Who Do You Love (Rock Royalty Book 7)

by Christie Ridgway

  “Hmm.” She turned to face him, her expression speculative. “I’m trying to see it.”

  “What?”

  “I know you have a motorcycle, but I’m trying to picture you in one of those leather vest-thingies with all the patches.”

  “It’s called a cut and those are for members only.” As a young boy, he’d imagined the day when he’d be accepted as part of the brotherhood and able to proudly fly the Unruly Assassins colors.

  “You’re the president’s son—”

  “But I won’t ever be one of them. It’s an old story. Bottom line, Dad promised Mom. So instead of following in his footsteps, I’m an upstanding lawyer turned P.I.”

  “There’s got to be more to it than that.”

  “Not today.” Not when the sun continued to shine and the air smelled so clean and Cami stood close enough that he could pretend there was no chasm between them.

  She studied him a second more.

  “Let’s keep walking then,” she said, and then caught his hand to tug him forward.

  His fingers folded over hers, and she didn’t pull away as they continued north. But he made sure not to hold too tight, keeping the contact friendly and companionable, to assure her that her welfare was his only concern.

  That was all he’d allow himself to desire—her safety.

  “There were parties when I was growing up, too,” Cami said as they dodged a rogue wave. “At the compound. Well, there are still parties at the compound when the Lemons are in town.”

  “Legendary happenings.”

  Wild, according to all reports. Attended by celebrities and fame whores who came for bottles of alcohol and bowls of drugs and who stayed for the scandalous games and naked escapades.

  His chest suddenly tightened. The thought of a young and lovely Cami in those shark-infested waters made him queasy. “You didn’t…”

  She was shaking her head. “The boys all had a taste or two—or more—once they were in their teens. But not me or Cilla.”

  Eamon could breathe again.

  “I wanted to follow the music and laughter and lights, though.” She sighed. “I always felt so lonesome. Stuck alone in my room, hearing the merriment from afar.”

  He squeezed her hand, thinking of how she’d tried to turn the frightening hunting trophies into amiable friends.

  “I imagined you with that tribe you have going now, all of you rambunctious as puppies and tumbling around Laurel Canyon together.”

  “It wasn’t like that. For whatever reason we never mingled much…not until Ren came back from London and let Cilla steal his heart.”

  Slipping out of his hold, Cami turned to face him. The wind swirled in her bright hair, sending some of it over her nose and mouth like a veil. Above it, her green eyes caught the light, looking like the sun illuminating shallow sea water.

  An ocean sprite, he thought now. No fairy, but an ocean sprite. And if he looked away she’d dive into the surf, her legs transforming into a tail as the water closed around them, and in a blink she’d be gone, bound for the Pacific’s depths. He’d lose her.

  But hadn’t he already? For her safety, he reminded himself. He’d given Cami up to keep her safe.

  Her small hands tucked her hair behind her ears.

  “And now the Rock Royalty are all paired up—except me,” she continued. “So you see, I’m like you. I know what it is to be on the outside.”

  He opened his mouth to deny the charge. On the outside? But, hell, he was, when it came to the Unrulies. Though he had Spence, other friends, not to mention his mother who expected a phone call every few days…

  Still, it wasn’t the same.

  The last time he hadn’t been aware of that cold, hollow core of loneliness permanently lodged in his heart was when he’d been with Cami.

  Whether she was singing in the club—and it seemed as if she was singing just to him—or they were in her small house in bed or over breakfast, he’d been warm, at ease, the whole of him filled.

  And he had to wonder now if that was the more honest reason why he’d kept their relationship so secretive. He’d enjoyed the two of them belonging to their own private society, no others invited in.

  It had been a way to keep her for himself.

  Her brows drew together. “Don’t look so sad.”

  Sad?

  Then she launched herself into his arms and clung to him, delivering a hug she probably intended as nothing more than friendly.

  But the press of her small body to his sent it a non-chummy message. Desire began buzzing through his blood as he closed one arm about her waist and used his other hand to tuck her head against his chest.

