Who Do You Love (Rock Royalty Book 7) (3 page)

Fairy magic, like he’d said.

Finally, her car reversed from the spot, and he slid lower on the cushions. As she passed, he readied himself to spring into the driver’s seat. When he popped up, he saw her brake as she neared the entry onto the street.

Then she turned off her car.

What the hell?

In the puddle of the security light, he watched her pop open her door then stride around to stand at the rear of her vehicle. As she bent over one of the tires, he saw what she did. A flat.

His gut clenched again, and he was out of his own car before his next breath. Was this some ploy of the bad guys to disable her vehicle?

At the sound of his rushing footsteps, her head whipped around, her expression alarmed.

“It’s just me,” he said, to reassure her.

She didn’t look soothed.

He glanced about, scouting for signs this was the first step in an ambush. All appeared quiet.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she demanded.

Bending over, he inspected her tire. Running his fingertips over rubber, he found what he discerned to be a common construction nail. “Looks like I’m changing your flat.”

Her shoulders squared and her chin jerked up. “I’ve got an auto service. Two brothers.” She slammed her arms over her chest. “My own muscles, when it comes to that.”

“You’re too puny to loosen the lug nuts.” And to prove he was right, he bodily lifted her out of the way, trying not to savor the silky bare skin of her upper arms. “Do you have a sweater? You feel cold.”

“I
feel
outraged,” she said.

“Maybe it’ll keep you warm while I take care of your tire.” He held out his hand for her keys and was surprised when she dropped them to his palm instead of gouging them into his flesh.

“I’m only allowing this because it will get me on my way faster,” she said as he went about his task.

“Whatever,” he muttered, making quick work of it.

When he was done, he dumped the flat in the trunk and slammed it closed. “Get that repaired tomorrow.”

She bristled again. “I don’t need your advice.”

I don’t need you
, he heard instead. He didn’t let that sting either as he dangled her keys.

For a moment, she hesitated. The pause gave him the opportunity to study her features. Yeah, still the same combination of eyes, cheekbones, and mouth that was too delicate to be termed beautiful and too riveting to label with mere prettiness. It was a dream of a face, one that inspired the launching of ships and had men reaching for their weapons.

The mental
double-entendre
made him smile, to which she snapped out her hand.

“I’ll take those back.”

Instead of passing over the keys, his fingers curled around her wrist.

“What’s this?” he said, turning her arm so the overhead security light hit the trailing vine tattoo inked there.

“Nothing.” She tried to tug free.

Narrowing his eyes, he took in the design that climbed from her wrist toward her shoulder. Before, it had been simple and delicate S-curves of leaves and flowers. But now a tiny bird in bright blues and pinks clung to a free space on the vine. A charming addition, he thought, his hand tightening, if not for the disturbing thorns that seemed to trap it from flying free.

If the creature lifted its wings, it would be impaled on the sharp spikes.
Christ.

With a wrench, Cami jerked from his hold, grabbed the keys, and stomped toward the driver’s door.

“I’d say ‘see you later,’” she hissed over her shoulder, “but I hope I don’t.”

“Ouch.”

She likely didn’t hear his response over the loud
clang
of her slamming door.

With a sigh, he turned back and jogged to his car. He’d have to move quickly in order to ensure she didn’t get too far a lead. Because, fuck distance, at least for tonight.

What else was a man to do? The situation had changed, hadn’t it?

Cami was driving on a spare, all alone in the darkness. Which meant Eamon intended to be on her ass the entire way home.

Chapter 2

As she pulled up to her small house, Cami glared at the reflection of the car in her rearview mirror, but was unsurprised when it slid into the spot beside hers in the driveway. Jerk. Rat. Tool.

And determined.

For some reason Eamon had decided to play the gentlemanly rescuer tonight, so she expected he’d follow through in that role and escort her to her front door.

Well, she was determined, too. Determined to erase his memory of their last meeting, when she’d implored him to change his mind about them. When she’d sung to him her heartbreak in the guise of Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me.” Just thinking about it made the back of her neck burn with humiliation as she stepped out of her car.

