Wild Child (Rock Royalty #6) (13 page)

“So…” She had to clear her throat and start again. “So noted.”

“Cup your palms,” he ordered. And when she obeyed, he spit into them, once, twice, three times.

She stared, shocked by the raunchy earthiness of the act.

“Now,” he said, pushing her hands toward his exposed cock. “Now stroke me.”

Obeying, she closed her spit-slick hands around his hard length, the sound of his groaning response like a callused palm stroking her own skin. She moaned, and he caught it with his mouth, kissing her as if he burned for her like she burned for him.

One of his hands crawled beneath the hem of her sweater and yanked at the cup of her bra to expose her to his touch. She arched, offering herself to him. He pinched her nipple, and then he nudged at her foot, insisting she widen her stance.

She moaned again, tangling her tongue with his as she had a moment’s thought about her skirt, her tights, the panties underneath.
Why’d I wear so many clothes?

But Brody wasn’t hampered by her layers. As she continued kissing him and working his erection up and down, swirling her thumb over the plump head, his free hand yanked up the hem of her short shirt. Then he tore at the flimsy stockings. They came apart easily, the elastic waist still circling her body as he pushed the rest of the lacy fabric toward her knees.

The skin at the back of her thighs prickled as his calloused fingers drew along that sensitive flesh. Her hands tightened on his cock.

Brody tore his mouth from hers and ran his lips to her ear.

“I hope you don’t care about these panties, either,” he said, then ripped them from her in a move so masterful her heart quaked.

“Oh, God.”

His hand cupped her bottom, caressing her, taking owner’s rights of her bare flesh. She pushed her forehead against his chest as his fingers traced the cleft then delved between her thighs. He teased her there, spreading around the slippery moisture with knowing fingers, and when he stroked over her most sensitive bundle of nerves, he pressed his mouth to her ear.

“Pleasure button,” he said.

She might have snickered, but the sensation was so exquisite she didn’t have the breath for it. Her teeth took hold of the material of his shirt. Her hands twisted and stroked. Brody breathed heavy and hot against her ear as they fondled each other toward orgasm.

It was building, bliss gathering between her legs. His rod was like hot metal, and she moved one hand lower, palming the soft skin covering his full, tight balls.

He gripped her waist while the fingers of his other hand continued to play with her pleated flesh. Her hips tilted, trying to coax a deeper touch. On another groan he complied, a quick shallow dip, then he thrust high with two fingers. Gasping, she shot to tiptoe, trying to ease the invasion.

His mouth trailed back to hers, and as he gave her another heated, aggressive kiss, she dropped back to her heels and took him in, surrendering to his penetration.

Beyond shame, she rocked her body on those piercing fingers, trying to entice them to move. Her clitoris was pulsing, begging, swollen with the lust that raced through her bloodstream, but he continued to torture it with only the lightest of touches.

Pressure built. Her skin felt too tight, her nerves strung too taut, her grasp of reality was only Brody and the pleasure he was promising…yet not yet providing. She clenched on his fingers and squirmed, desperate for a firmer caress to her clitoris.

Her body was humming, reaching, needing, as he moved his head to drop kisses on her cheek on the way to her ear.

“You make me come, and then I’ll give you exactly what you want,” he said.

“Oh, please,” she said, in almost a whimper.

“Make me come, Ash.”

Nearly frantic, she began to move her hand faster on him.

“Harder,” he said. “Rough strokes.”

His dark voice made her break out in goose bumps.

Obeying his command, she applied herself to his pleasure, one hand jerking up and down, the other taking a firmer grasp of his balls.

But he didn’t wait for his big finish before he began to touch her with more intent, his thumb swirling over her clitoris, his long fingers moving in her, retreating the smallest bit, then thrusting deep again.

Pleasure taunted her, and the desire to prolong the breathless anticipation of the finale was almost as strong as the desire to experience it. Everything centered on Brody, his touch, the sound of his heavy breaths, the smell of him that she took into her lungs with each unsteady inhale.

