Needing Forever VOL 1: Part of The Rocker... Series Universe

by Terri Anne Browning

  “Y-Yes,” I panted, already so close to coming apart for him I was trembling. “Thank you, Bishop.”

  “I love you,” he groaned.

  My nails sliced into his back as I shouted the words back at him, “I love you too!”

  Epilogue

  Kenzie

  August

  The heat was going to be killer today, and it wouldn’t start cooling down until after nine that night. But that wasn’t going to stop the ten thousand-plus people from going to the concert that evening.

  In the past eleven months, I’d been too busy to attend any of Bishop’s concerts, but tonight, there was no way I was going to miss it. I had a surprise for my husband, and I couldn’t wait to tell him.

  Linc wouldn’t have let me even if I’d wanted to.

  Alchemy and Trance were doing a fundraiser concert tonight, and Linc flew in to go with me. I had missed him after bonding with the larger-than-life man who was one of Dallas’s best friends. When he’d moved in with Shane and Harper Stevenson during Harper’s pregnancy, we’d still kept in touch, texting every day.

  So I knew what tonight meant for him.

  Outwardly, I couldn’t tell if he was nervous or not, but I knew how knotted up he must have been on the inside. Tonight was the night he was going to try to win back the love of his life, and I wanted to be there for him. If Rhett Tomlinson took him back after being pushed away one too many times, I would be there to celebrate with him. But if Rhett couldn’t put his heart at risk again after having it stomped on repeatedly, I’d be waiting there to hug my friend.

  Linc rolled up the sleeves of his white button-up, the material stretching tightly across his wide shoulders as he causally fixed the vest and then adjusted his belt. Once his clothes were perfect, he looked in the mirror of my guest bathroom and smoothed a stray hair back into place. To look at this man, no one would know he was gay. He was too butch and ruggedly handsome to even set off anyone’s radar that he batted for his own team. Dressed like he was now, even I had trouble tearing my eyes off his perfection.

  “Yes, you’re sexy,” I teased from the doorway. “Could you maybe move this along a little faster? At this rate, the concert will be over by the time you’re finished.”

  His shoulders tensed for a moment before relaxing. “What am I going to do if he doesn’t want to be with me, Kenzie?”

  The vulnerability in his green eyes made me ache for him. “Don’t think like that,” I told him. “Negativity doesn’t ever bring us the things we want the most.”

  “Don’t get all philosophical with me, woman,” he growled. “I’m serious. I fucked up. Rhett was everything I’ve ever dreamed of having, and I pushed him away so many times, he gave up on me. What… What if I can’t convince him I’ve changed?”

  I hugged my arms around his waist and tilted my head back to meet his gaze. “I can’t answer that because I don’t know. But if you love him, you won’t give up even if he tells you to go to hell tonight. If you can’t convince him now, don’t give up. Love is worth fighting for.”

  He nodded, but his eyes remained pensive. On the drive to the stadium where the concert was being held, he stayed quiet, and I knew he was trying not to chicken out. The town car pulled up at the back of the sold-out venue, and someone opened our door just as the sun was starting to set.

  The heat hit me as soon as I stepped outside, and I put a hand to my stomach in an attempt to fight off the nausea that seemed to be ruling my life lately.

  Security was in full force as we walked through the stadium toward the dressing room where both bands were waiting after rehearsing earlier in the day, followed by all the press interviews. Bishop had been gone all day, having left me in bed early that morning with a kiss and a promise to see me later. I’d waited until I heard the front door shut before letting myself run to the bathroom to be sick.

  He didn’t know my secret yet. I wanted to wait and make telling him special, and I hoped tonight was the perfect time.

  We got married in December, right after my fall term ended so I wouldn’t miss any classes during our honeymoon. It had been a really small ceremony with only our closest friends and family. Something simple with all three of his bandmates as his groomsmen and Paula as my maid of honor. Axton walked me down the aisle, and Dallas sobbed the entire time. I felt beautiful and loved that day…

  Except when I had to mingle with Becca Bishop. She still didn’t like me, and the feeling was mutual. But she didn’t matter. It wasn’t like we saw her all that much anyway. In the almost year we’d been together, I’d only had to deal with her rudeness three different times, including our wedding. Bishop and Paula were with me every time I had to face her, and they made me feel like I was the most important person to them every time. I knew that was their way of showing they were standing behind me, but it only seemed to make Becca dislike me more.

