by Cari Quinn
Yet there she was. On the bar, with the calloused tips of his fingers dragging up the backs of her thighs.
She slid her fingers into his hair. The super short hairs sifted around her trimmed nails until she got to the denser wavy strands on top. Just enough to twist, so she did. She tugged his head back, pressing her knee to his shoulder.
He reached up for her, gripping her waist with his huge hands. His long fingers made her feel tiny. Wanted.
His eyes screamed hunger.
No. Not for her. He wasn’t for her.
Rockstar.
Wrong type.
So much the wrong type.
Too bad the crackling arc of attraction between them wasn’t freaking listening.
Her breath shuddered out as she slid down his body, her breasts rubbing against his firm chest. Muscles everywhere. The breadth of his shoulders wouldn’t allow her to encircle all of him. She held onto what she could, her toes dangling off the floor.
His mouth was right there.
So close that she could taste the tequila shooter he’d just sipped off her flesh on his breath. The bite of lime would still be on his tongue. Her nails dug into his shoulders.
She wanted that lime.
Wanted his afterburn one more time.
She couldn’t remember the last time her skin had felt so tight and responsive. She didn’t want to question it. Didn’t want to play it safe.
Safe made no sense tonight.
She covered his mouth. There was no teasing between them. Foreplay had been the air between them, the lights and the music that followed him around like its own forcefield.
Power and haunting charisma drenched in charm.
She felt the hint of his smile before their tongues tangled.
Slick and dominant, he brought every want into the foreground. She’d believed the lies she told herself. That she didn’t need to be touched. She could live without passion.
Now she’d learned otherwise. The starvation diet never worked. As soon as she’d sampled off the forbidden tray, the craving had become all-encompassing.
Hot. Worse than any drug she could imagine.
Want eroded sense. Sense floated away the moment his taste infiltrated her body.
He demanded participation with a tempting wind of lips and tongue. Just when she thought she would need to rip herself away to breathe, he adjusted their kiss and offered a hint of oxygen.
Just enough to feed the beast building inside her chest.
In one sweeping move, he lifted her then carted her across the room. He dropped suddenly and she went free-falling into his lap. Startled, she tried to find her footing, but he pulled her astride him.
“Feel that?” He dragged his lips over her chin to her jaw and down the column of her neck. “Feel how hard I am?”
She sucked in a breath. Please don’t talk. Don’t make me think. He nipped at the strings of her halter top to move them before he wrapped his lips around her pulse.
Gone.
She was simply gone.
Thoughts slid away into the corners where mistakes didn’t matter. Under the dark cover of shadows, she forgot to be the responsible Chloe. The next song urged her to roll her hips against him. Faster. The sensual words of the song emptied her brain.
His lips brushed over the material of her shirt. He scraped his teeth over her shoulder then slid down to hover over her nipple. A whisper of hot breath then a tease of teeth at the tip made her shudder. Her moans drifted out over the cacophony of voices.
He stared up at her.
Was he asking permission?
No.
It was demand.
He didn’t give her time to think about saying yes.
He grinded her down on his cock.
Fuck.
The word was foreign even in her own head. But it belonged here in the relentless beat of the song with this hard, hot male under her.
He was just a body. This was just sex.
It was just a basic need that was finally coming to the surface. But no other man in three years had come close to drawing even a fraction of this out of her.
Hunger so thick and consuming it battled with the alcohol she’d fed her out of control inner bad girl all night. Except being bad felt so damn good.
She’d touched and flirted with others the night before. A pretty lawyer who was probably a better choice even for just a one-night-stand.
But no, it had to be this man who set off the conflagration that had lain dormant inside her.
The worst man in legions of ways.
She gripped the back of the chair as her hips undulated against him. Muscle memory crashed into something so new and different she shuddered to keep up with it.
“That’s right. Fuck. You’re so fucking hot. Can you come on my jeans like this? Just grinding on me. Use me. Let me feel you come on me.” His turbulent sea eyes flashed in the flickering dark.
His hand slid under her skirt to cup her ass.
“This is crazy.”
“Crazy is good. Crazy is hot. Right here. No one cares about us.” He looked around. “See over there? That girl on the table has all the eyes on her.”
Chloe craned her neck toward the statuesque blonde gyrating on a club table.
“But right here,” he gripped her cheek, “look at me.”
She hissed out a breath as the tips of his fingers coasted along the edge of her panties. But her attention was back on him. This man.
Michael.
Not some stranger she could forget in the morning.
“We’re alone as far as they’re concerned. So let go.” He lifted his hips and his shaft rubbed against the front of her panties. “I need to watch you let go.”
Her breath came faster as she used the rough material of his jeans for friction.
His fingers slid between them, and his thumb rubbed against her tight clit over her panties.
“So hard and sensitive. How wet are you?”
She sucked in a sharp breath. Wetter than she could remember ever being. Even during the rare instances when she had to take the edge off on her own, she’d barely been damp enough to get the job done.
She rocked against his thumb.
