Adam took her wrist and stalked toward the building. She had to jog—boots clomping on the cement—to keep up with him. He didn't say a word to her in the lobby, the elevator or the corridor. Why was he pissed at her?
He unlocked the door to his suite and opened it. When she paused to stare up at him, he avoided her gaze and ushered her inside.
The door closed and before she could turn, he stepped up behind her, wrapped his arms around her waist and held on to her like a drowning man clinging to a capsized boat. His entire body trembled against her.
“You okay?” she asked after a moment. She stroked the tense muscles in his forearm.
He released her abruptly and moved into the spacious room. “Why wouldn't I be?”
“You seem upset.”
“The vocalist of my band, who used to be my best friend, basically told me he wanted to replace me. Why would I be upset?”
She knew he was being sarcastic, but she needed to get him to talk seriously about this issue with Shade. “I'd be upset,” she said. “And hurt.”
“I'm not hurt, I'm pissed. I'm not sure why he thinks I'm the one who needs replacing. Maybe if he didn't try to lead the band like a dictator instead of considering us all equals, I wouldn't feel the need to get under his narcissistic skin.”
“So you do show up late on purpose?”
“Not always.” He took a deep breath. “Consciously.”
“What started the animosity between you? Owen says Shade's been pissed at you for four years. It must have been something pretty substantial.”
“I don't remember,” Adam said. He scrubbed his face with both hands. “I was having a rough patch at the time. Doing lots of drugs. I don't remember much of anything from those few years. Bits and pieces of disagreements, but nothing that would give him a reason to hate me so much. When we started the band we were best friends, but now?” He shook his head.
“Have you asked him why he’s angry with you?”
“Yeah, I ask him what the fuck his problem is all the time.”
She stepped closer and laid a gentle hand on his chest. His heart thudded hard against her palm. “Have you asked him in a non-hostile manner?”
Adam drew away and sank onto a sofa. “We can't interact without being hostile.”
“Except on stage.” For nearly half an hour, both men had looked genuinely pleased to be in each other’s company.
Gaze distant, Adam scratched the nape of his neck. “We kind of lose ourselves onstage.”
“But offstage your egos get in the way.”
Adam smirked. “What egos? We don't have egos.”
Madison chuckled. “Oh no. You're both exceedingly humble.”
“You've seen me humble,” he said, slipping an arm around her waist and directing her to sit on his lap. “No one else gets to see me like that.”
Which was probably one reason why Shade busted his balls all the time. “I like that humble guy,” she said.
“Yeah?”
She nodded.
“But not the egotistical guy,” he said.
“I like that guy too, but he's not as loveable. Probably why Shade punches him in the mouth.”
“I don't want to talk about Shade now,” Adam said. “I want to get lost in you and forget about all this bullshit.”
She turned sideways and leaned against his chest, snuggling into his warmth. “Did he hurt your face?”
“Not too bad.” He chuckled. “Couldn't get a wide enough swing in the car, or he would have nailed me to the floor.”
“I hope you two can make amends,” she said. “I think you’ll both feel better if you talk things through.”
“Maybe.” He was quiet for a long moment. The only sounds were the hum of a mini-fridge somewhere in the room and the occasional voice in the hall. He stroked her arm with the back of his hand as he collected his thoughts. “I’ll try to talk to him without goading him into a fight,” he said. “His attitude just pisses me off.”
Madison could tell the feeling was mutual. “I’m sure you can find a way to reach him.” And she needed to find a way to reach Adam. She hated to hit him with a second confrontation now, but she couldn’t ignore what Shade had said in the limo about Adam’s drug use. They had to face this issue before drug use became drug abuse. The difference was a slippery slope for an addict; it didn’t take much for one to lead to the other. “So has smoking pot backstage become routine or was it more of a onetime thing?”
The hand methodically rubbing her bare arm went still. “I didn’t—”
“Don’t lie to me, Adam.” She could deal with his problems, but not his lies. She wanted to trust him—about everything—but she couldn’t trust a liar.
