Rock Courtship Rock Courtship (Rock Kiss #1.5) (11 page)

Her cry shattered the night, her kiss shattered him, and then his brain stopped working. There was just Thea, the woman he loved, and the soft cocoon of darkness that was the bedroom, the outside world held at bay.

A
month after New York,
and Thea’s mood sparkled as bright as champagne. David was now officially on tour with Schoolboy Choir and had been for the past three days, and rather than feeling jealous or worried about what he was getting up to with the groupies while she held the fort in Los Angeles, she was stupid with happiness.

He called every single day, frequently more than once—often just to talk about something funny he’d seen or heard that he wanted to share with her. Their conversations weren’t long during the day, and sometimes he’d message her instead, but it made the distance disappear. Each time she saw his name on her phone, she felt a smile crack her face.

At first, Thea had hesitated to contact him in that sweet, wonderful way in return, not wanting to appear needy and vulnerable, but then she’d remembered something her mom had said back when Thea had been a teenager.

A relationship can’t thrive without flowers, Thea.

She hadn’t really understood then, had thought her mother was talking about physical bouquets. Now she knew different. And she knew the flowers had to come from both sides.

So she began to send David pictures of the ridiculous things she often saw around Beverly Hills and Hollywood—like the cat on a leash wearing a cowboy hat and miniature cowboy boots, and the G-string-and-demi-bra-clad protestor holding a placard in front of a lingerie shop. That placard decried the objectification of women. Except the protestor kept happily posing for photos with male tourists whose Hawaiian shirts might as well have been covered in drool.

I say she’s trying out for a reality television show,
was David’s return message.
Bet you five bucks and an hour of naked yoga.

Sucker bet. She already gave me her business card.

A day later, she returned home to find that a chubby-cheeked pink teddy bear had been delivered to her place. According to the handwritten note inside the shipping box, David had won it in one of those claw machines where the player puts in a quarter or two then tries to get the claw to pick up the prizes inside.

I ducked into an arcade instead of a bar during my walk this time,
he’d added.
Winning this for you felt way better than breaking up a bar. No black eyes or bruised ribs, just a gift for my girl.

Heart a pile of goo, she hugged the silly, romantic bear. And if she decided to keep it on her bed while David was away, there was no one around to tell her it was a weird thing for a grown woman to do.

Not that she’d have cared if her friends did tease her. She was too happy.

The following day, she called him from the grocery store. “It’s my turn to make dinner for the book club. Teach me something I can’t mess up.”

He laughed and told her what to buy for a no-fail potato dish. The conversation, the growing connection between them, it was easy, happy, scary.

Her heart ached, being away from him. Until he hit the road, they hadn’t spent a night apart since New York. But the ache was a tender, beautiful one, and it paradoxically brought them closer. Because this was the first time their relationship had been tested—and they were coming through with flying colors.

Even when Abe almost drank himself into a coma six days into the tour and ended up in hospital, their bond didn’t falter. She did her job, managing the media, while David did his, keeping the band together. He was furious, but he refused to allow Schoolboy Choir to splinter… and the scary thing in her heart grew even bigger and more powerful in the face of his unflinching love and loyalty.

“I am so
pissed
off,” he said to her after Abe woke up. “But I will not let this destroy us.”

Having already ascertained that Abe would be fine, though his mood was apparently belligerent and aggressive, Thea focused on David. “I’ve never heard you this angry.”

“It’s like he doesn’t give a shit,” David said. “Everything we’ve been through together and he couldn’t fucking knock on my door and say he was spiraling down?” Raw anger. “Hell, he wouldn’t have even had to speak. He could’ve just turned up and I’d have got it. Instead, he’d rather fuck himself up to the point where he might push us to the breaking point.”

But Schoolboy Choir didn’t break, and Thea knew David had a lot to do with that. Furious or not, he managed to rein in his anger enough to ameliorate the tension. Fox, Noah, and Abe all had red-hot tempers. Left alone, Thea had no idea what the three men would’ve said or done, but she knew it wouldn’t have been good.

