Here's the blurb:
Jamison Matthews has lusted after Ryder Montgomery since she was a preteen. But now that Ryder and her brother’s band, Shaken Dirty, has made it huge, she’s just one of many pining for the brooding lead singer. Too bad Ryder still sees her as a little sister. Not that it matters. Her brother would never allow it, and the last thing Jamison wants is to be another notch on a rock star’s bed post. Even if it's Ryder's.
Ryder doesn’t deserve happiness. After his fame destroyed his last girlfriend, he swore he’d never fall in love again. So when Jamison, the girl he's been in danger of loving for years, joins the band on the road, he'll do anything to deny the sparks between them—even after one hot night together. But Jamison is determined to show Ryder that he's worthy of love—her love—and that she’s all grown up…and ready to play.
And here's an excerpt just for fun! Hope you enjoy :)
His voice roared
over her. Loud, sexy, and so richly decadent that she felt her limbs going
loose with excitement. With arousal. With need. Jamison Matthews knew she
wasn’t the only woman in the audience to feel that way while listening to Ryder
Montgomery sing—his deep, raspy baritone was one long mind-and-body-fuck—but that
didn’t make it any less powerful. Neither did the fact that she’d been
listening to it for ten long years—ever since she was a thirteen-year-old kid
with a crush on the lead singer of her brother’s band.
Some things didn’t change.
And some things did. Shaken Dirty
had come a long way from the teenage garage band they’d once been. The tens of
thousands of screaming fans currently filling this very amphitheater attested
to that. As did the bras and panties that haphazardly littered the stage. Her
brother, Jared, had picked up a sheer red thong and draped it over the neck of
his guitar, while Micah’s base was decorated with lacy purple boy shorts. Totally
disgusting if she let herself dwell on where those panties had been just a
short time before.
But she wasn’t going to do that,
wasn’t going to let anything mar her enjoyment of the show. Being here,
watching her brother play with the others in the middle of this gigantic venue,
co-headlining the Rock On tour with some of the hottest bands around, was a
dream come true. She wouldn’t waste a second of it.
The song ended and the crowd went
nuts, screaming and whistling, chanting and shouting. Begging for more. Jamison
went nuts right along with them, didn’t even mind when the surging fans pressed
her closer and closer to the barricade that kept eager devotees off the stage. That
was her big brother up on that stage. Her big brother and Ryder and Wyatt and
Quinn and Micah. They’d come a long way since Jared had let her listen in while
they’d practiced in the garage, and she couldn’t be more proud. After all
they’d been through, they’d finally made it.
Unlike her.
For a second, panic threatened at the
disaster her life had become practically overnight. It wasn’t the accident that
hadn’t been her fault but had left her with a totaled car anyway. A car that
had been worth only three thousand dollars, which gave her pretty much no
chance of buying a reliable replacement for the amount the insurance would pony
up.
Nor was it that her douchebag
boyfriend had dumped her while she was down. Sure, she’d thought she was in
love with Charles, but in retrospect she was willing to admit that there had
been some major red flags in their relationship. Chief among them was his
inability to keep his zipper up around other women.
Not even the fact that the closest
friend she’d made since moving to San Diego had been sleeping with her
douchebag of a boyfriend had made her feel this tied up in knots. She’d thought
Lisa was pretty cool, but her friend—make that her ex-friend—had never made a
secret of her freewheeling morals.
But losing her job this morning—a
job she’d loved and had invested so much of her time in—had been the piece de resistance on top of the
shit-pile her life had recently become. Especially considering she’d uprooted
her whole life to move to San Diego less than six months before just so she
could take the stupid job. It was the first step on the ten-year plan she’d had
for her life, a plan that now lay in utter ruins around her.
She wanted to crawl back into bed
and forget the last forty-eight hours had ever happened. Or, barring that, rewind
the clock so that she could have seen coming some of the crap that had been
heaped on her. Not all of it, obviously, but it might have been nice to know
the restaurant where she’d landed her first big job out of cooking school was
having to close before she’d bought, and worn, the most gorgeous pair of Louboutins
she’d ever seen. Or before Charles had forced her to listen to his diatribe of
all the reasons he’d cheated on her, reasons that were, of course, completely
her fault.
She’d called bullshit on him, but
still. Standing here with all these women, so many of whom were skinnier and
prettier than her, only gave his words credence in her head. Not to mention the
last thing she should be doing right now was screaming along with a bunch of
Shaken Dirty fans while fantasizing about the lead singer of her brother’s
band.
