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  a Rock Solid romance

  Karina Bliss

  About the Book

  Rock star Jared Walker is within reach of career glory…but his marriage is in the pits. Determined to save it, he talks his wife into holiday dates with only one rule: they must pretend they are strangers. But when he discovers what Kayla really wants for Christmas, will he be able to give it to her?

  * This novella was previously published in the You Had Me At Christmas anthology with Molly O’Keefe, Jennifer Lohmann, Laura Florand and Stephanie Doyle.

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  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  About the Book

  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

  Epilogue

  Other Books by Karina Bliss

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright Information

  Chapter 1

  The hotel bar was stylized soulful, a perfect match for the man she’d agreed to meet.

  Japanese floral arrangements arched toward their reflections in artfully angled wall mirrors. Bamboo planters provided privacy screens between the black circular booths, and their stylish occupants could be glimpsed through the green-leafed canes like exotic animals or colorful birds.

  I don’t belong here.

  Kayla Walker, twenty-seven, married for seven years and mother of two under-fives, hesitated at the beaten bronze double doors. She tightened the sash of her winter coat to give her waist more definition. Under it was the dress he’d sent her, with a note indicating the time and place.

  Her nerves still jangled from the diabolical freeway traffic that had made her twenty minutes late, and a chore list growing longer than Santa’s. Come to think of it, this place didn’t have its tree up yet either. If L.A.’s chicest venue didn’t give a damn that they were in the first week of December, why should she?

  Head in the game, girl. Think sexy thoughts. The future of your marriage depends on it. No, don’t think that. And you’re not married, tonight. Remember?

  Taking a deep breath, she approached her illicit date, who sat at a middle bank of overstuffed, velvet-clad sofas, his hair gleaming like midnight oil under the spill of mood lighting.

  Even amongst the beautiful people, he stood out, lean and darkly handsome, a warrior poet with stubbled jaw and deep-set eyes.

  A leather coat, black with a scarlet lining was flung casually beside him and he wore black jeans, black boots and a moss-green mohair sweater so fine it clung to every line of his muscular torso. The picture of lounging grace, except for the tight grip on his beer.

  The small sign of nervousness warmed her. He isn’t sure I’ll show.

  Seeing her, he stood, his relief giving way to a lazily confident smile that evaporated some of that warmth. When he bent to kiss her, she held out her hand instead.

  His smile broadened as he returned her handshake. Yes, she’d decided to play.

  “Sorry, I’m late.”

  “As long as you’re here.” He went to help her off with her coat.

  “Let me warm up a little first.” Kayla glanced around.

  The dress was gorgeous but felt try-hard next to these casually hip sophisticates. She was too down-to-earth to pretend to be one of the cool people. And it felt like self-betrayal to try.

  Skillful musician fingers teased the tension from her tight shoulders. “Stop over-thinking this. Tonight is about us. Just us. And this.” His fingers caressed the nape of her neck in a slow, soft slide and lust washed over her, so unexpectedly, that she closed her eyes to savor it. Vulnerability never used to be scary but she’d been rationing desire lately, trying to protect herself.

  “Take off the coat, Kayla,” he said, his voice husky and the flame of lust flickered a little with anger. She’d made a lot of concessions to get here this evening. Admitted her marriage was still in trouble, for one.

  She moved away from those magic fingers. “How about you work for it?”

  He grinned, a pirate’s grin. “I can do that.”

  But there was a plea in the pirate’s eyes. Give this a chance. Meeting as strangers for a sexy time-out had been his idea. Fresh start, no baggage. Mentally, Kayla untethered the mule bow-legged under the weight of hers.

  Think sexy thoughts. “We should use pseudonyms to protect our anonymity,” she suggested, trying to get into the spirit of this. “You can call me Betty and I’ll call you Bob.” Oh yeah, Kayla, real sexy. The names of your geriatric neighbors.

  “Bob” was struggling not to laugh and she let him off the hook by chuckling first. It helped. I don’t have to treat this date like an exam I have to pass. All I have to do is lighten up.

  Taking a seat, she caressed the couch’s red velvet upholstery. “This place is ex-sumptuous.” Expensive was a loaded word, with his career was in transition. Famine to feast to somewhere in the middle, she suspected, at least for the next six months. But they weren’t here to talk about the economy.

  “Bob” settled beside her. “Well, I was going to suggest a beer at a local dive but I figured I’d save that for the second date.” He reached for her hand and she moved it.

  “If there is a second,” she teased. “Don’t count your chicks, rock star.”

  “Am I taking too much for granted ag–” He stopped himself. “Take off the coat…Betty. You look like you’re about to run away and it’s making me nervous.”

  She undid the top button. “The dress you had delivered is skin tight…” Kayla inched the coat up her leg to show how the red jersey-silk clung. “I might need alcohol first.”

  His dark gaze caressed her thigh. “Or we could forget drinks and get a room.”

  “Without even buying me dinner?” She refastened the top button. “Shame on you, Bob.”

  He tried to look chastened, but his eyes gave him away. Like the woods in the Robert Frost poem, they were “lovely, dark and deep.” But there were shadows there, sharp-edged. Her beta mate had turned wolf. Every time he returned from touring it took him longer to re-assimilate into real life.

