by Nalini Singh
The woman he adored loved him.
She’d been kicked hard with the news of Naomi’s claim. He could see that now the haze of wounded anger had passed, see that she’d needed to catch her breath. As he had when she’d spoken about going into a hotel room with her ex.
“Don’t you ever say anything like that about your ex again,” he said as he pulled up the skirt of her dress to expose her panties. “Don’t, Thea.”
“I won’t,” she promised, her breath hot against him, their lips a hairsbreadth apart. “I’m so sorry, baby. It just came out.”
“Me, too.” Pulling at her panties, he got them halfway down her thighs. “I shouldn’t have bitten your head off.”
Making hotly feminine movements, she got the bit of lace and string she called panties the rest of the way down and stepped out of them. He hitched her up on his hips the next instant, having undone his jeans and shoved both the denim and his underwear down. Her long legs locked around him. Able to feel the damp heat of her against his cock, he went to thrust, froze, every muscle in his body at breaking point.
“Fuck. Condom.” He wanted to be skin to skin with her, wanted to mark her in the most primitive way, but he would not take what she didn’t want to give.
“Do I need to worry about anything?” she asked, kissing and nibbling at his throat, her hands possessive on his shoulders, his nape.
“No.”
“Neither do you.”
Fingers digging into her butt as he understood that she’d not only accepted his word without that stupid minute she seemed to think she needed, she’d offered him an intimacy so intoxicating he’d shared it with no other woman. Never wanted to.
“I won’t last.” They were the last coherent words he said before he shoved into her in a single hard thrust.
Her scream was in his mouth and then it was only the slap of their bodies, one against the other, the wet, slick sound of his cock moving in her, her body liquid for him, their breaths gasped-in amidst hungry kisses.
“David, David, David!” She clamped down on his cock on another scream, orgasming so hard that she took him with her.
Chapter 14
They ended up naked in bed afterward, and he ended up in her again after an interval of a few short minutes, his need for her a huge thing inside him. She moaned and held him close with her amazing legs around his body and her hands on his sweat-slick arms, her internal tissues rippling around him.
“I don’t think I can move after that orgasm.” A throaty moan.
“Just lie back and let me love you,” he said, stroking in and out of her in a slow, deep rhythm that made her skin shimmer and her breath catch, the taut, bitable mounds of her breasts topped by pebbled nipples. “You’re wet with both of us and it’s so hot, you have no idea.”
“You feel amazing in me.” Throat arching as she leaned up to lick at him with erotic little flicks of her tongue, she said, “Can you keep doing that forever?”
“Maybe if you weren’t so fucking sexy.” He closed his hand over one pretty breast and bent to kiss her.
It was a long, slow ride this time. He watched her go over again, his beautiful Thea, and then he pushed deep and pulsed wet inside her as she held him with feminine possessiveness, her lips kissing and caressing.
She continued to pet him afterward. Sinking into it after flipping them over so his weight wasn’t crushing her, he luxuriated in the softness of her fingers on his chest, the feathery brush of her hair, the damp heat of her mouth when she kissed around the flat disks of his nipples, then the firm strength of her teeth as she took one small nub between her teeth and tugged.
His hand clenched in her hair. “I never realized how much I’d like that.” No other woman had ever spent this kind of time on him—he hadn’t missed it then, but he’d miss it like hell if Thea ever stopped.
Her chuckle husky, she pressed a kiss to his breastbone before giving his other nipple the same treatment. Shivering, the response one he couldn’t control, he stroked his hand down her spine. She licked over the tiny bite before shifting lower and sucking on his skin.
“I love the way you taste.” It was a purr.
Drawing in a deep breath, she blew it out over the skin she’d just sucked.
His well-sated cock twitched. “That’s…” Words fading into a groan when she moved her mouth to suck on a spot on his hip that had him shuddering, he pulled at her hair. “Better stop that if you don’t want round three.”
She smiled against him, looked up, eyes sparkling. “That’s not a very good threat.”
