Taking the Lead (Secrets of a Rock Star #1)

by Cecilia Tan

  “I am not covered in chocolate!”

  “Not anymore.”

  She actually made a little fist and thumped me on the shoulder with it, then said, “You’re incorrigible.”

  “Yep. I’m only corrigible when it’s really necessary,” I said, trying not to grin too widely. “That’s why you like me.”

  She sat back and noticed I hadn’t finished what was in my mug. I handed it to her without a word. As she took it, though, she said, “That might be true.”

  “What might be true?”

  “That I like you because you’re not …”

  “Corrigible? I think I made that word up.”

  “No, silly.” Her smile was worth millions. I was glad she seemed happier now than when I’d first walked in, and I hoped at least a little of that was me and not chocolate. “You’re not like other men. You’re neither bossing me around nor deferential.”

  “I save that for the bedroom,” I said seriously. “I’m not your boss.”

  “You’re one of the only people I can think of, besides Gwen, who’ll make a joke around me,” she said.

  “Now you know why kings and queens had to hire jesters.”

  “Why?”

  “Because no one else would dare crack a joke around them.”

  “Hm.” She went quiet then, thinking about that.

  I didn’t want her to become too broody or moody if I could help it. “So anyway, Your Highness, you tell me if I’m supposed to behave tonight.”

  She glanced around the kitchen. “Let’s go into my wing to talk further.”

  She put the dirty dishes into the sink and led me to her door, the one I remembered from before with the security keypad.

  Ricki’s wing of the mansion alone was larger than the largest house I’d ever lived in. I wasn’t sure exactly how many rooms there were, but there were six or seven doors leading onto the central hallway that I could easily see. She had a bedroom, a small office, a guest bedroom, a media room, and a couple of rooms I guess you’d call parlors? In a regular house I might have said one was the living room and one the den, but this wasn’t a regular house.

  She took me into the media room, where music was playing quietly—a soundtrack album I didn’t recognize—and the couches were dark leather. I could see a copy of TTT on the coffee table.

  “I read the article,” I said, as I reflexively pulled her into my arms from behind. My palms wrapped around her stomach and I took a deep breath with my nose in her hair. Oh, that shampoo. I had a sudden flashback to her bathroom. The scent of orange blossoms was going to be an aphrodisiac to me forever, now.

  “Then you know why I’m hiding.”

  “Because you don’t want to talk about painful family stuff with total strangers and co-workers? Understandable.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it with anyone.”

  “You don’t have to talk with me, either,” I said, “unless you want to. But if you want me to behave myself—”

  “You had better. I’m about to pop.”

  “Pop?” I wondered what that was a metaphor for.

  “Literally. I’m about to get my period.”

  “Ohhhh. And I thought the chocolate was for the stress.”

  “Well, that, too, but when I’m about to get it, two things happen. One, my chocolate craving spikes, and two …” She trailed off and I nuzzled her neck, waiting for her to continue.

  When she didn’t, I optimistically added, “Your sex craving spikes, too?”

  “Well, yes, but that’s not what I was going to say. I was going to say I go through moments when I want to kill everyone with a baseball bat.”

  “Mm-hm. That sounds like sex craving to me.”

  “Axel. Not everything is about sex.”

  “No, but I bet if we have sex, afterward you will not want to kill me with a baseball bat. And also the cramps will lessen.”

  “How do you know about my cramps?”

  “Rick’.” I ran my hands up and down her belly. “I can feel the tension.” Plus I had a college housemate who was a raving lunatic in the forty-eight hours before her period, whose lunacy was greatly lessened by vigorous fucking. Or so I’d learned from experience. I didn’t think this was a good moment to bring that up, though.

  “I’m so not sexy when I’m like this, though,” she said.

  “Let me be the judge of how sexy you are. If you don’t feel like having sex, that’s one thing. If you think I shouldn’t find you desirable just because you’re having a normal biological thing, sorry, you don’t dictate how I feel.”

