Reckless Love: A Billionaire Baby Steamy Fantasy Multicultural Love Story Rockstar Romance (2 page)

CHAPTER FOUR

Jasmine

Jasmine trembled a little, with the sudden rush of emotion after first speaking with Leo.
Who was that? And why do I feel I should be going with him? Following him?
It didn’t make any sense but she felt that instead of going with her quartet as she had planned, she should just turn around and walk away with him, wherever he was headed. Like that was where she belonged.

She hadn’t expected to come across anyone but the help that day at the castle. It was supposed to just be open for them, with a custodian to show them around.

But that was no custodian. No sirree Bob.
In fact, she had never seen such a gorgeous creature in her life. Dark hair, stormy blue eyes, perfect frame, upon which hung a tailored suit, his long legs leading up to a perfect, high, compact ass. She tried to keep her eyes off it as he stalked away. And somehow he seemed familiar, but she couldn’t place how she knew him. Or why she felt she needed to go with him. She shook her head, trying to dispel the vision.

Kerry elbowed her. “Oh em gee, Jasmine! Do you know who that is? That’s freaking Leo Wellington-Kerr!”

“Who is Leo Wellington-Kerr?” She whispered back. “And why should I know him?”

“Well you should know him because he’s a famous musician.” Kerry said, flatly.
“Classical?”

“No silly, a famous rock musician. And they call him ‘the Earl’ because he’s a nobleman! Obscure, sure! But real, bona fide royalty.  The wheels were turning in her head now. “Holy shit, we are playing his wedding?”

Something inexplicable pricked inside Jasmine’s heart.
This beautiful man who I just met is already taken? Completely off the market? Ah well, that’s my luck. Easy come, easy go
.
I don’t know why I even care. Why
am I even thinking this way anyhow?
She hoisted her cello on her shoulder.
I don’t usually even like white guys. Especially rock musicians. Any musicians! At all.

“Well let’s get to it girls. This Mozart isn’t going to play itself,” she said with false brightness, trying to keep herself together enough to get the job done. She strode over to the stage and set up, arranging the chairs into their familiar square. She opened her music on the stand and soon, the sound of strings being put into vibration filled the air.

CHAPTER FIVE

Leopold

As the first notes rang out in the distance, Leo sat down, head in his hands.

Who in the ever-loving fuck is this woman and why did my heart nearly stop when I saw her? I don’t want to be involved with some weird American string quartet member. Not right now, anyway.

Not ever, probably.

But the desire was not going away, and neither was his hard on. It was clear that his body wanted her immediately – the bulge in his pants was almost painfully swollen – he suspected he had never gotten that hard before. Not even when there were three Spanish girls licking every possible orifice he had, and sucking every protuberance.

The rise of her breasts, the generous lips, the arch of her brow over flashing eyes.
He tried to remember the Swedish chick from the other day to replace the image of this girl who had just wandered into his castle.
What was the blonde’s name again? Oh fuck it, I don’t think I ever knew her name in the first place.

All I want is now to taste this girl’s name on my lips.

But Leo, Leo, Leo-freaking-pold, now’s not the time to get involved with some American girl. Or a classical musician, are you kidding me? Especially not when you are about to go on tour. You have the chance that so many men would die for, to go from city to city plucking the ripest peaches from the branch, tasting the fruit and throwing it away after one juicy, honey dripping, bite.
He pictured laying her down on the bear rug that adorned the stone floor of the room, pushing up her grey dress inch by inch, covering the expanse of thigh with hot kisses, until finally her sex was revealed, her soft dark lips and pink opening begging for the touch of his tongue as she twined her fingers into his soft-hair, him tasting her juices, her sweet wetness coating his tongue.

But that’s ridiculous. I am the one who gets head, not the one who fucking gives it. Christ on a bike.

What just happened here?

CHAPTER SIX

Jasmine

“Get it together Jasmine,” Kerry hissed, as Jasmine made her second wrong entrance in as many minutes. She knew this piece like the back of her hand. “Where’s your head?”

“I’m sorry! I will!” Jasmine whispered back, frantic. She was always known for being rock solid. It came from practicing six, seven, sometimes ten hour days. It was hard to admit it to herself, but it was the thought of the handsome man that had greeted them that was making her fall off the rails so badly. She had never responded so much to someone before, and she didn’t know anything about him.

Were all rock-stars this freaking charismatic? Still it doesn’t matter, since this one is getting married. Don’t even think about it.
She shifted in her chair, trying to ignore the urgent feelings throbbing in her center.
And even if he weren’t, he was hardly a good choice. Anyway, your entrance is coming up. Think of the music,
she coached herself, and before long it took over, her solo lines making clear and shimmering arcs above the glorious base the other three were providing.
Kerry smiled at her, a bit archly.

“That’s better,”
she seemed to say. “
But don’t fuck it up again.”
Jasmine nodded inwardly.

