I knock on his door and ten seconds later he opens it, and I catch my breath. The ends of his hair are wet, as if he just stepped out of the shower, and he’s wearing a gray t-shirt that shows off his strong arms, and jeans that hang so delectably on his hips. His feet are bare. I’ve never seen him dressed so casually before, and it’s yet another look I want to add to the portfolio in my mind of my beautiful man.
“Hi.”
“Hi.” It’s only one word, only one syllable from him, but it is charged. We are both combustible right now.
I quickly scan his loft with its hardwood floors, wide, open spaces, exposed brick walls and windows everywhere. I want to explore every nook and cranny of his home, see what’s on the coffee table, and inside the fridge, but that can all wait, because he is all I want right now. “I’m dying to see where you live, but I can’t get past how hot you look right now,” I say.
Like I’m operating only on instinct, my hands hone in on his midsection, and I inhale sharply when I feel the outlines of his abs beneath his tee-shirt. I slide my hands under the cotton fabric, luxuriating in the feel of his firm stomach. He cups my face in his hands, and gives me a quick kiss. Then he pulls back. “So, the master bath has two vanities,” he says, as if he’s a realtor showing me around, then trails off, shutting the door behind us. “Fuck tours. I’ll show you around later.”
“I missed you today,” I whisper.
“You did?”
I nod. “I had a great time with Chris, but I really wanted to see you.”
“What am I going to do with this new you? This you who actually says what she feels?”
I freeze up for a moment. “Don’t tell me it was all about the chase?”
He shakes his head, then corrects me. “It was all about the prize. It was all about you. I wanted you from the second you stepped onto my stage. But I should be a gentleman and offer you a drink.”
“I don’t want a drink,” I say, and I tip my forehead to the open doorway that leads to his bedroom.
“As you wish,” he says, hungrily, as he takes my hand and leads me into his bedroom.
Though I’ve barely taken a minute to notice any other surroundings, I sure as hell notice the king-size bed, white comforter and chrome frame, and the huge window that runs floor to ceiling. I wish I could say I hope no one notices us, but I honestly don’t care who sees.
An iPod plays on the nightstand and I grin when I hear the music. “Madness” by Muse.
“Did you time that song to be playing for the moment you got me in your bedroom?”
“Maybe I did,” he says with a wink, and then stands back to rake his eyes over me, taking in my jeans and black sweater. I know they won’t be on me for long. His eyes are darker as he drinks me in, and I watch him as he reacts to me, his breathing intensifying and I haven’t even taken a thing off. I don’t think I’ll ever stop enjoying the way he looks at me, the way his eyes sear into me and he memorizes me with his heated gaze.
I want that from him. I want him to know every part of me by heart, and yet still want to discover me again and again. And I know he wants that too.
“I’m kind of nervous,” I admit in a soft voice, unsure where it’s coming from.
“Don’t be. You’re with me. I’ll always take care of you.” He steps forward, threading his fingers into my hair. I close my eyes and lean into his hands, as he laces them through my long hair. Then he gives a quick gentle tug. I open my eyes, and there’s that mischievous expression on his face.
“You’re going to have those hands in my hair all night, aren’t you?”
“I’m going to have my hands everywhere on you.”
“You already have. I think it’s my turn to get my hands on you.”
I grab the hem of his t-shirt and pull up. He raises his arms, letting me take his shirt off. Sharp, hot tingles race through me as I run my palms over his toned shoulders, cut biceps, and his fabulous forearms that are strong from the workouts he does in his boxing gym. He’s such a fascinating man to me—he works in the arts, and he works out with a punching bag. I love the incongruities in him, how he can fit seamlessly in at an elegant reception and how he can hold his own in a rough and tumble world, too.
He draws in a deep breath and sighs as I traverse his muscles with my hands, learning how they feel, uncovering the ridges and hard planes of his body. Then my fingertips reach the waistband of his jeans, dancing around the edge, tapping out a fast rhythm of desire.