  He’d become more confident but less patient, more passionate but less tender, more self-centered and less considerate. Less hers.

  Except he wasn’t hers, she reminded herself, not tonight. Tonight, he was a sexy stranger.

  “We could get room service,” he encouraged. “I’ll buy you filet mignon, lobster, anything you want. And then we’ll order apple pie”—her favorite—“and see where we can get the cream.”

  Kayla fell out of character. “God, no! Too messy.” Getting her four-year-old to decorate home-made Christmas cards with paint, glue and glitter had seemed liked a good idea until Madison’s baby brother had gotten involved.

  The red paint and glitter all over the kitchen floor made it look as though Tinkerbell had been murdered there. But they weren’t here to talk about mommy’s day.

  “Then how about a long soak in the spa bath instead?” Bob’s gaze dipped to the swell of her breasts under their woolen covering. “Imagine the luxury of uninterrupted leisure, Betty. Luxury bath oil instead of a budget gallon of banana-scented bubble bath. Not having to share with toys and kids…”

  She unfastened two buttons. “Keep talking.”

  “It’s a simple plan. I’m going to seduce you into leaving your husband for me.”

  Her fingers faltered, then she
laughed. For a moment he’d sounded so serious.

  “Kayla—”

  “Betty,” she reminded him.

  The cocktail waitress arrived, leggy and blond, with a professional smile that got real when she looked at Jared Walker. Her gaze darted to his date, assessing and then dismissive in an unconscious gesture that would have been insulting if Kayla hadn’t become so used to it.

  A pretty woman carrying some baby weight was a six, at best, in Hollywood where even the waitresses—many of them would-be models or actresses—were often eights.

  “Welcome to Joy,” The blond angled her body toward Jared. “May I take your order?”

  “Your call, Betty. Stay…or go?”

  Kayla shrugged off her coat. Her husband was good at buying clothes but the dress was tighter than she’d worn since having kids, with a deep cleavage she had to stop herself adjusting. “Let’s have a drink and see what happens.”

  His eyes were hot as he glanced down her dress, and a shiver of anticipation quickened Kayla’s blood. A heady sense of power.

  She looked at the waitress, who was clearly revising Kayla’s grade. “Mulled wine, please.”

  “Sure. And for you, sir?”

  “Another beer for me, thank you.” The slow curve of his smile was still there as he looked up. The blond sucked in a breath.

  “I see you chose one of our craft beers, let me tell you about the others.” As the waitress launched into serious flirt mode, Kayla surreptitiously checked her cell in case the sitter was having trouble settling the kids.

  A masculine hand covered the screen. “Remember the rules—cells only for emergencies.” Jared confiscated it. “And give me your wedding ring.”

  The waitress blinked.

  Kayla tugged it off. “I see you’ve already removed yours,” she commented. The wedding band of cheap, shiny gold—all they could afford then—gleamed as she dropped it into his outstretched palm.

  “No ties, no responsibilities and no guilt,” he reminded her. “This evening we’re all about…pleasure.” His pause left no doubt as to what that pleasure entailed. Tangled sheets and tangled bodies.

  “I’ll get your drinks,” the waitress murmured.

  “Was that wise?” Kayla said, when she’d left. “Your face has been everywhere the past couple of months.”

  “I could tell she didn’t recognize me. You look gorgeous,” he added. “I got the size perfectly.”

  And wasn’t that like a man. Tight is good, tighter is better. God bless their sexual myopia. “So, Bob.” Channeling a throaty-voiced temptress, Kayla sat back. “Is this the part where you tell me your wife doesn’t understand you?”

  “And you tell me your husband takes you for granted.” His tone was wry, as their eyes met in rueful acknowledgment of his earlier slip.

  She took pity on him. “Or we can skip that part,” she suggested.

  “Let’s skip that part.”

  “You’re going to have your work cut out for you, persuading me into an affair, Bob.” She crossed one smooth leg over the other, watching him watch. The light caught the sparkle on her red stilettos—the shoes he’d bought for her when he’d been accepted into Rage. “I’m a happily married woman.”

  “Yeah?” He caught the stiletto as it slipped off her dangling foot. “How’s the sex been lately?”

  Chapter 2

  Jared saw his wife stiffen. “Isn’t that too personal a question for a first date?”

  He was going too fast, spooking her. “You’re right.” Jared slid the shoe on, concentrating on tightening the tiny strap. “We should get to know each other better first.”

  The waitress returned with their drinks and the complimentary hors d’oeuvres. Releasing Kayla’s foot, Jared sat back and responded politely, his mind elsewhere.

  It had taken him a while to realize Kayla was faking orgasms even though the clues were all there—her encouragement to go harder and faster where once she’d liked to take her time, the careful removing of his hand from between her legs at the crucial moment, always closing her eyes at peak.

  Until then, he’d honestly thought that her “sleeping dogs” strategy was the right one. “Let’s not rehash why I left the tour early. We both made mistakes. I’d rather focus on the future.”

