Rockers After Dark: 6 Book Bundle of Sexy Musicians

by Chase, Deanna

  But it hadn’t been at all.

  “Angel, please, hermano.” Marianna pushed her face against the window, tapping on it with her long nail. “Please don’t do this, she is pregnant—”

  Those were the wrong words.

  Immediately his eyes sprang open and the hand holding the gun aimed right at my stomach. I screamed, huddling into myself, praying that God would let me die instead.

  The powerful, instinctual need to preserve the life of my little flower driving me to expose my neck to him.

  “Don’t hurt me, Angel.”

  “Get back, Marianna, or so help me I’ll fucking blow her brains out!” Angel’s hand shook violently.

  Even as messed up as he was on the drugs, he was hesitating. If he really wanted to kill me he’d have done it already—it was the only shred of hope I still had left in me.

  “Angel, don’t. I swear to God you’ll regret this.” Marianna’s voice warbled as her eyes frantically moved between the two of us. “Mama’s already called the cops, you have to let her go, please, God, let her go.”

  “I loved you, Jamie,” he said, his voice shaking, “I know that now and I could make this work, I could. I could have fixed myself this time. You have to let me, you have to let me make this right. You have to.”

  He was crying, sobbing uncontrollably now and I wondered why I’d been so stupid, refusing to see reason, refusing to listen to Zoe when she’d warned me years ago to drop him.

  Looking up at Angel while scooting as far aside as possible so that my stomach wasn’t in direct line with a bullet, I wept.

  My heart was shattering at the painful truths. I was the world’s biggest idiot.

  “I handled everything wrong, Angel. But I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to help you.”

  In the distance I heard the tiny wail of sirens. Just a little bit longer. I only had to hold out a little bit longer and then the cops would get here and they’d save me.

  “Hug me, Jamie, tell me this will be all right.”

  I didn’t want to touch him. I didn’t want to hold him. I wanted to hurt him. To kill him, my anger was so visceral, but I wrapped my arms around his neck and yanked him in. Rubbing his back and murmuring words I could not define. Staring at the faces of his family watching in horror on the outside.

  His nose dragged along my head and he inhaled me deeply. “I’ve always loved how you smell. Love you so much, Jams. So sorry. So, so sorry.”

  And I wanted to puke. Inside I was dying, withering at his touch. Wishing I could do nothing more than shrink away, escape, disappear. He kissed my neck and my tears fell hard.

  Then Marianna yanked the door open. I didn’t know what she thought to do. Save me, maybe.

  Angel twirled, aiming the gun directly at her heart, and if I hadn’t been frozen in shock, I might have tried to do something heroic. Like punch him in the back of the head, in the temple. Incapacitate him and save the day.

  But I wasn’t some secret government spy and this wasn’t a movie. I was just a terrified woman praying to God that this wasn’t the way it would end.

  “I love you, Marianna,” Angel uttered through clenched teeth, “but I will kill you. Back the fuck up.”

  The commotion was starting to bring people out of the apartment building. I saw terrified faces peering from doorways, from the parking lot.

  Most of them with phones out, likely calling 911.

  Yanking the door shut, this time Angel did lock it. But instead of grabbing me up again, he leaned his head against the headrest and sighed. “I’m so tired, Jams. I just want to die. I’m so fucking tired.”

  Then, still holding the gun on his lap, he closed his eyes.

  Time was running out for my child and me. I had a horrible feeling that even though I heard the sirens drawing closer, one of us wasn’t going to walk away from this alive.

  And in that moment of clarity I knew I’d have no choice but to fight back.

  I’d probably die, but if I made sure that he aimed at my heart or head, my baby might still live. They’d just have to get my body to the hospital in time to cut her out.

  I tried not to think about everything I would miss. The birthdays. The prom. First dates. First kisses.

  All the things I’d taken for granted being so afraid to become a mom. Now I wanted them more than ever and I’d never know them.

  But it was her only chance to survive this. If I made enough of a scuffle, the distraction might be long enough for someone to wrestle Angel off me.

