by Cari Quinn
“No way, dude.”
He snapped two and pocketed the Polaroids before leaning back, still holding my wrists. “You’re so stupid beautiful.”
I laughed. “Mom didn’t teach you how to give a compliment?”
His grin slowly faded. “Not really.”
My chest tightened. You really earned that stupid now, girl. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that.”
I tried not to dig into his past, but the urge to Google him was too hard to resist. Especially when there were alerts about him every five minutes on the music blogs, vlogs, and tabloids.
Everyone wanted to know about the elusive Ian Kagan.
He didn’t like to give interviews. He especially didn’t like to talk about his life in England. He only cared about his music and his future. His past was basically off limits to the press so of course they kept digging—and kept speculating.
And I was the drug addict reading all of the articles.
But the one thing that came out of all the stories was that he was used to being alone. Right now, I didn’t want him to be. He’d been there for me, and now I wanted to be something he needed. Even if it was just a laugh-filled afternoon—if that was all we had.
Based on his phone call, I had a feeling it wouldn’t be much more than that.
I sat up enough that I could lay my cheek against his chest. He let my hands free and froze as I wrapped my arms around him.
“Don’t pity me, Zoe.”
I tipped up my head. His eyes were blank. The changeable green had lost its sparkle, leaving them a little duller. But his face was all severe lines and pent-up…something. Anger. Sadness. No, it was simply a void. As if he’d crawled into his own head and blocked me out completely.
I wouldn’t have that.
Not today.
I slid my hands up the fascinating ridges and dents of muscle along his back. He stayed hovering over me, his thigh muscles rigid with trying to hold back. Determined to break through to him, I sipped from his skin. I slid out from the bridge of his legs to kneel in front of him so we were face to face.
He didn’t look away the entire time. He watched me with that unwavering stare like he was trying to figure me out. Curiosity bled into the void slowly. I ducked my head to taste the lines of his collarbone, over to his shoulder and down his arm to the scar on his inner forearm.
He jumped and jerked away, but I grabbed him again and lightly trailed my tongue over the ridges and bumps of the heavy scar tissue. Not just one scar. Endless re-scarring layered over the first one.
My heart ached for the kind of pain living inside of him that would manifest into more. Self-inflicted? Or whoever had hurt him kept doing it over and over again? Something inside me told me it was the former.
The way he touched it absently seemed too familiar.
I made a lazy trail over his forearm as he flexed under my touch. He tried to shake me off, but I wouldn’t be deterred. It felt important to let him know I didn’t care about the scars on his outside. That maybe he would someday allow me to see the ones that were surely inside of him too.
My vision blurred as I found the silvery hatched scars over his wrist. Oh, he’d tried to hide them with the chunky beads of bracelets and layered strings. But I knew what these were. I kissed them without making a big deal out of them.
They were part of him.
If he wanted to tell me about them one day, I’d listen. But for now, I just gave him the only comfort I knew how to show. When I got to the palm of his hand, I straightened, wrapping my fingers around his to kiss his knuckles.
The bruises and cuts were mostly gone from the day he’d fought for me. I could still see the rage behind his eyes when he went after Whitey and Theory. There’d been no fear inside him, although both men had outweighed him by a good thirty pounds each.
I placed his hand on my chest, under the gauzy fabric of my shirt. I needed him skin to skin with me.
Even more than just his hand.
After tugging off my shirt, I lifted my arms to his shoulders. He gathered me in close and his mouth crashed down on mine. My name a moan on his lips and reverberating through his chest as we grappled to get closer.
I fisted my fingers in his knotted hair. The silky softness warred with the mangled state of his curls. From my hands, from his show, from sleep—I loved that he was so rough around the edges. Even his curls.
I craved both it and the sweetness that blurred the edges of the man I thought I knew. I so didn’t. I didn’t know a fucking thing.
“When do you have to go?” I scraped my teeth over his neck.
He groaned. “Tonight.”
“How long do we have?”
“Today.”
I curled my fingers into the front of his jeans, flicking the button open. “Then we better make the best of it.”
He stopped my hand, his eyes serious and steady. So unlike the man who’d stumbled into my place last night. “We don’t have to.”
I slowly pulled the tab of his zipper down. “I want this.” I reached in, then trailed the backs of my fingers along his shaft. And sweet Van Gogh, it was slightly curved. He was going to kill me.
He cupped my face. “Are you sure?”
I curled my fingers around his cock and peeled his jeans back with my other hand. “Not sure where you got it in your head that I’m this innocent girl—and maybe I am compared to some of the women you’ve known.”
He shook his head, his eyes a little dangerous. “I don’t care about any other girls—or women. Nothing matters but this and you.”
I shivered. I wanted to believe that. But he was a rising star in a landscape of screaming women and excess. I wasn’t deluding myself that I was special.
No matter what he said.
I undulated my hips, dragging the silky head of his dick across my belly. “I want to see if this is just as talented as your mouth.”
“Fuck.”
“Yes. That is exactly what we’ll be doing.”
“You won’t even allow this to be something else?”
