“How do you know what I’m thinking?” I asked, my breath hitching from looking into his hypnotic crystal-clear gaze.
“You just got tense. Felt it. That’s what woke me.” He lifted his head, giving me not just his profile, but a full, swoony, complete Gale view. “And I was having a good dream.”
“What kind of good dream?” I asked. I didn’t dispute his claim about my tension because he was right. Thinking about what could have happened did make me tense.
“One about you and me in Paris.”
“Paris, France?”
“Yeah,” he said, his lip curving up on one side. “What other Paris is there?”
“There’s one in Texas.” As a Texan, I thought it important to point that out.
“Uh, no.” His eyes crinkled at the edges. “The city of lights, and you and me inside a beautiful bedroom on a huge bed together. Naked, if you get my meaning.”
Yeah, I did. Definitely.
I licked my dry lips. “How do you know it was Paris?”
“I could see the Eiffel Tower through our open balcony doors. We were in a hotel I’ve been to before, one I’ve been dreaming about taking you to. You would love it. It’s near a bunch of punk music clubs.”
“Really?” I whispered. It was hard to imagine something that good.
“Yeah. I have a lot of dreams for you and me. Taking you to Paris is just one of them.”
“What other ones?” My eyes filled as he shifted, coming up and over me, caging me inside his strong arms.
“Glad you asked. I did a lot of thinking and planning while you were asleep.”
His eyes searched mine, and I didn’t shy away from his perusal. But his eyes weren’t all I noted. Not with his biceps bulging in my peripheral vision, and another significant part of him so close and so hard that the head peeked out from the top of his boxers.
“What about?” I licked my dry lips, and his gaze dipped to my mouth. It tingled from his regard while other parts of me throbbed.
“I’m done being gentle about what I want for us. From now on, we do things my way.” His gaze was intense, steady, and unbendable.
“Oh yeah?” I lifted a brow. “Good luck with that.” I was giving him shit, knowing that anything he wanted for us, I wanted too. That was how deeply I trusted him.
“Not that I won’t consider your desires, babe. But when they go against the overall objective like you tried to do yesterday, I’m going to overrule.”
Both my brows lifted.
“You’re used to having your way,” he said.
“Not hardly. Did you forget I was once in prison?”
“Used to having your way in relationships after that. If the ones that you had could be called that.”
“Ah,” I said. He was probably right.
“You calling the shots was a way for you to take back the power that was stolen from you. I get that. Hate what you went through. I’m never going to take anything from you that you don’t freely give. But when it comes to us, and what’s good for us, I will overrule as I see fit.”
“You can’t do that. A relationship isn’t a dictatorship.”
He gave me a hard look. “Do you really want to oppose me when I’m telling you I will fight to protect us?” Shifting once again, he dropped onto his back in the bed and brought me into his side. Capturing a single lock of my hair when I tipped my head up to him, he rubbed it gently between his thumb and finger.
His arm loose, he held me without even really holding me. He had a much deeper claim than merely a physical one.
“No, I don’t want to oppose you, Gale.”
“Then it’s decided. Us. And me stepping up to defend as necessary.” His eyes narrowed on mine. “Unanimously.”
“Us stepping up to defend,” I said to correct him.
Steel met sapphire as we stared at each other for a long, heated beat. Surprisingly, steel yielded.
“Okay, us.” His eyes glittered like polished chrome. “But count on me to win when you’re wrong, babe.”
My lips curved. I had an alpha male, a nice one, and I loved him. So much.
“So, our problems.” My use of the couple pronoun earned me a grin from him.
Our problems were the ones I brought into our relationship, but I reframed that thought in my mind as soon as it surfaced. Gale knew my past, and yet he chose me. He planned to marry me and have children with me—a guy like him, a wonderful, amazing man like him.
From now on, I was going to act and think differently, based on his opinion and no one else’s. It would be difficult. I couldn’t suddenly miraculously undo years of ingrained behavior and wrong thinking. However, I could do difficult things. And starting today, I was going to be different, be this new woman his love—our love—made me.
