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  Heartbreak Beat

  An LA Rock Star Romance

  Elle Greco

  56West, LLC

  Copyright © 2020 by Elle Greco

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  For Lizz and Ingrid

  My oldest and dearest BFFs.

  My ride or dies.

  Here’s to our misspent youth.

  Love you both so much.

  Contents

  Heartbreak Beat

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  LA Rock Star story continues…

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Coming Soon

  Heartbreak Beat

  An LA Rock Star Romance

  Book 1

  by Karen Greco

  1

  The sleek black limo crawled through the steep and winding streets of the Hollywood Hills. Smog shrouded the brilliant Southern California sun, plunging a grim day further into darkness. The caravan of cars following us was so long we needed our own police detail. News trucks followed at a barely respectful distance. When a scion of rock royalty was put into the ground, the funeral was fair game.

  Valets met the caravan in front of Vince Davis’s Mediterranean-style villa. People in expensive designer black piled into the mansion to pay their respects. Kind words were spoken, tears were shed, shoulders offered.

  Now the sun was setting over the Hills, so someone cranked up the music. The crowd stripped out of their mourning suits and jumped into the pool. Another bacchanalia at the house that Anthem, my stepfather’s ludicrously famous rock band, built.

  Today we buried my stepbrother Kyle. Cops found him two weeks ago under a makeshift tarp tent on Skid Row in downtown LA. Cause of death: overdose.

  Heir to a rock and roll fortune and drummer in his own rising band, Rogue Nation, which he formed with his two brothers, Kyle had the world by the balls. But he preferred to stick a needle in his arm.

  My head felt heavy, and there was nothing I wanted more than to beat out my frustrations on my drum kit. Ever since I was a little kid and my failed musician dad handed me a pair of sticks—the one right thing he ever did for me—it was where I exorcised my demons.

  I turned the knob to the basement rehearsal space, then pushed the door open with my left hand and fumbled for the light switch with my right.

  “Get the fuck out unless you’re female and naked,” came a growl through the pitch-black.

  The overhead track lighting flickered on, and I blinked, my eyes adjusting to the bright light.

  My stepbrother Dion, who had gone missing after we left the graveside, was hiding out in my practice room. His suit jacket and dress shirt were tossed on top of my cymbals, his Vans-covered feet propped up on my bass drum. Shirtless, he slumped against the wall, his firm ass supported by my “throne,” the stool that was the foundation of my kit. A bottle of Gentleman Jack was cradled in his arms.

  “I didn’t know you were down here,” I muttered, pissed that he disrespected my kit but letting it slide, since he did just bury his brother.

  He looked me up and down.

  “You’re not naked” was his response.

  I held my temper in check. “Want to get your feet off my kit?”

  He took a long pull from the bottle. I swallowed when he licked the rim with his tongue, his sea-green eyes meeting mine. They were edged with red, a combination of lack of sleep, booze, and grief.

  “I’ll just, you know—” I stammered, unable to hold his eyes. I stepped back. Time to leave.

  “Stay,” he said, standing to his full six feet. “I want to talk to you.”

  “About what?” I asked, torn between sticking around and making a run for it.

  “About Kyle.” He crossed the room in three large strides and leaned into me, closing the door behind me. The click of the lock sliding into place hinted at an intimate moment, and my stomach flipped.

  What the hell was wrong with me? Dion just buried his brother.

  I ignored my racing pulse. “What about Kyle?”

  A solid foot taller, he loomed over me. I stared at ring that pierced his right nipple, and swallowed.

  “Did you know?” he asked. His voice betrayed the burden of his grief.

  I stepped back, and my backside hit the door. “Dion, everybody knew.”

  “But no one did fuck all about it, did they?” Overgrown curly hair tumbled into Dion’s chiseled face, his expression filled with desperation.

  My heart squeezed. Everyone knew, but Dion was in denial. Rogue Nation cut an album, and Kyle’s beats were so off that my stepfather asked me to come into the studio to rerecord the drum tracks. The label paid handsomely for both my work and my silence. I needed the money, so I agreed.

  In my stepdad’s defense, I overheard him working on getting Kyle into a treatment program. But then Kyle disappeared.

  “Dion, I can’t even imagine how you feel right now. First… you know…” His face darkened, and I tripped over my words. “I mean, if I lost Presley or Jett—”

  “But you didn’t,” he hissed. “Your bitch mother? Still alive. Your shit sisters are too. My mother? Dead. My brother? He’s dead now too. But you Benson women? You’re all still here.”

  My hands curled into fists, as if to hold my anger in my palms while I absorbed his venom. “Dion, I’m sorry your brother died. But Kyle was a junkie. Everyone tried to help him, but the drugs won.”

  His eighty-proof breath hit my face. “He wasn’t a junkie until you all came along.”

  “Now that is some serious revisionist history,” I snapped. I reached behind me and searched for the door handle. “You can’t blame this one on the Benson women.”

