Get Hitched (Hard Rock Roots Book 9) Read online

  WARNING: This book contains a-hole rockstars, hard rock music, drama, steamy sex, FBI raids, blood, drugs, partying, clubs, cursing, cursing, and more cursing, true love, tour buses, concerts, and a rocker wedding. Oh, and a pregnant rocker chick.

  Get Hitched

  Get Hitched © C.M. Stunich 2017

  Biker Rockstar Billionaire CEO Alpha © Caitlin Stunich 2016

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  For information address Sarian Royal Indie Publishing, 89365 Old Mohawk Rd, Springfield, OR 97478.

  www.sarianroyal.com

  ISBN-10: 1938623274 (eBook)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-938623-27-1 (eBook)

  Cover art and design © Amanda Carroll and Sarian Royal

  "Optimus Princeps" Font © Manfred Klein

  "El&Font Gohtic!" Font © Jerome Delage

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, businesses, or locales is coincidental and is not intended by the author.

  this book is dedicated to happy endings and new beginnings.

  may we all have plenty of both in this life.

  Sign up for an exclusive first look at the hottest new releases, contests, and exclusives from bestselling author C.M. Stunich and get *three free* eBooks as a thank you!

  Author's Note

  Hello Dear Reader. Guess what? You have just arrived, my friends. This is book nine in the Hard Rock Roots series and it's time for weddings, babies, and rock 'n' roll.

  This book wraps up the story arc of our three favorite couples–Turner and Naomi, Dax and Sydney, and Ronnie and Lola–so if you're looking for closure, you've got it. If you still want more gritty rocker goodness after this, there will be a few 'stand-alones' featuring characters such as Treyjan or Kash. Of course, there'll be plenty of cameos from the others, so you don't have to miss them too much! Oh, and the releases will only be three months apart or less. How does that sound? ;)

  Love, C.M. Stunich (aka Violet Blaze)

  “Hard Rock Roots” Reading Order:

  Book #1: Real Ugly (free!)

  Book #2: Get Bent (only 99 cents!)

  Book #3: Tough Luck

  Book #4: Bad Day

  Book #5: Born Wrong

  Book #6: Dead Serious

  Book #7: Doll Face

  Book #8: Heart Broke

  Book #9: Get Hitched

  Book #10: Screw Up (Treyjan's stand-alone)

  ALSO AVAILABLE: Hard Rock Roots Box Set #1 (Books 1–5 plus three short stories including a prequel!)

  Jesus holy hell.

  It's like, total déjà vu lying on my back in a bunk, my knees tucked up tight and one arm thrown over my forehead. Sweat drips down the sides of my face and soaks into the pillow beneath me. If I close my eyes, I can almost pretend that the last few months never happened, that all the murder and the blood and the bullshit was a fucking dream.

  The black curtain on my right swishes as it slides across the metal pole.

  “Yo, this is fucking ri-damn-diculous,” Turner says as he gazes down at me and the spell breaks, the reality of the situation crashing over me like a tidal wave of blood. “We already had one bitch pushing us around, and what? We traded her in for a newer model?”

  I stare up at him, at the metal piercings on either side of his lip, at the flash of his tongue ring as he slides his tongue over his lower lip. Tattoos peek out of his shirt, waving at me from the hard, corded muscular flesh of a man I totally hate. And am so totally in love with. How fucked is that?

  “Don't you have your own bus?” I ask caustically, pretending like I wish he wasn't here standing next to me. In all reality, I'm glad as fuck. I hate how much I want to be with Turner. It's almost criminal, like I've lost my damn mind. Seriously? What kind of chick falls in love with the a-hole who popped her cherry, left her pregnant, and then came crawling back six years later?

  “Uh, yeah, and it's a hell of a lot nicer than this one,” he says with a smirk, leaning over me and blinking those big stupid brown eyes of his at me. His lashes are long and his lips are full and hell, he looks like a goddamn angel right now.

  I lift up my right hand and slide my fingers along his jaw, giving into the truth of the situation: I'm in love with Turner motherfucking Campbell. And everybody knows it.

