Ice Steam (Loving All Wrong #3) (14 page)

Sans utterance of denial, he groaned, rubbing his dick against my slick folds.

I looped my arms around his neck, rocking with him. “I want you again, rock star.”

No hesitation, he took my mouth, firing me up all over again while sliding his shaft back and forth over my clit. “Gonna stab you again without a condom. Gonna jizz in you again ‘cause I like seeing my jizz running down your thighs. We’ll get you a morning-after pill tomorrow. Gonna use condoms next time. You gonna go on birth control ‘cause you don’t wanna get knocked-up again. Then we gonna go back to stabbing bareback ‘cause nothing has
ever
felt that good.”

When he decreed it like that, in that deep reverberating voice, through those
lips,
with those hooded sex-eyes, what else could I say but, “Okay.”

I
was hot.

I was hot and I needed to pee.

Groaning at the inconvenience of having to pause the most peaceful sleep I’ve had in years to empty my bladder, I blinked opened my eyes and tried to move but found I was stuck: Xavier was wrapped around me, legs and arms, and his chin was fixed on top of my head, locking me in place.

I was hot, I needed to pee, and I was stuck.

“Xavi?”

Soft snores.

Jerking my entire body the best I could in the hopes of shaking him awake, I tried again, “Xavi?”

Sleepy, incomprehensible grumbles.

Digging my heels into the mattress, I tried to shift downward, aiming to squeeze myself out of the leg and arm lock he had me in. Downside to sleeping with huge men.

“Quit it, Chino,” he grumbled. “Tryna sleep.”

“I’m hot, I
need
to pee, and I’m stuck.”

At that, his eyes opened with a few languid blinks, then he noticed the lock he had me in, holding my body hostage. “Shit,” he mumbled, freeing me. “Sorry.”

I hopped out of bed and he immediately grabbed a pillow to replace me, falling easily back into sleep.

My lower half felt numb from holding my pee too long, and I all but ran to the bathroom, releasing a long, grateful sigh when my ass hit the toilet seat.

I was sore, clit still swollen from Xavier’s power-tongue. I would probably have to wait a day or two before having him inside me again. He was just too big—and this was coming from someone who gave natural, vaginal birth to a bouncing nine-pound baby.

One would think the vagina would be able to withstand anything after pushing out a big-headed, wide-shouldered human life. Last night sure as hell proved that was definitely not the case.

I washed up and padded back into the bedroom where Xavier was fast asleep. The orange glow seeping through the vertical blinds echoed whispers of dawn.

Drifting over to the sliding glass doors, I shifted a single blind, not wanting to permit light into the room and wake Xavier.

Outside was stunning. The sun’s forehead peeked up above the horizon, its arrogant glow caressing and seducing the scattered clouds shifting across the sky, their puffy cheeks tinged a pinkish-tangerine, blushing coyly from each lick of the sun’s promiscuous rays. Rays that didn’t flirt only with them, the clouds, but the entire world. The sun’s rays, its glow, its hot tongue, licked and seduced us all.

Beauteous views like this made life worth living. To die and never see beauty such as this equates to never having been born at all.

From my periphery I could see someone jogging down the sand, nearing Beach Rock. A man. A well-built man. In gym shorts and sneakers. A body and a face and a posture I could never mistake even in a room with a thousand lookalikes.

As he got closer to Beach Rock, he raised his head, and I shifted the single blind back a bit to ensure I wouldn’t be seen.

The drumming of my heart could rival any African beat.

The jogger stopped when he reached Beach Rock, not for air or water break because he was tired, but like someone who had been on a long, arduous journey and had finally reached their destination.

He moved to one of the huge, pointy rocks and pressed a palm against it like he needed support, then he raised his gaze unerringly up to Xavier’s room.

He couldn’t see me, I knew this, so I didn’t freak out or back away. I peeked with one eye through the blinds and watched him stare up at Xavier’s room with a big, red question mark on his face, sweaty chest heaving up and down, up and down.

Like Zach, he’d stacked on some muscle and had more noticeable definition than before, as though buffing up for the fans had been part of their contract. In typical rock star fashion, his dark-brown hair was trimmed low at the sides and styled longer along the center. A haircut that looked unbelievable good on him and made him insanely popular. He’d gotten that new style and image after Ice Steam blew up to epic proportions. Covering up his entire right side was a tattooed scroll bearing the inscriptions of Psalms 150.

Where Xavier was all-star, in-your-face, knock-the-wind-right-out-of-you beautiful, Davian, like Tex Laklin, had a fierce, intense edge to his attractiveness. For me he was more than a face a woman would drop her panties for.

He was the man I fell in love with years ago. The man I took more than a year to give in to. The man who broke my hymen, stole my youth and innocence. The man who still owned me, the father of my son.

There he stood just staring up at Xavier’s room, like he was expecting to see the same thing I saw at Eye Spy yesterday—him and butt-naked Jessica.

Zach had told him.

Maybe he didn’t believe it? Maybe what he wanted to see behind these blinds right now was
me
? Confirmation?

Chewing on my bottom lip, I watched him for a while longer, contemplating whether or not I should reveal myself to him, like this, inside Xavier’s room, in one of Xavier’s T-shirt, or if should I wait until the party tonight, or maybe wait to see if he’d come seek me out later.

Then again, to stand staring up at the building at the crack of dawn, wasn’t that ‘seeking me out’? Why else would he be staring directly at
Xavier’s
room like a sick stalker when there were five other bedrooms at Beach Rock?

