By the time they got back to her hotel room, Lexie was so wound up her hands were shaking as she pulled out her keycard. As soon as she opened her door, he pushed them both inside, slamming it behind him. Then his mouth was on hers, and it was unlike any kiss they’d shared before—a desperate clash of lips, teeth, and tongue. She moaned and arched up against him, and he reached behind her, lifting her until she could wrap her legs around his waist. He pinned her between his body and the wall, grinding his erection against her, and Lexie shuddered at the feel of him against her sensitive core. She was so needy, so hungry for him, she felt like she could come just from that.
Connor’s lips were hard against hers—almost bruising—his tongue thrusting into her mouth, claiming it, claiming her. The taste of him overwhelmed her, every one of her nerve endings coming alive with the promise of what was to come.
He kissed her like that until she was breathless, then dropped his head to her neck, licking and kissing a burning trail down the column of her throat. Without warning, he released her, letting her legs drop until her feet touched the ground, then turning her so that his large, hard body was pressed up against her back.
As he teased the sensitive skin of her neck with his lips and tongue, his hand reached around and unbuttoned her cutoffs before pulling them and her panties down her legs so she could step out of them. He still hadn’t said a word, and she was in such a lust-filled haze she couldn’t find any words of her own. She wondered if he was feeling half as desperate as she was.
Connor grasped the bottom of her tank top and pulled it up and over her head, then undid her bra and let it fall off her shoulders. Now she was naked, her overheated body and sensitive breasts pressed against the coolness of the wall. He was still fully dressed as he reached around to her front and slid his hand down to the apex of her thighs, groaning as his fingers slid into her slick heat.
“Always so wet for me,” he murmured against her skin, almost too quietly for her to hear. In response, she widened her stance to grant him more access and then shuddered as he pushed one finger, then two, into her, stroking her just the way she needed. She was so close, it didn’t take more than that and a couple of swipes of his thumb over her clit before she was moaning and quivering against the wall, her legs trembling.
Only then did he move back from her, and she heard him stripping. She turned to watch, but he ground out, “Don’t move.” His voice was so deep and strained, he sounded almost feral.
Lexie turned back and rested her forehead against the wall, her hands pressed flat to either side of her head. Her heart pounded so hard in her chest she could feel its throb everywhere in her body. She wasn’t quite sure what was happening; all she knew was that she’d never been more turned on.
Suddenly, hot skin and hard muscles pressed up against her, and she lost her breath in an instant. Connor wrapped his arms around her, one hand rising to cup her breast, while the other trailed down her stomach until it reached her core. He dipped his fingers back into her, making sure she was ready for him. The whimper she gave must have told him everything he needed to know, because he pulled his hand away, and she felt the hot, hard length of him slide between her folds, then push up into her.
Lexie arched her back to give him better access, and when he slid deep in one smooth thrust, she couldn’t help calling out his name. She was already on the verge of coming again, her internal muscles fluttering in preparation.
At the sound of his name, Connor stilled and all she could hear was the rasp of his breath behind her. Reaching back, she grasped his hip, trying to get him to move, but the tension in his muscles let her know he was hanging on by a thread too. She didn’t care. She was so close, she wanted him moving inside her and she wanted it now.
“Don’t stop,” Lexie said breathlessly, trying to arch her back more, to take more of him, although she didn’t think he could possibly be any deeper than he already was. It was like her body was telling her what her heart already knew—she’d never get enough of him.
“God, Lexie, you’re perfect,” he said, before slowly withdrawing almost all the way. Her body cried out at the emptiness so that when he slammed back into her, the pleasure was almost overwhelming.
“Oh my God,” she gasped and then cried out again when he pulled out and thrust back in. Both of his hands were on her breasts now, rolling her nipples between his fingers and pinching, holding her on the edge until she was desperate for relief.
Lexie realized she was begging him over and over, “Please, please, please.” She would have been embarrassed except she didn’t care if he knew what he did to her. All that mattered at that moment was the man who was inside her body—and her heart.
Connor’s breathing was getting ragged too, and he dropped his mouth to that sensitive spot on her neck that made her crazy and pressed hot, wet kisses against it. She squirmed back against him. “Connor, I’m so close. Please make me come.” She knew all it would take was one touch of his finger against her clit and she’d be gone. Instead, he pulled out of her, leaving her disoriented and panting.
Lexie didn’t have long to wonder what was wrong, because he spun her around to face him, reached behind her to grasp the backs of her thighs, and lifted her up. Instinctively she wrapped her legs around him as he backed her against the wall again and slid home in one hard thrust. She cried out and tried to arch against him as best she could when he had her caged between the steel of his body and the wall.
The new position gave her the friction against her clit she needed, and after just two thrusts, she was coming. As her body clenched around him, he dropped his mouth to her neck, his lips moving against her as he whispered something. She couldn’t hear what he said over her own harsh breaths and whimpers, but the next moment she felt his open mouth on her skin, the heat and suction telling her he was leaving a mark. It was the first time he’d ever done anything like that, and the thought of him branding her that way was like throwing fuel on the fire of her orgasm.