  She squeezed tighter. “Eamon, don’t be sad.”

  Don’t be sad.

  The sweetness of that shook him up and turned his world upside down. Pal was lover. Resolve was smoke. And safe…

  Well, she might still be that, but with her in his arms, her kind concern ringing in his ears—Eamon, don’t be sad—he was fucked.

  Because he wanted her now more than he had the day he’d told her goodbye.

  Cami paused in the doorway of the master bedroom suite at Eamon’s Malibu house. The room’s dimensions were even more generous than that of her own. At one end, a doorway leading to the bathroom, at the other, a matching desk, shelves, and filing set-up that comprised an efficient and tasteful home office space. Between the two stood a bed.

  Instead of looking at that, she directed her attention to the man, his attention on a laptop computer, his long body stretched out on a modern-styled reclining chair covered in black leather and with stainless steel accents.

  Huh. It was the motorcycle of reclining chairs.

  Brushing the thought aside, she crossed her arms over her chest, in preparation for a fight.

  “This isn’t going to work,” she declared.

  “What?” He didn’t glance up, his gaze still on the laptop resting on his thighs.

  Powerful thighs, dressed in dark slacks. His tie lay discarded across the desk, and he’d rolled up the sleeves of his crisp white shirt. The dress shoes and socks he’d worn earlier were tumbled by the desk.

  Cami’s belly quivered. There was something about a man in business clothes with bare feet and bare forearms…

  Or maybe it was Eamon in business clothes with bare feet and bare forearms. Before, she’d only seen him dressed in casual wear—jeans and rumpled khakis, T-shirts and Henleys with the occasional sweatshirt pulled over. Leather jackets instead of suit jackets, like the one slung on a padded hanger clipped over the closet door.

  It made him seem like a stranger.

  A sexy, dangerous stranger.

  “Did you forget what you wanted to say?”

  She jumped, then glared at him. “It was you who didn’t hear me. So I’ll repeat, this isn’t going to work.”

  “Give me a second to finish this email, okay?”

  Her mouth moved, silently mimicking him. Give me a second to finish this email. Then she huffed out an impatient sigh as the request only served to remind her that he had something to do. Places to go, people to see, a purpose besides sitting around waiting.

  He’d gone out in the morning, intent on some “pressing business,” leaving her in the meaty hands of taciturn Bart, who had sat sprawled in a chair by the front door the entire four hours Eamon had been gone, playing some game on his phone.

  A clipped noise signaled her current irritating bodyguard had shut down the laptop. Eamon set it aside. “You look tired. Do you need a nap?”

  At the question, her gaze jumped—of its own accord—to his bed. The coverlet was a checkerboard pattern of gray and black and lay smoothly over the mattress. Plump pillows sat stacked neatly against the gray leather headboard. If she’d had to guess, she would never suppose him to be a man who made his bed in the morning.

  When they’d shared hers, they’d awoken to a twisted mass of sheets and blankets, haphazardly gathered around their entwined bodies. It had been she w
ho put it to rights while he stumbled to the kitchen to make them both coffee.

  He’d bring back one huge mug that he’d share with her, holding it to her mouth to sip. It was his hands that had fed her, too—grapes and slivers of apple and fingers of cinnamon-and-sugar laden toast. You need the calories. I wore you out last night.

  A shudder worked down her spine, and she yanked her gaze back to him—Business Eamon.

  “I don’t need a nap. I need to get out of here.”

  His brows met over his nose. “You don’t like the house?”

  At that moment, one of the bigger waves rolled in, and she felt the floor vibrate beneath her feet. She glanced over her shoulder and, through another ceiling-height slider, saw the foam of it suck back out to the sea stretching toward the horizon.

  “The house is stupendous,” she said. “You know that. But I’m going stir-crazy.”

  “You need something to do,” he said slowly.

  “I organized the cleaning products in your laundry room. They’re now in alphabetical order.”

  He frowned. “I didn’t bring you here to do shit like that.”

  “Then let me go home.”

