Ashes & Embers Series Collection (Books 1 to 4)

by Carian Cole

  An unexpected pang hits me when we finally walk inside. Her apartment is incredibly small. So tiny I feel like I have to go outside just to change my mind. And it's suddenly painfully clear to me—my new wife does not have much of anything. I feel bad now for taking her to my huge condo in a gated community and whining about the clutter in the 2,500 square feet of space Mikah and I share, and mostly wreck. I can't help but wonder if one of the reasons they put us together is because I have money and can get her out of here. And I also wonder if she did this for the money we'll receive and not to find a life partner. She doesn't seem like the using type, but damn, fifty grand has to be tempting for her. If that's true, so would my multimillion-dollar inheritance and my music royalties. Thankfully, we signed a prenup, so my assets are safe if she turns out to be a gold digger. But a part of me was actually hoping this would turn into a real marriage like my parents have. I don't want to be standing here like an asshole in six months, watching her walk away with a fat check and flipping me the bird.

  Fuck it. If it happens, it happens. I'll take my own fifty grand from this and party my ass off with every big-titted blond I can find.

  Somehow she has managed to transform this tiny, run-down space into a cozy little home that screams her. It's colorful. It smells like candy. It's clean and organized. Above all that, it reflects her unique creativity and ability to turn something plain, broken, and old into something pretty cool—giving it new life with her touch. What little furniture she has is hand-painted and distressed to make it appear antique. I don't even have to ask her; I already know she painted it all herself. Instead of typical curtains, gauzy fabric in a rainbow of colors covers the windows, hanging from birch branches. Not metal or plastic rods—white birch branches, and I can picture her walking through the woods looking for the perfect little branch.

  Colored plastic boxes, which must hold the supplies she uses to make the clothes and soaps she mentioned, are stacked in a mock stairway leading to the ceiling.

  As I stare around at all the little details she's added to her apartment, my interest in her kicks up a few notches. She's definitely not lazy or an airhead. She's driven and talented and completely self-supporting.

  "You've made this place pretty cool, Asia," I say, slowly walking around the small space.

  "Thank you… I'm kinda really into crafts."

  "It shows. You've got a gift."

  "I'll be right back." She disappears down a short hallway to what I assume to be her bedroom and comes back a few minutes later holding two things. One is the smallest cat I've ever seen in my life—that's also wearing a little sparkly tiara on its head—and the other is a black scarf with white X's randomly dyed into it.

  "No one said a cat was part of the deal." I'm only partially kidding.

  She holds the tiny silver creature with huge green eyes against her chest. "Well, she is. I've had her for three years. I'm not about to part with her. I love her."

  "Three years? That's an adult cat?" I swear this cat would fit in one of my hands.

  "Yes. She has a form of dwarfism. She hasn't grown since she was eight weeks old."

  "Shit. Why is it wearing a tiara?"

  "Her name is Princess Pixie. I dress her up and post pictures of her on social media sites. She has a huge following, over eighty thousand likers and followers."

  This cat has more fans than my personal fan page. "Are you fucking kidding me?"

  "No. She even has product sponsors. They send me food, outfits, and toys for her, and then we review and post about them."

  Fuck me in the ass. Just when I thought things were looking up, now I have a diva dwarf cat with fans to deal with.

  "Well, she better not blog about my band or be all up in my shit," is all I can mutter as she gently places the miniature cat on the floor.

  "Kat's been taking care of her for the past two days, but if we're moving in together, she's coming."

  "Fine. Just keep her out of my stuff and don't let her claw up the furniture."

  "She has nail guards in five colors. She won't scratch anything." She stands in front of me and hesitantly puts the scarf around my neck, fluffing my hair out over it, then grins up at me in approval. "There."

  "Did you make this?" I ask, touching the thin fabric.

  "Yes. It looks good on you."

  "Everything looks good on me," I tease, getting me yet another eye-roll from her. "I dig this, though. I'm gonna wear it on stage."