His breath quickens, he opens his eyes, grabs my hips hard, and slams me against him. “That’s enough playing around, Jill. I need to have you now. I’ve been a very patient man and have been waiting for you long enough.”
His eyes flash feral and wild, alive with a masculine power that makes me want to be overtaken. My body aches to be under him, to be filled by him.
He swivels me around, backs me up to the bed. My knees hit the edge and I sink down. He grabs the bottom of my sweater and yanks it off, then reaches around to unhook my bra in seconds flat. He stares hungrily at my breasts and my nipples harden from how he looks at my body like he wants to taste and lick and touch every inch of me. Then his hands are on my breasts, kneading them, squeezing them. He feathers his hands down my stomach, unzipping my jeans quickly and tugging them off as I kick off my short boots.
He places one hand on my belly, and pushes me down on the bed, then shakes his head appreciatively. “You on my bed. This I have wanted since I met you.”
“Really? Did you think about this when I first sang for you?” I scoot back and he climbs up, as if he’s prowling his way toward me. I love the way he talks to me during sex, how he’s always telling me what he wants to do, and I can’t resist going fishing for more of his sexy, dirty mouth. Because it’s yet another thing I’d never expect from him. And yet another thing I crave. Those filthy words from this classy man.
“No, back when I saw you in Les Mis, I imagined you completely naked in my bed and coming for me. Let’s make that happen.”
He tugs off my panties, and we’re still in this same uneven zone where I’m undressed and he’s only halfway there, but hell if I care, as he presses his hands on the inside of my thighs, spreads my legs wide open, and brings his lips to where I’m aching for him. One kiss, one lick, and I am inside out with pleasure. I arch my back, lifting my hips to his face, desperate, terribly desperate for more of him as he caresses me with his talented tongue. His lips are so soft and his tongue draws the most delirious lines across me so that my vision goes blurry with the exquisite pleasure surging through my body. I moan and pant and grab hard at his hair, and I can hear him groaning too as he tastes me, licks me, tortures me with that tongue that I want to feel all over me.
His hands grip my ass, and he tugs me even closer to his mouth, like he can’t get enough of me, and it’s so intimate and intense the way he devours me. I don’t need fingers this time, because with one more flick of his tongue against my throbbing center I am his, as the waves of pleasure ripple through me. I call out his name many times over, and I swear I dig my nails into his skull as I come hard and fast.
He layers kisses on my belly and my hips, and my legs are still trembling from the aftershocks. He travels up my body with his mouth, leaving a trail of kisses between my breasts and the hollow of my throat. He has the most satisfied look on his face. “You’re like a drug to me. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to get enough of my fix. I’m going to need more and more hits and even so I’ll only grow more addicted to you.”
“Good. I’ll be your enabler. I want you to be hooked,” I say, because I love these words, I love the reassurance.
Then he stands, and I push up on my elbows, watching as he unbuttons his jeans. My mouth is literally watering because I want him so badly. I want to see him in all his naked glory, and I watch him strip as if I have a front row seat to the best show in the house as he takes off his jeans. He’s wearing nothing but boxer briefs, and I crawl forward to the edge of the bed, kneel, and push t
hem down.
His erection springs free, thick and hard and totally fucking beautiful. Heat surges through me and I run my teeth over my lips as I roam my eyes over him. Strong legs, smooth stomach, all those hard lines, leading to the V that draws me back down to what I want most. I take his cock in my hands, thrilled to be touching him without any limits now. He groans and grabs my hand, gripping me tighter around him, moving my palm up and down on his hard length.
“God, it feels so good to have you touching me,” he says in a hot, hungry voice because he’s held out for so long. His breathing shallows and he closes his eyes as he rocks into my hand. I don’t want to stop touching him, but the need to have him inside of me is so intense.
“I want you,” I whisper as I let go of him in my hands so I can have him between my legs. He inches me back on the bed, lowering himself onto me. I feel him hard against my thigh, and then his hand is on the back of my leg, opening me up, making room as he settles between my legs.
