Insatiable (Sex, Love, and Rock & Roll Book 3)

by Michelle Hazen

  The carefully set table looks ridiculous in the dark storage room, even with the candles set on the creamy tablecloth. The twinkle lights around the room aren’t as bright as I was hoping. Instead, they just look haphazard, winding around a push broom handle here, over a dusty box of spare sheets there.

  The chocolate-covered strawberries, at least, look pretty in the bowl that waits for us on the table. For all I know, though, they were gnawed by rats before we got here. God, I’m so fucked.

  Ava takes a step farther and then turns. “Did you do all this?”

  “No,” I admit. “We didn’t get here early enough. I had to pay the staff to do it. It was supposed to be...better. They didn’t get enough lights and I thought the room would be...” I grimace. “I figured a girl like you would have been wined and dined on mountaintops and helicopters, on top of the damned Eiffel Tower, probably. I was just trying to give you something different from all that, away from prying eyes. It was dumb.”

  She flies across the room and hurtles into my chest, utterly ruining her jewel-spangled hair as she hugs her head in tightly under my chin, the buttons on my shirt snagging her earring. I don’t dare pull back far enough to check, but I think she might be crying.

  “How did you know?” she breathes. “How the hell did you know, Jax?”

  Chapter 15: Good Intentions & Bad Religion

  The rest of dinner was weird.

  For some reason, Ava got embarrassed that she cried, and the more embarrassed she was, the more stupid jokes I cracked to try to cheer her up. And the less I thought about the words that come out of my mouth, the more they made her laugh.

  Which would be great, except her smile is apparently some kind of Pavlovian trigger for my libido. The happier she gets, the harder I get. My imagination’s in fine form, too, picturing her tight breasts and nipples peaking in the cool basement air. How I could kick the table aside and lift her onto my lap, her soaked panties nudging my knuckles as I shove her skirt aside to lower my zipper.

  Pretty much I spent the whole dinner that wasn’t supposed to be about sex, thinking about sex. Because I’m a winner like that.

  Now I’m stuck dropping her off a full, painful hour before we even have to be at soundcheck, because if I don’t get my cock into my fist in the next sixty seconds, I’m going to rip that beautiful dress right from its graceful neckline down to whatever scraps of panties she’s wearing under there.

  But goddamn it, the plan included walking her back to her room and leaving her with a single chaste goodnight kiss. I can keep at least that shred of my good intentions intact before I sprint back to my room, dialing up Porn Hub with one hand while I unbuckle my belt with the other.

  “So,” she says as we exit onto her floor, “you’re just taking me home, huh? No bungee jumping, no spray painting of club windows? How much did you pay a PR company to work up that reputation of yours?”

  I wince. “I paid for the windows, and the bungee jumping was perfectly safe, if not legal.”

  She giggles. “Those really happened? I’ve had them pegged as tabloid rumors this whole time.”

  I get out on her floor and walk her back to her door. “If I were smart, I’d pay a PR company to make all that shit look like rumors. But I’m done with that crap.” I meet her eyes. “These days, I’m looking for something a little different.”

  I bend close, and her shoulders jump as she catches a breath.

  Slowly, I whisper my lips over the flawless skin of her cheek, tormenting myself with that one, tiny touch. It ratchets my every sense until I’m perfectly aware that she’s not breathing.

  “Goodnight, Ava,” I murmur, and straighten as I take a step back.

  She blinks once, and then color floods into her cheeks. “So, it’s true then.”

  “What?” I shift my weight.

  She crosses her arms, so I can no longer see the hints of her nipples peeking through the thin fabric. “I wondered. When you sent roses, I wondered, because it seemed a little blasé for your style. When you nailed the twinkle lights, I got even more nervous, because I mentioned something about my sad old missed-prom fantasies in an interview years ago. But to be pitifully honest, after all the time we’ve spent together, I trusted you. I thought if you wanted a sales-boosting plus one, you’d be professional enough to just ask.”

  “You think I’m dating you for the publicity?”

  She scoffs. “Come on, Jax. You keep a damn spreadsheet to determine which social media sites are driving the most sales for your band. I’m well aware your playboy act is calibrated for maximum impact.” She hugs her arms over her chest. “For some reason, though, I was still hoping everything you did wasn’t subject to the same cost/benefit analysis.”

