by Casey Hagen
Please, please, please, she begged in her head, but then realized she had begun whispering the words out loud as she tried to relieve the ache inside her.
“Someone likes that,” he murmured against her before sucking two fingers into his mouth and sliding them into her.
Clenching the comforter, her lungs heaved and strands of hair stuck to her face.
A groan clawed its way up her throat.
She glanced down and the vision they made—her legs draped over his shoulders, his tongue on her clit as he worked her with his fingers, his eyes on her, the picture so erotic, a haze clouded her vision as she crested, suspended at the edge, a brittle cry breaking free.
“That’s it,” he whispered against her, his fingers increasing in rhythm.
Gliding a hand over her ribs, he found her breast, his fingers going right for her nipple.
Her spasms locked on him like a vice, a rush of warmth sliding through her as the orgasm of all orgasms tore through her with record speed.
With his fingers still inside her, he climbed up and covered her mouth with his, swallowing her cries even as the hand between her legs demanded more.
He didn’t let her come down. Oh no. His tongue stroked hers in time with his fingers, her taste lingering on his lips, and before she knew it, he had her right there hovering on the brink again.
And he was gone.
Just like that, cold air washed over her. She blinked and brought him into focus to find his hot, roving gaze on her as he tore the condom wrapper with his teeth.
She didn’t know what came over her. The ache in her demanded relief. She would have done anything for it—including reach between her own thighs right there, for him to watch.
“No,” he bit out, taking her hand in his and kissing her damp fingers. “The next time you come apart, it’s going to be on my cock. Understood?”
Fun-loving Aiden disappeared in the haze of passion between them, leaving this commanding version of him in its wake.
Oh, hell yeah, she understood. She licked her lips and watched him roll the condom on.
“You’d better hurry up then,” she said, grazing her own nipple with the pads of her fingers.
With a flick of his wrist, he snatched her other hand, knelt on the bed, crawled between her thighs, and wrapped her fingers around the headboard over her head.
“Hold on.” He slid into her in one sure stroke, buried so deep she lifted off the pile of pillows with the force of it.
Digging her fingertips into the fabric headboard, she lifted her chin and dared him to do his worst with just one look.
“Ahh, so that’s the way of it, huh? A challenge?” he said, smiling down at her. “You got it.”
Legs spread impossibly wide, his hands cupping her ass, he dragged his length almost all the way out of her before driving in deep again, this time holding her in place, making her take all of him.
She stretched under the strain, her muscles putting up futile resistance before surrendering to his size, to his power.
On his knees, with her spread like a feast before him, he devoured her with his gaze. He wrapped his arms around her waist, making her back bow, and sucked her nipple into his mouth while he set a punishing pace.
She lay suspended, holding on, taking it all. Only passion was left between them as his intensity obliterated all that led to this moment, and any worry about saying goodbye when the deed was done.
He showered her with sensations so strong, she could scarcely breathe through the intensity of it.
Her eyes rolled back, the pressure so much more intense than before, blossoming deep inside.
“Aiden, please. I can’t. It’s too much,” she gasped out the words, their hungry breaths mingling with the sound of his hips surging into hers, the headboard creaking with the force as she held on.
He cupped her chin and turned her face toward his. “Yes, you can. Stay with me,” he said, crushing his mouth to hers, his hand reaching between them and his thumb caressing that bundle of nerves at the heart of her and shooting her straight into oblivion.
Cries, the night filled with her pleading cries. She finally let go of the headboard and grasped onto his damp shoulders, wrapping herself around him.
Sinking her teeth into his shoulder, she squeezed her eyes shut tight as he rocked her, and everything in her broke free and rained down on them both.
Chapter 5
AIDEN WAS GOING TO drop dead right there. He was sure of it. His heart thundered in his chest, rattling his ribs, as though he’d just burned his last energy reserves to propel through the finishing line of a 26K marathon.
And promptly fell to the ground and stuck to the pavement in a sweaty, gasping heap afterward.
Who the hell was the guy who had just unleashed the atomic bomb of sex on this woman?
Their bodies cooled, followed by a sweeping chill, leaving her shivering against him. Peeling back the bedspread, he guided her under the covers.
He should have taken the time to open the bed, to romance her, to go slow and easy, but all of the surprises that made up Nikki Lane conspired to whip him into a frenzy unlike anything he’d ever experienced.
Climbing in next to her, he pulled the sheet over their damp bodies and tucked her against his chest.
“Aiden the Impaler,” she murmured with a quiet laugh against his ribs.
He winced in the darkness. “I hope it wasn’t as bad as all that,” he said, pressing a kiss against her temple. Although, he knew it had been.
But she hadn’t wanted to stop. She said she couldn’t take any more, but it wasn’t the cry of a woman who wanted him to back off. It was the desperation of a woman who needed release.
Even now, she wrapped her arms around him and held on as if she had no intention of ever letting go.
It wasn’t real.
He had to remind himself of that.
He caught the time on the clock and tried not to think about what came for each of them...in the morning.
