by Skye Jordan
Met with Pepsi today. They’re offering a three-month military tour in Asia. Call me.
Anheuser-Busch has approached me about a headliner tour in North America. This is BIG.
Word’s spreading. I’ve gotten sponsorship offers from four big hitters. Where the fuck are you?
I’m on the edge of panic. AEG Live and Live Nation are on board with sponsors. CALL ME!
Giselle, get your priorities in line! This is your career. Stop fucking around.
And the one she’d just received: GET. BACK. HERE. NOW.
“Just fucking beautiful.”
Troy had made enemies of the people closest to Giselle in the past, a mistake he didn’t want to repeat. But this was different. Troy wasn’t alienating Chad because he was jealous or felt challenged. Chad had the Type A personality that fed into Giselle’s ingrained drive to achieve. A drive stemming from a childhood of poverty and strife. Chad wanted her back at work and away from Troy, who Chad saw as interference and competition. But work wouldn’t help Giselle heal.
Only Brook asked how Giselle was feeling, how things were going with Troy, and if she needed anything.
Troy’s head throbbed. He closed his eyes, propped his elbow on the granite, and rested his forehead on his hand. He was sweating. His heart was racing. He was thrilled for this rise in her career and terrified for her at the same time.
These messages told Troy she’d finally done it, finally risen to the level of her idols. He saw her hitting the big time in the very immediate future, and he couldn’t have been more thrilled for her. But it also couldn’t have come at a worse time, because in her current physical and emotional state, that kind of pressure put her on a direct fas track to burnout. The kind of burnout that didn’t just go away with a few days of rest but that killed careers. Killed relationships. Killed people.
He also knew Giselle would work herself sick before she’d take the break she needed. He’d watched her do it over and over again while Ryker had been off playing army and before Chad had ever met her. He could tell that hadn’t changed by the number of concerts she put on, the number of albums she produced, and the number of charity events she participated in. She was one of the most driven people he’d ever met. He respected that, admired it, but he also knew that compulsion had to be tempered or it would run her aground. Run them aground. Again.
To grab hold of these tour offers, she’d jump back on the first available plane, even with a concussion. She’d promise the sponsors the moon, even if her voice wasn’t ready to deliver, even if her body wasn’t ready to handle the stress. Troy was certainly no stranger to workaholism or vices, but his brotherhood of fishermen and then the Renegades had given him the support he’d needed to stay balanced. He could easily see Giselle didn’t have that network. And traveling around the world certainly wouldn’t create one.
He exited to the main message screen where Chad’s GET. BACK. HERE. NOW. stared back at Troy. He wouldn’t put it past this guy to trace Giselle’s phone to get ahold of her.
He pressed the power button, turning the phone off, then pulled the battery out, threw it and the phone into the nearest drawer, and slammed his hands on the granite.
Giselle might think this guy was a great manager, but in Troy’s opinion, Chad looked a lot more like a greedy narcissist, looking to wring every drop of blood he could get from her. How he didn’t see the effect this would have on Giselle in the long run, Troy didn’t understand. Or maybe the guy just didn’t give a shit. Maybe, when Giselle burned out, he simply planned to dump her and move on to the next hot ticket.
But Troy knew attacking Giselle’s agent wasn’t the way to get her to see what he was doing. His best hope was to show her that she could have a life outside her work and still be successful. Maybe that couldn’t have happened in the beginning, but they had a lot more flexibility now, so many more options now. He just needed more time with her. Time to bond. Time to fit. Then, when they’d found more comfort together, he could breach those topics with her.
It was a good plan. The only plan. But he still felt a powerful undercurrent pulling Giselle away even while she was still here, and he couldn’t help but wonder: Was losing her inevitable? Was this draw so ingrained that she would ultimately choose her career over him the same way she had seven years ago? Or would she be able to swim against that current and make the sacrifice required to find balance in her life?
“We need to talk.”
Giselle’s voice startled him, and he jerked his head up to find her standing five feet away wearing nothing but a towel. A very small towel. One that barely covered her breasts and stopped way too high on those delicious thighs.