Onstage,
the band launched into “Awake,” one of the power ballads that had made them
famous. The crowd screamed their approval and so did she. Totally not her typical
modus operandi, but she couldn’t help it. Something about listening to Ryder croonthe
darkly haunting lyrics had her knees trembling and her heart beating much too
quickly. If she closed her eyes, she could do what all the other women in the
audience were doing and pretend that he was singing straight to her.
So much better than remembering he’d
written these heartfelt words for another woman. For Carrie, who had killed
herself and broken his heart so many years before. Her own heart ached at the
thought. For him. Always for him. At twenty-nine, Ryder had already been
through more darkness and despair than any one person should have to handle.
“Awake” finally came to a close, the last note hanging in the air for
long, tension-fueled seconds. Then the band fell silent and the audience did
the same, as if they were all holding their breaths. Ryder lowered his guitar,
shuffled and stamped his feet once, twice. It was a familiar gesture, one years
of experience had taught her was his way of shaking off excess emotion. Again
her heart twisted. It devastated her that more than ten years after the fact he
was still eaten up by what had happened. Still determined to bury it under a
bunch of layers that not only insulated him from his pain but also hid the real
Ryder so deep inside the public Ryder that she wondered sometimes if he even
existed anymore. Or if the boy who had held her while she cried, who had let
her whisper her pre-adolescent fears without ever making fun of her, had
disappeared forever.
She searched for him, in that one
endless moment.
Looked for him in the obsidian eyes
that arrowed to the heart of the crowd even as they barricaded his own
emotions.
Combed through her own memories and
expectations in an effort to see Ryder as he really was instead of how he
portrayed himself.
And when his eyes—his crazy,
beautiful eyes—met hers, she found him. Seconds passed, long, intense seconds
where she lost the ability to hear or breathe or even think. All she could do
was look into Ryder’s eyes, at the feral heat boiling up and out of them, and want.
She smiled at him, waved. He snarled
back. But it wasn’t a leave-me-alone snarl. No, definitely not. It was his I-want-to-fuck-you-up-against-a-wall
snarl—she knew it well, had seen it directed at a lot of women through the
years—and her knees gave way when she realized that this time, finally, it was
directed at her. It didn’t matter that there was no sign of recognition in his
eyes, no knowledge that the woman he was looking at like that was actually her. Jamison. For one moment he wanted
her the way she’d always wanted him.
It was more than enough.
And then Jared thrust a hand in the
air and the moment was gone. The silence shattered, the crowd exploding in catcalls
and screams and whistles, pleas for more mingling with pledges of undying love.
It was awe-inspiring, yet humbling, to witness. She still remembered the guys
as lanky teenagers beating out a rhythm in her garage. As struggling musicians
driving up and down the coast to play at dives that barely paid. As an opening
act to bands much bigger and better than they were.
She
watched as Ryder flirted with the crowd a little in true lead singer fashion. Women
screamed in response, while men shouted and cheered. And when Ryder walked to
the edge of the stage and switched out the acoustic guitar for his electric
one, Jamison felt herself swoon right along with the others. She couldn’t help
it. This had always been her favorite part of the show and when they’d gotten
so close to the end of their set without it making an appearance, she’d worried
they’d cut it.
Jared stepped forward as well, told
the crowd to “Make some fucking noise!”
Much feet-stomping and clapping
ensued, and Jamison was right there with the rest of the audience, screaming
herself hoarse as Ryder and her brother teased them into a frenzy. And then,
just when it felt like the amphitheater was going to explode from excitement,
they dueled.
It was the most beautiful, the most
perfect, thing she had ever seen. Her brother was in his element, huge smile on
his face, fingers flying over the guitar strings so fast at times that they seemed
to blur. On and on he played, his talent as mind-blowing as his grin was
infectious, until finally he reached a shattering crescendo.
The last notes of his solo were
still ringing through the amphitheater when he stepped back and Ryder took
over.
Though he was the band’s front man,
Ryder was almost as good a guitarist as her brother. But where Jared was
totally engaging and fun to watch, listening to Ryder play was like opening a
conduit straight to the rawest part of the human soul. It was amazing and
terrifying in equal measures, and so spellbinding that he caught an audience of
thirty thousand in his web and held them there, suspended, as his guitar wailed
in agonized ecstasy.
