Rock Reckoning: A Rockstar Suspense Romance Collection

by Cari Quinn

So, I took the commission works I could find. I painted signs for businesses. I even repurposed some flea market finds and sold them on the J Town Etsy store. Bent liked to find me ugly dressers to revitalize. But I didn’t take on more jobs than I needed. Part of me wanted to hide in the easy work. Because the hard stuff—the paintings that dragged me under like a stormy tide full of seaweed—was what I was meant to do.

  Even if they didn’t make sense to me, or they didn’t work for a collection. I still couldn’t stop doing them.

  As six months creeped toward seven, I had a stack of stretched canvases multiplying against the walls. The corner of my studio got more crowded as I tried to hide my fascination with a man I had no business chasing.

  Even if it was only in a dream or splatter of paint.

  My stomach twisted, reminding me that food had surpassed need and grown into necessity. I padded into my kitchen and dug through the cupboards. Stale saltines and an expired jar of salsa was not promising.

  I stood on my tiptoes and checked my candy stash.

  Also empty.

  And good grief, I needed a shower.

  I found a sleeve of chocolate chip cookies and ate a quarter of it before I hit the bathroom. I stripped off my painting shirt—an oversized T-shirt nearly threadbare from washes—and kicked off the boxers I painted in.

  I didn’t like restrictions when I was climbing the ladder to get to every last corner of an eight-foot board.

  Unwilling to deal with my hair, I pinned it up under one of my shower caps. The curse of thick, coarse hair meant that washing it all the time created a Brillo pad status. It didn’t help that my friend Heidi was forever chasing me down to add one of her new color mixtures to my near-white blond hair.

  I was her idea of a blank canvas.

  I loved color, so I was usually more than willing to be her guinea pig. Thankfully, she was past her mermaid hair fascination. Hurricane purple was her latest creation, and I was certainly here for it.

  A mixture of gray and purple ombre crawled up the ends of my hair, making me look like California Punk Barbie.

  Right now, a nice long, hot shower was way more important than dealing with my hair. I even shaved all the things. It was a goddamn banner day.

  I finished my cookies and swapped one of the cushy sage-colored towels my cousin had gifted me for a pair of jeans, a cami, and a zipper hoodie. The nice thing about Venice was the boardwalk always seemed to have something open. I needed to eat before my second wind died. Then I could drop for a dozen hours. Once I had some sleep under my belt, I could work on my collection again.

  My phone buzzed, reminding me to take it off the charger before I left. After the incident at the skate park, I was more careful about keeping it with me.

  “Ten o’clock. Not so bad this time, Zoe.” I might even be able to find someone to hit the boardwalk with me. I flicked through a few notifications on my emails and did a mental tag for two jobs at the end of the week. I locked my studio behind me and wandered down the hall to the common area. A commercial for the next superhero movie was on the TV.

  A few of the girls I knew well enough to say hi to in the hall were sprawled out on the beanbag chairs that littered the huge room. I wandered out to the back patio and found Bent lazily rocking in his massive swing. He’d challenged two of our woodworking artists to make a “man-sized” swing. Considering Bent was approximately the size of a redwood, it took some doing.

  He didn’t even bother looking up from his book, just held up his finger and pointed over his shoulder. “Eat something, baby girl.”

  I rolled my eyes, but the scent of Bent’s famous jambalaya put the kibosh on a trip to the boardwalk. I’d rather sit out here anyway. I filled one of the large bowls stacked next to the Crock-Pot. No InstaPot for Bent. His food was made on a low simmer in his mama’s ancient setup. I knew that because he’d told me a million times how much better a seasoned slow cooker was. I dug around a bit and found some fresh brown bread. Bent was technically our property manager, but it was pretty much code for den mother. He cooked for us a few times a week and gave us life lessons whether or not we wanted them.

