Hearts Collide Read online

  “He’ll come around. Just give him time. There’s more going on there than either of us know.”

  “You think so?”

  “I do.”

  She would have to trust he was right. Right now, she didn’t really care. And a long walk on the beach would give her spirits a lift.

  A Damn Pen

  Bent

  “Bent!”

  Forest’s bellow had Bent’s shoulders pressing against his ears. The motherfucker could raise the roof with that rumbly bass.

  Bent grabbed Piper’s workout mat and ignored Forest. If Forest had something to say, he could come say it in person instead of yelling through the halls.

  Piper had stomped off in a huff and left all her torture devices outside on the deck. Bent had no idea why a stupid plastic pen had set her off, but it had. He felt a little guilty about that, but didn’t know why that might be.

  Not wanting anything else to go sailing off the edge, he had spent the last few minutes packing all her gear back into her bag. His right arm ached, tired from the physical demands of the light labor. He deposited Piper’s gear by the front door. After lunch, she would be back for another agonizing session, but at least it was put away. Maybe he could convince her to change their venue?

  A swim sounded fun, especially in the pool he knew she hated. If he had to struggle through one of her therapy sessions, it was fair turn for her to suffer as well. A grin tugged at the corners of his mouth, thinking about getting back at her. Then his cock twitched with an image of her in a bikini.

  She may have helped him through one shower too many, but not once had she stripped out of her tight workout clothes. Those long leggings clung to her skin as if she’d been sprayed inside of them, and her tank tops molded to those damn perky tits of hers. She never wore white on the days she’d helped with his shower. A shame really. That would’ve been a sight to see.

  He’d seen her eyeing him when she didn’t think he was watching. The girl refused to admit she had a thing for him. A little splashing poolside could be very entertaining.

  Before the accident, he used to spend hours a day in the gym. Now, lifting five-pound weights tired him out. A glance down at his chest had him gritting his teeth. Not only was his arm turning into a skinny stick, but his chest seemed to be shrinking as well. He needed to get back in the gym and bulk up his muscles.

  Maybe Piper didn’t have a thing for him and only looked because she was assessing the loss of tone in his body as a whole. That thought didn’t sit well with him. Did she see the man he had once been? Or, did she only see the wasted thing he’d become?

  If that was the case, things needed to change.

  He’d tried lifting a month ago, but all that had accomplished was to further accentuate the differences between his left and right sides. There had to be a solution.

  “Bent, you fucker!” Forest’s roar closed in on Bent’s suite.

  Looked like Forest was bringing the conversation to him after all. It was going to be one of those conversations, was it? Bent dropped into the couch facing the door to his rooms. A few seconds later, the door slammed open and Forest barged in.

  “What? No knock?” Bent leaned back, subconsciously widening his arms and spreading his legs. With Forest in the room, he felt a need to make himself look bigger.

  Goliath might be an apt description for Forest, but it wasn’t enough to describe the full impact of an enraged Forest Summers. Whatever Bent had done had brought out the full Norse fury in his band manager.

  “I don’t need to fucking knock.” Forest’s ice-blue eyes drilled into Bent.

  “What if I was screwing someone?” He kept his tone light and sarcastic, knowing it would piss Forest off.

  “I’ve seen you fuck three women at a time backstage. I don’t think it would ruffle your feathers if I walked in on you screwing some groupie. But I know you’re not.”

  “Seeing as I have no feathers, I’m not feeling the least bit ruffled. And what do you mean, you know I’m not?”

  “I see more than you realize, Lover Boy.”

  Bent rolled his eyes. “What the fuck are you doing here? Just tell me what it is that I did wrong and get the fuck out. This is a pointless conversation. You bellow and I ignore you. How about we just dispense with everything that comes before that and skip ahead to you walking back out that door?”

  “Get off your ass and come here.” Without waiting to see if Bent complied, Forest walked out onto the deck.

  With a groan, Bent joined Forest.

  Forest looked down at the beach. Disapproval smoldered in his eyes. He stabbed a finger down toward the rocks.

  “She’s down there looking for it.”

  No need to ask who was down there. Had Piper really gone to the beach to look for some cheap-assed pen? The girl was whacked in the head.

  “So?”

  “You need to get your ass down there and help her.”

  “I’m not going down there.”

  “You sure as shit are.” Forest’s growl had Bent taking a step back.

  “It’s a damn pen. The tide will take it out with the rest of the trash.”

  “For your sake, I hope that doesn’t happen. Now get down there and help her look for it.”

  “I’m not going beach-combing with Piper Raines.”

  Didn’t Forest know the woman hated Bent? They had a break between therapy sessions for two reasons: to let him recover from her torture and to put distance between them. Forest had to be paying her one hell of a paycheck for her to still be hanging around. None of the other therapists had lasted more than a week. She seemed to be hanging in there with a tenacious force of will. He accepted this as a challenge.

  “Get your ass down on that beach.”

  “Or what?”

  “You really want to go there?”

  He didn’t. Bent had seen Forest fight. Not only was Forest bigger, but the man had trained in techniques meant to kill.

