by J. S. Scott
He still looked uncomfortable that my eyes were eating up the sight of his naked body as he answered, “They’re Celtic. Our ancestors were Irish. Honestly, they don’t mean a hell of a lot. I went out and got hammered with my band when we got our first record deal. So we all went to the tattoo shop and got tattoos. I just asked them to do something Celtic.”
I loved the one I was fondling, and I traced the head of the black dragon that fanned out on his bicep with Celtic knots entwined together. “Turn,” I requested.
He did, and I ran my fingers over the large sword on the opposite side engraved on his upper arm. “They’re beautiful. You were lucky that you got a good artist,” I mused. Getting a tattoo when you’re drunk could be dangerous. He could have ended up with something totally not him. But both tats suited him, and his strength.
“I chose the sword,” he said hoarsely. “The dragon was pure drunken impulse.”
“You got the sword later?”
He nodded. “When my first album went platinum. I was completely sober that time.”
“I like it,” I confessed. I generally wasn’t big on tattoos, but Xander’s were a part of him and his history, and he wore them well.
I let my palm trail down his chest and over his ripped abs. His enormous hard-on was almost right in front of my face, and I was dying to touch him.
“No!” Xander insisted as he grasped my roving hand at the wrist. “This isn’t about me, Samantha. Not this time.”
His dominant tone shook me, and I flopped onto my back again. “I want to touch you, Xander. You’re probably the most attractive man I’ve ever seen.”
“Then I’m going to start thinking you’re fucking blind or haven’t seen very many guys, woman,” he said in a confused tone. “I’m a carved-up mess.”
“No, you’re not,” I argued. I may have hated the pain he’d had to go through, but I could never hate his scars. Just like his tattoo, they were part of his history, and something that he couldn’t change.
He straddled my hips and laid his palms on my ribs. “But these . . .” His hands moved up to cup my breasts. “They’re perfect.”
Desire fired in his eyes, and my core flooded with slick heat. My breasts were small, but Xander didn’t seem to notice.
I opened my mouth to tell him that I was far from perfect, then forgot what I was going to say as his thumbs circled the hard nipples, stroking over them to tease them even tighter.
“Xander,” I squeaked.
“I love hearing my name on your lips, Sam,” he answered in a coarse, covetous tone. “Keep saying it. Yell it over and over again. Scream it while you come this time.”
I shuddered as he moved back so he could lower his mouth to my chest, then moaned as his mouth clamped over a stiff peak. He wasn’t gentle, but he seemed to know exactly what I wanted. He sucked, then nipped, and finally stroked a rough tongue over the tip of one breast while he manipulated the other expertly with his fingers.
My body flooded with sensation, and my head tilted back on the pillows. “Oh, God. Yes.”
I wrapped my arms around him and then speared my hands into his hair, relishing the feel of the coarse locks between my fingers.
“Xander,” I whined. “Fuck me.” I had an empty space where his engorged cock should be.
He slammed his hands down on each side of my body and moved up until I could feel his lips beside my ear. “Not happening, Samantha. Right now all I want is to see you get off harder than you ever have before.”
Oh, God. My empty channel clenched so tightly it was painful. “And what gets you off?” I panted.
“Honestly?” he questioned in a hoarse, aroused tone.
“Yes. Tell me,” I begged.
His warm breath caressed the side of my face and wafted across my sensitive earlobe as he answered. “Watching a woman trust me enough to do anything I want with her body, trusting me to satisfy her completely.”
Holy shit! I felt the heat flow between my thighs, and I quivered at his authoritative explanation. I had very little sexual experience, and I didn’t exactly see myself as submissive, but his little bedroom games might be pretty damn hot.
“I don’t know if I can do that right now,” I admitted.
“And I don’t expect it, Sam. I fucked up royally the first time. Just trust me to make you come right now.”
“I do.” Maybe after his first performance, I was being naive. But I was going with my gut instinct. At some point, things between Xander and me had changed and shifted. It wasn’t anything I could pinpoint as happening at a specific time. But as we got to know each other, everything had become . . . different.
