The Right Man

by Mankin, Michelle

  I heard a clatter and a curse behind me. In the hall already, I paused and glanced back in her direction.

  “I’m okay. I dropped the friggin’ soap.”

  My cock gave an eager bounce as I imagined that scenario. Her shapely legs flexing and her sexy, rounded ass up in the air. I’d reached the door, but I wished I was back with her in the shower. Consequently, I cranked on the handle with more force than necessary.

  Practically growling at the valet, I said, “What do you want?”

  Doyle’s eyes widened. I was usually relieved when he arrived.

  “I brought your guitar, Mr. McMahon. You . . . you . . . said never to leave it in your car.” The fluffy white ball on the end of his Santa hat trembled like the rest of him as he carefully placed the case containing my Martin on the carpet in front of me.

  “Thanks, Doyle. You’re right.”

  Making teens quake. I wasn’t that big of an asshole, was I?

  “I appreciate you remembering.” I bent and picked up the case by the handle.

  He stepped closer and whispered near my ear. “Do you want me to make the excuse about your manager calling the front desk so you can get rid of her?”

  “Hell no.”

  “Didn’t think so. She’s . . .” He straightened, his attention wandering.

  Her flowery scent wafted toward me even before I turned to follow the direction of his gaze. Wearing one of the hotel robes, Jewel was in the living room, bent over at the waist. Not for soap, but to pick up her purse.

  “She’s what?” I frowned at him, annoyed that I’d missed an opportunity to slide my hands all over Jewel’s sexy slippery-wet body.

  “She’s really pretty.”

  “Yeah,” I said. She was definitely that. I started to shut the door, wanting to have all that beauty for myself. I had zero interest in the valet or anyone else gawking at her.

  “One more thing.” Doyle stuck his foot in the door, preventing me from closing it.

  At the end of my patience, I glared at him. “What?”

  “You have a message. Here.” He thrust a piece of paper at me.

  I took it, grumbled my thanks, and crumpled the note in my hand. Behind me, I heard Jewel speaking in a low confidential tone to someone.

  Closing the door on Doyle, I turned around and my brow furrowed. She had her back to me, and I took it as an affront. The rock-star entitlement thing was a difficult habit to break. Jonesing on way too much of my-every-whim-being-indulged adrenaline, I stomped straight to her.

  “I’m fine,” she said to whoever she was talking to on her burner phone. “Really.”

  “Who are you talking to?” My tone was sharper than I’d intended, making me sound like a jealous lover, but I didn’t really care.

  “Oh.” She spun around. Her lips rounded, and her free hand floated to her throat as she scanned my face. “It’s Cam. I . . . I needed to check in. We have a system.”

  “I get it.” Not another guy. Just her friend, the one who seemed to look out for her. My anger faded. “Go ahead.”

  “Thanks.”

  For some reason, she smiled at me giving her permission. While I registered the megawatt impact of her amusement, she nodded to whatever her friend was saying.

  “Yes, that’s him. Yes, his voice is nice.” She cocked her head while staring at me. “No, he’s not too bad-looking.”

  My brows rose.

  “He paid for the whole night, Cam . . . No. Not the Courtyard. He didn’t like that idea, or the Park either. We’re at the Chamberlain . . . No, really. It’s not too pricey for him.” She nodded again. “Sure, they were snooty about me.” Her brow wrinkled. “No, he’s not a psycho.”

  “Enough.” I made a slashing motion across my neck with my hand.

  Her friend had been reassured. She could talk to her later. This play-by-play was eating into my time.

  “I gotta go.” Jewel’s gaze dropped to my guitar case, where I’d set it on the carpet beside her purse, and she frowned. “Take the rest of the night off. I’ve got rent covered. Okay. ’Bye.”

  She ended the call and dropped her cell on the coffee table.

  “Sorry.” Straightening, she wore a look of apology. “Cam likes to talk. She worries.”

  “She should.” I raked a hand through my hair. What Jewel did wasn’t safe.