  I knew not to interrupt him. Bent was serious about his books. You only interrupted him when there was blood or fire involved. Since I had neither going on, I just settled in one of the large rattan chairs at the edge of the fire pit and dug into my food. Since I was pretty sure I hadn’t spoken to another human in four days-ish, I was content to wait a little longer.

  Facebook held little appeal, but it was the only way to keep up with my family. I rejected approximately fourteen friend requests from creepy guys and another fifty from women I’d never met or heard of. Between the news articles after my attack, and Ian’s unrelenting posts on Instagram, my name got around a lot more than I’d like. His fans were—well, incredible was one word for them.

  Insane, obsessive, and scary were a few more.

  It didn’t even matter that I didn’t reply to his posts, they had it in their heads that we were more than acquaintances.

  Yeah, that was what it was.

  I was too exhausted to lie to myself.

  The spicy rice and pork filled me up and made me sleepy. Scrolling through Instagram showed me all the ridiculous ways that Ian used Matilda, my Polaroid camera, in pictures. They were getting more and more outlandish.

  The latest post included my camera and my sunglasses on a scarred pub table with a flight of frothy beers. Evidently, Ian was getting into the microbreweries that were popping up everywhere. This one was in northern California, a few miles from Oregon.

  I swiped through a series of photos on that post. Even fans wanted to pose with Matilda now.

  I’d need to bleach the hell out of her before I used her again. If I ever got to use her again.

  I fell asleep with my fingers clutched around my phone and Ian’s laugh echoing in my brain. He followed me into dreams again.

  I couldn’t escape him. Or was it that I didn’t want to?

  Eleven

  Margo Kagan bit into an apple, What To Expect When You’re Expecting in hand, as she made her way through their spacious living room. The apple thing was supposed to give her energy since caffeine was now on her list of no-nos. How was she supposed to stay upright?

  An eight-ounce coffee was safe.

  That was a thimbleful in her world.

  She’d need to eat a bag of apples a day to get through this pregnancy. At least if her energy level of the last few weeks was any indication. The baby book said her second trimester would be much better. She was doubtful. Those baby books hadn’t been written with a touring rock band in mind.

  Hmm. Maybe she should get one of the girls on that. There was enough babymaking going on.

  Then again, she hadn’t been able to tell anyone. Even Lila, her best friend. Which was fucking killing her. Just because her head was going to rotate didn’t mean they had to keep it a secret. And okay, so they’d had a band meeting about holding off on babies so they could tour. Shit happened, right?

  And soon it wouldn’t be able to be hidden, either. Those involved with Oblivion men—and Oblivion women—had too much baby knowledge for her to hide it much longer.

  Being neurotic on her own sucked. Evidently, her poker face was far better than she ever thought it was, because no one seemed to be the least bit suspicious. She wasn’t sure if she was offended or hurt that there was nothing different about her. Maybe their visit to the doctor’s today would help.

  However, her husband was taking everything to heart when it came to the very dogeared copy of the famous baby book he’d stolen from Nick’s house.

  He’d scribbled in a notebook and tagged so many pages in Nick and Lila’s copy that Simon had actually gone to a bookstore and bought his own. She was pretty sure he was going to give her a dissertation next. Then again, the bookstore had been a rabbit hole of epic proportions. He’d come out with two shopping bags filled to the brim with books and magazines.

  Keeping a lid o
n this pregnancy was getting more and more difficult. There were so many babies being born between Oblivion and Warning Sign that buying a baby book was barely cause for a rumor in the paparazzi market. Thirty of them was a little more precarious.

  Leave it to Simon and his charm to spin a tale about scaring the crap out of his best friend by planting the books all over Nick’s house. Since it definitely sounded like one of Simon’s pranks, the woman at the checkout counter didn’t bat an eye. Oh, and she got a signed copy of the latest Rolling Stone that happened to have her husband’s cheeky mug on the cover.

  Speaking of, where the hell was her husband? They had to leave soon.

  “Simon?” She took another bite of her apple and set her book down on the end table of her practice nook.

