“Little Wing” by The Jimi Hendrix Experience
“Nicest Thing” by Kate Nash
“Firefly” by Ed Sheeran
“Fools” by Lauren Aquilina
“Alive” by Krewella
“Home” by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes
“Take Your Time” (Acoustic) by Fun.
“My Kind of Love” by Emeli Sandé
“Lilo” by Lauren Aquilina
“Your Song” by Ellie Goulding
“The Only Exception” by Paramore
“Waiting Game” by Banks
“Say Goodbye (I Won’t Even)” by Adaline
“Autumn Leaves” by Ed Sheeran
“Say Something” by A Great Big World
“Let Her Go (feat. Hannah Trigwell)” by Boyce Avenue and Hannah Trigwell
“Till I Fall Asleep” by Jayme Dee
“Sweetheart, What Have You Done to Us” by Keaton Henson
“I Almost Do” by Taylor Swift
“She’s Long Gone” by The Black Keys
“1000 Sundowns” by Emma Louise
“All I Want” by Kodaline
The playlist is available on YouTube at:
http://bit.ly/foplaylist
The playlist is available on Spotify at:
http://bit.ly/foplaylists
Forever Ours
Bonus Scene
Cassia Leo
cassialeo.com
Copyright © 2014 by Cassia Leo
All rights reserved.
Forever Ours
Bonus Scene
Chris
Forever Playing
September 30, 2011
The text I just received from Claire says that she and Senia just got here to The Pinhook club in Durham. I text her back to let her know we’re still setting up, then I slide my phone into my back pocket. Tristan is helping Jake set up the drums while I do a quick sound check on my guitar. The floor is already packed with so many people, I can hardly hear myself think. My eyes scan the crowd, searching for Claire’s blonde hair as I test each guitar string. Everywhere I look I see Duke, UNC, and NC State T-shirts. Reminders of all the studying that’s been keeping me from Claire for the past five weeks since she moved into the dorm.
A few minutes later, I’m adjusting the mic stand when I spot Claire’s blonde ponytail bouncing across the front of the club near the bar. I finish setting up the microphone, then I tap the head. The chatter in the crowd is suddenly replaced by screaming and a few wolf whistles. I flash one of the whistlers near the stage my crowd smile and she blows me a kiss.
I wet my lips, then I look out across floor to where Claire is making her way toward the stage. “How’s everyone doing tonight?”
The collective roar of two hundred people shouting two hundred different answers to that question is ridiculous, but it gets me pumped. I love playing to an enthusiastic crowd. My eyes lock on Claire as she tries to squeeze past a guy in a newsboy cap. He gives her an angry look, like she’s crazy if she thinks she’s getting past him.
“Hey, you,” I say, pointing at the guy in the cap. “Let the girl through. She’s a special guest.”
The guy rolls his eyes as he lets Claire and Senia to scoot past him so they can get right up next to the stage. Claire shakes her head as I wink at her, but Senia’s too busy hugging her drink to her chest to keep it from spilling to acknowledge me.
Tristan is still setting up his bass, so I decide to engage the crowd while we wait. “We may be waiting a while, so I’m gonna tell you all a little story. Do any of you know who Neil Hardaway is?” About two-thirds of the crowd answers affirmatively, which isn’t surprising since he a blues legend in the Carolina music scene. “Well, when I was about eleven, I sent Neil Hardaway a letter asking if he could send me the tabs for his song ‘Greensboro Blues.’ I never received a reply, so I figured he was just too busy to send them to me himself. So I sent another letter to the same address, but this letter was addressed to ‘Neil Hardaway’s Assistant.’ I was certain that one would get a response.” Claire smiles and shakes her head. She’s heard this story before. “Well, I didn’t get a response to that letter either. So a couple of years later, I had a brilliant idea, and I decided I’d try again. This time, I addressed the letter to Neil Hardaway and I included a picture of me dressed up as Neil, in a blue suit and black tie, electric guitar slung across my chest, a cigarette hanging out the corner of my mouth. And I signed the letter ‘Future Neil Hardaway. If you don’t send me the tabs, I can’t go back in time to 1991 and write this song.’ I got the tabs in the mail four days later.”