“I didn’t hear you.” Dragging his mind back to her demand was a struggle. Talk. “Uh, sure.” He moved to the cutting block and picked up a knife. “Dinner’s almost ready. Go ahead and get dressed. This will only take fifteen minutes.”
Giselle stepped up beside him and covered his hand holding the knife. “No. Now.”
Her tone shot the sizzle of oh-shit across his skin. He took a closer look at her face and found those blue eyes serious and intense and determined. There was no sidestepping that expression.
He set the knife down and wiped his hands, trying like hell to keep his eyes on her face. God, he was such a damn animal. He couldn’t think about anything but touching her and kissing her. About doing things to her that made her moan and gasp and scream. About pushing inside her, again and again and…
“Okay,” he said, and pressed one hand to the counter, stabilizing himself for…whatever.
She licked her lips. “I need to know” —her eyes flickered away for a split second—“if you only like sex when you want to fuck.”
His mouth dropped open. His brain hit a wall. He narrowed his eyes. “What?”
“I know that’s direct, but I can’t spend days here with you expecting one thing only to find out another. I’d rather just know up front so I can…just…deal with it.”
Her voice was matter-of-fact, soft, understanding, not the curt, cold tone the words implied.
She crossed her arms and met his gaze again. “So, is that what you want now? Fucking? No emotional connection when you’re having sex? I mean, I get it. It’s safer. You’re not putting yourself out there. I…put you through a lot when I left. And it’s probably the only way you could operate in those clubs—”
“I don’t go to those clubs.” He cut her off, confusion over this strange ramble drawing frustration. “I go to that one club—occasionally.” He gripped the granite with one hand, pressed the other to his hip. “I’m sorry. What is this about? I thought we were on the same page about the club—”
“I don’t have a problem with the club or why you went or what you did there.” The thin veneer of control she’d been using slipped, and hurt frustration seeped through. “What I have a problem with is your disinterest in sex as we get closer. Because as good as sex is between us, that’s not what I want—just sex. Because…because…”
Tears filled her eyes, flooded over, and spilled down her cheeks, and Troy had a sensation of time speeding out of control without any idea of what was happening. He put his hands on Giselle’s arms.
“Baby, slow down…”
She shook her head and met his gaze head-on. “Because I love you. I love you,” she said again with more intensity, more purpose, as if confirming she’d said it the first time, “and I can’t just have sex with you. Even if I could, I wouldn’t want to, because the more I get to know who you’ve become over the years we’ve been apart, the more I realize all I’ve missed, and the more I’m sure that I don’t want to miss another minute. I want all of you.
“But I know this is all happening fast, and I know there are unsettled hurt feelings between us, and if you aren’t sure or if too much has happened or if we’re just too different, and you can’t love me back…” She closed her eyes and exhaled heavily. “Shit, I shouldn’t have gone there. I want to tell you it’s okay, but… Shit…”
She pressed her hand to the middle of her forehead. “I shouldn’t have—”
“Ellie.” He gave her a shake to stop the ramble. Holy shit, he was only half-sure she’d just told him she loved him. Twice. His heart was on a freaking trampoline. “Just…stop for a second.”
She did that adorable thing with her lips, where she curved them over her teeth, her eyes on the floor. The exact same expression she’d had coming into their foster home that first day. The day he’d fallen in love with her.
Now, his heart was beating just as hard as it had then. A dozen damn years later, and the girl owned more real estate in his head and his heart than anyone else in the universe.
“Baby…” Emotions overwhelmed him, and he didn’t think letting them spill all over her now was such a great idea. So he picked something tangible. “I’m trying really hard to show you my better side, the side that has been blown completely out of view by every damn shitty thing I’ve done since I saw you again. Our time here isn’t about sex, El. We already know we are absolutely, utterly, perfectly compatible there. So if you think I’m not interested in you because we’re getting closer emotionally…” He stepped in, took her hand, and pressed it to the rigid line of his cock through the canvas of his shorts and rubbed the length. Lust rushed his groin, and he clenched his teeth. “Think again.”