When she spoke to Molly a few days later, following Abe’s release from the hospital, her sister told her the atmosphere remained edgy. “They’re continuing to make amazing music together,” Molly said, “but it’s going to take time for things to get back to normal.” A small pause, hope in Molly’s tone as she added, “Angry or not, they’re family to one another, will figure things out.”

“Yes.” Thea tapped a pen on her desk. “At least the media interest has died down.” With the agreement of the band, she’d allowed reporters to assume Abe’s hospitalization had resulted from drugs. His problems with cocaine were well documented and no longer newsworthy past a single cycle.

“How are you handling all this?” she asked Molly, thinking of the way Molly’s parents had died and the ugly events that had preceded their deaths. Her sister was already having a tough time navigating a relationship in the glare of fame—this horrible reminder of a past that continued to cause her deep pain was the last thing she needed.

“Better than I thought I would,” Molly said. “Fox has been flat-out wonderful.” Voice husky, her sister spoke again before Thea could reply. “What about you and David?”

Thea stopped tapping her pen, embers heating in her stomach. “He makes me so happy, Molly.” Blowing out a breath, she admitted the rest. “It’s terrifying.”

“I get that,” Molly said softly, and her words held the perceptiveness of a woman who felt the same fear-entangled happiness. “But he adores you, you know.”

Thea’s voice was a rasp when she replied. “I know.” It made her breathless to think of the emotion in David’s eyes when he looked at her. “And… I’m starting to believe it might last.”

Because her trust in him, it kept intensifying, kept becoming stronger.

Knowing how stressed he’d been with the Abe situation, she arranged for hot room service to be waiting for him after the next concert, the dishes his favorites.

He video-called her the minute after he walked into his hotel suite, an adorably astonished look on his face. “Thea, you did this?”

Sitting in bed with the teddy bear beside her, Thea blew him a kiss. “Eat before it gets cold.”

She kept him company while he did so, their conversation effortless.

Then one day, she called him after a bad day at work. It was instinct to think of talking to him, she was so used to sharing her day with him by that point; it wasn’t until he’d picked up that she realized this wasn’t going to be a happy, easy conversation. But it spilled out anyway, everything she’d been holding inside all day.

David didn’t tell her to stop obsessing over work, didn’t switch off. He listened, agreed with her that the man she’d been dealing with was an asshole—really that’s all she’d needed—and the next day, her drummer sent her flowers. Unique and wild and with thorns. Thea smiled each time she saw those flowers, and in a moment of mischief, had a bouquet of lush, fragrant peonies in baby pink delivered to the next hotel on the tour schedule. They were waiting for him when the band checked in.

“The guys are giving me hell,” he told her on the phone. “I told them they’re just jealous they don’t have a woman who sends them flowers.”

Thea laughed and thought of the flight she was taking tomorrow. “I can’t wait to see you.” It still took her conscious courage to say things like that to him, but his responses always made it worth it.

Like now.

“The others will never let me live it down if this gets out,” he said, “but I’ve been marking off the days on this little pocket calendar I carry around.”

H
e devoured her when she
arrived. She did the same to him. Their physical connection just grew hotter the more they learned about one another’s bodies, but it was the emotional tie that made Thea feel as if she were walking on air. She was beginning to believe they might just make it, even in the hothouse atmosphere of a rock star’s life.

On that thought, she slipped on her heels several hours after she arrived, then walked out of the bedroom to find David finishing off a phone conversation with one of his brothers. Schoolboy Choir had performed in front of a sold-out stadium crowd the previous night and had tonight off. David and Thea had spent most of the previous four hours in bed.

She
loved
sex with him, but what she loved even more was being snuggled up to him while they spoke, their eyes connected and their bodies tangled.

“Jesus,” he said after hanging up, “you’re going to give everyone a heart attack in that dress.”

Thea twirled for him, the sparkling little dress in midnight blue having a deep vee in the back in contrast to the prudishly modest neckline in front. Long-sleeved but ending only a few inches south of her butt, it was sexy and elegant at the same time. She’d paired it with skyscraper heels in black patent leather and left her hair down because she knew how much David loved playing with it.

