“Tyler Sutter is a dead man,” Sager vowed darkly before setting me back a couple of inches to inspect me. He traced his gaze all over my naked body. I had at least six thin scratches on my arms and three narrow marks on my legs from the glass, but mainly I was just humiliated. “When I get my hands on him I’m going to teach that fucker a lesson he won’t soon forget.” He pried my cell from my grip.
“Don’t, please don’t call him,” I pleaded covering his hand with my own before he could dial Tyler’s number. I ignored the fearsome flames of retribution that flickered within the espresso depths of his gaze. I wasn’t frightened of him. I knew he would never hurt me. I trusted him to douse those flames if I asked. I trusted him to take care of me, to make me the priority. I framed his handsome face. His skin felt warm, the roughness of the whiskers on his jaw familiar and infinitely comforting. My anxiety began to abate. My heartrate slowed from a run to a gentle trot. Everything about Sager was comforting to me. “He’s not worth the trouble. I’m ok now, thanks to you.” I stared deeply into his eyes. He had done more than just rescue me tonight. He had come into my life and given me the type of affection and acceptance that I never thought I would ever receive. I wonder if he knew how much he meant to me.
“You’re decidedly not ok. You’re naked and you have cuts all over your body. What the hell, Melinda? Why were you even over here in the first place?” Doubts drifted in his eyes. Doubts I wanted to wash away as quickly as the miscalculated mess of this evening.
“He said he wanted to talk. I came over to do that, but I got caught in the storm and my clothes got soaked. While I took a shower and got ready to change, he…well…he went a little ballistic, broke some glass and took my clean clothes and the towel with him.”
“A little ballistic does not describe the state of that room,” he bit out through his clenched teeth.
“If he wanted to hurt me, he could have.” That statement didn’t seem to comfort him. His grip on me tightened. “He was drunk,” I rushed to explain. “Jealous about me and you. It’s over now. I just want to forget it ever happened. Please just let it go.”
“Ok, Blue,” he agreed after a long moment during which I could guess what he was thinking given the irritated muscle jump in his jaw. “For now,” he added, but the dark glow that remained in his eyes told me that Tyler had better watch his back in the future. “We’ll talk more about this later.” He curled his fingers around my neck and gently drew my head to his chest. The silky silver dress shirt he wore caressed my cheek, but the buttons from it and the beads from his rosary dug into my skin. I burrowed my face into a better position while inhaling deeply. My emotions settled even more as his cardamom, wood and leather scent enfolded me. “I want you out of here.” His words rumbled in my ear. “I’m gonna have King clear the hall. Then I’m taking you to our apartment. Ok?”
“Who’s out in the hall?” I whispered, feeling my cheeks burn with embarrassment. How many people knew what Tyler had done to me?
“The hotel manager. Security. The next door neighbors who called the trouble in.”
“Oh.” Not too many. I hoped they would be discrete. “Yes, I’ll go with you.” I couldn’t think of anywhere that I would rather be than with him. He squeezed me tighter seeming to want to reassure himself and me as well that everything would be alright. Standing, he waited until I was steady with my feet on the floor before whipping the top sheet off of the bed and wrapping it around my shoulders.
“Can you stand on your own for a moment?” He pulled the sheet tighter around me, peering down at me, his gaze still darkened with concern. “I wanna make sure the hall is clear before we head upstairs together.”
I nodded.
In long capable take charge strides he moved to the door. Opening it a crack, he barked an order. There was an immediate affirmative reply.
“They’re gone,” he informed me as he rejoined me. “Are you ok to walk?” His thoughtful brow creased again.
“Yeah. My legs are stiff, and I’m still kind of jittery inside,” I explained. “But I think that will get better if I move around.”
“Ok.” He slung a protective arm around my shoulders smiling encouragingly at me as I arranged the sheet around my body sarong style. Pressing me more firmly into his side, he glanced around the apartment. “Where’s your overnight bag?”
“I left it with the bellhop before I came upstairs.”
