Roux handed him soap, shampoo, a toothbrush, toothpaste, and several washcloths. “I’ll call Butch and then help you clean up. Assuming you want my help.”
Her help? He always wanted her help and wasn’t too proud to admit it. “I’d appreciate your assistance.”
“Did you eat anything for dinner?”
He shook his head.
“I’ll order you some food too,” she said. “Something that’ll be gentle on your stomach.”
He wasn’t sure if it was the aftereffects of the alcohol or what, but emotion suddenly flooded him, choking him up. “I don’t deserve you, Red,” he said, “but I’m glad you’re mine.”
She pointed at him, a stern expression on her lovely, makeup-free face. “Don’t make this a habit, you hear me? I won’t put up with this bullshit.”
He nodded, thinking what a great mom she would make, and then wondering if she even wanted kids. He’d have to ask her sometime.
She left the bathroom, and he stuck his head under the flow of water, brushing his teeth first. How had she known his mouth tasted like ass? She’d probably smelled his breath, he thought with a wry smile. She definitely hadn’t offered him any kisses. Had he really dreamt that she’d come and undressed him earlier? It had seemed so real at the time. So real that he’d stripped off his own pants while he’d been dreaming about her. Or maybe he’d taken them off before he’d passed out on the bed. Had he shut off the television? He couldn’t remember. He shrugged, spitting foamy toothpaste into the drain. Hallucinogenic drugs had made him do some weird shit in the past, including climbing out of a five-story-high window when he’d wrongly thought his hotel room was on fire, but alcohol had never had such an effect on him. It made his head hurt to puzzle through the past couple of hours, so he reached for the shampoo and pushed his thoughts away. He’d actually done a pretty good job of not getting vomit all over himself, but he scrubbed his scalp vigorously just in case.
He heard a deep, muffled voice in the bedroom. Butch wasn’t only discreet and efficient, but also quick to respond. Steve figured when they fired Sam, they could offer Butch the guy’s exorbitant salary. Butch deserved to be better compensated for all the shit—and vomit—he had to deal with.
A few minutes later, Butch entered the bathroom with Roux right behind him.
“Hey, man, you okay?” Butch asked. “Your lady is really worried about you.”
“I’ll be fine as soon as I get some painkillers for this headache.”
“I’m not giving you anything until you tell me what you took.”
Butch focused on Roux for a moment. He probably wondered if Steve would be honest about his drug usage in front of her.
“I didn’t take anything. Just drank some Jack. Quite a bit of it. But I didn’t mix it with anything.”
“You’re sure? You don’t usually react to alcohol that way.”
“I’m sure.”
“I won’t be responsible for giving you a painkiller that will react with whatever you took earlier. You’re absolutely positive that you didn’t take anything else?” Butch spoke slowly, as if Steve didn’t understand English.
“Positive.”
Butch sighed loudly, but palmed him a couple of pills, which Steve tossed into his mouth and swallowed. They got stuck in his throat, so he tilted his face into the shower flow and forced down a drink of warm water.
“Thanks,” he said.
“You’re lucky I love you, you fucking pain in my ass,” Butch grumbled before slipping past Roux and out of the bathroom.
“Love you too, errand boy!” Steve yelled after him, and even though he couldn’t see into the bedroom, he knew that Butch was extending a middle finger in his direction.
“Maybe we should take you to the ER,” Roux said. Both hands were twisted in the hem of her shirt. “Just to make sure you’re okay.”
“I’ll be fine. I have the liver of a rock star. They’re indestructible.”
She didn’t look convinced.
“Now are you going to get in here with me before I use up the hotel’s entire supply of hot water?”
She smiled. “I suppose we have time before your soup arrives.”
She closed the door and had just shimmied out of her leggings when Butch called, “Your soup is here. I’m leaving now.”
“Thanks, Butch,” Roux shouted through the door. “I’ll take care of him.”
“It’s about time I got some help around here,” Butch yelled.
“You know you love the challenges only I can offer you,” Steve hollered back, smiling to himself. He gave Butch a hard time, but the man was one of his favorite people, and not just because he saved his ass on a regular basis.
Roux slipped into the shower behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist, resting her face against his back. Her fingers sought the bullet on the bracelet he now wore around his wrist, and he could only imagine how upset she’d been when she’d discovered him unconscious. He knew she was afraid of losing him. He had to be more careful in the future not only for himself, but for her as well. He never wanted to cause her pain of any sort.
“Are you sure you don’t want a car?” he asked as guilt churned in his belly, and she laughed.
“No, I don’t want a stupid car. I want you, Steve. Only you.”
“A car is better,” he assured her.
“Not in my opinion.”
Silence stretched between them as she washed his back with a soapy washcloth. He sighed in bliss, the impotence problem he’d dreamt about while unconscious no longer an issue. He turned to face her and tilted his head, lifting his brows and then lowering his gaze toward the erect issue she’d created with her touch.
“Yeah, that’s not happening tonight,” she said, stepping out of the shower.
“What do you mean that’s not happening tonight?”
“I mean sex. It’s not happening.”
“Are you on your period?” His gaze dropped to look for traces on her inner thighs. “Because I don’t mind.”
