Protecting His Assets (13 page)

“What’s wrong?” He glanced around the room, noting the scatter of clothes on the floor that accounted for why she was sitting there in her bra and tiny little cotton shorts that might’ve been underwear. A second equally small table across the room offered another mirror that gave him a way too revealing glimpse of the curve of her back and the long laces of dark curls that spilled over it. “Why aren’t you dressed?”

“This is the changing room, you know. I already chased out the other chick who’s up next. She didn’t want to hang around some emo guitar bitch. Now it’s your turn to leave.” She threw down her makeup thingy and whirled around on the seat, evidently realizing he had no intention of moving. “You shouldn’t be back here.”

“Yeah, I know I shouldn’t be here, but I am. You’re upset and I’m not leaving until you tell me why.” He crossed his arms and waited.

“You saw that show. I’m a round peg trying to fit in a square hole. No, worse, I’m a round peg trying to fit in the head of a needle. I need a band. I need to write harder stuff. No one wants to hear my country-tinged stuff in the city—”

“Hold on.” He moved forward and cupped her shoulders, registering the satiny skin under his. Soft. Way too fucking soft. But he still kept his hands right where they were as he bent his knees to meet her eyes. “What I saw was that it took a little time for you to win them over, but you did it. By the end, they were eating out of your palm. You didn’t buckle. You adapted and got the job done.”

“I need a band,” she muttered, averting her gaze. The loss of those big blue eyes staring straight into his hit him as acutely as the loss of breath. “Me and Kyle can only do so much. He knows some people, but I’ve been resisting bringing more people onboard. Too much trouble, too many personalities. I only want to sing.” She rubbed the heels of her hands into her eyes, hard. “Up there, I feel alive. I’m more me on stage than I am anywhere else. I live for those moments. The rest of the day, it’s just surviving until I hear the crowd again. That acceptance…” She shuddered. “God, I’d die without it.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” he said, voice flat.

“How do you know?”

He shifted back, lifting his palms so that only the tips of his fingers rested on bare skin. Not that it mattered. He’d never forget that silken expanse for the rest of his life. “Because I was the same. The roar of the fans kept me going. Booze, women and training filled the hours, but they didn’t give me that rush. Nothing could. After a while you stop caring what it’ll take to get attention. You’ll do anything. As long as they accept you—hell, as long as they
notice
you—you can accept yourself.”

Her minute nod cut him to the quick. He hated that she felt ashamed for falling victim to what so many people in the public eye had, over and over again. “Yes,” she whispered.

“What you need is to find acceptance somewhere else. Use it to fill you up. To make you so strong no one can touch you.”

“Where?” She raised her chin, eyes brimming with tears that didn’t fall. “From who?”

All the standard answers came to mind. The ones his AA sponsor had thrown his way more times than he could count.
Acceptance needs to come from within. If you can’t love yourself, no one else will love you. Self-respect is the first step.

Blah, blah, blah.

That all may well be true, but words weren’t what she needed right then. And they weren’t what he needed to give her.

He gripped her hips and lifted her up on to the table bolted to the wall. It didn’t shake from her weight, which he counted as pure luck. This wasn’t the fanciest place and the dressing room looked like it had seen much better days. He grabbed the chair she’d vacated and pushed it toward the door, flipping the lock and then shoving the chair beneath the knob.

When he turned back, she was staring at him in silent wonder. Or trepidation, he couldn’t tell.

Before he could talk himself out of it, he strode over to her and cupped her face in his hand, tipping it back so their eyes met. As his thumb feathered over her chin, he bent his head to breathe in her sweet apple scent, nothing cloying or artificial. No heavy scent, just Summer. She sucked in air at the brush of his mouth over her ear, a single glancing blow. Then he returned for more, drawing her earlobe between his teeth, pulling to make her moan.

She didn’t disappoint him.

“Chase?” she whispered, her usual bravado long gone.

