Play Softly (The Devil's Share Book 4) (7 page)

She kissed my lips softly. “More than anything.”

I deepened our kiss, letting my tongue taste her, finally. We had two more weeks to go before Lexi was cleared for sex, and I was counting down the days. No joke. I had a calendar in our bathroom. And for the record, six weeks will be the absolute longest I will have ever gone without sex since I was sixteen. I pulled back, because I really didn’t feel like going to bed with blue balls. “I just want to make you happy, Kitten.”

“If I were any happier, I’d explode.”

“You did explode. You burst out a baby.” Smith walked past the living room on his way into the kitchen.

“Funny.” Lexi sat up, watching Smith, with a smirk on her face. “Rough and dirty night?”

Smith shut the freezer and headed back toward the stairs with a bag of ice in his hands. “The girls in this house are entirely too close.”

I chuckled. And Lexi started to cry.

Chapter Twelve

Lexi

I was in the kitchen fixing everyone’s lunch. I wasn’t the one who usually cooked, but I figured I needed to get used to it since we were about to be living on our own. We couldn’t order in every meal, right?

Halen was in her bouncy seat, happy as can be, watching me try my hand at grilled cheese sandwiches. Dagger was lying on the floor next to her. He played goalie, keeping Crash from jumping up on her. There was a knock at the front door and then it opened. The door stayed locked, always, but the people who were here all the time had the passcode. That included Landry’s tutor and her therapist; or, as I liked to call them, the Hot Aussie and the Handsome Brit. Today was tutor day judging by the gorgeous tanned Australian man currently standing in my kitchen.

“Hey, John.” I smiled. Who wouldn’t? The guy was prime.

“Oh wow, look how big she’s getting.” He immediately went over and squatted down next to Halen. “She’s so beautiful, Lexi.”

I smiled, flipping a somewhat burnt sandwich to the other side. “Thank you.” I glanced over my shoulder. “You can take her out if you want.” John was here two times a week working with Landry, making sure she was all caught up on her schoolwork. He had become part of the group, to an extent. I thought the men were all still jealous of him. The Devil’s Share boys were gorgeous, no doubt about it. But John was hot, with a foreign accent. And he was charming as hell, in a gentlemanly sorta way.

“Crash. No!” Bryan came to a screeching halt as she rounded the corner.

John had just taken Halen in his arm and was about to stand up when Crash came barreling toward him. He scooped him up in his other muscular arm with ease and stood, holding an adorable puppy and a beautiful tiny baby. He bounced Halen and let Crash lick his face. Bryan and I were mesmerized by the sight. At least she had enough sense to take out her phone and snap a picture. “Holy shit.”

“I know.”

John put Crash down and began bouncing Halen when she started to fuss. He had his mouth down by her ear and he was softly shhhing her. My jaw was most likely hanging down to the floor. I should put this shit on YouTube; it’d get a thousand hits a minute. The AC hitting my chest brought me back down to reality. “I’m leaking.”

Bryan snorted. “Me too.”

I crossed my arms over my front, hiding the dark spots I was sure were on my t-shirt. “No, I’m
leaking
. It’s time for Halen to eat.”

Bryan turned and looked down at my top. “Oh. Sorry.” She crossed the room and took a now crying Halen from John. “Landry is in the study, and this little one needs to eat.” She gestured with her head at me, making John look over at my wet shirt. Lovely.

“Oh, uh, of course.” John smiled, his megawatt charming toothpaste commercial smile. “Nice seeing you ladies.”

We both watched his ass as he walked out of the room and then Bryan took over grilled cheese duty while I sat down to feed Halen. “Are you guys going to keep up with the counseling and the tutoring for Landry when we move?” Landry was a natural musician, and she was also brilliant. Which just added to our amazement of her and her resilience.

Bryan tossed the sandwich I just made into the trash and started over. Rude. It wasn’t
that
burnt.

