by Abby Knox
From behind the stage curtain, Zara went over the words. Of course she knew it by heart. Who doesn’t know the words to “I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You”? Elvis was her private jam. Whenever she felt lonely or sad or sappy, Elvis always helped. And now she couldn’t think of anything better than to sing in front of not just a bar full of people but a whole crowd of locals who had known her since she was just a seven-year-old chicken-legged squirt running around the beach.
As she was doing her deep breathing, suddenly she was met by a hallucination. Or at least, it had to be a hallucination. Big Daddy was standing in front of her. Yeah. That Big Daddy.
“Um…” she stammered. “Is this happening?”
“You must be Zara,” the older gentleman said with a smile that reached his devastatingly gorgeous, crinkled eyes.
“Holy fuck!” she blurted, and her anxiety spiked. “Oh my god. I mean…aren’t you…?”
Big Daddy laughed. “Yes, it’s me. Just Jed. Just another guy who appreciates music.”
Zara’s throat went dry and she squeaked, “That’s about the biggest understatement of the century. No, millennium.”
He smiled and then said, “Could you tell your fella I’d like to buy that song from him?”
Jeb could have knocked Zara over with a microscopic owl feather.
“I’ll make it easy for you. I’m going on tour tomorrow. Just tell him to get my number from Dusty. Don’t call my manager and definitely not my asshole publicist. Call me directly and I’ll make sure he’s well compensated.”
Then Zara summoned her brain back into the moment and reached into her pocket. “Here,” she said, handing Jeb the business cards that she’d just finished for Kai but as yet had not had the chance to show to him. “Even better, here’s his card.”
Jed took it and departed with a nod and a wink through the curtain. And Zara was left feeling like she’d just been visited by a benevolent ghost. Terrified, stunned and overjoyed.
“Well, I guess we know who the anonymous donor is now,” she said aloud to herself.
When she took the stage, she picked up the mic. Kai was watching her, surprised.
“I know you think I’m stand-offish sometimes. Well, this is about as fuckin’ vulnerable as it gets. Here goes.”
She started singing.
Wise men say
Only fools rush in…
After the first three words, Kai backed her up with his guitar. Of course he knew the chords by heart.
Eventually, she settled into her voice and her confidence grew. People were starting to pair off and slow dance together. It made her happy to see it.
And, holy shit, there was her mother, dancing with Big Daddy. Could this day get any weirder? No. No, it could not.
Suddenly, she realized she was not singing a cappella anymore. She looked over to her left, where Kai was closing in on her to share the mic.
When the song ended the crowd went absolutely insane.
“I love you, Zara. But you gotta sing more.”
Her sight blurred by tears, she cupped his face. “I promise.”
Chapter 27
Kai
“Zara Lane Rhodes, I promise to love you, and I promise to never make you live in a teepee or follow a jam band around the country. OK, maybe two Phish concerts, tops.”
Zara replied, “Make that one pint of Phish Food ice cream on the porch while you play their songs on your guitar.”
Kai grinned. “And I promise to let you set your alarm to the Sex Pistols every morning.”
“Deal,” she said with a smirk.
The officiant, who was, of course, an ordained minister and Elvis impersonator (circa-Jailhouse Rock), announced, “I pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss.”
Kai took his bride’s face in both hands and owned her with a massive kiss that sent her jumping into his arms.
When she did this, her mounds of tulle hiked up to reveal a pair of white fishnet stockings and knee-high white Chuck Taylors.
As their friends all cheered on the beach, Kai whispered, “I hope you didn’t take the pill today. I’m gonna rip those stockings off you and fuck your Ivy League brains out.”
She laughed. “Gross image, but I like it.”
He carried her down the aisle to the waiting VW van, which was decked out in black, white and tie-dye decorations. She replied, “That’s not how birth control works, babe. You have to stop well in advance of trying to get pregnant.”
His face fell and his heart nearly broke.
She winked as she adjusted herself in her seat. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I stopped taking it the day we made up.”