My body jolted as I felt his fingers on my breasts again, and his mouth on my belly. I broke out in a sweat as his tongue meandered down to my belly button and left a trail of fire wherever he went.
“Xander. Please,” I begged. A little teasing wasn’t cutting it for me. I needed something real and hard.
My fingers fell from his hair as he let go of my breasts and placed his body between my legs, forcing me to open them wider.
“You really are hot for me, Samantha,” he said in a deeply satisfied tone.
Like he didn’t believe me before?
My hands clenched the bottom sheet as he drenched his fingers in my pussy, making me moan for something more substantial. “Too damn hot,” I finally answered in a clipped, frustrated voice.
“Never,” he argued as his finger brushed over my clit. “You can never want me enough to equal how much I need you, Samantha.”
His teasing fingers circled my clit, then briefly pressed over the engorged bundle of nerves, making my body jerk with the intensity of my rapidly growing need to orgasm. I could feel his mouth on my inner thighs, licking and teasing while his fingers drove me nearly insane.
I gritted my teeth, then panted as each touch flowed over my body. Finally, I screamed as his mouth landed on my core, and his tongue thrust through my folds and licked hard over my throbbing clit.
“Yes, Xander. Yes.” I needed to climax. My body was tight with need, begging for release.
I lifted my hips and clutched his hair, urging him to give me more.
He gave me exactly what I wanted.
Big hands went under my ass and he lifted me so his mouth had better access to my pussy, and he licked, nipped, and stroked until my entire body shook with my approaching climax. My head thrashed as I arched my back, completely lost in the pleasure of Xander’s mouth all over me, pushing me to the limit.
My climax wasn’t subtle like it normally was. It hit me like a freight train, and I shuddered as tension gave way to a mind-blowing pleasure that I’d never experienced before.
“Xander!” I screamed in ecstasy, a little frightened by the intensity of my orgasm until it started to recede after the incredible crescendo.
I could hear him suckling between my thighs, leisurely lapping at my juices until I almost lost my mind.
I was a sweaty, panting mess as I lay on the bed trembling from the aftermath of what had just happened.
Putting my hand up, I flipped the hair from my face. “What in the hell just happened to me?” I muttered breathlessly.
Xander was there to answer as he slid up beside me. “You had a good orgasm.”
“Good?” Holy shit, if that was good, I’d hate to see great. I wouldn’t live through it.
“That’s never happened to you before?” Xander guessed as he flopped onto his back and pulled my upper body over his.
“Not like that,” I admitted as I laid my head on his chest. “I’ve only been with a couple of guys. And it’s never been like that. I usually only come when I’m . . . um . . . masturbating.”
“I owed you that, Samantha. What I did to you before was probably unforgivable. But I hope you’ll forgive me anyway.”
I lifted my head and pushed the hair from his face. “You need a haircut,” I observed. “And you don’t owe me anything. But that was amazing.”
He grinned
up at me. “I’m glad it felt good.”
I didn’t have any words for how he’d just made me feel. Probably the best part was feeling . . . wanted. “I still want you to fuck me, Xander. Maybe now worse than ever.” All of the emotional connection was there for us right now, and I ached to feel him inside me.
He slowly shook his head. “Not this time, Sam. This was for you.”
“What about you?”
He was still smiling. “I’ll survive. Watching you come like that was enough for me.”
He rose from the bed, and I immediately protested. “Can you stay?”
Xander turned off the light and came back to the bed. “Yeah. I’m staying. Maybe I can keep the bad dreams away.”
After he settled us both back on the bed and pulled the sheets up, I put my head back down on his chest, starting to feel my exhaustion. But my curiosity about something he’d said wouldn’t let me fall asleep. “So are you into BDSM?”
