Light My Fire (Rock Royalty Book 1) (7 page)

"Cilla—"

"Really," she tried smothering the rise of panic. "No need."

"When you can't look me in the eye," he said, his voice implacable, "there's a need."

Damn. He wasn't going to let her off the hook.

So just get it over with
, she decided, spinning on her heel. The tea sloshed dangerously close to the lip of her mug and Ren reached over, plucking it from her hand to place it on the counter. "We don't want you to get burned," he said.

Yes. That exactly. But the back of her neck was already on fire. Inhaling a long breath, she forced herself to meet his gaze. Sophisticated, remember?

Those pale green eyes studied her until she had to fight off a squirm. "What?" she finally said, pushing at her hair then rubbing her hand over her mouth. "Do I have toothpaste drool on my chin?"

A sudden grin split his face. "'Toothpaste drool'?"

"You know what I mean."

His laugh was that low and quiet one which flipped her belly. "I find you highly entertaining, Cilla."

She huffed and crossed her arms over her chest. "Yay."

He shoved his hands in his pockets and lowered his head, shaking it so the glossy darkness caught the low light in the room. Did he have to be so damn beautiful? And the way he kissed...

His head came up as if he'd heard her thought. "We have to talk about the kiss."

"Oh, no," she said, lifting her hand and moving it in the air as if erasing the memory. "There's nothing to talk about there."

He stepped back to lounge against the countertop. His large hand slid from his pocket to lift her mug. He took a swallow of tea, his eyes on her the whole time. "I don't want you to think—"

"I don't think anything," she hastened to say, as mortification spread the heat at her neck across her face. "Not thinking at all. Not about anything." She tapped the side of her head with the heel of her palm. "Hear that echo? That's the sound of emptiness."

He was grinning at her again. "Cilla, did you just insist you're an air-head?"

Whatever it takes
. "I'm making clear we don't need to have this conversation."

"Well, you're wrong," he said, returning the mug to the counter with a little
clack
. His expression turned serious. "I've got to make sure you know not to worry... Look, I'm not going to push anything, I promise. Believe me, I don't want to take things any further."

She stared at him, her mind scrambling for some mature, dignified rejoinder. Instead, a question popped out. "Well, why'd you kiss me in the first place?"

He returned his free hand to his pocket and the look he gave her teemed with frustration. "I can't say exactly. You seemed...a little lost, I guess."

"Oh, great." Cilla groaned. "I get it now. Thanks for the pity kiss."

"It wasn't pity," he ground out. "It was..."

The long pause only made her more humiliated.

"It was..." He frowned. "Cilla, it was—"

"Don't bother," she snapped, and kept right on talking. "I don't need an explanation. I also don't need you assuring me you're not going to take anything further either. I know my kissing skills are lacking, like all my skills when it comes to sex. I'm bad at it, and I'm aware of that. Foreplay, afterplay, and all the mortifying middle stuff too. Terrible at every single step in the process."

Now he was staring. "What, exactly, is 'afterplay'?"

"You see!" she said, flinging out a hand. "I don't even know. But it stands to reason that if there's a fore, there must be an after. Newton's Law, right? Anyway, I'm bad at all of it."

"What exactly do you mean by bad, Cilla?" he asked, tilting his head.

She shrugged a shoulder, feeling defensive and moody and wishing her mouth would stop moving. "I don't ever really feel anything, okay?"

His eyebrows shot up. "You didn't feel anything when I kissed you?"

Her good sense finally came alive and started shouting at her.
Shut
up,
girl
!
Put the brakes on this convo, right now!
"Well, we don't have to get into that, do we? Because you've just said it was a one-time thing."

"Do you really never feel anything?"

"Can't we just leave this alone?"

When he merely stared at her in silence, Cilla finally broke. "Look, Tad told me I was a lousy lay."

Ren's expression turned rock-hard. "
What
?"

"Lousy lay." The words didn't get easier with repetition.

"He
said
that?"

"On the day we broke up." Cilla looked down at her nails, inspecting the polish for chips. "Before that he said I needed to loosen up a little or maybe watch some porn before our dates."

