Legacy (RiffRaff Records Book 2) Read online

  “Were they any good?”

  “No.” He was still staring at my mouth. “I mean, I don’t know. I don’t think I have an epic kiss to compare them to.”

  He put his hands on either side of my face and then gently placed his lips on mine. Time stopped. My heart stopped. It took all of two microseconds for the initial shock to wear off, and then I kissed him back.

  This was every dream I’d ever had, coming true at once. Beau and I alone. Beau looking only at me. Beau kissing me.

  I didn’t mean to moan, I didn’t. And for about three seconds I was embarrassed as hell. But then, it was like the sound I’d made broke something free inside of him. His hands moved to my waist and he guided me into his lap. He kissed me deeper, more urgently, like he couldn’t get enough. I wrapped my arms around his neck, our lips never separating. I couldn’t help but move against him; everything felt so good. Felt so much more intense than anything else I’d ever experienced. The other kisses I’d had? They weren’t even in the same realm as this one.

  And then my phone started to ring.

  Beau pulled back and I wanted to cry. The spell was over and he would go back to treating me like a friend. Like a pal. He’d tell me he was sorry and that he should have never done that. But when I bit my bottom lip, he tugged at it with his thumb, a sexy smile on his face. “Better answer your phone, Sweets. We both know who it is.”

  He rested his hand on the back of my neck and my heart fluttered. I pulled my cell out of my pocket, clearing my throat before clicking Accept. “Hey, Dad, we’re on our way home.” I nodded as he said he was just checking and that he loved me. Then I hung up and climbed to my feet.

  “Where you going?” Beau reached out and took my hand before I could get too far.

  “Uh, I thought you wanted to head back? My dad called and—”

  “And I’m sure we can spare a few more minutes.” His smirk was back with vengeance. God, he was gorgeous. “Unless, you don’t want—”

  “I want.” I answered fast and he chuckled.

  He tugged on my hand, pulling me back into his lap. “Good.” One hand went into my hair and one to the small of my back. And just like that, Beau was kissing me again.

  There had been no apologies, no regrets.

  And I’d had my first epic kiss.

  Chapter Two

  Beau

  “Hey, Beau, you leaving already? The party is just getting started.” A bleached blonde with a massive rack came up and wrapped her too-thin body around my arm. I’d met her at another party about a week ago, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember her fucking name.

  “Yep. Gotta head out.” I surveyed the chaos in full swing around me. There were piles of coke on the coffee table, a full bar in the kitchen and enough smoke in the air to make Willie Nelson cough. My father and the uncles—The Devil’s Share—made us learn about all the great musicians who came before them, including their drug of choice. I untangled myself from the leech, ignoring her whiny protests. I walked to the front door and then turned, taking a few pictures of the room through the haze.

  I’d been in New Orleans for a couple months now. When I’d left home two years ago, I’d had no direction. No plan. I’d just needed to leave, so I had. It was my Aunt Lexi who’d mailed my camera to me while I was living in the Arizona dessert. I’d left the camera at home when I’d taken off on my bike. I’d left everything that had reminded me of her.

  “Later.” I threw up my hand, telling everyone and no one goodbye.

  What I saw through my camera’s lens had become my life. My escape. My distraction. I took pictures of the world. The beautiful and the bad. Mostly the bad. I’d sent them all home to Aunt Lexi because I didn’t know what else to do with them. She’d gotten them showcased in a gallery, which led to a book deal and I’d become rich overnight-ish. Well, richer I guess. I’d grown up with more money than I’d known what to do with. But now I had my own, and I had a direction. I owed it all to my Aunt Lex. If she’d known why I left home, I’d bet she’d have never helped me.

  I climbed on the back of my bike, the same one I’d gotten when I turned nineteen. Maybe it was the warm night air; maybe it was the worn-out road under my tires, but for some reason I let my memories take flight, which was something I rarely did. Thoughts of my past consumed me as I drove down the dark, narrow back roads toward my temporary home.