A worry niggled at her, in the very back reaches of her consciousness, that there might be a problem with this mindless thing. It meant she was no longer in control, that she allowed her body—and maybe her heart—to take sway over her head.

That could lead to disaster.

But then he stiffened, and she saw his eyes close and his jaw harden. He buried his face against the side of her hair and thrust into her hand as his thumbnail brushed firmly across her swollen, wet clit. With a moan, she began to shake, the pleasure bursting over her, passing through her, liquefying her bones even as she was aware he was coming, too, his release spurting hot and thick over her hands.

They leaned on each other as they recovered. She planted her forehead against his chest. His neck curved so his bristly cheek pressed against her soft one.

It should have been awkward. But that wasn’t the thought she had when he finally pulled his fingers free of her body and wrapped his muscled arms around her. They stood together for more long moments, two people who’d survived something unexpected—a sudden squall or a jarring earthquake. When they were both breathing evenly again, he shifted back and dried her hands with the front tails of his shirt, the action matter-of-fact yet also caring.

On a silent sigh, Ashlynn stepped out of her boots, stripped off her ruined tights, and then shoved her feet back inside the leather.

“No more getting on top of pool tables tonight,” Brody said, scooping up her torn panties and slipping them in his front pocket.

She was bare beneath the skirt. “No more getting on top of pool tables tonight,” she agreed, then hesitated. “But I have to go back out there.”

“Yeah.” He tucked in his shirt then smoothed his palms over his hair. “I have to go, too.”

The pair of survivors exited the storeroom, blinking in the bright light of the break area. Brody turned, a small frown on his handsome face. Here and there a speck of glitter was caught in his whiskers.

His blue eyes studied her. “Are you going to be all right?”

The intensity of his gaze pinned her in place.

“I…”

She got lost looking at him, at those chiseled features that belonged on a big screen. Her body still hummed from his artful sexpertise, but his dominance was tempered with a rugged type of tenderness that was undeniable—and undeniably fascinating to her.

Oh, God. Maybe mindless
had
been a bad idea after all. It had left her vulnerable to the appeal of him being planted more firmly inside her head.

One of his brows arched. “Ash?”

“I’m all right. Great, actually,” she said, and faked a smile, because that was
her
personal expertise.

He touched her cheek, the gesture almost affectionate, and it rippled across her body, lifting the fine hairs and making her fingers and toes curl. As he walked away, she watched him, memories of the last few minutes already replaying. He was in her head, all right.

She could only hope he hadn’t rooted in any place more critical than that.

Chapter 7

Brody knew what he had to do. Part of him had known since that night at the club when he’d run in to Ash.

Rain streaked his windshield as he waited across the street for Rachel to exit her school in the late afternoon. When he saw her pass through the gates, a polka dot-printed umbrella perched over her head, he climbed out of his car.

She saw him immediately, and made her way in his direction, using the crosswalk, of course. Her warm smile sent a shaft of guilt through him.

Such a fucking familiar emotion.

When she reached his side of the street, though, he smiled, too, and asked if she had time for coffee. Her brows rose, but she didn’t say anything more than “yes” until he’d bundled her into the car. They exchanged basic pleasantries as they made the short trip to the café around the corner.

With their beverages bought, they bumped knees under a small table and smiled at each other over their cardboard cups of coffee. When he asked about her day, she talked easily of her adventures with her classroom of charming munchkins.

Quite a different sort of clientele
, he thought,
than a dozen rough and ready motorcycle gang members.

“What’s new with you?” Rachel asked then, in a bright voice.

She’d been that for him, bright, a bright light he’d followed onto a better path. He’d thought he’d find there, find in her, everything he wanted.

Everything that was good for him.

But he’d been compelled instead onto a different route…one that had taken him again to Satan’s. To Ashlynn.

He hauled in a breath. “I went to the roadhouse last night. That place…that place in Topanga.”

Rachel stilled, and her gaze dropped as she fiddled with the insulated sleeve around her drink. “Oh. I see.”

Christ, what now?
He hated the thickness of his tongue and his inability to find the right words. Hadn’t he always been able to talk to women? It was a talent of his.

