Six years ago he’d walked out on her, but she knew him better now. He really had believed it was for the best, but also, simmering between them was the knowledge that he’d run scared. Admitting that was the bravest thing anyone had ever done in her presence. It made so much sense.
He’d come back ten times better than he’d gone away. He’d found deprivation and been in a place where he could take nothing for granted. It had made him stronger. Strong enough to do this and strong enough to accept her rejection, if she did that.
Not that she would. “Yes, yes, please. I love you, Hunter.”
With a whoop of delight, he got to his feet and took her left hand, pushing the ring onto her third finger. It fit. When she tore her gaze from the sparkling diamond to raise it to his face, he grinned at her quizzical expression. “I borrowed one of your dress rings. You wore it the night of the concert and I purloined it long enough to draw around it and get the size.”
“Sneaky.” She went up on tiptoe and kissed her sneaky man, the man she loved, would love for the rest of her life. He buried his hand in her hair, taking care not to dislodge her headphones, and kissed her back. Flashes went off and people shouted, yelled questions, demanded they look over here, over there, no here.
They ignored them all and instead, Hunter went back to the table where the band sat, grinning and unashamedly gawking at them. Jace had his arm around Beverley and a tall, dark man she assumed was Matt Sinclair stood behind V, his hand on her shoulder. Looked like the moratorium on band members’ partners was off then.
He took her to where Chick stood. “Can we have a car to take us back to the hotel? Now, please?”
Chick slapped his back with a blow that made even the powerful Hunter start forward. “Congratulations, man. Consider it done.”
Ten minutes later, a grinning Hunter, now wearing a T-shirt, took a dazed Sabina outside to where a shiny black limousine waited for them. The journey to the hotel took barely ten minutes, and then they went in via the kitchen, to the floor Beverley had booked for the exclusive use of the band. He’d held her hand all the way but explained he wouldn’t kiss her again because they wouldn’t get to bed if he did, and that was where they were going.
Too happy to argue, Sabina went along with him, dreaming and worrying. However, the press conference had explained something to her, and parts of her plan started to fall into place.
Too happy to plan as well, Sabina clung to the hand of the man she loved and let him take her wherever he wanted.
As it happened, they didn’t get much farther than the door of the bedroom. He slammed it closed and then slammed her against it, hoisting her up so she could hook her legs around his waist. Their kiss burned down the night. She groped his T-shirt, dragged it up, hearing a rip but not caring overmuch. He dragged her blouse open, scattering buttons and ripping fabric until he could touch her. At the same time he tilted his head to one side so he could kiss her more thoroughly, explore her more deeply.
He spun them around and, carrying her as if she weighed nothing, took her to the bed and dumped her on the soft comforter. Dark red this time, she noted dazedly. But she pulled at her clothes, tore them off without watching or caring because she was too busy watching him strip.
He had such a beautiful body. From the top of his golden head to the tips of his overlarge feet, she thought him perfect. Absolutely fucking perfect. She loved the way his muscles flexed as he did such everyday things like pulling what was left of his T-shirt off over his head and then going for his jeans. Loved the way he devoured her with his gaze as she stripped for him.
And loved it when he dragged open a drawer and found a condom. Always thinking of her, even in this extremity of passion.
Sheathed and naked, he came to her. “Up on your knees.”
She hadn’t noticed the mirror opposite the bed until then. Until she faced it. Saw him kneel on the bed behind her, bracket her hips with his legs and take his cock in one hand. He reached for her pussy to finger it, grazed her clit in welcome and ensured she was wet enough for him.
She was drenched. He groaned and drew his hand away. She saw him raise his fingers to his mouth and lick off her juices as if they were the most precious nectar. Closing his eyes, he savored her and then opened them again, watching her as he guided his cock to her opening.
“Jesus, Sabina, you are so hot you’ll scald me. And I’ll love every minute.”
She watched him in the mirror, read his lips and then closed her eyes. “Talk to me.”
“How? Like this?” He drove his cock inside her, straight and true, right to the heart of her. Embedded himself there. He shook her world, changed it. He always had, but never more so than now. “Fuck, Sabina, you feel so good. This isn’t why I asked you to marry me, but it’s a fucking great incentive.”
“I heard you.” She reached up, ripped off the headphones. “I don’t need these here. I want to hear you properly.”
The world rushed in on her, the sound of the traffic outside muted by the double-glazed windows but definitely there. And when he pulled nearly all the way out and slammed back into her again, his body slapped against hers.