  ***

  I watched as she shut the red Mustang’s door, waving goodbye before starting up her long front walk. She was so beautiful. Her hair was long, somewhat wavy, and so free in the night wind. Halen never wore makeup; she didn’t need it. Her green eyes stood out, no matter what she was doing; hair up in a sloppy t-shirt or all dolled up, she was a knockout. “Where have you been?” I stepped away from the wall I was leaning against, keeping myself in the shadows.

  Halen didn’t jump at the sound of my voice; she knew I’d be waiting for her. “I was out with some friends.” She looked down at the phone in her hands. “It isn’t even past curfew.”

  Her remark made me feel like I was being possessive, which wasn’t my intention at all. I took another step toward her, grabbing her hand and pulling her out of the porch light, just in case her younger sisters were inside watching us. “I thought we had plans tonight.” She came with me, willingly, always.

  “We do, silly.” I walked backward, bringing her body flush against mine. “After I check in with my parents, right?”

  I put my face against her neck, inhaling her sweet scent. Halen always smelled like candy. “I came early—I couldn’t help it. I missed you today.” I wanted more time with her. Ever since the evening of her sixteenth birthday, ever since I’d kissed her in the glow of the sunset, being with her was all I thought about. She owned me. Well, she’d always owned me. But once I let myself taste her, there was no going back. “I want to hold you, Sweets.”

  The stunning girl in my arms used to follow me around everywhere I went. She tagged along on every adventure she could. But now our roles were reversed. I stuck to her like glue. Well, as much as I could without making our parents suspicious. They raised us to be close, but not as close as Halen and I had become over the last few months.

  “Let’s go now. I’ll just text my parents and say I’m staying at a friend’s house.” She wrapped her arms around my waist. “We can stay the night in the tree house.” She made the suggestion in a timid, shy manner. We both knew what that meant, what she was implying.

  I picked my head up, meeting her gaze. I wanted to say yes. I wanted to have one whole night alone with her. No fear of our parents finding out, no intrusion from our siblings. I was in love with Halen, but she was only sixteen. I was twenty, and I should know better. “No way, Hales. No tree house, you know that.”

  Her smile fell and she pulled away from me. “Okay, well, should we just go inside then?” She took a step toward the door, but I caught her hand, stopping her.

  When I pulled her back around to face me, she was smiling. Her eyebrow cocked, like she was daring me to let her leave. She knew I wouldn’t. My self-restraint only went so far when it came to my girl. “No, let’s go for a ride.” I dipped down and placed a kiss on the corner of her mouth. “But then I’m bringing you home.” We walked hand in hand through the field separating my house from hers. Both our parents were at our Uncle Smith’s, on the other side of the compound. No one would hear me start up my bike and leave. And even if they did, they’d never assume I had Halen on the back with her arms wrapped tight around me.

  I cut off my engine and climbed off my Triumph, unlocking the door to my swanky rented townhome in the heart of New Orleans. I was doing a whole series on the nightlife here in the Big Easy. Not the one you see on TV, but the one they want to keep hidden. The one that would scare the tourists away. I sank down onto the couch, without bothering to turn on any lights. It was one in the morning and I was exhausted. Trips down memory lane tended to do that to me. They drained all the fight from my body. I took my cell out of my
jacket pocket. Five missed calls, all from my mom, and three unread texts, two from my sister and one from my dad. I grabbed the bottle of whiskey from where it sat half empty on the coffee table, turning it up. I wanted to pass out, not fall asleep. I didn’t want to dream, didn’t want to remember. I couldn’t handle any more tonight. I hit my dad’s name, and waited for him to pick up. And he would. It may be the middle of the night, but he’d always answer a call from his kids.

  “Why is it so damn difficult for you to return a fucking phone call these days?” He was attempting to sound pissed off. Not with his cuss words, those were normal, but with his tone.

  “I’m sorry. I was working, just got in.” I kicked off my boots.

  “Where are you?”

  I moved around so much, I didn’t even bother to tell them anymore. “New Orleans.” I wasn’t sure how my parents would react to me living so close to where I was born. Where I was beaten and neglected. Where my father had rescued me. They didn’t need to worry, not about that at least. I had no desire to go back to my great-uncle’s house. No desire to look up old demons long forgotten.

