Until tonight.
Angel must have just bailed on her again, and she was running, trying to get away. My set had just ended; if it hadn’t I might have missed her.
Zoe hadn’t shown up tonight, so it was surprising to me that Jamie had come. She’d never come alone before. My eyes had zeroed in on her the moment she’d walked through the club doors as if by magic. I’d felt the intensity of her stare as she watched me walk on stage and sit behind my drums, and even though the lights were blinding, I’d known exactly where she’d sat. I’d kept my eyes on her throughout the night after that, just to make sure she was still there.
Desire and madness were converging, a reckless need for her that was growing in intensity the longer she stayed. Things were changing inside me. I was a man, she was a woman, and tonight…tonight she was here.
Dressed in skintight jeans and a velvet blue halter-top, she was my every fantasy come to life. Her blonde hair was long and flowing and my fingers itched to fist it, body buzzing off the adrenaline rush of the wild crowd; the mood was electric and what I would never have done in the light of day, I found myself doing now.
Our set had just ended and deep down inside I knew that she was running away because she didn’t want me to catch her.
I hadn’t stopped to think. So often I would let Jamie walk past, always reminding myself that she was with someone else, but for once I didn’t care. I was like a ravenous beast that’d just caught a mouth-watering scent.
Side-stepping my lead singer, Lilith, I nodded to let her know I had somewhere else to be and in three long strides I was next to Jamie.
She was so small, so delicate, and a region of my heart trembled. I’d wanted this woman for years and tonight nothing was going to stop me. She was going to know, because I could see what she didn’t—she didn’t love Angel and Angel didn’t love her. They were wrong for each other.
I didn’t say anything when I caught up to her, just spun her around by the elbow. Her big blue eyes grew wide in her face and it wasn’t my imagination that there were definitely tears sparkling in the whites.
Sadness cloaked her like second skin and I damned my desire. Told myself that I shouldn’t be doing this. A good guy would try to find out what was wrong, why she looked so sad. But I wanted her too bad to do that. Never in my life had I taken something from someone. I tried not to be selfish, put the needs of others before mine. It was how my parents had raised me, God rest their souls.
But I was going to fight for Jamie. I was done waiting for her to notice me. I rubbed my thumb along the silken flesh of her collarbone and wanted to roar with satisfaction when her breaths turned choppy.
Look at me, Jamie. Look at me. I’m here and I’m real and I want you. The words didn’t pass my lips, but I knew they were pooling in my eyes.
Her sweet scent of orange blossom filled my head. Her hands shook a little as she placed them on my bare chest. I always stripped my shirts off when I drummed, it was my trademark, but I wasn’t prepared for the heat that transferred from her to me, or the way the blood felt like it boiled through my veins. Her fingers twitched and I sensed that she was not sure whether to push me away or drag me closer.
Her eyes were wild and full of fire. She was licking her lips and there was a sort of manic frenzy to it that I felt she was about to bolt. She was like a terrified rabbit that’d just stumbled into a fox’s den.
She wasn’t leaving me. I wouldn’t let her, not tonight.
I clamped my hands around her wrists and silently dared her to object. When she looked up into my eyes, my world spun out of focus, and I knew I was done being the guy who only noticed. I was going to make this girl see me. Why? Because I wanted her and she might not know it yet, but she wanted me too.
Seduce my mind and you can have my body, find my soul and I’m yours forever…
Anonymous~ From Jamie to Tor
Jamie
Everybody thought I was a doormat. They thought I didn’t know what Angel was doing, or that I was blind to his ways. People couldn’t be more wrong. Even Zoe, who I knew only wanted what was best for me, wanted me to leave Angel. And a side of me wished it were so simple. Wished I could just walk away and never look back. I think I would, too, if it weren’t for the fact that I felt partly responsible for the man that he was today.
