Lead Me On

by Lexxie Couper

  He stopped, the exquisite timbre of his voice fading to silence.

  A deep tension stole through Lily. She swallowed, the rhythm and words still teasing her. “Wow, I really like that.”

  He inclined his head. “Thanks. It’s still a work in progress. It’s been a while since I wrote a song. That was Nick’s forte, not mine.”

  Lily smiled. “It’s good so far. What’s it called?”

  His gaze held hers. “‘Lily’s Song’.”

  Her breath caught in her throat. She stared at him, her heart thumping fast, her tummy knotting. “Why are you trying so hard to make me like you, Samuel?”

  He studied her, his blue eyes shining with an emotion she couldn’t fathom. “Because the second I saw you,” he said, his voice husky, “the very second, I wanted you to.”

  Her heart beat faster at his statement. Her stomach clenched. Her sex throbbed. She swallowed, a frown pulling at her eyebrows. “What if I never will?”

  He leant forward, skimming his fingertips along the sensitive skin of her jaw, and brushed his lips over hers.

  And all of Lily’s arguments faded from her mind.

  She kissed him back. There was no other option. She’d fought her desire, her passion for this man for the last four days. She was tired of denying herself. Parting her lips, she touched her tongue to his eager one. His slick warmth slid over hers, coaxing more from her. She gave it, melting against his body, pressing her hips forward. His erection nudged her lower belly, hard and thick. Her head spun and she moaned into his mouth, a delicious charge of liquid energy licking through her core at his need for her.

  When he buried his hands in her hair and nipped at her bottom lip with his teeth, she couldn’t help but whimper.

  He raised his head enough to drag his mouth up to her ear, exploring its sensitive shell with his tongue. He tasted the shallow dip beneath her ear, nibbling on her jaw. She gasped, thrusting her hips forward again.

  Samuel rolled his own hips, grinding his rigid shaft against her as his mouth reclaimed hers. He delved his tongue past her lips again, seeking hers, mating with it. Ferocious and ravenous.

  Fresh need pooled in Lily’s pussy at his dominating hunger. She raked her nails across his back, down to his ass. The firm muscles bunched under her palms and he groaned, pushing his cock to her belly in an insistent spasm.

  Lily’s knees trembled. She clung to him, taking pleasure from his wild kiss, his steely desire. When he captured her tongue with his lips and sucked it into his mouth, she dug her fingers into his butt cheeks and rammed her sex to his groin.

  He let out a low growl, his heart a frantic beat against her breast. And then it wasn’t his chest flattening the heavy swells of flesh, but his hands. He pinned her to the bow’s railing and palmed each one, dragging his thumbs over her pebbled nipples until she tore her head from his, desperate for breath.

  He gazed down into her face, his nostrils flaring, raw lust burning like blue fire in his eyes, and yanked the hemline of her shirt free from her jeans’ waistband.

  She gasped, staring up at him. Aching for more. “Th-the captain?” she whispered.

  “Is discreet,” he answered, his voice husky. Without breaking eye contact, he popped the top button of her shirt. And then the next, the next, the next, undoing them all until her torso was revealed to the night. “And too busy piloting the boat to worry about us.”

  She swallowed, remaining motionless. “Okay.”

  He parted the light cotton with one hand. He brushed his fingertips over her waist, inching his teasing caress up over her ribcage.

  Lily didn’t move. She drew in a ragged breath, another, another. Every nerve ending in her body sparked with dire need. Her breasts strained against her bra, her belly hitched, her sex pulsed.

  Samuel watched her as he trailed his fingers higher up her side, his eyes hooded, his cock a demanding presence between them. When he brushed the pad of his thumb over her distended nipple—trapped by the restraining lace of her bra—it was all she could do not to cry out.

  Oh God, she’d never been so engulfed with hot sensations.

  He teased her nipple again, slower this time, the path of his thumb circling her areola before returning to the tip of her flesh.

  She sucked in a breath, closing her eyes as swirls of wanton pleasure danced through her.

  “Open your eyes, Lily,” Samuel commanded, his Australian accent thick. “I want to see the pleasure I give you in them.”

