Only for the Night (If Only Book 2) (16 page)

Easy, easy, easy. Don’t hurt her. Don’t hurt…

Sage raised her hips to meet him, using her knees to pull him in. Her breath whooshed out every time their pelvises met. Still Hank fought the urge to slam into her, the moment stretching longer and longer until he thought he really would go insane. Until her racing breath and the pounding of his heart and the urgency building and building and building was all he knew, all he could see. Everything—

The edge rushed up to meet him, and he threw himself over.

In the blur of his climax, he heard Sage scream her release, forcing herself against him, into his thrusts. He had no idea when it stopped or how long they were lost in the dark; all he knew was that he never wanted it to end, and he was damn sure going to do it all over again when it did.

An insistent beep jarred Hank from sleep. Sage stirred in his arms, her warm weight shifting away from his chest, and then the beeping stopped. An alarm. Probably would’ve made more sense if he hadn’t been up half the night, but damn, it had been worth it. Every minute of lost sleep had been spent either inside Sage’s body or readying her to take him. He was sore, and he bet she was too.

And now she had to go to work. He didn’t mind fatigue for him, but for her?

He slid his hands around her, easing her back against his naked body. God, she felt good. “Do you have to open?” he asked. A quick slide down and he nuzzled his mouth into the bend of her neck.

Sage sighed and tilted her head to the side, allowing him access. Her hands cupped his, pulled them closer. No sign of regret. The realization swelled his heart—and places farther south.

“Yeah. And I can’t skip,” she told him, her tone slurred with sleep. “It’s Alice’s first day out. Merry needs me to be on time.”

He nodded against her skin. Knowing what she had to do and wanting her to do it were two different things. What he really wanted was to get Sage in a hot bath, let her soak away some of her soreness, then take her again. A few times.

“What time is it?” he asked.

Sage pushed up to look at the clock, then laid back against him. “Four thirty.”

“What time do you have to be there?”

“Five.”

Good. He slid one hand up to cup her breast, the other down to lift her leg. Just enough time. He wouldn’t make her more sore than she already was, but he would give her pleasure.

“Hank?”

“Shh.” He settled her thigh atop his. The tip of her breast tightened against his palm as he spread her labia. The satisfaction of caging her like this wasn’t lost on him, but he could keep it under control. Would keep it under control. “Just relax. I want to say good morning.”

Sage chuckled a little, the sound fading into a moan when he slid two fingers down the sides of her clit to play at her opening. A rush of moisture greeted him. “Good girl.”

As his fingers played, Hank brought his mouth to the join of Sage’s neck and shoulder. She was sensitive there, he’d learned, so sensitive. A kiss in that spot, a gentle suck had the power to set her off when she was ready; it also had the power to push her to the edge quickly. He pushed the memory of biting her there—how good it had felt, how wrong it had been—away and took full advantage of what he’d learned last night, mouthing her skin, suckling. Sage began to rock against his hands, pressing her breast into his palm, curving her hips to gain more friction from his fingers at her core. It wasn’t long before she came in a sweet rush in his arms. Hank didn’t think he’d ever enjoyed waking up at oh dark thirty more.

Sage lay in his arms long enough to catch her breath, then sat up. Her eyes were hard to read in the dark, but he could just see a small smile on those full lips. “Thank you,” she said, voice still a bit hoarse from climax. He savored the sound.

“You can thank me later, baby.” He slid a hand down her spine, fascinated by the way his big hands spanned the width of her back. So delicate. Fragile. He repeated the action in the opposite direction.

His dick jerked in protest when she stood. He curled his fingers around the warmth her skin had left behind. “I’m not gonna follow you into the shower, though I want to.”

This time Sage’s smile was clear because she leaned close, her mouth hovering just over his. “Probably a good idea,” she whispered before giving him a kiss. Hank cupped a dangling breast because he couldn’t resist, but he didn’t protest when she stood back up. Sage groaned and stretched, drawing his stare down her body, all the hills and valleys highlighted by what little light was coming from the window. She hesitated a moment.

