Swallowing around the lump that suddenly filled my throat at the memory of the last time he’d done just that, I found the strength to open my eyes and met his desire-glazed eyes. “I am yours, Wroth. I probably always will be. But are you mine? Were you ever?” He opened his mouth but I didn’t give him the chance to speak before I was pushing at his chest. My body was screaming at me to let him stay, at least until it was satisfied, but I ignored it. “Until I know that you are mine and only mine, I can’t do this with you.”
His eyes darkened with pain, but he left my bed without a fight. When he stood up he bent back down and leaned into my roost to brush a kiss over my forehead. “I’ll prove that I’m yours, sweetheart. That you always have been and always will be. If that’s what you need, then I’ll give it to you, and keep giving it to you for as long as you’ll let me.”
Wroth
When I left the bus it was to more than fifteen thousand screaming fans chanting our name. It was exhilarating but it didn’t hold my attention for longer than half an hour. My mind and body were still on the bus, in Marissa’s bed with her curled around me and my mouth tasting her flesh. I was still hard as a rock, something that hadn’t changed even a little since I’d climbed into her bed while she’d been sleeping.
I’d been unable to resist the sight of her curled up on her side with her hand tucked under her cheek like some fairytale angel. All I’d meant to do was lie down and hold her for a few minutes, but once I’d had her in my arms, and then seen those sleep-filled blue eyes, the temptation to kiss those luscious lips had been too hard to fight and before I knew it things had gotten out of control.
Marissa pushing me away had not been the best feeling in the world, but in a way I was glad she had. Now I knew what was keeping us apart—her fear that I would cheat again. I could have told her then and there that that wasn’t ever going to happen again. I could have explained about the last time it had happened and told her that what she had seen wasn’t really what she thought—at least not as bad as she thought it was. In the end I hadn’t because they were just words and Marissa didn’t need the words. She needed action and proof and I was going to give it to her.
Walking back to the buses after our set, I passed two of Trance’s members and nodded at them in greeting. The band had opened for us, getting the fans going with their kickass performance tonight, and I wondered briefly if they knew their lead singer was gay and sleeping with Liam’s personal trainer. When Linc had confessed that it was him sleeping with Rhett Tomlinson and not Marissa—or even Natalie for that matter—I’d been too relieved finding out that he wasn’t trying to get into my girl’s panties to actually realize what that meant. It didn’t bother me that the dude was gay, not even a little. Seriously, how many gay rockers or rockers that were at least bisexual do you think there have been in the history of rock? I knew plenty and there had been just as many over the decades upon decades of rock-n-roll.
All I wanted to do was get back to the bus and hoped that Marissa would be back. Since most of the Demon’s Wings guys were back at their own buses with their kids, she wouldn’t be needed. I had to pass Shane and Harper’s bus to get to OtherWorld’s and as I passed I heard a snarling like growl from inside the dimly lit bus. I knew that Harper had brought her German Shepard, Ranger, and figured it was just the dog growling at people as they passed the bus. But as I drifted closer to let a few of the roadies pass I heard it let out a whimper so pitiful my stomach turned. Instinct told me the dog was in trouble, and I’d passed both Harper and Shane eating pizza with Shane’s youngest sister, Jenna, along with Harris who was staying on Jesse’s bus, as well as Lucy not five minutes ago.
Without stopping to think about what I might be walking into, I opened the door to Shane’s bus and stepped inside, noting briefly that the door looked like it had been popped open with a crowbar. Like the rest of us, our buses stayed locked up because fans went a little crazy at times and tried to sneak into our beds. In the living area I discovered that the place had been turned upside down. The flat screen was shattered and lying on the floor. The couch looked like someone had taken a large knife to it. The fridge in the small kitchenette was open and all the contents spilled on the floor.
I heard the whimper again and rushed through the bus. The bathroom door was open, showing me that the shower door was shattered. The mirror had something red written on it but I didn’t pause long enough to read it. I hurried toward the whimpering sounds that were getting worse, more pitiful. The sliding door to the bedroom was slightly ajar. I pushed it back and stepped inside to find a scene that turned my stomach even after seeing the terrors of war torn cities and blown up bodies.