His heart ached. “You’re incredible, you know that?” Everything he’d ever wanted, every dream he hadn’t realized he had.
Prowling up over his body, she nuzzled her nose against his. “I’m sorry I hurt you.” Soft, husky words. “I didn’t mean to.” No shields in her expression, no barriers between them. “I trust you, David. In every way.”
“I know.” He cupped the side of her face. “I’m sorry you had to hear the news while you were alone and I wasn’t there to hold you.”
Love shining in her eyes, Thea kissed him slow and sweet before saying, “We have to talk.”
His gut tightened, shoulders going stiff, but he nodded. “I honestly have no idea why Naomi would do this,” he said. “I never had much contact with her beyond seeing her at my folks’ house when she visited my brother, and she seemed like a nice girl.” He’d been racking his brain to figure out why she’d put this on him, had come up blank. “As far as I know, she’s not even a Schoolboy Choir fan. Zeke never asked for an extra ticket for her like he does for his other friends.”
Thea could see David’s frustration, feel his anger, but she couldn’t permit that to distract her, not when this could strike a devastating blow to his reputation. Many people would say it didn’t matter—the public expected rock stars to break the rules, would continue to buy his music. But it mattered to David, and he mattered to her.
David would be cleared by the paternity test, but by then, the damage would’ve been done, with some people always believing the lies. He was strong, would deal with it, but his parents called that neighborhood home. The innuendo would destroy their peace and happiness—yet Thea knew in her gut that the Riveras would be the first to tell David to stand his ground.
So would Thea.
He deserved better than to be blackmailed into an implied acceptance of wrongdoing when he was in the right. “Do you know anything about Naomi beyond her friendship with your brother?”
Folding one arm under his head, the other around her, David frowned. “Only reason I registered her at all was because I knew Zeke had a thing for her; she came across as sweet, maybe a little introverted. Other than that…” He paused, then said, “She used to wear a small gold cross around her neck. My mom wears one, too, that’s why I remember it. I’m pretty sure she came to their place after mass at least once while I was there, so I think she must be Catholic.”
Thea began to get a glimpse of the fear and avarice that might be driving this deception. “Catholic girl, possibly with a strict family”—a fact she’d check—“gets pregnant by a boyfriend, and when she can’t hide it anymore, she throws the blame on you.”
“Figuring no one would dispute her claim since I’m a degenerate, immoral musician.” Grim words. “Thea, she wants people to believe I fucked a child.”
“I’m pretty sure part of it is fear,” Thea said, stroking back his hair. “But money’s just as big a motive. She’s asking for a massive whack as child support—and she came in with a hotshot lawyer.”
“If she thinks I’ll roll over and throw money at her to shut her up, she’s in for a rude surprise.” Anger thrummed under his skin, but Thea could see it was a cold anger now, David’s fury having iced over.
“I think she’s probably already received that message.” Thea felt at once sorry for the girl and blindingly angry with her for so cavalierly playing with the life of a good man. “There has to be someone else pushing h
er to do this—I can’t see the girl you described coming up with this on her own.”
“Boyfriend, likely,” David said. “If he couldn’t keep it in his pants despite her religious beliefs, then he can’t be a prince.”
Nodding, Thea laid her head down on his shoulder, her palm over the strong, steady beat of his heart. “We’ll get through this, David. Together.”
The next three days weren’t easy. Naomi Hughes hadn’t yet gone to the media, but neither would she budge from her story. Thea made sure she was in the room during a legal meeting and the impression she had was of desperation and greed both. The girl wasn’t as much the innocent as David believed.
That ring on her finger, the decision to use Zeke’s gift against David, it spoke of cold calculation. And her manner was no longer meek and scared as it had been in the photo Thea had seen.
“He did this to me,” Naomi said midway through the meeting, her hand fisted on the gleaming gloss of the wooden conference table and her lips white at the corners. “He needs to pay!”
