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

by Michelle Mankin

  It’s only the allure of the forbidden with him, I told myself, though deep down I knew that was a big lie. So I told myself the other one. Dominic loves me. But even inside my own head those last three words rang the most hollow. So much time apart. So little interest from my husband. So much apathy on my part. My faith in my marriage ebbed at the water mark. Dominic might say he loved me, but words without the actions to prove it made it more of a theoretical thing. Reenlistment after reenlistment said he loved the Marines and his brothers in it far more than me now. The years of dedicated friendship and understanding from the man in the other room said the opposite. One seemed like a rip current that threatened to drag me under, the other a gentle tide to carry me away from my troubles. It had been unwise to invite Ramon here.

  I stripped, took a shower, washing my body and my hair with practiced efficiency ignoring how much my body ached to be touched. I was by myself too much. My heart brimmed with longing to be held, to be desired, to be appreciated as a woman. My mind didn’t have to strain to conjure up a sexy scene with the bad boy guitarist on the other side of my wall. Those talented fingers of his were probably even now at this very moment sifting through my personal things. That particular thought suddenly got me moving much faster.

  “Hey,” I announced breezily, a little out of breath when I emerged from the bedroom, my hair wet and pulled back into a ponytail and wearing an off the shoulder top and stretchy yoga pants. “I’m really tired.” I had talked myself into doing the right thing. “Would you mind too much if I took a rain check for now? I could come see you tomorrow. There’s a new coffee place near your hotel…” I trailed off when he turned toward me, raking his gaze slowly over me in an appraising way that made my nipples harden and other parts throb. But it was what he held in his hands that made my rapidly beating heart falter. Of all the things in the apartment, he had discovered what revealed the most. The worn notebook I had been journaling in for years, ever since that long-ago conversation when he had suggested I use it as a way to turn my negative thoughts around. Well, I had followed his advice, but the way I usually turned my thoughts positive lately was by thinking about him, the man who paid careful attention to me versus the one who treated me as if I were only an afterthought.

  Any hope that he hadn’t seen the last entry summarizing that sentiment was dashed when he set the journal down and stalked toward me. “Why didn’t you tell me how you felt?”

  I just shook my head and started to back away from him.

  He reached me in only a few short strides, his strong fingers relentlessly firm around my upper arms as he yanked me to him. Dazed by the intensity of his reaction, I tipped my head back and blinked up at him. The lines of his handsome face were drawn, and his eyes smoldered. Mesmerized, I didn’t dare move as he repositioned, his palms grazing my cheeks as he plunged his fingers into my hair and gently cradled my skull.

  “So beautiful,” he praised. His voice was like crushed velvet and so were his thumbs as he stroked my cheeks with them approvingly. My heart began to race when his gaze dipped to my mouth. I had to part my lips to accommodate my shortened breaths. He lowered his head but too slowly for me. I lifted mine to meet him, wetting my dry lips for the kiss that it seemed I had been anticipating a lifetime.

  I moaned the moment our mouths connected, his lips soft as satin yet firm. Perfect, I thought as he softly brushed the warmth of them teasingly light across the surface of my own. My eyes fluttered open when he lifted his head a fraction. His lips hovered over mine. “Please,” I whimpered, feeling lightheaded. My pulse skittered beneath my skin as I stared into his sinfully dark eyes.

  “Hey, surfer girl.” His voice was an audible caress. “Open your mouth.” His warm breath dampened my lips. “I want to taste you.” He returned his mouth to mine. His lips moved persuasively, coaxing mine to part but coaxing wasn’t necessary. I opened for him feeling it deep within my core, within my very soul, when his tongue penetrated my mouth and swept inside. A rush of wet heat soaked my panties as his tongue touched mine igniting something primal inside of me. Passive before, my hands only resting on his forearms for balance, I leapt into the fire. He set me ablaze, and I wanted to burn higher and hotter. I grabbed his waist. He was all tensed muscle, and I arched my hips into his, urgently seeking and finding his cock thick and hard between us. He groaned into my mouth, my ponytail holder slipping free as his fingers tunneled deeper into my hair. He tugged on the wet strands pulling my head backward so he could deepen the kiss. Waves of pleasure rolled through me as he ravaged my mouth with unrestrained hunger thrusting his tongue in masterfully deep, once, twice, then three times.

