He pushed me up against the wall and my body wrapped around his. I wondered in the sense of it in the same thought that I berated myself for waiting so long – because a couple of days was so long. How could I want something so badly and hesitate about it so strongly? But the want won out. Oh, how the want won out.
As he kissed me, his hand slipped between my legs and he ran his fingers over me gently. It was enough sensation to ignite desperate need while not being nearly enough, and my hips rocked towards him. I felt like my whole body was hypersensitive to anywhere we touched; our lips, shoulders, chest, legs. I felt like I’d never get him close enough to me. I needed more. Oh, so much more of him.
I felt Ryder smile against my lips. He liked what he was doing to me. I would have been indignant had I not liked it too; I hadn’t felt want – no, need – like this is possibly ever.
Ryder’s hand was less teasing now as he rubbed me over my jeans. But it was just the warm up and I wanted the main event. My hips rocked into his hand again and, like we were on the same wavelength, he seemed to know what I wanted.
He deftly undid my jeans and slid his hand, in one fluid motion, down under my undies. I gasped against him as bare skin met bare skin and it felt better than I’d even thought it would.
The chuckle of unsurprised pride that vibrated through him didn’t make me feel embarrassed or dominated. If he kept making me feel as good as he was, I didn’t care how arrogant he was. Arrogance had a place in the bedroom and I was very happy to benefit from it.
As his lips trailed to my neck, Ryder’s fingers worked me like he could read exactly what I wanted when I wanted it. His touch moved in perfect sync with my body. Even with the awkward angle we’d found ourselves in.
I could only hold onto him tightly as the pleasure built to a crescendo. I gave a breathy moan as he brought me to orgasm and pulled his lips back to mine. As he rubbed me slower and I rode the wave back down, I kissed him hard, ignoring the need to get my breath back and just wanting to stay in that feeling for as long as possible.
Finally, the aftershocks wore down to gentle waves and my head fell back against the wall as I breathed out deeply and gave a chuckle of satisfaction.
8
Ryder
“Not bad,” she said, looking at me with a twinkle of mischief in her eyes.
“Oh, just not bad?” I asked.
She shrugged nonchalantly, then laughed as I pulled her towards me. She kissed me lazily as she started walked me back towards the bed.
“You want more, do you?” I said.
“I want all of you,” she said as she went for my jeans button.
I pulled off my t-shirt and threw it on the floor. “Your wish is my command.”
All jokes were put aside as there was disrobing to finish. There was skin to kiss. There was body to touch.
We didn’t talk.
A sudden almost seriousness had fallen over us. Not serious. Focussed.
We had a mission and we weren’t going to let anything distract us from it.
When we were both naked, I picked her up and lay her on the bed, settling between her legs. Her knee came up and hugged my hip and I couldn’t wait to be inside her. To distract myself, I peppered her in kisses and she laughed as her arms wrapped around me tighter.
“Wait, wait!” she said, still laughing.
I pulled away quickly.
She looked at me weirdly. “You okay?”
I nodded. “You said wait.”
“I said wait, not get your clothes on and get out. I’m just getting a condom.” She shook her head with a smile and reached over to the floor where she’d thrown her bag.
I dropped back on the bed. “Sorry. Force of habit.”
“You get stopped halfway a lot?” she asked.
I smirked as she crawled over to me. “No. I’m just big into consent.”
She straddled my legs. “Good to know,” she said as she ripped open the condom and started rolling it onto me.
I watched her appreciatively. I usually tried to get this bit over with as quickly as possible. Nothing ruined the mood quite like pausing for health and safety reasons. But Nora ran her hands over my shaft slowly as she made sure the condom was on properly and I began to appreciate there was a way to make health and safety fun and cool.
When she seemed satisfied it was on, she lowered herself over me and kissed me while she lined me up. My hands on her hips were not the driving force behind me sliding into her slowly, but they felt they needed to be there for moral support.
Letting her be in charge wasn’t new to me, but I’d never given over control without it being a game of some sort. This didn’t feel like a game. This felt like sharing. My first instinct was to leap out of bed and run away, but then she started to move on me and I was a goner.
She started out slow, her pace gently increasing until she was riding me hard and fast. She sat up and I just watched her in awed admiration as she took what she wanted how she wanted it. Her rhythm slowed ever so slightly as her orgasm mounted again and it gave me insurmountable pleasure to watch hers spread across her face.
After it passed, Nora rolled us over so I was on top of her and she gave me a sinful smirk and grabbed one of my arse cheek in her hands.
“Your turn,” she said.
“Oh, I think you’ve got more in you,” I sassed.
Her eyes were all humour. “Maybe, but,” she reached up and her lips stroked my ear as she said, “I want you to take me, Ryder. Hard. Fast. No mercy.”
Well, who was I to deny a goddess what she wanted?
I slid my hand down her leg and coaxed it higher around my hip, giving me full access to her. I dropped my lips to her jaw, her neck, her collarbone and started thrusting. Much like she had, I started slow, working my way up to pace.
