Rock Star Romance Ultimate: Volume 1
Page 53
“And you said when a man and woman love each other, then they can have a baby.”
Logan began to inch away.
Toni cringed. “I did say that. But it takes nine months to have a baby.”
Birdie’s eyes bulged. “That’s a long time, Toni!”
“So you’ll have to wait. A long, long time.” Way longer than nine months, but Toni would like to make Birdie an aunt someday. And she was almost giddy thinking about how adorable Logan’s babies would be.
“You can make me a calendar and I can mark the days with an X.”
“If I’m blessed with a baby in the future, I’ll make you a calendar,” Toni said, “but sometimes babies arrive early and sometimes they show up late.”
“That’s weird,” Birdie said.
“Are you actually considering this?” Logan sputtered.
“Not anytime soon.” She closed the distance between them, took his hand, and leaned her head against his shoulder. She gazed up at him adoringly, as if he could make all her dreams come true if he granted her wish for a child of her own. In actuality, she was just fucking with him to see how he’d react. “But I do eventually want children. Don’t you?”
Three additional sets of feminine eyes turned on him, imploring him for an answer. “Maybe,” he said. “I don’t know. I sure wouldn’t make a very good dad.”
Toni squeezed his hand. “I’ve seen how you are with Birdie. You’d be a great father. But don’t worry, I’m not in any hurry, and if you don’t want kids, I can find someone else to have babies with.”
Logan glanced around at Toni’s menagerie of relatives and then took her by the elbow and promptly escorted her out of the room and into the hallway.
“What the hell was that supposed to mean?” he said in an angry whisper. “Are you considering a future that doesn’t include me?”
Toni opened her mouth to tell him she’d been joking, but he didn’t let her get a word in.
“How can you even consider having babies with some other man? Don’t you know that means you’ll have to have sex with someone else?”
Toni chuckled. “Relax, Logan. I don’t want another man’s babies. I don’t want any babies right now. But someday I’d like to have half a dozen curly-haired, blue-eyed baby Logans and Loganettes.” She anticipated him turning away and running for freedom since they hadn’t talked about their distant future. But he didn’t run. He didn’t even take a step back. He cupped her face between shaking hands and held her gaze for an intense moment.
“You want to have my babies?” he croaked.
“Someday,” she said, wrapping her arms around his back and tugging him closer. “But not any time soon. I’ve heard the little buggers really interrupt a couple’s sex life, and I still have a lot to learn.”
He laughed. “Are you sure you don’t want to try out some other guy before you pledge forever to me?”
“Do you want me to try out another guy?”
“Fuck no,” he said. “I’d have to kill him and then where would we be? Occasional conjugal visits while I serve time.”
She grinned and shook her head at him, knowing he was pulling her leg. “I don’t want another guy. I’ve already had the best, why settle for the rest?”
Logan chuckled and squeezed her close. “That rhymes.”
“Maybe I should try getting into the music business,” she said. “I could write lyrics for your new album.”
“Uh, let’s not and say you did.”
She huffed at him. “Are you trying to stifle my creative genius?”
“I’d rather encourage it. You’re coming back on tour with me, right? You have to finish your book. Your mom and grandma will take good care of Birdie. If you need to get home, we’ll get you home. I don’t know why you’re hesitating—don’t you want to stay with me?”
“I do,” she admitted, but there was one more thing holding her back. “But I’m not sure the band wants me there.” There, she’d said it. How could she spend weeks in close quarters with four people who hated her guts?
“I don’t give a fuck what they want. I want you there. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you with me. We belong together. Always.”
She stood on tiptoe and captured his lips for a kiss. “Don’t say it if you don’t mean it.”
“I mean it.”
He deepened their kiss, heightening her arousal, filling her thoughts with nothing but him.
Always.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
* * *
As Toni stepped onto Exodus End’s tour bus, her stomach took residence in her calf-hugging boots. She clutched the strap of her messenger bag and tried to swallow her queasiness. Would these guys ever accept her apology and let her close to them again? Or would she be forced to leave? The wall of muscle and mean that suddenly appeared in her path did nothing to put her at ease.
“No fans on the bus,” Butch said, his mustache twitching with disapproval.
“Then I guess I’d better leave,” she said.
“Is that Toni?” Max said from the back of the bus.
“Logan actually did something right for a change,” Steve said with a laugh.
“Toni’s back!” Reagan cried, nearly knocking Butch on his ass as she shoved him aside to grab Toni in a rib-crushing hug. “I’m so sorry I yelled at you. And that I pushed you. And I thought you were responsible. I should have known you weren’t a backstabbing whorebag. We’re going to get back at those bitches, aren’t we?”
Well, considering one of those bitches was her mother, probably not.
“Welcome home,” Dare said, his green-eyed gaze warm and inviting. Toni knew he reserved that look for people he trusted.
“It’s good to be back,” she said with a happy smile.
“What? No one cares that I’m back too?” Logan said, shifting sideways so Toni wasn’t blocking their view of him.
“Not really,” Reagan teased, but the guys smacked him around a little to let him know he’d been missed.
