“Smells good.” Two pale arms with very faint red marks around the wrists appeared as Hollie wrapped her arms around my waist. She pressed her delectable body into me from behind and her scent filled my lungs, like mine but with a faint hint of berry. “I’m starving.”
Her throaty purr made me hungry, but not for food.
“Nothing fancy. Just grilled-cheese sandwiches and some fruit I sliced and put on the table. How was your shower?”
“Good. But not as good as the one we took earlier outside together.”
“Right answer.” I turned my head over my shoulder and captured her lips. She let me have a kiss, then pulled away. I was disappointed, but it was probably best not to get carried away. After all, I was standing in front of a lit stove.
“Which cheese did you use?” she asked.
“Plain old American.”
“Fanny uses ciabatta bread, Irish butter, and smoked gouda on hers.”
“Fanny’s a fancy chef at heart. I’m just trying to get us food on the table.”
Chair legs scraped on the tiles as Hollie took a seat at the kitchen table.
“She certainly is. She gets that gene from our mother. I didn’t inherit it, unfortunately.”
I plated a grilled cheese for each of us and brought both over, placing one in front of her and mine right beside it. “You didn’t eat much at lunch. Glad to see you have your appetite back,” I said, noting how much of the fruit she’d eaten.
“I was upset earlier.”
“Not a stress eater then.”
“I guess not, and I love the fruit here. It’s fresh. Like it’s full of sunshine and the ocean breeze. Plus, my mom said a lot of love—” Hollie’s pretty cheeks blushed pink. “I mean care goes into the preparation of food for others.”
“Just so.” I ran the back of my fingers over the color on her skin.
Her eyes fluttered closed, her expression revealing the pleasure my touch gave her. She didn’t see the fierceness in my gaze or the truth of how much I cared, and how irrevocable that caring was. By the time she opened her eyes again, I’d stowed it.
Not yet, I told myself. It’s too soon. Wait till the end of the week.
“Mmm.” She moaned after taking a huge bite of her sandwich.
My cock bounced in response to the sound, eager to get right back inside her. My desire for Hollie increased after each subsequent time with her, rather than abated. That fact, among many others, told me what this was, and I wanted to do everything in my power to possess her and keep it.
She dabbed her lush lips with a paper napkin. “The cheese is perfectly melted and creamy. This is delicious.”
“It’s a standard grilled cheese. You’re just hungry.”
Although I downplayed it, her words filled me with pleasure, adding to what was already there. This—her here, us eating together and talking—I enjoyed it. It made the empty place feel like a home.
“So, you and your mom were close,” I said.
“Yes. She was a lot like Fanny. Strong. Caring. Considerate. Protective of us both. Beautiful.”
“A lot like you,” I said softly.
Hollie’s eyes widened. “Maybe. Thanks for saying so. I’m not nearly as strong. She . . . the sacrifices she made for us . . .” The surface of her gaze turned reflective and shiny, like wet chrome. “Well, let’s just say I have a better idea now how much she loved me and how much it cost her. I hope I can follow her example and love a child of my own one day as deeply as she loved me.”
“Fanny speaks very fondly of her.”
“She was all that light and love my sister sings about.”
“I detect cynicism in your tone. Do you not believe in all that?”
Hollie gave me a doubtful look. “Do you?”
“I do. In the early part of my marriage, we had Kellan, and it wasn’t all bad with Lalana.”
“I’m sorry.” Hollie covered my hand where it rested on the table beside my plate. “The honest answer is I didn’t believe in love at all, not for a long time. Seeing my parents, Samuel and my mom, argue and tear each other down, I bore the brunt of a lot of their animosity since I spent so much time with both of them. Her coaching my acting, and him criticizing it.”
“What changed your mind about love?”
“Max.”
“He didn’t love you.”
“He did, in his own way. I have to believe he did. Please don’t try to take that away from me. I need to believe that in order to . . .” Dropping her chin to her chest, she slid her hand away from mine and tucked it under the table.
