Coming Undone (21 page)

But when he dumped her on the bed and reached for her little yellow cotton top with every intention of stripping her bare, she slapped his hands away. Giving him a stern look, she scooted to sit against the headboard. “You first.”

“Huh?”

“You. First. It’s a simple concept, Hamilton. Get naked.”

Was she crazy? How was he supposed to stay in command if he wasn’t wearing a stitch? Because feeling her skin against his before he’d taken care of her at least once was just asking to shoot his control all to hell and gone.

Slowly unfastening the buttons she hadn’t already released, he started knee-walking across the mattress. “I’m gonna get to that. But first—”

“Uh-uh.” The authoritative crossing-guard palm she thrust at him from the end of her rigidly held arm stopped him in his tracks. “There’s no first about it. Strip, Mister.”

Damn.
“Okay, okay.” His mind spinning through possible ways around the situation, he backed off the bed and made a slow production out of shedding his shirt, then peeling down his pants.

“Yee-haw.” Fanning herself, she gave him a crooked smile. “That little bump and grind would probably earn you a ten-dollar tip at Chippendale’s. Too bad my purse is clear across the room or I’d tuck one in your waistband myself. Lose the boxers, J.”

He pushed them down his hips and kicked free. “What time is sound check? Look, maybe we shouldn’t be starting something we don’t really have time to fin—” Yeah, right. Glancing down at himself, he shut up. Like she was going to believe he couldn’t find the time to squeeze in a little tussle among the sheets when his dick was pointed at her like a compass needle at magnetic north.

“Oh, trust me, we have plenty of time.” Pushing away from the headboard, she rolled up onto her knees and made her way to him across the mattress. “All we have to do is cut out ninety percent of my orgasms. I think I can survive on one.” She reached for him. “Just this once.”

Oh, shit, she’d caught on to that? And did she also know
why
he concentrated so fiercely on her pleasure—had she guessed that he was afraid to get lost in his own? No, wrong word—he wasn’t
afraid
of anything. It merely didn’t pay.

All thought fled his mind at the feel of her hand wrapping around his sex, and the breath he sucked in was so sharp and sudden he damn near strangled on it. But mother of God. Her fingers clamped his hard-on, and she squeezed her fist all the way down to its root. Then slid it up. Then down again.

He couldn’t look; he was not going to look. That would be the kiss of death for sure.
I am a glacier peak, impreg—

“Whoa!” Breath exploded from his lungs at the hot, wet vise abruptly constricting the head of his dick and he looked down before he could stop himself.

And damn near lost it on the spot.

P.J. held his cock in a two-fisted grip, choking up on it like a batter getting ready to make a grand slam. But it was her mouth and her eyes that riveted his attention. That sweet, sweet mouth that belted out soaring, electrifying music night after night was wrapped around him, her lips a pretty suctioning seal holding his dick hostage. Her eyes were all dark feathery lashes, clear whites and caramel-brown irises, watching him up the length of his body.

“Jeezzzus!”
His hands came down to grip her head and his hips drove forward, pumping himself deeper into the hot, slick depths. He pulled back, then pressed forward again.

And her lips clung and her cheeks hollowed and those beautiful almond-shaped, slanted cat eyes continued to stare up at him.

Panic bloomed. He was minutes, probably seconds if he were to be honest, from losing it entirely and using her like some back-alley hooker.

So what?
whispered the devil sitting on his shoulder.
Does she look reluctant to you?

Man, that is so not the point,
his better self argued.
This is Peej, for God’s sake. The little girl who thought sex sounded like one great big ick factor.

Oh, buddy,
the devil cackled.
That’s no little girl down there sucking your—

He pulled himself free. Took a hasty, mother-may-I-worthy giant step backward.

For a second her mouth retained its openmouthed oval. Then, closing it, she blinked up at him. Her tongue came out to slick over her lips and it was all he could do not to groan.

“What?” she demanded, looking up at him all sleepy-eyed. “Why did we stop?”

“I, uh.” His mind blanked out for a minute. Then he gave himself a mental shake. “I don’t want to get off all by myself. It’s time for a little togetherness.”

“Ooh.” She wiggled in place. “I can work with that.” Flopping back onto the pillows, she crooked a finger at him. “C’mere, big boy.”

