly Gillian had checked too. He smiled, on his way to her.
When he found her, she was in bed, blankets tucked around her, reading a book on her digital book reader, those sexy glasses perched on the bridge of her nose.
“Everything all right?” she asked when he closed the door behind him.
“For now, yes. We’ll open the door again when we decide to go to sleep. Gavin has moved to the living room at the end of the hall here and there’s another guard coming that I’ve hired before. He’ll be here in several hours.”
She nodded. “All right.” She patted the bed. “Come here. Let me give you a massage. You’re stressed enough as it is. You have a big day tomorrow. Don’t let one idiot with a camera ruin that.”
For a little woman, she had great, powerful hands. Probably the years of piano playing. But she straddled his ass and began to work her fingers and the heels of her hands into the knotted muscles of his back. And he let it all go as she worked through all the stress and bunched-up muscles, leaving him relaxed, warm and mad to have her.
“Do you know what I noticed when I first saw this room?”
“I’m sure there’s something sex related in this story,” she murmured, kissing his shoulder before rolling off and landing next to him on the mattress.
“You know me so well.” Slow but total need coursed through him as he reached out to draw his fingertips down the pale, smooth line of her neck, between her breasts and then down over her belly.
He doubted he’d said anything more true than that in a very long time.
“I need you in me. Lose yourself in my skin. I want your hands, your teeth and lips. Definitely your cock.”
“There you go, English, with your filthy mouth, undoing me.”
“You’re not naked. You still have pants and underpants on. This isn’t a reasonable stance to take.”
She said it prim and proper, and his cock went from seven to twelve on the hardness scale as he managed to get his muscles working enough to get his clothes off.
“Your pupils just got so big. And you bared your teeth at me.” She blew out a breath and then swallowed hard. The breath stuttered from him as he plunged into this moment with her. Let it take over.
And his mouth feasted at her throat as he slowly slid the buttons from their holes, spreading the front of her pajama top open to revel those magnificent tits. Leaning back, he took her in fully as he got to his knees.
She looked up at him through fuck-drunk eyes, her lips parted, tongue darting out.
“I can’t figure out how to look at your face with those lips and big brown eyes and those breasts at the same time.”
The corner of her mouth slid up enough to bring out her dimple and he fell in love with her all over again.
It was good here. This place the two of them had stumbled into, each of them fighting it here and there but always coming back for more until they gave up and let themselves have a relationship.
She was his family. The mother of his son. And it meant so much that he’d have loved her just for that. But there was more because she was his. That’s all he could say to himself that felt most true. He’d looked at her and his entire being had gone taut and he’d thought, Mine.
So she was his mate. Something he’d craved after watching his friends and family find their love and make their own families.
“Out of those pants. I want you on me.”
Her gaze roved over his body, pausing to look at his tattoos, at the piercings and the muscle, the softness of that hair and that gorgeous face of his.
“You are every single filthy bad-boy fantasy rolled up into one, and I’m quite aflutter with it.”
He grinned up at her when she straddled his body.
“I am?”
“Oh yes. You are the motorcycle-riding, tattooed, pierced, bad-boy rock star. You’re as alpha as they come and you manage to do it all smooth-like so half the time I’m so befuddled by how absurdly attractive you are, and your voice does that thing and it makes me wet. Because you are that bad boy but you’re not when it comes to me.”
She kissed him, slow and deep, her hands braced on his shoulders. His hands played over her thighs and back, over her ass and up into her hair.
And then lower, the edge of that scruffy beard when she shifted to the hollow below his ear and then up the row of hoops.
Down his throat and across his chest so she could lick and tug on his nipple with the ring. She breathed him in, tracing the lines of his arms and the point of his elbows as she continued to kiss her way downward, over the lines of the tattoo on his belly. His flat, hard belly.
Positively light-headed, that was what he left her. By the time she slid her tongue across the slit of his cock, there was only the way he made her feel.
She let her hair fall around her face, knowing how much he loved her hair and when he got that partial view of what her mouth was doing on his cock. Swirling licks and sucks, she drew him in deeper and deeper.
She wanted to
bring him pleasure to distract him from his stress. Wanted to minister to him the way he had her so often.
And so she poured everything she felt about him into every touch. Every kiss and lick.
Over and over, she took him as deeply as she could, keeping him wet, massaging a slow, circular slide over his asshole as she continued to suck his cock. Her inner muscles skittered when he groaned.
That need to please was a powerful thing. In those moments with him like this, the dark things they both craved and found in the other, the raw sexuality of their energy—there was no fear or hesitation. She wanted to bring him pleasure. Wanted him to find it in her.
His dominant side rose slowly, building. But he’d already been halfway there, already in protective mode from the incident with the media earlier. He was sure. Aggressive. His fingers in her hair tightened as he guided her the way he wanted.
And she loved it.
He growled and thrust upward when her lubed fingers had found his prostate and began a slow stroke each time she pulled her mouth up.
She lost herself in the scent of him, the feel of his body, the way he tasted, and concentrated on pushing everything but pleasure from his brain.
This had to be the best blow job he’d ever had. And Gillian was a fucking genius with her mouth, so that was a big deal. She had him on the edge of orgasm and he was just about to go over but she felt so good and looked so fucking hot bending over his cock he didn’t want it to end.
And, as he sailed into climax three minutes later, he was pretty sure he might have blacked out, he came so hard.
“When I can move my anything again, I’m all over that pussy. Just sayin’,” he managed to slur.
She laughed and snuggled into his body. “You never told me what it was you saw when you looked into this room.”
“The posts on the bed. I’ll need to use them when we work up to round two.”
17
If he never rode in a helicopter again, he’d have the memory of Miles’s face when they walked from the back of the house to where the ride the label had sent to pick them up waited.