But it was getting harder to pretend that I didn’t see his whoring ways, to pretend that I was okay with his drug use and his constant drinking. His destructive ways were definitely not okay with me, but I had this horrible feeling that if I walked away and left him to the care of his demons, they’d devour him.
I shouldn’t have gone to the club tonight, especially once Zoe had called to say that Alex’s car had gotten a flat and there was no way they’d make it in time. Angel had promised to show up, but I knew the chance of that was slim to none.
I should be home, not walking into a club hoping to lose myself in dangerous thoughts, not walking into Tor’s arms, and I damn well shouldn’t have let him hold me. But I was weak and I was drunk and when I stared into his blue eyes the only thing that kept going through my head was…I need to feel alive again.
He smelled so good. Like sandalwood cologne, and God, the way he’d rocked me. When I’d hiccupped and he’d tilted my chin up and our gazes had locked, for a split second time stopped, all rational thought fled.
There’d been fire and heat and danger and my breathing had grown jagged and it’d been all I could do to keep my fingers to myself. To not wrap them into the muscular ropes of his arms and drag him toward me.
Because in that moment, in that second, I felt what I hadn’t felt in years.
Alive.
Our bodies had vibrated, the pulsing beat of smash-mouth death-metal blared through the confines of that club. Normally I hated this music, it grated on my nerves, on my ears. Two seconds ago I’d been ready to leave. But I wasn’t really hearing the music now, because the sound of my beating heart was drowning it out.
The phone call had shattered the last vestiges of my resolve to fix Angel.
He’d gone too far and the heart that’d already been beaten and bruised was now nothing but a pulp, bloody and broken.
I was bloody and broken.
Sweat trekked down his nude chest. He was wearing black leather pants and biker boots. A horned hat that should have looked ridiculous but his face was so chiseled, so masculine and starkly beautiful that I doubted anything could make him look silly. Not to mention Tor was covered in bold black tattoos that wrapped around his arms and wrists and connected in heavy patterns along his collarbone.
I licked my lips. He was tall and so intense, staring at me like I was a raw slab of meat and he was a hungry lion. Angel hadn’t looked at me like that in years.
That stab of pain gripped my heart again and I winced.
“I need to go,” I whispered.
We were standing in the band area, the exit was just steps away. I needed fresh air; I needed to get out of here. I needed time to think. Zoe was always talking about Tor, always telling me I should give him a chance. That he was sweet and a big teddy bear, but Tor wasn’t looking at me so sweetly.
“You need to stay,” he growled.
I blinked.
His fingers curled around my biceps. I worked out, so they were nice and toned, and so unbelievably small next to his large, large hands. I was barely five foot, so it wasn’t like I wasn’t used to being overwhelmed by guys.
But there was something about Tor that was so massively overwhelming it made me dizzy. I was like Alice falling through the rabbit hole, and I should have been terrified of feeling so out of sorts, but I was numb.
I hadn’t been with another man, not since meeting Angel in high school my sophomore year when I was fifteen. I was twenty-three now. Nine years with one guy was practically forever for someone my age. This felt a lot like cheating.
> Even though technically I wasn’t.
My heart was pounding.
I wanted him to kiss me.
But this was wrong.
It was so wrong.
I swallowed.
“I can’t stay, Tor.”
But even as I said it, I wanted him to call me on the lie. Because I did want to stay. Not because I’d been burning a secret candle for him, either. Truth was, right now, I would have wanted to stay with anybody. Because I wanted to forget, I didn’t want to think about the phone call I’d just gotten. Or the fact that I’d tried so hard to save Angel. I’d done everything in my power. I’d stayed when I should have left. I’d done everything to prove that old saying false, that love wasn’t enough to save a loved one from themselves. I was so sure I would be the exception rather than the rule.
But I’d not been enough for Angel for a long time and I hated that I should be crying and instead all I wanted to do was lose myself in a man who’d hold me, move inside me, and make me forget that the man I’d tried so hard to save had just overdosed for the second time in two years.