After a brief moment of laughter, I glance at Tristan and he nods. I count to three and we go right into a hard-hitting rendition of one of our earliest tracks, “Justified.” During the first song, Senia convinces a guy standing behind her to get her a few drinks. I can see Claire trying to talk some sense into her as Senia places her three drinks on the floor next to her feet, but Senia is not hearing it. She’s hell-bent on getting shit-faced tonight.
When the second song is over, I decide to have a little fun and play the first few notes of a song Tristan and I made up a few months ago called “Easy Fuck.” It’s not something we would ever play for a crowd, but just plucking out the first few notes makes Tristan roar with laughter as he watches Senia pick up a glass from the floor and chug it. Having made my point, we continue onto the third song of the night.
Halfway through the set, Senia is crossing her legs and fidgeting as if she has to piss. But she never goes to the restroom. She just keeps staring at Tristan with a dreamy look on her face. There’s no way this is going to end well.
“We’re gonna slow it down a little for the last song of the night. This is called ‘First I Saw You.’” When the song is over, I thank everyone for coming and the frenzied cheers from the crowd are exactly what I came for. I take a bow while Tristan comes up behind me and pretends to grab my hips. I roll my eyes back and moan like I’m having an orgasm. Then we all take another bow and say goodnight.
Claire’s eyes are narrowed at me as I hop off the stage into the crowd. But all is forgiven when I grab her by the back of the neck and kiss her. Her lips taste like iced tea. The flavor combined with the sound of the girls around us mumbling their disappointment gets me hot. I slide my tongue into her mouth and she whimpers as she grabs fistfuls of my T-shirt.
I move down to kiss her neck and she pushes me back. “Okay, okay. That’s enough.”
I laugh as I plant a kiss on her cheek. “It’s never enough.”
Contemporary Romance
Forever Ours (Shattered Hearts #0.5)
Relentless (Shattered Hearts #1)
Pieces of You (Shattered Hearts #2)
Bring Me Home (Shattered Hearts #3)
Abandon (Shattered Hearts #3.5)
Black Box (stand-alone novel)
Paranormal Romance
Parallel Spirits (Carrier Spirits #1)
Erotic Romance
KNOX Series
LUKE Series
CHASE Series
UNMASKED Series
About the Author
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Cassia Leo loves her coffee, chocolate, and margaritas with salt. When she’s not writing, she spends way too much time watching old reruns of Friends and Sex and the City. When she’s not watching reruns, she’s usually enjoying the California sunshine or reading—sometimes both.
A Seductive Melody
The Kelly Brothers, Book 5
Crista McHugh
Chapter One
“We admitted that we were powerless over our addiction, that our lives had become unmanageable.”
No fucking shit.
Ethan Kelly read the rest of the Twelve Steps of Narcotics Anonymous and folded the singl
e sheet of paper in half as the meeting was called to order. The two weeks’ worth of stubble on his head felt foreign under his hand as he rubbed at it and glanced around the room. He’d shaved off his long black hair when he’d entered detox, a symbolic gesture of cutting off ties with his old life, but he still worried someone would recognize him and call him out. He wasn’t there to put on a show for the media. He was there because he needed to stay clean, and this was one of the tools that had been recommended to him.
The inside of his left arm burned under his sleeve, and he rubbed the spot of his latest tattoo. Even though the flesh had healed, the pain behind it was still as raw as the day he’d gotten it.
The day he’d lost his best friend to heroin.
It was the wake-up call he’d both needed and been dreading. He’d watched Tyler slip deeper and deeper into his addiction, but he’d been too scared to say something. Then it was too late to say anything. Two days after getting the tattoo, he checked himself into detox. He only wished he’d been able to do it with Ty. Instead, his best friend was now ashes in an urn, and Ethan was left trying to pick up the pieces of his shattered life alone.
