“But we both want to. We’ve wanted to from the beginning.” He ran his hand up her side and she shuddered and then she was back at his mouth.
She chose me. His heart cheered as she curled her fingers tightly through the hair at the back of his neck. Even when she was crushed against his body, her warmth transferring to his skin. Even while her mouth was under his and she wasn’t coming up for air.
He walked them into his bedroom and kicked the door shut. For a second his brain raised a red flag that she’d been on a date with his brother a couple nights before. But it was a pretty poor attempt at distraction. Rusty blinked once and it was gone. And then Beth’s fingers were at his shirt buttons and he set her down on the bed and his shirt was off and her shirt was too and her bra was somewhere behind him on the floor and . . . oh, man.
“You’re glorious.” Her skin was as pale as moonlight and the way her hair tumbled down over her incredible breasts framed them in a way that made his hands almost shake with the want to hold them.
“You’re not too shabby yourself. Come here.”
This was new. This was the Beth that he’d first met. The one who knew what she wanted and how she was going to get it. But that Beth had thought he was Grim. This Beth looked him in the eye when she spoke and knew exactly who he was.
Climbing onto the bed with her, he nudged her backward so she lay back, her hair spreading out over the pillow. “You have no idea, do you?” He growled at her, then he couldn’t stop himself—he took one of her perfect breasts into his mouth and luxuriated over the soft, plump flesh.
She arched her back up to him and he felt her hands at his belt buckle. She slid his zipper carefully down then slipped his briefs down. He released her breast and gasped at the contact of her cold fingers on his hot skin. “This time I want to see you. And for you to see me. No secrets. No surprises. Deal?”
She nodded and ran her fingers up his chest. Lying below him, her face open, her eyes gazing up at him, she was everything his dreams had conjured. But the real-life Beth Ravens was even better, she was stripped bare and her eyes were alive with lust, all of it trained on him.
“I want to take it slow. To taste every part of you,” he said.
“And I want to have you now.” She pulled his head toward her and the kiss almost dissolved his resolve. Her mouth was hot, and sweet, like iced tea, and her tongue dared him to let go, to lose himself in her. When she wove her hands through his hair he almost did but he managed to push up on his hands and take a long shuddering breath. He sat back on his knees to keep himself out of reach. “You are going to end me if you kiss me like that again.”
“Good. Come back here.”
“No.” he lowered his head to brush her nipple with his lips. She shuddered and reached for him but he took hold of her hands and pushed them back over her head. “Am I going to have to tie you up?”
That quietened her. “Is that what you want? For me to be compliant?”
“What I want,” he said, tracing the spot on the side of her breast that made her shudder deliciously. “Is to make you come so hard you see stars. I want to be the name on your tongue. To be the one whose bed you remember climbing into forever.”
Her smile was coy, but she was pleased by his answer, he could tell by the way she bit her lip and by the flash of hunger that passed over her eyes. Trailing his finger, he circled her entire breast. So soft. But soft didn’t even begin to cover it. Her skin was powdery, velvety, perfect. Soft was an entirely inadequate expression for what she was.
He bent and kissed the underside of her breast, then the other, and she gasped so hard it made his chest tighten. Leaving a trail of kisses down her chest, he scooted back on his knees until he was at her feet and only then did he allow himself to touch her with his hands. Pushing her legs open, he gazed a moment at her lush center. “I bet you taste as delicious as you look.” She squirmed but he held her firmly and kissed a trail up her inner thigh.
“Oh.” This gasp was sharper so he kissed her again, and then licked, a long, languid line in between her folds. Beth arched up and her gasp turned to a moan, but he wanted more than that, he wanted to make her scream.
Her hands now free to do as they pleased, she wound them through his hair. No longer determined to pull him up her body, she guided his caresses, and he found a rhythm that sent her writhing toward his mouth.
