Rock God in Exile (Smidge Book 2)
Page 10
“You can’t be comfortable like that—” She’d only meant his wet jeans, but the moment she said it, she thought of his obvious arousal tenting those jeans, and her eyes flickered there without her meaning to look.
He smirked, and boldly reached down to adjust himself. “I can wait, Nell. And you’re right; if we got started now, even a little, I’m thinking I might forget about eating anything but you. Go strip down to your underwear — for the hot tub, don’t panic — then cover up with your bathrobe and come have some supper before we get into that foreplay you mentioned.”
She couldn’t think of a single thing to say to that. Finally, she muttered, “You’re so sure of yourself,” and stomped away to the bedroom. It infuriated her that she couldn’t even tell him it wasn’t going to happen, because it so obviously was happening. Nell Whelan disliked not having the upper hand, or at least a controlling position, and she was slightly afraid she’d bitten off more than she could chew with this man.
Well, I’m not sitting at the table in nothing but a bathrobe and my undies, waiting for him to seduce me, she thought, pulling on her last dry pair of pants. She’d only brought the one hoodie, but her t-shirt was dry, and it was warm enough inside the cottage not to be an issue. She tied back her hair as though she were heading to the training floor rather than dinner with a potential lover, then looked in the mirror and pulled the elastic free with a snort of disgust.
And even though she was about to eat dinner, she brushed her teeth.
An assortment of dishes covered the small table in the kitchenette, steaming and redolent with heavenly smells, and Eamonn stood at the counter, pouring tequila into a blender. He must have been listening for Nell because he turned the moment she stepped out of the bedroom.
“Fix yourself a plate, babe.” He gestured toward the food on the table. “I’ll join you in a minute; I’m working on that drink you said you needed.”
Her first impulse was to snap that she did not need a drink, but she took a deep breath and reminded herself that maybe a little liquid relaxation wouldn’t hurt. “Where did you get the Cointreau?” she asked instead, seeing it on the counter.
“Oh, I had it in my truck too,” he said with a shrug.
“Seriously? You got a full liquor cabinet in there?”
He grinned. “I have far too much alcohol in my truck. Comes in handy sometimes. And François had frozen limeade concentrate and strawberries, so we’re all set. Now, eat.” He held out a plate.
“Thanks.” She took the plate. Then he hit the ice crush button and the blender’s noise made conversation impossible, so she turned to the table and looked at the offerings laid out there. He’d picked out things that could be eaten easily, with fingers or at least minimal mess — quesadillas that François must have frozen for easy reheating, crusty rolls stuffed with pulled pork and coleslaw, bruschetta. Delicious.
The blender noise stopped, and Eamonn turned to snag a triangle of quesadilla, dipping it in the sauce. As he bit into the wedge, a dollop of sauce slid off and dripped down his hand. “Oops!” He licked the sauce off his fingers, winking at Nell. “Mmm, that’s good stuff. Try it.” As she narrowed her eyes at him, he nodded toward the dish of sauce. “I’m not even going to tease you about licking it off me. You can get your own.”
“All right.” She took a quesadilla and dipped it in the sauce. Started eating it as slowly and sensually as she could, licking her lips and fingers as she went, getting an unreasonable amount of satisfaction from his look of astonishment. Flirting? Well, I suppose I am.
“You trying to speed things up here?”
“No. No, I—” Flustered, she dropped the last bit of quesadilla — it slipped out of her fingers, landing with a splat on the floor. “Crap.”
Before she could move, he grabbed a paper towel from the kitchenette counter and knelt to wipe up the small mess. Kneeling at my feet. Then he looked up at her.
“We need those margaritas,” he said, his voice husky. He stood. Got two tumblers out of the small cabinet and poured pink slush from the blender into them. Handed her one. “Cheers. Sorry there’s no salt.”
As he clunked his glass against hers, a glob of frozen margarita slopped over the edge of her glass onto her hand. She looked around for the paper towels.
