“Now?” She balks.
Yeah, now. But not here.
“I can be patient until later.” I slide two fingers inside her, curling them as my thumb finds her clit.
She whimpers, her head falling back to bump the wall.
I nuzzle her chin. Her jaw. Her neck. Every brush of my affection is accompanied by her gentle whimpers.
I’ve missed this, too. The syncopated rhythm of our breathing. The way our bodies perfectly mold together.
“Mason…” Her claws dig deeper into my shoulder. “You feel good.”
She’s not falsifying her enjoyment this time. Those gasps are real. She can’t fake the goose bumps trailing along her neck.
She rocks into my fingers. Grinding. Squeezing.
Her hands slide to my head, rough and adamant as she pulls me back to meet her gaze.
I have a split second to admire the euphoria in her eyes. The rapturous exhales. Then her mouth slams down on mine. Greedy. Frantic. Crazed.
Fuck. “I want you.” I kiss her deeper. Mercilessly. Our tongues are wild. My dick pulsates. “I want you spread. Tied. At my mercy. I’ll make good on all those artificial orgasms.”
She mewls, her pussy clamping tight. “I still enjoyed myself. Just because I couldn’t get out of my own head to come doesn’t mean I wasn’t taking pleasure from it.”
“Not good enough.” I kiss her faster. Press into her harder.
“Forgive me.” Anticipation heightens her voice. She pulls tighter on my hair, her leg a vise around my thigh.
“I will. But the things I’m going to do to you in retaliation…” I suck her lower lip into my mouth, then drag my teeth along the flesh. “The things you’re going to feel…” I’ll write a checklist. A sexual bucket list. The holy grail of explicit menus. “I’ll earn back my reputation, at the expense of your exhaustion.”
“Mason…” Her hands cling tighter.
She’s close. Her enthusiasm drenches my hand.
“Let me see you.” I pull back to meet her gaze. I’m dying to feel her orgasm. To see it etched across her face. “You want to be with another woman?” I taunt. “You want someone else’s fingers inside this sweet pussy?”
She shakes her head. “Only if that’s okay with you.”
“It’s more than okay, wildcat. As long as the woman in question deserves a piece of this perfection.”
She shudders, her breasts thrusting out to brush against me. “I’m close.” Her breathing increases, her chest rising and falling like waves in an ocean storm.
My cock fucking aches.
“Mason.” There’s forewarning in her tone.
I add pressure to her clit with my thumb and curl my fingers, twisting and pumping them inside her. “Give me what I’m owed, kitten. Come all over my hand.”
Air escapes her in a rapid vacuum.
Her core spasms. Flutters.
I don’t blink. I don’t fluctuate my movements.
I keep everything as it is—the pressure, the penetration—while I commit every one of her pleasure-filled sounds to memory.
This is what she looks like when she orgasms. The parted lips. The wild eyes. The rasped, choked breaths. Then the complete and utter relaxation as she slumps back against the wall with my favorite after-sex glow.
“That’s my girl.” I brush my mouth over hers, wishing I didn’t notice the silhouette moving across the start of the hall.
“Why can I hear panting?” Blake mock whispers. “Don’t tell me you’re making her fake it in public.”
Mother. Fucker.
“You told him?” Sid claps a hand to my chest. “His earlier comments make more sense now.”
“Get the fuck out of here,” I growl at Blake. “We need five more minutes.”
“Seriously?” he asks. “How many times are you going to force her to pretend—”
“Fuck off,” I yell.
Laughter fills my ears. Sid’s. Blake’s. And what sounds like Sean’s, Mitch’s, and Ryan’s from somewhere near the mouth of the hall.
“I never should’ve said anything.” I hang my head. “I panicked. I thought I was losing you.”
“You’ll never lose me.” She unclamps her thigh from my leg to stand on both feet. “I always planned to explain myself. Eventually. It was my insecurities that made me want to leave the conversation until after I finished working with Linden.”
I get it. I do. But it doesn’t stop me being gutted over how she didn’t feel comfortable being herself around me. “Promise you’ll never hide from me again.”
Her smile becomes fragile. “I’ll try. It’s hard, though. I admire you so much… And I want you to admire me, too. So when—”
“Sid, I admire the living shit out of you. That includes your vulnerabilities and insecurities. I want it all.” I press my forehead to hers. “You believe me, don’t you?”
“I do.” She nods.
“Hurry up.” Ryan’s voice carries from the main room. “We’re getting a line out here.”
I sigh. “I guess our time is up.”
She plants a kiss on my lips, then slides across the wall. “I need to use the facilities. Will you wait for me?”
“Always.”
While she’s in the ladies’, I clean up in the men’s, spending minutes trying to rearrange a cock that begs for relief.
When I walk back into the hall, she’s there to greet me with glowing cheeks and a ginger smile. Freshly fucked radiance has always looked good on her.
“You take my breath away.”
“Thank you.” She reaches out to entwine our fingers. “You’ve been extremely generous this evening, but do you think I can pester you for a favor?”
I wrap my free hand around her waist and pull her into me. “If it involves round two, my dick is prepped and ready. You only have to say the word.”
“No, it doesn’t.” She chuckles. “It involves how you acted like a dick, though.”
I narrow my gaze on the dark lashes that blink back at me with fake innocence. “Explain.”
“I think you should apologize to Linden for being an ass.”
Dread obliterates my lust, my erection dying a quick death.
“Please.” She holds my stare. “I know you won’t want to believe me, but that cocky playboy attitude of his is a facade. He was actually nervous when he arrived at our house.”
I give her points for calling it our house, but she’s right. I don’t want to believe her.
“Please,” she repeats. “I’d like to keep working with him. And who knows? Maybe all three of us can do a collaboration that brings the bands togeth—”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself.” I kiss her temple then lead her along the remainder of the hall.
“So you’ll speak to him?”
“I’ll do anything for you.” I don’t have to like it, but I’ll do it.
We step into the open bar where the rest of the band stand in a row to block the path to the restrooms. Ryan drinks another glass of scotch while Blake signs someone’s shirt, Sean chats with a guy in a suit, and Mitch pens something onto a cardboard coaster for a pretty blonde.