  My back was aching something terrible.

  I knew this was real labor—the cramps were constant and different than the ones I’d been having for the past few days.

  Fluttering my fingers over my belly, telling my little flower goodbye, I tensed, ready to jump and claw at Angel when the glass shattered violently.

  Pinging against us both and making us cry out.

  I felt the warmth of blood ooze from the nicks on my face and hands I’d used to shield myself with and when I looked up, I was stunned, because there was a gaping hole in the window and Angel was being dragged through it violently.

  “You fucking bastard!” Tor roared, his face was a mask of pure fury.

  My bring, strong Viking had Angel gripped in a chokehold and his arm was flexing as he wrestled Angel to the ground.

  The sirens were here, rushing through the lot, just a few yards away now.

  I jumped out of the car, racing around to the other side. They were rolling and grunting, trading blows, but Tor was much more powerful and he mounted Angel, squeezing his throat in his giant, strong hands, and it was over.

  And for a second I could take a breath—all the dreams I’d let go of were now back and they were mine and so was Tor; we would have our happily ever after and things would be perfect once again.

  But it was yet another lie, because Angel’s hand was moving and I saw it happening. I saw the gun just inches away from them lying on the asphalt. Tor had forgotten. Angel had not.

  “Tor!” I screamed, covering my mouth a second before I heard an ear-piercing blast.

  Then there was blood everywhere.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Jamie

  I couldn’t reach him. I was screaming and crying with snot running down my face, but I was being pushed back by Austin police. An ambulance screeched to a stop just a minute later.

  At first I thought for sure my Tor, my big, beautiful Viking, had managed to twist the gun out of Angel’s hand, that my cries had alerted him to the danger.

  But my Prince Charming had crumpled to the ground with barely a grunt. The rose-colored spread of blood blossomed and then gushed from a wound in his chest.

  The cops had Angel pinned to the ground and he was sobbing, screaming that it wasn’t his fault. That he wasn’t going to hurt me, screaming at me to tell them that. That he wasn’t a murderer.

  Murder.

  I stopped fighting, in a daze as the medics strapped my hero onto a gurney, and then slid him inside and locked the doors.

  “They never asked me to come,” I muttered.

  “Ma’am, we need a statement,” a cop said, but I couldn’t focus. I was watching the ambulance race off, watching my lover leave me.

  What had just happened?

  My back was hurting so bad.

  “Is there a medic?” the young black cop cried out, holding on to my arm with a steady grip. “She’s going into shock. Ma’am, how far along are you?”

  I couldn’t breathe. It was so hot. “I’m so dizzy. I don’t feel good.” I grabbed my stomach as a powerful, rippling cramp tore through my middle.

  Crying out, I collapsed into the cop’s arms. Weakly I reached out for Tor. But he wasn’t there. He wasn’t there to hold me. To love me.

  To tell me he’d never leave me.

&nb
sp; I’d never shown him how much I cared. He needed to know and now he might be dead.

  There were so many arms grabbing me. My head was pounding, aching so hard, throbbing with bolts of lightning.

  “She’s bleeding,” someone cried.

  I shook my head no. “Not bleeding. Tor…” I gasped, because I couldn’t say the rest. He’d saved me. My man had saved me.

  How had he survived the loss of Ida?

  How could I survive the loss of him?

  It was so damn hot.

  My head spun with a flash of vertigo and I moaned.

  “Hemorrhaging bad,” the medic in blue said to somebody, but I couldn’t focus, my vision was so horribly blurry. “Lie down, Jamie. Just lie down.”

  He kept repeating it to me. How did he know my name?

  Straps were being wrapped tight around me and I cried. I couldn’t help it. Everything was so terrifying.

  “Young female. Nine months pregnant. In labor.”

  “Nooooo.” I shook my head, denying it. I wasn’t in labor. Because Tor was going to be there, Tor was going to hold my hand and help me breathe and rub my back and whisper how much he loved me.

