Lead Me On Read online

  She’d done that, all of that, and Eugene’s demons still devoured him.

  Which made her just as deluded as her twin.

  She had no real control of his life, and honestly, she shouldn’t. He was twenty-six. An adult. Capable of making his own decisions. She was his sister and she loved him, but he had to clean up for him. Not her. He had to clean up because he wanted to, not because she harped on him to do so. He had to make that decision. She couldn’t make it for him. He had to make the effort and commit to it. Dedicate to it.

  She could take him to rehab over and over again, could lecture him until she was sore in the throat, shield him, mollycoddle him, but until he was ready to change, truly ready, the same result would occur. All she could do was let him know she loved him, cared for him and would always be there for him. She would support his efforts to clean up and offer encouragement with every step forward he made. Everything else was up to him.

  Opening her eyes, she scrambled to her feet.

  She had to call Samuel.

  Her cell phone wasn’t in her tote. Why would it be? She needed it now, so of course it would be missing. She searched the sofa, throwing cushions aside with no luck. A frustrated growl tore at her throat and, spinning on her heel, she ran for her bedroom.

  It wasn’t there either.

  Nor was it in the bathroom.

  Or the laundry.

  Or on the dining table.

  “Are you kidding me?” she ground out, fisting her hands at her temples and tugging her hair.

  She turned on the spot, once, twice, and spied it on the kitchen counter. Right beside where she’d tried to drill her forehead into the granite only a few minutes ago.

  Desperate heat prickled over her scalp. She hurried to the counter, snatched the phone from the counter and turned it on.

  The second the Apple icon gave way to an image of her and Eugene mugging at the camera, the missed-call message appeared on the screen.

  Hands shaking, she unlocked her phone, dialed voicemail and then raised her cell to her ear.

  The female voice of her service informed her there were two new messages waiting for her.

  She caught her bottom lip with her teeth and, her pulse pounding, listened to the first.

  It was from Samuel. Left for her fifteen minutes after she’d carried Eugene from the bar.

  “Lily, please don’t…ah fuck, babe, I know you’re angry right now. Furious. But what happened to your brother…what he did, I didn’t do that to him. I’m not responsible for that. Fuck, I don’t…I know you… Jesus, I suck at talking on phones. I know you’re hurting, but if you give me, give us a chance, I will do everything in my power to help Eugene. Please call me, babe. Don’t let this destroy us. I love you, Lily. I’ve never loved anyone before you. I know that sounds like bullshit, but it’s true. I promised you I would never lie to you again and I’m keeping that promise. I love—”

  The message ended, Samuel’s declaration cut short by the limited recording time of her service.

  Hot tears stung the back of Lily’s eyes. She blinked, her vision blurring as the tears threatened to spill from her.

  Oh God, he sounded so…

  Her cell’s voicemail service beeped in her ear, announcing the second new message, recorded three hours ago.

  “Hi, Lily,” Samuel’s voice came through the connection, tired and flat. “This is Sam, Samuel Gibson. Fuck, of course you know Samuel Gibson. Jesus, I’m an idiot. Anyway, we’re heading back to New York. Some shit’s gone down for Levi and he needs to… Yeah, well, we’re flying out soon. Four hours, I think. Something like that. Fuck, I don’t know. I’m not thinking straight. I just…I just wanted to say I’m sorry I hurt you. I never meant to. I hope you believe that. I also hope your brother finds the strength to get clean. If you need me for anything, even just to talk…well, you’ve got my—”

  Her phone beeped, indicating the end of the recording, and then the cheerful female voice told her there were no more new messages.

  Lily lowered her hand, her head roaring. She swallowed. Blinked. Scrunched up her face and swallowed again.

  He was leaving. Flying away from her. And it was her fault.

  Goddamn it, it was all her fault.

  “No.”

  She snapped straight, scrubbed the heel of her palm over her eyes and dialed his number.

  It went straight to his voicemail. “This is Samuel Gibson. Speak.”

