Ashes & Embers Series Collection (Books 1 to 4)

by Carian Cole

  "Every part of you tastes delicious," he groans. "I want to fucking eat you alive."

  "Mmmm…sexy with a side of serial killer…" I tease.

  "Shut your little mouth and roll over," he says against my lips. "I'm not done with you."

  Obeying, I roll over onto my stomach while he looms above me, and I feel his eyes on me for a few moments before I feel his hands on me. The little calluses on his fingers feel good lightly scratching over my flesh, a tiny reminder of who he is as he runs his hands down my back, over my ass, and down the backs of my legs, caressing every part of me. His knee nudges my legs apart as he grabs one of the throw pillows from the bed and shoves it under my hips, forcing my ass up.

  He lays his powerful body on top of mine, almost completely covering me with his size, and gathers my hair, pulling it all to one side to expose the side of my neck.

  "You're so tiny," he says from above me, brushing his hand against my cheek. "I'm afraid I'm going to break you."

  "I'm not gonna break, Tally."

  I feel his hot, wet lips on the back of my neck. "God, I love when you call me that. It fucking turns me to mush." He gently sucks and nips at my neck and I turn my head more to the side, my face pressed against the bed as shivers course through my body. I love when he's sensual like this; he makes me feel so incredibly cherished. I just wish so badly that I knew how he felt about me. Has he fallen in love with me like I have with him? Or are we just giving in to the chemistry between us?

  He takes both my hands in his, extending them above my head on the bed and entwining our fingers together as he slowly pushes his cock into my pussy from behind, all the while kissing and sucking on my neck and collarbone, lulling me into a sleepy ecstasy. Being stretched out like this with him completely on top of me, penetrating me so deeply is the most erotic feeling I've ever experienced. I feel like he owns me. Somehow he's managing to balance his weight so he's not crushing me as he thrusts into me with long, slow strokes, and he feels so damn thick and hard and just so incredibly yummy inside me. My need to touch him is driving me mad, but he's got me so trapped that all I can do is arch my back and thrust my ass up to meet his hips.

  "Fuck yeah, baby… Do that," he growls against my ear. I turn my head toward him and our lips meet desperately, thirsting for each other as he drives into me deeper, filling me until I'm not sure I can possibly take any more of him. Breathing heavily against me, he does go deeper and faster, my pussy quivering around him as he sends me into blissful euphoria.

  A series of moans mixed with his name escapes my throat as I come, my fingers tightening around his, the metal of our wedding rings scraping against each other. His lips leave mine as he kneels up a little to drive his cock even deeper inside of me, and I feel like he's going to tear me apart if he keeps this up, but I can feel how much he wants me. Spreading my legs a little, I pivot my hips up to take more of him, wanting every inch of him to be mine, not satisfied until I feel his balls slamming against my drenched pussy.

  "Asia…" My name is a moan of pleasure on his lips as I feel him surge into me, his hands releasing mine to grasp my throat with one, gently pulling my head back, while his other hand lands on my hip, pulling me hard into him.

  I feel like I'm floating somewhere above us, watching my husband take over my mind and body, making me feel things I never even knew I could feel. His hand wrapped around my throat is so primal but so incredibly intimate it makes me tremble, wondering if I've stumbled into something that is neither love nor chemistry, but something way beyond both of those things.

  Still moving lazily in and out of me, he slides his hand up my neck, his finger grazing over my mouth. Parting my lips, I suck his finger into my mouth and swirl my tongue around it, satisfied with the low moan I hear from him behind me, loving that I affect him like he does me. Lowering himself, he turns us both on our sides, his cock still buried in me and his finger still in my mouth. I have no idea how he’s still so hard after just coming, but he's still like a rock as he pulls his finger from my mouth, glides his hand down the front of my body, and rubs his wet finger in slow circles over my clit. Sighing, I lean back against his chest and twist my head around to kiss him.

  "You feel incredible," he whispers against my lips. "I can't stop."

  "I don't want you to."

  His hand moves to my thigh and pulls my leg backward, up over his, spreading me open over him.

