Reckless, p.1
Reckless, page 1
RECKLESS
LAUREN DANE
RECKLESS
Copyright © 2022 Lauren Dane
Published by Lauren Dane Media Group, LLC
Cover Art Design © 2022 Tony Mauro Illustration and Design
All rights reserved.
This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author/publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental or has been used in a fictional manner.
CONTENTS
Reckless
Foreword
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
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Reckless Tracklist
Acknowledgments
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About Lauren Dane
RECKLESS
Bright Lights…
Harlow Martin is a rock star’s kid. She’s wanted to be a musician her whole life and at last, she and her band, Above Me, will be the opening act on chart topping mega-stars, Earthquakes upcoming US tour.
Miles Brown started Earthquakes straight out of high school, and after years of working his butt off, the band was headlining an arena tour. Multiple platinum albums, some music video awards, commercials, print ad work and a few movies had taken Miles from an unsure teen into a confident, charismatic man, absolutely certain of himself.
And then Harlow bounded back into his life. Though he’d grown up backstage with her when their dads had played festivals together, he’s not ready for the immediate sensual punch in the gut grown-up Harlow was. He’s absolutely captivated by her and though he knows it’s reckless, he can’t deny the temptation of her lips.
Rock and Roll…
Harlow is an independent, accomplished musician. Her confidence on stage is something she can put on like a dress. The tour has raised Above Me’s profile and sent them to the next level of success. Her relationship with Miles continues to deepen each day and as she gets to know him, falling for him is inevitable. He knows her, sees right to the heart of her and loved her for it. She knows what a gift that is. Even when it took work to keep her gorgeous, spoiled and caregiving alpha from rolling right into her life and taking over.
Miles thought he knew what love was, but once he finds it with Harlow, he can understand what a pale imitation he’d had before. He loves her fire and her poet’s soul. Loves the way she’s dedicated and loyal to her closest friends and family. Loves the way she trusts him and brings out the best in him. Even managed to love his bossiness.
When an old heartache is bruised anew and Harlow’s peace is threatened, Miles needs to walk a path between help and control, while vowing to protect her beautiful heart.
FOREWORD
Dear readers,
Welcome back! Reckless is the first in a new contemporary romance series I’ll be publishing. Within it there’ll be Brown Family and Hurley Boys next generation, along with some faces from Ink & Chrome and Whiskey Sharp.
I did a slight adjustment of age between Miles, his little sister Poppy, and his cousin Xander, so if you’re fans of my Brown Family books, you might notice that. Nothing foundational is changed from the original series. I just aged them up a few years.
I hope you love Harlow and Miles’s story!
Lauren
CHAPTER
ONE
Miles opened his email with the link his aunt had sent of a live performance of a band he was thinking of having open up for Earthquakes on their upcoming US and Canada tour. He’d already heard their new studio length release but live was a different story.
Blue, you’ve heard their produced sound, but Jeremy sent along this video of a recent live performance to give you an idea of what they’re like live. Love you. Come take me to lunch soon. Xoxoxo, Auntie E.
No one but his aunt called him by his middle name, Miles thought as he smiled at her message, making a mental note to drop by and take her to lunch the following week. Jeremy was his agent too, and had sent him the video as well, but Erin sending it meant even more.
Grabbing his headphones and synching them with his laptop, he flicked a fingertip over the return key to open the link and start the video.
Harlow Martin was a punch to the solar plexus. Blue lights splashed over her skin, shoulders, and the line of her jaw as she sang, full throated, body rocked forward as she played guitar. The intro was good. The guitars built seamlessly upward, catching the barb of the drums.
She owned her space on stage. Knew her angles, flirted just over the head of the audience. An ideal without being a tease. An act every bit as much as any male lead ever was.
The snarled whiskey of her voice filled his head, swirling like a sharp-edged tornado to his gut where it seemed to shift something. Unlock the dam he’d carefully constructed against his baser impulses.
Then she shifted into a new song with three jumps sending her breasts high rather delightfully as she stayed on beat and never got winded. She made it look effortless as she hit one of her pedals, turned and gave the other singer a coy look as she handed the lead over to him.
Their show was high energy. Twelve songs and they only slowed it down twice. He checked the date and information attached and noted that it had been seventeen shows into their current tour and they weren’t tired at all. Weren’t phoning it in.
