Wicked Flower

Evernight
Publishing ®

www.evernightpublishing.com

Copyright©
2014 Carlene Love Flores

 
ISBN: 978-1-77130-987-5

Cover Artist: Sour Cherry
Designs

Editor:
JS
Cook

ALL RIGHTS
RESERVED

WARNING: The unauthorized
reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal.
 
No part of this book may be used or
reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the
case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

This is a work of fiction.
All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual
events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.

DEDICATION

For Adrian

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I was really
touched during the writing of this book by some very special people who helped
me with the research. A giant thanks to Josh “The Kentucky Gent” Johnson for
being the visual of Will’s tank tops which might seem like a small thing but to
a
writer,
is huge. Smiles and fist bumps to a great
bass player, Dino Villanueva, for happily taking time out of his busy schedule
to answer a very long list of my bass playing questions. As always, thank you
to my critique partners, Lynne and Kerri, my editor,
JS
Cook, and everyone at
Evernight
for continuing to
support this series.
All my love to my incredibly loving
family.
Most importantly, to you the reader, thank you from the bottom
of my lucky little heart. Take it, it’s yours. Enjoy.
xoxo

WICKED FLOWER

A
Sin Pointe Novel, 5

Carlene Love
Flores

Copyright © 2014

If you cannot be
good, you should be the least bad you can be.

—Thomas
More

Chapter One

Stefan could always tell when
Will was about to lay one on him.

This should be fun.

He stared at the road ahead and waited
while Will ran his usual course of fingers tapping his knees to hands tucking
into his armpits and finally a mouthed “Oh shit.” Will closed his eyes and
fisted wads of his shorts into his hands. Stefan grinned and eased up on the
gas before he took the next curve.

It was coming.
Something
good by the twist to his drummer’s lips.
Any second now…

“Have you ever had a girl go down
on you while you were driving?” Will
asked
as they
passed into the vicinity of Moonlight, Pennsylvania. “Because driving like a
fricking
maniac could kill any hopes of that ever happening
and mangle your brand new baby too.
Just
sayin
’.
I know how much you love your new car.”

Stefan flipped Will off. God, he
loved this man.

But was Will kidding? Of course
he had. It came with being Stefan Calderon. Will, of all people, shouldn’t have
had to ask.

Must be the outdoors.
Or the insane
amount of curves they’d flown through the last half hour.

Fresh air and curves, albeit not
the ones found while driving, were known to have that effect on Sin Pointe
members and the air didn’t get much fresher through these old hills.

Since he was feeling kind, Stefan
bit down to keep the answer to his friend’s question to himself, even though
something sweet and flowery in the air reminded him of the exact night the last
time that very thing had indeed blown his mind. He’d enjoyed himself immensely.
Jasmine,
he thought. In a game of
“Fuck truth, let’s dare”, the temptress had fair and square lost the right to
tell him her name, but that scent made his mouth water. He took in a deep whiff
and had to bite down even harder to spare Will the gory details.

With wind whipping through the
convertible at all angles, Will secured the strip of
mohawk
he’d left
unmoussed
.
It flogged him in the face as soon as he let go.
 
 

“Have you?” Stefan asked,
wondering what his drummer would say. If Stefan had to guess, knowing
Will
like he did, he’d go with no. Check that. Will before
Honey? Yes. Will after Honey? No. Love fucked men up. It was a mistake Stefan
had yet to make like the rest of his bandmates.

“Nope, Honey was too shy for that
kind of thing.” Will’s face was blank.

No big revelation there. Stefan
knew his bandmates like he knew sex, music and breathing.
In
that order.
In a few weeks, they’d be going back out on tour. Still the
four original guys after all these years. Yeah, Stefan hadn’t needed Will to
confess his late wife’s shyness and Will’s devotion to her wasn’t just written
all over his stoic face, it was inked permanently around the drummer’s wrist,
over his heart, and across his ribs.

Stefan reached over and knocked
Will’s hand from the top of his head to lighten the mood, vowing to get Will
back out there someday. The hair got sucked up into the wind again, bringing
his
mohawk
back to life. Will
adjusted his black-rimmed glasses, letting his hair fly. Clearly, his drummer
was the most interesting bastard in the band. Stefan would gladly share his
bedmates with Will but the man had yet to take him up on the offer.
Fucking love
.

Back to that blow job question. Stefan
could tell the truth, but a lie seemed way nicer.
“Nah, man.
But that’s fucking hot.”

