Following Trouble (5 page)

“Yeah, she’s gone all Dickens on me.” He snorted. “I think she’s excited to be cooking instead of just juicing my meals.”

“I like goose. My mom used to make that for Easter when I was a kid.”

“I know, you told me.” He slipped his arms around me, pulling me into his lap.

“You remember everything.”
My arms went around his neck, so comfortable and familiar now. Jesse rolled down the window to punch a code into the keypad at the gate.

“I like memorizing you.”
Rob’s lips moved against mine, making me forget everything but his sweetness. We didn’t part until the car stopped in front of the house.

“We’re home,” I breathed, eyes fluttering open to meet his. My God, that look. I was little Red Riding Hood and he was the big bad wolf. So very hungry.

“Say it again,” he whispered.

“
You’re
my home.”

He captured my mouth again in reward, just briefly, before Jesse was there, opening the door. I stood for
a moment, leaning against the Rolls and looking up at the house. It was more of a fortress, French style, made of dark limestone, each flat-topped section, six in all, larger than two of my own house. The infinity pool flowed all the way around the house—we’d made the swim around several times, chasing each other like dolphins—under the cobblestone bridge that spanned its length to the front door. It had been intimidating and awesome, in the true sense of the word awe, the first time I’d seen it. Now, I saw it as truly magnificent, if incredibly indulgent for one man, living alone.

But he wasn’t living alone, not always.

No, Catherine had lived here with him.

Rob said he had roommates now—Tyler had a room, and a good friend of theirs, Sarah, who I had yet to meet, was going to school at UCLA and staying with them. But Rob had originally bought the house for Catherine.

I didn’t like to think about that. I promised myself, after that first altercation with her, that I would trust Rob. He said he was handling it. It was under control. More importantly, he said he loved me, not her, wanted me, not her. And I was the one whose hand he was holding as we walked over the cobblestone bridge to the front door.

This wasn’t my home, not yet.

But I knew it could be.

Just like his house wasn’t really a house, his bathroom wasn’t really a bathroom—it was a spa. Spacious and open, with a door that opened onto the second story patio, decorated in black and white marble, there were not only a two-person shower but a huge bathtub
and
a Jacuzzi—
two
separate tubs. We’d splashed in the hot tub quite a few times, warming up after a night swim, and had taken one long, luxurious afternoon soak in the tub, both of us fitting easily with room to spare. Kate and Tyler could have joined us, had they been there.

“Shower,” I insisted, smiling as my feet hit the warm tile. There was a heater under the floor. Your feet never got cold. “I have to get this sand off me. It’s in every crevice.”

“Every one?” Rob’s eyes flashed, wolfish. “I think I might need to help you with that.”

“You can do the final inspection.” I turned on the water for both showerheads on opposite sides of the tile. “You coming?”

“Not yet…” He was right behind me, mouth against my ear. “I’m going to make
you
come first.”

We stripped there, leaving our sandy clothes on the floor and kissing our way in, closing the frosted glass door. Steam rose around us as Rob soaped my hair
with shampoo that smelled like jasmine, pulling down the showerhead—it was detachable—to rinse it. I licked rivulets of water from his shoulders and arms as he ran his soapy hands over my body, using the shower’s directed spray to tease the grit out its many hiding spots.

He moaned softly when I slipped a hand down the hard, ridged expanse of his belly to find him, hard for me. He throbbed in my fist as he worked a soapy hand between my thighs. I gasped and parted for him, putting my foot up on the built-in corner bench—there were two, one in each back corner of the shower—to give him better access. The heat of the water was nothing compared to the growing fire between my thighs.

Then Rob used the showerhead to rinse me there, directing the water over my smooth, shaved, swollen labia, using the spray to part my lips. My nipples were so hard they hurt and every time the water passed over my clit, I moaned, feeling his cock jump in my hand. He captured my mouth with his, manipulating the showerhead between my legs, turning the water from a spray to a pulse.

“Oh!” My eyes flew open in surprise as the shower massaged my
sex. Rob’s tongue probed mine, his hips moving slightly, forcing his cock in and out of my closed fist.

“That’s it,” he urged, the pulsing spray directed right over my aching clit. “Come for me, baby. I fucking want it.”

Fuck. I wanted it too.

Then he dropped to his knees in front of me, spreading my lips with his fingers and pointing the water directly on my clit. I cried out, leaning back against the tile for balance. Rob eased me down onto the bench and spread my thighs, feet up so I was completely exposed and open. The water pulsed against my pussy, hot and insistent, while Rob
slipped two fingers inside of me.

