Alle kept a tight grip on the shirt hem as she crossed the room to take a perch on the two-seater sofa. An assortment of guitar picks littered the coffee table, each with the head of a different Black Halo member printed onto them, along with a battered paperback, and a bowl of fruit.
“Vodka?” Xane pressed a glass into her hand.
“Are there any mixers?”
He claimed an orange from the fruit bowl. “I can squeeze it for you.”
She shook her head. “Guess I’ll cope.” The alcohol burned on the way down her throat and sparked her gag relax.
“Do you want a hot chocolate instead?” he asked, flicking on the kettle, and upending a sachet into a mug.
“Big socks and a mug of cocoa, you sure know how to spoil a girl.”
“Sweetheart, I’m hoping you’re going to spoil Spook to make up for eight years of heartache —”
“Seven,” she corrected.
“Eight. Seven and a half without sex, but eight years of hell. Hence, pulling a hot chocolate out of my sleeve is the least I can do. Now —” He poured and handed her the mug. “What’s the plan?”
Chapter Nine
If only water could actually wash away what he was feeling, rather than just stripping her scent from his skin. Spook stood under the shower, letting the overly hot deluge bite his naked flesh and remove every hint of sweat and sexual excess. Leastways, that was the desired outcome. The reality wasn’t quite consistent with his intentions. Soap and water might free him of her perfume, but it couldn’t remove the grip she had on his heart. Nor did it seem capable of subduing his cock. Though not lathering there would probably help too. He’d been hard again from the moment he’d stepped under the spray. Attempting to blot her out only embedded her more deeply in his thoughts. And his thoughts of her made him fucking hard.
“I want you to strip me naked and hold me on all fours. Then I want you to twist my hair into a long rope and pull it hard while you fuck me even harder.”
From the instant she’d planted that thought he’d been doomed to re-enact it on endless repeat. A little hair pulling, a little water spraying in her face, her body naked aside from a layer of bubbles — sure, he could get on board with that. He’d like nothing more than to fuck her with her hair tangled around his fingers and wrist in a way that made their bodies slap together so hard it was audible several rooms away. Damn straight, he wanted to hold her and fill her up, stamp his damned mark all over her, see her come, and feel her inner muscles clasp his cock and tug him deeper, but that didn’t change the fact he couldn’t let it happen.
It wasn’t because he was scared of hurting her, at least not in quite the way she imagined him to mean. Consequences were what scared him. If you did this, then was “A” an inevitable result, or did an option “B” exist too? He wanted to trust her. In a sense he did, or things would never have gone as far as they already had, but there remained a few irremovable pockets of doubt in his mind. He’d placed his trust in people before and lived to regret it. It wasn’t a mistake he was willing to repeat.
The raw physical pull between two people couldn’t be the cement in a relationship. There had to be more, something much deeper. They had to be able to communicate on an instinctive level.
Yes, Alle was vocal in her needs. She was willing to tell him what she wanted, but what if reality didn’t quite coincide with the fantasy? What then? What if his version of rough was too rough? Was she truly prepared for what she was asking for? She hadn’t been prepared for the spanking he’d given her when they’d first met, even though she’d begged for it. A couple of smacks and she’d been kicking and begging for mercy.
On the other hand, she’d been only too willing to return for more.
He thought about warming her cheeks again now, of her bent over, her hands finding purchase on the side of the bathtub, while he counted smacks and made the pert cheeks of her arse turn red.
Once they were scarlet, he’d lower the shower head and direct the spray to where it stung the most. Then he’d hold her, soothe her, and because this was all in his head, he’d fuck her pretty pink arse until he came right inside of her.
In his fantasy version, everything was perfect. Spent, after the raw intensity of it, they’d cuddle in the bathtub and slowly talk one another down from the high, before going at it again in the bedroom over the table, and against the window and on the floor. He’d make her drive herself wild with that silly little vibrator she’d had in her purse. Then he’d fill her and give her a proper ride. The sort that left carpet burns on your shoulders and bite marks on your thighs.
