Reflex

by Madelynne Ellis

  “It’s okay to call time out, Allegra.”

  “No. I want it. One more.”

  “As you wish. But know that your ride home tomorrow is going to be bloody uncomfortable.”

  Did he have to remind her of that now? “Do it.”

  Spook flung the brush across the room instead. “No. You’ve had enough for this occasion.”

  She turned her head and gaped at him, tears welling in her eyes. Spook wrapped her in his embrace. Muscles holding her close to his long naked body. “I’ll spank you, Alle, but I’ll make judgement calls in order to make sure I take good care of you too. You’ve had enough, and so have I.”

  “But I want you to—”

  “Shh. There’ll be other times you can be brave.” He kissed her cheeks, her eyelids and her temples.

  “Does this mean you won’t—”

  He smothered her words by pressing her head against his chest. He smelled of heat, and sex, and security. “Did I say I wouldn’t? I called halt on the punishment. If you still want the rest…”

  Approximately two seconds later, she was spread across the bed, with a bunch of pillows beneath her hips. The mattress tilted as Spook moved alongside her. Alle peeped at him from beneath the roof of the cave she’d made with her arms. He squirted lube into his hands, then spread her fiery cheeks and drizzled a line of liquid silk into the groove.

  First he tickled her with a finger. Then entered her with the tip of his thumb. The stretch felt terrific, even when he widened it to a couple of fingers, and started dipping them in and out. Stretching her. The raw edge of it echoed the burn in the surrounding muscles. “Please,” she begged, not entirely sure what she was asking for, knowing only that it fired darts of pleasure straight through to her clit.

  Spook kept his fingers inside of her as he picked up the toy and worked the crown of it against her pucker. “You want this. This rather large thing, poking you in the arse. How much of it do you want, Alle?”

  “All of it. All of you. Always.”

  “You say the sweetest things.”

  Slowly he withdrew his digits and replaced them with the tip of the toy allegedly modelled on his actual cock. It had the same pattern of veins. The same flare. The same crown, now that she was in a position to make such a comparison. It also made her ache right though to her clit as he pushed it in.

  “That’s it, Alle. Are you taking my cock like a good girl?”

  “A bad one, I think.” She sounded breathless.

  “Yeah.” He lay down beside her, which meant readjusting his grip. Somehow that made a ton of heat rush to her face. “I think that might be true. The good thing is that I get seriously hot for dirty girls. In fact, they’re my favourite.” He reached towards the bedside table. “Let me get my phone. I need a picture of this.”

  “Spook,” she said warily. What if someone saw? If he got hacked or something… Was a picture of her with a dildo in her arse really something she wanted out there in an internet land that never forgot?

  On the other hand. Fuck that was good.

  “Look up now.”

  He held the camera in front of her slightly above her head so that her face was visible, as well as the long stretch of her spine, and the dildo in her arse. Never had she looked more utterly debauched. The skin of her backside was livid. Her eyes were wild, and her mouth slack. It was all so very obscene.

  “You’re fucking mesmerising,” he declared. “Turn and face me now.”

  That involved a deal of careful manipulation.

  “Hand.” He formed her grip around his actual cock. “You don’t need to move, just your touch will be enough.”

  Spook pushed a leg between the both of hers, providing her with something to rock against. She rode hard against his thigh, grinding her pussy against him until she was a sopping mess. Caught between twin points of pleasure, she came in a starburst of fucking bliss, Spook coming moments later.

  It was all very ungainly and undignified, but who the fuck cared. It was them. She’d come. He’d come. They both snuggled together afterwards. That was all that mattered.

  All. Forever.

  -32-

  ENGLAND.

  “Anyone home?”

  Alle shoved her case through the kitchen door as Malice the cat attempted to escape into the wilderness they called a garden, but was really one massive bramble bush.

  “Ewan? Hello?”

  Her ears perked at the sound of the TV on in the living room. He always had it turned up so loud, sometimes she wondered if he hadn’t lost his ears to frostbite too, but then he’d hear a pin drop from the other end of the house. It was the early evening news playing. Alle recognised the dramatic intro jingle, followed by the announcement of the headlines this evening.

  A yawn stretching her face, she opened the fridge and stared blankly at the contents. She and Ronnie had left Cannes around midday, following a late breakfast with Spook and Rock Giant at a brasserie on the beach. Rock Giant was heading back to the UK too, but had booked onto a later flight. His parents were playing some major folk festival the next weekend and he’d promised to attend. Spook intended to stay put in Cannes for another few days, then fly to Sweden to see his sisters and a whole raft of nieces and nephews. They’d agreed a tentative hook-up date in a little over a week when he was due to be in London to sign copies of their last album at their record company’s headquarters.

  The fridge started bleeping in protest, rousing her from thoughts of Spook and all they’d learned and said to one another over the last few days. It brought a smile to her and made her want to squeeze herself. Instead, she grabbed a can of pop, and parked her case in front of the washing machine.

