Bedded Bliss (Found in Oblivion Book 1) (10 page)

She sucked down another gulp of her drink, but she didn’t stop moving. “So I do all the work and you just stay still?”

“Oh, Red, I can guarantee you, if we were in bed, I wouldn’t be still for a goddamn second.” Emphasizing his words, he flexed his hips against her ass. He gripped a handful of her hair with his other hand, tugging her head back until he could speak against her ear. “You gotta tell me something.”

She just kept dancing, and drinking, and occasionally darting assessing little looks at him.

“Okay then. We’ll just dance. Words don’t matter anyway, do they?”

She shook her head and turned toward him, arching up to wrap one arm around his neck. Her lip brushed the edge of her glass and he bent to flick his tongue along it, moaning at the hint of lime and vodka on her flesh. He grabbed the glass and tipped up her face with his other hand, waiting until her seductive sinkhole eyes settled on his. They were both more drunk than sober, so he didn’t want there to be any confusion.

“I’m going to kiss you.”

“Where?” she murmured, and he groaned.

“Let’s start with right here.” He tapped his thumb against her lips and they parted for him, dark red and slickly wet.

Reminding him of other wet places he couldn’t wait to taste.

He would’ve sworn he lowered his head forever. She closed the distance between them, fisting a hand in his hair to bring him the rest of the way. Their mouths collided, hungry, seeking. No finesse, no artifice. Just all-consuming lust as he slipped his tongue around hers.

She trembled at the first glancing blow, and all out shuddered as he drove in deep. Something shattered, and it didn’t take a genius to realize it was her glass. He’d simply let go, and now his hand was in her hair, gripping it so he could pull back her head. She opened for him, every part of her lush and welcoming. He was straining, hard, desperate.

He’d never been more urgent in his life.

She pulled back and gasped for air, and he dropped his forehead against hers. If she moved away, he’d just yank her back again. They were tethered, linked in a way that defied logic.

“Ask,” she panted. “Ask your question, Michael.”

The relief that she knew who he was too sang through him like a note that went on forever. He could barely speak around the tightness of his throat. “Do you have freckles all over, Chloe?”

Saying her name again felt like a form of defiance. Yeah, they weren’t supposed to be doing this. Not the sweet, single mom with the difficult past and the asshole rockstar who wreaked destruction wherever he went. But she was still looking up at him with those glowing eyes, and her mouth was still swollen from his.

No one could tell them no. Apparently, not even each other.

Saying nothing, she gripped his hand and led him over to the woodgrain bar at one side of the club. The final stool was empty and she leaned back on her elbows, giving him room to slide her onto the bar. Up, up, up, until that expanse of bare belly was fully on display and she was stretched out in front of him.

“Why don’t you find out?” she whispered.

H
ours seemed
to pass while she was on that bar. Lost to him and the fire he’d stoked inside of her.

Now it was raging.

The watery tones of the song seemed to infiltrate her skin. Her hips followed the silky rhythm as she lifted her arms. She closed her eyes just enough so the twirling lights became streaky trails dragging her away from reality. Her fingers brushed over crystals dripping off the overhead lighting fixtures of the bar.

She had enough vodka in her veins to ignore the fact that Michael Shawcross was at her feet. When his fingers skimmed over her calves and around to the backs of her knees, she opened her eyes and met his hooded gaze.

Silver winked from his eyebrow, and the shadow of a beard emphasized the angular lines of his face. He was absurdly handsome. Too attractive, to be honest. No man should be that hot and be even remotely attainable.

Yet there she was. On the bar, with the calloused tips of his fingers dragging up the backs of her thighs.

She slid her fingers into his hair. The super short hairs sifted around her trimmed nails until she got to the denser wavy strands on top. Just enough to twist, so she did. She tugged his head back, pressing her knee to his shoulder.

He reached up for her, gripping her waist with his huge hands. His long fingers made her feel tiny. Wanted.

His eyes screamed hunger.

No. Not for her. He wasn’t for her.

Rockstar.

Wrong type.

So much the wrong type.

Too bad the crackling arc of attraction between them wasn’t freaking listening.

Her breath shuddered out as she slid down his body, her breasts rubbing against his firm chest. Muscles everywhere. The breadth of his shoulders wouldn’t allow her to encircle all of him. She held onto what she could, her toes dangling off the floor.

His mouth was right there.

So close that she could taste the tequila shooter he’d just sipped off her flesh on his breath. The bite of lime would still be on his tongue. Her nails dug into his shoulders.

She wanted that lime.

Wanted his afterburn one more time.

She couldn’t remember the last time her skin had felt so tight and responsive. She didn’t want to question it. Didn’t want to play it safe.

Safe made no sense tonight.

She covered his mouth. There was no teasing between them. Foreplay had been the air between them, the lights and the music that followed him around like its own forcefield.

Power and haunting charisma drenched in charm.

