“But what are you going to wear?” She gasped. “Is he making you run around naked like he does with the groupies?”
“No.” I’d done that for him all on my own. Knowing others had done so before me made the undigested mac and cheese churn uncomfortably inside my stomach.
“Let me have the phone.” Diesel held out his hand.
“Huh?” Startled, I hadn’t seen him dismiss Koa. I blinked at his hand with my lips parted. “Where’s Koa?”
“Gone,” Diesel said.
“Who’s Koa?” Fanny asked in my ear.
“Another surfer,” I told her.
“Are you sleeping with him too?” she asked.
“No, but he did ask me out, and I agreed.”
Diesel frowned. “You’re not going out with Koa.”
“Diesel doesn’t sound very happy about that. Are you planning to?” Fanny’s voice was as shrill as if she were standing next to me instead of thousands of miles away.
“I don’t know.” My head spinning, I swayed dizzily. I couldn’t keep up with all the conversation threads.
Diesel threw his strong arm around my waist and pried the cell out of my grip. “Fanny, leave her be. She’s been surfing all day. She’s about dead on her feet, and we still need to grab supplies. We’re out of food at the house.”
I could tell she was saying something to him in response to his explanation, but I couldn’t make it out.
“No, I’m not keeping her up all night, having my way with her.” His arm tightened around my waist. “But you’re upsetting her with all this drama. She’s a consenting adult. Beyond what she voluntarily decides to share with you, it’s none of your business what she and I do.”
Diesel’s arm tightened more. “No. I’m definitely not talking to Ash about it. This conversation is over. You’re insulting your sister and me both saying shit like that. I’m hanging up.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
* * *
Diesel
“Leave the rest,” I said to Hollie once we got home and the groceries were delivered. “We’ll unpack it later.” We had stuff to sort out with us first.
I turned away from the fridge and wrapped my fingers around her wrist, willing myself not to grip the delicate circumference too tightly.
“But there’s a lot left to put away.” Her gaze dipped to the countertop that was covered with sacks of groceries.
“The cold stuff is already put away. Come sit with me on the couch. I want to talk to you.”
“Okay.” She followed me, but she seemed deflated like a balloon with no air, and she’d been that way since before the supermarket.
“What’s going on with you?” I asked as I watched her smooth nonexistent wrinkles from the skirt of her sundress.
I expected her to deny that anything was wrong. But I should have known with her to expect the unexpected.
“I have something I need to tell you,” she whispered, her shoulders sagging while her fingers curled into fists in her lap.
“I have something to say too. Can I go first?”
“Sure.” Hollie lifted her head, crystalline tears balanced in her eyes like dewdrops at dawn. Her expression was so dejected, it hurt to look at her.
“I’ve been waiting for a moment to speak to you privately since I heard you tell Fanny you weren’t staying much longer. Is the thought of leaving making you this sad?”
She nodded, and a tear as beautiful as any diamond slipped free and glided down her pretty cheek. I’d been outmaneuvered by a little wisp of a woman brave enough to put her feelings out there without a single assurance from me.
Until now.
“I think you ran to the right place coming here. But it’s more than that. I think you and I might be the right people for each other.”
Dappled light sparkled within the darkness clouding her eyes. “I think we might be too.”
“Can you stay a while longer? Give us some more time together to see if we’re right?”
“I could. I want to, but I don’t think it would make a difference.” She glanced down.
“I think it’ll make all the difference in the world.” I gently but firmly grasped her chin and lifted it.
A masterpiece rested in my palm. I memorized the lovely craftsmanship—her small nose, delicate brows, expressive eyes, and creamy soft skin—while searching my mind for a way to reach beyond the surface.
“Please stay.” Giving her a heartfelt plea, I stared deeply into her gray eyes and willed the fog of uncertainty in them to clear.
“The notorious and mighty Diesel Le is asking nicely instead of just telling me how it will be?”
“I don’t feel mighty. I’m scared as hell when it comes to you.”
“Me too with you, honestly.”
Hollie gave me a beautiful smile that wobbled but cast rays of sunshine that broke through the tears in her eyes. Removing my hand from her face, she settled it in her lap, sandwiching it between both of hers.
“Your hand is so large, so masculine, so colorful. Mine seems small, frail, and pale in comparison.”
I nodded. “We’re different.”
“On the outside, but I’ve learned while I’ve been here that we’re alike in a lot of significant ways. We both love our families. We’re protective of them and our friends. Art is our passion. Music is yours. Acting is mine. Our differences seem to complement rather than clash. I wish I hadn’t been so afraid when I first met you. I wish I’d taken a risk with you instead of him. I wish I could go back in time and change it all, but I can’t.”
She blew out a resigned breath of air that was warm but left a chill on my skin. “It’s my turn to tell you what I need to. Once I do, the rest won’t matter.”
The chill inside my blood became a full-body frost. “Don’t tell me then. Not yet.”
“I have to.”
“Is it about him?”
“Yes.”
“He’s gone,” I said harshly, and she flinched, but I pressed on. This was too important. She was too important. “It’s over with him. He’s dead and buried. In the grave.”
