Needing Forever VOL 1: Part of The Rocker... Series Universe Page 9

  I didn’t know if I could be as strong as Mom was. She went through so much without Dad there to help her through any of it. When she needed him most, he’d been off playing rock star, and she’d had to face it all on her own.

  “What’s your name?” Drunk Guy asked, getting closer. I stepped back again, only to have my hip hit the edge of the island. Hard.

  Groaning, I rubbed my free hand over the tender spot, where a bruise was no doubt already forming.

  “Mieke, I’m leaving,” Tara announced from the other side of the prick who was now even closer.

  “What?” I was so busy rubbing my hip, I hadn’t noticed she was already going out the back door. “Tara!”

  “Stay and have fun. I need to study anyway.”

  Before I could push the guy off me, she was gone. She’d been so lost in her own head, she hadn’t even noticed this jerk or that he was currently crowding me. Damn it. I only came to this damn party because she’d asked me to go with her. I didn’t want to stay.

  “Mieke, huh?” I could feel his breath on my neck now, and I instantly dropped my hand from my sore behind to push at his chest. “That’s a really pretty name.”

  “Back off,” I snapped at him. “I’m not in the market to be another notch on your belt, dickhead. I don’t like you. I don’t want you. And I really, really don’t like you crowding me like this. Step back, or I’m going to bring you to your knees.”

  He laughed, like he thought I was joking. His hands gripped the island on either side of me, boxing me in. Panic invaded me, and I could hear Michelle screaming in my head to get the fuck away from this guy as fast as I could.

  My hand on his chest, as well as the one holding the beer, was crushed between us, trapping me further. My knees didn’t have enough room to cause the kind of damage that would get him to back off. I leaned my top half away from him as far as I could and reared up, headbutting him right in the nose.

  With a bellow of pain, he jumped back, both his hands covering his gushing nose. I barely noticed the kitchen suddenly filling up with people curious what was going on. My head was suddenly buzzing, my brain so fogged up I could barely see.

  Shit. Maybe I shouldn’t have hit him so hard. Was this what a concussion felt like?

  The world began to blur around me, and I was glad to have the island at my back because I knew I would have fallen on my ass if it weren’t.

  “The fuck happened in here?” A deep voice I didn’t recognize made my ears ring. His voice was so filled with rage, I could actually feel the tension of everyone else in the room, including the guy with the broken nose. Yet, I felt oddly calmed by that voice.

  “Bitch broke my nose,” came the muffled voice of the prick behind his hands.

  “And what the fuck were you doing to make her break your goddamn nose, motherfucker?”

  I didn’t hear the guy’s reply. Darkness was starting to fade in and out. I shook my head, trying to clear it, but that only made me twice as dizzy.

  “Help,” I mewled weakly.

  Almost instantly, I was being enfolded in strong arms. Somehow, I found the strength to open my eyes and tried to focus on the person holding me. When I saw all too briefly that it was my stalker, all the lingering fear faded completely. Michelle was no longer screaming at me to get away.

  Now she was whispering at me that we were finally home.

  Chapter 2

  Kaden

  One second, she was blinking up at me, and the next, she went limp. Swallowing a curse, I lifted Mieke into my arms before shooting a glare at Josh. “Stay the fuck away from her. I see you sniffing around her again, and I’ll break your fucking throwing arm. We clear?”

  “Jesus, Carmichael. What the hell is your problem?” Josh took the stack of napkins from one of the cheerleaders currently fawning over him and wiped his nose. More blood poured from it, and I nearly smirked. My little hellfire had fucked him up nice and good. My arms tightened around her, keeping her close.

  “My problem is you don’t know when to back off when a girl tells you no. I mean it, dipshit. You come within ten feet of her again, and you won’t ever make it to the NFL.” I pushed my way through the growing crowd and carried Mieke upstairs to my room.

