I headed for the house, where I planned to go straight upstairs to my room and lock myself in, and I planned to sleep. Alone.
Because it was just sex, right? And it was damn good for me.
I got mine.
Who cared about his?
I left him hanging, sexually—since sex seemed to be the only thing that mattered to him. The same way he’d left me hanging, emotionally, so many times.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Xander
I woke up the next day feeling like a sack of shit.
Not enough sleep.
Too much bullshit with Courteney…
And fucking blue balls to boot.
I groaned as it all came back to me. My dick was already wide awake and conveniently remembering every fucking moment of last night.
She’d fucking walked out on me. In the middle of fucking me.
Because apparently, she was done.
I was definitely not.
I was so fucking stunned when she left, I didn’t even finish myself off. My hard-on had just gradually died as it sank in that she’d actually walked out on me in the middle of sex. That she was that pissed at me.
And I felt bad about it.
I’d followed her into the house, once I got my clothes on, and knocked on the door of her room. But she didn’t answer.
I rolled over now, and the sun hit me in the face. I forgot to close the damn drapes before I passed out. I’d slept in the guest room next to hers, and now I had the morning wood from hell. My pulse thudded painfully through my body, my balls throbbed, and my dick was aching.
No chick had ever done that to me before—left me hanging, mid-sex, like that.
I wasn’t even mad about it. It occurred to me to be pissed, but I wasn’t pissed.
I was fucking turned on.
I wanted her even more than I did yesterday. I didn’t even care anymore that I wasn’t supposed to want her.
I meant what I said to her last night.
Forbidden sex could be hot as hell… and when she was pissed at me? Yep. That was hot, too.
Sex with Courteney Clarke was straight-up magic. It was like nothing I’d ever experienced before, and I wanted more.
As I dragged myself out of bed, I heard the shower running in the bathroom up the hall.
I checked the time. Ten-thirty.
No wonder I was still fucking wrecked. I hardly slept last night. Just tossed and turned, jerking in and out of dirty dreams about her.
I pulled on my clothes. My dick was still half-hard, still throbbing when I heard her come out of the bathroom. Then I heard the door to her bedroom softly close.
I went over to her door and knocked.
This time, she actually answered. The door cracked open and she peered up at me. She was wearing a little bathrobe. Her hair was damp from the shower, and she looked surprisingly coherent, fresh-faced. Like she’d had a great sleep. The whites of her eyes were a little pink, though.
I nudged the door open and she backed up to let me in. I shut the door behind myself and locked it.
“Don’t yell at me,” she said softly. “I have the headache from hell.”
“Yeah? You know what’s great headache relief? Orgasm.”
“Is that another lesson?”
“I can’t believe you walked out on me like that.”
“Yeah. Sorry I failed my lesson,” she said, like she wasn’t sorry at all. She crossed her arms.
I looked her over deliberately as my dick stood up. Couldn’t help it. At this point, I was gonna be permanently hard until I came.
“I’d say it was an almost-fail. I’m gonna have to give you an E.”
“Damn. What does a girl have to do to get an F?” She looked down at my erection, which had to be obvious as hell in my sweats, as I advanced on her.
“Well, you spread your legs for me. So you get a point for that.”
“Xander—”
“How about you spread them again.”
I kissed her before she could respond to that, and she kissed me back, half-heartedly. I grabbed her hand and pressed it to my dick, and her fingers immediately curled around my shaft. I growled, low in my throat, as we kissed, and she got into it, letting me push her back toward the bed.
She let me strip off her robe, and she pushed down my sweats, freeing my dick. She watched as I rolled on the condom I’d brought. I did it slow, studying her. “You gonna run, halfway through?”
Her eyes met mine. “I guess you’ll just have to see.”
Yeah, that was a challenge if I ever heard one. Like, Make it good for me and maybe I’ll stick around.
So I got down on my knees. I pushed her back on the bed and spread her thighs and for the next several minutes, I lavished her sweet cunt with a tongue and lip massage that had her panting, trembling, and dripping pure lust down her thighs.
When she started whimpering a steady stream of curses and pretty much pleading with me to fuck her, I climbed over her and sank myself home. I fucked her slow but fierce, driving her right across the bed as I did it. Her head ended up against a bed post and I wedged a pillow behind her to cushion the blow, but I didn’t ease up.
She didn’t ask me to.
She just wrapped her thighs high around my waist and dug her fingers into my ass. She moaned or cried out with every thrust.
I let go and just let myself enjoy it. Let myself get close to the edge and then hover right there, ready to go off… so the second I thought she might run, or if she started to come, I was gonna pin her down and make her stay.
She went still, suddenly. Silent.
She clamped her thighs around me and bit her lip.
I slowed my thrusts. “You coming?” I demanded, searching her face.
“Mm-mmm,” she moaned, chewing on her lip and shaking her head… even as her hips jerked and I felt her pussy clench on my dick.
“Little liar,” I whispered, as she gasped for air and her pussy spasmed. Her whole body trembled beneath me and her eyes met mine, and it set me off. “You’re not going anywhere,” I growled, but I didn’t hold her down. Changed my mind about that at the last second.
