February Stars: Wilder Irish, book two

by Mari Carr

  “Where are you guys going?” Finn asked.

  “Just grabbing a couple of beers from the kitchen,” Hunter said. However, they bypassed the kitchen, walking to her bedroom instead. He closed the door behind them, gesturing that she should sit on her bed, while he claimed a seat on Caitlyn’s.

  “Let’s have it.”

  She scowled, almost embarrassed by her behavior. She was a total buzzkill. “I’m not fit for company tonight, Hunter. Why don’t you go on out and have fun with everybody else? I’m going to crawl into bed, sleep off some of this bitchiness, and try to wake up on the right side of the new year tomorrow.”

  “You couldn’t be bitchy if you tried.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You, of all people, know better.” Somewhere along the line, Hunter Maxwell, the man who used to annoy the shit out of her, had become her best friend. As such, he’d seen her at her very best and her absolute worst this year.

  “Stop trying to change the subject. What’s rolling around in that head of yours?”

  “I lost a whole year to this stupid Paul breakup and I still can’t seem to figure out who I am, where I’m supposed to be. I’m floundering like a fish on the shore and it feels like I’m running out of air.”

  Hunter considered that for a minute, then tilted his head. “Losing and winning isn’t always that cut and dry.”

  “You’re saying it’s subjective? Because it doesn’t feel that way to me. Right now, I’m the big loser.”

  “I’m saying life is winning and losing. Not one or the other.”

  “Oh.” She tried to figure out when Hunter had become the philosophical one in their relationship. “That’s true, I guess.”

  “We’re only twenty-eight, A. It’s not like we’re both walking around with one foot in the grave.”

  She shrugged. “I can’t seem to shake off this mood. I’m feeling very lost, very alone.”

  Hunter grinned. “Alone? You must have twenty-seven million cousins out there.”

  She laughed at his exaggeration, even though her family did usually find a way to feel a lot larger than they were. The noise filtering down the hallway was loud, boisterous, fun. “You’re doing a terrible job letting me wallow in my pity party.”

  “That’s right. I am. Because you’re doing just fine, mouse.”

  “Okay. I give up. I’m doing fine.” And maybe she was. While she’d made zero progress on finding herself, her own career aspirations were faring a bit better lately. In addition to waitressing, she’d started taking on freelance jobs, helping some of the smaller local businesses—Pat’s Pub and Hunter’s family hotel included—market themselves better. She’d taken out ads and gotten them advertising on some larger internet tourism sites. She felt good going to bat for the little guys, but she still felt that twinge that…something…was missing.

  Les, her parents’ manager, insisted she was completely screwing up her life. That her calling was staring her right in the face. More than once, he’d demanded that she stop “fucking around” and come on as his partner. He was certain she was made for the world of music—managing the tours while he represented the bands.

  For years, she’d denied it, claiming she couldn’t face a life spent on the road, even though that had been her original plan when she’d left college. Somewhere along the line, whether it was Paul’s influence or her weakness, she had really started to believe she wanted to stay in Baltimore forever. Now she’d had a taste of life without wheels. And while both lifestyles had their pros and cons, it was getting harder and harder to pick which one she preferred.

  Rather than accept Les’s job offer, she’d appeased him by helping him with his latest venture, February Stars. Les had come up with the idea for the talent competition over a year ago. The setup was quite simple. Eight performers would compete for the chance to tour as the opening act for The Universe. Her dad’s former band was kicking off their reunion tour at the MGM in National Harbor in April. The entire concert—every show in every city—had been sold out for months. She’d read an article recently that tickets were being resold for as high as six thousand dollars apiece on StubHub.

  Les had come up with a list of eight performers he’d been watching, singers with the potential to break big in the business, and he’d dangled his carrot. All eight had signed up for the competition immediately. Who wouldn’t? Touring with The Universe would be one hell of a shot at instant stardom.

