Bassist Instinct (The Rocker Series #2) Read online

  “Do it for your mother. Think of how you felt when she was in trouble.” Tess looked up at her with surprise.

  “How did you know that she was in trouble?”

  “Your grandfather visited me last night. He hinted that Connor was maybe a tad overprotective because of an incident involving your mom, and I made Tate tell me everything later. Lally also confessed to having followed my career since I was five. He never let on.”

  “He’s a sneaky spy type, he never lets on.” Tess stood up and stretched. “I feel better, Fiona, thanks.”

  “My pleasure. You know, I feel better, too. Now I’m going to clear up my office,” Fiona said. “Stay safe.”

  “You too.”

  They parted at Fiona’s office and she stepped in and looked around feeling overwhelmed. Where to start? She wondered, as she waded in and carefully picked files off the floor. Thirty minutes later Martinez stuck his head in and cleared his throat. Fiona looked up from where she was sitting cross legged on the floor.

  “The guy from this morning is here, do you want me to tell him to beat it?” He asked.

  “Who?”

  “Hollander,” he said, his face impassive.

  “Oh God. Let him in, I guess, but please, don’t go too far away,” she added.

  Martinez opened the door and stood in the doorway so Hollander had to press himself against the jamb so as not to touch him. Fiona thought she saw Martinez grin just a little. These guys were expert intimidators.

  “Fiona, can I give you a hand?”

  “No thanks, David. Did you need something? I am a little busy.”

  “I’m just trying to help, maybe spend a little time with you,” he said looking hopeful.

  “No thanks, David.”

  “Come on, you have your hands full, let me help.”

  “When I was in the fifth grade I had a crush on a boy in my class. I asked my brother what to do, should I ignore him, or tease him? It seemed to be what the other girls were doing with their own crushes. My brother said ‘just be nice.’ It was such a revelation,” she looked him in the eye. “I don’t want to spend any time with you, David, you’re not very nice.”

  “What? Where’s this coming from? I’m nice.”

  “I’ve been sitting here clearing out some of this mess, trying to understand what your motivations were for telling your class, in great detail I’ve discovered, what you saw transpire between Tate and me over the weekend.”

  “What? I didn’t tell them anything. They must have heard it from some other source, Fiona. Anyway, you two were practically having sex on Wisconsin Ave, Georgetown’s main drag on the biggest shopping day of the year, people were bound to notice,” his hands were out in front of him as if trying to ward off a blow.

  “Hmm, practically having sex? Are you listening to yourself? He gave me a peck on the lips.”

  “Twice. You could tell he wanted more,” his tone was snide. “A rock star? Fiona, you’re classically trained, you’re wasting your time with the likes of him.”

  “I should spend my time with…?”

  “Me! We have similar interests, we’re from the same socio-economic group. I know which fork to use.” Fiona’s mouth fell open.

  “Socio-economic group? You know, I come from poor Irish immigrants. My dad sounds just like Tate. Tate and I have more in common than you think.” David took a deep breath.

  “Fiona, you’re a genius, he’s an uneducated punk,” he said. Fiona’s hackles went right up.

  “You don’t even know the man. Tate Dylan has seen and learned more than you or I ever will because his mind and heart are open to new things. He is kind, generous, funny and intuitive; he is not a punk,” Fiona started to sound a little shrill so she took a deep breath.

  “He only sees what you look like, I see what’s inside, Fiona. I know that you are just as beautiful on the inside as you are on the outside. It wouldn’t matter to me in the least if you were ugly, but you aren’t. I see beyond the body and the baby blues, but Tate Dylan, he just wants sex.”

  “You are unkind.”

  “I just said you were beautiful on the inside and the outside,” he complained.

  “You don’t know me anymore than you know Tate Dylan.”

  “Look, I didn’t say anything to my class about you and Tate Dylan, I promise. Can we be friends again? We are meant to be together, and you know it.” That comment made her cock a skeptical eyebrow at him.