It was not only a big concert, for important people, but it was one of those important person’s actual wedding. Messing it up would be unthinkable.
And for what? Something stupid like a guy you just met and are mooning over?

So why
did
this gorgeous man have to stroll into the middle of her big break, look at her with those smoldering eyes, and then get married right under her nose?

She nearly missed her third entrance but at the last second her bow remembered its path, and set the string to vibrating, her rich tone sounding through the stonework in the hall. Only the people who knew her playing best would have guessed that she had barely made it. Kerry’s eyes didn’t leave Jasmine, though her violin stayed glued to her music.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Leo

Leo got up from his perch on the stone wall, stretching his long, elegant legs, and made his way to the games room. But not for games - for the bar. Nothing would settle his newly jangled nerves quite like a tumbler of scotch.
Or five.

Never failed me before.

The game room was deserted, aside from some servants who were decorating for the wedding. He shambled behind the bar and poured a shot over ice, trying to ignore the fact that his hands were shaking. As he put the burning liquid to his lips, again he was assaulted by the desire to taste her. Everywhere. He poured another and sat down at a stool.

It figures that this place is empty. Life in England is empty for me. It’s always fucking deserted.

It was true, that life is a minor nobleman was not exactly the picnic that it sounded like it should be. Leo looked out the window at the great expanse of fields that surrounded the estate, the rolling hills in the distance, sheep dotting the countryside, and remembered being a child, knocking about the grounds.
It could have been glorious,
he supposed,
growing up in such a place
. If there had been anyone to spend that time with, exploring the countryside, but his brother had been much older, more serious, not interested in getting up to the kinds of things a boy would want to do. And parents always busy. A vague sense of ‘seen but not heard’ in the air.

It was lonely.

And now Victor’s getting married. And I am still alone.

He poured another drink, walked over to where the light was streaming in, and leaned his forehead against the window, as he had when he was a small child. All the trappings of manhood fell away from him as he gently kicked the wood of the wainscoting with the tip of his Italian leather shoe. As he had done as a boy.

His finger traced the rim of the glass, imagining the girl’s mouth again, as the faint sounds of a cello cried out in the distance.
I wonder how she kisses?

Then he slammed the glass down, hard.
Time to play the guitar. Get rid of these feelings.
 

He stalked out and toward his quarters, ridding his mind of the girl with every step. Or trying to. At least.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Jasmine and Leo

The cello case clicked closed, with a satisfactory sound – a more satisfactory sound than had come out of her cello all night. Sitting on her hotel room bed, Jasmine was frustrated. It hadn’t been this difficult in a long time. Usually her method of getting over difficult emotions had always been to play them out of her; to use them to feed the music. To
be
the music.
For that was what music’s supposed to be, isn’t it? A way to make sense of emotion? To tolerate it?

Something had to let it out. She hadn’t felt this much pressure building up inside of her for ages
.

And for what?

It was always the little details that got her. The flicker of a trill in a line of music, a heart drawn in a cup of cappuccino, and with this man, the crinkle of his eyes at their corners. The kind of lines that speak of both happiness and sadness. That make you want to touch the side of his face, the angle of his cheekbones, the softness of the slight pout of his lower lip. To comfort him.

The perfect part of his lips, the small glimpse of white teeth between their plush softness. To part those lips, and touch them with your own. To linger there a moment, feeling the energy move between the edges of the touch before plunging deeper, a little at a time, hands twining around the back of his head – feeling the texture of his hair, the tensing and relaxing muscles of his neck, his hand coming around the small of your back, and pulling you towards him, his body against yours.

She laid back and stared up at the ceiling, the patterned tiles swimming in her mind. Her stomach twisted a little with the stress of the moment. Rubbing it, she hoped to ease the mild pain but instead found herself undoing her jeans button by button, revealing her silky skin inch by inch to her fingertips. Her eyes closed and she pulled her shirt up too, grasping her full breast as her other hand slipped beneath her underwear and between her damp folds.

Breath quickening, her fingers became wilder, faster, rubbing her clit and plunging inside her as she moaned his name.
“Leo,” she cried. “Leo…”

In his own room, Leo was finally freeing his cock (that had never quite lost its erection since seeing her) from its confines, taking its mad length and thickness into his hand. Her lips. Her eyes, her breasts, oh fuck, her breasts. Goddamn it. I would take you, hold you by your beautiful brown ass and plunge straight into you, devouring your neck, thrusting in and in and in as you cry out –

“Oh fuck, Leo,” she murmured again, seeing his face in her minds’ eye, the crinkled corners of his eyes, seeing his lips soften in surprise as he thrust into her, revving up his speed, making her tremble, as she squeezed around him –

She would be so tight, so soft –

He would be so hard, he’d fill me up –

They bucked until they both came, droplets of sweat on their bodies, slumping back on the bed, fingers wet with their juices. Alone, each. But a whisper of each other on each of their lips.

