Resurrection

by Karina Bliss

  “Moss.” She had the dazed look of arousal and her breathing had shallowed.

  He could hear his heartbeat, it was so loud.

  “My turn,” he rasped. Her shorts had an elastic waist, making it easy to slide his hands inside to skim over the silken roundness of her ass and down the length of her smooth thighs as he removed them.

  With the hand that wasn’t stroking his cock, she drew his head down and took his mouth and there was nothing but urgency between them now, and ferocious hunger. She tasted so good, felt so good in his arms. He ravaged her mouth, rained kisses on her face and throat, wresting her fingers from his cock before he exploded like a teenager. There was too much he needed to do to her first. Do for her.

  She made a murmur of protest and he laughed against her lips, aching with tenderness and joy, unable to believe this was really happening. He had this woman in his bed. Walking her backward he toppled them onto it, removing his hands from her hips only to shove his jeans down and kick them off.

  He wanted everything, but first this—the kissing. Who have thought kissing could be so addictive? Tangling his hands in her hair, he surrendered to the taste of Lily, naked against her naked, holding no emotion back.

  Her passionate response suggested she wanted him as desperately as he wanted her. Her fingers dug into his spine, then the upper cheeks of his ass.

  She opened her legs around his hips, his cock nudged her damp core, and he broke their kiss with a groan. “Condoms.”

  “Yes.” She pushed him away. “Hurry.”

  But he had no intention of hurrying this. Rolling over, he removed one from his bureau drawer and slid the foil packet under the pillow.

  “It won’t do much good there,” she pointed out. Her lips were red from their kisses, and there might even have been a pout. He propped himself up on one elbow and looked at her, top to toe.

  “Moss.” There was a laugh in her voice, and uncertainty too.

  “I’m trying to decide where to start worshiping first.”

  She relaxed on the pillows, her hair disheveled, honey highlights on a brown so soft it called to his hands. “Really?”

  “Really.” He slid his fingers through the length of it, reveling in its texture. “The calves, I think.”

  “Oh, the calves. Hmm.”

  He loved this, loved her laughter. “I hear it’s a highly erogenous zone.” Moving down the bed, he cupped her calf and kissed her shin. She giggled.

  “No? How about here? He kissed her inner knee.

  “Still tickles.”

  “Yeah?” Gently, he eased her legs apart, catching her hand as she instinctively went to cover her mound.

  “Let me,” he said huskily, and after a brief hesitation, her fingers relaxed in his.

  “Don’t worry,” he loosed his hold. “No guinea pigs.”

  She laughed again, in delighted disbelief. He liked making her laugh.

  “This is my sexual fantasy.” He kissed his way up her thighs. Leisurely, wanting her anticipation to build, wanting her wet. And she was deliciously ready when he touched his mouth, his tongue, to her cleft, her clitoris a swollen nub. She arched when he circled it, and he held her hips down and pleasured her, using her jerks and gasps as a guide to what she liked. Worshiped until she broke under his caresses and shuddered into an orgasm. Only then did he kiss his way up her belly, then the underside of her breasts, and take her nipples into his mouth.

  “Moss.” Her hands were in his hair, stroking his back, clutching his biceps.

  “Lily.” His tongue teased a nipple.

  “Let me…”

  “Next time. This one’s all for you.”

  When he returned to her mouth, she was boneless and heavy on the bed. “Wow,” she whispered.

  “There’s more.”

  Taking the condom from under the pillow, he sheathed himself, watching the heat return to her expression as she watched him.

  He positioned himself between her legs, looked into her blue eyes, and smiled.

  “You kill me with that smile.” Her voice was ragged.

  And you just kill me. “Good,” he said, and slid home. He was glad he’d made sure she was satisfied, because this was the first time he’d ever had sex where emotion colored sensation, and the experience overwhelmed him. Swept him away. And through it, she matched him, rocked him, cried out her pleasure with him.

  And afterward, when his heart stopped pounding in his chest and they lay together, silent in a kind of wonder, she traced sleepy spirals down his arm. Moss didn’t dare move for fear of breaking the spell. Or she might leave before he’d savored the joy of holding her in his arms, this unfamiliar peace.