“No,” he answered frankly. “I went to a club once with some of my band members, but it wasn’t for me. I’m not into inflicting pain to get a woman in a zone, or having them call me their master. And it’s not a lifestyle I want to lead. I just feel like a fucking god when a woman trusts her pleasure to me. I get off on watching her let go of her control so she can just enjoy the ride.”
“Bondage?” I asked curiously.
“Depends on the circumstances. But yeah, it can be pretty hot.”
“Nipple clips?”
“Nope. Too painful,” he answered.
“So just submission?”
“Not all the time. Truth is, it was just an occasional bedroom game that got me off. But I’m starting to feel some kind of out-of-control desire to stake my claim on you.”
I swallowed hard, not brave enough to tell him that every word he said made me hotter than a firecracker on the Fourth of July. I was an independent woman who had never had the desire to be dominated. But I had the feeling that Xander was as much a prisoner of this crazy desire as I was. “I’m jealous of every woman who has ever gotten what I haven’t,” I confessed in the darkness, not sure I would have told him that if I was looking at him face-to-face. I’d never been the jealous type, and I’d never understood other women who were.
“Don’t be,” he rumbled. “I’ve never felt like this with any woman before. And you’ll end up getting everything you want and probably a whole lot more. Now sleep.”
I wanted to ask him to define everything to me, but I was afraid it would sound a little pathetic.
I yawned against his chest, my body and mind completely drained. “Thank you for staying with me.”
His arms tightened. “There’s nowhere I’d rather be.”
I sighed, and then closed my eyes, more content than I’d ever been as I slowly sank into a deep, dreamless sleep.
CHAPTER 13
XANDER
I’m in deep shit!
It was the only thing I could think about as I jogged on the treadmill in the gym of the hotel the next morning. I was in cooldown after running for so long that the muscles in my legs were on fire.
Last night had been for Sam, but Jesus, I woke up wanting her so badly that I’d needed to blow off some steam. My cock was now deflated, but there was an ache in my chest that wasn’t caused by my heavy breathing, or the excessive exercise so damn early in the morning.
I’d wanted to avoid the crowd, and I had. I was the only person present in the gym, which wasn’t surprising since it was probably only around six o’clock in the morning. I’d gotten here around five, ready to outrun my desire to fuck Samantha until she was begging for mercy.
“Why am I not surprised to see you here?” I heard Liam Sullivan’s voice call out from the entrance.
I hit the “Stop” button and jumped off the machine to turn to Liam. “What’s wrong? Is it Tessa?”
He held up a hand. “Nothing is wrong. I swear. I just came down here to work out. I’m used to being up early, and I couldn’t sleep. Since I knew you were staying here, I figured I might see you here since you work out every damn day.”
I snatched a towel and wiped the sweat off my face. “You’re staying here? I didn’t know that.”
“Yep. Just like you, I wanted to be close to Micah’s penthouse without invading their space. They already have Julian and Kristin there.”
I felt my muscles relax. “I’m glad Tessa is okay. For a minute there, I thought you were looking for me because something happened.”
I’d always been fond of Tessa, and knowing she and Micah had each other to love made me happy. Since the first time I’d met her years ago in a chance encounter, I’d been certain she hadn’t deserved the crap that life had dished out for her.
It was pretty clear that she loved Micah, and he worshipped the ground Tessa walked on. They couldn’t be more perfect for each other. My big brother had captured the ideal woman. Problem was, if anything happened to Tessa, I knew Micah would lose it.
Already dressed in a pair of jogging pants and a T-shirt, Liam stepped up on the treadmill and started to warm up. “She’s fine.”
“Why can’t you sleep?” I asked curiously as I plopped my ass down on one of the benches not far from where he was working out. My workout was finished, but I wanted to see if he was okay.
“Feel guilty,” he said. “I left Brooke in charge of the restaurant back home, and one of the guys I hired didn’t show up for work. She was still there at one o’clock in the morning washing fucking dishes.”
“Was she pissed?” I asked.