Anticipation of all those things, made his cock grow stiffer. Spook palmed it with both hands. One took up the rhythm at the base, while the other made a slow glide up from the root to the tip and then circled the head.
A few brief strokes with this thumb across crown and he’d come, yet he held off making them. He might like inflicting pain, but lately he was just as much of an anticipation junkie.
“Do I get to watch the money shot?”
“Fuck!” Spook’s eyelids snapped back. He glared through the frosted glass and clouds of steam at Xane standing in the doorway, drinking him down with those blasted devil’s eyes. “How the hell did you get in here?”
Xane flicked what Spook took to be a duplicate key card at him. “The lady on reception was very understanding about the mix up and our need for copies of one another’s keys.”
“Ow!” Spook complained as the plastic scored a line along his leg before landing over the plughole. He bent to retrieve it, to prevent it blocking the flow of waste water. “You told her we were lovers, didn’t you?”
Xane rotated the ring through his lip. His eyebrows briefly rose. “I may have implied something of that sort, yeah.”
“Bastard.”
“Aw, Spook, you know I’d do you if I wasn’t taken,” Xane said, faking hurt. He cracked a wide smile. “And if you weren’t so fucking uptight.”
Spook shook his head, and then turned off the water. It was hard to be riled when Xane insisted on being so damned irreverent. The thing was, he could switch in seconds. Next thing he knew, the sexy bastard would’ve sunk them both into a pit of despair, or else have gone supernova and would genuinely be trying to pound his arse, rather than just joking about it.
The last thing he needed was Xane attempting to hump him. It’d result in a punch up, and he wasn’t at all sure what the final outcome would be.
“Why don’t you just go and bang her with it, Spook. It’ll make life easier all round.”
“Will it?” He wasn’t so certain. “Stop gawping at me. It’s unnerving.”
His friend took a pace forward. A mischievous grin played across his lips. Spook attempted to step back, but there was nowhere to go. He just ended up with the shower dial sticking in his arse, and the cold tiles against his shoulders. ‘If you touch me, I swear I’m going to deck you,’ he warned. It didn’t stop Xane taking another step forward.
“If I touch you, you’re going to be too busy shooting your load to deck me. Afterwards, you might try it…”
“Xane.” Spook raised his hand to stop him getting any closer. “Please, just don’t. Not now.”
“Like I said, you’re too uptight.”
“And you getting in my face isn’t going to help with that.”
“So wrap this around yourself and let’s talk.” Spook stuck his hand out to catch the white bath sheet, but missed. It hit him the chest instead. Sighing, he used it to dry his face and upper body before securing it around his waist. Then, he tramped past Xane into the bedroom, and over to the kettle, which he set boiling, more out of a desire to do something, than out of a need for a drink. Actually, he did need a drink — a nice tall stiff one.
“You ever hear of privacy?” he asked, as he turned to his suitcase and began rummaging through, what had been a neatly ordered assortment of clothes, to find some lounge pants and a brush to pull through his tangled hair. He chucked the clothing ont
o the chair and faced the mirror to tackle the knots. Beads of water trickled down his chest as he dragged the brush through the dull blond strands. Meanwhile, Xane settled on the corner of the bed.
“I didn’t see the sense in knocking. You wouldn’t have answered. Besides, I seem to recall you doing much the same to me not so long ago, when I was the one running.”
“I never barged in on you in the shower,” Spook replied. He set the hairbrush down and turned to reach for his pants.
“No, you walked in on me having sex, which is what you should be doing with that pole of yours, instead of trying to strangle it with Egyptian cotton.” The lounge pants were loose, so actually, his dick wasn’t being strangled, in marked contrast to earlier. There was still a zip imprint on his skin from his leathers.
“Ash disturbed you with Dani, not me.”
“Don’t split hairs. You were there.”
“That still doesn’t give you the right to come in here and strong arm me.”
