Wild Child (Rock Royalty #6) (16 page)

Don’t be stupid
, she scolded herself.
That’s hardly the issue now.

“Bing and I knew the females we met at the compound weren’t girlfriend material, we weren’t so stupid as that, but the ready…companionship... meant we didn’t have much interest in high school girls, either. We didn’t do the normal dating thing.”

When he lapsed into silence, Ashlynn tried to figure out the direction this was taking. Then it hit her, smack between the eyes.
Oh, God. Oh, poor Brody.

“You were dating Lynn.”

His big body jerked like she’d socked him. Then he cleared his voice and continued the story, his voice low. “For a couple of weeks before that night. I didn’t tell Bing because…I guess because I thought he’d give me shit about it. Or maybe because we shared so much I wanted to keep something to myself for once. For a little while anyway.”

“I see.” She paused. “But you didn’t tell him later?”

“I…no.” He swung around and then stalked to the couch, where he threw himself onto the cushions. “I’m not sure exactly why. We were wrecked when we found her in the hallway to our rooms the next day. And wrecked ten times that when Mad Dog was more concerned about keeping it quiet than about a young woman losing her life. But rock star fame and rock star cash worked their magic, and that sickened us, too. The next day we each stuffed a backpack with clothes and left the compound. Made our own way after that.”

His shoulders dropped as if the admission had exhausted him.

“God,” he said, running his hands through his hair. “What the hell am I doing? I shouldn’t have come. I shouldn’t have unloaded this on you.”

Why had he? she wondered. What had been tonight’s trigger? More than curious, she approached him on soft feet and sat down to his left.

He held his palms out, studied them. “All that I touch bruises. Everything crumbles in my hands or slips through my fingers.”

“Something else happened,” she said. “Something happened tonight.”

He made fists, relaxed them. Then he muttered, “Fuck it,” and glanced her way.

“What?” she prodded. “Tell me.”

“My mother’s been gone a long time, okay? She died when I was a kid.” He pulled in an audible breath. “But it turns out I have a sort of surrogate mom—Lynn’s mom, Cheryl.”

Ashlynn tried to hide her surprise. “You’ve kept in contact with her, then?”

“Made contact, about four years ago. She’s divorced now, and I visit her every couple of weeks. Do some home repairs. Get heavy things off high shelves.”

Get heavy things off high shelves
.

Such a simple phrase, but at the hearing of it Ashlynn’s heart rolled over in her chest. She’d never really tried to understand a man—they’d always seemed so foreign to her on some level—but now she understood this. Those simple words epitomized Brody Maddox. He was that guy, the one who got heavy things off high shelves. What woman stood a chance against its appeal?

“When I first met her,” Brody continued, “she was going through chemo for breast cancer.”

Ashlynn’s breath held.
Uh-oh.

He hung his head. “It’s returned.”

Tears burned the corners of her eyes.

“Brody.” She reached for him, and his back went rigid under her hand.

“Why the fuck is that?” he asked, his voice rough with emotion. “Can you tell me why?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered, sliding closer to wrap her arms around him and press her cheek against his shoulder. “I don’t have an answer.”

But she recognized his need—to make sense of things that made no sense. And then when that didn’t work, she understood too the compulsion to find some way to forget what you could not change.

It’s my turn to want it mindless.

And couldn’t she help with that?

She could be his temporary reprieve from harsh reality.

Ashlynn could be the instrument of his relief.

Make him forget everything but her. Them.

It seemed such an easy decision.

Her hands ran over him, feeling the heavy muscles in his arms and then his thighs as she slid to her knees between them.

His head snapped up. “Ash?”

Leaning in, she answered by laying a kiss above the top button of his flannel shirt. Then she unfastened it and kissed the skin she bared. The soft fabric parted, button-by-button. It lightly brushed the sides of her face, in contrast to the hard muscle beneath her lips.

He shifted on the cushions, let out a soft groan. “Ash…”

She pushed the shirt off his heavy shoulders, and his breath shuddered into his chest. She flicked the hard point of one nipple with her tongue. Then the other.

One of his hands fisted in the back of her hair, instantly released the strands. “Ash.”

