Wishful Sinful (Rock Royalty Book 5) (17 page)

“Maybe we should have started out a little tamer,” she said in a small voice.

Really, she thought a few bossy orders was wild? “Hey, I didn’t bring out the whips and chains, did I?”

When she stiffened, he laughed. “Honey, relax.”

But his mind went to the drawer full of silk ties he had at home. Damn, he wished he’d packed a couple. Not that he couldn’t improvise…

“How did you know?” she whispered now.

He rubbed his cheek against her curls again. “We don’t have to talk about it in hushed tones,” he whispered back. “We’re consenting adults.”

“I’m not sure I could be…like that with anyone but you.”

At the thought of her with someone else, his gut tightened. Then he forced himself to relax and toy gently with her hair. “Is that right?”

“I trust you. I guess that’s why I could respond that way. You know…give over.”

Surrender. Submit. It made him feel smug and damn satisfied that he could be the man with whom she felt safe enough to reveal her inner and honest sexual being. He’d be happy to help her explore her appetites over the next few days.

“Well, good. I’m glad you trust me. I feel the same.”

“You do?” Now she sounded pleased.

“Of course.” He was closer to Honey than any other woman, even his Rock Royalty “sisters.” By design, he’d always kept a certain distance from the females in his life. Whether it was because of his careless mother who’d taken off, leaving her sons with a negligent, perpetually half-tanked father who exposed his kids to a year-round summer camp of sin, or because the one woman he’d given his youthful heart to had turned what he believed was true love into a Greek-style tragedy…

Well, the why of it didn’t matter. What did, was that if any lover besides Honey had promised they’d go back to their business-only relationship after a few days of setting the sheets on fire, he wouldn’t believe them.

Walsh, however, took Honey at her word.

Warm affection for her welled up inside him again. He kissed the top of her head and slid his hand up and down her arm, stroking her soft flesh.

“I like your skin,” he said. “I like seeing it in those sexy dresses and little shorts. Your hair looks great.”

“That’s not what you said at first.”

“I was still trying to resist your feminine wiles.”

She made a sound of disbelief. “I don’t have any feminine wiles.”

He thought of those little looks she’d sent him through her lashes. Oh, she was finding some wiles, all right. His hand returned to her hair, where he found a springy curl that he pulled straight, then let free.

“Why?” he asked.

“Why what?”

“Your hair—”

“The humidity here made it crazy. My head looked like a pyramid.”

“Not why’d you get it cut. Why were you hiding behind it in the first place? And what was with the glasses? The drab clothes?”

“I don’t like to shop.”

Maybe. But she wasn’t being entirely forthcoming. He reached lower to put his hand on the soft rise of her ass.

“Do you think the boss will allow you to hold out on him?” His fingers tightened on her flesh. “Didn’t you promise on your way down here not to keep any secrets from him?”

She squirmed. “Walsh…”

“Girl,” he warned in a low voice. He bit back a smile as he felt her skin heat all along his side. “We have rules.”

“Oh, all right,” she said, as if annoyed. “It’s just…protection, I guess. Like a shell.”

Protection?
“What?”

“I had a bad experience once, and I found out it was better if people―men―you know, don’t look at me.”

He didn’t like the sound of this. “Men look at you all day long every day at MadSci.”

“Look at me like I’m…I’m a woman.”

His muscles went rigid. “Did someone bother you there?
Is
someone bothering you there? Why haven’t you—”

“No, no. This was before I started work at MadSci.”

It didn’t calm him much. “I need to hear this story.”

“It was at the end of college. I had a summer internship as an assistant to the president—”

“It was on your resume. You worked for the president of the company that bottles that specialty hot sauce.”

“You remember?” She sounded surprised.

“I remember. What happened?”

“I really liked Mr. Rivera.” She sighed. “He gave me a lot of opportunities. Explained, often, why he made the decisions he did. I admired him.”

Fuck.
He stroked her thigh, trying to soothe himself as much as her. “Did he harass you?”

She shook her head, her curls tickling his chest. “Not him. Not like you’re thinking.”

