Wild Child (Rock Royalty #6)

by Christie Ridgway

  “It’s simple. I’m having fun. I’m trying to forget.” Her chin lifted and her voice filled with both defiance and desperation. “I’m living in the moment because it’s smacked me hard in the face that’s all I might have. And that’s the only thing I can be certain about.”

  His heart contracted, because sadness ran beneath all the bluster. “Ashlynn…” He cupped her face in his hands, his fatal, futile flaw urging him to promise her he could fix everything for her, be everything to her. “There’s more.”

  Her hands covered his. “Maybe not,” she said, her voice fierce. “Maybe there’s just now and just…this.” Then she went on tiptoe and placed her hot mouth against his.

  Every thought scattered from his mind, and he groaned at the goodness of her taste. One of his hands slid to the back of her head to hold her close, and the kiss consumed everything— past, future, good sense.

  His intention to steer clear.

  There was only this woman in his arms and his consuming need to have her.

  Ashlynn’s head spun as she pressed herself against Brody’s tall, strong form. She could feel his body quiver, and the hand at the back of her head flexed.

  He was still warring with himself, she thought, fighting the desire even as she could feel the heavy bulge of his sex against her belly. She’d surrendered, however, and was throwing caution to the wind, because tonight she wanted this too much to deny herself the pleasure.

  “We’re not friends,” she said against his mouth.

  Ashlynn Childe from Saratoga in Northern California would have told herself she was friends with Brody Maddox.

  But that would have been because Ashlynn Childe from Saratoga would have used the word to put a barrier between them. That Ashlynn had been too afraid to take on a man like this one, so male he made her pulse flutter and her belly swan dive when he walked into the room. That Ashlynn would have been afraid a man like this would demand improper things. Raw passion. Naked pleasures that weren’t the least bit polite.

  She’d been afraid of the sounds and tastes and improprieties of unbridled sex.

  Topanga Ash already knew how delicious all that could be with Brody Maddox. Since he’d walked in tonight she’d been able to think of nothing else. Add a shot or two of belly-burning liquor, and she was eager to make that happen.

  His hand flexed in her hair once more, and she touched her tongue to his bottom lip. His erection pressed into her as she tilted her hips, inviting him to rock against her a second time.

  He groaned, and his tongue speared into her mouth. Ashlynn clutched at his shoulders as a rush of desire flooded her bloodstream. Her inner muscles clenched on emptiness, and she went wet between her legs.

  She reveled in the heat of the need burning like fire through her veins. Ashlynn Childe of Saratoga had been straw and sawdust inside, a mannequin trained to use a modulated voice and good manners. This was what it was to live loud and brash. Like Brae.

  Ashlynn pressed closer to Brody and sucked on his tongue, exalting when one of his big hands moved down her body to grope her ass. The broadness of his palm, the length of his fingers made her feel feminine and small and so…overtaken.

  By lust.

  Then he lifted his head, his breathing ragged. “Wait—”

  “Why?” she demanded, reaching up to pull his mouth close again.

  “Think—”

  “No.” She wanted to feel this, and only this, arousal taking over her body and blanking out all the dark emotions that loomed at the fringes of her mind, the ones waiting to grab her and then drag her into the sad and lonely shadows. Her lips ran down the strong column of his throat, and when she used the edge of her teeth she felt him jerk, heard his little grunt.

  His mouth slammed onto hers.

  “Be careful what you wish for,” he growled when they came up for air again.

  “Not being careful,” she said, yanking up the tails of his shirt so she could feel the sleek skin of his back. It burned against her palms. “Been careful all my life.”

  “You want a mindless fuck then?”

  She laughed, her head dropping back as his mouth explored her throat. The contrast between hot, soft lips and the prickly grit of his evening whiskers made her shudder.

  “Absolutely.” Mindless was exactly what she was after. “Bring it on.”

  He groaned. “Glitter girl, you have no idea what you do to me.”

