Rock It

by Jennifer Chance

  And right on the heels of that thought was always the next one: He wanted Lacey in that role. As well as in his room, in his arms, and in his bed. Which was just flat-out ridiculous.

  He’d promised himself after that first day on the bus that he would cool it, but he couldn’t stop thinking about her. Reliving what they’d done together in his mind. Wanting more. But Lacey wasn’t just some groupie, no matter how she looked at him. And he’d learned early on that this business was about keeping your distance, not getting attached to anything—even yourself. You were a commodity, a product. Your music was yours, sure. But the expression of that music was something you had sold to the highest bidder, and there was a price for that. There was always a price for it. The bigger you got, the grander the stage, the higher the price. And the currency you were dealing in wasn’t just your sense of self, your artistry, your time and your focus—it was maybe a little part of your soul.

  His fingers flexing and unflexing, Dante stalked over to the bed, then to his open leather duffel bag on a side bench, then to the table sprawling with food and supplies, the bar setup, the upholstered chairs, then back to the bag. He muttered a curse, then gave up.

  He reached into the duffel bag, rooting around until his fingers closed around his talisman. The thin leather wallet slid out of its side pocket with the comfort of a well-worn friend. He unfolded it, poked through the meager contents. A picture of him and his friends at Battle of the Bands. A guitar pick. A ticket from his first sold-out show. A note from his parents, back before they realized that he didn’t need them to send him cookies for the band. He sort of missed those cookies, actually. A flat rock whose meaning he’d forgotten. Scraps of song ideas that had never left him, even though he hadn’t been able to share them with the world. The story of a life he’d managed to live at least partly in private—until this tour, anyway.

  Carefully, he restowed all of the pieces. Some memories were as clear as a movie in his head. But some were gone, never to be reclaimed. Still, he had these bits to remind him who he was, who he’d been. They’d mattered to him, at some point. Maybe they still did. Maybe more than he was willing to admit.

  The knock finally came at twelve forty-five A.M., quiet but sure. Dante eyed the peephole, then opened the door.

  Lacey looked like hell. “When’s the last time you slept?” he asked, letting her inside the room. He checked the hallway. No one there. For once, his security was holding. Or more likely, everyone had their hands full on the party floor, ten floors down. Either way worked for him.

  “The day before you walked into IMO,” Lacey said. She flung herself down on the couch—seemed to check the motion and look mournfully at the single chair across the room, but couldn’t bring herself to move again. “Episode one is a success, from all accounts—”

  “I don’t care.”

  That roused her, and she frowned up at him. “What do you mean you don’t care? Isn’t that the whole point of this?”

  “Not right now.” He moved toward her with purpose, not missing the reaction of his body as he approached, at her tension when he eased onto the couch beside her. Everything on him was tight and hard, but he couldn’t stay away from her suddenly. Didn’t want to play it cool. “The cameras don’t follow you around. Why not?”

  She looked wary. “Dante, I’m not the point of the show. You and the band are. Besides, sometimes cameras see things you don’t want them to.”

  That caught his attention. This was it, he thought. This was what had been bothering him, when he’d seen that camera shut off. That Lacey was hiding something—maybe something even from him. “So what is it you don’t want them to see?” She didn’t say anything, and he pushed a little harder. “Maybe it’s how much you like me, Lacey?”

  The telltale blush skated up her cheeks, and Dante rode a hard surge of pleasure at the sight. “That’s it, isn’t it?” He leaned a little closer to her, his voice low and full of promise. “Do you want to feel my mouth on you again, Lacey? My hands on your naked skin, your breasts full and heavy and—”

  “Dante, stop.” Lacey’s voice was a little shaky at his words, and he liked the sound more than he wanted to. He could see the doubt warring with hope in her eyes, triggering something deep within him, primal and hard and determined. He moved closer still, and once more she didn’t ease back. Still, she slid her gaze away, and the flush on her cheeks deepened. “You don’t need to tease me. It has to be obvious to the whole damned band that I stare at you a little too hard, a little too long.”