Suddenly Ryder hit a particularly
complicated series of chords and the fans behind her shouted their approval. He
grinned—a dark, haunting twist of his lips that came and went so quickly that
she almost thought she’d imagined it. Except she was pressed up against the
stage now, so close that she could see his eyes. Deep and dark though they
were, for a minute, just a minute she’d glimpsed a flash of pure enjoyment. And
then she lost it as he tilted his head forward so that his chin-length black
hair fell over his face, obscuring him for long seconds from the prying eyes of
the crowd.
She took advantage of the moment,
studied him the way she’d always wanted. Normally, when he was around, she was
too afraid of being caught watching him to look her fill. But tonight she
didn’t need to worry about that. He’d already proved he couldn’t see her
clearly when he failed to recognize her earlier. That was all the encouragement
she needed to gawk at him.
At his long, lean body that towered seven
inches above her own five-eight.
At his tanned, muscular arms with
their gorgeous sleeves of tattoos—black tribal bands on one and a phoenix on
the other.
At the nipple piercing outlined by
the tight fit of his black V-neck T-shirt.
He was gorgeous—wicked, dark, and
so, so lovely with his too-pretty face—and she knew when she crawled into her
lonely bed tonight, this image of him would be burned into her brain.
Head bowed, lost in his own little
world, Ryder played another complicated set of notes that ended so abruptly the
audience flinched a little, she along with them. Then he stepped back so that
Jared could once again take the spotlight.
On and on it went, the two of them
dueling until their fingers had to be burning. The audience was beside itself, women—and
men—screaming themselves hoarse, the crowd literally seething with delight.
And then Jared and Ryder backed up
to each other and played the last section together, their fingers flying faster
and faster over the guitar strings until their separate notes blurred into the
most amazing sound she had ever heard.
Their shirts grew drenched, their
faces grew taut, and still they played.
Their arms trembled visibly at the
strain, their shoulders bowed in protest, and still they played.
Finally, finally the last notes rang
through the amphitheater—loud, gorgeous, flawless-- along with a kickass
pyrotechnic display that took her breath away, and she didn’t know whether to
weep or to cheer. They’d always wanted to include special effects like those,
but had never been able to afford it before this tour.
Shaken
Dirty really had hit the big time.
The
crowd behind her didn’t have any of her confused reticence. They went crazy as
fire exploded across the stage.
Jared—ham that he was—stepped up to
the microphone and thrust both fists in the air as he claimed victory.
Ryder only laughed, his low, husky
voice carrying through the amphitheater as he told the crowd, “Just go along
with Jared. We like to let him think he wins, or he’ll spend the rest of the
night pouting.”
“Fuck you, Ryder! I did win! Right,
guys?” Jared held his arms out to the crowd and gestured for their support. Soon
half the place was chanting his name.
“Good job!” Ryder said with a sexy
wink. “He’ll never suspect a thing. But just to be clear. We all know who
really won, right?”
The other half of the audience began
screaming for Ryder, and once again Jamison found herself right there with
them. Oh, she knew Jared was technically the better guitarist, but Ryder’s
sound was amazing. He was dark to Jared’s light, brooding and dangerous to
Jared’s good time. He attacked his guitar, made violent love to the instrument
while Jared cradled his like a baby.
Both sounds worked, and worked well,
but watching Ryder was like watching sex in motion. It totally revved her
engine, even as she knew nothing would come of it. She’d thrown herself at him
once when she was seventeen and been rejected—albeit as nicely as Ryder was
capable of rejecting someone—but it had still stung. She wouldn’t make that
mistake again, would have to be content to worship him from afar instead. Just
like every other woman in the place.
As they launched into
“Battleground,” their most famous single to date, Ryder ripped off his shirt
and tossed it into the crowd. It landed a little to the right of her and the
people around her went nuts trying to get to it. Jamison didn’t move, though. She
couldn’t, not when all that bronze skin and that perfect eight-pack of abs was
on display. Not when he was standing up there, the black tribal tattoos that
covered his torso just adding to the image of the sex god the media portrayed
him to be.
She shuddered, pressed her legs
together to stop the burn even as she crossed her arms over her suddenly aching
breasts.
No,
she thought as Ryder continued to sing. The need was nothing new. But this
brutal intensity—that had come when he’d thrown that I-want-to-fuck-you look
her way and made it impossible to do anything but feel—sure as hell was.
So? What do you think? I've got four more of these coming-- one for each member of the band. Book Two, Wicked Game, is due out in January (yes, they are all named after sexy songs). Anyway, hope you like!
