“It’s ridiculous that we’re even having this conversation. Is she going to divorce him? Or are they going to force her out?”
Divorce. Even the word made Raji nauseated. “I’m not sure what’s going to happen. It’s a good thing you dodged the arranged-marriage bullet, huh?”
“Well, if I ever have fertility problems, at least I’ve got a sister to have a baby for me. Aarthi doesn’t have any sisters, does she? I don’t remember.”
Aarthi had been a year ahead of them in high school in New Jersey but had gone to B-school instead of becoming a doctor or a lawyer. “Nope. She has one brother.”
“This is where having one of those big Indian families would be a good thing, lots of sisters to choose from when you’re selecting a uterus to borrow. What is she going to do?”
“They can’t just adopt any old baby, of course. Her family and his are all Brahmins. Brahmins are more concerned about bloodlines than race horse breeders.”
Andy ducked her head, but she was laughing behind her hand. “Tell me about it. I just married a white boy.”
Raji flapped her hand, dismissing Andy’s overly strict family. “Oh, you know that as soon as you have a baby, they’re all going to come running back. Indian babies are the cutest babies ever, and even being half-white couldn’t ruin a baby of yours. Your genes are strong.”
“Oh, my God, Raji. You are so bad. First of all, we are not having kids for a few years. I have to finish my residency.”
“Oh, yes. God forbid that you should deviate any more from the plan your parents laid out for you when you were three years old.”
The Music of Sex
PEYTON glanced inside the spare bedroom at the back of Cadell’s house, making sure the coast was clear.
The bed took up most of the room, lit only by the small lamp glowing on a table over by the window when he’d flicked the light switch. The hot scent of burning dust wafted in the air, which probably meant that this room hadn’t been aired out much since Cadell had started the furnace for the winter.
Quick account: the room was unoccupied, a bed was present, nothing weird, the door had a lock on it.
All good.
He reached behind himself, found Raji’s hand, and yanked.
She squealed as he spun her into the room and shoved her up against the wall.
He slapped the door closed, locked it, and blocked her in with his body.
Raji grabbed him around the neck and jumped.
He caught her. Her legs snapped around his waist. “Nice toast.”
“Thanks.” Her alto voice was breathless.
“You wasted?” he asked because he always checked on that.
She said, “I hereby certify that I am not impaired and consent to sexual intercourse with you. Now fuck me like a rock star.”
Peyton dipped his head, grabbing her lips with his, and kissed her hard. He pressed her lithe body between his chest and the wall. She squirmed against him, driving him fucking crazy. Her soft ass filled his hands, and he ground his jeans against her thin cotton scrubs. She stretched her neck as he mouthed down from her ear, and he nipped her neck, scraping her soft skin with his teeth.
This hard urgency wasn’t Peyton’s preferred way to bed a woman, but when a woman asked him for something, he listened.
Raji wanted him to expend a rock star’s raging energy on her body.
Yeah, he was fine with that.
His piano-strengthened fingers dug into her thighs.
She gasped and pressed her slim, sexy body against him.
Peyton had had an unfair advantage over most men when it came to sex. No matter how much a woman tries to tell a guy what she likes, or if she tries to respond with gasps or wiggling, mere language or signals can’t cross the chasm of experience.
But music can.
At Juilliard, Peyton had dated a music composition major, Calista, for almost a year. After each lovemaking session, she composed a short tone poem about her experience, most of them pretty short at first. He had been nineteen. That sort of thing happens.
Music was their common language that allowed him to experience what she had felt in translation but far more directly than if she had tried to describe it to him with words. She communicated the emotion, the sensations, to him.
Soon, Peyton could play women’s bodies as well as any musical instrument.
Raji moaned, her slim throat vibrating under his lips.
He backed away from the wall and carried her to the bed, dropping her on it. She bounced, laughing.