“We’ll see if I can walk tomorrow.”
He growled against her neck and kissed the soft skin just behind her ear. “You know, I didn’t hear any complaining.”
“Mmmm, no complaining. I don’t care if I have to crawl to my car for days to come; there will be absolutely no complaining.”
She climbed up over him, laid her forearms on either side of his head, and ran her fingers through his hair.
“Where do you go tomorrow?” The words slipped out, leaving him wishing he could kick himself. He didn’t want to know.
Well, he did, but not enough to risk the time they had now.
In the light of day, his responsibilities would bum-rush him all over again. He didn’t run his schedule, it ran him, and it wasn’t fair to burden a woman with that.
No, better to leave it as it was.
One hot night.
And no matter how many times he told himself the logic of it all, a spark of hope flickered within him that maybe, if it were possible—shit, it didn’t matter.
“I’ll spend a few days at home and take some time to visit my grandmother. But after that, I’m packing up and hitting the road.”
A gold cross winked in the darkness as it dangled away from her skin. He noticed it right before the concert, and she still wore it even now, making him wonder who gave it to her.
He reached out to touch the gold but thought better of it.
One night. Just one night.
Instead, he twirled the red locks between his fingers, trying to memorize the moment, knowing by her answer that all too soon it would be over. “Where are you headed?”
She shrugged as her fingers traced over his chest. “Nowhere. Everywhere.”
He circled her fingers and brought them to his lips. “Hmmm, I can’t tell if you’re being evasive or profound.”
Her eyes locked on his mouth, and her pretty lips parted on a gasp when he closed over the tip of her index finger and bit down on her playfully.
“Both, and n
either,” she whispered, her gaze transfixed.
He cupped her head and pulled her lips to his in a futile attempt to close the distance she was putting between them.
There were a hundred reasons to just let her keep building walls, but dammit, they had a few more hours before the light of day intruded on them, and the least they could do is exorcise this attraction while they had the chance.
She whimpered under the bruising force of his kiss, but she was the one who opened her mouth. She was the one who sought his tongue with her own.
She was the one who straddled him, her breasts swaying, tight nipples teasing against his chest.
“Sometimes I wish...” she started to say against his lips, then shook her head and took his mouth again.
With a pinch of regret, he pulled back, breaking the contact. “What? What do you wish?” He brushed the hair away that had fallen in her face.
“It’s stupid,” she said, glancing away.
He shook his head. “Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?”
She kissed his chest. “Sometimes I just want a chance to be me, not the person everyone needs me to be. There are so many expectations. I want to grab for a life where all I have to do every day is throw my hair up in a messy bun, skip the makeup, wear my favorite sweater, leggings, and fuzzy boots with no worry about what designer I’m wearing, and be just another person on the street. You know?”
“I do. Not in quite the same way, I mean, obviously I’m not famous,” he murmured as he waited for her to settle her head on his chest before smoothing a hand over her hair.
“My dad is sick,” he admitted, his voice nothing more an anguished whisper as he let the truth spill out of him. “He won’t get better. My days are about making sure he’s taken care of and keeping the practice thriving. This is the first time in longer than I want to admit that I’ve taken time for me.”
“I’m sorry about your dad,” she whispered, running her fingers over his stomach.
He swallowed past the lump in his throat. God, he didn’t want to watch the man he’d spent his life admiring slowly disappear. How many times would he have to watch him die before he really lost him for good? “Thanks,” he managed to say past the emotion choking him.
“What do you miss the most about having the freedom to do whatever you want?” she asked, changing the subject entirely.
“My camera.”
Her hand stilled. “Your camera?”
“Yeah, it’s a hobby of mine. There was a time a friend thought I should make a career of it maybe, but I went in another direction.”
“What do you take pictures of?” she asked.
“Life and the chaos that comes with it. Although I’ve found myself wishing I could just get out and capture nature, the silence of it. But I like capturing people, especially when they’re taking pleasure in such simple things,” he said.
“I miss simple things. Everyone thinks the dream is to make it big, travel the world—but really, the dream is home. It’s friends, barbecues, drive-ins on a Saturday night, road trips to nowhere in particular, and pit stops in greasy diners along the way.”
She shook her head, turned her lips to him, and pushed up on her hands.
“You could make that happen now,” he whispered as her lips roamed past his belly button, eliciting memories of her warm, wet mouth sucking him until she brought him to his knees playing through his mind.
Her mouth froze on him, and she glanced up. “With who?”
The way she tasted and caressed him sent blood surging south.
He didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Because he just didn’t know. The life she described required more than he had in him for the time being, and she deserved better than to wait. How long did she have until the next tour, months?
And for someone famous like her to carve out any semblance of a normal life...he couldn’t imagine the kind of work involved to make that happen—or if there was any real chance of a normal life to be had.
The light in her eyes dimmed as though his silence confirmed that yeah, the dream was out of her reach.
He wished he had lied and told her what she wanted to hear.