  “Is that a guitar?” she asked.

  “Yeah.” I refocused on her and not on the thought of someone hurting her.

  “Your guitar?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  She searched my gaze. “You’re not an actor, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.”

  “You got a thing against musicians?”

  “No. Sort of.” She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”

  She had that closed-off look again, and I didn’t like it. I wanted the unimpeded view, her looking at me like she did whenever her guard was down. I would have paid more than the amount I paid to fuck her to get it.

  “I think it does matter.” I reached for her upper arms and drew her against me. Her supple curves conformed to me. She felt good in my embrace. Really good.

  The crumpled paper fell to the table. It could wait.

  “It’s just something in my past.” She reached up. Hesitantly, as if I might stop her, she smoothed my hair from my brow. “Like silk.” She hummed a low sound as if pleased by the texture.

  My already hard cock began to throb. That sound of hers coupled with the soft expression on her face as she continued to sift through my hair made me feel something deeper.

  “We have better things to do than talk. Don’t you think?” she said, practically purring in her sultry tone.

  It was a total turn-on, but I knew she was redirecting me. She’d done it earlier, and that time, I’d allowed it.

  But not now.

  “What in your past?” I demanded.

  She blinked in surprise. Her defenses seemed to waver.

  “I wanna know,” I said. “It’s come up twice now.”

  And both times, it seemed to be a sensitive subject. But what the fuck did I know about treading carefully?

  “Tell me.” I swallowed, remembering something that had worked with her before. “Please.”

  “My mom played the guitar.” She licked her lips. “She was a singer.”

  “Was?” I asked, softening my tone.

  “She died when I was five. Her and my dad in a fire at the club where she worked. She stripped. He was the bouncer.”

  Jewel’s eyes turned glassy, and she blinked rapidly to clear them.

  “That was what she had to do to pay the rent. Her dream was to make a career with her music. Then she met my dad, and he made her a bunch of promises to further her singing career that he never followed through with. It didn’t end well for them.”

  Or her either.

  “It was a long time ago.” Jewel shook her head, clearing the hurt from her gaze.

  There was more to tell, but I didn’t push. Not with her eyes wavering like a mirage.

  “Sorry you asked, I’m sure.” Her plush bottom lip trembled.

  She seemed as uncertain about sharing personal information with me as I felt about handling the heavy emotional undercurrents between us. So not my area of expertise.

  “I’m not sorry you shared.” I stroked the back of my hand down her cheek. “I’m sorry you lost your parents, Jewel.”

  She leaned into my caress, accepting the comfort I offered, and something clicked into place inside me. She didn’t seem to find me lacking.

  No longer feeling uncertain, I let down my guard and shared something significant too. “I lost my dad recently.”

  “Oh no,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

  “We weren’t close,” I said quickly as her eyes welled with empathy.

  “Does that make it any easier?” she asked, her shimmering eyes searching mine.

  “No. Not really.”

  She nodded. I think she knew the answer
before I’d given it.

  “Your mom?” she asked.

  “She’s around. Back where I grew up in Indiana. We’re not all that close either. She’s not a big fan of my career choice. But she called recently. Tonight, actually. She was who I was talking to when you rapped on my window.”

  “Oh.” Jewel cocked her head, studying me. “The wired feeling. Her call upset you.”

  “Yeah, it did.” I schooled my expression, surprised at how well she put together the few pieces of information I’d given her.

  I didn’t tell her about the other stuff. About how the call with my mother and my ex-fiancée marrying someone else tonight seemed to underscore my feelings of inadequacy. She was keeping some things back. I was too. I didn’t want her to think badly of me.

  “You keep surprising me,” I said softly. “You know that, right?”

  She shook her head.

  “Pretty. Sexy. Smart. Sweet. Who are you, Harley Jewel?” Why the hell is a girl like her on the streets?

  Framing her face, I stared deeply into her eyes. She gazed back with the wide-open unimpeded view I was rapidly becoming addicted to.