Will nodded his head and then let
it fall back into the headrest while Stefan remembered a few years ago and the
mess of red hair bobbing up and down in his lap as he sped down the 5.
California had been bad but oh so good at times too. In an effort to save their
souls, Jaxon had moved Sin Pointe out of the seedy streets of Los Angeles to
the country loving arms of Nashville. Code for Jaxon and Marion had finally settled
down and had their families with them so Stefan and Will needed to get with the
program. Leave it to Jaxon to prove anything was possible. Stefan cleared his
throat and Will threw him one quick look which he ignored.

“Oh, gas
station
sign
.
Twenty miles to the exit.
Did you see
it?” Will asked him, pointing.

“Food.
Gas.
Piss,” Stefan said.
“In that order.”

“Gas.
Piss. Food,”
Will
echoed
back at him.
“In
that
order.
Your new baby is
almost on E.”

This had been a long
ass
road trip and yes, his girl needed filling. But it
looked like they were finally close to his mom’s. There were truly beautiful
green, lush trees everywhere.
Tall ones that practically blacked
out the sky in broad daylight.
The hills went on forever. Stefan
remembered the landscape well. Moonlight was close.

He blinked, but shadows from
giant trees wouldn’t hide Stefan’s reluctance any more than closing his eyes to
the past would. He wouldn’t claim a fucked up childhood, just a confusing one.

More importantly, how was she
doing? How was Mom going to look when he finally saw her? His seven year
absence had been too long, he knew. Shit, the band had put out two records,
even experimented with new sounds, and toured hundreds of cities since he’d
last been here. Stefan closed his eyes tight, held them closed for several
seconds, then cleared his throat again and playfully grabbed at Will’s crotch
as a diversion to his guilt and doubts about this return.

“Hey sexy, it’s your turn to
pump.” He forced a grin out and Will punched his shoulder so hard it made the
dog tags Will wore for his brother clink. Stefan rubbed the sting away and took
in a deep breath of Pennsylvania air.

It had been so fucking long since
he’d called this place home and trapped wasn’t a good feeling for a grown man. Not
one like him whose idea of ultimate happiness was to rip pleasure from life and
its beautiful, willing creatures.

Reminders of his mistakes were
not so appealing. Moonlight was full of them. He wiped at his brow and clenched
the marbled toffee swirls of his lady’s hard steering wheel tightly.
Forgetting why you left this place isn’t as
important as remembering why you’re back now.

His mom wasn’t sick this time,
but she was aging, it seemed faster than ever this last decade. Calling to wish
her a happy seventieth had blown his mind. He’d promised himself then and there
to visit more often, whether Mom welcomed it or not. Where had the time gone? If
there was ever a time to show Mom she’d been wrong about him all those years
ago and shouldn’t be ashamed, it was now. “I have to show her,” he muttered
into the wind. His best friend graciously ignored him.

****

“God dammit,” she said when her
car lurched.

She’d seen that capital red “E”
light up after leaving home but it hadn’t seemed too important half an hour ago
compared to the crappy morning she’d just had. When Dani could afford it, she
was trading in her old gas guzzling Buick and getting herself one of those
fancy new hybrids. Toyota or Honda, she couldn’t decide, but one of them.

How far had she driven herself in
her daze anyway? At this point, who the hell cared? It sure as shit wasn’t far
enough away. When she saw the sign for the truck stop, she sighed in relief.
Far enough away from her bedroom and the damned
email,
but close enough if Mrs. C had an emergency.

Dani pushed her tongue against
her cheek, feeling its heat, and debated cursing the Lord again or begging He
let her at least make it to the next exit without stalling on the highway. Cursing
the Lord wasn’t cool and right now, He was undoubtedly the only good guy on her
side. He was certainly the only man she cared to talk to after this morning.

“That’s all I need,” she said
shaking her head. She pulled pieces of hair being whipped into her mouth back
out but wasn’t willing to roll up the windows to avoid it happening again and
again and again. There’d be snarls to fight with later but she welcomed the
perfect mix of cold and hot air while she could. A storm was due soon, the
charcoal grey clouds pushing their way in and the battle between the cold and
hot air all but guaranteed it. She, along with the rest of the town population,
was out running errands before anything ugly hit. Just like they always did.
Nothing new.
She dreaded the lines and the familiar meddling
faces.
Especially today, a day when she just wanted to be
left alone.

Even though her first instinct
was to floor it to the truck stop when she saw the Pump-n-Go’s billboard, she
eased up on the gas pedal and came to a compromise on the tirade she’d been
working on. “Thanks,” she said under her breath.

What in the hell was she being
punished for?

Wasn’t she trying her best to do
all the right things?

“Thanks for this damn messy day.”
Not only did she need to gas up, but her patience had been reduced to fumes.