Strung Out (Needles and Pins #1) (63 page)

“It’s a wasted effort. Not sure why anyone makes beds.” He quirked his rock star smirk.

He looked at her funny when she only nodded and smiled before backing toward the hallway. And then she realized. Possibly, despite his son being in the pool outside, he’d thought she had been hinting toward this particular room when she’d asked for a house tour.

Ironic, when all the while, she hadn’t seen the one room she’d had in mind.

“So where’s your gear? You don’t have a studio like Gage?” He seemed to flinch, and she wondered if she was being too nosey. Musicians and their studios, and all that. Gage, after all, kept his locked. “You don’t have to show me. I just asked because I didn’t see a guitar anywhere except Seth’s room.”

Liar
. Gage had her mind going ninety to nothing with his unexplained remark the night before.

What’s in his studio?

“No, it’s cool. It’s just not here in the house.”

He led her outdoors, down a stone path and to a room dug into the hillside.

“Underground is great soundproofing,” he joked, as he entered the code on the keypad.

He flipped the light on, and she found herself in a room so similar in structure to the other rooms in his home, she would never have known it was practically underground.

Strolling the perimeter, she eyed the many posters hanging of bands over the decades—including his own band, Fire Flight.

“Wow. Just wow. Did you ever imagine you’d be a poster on your own wall?”

Posters even covered the ceiling. She paused before Jimi Hendrix and then moved on.

That’s when she saw it.

One entire corner dedicated only to Tyler Conterra. There were easily a dozen posters. Her focus froze on the many sets of eyes identical to her own, some staring directly at her and some gazing with a haunted look at something beyond the eye of the camera lens.

Her palms grew clammy.

Behind her, Colt was speaking, but his words didn’t register.

A tall corner display case angled between the two walls, and she felt the coffee mug begin to tremor in her hand. The guitar inside the glass was identical to the one in two of the posters next to it, and this wasn’t the first time she’d seen it in pictures.

The seventh string was the least of its unique features. Sleek and shiny, it was the indigo color of a midnight sky. Jagged lightning bolts, specks of stars, and a skull were part of the custom paint job. But she knew what completed the custom design was out of sight on the back.

Feeling lightheaded, she lifted the coffee mug to her lips. When she gulped the tepid liquid, she gagged.

“…every album of your father’s and every word on them before I was fourteen. His music is what inspired me―what made me ask for my first guitar.” With his usual lack of intuition, Colt was jabbering on despite the turmoil of emotion, spinning Tasmanian devil-like through her.

Interrupting him midsentence, she blurted, “Can I hold it?”

“Sure! Yeah.” He hastened to what looked like an amp and popped off the front revealing a safe. Kneeling, he spun the code in, swung it open, and dug around until he held up a key.

What had made her ask that? It was as if her vocal cords had been possessed. She couldn’t hold it!

She wanted to reach out, stop him from opening the display case. But she didn’t. After gingerly lifting the instrument from its stand, he stroked over the fretboard with his thumb as he deposited it into her arms.

She was holding it!

The weight felt significant. Monumental. She edged away from the table where she’d set her half-empty cup. The mass was no different from any other guitar she’d held, and yet she could feel the weight straining at her arms. Tingles began in her palms and rolled upward into her elbows and then on up to her shoulders and exploded at the base of her windpipe. She wheezed with the effort it took to breathe.

Using the tips of her fingernails, she strummed, and then as worshipfully as Colt had done, she ran her thumb up the neck. Next, she dropped to the nearest seat—a drum stool—and rested it flat in her lap so she could drink in the sight of it. She brushed her fingertips over the skull and up a streak of lightning.

Tipping it forward, she closed her eyes for the barest second before viewing the back. A thorny vine twisted around a beautiful scarlet colored rose. Her fingertips brushed the shiny lacquer protecting the paint, and she discovered the slight nicks in the wood, likely from a belt buckle.

He had held this. He had cherished it. He had created magic with it
.

And she realized this was the closest she had ever been to her father.