Her hands gripped me, one on my back and one on my arse as she moved with me.
She filled my senses and I felt like I was drunk on her.
Her scent was sweetly at odds with her personality; floral and berries.
She was gorgeous to me, yeah, but it was that personality – that sass – that fired me up to the point of madness. We’d only known each other a few days and yet I knew she was one of my kind. I knew we just fit. We worked.
And not just her body and mine, although they went together incredibly complimentarily as well. It got me excited. She got me excited.
She wanted no mercy? She’d get it.
We moved together, we breathed together, we moaned wordless encouragements together until she came a third time and it sent me over the edge to join her.
Our pace slowed as we got our breaths back slowly.
Eventually, though, health and safety interrupted the mood once again, but I wasn’t about to leave her side for long. I dropped back on the bed next to her, still breathing heavily.
As we lay there, in no particular hurry to go anywhere, she ran her hands over the ink on my body.
“How many girls have you slept with who have more tattoos than you?” she asked me.
I laughed. “Not many, admittedly.”
“Okay, what’s this one?” She ran her hand over the one on my pec.
I took her hand and held it over the sword and starburst. “My team got that one when our commander died,” I told her, looking at her with a soft smile.
“That’s sweet,” she said. “This one?”
I looked down at my shoulder. “I lost a bet,” I said as I laughed at the memory. “Hawk bet me I couldn’t chew a whole packet of Mentos sour gum at once. I was young and naïve, full of the confidence of youth. I got about halfway before my mouth reached maximum sour capacity. The next day, I had an appointment to be plastered by a giant hawk for all time.”
“What was he getting if you won?”
“I hadn’t settled yet on my name in a heart or Nico’s suggestion which was ‘Rollie is Awesome’ in Doctor Who circle language.”
“Rollie?�
�� she asked.
I nodded. “As Gavin is Tank, so I am Rollie.”
“Okay, I get Tank, but why Rollie?”
“In my dark and shady past, I was known to have a little thing for rollies.”
“Rollies? You mean Rollos? Those little caramel chocolates?”
I snorted. “No. Like smokes. The hand-rolled ones.”
“Ah.” She nodded and went back to looking at my ink. “What about this one?” she asked, trying to sound out the Latin on my ribs.
“‘By the Grace of Chaos’,” I translated.
“What’s that mean?”
“Chaos, Kit Grayson, is our esteemed leader. Grace is for Hawk– Patrick Grace. It’s because of them that those of us who got home safe did so. It’s because Chaos saved us all. And mostly so he could get Hawk home to his sister.”
“Not, then, because they order you around?” she asked, thankfully lightening the mood like she knew that’s what I needed.
“I was under the impression you told me what to do,” I told her ruefully.
Nora laughed and covered her head with the blanket.
She looked so free and easy, there in bed with me, and I felt a little bubble well in my chest pleasantly.
It was new and it was different. It was a feeling I almost instantly pushed away; unused to peace as I was. But I tried to take a leaf out of my mates’ books and let it be. As I did, something became very clear to me.
Nora Curry may have thought this was another one of the one-night stands that gave her her nickname, but I didn’t agree. I was damn sure I’d do what it took to show her how good it could be again.
Fuck it, I’d woo the girl if I had to.
9
Nora
The next leg of the tour. Four more to go.
I loved travel, but the constant start-stop and packing and unpacking was starting to wear thin. My little apartment back in the States was feeling awful inviting just then.
As was the look in Ryder’s eyes whenever I looked at him.
We’d stayed in bed that whole night. Not all of it was sex – though, there was quite a bit of that, too. We talked and laughed, comparing tattoos and backstories and crazy tales from our pasts. It had been great. All of it.
It called to me, refusing to leave me alone, demanding more.
More that I knew Ryder was happy to give.
More than I knew Ryder wanted as much as I did.
But I was One-Night Nora. I couldn’t do more. I couldn’t do again. My reputation was all I had. If I lost it, what else would I lose? Anything I might gain just couldn’t stack up to the everything that was at stake.
So, I didn’t invite him to stay, no matter how much I wanted to, and he didn’t ask.
It made me want him even more, just the amount of not pushing he did. He was still flirty, he was still suggestive, but never once did he try and make a move. He didn’t make any assumptions that what had happened once would happen again. I appreciated it, but part of me also wished he would make a move, just so I could give in.
So, it was probably good timing that what happened next happened when it did.
As Ryder and I walked into my dressing room that night, we found the usual flowers and presents spread around that people had sent. As far as I knew, not everything made it to the dressing rooms; we were sent a lot of stuff that there just wasn’t space for.
“Oh,” I said as I saw a rectangular-shaped gift, all wrapped up nicely. “This had better be chocolate. I could really go for chocolate right now.”
“I could just get you some chocolate,” Ryder said.
“You could. But why bother when they are just here?”
I opened the paper. There weren’t chocolates inside. It was a picture frame. A really thick picture frame. Inside was a picture I didn’t understand. I turned it over and looked at the back of it. There was nothing there to explain it. There wasn’t an explanation anywhere.