With the man she loved at her side and a bright future before her, Toni no longer had to reach for her stars. They were right there beside her.
JUNE 2
* * *
Dear Journal,
It’s been a while since I wrote. I’ve been super busy. Today is the last day of Exodus End’s North American tour. We’re heading to the UK in two weeks for the Download Festival. I can’t wait to get that first stamp in my brand new passport. The band has the next two weeks off while their equipment ships overseas. Of course, I had to record footage of them loading the semis on the freighter, so Logan and I are currently down at the docks. Yes, it was cool to see the cranes lifting those big containers, knowing the tour was packed inside. Yes, this is all going into the book. I don’t know if I’ll ever completely finish gathering data for this book. I’ll probably need to break it into two volumes. Or maybe three.
Logan and I plan to spend the next few days in Key West—he insists I’ll love parasailing and sex in the ocean (sharks, anyone?)—before we head to his place in Southern California. Apparently he has a dirt bike track on his property, and he wants to teach me to ride. Not sure how I feel about that one, but he already ordered a bike for me, so I have to at least try it out. We’re going to California because I’m his date for Sed Lionheart’s wedding next weekend. Jessica will be such a beautiful bride—even if she has packed on a few pounds (don’t tell her I noticed)—and I’ll get to see Sinners in tuxedos! It should be a blast. Then Logan and I are heading north to spend the rest of our vacation time with my family.
Birdie can’t wait to show Logan her new horse. Mom is probably rethinking her decision to read her Black Beauty now! She says Birdie has even more energy since her pacemaker was implanted. I can’t imagine how that’s possible. I miss her to pieces, but since we’ve been using Skype to talk almost every night, at least I get to see her smiling face on a regular basis.
Things with Logan are wonderful. He’s shoved me out of my comfort zone so many times, I’m not su
re I even have a comfort zone anymore. I’ll just hang on for the ride and see where he takes me. The rest of the guys in the band are doing well. I’m worried about Reagan, though. She hasn’t been herself since that first tabloid article was published. Reporters hound her and Trey constantly. Trey’s good about brushing them off, but they’re really wearing Reagan down. I wish she’d stop reading those damned articles. Each time a new one comes out, she sinks a little lower. Steve still wants to confront Susan about starting this shitstorm. Unfortunately, the bitch disappeared as soon as Mom announced she was planning to sell the company. I still don’t get why Susan thought she could follow Exodus End on tour to get dirt on them. Did she really think Steve wouldn’t recognize her? She lost a lot of weight since he knew her, but she was his sister-in-law for five years; he’s not that clueless. Hopefully she’ll turn up one day. I’d really like to hear Steve cut her down to size. And if Reagan ever runs into her, I don’t think Susan will survive the confrontation.
I have to go now. Logan is waving me toward the sailboat he just rented. Sex on a boat—just a typical day in the life of Logan Schmidt. But for me, it’s another adventure of a lifetime.
I’m-in-love-with-a-rock-star,
Toni
AUTHOR’S NOTE
* * *
I hope you enjoyed the first book in the Exodus End series. There were many times that I believed I would never finish Insider. About a quarter of the way through the book, I got a horrible case of writers’ block and for months I couldn’t write anything. Being stuck is a horrible feeling, so to get past my block I started working on the Sole Regret series and put Insider on the back burner.
In hindsight, I blame Shade (aka Jacob Silverton) for getting me off track. If he wouldn’t have sent those black roses to Reagan stating he was fed up with his lead guitarist, I never would have started wondering about a vocalist named Shade (of all things), his tragic lead guitarist, and the band that has to put up with both of them. That’s when I became fixated on Sole Regret and took a detour, letting Exodus End’s story churn in my subconscious while I concentrated on writing other books. That worked great. At first. Words were flowing again. All the band members of Sole Regret were being noisy and demanding their stories be told. I was so relieved to be writing. And then one day, I decided I missed the guys of Sinners and wanted to write about their weddings.
I never expected writing Sinners at the Altar would be such an emotional process. When I finish writing a novel, I grieve. It’s like letting go of a pair of close friends. And finishing the Sinners series was like losing a dozen friends all at once. I know that’s why I got stuck on Insider so soon after the final Sinners book was released. I was afraid to get attached to the characters and it was at the quarter mark that I felt myself growing attached to them. I thought writing the Sinners’ wedding stories would remind me that the characters weren’t gone. They were living their happily-ever-afters off-screen. But instead of the pick me up I anticipated, writing their weddings made me grieve them all over again.
Unfortunately, finishing Sinners at the Altar made it hard for me to go back to Sole Regret. Damn it! It wasn’t because I had lost interest in them. I became afraid of how I’d feel after I finished their series, which is a more lengthy series—probably because I dread it ending. After I wrote Tease Me—Sole Regret #7 (a book twice as long as intended)—I finally convinced myself that I couldn’t put off Insider any longer. I had to finish the book even if it killed me. So thinking what I’d written must suck big wind, I went back and read what I’d started two years before and… I loved it! I couldn’t figure out why I’d stopped writing Insider in the first place. So while it took me two years to write the first forty-thousand words of this book, it only took four months to write the additional one-hundred-twenty-thousand. Actually if not for the two year hiatus in the middle, the book took about six months to write—which is about average for me. It’s that damned long hiatus in the middle that needs to never darken my doorstep again.