He dropped down over her, but immediately pushed up onto his palms and toes on the mattress when he felt her skin, all silky and warm against his own. Still his erection brushed the cleft between her legs and even with her shorts as a protective barrier he knew he had to do something fast or lose what tiny vestige of authority he had left over the situation. Pushing back to kneel between her sprawled legs, he reached down to unzip her Bermudas. She raised her hips to help facilitate their removal. She helped again when he stripped off her little sleeveless blouse and removed her panties.

But when he ignored her invitation to come lie in her arms, and bent instead to bestow a gentle kiss against her inner thigh, she moved restively and said, “Don’t.”

He raised his head. “Huh?”

“You said you were ready for some togetherness. Well, let’s have it.” She held up her arms. “Lay on me. I want to feel you inside me.”

“I’m gonna get to that,” he agreed, a too-familiar alarm itching along his nerve endings. “In one second.” As soon as he took the edge off for her. Just one little orgasm—he didn’t plan to go overboard here—and then he’d do whatever she asked. His hands sliding up the juncture of her thighs until he could part her slick, dewy folds with his thumbs, he lowered his head again.

The next thing he knew the sole of her foot had slapped against the ball of his shoulder and she’d straightened her leg with a snap. He flew over onto his back. Shaking his hair out of his eyes, he pushed up on his elbow. “What the hell, Peej?”

“
I said,
don’t.” She scrambled to sit up, grabbing a pillow that she hugged to her chest. “I’m so tired of this shit, J.”

“Huh?”
he demanded as if he didn’t understand. But his heart thundered in his chest.

“I don’t need my tank topped off half a dozen times before we get to the down and dirty, you-inside-of-me good stuff. I don’t want ten perfect orgasms from Johnny Stud, I want one goddamn real one with the real you—a you who just
once
it would be nice to see as out of control as I am.”

His blood roared in his ears, his breath stopped up in his lungs and his heart tried to pound its way out of his chest. He feared if he looked down at his hands he’d see them shaking.

Well, to hell with that. He was damned if he’d let her reduce him to the messed-up teenager he’d worked so hard to leave behind. “Let me get this straight—me wanting to get you off is a
bad
thing?”

“It is when it’s all about you being in control!”

His gut churning out enough acid to dissolve a navy tanker, he sat up. “What are you, a shrink now? Where do you get this shit?” He forced a laugh. “Control, my ass. You take a course in Psychobabble 101 or something?”

Flinging aside her pillow, she rolled up onto her knees. Naked, with that petite stature, narrow frame and barely there little breasts, she should have looked like a child.

She didn’t.

She might be diminutive but an Amazon warrior couldn’t have displayed more power. Conviction radiated off her in waves as she looked him in the eye.

“What do you call it, Jared, when you insist on giving me a set number of orgasms before allowing yourself your one?” She knee-walked a little closer. “You think if you do me, if you make me scream and moan, I won’t notice that we’re not really together in this?” She moved closer yet. “You think I won’t notice that while you’re making me come and come and come you’re holding yourself back?” She jabbed him in the sternum. “Don’t tell
me
you don’t have control issues—I’ve been on the receiving end of them! And you know what I think?”

“No, but I’m just fucking breathless to hear.”

“I think you’re scared. Of what, I don’t know, but—”

“That’s bullshit!” he shot back and, whipping out an arm, jerked her to him. “You want me out of control, Peej? Fine. I’ll show you out-of-control.” And, lowering his head, he slammed his mouth down on hers, laying a kiss on her that was all teeth and tongue and brain-hazed sexuality.

She went up in flames in his arms and within minutes he was flat on his back, deep inside of her with his hands on her tits as she rode him like a rodeo queen, her head flung back and her nails digging into his shoulders. He could feel his testicles drawing up and a climax building at the base of his dick, and he brought a hand down from her breast to delve between her legs for her clitoris. But he had a feeling it was too little, too late, that he was about to get off without her.

As he felt his vision beginning to blur and his hips starting to lift her clear off her knees with the force of his mindless thrusting, however, she suddenly whispered something that was either an imprecation or a prayer. Then the tight sheath gripping his erection compressed around him like a satin-lined fist. Thrusting high one last time, he gritted his teeth and went off like a rocket.

A second later P.J. collapsed upon his chest, boneless as a sleeping child, and he wrapped her in his arms. Damn. He didn’t feel half bad. Letting go hadn’t been as traumatic as he’d expected. And basking in that lack of tension, he should have simply held her and enjoyed the afterglow.