The craving to say “fuck it all” and shoot up ambushed him. It would be so easy to get high and forget about the pain, to go back to the euphoric place where his muse reigned supreme and he didn’t give a damn about anyone but himself and his music. He balled his hands into fists and squeezed his eyes shut. I can do this. I have to do this. No more escaping reality.
He drew in several deep cleansing breaths like they’d taught him to do during detox, and the craving subsided.
For now.
He opened his eyes just as a woman was sneaking into the chair across from him. She shrugged off her knee-length leather coat, giving him an ample view of the bare bit of her thigh between her cream-colored boots and mint green sixties-style mini-dress as she crossed her legs. A different craving rose within him, one that shot straight to his crotch. Thank god for the six feet of aisle space between them, or he’d be tempted to find out for himself if her skin was as silky and supple as it looked.
From the corner of her eye, she caught him staring. A flush rose up her neck and into her cheeks as she tugged on the hem of her skirt, but he couldn’t turn away. Everything about her screamed Park Avenue, from her designer handbag to her flawless manicured nails. She looked like she should have been shopping at Neiman Marcus or Bergdorf Goodman, not sitting in a moldy church basement full of recovering addicts.
His attention wandered up from her legs to her face. He couldn’t tell if her eyes were blue or green, but the arched brow above the left eye wordlessly asked him if he was done gawking.
And for the first time in two weeks, his lips rose into a grin. No, he wasn’t done at all. Not as long as she had those legs on display.
She rolled her eyes and draped her coat over her lap, hiding those luscious thighs from his view just as the meeting leader, Gary, asked the new members to introduce themselves to the group.
Shit. This was the part he’d been dreading. Thankfully, he didn’t have to give his last name, and he’d already been warned by Gary that he’d be hugged if he didn’t make it clear from the beginning that he wasn’t up for that. He cleared the lump forming in his throat and stood.
“Hi, I’m Ethan, and I’m not a hugger.”
There. That was all they needed to know. The rest of his inner demons were his own to battle. He slumped back into his chair and crossed his arms, daring any of them to try and touch him.
“Hi, Ethan,” the room replied in unison.
Then Gary opened the meeting up for the members to share.
Ethan stretched out his legs and closed his eyes, only halfway listening to their stories. He was here in this church basement only because his mother and the counselor at detox suggested he try it out. He didn’t need any hand-holding or “Kumbaya” singing to help him avoid using again. He’d already gone through the flu-on-steroids hell of detox. And he had the most powerful deterrent to using again tattooed over his favorite vein.
Tyler Bransford, 1987–2014.
Every time he’d be tempted to shoot up, he’d see the name of his best friend and be reminded of the life and talent that were destroyed by heroin. To him, that was far more effective than a weekly meeting listening to people drone on and on about how hard it was to stay clean.
He had no idea how much time had passed, but when he cracked an eye open, he found the woman across the aisle studying him with a line furrowed above her too-perfect nose. Her lips were pursed as though he was some sort of riddle she was trying to decipher, yet despite the intense focus on her features, she twirled a lock of her dark brown hair around her fingers in a casual manner.
He mimicked the same questioning arched brow she’d given him.
Her lips parted in a silent gasp. She turned away and sat up straighter, her hands falling to her lap and her attention fixed on Gary instead of him.
Some part of him felt a little rush, knowing she’d been checking him out. The other part of him cautioned him to stay far away from Ms. Park Avenue. He already had enough drama going on in his life. He didn’t need to involve what appeared to be a very high-maintenance woman. Not his style, anyway. He doubted she’d ever agree to hop on the back of his bike and zoom through the streets of Manhattan. He liked his women wild and fearless, not uptight and prissy.