  My door was locked so no one would be able to use it to have sex or get high, but with a swipe of my wrist, my smartwatch unlocked it for me. Shouldering open the door, I kicked it shut before carrying her over to my bed. Activating the lock on my watch again, I clicked on the lamp beside my bed and examined her head.

  I let her out of my sight for ten minutes, and this shit happened. Fuck it. I wasn’t letting her go anywhere without me ever again.

  There was an ugly bruise forming in the center of her forehead, a knot already swelling. It was so big, it was going to give her left eye a shiner as well. Damn, she’d nailed him good. Opening my nightstand drawer, I pulled out a penlight and opened her lids, checking to see if she had a concussion.

  At the slight invasion, she groaned and slapped my hand away. “Go away, Ben,” she muttered. “I have a headache.”

  Jealousy instantly snapped its teeth at me. “Who the fuck is Ben?” I growled, leaning in closer to her.

  Her eyes flew open at the sound of my voice, only to close just as quickly. “Where am I?” she muttered weakly.

  “My room. Don’t worry, you’re safe here.” I leaned in closer until my breath was brushing over her lips. She smelled good. Like jasmine, the scent lightly floral and sweet. I inhaled deeper, wanting some part of her inside me. “Who is Ben?”

  “Cousin,” she grumbled, sounding unhappy. Then her eyes snapped open again, only for her to groan in pain. “Did that really happen?”

  “You mean headbutting Josh and blacking out on me? Yeah,” I told her honestly, gently touching the baseball-sized knot on her head. When she flinched, I dropped my hand. “Good job, by the way.”

  Her lips lifted in a ghost of a smile before she groaned again. “Got anything for a headache?”

  “I’m going to have to take you to the ER,” I told her as I pulled out the bottle of aspirin from my nightstand. “I think you have a concussion.”

  “Pretty sure you’re right,” she muttered.

  I helped her sit up and grabbed the bottle of water off my pillow. I’d left it there before the party, but it was unopened. I’d figured I would be too drunk to care about hydrating after the party, but I knew I would be thankful for the water come morning.

  I stayed here on the weekends because the parties were usually able to help me relax after a week filled with the class load of my last year of pre-med. I didn’t have to worry about getting home or waking up in some random bed. Here, I could get wasted, fall into my own bed with clean sheets, and not have to worry about the housekeeper at my apartment having to clean up a puddle of puke.

  As I placed the two tablets to her lips, she licked them off my fingers and then guzzled down the water thirstily. That small contact of her tongue to my flesh was like a match to dry straw, going straight to my cock. Fuck, the semi I’d been walking around with from the second I’d first laid eyes on this girl was now a full-blown, throbbing hard-on.

  “I’m Mieke, by the way,” she introduced as I eased her back down onto the pillows.

  “I know who you are,” I assured her. From that first sight of her, I’d needed to know everything there was to know about the willowy beauty walking around campus. I had some resources in the registration office, and by lunch two days ago, I’d known who she was and what her major was. From there, it only took a few clicks on Google, and I had a little more background on her. I could have called one of my father’s private investigators, but I didn’t want anyone else prying into her life. Didn’t want them to know any intimate details about my girl.

  Mieke Cassidy. Niece to Noah and Chelsea Cassidy. Child of Annabelle Cassidy Brockman. And now I remembered she did have a cousin named Ben, and his sister was named Audrey.

  Google didn’t talk about Mieke’s father, though,
but from the pictures of Annabelle’s husband, there was no doubt in my mind who the man was. Zander Brockman. The rock legend who played bass and keyboard in OtherWorld, one of the most popular rock bands in the world. I didn’t know anyone who didn’t like OtherWorld.

  But no one ever talked about him having a daughter.

  Someone must have paid big bucks to keep that out of the spotlight. What they hadn’t been able to hide was that Mieke was kidnapped when she was barely five. The state of Tennessee had been torn upside down looking for the girl who was taken in plain sight—and who was miraculously found days later, unhurt and unviolated. My palms had started sweating just thinking about someone taking her from her family, of never having gotten the chance to meet her.