Harlow Martin loved what she did.
Miles sat there, absolutely ensorcelled by her. Yes, absolutely Above Me could hold their own on stage opening for Earthquakes. Yes, this person had whatever quality it took to handle the intensity of attention and expectations from their position.
His heart thundered to the point of slight dizziness as a knowing seemed to settle into his bones. He’d been burned badly a few years before. Bad enough that he’d been licking his wounds and had kept his personal life locked the fuck down to keep from making any more painful mistakes with beautiful people who made his dick hard.
But this one? This beautiful person? Harlow Martin not only made his dick hard with her fiery, self-assured sexual attractiveness, she was talented as fuck. Creative. She co-wrote the band’s smart, insightful, clever songs. She was interesting.
She didn’t need anyone else to get ahead. Didn’t need to attach herself to someone else’s star or bask in the light of another sun.
And he knew her.
Her father wasn’t just a successful musician. Richie Martin was heavy metal royalty and had dominated that part of the music world for decades.
So because Miles’s dad was also a successful musical act, he and Harlow had bumped into one another backstage at festivals and the like and had created a friendship. As the kid of a rock star, Harlow knew him and their life in ways that created a deep intimacy from jump. An intimacy he should be wary of, but instead found himself intrigued by enough to want more of.
He hadn’t seen her in person in about six years. Since a giant radio station show their dads had played. Back then he’d thought she was pretty and funny. He’d liked her but there hadn’t been enough of her in his life that he’d pursued more. He’d gone on to build his own career and apparently, she’d done the same.
But right then? Harlow set fire to something inside him. Made him want to haul her close and kiss her on the mouth. Smear her lipstick and get drunk on her taste. Something about her called to him on levels he hadn’t known existed. Which made her a threat he had no way to counter. And he…well, he didn’t want to.
Before he thought about it any further, he forwarded the footage to his bandmates. They’d already heard—and given their thumbs up on—Above Me, but he figured it couldn’t hurt for them to see the other band in action.
Miles rolled into their rehearsal space a few days later. Nearly everyone else had already arrived so he got himself a mug of tea. The last thing he needed was to strain his voice before they’d even left town.
He’d forwarded a copy of Above Me’s album to all his bandmates when he’d put them in his top three a few weeks prior. Earthquakes was a democracy. Though he was their leader, they generally made decisions as a unit. It kept a sort of cohesion and unity he saw in bands that survived the long term.
Which band opened was a choice he definitely wanted everyone to make as a group. And, as he’d figured, each of them had responded back with Above Me ranked at the top. That’d been before he’d sent them all the concert footage. After that, they’d all doubled down on their support.
“By the way, I’ve been listening to Above Me all week. I like their sound a lot. Harlow is a beast as a frontwoman,” Maddie Hurley told him as he strolled over. She led the band at his side as the rhythm guitarist and he valued her opinion a great deal. “That footage, yo. I need to make her my new best friend. I think we’re roughly the same size. That would double my wardrobe.” She laughed like she already didn’t have a ridiculous amount of clothing courtesy of a mother who ran a series of clothing boutiques.
“She’s got this edge that plays with girly but wraps it in barbed wire. It’s…effective.” Heat slid through his system. There was something about the way she wielded her appearance that made it even hotter. Smarter. Sharper.
That something deep inside him that Harlow had awakened—that sense of recognition—had already begun to take up space.
Maddie looked him over through narrowed eyes. “Why do you have a tone? What does it mean?”
Fuck. This was what happened when a person worked with family. They knew you pretty damned well. “I have a what?” He smeared cream cheese on a bagel and draped a slice of tomato and some lox over that. “Where did these come from?” Yes, oh yes, the chew alone told him they were likely not from anywhere local.
“How should I know? Your sister came in, dropped food off, talked to me about some album and tour stuff and left again. Focus, Miles. When you talk about her band, or, maybe specifically about Harlow Martin, you sound different. Interested?”
Miles snorted. If he admitted anything he’d never hear the end of it. Bluntly, it wasn’t any of Maddie’s business if he was interested in Harlow. Or why. Maddie would want to try to draw parallels between anyone new and his last serious relationship.
No one knew better than Miles that nothing was the same, least of all him. Harlow was a musician too, and in a way that was so joyfully confident that it rung his bell. It got under all his well built and very jaded defenses and made him feel things.