“I’m sorry.” I reached out and lifted her chin so I could look at her. There were tears in her eyes, and the hurt in her expression spiked a dagger of pain right into the center of my chest. “I’m jealous of the feelings you have for him. I don’t think he cared for you the way you deserve to be cared for.”
“Apology accepted.”
“Thank you.” I smoothed a long, silky-soft strand of her hair behind her shoulder and asked carefully, “So, was Samuel abusive to you all along?”
“Yes, he was verbally abusive.” She nodded. “I denied it was significant to those closest to me like Fanny and my friend Ernie. But Samuel was manipulative and controlling, and cut me and Fanny down the entire time we lived in his house.”
“That’s terrible.”
A house, not a home. A tormentor, not a father. And those were probably the reasons she’d accepted the little she had as love from the bodyguard.
I had a terrible thought and had to know. “Was the night you and Fanny ran away the only time he hurt you physically?”
“Yes. He was drunk. He drank a lot more after my mom died and Fanny left. I usually avoided him at night, but . . .”
“It’s not your fault. He’s a sick, sadistic asshole. That’s totally on him, not on you.”
“I know.”
“I wonder if you truly do.”
“Of course I do.” Her chin came up. “He’s a horrible person. I’m not some Stockholm-syndrome victim. I can acknowledge what he did. I don’t romanticize it or him.”
“But you don’t talk about it. Not the specifics. I’ve seen the interviews. You always mention the drinking like it’s an excuse for him.”
Her face draining of color, Hollie pushed back from the table.
“Stay.” I grabbed her hand. “Don’t run.”
She glanced down at our hands. I could feel the tension in her fingers, see it in her frame that was like an overwound spring.
“I recorded my testimony for the lawyers.” Her eyes were wide, frightened, cloudy gray pools. It wasn’t a good memory for her. “I don’t need to rehash it again and again.”
“I think maybe you do. At least to someone who knows you, cares for you, and wants to help you.”
She blinked slowly but didn’t drop her gaze.
“I told you about Kellan. You can trust me to have care about what you choose to share with me.”
Her troubled gaze clearing, she nodded.
“Be brave, Pelehonuamea. A goddess of fire shapes the land with her molten lava, creating a new land in the process. She doesn’t run from the truth. She acknowledges it, overcomes it, and uses it to make herself better and stronger.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
* * *
Hollie
“It was late. I was in my pajamas. I heard a crash and went downstairs to investigate. Samuel was in the library, destroying all my mother’s things. He grabbed me and shook me so hard, it rattled my teeth. When I tried to get away, he tripped me.”
My heart began to race like it had that night, but I powered through my fear to get it all out.
“He ripped open my top. He put his mouth on me.”
I shuddered, remembering the wetness of his tongue and his acrid breath.
“He pinned my shoulders to the floor, rendering my arms useless against him. I bit him when he stuck his tongue in my mouth, and he slapped me. He was so much stronger than me. I stru
ggled against him, but he had all the power. He would have raped me. If not for the housekeeper, I know he would have.”
“Oh, Hollie, that fucking son of a bitch.” Sympathy for me and anger toward Samuel warring for prominence in both his words and his expression, Diesel plucked me off my chair and set me on his lap.
“It was the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. He was the only father I ever knew. I thought I could trust him, but he betrayed that trust. I have nightmares, even after all this time.” I laid my head on Diesel’s strong shoulder, surprised by the steadiness of my retelling.
“And I pinned your wrists earlier when we were having sex. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
“I loved that.” I lifted my head and stared deep into his warm brown eyes. “I trust you. I wasn’t thinking of him when you did it. I want you to do it again.”
“Whatever you want, babe.” His deep voice rolled through me, filling me with fire that burned away the chill.
“Anything?” I repeated words he’d used earlier, determined to reshape the past, to control it, and not the other way around.
“Anything for you.”
