Broken Fairytales Series Box Set (Broken Fairytales, Buried Castles, Shattered Crowns)

by Monica Alexander

  His kisses became more intense, and with our bodies flush together, it became very apparent that we were out in the open, exposed for anyone driving by to see.

  “My apartment,” I murmured between kisses.

  “Our apartment,” he said, and I laughed.

  Why wasn’t that freaking me out? Seriously? It should have made me crazy, but it didn’t.

  “Are you moving in today or something?”

  “I’m staying here until you leave for your tour. I already worked it out with Sean, and while you’re at practice, I’ll work, and then at night I’ll make dinner and then make love to you for several hours.”

  Ho-ly shit. This was more than I’d ever expected, but it was somehow exactly what I wanted.

  “Come on,” he said, leading me over to my chair where he picked up my phone, my iPod and the towel I’d laid out.

  Then he took my hand and walked me up to my apartment. As I stood, fumbling with my keys, he looped his arms behind my waist and started to kiss my neck. In about three seconds, all thoughts of opening the door were abandoned, as I fell back against his hard chest, and he assaulted my neck and bare shoulders.

  “Open the door, Drew,” he said softly before his teeth nipped at my collarbone, and I jumped. “Or I’m going to start doing things to you out here in the hall.”

  His hand moving from where it had been splayed on my bare stomach down to the top of my boardshorts got my attention, and I started fumbling with the lock again. We tumbled inside my apartment and slammed the door closed behind us. Cole continued to walk behind me, kissing and nibbling and sucking on my bare skin as I steered us toward my bedroom and tried to keep my eyes open when all they wanted to do was fall closed and let the bliss of his lips wash over me.

  As soon as we were inside my room, I turned in his arms and cupped his face with my hands. He stared at me intensely for a few seconds, and I looked right back, memorizing the features of the man I knew I never wanted to let go.

  “I love you,” I finally said, gathering up all my courage to say it, and his eyes softened. Then I kissed him with everything in me as he laid me back on the bed.

  “You don’t have to say it just because I did,” he told me.

  I shook my head. “No, I might have been drunk the first time, but I meant it. You’re perfect, and I want everything with you.”

  He smiled at me, and it was the best sight in the whole world.

  We kissed for what felt like hours, our mouths moving together, cementing the words we’d said to each other. His body stretched out over mine, our legs tangled together, his hands nested in my hair and mine splayed over the smooth skin of his back.

  As his hand drifted south and cupped me through my board shorts, he tore his mouth away from my lips. “I want you to be on top this time,” he said breathlessly, and it caught me by surprise.

  “Really?”

  He nodded.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yeah, I’ve never done it before, but I want to do it with you. I want you to be my first.”

  I groaned, just his words making me more turned on than I’d ever been, as I imagined what that would feel like.

  “Is that a yes?” he asked, as he nibbled my earlobe and massaged me with his free hand.

  “Yes,” I said, although it came out breathless.

  “Good,” he said smiling. “Just go easy on me, okay?”

  I grinned as he repeated my words to me, and I rolled us so I was on top, taking charge like I knew he wanted me to. Quite honestly, it felt just as natural as everything else we’d done, which only secured in my mind that there was never any question about who I’d end up with. Cole was it for me, and I was it for him.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Zack

  I couldn’t believe everything that had happened in the past three weeks. After rehearsing almost daily for two weeks, we’d all flown to Texas for the unofficial start our tour at Austin City Limits, playing a smaller set for thousands of screaming fans, many of whom probably weren’t fans before, but by the end of the show, I knew a lot of them were hooked. I loved the power that our music had and how audiences responded. They’d liked us a ton.

  Then we’d all flown up to New York for three days of promoting the album and doing interviews at radio stations and even a few late night TV shows, which was really fucking cool. Our next stop was L.A. where we spent two days interviewing with what felt like every media outlet in the industry before we attended one giant, unbelievable launch party that the label had hosted for the release of Devil’s Countdown. The four of us were like kids. I swear, you couldn’t have wiped the smiles off of our faces if you tried during that entire week.

