Heart Broke (Hard Rock Roots Book 8) (29 page)

“Here's a special shot for you, on the house. I call this one the pink pussy,” the bartender says, giving Naomi another drink—and a flirtatious wink to go along with it.

“Wow, Turner, looks like you got some competition,” I say as I stretch my arms over my head and feel that little prick of electricity in my spine that says I am fucked the hell up. “You want to duel for your lady's hand or something?”

“I don't even give a shit,” he says, turning around to face me and walking backwards until he hits the old fashioned jukebox by the bathrooms. “Because I know a soul mate when I see one. Knox and I are like
this.
” He twists his fingers together and then throws up his hand, spinning back to flip through the music. When “Every Little Thing She Does is Magic” by The Police starts up, I'm right fucking shocked. “To get you in the mood,” he says when he turns back and then holds out his hand for Naomi.

“I'm going to regret this later, aren't I?” she says, but she stands up with a smile and puts her hands in his, letting him lead her into the mix of empty tables to dance. When I turn to give Dax a look, he's already smiling. His dark eyes take me in from head to toe before he reaches out and spins my stool around so we're facing each other.

“You're the best thing that ever happened to me,” he says and I give him a raised eyebrow.

“Please, you're drunk. And high.”

“So what?” he counters and then slides me off the stool, dragging me over to our unofficial dance party. “That doesn't mean what I'm saying isn't true,” he whispers against my ear as I spin in a circle and come to rest against his chest. In the back of my mind, I know how temporary all of this is, how dire our situation really is. But right now? Kind of don't give a flying fuck.

Dax turns me around again and then dips me low, like he did that night in the hotel when he kissed me like an old fashioned prince. He doesn't kiss me this time, but the effect his touch has on my body is, well,
like magic.

When he pulls me back to him, I lean up on my toes and kiss him hard and fast, feeling that flicker in my tummy that says
butterflies.
Clichéd phrase, totally true. How else could you possibly describe that sensation? There's that flutter, that tickle, that twisting, winding, nauseating, heart-pounding, heart-stopping, breath-hitching kick to the stomach that tells you you're doing something right for once.

I want to fall in love.

Dax told me he loves me, but I never said it back.

I bite my lower lip as we spin in a circle and bump into Turner and Naomi. We're all too drunk to care at that point, so I figure why should I give a shit about this?

“I love you, Dax,” I blurt and it's the weirdest, most uncomfortable thing I've ever said in my life. I feel my cheeks heat and that's weird as hell, too. I don't blush. Sydney Charell does not frigging blush.
I really am Crazy Sydney around this guy, aren't I?

“I love you, too, Dax,” Turner says as he spins by, making his voice the most ingratiating, annoying thing I've ever heard in my life. I smack him hard in the chest as he moves away, but it's hard for me to focus on anything but the look on Dax's face. He stares down at me, the tattooed blood splatters on his left arm holding me tight, the skeleton tat near his elbow grinning maniacally at my words.

“God, that makes me so happy to hear you say that,” he whispers, releasing my waist and capturing my face in his hands. When he leans down and kisses me, the world spins and time skips, stops, starts up again. Dax slides his tongue against mine, tastes me slow and easy and natural, like this is something we've been doing forever. When he pulls back, we gaze at each other for a long, long moment and then start to dance, swaying slow and sensual in some seedy ass bar with gum on the floor and a glory hole in the bathroom.

It takes us both several minutes to realize that the song's been over for a while.

Love really is the world's best drug, isn't it? The high … it's like
nothing
else.

When the four of us slip outside for a cigarette, Brayden Ryker is waiting for us, leaning against the brick wall of the building with his muscular arms crossed over his chest and a deep frown etched into his face.

“You really are proficient at your job when you choose to be, huh?” I say as I light up a cigarette and watch my reflection in the bar's exterior window. The glow of the cherry makes my skin turn a soft orange-pink color, reflecting back all of those strange gooey-mushy feelings that are swirling around inside of me. God, I need to text some of my stripper friends from back home and let them talk me down off this pedestal. Something that feels this good, this right, it can't end well, can it?

“Bloody fecking idiots,” Brayden says, his eyes closed against the night, the sea of people streaming down the sidewalk on either side of us. It's fucking hopping out here and the night is balmy, sweetly So Cal, the air reminiscent of orange groves, beaches, and … smog. Yeah, come on, LA used to be pretty, but now? Not so much. Still, I like the vibe, the crowd that's hanging out around us. “You must have a goddamn death wish.”

“Maybe if you explained things a little better, we'd be able to act on facts instead of vagaries,” Dax says with a sneer, lighting up a smoke of his own as he glares daggers at Brayden's shuttered face. “You tell Sydney this sob story about a daughter, but you never bother to tell her
why
you were targeted by these psychos in the first place.”

I take a nice, long hot drag and watch as the man opens his pale green eyes and stares straight ahead, across the street and into space. He's definitely all up in his head right now. Cool with me. At this point, it's getting hard to walk straight, so I don't have much room to talk.
How many shots have I had?
I think as I try to count out the little glasses that have been cluttering up our table. The bartender
really
wants to get in Naomi's pants, so she keeps 'em coming. Wave after wave after wave.

“If I told you, you wouldn't believe me,” Brayden says as he shakes his head and watches us with no small amount of contempt. Whoever he is, wherever he's from, this isn't his scene, and he doesn't seem to like us any better than we like him.