  It was hard to believe that it was only a few days ago he’d sworn it couldn’t possibly happen between them, but they knew one another so well after nearly a year of texting back and forth all the time, that it felt like they’d been together a lot longer.

  “Ewan?” He was standing before the TV set when she reached the lounge, one hand in his short hair. He was still just as beardy as when she’d left, and was wearing a chunky cable knit that made him look like a fisherman. “Hey. I’m back.”

  He didn’t respond.

  “Gee, welcome home, Allegra,” she mimicked. “Why yes, I did have a jolly nice time, thanks for asking, so I won’t need to beat your arse for colluding beforehand. Also, you might have mentioned our dick of a brother, Marsh, is working for fucking Bang! these days.”

  “Shh!” Ewan hissed.

  Alle turned her head to the screen anticipating another climate crisis report.

  “The guitarist, from the band Black Halo, was arrested by French police following an incident at a beachside restaurant in Cannes. A man in his twenties is understood to be the victim of what witnesses describe as an unprovoked attack. The reporter approached Mortensen as he left the restaurant, who then punched him in the face. The victim is being treated at Cannes Hospital.

  Oh shit! This had to have happened right after she left. There was no footage of the actual incident, or the man involved. Unprovoked, her foot! Spook didn’t lash out unprovoked. At the very least, the guy must have said something.

  “This follows reports of two separate but similar incidents in the Italian city of Genoa three days earlier. Mortensen is alleged to have assaulted a security officer at the arena where his band was playing. And following an alcohol fuelled blow-out, showered a female reporter in broken glass.”

  Instead, the report showed a clip of a recent Black Halo video, before rolling into footage of her, Spook, Xane, Luthor, and Dani on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival the day before. The remnants of Spook’s black eye from the assault in Genoa was plainly visible, so too were the various cuts to his fingers that seemed to confirm the message that he was a dangerous thug.

  Only, he wasn’t. He very much wasn’t. “He didn’t attack anyone in Genoa,” she protested. “He was the one assaulted.”

  Finally, Ewan acknowledged her presence. “
They’re talking about Marshall.”

  “What?” Alle’s heart beat a frantic tattoo.

  “They guy he decked is our brother. I can’t believe I paid for you to go out and meet this guy.”

  Unsteadily, she sank into the leather armchair, only to jolt upright again the moment her bottom hit the seat.

  “Malice,” Ewan chided. Her brother squinted at her, when he realised the cat was perched on top of the bookcase, which in turn, made her cheeks flame.

  Spook had warned her she’d feel the real burn of what they’d done together the next day, and he hadn’t been wrong. A couple of taxi rides and two hours on a budget flight and her backside felt like a fireworks display.

  “Ewan. Spook was attacked in Genoa, not the other way around. And the woman reporter was shit stirring.”

  He frowned deeply at her, so that even his beard seemed to bristle. “He’s just landed our brother in A & E.”

  “Not for nothing,” she insisted. “I don’t believe that. Marshall must have done something.” Goddammit, he’d told her he was going to do something. He’d said read Bang! Online tomorrow.

  “I don’t know what happened, Ewan, but Spook’s no thug. He’s a good guy. I love him. I trust him. Obviously, I love Marshall too, but I’m not automatically taking his side in this.”

  That went down like a lead balloon.

  “I’m going to call Marsh and make sure he’s okay,” Ewan snarled, stalking to the door.

  “I’ll call Spook.”

  She dialled, but got no response. Xane didn’t answer either.

  Alle snatched up the remote and rewound the report. The details were decidedly sketchy.

  “Black Halo frontman, Xane Geist, was approached for comment but refused to talk to our reporter. No apology has been offered so far, but a spokesperson for the band said that they would release a statement to the public this evening via the band’s website.”

  Her phone rang, just as the report was ending.

  “Allegra? It’s Ronnie. Have you seen the article?”

  “I’ve seen the news,” she sighed.

  Ronnie rattled off Bang!’s online address, while she headed to her room to boot up her laptop.

  Spook’s arrest was the buzz item of the moment on the Black Halo fan site, but no one had any more information than the news channel. None. The Bang! article was on their front page.

  ‘ASEXUAL MY ARSE!’ screamed the headline.

  Marsh had been digging all right. The bulk of the report was a recounting of an incident by a woman in her twenties who claimed she’d been just sweet sixteen when she’d hooked up with Spook Mortensen following an early Black Halo gig she’d attended to celebrate her birthday. They’d enjoyed a few drinks together, before retiring to his place, where he’d tied her to the bed and spanked her before attempting to anally violate her.

  The woman had managed to get herself free and flee, but she’d heard on the grapevine that other fans had had similar experiences. At least one “former girlfriend” hinted at being repeatedly coerced into performing sex acts under threat of punishment, and several others reported that Mortensen frequently sat in when other members of the band were engaged with female fans and took pictures without their consent.

  It was all nonsense probably.