  He’d been relieved to pass on the autopsy, because it would mean dissecting cause—and his culpability. Now he knew he was hanging onto the love of his life by a thread. Meeting as strangers let them step outside their lives, maybe find a way to talk about their problems that wouldn’t make things worse. As Bob, Jared wasn’t the son of a bitch who’d lost his wife’s trust.

  The waitress fussed around, placing napkins and coasters just so, unloading tiny bowls of olives and nuts, their drinks. Obscuring his view of Kayla, who looked like an old-school movie star in that figure-hugging red dress. She’d loosed her hair from the ponytail of her day job—wrangling their two kids—and it fell over her shoulders in dark waves.

  Looking at her, Jared saw grace. It was the way she picked up her glass and the way she sat, her straight back a counterpoint to her lush curves. He loved all the contradictions in her appearance—the heart-shaped face balanced by a strong nose, the finely-boned hands with the clipped square nails, unpolished. Glitter sparkled in her hair, probably one of Maddie’s projects.

  His wife, his love. Who was looking at him with a cool wariness that killed him.

  She jerked her head toward the waitress, making him conscious that he was being rude.

  “I’m sorry, I missed that.” I don’t give a goddamn what the olives are stuffed with or how often you flick your hair. Go away, I need to seduce my wife.

  He’d grown into his looks in his early twenties, and the band’s stylist had enhanced them with a great haircut, a great wardrobe. Suddenly, women wanted him. But it was his wife he had to impress. The one who had fallen in love with him when he was a skinny nerd.

  “So, Betty,” he said, when the waitress finally got the hint. “Tell me about yourself.”

  “Not a lot to tell.” She stirred her mulled wine with the cinnamon stick and paused to breathe in the fragrance.

  Cinnamon and spice and all things sensual, that’s what his girl was made of.

  “I’ve lived most of my life in a small town. I met my husband young and we have two kids. Until last year I worked as the office manager at my old high school and my husband was a stay-at-home dad by day and a musician by night. He won a place in a famous rock band, we moved to L.A. and now I’m a mom full-time.” Removing the cinnamon stick, she placed it on the napkin. “His job is glamorous and exciting, mine is unglamorous and exciting.”

  She was sticking to the facts, revealing nothing.

  Not mentioning that she’d loved her home-town and struggled to adjust to living in the big city, mostly alone with the kids. Jared’s trajectory with Rage had been so fast, catapulting him from unknown to famous in one reality show season, then on a world tour within weeks.

  No mention either of how involved she’d been in the community they’d left, or whether she missed her friends, or Jared’s large family and her mother. Kayla’s brother wasn’t someone you missed.

  But he wasn’t surprised she was playing it safe with feelings. How many times had he shut her down when she’d tried to tell him she was finding things hard? Don’t rain on my parade, baby. It’s all about me, finally living the dream.

  He’d been annoyed by her inability to understand the immense pressures on him, without ever acknowledging she faced the same pressures in adjusting to a rock star’s lifestyle.

  He’d seen the money, the new house, the cool parties as more than compensating her for having to give up her world for his. Forgetting he’d had the support of his bandmates and his mentor to guide him while his wife navigated her way mostly alone, because of his touring schedule.

  Which was why he’d arranged for his family to travel on the European leg.

  His wake-up call came when Kayla took their kids home earl
y after a major fight, leaving him shell-shocked, terrified, and finally willing to take a good hard look at who he was becoming. Through the remaining weeks of the tour, he’d sworn to put her first. He’d been home for over a month now, living a “normal” family life. And his wife was faking orgasms.

  He picked up the beer recommended by the waitress and knew he wouldn’t like it. A craft ale from England, served at room temperature. “You went on a tour leg with him…tell me about that.”

  Ignoring the handle on the glass mug, she cradled it between her hands, absorbing the warmth. “Private jets, five-star hotels, rock-star husband…what’s there to say? I’m living the dream.”

  “And yet here you are, Betty.”

  “To have fun, Bob, not to bitch and moan.” Lightly said, yet he flinched. His words. There were so many he wished he could take back. Too many hurts now reliant on being forgiven.

  She looked at him over the rim of her glass. He saw a spark of anger, the ash of resignation. “Besides, you wouldn’t find it interesting.”

  “I would now,” he said quietly, and she assessed him. He kept himself still, kept himself open, channeled non-threatening Bob, not the guy she expected to see, her ego-driven husband.

  A ghost of a smile played at the corner of her mouth, suggesting she was onto him. God, he’d missed her. “How about I talk about what I’ve learned instead, Bob?”

  “Sure.” He braced himself.

  “I’ve learned how to say diaper in six different languages, including the Queen’s English—nappy, couche, windel, luier, pannolino, panal…” Putting down the glass mug, she smiled at him.

  He smiled back.

  “I’ve learned that big league rock stars stay in exquisite hotels full of designer pieces that break easily under little hands, and that no hotel room is ever big enough for two pre-schoolers. Nor is a private plane.”

  Kayla had a habit of twisting her wedding ring when she was reflecting. She touched her ring finger now and glanced down.

  “I have it safe,” he said.