“Closure?”
“I miss you. I miss us. The way we used to be.” He continued to hold her hand, and his whisper stirred the fine hairs against her hairline. “I fucked up. And you know I’m sorry about that. I wished for so long we could find our way back. But if we’re not going to… We need to make a better last memory.”
Her thoughts shifted to the barn, wondering if he was referring to sex, and before she could wonder too long, he confirmed it.
“One thing I hate, I mean really hate, to the point of obsessing about it constantly, is that the last time—our last memory of us together. It was hot. But shit, I was fucking fuckin’ you like a beast. And then it all went bad from there.” He dropped her hand but ran his fingers up her wrist, up her arm to her elbow and then down again. “I think I could deal a lot easier—we both could—if the last time was not a wall bang in a barn.” And then his thumb brushed her lips in that old familiar way, sending a jolt of lightning down to her belly and then farther. “If it was as sweet as it was hot…”
Could she do it? Bang Gage, knowing it was for one time only?
Yes! Her body screamed, and acting on no will of her own, her tongue darted out, tasting his thumb.
Chapter 32
The intimate caress to the tip of his thumb caused a shiver to wrack his frame, yet at the same time, liquid fire lapped every cell of his body. Fuck, he had missed her tongue.
Just as much, he’d missed the look in her eyes when he touched her like that, when he kissed her… His chin instinctively dipped, but he curbed the instinct, waiting.
What he’d suggested was either the smartest proposition of his life or proof how much of a self-indulgent ass a former rock star could be. Later, when he looked in the mirror and reflected his intentions, he never settled on a clear answer. Not that he cared.
All he cared about was possessing her again. And in the process, getting Scarlette fuckin’ Conterra fantasies out of his system once and for all, so they could be best sibling-like friends. Her blues were partially hidden beneath her thick lashes for the longest as she evaded his eyes in favor of her slide on sneakers. Her lids lifted, but she stared beyond him, and he rubbed his dampened thumb into her lips. Finally, her eyes met his gaze, and she tongue lashed his thumb again, this time drawing it into her mouth with a suckle and holding it with her teeth for a moment.
He jerked his thumb from the heavenly ministrations of her mouth, and his lips crashed to hers, eager to replace his digit with his tongue. His fingers splayed the sides of her head, forking into her hair as he slanted his lips across hers and a guttural groan escaped the recesses of his soul when their tongues clashed.
The kiss was as wild as it was sweet. The force of it sent her stumbling backward, but he held her steady and groaned yet again when she clutched his shoulders for support. Her back hit the door and then her head settled into the groove of one of the panels. They fed and fueled on one another’s kiss. Her head was still in his hands when he drew back just far enough to ask, “So, yes?”
Her breathing was as labored as his was, and he drowned in the beauty of her flushed cheeks and passion-steeped eyes. A flicker of impatience crossed her expression, and unable to reach his lips, she kissed his throat. The heavenly slide of her lips and tongue made it to the hollow above his collar bone before he lost it and used her ponytail to tip her face back to his, capturing her mouth again. His fingers worked her shorts, and he hooked her panties, dragging until both garments hit her ankles. Inhaling the scent of her as he nipped at her neck, he pushed at his jeans when he felt his belt part under her hands. His fingers dug into her fine ass, reacquainting with the curves and valleys. Tracing the heat of her slit, he swallowed her whimper into their next kiss, and then her yelp when he plunged his fingers into the warm wetness that was all his. “So wet for me.”
Unable to wait, he knelt a bit and in one smooth movement replaced his fingers with his cock. Gripping her, he pulled her up with him, and cursed with familiar satisfaction when her legs wrapped him. When their rhythm had her wedged to the wall, her shoulders and head bumping, he managed some sort of thought process, enough to swing them around and still locked together dump her onto the tall bed. She released her arms from his neck, but not the grip of her legs and he straightened, maintaining his hold as he continued to rock her. Strands of her hair had escaped the ponytail and lay in wild disarray on the bed and clothing around her face. Beneath the sleeveless blouse, her tits bounced and he wished he’d taken the extra half a minute to rip the garment from her body. His mouth watered, missing what he hadn’t taken the time to taste.
