Her reaction made him bite down on her shoulder a little harder, change hands and do it again on her other side. He circled a finger over her piercing, making her groan and bump against his hand, seeking something more. He pinched the metal edge and pulled gently, got a hiss of pleasure-pain out of her before cupping her whole breast.
He couldn’t get enough of her. High on her taste, on the soft noises of surprise and wonder she couldn’t contain and the way she undulated in reaction to his touch. Had no idea how much time had passed since his lips first touched down on her silken skin. He’d been steamed up, worried about whether he’d played it right with Abel during the interview and intending to show Evie how wrongheaded she was about what they could do to each other, even with barbaric restrictions hanging over them.
But the idea of punishing her into submission, if it ever really existed outside of his imagination, long got lost in the want to make her breath get short and her muscles soften, her whole body offered up for him to devour.
It was brutal not being allowed near her mouth, not tangling with her tongue. He’d had to hold his own reactions in check so not to ruin it all by taking advantage of her arousal, her trust in him. He was just as into this as she was, maybe more because he had control. The illusion of it anyway. Evie was the boss here. He was a servant to her sighs and gasps, and the way her eyes fluttered closed and her head got heavy on her neck, as he relearned how to touch all the secret sensitive places that turned her on.
Beside her left eye, his whole mouth against her ear, the place where her collarbone met her shoulder and right along her hairline at the back of her neck. He remembered other places on her body that she’d loved him to kiss. Her left nipple, the one not pierced, was more sensitive than her right, kissing the ridge of her hip bone made her jerk, kissing her belly made her laugh.
The piercing in her ear was new. She liked his tongue there. He almost got her hands to leave the death grip she had on the arms of the chair when he caught it between his teeth and tugged lightly.
If she let go the chair, he’d kiss her fingers, learn the notes inked between them. If she let go the rules, he’d be a real king instead of wishful.
He took a moment to simply breathe against her skin. There’d be other new things to discover about her body and ways to encourage her to give herself entirely up to him that didn’t involve his lips on hers or his rigidly hard cock inside her. She might think she was all or nothing, but he was nothing if not inventive. He’d reinvented himself because of her.
He rubbed his cheek against hers and pushed his hand down her body and right between her legs, where she radiated heat through her skinny pants. She hissed and clamped around his fingers, hips shifting.
Neither of them was getting what they truly wanted ou
t of this, but it was a glorious feast anyway. Teeth sharp to Evie’s earlobe made her legs open and he withdrew, first his hands, then his lips, then stepping away from the chair and looking at her reflection.
Her cheeks were flushed, her nipples pebbled, her pupils blown out, her hair wild and tangled around her shoulders. She was slumped in the chair as if her bones had liquefied.
Neither of them had said an intelligible word. If he spoke it would be to gloat, so he kept his mouth shut, bent forward, kissed the back of her head and turned to go.
At the sound of the door opening, he got the prize he’d set out to win. “It’s a deal,” she said, voice hushed like whispering in a church. “But if you kiss my lips we’re done.”
Patience was a virtue, restraint a civilizing force. It wasn’t all but it was a long way from nothing.
It wasn’t till he got to the car and collapsed in the back seat that he realized he was so in his head, he’d never answered her. His stuff was on the seat beside him. He fumbled in his bag for his phone, only to remember he didn’t have a number for her and he couldn’t ask easily anyone for it without tipping their hand.
They had a final PoP rehearsal tomorrow, he’d see Evie there but with everyone else around it wouldn’t be easy to get her alone. He pushed his hair back from his face and caught a whiff of her scent. He’d find a way to get near her if only to claim her skin again, to see if there was any convincing her to renegotiate terms.
When he turned his phone on, it filled with messages. Mum, his publicist, the head of his road crew, a dozen or more messages he’d need to read and respond to, but not now. For now, he wanted to sit with the idea that in the next day or two he’d have Evie naked in his arms again.
He rode all the way back to the hotel with the hot blur of that filling his vision. She might still hate him, but she didn’t hate how he could make her feel, at least physically. Mentally was another story. Was it right to make her come without understanding why he hadn’t been doing that for the last decade of their lives?
“Huh,” he said aloud.
“Sir,” his driver said, “Is there something you need?”
He eyed the line of waiting fans in the hotel’s driveway. He simply wasn’t ready to touch other people yet, have them touch him. “Any chance you could drive around the block again?”
The driver pulled through the driveway, confusing the doorman and making the waiting fans go from excited and expectant to deflated and bored.
On the dashboard was a tag. Exclusive Transport. Your driver is Hassan Jaber. “Ever been in love, Hassan?”
Hassan’s eyes came up in the rear-view mirror. “I’m engaged to my best friend.”
“Can you imagine losing them?”
“I can. It’d be a horror story and somehow I’d be the author.”
“I lost someone here a long time ago, and today I kissed her again.” He made explosion fingers. “Blown my mind. I need a few more minutes before I’m ready to talk to fans.” Ready to have other people want him to make their day more unreal.
“She forgives you?”
“You think I’m to blame?” Jay laughed. “Yeah, I probably am. And no, she doesn’t forgive me. I don’t understand what happened between us and it seems like I should.”