Rockstar Romance: Julian (Contemporary New Adult Bad Boy Rock Star Romance) (Hard Rock Star Series Book 3) (28 page)

****

Callie awoke with the slow, languorous pleasure of a woman who had been well and truly loved; and she had. Why, Cade had made love to her a good
five times
in one night. A faint blush stained her cheeks as she considered his stamina; the man was stronger than five men put together!

Slowly, she turned around to smile at…the empty pillow beside her. Where was he, she wondered with a frown. The silence from the shower indicated that he was not in there.

She rose from the bed, dragged on her nightgown and slowly traipsed into the outer room. Her smile died as she saw the heavy-set man sitting at the table and munching on some toast. Wade!

“Where’s Cade?” she demanded by way of greeting

Wade paused, his eyes narrowing on her face. Then he shook his head, “Said he had to go. He left his account number where you could send his share of the winnings.”

He wouldn’t!

She saw the pleased glimmer in Wade’s eyes; he would!

“What did you do? What did you say to him?”

“Nothing. Just thanked him for looking out for my sister like she was his own, is all. Suddenly he got a bee in his bonnet about heading out and following the rodeo. Said that was the best place for someone like him.”

“Someone like him? What did he mean by that?” she demanded.

“Beats me. What, do I look psychic to you now?”

She rolled her eyes not even bothering to tell him that would be psychologist not psychic.

“Anyhoo, get your stuff and we’ll be on our way.”

Leave? Without Cade? Her mind rejected that.

“I don’t know what has got into you, but I’m in a damn hurry to get home to Laila,” he said.

“Then why come? I didn’t ask you to,” she shot back.

“And how were you planning on getting Lateefah home? Gonna ride all that way?”

She stared at him. She had to see Cade again. It was too late for him to leave; she had already fallen in love with him.

Wearily, she sank onto the cushion he had been sleeping on. His scent clung to the seat and she immediately burst into tears.

She saw Wade cross the room immediately, a frown on his face as he lifted her easily and slid her onto his lap.

“Did that bastard do something to you?”

“He’s not a bastard!” she shouted so busy defending Cade, she didn’t hear the door open.

“Then why are you crying?” Wade asked, genuine concern and alarm on his face. He may be annoying on purpose sometimes but he really did love her. She was his kid sister, after all.

“I fell in love with him,” she was sobbing now.

“Well in that case, I don’t see what you’re blabbering on about,” Wade said reasonably. “That was kind of the idea.”

The moment the words left his lips, he cursed himself to perdition.

Too late to recall them though. Callie looked up at him, “You handpicked him for me? You sent him here on purpose?”

“Well it was either him or Big Harry, and I didn’t think you would care for that one; he stinks to high heavens. Wade is a good man, Callie, I just wanted you to meet him and decide for yourself.”

“I love him, Wade, and he left!” she said in a dull voice.

“No I didn’t,” a familiar husky voice said behind her. She froze, almost afraid to turn around. “I only got as far as the highway,” he added.

Callie sprang off her brother’s lap and turned around. Cade stood close to the door, looking scruffy in his rumpled clothes and incredibly attractive. He caught her as she flew into his arms and rolled around with her, laughing with her.

“You came back?”

“I realized I forgot something,” he said.

“Oh?”

“I forgot the woman I love behind. I need you in my life, Callie...you set me on fire. You make me believe in myself, and hell, you even make me laugh during sex—”

Wade cleared his throat noisily and Cade froze. Callie laughed.

“I intend to marry her as soon as I can get a special license, of course,” he said to Wade.

The man grunted and resumed eating his breakfast.

“If she will have me,” Cade added to Callie.

She grinned at him, her smile bright as the sun as she said, “I can’t wait!”

Cade sighed. Even
that
had a double entendre hidden in it. This woman would be the death of him, he decided with a happy smile as he took her soft lips in a slow, drugging kiss.

THE END

"Son of a bitch!”

Forgetting that she was in public, Ariel quickly sank down in her seat, pulling the large book she held in front of her face, cringing. She heard giggling beside her and reached out to smack Daniel on the leg to stop him from laughing at her. She could feel the eyes of everyone in the library staring at her and she had the sudden fear that a skeletal librarian would come in and toss her out by the back of her shirt for defiling the sanctity of the public library reading room.