Her head bumped his bag enough to send it over the opposite edge of the mattress, and her fingers curved, reflexively clutching the cord to his charger. Her eyes held his, the lids half closed. Hiking her legs up a bit higher, he angled his thrust and growled in satisfaction when those blues rolled back into their sockets and she screamed his name. Again, and again she shrieked, mixing his name with unintelligible syllables of gibberish. And then she was simply screaming. His ears thundered with his own pulse and he bit the tip of his tongue to hold himself back until he felt her legs tremble for the second time. With a roar of his own, he slammed himself to her as he came, and it was then he noticed as if in an alternate reality, the condoms settling from their bounce all over the bed.
The multi facets of irony in what had just happened didn’t escape him.
The condom he’d placed in her hand was unopened on the floor behind him somewhere.
Once again, they’d fucked like animals.
And he was no closer to giving her up as a lover and having her back as a sister.
Chapter 33
“Son of a bitch.”
At his curse, she drug her eyes open and couldn’t keep from moving her chin enough to nuzzle the dark damp strands of hair resting against her face. He’d collapsed crossways on the bed with her, and one of his legs lay intimately between hers.
Lifting his head, he eyed his task as he worked a few of her blouse buttons from their slots. His fingers stroked the valley between her breasts and then the swell of each. Dipping beneath her bra, he tugged at one of the achy taunt nipples. His words were breathy. “That didn’t exactly go as planned.”
Meaning they’d screwed like wild animals again? True dat. But she couldn’t add her amen yet. Her limbs were still rubbery and her lips wouldn’t part.
“Want to go again?” He’d liberated one of her girls from the confines of the bra and now they both watched as he toyed with it. Her heart slammed against her ribs, but she controlled her breathing.
“Whatever.” She gave in to the urge to tease him with words as much as he was teasing her with touch. “We can have a do-over if you want to.”
His gaze darted to hers, and she saw the flicker of hurt before he aptly read the sass in her eyes. “We don’t have to.” He pressed a finger between her lips, wetting it and brought it back to his playground. “If you don’t want to.” The cool air of the room bathed the damp tip, making her body long for his mouth, not his hand.
Summoning every ounce of her sapped strength, she rolled to him, running a hand up beneath his tee shirt, stopping on what she sought. She smiled in gratification to hear his groan when her fingers circled one of his nipples. “Want to take a shower? Play it by ear?”
It was a game they’d had between them in the past and her memories flickered pleasantly within the lobes of her brain.
Want to fuck? Maybe. Come swimming with me. We’ll play it by ear.
Want your dick sucked? Oh, I don’t know… Let’s take a shower. Play it by ear.
Which of course, ‘playing it by ear’ had never been a serious option. Sex had always been the agenda from the beginning of any of their wordplay. As it was now.
Grabbing her hand, he tugged her upright, and they sprinted to the bathroom. A push shoved the door closed. They stripped the vestiges of their clothing in record time—socks, shirts, and her bra. He adjusted the shower and they
stepped over the side of the tub and wrapped together beneath the spray.
His head dipped and she groaned when their lips meshed. Not that anything was on her mind now except the familiar fire burning through her every vein and capillary, but she’d already conceded some time ago that no kiss would ever be as good as the ones she and Gage shared. Their kiss was every bit as hungry as the one that had begun the crazy out of control ride in the bedroom. His mouth consumed hers and their tongues slipped and slid together in all of the ecstatic ways she remembered…
Until he stopped, and forcefully set her away.
In the lighting of this room, his eyes took on a whiskey hue as they skimmed from the lips he’d just kissed to her toes, which almost touched his. Her body reacted as if it were his hands instead of his languid look caressing it. Her nipples hardened, heat pooled into a wet ache between her legs, and the goose flesh prickled her skin.