Ren made a noise. "That guy's a dick." There was disgust in his voice.

It teased a small smile out of her. "I was beginning to think so myself. But he wasn't wrong about me finding it hard to relax."

"You melted against me, Cilla," Ren said. "In my arms you were sweet and soft and willing as hell."

She glanced at him. "Gee, thanks. Rub it in."

"Mercy, please," he said his eyes rolling heavenward. "One minute you're complaining about your lack of response, now you're annoyed when I point out you were plenty responsive to me."

"Fine." She returned to inspecting her fingernails. "It's possible I'm not quite reasonable on this topic, okay? I'm a little raw about it, actually."

"Cilla—"

"Let's drop it. Drop it forever."

"I don't think I can. My conscience won't allow me to let you wander around with the misunderstanding that you're what...cold, frigid?"

"Well, I am. And not just with Tad, either."

Ren was shaking his head. The kind—pitying—expression in his eyes made her want to cringe. "Let it go, please," she begged him.

"Cilla, you've got some kind of negative feedback loop going on in your head."

Spare her bedroom advice from the Mighty Kisser, she thought, temper beginning to kindle. "Hey—"

"Honey," he continued, "it's not that hard—"

"If you think it's so easy, or if you think I'm so responsive, then why don't you want to do something more about it?" The words exploded from her mouth. "But that's right, you don't want to take things 'further.'" She put air quotes around the word.

He grimaced. "Because—"

"Let it go, Ren. Let it go and leave me be, unless, that is..."

His eyes narrowed. "Unless what?"

In the back of her mind, her good sense was shouting again, but Cilla wasn't thinking clearly. She hadn't been thinking clearly since Ren came back into her life and now after the evening she'd had, seeing Tad with Cilla's replacement, and then that unexpected kiss...

"Unless you want to teach me," she said, feeling reckless and rash. "You're going to be here for another couple weeks. You could do something useful with your time."

Ren took his hands from his pockets and straightened away from the counter. "Like what, exactly?"

Cilla slammed her arms over her chest. "Mentor me." Shocked as she was at her own words, they continued to flow from her mouth. "You could be my sexual mentor."

When she saw him start in surprise, she told herself again to shut it down. But some impetuous part of herself couldn't leave well enough alone. "What do you say, Ren? I dare you."

Early morning, and Ren was navigating the L.A. traffic, getting his sister to the auto salvage yard where she worked. He glanced over at her, noting the way she was sucking down the coffee they'd stopped for at the Laurel Canyon market. The place had been busy, some business types and entertainment moguls heading into skyscrapers or studios for the day, others looking like they were winding down after an all-night jam session or a frenzy of painting or sculpting. Canyon country contained all kinds.

Cami must have felt his glance. She looked over. "What?"

"I'm wondering how you're keeping up with this double life of yours. Salvage gal by day, Lady Music by night."

She held up her paper cup. "Caffeine, and lots of it."

"Payne treating you okay? Is he paying you a decent salary?"

"I like the job," she said. "My particular yard's more of a holding facility. Not too many buyers come by. I sit in a trailer most of the day and when I'm not keeping up the inventory on the computer or dealing with the occasional customer, I can play my guitar, do some writing."

"Payne's not in your face, then?"

She shook her head. "He's good to me."

For some reason the warm affection in her voice felt like a blow to Ren's chest. He cleared his throat. "Are there any other men in your life?"

"Just my mystery man."

"Who?" Curious, he slid her another look.

A small smile played around her mouth. "An occasional client. Makes an appointment. Comes late at night. I indulge him because he doesn't complain about the prices I jack up just for him."

"Is that safe?"

"Don't worry." She waved a hand. "He's harmless."

Ren refocused his gaze on the ass end of the Lexus in front of him. "What about you and Cilla?" he asked in a casual voice. "You see her often?"

"No."

"But you girls were the last two left at the compound. Didn't you...bond a little?"

"Some, I suppose. But I'm older. We were in different grades. Lived in different houses."

Ren knew all that, but it was the first time he'd considered what that meant. "So not really like sisters."

She shrugged. "We drifted apart after growing up."