  The party was bigger than anything we’d ever experienced, and throughout the night, industry execs, people who worked at Live Ammunition and other musicians that Adam and Molly had signed in the past few years had all come up to us offering words of congratulations and praise for the new album. And when we played that night, it was only a set of five songs, just to debut what could be expected on our tour, but all of us felt the energy of what we were headed for. It was intense, but it was intense in a really good way.

  “What are you thinking about, Zack?” Andrew asked me from across the bus where he was drumming his fingers on the arm of the couch, pounding out some kind of beat.

  He had a lot of nervous energy, and he wasn’t alone. It was two hours before our show in Las Vegas, and we were in the parking lot of the theater we were playing. No matter how many times I got on stage, I could never lose the adrenaline that coursed through me in the hours leading up to the time we played that first note, and today was no exception. I think I just needed something to take my mind off of the show that night, since it was the largest venue we’d played to date, and the show was sold out.

  Too bad there wasn’t anything to do. Emily had headed out with Jonathan early that morning, claiming they had work to do, and I hadn’t argued. I was working on being understanding even though I still didn’t like that they were always together.

  Leo had gone to the airport to get Derrick who had to go back to Charlotte for his court date. Much to our relief, he’d gotten a fine and community service that he had to finish by the end of the year. Thankfully he didn’t get anything that would prevent him from coming on tour with us or interrupt our schedule. I knew there was a slim chance of that happening, but we’d been talking about contingency plans for a few days just in case.

  “I love this, man,” I said to Andrew, grinning at him.

  We were all riding on a complete high. Outside of the fact that we were performing again, each day Emily would tell us how many more people were following us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, what fans were saying about our shows, who was blogging about us and how tickets were selling out for our later shows since our album had dropped on Tuesday.

  It was so fucking surreal. The album was selling great and was right in line with the predictions that Jonathan and Adam had outlined for the first week. We were promoting it like hell too. In every city we stopped, we were going to do one or two radio shows. The stations were all giving away tickets in the week leading up to our shows, so the buzz they’d created was so awesome. And earlier that morning, we had given away our first free copies of the album to fans who’d called in to the station we were at and answered trivia questions about our songs and us.

  I couldn’t believe they knew things like my musical influences, who Derrick’s celebrity crush was and where the name of Leo’s bar came from. The whole experience was more than we ever expected, and we knew it was just starting. We still had five weeks of touring to go, and then there was the potential for award shows in the spring, followed by our four month U.S. tour that Jonathan was talking about extending to add stops in Canada and the UK. We were finally exactly where we wanted to be.

  Andrew grinned. “Me too. It’s so freaking awesome.”

  I knew he was excited about the success of the band, but he was also rid
ing his own high because of everything that he had with Cole. Apparently they’d moved in together or they were talking about moving in together after the tour, but either way, they were serious and moving faster than any of us expected.

  “Feel like doing some writing?” I asked, and Andrew shrugged.

  “Sure. Why not,” he said as he started to lean forward to grab his guitar that was propped up against the refrigerator.

  “What’s up, fuckers!” Derrick said then, drawing our attention to him as he ran onto the bus, dropped his duffel bag by the drivers’ seat and launched himself onto the couch and Andrew.

  “Get off me, Derrick,” Andrew said, laughing as he tried to shove Derrick onto the floor.

  They’d been like that since we’d gotten on the bus, play fighting like five year-olds, teasing each other and staying up late to battle each other in every Xbox game we had. Derrick had quit the coke just like we’d asked the night of our band meeting, and he’d been like a new person since then. I actually enjoyed having him around now.

  “Tell me you missed me!” he said, wrapping his arms around Andrew’s waist and squeezing.

  “Hell no! It was quiet without your noisy ass stomping all over this bus.”

