Badass In My Bed 3 (Badass #3) (4 page)

“Then have me.” I spin in his arms and caress the lean lines of his ribs. “Please, please have me again.”

We both moan when he slowly brings his mouth to mine, and that same, undeniable electricity crackles through us, intensified because of the long weeks and lonely nights apart, stronger because we never thought we’d have this again, but here we are. It’s like breaking the surface and gasping in sweet air when you thought you’d drawn your last breath as the darkness was closing in.

His tongue slowly delves into my mouth, tangling with mine as his hands slide down my arms to take my hands, intertwining our fingers together. So much passion and want and need, yet we both go slowly, savoring the sweet ache of having each other.

This kiss feels like living.

It’s everything.

He pulls back and restes his forehead against mine. Our breaths are slow but deep, so deep, trying to inhale each other’s presence. His air is the only thing I want to breathe, but I don’t want the truth to come between us.

“I wanted to explain to you—”

He shakes his head. “I don’t care. Right now, I just need to be with you.” He caresses me, hand trailing down my ass to the backs of my thighs.

I wrap my arms around his neck as he lifts me and wraps my legs around his waist. Even through our jeans, I can feel how hard he is for me. Perfect, since I’m already wet for him. My body’s always ready for him.

His gaze swallows me whole, and I wallow in the gorgeousness of being in his arms again. With ease, he carries me up the stairs and down the long hallway to his bedroom, every step nudging his hardness against my swollen pussy. By the time we get to the bed, I’m practically mewling with need.

“I know, baby.” He sets me down on the bed and expertly slides off my jeans. “I’ll be inside you soon.”

Lust for him makes me weak, but I peel my shirt and bra off before he slips my panties down my legs and tosses them to the floor. I scoot backward until my head reaches the pillow, never taking my eyes off of Dylan and his casual striptease at the foot of the bed. The sight of his cock springing free makes my mouth dry, and I lick my lips and trail a hand down my stomach, reaching out for him.

His eyes are hungry, gaze burning mine as he crawls up the bed. I spread my legs wide to give him full access, and he kisses a path up my belly and between my breasts as he positions himself above me.

He kisses up my neck and jaw and the corner of my mouth before pulling back to look down at me. “I missed you.”

“I missed you t—”

His cock fills my aching pussy, and I gasp at the tight fit despite how soaked I am. His gaze locks onto mine, and I can’t look away, letting him see every expression, every reaction to what the feeling of his cock moving in and out does to me. He raises my hands above my head, which thrusts my breasts out, and rubs my sensitive nipples against his chest. I arch my back farther to feel more and more.

His lips trace my jaw and the delicate shell of my ear then nips my earlobe before moving lower and sucking on my neck, sending a sharp spike of pleasure straight to my core and making my pussy quiver around him. He groans and grinds the base of his cock against my clit at just the right angle. My hands convulse in his as he rides me slowly, steadily, to my first orgasm, gentle kissing the cries of pleasure from my mouth.

Nothing about this is sex. We’re making love. If our touches could talk, poetry would be filling the air. Mine and his. A thousand beautiful words live in his eyes, even if his lips are silent. He coats my skin with the words he isn’t saying, but I hear them in every kiss, every caress. I hear them and understand because my body’s telling him the same thing.

How these lips were waiting for him to find and claim.

How these breasts were made to fit his hands.

How we were both made with musical souls so when words fail, we still understand each other in another language of expression and release.

How I don’t want to cage him but instead soar with him so we’re both more than what we are because together there will be no limits; we make each other better.

How my heart was dead in my chest until he brought me to life just by being himself and being with me.

How I can see all of these feelings glowing inside him, smouldering against my skin like a bed of hot coals.

Like the hot coals, we can’t be together for too long. It’s only safe for fast encounters and then space apart with cold ground below our feet. If we linger, we’ll burn right up. It’s both the most amazing thing I’ve ever experienced and the most heartbreaking.

Because it can’t last.