  “Just me.” She licked her lips, drawing my gaze.

  I lowered my head and closed my eyes. The peach scent of hers swirled around me like a dream.

  A sharp groan suddenly pierced the shimmery curtain of unreality between us. For a moment, I thought it might have been me, expressing my desperation to finally taste her. But it was her.

  Her gaze unfocused, she groaned again.

  “I . . . don’t . . . feel . . . well,” she whispered through lips that seemed too pale.

  Chapter 11

  * * *

  Jewel

  “I’ve got you, babe.”

  The ringing in my ears made Rush sound far away. One moment his lips had been coming closer to mine, and the next thing I knew, the room started spinning faster than my racing heartbeat.

  “Okay.” I wasn’t up to arguing about giving him the control. “I’m a little woozy.” I clung to as much of his taut biceps as I could get my hands around while trying to blink his handsome face into focus.

  “You don’t look so good.” He walked backward, taking me with him. “Let’s sit down on the couch a minute.”

  “Sure. All right. Sitting sounds like a good plan.”

  I assumed he would sit on one cushion, and I would sit on another. I assumed wrong.

  He lowered himself onto the couch and pulled me with him . . . right onto his lap. I was woozy, but it was impossible to miss his solid thighs under me, the warmth of his body, and his woodsy scent.

  “Um, what are you doing?” I asked as he pressed the back of his hand to my forehead.

  “Checking to see if you have a fever.” The duh, don’t be a dunce in his tone was unmistakable.

  “But I’m not sick.”

  “You almost passed out.” He frowned at me.

  “I did not,” I said sharply, hating how petulant I sounded. “Let me off.”

  I wiggled in his lap, and he put his arms around my waist.

  “Be still,” he said. “You’re too thin to be pregnant. Aren’t you?”

  “I’m on the pill. And I always use condoms. I’m not pregnant!” My stomach grumbled as if it were offended too.

  “Whoa.” His eyes narrowed. “Sounds like you need to be fed. Have you eaten today?”

  “Define eating,” I said, not meeting his eyes.

  I didn’t want him to pity me. I didn’t want anybody to feel sorry for me. I’d once gone all day wearing my church shoes at school once because I thought the kids seeing me in my fancy shoes and not my regular ones would make them accept me, even though my feet had started bleeding after recess.

  “Did you put anything in your mouth today?” he asked.

  “Does half a piece of gum count?”

  “Answer the question.” He frowned again. “When was the last time you actually ate food?”

  I couldn’t remember. It was easier not to think about it. “The day before yesterday, maybe.” At least, I think there had been food in the fridge then.

  “Fucking hell! I’m ordering room service.”

  “At this time of the morning?”

  “Babe.” He arched a brow.

  Oh yeah. I’d forgotten the Porsche, his celebrity status, and the way everyone scurried to do his bidding. When he touched me, all I could think about was him, and how he made me feel.

  He shifted me on his lap and grabbed the phone from the end table.

  “Mindy, this is Rush McMahon,” he said into the phone as he gently stroked my arm. “Listen, I need some food delivered to my room ASAP. Can you make that happen?”

  He tapped his leg rhythmically, and being on his lap, I bounced.

  “Burgers are fine. Make it two. Fries and everything.”

  “I can’t eat two,” I whispered. “That’s unnecessary.” And wasteful.

  “I’m famished too,” he told me with his hand over the phone. “Not to the same degree as you, but I missed dinner. I had a meet and greet after the show that ran long.”

  “Oh.” Obviously, the music thing was lucrative for him.

  He returned his attention to the phone. “Thirty minutes will be fine.” His leg tapped faster as he listened. “Yes, have them ring the bell and leave the food outside the door. That’s perfect.”

  He ended the call and jostled me again as he returned the cordless phone to the cradle.

  “You didn’t have to do that. I’m okay, really.” I swallowed my pride. “But thanks. I mean, I guess I could eat if you’re eating too.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  He loosened his hold on me and reached for my hair, rubbing the end of one of my pigtails between his thumb and finger. He didn’t comment on it being soft like I had about his. Did he know it was a wig?

