Rockstar Daddy (Wilder Rock #1)

by Taryn Quinn

  Worry I’d caused. Selfishly.

  “Good?” I asked after she took the first bite of her sandwich. “A little crispy,” I acknowledged, grating off the burnt parts with my crappy plastic fork.

  “Adds flavor.”

  “Smart ass.” Once I was done with my sandwich, I grabbed her plate and shaved off the darkened parts on her bread as well. I knew she was watching me, but I didn’t glance up from my task.

  Turned out I liked the heavy warmth of her stare on my skin. Liked way too much about her.

  “Better?” I asked once she’d sampled the sandwich I’d returned to her.

  She nodded. “Almost perfect.” Licking cheese off her fingers, she rose and went to my fridge, yanking open the door and bending over to peer inside.

  I nearly choked on the hunk of bread and cheese I’d just popped in my mouth.

  Damn. That ass.

  She rooted around for a second, then came back out with a jar of pickles. I held out my hand so I could open it for her as requested by every woman I knew, save my little sister. Maggie didn’t even look up, dispatching the lid with an efficiency that made me shift on my chair.

  Damn, she was hot.

  She sat back down and pried apart her sandwich. Neatly, she placed five pickles on each side of the torn bread. Then she smashed both halves back together and took a big bite, her eyes practically rolling back in her head. “Oh yes. Yes.”

  I cocked a brow. “Need a moment alone?”

  “Try it.” She pushed the jar at me, waiting until I’d fixed my sandwich the same way.

  I took a bite and nodded. Not half bad.

  We talked about everything and nothing while we polished off the rest of our meal. Her flight, her work, her classes starting on Monday. She didn’t ask me about myself anymore, and I found myself missing her sneaky little questions that weren’t so sneaky at all.

  Your choice, remember? You wanted to keep your distance.

  Yeah, too bad I hadn’t been able to do that with her since the first time I’d seen her hanging out of her car window.

  “Don’t like the soup?” I asked after she took a couple of mouthfuls, her forehead wrinkling every time. She was too polite to say it wasn’t good, but if she wasn’t a fan, I wouldn’t make it next time.

  Right. The next time that wasn’t going to happen. I’d just remember that.

  “Normally I do. It’s just the smell.” She pushed the bowl away. “Sorry.”

  “It wasn’t expired. I don’t think.” I hadn’t exactly checked.

  She grinned. “Such confidence in your cooking.”

  “Well, not my best skill.”

  “No?” She braced her chin on her hand. “What is your best skill?”

  “Probably playing guitar.”

  She blinked and I realized she’d been playing around. Great. I should’ve said eating pussy or fucking. Those were the kinds of answers that fit the level of intimacy I wanted to exist between us outside of bed.

  Leave it to me to mess up my own rules.

  “Guitar? Really?” The interest in her expression made me grip the edge of my plate until it crumpled. She glanced at my hand then back at my face before she averted her focus to anywhere but me. “Is that a deck out there?” she asked, gesturing toward the French doors. A couple of floodlights illuminated the wide, iron-railing flanked space.

  I nodded, the tension in my shoulders easing. It wasn’t as if I could tell her about my music without mentioning the rest. I’d lied and lies were forever. I couldn’t just magically take them back.

  No matter how much I wished I could.

  “Overlooks the pool,” I said tightly.

  She hopped to her feet and moved to the glass doors, then stepped out into the night. It wasn’t quite morning yet, but the sky was already beginning to lighten. Her hair blew behind her in the wind as she leaned over the railing to check out the pool. As she climbed up on the bottom rung, my gut lurched.

  I was striding toward the doors and out to her before sanity descended. Just like I gripped her hips and pressed my mouth to the top of her head before I was even aware of doing it.

  Somewhere along the way, my instincts had gotten all wrapped up in her. The instinct to keep her close, to try to make her happy, to protect her from any threat—including me.

  Especially me.

  “Kellan, it’s beautiful.”

  I nodded against her hair, saying nothing.