“Hell, no!” he exploded. “She told me she could handle everything and not to worry about anything except Tessa. But since she was a person short, it left her in a bad position at the restaurant, and it’s busy because it’s summer. She’d work her ass off without complaining.”
“Then why do you feel bad if she wants the work?”
“Because it’s not fair. She’s an hourly employee. She isn’t the damn owner. It’s not her problem that some dickhead didn’t show up for work. That shouldn’t be something she has to deal with, and working that many hours during the busy season is exhausting.”
“Dude, she’ll be fine. She’s young and healthy.”
“It’s summer, and there are weird tourists everywhere. I don’t want her there alone late at night, and then walking home to her apartment.” Liam kicked up the speed on his run.
Okay. Yeah. Now I understood. “You’ve got it for her pretty bad,” I commented. “Why don’t you just give yourself a break and ask her out?”
“She’s too young and way too damn innocent. I told you that. She doesn’t belong with a guy like me. You know my history, dude.”
I knew it wasn’t easy to run and talk at the same time, but Liam managed it pretty smoothly.
Yeah, I knew his history. I knew Liam had done his own battle with alcohol and had a brief flirtation with drugs. But he was nowhere near as well acquainted with that world as I had been. He’d lived in Hollywood. It was hard to not be partying hard at some point if he’d lived that long in the Los Angeles area.
Overall, he was a really decent guy who had done everything he could to take care of Tessa when his parents had passed away. Hell, he’d given up his entire life to move back to a small coastal town for his sister. Liam deserved to finally have his own life, and the woman he wanted so damn much.
“Who does she belong with, then? Some beach-bum tourist? A college guy? Somebody who has a decent career? Brooke can’t be more than ten years younger than you are. She’s obviously not looking for a father figure,” I advised him.
I’d seen Brooke a few times when I’d been at Liam’s restaurant before it opened for business. She sure as hell wasn’t jailbait. The woman had to be approaching her midtwenties. Liam was around midthirties. “Do those years really matter enough to make yourself this miserable?”
“She’s not interested in an older guy,” he answered, his breathing getting harsh.
“You asked her out?” I had
a hard time believing that Brooke didn’t want to go out with Liam. I’d seen the way she looked at him, and the way he looked at her when he didn’t think anybody would notice.
“No. I couldn’t, actually. She apparently has a long-distance boyfriend. I just found out a few days ago.”
Oh, holy shit. “I’m sorry, man,” I told him sympathetically. That had to have hurt, since Liam had carried a torch for the woman since the moment he’d hired her on at the restaurant. “You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe she’ll dump him. Long-distance relationships don’t usually last. What’s the deal with her, anyway? Where did she come from? How come nobody knows her? Most people aren’t going to drift into Amesport for no reason. Especially if they have somebody they love somewhere else.” Brooke was kind of a mystery. Nobody really knew her. She worked hard for Liam, but she was quiet and stayed to herself.
“Hell, I don’t really know much about her myself,” he confessed. “She keeps most things close to her chest, and I never could understand how she ended up here and why. It was really none of my business as long as she was a good employee. I get the feeling that she’s running away from something or someone, but I can’t figure out what or who.”
“Maybe she’s afraid to talk,” I suggested.
“She should trust me by now,” he said unhappily.
“Maybe there’s nothing to tell, then.”
“I doubt that,” he replied. “But I can’t force her to confide in me. Besides, she already has a guy. I’m just her boss.”
Liam sounded hurt, and I hated it. He was a good man, and he’d given up his life and his career in California to come back to Maine and take care of Tessa when she’d lost her hearing. Maybe he’d lived a wild life at one time, but he was one of the most responsible men I knew now. “Find somebody else. I think you need to get laid,” I informed him jokingly.
“How do you know I don’t have sex? Maybe I screw every single woman in Amesport.”
“You don’t,” I answered cockily.
He grimaced. I wasn’t sure if it was the brutal pace he was running at, or if I’d hit a nerve.
“Yeah, like you can talk,” he said roughly. “Do you really want to discuss who has gone longer without getting laid?”