Love Notes (Rocked by Love #1) (11 page)

Zander waved his hands to
the friends he'd known for over a decade to wait up for him. "He's doing
this stupid, reckless shit. I don't understand it."

"Me either."
Brendan shook his head. "I don't even know him anymore."

Landry focused his gaze
on the house. "Did you call anyone?"

"Jayne thought we
should come here first. See him. Talk to him."

The bassist nodded.
"Griffin told me they're having a hard time controlling Seth, but if they
release him from the band they're worried he might end up in a worse place without
anyone watching over him."

"Yeah, but Seth has
a history of drug problems. That's not Luke's deal." Zander reached for
the comfort of Jayne's hand.

Soft fingers curled
around his. "None of you know what Luke's deal is yet. If you're worried
about him, you can keep better tabs on him if he's with you on tour."

"True." Landry
nodded again. "He's always had a temper, but not like this."

The lines of tension in
Brendan's face lightened. "Then we're agreed, he stays. But now, we need
to talk to him."

As a group, they
approached the door. Landry leaned on the doorbell. When it opened, he pushed
past Luke. "What the hell?"

Zander followed Brendan.
He met Luke's gaze and fresh anger broke out again. "We want an
explanation."

"I shouldn't have
walked off." Luke shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged.

"Damn
straight." His heart pumped and his nerves fired.

 Landry pushed up his
jacket sleeves. "We need you
on stage
, not in a fucking bar when
we're in the middle of a goddamn show."

Luke glared at him.
"I already said I shouldn't have walked out. I'm sorry, okay? I fucked up.
Fire whoever you hired. No one's taking my place."

"You think so,
huh?" Zander edged closer, searching for…
something
…regret, remorse,
a hint of the old Luke.

"Yeah. I do."
Luke squared off, rolling his shoulders.

"Come on,
guys." Irisa pushed in between them.

"Stand down."
Glaring, Brendan nudged in, forcing Luke back another step. "If one of you
messes up your hands, you might not be playing tomorrow night. Cool it."
He turned his gaze to Zander. "He apologized. Yeah, we're all still ticked
off at each other, but let's not make this even worse."

He read the unspoken
request.
Don't say something you'll regret.

Gentle fingers brushed
the back of his arm. "Come on, Zander. I don't think he's in the mood to
talk. Let's go." Jayne's clear voice cut through his anger, pleading.
"Let's just forget tonight happened."

"Pretty
hard to forget." But he couldn't ignore the tremor in her voice. Muscles
tense, he took a step back, then another, until Jayne came into his field of
vision. She didn't like fighting. Sure enough, she gripped her necklace around
her fingers. Her discomfort doused his need to press further. They'd keep Luke
around and try to figure out what the hell was going on. He slid his arm around
her shoulders. When he reached the door, he turned back to Luke. "You
better show up tomorrow night."

"I'll
be there." Luke crossed his arms over his chest. "Count on it."

Zander
closed the door at his back. Counting on Luke didn't inspire the confidence it
once had. Hopefully it wouldn't turn out to be a mistake.

Jayne was glad to see Luke arrive for
sound check the next evening. Hopefully, it would prove that Zander and the
guys had made the right choice. Luke had arrived with Irisa, grunted at his
band mates, and ignored her. But the show went on. She stood backstage and
listened to him talk to the crowd. He'd gone along with the story of his voice
being strained, and told the crowd how awesome they were. The crowd was very
forgiving. No thrown food or beer.

Beside her, Irisa seemed
calmer. Jayne nudged her. "How are things?"

"After I left Luke's
last night, I stopped at the pub in my building for a drink. I ran into Dom. We
talked, and things are getting back to being okay."

"That's good. I like
him." Dom seemed a lot more worthy of Irisa than Oliver had been. She
wanted to see her friend happy. The less stressed, the better.

A few days later, the
band flew in to San Jose. Two shows there, on Saturday and Sunday, followed by
two shows in Sacramento on Monday and Tuesday.

Jayne stared at the view
of San Jose from the hotel room. Not much of a view from the third floor.

Zander dropped his
suitcase on the bed. They'd done away with separate rooms. "Are you going
to see your parents while you're in town?"

"I might skip it.
They're probably busy."

"I'm sure they'd
like to see you."

"We're not very
close. But it has been a while." Feeling guilty, she made the calls and
arranged to meet her dad for lunch and her mom for morning coffee. When she
ended the call, she found him watching her with an odd expression on his face.
"What?"

"You look
stressed."

"My parents have
that effect on me." She spun her pendant on the necklace chain. "Dad
works for a software developer. He travels a lot for business and is on his
second marriage. My mom also works with computers but on the cyber security
side, and she's just divorced husband number three."