  “In here.”

  She followed his voice down the hall to find him on the floor of their guest bedroom with a pile of white boards spread around him. She pressed her lips together against a laugh. “Oh, Simon.”

  He looked up, his eyebrows furrowed. “These instructions suck.”

  “Have you ever used a drill in your life?”

  “No.” He picked up the bright yellow drill. “It only took me three tries to figure out this caster thing versus a regular screw. Why you need both, I have no clue.”

  “Think it has something to do with stability.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s stupid.”

  She took another bite. “What’s it supposed to be?”

  “Very funny.”

  “No, seriously?”

  He reached for the box and waved it at her. “It’s just a bookcase, but the directions seem like they come from NASA.”

  She dropped down next to him. “When did you buy all this?” There were two more boxes against the wall.

  “Was just delivered.”

  “Did you forget something?”

  He frowned. “No. I don’t think so. Two bookcases and a little end table thing.” He leaned forward and stole a bite of her apple. “How many of these have you eaten?”

  She yanked it out of his reach. “Don’t mess with my coffee.”

  He rolled her onto her back. “Coffee?”

  “Hey!” She held her arm up off the carpet. “Are you looking to lose a limb?”

  He reached up and took the apple out of her hand, setting it on the slightly warped version of a bookcase. “You can’t binge on apples. That’s far too much fiber.”

  “What, now I can’t have fiber, either?”

  “No, just don’t want you farting all night.”

  “Simon!”

  He laughed down at her, caging her in with a hand along each side of her head. “What? Not that I don’t love all of you and your cute little toots.”

  “I hate you so much.”

  He leaned down to her, coasting his lips over her cheek and down her jawline. “Nah. You love me. I’m your favorite babymaker.”

  “Better be the only one.”

  “Last of the bunch, actually. At least in our little group.”

  His phone buzzed along her belly. She lifted an eyebrow. “Extra drill in your pocket?”

  He waggled his eyebrows. “It does curve to the left a bit, but not that much.” He smoothed his hand down her side to her hip and drew her leg up and around his waist.

  When it buzzed again, she laughed. “Do you need to get that?”

  “What? No. Ignore it.” He lowered his mouth to hers.

  “We have to leave soon.”

  “We’ve got time,” he murmured against her lips.

  “But there’s paperwork. It’s our first…”

  God, why was he so good at that?

  She fell into the kiss. There was a reason she’d gotten knocked up. Her husband was very good at the whole distraction and seduction thing. Enough that his little soldiers had somehow bypassed her birth control that had worked for years before him.

  She sank her fingers into his hair. It was getting super long again.

  It was wrong how much she enjoyed his long hair. She understood he was getting older and liked the whole fashionista side he’d cultivated over the last few years, but she had to admit, she’d missed all that inky hair. Getting him a little rumpled was her favorite thing these days.

  Mostly because she felt nothing but rumpled. Having a husband who was so damn perfect was hard to deal with. Especially when she’d officially had to stow her corset away on the last night of their European tour.

  Between her out-of-control boobs and losing her one amazing asset—her narrow waist to combat her curvy hips—she wasn’t going to be able to hide the pregnancy much longer. Luckily, she wore layers most of the time and could still get away with a bit of creative camouflage.

  At least her mother’s endless lessons on ways to appear slimmer were good for something.

  He dragged his lips over her neck. “Violin Girl?”

  “Hmm.”

  “Whatcha thinking about?”

  “Huh?”

  “I lost you.” He dragged his mouth over the mound of her breasts that couldn’t be contained by the scooped neck of her top. He gently cradled his cock between her legs and widened her knees so he could prop himself up enough to be able to use his hands to cup her breasts. “God, these are glorious.”

  She rolled her eyes. “They’re getting huge.”

  He dragged down the scoop of her shirt and groaned. “You’re going to need new bras soon.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “Not an insult, babe.” He flipped the cup down to get to her nipple and sucked on it hard.

