(Complete Rock Stars, Surf and Second Chances #1-5)

by Michelle Mankin

“I dunno.” He looked concerned. “Maybe because you’ve been clinging to me all night.” He traced the round of my cheek with his thumb. The pad felt rough against my skin. Like the other guys, he had been in the studio every day for hours at a time, even though we wouldn’t be able to see each other again for a long time after the Labor Day weekend was over. Morris was pushing the guys hard to complete an album.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t mind.” His arm tightened around me. He took one of my hands and laced our fingers together. “It’s the party, isn’t it?”

  “Maybe,” I allowed. “Yes,” I admitted, sighing as another girl walked by with her large breasts swaying. I was as naïve as Ramon thought I was. Plus, as I glanced around the condo, it seemed pretty obvious that I was the only B-cup in the place. I felt more than a little inadequate. “You guys can have any woman you want. I guess I’m wondering how long it will be before you regret us being exclusive.”

  “I don’t regret it at all, Karen.” He smiled, his gaze dipping to my mouth as he brushed his thumb across my lips. “Why would I?” He lifted his eyes and held my gaze. “I’ve got the best girl there is.”

  “I feel the same way. I mean, about you being the best guy.” I set the uneasy thoughts aside, including the ones about his best friend, took his hand and brought it to my lips. “But all this, the women, the drugs, the booze. I get that it’s part of the rock star lifestyle. But I don’t see how it will work for us, for the type of relationship we’ve talked about.”

  “It will work if we agree to make it to work.”

  “It didn’t work for Linc and Simone,” I muttered and scooted closer to Dominic as movement across the room caught my eye. It was Linc and Ramon. They were currently doing a woman at the same time, or she was doing them. Her tits bouncing to her own enthusiastic rhythm, she was riding cowgirl on the guitarist’s cock while giving a blow job to the lead singer. Those two had been prowling the room earlier bragging about who could fuck the most women. Ash had refused to participate when they had tried to get him to join their game. He had called them infantile. I had other words for what they were doing right now right out in the open. Shocking. Reprehensible. Appalling. I refused to analyze why my pulse was pounding so rapidly. I wasn’t remembering my dream about Ramon or thinking about how his cock had felt pressed against my backside in the water. I definitely wasn’t hurt or disappointed by his behavior only disgusted. That’s what I told myself.

  “Linc’s and Simone’s situation is totally different than ours.” Dominic frowned when he noticed the direction of my gaze.

  “How so?” I felt nausea bubbling up in the back of my throat. Don’t look anymore, I told myself, wanting to hum to drown out the sounds that somehow drifted this way over the music.

  “They had different upbringings for one thing. Neither Linc nor Simone had an example growing up of what a healthy relationship should be. I did. I remember how good it was with my mom and dad. The same with your parents. Those two never had that. Plus, they were both under a lot of pressure after Simone had the falling out with her parents and Linc had his accident.” His brow creased. “But Simone should never have left him. If she hadn’t…”

  “She had to,” I cut in. “Her mom needed her.”

  “You and I understand that, but at the time Linc didn’t. I think Simone should have realized he needed her more. She should have made him her priority.” His eyes plumbed the depths of mine, his expression more serious than I had ever seen it. The steadiness in his gaze quelled my unease. “But even then, if her mom hadn’t told Linc that lie about Simone never coming back maybe they would have worked it out. But after she came up here and saw Linc the way she did, and then he found her with Ash, well…”

  “Yeah,” I agreed sadly. My best friend was hurting terribly. My heart ached for her.

  “C’mon.” Dominic stood. “Let’s go to my room. I thought the party might be fun, but I was wrong. I’ll come back and sleep on the sofa later like I did last night, but for right now I would much rather be alone with you.”

  I took his hand, but not before I caught Ramon’s gaze on me. I jerked my eyes away. He had been passive beneath the cowgirl. But I flushed head to toe when I heard his groan as we exited the living room. The girl’s loud climax followed. The sounds seemed to chase me as Dominic led me down the hall toward his room. My cheeks were still warm and my stomach was still unsettled when we stepped into Dominic’s room and he shut the door behind us.