  Constricting tension throbbed through her sex. She did as he instructed, unable not to.

  “Oh, babe—” he pressed his hips harder to hers, tormenting her nipple with his thumb, “—I could live forever on the desire in your eyes.”

  “Sam…” she moaned, giddy with need. “Please…”

  “Please what?” He cupped her breast completely in his hand and squeezed.

  “Y-yes…th-that…” she panted.

  “Only this?” He kneaded her flesh, his lips so close to hers his warm breath fanned her face. “Or would you like more?” He hooked his fingers under the lacey edge of her bra cup and slid it aside, freeing her breast. “Like this?”

  He covered her bare flesh with his palm.

  Lily bucked against him, driving her sex to his groin.

  “Or maybe,” he murmured, inching his leg between hers to press the corded muscle of his thigh to her pussy, “if I did this?”

  He captured her nipple with fingers and thumb, pinching its rock-hard form.

  She cried out, shards of white-hot pleasure sinking into her core. Her soul.

  “S-Sam…” She scraped her nails over his shoulders, his name barely a rasping whisper. “I…I need…again. Again…”

  He pinched her nipple once more, the deliciously painful pressure echoed by his thigh on her sex.

  She bucked, grinding her pussy to his leg.

  He nipped at her lip with his teeth before raising his head and gazing into her eyes. Around them, the cool breeze blew over the bay, pulling at their hair, their clothes. A distant part of Lily told her she should be cold, but the heat Samuel awoke in her mocked the weather. How could she feel anything but the scalding pleasure of his touch?

  “Is that enough, Lily?”

  She shook her head at his question, even as she rode his thigh with writhing speed. Could he make her orgasm? Just by teasing her nipple? Out in the open where anyone nearby could see? And photograph?

  He stole any chance of her brain providing an answer when, without preamble, he lowered his head and took her breast in his mouth.

  “Oh God,” Lily cried, “Sam.”

  He sucked her nipple past his lips, lashing its puckered nub with his tongue before capturing it with his teeth.

  Lily clung to him, incapable of articulate speech. The white-hot ribbons of pleasure unfurling from her breast, through her body, reduced words to sounds. Just sounds.

  God, it felt so good.

  His mouth…his tongue…

  His teeth.

  He drew on her nipple with increasing pressure, cupping her breast as he did so. He slipped his other hand between the denim of her jeans and her ass cheeks, holding her to his body.

  She arched, raking her nails over his scalp, soft moans and whimpers falling from her lips.

  The wind tugged at her hair. Samuel sucked deeper on her breast. Somewhere on the water, a boat blew its horn.

  Lily didn’t care.

  She surrendered to Samuel’s mastery of her body, her pleasure.

  She’d never done something so shameless. She never wanted to stop.

  He feasted on her nipple, propelling her closer and closer to an edge she couldn’t fathom and craved at once. When his mouth left her breast, she groaned in protest.

  Until his lips found hers, his kiss savage and demanding. She ground her pussy to his thigh, her clit an aching point of flesh. She would come soon. Unless something happened, she would come. There on his leg, fully dressed.

  Lily Pearce, paramedic,
brought to orgasm by a rock star’s—

  A dull shudder rocked through the yacht, throwing her off-balance. She stumbled sideways, the motion tearing Samuel’s masterful lips from hers.

  “Whoa.” He chuckled, brushing the backs of his knuckles over her cheek as his other hand pressed more firmly on the small of her back. “That really did rock the world.”

  Heat painted her cheeks. God, talk about being brought back to earth with a jolt. Had she really just experienced…had she really just let Samuel…out in public?

  Fresh heat flowed through her, fed not by shame but pleasure. She had, and it was amazing. She laughed, smiling up at him, her body all too aware he was fixing her bra cup back over her breast with tender care. “Or maybe it was just the boat docking?”

  He shook his head. “Nope. It was the kiss. Definitely.” The mischief faded from his eyes. He smoothed his palms over her hips, cupping her bottom with gentle pressure. “If it’s okay with you, I’d like to do it again. See if we can cause a seismic shock this time.”