“Kai, we have to get to the reception to greet our guests,” she said, barely able to catch her breath.
“Not before I get you pregnant first.”
Kai had parked the VW at the hotel where their guests were having an extended cocktail hour, but he wasn’t letting his bride out of the vehicle just yet.
He intended to thoroughly ravish his woman before the two of them were swept up in the wave of chatting guests and wedding cake.
Zara had been expecting to at least make it to the hotel suite to change into her reception dress—Big Daddy’s check for Kai’s song had cleared in a big, bad way—but Kai had parked the van in a secluded corner of the lot and dragged her to the back. He had laid down the back seats into a bed, covering it with blankets and sprinkled with black rose petals.
“I’m not taking off my dress out here in a parking lot.”
“Then don’t,” he gritted out, as he laid her back on the cushions. “I don’t need to undress you to fuck that smirk off your face.”
After he ripped off her stockings, he used one end to tie her wrists together. When she gasped, he whispered, “Too much?”
He gave her a moment to think about it. She bit her lip and blushed, setting off a glow on her skin that looked extra naughty against the white sweetheart neckline of her dress.
“Tie it tighter …bad boy musician.”
He was beyond words, his aching cock making his white linen pants too tight for comfort. He tied the other end of the stockings around an armrest. Kai then lifted her dress and rejoiced at the absence of panties. She was already slick and ready for him. He drank in her pussy with his mouth, working her over until she was on the verge of frenzied pleasure that he knew was all the more intense with her hands tied up over her head.
With one quick surprise move, Kai shifted upward and sank his aching cock into its ultimate relief. Zara felt tight and warm around him. But this was their wedding day, and he wanted to take it to the next level. Kai took both of Zara’s legs in his arms and placed them on his shoulders, holding her steady while he continued to thrust into her without missing a beat.
The new sensation paid off quickly, with the surprise transition sending Zara closer the edge sooner. Her spasms of pleasure pushed him over the edge, and soon he was coming deep inside.
When he finished, he untied her hands and they lay pretzeled together, their wedding clothes soiled, sweaty and wrinkled. They laughed and wondered exactly how they were going to make their entrance now.
“Hey,” he said. “If Mick Jagger can screw between the set list and the encore, we can, too.”
She laughed. “Did that really happen?”
Kai chuckled, “Who knows, but it seems possible.”
“Everyone will know what we’ve been doing.”
He winked. “What’s more rock and roll than that?”
Epilogue
Ten years later
The phone at Vinyl Vixen was ringing off the hook.
Meanwhile, Zara was trying and failing to persuade the nine-year-old twins, Jett and Jagger, to put their shoes on, because Great-Aunt Jo was coming to pick them up in five minutes.
“Hello, Vinyl Vixen,” she said, cradling the phone between her ear and her shoulder and gesturing wildly to her lackadaisical twins, pointing them to their shoes.
Why they run arou
nd the store barefoot is anybody’s guess, but probably because they take after their hippie father.
“Hey, congrats on the write-up in Rolling Stone; the hipsters are gonna descend on your store like flies on shit any day now.”
Zara shook her head and smiled. “Hey, Jed.”
The famous magazine had recently ranked Vinyl Vixen as one of the top ten hidden record store treasures in the nation, adding a mention that songwriter Kai Stormcloud had gotten his start here when a certain ultra-famous musician had walked into the store one day and heard him playing.
“The story isn’t 100 percent correct, but I’m not going to sneeze about it,” she said with a chuckle. “How’s Ma?”
“She does not like Icelandic food; I’ll leave it at that. Otherwise, she’s in her element. Especially the part where she gets to tell groupies to fuck off and leave me alone.”
Zara laughed. “Yes, I can see my mother enjoying that part very much.”
Jed asked, “Where is my young ingenue, by the way? I have an idea for a song and I thought he might like to co-write it with me.”