  "Ever?" he asks.

  "Never."

  Sighing, he pulls me tighter against him so there is no space between us. "Thank you, baby."

  "For?"

  His lips linger on my shoulder before he answers. "For being everything I wished for."

  I'm still lost in his words as he starts to move deeper and faster in me. "I want you to come with me and fall asleep with me…just like this." His voice is gritty and raw. "I want this moment to last as long as fucking possible."

  Closing my eyes and melting against him, I give him exactly what he asks because I want that too. To be as close as possible, connected to him, in his arms, forever.

  24

  TALON

  I WAKE up happier and more content than I can remember being in a long frigging time.

  I like this feeling. A lot.

  Asia is curled up next to me under the covers, still completely naked. I brush the hair from across her face and kiss her cheek, waiting for her eyes to flutter open. And when they do, a slow smile spreads across her face.

  Finally, I have a girl who's still happy to see me in the morning and isn't running for the door.

  "Good morning." She stretches sleepily, rubbing her hand across my chest.

  "It is. I'd like to make it even better, but I have to run to the studio for rehearsal." She pouts and I kiss her nose. "I'll try to get back as early as I can, okay? We'll work on some designs and then I'm going to do things to you."

  She giggles. "I can't wait."

  Thank God she loves sex too. All this time I've been a little worried that maybe she was putting me off because she's one of those chicks that doesn't enjoy sex, but now I know I was wrong. She just wanted it to be right. And to me, it couldn't be more right.

  Dragging myself away from her, I take a quick hot shower, throw some clothes on, and find her in the kitchen while I hunt for my keys. She hands me a travel mug and holds up my keys in her other hand.

  "You leave these all over the house." She goes up on her tiptoes and kisses my cheek.

  "You got up to make me coffee?"

  "Yeah."

  "That's really sweet. Thanks, babe. You should go back to sleep for a little while, relax today."

  "I can't. I have so much to do and think about with all these orders. I'm excited."

  "All right, just don't get stressed, okay? I want you to do this because you enjoy it, not because you have to."

  She walks me to the door and hugs me longer than usual. "Have fun at rehearsal. Tell the guys I said hello."

  "Will do."

  As I pull out of the driveway, I wave at her still standing at the front door, now holding Pixie. Fuck, she looks adorable. My wife. The words keep playing in my head as I drive down the mountain road toward town. Today is actually the first day since we got married that I really feel like she's my wife. I know sex isn't a magic bullet, but it's definitely broken a barrier between us.

  Sitting at the fourth red light so far on the way to the studio, I daydream about how she sucked on my finger and rammed her little ass against me last night, wanting more of me, and how we fell asleep all tangled up in each other. My cock hardens in my jeans just thinking about how it felt, how she looked, how she tasted.

  Fuck this shit.

  Glancing in my rearview mirror, I spin the car around in a U-turn in the middle of the intersection and head back home.

  Fuck rehearsal.

  I don't even bother to pull my car into the garage and instead park it in the driveway. She's not downstairs, so I jog upstairs and catch her as she's coming out of the bathroom we
aring just a towel, her hair damp and her cheeks flushed pink from her shower.

  She jumps when she sees me and backs up a little, clutching the towel. "Talon! You scared the hell out of me. What's wrong?"

  "Nothing." Closing the space between us, I back her up against the bedroom wall and cover her lips with mine. "I couldn't stop thinking about you."

  "I was thinking about you, too."

  Kissing her deeper, I unknot her towel and let it fall to the floor, my hands cupping her breasts that I now can't keep my hands off of. Her nipples are rosy pink and tilted upward, begging for my lips.

  "Tell me you want me as much as I want you." I yank my shirt off and throw it across the room.

  Her hands go to my waist, her fingers unbuttoning my jeans and tugging the zipper down. "I think I want you more."

  Kicking off my pants, I run my hand down her stomach, between her thighs, and smile against her lips at how silky wet she is for me.

  "You do want me," I tease, sliding a finger into her.