But the hit his ego had taken with her analysis of his motives fostered a tiny kernel of discontent. Perhaps that was what set up the dichotomy between his hands and his mouth, because the two seemed to be receiving different messages. And while the former rubbed her back in soothing circles, the latter muttered, “There. Happy now? You won. I conceded control.”

He wished the words back the minute they left his mouth. But it was too late, for she went from soft and malleable to stiff as a statue in his arms. Without a word she sat up, dislodging him from his snug berth inside of her, and climbed from the bed.

Her silence was a roar that beat against his eardrums as, without so much as a glance in his direction, she gathered up her clothes, strode into the bathroom and closed the door.

A
FTER THE CONCERT
the following night P.J. lay in her bed in the stateroom she shared with Nell. “Men are scum,” she informed the ceiling she couldn’t see in this small, dark hour of the morning. The bus tires hummed with a whoosh-thump, whoosh-thump rhythm as they crossed a bridge. “Well, okay, maybe not scum. But big ol’ pains in the butt for sure.”

Covers rustled from the other bed as Nell turned to face her. “You and Jared have a fight?”

“He holds something back, Nell. Every time we…you know…do it.”
What are you, nine years old?
“When we make love. Or maybe screw is a better word, because that’s the thing—he sort of controls me with killer orgasms while holding something of himself back until the last possible moment. And God forbid he should allow himself even that unless he’s already taken care of me several times.” Rolling over, she turned on the little lamp attached to the nightstand between them, blinking against the sudden light. She eyed her friend. “I know that doesn’t sound like something to complain about. You probably think I’m a whiner.”

“No, no, I get it. Killer orgasms are nothing to sneeze at, and a guy who can deal them out in multiples—well, you should maybe hang on to him. All the same, if he’s using sex to control you—”

“Exactly.” Then she frowned. “I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about him, though. J’s not one of those I’m-gonna-cut-you-off-from-all-your-friends-so-I-can-direct-your-every-move kinda control freaks. It’s more like…his father was really awful. He treated Jared like shit and one night when the old man got in his face, J shoved him and his dad fell and hit his head. Jared thought he’d killed him for sure, and he panicked and ran. That’s how he ended up on the Denver streets where we met. That same night his father was murdered and for quite a while J believed he was the one who’d done it.”

“Holy shit, Peej.”

“Yeah. Plus his being the prime suspect was apparently what people remembered even after someone else was convicted of the crime. So what do you wanna bet the night he pushed his father in anger was about the last time he allowed himself to really lose control?”

“So what are you going to do?”

“God, there’s the million-dollar question.” She scrubbed at her face with both hands.
Happy now? You won.

You won.

You won.

His words kept repeating in her head. And they hurt just as much as they had the first time. She felt as if she’d never be happy again, because what she felt for him didn’t have a damn thing to do with competition. Never had, never would. And dammit, even if J didn’t have the same feelings for her that she had for him, he ought to at least know her well enough to understand that.

“I don’t know. But I’ve gotta figure something out. And soon. We sure can’t go on this way.”

T
HEY COULDN’T GO ON
this way, Jared thought the next day. P.J. was polite and friendly toward him, but distant.

God, so distant, and it was driving him nuts.

It shouldn’t. Her stepping back should have come as a huge relief, since he’d always known their time together was finite anyway. Yet relieved was not the word that came to mind.

He shoved aside the one that did. It was too frigging emotional and besides, he didn’t have time for it now. “Marvin, you got a minute?”

The driver looked up from the map he was studying at the galley table. “Sure thing, Mr. Hamilton.”

“I sure wish you’d call me Jared.” But he knew it was a losing proposition since both he and P.J. had tried more than once to get Marvin to call them by their first names.

“I know. I’m sorry. I thought I could but I’m just too old school, I guess. Early training taught me never to treat my employers informally.”

“Which, technically speaking, I’m not. But never mind, that’s not what I want to talk to you about.” Glancing at Hank and Nell, who were seated on the bench seat a few feet away wrangling over the finer points of her new song, he tipped his head toward the bus door. “Would you mind stepping outside with me for a minute?”

The driver followed him off the bus, but the minute they cleared the stairs Marvin cleared his throat nervously. “Am I in trouble, Mr. H? Over the other night?”