  “I bet you could climb up on this railing and jump right in—”

  “No,” I growled, making her laugh and turn to face me. “Not on your life.”

  “Spoilsport.”

  “Maybe, but you’re not jumping. It’s not safe from this height.”

  “I wasn’t really going to.” She reached up to feather her fingers along my jaw. “Your scruff’s growing back in,” she murmured.

  “Is that an invitation?” I asked, recalling her earlier words.

  I had no problem at all with living between her thighs.

  Cocking her head, she pulled the tie on her robe, letting it fall open so that her sexy body was on display. Her perfect breasts, the slight rise of her belly, her mound with its arousing dark strip of curls. “Depends on if you’ve had enough time to recover.”

  “Red, I was recovered before I finished licking up what I left inside you.” When she shuddered, I lowered my head to nuzzle her nipple. “Let’s see if you can say the same.”

  14

  Maggie

  I was having the best dream.

  My co-star was a grouchy man who made love to me with so much hunger that I never doubted his desire.

  I wasn’t his first, and I probably wouldn’t be his last. I might not even have been his first this week, despite what he’d indicated. But when he touched me, I knew he was all in.

  We both were.

  The days spun out, the hours stacking like dominoes that fell too quickly. I reached for the cell to call Kendra more than once and laughed as Kellan held my phone high above my head, just out of reach.

  I understood. I didn’t want to deal with the outside world either, and maybe I liked that he wanted to protect our happy bubble for just a little longer.

  Ken would keep my secret. She was my best friend, and she knew I’d have to come home soon enough.

  Too soon.

  Even the best dreams had to end.

  The pluck of guitar strings made me shift against the sheets. I didn’t know the song. Didn’t recognize the lyrics he sang in a low, sexy voice. That voice that skimmed over my skin as if it were a silky caress, arousing impulses I couldn’t satisfy alone.

  The only respite was when he was inside me. His mouth on mine, our bodies moving together.

  The pinch of his fingers, the heat of his lips. The buzz of his scruff on sensitive flesh. His groans, broken and raw. As if I was laying him bare.

  What I wouldn’t give for just that, again and again?

  I whimpered, rocking my hips, and he moved against my back, cradling me close. “Shh,” he murmured, his talented hands sliding over me to quench all the needs that he’d created.

  The music was gone, but I didn’t need it anymore. He was singing to me, so softly I had to strain to hear the words. Catching them in mid-air like a dream as he parted my slick thighs and dipped inside me, already knowing just how to soothe the ache. His fingers slipping in and out, oh so slow. Filling me, chasing away all the cold. Replacing it with so much heat. And then before I could ask, he was pushing his thickness inside me, widening me for him the way it should be. Open and wet, my body throbbing. Offering him all of me so I could take so much more.

  Going so deep that my spine arched to give him everything.

  Pleasure rippled through me, starting way down low in my belly and fanning out like bubbles in the pool we’d sat beside for hours. Singing along to the radio and reading some of Kellan’s many books until my skin burned. Then he’d smoothed lotion over my skin so patiently. Replacing the pain with something sweet.


  He groaned against my neck, his body going still before his hips jerked. That precious liquid heat spurted inside me, making me moan. So dirty. I clenched to keep it all inside—to keep him inside—not wanting to waste a single drop.

  Another groan, fractured this time as his mouth found mine. Together, we tumbled back into sleep.

  The pattern repeated so many times I lost track of time. In between, we got up long enough to eat and cuddle on the couch in front of the giant TV in the living room. Laughing as he intentionally selected the video channels and teased me about my taste in music with our feet tangled together and our hands wandering everywhere.

  Showering in cool water with his broad, hard body behind me, holding me up as he gave me orgasm after orgasm. With his fingers, his mouth, his cock. Using all three in tandem to destroy me and fit me together again.

  “Don’t go.”

  Imagining the words, wondering if I’d said them myself. I must’ve, because my grumbly guy didn’t ask me for anything. Not unless I asked first.

  I looped my arms around his neck and climbed up his wet, corded body as if he were my own personal cliff. Maybe he was. “I wish I could stay,” I said between kisses, not really caring if he’d actually verbalized the statement. If I had to be the brave one, I would.