  Hoping like hell she felt the same way.

  * * *

  Lily woke to the familiar snuffle of a waking Grace on the baby monitor. Automatically, she started climbing out of bed, groping for her glasses on the bedside table, not finding them.

  A masculine arm reached over her naked shoulder and switched on a lamp.

  “Go back to sleep,” Moss said. “I’ll go.”

  Awareness returned in a rush of self-consciousness. Grabbing the sheet to her breasts, she subsided into the mattress. His mattress. Remembered how easy it was to be fearless when lust and longing emboldened your decisions. Remembered that it was the aftermath that really tested your nerve.

  Moss didn’t notice, already rolling out of the other side and scrambling for his discarded jeans, giving her a glimpse of a solid back, long legs, and muscled ass before he yanked them up, not bothering with boxers.

  With Grace’s first demanding cry reverberating through the monitor, he shrugged on his shirt next, buttoning it as he crossed to the door. A minute later she heard him in the nursery.

  “Hey Gracie, you slept three hours, you must be hungry. Let’s get you a bottle. But turn the volume down, we don’t want to disturb Lily.” His voice faded as he left the nursery and Lily huddled under the sheet and thought very hard about what she should do now.

  All her body wanted to do was luxuriate in the sensation of being thoroughly and gloriously used, but her brain was having a panic attack over what came next.

  She’d come to Moss’s bed with no expectations, but his endearments, his tenderness, had left her off-balance in a way she was finding hard to quantify. She hunted for the right word to describe the feeling…hopeful. Oh no…no, no, no! A future wasn’t what tonight was about. No way was she setting herself up for a fall with another rock star.

  She still had no regrets, but did he? “We don’t want to disturb Lily,” took on a more ominous meaning. She’d initiated this, seduced him really. He’d started reluctantly… Oh my God, did I make it too awkward for him to refuse? Even as she dismissed the idea as ridiculous, paranoid, crazy—Moss never got bullied into anything—she was scrambling out of bed and peering around for her clothes.

  With his scent still on her, her body loose and relaxed from their lovemaking, she couldn’t bear to see his gaze shy away or hear studied casualness in his voice while he tried to work out how to let her down gently. Hell, no. Not before she’d found her game face. Not before she could show him first this meant nothing.

  Gathering her pajamas and robe from the floor, she dressed quickly, opened the door, and peered along the dark hallway. She needed her damn glasses. Reasonably confident it was empty, she scooted toward safety. Turning the corner, she nearly collided with Moss, who was coming the other way cradling Grace and a bottle.

  He grinned at her, playful and sexy, a man well-satisfied. “Are you coming to check on me?”

  “No. I was…ah…” she tightened her robe, “heading for my room.”

  “Why?” he said baldly.

  She managed a shrug. “You said you don’t do sleepovers.”

  “With hookups. You’re not a hookup.” Oddly, he was looking aggrieved. It didn’t help.

  “Look, I had a great time.” She was so nervous she only just stopped herself from saying, ‘Thank you for having me.’ �
�But I think we both need our space.”

  Moss adjusted the angle of the bottle. When he looked up again his expression was resigned. “Of course. I don’t want to push you into more…a relationship…if you’re not interested.”

  Okay, this script wasn’t playing the way she’d expected.

  “It’s not that.” She hesitated.

  “Just say it. I came on too strong.”

  “No! You were amazing. The sex was so good it was scary…” She recalled her new ‘honesty, no matter what’ policy with men. “Too good, too scary,” she admitted. “I don’t want to get hurt.”

  He gave her a long, level look. “I can’t promise that.”

  And back to embarrassed. “Of course not.” She eyed the narrow gap either side of him, choosing where to squeeze past. “No further explanation needed.”

  “Let me finish. I’m not domesticated, or polite, and I have zero experience with relationships, but I have feelings for you, strong ones. Lily…” He waited until she met his eyes. “I’m willing to make all kinds of a fool of myself over you.”

  Her heart skipped a beat and then galloped. Maybe that was why she couldn’t speak.