Holding his cock in one hand, he teases me with the head, rubbing himself against me, and I’m going to lose my mind if he doesn’t slide inside of me now.
“Please. I want you now,” I pant.
“Oh, you’re going to have me. You’re going to have all of me.”
And then he sinks into me. I inhale sharply as he fills me, and he stills. “Does it hurt?” he asks gently.
I nod against him, my hands around his strong, solid shoulders. “I’m just not used to this,” I admit.
“I know. I’ll be gentle.”
“You don’t like to be gentle.”
“I do with you. I’ll be gentle, or I’ll be rough. I’ll do it however you want or need.”
“I just need you.”
Then I breathe again, and he brings a hand down to my leg, hitching up my thigh and holding me in place like that, opening me up as he pulls back, then strokes into me again. Slow, gentle, gliding strokes. Filling me up, stretching me, and when he’s so far inside me he stops for a beat, brings his hand to my face and cups my chin, so I’m looking at him, so I have to look deep into his beautiful blue eyes because that’s what he wants. He wants to see all of me. To connect with me. To know me.
In all my fantasies, all my imaginary nights of pretending, I never really knew what I was missing. I never understood how out-of-sync my make believe life was from this real life, this possibility, from this phenomenally real moment with this man who makes me feel everything, who wants me to feel loved, and cherished, and desired.
“I know what you need right now,” he says, and the moment is no longer suspended as he buries himself in me again, and my back bows, inviting him to take me further, to guide my body to wherever he wants it, because he alone has the keys.
“What do I need right now?”
“Wrap your legs around my back as tight as you can. I want to go deeper into you, and I’m going to kiss your neck the way you want me to. Hard.”
I do as he says, opening myself even further for him as he thrusts into me. I hook my ankles around him, surrendering to him in that position, to however he wants to fuck me, to make love to me, to bring me to the far edge of pleasure and back again. He bends his head to my neck, kissing me there as he drives inside me again and again, and the feeling of completeness is so astonishing, that I’m both here and I’m lost in the waves of sensation that flood through my veins, as pleasure spins wildly inside me.
“I have wanted you for so long. For so fucking long, and now I have you, and you are completely and absolutely mine,” he says with a low growl that somehow makes me hotter, and I didn’t think it was possible to feel any more desire than I do right now. But then he thrusts into me again as he reaches his hands into my hair, fisting a handful and tugging, like he’s always wanted to.
I arch into him, letting him know I want more.
He kisses me hard and hungry, his teeth nearly piercing the flesh on my neck, and I cry out from the sensation. It’s pleasure and just a touch of pain, but it’s a good pain. It’s a pain that surges through me, and reminds me that I’m alive, that I’m here, that I’m living every moment. Maybe that’s why he’s the one to bring me back to me. Because he never wanted a part of me. He wouldn’t take the half of me I was willing to give. He wanted all of me, only all of me, and now he has it.
“You have me. You have all of me. You’re the only one I want,” I say as I thread my hands into his soft hair. I know he knows this. I know he feels it. But I have to voice it. I have to say all these things out loud that I feel for him, because I don’t want to keep anything hidden anymore. I want the man I love to know that he’s the only one.
His body slides against mine, damp with perspiration, and I grab his shoulders, bringing him deeper, wanting all of him.
“Harder,” I whisper.
He groans loudly in answer then pumps faster, rougher, and I wish there were a mirror so I could watch us as he moves inside of me, my legs spread and clasped around him, his beautiful body surging into me, touching me deeper than I’ve ever felt. The world around us dissolves, and this is all there is, this closeness, this far edge of ecstasy. We are lost in each other, and there’s nowhere we’d rather be.