  I moaned. I melted. I trembled with molten desire. I heard ringing in my ears as I bunched up the tail of his shirt to rip it over his head. I wanted him naked. I desperately needed to feel his skin against mine. I needed him inside of me. The kiss was a prelude. I wanted it all. I wanted him to take me without holding anything back. I wanted him to make me his own.

  He ripped his mouth from mine breaking the seal between our lips. Our breaths gusted hot between us. Framing my face, his fingertips touching my hair, he stared down at me, a possessive glint within his gaze and beyond that passion, a suppressed longing that seemed to rival my own.

  “I’m going to fuck you, Karen. Right here. Right now. Fast and hard. That’s for starters. Then we’re moving to the bedroom, and I’m going to have you again and again and again until we’re both exhausted and your throat is raw from chanting my name. But you’ve got to switch off your cell first. That ringing is driving me insane.”

  Ringing? Shit. As the noise of the buzzer pierced my haze, the heat in my blood drained away and my body went cold. “That’s not my cell.” I stumbled away from him, tongue swiping across my bottom lip savoring the wild taste of him even as my heart flooded with icy panic.

  He reached for my arm. I shrugged away, freezing solid as Dominic’s voice blasted into the room from the intercom.

  “Q2. Surprise, honey. I got buzzed in with our next-door neighbor. I saw Ramon’s bodyguard in the lobby. He said you guys just went up and were planning to order takeout. Hope you’ve got enough for three.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  * * *

  Karen

  “I know this wasn’t the life you signed up for when you married me, but if you love me…” Dominic let that supposition hang. We were standing in the middle of our living room. Still wearing his fatigues, he had come straight from the transport plane. I remained in the comfortable clothes I had put on earlier but I wished I had worn body armor instead. His angry barbs had been piercing me since the moment Ramon had walked out the door.

  “I do love you. I do support you. But becoming a Marine was your decision. I was young and naïve. I had no idea what I was getting into. I didn’t realize that military life would be so different from the one we had been living before you enlisted.

  “It’s worlds different.”

  “I know that now. Believe me. But I wonder if you really have any idea what it has cost me. How little sleep I get when you are gone. How much I worry. How my heart races whenever I get a phone call from a number I don’t recognize, or whenever someone unexpectedly knocks at our door.”

  “Q2,” he breathed. “No, I didn’t. You never told me.”

  “You never ask. You just tell me how it’s going to be, then sign up for deployment after deployment, and I accept. I adapt.” I sighed, running a hand shakily over my mouth. I felt sick with guilt. I had kissed another man right here in this room, and it had been beyond anything I had imagined. “Sometimes I think I don’t even know you anymore,” I continued, laying out truths that had been buried too long. “Each time you return you seem more unreachable, less the compassionate artist I married and more the taciturn warrior.”

  “I’m a soldier. There’s no room for compassion on the battlefield. I’m trained to be decisive and to make split second decisions. I have to be dispassionate. People die if I’m not.” A shadow cr
ossed his face. I wondered if he was thinking about Nick. He called out his buddy’s name in his sleep sometimes, but he never mentioned the exact circumstances surrounding his death. Did he blame himself?

  “But this is our home, Dominic. There are no enemy combatants here. A home needs love and understanding. I need those things. When we were first married, you used to lavish me with your love.”