Gary then announced it was time to adjourn and asked everyone to gather around in a circle for a quick prayer. Ethan’s stomach recoiled at the idea. He didn’t want any damned prayers or religion to be stuffed down his throat. And yet, he found himself joining the others and standing next to Ms. Park Avenue. She smelled of amber and sandalwood mingled with something soft and floral. Exotic, yet distinctly feminine. The intoxicating scent distracted him long enough to let his anger fizzle out, and by the time the prayer was finished, his gut was no longer in knots.
The circle disbanded, and Gary made his way to him. “I’ll be with you in a minute, Ethan,” he said before pulling Ms. Park Avenue aside. Their hushed conversation made Ethan wonder if he was reprimanding her for showing up late. A couple of minutes later, she nodded, and they both approached him.
“Ethan, I’d like you to meet Rebecca. Usually, we let our newcomers choose a sponsor after spending a few weeks getting to know the group, but I would like to personally recommend her as someone who can help you get settled into the program.”
Why? Because I was checking her out?
“She has graciously agreed to help you until you choose a sponsor, if you’re interested, and probably would understand your situation far better than most of us.”
Ethan’s mouth went dry. He’d already done so much to go underground while dealing with his addiction. Changed his appearance. Moved across the country from LA to New York. Avoided the media at all costs after dealing with the circus that had dogged him until he checked into detox. But he’d made the mistake of confiding his need for confidentiality to Gary, and now, the meeting leader had shared who he was with someone else. He ground his teeth and flexed his fingers. Maybe this had been a mistake after all.
Gary gave Rebecca a genuine smile and a nod, which she returned. “I’ll let you two get better acquainted.”
Ethan didn’t dare move a muscle as the group leader left to talk to someone else, leaving him alone with her. Every nerve in his body stood on edge. If he wanted to keep his privacy, he couldn’t reveal anything personal.
Her smile faltered into a nervous twitch of her lips. “Listen, Ethan, I know you may think this isn’t for you, but please, give it another week or two. The first week is always the hardest. If you give it a chance—”
“What exactly did he say to you about me?”
“Well, he wasn’t praising your sunny personality, that’s for sure.”
Her sarcasm caught him off guard, and despite his better judgment, he took a
step toward her. “Then what did he say?”
“He said I of all people would know what you were going through, and he trusted that I would handle you with care until you feel ready to choose a sponsor.”
His insides bristled at the thought of being handled with care. It was bad enough his mother was calling him every night to check on him like a child. “Did he say why?”
She shook her head, her dangling earrings rattling against her jaw. “Nope.”
The whole situation perplexed him, and he took another step toward her, encroaching on her personal space just to see how she’d react. “And who exactly are you?”
She looked up at him, and he finally could see the color of her eyes. Blue on the outside, green toward the center. Striking and clear and unwavering as she held his gaze. “A recovering addict, just like you.”
His chest tightened, trapping the air in his lungs, but he refused to back down.
“In case you missed the memo,” she continued, “the ‘A’ stands for ‘anonymous.’ It’s something we take very seriously here. If you’re still wondering why Gary thinks I’ll be able to help you, I’d be willing to share a bit more about myself over coffee. But you’ll have to wait until next week.”
“Always a catch,” he muttered before turning. But she intrigued him enough that he might come back just to find out who she was and what she was doing here.
“Think of it more as an enticement.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a notepad and pen. “Here’s my number. If you feel the need to shoot up, give me a call first, and I’ll try to talk you down.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” But he took the piece of paper with her number on it anyway. In any other situation, getting a sexy woman’s digits meant he was doing something right. But right now, the fact she was giving him her number was a sign that she was just waiting for him to slip back into his old habits.
“Hey, I’ve been there, remember? I know what it’s like to be new to this and how hard it is to say ‘No’ to the cravings. We all stumble. We all make mistakes. But we’re not in this alone.” She slipped her coat back on, her gaze raking him over from head to toe and back again. “And maybe next week, you’ll have a better idea how I can help you out.”
Rockers After Dark: 6 Book Bundle of Sexy Musicians Page 93
