Trouble Rising (New Adult Rock Star Romance): Tyler and Katie's Story #3 (9 page)

I shook my head, denying it. I didn’t want it to be true. I’d just bought her a whole wardrobe, in hopes that she’d wear her new clothes to school in the fall. I wanted to keep my head buried firmly in the sand when it came to facing the fact that Jay was a runaway, and I didn’t have a clue how to solve that problem.

“I can’t send her back to them.” I spoke the words slowly, carefully. I was trying my best not to burst into tears in the middle of Spago. “What if… what if we send her back… and something happens to her?”

He sighed, hanging his head for a moment. Then he looked up at me. “I don’t know, Katie. I want to help her. But… we’re really walking on thin ice, here.”

“Can’t we try?” I sniffed, blinking back my tears. “I don’t just want to send her back without… without trying…”

“What do you want to try, baby?” He leaned forward, frowning across the table at me.

“Can we at least go talk to a lawyer?” I pleaded. “See what our options are?”

“Yeah.” He nodded slowly. “Sure. We can do that.”

“Thank you.” I met his eyes, seeing him through prisms. “It means the world to me. And to Jay.”

“Anything for you, baby.” He slipped out of the booth to come sit next to me on my side, putting an arm around my shoulders. “Don’t worry. Somehow… we’ll figure this out.”

“Thank you,” I said again, leaning into him. “I’m sorry, Ty. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to spoil your surprise. I’m excited for you, I really am.”

“You didn’t spoil anything.” He kissed the top of my perfectly-coiffed head—Jay had insisted on hot-rollers and then had swept all my honey-colored hair up into a configuration that looked sort of messy but was actually carefully arranged.

“New Zealand.” I said it, trying to make it real. Six months away from everyone and everything I knew, in another country. I looked at him, letting it sink it. “This is huge. I mean—really, really huge.”

“It is.” He nodded. “If we were looking to really make a change, a great big door just opened.”

“And all we have to do is go through it…” I smiled up at him.

“One step at a time.” He leaned in to kiss me, his lips soft and full. Every time he kissed me, it was like everything else stopped. The whole world on its axis paused just for that moment. Nothing else mattered.

“Take me home,” I whispered when we parted.

He nodded, his hand warm, electric, on the bare skin of my lower back. “Let’s go.”

There was something extremely sexy about watching Tyler shift gears. He drove fast, which I loved, shifting as we wound our way up into the hills towards home. I’d only had a few glasses of wine, but my head felt light, and in spite of not knowing what we were going to do about Jay, I was also incredibly happy.

When I’d first discovered Tyler had decided to leave the band, part of me had panicked. What were we going to do without Trouble? Tyler’s success on
Album
had been phenomenal—beyond our wildest dreams, really—but he played a 70s rock star. It was typecasting, sure—but could he sustain that level of success in a show that didn’t showcase rock stars? I never would have said anything to him—but I worried.

Not that I didn’t have confidence in him—I did. I think I had more confidence in him than he had in himself. He’d hesitated when Arnie told him about this audition, almost six months ago now. But I’d encouraged him. He didn’t want to always play rock stars, did he? I’d encouraged him to audition, crossing my fingers—but we’d never heard back. Until now.

Now he’d been validated even more as an actor. He’d been cast in one of the biggest franchises in the movie business. Clearly someone with serious decision-making skills and power thought he could do it. I knew he could—he was on the precipice of truly breaking out, moving past Trouble and being thought of as “just a rock star.”

I was so proud of him. I couldn’t begin to express it fully. I put my hand over his as he shifted again, slowing the car as we neared our driveway. The car purred to a stop and he glanced over at me, giving me a wink as he rolled down the driver’s side window and put in the security code that would open the gate.

“This is the beginning,” I told him as he steered the car through the gates—they swung closed behind us—and up the winding drive. “Our whole lives are going to change.”

“I know.” He hit the garage door opener and it opened. Tyler had a collection of cars—half a dozen in all, not including his Harley and Valkyrie motorcycles—and he parked the Mustang at the end, in an empty spot next to the BMW I liked to drive.

“Are you scared?” I asked.

“Excited.” He turned t0 look at me in the dim light. “And… relieved.”

“Relieved?”

“I’ve been keeping it in, you know,” he explained. “My diagnosis, and then whether or not I wanted to stay with Trouble. Now, finally…it’s all out there.”

“Yeah. The press is having a field day with it, though.” I sighed, sliding my hand into his. “Hey, did you tell Alisha McKenna you’d do a follow-up interview with her about you leaving the band?”

“Who?” He laughed when I nudged him. “No, baby, I haven’t talked to her. Although Celeste said she’s being calling her non-stop.”

“We saw her at Starbucks.” I made a face. “She said she’d talked to you.”

“And you believed her?” He smirked.

“Well, she is your type, isn’t she?” I asked with a sniff. “Curvy redheads—that’s what the guys on the tour bus always said.”

“Once upon a time, I had a thing for redheads,” he confessed. “Then I met this sassy, skinny blonde chick, and she chased all the other women out of my head.”

“Is that so?” I turned towards him slightly and my dress rode up, revealing the lace top of my thigh-high.

“Very much so.” His hand slid out of mine and settled on my knee, massaging slowly. His fingers were magical, sending hot little electrical impulses straight between my thighs. “I don’t even see other women anymore. It’s like they’re not even there. All I see is you.”

“You’re such a liar,” I teased, shifting in my seat and leaning toward him. I saw his gaze drop to my cleavage, saw the flash of heat in his eyes. “What’s-her-name, your co-star on
Album
—she’s hot. You have to admit, she’s hot.”