“That’s weird,” I said.
“What’s weird?” Brax asked as he walked in.
“This picture,” I told him, holding it up.
He shrugged and went over to my make up bag.
“You right?” I asked him.
He nodded. “Eyeliner. The shit this makeup dude has is crap. It’s going to run like fuck.” He nodded to Ryder. “Hey, man.”
Ryder nodded back.
We alternated between makeup artists and doing it ourselves. Depended on the venue and our schedules. So, we always had a makeup bag with us. At least, I always had a makeup bag with me. Brax never carted anything around if he didn’t have to.
I left him to it. Brax had been guylining since his emo days in high school. Not that he’d admit that to anyone else. And not that it was just him, all the boys had experimented back in the day. I still had the pictures squirrelled away at my parents’ place to prove it should it ever need proving.
“What is it, though?” I asked, looking at the picture again.
“Dunno. Something arty?” Ryder guessed. “Looks familiar, but I don’t know where from.”
“What’s happening? What did I miss?” I heard Zach ask as he appeared in the doorway. “And why has Nora got the emblem from Catching Fire framed?”
We all looked at him, standing oblivious in the doorway.
“The what?” Ryder asked.
Zach looked around at everyone like it was obvious. “Catching Fire. You know the whole mockingjay thing with the fires of rebell…” He petered to a stop, his eyes darting between the picture and me.
“What, Zach?” I asked. “I don’t like the way you stopped talking.”
“Fire…” he muttered like he was thinking. “Mockingjay…bird. Fire…bird.” He looked dead at me. “Firebird.”
With a shout, I smacked the picture off the table. “Seriously?” I snapped.
It was bad enough the stalker had claimed my song to torment me with. But most of that was online and I made sure to avoid it. This, though? Sending me pictures and hiding in alleys in case I go there to sing at me were a whole other level of shit.
Firebird was one of our most successful songs. I’d been scared shitless when we’d released it into the world. It was so different from our usual stuff, not in the least because I’d taken lead. But they’d loved it. The fans had loved it. They’d rallied around it and supported it with everything they had. It was fast becoming one of our most played songs on all the streaming platforms.
So, for this wanker to come along and try to take that from me or ruin it for me was more than insulting.
“Where does he get off?” I muttered.
“You don’t want to know,” Ryder said.
I looked at him. Gone was all hint of flirtation or mischief. In its place was a guy doing a job. He was serious and calculating and ready for anything. I was pretty sure Zach could throw something at him completely from left field and Ryder’d catch it.
I saw him touch a finger to his ear. “Anyone had a visual on a package wrapped in pink, sparkly paper headed for Nora’s room?” he asked.
Zach looked like he was about to answer him when he realised Ryder had been speaking into the ear piece dangling from his ear.
“Did I ever mention liking the Hunger Games?” I asked no one in particular while Ryder talked to the guys on the other end of the ear piece.
“Not that I remember,” Zach said.
“Pretty obscure reference, then.”
“It was probably mentioned in an interview sometime,” Brax drawled, busying applying more eyeliner to the already decent amount around his eyes.
“You right, man?” I asked him.
He stood up and looked at me. “Yes. Why?”
“You’re channelling the spirits of all the emo that came before.”
“Ha!” he barked a short laugh, then was deadpan again. “So funny.” He dropped my eyeliner back into my makeup bag and stalked out.
“Nice to know you care about my
safety,” I sang out the door to him.
“Nice to know your hired muscle could do more damage than I could,” he sang back, his voice receding as he did.
“No one remembers seeing it,” Ryder said, stepping over to me and Zach.
“Maybe I’m just reading into it?” Zach said.
“If Nora’s not known for an enduring love of the Hunger Games, then it’s probably not a ridiculous assumption to make,” Ryder replied.
I shrugged. “The movies were…fine. I never read the books.”
Ryder looked at me. “You’re okay?”
I nodded. “I’m annoyed, but I’m fine.”
“You’re good to still go on tonight?” Zach asked.
I nodded. “I’m fine. I promise I’m fine. A little light stalking isn’t going to stop me from living my life!”
Ryder looked at me like he was impressed with me. Had I not just received the diversion I had, I might have looked closer at that. I might have had time for notions of, maybe not romance, but interactions of an amorous nature.
As it was, the diversion couldn’t have come at a better time.
Now there was no need to tell either of us that what had happened between us was a one-time thing. There was no reason to avoid talking about it because there was something else that needed our attention. There was no reason for awkwardness or lingering questions.
I was going to get on with my life. Both in regards to the stalker and Ryder.
I was a strong independent woman who wasn’t about to let a man get in the way of her living her best life. I wasn’t going to let the stalker put me off my love for the music. And I wasn’t going to let Ryder knock me off balance with his mischievous bedroom eyes and tempting smile.
No matter how much I might want to have a second round with them.
10
Ryder
Spending the night with Nora hadn’t made me forget my job. I was a Grace Grayson boy at heart and the job was all.
Rollie & the Rocker (Grace Grayson Security Book 4) Page 6