She felt the hint of his smile before their tongues tangled.

Slick and dominant, he brought every want into the foreground. She’d believed the lies she told herself. That she didn’t need to be touched. She could live without passion.

Now she’d learned otherwise. The starvation diet never worked. As soon as she’d sampled off the forbidden tray, the craving had become all-encompassing.

Hot. Worse than any drug she could imagine.

Want eroded sense. Sense floated away the moment his taste infiltrated her body.

He demanded participation with a tempting wind of lips and tongue. Just when she thought she would need to rip herself away to breathe, he adjusted their kiss and offered a hint of oxygen.

Just enough to feed the beast building inside her chest.

In one sweeping move, he lifted her then carted her across the room. He dropped suddenly and she went free-falling into his lap. Startled, she tried to find her footing, but he pulled her astride him.

“Feel that?” He dragged his lips over her chin to her jaw and down the column of her neck. “Feel how hard I am?”

She sucked in a breath.
Please don’t talk. Don’t make me think.
He nipped at the strings of her halter top to move them before he wrapped his lips around her pulse.

Gone.

She was simply gone.

Thoughts slid away into the corners where mistakes didn’t matter. Under the dark cover of shadows, she forgot to be the responsible Chloe. The next song urged her to roll her hips against him. Faster. The sensual words of the song emptied her brain.

His lips brushed over the material of her shirt. He scraped his teeth over her ribs then back up to hover over her nipple. A whisper of hot breath then a tease of teeth at the tip made her shudder. Her moans drifted out over the cacophony of voices.

He stared up at her.

Was he asking permission?

No.

It was demand.

He didn’t give her time to think about saying yes.

He grinded her down on his cock.

Fuck.

The word was foreign even in her own head. But it belonged here in the relentless beat of the song with this hard, hot male under her.

He was just a body. This was just sex.

It was just a basic need that was finally coming to the surface. But no other man in three years had come close to drawing even a fraction of this out of her.

Hunger so thick and consuming it battled with the alcohol she’d fed her out of control inner bad girl all night. Except being bad felt so damn good.

She’d touched and flirted with others the night before. A pretty lawyer who was probably a better choice even for just a one-night stand.

But no, it had to be
this
man who set off the conflagration that had lain dormant inside her.

The worst man in legions of ways.

She gripped the back of the chair as her hips undulated against him. Muscle memory crashed into something so new and different she shuddered to keep up with it.

“That’s right. Fuck. You’re so fucking hot. Can you come on my jeans like this? Just grinding on me. Use me. Let me feel you come on me.” His turbulent sea eyes flashed in the flickering dark.

His hand slid under her skirt to cup her ass.

“This is crazy.”

“Crazy is good. Crazy is hot. Right here. No one cares about us.” He looked around. “See over there? That girl on the table has all the eyes on her.”

Chloe craned her neck toward the statuesque blonde gyrating on a club table.

“But right here,” he gripped her cheek, “look at me.”

She hissed out a breath as the tips of his fingers coasted along the edge of her panties. But her attention was back on him. This man.

Michael.

Not some stranger she could forget in the morning.

“We’re alone as far as they’re concerned. So let go.” He lifted his hips and his shaft rubbed against the front of her panties. “I need to watch you let go.”

Her breath came faster as she used the rough material of his jeans for friction.

His fingers slid between them, and his thumb rubbed against her tight clit over her panties.

“So hard and sensitive. How wet are you?”

She sucked in a sharp breath. Wetter than she could remember ever being. Even during the rare instances when she had to take the edge off on her own, she’d barely been damp enough to get the job done.

She rocked against his thumb.

Suddenly, he moved and she whimpered.

No. Don’t fucking move.

She was so fucking close.

He pulled down the front of her panties, tucking his thumb into her pussy. “Fuck.” His breath hitched against her neck as his nail flicked over her clit.

She bucked at the sudden touch.

He held her down with his other hand, circling her clit with his thumb. “That’s it. You’re like liquid fire. If we were alone, I’d drag you up and over my face right now. I’d drink every bit of you down.”

Chloe gasped and his features dissolved in the dark. She wasn’t even aware that she’d flipped over from almost there to full detonation. With her head flung back and her breasts in her face. She didn’t even care if the whole room figured out what she’d experienced.

Or what he’d been doing to her.

It had been so goddamn long since she’d actually had an orgasm like that. She could only chant “thank you,” over and over as he strummed her like his instrument. As if she were the fret board and her pleasure was the vibrating strings.

He reached up and caught the back of her neck, dragging her back into the moment. Into the reality of all the people around them. He drew his thumb out of her panties and stroked up her midriff. She let out a shaky breath at the wetness—
her
wetness on her skin.

He watched her as he dragged his lips and tongue over her bare flesh, twirling his tongue on a lazy path to the bottom of her halter top. “Chloe,” he said in a harsh voice just before he kissed her stupid.