Giving up any teasing, he slipped a finger inside her, even as he sent his tongue along the seam of her body. When he circled the hard nub of her clit, she pulled his hair tight, sending hot cravings through his body from the roots of his hair to his balls.
He added another finger and looked up, watching her face as he slid in and out of her wet pussy. Her head was back, her eyes closed, and while he could see the tension gripping the muscles in her thighs, she’d spread her legs wide to give him more access. To let him in. To let him have her. He could have shattered her right there, he could feel her tightening inside, her muscles gripping his fingers. But he didn’t want that. He wanted this to be the best sex she’d ever had. He wanted to own her.
Twisting his finger, he searched for the soft spot behind her mons and stroked there, stretching her, deepening his ministrations.
“So good,” she managed. There it was, the change in texture of her flesh. He pressed his fingers against it and used his mouth on her clit at the same time. “Holy crap. Don’t stop. Rusty. Oh.” Her fingers twisted harder in his hair and she pulled him closer to her body. Cock throbbing, his whole body aching for her, it was all he could do not to rip her hands from his head and thrust himself deep inside her, but instead he worked her harder, deeper, ’til she was shaking, her waist writhing, her hips bucking as she came. “Rusty.”
He left his fingers inside her ’til she calmed and then slowly, slowly withdrew. The air hissed out of her as her sensitive center released him. Kissing her thighs before he crawled up her body, he smiled as he saw her face. Her eyelids still fluttered, her chest rose and fell, and the bright rose-flush of orgasm had pinked up her décolletage. Those breasts, those legs, her full, soft stomach, her skin. His fingers itched for all of it.
“You look like you could keep doing that all day.”
His eyes flicked up to her face at the question. “I could,” he replied.
She was still satiated, her eyes wide, her lips pump and pink. But she looked more like a cat that had licked up her milk and now wanted a full bowl of ice cream than someone who was done. In answer, she pushed him over onto his back and climbed on top of him. He only had enough time to roll on a condom he’d stashed in his bedside cabinet before she’d slid all the way down him.
She. Was. Perfect.
Hands on her hips, he led her gently up and down his rock-hard cock, but with her inhibitions released by her orgasm, it seemed Beth was determined to make him lose his mind. Pulling at his hands, she pushed them over his head. “My turn.”
“Yes, ma’am.” With her leaning over him he got to watch her breasts move against his body, got to watch her face as she rode his cock, deep, so deep he couldn’t believe she didn’t cry out. If it could have lasted all day he would have sold his shop, hell, even his bike, and lived in the heaven that was Beth Ravens riding him. But all too soon he felt his balls tighten and his breath catch.
She felt it too. “Coming with me?” She was tightening too, he realized. And then he was there, he was spiraling and her velvet center was stroking him harder as she kept riding him, milking him.
For a moment he couldn’t see. Couldn’t talk. Couldn’t breathe. Then the air rushed into his lungs, and the furniture started coming back into focus. She tumbled off of him and they lay side by side. Panting, breathless. Both lost to the sensations they’d shared. They dozed. Slept. Woke and made love all over again.
When the first strands of sunlight started creeping under the curtains, Rusty was tired and sore in a way he hadn’t been in years. In the best way. Tucked into each other, neither of them had the words to say where they�
�d been but they didn’t need to. Rusty could feel the shift. He trusted her. She trusted him. He’d set out to own her, and had come down the other side lost in her instead.
When the light grew stronger and he finally resurfaced from their bliss-bubble, he rolled onto his side and watched her. Running a finger down her cheek, Rusty let himself ask the words that had been tugging at his throat. “What next?”
She blinked slowly before she rolled back over to look him in the eye. “I don’t know what next. Not about us. This was never supposed to happen.”
“This?” He pointed at the clothes strewn around the room. “Or this?” And he put a hand over her heart so he could feel it beating under his fingers.
“Neither of them.”
He nodded and a small knot formed in his chest. If she’d put her fingers there, the beat would have been tighter, bound up by the fear of what she might say next.