Instead, I gripped the pillow behind her head and pumped my hips a few times as I blew into her, and she clung to me.
I buried my face in her hair and groaned as the waves of warmth took me down. Felt like I blacked right out as my head spun. My cock was pulsing deep inside her, and everything was fucking perfect.
For a few seconds.
Then she pushed at my shoulder.
I looked at her face. She was staring at me, and a little bolt of shock ripped down my spine at the cold look she gave me.
What the fuck now?
I rolled off, pulling out. I watched her get up.
Would’ve liked to stay buried in her a little longer; I was still having aftershocks as I pulled off the condom, and she pulled on panties. She dug a bra out of a drawer and started putting it on.
I got up and wrapped the condom in a tissue and put it in my pocket as I picked up my sweats, because I didn’t know what the fuck else to do with it. I didn’t see a wastebasket, and leaving it behind in her room seemed wrong somehow.
As I got dressed, she kept staring at me. Studying me as she hooked her bra behind her back—like I was a lab experiment and she was waiting on me to undergo some kind of chemical change right before her eyes.
“What?” I finally said, though I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear what was on her mind right now.
“So, that’s really all it is for you?” She pulled on a T-shirt and glared at me. “Sex? You just fuck me and walk away?”
I stood there, looking at her. I was fully dressed, and I could’ve walked out. But I didn’t. I figured at this point she deserved more than that.
She’d made her point about that last night when she walked out on me and my hard dick.
“Like, when you get that feeling…” she pressed, stepping into a pair of shorts, “that incredible intense feeling
of coming with me… you don’t feel anything else?”
“Like you said,” I told her evenly, “I’m a pig.”
She stared at me, and I just held my breath. Then she grabbed her laptop and walked out of the room, leaving me there.
And I knew… I was gonna rot in hell for that one. I’d lied to her pretty face. Saw the light fucking die in her eyes when I did it.
I kept pretending not to feel anything… Nothing more than skin-deep pleasure when she spread her legs for me. And that had to be some kind of a sin, because it was definitely one hell of a lie.
Shit, yes, I felt things with her.
I felt all kinds of shit I wasn’t used to feeling.
And maybe wasn’t equipped to feel, or something?
Because it was scaring the shit out of me.
There was nothing wrong with sex for the sake of sex, right? I’d been having sex that way for years.
I didn’t want or need more.
But if that was true…
What the hell was with all these fucking feelings?
And why did it bother me so damn much whenever she walked out on me?
* * *
For the rest of the week, Courteney was nowhere to be seen. She was avoiding me again. Not talking to me.
Not fucking me either, unfortunately, since we were never in the same goddamn room.
I called her, messaged her.
Nothing.
Apparently, she had nothing to say to me.
Maybe I’d finally convinced her how wrong I was for her.
Maybe she was just pissed at me.
If I was lucky… maybe she’d get over being pissed. Keep fucking me, but keep her mouth shut about it.
I kept telling myself that was what I wanted.
And I kept trying to tamp down my fucking feelings about it. About her.
But that was becoming a losing battle, just like avoiding having sex with her had.
Eventually… I was going to fucking fail.
* * *
On Saturday night, I went to the Ruby for Trey’s charity event. The one Jordan had been helping out with. She’d pulled a lot of hours volunteering, helping set up all the prizes for the auction. Including the bachelor auction.
The auction I was in, and was in no fucking mood for.
But honestly, would I ever be in the mood for standing there like a jackass while rich women bid on a date with me?
Nope.
Jordan met me downtown to “get ready” beforehand, which meant our night started at three in the afternoon—when she took me to get my hair cut, my nails manicured, and to shop for a new outfit. Because apparently I had to wear dress pants and a button-up shirt to this thing, and despite the mountains of clothes in my closet, there wasn’t one pair of dress pants.
In my world, dress pants meant jeans with no rips in them.
According to Jordan, that wouldn’t do.
“This is a high-class event,” she informed me as she fussed with the cuffs of the shirt I was trying on. “Tables in the front row go for seventy-five-thousand. And Trey expects to raise a ton of money for the foundation…”
“Uh-huh.”
She looked me over in the mirror. “You don’t want to be the one scruffy mutt for sale who doesn’t pull in any bank, Xan.”
Yeah, she was loving this.
After we shopped, we stopped for dinner and drinks. And after a couple of coconut rums, my assistant let a little something slip.
Like the fact that she’d sweet talked Trey into signing me up for the bachelor auction… and not the other way around.
I almost didn’t catch it, but…
“Why the fuck would you do that?” I asked her. I was doing this thing because it was Trey’s thing, and he wanted me there.
Didn’t he?
“Because it’ll be good for you,” Jo said. “You haven’t done any charity stuff in a while.”
“Not that. Why the fucking auction? I could’ve just made a donation or something.”
“Uh, not this kind of donation. I think you’re seriously underestimating the wealth of the people who’re coming to this thing.”
