Sin for Me

by Lisa Marie Perry

  Redirecting his focus, he settled between her thighs and nuzzled her mound. His beard brushed her pubic hair. “I like this,” he said, then slid the point of his tongue down the narrow strip. He sucked the bare skin on either side, then opened his mouth over her.

  Damn him. It was good—his technique, her response to him—but he was so different now that part of her felt that here she was again, embarking on sex with yet another stranger. Yet another man who didn’t care and wouldn’t come back for more.

  Would she refer to this man as Songwriter now, instead of Dante? Should she pare him down to the skill that’d be of use to her company, think of him only in the capacity in which he’d contribute to Devil’s Music?

  Or should she hang on to the memory of what they’d meant to each other and use that to soften his harsh, impersonal touch?

  She sat with her legs open and her hands behind her back…and she felt as if she were being used. “I want to touch you, too. Can I—”

  “Stay like that. Keep your beautiful eyes on me.” He spread her with his fingers, licked her, left her glistening wet under the car’s interior lights. “Feel this. That’s all I want you to do.”

  What about what she wanted? This one-sided contact felt shallow somehow. Behind the twist of pleasure was pain in a place that his expert fingers and greedy tongue couldn’t reach.

  But if she resisted, touched him anyway, he’d stop and she would have nothing but a fresh memory of cruelly bad sex to lay on top of the one she’d carried for seven years.

  She would rather have him like this than not at all. How fucking pathetic, desperate, hopeless was that? How selfish was she?

  Flattening her lips, frowning through the involuntary instinct to cry, she linked her hands at the base of her spine so they would obey.

  “Good choice,” he praised sardonically, as if he’d secretly tested her and she’d failed. “This ain’t the time to be noble and pretend you care about anything other than getting off.”

  Her nostrils twitched and a rush of hot tears collected in her eyes. He wouldn’t quit punishing her for the lies and callous manipulation. Even as the exploration of his fingers and the stroke of his giving tongue gave her pleasure, he punished her.

  Chelsea slipped into the rhythm of his touch, riding his mouth as the car rode the evening streets. When he dragged his mouth up to cover hers, he drove two fingers into her and pressed his thumb to her clit.

  Crying out only compelled him to intensify the pressure, but she couldn’t stop. Wouldn’t.

  Her moans were too loud and her screams too sharp. She was too sensitive to Dante Bishop and the beautiful hell he could wreak on her body.

  He kissed a spot high on her cheekbone, then drew his lips over hers. “Get yours, Chelsea. Get it. Get off on my hand. Do it.”

  His voice was so rough, so persuasive, and it stirred her lust. The tempo kicked up, and the intensity swung to a level she couldn’t control.

  Chelsea dug her nails into her own hands, trying to hold out and not altogether sure why. Then she opened up.

  “Goddamn, yeah. Ride me.” He pushed farther and she was pinned between the massaging seat and his relentless body, bucking out an orgasm that made her heart stall and the air tangle in her lungs.

  Who the hell had this man turned into? How did he know he could do this to her?

  Dante freed her hands and she thought he might embrace her, but he swung her around, stretched her across the bench, and turned off the massager. “I’m going to get mine now.”

  She reached for him but his warning look intercepted. She dropped her hands and shook her head. “If all I cared about was myself, I wouldn’t be crushed that you’re acting like this.”

  “You almost sound genuine.”

  She was tearing in two—half desperate to curl up in grief and half reveling in unfathomable pleasure.

  He tugged his cock from his jeans, left them loose around his hips.

  She wanted to initiate a kiss and feel his skin. She wanted to reacquaint herself with the taste of him. Even if he didn’t believe an apologetic word that fell from her lips, she believed with everything in her heart that he’d find the truth in the way she touched him. He would know that she regretted what had happened before. Maybe he’d even start to trust that she hadn’t inserted herself into his family’s company just to improve her status and sponge off the Bishop fortune.