Her nipples peaked at the thought of his fingers on her scalp, his mouth trailing along her neck. “You’re looking good enough to eat yourself.” She smoothed her hands over the lapels of the black jacket he wore over a black shirt and black pants. “I want to say yum and take a bite out of you.”

Cheeks creasing, he ran his hand down to her ass, fondled lazily as they kissed. She’d deliberately not put on her lipstick, wanting his mouth.

Banging on the door.

“Hurry up, David!” Noah called from the other side. “I don’t want to be late for this.”

David narrowed his eyes. “He did that on purpose.”

Laughing, Thea stole another small kiss before quickly slicking on her lipstick. “They’ve been impossibly well behaved, you know. No one’s hassled either one of us.” In fact, the other members of the band were doing a stellar job of pretending they’d noticed nothing at all—difficult, given that she was sharing a room with David during this visit, but she had to give them credit for trying.

“They know how important this is,” David said, his expression solemn and his heart right there in his eyes for her to see. “How important you are.”

“
David.
” Sinking into his kiss, into him, once more, she whispered, “You wanted to see this performance.” Noah had scored them tickets to an intimate show by another musician the four band members all enjoyed.

“That was before I saw you in this dress.” Hand flat on the bare skin of her back, he let her wipe away the lipstick she’d kissed onto him, then sighed. “All right, let’s go. But I’m keeping you up all night, so don’t complain.”

“Since I plan to ravage you till dawn, that works for me.” She could hardly bear to sleep when they were together, wanting to drink in every instant with him.

“Holy hell, Thea.” Abe whistled when she stepped out.

“Hello, Abe.” Thea knew this was the first time Abe and the other band members were going out together after his binge, and while she sensed a faint hint of residual tension in the air, it appeared things were getting back on an even keel.

“Between you and Molly,” Abe said, “we’ll need to hire an entire security team to beat off the leches.” A slow, provocative smile. “Or you could just hang out with me. I’m bigger and meaner than David.”

“I’d put my money on David,” Thea said with a sideways look at her lover. “He took out an entire bar, remember?”

David’s hand moved on her skin at the arch reminder. “They called me a pussy rock star,” he protested. “I had to defend my honor.”

Molly’s laughter filled the air as she and Fox stepped out of their suite. “You’re still mad about that, aren’t you?”

“Damn straight,” David muttered.

Thea smiled at her sister, a sister she hadn’t known existed until a little over a year and a half earlier. Even though Thea had made her mom tell her the facts of her birth, she’d never felt the urge to track down the man who’d given her half her DNA. Why bother chasing after a bastard like that, she’d thought, when she had an amazing father who loved her? Simply knowing the truth had been enough.

It had been a question on a medical-insurance questionnaire that had sparked her curiosity as an adult. Considering the children she intended to have one day, she’d thought it might be a good idea to investigate the other side of her medical history. As a first step, she’d idly plugged Patrick Buchanan’s name into a search engine.

The hits had been immediate and shocking, Patrick Buchanan at the center of a stomach-churning scandal involving an underage girl before his and his wife’s deaths.

It had been a mess, and caught in that mess had been a fifteen-year-old girl named Molly. Dark eyes in a pale, drawn face, Molly’s picture had been snapped by an unscrupulous tabloid two days after the scandal broke. She’d been dressed in her school uniform, her shoulders hunched in.

Then there were the myriad photos from Patrick’s political campaigns, photos that were posted over and over again as people rubbernecked the breaking news. No one seemed to care about the teenage girl in those photos. It had made Thea angrier and angrier with every report she read.

Of course, Molly was no longer fifteen by the time Thea did the search and tracked her down, but Thea couldn’t stop seeing her that way, the protectiveness she felt toward the other woman as intense as it was for Marjorie and Ella. Especially now, with Molly attempting to navigate an unfamiliar world filled with the same intrusive media attention that had tortured her as a girl.

Thea’s pride in her sister’s courage was absolute.

Falling into step with Molly while the guys walked behind them, she said, “I love the dress.” Molly had the kind of curves for which Thea would kill—dangerous and luscious and perfect for her height. Thea had several inches on her, courtesy of Patrick’s genes. Molly, in contrast, had the rich, curling black hair and flawless cream skin that had made Patrick so photogenic.