  “Of course I do.” She laughed again, as bold as could be, and cupped his sex. Squeezed a little. “I know exactly what I do to you.”

  And it was heady stuff, to realize how she affected such a large, powerful man. The instinctive and underlying feminine fear at having aroused him so only added another layer of thrill to it.

  His mouth found the hollow behind her ear, and she shivered. Her nipples had tightened to points so hard they hurt.

  He bit her earlobe, the sharp pain making her jolt. Ripples of ensuing pleasure moved over her, making her moan. Her whole body thrummed with the sweet ache of anticipation. Her inner muscles clenched again, more wetness readied her for him.

  “Can you leave the roadhouse now?” he asked, his voice gruff. “We could go to your house.”

  “No.” That had been her downfall the last time. The softness of a bed and the hours of intimacy had lowered her guard. Made her vulnerable. “Here is good. Right here. Right now.”

  He glanced around. “You might get dirty.”

  “I want it dirty.”

  The word shivered down her spine and tasted good on her tongue. Like candy. Even better, like candy you sneaked fifteen minutes before dinner. She insinuated her hand down the front of his pants, heard his sharp intake of breath and felt his belly contract.

  All the better to wrap her hand around the hot thick stalk of him. “Your manroot.”

  “What?” he asked on a half-laugh, half-groan.

  “I read it in a book, and it seems to fit for you.” She stroked his heavy organ in the confines of her fist. “You don’t like the word? What do you call it? Penis? Hard-on? Joe?”

  Another laughing groan. “Are we actually talking about this now?”

  He covered one of her breasts with his palm, thumbing her stiff nipple.

  She pressed her thighs together, trying to assuage the new ache there.

  “Okay,” she said, moaning as he reached under her sweater to tweak the bud of flesh through her bra. “I don’t need to talk.”

  He grunted and used his free hand to tear open his jeans. While she continued to stroke him, he adjusted denim and cotton so that he freed the thing he would not name.

  “Manroot,” she murmured against his mouth as he swooped down for another kiss.

  “You’re nuts,” he said, lips to lips.

  For you. But she popped that thought like a bubble and opened her mouth wider for his marauding tongue.

  Then he tore his mouth away again.

  “Damn it.” He shook his head as if trying to clear it. “Ash. Hell. We can’t do this. I don’t have a condom on me.”

  She froze. “The dispenser in the men’s room is out.”

  It was on her list, though she didn’t know if she should order them from a supplier or go herself to a big box store and load them up in her cart.

  “There’s no way to sanely do it in here anyway,” Brody said, drawing his hand away from her swollen breast.

  At the idea she couldn’t have him, she only needed him more. Though barely able to make out his perfect features in the darkness, she glared in his direction.

  “You’re not leaving me like this!” she said, stepping back and stamping her foot like the tantrum-inclined toddler she’d never been. “I’m hot and bothered, and if we stop now I might have to go out there and pick up a motorcycle—”

  “Not that,” he said, his spine snapping straight. “Not that.”

  Uh-oh. She might have poked the tiger with a little too sharp a stick. “Okay, okay,” she said, lifting her hands in surrender.

  He
grabbed her wrists and yanked her close to him again. “You want it dirty, little girl?”

  The harsh note in his voice made her shiver…in the very best way. Ashlynn lifted her chin. No backing down now, not that she was the least bit inclined to do so.

  “Yes.”

  “Then it’s going to get dirty.”

  He brought her hands up to his mouth. She could feel his gaze on her face.

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  Her breath was moving in and out of her lungs in fast, shallow pants. God, the ruthless tone of his voice had her even more wound up. She was soft and wet between her thighs, and her clitoris was throbbing and desperate to be touched.

  “So…” She had to clear her throat and start again. “So noted.”

  “Cup your palms,” he ordered. And when she obeyed, he spit into them, once, twice, three times.

  She stared, shocked by the raunchy earthiness of the act.

  “Now,” he said, pushing her hands toward his exposed cock. “Now stroke me.”

