by Stacy Gail
“You don’t think what we’ve got going on is real?”
“In this moment, yes. But I’m not prepared to extend myself any farther than that. That’s why I’m leery of putting any official ‘relationship’ label on us.”
“Why? Because you think I’ll vanish the moment you do?”
“Maybe. That would…” Kill me. “That would go against my new philosophy of not hoping for any kind of future when it comes to the people in my life. I don’t want to count on any future. I just want to savor what we have right now.”
“And you’re saying that’s enough for you?”
“I’m saying that I’m trying for it to be enough. But I’ll admit it—it’s hard not to hope when it comes to you,” she added, and it took most of her strength to get the confession out. The last thing she wanted to admit was that she was a coward, but he had to know where she stood. Anything less would be unfair. “What we have going on between us… it’s beyond wonderful. But I refuse to mess it up with hoping for promises, because they’ll get broken. And I don’t want to hear any lies, because they hurt more than the truth. All I want is to just enjoy you, this moment, and I want to keep doing that for as long as you’re okay with me being in your life. That’s all.”
He was quiet for a long moment before nodding once. “I get that we bring our own personal baggage packed with all sorts of shit to the table, so if you don’t want to slap an official label on what we’re doing, that’s okay. But I do need that, so here it is. You and I are seeing each other exclusively. No one else for me, no one else for you. I won’t accept anything less, Becks. Agreed?”
“Of course.” The mere thought of any other man touching her was untenable. “There’s no one for me but you.”
A flash of something that looked like triumph sharpened the edges of his smile. “We need to see each other every day. Twenty-four hours can’t go by without some private ‘us’ time.”
Did he think he had to twist her arm to make that happen? “Absolutely.”
“And while I respect how you’re not big on making plans for future events, I’d like to pick you up after work later on tonight and take you to my place.”
“That sounds like a kind of future I can handle. What’s your place like?”
“Empty.”
That made her brows arch. “Do you have something against furniture?”
“Not that kind of empty.” Then he shook his head as if laughing at himself. “Just pack a few things that you’ll feel comfortable leaving there, so you can settle in and make yourself at home.”
“Oh.” Her heart fluttered, and she honestly couldn’t tell whether it was from happiness or panic. “I can do that.”
“Good.” He released her wrists and ducked his head to nip at her lower lip. “One last thing. Try and remember you’re talking to a guy who’s got a thing for tattoos, okay? That alone should tell you I have no fear of things like permanence.”
“Have you forgotten that I don’t have a single tattoo?”
“I haven’t forgotten.” Nevertheless he pulled back the panels of her robe to drink in her unmarked nakedness as if he couldn’t get enough of the sight of her. “Though I think I might need to have my memory refreshed.”
Chapter Eleven
Becks was pretty sure there was nothing wrong with Payne’s memory, but she was more than happy to indulge him as he devoted himself to the task of covering every exposed inch of her with kisses. Of the six condoms he’d brought with him only two remained, and the night’s vigorous activities should have dulled the soul-carving sharpness of her desire for him. But the moment he touched her, tasted her, every cell in her body became alight with quivering need, as intoxicated by him as if Payne was her personal drug of choice. All thoughts of inhibition and sense of self-protection vanished, and in its place was a relentless drive to savor the heaven he gave her.
He moved to her side as he gave lavish attention to first one breast, then the other, his hand smoothing a deliberate path down her belly to the juncture of her thighs. She opened at the first probing of his fingers while his mouth worked magic on the erect nub of her breast. She plowed her fingers through his hair to hold him to her and would have rolled onto her side to face him, but he stopped her, and she could feel his mouth smile against her skin.
“Stay right where you are.” His mouth followed the path of his hand, his tongue drawing circles along her skin above her navel before he explored the indentation. “Hey there, cute little innie. I can’t believe I haven’t kissed you yet.”
She laughed, because he made it impossible to do anything else. Had sex ever been this much fun before Payne? It had to mean something that she couldn’t remember having a real sex life before he came into her world. “I haven’t kissed yours, either. Bring that bad boy over to my mouth and let’s see what I can do to change that.”
“Your wish is my command.” The smile still edged his voice as he moved around to give her access to the anatomy she was interested in while he still focused on her tummy, his weight suspended over her. Her eyes filled with the magnificent view of Payne’s muscle-sculpted rib cage and tautly ridged abdomen. The words “No Regrets” tattooed in heavy black script curved from one hip bone to the other in a shallow concave, connecting those deliciously defined obliques of his that made her mouth water. It was her favorite tattoo. She loved to trace it, just as much as she loved how he couldn’t keep from laughing whenever she did. But as much as she enjoyed the scenery, that wasn’t what grabbed her attention now. His penis, fully erect with the head dark with desire was just above her, and absolutely irresistible to everything feminine in her. With a smile of pure anticipation, she reached up to curl her fingers around him, his stiffened flesh so hot he burned against her palm.
“Ahh.” A shudder ripped through his body while his penis twitched in tandem with the abdominal muscles just above her. He rested his face on her stomach, his panting breath feathering across her belly as he clearly struggled to get a hold of himself. “That’s… not my belly button.”