Eamonn put a hand on her wrist, stopping her. “Let me get that,” he said, and drew her hand up to his mouth, closing his lips over the sweet-tart slush and sweeping his tongue along the sensitive skin between her thumb and forefinger.
“Did you just lick me?” Nell’s voice came out breathy, sounding as stunned as she felt.
“Yup.” He grinned. “Are you going to put me on the ground for it, ninja woman?”
She took a big slurp of her margarita, debating how to answer that. Too late to play a careful game, wasn’t it? Silly to take things slow, when the path ahead was burningly clear. “Only if you want me on top.”
“Fuck me.” Eamonn put his drink down, then gently took hers and placed it on the table next to his. Stepped into her space and rested a hand on her hip, pulling her in. His eyes were dark with desire. “Can I assume I’ve got consent here, babe?”
“Are you making fun of me?” She tensed, ready to push him away.
He laughed softly. “No — I just want to be sure. Don’t want to ruin the moment. Are we good?”
The room felt suddenly short of oxygen, and Nell gathered her scattered brain cells to mutter a breathless “Yes.”
“Good.” He snaked one hand behind her head, gently cupping the base of her skull. With his other arm, he settled her more firmly against him. She tensed for a moment — his hands on her head and hip gave up too much leverage, too much control, and she found the vulnerability of her position unnerving — then his hand slid further down to rest intimately on her ass. She could feel his arousal, evident right through his jeans, and the awareness of it blotted everything else from her mind.
She could feel the warmth of his breath, his lips inches from hers. Time froze. And then he closed the distance, bending his head to bring his mouth down to hers.
His lips were firm and slightly cool from the margarita, and he tasted of strawberry and lime and tequila. “I’ve wanted to do this since we met,” he murmured against her mouth. He probed at her lips with his tongue and she opened for him, welcoming the deepening of the kiss.
Eventually, he drew back and smiled down at her. “All right?” he asked, but as the haze of desire faded, the specific position of his hands on her triggered an automatic muscle memory, embedded deep in her mind after years of self-defense training. Without thinking, she gripped his upper arm with one hand and slid the other into a choke position against his throat, preparatory to shoving him away. “Whoa! Maybe you do need to be on top…” He leaned away from the pressure of her hand on his throat and loosened his arms so that she could put space between them if she so chose. “I thought you wanted a kiss, babe.” He sounded puzzled, and a bit concerned. “Did I do something to freak you out?”
A wave of embarrassment washed over Nell. “I — no. It’s habit. I don’t like being in a position where I can be pinned down or controlled. Anyone having a grip of my head and hip like that… it’s too much like what we train to avoid in self-defense. I just…” She stepped away from him, shaking her head. “I feel like kind of a fool now.”
As she turned to go, not sure where but away from him and the ruin of what had promised to be an enjoyable evening, he put a gentle hand on her arm and said, “Hey, it’s okay.”
She gave him a deadly look over her shoulder, designed to make him back off. I don’t need your tolerance and sympathy for my weirdness. “Right.”
“Come on.” He picked up her margarita and held it out to her, waiting, until she turned back to him and accepted it. Then he watched her with one eyebrow cocked until she took a drink. “Let’s go try out that hot tub, all right? You go on out to the porch with the drinks and I’ll get us some towels.”
To one side of the door, a pair of deck chairs were positioned on either side of a small coffee table. On the other side, a tubular metal handrail and a beige vinyl cover were all that showed of the hot tub sunken into the deck; a slatted wooden bench set against the wall was probably intended to hold towels and discarded clothes. Several thick pillar candles in glass chimneys were lined up against the wall.
Nell set the drinks on the bench, then crouched down and pulled up one corner of the hot tub cover — heat and steam wafted out with a clean and inviting whiff of properly sanitized water. Good maintenance, the professional part of her mind noted. She dipped her fingers into the water and sighed with pleasure at the warmth. Maybe testing out the hot tub was a good idea after all.