"Tell me again why I'm sitting here with you," she hissed toward Daniel, still holding the book up in front of her even though she had just finished reading it.

"I need moral support," Daniel replied.

"Moral support to get through your history final?"

"Yes."

"Do you know how much longer I'm going to need to be supportive because all of these people are still staring at me and I'm fairly certain that those ones over there in the corner are planning to kill me."

"We can go as long as you bring me back to your place and give me some of the good stuff."

Daniel lifted his eyebrows at her and Ariel smiled back, nodding as she helped him gather up his papers and books and carry them toward the circulation desk.

Twenty minutes later, Ariel walked into her living room carrying two bowls of ice cream. Daniel was sitting on the floor with his back against the couch and she placed one of the bowls in his lap. She settled onto the couch behind him and grabbed a jar she had tucked under her arm. Twisting off the metal top, she dipped a spoon down inside and reached around Daniel to drizzle a long golden stream of homemade caramel sauce over his ice cream.

"Oh, yeah.
That's the stuff
," he murmured.

"I know how you like it," she said, digging the spoon down into his ice cream so that his first bite would be mostly rich, buttery caramel.

"I'd totally marry you if we didn't have sex, I could see other people on the side, and you made me caramel every day."

"I'll keep that in mind."

Ariel curled into the corner of the couch and spooned some of the caramel over her own ice cream.

"So do you want to tell me why you decided to shout obscenities in the presence of old ladies and innocent library books?"

Ariel dropped her head back against the couch with grunt of frustration. She swallowed her mouthful of ice cream as she reached for the book on the edge of the coffee table.

"The stupid cliffhanger at the end of this book," she said, holding the book so close in front of Daniel's face he had to lean back away from it.

"Don't all of those books end with a cliffhanger? I thought that was the whole point of having a series. You hang, then they scoop you back up, then you hang, then they scoop you back up," he turned his attention back to the bowl in his hands and took another bite of ice cream, "It's all really exhausting, honestly."

"You don't understand. This was like…" she groaned with exasperation, unable to come up with exactly the right words to explain why she was so angry at the book, "The books have been leading up to a war between the two rival tribes of wolves. There was a standoff with the Alphas of each of the packs and this book ended right as Lazar leapt into the air and shifted while the other was shooting a crossbow at him."

Daniel looked back at her with a dumbfounded expression on his face.

"Lazar?"

"Yes. He's the good Alpha who has been trying to get a bloodthirsty pack away from his pack's lands."

"Lazar?" Daniel repeated.

"Yes," Ariel said emphatically.

"And he's a wolf?"

"When he shifts, yes."

"So he's Lazar…the wolf."

Ariel chose to ignore the comment and turned the book over in her hands, staring down at the picture of the author on the back of the cover as Daniel sang "To Life" under his breath.

"He's so beautiful," she murmured.

"The wolf?" Daniel asked after a resounding
L'chaim
to finish out his song.

"The author," she said, tilting the book to Daniel so that he could look at the black and white picture on the cover.

Ariel had stared at that picture more times than she could count. Max Grimsley's dark eyes burned into her from the covers of more than a dozen books tucked on the bookshelf in her bedroom, and, though she wouldn't admit it, she often turned whatever book she was currently reading over on her nightstand so that she could look at his picture before going to sleep.

"Well, pretty soon you will be able to look at the real thing," Daniel said, a hint of teasing in his voice.

Ariel sighed, part of her hating how it made her feel to have a moony-eyed crush at her age while the other part loved the tingle through her body each time she read his name or saw his picture.

"I know. I can't wait."

She indulged the moony-eyed side by letting out an excited squeal. It had seemed like the months leading up to the convention were multiplying and sliding by with all the vim and vigor of a pot of day-old grits, but it was finally only a few days away. Max Grimsley would be there, signing copies of his books and giving a panel on fiction writing.

"So which are you more excited about, having him sign your book, or getting the opportunity to yell at him for dangling you so precariously over his literary cliff?"

She had told people she was going primarily for the workshops that she hoped would further her own burgeoning writing career, but she knew she was going for
him
. The ache inside her when she looked at his picture was intense and she couldn't wait to be near him, even if it was only long enough for him to scrawl his name across the cover page of her book and flash her an obligatory smile. Even that may satiate her.