  She pressed back against me. “But it’s gross.”

  “What’s gross? How bloated you feel?”

  “No. I mean … it makes a mess.”

  “Oh, you mean if you get your period while we’re at it?”

  “Yeah.”

  My hands found the ridges of her hips. “Tsk. No one will see the bloodstains on these dark brown leather couches.”

  “Axel!”

  “Seriously, Rick’. I don’t know about other guys, but blood doesn’t bother me. Not for fucking, anyway.”

  “I’m two days late,” she moaned, but her hands were on top of mine now, and she was pressing them downward.

  I let one of them keep traveling until my fingertips had slipped under the waistband of her warmup pants and her panties. “Probably because you’re stressed,” I said. I had to bend my knees to get my hand all the way down between her legs. Her labia felt dry at first as I spread them with my fingers but then my middle finger found her wettest place. “Hm. Either you’ve got it now, or you’re really happy to see me.”

  She cocked her hips, giving me more access. “I’m really happy to see you.”

  “Good.” I slid her pants and panties down to her ankles with both hands. “Bend over. Hands on the arm of the couch.”

  I knelt down behind her so I could take a leisurely look at her hindquarters. Gorgeous ample asscheeks with the cutest little pucker between them. No wonder her family was so rich: she must shit gold it was so clean. The only thing that kept me from jamming my tongue into her asshole was the thought that she might refuse to kiss me later if I did. I settled for wetting the ends of my fingers well and good and teasing, slipping one in just up to the first knuckle. She tensed and then sighed, accepting the intrusion.

  “Have you had much anal sex?” I asked.

  “Only once,” she said.

  “Was it good?”

  “If it was, don’t you think I would’ve done it more than once?”

  “Oh.” I trailed my wet fingertip up and down over that sensitive pucker, watching her suck it in. “Wasn’t done right, then.”

  “That’s for sure.”

  “Tell me about it, Ms. Hamilton.” I leaned on her name a little to be clear that it was a command, not a request, and pushed my fingertip into her ass again.

  Ricki yielded to my force, both physically and mentally. “Yes, Mr. Hawke. It was a college boyfriend named Robin.”

  “Cock Robin?” I eased the finger in and out of her.

  “You could say that. He was eager to stick it anywhere it could go, anyway. Including my ass. And my roommate’s.”

  “You had an anal three-way in college?” I asked, incredulous.

  “No no, I mean, after he tried anal sex with me and it was a disaster, he started cheating on me with my own roommate. I came home a few days later to find him with his dick in her rear.” I could practically hear her rolling her eyes.

  “That doesn’t sound like a particularly pleasant experience.”

  “Especially since as I opened the door I could hear her shouting, ‘wrong hole, you bastard, wrong hole!’ ”

  I gave her my best scandalized-sounding “No!” I pulled free of her then and switched hands, massaging her pussy until her clit swelled against my middle finger.

  “Yes. He claimed it was an accident, but you know, when you’re doing doggie style? Putting it in the wrong hole?”

  “Wha
t a loser.”

  “That was what we both thought at that point. We kicked him out with his balls blue.”

  “You forgave her?”

  “He’d told her we had an open relationship.”

  “Tsk tsk tsk. A loser all around. Had he told you ‘wrong hole’ also?”

  “No. I’d agreed to try anal … oh, this story is stupid.”

  I spanked her lightly, once, with my free hand. “It’s not your job to judge the story. It’s your job to tell the story, Scheherazade.”

  “Or what, O sultan? You’ll behead me?”

  “Or I’ll stop doing this.” I slid my finger into her the way I knew she liked. Her swollen pussy clenched all around my hand. “Go on. You’d agreed to try anal and?”

  “And it was because I really wanted him to … you know … take me from behind.”

  I thought I knew what she was getting at but I didn’t interrupt. Hearing Ricki talk without inhibitions about sex was almost better than sex itself—very intimate, and I craved more.

