Who Do You Love (Rock Royalty Book 7) (18 page)

Eamon’s hands gripped hers. “Nothing’s going to happen to you. I won’t let it.”

Her eyes closed as she recalled her plan to go home and to finally put the necessary distance between them. She was supposed to be protecting her heart! “Eamon…”

“We’re in this together until the threat is over.”

Chapter 9

Cami’s brother Payne lived in the Hollywood Hills, Nichols Canyon specifically, a short distance from the compound where they’d grown up with the Velvet Lemons. It wasn’t far from the Walk of Fame, either, that stretch of Hollywood Boulevard that also included dozens of eateries, souvenir shops, and celebrity map sellers. Not to mention the people roaming in costume hoping to pick up tips by posing for photos with the ever-present throngs of tourists.

As Eamon turned off the Boulevard and headed into the canyon, Cami glanced over her shoulder with a fond smile for the circus atmosphere along those blocks.

“Bet you don’t know that I spent a summer as one of the sidewalk characters trolling the Walk of Fame.”

“You’re kidding.” He shot her a surprised look. “What were you dressed as? A Storm Trooper? Spiderman?”

“Nah. Belle. Of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. I had a friend who donned the hairy costume, and we busked for bills twelve hours a day.”

“Why on earth…?”

“It was good money, actually, though the next year I figured I made more by playing my guitar.” She grinned at him. “I opened the case right on top of the Lemons’ star. Got a big kick out of that.”

“What did your dad think?”

She shrugged. “He didn’t know. I moved out when I was seventeen. Finished high school and the next day was gone from the compound. Ren was already living in Europe, but Payne gave me crashing rights to his couch for a few weeks until I found my own place.”

“And then…?”

“Then I put myself through college—don’t laugh, I was an English major—by continuing to play on street corners, and later, a few paying gigs here and there.”

He was shaking his head. “I…well, I don’t know what I thought, but I’m surprised.”

A wave of shame warmed her cheeks. “We didn’t get too personal before, as you’ve mentioned.” Intimate, yes, personal, no. That was on her as much as on him, she reminded herself. She’d been all-in with the mysterious stranger fantasy.

No reason to feel a bit used, like she’d just been a casual plaything he visited late at night on a whim.

Because he’d been her plaything, too. So there.

“What’s the frown about?”

“Not a thing,” she said, her tone offhand. Then she pointed. “That’s Payne’s house.”

It was two stories of angles and glass, and before her brother had met Rose, Cami had considered it the ultimate bachelor pad. But now there was a dark-red glazed planter filled with flowers by the front door and a twig wreath with berry pips on the gate leading to the side yard. As they walked up to the entrance, she noted a brand new welcome mat, too. It made her laugh because once she’d threatened to place a trucker’s naked girl mud-flap there.

Payne had been a dog.

Now, it seemed Rose had domesticated him.

Though when he pulled open the door he didn’t look very friendly. Glancing past him, Cami realized that tonight’s dinner included the rest of the Rock Royalty and their significant others, too. The group was assembled in Payne’s spacious living room, their expressions varying between curious and murderous.

Cami glared at her brother. “You set me up. You set
us
up.”

“Come in,” he said, ignoring her accusation and stepping aside.

She hesitated. Then Eamon took her hand in his.

Her heart jolted and the world tilted beneath her feet. After Payne’s disturbing call the day before, she’d managed to find a measure of tranquility. Though Eamon had worked at the Malibu house, she’d kept a decided distance from him, playing guitar in her room or stretching out on the balcony to stare at the endless ocean. By the time she’d climbed into Eamon’s car tonight, she’d felt centered and like her strong, independent self. Now, though, with just that simple sign of support, she’d gone unsteady all over again.

Because his touch seemed to offer team-like support—
We’re in this together until the threat is over
—and she couldn’t afford to get accustomed to that.

Still, her fingers reflexively tightened on his—then she noticed the others’ attention on their linked hands.
Damn.

Slipping free of Eamon’s grasp, she strode across the threshold, schooling her expression so that it gave nothing away. It wouldn’t do for the Rock Royalty to get the wrong idea about them just because they’d arrived as a couple.