  “You need to come home, bud.” My dad’s voice softened, his anger already gone.

  “I can’t.” It was the same answer every time either of my parents brought it up. None of the adults knew why I’d left like I did. I was sure they all had their theories, but they’d never gotten any explanation out of me or from my cousins either. And Halen? She’d never tell.

  “Beau. This time I mean it, there are things—”

  “I’m sorry, Dad. I’m not coming home.” I closed my eyes, swallowing against the lump that formed in my throat just thinking about it. “Why don’t you guys come here and visit? Landry can come too. I have another six weeks left on this lease before I head up the Natchez Trace.” I put the phone on speaker and placed it on my chest, leaning back against the couch cushions.

  “Jared died this evening.”

  Jared. My bio father. “What happened?”

  “Heart attack.”

  Not surprising. Although he’d been clean and sober since he’d gotten out of prison when I was ten, his vices before that had probably weakened his body to the point of no return. He’d been in and out of our lives growing up. Coming by every now and then when he was passing through town. As far as I knew, the last couple of years he’d been living in California writing songs under a different name.

  “Beau?”

  “Yeah, I’m here.” I wasn’t really upset that Jared had died. I’d known him more as a friend of the family. He never stepped on my dad’s toes, never acted like he had any rights to me. He barely spoke to me when he did come around.

  “The band is holding a memorial service. We need you to come home.” He sighed. “I don’t know why you left, and I don’t know why you’ve never come back. We’ve given you your space. We’ve supported you. But you need to come home for this, bud.”

  I picked up my phone and leaned forward, catching my reflection in the large mirror in the dining room. I looked like the rest of my family, even though they weren’t my blood. Dark hair, blue eyes, and a perpetual southern suntan. But my hair was long on top now, shaved close on the sides. My eyes were hard, duller than they used to be. My smile didn’t come nearly as easily. Would the guy staring back at me be a stranger to the people I’d grown up with? I wasn’t the same kid I was when I’d left home two years ago. I was tough. I was road weary. I was jaded, and I was heartbroken.

  “Beau?”

  “Yeah, Dad. I’m here.” I sighed. “I’ll get packed and head out in a few hours. I need to try to sleep a little first.”

  “You want us to send the plane? There is an airstrip in New Orleans the label uses all the time.” My dad sounded relieved. I was sure he was thankful I didn’t put up a fight.

  “No, I’ll take my bike.” I would need every hour on the road between here and Austin. It would take me every damn mile to gain the courage to step foot onto that compound. To look her in the eye. To feel every last bit of what we lost all over again. After I hung up I took another couple of long pulls from the whiskey bottle. But as I closed my eyes, all I saw was her beautiful face.

  “I shouldn’t be in here, Sweets.” I was too old for her, like I’d always been. But I’d had a plan. I’d had a timeline that I’d sworn I’d stick to. I stifled a groan as her tight body moved under me. “We shouldn’t be—”

  “Will you quit it, please?” Halen put her hands on my face, smiling up at me. “You think way too damn much, Beau Weston Cole.” I did think too much, but I had to. Halen never thought at all, not when it came to us. She was all in with her whole heart, age difference be damned. I was the one constantly worrying that I was pushing too fast, taking too much. But I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t stay away. It was no use.

  I closed my eyes and dropped my head to her chest. I whispered against her skin, “I just want to do right by you, Hales.” I placed a kiss on her collarbone then her neck. We were in her bedroom, just down the hall from her younger sisters. Under the same roof as her parents. Her family was my family too, and if they knew what I was in here thinking, what I was doing to their daughter—Uncle Dash would murder me.

  She brought her thigh higher up on my hip, arching her body, creating the perfect amount of friction. “Just kiss me, please.”