  “Things are different now.” His eyes changed, like a switch being thrown. Gone was the gentle spirit of the man I had fallen in love with all those years ago. Even his posture was confrontational. Instinctively, I started to back away, but then I remembered the story Ramon had shared about the first time Dominic had seen me. How brave he thought my husband was to risk his heart again after his mother’s passing. Had he been hurt too many times? Were the risks not worth the reward anymore? Was he so fearful of loss that he had detached himself from me as a defensive measure? I pulled in a tight breath and asked the question I feared the most. “Do you still love me?”

  “Karen.” He shook his head and a little light broke through his mask softening his features. “Why would you even ask me that?”

  “Because I don’t know the answer.” I wrapped my arms around myself. “The woman I was when you married me isn’t someone you seem to want anymore. I’ve tried to change, tried to be whoever you need, but it doesn’t seem to matter. You treat me like I’m something you own, like I’m a piece of equipment to be maintained and manipulated so it operates in a way that best suits your purposes.”

  “What about you?” His tone turned accusing. “You travel all the time. Roxy’s favorite PR girl. And those changes you’ve made? Those were for you not me. You’re married to your job. Even when I’m free for all that romantic love and compassion you claim you need, you’re never here. Yet somehow you always drop everything to accommodate Ramon into your schedule.”

  “Don’t bring Ramon into this.”

  “He’s already in it.” He made a scoffing noise. “You brought him right in the middle between us where he’s always wanted to be.” The accusation in his eyes staggered me. The veins in his neck visibly pulsed with his indignation. “I realize now that it was a mistake to ask him to look after you, a mistake that continued far longer than I should have allowed.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “That I’m rectifying that mistake tonight. That I’ll move you to the base.” He gave me an imperious look. “You can make new friends there. Ones who can show you how to be a better soldier’s wife.”

  My eyes burned with the sting of frustrated tears. What did he think I had been trying to be all these years? Did he not understand me at all? “I have friends. You can’t dictate to me what I do or who I rely on to keep me sane when you’re away.” I pulled in a breath trying to be less confrontational and more logical so that he would listen. The fluorescent lime stripe on my black skateboard caught my eye. “New friends wouldn’t know me the way Simone and Ramon do. They wouldn’t have the insight to suggest that I pick up a hobby like the skateboarding that I enjoy so much.”

  “Skateboarding is dangerous. It’ll have to stop. I don’t know why Ramon recommended you take it up or why Simone encouraged you to go right back to it again after that fall.”

  “Because they understand me. They know I need something to occupy my time that requires all my concentration. Something that is physically taxing. Something that has an element of danger, but one that I can control, because I can’t control anything else in my life.” The room grew ominously silent. The truth in that statement hung like a sword over our heads. I swallowed heavily. “Dominic…” I reached for him, seeing the glistening wet across the surface of his eyes. “That was harsh. I’m sorry. I…”

  “I’ve often wondered.” His voice was rough. He glanced down at my hand on his arm before he glanced back up. His gaze held a vulnerability he rarely shared with me anymore. “But you are always so stoic. You never say anything about the deployments being hard on you while I’m away. I brag. I tell all the guys how strong you are, how supportive, how much you understand.”

  “I do understand. I am proud of you, of all that you’ve accomplished and how honorably you serve.” I peered up at him pleading with my eyes for him to empathize. “But I can’t live like this anymore. I need you around. I need you here by my side.” The or else was implied, though I didn’t specifically say it. Nor did I bring up Ramon’s name again, though it was on the tip of my tongue to confess, to get everything out in the open, to admit how lonely I was and how seriously attached I had become to his friend. But I think maybe he already knew. Or at least suspected. Why else had he come home without giving me any advance notice?

  “I see that you need someone around to keep you from throwing yourself at a guy like Ramon.”

  The blood drained from my face. Dominic’s eyes narrowed, moving slowly across my features, analyzing me but not in a way that felt good.

  “I don’t know how far things have progressed, but I know how my wife looks when she’s been kissed. And I have never in my life seen two people who looked so guilty.”

  “It was just a kiss, a single kiss,” I whispered.

