Madison's Quest

by Jory Strong

  Not the nightmare. She’d expected it, though it’d been a long time since it’d caused her to scream. Not whatever was going on between him and Shane—or more accurately, what was not going on. Not the fact that she couldn’t have the happy-ever-after, not yet, not when the dream was a reminder that the music had to come first after making sure her parents didn’t lose the house.

  “Hey,” Tyler said, pushing her hair off her face. “Want to talk about it?”

  The light brush of his fingers against her cheek was enough to obliterate the reasons she should deny the need. The tenderness in his voice was balm and glue.

  She didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to think, didn’t want to remember.

  What she wanted was to feel. To stop fighting the attraction.

  She met his eyes, unclasped her arms from around her knees.

  “What if we do this instead?” she said, reaching, tangling her fingers in long strands of blond hair.

  His lips parted.

  Heat slid into her breasts. Her nipples tightened, stabbing against the peach-colored sleeping tank in an erotic demand to be noticed, touched, sucked.

  His eyes said yes even though the word hadn’t left his mouth.

  She didn’t tug. Didn’t pull him to her, and that made the arrival of his lips all the more satisfying.

  He whispered kisses across her cheek, pressed open-mouthed ones along her neck, denying her the instant oblivion she craved.

  She nearly whimpered, nearly whispered please, but didn’t, something inside her preferring to flirt with danger, with a desire that could only become a craving for deepened intimacy, for continued intimacy.

  A sucking bite sent sharp need streaking to her swollen sex. Her back arched, she cupped her breast, captured the nipple between her fingers and longed for Tyler’s touch to replace hers.

  He lifted his head.

  Heat rippled through her stomach at the raw hunger in his eyes.

  His mouth slowly descended, as if he were giving her plenty of time to think about Shane and change her mind, or maybe he was giving himself that time.

  She met him halfway, her arms going around his neck, her heart pounding harder, beating against his chest as her tongue licked along the seam of his mouth then touched his for the first time.

  His moan of surrender was answered by one of her own. Giving in felt as good as she’d known it would, as right as she’d feared.

  He hugged her to him, the hard muscles in his chest and arms offering strength and sanctuary.

  She closed her eyes, hands fisting in hair that was close in color to her own blonde. She gave herself over to pure sensation, the scent and taste and pleasure of Tyler.

  Her tongue rubbed against his, twined with his, retreating only for the infinitesimal separation necessary to allow breath.

  Firm hands glided over her back. Tyler’s fingers traced the line of her peach-colored boy shorts and the heat between her legs intensified.

  Her clit was as swollen and sensitive as the nipples stabbing against the tank top. She arched into him, pressed her breasts to his chest.

  Her teeth grasped his bottom lip. She sucked it and felt pleasure shudder through him.

  He pushed his hands beneath the tank, sliding them upward, strong fingers tracing her spine, her shoulder blades, gliding around to cup her breasts.

  His thumbs rubbed back and forth across taut nipples, making her ache for more, for always.

  She pressed against him. Kicked the sheets still covering her thighs downward.

  Liquid desire pooled between her legs. The crotch of the boy shorts was drenched, the feel of material against her skin already unbearable.

  She forced a hand out of his hair and between their bodies to the front of his jeans. Tyler moaned, hips jerking, the hands on her breasts tightening, thumbs pressing, circling, sending pleasure streaking from her nipples to her clit.

  She cradled his erection, slid her hand up and down, stroking him through the soft material of the distressed jeans.

  “Tease,” he panted.

  “All’s fair.”

  “That sounds like something Lyric would say.”

  “Or Shane.”

  Tyler’s mouth slammed down on hers. Lips and tongue more aggressive.

  The possibility that it was because of the mention of Shane did nothing to diminish her desire.

  She stroked Tyler through the jeans, and he matched her movements with the plunge and retreat of his tongue.

  The need built with each thrust and rub and stroke. For more contact. For more pleasure. For more everything.

  He broke the kiss, grabbed the tank and she raced to lift her arms.

  He tugged upward, stripping it off her and tossing it away in a single smooth motion.

  His gaze zeroed in on her breasts.

  Rapid pleasure pulsed through her at the darkening of his eyes, the parting of his lips.

  “You’re a wet dream waiting to happen. You know that, right?” he said.

  She reached, grasped his hair, letting it slide through her hands on the way to his shoulders. “You don’t need the dream. You’ve got the real thing.”

  “Good point.”

  His mouth returned to hers. His thumbs returned to her nipples, this time joined by other fingers. He matched the pull and squeeze and twist of her nipples with the thrust of his tongue, using pleasure to urge her onto her back.

  He straddled her.

  She opened the front of his jeans.

  His cock emerged. Hard and velvety soft and throbbing.

  She took it in her hand, rubbed her thumb along the wet, darkened head.

  Tyler jerked, gave a panted moan, not sure he would survive, not sure he wanted to.

  She was killing him. Between Madison and Shane, it felt as if he’d been primed and ready to blow for hours.

  Her hand moved on his shaft.

  Down. Up.

  Driving thought away.

  His balls felt like they were going to explode.