“I’ll get them to send it to my apartment.” He quickly pulled his cell out of the front pocket of his charcoal trousers and used it to speak to the front desk. If I hadn’t been feeling so shaky I would have better appreciated the striking figure he cut in the dress clothes he had obviously worn for the wedding reception. When he hung up, he tucked his phone away and stroked my cheek softly with the back of his knuckles. “I’m not going to argue with you right now about pressing charges, but I don’t want you going anywhere near that asshole ever again. Understand?”
I nodded and leaned more heavily into him as he steered me out of Tyler’s apartment, to the bank of elevators and hit the call button. Embarrassment resurfaced when King joined us. I tucked myself tighter to Sager wishing I had actual clothes on. The drummer avoided my eyes as studiously as I did his when the elevator arrived and we stepped inside together.
“We should pay that cabrón a visit tonight, mi hermano.” I glanced at King surprised by the vehemence of his tone. His eyes were nearly as dark as Sager’s had been only moments before.
“Not tonight, King.”
“But...”
“She doesn’t want me to get into it with him tonight, and Melinda is my priority right now.” Sager’s tone was as hard as his form felt against me. The elevator dinged. The doors slid open, and he steered me again, this time a few steps down the hall to his door. He inserted his keycard and held open the door for me. I ducked inside and he followed, King on his heels. In the entryway, he placed his arm around my shoulders. The warmth of his skin soaked into mine, a balm to my overstretched nerves. “I’m taking Melinda to my room,” he told King. “Can you let the others know that she’s ok?”
“No hay problema.”
“Thanks.” Sager lifted his chin. “I’ll see you in the morning.” Arm tightening around me he guided me the rest of the way down the short hall, through the main living area and past a small efficiency kitchen. The layout of the apartment was different than Tyler’s smaller one, Sager’s bedroom on the opposite side from King’s apparently.
Once through the door, he released me briefly but only to close the door behind us and lock it. My gaze moving from it to him, I blinked up at him.
“Come over here,” he implored, stretching his arms wide. I launched myself into them. He caught me rocking back on his heels from the force of my momentum. The sheet came undone and fluttered to the floor exposing my naked body to the cool air, but I didn’t care about that or any of the rest of it. I was where I needed to be. I let out a ragged breath as his hands glided across my shoulders and down the length of my spine to my lower back, leaving a pleasurable shimmer in their wake. He pressed me more firmly into him.
“Blue,” he whispered, sliding his hands upward so he could tunnel his fingers into my hair. Tugging gently on the ends, he forced my face to tip up toward his. “I’m hanging on by a narrow thread here. I need you now. I want to lay you out on my bed and bring our two bodies together.” I could feel the tremor from his shredded control. “I need to reconnect with you. To reaffirm that you’re mine, and that everything is ok. When I think what might have happened...” He shuddered, and it took him a moment to refocus on me. “But we’ve got to clean those scratches first.” He stroked my cheek with his thumb. “I don’t want them to get infected.” He popped the lock open, crossed the hall and I heard the sound of a tap turning on. When he returned from the bathroom, his shirt was off. Only the rosary remained. My gaze stalled on him as he came closer. Toned and tatted, he tripped me up even before he drew my body into his. I brought my hands up to his forear
ms and curled my fingers around them as he lowered his head, closed his gorgeous eyes and transferred all of his warmth to me the moment his lips brushed across mine. Just a tender kiss, but the touch of his mouth to mine sent a blast of heat through me.
“Sager,” I breathed as he lifted his head. “It’s ok.” I lifted a hand to his cheek and stroked the roughened surface. “I’m ok. We’re ok.” He nuzzled his cheek into my palm, and I sighed. Despite everything that had happened, I had never had a moment in my life where I felt more right. This man, he was the one. He had always been the one, though I had run from that startling truth knowing almost from the beginning that it had the potential to crush me. “I want what you want. The other can wait.” I reached to frame his face with both my hands. His gaze intensified, no longer merely warm it roared into an inferno. “Take me now. I want you.” I would always want him. “Make me yours.”
