Devin’s hands stroked and caressed her everywhere. His warm, soft lips teased the spot below her ear. He nibbled on her neck. He traced her collarbone with his tongue. And he whispered such sweet, sexy words in her ear, in her hair and against her skin.
She recognized the change in his body when he reached that tipping point. She increased the pace, tightening her pussy muscles around his shaft when he started to shudder with his release.
His orgasm triggered hers. She gasped softly; her clit pulsed and her inner tissues clamped down, confining his cock to just tiny thrusts as he bathed her walls with his seed.
As soon as they were both spent, his mouth sought hers. Devin’s arms trapped her against his body so she couldn’t escape even if she wanted to.
Not that she wanted to. She loved the feeling of his hot, bare skin plastered to hers and the sticky warmth between her thighs.
Wait.
She shouldn’t feel that. She wiggled until he released her.
“What?”
She stared into his sated eyes. “We forgot a condom.”
“Damn.” Then, “You’re on some form of birth control, right?”
“Yeah, but that’s not the issue.”
Devin’s eyes cooled. “I’m not a walking STD, Liberty.”
“Don’t deny you had a swinging door for groupies before we became exclusive. And I’m not just talking about the month before we became lovers. I’m worried about all the years before that.”
He studied her. “I’m not denying I’ve earned a reputation as a manwhore over the years. But I will tell you something no one else knows about the groupies invited to my ready room the past year and a half. I didn’t fuck a single one of them.”
Liberty couldn’t help but laugh. “While I appreciate a play on words, Devin, in this case it’s not funny. Especially since I know you preferred your women two at a time.”
“Like I said, I’ll cop to bein’ that fuck-any-hot-chick guy in the past, but I’m tellin’ the truth. I haven’t fucked a groupie in almost two years.”
“But . . .”
“What about all the women I’ve had in my room and on my bus? I let them know up-front that they could blow me. Or give me a hand job.” He pushed a damp section of hair behind her ear. “Or if there were two of them, I gave them the option of putting on a girl-on-girl show for me. That’s it.”
She stared at him, but he wouldn’t meet her questioning gaze. “But I heard some of them talking afterward about your mad sex skills.”
“What they said had to be true, right? Because God knows, only fine, upstanding women offer to fuck a guy they don’t even fuckin’ know just because he’s had a few hits and has some money in the bank. No one—especially not women—ever lie about all the sex shit they’ve done and who they’ve done it with.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Yeah, it’s obvious that the fuckin’ point is that no matter what I say, you won’t believe me.”
Shit. “Devin—”
“Can we talk about this later? I’m getting a cramp in my ass and you need to move.”
“Sorry.” She scooted back and his dick slipped out of her easily since it’d gone completely soft. She threw her leg over the console and snatched her bra and T-shirt before she dropped into the driver’s seat.
Devin already had his jeans on, although his shirt remained unbuttoned. He powered the seat upright and jammed his feet into his shoes. Without looking at her, he said, “I’m walkin’ down to the water.” He opened the door and he was gone.
After she finished dressing, Liberty let her head fall back against the headrest. Her intent hadn’t been to piss him off after such sweet, perfect reunion sex. But dammit, she never did stupid shit like this—getting so caught up in the moment she forgot the most important rule—well, besides the one reminding her not to get attached. She’d forgotten that her health was entirely her responsibility.
While she loved her sisters, she hated that her mother had no fucking clue who her father or who Harper’s father was. She hated that her mother’s self-worth came only from her sexual conquests.
She let that thought wash over her.
From the beginning, Liberty had attributed that same mind-set to Devin, although she’d conveniently shoved it aside when she’d become one of his conquests.
Turning her head, she let the cool breeze drift across her hot face. Why was she sitting here, feeling guilty? She wasn’t the one with the multitude of random partners.
Screw this. She had a right to ask him questions about his past and even question his answers.
After another five minutes of wrestling with her temper and her demons and her stupid need to make sure Devin was all right, she got out of her car.
The breeze coming off the water turned the air chilly, so she grabbed a blanket out of the trunk and wrapped it around her shoulders.
The dry grass was slippery beneath her flip-flops as she started down the slope. A narrow stream zigzagged between the straggly copse of trees on the left and the craggy hill directly in front of her. Given the fairly barren topography, she suspected the stream came from deep underground. Her gaze followed the riverbank to where it disappeared around the bend.
Devin stood on the edge of the bank, in the tall grasses, hands in his pockets. From here she couldn’t tell where he was looking, but just by the slumped set of his shoulders, she knew he felt a little lost.
He didn’t speak until she was right behind him. “I’m surprised you didn’t leave me here after yet another display of my asshole-ness.”
“I thought about it,” she said truthfully. “But then I realized running away is how I react when faced with a personal situation that makes me uncomfortable.” She rested her cheek on his biceps. “Whereas your reaction is to not let people get close to you in the first place.”
“You noticed that.”
“You forget I’m a highly trained, keen-eyed observer.”