Her name sounded like both protest and plea.

Fitting. Since coming here she’d often felt like two people in one body.

“Don’t be afraid,” she whispered against his sleek skin as she lowered her mouth toward his belt.

He smelled like expensive soap and raw heat. She drew the scent into her lungs and suddenly felt hot, too. Too hot. Sitting back, she threw off the flowy top she wore. Beneath it a skimpy black bra cupped her breasts, and she tossed that away also. Then she reached for his belt.

As if he couldn’t help himself, his hips arched. She made short work of opening his jeans and pulling free his erection. It jerked at her first touch, and she wrapped her fingers around him to pull the thick organ away from his flat, lightly furred belly.

Kneeing closer, she bent over him and lapped at the plump head. At his groan, her panties dampened, and she swirled her tongue around the fevered crown and then licked lower.

His hand returned to her hair.

“You don’t need to do this,” he whispered.

In answer, she hummed as she sucked his length into her mouth. Deep, as far as she could take him. God, it was good. For months, she’d been a mess of interior confusion and anguish. It was sweet relief to extend her energy outward…especially to ease this man who’d shared with her his own demons.

His fingers feathered across her scalp, sending a wave of goose bumps down her back. Her nipples beaded, tight and achy, and she felt the light touch all the way to her clit.

“You’re scary good at that,” he murmured, causing her to smile around his girth.

She slid her mouth off him, releasing him from her lips with a little pop that sounded both dirty and delicious. When he groaned again, she skimmed her palm over the surface of his cock, wet with her saliva.

“I already told you,” she said, looking up at him with a saucy smile. “Don’t be afraid.”

As she bent to take him in her mouth again, he caressed one of her breasts, then tweaked the hard peak. Moaning, she closed her eyes and drew him along her tongue, once more sucking him toward the back of her throat. Her whole body shivered as a mental image of herself performing this act blossomed. It was her alter-identity at work. Ashlynn Childe, raunchy and free. Topanga Ash, getting her groove on.

“God, baby,” he said, still toying with her breast. “Why are we always doing this in the dark? I need to see your lush mouth on me. I have to see your body.”

She wanted him to see that, too, she thought, knowing he’d appreciate the sway and bob of her breasts as she went down on him. He’d appreciate the view of her lips stretched wide around the flushed and veiny thickness of his erection. Topanga Ash would like to see that herself.

Maybe a cell phone photo. Yeah. Topanga Ash loved that idea.

As he reached for the nearby lamp, she remembered why she’d wanted shadows. Her eyes flipped open, but her first protest was muffled. Sliding her mouth free, she managed to begin a “No,” but it was too late. Golden light washed over her.

She blinked at the new brightness then saw the shock on Brody’s face.

“
Ash.
” His blue eyes blazed. “Did I—last night, did I somehow—”

“No! God, no.”

Grimacing, she recalled her reflection in the restroom mirror before she’d left the roadhouse. The gash on her chin had been butterfly bandaged by Tony, the other bartender on with her. Even then her eye had been swollen, and he’d promised a true shiner in a few hours. From Brody’s aghast expression, she figured it was developing as expected.

“It’s nothing,” she said. “There was a minor altercation in the bar near closing time.”

He pulled her up and onto his lap. His erection was hard against her jean-clad hip, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“What kind of altercation?” he demanded, his gaze narrowing. “That MC—”

“It wasn’t any of those guys,” she said. An arousal-flush rode high on his cheekbones, and she had to hide another shiver. “It was a pair of hipsters in jeans tighter than I wear and some scruffy hair on their faces. They were arguing about which superhero was the biggest badass of them all, and from there the discussion disintegrated. When they took swings at each other, I got caught in the crossfire—or crossfists, as it were. You get the picture.”

His gaze hadn’t moved off her face, and a muscle jumped in his jaw. Sexy—in a predatory sort of way.

“It was all very ironic,” she added.

That got her an almost-smile as he drew a thumb over the arch of her eyebrow.

She squirmed, self-conscious about her partial nudity as he continued to study her with that focused expression.

“I must look like hell.”

