Down & Dirty

  Down & Dirty

  By Rhenna Morgan

  The Men of Haven: fierce passion, unyielding loyalty.

  Especially when it comes to their women.

  A powerful man

  Axel McKee abandoned his musical career years ago in favor of becoming a power player on the music scene. His dreams of the spotlight are over—and he’s better off for it. Working with his Haven brothers and building their empire is enough for him.

  One who commanded attention with nothing more than a look

  And then came Lizzy. A dynamic, beautiful powerhouse of a performer unlike any he’s seen or heard before. Her presence leaps off stage and into the heart of anyone who watches her sing. Axel wants her. Wants to help her and collaborate with her... But more than anything, he wants to be with her.

  And every ounce of his attention was locked on her

  Two things are immediately obvious: Lizzy’s been burned before, and earning her trust will be Axel’s biggest challenge yet. If he can get this fierce, stubborn, talented woman to see the passion and care that he’s offering, he might get a chance at a new dream—sharing the spotlight with the woman he loves.

  One-click with confidence. This title is part of the Carina Press Romance Promise: all the romance you’re looking for with an HEA/HFN. It’s a promise!

  This book is approximately 93,000 words

  To Joe Crivelli—my best friend, my champion,

  my partner, my heart. For all the strong, insightful

  and caring heroes I’ve ever imagined or written,

  you surpass them all. Every second of the wait

  to find you was worth it.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from Healer’s Need by Rhenna Morgan

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Rhenna Morgan

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Ringing ears, a raw throat and throbbing feet. Every pleasure had its price. A consequence to be paid after the indulgence was over. But for Lizzy, that cost was not only worth it, but necessary. Especially since the bulk of paying her bills came from abandoning herself to the thing she loved most.

  Nothing beat sharing her music with a live crowd. Absolutely nothing. There was a connection behind it. A raw energy fueled by the emotions of those around her that flooded her insides and smothered all the day-to-day minutia. All that was left in its wake was pure bliss. An indescribable aliveness akin to fantastic sex—only without the vulnerability and risk of heartbreak.

  Hopped up and fresh off the stage from her last set, she strode into the dingy ten-by-twenty storage room that doubled as the bar’s staging area, her bandmates hard on her heels.

  “Lizzy, baby! That was fucking awesome!” Tony’s praise ricocheted off the once-white walls now stained with too many years of nicotine. At six-two with long-ish dirty blond hair, dreamy blue eyes and a wicked smile, he attracted female music lovers with little more than a crook of his finger. How the guy could pound the massive drum kit he set up for every show and still have this much energy five hours later, she’d never know, but it’d take him a good two more hours to come down.

  She snagged her guitar case off the crude wooden shelf, laid it out along the third-or fourth-hand leather couch and flipped open the lid. “The place might be a dive, but they draw a hell of a crowd.”

  “Ain’t the bar that draws the crowd,” Skeet said, following suit with Lizzy and stowing his Telecaster. His vibe was the polar opposite of Tony’s. More of a biker meets cowboy combination with the Marlboro raspy voice to go with it. He paused just before sliding the black-and-white beauty into its plush-lined case and eyeballed her over one shoulder. “It’s you.”

  “Man, you keep that shit up, she’s gonna clam up on us again.” Ever the pragmatist, Dewayne—or Phat D as a recent reviewer had dubbed him—propped his Rickenbacker bass on the stand he’d left in the corner and dropped into the oversized black chair in the corner with a sigh. “She knows what she’s capable of. When she’s ready to make a move, she’ll make a move.”

  “No shit, Skeet,” Tony said. “Don’t kill our buzz.”

  “Not killin’ our buzz. Just drivin’ home my point.”

  Said point being that it was time to start working their way into some of Dallas’ better gigs. Of course, to get those gigs you had to have connections and public relations wasn’t exactly her strong suit.

  Actually, people in general weren’t her strong suit. “No point to drive home. I’m not sticking to dive bars on purpose. As soon as I can get a foot in the door at the better places, I’ll make a move.”

  “You’ve had three promoters hit you up in as many weeks,” Skeet fired back. “You want a foot in the door, you’re gonna need to actually talk to them.”

  “And I told you—Rex and I can handle it.”

  “Rex is a good guy and a helluva friend, but he ain’t a promoter or a manager. He’s a welder and an artist.”

  “He’s also trustworthy and doesn’t fuck us around.”

  “Skeet.” D wasn’t the most charismatic of the group, but when he pulled that low grumbly voice, people shut up and paid attention. “Give it a rest.”

  “Buzz. Kill,” Tony added.

  Lizzy grinned and dug her phone out of her purse. For all Skeet’s hounding, she knew he meant well and wanted the same things she did. Hell, she wanted it about thirty times worse. While the rest of the guys had trade jobs to help pay their bills, ringing up groceries at the local Aldi didn’t exactly set her inspiration on fire. “It’s gonna take a lot more than Skeet pushing me for better gigs to kill tonight’s buzz.”