“Gale, I have something to tell you.”
His lips flattened. “What, Jo?”
“I have a problem with the Rock Fuck Club.”
“What kind of problem?” His eyes narrowed.
“I should have told you earlier. Before we left Napa, Barbara told me that Suzanne won’t let me count myself as a fuck. She wants me to do another episode.”
“No.” Gale’s eyes blazed. “No fucking way.”
“But—”
“No one touches you but me.” His expression was hard, set.
“I actually like that you’re all caveman territorial with me. I feel cavewoman about you too. But we need to put our heads together to solve this problem.”
His smile returned. My stomach fluttered, and suddenly I got an idea.
“You have a little exhibitionist in you,” Lark had said when I’d done my scene with her.
“I followed, and I couldn’t look away. I saw everything.” Gale had said as he confessed to watching me with Ty.
And in Vegas, I remembered how hot it had been, both of us watching ourselves in the glass.
“What are you thinking?” Gale asked.
I told him my idea.
He liked it. A lot.
“But, babe, just know that if she doesn’t accept our solution, you’re still done with any further filming scenes for that show.”
“Okay, but how?” New Gale-inspired thinking in action, I didn’t dispute his assertion. “I signed a contract with WMO.”
“Contracts can be undone. Beautiful women with guarded hearts can be unraveled. Handsome men who were dead inside can be brought back to life. With the right motivation, miracles can occur. A perfect world can be created out of the rubble of a broken one.” His gaze brightened, a moon that cast more light than the sun. “Our love is our perfect world, Jo. Don’t you see?”
Stunned, but in total agreement, I nodded.
“We build a wall,” he said, “like the one you had around your heart before me. But from now on, you and I are inside that wall, along with the people we in our lives we care about, and the things that really matter, like our music.”
“The truth about me,” I said softly. The past that soon everyone would know. “That’s not on the outside. That’s a shame I’ll always carry inside me.”
I started to turn my head to the side, but he captured my chin and held my gaze.
“I don’t think your brother would want you to carry shame for an accident that could have happened a different way if he’d been driving the car that night,” he said softly.
“I can tell myself that.” My eyes burned, and my throat was suddenly on fire. I’d never looked at it that way. “But it’s a head thing. It doesn’t mean shit inside my heart.”
“His love should be the only thing in your heart that you carry. I hope someday we’ll find a way together for you to make peace inside yourself about Joey. I’ve made mine with Diana because of you, but until that moment comes for you, I want you to promise me you’ll start trying to think differently. Okay?”
“Yes.” I nodded. In fact, I was already considering what he’d said, turning it over and over in my head like a newly discovered multifaceted gem.
&nbs
p; Gale
“GOOD,” I SAID, SO fucking proud of Jo, my eyes blazed as she returned my gaze, hers as unwavering as mine.
“You and I together are,” she said quietly but firmly. She was finally getting it, that she’d changed everything from the moment she came into my life.
“A lot of people who should have loved you let you down.” I covered her hands where they rested on my chest. Pressing them deeper into my skin, I gave her a vow. “I promise you, I won’t be one of them.”
She gazed at me with wonder in her eyes. “I know you won’t. I promise I won’t let you down either.” She was fierce, my rock ’n’ roll goddess. Beautiful, insanely sexy, and her looking at me the way she was made my cock hard.
Just about everything she did made my cock hard.
“I mean it. Everything I said.” I peeled her hands away from my skin and brushed my lips back and forth across the center of each of her palms.
“I know you do.” Her eyes glittered like sapphires. “I messed up yesterday—”
“Yesterday’s gone,” I said with a nod. “We put it behind us. Today is a new beginning.”
“I want it to be,” she said softly, peering up at me through her long black lashes.
“Then it is.”
“I never imagined love could be like this.” Her eyes sparkled brighter, sapphire and violet, a wondrous swirl, a nebula of color and light.