  If she could lay her hands against him, kiss him with compassion and sorrow, then he might let himself see that yeah, time had done a number on them both, but at her core she was still the woman he’d loved seven years ago. He couldn’t love and hate her at the same time.

  But he wouldn’t let her try.

  Respecting the line he’d put between them, she let him position her on her back, watched him roll on a condom, and then, finally, he was inside her.

  The driver’s voice spilled from the intercom, slicing through Chelsea’s cries and Dante’s groans.

  “Apologies, but—uh—we’ve arrived at your destination.”

  Dante paused, braced over her with sweat on his skin and heat in his eyes. “Tell him to take a walk. Our ride’s not over.”

  “Okay.”

  The word okay seemed to trigger something that softened his expression momentarily. She hastened to relay the instruction to Grayson, and it didn’t quite matter that the limo was in the brick drive just beyond the security gates and was conspicuous as all hell.

  Returning her attention to Dante, she found him guarded again, and God, did that deject her. They rocked together at a hard tempo, pounding, demanding things without using words. The vehicle started to sway when he turned her over.

  Ass up, eyes shut, hands pressed to the leather bench, she took him. Behind her, he slammed deep and retreated until she lost count of the repetitions as he shoved her into another orgasm. She felt him eventually pull out, felt him press a kiss to her ass cheek…

  Then there was the unexpected shock of his semen spurting along her spine. The heat of it stung her skin on contact, or was it the disbelief that he’d just taken off the condom and branded her with his come?

  Before she could figure out what to say or begin to process what had just happened, he casually smeared the fluid down her back, slapped her ass, and flipped her so that she sat, spent, on the bench.

  Kissing her and then fastening his jeans, he said, “I might’ve come back to Atlanta sooner if I knew you’d greet me like this.”

  “That wasn’t the point.”

  “Yeah, so you said.”

  “Goddamn it, the point of coming to the airport wasn’t to be porn-fucked and used as a jizz receptacle.”

  “Aw, Chelsea, don’t sell yourself short here. You’re the sexiest jizz receptacle around.”

  “Ass.”

  “If that’s the interpretation you want, I won’t dispute.” He helped her into her panties and handed her the top. “Get dressed and let’s go. Fair warning—the audience gathered outside might want to see who almost knocked this limo onto its side.”

  At this hour she anticipated that the “audience” consisted of security and colleagues—all of whom had their own duties to worry about.

  “You go. I’ll have the driver take me around to the porte cochere.”

  “Don’t get all embarrassed on me. I’ve known for a long time what you’re willing to do for Devil’s Music.”

  Furious, she said, “Get out and shut the door behind you.”

  With no further argument, he complied, taking his sunglasses and suitcase and exiting the car as if what they’d just shared meant nothing at all.

  Ass!

  Chelsea could be that way, too. There existed no other option that would let her continue with her pride intact.

  She texted the driver to cart her around to the side of the main house, then opened her purse and pulled out her Aztec-print romper. It was wrinkled now. She hadn’t intended to leave it stuffed in there so long.

  She hadn’t intended to have sex
with Dante. And was it even sex? It was a strange halfway mark between bliss and torture. It was a fight-fuck.

  Unlike seven years ago, she figured as she finger-combed her hair and tried to forget his invisible handprints peppered all over her body, she wasn’t crying or running away. She’d apologized for the past and had nothing to regret now.

  Except for the fact that he wouldn’t let her touch him. Orgasms were great and all, but the right to put her hands on him again was something that couldn’t be bought with money or power or apologies.

  She peered into the depths of her silver purse. A rubber band waited. This one was new, because the elastic she’d worn for a couple of weeks had gone slack from so much use. She reached for it—

  The limo stopped.

  She lowered the partition. “Thank you,” she said to Grayson, and shut her purse decisively.

  Business first. She could sort out her personal shit later. The company needed her, and it needed Dante Bishop.