Marching in the direction of the front door, she promised herself she’d use this as an opportunity to erase that last memory.

Tonight she’d coolly deliver the goodbye of all goodbyes. When Eamon left he would know exactly how he stood with her.

As he trailed her along the cement walkway leading to her porch, his footsteps sounded crisp and unhesitating. She didn’t spare him a glance, her gaze on her front entry, the door Dutch-styled, meaning it was
divided into two parts horizontally, allowing one half to be shut and the other left open. Tonight, of course, both halves were closed, bolted together on the inside. G
ripping her keys tighter in her hand, she climbed the shallow steps and then inserted one into the lock drilled into the knob. Five seconds, less, and she could wish him a polite farewell.

Get rid of him forever.

The damn door knob didn’t move.

Sucking in a breath, she gave the frozen thing a little jiggle, tried again. No luck.
Argh!
She’d been meaning to get out her tiny toolbox—oh, who was she kidding? She’d been meaning to talk to Ren or Payne. A woman had to get something positive out of a pair of overprotective older brothers in her life.

“Let me try,” Eamon said now, stepping up behind her.

The front of his body brushed the back of hers. The heat of him, his scent, the close presence of his masculine, muscled frame crawled over her skin. It froze her as effectively as the stupid lock, and she didn’t move away even as his big hand closed over hers.

More heat. A traitorous sense of being claimed.

What her romantic soul had craved all her life, starting from when she was an ignored little girl, locked away from her father’s raucous parties at the compound. The Colson house there was styled like a hunting lodge, and she’d envied Cilla, who had a pretty tower room in the Maddox castle. Cami had been afraid of the stuffed trophies of wild beasts hanging on the walls of home and had retreated to her imagination and her music as an escape.

Eamon tightened his fingers on hers, and she quickly jerked free of his hold, leaving him possession of the ring of keys. But that didn’t liberate her from the circle of his arms, with his one hand attempting to finesse the lock while the other was braced above her head on the surface of the door. He leaned in, his breath stirring her hair and setting off a wave of goose bumps to tumble down her spine.

Cami closed her eyes to ward off the riot of pleasure kindling in her belly. Damn him…or maybe it was damn her for still being so responsive to him.

“You sounded good tonight,” he murmured.

The compliment should have been meaningless to her, just like him. But instead it only added to the warmth heating her blood.

“You didn’t stay for the entire second set.” At least he hadn’t been there when the lights came up.

“No, I had to step out and have a word with someone.”

Damn! Then he hadn’t heard her declaration of independence.

“You shouldn’t have come at all.” She glanced at him over her shoulder, even as he continued to work the lock. “Why did you?”

He hesitated, looking perplexed. “I—”

But whatever he intended to say was lost as the door popped open. Its sudden movement thrust them both over the threshold. They stopped in the circle of light cast by the small overhead chandelier.

Cami stepped away from him.

He stared down at her through the impenetrable darkness of his eyes. Then his gaze dropped to her mouth and she thought of kisses, the dozens and dozens they’d shared. Of the very first one, when he’d traced her lips with the tip of his tongue before plunging inside.

At the memory, she went soft and wet between her thighs.
Oh, God.

His nostrils flared. “Cami…”

Surely he couldn’t scent her arousal? She pulled her purse against her chest like armor. “I should—”

“Go get a can of WD-40,” he said, turning to give her his back as he bent to inspect the lock. “Do you have some? We need lubrication.”

Lubrication?
A bubble of hysterical laughter welled up in her throat, nearly choking her.

“Never mind, I remember where I saw it,” he said, straightening to brush past her then head down the short, narrow hallway toward the kitchen.

“Hey…” she protested, taking after him. But he was already moving items around on the bottom shelf of her narrow pantry when she arrived.

Cami crossed her arms over her chest and frowned. “Go ahead, make yourself at home.”

He unbent, one eyebrow rising, the can he’d sought in his hand. “Is everything okay?”