“Fuck, yeah.” He hefted me up, his strong hands digging deep into the rounded flesh of my rear. “Wrap those sexy legs of yours around me and hold on tight, babe. This is gonna be a hard and fast ride.” I only got one ankle around his taut flexing buttock before he shifted and had me pressed against the back of the door. Balancing my weight between one hand and the door, his fingers fumbled hastily between us as he undid his buckle, unfastened his trousers and lowered the zipper. A rush of warmth dampened my thighs from the anticipation of having his cock inside of me again. I wet my dry lips with a swipe of my tongue and wriggled my hips impatiently. He lifted his darkened gaze from my mouth and smiled slowly, a sensual lifting of his lips that did devastating things to me.
“Gonna need some help here, Melinda.”
He waved a square condom packet in front of my dazed gaze. I smiled seeing the dark desire in my eyes reflected in his before I lowered my head, took the edge of the foil between my teeth and ripped it open. He rolled it on his incredibly thick length sheathing himself. When I lifted my gaze, I only had a moment to absorb his amusement at my fascination with his cock before his mouth crashed onto mine. Firm lips that had been tilted up became softer and persuasively wetter as he moved them over my own. I could feel the unyielding surface of the door against my spine, the warm skin stretched tight over the flexed muscles of his chest against my swollen breasts and also the rounded beads of his rosary between us. I glided my hands down the muscular slabs of his back and pressed him more fully into me reveling in the decadent sensation of the tightened peaks of my nipples plastered to his passion heated flesh.
“Blue,” he groaned, coaxing my lips apart and thrusting his tongue in deep at the same time that he shifted his legs, aligned the engorged head of his cock at my entrance and thrust it deep inside me.
I moaned, gasping for breath as his delicious length filled me. He angled his head the other direction and recaptured my mouth, his tongue rubbing against mine and his fingers pulsing deep into the sensitive flesh of my ass. He moved his hips in a decadent circle, grinding my throbbing clit perfectly. I felt myself rocketing straight toward the pinnacle. “Yes. That feels so good. You feel so good. Faster,” I panted into his mouth, grasping his strong shoulders, my nails imbedding into his skin. He picked up the pace at my prompting, gliding himself in and out of my wet heat. I felt him growing impossibly harder and started to see the sparkle of stars behind my closed eyes. I ripped my mouth from his. “Sager!” I warned, opening my eyes and staring into his. “I’m going to… I’m almost...”
“Let it go, babe.” His fiery gaze melding to mine, he thrust in deep, every taut nerve ending in my body resonating with the force of his possession.
“Yes! Oh, yes!” I moaned his name, starting to unravel, everything within me fixated on where we were joined. The pleasure as I came was beyond anything I had ever known. I felt it lift me into a stratosphere where only sensation remained, where only he and I and this existed. I rocked my hips forward greedily seeking more, and he gave it to me, his cock pinning me to the wall, his climax filling me with his warmth and his eyes giving me even more—the approval I had always wanted.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Sager
“What the fuck, pendejo?” King scowled at me and Melinda. She stifled her giggling and tried to wiggle off my lap but I wouldn’t let her.
“Buenos días, grumpy bastard,” I told him as he headed straight for the fridge for the sixteen ounce can of Monster that he drank every morning. I brushed Melinda’s thick cloud of hair off her shoulder and pressed my lips to her creamy skin. She sighed, and I filled my lungs with her floral fragrance, before shifting her to one thigh to get her sexy ass off my straining erection.
King wore a funny look as he set his drink on the glass topped table and settled into the dining chair opposite my own. “Where did you go to get breakfast?” he asked his gaze lifting from my plate. “It smells muy deliciosa.”
“I didn’t.” I pulled Melinda’s face down to where I could reach it and kissed her soft cheek. “Blue made it.”