Reaching out, he traced a finger down her chest and stopped at the sensitive patch of skin just below a slight bikini line leftover from days in his pool more than a year ago. “I love looking at you…”
“Ditto…” She slid both hands up hard flat abs and moved closer to glide them around to his backside. “New ink?” With her tongue, she traced the half-opened rose and its charred petals positioned in the center of his breastbone among all the barbed wire music staffs and notes she remembered.
“Like it?”
“Mmh, hmm.”
He ran a finger down the conclave of her chest. “Um, earlier, I didn’t ask and should have. You still okay this way?” His other hand remained on his own body and encircled around those long thick inches of pleasure. An answering throb or two pulsed between her thighs. At first, she misunderstood what he was asking, remembering all the times he’d indulged her voyeuristic side. But his next words cleared things up. “With nothing between us…”
He was speaking of condoms.
Unwillingly, an ugly reminder flickered through her mind of the woman—his ex—Allison or whatever her name had been. And of the throngs of women she’d seen throw themselves at him.
“Should I be?” She countered and watched a scowl shadow his face.
His answer was immediate and earnest. “I’ve never gone without—except with you.” Grazing his fingertips up her stomach, he tweaked the tip of one breast. “I was asking about you.”
“Me?” She drew in an indignant breath, and a twinge of anger coursed through her, knowing Derrick had been her only lover in so long. “Seriously? Me.” He had no way of knowing her lack of a sex life and yet the buzz of anger became a flurry of fury.
“Birth control, Scar.” His agitated fingers left her body and forked into his wet hair. “That’s all I was asking. Believe me. I don’t want to know anything else.”
“There’s nothing else to know,” she snapped. “Way to kill the mood, by the way.”
“I got plenty of mood right here…” He closed in, surrounding her with his expanse of ink and muscle. His callused hands landed on and possessively squeezed her rear while his hard dick smashed against the soft skin of her front.
It became a give and take match of mouths to skin with Gage winning—when he wanted to. The scruff on his chin was heaven against the most sensitive expanses of her skin. His lips brushed each trail he blazed until she was delirious. The taste of him was something she’d hungered for, far too long. The laps of his tongue here, there, everywhere, fed her craze.
They played against the tiled walls, and at some point, ended up horizontal, stretched out in the tub as the spray of endless lukewarm water rained down. The bathroom acoustics echoed their every moan, groan, and whimper in a sinfully sexy way.
Gage hadn’t unpacked yet, so in the absence of any toiletries scattered on the vanity, she used her fingers to comb her hair back from her face. He opened the door and a heavenly rush of air cooled her skin. Obviously feeling as hot as she felt, he abandoned his towel, and she resisted the urge to snap the towel she still held to his god-like ass as she trailed him into the main room.
When he stopped in his tracks, she ran smack into the wall of his back, and he pivoted, shoving her back into the seclusion of the bathroom.
But not before she saw Landon.
The drummer was stretched on the bed that wasn’t a rumpled mess, and his jeans gaped open. The television was on, but muted.
Wrapping her towel securely to her body, she stared into nothingness repulsed. Gage stood in front of the closed bathroom door, wearing an equally horrified look on his face.
“What the hell is he doing in there?”
Gage arched his brows in what looked like an attempt at sarcasm. She gave her towel another firm tuck and stifled any verbal expression of her revulsion. From the looks of it, Landon had pleasured himself to the erotic sounds coming from the bathroom as she and Gage had sex. If that wasn’t bad enough, he’d seen her naked.
She was avoiding the worst of the worst. For all of his innuendos since the tour began, Landon had now seen with his own eyes Gage and her together.
“He’s not going to say anything.” Grabbing the towel he’d left in a heap on the vanity, Gage wrapped his own waist as he made the assurance. “Be right back. I’ll get your clothes.” He disappeared, closing the door firmly behind him.
Too late, she was remembering that generally on this tour, she was the only one who didn’t share a room. How could she have had such a lapse? How could Gage have forgotten? They had been lucky they were in the privacy of the bathroom when Landon arrived.