“Yes, but—”
“Does this confession about him change the way you feel about us?”
“No, but it will change how you feel about me.”
“Doubtful.”
“I’m pretty certain.”
“Only because you don’t really know how I feel about you.” I’d been too cautious. Afraid to take a risk like she’d been back at the beginning, even though I’d sensed all along that she might be different from Lalana and all the rest. “Give me some time to show you.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Hollie’s brow creased. “I gave Max a pass early on in our relationship that I realize now I shouldn’t have.”
“Are you spying on me for a rival record label?”
“No, of course not.”
“Are you taking money from my ex-wife and feeding information to her so she can fuck me over in court?”
“No.” Her brow creasing, she shook her head.
“The bodyguard lied to you.” I didn’t want to say his name. I hated her loyalty to him. Hated that he stood between us. “He betrayed your trust.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“It’s simpler than you think it was, and it’s far easier than you’re willing to admit to give me the chance I’m asking for.”
“I don’t have much time.”
“Give me a week.”
“A week won’t change anything.”
“I disagree.” My brows drew together. “Surely you can put your confession on hold and give me seven days to show you all the many reasons why I think your reason won’t matter at all in the end.”
“It’s more than just the one reason.” She released her hold on me. Her hands fluttered like baby birds escaping their nest and trying to avoid a rapid plummet to the earth. “Your home is here. Your life is here. Mine is thousands of miles away.”
“A minor logistical detail.” It wasn’t
exactly minor, but it was insignificant compared to the major one of this fragile chance for the two of us that seemed to hang in the balance. “If I agree to listen to your reasons in a week’s time—”
“You might hate me a week from now.”
“I won’t. I promise I won’t.” I gave my concession, the last one I had. Capturing her hands, I covered them with mine, maybe for the final time. “Will you agree to stay and put the outside world and everything else on hold for seven days?”
Hollie squeezed her eyes shut. Another tear escaped, but she nodded.
When she did, I exhaled the breath I’d been holding, but not her.
Definitely not her.
Chapter Thirty-Five
* * *
Hollie
“C’mon.” Diesel stood and pulled me up to stand with him.
“Where are we going now?” I asked as he dragged me across the living room.
“My bedroom.”
“Oh.” My lips rounded.
“Been waiting forever to fuck you.”
“You did before we left.” Aftershocks of pleasure rolled through me at the memory of the outside shower and dangling naked in front of him while he plunged his cock inside me.
“Hours ago. Been sporting a hard-on ever since.”
A smile played on my lips. He caught it as he turned the corner to the hall.
“You like that just looking at you is foreplay for me?”
I nodded and replied, though it was unnecessary. “You know I do.”
“You on the Ninja with me. You charming Manoa. You driving Koa insane with how cute you are, but showing absolutely no interest in him. You’re making him doubt his appeal to the opposite sex.” Diesel pulled me into him and glided his hands slowly but firmly down my backside. “All those things make me hot for you.”
My smile widened.
“And then there’s that beauty. You happy? Fucking irresistible.”
He brought his hands up to frame my face, lowered his head, and kissed me breathless while I clung to him. When he broke the kiss, my head remained in his hands, but my heart had risen to my eyes as he stared down at me.
The words were on the tip of my tongue. Ones I’d never understood before, but I did now.
I would do anything for Diesel. My life was his. It didn’t depend on what he did or didn’t do. It was how I felt about him, a gift beyond my control, and all that I could give him was his.
“You don’t have to charm me,” I said, giving him lesser words. I wouldn’t tarnish the others. “I’m a sure thing. Whatever you want, I want. Pleasing you pleases me.” Silently, I added until this ends.
When this ended between us—not if.
I knew when I’d agreed to his proposal that we were on borrowed time, and at the end of it, I would have only one thing left to give him—those three words, and the meaning and the emotions associated with them. I’d given them to no other man, and none would ever hear them from me but him.
“Anything?” Diesel gave me a wicked grin.
I nodded, then gasped when he swept me off my feet and into his arms. He strode down the remaining length of the hall so fast, my hair snapped behind us like a banner in the wind. Inside his room, he tossed me on the unmade bed. I bounced on my back and came up onto my elbows to see him grabbing the photo by the bed and flipping it facedown.
“You don’t have to do that.” My gaze locked with his. “I didn’t understand before, but I do now.”
“Just you and me. No past. Not mine or yours. Just us and right now.”
“Okay.” I reached up to undo the buttons on the front of my dress.
“Stop. Let me.” He moved to the head of the bed and crawled toward me, the heat in his dark eyes searing me. Starting at the bottom, he began undoing the buttons, spreading apart the white cotton after each one to reveal more and more of me. “Your body is perfection.” He smoothed his hand over my ankle and up my calf while watching me.
I didn’t frame a denial, though I disagreed. His eyes said he believed what he said, and that was all that mattered.
“I think yours is.” I reached for the drawstring on his shorts when he reached the buttons at my waist and moved between my parted legs.
“Ah, babe. Free me. Let me show you what your approval, and your body, does to me.”
My hands trembled as I unwound the string. I accomplished my mission, and he kicked free of his trunks at the same time that he released the last button on the bodice of my dress.