"And somehow two
techies raised a musically-inclined child who makes her living traveling with
rock bands." He raised his brow and smiled. She appreciated his attempt to
lighten the moment.

"I didn't want to be
like either one of them." She began unpacking to give herself something
else to focus on.

Zander's hands clasped
her shoulders. He drew her against him. "I'll come with you and be your
buffer."

She laid her hands over
his. "I appreciate it. I just hope you won't regret it."

On Sunday morning, they
met her mother at a coffee shop near her home. Though still beautiful, her
mother's bitterness aged her far beyond her years. She vented about divorce and
lawyers for a good fifteen minutes before asking Zander anything about himself
or asking Jayne how the tour was going.

Finally the topic
switched to the tour, but her mom wasn't ready to let go of tying everything
back to her most recent ex-husband. "Hell, I couldn't trust my husband on
business trips. I don't know how any musician's wife could trust her man on the
road. You must know what I mean, Zander. I'm sure woman throw themselves at you
all the time."

Jayne gripped her mug as
heat flushed into her cheeks. "Mom."

Zander winked at her.
"Well, I'd want my wife to travel with me. In fact, it would be great if
she already worked in the business." Reaching under the table, he grasped
Jayne's hand. "I wouldn't want long separations. The most successful
relationships are the ones where spouses take an active role in each other's
lives. When I get married, I want my wife with me all the time."

That quieted her mom for
all of a minute. "Are you seeing your father while you're here?"

"Later today."
She toyed with her coffee stirrer.

"Is he still with
that tramp?"

"If you mean his
wife, then yes. And I'm not talking about him."

The visit wrapped up
after that.

The meeting with her dad
wasn't much better. He'd arrived late, taken three phone calls, and managed to
throw a veiled insult at her mother, all in under thirty minutes.

When they returned to the
hotel room, she slipped off her heels and sat on the edge of the bed. "And
now you see why I don't spend a lot of time with them. They're always that way.
I don't understand how two people can still try to hurt each other after so
many years."

Zander sat beside her.
"I'm sorry I pushed you to call them."

"It's okay. They
aren't like your parents. Irisa's told me how well your parents get along—how
well you all get along. I would have killed for that growing up. Actually, I'd
still love to have it now. I'm so tired of everything being a battle with them.
They didn't divorce until I was fifteen. From the time I was little, I blamed
myself for their fighting. If I'd been a better student, or a better piano
player, or better daughter, then maybe they'd magically get along. But no
matter what I did, it was never enough to stop the fighting."

"It's not your job
to make them happy."

She nodded. "I know
that now. So I put my foot down. I won't listen to them talk badly about each
other. But that still doesn't stop me from getting caught in the middle."

He wrapped his arms
around her. "I need to make you smile. Right now."

"You were with me
today. That's enough to make me smile." She pressed her cheek into his
chest, inhaled his scent, and sighed. "We have a few hours until we need
to leave for the arena. Let's order room service and lounge around."

"Deal. I'll order
it. Why don't you hop in the shower? Let the hot water relax you and I'll be in
soon to wash your back."

"Wash my back? Is
that what we're calling it today?" She smiled and sent him a seductive
glance over her shoulder before closing the bathroom door.

He joined her, but kept
his touches light and teasing, and then slipped out claiming he'd heard room
service arrive.

When she came out of the
bath, two covered dishes were on the desk and a jeweler's box was on the bed.
"What's this?"

He smiled. "Open it
and see."

Nestled inside the box
was a rose-gold necklace with a pink diamond heart pendant. "It's
beautiful."

"I notice you touch
your pendant a lot when you're nervous or anxious."

Her hand lifted to where
her pendant usually hung and she laughed. "I guess I do. I never thought
about it."

"Well, now when you
touch this one, maybe you'll think of me, and maybe that will help you feel
better. And the color reminded me of your hair."

She was touched he'd
think of a gift with such meaning that showed he'd paid attention to her.
"I love it. But this is too much. This is like something you'd give a wife
or a serious girlfriend…not a short-term fling."

"Jayne. You're not a
short-term fling."

Her heart pumped fast—a
drumbeat in her chest. "But…that's what we agreed."

Zander wrapped her hand
in his and drew her down to sit beside him on the bed. "I want to change
that agreement. I care about you."

This seemed more serious
than the
I care about you's
they'd exchanged early on. Her heart wanted
to dance but her mind put on the brakes. "But…"

His grip tightened.
"I want to throttle your parents. It's no wonder you're jaded. The fact
that you'd even consider dating me is a miracle. Your parents' marriages
haven't worked out, but that's not to say that every marriage will fail. A lot
of rock stars I've known haven't had successful relationships, but that's not
to say that every rock star relationship is doomed to fail. I think we should
break the cycle. I want us to give it a shot. When the tour's over I'd like to
keep seeing you."