  I would be the one who said the words and made the plans and put my heart on the line until he was right there with me. For me.

  For us.

  “Tomorrow.” He slanted his mouth over mine and cupped my ass to lift it higher, his grip sure and true. “That’s soon enough.”

  I blinked back the water starring my lashes, pushing my soaked hair back until we were nose to nose. Dark eyes bored into mine, and everything I needed to see was right there. No shields, no pretenses.

  “One more day together,” he said, and I nodded, not caring about classes or work or anything but hanging on to this for one more day before our lives ripped us apart again.

  “Yes?”

  I grinned. “Yes.”

  He kissed me, then furrowed his brow as we eased apart. “Red, we need to talk.”

  Panic filled my chest, pressing against that perfect bubble of joy we’d created. I couldn’t let it pop. Not yet.

  We needed more time. Just a little more.

  “Later,” I whispered, using my finger under his chin to bring his dark eyes back to mine. Waiting until he nodded.

  Until the ropes around my chest eased enough again that I could breathe.

  Wrapped in thick towels—he had one for me this time—we stood at the kitchen counter and ate pickles out of the jar. We’d blown through most of the groceries he’d picked up for the weekend, and if I was staying one more day, we’d need more sustenance.

  “Mr. Wong?” he asked, holding up a menu by the corner.

  I laughed and snatched it out of his hand. My stomach was growling again. “Chinese sounds heavenly. I could eat a pint of pork fried rice all by myself. And like three egg rolls. And…Kendra.”

  “Cannibalism is a little extreme.”

  “No, I need to call her. I should have called her before.” I gave him a hard stare, though he was giving me his best innocent expression.

  Yeah, right.

  “She would’ve told you to come home.” He held up a hand. “Yeah, where you belong. I was being selfish—”

  I gripped his towel and yanked him against me. “I like it when you’re selfish.” I leaned up on my tiptoes and nipped his chin. “I also like when you’re beardy for me.”

  He grabbed me around the waist and lifted me up on the granite counter as if I were made of air. “Beardy and no makeup and hair all crazy.” He ducked his head so I could push my fingers through his hair as I had all weekend, taking every opportunity to muss it up. “Anything else you like?”

  “I like when you touch me with these.” I picked up one of his hands, running my fingertips over the ridges of calluses that rubbed my skin just right. “How does a pencil pusher get such rough hands?” I teased, remembering his guitar comment and the fragments of music that had wafted over me in the night when I was too disoriented to make them out.

  He started to speak, then cleared his throat and begun again. “I told you I worked construction before.”

  A fact he’d volunteered without prompting during our long afternoon by the pool. “Mmm. I remember you hauling around wood that day at the cabin. Being all super manly.” When he ducked his head again, from embarrassment this time, I decided to make it worse by reaching down to stroke his cock through his towel. “Though you carry around a pretty sizable piece of wood every day…”

  “Nymphomaniac.” But he grinned as he tilted his hips toward me, jutting his eager dick into my hand.

  “Maybe. Only for you.” I wound my legs around him, drawing him close. I brushed a kiss over his bare, damp shoulder, spying the forgotten piece of paper on the floor. “Oh, the food! Let’s order.”

  He let out a deep laugh as he pinched my hip through the towel. “Love a woman with priorities,” he said, laughing again at my rumbling stomach.

  “You order the food, I’ll call Ken.”

  “Go for it. Just be prepared that she’ll want you to come home today like you planned.”

  “She doesn’t tell me what to do. I want dumplings too.”

  “Anything else?”

  I found my purse and tugged out my phone. I wasn’t sure when he’d tucked it back inside. He might have adding a few extra obstacles to calling her, but the truth was I’d been the one who turned off my phone and avoided reality. I didn’t want to hear her lecture. When it came right down to it, I knew she’d be pissed at me, but she also loved me. Better to ask for forgiveness than permission, right? Besides, I’d given her the address where I was staying for safety’s sake. I was almost twenty-three. Just a couple more weeks.