Her ensuing silence unnerved him, and he gritted his teeth, admonishing himself to give her time to tell it her way. But at moments like this he didn’t have much patience. “Honey—”

“Maybe it was my fault. Maybe I was too naive to understand the situation. If I had realized, I could have—”

“You are not going to take that on.” His temper spiked, and he had to pause to put reins on it. A long breath helped. “I know you, and whatever happened was not your fault.”

“I know,” she said, her voice quiet. “I do know that.”

Another silence passed, and then she continued. “A man came to the offices from New York. A possible distributor. It was an important contact, and I did what I could to make him comfortable—the usual stuff, coffee how he liked it, asking for his lunch order. With a smile, of course.”

“And?”

“I guess he took a shine to me. To my mind, I was simply being courteous. But to his…”

“Men like that don’t give a shit what’s going on in your head. If they want you, they think they should get to have you.”

“Mr. Rivera asked me to drive the client to the airport one night as he had a family obligation—that was his excuse, anyway. Before leaving, he reminded me of how valuable a contract with the man would be.”

Walsh closed his eyes.

“It was after hours. The executive offices were empty except for me and the client. He followed me into the small kitchen there—I thought I was making him a coffee.”

“He had something else in mind.”

Another nod. “I held out the mug. He took it, set it away, then grabbed my hand and put it on him…there.”

“Fuck.”

“Then he was kissing, groping, telling me I’d showed him how much I wanted him every time I walked his way.”

“
Fuck
.”

“I pushed at him, turned my face away, told him he was wrong. ‘No’ did not work. When I finally managed to break free of him, I ran to the door, but he’d locked it.”

“Honey.” Walsh tucked her head closer to him. “My God.”

“I fumbled with it for a second, but I guess I was so rattled I couldn’t get the mechanism to work. So I punched through the wood.”

He froze. “What?”

“It was a very cheap door.”

Walsh fumbled for Honey’s right hand, the one with the scarred knuckles. He brought it to his mouth, kissed the raised places. “My little WWE Diva.”

“Told you,” she said.

He squeezed her fingers. “You got away?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t press charges?”

“No.”

His gut burned like it was riddled with ulcers.

“I did tell my school and was assured no student would be assigned a place there ever again.”

“That’s good.” He forced air into his tight chest. “You feeling like you need a protective shell around you isn’t.”

“It wasn’t as conscious as you think. I see it now, five years later, but in the beginning…I just felt more comfortable being able to fade into the woodwork.”

Guilt coursed through him because he’d been damn glad she covered up like that on the job—he’d found her already too damn appealing in her nondescript wardrobe.

“You should have told me,” he said, his voice gruff.

“That’s sweet.” She pressed a kiss to his chest.

He felt it much deeper.

And then lower. The possessive beast inside him awakened. After hearing that story, he needed her again, if only to assure himself she’d survived the scare.

“Girl,” he said. He heard the sex in his own voice, knew it was already oozing from his pores.

Honey went still.

Then his mind halted, and his libido braked. Hell. The little power dynamic they’d engaged in earlier…was that wrong now that he knew about that ugly episode? In the past, under traumatic circumstances, she’d had control taken away from her.

“Honey,” he began.

She rolled on top of him and gazed into his face. Her eyes were heavy, her mouth swollen from his kisses. It was a sensual look, and his cock responded as cocks were wont to do, hardening, clamoring, insisting that he indulge in her again.

And indulge her. But he wasn’t sure the right way to go about that now.

Honey outlined his mouth with one fingertip.

“You’re still the boss of me,” she whispered.

Fuck yeah.
Relief and heat swept through him, and he caught her finger with his teeth.

She shuddered
.
“That still turns me on.”

He replayed the sentences in his head, relishing them.
You’re still the boss of me. That still turns me on.
God. The words did
him
in, the concrete evidence of her trust in him cranking his shaft…and doing something to his heart, too.

Sliding up to the headboard, he shifted her to straddle his lap. She looked down at his erection, already engorged.

“We’ll get to that later,” he promised.

“What if I want to get to it now?”

“Too bad for you,” he said, his tone callous. “
I
want to play with your pretty breasts.”

Her breath caught, and he watched her nipples tighten. He pinched one, heard her sharply inhale through her nose.

“I was going to get some ice for these,” he said, “but they’ve perked up without any prompting.”

