What happens when the Gentleman of Rock decides to play dirty?
A drummer for the hottest rock band on the planet, David has a single, powerful weakness: Thea, the band’s publicist and the woman who steals his breath away with her every move.
Only problem is, Thea doesn’t date clients—or musicians. Emotionally scarred by a cheating ex, she’s not about to risk her heart with a man who has groupies buzzing around him like flies. Even if his sexy smile ties her up in knots.
What she doesn’t know is that David is a one-woman man...and he’s madly in love with her. David’s determined to prove he’s worth the risk, and willing to court her, step by exquisite step. Thea’s about to discover just how long and hard this handsome drummer can play.
“Beer—whatever you have on tap,” David said to the grizzled
bartender and grabbed a stool, his eye on the rugby game in progress on the TV
screen bolted above the bar.
He’d hardly taken a sip of
his beer, the dark liquid bitingly cold, when he felt a presence at his back.
Instincts honed by a childhood in one of the toughest areas of New York had him
focusing on the mirror behind the bar to check out the situation before he
turned. A big, bald, and heavily muscled male with a spiderweb tattoo on his
neck was standing behind and just to the side of David, a smirk on his
pockmarked face.
Belly heating, David turned
with a slight smile. “Problem?”
The bald man bared his
teeth and, laughing, looked to a table to his right. “Hear that, boys?” he
called out to his friends. “The pussy rock star here wants to know if there’s a
problem.”
Laughter and shouts from
that particular table, while the rest of the men in the bar went quiet. David
didn’t move, taking a measure of the players without letting it show. “Always
know your opponent” had been one of the first things his father had taught
him—Vicente Rivera didn’t believe in turning the other cheek; he believed in
teaching his sons how to put bullies on the ground and keep them there.
“Yeah, there’s a problem,”
the bald guy said, shoving at David’s shoulder. “This is a real bar for real
men. Not pussies.”
Like that, then. Good. He was in the mood to do some
violence. Lifting his beer, David took a long drink, then slammed it down… and
punched Bald Head in the jaw at the same time that he kicked out with his foot
to connect with the other man’s knee. The jackass went down like a ton of
bricks.
Roaring in rage, the man’s
friends came at David.
He grinned and started to
show them what this “pussy rock star” could do.
It wasn’t until they’d
broken a table and several chairs, and the bartender had called the cops that
David realized Thea would have to deal with the fallout from this. Fuck, fuck,
fuck, he thought as he was shoved into a cell alone, his erstwhile opponents in
the cell opposite. Sliding down the graffiti-marked wall to the floor, he
thought about the phone call the desk sergeant had said he could make and
decided against it.
Fox had Molly with him—the
band’s lead singer had been waiting for his girl to arrive since the instant
Schoolboy Choir set foot in the city. As for Noah and Abe, they both had their
own plans. He knew any one of the three men would drop those plans in an
instant to come to his aid, but since the cops had made it clear he’d be
spending the night in a cell no matter what, why mess up their plans?
“You do or say anything that’ll hit the media, you call
me. Day or night. I hate surprises—so don’t you dare surprise me.”
Thea had given that order
to all four of them when she’d agreed to act as their publicist. Her up-front
nature and dedication to her job was part of the reason they’d hired her; Thea
was the best and she didn’t take any shit from her clients. He wasn’t doing
himself any favors by not calling her.
Right then, David couldn’t find it in himself to care. It wasn’t as if she could hurt him any more than she already had. And Jesus, how long was he going to carry this torch that was burning him alive? “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he said aloud, banging the back of his head against the wall.
This novella in the Rock Kiss series from Nalini Singh is a little gem. Told mostly from the perspective of a sweet and genuine misunderstood rock star, Rock Courtship is an endearing and heartfelt follow up to Rock Addiction.
This novella has that small element that I found lacking in Rock Addiction – charm.
Rock Courtship is a charming read with charming characters, a charming love story, a charming romance between Thea and the most charming man of rock, David.
Since the moment he saw her, David has been head over heels for Thea. What ensues is one of the sweetest wooings I have read in quite some time, lots of awww moments!
I can already tell that Rock Courtship is going to be one of the highlights of this series for me, 4.5 stars.
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