Xane left his perch upon the bed and walked up behind Spook. “That’s not what I’m trying to do.” He raised his hands and began to knead the tensed muscles of Spook’s shoulders. “I thought maybe I could help you think things through. You’re not exactly acting logically at the minute.”
“I’m being offered relationship advice from a sex addict. Fucking Christ, yeah, I’m all ears for that.”
“Well, if you want to go and find someone better qualified, by all means. Otherwise, I’m all you’ve got.” Xane continued to massage the knots out of Spook’s shoulders. It was something he was surprisingly good at. He seemed to understand exactly where to apply the pressure. “Fuck, you’re tense. There are kinks in your kinks.”
“You’d have kinks in your kinks if you were in my position.” He groaned in pleasure, as Xane’s thumbs dug into the muscles, releasing the tension.
“There’s no chance of me ever being in this position.” Xane paused, his hands resting upon Spook’s shoulders. “You realise Graham and Max have nailed the deal. She’s coming to Sweden whether you like it or not. So why don’t you take a walk down the corridor to my room and sort things out with her?”
Spook shrugged off his hold. “Why don’t you stay out of my shit?”
“Maybe because I’m sick of watching you swim about in it. I’m throwing you a rope. She’s what you need.”
“Don’t you think it’s up to me to decide what I need?” Frustration prompted him to pace.
“Sure,” Xane agreed, raising his shoulders. “But a man can only live on fantasies for so long, and you’re pushing her away for no other reason than you’re scared. I’m not going to ask for the details of what just went on in the limo, but doing that and then telling her she can’t work with us, is just wrong. It’s not you, Spook. It just isn’t.”
“So what, I’m supposed to pretend it’s fine and crack up quietly?” If their manager had already hashed it out with Alle’s boss, then it was going to take a heck of a lot of negotiating to unravel it. Graham wasn’t known for budging once a decision was made. “Shit!” He ought to have stuck around earlier and made his objections known, rather than hoping it would all somehow turn out not to be. “Surely we can put it off a few weeks, can’t we?” The possibility she might be flying back to Sweden with them tomorrow was more than he could face. “At least give me time to prepare —”
“Get real, Spook. Time isn’t going to change anything. Seven and a half years hasn’t, so what’s a fortnight going to accomplish? What you need to do is go and talk to her, and fuck her. Not necessarily in that order.” Xane fell into step with his pacing and patted him on the back. “Seriously, set some boundaries. Let her know what your limits are, and that you want to slow things down. That has to be better than what you’re currently doing.”
“Which is what exactly?”
“Screwing things up royally, because the tension’s getting to you, and you’re reacting instead of thinking things through. I know it’s hard. I know what you’ve been through, but here’s your chance to have something else.”
“And when I hurt her?”
“The only way you’re going to hurt her, is by not giving her the chance to be with you. She’s clearly as into you as you’re into her.”
Spook pinched the bridge of his nose as yet another tension headache started to brew. He understood what Xane was saying, but it didn’t do anything to quell his fears. There were just too many things that could go wrong, and no glaringly happy times in his memory to convince him a relationship had any chance of success.
“Let’s not pretend this is about you hurting her. I know that’s not really it. Hell, I think she realises it too.”
“What have you told her?” he snapped.
Xane raised his hands, and then slowly lowered them, signalling he ought to quit his panicking. “I haven’t told her anything. Not a goddamned thing. I’ve never said anything to the guys in all these years, why would I say anything to her? That’s up to you.”
“It’s just… It’s not going to work.” He tugged at the front of his long hair. “It can’t.” There was too much pain there. Too many fucking awful memories. He couldn’t even delve into that darkness within the confines of his own skull without leaving fresh lacerations on his psyche.
“Come on, Spook. If I can handle two lovers, I’m sure you can manage one.”