  She arched off the floor. “Christ!”

  “And so damn sensitive. I bet I could make you come just from sucking on these.” He grinned up at her as he took one nipple then moved to free the other. “Besides, I like when your attention is on me.”

  “Isn’t it always?”

  “You were drifting.” He dragged the side of his thumb across the tight tip.

  She hissed out a breath and rolled her hips to get a little more friction. It honestly didn’t take much these days. She was almost always ready to either nap or fuck his brains out. There wasn’t much in between. “When have you known me not to be too much in my head?”

  He ground his shaft along her cleft. She was only wearing a pair of yoga pants, so there was essentially tissue paper between them. “Well, you were the one who came in and started harassing me.”

  “Oh, is that what I was doing?”

  “As you can see, I’m quite adept at power tools.”

  She laughed and hooked her legs around his hips.

  When his pocket buzzed again, she frowned. “Okay, seriously? Are you getting a phone call or something?”

  “Ignore it.” He went back to defrocking her boobs.

  “Simon.”

  “What? I’m busy.”

  “No, you’re distracting me. There’s a difference.”

  “Is it working?”

  He did that thing with his tongue and she almost let it go. Seriously, the tongue thing was magic. But he’d been too preoccupied since they’d gotten back from Europe. The whole time they were there, to be honest—good God. “Jesus.”

  “I know what you need.” His voice was sandpaper over velvet, and he knew it was her kryptonite.

  He reached around and peeled down her yoga pants. His zipper and belt buckle were fumbled open between them—until his phone went off one more time. She punched him in the shoulder. “What the hell?”

  He flopped onto his back and dug out his phone, then turned it off.

  She rolled onto her side. “Turning it off will not stop this conversation.”

  He clenched the phone, tapping it against his forehead. “Can we not?”

  She sat up. “No. Now we have to.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  She folded her arms. “We don’t do secrets, Simon.”

  “It’s not a secret—I just don’t want to talk about it.”

  She wasn’t the wife who dug into every last corne
r of his life. They got on so well because they respected each other’s privacy in certain areas. She didn’t tell him which modeling jobs to take or not to take. She certainly didn’t demand anything of him beyond being present in her life. Between the band and their marriage, they’d been doing just fine. Sure, the baby thing was throwing them both for a loop…but there was one other thing that was like a forty-foot oak in the middle of their lives.

  And it wasn’t the baby, but it damn well was familial.

  He sighed and turned on his phone then handed it to her.

  “I don’t need to look at your phone.”

  “Yeah, you do. Just…take it. You won’t be able to miss it.”

  She curled her knees under her and flicked through his notifications. Well, that would be what was buzzing against her. “You have a Google alert on your brother?”

  “Don’t call him that.”

  She gave him a baleful stare. “Really?”

  He rolled onto his side and propped his head up with his hand. “I’m just trying to figure out what his angle is.”

  She flicked through the Instagram notifications, the news articles, and email notifications. “No, this is obsessive. Is this what you’re always doing on your phone? Checking these links?” And from the color of the links, he’d already read up on Ian’s new modeling gig. “So, I guess you know about him working with Roman?”

  “Yeah, rat prick.”

  “Well, you have been backing off the modeling lately.”

  He sat up and raked his hands through his hair. “The band is more important.”

  “Don’t get all defensive about it. I agree.”

  “I get it. It’s a business and Roman needs to get his collection out. He’s not just using Ian. He’s also got James and Lindsey in the rotation, like always. Even started using their bassist from Brooklyn Dawn. Big fucker named Oz? He looks like he’s made for leather. And possibly might use it for more than his pants and vests.”

  “Too much info.”

  He shrugged, then plucked the phone out of her hand and tossed it on the carpet. “Can we go back to the sex part now?”

  “I would love to.”

  He curled his arms around her waist and rolled her back onto the carpet. “Where were we?”