She’d never heard anything so wonderful. As he fucked her, and this was hard, wonderful fucking, they created their own rhythm, their own sounds. His gasps and groans, her moans in counterpoint, the sound of their bodies connecting, the sucking sound as he withdrew and her body tried to cling to his cock, keep it inside.
And oh, the exquisite sensation of his body grazing hers, rubbing it higher until she didn’t think she could bear any more and moved forward. With a growl, he grabbed her hips, pulled her back against him so her ass met his groin and she felt the muscles there as he worked.
Opening her eyes, she watched their reflections and gloried in the fact that she didn’t have to watch to hear. His lips were parted, revealing gleaming white teeth bared almost in a grimace. He was holding back until she came. He wanted to make it good for her.
Her orgasm rose and blossomed in a flash, like one of those fireworks that flowed into glorious life and then disappeared without a trace, only sparks crackling as they expired.
She hadn’t even realized she was crying out until her senses caught up with her. She found herself lying on her front on the bed, out of breath, half laughing.
With a long, drawn-out groan, Hunter withdrew from her body and a gush of wet liquid soaked her thighs. But that was her, not him, and she wanted him to come as hard as she just had.
With an effort, she turned around and sat up. “Sit on the bed, Hunter.”
Mouth half-tilted in a small smile, eyes bemused, he did as she asked, and without her asking, he crossed his legs, providing the perfect seat for her. His cock jutted up, hard and ready. She stared at it, wanted to know everything. “As soon as the doctors give me permission, I’m getting a contraception implant. I want you, all of you.”
His cock twitched and she smiled. “You want it too.”
He nodded and held out his arms. “Come to me now, min älskade, hjärtat.”
His loved one, his sweetheart. She reveled in the endearments, wondering why she hadn’t felt like that with anyone else before and knowing the reason in the same moment. Because from the day she’d seen him, he’d had some of her heart, and now he’d claimed the rest. She went to him whole now, climbed up, curled her legs around him, resting her heels on the bed behind him and taking him into her body.
Gazing at each other, together they set up a sublime rhythm. He plowed deep inside her, touching her womb as he thrust. She held on to his shoulders, watched him before bringing her lips to his in a much-needed kiss.
The thrusts of his tongue in her mouth imitated the rhythm below, and then, being Hunter, he set up an offbeat, something in direct counterpoint. His fingers strummed her back, beating out a tattoo that drew her in, made her his. She gripped tight, her fingernails digging in but he didn’t even flinch, only ate at her mouth. She reciprocated, tasting him, perhaps with a little less of th
e exquisite rhythm he was creating on her body, but no less passionate or heartfelt.
When the kiss ended, she stared into his eyes, watching the blue darken as his pupils expanded. With Hunter, that meant he was close. He closed his eyes, opened them and they watched each other as the pressure rose, tension increased and their bodies tingled with their developing orgasm.
They came together, as one, and as she came she felt the beat, the long, almost painful spasms and the double-quick one at the end. She’d come across that rhythm before. He used it as part of his act, but she knew it from somewhere else too.
*
Ten minutes later he’d disposed of the condom and had them both under the covers, snuggled in together, kissing as if they could never get enough of each other, which was most likely true. Certainly that wouldn’t be the only time they made love tonight.
He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed the third finger, now bearing the ring he’d put there. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for saying yes. I know we still have things to arrange, but whatever we decide, it will be together. Both of us.”
Doubt hit her. For him, not for her. “Hunter, are you sure?”
“Absolutely.” He dropped a soft kiss on her lips. “I feel settled, as if everything is falling into place.”
She kissed him back and moved closer so her legs tangled with his and their bodies pressed together. His cock moved, already preparing for action, but she wasn’t ready yet, although it wouldn’t be long. “Insatiable.”
“Sue me.”
Laughing, she felt as if a weight had fallen from her. “This therapist you employed. I’d like to meet him.”
“Her. She’s an American-Swedish woman, forty and recommended by your doctors. She can help you cope and do most of the tests the university wants to do.” He sighed. “But I understand. You have things to do and a life to make.”
“A life to make with you. I learned something tonight, or I should say, realized it. I should not be so stubborn. For compromise, both sides should bend. So I’m bending. I won’t give up my work, just think of another way to achieve it. Chick can help me, can’t he?”
He laughed. “Yes, although he won’t thank me for saying it. If you want publicity, he’ll get you some. It depends what you want.”
