Light My Fire (Rock Royalty Book 1) (17 page)

"...if you would only take the time to read the company Facebook page—"

"Raina, you know I hate social media."

"Yes, but it's all right there. Where the bands are, which of our operatives are traveling with—"

"Operatives?" He laughed. "You've been reading too much spy fiction."

On the other side of the line was a long pause. "Hmm," Raina said, and he could picture her short dreadlocks twitching as she tilted her head as well as the speculative gleam in her dark brown eyes. "You laughed. You almost sound...relaxed. What's going on?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."
Except last night I got laid.

"You got laid," Raina announced, a wide smile in her voice. "You found some starlet and stuck it to her good."

"I didn't find any starlet."

"A surfer girl, then."

"No."

"One of those rollerbladers that skate on the beach boardwalk. What's that famous one—Vienna Beach?"

Ren shook his head. "Venice Beach. And whether she rollerblades or not—" Lack of sleep had made him sloppy, he thought with a mental groan.

Raina cackled in delight. "Well, enjoy yourself, luv," she said. "You've got nine more days before you're on a plane heading back home."

Grimacing at his own stupidity, he signed off to the sound of her continued laughter. He took a long slug of coffee. "Home" in nine more days.

On their own, his feet moved him down the hall to the room where Cilla still slept. She was belly-down in bed, her arms under the pillow and her face obscured by the fall of her beautiful hair. Her shoulders were bare and he remembered pressing a kiss to one as she lay on her side nestled in the curve of his body.

Uneasiness crept over him, tightening his neck muscles. He massaged them with his free hand, trying to dissipate the vague sense of impending doom that he'd also experienced the night before. Damn, this wasn't his typical morning-after attitude.

Post-coital worries were new to him.

But they shouldn't surprise him, because he was post-coital with
Cilla
.

Cilla, who'd proved beyond the need for mentoring.

Cilla, who'd come apart in his arms, her blue eyes going wild, her face flushing a gorgeous pink, her body trembling against his.

Cilla, who'd pressed a kiss to his palm and shaken something loose inside him.

Maybe she felt the weight of his gaze, even in sleep, because she stirred now. He leaned against the doorjamb and let himself enjoy the process of her coming awake. Under the covers, her toes stretched toward the end of the bed. One hand crept from beneath the pillow to push the hair off her face.

Her lips were rosy and still swollen from his kisses. Beard burn appeared as a faint rash around her mouth and along her throat and Ren ran his hand over his now-smooth jaw, wishing he'd taken the time to shave the night before. Yet his dick was going hard at the sight of how he'd marked her, primal beast that it was.

She opened her eyes and they stared, unfocused, at the vicinity of his knees. Then her gaze traveled upward—shit, over the growing bulge in his jeans—to finally land on his face. He saw the awareness of all they'd done the night before dawn over her.

Her eyes widened and she grabbed at the sheet to pull it close. It was too late for modesty, everything about her body, from her pale nipples to the tight clasp of her slick pussy, was etched forever onto his brain, but he wisely kept his mouth shut. She looked spooked enough as it was.

"Um, good morning," she said.

"Time to get up, sleepyhead," he returned. "You slept through breakfast." While he, on the other hand, had barely closed his eyes as he struggled with a dilemma nearly all night long. "Home" in nine more days.

Her gaze shifted to his hand. "Is that coffee?" she asked hopefully.

He put the mug behind his back. "Not until you get up and at 'em. I'm taking you someplace for lunch, so you need to start moving."

Places to go, baby. People to see. Problem to solve.

In an hour they'd made it to a beachside neighborhood. He pulled into a free spot in a narrow public lot that looked out onto sand, with houses on either side. It was foggy here at the coast and a weekday, so they shared the parking with just two other cars.

Cilla sipped at her extra-large latté as he dug into the bag for the roast chicken-and-veggie wraps that he'd purchased for their lunch. As he handed one to her she stole a quick glance at his face—she'd been avoiding his eyes. "Is this someplace special?" she asked, gesturing toward the beach on the other side of the windshield with her paper cup.

He shrugged. "I wanted to get a closer view of the Pacific," he half-lied. It was a dramatic sight that day, the waves slamming into the steep shoreline with angry vigor. Two surfers were out beyond the break, sitting up on their boards in black neoprene, their dangling legs shark-bait.