  “Sam,” his name burst from her on a choked sob. “I’m sorry. I fucked up. Don’t go.”

  She killed the connection. Frustration and frantic desperation battled inside her. What did she do?

  She couldn’t let him go. She wouldn’t let him go.

  Then go get him.

  She shot her watch a harried glance. He was taking off in an hour. An hour.

  Spinning away from the counter, she ran a frazzled gaze over her living room, looking for her jacket.

  She let out a ragged laugh when she found Samuel’s black leather jacket instead, the one he’d placed around her shoulders on the boat trip back from Alcatraz.

  “Perfect,” she murmured, shoving her cell into her pocket.

  She shoved her arms into the sleeves, allowing herself a stolen moment to draw Samuel’s scent into her being through her nose before rushing to the door.

  Rational thought slammed into her just as she wrapped her fingers around the knob.

  She had no freaking clue what airport he was flying out from. Most likely SFO, which she could reach in time if she broke all the speed limits, but then what?

  Find him. Follow the trail of paparazzi and fans. Look for Brutal. Do something.

  Biting back a curse, she yanked her phone from her pocket and dialed his number again. She jerked her stare from the smart phone’s screen to the door in front of her when The Wiggles burst into song on the other side.

  Lily’s stomach knotted. Her breath caught in her throat.

  Lips tingling, chest heaving, she closed her fingers around the doorknob once more, turned it to the right and pulled the door open.

  Samuel stood on her threshold dressed in a black leather vest, blue-denim jeans and no hat. No hat at all.

  His blue eyes locked on hers, intense, direct and unwavering. “You’re being stupid and unfair and narrow minded. You know that, right?”

  The blunt statement almost made her sob, if not for the tortured crack in his voice at the end.

  She studied him, every fiber and nerve ending in her body craving his touch, his nearness. Him. Just him. Everything he was and everything about him. Her throat thick, she swallowed and nodded. “I know.”

  Samuel opened his mouth. Stopped. Frowned. He closed his mouth and narrowed his eyes. “You agree with me?”

  Lily nodded again. Her heart pounded. “I do.”

  Samuel’s frown deepened. He shoved his hands in his back pockets, studying her. “In that case, what do I need to do to change your mind? About us. About me.”

  Lily didn’t stop the small smile pulling at the edges of her lips. “You’ve already done it.”

  His eyebrows shot up and he straightened. “I have? Care to tell me what I did? In case I fuck up and need a get-out-of-jail pass?”

  She chuckled even as warmth flowed through her heart and into her soul. “You didn’t give up on me. When I was the one who fucked up, you didn’t give up on me.”

  An unexpected flash of fluorescent pink behind Samuel caught Lily’s attention. She slid her gaze to his right, finding Brutal standing a few feet away on the path leading to her front door, white Ray-Bans covering his eyes.

  He grinned at her and inclined his head once.

  Returning her attention to Samuel, she smiled up at him. “And you brought Brutal,” she said. “And as I’m very much aware, the girlfriend of a rock star needs to be protected by a bodyguard.”

  Samuel’s nostrils flared. His Adam’s apple jerked up and down. Hope flickered in his eyes. “Girlfriend?”

  Lily cau
ght her bottom lip with her teeth. “If that’s okay with you?”

  He shook his head, rested his elbow on the doorjamb beside his head and leaned towards her. Close enough for Lily to breathe in his scent. “I’m thinking,” he murmured, his stare melding with hers, “I like the title wife more.”

  Lily nodded, rapturous joy and happiness swelling through her. “I think I do too.”

  Blazing desire erupted in Samuel’s eyes. With a low growl, he destroyed the distance between them, slid his arm around her waist and hauled her to his body. “Take the rest of the night off, Brutal,” he tossed over his shoulder. “I’m going to make love to my fiancée.”

  “Sure thing, boss,” Brutal replied just as Samuel kicked the door shut behind him, and captured Lily’s lips with his.