Harsh like our terrible reality, I swivel my hips as his thrusts get deeper. Desperate, I milk every inch of his cock for all it’s worth, wringing every drop of pleasure that fills my pussy. The added wetness increases friction, and another slippery orgasm tears through me, threatening to split me in half. I pull at his lower back, and he presses harder into me though already spent. His cock is so goddamn deep inside of me, twitching to the frantic beating of my heart like we’re one soul, made for each other, made for this.

But all we can have is something quick in bed because if we try to make a home here, our futures will be incinerated.

Neither of us will find a life from the ashes we’ll make of each other.

He pulls the sheets on top of us and wraps his arms around me, tucking me into the nook of his arm so I’m snuggled against his side. The way we fit together melts my anxiety about just what exactly I’m doing there and makes me want him again. I shouldn’t have slept with him. This wasn’t the closure I longed for.

It was an opening.

I could blame it on the endorphins he saturated my body with, or latent altitude sickness. Temporary insanity. The scandalously high thread count of his sheets. The way he said that it didn’t matter.

I could blame it on a million things, but nothing could have kept this from happening. We are magnets. Put us close by, and no one can control the way we snap together.

I feel closer to him right now that I’ve ever felt to another human being. I have to tell him about the contract so there are no secrets between us before I say goodbye, before I have to leave this in a good light. I can’t bear for him to look back on our time in anger.

Goosebumps spread over my skin, sent from the places on my back he’s tracing meaningless patterns with his fingertips.

I take a deep breath to plunge in, but he lightly pinches the back of my arm and beats me to it. “How did you find my house?”

“I can’t tell you that without sounding like a total stalker.”

He palms my ass and gives it a delicious little squeeze. “Maybe I’d like being stalked by you.”

I sigh and arch into his touch.

“No, but seriously, if I’ve got an employee with loose lips, I need to know. You could have been anyone, and they just gave you private information.” His body tenses.

I silence his mini rant with a fingertip to his lips. “There was no mole. I remembered you said you’d purchased a house recently, and I figured since you’re such a huge star that would be online somewhere.”

“And…”

“And I found an article about the sale with one picture, so I did an image search. That brought up a cached real estate listing for this house complete with the address.”

He nibbles my fingertip. “My sexy little private investigator. I’m glad you tracked me down.” His eyes grow somber, and his hand dances across my back again.

“Me too.” The moment swells into something melancholy, and I decide to go ahead and just talk. Just tell him everything. “I’m not in love with Blaine. Never have been. We met only a few weeks before you and I did in Chicago.”

Dylan’s hand pauses, but after a moment continues its soothing motions.

“I auditioned for the symphony. That part was normal. He said I was good, but if I wanted to guarantee a chair, there was something more I could do.”

His hand tightens almost painfully hard on my back. “Did he make you sleep with him? Because if he did anything like that, if he—”

“No, nothing like that. We’ve never slept together. That night when he announced our engagement? That was our first kiss.”

“The one on your head? But you’re
engaged
to the man.”

“Yes, that one. I agreed to his proposal when he asked me after my audition, and we’ve had dinner a couple of times. That’s been the extent of our relationship.”

“Why would you do that? This doesn’t make sense.”

“Blaine’s gay.” I push up onto my elbow to better gauge his reaction. “Our marriage will be legal but completely fake. I’m a cover for the personal details he thinks are getting in the way of his ambitions. It seems like he was right. As soon as he announced our engagement, the board announced their decision to make him Director. I’m acting the part of dutiful, appropriate fiancé—and soon-to-be wife—in public only. I guess you were partly right about me being an actress. He’s never even been to my house, you know. Isn’t that weird?” A gentle puff of laughter escapes my lungs.

Dylan’s hand grips my hip. “So, you’re not in love with him?”

“No. I barely like the man. I don’t know him. Everything between us has been as orchestrated as the symphony.”

“Thank God.” His hands pull me back down, and his mouth crushes mine with a desperate urgency, a quaking relief I feel through my lips. He spins us over until his body presses mine to the bed. I twine my fingers through his hair to pull him closer, deepen the kiss.