The bed was in shambles with the covers spread across the room. Pillows were ripped open, the mattress seemed to have had the same knife the couch had been cut with taken to it. And there, sticking his head out from under the closet was the German Shepard, lying in a pool of blood and cut open by the same knife. A knife that wasn’t even close to a knife but a fucking machete because it was lying on the floor just inches from the dog.
I bent to examine him. He still had a little fight left in him because he growled a little when I touched his snout, but when I put a hand to the slices on his belly he whimpered again. His tongue stuck out of his mouth and he was panting hard. I wasn’t sure how deep Ranger’s wounds were but I knew that if he didn’t get help soon he wasn’t going to make it. I grabbed one of the blankets off the floor and wrapped it around the injured dog, carefully lifted him and ran.
I’d barely taken two steps off the bus when Shane was standing in front of me. “What the fuck..? Ranger!” His eyes darkened. “Wroth, what..?”
“I heard him as I was passing your bus. The place is a mess, man. And your dog is in bad shape. We gotta get him some help,” I told him as I continued to run.
Shane followed. He pulled out his phone as he ran beside me toward the closest exit. “Em? Something’s happened. Ranger…” His voice broke and he started again. “I’m with Wroth. I see one of the EMTs. We’re gonna get him to an emergency vet. Find out what the hell happened on my bus and make sure Harper…” Again his voice broke, worse this time and he cleared his throat before continuing. “Just keep her safe, Em.”
I had seen the EMT just as soon as Shane had and I rushed toward the man sitting on the back bumper of his ambulance. I didn’t know how much help a paramedic could be to a dog, but he could at least push me in the right direction since he was a local. When he saw what I held, his eyes widened but he didn’t hesitate to take the bleeding dog from me and stepped inside the ambulance. I followed him in with Shane pushing me forward until there was no more room so that he could get inside. The EMT unwrapped Ranger and started checking him over, listening to his belly and lungs before yelling at his partner in the front seat to get them to the E-Vet.
The EMT surprised me further when he put an IV into the dog’s leg. Ranger was worse than I had first thought because he didn’t protest when the needle went in. Shane dropped down on his knees beside the stretcher and started petting the dog’s nose, whispering soothingly to the dog almost as if it was more a child than a pet. From the way I’d seen Harper treat the dog, I knew that that was exactly what he was to her and if the dog died then she would be devastated. From the way Shane was acting, he would be too.
It took less than five minutes to reach the E-Vet because as soon as we ran into traffic, the driver hit his siren and the gas. The veterinarian’s clinic was bigger than I had expected, looking more like a small hospital than a vet’s office. The doors to the ambulance opened and a vet in green scrubs and his tech were waiting to take the dog. I’d heard the driver talking earlier and he must have been speaking to the staff. They placed him on a gurney and wheeled him inside. The vet started asking questions about the dog’s history which Shane was able to answer and then the vet asked what happened.
“Someone sliced him up with a machete. They destroyed Shane’s bus and Ranger must have tried to scare the
person off,” I told the vet as we all stepped into what looked like an operating room.
“Okay. I’m going to have to do some x-rays and shave him. I don’t know how much damage has been done, so I’m going to have to open him up to make sure nothing vital was damaged, but he’s lost a lot of blood and losing more by the second.” The vet nodded toward the door. “Wait in the waiting room, guys. I’ll come get you as soon as I know anything.”
I nodded and started to leave but Shane just stood there, his eyes damp with tears as he stared down at his wife’s dog. Grimacing, I slung my arm around my friend’s shoulders and urged him out of the OR and into the waiting room. The room was empty so I pushed Shane into the closest chair and took a seat next to him.
Shane lowered his head and let his tears fall. He had always been the type of man who didn’t care to show his emotions and I respected him for that. I had never been one to openly show my own emotions so I almost envied him. After a few minutes I noticed that his phone was blowing up with texts and incoming calls. Exhaling noisily, I took the thing from his slackened hand and lifted it to my ear. “Yeah?”