“Yes!”
I arched, my sex slick inside, his fingers sliding easily. “Oh God I want you inside me!”

He groaned, taking my words for the invitation they were, kneeling up between my legs and aiming himself. I watched, the water splashing off my wet
mound, splattering all over his belly, as he slowly eased his way in.

“Here.” He handed me the showerhead, still pointed between my legs. “Make yourself come. I’m going to fuck you so hard.”

I moaned as he grabbed my hips in both hands, realizing this bench was the perfect height for this and briefly wondering if that had been planned, but then he was fucking me, just as he’d promised, bottoming out on each thrust to grind deep into me before pulling back again.

“Feel good, baby?” His gaze skipped from mine down between my legs, watching himself disappear into my flesh. “
Ohh you’re so tight. God. I can’t stand it.”

“So good,” I panted in the heat, sucking steam into my lungs, the smell of our sex filling my senses.

I begged him for more, putting my ankles up on his shoulders, rolling my hips as he fucked me. His fingers dug deep into my hips, my ass, my thighs, roaming over me one minute and then pulling me toward him for more leverage. His cock drove into me with a hot, persistent rhythm I knew was going to send me flying.

“
Oh I’m going to come!” I cried out, bucking up, meeting his thrusts and the hot spray of the water, my pussy throbbing with each delicious contraction as I came around the steel heat of his cock. The sensation of the water on my clit quickly became too intense and I re-directed the spray, hearing Rob moan as it hit the base of his cock, spreading down around his balls.

“You like that?” I gave him a slow, mischievous smile, feeling his hands grab my hips in response. “How about that?”

His eyes flew open when I twisted the shower head, pointing the spray toward the ceiling. It sent the water in hot, bursting pulses directly up against his perineum, deep under his balls. Rob gave a low, pained groan, his hips driving into me, shoving me back against the tile with fierce, harsh thrusts.

“Fuuuuuck!” He cried out as I pressed the showerhead up, right against his flesh, feeling the first explosion of his cum, his cock eru
pting like a geyser, flooding me.

“Yes!” I urged, rubbing the shower head right there between his legs, urging all of
that white hot cum out of his scrotum.

He collapsed against me, the heat of the water making me dizzy. The spray from the opposite shower had been against his back the whole time and now, as he leaned forward into me, it cascaded over both of us. The showerhead in my hand pulsed against my belly as we kissed.

“I can’t get enough of you,” he murmured against my mouth, licking water from my lips. “My fucking cock is still hard for you.”

“Mmmm.” I reached down to feel and, sure enough, he was at least three-quarters there. “More?”

“Maybe after dinner.” He chuckled, easing back onto his haunches and looking at me, reclined, half-on, half-off the bench. “But you sure make it tempting.”

He helped me to standing and I clung to him for a moment, dizzy, the blood rushing to my head.

“See?” He kissed the top of my head, steadying me. “You need some food. You’re eating for two now, remember?”

“Between you and Daisy I’m going to be as big as a house.” I snorted. “If I don’t throw it all up.”

I’d had a bout of nausea that morning and Rob had called down for saltines, my go-to solution, which Daisy had delivered, I kid you not, in a neat line on a silver tray. She also brought up some sort of juiced liquid she made me drink that tasted like ginger. It was fabulously good and seemed to work even better than saltines.

“No more throwing up.” He kissed my nose. “We’ll take care of you.”

I smiled, letting him kiss me again. Every time he said something like that, a part of me balked. I’d been raised by parents who were very practical, rational people. They’d instilled in me not just the desire, but the need, to take care of myself.

But
I had to admit, I kind of liked how protective he was, how he just stepped in and took charge. He didn’t do it in a bullying sort of way—I never felt pressured or unheard—but rather he acted like a man who made a lot of confident decisions and was used to doing it, not just for himself, but for other people too.

“I hear a phone.” I cocked my head, frowning. It was definitely a cell phone ring, but I couldn’t tell if it was his or mine.
We’d discovered, with a shared look of disbelief and a mutual grin, that we had set our phones to the exact same ringtone—the chorus to my favorite Trouble song,
Can’t Break a Broken Heart.

“I hope it’s Katie!”
I pushed open the shower door, the ring slightly louder.

“I’m going to finish washing up,” he called as I grabbed a big, fluffy white towel off the bar, wrapping it around me as I hurried toward the bedroom. “Tell her I said hi!”

