Hard Rock Roots Box Set (119 page)

“What are you doing?” he asks, voice getting a little more panicky. He's afraid I'm going to touch him. Well, he's right: I am. I slide that last few inches into his sphere, picking up Dax's energy like an antennae, channeling it through my body and letting it prick my arms and legs with goose bumps, raising the hair on the back of my neck. The toes of my red heels bump his bare feet and my fingers hover around his face. He swallows and lifts his own hands up, reaching forward, tentatively, touching my sides so softly I can hardly feel the pressure. But what he lacks in self-confidence with his touch, he makes up for with his kiss.

Dax bends down and I rise up. For a second there, our lips hover, but it's an almost painful sensation, holding back like that. I move the extra quarter inch up, rocking forward on my toes and pressing my lips against his with a groan. It feels so damn good to just give into the pressure that's curling my spine. I came here with innocent intentions, I swear. But animals will be animals, right? And today I'm a growling beast, nibbling his lower lip, running my fingers through his damp hair. My breasts squish against his flat chest as he struggles to figure out what he wants to do with me. The pressure around my waist remains frustratingly light, his fingers just barely grazing the white cotton fabric of my shirt. Now that we've kissed again, it's easy to see why we ended up behind that curtain, this fucking close to a rut.

Dax pushes his tongue into my mouth, swirls his strange hot-cold sensation through me, making me shiver at the same time I'm sweating. He doesn't crash his teeth into mine, doesn't bite at me, even though I swear to God, I feel like I'm gnawing on him. His lips are soft, not girly soft, just nice. I hate when I kiss a guy and he has rough lips. Put on some fucking lip balm for fuck's sake. They make it in Alpha Gorilla flavor, too. It doesn't just come in cherry and vanilla.

The whole time we're kissing, Dax holds his breath. He doesn't pant on me, blow hot air into my face or down my throat. His chest remains completely still and his mouth seals mine, airtight. I let him pull all the oxygen from my lungs until I feel dizzy, like I can't balance on my toes anymore. So what does he do when I start to stumble? His fingers finally find their grip, taking the pressure off my toes, and then he dips me. Full on dips me. Like swings me down and kisses me horizontal, his mouth working at mine while my eyelashes flutter a bit. His arms are around me, supporting me completely, my hair hanging down towards the floor, a silken curtain that tickles my neck as it sways with the motion.

And then up I go again, and he's setting me on my feet with a gasp, letting go and stepping back a full foot from me. The places where his fingers were tingle painfully and my thighs clench involuntarily, wishing they had something, or rather someone, to grab onto.

“You can come to Tulsa,” is all he says as he turns around, steps into the bathroom, and shuts the door.

Chapter 11
Dax McCann

“This isn't a vacation,” Brayden says to me, guiding me down a dark hallway and through an empty kitchen. We're heading towards the exit the restaurant staff use during business hours. Right now, Brayden says, a half dozen delivery trucks have pulled up to start unloading. We're going to use them to get away from the hotel as safely as possible. Short of sending me in an armored car, stealth is the next best thing. I'm not sure what to think of this man. Obviously, he's skilled. I can tell he's good at his job, but what sorts of resources does he have? What can he really do for us in the long run? And where the fuck did he come from? “This is a mission. You get to your father's house, you unload, you leave. I don't even want you to stay the night there.” Neither do I, so I don't bother to argue. “I'm sending three men with you; it's all I can spare. We're a little short-handed around here.”

Brayden moves over to the door, touches a hand to his earpiece and smiles.

“And lucky for you, there a couple other people on this tour that Stephen seems to personally have it out for, and you're not one of them. Naomi Knox and Turner Campbell aren't leaving my sight until this is over.”