  Heat flushes beneath my collar. I had no idea she was reading over my shoulder when I updated that spreadsheet. “I’ve had plenty of pictures of me with starlets, Ava. Trust me, I could get plenty more without working this hard for them.”

  “Then what’s with the choir boy routine? Nobody puts in this much effort to woo a woman and then doesn’t try to close the deal. Unless the woman isn’t the prize they’re after.” She prowls a step closer, leaning in until the silky fabric of her dress brushes the front of my shirt. “So which is it, Jax? Are you here because you want me, or are you just a gutless puppet, dancing for the cameras?”

  My pulse flexes my cock with every thick thump of my heart. I don’t even blink, because I’m afraid she’ll stop. I’m afraid I’ll do the wrong thing and she’ll never touch me again, never kiss me the way she did in that alley behind a homeless shelter.

  In twenty-six years, no one has ever kissed me that way.

  Fuck it. I push a hand into her hair, yanking her mouth to mine and bruising it with a kiss so deep and brutally sexual she can’t possibly mistake the thrust of my tongue for any kind of ploy.

  Ava doesn’t pull away. Instead, she bites my lower lip—softly, just enough that it feels perfect when she slicks her tongue over it. I groan and lean closer, only realizing when her skirt teases my ankles that we’re in public and I just threw all my good intentions out a third story window.

  Fuck.

  I let her go and back away, feeling a little bit wild. And stupid, and everything I just told her I was done being.

  Her eyes flick between mine as we both try to catch our breath, and the uncertainty and anger is gone from her face. Instead, she laughs, throaty and ballsy as all hell. “So what, you were going to leave me with a sweet little goodnight kiss? Was that the idea?” She grabs the front of my jacket and hauls me forward. “What did I tell you about trying to make my choices for me?”

  I DON’T KNOW HOW SHE gets us inside. Shit, I don’t even know where she carried the keycard. All I know, all I care about, is that silky little promise of a skirt, because it is starring on five different big screens in my mind.

  I boost Ava up onto the back of the couch, kissing her as she buries her hands in my hair to pull me closer. Her skirt whispers and seethes around my wrists. Every time I think I’m past it, it shifts and strokes my palms, giggles along my fingertips. I groan and thrust against Ava, her legs clamping around my hips and making it nearly impossible to sort out the fabric foreplay binding my hands.

  And then I find it: smooth, flawless skin. Her skirt sighs back along my arm and she whimpers against my lips. I find the edge of her panties and trace them, dizzy with the heat as I edge upward toward her hip and start to dip around the back, only to find the back is a single, teasing string.

  I cup her warm bottom and drag her toward me, the couch only precariously involved as she rubs herself heedlessly against the line of my shaft. I drop my head and gasp a kiss into her neck, tracing the bass beat of her pulse all the way down to her collarbone, freeing one hand from her skirt to stroke the thin drape of fabric over her breast. I can feel everything. The heat of her skin, the pucker of her nipple as she arches into my touch. The tickle of her curls against my cheek as she hugs me tighter.

  The
re’s fabric between my palm and her breast, and then I’m inside, our skin searing together, her nipple branding my palm. I flick a thumb over it, my hips surging against her. I’m going to come way before I get out of these pants and I want to feel as much of her as I can through these boxers and that dirty-minded skirt.

  Her hand squeezes the tip of my erection and then the buckle of my belt clinks and loosens. Sweet mother of everything holy and...

  I pinch her nipple in my excitement and when she cries out, I do it again. I have to back up a step to make room for what her hand is doing to the front of my tuxedo pants. I’m frying in this jacket but I’d rather light the thing on fire than take my hands off her for a single second. Instead, I abandon her truly incredible ass to stroke her thigh, setting her more securely on the back of the couch so I can enjoy her rocking toward my touch as I travel down toward the bullseye of the panties I can’t see past the soft cloud of her skirt.

  When my fingers find the spot where she’s steamy damp, all I can think about is what color they are. Sin red or night black, maybe a flirty purple or playful pink? Ava makes a quick twist that slips my fingers inside her panties and they’re immediately soaked and slick.