  Whatever. I was part of her family now, and there was nothing she could do about it. Especially when I was going to be the mother of her grandchild.

  Outside the dressing room we were led to, I heard loud laughter coming from behind the closed door. The security guard in front of the door opened it and announced us before stepping back to let me through first.

  The guys were all sitting around, chilling with beers in their hands and plates of food on their laps. There were no girls hanging around, thank God. I still hadn’t gotten used to that. All the guys except for Bishop and Rhett loved having a dozen women running around the dressing room half naked or fawning all over them. I wasn’t a fan of skanky bitches eyeballing my husband, and I doubted I’d ever be comfortable with it.

  As soon as I walked through the door, Bishop was on his feet, a smile that outshone the sun on his face. “Was getting worried about you, Sunshine,” he said as he bent to kiss me. “Did you have any trouble getting here?”

  “Nope. Plus, I had muscle this time to keep all the crazies at bay.” I glanced over my shoulder to see Linc still standing in the doorway. His hands were thrust into the pockets of his dress pants, causing the material to stretch tight over his huge thighs.

  Dark green eyes landed on Rhett’s chocolate ones, and the air suddenly seemed suffocating with tension.

  Clearing my throat, I turned back to my husband. “Is beer all that’s on offer? I could really use a ginger ale.”

  “Sure, baby.” He lifted my hand to his lips. “Jake, get my wife a drink.”

  A cold bottle of ginger ale was thrust in front of me, and Jake dropped a kiss on top of my head. “We’ve missed you, Kenz,” he complained. “Why didn’t you come out for the mini tour?”

  I gave him a small smile. “Paula had a few health issues, and I didn’t want to leave her,” I told him. “Plus, I had to get everything ready for the fall term.”

  “Well, this guy was hard to live with,” Dave grumbled. “He was worse than a love-sick kid.”

  Bishop just shrugged. “I don’t like being away from my Sunshine.”

  “Yeah, we know. But she’s gonna have to come on the Australian tour next summer, or we’re going to lose our fucking minds,” Carver complained.

  I hide my smile by taking a sip of my drink. The coolness eased some of the nausea rolling around in my stomach, and I breathed a tiny sigh of relief as I lowered the bottle.

  Bishop’s brow pinched together with concern. “You okay? You’re sweating.”

  “It’s a hundred and three out there,” I reminded him with a teasing grin.

  “Yeah, but—”

  A knock on the open door had us lifting our heads as one of Emmie Armstrong’s new road managers stepped in. The guy glanced around the room, taking everyone in before clapping his hands together. “Ready to get this thing started? Trance, you’re up first. Since this is Bishop’s charity, Alchemy is going last.”

  It was actually my charity, one for a children’s group home here in Knoxville. All the donations were going into fixing up the kids’ rooms, buying them a few computers to do homework with, and building
a playground in the backyard. It started off as just Alchemy doing a small, intimate concert with the proceeds going to the home. But Emmie heard about it and blew it up into something a hundred times bigger.

  The Trance guys got up, stretching lazily. It wasn’t lost on me how tense Rhett was though as he fist-bumped Bishop and the others on his way out. Linc didn’t budge as his ex stood in the doorway, waiting for him to move so he could leave.

  “Can we talk?” Linc finally asked, his voice low and pleading.

  Rhett’s jaw clenched. “I think we’ve talked enough, don’t you? Actually, I talked, and you just walked away. So yeah, talking is overrated when it comes to you.” He shifted and walked through the door, his shoulder bumping hard into Linc’s. “See you around, Spencer,” he tossed over his shoulder.

  My heart hurt for Linc. He caught my gaze, his eyes dejected for a second before he stood up straighter and jogged after Rhett.

