Wanting Shaw (Rockers' Legacy Book 5)

I was just putting my key in the front door when it swung inward. Mom stood on the other side with a cup of coffee in one hand and a smile that never failed to warm me from the inside out on her beautiful face. “Hey, baby boy.” She stepped back to let me in, but not before those big green eyes of hers narrowed on my face. “Did you sleep at all this weekend, or were you up playing games the entire time?”

“I got a little sleep.” Not a lie. I’d fallen asleep Saturday morning and texted her when I woke up that afternoon. But I knew she was seeing more than I wanted her to, so I kissed her cheek and turned for the stairs. “I need a shower and a nap.”

“Okay, but if you wake up and Dad or I aren’t home, we will be at Mia’s,” she called after me.

Not surprising. Mia and her husband had moved back to California after the spring semester and bought a house in Beverly Hills. Ma had been disappointed when my sister didn’t move closer, but Mia wanted to be near her new dance school she was just starting up. There was already a popular school in Malibu that she didn’t want to compete with, but the ones in Beverly Hills weren’t nearly as lucky to escape my sister’s new business. Her school had only opened a few weeks before, but she was already having to turn people away because every one of her classes was full.

With Mia closer now, my parents were always dropping by her place for visits, especially with my niece in residence. Dad couldn’t go more than a few days without seeing Emerson before he started getting grouchy, and Ma wasn’t much better when it came to her only grandchild. That little princess was so spoiled, and she didn’t even realize it yet.

“Give Little Em a kiss for me,” I told her as I climbed the stairs.

“Mia misses you,” Ma said behind me, and I paused.

“I miss her too.” Glancing at her, I gave a tired smile. “Tell her I’ll stop by later in the week and we can have dinner.”

My mom’s smile was so bright it eased some of the tightness weighing me down. “Get some sleep, baby boy. Love you.”

“Love you, Ma.”

I took a long shower before falling face first on my bed and pulling my pillow over my head. But still, sleep eluded me. Thoughts of kissing—touching—Shaw the way I’d always dreamed of were hard to turn off.

It was wrong. So fucking wrong. She was only sixteen. And while she would be seventeen in December, I was still eighteen. In California, the laws were pretty strict. Underage meant underage, no exceptions. Luca and Violet had an almost three-year age gap between them, and if there was even one loophole, I was sure Luca would have found it so he could be with Violet. Instead, he’d put distance between them by going to college thousands of miles away.

He could say it was because he wanted to play football for one of the best teams in the country, so he had a better shot of a good draft pick when he went into the NFL. But I knew it was more to do with how hard it was to keep his hands to himself. By going to Alabama, he was more likely to keep the promise he’d made to not only Violet’s dad but his own not to touch Vi until she was eighteen.

The thing was, I wasn’t sure I cared if touching Shaw the way I wanted to could get me locked up—or murdered by her father. What little I’d done the night before…I was sure getting to do that again and again would be worth jail time—and a body bag.

It was the possibility of losing Cannon that made me sweat.

What if it didn’t work out with Shaw? There would be other girls in my future, but I didn’t know if I would ever find another person who could take Cannon’s place.

Groaning, I rolled onto my stomach just as my phone went off. I reached out for it blindly. When my hand came into contact with it, I pushed the pillow off one side of my head and squinted at the screen.

Shaw.

Something in my chest squeezed painfully as her beautiful face smiled down at me. I’d taken that picture only a few months before while we’d been at her house for a family cookout. She’d been sitting with Violet on a blanket spread on the sand. She had an apple in one hand, and I’d snapped the picture with it halfway to her mouth. Those baby-blue eyes had locked on to mine, and she’d winked at me before sinking her teeth into the apple’s flesh.

Swallowing hard, I sent her to voice mail and then powered off my phone. Tossing it onto my bedside table, I told myself that I needed to forget about my best friend’s little sister. She was too young. Just because I loved her didn’t mean anything. I’d probably fall for a dozen other girls just like her in the future.

Shaw was replaceable.

So why did the thought of kissing any other chick turn my stomach?

Chapter 5

Jagger

“You look like shit.”

I rolled my eyes as I lifted my bottle of water to my lips and took a big swallow. Leave it to my sister not to sugarcoat anything.

It was Thursday, and I’d finally found the time to drive into Beverly Hills to Mia’s house for dinner. I’d been busy with school and working on new songs for Cannon’s and my new album that we would hopefully be recording in the next few months. Between that and not getting much sleep all week, I was running on fumes.

“What’s wrong with you, little bro?” Mia demanded as she sat back in her chair and looked me over with a critical eye. “You look…haunted?” She shook her head, causing her auburn hair to fall over one shoulder.

My sister having her hair down was a rare thing. Ninety-nine percent of the time, she had it up in what I’d always called “the ballerina knot.” From the time she’d started her first dance class when I was still a baby, that was how she would always keep her hair, so it was weird to me to see it styled any other way. I forgot how long and thick it was. It

only made her look that much more like our mom, and I couldn’t help wondering if Emerson would be yet another replica of her.