  I jerk my head back, grinning. “You sneaky woman.”

  She laughs and tosses back the hair that’s coming free from her elaborate style. “You’re too slow, Sterling. Keep up.”

  I penetrate her while I hold her eyes, giving her my longest finger until my palm is flattened against her, the heel of my hand pressing the top of her sex. She bites her lip and fucks my hand while I watch. One thrust, two.

  I am going to fucking die.

  I give her another finger. She throttles it, tight as hell and twice as strong and my head swims. I fight my other hand free from her dress, leaving her breast fully exposed as I push yards of her skirt up to her waist.

  Panties.

  God damn it.

  “Brace yourself,” I order, and pull out of her. She makes a sharp sound that—yeah—that was probably a multi-syllabic curse. Emphasis on the multiple.

  Without me to steady her, she falls backward, catching herself on the couch cushions with her hands over her head and her body still arched up over the back. I rip her panties down to her knees and pull her hips toward me, introducing her clit to my lips.

  And then my tongue.

  She’s writhing so much by the end that I have to follow her over the back of the couch to finish her orgasm properly. Both of us collapse on the cushions in a heap of arms and legs and beautiful dress, my pants half off and the tip of my penis rearing up past the elastic of my boxer briefs. Ava throws an arm across her face and melts back into the arm of the couch, struggling to catch her breath.

  Wait, where’s Dean?

  My already-speeding heart leaps into the base of my throat and I glance around, shifting forward to shield the disarray of Ava’s clothes. The room is quiet, though, all the lights off but one lamp, and I forget about her bodyguard as fast as I remembered him. Jesus, it’s hot in here.

  I tear the button off my tuxedo jacket and wrestle it off. Every part of it sticks and catches like my arm muscles are all twice their normal size. Maybe they are. I’m swollen with testosterone, ecstatic with desire. When Ava’s dark eyes peek over her arm at me, sparkling with mischief, I yank the last bit of the jacket off with a protest of tearing fabric.

  “For fuck’s sake!” I protest, and she bursts into laughter.

  “Let me help you.” She hooks a finger into my bow tie, drawing me down to her lips. The girl knows so many things to do with her tongue that it takes the air conditioning hitting my back before I realize she’s gotten my tie and my shirt off while I wasn’t paying attention.

  I smile against her mouth. “Please tell me you got my pants, too.”

  Ava tips her forehead against mine, holding me close while she laughs until she’s breathless. “You really make a girl work for it, don’t you?”

  “Oh, don’t worry. I got this.” I pull back from her and raise up onto my knees, flexing my abs shamelessly as I make a show out of drawing down the last inch of zipper my cock hasn’t already shoved open.

  Ava tries to whistle, but ends up giggling again instead, blowing stray curls out of her face. I hook my thumbs in my pants and start to push them down. She stops laughing. I only make it to my knees, but instead of doing the awkward hop-to-get-up, I leave them there and pass a lazy hand over the ridge in my black boxer briefs. Ava’s eyes follow the movement so closely that I decide to give her a few ideas, teasing my fingers up the shaft and then rubbing lightly at the sensitive spot just under the head.

  She swallows.

  I take her hand and lift it. With her eyes wide and her quick mouth abruptly silent, her hand seems incredibly small. I kiss her palm without breaking eye contact, and then push it down my chest and into my boxers. Her gaze goes unfocused as I roll my hips, rubbing myself into her palm.

  “Make you a deal?”

  She licks her lips. “It better involve exactly what I’ve got in my hand, or I’m not signing.”

  I smile. Slowly. “Lose the dress. Keep the shoes. And I’ll give you everything I’ve got.” I thrust hard into her hand to drive home the point.

  She shakes her head. Slowly. “You really know how to close a deal, Jackson Sterling.”

  Ava untangles us from the couch and when she starts to undress, I’m frankly incredulous at where the fastening to her dress ends up being located.

  “I never would have found that in ten years, with a map.” I ditch my shoes and pants.

  “Mmm, good thing you were bargaining to your strengths then.” She shakes her panties off one ankle.

  They’re black, but when I see a flash of silver, I snatch them off the ground and simply stare.