“And it definitely couldn’t be described as an innie.” Her own breath caught when he once again turned his attention to covering every exposed part of her with tasting, open-mouthed kisses. “Kissing belly buttons is fun and all, but I’ve got better things to do with my mouth. And so do you.”
“You read my mind.” She laughed, and it sounded as excited as she felt as he nipped at the skin below her navel, his hands sliding along her inner thighs to open them to their fullest extent. With a hunger to make those magnificent muscles in his stomach spasm with the same kind of helplessness she often felt when he loved her, Becks stroked his rock-hard length from the base to the tip. With each stroke she brought him closer to her mouth, reveling in his hot-satin texture and in the hungry quaking anticipation she sensed in him.
Quaking. Shuddering. Tied in knots. There was no greater high in knowing that he was both literally and figuratively held in the palm of her hand, and that he trusted her enough to put himself in her care.
Clearly the man needed to be rewarded for such trust.
She moistened her lips before she closed them over the purple crown, then slid them off in a wet, too-brief kiss. The sound that ripped from his throat was one of fractured heaven, and it made her whole being crave to hear it again. Such was her concentration on his response that shock jolted like lightning through her body when his clever, clever fingers once again delved between the folds of her sex. Unerringly he discovered the center of her pleasure and caressed it without mercy, and she almost missed his purr of approval when her hips picked up his rhythm to rub against his touch.
“There’s nothing hotter on this earth than you going after whatever pleases you.” His voice was rough with tension while his breath shallowed out to match hers. “You’re the most openly sensual woman I’ve ever met, Becks. It makes me want to give you all the pleasure you can stand so I get the privilege of watching you lose yourself to it.”
She wanted to re
spond that his own reactions to her gave her the same dizzying rush, but he seemed intent on destroying her ability to talk by massaging her so relentlessly she could do nothing more than whimper. Feverish bliss effervesced in her blood, spreading a languorous heat through her body to transform her into a being that responded purely to sensation. The sensitive flesh tingled, growing so hot and slick with need that she half-believed she was melting.
But oh, how she wanted him to melt for her as well.
With her breath short and falling in time with his expert ministrations, she slid her tongue along one side of his erect flesh, then the other, thrilling at the erratic thrusts of his hips. It was as though he was trying to stop himself from moving in order to prolong the euphoria of having her mouth on him and failing miserably. She wanted him to fail. More than anything, she wanted him to be as lost and out of control as he made her. She couldn’t think of any greater gift to give him than that.
She could feel the throb of his pulse as she slowly dragged her tongue along the underside of his penis to the super-sensitive ridge. She dallied with it until he moaned, before she once again surrounded him with her lips. This time she kept him in the wet chamber of her mouth with a not-so-gentle suction designed to pull the blood closer to the surface. His taste was earthy and masculine, faintly salty and all sexy, and she couldn’t stop herself from rubbing her tongue on his crown in the hope of driving him completely insane.
“I fucking love that.” The words were ground out from between his teeth and almost unrecognizable as his hips began to pump in earnest. His breath caressed over her even as he lowered his head. “Yes, yes, yes… God, yes, Becks.”
His mouth came down on her, determined to make her as insane as she wanted to make him. Like magic, all traces of coherent thought drained away. Raw sensation took its place, and her world shrank to pinpoint solely on where he touched. Even as she stroked his shaft with fingers and lips and tongue, all she knew was wave after shimmering wave of insanity-inducing pleasure as he laved her over-sensitized nub. Endlessly he circled and pushed at it, her intimate flesh swollen and so needy, tears slid from the corners of her closed eyes. He was killing her. Fucking killing her. Every taut muscle in her body spasmed with the crushing build-up of tension. If a person could die from an overdose of delight, she was trembling on the very brink of it.
His thrusts intensified, filling her mouth, his every breath a harsh moan of gathering madness. It was the same for her, the agonizing delight sharpening, folding in on itself, clenching deeper and deeper and plunging her into a beautiful darkness. Then he sucked hard on her clitoris with such sudden intensity, it catapulted her into an ecstasy that exploded in her like a supernova. He came with her, and as his salty juices surged, she knew with every primal instinct she possessed that no matter where life took her, she would never know the depths of ecstasy or attentive care with any other man than she did with Payne.
In Payne’s opinion, time was an evil thing, an elastic torture device designed to break his sanity. The early hours of the morning he’d spent in Becks’s bed had flown by with cruel speed, only to have the rest of the day at work crawl from one eternal minute to the next. He found some relief in bugging Becks on Skype, who seemed happy to be bugged despite having her work interrupted on what she referred to as his “portrait.” He was itching to see it, a fact which seemed to give her gleeful pleasure. When she informed him that he could get a look at it along with the rest of the world when she put it up for auction online he laughed, certain she was kidding. He was still certain she was kidding.
Almost.
