by Skye Jordan
Twisted, all right. Especially when Jax fell right into that same category. He wanted to ask more about the guy, but Jax didn’t want to push her too hard. Yet.
“How—and when—did that end?” he asked.
“Three years ago. My friend’s father helped me out.”
“Rubi?” he asked.
She nodded. “Her father is—”
“Rudolpho Russo?” he guessed.
Her gaze darted back to his. “How’d you know?”
“The Ferrari, her looks, Russo, LA,” he said. “Doesn’t take a genius.”
“Rubi’s amazing,” Lexi said. “She’s the best friend I could ever have. We met modeling and have been close ever since. She’s nothing like her father. Though, he came through at a terrible time for me, so I can’t say anything bad about him.”
“Did your modeling lead you to fashion?”
“No. All my money from modeling went into this”—she waved her arm toward the rest of the room—“until it grew big enough to support me.”
“How did you get started?”
A distant look came into her eyes, a small smile on her lips. “I used to get hand-me-down clothes from a local church. Really ratty stuff. The kids at school were pretty brutal, and I learned early to do what I needed to do to mesh. So I used to take the charity clothes, rip them apart, and put them back together in a way that either looked like everyone else’s or in a new, trendy style.”
“Why wedding dresses?” he asked. “Are you a closet romantic?”
“Hardly. I’ve been through too much for that. But when I was young, I was infatuated with fairies and princesses. I thought I was born to live in a castle. I think it was my way of escaping reality. I guess I never really grew out of it, because I love everything ethereal and sparkly and feminine. Those have become signatures of my work.”
She ran her hand over his chest. “Tell me about you. Where did you work today?”
“Desert. Riding bikes.”
She lifted one brow. “Bikes?”
“Motorcycles,” he said with a grin.
“Fun?”
“Hella fun.”
She laughed.
He caressed her cheek. “Your eyes sparkle when you laugh, and that dimple makes me want to do crazy things to you.”
Her smile softened. Her eyes grew heavy lidded with a look that made his cock ache. “I’ve never met anyone like you.”
“I hope that’s a good thing.”
“Very. Are you working in the same place the rest of the week?”
When his mind veered, Jax’s grin fell. “No. I’m there tomorrow, but have to jump on a flight right after for Idaho.”
“Oh.” She sounded disappointed. Jax was disappointed too. “What are you doing there?”
He was already trying to fit one of his other guys into the shoot, but none of them had the experience. “Couple days of rock climbing.”
“For fun?”
“For work. Same thing. But I’ll be back Saturday early.”
“I’ve got two weddings this weekend, Saturday and Sunday.”
“Oh, right, Jessie.” He thought of the wedding invitation in his stack of mail on his kitchen counter. “How long does that take? What do you do, deliver the dress? Help her get into it?”
“No, for these I stay the whole time. As long as they’re wearing the dress and want me there, I’m there for any unforeseen disaster—lost bead, loose button, torn train, etcetera.”
“So, like for the ceremony and the reception? Shit. That’s going to last for days.”
She grinned. “I’m not on loan for days. But, yes, her father spent over two hundred thousand dollars in my shop, so I’ll be at their beck and call from sunup to sundown on Saturday.
“Two hundred grand? For what?”
That made her laugh again. “Jessie’s dress, her bridesmaids’ dresses—there are twelve—the flower girls’ dresses—there are eight, and Jessie’s mother’s dress.”
“How long does it take to make all those dresses?”
“Only Jessie’s is haute couture. But the rest are couture, so I’ve had my hands on all of them. And I’ve been working on them for six months.”
“Jesus, that’s crazy.” Jax put a hand to his forehead. “It would be totally selfish of me to ask if I can sneak some time in with you Saturday night, wouldn’t it. You’ll be exhausted.”
“How about this,” she said, then pressed her mouth to his belly. Closed her fingers gently around his erection, making Jax groan. “I’ll keep you up tonight, and you can keep me up Saturday night. Because I realize I still haven’t licked your tattoo.”