“Now that you’re not dying, I realize that I’m pissed at you. Supremely pissed.”
He’d thought she was over her anger already. “I said I was sorry.” Had he? He couldn’t remember if he’d actually issued an apology or had just felt it. “I’m really sorry, Roux. This might not ever happen again.”
Apparently his joke didn’t amuse her. She scowled and wrapped herself in a fluffy towel before scooping her clothes off the floor and hurrying into the bedroom. He didn’t bother to rinse off or grab a towel before following her.
“Roux, don’t be mad. It’s our first night together in Europe. It should be special.”
“Well, maybe you should have thought about that before you drank yourself to unconsciousness.”
He moved to stand in front of her, gingerly lifting his hands to cup her shoulders. He’d never seen her mad and didn’t know if she was biter. “I didn’t mean to.”
“I don’t know if I can do this.” Tears sprang to her eyes, and she dropped her chin.
His heart froze in his chest. “Can do what?”
“Be with someone who drinks.” She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes and took several deep and shaky breaths.
“If that’s how you feel,” he said.
She whimpered, and her arms shot outward, wrapping tightly around his back. He took it that she thought he meant they should break up.
“I won’t drink around you again,” he said, “and since I plan to be around you at all times, I guess that means I won’t drink at all.”
“I can’t ask you to give up drinking for me.” They both knew those kinds of promises rarely worked anyway.
“To be honest, I didn’t enjoy drinking at all today. I swear I won’t miss it.” He usually drank to alleviate boredom, or to allow himself to behave like the jerk everyone expected him to be, but when Roux was with him he was never bored, and the last thing he wanted to do was behave like a jerk. His big fat jerk of a mouth had already upset her once t
oday. “But I’d miss you. I’ve been missing you all day. Forgive me?”
She smiled and nodded.
“Give me another chance?”
She nodded again and then stretched up on tiptoe to kiss him. His head was still pounding—though slightly less than before—but the bed was freshly made, and her towel was quite simple to remove. With the slightest brush of his hand, the corner of the terry cloth slipped free and the whole towel dropped to the floor. She pulled away and squatted to retrieve it.
“I’m still not having sex with you,” she said, glaring at him through narrowed eyelids. “Until you eat your soup.”
She grinned, and his entire world brightened.
“And go rinse that soap off,” she added. “You’re all sticky.”
“Yes, my lady.”
After claiming a lengthy kiss from her pliant lips, he returned to the bathroom to rinse off. He even turned off the water and wrapped a towel around his waist. He vowed to be on his best behavior until his soup was gone, and then they were going to dig into the contents of the big black box still sitting on his dresser. When he returned to the bedroom, he discovered that Roux was of the same mind. She was already wearing the black crotchless, braless leotard and was slipping her shapely leg into a leather boot. His dick decided his thighs were a bit overwarm and lifted the front of his towel.
“The faster you eat your soup, the faster I can begin your punishment,” she said, not bothering to look at him as she reached for her second boot. “That is, if you think you’re up for it.”
“Oh, I’m up,” he said. He hurried to the covered dish on the table in the corner. He lifted the lid and tilted the bowl to his mouth, downing the entire contents in several deep gulps.
“I guess you’re feeling better,” Roux said, an amused smile twisting her lush lips.
“I am now that you’re wearing that.”
“Not sure what to do now that I have it on.”
She rose to her feet and planted a fist on either hip, staring down at her body as if it belonged to someone else. Her tits looked fantastic, her waist appeared exceptionally tiny in the clinging black leotard, her clean-shaven pussy was exposed just enough to tease, and the few inches of her thighs that showed above those boots made him incapable of speech. He stared with mouth-watering anticipation.
“You’re not much help,” she said with a disarming grin.
His heart skipped a beat, probably because it was overstrained from pumping all the blood in his body into his painfully engorged cock.
God, he was in love with her. He prayed the feeling lasted forever.
“Have you been naughty?” she asked.
“No more than usual,” he said, surprised he’d strung a coherent sentence together.
She approached him, and his legs trembled as if he’d just done ten thousand squats at the gym. An aftereffect of his binge drinking? Or did this woman make him weak in the knees?
“A simple yes will suffice,” she said, her normally soft voice laced with an iciness that made him shiver.
“Yes.”
She took his hand and tugged him toward the bed. “Come with me.”
“I love to come with you.”
“Not tonight. You’re being punished.” She fastened a restraint around his wrist and pushed him to sit on the bed.
“I have the feeling that you’re a particularly vicious mistress.”
She smiled an evil little grin. Lord, what it did to him.
“You have no idea. Your safety phrase is I’m coming.”
“That’s not a very good one. I’ll probably say it when I don’t want you to stop, not when I do want you to.”
She didn’t respond, just fastened a restraint around his other wrist. He scrutinized the headboard and found it was one of those fake padded things designers anchored to walls. Damn. Hotel rooms should be required to have headboards with sturdy rails. He’d request such from Butch for the remaining stops of the tour. Luckily for him, his woman was as smart as she was talented and beautiful. She took a flat sheet from the pile the cleaning crew had left behind—presumably in case he had another vomiting incident or two in the night—and slid one diagonally under the mattress at the head of the bed and the second under the mattress at the foot. This gave her four sheet corners to tie him down spread-eagle. He probably could have ripped himself free if he tried hard enough, but he had no plans to struggle.