He deliberately pulled her hand off him and wrapped his arms around her, taking hers with them and trapping them behind her.
With her big blue eyes looking up into his and her damp wheat strands framing her gorgeous farm-fresh face, he said, “I’m carrying as much guilt for the last two weeks as you seem to be carrying for walking away. What do you say to calling it even and starting fresh? You and me loving each other as the people we are now and leaving all the other shit behind?”
Her eyes turned smoky. She pulled one hand from his grip and reached between them, pulling her towel loose. It dropped to the floor, and the last twenty percent of Troy’s blood rushed south.
“I’m on board,” she said softly, sliding her free hand into his hair and pushing to her toes. “Make love to me, Troy.”
The breath whooshed out of his lungs. There was no thought required in responding or fulfilling her request, simply letting go of all the restrictions he’d placed on himself and loving her the way he wanted to.
He groaned as he tilted his head and took her mouth. She opened immediately, warm and welcoming.
Home.
She was home.
Always had been. Always would be.
His ribs ached. His eyes burned. He needed her, all of her, and he needed her now. She wrapped her arms around his neck, taking the kiss deep, stroking her tongue into his mouth and circling, plunging, licking. Practiced, knowing, rhythmical, they kissed like longtime lovers, like they’d never been separated, like they fit perfectly, two puzzle pieces. The woman’s mouth made him dizzy, but she was the one to sway toward him, pressing and rubbing that beautiful body against his in all the right places and in all the right ways.
“Baby…” he moaned between kisses. “Jesus.”
He released her face, let his hands skim over her slender shoulders, down her smooth back. Traced the sleek indention of her spine, and let his hands ride over the curves of her ass. He squeezed the firm flesh and drew her against him, meeting the pressure with his hips and driving into her mouth with his tongue, simulating the thrust he would soon duplicate with his tongue, fingers, and finally his cock in her pussy.
She moaned into his mouth, her kiss so hungry, so passionate she made him spin. One curvy thigh hooked onto his hip, then the other. She locked her feet at his back and lifted her hips, rubbing against him like a cat, pushing his need from hot to urgent. Her hands combed through his hair, fisting the strands and shooting a delicious burn across his scalp, making him a little crazy.
His thoughts came in fragments. Counter was too high. Bed was too far. He stumbled a few steps to the breakfast area and kicked a chair away from the end of the farm-style solid wood table. With one arm stretched across her back, he leaned over and used the other to sweep everything to the floor—he didn’t even remember what had been there, only heard the thump and clatter as it hit the kitchen tile.
Then he laid Giselle down, and he was free. Free to touch, taste, and ravage. He kissed every inch of her neck and throat. Cupped and squeezed one breast while licking and sucking the other. Her hips lifted beneath him, but he ignored them as he stroked a slow circle around and around one nipple, while mirroring the touch with his fingers on the other breast. Licking with his tongue and flicking with his fingertips. Sucking with his mouth and squeezing with his hand. Nipping with his teeth and pinching with his fingers. Then he switched hand and mouth and repeated.
He wanted to kiss every inch of her, but that would have to wait for another time. He didn’t have the willpower to make her wait. He desperately needed to taste her. To feel her warmth on his tongue. To hear her cries of pleasure. Pleasure he’d brought her. And he took a direct route from her belly button to her sex, opening wide to cover her pussy with his hot mouth.
“Ah God.” She came up in a half curl, fingers digging into his hair, thighs closing around his head, eyes heavy-lidded and dazed. “God. Yes.”
Troy gripped the tops of her thighs and lifted his gaze to hers, watching the orgasm wash over her like waves on the beach as he worked her pussy beneath his tongue and lips. The muscles of her abdomen clenched and quivered. Her nipples remained puckered in tight buds.
Her mouth dropped open, her eyes closed, head dropped back, body curled tighter. “Yes, yes, yes. Please. God. Yes.”
