Wild Child (Rock Royalty #6) (3 page)

Face to face with Ashlynn again, he’d be able to convince himself that what had happened between them was nothing more than a casual hook-up between strangers. Nothing more. Nothing serious or important.

As he approached her from behind, her two companions shifted their attention to him, their heads lifting to check him out. He ignored their suspicious glances, but wasn’t surprised when Ashlynn slowly turned to look at him.

His belly clenched. Her face was flushed, her mouth pink, her eyes, surrounded by spiky black lashes and thick liner, only made her irises appear more like clear water.

It hit him again, hard, that she wasn’t of this world.

In his brain, images of that night played like cards slapped against a table. His mouth at her ear. Her lips on his throat. His palm skating down her naked belly.

He clenched his hand instead of reaching for her.

“Ashlynn,” he said. The toes of their shoes were nearly touching.

Her brows rose over her mirror-like eyes. “Do I know you?” she asked.

Chapter 2

Thinking of what her self-possessed sister might do under similar circumstances, Ashlynn Childe worked hard at keeping her expression blank and met the man’s eyes without the slightest flinch. God, she hoped he’d buy the lie that she’d forgotten all about him. Then, insulted, he’d turn and never look her way again.

Men were like that, right? They couldn’t stand the idea of being unmemorable.

He continued to study her with those remarkable, bright-blue eyes, his gaze flicking over her skin like flame.

“Brody,” he said. “We met at the roadhouse.”

Beside her, Sam and Marcus, two of the regulars at Satan’s who’d accompanied her tonight to one of the music clubs on Sunset Boulevard, shuffled their feet, and she could feel them relax. You encountered a lot of people when you ran a bar.

Ashlynn nodded. “Ah. We do get a crowd.” Her voice sounded cool, just as if she was, indeed, channeling the unflappable Brae.

Oh, who was Ash kidding? Her sister wouldn’t bother faking forgetting a man she’d slept with. Instead, her sister would give him a friendly hug and an affectionate kiss on the cheek. If she was interested in a second round, she’d press a wet and wild one to his mouth.

Ashlynn definitely didn’t want a second chance at this tall, rugged man with the movie-star looks and the all-knowing eyes who was right now staring her down.

During their first encounter, he’d slayed her. Broke her. Wrecked her. Ruined her.

It had started off untamed and unrestrained, and she’d heedlessly tipped into the molten darkness of desire, reveling in the intoxicating distraction that offered more pleasure than the vodka she’s been sucking down. But as the night wore on and he stripped off the last of her clothes, her defenses had somehow disappeared, too. Escape became impossible when what began as skin-to-skin instead felt like the man had found her heart and her soul.

And then he’d stroked them, caressed them, touched every bleeding wound on their surfaces.

She’d wept at the painful goodness of it.

And immediately was desperate to become numb again.

“Night off for you?” he asked now.

At his casual tone, she breathed easier, certain it signaled he didn’t detect the way the memories of them together were stumbling around inside her head like drunks in the dark.

“We’re closed on Wednesdays,” she said.

Though maybe she should be reconsidering that. The restaurant/bar that had been in her family for generations had never opened mid-week. But was it a mistake to shut down that income stream? So many decisions had been dumped in her lap. She could hardly deal with one before another reached a crisis point.

A bottle of beer was thrust into her palm, and she half-turned to thank Gus Baker, another member of their group and her right-hand guy at the roadhouse. Without him, she’d be really lost.

Gus was staring at Brody, his ragged mustache nearly twitching.

“I know you,” he said, one of the fingers wrapped around his own beer shooting out to point at the other man. “Velvet Lemons, right? That compound in Laurel Canyon?”

Ashlynn’s eyes rounded.
What the heck? Velvet Lemons?
Her one-time lover was way too young to be part of the infamous band, wasn’t he?

“You’re his son. Mad Dog’s son.”

Well, that was a surprise. Though they’d not shared any family history that night…despite the other intimacies.

“Yeah. Mad Dog’s kid.”

Her one-night stand didn’t seem thrilled to make the admission.

“Brody Maddox,” he said, stretching out his hand to shake.