She writhed in his arms at the intensity of the pleasure exploding through her, ricocheting from where he was pumping into her to the furthest reaches of her body and back again. Two strokes later and he joined her, his muscles straining as he thrust to the hilt, letting out a long, guttural groan as he pulsed inside her.
They stood like that for several long moments, the only sound in the room the harsh panting of their breaths. Lexie had her head buried against Connor’s neck, and when she finally pulled back and looked up at him, her heart stuttered at the intensity in his green eyes as they blazed down into hers.
Feeling suddenly exposed, sure that everything she felt for him was clear on her face at that moment, she let out a shaky breath. Instead of saying what her heart wanted to say, Lexie forced herself to pull it together enough to smile up at him. “That was amazing.”
For a second his eyes searched hers, as if he was looking for something more. She kept the now slightly tremulous smile on her lips—not wanting him to know how affected she was—until his mouth curled up in return.
“Every time with you is amazing,” he said as he let her slide down until her feet touched the ground. She closed her eyes at the pain his words caused because he was right—what they had between them physically was incredible. She knew now Connor had ruined her for any other man. And in a few days, he would cut her loose, and she’d be left trying to find someone who could make her feel even a fraction of what he had. Lexie sighed and pressed herself to him, brushing a soft kiss against the warm skin over his heart.
Connor put his hand under her chin and tilted her head back, looking searchingly into her eyes again, then bent down and skimmed his lips over hers. Pulling back, he smiled. “Come on, let’s have a shower. The night’s still young, and I’ve got plans for you.”
Lexie forced a laugh. She would make sure she imprinted every second of tonight in her memory; something to hold on to in the long, empty nights to come.
Chapter 37
Afew hours later, Connor wa
s lying in the dark, Lexie’s head on his chest. Her fingers stroked softly over his skin as she talked about her family.
“Things with Mom have been difficult. I love her like crazy, but it’s like she doesn’t know how to talk to me anymore, or that she wants to fix me. Every time she calls, she ends up just encouraging me to date, or sometimes she even tries to set me up with single men she knows. She doesn’t seem to understand that I haven’t been ready to move on. And Mom and Dad, they never mention Damien’s name anymore, even though I know how much they loved him when he was alive. It’s as if they’re afraid hearing his name will send me into a spiral of depression.” She exhaled quietly.
Tension tightened Connor’s muscles at the thought of how much she still loved her late husband. It was clear in her voice, suppressed emotion making it huskier than normal. She suddenly let out a small gasp and looked up at him, eyes wide and sorrowful. “I’m so sorry, Connor, that was insensitive of me.”
He looked down at her, confused. Had she sensed what he was thinking? Did she realize he’d somehow, ridiculously, found himself jealous of Damien’s place in her heart?
H when she went on. “It’s so selfish of me, complaining about my parents when you’ve lost both of yours.” She seemed so ashamed, and he was so relieved that the actual reason he’d tensed wasn’t clear, that he smiled and brushed his thumb over her full lower lip.
“There’s not a selfish bone in your body, Lexie.” She gave a slight shake of her head in denial, but he kept going. “I don’t resent the fact you have parents that care about you, even if they don’t know the best way to show it right now.”
No, he was the selfish one. Because while he didn’t resent her having loving parents, he did resent the fact she loved someone else. “I’m glad you have a family to support you. I wouldn’t wish my screwed-up situation on anyone else.”
Her crystal-clear eyes flickered backward and forward between his as if trying to read him. Seeing his sincerity, she laid her head back down on his chest and sighed. “It’s just, I hate that it happened to you; that your father could be so cruel. It makes my heart hurt for the little boy that you were.” The tremor in her voice let him know she meant it, and her compassion was just one more thing about her that killed him.
Just like the last time he’d spoken to her about his parents, being alone with her in the dark allowed him to talk about things he normally couldn’t. He absently sifted his fingers through the silky strands of her hair as he spoke.
“I don’t think it was cruelty so much as that he just stopped loving me—or caring about my existence in any way, really. When Mom died, it was long and brutal. He’d already started pushing me away as she went downhill. Every molecule of care he had was focused on her. When she died, it was like a light was snuffed out in him. There was nothing left for me, or even for himself. I was eleven, I was devastated, and I needed my father, but he didn’t give a fuck. Too wrapped up in his grief, and then the bottle.
“Luckily, he wasn’t a violent drunk, just a miserable one. He kept me alive, and that was it. I was basically left to fend for myself. I made some friends, older than me, and they took me under their wing. Most of them had shitty family lives just like me. They became more my family than my dad. The only reason I kept turning up to school was because of the music lessons. Every time I picked up an instrument, or opened my mouth and sang, I felt like my mom was there with me. I couldn’t let that go, so I stayed in school, thank God. My dad didn’t care about what I was doing or who I was doing it with, as long as I wasn’t bothering him with my presence.”
Connor stroked his hand down Lexie’s back, the feel of her warm body nestled up against his side relaxing him as he spoke. “It was only a matter of time until my friends got into drugs, so I started to dabble too. I was fourteen when we started shoplifting to pay for it, then boosting cars. Things weren’t looking good for me. But then my friend Callum, he overdosed in front of me. He didn’t end up dying, but I thought he was going to.”