They might think she’d fallen for him again when she was actually on the upswing from that.

“Sit down,” Payne said, gesturing to one of the couches. “It’s time for us to chat.”

Rolling her eyes, Rose strolled up. “Can we at least offer them something to drink first?”

“I’ll get it,” Ren said. “Beer,” he decided aloud. “Sauvignon blanc for Cami.”

“And no cyanide additives, please,” she called to his retreating back.

Nobody laughed.

Double damn.

When her older brother returned, he handed the beverages to her and Eamon and they sat on the indicated couch. Everybody else in the room took seats, too, except for Ren and Payne, who continued standing, their arms crossed over their chests like warriors.

Oh, geez.
“Look,” she began.

“I want to hear it from him,” Ren said, nodding to her companion.

She frowned. “No—”

“Yes,” Eamon said, folding his hand over hers again. “This situation is something I brought you into.”

“Not on purpose!”

“In any case.” He gave her hand a little shake, then dropped it.

Glancing around the room, he brought the group up to speed—including the fact that his cousin had apparently been beaten up in jail, something she hadn’t known until now.

“It will be over in a few days,” he concluded. “Once Wick either signs the plea agreement or the deadline for him to sign passes, the Savage Sons won’t have any incentive to involve me.”

“You mean Cami,” Ren growled out.

Eamon’s jaw went hard. “I know. I can’t tell you how much I regret what’s happened.”

He sounded sincerely remorseful, and somehow the genuineness of the admission only served to lower her mood. She bet he wished he’d never hooked up with her in the first place.

“You regret it,” Payne said, “but not enough to turn to your club for help? You said you’ve not informed them of what’s gone on.”

“First, the Unruly Assassins is not technically
my
club.” He hesitated. “I’m not a member. But my father does head it up and, yeah, I’ve tried to keep them out of it. But now I’m going to have a meeting with him about this.”

Ren didn’t appear satisfied. “I don’t pretend to know everything about the biker club culture—”

“All you need to know is that the club looks out for family—first, last, and always.”

“But you didn’t go to them right away,” Payne pointed out.

“I had my reasons…mainly because I didn’t want a minor situation to escalate needlessly into a major one that could have wider ramifications.” He rubbed his jaw with his hand. “I thought it was just a few guys, low on the Sons’ totem pole, trying to prove something—mostly to themselves. I figured if I kept her out of sight for a short time…”

“She’d be out of mind,” Payne finished for him. “But you screwed up.”

Cami straightened her spine, driven to defend Eamon. “Wait a minute—”

“Yeah. I screwed up.”

“Can we save the donning of the hair shirt for later?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at her brothers.

Eamon acted as if he hadn’t heard her speak. “I’ll have that meet-up with my father and some of the other brothers tomorrow night. Cami will come, too. When I tell them she’s with me—that will mean something.”

Her gaze jumped to him. “But I’m not with you.”

“You are now,” he said, his tone implacable. “Until the situation with Wick is resolved.”

“But—”

Ren put out his hand, halting her rebuttal. “All right. But you need to understand something else, Rooney.”

“What’s that?”

Her older brother wore his scary expression that only Cilla had the ability to soften. “We look out for Cami, too. First, last, and always.”

Eamon’s expression went as stony as Ren’s. “I hope you mean that.”

“And on that, um, note of accord,” Cilla piped up, jumping to her feet, “why don’t we see if we can get some dinner going?”

Before Cami knew what hit her, the determined Rock Royalty princess had pulled her from the couch and was towing her toward the kitchen.

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” she told her sister-in-law-to-be.

“Nonsense. The guys will be more civil with food in their stomachs.”

Cami went up on her toes to gaze out the back windows. “They’re taking him to the barbecue. There are sharp tools out there.”

“Well I’m not sure he doesn’t deserve a poke or two,” Ashlynn said, pulling a salad out of the refrigerator. “We all saw how he rejected you at the roadhouse that night.”

As if Cami needed a reminder. She waved her hand and pretended the memory still didn’t bite. “Old news.”

Rose suddenly frowned, a handful of utensils in her grip. “Wait a minute. Now we know why he did that, don’t we? To protect you. So word wouldn’t get back that you two were an item.”