  Down. Up. Another rub over his cock head and pleasure nearly drove his head back and his eyes closed.

  He was already slick. Ready to go in. Desperate to join his body to hers—and wanting it without the separation of a condom.

  She stroked him again.

  He nearly lost it looking into her eyes, seeing the need there, the desire, the connection his heart said existed.

  His hand covered hers, tightening. He stopped her before he experienced the abject humiliation of coming too soon. But having her hand around his dick and not moving as she looked at his cock head getting wetter and more flushed was worse.

  He pumped.

  Once. Twice. And knew he couldn’t take much more.

  Nearly panting, he pulled their hands away from his erection, managed to get off the bed to lose the jeans.

  She shimmied out of the boy shorts.

  Streaks of warning shot up his spine. He gripped his cock and said, “Those things ought to be outlawed. Or at least carry a warning.”

  Her husky laugh didn’t help his control.

  “You think?” she asked.

  “I know.”

  When she’d kicked off the sheet and he’d seen them, fantasy had surged in, of Shane and him on their knees in front of her, jerking the things down so they could get their mouths on a package wrapped the same as theirs but so very different.

  A shudder of need swept through him. For that. For this.

  She was exquisite, all flushed and wet and feminine with only a tiny landing strip of blonde hair.

  Her body called to his, her eyes said she wanted this as much as he did, needed it.

  He already felt consumed by her.

  He straddled her again, not daring to cover her body with his.

  Her lips beckoned and he was helpless against the desire to touch and taste and take.

  The only thing that could make being with her better, would be sharing her with Shane, taking her at the same time as Shane—and being taken by
her in turn.

  He moaned against her mouth, a shudder of pleasure going through him, sinking into him. They made love together as naturally as they’d played music together.

  Her lips closed around his tongue. She sucked.

  His hands fisted the sheets. His hips jerked, his cock pulsing, straining to get to her.

  A murmured no fair would only gain him additional torment and threaten his control. She already did that, in a way his control hadn’t been threatened since he first discovered how good sex that wasn’t self-administered felt.

  But two could play at torment.

  He left her mouth, kissed along her neck, sucked, a primitive part of him wanting to leave her marked, not just to stake his claim, but because of what it would do to Shane when he saw it.

  Her fingers speared through his hair, urging him lower and he went. He worshipped the slopes of her breasts.

  She was the perfect size. Not too big. Not too small.

  Just right. Everything about her felt just right.

  Her back arched. With the press of her nipple against his lips, molten need raged from his mouth to his cock.

  He took what she offered. Sucked. Drank in the sounds of her pleasure.

  He shifted his weight onto one forearm, freed a hand to cup and mold and take possession of her other breast, his fingers capturing the nipple, squeezing and pumping it in the same rhythm as he suckled.

  Her legs moved restlessly, opening, pressing against the cage of his.

  His cock bobbed, the head licking across his abdomen, slick and wet and ready for her.

  He kissed his way to her other nipple. Sucked until he left it as love-bruised as the first.

  He moved lower. Dipped his tongue into her navel.

  Her hands fisted in his hair. Alternated between trying to tug him upward, to cover her, and trying to push him downward, to eat her.

  Being with Madison was already a heady aphrodisiac. The scent of an aroused Madison…

  He kissed downward, rubbed his mouth against blonde hair. Licked along the underside of her clit.

  “Tyler.”

  Her voice was plea and command.

  He captured her clit, sucked, her pleasure pouring into him. The sound of his chanted name was a binding, and her release a lock snapping in place.

  He crawled up her body, covered it with his, moaned at the feel of skin and curves and pure femininity beneath him.

  He might have a thing for other men—one in particular—but he could never give up women.

  Touching his mouth to Madison’s, the sense of homecoming swept in, and he acknowledged that she had already become a one in particular, the same as Shane.

  His tongue thrust into her mouth in a carnal kiss, the sharing of her taste becoming entwined with the thought of Shane.

  Her legs circled his waist. His cock spasmed at the press of her wet pussy against it.

  He rocked against her. The dig of fingernails into his back urged him to lift, to plunge, nearly destroying what little remained of his control.

  He broke the kiss, panting. “Protection.”

  Her legs tightened before falling away.

  He rose onto his knees, reached for the nightstand, praying he’d find a condom in it and having that prayer answered.

  She took it from his hand, carried it to her mouth to open and he fisted his dick. Shuddered in pleasure when she rolled the condom over him as he fought against air-humping.

  The instant she was done he was on her, his eyes locked to hers as he guided himself to her entrance, slowly forging into her, pleasure wracking his body.

  I’m in trouble, he thought, and didn’t care.

  He returned to her mouth, hips pistoning harder and faster when she wrapped her legs around his waist, her inner muscles demanding movement, surrender—and he gave both.

  The vise-tight clamp when she came was all the trigger he needed for ecstasy to scorch through his dick, whiting out everything else but how good it felt to be with Madison.

  He didn’t want to pull out, didn’t want to separate, though he did when her legs fell away from his waist.

  He rolled off, instantly hating the feel of the condom on his dick.