He shook his head. “But your face is too beautiful to be battered so.”

Sweet. Her heart did that flip-flop thing again.

“And I’m going to kill the fuckers who marred it,” he said, in the same tender tone as the comment before.

She swallowed. “You can’t. We kicked them out, and they’re not allowed to come back.”

“I’ll get their names from their credit card receipts. Find their addresses.”

Um, worrisome. Though not that she’d ever admit it out loud, his determined expression was also very, very hot.

“You can’t do that,” she said. “They paid cash.”

His eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“And anyway,” she said, squirming again to distract him and because his protective manner so turned her on, “if you rush off half-cocked, well…”

“Well?”

Her voice lowered to a whisper, and her face flamed. “I won’t get to play with the whole one right here.”

One of his dark eyebrows winged up. “Horny girl?”

Oh, yeah. Horny. Topanga Ash was on fire.

She swung a leg over his lap to straddle him and discovered that his primal response to her being hit seemed to have sent another healthy dose of testosterone through his system. His cock was steel-hard, and when she pressed the intersected seams of her jeans against it, the thing felt huge.

Her inner muscles spasmed, recalling the sensation of being stretched by it.

Brody’s hands went to her butt. He kneaded as he leaned in to take her mouth.

She moaned at the taste of his kiss. They’d both find relief from their troubles tonight.

“Should we go up to the bedroom?” he asked against her mouth.

Not a chance.
“I want to finish what I started,” she tried sliding down his lap again.

But he caught her.

“In a minute.” He urged her higher on her knees so that her naked breasts were at the level of his mouth.

Oh, God. Anticipation made the breath catch in her throat. Closing her eyes, she imagined a strong suction, a hint of teeth, maybe even a small bite. Her body vibrated, and she could feel her clit swelling in her tight jeans.

Then Brody licked her. Like a treasured treat, soft and light.

The wet touch of his tongue shot through her, pinging off the ends of her fingers and toes, zapping around her body like a hot wire, alive and untethered. She gripped his shoulders, hard masculine bone beneath her palms as his mouth continued to deftly, tenderly play with her breasts.

She was dying already, melting into a puddle of sex-hungry female.

How could such a big man touch her so delicately? How could he know what it would do to her?

For a second she thought of all the women he’d had before, but then she shut her mind against it. One hand lifted to the back of his hair, the strands springy between her fingers, and even they felt vital and male and so potent that she threw back her head, reveling in the masculine power feeding with such finesse at her breast.

“I’m going to make you come so many times tonight,” he promised, the words shaped against her skin. “I’ll never let you sleep.”

Wait! A chill tried overtaking her blistering want. Wasn’t an entire night with him a problem? Danger? That first time they’d been together, by dawn he’d somehow knocked over her defenses and pulled back her protective layers to lay bare her aching heart and wounded soul.

“I’m going to make you feel so good,” he said now, and as if he sensed her sudden trepidation, he sucked soothingly on her nipple while rubbing a circle on the small of her back. “Don’t be afraid.”

But she was terrified, because even with all the danger lurking, even aware of all the ghosts rattling about the house, she had no intention of moving out of Brody’s arms.

Brody felt Ashlynn quiver. She was aroused, her nipples beaded, her fingers clutching at his shoulders in a hungry grasp. But there was another kind of tension in her, too. So instead of moving ahead with seduction, he reluctantly lifted his head from her breast.

“Are you all right?” he whispered. “Do you want to stop?”

With heroic effort, he held back the phrases he really wanted to say,
C’mon, baby, let’s have that mindless fuck. Let’s do it. I can make you forget about everything but you and me.

She had a leg on either side of his thighs, and his aching cock wanted into her tight jeans more than his lungs wanted to breathe. As he watched her, a small smile ticked up the corners of her mouth. His gut tightened at such a sweet expression on her bruised and bandaged face.

Nothing should touch her
, he thought.
Possibly—probably—not even me.

Yet he didn’t move.

Her hand brushed his hair off his forehead. “You
are
that guy,” she murmured.

He quirked a brow. “‘That’ guy?” His hand caught hers, and he brought it to his mouth and kissed her knuckles.