  In the center of the tiny vee at the front is a circle of satin edged in lace. Stamped with the Bad Religion symbol. A moment like this deserves some kind of homage but Ava snatches them away before I can follow through. “They’re lucky, okay?” she mutters.

  “How many points do I lose if I propose to you without a ring?”

  She tilts her head to consider, and then says, “Shrimp plantation napkin.”

  At least that’s what I think she says, because she’s wearing nothing but black stilettos with silver snakes climbing the heels, a Bad Religion thong balled in her right hand.

  “Bedroom,” I say. “Now. Run.”

  She doesn’t, until I start to chase her.

  I catch her from behind just as she gets there, and pull her backward into my lap as I sink down onto the side of the bed. My knee kicks up between hers, and then I’m spreading her legs with my knees, one hand stroking up her thighs as the other slips down over her breasts.

  Ava lets her head fall back onto my shoulder, and that trust makes my heart thump heavily. How the hell did I end up here? How am I getting to do this now, with her?

  I start to formulate a plan. It involves her nipples, and a long, slow process that doesn’t climb to the center of her until she’s ready to rip my hair out by the roots. Except then she arches her bottom right into my erection and short-circuits all planning functions. As evidenced by the fact that I try to enter her while I’m still wearing underwear.

  Boxers are the devil. They were created by a coalition of Hitler, Hussein, and whatever dick-for-brains invented alarm clocks and poison ivy.

  She turns her head and kisses my neck, and I jerk the elastic down, fisting my erection. It’s only when I’m close enough to sense the steamy heat of her that I realize my condoms. Are. In. The. Living. Room.

  Which might as well be Malaysia for all the good they’re going to do me.

  I got tested when I started thinking about sleeping with Ava, so I know I’m clean and she’ll be safe from any consequences of my wild past. But even so, sex without condoms is a danger zone I’ve always stayed the hell out of.

  She leans over. In my lap, which reshapes every thought I’ve ever had to match the long line of h
er gorgeous spine. I blink dumbly at it until she pushes a condom into my hand.

  Wait, she already had a condom in her bedside table? I shake my head to clear all the stupid out of it, because it doesn’t matter. So what if her condom came out of an open box? So did mine. I just wasn’t smart enough to grab them out of my pants before I chased a naked girl into her bedroom. I shred the wrapping and reach down between her legs and mine to sheath myself.

  It’s a fantastic angle. Even better when Ava lifts and sinks herself down on me, wriggling a little when I don’t fit right away. She’s...oh holy fuck.

  She squeezes me all tight and intimate before she sinks up to the hilt, sitting back onto my lap. I try to remember how lungs function.

  Ava’s way past lungs, because she swings one leg to the outside of mine and then the other. She hooks those fantastic snake-wound heels into the side rail of the bed to either side of my calves. I do not understand oxygen, or how to get it, but I immediately understand leverage.

  I thrust into her and she moans, throwing her hands out to steady herself against the wall in front of her. Jesus, she’s strong, bracing with both her arms and her legs, and I drive into her with everything I’ve got. I go until my brain threatens to combust, and she only pushes her ass back for more.

  I drop my head to her back, wrapping my arms tightly around her waist and worshipping her. Protecting her, holding her even as I half-stand, thighs burning while I pump my cock ruthlessly into her body.

  She gasps, coughs, and I feel her clench around me in the second before I realize this is it. I give her a slow, long slide, her muscles gripping the head of my dick so hard I can’t help but come along with her.

  The condom is full and I know I should swap it out, but that only makes it slide more luxuriantly over my still-swollen shaft. I decide I can afford one more stroke. Just one.

  Ava turns her head, whispering my name. I catch it still on her lips, savoring it like the prize it is. Her mouth clings to mine, a little more hesitant in that hiccup after orgasm, when your head spins and you start to question everything. I want the whole world to be warm, soft, safe for her, so I turn her so my arm cradles her narrow back. Her legs come together, draped over my opposite arm. I have her bundled into my chest so I can lay her in bed, but when she hugs her arms around my neck and deepens the kiss, my hips surge upward. Then I’m fucking her all over again: holding her and thrusting inside, her position making the friction mind-bending.