  He gave my explanation a curt nod, but I saw the flash of relief in his eyes. “Given the fact that Ramon couldn’t get out of here fast enough, I’m assuming you initiated it.” His hands curled into tightly balled fists. “I’m a bit surprised he didn’t try to take things further. But then I guess as you once said that you really aren’t his type after all.”

  Those words sank their poisoned claws in deep. I had never gotten over the hurt of Ramon rejecting me at the OB Hotel. Tonight he had left in such a hurry, it seemed as though he hadn’t been able to get away from me fast enough. There had been no additional heated glances. No more fevered touches. No outward sign whatsoever that anything untoward had happened between me and the Dirt Dogs’ guitarist, except the sting on my lips from his demanding kisses. Had he been relieved by Dominic’s interruption? Had the kiss been merely a temporary lapse in judgment? A curiosity? One he had satisfied. Or one he had found utterly lacking?

  My husband and I stared at each other, each reeling from revelations the other had shared, each attempting in our own way to hold onto the pieces of our crumbling marriage. It had come to this moment. The breaking point. One Dominic and I probably would have reached much sooner if Ramon hadn’t been there to help me endure the long-repeated cycles of the deployments. But I had crossed the line with Ramon and Dominic’s admonitions reminded me why I could never attempt to salvage the friendships I had ruined. Now it was only me and the man in front of me. It was up to the two of us to mend the damage or walk away from each other conceding defeat.

  “I’ll resign my commission.” My jaw dropped in response to his softly spoken statement. “After fulfilling what remains of my current obligation, I’ll get out. We’ll fix this.”

  I let out a breath I didn’t realize I had been holding. My eyes were wide. If I had thought there had been any possibility he would leave his brothers in arms for me, I would have asked him to do it well before things had deteriorated so badly between us. “Are you sure?” I pressed. “I don’t want you to end up resenting me.”

  “I love you, Karen. I always have. I can see now that I’ve been selfish in a lot of ways. There are serious problems that we have to work out. I don’t want Ramon coming around anymore.”

  That was wise. I had very little willpower or pride where the guitarist was concerned, but thinking about cutting Ramon permanently out of my life made my heart ache in a way that was a more damning indictment of me than our kiss had been.

  “Ok.” I nodded.

  “Come here.”

  I went to him and took his hand. He led me to our bedroom, and he made love to me. It felt like a new beginning because in so many ways the man in bed with me was almost a stranger. We talked well into the night. We made plans for the future. He agreed to find a job that would keep him at home, and that we should start a family right a
way, the way I had always wanted us to.

  In the morning, he wrapped his arms around me and kissed me tenderly. I sensed the Dominic of the early years of our marriage in that kiss. He asked me to be patient a little bit longer before he turned and walked out the door.

  Chapter Thirty

  * * *

  Ramon

  “Stay the fuck away from my wife.”

  “Well hello to you too, asshole,” I wheezed as I glared up at Dominic. From my hunched over position, I feigned nonchalance, but my jaw throbbed and my ribcage burned from the right cross and body blow that had followed. I swallowed blood. “I wondered when you would show up. I’m surprised you got past security. It must be the uniform. It makes you look positively trustworthy.”

  “What would you know about trust?” He glanced around the penthouse, a puzzled crease forming between his brows. I got the impression that the opulence offended him somehow. Or maybe he was just surprised the place wasn’t trashed. “Doesn’t matter, though. Soon enough, I’ll be back for good.”

  “Oh, really?” I lifted a brow.

  “That’s right. I’m resigning my commission after this tour is finished.

  I couldn’t say I was surprised but I had hoped for a different outcome. I had hoped our kiss had meant something. It had been a revelation more meaningful to me than any sex I’d ever had, but she must have seen it some other way.

  “So I guess you’ll be taking Karen back to Southern California, then?”

  “No.” He gave me an odd look. “I’ll find a decent paying job with one of the Marine subcontractors in DC or Maryland. It might not be rock star living, but I can give her a nice house and all of the finer things life has to offer.”