Maybe so. I’d never gone to this event, even though it was an annual thing. I’d never been in town when it was happening before.
“How wealthy?”
“Very.” She grinned at me over her girly drink, looking me over like I was her prize puppy. “Don’t worry. You clean up nice, Xan. Some rich old lady’s gonna bid like a million dollars on you.”
“Right. I thought Trey wanted me to do this thing.”
She rolled her eyes.
“No?”
“Well. He didn’t seem to think you’d want to do it. And therefore, you wouldn’t be very… Let’s see. How do I put it…? Obedient.”
Seriously?
There were a bunch of guys from the local music industry in this thing. And he didn’t think I’d play nice?
Okay, so maybe he knew me too well…
“Whatever.” Jo shrugged. “Maybe he thought you’d growl, and scare the fancy people away? But I know you can be a good boy. When you want to.”
Yup. She was totally fucking loving this.
“With a little coaching,” she said, “you’ll behave.”
“You just love that you get to boss me around tonight.”
“It’s a dream come true,” she admitted.
And then she laid the coaching on me. Apparently, she was expecting me to “flex a little,” “try to smile,” and “don’t be a dick to anyone,” while the ladies bid on me.
“Just don’t embarrass me, okay?” she concluded.
“What, like lift my leg and pee on the floor?”
She groaned.
By the time we rolled into the Ruby, I felt like a damn show dog.
Why the fuck did I agree to this?
Lucas had met us after dinner, and the three of us arrived at the Ruby just before nine. The auction was supposed to get started in a few minutes. We entered the nightclub by the back, and I got dressed backstage with the other guys.
There were seven “bachelors” in the auction, all guys from the local music industry, including Trey. The only other rock stars, besides me, were Coop and Noah. Andy Cooper had been bassist with the now defunct Penny Pushers, and Ashley Player’s former bandmate. And Noah Vaughan, a drummer I knew from way back, now played in Johnny O’Reilly’s band, Breakneck.
I didn’t even know Noah was in town. He’d lived in Toronto for the last few years. So I gave him a hug—and a hard time that he hadn’t told me he was home, though he swore up and down he only flew in a few days ago.
We all goofed around and tried to bolster each other up, because this thing was kinda ridiculous. And even if no one would admit it was embarrassing, it kinda was.
We did shots together, just a few, since Trey requested that we hold off on getting trashed until after the auction. There were serious bidders out there with serious money, he said, and this event could raise a lot of money to help the sick kids’ foundation it was funding.
That was pretty sobering. Made me feel a lot less stupid about being put up on an auction block like a side of beef.
After we got through the auction, Trey assured us, we could party all we wanted.
I wasn’t in the mood for a party anyway, but I tried to look at all the bright sides here.
Not only was this thing for an incredibly worthwhile charity, but lots of local industry people would be here, which was cool. And at least it got Jordan off my back, temporarily. She’d been on me a lot lately about my “bad attitude,” and giving me this look like she was worried I was heading down Recluse Road, like Cary.
I wasn’t going hermit. I’d just been avoiding other humans, in general, while I wallowed. Because I’d learned my lesson. I wasn’t gonna vent to Jo or Trey or anyone else about Courteney anymore.
Because truth was, no one wanted to hear that shit.
If you want her, just be a man about it.
&n
bsp; Yup. Larissa Jones had called it.
I’d officially become a pussy.
At least this event would keep me busy for one more night while Courteney avoided me. Keep my mind off her.
More or less.
After the auction bullshit was done, I’d see my new band members. At least, the ones who were in town; I knew Ash and Summer were here tonight. Which made it more embarrassing, but at least we could hang out afterward.
When the auction got started with some rap artist on Trey’s record label, we all patted him on the back and nudged him out to the stage, through the curtain, laughing. The event MC, who was doing doubly duty as the auctioneer, started selling him up, and the crowd applauded and whistled.
And as I watched from backstage, I actually got a little nervous as I waited for my turn.
I couldn’t actually see the audience, or anything at all but a slice of the stage through the curtain—and the rapper out there on the auction block. He was fucking breakdancing as the bids quickly rose… into the tens of thousands.
Jesus.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I found a text from my new lead singer.
Ash: Hope you brought it. This beat boys gonna rake in a hundred grand. His ass is like granite
Yeah. No pressure.
Me: And how did you avoid getting roped into this shit again?
Ash: Its a bachelor auction. Im not a bachelor
Then an image popped up. He’d sent me a selfie—him and his gorgeous girlfriend, Danica, grinning at me.
Fuck.
I turned off my phone and tried to relax. I glanced around at the other guys.
A couple of them were pretty good-looking. Trey was fucking Trey, which meant he was gonna rake up at this thing. And Noah… shit. Chicks had always gone stupid for Noah Vaughan in a major way. Like I actually saw a woman walk straight into a lamp post once while checking him out on the street.
I could admit when a dude was hot, and I had some serious competition here.
I tried to work out a game plan. What were Jo’s instructions…?
Flex. Smile. Don’t be a dick.
Filthy Beautiful: A Players Rockstar Romance (Players #2) Page 32