  Obeying, she closed her spit-slick hands around his hard length, the sound of his groaning response like a callused palm stroking her own skin. She moaned, and he caught it with his mouth, kissing her as if he burned for her like she burned for him.

  One of his hands crawled beneath the hem of her sweater and yanked at the cup of her bra to expose her to his touch. She arched, offering herself to him. He pinched her nipple, and then he nudged at her foot, insisting she widen her stance.

  She moaned again, tangling her tongue with his as she had a moment’s thought about her skirt, her tights, the panties underneath. Why’d I wear so many clothes?

  But Brody wasn’t hampered by her layers. As she continued kissing him and working his erection up and down, swirling her thumb over the plump head, his free hand yanked up the hem of her short shirt. Then he tore at the flimsy stockings. They came apart easily, the elastic waist still circling her body as he pushed the rest of the lacy fabric toward her knees.

  The skin at the back of her thighs prickled as his calloused fingers drew along that sensitive flesh. Her hands tightened on his cock.

  Brody tore his mouth from hers and ran his lips to her ear.

  “I hope you don’t care about these panties, either,” he said, then ripped them from her in a move so masterful her heart quaked.

  “Oh, God.”

  His hand cupped her bottom, caressing her, taking owner’s rights of her bare flesh. She pushed her forehead against his chest as his fingers traced the cleft then delved between her thighs. He teased her there, spreading around the slippery moisture with knowing fingers, and when he stroked over her most sensitive bundle of nerves, he pressed his mouth to her ear.

  “Pleasure button,” he said.

  She might have snickered, but the sensation was so exquisite she didn’t have the breath for it. Her teeth took hold of the material of his shirt. Her hands twisted and stroked. Brody breathed heavy and hot against her ear as they fondled each other toward orgasm.

  It was building, bliss gathering between her legs. His rod was like hot metal, and she moved one hand lower, palming the soft skin covering his full, tight balls.

  He gripped her waist while the fingers of his other hand continued to play with her pleated flesh. Her hips tilted, trying to coax a deeper touch. On another groan he complied, a quick shallow dip, then he thrust high with two fingers. Gasping, she shot to tiptoe, trying to ease the invasion.

  His mouth trailed back to hers, and as he gave her another heated, aggressive kiss, she dropped back to her heels and took him in, surrendering to his penetration.

  Beyond shame, she rocked her body on those piercing fingers, trying to entice them to move. Her clitoris was pulsing, begging, swollen with the lust that raced through her bloodstream, but he continued to torture it with only the lightest of touches.

  Pressure built. Her skin felt too tight, her nerves strung too taut, her grasp of reality was only Brody and the pleasure he was promising…yet not yet providing. She clenched on his fingers and squirmed, desperate for a firmer caress to her clitoris.

  Her body was humming, reaching, needing, as he moved his head to drop kisses on her cheek on the way to her ear.

  “You make me come, and then I’ll give you exactly what you want,” he said.

  “Oh, please,” she said, in almost a whimper.

  “Make me come, Ash.”

  Nearly frantic, she began to move her hand faster on him.

  “Harder,” he said. “Rough strokes.”

  His dark voice made her break out in goose bumps.

  Obeying his command, she applied herself to his pleasure, one hand jerking up and down, the other taking a firmer grasp of his balls.

  But he didn’t wait for his big finish before he began to touch her with more intent, his thumb swirling over her clitoris, his long fingers moving in her, retreating the smallest bit, then thrusting deep again.

  Pleasure taunted her, and the desire to prolong the breathless anticipation of the finale was almost as strong as the desire to experience it. Everything centered on Brody, his touch, the sound of his heavy breaths, the smell of him that she took into her lungs with each unsteady inhale.

  A worry niggled at her, in the very back reaches of her consciousness, that there might be a problem with this mindless thing. It meant she was no longer in control, that she allowed her body—and maybe her heart—to take sway over her head.

  That could lead to disaster.