  Hundreds—maybe even millions—of things had to line up just right for me to meet Mieke, and even one thing going wrong could have fucked all of it up. Yet here she was, lying on my bed. She was mine. I knew it the second I spotted her walking across the quad.

  “You know who I am?” she whispered, tensing up and trying to look at me again. “How?”

  “Google,” I said, evasively.

  “Oh.” She breathed out a relieved sigh. “You know who I am, but I’m at a loss here.”

  “Kaden Carmichael. I’m a pre-med senior. I also play a few sports, but I’m not planning on going pro with any of them.” I leaned in close again, one hand on either side of her waist to steady myself. “But the only thing you need to know about me that matters is that I’m yours.”

  Another smile teased at her lips. “You do that often, Doc?”

  “What?”

  “Go around saving women and then declaring you belong to them?”

  Lowering my head, I brushed my nose lightly over hers. I ached to kiss her, but this wasn’t the time. Our first kiss was going to be special. Not when she could barely open her eyes and was in pain. “Only with you, Mieke.”

  She gasped at my vow, then groaned in pain. “My head is killing me.”

  I got to my feet and scooped her up again. She squealed, but her arms wrapped around my neck like she’d been doing it forever. “Any medical conditions I need to know about so I can tell the doctors at the ER?”

  “Oh…” She broke off, hesitating. “I had a heart transplant when I was a baby.”

  My arms contracted around her. “Fuck, sweetheart.” I could have lost her that freaking soon? It was a miracle I’d found her.

  “Kaden?” she murmured when I just stood holding her, soaking up the fact that she was really there with me.

  “Yeah, sorry.” Pressing a kiss to her temple, I opened the door and made sure I activated the lock before carrying her out to my car. People tried to grab my attention along the way, but I ignored them all. I spotted Josh with a bag of ice to his face over in the corner of the living room. He shot me a glare, and I flipped him off as I passed him.

  My car was in the detached garage in the back. I had to punch in my code to open the door. There was a whole row of expensive cars lined up, but mine was at the end. Josh drove the Lamborghini, but I preferred my Aston Martin One-77. It was a present from my parents when I left for college.

  Opening the passenger door, I set her down gently before fastening her seat belt. When I started to pull away, she lifted her hands. Fingers twisting in my shirt, she tugged me close again. “Promise you won’t leave me tonight.”

  I brushed my nose against hers again. “I swear, I’m not leaving you. Ever.”

  “L-Let’s just start with tonight, okay?” she whispered hesitantly.

  “Whatever you want, baby.”

  ✽✽✽

  Two hours later, we were on our way back to my apartment. Mieke was feeling better after the meds she’d been given, and they released her into my care once I assured the doctors I would watch over her all night. Her dorm wouldn’t be comfortable enough, and there was no fucking way I was taking her back to the party.

  Now that she was able to open her eyes a little better and focus more, she’d been doing nothing but watching me. A few times, I’d heard her whisper something to herself, but I never caught what she was saying. When I asked her once what she’d said, she’d clammed up on me, her face turning a pretty shade of pink.

  As I pulled my car into the garage across from my apartment building, Mieke finally looked away from me to glance around at her surroundings. “This isn’t my dorm,” she mused.

  “No. It’s my apartment.” I parked in my spot and turned to face her. “Figured your dorm room bed wouldn’t be big enough for the two of us. I’ve got a king-size, a fully stocked fridge, and anything else you might need within arm’s reach right here.”

  “Well, you did promise the doctor you would wake me up every two hours.” She gave me a small smirk. “Wouldn’t want to get you in trouble with him. He might be your boss one day, Doc.”

  Fuck, but I loved when she called me that. It was a mix of sassy and sexy that twisted me up inside and made me want to kiss her breathless. She was so beautiful with her long dark hair, those amazing green eyes with patches of gold in them. There was a sprinkle of light freckles across her nose that I happily could have sat and counted a million times over and over again. But when she smiled at me, I lost all ability to think straight.