  He lowered his head to hers, feathering his lips over hers. Soft. Tender. A question and a promise.

  Lily parted her lips to him, her body already welcoming the warm invasion of his tongue, a deep, urgent throb between her thighs.

  Someone cleared their throat beside her. “Ah, Mr. Gibson?”

  Lily pulled away from Samuel. He growled, digging his fingers into her butt for a second before, with a muttered curse, he straightened to face the man standing a few feet away from the bow. “Yes?”

  The charter yacht’s captain shuffled his feet, but whether it was due to Samuel’s surly glare or the intimate act he’d interrupted, Lily couldn’t tell. If she hadn’t spent the last two hours—no, change that—the last four days with Samuel and didn’t know his brooding anger was just a façade, she’d be unnerved by the irritation in his expression.

  Samuel cocked an eyebrow. “Well?”

  The captain shot Lily a quick look.

  Samuel growled again. “Speak, man. I’m sure you can see we’re otherwise occupied.”

  The man nodded. “A Mr. Maurice Raupo asked me to let you know that the Japanese tour group has been paid and he is waiting on the dock with the car when you’re ready.”

  A cold weight wrapped around Lily’s chest. The blood rushed from her cheeks. Surely she hadn’t heard correctly? “The what?”

  Sheepish frustration flashed across Samuel’s face. “Fuck.”

  Lily frowned at his mutter. Icy tension radiated deeper into her being. “The Japanese tourists on the Alcatraz tour with us?” she asked, looking at him. “You paid them? For what?”

  Samuel’s jaw bunched. He took a minute step away from her, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Lily…” he began, looking somewhere off to the left of her feet.

  She ground her teeth, taking her own step backward. “For what, Mr. Gibson? Why did you pay them?”

  A ragged breath burst past his lips. “To pretend they had no idea who I was.”

  Lily’s heart dropped into her stomach. She swallowed, her mouth dry. Constricting heat prickled at her temples. “Why?”

  He scraped his fingers through his hair twice before raising his head to regard her. “So you could see I’m not all bodyguards and fame and attention.”

  The cool pressure wrapping her body grew icier. The prickling heat compressing her head razed down her spine. “You paid an entire tour group to pretend you weren’t a famous rock musician? How many were there? Seventy people? How much did you pay?”

  Consternation pulled at Samuel’s forehead. He let out another breath, this one longer. “Two hundred dollars a tourist. Sixty tourists. Plus the guide.”

  Two hundred dollars a pop? Multiplied by sixty? God, how many times had she eaten instant rice and ramen noodles because of her enormous outstanding college loan and he just threw that kind of money about to…to…what? Try and pretend he wasn’t what she thought he was?

  She stumbled back another step. Her knees felt weak. “So you led me on? Lied to me?”

  He shook his head, trying to snare her hand with his. She snatched it from his loose grip, unable to hide her disbelief.

  “No,” he said, raking his hands through his hair again. “I just…I just wanted to have a night with you as Sam. Just Sam, a guy you met and liked, not Samuel Gibson, the rock star you seem hell-bent on despising so much.”

  Lily narrowed her eyes. Her heart smashed in her ears, a sickeningly fast beat that made her head hurt. “You lied. You let me believe something that wasn’t true. And you did it to get what you wanted. Which is exactly the kind of man I thought you were—a self-centred one.”

  She yanked off his jacket, threw it at him and hurried away, uncaring she almost tripped on the yacht’s topside. Uncaring the cold night air now wrapped her body instead of warmth. Without looking back, she damn near leapt from the aft onto the jetty, increasing her speed with every step. She’d fallen for it. Fallen for the whole goddamn act. God, she was so stupid. Gullible.

  “Lily.” Samuel’s shout rose above the night noises around her. “Wait, I need—”

  She spun on her heel and glared at him. “Here’s the thing, Samuel Gibson. If you lied about this, what’s to say you’re not lying about everything? I bet you’re not even reformed. I bet once you go on the road you’ll go back to your hedonistic lifestyle and suck my brother in with you. You said it yourself when I first met you. ‘We don’t lead the same life as normal people.’ You’re a rock star and always will be. You’ll never be normal.” She paused, her heart smashing at her breastbone. “Or someone I can be with. You can find your own way around tomorrow. I’m sure there are plenty of tourist groups ready to take your money.”