Gus did so with enthusiasm and shared his own name. “Part of the Rock Royalty, Ash,” he said next, glancing at her. “This here’s one of the kids of the Velvet Lemons—biggest band in the world.”

She might have been the sister raised with a stick up her butt, but she knew of the Velvet Lemons. Even her mom was familiar with their song list…though it was because she constantly played a satellite radio station over her house’s speakers that turned the group’s classic rockers—from screamers to power ballads—into instrumental pablum guaranteed not to offend or excite.

“I used to party over there during high school,” Gus continued, still for her benefit. “Grew up in the next canyon over, and we’d sneak in on the weekends.”

“Fun,” she said, for wont of something better.

“More than fun. Crazy.” Ash’s right-hand guy gave a sentimental shake to his head and shifted his attention to the other man. “I haven’t been to one of those no-holds-barred bashes in over a decade.”

Brody’s mouth twisted into a semblance of a smile. “Me neither.”

“Well it’s great to meetcha. I think I saw you from afar there once or twice, always surrounded by naked, beautiful puss—” He broke off to flick a glance at Ashlynn.

“Pussy,” she finished for him, because that’s what Brae would have done. It was just a word, Brody Maddox was just a man, this was just an awkward moment that would surely pass any second now. If her face was hot, she pretended it wasn’t so.

“That must have been the life,” Gus muttered, his gaze on his beer.

“Oh, yeah. The life.” The wry tone went undisguised. Then Brody glanced over his shoulder. “Looks like Cam’s almost ready to play again. I’ll get back to my table.”

Relief cooled Ash’s burning skin.

His gaze came back to hers. This time, she couldn’t stop her small fidget.

“Goodbye, Ashlynn.”

Goodbye, Ashlynn.
He’d not said that to her following their night together. After her crying jag, after he’d comforted her in his arms, she’d fallen asleep in his embrace. When she’d woken, he’d been gone.

Still mired in the memory, she watched him turn from her, preparing to walk out of her life. Then, her mouth opened.

“We hope to see you at Satan’s again,” she called to his retreating back.

Hell.
What had prompted her to speak again? But she knew exactly why—she’d always been her own worst enemy. It was why she’d spent all those years away from Topanga Canyon, under her mother’s rigid thumb. Though forever she’d longed to be free and honest with her every emotion like Brae, even now Ash reverted to the impeccably polite.

Come to our tea party, our house for drinks, after-theater coffee and dessert. We’d love to have you.

Brody Maddox stilled. Then, he spun around. “I don’t know—”

Gus snapped the fingers of his free hand. “You definitely need to come back, man.”

Both Ash and Brody stared at her right-hand guy.

“What?” her one-night-stand asked.

“He’s a contractor,” Gus said to Ash. “I remember hearing about that now. And you could use someone to make those repairs we need at the roadhouse…and to talk about the renovation of the back room.”

“Gus—”

“You know I’m right, Ashlynn.”

She made a face. See where good manners got her? “I’m sure what we need is nothing like what, um, Brody does.”

She tried saying the name like it was new to her. Like she’d never uttered it, pleaded using it, when his mouth was between her widespread legs, eating her like she was juicy fruit, and she had both sets of fingers clutched in his hair.

Now he looked mildly amused. Was he sensing her sudden panic?

“Actually, renovation is our specialty,” he said.

Toying with her, Ash decided. He realized she’d been bullshitting about not remembering they’d ignited the sheets of her bed in the single-wide behind the roadhouse, and now he was enjoying watching her squirm as she tried keeping up the pretense.

“Renovations, yeah. I heard that, too,” Gus said, with an enthusiastic arm gesture that sent a burp of beer from the long neck of his bottle.

Ash tried to calm herself again. It was ridiculous to feel so anxious about running into this Brody fellow. He was nothing to her.

“I’m sure you’re much too busy to consider our little project,” she said, with all the dignity she could muster. Instead of channeling Brae, she focused on slipping into the icy skin of their mother. “But thank you so much for thinking of us.”

That sounded properly cool and dismissive.

Instead of putting him off, it caused him to grin. The sight of that wide white smile smacked her in the sternum. Her breath caught in her lungs, and she felt sparklers of sensation radiate from her center. Her toes felt tingly. The ends of her fingers. The hair on her head seemed to lift from her scalp.