A memory surfaced.
Make me come, Ash
, he’d said, his voice guttural.
Harder. Rough strokes.

Oh, yeah, what a charmer. So smooth.

He cleared his throat. “And Ashlynn was there. The thing is, we…we have a past. From before I met you.”

“Ah.” Rachel flicked him a glance, then returned her attention to her coffee. “She’s very beautiful.”

“As are you,” he assured her. “It’s not that…it’s…”

It’s that Ash had some power over him. But that wasn’t fair. It was his fatal flaw, that rescuer impulse that drove him to those who were hurting. Then there was that blind spot he had, the one that wouldn’t let him fully recognize truths until it was too late. Truths like his mother was never going to stay. And that the owner of Satan’s Roadhouse would very likely be his downfall.

His hand tightened on his cardboard cup.

“I want to be honest with you. Though I won’t be calling again, I still think you’re great. Everything about you is great.”

A long moment of silence ensued. When she finally looked up, her expression was composed. “I understand.”

His surge of relief didn’t completely clear out his guilt. “Rachel—”

She held up her hand, halting him. “I can’t claim I’m not disappointed that we won’t further explore what we might have had, but clearly you feel some kind of a prior…commitment.”

He tried not to wince. Commitment wasn’t even close to the right word. Commitment implied something long-term, and though he might be flawed and he might be blind, he was certain that what he had with Ash was going to flame fast and then burn out.

He’d lose her, just like he’d lost his mother. Just like he’d lost Lynn.

It was beyond his power to hold them, so the only question was how long would be the fall and how deep would be the wounds left behind.

“Thank you, Rachel.” What else was there to say?

She apparently thought they’d exhausted the subject, too, because she stood.

“Take me back to my car?”

“Sure.” The short return trip was silent. He drew up right next to her driver’s door so she wouldn’t have much chance to get wet while switching vehicles.

With her fingers on the inside handle of his, she turned to him. “You know, there was a reason I was cautious about getting too serious right away.”

“Oh?”

“I never really thought you were a decent bet.”

Okay, that stung for the supposed “good” twin, but he hid his grimace.

“Not under the circumstances,” she continued.

“The circumstances?” he asked, walking right into it.

“You being Mad Dog’s son and all.”

Brody froze. As Rachel exited, he transferred his gaze out the windshield. The rain was coming down in earnest again, the wipers unable to keep up with the drops, so that the world beyond the glass was obscured. But his comprehension was crystal clear.

He had that blind spot. Also the fatal flaw. To cap those two off, he carried inside him a fucked-up childhood which was an ugly and unwieldy set of baggage that he could never set down.

You being Mad Dog’s son and all.

Was that why he just kept screwing up? Could he blame it all on dear old Dad?

As he drove away from Rachel’s school, he didn’t know what to do with himself. His mood meant he shouldn’t chance a meeting with his brother, any of their construction crew, and certainly not clients. Topanga was on the agenda at some point in the next few days—the whole reason for the break-up with Rachel was because he knew he was incapable of keeping his hands off Ash now—but he hoped to get his head on a little straighter before another visit.

His lust needed to be controlled. With a short cooling-off period, he thought he might be able to neutralize the more irrational and dangerous of his feelings for her.

While turning this over in his mind, he found himself a block away from the wedding salon owned by the Alessios—the family of his brother’s fiancée, Alexa. Lex could be nosy, but she couldn’t read his thoughts like Bing.

If he didn’t feel like talking, he figured she’d be content to chatter about her day—an excellent distraction. The cookies always available there were a draw, too.

Bella Bridal was located on a side street off a main thoroughfare, and was housed in a historic Craftsman home. He parked in the small lot beside the shop and then strolled to the front door and let himself inside.

The immediate open space was the bridal showroom. Fabrics and laces draped dressmaker dummies. From wrought-iron racks bent in fancy designs hung white wedding dresses and the more colorful gowns for bridesmaids. On shelves lining the walls were baskets piled with accessories. His eye caught on a set of glittery hair pins, and his mind shot to Ash, those sparkles on her beautiful face shimmering. Dazzling him even more than usual.