Roux stopped midpace and whirled to face him. “This must be terrible for you,” she said, moving to stand in front of him. She lifted a hand toward his head, but hesitated. “Is it okay for me to touch you?”
“Why wouldn’t that be okay?”
“One of my sisters was raped, and she couldn’t stand for anyone to touch her for a long time after. If you want me to keep my distance, I understand.”
“I want you touch me,” he said. “I need to know that this hasn’t destroyed what we have.”
“Of course it hasn’t.”
She slipped her fingers into his hair and pressed his face against her belly, curling around him protectively. His arms slipped around her waist, and he hugged her close. Why was he trembling so hard? He couldn’t stop.
“I’m here,” she whispered, stroking his hair. “You don’t have to go through this alone. I will always be here for you. Always.”
Her vow triggered silent tears to steal from beneath his clenched eyelids and slide down his face.
Thirty-Four
Roux held Steve against her belly for a long time. She wasn’t sure how he felt about losing himself to emotion, so when he finally loosened his grip and lifted his face, she smiled and didn’t comment on the wetness he’d left behind on her shirt.
“Do you think I should press charges against her?” he asked, his fingers lacing through hers. He brought her scraped knuckles to his lips and kissed them gently.
“Absolutely.”
“Then I’m sure she’ll retaliate by having you arrested for physical assault.”
Roux shrugged. She didn’t much care if she got in trouble for knocking the snot out of the woman who drugged her man and took pictures of herself violating him while he was unconscious. “I have countless witnesses that will say she started it.”
“Did she start it?”
“I was too mad at the time to remember who threw the first punch, but my sisters said she did.” Then again, her sisters would say anything to protect her. She wasn’t sure their testimony would hold up in court.
“Dare told me you’d been drinking.”
She ducked her chin. “Seemed like a good idea at the time. I was so hurt, so angry.”
“I’m sorry about all of it.”
“You have nothing to be sorry about. The one who will be sorry is Tamara.”
“She didn’t act alone,” Steve said. “She told us that Bianca is the one who actually posted the pictures online.”
Roux supposed crazy ran in the family.
“She’ll probably include them in a story in her tabloid, so be prepared,” he said.
“Why has Bianca made it her life’s mission to hurt you?”
“I have no idea.” He released a breath. “Well, I did spend a lot of time away from home, and back then the band really stuck to the no-women-on-tour rule.”
“That might explain why she cheated on you.” Roux made a face. “No, fuck that. There is no excuse for her screwing around on you. Stop making excuses for her. She doesn’t deserve the slightest bit of consideration from you.”
“But I—”
She pressed her finger to his lips. “I’m not listening to you take any blame for what happened with Bianca or with Tamara, so knock it off. You hear me?”
“Yes, ma’am. You aren’t going to hit me, are you? I heard you have a mean right hook.”
Grinning, she lightly tapped his jaw with her fist, and he threw himself backward onto the sofa as if she had superstrength. He grabbed her wrist to tug her down onto his lap.
“I have an idea,” she said, hugging her arms around his to draw his arms close to her belly.
He used the tip of his nose to brush her hair aside so he could nibble a sensitive spot just beneath her ear.
“I have an idea too,” he murmured, and a shiver of delight raced down her spine.
She was certain his idea was far more X-rated than hers, but she was starting to come up with a few ideas of that caliber as well.
“I’m not sure if you’ll like mine.”
“I’ve liked every idea you’ve ever had,” he said. “I’m sure this will be no different.”
“I want to be open about our relationship,” she said. She turned her head to look at him. “I mean really open. Embarrassingly open.”
“In what way?”
“You know those celebrity couples that post pictures on Instagram showing how nauseatingly perfect their love for each other is?”
He grinned and rolled his eyes.
“I want to do that.”
“Why on earth would you want everyone in our business?”
“For one thing, it will drive your ex-wife insane.”
He laughed.
“And I want the entire world to know you’re mine, that I love you, that I will stand by you through anything.”
“Isn’t it enough that I know that?”
“It’s more than enough,” she said, turning on his lap and straddling his hips. She kissed him lovingly, her heart so full she could scarcely breathe. “But maybe I want to brag a little.”
It wasn’t her true reason for thinking this was a good idea, but his proud smile delighted her.
“I scored a rock star,” she added, kissing him again, allowing her lips to linger on his.
“So did I,” he said against her mouth.
Her? A rock star? Yeah, right. But she couldn’t help teasing him. “And you don’t want everyone on the planet to know what a prize you’ve scored?”
“I do want everyone to know. It’s been hard keeping this secret.”
“So let’s beat them at their own game. You know that tabloid of your ex-wife’s is going to shape our relationship to their liking—especially our secrecy about it. You also know that first impressions are vitally important. If people start with thinking of what we have in a negative light, it will stain our relationship forever.”
“So we have to do this before the potentially shitty article comes out.”
“Potentially shitty? We both know it’s going to happen, and it’s going to be incomparably shitty.”
He nodded slightly. “What about the pictures that Bianca posted of me with Tamara? Everyone thinks I’ve cheated on you already.”