Her blue eyes were wide again and trained on his face. He could see her pulse fluttering against the thin skin of her throat.

Warmth welled inside him once more. Affection mixed with lust made one fucking heady cocktail, he realized. Add to that a little power exchange…

“Clasp your hands behind your back,” he ordered, adrenaline shooting through him when she instantly obeyed. “Now lean up a little, and feed me that hard little nipple. I want to suck.”

He closed his eyes as the tight bud brushed against his lips. Opening his mouth, he took it in and pushed it against the roof of his mouth with his tongue. Her desperate noise attested to her arousal and gratified the shit out of him.

He cupped one hand beneath her breast and used the other on her hip to steady her. The scent of her perfume and of her sex surrounded them like a cloud. Another bubble.

If all this suddenly didn’t feel like fun and games, he pushed the niggle of worry away. They’d made a promise to each other, and even sex that felt as serious as a sacrament wouldn’t break it.

Honey woke slowly, and with her eyes still closed, fumbled for a reason behind her sluggish body and the low throb of a mild headache at her temples. Oh, yeah. Tequila, she remembered. Limbo.

Walsh.
Her eyes flipped open.

She lay face down in his bed, taking up more than her half of the large mattress. The narrow space remaining was empty, but on one of the abandoned pillows sat a small pile of scarlet hibiscus flowers. Last night, they’d scattered when he’d flung the duvet off the sheets. This morning, he must have picked each up…and arranged them where she’d see them first thing?

Her finger reached out to stroke a soft petal. Was there some way to preserve one of the blossoms to bring home with her?

“You’re awake.”

At Walsh’s voice, she snatched back her hand, hoping he hadn’t noticed her gesture. It wouldn’t do for him to think she was getting all sentimental about their night of sex.

Turning her head, she saw him standing in the doorway, his hair damp, and dressed again in casual slacks and another linen shirt. He looked as smooth and sophisticated and unruffled as she wanted to appear.

She cleared her throat. “Good morning.” With a quick roll and a desperate clutch of the sheets, she managed to sit up against the pillows and face him, the covers concealing her from her collarbones on down.

“You’re a freer spirit than I ever guessed,” he said, a faint smile on his face. “Especially when you sleep.”

“Did I push you out of bed?” she asked, mortified.

How do people do this?
she wondered, feeling her face heat. The last thing she wanted to be was a Blushing Betty.

“You were curled sweet as can be at my side,” Walsh came forward to slide a wide ceramic mug onto the bedside table beside her, “until I got up. Then you claimed all the territory you could reach.”

Feeling marginally less embarrassed, she glanced at the mug. “A latté?”

“Your favorite morning beverage, right?”

The DIY set-up in the living area didn’t run to anything so fancy, which meant he’d had to fetch it from the hacienda or…

“Room service delivered breakfast a few minutes ago,” he added. “I ordered fruit for you and an omelet.”

“Thank you.” She lifted the coffee drink to her lips, hoping he’d dismiss the flush on her face as heat caused by the beverage. He’d ordered her breakfast! It was ridiculous to be so pleased by the courtesy.

He sat on the edge of the mattress by her hip.

Instead of looking at him, she focused on blowing cool air over the surface of her coffee.

“Are you all right?” he asked, his voice quiet. His palm covered her sheet-shrouded knee.

“Of course.” She wanted to play this as maturely as he, so she chanced a glance at him. “The sound of the waves is a great soporific, don’t you think?”

His grin came fast and blinding. “Oh, yeah, last night those waves really worked to induce sleep.”

“You’re laughing at me.”

He squeezed her knee. “Just a little.”

Warmth from his touch was moving through her body. Restless, her legs shifted, and he removed his hand. Then the back of his knuckles traced her cheek as he leaned close.

“You’re so pretty.”

Okay, now she definitely was turning as scarlet as the flowers on the pillow. “Thank you,” she mumbled again.

He seemed content to merely stay in place beside her after that, so she sipped her coffee and stole the occasional look at his handsome face. The silence wasn’t tense or awkward—it was the typical kind she was accustomed to around him. Walsh was likely working through the details of some design problem he had with a device in development or running numbers in his head for the MadSci bid on a new government project.