“I wasn’t going to lie. I was going to say I didn’t tell you, because . . . I don’t like to disappoint you. It makes me feel guilty. I don’t like that feeling.”
“You feel guilty for disappointing me? Is that why you’ve been working so hard to stay clean?”
“Yeah.”
She cringed. He still had some work to do. “Am I the only reason you fight addiction?”
“It’s a good enough reason for me.” His lips brushed her hair. “You’re the best reason I’ve ever met.”
The woman in her wanted that dependence—that tie between them—but the counselor knew it wasn’t healthy. “Adam.” She turned on his lap and cupped his face in her hands. Her feelings for him bubbled to the surface, making her chest ache and her voice raw. “Baby, you need to stay clean for yourself, not for me. You can’t fully recover that way. What happens to you when I’m no longer in your life?”
He went very still, his eyes clouding with hurt or anger or some combination of the two. “Are you still planning on leaving?”
“Breaking it off would be the most logical thing to do,” she said. Especially now that she knew he had latched on to the wrong reason to fight his addiction.
His gaze shifted to her forehead, and he sucked a deep, ragged breath into his chest. “Fuck.”
She touched her fingertips to his chin and waited until his stormy gray eyes focused on hers. “Sometimes a girl has to listen to her heart instead of her head.” Because even though her heart was blind and dumb, it was still clever enough to befuddle her head with constant thoughts of Adam.
His arms tightened around her. “What’s your heart say?”
She clutched the fabric of her dress over her chest. “My heart says you rock.”
He chuckled and pressed a kiss to her temple. “But your head doesn't say that?”
“Nope. My head says you're trouble.”
He chuckled. “Smart head.” His hand slid over her breast and squeezed gently. “So what does your body say?”
Arousal uncoiled low in her belly as her breast swelled in his hand. “My body screams you rock.”
His thumb slipped inside her clothes and brushed her nipple, rubbing it until it puckered and strained against his maddening touch. She failed to stifle a groan of longing.
“That’s two out of three. Majority rules,” he said.
Adam eased her onto her back on the sofa and shifted his hips to rest between her legs. Supporting his weight on his arms, he stared down at her with the strangest expression on his face.
“Madison?” he whispered.
She couldn’t find the presence of mind to answer—could only stare up into his handsome face with her pulse thrumming wildly in her ears. He’d never looked at her with this level of intensity in the past. She wasn’t sure if her pitter-pattering heart could take the passion behind his gaze.
“I have something I need to tell you. I want you to promise you’ll believe what I say. Don’t question my words the way you question everything.”
“I don’t ques—”
“Shh, baby. Listen and accept.”
“Adam?”
“Believe, Madison. Promise.”
“Okay. I promise.”
He took a deep breath. “I lo—”
A loud kn
ock at the door cut him off.
Chapter Nine
Adam closed his eyes and swallowed. “Fuck,” he growled, squeezing his eyelids together as tightly as possible. “I’ve lost my nerve again.”
Usually overflowing with confidence, his inability to say three simple words—or not so simple words—rattled him to the core. True, he’d never said them to anyone in his life, but he knew love was what he felt for Madison. It was more than gratitude for saving his life and his career and his sanity, he loved her. Not for things she’d done for him or the things she continued to do for him, but because she was his heart. He’d been missing that fragile organ for so long that he hadn’t realized it was gone until she’d filled the hole inside his chest. And now whenever she so much as hinted at taking his heart away again, he couldn’t tolerate the pain. It clawed at him, deep within his chest, threatening to leave him the shell of a man he’d been before he’d met her.
So why couldn’t he just say the words? I love you, Madison.
Because maybe she wouldn’t say them back.
A second more vigorous knock rattled the door. “Yo, Adam!” someone called from the hall. “Before you get too naked, I've got your stuff out here.”
Maybe this wasn’t the best time to tell her. So far their night together hadn’t been the romantic rendezvous he’d envisioned. Life kept kicking him in the nuts.