She tasted herself on his tongue.

She could have been imagining it. Surely her wetness had dissolved by now, but logic didn’t make her certainty any less overwhelming. Didn’t lessen the riot taking place in her mind and body.

She and Snake had been fumbling fingers and grunts in the dark. She’d loved him to distraction, but he’d never taken care to seduce her.
He
had been the seduction. Just being a musician. Being a man who other people wanted.

And her rose-colored glasses had made everything better in her head than the reality of their sex life.

It had been
nothing
like this.

Her nails raked through the thick thatch of hair at the top of his head. Ropey arms came around her, squeezing her breath out as if he was going to steal her very essence.

So much.

Too much.

She wiggled back until he let her go. She stood and dragged him up off the chair. “Too hot.”

“Yeah, you are.”

“No.” She laughed. Mania bubbled out of her throat. At least that was what it sounded like to her. “Too hot in here. I can’t think.”

“Thinking is overrated.”

Her head roared as she got her bearings. She glanced around the room, but her friends were nowhere to be found.

How long had she been with Michael?

She peered back up at him, but his face swam a little.

“Let’s go outside.”

She nodded. “Good idea.”

He laced their fingers together and drew her through the crowd. She tried not to pay attention to how wonderful his hand felt in hers. No fumbling fingers, no re-tangling to make them sit right. First time absolutely perfect.

Her heart raced as she curled her fingers around his wrist and followed him without a qualm. Before she could wonder if it was a good idea or not, he drew her out onto the balcony.

Vegas spread out before her.

She gasped. The lights shone in the dark. As if Vegas was putting on a show only for her. Did everyone feel like this?

Was
this
the allure?

He pushed his way through the people and made a space for her at the railing. He hauled her in front of him and crowded behind her, his shaft tucked against her ass. Still hard for her. “Fuck, you fit me,” he said against her neck.

She did.

It didn’t make any sense.

“On your toes.”

She almost did just that. It shocked her how much she wanted to follow his direction. To see what it would be like.

“I could slip inside you and ride you with that fucking view as our audience.”

She gasped.

“There you are!”

Chloe groaned at Jinx’s voice.

Michael growled in her ear. “Come back to my room.”

She should say no. The lunacy of the club was one thing. The reality of getting naked with him was a step too far. There would be no going back from it.

She’d have to look at him across the Christmas dinner table forever.

Nick and Lila would get forever, not her. She wasn’t meant to find that with anyone.

The pang of reaction blindsided her.
Forever
wasn’t something she said easily. Hers had been taken away from her. She tried to ignore it—had practically deleted that particular word from her vocabulary.

She was a mother. A responsible adult.

This was just a wild weekend, nothing more.

She twisted out of his arms and toward her friend. Toward sanity.

When Michael touched her, she lost any will to listen to reality. And that was more than dangerous. She’d already had a man like that in her life and look how that had turned out.

She’d ended up alone. Just her and her baby.

Jinx shouldered her way through the crush of people with her sister holding up the rear. “You disappeared on us.” She glanced up at Michael. “With good reason.” Her eyes narrowed. “You’re from the band.”

He nodded, an easy grin sliding across his boyish face. “Michael.”

Jinx glanced at Chloe then back up to Michael. “Are we interrupting?”

“Yes.”

“No,” Chloe said over him.

“Which is it?” Jinx hooked her arm through Ivy’s “Have you met Michael?”

Ivy shook her head. “But I think that’s a shame.” She held out her free hand. “Ivy. This is my sister, Jinx.”

Michael shook their hands instead of stepping back. Seriously, how many signals could Chloe give the guy? He didn’t seem to care.

He shifted behind her, pressing his erection against her hip. As if Chloe needed the reminder of where they’d been heading.

“Looks like we need drinks.” Michael nodded toward someone, then held up four fingers.

Chloe frowned. “What did you order?”

“I think I ordered four tequila shots. At least if her shirt was correct.”

“Chicks are walking around with labels across their boobs. It’s like the ultimate billboard for booze at this party.”

Michael lifted one shoulder. “Makes it easier to order a drink. The bartenders can’t keep up.”

“Evidently.”

When the blond came back, she had a tray of large shot glasses.

Michael grinned at her and dropped a bill on her tray. “Thanks.”

He hadn’t called the waitress
baby
. At least Chloe hadn’t had a sexist pig’s tongue in her mouth five minutes ago.

Little victories.

He passed around the glasses to everyone. “To chaperones.”

Jinx sputtered out a laugh after she downed her shot. “Is that what we are?”

“Your timing is certainly suspect.” He said it with an easy smile as he leaned against the railing.

Chloe swallowed hard. His cock wasn’t touching her anymore. She could actually think again. Did it have some sort of super power? That really was the only thing that made sense. As soon as she’d rubbed against his dick, she’d been like a freaking cat in heat.