by Jess Dee
She turned to look at him now, leaning over the set of drums that stood in the foyer of the suite, adjusting something.
How easy it would be to fall in love with him. To just hand him her heart, knowing she’d never be able to take it back. How careful would she have to be to ensure she didn’t?
She already suspected it was too late to take those precautions. Which made her dumb as shit, because she could never have him in the long term. While it was fine to live in the here and now, to enjoy the time they had together, Zachary’s future belonged to another. And even if it didn’t, there was no way he would ever give his heart to a woman whose face had been permanently scarred by an exploding window while she was on holiday.
Zachary sat on his throne, sticks in hand, and tapped out a tune on his drums.
Eve froze.
He drummed a little more energetically.
Her heart began to pound.
Zachary closed his eyes and seemed to merge with his drums. He rapped with fluid movements, his muscles flexing in time with his beat, his actions so sure, so sexy it was like he’d been born playing drums. As if the instruments were a natural extension of the man.
The beat became a song, one she recognized. He played the underlying cadence of “Thunder ’n Rain”.
He was brilliant. Enthralling. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. She was trapped in the rhythm of his drums, trapped in the incredible music he made.
The tempo vibrated through the rooms, echoed across the floors and reverberated up her legs, down her spine.
This wasn’t Zachary. This was Jonah, master musician and professional percussionist. And she had the pleasure of watching him play in a private performance.
Weak-kneed, Eve pressed herself against the archway to the foyer, listening to him, watching him and throbbing inside. His music was sheer magic, his appearance breathtaking. She ached inside, touched by something unfathomable as he performed. He was masterful, brilliant, and she was overwhelmed by her conflicting emotions.
She could spend the rest of her life standing here, content to watch him perform. At the same time she knew this would never be enough for her. Because now that she’d experienced his music in person, she wanted more from Zachary.
She wanted everything. His music, his tempo, his dedication… His heart. She wanted him with a compulsion that shook her to the core.
Her heart pounded so hard it took a few seconds to realize it was the only beat she now heard. Zachary sat on his throne, drumsticks in hand, staring at her.
“Th-that was stunning.” Words could never adequately describe how his playing affected her.
He shrugged. “Just messing around.” His words were light, his eyes were not. They were heavy-lidded and dark, and his gaze was hungry.
“Feel free to continue messing around. Don’t stop for me.”
He turned his attention back to playing and rapped on a drum again, just once. “Can’t do it, Tiny.”
“Can’t do what?”
“Play when you’re looking at me like that.”
She couldn’t help it, couldn’t not look at him like she was. She closed her eyes. “That better?”
“No. I have a massive erection, and playing my drums is not going to help me lose it.”
“Your playing is incredibly arousing.”
“It’s not the drums that have me aroused. Not the music either.”
Her breasts swelled, her nipples tightening. She opened her eyes again, found his gaze centered on her, hungrier than before. “Pacey?”
“Yeah?”
She recalled what he’d said last night about his other talent with his sticks, and her belly seemed to flip upside down. “You don’t really do that with your drumsticks, do you?”
“Oh yeah, beautiful. I really do.”
He held her gaze for just a second too long, and the air between them filled with a deafening silence. So silent, Eve feared Zachary would hear her heart pounding.
She crossed one leg over the other, squeezing her thighs together, but that only increased the ache and the throbbing. “Ouch.”
The drummer blinked. “Ouch?”
“Ouch,” she concurred, then explained in detail, “Splinters.” Yeah, actually, no. Splinters were the furthest thing from her mind.
Zachary chuckled hoarsely. “Splinters?”
“Believe me, no one wants to get splinters down there.” Her throat felt like sandpaper.
“The sticks are varnished. No fear of splinters there.”
“And your unvarnished ones?”
“I choose my tools carefully, oh, cautious one.” The air snapped and shimmered. “You know, I could make you come without laying anything more than my varnished tools on you.”
Eve blinked. “Prove it.” Her belly tumbled once more, this time in anticipation.
His voice had dropped, the deep baritone coming out soft and low, like a rumbled caress. “It’ll be my pleasure. And yours. Step closer.”
She did. Walked over until all that separated them were his drums and cymbals. She placed her hands on one of the drums and leaned forward. “Can’t get closer than this.”
“Close enough. For now.”
Jonah tapped his foot once, the rise and drop of his knee the only clue that he’d moved. That, and the reverberation through the drums as a low, soft boom echoed through the foyer.
The sound vibrated through her arms and down her body. She jerked in surprise. “Wh-what are you doing?”
“Proving a point.” And his drum boomed again, a little harder.
This time the vibrations hit not only her arms, but her lower body as well, where it was pressed against the drum. The sound and feel echoed through her hips and groin.
She blinked.
Zachary smiled a knowing smile.
“Zach—”
“Shh. Just feel the beat.”
He began to play then, continually, a soft, sexy beat. Slow and seductive.
She tried to concentrate. Tried to identify the song but in the end gave up. The vibrations shivering through her made thinking too difficult.