  "Oh, cool. That would be awesome."

  I pull the scarf off and quickly throw it over her, capturing her tiny waist with it and pulling her against me, enjoying the startled look on her face. "Or…I can tie you up with it and have my way with you." Her hands instinctively press against my chest, and she gazes up at me from under her dark lashes.

  "You could." She swallows nervously and licks her lips. "But, wouldn't it be more fun if I were a willing participant?"

  "I'd like to find out."

  For a quick moment, her eyes glaze over a little and I think she's going to kiss me, but instead, she pulls the scarf out of my hands and puts it back around my neck with a playful smile.

  "Until then, I like it on you."

  Damn, she's going to be a tough nut to crack. I've never had a chick ignore my flirting before, and it's only making me want to prove to both of us that she does want me. She may not be my type, and I may not be hers, but there's definitely a little spark of chemistry starting to burn between us that I plan to take full advantage of.

  I admire her ass as she bends over to pick up the cat. She doesn't know what she's up against. I will get her to want me. I will make her beg for me.

  Turning quickly, she eyes me with a mischievous glint. "I know what you're thinking, Tarzan. And good luck."

  Game on, jelly bean.

  After walking through the rest of her apartment, I pull out my phone to look up the contact info of a Realtor some of the guys have used. "No way can we live here, Asia. My dick barely fits in this place. I'm finding us a house."

  She shakes her head with a small look of disdain. "You seem to have a fixation on the size of things. Big trucks, big boobs, big dick, big place to live…"

  Hmm. She has a point. "That's a big observation. Plus, I have too much expensive stuff to live in the ghetto."

  "I figured. Thank God everything I own is worthless."

  Sighing, I ignore her sarcastic comment and type out a quick text to Sandra, the Realtor.

  "I just contacted a Realtor I know. I told her we need a fast close. In the meantime, why don't we stay in my grandmother's guesthouse?"

  "Your grandmother has a guesthouse?"

  "Yeah, it's just a little two-bedroom cottage on her property that she has for relatives to stay in when they visit. Last week when I talked to her about all this, she offered it to us until we figured this out."

  She chews her lower lip and looks at me skeptically. "I don't know, Talon. I hate to impose on people I don't even know. I don't want your family to think badly of me, and so far, it seems like they don't have a good opinion of me. First, you called your mom and told her I pretty much suck, then your brother is talking about sticky sheets…"

  "Asia, come on. My mom understands our struggle. She writes fucking romance novels. Actually, I'm pretty sure she helped set us up just so she can get some good material out of us. And my brother is just an insensitive dick. Gram is the sweetest person ever; she wants to help. It makes her feel good. And she'll feed us."

  She smiles and her shoulders relax a little. "All right, that's sweet of her. And Pixie can come?"

  The blogging, fan-mongering, dwarf cat is gonna be trouble, I can feel it. "Yes, but not wearing that thing on its head."

  "Fine."

  "Pack whatever you and the rodent need for a few days, and we'll come back for the rest of your stuff when we find our own place."

  "Okay, I'll just need a few minutes."

  I follow her down the narrow, dim hall to her bedroom. "Will your car be okay he
re for a few days? Or should we bring it to Gram's? You could follow me."

  "Um…I don't have a car," she says from the closet.

  "Oh. Did someone steal it already?" I joke, studying her bed, which is just a mattress on the floor with no box spring and no headboard. She's got a dark purple curtain hanging over the wall it's against like a mock window, which is actually pretty cool. I like how she puts something where there was nothing and creates her own little vision.

  "Very funny." She comes out of the closet with some clothes and puts them into a suitcase. "Maybe I should just stay here and you go to your place until we can move in together? Maybe we need to de-stress a little and let this all sink in."

  I lean against the doorframe and shake my head at her. "Yeah, I'd like to get away from you too, sugar, but we're supposed to stay together. That's the idea."