  “You and I are not meant to be together, I do not mean to leave you with that impression,” she said maybe a little harshly. David started to say something but she held up her hand. “Three of my 2:00 students came straight from your class and told me what you said,” she waved her hand. “That in itself, is minor, you had juicy gossip and you couldn’t help yourself. I mean Tate Dylan, the rock star, he carries a certain cachet with the twenty something crowd; I get it. But then I started reviewing our interactions over the years, and you have been consistently rude. I don’t want your attentions, David. I don’t know how to be any more clear, and if you kiss me again, I will bring charges against you.”

  “What?” He ran his hand through his hair. He tried to look slandered, but gave up and sneered at her. “You didn’t seem to mind when Tate Dylan had his tongue in your mouth.”

  “A perfect example of your rudeness,” Fiona said with a weary sigh. “It’s my mouth, and my choice whose tongue is allowed in. Goodbye, David.” Martinez opened the door and cleared his throat. Hollander looked at him and Martinez cocked his head toward the door.

  “You’ve just been summarily dismissed, Hollander,” he said and Hollander blew past him out the door. Martinez looked at Fiona and she saw the hint of smile again before he too, stepped out the door. She looked around at the mess surrounding her and decided to leave the rest for tomorrow. She was going home to have a glass of wine and a very long shower.

  Martinez had a parking pass which was State Department issue, but he snatched the parking ticket off the windshield with some frustration on the way to open Fiona’s door.

  “Can we swing by the hospital and visit someone?” She asked her escort.

  “I’m sorry Dr. Brooks, my instructions are to bring you straight home.”

  “Please call me Fiona,” she sighed and he smiled at her.

  When they pulled up to her front door, her neighbor stepped out of her house and waved. She went back inside her house and came right back out with a huge bouquet of flowers.

  “These came this morning, and I told the florist you weren’t home. Aren’t they lovely?” She said.

  “They are,” Fiona said with some trepidation. “Thank you for intercepting them,” she looked at Martinez who shrugged a little.

  “I have the kettle on, so I won’t keep you, but you look lovely today, Fiona,” she said and went quickly back into her house. Fiona and Martinez went in and Fiona dropped her belongings on the kitchen counter and read the note on the flowers. Tate. That was it.

  “Are you married?” Fiona asked Martinez as he walked past her checking the doors.

  “Yeah, my wife just gave me a baby girl last week,” he said with a big smile.

  “Congratulations, that’s wonderful. What did you name her?”

  “Isobel, after my grandmother,” he said.

  “That’s beautiful. I would like you to take these home with you. Someone should enjoy them.”

  “Your guy’s in the dog house, huh?”

  “Yes, he is,” she said.

  “Thanks, she’ll love them.”

  “Good. I’m going to play for a little while, will it bother you?” She pointed to the piano.

  “Not at all, just ignore me,” he said and continued his duties.

  Fiona sat at the piano for a few minutes and then began to play. She played Dvorak’s Slavonic Dances, an upbeat piece for the most part which took her about an hour. When she was done she went to take a shower.

  After a very long shower she dressed in yoga pants and an oversized sw
eatshirt bearing the Hoya mascot and came downstairs, made dinner and drank the last glass of wine from the open bottle she started a few days ago. It turned out to be a healthier pour than she thought, and it tasted a little stale too, but drank it anyway, feeling the need for a gentle anesthetic. Her father called it self-medicating.

  She opened her laptop and went over her schedule and what she needed to go over with her class before the exam next week.

  Martinez had been relieved by a man named James, whom she barely spoke with before he went to look around the house. After fixing herself a small dinner, Liam called and told her he would see her tomorrow, he was catching up at the office for the night.

  “How is Karl?” She asked him.

  “I just got off the phone with the hospital, he’s doing great,” Liam said. “How about you, Fi?”

  “Shaken, not slurred,” she said.

  “Are you drunk?” He almost laughed.

  “I don’t think so, I just had the one glass of wine.”

  “Well, eat something. I’ll swing by and help you clear up your office tomorrow, okay?”

  “Yes, I’d like that, thanks Liam.”

  “No problem. Call me if you need me,” he said and they hung up.