  “I wanted him to take more initiative in bed and be a little more … forceful, I guess,” she admitted. So my guess had been right. “But I didn’t really know how to ask for that. I wanted a wolf, holding his mate down from behind by his teeth as he takes her in heat.”

  Now that was a hot image. I nipped at her buttocks with my teeth as I continued to finger-fuck her, adding a second finger.

  “But what I got was an overeager beagle, dumb as a post, who wanted to jump up and slobber in my lap.”

  I laughed at that description. “So you agreed to try anal sex.”

  “Neither of us really knew what we were supposed to do. I’d seen an anal porno once and I thought all the stuff they did leading up to it was just to drag it out for the sake of the camera, you know? I didn’t know it was actually necessary to finger a gal’s bum so much before you could put something bigger in.”

  I cringed a little. “Please tell me you used lube.”

  “Yes, but that just meant there was no friction to keep him from jamming it all the way in.”

  “Oh jeez.” I patted her on the back. “Enough of that story. Tell me a sexier one.”

  “You asked.”

  “Yes, I did. And now I want a sexier one.”

  “Or you’ll stop?”

  “Uh-huh. In fact, stand up. Let’s change positions. And strip while you’re at it.”

  I sauntered out to find the bathroom I remembered and after a quick wash of my hands I came back with a nice, clean bath towel. I folded it in half and put it on the leather couch, then shucked my jeans and sat on top of it. “Come here, please.”

  I turned her so she straddled my thighs facing away from me, giving my hands complete access between her legs. My cock bobbed eagerly but I ignored it for the moment.

  I put one hand on the flat of her abdomen and circled her clit with my other palm. “Okay, now, a sexier story or I’ll stop.”

  “Mmm. That feels good.”

  “Well, you know how to keep it going.”

  “Okay. Hm. A sexier story.” She wiggled against me, spreading herself even wider. “Well, there was this one time I got kidnapped by a crazed, horny rock star.”

  “Horny, how do you know he was horny?” My heart sped up suddenly, wondering what she was about to tell me.

  “Mm, because when I kissed him he kissed back like a starving man.” She stroked her fingers lightly up my cock. “Also, I could feel his horn, right through our clothes.”

  “Oh, really.”

  “Mm-hm. And he almost made me come without even touching me between the legs.”

  “Did he, now?” I hadn’t realized she had been that close that time in the limo and I cursed myself for not trying it. Making a woman come without even touching her clit was high on my bucket list. I could not count on the couple of times groupies had claimed I’d succeeded being for real. “How did he do that?”

  “Insanely light touches on my nipples and sucking on this one spot on my neck. I had no idea it could feel like that.”

  “Your nipples, eh?” I let the hand on her belly stray upward to brush across one nipple, letting her know I was taking in every word of this “story” of hers. “And then what happened?”

  “And then one thing led to another.”

  Oh, but I wanted to hear more. This was the closest to flat-out talking about what she thought about sex, BDSM, and me Ricki had ever gotten. “You’ll have to give me more details than that if you want me to keep going. How about this: what was the best part?”

  “The best part was that he took complete control.”

  That was not the answer I was expecting, but that’s why asking probing questions could be so much fun. Not to mention arousing. Holy fuck. “How complete?”

  “So complete that I didn’t even let the thought enter my mind that what we were doing might … have consequences. So complete that the idea of refusing him never entered my mind.”

  Hm. She sounded ever so slightly worried about that. “So he was some kind of mind-control expert?”

  “No, just very very …” She whimpered a little as I sank a finger into her again. “Distracting.”

  I tried not to be so distracting now that she couldn’t keep talking, although the temptation to was very strong, too. Decisions, decisions. I kept probing with words, though. “Ahh. And you like this being taken completely, giving up control?”

  “It was the best sex I’d ever had. And it was the best I’d felt about sex in a long time.”

  Really? I recalled her feeling pretty crappy after that time in the limo, clamming up and refusing to speak to me. All I said, though, was, “The best? Did the feeling last?”