“Shiiit, dude.” Landon’s voice clearly carried through the wall. “Was that Scarlette?”
“Nope.” Gage.
Seconds passed, and she could only imagine one of the meaningful stare-downs similar to those she’d often seen pass between Colt and Gage. And then Landon said, “Whatever. Listen, tell Scarlette her phone’s been blowing up.”
Gage was right back with a fist full of clothing. Leaving the bulky weight of her phone in the pocket of her shorts, she dressed as if the building were on fire.
“He’s not going to say a word.” Gage promised again, and she stayed quiet. How could he be so sure? The Instagram episode earlier in the summer was a stark reminder of the idiot drummer’s insensitivity.
To her surprise, Landon was gone from the room when they emerged and not waiting with one of his taunts. Gage walked her to her room, and when she popped the lock on her door with the keycard, he asked to come inside with her.
He pulled her into a hug and whispered again into her hair. “He won’t do anything. Won’t say anything.”
“Yeah. He will. He’s an asshole.”
“He won’t. I swear.”
“How do you know?”
“I know.”
He seemed positive, and she breathed easier, believing him.
There was no show that night. They were on a seventy-two-hour break before their slot at one of the biggest festivals on this tour.
They ordered up and over their meal decided to extend their ‘closure’ through the night. She justified their extended workout since their perfect shower time had been marred by the thought of Landon jacking off in the next room to their erotic tune.
It wasn’t until sometime in the middle of the night that she remembered her phone and rolled from the bed. Unearthing it from a pile of clothing, she found it dark and cold. Another search—this one through her bag—produced the charger, and she stretched her sated and satisfied, sore body into a chair as she waited for it to power up. As it hummed to life and synced with various tones, Gage rolled over in his sleep, and the sheet slipped to his lean hips, distracting her.
Even in only the shadows of her hotel room, he was magnificent.
Could she give him up again? Was it really what they wanted? Had he picked his career over their relationship with the same resolve she had picked a certain ideal of her life over their relationship?
Shit! Three of the several texts were from Logan and their basic message was the sam
e each time. ‘Call me.’ And three of her missed calls were from Logan with no accompanying voice messages.
Since she’d been on this tour, she and Logan had communicated daily. They’d never officially broken up. But lately, his correspondence felt more friendly than boyfriend-ly. She’d bet her last dime he was ready to break things off. If this was indeed the development, it didn’t make her feel any better about screwing Gage before officially breaking it off with Logan.
“Who’s got you looking so sad?” Gage’s voice was a slurry, sleepy rumble from the shadows of the bed.
“Me,” she admitted and set the phone aside to finish charging. “I make myself sad.”
The moonlight played on her forlorn features, and he decided he’d never seen anything as beautiful as a nude Scarlette Conterra silhouetted in the darkness with her hair mussed around her face and cascading over her thoroughly fucked body.
“C’mere. Let’s make you happy again…”
The towel she’d been sitting on left tiny grooves on the backs of her thighs, and he unconsciously traced them with his fingertips as he tasted first one tit and then the other. Rolling onto her, he enjoyed the friction of their skin before he went down.
If there was anything he excelled in, it was making Scarlette’s body very happy…
…Not so much her mind and soul obviously.
Long after she’d screamed out her orgasms, after her lids had closed over her beautiful eyes, and after her breathing had evened, he remained awake, staring into the inky blackness above the bed.
At some point, he tried to guess the time. Leaving before morning light would be best all around. Stealthily, he eased from the bed and wandered into the bathroom to take a piss. Afterward, he stepped into his boxer briefs and took a seat in the chair she’d vacated. He alternated between studying her shadowy curves and watching the traffic on the street far below the window.
He rethought everything. If he could convince her to make another go of it. If being with her meant the end of his career as he’d known it and the beginning of one not dependent on the whims of the public, was he ready for that? To never again feed from the frenzied energy of tens of thousands of fans before him? Did he need the adoration of a fickle public to feel significant? Or the adoration of one significant woman?
Hung Out: A Needles and Pins Rock Romance Page 47