  Dante shifted beside her, trying to find a more comfortable position. He knew all about being a little too hard.

  But Lacey kept talking, her gaze resolutely moving back to meet his. “But I thought after—that first day, I thought we’d reached an arrangement between us. That we’d done—that one thing. And that was that. That there would be nothing more between us, nothing more to get in the way.”

  He lifted a brow, even though that’s exactly what their unspoken agreement had been. Now he wanted to undo it all. The hell with caution and sense. He wanted this. He wanted her. “Who said that was our arrangement?”

  Lacey coughed a laugh, then reached up a tentative hand to touch his cheek, as if she knew she shouldn’t but couldn’t stop herself. “Dante,” she whispered. “I don’t know what you want.”

  “That,” he said, as she pressed her palm against his cheek. He turned his head into her hand, and kissed the palm, his heart kicking hard at the small win of getting Lacey to act first. “This.” He took her other hand and put it on his chest, where he could feel his own pulse against her skin. Her eyes were dilating, and when she stretched up to reach his mouth, he met her halfway, brushing her lips with his.

  He slid his hands around Lacey’s waist and pulled her to him, reveling in the contact. “Dante, this definitely wasn’t part of the arrangement,” she breathed, but he could tell she was feeling the same thing he was as her arms went around his shoulders with an already familiar ease. That there was something happening here, between them, some hint of what could be—even if for just a short while. Something he found that he really, really wanted to explore.

  “Well, maybe it should be,” he murmured, drawing in the scent of her skin, her hair.

  Her sigh was ragged and heartfelt. “I just—”

  “Come on, Lacey. Aren’t you curious?” He nuzzled his mouth against the delicate shell of her earlobe. “Didn’t you enjoy me touching you?”

  “Oh—God, Dante.” Lacey shuddered as his lips connected with a particularly sensitive stretch of skin. “You don’t even know what you’re saying. It was incredible. Everything I’d ever hoped it would be, but—”

  Ever hoped it would be? Dante filed away that phrase for later consideration. His focus was too intense, too pinpointed on what was happening in the here and now. “And we don’t even have to have sex, see?” he said. “Just … just let me touch you. That’s all I want.”

  He allowed his hand to follow his words, and traced a light line down Lacey’s face, feeling her shiver beneath his fingertips. She was warm and sweet and smelled of vanilla and coconut, which had suddenly become his new favorite scent. And she was alone with him in his room. No people, no cameras, no obligations. He wasn’t going to let this moment pass him by. All the other women in all the other places were shadows, but Lacey was real, Lacey was in his arms, Lacey was—something different. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on, but he wanted to know what it was, to feel it and hold it and explore it, inch by slow inch.

  “Just go with it, Lacey,” he whispered against her hair. “One more time. Then I promise I’ll leave you alone, if that’s what you want.”

  Lacey closed her eyes against the onslaught of Dante’s attack on her senses. She had to accept the truth, no matter what she told him, or what she desperately needed him to believe. Because she didn’t want it once, she wanted it over and over again, tonight, tomorrow, and on into the future until some dark and distant time when there
was no feeling, only a wash of warm memory that she could cherish for the rest of her life.

  She should say no, she knew she should. But this was her dream come true, and—

  “I want you, Dante,” she whispered. “I want you so much I can’t even stand it. If you could just—if we could just—”

  He moved so quickly Lacey couldn’t tell how it happened, except suddenly she was in his arms, pressed up against the back of the couch, her legs naturally parting to accept his body more fully against hers. The sheer power of him surrounded her, all long, lean muscles and strong hands and fingers that kneaded, caressed, squeezed, and then even that seemed too little and with a curse, Dante rocked back and pulled her off the couch, the momentum propelling them both to the bed, where Dante unceremoniously drew her to him and both of them sank down into the plush softness. He kissed her, hard, then moved his mouth over her jaw, blazing a trail of heat down her neck to her collarbone.