  About the Author

  Lexxie Couper started writing when she was six and hasn’t stopped since. She’s not a deviant, but she does have a deviant’s imagination and a desire to entertain readers with her words. Add the two together and you get romances that can make you laugh, cry, shake with fear or tremble with desire. Sometimes all at once. When she’s not submerged in the worlds she creates, Lexxie’s life revolves around her family, a husband who thinks she’s insane, an indoor cat who likes to stalk shadows, and her daughters, who both utterly captured her heart and changed her life forever.

  Contact Lexxie at [email protected], follow her on Twitter www.twitter.com/lexxie_couper or visit her at www.lexxiecouper.com where she occasionally makes a fool of herself on her blog.

  Look for these titles by Lexxie Couper

  Now Available:

  The Sun Sword

  Tropical Sin

  Suck and Blow

  Triple Dare

  Dare Me

  Sunset Heat

  Twister

  Suspicious Ways

  Heart of Fame

  Love’s Rhythm

  Muscle for Hire

  Guarded Desires

  Savage Australia

  Savage Retribution

  Savage Transformation

  Principatus

  Dark Destiny

  Dark Embrace

  Coming Soon:

  Heart of Fame

  Blame it on the Bass

  Getting Played

  He never missed a beat...until she taught him a whole new rhythm.

  Steady Beat

  © 2013 Lexxie Couper

  Heart of Fame, Book 4

  Back when he was playing drums for rock star Nick Blackthorne, it was easy for Noah Holden to focus on the sticks in his hand. Now that the band is getting back together, he’s excited—and worried. His ADHD has made every minute of his post-Blackthorne life a chaotic mess.

  His apprehension is blown away when a bar waitress makes him a proposition—and not the kind this king of drums is used to.

  When Pepper Kerrigan overhears the band talking reunion, she pushes her self-doubt aside, calls on her encyclopedic music knowledge and challenges Noah Holden to a trivia contest. Her prize should she win? An audition. His? A kiss. Their smoking sexual chemistry guarantees victory—for them both.

  With Pepper, Noah is finally able to control his stormy creative energy. But when his wild past catches up with him, he faces the fight of his life to keep from losing his smoky-voiced angel. The one woman who keeps his mind—and his heart—staying on rhythm.

  Warning: There’s a thrumming primitive sexual energy in every rock drummer’s body just waiting to be released.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Steady Beat:

  Noah couldn’t move. Which, given the fact he rarely sat still for more than a few minutes at a time, was pretty damn incredible.

  He watched the woman opposite him, a tight coil of heat gripping his gut. He wasn’t joking. The very notion of thinking about answering music-trivia questions had deserted him. All he could think about was Pepper and her lush, full lips moving against his while the best drum solo he’d ever played filled the air around them.

  Fuck, he’d love to discover every inch of her body while “Tempest Soul” throbbed from the speakers of a state-of-the-art sound system. It was the one true piece of music he called his own. It was truth, his truth. To this day he still couldn’t believe Nick put it on the album and would love him forever for doing so.

  Knowing the gorgeous, contradictory woman sitting opposite him experienced her first sexual awakening to the rhythm born from his soul shook Noah to his very core. And stirred something even deeper.

  He didn’t just want her now. He needed her. He needed to feel his rhythm in her body, to see if his soul was still there in her pleasure.

  Christ, he sounded like Nick when the singer wrote lyrics. Why he was surprised by the fact was beyond him. All musicians had romance in them, even attention deficient drummers.

  But what shook him more was how quickly he was growing ravenous for a woman he barely knew.

  Drawing a deep breath, he waited for Pepper to say something.

  Her blue eyes shone in the bar’s muted light, damn near luminous and completely mesmerizing.

  Long moments stretched between them. A distant part of Noah’s mind noticed the women at the table behind Pepper were staring at him. He didn’t give them a second glance. They didn’t snare his focus. It was fixed on Pepper.

  She frowned at him. Chewed on her bottom lip. Rubbed her elbows with her palms. “What do you mean, I win?” she finally asked.