“We’re going to be very open about that too.”
“About me cheating on you?”
“About what she did to you. It wasn’t cheating. Don’t ever think of it that way.”
He shifted her off his lap and stood, pacing to the far corner of the room.
She shouldn’t have pushed him so soon about the part of her plan that would expose the sexual assault. He was still rightfully disturbed about the incident. He might always be distressed over it. But she didn’t want him to blame himself. She wanted Tamara to be forced to take all the blame, and if millions of people knew what a fucked-up cunt she was, Roux was certain Tamara would be the one blamed. What Roux wasn’t certain of was if people would try to make Steve feel weak because it had happened to him.
“I don’t want everyone to know that I fell for her ploy. It’s embarrassing,” he said quietly.
Roux crossed the room and pressed a hand against his back. “More embarrassing than voluntarily fucking that woman? Because that’s what everyone thinks happened.” Everyone but her and a few others who were close to him.
He shuddered beneath her palm. “She doesn’t look bad,” he said. “Outwardly, she’s someone I might have once . . .” He shook his head. “Nope, I can’t even say that. Something about her has always given me the willies.”
“She’s a sexual predator, Steve.”
“I thought she was just hyperaggressive, but you might be right. You are right. I’ve always given her the benefit of the doubt because she’s female.”
“Which is bullshit,” Roux said. “If a man gave a woman that much unwanted attention, he’d have been called out on it a long time ago.”
“I did have a restraining order against her for a while. She was always grabbin
g at me. The order made her keep her distance, so I thought she’d gotten over wanting me, but . . .”
“She has a pathological obsession with you.” Roux could understand that to a degree—Steve was completely obsession-worthy. But Tamara had taken her preoccupation much too far.
“I feel like I should have been able to stop what she did to me. I was stupid.”
“You’re blaming yourself again.”
He licked his lips. “I can’t help it. Not yet anyway. I’m sorry for what you went through today. I know you were incredibly upset if you were drinking.”
“I always wondered if I’d be like my dad if I drank. Alcohol definitely unleashed a violent side of me.” She reached for the bracelet on her arm, but not the bullet that she usually found comforting. She instead fiddled with the diamond and ruby bracelet that Steve had given her, watching it sparkle in the low light of the bedside lamp.
Steve took her hands in his. “You’re not like your father.”
“You sound like Lily.” She smiled. “Waiting for you here alone gave me a lot of time to think, and the truth is, I do share some qualities with him,” she said. “But instead of being frightened by that idea, the knowledge gives me strength to make different choices than he made. I won’t ever drink again. That’s all there is to it.”
“But what if I need you to take down my enemies again, slugger?”
He tried to maintain a serious expression, but she could see the corner of his mouth twitch as he fought a smile.
“I’ll just have to use my wits instead of my fists.” There were three of Steve’s enemies she planned to help take down with a few of her wits: Tamara, Bianca, and Sam Baily.
“That sounds more like the woman I fell in love with.”
She slid her body against his, wrapping her arms around his neck to hold him as close as possible. When his hands began to wander down her back and over her ass, she smiled. He really did seem to be okay with her touch, but she vowed to be considerate of his feelings if physical closeness made him uncomfortable. The sexual chemistry between them had been explosive from the start, but wasn’t the most important part of their togetherness. She could wait until he was ready, just as he had waited until she was ready in the beginning.
She decided she wouldn’t have to wait long when he pulled at her clothes until she was naked. She allowed him to touch her as much as he wanted, delighted in it, actually, but kept her hands to herself. After a few minutes of stroking her skin and kissing her neck, he pulled away, frowning.
“I thought you forgave me for the Tamara thing,” he said.
“I told you there’s nothing to forgive.”
“Then why won’t you touch me?”
“I figured you wouldn’t want to be touched. Not so soon after . . .”
He took her hand and slid it over the hard ridge in the front of his pants. “Does that feel like I don’t want you to touch me?”
“That feels like it wants to be free,” she said, unfastening his pants and pushing them and his underwear down to his knees. She couldn’t help but watch him for signs of distress as she stroked the hard, smooth length of him with one hand. Was he really okay? She wanted him to be okay, she just didn’t want to push him. She relaxed her guard after a moment, hoping he didn’t realize that she was still wary of his receptibility. Was he thinking of Tamara? Of all the ways she’d touched him when he’d been unconscious? Roux couldn’t seem to stop those thoughts from swarming through her mind, and it must be a thousand times harder for him.
He pressed gently on her shoulder, and she knew what that signal meant. He helped her sweep his T-shirt off over his head so that she could kiss his chest and belly as she slowly lowered her body. Tamara had sucked his cock, which had definitely been entirely soft—Roux had closely examined every photo by that point, which had made it incredibly easy to believe him. She knew what her man looked like when he was turned on. He didn’t lie prone and just take it. And he was never soft by the time he was naked.
Would he be thinking about Tamara’s mouth on him when Roux reached her destination? God, why was she thinking about it so much?