Just from some video and audio. Christ. What would it be like when they finally got face to face when the first show of the tour rolled around in two months? Something good, he hoped. Certainly something to look forward to.
He might have a growing something for Harlow, but more importantly, Above Me was perfect to open for them. One thing he would not do was make this about his dick. He wasn’t an asshole. This business was hard on everyone, but young talent coming up like Above Me most especially. Miles knew it wasn’t vanity that he understood what a potential break it was for them to open on an arena sized tour. The exposure could catapult them into the next level of their career.
Maddie knew him well, so he kept it genuine and hoped she backed off. “Interested first and foremost in her band opening for our band during our upcoming US and Canada tour.” He finished off the second half of his bagel As Omar Marquez, their lead guitarist, and Silas Best, their drummer, came in. Miles paused to say hello to two of his oldest friends.
Omar tipped his chin. “Morning. Feels like it’s going to be a good day. Flirted with that cute dude who moved into the condo across the hall. Turns out he’s a radiologist at Swedish. My mother will finally be happy if I manage to date a doctor. She doesn’t care if it comes with a dick. It’s the degree.”
Knowing Omar’s very driven mother, Miles was more inclined to think she just wanted Omar to be happy, but there was no denying she was very opinionated in her desire that he date someone with an actual career since he was out there wasting his potential playing music like a teenager instead of being a grown up.
“We’re talking about Above Me,” Maddie said as Silas joined them, grabbing some food.
“Still a total yes from me,” Silas said before he gulped some juice.
“Definitely a yes. Was there a problem?” Omar asked Maddie.
“No,” Miles answered with a look at Maddie.
“I was just saying it had seemed he had a tone talking about Harlow. I mean, she’s gorgeous so it’s not like I’d have blamed him. I was just trying to figure out what was happening,” Maddie said.
Troublemaker.
He rolled his eyes. “I like her. I’m fairly confident you all will too. Maddie hasn’t met her because she didn’t travel as often with her dad, but I’ve hung out with Harlow several times backstage. She knows this world and appears to have worked hard to achieve the success they have so far. As a band they know what it is to be on tour. This is going to be just fine. And, as Maddie mentioned and I’m sure you two noticed since you’ve seen the video of their concert, she’s not hard to look at. I think it’ll be easier on us all that they won’t have as steep a learning curve.” Miles shrugged and hoped they’d move on.
Maddie and Miles had grown up together, part of an extended family spanning two states, two rock and roll bands—now three—a cookbook author, several artists, and no small number of tattooists. They were a big, noisy, colorful bunch who loved one another fiercely. There was a protectiveness the adults of the family acted with toward these children, now adults themselves, who were out in the world making art of their own. Miles knew he could get advice from anyone in Maddie’s family just as easily as his own. It meant something.
No. That wasn’t entirely true. It meant everything.
Sometimes it was like being from a country most people thought they knew about but felt mostly made up. Being the child of famous people held a spotlight on you, shaped your personality in ways most others could never truly understand.
Citizens of that crazy nation were small in number but fierce in presence. It was a group Miles was proud to be part of, though he still struggled at times with the responsibilities and stresses of life in the public eye.
Harlow was one of them. That got to him even though she wasn’t the first famous person’s kid he’d known. Something about her just stuck in his brain even though he’d known her before.
Things were different for them all than it was when they were teens backstage at whatever festival their fathers played in. He was different.
“I say we contact Jeremy so he starts working on that and get back to rehearsing,” Silas said. They’d had six months off before they’d started working on their most recent album and were currently in the build up for a summer tour and a fall leg in Europe.
All of them had that restlessness found in the weeks leading up to a tour. That sense of anticipation laced with anxiety and celebration that got a person through the long nights to come.
Finishing up the last of his food, Miles made a quick call to Jeremy, who promised to get in contact with Harlow. Once that was finished, he turned off the outside world.
Their rehearsal space was north of Seattle in Edmonds. It was an easy enough drive for Miles, who lived on Bainbridge Island, and the others who lived, at least part of the year, in the Seattle metropolitan area. It happened that a mutual friend had leased it for several months and the band who’d been slotted in had imploded and broken up. The space wasn’t fancy. It was located in a weird little warehouse district within easy distance to an excellent pho place, a deli and a Greek diner but close to nothing else really, so they were left alone and could come and go whenever.