Peyton yanked her to standing and stripped the clothes off her while he stepped out of his shoes. When she was naked and her eyes were wide with shock at the roughness of his hands, he reached behind her to grab a handful of the bedspread and sheets and tossed them backward off the bed.
Her dark eyes shone in the dim light from the lamp, and the glow drew bright lines on her caramel skin. Tattoos like the one on her hand drew darker lines on her lean sides, stomach, and legs. He recognized the Sanskrit symbol Aum on her ribs that looked to his Western eyes like a 3 and some swooshes. The Eye of Mordor ringed with Elvish script marked her navel. A dark black raven flew on her thigh.
Ah, Raji liked the darker things in life.
Interesting.
He dragged his shirt off over his head, baring his chest, and crowded her backward, staring down at her. It was an imposing, dominating move, he knew, and Raji’s eyes were wide and a little scared. She reached behind herself, almost shrinking away from him, but she licked her lips.
Yes, this was what she wanted.
Just in case, he growled, “Do you want to stop?”
Her head swiveled side to side, no, even though her dark eyes were wide.
“Good.” Peyton shoved her back on the bed with the heel of his hand on her breastbone. “Lie down. Lie your sexy little body down on that bed so I can see your delicious tattoos and every inch of your skin.”
She did, watching him the whole time, her eyes wide and a tremulous smile on her parted lips.
Yeah, she liked being told what to do.
He crawled up her, opening her bare thighs with his knee even though he still wore his jeans. Her flowery perfume filled his nose, and he breathed it in, holding himself if check. He pressed his mouth to hers, sucking at her lush lips. Her mouth opened under his, and he kissed her more deeply, running his tongue over hers.
Her arms were wrapped tightly around his neck, urging him on.
When he let her breathe and she was whimpering against his lips, he grabbed a handful of her short, silky hair and wrenched her head back so he could mouth her throat, dragging his teeth over her skin.
Raji gasped, her body rising under his.
Her fingernails pricked his shoulders.
Peyton wasn’t going to come out of this unscathed, either.
Yeah, well, sacrifices must be made. He grinned.
When Peyton had been with Calista, after months of feedback in the form of symphonic compositions, he had gotten rough one time. The joy in her music afterward encouraged him, and he had escalated the rough sex for weeks until one night, he had brought a friend of his, Jason, back to Calista’s apartment. He’d had Calista undress for them, and then he had lain on the bed and settled her on his dick, fucking her from underneath.
He’d said, “Jason, fuck her ass.”
Jason packed her ass with lube and slid in, rubbing Peyton’s cock through the thin membrane between them.
Tears trembled in Calista’s dark eyes, threatening to fall to her ivory cheeks.
He asked her, “Do you want to stop?”
Calista shook her head violently like he had known she would.
Peyton said, “Jason, grab her tits.”
Hands reached around from behind her while Peyton clutched her hips.
“Stroke,” he said, and Calista’s tits hardened to taut peaks in Jason’s fingers.
Peyton said, “Pinch her.”
The fingers tightened on her nipples,
and her skin turned rosy pink as she moaned.
He moved Calista’s hips, lifting her body and pressing her down like he was fucking her with two cocks and four hands. Inside her, the movement of Jason’s cock against his own felt like he was fucking Calista’s ass, too.
Exquisite.
Afterward, the light theme that represented Calista had floated through the music, so small, so submissive to the dark, bass melody from the lower end of the piano that dominated both her part and the baritone harmony notes. Her orgasm had been a bright sunburst near the end, and then the bass melody overwhelmed all the other music, drowning it.
Her interpretation had turned Peyton on so much that he’d flipped Calista onto the bed and fucked first her mouth, then her pussy with her flat on her back, then her ass from behind while Jason watched.
Calista’s musical compositions had taught him a lot about women, and he had listened carefully to every one of them.
They had lasted for ten months as a couple until Calista’s compositions became two different themes that jarred and ignored each other. It took Peyton a while to get the hint, but he eventually broke things off gracefully. They were still friends.