When I got into the bedroom, the phone stopped ringing. Of course. I picked up my phone but there was nothing on the screen. No calls.

Damnit, Katie, where are you?

I’d left her tons of messages but she hadn’t called me back. I decided to try her again while Rob was in the shower. I really missed her. In spite of the fact that I was currently living in paradise, I missed my little house and my little car and my best friend most of all. We hadn’t even had a chance to catch up. She’d seen Rob far more than I had in the past two months, given that she’d gone on tour with the band. She had kept her promise to keep tabs on him for me and every time we talked, she’d sworn she never saw him with any women.

The phone just rang and rang. It didn’t even go to message, which was strange. I was about to hang up when the ringing stopped.

“Hello?” She croaked, after a good fifteen seconds of silence, sounding very far away.

“Katie!” I exclaimed, my heart soaring. Just hearing her voice made me happy. When she was on tour, we talked at least once a week on the phone. I had been so jealous of her being on tour, being near Rob, although she was
far more interested in Tyler, the sexy, blonde lead guitarist who had asked her to go along on the tour in the first place.

“Bree?” She sounded more awake now. I checked the clock on the night stand, remembering I was on Pacific
Time, three hours behind Detroit, but it was five p.m. here, which meant it was evening back home.

“I’ve been trying you all week.”

“Yeah…”

I sank down onto the bed, still wrapped in a towel,
just knowing something was wrong. I’d been friends with Katie since could remember—and we’d been Trouble fans for years, going to all their concerts together. It had been the central pivot of our friendship at first, which had grown and deepened over the years.

“Is everything okay?” The last time we’d talked, I had told her about the pregnancy. I’d finally broken down. I had to tell someone! She’d been her usual Katie self, if a bit distant. But she’d been that way the entire time she was on tour with the band. I
just chalked it up to the experience. “Are you missing Tyler?”

“Don’t.” Her voice hardened at the mention of his name. “We’re not talking.”

“Oh.” I blinked in surprise. The last I’d heard, the two of them had made a party out of their last tour stop in Tampa. Rob had mentioned they got a little wild.

“Are you with Rob?”
she asked.

“Yeah.” I could hear him
in the shower. He was singing. It made me smile. “What happened? Did you and Tyler get into a fight?”

“You better tell him to get his boy in check before the tour starts up again in Europe.”
She sounded angry, but more than that. Her voice had a hard, sharp edge to it.

“His boy… Tyler?”
The line went quiet and I thought, for a minute, that the signal had dropped. “Katie? Are you there?”

Finally, she answered, that edge gone from her voice. Now she just sounded sad. And scared.
“He’s out of control, Bree.”

“What do you mean?”
My blood turned to ice. Had he hit her? What was going on? There was a commotion in the background, someone talking, a gruff exchange.

“Yeah, all right, all right, I’m going.
” Katie was talking to someone else but then she turned her attention back to me. “Listen, I gotta go. Tell Rob.”

“Where are you?”
Had she spent the night with another guy? My mind raced with the scant bit of information she’d shared, trying to put the puzzle together.

“At… a friend’s.
Have you seen Tyler at all?”

“No.” I flushed, hearing the sound of the shower turning off.
“We’ve been… preoccupied.”

“Right. Well. Like I said, he’s gonna wreck himself if someone doesn’t do something. And I… I can’t…”

That gruff voice was back. This time I heard snatches of phrases.
Lafayette. Curfew. Fucking cops.

“Can’t… what?” I felt panic rising in my throat.
Cops?
What in the hell? “Katie? Talk to me!”

“I gotta go.”
She hung up.

I stared at the phone for a moment, watching it tremble in my hand. Then I
tried calling her back but it went instantly to message. She’d turned it off.

I had to go home. I had to go
now.
Something was wrong. Not just a little, but a lot. This wasn’t just Katie and Tyler having a fight.
He’s gonna wreck himself.
He’s out of control.
What had happened to make her say that?

“
Was it Katie?” Rob came out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his waist.

“Something’s wrong.” My voice trembled almost as much as my hands.

“Is it the baby?” His eyes went wide as he sank beside me onto the bed.

“No, not me.”
I stared at the phone in my hand, willing it to ring
Call me back!
“It’s Katie. And Tyler. Have you talked to him?”

Rob didn’t say anything and I looked over at him, expectant. He dropped his gaze to the rug and shook his head.