  “The only right I reserve for myself is deciding what’s best for Grace; other than that I’ll follow your lead. Is that enough for you to give us a shot?”

  He was saying everything she wanted to hear and oddly, she was more terrified. This was such new territory. “I don’t want either of us making any promises, but…” Consciously relaxing her shoulders, she finally allowed herself to go closer and stroke Grace’s head in greeting. “Yes.” Unable to look at him, she added, “I do want to see where this goes.”

  Leaning over the baby in his arms, Moss kissed her. “Right now, I’m hoping it’s back to my bed.”

  * * *

  The first thing Moss noticed come morning was that he was wrapped around a woman. And not any woman. Lily. His body was curved around her spine, his arm wedged under her waist, and his nose buried in her hair. Lifting his head, he checked for the light on the baby monitor. On. Then the bedside clock. Nine.

  He lowered his head on the pillow. After a wakeful night—for everybody—Grace was asleep and he was exactly where he wanted to be.

  Closing his eyes, he opened his senses, the better to imprint this moment on his memory. He’d done this as a kid when things occasionally went right. Lily’s ribcage rose and fell against his chest and he matched his breathing to hers, cataloging where their bodies touched—her shoulder blades to his chest, her ass to his thighs, her waist to his arm, which was rapidly losing feeling.

  Mingled with the familiar smells of his room was the fragrance of her, floral and feminine, and the sweaty, salty tang of great sex. In the night he’d opened a window and now he could hear the gurgle of the pool pump. Opening his eyes, he smiled at the sun peeping in with every slight waft of the filmy curtains.

  Lily twitched in her sleep and he kissed the smooth curve of her shoulder through her hair. Her skin under his lips was warmed satin, her hair as soft as Grace’s.

  She stirred in his arms and stretched. “I thought you weren’t a morning person?” There was a smile in her voice and a husky intimacy as she pushed against his hard-on.

  “Some of me is a morning person.” He nudged back and she laughed softly. He loved making her laugh.

  “Grace?” she murmured.

  He also loved how she cared for his daughter. “Asleep.”

  As he spoke he freed his arm and swept her hair aside so he could nuzzle her neck. Always hungry for this woman. She stretched languorously to give him better access everywhere, teasing, delicious, and so fucking hot. “Tell me your fantasy,” he whispered in her ear, and watched color tint her cheeks. For a woman who’d lived in the rock world she was surprisingly reticent about expressing her desires. Maybe she’d never been asked.

  “We were in the pool.” She started to tell him and he could see her in the telling, hair sleek, breasts tantalizing as they broke the surface.

  “And what happened when I got to you?”

  “Well…” The blush deepened and she turned to look at him, then yelped and hiked the sheet up to her neck. Twisting to look over his shoulder, Moss saw Maddie standing in the open doorway and Jared making a grab for the hem of his daughter’s T-shirt. “Sorry,” he called cheerfully, “I tried to stop her waking you up, but she—” Glimpsing Lily, his jaw fell open.

  “Why aren’t you in your bed, Lily?” Maddie asked curiously. “Did you have a nightmare?”

  Moss glanced at Lily. She’s definitely having one now.

  Jared recovered from his shock. “Maddie-girl, let’s give them a chance to wake up.” Steering her away from the door, he closed it firmly.

  Moss shrugged. “They were going to find out sooner or later.”

  “Yes, but finding us in bed is downright emb—”

  The door flew open. With a moan, Lily pulled the sheet over her head.

  Dimity stood on the threshold. Her gaze nailed his. “You son of a bitch, you promised.”

  “I promised not to hit on her,” he said calmly. “That’s not what this is.”

  Lily’s head popped up from under the sheet. “You promised what?”

  Uh-oh. “It’s not what you think.”

  She tumbled out of the bed, yanking the top sheet with her.

  “Lily?”

  Gathering her pajamas from the floor, she disappeared into his bathroom, slamming the door behind her. Hard.

  “Goddammit, Dimity, look what you’ve done.”

  “Look what I’ve done?”