Suddenly, he moved and she whimpered.
No. Don’t fucking move.
She was so fucking close.
He pulled down the front of her panties, tucking his thumb into her pussy. “Fuck.” His breath hitched against her neck as his nail flicked over her clit.
She bucked at the sudden touch.
He held her down with his other hand, circling her clit with his thumb. “That’s it. You’re like liquid fire. If we were alone, I’d drag you up and over my face right now. I’d drink every bit of you down.”
Chloe gasped and his features dissolved in the dark. She wasn’t even aware that she’d flipped over from almost there to full detonation. With her head flung back and her breasts in her face. She didn’t even care if the whole room figured out what she’d experienced.
Or what he’d been doing to her.
It had been so goddamn long since she’d actually had an orgasm like that. She could only chant “thank you,” over and over as he strummed her like his instrument. As if she were the fret board and her pleasure was the vibrating strings.
He reached up and caught the back of her neck, dragging her back into the moment. Into the reality of all the people around them. He drew his thumb out of her panties and stroked up her midriff. She let out a shaky breath at the wetness—her wetness on her skin.
He watched her as he dragged his lips and tongue over her bare flesh, twirling his tongue on a lazy path across her shoulder. “Chloe,” he said in a harsh voice just before he kissed her stupid.
She tasted herself on his tongue.
She could have been imagining it. Surely her wetness had dissolved by now, but logic didn’t make her certainty any less overwhelming. Didn’t lessen the riot taking place in her mind and body.
She and Snake had
been fumbling fingers and grunts in the dark. She’d loved him to distraction, but he’d never taken care to seduce her. He had been the seduction. Just being a musician. Being a man who other people wanted.
And her rose-colored glasses had made everything better in her head than the reality of their sex life.
It had been nothing like this.
Her nails raked through the thick thatch of hair at the top of his head. Ropey arms came around her, squeezing her breath out as if he was going to steal her very essence.
So much.
Too much.
She wiggled back until he let her go. She stood and dragged him up off the chair. “Too hot.”
“Yeah, you are.”
“No.” She laughed. Mania bubbled out of her throat. At least that was what it sounded like to her. “Too hot in here. I can’t think.”
“Thinking is overrated.”
Her head roared as she got her bearings. She glanced around the room, but her friends were nowhere to be found.
How long had she been with Michael?
She peered back up at him, but his face swam a little.
“Let’s go outside.”
She nodded. “Good idea.”
He laced their fingers together and drew her through the crowd. She tried not to pay attention to how wonderful his hand felt in hers. No fumbling fingers, no re-tangling to make them sit right. First time absolutely perfect.
Her heart raced as she curled her fingers around his wrist and followed him without a qualm. Before she could wonder if it was a good idea or not, he drew her out onto the balcony.
Vegas spread out before her.
She gasped. The lights shone in the dark. As if Vegas was putting on a show only for her. Did everyone feel like this?
Was this the allure?
He pushed his way through the people and made a space for her at the railing. He hauled her in front of him and crowded behind her, his shaft tucked against her ass. Still hard for her. “Fuck, you fit me,” he said against her neck.
She did.
It didn’t make any sense.
“On your toes.”
She almost did just that. It shocked her how much she wanted to follow his direction. To see what it would be like.
“I could slip inside you and ride you with that fucking view as our audience.”
She gasped.
“There you are!”
Chloe groaned at Jinx’s voice.
Michael growled in her ear. “Come back to my room.”
She should say no. The lunacy of the club was one thing. The reality of getting naked with him was a step too far. There would be no going back from it.
She’d have to look at him across the Christmas dinner table forever.
Nick and Lila would get forever, not her. She wasn’t meant to find that with anyone.
The pang of reaction blindsided her. Forever wasn’t something she said easily. Hers had been taken away from her. She tried to ignore it—had practically deleted that particular word from her vocabulary.
She was a mother. A responsible adult.
This was just a wild weekend, nothing more.
She twisted out of his arms and toward her friend. Toward sanity.
When Michael touched her, she lost any will to listen to reality. And that was more than dangerous. She’d already had a man like that in her life and look how that had turned out.
She’d ended up alone. Just her and her baby.
Jinx shouldered her way through the crush of people with her sister holding up the rear. “You disappeared on us.” She glanced up at Michael. “With good reason.” Her eyes narrowed. “You’re from the band.”
He nodded, an easy grin sliding across his boyish face. “Michael.”
Jinx glanced at Chloe then back up to Michael. “Are we interrupting?”
“Yes.”
“No,” Chloe said over him.
“Which is it?” Jinx hooked her arm through Ivy’s “Have you met Michael?”
Ivy shook her head. “But I think that’s a shame.” She held out her free hand. “Ivy. This is my sister, Jinx.”
Michael shook their hands instead of stepping back. Seriously, how many signals could Chloe give the guy? He didn’t seem to care.
He shifted behind her, pressing his erection against her hip. As if Chloe needed the reminder of where they’d been heading.