  “Lacey,” he gritted out her name, and his breathing was ragged as she felt him trace the neckline of her cotton T-shirt with his mouth. Lacey closed her eyes, sighing with a pleasure beyond her wildest imaginings. This was good. This was incredible. This was a memory of Dante that she never wanted to forget.

  “I want you out of this shirt.” Dante’s words were urgent, almost a command, and when she didn’t respond, he slid the hem of it up, easing her out of the thin cotton and pressing her flat onto the bed before she could slip out of his grasp. He held her arms away from her body when she would have tried to cover herself, his gaze raking over the thin silk of her bra. It was the same bra she’d worn that first day in his bus, and with the last dimly rational part of her brain, Lacey recognized that fact. She would have kicked herself, if Dante wasn’t weighing down her legs. She should have found something new before she’d come to his hotel room tonight. Why didn’t I find something new?

  And then he lowered his face to her breast and she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, as he explored soft skin that impossibly was somehow becoming more sensitive just by him touching it. She arched her back beneath him, unable to stop the small moan that escaped her lips.

  He hesitated, looking up at her with dark eyes. “Everything okay?”

  She didn’t trust herself to form words, but Dante wouldn’t move, wouldn’t speak, wouldn’t do anything but stare at her, and finally she gasped. “Yes—yes! It’s—yes.”

  He grinned and ducked his head back down, and Lacey sighed at the feel of his mouth on her skin once more. He slid her bra off to the side, dragged his teeth over her nipple, and she shuddered in a long rolling wave. Her body at least knew this man by now. Knew what was possible, and was already clamoring for more. Because this time, there was no tight shower stall to stop Dante from doing whatever he wanted with her. And for Lacey’s part, she had clearly lost any ability to stop anything, period.

  And then he went farther still, scorching a new column of kisses over her belly, down to the waistline of her tailored pants. Lacey tensed, then tried to squirm away as he got too close—too close. “Dante!” she gasped.

  Dante held firm at her thighs but didn’t move farther. “Shhhh,” he whispered. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want, baby. But I really, really—I’ve been thinking about this for way too long.” When she exhaled a long, shaky breath and relaxed just the tiniest fraction, he unhooked her trousers, slid down the zipper, and followed the path with the hard, certain pressure of his mouth. Instinctively, wantonly, Lacey arched up beneath him, as Dante moved more quickly than she could process. He slid off the thin material in a hushed whoosh, not even giving her time to be embarrassed. Instead he nuzzled her thigh, and then edged a little closer to where her body was reacting in ways it had never done before, the core of her already damp with need and ready, urgently ready, desperately wanting him right at the center of her. Lacey could feel the heat pooling in her belly, and her mouth opened to pant. “Dante—I don’t …,” she began, knowing the words were belated, knowing she should have said something earlier, if only this didn’t feel so good. “I just think—”

  “You want me to stop?” he asked, his words a whisper. He nudged aside the edge of her panties with his mouth and kissed her hip bone. Lacey’s insides turned inside out. “Because I don’t want to stop. You’re so fucking good, Lacey. Everything I expected you to be.” He pressed his lips against the damp triangle of fabric. “God, you’re so wet for me,” he said, his words almost a growl. “Tell me you want this, too.”

  “Yes.” She’d barely managed the words when he brushed his lips against the soft, sensitive skin of her inner thigh, and her entire body clenched. She felt his strong hands part her legs, keep her open to him, and she squirmed half in embarrassment, half in need. No guy had ever made her feel this unglued. She’d always been an equal partner in the lovemaking, not this kind of sexual creature that hung by a thread at the whim of a man’s pleasure, aching for him to move faster, to do more, but not having the words to ask. Oh, who was she kidding? She had the words. She wanted to beg. To plead, to demand. But how could she face herself after, if she told him everything she wanted him to do?