Taking a deep,
deep
breath, I not only drew back the blinds; I slid open the door and stepped out on the balcony.

Steeling myself, I walked to the railing and looked down at him.

The questioning look on his face morphed into an exclamation sign when he saw me. He removed his hand from the gritty rock, no longer needing support, and took a step back. His shoulders collapsed, like ten-pound bags of sand had been dumped on them. As he took another step back, he suddenly looked demolished and mangled and small and wizened, like his muscles were melting.

That look on his face said it all: he hadn’t believed Zach. He hadn’t wanted to believe it. He never wanted it to be true.

I gripped tight to the railing, wanting to hold him, wanting to press my palms to his bare, sweaty chest, tip up on my toes and touch my lips to his. Beg him to come back to San Francisco with me. Let him know
this
was never what I wanted. Let him know I still belonged wholly to him.

His lips moved, forming my name, “Ally”. And although I didn’t hear it with my ears, I heard it with my heart.

“Davi,” I mouthed back, wishing I could jump over the railing and run to him.

As soon as I contemplated that idea, it was as if he knew it, because he turned and ran back the way he came.

Not jogged. Not sprinted. But
bolted
.

I bit my tongue to stop myself from crying out his name. I was thinking of running
to
him, and he was running
from
me.

My fingers felt numb as they tightened around the railing, watching him bolt down the beach, getting smaller and smaller until he disappeared around a giant rock.

Turning my face up to the sky, I blinked a million times per second, refusing to shed tears.

I’m not a crier. I’m strong. I’m a fighter. I made it this far because I’m strong. I’m a fighter. I’m not a crier.

Repeating this mantra over and over to protect myself from breaking, I turned and padded back into the room, closed the door and the blinds, climbed back into bed and curled up to Xavier, seeking the promising safety of his arms, wishing he hadn’t freed me from his lock earlier.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he murmured, tightening his arms and legs around me again.

“What?” I asked his chest.

“Dawn,”—he nuzzled my hair—“it’s beautiful.”

“It is,” I agreed, hugging him tighter, wanting,
needing
something—not sure what—from him.

Dawn from Beach Rock’s balcony was indeed beautiful, breathtaking. But it wasn’t the beauty of dawn that stole my breath out on that balcony.

It was the matchless beauty of Davian Hamilton.

Xavier woke me somewhere around mid-morning with the pill he’d promised to get me. How he even knew about the “morning-after pill” was beyond me.

After swallowing the pill with the glass of water he provided, I shimmied back under the sheets, ignoring him altogether. With my hectic weekdays, sleep was golden. Now that I had Saturdays off, the sleep all-day ritual would switch over from Sundays.

Xavier left me alone; he’d learned weeks before how cranky I could be when sleep-deprived. Nonetheless, my “sleep all-day” plan was foiled when my alarm went off at noon, reminding me that even though I had Saturdays off, I still had appointments to keep.

Grumbling a mixture of expletives, I zombied out of bed and stumbled around the room until I found my cell.

Reminder:

Hair appointment @ 1pm

*Do Not Miss!*

Nail appointment @ 3:30pm

*Do Not Miss!*

I groaned, resisting the urge to pelt my phone across the room.

Ninety Miles Villa was further out, my apartment being closer to all the places I had appointments, so my alarm was set accordingly. The commute from the villa to my hairstylist would be longer, which meant I would be late if I didn’t giddy-up.

Realizing this, I tapped out a quick message to Mel. Showered and donned the clothes from my handbag in under fifteen minutes: an over-sized gray sweater slanting off my shoulder with two rose-pink drumsticks crossed on the front, tiny white shorts beneath, burgundy socks that went up to my thighs, and gray ankle boots.

Made me look like a college freshman, but it was an outfit I did a shoot in last week and fell in love with. When I asked if I could purchase it, the designer let me have it gratis because he loved that I looked like his “young mistress”.

Finishing up by knotting a burgundy scarf around my neck, I snatched up my bag and rushed out of the room, skittering down the hall and crashing smack into Xavier’s chest when I turned the corner to the great chill area.

Tex, Mark and Leo were sitting on the floor around a coffee table with notepads and pencils in their hands, humming and putting words together, brainstorming.

It was no secret that the band wrote all their songs together. Instead of rowdy, ribald, stinking-rich rock stars, in this moment, they resembled a group of studious teenagers at band camp.

“Someone at the gate claiming to be your driver?” Xavier prompted, looking me over with a puzzled expression.

“Yes, yes, let her in and tell her where to come,” I replied with speedy words, simultaneously moving around him and heading for the stairs.

Xavier stepped in front of me, halting me. “You’re leaving?”

“You have a driver?” Leo asked from his position at the coffee table, brows high on his forehead. “Like, a
personal
driver?”

Burning with annoyance, I addressed Xavier’s chest, “You know I gotta keep my appointments, Xavi,” then to Leo, “Yes, Mel’s my personal driver.” To Xavier again, “Let her in.”

Remaining rooted in my path, Xavier withdrew a little touch-screen device from his back pocket, tapped something on the screen, then spoke into the device, “Claim checks out, Rick. Let her in with directions to Beach Rock.”

“Who is this girl?” Leo asked no one in particular, then asked me directly, “Who are you?”

“You said you were staying the weekend,” Xavier pointed out as he slipped the device back into his pocket. “Changed your mind?”