His tongue delves deep inside my mouth, and I spiral mine around it, heat building in my core at the sensation, reacting to his energy. He tweaks my nipples in his fingertips, and I push harder against his hands, wanting more, always more.

His cock swells between us, and I wiggle my hips, repositioning my body to give him better access, but he breaks the kiss and glares down at me. “How dare you, Rachel.”

“What?” I blink, brain hazy with confusion and lust.

“How dare you treat yourself like you’re worthless? Don’t you fucking realize how talented and special you are?”

A blush roars up my chest and down my face. Dylan and Alex both see this as devaluing to me. Have I been so wrong? I saw this plan as
adding
value to my life. I try to look away, but he brackets his hands on the sides of my face and forces me to return his gaze.

“Don’t you understand that you’re worth so much more than that? Than being in a loveless marriage for the rest of your life?”

“It’s not for the rest of my life. It’s for the next five years.” And a child, so maybe more like an eighteen-year-long commitment at the very shortest. I’ll love the baby, of course I will, but who has a baby knowing full well they’ll be raised in a broken home?

“What else is it you’re not telling me?”

I hate how he can read me like a simple melody. “The deal involves a child as well.”

I expect him to spring from the bed to get away from me, but he holds me tighter.

I relax in his arms. “I give him five years and a kid, and in exchange, I get away from my father and get a place on an extremely coveted orchestra.”

He shakes his head. “You’re not doing it. That’s not five years; it’s a lifetime deal. Giving up your life is one thing, but involving an innocent kid like that is supremely fucked up. Who the fuck is this guy, if he can’t see that?”

“I think Blaine’s driven by too much ambition to see any potential damage. And I agreed.” I shrug. “At the time, it seemed like a small sacrifice to make to get my dream position. To make my family proud.”

“You mean your asshole father who parades you around to the functions you hate? You wanted to make him proud?”

I bite my lip. It’s sick. It isn’t right, but… “I shouldn’t care about his opinion, but I think a part of me always will.”

“I hate that they’ve done this to you.” He lowers his head and presses a gentle kiss to my lips, leaving them tingling.

I sigh. “Too late now. I can’t do anything about it.”

“Maybe
you
can’t… Come with me.”

“What?”

He smiles. “You heard me.”

“Right now?” I’m confused.

He kisses my shoulder. “No. Come with me on the road. Screw those assholes who are demanding way too much from you, and be with me instead. Get away from it all. Put this whole thing out of your head.”

Running away isn’t a solution. “I need to work, Dylan.”

“I’ll find things for you to play.” He cocks an eyebrow at the obvious double entendre.

“I have bills.” And a signed contract.

He rolls his eyes. “I’ll take care of you monetarily if that’s an issue. Have you seen my place?” he jokes. “I’m doing okay on that account. Besides, we’ll be on the other side of the world. Hard for your father or director to find you when you’re there with me. We’ll stay in the best hotels, eat in the best restaurants, and play music on the Thames and the Seine and the Danube.”

God, it’s tempting. To go with him and lose myself in his music when he’s on stage, lose myself in his arms when he’s off it. Run far from this mess I have made and see the world. “I’d be in the way,” I play coy, wanting to hear him insist I come even though it’s impossible.

A boyish enthusiasm tugs his lips into a smile. “I’d love to have you with me, to share that with you. To come back to your warm body instead of a cold bed.”

Like he’s ever come back to his cold bed without a warm body.

“Is that all it is? I can’t tag along with you as your groupie.” I push him off and sit up against the headboard, reality seeping into the moment. Is going from fake wife to real groupie a step up?

Hell no.

“That’s not what I meant. It’s an offer so you can get away. I like being with you.”

Maybe he does, no, I know he does, but so what? What about after? Where’s this going? Just like I had told myself over and over, it isn’t real. It isn’t sustainable.

“And I certainly can’t let you take care of me financially. I have more self-respect than that. I’m not a kept woman.”