  “And it was surprisingly clean too,” Leo chimed in, taking the seat next to me in the other captains’ chair. “No dirty underwear on the floor.”

  “No discarded beer cans in the aisle,” Andrew added.

  “And no porn in the bathroom,” I said, and Derrick looked at me in fear.

  “Tell me Emily didn’t throw my magazines away.”

  I laughed, because Em had been threatening to do just that since she first saw them. I think she was finally understanding what it was like to live with five guys. And yes, I said five, because Jonathan had decided to tour with us for at least the first two weeks. I didn’t think he needed to be there, and we certainly didn’t want him there, but he was adamant. It was annoying.

  I wished he’d sleep on the other bus that housed our roadies and our sound engineers, but he wanted to stay with us. He probably just wanted to be sure we didn’t kill each other since I knew he was still skeptical that everything would remain copasetic after Andrew and Derrick’s fight.

  “No, she just threw them into your bunk. I promise they’re safe.”

  “Phew,” he said, fake wiping his brow as he lay sprawled across Andrew’s lap, his head resting on the arm of the couch.

  “So, what’s happening, boys?” Leo asked, looking back and forth between Andrew and me.

  “Zack and I were talking about messing around with this song we’ve been working on since we’ve got some time before sound check.”

  “What did you guys write?” Derrick asked.

  He’d been gone since Tuesday night after our show in Phoenix, so he’d missed a lot, including the bus ride to Vegas that had sparked inspiration in Andrew. He’d come out of his bunk in the morning with a melody, and we’d been working on it for the past two days. The lyrics were sparse, but we’d get there. Jonathan was already talking about our next album, but we knew it would be a while before we put anything out. Two albums in a year were enough.

  We’d let this one do its thing, and then figure out what came next. We all knew that if Devil’s Countdown was successful, then we didn’t have to be in a rush. We could take our time with the next album. Of course that didn’t mean I’d stop writing music. That just wasn’t possible.

  “I want to hear it,” Derrick commanded, so I got up to get my guitar, grabbing Andrew’s in the process since he couldn’t reach it with Derrick sprawled across him.

  Derrick finally rolled onto the other side of the couch, and Andrew slid to the edge of the seat, resting his guitar on his lap. He strummed out the intro, letting Derrick and Leo hear what we had, and we all worked on the song until it was time to go to sound check.

  * * *

  “I can’t believe you’re engaged. What are you, like nineteen?” I heard Jonathan ask as we wrapped up sound check. I realized he’d probably forgotten his microphone was on. He’d been sitting back with Rob, our sound tech, listening to how we sounded and adding his opinion here and there.

  I saw Emily elbow him playfully, and it made my stomach turn. “I’m twenty-three. You know that. You were there when we celebrated my birthday. You bought me shots.”

  I’d hated that night, even if we were celebrating Emily. We’d gone to New York for her actual birthday, and when we got back home she’d wanted to go out with the guys and celebrate at Leo’s bar. Since Jonathan had been in town, she’d invited him, and he’d flirted with her a little too much for my liking, buying her shots, getting her drunk and touching her whenever he could. I bit my tongue, but most of the time I really just wanted to punch him.

  Jonathan grinned. The bastard. “That was a fun night. I remember Zack had to carry you out of the bar.”

  Yeah, I did, because she couldn’t walk after you got done plying her with tequila.

  Emily grimaced and looked up at me, so I quickly averted my eyes and acted like I was tuning my guitar. I didn’t need her to know that I could hear their conversation.

  “Yeah, he wasn’t too happy with me – or you for that matter.”

  “It was your birthday celebration. You deserved to have a little fun. He got over it.”

  No, he really didn’t.

  “Yeah, but I threw up on his shoes when we got to the car. I ruined his favorite pair of Vans.”