“The counseling for sure, but John doesn’t think she’ll need any tutoring once she starts school.” Bryan kept her eyes on the piece of bread she was buttering. “Speaking of when we move, I was printing out everyone’s flight itineraries this morning and Luke’s wasn’t there.”

I switched Halen to the other breast. “He probably hasn’t even bought his ticket yet. I’ll ask him about it tonight.”

Bryan leaned her hip against the counter. “I did ask him.”

“And?” I winced when my baby clamped down harder.

“He said he was on a different flight and he’d print his out himself.” She turned back toward the stove and flipped a perfectly grilled sandwich. Show-off.

“Maybe he just booked a later flight or something. Our flight leaves really early in the morning and Luke hasn’t been sleeping well lately.”

Every night I was up with Halen, so was he. I loved having the company, and I loved getting to spend some one-on-one time with one of my oldest and best friends. He assured me that the lack of sleep wasn’t anything to be concerned about. And I believed him because I wasn’t ready to look at the alternative.

“Yeah. Maybe.” The wariness in her voice was hard to miss.

I raised an eyebrow. “What? You think it’s something else?” Luke said he’d wait for us before he left. That meant he was going to move with the rest of us. Right?

“I don’t know, Luke just seems off lately. I never even see him anymore unless it’s dinner time. Other than that he’s in his room or in the studio with Landry. He’s distant.” Bryan put a plate down in front of me and then went back to work on food for everyone else. “Not that he’s necessarily an open book kind of guy, but it’s almost like he’s hiding.”

“I think he just sleeps all day. Like I said, he has been up all night, which is when I usually see him.” I took a bite of the sandwich, which was so good I was no longer annoyed that she had thrown my attempt away. “I definitely think it’s hard for him here right now. Living with all these couples all the time. But I don’t think anything is wrong…he’d tell me.”

I don’t know why I was trying to explain away Luke’s behavior. I knew he was being distant, I knew he was feeling restless. I just didn’t want anyone else to know it. I didn’t want my fear to be real. It was selfish of me to want to keep Luke close when going and living his life was what he really needed.

Bryan had a stack of beautifully golden sandwiches by the time I’d snapped out of my head trap. “You’re probably right. He just needs a change of scenery and his own space.” She smiled at me, but it was so laced with pity I had to look away.

Later that night, Dash and I had bathed our baby and she was sleeping peacefully with a full belly between us in bed. Dash was on his laptop and I was on the iPad reading an article full of false information about Halen’s birth. Where these “sources” came from, I’d never know.

For the most part, we ignored any kind of media. Well, all of us except for Smith. He was a glutton for punishment and he was the one who’d sent me this article. It said that Halen was born prematurely due to my rough-and-tumble rock-and-roll lifestyle and that she was still in the NICU. Rough and tumble? Ha. I’d barely even had a glimpse of that version of the Devil’s Share. The craziest we’d gotten during my pregnancy was an all-night Harry Potter movie marathon with Landry a few weeks ago.

Sure, my big belly was dancing side stage before the tour was over, but I was still in bed ten minutes after the last amp was unplugged. I shut off the device and set it on the nightstand. “I think it’s time we announce Halen’s birth to the rest of the world.”

Dash closed his laptop and turned his attention to me, “Really? Okay. What did you have in mind? We could let
Rolling Stone
come in and take some pictures. They’ve been after us for a while. Or we could just post a picture to social media. Or we could release a statement, or we could do something on air with
Good Morning America
. Or we—”

I held up my hand. “That’s enough options.” I let my hand lower to Halen’s round tummy. She was steadily gaining weight. We’d ended up having to supplement with formula, once or twice a day. The easiest thing to do would be to post one of the hundreds of pictures we’d taken of her since her birth. “What do you want to do?”

He shrugged. “I think
Rolling Stone
would be kind of cool. We could do it here before we move, that way we’d be into our new house before the masses knew we were in Seaside. And the label has been wanting us to get back in the media since the new album will launch in the next few months.”