I pause, fully aware that Sydney's just a few steps behind me. Her presence is making it hard to concentrate. I should be thinking about the drive, my dad, my posthumously present mother. But instead I'm thinking of her lips, and I'm comparing them to fucking Naomi Knox. I've been doing this all night, sitting at the table in my room while Sydney slept in my bed. She was lying there when I came out of the bathroom, curled on her side like there was nowhere else she'd have rather been. I almost came in my fucking pants. Seriously.
And you chose not to touch yourself last night, why?
I hate to admit, but I kind of
like
the sexual tension between us. It's so intense, it's almost painful. And if it's going to break, I want it to break during the actual act, not with my fucking hand.
If there ever is an actual act.
I keep trying to figure out what Sydney's intentions were last night, but I still don't know. And I still can't stop comparing her to Naomi, like she was ever really a choice in the first place. Maybe I'm just too stubborn to let Mi go, even though I know I should? And maybe I'm too scared to see Sydney as a real possibility? She's in a transitional period in her life, and I have no clue where she's going. Besides, this tour isn't going to last forever – although it fucking feels like it sometimes. What happens then?

“When will it be over?” I ask Brayden, causing him to actually pause what he's doing to stare at me. “What's the final objective here? Killing Stephen?”

“I'm afraid it's a bit more complicated than that, but I think that's the thread that will unwind the knit. If we get rid of Stephen, everything else falls apart.”

“But it's not an endgame move?” I ask him, suddenly desperate to just be finished with this. I think it's my anxiety about …
her.
My secret. I still haven't decided exactly how it is that I'm going to get over to see her, but I have to try. Brayden sighs and touches his earpiece again, turning to face me with his arms crossed tightly over his chest.

“Stephen is a complicated man from a complicated family, Mr. McCann. Where you or I might let certain things go, they have a tendency to hold grudges that … evolve over time.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Sydney asks from behind me. But I don't look at her, not yet. If I want to be able to focus on
anything
besides her lips, it's best if I just don't see them.

“It means that this isn't just Stephen's problem anymore.” I lean against the wall while we wait for our clearance and puzzle through the facts. I wonder if the others are hiding more secrets from me, like Naomi was. What else is there that I'm not seeing? “This is a Hammergren problem.”

“Uh huh.” I don't sound particularly friendly when I respond. “And that means what?”

“It means,” Brayden begins, and I imagine that whatever it is he's going to say, I'm not going to like. “That Spin Fast Music Group no longer belongs to Stephen, which means it no longer belongs to the family.”

“And so how is that our problem?” I ask him. See, that's where I really get caught up in all of this. Now, don't get me wrong, I think Stephen is absolutely fucking bat shit insane, but I see how that rage got focused on America. Even Indecency. I mean, it's a stretch, but if Stephen blames Travis for America leaving him, then why not take revenge on the thing that meant most to him? But why are we involved? America isn't even our friend, just our manager. We could fire her tomorrow and there'd be no connection. Hell, I
would
fire her tomorrow if I thought it would make any difference. She might sue the crap out of us, but at least we wouldn't be getting corpses delivered to our hotel on a regular basis.

“Dax, America is the one that got him … I won't say fired because that's not the right word, but forcibly removed from the position of CEO. Granted, he still has a seat on the board, but the company his grandfather started is no longer under the Hammergren's direct control.” Brayden laughs, but it's not a funny sort of a laugh. It's an
I can't fucking believe what I'm saying right now
sort of a laugh. That scares me. That really, really fucking freaks me out. “Forty-nine percent of a multi-billion dollar company just isn't enough when your head is lost in the feckin' clouds.”

“How the … how the fuck?” I ask because, I mean shit, why? Why?
That uptight bitch,
I think in my head, squeezing my hands so tight, my leather gloves creak. “How did she even manage that?” Brayden sighs and shakes his head, reaching out for the handle of the door.