“I like that.” Such an understatement. I more than liked everything about Diesel.
I reached for his curls and tucked the inky-black satiny-soft tendrils that had fallen in front of his ear behind it.
“What did you have in mind?” he asked.
“I have a lot of things in my mind. All of them to do with you.”
His sculpted lips slowly lifted, forming crescents. I reached up, pressing the pads of my thumbs into the indentations. My stomach flipped as they deepened beneath my touch.
“I want to touch you. All of you. Can I?” I licked my lips in anticipation.
“My body is yours to explore.”
“All right.” I swiveled to straddle his lap in the chair. “I love your hair.”
Starting at his scalp, I traced a long lock of his hair. Round the spiral, my fingers went as I savored the texture that was so different from mine, the ebony color so glossy, it reflected the overhead lights.
“Glad you do, babe.”
“Don’t ever cut it.”
“Not planning to.” Diesel’s dark eyes danced.
“Good.”
I gave him a nod and moved my hands to his face. Gently, I smoothed my thumbs across his often-brooding forehead and over the slashes of his raven-black brows that accentuated the unique tilted shape of his eyes, a result of his Polynesian and Vietnamese heritage.
“I used to think your eyes were merely brown.” I skimmed caresses over his regal cheekbones.
“And now?” he asked, gazing at me, his body and the muscles tense beneath my care as if my simple touches and my comments had transfixed him.
“The color is as complex as you are. Sometimes it’s a natural earth brown, darker than ochre and sienna. But other times, when you’re upset or turned on, the color intensifies and becomes more reddish-brown like a rich oil painting.”
“I like that you think I’m complex. But I’m really a simple guy.”
“I disagree.” I glided the back of my fingers along his refined but smooth jawline. His evening stubble seemed to be confined primarily to providing a goatee to his chin or a roguish mustache below his flared nose. “A simple man doesn’t surf the waves with the finesse that you do, or play and write music or make love—I mean, fuck—the way you do.”
“I’m not just fucking when I’m with you. You’re right to notice the difference.”
“Oh, Diesel. Me either.” I wondered if he knew how much more it was for me.
I floated my fingertips over his gorgeous lips, lowered my head, and kissed him. I savored the firm texture of his lips, the chiseled shape of his mouth, and the rich cherry flavor of his taste.
Diesel shifted beneath me as his cock hardened. His arms lifted, his hands skimming my cheeks as he dove them deep into my hair. Cradling the base of my skull, he took over the kiss, deepening it, making it less about exploration and more about possession and conquest.
In his lap, I rocked over him, moving my hips to the rhythm of his tongue in my mouth.
“Babe.” He broke the kiss, his eyes dark. “Gonna fuck you again.”
“Don’t talk about it. Do it.”
He grinned. “Now who’s bossy.”
Grabbing the hem of his Dirt Dogs’ tee that had become my sleep shirt, he lifted it over my head. I guessed it wasn’t quite sleeping time yet. As my hair settled around my shoulders, his hands cupped my breasts, and I arched into his warm, capable fingers.
“So good,” I told him, my lips parting and a pleasurable sigh escaping as he rolled the hardened tips of my breasts between his fingers and thumbs. He pinched them, and heat spiraled straight to my already pulsing clit.
“Put your feet on the floor and get those panties off. I need inside you.” His voice gruff, he twisted each nipple hard enough to sting.
Hot, wet, and so eager, I threw my legs over to one side of his, put my toes on the tile, and shimmied out of my underwear while he yanked down his shorts and lowered his naked ass back into the chair. I climbed back on him, my legs over his as he rolled on a condom.
“On, babe.”
He grabbed my hips and lifted me above his sheathed cock. Aligning the engorged head at my entrance, he thrust inside me at the same time that I lowered myself onto him. Inch by slick inch, he filled me until he was at the end of me.
“Mmm.” I moaned as my scalp tingled and my clit pulsed. I lifted my hips, needing motion, wanting him in and out, his hardness deeper, his width stretching me.