  His expression turned stubborn. “Come on, Cami. It’s just until the end of the week.”

  Yes, and she’d agreed to be under house arrest for that long. With a few vague emails she’d managed to cover her shifts at the salvage yard and explain to her brother and boss, Payne, that she was taking a few days off with a friend for R&R. In his pre-Rose life, he might have been suspicious of her sudden absence, but with his fiancée as a high priority he’d let Cami’s uncharacteristic bid for a last-minute vacation slide.

  “But we still can’t be certain I’m in any danger,” she pointed out. “And I’ll tell you what, if I don’t get a break I’m going to do harm to myself or to that ugly, overstuffed couch in your living room.”

  It was actually a handsome piece of furniture, but in her current mood also a target of her ire.

  His lips twitched. “Is that right?”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “You think I’m joking. But besides the organizing I’ve been pacing the floor all day and then I did twenty-five push-ups, just like a convict preparing for a break-out or a prison riot.”

  “A ghrá,” he said, laughter in his voice and eyes. “You amaze me. I’m shuddering in my boots.”

  “You’re not wearing any,” she grumbled and when he laughed out loud, she felt the anger she’d built up against him since he’d left that morning seeping away.

  The damn man was her weakness. He’d dumped her, and her heart still fluttered when he smiled. Yesterday on their beach walk, she’d been desperate to lighten his saddened expression. I know what it is to be on the outside, she’d said, and the way he’d looked in response had stirred her to dole out a spontaneous hug.

  Or maybe she’d been looking for some excuse to touch him. Any excuse.

  Yeah, that was it. He was definitely her weakness, she thought, glum.

  His lips still curved, he swung out of his chair and padded toward her. His big hand cupped her cheek. “Stir-crazy, huh?”

  Or just plain crazy because her mouth had gone dry and her thighs were clenching and she was supremely aware of that big bed just a few feet away. No matter that he’d made her care for him then stomped all over her feelings. No matter that he’d explicitly told her there was no future for them. With his clean scent in her lungs and his body so close…she swayed toward him.

  Then snapped straight.

  You’re supposed to be protecting your heart.

  If he noticed her near-swoon, he didn’t comment upon it. Instead, he brushed his thumb along her cheekbone.

  “Are you up for a drive? Perhaps we could collaborate on a little P.I. work this evening.”

  She stared up at him. “Are you serious?”

  “Halfway up the coast between here and Santa Barbara. This little resort I know. You and me and—” his voice lowered, “—some clandestine surveillance.”

  Her breath hitched and her eyes went wide. “You make that last sound like an indecent sex act.”

  One corner of his mouth curled up. “Yeah? And did I mention we’ll need to stop and shop, unless you packed something fancy to wear.”

  Her whole being brightened. “Did you say shopping? That’s better than any sex act I can think of.”

  Eamon stilled. A raw energy suddenly hummed in the air between them, sending a flush of heat over Cami’s skin. She swallowed, reminded of his intensity in bed. She’d led him there willingly, in her relative naiveté not guessing at what his experience and sexual drive could demand from her. With knowing hands and rough whispers, he’d revealed a dominant side that she’d yielded to without question. His touch had been like a drug, leaving her hung over and in a half-daze after each protracted session of physical passion. The only cure…another night in his arms.

  His hand dropped from her cheek and he stepped back, but the burning look in his eyes didn’t abate.

  “Baby,” he chided. “Really? Have you so soon forgotten everything I taught you? Everything we did together?”

  Her breath vanished from her lungs as a dozen images flashed through her mind. In her memory, two dozen sensations were evoked. Especially the delicious agony of him making her wait to come until she lost all sense of dignity and begged him to release her. She swallowed again, then turned, determined he not notice the fever he’d instigated inside her. There was her pride to consider.

  “Oh, you,” she managed to strangle out, the words sounding lame even to her own ears. “I’d better find my purse so we can leave.”

  Six hours later, her composure remained ragged around the edges as they were shown to an intimate table by a window in the low-lit restaurant. Not long before they’d driven through the gates of the resort, its adobe architecture and tiled rooflines oozing understated California elegance.