  He got rid of it, grateful for a trashcan in reach so he didn’t have to leave the bed. He liked being with her. Already he liked it too much, more than was smart though the time for self-preservation had come and gone—at least when it came to her.

  He stretched out on his side next to her, tugged the sheet upward to their waists.

  Remembering what had brought him to the bedroom, he brushed his mouth across her bare shoulder. “Tell me about the nightmare.”

  Madison’s heart fluttered. She’d never even told her bandmates in Miami about that day.

  Tyler kissed his way to her lips, her mouth parting, clinging to his as if he’d become the ultimate source of comfort.

  “Tell me,” he murmured.

  She couldn’t deny him. Didn’t want to, and so she told him about the day Elijah died.

  Her throat felt raw at the end.

  Tyler wiped her tears away with his fingers.

  “I used to wake up screaming No! at least three or four times a night,” he said. “And the nights I didn’t, I’d wake up with my face pressed against a wet pillowcase.”

  “What was the nightmare?”

  “It was about the day my brother OD’d. In it I’m running, looking for him. It goes on for hours. Me searching every place I can think of, then finally I find him, at a playground we used to go to. He’s totally unresponsive. I can’t tell if he’s alive or dead. I’m frantic, trying to get help. Only when help comes, the one cop looks at the other, shakes his head and says it’s too late.”

  “It happened that way?”

  “Yes.” He leaned over her.

  His mouth descended, his lips offering comfort, not the oblivion of sex. And hers offered the same, their kisses only slowly becoming more, the covering of her body with his, the slide of his bare cock into her, filling her, a shudder going through both of them at the intimacy.

  There was no retreat from it.

  Her fingers combed through his hair, roamed over his back, hugged him to her. His first thrust led to another and another. To a faster, harder rhythm met by the squeeze and release of inner muscles. To the build of pleasure and then to an explosion of it.

  And looking into his eyes in the aftermath, arms and legs and channel tightening on him instead of releasing, she knew she was in trouble, that already walking away would be hard.

  Chapter Five

  Madison woke snuggled against Tyler, her arm across his chest as he lay on his back, her thigh across his as if laying claim to him.

  Her heart fluttered. The last time she’d woken up in a position like this was with Elijah. And until last night, he’d been the only person she’d ever had unprotected sex with.

  Her fingers curled against the desire to trace Tyler’s collarbone, his sharp cheek bones, the ridge of his nose and perfect lips.

  What was she going to do about him? About this? About Shane?

  Home was Richmond. Her parents needed her. And since leaving Miami she could barely consider herself a struggling musician, much less someone who’d finally achieved success and could let things get serious with a man—or men.

  The nightmare should have created a sense of urgency, to get to the end of Bio-dad’s quest, to leave California so she could concentrate on her music.

  Instead she wanted to lie there, soaking Tyler in through her skin, and when she was done with that, rouse him, absorbing his kisses and touches.

  Slowly, carefully, she slid away from Tyler and escaped to the bathroom.

  She braided her hair, tied it into a knot and got into the shower, avoiding the mirror, not wanting to see if she looked changed by the night with Tyler.

  She closed her eyes, luxuriated beneath the spray of hot water.

  Everything was going to be okay.

  She busied her mind with imag
es of depositing the latest check, of depositing more of them, getting home and paying off all the bills before sitting her parents down and telling them what she’d done.

  That’d be the way to do it. That’d eliminate the chance of refusal and failure.

  The shower door opened. The heat generated by Tyler’s joining her penetrated in a way the hot water couldn’t.

  His arms brushed hers as he reached around her, squirting body wash into his palms.

  Her nipples beaded. Her sex heated and tightened with need.

  “Morning, doll,” he said, voice husky against her neck before delivering a sucking kiss.

  Worry melted away with his touch. Thoughts beyond the now became impossible with the rub of her ass against his hard cock.

  “Doll? Why am I getting the picture of one of those inflatables that desperately horny guys buy from shops with XXX on the signage?”

  He smiled against her neck, bit, sending a flash of heat straight to nipples that longed to feel his mouth on them again.

  “Maybe because you’ve picked up on the fact that I’m a desperately horny guy.”

  “Could be.”

  She ground against his cock, loving the sharp catch of his breath and jerk of his body, the moan before soap-slick hands covered her breasts and she was the one to lose her breath, to shiver.

  To lose herself as his hands moved from breasts to pussy, stroking, teasing while his lips traveled from shoulder to neck to ear until she was shaking with the need to have him inside her again.

  “Tyler.”

  It came out as helpless as she felt.

  He turned her toward him, his face taut with desire, his eyes burning with it.

  Her mouth hurried to his, her tongue rushing to rub and twine against his in one mindless kiss after another as their bodies pressed, ground, craved.

  She broke the kiss, whispered, “Please.”

  “We didn’t talk about it last night, but I’m safe.”

  “I am too.”

  He lifted her. Her legs wrapped around him.

  He pressed her back against the steamy shower wall. Filled her. And if anything, it felt more intimate, more intense than when he’d entered her without a condom the first time.

  His mouth came down on hers. He began thrusting, the angle of their bodies sending pleasure through her clit and into her sex with each stroke.