She blinked and in an instant, the moment was gone. She reached for the condoms on the nightstand. Ripping one open, she slid it over him, never once looking him in the eye, seemingly focused on just one thing...getting him inside her.
Rising over him, she took hold of his cock and took all of him, one agonizing inch at a time.
The need to close the distance took over. He sat up and reached for her. Flexing his hips, he pushed deeper. Pleasure at the way she held him coiled deep, making him have to rein in the instinct to take her just as hard and fast as he had before.
With the air heavy with their looming goodbye, he wanted to hold on to every sigh, gasp, and moan.
He wanted to chisel every touch and kiss into his mind for those days of loneliness when he reached for a memory to keep him company.
And there was another part of him, deep, dark, and angry, that wanted to shake a fist and rage because of the weight of responsibility on him and the lack of control he managed to take over his life.
He pulled her lips down a hair’s breadth from his but didn’t kiss her. “I’d do it if I could,” he said quietly.
“Shhhh,” she said, caressing his lip with her thumb. “Just give me this. Give me tonight.”
“I’m not sure tonight could ever be enough,” he said, sliding gently in and out of her tight heat. Apparently, he had no clue how to do a one-night stand. Already their short time had become so much more.
At least for him.
“It’s going to have to be.” She kissed him then and rocked her hips in time with his thrusts.
Their languid mouths never broke apart again as the need grew between them, keeping them fused together in a tangle of arms and legs.
All sense of time fell away. It may have been ten minutes, or maybe an hour, before they strained against one another as sweet relief gripped them both, leaving them exhausted and panting.
He fell asleep holding her, replaying their time. It wasn’t even an hour later, his phone beeped despite his do not disturb setting at night telling him that the call was from this father.
Grabbing his phone next to his wallet on the nightstand, he worked his way out from under Nikki’s arm. “Dad? What’s wrong?” he whispered, careful not to wake her.
“This is Officer Dane from the Stamford Police Department. Is this Aiden Powell?”
“Yes, it is. What’s happened? My father—”
“He’s okay. We found him pulled over on the side of Wesley. We don’t know how long he’d been there. He’s a bit confused. We’re at the Stamford Hospital ER now with him while the doctors check him over.”
Aiden glanced over his shoulder at Nikki’s sleeping form. “He has dementia,” he whispered.
“We suspected. I’m assuming they’ll discharge him soon. They’re going to want to release him to a family member.”
“I can be there in an hour and a half. I’ll call my brother and see if he can get there even sooner,” Aiden said, sliding his jeans on.
“We’ll be expecting you.”
He hit his brother’s number as he reached for his shirt, just to have it go to voicemail. Resisting the urge to snarl, he yanked his t-shirt over his head and tried again just to get his voicemail again.
This...this right here was why he couldn’t have one fucking good thing in his life. His brother was supposed to be on deck for their father and couldn’t be bothered to answer his phone, leaving it all on Aiden again. For the thousandth. Damn. Time.
The selfish son of a bitch probably didn’t have any priority set on their father’s number.
Sliding on his shoes, he shoved his wallet in his back pocket and turned to her.
Silken strands that cascaded through his fingers just an hour ago lay across the crisp white pillow. The sight of her there, a soft smile playing over her lips and her rosy cheeks,
etched in his memory. This vision, this night would become a fantasy he could dust off when he was lonely, a continuous torture.
He wanted to wake her and take one more kiss, to trace his fingertips over her tattoos one more time, but to do so would make him just as selfish as his brother. They were better off skipping the goodbye.
He’d save her from watching him walk away.
He’d save himself from resurrecting the look of sorrow in her eyes he’d glimpsed earlier.
Either way, he was a bastard.
Chapter 6
NIKKI CRACKED AN EYE open against the overpowering sunlight pouring through the windows.
Oh god, she’d lied to Aiden the night before. There’d be complaining.
Her muscles screamed in protest. If she’d managed to choke back her whimper, she likely could have heard their howls of agony in the silence of the room.
“You definitely earned the nickname. Not sure I can even make it to the shower,” she said, her voice muffled against the pillow as she turned her head to find his side of the bed empty.
She froze, listening for him in case he’d gone to the bathroom or the living area, but an eerie silence filled the suite, leaving her alone with the buzzing of her ears.
She squeezed her eyes shut.
Alone.
It always came down to this. Why would Aiden have been any different?
Maybe one day it wouldn’t sting.
This was precisely why she had a couple of friends she was intimate with from time to time. At least they were friends who wanted to scratch the same itch and didn’t feel the need to flee silently in the night without a word.
Not that he necessarily had to be completely silent either, because she always slept like the dead at the end of a tour. It took even the most obnoxious of alarms ten minutes to get through to her sleep-ravaged brain.
Now add that last night, everything had been physically ravaged from head to toe? Yeah, she definitely had to concede that it was quite possible he hadn’t tiptoed out of the place.
Still...her pride looked more like the dented can on the discount shelf than the proud endcap display of shiny new awesomeness.