  He didn’t have time for this. Uncaring that he was butt-naked, he stormed across the room. “Only Lily gets to say if we’re doing this. She’s the one I listen to; how she feels is all that matters. And if she chooses to have a relationship with me, then I’m down with that a hundred percent. Deal with it.” Shutting the door on his irate manager, he locked it and crossed to the bathroom.

  “Hear me out,” he said through the keyhole.

  She didn’t open the door. “Do not make choices for me. Ever. What is she talking about?”

  He told her, his forehead resting against the doorjamb. Silence. This could be the shortest-lived relationship in history. “Lily?”

  “I’m thinking.”

  Grace started crying over the baby monitor. Frustrated, he hauled on jeans and went to get his daughter.

  Seth was picking her up when he arrived, his arms gentle and his blue eyes hard. “Isn’t your life complicated enough? Isn’t hers?”

  “Yes, and I fought it. I did. But—”

  “Hear me out. She’s there for you, she’s beautiful, and she’s kind. Could you be confusing gratitude for something more?”

  “If you’re telling me I don’t deserve this woman I’ll agree with you,” he said impatiently. “But don’t tell me this is some kind of needy infatuation that will pass. I was in love with her long before Grace came on the scene.” He held out his arms for his daughter. “I’ve probably been in love with her since we first met. I have no intention of breaking her heart. If anything, she’ll break mine.”

  He caught sight of the baby monitor and his heart sank. “Fuck.” Returning Grace to Seth, he went back to his room, checking Lily’s en route. She wasn’t there. She wasn’t in his room either and the bathroom was empty. He found her sitting by the pool in her pajamas, arms folded, legs stretched out in front of her and a pair of his sunglasses hiding her expression.

  Pulling up another chair, he joined her. “Guess you heard that.”

  “So much for letting me set the pace.” Her tone was light but there was a tightness to her smile.

  “Especially when we’re supposed to be taking this slowly,” he offered cautiously.

  “No, I needed to know.” She flashed him that tight smile again. “You must really have had a crush on Stormy to transfer your feelings to Lily.”

  And he got it. She thought he was like every asshole who’d coveted Stormy
as a blonde, blue-eyed baby doll, a fantasy fuck that was all about them. He tamped down a flicker of anger. She knew full well that he didn’t accept people at face value. “You’re the same woman you’ve always been, even if you won’t see it.”

  “Well, I’m certainly making the same dumb mistakes when it comes to men,” she drawled. “I do hope Stormy and I didn’t disappoint last night.”

  He should make allowances, be patient. She’d been through a hard time. “If you want out, say it,” he snarled. “But don’t twist what I said into something sordid or suggest last night was me being cuntstruck for Stormy Hagen. Don’t you fucking dare!” Even as the words escaped, he knew he’d blown it.

  As he stood to go, she flung her arms around him and suddenly they were holding each other tightly, almost desperately. “I’m sorry,” she said hoarsely. “I can’t promise not to hurt you either. My Stormy days still stir me a little crazy…a lot crazy. You’re not the only one who’s going to have to make allowances.”

  “Good.” Relieved beyond measure, he took off her sunglasses which had been knocked askew. “I’d hate the dysfunction to be all on my side.”

  She huffed a laugh against his chest and looked up. Her eyes were very blue, very brave. “I guess I’m willing to make all kinds of a fool of myself over you, too.”

  His heart swelled in his chest but he didn’t let her see how much her admission meant to him. She’d been spooked enough today. “So we’ll be fools together.” Her feelings for him were new and her history made her cautious. She wasn’t ready to risk her whole heart yet and her next words confirmed it.

  “Seth made a good point though—our lives are complicated. There’s still a world out there ready to devour us.”

  “So let’s stay in this one as long as we can. Right now I only care about finding Grace the right family, being with you, and building the band. Everything else is bullshit.” He hesitated. “I think Seth, Jared, and Kayla will come around, but slamming the door on your best friend and my manager probably wasn’t my best move.” Dimity wouldn’t give him the benefit of the doubt, not when—in her mind—he threatened one of her own. He couldn’t fault her for that; in her situation he’d do exactly the same.