  Jonathan laughed out loud. “I wouldn’t worry too much about that,” he added, a cocky look on his face. “By the time this tour is over, he’ll be able to buy five hundred pairs of Vans if he wants, because the money these guys are going to get is going to be like nothing they’ve seen before.”

  Okay, so that didn’t suck to hear. Not that I needed the money or was even in this business for the money, but I also knew that money meant fans were buying our music and our merchandise and attending our shows, and that ultimately led to success. And I was a guy who enjoyed success, especially where my music was concerned.

  Emily just grinned, so Jonathan continued talking.

  “Or maybe Zack will buy some decent shoes with his money. Real men don’t wear Vans out at night,” he said, and he was definitely insulting me. I knew he was a suit.

  He was so full of shit with the Chili Pepper’s t-shirt he was sporting with his stupid blazer. Douchebag.

  “Hey now,” Emily said, frowning a bit. “Zack’s a real man. Trust me.”

  I looked down at my guitar and smiled. I could always count on my girl to defend me.

  “Hey, sorry. I didn’t mean to insult him.”

  “Yes, you did,” Emily said, but it was matter of fact, like she already knew that Jonathan wasn’t my number one fan.

  I guess it wasn’t a surprise to me either. I hadn’t liked him since day one, and he knew it. We tolerated each other, but that was it.

  “Okay, fine, I did,” Jonathan relented, but he was smiling. “It’s just that I think you can do so much better than him.”

  My jaw clenched at that comment.

  “Better than Zack Easton? Are you joking?” Emily asked in sheer disbelief, and I smiled again. “Every woman on the planet – or at least those who’ve heard of Liar’s Edge – wants to sleep with him, and he just wants to sleep with me.”

  “That was not a visual I needed,” Jonathan said pointedly. “And that’s so not the point.”

  “Then what is the point?”

  “Nothing,” he said, turning away from her to fiddle with some knob.

  “Just spit it out Jonathan,” Emily said then, and I was all ears. “You’ve wanted to say something for a while now. Say it.”

  I saw him hesitating for a few seconds. “Fine,” he finally said. “I think you’re too young to get married, and I think Zack’s the wrong guy for you.”

  Oh, I was so going to punch him.

  Emily raised an eyebrow. “Wow, that was bold.”

  I could tell she wasn’
t amused.

  He shrugged. “You told me to say what was on my mind. That’s what’s on my mind.”

  “I disagree with you,” she said simply, as if there really wasn’t a question.

  “You say that, but I can see in your eyes that you have doubts. And I don’t blame you. I got married when I was your age, because I thought I was in love. We got divorced three years later when our daughter was two, which sucks because having divorced parents is never fun, and it all could’ve been avoided if I’d just listened to my friends and my family who were all telling me not to do it, but I was in love with Leila, so I didn’t listen.”

  “Why’d you get divorced?”

  Why was she even entertaining this jackhole?

  “Because we got married too young,” was all he said. “I have a feeling you know exactly what I’m talking about.”

  “What do you mean?” Emily questioned.

  “You’ve only ever dated Ben and Zack, and I know your relationship with Zack has been less than stable. How can you say you want to be with someone for the rest of your life when you’ve only slept with two guys?”

  I was ready to spit nails. Not only had she told him about our relationship, but he knew how many people she’d slept with? That was fucked up, and I was pissed.

  “Think about it. I’ll be back in a minute,” Jonathan said before Emily could respond to him.

  He got up and left the booth, leaving her staring at him in confusion. Then her gaze turned to me, and she forced a smile, but it wasn’t genuine. I could tell she was freaking out, and it terrified me. If he could get inside her head and make her actually question that we were right for each other, it wasn’t a good sign.

  I needed her to know that regardless of her experience, we were right for each other. She made me happy, I took good care of her, and I loved her more than anything. Jonathan didn’t know shit about us. He compared us to his failed marriage, but he had no idea what we’d really gone through and how it had made us stronger as a couple. He was wrong, and she needed to know that.