“Wroth?” It was Emmie and she didn’t sound happy. “Is Shane okay?”
“The vet doesn’t know if the dog is gonna make it or not, Emmie. Did you find out anything about who trashed their bus?”
“Peterson called in the locals and he is going over the bus with them, but it’s looking like some crazy fan did it. From the message on the mirror in the bathroom—which the crazy bitch wrote in what looks like the dog’s blood—I’m pretty sure that is exactly what it is. Harper was the intended victim.” Emmie’s voice was ice cold and full of venom. Someone had dared to mess with her family. Whoever had done this better hope they never got caught because Emmie Armstrong’s wrath was not something they wanted to ever have to deal with. I almost pitied the poor fucker when they got caught. Almost. “I’m going to add some extra security and find another personal bodyguard for Harper. She might only want Peterson, but she needs at least one extra guard.”
“How is she?”
“Pissed off. I haven’t told her how bad Ranger is yet, though. Just that he was hurt.” She blew out a frustrated breath. “She’s not going to take it well if the dog dies, Wroth.”
“Yeah, I figured that out by now.” I glanced down at Shane who had his hands folded together as if he were praying. I’d never seen Shane Stevenson pray in all the years I’d known him. Poor bastard. “Shane isn’t looking so great, Em. Maybe you should send Nik or one of the other Demons over. Someone. I’m not exactly a comforting kind of man.”
“You’ll do fine, Wroth. Right now I’m glad it’s you. If some lunatic is on the loose, then he isn’t any safer than Harper is. With your training, you’re the best one to be with him right now. Watch his back.” Her voice shook slightly and I realized that she was probably fighting her own tears.
I promised her I would and then ended the call soon afterwards when someone tried to get Emmie’s attention. For the next half hour I sat beside Shane, watching out for him while he just sat there with his head bowed, silently praying for the life of a pet that was like his child.
The entrance door slid open and I raised my head, expecting to see some pet and its owner coming through the door. When I saw Marissa walking in, I nearly stopped breathing. She looked frazzled and worried, but no less beautiful. Her eyes met mine almost immediately and she offered me a small, sad smile as she came to sit beside me without saying a word. I sat back and wrapped my arm around her shoulders, but neither of us spoke as we waited with our friend.
When the door to the OR opened more than an hour later, it was the tech and she had a small smile on her face as she stepped forward. Her green scrub’s top was damp with sweat, her hair in disarray, but the smile gave me hope.
I nudged Shane and his head snapped up. When he stood, I followed with Marissa close behind. “How is he?” Shane demanded, his voice hoarse with tears.
“The doctor is just finishing up his stitches. The blade did go deep, but thankfully nothing vital was hit. He’s going to be a very sore puppy for a while, but he’s going to be fine. Doc will be out in a few minutes to talk to you.” She smiled, reached out and gave Shane’s hand a reassuring squeeze, nodded at me and Marissa and then returned to the room she’d just come out of.
As soon as the door closed behind her, Shane lost it. He started sobbing with relief and I couldn’t not hug the man. His arms wrapped around me in a vise-like hold and I awkwardly patted him on the back for a long, long time before the Demon’s Wings bassist was able to get his emotions together enough to let me go. He finally pulled himself together enough to sit back down and Marissa sat on the other side of him.
“I was scared I was going to have to go back to Harper and tell her that her dog was gone,” he muttered to himself.
“I’m so glad he’s going to be okay,” Marissa told him and his head snapped up again as if he was just then realizing that she was there.
“How is she?” Blue-gray eyes looked wild. “Is she okay?”
Marissa smiled. “Yeah, she’s fine. Angry, but okay. She’s asked me to tell you she loves you and she was glad you were with Ranger since she couldn’t be.”