“We do have a pretty full schedule,” that smiling, conniving Brody Maddox acknowledged. “But we’re doing some work near Malibu on the PCH. If you’d like, I can send out someone from that job to take a look.”

Just tell him no
, she told herself.
That you’re not interested. That you have some other builder in mind.
She hesitated.

“We don’t have a lot of time to dick around, Ash,” Gus said, looking at her like she’d lost her mind. “You should take him up on the offer.”

“Well…”

Her right-hand guy leaned closer. “Think of Conroy,” he murmured for her ears only.

Argh.
Conroy the health inspector. He’d been nosing around, hinting about issues he’d overlooked as a favor to Brae.

But the way he said “favor” implied Brae had been favoring
him
. And it wasn’t out of the bounds of reason to believe she’d been doling out blowjobs to keep the guy off her back. Or maybe she had been
on
her back for Conroy the inspector.

Conroy wasn’t bad-looking as men went—not like the gorgeous Brody, of course—but he had a thick shock of sandy hair and a well-trimmed bronze beard. Her sister might not have minded taking him to bed if it struck her as something fun as well as expedient. She liked sex.

Certainly she had never sobbed after a burning night of it—had she?

Ash tamped out the little spurt of anger at Brae for not being around to ask. Aware that Brody and Gus were looking at her with expectation, she hauled in a breath to say—

Whatever it would have been was halted when a new man appeared at Brody’s elbow. Another tall, broad alpha-type with black hair and unusual green eyes.

“Bro,” he said, with an easy smile, even as his watchful gaze swept their small group as if gauging their potential for trouble. “We thought we’d lost you.”

“I’m coming.”

“Do it now,” the stranger ordered, darting a glance at Ash.

A quick look that made clear he’d noted her short skirt, her low-cut blouse, the heavy application of liner and mascara. The chunky, funky jewelry around her throat and wrists.

Ash bristled.
To hell with him
, she thought, straightening her shoulders.

You didn’t run Satan’s Roadhouse wearing cashmere and pearls. She’d put them away when she’d first returned four months ago.

“We’ve got people lining up for your autograph after your turn singing Vedder,” the man said to Brody.

He winced. “Shit. Cami’s going to pay for that.”

Ash tried to hide her surprise as well as the little shiver that ran down her spine. It was
Brody
who’d been singing “Hard Sun” when they first arrived? He’d been off the stage by the time her group had made it through the bouncer’s ID inspection and handed over their cover charges.

But she’d heard him while standing in line, and he’d sounded good. Sexy. The melting-panties kind of hot.

“And Rachel’s looking for you, too,” the green-eyed man added now.

Rachel?

That name elicited another wince.

“Fuck,” Brody said. “I’m there.”

And then he put two fingers to his forehead and flicked them a brief salute before turning away again.

This time for good.

Weird, how her relief felt oddly so much like…disappointment.

Brody had one proprietary hand on the small of Rachel’s back as he reached to open the car door for her with the other. She glanced over her shoulder at him, a warm smile tilting the corners of her mouth. The dim light of the club’s parking lot gleamed against her dark hair.

“Thanks,” she said, before sliding onto the seat.

He walked around his SUV then climbed behind the wheel. Almost all the other cars were gone. The two of them had stayed to chat with Cami after the show while she wound down with a beer and an ice water chaser. His vehicle’s windshield wipers cleared the residual drops of water from the glass. At the moment, it wasn’t raining—and it was well before eleven p.m.

“I told you I wouldn’t keep you out too late.”

“Tomorrow’s our collaboration day anyway,” she said. “I don’t have to be at school until mid-morning.”

His mind turned over that piece of information. Should he suggest a “nightcap” at his place? While they’d shared some pleasant kisses, he’d yet to take her to bed. A kindergarten teacher would appreciate his restraint, he’d decided. But it had been four weeks and a dozen dates, and if he waited much longer perhaps she’d think he wasn’t interested.

And no matter what his brother said—while he might try to be a gentleman, he certainly was no saint.

Ashlynn would testify he was neither.

Fuck.
He started the car, shoving thoughts of her out of his head. She’d pretended not to know him. The least he could do was pretend seeing her again left no lingering effects.