I looked up at the ceiling. It had been a long, agonizing week, and I needed to come so badly I was afraid I’d explode all over him if he looked at me wrong. I still hadn’t tried out my new vibrator. Because I was an idiot, apparently. I’d gotten myself off in the shower a couple of times, quickly, but that was just barely keeping me sane. It was nowhere near satisfying the desire I had for the man currently wrapped between my legs to fuck the living hell out of me. And if he kept grinding up against me like this… fuck. I felt like a live wire about to go off in a shower of sparks.
“What about the bet?” I panted, shoving at his chest to hold him off as he sucked on my neck. “How do we know when someone loses the stupid bet?”
“Whoever comes first?”
I laughed nervously. “Uh-uh.” I bit my lip as he ran his tongue up my throat and nibbled my ear. The man’s oral fixation was turning me into a panting, quivering mess. “Whoever touches the other person’s goodies first.”
He looked at me. “Goodies?” Incidentally, his fingertips were mere inches from mine, since his hands were digging into my ass as he gripped me tight against him.
“You know what I mean. Dick. Pussy. No touching.”
I could’ve sworn I saw flames leap to life in the dark depths of his eyes as he swiped his tongue over his lip. “I like it when you say dirty words.” Then he kissed his way down my throat as I clutched at his muscular back, trying not to dissolve in a puddle of ecstasy.
“What’s the matter, Jesse?” I pretty much purred, pretending like hell that this wasn’t driving me insane. Maybe I was a good actress. “You wanna touch my pussy?”
He growled and picked me up, hauling me to the bed. I screamed as he swung me around and laughed, again nervously, as he tossed me on my back on the bed.
Jesse wasn’t laughing as he followed me onto the bed on his knees. “Those are fighting words, woman.” He hooked his arms under my legs and yanked me toward him, so my dress bunched up around my waist and my crotch ended up in his lap. Then he lowered himself onto me, ramming the hard bulge in his jeans against me.
Before I could protest, he kissed me. Then he tore off his shirt, losing at least one button in the process. I heard it hit the wall as I gripped the bedspread beneath me, trying to resist putting my hands on his naked chest. But as he thrust against me, I couldn’t stop myself from riding up and down a bit on the hard package in his jeans. His heat was soaking through the thin cotton of my panties, creating hot, maddening friction.
He yanked my sundress and bra down, baring my breasts. Then he leaned down and groaned, running his tongue over the peak of one nipple as I panted beneath him.
Fuck. Too much. Too fucking fast.
“This wasn’t on your no-touch list…” He flicked my hard, throbbing nipple with his tongue and I gasped. Fuck—it totally wasn’t. Major oversight. I grabbed his hair in fistfuls meaning to stop him.
He didn’t stop.
He totally ignored my grip on his hair and my attempts to squirm away, and sucked my nipple into his mouth.
I cried out.
My heart was going full-throttle, like a runaway train. I tried to relax, giving in for just a sec so my heart wouldn’t explode. I tried to collect my scrambled thoughts but words were totally failing me.
I tried to reason that he was trying to make me lose.
I knew he was, and I couldn’t afford to lose to him. If I did that, I’d be setting myself up for a world of hurt. A world in which Jesse Mayes could use me up and toss me away like yesterday’s lay.
I definitely wanted to let him tear off my clothes and fuck the hell out of me, repeatedly, but I couldn’t. Not like this. Not when I didn’t know if it was just about the bet or just about him wanting something he couldn’t have, or about anything at all other than him just wanting me.
“Wait,” I said, but I sounded all breathy and turned on and I might as well have screamed, More, please! He growled something against my skin as he licked his way to the other nipple. He nipped my taut flesh with his teeth and the pleasure shot straight to my clit. I was throbbing, gasping, desperate for more...
Which was okay, I told myself. It was okay because I had my secret weapon. I had my shiny new vibrator and I was more than ready to take it for a test run. I’d even charged it up yesterday while Jesse was at the gym. And I had nothing else to do for the next couple of hours.