She looked around the store. “Hell, if I knew where Kai was at right now, I wouldn’t be doing the frazzled mommy act. I’ll have him call you, but I’m gonna go ahead and say yes, he’ll do it.”
“Who needs a manager when they got a wife who can lay a record exec to waste with one cocky attitude, am I right?”
Zara smirked. It was nice to be well thought of by at least one old man in this world. “I take that as a high compliment, Big Daddy. When you’re right, you’re right.”
“Bye for now, and stop calling me that, would ya?”
She smiled and hung up the phone just as another call came in. Out of nowhere, Kai grabbed the phone out of her hand and said, “Vinyl Vixen is closed to celebrate Kai and Zara’s tenth anniversary, which will include leaving all manner of DNA in the listening booth. See you in three days!”
He hung up the phone and tossed it aside, then grabbed Zara around the waist and hoisted her up on the counter. He embraced her with abandon and laid a kiss on her that made her purr, and almost made her forget their kids were in the room.
“Eeew!”
Almost. The chorus of two was watching, horrified, as their parents made out like teenagers.
Kai grunted and pulled away from his wife’s lips. “Damn kids wouldn’t be standing there getting grossed out if they had their DAMN. SHOES. ON. Oh look, Great Aunt Jo is coming up the sidewalk. You two gonna get your shit together and go or what?”
Zara pinched his ass. “You shouldn’t swear at the kids like that. They’ll get in trouble at school for repeating it.”
Kai looked down and cleared his throat. “About that…they kind of already have.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Kai! You didn’t tell me?”
“I hide things in the name of saving your sanity, my love.”
Just then, the doorbell rang, now chiming a tinkly version of “Casey Jones.” Kai was rather proud of that.
Zara hopped off the counter and trotted over to hug Jo. “Last chance to say no; they are pure evil today.”
Jo laughed. “They’ve got nothing on a nine-year-old Kai. OK, you kids ready?”
After Jett and Jagger finally had their shoes on, Jo led them like little ducklings down the street.
“They sure do fall in line with her around,” Kai said, laughing.
Zara locked the door and turned around the sign in the door to read “Closed.” Then she turned to her husband with an evil expression. “And as for you…pick your consequence.”
Kai hopped over the counter like Spiderman to face off with Zara. “I’m a grown-ass man. I don’t need consequences.”
She reached up and pulled on the loose-hanging ties on his decades-old baja tunic. “It won’t hurt, I promise. A little spanking. A little pinching. Maybe a little biting. A little ripping this tunic to shreds and throwing it on a bonfire on the beach.”
He growled. Zara returned the growl with a slap to his ass, then hiked up that god-awful tunic to pinch one of his nipples while biting the other.
Kai moaned at what she was doing to his chest and then freed himself of his tunic altogether. He followed this by pulling off her top, flinging her bra to the floor and diving in between her gorgeous breasts.
She sighed. “I’m glad you still like them, even though they’re ten years older and a little saggier after breastfeeding. I was thinking about getting them fluffed up a bit over here, tucked in a bit over there…”
He looked up and took her face in his hands. “You fed two babies at once until they were two years old. Your tits are fuckin’ rock stars and I won’t have you talking smack about ‘em.”
She rolled her eyes. “What am I gonna do with you?”
Kai peppered her face, neck and chest with kisses as he answered. “Just keep kicking the shit out of my heart; you’re stuck with me.”
An Excerpt from Abby’s next book …
HER HI-FI HUNK
(part of a brand new collection of stand-alone books: Beach Avenue Babes!)
Jed
Ten-plus years, and he still felt the most at home on the wide seaside deck of his neighbors in Santa Barbara.
In between world tours, this is where the god of blues-rock guitar could be found. Drinking beer. Shooting the shit. Listening to the waves and watching the stars. There was nothing else he needed, except maybe someone to make the tour life bearable.
Tonight, his neighbors informed him a friend of theirs would be stopping by. A friend from Sea Grove.
Jed had a strange, uneasy feeling in his gut about this.