Ren and Cilla both watched the action, eating their food in silence. When one of the men took off on a ride, from the corner of his eye he saw her suck in a quick breath, then hold it until the surfer cut right and slid back down the lip to paddle out again.

"You used to surf," she said, her gaze still trained ahead.

"Still do," he said. "I prefer it without wearing a wetsuit...so I hold out for warm water most of the time."

Another silence welled between them.

Her wrap dropped to the white butcher paper in her lap. "I feel like an idiot," she blurted. "A gauche idiot."

Shit
. "Cilla, no." He'd wanted to make things better for her by taking her to bed, not worse. It was his rationale for last night. It was his reason for today. The fixer in him coming out again, he supposed. A habit from all the years handling thorny issues that came up on the job.

Turning to her, he gazed on her profile, noting the clear distress in her expression. "Can't you look at me?"

"I'd rather not," she confessed, though she flicked him a quick glance. "This part is weird for me."

"What part?"

"The morning-after thing."

"Maybe we should think of this as that 'afterplay' you wondered about." He noted another stolen glance. "You know, to take any heaviness out of the situation."

"I don't want heaviness."

"Me neither," he said. "We're both on the same side of this, right? Neither of us has illusions about the future."

"Right."

"So for afterplay, we can re-hash the night a little bit. It was fun, don't you think? I had fun." Shit again. Because when he thought back to it, "fun" didn't quite cover those hours, her pleasure rising and peaking three separate times.

But Cilla's mouth was moving upward in a smile. "I suppose. Especially when I stole that pillow out from under you. I'm sorry, but I do need three to get truly comfortable."

Despite her being a pillow hog, they'd managed to find a very comfortable twining of limbs. He could have slept that way if her vulnerability and his temporary status at the compound hadn't gnawed at his peace of mind. But he didn't share that. Instead he drew a knuckle over her warm cheek. "You can have as many pillows as you need."

And the smile she turned on him should have been warm enough to burn the fog from the sky. "Thanks, Ren."

He caught her hand and brought it to his lips. "Any time, baby."

A knock on the driver's side glass startled him. He glanced over then dropped Cilla's fingers and pressed the button to unroll the window. Salty air rushed in, as well as the voice of one of her brothers. Bing or Brody were nearly identical and Ren couldn't tell them apart after all these years. "This looks cozy," one of the twins said.

His brother stood at his shoulder, an eyebrow rising. "Hey, sis," he added, but his gaze was on Ren.

She made a little sound of surprise, then she was out of the car, running around the trunk to practically leap on her brothers. "What are you guys doing here?" she demanded.

Ren exited more slowly. With the door shut behind him, he leaned against its cool metal side.

The twins allowed Cilla's hug, squeezing her in return, though their attention was still trained on Ren. When she moved a little away, he held out his hand to each of them in turn. Their grips were strong, their eyes cool. "Colson," one said. The corner of the other's mouth lifted in a half-smile. "Renford."

He appreciated their watchfulness—it was what he was counting on, after all. "Good to see you, Brody, Bing."

They were big men, about the same size as him, and their rugged bodies and tanned skin he assumed came from their careers in construction. Though they ran their own business now, he figured they'd spent plenty of time with carpenter bags slung around their hips.

"What are you doing here?" Cilla asked again, tugging on the sleeve of one's shirt with a logo reading "Double B Construction" embroidered over the left pec.

"Uh..." A twin's gaze moved from his sister's face, to his brother, to Ren.

"I was gathering the nine's contact info," Ren put in, lying like a rug. "Once I got Cami's, I figured I should get the rest of the rock royalty. When I talked to your brothers, we cooked up this surprise for you. They said they hadn't seen you in a while." He'd actually told them it was imperative they get together because Cilla was having a problem they needed to be made aware of.

But her eyes were shining with the pleasure of the meeting, so he didn't let a shred of guilt enter his conscience. "It's definitely been too long," she said. "Weeks."

Ren couldn't fault the brothers for it, though he wanted to. He was just as bad with his sibs. Much worse, actually.

"But why the beach?"