  Les had chosen Baltimore for the contest because, at the time, he’d thought Sky and Teagan would be home in the city. Then they’d gotten an invitation to sing for the Queen of England, and Les decided to set up a mini-European tour for a couple months.

  Because Les spent a lot of time on the road, he’d used Ailis as his Baltimore liaison. She’d set up the venue and taken care of permits and anything else that needed to happen locally. Though she hadn’t admitted it to anyone, the work had energized her, fulfilled her in a way she’d never experienced.

  “So are you feeling any better?” Hunter asked.

  She shrugged and dug deep for the response that would appease him. “Yeah. I mean, I suppose there are worse things than spending New Year’s with your ugly ass.”

  “Oh, man. You crossed a line there, Adams.” Hunter rose from the bed, approaching her in a threatening manner.

  She tried to read his direction, plotting her escape. She glanced toward the door. He’d closed it, which would slow her down too much…

  When he got a few steps away, she darted around him, leaping onto Caitlyn’s bed, grabbing her pillow as she did so. Hunter gave chase, but now she had a weapon. She swung the pillow at his head as he tried to dodge the blow.

  She took that split second to head for the door, but he caught her, pushing her against it. One second, her cheek was pressed against the cool wood, the next, he’d twisted her to face him, holding her hands over her head with one of his.

  “Tell me I’m hot,” he said.

  She snorted. “Yeah, right.”

  He used his free hand to tickle her. She tried to break free of his grip, even lifting her knee in her desperation. She hated being tickled and he’d left himself vulnerable.

  He turned just in time to escape any serious damage to his man parts.

  “Bad girl.”

  “Ha. I wish.”

  Her joke fell short. For her and, apparently, for Hunter, who released her hands. “What’s that mean?”

  “Nothing,” she hedged, not wanting to admit where her thoughts had gone.

  “You want to be a bad girl?”

  “Of course not,” she said, the response at least eighty-percent lie. “Not really.”

  He grinned. “Not really?”

  “You realize this is all your fault. You keep talking about your twisted love life and teaching me all those slang terms from Urban Dictionary. Thanks a lot for ‘felching’ by the way. Ew! Everything out of your mouth is sex-related, filthy stuff.”

  “I keep telling you—filthy is fun.”

  “See what I mean? It’s like you’ve planted some insidious worm in my brain and now all I can think about is—” She didn’t dare finish her comment.

  “Kinky sex?”

  She sighed. “I used to be such a nice person. Then you came along.”

  “So now you want to be bad?”

  She shrugged. “I think I just want to be interesting.”

  “Damn. You really don’t get it, do you?”

  “Get what?”

  “You’re the most interesting person I’ve ever met.”

  She snorted, which was apparently the wrong response, because Hunter, who was never without a smile, actually scowled at her.

  “Okay. Now I think I know what your problem is.” He walked over to sit on her bed and patted the mattress next to him. “Come here.”

  She crossed her arms and held her ground.

  “Come here, mouse. I just want to talk.”

  Sadly, she knew that was true. A year had come and gone and Hunter hadn’t
stepped over the line of friendship except for that brief moment of insanity at the club. She was back to buddy-ville. And while her head knew that was exactly where she should remain, there were times—like now—when her hormones had different ideas.

  She dropped next to him on the bed. “What?”

  “Do you masturbate?”

  “Ugh,” she said, bouncing back up from the bed. “What the hell, Hunter?”

  “You don’t, do you?”

  She turned to face him. “I share a room with my cousin. And an apartment with a bunch of other family members. It’s not like I have so many opportunities to…”

  “Masturbate.”

  “Please stop saying that word.”

  Hunter gave her shit-eating grin. “You prefer a better one? Pet the kitty? Flick the bean? Buff the muffin? Polish the pearl?”

  Ailis bit her lip, trying hard not to laugh. It was impossible to get into a serious fight with the man because somehow it always ended with her cracking up at some uncouth, crude joke. Tonight, she just wanted to stay mad, something that was getting harder by the minute. “Are you finished? Because I think we should go back out and watch the ball drop.”