“No—hell, no. You did an exceptional job in a lousy situation.” Opening the luggage hatch, he pulled out a couple of lawn chairs and carried them over to the shady side of the bus where he snapped them open and set them up. It was breathlessly hot, with humidity to match, but it was the best he could do. “Have a seat.”

Marvin perched on the edge of his chair, his hands gripping his knees.

Jared shook his head. “Relax. Look, I heard from the sheriff from the other night’s episode and I just want to give you a heads-up. Lay out your options.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think you and I both realized right away that Luther Menks was behind running you off the road.”

“Yes, sir, that’s what I assumed.”

“Me, too. And while the sheriff needed more proof than our word, he just confirmed it. Menks is a real loose cannon, which means something similar could happen again. And that puts you at risk. So I want to give you the option of going or staying. I want you to know that, whatever you decide, I’ll give you the best reference I can put to paper. You’ve gone above and beyond the call of duty for us already.”

Marvin straightened in his seat. “Oh, I’m sticking, sir. And if he tries it again, then he’ll be the one who’s run off the road.”

“I’m glad you’re staying. You’ve been professional and reliable and I’d have hated to see you go.”

The driver’s shoulders had a proud set. “It’s my job, sir.”

“And you’re a pro, no doubt about it.” He hesitated, then gave the other man a crooked smile. “Now if I could only get you to call me by my first name.”

N
ELL SAT AT THE GALLEY
table, her feet up on the chair across from her and a cold beer and a bowl of pretzels shoved aside on the tabletop as she worked at putting the final touches on her new song. Muttering to herself, she squinted to decipher her handwriting on the notes she’d scribbled during a brainstorming session with Hank yesterday.

“Hey, there.”

She looked up to see Eddie standing hip-shot at the end of the table. For a brief moment, her heart did the pitty-pat thing it’d been trained to do at the sight of him.

Then it remembered it had been there, done that and settled down. She shot him a smile made wry by her own Pavlovian conditioning. “Hey, yourself.”

Scooping a couple of pretzels from the bowl, he tossed them in his mouth and tipped his chin to indicate the music score spread out in front of her. “You still working on your song?”

“Yep. It’s almost done.”

“What’s it about?”

She hesitated to tell him, because the day he’d pitched in to help them go through P.J.’s fan letters she’d seen a different side of him. And since then he’d actually been around more and didn’t seem quite as shallow as usual. Then she shrugged and told the truth. “It’s about a faithless womanizer.”

“Huh. A jerk, I suppose.”

“No, just clueless and not real deep.”

Grabbing the chair nearest him, he swung it around, propped his boot on its seat and leaned to brace his elbow on his raised knee. Then he caught her in the crosshairs of the Eddie Special, a look she’d watched him bestow on countless women over the years, a killer combination of a crooked aw-shucks grin, a knowingly raised eyebrow and laser-beam eye contact designed to make a woman feel as though she was the only female he saw. “So,” he murmured. “I couldn’t help but notice the other night that you’re way more built than I ever imagined.”

Mouth dropping open, she simply stared at him for a second before touching a fingertip to her jaw to make sure it wasn’t sagging like a halfwit’s. Finding it where it belonged, she said, “Well, hmm, thanks.”
I guess.
“And I noticed you wear your hat real well.” She managed not to laugh out loud, but really. What an inane conversation.

“So, you wanna go out with me sometime?”

For a single suspended moment temptation sang a siren song in her veins. Okay, it was shallow—she knew it was shallow. But hell’s bells, she’d spent what seemed like half a lifetime nursing a crush on this guy. So you’d just have to excuse her if for a few satisfying seconds triumph bloomed at the opportunity to fulfill those foolish dreams—should she so desire.

Then as fast as it had appeared, the sense of validation dissolved. Because she realized she didn’t desire. Not when she had Hank. A date with George Clooney in his Lake Como villa couldn’t tempt her to blow that relationship. Eddie didn’t even run a distant third.

Hank made her feel smart and beautiful and special, and she intended to hang on to him with both hands. She didn’t question that for a minute. Her certainty was like a primal imprinting that her mind recognized well before some sixth sense made her look over to see the man himself standing in the narrow hallway leading to the back of the bus. She shot him a grin.

He didn’t grin back and she didn’t need a knack for clairvoyance to understand he wasn’t half as certain of her intentions. Staring at her and Eddie, Hank’s expression was shuttered. His knuckles, however, stood bone-white against the weathered skin of his hand where he gripped the edge of one of the sleeping compartments.