He paused, the memory still affecting him all these years later. “It shook me up badly, even for the hard little bastard I was turning into, and I went screaming home to my dad in tears. For the first time since my mom died, he did something to help me—or maybe it was to help himself, fucked if I know. He called my Aunt Maureen, my mom’s sister. She’d moved to Ohio years before, and he asked her to take me. The wonderful thing about the Irish is that they don’t say no to family. He sent me kicking and screaming over to live with her, and I haven’t seen him since.” He felt himself getting tense again. As much as he hated it, thoughts of his dad’s rejection still had the power to hurt him.
Lexie wrapped her arms tight around his chest and squeezed. “I’m so sorry, Connor. It makes me so angry that he did that to you.” He smiled at the fierceness in her tone.
“Well, I suppose if he hadn’t, I wouldn’t be where I am today.”
She raised her head and looked at him, her eyes glimmering in the moonlight coming in through the window. Unable to help himself, he reached up and cupped the side of her face, smoothing his thumb over her cheek. Her eyes drifted shut, and she sighed in pleasure at his touch, and he fucking loved that he could do that to her.
He had to restrain himself from flipping her over and losing himself in her again, because he liked talking to her too; liked being able to share things with her that he’d never even talked to his friends about. He ignored the warning bells going off in his head that told him he was playing with fire when it came to her. He’d already pushed so far past his comfort zone; he couldn’t afford to start wanting more.
“Are you in contact with him?” she asked.
“No. At the start I thought he was calling me, but it turned out my aunt had called him and forced him to talk to me. She just let me believe he was the one making the effort. Those conversations were hard, and I think my aunt realized she was doing more harm than good when I’d fly into a rage after every phone call. Eventually, she stopped calling him, and he never bothered to call me. I’ve got no interest in having anything to do with him, and he’s made it clear he wants nothing to do with me. Which is fine. My aunt’s been a better parent to me than he ever was.”
“I’m glad you had her. She must be an amazing woman. I mean, considering you turned out, you know, passably.” She smiled to let him know she was teasing him.
Connor smirked; the tension that had filled him beginning to ebb as he pulled her closer, so that she was almost draped over him. “She is. But it was a rough start. I was a real shit to begin with, and she didn’t take it easy on me. She laid down the rules and enforced them. I hated her for that. But the day I realized that she cared about me, that she saw the hurt little boy through the wall I’d put up, was the day she bought me my first guitar and paid for me to get lessons. I broke down and cried because I knew then that she saw me; saw who I was inside, not the person I was pretending to be.
“It wasn’t all happy families from that moment on, but it got better every day. I decided then what I wanted to do with my life, and I put everything I had into it. I started doing better at school, made an effort to make friends, particularly those that loved music like I did. I put my head down, and I focused on that goal and forced my life in the direction I wanted it to go.”
She frowned at the tone of his voice. “Isn’t that a good thing? You should be so proud of yourself, Connor. How many people could turn their lives around the way you did?”
He said nothing for a few moments as he slowly drifted his fingers up and down the smooth skin of her back.
“The problem is, now that I’ve done it, I’m not sure it’s what I wanted it to be. My mom is still dead, my dad still wants nothing to do with me, and apart from my aunt, my friends are my only family, the only people I love.” He paused, enjoying the feel of her smooth skin. “So what do I do if this isn’t enough? Where do I go from here? Who am I if not the lead singer of Fractured? The guys are my family as much as my aunt, so how could I ever aband
on them? I don’t know if I can walk away from them—from this—even if I could think of something else I want to do. Someone else I want to be.”
“And you haven’t told any of the others about the way you’re feeling?”
Just the thought made his chest tighten. “Once I tell someone, I’m going to have to deal with it, have people trying to convince me of what I feel, what I should do. I need to figure it out myself. After all, if this is just a phase brought on by tour fatigue, I might wake up in a month wondering what the hell I was worried about.”
She nodded slowly, considering what he’d said, but not judging him. “Still, part of having a family to support you is to help you work things through. Yours might not be a traditional family, but they’re still your family. Sometimes just having someone to talk to is all we need to see things clearly.”
He shut his mouth just in time before he blurted out what he was going to say. I’ve got you to talk to. Because in a few more days, she’d be gone, and he wouldn’t have her to talk to anymore. His chest tightened more than it had when he’d thought about telling his friends how he was feeling. He didn’t want to think too hard about why that same dread filled him at the thought of Lexie leaving. He also didn’t want to think about why he’d whispered “mine” against her skin while he was making love to her earlier. His feelings about that were too complicated to think about now. Pushing it out of his mind, he had a sudden thought. “Where’s your camera?”
She shifted to look at him curiously. “It’s in the living room. Why?”
He climbed out of bed, smiling at her suspicious expression. “Come on.”
He had to stifle a groan as she got out and walked toward her suitcase, the moonlight coming in the window skimming her silky skin the way his fingers suddenly itched to do again. Well, it wasn’t morning yet—there’d be time for more of that later, but now he had something he wanted to do.
Fractured Hearts: A Fractured Rock Star Romance Page 22