Shane stood again, patting his jeans for his phone. I pulled it out of my back pocket and handed it to him since I hadn’t given it back after Emmie had called. He took it and walked across the room before putting the phone to his ear. “Beautiful?” His voice cracked, it was so full of emotions that I turned away from the sight of him. It was more than obvious that Shane loved his wife more than anything on the planet. “Are you okay?” There was a pause before he cleared his throat and spoke again. “The vet said that Ranger is going to be okay. He will be out to talk to me in a minute and give me details.”
While Shane talked to his wife, I sat down beside Marissa and wrapped my arm around her once again. She leaned into me, offering me the comfort I hadn’t known I needed until right at that moment. “How are you?” she asked after a moment.
“I’m good. Now.” I brushed a kiss across her forehead. “Thanks for coming over to stay with me.”
“When Emmie said you were over here alone with him, I offered to come help. I figured you would be out of your element, especially with Shane. But you were really good with him just now.” A small smile tilted her lips and she shook her head. “That was the most awkward hug I’ve ever witnessed, but it was also the most endearing.”
I lowered my head and kissed her cheek, needing to feel some kind of connection to her without pushing her. When she shivered, my body hardened instantaneously, but I just pulled her closer and she rested her head on my chest until the vet came out to talk to Shane ten minutes later.
Ranger would have to stay overnight but would be able to travel by the next afternoon. We didn’t have a concert for two days so that wasn’t going to be a problem. But Shane didn’t look like he cared about the next concert and I understood that. Not just because of the poor dog, but because he had so much shit to deal with.
His wife was the target of angry female fans, something she’d been from the day the story about their engagement had hit social media. Shane Stevenson’s days of living it up with any female who looked twice at him were officially over that day. Apparently the two years that he and Harper had lived together hadn’t counted, but as soon as they had announced they were getting hitched things had gone batshit crazy.
Now, it wasn’t just the threat of those crazies doing something to hurt Harper. It was an actuality. Someone had crossed that fine line from theory to action and Harper’s safety was at stake. By the time we got back to the buses, Shane was muttering about quitting Demon’s Wings to protect his girl.
I didn’t comment on it, because if it had been me and Marissa’s safety was the one on the line, I’d be thinking the same things. I’d walk away from OtherWorld without a backwards glance to protect her.
Chapter 10
Marissa
Shane a
nd Harper’s bus needed some repairs as well as having some essentials replaced, so they moved onto Drake and Lana’s bus with a very sore Ranger and Jenna, who was spending the summer with them, the next evening and we headed out for the next city. The driver and two roadies would take care of everything and then meet up with us in the next city since everything would take longer than expected to fix.
Harper had convinced Shane not to quit, because no matter what he did he was always going to be Shane Stevenson. Which meant that women were always going to hate her. She wasn’t going to let him give up something that was such a big part of who he was just because some psycho had tried to scare them.
Things on the OtherWorld bus were less strained the next few days. With Linc outing his relationship with Rhett, the men were all a little nicer around the Trance lead singer. If Linc hadn’t admitted to being with the rocker I never would have said a word. Rhett was my friend, possibly my best friend, and I would never spill his secrets.
To my surprise, Wroth even sat down and had a beer with him one night after a concert. I’d heard them talking and Wroth had actually been laughing as I’d passed the Trance/Alchemy bus. I wasn’t sure how to take that, since only a few days before, Wroth had been threatening to murder the man.
Devlin was particularly more good natured in the days that followed. Natalie was moving forward quickly with our bet, while I was taking my time. I was trying to ease back into the old relationship Wroth and I had had before letting things progress toward the revenge that I was still unsure if I wanted or not.
Wroth wasn’t making my indecision any easier with the way he’d been acting lately. He was more laid back now, less strained. He laughed more than I’d ever heard him laugh before and spoke often, joining in on conversations he wouldn’t have normally participated in. He was sweeter, more affectionate too, finding excuses to touch me in small, intimate ways that made me feel special and desired without feeling like he was trying to push or rush me. Little things like pushing my hair out of my eyes, or simply holding my hand while we all watched something on TV one afternoon.
The Rocker Who Cherishes Me Page 11