CHAPTER NINE

Jasmine

Well I guess it’s the day of Leo Wellington-Kerr’s wedding.
She was still blushing about how crazy she was getting over a man she had hardly talked to –
although he had such a gorgeous accent…
A man that had barely acknowledged her existence –
but did he look at her an extra second? Was that longing in his eyes?

…This is stupid.

Despite doing her best to ignore the feelings, they kept coming up like weeds in the rose garden.

Or like wrong notes in the Mozart.
Arg.
They’d chosen this piece especially for the wedding because of the fact that Jasmine would have such a gorgeous singing solo line for her instrument, and as a bonus, the music was written for a royal back in Mozart’s day. Plus, she’d been playing the piece for ages, but her concentration was just not there now, just when she needed it.

Trouble was, the wedding day was here, and there was no time to practice more, to regroup. And the pain was still there.
How could she watch him, this Leo, get attached to someone and play music in celebration of it?
It just wouldn’t work.

If only I could back out
, she thought.
Then it would be ok. Maybe I could be sick? My stomach is twisted enough that it wouldn’t be pretend.

But no. I can’t let down my quartet, it wouldn’t be professional. And besides, I need the money. Never mind the fact that they couldn’t find a replacement for today, I need this money to live.

She pulled her gown out of the garment bag, its silky fabric feeling slippery against her hands. It was black, with lace panels and beading – clearly the most luxurious gown she had ever purchased.
At least I will look good.
And indeed she would, the gown expertly tailored for her body, her curves looking their best. Her hair would be in a simple bun – nothing elaborate, as it was her job to look good but not take attention away from the event at hand.

Leo’s wedding.

Kerry knocked at the door.

“I’ve got the program,” she said. “And guess what? They spelled our names right! Leave it up to the Brits to take care of that.”

Jasmine took it from her. “They got our names right, but what’s this? Will the groom’s name be corrected?”

“The groom’s name?”

“Well, sure. This here says the groom’s name is Victor.”

Kerry looked puzzled. “Yeah?”

“Well it’s Leo, right?” Jasmine pointed at the program. “He’s the one getting married.”

“No, didn’t I tell you? I was wrong - it’s his brother, Victor.”

Jasmine’s jaw dropped as her heart jumped in her chest.

“Really?” She breathed.

“Well yeah, but what does it matter?”

“No matter, no matter.” Jasmine turned away from her friend, embarrassed.

“Heyyyy…” said Kerry, drawing the word out with a suspicious tone. “Do you have a crush on the rock star?”

“No!” Jasmine cried. Not very convincingly, even she had to admit. 

“You do! Oh my god!” It was Kerry’s turn to gape. “You like Leo!”

“No I don’t!”
 

“You do!”

She turned toward her friend, eyebrows knitted together in an almost comical parody of pain. “Don’t tell anyone, ok?”

“I won’t! But that means you have to look super chic this afternoon.” Then it dawned on her. “Oh my God, Is that why you were messing up so much in rehearsal?”

Jasmine’s cheeks flamed. “Well, yes. I wasn’t sure how I was going to play at the wedding of a man who… who… I don’t know how to describe it! Please don’t tell anyone ok? It’s embarrassing enough as it is.”
“Nothing embarrassing about it,” said Kerry. “Ok so you are wearing that killer dress, that’s good – it looks amazing on you. Do you want me to do your makeup? I have a great aqua eyeliner that would look fantastic with your skin.” She began to bustle around like a mother hen, as if she were ready to try to get Jasmine a date with the rock star.

“Well sure I guess, but Kerry, but you have to understand – I am not looking to get together with this guy.”

“Then what
are
you looking for?”

“I don’t know! A way to get rid of my feelings! After all, he’s a rock star – he doesn’t seem like the greatest guy, now does he?”

“Well thousands of screaming lady fans would disagree with you,” she said, smiling. “He’s the hot commodity on all the tabloid rags. Everyone wonders if he is going to settle down, and with who.”
“You know I never pay attention to any of that stuff.” Jasmine wrung her hands.
“Oh sure, he’s the new big thing. Origin of Species, his band, is doing killer well. They’re coming to America this month for a big tour.” She looked speculative. “I wonder if the rest of the band will be at the wedding? That Nigel Gwillimbury is kind of hot. He’s the guitarist. Just broke up with someone too I think.”
 

Jasmine was flabbergasted. “How do you know all this?”

“Eh, I have my ways. It’s not that hard, I just keep up with stuff – I don’t sit in my room and listen to Mozart you know,” Kerry grinned.

“Neither do I!”
Kerry’s grin got wider. “Ok, right, Jasmine. Like you don’t start off your day with three hours practice.”

“Nothing wrong with that!

“Ok, ok. So, can I do your makeup or what?”