If I thought about it too much, I’d want more than this. More than now and what he could offer me. It was safer to lean into the heat. The emotion may just kill me. “I’ve seen your sweet side, Ian Kagan. I want the dirty one now. I saw it last night before we tumbled into something else. Something we may never be allowed to have. Show me that hunger. I need it.”
His long fingers slid into my hair along the base of my neck and gripped it at the roots. “What if it’s too big?” He narrowed his eyes. “Get your mind out of the gutter for a minute.”
“Do I have to?”
“I’m being serious here. I’ve got darkness in me, Magic. Too much sometimes.”
Fuck, his face was so damn serious. Frustration flooded my already jangling nerves. “Give it to me. Share it with me. I can take it.”
His green eyes were storms now. The kind that ate away at the beach and left nothing but destruction. Exactly what I wanted right now. I dragged him down with me on the bed.
He braced himself over me. His arms as rigid as his cock between us. “What if I don’t want you in that darkness?”
I used my toes to drag down his jeans until he was completely free to my touch. I could taste the wild in him. It was so close to me, but he kept holding back. “Don’t put me on a pedestal. I’ll crash into a million pieces.”
“You couldn’t.”
I rubbed my mound against the base of his cock, trapping it between us. “Fuck me, Ian. Fuck me like it’s the last night on earth.”
He dragged down his jeans, kicking them off. He crawled back onto the bed between my thighs. I caught his chin, leading him to my mouth. “I don’t need any more foreplay of that nature.”
His eyebrows winged up. “I’ve never heard a girl say no.”
“You’ve never had a girl like me.”
“Fuck, Zoe.” His head dropped to my shoulder for a moment before he met my gaze again. “I refuse to go off like a school
lad. I need time with this goddess body of yours.”
I smiled and curled my leg around his hip. “I am positive you can handle it.”
He swiped a thumb along my seam. “You’re drenched.”
I cupped him. Part of me was a little embarrassed at just how thoroughly ready I was for him. “The thought of this…” I smoothed my palm over the curve of his jutting cock. “I want it inside me. I can’t remember ever craving a cock before.”
“Jesus, the way you say cock.” He swiped the same thumb over my mouth. I bit down on the fleshy part and tasted myself. His eyes went wild when I sucked it deep into my mouth.
“I want yours. I want it deep inside me.”
“And you’ll fucking get it.”
His accent was deeper and stronger. I couldn’t deny it helped ramp up the sexy factor. The British-laced Americanisms, the juxtaposition of his raspy voice with the face of an angel. It was a heady package.
One I’d been dreaming about for far too long.
He knelt between my thighs, rising up to his full height. “I did not come prepared for this.” He laughed. “Thought I’d jinx everything if I had a rubber in my pocket.” I arched up when he slid the crown of his cock along my seam. He closed his eyes and tipped his head back. “Please tell me you have something.”
I wanted to tease him. To make him beg for it, but I needed him inside me too much. “Red box.”
His eyes snapped open, his gaze darting around the room. I laughed and pointed up. He snatched the red tin off a stack of my anatomy books. The top clattered to the floor as he rummaged through the business cards I kept in there. Handily, I lived in the free love beach town of Venice. Condoms were passed out like lollipops.
I didn’t always need them—and sometimes preferred a Dum Dum over sex. But this time? Yeah, I was thankful for the two I’d stashed in there for a just-in-case moment.
He shoved the box back on the shelf and tore open the purple package. I didn’t have enough time to laugh about the eggplant-colored dick coming my way.
All I cared about was that it would be mine.
He tucked the head of his cock down and around my clit before slowly easing inside me. I lifted my hands to my wrought-iron headboard and blew out a harsh groan as he stretched me to my limit. I’d been ready for him.
Okay, maybe not ready for this level of a Thor hammer, but sweet hello. My belly quivered with every inch he buried inside of me until there was nothing but Ian and his fantastical cock filling me up.
He reached up to cover my fingers on the rungs of the headboard. His gaze locked on mine as he slowly pulled out and undulated his hips in a way that would remain in my memory banks for the rest of all time. Then he snapped his hips until I lifted off the bed.
“Fuck!”
“Yes.” His voice was guttural and raw.
Again and again.
He was relentless.
Perfect.
Raw in a way I didn’t know was possible for me to experience. This man, an almost stranger, who had become far too important to me.
The swing of his cross teased along my chin, as he became my pure focus.
I tipped up my hips and cried out as everything became more. He widened his knees and found a new corner inside me that made everything thrum and quake.
I tried to break his hold on my hands. I wanted to curl around him like a fucking barnacle, but he had other plans.
“So deep,” I gasped and arched up. His cross trailed along my neck, then my breasts as I screamed his name. The sun disappeared in the eclipse of Ian and became every pain and pleasure center I never knew I had. I drew on all the reserves living inside me I used for painting and creating and accepted all he offered. Hoping I was giving enough back to him.
He buried his face in my neck, our hands locked above us on the rungs of the headboard as he nailed me into the bed.
My name was a guttural growl as he flung his head back.
I swear I felt him pulse inside me. He ground himself against me and my perfectly abused flesh stretched and yearned for more. I locked my ankles at the small of his back and held him tight against me.