  “Fine!” With a shake of his head, Bent stalked away. Forest turned back to stare down at the beach below.

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, Bent found Piper combing the rocky beach. The wind whipped at her short hair, fluttering it in the breeze. He preferred women with long hair, something he could twist in his grip while pounding into them from behind, or better yet, controlling their heads while he fucked their mouths. Piper didn’t have hair long enough to grip. He’d barely be able to run his fingers through the short spikes. Not that he wanted to…

  “What are you doing here?” Piper stretched, arching back as she tilted her face to the sun. The pose highlighted her perky tits and had his cock stirring to life. He couldn’t help but gape. “Hey, I asked you a question,” she snapped.

  He brought his attention from her tits back to her face. The late morning sun had crested over the rocky cliff and made her skin glow. Red highlights shimmered in her air as she cocked her head.

  “I’m here to help you look for that damn pen.”

  “I don’t need your help.”

  “It’s a pretty big beach and a rather small pen.”

  “You know, I wouldn’t be down here if you’d just picked it up to begin with.”

  “What can I say? I can be an ass at times.” The wink he gave her was met with a derisive snort.

  “That’s putting it mildly,” she mumbled.

  “What’s that?” He closed the distance between them.

  Piper had a voice pitched in the higher octaves and she spoke with a breathy quality. It made it nearly impossible to hear her over the pounding surf. She took a step back as he approached, turning back toward the cliffs.

  “I was merely agreeing with you,” she said, speaking louder.

  He deserved that. Rather than enter into another argument with her, he focused on what had brought him down to the beach.

  “Where have you looked?”

  “All over,” she said with a sigh.

  Bent glanced up and took in the sweeping expanse of Insa
nity. Perched at the southern corner of the estate, his rooms sat a little further down the beach from where Piper was looking. A driving breeze came off the ocean and swirled at the base of the cliffs. How far would the wind have carried a pen?

  What did the pen look like? He rubbed the back of his neck, realizing he had no clue what the damn pen looked like. And he wasn’t about to ask, at least not outright.

  “What’s so important about this pen?”

  She squinted against the sun as she scanned the base of the cliffs.

  “Ever heard of don’t litter?”

  An unfortunate side effect of humanity, but trash littered nearly every beach around the world. They were lucky not to have a lot of trash on their beach, but there was evidence of it here and there. Noodles had a special day each month set aside specifically for beach clean-up. He was the only one who ever ventured out into the turbulent waters, taking his surfboard into the deadly surf. With strong currents and powerful riptides, even the strongest swimmer risked death in these waters.

  Nevertheless, Piper didn’t care about a little bit of littering. Not when she’d walked past several bags and plastic bottles.

  “On the first Sunday of the month, Noodles organizes a beach sweep. If you care that much about litter, you might want to talk to him. I’m sure he’d love the help.”

  There really wasn’t much sand on the beach. Tiny pebbles crunched under his boots. This wasn’t a beach for swimming, but it was a great place to scour the tide pools for critters during low tide. The tide was on the rise and had already reclaimed some of the furthest tidal pools.

  “The tide’s coming in,” he said. “We probably shouldn’t stay here much longer.”

  With the lay of the land, the area they stood in would soon be covered with water. High tide didn’t bring the full fury of the waves, but the force of the water surging in and out had enough power to knock a person down and drag them out where the waves pummeled the rocks. It was time to leave.

  Piper glanced toward the surf. “There’s still time.”

  He cocked his head, struggling to hear her words, and was surprised by the sadness in her voice. It made him want to help her find the pen, and he had a sinking suspicion she would wait until the last moment before giving up the hunt. The thought of slinging her over his shoulder and manually removing her from the beach sounded kind of fun, but he didn’t think she’d enjoy that as much as him. And if he did that, he might venture into inappropriate territory. Best to just find the pen. That meant…

  “Piper, what color is the pen?” He was beyond asking why it was important.

  She scrunched her face and cute little wrinkles bunched up on her nose. “It’s black with a white raven on it.”

  “A white raven?”

  “It’s hopeless.” She put her hands to her head and dug her fingers into the vibrant red spikes.

  A sigh full of sorrow escaped her, making Bent want to comfort her in his arms. Instead, he marched to the base of the cliffs, heading down the beach to the area immediately below his deck. There he cast about, looking for a black pen amongst equally black rocks.

  Piper was right. It was a hopeless task, and it was all his fault. At least now he knew what kind of pen to buy. He would replace the silly pen, but not with cheap plastic. It would be a thing of beauty.

  The Tide

  Piper

  The fierce set of Bent’s jaw determined Piper’s course of action. With the first waves lapping at her feet, it was time to admit defeat. A glance down the beach had her gritting her teeth. The ocean waters would soon claim the narrow beach, at least for a few hours. During that time, it would take something much more precious, and there was nothing she could do about it.

  “If you don’t come right now, I swear I’ll haul you off this beach myself.”

  Bent’s stormy gaze beat at her resolve.

  Just a little longer.