  Frowning, she goes to a small dresser and pulls out some panties that my eyes zero in on before she quickly shoves them into the suitcase. "This just feels so…"

  "Strange?" I offer.

  "Yes."

  "Fucked up?"

  "Yeah, that too."

  "Awkward?"

  "Yup." She zips up the suitcase.

  "Fake?" I add.

  "Yeah…"

  "Like a dream?"

  She tilts her head and then nods. "Yeah."

  "Well, of course. You're married to a rock star, baby. It's every girl's dream."

  She sighs heavily. "Can you be serious?"

  "I am serious."

  "Okay, it wasn't my dream to be married to a rock star. You're out of my league. I wanted someone normal."

  "That's fuckin' boring." I scoff, taking her suitcase from her. "Think of it as an adventure. That's what I'm doing."

  "It kinda seems like you got the sucky end of the deal," she says, moving toward the door. "There is no adventure in being with me."

  I block her from leaving the room. "I wouldn't mind having the sucky end of the deal at all, baby. In fact, that would totally make up for all the shit the team has messed up. I'd be willing to forget about all the other things I asked for if I could get a blow job every morning and every night. That's an adventure you can give me."

  She punches me in the gut. "You're a pig," she says, pushing past me.

  I clutch my stomach and watch her walk away, grinning to myself.

  I deserved that.

  And I kind of like that she put me in my place.

  My girl's not a wuss. She's a little shy, maybe. A little sheltered. But she's got some bite in her.

  You know what that means?

  We're going to have some fucking awesome fight-sex someday.

  I can't wait.

  I give her a few minutes to calm down and then saunter back into the kitchen where she's now putting tiny cat stuff together into a box.

  "Do you think you can get a house quickly? I thought it took weeks or months?" she asks suddenly.

  "We'll be in our own place in a few days, even if we have to rent it for a few weeks first until we close. Don't worry."

  She blinks at me as she absorbs what I'm saying. "So you're planning on actually buying a house for us to live in?"

  "Yeah. Don't you want our own house?"

  "Of course…but I don't have any money to contribute to a down payment. Or a mortgage, for that matter. I really don't make much with my sales. The clothing and soaps I make aren't in any stores or anything. I make just enough to pay my bills."

  "Don't you have a website? To sell and advertise online?"

  She shakes her head. "No, I can't afford that. I just use social media sites and word of mouth."

  "I'll have our web guy build you a killer site."

  She puts her hands up in front of her like she's stopping traffic. "Whoa. Talon, I can't let you do all this. And am I supposed to leave my apartment permanently? What if things don't work out? I may not be able to find a place I can afford again. I know this place isn't much, but it's all I can afford, and the landlord hasn't raised my rent in over three years."

  A little vein in her temple is throbbing and her eyes are getting even bigger as her stress level ramps up. I really wasn't expecting to be the calm, rational one in this partnership, but it looks like, for the time being, that role is mine, whether I want it or not.

  "Asia, take a deep breath. First, you need a good website if you want to sell your products. The guy who does our band site is great. Second, we can't go into every decision saying, 'What if it doesn't work?' Didn't you listen at all during any of the sessions with Dr. Hollister? We have to treat this like a real marriage."

  "Of course I listened, but—"

  I touch her lips with my finger. "No buts. I'm just as nervous as you are, trust me. I've been wanting to buy a house for a while, so now is the perfect time. I don't expect you to pay for half or any of it."

  She looks up at the ceiling and blinks back what looks like the start of tears. "That's not fair for you. I don't feel good about that at all."

  Crossing my arms and leaning back against her kitchen counter, I nail her down with my eyes. "Look, this isn't up for debate. If we had fallen in love and gotten married in the usual way, I'd be paying for everything. Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I want to take care of my wife and kids. I love that you have your own business, but I do not in any way expect you to fork over a down payment or pay half the mortgage or the bills. That shit is not gonna fly with me."

  "I don't want a free ride. This is why I wanted to be with someone normal and not famous."