She kissed her way up to his nipple, sucked it into her mouth, nibbled until he moaned, then soothed it with her tongue.
“That’s not my tattoo,” he teased.
“I’m getting there. You’re just so…yummy. I have to taste everything along the way.”
Jax lifted her mouth from his skin even though he didn’t want to. She smiled up at him, but the grin dimmed after she scanned his face. He must have looked as serious as he felt.
“You know,” he said, “I’d never hurt you, right?”
Her brow pulled. “What do you—”
“Like that other guy. I know how hard it is to get where you are, baby. I’d never try to take that.”
Turbulence deepened her eyes to a smoky blue, but she nodded. “I know you’re not the same kind of man, Jax. But I also know there’s a lot more to you than I know. Things…I don’t think I’m ready to hear.”
He stroked her face. “Why?”
She turned her head and kissed his hand. “Because it will require some big leaps for me. And I’m trying to get comfortable with the ones I’ve already made.”
He nodded but still feared he’d be asking her to jump right into the fire if he told her everything. Was almost sure he’d lose her.
She lowered her head and let her tongue follow the lines of his inked tribal pattern over the corner of his chest, over his shoulder. He’d figure it out. A couple of days away from her to think would be good, because he couldn’t think of anything when she was near. Nothing but her. And how good he felt. How important he felt. How loved he felt.
Jax cupped the backs of her thighs, slid his hands up to her cheeks. Squeezed. Her teeth closed on his skin. Lust made his cock jump, and the shaft hit her thigh where she had it between his legs.
“Lexi…” He moaned her name, a sudden need to be inside her making him crazy again.
But when he tried to pull her hips over his, she climbed off him and pushed at his shoulder. “Roll over. There’s more on the back.”
He obeyed, relaxing into the bed. Her hands roamed his skin.
“God, you’re just beautiful,” she murmured.
He chuckled. “Never been accused of that before.”
Her fingers hit a sore spot near his shoulder blade, and his muscles jerked.
“You’re all knotted up again,” she said. “I put a lot of effort into getting those out last month.”
“Yes…” The feel of her tongue sliding over his skin teased his cock harder. The thought of her hands kneading out the discomfort in his muscles in New York spread liquid fire through his hips. “That you did, baby.”
“Guess I’ll need to work on them again.” She leaned forward, rubbing her breasts over his back, and whispered in his ear, “You liked that, didn’t you?”
He hummed, his throat growing thick at the thought of her hands between his legs.
She kissed the spot just below his ear and whispered, “I thought so. And I just happen to have that lotion right here. The scent reminds me of you.”
With a hand pressed to his back, she lifted herself off his body and reached into the drawer of a small bedside table. She pulled out a bottle and pressed her breasts against his back, her chin to his shoulder, and popped the top. Above his head, directly in his line of sight, she poured oil into her palm, set the bottle down, and caressed the shiny liquid over her
hands.
The sight and scent brought back a rush of erotic memories. “You look like an angel, but I love your devilish streak.”
“So glad to hear that.” She pressed her oiled palms to his back. “Because I want to do…things to you…”
He shifted his hips so he didn’t break his cock. “I…don’t know how long I’m going to be able to stay like this.”
She reached over him and grabbed a pillow. “Lift your hips.”
“Everything that comes out of your mouth twists into something dirty in my mind,” he muttered, obeying as she laughed and slid the pillow under him and he readjusted.
“Better?”
He eased his hips down and sighed in relief. The cool room air bathed his cock where it hung off the side of the pillow. “Much. Thank you.”
“All right, enough talking. I have work to do. And I’m going to work backward this time. Loosen you up before I work on those muscles.”
She swept her oiled palms down his back, paused on his ass cheeks, and squeezed. Jax groaned in both relief and excitement.
“Your ass takes a lot of abuse,” she said. “Have you ever realized that?”
“Only when you’re squeezing the abuse out of it,” he said, his voice tight with pleasure as her magical fingers rubbed deep into his glutes and released delicious sensations.