  —

  Christ, he hated this place. The last time he’d walked across the threshold of Devil’s Music headquarters had been about a month after Jude Bishop’s death. The executor of his estate had notified all the folks expecting to collect, and they were gathered in the boardroom for the reading of his last will and testament. The room had smelled of lemongrass and greed, and it’d pissed him off to sit and listen to people complain or brag about their lot while he and his sister were in mourning.

  Delilah had looked so young—it was a rare day to see her without makeup to alter her features—and when the executor had announced that the lion’s share of Jude’s bequest was to be divided equally among his heirs, folks exploded in swears and protests while she only smiled.

  This wasn’t for him. Songwriting was a talent he’d begun nurturing as a kid, and his notebook was proof that he could never completely set aside something so ingrained in him, but taking hold of his daddy’s company was something he couldn’t do without killing himself.

  Dante wouldn’t shoot himself or inject lithium into his bloodstream, but if he’d stayed instead of turning over his stake in the company to his sister, he would have stopped being Dante and become Cutthroat Bishop’s son.

  There was a difference between the two. His secret was that he knew how to play both parts.

  Seven years away, and he was back inside a structure that time, redesign, and new ownership had modified. It was still the Devil’s Music he’d known most of his life.

  It still held his sister, and it was for her sake that he was here. And to alleviate his own guilt.

  Twice he’d failed Delilah when she’d needed him. The first time had been after Jude’s death, when he’d left the record label in her hands. She’d begun working the board long before her opportunity to claim her inheritance had come. Conspiring with Chelsea and her other friends, she’d planned to edge Jude out, and she might’ve done the same to him, except he hadn’t given her the chance. When he’d learned three years ago that she’d been carved out, he hadn’t helped her fight for her birthright. He’d thought she deserved what she got: disloyalty.

  But she’d persevered, starting over in California and a new place at the top and proving to him that she was committed to fixing herself. So he would help her reclaim what her friends had stolen. And then he’d leave it all alone, because he couldn’t let himself get swept into the seductive hell that was the Devil’s Music.

  “Dante Bishop,” a blonde said, welcoming him into a domed dining room on the second floor where a receptionist had escorted him after a valet had taken his suitcase and he’d gone through two rounds of ID verification. “Thanks for coming. You look well.”

  All formal speech and stiff manners, Emma Toledo seemed to look past the servers carrying trays and pushing silver carts in from a separate entrance. Steam rising from linen-draped baskets held the aroma of baked bread.

  “Y’all about to sit down to dinner?” he asked, and gestured behind him to the doors. “I can take my stuff to the hotel and we can talk in the morning—”

  “No, stay,” she insisted, and added a hesitant smile, as though she didn’t know how to approach him. He’d known her since she was a kid, coming around to hang out with his little sister, and what she’d done to kill that friendship made her an enemy. “My husband and I were just about to have a quick bite, but, since you’re here now and the kitchen staff always makes too much anyway, join us. Chelsea had a late appointment, but she should be back soon.”

  So Chelsea hadn’t told Emma that her “late appointment” involved stripping in the back of a limo and greeting him at the airport?

  Still juggling those lies, wasn’t she?

  Emma seemed suddenly nervous, and she twisted the ring on her finger. “We appreciate that you were able to come,” she said blandly.

  “You just said something to that effect, Emma.”

  “Oh, all right, well…” She cleared her throat. “You own a blueberry farm. That sounds peaceful. I’m assuming. Uh, my family took me on peach-picking jaunts when I was little.”

  “I remember. You took Delilah along with you sometimes.”

  Her skin paled under the warm gold glow of the chandeliers overhead. “Yeah. She had fun. We both did. Those were easy days.”

  “Now you make your own choices.”

  “Not all the time,” she muttered. “Listen, Dante, I’ve been here all this time ready to answer your questions about what happened with the vote, but you never asked me.”

  “Are you going to stand here and tell me this is a matter of perspective? Sorry, honey, but I’m looking at the facts. Delilah inherited this label, I gave her my half, and once she turned it into gold—no, motherfucking platinum—y’all flicked her out.”