  She glanced at her phone and the unread text message plastered on her home screen.

  Rex: Stuck doing overtime. I’ll try to make it, but if I don’t, you’re gonna have to deal with Vic the Dick.

  Now, that was a buzz kill.

  She thumbed through her passcode and flipped directly to her text app.

  Nope. Still the same shitty message.

  “What?” Still gripping his sticks, Tony sidled closer and craned his head for a look at her phone.

  Lizzy killed the screen, turned her back and tossed her phone back in her purse before he had a chance to read it. The only thing worse than Lizzy dealing with Vic the Dick—AKA the bar owner—was sending Skeet, Tony or D to collect their cash. God knew, they’d tried that approach a time or two and still couldn’t manage to book any return gigs as a result. “Nothing. Just gotta take care of some business.” She schooled her expression the best she could and faced them. “I’m going to go settle up with Vic.”

  D snickered, stretched his long legs out in front of him and crossed his boot-shod feet at the ankles. “Guess that explains the look.”

  “What look?” She looked to Tony, then to Skeet. “I don’t have a look.”

  “Yeah, you do,” Tony said. “Kind of like you’ve held a fart in too long and are gonna throat punch the next person who keeps you from getting somewhere private so you can let it out.”

  “You got a shitty poker face, doll.” Skeet fired up a cigarette he wasn’t supposed to have lit in the building and exhaled a healthy amount of smoke on a chuckle. “You startin’ to see why someone with interpersonal skills might come in handy for us?”

  “I’m starting to think the person I’m going to throat punch tonight is you.” She tried to make it come out like the badass she pretended to be on stage, but one corner of her mouth curled up in a smile she couldn’t hold back. Strolling past him, she punched him in the shoulder with an equally lame delivery. “If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, come see if I’m being hauled off in a cop car for attempted murder.”

  All of three steps past the doorway, their laughter was swallowed up by the chaos of the lingering crowd and the requisite end-of-the-night strains of “Sweet Home Alabama.” As bars went, The Crow wasn’t the worst Lizzy had played. The single-story was a free-standing structure and big enough to hold a decent crowd—a necessity when a good chunk of your pay came from a cut of the door. That said, it was also the kind of place where the bouncers didn’t intervene unless more than two sets of fists were involved, and you definitely didn’t want to see the place with the house lights on. The scarred tables and floor stains highlighted by the neon beer signs showed plenty as it was, thank you very much.

  Lizzy sidestepped a three-woman posse that’d circled a lone man left unprotected by his wing man—and almost tripped in her four-inch-heel boots.

  Standing with his feet braced in a casual yet confident stance behind one of the many black pub tables was a man who turned the rest of the room’s predictability on its head. Dressed in tailored tan pants and a crisp white button-down with sleeves rolled up to show corded forearms, he looked like he’d just escaped long negotiations in a board room, and as tall and built as he was in the shoulders, every thread on him was probably custom-made. But where his clothes were the refined flip side to the rest of the room’s occupants, his long auburn hair and beard completely bucked the businessman stereotype, and his sharp features spoke of life experience learned the hardest way possible.

  A powerful man. One who commanded attention with nothing more than a look.

  And every ounce of his attention was locked on her.

  A whole different buzz fired beneath her skin, and her steps slowed, a sexual awareness she hadn’t felt in years fueling the sway in her hips as she worked her way through the people between her and the bar.

  “The crowd’s light tonight.” Vic’s gruff yet petulant voice ripped her attention from the stranger just in time to keep her from slamming into a table directly in her path. It took her a second to tag him behind the bar, half hidden in the shadows of one corner and counting out twenties. “Didn’t help you were late starting up the last set. We lost five big tables waiting on you and your guys to get back to work.”

  Light crowd her ass. Every single table had been full right up through their last song, and the waitresses had been hustling nonstop since Lizzy first fired up her amp. Then again, Vic was a sour fucker of the first order and always acted like the whole damned world was lined up and eager to screw him when, in fact, it was him plotting to screw everyone else.

  She pushed the insanely hot guy out of her mind and closed what was left of the distance to the bar in what she hoped looked like a laid-back stride. “The only thing you lost tonight was about a hundred bucks worth of Fireballs.”

  Vic paused in his counting and eyeballed her with one eyebrow cocked high.

  For a second, Lizzy considered sliding onto a barstool in that ready-for-conversation way Rex always used, then remembered Skeet’s comment about her shitty poker face and ditched the idea. “Oh, come on. You slid any woman who talked to you for more than five minutes tonight a free one.”

  One thing about Vic and his fragile ego—watching him puff up his chest like a disgruntled baboon while he huffed and puffed and grappled for a witty comeback was mighty entertaining. “Keeping women here is good for business. When my band can’t hold a crowd, I do what I’ve got to do.”

  “Man, you can say a lot about tonight, but us holding a crowd isn’t one of ’em. Every table was full until after we walked off stage.”

  Vic grunted and tossed a messy stack of twenties in front of her on the bar. “There’s your base.”