  Her hands tug my hair, her hips pushing against me. "Then give me you."

  Fuck, she's going to rattle me out of my mind. She's the only girl who's ever had the ability to suck my breath right out of my lungs with just words or a look.

  Grabbing her thighs, I lift her up and her legs go around my waist as my cock rams up into her. With a yelp and a moan, she clutches my shoulders, her nails digging into me as I fuck her hard against the wall. My ability to be gentle has gone out the window for now after months of no sex and lusting after her for the past few weeks. Leaning my forearms against the wall on either side of her head, I let her body slide down the wall a few inches so I can fuck her back up it again. I can't take my eyes off of her, fueled by the way her eyes keep fluttering closed and her mouth opens with each hard thrust.

  "Tal…" she whimpers, wrapping her arms around my neck. I kiss her deeper and pound into her harder, wanting to consume every part of her, steal her breath, her thoughts, her everything, so all she wants and needs is me.

  Her pussy clenches around my cock, and her body starts to shudder just as I reach that same ecstasy with her. I've never been able to get off so quickly before; it usually takes me a long time to get to that point, but with her I can barely go ten minutes before I'm losing all control.

  "Holy fuck." She lays her head on my shoulder and kisses my neck while panting for air. "I think I'm gonna pass out."

  I carry her to the bed and lay her down before going into the bathroom to get her a cup of cold water. She takes it from me with a glazed smile and takes a few sips, then puts it on the nightstand.

  "You okay?" I ask, stretching out next to her and pulling her closer to me.

  She nods, still trying to catch her breath. "Yeah. I've just never been fucked against a wall before. I think you broke my pelvis."

  "Your pelvis is perfect, baby." I slide my hand down her body and caress her tummy, my large hand almost encompassing her from hip to hip. Damn, she's so small, I can't help but wonder where my dick is going. "Did I hurt you?"

  "A little…but it's a good pain. The good outweighs the bad."

  A feeling I'm not used to creeps over me, settling in my chest. "Aze, I don't want to hurt you. You're a lot smaller than the other chicks I've been with."

  "Well, you're a lot bigger than the guys I've been with."

  Ugh. I don't want to think about her with other guys, smaller dicks or not.

  "Okay, I don't want to compare notes. I just don't want to hurt you. I'll go easier."

  Turning her head toward me, she kisses my neck. "I don't want you to go easier. I want us to give in to what we feel and not hold back."

  "What happened to waiting for all feelings to properly process and meet approval first?" I tease, tickling her waist.

  I immediately regret my words when she turns away, her smile fading. Touching her cheek, I turn her face back toward me. "No." I kiss her lips softly. "No steps back today. Okay? We're together. We're happy. We're moving forward. Let the wheels keep turning."

  "Okay," she whispers.

  Somewhere on the floor, my phone rings. "Shit," I mutter, getting up to find it buried in my jeans with Mikah's name flashing on the screen.

  "Yeah?"

  His voice is loud in my ear. "Where are you, fuckface? Everyone's at practice but you."

  I eye my wife naked on the bed, curled up against a pillow, a ray of sunshine coming in through the window, lighting up her face and bringing out the purple in her hair. She's fucking gorgeous.

  "I'm busy."

  "No one cares. Asher wants you here."

  "I never miss a practice; you assholes always do."

  "Yeah, but you're the one who wrote most of the fucking songs, so we need you here."

  I blow out a frustrated breath. "Maybe you guys should start doing some of the work, too."

  "C'mon, Tal. Let's not start this shit again. Just get your ass here before Asher blows a gasket."

  "I told you, I'm busy." I want to spend the day in bed with my wife and make up for the two months we didn't touch each other.

  "Asshole, did you forget we're going on tour in two weeks? We need to have these new songs down. Stop fucking off and get down here." He ends the call just as Asia's eyes meet mine. Shit. I did forget about the tour.

  "You have to go, hon?" Her lips pout, making me want to feel them on me.

  Resisting her mouth, I pull on my jeans and sneakers. "I'm sorry, babe. I'd much rather stay here with you."