The guys had been down in the studio with their producer daily, laying down the tracks for the new album, the new softer side of rock and roll as they liked to call it.

“Yeah, I’d be down with that.”

Dash opened his computer back up. “I’ll get the label on it. And since everyone is still under one roof, it’ll be easy to get pictures of the rest of the band too.”

I turned on my side, propping my head on my hand. “We need to talk to Jacks, see if he is ready to announce Landry to the world too. Because if not, we’ll have to get her out of the house for a few hours.” The band had been incredibly lucky for the last few months. Somehow it had never gotten leaked that we were holed up in Seaside, Florida. No one seemed to know about Landry and there were no pictures of Halen anywhere in the media. It was a miracle.

“I didn’t even think of that. I should probably talk to him before I email the label.” He shut his computer again and this time he placed it on his nightstand. “You know we have seven days left.” He waggled his eyebrows.

I couldn’t help but smile at him. “I am actually really proud of you, babe. Six weeks is a really long time.” No one turned me on the way Dash did. I wanted him. Constantly. But since Halen was born, all my thoughts were consumed by her.

Infants are terrifying. I spent all my time and energy making sure that I kept her alive and happy. It was exhausting, but it was also getting easier. Every day she got older, and I got surer of myself as a mother. Which meant that my lust for my fiancé was starting to come back. I was just as excited about my six-week checkup as he was.

“You’re telling me. I feel like my nuts are going to implode.”

My smile fell, and I was overcome with guilt. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey, there is no reason for you to apologize, Kitten. I was kidding.” He reached out and cupped my cheek, rubbing his thumb across my lower lip.

I shook my head. “I have been so preoccupied with Halen, but I could have at least given you head or something.” My eyes welled up with tears. I’d been doing so well lately, I rarely cried. But for some reason, the sudden thought of Dash’s neglected balls made me sad.

He chuckled and leaned over Halen to place a soft kiss on my mouth. “I love you, you know that?”

I nodded.

“I am in awe of you, every day. The way you are with Halen, it’s wonderful. And we are both lucky to have you. No need to apologize, nor is there any need to get down on your knees and blow me. I have seven more days. It’ll be fun, it’ll be like our first time all over.” He smiled. “Hey. Maybe I’ll knock you up again.”

And just like that, all my tears and guilty feelings vanished. My emotions were all over the map. “That’s not funny.”

He shrugged. “You aren’t on birth control and I’m sure as hell not wearing a condom. Once you bare, you, uh, never wrap it again? Sorry, couldn’t think of any way to make that sound clever.”

“Shocking.” I rolled out of bed and got to my feet. “Watch our daughter.”

He propped himself up. “Where are you going?”

“Well, I had this sudden urge to junk punch you, so I figured I should probably distance myself from your balls.”

Chapter Thirteen

Dash

A few days after I’d narrowly avoided a good junk punch, Lexi, Dylan, and Bryan had all gone out to this spa over in WaterColor. We’d talked to Jacks and B and they both agreed that it was time to announce everything ourselves instead of having false information leaked to the media. The
Rolling Stone
interview was set up for two days from now and the girls had gone to get all fixed up for it. None of the women in this house spent all that much time on their appearances, although Lexi did love clothes.

It was a really gross rainy day outside, completely overcast, which was pretty atypical for this part of Florida. Still, it made for great movie watching atmosphere. “So what’ll it be?” I was stretched out on the couch with Halen sleeping on my chest, and a cold beer on the table next to me. Life was good.

Jacks and Landry were on the other part of the couch, their feet propped up on the ottoman and a snoring Crash under their legs. “It has to be kid friendly.”

Smith was in the recliner with the remote in his hand, scrolling through the newest movies on Netflix. “
Stand by Me
. Man, I used to love this movie when I was a kid.”

Luke was on the floor, his head resting on Dagger’s side. “Uh, I don’t know if this is a good idea. That movie has a lot of cussing in it, uh, from what I remember.”