“But it did.” He said it as gently as he could so he didn’t scare her away.
She nodded and he let out a small smile. “I don’t know what happens next between us. But I know that I don’t want this to be a one-off. Whatever this is, it’s bigger than us. Do you feel that?” Her finger trailed his chest as she spoke and he caught it to stop himself from getting distracted again. This was important. This conversation. Perhaps the most important conversation he’d had in a long time. He nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
“Maybe what we saw on-screen was real after all. Dave saw it, the producer saw it, why didn’t we?”
“Because we couldn’t,” he managed. “It made everything too hard.”
“True.”
“You have a gift.” He said it more fiercely than he’d intended but he meant every word. “You deserve to have the world see you on the big screen. And the little screen. You should be bigger than this, bigger than all of us.” He didn’t say my brother included, but he wanted to. Wanted her to acknowledge that Grim wasn’t the hero she’d painted him to be. Instead he leaned over and ran his lips over hers. The light contact with her mouth ran shudders down his spine all over again. She pulled back and laughed. “We can’t do this all day.”
“Who says? I could let you ride me all day and all night.” He raised an eyebrow and she batted him off. She was suddenly somber.
“I have to talk to your brother.”
He froze. No, you don’t. Don’t ever talk to him again. Promise me.
She bit her lip and he wanted to take her teeth away and kiss her plump pink mouth better. He paused to let her work out what to say next. Hoping she saw the world as he did. Hoping she’d seen that her dream of a life with Grim wasn’t as rosy as she’d once hoped. But he knew it was a big dream, one that might still hold a slender glimmer of hope even thought she’d just slept with him. So he stayed quiet, still, didn’t push her in case he frightened her away.
She took a breath and spoke, barely louder than a whisper. “I don’t want to be with him anymore.”
If he could have jumped off the bed and run a circle around the room, fist pumping as he went, Rusty would have. But he clenched his teeth together and gave her even more time.
“I am going to need him in my life though. He promised to help me out and I need people like him on my side. You understand that, right?”
“Sure.” He didn’t, but for her he would suck it up and try.
“Okay. Well, I guess we really should get up.” Her phone pinged and he waved at her to get it. “See. I must have sensed it coming,” she said and scrabbled in her jeans for her phone then clambered back into bed. The messy frown on her face lifted as he watched. “Oh my god!”
“Oh your god good?”
“Oh my god fantastic.”
He waited until she’d finished rereading the text.
“Grim says his director wants me to audition for a part in the film he’s in. They’re casting now, this morning! How amazing is that?”
The knot that had been loosening, suddenly turned from rope to crumbling concrete, bits breaking off and making Rusty’s insides ache. But it was okay. She’d just said she wasn’t going to be with Grim. Still, didn’t mean he couldn’t be pissed that his brother had any part in Beth’s life. “Amazing.”
She stopped bouncing and ran a hand down his face. Her voice softened. “This might actually be happening. Be happy for me.”
“I am. You know I am.”
Her smile was so warm he wanted to pull her down and bury himself in her all over again but she rolled out of bed and he had a chance to admire her gorgeous curves before she grabbed her clothes and held them in a bundle in front of her. “I’m going to shower. I have to meet Grim in an hour. But then I’ll be back.”
“You’ll talk to him. About us?”
She nodded. “Wish me luck.”
“Good luck,” Rusty said. “For everything.” But as she left the room, he couldn’t help the small, petty part of himself that wished she wouldn’t get the part. That she would stay and make the TV show with him. And what? That you’ll ride off into the sunset together? Yeah, right. Girls like Beth didn’t stick around guys like him for long. She was going places. But once his show was up and running, maybe he would be too.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Beth walked out of the casting room and wanted to collapse into a heap of spent nerves but there were too many people about. Too many people, and Grim. He stood up from where he’d been sitting, waiting, and came to take her hand.
“You look lovely, and I’ll bet you killed it in there.”