  A long, heavy sigh escapes my lips as my eyes flicker closed and memories crash around me in jagged pieces: March 15th, lying on this very bed with my headphones clamped over my ears wishing my life away, knowing I had to tell Turner about the abortion. And I did. And that was just the beginning, a drip really in the bucket of secrets and bullshit that we've had to deal with.

  But this is it.

  I can feel it.

  It all ends right here, on this tour.

  No more running. No more hiding. No more motherfucking secrets.

  My eyes flick open and find Turner's face settling into a completely different expression, one that etches itself across his mouth, between his eyes. Almost losing me, it changed him. I mean, not a lot because really, Turner is as Turner does, but there's a seriousness there that makes me think that maybe, just maybe, I might be able to marry this guy.

  As if he can read my mind, that filthy ripe as fuck mouth of his curls up at the corner and he runs his tattooed fingers through the blue-black darkness of his hair.

  “I'm getting you a ring ASAP,” he tells me, nodding his chin in that resolute way of his that I both love … and that kind of makes me want to punch him in the face. “So no worries on that.”

  “Do I look worried?” I ask as snippets of conversation drift back to me from the front of the bus. I recognize the voices: Dax, Wren, Kash. My chest constricts and suddenly, it's hard to breathe. My heart is pounding in my chest like a kick drum and my lungs feel tight, like there's no air to be found on this damn bus.

  This exact same bus, the one that was covered in blood. My blood. America's blood. That roadie girl's blood.

  I stand up suddenly and shove past Turner, stumbling into the bathroom and falling to my knees in front of the toilet. My head spins as I lean over the bleach-scented water and think of Hayden, of America, of everything that's happened since I signed up for that ill-fated tour so long ago.

  “You okay?” Turner asks, sweeping blonde back from my face as I grip the edges of that porcelain throne and empty the three Monster energy drinks I downed this morning. I haven't eaten a damn thing. I can't.

  As my stomach muscles clench and I throw up little more than spit and bile, the GSW on my chest throbs and burns, the freshly healing skin pulling at the edges as we make our way out of LA and travel north towards San Francisco.

  Yeah.

  San Francisco.

  The very same city that all of this shit started in, that night I walked onto our bus and found Turner balls deep in my worst enemy.

  I throw up some more, heaving and gasping for breath and wondering when the hell I got so damn weak? I'm Naomi Isabelle Knox, and I've survived serious shit in my life.

  I sit up and swipe my arm across my mouth, rising to my feet and pushing Turner back so I can get to the sink to wash the awful taste from my throat.

  “Are you pregnant?” he asks in an excited sounding whisper, and I give him a look that speaks volumes. I don't bother to tell him that I started the pill again when we were back in LA, not yet anyway.

  “You'd best pray I'm not because then there'd be two abortions for you to answer for.”

  “Ouch,” he says, putting a hand to the tight black t-shirt covering his c
hest. He pretends the wounded look is a joke, but I can see that's it not, not really. That fantasy he was entertaining about having a family and all that, he still wants it. But the chances of me actually wanting to have kids now or ever are pretty goddamn slim.

  “Move.”

  I step up to Turner, but of course, you know, he's an asshole and he doesn't move, just stands there and stares at me with those swoon-y brown eyes of his. Fuck, I hate him.

  “What?” I ask, crossing my arms over the shredded Amatory Riot tee I'm wearing. I don't care how much money I make; I'm wearing holey, shredded, fucked-up shit. Forever. Even when I'm old and wrinkly and gray. Don't care. Age doesn't dictate fashion. Real, true fashion is about expression and heart.

  “This …” Turner trails off, putting his palms on either side of the doorway, penning me in just like he did that one day, so long ago, when I first told him about the tattoos … and the pregnancy. My nose wrinkles up. There's too much history on this fucking bus; I'm already choking on it. “This whole thing, with Travis and America and Stephen …” He pauses and focuses hard on my face as I sigh and lean in, putting our foreheads together. His sharp intake of breath … even that's musical as fuck. “If it kills us, I want to go out knowing you're my wife.”