  “Deep down, it did. Deep inside …” She gasped then as I canted my hips and impaled her on my cock. I coudn’t wait any longer. My hands held her by the waist and I seated her on me. “I think I …”

  I held as still as I could, to let her speak—my need to hear her words every bit as sharp as my need to lose myself in her heat.

  “I didn’t know how much I needed that. And it was scary to realize it. But I did. I do. Need it.”

  “You need to be taken.” I felt my cock throb impatiently inside her.

  “Yes.”

  “You need to be overpowered, controlled.” The urge to thrust was strong, but I held completely still.

  “I need to surrender,” she whispered, the sweetest confession I’d ever heard.

  I nodded and kissed the back of her neck, unable to hold back any longer and with a strong reason not to anymore. “Good thing I’m here, then,” I said. “Touch your clit with your fingers, darling. I’m going to concentrate on fucking you now.”

  RICKI

  What did it say about my life that I was less worried about getting blood on the couch than I was about having to tell someone about the blood on the couch? I didn’t want to have to explain that to the housekeeping staff. The worry was crushed to dust under the force of Axel’s desire, though. Surrender, submission, whatever you called it—it wasn’t something I could do for myself even with the help of the fanciest sex toys on the planet.

  He was right, though. A generous dose of sex with several orgasms made my cramps disappear. And lying there in his arms afterward, I did not have the urge to murder anyone with a baseball bat or any other blunt instrument. Not even my fool father or the TTT reporter who’d talked to him.

  “What are you thinking about?” Axel asked.

  “How can you tell I’m thinking about anything?”

  “I can feel you tensing up.”

  “You’re a mind reader.”

  “That’s your body, not your mind, I’m reading. Is it the article?” He sounded so down-to-earth, like this crazy family shit didn’t bother him. Maybe it didn’t. I was grateful for his calm.

  “The article. It’s kind of unfair, don’t you think?”

  “Unfair? In what sense?”

  I tried to think of how to explain it. “I get that I am lucky. I
was born into money and all that. But I also didn’t ask for everyone to pry into my private life.”

  “Ah, yeah. Especially if they’re going to throw around shit like ‘potential suicide.’ ”

  Axel Hawke really knew how to hit the nail on the head. I swallowed, trying to tamp down the sickening feeling that crawled up my throat every time I thought about it. “Yeah. That … yeah.”

  “Wait. Don’t tell me this article was the first time anyone’s ever thought about that?”

  I burrowed against him, needing to feel his strength, his nearness. “Far as I know.”

  “Wait, wait, wait.” He shifted like he wanted to look me in the face but I stayed hunkered against him and he relented, stroking my back and hair instead. “This was the first time you ever thought about that?”

  I nodded.

  “That’s … wow. Fuck.” His chest tightened; lying against him like this I could feel that. His voice was gentle. “You want to talk about it?”

  “Yes and no. I mean, I think I should. But it’s like I’m still trying to figure out how to feel about it.” Other than feeling like I just wanted to cry or throw up or … I don’t even know.

  “Feel what you feel, Ricki. Don’t try to figure out how you’re supposed to feel.”

  It was good advice and I wasn’t even sure I could take it. Just feel? Just be without worrying about how it looked or what other people thought? What a novel concept.

  “It’s okay to feel contradictory shit, too,” Axel said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “That was the big lesson I learned after my parents split up. I was pretty fucked up for a lot of reasons and the part of my head that got unfucked by a counselor was when he told me it was okay to feel happy and sad at the same time. It sounds so simple, but when my father left, on the one hand I was devastated, but on the other hand I was relieved, too. And I carried around this massive guilt that feeling relieved or happy about it meant that him leaving was actually my fault—”

  He stopped abruptly as if he’d choked up a little. I lifted my head to look at his face. He was looking upward, that way you do when you’re trying to stop tears from forming. My own angst seemed suddenly smaller in comparison, as I tried to imagine being a teenager in that position. “But you knew it wasn’t your fault.”