"Yeah," he agreed softly. "I can tell you're good."
Not if he could read her mind. Not if he could know how his sexy body and his beautiful green eyes made her hyper-aware of every erogenous zone between her head and her heels. "So then..."
"We'll talk about it after I shower."
Her palms went damp in desperation. "Really, Ren—"
"I'll think about it."
"Look." She grasped at straws. "It's not seemly."
"What?" he asked, clearly puzzled.
Did rock royalty even comprehend such a word? Cilla waved her hand. "Even if you stay at Bean's house, your old house—"
"If I stay, I'm staying here."
"Well,
I'm
staying here." She had to spell it out for him? "So, you know...
you
can't. Two single people, one a man, one a woman, sharing close quarters..."
A smile split his face. "So that's not 'seemly'," he said, shaking his head. "Priss—"
"
Cilla
."
His smile didn't dim. "C'mon. 'Two single people'? Surely we're more like...like..."
Oh, don't go there
, she thought on an inner groan.
I've enough doubts about myself and my attractiveness to the male sex without you saying what I think you're about to say
. But then, of course, he did.
"...brother and sister."
Ren exited Gwen's small, canary-colored cottage that dripped with gingerbread trim and strolled into the morning sunshine, its warmth immediately starting to dry his shower-damp hair. Narrowing his eyes against the California-brightness, he sucked in a breath and tried shaking off the strangeness of the morning.
Jet lag was seriously screwing with him, he decided. Usually a few hours of sleep would clear his mind. But today, he'd opened his eyes and things had gone from weird—an unexpected woman in his bed—to weirder.
Priscilla Maddox's mouth had turned his normal morning wood to a rod of aching steel.
Shit.
Shoving that thought from his head, he turned in a circle, taking in the pool and tennis court in the distance as well as the three homes where he and the other rock royalty had grown up. At seventy-five yards away, Bean's place was closest. Western-styled, with a shake-shingle exterior and a front door sporting a steer skull, it looked the same as when Ren had lived there. Beyond it was where Mad Dog Maddox had built a rock-faced castle-type abode, with a Rapunzel tower which Ren remembered had been a particular refuge for little Priscilla. The third member of the band, Hop Hopkins, had a severe glass-and-chrome two-story home where Beck, Walsh, and Reed had grown up.
His mind snagging on the missing member of that family, Ren pulled his phone from his jeans pocket and pressed a speed dial number.
"Yo," a male voice answered. "Isn't it like the middle of the night wherever you are?"
"I thought when you went home everything was supposed to seem smaller," Ren said to his half-brother Payne, by way of answering. "It's all so...
so
." So sun-drenched. So lush. So bright with flowers and birds and colors.
The arresting blue of Cilla's eyes.
There was a small silence. "Are you telling me you're at the compound?"
"Yeah. I needed a break." When he said it, Ren realized it was true. He'd been on a grueling schedule for months, years, maybe, and if he told the complete truth, learning of Gwen's death had thrown him a little. "And Bean put the pressure on me to personally ensure the place was doing okay in the Lemons' absence."
"That's bullshit. A gardener comes by. The pool guy. Seven of the nine of us live within an hour's drive if traffic isn't jammed. We'd look in if asked."
"Well, I'm in California now." And not resenting the arm-twisting so much. He
did
need a breather. Then his brother's words sank in,
seven of the nine,
and he remembered his purpose for calling
.
"Why the hell didn't you call and tell me that Beck is missing?"
"I didn't know you'd care."
That rankled. Ren paused as he started up the path that led toward the fruit orchard planted on the hillside behind the pool. "Way to make me feel like an asshole."
"I didn't mean to," Payne responded mildly. "We all live pretty independently."
"Shit," Ren muttered under his breath. "Give me a Cami report," he ordered, referring to their younger half-sister, Campbell. "And I don't want to hear that—surprise!—she's married with a passel of children."
"As if any of the Lemon progeny are eager for that state," Payne said, "given that not one of us knows what a normal, healthy relationship looks like."