  A staff member at the hotel where several members of the band had been staying during the Cannes Film Festival reported that a distressed looking, scantily clad woman, identified by this reporter as sound engineer, Allegra Hutton, was seen outside Spook Mortensen’s door only last night, and that several squeals and other noises were heard coming from the star’s suite by staff, but they were dissuaded from reporting the ruckus to police by senior management.

  “You arsehole, Marshall!” Alle dug her fingers into her scalp. “I was not fucking distressed. You lying, conniving, bloody git. I hope he punched you really fucking hard. It won’t be anything on what I do to you.”

  “Are you all right?” Ronnie asked, his voice tinny and distant. She’d forgotten he was still on the line.

  “Fine. I’ll call you back later.” She hung up.

  Alle paced away from the computer, before returning to finish reading the last few lines of the report. It ended with a rather ominous request for readers to stay tuned.

  This was merely the opening salvo.

  “Spook. Oh, God! I’m really, really sorry about my brother.” What the fuck was she supposed to do now? Would he even speak to her? She dialled his number again. But it just rang and rang and rang…

  SPOOK & ALLE’S STORY CONTINUES IN REPLAY, AVAILABLE IN FEBRUARY 2020!

  PRE-ORDER NOW.

  ~*~

  Want to learn more about Spook & Alle’s first two encounters? Check them out in the novellas, Remastered & Resistor.

  Reflex is part of a larger story about the rock band Black Halo.

  Reading order for the Black Halo books:

  Come Undone (Xane & Dani)

  All Night Long (Ash & Ginny)

  Remastered (Spook & Alle)

  Come Together (Xane, Dani & Luthor)

  Resistor (Spook & Alle)

  All Fired Up (Ash & Ginny)

  Come Alive (Xane, Dani & Luthor)

  All Right Now (Ash & Ginny)

  Reflex

  Loved Spook Mortensen? You’ll love Ric Liddell. Click here to read more.

  Love a bisexual bad boy romance? Climb into bed with Kit Skye. Click here to read more.

  Have thoughts about Reflex. I’d love to hear them. If you can spare a few moments to leave a review, I’d be super grateful.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Spook’s story would not have come into being without the friendship and support of some very dear people. Karrie George, you’ve been with me on this Black Halo journey almost from the start. You’re my biggest cheerleader, and you know the egg shells I’ve walked over pulling Spook’s story together. Thank you for always being there, and dealing with me on the days when I’m convinced I’ve forgotten how to write.

  To Zoe York: who is an infinite source of knowledge, kindness, and support. You’re awesome lady! Can’t wait to catch up with you in person again.

  Thanks too, to Roe Horvat, for the help with my Swedish phrases. To Mandie, for her proofreading. To Dayna, for her wonderful editing skills and opening my eyes to what was there on the page if I only read it with a clear head. Also, to my daughter, with whom I’ve had many story related conversations. Ronnie is hers BTW, she’s adopted him, and is willing to fight anyone who says otherwise. By the time I get around to writing him his own story, maybe she’ll even be old enough to read it.

  And finally, to you, my readers. I count myself blessed to be able to create my world of complicated crazy characters and to have you love them right alongside me. Thank you for indulging my quirks and this foray into the depths of my carnal imaginings. This one has definitely been and continues to be wild ride.

  ~ Madelynne.

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Madelynne Ellis lives in the UK, not far from the Welsh border with her partner, family & assorted pets. She is currently sipping rapidly cooling decaf coffee, listening to loud music & indulging her obsession for tattooed bad boys.

  Connect with her in the following places:

  www.ma
delynne-ellis.com

  madelynne@madelynne-ellis.com

  ALSO BY MADELYNNE ELLIS

  Contemporary Erotic Romance

  The Black Halo Books

  Rock Hard (Xane, Dani & Luthor)

  Come Undone

  Come Together

  Come Alive

  Black Halo (Ash & Ginny)

  All Night Long

  All Fired Up

  All Right Now

  Off the Record (Spook & Alle)

  Remastered

  Resistor

  Reflex

  Replay (coming February 2020)

  Revive (coming April 2020)

  Anything But…

  Anything But Vanilla

  Anything But Ordinary

  Standalone Contemporary Titles:

  Enticement

  Dark Designs

  Passion of Isis

  Sharing Adam

  Gabriel’s Naughty Game

  Confessions of a Greedy Girl

  Short Stories

  We Were Lovers Once

  Woe in Kabukicho

  Writing as Clara Leigh

  Crazy Love

  Cherry Bomb

  Bath Bomb

  Sex Bomb

  Insta Bomb

  Historical Erotic Romance

  Scandalous Seductions

  A Gentleman’s Wager

  Indiscretions

  Phantasmagoria

  Three Times the Scandal

  Her Husband’s Lover

  The Ghosts of Christmas Past

  The Serpent’s Kiss

  Romps & Rakehells

  Capturing Cora

  Ménage After Midnight

  Taming Taylor

  Forbidden Loves:

  The Kissing Bough