  “Love,” I hiccupped, and then, like someone had touched a cattle prod to my brain, I screamed as a pain I’d never felt in my life cleaved me in half.

  I was shoved into the back of the ambulance and then everything went dark.

  ***

  Tor

  I wasn’t sure where I was when I woke up. There were bright lights above my head and a breathing tube in my nose.

  A woman with salt-and-pepper gray hair smiled down at me. “Tor Boler, you gave us quite the scare, young man. Welcome back to the land of the living.”

  Immediately everything came back like a flash of brilliant Technicolor.

  I’d been walking home. Humming to myself when I’d spied a disturbance in the parking lot. A sixth sense had me racing to the green minivan only to see Angel inside with a gun in his lap and my Eskelde sobbing in terror.

  I’d heard the cries of others telling me he had a gun, but my thought had been only for my woman and our child.

  I flexed my right fist, hissing from the action and then nearly jumped out of my skin when my sudden movement caused the wound in my shoulder to stretch with fire, breaking me out in a wash of sweat and nausea.

  The nurse patted me gently. “You’ll need to relax and rest, hun. You’ve been through quite an ordeal.”

  “Jamie. I need to—” Panic gripped me so tight that for a moment I felt no pain, only the desperation of a man to get to his woman.

  “Yes, Romeo and Juliet. The two of you have had all the nurses buzzing. It was so touch and go for a while there.”

  “How is she? Where is she?”

  Her green eyes were kind as she smiled. “She’s had the baby.” She glanced over her shoulder. “I know we’re not technically supposed to share these things, but your friends Zoe and Alex and many others have been here for the past two days demanding we tell you the moment you woke up what happened.”

  Two days?

  I couldn’t believe it. I blinked. Grimacing as I rubbed at my shoulder and ripping out the oxygen breather from my nose. “Is she still here?”

  She nodded, patting my shoulder when the door opened and a man in white walked in. “Ah, Mr. Boler, I’m Dr. Miller, and I’m damn glad to see you awake.”

  “I’ll take you to see her in just a little bit,” the kindly nurse smiled and stepped to the side so that I could be poked and prodded by the doctor.

  The hours it took between waking up and actually getting to see Jamie felt like an eternity. The nurse, who I found out was named Lisa, finally got me a wheelchair and the moment I was wheeled into the maternity ward I saw four pairs of worried eyes I immediately recognized.

  Not only Zoe and Alex, but Candy and even Ryko had come.

  “How is she?” I asked without even a hello.

  Zoe jumped to her feet. She looked god-awful, wearing some peach-colored sweatpants and a mismatched yellow top. Her hair was wound in a bun on her head and she wore no makeup. There were large bags under her eyes and I wondered if she’d even once left the hospital. Alex looked exhausted himself and he walked beside her, rubbing her shoulder.

  Ryko looked as he always did, slightly grungy and wearing his tattered clothes. I couldn’t tell if he looked exhausted because he’d been here all night or if he’d been out binge drinking. Candy, on the other hand, didn’t even look like herself. She was wearing a frothy pink pair of sleeping pants covered in white hearts and a loose-flowing white top. Without the makeup on she looked much younger and more innocent than usual.

  When they got to my side, Alex shook my hand. “Hey, man, hell of a past few days. Good to see you made it out all right.”

  His voice was scratchy, as though he’d not used it for several hours. Eyes red-rimmed and skin waxy, I had no doubt Zoe had made him stay by her side the entire two days Jamie and I had been here.

  “Oh God.” Zoe squeezed her fingers, and there were tears leaking from the corners of her eyes.

  Candy and Ryko eventually tapped my shoulder as if in greeting. That hurt like a mother, but I didn’t let on. Neither one said anything.

  Nurse Lisa was getting ready to get off shift, she’d told me a few minutes ago, and she cleared her throat impatiently. “Let’s wheel you to see your lady love, big boy. Sorry guys, he’ll be back in a few, I’m sure.”

  There was no more talking after that, and as much as I appreciated them being here, my thoughts were solely for Jamie.