  “You win,” he answered, his voice strained. Probably because his throat was so bloody tight. “I can’t think about anything now except f…kissing you. Which means, you could ask me my middle name and I wouldn’t know it.”

  “Rodney.”

  His middle name fell from her lips in a hushed breath.

  He chuckled, the sound equally soft. “Is it?”

  She nodded. “So I get to audition? In front of the band?”

  He nodded. A hot ball sat on his chest. His groin throbbed. He couldn’t look away from her. “You do.”

  “And I don’t have to kiss you?”

  He swallowed, the question shearing into the mounting ache for her. “You don’t.”

  Fuck, harder words had never been spoken.

  “What if I want to kiss you?”

  He pulled a slow breath. Studied her. She studied him back, a pink tinge in her cheeks, her teeth pulling at her bottom lip. She was such a mix of confident calm and hesitant uncertainty. If it weren’t for the fact she’d approached him in a bar with such an unbelievable proposition he’d swear she struggled with being shy. Yet even that thought twisted the tight interest building in his groin. There was something about her. Something he really, really wanted to get to know.

  Without uttering a word, he rose from his chair and lowered himself into the one beside Pepper. She frowned. And then gasped when he leant forward, bringing his face a breath away from hers. “Then kiss—”

  She cut off his gentle command by brushing her parted lips over his.

  Jolts of hot tension shot through Noah, sinking into his very soul. He groaned, the feather-light contact more electric than any kiss he’d experienced before.

  Holy fuck, yes.

  She moved away a little, her breath a rapid pant against his lips, but before she could straighten completely in her chair, he cupped her face in both his hands and captured her mouth with his.

  He wanted more.

  Swiping his tongue over the velvet softness of her bottom lip, he dipped into her mouth. She didn’t fight him. Her tongue met his, timid at first before taking control. He surrendered to her kiss, his head spinning, his gut clenching. Damn, if they weren’t in a bar, he’d—

  She snaked her hands up his chest, behind his neck and into his hair, and Noah decided he didn’t give a fuck they were in a bar. He thrust his tongue deeper into her mouth, challenging her to meet his desire. She did, her teeth nipping at his bottom lip with fierce urgency.

  Noah groaned again, snaring her hips with his hands and yanking her closer to
him between his spread thighs.

  She whimpered. He ravished her mouth. The heat of her bare knees so close to his balls—swollen and heavy with lust—drove him insane. Her hands tightened in his hair. She sucked on his tongue. Noah bucked his hips forward, aching for contact of her body with his groin, even if it was just her knees. Hell, he’d pay everyone to leave the bar right there and then if it meant her knees would press to his groin.

  Hell, he’d fucking buy the bar if it meant he could press his groin to her—

  She raked a hand down his chest, cupped his engorged cock through the denim of his jeans and Noah’s sanity shattered.

  He tore his mouth from hers, struggling to control his breathing. “Jesus, you really know how to…” He stopped. Swallowed. His head spun. He stared into her eyes, reveling in the desire fogging their blue depths. “Come back to my hotel room with me.”

  She didn’t move. Nor say a word.

  He smoothed his hands over her outer thighs, unable to stop touching her. Her skin was soft and silken and warm. He liked it a fucking lot. “Please?”

  Her eyes fluttered closed for a moment, long enough for Noah to notice she wore no colour on their lids, before she looked at him again. “No.”

  His heart smashed into his throat with painful force. “Why not?”

  She let out a shaky breath, her teeth catching her bottom lip. “I want to sing for you, not sleep with you.”

  Noah’s heart thumped harder in his throat. “Not sleep with me? Bullshit. With the way you just kissed me, you want to sleep with me. Fuck, I can barely think with the sexual energy sizzling between us.”

  “If I sleep with you, I’m going to spend the rest of my life thinking that’s why you let me sing. But if I don’t…if I sing…” She shrugged, torment etching at the corners of her eyes.

  He hides from the world…but he can’t hide from her.

  Masked Cowboy

  © 2013 Sarah M. Anderson

  Men of the White Sandy, Book 2