The tempo was hypnotic, and Eve closed her eyes, letting it draw her in, letting her heart pick up the rhythm of the sound and pulse in time with it. But it wasn’t just the music that caught her. It was the movement of the drum. The gentle, ongoing throb. It wasn’t just her heart pulsing. Her groin pulsed too. Each beat shuddered through her pussy, a gentle tap against her clit. Or maybe it was around her clit, or under. No, the tap seemed to surround it, surround her whole groin.
The slow, steady vibration that had begun as a pleasant beat soon changed, increasing in tempo. Her pussy pulsated harder, and she clenched, realizing, almost belatedly, how arousing the rhythm had become.
A heartbeat in her pussy, stimulating, teasing.
She opened one eye and looked at him, stunned. “Za—”
“Uh-uh, Eve. Not one word. Close your eyes.”
She obeyed, speechless as moisture pooled between her legs. On some level she tried not to let go, not give herself over to the sweet harmony of Zachary’s drums, but on another level, a deeper one, she knew she didn’t stand a chance. She shifted closer, pushing herself harder against the drum.
He rewarded her by playing a little harder, a little faster.
The contented sigh that escaped her lips melded with the sound of percussion in the air around her.
And then the beat changed, slowed. Rather than a cacophony of sounds and taps, only two remained. One deep and steady, the other lighter, from the drum she rested against.
Before she could question it, something tickled down the front of her shirt. A soft whisper from her throat to her waist.
She tugged heavy lids open.
Zachary’s arm was stretched toward her, and as she watched, he drew his drumstick up again, this time tracing the outline of her breasts.
Her breath caught.
“You’re very beautiful when you’re aroused.” The tip of the drumstick
found her nipple, circled it in a whispered caress.
She hardly noticed. Zachary’s brown eyes had darkened. They held her spellbound.
“The way your lips part, and the tip of your tongue wets the lower one?” His gaze dropped to her mouth. “Sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.”
His drumstick drifted over to her other nipple.
Eve’s chest felt heavy, as though her breasts had swelled beneath his attention. Her nipples were stiff beads of pleasure, and each sweep of the stick over them made her tingle.
“It makes me want to know how those lips would feel around my shaft, how your tongue would wet my cock.”
Eve swallowed at the image he painted. It made her want to wrap her lips around his shaft, lick him from root to tip.
“Here’s what I need you to do, Tiny.” He stroked the tip of one stick up her chest and neck, and traced her mouth with it.
How he kept the touch so gentle, so erotic, Eve had no idea. Years of experience with his sticks was her only answer.
“Lose the skirt. Get rid of it. Good as you look in it, and…” He stopped, cleared his throat. “And you do look edible in it, for this I need it out of the way.”
Trapped by the greed in his eyes, Eve reached behind her, unfastened the skirt and shimmied out of it so she stood before him in her blouse and panties.
Zachary said something, a nonsensical word that came out like a growl. And then his drumstick trailed carnally down her front, down between her aroused breasts, down over her navel, down to where the edge of her shirt met the elastic of her panties.
And that’s where it stopped trailing.
“I’ve played many instruments before.” His gaze was focused on the point where his stick touched her panties. “Made music on everything from violins to saxophones, drums to didgeridoos, but never…” Again he cleared his throat. “Never have I anticipated creating symphonies like right now.” His voice alone was a tempestuous assault on her nerves. “Never have I wanted to make music like I want to make music with you.”
Eve’s knees turned to mush. Wet heat pooled between her legs. She had to clutch the drums to ensure she stayed upright.
And her weakness only increased as he dragged the tip of that maddening drumstick lower, finding her clit, and pressing with just the tiniest amount of pressure against it.
Eve almost climaxed on the spot.
She closed her eyes, ground her teeth, clenched her fingers over the rim of the drums and held every muscle rigid in an effort not to.
Zachary’s hum of satisfaction told her he’d noticed. He eased the pressure minutely. Long seconds passed where all Eve heard was the sound of her breath and his, hers fast and shallow, his slower, softer.
And then the tip of the drumstick was gone. But not for long. Zachary flattened the stick so he held it parallel to her legs, the tip resting on her clit.
He strummed her pussy. Strummed it with his drumstick like a cellist strummed strings with a bow. He played that stick over her, drawing it up and down, ever so gently, ever so erotically.
And she stood there, panting, her legs trembling, her pussy pulsing as he created his music.
Never, in Eve’s wildest imagination would she have thought she could be brought to the edge of paradise by a long, thin piece of wood. But Zachary’s skill had her right there, on the precipice.
His exquisite tenderness and delectable creativity had her oscillating between wanting to come and wanting the sensation to continue for eternity. He generated such sweet harmony within, Eve lost herself to the mastery of his hand, the skill of his touch—and still, as promised, he hadn’t actually laid a finger on her.
And then the real music began, the slow beat of his second stick against his drum, the vibration of the boom of his bass drum.
And while it began slow, to match the rhythm with which he drew his bow—his stick—over her pussy and clit, soon it increased in pace, as Zachary’s tunes always seemed to. As the drumming became faster and the boom harder, he played her more quickly.
It was all too much. Sensory overload. The sensations he filled her with could not be contained. They blossomed and grew, doubling in intensity, then tripling, until she could no longer hold them within.