“Thanks.” Beth was taken aback by the change in Grim. His eyes were bright, his face animated, and for the first time he was focused entirely on her. He walked her out of the small lobby where six women sat waiting their turn to audition, every one of them looking on in unveiled envy that she was the one with Grim McKinley on her arm.
“I mean it. I’ll put in a good word for you, but I’m sure you’ll get it.”
“You didn’t even see the audition.”
“No, but I saw the way they looked at you as you went in. And I saw their faces as you went out. You’ve got the look, and that’s half the battle. That and I’m sure you’re able to act the crap out of the role.”
Beth’s head spun. When she’d said out loud that she didn’t want to be with Grim anymore as a couple, a weight had lifted from her shoulders she hadn’t even realized had been sitting there. But now, with the full force of Grim’s charm focused on her, she wondered whether she’d been too hasty. Grim was the one who could take her career places. And this new Grim was the one she’d daydreamed about for months. The full Prince Charming, the one who wanted her career to shine as much as his so they could be a success story together. If she was going to tell the world her story about her struggle to walk, to build a platform to help eradicate polio across the world, having him by her side would make it so much easier.
And then there was Rusty. For a moment, the rush and thrill of being with him filled her nerve endings. Her skin heated, her heart quickened, and she had to cram a piece of her hair into her mouth to calm herself. Rusty was the biker who moved her body and soul. But he moved them into places she wasn’t even sure she was ready to go. WWMWD? Right now, she had no idea.
“Shall we get out of here?”
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. He led her to one of the many cafés that were staffed by aspiring actors like herself and pulled out a chair for her.
“So, Rusty tells me you’ve shot your pilot already. How did it go?”
“It went well, actually.”
“Good. Good. Rusty will be pleased.”
She sat up straighter. The conversation she’d heard between him and Rusty had been brutal, and Grim had made it clear that he thought making a TV show about Rusty’s shop was not a good idea. “I thought you didn’t want him to make it?”
Now he was the one to sit up straighter. His eyes narrowed. “Is that what he told you?”
“No. I heard you fighting.”
Grim vi
sibly relaxed. “Right. Yeah. Brotherly love, huh? Guess I wasn’t quite ready to share my spotlight yet.” He grinned and Beth found herself caught up in the grin. It was contagious, conspiratorial, cute. “What did the producer think? Has he sent it out to the networks yet?”
Okay. If Rusty had already told him that they had a producer on board it meant they were talking about it at least. That was good, wasn’t it? Beth allowed herself a smile. “He loved it. It’s pretty exciting.”
“As exciting as getting a part in this movie?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, I don’t have the part yet, do I? And just because one producer liked our pilot doesn’t meant that he’ll be able to sell it. Or that I’ll be a part of it. The show is about the bikes. The bikes and the boys in that shop.”
“Are you sure about that?”
She raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I saw you in there, just before. The girls in that waiting room all looked pissed at you. They can tell you’ve got something going.” He smirked. “Or maybe it was this.” He held up his phone and showed her an obscure online newspaper with the pictures of them kissing underneath a heading that read WHO’S THE NEW STARLET IN TOWN?
New starlet? She’d take that sort of headline any day. “Wow, that’s only come out now?”
“My agent gave the photographer a nudge, figured it wouldn’t harm your chances of getting the role.”
The waitress delivered their coffees and looked longingly at Grim and enviously at Beth. Maybe he was right. Maybe things were finally changing. “That’s very nice of you. But I’m hardly a new starlet. I haven’t had a callback in well over two months.”
“That’s because you’ve been going to the wrong auditions. And I have to be honest with you, being attached to a reality TV show might not do you that many favors.”
Frowning, she stirred too much sugar into her coffee and then set the spoon in exactly the right spot to be equidistant from the handle and the midpoint of the cup. “Do you really think so? Seems to me that everyone does some sort of reality TV at the moment. I mean, what’s Instagram if not a reality TV show into your own life?”
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