“You feel so good. So warm and tight around me. I love how hot you are for me. And I fucking love how there’s no one else but you and me, and I want to feel you coming while I’m inside you,” he says, and his words come out in a hot ragged rush, his breaths erratic, and the sounds thrill me. The sounds I’ve longed to hear. His grunts and thrusts that tell me he’s getting close. That he’s nearing the same place he’s brought me to so many times over.
“I want to know what you sound like. I want to know what you look like when you come,” I tell him, as I wrap my legs tighter around his ass, so divinely sculpted, and he drives into me, sending me near the edge once again.
He breathes out, hard. “I need you to come again. I need to feel you coming on me. I need it now.”
I look at him, his eyes open and wild, his lips parted, his breath hard and fast and I’m there in an instant, I’m shattering beneath him once again, writhing and bucking my hips and pulling him deeper with an orgasm that tears through me, and it’s all the more intense, because he’s coming apart with me.
At last.
Davis
We sleep well, but not much. I wake up in the middle of the night, needing more of her and I pull her against me, spooning her. She sighs sleepily at first, then wakes up, and brings my hand to her breasts and wriggles her backside against me.
“Let’s go again,” she says, and I am only too happy to oblige as I slide into her, her hot flesh surrounding me. We make love like that, slow and unhurried, and I have plenty of access to her breasts and her belly as she hooks her leg around my thigh, giving me more room to sink into her, in the dark of the night, all of Manhattan sleeping and we’re the only ones awake. She moves languidly, wrapping her arm around my neck as I rock into her, and soon her voice is rising, and she’s moaning and gasping and crying out, and I will never tire of making her come.
“Your turn,” she says seductively as she shifts onto her stomach and raises her ass.
“My favorite position. How did you know?” I say, then grab her hips and plunge inside of her, enjoying the view—the curve of her ass, the length of her back, her body underneath me, as we finish yet another round.
In the morning I make a quick breakfast of eggs and toast, and then we have to get ready because there are only four days left before opening night.
“I brought a change of clothes. I should probably go shower and get ready,” she says.
I look at her as if that’s the craziest idea in the world. “No. I don’t think that will happen.”
She tosses me a curious look. “I’m not allowed to shower here?”
“You’re not allowed to shower without me.”
I take her into the beige tiled bathroom, and there’s room for two. As the steam fills the shower, I rinse the shampoo out of my hair. Then, I feel s
omething absolutely fantastic as Jill’s hands run down my chest, my legs, and then she’s kneeling, taking me in her mouth, her beautiful lips surrounding me. I look down, and groan because there is no hotter sight in the entire world than this. I watch her lips move, and I want to finish this. But I want her too, so I pull her off, grab her hips and lift her up and against the shower wall, then bring her down hard on me and move inside her fast, furiously, as she grapples with my hair, my shoulders, my back until she comes apart, and I do the same.
Then, we go to work.
CHAPTER 24
Davis
“This is awful. It’s all terribly awful. It’s the worst mess I’ve ever seen.”
Alexis stomps her high-heeled foot dramatically down on the floorboards, decked out in Ava’s costume for our final dress rehearsal.
“It’s not,” I assure her. “It’s great. It will all be great,” I tell her, doing everything I can to keep my cool as she throws her patented dress rehearsal fit.
“No, it’ll be a disaster,” she whines, pursing her lips into a pout as if she’s going to force herself to cry. “It’ll close in eight days.”
“Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that,” I say, as if I’m talking to a petulant child, but one I need to encourage because that’s the only way to end this sort of tantrum, since she’s now flung herself dramatically onto the steps that lead up to her dressing room. “It’s going to be fantastic. Now, come on and let’s do the final number.”
Her head hangs between her legs in the most woeful pose. I offer her a hand. “You can do this, Alexis.”
She shakes her head and heaves her shoulders. “I need a minute alone.”
She retreats up the stairs to her private dressing room, slams the door and stalls the rehearsal for a full ten minutes as she’s locked in there, the rest of the cast waiting for her to deign to return. Shannon gives me a wide-eyed look and taps her watch as if to say tick tock.
Playing With Her Heart Page 23