Pressing his mouth to her neck, he fisted his hands on her hips and pulled her close. After the taste of her mouth he’d had last weekend, he craved more. No amount of kisses would be enough, so he didn’t allow himself the luxury. Kisses like they’d shared then were for lovers.

This was just fucking. As much as she mattered to him, he couldn’t let himself forget that.

She wound her long, supple legs around his hips and twined her arms around his neck, squeezing her knees to his sides. Rubbing against him so that the hard column in his jeans lined right up with the warm seam that taunted him under cotton and the slightest hint of lace. He nuzzled her neck and ear, drowning in the warmth and richness of her scent. Her tiny pearl earring clinked against his teeth and she gasped every time he used his teeth.

So he used them plenty.

Doing this in the back of the club was a mistake. He didn’t care. If he didn’t get a taste of her, he’d go crazy with wanting it. And he couldn’t afford that distraction, not when her safety was under his care. This was the most expeditious route to making sure she was protected. Once this was out of his system, he could focus on what was important.

He wished for a bed. For somewhere he could at least lay her out and do her right. She deserved that and more. Since he didn’t have that, he’d do the best he could within the current limitations.

Easing back, he drew the straps of her bra down her shoulders. Slow. So slow. Her eyes shut, lashes fluttering. His hands stilled and her eyes flew open to lock on his. In their hazy blue depths was permission—hell, a command—for him to continue. He flicked the front clasp and the fabric popped open enough for him to see the pale breasts that had tormented his memories since a few weeks ago. “Jesus.” The word burst out of him at the glimpse of her nipples, already hard and distended.

Looking wasn’t enough. He had to touch. He slipped his hands under the fabric to cup them, to test their weight while her glossy, wet lips parted on a soundless moan. His thumbs circled the tight crests and her pulse visibly beat in her throat as he drew his tongue down the valley between them before slicking beneath one curved swell. He licked upward, seizing a nipple between his teeth, plucking at the other with all of the urgency she inspired and none of the finesse he’d learned over the years. As far as he was concerned, he’d never loved another before this minute, because no one else had ever gazed at him with such overwhelming trust in their eyes.

He could fuck this up—was even fucking it up right now, by making it happen at all—and she would follow his lead. He’d never had anyone trust him like that before. Never knew how much it would mean.

His fingers grew restless and he swirled his tongue, drawing more of her into his mouth. His stubble roughed a pink path over her flesh and he regretted the flush even as he exalted in it. He liked the look of him on her skin. Would love even more making her his when he pushed his way into her body.

If she heard his thoughts right then, she’d call him a caveman. And she would be right.

“Chase.” He glanced up at her whisper and unintentionally tugged harder on her nipple at the fever-brightness of her face. A whimper escaped her and he rubbed the other pebbled tip, squeezing her perfect breast in his palm. She moved her hips restlessly, stirring against his groin until the insistent throb in his cock turned into actual pain. “Too much.”

To his way of thinking, too much wasn’t even close to enough. Not when it came to sucking on her sweet nipples or caressing her silky skin or nipping her flesh to leave behind marks that aroused something primal deep inside him. He lost himself in the act of pleasuring her, vaguely aware of music starting up out on stage. The driving rock rhythm shook the floor as he ratcheted up the pressure, focusing one hundred percent of his attention on the beautiful tits in his grasp. In his mouth.

She cried out and he glanced up at the soft thud of her head on the mirror. The row of lights highlighted the sheen of sweat on her cleavage and her reddened cheeks. Then she cried out again, even more desperately, and with one rapid twist of his fingers, she shuddered and locked her legs around his hips.

Good God, she was coming. From breast play alone. Holy shit.

She panted and gripped the edge of the table, finally opening her eyes when he slowly eased his lips away from their haven around her nipple. If her irises had ever looked bluer, he didn’t remember it.

Now would be the time to walk away. He’d diverted her from her sadness, now he should help her get dressed, escort her to his SUV and drive her home. Chalk this up to an intimate interlude between friends. They’d…bonded once, and that was that.

