So I keep my eyes open. From my perch, I can angle to the side and see behind the curtains on the far side of the stage. I see when the backdoor opens and Meghan walks in, a backpack thrown over her shoulder, her sweats and tank outfit in place but with full fuck-me hair and makeup going, probably done at her apartment. It’s an oddly endearing combination, the sweet and the sexy all mixed up.
Giving Nick a nod to keep an eye, I step away from my station, needing to make sure Meghan is okay after the shitstorm last night. I’d driven by her apartment after I got off shift, hours after Dominick let her go home early, and I barely managed to keep from banging on her door.
But the single glowing light in the living room told me she was home, and I let that be enough to soothe the beast inside me. Besides, my hand was still pretty busted up, and it would have freaked her out to see my knuckles that way.
Backstage, I lean against the doorframe and watch for a second like the pervert that I am, enjoying the way she gently moves to the music pumping through her earphones as she touches up her makeup in front of the big light-up mirror. Her eyes meet mine in the glass, and she smiles, turning around to face me.
“Let me see it.”
For a heart-stuttering moment, my filthy mind thinks she wants to see my cock, and it instantly hardens, liking that idea a lot. But as she walks toward me, it’s not my crotch she grabs, it’s my hand, lifting it to see the bruises and scrapes along my knuckles.
“I’m fine, nothing that won’t heal in a day or two,” I reply softly. Thankfully, I patched up my hand last night—hydrogen peroxide to clean it out, and then NuSkin does a lot to cover the damage.
She runs a feather-light fingertip over the roughly crinkled skin, her voice soft. “You did this for me?”
In my pants, my cock surges again, and my compression shorts are not up to the job this time. Instead, I’m resisting the urge to take her hand and press it into the wall above her head before taking her mouth in a strong kiss. “Of course. Asshole had it coming. That’s no way to treat a lady, especially not you.”
She blushes a bit, her cheeks pink with pleasure. “Thank you. That’s sweet.”
Before I can reply, she bends down, laying little butterfly presses of her lips along my knuckles, like she can kiss my injuries away. “Meg—”
“I’m nothing special, just . . . me,” she says, looking up at me with emotion in her eyes that makes me want her all the more. “And no one has ever done anything like that for me before. Thank you.”
I growl, wrapping a hand around the back of her neck as I step closer to her, our bodies a mere whisper away from touching. “Don’t say that. You are beautiful. You can haunt a man’s dreams, his fantasies, filled with your laughter, your sighs . . . and your screaming his name in pleasure. You’re special, Meghan.”
A small whimper escapes her lips as she looks up at me, her lips parting, almost begging for me to take them in a kiss. I shouldn’t. I can’t . . . for so many reasons.
But she’s irresistible. I need to know what she tastes like. I have to experience the taste of her skin, whether it’s the sparkle vanilla cupcakes she makes me think of, all sugar and sweetness. Or if there’s the musky undertone that has haunted my dreams, the sexual essence of a woman that I sense burning just beneath the surface.
Instead of tasting her lips the way I want to, I trace my free hand down her arm, slowly and steadily to take hold of her hand. Bringing it up, I inspect her knuckles too, noting that they’re looking a little bruised even in the dim light of the hallway. “Are you okay? That was quite a punch you landed.”
She nods, her eyes so wide as I kiss her knuckles, one by one, letting my tongue slip out to lick at her as I caress her skin. She’s even more thrilling than I thought, electric vanilla fireworks that make my head spin.
As I heal her not-at-all-injured hand with my ministrations, I look up to meet her eyes. “Not sure any of us saw that coming from such a sweet, innocent thing.”
She smirks, a fire sparking deep in her eyes as she gathers herself for a sassy reply. “Who says I’m sweet and innocent?”
I chuckle, flipping her hand to kiss her fingertips and palm. They’re silky soft, and in my mind, I can imagine this hand holding my cock in front of her open mouth for me to fill. “Angel, everything about you says sweet and innocent. That’s what’s so fucking dangerous. You don’t know what you’re playing with. You make me want to dirty you up, shock you with the filthy things I want to do your body, and tease at that sweetness until I can drink up every drop of you like candy.”