Jesse, on the other hand, had an appointment to get to.
“Wait. Stop,” I panted, a little more vehemently, and he lifted his head. His lust-hazed eyes locked on mine. I was so caught up in fighting my own response I hadn’t quite clocked his; the man was panting like a very large, very horny animal.
There was a knock on the door. “Jesse? Katie, you in there?”
Raf. Probably wondering where the fuck Jesse was.
“Coming!” I called out.
Jesse glared at me. I just smiled, shakily, and once he untangled himself and lifted his big, hard body off mine, I tucked my breasts away. Then I got up and dashed over to the door to let Raf in before Jesse could stop me.
I didn’t hear a thing the two of them said. I just smiled and watched Raf’s lips move, and nodded at what I thought were the appropriate places. I did not look at Jesse. Or his crotch. Though I was dying to know how he was managing to disguise and/or tame his hard-on.
From the corner of my eye I saw him put on a new shirt. He kissed me goodbye and gave me a regretful, heated look, then they were gone.
I leaned against the closed door for several minutes just listening to my heartbeat slam in my ears, recalling in excruciating, throbbing detail how Jesse had rammed me up against this door only minutes before. I stared at the tousled bed where we’d just been making out like fiends.
Without an audience.
Shit.
I didn’t even care about the stupid bet anymore, although I didn’t like letting the man win. I definitely didn’t want to be his latest fuck-me-and-forget-me. But I seriously didn’t know how much longer I could hold out and keep my sanity.
I was literally shaking with desire.
I dove to the bottom of my suitcase and unzipped the compartment where I’d stashed the vibrator and lube. I didn’t even bother undressing. I just flopped on the bed, exactly where I’d been when Jesse was on top of me, and propped myself up on some pillows. I could still smell him on me. If I worked fast… yeah, if I concentrated, I could still feel him.
I pulled down my sundress and my bra, exactly like he had, and skimmed my fingers over my breast, imagining what he’d felt when he licked me there, when he sucked my nipple into his mouth. I jacked up my dress to get at my panties and wiggled them down a bit.
I cradled the palm-length vibrator in my hand. It was a glossy, iridescent pink, shaped like a small, flattened cigar with a slight curve at one end. I set it to buzz on one of its many settings; the buzz was steady but not obnoxiously loud. And as much as I would’ve preferred to come all over Jesse, I was incredibly relieved that I was finally going to do this.
Repeatedly.
I just couldn’t fucking take it anymore.
I squeezed some lube onto the vibrator. It was cherry-flavored and smelled fucking amazing. I thought about how Jesse called me cherry pie and bit my lip.
When I ran the vibe down between my legs, I pretty much imagined it was his hand. Or his dick. Or his dick in his hand. Caressing me, up, down, around. Buzzing object aside, it wasn’t hard to imagine. I’d only been fantasizing about it since the day I met him.
The vibrator sent a pleasurable buzz through my core and I relaxed into the sensation. When I ran the slippery, curved end over my clit and imagined it was Jesse’s tongue, the rush was so intense I was afraid I’d come in two seconds, so I eased back off that line of thought. Might as well enjoy this for a bit.
I tried to just concentrate on my breathing and not picture Jesse, but when I did that all I could picture was Jesse. I felt his hungry kisses on my neck, his strong hands on my ass, his body
hard and pumping heat into mine. I heard the tap of the key card and the click of the door handle but my reaction was delayed. As the door swung open, I jumped, yanking out a pillow from behind my head. By the time Jesse strode into the middle of the room and the door swung shut behind him, I’d just managed to cover up with the pillow. More or less.
Jesse just stood there, staring at me.
The vibrator was still buzzing in my hand. It took a few tries but I managed to turn it off, then tossed it on the bed like a hot potato. Like he hadn’t already noticed it.
It hit the bed and bounced onto the floor, landing at Jesse’s feet.
He looked at it, then looked at me. His gaze swept down over my body, which was now wrapped around the pillow like a koala, and finally landed on the vibrator again. He picked it up and stared at it.