  It was time I started living my life for me and no one else.

  A million messages were waiting for me. Deliberately, I didn’t read them, except Ken’s last cryptic one sent just four hours ago. What the hell? She’d been up early on a Sunday. It was only early afternoon in California and three hours ahead on the East coast, and my bestie normally loved to sleep in.

  Guilt and concern battled inside me, and I bit my lip as I read her last text.

  I warned u. I hope u’re okay & u know we <3 u. That’s why we’re doing this.

  Doing what? My mind reeled and I typed as fast as I could.

  Ken, I’m fine. I’m HAPPY. I’m sorry I didn’t call, but we’ve been having fun. We’re in love.

  I stopped there, hitting send before I could erase and retype. It was insane. I’d taken months to fall in love with Derek, and he’d taken almost that long to fall for me. At least to tell me he had. This had to be infatuation. Extreme lust combined with forced proximity a couple of times, and the excitement of the whole clandestine, secretive thing we had going.

  The good girl and the wild boy. It was like a Lifetime movie waiting to happen.

  Of course, I’d think I was in love, and that he might be in love with me even if he’d never, ever admit it in one hundred years. Somehow that made me believe it more.

  I was certifiably nuts.

  Kendra replied immediately.

  Love? C’mon. U don’t even know who he is. Do u?

  I frowned, sliding a glance at Kellan while he repeated our order to the person on the phone. There was some confusion about egg rolls and combinations, but he didn’t speak harshly or cop an attitude with the restaurant. His voice stayed even, polite, and patient. My grouchy guy wasn’t that way all the time. Sometimes he was downright sweet.

  Instead of answering her, I shut off my phone and set it down on the counter.

  Was I just being crazy? It wasn’t possible to fall in love so fast. My dad and mom had, but they were unusual. Maybe I’d just heard the story of how they’d met one weekend and been engaged by the next so many times that it had infiltrated my brain.

  So how come you didn’t fall
for Derek that fast then, huh?

  It could be a rebound thing. Stuff like that happened all the time. Maeve went through guys like tissues, so she probably got over one guy by getting under the next. Maybe I was just using Kellan.

  Sure, and maybe the Pope lived in Beijing.

  “Hey.” Kellan touched my shoulder and I jumped, hitting my hip on the counter. Before I even said, “ow,” he was rubbing my leg to ease the hurt.

  Yeah, he was so badass. Such a horrible person I didn’t know and couldn’t love, because hey, if a person isn’t a ray of sunshine and doesn’t immediately tell you their life story, better run the other way.

  “McGuire,” I mumbled, clutching his hand at my hip. “Your mother works at Bailey High. Mrs. McGuire with the son who always skateboarded and got hurt.”

  He frowned. “Yeah. You knew my mom?”

  “I didn’t make the connection until now. You mentioned she was a school secretary.” Only when I’d traded his access to my body for some details about his family, but whatever. I hadn’t been trying to pry or learn all his secrets. I just wanted to get a sense of who he was when he was away from me.

  Breaking his cardinal rule, probably. But he’d broken plenty of mine too.

  Like the one where I didn’t fall for a guy before I knew his family. I’d always been a girl who believed family gave the strongest clues to a person’s personality, and without knowing them, you missed a vital piece of the whole.

  “I was teased in school,” I continued quietly, staring down at the black and gold granite floor. “I wasn’t good at sports and I didn’t have a ton of friends. Just Kendra. I didn’t fit in.”

  “No one does at that age. Doesn’t mean a damn thing.”

  The vehemence in his tone made me smile. “I stopped going to lunch because when Ken was working on extra credit projects, I didn’t have anyone to sit with. So I ended up helping your mom with filing. Eventually we ate lunch together. She didn’t think I was a weirdo.” I laughed softly and dashed at the stupid tears I didn’t know why I was crying. “Well, I am a weirdo. But she was nice to me.” Swallowing hard, I glanced up at him and lifted my hand to his cheek. “You have her eyes. I didn’t realize until now.”