Then he lifted his hands up and peeled his sweat-soaked shirt up over his head, just like he had on our night together four years ago.
I froze and watched the wet cloth slide over his bulging muscles, his perfect olive skin, the intricate design of tattoos across his chest.
Jesus.
He was even hotter than I remembered.
He’d gained a little muscle mass over the years. His abs stood out in relief from the rest of his body, and as he turned and threw the t-shirt down, his back flexed like a model’s in a Bowflex commercial.
Unh.
He kicked off his boots (Mark Nason, my favorite for guys), peeled off his socks, unbuckled his belt –
“You’re taking a shower?!” I asked, my panic rising just as fast as my arousal level.
“I get the Lakers locker room – I always have that in the contract. Ryan gets the Clippers, Killian gets the Kings, and Riley gets the women’s. If she actually uses it.”
The pants came off at the same time his boxers did.
Oh my GOD.
He was standing there, five feet away, completely naked, beads of sweat dripping down his perfect body –
I tried not to look, I tried, but I couldn’t help myself: I glanced down at his cock.
UNH.
I’d only seen it by candlelight four years ago. In the bright light of the locker room, I was struck by how big it was, even when soft. Thick and full and heavy, swaying between his legs as he moved. Perfect and hot, framed by a thatch of dark curls, slick and damp from his sweat.
FUCK I wanted to touch it so bad. Like I had four years ago.
Instead I darted my eyes up at his face and tried, tried so hard, not to look down below.
But it loomed quite large in my peripheral vision, that’s for damn sure.
He smirked at me – probably because I was blushing furiously.
“Relax… you’ve seen me naked before.”
“Not in quite this much light.”
He broke into a full-on grin. “That is true.”
“Do you… have to do this?” I asked, getting a little angry – if only to camouflage how turned on I was.
“What, talk to you?”
“NO.” I gestured helplessly with my hand, careful not to stretch out my arm too far. “…th-this.”
“Take a shower?” he asked, toying with me.
“Stand here naked,” I snapped.
“That’s usually how I stand around before I go take a shower,” he said, grinning. “I’m not shy – I figure I’ve got nothing to be shy about.”
That much was certainly true.
Then he grew serious, and his tone turned seductive. “Why… does it bother you?”
I swallowed hard. “Yes. It does.”
The naughty trickster smile flashed back onto his face. “Too bad.”
Asshole!
“Oh, I got some new tattoos – I didn’t know if you noticed.”
“Um… no,” I squeaked.
He grinned even harder. He was sooo enjoying this, damn him.
“Remember how I said I was going to get tattoos for every album I did?”
“Yeah…”
I locked onto his eyes, trying not to look anywhere else, holding onto his gaze like a drowning person might onto a piece of wood.
Maybe that’s a bad choice of words – ‘piece of wood.’
Either way, it didn’t work.
He lifted up his arm and pointed to his side, just below his ribcage.
Less than two feet from his crotch.
Unfortunately, I darted another quick look down.
His cock was bigger now.
Thicker.
Standing out slightly from his body – and growing heartbeat by heartbeat.
Not hard yet, not fully erect, but definitely getting there.
He was getting turned on by being naked in front of me.
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
“I got this one for the first album,” he said, and pointed to the tattoo.
It was a realistic reproduction of the cover of Bigger Than Yours, which featured a .44 Magnum Smith & Wesson Model 29 – the revolver that Clint Eastwood used in the Dirty Harry movies. Opposing it, and shrinking down under the eight-inch barrel, was a tiny little Walther PPK – also known as the gun James Bond uses.
Subtlety was not exactly the band’s strong suit.
Obviously sexual, it seemingly contained other messages, too. Like the guns, conflating them with masculinity – playfully? Or just blatant machismo? Then there was the whole class aspect of the Smith & Wesson versus the snootier Walther. And some music critics had suggested there was some sort of dig in there about Americans versus Brits (Dirty Harry versus James Bond). They spun it into a huge rift between Derek and Killian, about how they had fought during the making of the album – all without a single shred of evidence, since the band never talked to anybody in the press.
That was a good question – I would ask about that, the whole supposed fight with Killian –
But right now I just was trying hard not to look at Derek’s package.