When Raji was panting and squirming under him, Peyton slid backward off the edge of the bed and held her legs apart to tongue her clit and folds. Her natural scent filled his nose, and her skin was smooth under his tongue with a hint of feminine salty-sweetness.
Everything about this woman was driving him out of his mind, and he had to tamp himself down or he wouldn’t last. His jeans were constricting his stiff dick. He almost stood to take his pants off, but he waited, sucking on her.
Her fingers slipped through his hair, and she massaged his scalp. Within minutes, her hands stilled on his head as she arched under his mouth, nearing a climax.
Not yet.
Peyton stood, and she cried out, reaching for him.
He grabbed her hips and flipped her over on her stomach, buying himself some time so he didn’t lose his mind. More black ink on her back curled in the form of a single snake crawling up her spine and writhing around a staff, an eerie, stylized form of the Rod of Asclepius, the symbol of the Greek God of healing.
Inked bat wings covered her shoulder blades and over her shoulders.
That gorgeous art on her delectable skin made his hands itch, wanting to stroke her, and his dick swelled harder.
Damn, she looked a lot more like a rock star than Peyton did. Xan had been trying to convince Peyton to get some ink, but he hadn’t decided on anything so far.
Peyton snagged a condom out of his pocket, unbuckled his belt, and shoved his jeans down his legs. He slapped on the condom and, with his pants still around his ankles and Raji on her stomach, grabbed her hips and slid her onto his straining cock.
Her slick heat and tightness rocketed through him, and his fingers dug into her flanks as he fought for control. He hadn’t had a woman for months. He hadn’t forgotten what it was like, but damn, she felt so good. Staring at the ink on her back as his cock slid into her made him breathe hard, fighting for control.
Raji was panting, her sides heaving, and she was trying to get her knees on the bed.
He pulled her back so she couldn’t rise up, so that she was bent over the bed. “Do you want me to stop?”
“God, no! Don’t you dare stop! Do me!”
Now that was enthusiastic consent.
For Peyton, if he didn’t get some seriously enthusiastic begging at some point, he felt like he wasn’t trying hard enough.
He started slowly, stroking inside her as she squirmed, long, languid strokes to awaken every part of her.
At first, her back bowed as he pushed into her core that barely yielded to him. Peyton Cabot was a big man, six-three and muscle-bound from hours in the gym working off his frustrations. He was also, ahem, more than proportional. You see things in locker rooms even if you aren’t actively looking around.
As he pushed into and withdrew from Raji, her hands clawed the white sheets under her. He kept up his slow but relentless assault, watching her.
When he saw her relax, her arms lying limply as he fucked her, submitting to him, that was his signal.
Peyton pulled back, kicked his jeans off his ankles, and turned her over again.
Raji flopped over, her eyes glazed with passion, and she raised her arms blindly to reach for him.
Perfect.
He crawled up her body and caught one of her legs in the crook of his elbow.
She whispered, “What are you—”
He buried himself deep inside her, holding her knee over his shoulder to open her to him, and he ground his hips into her.
Raji gasped and arched against him, her arms tightening around his neck. She whimpered as he shoved against her, pushing her harder, until her body seized in a rictus of ecstasy. She cried out, a quiet shriek that went straight to his groin.
He kept going, pushing into her as she bucked under him, her fingernails drawing blood from his shoulders as she strained and cried out in his arms.
Within minutes—her slim body, the mingled scent of her perfume and their sex, her smooth skin slipping under him, and her heat around his cock—he couldn’t hold back any longer. The orgasm overcame him, a dark wave that drowned him in floating bliss, and his balls throbbed into her.
Pillow Talk
AS he floated back, Peyton lowered his head to her shoulder, gently kissing her neck until he found her lips for one last kiss. So sweet.
Raji was breathing hard. Her cheeks flushed pink from rushing blood, and her black eyes still glistened.
Under her breath, she whispered, “Wow.”
“You good?” he whispered to her.