  “You ok getting ready for bed while I’m here?” He ran a hand through his glossy brown hair looking sheepish.

  “It’s ok.” I took his hand. “You don’t have to sleep on the couch tonight.” My parents wouldn’t approve. My dad had made me promise to be careful before he had agreed to let me visit Dominic. And I was planning to be careful. But I wasn’t a little girl anymore. I was a sophomore this year at Yale, and I was ready to take the next step with Dominic. So he was clear on my intentions, I added. “I’m not really in the mood for sleeping.” As that extra bit of information registered, his eyes flared. We had done plenty of fooling around since we had started dating, but we hadn’t yet crossed that final line.

  “Me either, Karen.” He drew his shirt over his head, and I admired his lean, tanned torso as I lowered the zipper at the back of my sundress. “Hold on.” He crossed to me. My gaze dipped to his pelvis, and the defined V that his half-unbuttoned jeans revealed. I swallowed to moisten my throat. I knew where that trail of dark hair led. I knew there was a very impressive cock behind those remaining buttons. He lifted my chin and lowered his head, brushing a butterfly-soft kiss across my mouth. “I love you,” he told me, looking deeply into my eyes. His gaze gleamed with emotion that rocked me nearly as much as those precious words. “And you don’t have to do this if you’re not ready. I’ll wait. I would wait a lifetime for you. You’re the one, the only one for me. I’ve known it since I first saw you.”

  My eyes burned as tears filled them. “I…”

  He pressed a finger over my lips. “You don’t have to say the words just because I did. I want you to believe them when you say them. I want you to be as certain as I am.” He removed his finger, hooked it under the straps of my sundress and slid them slowly back up my arms to my shoulders. “Come to bed.” He pressed another soft kiss to my lips. “I want to hold you. I’m going to miss you while you’re away.” He turned and moved to the bed while I stood holding the front of my dress to my chest. He was so sexy. So confident. He unbuttoned the remaining buttons on his jeans, drew back the covers and climbed in, but not before I saw how significantly his erection strained the front of his boxers.

  “You coming?” he queried, rising up on one elbow, the sheet around his waist, his gaze dark, his expression enigmatic.

  “No, I’m not coming yet.” I let the dress fall to the floor and stepped over it on my way toward him, wearing nothing now except for my white lace thong. A moment of self-consciousness quickly faded because of the heated way he looked at me. “But I’d like to. I’d like for you to be my first, Dominic.”

  “I’d like that too.” His gaze slowly traveled the length of me. “I intend to be your first and only and last.” He threw back the covers, and I climbed in beside him. I sucked in a sharp breath when his warm hands clasped my hips firmly and drug me across the sheets, repositioning my body so that I was underneath him. “You are so fucking beautiful.” He watched his hand as he slowly ran the back of it down the column of my neck and across my breasts. My nipples tightened to points that ached for his touch. He framed my breasts with his hands, lifting his gaze back to mine. The love shining in his eyes removed the last of my lingering reservations. He was the right one for me.

  “Dominic,” I said, lifting my back off of the cool cotton sheets and arching more fully into his skillful touch. “I love you. And I want…”

  “Shh,” he soothed. “I know what you want. We want the same thing. Let me take care of you.” He flicked his thumb across my nipples, an
d my breath hitched. His lips formed a sensual smile. He lowered his head and fastened his mouth around one, swirling his tongue around it and then the other. He drove me crazy with his tongue and his mouth. That was nothing new, but being in bed together without fear of interruption was. That spot between my legs grew wet and began to pulse with need. My legs shifted restlessly. My inner thighs were slick.

  “Dominic.” I reached down between our bodies seeking his cock.