His gut was confirmed as he strolled down his private boardwalk, through the gate and up the stairs to Galen and Marti’s deck, his six pack of Bud under his arm. He saw the stranger from a distance. A female, 40s, assymetrical wavy hair, nice rack, curves galore, and lots of bangles on her wrists.
It might be her, he thought.
She looked like she could be the same female he’d secretly stalked on social media for years. The same female he’d spoken to briefly on the phone ten years ago when trying to remember the name of a song. The same female who had, via the internet and the U.S. Postal Service, been fulfilling his orders for bootleg recordings of obscure musicians whose records Jed didn’t even want. What had he wanted? A twisted, one-sided romance from afar, perhaps? A fantasy that only needed to be fed with occasional, short email interactions? A friendship based on deceit, because she had no idea of the true identity of her best customer?
Galen introduced them. “Jed, this is our dear friend Dusty.”
She looked at him, and her golden-brown eyes knocked him flat on his ass. Yes, it was her. Dusty Rhodes from the record store down in in Sea Grove. Dusty from the phone call right here on Galen’s deck, ten years ago.
She held out her hand to shake his, and her gold bangles of various sizes clanked up and down her forearms. He tried not to stare at her rack, but across it was stretched a burned-out Labyrinth-era David Bowie tee shirt. He had an irrational feeling of jealousy toward Bowie and his familiarity with Dusty’s breasts at the moment.
Her haircut was the same as in her pictures from the website, but now instead of brown it was dyed all the colors of the rainbow. A little blue over here, purple over there. She had a beautiful smile and spoke with the same low, sexy voice he had burned into his brain from ten years ago.
He took her hand and it was delicate and warm inside both of Jed’s big Irish mitts.
He knew right them he was going to have to step up his game.
Dusty
“Galen and Marti are in trouble, bit time,” she said. “They told me their neighbor Jed was coming over to hang out with us. They did not say their neighbor happened to be Jed ‘Big Daddy’ Masters.”
It had been a glorious three days in Santa Barbara. And she was relieved that Marti and Galen were totally on board with keeping the one artifact that Walter would definitely come looking for as soon as his
dumb ass was out of prison.
Earlier, Dusty had watched Galen put the famous pair of eyeglasses into the safe and locked it up.
“Thank you, she’d said with a huge sigh of relief. “I can’t tell you how much stress this takes off me. I never should have taken it, but I did. I didn’t feel safe with it in my store knowing that Walter is going to be out soon.”
Galen had waved off any concern she might have felt. “This safe, in this neighborhood? Nobody’s touching it. There are plenty of people who like to live here under the radar, and they pay handsomely for it.”
Dusty had certainly been intrigued by this comment, but she sure didn’t know exactly what that meant.
And now, standing in front of Big Daddy, she did. She was face-to-face with one of those inconspicuous neighbors.
Jed seemed to wince at the term Big Daddy.
Dusty asked him, “Should I not call you that?”
He grinned. “You may call me whatever you like,” he said.
He held her hand a little too long. His silvery-blue eyes made contact with hers a little too long. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw those eyes of his drift down her neck, and further down. If she wasn’t mistaken, well, she could go home and tell Zara that the rock god himself seemed to like her rack.
Dusty studied Jed for a moment, trying to tamp down her inner star-stricken fangirl. Finally, Galen commented, “he’s lying, he hates that nickname.”
Jed was looking at her like she was both the Queen of the Nile and also a piece of meat. Dusty kind of liked the combination. It had been a while since any man had looked at her like that. Or, perhaps they had, and she had never noticed.
Something about that expression and those drifting eyes made her thighs heat up and her her nipples tingle.
She had never experienced anything like that before. Not with the loser criminal Walter. Not with anyone. Jed had a sweet, crooked grin and his eyes crinkled when his smile reached his eyes. His salt and pepper hair was close cropped but still had the hint of the wild waves he wore when he had first come upon the scene decades ago.