  The anger that flashed across Dion’s face melted into anguish. He crumbled to the floor and released a sob. “I’m sorry,” he said. His hands wrapped around my calves as he leaned his weight into me. “I’m sorry.”

  “I know,” I said, softening. Dion was a first-class ass 90 percent of the time, but his pain was so palpable it seeped into my soul. Death followed him. He’d lost his mom to ovarian cancer when he was eight. Now, his younger brother Kyle… No one should have to endure losses like those.

  I dropped beside him in an awkward crouch, his arms still looped around my legs. “Look, I know we’re not that close or anything, but I’m here for you, okay? Whatever you need.”

  Tentatively, I reached my arm around him. My fingertips rested gently on the smooth skin of his back, rising and lowering with the uneven tempo of his breath. He released my legs and crawled into me, forcing me to drop to my ass. He wrapped his arms around me, and his face, wet with fresh tears, pressed against my chest.

  “What are they doing upstairs?” he asked, composing himself after a minute or two of silence.

  I shrugged. “A bunch of people stripped down and jumped into the pool.”

  “So much for mourning,” he said with a bitter laugh.

  “People mourn differently. I try not to judge.”

  “I don’t give a shi
t if I’m judging,” he snapped in return.

  “You’re allowed,” I said, as I untangled myself from him. There wasn’t much space between the door and Dion, so I wasn’t exactly graceful. “Maybe it’s what Kyle would have wanted. He always liked a pool party.”

  Dion met my sad smile with one of his own. “Those were his favorites.”

  “Cannonball!” I mock-yelled Kyle’s favorite way to enter the pool.

  “Yeah,” Dion said.

  I reached for the doorknob. “I’ll see you up there later…”

  Dion’s arm looped back around my calves and nearly sent me into a face-plant. “Stay. Please.”

  I caught my balance and then slipped down to meet him on the floor. Like an idiot, I patted his arm. “You mourn the way you need to.”

  “He was a junkie, Nik,” he said, tears starting up again.

  “Doesn’t mean you can’t love him. Or be pissed at him,” I said. He raised his head and looked at me. “You know, you are allowed to be pissed at him. I’d be pissed if one of my sisters pulled that shit.”

  “What the fuck was that coward thinking?” he asked through gritted teeth, his anger finally leaking out. Good. He needed that anger. Kyle deserved that anger.

  I shrugged again. “I don’t think he was thinking. He was just feeling, and probably too much.”

  “He should have come to me.”

  “It’s not your fault. Junkies gonna be junkies,” I said, knocking my shoulder into his.

  “Is that how you square it in your head with your dad?”

  “Sometimes,” I said with a sigh. “But he got help, got his shit together. Now he’s trying out that family thing with someone else….”

  I trailed off when my own waterworks threatened to pump. Although the man was very much alive and sober in Maine, I still mourned the loss of my father. He came to LA with my mom, thinking he was destined for rock and roll stardom. He joined a band that wasn’t half bad, and they landed a record deal. But he ended up addicted to meth and strung out all the time. So the band did the smart thing and kicked him out. While the band stalled out after two studio albums, they all moved on to lucrative careers writing movie scores.

  My dad, however, left. Said he was tired of being saddled with kids he didn’t want with a wife he didn’t need. He turned tail and went back to Maine, got himself cleaned up, and became a plumber. I reached out to him a few years ago. Tracked down his number and called him. My memories of him were hazy—I was so young when he scrammed . But giving me his drumsticks? That had to mean something, right?

  Turns out, I was a reminder of his failure and a time he wasn’t keen on reliving ever again. Plus, his new wife didn’t even know about his time in LA. Or us.

  The second round of rejection hurt even worse. Before, I could blame the drugs. Or my mom. Turns out he was outright rejecting me.

  “Junkies gonna be junkies,” Dion agreed, knocking his shoulder back into mine. But his voice cracked.

  We sat on the floor in silence. He rested his head on my shoulder, his arms snaked around me. The warmth of Dion’s body so close to my own made my heart beat unsteadily.

  “Do you remember when you first met Kyle?” he whispered, his breath caressing the sensitive curve of my neck.

  “Of course,” I responded, keeping my voice measured. “Mom and Vince’s wedding. He jumped onstage to play with that band that wore the silver lamé jumpsuits.”

  Dion smiled at the memory. “I’d forgotten about them. Only in Vegas. You were how old then?”

  “Twelve.”

  “That’s right, all legs and arms, like a colt,” he said. “You barely had tits.”

  My spin stiffened. “Nice.”

  “Better that way,” he said. “What would I have done if my dad showed up with hot stepdaughters in tow?”

  “Presley’s gorgeous,” I reminded him. “So is Jett, in that hot-for-teacher way.”

  “I bet Jett gives grammar lessons while she fucks,” he said. I had to smirk at that one, because he probably wasn’t wrong. “And Presley looks like your mom. Pamela’s not my type.”