“Dandy. It’s just…been a while since you were in my kitchen.”
Play it cool, Cam. Don’t let on you remember making waffles right at that counter, wearing only his T-shirt. How he’d come up behind you and run his fingers up your thighs and over your bare bottom.

The waffles had burned.

Then, short weeks later, he’d burned her.

He turned to take in the small space, as if recalling his own memories. “I’ve always liked this house.”

“I guess so, since we never visited yours.” Though she’d not complained or questioned that when they were together.

The bungalow had come to her after a distant great-aunt had passed away and was a happy place for her. While others were scraping similar homes from their Santa Monica real estate to replace them with structures larger—and often less charming—she’d kept the bones of the original house and brightened and lightened with new windows and fixtures. The original handcrafted built-ins and the garage space she’d converted to a music room gave her endless satisfaction.

Eamon looked back to her. “My place isn’t as homey as this.”

“Where is it, exactly?” Cami asked. “You never said.”

She also didn’t exactly know what he did for a living or where exactly he worked. A law firm, he’d told her, but she was certain he wasn’t a litigator—he didn’t seem to have the disposition to wade through legalese. Nor a limo driver for the bigwigs, either—his clothes, car, and confidence had been evidence of a certain degree of wealth. But again, she’d never pressed for details, always half-drunk on pheromones in his presence—too intoxicated by his company and his kisses to wonder much about what he did when they weren’t in each other’s arms.

Silly dreamer.

“I have a two-bedroom in Malibu,” Eamon told her. “Traffic’s shit, especially in the summer, but the view makes up for it.”

Malibu, huh? Beachfront, from the sound of it. Pricey. But none of that mattered to her. She clapped her hands together. “Well, we need to get you back there, don’t we? It’s late.”

He flashed her a grin. “Trying to get rid of me,
a ghrá geal
?”

The words robbed her of breath. No matter that the Gaelic endearment was uttered with casual charm, just like every time he’d used it before—when they were together. Now it felt like a punch to the stomach, and her belly literally hollowed as she spun away from him. Tears stung at the corners of her eyes.

“Cami. Cami, wait.”

Had he seen the pain on her face? Damn it! She double-timed down the hall, then almost stumbled over the sleek creature that darted from the direction of her back door with an annoyed “meow.”

She made herself slow, taking deliberate breaths until she reached the foyer once again.

Eamon followed, still holding the can of lubrication, though he kept glancing over his shoulder. “You have a cat? When did you get a cat?”

About the time you dumped me and I sometimes needed a warm body to hold.
“It’s not mine.” Her eyes now were thankfully dry. “It belongs to my new neighbors.”

“You’re pet-sitting?”

“Floyd just shows up on occasion.” She shrugged. “We’re friends.”

And that sounded pathetic. She’d become a woman who was chummy with a neighbor’s feline as a piss-poor substitute for the two-legged man who’d left her. Though, actually, Floyd was pretty cool when all was said and done. If he deigned to spend the night with her, he didn’t hog the pillows and didn’t outwear his welcome the following morning. He’d head right back to his own place for breakfast after tolerating a few sleepy cuddles.

Eamon gave a little shake to his head, but then he applied himself and some of the WD-40 to the recalcitrant lock. In minutes, the device was working smoothly again, and he tested it three separate times with the key he’d yet to return to her.

Finally, he seemed satisfied. But then a frown drew his brows together. “You know, you should have an alarm system.”

She waved that away. “My brothers have been yammering about that, too—Ren worst of all. That task is on his To Do list, he tells me.”

“Sounds like you’re seeing a lot of them.”

“Yeah.” The shining spot in her life.

The nine children of the Velvet Lemons had disappeared one by one from the compound as they came of age, some fatigued and others jaded by what they’d seen and/or done during their largely unsupervised childhoods. The boys had been sucked into the profligate party scene during adolescence, and though she and Cilla had been sheltered from firsthand experience of the full-on sleaze, they’d been affected in their own way.

Ren had disappeared to Europe for years, but when he’d returned at the death of the band groupie who’d been almost like a mother to them, he’d found Cilla…and found the kind of love that had him changing his life. And the lives of the other members of the Rock Royalty.