  “Why? Because the patriarchal institution of marriage is just so goddamn blessed?” I whisper, our mouths freakishly close together. Like, instead of hearing Turner's next words, I just feel them against my mouth.

  “You're such a flaming feminist bitch,” he says with an affectionate chuckle and I almost smile. Almost. But then, you know, I just woke up from a chemically induced coma after murdering my manager in plain sight and somehow not going to jail for it. Life is a little … well, ugly right now. “But I totally support women's suffrage, so we're on good terms.”

  “Get out of my way before I tear your balls off,” I whisper as I reach down and give said nuts a little squeeze that makes Turner growl melodically against my lips. Then I flick my tongue out and give him a quick kiss, using my shoulder to push my way into the hall.

  I do not look at Hayden's bunk when I waltz past it and into the kitchen area.

  Here, too, memories assault me from all sides: America cooking us breakfast, me sitting at the table writing in my notebook, Blair snapping her bubblegum with her hands pressed up against her pink headphones.

  Ouch.

  “Who let Turner on this bus?” I ask, popping a hand on my hip and acting like I don't give two fucks about all the hidden cameras jammed up my bus' ass. “I thought we were supposed to stick to our own kind?”

  “He snuck on when we stopped to deal with that flat tire on one of the staff trailers,” Dax says as he watches Sydney Charell lay out a row of tarot cards on the table and pretend she knows how to use them. Her presence here is still sort of surprising to me since she's not a musician, but either she has a death wish or Paulette made her come. I can't decide which. She is a good kisser though, I'll say that much.

  Her blue eyes flicker over to me and then land back on the table as she drops a card in place and frowns. I'm not paying much attention though, my gaze locked on Lola Saints as she sits across from Dax and Sydney and looks up at me. Ronnie's where he's supposed to be—on the other damn bus—but Turner, he's like a cockroach that can't be killed. Always up in my business. I refuse to admit I'm grateful for that.

  “How much farther?” I ask and Lola smiles tightly at me. Poor her. Poor Blair. Paulette traded one keyboardist out for another like it was nothing. I suppose we could use another practice session to make sure Lola knows all our music. She's done great so far though, practicing with us in LA these last few weeks. Hell, she even seemed to know our music back in Little Rock when she briefly played one of my songs on her kit. Maybe she really is ready for this?

  “Two hours, I think,” she says with a sigh, leaning back on the cushioned bench and glancing at Sydney. “Well, what's the bloody diagnosis then?”

  “Death,” Sydney says as she taps the card in front of her with a colored fingernail and Turner steps up behind me, wrapping his arms gingerly around my waist. Sydney glances back at the two of us. “I just did a reading for you, Naomi, and I pulled the card for death—in reverse.”

  Man, if I like, believed in all that arcane wizard shit, I'd be totally freaked out.

  “You don't actually believe in this stuff?” I ask Naomi when she slides back the curtain on her bed and finds me sitting there, holding the death card between two of my fingers.

  “Why are you still here? I thought you left hours ago?”

  Her words might be bitchy, but she sounds totally stoked to find me here. Rightfully, she should because I'm not letting this tour drive any sort of wedge between us. Our relationship, well, I intend to consummate it night after night after night—these tiny, camera ridden buses be damned. Nothing can stand in the way of true love—not even reality television.

  “Do you?” I ask as she crawls over my legs and collapses against the tiny space between my body and the wall. We're pressed up tight as hell, nice and close. I can smell the sweat on her skin from here and it turns my cock to solid diamond. If I could chip some of that crap off and make it into a ring, I'd slip it on her finger right now.

  Naomi turns to look me and grabs the card, staring at the image with narrowed eyes: there's some creeper dude in a long black cloak with a scythe. He looks like the manager of the trailer park Trey, Sydney, and I used to live in, all skeletal and dead-eyed and shit.

  “No,” she says and then she flicks it onto the floor, leaning over me to yank the curtain closed, staring into my face in the pseudo dark of the bunk. “I believe in logic and common sense. So, tell me, Turner, what do you think this tour's really all about?”