“Ah, babe. You feel so good.” He plucked my nipples as I moved, then rained hot kisses on my neck, then my jaw, then my parted lips. Fastening his mouth to mine, he began to lift his hips off the chair, pumping his shaft into me as I plunged down onto him.
“I need you, Diesel.” I moved faster, my hands on his shoulders to lift my hips higher. His on my ass, grabbing each globe, he squeezed as I lowered myself onto him.
“You have me,” he said as I took him deep.
It was so good, but it wasn’t enough. I needed stimulation on my clit.
Before I could voice that need, he slid his hand between our bodies and placed his thumb straight over that needy nub. Each time I came down and he jerked up, he swiped it.
“Oh, Diesel.” I breathed out his name, so turned on, so hot for him, so close.
Our lids hooded with pleasure, our skin taut with desire, we stared into each other’s eyes.
My nipples were tight in the humid air between our tensed, straining bodies. My breasts bounced with the force of my frenzied movements and his rough possession. His solid thighs slapped my ass.
Each time I took him deep, his thumb grazed me. Undeniably, again and again we came together. He filled me so full. His hard cock sliced the fine point of my need, making it sharper.
“Diesel, please.” Tears leaked from my eyes as I stared down at him. “I’m so close.” I glided along his wet length, pulsing rhythmically around him. “I want. I need.”
Him, always him, always more.
“Let it go, babe.” He thrust inside me, stoking my desire, blazing me, setting my entire body on fire. “Be beautiful for me.”
He lifted his hips. Going so deep, he pierced that perfect spot, stiffening and releasing inside me as I unraveled around him.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
* * *
Diesel
At the piano, my fingers were poised over the keys while Hollie took another shower. The thought of her naked, soapy, and wet made my cock hard.
Again.
Wanting her. Needing her. Taking her. I was addicted to the cycle.
To her.
Letting those emotions flow, I began to play. Up the scale and back down, a pattern emerged.
“What’s that you’re playing?”
I swiveled to the sound of her voice. In fact, my entire body was attuned to hers. “Something new.”
Not as pretty as she was as she tiptoed across the living room, a towel wrapped around her breasts. My cock jumped. Easy access. One twist—well, an untwist—and she would be naked and mine to have again.
But for how long?
The sex was amazing. I’d never felt such insatiable desire for any woman, not even Lalana. My ex had been the prettiest girl in high school. I’d had my head turned by her, and then my life turned upside down when I realized too late that her beauty was only skin deep, a mask for her insecurity and selfishness.
“Is it a score for a movie?” Hollie put her delicate hand on my shoulder and leaned her sexy body into me.
Looking at her, I saw beauty that was more than surface deep.
I shook my head. “A song. The beginning of one.”
“For the band?” Her brow scrunched beneath her halo of moonbeam hair. So cute. So beguiling. So unaffected.
“If the guys like it. I’ll have to run it by them once I have the lyrics to see if they think it’s worthy to include on part two of our greatest-hits album. Sit.” I gestured to the empty spot on the piano bench.
“I don’t want to interfere with your process.”
“You’re not. I like you close.”
In fact, Hollie was the inspiration for the music, but I didn’t tell her. I showed her. As soon as she was settled beside me, as regal as any monarch and as effervescent as a goddess, I played for her as if she were both, and more, though she wore only a faded towel.
“I like it.” Her eyes were shiny when I finished what I had so far. “It’s bright and hopeful.”
“Almost as good as a Barry Manilow song?”
She arched her signature brow. “Don’t get carried away.” She tapped my hand, her expression teasing to match her tone. “Maybe it will be when it’s done.”
“Honored to be considered in such lofty company, even in the formative stages, huh?”
“Yes.” She smiled softly and then yawned big. “Are you coming to bed soon? To bed with me. I thought we could sleep together.”
(Complete Rock Stars, Surf and Second Chances #1-5) Page 132