  I bit my lip, fighting a smile. At least he wasn’t giving up.

  Strong arms lifting me off the ground had my attention focusing right back on my husband. A new wave of nausea hit me at the sudden shift in my equilibrium, and I sucked in a deep breath to keep the contents of my stomach where they belonged.

  Dark brown eyes narrowed on me yet again. “Are you not feeling well?”

  I lifted a shoulder in a half shrug. “I’m fine. Nothing to worry about, Daddy.”

  Jake choked on his laugh from one of the sofas. “She calls him ‘daddy,’” he snickered.

  “Shut the fuck up, Jake,” Bishop snapped, but his eyes were glued to me, a curious look on his face.

  “He’s not that much older than her,” Carver reminded Jake. “There’s, what? Like seven years—” He broke off, his eyes going straight to me. “Oh…”

  “Oh, what?” Dave interjected. “So she has a thing for calling him ‘daddy.’ It’s cool. I wouldn’t mind being called daddy either if the chick looked like Kenzie.”

  “Shut the fuck up, Dave,” Bishop growled.

  I swallowed my laughter at them all and pulled the pregnancy test out of my purse. “Lucky for everyone, the Australian tour is late next year,” I told him.

  Tears instantly filled Bishop’s eyes. “Baby,” he choked out, his hands tightening on my ass. “Are you serious?”

  I nodded, my own tears surprising me by spilling down my cheeks. “I got it confirmed while you were on tour, and I’ve been waiting for the right time to surprise you. Sorry if this isn’t special enough—”

  He cut me off with a deep kiss that sent me reeling. I clung to him, aching for more than just a kiss but knowing I wouldn’t be getting it until much, much later. When he lifted his head, the tears were still flowing down both our checks. “I love you so damn much, Sunshine.”

  Happiness filled every cell in my body. “I love you too, my heart.”

  Linc

  Prologue

  Linc

  I tossed back the shot and waited for the burn to turn into numbing oblivion. Six shots in and I wasn’t even close to feeling it yet, and I was becoming desperate to be rid of this damn pressure on my chest that had been with me day and night for months now.

  “I think we should just pour the bottle down his throat and see if that even fazes him,” a smartass rocker said from my right.

  “As many muscles as this asshole has, it’ll take at least two before he’s even half lit,” the second rocker complained from my left.

  I picked up the next shot glass, ignoring them both. Harper’s and Dallas’s husbands were told to take me out and get me drunk. They were tired of seeing me moping around like some lost puppy. Both women were breastfeeding these days, so they couldn’t drink the night away with me like we use to do. Way back before these two fucking rockers dropped into our lives and took away the two most important people in my life.

  Fuck.

  I grabbed the newly filled shot glass, the pressure on my chest nearly suffocating at this point.

  Harper and Dallas were my family, the only two people in the universe who had ever cared if I lived or died until I met Lana and then Natalie. Now I had a whole crazy extended family thanks to them, was even the godfather of both Dallas’s and Harper’s babies. I had a hell of a lot more now than I did back when I thought the world was against everything about me.

  But I missed our old life. Back in our apartment in New York. Just the three of us against the world. Not a care in the world except which club we wanted to party at that night.

  Then these two fuckers stole them from me.

  And now I had no one.

  Two more shots with no immediate effect, and I was reaching for the bottle. Falling back against the expensive leather of the couch in a corner of the VIP section of one of LA’s most popular clubs, I swallowed a fourth of the bottle while Shane Stevenson and Axton Cage talked over my head like I wasn’t even there.

  “Been like this for weeks now,” Shane told Axton. “It’s making Harper sad just watching him. I told her he just needs to get laid, and she told me to go fuck myself.”

  “Man, he was like a freaking machine when I first met him. He could hook up more in a night than either of us combined. Now he hasn’t had any in…” Axton nudged my leg with his shoe from where he was slouched carelessly beside me. “Yo, meathead. How long has it been since you last got some dick?”

  I tipped the bottle back to my lips. “Ten months, fourteen days, and seven hours.”