“Um, yeah, nice,” I said, straining to keep my eyes on the tattoo of the revolver and the tinier pistol.
“And then this one for Bigger Is Better,” he said, turning around and pointing over his shoulder.
With his back turned to me, his dick wasn’t visible, which was good.
But now his ass was.
Oh Jesus.
It was gorgeous. It had been gorgeous under his jeans back in Athens, Georgia. It had looked even better naked by candlelight, and now it was absolutely mouth-watering. Smooth, perfect, sculpted, hard, big without being too big, muscular, no tan lines, with streaks of sweat gleaming across his flesh. It looked like he was posing for some sort of hyper-sexualized perfume ad. Obsession by Calvin Klein.
My hands felt magnetically drawn to reach out, to cup it with my palms, to squeeze each cheek and feel that firm, hard, glorious ass –
It took all my willpower to keep my hands by my side and look at the picture on his shoulder blade instead.
DAMN.
Whoever had done it was one of the best tattoo artists in the world.
The band had dumped the sexual imagery of their first album cover and gone with a band portrait for Bigger Is Better – simple, nothing grandiose, just the four of them. If they’d taken a thousand pictures that day, then the one they used for the cover was absolutely the best: a light moment, horsing around and laughing, shot from the waist up. Derek was in the front carrying Riley piggyback, liked she’d just jumped up there and was trying to bite his ear. They were both grinning, though Riley still looked pretty aggressive and definitely seemed intent on pulling a Mike Tyson/Evander Holyfield chompfest.
Derek was in his Maui Jims. Riley’s mohawk was, for once, a solid platinum blonde. Off to the left, Killian and Ryan were both laughing and reacting in shock. It’s obvious the moment was a surprise to them, and that the photographer just happened to snap the picture at exactly the right second – like catching lightning in a bottle. The picture was lighthearted and spontaneous, and captured exactly what I’d seen at the Dubai: the bantering, the camaraderie, the ease and humor of the band. And Riley’s simmering punk menace, of course.
Most bands’ publicity photos show the members being super-serious. They always seem to scream, ‘We are Musicians! We are ARTISTS! WE ARE IMPORTANT!’ And if the band members are instead being lighthearted and playful, it always seems staged and fake. But the cover of Bigger Is Better was effortless, effervescent, and funny. Joyful, even.
And whoever the tattoo artist was, they had captured that perfectly.
It was a black-and-white reproduction of the cover, just the four band members – and it was like someone had somehow printed a hi-def scan directly from a computer onto Derek’s skin, and yet still infused the image with life. Derek already had a black-and-white tattoo of Jim Morrison, the famous pose of him shirtless and staring into the camera; that one was amazing, but this one was flawless. It was beautiful.
And for once, I didn’t have a problem keeping my eyes off his ass.
“Wow,” was all I could say.
“I know, right?” Derek said happily. “The guy who did it is out of New York – he’s a fucking artist. Best in the world, in my opinion. Cost me $20,000 and took 36 hours for that tattoo – nine four-hour sessions – but it was worth every penny. And every second.”
Then he turned back around to face me full-on.
I willed myself – I forced myself – not to look down.
I kind of succeeded. I only dropped my gaze as low as his chest before I snapped back up to his eyes.
But I could still see out of the bottom of my field of vision that his cock had only gotten bigger, and was now jutting out from his body, parallel with the floor – and still growing and angling upwards.
I stared into his eyes like my life depended on it.
He was grinning like he was having the time of his life. “So… you gonna start the interview?”
“Uhhhh… yeah.”
I just stood there stupidly, though, unable to think of a single thing besides Oh my GOD it’s getting BIGGER…
That, and trying to tamp down my overwhelming desire to reach out and touch it.
Derek pointed at the purse slung over my shoulder. “You going to get your little recorder thing?”
“Uhhhh… yeah.” I reached down blindly, fumbling with the clasp, determined not to look away from his eyes. His eyes were dangerous enough as is, but anything else was deadly.
The clasp was snagged or something. But I refused to look at it.
Derek was going to start laughing at any second, I could see it in his face. He took a step forward – Jesus, another few inches and his cock was going to brush up against my leg – and reached down for my purse. “Do you want me to – ”