Oh, there were pictures and videos with a million views each of him holding her, playing with her. But she didn’t remember those times. This guitar was something he had touched and held—more than he ever had her. Something that possibly had lingering traces of him on it, somewhere in some fashion…

A flash of reality pulled her from her reverie. Suddenly realizing she wasn’t alone, her eyes darted accusingly to Colt who was studying his phone screen. Straightening to her feet, she pushed the instrument toward him, unable to get it out of her hands fast enough.

She didn’t stay to watch him lock it back up. Leaving her coffee cup, she sprinted back to the guesthouse where she spent a few minutes kneeling before the porcelain throne. Thirty minutes later, she had taken a shower, neatened the guesthouse, and had all of her things packed up.

V
anilla ice cream. Flowers?

He nuzzled closer to the smell, filling his senses and continued to doze.

Warm breath. Warm body
.

He extended an arm and a leg and curled the warmth to him and continued to doze.

A phone ring. Not his
.

His eyes opened to see a finger adorned with black polish and sliver flecks mute the sound.

“When did you get here?” As he mumbled the inquiry, two contradicting instincts hit him at once. Un-fucking wrap himself from around Scar. And wrap her tighter in case she pulled away.

“Not long ago.” A puffy pillow beneath her cheek muffled her words.

“What time is it?” He didn’t want to turn away from her long enough to look at his phone.

“Don’t know.” She pulled the sheet up to their shoulders. “Just hold me so I can sleep for a while. Okay?”

He wrapped her in a python grip and didn’t question his blessing.

He dozed in and out, but she never seemed to completely still. His phone was blowing up as usual, and he reached back, feeling around for it, and powered it off in case it was keeping her awake.

Finally, when her jeaned leg moved against his bare one for the umpteenth time, he whispered. “Can’t sleep?”

Her sigh warmed his bare chest. “No.”

“Me either.”
Because I’m thinking about shit I hate the most to keep this boner in check
.
Dog crap on bare feet. The grandma strippers video one of the guys had texted him. Toads bloated and dead in the pool
.

“What’re you doing in here?” Her breath on his skin when she spoke again killed all of his efforts.

You mean sleeping in the guestroom—your room—as opposed to my own room?
Where did he begin? He couldn’t tell her being in his own bed, where he’d retired in a blissful hazy high too many times to count, had him jonesin’. And he sure couldn’t tell her he’d missed her so much he’d hoped to smell her in these sheets.

The last part hadn’t worked out. After cocooning himself in the bedding, all he had whiffed was freshly laundered linens. Damn housekeeping. He had been so disappointed, he’d intended to cancel the service and live like a pig.

“The mattress is firmer.” He brushed a fingertip against the ends of a long strand of her hair as he fibbed.

“Back problems?”

“No. Just in the mood for something different.”

At this, her head popped up and her brows drew together. “Did you have someone over?”

Ah
. His bad for telling her about the downstairs hookup room. The truth of that had come out on one of the nights when they had shared a bottle of wine by the pool and opened up about anything and everything.

“I’ve never slept in this room before last night,” he reassured. The urge to feather the hair tips against his lips was so strong; he moved his hand far away.

“So you did or didn’t have someone over?”

“I didn’t. Do you care?” She did. He could see it in her eyes.
Why?
For the same reason he went mentally ballistic at the thought of her and Colt?

“Yes! I sleep in this bed!”

Not the answer he wanted
. “But I told you—” He’d been about to point out that even after he had assured her the bed was ‘safe,’ she had relentlessly asked about other women. Then he realized what she’d inferred. “Are you back?” His heart pounded, at least one hundred twenty eight beats per measure as he waited for her answer.

“Until my flight back. I didn’t want to spend my last week not seeing you.”

Who needed Clear Morning? That answer sent him flying high. The night she had left, he thought he had fucked up beyond all hope, but here she was. And he wasn’t going to fuck up again.

As if reading his thoughts, she raised sarcastic brows. “So, if you could refrain from keeling over between now and then, that would be great.”

Ouch
.
Right for the jugular
.

“What if I feel the need for a little CPR?” He arched his eyebrows right back.