What could she be hesitant about? He didn’t have to think hard to figure it out. “I’ll see you at lunchtime. And Sage?” he called as she stepped toward the door.

“Hmm?”

“Thank
you
.”

“You’re welcome,” she told him.

He got a flash of ass as she escaped to the hall. Gripping his throbbing erection through the covers, he groaned. “You just don’t know when to quit, do ya?” he asked it. Knowing the bastard wouldn’t go down without a distraction, he forced himself to his feet and over to the dresser. A jog on the beach with Knight would get his blood flowing in a different direction. He hoped, anyway.

Both he and the shepherd were covered in sand and salt when he made it back to the market around seven. As he pulled the Jeep into his parking space next to Sage’s car, he noticed a figure sitting on the steps. Vincent. He’d thought his friend would arrive later in the day. They had work to do, but he needed a shower first.

“You’re early,” he told V. as he climbed out. Hank rounded the Jeep to let Knight out. The dog made a beeline for V., who laughed at his sudden barrage of slobbery kisses.

“Get off me, you big brute.” V. stood up, avoiding Knight’s tongue but not the dog’s feet. Knight jumped up, his front paws landing on V.’s shoulders for another bout of lovin’.

“Knight, down,” Hank said. The shepherd dropped immediately, giving Hank a pleading look that he ignored. Hank shook his friend’s hand and pulled him in for a shoulder bump. “Long drive?” he asked.

“Long drive,” V. told him as they started up the stairs. Hank snapped his fingers for Knight to follow. “I was up, though, so I figured I’d head down early, avoid the traffic. My ass is thankful for our arrival.”

Considering V. lived a couple of hours away, his ass was probably numb, especially if he brought his motorcycle. Hank hadn’t looked in the front parking lot, so he wasn’t sure.

He took a few minutes to rinse and towel Knight off when they reached the deck. The shepherd wagged his tail in thanks as he preceded them into the apartment. “Make yourself at home,” Hank said. “I’ll hit the shower. There’s bear claws on the counter.”

Knight barked at the mention of the sweets, and V. chuckled, used to the dog and his sweet tooth. “As if you’d ever be without those,” he said, walking toward the cabinet. “Want one?”

“Sure. Back in a minute.”

He made quick work of washing off the dirt and was back in the kitchen in ten. V. was talking on the phone.

“Hank’s back. I’ll call you when we take a break.” A pause. Hank took the plate of bear claws V. had fixed and walked toward the table and Knight, lying in a patch of sunlight near the window. “Right. I’ll be home late. Don’t wait up—you have work in the morning. Love you.”

Hank’s eyebrows were as high as they could go as his friend ended the call. “‘Love’? Who was that—and what the hell?”

V. chuckled. “Yeah, guess I haven’t told you the Jane story yet, have I?” His smile turned wry as Hank tore off a corner of his bear claw and tossed it to Knight. “You know I’ve already given him one, right?”

“Of course. And no, you haven’t told me anything about love.” He took a bite of bear claw. “I repeat,” he said, mouth full, “what the hell?”

V. laughed, but only for a moment. When he met Hank’s eyes, his own were dead serious. “So Jane, my girlfriend—yes, I’m actually dating, dickhead—is…
the
Jane.”

“
The
Jane? Like Kennedy’s friend Jane?” Kennedy was V.’s sister. “That Jane?”

There was only one Jane V. had ever mentioned, and that one was important—his sister’s best friend, the one who’d come on to him several years ago. V. had brushed off the incident as unimportant, a teenage whim on Jane’s part, but Hank knew better. There was a reason he was the only member of the band who knew that story.

V. nodded. “That Jane. We met up in Vegas when I went to see Kennedy. Or rather, Kennedy set us up to meet in Vegas. Turns out my little sis wasn’t as interested in a family reunion as she let on.”

“Kennedy always has been smart.” And conniving. That woman’s brain put most people’s to shame.

