Rock God (Hearts of Metal Book 3) Read Online Free PDF

them now, it would only get worse as time went by.

Chapter Three
    Dante shook his head, but a reluctant smile tugged at his lips. The woman argued with him. Shayna’s outspokenness was refreshing in a way. No one had protested anything he’d said or done in years. With his celebrity status and undisputed position as one of the most influential musicians in the heavy metal world, all but his closest friends seemed to tiptoe around him for fear of causing offense.
    He placed one of his T-shirts and a pair of sweats outside the bathroom door, but then he frowned. She didn’t have any clean underwear. Hell, she didn’t have anything clean. It seemed he’d have to do laundry before his housekeeper came in tomorrow.
    He headed back downstairs and put a frozen pizza in the oven since no one would deliver at three in the morning. Then he settled on the couch and went through Shayna’s backpack. The moment he got a closer look at the clothes, he knew it wouldn’t be that easy. Everything was torn and stained. Shayna needed a new wardrobe.
    Humming, he grabbed a pad of paper and a pen and went back to examining her clothes, jotting down the sizes on the tags, fully immersed in his new project. When that was finished, he threw the ripped up clothes in the garbage—but not the little blue blanket, which he put in the wash on the delicate cycle. That scrap of fabric seemed important. Dante then began writing down other stuff a woman like Shayna would need.
    He’d just gotten past the basic toiletries and into the more complex stuff —would she want nail polish?—when he heard a noise in the kitchen. Dante set down the notepad and went to investigate, and he found Shayna kneeling on the floor, rummaging in the cupboard under the sink.
    She had a very nice ass, he realized, and his cock stirred with agreement. Then guilt suffused him. It had been a long time since he’d been with a woman, and the last time was a disaster. This situation wouldn’t be any better. Making a move on a woman in a weakened state was simply not honorable, not to mention that he didn’t want the complication of a relationship ever again. Dante willed his body to calm. Shayna was a project, nothing more.
    The sight of her task chased away his lust, replacing desire with irritation that she was disregarding her feet again. She had to be in pain.
    “What the hell are you doing?” he demanded.
    Shayna bolted upright, bumping her head on the cupboard. A can of Comet tumbled from one hand and rolled across the floor. She held a sponge in a death grip, and her eyes were terrified.
    Dante took one look and bit back a curse. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” he grumbled awkwardly. Maybe he wasn’t as good at being a caretaker as he’d thought.
    “It’s okay.” She picked up the cleanser and scrambled awkwardly to her feet. Her face contorted with pain. “I’m just going to clean out the tub.”
    Dante blinked. This woman had been attacked, passed out in his arms, and then spent hours in the hospital. She hadn’t even eaten, yet somehow she’d mustered the energy to hobble down to his kitchen for cleaning supplies? Was she crazy? Shaking his head, he strode forward and took the Comet away before she could protest.
    She held tight to the sponge.
    “No,” he said, “you won’t be cleaning anything. You’re going to eat and rest.”
    “But I don’t want you to see the mess I made!” she protested.
    His frown deepened. What kind of a life had she led to make her worry about something so trivial and impractical? He struggled to sound patient when he said, “I won’t see anything. The housekeeper will take care of it tomorrow.”
    At that, she seemed even more horrified, but the oven timer beeped just in time to halt the argument. He held out his hand.
    “That’s dinner. Come on now.”
    Reluctantly, she handed over the sponge. Dante frowned and set it on the counter with the Comet. If Shayna was a clean-freak, she’d drive him