Then he switched it on.
Yep. I was about ready to die.
The vibrator buzzed in Jesse’s fist. His gaze flicked from it to me. My face flushed hot and my brain scrambled for words. Say something. Anything!
“I… um…”
He switched the vibrator off. Then he swallowed, dragged his gaze over me again, and tossed the vibe on the bed.
“Fuck,” he said.
He turned, rubbed the back of his neck, looked around like he’d forgotten what he was doing, and made an awkward grab for something on the floor. Then he turned back to me. “Forgot my…” He held up his cell phone, which must’ve fallen out of his pocket when we were going at it. He stared at me.
I bit my lip.
“Fuck,” he said again. Then he adjusted himself in his jeans and walked out.
CHAPTER 21
JESSE
I was sitting in some club in Atlanta at a table covered in drinks, my boys gathered around, talking shit and drinking. It was Friday night, after the show. Half-naked dancers were grinding up on poles between the tables. The dance floor was packed, a mass of bodies pumping in the dark.
Flynn was trying really fucking hard to keep his professional distance from some hot little blond who was begging him to dance with her. Mick had some wasted redhead in his lap. Letty’s wife had come up from Florida and the two of them were going at it, his hand spread possessively on the round bulge of her pregnant belly.
Next to me was an empty seat. Come to fucking think of it, it had been empty a while.
Which was when it really hit me.
It had started sometime after New York. After I’d walked in on Katie getting her sweet rocks off with a cherry-flavored vibrator.
But fuck if I knew why it started.
Before that, I knew she was hot for me. But damn. Never did I think I’d walk in on the woman pleasuring herself between dinner and drinks. If only I’d had the time to do something about it right then. But she hadn’t exactly asked me to join in. She just sat there looking super fucking embarrassed, while I stood there feeling like an ass for barging in. Like maybe I should’ve knocked? On the door of my own hotel room?
I flushed hot like a fucking school kid, my dick getting hard as I remembered it. I could still see her, lying back on the bed, her cheeks flushed pink, dark hair clinging to her neck, still damp with sweat from our make out session, her bare tits saluting me as she grappled with a pillow trying to cover up, clinging to the thing like a fucking life preserver.
She tossed the vibrator away like it was on fire, and fuck yeah, I picked it up. I had the little pink thing in my hand as I stood there staring at her, blood thundering to my dick. I clicked it on. The vibration was strong, and I could smell her on it. Cherry-vanilla sunshine and pure sex.
I had a hard-on bordering on painful by the time I dragged my mind out of the memory, all the pent-up lust from every make out session we’d had since the start of the tour aching in each throb of blood through my veins. I’d wanted to fuck her senseless every fucking day.
But I still hadn’t done it.
Mainly because the girl was playing it that way. Every night when I came to bed, she was already asleep. And I never got another fucking chance.
The east coast was a mad cyclone of shows, interviews, appearances, signings. The tour was going fucking great and the album was selling better than I’d ever dreamed, but I could hardly keep my head straight. I was so booked up, half the time I didn’t even know what time it was or what town we were in or which fucking end was up. Jude and Mick were pretty much keeping my shit together. Dirty had a massive following out east and I wanted to see every fucking face of every fucking fan while I was here. That’s what I’d told Brody when the team set out to book this thing.
But somewhere around DC, I started regretting the frantic pace... right about the time it sunk through my hard skull that Katie was getting distant. For some reason, her head didn’t seem to be in the game anymore.
Her body was another thing. She did her job and she did it well. She played her part to a fucking T, and she looked amazing doing it. To all appearances she was still crazy about me, my devoted girlfriend, hanging out backstage, on my arm at every event, tongue wrestling me in every dark nightclub we hit up. Anytime I wanted it—in public—she was there, warm and ready. But she was holding something back… holding herself back, and I had no idea why.
The girl was doing everything I’d contracted her to do, and you’d think that would be enough for me. Apparently, it so fucking wasn’t.