“Looks like we need drinks.” Michael nodded toward someone, then held up four fingers.
Chloe frowned. “What did you order?”
“I think I ordered four tequila shots. At least if her shirt was correct.”
“Chicks are walking around with labels across their boobs. It’s like the ultimate billboard for booze at this party.”
Michael lifted one shoulder. “Makes it easier to order a drink. The bartenders can’t keep up.”
“Evidently.”
When the blond came back, she had a tray of large shot glasses.
Michael grinned at her and dropped a bill on her tray. “Thanks.”
He hadn’t called the waitress baby. At least Chloe hadn’t had a sexist pig’s tongue in her mouth five minutes ago.
Little victories.
He passed around the glasses to everyone. “To chaperones.”
Jinx sputtered out a laugh after she downed her shot. “Is that what we are?”
“Your timing is certainly suspect.” He said it with an easy smile as he leaned against the railing.
Chloe swallowed hard. His cock wasn’t touching her anymore. She could actually think again. Did it have some sort of super power? That really was the only thing that made sense. As soon as she’d rubbed against his dick, she’d been like a freaking cat in heat.
Not like her at all.
“We can certainly make ourselves scarce.”
Chloe grabbed for Jinx’s arms. “No.”
Jinx’s eyebrows shot up before she tipped her head and squinted up at Michael. “This guy hassling you?”
“No, it’s not that.”
Chloe darted a glance at him. His glass dangled from his long fingers. Fingers that had been all over her mere moments ago. Michael crossed his feet at the ankles, his huge boot resting a bare inch from her. He invaded her space in a lazy, feline way that made her nipples harden again. What the hell was wrong with her?
Jinx threw back her shot. “Then let’s have a little fun, shall we?”
Michael grinned and followed suit.
As if she needed more alcohol swimming through her veins. But it was either that or face Michael’s offer of a trip to his hotel room.
She wasn’t quite sure she was ready for that idea yet.
For once, downing tequila was a helluva lot safer.
After the third tray of drinks had been consumed, it was easier for Chloe to laugh at Jinx’s ridiculous commentary on the men in the room than to focus on the guy who had her panties still wet.
He hovered behind her. A stray touch here and there to remind her that he was there. Her arches screamed, but she couldn’t sit. Sitting reminded her of his cock rubbing her off in a sea of strangers. She’d been out of control in a way she couldn’t study right now.
She preferred to drift on the hazy out of focus colors and heady sexual undertones within the safety net of her friends.
The party was finally thinning out a little. The Foundation Room had been set up as a VIP room after the show. Not for the general public. People moved on to other parties, or more personal ones as the night wore on.
Michael twisted his fingers around hers, dragging her back against him. “Dance with me.”
Not a question.
Again, that almost order urged her forward. If he touched her, she might not have the strength to say no. Another tray of drinks came by. She welcomed the open smile of the waiter. She frowned slightly when she didn’t recognize the shirt he was wearing. A single blue teardrop on the left side of his chest, but no other logo.
Michael’s lips found the back of her ne
ck. She handed him one of the sapphire blue shooters. Blue was her color tonight. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—allow the jewels, so she’d drink a hint of it instead.
She turned around, clinking the plastic cylinders that reminded her of high school chemistry. Of how they’d stolen trays to make their own moonshine after hours. She laughed as she wrapped her lips around the end and tipped her head back.
The blue liquid slid down her throat easy as could be.
Michael pushed her through the room to the dance floor. Katy Perry’s voice drowned out her laughter. He took the shooter from her, passing it off to another waitress. They circled each other. First him, with his calloused fingers lingering at her lower back. Almost there touches that matched the cosmic, otherworldly beat of the song.
His knee slid between hers as he suddenly dipped her. She laughed and gripped his jacket. She wasn’t sure either of them were sober enough to not land on their ass with that kind of move. But he didn’t drop her. He held her close and chased her laughter with his tongue.
She slid her hands under his jacket to the heat trapped along his back. Her nails dug into his T-shirt. They spun in a lazy circle and she tipped her head back to let him taste her neck again. He was so good at it. Just enough scruff to buzz, not enough to make her pull away. But the true mastery was his words.
Whispers that drew her closer.
“Mine.”
She didn’t want to think about being his. “You can’t be my forever.”
He frowned down at her. “Why not?”
Her fingers bumped against something in his pocket. Distracted, she answered honestly. “I had my chance at forever.” She pulled out a bottle. “What’s this?”
He shrugged. A frown line built between his silky brows.
She reached up to rub it away. “It’s all right.” The lights were softer now, the music further away. She uncapped the bottle and offered it to him.
He accepted the bottle from her and took a healthy swig. She went up on her tiptoes. Just like earlier, she caught his face and brought him back down to her. The sweet smoky flavor turned to a burn as her tongue tangled with his.
Chloe lowered back onto her heels and gave him a sleepy smile. She rested her cheek against his chest. “I don’t expect forever. Not with someone like you,” she said again on a slur.