  Drumming my fingers on the armrest, nerves strung tight and heart trapped in my throat, my gaze homed in on my woman the second Lisa wheeled me through.

  She was sleeping with the baby cradled beside her. My daughter was suckling on her breast.

  I blinked several times, fighting the tears that threatened.

  Lisa bent over my shoulder and smiled as she whispered, “I’ll push you to their bed and leave you. I’ll let your friends know. Do you want them to come in for a bit?”

  Licking my lips, I swallowed the lump and said, “No. Give me a minute with my family please.”

  “You got it, hun.” She patted my uninjured shoulder and did as promised, pushing me up to the bed and then exiting the room so quietly that even the door didn’t thud behind her as the heavy things usually did.

  I took a moment just gazing at the two of them.

  Jamie was incredibly pale. There were tubes and wires coming out of her hands and arms, and a baggie of IV fluids was being pumped into her.

  The baby yawned and no matter how hard I fought the tears, they came the second my daughter blinked open her big steel-blue eyes.

  She didn’t look at me, her gaze was unfocused and I could see her squirming, her mouth working as if she meant to start crying. Reaching out with my good arm, I patted her little butt and chuckled when she burped.

  Jamie woke up then, jerking like she’d been startled. Our eyes locked.

  “Tor?” My name dropped like a benediction from her rosebud lips.

  “Eskelde.”

  And then we were both crying, because we knew we’d managed to walk away from something that could have easily gone the other way. She scooted over until she could wrap her tiny arm around my neck and the movement made me clench my teeth, but I didn’t move because the pain was nothing compared to the joy of seeing my family alive.

  I bunched her gown in my fist. It took several long minutes for us to be able to speak again.

  “What happened to you?” I finally asked.

  Shuddering, she pulled back just an inch. Just enough to be able to look me in the eyes. But her fingers had a death grip on my hospital gown and I would not tell her to let go. I needed the comfort of her touch just as much as she needed mine.

  “
The doctors said,” she whispered as she patted our daughter’s bottom to quiet her tiny mewlings, “the stress of the fight, coupled with my high blood pressure caused my labor to come on. I lost so much blood.” She nibbled on her lip and I brushed the hair out of her eyes. “They had to shock my heart. Apparently I died.” She gave a bitter laugh.

  Breath sawed out of my lungs. I knew it’d been close, but I’d had no idea that I’d been that close to losing her.

  The grief of what might have been tore through me, making me ignore the fiery bolt of pain ripping down my shoulder and arm as I leaned forward to forcefully press a kiss to her lips.

  She took me in greedily and we might have remained like that for longer if our daughter didn’t take that moment to scream her displeasure at being squished.

  Chuckling at the same time, I watched with a proud heart as Jamie nuzzled and crooned to her. Rucking up her hospital gown, she exposed her nipple to the babe, whose greedy little suckles and slurps made us both snort with laughter.

  “She’s a hungry little thing,” I whispered, trailing a finger along the impossible velvety smoothness of my daughter’s round cheek.

  The babe had hair, though not a lot and a much darker shade than either of ours.

  “You have no idea,” Jamie grumped, but there was no actual bite to her words. “My nipples are so sore, she just wants to stay latched on all the time.”

  I rubbed the side of her breast, but not in a sexual way. “Should I be jealous that I’ve lost my place to this bottomless pit?”

  “Hey,” she glowered at me, “don’t call my baby a bottomless pit. She’s adorable.”

  “Yes,” I agreed, and kissed the sweet-smelling top of my daughter’s head, “and so is her mamma.”

  Jamie’s smile lit me up from the inside. I had my family back, they were safe, and I was so grateful for this second chance.

  “Have we decided on a name?” I grinned.

  She nodded. “There’s one I like, especially once I saw her. But I’m not sure what you’d think.”

  “Tell me.”

  Her fingers danced along the baby’s behind. I wasn’t sure I’d ever get tired of looking at my woman and my daughter snuggled this way.