“Fuck, Zoe. Fuck.” He loomed over me, his face distressed and blissful at the same time. As if coming was as much pleasure as pain for him too.
He dropped on top of me. I was afraid my fingers were broken from his grip, but they weren’t. The one thing about me that was stronger than anything were my hands. I wrapped my arms around his back, my legs still locked at his hips. Finally, I was allowed to hold on to every inch of him. Shudders racked my body.
He tried to roll off me. “I’m too heavy.”
“Stay.”
He pressed his face into my neck, but he did prop himself up on his forearms. I didn’t realize I was close to suffocating, but I still wanted to drag him back down on me.
You are in such trouble, girl.
Just fucking.
Sure it was.
I was even more twisted up about him now that I knew it wasn’t just fascination talking. I’d been fascinated before. I was an artist, it was inevitable that things would pull at me until I could figure them out. Nope. This was way worse and way more dangerous because he was going to walk out my door again.
And there was nothing I could do about it.
I turned my face into his neck. The woodfire scent of him had imprinted on my brain. He’d forever be burning leaves to me. The ashes of a healthy, sturdy tree. Living more than half my life on the edges of an orchard taught me a lot about the cycles of things. Then I went and moved to California, where seasons didn’t exist. Maybe Ian would just be one of my seasons.
I kissed my way up his neck to his ear. He lifted his shoulder and tried to twist away. “Are you ticklish?”
“What? No. Of course not.”
It was the second time he’d said he wasn’t. Such a liar.
I blew on his ear and he couldn’t get off me fast enough. I couldn’t stop laughing as he crawled off the bed and looked down at his still half-hard cock. Damn, son. How it could still be even close to alive after what he’d done to me was impressive.
He shot me a side eye. “Purple?”
I rolled onto my belly and dragged a pillow under my head. “I didn’t hear you complaining a few minutes ago.”
He shrugged. “Fair.” His face took on this cute little expression, complete with a wrinkled nose and bashfulness. “Stop staring at me like that or I’ll use the other condom on you.”
“Heaven forbid.” I swung my legs, crossed at the ankle. “I like looking at you.”
“Get in line.”
“What was that part about not caring about other women in your bed?”
He sat on the side of the bed, completely comfortable being naked. “That is not what I meant, and you know it.” He leaned down and buzzed his nose against mine. “I’m fucking famished.”
I didn’t really know it, but I let it go. There were no strings in our day. It simply was. “I think we need to go get some food.”
He rolled onto the bed and rested his head on my butt. “Can’t we just order in and play naked all day?”
“Well, considering we only have one more condom in my stash, that’s probably not a good idea.”
“What? You’re not into the…what do you Americans call it? Rhythm method?”
“That would be Americans from the fifties and sixties, but definitely not.”
He peered over at me. “I’d snack on you all day.”
“That is not the caloric intake you need, pal.” I wiggled my butt. “Come on. We both need a shower and then we need a trip to Micky’s.”
“Who’s Micky’s?”
I shook my head. “More like what. Your boardwalk knowledge is sorely lacking, sir.”
“Isn’t boardwalk food fried dough and taffy?”
I pushed him off the bed. “Definitely lacking. That might go over well in a New York fair. Believe me, I’ve enjoyed my share of them. And you haven’t lived until you’ve had my
aunt Laverne’s cider donuts.” Yeah, I really needed to get back to Turnbull after I figured out my show. “But you’re in California now, dude. This boardwalk is very, very different.”
“Well, I’m from England. It’s all different.” He frowned. “I did visit the boardwalk the day I found you at the skate park—” He broke off. “Obviously, I missed a few vital things.”
“Let me show you my world.” I shook off the momentary darkness from the memory of that day and laughed. “Now I sound like a Disney flick.” I pushed him off the bed. “Shower.”
“Will you scrub my back this time?”
I threw my pillow at him. “Maybe.”
He picked it up and tossed it back. “Well, then get moving before I start eating your paints.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“I’ve eaten worse.”
I laughed because he needed me to, but part of my heart lurched and twisted. I’d show him just how amazing a day with me could be.
And I’d hope I didn’t get so hopelessly attached I could never break free.
Seventeen
He was wearing another one of my shirts. I wasn’t quite sure what to think about him nearly fitting in them. I mean, I knew that I never wore one that was actually my size, but still.
The shirt he’d worn the night before smelled like a million different perfumes and sweat. That, and it was way too rockstar to be worn on the boardwalk.
I put my hands on my hips. “We can buy you something while we’re out.”
“Yeah? Can I keep my stuff in a drawer?”
I squinted at him. “Very funny.”
“Come on. You have to have a little room.” He moved into my space, noodled his arms through mine to slide his fingers into my back pockets. “I can wear it all day then you can wear it to bed while I’m gone. Tell me how it feels against your skin when I call you late at night. I’ll eat up every detail. Especially the part where you slip those strong fingers between your thighs.”
I tried not to shiver at the idea of that.
It was so simple and dirty at the same time. As if we were in a long-distance relationship already. It was everything we’d never be.