It had been a test of my sanity, watching his love scenes with her in
Album
. She kind of looked like me—long blonde hair, kind of slight—and Tyler once told me, he just closed his eyes and pretended it was me when he was kissing her.

“You’re just trying to get me in trouble, aren’t you?” He chuckled, his hand moving up under my dress. My breath caught in my throat when he cupped me through my panties and leaned in to kiss me. I gasped when his tongue touched mine, and his fingers slid under the elastic to pet my skin.

“Nope, you’re officially not in Trouble, anymore,” I reminded him when we parted, hearing him chuckle again as he nuzzled my bare neck. His mouth left hot, wet trails that made my nipples harden instantly.

“It’s time for dessert,” he whispered into my ear, his finger moving slowly inside of me, making me squirm.

“We had dessert at the restaurant…”

“Nuh-uh,” he said, lifting the hand that had been between my legs to his mouth, sucking on his finger. “Nothing as sweet as this.”

“You know, we have the whole house to ourselves,” I reminded him with a little smile. “You know what that means…”

“It means I’m going to give my wife at least ten screaming orgasms.”

“Ten?” I laughed. “That’s quite a number.”

“I’m up for the challenge.” He waggled his eyebrows. “You?”

“Let’s go find out.”

When we’d first moved into this house, we’d been determined to christen every room in it—and we had. Even the bathrooms—all five of them. And the garage—in the back of the Mercedes, because it was roomier. Then we christened the patio out back.

Although we’d only had sex in the ocean a few times—because I swear, sand was impossible to get out of all those little cracks and crevices you didn’t even think about, until you got sand in them. I told Tyler, after the last time we’d had sex on the beach, that I understood the pain of oysters.

So we didn’t stop in the foyer, or on the stairs. We went straight to our bedroom—Tyler went into our bathroom, and I lit a few candles and slipped off my heels.

“Don’t you dare take off that dress!” Tyler called from behind the bathroom door.

“You better hurry up then,” I called back, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Because I just might start withou—”

The bathroom door flew open and Tyler stormed out, growling at me, and I giggled, holding my arms out for him.

“Mine,” he insisted, edging his way between my thighs and kissing me, his hands moving through the mass of my hair. Bobby pins went everywhere—not that I cared. “I’ve been thinking about doing this all night long.”

He kissed my dress off. Every last inch of it, every bit of material that slipped off my body was followed by the hot, wet trail of his mouth. By the time he had me stripped down to my panties and thigh-highs, I was panting and desperate for him.

He had me just where he wanted me.

“Ty,” I begged, but he rolled me to my belly and made me wait some more. My thigh highs came down first, one at a time, and he spent an inordinate amount of time licking behind my knees, making me squirm.

“Please,” I moaned into the mattress, but then my panties had to come off. He rolled me over for that, easing them down and kissing all around my pubis, but never once parting me with his tongue.

I was delighted to find that, while he’d been undressing me, he had undressed himself. I reached for him, running my hands over his shoulders, down his belly, but he shifted away when I reached between his legs.

“Ty!” I protested, eager for him. “You bastard!”

“Yes, I am.” He grinned, grabbing my wrists and pinning them above my head. “I love making you wait for it.”

“So mean,” I whispered against his lips as he kissed me. “You torture me…”

“Sweet torture,” he countered, and I moaned when I felt his cock riding up and down the seam of my sex.

“Yes,” I agreed, biting at his lip, lifting my hips, trying to nudge him inside me. “Come on, baby—stop teasing me.”

“You want that?” His eyes grew dark as he rubbed his length up and down. “You want me inside you?”

“Yes!” I cried, my nails digging into his biceps. “Oh fuck, Ty!”

He finally gave me what I’d been begging for, with one delicious shift of his hips. I took his full length, moaning when he started to move. He wasn’t teasing me anymore, and I was already so far gone, I was instantly on edge.

“That’s it,” he whispered into my ear, curling himself around me, thrusting deeper, harder, as I wrapped my legs around his waist. “That’s my Katie… give it to me…”

“Ty!” I cried into the heat of his neck, licking the saltiness of his skin. “Oh God! Oh God!”

“Give it to me,” he insisted, grunting with every thrust. “Oh fuck, yes, give it to me.”

“Ohhhh now!” I cried, my pussy beginning to spasm, contracting around his plunging length. My climax seared through me, something hot and electric that made me quiver all over and buck underneath him.

“Mmmmm yeah,” he groaned, nuzzling me, his breath coming hard and fast—but his cock was still hard and throbbing inside of me. “That’s so damn hot.”

“Your turn,” I whispered, squeezing him with my muscles, hearing him moan softly.

“Nope.” He propped himself up on his arms, grinning. “That was just one. At least nine more to go for you.”

I laughed, but then he was pulling me out and turning me over, and I wasn’t laughing anymore.

“I think that’s your phone.”

“No.” I shook my head, refusing to open my eyes as I snuggle up closer to Tyler under the comforter. “Shhhh.”

All I wanted to listen to was the sound of Tyler’s heart beating and the ocean waves on the beach outside. I loved it when we could sleep with the windows open. Then I heard it, too. A faint buzzing sound.

“Katie.” He kissed the top of my head, his arms squeezing around me. “It’s definitely your phone.”

“Mmm.” I sighed, still not opening my eyes. “Okay. In a minute. It’s probably just my mom. She called yesterday and I haven’t called her back.”