She tossed aside the towel that was crumpled around his hips, leaving him naked and ready for whatever she had in store for him. He was sort of surprised that she hadn’t tied him facedown so that she could paddle his ass. It could use a good paddling. He hoped she didn’t get too rough with his more vulnerable front side, though he was already seeping precum at the thought of her hurting him.
“Remember your safety phrase,” she said.
“I’m coming.”
She nodded and climbed onto the bed between his open thighs. “Thank you for spoiling me with all those gifts while we were apart,” she said, looking so sweet—even in her devilish attire—that it made his teeth and his heart ache. “It helped me realize that you were thinking of me as much as I was thinking of you. I’ve been trying to come up with a way to repay you.”
“You already have.”
She shook her head slightly and then lowered her face. When her first soft kiss pressed against his inner thigh, he jerked, pulling against his restraints. They held easily, and he wondered if he actually could get away if he needed to. He was in an awfully vulnerable position and . . . Dear God, what was she doing with her tongue?
She kissed and sucked and licked the insides of his upper thighs until he thought he’d die from unfulfilled desire. His hips thrust gently in an instinctual rhythm as his cock was given none of the attention it deserved. If this was her idea of repaying him . . . Her mouth moved to his balls. He groaned, head pressing back against the mattress, every muscle in his body tight. Her tongue was gentle as she sucked and licked every inch of his sac. His toes curled, and his hands fisted around the sheet attached to his wrist cuffs.
“Dear God,” he moaned.
She nibbled his taint, and if he hadn’t been restrained, he would have launched off the bed and through the ceiling. When her hand circled his shaft, a violent shudder ripped through his entire body. She didn’t stroke his length the way he craved, just held her hand around the base of his cock while she continued to pleasure his balls. She was getting precariously close to his asshole with that tongue of hers. God, how it made him twitch.
“Wha-what are y-you . . . What are you doing to me?” he asked, his breath hitching.
“Punishing you for being so, so good to me,” she said.
“I promise I’ll never do it again.”
“You don’t like this?”
The uncertainty in her tone tore at him. “Of course I do,” he said. “It’s the best torture I’ve ever endured.”
She giggled, and her breath tickled against his wet balls. Oh fuck, he couldn’t take much more.
“Suck my dick now. Please.”
She lifted onto her elbows, and her lovely face came into view. Unfortunately, she was scowling. “Did you just tell me to suck your dick?”
“I said please!”
“Not yet.”
She resumed torturing him with more pleasure than he could stand. He thrust his hips, trying to get that hand circling the base of his cock to brush the head. Just a little, and he could endure more of those maddeningly soft kisses and licks of hers, but no. Her hand followed the movement of his hips and didn’t slide up his length even a centimeter.
“Please, Roux. Please. I can’t take— I can’t take it anymore.”
“You will. Because I’m giving you more.”
More?
Her tongue swirled over his asshole, and his mouth dropped open. He went completely still. It wasn’t his first rim job, but by God, in his current overexcited state, it was by far the best. She retreated quickly.
“I hope th
at was okay,” she said. “I’ve never had the courage to try it before.”
“A-OK,” he said, more than willing to be her test subject in anything she wanted to try. “Have you ever tried . . . sucking my dick?”
She laughed. “Is that what you want?”
“Yes, please.”
“Not yet.”
Fuck! What else could she possibly do to him that— His breath caught as she stuck her finger in her mouth.
“I heard that you can make a guy come by massaging his prostate. Is it true?”
“I’m guessing you’re about to find out.”
She grinned. “Is it okay?”
“You have me tied down. You can pretty much do whatever you want to me.”
“But I wouldn’t do anything you didn’t want me to.”
“Yet you won’t do the thing I really want you to.”
“Suck your dick?”
He nodded eagerly.
“Not yet.”
Damn! “You’re an evil, torturing brat.”
And then her finger was in his ass.
“What am I feeling for?”
“Deeper.” He shuddered when she complied. “Forward. Toward the front.” She followed his instructions, and blinding pleasure shot straight up his dick. “Holy fuck!”
“Found it.” She had the gall to suck his balls while she rubbed his prostate until he had no choice but to come.
“I’m coming,” he groaned.
Her lips released the nut she was kissing, and she said, “Finally,” before she sucked the head of his cock into her mouth.
She’d been waiting for the safety phrase? He’d have yelled it twenty minutes ago if . . . Oh fuck, he really was coming. She fingered his ass perfectly as she swallowed his load down her throat, wringing out every ounce of release his body had to give. When he went still, completely spent and unable to move, she climbed up to straddle his hips and pressed his still-hard cock inside her. He forced his eyes to stay open as she leaned back, giving him a perfect view of her cock-filled pussy as she rubbed her clit, bringing herself to orgasm. She rode him as she came, still stroking her clit and straining for more stimulation as her inner walls tightened around him in hard spasms.
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