But word had gotten to the Sons somehow—probably, Cami decided, he’d been spied picking her up at a club after one of her gigs, something he’d done more than once. Or it could very well have been that day at the motorcycle show when she’d accused him of following her. They might not have looked like old news then.

Cilla was staring at Cami, her big blue eyes saucers. “That is
so
romantic.”

“What? Thanks to him I made a fool of myself at the roadhouse.”

“But Cam,” Cilla insisted. “It was to save you.”

She wasn’t going down that path because it still led to a dead end. “He’s admitted the situation only hastened the break-up process. He doesn’t make commitments, he’s said that straight out. So extinguish those stars in your eyes, Cilla.”

“But—”

“Let’s talk about something more pressing.” Cami looked around at her friends. They were all gathered in the kitchen—Cilla, Rose, Alexa, Cleo, and Ashlyn. “What the heck do I wear to meet the president of a notorious biker club?”

As she’d suspected, it was the kind of distraction that pulled the women off the more dangerous topic. As they gathered the plates, utensils, and side dishes, the merits of everything from leggings and a tunic to the most feminine of sundresses were discussed. Cami listened with half an ear and kept checking out the windows to gauge the tenor of things between Eamon and the guys.

When she saw him and Ren off to the side in an apparent serious discussion, she decided an intervention was in order.

As she approached them from behind, she couldn’t help noticing they were two of a kind—with their dark hair and masculine, muscled builds. Eamon might be a bit rangier than Ren, but there was the same virile intensity in the way he held himself.

He forked two impatient hands through his hair, and she felt a traitorous shimmy in her belly as she remembered them on her. Those big, long-fingered hands, gently cupping her face, teasing her nipples into throbbing points, one of them wrapping the belt she’d buckled around her hips to yank her close for a hungry kiss.

During their stranger-to-stranger interlude.

What a stupid thing to agree to. It had made him even more familiar to her—further imprinting on her the scent of his skin and the different nuances of his touch—which meant it would be only harder for her to forget him. It was something a silly dreamer did, one who wasn’t on her way to getting over a man, but one who—no!

Shoving the unwelcome thought from her head, she continued forward, her soft-soled shoes unintentionally silent on the wooden deck.

Okay, maybe she wasn’t averse to eavesdropping, she admitted, when she paused behind a hibiscus, using it to screen her presence.

“So when this is over, you’ll be looking out for her?” Eamon asked Ren.

“Of course.”

“Because even if she’ll be safe from the Sons, she can use people in her corner.”

“We’ve got that,” Ren said, sounding irritated.

“Then where’s her alarm system?”

Her big brother winced. “Okay. I did let that slide…”

Cami frowned. And she could have arranged for it herself, sheesh.

“Do you realize she has left her back door open for the neighbor’s cat?”

“That isn’t good—”

“The neighbor’s
cat
. She’s trying to lure someone else’s pet to her place.”

Cami’s face heated. Put that way, it sounded pathetic. She was becoming not just another single cat lady, but a single surrogate cat lady.

“Do you get me?” Eamon demanded.

Ren shoved his hands into his pockets. “She likes animals.”

“She needs attention and affection, damn it.” Eamon passed a hand through his hair again. “She was left too often by herself at that fucking compound with only her mind and her music for company.”

Cami’s feet seemed rooted to the ground.

“She’s always been an independent little thing,” Ren started.

“That’s where you’re wrong. She’s got so much to offer, with those inner emotions she can so easily touch and express. Not to mention that amazing creative spark.”

“No one’s denying any of that.”

“But you have to understand that the flame needs to be sheltered. Protected, and then given just the right amount of space and air in order to thrive. Too much of both and it dies.”

Cami shivered, feeling as if someone had peeled back a layer of her skin.

“Shit.” Ren shrugged a shoulder. “I…I was gone a long time.”

“You should have known before you left. You should have realized when you were kids.”

Ren lifted a hand to rub the back of his neck. “Fuck. Lay it on me, man.”

“Remember Bast and Crusader?”

Her big brother looked over at Eamon and chuckled, his expression easing. “You mean the tiger and the buffalo?”