  “I guess we’ve got some time to kill.” I leaned forward, not wanting him to speculate about my subterfuge. He saw too much . . . I had given him too much of the real me already.

  Placing my palms on his chest, I tried to refocus, to get back to me doing things to him and not the other way around. Staying in control had always helped me compartmentalize the working part of my life. And his thick erection beneath me definitely had my mind on other things.

  “I can think of something we could do.” I slowly circled my thumbs around his nipples.

  The copper-hued tips hardened, and he drew in a sharp breath.

  “None of that.” He grabbed my wrists and pulled my hands away.

  “But . . .” I sputtered. He’d definitely liked it. I’d liked it too. “I want to touch you.”

  “Later,” he said. “Difficult as it is to believe, I want to talk some more first.”

  “Really?” I studied him, not believing him for a second.

  His cock was hard. His eyes were liquid smoke. His sexy body was drawn taut. All the signs were there that talking wasn’t really what he wanted.

  “You almost fainted,” he said, as if I’d already forgotten. “I want food in you and your strength up before I fuck you again. And again. And again. Getting the picture now?”

  My throat dried up and my mind freaked out as I imagined three more times with him. Slowly, I nodded.

  “Why don’t you tell me about your gran? It seems like she means a lot to you. Did—”

  I shook my head vigorously and pushed hard, managing to get off his lap and my feet to the floor. He seemed so stunned by my vehement response that he didn’t resist.

  “No. I don’t talk about her.” I pulled the lapels of the robe together as if they could protect the wound in my chest. My eyes filled, and I struggled to keep my voice steady. “Not with Cam. Not with anyone anymore.”

  The memories and the pain from Gran’s passing were all I had left of her, and those were solely mine.

  “All right.” His eyes shuttered, much like mine probably had.

  Had I hurt his feelings? Did he really think I would share something so p
ersonal?

  “I’m sorry if maybe I gave you the wrong impression.” I gave him a tight smile. “I’m here for you to fuck me however many times you want, but the other stuff, my personal life, it’s not on the table. If that’s what you’re looking for, I should just go. No hard feelings and all. You won’t owe me any more or anything.”

  “Stay.” His expression hardened. “You already agreed. We fuck.” His tone was harsh, recoiling and snapping at me like a whip. “You can keep your secrets. I’ll even go back to calling you Harley, if that’s what you want.”

  I nodded, swallowing as he stood. He towered over me, strong emotion rolling from him in waves. Hurt or anger, I wasn’t sure, but either way, it blasted me like a cold wind.

  “Go ahead and take off the robe,” he said through clenched teeth. “Might as well get my money’s worth while we wait for the food.”

  Without giving me a chance to remove it, he yanked the belt off and ripped the parted cotton from my body. The robe dropped.

  Naked, I shivered, but as his gaze dipped to take me in, I knew I was far from repulsed. He lowered his head. When his heated breath wafted over the sensitive skin beneath my ear, pleasure rippled through me.

  “You’re lying to yourself, Jewel, if you think all that’s between us is business.”

  • • •

  Rush

  I stalked around her, so mad, I was practically shaking. But I was also extremely turned on.

  Her golden eyes followed me as I circled her. Her nipples tightened and her thighs trembled. If I reached out and slid my fingers into the auburn curls at the apex of those long legs, the folds beneath would probably soak my fingers.

  “There’s no hiding from it, baby. You’re attracted to me. I’m attracted to you.”

  Understatement of the century on my part. I was on fucking fire for her. My cock was a flagpole that tented my towel. I was pissed that she’d shut me down, twice if I counted the pullback on the kiss, and I certainly did. I so counted it.

  Her lips were a prize I wanted, but I wasn’t going for them now. She’d almost fainted when I tried to kiss her before. I wouldn’t risk it. Yet.

  But I was going to fuck her. I had a point to make.

  “On your knees, on the carpet.”