The tour still had a few
weeks left. And then she'd have a short vacation before Vendetta's tour would
take her away from Zander for a few months. She didn't like the idea of being
separated from him for such a long time. "I guess we could try."

His smile widened across
his face. "That's all I'm asking. Now try on that necklace. I want to see
it on you."

After fastening the
necklace around her neck, she glanced at the pendant. The heart hung just above
the swell of her breasts.

"You're so
beautiful." Zander traced his finger around the heart, grazing her skin.

She trailed kisses over
his face. He answered back with lingering kisses on her lips and fingers.
Sunlight brightened the room as they fell across the bed.

She leaned into him,
stroking his muscles, and tugged his shirt off. He peeled off her tank top and
jeans before ridding himself of his pants and shirt. Her underwear and bra, and
his boxers quickly followed. Clothes littered the floor like confetti.

Wrapped in each other,
they sank onto the bed, mouths tasting, hands teasing. She pushed him back and
kissed a path from his chest to his straining arousal. He groaned as she placed
a kiss on the tip, and then moaned when she took all of him inside her mouth.
Her pendant swung and tapped the base of his shaft. A harsh groan sounded and
Zander's hands dove into her hair. Cradling her head, he guided her movements.

"Stop." The
word gasped out a moment before his hands tightened their hold.

She released him and with
a smile, he tugged her on top of him. His fingers traced the line of her neck
and down her back, and came to a rest at her hips before slipping between their
bodies to drive her as crazy as she had driven him.

She guided him inside her
and arched into warm palms and strong fingers. He sucked in a breath and closed
his hands over her hips, holding her in place as she began to move. Thrusting
into her, he quickened the pace. She tossed her head back as pleasure arrowed
into her and she rode out the wave until it crashed, then melted onto Zander's
chest.

Kissing her, he reversed
their positions, and slipped her legs onto his shoulders. They watched each
other as he plunged inside. She felt him deeper, felt their connection deepen,
as he lost his grip on his control.

She caressed his back
while his panting eased.

He smiled down at her.
"When I get my energy back, I promise I'll grab the plates."

"What did you
order?"

"Pasta." He
nipped at her lips and then rolled off of her. "So we can refuel and do
this again."

Laughing, she kissed his
shoulder, and then held up her pendant, twisting it so all the different facets
caught the light.

Zander was that way—all
these different sides that not everyone got to see. But she did. He'd let her
in. And she loved everything she'd seen.

Loved.

The word caused a funny
feeling in her chest.

He slid off the
bed—confident in his own skin—uncovered the dishes then presented them,
offering her first choice between Pasta alla Norma and Spaghetti Carbonara. She
could imagine spending every day with him.

She loved how he made her
feel.

She loved him. But
instinctively knew it was too soon to tell him.

They had the dog park to themselves.
Jayne tossed a tennis ball to Patch while Zander tried to coax Shredder with a
Frisbee. They'd arrived home from Sacramento that morning to a call from
Dalton's mother begging her to pick up the dog. Her landlord was letting her
move in a few days early and she needed Patch gone. Dalton was still at school.
Jayne didn't like the idea of just taking the dog, so Zander sent him a text,
telling him to call them after school.

Shredder and Patch got
along great. Patch ran circles around his less enthusiastic
counterpart—jumping, playing, rolling around—and Shredder looked on like a
bored teen putting up with a kid brother's antics. But Patch was happy to let
the double-his-size bulldog take top dog honors.

"I think my dog has
had enough for today." Zander crouched beside Shredder and rubbed his
head. "I'm hoping Patch will make Shredder a little more active."

She clipped on the dogs'
leashes. "We'll have to get them together for play dates."

"Or
sleepovers." He leered at her and raised his brows.

Laughing, she tossed the
tennis ball and Frisbee into a tote bag. "You want to have a sleepover
with two dogs?"

"Well, yeah, as long
as you're there too."

"I'll dig my
sleeping bag out of my closet." She smiled.

He didn't laugh like
she'd expected. Instead, he linked their fingers together. "Tonight?"

"I'm sure I can be
talked into it if pizza, popcorn and scary movies are included."

Once they settled the
dogs in the car, he wrapped his arms around her, bringing her flush against his
frame. As his mouth descended, Jayne strained to meet him. Twining her fingers
in his thick hair, she pressed closer and drew his lower lip into her mouth.

"Zander," a
female voice called out of a car that had pulled into the lot.