  “No?” I asked, realizing for the first time that Dion didn’t bring home the Presley-type groupies. Everything about Presley was soft and feminine, exactly like my mother. I looked like my father—short, muscular build, angular face, high cheekbones. Dion preferred his groupies more athletic. Figures. He could have wild monkey sex with athletes. “So you’re lucky we’re all just a bunch of hags.”

  “I think blue hair’s kind of hot,” he teased, his hand tugging playfully at my electric-blue locks.

  A blush moved up my cheeks.

  “And I don’t mean granny blue,” he said, pushing a strand of hair behind my shoulder. “You’ve grown into your arms and legs very nicely, but you are definitely no granny.” His other hand slid underneath my oxford dress shirt, caressing the small of my back. “Unless… are you wearing granny panties?”

  “Of course not.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Why don’t you find out?” I challenged.

  “Maybe I will,” he countered.

  “Maybe you’re all talk.”

  Shit. Why did I just say that?

  He slipped his hand down the gap between my dress pants and my skin, sending sparks of electricity along my bare ass cheek.

  “Thong?” he asked, eyebrow raised.

  “Dion?” I whispered. “What are we doing?”

  With his fingertips caressing the rise of my ass, I was suddenly living my teenage fantasy. It took all my willpower not to melt into his arms.

  You see, Dion was gorgeous. Like, drop-dead gorgeous. I was a gangly preteen the first time we met, and he’d made my hormones race even back then. Yup, I’d had a schoolgirl crush on my stepbrother. It was only our age difference—and the fact that he behaved like a first-rate asshole—that had kept me from acting on it.

  Well, that, and, you know… stepbrother.

  Schoolgirl crushes fade with age. Except for mine. Seeing Dion so undeniably sexy on a daily basis, in various states of undress no less, made me aware of every sexual nerve in my body.

  Dion reached behind my neck and pulled my face toward his. My tween fantasy became a reality when he pressed his mouth to mine. Hard, like he had something to prove. My hands moved to his chest, wanting to draw him to me and push him away at the same time. But as his mouth softened and his tongue teased my lips open, my willpower faded. Screw decorum. This moment, this heart-pounding, delicious moment, was exactly what I’d wanted since I was introduced to Dion in Vegas.

  Seven years of self-control erased in about ten seconds.

  I launched myself off the floor and climbed onto him, straddling his lap. He ripped my shirt apart, buttons popping off in all directions. One made a tinny sound when it hit the cymbal. He pushed my top off my shoulders while I ran my hands down the muscular cut of his chest, fingers brushing the cool metal of his nipple ring, to his solid abs, before resting them at his belt buckle. With one hand, he unhooked the front closure of my bra. My breasts spilled out.

  “You are definitely not twelve anymore,” he said, taking a nipple into his mouth. I groaned in a mix of intense pain and pleasure as his teeth scraped against my sensitive flesh. My athletic build came with full breasts, at least. But those weren’t courtesy of Pamela either. Her boobs were expensive.

  I unbuckled his belt and yanked at the button on his pants. His hand massaged my other breast, teasing the nipple to a firm peak before covering it with his mouth. I wiggled as my panties dampened.

  With his pants open, I jerked down the zipper, and his cock sprang out. Hard, thick, long. I’d caught glimpses of it before. Dion went commando, a fact I knew from his penchant to drop trou and jump in the family pool naked. But this was the first time I’d experienced it at full mast, and it was intimidating. Intimidating, but impressive. I wrapped a tentative hand around its substantial girth. Dion guided my strokes, easy at first before his fingers tightened aro
und mine. With his hand leading, I gave it a brusque yank, and Dion moaned, which turned me on even more.

  He lifted me off his lap and laid me out on the floor. Once I was prone, my dress pants whooshed right off. His muscular body on top of me, hardness pressed against the small triangle of fabric that covered my sex, I gasped when he hit exactly the right spot in exactly the right way.

  He pushed aside the thin fabric and teased my folds open. One finger slid into me. His slow and easy motion, along with the friction of his erection against my clit, brought me to the edge.

  A jiggle on the door handle interrupted us.

  “Yo, Dion, you in there?” Rafe’s voice called through the intercom as he tried the door again. It was mercifully locked.

  Dion’s weight shifted as he pulled away from me, leaving me empty. He stood, holding my eyes while he sucked the taste of me off his finger. I shuddered. He gave me a wolfish grin before pressing the intercom to reply. “What’s up?”

  “Wondering where you disappeared to,” Rafe responded. “There are some hotties up in the pool who want to help us through this difficult time. And they didn’t bring bathing suits.”

  “As if that’s what you do when attending a funeral,” I muttered.

  Dion stood at the door, hand by the intercom, watching me. Self-conscious about our nakedness, I scooped my breasts back into my bra.

  “Be up in a minute,” Dion said.

  I ignored him and snatched my shirt up off the floor, surveying its condition. It was unwearable.

  “We cool?” he asked.

  “Since when have we ever been cool with each other?” I responded, avoiding eye contact by hunting around the practice room for an old T-shirt to throw on.