Because she was pissed at that woman for violating him. She would do her best to scrub those memories from both their minds. Dropping to her knees, she squeezed his ass in both hands and looked up at him, her mouth wide open inches from the tip of his cock.
“Now there’s a picture I’d like to have,” he said, appearing equal parts delicious and naughty.
She stuck her hand into his dangling pocket and pulled out his phone. She handed it to him, loving the look of surprise on his face as he accepted it.
“You don’t mind?”
She shook her head.
He fumbled with the phone. She wanted him to be comfortable with this too. Not just the touching but having photographic mementos of their time together. She heard the shutter sound effect of a picture being taken. He groaned as he examined the shot he’d captured.
“That’s sexy as fuck.”
She extended her tongue and gently licked his cockhead. He sucked in a breath and took another picture.
“But not as sexy as that.”
She wrapped her lips around his tip, and he snapped a third shot.
“Every time I think you can’t top your sexiness, you prove me wrong.”
Encouraged by his compliments, she opened her mouth wide and eased him as deep as she could without gagging. She circled the base of his cock with one hand so as not to leave an inch of him neglected.
“I’m going to film this.”
And she treated it like a performance because she trusted him not to let the video be seen by anyone but him. She wished the rest of the world deserved her infallible trust. Because even with photographs posted all over the Internet, she hadn’t really believed he’d betray her. Maybe that made her a fool, but she didn’t care. Being a fool for Steve Aimes wasn’t so bad.
“Oh God, that feels good,” he said, and she upped her performance, loving how she could make his legs tremble.
A moment later the phone dropped on the floor as his hands shifted to her hair, clenching her scalp as his hips began to move. She felt around for the phone with one hand, still sucking the head of his cock gently and rubbing her lips over the rim as she rocked her head forward and back. She held the phone near her chest, pointing the camera upward to give him a view he’d never seen before.
He pulled back unexpectedly, his cock popping free of her mouth. A sick feeling settled in her belly. He must be dwelling on Tamara violating him. She lifted her gaze, her heart breaking over his suffering, but he was grinning crookedly.
“Come to bed with me now,” he said, shifting his hands to her upper arms and helping her to her feet. “Or I won’t last.”
He never seemed to get that she liked it when his excitement got the better of him and he completely lost himself to the pleasure she could give him. She pressed him down on his back, and he scooted across the mattress. He took the phone from her hand and aimed the lens toward his cock, which was glistening with her saliva and standing at rigid attention.
“I want to film it going in you.”
She wouldn’t mind watching that herself. Normally, if she wanted to watch him enter her, she had to attempt contortionism.
“How’s the lighting?” she asked as she crawled up onto the bed with him.
He fumbled with the phone, and a light switched on. He aimed it at his crotch. She bit her lips, torn between finding the action incredibly hot and a bit silly. She straddled him and reached for his cock, careful to keep her arm out of his shot as much as possible, and rubbed his cockhead through the juices between her legs. Fuck, she was swollen and wet. Her pussy was more than ready for its theatrical debut.
“Oh yeah,” he said, “rub it all up in there.” When she did as he directed, he sucked a breath through his teeth. “That looks so beautiful. Now put it in just a little.”
She slipped him into her opening and moved her hands aside, hover
ing over him with just his cockhead inside her.
“Your cum is trickling down my dick. I’ve never seen you this wet.”
“I want it all over you,” she said.
He drew two fingers down his shaft, collecting her fluids. He rubbed her juices into a small spot just under his navel and then grinned at her. “This might take a while.”
“I’d say I’ll wait, but I can’t.” His slight penetration was already driving her insane with need.
“I can speed this up a little.” He slid his thumb over her clit, massaging rapidly. He quickly drove her over the edge. Her thighs quaked as her pussy clenched repeatedly around his tip. She tossed her head back, moaning in bliss. She sank her hips down, taking him deep, and the tease in him vanished as he groaned. The phone dropped from his grip—she was blocking his shot anyway—and she leaned forward to pick it up. She switched from video mode to camera with the flick of her finger and lifted her hips. His head tilted back, mouth dropping open and eyes reduced to narrow slits as he kept his gaze on her. He was the sexiest damned thing she’d ever seen. She snapped a picture and then dropped the phone, far more interested in the feel of him than his looks as she moved her hips to slowly rebuild her pleasure.
She knew that if she gave him control of their joining that they’d both find orgasm quickly, but she relished this slow build, the time spent enjoying each other’s bodies. Yet eventually impatience got the better of him, and he gripped her hips, encouraging her to ride faster, and when she didn’t comply, he rocked up into her. She caught his hands and leaned forward to pin them to the mattress on either side of his shoulders.
“You always say you want to take your time at this.” She nibbled on his lip and then soothed the rough treatment with her tongue.
“The longer I’m inside you, the more I feel you with my heart.”
She kissed him tenderly, and released one hand so she could stroke the day’s growth of stubble on his jaw. “You mean that?”
He nodded. “You wouldn’t want me to cry during sex, would you?”
Staged (Exodus End World Tour, #3) Page 47