“Since you’ve made your stance clear,” Bailey said, his green-gray eyes striking against the deep brown of his skin, “there’s no point in further discussion. We’ll wait for the DNA results and go from there.” The lawyer met the eyes of his opponent. “Mr. Rivera will, of course, provide for the child should it be his.”
“I’m not giving permission for my baby’s DNA to be taken!” The girl ignored her attorney’s attempts to get her to quiet down. “I won’t violate my child that way!”
David’s lawyer didn’t flinch, his face impassive. “The prenatal paternity test I’ve suggested requires a simple blood test from you. There’s no risk to the child.”
“No, I won’t do it!”
“As your attorney should have explained to you before you made your claim,” Bailey said in his implacable tone, “your word is not enough, Ms. Hughes.” Stone-cold words. “Especially since our private investigator tells us you’ve been in a sexual relationship with one Juan Ortez for”—he looked down at his notes as, across from him, the girl went white—“the past year.”
Naomi turned to her attorney, who suddenly wasn’t looking as hard-nosed as he’d been to date. “Can they do that? Spy on me?” She swung back to David’s team, shaking off her attorney’s restraining arm. “I’ll go to the television stations.”
That was when Thea lost all remaining sympathy for the girl. The threat hadn’t been desperate but smug, as if Naomi was pulling an ace out of the hole. Definitely a planned shakedown.
“That’s your prerogative,” Bailey said without missing a beat, having already discussed this scenario with Thea. “You should, however, be aware that should the DNA test come back negative for paternity, we will also release that information to the media.”
The implication was clear: if she was lying, the girl would have to face some ruthless media attention. “Furthermore,” Bailey said, proving his worth as a shark in a suit, “should you go to the media and the child later proves not to be Mr. Rivera’s, we will also be filing suit for damages.” He raised an eyebrow at the opposing attorney. “Perhaps you should explain what that means to your client.”
The other man didn’t blink, Naomi having hired a shark herself—one who was most likely working on a contingency-fee basis, with the expectation of being paid from the proceeds of Naomi’s claim against David. Rising, the tanned brunette male said, “I’ll contact you to arrange a mutually acceptable lab to handle the paternity test.”
Naomi was still arguing that she wouldn’t agree to any such thing when she and her lawyer left, but her voice had gone from smug to shrieking to shaky.
“She’s dead in the water.” Bailey’s smile held no mercy. “This was an attempt at extortion pure and simple, and now she’s finally realized it’s not as easy as the tabloids make it appear.”
Having seen the calculation in the girl’s eyes, Thea wasn’t so sure Naomi wouldn’t push things further, so she kept her ear to the ground. It was difficult to be away from David given the stress of the situation, but she had to be in New York, where everything was going down. At least Schoolboy Choir’s Manhattan concert was in a few days’ time, so she’d see him then.
And her and David’s line of communication was wide open. Thea had broken through her final self-protective walls in that hotel suite when David had told her he loved her—she’d never forget the passionate fury of that instant. She had no problem with laying her own heart out there. Her reward was seeing the brilliant light in his eyes, a light that didn’t fade no matter the continued shadow thrown by Naomi’s claim.
The first sign that things were going their way came twelve hours after the legal meeting, when the hotshot lawyer informed them he was no longer representing Naomi in her claim. Twenty-four hours after that, the private investigator hired by Bailey reported that Naomi had been in a crying, screaming fight with her boyfriend at the boyfriend’s apartment.
“The P.I. didn’t catch all of it,” Thea told David over the phone, “but he said it was obvious they were fighting about the baby. She was screaming he’d promised her it’d be easy and that now people would think she was a slut.”
It took another twenty-four hours for Naomi to totally withdraw her claim. Receiving the news soon after the band got into Manhattan, Thea went immediately to David.
“It’s over,” she said, cupping his face in her hands the instant they were behind the closed door of his suite. “Did you call your folks?”