  He shook his head. “Nope. We’re staying in here. And making some stuff happen.”

  She frowned. “Like what?”

  Hunter rose from the bed and took her hand. “You think you can turn off your brain for a little while?”

  “No.”

  He laughed. “Yeah. I’m sure you’re right, but you’re going to have to try, because I have a cure to all that ails you. But you can’t overthink it. Hell, you can’t think about it at all. You just have to trust me and let go.”

  Ailis considered his words, trying to figure out how to respond.

  Hunter tapped her forehead lightly when her silence lingered too long. “This is what I’m talking about. You want to ask a million questions so you can form some logical, well-thought-out answer. This doesn’t work that way.”

  “So I just have to trust you?”

  “Yeah,” he said with a nod. “I swear on all that’s holy you will feel one million times better afterwards.”

  She grinned. “I’d settle for ten times better.”

  “Lay down on the bed.”

  Five words. He’d only said five words and her brain had already exploded.

  He narrowed his eyes slightly, the expression part dare, part I-knew-you-couldn’t-do-it. It was effective.

  She did as he said, lying on her back, in the middle of her mattress, without question. She tried not to smirk at the definite shock on his face.

  If she’d expected him to waver in the face of her unexpected acquiescence, she was destined for disappointment. Instead, Hunter walked to her bedroom door and locked it.

  Now it was her turn to react. She closed her eyes, trying not to let him see the tiny bit of panic that was setting in.

  “That’s not a bad idea,” he mumbled softly.

  She started to open her eyes to see what he was talking about, but the scarf he’d grabbed from her nightstand was already there, wrapped around her head, robbing her of sight for good.

  “I want you to pretend I’m not here, A. Repeat after me. Hunter isn’t in the room.”

  She felt a bit silly, but she said it anyway. “Hunter isn’t in the room.”

  “Before I start, I’m going to make you a promise.”

  “Okay,” she whispered.

  “No sex. You’ve sworn off guys and dating and that’s definitely not what this is. So go ahead and kick that worry out of your brain. Okay?”

  “Okay,” she repeated, simply because she was way out of her element and curious about what he was going to do.

  That reticence morphed back to panic when he gripped the waistband of her lounge pants and began to tug them down. Her hands flew to stop him, but he gripped her wrists and pulled them above her head.

  “Leave your hands right here. Don’t move them.”

  “Hunter—”

  “Isn’t here,” he said. “Do as I say, Ailis.”

  She forced herself to remain in the position he’d placed her, trying not to think about how much his power play, his demanding tone, was wreaking havoc on her libido.

  He returned to her pants, and this time she didn’t offer any resistance as he pulled them and—God help her—her panties off.

  She pressed her legs together tightly and tried to twist her lower body away from him, but he didn’t give her the chance to hide. Anything.

  He gripped the knee closest to him and pulled, moving as he did so to place himself between her outstretched legs.

  “So, this sort of goes beyond trust,” she said, hating the breathless quality of what she’d intended to be a legitimate complaint.

  He silenced her, not with an admonishment, but with a kiss. A quick, hard, unexpected, sexy kiss.

  This was getting out of hand. She started to say as much, but before she could lodge her protest, he touched her clit.

  Her hips lurched upwards. Jesus. It had been too long since someone had touched her like that, herself included. She tried to suck in a breath, thinking perhaps it was the lack of air reaching her lungs that was impacting her better judgment.

  Hunter touched her again, but this time he ran his hand along her slit, the tip of this finger stroking her from anus to clit. Just one soft stroke, but it packed a hell of a punch.

  Ailis turned her head to the side, her hands clenched into fists by her head. She’d never found it easy to achieve an orgasm. Sure, she’d had them before, but they generally took some work—on Paul’s part and hers. And there had been a lot of nights—too many—when she hadn’t managed to get there at all. Toward the end of her relationship with Paul, her climax wasn’t even something they really sought. If she got there, great. If not…

  Maybe the secret to orgasms was abstinence. She could just go without for long periods of time, and then treat herself to a blowout every three or four years.