He tugged her into his arms, pressing his chest into her back. “Sorry we forgot to use a condom. It won’t happen again.” He brushed his lips over the back of her head. “I can assure you that you won’t catch anything from me. I got a clean bill of health right before this leg of the tour started. I have to get tested every couple of months or else I can’t donate blood. The certificate is in the bus someplace.”
“I appreciate that, but you still need to explain those things you said to me.”
“I figured that.” His resigned breath stirred her hair. “I’ve never been embarrassed about what I did behind closed doors. Hell, I was proud of it. Women throwin’ themselves at me, and I didn’t hafta do nothin’ except make sure they didn’t knock me down.”
“Last relationship you were in?”
“Besides psycho China? Odette. I didn’t cheat on her, but I struggled with wantin’ to cheat on her. She deserved better. How she didn’t end up hating me is a miracle. After that, I took what was freely offered. I was livin’ the dream. Then all that weird shit started happening. It spooked me. Way more than I ever let on. Around the same time, my buddy Mack LeFabre, lead singer in Southern Cross . . .” He paused. “You know who he is?”
“Yeah. He’s another one of those hot, brooding singers, so I’m guessing there are always chicks lined up outside his shows too.”
He nodded. “So this woman contacts his manager and says she had Mack’s baby. Mack’s like, no way. He always uses a condom and he’s never with the same woman more than one night. He agrees to the paternity test. It’s positive. So he and his lawyers meet up with this skanky Jamie woman and her lawyers. When he sees her, the mother of his kid, he doesn’t even remember her.
“He tells me later he was quietly freakin’ out the entire time, because something felt off. When she named a ridiculous amount of money she’d need for child support, he lost it, and the lawyers ended the meeting. As they’re walking out of the building, another woman approaches him, and he vaguely remembers her. She tells him she and Jamie we
re both in his tour bus that night, but she—not Jamie—was the one he had sex with. Twice. While they were doin’ a little sixty-nine for round three, evidently Jamie pawed through the damn garbage and fished out the used condoms.”
“No way,” she breathed.
“Sounds like some freaky thing on one of them medical TV shows, but it happened. Not to be crude, but she sucked the come out of the used condoms with a syringe, shot it into herself and made herself pregnant. It’s a huge mess because no matter how it happened, Mack junior is still his kid. He all but offered her every penny he had so the boy could live with him, but she refused. So Mack has limited visitation, huge child support payments and has to live with the knowledge that this psycho bitch is raising his son and there’s nothin’ he can do about it.”
“That’s horrible. But, Devin, why are you telling me this?”
“Because it could’ve happened to me. That’s when I decided no more sex with groupies. No more stupid chances. I had a paternity scare once. And as long as you asked, groupies prefer givin’ head to straight-up fucking anyway. Or they get off showing their wild side by providing me with live girl-on-girl action.”
“You like girl-on-girl?”
“Darlin’, all guys like it. No different jerking off to it whether it’s on the computer screen or happening right in front of me.”
“God. I can’t believe we’re talking about this. So you’ve been hiding these revised ‘no sex’ groupie parameters from everyone?”
“Yes, because it seemed like . . . by not fucking them, I was makin’ a personal choice. Dumb as that sounds. And like I said, the ladies lie about getting fucked by me—regardless if they do or not.”
“The last time you had sex—”
“Was about fifteen minutes ago, and, baby, it was amazing,” he murmured in her ear in that deep, sexy voice.
“It was amazing. But you know what I mean.”
“The last woman was an old girlfriend. She was separated from her husband, and it just sort of happened.” Devin spun around until they were face-to-face. “Then came you.”
Liberty covered his mouth with hers because she’d heard everything she needed to.
After he had thoroughly scrambled her brain with a ferocious kiss, he backed off, treating her tingling lips to soft nibbles as they continued to share the same air. “Liberty.”
“Mm?”
“Come up to my cabin with me. If we leave from here, we can be at Flathead in eleven hours. Less than that if you drive that car as fast as I suspect you do.”
She laughed softly.
“You already have extra clothes, but I hope to keep you mostly naked anyway. We’ll stop in Casper, get food and any other supplies we’ll need.”
“So we’ll stick with the original travel schedule? Because I’m not leaving my baby in an airport parking lot in Montana for three weeks.”
“No, we’ll stay at the cabin a couple of days, then drive back to Colorado and fly out of Denver to Portland together.” His eyes darkened. “But we’re takin’ a car service to the airport—you won’t need the King Kong twins’ services.”
“They do draw extra attention.”
“So what do you say? You and me in the fresh mountain air?”
“Sounds like fun.”
“It will be. Now, to my next question. Ever been fucked on your car?”
Her belly somersaulted. “No, but that’ll leave scratches, not to mention a big dent—”
“Not the way I plan on doin’ it. And the only place I’m gonna leave scratches? Is the beard burn on the back of your neck when I bend you across the trunk and pound into you from behind.”
She shivered. “Uh. Sure. You want to do this now?”
“No. I’ll let it be a surprise. I just wanted your permission because I know how much you love that damn car.”