She pressed both knees between his thighs, spreading them. Her hands were strong, her movements slow, draining those sore muscles of tension. He could swear she was releasing lust into his body on every stroke.
His need flashed like a firecracker. She curled her hand and pressed her knuckles down the muscle running parallel with his spine. Each vertebra felt as if it released in turn, and Jax groaned in pure pleasure. “You’re amazing.”
“Pleasing you makes me hot,” she murmured, her voice thick with desire.
Her mouth came down on one ass cheek, and he tensed. She hummed as she slid her tongue down to the junction of his thigh, where she bit down gently, then sucked. His entire lower body tingled like he had current running through his veins. His cock throbbed.
Both her hands squeezed his ass. Pleasure-pain rocketed through his glutes and straight into his cock, balls, and spread through his lower body. She caressed his cock in her hand, and his throat closed, cutting off his air. Then her mouth was there, her tongue sliding along the underside of his cock.
Jax gripped another pillow above his head, sinking his fingers in for traction as pleasure ripped through him. He pressed his face to the sheet and groaned long and loud from his throat, just holding on until Lexi took her mouth off him and he could think again.
But she added her tongue, her teeth, nibbling up the insides of his thighs, licking his entire sac, then sucking until Jax nearly screamed into the bed.
When she finally took mercy on him and poured more massage lotion into her hands, Jax tried to catch his breath. He pushed up on his knees and shaky forearms with the intent of flipping their positions and riding them both to a skyrocketing orgasm, but she pushed him down with slippery hands.
“Oh no, you don’t.”
“Lexi.” Jax slid back onto the pillow. “This is torture.”
Her hands rubbed circles of warm junk all over his backside, and the sensation brought terribly lurid visions to mind.
“I’m sorry you’re finding it torturous,” she said. “Maybe this will help.”
She rubbed counterclockwise circles on his ass. When her hands met at the crease, she spread her fingers and dragged them toward his balls. She rubbed the very sensitive skin of his cheeks near his perineum on every sweep.
Then one slick hand eased between his legs and cupped his boys. God, that felt amazing. Jax groaned, until the fingers of her other hand followed the crease of his ass—right over the tight pucker and down to his perineum. He sucked air. A crazy kind of pleasure he didn’t recognize flooded his lower half. A little dark. A little edgy. And Jax wasn’t sure if he wanted to block the direction she was headed or press her foot to the gas.
The hand at his balls, moved to his shaft, and those expert fingers made him forget what he was thinking. His brain had flipped to that one goal, flashing like a red light: Screaming Orgasm.
And even as her hand, gliding so perfectly and smoothly over his head again and again before squeezing his shaft and pushing to the base of his cock, nudged him closer to that goal, he wanted to wait, to hold out. He wanted this ecstasy to last. But her hand moved back up those sensitive areas along the inside of his cheek, her slick fingers creating sensations that didn’t just ease him skyward, they catapulted him there.
“Lexi…”
“Do you like this?”
“God, I…yeah.”
“I love doing it. I love touching you in these secret places.”
Her fingers continued to spend more time around the most sensitive, tightest area, and his body didn’t know whether to open or pucker. It seemed to want both.
“It makes me so wet to excite you,” she murmured, her tone filled with a sweet, dark thrill.
Need double, quadrupled, grew exponentially until he couldn’t keep himself from moving and lifted his ass into her hand. Her fingers rubbed harder, and the excitement thrust his hips forward, pushing his cock through her tight, oily fist.
Fuck, that was amazing. The pleasure so intense he lifted again, thrust again. On every thrust, she shot the deepest, rawest pleasure through Jax’s entire body twofold—through his ass on the way up, through his groin on the way down.
“God, that’s so hot,” she murmured. “Watching you move like that…”
A growl ground deep in his throat. He’d passed that tipping point. He couldn’t stop now. It was too good. Too intense.
“Sonofabitch, Lex, that’s so damn good.” His voice shook. He sought the peak like a man possessed. Pushed up on his forearms to gain more leverage. And oh fuck, yeah, he clawed for that goal. “Don’t stop, Lex.”