I’m still writing Sole Regret books. Still writing Sinners shorts. And will continue to write the rest of the Exodus End series. I do hope I never have to contend with that writers’ block bullshit again. I now know what to expect when I finish the Sole Regret series and the Exodus End series—crippling loss as I say goodbye to characters that become more real to me than you can imagine. So maybe I’ll deal with it better next time. Or maybe not. But I know if I don’t let myself get attached to these characters, I can’t expect my readers to care about them. So I’ll suck it up and deal with it! I just wanted to let my readers know why it took so long to write this book.
Before I leave you, I need to thank the people that helped make this stubborn book a reality. Thanks to Beth Hill, editor extraordinaire and the one who usually talks me off the ledge during my monumental meltdowns; Cyndi McGowen, fantastic friend, concert buddy, beta reader, and the best book-signing assistant (aka bitch-Olivia) I could ever ask for; Charity Hendry, who I’m sure can design graphics in her sleep—she designed Exodus End’s logo and the cover for Insider; my mom Paula and aunt Pam, friends by blood, fans by choice, beta readers by demand; the Writing Wombats, kindred souls who gave me the courage to self-publish this series; and most importantly, to all my fans, who remind me why I devote my life to making fictional rock stars come alive. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart!
ALSO AVAILABLE
* * *
You watched them fall in love in DOUBLE TIME…
Reagan Elliot should be living her dream…
She’s touring with Exodus End as their new rhythm guitarist and gaining more notoriety and fame than she ever imagined possible.
She has earned the devoted love of not only one, but two spectacular men. Their committed threesome is stable, loving, deep, and satisfying for all involved.
But sometimes the world sees things differently and is determined to destroy what it doesn’t understand.
Can Reagan’s relationship with Trey and Ethan survive the cruel backlash of the media, her family, and a bigoted public? Or will she lose everything she holds dear?
OUTSIDER
Book 2 of the Exodus End World Tour series!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
* * *
Combining her love for romantic fiction and rock ‘n roll, Olivia Cunning writes erotic romance centered around rock musicians. Raised on hard rock music from the cradle, she attended her first Styx concert at age six and fell instantly in love with live music. She’s been known to travel over a thousand miles just to see a favorite band in concert. As a teen, she discovered her second love, romantic fiction—first, voraciously reading steamy romance novels and then penning her own. Growing up as the daughter of a career soldier, she’s lived all over the United States and overseas. She currently lives in Illinois. To learn more about Olivia and her books, please visit www.oliviacunning.com.
BOOKS BY OLIVIA CUNNING
* * *
World Tour
Insider
Outsider
Staged
on Tour
Backstage Pass
Rock Hard
Hot Ticket
Wicked Beat
Double Time
Sinners at the Altar
Take Me to Paradise
Almost Paradise
Lost in Paradise
One Night with
Try Me
Tempt Me
Take Me
Share Me
Touch Me
Tie Me
Tease Me
Tell Me
Tease Me
Treat Me
Thrill Me
Treasure Me
Trust Me
Love Me
GONE FOR YOU
JAYNE FROST
CHAPTER ONE
* * *
Cameron
My knee bounced up and down as the cab inched along in the heavy afternoon traffic on I-35. Pulling out my cell phone, I hit redial.
“Yeah?” Lo
gan answered, sounding as frazzled as I felt.
“Have you heard anything?” Biting off a piece of my nail, I spit it onto the floorboard.
The cab driver glared at me in the rearview mirror, and I gave him an apologetic smile.
“Not in the last five minutes,” Logan said. “I told you I’d call if I heard anything. Where are you?”
Dragging a hand through my hair, I looked around for anything remotely familiar. But it was no use. I was from Austin, for Christ’s sake. And the only time I ventured the two-hundred miles north to Dallas was for a gig.
“Fuck, dude. I have no clue.”
“Just get here as fast as you can. Christian’s phone is still off.”
Logan’s voice held an edge of fear. The same undercurrent fluttering in my belly.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can. Just call if…”
“Yeah, yeah, I will. Fuck. Lindsey’s here. I gotta go.”
He hung up before I could reply. Normally, I was a buffer between Logan and our half-witted manager, Lindsey. The insensitive bitch could work him up in a hot minute under the best of circumstances. Today? I’d be lucky if he didn’t kill her before I arrived to stop him.
Meeting the driver’s gaze in the rearview mirror, I asked, “Hey, man, how much farther?”
Shrugging, he shifted his focus back to the road. “About twenty minutes in this traffic.”
He turned the music up to avoid further conversation, so I took off my glasses and rubbed my tired eyes. When I got the call that Christian had been in an accident, I jumped in the first cab I could find, not bothering to wait for the car service our record label had on standby. At the moment, I regretted that particular decision. The cab looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in a year, and the driver reeked like he hadn’t bathed in just as long. His funk permeated the entire space.