  Only, they didn’t have much more time. Already, they would be forced to cross one narrow channel to reach the safety of the gondola. A narrow trench between here and there, the four-foot wide span was too far to jump across. They would have to wade through it and time the crossing with the waves coming in. One wrong step, and she could lose her footing. It wouldn’t take much for the draw to sweep her out to sea.

  “All right!” She backed away as he came at her.

  There was no denying his force of will. If only he could bring that tenacity to his physical therapy. Bent was his own worst enemy when it came to his recovery. Mentally, he’d given up. Physically, there was no reason he couldn’t regain full function. She’d spent over an hour with his orthopedic doctor and had consulted with a neurologist. They saw no barriers, only a lot of hard work.

  Whether he would ever play guitar again remained to be seen, but she was hopeful. That’s where she came in, and where she failed. Forest had given her six months to get Angel Fire’s bassist ready. She was already a couple weeks into that deadline and knew that was impossible. Also, being able to play the guitar versus the rigors of playing during a concert tour were two different animals. It might be well over a year before Bent developed that kind of stamina.

  Finding motivation for her clients had never been a problem. Kids were natural self-motivators. With school a driving influence in their lives, they’d been primed to work hard and meet stepped goals. Bent didn’t have that. He didn’t care about the progress along the way, and he didn’t understand it would take time. Time and persistence. She hadn’t found that one trigger, the one that would push him past his mental block.

  Her fingers curled and she held her hands tight against her legs. She didn’t want to admit defeat, but the truth couldn’t be ignored. Paul’s pen was forever gone. With a sigh, and maybe a tiny growl of frustration, she brushed past Bent and stalked off to the part of the beach where the gondola waited.

  Placed on an area of the beach set back from the highest tide, there was no threat placed against the gondola and the small grouping of buildings at the base of the cliff. Even the strongest storm surges failed to reach their shelter. Luxurious like the rest of Insanity, the bandmates of Angel Fire had spared no expense. Built to blend in with the rocky cliffs, black slate and stamped concrete formed the floors. While the foundation of the structure was formed out of cinderblocks, to withstand the occasional storms, the outside had been washed a stucco overlay and painted to match the cliffs behind. It was a structure which tried to blend in with its surroundings.

  Each time she glanced over her shoulder, she met the fierceness of Bent’s stare. He returned her faltering step with a shake of his head. She couldn’t help it. That was the last bit of Paul she had left.

  She approached the area where they had to cross and stopped to assess the incoming tide. Surges of water poured in, funneling through the low spot, and then rushed out in a torrential flow. If caught in that, there was no doubt her feet would be swept out from beneath her. There was a lull to the motion of the water, a few seconds where the incoming water eased before rushing back out.

  Bent cupped his hand over his eyes and stared out to sea. “It’s amazingly beautiful, isn’t it? The power of nature.”

  “It makes me feel small.”

  “You are small, pixie.”

  “Pixie?”

  His cheeks rounded with his grin. “Yeah, my little pixie.”

  She wasn’t his anything, but neither was she in the mood to engage with Bent in what would only turn into yet another pointless argument.

  “You ready?”

  The sun glinted off his dark eyes, revealing golden flecks within the chocolate brown. If Bent ever decided to stop playing the field, some lucky woman would find heaven within the depths of those eyes.

  She gave a tight nod. “Yeah, guess there’s no way we’re not getting wet.” If they’d been on a sandy beach, she would’ve taken her shoes off, but not all of the stones beneath their feet had been smoothed by action of wind, rain, and surf. Her tender feet would be shredded before she reached
the other side.

  They watched the ebb and flow of the water. As the water rushed in, Bent surprised her when he gripped her hand. In the lull which followed, he pulled her down the small bank and through the water.

  Ice needles pierced the flesh of her feet, ankles and calves.

  “Holy fuck,” she shrieked. “That’s cold.” Her toes numbed immediately to the frigid waters.

  “Noodles says it’s about 50 degrees this time of year.” Bent’s grip on her hand tightened and the muscles of his jaw bunched. “Just a little further.” The high boots he wore protected his feet only minimally more than hers. The water had to be seeping between the seams.

  “How does he know?”

  “Bastard surfs out there.” Bent jerked his chin in the direction of the raging surf.

  “That’s insane.”

  “That’s what we tell him. This is seal territory, which means great whites infest the entire coast. I think he’s a madman, but Noodles doesn’t listen to anybody when it comes to surfing.”

  Stronger than it looked, the tide pulled at them. They made it halfway across before the outward flow began. Slow at first, its power built. She would’ve been pulled off her feet, if not for Bent’s towering strength. He pulled her to him, hand gripping hers. His powerful legs braced against the current. He took a step forward and practically dragged her the last few feet as water swirled nearly to her knees.

  She clung to him as he pulled her up the other side of the bank and didn’t let go as they turned to appreciate the force of nature. Her feet felt like leaden blocks, all sensation deadened by the penetrating cold. She stamped her feet, trying to bring back circulation and heated blood to ward off the chill.

  “Wow,” she said, “I’ve always heard about how little water it takes to sweep someone off their feet. I never believed it until just now.”