Adam pecked Madison on the lips and climbed from the sofa. He yanked open the door and grabbed his bags from Jordan, who was usually in charge of the beer. Knowing Jordan was one of their more incompetent crew members, Adam glanced down to make sure the bag he’d delivered was the right one. “Thanks.”
Jordan beamed and opened his mouth to speak, but Adam closed the door in his face before the guy could get a word out. Didn’t these people understand that he wanted to be alone with his woman? Fuck, did he have to hang a sign on the door or what? He tossed his bag on the floor and took a step in Madison’s direction, before he realized a sign on the door was exactly what he needed. Clutching the do not disturb sign as if it were a golden ticket, he opened the door and hung it outside. Jordan was still standing there, looking more befuddled than usual. He opened his mouth to speak again, and Adam pointed at the sign before slamming the door in Jordan’s face a second time. Adam locked the deadbolt and turned toward the living area of the room. Madison lay sprawled on the sofa, one booted foot on the floor, one resting on the sofa arm, and her skirt hiked up just high enough to show the juncture between her thighs. Those panties needed to go.
So he couldn’t tell her his feelings, and he couldn’t erase her disappointment in him, but he could give her pleasure. He knew that for certain. He crossed the room and paused at the end of the sofa, admiring her disheveled appearance and committing it to memory.
“What were you going to say before you were interrupted?” she asked.
His heart slammed into his ribcage. “Um, why are you still in your dress?”
And why was he such a coward when it came to this woman? What was the worst she could do if he confessed his feelings? Okay, he didn’t even want to contemplate possibilities.
Madison offered him a sexy grin and rose from the sofa. She slid her mass of dirty-blond hair over one shoulder and presented her back to him. “Unzip me?”
When his fingers brushed the skin along her spine, her soft, pliable flesh warmed beneath his fingertips. At last, she was allowing him to be gentle with her. Heart full to bursting, Adam pressed his lips to the nape of her neck and kissed a trail down the center of her back as he slowly lowered the zipper of her dress. Her throaty moan grabbed him by the balls and made his cock rise inside his jeans. Lower and lower he went—tasting and sucking the sweet skin down the length of her back—until he ran out of zipper and was on his knees behind her.
He released her dress and it dropped, pooling around her feet. She took a step forward. Her luscious ass entered his view, and he couldn’t keep his hands off it. He cupped her bottom in both palms and squeezed. He then leaned forward to brush his lips against the smooth skin just above the elastic of her panties.
When she took another step, he murmured a protest and slid his hands forward over her hips to keep her close. He wanted to devour her ass whole. Those silky, purple panties were in his way. He caught the top of her undergarment in his thumbs and eased the scrap of lavender satin down. He left her panties at the top of her thighs while he kissed and suckled and squeezed the cheeks of her ass. He avoided pleasing her asshole, knowing withholding what she most desired would make her want him. He loved that it took so little to make her beg.
“Adam,” she said breathlessly. “Have you ever gone to one of those sex clubs Owen was talking about?”
What? How could she be thinking about what Owen had said in the limo at a time like this? He paused, wondering what he should do next to excite her. Making out with her ass obviously wasn’t doing what he’d intended. “Do you want me to lie?”
“No, don’t lie. No need to spare my feelings. I know you sleep around. I just wondered if going to them is fun.”
He could tell that she still didn’t trust him. How could he prove that he wasn’t interested in anyone but her? “I’m not going to sleep around anymore, Madison.”
“I know. I didn’t mean now. I meant before. Have you been to a lot of sex clubs? How do you even find one? They’re not in the phone book, are they?”
Adam’s heart kicked in his chest. He’d been to plenty of sex clubs, and they weren’t the kind of places his sweet Madison should explore on her own. “You aren't thinking of going to one, are you?”
She shrugged. “I’m just curious. What do you do there?”