Ren grunted. His brother had that right. "So, she's what...?" Not much would surprise him, not after he'd realized that little Priss—Cilla—had actually grown up and now had a
career
.
"She runs one of my wrecking yards by day," Payne said. "Getting gigs to sing by night."
"Hmm." Ren ran his fingertips over the yellow skin of a lemon as he breathed in the scent of their blossoms. That's what Cilla had smelled like this morning, he realized. Citrus blossoms. He remembered that Gwen used to rinse the little girls' hair with water infused with the tiny flowers and he wondered if Cilla continued the practice. "The wrecking yards doing okay?"
"I'm in my element."
Ren knew that was true. His brother had been crazy for cars—and totaled a few—before he'd even had a driver's license. They'd all learned to drive a golf cart around the seven-acre compound as soon as they could reach the pedals. Payne had convinced a handyman to strap blocks on them so he could crash and burn earlier than the rest.
"So how long are you staying?" Payne asked now.
"I don't know that I am," Ren said, grimacing. As much as a vacation sounded like an appealing idea, there was the issue of Cilla to consider. Finding her sharing the pillows had been a surprise, and a bigger shock came when he realized she'd gone from the coltish adolescent he remembered to a lovely, blue-eyed blonde with a tight body and an adorable tendency to blush.
It scared the hell out of him.
No, scratch that. His reaction to the succulent small package that was Cilla Maddox was what alarmed him. And the intensity of that alarm was only further alarming.
Shit.
She was too sweet for a man like him. Too good for what he'd wanted to do to her, with her, the minute he'd put his eyes on her. But her bare legs and the touch of her pink tongue to her lush upper lip had made him ache like a raw nerve. As much as he found her worry about seemliness amusing, she had a point.
Two single people, one a man, one a woman, sharing close quarters...
Too bad it sounded so damn tempting.
A crackling noise came over the line from Payne's end. Likely the sound of him breaking into a package of his favorite breakfast of strawberry Pop-Tarts with sprinkles. "You came all this way just to take off again?" his brother asked around a mouthful of unhealthiness.
"Cilla's here."
"Yeah?" Payne munched again. "Cami ran into her at a club where she was playing a couple months back. She's into costume design or something."
"Mmm." Ren swung around to glance at the cottage and his gaze instantly found the woman in question. She'd wandered out of the cottage too, and stood in a shaft of sunshine. It caught all the gold in her cap of wavy, bouncy hair. A pair of cropped jeans hugged her curvy hips. The outside seam on each side of light denim was embroidered in a dark blue pattern that was repeated on the straps of the sleeveless, peasant-y top she wore. The hippie-chic style suited her. A dozen narrow bracelets circled one wrist and he remembered that each of her fingernails had been painted a different color.
The Byrds T-shirt had looked damn good on her too, the logo of five swirly letters in red and yellow on black cotton draping her high breasts.
"She had a boyfriend with her," Payne added.
Ren went instantly alert. "What?" Maybe that was why Cilla wanted to get rid of him. She was at the canyon for nookie-time with the man in her life.
"They broke up, though. Cami and Cilla made a date for coffee and when that day came, Cilla said the guy was history. Cami figured she'd really decided to move on because she'd also lost her long mane of hair."
Something about that story sent a cold finger down Ren's spine. He shrugged the uneasiness away and ran his palm over his clean-shaven cheek. "She's not a big fan of being at the compound with me."
"What's the big deal? You're practically a brother to her."
Except Ren wasn't, he thought, closing his eyes. He was seven years older and back in the day, he'd had little contact with her. And no man who was practically a brother to a woman would be experiencing this unsettling and powerful surge of raw horniness every time he looked at her.
Maybe he should have gotten laid more often in Moscow.
What warned him next, he couldn't say. But he opened his eyes in time to see a couple of scruffy young men summiting the ten-foot wall that separated Gwen's cottage from the narrow, one-lane road that led to the compound. Cilla still remained in her ray of sun, unaware of the strangers invading her bucolic moment right behind her back.
A wave of protectiveness welled in Ren's chest and he started toward her at a run. "Gotta go, Payne," he told his brother. "But just so you know, Cilla's no sister to me."