  But then he stiffened, and she saw his eyes close and his jaw harden. He buried his face against the side of her hair and thrust into her hand as his thumbnail brushed firmly across her swollen, wet clit. With a moan, she began to shake, the pleasure bursting over her, passing through her, liquefying her bones even as she was aware he was coming, too, his release spurting hot and thick over her hands.

  They leaned on each other as they recovered. She planted her forehead against his chest. His neck curved so his bristly cheek pressed against her soft one.

  It should have been awkward. But that wasn’t the thought she had when he finally pulled his fingers free of her body and wrapped his muscled arms around her. They stood together for more long moments, two people who’d survived something unexpected—a sudden squall or a jarring earthquake. When they were both breathing evenly again, he shifted back and dried her hands with the front tails of his shirt, the action matter-of-fact yet also caring.

  On a silent sigh, Ashlynn stepped out of her boots, stripped off her ruined tights, and then shoved her feet back inside the leather.

  “No more getting on top of pool tables tonight,” Brody said, scooping up her torn panties and slipping them in his front pocket.

  She was bare beneath the skirt. “No more getting on top of pool tables tonight,” she agreed, then hesitated. “But I have to go back out there.”

  “Yeah.” He tucked in his shirt then smoothed his palms over his hair. “I have to go, too.”

  The pair of survivors exited the storeroom, blinking in the bright light of the break area. Brody turned, a small frown on his handsome face. Here and there a speck of glitter was caught in his whiskers.

  His blue eyes studied her. “Are you going to be all right?”

  The intensity of his gaze pinned her in place.

  “I…”

  She got lost looking at him, at those chiseled features that belonged on a big screen. Her body still hummed from his artful sexpertise, but his dominance was tempered with a rugged type of tenderness that was undeniable—and undeniably fascinating to her.

  Oh, God. Maybe mindless had been a bad idea after all. It had left her vulnerable to the appeal of him being planted more firmly inside her head.

  One of his brows arched. “Ash?”

  “I’m all right. Great, actually,” she said, and faked a smile, because that was her personal expertise.

  He touched her cheek, the gesture almost affectionate, and it rippled across her body, lifting the fine hairs a
nd making her fingers and toes curl. As he walked away, she watched him, memories of the last few minutes already replaying. He was in her head, all right.

  She could only hope he hadn’t rooted in any place more critical than that.

  Chapter 7

  Brody knew what he had to do. Part of him had known since that night at the club when he’d run in to Ash.

  Rain streaked his windshield as he waited across the street for Rachel to exit her school in the late afternoon. When he saw her pass through the gates, a polka dot-printed umbrella perched over her head, he climbed out of his car.

  She saw him immediately, and made her way in his direction, using the crosswalk, of course. Her warm smile sent a shaft of guilt through him.

  Such a fucking familiar emotion.

  When she reached his side of the street, though, he smiled, too, and asked if she had time for coffee. Her brows rose, but she didn’t say anything more than “yes” until he’d bundled her into the car. They exchanged basic pleasantries as they made the short trip to the café around the corner.

  With their beverages bought, they bumped knees under a small table and smiled at each other over their cardboard cups of coffee. When he asked about her day, she talked easily of her adventures with her classroom of charming munchkins.

  Quite a different sort of clientele, he thought, than a dozen rough and ready motorcycle gang members.

  “What’s new with you?” Rachel asked then, in a bright voice.

  She’d been that for him, bright, a bright light he’d followed onto a better path. He’d thought he’d find there, find in her, everything he wanted.

  Everything that was good for him.

  But he’d been compelled instead onto a different route…one that had taken him again to Satan’s. To Ashlynn.

  He hauled in a breath. “I went to the roadhouse last night. That place…that place in Topanga.”

  Rachel stilled, and her gaze dropped as she fiddled with the insulated sleeve around her drink. “Oh. I see.”

  Christ, what now? He hated the thickness of his tongue and his inability to find the right words. Hadn’t he always been able to talk to women? It was a talent of his.