She came, crying his name out loud as he brought her endless waves of exquisite pleasure.
Long, rapturous moments passed before Eve came back to herself. Before her mind began to work and the world made sense.
And when her vision cleared and her gaze took in Zachary, sitting on his throne, king of his drums, king of his music, king of her, she could resist the temptation he’d painted for her no longer.
Without giving him a second to object, she rounded the drums, squeezed before him and dropped to her knees, freeing his cock from his jeans.
She licked her lips.
His drumsticks hit the floor with a dull thud seconds later, and for a good few minutes Eve took charge of the music, playing him with her lips and her tongue and her teeth, until Zachary reached his very own crescendo.
Dinner was a leisurely event filled with laughter and small talk. Zachary was more relaxed than he’d been in months, and Eve seemed to have gotten over her awe of meeting his brothers. She now chattered away with them as though she’d known them for years.
She chattered happily with Delilah and Devine as well. And with Sophie, who’d come to dinner with her face fully made up and looking extraordinarily beautiful. It had taken Nathan a good few minutes to find his voice, and even then, he hadn’t bothered with speech. He simply tipped Sophie over and kissed her in front of everyone. Again.
Zachary would have kissed Eve, but she’d threatened to poke him in both eyes if he even attempted another public display of affection. And after their experience at the after party, he was more than okay with that.
“A bath,” he whispered now to the woman who was fast monopolizing every one of his waking thoughts.
“What about it?” she whispered back.
“Let’s ditch dessert and go take one. Together.” The massive spa in the bathroom had captured his attention—and imagination—the second he’d seen it.
She looked at him, horrified. “Are you insane? Nice as that bath looks, I can’t justify missing dessert for a tub full of hot water.”
“Hot water…and me.”
She leaned back and surveyed him carefully, giving him a slow once-over. “You look okay. Tempting even…”
“But?”
“But did you get a look at the dessert menu? I’m afraid you have nothing on the soufflé.”
“Seriously?” He gaped at her. “You’re throwing me over for…for…a puffy cake?”
“Not throwing you over. No. We could always share.” She blinked prettily, obviously happy with her well-thought-out compromise. “So long as you order the panna cotta. I’m dying to try that too.”
He raised his hands in disbelief. “Rejected again.”
Eve grinned. “Not rejected. Just…postponed.”
They ordered the soufflé and the panna cotta, and Zachary watched, both charmed and aroused, as Eve consumed them both.
When the plates had been cleared away, and he once again suggested the bath, more eager then ever to get her into that hot tub, Eve once again vetoed the idea.
“How about a walk rather? Along the promenade?”
“Hot sex with a hot woman in a hot tub, or a walk in public.” He held his hands out, palms up, as though weighing up his options. “Hmm. Which one, which one…?”
“C’mon, lazy bones.” She grabbed his arm and pulled him to his feet, which just charmed him even more, watching the slip of a woman yanking a man almost twice her size out of his seat. “I’ve been locked up in either a hotel or a plane all day long. I need air. Need to breathe a little and stretch my legs.”
He frowned. “You sure you’re up to going out there?” As far as he knew, the press had not been informed of their current accommodation. Luke had spread subtle rumors about Speed staying in Brisbane. But one
could never be too cautious, especially seeing how edgy Eve had been about the pap outside the Melbourne hotel. “It’s been a while since I went out and haven’t been recognized.”
Eve reached into her bag and pulled out two caps. “I come prepared, Pacey. With Jake’s help. Here you go, put it on.” She handed him a navy cap with I LOVE BROADBEACH embroidered on it in gold, and popped a matching pink one on her head. “We’ll just be regular tourists. No one will even notice us. Especially with Jake walking behind and Brayden up ahead.”
Brayden, his bodyguard.
“You sure about this?”
“Sure, I’m sure. As long as Jake and Brayden don’t make it obvious what they’re doing, I’d love to get out for a while.”
Ten minutes later, caps on, Eve and Zachary strolled outside, arm in arm. Brayden had suggested they walk around the hotel’s private marina instead of the promenade, and Zachary had jumped at the suggestion. It was mostly deserted, and they made their way through the jetties and boats, oblivious to anything but each other. Jake and Brayden were indeed subtle enough—and far away enough—that after a minute or two Eve seemed to stop noticing them.
“I like your brothers,” she said. “Luke too.”
The boats rocked gently in the still water.
“They’re good guys. All three of them. And Luke might as well be part of the family. He’s like a brother to all of us.” He laughed. “Well, except to Seth.”
“They seem…close.”
Subtle choice of words. “More than close. Seth’s been in love with him for years. I think he finally wore Luke down. Probably with his sheer persistence and belief they were meant to be together.” Both Zachary and Nathan had watched, amused and perplexed, as Seth decided Luke was meant for him and Luke spent eight years denying it.
The two older Paces had never harbored any doubt that Seth would finally get Luke to see things from his perspective. The two were perfect for each other.
“Nathan and Sophie seem nice too.”
“I don’t know Sophie that well. But I’ve never seen Nath happier. She’s good for him. And damn, when she’s around his voice is stronger than ever.” Nathan’s performance last night had almost brought the house down. “They both believe they were fated to be together.”