  “Yeah, baby. I’m right here with you.” He shifted, tugged his boxers down, kicked them aside and rolled on a condom. He moved over me braced on his flexed arms. His eyes were nearly black and his possessive gaze made me feel more desperate. I started to reach for him again, but he grabbed my wrists and brought them over my head, pinning them to the mattress in his grip. “It will happen too fast if you touch me,” he explained before he lowered his head and kissed me long, deep and wet. My lips felt bruised in a good way when he lifted his head. He released my hands, ripped the soaked scrap of lace down my legs, spread my knees wide and settled between my quivering thighs. “You ready for me?”

  “Yes,” I managed.

  He swiped a thumb back and forth lightly over my center. I shuddered. “Yeah, I think you are.” He stroked a hand down his length while I watched. “Eyes up to me, baby,” he commanded. “I wanna see you looking at me when I make you mine forever.” The moment my gaze met his, he slid his cock inside me. There was a little stinging discomfort because of his size, but not much because of all the pleasurable things he had already done to me leading up to this moment. “You feel so incredible. So tight around my cock. So hot.”

  I brought in a shaky breath. His words turned me on. He turned me on. His body and the way he felt inside me.

  The remaining tension draining from my limbs, I reached for him, sliding my fingers along the muscular planes of his back down to the curve of his ass. I squeezed it, letting him know without words that I was ready, that I wanted him to move. He began to stroke in and out of me, telling me how beautiful I was and how much he loved me. He showed me with each and every measured thrust that there was a world of difference between what Lincoln and Ramon were doing to that woman in the other room and what we were doing. This was what I wanted. What we wanted. This was making love.

  Chapter Fourteen

  * * *

  Ramon

  I caught the scent of her sweet coconut fragrance the moment the stairwell door opened. I cleared my expression of the web of tangled emotions that had driven me to the isolated rooftop after the redhead. I watched Karen pause in the doorway. The light behind her made the white sundress translucent and revealed a great deal more of her attributes than she would perhaps have wanted me to see. The door clicked closed behind her, plunging the roof into darkness again. The San Francisco skyline provided the only glow now for the terrace and its potted plants and vacant seating groups.

  Thinking she was alone, Karen tiptoed over to the half wall, leaned over it and stared out at the breathtaking view of the moon over the bay. From my dark corner, I took in one of my own. Her stiff posture betrayed that she was pensive. So was I, for lots of reasons. Big changes lay ahead for the Dogs if we could hold things together, which was no sure thing with Linc and Ash at each other’s throats lately over Simone. I brought the joint back to my lips, took another drag and stepped closer to Karen. There wasn’t a question of me remaining hidden. I gravitated to her like the tide to the moon.

  I exhaled a breath of smoke at her.

  “Ramon.” She coughed, waved her hand in front of her face to dissipate the cloud and turned toward me. Those cute twin creases marred her delicate brow. “Why are you always trying to get on my nerves?”

  Good question. “Because it’s easy and fun,” I told her the truth. Most of it.

  She opened her mouth seeming on the verge of a retort, but then she clamped it shut. She hugged her arms around herself and turned back to the bay.

  Dominic was right, though I would never let him know it. She was different than the others. There was something about her. Something that drew us both, though deep down, I knew he was the better one for her. I didn’t do sugary. I didn’t do sweet. And I certainly didn’t do relationships. Good luck to him with her and all that. I wasn’t letting any chick have the upper hand on me. I took another drag, dropped the reefer and stomped out what was left. She waved her hand again at the lingering skunky smoke, but she didn’t favor me with another glance. I didn’t like that. I enjoyed getting her riled. I enjoyed pushing her buttons. And I enjoyed, not for the first time, imagining what if would be like to have her in my bed.

  “What are you doing up here?” I asked. “With all that moaning and shit you were doing in Patch’s room, I didn’t figure you’d be leaving anytime soon.”

  “He’s asleep or I wouldn’t have.” She lifted her chin, but I could tell I had embarrassed her. “You probably had your ear pressed to the wall.”

  “Didn’t have to. You were so loud anyone on the same floor could hear you.” That sparked her. She turned fiery daggers on me. “At least we had the decency to be behind closed doors.”

  “If what I was doing bothered you so much, then why did you keep staring?”