“That’s so unbelievably not funny.”

“I know.”

“Sounds like some fucked up stupid shit your guitarist would say.”

Ouch. Now THAT was the jugular. Damn
. It didn’t feel good for his joke to be compared to a spew of Colt’s insensitive word vomits.

And why had she phrased it like that? Why hadn’t she said Colt’s name? What had happened between them?

Simply the thought drove him out of bed to the adjoining bathroom.

He hated that Colt had caught him watching her in the pool and that he had defended his actions by emphasizing her being his stepsister. The other guy had so many reasons—as if a man needed reasons—to want to get into her pants.

There had always been competitive sparring between the two of them when it came to the women. But Scarlette was in a whole other league and her appeal was different for each of them.

He was attracted to everything about her. Colt was attracted to everything about who she was.

He had seen the look in his friend’s eyes the day Scarlette was introduced and her identity had registered.

Tyler Conterra was one of Colt’s idols. There were few musicians who
wouldn’t
mention Tyler Conterra as an idol. But Colt had an extreme case of hero worship. He’d paid a fortune for one of the guy’s guitars. He owned every documentary and had a playlist of every interview on YouTube. He had copies of every song, even rare demos and bootleg performances.

And here was the man’s daughter—the carbon copy female clone of him.

That train of thoughts had sent him racing the canyon roads in the dark.

Finished with his piss, he flushed and turned to the sink. Cupping his hands, he scooped water onto his face and tried to forget.

The gutted feeling when his headlights had caught two silhouettes in a passionate embrace. The thin thread of hope that it wouldn’t be Scarlette in that car when he ran out of patience waiting in his own and walked over. Seeing them together with his own eyes had felt like standing in a deluge of hail, fire, and brimstone.

Wondering if they had taken it farther after he’d returned home had almost driven him to call his assistant for a delivery. But he hadn’t. Because of Scarlette.

Because if some miracle of fate gave her to him, he wanted to be worthy of her.

Before turning the tap off, he swished some cinnamon mouthwash around and washed it down the drain.

She was lying on her back, idly petting Rascal and staring gloomily at the ceiling when he returned. When she looked his way and hastily averted her eyes, he wondered when he’d become comfortable enough with her to walk around in his boxer briefs—while sober.

“Sorry.” He bent for his jeans on the floor and stepped into them.

She was back to studying the lighting fixture over the bed. Grabbing the remote, he angled the blinds slightly, letting a little more light in so he could see her expression better. He stretched out on the bed again, and his hand brushed hers as he settled it on Rascal.

It might be the first time his dog had ever been his wingman. He stroked the rough fur and made sure their hands continued to touch as they both petted.

Her demeanor was beginning to worry him. She had never been a moody person despite the nutty life she’d been dealt. Only a few times had he seen this type of weird behavior from her.

“Want to talk about it?” he offered softly.

“No. I don’t think so.” She inched her head closer to his pillow, and he thought he felt a tremor buzz her hand for a split second.

His mind rocketed back to a barely-teen stepsister with braces on her teeth. She had been acting odd for days, coming home from school and closing herself in her room, instead of hanging out in the poolroom playing video games with her friends and making his friends crazy with her much older-looking body and long, ponytailed hair. One evening, he’d invaded her room since she wouldn’t come into their den, turned the TV on, and propped himself on her bed. His hope had been that their routine of popcorn and movies would kick back in. She’d ended up with her head on his shoulder, clinging to his hand. The heady buzz from her touch hadn’t been the first time he’d completely understood his friends’ obsession with her. In fact, looking back on that night, he’d shown superhuman restraint for a teen when, instead of rolling his horny body onto her, he’d asked, “Want to talk about it?” Back then, she’d replied, “No. I don’t think so.” Yet almost immediately, she had spilled her guts. The next day, acting on her confession, he had tracked down, but found himself unable to hit the shrimp-sized thirteen year old creep who had apparently thought it was funny to sneak up behind Scarlette, put his hands down her shirt, and grab her tits. So he had shoved him against the wall and threatened an ass stomping if he ever came near her again.