Cilla hadn't let go of her brother's sleeve, and damn if that didn't do something to his chest. His ribs were squeezing down on his heart. "They're working on a house nearby," he said, nodding to the place next door. It was in the throes of construction, with red tiles stacked on the roof and scaffolding covering the outside walls. "Thought I'd get my Pacific fix and see them at the same time."

"Will you show it to me?" Cilla looked from one twin to the other. "I'd love to see your work."

"Yeah?" Brody smiled down at his sister. Ren remembered now that he had a scar under his eye, an accident involving a feral cat and a boy's love for animals. "Well, come see then."

She linked elbows with her brothers as they led her out of the parking lot.

Once through the fence surrounding the property, they picked their way around construction debris and into the frame of the large, two-story house. "Wait until you get a load of the view from the upstairs deck," Brody said, pointing toward a set of stairs that at the moment were mere plywood treads without newels or handrails.

As she mounted the first step, Ren managed to catch Bing's eye. The other man glanced over at Cilla, still moving upward, and back at Ren. With a lift of his chin, he indicated the great room beyond the foyer. "Show me around the first floor, Bing. We can catch up with them later."

His brows shot up, but he followed Ren toward a large space that he assumed would ultimately be the kitchen. It led to another expansive room with a wide glass door leading to the backyard. They halted there, both looking out across a scruffy patch of grass that was littered with more construction detritus.

Unsure how to begin, Ren shoved his hands in his pockets. "Business good?"

"Business is great," Bing said. "You're doing well in London?"

"Yeah. Just here for another week or so."

"At the compound with Cilla."

Ren glanced over, but couldn't read Bing's expression—did he suspect something was going on between them? "Like I told Brody when I called, Bean wanted me to check over the place and when I got there, I found Cilla in residence. As I said, I'll be leaving soon, and I'm worried about her staying there alone." He went on to tell him about the two Lemons fans who'd scaled the wall.

Bing shook his head. "Shit. I'm glad you could handle that. We'll see about talking her into returning to her place."

Ren now knew why she didn't sleep in her small house's master bedroom. That's where she'd been when the ex let himself in. "She might not be easy to convince." He hesitated. "There's more that concerns me."

"Like what?" Then Bing put up a broad hand. "I should warn you, we don't make a habit of sticking our noses into each other's affairs."

Yeah, Ren got that. The rock royalty were all similar in that way. But this needed to be said. "It's about the man she was seeing."

Bing frowned. "I really don't want to hear about that."

Ren looked him straight in the eye. "Too bad. You're hearing it." His fury rekindled as he told him about Tad. Not all of it, of course, not the porn suggestion or the bad-in-bed thing—which was crap as Ren well knew—but he explained how the ex didn't accept the break-up and how he'd let himself into Cilla's bedroom and cut her hair while she slept.

Bing snapped straight and he stared at Ren, his blue eyes going hot. "
What
? I thought it was just a new style she'd chosen. He cut her
hair
?"

"Shh." Ren glanced over his shoulder to ensure she was nowhere in sight. She'd not appreciate him spilling her secrets.

Bing lowered his voice to a furious whisper. "Who the fuck does something like that?"

"A guy I'd be happy to kill, but Cilla's not so much in favor."

"She doesn't still care for him, does she?"

"No." Ren shook his head. "But I don't trust him not to come sniffing around again. So you gotta keep your eye out for that once I'm gone too."

"Okay." Bing blew out a long breath. "Right."

"Good." Relief was a cool balm over Ren's smoldering anger.
Problem solved
.

Bing turned his gaze out the sliding door, then looked back at Ren, his eyes assessing. "So what's your stake in this?"

He blinked. "Uh..." What the hell could he say? Since forever, he'd kept himself distant from the other Lemon kids and their concerns. "Well—"

"Ren?" Cilla's voice called from upstairs. "Where are you and Bing?"

Saved by the bell. Ren turned back and hurried through the almost empty space in her direction. She was coming down the steps, one hand trailing along the unfinished sheetrock wall. Preoccupied with his "surprise," he hadn't noticed what she was wearing until now. Another vintage band T-shirt, somehow looking feminine and Cilla-sized, with a denim skirt that flared at the top of her knees and revealed an old scar on her right leg. The size of a half-dollar, it was slightly raised and a tone or two darker than her creamy skin. A bit of road rash, he thought, from a fall or a bike accident.