  “I didn’t…I wasn’t,” she sputtered.

  “Don’t lie.”

  She glanced away, her hair a loose curtain that hid her reaction. Something was different about her tonight. I wasn’t sure what it was, but then it dawned on me.

  “Ah, I see. Did you let him have a real taste tonight? I always figured you wouldn’t give it up until he put a ring on your finger.” I meant the words to be a dig. It bothered me more than I would ever admit that things had gone to that level with them. Sure she wasn’t for me, not that way. But if I thought I could have gone there with her without worrying about her getting the wrong idea, I would’ve done it in a heartbeat.

  “Why do you hate me so much?” she whispered, giving me a wounded look that hurt almost as much as knowing that the final line had been crossed between them. If I’d ever wanted a chance with her, it was gone now. They had a bond now that I would never betray.

  “I don’t hate you.” Fucking hell, could she hear the weakness in my voice? Could she guess how jealous I was? How badly I had wished it had been me and not Patch who had made her moan?

  “If you don’t then why do you always treat me the way you do?”

  “Do you love him?” I snapped.

  “Yes.” No hesitation. An unequivocal response. Another bolt of disappointment. I swept it aside. It was for the best. It was good for Patch that she was so certain, because he was damn sure crazy about her.

  “He’s a nice guy. Easy to love. I guess. Just don’t think that admission earns you points with me.” I looked away from her. I didn’t want her to see in my eyes that I already held her in higher regard than I had ever held a woman. Every time she refused my advances, it infuriated me. At the same time, I grudgingly respected her for it. “And don’t rip his heart out,” I warned. Karen might be sweet, but that didn’t mean she was honorable. “Like Simone did to Linc.” Like my mom did to my pop, over and over. Like Maria did to my brother.

  “She didn’t. He’s the one who…”

  “She…left…him. You chicks are all alike, once you’ve got us by the balls.”

  Karen cocked her head to the side as if searching for hidden meaning in the vehemence in my tone. I crossed my arms over my chest. “You get an idea you’re moving on, you tell Patch straight out. Don’t string him along.”

  “Like that will ever happen.” She dropped her chin. “More likely the other way around with you guys opening for Perry on his next tour. I know the score. I’m not as clueless as you think I am. I saw the way the girls threw themselves at you tonight.” She turned to look at me. “The girlfriend who stays behind while the band is on the road has to pretend her guy isn’t fooling around or that it doesn’t matter.”

  “Patch isn’t like that.” I found myself defending him while at t
he same time wanting to erase that stricken look in her eyes. “You picked the right guy.”

  “Maybe,” she whispered, hugging her arms tighter around herself, almost as if she were already imagining being alone.

  “You cold?”

  “A little.” That sundress certainly offered little protection from the cold wind coming off the water. I drew my shirt off, pulled it over her head and widened one of the sleeve openings for her as she put her arms through them.

  “I’m ok.” She protested, but yet threaded her arms into each sleeve following my lead. “You’ll freeze.”

  “You’re shivering, Karen.” I tugged the hem down, feeling a primal surge of satisfaction to see my clothing on her body. “We can share the warmth.” I draped my arms around her shoulders and drew her back into me.

  She stiffened. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

  “And here I thought you were all grown up. Relax. It’s not like I’m undressing you.”

  She laughed and my heart warmed, even if my bare skin rebelled against the cold. She made me feel so much it gave me pause. Maybe she was right. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Even so, I tightened my hold and savored the feel of holding her in my arms. Patch wasn’t the only one who was going to miss her when she went back to college.

  Chapter Fifteen

  * * *

  Karen - February 2001

  “So Dominic’s really being interviewed by Rolling Stone? That’s not just code for one of the groupies screwing his brains out?”

  “Please, Karen. We all got tagged by the tour manager to sit in with Perry and answer some questions about what it was like to be on a sold-out tour. Everyone else went, but I was…busy.”

  “Yeah, sorry about interrupting that. She sounded…nice.”

  “Nice would be the last word I would use to describe her.” I could hear the lasciviousness in his tone.