“Hate to point it out, but yes, you are.”

Ouch.

My hurt feelings must show on my face because he sighs and takes my hand. “That came out badly. It’s not like you did this for money. You did it so you could have your dream job and make other people happy. You’re truly a good girl. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Maybe not, but I’m still not going to be a burden on him or be his on-call groupie. If it’s not about me just being in his bed all the time, why else would he ask? Does he feel sorry for me? “I don’t need an invitation out of pity, Dylan.”

“What if it’s not pity? What if it’s something else?” His voice grows impossibly soft.

“Like what?” The implication of his words kicks me in the heart. I hold my breath, struggling to keep a neutral expression on my face. Is he going to say he loves me? Do I want that? Fuck yes, I want that. I want him so much.

If he does say those words, I’ll go with him. I’m pretty sure Alex is right about the contract—how can it be defendable in court? With Dylan at my side, I don’t even care about the potential scandal on my family. I’ll forget about my father and his image and go find the life I want with Dylan. For the first time in ages, I’ll be content. I’ll be happy.

“What else could it be?” I ask as my heart gives an excited little flip in my chest.

He kisses my hand. “I don’t know what it is, but it’s not pity.”

My happy feeling deflates like a balloon. Any image of him and me touring around the country as a couple—as a team—dissolves with his avoidance. I can’t change my plans for “I don’t know.” I can’t give up this huge opportunity for someone who can’t decide—or admit—how he feels. This plan isn’t perfect, but it’s mine and it’s for the best.

Maybe he’s one of those guys all too happy to keep things physical but will run when emotions come into it because he can’t handle it. I could be left in a strange hotel in a strange city on the other side of the world with “it’s not you, it’s me” in my ears as he runs away from what we could be.

And I’d be left with less than nothing. Where would I even go? Back to my father for his help?

Does Dylan really expect me to give everything up for “I don’t know”? Or is it that a part of him doesn’t want me to give it up at all? Maybe his ego was ruffled when he thought I was another man’s and he offered me a safe place to run away to, to appease that primal, competitive part of him; to get me to say yes like it’s some kind of pissing contest instead of my life, and now he regrets saying it.

I’m sure he cares, but it’s not love, not reciprocated the way I feel for him. My limbs tremble with how close I came to giving into temptation and burning my life down to the foundations for someone who cares but doesn’t love me. At least not enough to admit it to me—maybe not even to himself.

I wrap my arms around my knees. “Well, I appreciate your faith in me and my abilities, but I’ve made my bed. I need to lie in it.”

“It just seems like—”

“I signed a contract,” I snap, hurt about his emotional distance and wanting to slam the door between us shut and lock it.

His eyes widen. “Oh.”

“Yeah. So, this is it. If this is all we can be, this is it.” It’s a sort of ultimatum, and I shouldn’t have said that, but every cell in my body tenses.
Tell me you love me, and I’ll give everything up to stay with you.
I plead with my eyes, though I just told him the opposite.

“I wish I didn’t have to say goodbye to you, Cello Girl.”

You don’t.
But I keep my mouth shut. I nod and let him unwind my arms from my legs and wrap them around his neck instead, needing to replace the sting of emotional rejection with something physical. He insinuates himself between my legs again, tracing his hand down my side, dipping back to my hip.

I should resist, stop him now, but this is goodbye for forever and I want to wring every last moment I can from this to make enough sexy memories to sustain me for the next five years.

I trace every ridge in his spine, every corded muscle in his arms, while he nibbles my neck, sucking deeply, sharp edges of pain tingling the pleasure into something perfect.

I pull his hair, provoking him into giving me more of that roughness. I don’t want to remember his sweetness or his care. I want to remember the way he pounded into me, the fierceness of his body and soul. The way his music is exactly the same, all passion and fury and unrestrained ego.

I
could
be his groupie, but I’m his equal. We’re different shapes cut from the same cloth, and being less than that would crush my spirit. I need to be more, and he’s not able to give it.