His sister had called in tears. The doctors had revived him and the whole family was waiting for me to come. Because that was the way it always was.
But was it selfish that I didn’t want this anymore?
Was it selfish that for once I wanted to be alive, for once I wanted to be wanted?
Was that selfish?
God, I wished someone would tell me what to do. Right now. Just tell me what to do.
“Come home with me, Jamie.”
Tomorrow I’d regret this. Tomorrow I’d hate myself, but what else was new?
“Yes, Tor. I’ll come with you.”
Chapter One
Jamie
Tor and I didn’t talk as he drove my Jeep to his apartment. It was dark out and I didn’t really take the time to study it. It was one of many brick buildings in downtown Austin, nothing distinctive about it.
We rode the elevator to the fifteenth floor.
The whole time my nerves kept twisting and growing, making me feel ill at ease. He gave me a brief smile.
We didn’t touch, even when the elevator doors opened up to a narrow hall full of brown-painted doors that looked like an exact carbon copy of its neighbor. He walked us all the way to the door at the very end.
There were so many chances for me to leave. If I’d really wanted to, I knew the option was open to me. There’d be no denying to myself tomorrow morning that I hadn’t wanted to do exactly what I’d come here for.
The door slid open and as he went to turn on the lights, I placed my hand over his and shook my head. I didn’t want any sort of mental picture of this place. Everything was steeped in shadow, and that’s how I wanted this to remain.
A hazy, surreal memory of a stolen night of madness and reckless passion.
He must have understood because he kicked the door shut, lifted me into his arms, and walked back to his room.
He didn’t even breathe heavily, he held me as though I weighed nothing. Next thing I knew I was on his bed, and his hands were busy on my clothes. Unzipping my jeans and helping me to pull them off. Then went my top, my bra, and finally my panties.
I kept waiting for the shame to hit, but it wasn’t coming. The black mink blanket he’d laid me on was so soft against my skin, and I watched him slowly peel off the layers of his own clothes.
The only sounds in here were the excited inhalations of our breaths and the motor of his ceiling fan.
Moonlight and the glow of several apartment lights sliced through the curtains of his window, highlighting the sloping, graceful beauty of his form.
Angel was fit.
Tor was…like a god. Like his namesake. Broad of shoulders, slim of waist, with abs that I could bounce a quarter off of. He even had the friggin’ V that led to his cock. And it was big and beautiful, just like the rest of him.
Tor was a framework of art. He was covered in intricate scrollwork patterns of black, white, and gray. It wasn’t just on his arms and chest as I’d first assumed at the club, there were even some on his thighs. Celtic knots—the name suddenly came to me.
And as long as I could pretend that this was all a dream, then I could do this. As long as I kept reminding myself that Angel hadn’t been true to me for a long time. That just tonight, he’d been caught coked up with a skank whore sitting next to him. That once again he’d made a fool of me—then this was okay.
Tor let his hair down and I sighed as it spilled down his back. With his strong cheekbones, and a hawk-like nose, square jaw, and electrifying eyes, what might have looked overly feminine on anyone else didn’t on him.
“You’re so beautiful,” I whispered and opened my arms. Tonight there would be honesty. For once in my life I’d be exactly who I wanted to be.
His blue eyes seemed to glow and the bed dipped as he crawled to my side, moving like a jungle cat.
“Jamie Sullivan,” he whispered in that throaty, melodic accent of his and my insides dipped, my toes even tingled.
Who knew toes could tingle?
His finger traced the dip on my belly and my insides rioted. I closed my eyes and gave myself over to sensation. His fingers were rough but smooth. An artist’s hands. He smelled like soap, good, clean soap, and even a little bit of sweat.
But a little bit of sweat, especially now, could be really, really good.
“When you look like that…” he growled and my eyes snapped open.
A wall clock ticked.