  Eamon had reserved a suite—he’d said they’d stay the night and return to Malibu in the morning—and she’d been charmed by its terracotta floor tiles, cream-colored stucco walls, and covered terrace outside the living area’s French doors that revealed the view from a bluff over the ocean. There, a loveseat and chairs sat grouped around a clay chiminea, its bulbous belly already stuffed with firewood waiting for a match.

  “Later,” Eamon had said, catching the direction of her gaze. “We need to buy you something for tonight.”

  The resort’s boutique carried only a short rack of dresses, and Cami had spied the one she wanted immediately. It was basic black with a scalloped eyelet hem and beautiful black embroidery on the skirt and on the vee-neck bodice and narrow shoulder straps. When she’d ducked out of the dressing room, flushed with success, the saleswoman handed over another bag before ringing up the new sale.

  “Shoes and such,” Eamon explained about the first bag, ignoring her efforts to pay herself. “And my idea, so my purchases.”

  Then it had been back to their rooms. She told herself she wasn’t worried about the overnight. He could take the bed behind the double doors and, obviously, the couch in the living area folded out. No problem.

  But he dropped the new things on the middle of the wide mattress. “Go ahead and get ready in here.”

  She’d shrugged. If he insisted on the fold-out later, who was she to protest?

  The toiletries in the walk-in shower were luxurious and the towels fluffy. She’d wrapped herself in the spa robe hanging on the back of the bathroom door and then blow-dried her hair and applied a light amount of makeup. A little smoky eyeshadow, a little blush, a tinted lip moisturizer on her mouth.

  Then she’d gone into the bedroom and shook the things out of the extra bag. Strappy black sandals. A wide, beaded jet-and-silver bracelet, a thousand times more feminine than the tooled leather cuff she so often wore.

  And underthings.

  Cami had stared at them. In truth, she was more a cotton boy shorts kind of gal, but she couldn’t take her gaze off a strapless bra
and panty set of the palest gray, like moonlight, the lace as sheer as spider-webs.

  She’d glanced over her shoulder at the closed doors. Eamon had picked out lingerie for her to wear. Even as pleasure and embarrassment mingled in her belly, she told herself it meant nothing. A courtesy only. They’d run away for a night out, and he’d included some extras in case she needed them. The fancy boutique’s stock would only run to decadent.

  But had he imagined what she’d look like wearing the garments?

  She’d taken a peek in the mirror herself once she’d pulled them on. Barely-there little nothings that made her feel beyond female. Then Eamon had called her name from the other room, hurrying her because of their restaurant reservation. She’d rushed to slip into the dress and shoes.

  His eyes had widened when she’d walked out of the bedroom.

  “Nice,” he’d said, and then his expression had closed down.

  She’d been grateful he’d neutralized the moment because she was feeling a little overwhelmed herself as they left the suite. His tie was knotted once more and his suit jacket and socks and shoes were in place, turning him into a dark stranger again—not her dark stranger, the one who’d appeared at the motorcycle salvage yard—but a new stranger, whose smoldering good looks made her stumble in her new shoes.

  Now sliding into the chair at their table, she found herself supremely aware of the lace panties beneath her dress and resisted the urge to squirm.

  To get her mind off her underwear, she leaned close to him. “When does the P.I.-ing begin?” she whispered.

  His gaze dropped to her cleavage then he lifted it to meet her eyes.

  “Already doing it,” he said. “We have a nice dinner and see if we find any evidence of marital infidelity.”

  “Oh.” She made a face. “We’re trying to catch someone in an affair. Do you do that kind of thing often?”

  “Never.”

  Whatever might have come next was interrupted by the server who took their drink orders. Eamon suggested martinis and then ordered appetizers for them to share. In no time, they both were served stemmed glasses filled with vodka, a splash of vermouth, and a couple of olives. Cocktails suitable, she decided, for the man in the tie across the table, who tapped his glass against hers.