Chapter Twenty-six
Late-afternoon sun spilled through the curtains, waking him from his unintentional catnap after a hot, sweaty bout of sex.
Devin rolled over and faced a still-sleeping Liberty. He drank in the soft set of her mouth and the way she angled her chin upward in challenge, even in rest. Propping himself on his elbow, he gently brushed a section of blue hair from her cheek and let his fingers trail down the arch of her neck. His lips curved into a possessive smile when he saw the hickey at the base of her throat. Pity it’d started to fade. He liked seeing his mark on her skin—proof of their passion. A reminder that the woman made him so fucking crazy with heat and need that he’d lost his head entirely.
They’d been out in the woods target shooting. No surprise Liberty kicked his ass on accuracy, no matter which weapon she fired. With the temperate weather, a hint of autumn in the air and his sexy, sassy woman by his side, Devin couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed so hard, had so much fun, and yet was so totally relaxed.
When Liberty had finally given in and showed him how fast she could pull her gun, his awe and pride had immediately been supplanted by lust.
He’d taken her right there against the trunk of a tree, their camo shorts kicked into the leaves, her thigh wrapped around his hip, her molten core as wet and ready for him as it always was. He’d fucked her hard, fast and deep, lost in everything that was her—her strength, her heat, her spontaneity. With the ground at their feet littered with spent shells and the air eddied with gun smoke, the moment was perfect. And so perfectly . . . them.
“That’s an awful cocky smile you’re wearing,” she said softly.
His eyes met hers. Then he leaned forward, placing a kiss on the mark on her neck. “It’s not cocky, sweetheart. That’s how I look when I’m content.”
Liberty curled her hand around the side of his face. “I am content too. I’m really glad you invited me to your cabin.”
Devin kissed the inside of her wrist. “I could get used to lazing around in bed with you all day.”
“Bull. You miss playing, performing and writing music.”
“But I like wakin’ up late, fucking whenever and wherever we feel like it.”
“We have done plenty of that the last couple of days. Plenty.”
He grinned. While they’d been in close quarters on the bus for the past three months, being together at his cabin put them on equal footing. Here they weren’t protector and protectee. Here they were a couple on a romantic getaway, exploring levels of intimacy. Since she was the first lover he’d ever invited to his cabin, he was determined to christen every room. Twice. And this wasn’t the typical small one-bedroom cabin.
She sighed. “It has been the perfect vacation. Not just because of all of your firepower—although you do get serious brownie points for your kick-ass firearm collection. What I like about this place? The freedom to do whatever we want and no one around for miles to tell us what we can’t do.”
“Exactly. That’s why I bought a bigger acreage. I could raise pigs and goats out here, and no one could say shit about it.”
A bark of her disbelieving laughter echoed. “Country superstar Devin McClain raising pigs? Never gonna happen, hot stuff. And I know you’ve heard all about Harper’s great goat catastrophe, so that’s a double no on livestock.”
“I’m wounded, darlin’, that you have so little faith in me. But I get what you mean about the freedom. Maybe it’s a simple joy, but I like hopping on the four-wheeler and following a random trail to see where it leads.”
Shame flitted through her blue eyes and she looked away.
Devin forced her attention back to him. “Hey. It’s nothin’ to be ashamed of.”
“I had a flashback in the middle of the damn day, Devin. On a fucking ATV.”
“Something triggered a memory and you dealt with it.”
“You dealt with it,” she murmured. “Thank you for not thinking I’m a total freak.”
“Never.” Yesterday they’d taken off to explore. One minute they were zipping along through the woods just fine and the next, Liberty screamed for him to stop the vehicle. Then she bailed o
ut and hit the dirt, curling her body into a ball. He’d managed to keep his cool even when he knew she’d literally loaded herself for bear. Then he’d calmly broken through her near-catatonic state and wrapped himself around her until the shaking ended. After they’d returned to the cabin, he’d dealt with her surliness and self-recriminations by mixing them both a stiff drink and forcing her to sit on the porch swing with him as day dimmed into night. It gave him a sense of purpose to offer her his strength when she needed it.
“So admit that you need this break but you are ready to get back to it.”
No surprise she changed the subject. “Yeah.”
“Why don’t you have a guitar at your cabin?”
“I come here only when I really need to get away or during huntin’ season. I bought this as a place to have fun, not to work. As much as I love my job, it’s still a job.”
She poked him in the chest. “Speaking of work, it’s your night to cook.”
“That’s not work, Liberty. I like cooking for you.”
“Stop being so sweet, or we’ll end up bouncing on the mattress again.”
“Like I said”—he brushed his mouth across hers—“I could get used to this kind of life with you.” Or any kind of life with her. He rolled away before he saw that guarded look in her eyes. Whenever he’d brought up continuing their relationship at the end of the tour, she turned silent. He’d let it slide for now, but the past three days had just proved to him that they belonged together.
He dressed and eyed his luggage. They had to leave early in the morning for the long drive to Denver and his junk was spread out
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