The knowledge gnawed at him a little. Cami had Payne in her corner. But Cilla... Maybe she'd managed to build a life for herself, but she was still alone, it seemed.

In her bed, as well.

You could be my sexual mentor.

Those words ran through his head for the millionth time.

Damn woman. All sweet on the outside, innocent-looking, but she knew a way to skewer a man.
I dare you
. He might not have been particularly close with the other Lemon kids, but all were surely conscious of one of Ren's particular foibles.

Despite a broken arm as the result of an attempt to climb the outside of the Maddox Castle, the loss of high school graduation ceremony privileges due to a prank pulled on the principal, and that Halloween when he'd been arrested three times in the same night—all incidences that had occurred before his eighteenth birthday—Ren had never been one-hundred-percent successful at turning down a dare.

To make that matter worse, there were additional personal weaknesses he'd never completely conquered even though he was now thirty-one: 1) like every other guy on the planet he'd been know to let his cock make decisions for him, and 2) if he wanted something, really wanted it, he went for it. Even if having it might be bad for him.

Even if it might be bad for her.

He contemplated this on a sigh as they hit some infamous L.A. traffic. Cars were at a halt in every lane and it gave his mind ample time to recall that light in her eyes and that sassy tilt to her dimpled chin when she said,
You could be my sexual mentor
.

And he'd replied,
I'll think about it
.

I'll think about it!

What was wrong with mentioning that wasn't a great idea or even laughing it off and pretending she wasn't absolutely serious—even when he knew she was. This dilemma could be over now, already behind him, instead of something he was going to wrestle with through forty more minutes of a crawling conga line of cars to drop Cami off then another forty to get back to the compound.

But he hadn't laughed it off then because it would definitely have hurt Cilla. She'd been serious as a heart attack...like the one he'd nearly had when she'd made the request.

You could be my sexual mentor
.

By the time Ren dropped his sister at work, turned around, and made his return to Laurel Canyon Boulevard, there was a snake of autos slinking their way from the San Fernando Valley toward Hollywood. He was going against the flow, thank God, and edged through the compound gates still struggling with his decision. His brain said one thing. His cock another. And between the two was a place he was trying to ignore as much as possible.

Who would have thought Ren Colson had a heart?

But he'd discovered he did and it wasn't a big fan of that lost look he'd seen on Cilla's face the night before. He was even less of a fan of her thinking she was frigid. Jesus! She'd been a flame in his embrace.

Still uncertain of how to handle the situation, Ren let himself into Gwen's house. Though it was early and Cilla might conceivably be asleep, he could feel the place was empty. In the kitchen, he saw a half-full carafe of coffee on the burner and a flowered mug on the counter. He wandered down the hallway in the direction of the bedrooms. The door to the one where she slept was open. He glanced in, noting a pile of clothing on the quilt, the rhinestones and flamboyant colors suggesting the items were part of the collection left by Gwen to Cilla.

It made him think of that little girl she'd once been. He hadn't noticed her all that often, but he had a memory of her draped in scarves, a man's heavy-buckled leather belt wrapped twice around her waist and a crown of daisies in her hair. What game had her imagination conjured? One, he supposed, to entertain the lonely child she'd been.

Though Cilla was all grown up now, she still retained a decided innocence factor. And he was in the kind of business that jaded a man early...meaning they were not a good match—even a temporary one.

Except, exactly how innocent could Cilla really be? Just like him, she'd grown up around the Lemons and that meant she'd been exposed to a lot more than most women of any age...

Which might also go a long way to explaining her inability to relax when it came to sex.

Certain she was nowhere in the house, he took a stroll through the grounds. He should probably spend his time searching for the box that Gwen had willed to him, but his mind was on his housemate instead. As he approached the pool, he heard the wet
splish
of someone moving through the water. His hand on the gate leading to the deck, he stopped, arrested by the sight of Cilla swimming. She wore a one-piece suit that clung to the curves and hollows of her body. As she was moving away from him, arm-over-arm in a front crawl stroke, he could appreciate the flare of her hips and the cute roundness of her rump. But when she flipped and headed in his direction, he started forward, spurred by the suit's blue hue.