“Then why’d you stop me?” I ask, embarrassed but curious.
“Because I want to be inside you.”
His words land on me like hot needles. He scoots to the end of the bed, taking me with him and standing me on my feet. He peels the chinos down, sliding his fingers beneath the tiny strips of lace hugging my hips and pulling down until they puddle around my ankles. His fingers brush across my nipples, tracing the words scripted under my breast and down the muscles in my stomach, lingering on the belly ring.
“You remember that day at Grady’s when I was teaching you that breathing exercise?”
I can only nod dumbly at this point because my body is livid. Passion leaks down the inside of my thighs. My fingers tremble with the strain of not touching him.
“I thought this belly ring was so damn sexy, and I thought about doing this for days after.”
He leans forward, flicking his tongue into my belly button, curling it around the metal piercing the flesh. He sits back, his eyes making a slow journey from the tips of my toes past my legs over my hips and breasts until they rest on my face. I quiver under that look because it’s not just lust. There’s so much love in his eyes it almost hurts me to look into them. These moments feel so perfect they frighten me. In my experience, nothing perfect lasts, and I want this to swell into infinity.
He lifts one of my legs, pulling it over his shoulder, and buries his head between my thighs, licking at the juices trickling out of me. Tonguing me. Biting me. Driving me out of my mind with the way his mouth worships me. The explosion starts low in my belly and lights a path through every fiber of my body, like a lit stick of dynamite chasing fire over my skin and through my muscles and nerves, until I slump against his mouth still working between my legs. I clutch his head, tugging with numb fingers at his thick hair. He must know my knees are trembling and on the verge of collapse because he lays me down gently on the bed. In a daze, I hear him sliding on a condom.
“You’re on the pill?” Passion strains his voice, harshening it in the silence of the room.
“No, I’m not on anything,” I whisper. “I just . . . since I moved, I just haven’t . . .”
“We need to fix that soon. I want you raw, Pep.”
He pushes into my tightness slowly and carefully. My body remembers this. This sense of being so full I’m on the verge of pain, but dragged back by unfathomable pleasure. Pleasure that turns my mind to mush and drops my mouth open on a gasp. He pushes my leg back, holding my knee against my shoulder. The other leg I wrap around his thigh, twisting us together, opening myself up wide for him. He wastes no time pushing in deeper until I’m sure there is no farther he can go. I feel his knee behind my thigh, finding leverage in the soft mattress to press deeper and harder, and my hips keep tempo with the furious pace he sets. The headboard knocks wildly and loudly into the wall with every thrust, and the sound of it drives me higher and madder for him.
Another orgasm gives birth to a scream that bursts past my lips. He immediately covers my mouth with his, kissing the sounds into silence. He buries an elongated groan in my hair. His hands grip my butt, only intensifying the pleasure. We both go still, holding each other and whispering words of love and adoration.
And we take time. Time to explore each other’s bodies. Time for him to tell me my small breasts are a perfect mouthful, and that he loves the prayer wrapping around my body. I sight-read the music of his tattoos—a patch of Bach on his ribs, Chopin and Beethoven on his back. Rachmaninoff on one shoulder, and Mozart on the other. His chest he keeps clear because he’s waiting for the song that belongs on his heart. It may not be visible to the naked eye, but he’s written a song on my heart tonight, and I’m afraid the ink’s indelible.
SO I’M HERE ON THE SET of the music video Kai’s doing. Stop me at the part where that’s a bad idea. Oh. I already passed it?
Yeah.
In my defense, I like Luke, but I don’t trust his people. Specifically, John Malcolm, the mastermind behind Total Package, is a bottom feeding, manipulative, ruthless bloodsucker who never hesitates to take advantage of other people’s talent to further his own ends.
Him within ten feet of Kai makes me break out in hives because one thing he does have going for him is an exceptional eye for talent. That being said, I made sure things were settled at the hospital with my dad and promised to return soon. He’s speaking now, and I have to admit, he does seem sincere in his desire to repair our relationship. Maybe Kai’s right. Maybe the brush with death changed something in him so drastically that his priorities have shifted. Maybe a real relationship with me, not based on profit and gain, is something he will work for. Grady seems to think so.
My mother didn’t have a heart attack, and I’m not sure she’s had a change of heart, but she wants me to think so. Bristol calls me cynical. Oh, the irony. She’d double-check Mother Theresa’s credentials, so don’t get me started on just how jaded my twin sister is. She wasn’t pleased about me flying back to L.A., but she’ll have to get used to Kai being a priority for me. I haven’t actually told her anything about us yet, though it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure how gone I am for Kai.
Bristol knows something’s up, but I’m not ready to talk about it with her. One, I don’t want to hear her doubts or her skepticism about Kai. If she had any clue how hard I’ve had to fight to get this girl to take anything from me, she wouldn’t be so worried about Kai’s potential opportunism. Two, what Kai and I shared in my parents’ house that night will go down as one of the best nights of my life. And I’ve had some great nights. What we have, what we’ve built, isn’t something I want to share with the world yet. Not even with my inner circle.
“Rhyson, we didn’t know you were coming,” Delaney, Luke’s publicist, says to me by the Craft services table loaded with food for the break. “Let me get you a badge. They’re being kind of tight today.”
It’s been a while since anyone offered me a badge. You reach a point where identifying yourself feels redundant because everyone knows who you are. I’ve been there for a long time and take it for granted.
“Luke invited me.” I slip the generic badge over my head anyway. “I hope it’s okay.”
“Rhys, any time you wanna come around, it’s fine. I’ve told you more than
once.”
Her big blue eyes tease me, but I’m not playing. Her eyes aren’t dark and tilted. Her tits are too big. She’s too tall. Her scent is off. Nothing is right about her because she’s not my girl. I just want to slip her a note with the word “no” written on it because she has never taken any of my hints.
“Are they on lunch break?” I hope she’ll lift her eyes from cock level and look at me when I’m talking to her.
That’s not yours, sweetie. Eyes up.
“Yeah, they’re on break,” Delaney finally drags her eyes up from my zipper to look around the set. “Luke is here somewhere. He’ll love having you. I’ll go find him.”
“That’d be great.” I smile as she walks away, relieved that I can now find Kai and hope she doesn’t pull my balls through my nose for this stunt.
I see her before she sees me. She’s chatting with Dub by the fruit spread, munching on a handful of grapes. Her hair falls down her back in loose waves, dark against the white robe covering her down to her ankles. The high heels give her a few inches, but she still looks tiny beside Dub’s bulk. She laughs up at him, her face more dramatically made up than I’ve ever seen it. Even though she looks so gorgeous I’m hard in my jeans in seconds, I want to scrub her face free of the paint. I love her natural.
Dub starts demonstrating a move for her, and she pops the last of the grapes in her mouth so she can mimic his motions. As she’s executing a turn, her eyes meet mine across the room. They go wide and then narrow. She says something to Dub before heading in my direction.