Just when she was about to break, he relaxed all pressure and just breathed long and hot, bathing her wet pussy with warm, moist air. Her eyes opened, and a look of desperation crossed her face along with a high-pitched plea from her throat.
Lust struck Troy like lightning. He tugged her thighs wider, pressed his mouth fully over her sex, and sucked.
Giselle’s body spasmed at the initial contact, then her hips immediately lunged to the rhythm of his mouth, her hands pulling his head into the rocking motion.
Her second orgasm hit instantly, a heat wave of muscle contraction so fierce, Troy was lost in the pressure of her thighs for long luscious moments. He waited patiently as wave after wave of pleasure washed through her, until she was panting, until she was lying flat on the table, one forearm flopped over her eyes. Then, with a wicked little thrill, he circled her clit with soft strokes of his tongue.
“Ah…” She wiggled her hips. “Mmm…” She rolled up to one elbow, reached for him. “Troy…”
He added a little pressure. When her breath caught, when her fingers tangled in his hair, when that look of pained pleasure crossed her face, he slipped one hand between her legs, separated her folds, and took her clit between his lips, and ever so gently, ever so slowly, almost not moving at all…he sucked.
She dropped back on the table, threw one arm out to the side and gripped the edge. She planted one foot on the table and pushed her hips into his mouth, then rolled up on one elbow to watch. And that was just too hot. Too fucking hot. He rewarded her with kisses and licks, only sucking her when she held herself there and ground against him.
“God…”
Her orgasm seemed to shake her to the core, twisting through her body like a demon of pleasure.
And nothing, nothing, thrilled Troy more than thrilling Giselle.
Giselle lay limp against the table, the wood hard against her back, but she was floating in bliss as Troy kissed his way back toward her mouth, then covered her mouth with all the lust he’d just released in her body still coiled in his.
A surge of need burned through her belly. Deeper than the sexual need he’d just satisfied.
She kissed him back and tasted herself on his tongue. A wild flash of eroticism spiked through her body. She grabbed his tank and dragged it over his head, then took his tongue again as she reached between them to work his pants open.
“Need you…” she panted, sitting up to shove his pants out of the way, “inside me.”
“Need to be…” he echoed as he dragged his wallet from his back pocket, while his mouth kissed her everywhere he could reach, her jaw, her neck, her shoulder, “inside you.”
She pushed his shorts and boxers over his hips but had to pull them over the muscle of his thighs to get them to the floor, and she let out a soft laugh between kisses, “Remember when…your pants would…fall right off?”
He tore a condom open with his teeth and rolled it over his length, something Giselle took over, stroking him as she went, making him growl.
He pressed his forehead to hers and gripped her hips, dragging her to the edge of the table, where he met her eyes. “And you loved me anyway.”
She lifted one hand and laid it over his heart. “This is who you are. This is who I love.” Then she smiled and slid one hand over the curved muscle of his shoulder. “But this is nice too.”
A smile flickered over his lips, but when she brushed the head of his cock against her heat, intensity darkened his face.
“You’re way too good for me,” he rasped, rocking his hips. His wide head spread her entrance. Pressure radiated through her sex. “You know that, right?”
“Not true.”
A growl rolled from his throat, and he cupped her face with one hand, lifting her eyes to his, holding her gaze as he rocked deeper.
“Ah God…” The words shivered out of her, half laugh, half sigh. “So good—”
His mouth covered hers, his kiss hungry but slow. He circled his tongue with hers in lazy circles and pulsed his hips just enough to allow the head of his cock to enter and exit her over and over and over. The stimulation created a wicked pressure wash through her whole pelvis, making her restless, making her writhe, making her lift into him to take him deeper.
She broke the kiss with a breathless “More…” pulling on his shoulder, lifting with her hips.
“Goddamn.” He rasped the word before he thrust hard. Pressure pushed sensation through her sex, out through her pelvis, into her belly. “You kill me, El. Can’t fuckin’ say no to you.”