  “If you think that’s true, why didn’t you come at us and fight for her share?”

  “It wasn’t my fight. I don’t want this company or the evil that comes wrapped up around it.”

  She came closer, her eyes searching. “Yet you’re coming out of retirement and are here to help it succeed.”

  Yes, he would write the best friggin’ songs he could, but he’d walk away from this project with his fair compensation and Chelsea’s stake in the company. Twice Chelsea had thrown someone under the bus to better her own position. It was time someone planted himself in her way.

  “Devil’s Music came to me—Chelsea did. I didn’t ask to write you an album.” To be technical, his sister had laid the groundwork first, but Emma didn’t need the specifics. He took a dinner roll from a basket and tore off a corner without ceremony. That ought to grate on her finely bred nerves. “Don’t piss on my generosity, Emma.”

  “We can keep the conversation friendly, can’t we? Delilah was my best friend, but you were my friend, too. Even if she doesn’t want to reconcile, maybe you and I can.”

  “Hell, no. I know how you treat your friends.”

  “Dante, don’t make this into a war. You coming back and writing an album—that’s an awesome thing. It’s going to blow people’s minds once it’s made public that you came home for this album. So be optimistic, and try not to act like a dick. All right?”

  “Try not to stab me in the back.”

  Her blue eyes dimmed a bit. “You’re more like Delilah than I remembered.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Just an observation.”

  “Why do you sound sad?”

  “Because I am.” She turned and hunted a phone that lay across a tablet. “I’ll just call Chelsea.”

  He stood with the half-eaten roll in his hand and was looking toward the doors when the woman he’d not too long ago fucked in an expensive car came strutting in with her phone ringing in her palm.

  “You’re here,” she and Emma said in unison, and they silenced the devices.

  “Tell me you haven’t already had dinner,” Emma said to Chelsea, drawing her to the table. “We’re going to go over things with Dante now. He’s eating with us.”

  “Actu
ally,” he interrupted casually, “I’ve eaten already. It was good—real good. I want more, but what’s that they say about too much of a good thing?”

  Chelsea’s eyes shot to him. Yeah, she caught on quick, didn’t she? “Dante…”

  “Oh?” Emma said brightly. “Do we know the place?”

  “Chelsea knows.” He watched her closely. “I was the first to eat there, wasn’t I?”

  “Yeah,” she said cautiously. Then she smirked. “But I think it’s had plenty of great customers since then.”

  “Is that right? What, better tippers?”

  A murderous glare overtook her deep brown eyes. “Not necessarily. Mostly guys who know how to appreciate a fucking delicious meal.”

  “Huh. Well, sounds like I should go back real soon and prove I’m the best damn customer it’ll ever know.”

  The challenge wasn’t lost on her. Chelsea’s mouth snapped shut so quickly that he could hear her teeth click.

  “Uh.” Emma looked at them. “So is anyone interested in doing the dinner meeting thing?”

  “Yes,” Chelsea said, sitting as far from him as the table would permit. “The sooner we agree to terms and get his signature, the sooner he can begin writing material. Where’s Joshua?”

  “On his way. We can start without him, though. I’ll take notes.” Emma waited until the serving staff had distributed a round of mango chipotle soup before she opened an app on her tablet.

  Out of courtesy he didn’t feel, he ate a few spoonfuls. As hot as the evening was, he understood the preference for chilled soup, but after that damning exchange with Chelsea, he really was getting caught up in wanting another taste of her.

  If he ducked under this elaborately dressed table and dove between her legs, she’d enjoy the pleasure now and apologize to the bystanders later.

  That was the live-in-the-moment spark he’d liked about her. Loving her was something completely different from liking her. She’d roped him in from all angles, and there was a time when he hadn’t realized how risky that was.

  Jude’s fatherly advice had been to protect his interests: wear a rubber, watch his wallet, and never confuse love with a need to pound pussy.