“It’s complicated, you know that,” he said through gritted teeth. “It’s not that I don’t want her —”
“She wants you. You want her. What’s so fucking complicated about that?” Xane raised his arms in frustration. When Spook shook his head, Xane slumped into the armchair. “This is fucking stupid.” He rested his elbows on his knees and leant forward with his head in his hands. “You’re a stubborn bastard, did I ever mention that?”
Spook turned away from him. He crossed to the bed and got under the duvet. He was not about to walk along the corridor and subject himself to another session of having his nerves flayed. Masochistic he wasn’t. Better he just slept and tried to figure out a solution in the morning. Maybe he could find a way to not be in her presence while they were recording, or at least, only in her presence in the company of others. It’d still leave him a raving screw-up, but…
Xane climbed onto the bed beside him and stretched out full length.
“What are you doing?”
“Going back to my room’s not really an option. I’m not about to spend the night with a single woman, Dani is still tense enough about Luthor.”
Riled, Spook sat up abruptly. He needed space, not someone breathing in his ear. “You’re not going to leave me alone, are you?”
Lips pursed, Xane gave his head a shake. “You can’t walk away from this one Spook. It’s time to trade in your ‘totally unavailable’ card for a ‘sexy shag-monster’ upgrade.”
Xane shoved him out of the bed. “Go, do her. Do her again. Do her until you can no longer stand up straight. Twenty paces down the corridor, she’s waiting for you.”
“A sex marathon isn’t going to solve anything.”
“Sex solves everything,” Xane remarked glibly.
Spook knew he didn’t believe that was the truth, even if he did resort to that method more often than not.
Xane rolled his eyes in dismay. “Fine, be dull. Don’t shag her. Talk to her. It’s not actually compulsory to dive in. I’m told it’s fine to dip your toes in first.”
Nice sentiment, but getting his libido to take note of that while he was within forty feet of Alle was another matter. He might arrive with the intention of having a quiet chat, but he wasn’t fool enough to believe they wouldn’t end up getting physical instead. And anyway, chatting had never been his forte. The guys conveniently liked to forget that English wasn’t his first language, even if his fluency level did rival some of the natives.
“I’m going to hurt you if you stand there prevaricating much longer,” Xane remarked. He remained sprawled upon the bed, with his hands clasped behind his head. He might r
esemble a lion at rest, but Spook knew from experience how fast the bugger could move. Xane was often described as a panther by the press, and he certainly had that sort of grace about his movement — as well as a deadly pounce.
“I’m counting,” Xane warned, though he appeared to be doing the reckoning in his head.
“Goddammit, Xane.”
“Five.”
“Shit!” Spook searched around for a T-shirt, and failed to spot one before Xane reached three. Blasted wanker wasn’t going to let him duck out of this one. Maybe that was a good thing. He didn’t know. He wanted Alle, but he still questioned the sense of it. Any replaying of his past would kill him. He’d barely survived first time around.
“Two.”
“OK, I’ll go.”
Xane nodded. He reached down into his pocket and offered the retrieved item. “Take it.”
“I don’t need —”
“Take it anyway. Better to be prepared.” Xane pressed the condom into his palm, and then rested a key card on top of it. “Remember, if you need a breather, just step back for a minute, but no running. Running isn’t going to solve anything. You want this lady, Spook. She’s a potential keeper, and god knows, you need one of those.”
Spook stared at the items in his palm as Xane encouraged him to curl his fingers around them. Maybe it’d all work out, but he was half tempted to climb back into the bed with Xane. At least Xane was predictable.
“You’re not a coward, Spook, and I’m not an easy option. For fuck’s sake, man, after all this time — move on!”
Chapter Ten
Spook didn’t linger in the hallway. If he stopped outside the door and thought too hard for even a moment, he knew he’d flee into the night. Some decisions were tough, but maybe, if he went ahead and made this one, the outcome wouldn’t be as bad as he feared. Perhaps he’d discover all the stress was for nothing, and the ache in his pants could be pleasantly relieved without the sky falling down.
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