  Wow. That was a depressing thought.

  Hunter touched her clit again, but this time he lingered, rubbed harder, stayed longer. Her hips instinctively followed the path of his finger, lifting to seek more pressure.

  She opened her mouth to speak, but didn’t know what to say. Did she beg him for more? More what? Touching? Fucking?

  She squeezed her eyes together more tightly beneath the blindfold.

  This was Hunter. But she was supposed to forget that.

  When he slid his fingers lower and slowly pressed one inside her, she stopped giving a fuck who was touching her.

  She began to thrust up and down, forcing his finger deeper.

  Hunter read her body’s unspoken request, adding a second finger to the first, moving faster.

  Ailis saw flashes of light behind her closed eyelids. Her hands seemed to move of their own volition to her breasts. She cupped them, squeezed them.

  Hunter broke the silence. “Lift your shirt. Grab them harder.”

  She wasn’t sure why she obeyed, but the second he issued the command, she was doing as he said.

  “Tug down that bra. Pinch your nipples. Squeeze them tight.”

  Ailis reacted to the words, dragging the bra beneath her breasts before tightening her forefingers and thumbs around the sensitive nubs. She squeezed harder than she’d ever dared on her own, but the slight pain didn’t register as bad. Especially not when combined with Hunter adding a third finger to the two currently sending her to oblivion.

  She gyrated on the bed like a mad woman, one giant bundle of nerves, seeking pleasure. His fingers stretched her tight—almost uncomfortably so—but like the pinch on her nipples, it didn’t feel bad.

  Hunter sealed her fate when he stroked her clit with his thumb, the final blow, the last glorious, holy-fucking-hell straw. Her body hit pleasure overload.

  Her back arched as she came, but Hunter pressed it down against the mattress with his body, when he lay on top of her, his mouth capturing her cries with his.

&nbs
p; The bliss crashed in on her, wave after wave. Hunter didn’t stop kissing her, didn’t draw his fingers out until she stilled.

  Once she did, he withdrew, then gently pulled her hands away from her breasts, fixing her bra and pulling the shirt down to cover her. Then he put her pants back on. She noticed he didn’t bother with the panties, but she didn’t care. It wasn’t as if she had a leg to stand on when it came to modesty now.

  The last thing he did was tug off the blindfold.

  She didn’t open her eyes. Partly because now that the climax had passed, she was overwhelmed by exhaustion. But also, partly because she was embarrassed to face him.

  Ailis wasn’t sure why. He’d initiated what they had just done. It had been his idea.

  So it wasn’t as though she had anything to be ashamed of.

  No. It wasn’t embarrassment, she realized.

  It was something much more dangerous.

  She was afraid she’d open her eyes and realize she’d developed serious feelings for Hunter Maxwell.

  That couldn’t happen. They were a complete mismatch when it came to romance. Ailis wanted forever. Hunter wanted fifteen kinky minutes, horizontal surface optional.

  Besides, she wasn’t looking for love. She was looking for herself, the woman she never had the chance to become because she was too busy making sure Paul was happy.

  “Open your eyes, A.”

  Her lids fluttered open before she could think about all the reasons she was still hiding. He told her what to do and she did it. That was super annoying, something she was going to have to work on.

  He was grinning at her, the same goofy, affable Hunter grin that she had found annoying during the first few years of their acquaintance, but that now sent her heart pitter-patting in a way that told her she’d just epically fucked up.

  “Damn, girl. I tried to mute out the majority of that screaming, but when you come, you’re loud. Didn’t know you had that kind of volume in you.”

  She narrowed her eyes even as her cheeks heated. All of her cousins were just down the hall, counting down to freaking New Year’s.

  “You should have thought about that before you…you…”

  “Finger fucked you until you went off like a bottle rocket.”