  I did. I kissed her lips, her skin. I ran my hands across her stomach, up and down her thighs. I couldn’t get enough of her lately. Halen wanted more than just making out in the fields between our houses. I’d told her no. That we were going to wait. If I couldn’t stick to any other plan, I’d stick to that one. But, fuck, it was getting harder and harder to turn her down. And tonight, when she’d texted me, asking me to come over? I’d climbed out my window and into hers without a second thought.

  “Beau, please, I need—”

  “Shhh, Sweets. I got you.” I’d give her what she needed, what she was asking for. I’d take care of her, and then I’d leave her bed. I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t tempt myself any further. I wanted Halen in ways I couldn’t explain. In ways I’d never wanted anyone else. The day I kissed her for the first time, sitting on that old oak log, my world had tilted on its axis and everyone else ceased to exist.

  “Beau.”

  My name was a plea on her perfect lips. I closed my eyes to the sound, taking a deep breath. It took everything inside me to resist what she was so ready to give. “Shhh.” I needed her to be quiet. I needed her parents to stay in their room. I let my hand trail down her bare stomach, inside the front of her panties, swallowing her gasp with my mouth. She arched into my hand, wanting more, always wanting more. I slipped one finger into her core, using the heel on my hand to keep pressure on her clit. I knew how to make her come. I knew exactly what she liked and what she needed. Halen consumed me. My nights, my days, they were spent learning her, mind and body.

  I stiffened when her hand went to my cock, her palm covering me over my thin athletic shorts. I bit my lip, trying to keep my own moans in check. Her lips touched my neck, her mouth near my ear. Her soft gasps sent chills down my spine. I added another finger, and she quickened her movements. It wasn’t long before we were both crying out our release into her pillow.

  “Fuck.” My eyes flew open, my heart pounding too hard to sleep through. That was why I never let myself remember, why I didn’t open that damned door. Once I did, memories came flooding back. And it hurt. It hurt so fucking much.

  The love.

  The loss.

  All of it.

  Chapter Three

  Halen

  I woke to my phone ringing. I’d fallen asleep last night with the help of some old cough syrup I’d found in the bathroom cabinet. Nights weren’t easy for me, even now, two years later. But the medicine hadn’t kept my memories from creeping into my dreams. Seeing Avory and Crue fawn all over each other certainly wasn’t helping. I grabbed my cell, trying to focus my eyes on the screen. I still felt so groggy. “Hello?”

  “Hale
s. It’s me.”

  “Landry? What time is it?” I blinked, hard. I tried to see the clock on my wall, but it was no use. The cough medicine was still working its way through my system.

  “It’s almost eight.” I heard her moving around in her beachfront apartment. I’d gone to visit her over our holiday break; she had always been like an older sister. “Jared died last night.”

  “Oh, wow. What happened?” Jared was Uncle Smith’s cousin and Beau’s biological father. He was the original drummer for the Devil’s Share before drugs became his life and he shot my uncle, and ended up in prison. I’d met him a couple times, but my parents weren’t big fans of my sisters and me being around him for obvious reasons.

  “Heart attack.” There was more rustling around. “My dad called me this morning. He wants me to head home. My flight leaves in an hour.”

  “Doesn’t Jared live in California? Why do you have to come all the way home first?” I doubted my parents would want my sisters and me to attend his funeral, but I could understand Landry and Beau going with my aunts and uncles. Beau. Letting myself think his name was not something I liked to do, and it was happening a lot in the last twenty-four hours.

  “Apparently the band is holding some big memorial for him. That’s what my dad said anyway.”

  “Here? In Austin?” Color me shocked. “My mom hates Jared, and Aunt Dilly says he’s a trigger for Uncle Smith. I mean, we barely saw this guy our whole lives and now they’re putting on a memorial for him? I don’t under—”

  “Hales, I called to tell you because he’s coming home.”

  I went silent. My heart started to pound and tears instantly pricked the back of my eyes. “What did you say?”

  “Dad’s making Beau come back to the compound. He left for home a little while ago.”

  I took a deep breath, and then another. “Landry, I, uh…” I took another breath and another. Suddenly I felt like I was trying to breathe through one of those tiny red straws that came with your coffee. “I can’t really seem to—”