  "Why? So you could struggle financially together? That would’ve made you happier?"

  She lets out a strained little laugh. "Yeah, I guess in some ways, it would."

  "Well, instead, you got someone with a shit-ton of money who's willing to give you everything you want as long as you don't fuck me over."

  She shakes her head and looks me right in the eye. "I would never do something like that. I don't use people."

  "Come here."

  "What?" Her bottom lip quivers nervously.

  "Come here. You're too far away."

  She crosses the room tentatively and stops a few inches in front of me. Frowning, I grab her waist and pull her closer so her hips are resting against me.

  "That's better." I capture her gaze with mine and keep my hands on her waist. "I know this money stuff is going to be a hurdle for you, but you gotta let it go. I'm gonna try to trust you here and be honest, okay?" She nods slowly, her hands on my biceps, gently squeezing me. "Obviously, I have money. But it's more than just the band. A few years ago when my grandfather passed away, I inherited five million dollars. I really haven't spent any of it, except for the cars and guitars and stupid stuff. It's all in the bank, some of it invested. We can have a stable future, just like you wanted."

  She sucks in a quick, surprised breath. "That's a lot of zeroes," she whispers in awe.

  "Yeah, it fucking is. I can afford to get us a nice place to live and pay for everything, including a website for you. I have zero issue sharing with you, as long as you're good to me. We'll take things slow and figure the us part out. But I don't want you worrying about trying to find a place to live someday. If things don't work, I'll make sure you have a nice place to live. I will not ever let you live in a place like this again, no matter what. You have my word on that. I just can't deal with this 'what-if' shit every time we make a move. We can't be putting up speed bumps at every turn. That's not my style. If I want to do something, I do it."

  Her fingers dig into my biceps, her arms trembling. "I don't know what to say." Her voice shakes with emotion, and I don't like how hearing it makes my stomach feel funny. "Thank you doesn't seem like enough."

  "Well…I'm still open to sexual payments." I squeeze her waist tighter.

  Grinning, she leans back a little to look up into my face. "Are you always going to ruin every decent move you make with a sarcastic one?"

  "Probably."

  Her laughter fills the room. "The backwardness of this e
ntire situation is going to take getting used to," she says. "This whole cart before the horse idea is much harder than I thought it would be."

  "Hopefully things will get easier when we get more comfortable around each other."

  "I hope so."

  Me too.

  12

  ASIA

  MY BRAIN IS SPINNING as I sit quietly in the passenger seat of the bouncy monster truck with Pixie's little carrier on my lap. Talon's been listening to music as he drives and seems lost in his own thoughts, as he's being unusually quiet.

  So much is happening in such a short amount of time. Leaving my apartment to go stay in his family guesthouse, going house shopping in the near future, and the fact that I just unknowingly married a millionaire rock star is all leaving me a little shocked and shaken.

  Talon's got me in a twist too. He's all over the place with the way he acts toward me. One minute he's acting like he doesn't like me, then the next he's coming on to me. And then telling me he's going to make sure I never live in a ghetto again, which is the sweetest, most generous thing anyone has ever said to me in my entire life.

  "We're almost there," he says, breaking the silence.

  We've driven way up to the White Mountains of New Hampshire, which is a gorgeous area I've only been to a few times even though I've lived in New Hampshire since I was born.

  "Are we near the waterfalls?" I ask, having never been, but I've always wanted to go.

  "Yeah, that's not too far from here," he says, turning the truck down a wooded street. "You like the falls?"

  "I've always wanted to go but never had the chance." Kind of hard to go anywhere without a car.

  "Then we'll go sometime. In the fall would be best, when the leaves turn."

  "I would love that. I can never get enough of the color of the leaves."

  "We'll take my camera and get some good pictures to frame and hang in the house."

  I smile at him, loving that idea. "Oh, that would be cool."

  "I thought so, given your decorating skills, which are much better than mine. I think I'll leave the decorating up to you."