  It was impossible for her not to think of Tate, and she thought the wine was keeping her from focusing on work. What did he mean by sending her flowers, were they just a kiss off? She didn’t know his modus operandi. The note meant nothing. She wished the end wasn’t so ignominious.

  Instead of looking at her computer she played his music on the iTunes he had downloaded on to her hard drive. It was beautiful stuff. Complex, she thought for rock n roll, but what did she know? She heard Tate’s harmonies and felt his bass thump in her chest. Five strings. She thought she might weep, something she didn’t ordinarily do, and wondered about it for way too long. How long had she been sitting there being maudlin?

  Ignominious.

  She looked at her watch and realized she couldn’t fasten her eyes on the hands, they were not behaving properly. The watch hands or her eyes? She didn’t know. She put her hand to her mouth in surprise; she was drunk. One glass of wine, when did she become such a lightweight?

  The front door opened and cold air was pouring in. She stood to go close it but her legs forgot to support her weight and she slid right down in between the sofa and the coffee table and decided it was as good a place as any to rest for a minute. Her eyes stayed open, and from under the table she saw big feet come into the room, hesitate at the door and leave again. A minute or more later she heard a scuffle and then some gunshots. She thought she should hide, but didn’t think she could manage it.

  Ignominious.

  The big feet went upstairs and after a while came back down and made another circuit of the living room. The coffee table, a huge slab of redwood, was picked up and put aside as if it weighed nothing, and the man with the big feet said something in another language and picked her up and put her over his shoulder like a bag of… something, keeping his big hand on her ass. “The Russians,” she thought, or maybe said, but she didn’t think that was what it sounded like. It was the man whose nose Tate broke, there was still tape on it and bruising under his eyes. She didn’t like this at all, but she simply couldn’t fight, or be bothered to worry about it now. In fact, she felt pretty good, she thought. She wanted to say something, something to stop this large violent man from taking her away.

  “Potatoes,” she said as she was taken to the front door.

  Chapter Nine

  Tate was conflicted. He had been since the second he clapped eyes on her. With Tess telling him to stay away, and Fiona’s eyes and smile drawing him in, it was very difficult. It was when he felt something odd that he’d never felt before that he freaked out. It was hard to leave her beautiful warm body that morning to go do the photo shoot, he had quickly gotten used to spending every second with her, and he knew he wasn’t going to be bored with her, even without the craziness surrounding her.

  She was so tired when he left in the morning, he didn’t have the heart to wake her. He also knew that she was so sexy in the morning that if he did wake her, he’d run out of time to do the Lamborghini shoot and make it to the airport in time. Fourteen hours and a dead phone battery later he felt like a junkie coming down, he needed his fix, and it freaked him out a little more. She was getting under his skin, and as good as it felt, it also felt frightening.

  What had she done to him? From the first moment her saw her staring up at him with those round eyes he knew he had to taste her. Damned if she didn’t taste delicious. His brave little lemming, she was sweet and smart and heartbreakingly vulnerable. Before he bedded her he knew it was a different kind of thing than he was used to, in fact, she was about as different as she could get, but he jumped in with both feet. He’d always been a hedonist, hell, sex was fun. Just being in the same room with Fiona was as much fun as just having sex, and having sex with Fiona was the most fun he’d ever had. Christ, even her name tasted good on his tongue.

  The whole time in New York he felt like he was missing something. He barely ate, he paid absolutely no attention to anything Fallon said. Hell, he barely registered Razz. It was a miracle he played the two songs flawlessly, he wasn’t expecting to. No one was as good natured as Razz, and even he was giving him the agro about his mood, calling him a ‘bloody git,’ at one point. Razz was right, he was unfocused and tetchy.

  Tate told him there was a woman and Razz shrugged him off.

  “There’s always a woman, Tate.”

  “No, a woman, one woman, she’s different, mate. She’s…not like any of the rest of them.” Razz stared at him for a long moment and then began to laugh.

  “You’re in love.”

  “I am not, don’t be daft,” Tate said looking scandalized.