She knew better than to trust the water’s look and smell, though. Looking around, she spotted the wall-mounted box that she knew had to be present, containing the maintenance record for the hot tub and a bottle of test strips. She knelt down and lifted the corner of the hot tub cover again so she could dip the little strip into the water.
Behind her, she heard the sliding door open and close, and Eamonn said, “Let’s get that cover off and hop in. It’s chilly out here.”
“Ten seconds. I just want to make sure the chlorine and bromate levels are where they should be…” She turned. He stood there, his arms full of towels, wearing the skimpiest pair of black swim trunks printed with nebulas and galaxies. Well, damn, he has a fine body. He was all lean muscle with a golden dusting of hair, and the ink on his arms was matched by more art on his abs and thighs. “You’re wearing a bathing suit.” As she spoke, she could hear the accusatory tone in her voice.
“Well, yeah.” He shrugged. “I’ve stayed in far too many hotels — with the band, you know? I learned a long time ago never to go anywhere without swim shorts.”
“And I learned from this job never to get into a hot tub ’til I’ve tested the water.” She looked at the strip in her hand, compared it to the chart on the bottle. “It’s good.”
He dropped the towels onto the bench, then reached down and flipped the cover open without waiting for her help. Before she could even sort out the words to say slow down or I’m not ready for this, he was in the water, sliding over to the jet controls to send them purring into life. “Come on in.”
“I should light the candles,” Nell said. “It’s getting dark.”
Eamonn touched a button, and the hot tub’s underwater mood lighting came on in a shifting display of LED colors. “There we go. That should be enough light.”
With one tense look at him in the water, she began to place the big pillar candles around the hot tub, one at a time. Found the waterproof box of matches and lit every candle, methodically lowering the glass chimneys back into place.
He watched her. Oh, how he watched her. She could feel his gaze on her like a caress. “Don’t be shy,” he murmured at last, his voice thick with desire. “Get your gear off and come play.”
“I don’t do shy,” Nell snapped. And it wasn’t a lie. She’d been sparring and grappling with mostly men since she’d been a preteen, she thought nothing of getting changed in mixed company when the need arose, and she refused to harbor any notion of body modesty or bashfulness. But Eamonn had her on edge, discombobulated.
“Then prove it, gorgeous. Strip for me.”
“You wish.” But she heard her words come out in a way that sounded more like challenge accepted than go stroke yourself. Or maybe she meant both.
He laughed, a low and sexy sound. “I do wish.”
And that lit something up in her, something that said game on. Holding his gaze, she hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her yoga pants and slowly inched them down. The cool damp air brought up gooseflesh on her bared hips, but a furnace was overheating inside her. When she got to mid-thigh, she turned to give him a good back view as she bent over to push the stretchy fabric the rest of the way down. Her grey athletic boyshorts covered more than most bikinis, but a choking groan from his direction assured her that he was getting a satisfactory eyeful. Could he tell that the crotch of her underwear was already wet, just from this stripping business and the way he looked at her?
She straightened and turned back to face him. Crossed her arms and raised the hem of her t-shirt to show her belly button, then a little more, until she had it bunched just under her breasts.
“Come on, show me those heavenly tits,” he muttered. “You’re killing me here.”
So she paused a moment more, hugging herself and doing a little twist wiggle. “Why? You got a rocket ship ready for blast-off under those galaxy shorts?”
“Bigger and harder than the Saturn V — you’re absolute rocket fuel, Nell.”
Hot damn. “Modest, much?”
“I’ve got what it takes to send you into space, and you know it. Do you want me to beg?”
Maybe I do. But she’d never been inclined to play bedroom games. Blowing out a shaky breath, she whipped her t-shirt off and slid into the hot tub, sinking up to her neck in the steaming water. Pulsating jets of water massaged her. “Ooh, that’s nice.”
“Now, how is that fair?” Eamonn asked, with a teasing grin. “I barely got to see anything.” Between all the ripples and bubbles, and the candlelight reflecting off the water, and the shifting colored lights underwater, a clear view couldn’t be had. “And our margaritas are way over there on the bench. Someone’s going to have to get out and fetch them.”