“Seriously?” King’s brows rose. He checked out my plate again. “Is that migas?” His incredulous tone matched his expression.
I nodded. “She worked out at the gym, then went to the grocery next door…and whipped this up.” I grinned. “I think I’m gonna keep her.” She pinched my side. I pretended it hurt. “There’s a couple of corn tortillas left if you want some.”
“Hell, yeah. Where?” King asked.
“On the plate next to the stovetop. Underneath the paper towel,” she added when King glanced around clueless. He grabbed a couple and returned to his seat.
“You gonna finish those eggs?” he asked me.
“Nah,” I pushed my plate toward him. “Melinda and I have better things to do.”
King rolled his eyes while scooping a healthy amount into one of the tortillas.
“What are your plans for the day?” I asked my best friend.
“I gotta do some overdubs for ‘Liquor and Lies.’”
“Fuck!” I remembered. “Me, too.” We had a deadline to get all of the songs ready and the new album released before the Carter Besille appearance.
“I’ll go with you,” Melinda offered. “If that’s ok?” She glanced at King, a concession given the animosity between them.
“I don’t care.” He shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He didn’t quite lower the bar of suspicion, but he didn’t reject her request, either. It was a start, albeit a small one.
“C’mon babe.” I shifted her off my lap, not too happy about the way King’s gaze shifted to her legs when the hem of my shirt rose to her upper thighs. Not that I could blame him. She was irresistibly beautiful. I was going to have to get a quick handle on the possessiveness, especially if she continued to do modeling.
“Let’s get those wounds of yours doctored.” I stood, took her hand and squeezed it.
“No need to use code words with me, mi hermano. I know what you two are busy doing back there. I could hear you from my side of the apartment even with my headphones on.” He rolled his eyes again. I didn’t feel a shred of guilt. I had put up with him and his shit plenty.
“I actually really do need to reapply the antibiotic cream. She has a couple of nasty slices because of that asshole.” My grip tightened a little too hard on Melinda’s smaller fingers. She winced, and I loosened it, forcing myself to rein in my temper. She looked at me expectantly. I wanted to be her hero. I wanted to be so much more. I wanted to be her everything. I just had to convince her to let me.
“I’m ok, Sager. It’s really not necessary.”
“Playing doctor with you turns me on,” I told her, dragging her back to my bedroom with me. “The sex is my reward.”
She was smiling softly when I closed and locked the door.
“Take that off, babe,” I ordered, snagging the tube of Neosporin from the dresser. “Love ya, but I don’t want that greasy shit on my favorite dress shirt.”
She froze, eyes wide, my shirt held in front of that incredible rack of hers. I suddenly realized what I had let slip. “I
t’s a figure of speech,” I explained knowing it was too soon, that she wouldn’t believe me if I told her I had started falling for her the moment I met her.
“Yes of course.” Her gaze dropping to her toes, she moved closer holding out her right arm where the deepest cut was.
Willing my hands not to shake, scrambling for the right words, I put a dollop on my finger and spread it carefully over the wound. “If I were going to love any woman it would be you, Blue.” Her hair slid over her slim shoulders as she lifted her head and met my gaze.
“If I were going to love any guy,” she countered, rocking my world. “It would be you, but I don’t deserve someone like you.”
“That’s bullshit.” Her lips flattened in response to my sharp tone. “It’s the other way around,” I added gently. “But it will be my pleasure to convince you. However long it takes. There’s nothing casual about the way I feel about you, ok?”
The surface of her pretty sapphire eyes shiny, she nodded.
• • •
Melinda
I sighed as he pulled out, the aftershocks of pleasure still making me feel shivery all over my body. The sex with him was incendiary, our chemistry off the charts, but still my heart dangled on a line, twisting exposed in the wind, exposed considering how desperately I wanted to believe the words he had spoken earlier.
I wanted him to love me because I loved him. How long would it be before he figured out how much I longed for him to say those words and really mean them? And what would I do if he never did?
The Complete Tempest World Box Set Page 145