“Depends.” He pressed a hand against her back and urged her to bend forward. He drew his tongue through her juicy lips, glad to know she was turned on, even though she insisted on talking. He wondered how she’d respond to being gagged.
“What’s your favorite thing to do at them?” she asked.
She obviously wasn’t going to let this rest. “Perform.”
“Perform?” She went utterly still. “What do you mean?”
He sat back on his heels and sighed. “If I explain it, it’s going to make me want to go to one. Are you prepared to come with me?”
“I always come with you,” she teased. “Usually more than once.”
Grinning, he landed a playful swat on her butt. “I’ll tell you,” he said, “but only after you tell me your dirtiest fantasy.” If they were going to talk during sex, it had to be dirty talk. When his cock was hard, his brain didn’t function well enough for more sophisticated conversation.
“Never mind,” she said, her face suddenly beet red. Her head swiveled to face away from him.
He grinned. Now he had the challenge of wringing a dirty fantasy from her reluctant lips. He did enjoy a challenge. Kneeling on the floor behind her, he reached up and rubbed her back opening with two fingers. “I’ll bet it involves this insatiable hole.”
Her ass tightened, and she groaned. “Yes.”
“What am I doing to it, Madison? Am I licking it? You liked that, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but that’s not my fantasy.”
“Tell me what it is, and I’ll make it a reality.”
“I’ll tell you, but don’t be mad,” she pleaded.
“Why would I be mad? I love to give you pleasure.”
“I . . . ” She swallowed and covered both eyes with her hands. “I fantasize about having two cocks fucking me at once.”
Two cocks? But he didn’t have two cocks. How was he supposed to . . .
He stared at her ass in astonishment, trying to come to terms with the fact that his woman wanted to be fucked by two men. After a moment, she lowered her hands and peered over her shoulder at him.
“Um, let me explain,” she said in a tremulous voice. “When you're fucking my ass, I want you in my pussy. And when you're in my pussy, I want you pounding my ass.”
He didn’t blink or meet her eyes
. His woman wanted to be fucked by two men. To be double penetrated.
She pressed on. “So I thought maybe if I had both holes filled at once . . . ” She shuddered and creamed instantly, so turned on by thoughts of someone else fucking her that cum flowed from her sex and wet the insides of her thighs.
He couldn’t believe that he wasn’t enough.
“Forget I said that,” she said.
He took a deep gasping breath. “Are you serious?” he sputtered, still struggling to wrap his head around the idea. And there was no way in hell he’d ever let another man touch her, even if that fantasy did make her pussy swell and seep cum as if he’d been sucking on her clit for an hour.
“Forget I said that,” she repeated.
“I’m glad you told me, but sweetheart, if another man touched you, I'd have to break his face. And his nuts. Both arms. All of his fingers. His fucking neck.”
Her brow twisted with confusion. “What are you talking about?”
“I want to make your fantasies a reality, baby. But I'm not sure I can handle giving you that one. Let me think about it. Maybe Owen would . . . ”
“Owen? Wait.” Her eyes widened and her hands flew up to cover her gaping mouth. “You didn’t think I wanted two real cocks at once, did you?”
Isn’t that what she had said?
“Oh God, no. Adam, I can’t even think about being with another man.”
Adam almost dissolved into a puddle of relief on the floor.
“I wondered if you’d . . . ” She covered her mouth with one hand so that he barely heard her request. “ . . . wear a strap-on for me.”
Fuck, he’d wear three strap-ons if it turned her on.
She shook her head as if horrified by her own words. “Forget I said that,” she said. “Maybe a butt plug will be enough.”
He laughed—not at her, but in relief—and stood from his kneeling position. He drew her body against his length. “You've become so much more open since we first met. I doubt you even knew what a butt plug was and now you're talking about using them. And a strap-on? Where did that come from, Madi?”
“I saw one in the catalog when I ordered my eight-inch dildo.” Her face reddened to a deeper shade. “Oh God. I can’t believe I told you that.”
Tempt Me (One Night with Sole Regret #2) Page 8