  Without waiting for his reply—whatever it was, she didn’t want to hear it—she pivoted back the way she’d been storming, not surprised in the least to find Brutal striding towards them both, an Alcatraz hat perched atop his shaved head.

  She barked out a dry laugh and shook her head. “Of course,” she muttered, resuming her hurried pace towards the marina and the street on the other side. “How stupid of me to worry about how I was going to protect him. I should have known better.”

  By the time she made it to the marina, people were looking at her. Probably because she was running. Running. She could hear Samuel calling her name only a few feet behind her, but she’d be damned if she was going to stop. He’d have to crash tackle her. Or get Brutal to crash tackle her.

  Or pay someone else to take her down.

  A hoarse sob of contempt tore at her throat. Willing more speed to her legs, she fled through the busy marina and shoved her way to the main exit.

  She heard surprised cries of Samuel’s name behind her, those in the marina suddenly aware of who was in their presence. She heard Brutal ordering people to step back, to step away. She saw the white bursts of camera flashes and then she was out on the street, the marina behind her.

  Samuel Gibson still inside it.

  Thank God.

  She turned left and jogged up the dark street, needing to get as far away as she could.

  A cold ache gnawed at her heart, an empty regret she tried to will away.

  When she saw a cab approaching her with its vacant light illuminated, she rushed to the curb and flagged it down.

  “You okay, miss?”

  She nodded at the driver’s question, reaching for the door handle. “I’m fine. Just realized it’s not a good idea to go jogging in jeans and boots, is all.”

  “Lily!” Samuel’s shout cut across the driver’s polite chuckle.

  He was close.

  Closer than she could bear.

  Without looking to see where he was, she yanked her door closed, settled back in her seat and looked at the cab driver’s curious eyes in the rearview mirror. “I think I’m in a hurry,” she said. “Can we go, please? Now?”

  The driver nodded just as Samuel slapped his hand on the roof of the cab.

  Startled brown eyes met
hers in the mirror again. “Miss?”

  She gave him a reassuring smile. “Ignore him. I am.”

  “Okay then.” The driver chuckled and pulled away from the curb.

  And Samuel.

  It wasn’t until the cab pulled to a halt outside the front of Lily’s home that she realized her shirt was still unbuttoned.

  The memory of Samuel suckling her nipple with his hot, masterful mouth slammed into her. Consumed her. Made her pussy constrict and her belly knot.

  “Fuck,” Lily muttered, staring at her exposed boob a second before she burst into tears.

  Chapter Six

  She refused to answer his calls. Samuel left about a million of them. He’d hoped by the time she made it home after discovering what he’d done, she’d have calmed down enough to understand why he’d deceived her.

  Now, somewhere around three am, bleary-eyed and frustrated beyond belief, Samuel accepted she wasn’t going to talk to him. Not tonight at least.

  Make that not this morning.

  He slumped in his suite’s luxurious armchair and stared at the ceiling. Fuck. He’d fucked up. Big time.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

  His mutter fell flat in the silence of the suite.

  He scowled at the ceiling—and the frustration in his voice. “Fuck.”

  This was a new experience for him. He’d never had a woman not return his calls. Not ever. But then he’d never called anyone like Lily Pearce, had he? Most of the women he called were eager to jump into his bed, his pants, his wallet. Who wouldn’t want the chance to shag Samuel Gibson? To indulge in the fame-by-association his attention brought?

  To brag about it after?

  Not Lily Pearce, it seemed.

  Everything Samuel Gibson was, she hated.

  He raised his right hand—the one still gripping his silent phone—and stared hard at the screen, willing it to ring.

  It didn’t.

  Swiping his thumb across its screen, he opened the photo app.

  Lily had allowed him to take a few photos of them together. Ones with them in a cell together, their grinning faces thrown into stripy shadows by the steel bars positioned between them and the phone.