“The way you give love, precious Jo, is the way it’s returned to you.”
“Gale.” She sighed my name. “I want to be everything you want me to be. Everything you need.”
“You already are.”
I dove my hands into the silkiness of her hair, bringing her beautiful face and those lush lips closer. Her lids fluttered closed as I touched my mouth to hers. Gently, I brushed my mouth across her lips, just a touch, a tiny sample, yet my cock throbbed when I lifted my head only a moment later. It took another beat for her eyes to open.
“More,” she whispered, her eyes dark. “More of that. More of everything.” Her desire was a mirror of my need.
“I’ll give you more,” I said low. “I just need to change the logistics.”
Jackknifing, I lifted her up in the air and flipped her onto her back in the bed. She gasped, then her expression went soft and dreamy. It wasn’t lost on me that she got off on me flexing my strength.
“Better,” she said from underneath me, her lips temptingly parted.
“Almost.” I gripped her thighs firmly and spread them apart, and she let out an eager breath as I moved between her legs. “I’ve wanted you like this, your hair spread out on white linen, your eyes on me dark and needy, from the moment I ripped open the curtain on your bunk to take you on that first ride with me.”
“You were mad. You fussed at me.” She pouted her ruby lips.
“Because it pissed me off, the thought of anyone else seeing you in your sexy lingerie.”
“Pajamas.”
“Babe.” I lifted a disbelieving brow. “They’re lace. I can see your nipples, your pretty pussy, the rounded perfection of your delectable ass.”
Her eyes widened.
“Yeah.” I scoffed. “Killed me not to take right then what I wanted. And it’s driving me crazy now.”
I skimmed my hands over her calves, her knees, only stopping when I reached her thighs. Her skin was creamy and soft, except for the long jagged scar on the outside of her leg. The scar didn’t detract from her loveliness, but it did make me marvel that she’d survived. I sent another silent prayer heavenward, so grateful for her, for what we had found together—a second chance, a miraculous one for both of us.
“How crazy?” she asked, her lids lowering as I swept my thumbs in arcs over her warm skin, just beneath her lacy shorts.
“Better if I show you what I mean.” I slipped my fingers inside the lace.
“Wait.” She grabbed my wrist.
My lips curling over my teeth, I growled. “I don’t want to wait.”
“Just for a moment.” She gave me a coy smile. “Remember my idea?”
“An idea that involved my cock inside you?” I could barely focus with her right where I wanted her and my blood pounding so hard.
“Yes. Just not right away.”
I scowled. “Then no.”
“A little playing first.” Her smile widened, setting off flares in her eyes. “I think you’ll like it.”
“What kind of playing?” I asked, my gaze narrowing.
“Me playing with myself while you watch me.”
My heart rate kicked up. That was a fantasy I’d considered but hadn’t yet had the opportunity to explore with her.
“And I need you to record me on your phone.”
“For the RFC?”
“Yes.” She pulled in a breath. “Playtime for me and you that will fulfill my obligation to the show.”
“If I’m watching you touching yourself, I won’t be able to hold the camera steady.”
Her smile widened. “So you agree.”
“I love that you’re asking my permission to watch you pleasure yourself.” I grinned. “Permission granted.”
“We can prop the camera on a pillow.” She glanced around, her gaze landing in the corner. “I’ll sit in that chair.”
“What do you want me to do?” I asked.
“Nothing. You’re my inspiration.” She tapped my thighs, and my cock jumped inside my boxers. “Scoot, so I can get up.”
“I’m already up, babe, I assure you.”
Her gaze dipped. “Gale,” she said softly. “You are so incredibly fine.”
She spaced out each word, and my cock jumped again from her huskily spoken praise.
“Move, baby.” Wetting her lips, she raked her trimmed nails over my thigh.
I hissed from the sting of her touch. Precum pearled from my cock. I was set to blow, and my gaze followed her as she rolled off the bed and put her feet on the floor. “Just so you know, I’m going to need to be inside you after about two seconds of whatever you plan to do.”