  I turn on my side to face Naomi, putting a hand on the round curve of her hip. There's a ribbon of exposed skin above her tight as fuck jeans, and it's as white as vanilla ice cream, soft as silk. I scoot closer, tangle our legs up so I can press the hard bulge of my erection against the scorching seam between her legs.

  “I really don't know, Knox,” I say and she sighs, leaning her head against mine, far more affectionate now than she's ever been before. I like that. So, if there's one good thing that came out of her getting shot, it's this. Maybe she's even forgiven me for buying the mansion? Signing her name onto this stupid reality show? “But whatever it is, I'm sure we'll learn about it soon enough.”

  She sighs and her breath is scented with cigarettes and something sweet, like bubblegum. Dirty candy. Yeah, that's where that idea comes from. Dirty, but sweet. Sexy as hell. I lean in and kiss her filthy fucking mouth, my tongue ring clacking gently against her teeth.

  Naomi puts a hand on my chest and pushes me back a few, careful inches.

  “Whatever this is about, whatever Paulette really wants, she knows I killed her sister, Turner. She might be using me now, but I'm not scheduled to survive this thing.”

  “So you do believe in the damn card?” I ask, but she just raises an arched blonde brow at me. I sigh and lift a hand up, tangling my tattooed fingers in Naomi's hair, pulling her face against mine. “I'll do whatever I can to protect you,” I whisper, knowing there are cameras all the hell over this place—and I'll be damned if I get caught on camera being all sweet and shit. “Or I'll die trying,” I promise.

  “Don't be an idiot, Turner,” she says, but I make a small growl in my throat because she's not goddamn getting it. “If something happens to me, I want you—”

  I put a finger against her mouth and little vixen that she is, she just sucks it between her lips.

  “Leave it at that: I want you. Because I want you, too, and I'm a once in a lifetime kind of a guy, Naomi. Without you, there's nothing here for me.”

  “Once in a lifetime guy?” she asks with a small low, caustic laugh, but her eyes are sad, damn it. Wet, yes, not all dry and desert-y like they were when we first met, but … drippy. That's how they look, like tears might pour at any minute. I know Naomi Knox though; she
won't let herself shed a single one. “Come on, how many girls have you fucked? A thousand? Ten thousand? A million?”

  “So? That was just fucking, Knox. You're the only girl I've ever loved—even if you are a bitch sometimes.”

  “And you're a whorish asshole,” she says, but there's no heat in her eyes as she looks into my face. They're just words. In her heart, she loves me. I know that. “Do you know why I never let you call me Knox before?”

  I raise both brows, but something eats at the edges of my heart, like a dog with a goddamn bone.

  “Should I?” I ask, feeling like a fucking tool.

  “Because that's what you called me the first night we met.”

  Naomi tries to turn over, but I put a hand on her hip and tug her towards me, dropping my mouth to hers, parting her lips with my tongue. Just a few seconds of tonguing this chick and I can already tell my jeans are soaked with pre-cum, and I'm half ready to blow my load.

  “You done with practice for tonight?” I ask, because Naomi's been trying to cram months worth of jam sessions into a few weeks with Lola Saints, to get the little Aussie chick up to speed for the tour. “Because when I'm done with you, you won't be able to walk straight for hours.”

  “I'm done,” she says as the San Francisco rain pummels the buses and the bay outside the thick metal walls. I already miss our sun soaked LA crash pad. Fuck.

  “Good,” I respond with a smirk, sliding my fingers from Naomi's hip to the button on the front of her jeans, “and if I were you, I'd wear a lot more goddamn skirts on this tour.” I lean in and stir her hair with my breath. “Makes things a little easier.”

  Naomi tears the heels off her feet and I kick off my boots, shedding our jeans in the tight space with a lot of cursing and fumbling around. But, you know, if the will is there … there's a goddamn way, too.

  I pause to dig a condom from the pocket of my jeans when Naomi's fingers curl under the fabric of my t-shirt and yank me back. She helps me pull it over my head and toss it aside before curling her fingers around my neck, silver painted nails digging into my skin.