“Oh, hell, yes,” she said. “Now that was getting fucked by a rock star.”
Peyton rolled off of her and got rid of the condom. “Don’t call me a rock star.”
“But you are one, and damn, man. You are a rock star.”
“Rock stars and porn stars. The term ‘star’ is derogatory.”
“Shooting stars and star sapphires,” she laughed.
The white ceiling above him was a smooth, limitless expanse like Limbo must be. “Not the same thing.”
Raji struggled with the sheets and dragged them over her naked body. “It’s amazing that you’re a rock star! At least, I think it’s amazing.”
She sounded like a groupie.
“I hate being a ‘rock star.’” Peyton stared up at the bedroom’s ceiling. “I hate everything about it.”
She chuckled, and her laugh still sounded a little out of breath. “Yeah, it must suck to be you. Fucking a different groupie every night, getting wasted in public and no one cares, traveling and seeing the world.”
Peyton shook his head. “It’s not like that, not at all. There’s a standing Killer Valentine policy about groupies who manage to get backstage. I don’t touch them at all, ever. No one in the band does.”
“Why the hell not?”
Discomfort squirmed in his chest. “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this.”
“Oh, then you have to.” Raji was grinning, and the impish grin looked good on her. Her short hair was tousled like dark fire from being rubbed on the sheets.
But Peyton felt himself flinch. Just the thought of telling her those things freaked him out.
No one in the band told outsiders about this because fans shouldn’t see the sausage-making. Killer Valentine’s “hard-working rocker” public image would be tarnished, if not downright obliterated, if anyone knew about what was plastered to the underside of the touring stage.
He reached over Raji’s leg and pulled some of the sheets over his sticky groin. “Nobody ever thinks about how the groupies get backstage. In the arenas, you can’t just walk from the house to the backstage areas. There’s security and a bunch of roadies. Someone will stop you unless you have a backstage pass.”
She shrugged. “Oh, come on. Groupies always get backstage.”
“Yeah, but t
he roadies aren’t benevolent elves who guide groupies on their quest to fuck a musician. They are the trolls under the bridges. I mean, some of them are great. I hang out with them a lot. But they’re trolls. They’re gatekeepers, and they want to be paid, usually in flesh, to get past them.”
“Oh,” Raji said, her voice much lower.
“Don’t get me wrong. I like the tech guys. A lot of them have had hard lives and rough childhoods. They ended up on the road when they couldn’t handle a regular job or the usual social interactions. Most of them are generous to a fault, even to stupid newbie musicians, but I don’t want Two-Tooth Tommy’s sloppy seconds, either.”
Raji’s expression twisted to be more and more horrified. “I never thought about that.”
“Yeah, well, I do.”
“I’m glad you do. Jeez.”
“Yeah, and you might wonder how I know this.”
Her slim eyebrows rose in horror. “Come to think of it—”
He drew in a breath. “There are pictures, Polaroids, thousands of them, plastered to the underside of the US touring stage, all of them depicting what young women will do with roadies to get backstage to ‘meet a rock star.’”
Raji’s eyes widened, and her dark eyes were already so large and sweet on her face that she looked like a fawn to Peyton.
He said, “Yeah, so there’s no fucking the groupies who wander backstage. As for the rest of it, when I get drunk, I have just as bad of a hangover as the next guy, except that I’m usually in a hot, swaying bus or a crowded airplane getting slapped around by turbulence while I’m hurling. Not to mention that KV has a hard-line anti-substance-abuse policy written into the contracts now.”
Raji breathed, calming down a little. “You don’t think of rock bands as having a substance abuse policy. I mean, I’m drug-tested all the time for work. I was kind of worried that you might be covered with a fine film of cocaine that might light up my next whizz quiz.”
Peyton laughed. “I’ve never done coke. Or heroin, for that matter.”
She flopped back on the bed. “Yeah. Me, neither.”
“You know what happened to Rade Delcore, right?” he asked.
Santa, Baby Page 2