“Look like what?” I asked after a lengthy pause before moistening my lips. I was nothing special. Blonde. Short. Stubby legs. Average.
“Like an angel.” His eyes burned through me, he swirled his finger higher before wrapping his palm around my breast. “You’re going to rip my heart out, aren’t you?”
No. In that moment I truly believed it. When he touched me like that, like I mattered, like I was clay and he was the potter, I knew I could never hurt him. I shifted then pulled him down to me, because I needed his skin on mine. Needed his touch, his mark, his brand.
“Tor.” I breathed his name.
“No, don’t.” He shook his head. “Don’t make promises you don’t intend to keep. This night is ours, the darkness holds our secret, and this is where it’ll remain. And that is my promise to you.”
I framed his face. How had I never noticed the slight indent in his left cheek—like a dimple playing peekaboo? My heart beat a little faster.
Was it possible that I could break his heart? How? But those thoughts were too deep, too intrusive to the now.
I leaned up so that our lips very nearly pressed together. His body was so warm and large. “Kiss me,” I demanded.
With a growl that seemed to border on desperation he slammed his lips to mine and I moaned. Lost in his taste—like hot cinnamon candy. I drowned in him. Twining my tongue with his.
Then he was nipping at my lower lip, not rough, but not gentle, either, and my blood was enflamed. He reached for a condom, and I held my hand out. Wanting to roll it on him.
Passing it to me, he watched as I ripped the golden packet open with my teeth. It’d been a while since I’d handled one; Angel and I hadn’t had sex in over a year now. Mainly because of my trust issues where he was concerned. But it was like riding a bike—you never really forget.
Except as I went to roll it on him, my hands were shaking so hard my nail sort of flicked at the tip. Not hard enough to rip it, but it still gave me a moment of panic.
No babies. Maybe ever. My life was too complicated for children.
Finally I got it on him and he moaned as I rolled it down. I checked the tip one final time, feeling for any slight tear, but it was perfectly intact. Then I was guiding him toward me.
He gasped when I rocked my hips forward and we shouldn’t fit like w
e were. He was so big, I was so little, and sometimes with Angel it got awkward. But he slipped in smooth and easy, filling me up and making me whimper because it was good.
I clutched onto Tor’s neck and swayed up. I was not with Angel; I was with a Viking. A potent male. A powerful male. And he was owning me.
Taking me.
The world spun out of control. Everything was chaos except for him. He was calm, my calm in the storm. I clung to him, desperate that this moment would never end.
He was whispering words in my ear, words I could not understand but that shivered against my soul because I felt the depth of his truth in them.
He had to stop—this wasn’t what I’d come here for. I hadn’t come to feel this; I’d come to forget. That’s all this was.
Me forgetting.
I stole his lips, cut off his words, even as the tears burned my eyes.
He was a stranger to me in a lot of ways. This wasn’t me. I didn’t do this.
Ever.
But even while I thought it, I didn’t stop. Because I was a slave to him, a masochist to these wild sensations. To the way my body responded to his every touch, he was lighting me up. He glided his fingers along my flesh, breaking me out in a wash of goosebumps, in a need so profound I couldn’t fathom this was real.
Only a dream could be so perfect. He sighed, and I think he may have even whispered my name. Said it with such need, such longing, that I couldn’t help but respond.
I was spiraling closer to the edge, creeping toward that dark, brilliant void of nothingness. I cried out, wrapping my legs even tighter around him.
The soft mink beneath me, his hardness, his gentle touch, the scent of his clean soap… I was coming undone.
“I’ve got you. Eg elskar deg. I’ve got you.”
“Yes,” I whispered. Not sure why, not sure what I meant, but it was like something inside me understood that this was more than just forgetting.
This was real. Tor was real. This wasn’t a dream. And we were speaking not in words, but from our very souls. Giving and receiving, and he held nothing back from me.
Rockers After Dark: 6 Book Bundle of Sexy Musicians Page 56