“You'd be surprised at what that woman is capable of,” he says respectfully. “Long story short, they lost the company. They blame America. They blame you. And when the Hammergrens decide your time is up, you clock out. I'm sorry, Dax. I almost wish they had a personal vendetta against you. But they don't. They probably don't even know your name. Somebody down here is feeding information up there. For now, they're lookin' to make America suffer. Eventually, they'll get tired of that and decide it's time for the fun to be over with. This isn't the scary part; that's the scary part. And it doesn't matter if you're here or there, they will find you. I'm sorry Dax, but with the Hammergrens, it's blood in, blood fuckin' out.”

“Even though I've done nothing?” I ask, because maybe I'm just thinking too logically about things. Crazy people don't operate under the same principles as the rest of us. What makes sense to one person, baffles another. Brayden puts his hand on my shoulder and his back against the door. Cool air blows in and swirls through the kitchen, making the pots and pans on the overhead rack sway gently. In his green eyes, there's a carefully kept story, one that I'm not going to get.

“Don't think too hard about it. It'll only hurt your head. Trust me, I've tried to make sense of it. Sometimes, bad things happen to good people.” Brayden tries to smile, but it's so forced, it gives me a stomach ache. “And that's why I'm here. Just try and think of me as an Irish Batman, and you'll be alright.”

And then with that particularly satisfying bit of information, he kicks us out the door and into a van, so I can spend the next two hours sitting next to my mother's corpse.

Sydney sits across from me, on the other side of the wooden casket. She's wearing a long sleeved, black shirt with cut outs on the shoulders, flashing me these little hints of tattoo when she adjusts her short skirt, pulling it down so that it sits mid thigh. Underneath it, she's got on a pair of nude nylons that I have to literally pinch myself to ignore. Looking at her in all black, I'm guessing she was trying to dress for a funeral. I appreciate that, but Sydney Charell doesn't look anything like a mourner. The only two places I could imagine her right now are at a club or in my bed.
Crap.
I squeeze my eyes shut and rest my hand on the wooden lid. It's nailed shut, but I keep touching it anyway, just to make sure it's not going to pop open and assault me with a flurry of hushed curses from beyond.
I'm sorry, Mom. What kind of son am I that I'm staring at a woman's legs right now? You must be so disappointed in me.
But I don't
want
to sit here and think about my mom's bones. I want to pretend this box is full of dirt, rocks, sand, whatever. Anything but what's really in it. I'd much rather be thinking about Sydney's mouth on mine.

I run my hands over my face. In the face of death, the promise of life is that much more beautiful to behold. I drop my hands to my lap and look at Sydney.

“Thanks for coming,” I tell her, still unsure as to why she's even here. We're not friends, just acquaintances thrown together through random circumstance. Still, I can't stop thinking about my parents' first meeting. This is probably the hundredth time it's brushed through my mind while I've been around Sydney.
Your parents were in love the moment they met. They didn't know it, but everyone else did. Most especially me. You don't look at a woman the way your father looked at your mother, not unless you've already been bought and sold. It was her eyes, I think. Blue as the lake in the rain.

“You're doing it again,” Sydney says, leaning forward. Her blonde hair hangs over her eyebrows and covers her ears, framing her beautiful face in gold. “Disappearing somewhere. Tell me about it.” I glance up at the men in the front. There's a pair of them sitting in the captain's chairs in the center and one driving the van. I don't even get to do that, for safety reasons, of course. The men aren't carrying rifles or frowning through the windshield, looking for trouble. They're just all sitting there, bored, dressed in jeans and T-shirts. It's a little unnerving. They look so ordinary. I turn back to Sydney and lean in. With the soft drone of the radio and the roar of the highway, I doubt they can hear me, but it doesn't hurt to be cautious.

“You don't want to know. I have the most asinine thoughts running through my head.”

“I don't care,” Sydney says, tilting her head to the side. “I like your mouth, and I want to hear what it has to say.” I draw back a bit. Her breath is tickling my face and making my stomach tight. At least I don't get another fucking hard-on. Mom can at least be glad to know her son has
some
modicum of self-control. I pat the box apologetically.