  "It's okay. It was a nice surprise that you came back."

  Sticking my e-cig in my mouth, I grin at her. "It was a fuckin' awesome surprise." I walk over to the bed while pulling my shirt back on. "I'll be back soon."

  She reaches her arms out and wraps them around my neck when I bend down for a kiss. "I'll be thinking about you."

  I squeeze her back and reluctantly pull away. "You better." I wink and leave before I change my mind and dive back in bed with her. The last thing I need is Asher pissed off at me.

  I blast some Sixx:A.M. on my way to the studio, trying to remember if there was ever a time before now that I didn't want to practice and wasn't excited about going on tour.

  Nope. There never was.

  "NICE OF YOU TO SHOW UP." Asher's in my face as soon as I get to the studio, which is in his minimansion.

  I throw my stuff on the floor in annoyance. "What the fuck, I can't miss one fucking day? I'm here every single day, sometimes to all hours of the night, usually by myself, writing music. For us."

  "No one ever made you do that. Don't get mad at us for your choices," Mikah says.

  "Tal's right," Storm says, picking up his guitar. "He's been doing a lot more than any of us for the past year. We've all been preoccupied with our personal shit. Lukas has been picking up the slack too. He and Talon wrote all the songs on this album and half of them on the last one. We're supposed to be working together."

  Mikah scowls. "Luke's not even a real member of the band."

  Vandal glares at him from across the room. "Really? Since the fuck when? Last time I checked, that's his violin solo and special sound effects on all our CDs. And didn't he do the drum solo on a few cuts, too, when you fucked them all up? He doesn't have to be at every practice and at every live concert to be part of the band, man. What the fuck do you do, anyway? You're just fucking background noise."

  "Okay, enough!" Asher yells. "You're like a bunch of fucking girls. We gotta get our shit together. We're leaving in two weeks. I'm sick of the fighting and babysitting you idiots. I have enough shit to worry about. Everyone in the band matters. But Tal and Storm are right. We all have to put some effort in, or we may as well just fucking quit."

  Storm shakes his head. "None of us want that."

  I watch my oldest brother squeeze his temples, and I wonder if all the shit he's dealt with is finally breaking him down. "Ash, I don't mind doing the work, but I'd like to be appreciated a little bit. You guys take everything I write and then change it at the l
ast minute without even including me. I'm not a fucking kid anymore. It sucks when I put all this time and effort into writing, and then you guys take it from me and fuck the shit out of it."

  Mikah throws a drumstick up in the air and catches it. "We like your stuff; we just want it edgier. Big deal, we change up your shit."

  "It's a big deal to me. I thought we wanted to show some diversity, not have every song sound the fucking same." I'm getting more and more frustrated and wish I’d stayed in bed with my wife rather than deal with this.

  "I'm with Talon on this. I like the diversity in what he writes," Storm says. "Not everything has to be hard rock or metal. I love the blues edge he's been putting on the songs, and I really kinda dig the old-style rock love songs."

  "I agree," Vandal adds.

  Asher looks torn. "If we change too much, we're gonna lose some fans. They expect a certain style of music from us."

  "So we lose some fans, and we'll gain new ones. It happens to every band," Vandal says, leaning back in his chair. "I don't want to be fucking stagnant."

  "How could you be stagnant when you've been on a fucking hiatus and we had to have a chick fill in for you?" Mikah throws at him.

  "I'll fucking kill you if you ever bring that up again," Vandal seethes, and I can't blame him. Only Mikah would be a douche enough to remind Vandal that he had to take a break from the band while he was grieving his daughter.

  Asher stands up. "Mikah, cut the shit. You've been a bigger asshole than usual lately and everyone's sick of it." He turns to me. "We'll start collaborating more on the music. I'll try to be here more during the day when you're here. We all should. And since we're all here and in such great moods today, I wanted to talk about the tour. Since you guys are all involved with girls now, with the exception of the asshole in the back—" he nods toward Mikah "—I think we need to agree that the girls shouldn’t be going on tour with us."

  My head snaps up. "Why not?"