  Silence greeted my answer, and I didn’t have to look at either of them to know they were gaping at me.

  I knew down to the minute how long it had been since I’d last had sex. Because two hours later, Rhett walked out the door for the last time. I hadn’t been concerned because that was our norm. I got pissed over nothing, kicked him out, and he came back a few days later.

  Only this time, he hadn’t.

  With each passing day, I’d gotten edgier and edgier, until I realized he wasn’t coming back.

  Back then, I told myself I was glad. I didn’t need anyone holding me down, trying to control me.

  But each night I slept alone in that lonely fucking apartment in New York, I realized Rhett never once tried to control me. If anything, I was the control freak. Controlling how close I let him get by pushing him away the second he started pushing me to confess my feelings for him. Controlling the time I let him stay in my life in intervals so I didn’t let myself get too attached. Controlling with how I pushed him away every time he tried to shift our “we’re just casual” relationship into something more meaningful.

  Like forever.

  Harper and Dallas were supposed to be my forever. I didn’t need more than that.

  The pressure was starting to become too much, making it hard to breathe. I dropped the bottle, not giving a shit when I heard the glass shatter and the rest of the contents exploded across all our shoes. My hands shook as I tore open my shirt, the buttons flying in every direction as I tried to get more oxygen into my burning lungs.

  “Shit,” Shane muttered before he was pushing my head down between my legs. “Deep breaths, man. In and out. Come on. You’re going to be okay. It’s just a panic attack.”

  Some of the pressure eased, and I felt my eyes sting with tears just as Axton’s hand touched my back, rubbing in soft circles. I’d seen him do this same thing to Cannon and Shaw when he walked the floors with them at night, trying to coax them to sleep. Two fat tears spilled over my lashes, and I sucked in life-giving air.

  “Dude,” Shane said as the panic attack slowly started to ebb. “Maybe it’s time to admit defeat and tell Rhett how you feel.”

  “Yeah, man,” Axton agreed. “Stop fighting it. We all know you love him. Just embrace that, and you’ll be fine.”

  My shoulders shook with a sob I didn’t want to set free. He was right. I needed to man up and tell Rhett how I felt. I was sick and tired of missing him, of aching for something I knew I threw away because I’d been fucking scared.

  I just hoped it wasn’t too l
ate.

  Chapter 1

  Rhett

  Sweat dripped into my eyes, and I tore off my shirt to wipe it away. I was exhausted, dehydrated, and just fucking fed up with everything in general. But I would have stayed out there onstage all damn night if it meant I didn’t have to face the sex-on-legs guy standing off to the side of the stage.

  I felt his eyes on me the entire set for this charity concert Trance agreed to do for Bishop’s wife. Kenzie was a sweet little thing, but she hadn’t won points with me by showing up before the show with the one man in the universe I didn’t want to see.

  Liar.

  Of course, I was lying to myself. It was how I got through the days since I finally gave up and walked away from Linc Spencer for good. Then the nights came, and all the reasons why I wished I’d fought just a little harder for that brainless meathead came flooding back in.

  It wasn’t like I didn’t understand. His parents turned their backs on him. Made him pick between pretending to be straight and their definition of “normal,” or being true to himself. That shit has to mess with a person’s psyche. I never had to worry about that, though. My mom accepted I was gay even before I came out to her. She actually might have known before I did. It was just the two of us, and she never made me feel like I was anything but the most important person in her world.

  I didn’t go around announcing to the world my sexual orientation, but I’d never lied about it when anyone asked either. My bandmates all knew what team I was batting for, and they accepted that without judgment. I got lucky, I guess.

  Lucky in everything but love.

  And fuck, but I still loved Linc.

  Stupid heart.

  Wiping away the last of my sweat, I tossed the shirt into the crowd, making the women in the first ten rows swarm in like a pack of lionesses attacking a wildebeest to be the one to claim the tee. I smirked, getting a kick out of them wanting a piece of me. That shirt probably stank of perspiration and BO at this point after all the sweating I’d done for the last forty minutes. Yet they would have killed each other to get it.