“Well it worked,” V. said. “We’ve been dating since the trip, and last week Jane moved in with me.”

“Wait—and you didn’t tell me?” It was hard to wrap his head around V. being serious about anyone. When they’d first started Weekend Washout, they’d both been high on the rock scene and the endless supply of groupies. They’d both grown up, though, and he couldn’t remember the last time V. had actually dated a woman. He went to that BDSM club in LA when they were home, but that was about it. He’d been consumed with managing the band, and Hank had been consumed with his music.

And now they both had women. V.’s seemed permanent. “Is she…you know…?” Hank cleared his throat as his stomach churned, and he set the rest of his bear claw back on the plate. “Is she…submissive?”

“Would I commit to anything else?”

“I don’t know; would you?”

“No.”

Of course not. Vincent O’Connell was a Dom through and through. They’d discussed it many times after his friend confided in him, right around the time Chad was coming clean about his sexuality. Hank understood where V. was coming from, understood on an intellectual level that dominating women wasn’t abuse, but his own experience, the only practical experience he had with actual BDSM, had taught him otherwise. It still turned his stomach when he thought about it, when memories rose that he wished he could erase.

When his own need to take control threatened to get away from him.

Hank shrugged instead of responding. Trying to give himself some distance, he went for the coffeepot. “Want some?”

“Sure.” But V. was watching him. He knew exactly what had Hank in its hold. He proved it when Hank came back to the table and his food. “This is what I need. You know that. You also know I’d never do anything my partner didn’t want me to do.”

“I do know. I just don’t…get it.”
Or want to.
Tara’s face was front and center, her jaw broken, her eyes black-and-blue. It hadn’t been the first time Coger had beat her in the name of BDSM games, but it had been the last; Hank had made sure of it.

He knew V. wasn’t like that, but deep down inside, he couldn’t seem to let go of the belief that what V. did and what Coger had done were just different ends of the same spectrum. Hell, he didn’t even trust himself, not when the hunger ran too hot. It was too easy to use his strength against a woman, however inadvertently. To deliberately try to hurt her? No way in hell.

What kept someone on V.’s side and not the side where your sub died? Hank didn’t know. He preferred to avoid the spectrum altogether.

“Short-term, anyone would do,” V. was saying. “In the long-term, though, you can’t bury a part of yourself. So yes, Jane is submissive. We have a contract. I know exactly what she is and is not pleased by. And I love her.”

The tone of his voice said that last admission was the most important. It probably was. And he knew V. believed intent made all the difference. Hank just couldn’t let himself go there.

In the long-term, though, you can’t bury a part of yourself.

He refused to accept that. “But you hurt her.”

“Not like that.”

Those words sent a wave of nausea through Hank’s gut. V. would hurt Jane, but only in ways Jane agreed to. Even with the caveat, Hank’s instincts shouted a visceral urge to flee, flooding his body with adrenaline. “I know it in my head—as in, I understand the words you’re using and I believe you believe them—but I could never…” There was just too much risk of abuse. He’d seen it.

“I know, Hank. I know.” V. sighed. They’d had this discussion many times, but the past had too hard a grip on Hank to ever let go. “It’s not always like that, Ha—”

Hank held up a hand, warding off V.’s words. “I know. Let’s just—let’s get to work.”

“Yeah, okay.”

Hank could tell V. wanted to argue, but they both knew it was futile. Abandoning his breakfast, he went to retrieve his guitar from his bedroom, the heady scent of Sage and sex calming him like a warm blanket. He lingered for a moment, letting the magic work its way into him, and then went back to the kitchen. After fixing them both fresh coffee, he led V. out on the back deck and they got down to work.

It was good. V. liked the new stuff and even suggested an acoustic solo tour, something to highlight the change in style without making it appear as if Hank was leaving Weekend. Something about his friend and manager’s approval eased the tension in Hank’s gut. Four hours later he and V. had finalized a couple of songs and made significant progress on a couple more, but now Hank’s lack of breakfast was making itself felt—his navel was trying to crawl through his spine.