“Ask nice,” she said with that devilish tone that set him on fire. “I like hearing you beg.”
“Fuck, I wish…I was…pumping into…your dirty mouth…”
She squeezed him harder, and Jax jumped straight to the edge of orgasm, but before he reached it, she released him, and he just hovered there on the edge of ecstasy, in unbelievable anguish.
“Lexi,” he growled from behind gritted teeth. “Please. Don’t. Stop.”
“That’s so hot. You can have my mouth next time.” Her hands moved again. “I’ll go as long as you do. Come on, Jax, rock me.”
His frenzy worked his muscles hard, thrusting up and back, her hands smooth, strong, erotic, until the orgasm came so hard, he screamed into the pillow and nothing but stars coated the backs of his eyelids.
Twenty
Lexi checked her makeup in the bathroom mirror and replaced a stray strand of hair into the artful twist Jessie Love’s stylist had created before the wedding. She glanced at the time on her phone—nine p.m. Then at the message Jax had just sent from his late arrival at the airport.
JAX: Sure miss you. When do you think you’ll be free?
She sighed, smiled. He’d only been gone two days, and it felt like forever. This was going crazy-fast. This sudden relationship she’d never consciously agreed to but now couldn’t face life without. Over the years, she’d heard hundreds of stories about how the couples she was working for had met. She’d listened raptly to every strange, funny, romantic tale. Knew these types of whirlwind, you’ll-know-its-right-when-you-find-him kind of instant relationships happened. And thrived.
She’d just never expected it to happen to her.
Or with a man like Jax. He was both everything she wanted and nothing she needed. Or rather what she’d been telling herself she hadn’t needed.
They’d been texting and talking on the phone nonstop since that night at her studio, and Lexi felt like she knew Jax better than any man she’d dated in years. Yet, she didn’t really know what mattered most—who he was, how he could damage her life.<
br />
He’d been trying to tell her, bringing it up at every opportunity, but she’d been stalling, putting him off. When he told her about his past and whatever he felt this burning need to tell her, she wanted it to be in person. From the moment he’d told her he’d never do anything to damage what she’d built, Lexi knew, without a doubt, he had the ability to do just that.
She realized then that was where his subtle but deep sense of confidence came from. One that Lexi found both attractive and soothing on a subconscious level. On a conscious level, she knew too well it also lulled her into a false sense of security.
LEXI: Miss you too. Unfortunately the reception is showing no signs of letting up. Will keep you posted.
She slipped her phone into her wrist purse, took a fortifying breath, pasted on a professional smile, and headed back into the throngs.
The rock band on the northernmost patio of Greystone Mansion played a really great rendition of “Heaven” by Theory of a Deadman and made Lexi ache for Jax. She turned toward the patio on the opposite side of the complex to check on the mother of the bride.
The click of her heels on the marble terrazzo drowned in the music of voices and laughter floating on the soft summer Beverly Hills air. She nodded and smiled as she passed guests she recognized. Everyone who was someone was here, including some very big movie stars, billionaires, musicians, and the mayor. The level of security was almost stifling.
She squeezed between one of the mayor’s guards and the doorway onto the patio, patting his arm. “Excuse me, Emilio.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He turned with a serious expression, met Lexi’s eyes, and smiled. His dark gaze heated and skimmed over her body. “Oh, hey, Lexi.” He put a gentle hand on her arm. “Can I grab you for dinner next week?”
He’d asked her out every single time he’d seen her. Her path tended to cross with the mayor’s relatively often at these events. “No, but thank you—”
“For asking,” he finished, his grin sparkling in his handsome dark face. “One day, Lexi, you’re going to say yes.”
She squeezed his arm and skirted the patio slowly, searching for Jessie’s mother. The woman stood among a group of rich and famous, a glass of wine in one hand. Lexi scanned her slim body, searching the gold dress for any imperfections. When she found none, she spotted a bridesmaid in crimson and continued around the patio toward her. This woman had very large breasts and was pushing the design of the bodice to its limits—even though Lexi had reinforced the fabric with a corset-like structure.