What he should not do? Step back and unbutton his jeans, then lazily lick lips that were still warm from her while he tugged down the zipper.

Her throat moved, but she didn’t speak as he pushed the denim and his boxers over his hips. His erection bobbed free and she let out a little gasp, one that caused him to arch a brow. Aftershock? Delayed rejection response? He hoped she said her piece soon, whatever it was. If she waited any longer to turn him down, he’d need to force his dick back in his pants with a crowbar and possibly some of that face cream on the dressing table.

“I’m assuming you’re intending on using that thing?”

Chase blinked. Was that a trick question? Just in case, he didn’t respond. Better to keep quiet than to risk being dismissed by virtue of a flippant remark.

Besides, getting inside her had become a biological imperative and breathing was about all he could manage at the moment.

She tugged at the waistband of her little cotton shorts, shimmying them off in a way that didn’t indicate an impending refusal of sex. With one glimpse of the landing strip of barely there dark curls between her thighs, the last remaining brain cells he had left vacated to premises unknown.

“Because if you are, I hope your mouth isn’t tired yet.” She tilted her head and tossed back her curls. And opened her legs.

Chase gazed at her in speechless wonder. Maybe he was shocked? She had to smother a nervous giggle. He’d believed she was some naïve little church choir girl, and she’d stripped down to nothing and practically demanded he give her head. After she’d come from breast stimulation alone—which, actually, was all him and holy
wow
, had that been amazing.

Chase remained silent, but he also didn’t pull up his jeans. Better yet, he kicked them and his boots off, then reached for his skintight muscle shirt. Maybe it wasn’t technically made for bodybuilding, but the fabric clung to his pecs and washboard abs like a lover. Like she wished she was, instead of standing around chatting.

Maybe she needed to be clearer.
Much.

“See, you’re a little better built down south than some of the other guys I’ve dated. Erectionally speaking,” she added at his raised brow.

“Some?” His cocky smile made her shoulders stiffen, which also had the unintended consequence of thrusting out her breasts. Chase’s expression glazed while he ate them up greedily with his eyes.

The tips beaded more as she remembered when he’d used more than a look to devour them. As in ten minutes ago. And she was up for a repeat performance anytime—after he offered the same treatment to another equally eager part of her body.

“Some,” she enunciated carefully. “So if you want in—” she slowly licked her lips, “—you’re going to have to, you know, ease the way.”

The corner of his mouth tipped up as he leisurely viewed her naked—and very aroused—body through hooded eyes. “Didn’t I ease the way enough already?”

He lunged toward her before she could answer and placed one broad palm on her belly, teasing the edges of her breasts with blunt-tipped fingers. That slight movement was enough to make her moan, and the heat in his green eyes leapt by miles.

“Wider,” he murmured, levering her thighs apart with his other hand even as he gave the command. Leaning forward, he nipped her chin and slid his palm lower, then lower still, not stopping until he ground it against her mound. A cry ripped from her, shocking them both. His head lifted, his sleepy, sexy green eyes meeting hers. Then his fingers parted her, the tip of one circling her sensitive clit. “Mmm, so wet for me, baby. Were you like this on stage, even when you were pushing me away?”

Because his fingers were gliding up and down, sliding in her moisture, making more, she had trouble following him. Pushing him away? When? He didn’t give her time to puzzle it out before one finger entered her, then two. Moving deeply, claiming her inexorably. She threw back her head and shut her eyes, not wanting to see his smug face when she went over again. Mr. Arrogant liked knowing she was at his mercy.

She’d love proving that she could do the same later—after she’d come another six dozen times.

“Or is it doing something bad in a semi-public place that’s getting you all hot and bothered? There’s so many people out there, so close by…and you’re in here about to get fucked by the bad boy of the major league.” Amusement tinged his irritably smug voice. “One of them, anyway.”