“Try us,” I say as I blow silver smoke in his direction.

“Fuck this guy,” Turner says, stalking around in front of Brayden and looking him up and down like he's not impressed. “Don't waste your time, Sydney. He's just another overpaid piece of muscle.” Brayden steps forward like he's going to hit Turner, but instead just curls his fingers in his pockets and emerges with a new phone.

“Call me when you're done here. In the meantime, I'll try to make sure you don't get killed.”

“You did a great job of that at the concert, didn't you?” Naomi asks, her voice soft and low and dangerous. “You let Lola's sister die.” A pregnant pause, a puff of smoke from her rock star goddess lips. “No, you
killed
her.”

“She was going to fucking
shoot you,
” Brayden yells, lifting his arms like he's had just about enough of this. “For
fuck's
sake, what did you want me to do? It was you or her, and I knew which side you were on, Miss Knox. You'd just proven to me what I needed to know.”

“Aren't you in trouble for protecting the woman that killed Paulette's sister?” I ask, trying to push the pieces of the puzzle around. It's not easy in the state I'm in, but I try to see all forms of consciousness as having
something
to offer up. With my inhibitions down, maybe I can think of something now that I wouldn't have before? “I mean, I get that you're not on either family's side, but aren't you at least supposed to
pretend
that you're helping Paulette? How does keeping Naomi alive do anything to assist in that endeavor?”

Brayden sighs and runs a hand down his face. He looks tired. Really, really fucking tired.

“Here's what I know,” Naomi says, dropping her cigarette to the ground and crushing it out with her fabulous little black ankle booties. “America told me that money couldn't buy you. I get that's a cruel reference to your daughter or something, to a threat. But she also said she had to plead her case to you and hope you'd take mercy on her. What the fuck does that mean?”

“She borrowed me from her sister,” Brayden says with his jaw clenched tight, like we're all idiots that have seriously missed the short bus. “She had to convince
Paulette
that she needed me and my team more than the Washingtons did. Don't read too much into anything she said. She wasn't the full shilling, that woman.”

“So why is Naomi still alive?” I ask as I lean into Dax's chest, enjoy the feel of his arm sliding around my waist. “If Paulette is the top of the pyramid, then shouldn't you have pulled the plug on her already?”

“Almost did,” Brayden says, moving away from Turner's scowling face and lighting up a cigarette of his own. “We
did
keep her in a chemically induced coma now, didn't we?”

“You son of a bitch!” Turner screams, launching himself at Brayden. But Dax is there in a split second, the loss of his warmth making my body feel suddenly chilled as he grabs Turner by the shoulders and shoves him into the wall of the bar. “That's why the doctors pretended they didn't know
shit
. You cock sucker. The second I get a chance, I'm going to fucking tear your balls off and feed them to you.”

“Put your anger elsewhere, Mr. Campbell. You'd do a lot worse than to have me as a friend. I work for a third party, a
very
powerful third party that can make this all go away—the Washingtons, the Hammergrens, the Hardings—and the threat they pose. Just keep playing along and let me deal with it.”

“That cock sucking, pig fucking, son of a bastard whore,” Turner says, his teeth clamped down on a cigarette, four lines of coke laid out like snowdrifts on the stainless steel counter in front of him. “I
knew
something fishy was going on at that hospital,” he whispers as he spits his cig in the sink and uses a rolled up bill to snort two lines in quick succession, dropping his head back with a sigh.

“Are you okay, Mi?” I ask Naomi because, as pissed as Turner might be about Brayden's revelations,
she
was the one that suffered the most. I put my hand on Naomi's shoulder, but she's already shaking her head at me.

“I'm fine,” she tells me as Sydney pulls a tube of lipstick and a liner pencil out of her dress. I raise a brow, but I don't ask. Her breasts are not only phenomenal—they're fucking huge. She has plenty of room to store shit in there. “Seriously. I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to even
think
about it.” Naomi forces a smile and checks the time on our group's new cell phone. “It's almost time for our karaoke set, and I am
not
missing that shit.”

“Pucker up,” Sydney says, leaning over in her black bandage dress, the fabric all tight and clingy, emphasizing exactly where I wish my hands were right now. She traces Naomi's lips with the bright red color of her lipstick, lipstick that's currently
all
the hell over me. My neck, my cheeks, my lips. I swipe a hand over my mouth and it comes away red.

“Get in line with Snow White,” Turner says, flicking me in the erection—yeah, I've got another one. Whatever. I narrow my eyes at the asshole as he passes over the hundred in his hand. Yep. We've gone from snorting with a twenty … to a hundred. Guess we're real rock stars now. “Unless you're more concerned with your dwarf,” he adds with a snort.

“I guess you think that makes you clever?” I ask as I step up to the counter. A quick breath, a flash of color in my brain, and I'm halfway to being a superhero. Shit. The guy in the
Tin Dolls
bathroom, he sold good shit. “I've seen your Instagram pics. I think my dick's bigger than yours.”

“You want to whip it out and compare?” he asks, already halfway done unzipping his jeans.

“Boys, boys, boys,” Sydney says, slipping between us as the overhead speakers crackle and a song comes pummeling out … with Hayden's voice. Ugh. Not again. “Keep it in the pants until
after
we leave the bar, okay?” She puts a hand on both our chests as we all pause, look up, and listen to Naomi's haunting lyrics drift into the bathroom.