  “Give us your phone,” Razz put his hand out for it and Tate slapped it in his palm. Razz scrolled through his pictures. Fiona on the Potomac, on the Mall, and asleep in bed. “She’s very pretty, Tate. Your battery just died, by the way.”

  “Very pretty? She’s a stunner.” Razz grinned at him.

  “I’m happy for you, mate,” he patted him on the back. “But you can’t be a bloody git about it, aye?” Tate rolled his eyes.

  Many years ago Tate asked Razz how he could go home to the same woman every night. Razz considered the question as he did all things, and told him something he would always remember. “The going home’s easy, it’s the leaving that’s the hard part.” Tate thought there was no way it could be that simple until he left Fiona that morning, curled up under the mound of covers looking like perfection.

  All he could think about was holding her and taking great lungfuls of her scent. The perfume was very nice, but it wasn’t what he loved, she smelled like nothing he’d smelled before and he wanted to carry her scent around with him. He also couldn’t get the thought of how she responded to his touch out of his mind. And the sex was, without a doubt, the best in all his days. It was like she was made for him.

  She had him wrapped around her finger, but she wasn’t playing with him, she was the most genuine person he knew, and he was lucky to know quite a few genuine people.

  He had taken a cab straight from the airport and he couldn’t wait to get his lips on her, a whole day was too long to be apart; he was definitely becoming addicted, and he was scared shitless about it, but he was powerless to do anything but return to her.

  Tate raised his hand to knock as the door opened for him. It took him a half a second to realize what he was seeing, and he raised the palm of his hand and hit the man who had Fiona over his shoulder like some kind of potato sack, in the nose again, and grabbed the gun the man had tucked into his waistband so he could open the door and still hold Fiona. The man staggered back from the blow and started to go down. Tate grabbed Fiona’s waistband to keep her from getting crushed by him and pulled her free, but it wasn’t a gentle landing, she didn’t try to break her fall at all. Tate looked quickly behind him
and closed the door and locked it then grabbed Fiona’s phone off the table.

  He called 911 and bent to feel if Fiona was even breathing. The big guy was writhing on the floor cursing in what sounded like Russian. So, Lally was right.

  “Fiona, my love, what have they given you?” He felt her head, and looked at her arms, relieved not to see needle marks. Her pupils were pinpoints, but her pulse was strong and her breathing normal, he thought. She mumbled something that sounded like “potatoes,” and giggled.

  The Russian stopped writhing and Tate trained the gun on him. “Move and I’ll shoot your bollox off,” he said as calmly as he could.

  “You fuck,” he said in a thick Russian accent. The menace was somewhat lessened by the congested sound of his newly re-broken nose.

  “That’s me. What did you give her?”

  The Russian was silent. He merely stared at Tate and said nothing. Tate shot him in the thigh and he screamed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite get that. What did you give her?”

  “Opiate,” he wheezed.

  “You great baby,” Tate said. He had kept a finger on Fiona’s pulse, and he noticed it hadn’t changed when the gun went off. He was glad she wasn’t afraid, if nothing else, but she wasn’t mumbling or giggling anymore. “Ring Liam,” he told her phone and he heard it ring once and Liam answered in his usual fashion.

  “McBride,” he said.

  “I’ve a big feckin’ Russian on the floor of Fiona’s foyer, making a bloody mess of her rug. Fi’s been drugged, and God knows where her bodyguard is. Police are on their way,” the Russian lunged for him and Tate shot his other leg almost casually. There was more screaming in Russian.

  “Tate, was that gunfire?”

  “Yes, the bastard won’t keep still,” he said it almost casually.

  “Jesus, I didn’t hear that. Is Fiona okay?”

  “I just don’t know, mate.”

  “I’ll be right there.” Liam disconnected the call and Tate sat back against the door.

  “She doesn’t have your feckin’ diamonds,” Tate said. The man’s face looked the slightest bit surprised, but went blank again. “I know what you lot did to her fiancé, and I’m truly grateful, but she hasn’t got them, yer barkin’ up the wrong feckin’ tree.” He heard the siren in the distance and the Russian thought about trying to get away again. “Go ahead, make yer move, I’ll hit an artery one of these times.”