He growled as he lowered his head, and I shivered, then arched my back to bring my breast more fully into his warm mouth. “Love your tits.”
Diesel bit down on the tightened nub of my nipple, then sucked on it through the fine lace of the bra cup that covered it. The mesh formed a fine wet web of sensation on one as he moved his head to bite and suck on the other.
My clit throbbing, I felt a warm rush of wet heat dampen the scrap of lace covering my pussy. I moaned as he increased the pressure of his suction on one nipple and twisted on the elongated tip of the other with his fingers. The lace added friction that increased the pleasurable sting. My palms on the mattress, my back bowed, my legs spread wide to accommodate him, I knew I looked wanton, but I didn’t care. I just wanted him to continue, to never stop.
“I want to devour you. Every single inch of you.” He lifted his head as if his words needed a response.
“Then do. I want you to. But hurry. I’m soaking wet and aching for your cock. I need you inside me.”
“Will you come without me inside you?” His lips curved, forming crescents around his wicked mouth that I longed to trace.
“I never have, but I might.”
“A challenge then.”
He lowered his head and nuzzled the side of my neck with his soft curls. He pressed a warm kiss into the sensitive spot between my neck and shoulder, then slowly licked upward along the stretched tendon to my ear.
“Diesel. Fuck.” I felt the curve of his smile from my use of the erotic word when he pressed his firm lips into my skin.
“Babe, you taste so good. Like strawberries. Like passion. Like a perfect gift.”
He fastened his mouth around the lobe of my ear. Scoring it with the edge of his teeth first, he bit down, then sucked on it. My hips arched off the bed, my pussy seeking his cock as he rhythmically tongued the inside of my ear.
“Come, baby.”
“No.” My fingers curling around fistfuls of the rumpled sheet beneath me, I stilled my hips. “I want you inside me.”
“Stubborn.”
“Desperate.”
“Ask nicely for my cock.” He languidly circled his wet tongue around the shell of my ear and blew a breath of hot air into it.
“I don’t want it nice. I want it hard, rough, and wild, like you can’t get enough of me.”
Diesel raised his head and stared down at me with a serious expression and heavily hooded, passion-darkened eyes. “I’ll never get enough of you.”
My heart stumbled. If only that were true.
I lowered my back to the mattress. No longer balanced on my arms, my hands free, I reached for my panties. But he stopped me.
“I got this. I’ve got you.” He ripped them off my hips, down my legs, and tossed them over the side of the bed. Spreading my knees wide, he moved between them with a condom packet in his hand that he offered to me.
I ripped it open with my teeth and applied it. A first for me, one I planned to repeat. Rolling the rubber along his significant length while he watched me with every muscle in his nude body poised and tense, including his magnificent cock, was exciting.
“Hollie. Fuck. Underneath your halo, you’re an erotic goddess.”
“I’m no angel, and I’m not really a goddess. I’m just a woman who loves the things you do to me.”
“You’re all those things.” His expression dark, he swept a purposeful thumb over me. I shuddered as he brushed my swollen nub. “Beautiful. Wet. And mine.”
He aligned a
nd plunged deep, sliding easily inside me. I rolled my hips, savoring the feel of his thick cock filling me.
“Eager, babe?” He lowered his body, his palms to the mattress.
“Always for you.”
His lips curving, he withdrew slowly until only the blunt end of his cock remained, then plunged deep inside me again.
When I reached for his tight ass to hold him inside me, he grabbed me by the wrists and spread my arms wide, pressing my hands into the mattress.
“I’m controlling this show.”
“All right.” A wave of heat rolled through me.
“You like that.”
I bit my kiss-swollen lips and nodded.
“I like it too.” He withdrew languidly and plunged deep, just as slowly.
“Diesel . . .” I moaned. “You feel so good.”
“So do you. I can feel you tightening around me when I withdraw.” He pulled out again even slower, and the pleasure in his expression made me wetter and hotter.
“More,” I begged as he thrust in and out, maddeningly slow. “Harder. Faster.” Impatient, I tried to pull free of my bonds to get what I wanted.
His grip tightened, and my clit swelled. “Not just strawberry. There’s a lot of cream that I want more of.”
He lowered his head. I arched my back and spasmed around his cock, soaking it as he sucked one nipple, then licked a wet path across to the other.
“So close,” I murmured, warning him as he suctioned my nipple hard with his firm lips.
“Come for me.” He raised up, circling his hips to increase the friction on my tense clit. “Come for me hard. Hollie, look at me.” His features tight, his expression revealed he was as ravenous as I felt.
“Give it to me, Diesel. I want it.” I stopped struggling against his hold. “I want you.”
“Oh, Hollie. Fuck.” He started to drill his cock into me.
My eyes drifted closed and I surrendered to the pleasure, to him, and he surrendered to me, stiffening and filling me full of all of him.
Chapter Thirty-Six
* * *
Diesel
At the stove, I slid the spatula under the double slices of bread and flipped them over to brown the other side.
(Complete Rock Stars, Surf and Second Chances #1-5) Page 131