I looked around the table, but my so-called girlfriend was nowhere to be seen.
Correction. She could definitely be seen. She could be seen by every person in the fucking place, standing up at the raised bar, her short skirt riding up her creamy white thighs as she leaned over to get the bartender’s attention. She was standing between Pepper, who was busy talking to some dude on his other side, and some random dipshit with a mohawk who was checking out her ass. As I watched, mohawk leaned in and accidentally-on-purpose bumped shoulders with her, struck up a conversation and bought her a drink.
I cranked back several fingers of bourbon, letting the liquor heat my blood.
I watched as haircut made some kind of brilliant fucking joke. I knew it was brilliant because Katie laughed. An honest-to-fuck Katie laugh, her head tipped back, her perfect little white teeth showing, her cheeks all rosy and her eyes sparkling in fucking delight. The guy was a goddamn comedian or some shit, because I hadn’t seen her laugh like that in days.
And I couldn’t fucking take it.
I didn’t absorb a word of what Mick or Raf or whoever was shouting on either side of me, or what anyone else at our table was saying, and our table was fucking loud. All I heard was that laugh. I heard it in my head, because I couldn’t actually hear it over the noise of the club and the heavy, bassed-out version of The Weeknd’s Can’t Feel My Face slamming against the walls and making Katie’s hips rock in that tiny skirt.
All I saw was Katie smiling up at that mohawked asshole while he smiled down at her thinking about how he was gonna get her on her back. And I could take him thinking he was gonna get her there. I could take him buying her a drink and hovering over her so close that his knuckles, wrapped around his beer, accidentally-but-fully-fucking-on-purpose brushed against her tit. I could even take it when he started introducing her to his friends like he knew her. Like he was here with her and I wasn’t.
But I couldn’t take that fucking laugh. That pure, unfettered Katie joy coming out of her perfect pink mouth.
He might as well have made her come right in front of me.
I slammed my glass down on the table, which Raf took to mean I needed a refill and sent another bourbon my way. I pounded it back and flexed my hand, taking a long look at the rings on my fist as Raf refilled me again.
Clearly, there were two moves I could make.
One, I could go over there and do something stupid like break this random asshole’s face with a fistful of metal. And see it all over the internet in about five seconds.
Two, I could sit here like a pussy and let Jude deal with it.
My best friend made
the choice for me. Good thing, because I was about three seconds from making a major fucking scene I’d regret. But Jude, as always, had my back before I even knew I needed him to.
I watched him stroll over and insert his wide body into the narrow space between Katie and mohawk. Katie beamed her sweet smile right on up at Jude, but big fucking surprise, mohawk’s smile dropped right the fuck off his face like Jude had smacked it off. Then he backed the fuck out of there and turned his attention elsewhere. Not just a comedian, then; smart, too.
Jude ordered up some shots and Katie took the one he handed her. They toasted, shot back their booze, and headed back to our table, Katie apparently oblivious that some dude had just tried to get up her skirt and almost met with some broken teeth.
Jude deposited her in the chair next to me, where she’d barely spent five minutes in the hour since we’d arrived. Her smile vanished. A small frown appeared in its place when she looked at me, her eyebrows pinching together. She leaned in. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I said, sipping my drink. “Not a thing. Just watching my girl get a drink.”
She stared at me a moment, the little frown twitching at the corners of her mouth. Then she leaned back, settling into her chair as she looked out over the dance floor, tapping her heels to the music.
I leaned closer to be sure she heard me. “That dude know you’re here with me?”
She turned to me again, the frown deepening. “What dude?”
“Dude with the fucking mohawk.”
“Oh.” Her eyes widened a bit. I didn’t know what the fuck that meant, but I didn’t like it. “He had this cool pattern up the side.” She made a swirly motion with her finger up the side of her head.
“Does he know you’re here with me?”
“I am here with you,” she said. Then she got up and wiggled her sexy ass onto the edge of my seat. She pressed up against me and peered at me over her shoulder. “See? Look at me, doing my job.”