  Dante was either ignoring Lacey’s halfhearted whimpers or took them as encouragement, because she felt the soft slide of his tongue against her overheated skin and she realized that at some point he had slipped off her panties or moved them over or—“God!” Lacey gasped as she felt one strong finger push inside her, her body tilting back, her hips lifting greedily to his mouth as Dante chuckled against her and she could no more stop shivering than speak.

  “Like that, do you?” he purred, never stopping the slow in and out rhythm of his fingers as he tracked her tremors with his mouth and circled her clit as she quivered and moaned, never quite giving her the release she so desperately needed. She reached out almost blindly and threaded her fingers through his hair, giving herself over to the emotions and sensations rocketing through her, more real than anything she’d ever experienced. Her breath caught his rhythm even as his fingers quickened their pace. “That’s right, Lacey,” he said, his voice dark and thick. “That’s right. Let yourself go, let yourself feel it, let me take you there.”

  “Dante,” she gasped, her body going rigid as he kept her hovering just on the precipice of release, hovering, hovering—then suddenly, almost without warning, he plunged her over to the other side. Her world exploded and she lost all sense of who she was and what she was and could only ride the flurry of sparks, shocked and thrilled and unable to breathe, unable to think.

  Dante fell to the side, caressing her legs as she rode out the exquisite agony, but as Lacey came slowly back to awareness of present time and space she realized that while she was naked before him … he was still half-dressed.

  That didn’t seem fair. Another issue was quickly becoming apparent to her, as well, present and real through her quickly dispersing fog. Because although Dante had taken her to a sharp, blinding orgasm, a new sort of need was building within her. A need to touch him, to bring him pleasure. A need to feel him shatter because of her. To take, as well as to give. The demand, the urgency, was real and unstoppable, and she couldn’t deny its desperation, forcing her to action, any more than she could keep herself from breathing.

  She heard the purr in her voice as if she was someone else entirely, some sexual creature she hadn’t even met before but really wanted to get to know better. “Dante,” she murmured, and he tightened his fingers against her in a light squeeze, then dropped a soft kiss on her thigh.

  “You good?” he murmured, and the desire inside her intensified at the pure male satisfaction in his voice.

  “Almost.” She stretched out languorously and he shifted as well, unfolding his long body beside her with a sigh. She pressed her hand to his chest and came up on one shoulder, taking in his self-satisfied smirk. “You’ve done that before, haven’t you?” she asked, lifting a brow.

  She was rewarded with his beautiful smile. “Once or twice,” he murmured. “My techniq
ue work out for you okay?”

  “I think it bears further exploration.” She couldn’t believe what she was saying, how easily the words came to her. It was like Dante had flipped a switch within her, giving her leave to be bolder, to say what she wanted to say and touch what she wanted to touch. She drew her fingers down his chest, tracing the curves and dips of a body that had decorated a million posters, a six-pack of abs that had spawned a generation of daydreams, the gentle curve of muscles that had been photographed countless times as it dipped down into his jeans. His erection was obvious, pressing against the thick fabric, and she brushed it with her fingertips, reveling in the soft exhale Dante let out between his clenched teeth. “I think this does, too,” she murmured.

  “Did I leave you unsatisfied?” The question was teasing, but also curious, and Lacey shook her head as she moved herself down his body, her hands already at his waistband, popping the button and sliding his zipper away. His shaft pressed up, freed from one constriction but still trapped behind the soft jersey of his boxer briefs, and she bent forward to nuzzle it through the cloth.

  “I just want to play,” she murmured. She looked up at him and caught him watching her, the look in his eyes intense, almost feral. He must be closer to breaking than she even realized, and the thought gave her a sharp thrill. She was doing this, she was taking him to the edge. And she would push him over.

  She curled her fingers over the edge of his jeans and pulled them down, sharply, drawing the boxer briefs away as well and smiling as Dante’s cock stood at attention, waiting for her careful ministrations. She’d already felt him in her hands, but this—this was something else. Something more.