“That’s just it. I know what I want to achieve but not how. I need to talk to more people, perhaps the university, and discover how best to do it.”
“Do what?”
“What I said at the press conference. Provide a bridge. If I concentrate on people who are either newly deaf or newly hearing I can help with the skills they’ll need. I’ve been both. You see?”
He nodded and stole another kiss. “My clever, beautiful Sabina. Yes, I do.”
“I was rushing. I won’t do that now. I need to recover myself. I can function, I can hear, but sometimes I have difficulty and they said I might get other side effects like headaches. So I do need to work with a therapist. That gives me time to plan. If Emmelie taught me anything, it was to plan carefully and properly, have answers for everything.” This time she took the kiss, but the result was the same. A delicious melding of mouths and tongues as they tasted each other, secure in the happiness to come. “Meantime, I’ll have a new husband to keep busy.”
“You’ll come with me? Travel with the band? After we finish in the States, we’re going into the studio. That’ll mean staying in Chicago for a while. Perhaps we can get an apartment instead of all this hotel living.”
“Do you have a house?”
“An apartment in Brooklyn. I have a small place in London too. I bought it with my first substantial royalty check.”
She gave a low whistle. “A regular property tycoon.”
He laughed. “That London apartment was my way of leaving a mark, saying I’d arrived.” He grinned. “Stupid, eh, when I could have come home?”
“Your mother never gave you an allowance?”
“I walked away from all that when I left. Burning with a desire to make it myself, on my own. Also stupid.”
“You can say that now.”
His cock was fully erect now, pressing hard as an iron rod between them, dampness from the tip marking her stomach. Despite that, he frowned. “But I intended to leave the band after London. I won’t leave you in Europe while I go to the States for an indefinite period. I can’t. Maybe we can relocate to a London studio.”
She laughed, joy infusing every part of her. “Never heard of cruise liners?”
His laughter blended with hers as he rolled her on to her back and came over her. “Shit, I’m a complete idiot. I adore you, Sabina. Shall we see if we can get that double-beat going again?”
Finally, the last piece slotted into place. That was where she’d come across the drumbeat before. In her own body, as she clenched his cock at the height of her orgasm. He’d immortalized her in his music.
Author’s Note
The operation described in this book doesn’t yet exist, but scientists claim they are very close. Using stem cell research, they can grow and then reimplant the fine hairs that have been damaged in many deaf people. I hope you’ll forgive me bringing this operation forward a few years.
Sign language has its own grammar and its expressions, but I’ve rendered it into grammatical English for ease of reading. The nearest to the way we speak is SEE. To learn the others is almost as hard as learning another language.
About Lynne Connolly
Lynne Connolly writes for a number of publishers. She writes paranormal romance, contemporary romance and historical romance, and is the winner of two Eppies (now retitled the EPIC e-Book Awards) and a goodly number of Recommended Reads, etc., from review sites.
While these are very gratifying, that isn’t why she writes. She wants to bring the stories in her head to life and share them with others, in the hope she might then get some peace.
She lives in the UK with her family, cat, and doll houses. Creating worlds on paper in miniature seems to be her specialty!
Lynne welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email addresses on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.
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Also by Lynne Connolly
Cougar Challenge: Beauty of Sunset
Cougar Challenge: Sunshine on Chrome
Ecstasy in Red 1: Red Alert
Ecstasy in Red 2: Red Heat
Ecstasy in Red 3: Red Shadow
Ecstasy in Red 4: Red Inferno
Emotion in Motion
Nightstar 1: In the Mood
Nightstar 2: Born on the Bayou
Nightstar 3: Nice ‘n’ Easy
Pure Wildfire 1: Sunfire
Pure Wildfire 2: Icefire
Pure Wildfire 3: Moonfire
Pure Wildfire 4: Thunderfire
Seychelles Sunset
Shifting Heat
Strangers No More
Print books by Lynne Connolly
Pure Wildfire 1: Sunfire
Pure Wildfire 2: Icefire
Pure Wildfire 3: Moonfire
Ecstasy in Red 1: Red Alert
Ecstasy in Red 2: Red Heat
Ecstasy in Red 3: Red Shadow
Skin Deep anthology
Tempt the Cougar anthology
Ellora’s Cave Publishing
www.ellorascave.com
Fascinating Rhythm
ISBN 9781419941818
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Fascinating Rhythm Copyright © 2013 Lynne Connolly
Edited by Jillian Bell
Cover design by Syneca
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Electronic book publication September 2013
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