Excerpt: Love Her Madly
Rock Royalty #2
Christie Ridgway
Chapter 1
The fascinators were the final straw.
Alexa Alessio’s fingers curled into fists just thinking of the miniature hats as she marched out her back door and practically leaped over the waist-high fence to her neighbor’s rear yard. Her strides ate up the well-trimmed lawn and she let herself into the kitchen, her temper as hot as dragon fire.
The door shut with a near-silent snick behind her and she forced herself to a halt, even though every impulse demanded she return to the family bridal salon and do damage to her spoiled, sneaky, thieving cousin. But Alexa was the calm cousin, the super-serene Alessio, and she was here to get control before she did something completely out of character.
Feel to the marrow. Love like there’s no tomorrow
. Those lines, painted on the wall of the shop, were the family motto. Alexa had always considered the words dangerous ones to live by and did her best to keep her moods and emotions on an even keel. Common sense and past experience predicted that white-hot passion could only lead to getting burned.
But today she’d been sorely tried, which was why venting to her best friend seemed a good plan. So here she was, in Brody’s kitchen, and she was going to let off steam in hopes that this boiling rage would finally cool.
The man was standing with his back to her, examining the contents of his refrigerator. She opened her mouth to speak—okay, spew—but then it closed and she blinked, for the first time in an hour seeing beyond red.
Brody wasn’t wearing a shirt.
Of course, as her running partner, she often saw him half-naked. But this time, with him in a pair of royal blue nylon shorts and nothing else but his Nikes, he…
She knew he had a great body. At six-two and whatever poundage was required to support broad shoulders, a strong back, lean waist, and well-developed arms and legs, he was virility wrapped in tanned flesh. This was nothing new to her.
Except… This little flutter in her belly was new. The weird tingle at her hairline was new. She’d never looked at Brody and realized her tongue was tied and her blood was running too fast and her skin was prickling beneath her clothes.
That response was reserved for—never mind.
It had to be temper.
It was time to tamp it down.
Half-turning, she stalked to one of the windows and stopped by the round, two-top table positioned there. “If I lose it, will you post bail?”
“What? Alexa?”
She must have startled him. “Sorry, I thought you heard me come in,” she said, staring out the window at the sky. Wasn’t blue supposed to be a calming color? “It’s Drea.”
“Ah.”
“She’s gone so far as to pinch the design for my fascinators.” Her ire flashed hot again and her fingernails dug into her palms.
“Uh…”
Brody wouldn’t know a fascinator if it bit him on his fine ass. “They’re little hats,” she explained. “I was sixteen years old when I planned my wedding and I sketched exactly what I wanted for the bridal party. Now she’s taken my old drawing and insists Nona make up those headpieces for her and the bridesmaids.”
“Sixteen?”
“Yeah, well, the family’s in the wedding gown business, right? Of course I was designing clothes for the event before I’d even been asked out on a date.” Outside, a mockingbird swooped, the white of its underwings reminding her of the feathers her grandmother would use on the bride’s hat. Her back teeth ground together.
“Didn’t anyone point out…?”
“That those were my idea? Of course not. Drea can do no wrong, you know that.” A year before, her cousin had spent three months in the hospital, battling an infection that had nearly taken her life. “Even though she’s completely well now, not a single person in the family will stand up to her.”
Alexa rubbed her forehead. Of course she was glad her cousin was healthy again. But the truth was that Drea had been self-centered before her illness and her near-death experience hadn’t made her an ounce more angelic.
“Lex. Is this really about—”
“
No
.” She shook her head, not wanting to go there. “Maybe if I wasn’t in the bridal party, I could ignore all this. But Drea just had to have all her Alessio female first cousins as her bridesmaids. My mother and Nona couldn’t fathom why I’d think of refusing.”
“Lex—”
“And I didn’t want to refuse. I
can’t
not do it. I have some pride, you know.”
“Got that.”
Alexa closed her eyes. “How am I going to do it?” It was a whine, and she hated whiners, but if any situation ever called for it… “What if I…I lose it and start screaming in the church?”