The one thing he did know was that he wouldn’t be happy until she created a portrait of them together, preferably in the throes of passion. Considering his personal history, she probably wouldn’t be too excited with the prospect of being filmed while having sex, but he wanted that moment captured for all time from her artistic point of view. Nothing was more beautiful than Becks when she came. He’d give his entire fortune to have her recreate that shattering second when she was totally his.
That was the only time she seemed to belong to him, he thought, absently clicking through his emails. But now he had a better understanding of why she’d never shown any interest in a more lasting connection with him. The shit her family put her through had damaged her ability to trust, and who could blame her? A person learned about trust through their first and most intimate relationships with their family. If those relationships were betrayed, everything got jacked up.
Irony was such an epic bitch. For years he’d avoided the overly possessive, happily-ever-after type, a job made that much harder once fame and fortune rolled his way. Monique had been just such a crazy-eyed clinging vine—a clinging vine he’d been trying get away from the night he’d first crossed paths with Becks. That was a meeting Becks would never remember, of course, but God knew he’d never forget it. Who knew that when he had pulled her out of that smoke-filled car, he would one day be in danger of becoming a clinging vine himself?
Then he grimaced. Holy shit. When it came to Becks, he was nothing like that psycho bitch Monique. So what if Becks ran on a continuous loop in his head? That didn’t make him an obsessively needy. He had a unique bond with her, even if she didn’t know about it, so it was understandable she was special to him. Incredibly special. To the point where he couldn’t go for more than a few minutes without thinking about her. Or that he had to know she was safe whenever they were apart. Or that lately, his happiness could be directly measured by the level of her happiness. All of that meant he was an exceptional boyfriend, but it sure as hell didn’t mean he was overly attached.
Yeah. Sure it didn’t.
“I’m so fucked,” he muttered to his computer screen.
“I’m glad you’re finally admitting it,” Scout said as she pushed through the door, giving him a quizzical look. “I buzzed you. Didn’t you hear?”
Great. Now he was going deaf on top of losing his mind. “Obviously not. What’s up?”
“Thanks to the ever-fabulous but hopelessly temperamental Twist, the new dragon lettering is in.”
“Cool.”
“There’s a problem.”
He sighed. “When it comes to Twist, there’s always a problem.”
“Here’s hoping you maintain that philosophical outlook when you hear that he’s now decided he doesn’t want to let House Of Payne use it.”
In a blink, Payne’s mood went from dark to black. “Goddamn it. Twist submitted the art knowing full well it was for House Of Payne. He even signed a fucking copyright release form for that lettering.”
“I know.”
“And that artwork’s been paid for, if you think about it. We ran an in-house contest among the artists to see who could come up with a dragon design for each letter in the alphabet. He won and got an all-expenses paid trip to South Beach in Miami.”
“I know.”
“Where he proceeded to go on a drunken, naked bender, landed his ass in jail, and called me at three o’clock in the motherfucking morning to bail him out and pay his fines. Which I did, softhearted dumbass that I am.”
“I know, Payne. The release form Twist signed to enter the contest is legally binding, so he doesn’t have a leg to stand on. What I think he might be doing is trying to work himself into a position where he can offer to ‘let’ House Of Payne use the lettering if you’ll forget about the money he owes you. Though I could be wrong and he might just be in one of his moods.”
“I will personally jam that release form all the way up his ass before I kick him either out the door or through it. His choice. Get him in here.”
Scout’s eyes widened. “You’re not going to fire him? He’s one of our best tattoo artists. If people can’t have you for their sessions, they book Twist instead. That hoity-toity fashion photographer of all those supermodels—what’s his name, Yves? Gustav? Something with a V in it—wants to do a project on House Of Payne’s work. He mentioned several of Twist’s creations in his last email.�
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“I don’t care if Twist walks on water and has rainbows shooting out his ass. I’m the one person he can’t fuck around with, and it’s about time that prima donna knows it. Twist isn’t the only artist in the world, and if I can’t convince him of that, the art exhibit I want to put together to showcase Becks’s 3D art—and none of his—should.”
“Whoa.” Scout shook her head as if to clear it. “Care to run that by me again? What art exhibit?”
“The one I just now decided we need to do.” It was a win-win stroke of genius as far as Payne was concerned. He’d put a spotlight on House Of Payne’s exclusive collection of Becks’s 3D art while disciplining a problem-child employee. Life didn’t get much better. “I want to rub Twist’s nose in how much we’re not highlighting any of his designs, while at the same time putting the House on the map as the premiere body-art gallery for three-dimensional tattoos. No one in the world has a collection like we do. We need to get some buzz going on it, and there’s no better way to do that than to have a total blowout high-end red carpet exhibit.”
Scout whipped out her phone and began to thumb-type. “I need you to take a look at your schedule to see where you want to put this exhibit on the calendar. It can’t be too soon, since we’ll want to send invitations to our international clientele.”
“It’s the crap end of winter. Nothing’s going on right now, is there? NBA playoffs haven’t started yet, the Super Bowl just wrapped up, the Stanley Cup race isn’t until late spring and it’s too cold for any of our rock stars to go on tour here in North America.”