  Taking her hand in one of mine, I picked up my phone and opened my security app. A few clicks and I placed her thumb over the home button, letting it read her prints before moving on to her other fingers.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, sounding amused.

  “Giving you full access to my apartment. Your fingerprints will activate the elevator, unlock my floor, and let you into my place. Anything that is mine is now yours.”

  She tensed but didn’t pull away as I finished up with her pinkie. “Why would you do that?”

  I lifted my brows at her. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “That’s not an answer. You barely know me. Why would you give me full access to your home?”

  “Our home,” I corrected her. Her face scrunched up like she was about to argue. I didn’t want to hear it, so I got out and walked around to her side of the car. Opening the passenger door, I held out my hand to help her out.

  Mieke just sat there for a long moment, frowning up at me. “Your home,” she muttered to me as she finally placed her hand in mine and stepped out.

  Ours, I amended silently.

  A covered bridge connected the parking garage to the apartment building. We had to take an elevator to the fifth floor, then walk across before taking another elevator up to my apartment. I owned the entire twenty-second floor, another gift from my parents. They were big gift-givers, but I would have been just as happy with something smaller if I could have had a little more of their time growing up.

  Dad was too preoccupied with all his gadgets, and Mom was always too busy either helping him promote and sell them to the highest bidder, or spending the billions Dad made off them. Most of the time, they forgot I even existed, leaving me in the care of a nanny until I was old enough to fend for myself. At fourteen, I started staying on my own, with no one but the housekeeper living in the same house. When I moved away for college, she retired.

  Now it was a service that came in every day to clean up after me, and I’d learned to cook the basics so I didn’t have to survive on takeout all the time.

  The journey from the car to my apartment left Mieke wide-eyed and slightly gape-mouthed. Stepping off the elevator, I took her hand and pressed her fingertips to the control panel outside the double doors that would open up into my living room. The security scanner read her fingerprints, announced her as Miss Mieke Cassidy, and then there was the sound of the locks disengaging before both doors opened inward.

  “Who the hell are you?” she demanded as she just stood there, staring at me in wonder.

  “Yours, baby.”

  Chapter 3

  Mieke

  My sexy stalker was actually going to be a sexy-as-fuck doctor. I could picture him in tight scrubs over his wid
e shoulders and delicious ass, the material stretching over his muscular thighs. He would have a stethoscope tossed around his neck, his dark-blue eyes warm with compassion for his patients. His dark hair would be in disarray and his facial hair scruffy from working a double in the emergency room.

  Every woman within two hundred miles would suddenly have an emergency illness that required Dr. Kaden Carmichael to listen to their hearts beating wildly for him. Or worse—have him touch them.

  My fingers balled into fists just thinking of my Doc touching anyone else but me.

  Which was crazy. I’d just met this guy, yet there I was, standing in front of his open apartment doors, heart racing as he said, “Yours, baby,” after I demanded to know who the hell he really was.

  That should freak me out, but it only calmed the jealousy driving me crazy just thinking of him touching all those horny-ass bitches begging for his attention.

  But his answer didn’t really give me a clue as to who he really was. Sure, he’d told me about himself tonight. Pre-med seniors didn’t typically make enough money to be able to afford the kind of apartment and car this guy had. And all these security gadgets? There were maybe three companies in the world that made them, but none of them had anyone named Carmichael working for them.

  I would know. I’d been doing my research for years, trying to decide where I wanted to work when I eventually graduated. Of course, I wanted to do something with computers; they were my happy place. Writing code relaxed me. Hacking was my hobby. And I was already itching to hack in to Kaden’s security files, see what kind of code was in place to protect all his worldly possessions.

  If I’d had my computer, I would know everything there was to know about the guy who was quickly turning my world upside down. In a good way…mostly.

  I liked how possessive he already was. How he kept referring to himself as mine, and that he’d even called his home “ours.” But at the same time, it was freaking me out. I wanted him to be mine, and I wanted his home to be ours, but it scared the living hell out of me.