  The too-thin pile of crumpled bills practically mocked her from the black Formica countertop. “The deal’s base plus thirty percent of the door.”

  “Thirty percent of the door for a full house. Full house means the people stay. Not get up and leave before the night’s over. If I have to resort to Fireballs to hang on to what you and your band can’t, the cut’s null and void.”

  See? This was why she didn’t deal with Vic the Dick. Or humans. Rex would’ve known better than to prod his delicate male ego. Hell, the little girl that lived with the single mom in the apartment next to Lizzy’s would have known better. “That’s bullshit, and you know it. We’ve never had a clause like that in our bookings and, even if we did, the crowd stayed.”

  “Now you’re calling me a slime and a liar?”

  Fuck.

  Lizzy forced herself not to fidget and ground her teeth together to bite back a good old-fashioned directive to tell the asshole where he could stick his accusations. In hindsight, maybe Skeet would’ve been a better person to pick up the cash because right now she was thinking a throat punch would be highly enjoyable even if she’d never shown an act of violence her whole life.

  With no clue how to dig herself out of a hole and not end up one more bar short of places to play, she opened her mouth to start on damage control—but froze at the prickling awareness that swept down her spine.

  “At a quarter to one, your man on the door was still tracking headcount coming in and out.” The deep masculine voice tinged with the barest Scottish accent registered all of a second before the ruggedly GQ man she’d ogled on her trek across the room moved in beside her. He clinked his empty tumbler onto the countertop. While he aimed an affable smile at Vic and his posture was outwardly relaxed, there was a heightened edge to his presence. A lethal dare barely masked by his easygoing facade. When he spoke again, his tone was just as poised and calm as before, but there was no mistaking the warning behind his words. “No reason to track counts unless you’re worried about being over occupancy, now is there?”

  “Who the fuck are you?” Typical Vicente. Clueless and classless.

  Though, considering the mystery guy had all but waltzed up and firmly inserted himself in the middle of her business without so much as a hi-how-are-ya, she couldn’t say she hadn’t thought the same thing.

  Before she could say as much, the stranger slid his tumbler a little closer to Vic, pulled out a wad of cash from one pocket and flipped it open. He thumbed through the bills and peeled off a few hundreds. “I’m the man keeping you honest to the deal you booked. A standard base of $500 plus thirty percent of the door.”

  This time it was Lizzy who almost interjected with a whole lot of What the hell?, but before she could draw a big enough breath to voice the question, her mysterious and seriously badass helper turned his head and gave her a look that made the question fizzle on her tongue.

  Not a bad look, exactly. Yeah, it had a mother lode of a command behind it, but it was also comforting, too. An unspoken promise of protection and reward in exchange for the trust given.

  And damned if the apprehensive knot that’d kept a stranglehold on her insides didn’t loosen enough to let her draw a liberating breath for the first time since she’d read Rex’s text.

  The stranger’s mouth softened, hinting at the promise of a smile. A subtle acknowledgment of her response and an approval all rolled up into one. And wow—didn’t that just make her want to strut and preen even bigger than when she was on stage?

  It was whacked. Absolutely, insanely whacked. Which kinda made her want to tell him where to get off on principle alone.

  But before she could, he refocused on Vic and tossed his cash down on the table. “That’s to settle up my tab.” He nodded to the waitress quickstepping it after a pair of men who were likely trying to skip on their own tab. “She knows which one it is.” He paused just long enough to cock his head a fraction. “Now, are you gonna do the right thing and settle up with Elizabeth? Or do you want to screw yourself out of booking them again and the crowd they’ve delivered every time they’ve played here?”

  What. The ever-lovin’. Fuck.

  Who was this guy, and how did he know how well they’d performed here? Not to mention, no one called her Elizabeth. Not even her parents, and they’d been the one to pick the damned name, which just proved how poorly it fit her. She cleared her throat and straightened as tall as she could, well past ready to reestablish who was in control. At five-foot-eight and rocking four-inch thigh-high boots, most people backed down on height discomfort alone.

  But this guy? He still had two or three more inches on her and only eased a little closer. As if her shift in stance was due to discomfort and he was ready to step between her and Vic. “Pay the lady. No point in dragging this out when you know it’s the right move. You don’t and you’ll not only cut yourself short a solid band, but other bands will find out what you did and think twice about playing here.”

  Vic’s face turned a bright red not even the dim lighting could hide, and he huffed out one of those uncomfortable sounds only a bully backed in a corner could make. He pinned his gaze on Lizzy. “A word of advice. Your new guy’s got the common sense of a thug. You want to keep booking gigs you’ll go back to Rex for a middle man. No one’s gonna want to deal with this dick.” He punched open the register, snagged a stack of pre-counted bills and tossed it next to the first stack she still hadn’t touched. “Eleven hundred. Your cut of the door.” His attention volleyed to the man beside her then back to Lizzy. “You let me know what your plans are for this asshole and I’ll let you know if your spot in July’s still good.”