She stumbled on the way to the chair. “Then I’d better hurry with the preshow, because I want that too.”
“Let me help you.” I rolled off the bed and lifted the chair above my shoulders that she was trying to drag over the carpet. I set it down in front of the bed. “Here good?”
“Yeah.” As she bent over to prop up her phone, her ass cheeks, round and smooth, teased me. She hadn’t even started, yet she had. “It’s on. Recording.” She gave me an arch glance over her shoulder, finding me already watching her. “Are you ready?”
“I’m always ready when it comes to you.” I moved to the far side of the bed, folded my arms over my chest, and nodded.
Swaying her sexy hips, she walked to the chair, turned her back to me, and bent at the waist again to touch her toes. Then she drew her hand over her legs and up over her perfectly rounded ass, while giving me a seductive glance through her lashes.
Holy fuck. I curled my hands into fists and locked my muscles tight to keep from jumping her.
She went to the chair and dropped her sexy ass into it. Throwing her legs wide over the arm rests, she smoothed her palm straight down the center of her body, arching into her own hand.
Licking my dry lips, I stalked closer. If the camera lens was wide enough to get me on it, the powers that be at WMO could edit it out or not. I didn’t really care. I only cared about getting closer to her.
“Mmm,” Jo murmured.
I felt her voice in my cock and watched as she slid her hand back up her body, her sweet pussy first, her slightly rounded abdomen next, then her perfect tits. When she smoothed her fingers around them, I nearly came unglued. Her circles contracted, smaller and smaller, her dusky pink nipples darkening and tightening the closer she got to them.
My cock hardened too. It had never felt harder. All the blood in my body was pounding hot inside it.
My lips parted. I could almost taste her salty skin on my tongue, feel the bumps of her areola in
my mouth, when she stopped with her fingers a breath away from the hard tip. I leaned forward, my heart pumping fast as she reached for the hem of her bralette and lifted it, exposing her tits. She moaned, and I swallowed as she brought her hand to her parted lips, licking her fingertips with her tongue.
I palmed my pulsing length as she circled each taut nipple with her damp fingers. She let out little broken needy breaths, like she did when I was sucking on them.
I stepped closer as she wet her fingers again. My pulse roared as I watched her. She arched and moaned, twisting one nipple, then the other. Sexy as fucking hell. But she had her eyes on the camera, and that just wouldn’t do.
“Look at me, babe,” I said, my voice low, and every nerve strained.
Her head turned slowly, and her gaze met mine. Her lids were low too, but there was a spark inside her eyes that made all of me burn.
Holding my gaze, she wet her fingers, swirled them around her lush lips, and touched them with the tip of her pink tongue. Then her hand went straight down the center of her body and into her shorts. Her back arched, and her lush ass came off the cushioned seat as she hit her sweet spot.
“Yes . . .” She moaned, circling it like I would if I had my hand where hers was, or better yet, my mouth.
“That’s it,” I growled.
Stalking to her, I grabbed her around the waist and lifted her out of the chair. The breath whooshed out of her when her back hit the bed. Grabbing her lacy shorts, I ripped them off her hips, down her legs, and tossed them aside. Catching and holding her gaze, I separated her thighs and planted my knee on the mattress between them.
Coming up on her elbows, she scooted closer to me in the bed.
“You want me to show you how crazy you make me?” I asked, aligning my cock.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Please.” Her breath hitched as I drove into her.
“Wrap your sexy legs around me and hold on tight.”
I grabbed her hips, withdrawing slightly before I drove into her again. She was so wet and tight, lifting her hips to meet each stroke. I didn’t hold back. I drilled her.
She panted and clawed me, giving it to me like I gave it. Hot and wild, she milked my cock with her cunt, arching her back for me like she had for herself in the chair.
ROCK F*CK CLUB (Girls Ranking the Rock Stars Book 6) Page 14