In the elevator, he kept her pulled tight against his side, his arm around her back, his fingers under the hem of her shirt. At her floor, she took his hand and led him down the corridor to her suite. She had her jacket and her shirt off before he was properly inside the room and his shirt followed hers to the floor, his grunt of pleasure meeting her gasp of anticipation as their bodies came together.
He backed her up against a hall table, lifting her so she sat, wrapping her legs around his waist. His mouth was firm, insistent on hers. One hand pressed against her tailbone, holding her against him, the other in her hair. She opened her body and flattened against him. All thought dissolved, the sensation of his touch and her body’s response overriding every other purpose in life.
He broke away to pull off her boots. She lifted her hips so he could drag her jeans down, inspired by the look on his face when he took in her black lace underwear.
“Too nice to tear.” He breathed in sharply, placed a finger in the elastic string over her hip while his teeth plucked at the shoulder strap of her bra.
She deep breathed his sandalwood scent, so much better on him than it would be in the bottle. “Not yet.” She pushed him away. “Let me see you.”
He stepped back, undid his belt. His eyes never left hers. He discarded boots and socks, jeans and underwear. He was lit by the warm glow of a lamp which turned his skin golden. She sucked in a breath. She remade her life when she saw him naked. This is the body she’d had under her hands in the dark, and been too scared to look at, too tentative to devour, too scared to trust. She was a chronic fool.
Jake played it up, turning in a circle, his arms wide, like he’d done at the sound check earlier. He was work hewn and lean—a man whose physical grace should never be defaced by as pedestrian an object as a shirt. Every part of his body from his athlete’s legs to the triangular flare of shoulders was defined by flexed tendons and bunched muscles placed precisely for perfect form and function. He had coiled energy and languid, unconscious confidence and he was built for being touched, for loving.
Rielle clamped her legs together. She was a mass of wet urges and zapping electric shocks. She put two fingers in her mouth and whistled. “You’re beautiful, Jake.”
He laughed, disbelief etched on his face. “I’ll take whatever you give me, Rie. But it’s gonna need to be quick.”
“I can see that.” Quick would be glorious. It would burn out the fever, cap off the torrent of need, have the madness—the game—done with. She slid off the table, coming to stand in front of him. She unhooked her bra and then sent her lacy g-string slithering down her legs to the floor, making his breath hitch and his hands tremble.
In the lamplight, as she straightened, Jake saw the scar on her hip for the first time and frowned. It was a thick white line running from the dimple of her sacrum, across the crest of her hipbone, and along her lower abdominals to her pubic bone. He went down on his knees, his lips chasing his hands across that old highway of pain, that map line of remorse.
She gasped, her hands going to his hair, half wanting to push him away, half wanting to cry out his name. When she let them see the scar it always got a reaction, but mostly it stopped them dead, brought on conversation, killed the mood. It was ugly. It was fine and ghostly pale, easy to hide in the dark. Only the most subtle fingertips identified it. Letting him see it was her gift to Jake. And she loved him for the way he touched her and didn’t ask.
He traced the seam of once traumatised skin with his tongue, wet licks and flicks, hot kisses, sucks and scrapes of teeth. Her body vibrated under his hands, her head tipping back, her knees going soft. She would have folded to the floor had he not held her upright. He tucked his shoulder into her stomach and lifted her into a fireman’s carry to the bedroom.
He laid her down on the bed. “This time I want to see you.” His voice was pounded husk, unrestrained lust.
She shook her head. “You’ve seen.” She needed the shadows now; she’d shown him enough. She met his eyes for a second and thought he’d disregard her, but his face disappeared as he flicked the lamp off. In the dead dark before their eyes adjusted to the filtered light from the other room, his hands and lips moving up her legs were enough to make her grit her teeth to stop from crying out.
This time when they came together, she tried to stay with him, this man who she’d grown to trust and desire. Her body was his puppet to command. He made her twitch and flex and slide. He made her desperate for the touch of his hands and lips, light and heavy, soft and sure. His low sighs and murmurs made her twist and arch to get closer to him.
At the very edge of her reason, when she was lost, lost, lost, she cried out and pushed against him, struggled to crawl away. Too much. This was too much. Her brain fizzed with sudden fear; he had total control of her and she couldn’t let that happen.
“Stay with me, Rie. Stay with me.” Jake’s voice was ragged, his breathing harsh. “I’ll stop if you want me to.”
She flattened her feet on the bed and tried to push away from him, squirmed to slide out from under him.
He held her hips, “Trust me.” It was a broken whisper and a pledge carried on a current of electricity strung bow tight between them. She stilled. She looked into his handsome face, his features so even, his eyes so honest and saw his tempered desire. He would let her go. He would let her do everything she wanted before he took anything for himself.
She jumped, like she’d asked him to, gifting him her fear, relaxing in his arms, rolling her hips to meet his. She met him touch for touch, kiss for kiss, stroke for stoke, answering his open mouthed sighs with high, sustained pleasure notes of her own. This time she kept her eyes open, locked on his, as he braced above her, moving with a rhythm both deliciously taunt and sinuously free, until torrents of sensation made her body arc, sending her sightless, soundless, breathless, as Jake taught her how to let go of everything to feel it all.
“You. God. Rie. So fucking good, so right.”
His tortured cry broke some barrier in her brain, tore it clear. Pins and needles pricked inside her head. Zipping white lights sparked behind now tight shut eyes, and the shock of it registered, threatened. She gripped Jake, crying out his name. She didn’t leave him, go someplace else to hide the feelings or lock them inside. She stayed and rode the swell of tension and release with him, panting in the heat and height of sensations that stripped away every defence she had.
He stayed in her warmth, slumping to rest his forehead heavily against her shoulder, his breath coming in shudders that wracked across his back. She held him til he found her mouth to kiss with lips that smiled and could only graze against hers with infinite gentleness.
He stroked her cheek with a hand that shook. “Baby, that was the hit single, the album, the show, the whole tour.”
He was at peace, happy—but she was utterly, recklessly undone.
Jake was drifting towards oblivion, every muscle gone to jelly, every bone to mulch, when he realised Rielle was shaking, sobbing softly in the bed beside him. He was instantly wide awake. He flicked the bedside light on and gathered her to him. “God. Rie, what’s wrong? Did I hurt you?”
She tried to push him away. “No, no—please let me go.”
Not a chance. Not again. He rolled her back into his arms, but let her hide her face. “Tell me what’s wrong.” But she sobbed harder, struggling to catch her breath.
He was frantic, his heart gone from near comatose to hammering a cracking, crashing pace again. He sat up and leaned over her. “You have to tell me.” She was flushed and her face was destroyed by whatever pain this was, tears glistening in her eyelashes and on her cheeks. “Rie, please, I’m dying here. If I hurt you, if I hurt you, I—” He’d never forgive himself.