“Yeah.” He wrapped her in his arms. “My mom told me Naomi’s getting married this afternoon. Shotgun wedding. She must’ve told her parents the truth.”
Thea shook her head. “Regardless of everything, a part of me does still feel sorry for her.” Naomi wasn’t much older than her own sisters.
“According to Zeke, the bastard who knocked her up is a piece of shit,” David said. “If I was her father, I’d have said she was better off without him.”
“Yes.” Running her hands over his shoulders, she held his gaze with the wide-open vulnerability of her own. “We’re still standing, still in each other’s arms.”
David’s heart-stealing smile creased his cheeks. “Right where we’re meant to be.”
“Yes.” Tears rolled down her face, a dam bursting without warning.
“Hey.” Scowling, David wiped them off with his thumbs. “Don’t cry. I can’t stand to see you cry. Or tell me who to kill.”
She sniffed. “Thank you for being stubborn, for fighting for me, for being so wonderful, and for putting up with my hang-ups.”
Kissing off her tears this time, he said, “I’m the one who came out on top. I have you.”
Thea had no idea what she was going to do with him; he kept cutting her off at the knees. “I’m going to love you for the rest of my life,” she whispered, and it wasn’t scary at all to admit that, not when he’d given her his heart to hold in return for her own. “I am so glad you wrote me that memo.”
A slow, sinful, David smile. “I’m not done yet.”
After the Tour
Reasons Why You Should Marry Me
Introduction: In which I, David Rivera, set out the reasons why you, Thea Arsana, should make an honest man out of me.
First and foremost, I am insanely, deeply, forever in love with you. Since you admit to feeling the same, roadblock number one ceases to exist.
Second, your mother likes me. She kissed me on the cheek this morning and told me to hurry things along, start working on grandbabies for her. Your father, meanwhile, no longer gives me the stinkeye (most of the time). I think he’s resigned to my existence.
You know my parents adore you and both my brothers are in love with you. Your sweet little sisters, meanwhile, seem to find me giggle-worthy, and Molly thinks we’re perfect for one another. Ergo (I looked that up in the dictionary), there are no viable family reasons why we can’t get married.
Third, all our close friends love that we’re together. We don’t want to break their he
arts by not going all the way, do we?
Finally, and most importantly, I want you to be mine in every way. I want every single man on the planet to know you belong to me, and every single woman to know I belong to you. Playing with you, arguing with you over silly, everyday things, making love with you, growing grumpy and wrinkly together with you (while continuing to have mind-blowing sex at least three times a day), that’s my idea of heaven.
You’re my girl, Thea. Be my wife?
Sitting by the stream at the bottom of her parents’ garden, Thea finished reading the memo on her phone with a teary smile on her face. Only David could reduce her to a puddle. Unable to wait long enough to write back a memo in reply, she ran up the slope to find him… and there he was, waiting for her under the frangipani tree, that sexy, wonderful, slightly shy smile on his face.
“You forgot the conclusion,” she whispered, the frangipani blooms heavy and fragrant around them.
He slid his hand around to her nape. “That’s for you to write.”
“In conclusion,” she said, her hands splayed on his chest, “I, Thea Alice Arsana, see the value of your arguments.” More, she saw him: loyal and strong and loving and talented and plain wonderful. “You are the most incredible man I’ve ever met, and I can’t think of anything I’d rather do than marry you. I’ll be proud to call myself your wife, David Rivera.”
David’s kiss held naked joy. So did hers. And then he was lifting her up and spinning her around. Thea laughed in delight with her own personal rock star under the frangipani blooms, the happiness like sunlight in her veins.
I hope you enjoyed David and Thea’s story! If you haven’t yet read Molly and Fox’s story, which takes place at the same time as Rock Courtship, you can find it in Rock Addiction.
I’m currently at work on the next full-length book in the Rock Kiss series. For exclusive sneak peeks, deleted scenes from my books, and monthly updates, swing by my website (www.nalinisingh.com) and join my newsletter.