"We'll have to see how I feel in the moment," she said, taking another bite of her ice cream and letting the slowly melting vanilla ice cream and rich caramel swirl across her tongue.

****

"Where are we?" Daniel asked, scanning the already bustling auditorium.

"It's general seating. We’ll sit wherever we can get a seat," Ariel told him, gripping the hem at the back of his shirt to make sure she didn't lose him in the relative chaos of the convention’s opening day.

"So run like hell is what you're telling me?"

"Yes."

Daniel took off running down the aisle, shoving past other attendees, and Ariel scurried after him, still holding onto his hem and sending up a prayer that Max Grimsley was not in the room at the time to see her completely undignified display of seat snagging.

"That felt vaguely unethical," Daniel panted as he dropped into one of the two remaining seats in the front row.

"But we got amazing seats."

"You are such a nerd," he muttered.

"I don't want to hear it, medieval history major."

Ariel shifted impatiently in her seat for the next half an hour waiting while others filtered in and filled the rest of the seats around them. There was an excited, electrified buzz through the room as people whispered and flipped through the books, brochures, and other swag tucked in their welcome bags. Daniel stared directly ahead at the empty stage and Ariel felt a wave of thankfulness roll over her. He would not be one to identify as part of the fandom, but he had come along with her so she wouldn't have to attend alone.

Silence moved through the room like a wave, settling people from the back forward and Ariel turned to the stage to see a silver-haired man approach the podium. There were a few scattered applause and Ariel knew most of the people didn't know who this man was, but she recognized him as Max Grimsley's agent. He smiled out at the crowd, watching them silently as if reveling in their anticipation. Finally he started speaking.

"It's good to see so many fans out here today," he said, scanning the full seats. There were a few more claps and he chuckled, obviously accustomed to being the lackluster lead-in that few had any excitement to see, "I guess it's still a little early in the morning for enthusiasm."

"It's 9:30," Daniel whispered and Ariel shushed him.

"He's trying to break the ice."

"Consider me still frozen."

Ariel shushed him again and Daniel complied, sitting back sullenly and looking up at the speaker with an expression on his face that dared him to become charming and entertaining.

"I know that all of you are excited to get the convention underway and we are all just as excited to introduce our keynote speaker, who is also one of the panelists and will be signing books at this evening's literacy gala." Out of the corner of her eye Ariel could see Daniel cover his face with his hands and shake his head, but her heart was beating too hard from the nervousness rolling through her to pay attention to him, "How many of you have read his most recent book?"

There were shouts and cheers from the crowd and the agent looked pleased to have finally gotten a bit of a rise out of them. He grinned wider.

"Excellent. Well, there isn't really anything else for me to say other than let's welcome Max Grimsley."

He stepped aside and held out a hand dramatically. The green velvet curtains fluttered and a darkly clad form strode out onto the stage. Max stepped behind the podium and looked out over the crowd. His eyes swept the rows and then fell on Ariel, meeting her gaze and holding it intensely. There was a moment of strange, suspended stillness. Though the audience around her erupted in screams and applause, it was as though Ariel couldn't register the sound.

She didn't know how long they had been staring at each other when Max broke the connection, leaving her feeling slightly breathless and gripping the arms of her seats so hard her knuckles hurt. Daniel squeezed her thigh and she looked over at him. He lifted his eyebrows and she nodded, trying to smile but so taken aback by Max that she couldn't seem to control her expressions.

Max spoke with the reserved confidence and calm she had expected from him, never glancing down at his notes. Instead, he looked out over the audience and spoke as if he was just having a conversation. Every few moments his eyes fell back to Ariel and held her. Each time, his voice dropped slightly and he seemed to lean subtly forward. It made her breath catch in her throat and she wondered if she was just imagining the connection, if every woman in the audience was envisioning the same looks and cues.

The picture that had fueled countless fantasies had in no way done him justice. She had avoided looking up other pictures of him, contented by the sexy black and white picture that graced every book, his website, and the advertisements for every appearance he made. Now as he looked at her, his lips soft and full as he spoke, she wished she had put forth a little more effort.

His hair looked thick and silky as it fell just to his collar and the eyes she had expected to be dark were actually the color of her caramel sauce. She licked her lips when he glanced away from her, feeling her body respond exactly how she had anticipated it would. It was never a good idea to tempt a curvy girl with caramel.