Tearing her gaze away, she turned her attention back to the guitar player. “I’m flattered by the offer, Eddie, but no. Thanks. You’re a sweetheart, but Hank’s my guy.”

He shrugged. “Okay. I just thought I’d put the offer out there.” Straightening, he dropped his foot from the chair seat and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Well, gotta go. I’ll see you later, hey?”

“Yeah. See you at sound check.” She watched him walk away, then turned to watch Hank approaching.

He dropped onto the seat next to her and for a moment simply looked at her. Then he blew out a soft breath. “He seemed to take the rejection pretty well.”

“You think?” She laughed. “What do you bet that even as we speak he’s slapping the moves to another woman?”

“I wouldn’t have let you shut me down so easily.”

The look in his eyes made her heart kick like a confined stallion at the wall of her chest. “I know.”

“So…I’m your guy?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Good. Because I thought for a minute there I was history. What with your longtime dreamboat offering to tie up at your dock and all.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what—it was flattering after all that time spent yearning over him. But it’s you I love, Hank.”

His eyes went still. “God.” Slipping an arm around her shoulders, he bent his forehead to hers. “You sure?”

“I’ve never been surer of anything in my life.”

“Good. Because I love you more than I knew a man could love.” He lowered his head to kiss her.

They were straining together and breathing heavily by the time he tore his mouth away. He slid his hand from her breast. “Damn! Who thought this bus was a good way to travel, anyway?” He shot his narrow sleeping compartment a considering glance but shook his head. “No room, no privacy.” Then resolve filled his expression. “But you can take this to the bank, sweetheart. The very next town where we have a two-day gig you better do everything you need to do the first day. Because you and me are getting us a room at a hotel.

“And we aren’t coming out until it’s time for me to have my butt onstage for the concert.”

P.J.
STUDIED
J
ARED’S
profile as they strode toward the arena, where he planned to double-check the security. His gaze was alert to their surroundings, to the people in the parking lot, to everything but her. Her stomach churned because, dammit, every time she looked at him she wanted to both burrow into his arms for the sheer safety of it and smack him silly for being such a bonehead. And she was sick to death of feeling torn in two.

She couldn’t do this anymore. She couldn’t be practically joined at the hip to a man who refused to even acknowledge the elephant in the room, let alone talk about it. “I need a break from you,” she heard herself say. It came out of nowhere, unplanned and unrehearsed, but it was the truth. It felt, in fact, like the reality of the century.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, glancing down at her, then back toward the flurry of activity going on over by the venue’s service entrance.

His dismissiveness shattered what little composure she had left and she stopped dead. “Who the hell are you to call me ridiculous?” she demanded, grabbing him by the arm and jerking him to a halt, as well. Part of her was appalled by the hysteria starting to bleed into her voice but she felt helpless to stem it. Besides, a larger part of her frankly didn’t give a rip. Tough patooties if she lost control. Unlike some she could name, she didn’t think the world would come to a flaming end if she failed to hold it all together. “
I’m
not the one who thinks being a freaking
robot
beats expressing a few real feelings. You’re the one who’s ridiculous, J, and I can’t stand another minute of your company.” Standing on tiptoe, she got as close to being in his face as she could manage. “I need a break, Ineedabreak, I NEED A
BREAK!
”

She all but roared the last and he gaped down at her as if volatile vapors were steaming from her pores to envelop her in a dangerous cloud. “Okay, okay,” he said in a careful, create-no-sparks tone of voice, and, wrapping his long fingers around her upper arms, he backed her up a step. “But it’s not safe for you to be on your own. So I’ll take you to Nell. You can hang out with her while I conduct the security check.”

“Now!”
She wanted away yesterday and feared if she didn’t get some space between them soon she’d do something that could never be undone.

By the time they tracked Nell down, however, she was beginning to feel a little foolish. Anxious to be shed of him all the same, she gave Jared a terse nod.

“I’ll see you in a bit,” he said and looked down at her, dissatisfaction evident in his gaze. “Stay put.”

“Uh, that might not be possible,” Nell said, and when he bent a hard stare on her, she shrugged apologetically. “I’ve got a lot of ground to cover before the sound check, so we’re going to be all over the place. But all within the building.”