Crap. Now what?
He gazed at her across the hot tub, a wicked look in his eyes. “If you go get the drinks, I’ll take any dare you give me. Or I’ll get the drinks and you take the dare. Your choice.”
The thought nearly took her breath away. What might he dare her to do if she stayed in the water and told him to get the drinks? What would she ask him to do if she had the choice? “Dares? Are we in middle school or something?” she asked.
“Aren’t you even a little bit intrigued about where this could go?” he asked, with a smirk that implied he knew exactly how much the idea was affecting her.
Maybe he would think the heat in her face was from the hot tub. “I just… dares are about giving up control, and backing out after agreeing to one would be giving up integrity.” That didn’t mean she didn’t want to go there.
“Oh, babe, dares are about having an excuse to do something you know you want to do anyway. But how about we make it truth or dare instead? You like honest talk, don’t you? And if I’m lucky, it’ll get a little dirty…” He paused, cocking an eyebrow. “Now, you want me to get up and get those margaritas for us?”
I can deal with that. Her mind flashed back to them lying in their separate beds the previous night, and how his words about touching himself had electrified her. “Sure,” she said, meeting his eyes so he’d know she was agreeing to his game.
He stood up. As the water streamed off his beautiful inked body, she licked her lips. Those soaking wet cosmic swim shorts clung to his hips and — he hadn’t been lying about the rocket ship in there. He saw the direction of her eyes and laughed. “Oh, hell yes.”
It took him only moments to get their drinks and splash back into the hot tub, thigh-deep in the steaming water and close enough to touch. As he handed her glass to her — at least, she assumed it was hers, but they’d already swapped spit so it hardly mattered — she blurted out, “Truth.” Before he could ask. No way was she entertaining a dare.
“Sláinte.” He clinked his glass against hers before sinking down onto the seat opposite her, grinning. “So, how about you tell me what dares you were thinking about when I first mentioned it? What you thought I’d ask you to do. What you consider
ed asking of me.”
The hot tub suddenly seemed ten degrees warmer as thoughts raced through Nell’s mind. She took a sip of her margarita, then another. The slushy sweet-tart liquid didn’t make any of this more sensible, but she gathered her nerve and decided to just blurt it all out. “Okay. Honest answer. I thought you’d try to get me to take off my bra. Make me sit on your lap, or maybe… maybe touch myself for you…” The last bit came out as sort of a gasping whisper, but Eamonn heard it.
“Good girl.” He sounded thoroughly turned on and approving. “I like the way you think. So, would any of that have been so bad?”
“No, actually. I like being in charge of my choices, but… we’ll see. A little more truth and a little more tequila, maybe we’ll get to that dare stuff after all.”
He crossed his arms behind his head and stretched, looking much too relaxed and satisfied. “Your turn now. And I’ll make it easy on you and take truth. For the moment.”
Too cocky. He wants me to ask him something dirty. About fantasies or kink. She wouldn’t give him that satisfaction. “You said sláinte before we drank. Are you Irish?”
He reached for his drink and took a big gulp, half shrugging but looking a bit wary. “Could be. A few of the guys who might have contributed to my DNA were Irish.”
“A few…?”
“Oh, come on. Even you’ve heard of my mother, right? Amanda Joy Yarrow — of course I don’t know who the fuck my father is.” And when Nell still looked puzzled, Eamonn gave her a disbelieving lift of his eyebrows. “Candy Bar Mandy? Sweet Almond Joy? She was a groupie, Nell. The only thing I’ll ever know for sure is I’ve got rock music in my blood.”
“That… wasn’t meant to be an awkward question,” Nell muttered, waving her hand as if she could wave away the words or rewind time. The words Candy Bar Mandy and Almond Joy did trigger a vague memory of clickbait articles about groupies of decades past and glamorous pictures of girls with long legs and big hair clinging to rock stars.
Eamonn snorted. “It’s not awkward. I love my mom. I’m not ashamed of who she was, or who I am. But some people make it into this big weird thing.”